An anonymous reader writes "I have written a nifty application that helps me run my own business, and could really help in running almost any business. It has been abstracted well enough that it could very plausibly be made a sale-able product. There are several very good, possibly patentable ideas within it. However, they are overshadowed by virtually an infinite number of possible bs challenges to it's more mundane parts. I'm rather fearful of bringing this to market for that reason, and so far have only deployed it as a 'consulting' project with two other small companies (who love it). Does anyone have suggestions about how to proceed?" Other than a generic "hire a lawyer!", are there practical steps a software author can do here?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meg at Decor It Yourself just did this week's episode about making your own clock. It's so simple, and you can use any found object (that you can drill a hole in, that is) to construct the body.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

The entertainment industry has, in the past, accused Israel of not properly respecting copyright, but Israeli officials, rather than bending to the will of Hollywood lobbyists hit back with a long and detailed response, noting that its copyright law has already been influenced too much by American-style copyright law -- and just because they didn't go completely draconian and implement a version of the DMCA, it doesn't mean they don't have strong copyright laws. You have to imagine, however, that Hollywood's lobbying community is about to go ballistic after reading a recent decision (sent in by a ton of people -- including one of the lawyers involved in the case!) concerning an attempt by the Premier League to unveil the owner of a website, LiveFooty, that allowed people to watch streaming football (soccer for folks on this side of the Atlantic) matches.

Now, we've already covered incredibly aggressive legal strategy of suing any site that lets people stream its matches. Quite often, it goes after service providers rather than the actual users, and also goes after services in places where the games aren't viewable anyway (so it's not even taking away any real revenue). Either way, the judge in an Israeli district court was not impressed and tore apart the Premier League's arguments:

the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that it was a case of "fair use" since no profit was made from the broadcasts and that, in Israeli law, breach of "broadcasting" copyright only referred to cable or wireless transmission and not streaming over the internet.

The judge, Michal Agmon-Gonen, furthermore ruled that the site had important social aims -- "watching sports events is socially important and should remain in the realm of mass entertainment, and not just be for those who can afford it" -- and argued that those who view online were not damaging the revenues of broadcasters. She said they were mainly "those of small means or who are not sufficiently interested in sport to pay".

That's the report from the Guardian, but the full ruling from the judge gets a lot more interesting. In refusing to reveal the name of the owner of the site, she talked about the importance of not giving in to the chilling effects of copyright infringement claims, and the importance of setting a very high bar on such things:

"Someone who claims breach of copyright must meet two conditions. The first is to present prima facie evidence of a breach, that will lead with a high degree of probability to proof of it. Secondly, the breaches claimed must be especially severe, wrongs committed in aggravated circumstances," the judge said. This is because "unintentionally, millions of people infringe copyright every day; there are no grounds for disclosing their identities in such cases, but only when it is a matter of blatant and severe infringement."

As far as I know, this is the first time I've seen a judge highlight unintentional infringement, and the chilling effects of making it such that anyone needs to constantly look over their shoulder and be afraid that almost anything they do may be judged to be a violation of copyright laws.

The Premier League will certainly appeal, and you can bet that Hollywood lobbyists will soon come out with yet another report claiming that Israel is a "haven for pirates" or some ridiculous claptrap along those lines. One hopes that this thoughtful ruling that focuses on the public's rights will stand up and get recognized for recognizing that copyright isn't just about the rights of the copyright holders, but about the rights of the public too. However, given the history of the entertainment industry lobby, it seems unlikely.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Urban Prankster has photos of some funny crosswalk sign hacks.

A group of Twin Cities artists has created Rush Hour, a unique art exhibit using the classic urban artifact, the bus transfer, as a canvas.

Metro Transit fare during rush hour in the Twin Cities is $2.25 for local trips. The paper transfer you receive as receipt of this transaction is valid for two-and-a-half hours after purchase, enabling you to ride any number of bus routes, as well as the Hiawatha Line's light-rail service, meeting deadlines and new people along the way. Several years of commuting on the routes and rails can result in a lot of new acquaintances, and a lot of spent transfers. Five local artists have capitalized on all the rides that they have taken, and all of the refuse that was generated, in order to make something new, that will work for anyone's budget and imagination.

Best of all, the works -- over 400 in number -- were sold for the price of a bus ride after the exhibit closed.

See a slide show of some of the works, or check out the exhibit's fun promo video.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

A man bit off the tip of another guy's finger at a health care reform rally last night in Thousand Oaks, California. From the Washington Post:

Reports differ on whether the supporter went to confront the opponents intentionally or was just walking among them while trying to cross the street to the pro-reform rally. Southern California's KTLA-TV, which first reported on the fracas, wrote, "The 65-year-old was apparently aggressive and hit the other man, who then retaliated by biting off his attacker's pinky."

The AP reported that the injured man "retrieved the finger and went to a hospital." A hospital spokesperson told the news service that the man, who had Medicare, "lost half the finger, but doctors reattached it and he was sent home the same night."

"Man's Fingertip Bitten Off at Health-Care Rally" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)

JO_DIE_THE_STAR_F*** writes "Jesse Vincent managed to get Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope running on the Kindle 2. The new functionality was presented in a talk at OSCON 2009."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The wife of Japan's premier-in-waiting, Miyuki Hatoyama, has traveled to Venus. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this may be the first time the wife of a high-ranking politician has visited another planet.

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," said Miyuki Hatoyama.

Some say that the People of Walmart blog makes fun of misfits. And they're right. But if you ignore the unkind captions, the blog is interesting, like a kind of modern Secret Museum of Mankind. I'm marveling at these photos of human beings in all their diverse splendor. Here's a CNN piece about the site.

Here's a ring for tenderizing a tiny steak.

Every few months for the past year and a half or so, the MPAA has basically begged the FCC to let it make use of "selectable output control" on televisions to block DVRs from recording stuff shown on TV. The MPAA claims this is necessary to release certain movies on TV, but that's hogwash. Rather than focusing on what consumers want, the movie studios are simply trying to add in yet another "window" to try to squeeze more money out of people. And, of course, like any DRM system, it won't do a damn thing to stop file sharing of the content (all anyone needs is one copy, and by the time any movie is broadcast on TV, it's too late, the content is out there). All this would do is piss off legitimate viewers, who are pissed off because their TiVos didn't record some movie, despite it being on TV.

In the MPAA's most recent attempt, it's back to begging the FCC, but Matthew Lasar notes that the MPAA is finally admitting that if it gets its way, it may actually require some people to buy new equipment. So, not only will the plan functionally break lots of DVRs by not letting them do the one thing they're designed to do (record what's on TV), but they may break other parts of the process as well, such that people will need to buy new equipment.

And all for what? It won't stop or even slow down file sharing. But it will piss off a lot of people. The MPAA insists that it physically cannot release movies on TV prior to its DVD release unless it gets this DRM enabled. But that's ridiculous. If the studios wanted to they could absolutely release the movies for TV viewing prior to the DVD release. It won't change a thing. But they really, really, really want to believe the myth that somehow file sharing magically goes away, and no legitimate customers get annoyed, when they try to lock up their content.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

jhutkd writes "Educause (who run the .edu gTLD) announced today that they will deploy DNSSEC and sign the .edu zone by the end of March 2010. This will enable all educational institutions to benefit from deploying DNSSEC via the secure delegation hierarchy starting with IANA's ITAR (a temporary surrogate for the root zone signing), going through .edu, down to schools, and potentially leading all the way down to individual departments. Unlike larger gTLDs like .org, the churn of adding new and deleting old zones in .edu is much lower (due to the fact that there are tight controls on who may register for a delegation). Thus, many of the hassles of adding new DS records and maintenance procedures might be more manageable and help speed DNSSEC's rollout in this branch of the DNS hierarchy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to mattm@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Bruce writes in:

Do you know of any Arduino efforts in San Diego, CA? Do you know of anyone who might know?

Well Bruce, I understand how difficult it can be to find local DIY events, so I compiled a list of the places I would look. The first thing I would do is search google, however there is a good chance that local events might not show up if they haven't been widely publicized. The next places I would check are Hackerspaces and Dorkbot. If there is a hackerspace in your area, there is a good chance that they will be holding classes about the Arduino or similar devices. Dorkbot groups seem to be more focused on presentations, however the participants can probably help point you in the right direction.

Another great possibility is a Make: group. There are a bunch of them popping up across the country (and hopefully across the world- let us know where you are!). Here are the ones that I know about:

• Make: SF
• Make: DC
• Make: NYC
• Make: Philly
• Make: PDX
• Make: KC
• Make: Denver
• Twin Cities Maker
• GO-Tech Ann Arbor
• MAKE Out Sessions

Besides the more obvious tech-focused groups, many artists organizations and collaboratives are also hosting Arduino classes, such as The Steel Yard in Providence, RI, Machine Project in Los Angeles, CA, and The Crucible in Berkeley, CA.

However, don't give up if you don't see anything listed for your city. Try asking around at a local college, check http://www.meetup.com/, chime in on the Make forum, take a glance at the official Arduino calender and the Make Events page, or just find some friends and host an event yourself, and be sure to tell us about it!

Know of any other good resources? Have any San Diego leads for Bruce? Want to see your group listed? Chime in in the comments!

The above photo of an Arduino class at Hack Pittsburgh is by Marty McGuire.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Ask MAKE | Digg this!

Possibly a new fashion for chefs, or a self-defense fashion statement? Meat tenderizing ring by Ken Goldman. [via Core77]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

I've been in and around the tech industry since 1976, which makes me a 33-year veteran. The industry loops every 5 to 10 years so I've seen something like seven or eight iterations. There are some mistakes they make over and over. Wish I could tap them on the shoulder and say Don't Do It but it wouldn't make a diff. Every crop of entrepreneurs thinks it's different. They never are, but they have to learn that for themselves.

One thing they do over and over is hire execs who don't love the product.

It's as if the guy who ran professional football didn't like football. Or if Valentino Rossi didn't love MotoGP. Or the CEO of a vintner didn't like wine. Or if Alice Waters who runs Chez Panisse and is Berkeley's most famous entrepreneur didn't have a passion for great food.

Yet Twitter just hired a COO who has one of the most out-of-whack follows-to-follower ratios out there. He follows 40 and is followed by 650,263. This is probably why his RSS company, Feedburner, made it to be acquired by Google and then crashed. It wasn't built on a foundation of love for RSS (I can attest to that) and while the people of Twitter use it and they have very passionate users, the execs at Twitter, at best, dabble. And now we know they hire dabblers. (An instance of A people hiring A people and B people hiring C people?)

When your ratio of follows to followers is 0.00006151 it's inevitable that you see Twitter as a stage like the one Barack Obama stood on in Berlin or in Denver. "I'm up here," he must think, and "they're out there." His ability to understand how people see his product is limited because his view is of users as little dots, and he and his 40 insider friends loom large.

I've sat in board meetings listening to other board members explain our users, having never met one, having never used the product. Needless to say their advice is pretty general and usually wasn't very useful.

I've had it explained to me that cancer doctors don't have to get cancer to be good doctors, and of course I agree. But using a product like Twitter is supposed to be a joy. It's supposed to be an expansive thing, not a life-threatening one. And I'd add, every company that viewed its own products with fear fails. If you make a product that is not a disease and you treat it like one, people will find some other place to congregate.

James Orr, 66, was on trial in Cincinnati, Ohio yesterday for robbery and kidnapping when he disrupted the hearing with an extreme act of grossness. Orr reportedly asked his attorney if he had any food. When the attorney told him no, Orr apparently put his colostomy bag on the table, squeezed out the contents, and then either ate, or pretended to eat, his own feces. The Sheriff's deputy cuffed him and removed him from the room which the judge then closed for cleaning. Orr's trial will continue next week. From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

(Hamilton County prosecutor David) Prem admitted he almost vomited up while watching Orr's antics but suspects they were done with a purpose.

"He's a con man. He has over 50 aliases and has convictions in Ohio and New York for thefts and robberies," Prem said.

"He's done just about everything a person can do to avoid justice. He feigned (mental) incompetence" leading up to this trial, Prem said.

Orr was ordered to trial after court mental health workers deemed him mentally sound and a faker.

"I'm completely convinced his whole goal here is to cause as much mayhem as he can," Prem said of Orr.

(Orr's attorney Norm) Aubin will have jail workers again check Orr's mental health before continuing the trial Wednesday.

"Bizarre act halts court hearing" (Thanks, Tara!)

An anonymous reader writes "Sun Microsystems might have had a chance if the Oracle merger had gone through quickly, but between the DoJ taking its time and the European Commission, which seems to get off on abusing American firms, just plain dragging its feet, that won't happen now. As Sun twists in the wind, unable to defend itself, and Oracle is unable to do anything until the deal closes, IBM is pretty much tearing Sun to shreds. By the time this deal closes, there won't be much left for Oracle. This is not how a Silicon Valley legend should end."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two Honolulu city council members proposed a bill that would ban certain annoying behavior on buses including bad body odor. If passed, perps could face a $500 fine or six months in jail. From KITV:

"It's horrible -- sometimes you have to get up and open up the vents, and it's just obnoxious," said veteran bus driver Thom Robinson.

Supporters of the bus behavior bill said it also includes and consolidates a lot of other useful prohibitions already on the books such as forbidding spitting on buses, being drunk on a bus or urinating when you are on a bus or at a bus stop.

The city transportation services department supports the bill pending legal review saying much of it is already law.

Council Considers BO Ban (Thanks, Koshi!)

There's a fascinating article in the latest issue of Wired about the placebo effect and pharmaceutical companies. It's fascinating for a few reasons: First, because it shows the thought process of pharma firms and why "what's best for pharma" is often not what's best for your health (which is a line often trotted out by those who believe in protecting pharma). Second, because it suggests that some (potentially significant) parts of pharmaceutical science -- the stuff we hear over and over again is so important to protect via patents -- is bunk. And, finally, just because it may surprise you to know just how powerful the placebo effect appears to be -- and that it's only getting stronger.

The critical point is that final one. Basically, the placebo effect (the impact had on a patient taking a sugar pill under the false impression that it's medicine) seems to be quite real and, at times, quite powerful and lasting. Even more surprising is that, over time, the placebo effect has only become stronger and stronger.

Now, if pharmaceutical companies were actually interested in your health, then this would be a ripe area of study, well worth exploring to see if the placebo effect could be better understood and somehow harnessed to make people healthy. But, of course, you can't patent a sugar pill, so pharma research dollars have gone into drugs that can be patented.

However, a serious problem has arisen: with the placebo effect getting stronger and stronger, these "wonder drugs" that pharma has been spending millions of dollars "developing" have increasingly been failing clinical trials, because they can't out-perform placebos. The theory behind testing against placebos is that if a drug doesn't outperform the placebo, you have to question what good the actual drug is and why it should be approved. So, if a drug fails to outperform a placebo, then (the thinking goes) the drug is useless. But that's partly based on the idea that the effect of taking a placebo is weak.

This leaves out an important part of the equation: If the placebo is really effective in dealing with certain issues, then why not examine how to utilize that fact to make people healthy? Some in the pharma world have been pushing for this for a long time, and have repeatedly asked the big pharma companies to release their data on clinical trials, in order to better understand the impact of placebos and to see if there's a way to harness their power. But the pharma companies have resisted and don't want to release the data -- in part because they're scared to death of what this all means. If sugar pills are effective, that's a very different business, and the claims of all of the drugs that are on the market would be called into serious question. Instead, they've apparently spent their time writing out detailed marketing plans that convince doctors to prescribe medicine that doesn't work any better than alternatives.

Now, let's be quite clear here: I am not saying that drugs don't do any good. There are plenty of pharmaceuticals that certainly help deal with certain conditions, and there are plenty of people who lead better lives (or are alive at all) solely because of modern medicine. But, these findings about the placebo effect certainly suggest that -- at least in many cases -- rather than dumping chemicals into the human system via a pill, your brain may actually be a lot more effective at concocting the proper chemicals itself.

If we had a healthcare system built on incentives to actually keep people healthy -- rather than just to sell more pills -- this would be the beginning of a very important field of study. Instead, it's been resisted and the data has been hidden away for years.

The incentive system is clearly screwed up. It's based on patents and hoarding information, rather than on actually keeping people as healthy as possible. If you could craft a healthcare system that actually rewards those who keep patients healthy, then perhaps we'd actually know a lot more about the placebo effect and, beyond it, our own brains' ability to produce important, potentially life-saving or life-improving chemicals on its own. In fact, in such a system, the incentives would be less about hoarding information, and more about sharing it, since, through collaboration, it would be more likely that more people could be kept healthier, allowing greater overall profits. The problem today is that the system is based on incentives that are misaligned... and thus, it's a struggle to get anyone to care about the fact that the placebo effect actually seems to help some people.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

My mother has a friend who was raving about the new Sony Walkman, so I bought two, one for Mom and one for me. They're not expensive, and I've never been happy with the way my iPod worked for podcasts, which is 90 percent of the use I have for them.

Do I like it? I do! I've been using the Walkman ever since, and the iPod has become a hard disk for my BMW (which has an iPod interface).

I like the Walkman because it works way better, for me, than the iPod does.

The Walkman connects easily to both Mac and Windows without any weird dialogs that warn me that it's about to erase everything on the device. It presents as a disk drive. I copy files into the Podcasts sub-folder of the Music folder. When I'm out, I click the top-level Music icon then choose Folder, and navigate to the file I want and it plays. Click Next to go to the next one.

Back at home, next time I load it up, I just empty out the folder and copy in a new batch of podcasts. Or if I'm on the road with my Windows XP netbook, or traveling with my 13 inch MacBook Pro. Or in my office using my iMac. Or at a friend's house. You get the idea. It's totally not fussy about what you connect it to, and it never gets an idea that it knows better what should be on your device than you do.

My iPod ends up with all kinds of junk on it because even though I've been using one for seven years and I still don't understand how it works. I understood the Sony the first time I used it and it's never thrown a curveball at me. A few weeks ago I had to post here to find out how to get my iPhone out of shuffle mode.

Apple really does do nice user interfaces, but I think they either don't understand users, or don't like or trust them. The Walkman has lots of nice features, but it's nicest feature is that it's really simple.

BTW, last time I was in NY I saw that my mom had taken it with her on a walk and asked if she knew how to put new stuff on it, and she said yes. I consider this a major victory for tech!

Anyway it might not be for you. But a lot of people don't know that Sony now makes a good MP3 player. Hopefully I've done my part to help correct that.

MrKevvy writes "The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has found that federal hate-speech legislation violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equivalent of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights. This decision exonerates Marc Lemire, webmaster of FreedomSite.org, but may have farther-reaching consequences and serve as precedent for future complaints of hate-speech."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Malcolm Darby, 70, wore eyeglasses since he was a young child to compensate, he says, for being "blind as a bat." Last year, the Leicestershire, UK man suffered a stroke and now has perfect vision. Physicians operated to remove the blood clot apparently blocking 80 percent of his carotid artery. When Darby woke up, he noticed that his eyesight was just fine without his spectacles. From The Telegraph:

When Dr Darby woke from the anaesthetic he said he thought his vision had become even worse.

He said: "I was still a bit fuzzy from the surgery but reached for my glasses and put them on and I couldn't see a thing.

"I thought, 'oh no' I'm going to have to spend more money on new glasses.

"Then when I took them off I noticed a nurse carrying a newspaper upside down and I could read what it said. It didn't register at first and then suddenly I realised I could see.

It is unclear why the stroke or the operation appears to have caused such a dramatic improvement in Mr Darby's sight but doctors believe there may have been pressure on the optic nerve at the back of the eye which was relieved as the clot was cleared.

Dr Martin Fotherby, consultant stroke physician at Leicester Stroke Centre, said: "It's pretty unusual. It's a mystery."

"Stroke gives 'blind as bat' 70-year-old perfect vision"

So here's a random idea I had.

Most readers are probably familiar with Dave Gingery's series of books on building a set of homemade machine tools. The technique, basically, involves building an inexpensive homemade charcoal furnace and crucible for melting aluminum, then using traditional green-sand casting techniques to mold the various machine parts from wooden patterns. Much of the content of Gingery's books details the construction of these patterns.

As I have recently discovered, however, lost-foam casting is a much more accessible metal-casting technique than traditional green-sand. It requires no special flasks, no special sand, and no consideration of parting-line placement in designing patterns. Basically you make your pattern from styrofoam, bury it in sand, and pour hot aluminum into it. The foam vaporizes and diffuses into the sand, and you're left with a perfect aluminum duplicate. The only downside is that the pattern itself is destroyed, so if you screw up the casting or want more than one copy of a part you need a new pattern.

Here's what I'd like to see: Some enterprising soul with a CNC foam cutter could sell kits of the Gingery machine patterns ready-cut in XPS foam.

Then, if you wanted to build the Gingery tools, you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time learning the art of green-sand casting, or building the special tools required, or carpentering on the patterns themselves, most of which will only be used once anyway. You'd just buy a few ounces of pre-cut foam patterns in a kit, bury them in sand, and start pouring hot aluminum right away. Depending on sales volume, it might even be practical to make the foam patterns in conventional molds, the same way styrofoam packaging inserts are produced, at lower cost than CNC machining.

If you're interested, supportive, or (for your own unfathomable reasons) furious, feel free to sound off in the comments.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Kits | Digg this!

A few years ago, we wrote about how the grand-nephew of famed bank robber John Dillinger claiming rights over Dillinger's name, and threatening to sue anyone who either claims that Dillinger killed anyone (this is in dispute) or who is using Dillinger's name and making money. Of course, he has almost no legal basis for this, but it doesn't stop him from threatening litigation. The latest target? Video game giant EA. The gamemaker, who used "Dillinger" guns in various video games, is now preemptively taking the guy to court after he demanded millions of dollars from them -- and by doing so, gets to choose a more favorable court. It's good that EA's being proactive about this -- and hopefully a big win in court will stop others from being bullied by this guy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "For the Supreme Court's upcoming review of the Bilski decision, IBM has submitted an amicus brief claiming that software patents 'fueled the explosive growth of open source software development' (!) (p38 of linked PDF). EndSoftwarePatents, for its own amicus brief, is looking for help building a list of free software harmed by software patents, and a list of companies that distribute free software and are taxed by patent royalties."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My latest essay for GOOD draws from research we're doing at Institute for the Future around the notion that "everything is programmable." The idea is that emerging technologies--from pervasive computers to synthetic biology--are making it possible to program our bodies and our worlds to desired specifications. Increasingly, we are looking at the entire world through a computational lens. In this piece, I look at how we might use technology to reprogram our senses. From GOOD:

What if you could see with your skin? Or taste what you see? While those kinds of experiences might suggest a mental disorder, or an acid trip, the ability to substitute your senses by choice is on the horizon. A confluence of new technologies are leading to a kind of digital synesthesia.

Synesthesia, of course, is the fascinating neurological phenomenon whereby stimulation of one sense involuntarily triggers another sensory pathway. A synesthete might taste sounds or hear colors. But the ability to reroute the senses could dramatically help blind individuals, for example, or restore the sense of touch to amputees wearing prosthetic limbs...

"Digital Synesthesia"

College student and Instructables user woody1189 writes:

I've been meaning to make something cool for my dorm room this coming semester and decided that some custom closet lights would look great. In this Instructable, I'll show you how to make some nice-looking LED lights that will turn on automatically using a hall effect sensor and a magnet.

AVR/Arduino powered dorm projects are just picking up speed for the fall semester. What's yours? Let us know in the comments.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

It's pretty clear that Microsoft's patent boss, Horacio Gutierrez, and I don't agree on much, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I find nothing to like in Gutierrez's new call for "global patents." I can understand where the complaint comes from. It surely is a pain to have to apply for a patent in many different countries around the world, and to deal with different local systems and responses. And, yes, there is a big backlog at the patent office, which could be alleviated if many patent offices weren't all reviewing the same patents. But, having different patent systems actually serves an important function in better understanding the levers of innovation: which is that we get to compare different approaches and that different countries can try out different ideas to see what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately, we've already lost some of that uniqueness around the world due to the TRIPS agreement, which harmonized many patent systems on certain points, and took away some of the unique features of patent systems.

We've already seen that in "harmonizing" copyrights thanks to the Berne Convention that it's been made much more difficult for countries to correct mistakes (or even admit mistakes) with overly aggressive copyright laws. In fact, it's created a situation where the only direction copyright law seems to go is towards stronger protection -- almost always under claims of a need to "live up to international treaties." If we created a single global patent system, you'd have that problem on steroids. Rather than being able to experiment and cut back on the excesses and problems of the patent system, the entire world would be stuck with a single system, and any changes to the regulations would be driven by those who benefit most from being able to abuse such monopoly rights.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The pHduino project reports acidity levels over USB or an attached LCD -

The pHduino can operate using a LCD to display the pH and the temperature data like a pH meter. Also, you can control it using a computer by USB port.
The signal gain (slope) and the signal offset is adjusted manually by trimpots. The signal is compensated by a temperature sensor.
It seems inferior and a little bit more expensive compared with a pH meter bench instrument. However, it is interfaceable, programmable, expansible, and, the more important, open and free!
Again, it is not intent to be a high resolution analytical instrument to compete with a commercial pH meter. It is to be simple, easy to understand, easy to modify, and different!

Schematic, source code & more on Google Code [via Hack a Day]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

Geoffrey.landis writes "Robots and rovers will be running around in the desert in the NASA Desert RATS ('Research and Technology Studies') test in Arizona, including the heavy-lift rover 'All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer,' or ATHLETE. (See videos from newscientist.com). Some NASA robots from an earlier field test of robotic lunar excavators can be seen on video from the NASA page."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Quick -- how many games in the industry's long history can you name with a female lead? In her latest One More Go column, Margaret Robertson says the fact that we "run out of entries for the Great Gaming Leading Lady Pantheon before we run out of fingers is just plain odd" and asks, "Are we really saying that we can't find a viable way to make games that turn 51% of the world's population into heroes a goer?" Elsewhere on Offworld: huge indie news, as Derek Yu's procedurally-generated rogue-like platformer masterpiece Spelunky is announced for Xbox Live Arcade, and LostWinds -- the gorgeously gentle WiiWare debut game from Elite creators Frontier -- prepares for the Winter of the Melodias, its season-shifting sequel. Two classic Hudson franchises are also due for revivals, with hex-strategy game Military Madness/Nectaris announced for the iPhone and prehistoric underdog mascot Bonk comes to PS3/Xbox 360/Wii, and Gaijin Games announces the latest in its retro-futurist rhythm series with the pixel-collecting nothing-expanding beauty of Bit.Trip: Void (above). And our 'one shot's of the day: Rolando artist Mikko Walamies teases his intergalactic next, and the new face of Grand Theft Auto creators Rockstar: tigers with lasers, fire-breathing grizzlies, and stunt-jumpin' polars.

eldavojohn writes "The Financial Times is reporting that Sony is announcing 3D TVs for late 2010 at the IFA technology trade show in Berlin. It's another glasses-based technology with "active shutter" being employed (the same stuff teased at CES as well as employed on NVIDIA's glasses). Expect to see 3D Bravia television sets, Vaio laptops, PS3s and Blu-ray disc players compatible with this technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With so many stories out there of companies screwing over customers or making life difficult for users, it's always nice to hear a good story. Apparently, Netflix recently had a problem with their Xbox video streaming, and proactively refunded money to customers without them asking. I can't think of any other company I've heard of that's done that. Hell, I remember a past broadband provider who I would call (regularly) without outages, and the best they would do is say that after the service came back, I could call and then they would process a refund -- knowing that when that finally happened hours later, it wouldn't be worth the hassle to call back in and wait on hold.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

So you know how people say "Don't try this at home?" Yeah. Don't. HOWEVER: It's pretty cool. Ariel Schlesinger replaced the compressed air canister of a hand-held air horn with a butane canister. [via Hack a Day]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this!

Smivs writes with this interesting piece of computer history, excerpted from the BBC: "Britain's oldest original computer, the Harwell, is being sent to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley where it is to be restored to working order. The computer, which was designed in 1949 was built and used by staff at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire. It first ran in 1951 and was designed to perform mathematical calculations. It lasted until 1973. When first built the 2.4m x 5m computer was state-of-the-art, although it was superseded by transistor-based systems. The restoration project is expected to take a year. Although not the first computer built in the UK, the Harwell had one of the longest service lives. Built by a team of three people, the device was capable of doing the work of six to ten people and ran for seven years until the establishment obtained their first commercial computer. 'We didn't think we were doing anything pioneering at the time,' said Dick Barnes, who helped build the original Harwell computer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Like a sort of intermediary bridge between music gaming and more common music-making practices, Silent Studios & interactive artist Chris O’Shea built the Youth Music Box - currently on display @ the Royal Music Hall, London -

Youth Music Box is a free, interactive musical experience, allowing you to create your own unique track and video using cutting edge technology, all in under 10 minutes! Youth Music Box is currently living at the Royal Festival Hall, London and is a chance for anyone of any age to take part in making music – whether you’re an accomplished musician or complete beginner.

Check out the project's site for more info. [via CDM]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

theodp writes "A week after new USPTO Director David Kappos pooh-poohed the idea that a lower patent allowance rate equals higher quality, Google was granted a patent on its Home Page. Subject to how the design patent is enforced, Google now owns the idea of having a giant search box in the middle of the page, with two big buttons underneath and several small links nearby. And you doubted Google's commitment to patent reform, didn't you?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There have been plenty of questions over the years about the enforceability of online contracts, especially of the "clickwrap" variety. However, a recent ruling apparently says that contract terms are acceptable even if hidden behind a hyperlink. Apparently, the court found that because the link to the terms is "highlighted" in a different color, it's consider conspicuous enough that a reader should have clicked on it and read it.

Now, that's interesting to me, because I'd just been reading law professor Peter Friedman's blog post for his first year Contracts law class, where he talks about how few people actually read online agreements, and how many people probably agree to things they didn't think they had agreed to:

65 out of my 66 students (law students in a contracts class!) admitted in our first class they rarely or never read the online agreements they "agree" to. The only empirical survey I am aware of regarding consumer behavior in connection with online agreements found the following 7 years ago:

• 50% of the respondents said that they sometimes read online agreements and 40% never read them;
• Thus, only 10% of the respondents always read the online agreements that they encountered;
• Well over half of the respondents (64%) always click the Accept button and most of the others (35%) some times Accept;
• More than half of the respondents (55%) didn't believe that they were entering into a legally binding and enforceable contract even after clicking I Accept;
• Most (79%) never ever kept a copy of any click-wrap agreement that they entered into;
• The majority of respondents (90%) indicated that they never completely read shrink-wrap agreements;
• 38% of the total respondents came from the IT/Internet/E-commerce industries.

Andrew Gatt, "Electronic Commerce -- Click-Wrap Agreements: The Enforceability of Click-Wrap Agreements," doi:10.1016/S0267-3649(02)01105-6 (2002).

We've seen similar things in experiments that offered prizes within the clickwrap agreements, to see if anyone claimed them -- and it took four months and 3,000 downloads for anyone to claim the prize. In many ways, this actually reminds me of an old story about Van Halen's concert contracts with local promoters and venues, that was getting lots of attention last month, after it was featured on an episode of This American Life. Many people have heard the story of how the band had a rider in its contract demanding a bowl of M&M's backstage with all the brown ones removed. And most people who heard that story assumed it was a sign of rockstar divas with ridiculous demands. However, the true story is that it was actually in there to see if the people setting things up had actually read the details of the contract:

Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We'd pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors -- whether it was the girders couldn't support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren't big enough to move the gear through.

The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function. So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say "Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . ." This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.

And, indeed, what the band found out is that the contract is just as enforceable whether or not you read the contract -- and that appears to be the result online too. While I have heard of a few cases of courts rejecting clickwrap agreements, it certainly sounds like more and more are considering them to be viable, legally-binding contracts.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Last weekend I bumped into puzzle maker Bram Cohen at Make HQ, where we had the opportunity to check out some of his amazing mechanical puzzles and talk a bit about the various processes with which they are made (please excuse the A/V quality of my mobile).

One of the tools Bram uses to make these mind bending objects is a piece of software called Burr Tools. It's a 3D design program that builds puzzles out of basic units. Puzzles created with Burr Tools can be exported to an STL shape file that can be printed on a 3D printer.

Bram also showed off a prototype he designed that was milled from hardwood by a friend on their woodworking mill.

We also get to see Bram's first commercial puzzle. It's called "Cast Marble" by Hanayama. It's a captive marble inside a block. Both the marble and block are composed of cast metal segments that twist and turn into each other.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!

dangle writes "More than 20 million other smartphone users are on the AT&T network, but other phones do not drain the network the way the nine million iPhone users do. Because the average iPhone owner can use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user, dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and glacial download speeds are the result as AT&T's cellular network strains to meet the demand. AT&T says that the majority of the nearly $18 billion it will spend this year on its networks will be diverted into upgrades and expansions to meet the surging demands on the 3G network."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

dangle writes "More than 20 million other smartphone users are on the AT&T network, but other phones do not drain the network the way the nine million iPhone users do. Because the average iPhone owner can use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user, dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and glacial download speeds are the result as AT&T's cellular network strains to meet the demand. AT&T says that the majority of the nearly $18 billion it will spend this year on its networks will be diverted into upgrades and expansions to meet the surging demands on the 3G network."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Corel has introduced the Digital Studio 2010 image and video editing software package with touch operation. With the right hardware, users can touch and edit their digital files or use traditional mouse operation. The included software allows users to organize, edit and upload photos and videos, create slideshows and home movies complete with soundtracks and voice-over. Digital Studio 2010 is now available for download at a retail price of $99.99 USD or £59 GBP.

Last year, we noted that, it seemed clear that the Copyright Royalty Board was unconstitutional. This was due to a technical legal process change a few years ago (which also impacted the patent appeals board). Still, I noted that this probably wasn't a huge deal, because even if the CRB were found to be directed by improperly chosen judges, it would likely be "corrected" quickly by having the President (or a dept head) "reappoint" those same judges. Still, it's been odd that courts have been wary of addressing this issue. Earlier this summer two separate court rulings punted on the issue and refused to address it, instead focusing on other issues.

However, Live365 has now filed a lawsuit where this is the key issue, so hopefully a court will finally address it. Live365, of course, is at the mercy of the Copyright Royalty Board, and its ridiculous royalty rates, which make it nearly impossible to build a webstreaming business. Still, I'm not sure how much of an impact such a lawsuit can really have in the long run. As mentioned, even if it is found that the board is unconstitutional (which, a pretty plain reading of the Constitution suggests it is), it's not clear if anything really changes. The board will just get reappointed. At best this could throw out old CRB rulings. So it could be helpful to buy some time, but it's not clear if it addresses the underlying problem of why three old judges get to decide the business model of a bunch of companies.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

I am up late writing docs for the next River2 release and just got an email from Amazon about a new Samsung TV that has a built-in RSS reader. Here's a video report from CES 2008 where the TV was announced.

RSS is part of the fabric of the Internet which is now a feature of TVs. It's so cooool.

krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a UK Royal Society report claims that geo-engineering proposals to combat the effects of climate change are 'technically possible.' Three of the plans considered showed the most promise: 'CO2 capture from ambient air'; enhancing 'natural reactions of CO2 from the air with rocks and minerals'; and 'Land use and afforestation'. They also noted that solar radiation management, while some climate models showed them to be ineffective, should not be ignored. Possible suggestions included: 'a giant mirror on the Moon; a space parasol made of superfine aluminum mesh; and a swarm of 10 trillion small mirrors launched into space one million at a time every minute for the next 30 years.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a UK Royal Society report claims that geo-engineering proposals to combat the effects of climate change are 'technically possible'. Three of the plans considered showed the most promise: 'CO2 capture from ambient air'; enhancing 'natural reactions of CO2 from the air with rocks and minerals'; and 'Land use and afforestation'. They also noted that solar radiation management, while some climate models showed them to be ineffective, should not be ignored. Possible suggestions included: 'a giant mirror on the Moon; a space parasol made of superfine aluminum mesh; and a swarm of 10 trillion small mirrors launched into space one million at a time every minute for the next 30 years.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the common problems that we run into all the time is seeing courts trying to apply laws that were meant for a specific scenario to a totally different scenario. Take, for example, the question of the use of a photo on a coffee can. Let's say the photo is "infringing" on some right that was originally created to deal with publications such as newspapers or magazines. How do you figure out when the coffee can was "published"? Or is it even "published" at all? And is it republished every time a new can is sold? That's an issue faced by the California court system, as it struggles to figure out what counts as publication with a coffee can. It seems the courts agree that the coffee can is covered by a "single-publication" rule, meaning that if the image on the can is infringing or defamatory, it only counts as a single publication. But, where it's still struggling is on the date of publication issue. That's because, in this particular case, there's a statute of limitations of two years from the date of publication. But is that just when the first coffee can was sold? Or is the date of publication a running tally, so long as the cans keep being sold? And then, suddenly, you wonder: wait, why are we so concerned about infringement on a coffee can?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Watch these smash-and-grab burglars clean out the Sagemore Apple store in Marlton, New Jersey in 31 seconds (skip to 0:56 to see it). Reminds me of the game-show where contestants had to fill their shopping carts with the most valuable groceries in a big supermarket as quickly as possible.

(via Engadget)

You may have heard that Wikipedia has failed as a collaborative project, given up on letting anyone edit and instead put in a system where only a few trusted editors can work on bios of living people. You did?

It's a lie.

Turns out, what Wikipedia has done is instituted a system whereby a trusted editor can flag a bio of a living person as being vandalism free. This means that vandalism-fighters can simply look at all the edits since the last vandalism-free certification as a means of quickly finding and reverting bad edits.

Of course, that's complicated, useful, clever, and doesn't confirm the biases of all those people who are convinced that Wikipedia must fail.

The first is called "flagged protection". When this feature is enabled for an article, edits are possible but they will not be visible to the general public until an established editor flags the article as free of vandalism. This approach--the one discussed in the media--has been around for quite a while. It was adopted by the German-language Wikipedia in 2008 and following some high profile vandalism in January 2009, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales strongly advocated its adoption on the English version.

The second approach is called "patrolled revisions". It uses the same flagging system as the first but the flags are informational only; edits go live immediately but visitors can see whether the article has been vetted or not.

The truth about Wikipedia's flagged revisions (via Everything is Miscellaneous)

The Mannahatta Project is an interactive map of Manhattan as it appeared in 1609, indexed by streets. You can enter a landmark name or address and zoom into your favorite New York neighborhood as it appeared in a more primeval time. Shown here, the site of the iconic Flatiron Building: 23rd and 5th.

The Mannahatta Project (via Making Light)

I have to admit that I never quite understood the complaints about the "Hot Coffee" mod in Grand Theft Auto. First, it involved proactively modifying the software to unlock certain levels -- and those levels included scenes of consensual sex. Remember, this is a game that purposely is based on stealing cars, killing people, drug dealing and other sorts of illegal activity... and suddenly people got upset because of a hidden level that included a bit of consensual sex? Yet, lawsuits came flying from all directions. The company eventually tried to settle a class action lawsuit from users -- though most members of that "class" didn't even bother to make a claim, and the court eventually realized that the whole lawsuit was filed incorrectly, and ended up busting up the settlement.

But that wasn't the only lawsuit. Another lawsuit involved shareholders, who claimed that the company was trying to mislead shareholders about Hot Coffee. A judge dismissed that claim, but apparently the shareholders kept suing, and the new management at Take-Two decided it would be best to just settle the lawsuit, fork over $20 million (much of it paid for by insurance) and just be done with the whole thing. In some ways, this is really too bad. It's difficult to see how having an easter egg in a bit of software could possibly be seen as being misleading to shareholders, and this settlement will only encourage other similar lawsuits.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

NASA offers funding to undergrads and graduate students in a huge cross section of fields including physics, engineering, math, and computer science. The 2009 NASA ASP scholarship cycle opened Sept. 1. It's a great time to be in school, especially studying science and engineering!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Education | Digg this!

This former Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Palms community of West Los Angeles is now Kind For Cures, a medical marijuana dispensary. And the Colonel's counsel calls in 3... 2... 1... "New KFC Opens In Palms? Sort of..."

coondoggie writes "The airborne military laser which promises to destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage has for the first time actually blown something up. Boeing and the US Air Force today said that on Aug. 30, a C-130H aircraft armed with Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) blasted a target test vehicle on the ground for the first time. Boeing has been developing the ATL since 2008 under an Air Force contract worth up to $30 million."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The NY Times recently had a blog post noting that the makers of an $850,000 romantic comedy called X's and O's were thrilled that their movie was widely shared on file sharing networks, because the attention it got helped land them a big DVD distribution deal, and potentially a television deal, helped along by the attention received from that file sharing. Of course, there's just one little problem. The FreakBits guys noticed that the number of downloads the movies' creators are citing are almost certainly false. Apparently some sites post fake download numbers as a part of their advertising, and the movie makers used those fake numbers. But... it seemed to get them attention to get more deals, so more power to them. No matter what, it suggests that (once again) obscurity is a much bigger problem than piracy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

itwbennett writes "If you want to hire a hacker, you need to take a more psychology-based approach to the entire interview process to determine whether he or she has changed their ways enough to be a trustworthy employee, says Mich Kabay in a recent Network World blog post. But this approach is also 'germane for highly skilled staffers, even those that don't come with arrest records or who have done something questionable in their pasts,' says David Strom. For example, in your next interview, ask a question that will suss out how much of a sense of entitlement a candidate has — or how much you or your company has. 'One time when I interviewed with Microsoft in Redmond I couldn't get over this sense of corporate entitlement — it was one of the biggest turn-offs that I had during my interviewing day there,' says Strom. 'I got the feeling that I wasn't going to fit in, no matter how smart I thought (or they thought) I was.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We just wrote about the rather insane process by which major record labels go through to pick which songs will be the "single" they promote off of an album. We focused on all the "protections" the labels try to build in to keep the songs from leaking while the execs make this wise decision -- but there's a separate issue as well: why is it that these execs are really the best at picking the hit single? The folks behind the "New Rockstar Philosophy" book point us to an article talking about Jason Mraz's hit song "I'm Yours," which you've almost certainly heard unless you live on a deserted island (if not, it's on YouTube of course). It's pretty catchy -- but the key point raised by the link above is that Mraz apparently didn't keep the song hidden and locked up until some bright execs could figure out the hit single (though, yes, he's been on a major label for years...). The article notes that he performed the song live for audiences for years before putting it on an album, and it was the audience response that made him realize it was a perfect hit single:

"The song was really born into the crowd. ... I noticed almost an immediate response to it and people really celebrated in a different way during that song," he said in a phone interview. "And then by having those three years to jam to the song, it gave us the opportunity to do something simple, yet spirited" in the studio.

And the song is doing quite well. The whole point of the article is to note that the song has the longest ever run on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Apparently sales of the song weren't "hurt" by the fact that people could hear it long before it was chosen as a single. In fact, it seemed to do just fine. So why do execs try to lock up that decision making process so much?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Ah, dorm life. Always more challenge than thrill, being crammed in close quarters with a potential total stranger can be a nightmare if the limited space is not managed well. It's about that time of year again, so perfect to resurrect Alan Mellovitz' TV Spinner DIY from MAKE Volume 08. Back in 2006, Adam was a mechanical engineering sophomore at the University of Illinois, and he came up with a motorized lazy Susan stand for his TV. He then mounted the setup above his top bunk, maximizing space in his tiny room. I love the way Lego motor setups look, so here are two closeups. On the left is the tension spring that pulls the axle against the edge of the TV stand. On the right is the motor and gears in place. Gear reduction on the Lego motor gives sufficient torque while 3 medium gears on the axle engage the rubber weather stripping on the spinner's edge as a friction drive.

And here's the whole thing in place in Adam's old dorm room:

Check out the full DIY in our Digital Edition to make your own.

Unfortunately, we're completely sold out of back issues of MAKE Volume 08 as well as The Next Year box set that included Volume 08. But if you subscribe, you can have digital access to all the volumes ever made!</em

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!