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IBM

SCO vs. IBM Trial Back On Again 232

Posted by Soulskill from the it-just-goes-on-and-on-my-friends dept.
D___Breath writes "The lawsuit SCO started years ago against IBM (but really against Linux) is back on again. SCO first filed this clue-challenged lawsuit in March 2003. SCO claimed Linux was contaminated with code IBM stole from UNIX and that it was impossible to remove the infringement. Therefore, said SCO, all Linux users owe SCO a license fee of $1399 per cpu — but since SCO are such great guys, for a limited time, you can pay only $699 per CPU for your dirty, infringing copy of Linux. Of course, Novell claimed and later proved in court that SCO doesn't even own the copyrights on UNIX that it is suing over. IBM claims there is no infringing code in Linux. SCO never provided evidence of the massive infringement it claimed existed. The court ordered SCO three times to produce its evidence, twice extending the deadline, until it set a 'final' deadline of Dec 22, 2005 — which came and went — with SCO producing nothing but a lot of hand waving. In the meantime, SCO filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2007 because it was being beaten up in court so badly with the court going against SCO."
Android

Google's Honeycomb Source Code Release Is On Ice 136

Posted by samzenpus from the not-quite-yet dept.
itwbennett writes "'Ice Cream Sandwich', that is. Apparently it's source code delay week, as Google joins Apple in delaying the release of source code for open source licensed software. Except, unlike Apple, which promptly released the LGPL WebKit code in question Monday afternoon, Google stated yesterday that it will not release the source code for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) until after the release of the next version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich). This is not necessarily news, since Google said last month that source code would be held for an indeterminate time and released when it was ready. It's just that now 'indeterminate' has an actual date: post-launch of Ice Cream Sandwich. The question, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is: 'How the heck can they do this, given that Honeycomb is licensed under the Apache Software License v2?'"
Internet Explorer

Microsoft Adds 'Do Not Track' Option For IE9 179

Posted by CmdrTaco from the and-who-will-listen dept.
devbox writes "Microsoft says it will offer a privacy setting in the next version of Internet Explorer that will make it easy for users to keep their browsing habits from being tracked by advertising networks and other third-party websites. 'By designing these sorts of enhancements with privacy in mind at the design phase, we're able to deliver a functionality that provides consumers additional levels of control over what they want to engage in and how they choose to do so,' Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist Peter Cullen blogged. Previously, Mozilla stopped working on a similar feature for Firefox after pressure from advertisers and other OSS projects as it would hurt their revenue sources from advertisers."
Censorship

New Chinese Rule Requires Real Names Online 193

Posted by samzenpus from the anonymous-howard dept.
crimeandpunishment writes "According to a human rights group, a leading Chinese Internet regulator is calling for new rules requiring people to use their real names online and when buying mobile phones. New York-based 'Human Rights in China' says it has obtained the complete text of a speech Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, made in April, and they quote him as saying 'We will make the Internet real name system a reality as soon as possible.'"
HP

HP Explains Why Printer Ink Is So Expensive 651

Posted by kdawson from the megabucks-per-picoliter dept.
CWmike writes "'There's a perception that [printer] ink is one of the most expensive substances in the world,' says Thom Brown, marketing manager at HP. Well, yeah. One might get that feeling walking out of a store having spent $35 for a single ink cartridge that appears to contain fewer fluid ounces of product than a Heinz ketchup packet. Brown was ready to explain. He presented a series of PowerPoint slides aptly titled 'Why is printer ink so expensive?' I was ready for answers. The key point in a nutshell: Ink technology is expensive, and you pay for reliability and image quality. 'These liquids are completely different from a technology standpoint,' Brown says, adding that users concerned about cost per page can buy 'XL' ink cartridges from HP that last two to three times longer. (Competitors do the same.) The message: You get value for the money. No getting around it though — ink is still expensive, particularly if you have to use that inkjet printer for black-and-white text pages."
Image

ACLU Sues To Protect Your Right To Swear 698

Posted by samzenpus from the seven-words-you-can-always-say-in-public dept.
The ACLU is suing the police in Pennsylvania for issuing tickets to people who swear. They argue that it is every American's constitutional right to drop an F-bomb. From the article: "'Unfortunately, many police departments in the commonwealth do not seem to be getting the message that swearing is not a crime,' said Marieke Tuthill of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. 'The courts have repeatedly found that profanity, unlike obscenity, is protected speech.'" This is a big f*cking deal.

Comment Re:Fuel economy (Score 2, Insightful) 609

by jeff4747 (#32221552) Attached to: Inventor Demonstrates Infinitely Variable Transmission

At 3 per gallon, that only saved me $750 dollars. How much of my tax money did the government spend on it though? Oops.

Fortunately for supporters of the program, the goal wasn't just to save you money on gas. That new car also resulted in a bunch of taxes for the government, in that auto workers were employed and getting taxed on their income. And still buying stuff, resulting in more taxes and employment, and then those people bought stuff (and so on, and so on)

Too many economic arguments are overly-simplified for ideological purposes.

Comment Forget that (Score 1) 360

by GameboyRMH (#32211544) Attached to: Hacking Automotive Systems

Breaking news! Hacking tools called "physical access," "time" and "effort" can be used together to bypass ALL forms of security on EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE, leaving you vulnerable not only to cyber-criminals, but terrorists and pedophiles as well! WIll no-one close this gaping security hole!?!? Does the car industry have no regard for our safety!?!?

I mean seriously, a car's ECU is airgapped from the outside world and has decent physical security. This is not news, and the automotive industry should ignore it for the stupid fluff that it is.

Comment Re:To promote the USEFUL arts (Score 0, Offtopic) 222

by Yvanhoe (#32205280) Attached to: What the Mobile Patent Fight Is All About
I don't see any hacker's solution a la GPL to get out of this situation (GPLv3 tries a bit but doesn't get the momentum needed. Maybe an LGPL version forbidding patents ?). So the only solution that I see is to do some politics. In US support Lawrence Lessig's efforts against lobbying (Fix Congress First) anywhere else, get involved in your local pirate party (International Pirate Party)
Image

Oil Leak Could Be Stopped With a Nuke 799

Posted by samzenpus from the lesser-of-two-disasters dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be stopped with an underground nuclear blast, a Russian newspaper reports. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: 'The underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well's channel.' It's so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities, and it only didn't work once."

Comment Re:Imaginary problem (Score 2, Informative) 51

by JWSmythe (#32069204) Attached to: Starting an International Cybersecurity Conversation

    You should try to live in some of the harsh weather states, like Florida.

    When I was a kid, we'd experience up to 12 hours of power outages about once a month. If it was night time, the most chaos was to look to see if the neighbors lights were on.

    During (and after) hurricanes, it's a given that you will probably expect a prolonged power outage. People get along fine without the need of electricity. You'll find both LEOs and civilians directing traffic at busy intersections. You'll even find people helping out with anything they can. I've helped move large trees out of the road and off of houses with little more than a pickup truck, chains, a few helpful people, and a little effort.

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