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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.
Encryption

Submission + - German amateur cracks WWII mega-code in 46 second

Submitted by
JrOldPhart
JrOldPhart writes: "Another fiat for the radio/computer geek team! http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071116/wl_nm/britain_germany_codebreaker_dc_1;_ylt=AgP7WztOUETnoN_c56IonDwE1vAI While the re-created Colossus computer ground away, "Schueth's computer program actually managed to crack the hardest part of the challenge — deciphering the code of a Lorenz SZ42 encryptor, which has approximately 16 million million million permutations — in just 46 seconds.""
Space

Submission + - Killer Electrons From Outer Space

Submitted by JrOldPhart
JrOldPhart writes: The IEEE Spectrum is reporting http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep07/5498 That: Electrons in the Van Allen belts are normally not dangerous to spacecraft, but every month or so radiation levels spike to as much as a thousand times their usual intensity — surges called geomagnetic storms. Now, scientists believe they understand how some particles get accelerated to become "killer electrons." readmore
Enlightenment

Submission + - Voting 3rd party.. What really is the effect?? 4

Submitted by jriding
jriding writes: I have heard this argument as well as had this argument with my girlfriend. I feel that my vote is my vote. If I vote 3rd party it does not take a vote away from any other candidate. I state this because if I am only going to vote for the 3rd party and I don't vote for them, then no other candidate gets my vote. She states that if I vote 3rd party then it takes away from the Dem's. I would really like to better understand this without getting into an argument that results me with less bedtime fun then I already get. In the state of politics right now I would love for a strong 3rd party to come out instead of my trying to choose who is not going to screw me over more.. Dem's or Repub's. At this point its vote for who ever is not the worst instead of who is the best. I look forward to this discussion and hopefully either it will be enlightening and change my mind or it will confirm what I already think is accurate. And please try to keep the flaming down.. This should be a real discussion. Thanks Jriding
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."

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