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Fluffeh writes:

"In June, President Barack Obama called for action against patent trolls. Today the White House held a short conference updating what has happened in the arena of patent policy since then and announced new initiatives going forward — including one to 'crowdsource' the review of patents.

Currently, getting a patent is a one-on-one proceeding between the applicant and the examiner. Two pilot programs that allowed the public to submit prior art were only applied to a tiny number of patents, and in the first program, all the patents were voluntarily submitted by the applicants. Applying such scrutiny to a few hundred patents, out of the hundreds of thousands issued each year, isn't any kind of long-term solution.

Unless the crowd-sourcing initiatives were to put major new burdens on applicants — which would be resisted — the fundamentals of patent examination aren't going to change. Patent examiners get an average of eighteen hours to review a patent. Most importantly, examiners effectively can't say 'no' to applicants. They can reject a particular application, but there's no limit to the number of amendments and re-drafts an applicant can submit."

CQ writes:

Qubes-OS, the Security-by-Isolation, VM-based operating system, has concluded that a port to the Windows OS line isn't feasible. In this post, the CEO of Inivisble Things Labs outlines what she had hoped to accomplish with the port and her explaination why it was just not meant to be.

This paper [pdf] contains all the technical bits you need to know, and the explanation on why the Windows APIs and system architecture are not appropriate for the task of creating an isolation system. It also has some interesting (if that's your thing) information on the Windows security model.

Does anyone here have any experience with Qubes? Does it make sandboxing easy enough for day to day use?

technopoptart writes:

"I need advice from people more experienced that I am with open source forum software. I am going to be setting up a forum system for computer science students from the various colleges in the area.

I have been running a closed SMF forum for my wife for a year. I wanted to solicit advice about SMF or any other systems that I may consider. I have played with phpBB but I found it labor intensive, as newly created sections are made invisible even to the admin by default, I don't want a laborious permissions system. I appreciate any advice you can give."

Popeidol writes

"Intel has announced the latest revision to it's Enterprise CPU range. The Xeon E7 v2 is based on Ivy Bridge rather than the aging Westmere, and specifically targets the Big Data Analytics market. In pursuit of this they've bumped up the core count to 15, reduced power consumption, reworked the cache, and included a long list of smaller improvements. The end result is a high-reliability chip that uses less power but has dramatically improved performance for most workloads.

A single-page version of the article is available here."

drgibbon writes:

"Edward Snowden was interviewed for German television in late January. The interview took place in Russia, and while most western media outlets seem to be showing a 15-minute version, full 30-minute versions are available from LiveLeak and the Internet Archive.

The transcript is available from the broadcaster (NDR)."

andrew writes: "Over the last decade, computers have been able to dominate human chess players. in that time attention has shifted from creating anti-computer strategies to creating computer-resistant chess variants. The inventor of one such game, Arimraa, has an interesting article on Chessbase.com about what it takes to make a board game in which it is still possible for the best human players to remain competitive against computer software."

bob_super writes:

"After reading an article[fr] (English language version) presenting a new Google initiative to map deforestation, I encountered a surprise when globalforestwatch.org opened with a Terms Of Service page! Not a small two-line 'we're in beta' terms of service page, a full multi-page lawyer-dream EULA. And when clicked on agree, I got a pop-up asking me to agree again!

Since we all know that all information has to be proven 100% correct and safe before being published on the web, have you noticed EULAs in other no-login sites? Why are Google's lawyers getting in the way when it's about important scientific data?"

amblivious writes:

"A team from the University of Queensland has demonstrated quantum imaging inside living cells for the first time. They were able to map structures within cells at scales as fine as 10nm, offering a 14% resolution enhancement over coherent light. Conventional optical imaging is limited by diffraction but by generating the photons with a more consistent phase as squeezed light the amount of diffraction can be minimized.

The ability to map living cells at this scale represents a significant breakthrough in imaging. These methods promise to reveal important new levels of cellular complexity and deliver profound benefits to biotech and medical research, and 'confirm the longstanding prediction that quantum correlated light can enhance spatial resolution at the nanoscale and in biology.'"

girlwhowaspluggedout writes:

"Spike Aerospace has revealed how the Spike S-512, which is planned to be the first supersonic business jet, will be able to fly from New York to London in half the time that the flight requires now. The plane, which is expected to carry 12-18 passengers, will enjoy the reduced drag and lower weight that come with an advanced engine and no windows:" Read more below.

Absinth writes:

"Canadians who illegally download music, movies and other copyright material may no longer be able to hide from potential lawsuits.

In a groundbreaking decision released Thursday by Canada's Federal Court, the Internet service provider TekSavvy Solutions was ordered to release to Voltage Pictures LLC the names and addresses of more than 2,000 Internet users suspected of pirating movies. Voltage is a Hollywood production company that has made films including 'The Hurt Locker,' which won six Oscars, and the upcoming 'American Heist.'"

[Ed. Note] Apparently this is a dupe.

fx_68 writes: "South Korea wants to develop cyber-attack tools in an attempt to damage nuclear facilities in North Korea. The country's defense ministry wants to develop weapons similar to Stuxnet, the software designed to attack Iranian nuclear enrichment plants. The South Korean military will carry out missions using the software, according to the defense ministry."

siliconwafer writes:

"Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp has generated a lot of noise in the financial and tech industries, with some calling the purchase price 'down-right silly' and 'jaw-dropping', and others have said the price is fair, but question the strategy. Is the purchase price evidence that we're entering entering another tech bubble reminiscent of the 1990s? Some say no, while others believe that a bubble may exist only in social media, given that the Global X Social Media Index ETF has outperformed the NASDAQ over the past year."

martyb writes:

"Scientists have discovered a pulsar (with an estimated mass of between 1.4 and 2 solar masses) traveling at an estimated 2.5 to 5 million mph (0.0035c to 0.007c). According to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory:

Originally discovered with the European Space Agency satellite INTEGRAL, the pulsar is located about 60 light-years away from the center of the supernova remnant SNR MSH 11-61A in the constellation of Carina. Its implied speed is between 2.5 million and 5 million mph, making it one of the fastest pulsars ever observed.

By comparison, one of the fastest man-made objects is the Voyager-1 spacecraft, currently traveling at an estimated 38,100 mph relative to the sun, or approximately 0.000056c (5.6 x 10^-5 c)."

Open4D writes:

"Peter Higgs recently collected his Nobel Prize in Physics. He gave an interview for BBC radio, which can be heard here (30 mins). The headline of the resulting article focuses on how he may have just missed out on realizing how the Higgs Mechanism could link in with the Standard Model, but there are various other insights for anyone interested in a long life lived in Physics academia."

dbot writes

"In the latest turn in an ongoing legal dispute, Canadian ISP TekSavvy has been ordered to hand over the IP addresses information of subscribers allegedly engaging in copyright infringement of Voltage Pictures works.

While it doesn't look like a great decision on the surface (an IP address does not uniquely identify an infringer), the court specifically said it wants to sign off on the wording of any contact notices issued by Voltage to prevent extortionary "Copyright Troll" messages. It will be interesting to see if this new decision scales."