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Submission + - Killed by Code: medical device source code (softwarefreedom.org)

Submitted by foregather
foregather writes: The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC has released some independent research on the safety of software close to our hearts, that inside of implantable medical devices like ,a href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/12/1232206">pacemakers and insulin pumps. It turns out that nobody is minding the store at the regulatory level and patients and doctors are blocked from examining the source code keeping them alive. From the article:

"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for evaluating the risks of new devices and monitoring the safety and efficacy of those currently on market. However, the agency is unlikely to scrutinize the software operating on devices during any phase of the regulatory process unless a model that has already been surgically implanted repeatedly malfunctions or is recalled."

and

"Despite the crucial importance of these devices and the absence of comprehensive federal oversight, medical device software is considered the exclusive property of its manufacturers, meaning neither patients nor their doctors are permitted to access their IMD’s source code or test its security."

The SFLC concludes that transparency going forward is the only way to prevent people from being "Killed by code". Would you want windows mobile regulating your blood pressure?

Comment Well, really... (Score 2, Insightful) 487

by Icarus1919 (#32845926) Attached to: Open Source Music Fingerprinter Gets Patent Nastygram
Don't get me wrong, this really sucks for the guy and is completely unfair. But this sort of thing happens all the time. If this were a rare occurrence, then yeah, I'd be up in arms. It's sort of not newsworthy anymore. I'm probably going to get flamed for saying this, and maybe I even deserve it, but it's true.
Patents

Open Source Music Fingerprinter Gets Patent Nastygram 487

Posted by timothy from the their-patent-gives-away-the-secret dept.
Nushio writes "The code wasn't even released, and yet Roy van Rijn, a Music & Free Software enthusiast received a C&D from Landmark Digital Services, owners of Shazam, a music service that allows you to find a song, by listening to a part of it. And if that wasn't enough, they want him to take down his blog post (Google Cache) explaining how he did it because it 'may be viewed internationally. As a result, [it] may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world.'" Update: 07/09 00:31 GMT by T :Story updated to reflect that Shazam is multiplatform, not Android-only, as implied by the original phrasing.
Software

Submission + - Amateur programmer meets software patents (google.com)

Submitted by Roy van Rijn
Roy van Rijn writes: A couple of weeks ago, in a spare weekend, I wrote software that could recognise music through listening to the microphone, much like SoundHound and Shazam. After populair demand I was just about to release the code into the open source community when I got an email from Landmark Digital Services LLC. They claim my hobby project is infringing their patents. This took me on a journey to find out more about software patents and the validity of the requests I got from the company.
United Kingdom

Boy Builds Wall-Climbing Machine Using Recycled Vacuums 96

Posted by samzenpus from the hello-true-believers dept.
Joe McIntosh writes "Hibiki Kono just might be a boy genius. The 13-year-old decided he wanted to climb vertical surfaces like his hero, Spiderman. So, he used two 1,400-watt recycled vacuum cleaners and a little bit of elbow grease to make a machine that allows him to scale walls. Kono has been scaling the walls of his UK school and has told the media that he hopes his invention will help window washers eliminate clumsy ladders from their daily routine."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Outraged by YouTube-Viacom Decision 1

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) voiced its opposition to the recent decision in the YouTube-Viacom copyright infringement case, stating that "the district court's dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] DMCA upsets the careful balance struck within the law and is bad public policy." Cary Sherman, RIAA president, also wrote in a blog post, "It will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites."

Submission + - Kickass Apt. vs. Persistent Microwave Exposure (slashdot.org) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I am considering buying a penthouse apartment in Manhattan that happens to be about twenty feet away from a pair of panel antennas belonging to a major cellular carrier. The antennas are on roughly the same plane as the apartment and point in its direction. I have sifted through a lot of information online about cell towers, most of which suggest that the radiation they emit is low-level and benign. Most of this information, however, seems to concern ground-level exposure at non-regular intervals. My question to Slashdot is: should the prospect of persistent exposure to microwave radiation from this pair of antennas sitting thirty feet from where I rest my head worry me? Am I just being a jackass? Can I, perhaps, line the walls of the place with a tight metal mesh and thereby deflect the radiation? My background is in computer engineering — I am not particularly knowledgeable about the physics of devices such as these. Help me make an enlightened decision.

Submission + - Appeals Court Knocks Out "Innocent Infringement" (blogspot.com)

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: A 3-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has ruled that a Texas teenager was not entitled to invoke the innocent infringement defense in an RIAA filesharing case where she had admittedly made unauthorized downloads of all of the 16 song files in question, and had not disputed that she had 'access' to the CD versions of the songs which bore copyright notices. The 11 page decision (PDF) handed down in Maverick Recording v. Harper seems to equate 'access' with the mere fact that CD's on sale in stores had copyright notices, and that she was free to go to such stores. In my opinion, however, that is not the type of access contemplated in the statute, as the reference to 'access' in the statute was intended to obviate the 'innocence' defense where the copy reproduced bore a copyright notice. The court also held that the 'making available' issue was irrelevant to the appeal, and that the constitutional argument as to excessiveness of damages had not been preserved for appeal.

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