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Android

Submission + - 2012 Will Be the Year of the Android Tablet (informationweek.com)

lseltzer writes: "The iPad has dominated the high-end tablet market so far, but that is about to change. At CES in Las Vegas in a couple weeks you will see tablets running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) everywhere and at prices that will make an iPad a lot harder to justify. The competition from the OEM model in the Android markets will massively shift market share away from Apple, just as it has done in the smart phone market."

Submission + - Quantum wavefunction is a real physical object aft (nature.com)

cekerr writes: Nature reports:
  Quantum theorem shakes foundations
The wavefunction is a real physical object after all, say researchers.

"... the new paper, by a trio of physicists led by Matthew Pusey at Imperial College London, presents a theorem showing that if a quantum wavefunction were purely a statistical tool, then even quantum states that are unconnected across space and time would be able to communicate with each other. As that seems very unlikely to be true, the researchers conclude that the wavefunction must be physically real after all.

David Wallace, a philosopher of physics at the University of Oxford, UK, says that the theorem is the most important result in the foundations of quantum mechanics that he has seen in his 15-year professional career. “This strips away obscurity and shows you can’t have an interpretation of a quantum state as probabilistic,” he says.

Your Rights Online

Submission + - ICANN and .xxx taken to court by biggest porn comp (theregister.co.uk)

SharkLaser writes: Two of the largest porn companies on the internet, Manwin and Digital Playground, yesterday sued both ICANN and ICM Registry, which runs .xxx TLD, to court over extorting defensive registrations with ICANN's blessing. 'The complaint focuses on ICM's recently concluded "sunrise" period, during which porn companies, for about $200, could apply to own a .xxx address matching their trademark or .com domain.' Schools also felt the same way, and had to reserve domains under their name so that no porn content could be put up on them. The .xxx TLD has also previously been subject to criticism by both religious groups and adult industry, but for different reasons. Religious groups believe the .xxx TLD legitimases pornography, while adult industry believes it could lead to censorship.

Submission + - Experiment affirms faster-than-light claim (nature.com)

gbrumfiel writes: "Earlier this year, the OPERA experiment made the extraordinary claim that they had seen neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. The experiment, located at Gran Sasso in Italy, saw neutrinos arrive 90 nanoseconds early from their starting point at CERN in Switzerland. Others have doubted OPERA's claim, but in a new paper, the group reaffirms its commitment to the measurement. “It’s slightly better than the previous result,” OPERA’s physics coordinator Dario Autiero told Nature News . Most members of the collaboration didn't sign up to the original paper out of skepticism have now come on board. But scientists outside the group still aren't sure. "Independent checks are the way to go", says Rob Plunkett, co-spokesman a rival experiment called MINOS."
Canada

Submission + - Universal Music Sues Insurer To Pay For Its Copyri (michaelgeist.ca)

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (now Music Canada) — Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada — settled the largest copyright class action lawsuit in Canadian history by agreeing to pay over $50 million to compensate for hundreds of thousands of infringing uses of sound recordings. While the record labels did not admit liability, the massive settlement spoke for itself. While the Canadian case has now settled, Universal Music has filed its own lawsuit, this time against its insurer, who it expects to pay the costs of the settlement.
Patents

Submission + - Dutch court rejects Samsung patent claims against (techworld.com.au)

angry tapir writes: "A judge at the district court in the Hague has rejected claims that Samsung had made against Apple regarding four patents. Samsung wanted Apple to pay for licensing the patents in question, and the court to issue an injunction banning the import and sale of Apple's iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, as well as upcoming products, until licensing terms are in place. But the latter won't happen at this point. The ruling came in the in the same week that an Australian court blocked sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1."
Piracy

Submission + - Anti-Piracy Lawyers Accuse Blind Man of Downloadin (seattleweekly.com) 1

souravzzz writes: "As the mass-lawsuits against BitTorrent users in the United States drag on, detail on the collateral damage this extortion-like scheme is costing becomes clear. It is likely that thousands of people have been wrongfully accused of sharing copyrighted material, yet they see no other option than to pay up. One of the cases that stands out is that of a Californian man who’s incapable of watching the adult film he is accused of sharing because he is legally blind."
Education

Submission + - Computers Grade Essay Tests Better Than Profs (chronicle.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Robot essay graders could be the answer to grade inflation. New software being tested turns over the task of grading to computers — this article has an interactive demo of the software. One professor says the computer is far more fair than human graders, who get tired and become inconsistent, or play favorites.

Submission + - Dealing with the Business Software Alliance? 2

Kagetsuki writes: "We've just gotten a letter from an attorney representing the Business Software Alliance stating someone (we're certain it's a disgruntled former employee) submitted information we are using illegally copied software. The thing is we're not using illegally copied software, all commercial software we are using we have licenses for. Still, according to articles on the BSA that's irrelevant and they'll end up suing us anyway. So we now need a lawyer to deal with their claims and we don't have the money — this will surely be the end of the company I've sunk all my savings and 3 years of my life into. My question is has anybody dealt with the Business Software Alliance before? What action should I take? Is there any sort of recourse we can take to try and recover financially, or at least cover our legal fees?

As a side note Adobe is a member of the BSA. As Flash and AIR are some of our primary release platforms all the software we own happens to be from Adobe. We've also been a very pro-Adobe shop and have gone out of our way to defend our choices in using Adobe platforms (AS3 is great, check out the free Flex compiler!). Please, if any Adobe employees read this: do something, anything to get the BSA off of us!"

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