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The Almighty Buck

Submission + - FTC Defends Ethernet From Patent Troll (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "The FTC put a stop to Negotiated Data Solutions (AKA N-Data), a patent troll that bought a patent on an important part of the Ethernet networking standard and tried to jack up the royalties for licensing it. In a consent decree [PDF], N-Data agreed to continue licensing the patent at the formerly promised rates. The IEEE voted back in 2002 to make patent letters irrevocable, which could have prevented this, but neglected to make that clause retroactive."
Robotics

Submission + - SPAM: Robot planes to track weather, climate

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week announced a $3 million, three-year program that to test the use of unmanned aircraft to measure hurricanes, arctic and Antarctic ice changes and other environmental tasks. The agency said the drone aircraft would be outfitted with special sensors and technology to help NOAA scientists better predict a hurricane's intensity and track, how fast Arctic summer ice will melt, and whether soggy Pacific storms will flood West Coast cities. Starting this summer, unmanned aircraft will take instruments on research flights that are too dangerous or too long for pilots and scientists. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Feed Engadget: MacBook Air in the wild... with John Mayer (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Laptops

That's right kids -- the unthinkable has happened. John Mayer, electric-crooner, BlackBerry pusher, ladykiller, and all around bon vivant has gotten his hands on a real, live MacBook Air. Sure, it's not surprising that a celebrity millionaire who's buddy-buddy with Jobs and Co. would have a pre-release model, but it may come as a shock that he's using the new ultraportable Mac to look at photos of himself double-fisting a couple of BlackBerrys. We suppose it's possible that someone has doctored this photo, but highly unlikely.

[Via TUAW]

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The Courts

Groklaw Explains the Cyberlaw "Trademark" 37

Posted by kdawson from the black-letter dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "PJ of Groklaw has written in more detail about the lawyer trying to get a servicemark on the term 'cyberlaw'. (We discussed this here a few days back.) First, she notes that it's only a trademark application at this point. Furthermore, 'cyberlaw' is a generic term with 300,000+ hits on Google and an entry in some dictionaries and reference sites. In other words, while it's silly for a law firm that should know better to file a trademark application, it shouldn't and probably won't be granted if the law is followed. The article is interesting because it spells out the difference between trademarks and servicemarks, as well as explaining the law surrounding them — a law that differs significantly from copyright law."
Government

Submission + - California Utilities to control thermostats

Submitted by TeraBill
TeraBill writes: It seems that the California Energy Commission is looking to give utlities in the state the power to control the termostats in peoples homes via a radio signal. The idea is that during times of significant energy crunch, the utilities could force thermostats to higher temperatures rather than having to implement a rolling blackout. The thermostats have been around for a while and new ones were on display at the CES show in Vegas this week. The New York Times story is here.

While I can see the argument for it, we just had a Polish kid (no joke intended) take over a tram system with a remote control, so how long before our thermostat gets hacked by the neighbors. And I'd almost rather have the power drop than have someone significantly raise the temperature in my home if I had a computer runnig there. (UPS and a graceful shutdown versus cooking something.) And I don't know how I missed those thermostats at CES either.
Microsoft

Britain Advises Against Vista, Office 2007 for Schools 300

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the benefits-unclear dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The British government's educational IT authority has issued a report advising schools in the country not to upgrade their classroom or office systems to Windows Vista or Office 2007. According to this InformationWeek story, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency says costs for Vista and Office 2007 'are significant and the benefits remain unclear.' Instead, Becta is advising British schools to take a long look at Linux and open source suites like OpenOffice.org."
Education

On Diamond-Based Quantum Computing 77

Posted by Zonk from the expensive-processing dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Quantum computing is usually associated with extremely low temperatures. Physicists at Harvard University have shown that diamonds can be used to create stable quantum computing building blocks at room temperature. A nitrogen vacancy in diamond could lead to quantum registers able to store or retrieve data. '"The problem is, what makes single nuclear spin so stable - its weak interaction with its surroundings - also prevents us from directly manipulating it," Lukin says. "How do you control something that can't interact with anything?" You do it gingerly and indirectly, the Harvard physicists report in Science. They found that nuclear spins associated with single atoms of carbon-13 - which make up some 1.1 percent of natural diamond - can be manipulated via a nearby single electron whose own spin can be controlled with optical and microwave radiation.'"
Google

Spamming Google Maps 225

Posted by CmdrTaco from the already-getting-lame dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google organized a flyover of Sydney, Australia last Friday for Australia Day. The images taken on the day will be posted to Google Maps in a few weeks. A number of dotcoms spent hours making huge signs that would be visible from the air. It will be interesting to see whether Google will repeat the event in other cities. If they do, get prepared early. What sign would you make?"
Biotech

Journal Journal: Cancer Cured? 2

Journal by Todamont
Here's the deal. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada found a cheap and easy to produce drug that kills almost all cancers. The drug is dichloroacetate, and since it is already used to treat metabolic disorders, we know it should be no problem to use it for other purposes.

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