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Submission + - Google Accused of Trying to Patent Public Domain Technology (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Polish academic is accusing Google of trying to patent technology he invented and that he purposely released into the public domain so companies like Google couldn't trap it inside restrictive licenses. The technology's name is Asymmetric Numeral Systems (ANS), a family of entropy coding methods that Polish assistant professor Jarosaw (Jarek) Duda developed in the early 2000s, and which is now hot tech at companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, mostly because it can improve data compression from 3 to 30 times.

Duda says that Google is now trying to register a patent that includes most of the ANS basic principles. Ironically, most of the technology described in the patent, Duda said he explained to Google engineers in a Google Groups discussion from 2014.

The researcher already filed a complaint, to which WIPO ISA responded by calling out Google for not coming up with "an inventive contribution over the prior art, because it is no more than a straightforward application of known coding algorithms." A Google spokesperson refused to comment, and the mystery remains surrounding Google's decision to patent something that's in the public domain since 2014.

Comment Just a PR Stunt (Score 3, Interesting) 43

by Hian Bosu (#54989725) Attached to: Scientists Create DNA-Based Exploit of a Computer System
This is really nothing more than a PR stunt. What the researchers did was take a sequencing data compression program fqzcomp written for the Sequence Squeeze competition and deliberately broke it so there was a buffer overrun. What's more is that they broke it in such a way that all DNA sequences would have made the program go wrong in some way, probably by crashing it.

All they demonstrated is that if you break a program then it is broken.

All DNA sequencing machines produce well formed data files as output so you cannot cause a buffer overrun just by adding your own special DNA variant sample. It would just be treated like any normal sample data. There are vulnerabilities in sequencing data processing program code but to exploit them you would have to alter the file themselves not the DNA samples going into the machine.

Submission + - New diesel and petrol vehicles to be banned from 2040 in UK (bbc.com)

Submitted by puenktli
puenktli writes: The UK is joining the list of the countries which are making a commitment towards diesel and petrol free vehicles. Other countries might be more progressive with such a ban (e.g. the Netherlands: by 2025), but at least it's a step in the right direction. However, if new bans are put forward at such a high rate as now, in 2040, the UK might be the only western country where petrol-fuelled cars are still on the road. Tesla at least will be happy about this ban, especially now with their Model 3. But these bans will inspire other car makers as well to invest more in EV. Maybe not such a bad idea after all: oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine.

Submission + - How Stephen Wolfram Figured Out Interstellar Travel in One Night (backchannel.com)

Submitted by mirandakatz
mirandakatz writes: "Arrival" hits theaters tomorrow, and it's heavy on the science. So how might an interstellar spacecraft actually work? Just ask Stephen Wolfram: he was deputized to figure it out. At Backchannel, he writes: "For the movie, I wanted to have a particular theory for interstellar travel. And who knows, maybe one day in the distant future it’ll turn out to be correct. But as of now, we certainly don’t know. In fact, for all we know, there’s just some simple “hack” in existing physics that’ll immediately make interstellar travel possible." Click through for the full (and lengthy) read.
Education

Kids Can Swipe a Screen But Can't Use LEGOs 355

Posted by Soulskill from the also-struggle-with-concept-of-hopscotch dept.
SpankiMonki sends this news from The Guardian: "Children are arriving at nursery school able to 'swipe a screen' but lack the manipulative skills to play with building blocks, teachers have warned. They fear that children are being given tablets to use 'as a replacement for contact time with the parent' and say such habits are hindering progress at school. Addressing the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference in Manchester on Tuesday, Colin Kinney said excessive use of technology damages concentration and causes behavioural problems such as irritability and a lack of control."

Submission + - Ordnance Survey Creates Minecraft Model of Great Britain 1

Submitted by jeremyp
jeremyp writes: Ordnance Survey intern Joseph Braybrook has created a Minecraft World based upon accurate terrain mapping data of Great Britain. The world accurately represents the whole of Great Britain and surrounding islands (but excludes Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands). It maps 224,000 square kilometres of Greast Britain and contains 22 billion blocks. Graham Dunlop (Ordnance Survey Innovation Lab Manager) says:

We think we may have created the largest Minecraft world ever built based on real-world data

The map can be downloaded from the Ordnance Survey here.

Censorship

UK Government Changes Tack and Demands Default Porn Block 163

Posted by timothy from the but-predictably-so dept.
judgecorp writes "British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to reverse a policy announced last week, and demand that ISPs filter adult content by default. This system would require users to actively opt out of a filter designed to block adult content and material about self-harm. Last week, after consultation with parents, the Department for Education had said that an opt-in system would be sufficient and no default porn block would be required, but the Daily Mail has announced triumphantly that Cameron will be presenting the policy in the paper. MP Claire Perry, who has argued for the block, will be in charge — and freedom of speech campaigners have branded the sudden change of mind as 'chaotic.'"
Government

Honolulu Tops 2011 Digital Cities Survey 35

Posted by samzenpus from the high-tech-luau dept.
First time accepted submitter folsomfella writes "The 11th annual survey spotlights the municipalities that best show how information and communication technology are used to enhance public service. The top 10 cities are selected in four different population categories and judged on the criteria of enterprise applicability or impact across multiple program areas, measurable progress from the prior year, hard dollar savings or soft dollar benefits as a result of technology use, innovation and a demonstration of effective collaboration."
Biotech

Submission + - First synthetic organ transplant (bbc.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Bob the Super Hamste
Bob the Super Hamste writes: The BBC is reporting that surgeons in Sweden have transplanted a synthetic windpipe into a patient. The synthetic windpipe was grown from a scaffolding and coated with the patients own stem cell. The scaffolding was made using 3D images of the patients own windpipe. The new windpipe was made by scientists in London.
Patents

Ask Slashdot: Reducing Software Patent Life-Spans? 274

Posted by timothy from the getting-rid-of-seems-the-obvious-answer dept.
seattle_coder writes "Many have advocated for the elimination of software patents. The arguments generally are that software patents are handed out too easily, and that they're too difficult and expensive to fight. Some say that patents just plain don't make sense for software, which is such a dynamic technology. Given that the standard patent lifetime is 20 years, and software changes so rapidly, is the life-span the problem for software patents? Would reducing the software patent lifetime to 5 years or even less be the thing to do?"
Democrats

Senator Wants to Tax Internet Shopping 705

Posted by CmdrTaco from the diapers-are-expensive dept.
tripleevenfall writes "A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping. The proposal — expected to be made public soon after Tax Day — would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes."

Comment Re:Everyone forgets VMware server (Score 1) 289

by Spliffster (#30470888) Attached to: VMware Workstation vs. VirtualBox vs. Parallels
Oh and another one:

I am a long time user and customer of VMWare products. But for my desktop virtualisation (and more and more non system critical servers) i am moving to virtualbox, why?

My host system is linux and Virtualbox is compiling the needed kernel modules through the package manager automagically on updates, i have to do this for vmware server by hand, every fucking time. And this is often, since i prefer patched servers so new kernels are going ins ASAP.

Cheers,
-S

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