Showing headlines posted by BernardSwiss

Well this is unfortunate, but not too surprising. After the Supreme Court rejected medical diagnostic patents in the Mayo case, it vacated the ruling by the Federal Circuit appeals court (CAFC) on gene patents in the Myriad Genetics case, where CAFC had said genes are patentable, and asked it to redo the case in light of the Mayo decision. The ruling came out today, and CAFC more or less repeated what it said in the original ruling. The same panel of three judges effectively argued that Mayo had no real impact on what it said last year, and it was sticking by its decision.

Doctorow framed the question this way: "Computers are everywhere. They are now something we put our whole bodies into---airplanes, cars---and something we put into our bodies---pacemakers, cochlear implants. They HAVE to be trustworthy." Sometimes humans are not so trustworthy, and programs may override you: "I can’t let you do that, Dave." (Reference to the self-protective insane computer Hal in Kubrick’s film "2001." That time the human was more trustworthy than the computer.) Who decides who can override whom?

It has only been a bit over a month since Tor's DRM-free policy went into full effect. At the time of the announcement, Tor's president stated that the policy change was made at the request of both authors and readers who felt that DRM was a hinderance to their enjoyment of ebooks. As we know, DRM is not an effective measure against piracy. More often than not, DRM is actually harmful to paying customers as they hit restrictions that do not exist in the physical realm. Even with all these reasons against the use of DRM, there are still some publishers out there that feel that DRM is an effective means of stopping piracy.

Google has announced a new offering called the Prior Art Finder, in which it tries to help anyone find prior art on patents. When you view a patent via Google's patent database, there will now be a button you can click, which tries to take terms from the patent, and displays a variety of related info from the date that the patent was filed:

We've had plenty of stories over the years of Monsanto's incredibly aggressive stance when it comes to its "Roundup Ready" patents. The company has now been awarded $1 billion from Dupont for infringing on one of these patents. Now, here's a case where we're talking about competing companies, so perhaps no big deal, right? Except there's one tidbit here that makes this interesting: Dupont never brought the product in question to market. So the "damages" to Monsanto would seem to be minimal... except in a court of law apparently.

Much is being made of how sloppy it was for both companies to allow this to happen. I've got worse news: this stuff has been going on for a decade or more. I can say this with confidence because in 2001, when I worked as a consultant, I was asked into a meeting at which a very large Australian financial institution sought advice on a problem. The problem was that famous people had been ringing its call centres and telling sob stories about how they'd lost their passwords. The famous people pleaded that, as extremely busy and important individuals, they simply couldn't remember the details of every bank account they had opened.

Licensed to swap files with your PC: Sharp has succumbed to the charms of a Microsoft licensing deal for the filing system exFAT. Microsoft will license its Extended File Allocation Table technology to Sharp in a deal covering the consumer electronic giant’s Android-based smartphones.

Lon Seidman knew he wasn't going to get rich from his three-hour video discussion of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars. The local media entrepreneur did a live Google+ Hangout about the event and posted the resulting video to YouTube, expecting it would earn him a few bucks and attract some new readers to his site, CT Tech Junkie. During the discussion, Seidman played a number of NASA videos about the Curiosity mission. He knew he was on safe ground because works of the federal government are automatically in the public domain. So he was surprised to find that no fewer than five other media organizations (mostly television stations, including some from overseas) had "claimed" the content of his video through YouTube's Content ID system.

There's been a fascinating development in the Apple v. Samsung litigation. It is possible we'll get to see the cross-license agreement between Microsoft and Samsung that the parties announced in this press release [PDF], which mentioned that it also covered Android. If we get to see it, it would be the first time we get to see exactly what are the terms of such an agreement, because Microsoft always insists on an NDA.

Motorola phones violate Microsoft patents related to FAT filesystem. On Friday, a German court ruled that several of Motorola's Android devices infringed on a patent of Microsoft's relating to the File Allocation Table system architecture. The lower regional Mannheim court issued an injunction against the sale of Motorola phones including the Atrix, the Razr, and the Razr Maxx, according to AllThingsD.

Copy protection company Uniloc has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Mojang, the development company behind popular block game Minecraft. Uniloc claims that the Android version of Minecraft infringes patent number 6,857,067 describing a "system and method for preventing unauthorized access to electronic data."

Uniloc is a serial litigator that has filed lawsuits against nearly 80 companies, including Microsoft, Adobe, and Sony. The company contends that its suite of copy protection patents broadly cover common practices for digital software licensing, protection, and activation.

Judge Leonard Davis, who oversaw the case, issued an order (PDF) today that puts a final stop on attempts by Eolas and its owner, Michael Doyle, to claim it owns technology that's critical to running any "interactive" site on the web. That means Eolas can't use its 5,838,906 patent, or a successor patent, No. 7,599,985, to sue anyone, unless it manages to overturn this verdict on appeal.

We recently wrote about some concerns by Vint Cerf and others that the FCC was considering a proposal to move some of their network diagnostics efforts -- which are a really good thing -- from the open M-Labs solution to proprietary servers run by the telcos. As we noted, the telcos denied that this was happening -- and Henning Schulzrinne, the CTO of the FCC, showed up in our comments to strongly deny that such a proposal existed.

Developer Phil Fish knows there's a problem preventing some people from enjoying his Xbox 360 puzzle platformer Fez as intended. But he's not going to fix it, thanks to what he says is an exorbitant fee of "tens of thousands of dollars" that Microsoft would charge to recertify the game after a needed patch.

A new startup called Jolla aims to resurrect the defunct MeeGo software platform and bring it to market on new handsets. The company, which was founded largely by former Nokia employees, says that it wants to pick up where the failing Finnish phone giant left off.

Microsoft has revoked more than two dozen digital certificates used to prove its wares are genuine after discovering some of them could be subject to the same types of attacks orchestrated by the designers of the Flame espionage malware.

This Q&A is part of a biweekly series of posts highlighting common questions encountered by technophiles and answered by users at Stack Exchange, a free, community-powered network of 80+ Q&A sites.

rincewind asks:

I need to reconcile these 2 facts:

1. I don't feel comfortable working on Linux;

2. I need to develop software for Linux.

Some background: I have 10+ years of programming experience on Windows (almost exclusively C/C++, but some .NET as well), I was a user of FreeBSD at home for about 3 years or so (then had to go back to Windows), and I've never had much luck with Linux. And now I have to develop software for Linux. I need a plan.

Verizon pressed its argument against the Federal Communications Commission's new network neutrality rules on Monday; filing a legal brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The company argued the FCC's rules not only exceeded the agency's regulatory authority, but also violated network owners' constitutional rights. Specifically, Verizon believes that the FCC is threatening its First Amendment right to freedom of speech and its property rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Verizon believes that Congress has not given the FCC the power to impose network neutrality regulations on the nation's ISPs. Last year, the firm sued to stop the implementation of the rules the FCC adopted in December 2010.

The U.S. judge who tossed out one of the biggest court cases in Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) smartphone technology battle is questioning whether patents should cover software or most other industries at all. Richard Posner, a prolific jurist who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, told Reuters this week that the technology industry's high profits and volatility made patent litigation attractive for companies looking to wound competitors. "It's a constant struggle for survival," he said in his courthouse chambers, which have a sparkling view of Monroe Harbor on Lake Michigan. "As in any jungle, the animals will use all the means at their disposal, all their teeth and claws that are permitted by the ecosystem."

iOS and OS X users are experiencing crashes due to corrupted binaries pushed out by Apple's servers over the Fourth of July holiday, according to Instapaper developer Marco Arment. The problem appears to be linked to Apple's FairPlay DRM scheme, which is added to apps downloaded via the iOS App Store or Mac App Store. While Apple appears to be working to correct the issue, the problem is ongoing as of Thursday.