It looks like Google has won it’s court case over alleged Usenet archiving “violations”.  Some author had put his work up on Usenet, we can only assume to troll for people to “violate” his copyright.  When Google then archived the Usenet post, he sued for a reem of offences.
The court dismissed all of the complaints […]

What to do with that 100,000$ (USD) in grant money you’ve got kicking around?  String together 50 touch panels, of course!
Academia doesn’t have any real challenges to conquer, so they’ve gone for simply putting lots of expensive crap together.  At least this particular hall of academia.
Hey, I’ve got an idea.  Why don’t you send me […]

Bill Gates is openly mocking plans to provide low-cost high-durability laptops to the developing world. Because, in his words,
“If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the […]

Seriously. Those delicious little pieces of goo have won me over.
And it’s not like they only have one purpose, no! They’re a many faceted foodstuff.
You can use them to foil a biometric fingerprint scanner. Now that’s funny. Not Boston Is Funny, but rather “we just stole your nations trade secrets” funny.
I’ve always […]

New word on the malware front.  The coming ubiquity of the RFID tag could signal a headache for all those outfits looking to save time/money by employing them for easy tracking.
Backend databases can be infected by viruses designed into infected RFID tags.  These viruses can also leap back to RFID tags, if I’m reading that […]

It’s new, scary, and they don’t like it. No. Seriously.
Apparently disabled people (or at least the folks that are paid to represent them) are just like everyone else. e.g. they start complaining long before actually looking at a product and will complain about any change. While it’s true that special needs […]

Looks like the French caught wind of the fact that DRM doesn’t impinge on copyright infringment, only lawful use.  They’re proposing to allow DRM circumvention to transfer files between devices.
Also in the bill is a measure to make Apple open up their iTunes store for competitors.  Apparently they’re starting to look a bit too much […]

Now, we all know what happens when politicos get involved in something.  They tend to foul it up.  Not that that’s always a bad thing, some things need to be fouled up.  Like corporate malfescence.
However, I’ve been a strong supporter of not letting them anywhere near the gaming and entertainment industries.  It can brook no […]

I know. I know. You’re thinking that pie both exists and is a tasty dessert that compliments many American and European dishes. But today we’re talking about the number rumoured to be ~3.14.
It doesn’t exist. Now, you might have an argument to the contrary. But if you can find me a […]

Most places would tell you you need to have a hub or at the least a crossover network cable if you’re going to be networking a couple PCs together.
Not so, Dell.
Apparently, when a person over in the UK called to purchase a couple of PCs and inquired about networking together the Dell rep posited that […]