27034320
submission
esocid writes:
Called the SMU 100 it costs £25,000 and sends out a three-metre "wall of light" that leaves anyone caught in it briefly unable to see. Designed by a former Royal Marine Commando, it was originally developed for use against pirates in Somalia. While tasers and CS gas work well over short distances the laser is said to be effective at up to 500 metres (1,640ft). Being targeted by the beam has been compared to staring into the sun before being forced to turn away.Paul Kerr, managing director of Clyde-based Photonic Security Systems, which came up with the design, said "If you can't look at something you can't attack it."
26990724
submission
esocid writes:
Corey Doctorow has written a Guardian column, "The pirates of YouTube," about how multinational copyright-holding companies have laid false claim to public domain videos on YouTube. The videos are posted by the nonprofit FedFlix organization, which liberates public domain government-produced videos and makes them available to the world. These videos were produced at public expense and no one can claim to own them, but multinationals from CBS to Discovery Communications have done just that, getting YouTube to place ads on the video that deliver income to their coffers. What's more, their false copyright claims could lead to the suspension of FedFlix's YouTube account under Google's rules for its copyright policing system. This system, ContentID, sets out penalties for "repeat offenders" who generate too many copyright claims — but offers no corresponding penalties for rightsholders who make too many false claims of ownership.
25457932
submission
esocid writes:
Despite having booked and paid for their booth at Gamex, Sweden'½Â(TM)s largest gaming exhibition, the Pirate Party have been excluded from the action this week. The party, who say they were nagged for 2 to 3 months to book for the event, were this week informed they were too controversial and no longer welcome. All the big names in interactive entertainment are there showing off their wares, including giants such as Activision, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Nintendo. Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg says that after the sales people from the exhibition pursued the party for months to participate, they decided to book and pay for a booth. “I thought it was a bit strange, but in the afternoon, the pieces fell into place when the fair manager, Bear Wengse, phoned me and kindly, but firmly, announced that the Pirate Party was no longer welcome at the fair.”
Wengse informed Troberg that the exhibition is a meeting place and not a venue for political conflict and the party’s presence could cause problems, particularly since some of their work “could be perceived as criminal.” Despite the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League (SSU) being allowed to appear – even though they too support the decriminalization of non-commercial file sharing.
25327984
submission
esocid writes:
Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. Two months ago the same professor linked internet use with the rise in autism diagnoses (not for the first time), then pulled back when autism charities and an Oxford professor of psychology raised concerns. When [Ben Goldacre of The Guardian] raised concerns, she said I was like the epidemiologists who denied that smoking caused cancer. Other critics find themselves derided as sexist in the media.
If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening, and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can’t realistically go unnoticed. The lay public might find your case superficially appealing, but they may not be fully able to judge the merits of all your technical evidence. I think these serious scientific concerns belong, at least once, in a clear scientific paper. I don’t see how this suggestion is inappropriate, or impudent, and in all seriousness, I can’t see an argument against it.
24847410
submission
esocid writes:
In 2008, BBC's "Top Gear" aired an episode featuring the Tesla Roadster. One of the show's car reviewers, Jeremy Clarkson, gave a less-than-flattering analysis of the vehicle, sparking a legal case with the automaker that doesn't seem to be working out in Tesla's favor.
Now, it looks as though Tesla is losing this battle after a full-day hearing yesterday at the high court in London.
"In my judgment, the words complained of are wholly incapable of conveying any meaning at all to the effect that the claimant [Tesla] misled anyone," said Tugendhat. "This is because there is a contrast between the style of driving and the nature of the track as compared with the conditions on a public road [...] are so great that no reasonable person could understand that the performance on the [Top Gear] track is capable of a direct comparison with a public road."
The hearing now continues on Tesla's claim that "Top Gear" made five other false accusations about the Roadster. Tugendhat has postponed judgment on Tesla's malicious falsehood claim, and is expected to deliver a verdict in the coming weeks.
23504484
submission
esocid writes:
Apple lawyers are crying foul about Samsung, and the recent Google's acquisition of Motorola's allegedly "anticompetitive," use of patents. Apparently Apple is irate about these companies' countersuits, which rely largely on patents covering wireless communications, many of which are governed by the "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (F/RAND) principle, as they were developed as part of industry standards. Apple takes issue with the fact that Motorola in its countersuit declines to differentiate the 7 F/RAND patents in its 18 patent collection. Regardless of what Florian Mueller says, it's hard to dispute that the "rules" of F/RAND are largely community dictated and ambiguous.
Florian Meuller also states that Motorola's patents won't help Android, and thinks Samsung is still a copycat.
22125360
submission
esocid writes:
Senior officials in Spain's Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE), the country's leading collection society for songwriters and composers, face embezzlement charges in the wake of a Friday raid on the organization's offices. Investigators say JosÃe Luis Rodriguez Neri, the head of an SGAE subsidiary called the Digital Society of Spanish Authors (SDAE), made payments for non-existent services to a contractor that then paid kickbacks to Neri and his associates.
SGAE, the Spanish counterpart to American collecting societies like ASCAP and BMI, is known for its high fees and aggressive enforcement tactics. According to El País, "the society has been often accused of exceeding its remit by going as far as to infiltrate private weddings to check whether fees had been paid for the music being played at the banquet."
15710836
submission
esocid writes:
An Albemarle County Circuit Court judge has set aside a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to the University of Virginia seeking documents related to the work of climate scientist and former university professor Michael Mann. Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli can investigate whether fraud has occured in university grants, as the attorney general had contended, but ruled that Cuccinelli's subpoena failed to state a "reason to believe" that Mann had committed fraud. He also set aside the subpoena without prejudice, meaning Cuccinelli can rewrite it to better explain why he wants to investigate, but seemed skeptical about the underlying claim of fraud. The ruling is a major blow for Cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic who had maintained he was investigating whether Mann committed fraud in seeking government money for research that showed the earth has experienced a rapid, recent warming. Mann, now at Penn State University, worked at U-Va. until 2005.
"The Court has read with care those pages and understands the controversy regarding Dr. Mann's work on the issue of global warming. However, it is not clear what he did was misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia," Peatross wrote. The ruling also limited Cuccinelli to asking about only one of the five grants issued, which was the only one using state funds.
