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theodp writes "What could be more annoying than having ads precede online videos? How about having commercials interrupt the videos? That's the premise behind a newly-published Google patent application for Using Viewing Signals in Targeted Video Advertising."

theodp writes "If all goes IBM's way, it'll soon constitute patent infringement if Bennigan's gives you a free lunch for being inconvenienced by a long wait for your meal. Big Blue is seeking a patent for its Method and Structure for Automated Crediting to Customers for Waiting, the purported 'invention' of three IBM researchers, which IBM notes, 'could be implemented completely devoid of computerization or automation of any kind.' Can we count on IBM to withdraw this patent claim, or will Big Blue weasel out of its patent reform pledge again?"

KingArthur10 writes "It will be the last lunar eclipse until December 2010, and it should be spectacular. Shades of turquoise and red will pour over the moon's surface as it moves into the Earth's shadow around 8:43pm EST. As NASA reports: 'Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike. While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality ... The source of the turquoise is ozone.' So, all of you amateur astronomers need to get out there and take pictures. It might be worthwhile sharing them on sites like SpaceWeather or Flickr so that our Asian, European, African, and Australian brethren can witness the sight as well."

theodp writes "Among the patents awarded to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday was one for his invention of Error Processing Methods for Providing Responsive Content to a User When a Page Load Error Occurs, which covers displaying alternate web pages in response to HTTP 404 page-not-found errors. So is this the technology that causes Amazon's Home Page to be displayed when Bezos' MIA Patent Reform Page can't be found?"

HeadMounted found a great little flickr collection of art for geeks where helpful designers have provided you with useful hints to help you better comprehend the confusing art world. Or not. Some of them are very clever.

HeadMounted found a great little flickr collection of art for geeks where helpful designers have provided you with useful hints to help you better comprehend the confusing art world. Or not. Some of them are very clever.

Romana Reynolds writes "The CES 2008 Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Showcase honored the Atom Chip Corporation, which was exhibiting the same 100GB, 500GB, and 1TB 'quantum optical' memory chips back in 2006. We actually wandered by, but long gone are the 'SolarMemory' chips, and he didn't know anything about Duke Nuk'em Forever. A little easy digging shows that they'd been making the same extraordinary claims and exhibiting prototypes at CES during the past three years, long enough to make 'atom chip hoax' the fourth suggestion on typing 'atom chip' into Google. I'm amused that the 'preeminent' panel of judges failed their vetting and gatekeeping functions. But I fear that Atom Chip will gather investors based on their recognition at CES, and continue in the game for many years to come, while honors at CES become a Hall of Shame."

Romana Reynolds writes "The CES 2008 Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Showcase honored the Atom Chip Corporation, which was exhibiting the same 100GB, 500GB, and 1TB 'quantum optical' memory chips back in 2006. We actually wandered by, but long gone are the 'SolarMemory' chips, and he didn't know anything about Duke Nuk'em Forever. A little easy digging shows that they'd been making the same extraordinary claims and exhibiting prototypes at CES during the past three years, long enough to make 'atom chip hoax' the fourth suggestion on typing 'atom chip' into Google. I'm amused that the 'preeminent' panel of judges failed their vetting and gatekeeping functions. But I fear that Atom Chip will gather investors based on their recognition at CES, and continue in the game for many years to come, while honors at CES become a Hall of Shame."

Romana Reynolds writes "The CES 2008 Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Showcase honored the Atom Chip Corporation, which was exhibiting the same 100GB, 500GB, and 1TB 'quantum optical' memory chips back in 2006. We actually wandered by, but long gone are the 'SolarMemory' chips, and he didn't know anything about Duke Nuk'em Forever. A little easy digging shows that they'd been making the same extraordinary claims and exhibiting prototypes at CES during the past three years, long enough to make 'atom chip hoax' the fourth suggestion on typing 'atom chip' into Google. I'm amused that the 'preeminent' panel of judges failed their vetting and gatekeeping functions. But I fear that Atom Chip will gather investors based on their recognition at CES, and continue in the game for many years to come, while honors at CES become a Hall of Shame."

theodp writes "After USPTO Examiner Mark A. Fadok rejected Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent claims as 'old and obvious,' Amazon canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application as it requested an Oral Appeal, a move that smacked of a good old-fashioned stalling tactic. But the move may have backfired, as Fadok has just completed his review of the continuation app and concluded that all of the refiled 1-Click claims should be rejected, providing explanations of why the Board of Patent Appeals was wrong to reverse his earlier decision after listening to Amazon's lawyers in September. In October, USPTO Examiner Matthew C. Graham rejected most of the 1-Click claims as part of the reexam requested by LOTR actor Peter Calveley, a decision that attorneys for Amazon are currently trying to work around with some creative wordsmithing. Can't see how all of this means 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office.'"

theodp writes "FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras has refused to recuse herself from the agency's review of Google's $3.1B DoubleClick acquisition, despite her current and past ties to DoubleClick law firm Jones Day. EPIC and the Center for Digital Democracy, which had requested her recusal, are keeping up the pressure as DoubleClick-related pages and references have been disappearing from Jones Day's website. Although the statement issued by the Chairwoman suggests Jones Day's DoubleClick representation is limited to the European Commission, the Google cache of one MIA document boasts: 'Jones Day is advising DoubleClick Inc., the digital marketing technology provider, on the international and US antitrust and competition law aspects of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition by Google Inc.'"

Nrbelex writes "Facebook is reining in some aspects of a controversial new advertising program, after users became extremely upset and threatened various 'protests' over possible privacy infringement issues. 'Late yesterday the company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users' Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time ... Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority. With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages.'"

theodp writes "By changing the word 'a' to 'the' and adding the phrase 'purchasable through a shopping cart model,' lawyers for Amazon.com have apparently managed to reinstate two of CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent claims that were rejected a month earlier. 'Patent Owner's Rep was informed that the proposed addition to the claims appear to place the claims in condition of patentability,' writes the USPTO in its Ex Parte Reexamination Interview Summary of the 11-15 conference call that was held with five representatives of the USPTO and patent reformer Amazon."

theodp writes "By changing the word 'a' to 'the' and adding the phrase 'purchasable through a shopping cart model,' lawyers for Amazon.com have apparently managed to reinstate two of CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent claims that were rejected a month earlier. 'Patent Owner's Rep was informed that the proposed addition to the claims appear to place the claims in condition of patentability,' writes the USPTO in its Ex Parte Reexamination Interview Summary of the 11-15 conference call that was held with five representatives of the USPTO and patent reformer Amazon."

colenski writes "My vote for the coolest toy of the decade so far has to lie with the EyeClops Bionic Eye. As one reviewer noted, simply, "Microscopes never worked this well or looked this good when I was a kid." An ingeniously simple and brilliantly designed product, the EyeClops plugs into your TV and magnifies anything you put it on 200 times. Brain dead simple to use, EyeClops is a cheap $40 US / $60 Cdn gift that your nephew or nerdy niece would probably freak over. Here's some cool and disturbing pictures I got after about 20 minutes playing with it. Check out the money shot." I always struggled to focus through a microscope as a kid, and this looks like a great inexpensive present for a little kid since every cool chemistry kit is totally nerfed now. Any other fun ideas?

colenski writes "My vote for the coolest toy of the decade so far has to lie with the EyeClops Bionic Eye. As one reviewer noted, simply, "Microscopes never worked this well or looked this good when I was a kid." An ingeniously simple and brilliantly designed product, the EyeClops plugs into your TV and magnifies anything you put it on 200 times. Brain dead simple to use, EyeClops is a cheap $40 US / $60 Cdn gift that your nephew or nerdy niece would probably freak over. Here's some cool and disturbing pictures I got after about 20 minutes playing with it. Check out the money shot." I always struggled to focus through a microscope as a kid, and this looks like a great inexpensive present for a little kid since every cool chemistry kit is totally nerfed now. Any other fun ideas?

From Brisbane to Beunos Aires... From the UK to France to Romania... from New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between, we had well over 100s of parties and over 2,300 registered attendees scattered around the world. Many of them got boxes of t-shirts and ThinkGeek gift certificates (and some of them even got them on time). We've seen cakes with legos and logos, we seen nerf gun fights, and even a lawn sporking. I've put a tiny sampling of my favorite pictures online. The grand prize winner is of the $1k store credit at ThinkGeek is Lindsi from Minneapolis. Their party featured a lolcats cake, a taco bar and a dude in a helmet smashing computers with a sledge hammer in a raining parking lot. They earned it. We had a great time in both Palo Alto and Ann Arbor- I hope you guys had fun wherever you gathered. See you again in 2017!

theodp writes "On Tuesday, Amazon search subsidiary A9.com was awarded U.S. patent no. 7,287,042 for 'including a search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting.' In the Summary of the Invention, it's explained that 'a user wishing to search for 'San Francisco Hotels' may do by simply accessing the URL www.domain_name/San Francisco Hotels, where domain_name is a domain name associated with the web site system.' Here's the flowchart that helped cinch the deal."

theodp writes "If the hassle of getting groceries from the parking garage to your 12th floor condo has been holding you back from buying a deluxe apartment in the sky, wait no more. Wired reports on the En-Suite Sky Garages at 200 Eleventh Avenue (Flash) in Chelsea, where an 8,000-pound-capacity freight elevator will whisk your Bentley directly into your pad. The convenience doesn't come cheap — a garage-equipped 2BR starts at $4.7M."

Nrbelex writes "The New York Times is taking a look at the state of Linux. "Linux has always had a reputation of being difficult to install and daunting to use. Most of the popular Windows and Macintosh programs cannot be used on it, and hand-holding — not that you get that much of it with Windows — is rare. But those reasons for rejecting Linux are disappearing." The article discusses major PC makers' newest offers and compares them to their Windows counterparts."

theodp writes "What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? Answer: US Patent 7,278,116. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an 'X'. Isn't this essentially the same concept as the older Lotus Notes selection model that IBM was recently asked to reintroduce?"

theodp writes "What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? Answer: US Patent 7,278,116. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an 'X'. Isn't this essentially the same concept as the older Lotus Notes selection model that IBM was recently asked to reintroduce?"

theodp writes "IBM and other corporations are seeking patents for inventions covering the offshoring of US jobs. The USPTO is considering IBM's patent application for Outsourcing of Services, a 'method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization' to 'countries where cheaper labor prices and/or cheaper materials are available.' Then there's Big Blue's Electronic Marketplace for Identifying, Assessing, Reserving and Engaging Knowledge-Workers for an Assignment Using Trade-Off Analysis, which provides a handy-dandy IBM calculator that drives home the point that you'll pay less for IGS India workers, whether onshore or offshore. And with its System and Method of Using Speech Recognition at Call Centers to Improve Their Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction, IBM describes how to operate in 'low cost foreign countries' with 'support people not having good English language skills, or having an accent that makes it difficult to understand them' by exploiting technology developed for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as other accent reduction techniques."

theodp writes "On Wednesday, a three-judge USPTO panel convened at Amazon's request rejected a USPTO Examiner's rejection of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's 1-Click patent, ruling that it wasn't obvious to them what the Examiner found obvious. The application has been remanded to the Examiner with instructions to make the obviousness more obvious."

theodp writes "On Wednesday, a three-judge USPTO panel convened at Amazon's request rejected a USPTO Examiner's rejection of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's 1-Click patent, ruling that it wasn't obvious to them what the Examiner found obvious. The application has been remanded to the Examiner with instructions to make the obviousness more obvious."

boarder8925 writes "Be careful what you read when you fly in the United States. What you read is being monitored by airport screeners and stored in a government database for years. 'Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore's choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he'd packed for the trip. The breadth of the information obtained by the Gilmore-funded Identity Project (using a Privacy Act request) shows the government's screening program at the border is actually a survelliance dragnet."

theodp writes "Microsoft has just published a patent application for advertising triggered by sequences of user actions, which describes how to interrupt game playing, music listening, and photo viewing with pop-up ads ('the components may be integrated directly into the operating system'). So will this ad technology get a free pass from Windows Defender?"

theodp writes "Maybe you shouldn't get too attached to those new Windows Live services. On Tuesday, the USPTO granted Microsoft a patent for privacy policy change notification, which describes how to threaten users with the loss of their accounts and access to web sites and services should they refuse to consent to changes in a privacy policy. This includes the case where a user might object to allowing personal information, collected earlier with a promise of confidentiality, to be shared in the future with third parties. Also described is a 'Never Notify Me' option so you won't have to 'worry' over privacy policy changes."

theodp writes "Looks like Amazon's high-priced Silicon Valley attorneys will have to endure the 'undue hardship' of awakening early next Thursday morning to defend CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent in a Video Hearing before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The attorneys' plea for a 1 p.m. ET start time drew a be-there-at-9-or-be-square response from the USPTO. The 1-Click patent has fallen into disfavor lately with USPTO Examiners, who no longer have the same boss who once sent a 1-Click love letter to the WSJ arguing that the merits of Amazon's patent were proven by a contest run by a Jeff Bezos-financed company, an argument that was later rejected by Congress."

theodp writes "Looks like Amazon's high-priced Silicon Valley attorneys will have to endure the 'undue hardship' of awakening early next Thursday morning to defend CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent in a Video Hearing before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The attorneys' plea for a 1 p.m. ET start time drew a be-there-at-9-or-be-square response from the USPTO. The 1-Click patent has fallen into disfavor lately with USPTO Examiners, who no longer have the same boss who once sent a 1-Click love letter to the WSJ arguing that the merits of Amazon's patent were proven by a contest run by a Jeff Bezos-financed company, an argument that was later rejected by Congress."

theodp writes "Looks like Amazon's high-priced Silicon Valley attorneys will have to endure the 'undue hardship' of awakening early next Thursday morning to defend CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent in a Video Hearing before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The attorneys' plea for a 1 p.m. ET start time drew a be-there-at-9-or-be-square response from the USPTO. The 1-Click patent has fallen into disfavor lately with USPTO Examiners, who no longer have the same boss who once sent a 1-Click love letter to the WSJ arguing that the merits of Amazon's patent were proven by a contest run by a Jeff Bezos-financed company, an argument that was later rejected by Congress."

theodp writes "Last week, the USPTO published a rather odd Microsoft patent application for Content Ratings and Recommendations, which describes how religious-based communities and other 'subcultures' can use the patent-pending process to prevent their members from viewing undesirable television programs and movies."

theodp writes "The Seattle P-I's Todd Bishop reports that Microsoft has settled its 8-year-old web browser plug-in patent dispute with Eolas. The spat begat the click-to-activate Web after Microsoft was slapped with a $500+ million patent infringement judgement. Neither Eolas nor Microsoft will be disclosing terms of the deal, although Eolas told investors to expect a dividend (PDF). Microsoft didn't say whether or how the settlement would affect its approach to the underlying technology in IE or other programs. Just last month, the USPTO issued a non-final rejection of the patent's claims, citing the work of Pei-Yuan Wei as prior art."

theodp writes "Microsoft just published a patent application for an adaptive heads-up user interface for automobiles. It covers, among other things, virtual fuzzy dice that appear to move with automobile movements."

Acererak was one of several readers who noted that DVD Jon has released information on unbricking an iPhone. You sacrifice all cel phone functionality of course, but you have an iPDA that will work on your WiFi. Currently the hack is windows only but it doesn't look very complicated.

mattnyc99 writes "Today marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's dark vision of the future that changed the future of filmmaking and still stands up today, argues Adam Savage of The MythBusters (and the F/X crews of The Matrix and Star Wars). Between the "lived-in science fiction," pre-CGI master models, futuristic cityscapes and tricked-out cars, don't you agree? And after we got the first official glimpse of him from Indiana Jones 4 this weekend, isn't Harrison Ford still the man?"

Lillith writes "The anti-evolution Creation Museum opened last weekend and Ars took a field trip there and took lots of pictures. 'There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years, and how rapidly the biblical flood would cover the earth, drowning all but a handful of living creatures. The flood plays a big part in the museum's attempt to explain away what we see as millions of years of natural processes. There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.' (Myself, I liked the picture of the velociraptor grazing peacefully next to Eve, who is wearing some kind of dirndl, in the Garden of Eden.)" The reporter posted more photos from the museum on Flickr.

Bananatree3 writes "Popular Icelandic photographer and art-student Rebekka Guoleifsdottir has been targeted by Flickr for posting a plea for help in a theft case involving an online retailer selling copycat art. She requested that people send the retailer letters concerning the issue, and in response her original post was promptly deleted. It is still ironically available on Yahoo cache. In the end it appears that the retailer had been duped by a rogue art dealer under the title "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD". However, Flickr seems to have overstepped its bounds in deleting this post." This whole case brings back up the messy issues surrounding content ownership in this strange new world of a services based internet.

Bananatree3 writes "Popular Icelandic photographer and art-student Rebekka Guoleifsdottir has been targeted by Flickr for posting a plea for help in a theft case involving an online retailer selling copycat art. She requested that people send the retailer letters concerning the issue, and in response her original post was promptly deleted. It is still ironically available on Yahoo cache. In the end it appears that the retailer had been duped by a rogue art dealer under the title "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD". However, Flickr seems to have overstepped its bounds in deleting this post." This whole case brings back up the messy issues surrounding content ownership in this strange new world of a services based internet.

theodp writes "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known,' Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced.' The Judiciary Committee hearing this testimony included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."

theodp writes "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known,' Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced.' The Judiciary Committee hearing this testimony included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."

theodp writes "Faced with a duly unimpressed USPTO examiner who rejected its new 1-Click patent claims as 'obvious' and 'old and well known,' Amazon has taken the unusual step of requesting an Oral Appeal to plead its case. And in what might be interpreted by some as an old-fashioned stalling tactic, the e-tailer has also canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application. As it touted the novelty of 1-Click to Congress last spring, Amazon kept the examiner's rejection under its hat, insisting that 'still no [1-Click] prior art has surfaced.' The Judiciary Committee hearing this testimony included Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA), both recipients of campaign contributions from a PAC funded by 1-Click inventor Jeff Bezos, other Amazon execs, and their families."

theodp writes "Amazon will pay an undisclosed amount to IBM to settle a long-running patent feud, and the two companies have agreed to a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement. Information Week wonders if an insurance dispute prompted Amazon's settlement, noting that Atlantic Mutual sued Amazon back in March to escape any obligation to reimburse the e-tailer should it lose the case brought by IBM. Amazon had relied on Atlantic Mutual's backing in an earlier legal battle it waged against tiny InTouch. 'Amazon, whose chief executive, Jeff Bezos, is a vocal advocate of patent reform, has had numerous patent issues in the past. In 2005, the technology used in its 1-Click checkout system came under scrutiny as potentially infringing upon a similar product made by a small Virginia-based company called IPXL Holdings. Meanwhile, the US patent system itself is experiencing growing pains as Congress continues to explore the possibility of updating it to better serve the needs of the 21st-century business world.'"

fieryprophet writes "An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show. Search digg for HD-DVD song lyrics, coffee mugs, shirts, and more for a small taste of the rebellion." Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved. Update: 05/02 05:44 GMT by J : New blog post from Kevin Rose of Digg to its users: "We hear you."

theodp writes "Reacting to an actor's do-it-yourself legal effort that triggered a reexam of Amazon.com's 1-Click patent, attorneys for Amazon have fired back, deluging the USPTO with documents to review, including Wikipedia articles. With the latest batch, Amazon's high-priced law firm even requested that USTPO examiners review an archived page of Norm Quotes (yes, Norm from Cheers) and rule that it does not invalidate CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent."

theodp writes "Reacting to an actor's do-it-yourself legal effort that triggered a reexam of Amazon.com's 1-Click patent, attorneys for Amazon have fired back, deluging the USPTO with documents to review, including Wikipedia articles. With the latest batch, Amazon's high-priced law firm even requested that USTPO examiners review an archived page of Norm Quotes (yes, Norm from Cheers) and rule that it does not invalidate CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent."

A Cyclic Graph writes "We finally have a redacted version of IBM's Reply Memorandum in Support of Summary Judgment on Counterclaim 10 in SCO v. IBM. In short, IBM is asking the Court to declare that Linux doesn't infringe upon any of SCO's purported intellectual property. This document is the last word on that matter until the Court either declares there to be no doubt that Linux is free of infringement, or decides that that issue has to be decided by the jury. In their brief, IBM points out that SCO puts forth a convoluted set of non-answers referencing each other to disguise it's inability to answer IBM. Their set of cross-references is so complex that Groklaw readers graphed the claims to make what little sense of them they could."

theodp writes "As some predicted, lawyers for Amazon.com have recently submitted 1-Click prior art solicited by Tim O'Reilly under the auspices of Jeff Bezos' patent reform effort to the USPTO, soliciting a 'favorable action' that would help bulletproof the patent. Last June, an Amazon lobbyist referred to deficiencies with the same prior art as he tried to convince Congress that 1-Click was novel, prompting Rep. Howard Berman to call BS."

evw writes "The NYTimes reports that the Turner Broadcasting System and the ad agency responsible have reached a $2M settlement with the city of Boston and state and federal agencies that treated the light boards placed around the city as an act of terrorism (as covered earlier on /.) Half of the money is to cover direct costs associated with the response. The other $1M goes to 'goodwill funds' that will be used for response training and public outreach."

theodp writes "Looks like Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly are investing together again, and this time it has nothing to do with patent reform. In Bezos Goes Web 2.0 Wild, Private Equity Week's Alexander Haislip reports that Explore Holdings, which as of late has been doing business as Bezos Expeditions, is one of 19 investors that have pumped $34.3M into O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures."