Comment Re:Defend it or lose it (Score 1) 577
I believe this also applies to patents. In any case, I was wondering if it did apply to copyright. Two people say no. Does anyone claim to be authoritative on this question?
Comment Re:Defend it or lose it (Score 1) 577
Dude. The Irony Light was brilliantly illuminated. 1000s of years in this world is really only a few orbits of the Earth around the sun.
Comment Defend it or lose it (Score 1) 577
Isn't there some legal precedent for copyright not having been defended over a period of time making the copyright moot? Clearly people have been implementing Java APIs for 1000s of years without law suits from Oracle or Sun. It is only recently that Oracle has decided to go after Google (specifically acquiring Sun to do so?) that these suits have been brought. Doesn't it make the suits baseless simply because of the fact of Sun/Oracle's ignoring the issue for so many years previous?
Comment Re:Yep, that totally works in practice (Score 1) 462
As much as I want the model proposed in the article to be successful (it would be the best scenario AFAICT), remember Cyan's Uru? That was precisely the model, and they failed miserably because there wasn't enough adoption to keep them afloat.
Thermosphere Contraction Puzzles Scientists 200
The thermosphere layer of earth's atmosphere begins 80 to 90 kilometers above the surface and extends several hundred kilometers into the sky; it is the home to numerous satellites and the International Space Station. It is known that the thermosphere occasionally cools and contracts, but a recent study of satellite orbital decay (due to light atmospheric drag) found that the contraction during 2008 and 2009 was significantly more severe than expected, leaving researchers at a loss for how to explain it. From Space.com:
"This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists. 'This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years,' said John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. 'It's a Space Age record.' The collapse occurred during a period of relative solar inactivity — called a solar minimum from 2008 to 2009. These minimums are known to cool and contract the thermosphere, however, the recent collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain."
US Deploys 'Heat-Ray' In Afghanistan 406
Koreantoast writes "The United States military has deployed Raytheon's newly developed Active Denial System (ADS), a millimeter-wave, 'non-lethal' heat-ray, to Afghanistan. The weapon generates a 'burning sensation' that is supposedly harmless, with the military claiming that the chance of injury is at less than 0.1%; numerous volunteers including reporters over the last several years have experienced its effects during various trials and demonstrations. While US military spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian states that the weapon has not yet been operationally used, the tense situation in theater will ensure its usage soon enough. Proponents of ADS believe the system may help limit civilian deaths in counterinsurgency operations and provide new, safer ways to disperse crowds and control riots, but opponents fear that the system's long-term effects are not fully known and that the device may even be used for torture. Regardless, if ADS is successful in the field, we'll probably see this mobile microwave at your next local protest or riot."
Second SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Now Being Assembled 65
FleaPlus writes "Six weeks after the first launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the first stage of the second rocket has finished production/testing, and has arrived at Cape Canaveral for a launch as early as September, depending on the pace of a methodical review of the Dragon capsule systems and minor rocket modifications/fixes being made based on data from the inaugural launch. The rocket will launch the first operational unmanned Dragon cargo/crew spacecraft into orbit, where it will perform tests and then reenter off the California coast. CEO/CTO Elon Musk made the intriguing remark that Dragon's heat shield is strong enough to enable a return not only from Earth orbit, but also lunar orbit or Mars velocities as well."
Zephyr Solar Plane Tops 7 Days Aloft 51
chichilalescu writes "The UK-built Zephyr solar-powered plane has smashed the endurance record for an unmanned aerial vehicle. The craft took off from the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona at 1440 BST (0640 local time) last Friday and is still in the air. Maybe we can attach some netbooks, and extend the Internet to the clouds."
Motorola Says eFuse Doesn't Permanently Brick Phones 294
radicalpi writes "Motorola has responded to claims that eFuse is designed to brick your device if you attempt to mod it or install unauthorized bootloaders. Yes, the device will still not operate with unauthorized software, but it will only go into recovery mode until you reinstall the authorized software. According to Motorola: 'If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed.'"
Root DNS Zone Now DNSSEC Signed 94
r00tyroot writes with news that slipped by yesterday, quoting from the Internet Systems Consortium's release: "ISC joined other key participants of the Internet technical community in celebrating the achievement of a significant milestone for the Domain Name System today as the root zone was digitally signed for the first time. This marked the deployment of the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) at the top level of the DNS hierarchy and ushers the way forward for further roll-out of DNSSEC in the top level domains and DNS Service Providers."
Ikaros Spacecraft Successfully Propelled In Space 229
An anonymous reader writes "Japan's IKAROS spacecraft has already successfully deployed the first solar sail in space, but today it made the only first that really matters: it successfully captured the sun's rays with its 3,000-square-foot sail and used the energy to speed its way through space. Each photon of light exerts 0.0002 pounds of pressure on the 3,000-square-foot sail, and the steady stream of solar exposure has succeeded in propelling the nearly 700-pound drone."
Working Toward a Universal Power Brick For Laptops 365
An anonymous reader links to PC Authority with some hopeful news about untangling a persistent annoyance for laptop users — namely, the myriad power supplies called for by laptop makers: "'On a PC, an ATX power supply for example will screw into certain mounting holes, have a maximum size and shape, and will take a standard 3-pin "kettle cord" for incoming power. If it complies with these standards, the PSU will be able to bolt into any manufacturer's ATX case.' Laptop design, on the other hand, involves cramming a PC into a tiny chassis, which usually has its own thermal design and power distribution requirements. This has led to the somewhat bizarre situation where every manufacturer has its own laptop power supply design. It now appears that some of the major players in laptops are getting together to work on a standardized laptop power supply design. Not only are big players involved, but the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has created a team to work on the power supply standard."
Submission + - ARM Cortex A9 Laptops to be Linux Powered (armdevices.net)
Charbax writes: In this video, Jerone Young, lead partner engineer at Canonical, explains some of the challenges that Canonical and other companies who are part of the new Linaro project have been working on for the past many months, in preparation for the now imminent release of a whole bunch of ARM Cortex A9 Powered laptops and desktops likely to be manufactured by giants of the industry such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Quanta, Invetec, Pegatron, Compal, all of whome have been showing tens of early prototype designs of these ARM Powered laptops at trade shows around the world during the past year and a half. They work to standardize the boot process, write drivers to use graphics and video hardware acceleration, they optimize the web browser (Chrome and Mozilla), they implement faster DDR3 RAM and faster I/O bus speeds, they also optimize the software to use the new faster dual core ARM Cortex A9 processors. The goal is to have these upcoming ARM Powered laptops feel as usable to end consumers as Intel x86 based laptops/netbooks. With increased competition thanks to this alternative CPU architecture, prices of laptops and desktops could rapidly go down (sub-$149 laptops and sub-$99 desktops are likely), battery life could run much longer (up to 30-50 hours using a Pixel Qi LCD screen), sizes and weights can be much smaller. This could be the type of low-power, low-cost computer that the next 5 billion people in the world may use as their first computer.
Comment Re:Numbers are off (Score 1) 554
I have a TiVo HD (series 3) and pay $100 per year for it. I rent a cable card from Comcast for $3/month and it allows both of my tuners to record simultaneously.
I have what you have, and it's costing me $15.50 a month + the cost of the TiVo. I love the UI of the TiVo and really LOATHE the Comcast DVR's - with which I am very familiar due to my girlfriend working at Comcast and getting one for free.
Submission + - N.S. garlic farm wards off high-speed internet (www.cbc.ca)
DocVM writes: "A Nova Scotia farmer is opposing the construction of a microwave tower for fear it will eventually mutate his organic garlic crop.
"Lenny Levine, who has been planting and harvesting garlic by hand on his Annapolis Valley land since the 1970s, is afraid his organic crop could be irradiated if EastLink builds a microwave tower for wireless high-speed internet access a few hundred metres from his farm.""
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