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Patents

IBM Wants Patent On Finding Areas Lacking Patents 151

Posted by CmdrTaco from the all-for-me-none-for-you dept.
theodp writes "It sounds like a goof — especially coming from a company that pledged to raise the bar on patent quality — but the USPTO last week disclosed that IBM is seeking a patent for Methodologies and Analytics Tools for Identifying White Space Opportunities in a Given Industry, which Big Blue explains allows one 'to maximize the value of its IP by investigating and identifying areas of relevant patent 'white space' in an industry, where white space is a term generally used to designate one or more technical fields in which little or no IP may exist,' and filling those voids with the creation of additional IP."
Programming

Becoming a Famous Programmer 347

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lemme-tell-you-about-1=1 dept.
An anonymous reader writes "GrokCode analyzes more than 200 famous programmers to determine what types of projects made them famous. Inventing a programming language, game, or OS ranked among the top projects likely to lead to fame. Most programmers became famous through their work on only one project. The article also shows that among famous programmers, the ratio of males to females is much larger than among normal programmers."
Technology

Universal Surface Scanner Detected 104

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the and-all-they-have-to-do-is-crack-the-code dept.
mcgrew writes to tell us that scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have created a new system that can test any surface for just about anything. "Their idea uses a thin layer of metal drilled with nanoscale holes, laid onto the surface being tested. When the perforated plate is zapped with laser light, the surface plasmons that form emit light with a frequency related to the materials touching the plate. A sensitive light detector is needed to measure the frequency of light given off. The team says devices using this approach can be small and portable, will work on very low power, and could detect everything from explosives to bacteria. All that needs to be done now is build a system able to decode the light signatures."
Software

Congress Endorses Open Source For Military 145

Posted by kdawson from the because-it's-better-that's-why dept.
A draft defense authorizing act in Congress includes wording plugging open source software. It seems both cost and software security were considerations. This is an important victory for open source. "It's rare to see a concept as technical as open-source software in a federal funding bill. But the House's proposed National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (H.R. 5658) includes language that calls for military services to consider open-source software when procuring manned or unmanned aerial vehicles."
United States

How Close Were US Presidential Elections? 971

Posted by kdawson from the squeakier-than-you-think dept.
Mike Sheppard writes "I'm a graduate student in Statistics at Michigan State University and spent some time analyzing past US presidential elections to determine how close they truly were. The mathematical procedures of Linear Programming and 0-1 Integer Programming were used to find the optimal solution to the question: 'What is the smallest number of total votes that need to be switched from one candidate to another, and from which states, to affect the outcome of the election?' Because of the way the popular and electoral votes interact, the outcome of the analysis had some surprising and intriguing results. For example, in 2004, 57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry; and in 2000, 269 votes would have given us President Gore. In all there have been 12 US Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the election would have been different."
The Internet

Submission + - Google and Facebook Join DataPortability.org (readwriteweb.com)

Submitted by technirvana
technirvana writes: ReadWriteWeb has the scoop on The DataPortability Workgroup announcing this morning that representatives from both Google and Facebook are joining its ranks. The group is working on a variety of projects to foster an era of Data Portability — where users can take their data from the websites they use to reuse elsewhere and where vendors can leverage safe cross-site data exchange for a whole new level of innovation. Good bye customer lock-in, hello to new privacy challenges. If things go right, today could be a very important day in the history of the internet.

The non-participation of Google and Facebook, two companies that hold more user data and do more with it than almost any other consumer service on the market, was the biggest stumbling block to the viability of the project. These are two of the most important companies in recent history — what's being decided now is whether they will be walled-garden, data-horders or truly open platforms tied into a larger ecosystem of innovation with respect for user rights and sensible policies about data.

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