● 12.12.11
●● Links – Bill Gates the Chinese Nuclear Engineer, Medical Method Patents, Anti-Trust and PR
Posted in Site News at 3:21 pm by Guest Editorial Team
●●● Reader’s Picks
Operating Systems Matter More Than Everpeople still need and want small cheap computers and having huge RAM running two or more virtual machines is not small and it’s not cheap. The “proprietary” part kills thatLicensing costs kill the deal on everything from cell phones to supercomputers. If non free software makers could magically reduce their costs to free software levels, people and companies should still avoid it to keep control, privacy and security.Android conquers ChinaA brief moment of non free software honesty.“We [Microsoft] may change or discontinue certain apps or content offered in the Windows Store at any time, for any reason. … we may refund to you the amount you paid for the license… If the Windows Store, an app, or any content is changed or discontinued, your data could be deleted or you may not be able to retrieve data you have stored. We have no obligation to return data to you.”This kind of language is always in non free software licenses but is rarely reported. People who don’t understand the nature of computers and non free software are constantly mislead and surprised. Later reported exceptions for “Open Source” mostly prove the rule. Like Apple, Microsoft will decide what and under what software can be installed on user’s computers regardless of what users or developers want.SecurityHospital shut down for days by SillyFDC, a decades old Windows virus.The fuss over C|Net’s abuse of free software highlights a consequence of misunderstanding the “free” in “free software”[Their advertising assault] trajectory continued its inexorable decline and they started tampering with the actual download process, inserting promotional messages and actions which they sold to whoever wanted them. The result today is that many of the packages on Download.com are mediated in a downloader or installer that does things to your computer that you would be very unlikely to accept if they were explained to you first. Sites like Download.com have long served the interests of non-free software owners by making non free software users more comfortable in slavery and artificial scarcity. Today, every piece of that market is imploding. Free software avoids these problems and is sustainable.VLAN HackingThe article revolves around Cisco but the concepts are interesting.Environment/Energy/WildlifeKids Eating Rat Poison Is an “Acceptable Risk” for ALECTens of thousands of children a year and wildlife are needlessly poisoned because one company has successfully fought off reasonable regulation of rat poison over the last 20 years.The fight against fracking in New YorkKoch Brothers’ “Christmas Present” Up for House VoteThe U.S. House of Representatives votes soon on a series of deregulatory bills that, according to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS), “threaten vital health, environmental, safety and financial regulations.”The REINS Act would practically neuter already captured regulatory bodies by requiring congressional votes for each new rule change. The Regulatory Accountability Act is actively hostile to environmental and health considerations. The Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act requiring additional and wasteful analysis that effectively eliminate new rules against nasty new processes.Bill Gates is now a Chinese Nuclear EngineerThe man who’s company once famously called Linux Communist cancer now has lots of good things to say about Communist China. He wants to sell them nuclear reactors with promises that eerily echo Microsoft’s software pitch, safe, clean never crashes. What’s really amazing is that export restriction alarms are not triggered.Anti-TrustMichael Robertson, founder of MP3.com, explains how record labels screw music subscription sellers like Spotify.People should boycott big publishers and instead stick to CC and public domain music at archive.org. “Internet radio” providers are under an entirely different screw in the US that makes it impossible to avoid paying fees to big publishers that may never make it to musicians. Word Perfect executive testimony shows the folly of listening to Microsoft.“They were talking out of both sides of their mouth,” Peterson said. In writing applications for Windows, he said, WordPerfect followed rules set down by Microsoft only to find out later Microsoft took shortcuts to make its products run faster. Asked if WordPerfect developers were adept at following rules, Peterson said, “Unfortunately, yes. They were rule followers.”Writing software to run under Windows is a mistake no developer or company should make today.HP and Microsoft extend Microsoft monopolies into the fog.I wonder if this is how Microsoft convinced HP not to ditch their “low margin” PC business.PR/AstroTurf/LobbyingShockingly Unshocking: Two Congressional Staffers Who Helped Write SOPA/PIPA Now LobbyistsOWS: Real Grassroots vs. AstroturfDefunct War Strategy Program May Still Overshadow University of Wisconsin-Madison’s History of DissentThe now-defunct GSP at Wisconsin provided but a glimpse into the workings of an increasingly militarized research university, which is but one of many similar programs wedded to the national security state and its imperial projects. It’s amusing that the leading figure at UW ultimately left due to budget cuts he championed.US Insurers Use PR Playbook to Keep People in the Dark About Health InsuranceThe corporate raid on state tax revenuemany large corporations end up paying far less than the statutory federal rate (so much less that their rates often become negative), ITEP and CTJ now demonstrate that the story is the same at the state level. Their study, Corporate Tax Dodging in the Fifty States, lists 68 Fortune 500 companies that managed to pay no state income tax at all in at least one year during the period from 2008 through 2010 despite posting a total of nearly $117 billion in pre-tax U.S. profits during those no-tax years.Intel and HP are listed with the worst and Intel is highlighted for having betrayed states that gave them a break or otherwise subsidized. Apple, EMC, Google and Microsoft are called “liars” for obviously ridiculous geographic allocations..CensorshipI Want My Al JazeeraUS Cable networks still refuse to carry the network.Lawyers across England and Wales will be issued HP tablet computers to eliminate paper waste in courts.This would be a great initiative if lawyers could use their own devices and keep their software freedom. Non free software gives government and non free software owners unjust power over lawyers and the clients they represent. Non free software also has several critical GUI efficiency shortcomings, such as lack of virtual desktops, that will make it difficult to substitute paper. Perhaps this is what HP wants, spy power and lots of extra printing.Privacy12 class action lawsuits have been filed over cell phone spying through CarrierIQCivil RightsWhen Computer Misuse Becomes a Crimean en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will sort out whether the CFAA allows for the federal prosecution of employees who so much as check a ballgame score on a work computer or fib on Facebook in violation of a terms of use agreement…See, The Right to ReadMaine gives small farmers a hard time by not understanding organic farming.The NAACP is calling the wave of Voter ID laws passed in 2011 a “coordinated and comprehensive assault” on the right to vote for people of color and the poor, singling out the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as the source of the outbreak. Internet/Net Neutralityturn your laptop into a modem with Ubuntu(Linux)How to share wifi access with others.DRM10 Awesome iPhone Apps You Can’t Get AnymoreIntellectual MonopoliesMeet Digitude Innovations, Apple’s patent troll.The Depressing Mayo v. Prometheus Oral Argument at the US Supreme Court ~pjI confess that reading the transcript made me feel profoundly depressed, in that I can’t believe they are even arguing over this patent, or that it even issued in the first place. At what point can you patent the application of a law of nature?Candy giant Nestlé enters the medical patent game despite shady allegationsNestlé did not acquire an ownership stake in Prometheus Labs until after litigation started. Businessweek did a story on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s wife being forced to sell a few thousand dollars in Nestlé stock so he didn’t have to recuse himself. Though the purchase took place in July, it wasn’t revealed to the court until this week that Nestlé was the new owner. Which is chilling, because if there is any company I do not trust with the care and enrichment of human lives, it is Nestlé. Can the USPTO Be Sued Under the APA for Issuing Bad Patents?The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in the iPad designWe had no idea about the iPad, nor the patents, and I would consider us to be ordinary observers, and the design we came up with is exactly like what iPad became, including the points discussed above.Something strange happened to the Crunchpad before it could be launched. That something should be investigated by the inventors for ties back to Apple and Microsoft.Google’s Schmidt warns Europe to avoid system prone to patent wars“When you pick these big patent fights, the winners are the lawyers,” Schmidt said at the Innovation Convention in Brussels organized by the European Commission.”As much as I like lawyers, I’d rather be hiring engineers.TrademarksIn China, someone else owns “iPad” and Apple might owe them $1 billion.CopyrightsResults of publicly funded research will be open access – science ministerPatry’s How to Fix Copyright: deftly argued, incandescent book on state of copyright lawWilliam Patry is no copyright radical. He’s the author of some of the major reference texts on copyright, books that most copyright lawyers would have on their bookcases, books like Patry on Copyright. But Patry — once copyright counsel to the US House of Representatives and policy planning advisor to the US Register of Copyrights — is furious with the current state of copyright law …
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