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Patents

Zynga and Blizzard Sued Over Game Patent 179

Posted by Soulskill from the swinging-for-the-fences dept.
eldavojohn writes "Thinking about developing a game involving a 'database driven online distributed tournament system?' Well, you had better talk to Walker Digital or risk a lawsuit, because Walker Digital claims to have patented that 'invention' back in 2002. The patent in question has resulted in some legal matters for the makers of 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: World at War, Blur, Wolfenstein, DJ Hero 2, Golden Eye 007, World of Warcraft and its expansions, Mafia Wars, and many others.' Walker Digital (parent company of Priceline.com) said it's not sure how much damages are going to be, and requested that through discovery in the court. If you think Walker Digital is not a patent troll, check out their lawsuit from two months ago against Facebook for using privacy controls Walker Digital claims to have patented. It would seem that any online competitive game that uses a database to select and reward contestants in a tournament could potentially fall under this patent — of course, those with the deepest coffers will be cherrypicked first."

Comment Re:Options (Score 0) 789

by JrOldPhart (#33220154) Attached to: I Wish My Car Had A...
> Cyclists do not belong on the same road with trucks and buses. Cars maybe, not heavy vehicles. It should be illegal. > One of them can pull out in front of me and it's legally my fault because I hit them from behind.

Great point.

Save thousands of lives more each year than outlawing guns would: OUTLAW CARS.

Comment Re:Coming to a disaster near you. (Score 1) 452

by JrOldPhart (#26497651) Attached to: Seagate Hard Drive Fiasco Grows
Samsung had and has a design center in the US manufacturing in Korea. WD had and has design in the US and pilot production in the US, manufacturing in Asia. As does Seagate.

But then, I only said the US companies as in Seagate, WD, Maxtor... switching to class 10 cleanrooms. In fact WD's San Jose facility completed a "state of the art class 10 cleanroom in their (at that time) new building In south San Jose (1996).

Comment Re:Coming to a disaster near you. (Score 1) 452

by JrOldPhart (#26496289) Attached to: Seagate Hard Drive Fiasco Grows
In '95 Samsung had the same assembler who put the media into the disk stack also placing the foilcal on the completed HDA, without a change of gloves. They also thought a cleanroom was cool curtains in a warehouse. The US manufacturers at the same time were building class 10 cleanrooms.

You have simply been lucky.
Software

The Software Awards Scam 155

Posted by kdawson from the bottom-feeders dept.
jamie sends us to a blog post about the worthlessness of some download sites' "5-star" awards. Andy Brice, a UK-based software developer, packaged up a little text file full of the words "This software does nothing" as an EXE and named it "awardmestars." So far his self-proclaiming useless program has garnered sixteen 5-star awards from download sites he submitted it to. Brice concludes that many of the download sites are "just electronic dung heaps, using fake awards, dubious SEO and content misappropriated from PAD files in a pathetic attempt to make a few dollars from Google Adwords."
Security

Submission + - Fark, Fox, and Hacking?

Submitted by
circletimessquare
circletimessquare writes: "Is there a "Strange" tag on Slashdot? Valleywag.com is reporting that apparently, via a targetted email, an admin at Fark.com downloaded a trojan, which was used to steal passwords for Fark servers. Notably, these activities were traced to an IP address in Memphis Tennessee, and to a Fox News new media reporter. As to the veracity of the story, that is bolstered by the fact that the story was greenlit for the front page of Fark. Motive? That ranges from Fark being a rumored Fox takeover target, to stealing source code for a competing Fox social networking site. If the story is true, laws have been broken, but perhaps not by the Fox News reporter: it's very possible his computer was hacked as well. Whatever the truth, it's a very entertaining read, as it pushes a number of hot button topics."
Security

Submission + - Colleges wrestle with prohibiting portable storage (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "IT managers at colleges and universities are grappling with the problem of finding ways to better secure removable storage media in an environment that encourages information sharing, according to Computerworld's Brian Fonseca. 'Such mandates may be common in the corporate world, but "we don't have the flexibility to simply say all inbound traffic is locked down," said Jason Pufahl, information security team lead for IT services at the University of Connecticut.'"

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