Slashdot Mirror

desmondhaynes writes "The GIMP team announced today the first release from the 2.5 development series. It is true that this version is unstable, but a little bird told me to give it a try and see what's it capable of. First of all, let me tell you that its interface is quite redesigned and I think that some users will have problems adjusting with it, but that's just my two cents. On the other hand, version 2.5.0 of The GIMP includes some hot new features, like the integration of GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) which will finally get support for higher color depths, more colorspaces and eventually non-destructive editing."

symbolset writes "InternetNews is reporting that Cisco's new Application eXtension Platform turns several models of Cisco switches into Linux application servers. With certified libraries in C, Java and Perl, developers will be able to use a downloadable SDK to build their apps. The AXP server is just another module in a Cisco switch running Cisco's own derivation of a modern Linux distro (Kernel 2.6.x) specifically hardened to run on that particular hardware. Modules will include up to 1.4-GHz Intel Pentiums with 2 GB RAM and a 160 GB hard drive."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "On January 2, 2008, the Massachusetts State Police ordered MediaSentry, the RIAA's investigator, to cease and desist from conducting investigations in Massachusetts without a license. Based on what appears to be irrefutable proof that MediaSentry has been violating that order, the Boston University students who tentatively won, in London-Sire v. Doe 1, an order tentatively quashing the subpoena for their identities, have brought a new motion to vacate the RIAA's court papers altogether, on the ground that the RIAA's 'evidence' was procured by criminal behavior."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "On January 2, 2008, the Massachusetts State Police ordered MediaSentry, the RIAA's investigator, to cease and desist from conducting investigations in Massachusetts without a license. Based on what appears to be irrefutable proof that MediaSentry has been violating that order, the Boston University students who tentatively won, in London-Sire v. Doe 1, an order tentatively quashing the subpoena for their identities, have brought a new motion to vacate the RIAA's court papers altogether, on the ground that the RIAA's 'evidence' was procured by criminal behavior."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "On January 2, 2008, the Massachusetts State Police ordered MediaSentry, the RIAA's investigator, to cease and desist from conducting investigations in Massachusetts without a license. Based on what appears to be irrefutable proof that MediaSentry has been violating that order, the Boston University students who tentatively won, in London-Sire v. Doe 1, an order tentatively quashing the subpoena for their identities, have brought a new motion to vacate the RIAA's court papers altogether, on the ground that the RIAA's 'evidence' was procured by criminal behavior."

desmondhaynes writes "There were striking similarities between one of Google's App Engine demos, HuddleChat (a real-time chat application) and the Campfire app from 37Signals. Google has taken HuddleChat down from the App Engine app gallery." Google explains: 'The App Engine team was looking for some sample apps to help kick the tires on their new system, so we invited Googlers to build some as side projects. A couple of our colleagues here built HuddleChat in their spare time because they wanted to share work within their team more easily and thought persistent web chat would do the trick. We've heard some complaints from the developer community, though, so rather than divert attention from Google App Engine itself, we thought it better to just take HuddleChat down.'" We noted the launch of Google's App Engine yesterday.

Update: 04/10 14:51 GMT by KD : A reader wrote in to warn that the link in this article is infected. Windows users beware, and have your AV up-to-date.

desmondhaynes writes "There were striking similarities between one of Google's App Engine demos, HuddleChat (a real-time chat application) and the Campfire app from 37Signals. Google has taken HuddleChat down from the App Engine app gallery." Google explains: 'The App Engine team was looking for some sample apps to help kick the tires on their new system, so we invited Googlers to build some as side projects. A couple of our colleagues here built HuddleChat in their spare time because they wanted to share work within their team more easily and thought persistent web chat would do the trick. We've heard some complaints from the developer community, though, so rather than divert attention from Google App Engine itself, we thought it better to just take HuddleChat down.'" We noted the launch of Google's App Engine yesterday.

Update: 04/10 14:51 GMT by KD : A reader wrote in to warn that the link in this article is infected. Windows users beware, and have your AV up-to-date.

An anonymous reader writes "Google is giving a handful of web programmers the opportunity to create and run their own Web applications on their servers. Today's launch of a preview release of Google App Engine signals a new era of collaboration with third-party software developers. 'The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new Web app, and then make it easy to scale when that app reaches the point where it's receiving significant traffic and has millions of users," said Google product manager, Paul McDonald in a blog post."

An anonymous reader writes "Google is giving a handful of web programmers the opportunity to create and run their own Web applications on their servers. Today's launch of a preview release of Google App Engine signals a new era of collaboration with third-party software developers. 'The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new Web app, and then make it easy to scale when that app reaches the point where it's receiving significant traffic and has millions of users," said Google product manager, Paul McDonald in a blog post."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "As first reported by p2pnet, the motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena seeking identities of Boston University students has been granted, at least for the moment. In a 52-page opinion (pdf) the Judge concluded that she could not decide whether or not to quash until she had seen the college's 'Terms of Service Agreement' for internet service. It was only then she could decide what 'expectation of privacy' the students had. She quashed the subpoena calling for the student identities, and told them they could go ahead with a subpoena just for the terms of service agreement. Interestingly the decision was issued on the very same day as the judge in Elektra v. Barker came to some of the same conclusions."

Phurge found a post on the Google Policy Blog in which they lift the cone of silence that had been imposed by regulation over the recently concluded FCC spectrum auction. As some had speculated, Google was in it mainly to force some openness into the wireless industry. "Based on the way that the bidding played out, our participation in the auction helped ensure that the C Block met the reserve price. In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid — even though no one was bidding against us — to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the US Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee."

MissingRainbow writes "To avoid paying taxes in India, Microsoft wanted a court to believe that it is selling its product and that there are no royalty payments involved. Their own EULA worked against them in this particular case however as it states, "the product is licensed, not sold". The court ruled against them."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Remember those pesky student attorneys from the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, who inspired the Magistrate Judge to suggest monetary fines against the RIAA lawyers? Well they're in the RIAA's face once again, and this time they're trying to shut down the RIAA's whole 'discovery' machine: the lawsuits it files against 'John Does' in order to find out their names and addresses. They've gone and filed a Rule 11 motion for sanctions (PDF), seeking — among other things — an injunction against all such 'John Doe' cases, arguing that the cases seek to circumvent the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which protects student privacy rights, are brought for improper purposes of obtaining discovery, getting publicity, and intimidation, and are in flagrant violation of the joinder rules and numerous court orders. If the injunction is granted, the RIAA will have to go back to the drawing board to find another way of finding out the identities of college students, and the ruling — depending on its reasoning — might even be applicable to the non-college cases involving commercial ISPs."

mithro writes "If you thought that you had missed out on applying to the Google Summer of Code, you've just gotten a reprieve. The deadline for student submissions has been extended from the original April 1 to Monday April 7, 2008. To quote Leslie Hawthorn: 'This year, we experimented with the Google Summer of Code program timeline, providing one week for students to discuss project ideas with their mentors and then a single week to submit applications. The good news is that we've heard that overall application quality is much higher this year and that students have really benefited from the opportunity to have extra time to discuss their ideas with their potential mentors. However, we've still heard feedback from the community that it would be useful to provide more time for students to submit their applications, so we've done just that.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a 25-page decision (PDF) which has been awaited for two years in Elektra v. Barker, Judge Kenneth M. Karas has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory and its 'authorization' theory, but sustained the sufficiency of the complaint's allegations of 'distribution' and 'downloading,' and also gave the RIAA 30 days to cure the defects in its complaint by filing a new complaint. The judge left it open for the RIAA to allege that defendant made an 'offer to distribute,' and that the offer was for "'the purpose of further distribution,' which, the judge held, would be actionable."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a 25-page decision (PDF) which has been awaited for two years in Elektra v. Barker, Judge Kenneth M. Karas has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory and its 'authorization' theory, but sustained the sufficiency of the complaint's allegations of 'distribution' and 'downloading,' and also gave the RIAA 30 days to cure the defects in its complaint by filing a new complaint. The judge left it open for the RIAA to allege that defendant made an 'offer to distribute,' and that the offer was for "'the purpose of further distribution,' which, the judge held, would be actionable."

Zeinfeld writes "Wired reports that one time Clipper Chip supporter Dorothy Denning wrote a report on using blogs for information warfare in 2006 (a report available from cryptome). Amongst the proposals were hiring bloggers directly as propaganda agents and using military media resources to 'make' a blogger posting favorable material. Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media." Is meme warfare just another battleground, or is this dirty pool?

Joe Mullin writes "We've discussed Troll Tracker here before — the anonymous blogger who was outed last month as Rick Frenkel, a Cisco lawyer. Since then, two lawyers from the notoriously patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas have filed defamation suits against Frenkel and Cisco, and Frenkel's blog has been shuttered. One of the plaintiffs, a renowned patent judge's son, may have been hunting the anonymous blogger for months. This week Cisco announced new blogging guidelines in response to the Troll Tracker fiasco. The company acknowledged that 'a few Cisco employees used poor judgment' during secret-blog-time, but they're largely standing by their man. Cisco's new rules will prohibit only anonymous blogging by employees about issues for which 'they have responsibilities at Cisco.'"

dooling writes "In case you were thinking of building your own atom bomb, you may want to weigh your intellectual property liability. It seems there are over 2000 patents covering the atom bomb. To avoid publishing the patents, a central tenet of the patent system, "the project made use of an obscure law whereby patent applications could be filed but no one would actually look at them or evaluate them. They would just be stamped secret and stored in a vault at the patent office." The irony here is that while all the patents were essentially stored in the same place at the patent office and written to be understandable by any engineer, the Manhattan Project worked diligently to compartmentalize knowledge, using code names for just about all aspects of the project and keeping tight security on all information. It seems the patents were filed to give the U.S. government an essential monopoly on the burgeoning nuclear industry and protect it against others who might patent similar technologies later."

FreedomFighter writes "Since the release of Windows Vista, Creative has promised their Sound Cards as being 'Vista Ready'. Unfortunately, as many unlucky customers did discover, this is not true. What the users actually found were buggy, feature crippled drivers. Creative insisted that features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(TM) signals and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on windows Vista. With Creative releasing less than one new driver a year, things seemed bleak. Fortunately, a talented user, Daniel_K, was recently able to 'fix' many of the drivers, enabling the incompatible features and also fixing many bugs. Just today Creative has decided to put a stop to this. They removed all links to his modified drivers, and banned several users who were posting links to the now banned drivers."

The God Plays Dice blog has an entertaining post on how the date of Easter is calculated. Wikipedia has all the messy details of course, but the blog makes a good introduction to the topic. "Easter is the date of the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21... [T]he cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to the epact, each of which depend[s] only on the century; one repeats (modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every 375 centuries, so the [p]air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000 [years]."

arbitraryaardvark writes "A new mathematical object has been discovered by Bristol University student Ce Bian. The Riemann hypothesis, unproven since 1859, has to do with the distribution of primes and something called L-functions. Bian has demonstrated the first known third-degree transcendental L-function. This apparently opens up a new way to go about looking for proofs of the Riemann hypothesis. There is an unclaimed $1 million prize for a valid proof. We've discussed a couple of earlier attempts to claim the prize."

sdedeo writes "Less known than he deserves to be among American science fiction readers is Iain M. Banks. In his native United Kingdom, Banks' work is released in hardcover at the front of bookshops; here, those seeking his science fiction work, at least, must dig down into the trade paperbacks — and often find things out of print. Those who do discover him in the States are usually pleasantly surprised to find the writing far more clever and engagingly written than the low-budget production values imply. With Orbit's release of his latest work, Matter, as well as its planned re-release of some of his earlier classics, things look to change." Read below for the rest of Simon's review. Matter author Iain M. Banks pages 593 publisher Orbit rating 8 reviewer Simon DeDeo ISBN 0316005363 summary Iain M. Banks latest space opera Banks is one of the leading authors of what might be called the Space Opera Renaissance. While the 1980s saw the creation of the cyberpunk genre, and the 1990s were for many the great era of "Hard SF" — science-centered masterworks such as Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian trilogy and Gregory Benford's Timescape — the 21st century seems to perhaps be an era impatient for the sometimes comical, sometimes tragic galaxy-wide sweep of writers such as John Meaney and Peter Hamilton.

The space opera is not a science-driven work. Unlike the harder stuff, quantum mechanics rarely makes more than a parenthetical and deus ex machina appearance, and relativity's time-bending constraints do not apply. Unlike the cyberpunk genre, epitomized by Neal Stephenson, it is rarely "idea driven"; McGuffins remain solidly unexplained, and society drives technology, not the other way around.

If the hero of Hard SF is a scientist, and the hero of cyberpunk is the wildcat entrepreneur, the hero of the Space Opera would be quite familiar to readers of myth and legend — the Quixotian wanderer, the deposed prince, the second son. Indeed, to the less sympathetic, the space opera can seem closer to the fantasy genre, following the usual dictum that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Which brings us to the particular flavor of opera in Matter. Over the course of nearly a dozen novels, Banks has tuned and fine-tuned his own version of the Milky Way, one crowded by a huge number of species of wildly differing technologies and abilities. In a largish corner is the Culture, a kind of humanoid amalgam of different species whose point-of-view forms the center of Banks' vision.

This far in the future, technology renders scarcity obsolete, leaving the Culture free to practice a kind of anarchistic benevolence towards less developed species. Emphasis on the anarchistic: this is no Star Trek chain-of-command, but a strange, sometimes disturbing group characterized by a near-fanatical individualism and occasional pangs of guilt. Some of Banks' most charming stories are about various offshoots of the Culture, including the strange choices made by the many sentient AIs.

Banks' prose is free-flowing and liberally dosed with a kind of cynical, post-colonial British humanism; as the Culture meddles and blunders Banks' narrators look on with a sad half-smile. The British charm appears also in his characterization of the artificially intelligent machines, who often play Jeeves to more fallible, biological, Bertie Woosters.

Meanwhile, death and suffering accumulates liberally as the usual plot drivers — competing species at the Culture's level of development, or far less advanced places that hack away with swords, guns and terribly retro fission devices, observed by grains of spy-dust that entertain or horrify the more advanced.

The wide scope of Banks' world gives him plenty of space to play out, in miniature, a number of different genre conventions. Steampunk makes something of an appearance in Matter as the central story putters along with steam engines — beneath an artificial sky created eons ago by a vastly superior race that has long-disappeared.

Matter is perhaps not Banks' best — earlier novels such as Excession or Look to Windward might be a better place for newcomers to Banks. In Matter, things drag from time to time and perhaps fifty of the five hundred pages could be cut without pain. One wishes occasionally for a North-by-Northwest cut past some of the plot development that feels a bit dutiful near the end.

But the sparkle of Banks is largely undimmed, both in the grand sweeps of plot and the dozen-page grace-notes that for a less-talented writer would be the germ of a novella. Neglected since the era of E. E. "Doc" Smith, the space opera is back. And Banks has been there all the time.

Although currently 30,000 feet over the Atlantic, Simon DeDeo is usually at home in Chicago, Illinois, where he works as an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and moonlights as a literary critic. He last wrote for slashdot on the politics of blogging.

You can purchase Matter from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

kulbirsaini writes "Google has announced the list of accepted organizations for the Google Summer of Code 2008. 'No doubt many would-be Summer of Code students are wondering what their next steps should be. We've changed the program timeline this year, leaving a week in between the announcement of accepted mentoring organizations and opening for student applications. Use this week to meet your potential mentors and discuss your project ideas with them, and keep on eye on the program mailing lists, as we'll post notes about additional resources for learning about our mentoring organizations.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Recommended reading for all interested in the RIAA's litigation war against p2p file sharing is the amended class action complaint just filed in Oregon in Andersen v. Atlantic. This landmark 109-page document (pdf) tells both the general story of the RIAA's campaign against ordinary folks, and the specific story of its harassment of Tanya Andersen, and even of her young daughter. The complaint includes federal and state RICO claims, as well as other legal theories, and alleges that "The world's four major recording studios had devised an illegal enterprise intent on maintaining their virtually complete monopoly over the distribution of recorded music." The point has been made by one commentator that the RIAA won't be able to weasel its out of this one by simply withdrawing it; this one, they will have to answer for. If the relief requested in the complaint is granted, the RIAA's entire campaign will be shut down for good."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Recommended reading for all interested in the RIAA's litigation war against p2p file sharing is the amended class action complaint just filed in Oregon in Andersen v. Atlantic. This landmark 109-page document (pdf) tells both the general story of the RIAA's campaign against ordinary folks, and the specific story of its harassment of Tanya Andersen, and even of her young daughter. The complaint includes federal and state RICO claims, as well as other legal theories, and alleges that "The world's four major recording studios had devised an illegal enterprise intent on maintaining their virtually complete monopoly over the distribution of recorded music." The point has been made by one commentator that the RIAA won't be able to weasel its out of this one by simply withdrawing it; this one, they will have to answer for. If the relief requested in the complaint is granted, the RIAA's entire campaign will be shut down for good."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Is Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG 'investigator' MediaSentry operating illegally in your state?. The Massachusetts State police has already banned the company, and it's been accused of operating without a license in Oregon, Florida, Texas, and New York. Similar charges have now been leveled the organization in Michigan. Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth, in response to a complaint, has confirmed that MediaSentry is not licensed in Michigan, and referred the complainant to the local prosecutor."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Is Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG 'investigator' MediaSentry operating illegally in your state?. The Massachusetts State police has already banned the company, and it's been accused of operating without a license in Oregon, Florida, Texas, and New York. Similar charges have now been leveled the organization in Michigan. Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth, in response to a complaint, has confirmed that MediaSentry is not licensed in Michigan, and referred the complainant to the local prosecutor."

Bruce G Charlton writes "A new paper in Medical Hypotheses suggests that very big cash prizes could specifically be targeted to stimulate 'revolutionary' science. Usually, prizes tend to stimulate 'applied' science — as in the most famous example of Harrison's improved clock solving the 'longitude' problem. But for prizes successfully to stimulate revolutionary science the prizes need to be: 1. Very large (and we are talking seven figure 'pop star' earnings, here) to compensate for the high risk of failure when tackling major scientific problems, 2. Awarded to scientists at a young enough age that it influences their behavior in (about) their mid-late twenties — when they are deciding on their career path, and: 3. Include objective and transparent scientometric criteria, to prevent the prize award process being corrupted by 'political' incentives. Such mega-cash prizes, in sufficient numbers, might incentivize some of the very best young scientists to make more ambitious, long-term — but high-risk — career choices. The real winner of this would be society as a whole; since ordinary science can successfully be done by second-raters — but only first-rate scientists can tackle the toughest scientific problems."

Glyn Moody writes "Until now, the received wisdom has been that GNU/Linux will never take off with general users because it's too complicated. One of the achievements of the popular new Asus Eee PC is that it has come up with a tab-based front end that hides the complexity. But maybe its real significance is that it has pushed down the price to the point where the extra cost of using Microsoft Windows over free software is so significant that ordinary users notice. As Moore's Law drives flash memory prices even lower, can ultraportables running Microsoft Windows compete?"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A technology battle is raging in UMG v. Lindor, a court case in Brooklyn. The issue at hand is whether the RIAA's investigator SafeNet (the company that acquired MediaSentry) now needs to disclose its digital files, validation methodology, testing procedures, failure rates, software manuals, protocols, packet logs, source code, and other materials, so that the validity of its methods can be evaluated by the defense. SafeNet and the RIAA say no, claiming that the information is 'proprietary and confidential'. Ms. Lindor says yes, if you're going to testify in federal court the other side has a right to test your evidence. A list of what is being sought (pdf) is available online. MediaSentry has produced 'none of the above'. 'Put up or shut up' says one commentator to SafeNet."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A technology battle is raging in UMG v. Lindor, a court case in Brooklyn. The issue at hand is whether the RIAA's investigator SafeNet (the company that acquired MediaSentry) now needs to disclose its digital files, validation methodology, testing procedures, failure rates, software manuals, protocols, packet logs, source code, and other materials, so that the validity of its methods can be evaluated by the defense. SafeNet and the RIAA say no, claiming that the information is 'proprietary and confidential'. Ms. Lindor says yes, if you're going to testify in federal court the other side has a right to test your evidence. A list of what is being sought (pdf) is available online. MediaSentry has produced 'none of the above'. 'Put up or shut up' says one commentator to SafeNet."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A technology battle is raging in UMG v. Lindor, a court case in Brooklyn. The issue at hand is whether the RIAA's investigator SafeNet (the company that acquired MediaSentry) now needs to disclose its digital files, validation methodology, testing procedures, failure rates, software manuals, protocols, packet logs, source code, and other materials, so that the validity of its methods can be evaluated by the defense. SafeNet and the RIAA say no, claiming that the information is 'proprietary and confidential'. Ms. Lindor says yes, if you're going to testify in federal court the other side has a right to test your evidence. A list of what is being sought (pdf) is available online. MediaSentry has produced 'none of the above'. 'Put up or shut up' says one commentator to SafeNet."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's litigation campaign has met resistance from the academic community before, but now it's been taken to a whole new level: the defense of RIAA victims who are not part of the college community. First the University of Oregon lashed out on behalf of its students, then it was the University of Maine's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic on behalf of its undergrads. Now, the University of San Francisco School of Law has taken the fight a giant step further. Its Intellectual Property Law Clinic's attorneys-in-training, working under the supervision of law professors, are going to bat against the RIAA by helping outside lawyers to defend their clients, pro bono. They reached out 3000 miles to get involved in Elektra v. Torres and Maverick v. Chowdhury, two cases going on in Brooklyn, NY, against non-college defendants. Two of the law students in the USF's legal program assisted in the research and preparation of briefs in these cases, opposing the RIAA's motion to dismiss the defendants' counterclaims. Thousands of honor students throughout United States law schools, most of them digital natives who actually understand the legal fallacies and technological missteps the RIAA is taking, and who can't wait to expose them, make a pretty good resource for the poor and middle class people trying to defend these cases."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's litigation campaign has met resistance from the academic community before, but now it's been taken to a whole new level: the defense of RIAA victims who are not part of the college community. First the University of Oregon lashed out on behalf of its students, then it was the University of Maine's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic on behalf of its undergrads. Now, the University of San Francisco School of Law has taken the fight a giant step further. Its Intellectual Property Law Clinic's attorneys-in-training, working under the supervision of law professors, are going to bat against the RIAA by helping outside lawyers to defend their clients, pro bono. They reached out 3000 miles to get involved in Elektra v. Torres and Maverick v. Chowdhury, two cases going on in Brooklyn, NY, against non-college defendants. Two of the law students in the USF's legal program assisted in the research and preparation of briefs in these cases, opposing the RIAA's motion to dismiss the defendants' counterclaims. Thousands of honor students throughout United States law schools, most of them digital natives who actually understand the legal fallacies and technological missteps the RIAA is taking, and who can't wait to expose them, make a pretty good resource for the poor and middle class people trying to defend these cases."

Gaveen writes "The popular JotSpot, which was acquired by Google some time ago, is now officially part of the family. JotSpot is now integrated into Google Apps as Google Sites. InfoWorld has a writeup on the service."

nweaver writes "In a response to the LA Times editorial on copyright which we discussed a week ago, the paper published a response arguing: 'If Intellectual Property is actually property, why isn't it covered by a property tax?' If copyright maintenance involved paying a fee and registration, this would keep Mickey Mouse safely protected by copyright, while ensuring that works that are no longer economically relevant to the copyright holder pass into the public domain, where the residual social value can serve the real purpose of copyright: to enhance the progress of science and useful arts. Disclaimer: the author is my father."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands counterpart in its tracks back in 2005 — has submitted an expert witness report characterizing the work of the RIAA's expert, Dr. Doug Jacobson, as 'borderline incompetence.' The report (PDF), filed in UMG v. Lindor, pointed out, among other things, that the steps needed to be taken in a copyright infringement investigation were not taken, that Jacobson's work lacked 'in-depth analysis' and 'proper scientific scrutiny,' that Jacobson's reports were 'factually erroneous,' and that they were contradicted by his own deposition testimony. This is the first expert witness report of which we are aware since the Free Software Foundation announced that it would be coming to the aid of RIAA defendants."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands counterpart in its tracks back in 2005 — has submitted an expert witness report characterizing the work of the RIAA's expert, Dr. Doug Jacobson, as 'borderline incompetence.' The report (PDF), filed in UMG v. Lindor, pointed out, among other things, that the steps needed to be taken in a copyright infringement investigation were not taken, that Jacobson's work lacked 'in-depth analysis' and 'proper scientific scrutiny,' that Jacobson's reports were 'factually erroneous,' and that they were contradicted by his own deposition testimony. This is the first expert witness report of which we are aware since the Free Software Foundation announced that it would be coming to the aid of RIAA defendants."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Prof. Johan Pouwelse of Delft University — one of the world's foremost experts on the science of P2P file sharing and the very same Prof. Pouwelse who stopped the RIAA's Netherlands counterpart in its tracks back in 2005 — has submitted an expert witness report characterizing the work of the RIAA's expert, Dr. Doug Jacobson, as 'borderline incompetence.' The report (PDF), filed in UMG v. Lindor, pointed out, among other things, that the steps needed to be taken in a copyright infringement investigation were not taken, that Jacobson's work lacked 'in-depth analysis' and 'proper scientific scrutiny,' that Jacobson's reports were 'factually erroneous,' and that they were contradicted by his own deposition testimony. This is the first expert witness report of which we are aware since the Free Software Foundation announced that it would be coming to the aid of RIAA defendants."

dooling writes "Later this week, the completion of the maize genome draft sequence will be announced. Maize has a large genome (slightly smaller than human) that is highly repetitive (about 80%). These facts made a whole-genome shotgun approach to sequencing infeasible. Therefore, a BAC-by-BAC approach was taken, similar to what was done for the Human Genome Project. Further work on the maize genome will focus on the parts of the genome that have genes, thereby avoiding the highly-repetitive regions of the genome (even though the maize genome is slightly smaller than human, it is thought to have about twice as many genes). You can read my take here."

dooling writes "Later this week, the completion of the maize genome draft sequence will be announced. Maize has a large genome (slightly smaller than human) that is highly repetitive (about 80%). These facts made a whole-genome shotgun approach to sequencing infeasible. Therefore, a BAC-by-BAC approach was taken, similar to what was done for the Human Genome Project. Further work on the maize genome will focus on the parts of the genome that have genes, thereby avoiding the highly-repetitive regions of the genome (even though the maize genome is slightly smaller than human, it is thought to have about twice as many genes). You can read my take here."

DustyShadow writes "Slashdot previously discussed the $10,000 bounty (since raised to $15,000) that was put on the identity of the Patent Troll Tracker author by a law firm that represents patent holding 'shell' companies. After he received a threatening email last week, the author identified himself as Richard Frenkel, a director in Cisco Systems' intellectual property group. According to law.com, many patent litigators have followed the Troll Tracker closely and are worried that it may now be discontinued. According to the lawyer who offered the bounty, it has not been claimed."

morrison writes "The 2008 Google Summer of Code is on. We have discussed this four-year-old tradition before (2005, 2006, 2007). Google will once again be hosting a program that gives computer science students a $4,500 stipend to work on open source software projects. Last year, Google funded over 900 students' projects in more than 90 countries. As noted in the program FAQ, this year they hope to do even more. The #gsoc IRC channel on Freenode is already buzzing with activity."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA needs to prove 'actual distribution of copies', and cannot rely — as it was permitted to do in Capitol v. Thomas — upon the mere fact that there are song files on the defendant's computer and that they were 'available'. This is the same issue that has been the subject of extensive briefing in two contested cases in New York, Elektra v. Barker and Warner v. Cassin. Judge Arterton also held that the defendant had other possible defenses, such as the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory and possible copyright misuse flowing from the record companies' anticompetitive behavior."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA needs to prove 'actual distribution of copies', and cannot rely — as it was permitted to do in Capitol v. Thomas — upon the mere fact that there are song files on the defendant's computer and that they were 'available'. This is the same issue that has been the subject of extensive briefing in two contested cases in New York, Elektra v. Barker and Warner v. Cassin. Judge Arterton also held that the defendant had other possible defenses, such as the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory and possible copyright misuse flowing from the record companies' anticompetitive behavior."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected the RIAA's 'making available' theory, which is the basis of all of the RIAA's peer to peer file sharing cases. In Atlantic v. Brennan, in a 9-page opinion [PDF], Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the RIAA needs to prove 'actual distribution of copies', and cannot rely — as it was permitted to do in Capitol v. Thomas — upon the mere fact that there are song files on the defendant's computer and that they were 'available'. This is the same issue that has been the subject of extensive briefing in two contested cases in New York, Elektra v. Barker and Warner v. Cassin. Judge Arterton also held that the defendant had other possible defenses, such as the unconstitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory and possible copyright misuse flowing from the record companies' anticompetitive behavior."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Now that a small Texas company has a patent on scanning and archiving checks — something every bank does — that has survived a USPTO challenge, lawmakers feel they have to do something about it. Rather than reform patent law, they seem to think it wiser to protect the banks from having to pay billions in royalties by using eminent domain to buy the patent for an estimated $1 billion in taxpayer money, immunizing the banks. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)."

Heartless Gamer writes to tell us that Gen Con LLC announced late last week that they have filed for Chapter 11. This move will not affect the still profitable Gen Con Indy event which will still happen August 14-17, 2008. "This action became necessary as a result of significant unforeseen expenses associated with attempts to expand its core business to encompass externally licensed events. [...] The protections afforded by Chapter 11 will allow Gen Con to further its efforts to address its liquidity needs, preserve value for its creditors and explore strategic alternatives for the business." Evan writes to add that this is the result of LucasFilm suing GenCon.

GSGKT writes "Google's Anti-Malware Team has made available some of their research data on malware distribution mechanisms while the research paper[PDF] is under peer review. Among their conclusions are that the majority of malware distribution sites are hosted in China, and that 1.3% of Google searches return at least one link to a malicious site. The lead author, Niels Provos, wrote, 'It has been over a year and a half since we started to identify web pages that infect vulnerable hosts via drive-by downloads, i.e. web pages that attempt to exploit their visitors by installing and running malware automatically. During that time we have investigated billions of URLs and found more than three million unique URLs on over 180,000 web sites automatically installing malware. During the course of our research, we have investigated not only the prevalence of drive-by downloads but also how users are being exposed to malware and how it is being distributed.'"