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Comment Re:How does this violate the 4th? (Score 1) 299

Incorrect.

I'm a patent litigator these days. I can and do issue subpeonas by filling out a form (AO-88 in civil cases, google it), signing it, and mailing it to people, businesses. I've lost track of the number I've sent, no judge required.

If the recipient fights it, then a judge gets involved to referee.

Submission + - MIT Engineers release Open Source LED Lighting (saikoled.com)

Submitted by Gibbs-Duhem
Gibbs-Duhem writes: Four MIT Engineers, Brian Neltner (covered previously on slashdot for his work at http://led-artwork.com/ ), Daniel Taub, Perry Hung, and Russel Ryan, have in their spare time taken it upon themselves to produce an open-source, flexible, modular, and extremely high power LED light based on custom open hardware, and designed to make it easy for hobbyists to start using high power lighting in their projects. The "Saiko5" ( http://saikoled.com/saiko5/ ) is documented from circuit design and assembly all the way to case design and control software, and is all released under creative commons and GPL licenses.

The fixture they designed outputs over 800 lumens of focused LED lighting. It is controllable entirely over WiFi and is based around either an Arduino ( http://arduino.cc/ ) or a Maple ( http://leaflabs.com/devices/maple/ ) along with their open-source and open-hardware Light Shield ( http://saikoled.com/lightshield ). The firmware developed by these engineers uses the Open Sound Control ( http://www.opensoundcontrol.org/ ) protocol, a successor to the popular MIDI and DMX control schemes.

On the software side, the Saiko5 has fully open-source Python ( http://www.python.org/ ) example scripts which can be used as a backend to allow any software running on the computer to control the lights with simple commands such as "flash". At a higher level, they have also released an example audio analysis patch using the open-source version of Max/MSP known as PureData ( http://puredata.info/ ). The result is a variety of awesome videos showing the interaction of the LED light fixture with music which are posted at http://saikoled.com/applications/ .

The authors also posted a handy Instructable ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Ultra-bright-LED-Color-Changing-Spotlight-using-Op/ ) with step-by-step instructions for how to construct one of these light fixtures!
HP

PC Gamers Too Good For Consoles Gamers? 324

Posted by Soulskill from the commence-flame-war-now dept.
thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."
PC Games (Games)

Valve Releases Updated Alien Swarm For Free With Code Base 164

Posted by Soulskill from the game-over-man-game-over dept.
baronvoncarson tips news that today Valve released an updated version of Alien Swarm, a popular Unreal Tournament 2004 total conversion mod. The creators of the mod were hired by Valve, and they've helped turn it into a stand-alone game running on the Source engine. Valve is also releasing the code base for Alien Swarm and an SDK. The game is available for free on Steam.
Image

Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault 417

Posted by samzenpus from the emergency-status-update dept.
A 12-year-old girl who was being assaulted by her mother's ex-boyfriend used some quick thinking by sending a message on her iPod to a friend's Facebook account for help. The friend was able to contact the girl's mother who then contacted the police. 42-year-old Raymond Ernest Cesmat was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He is being held at the Dakota County Jail on $175,000 bail.
Censorship

Pentagon Seeking Out Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange 628

Posted by timothy from the just-a-few-words dept.
a user writes "The Pentagon is desperately seeking the 'cooperation' of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in order to stop him from releasing over 250,000 pages of confidential foreign policy documents. The documents were allegedly provided to Assange by Bradley Manning, the same solider who leaked a video showing a US Army helicopter killing unarmed civilians and international press correspondents."
United States

Submission + - US copying laptop hard disks+password upon entry

Submitted by
Flo
Flo writes: "According to Fefe, a German blogger, U.S. officials copy hard disks of laptops upon entry. They even insist on the disclosure of passwords so they can decrypt files. Allegedly they even take people into coercive detention to retrieve the passwords. Fefe's sources are one member of the (German) Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and one employee of SAP. He also claims to have received confirmation for this from "two other large companies"."

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