If you click on the "patent applications" side it goes to http://appft.uspto.gov/ instead.

If the Google patent is truly for something that is already known then it should not have been issued. I did not read the whole patent. Patents always have to be for something new that is not yet known by others: http://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics.jsp#novelty. If what Google patent was already known (and I'm not saying that it is because I didn't read the whole thing) then it can be challenged and overturned in court. It can be challenged in federal district court, appealed to the Federal Circuit, and appealed to the Supreme Court.

http://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics.jsp#novelty

All documents at http://patft.uspto.gov/ are issued patents.

It is not true that if Google doesn't patent it, a troll will. A technique that is well known, such as MapReduce, is the property of the general public and is unpatentable. Any technology that has been sold or in use for over a year is unpatentable.

Cyc is a controversial project in the AI community, and I'm glad that you brought it up. I don't think anyone yet knows how to use a database of commonsense facts, which is what Cyc is (though limited - the open source version only has a few hundred thousand facts) and which is one thing NELL could create. However, researchers continue to think about ways that an AI could use knowledge of the real world. There are numerous publications based on Cyc: http://www.opencyc.org/cyc/technology/pubs.

It's unfortunate that the Chinese government continues to spy on the population. Many text messages that people send are quite personal.

Text message technology actually makes it easier to spy on people because you can just filter for words like "democracy" rather than actually having to pay an operator to listen to people's phone conversations. Many human rights activists in China had previously reported having their phones tapped.

Particularly interesting is the following clause indicating that your electronic devices can be searched even if the officer has no good reason to think you are 'suspicious.'

5.1.2. In the course of a border search, with or without individualized suspicion, an Officer may examine electronic devices and may review and analyze information encountered at the border, subject to the requirements herein and applicable law.

I suppose this is the same as the right of officers to open everyone's bags, without any need of proving suspicion. This is quite an invasion of people's privacy and property, yet realistically I don't think this will endanger attorney-client privilege or trade secrets. The officer searching you probably searches thousands of people a day. It's not like he's going to go through your data files and memorize all the important business/legal documents and then report them to your competitors. The policy document indicates that all electronic searches take place in your presence and with a supervisor present.

According to CNN, Tiananmen is the proper spelling and Tienanmen is a misspelling that is not properly censored due to technical errors. Apparently those errors have not been fixed since 2006. http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/30/technology/browser0130/index.htm Thanks for the link though. Impressive number of tank man pictures. I hope Google does provide uncensored search, even if for just a few hours.