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Domain: realgeek.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to realgeek.com.
Stories · 6
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Facebook Ordered To Turn Over Source Code
consonant writes "A Delaware District Court judge has ordered Facebook to turn over ALL its source code to Leader Technologies, who allege patent infringements by Facebook. The patent in question appears to be for 'associating a piece of data with multiple categories.' Additionally, while the judge in question deems it fine to let Leader Technologies look at Facebook's source (for a patent, no less!) in its entirety for a single feature, it would be 'overboard to ask a patent holder to disclose all of their products that practice any claim of the patent-in-suit.'" -
RealPlayer to Support One-Click Video Ripping
Aditi.Tuteja writes "RealPlayer is coming up with a free version in June which will allow one-click video ripping. This free downloadable video player will allow anyone to save and organize video files in all major formats including Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia and Window Media and will support video ripping from websites like YouTube or more. The new RealPlayer will not download or record video that is DRM-enabled." -
Oracle Plugs 122 Security Holes
Aditi.Tuteja writes "Oracle has released a 'critical patch update' that plugs 122 security vulnerabilities across the company's databases, enterprise applications, developer tools and middleware. Oracle has also started providing additional information indicating whether a flaw can be exploited by remote attackers without any authentication credentials. But, Oracle has failed to deliver its patches on all platforms. Patches for Oracle databases 9.2.0.6 and 10.1.0.5 will not be available until the end of this month. Users running Oracle 10.2.0.1 on Linux on Power servers will also have to wait until the end of October, as will users running Oracle 10.2.0.2 on Windows." -
Cisco Patents the Triple Play
Aditi.Tuteja writes, "Cisco was recently granted a patent on a 'system and method for providing integrated voice, video and data to customer premises over a single network.' Sound a lot like 'triple play?' Yes it is. The patent, which was filed back in 2000, describes a system that would allow consumers to receive all of their home services through one service provider instead of two or three. The patent's wording seems broad enough to cover nearly all existing implementations of triple play, and some are worried that Cisco will try to wield the newly granted patent against such providers as AT&T and Comcast. If such a thing were to happen, progress on AT&T's Project Lightspeed could slow even more." -
RFID-Reading Passport Scanners Installed
Kozar_The_Malignant writes, "Electronic passport scanners have been installed at SFO. Ten of the scanners were received last week and have now been put in service. Various creative responses have been discussed here before." -
US Software Patents Hit Record High
Aditi Tuteja writes "US Patent and Trademark Office made a new record for the number of software patents awarded in a single year. The agency has issued 893 new patents yesterday. Pushing the total to 30,232 in this year. If this is the trend, more than 40,000 software patents will be issued this year, according to the Public Patent Foundation. The previous record was set in 2004. Several major technology vendors have pledged not to enforce their patents against open source projects. IBM for instance essentially donated 500 patents to open source projects last year. Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court overthrew a prior judgement that required a judge to issue an automatic injunction if he found that a patent was being infringed."