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The provision was inserted at the 11th hour by Republicans after lobbying by companies such as AT&T, claiming that these types of services should be provided by private companies. http://wistechnology.com/articles/8648/ http://wistechnology.com/articles/8665/

The provision was inserted at the 11th hour by Republicans after lobbying by companies such as AT&T, claiming that these types of services should be provided by private companies. http://wistechnology.com/articles/8648/ http://wistechnology.com/articles/8665/

That would NOT be a good idea. The reason is simple, businesses almost NEVER do pure research. Its hard to turn the results directly into money, and (rightfully) that is all a business is there for. Taxpayer funded programs do the pure research, then businesses take the result and do the research needed to turn that into a product. Take the Fed out of research and a lot of innovation will come to a grinding halt.

When the Federal government gets involved in a market, it often takes over the market inefficiently. See: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Federal research grants have co-opted the Universities, for sure (add in government accreditation and there's even more monopolistic powers). It's not correct to say that private institutions DON'T fund research, the reality is that decades of Federal intervention in research have made it difficult to compete with public dollars, public regulators, public mandates and public approval systems that defeat the heavy investments made by private institutions.

For example:

Wisconsin private funding of stem cell research better than public funding
25 charities in US fund $1.2 billion in private research
Private funding resources

There are thousands of organizations that fund research privately. Competing with taxpayer-funded research is difficult, though, but not impossible.

You guys are soooo out of date...human implants of RFID chips is an already 'been there, done that' routine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID#Human_implants
http://wistechnology.com/articles/2044/
http://www.rfidgazette.org/2004/06/rfid_101.html

Etc., etc., et cetera...

IBM (http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2201) and Sony (http://www.news.com/2100-1043_3-5097776.html) have also faced the wrath of WARF. Both were settled out of court for a pretty significant chunk of change. Luckily, most of that money goes back to University research and the inventors...

I don't want to troll but I am shocked at whst seems to be the general assumption that games shouldn't be educational or couldn't be educational. Some books (or television shows or movies or websites) are entertaining, some are educational, and some are both. Why can't games be the same?

Remember that all games are educational in a sense. They give you a goal that you cannot accomplish immediately but through repeated attempts and failures you build the skills required to acomplish the goal. And then they repeat that process over and over! I am currently working at a major university working on a federal grant to see how games can be effectively used in the classroom (the key word being "effective").

There really is a lot of work being done on this front. Check out this video of a lecture by three Wisconsin professors who have spent time researching games in the classroom. I think many slashdotters will find it fascinating:
http://wistechnology.com/media/accel_games/viewer. html

They should have put this thing in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. People are talking about expanding the experimental suborbital one there.

Apparently launching East over water is convenient in case your rocket has a problem. FYI, Sheboygan is on Lake Michigan.

I can think of two other advantages. First it's a lot closer to large population centers than New Mexico which is good assuming you're blowing up over the lake rather than in Milwaukee. People can get to the launch pad a lot easier via ORD or MKE. And second, you have access to nice, fresh Sheboygan bratwurst for sustenance on your space journey.

The article linked to is really short on details. Not that most of us on Slashdot actually RTFA... ;-)

If you want a better understanding, read this article:

http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2194

I had thought so too, but this guy (lawyer) says otherwise: http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2194

That's a good point... I forgot about the whole ownership vs. license distinction. In the case of the article, the company had to prove that this software fell into the "ownership" category, while normally we just buy "licenses" for software.

This link, posted in another comment, explains it better than the link in the /. submission...

http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2194

I stand corrected.

See this for more details. This issue appears to have been whether the company actually owned the source. The courts said yes.

http://www.wistechnology.com/media/accel_games/vie wer.html

Does anyone else some how find that his VX30 might be a rip off of the ogg theora java port. The fact that its listed on this site, right next to the java port of ogg theora is fishy..

A short article appeared on the Wisconson Technology Network, among other places, whose author evidently ran into Aren Kryeziu at a hotel on the Big Island of Hawaii, and talked briefly about Maui X-stream. Unfortunately, the company office is in Wailuku, rather than the Maui tech park in Kihei, so I'll have to wait until lunch to drive over to check 'em out. Among the techno clique I've talked to in the tech park, nobody has heard of these guys. In all fairness, it's not unusual for someone to cut loose from the rat race in San Jose for a house on Maui, doing their own thing at the home office

And do interesting things. And try to keep in touch.