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Google

Submission + - Nokia Officially Lists Patents Google's VP8 Allegedly Infringes (ietf.org)

An anonymous reader writes: Google just settled video codec patent claims with MPEG LA and its VP8 format, which it wants to be elevated to an Internet standard, already faces the next round of patent infringement allegations. Nokia submitted an IPR declaration to the Internet Engineering Task Force listing 64 issued patents and 22 pending patent applications it believes are essential to VP8. To add insult to injury, Nokia's declaration to the IETF says NO to royalty-free licensing and also NO to FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing. Nokia reserves the right to sue over VP8 and to seek sales bans without necessarily negotiating a license deal. Two of the 86 declared IPRs are already being asserted in Mannheim, Germany, where Nokia is suing HTC in numerous patent infringement cases. A first VP8-related trial took place on March 8 and the next one is scheduled for June 14. In related Nokia-Google patent news, the Finns are trying to obtain a U.S. import ban against HTC to force it to disable tethering (or, more likely, to pay up).

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: When Does Time Tracking Go Too Far?

An anonymous reader writes: Hello, fellow Slashdotters. I ask this question anonymously to avoid complete and utter embarrassment that I have not already suffered as a result.

I work in a call center, full time, for a large mail order pharmacy. Recently, as part of their campaign to better track time spent both at and away from our desks, they have started tracking bathroom breaks. They use a Cisco phone system, and there is now a clock out option that says "Bathroom"

My question, Slashdot, is whether or not this is in any way acceptable in a large corporate environment (Around 800 people work at this same pharmacy) and is it even legal? How invasive would this really be considered, and beyond privacy concerns, how are they going to deal with the humiliation that their employees feel as a result of this?

Has this happened to anyway, or is it happening to any of you?
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Intel Demos 7Gpbs Wireless Docking (computerworld.com)

Lucas123 writes: Intel for the first time demonstrated the Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) docking specification using an Ultrabook, which was able to achieve 7Gbps performance, ten times the fastest Wi-Fi networks based on the IEEE 802.11n standard. The WiGig medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) control specification operates in the unlicensed 60GHz frequency band, which has more spectrum available than the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands used by existing Wi-Fi products. According to Ali Sadri, chairman of the WiGig Alliance, the specification also supports wireless implementations of HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces, as well as the High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) scheme used to protect digital content transmitted over those interfaces. It scales to allow transmission of both compressed and uncompressed video.
Open Source

Submission + - Red Hat Fights Patent Troll With GPL (itworld.com)

jfruh writes: "Red Hat is in the middle of a patent lawsuit with Twin Peaks Software, which claims that a Red Hat subsidiary is abusing a Twin Peaks filesystem lawsuit. Now, Red Hat is launching an intriguing countermeasure: the company claims that Twin Peaks' own closed source software violates the GPL because it makes use of an open source disk utility that Red Hat holds the copyright no. Is this a smart move on Red Hat's part?"

Submission + - How one man made an 1,800 player action game in his spare time (redbull.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: Just Cause 2 Multiplayer has been getting a lot of press lately, but this making of feature points out how it raises a serious industry about the games industry: if 1,800 player massively multiplayer action games are possible on one server, why did it take one modder from Queensland to prove it?

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