Unequivocal - Slashdot User

Submission + - Court rules WHOIS privacy illegal for spammers (sedo.com)

Submitted by Unequivocal on Thursday January 21, 2010 @11:10AM

Unequivocal writes: Spammers hiding behind a WHOIS privacy service have been found in violation of CAN-SPAM. It probably won't stop other spammers from hiding (what can?) but at least it adds another arrow in the legal quiver for skewering the bottom feeders:

'A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has determined that using WHOIS privacy on domains may be considered "material falsification" under federal law... Although the ruling does not make use of WHOIS privacy illegal, it does serve as a clear message from the court that coupling the use of privacy services with intentional spamming will likely result in a violation of the CAN-SPAM act. This is an important decision that members of the domain community should refer to prior to utilizing a privacy shield.'

Submission + - A space cannon that might actually work (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Unequivocal on Friday January 15, 2010 @08:08PM

Unequivocal writes: Chalk another one up to Jules Verne. Physicist John Hunter is proposing a space canon with a new design idea: it's mostly submerged.
Many engineers have toyed with the [space cannon] concept, but nobody has came up with an actual project that may work. Hunter's idea is simple: Build a cannon near the equator, submerged in the ocean, hooked to a floating rig...A system like this will cut launch costs from $5,000 per pound to only $250 per pound. It won't launch people into space because of the excessive acceleration, but those guys at the ISS can use it to order pizza and real ice cream.

Though it won't work on people, with launch costs that low, who cares?

Submission + - FCC declares Net Neutrality will be enforced

Submitted by

Unequivocal

on Tuesday August 25, 2009 @04:22PM

Unequivocal writes: "FCC's Chairman Genachowski told Congress today that the "Federal Communications Commission plans to keep the Internet free of increased user fees based on heavy Web traffic and slow downloads. Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, told The Hill that his agency will support "net neutrality" and go after anyone who violates its tenets. "One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles," Genachowski said when asked what he could do in his position to keep the Internet fair, free and open to all Americans. The statement by Genachowski comes as the commission remains locked in litigation with Comcast. The cable provider is appealing a court decision by challenging the FCC's authority to penalize the company for limiting Web traffic to its consumers."

It looks like the good guys win, unless the appeals court rules against the FCC.."

Submission + - Open textbooks win over publishers in CA (misuse.org)

Submitted by

Unequivocal

on Thursday August 13, 2009 @10:40AM

Unequivocal writes: "Recently California's Governor announced a free digital textbook competition. The results of that competition were announced today. Many traditional publishers submitted textbooks in this digital textbook competition in CA as well as open publishers. An upstart nonprofit organization named CK-12 contributed a number of textbook (all free and open source material). "Of the 16 free digital textbooks for high school math and science reviewed, ten meet at least 90 percent of California's standards. Four meet 100 percent of standards." Three of those recognized as 100% aligned to California standards were from CK-12 and one from H. Jerome Keisler. None of the publisher's submissions were so recognized. CK-12 has a very small staff, so this is a great proof of the power of open textbooks and open educational resources."

Submission + - Yahoo patents "smart" drag and drop 1

Submitted by

Unequivocal

on Monday January 21, 2008 @10:26PM

Unequivocal writes: "According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo has filed a patent for "smart" drag and drop. From the article:

"There have been a series of new [patent] applications... some of which are pretty broad and outrageous. For example, check out this one from Yahoo! claiming to have patented "smart" drag-and-drop technology. Here's claim one:
A computer-implemented method for manipulating objects in a user interface, comprising:

providing the user interface including a first interface object operable to be selected and moved within the user interface; and

in response to selection and movement of the first interface object in the user interface, presenting at least one additional interface object in the user interface in proximity of the first interface object, each additional interface object representing a drop target with which the first interface object may be associated."

How do these patent claims differ from normal drag and drop? In pretty trivial ways if at all. From the EFF article "You drag, you drop, you infringe!" But it may be hard for a patent examiner to understand that trivial changes in drag and drop user interface are not in fact novel enough to warrant a patent. If Yahoo gets this patent, they'll have a mighty big stick to shake at competitors. Which is of course the whole purpose of the current, broken patent system."

Submission + - Microsoft patents "unpirating" music (wired.com)

Submitted by

Unequivocal

on Friday July 13, 2007 @03:30PM

Unequivocal writes: "A new Wired magazine blog entry shows that Microsoft has patented a technique for preventing and reversing music piracy at the hardware level. FTA:

'Microsoft and Apple are thinking along the same lines when it comes to enabling users to copy music between their wireless devices.

Certain cellphones already allow you to [transfer music] via Bluetooth file transfer, but Microsoft's patented idea would take the concept further, by allowing users to trade MP3s that may have come from file sharing networks to one another, expiring the song on the recipient's device after three plays, unless the user pays Microsoft a fee in order to continue to listen to the track, with a percentage going to the person who provided the song. As the abstract puts it, "even [the] resale of pirated media content [can] benefit... the copyright holder."'

Also, this patent is now being peer reviewed on Peer to Patent's website. Join the discussion there, if you can show how this patent is original and innovative or not."

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