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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The pin may have finally dropped on trademark cases that Pinterest has been chasing in the U.S. and UK. In the U.S., a judge has ruled in favor of a travel startup called Pintrips, in a case where Pinterest was trying to get the startup to cease use of the terms “pin” and “pinning.” Meanwhile, in the UK, location-based mobile directory Free118 won a fight against Pinterest for the right to use the phrase “pinmydeal” for one of the central actions of its service. Both court decisions are embedded [in the linked article].

But although it has had setbacks in these two cases, Pinterest has not ceased fighting others. The U.S. company is still in the middle of a case in Europe over a region-wide trademark on the word “pin”. However, some believe trademark decisions against Pinterest are likely to put an increasing amount of holes in Pinterest’s arguments.

Pinterest has declined to comment on the Free118 case in the UK, but from what we understand there are no plans to appeal the decision reached by the Trademark Office (the deadline for doing so is at the start of November). We have reached out to the company to ask for its reaction to the Pintrips case in the U.S. and will update this story as we learn more.

Together, the two cases can be seen as a victory for companies that have used or would like to use variations on the word “pin,” but have more recently faced legal pressure from Pinterest when doing so because the social network believes that it causes too much confusion with consumers between its own company and others. Misappropriation of its name has over the years been a thorny issue for Pinterest, where it has actively discouraged companies who work with it from using names that can be seen as variations of its own.

“If you’re creating an app, website or other service designed to be used with Pinterest, give it a distinctive name,” Pinterest writes in its brand guidelines. It’s fine to say the product is for use with Pinterest as long as you pick a distinct brand for your product. Don’t use ‘pin’ or ‘Pinterest’ in the name. Don’t register a domain name containing ‘pin,’ ‘pinterest’ or any misspellings, transliterations or similar variations on Pinterest.” Easier said to partners than completely separate businesses, it seems.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The days of seeing stories like 'PS4's outselling Xbox by almost 2-to-1' could be over as Microsoft looks to have called time on the console sales war.

Last week saw the Big M announce its quarterly results - yes, yes, fiscal announcements, yawn - but the interesting thing noted by Game Informer was the lack of Microsoft's usual hardware shipment metrics.

When quizzed on this a Microsoft source responded saying it was no longer using such figures as its measurement of success. Instead it would be focusing on user engagement, choosing Xbox Live figures as its leading stat. Essentially Microsoft has made a tacit announcement that, in terms of hardware sales at least, it has lost the sales war of this generation of machines.

Long-time industry analyst, Michael Pachter, told Fortune yesterday that he believes Sony's PS4 is set to have another excellent holiday period, outselling Microsoft's console, and would probably do so with or without the price cut which has given it price parity with the Xbox One.

"Microsoft should cut price only if it cares about how many consoles it sells," he went on to say.

And, given that it's both halted reporting on its own sales and refused calls for a price cut of its own, it sure looks like Microsoft has now stopped caring about such figures. Or at the very least wants everyone to stop talking about it...

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The University of Leicester announces today the signature of a contract to develop an innovative new type of X-ray mirror for a telescope to be flown on an orbiting observatory to be launched in 2021.

The Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) is a joint Chinese-French satellite observatory. Designed to study the most powerful explosions in the Universe out to the era of the first generation of stars, SVOM will locate hundreds of gamma-ray bursts signifying the deaths of massive stars.

University of Leicester scientists with its Space Research Centre instrumentation and engineering staff in the Department of Physics and Astronomy have developed a unique capability to make a new kind of super-light-weight X-ray focussing optic.

Traditional X-ray mirrors for space telescopes are made of solid glass or metal and weigh tens of kilograms or more. The new 'Lobster' X-ray mirror for SVOM weighs just one kilo, and so is much easier to launch into orbit.

Professor Julian Osborne, who is leading this work at Leicester explained: "Lobsters and similar animals use reflecting mirrors to focus light in their eyes, unlike the lenses used by people. We can make man-made Lobster-type mirrors with the very high degree of smoothness needed to focus X-rays, and make them robust enough to survive the rigours of a rocket launch."

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fliptop writes:

Speaking at the Ruxcon information security conference in Melbourne on Sunday, Vixie, a pioneer of the Internet's DNS system, said that creating the new TLDs goes against ICANN's purpose:

"ICANN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity [under the California Non-profit Public Benefit Corporation Law], and their job is to serve the public, not to serve the companies... I think that until they can come up with an actual public benefit reason they should be creating more of these, they've got no cause to act," Vixie said.

"There should be no price at which you can buy '.microsoft', but there is, and that's a mistake. That indicates corruption, as far as I'm concerned."

Vixie also indicated the WHOIS privacy industry wouldn't exist were it not for criminals:

"There are plenty of folks [who] would like to say [that] for civil society purposes we need the ability for dissidents to register a domain name and complain about their own government, and not have to worry about getting their doors kicked in. Frankly, that is not a realistic scenario, and that is not the way that WHOIS privacy gets used," he said.

Vixie encouraged conference attendees to implement technologies that improve the integrity of DNS (like DNSSEC) and called for replacement of the X.509 Certificate Authority system.

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darkfeline writes:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/missing-glueballs-are-sticky-problem-for-particle-physics/

The discovery of the Higgs boson was rightfully heralded as a triumph of particle physics, one that brought completion to the Standard Model, the collection of theories that describes particles and their interactions. Lost in the excitement, however, was the fact that we're still missing a piece from the Standard Model—another type of particle that doesn't resemble any other we've yet seen.

The particle is a glueball, but its goofy name doesn't express how interesting it is. Glueballs are unique in that they don't contain any matter at all: they have no quarks or electrons or neutrinos. Instead, they are made entirely of gluons, which are the particles that bind quarks together inside protons, neutrons, and related objects.

Particle physicists are sure they exist, but everything else about them is complicated, to say the least. Like so many other exotic particles (including the Higgs), glueballs are very unstable, decaying quickly into other, less massive particles. We don't have any ideas about their masses, however, which is obviously kind of important to know if you want to find them. We also don't know exactly how they decay, making it hard to know exactly how we'll identify them in experiments.

If I may be so bold, what do fellow SNs think of modern particle physics, and do any of you have any crazy alternative non-particle-centric physical theories (for example, a model of reality that works using 7-dimensional strings as opposed to 1-dimensional strings from string theory?)

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SubiculumHammer writes:

http://neurosciencenews.com/evolution-hands-fighting-2917/
"As an alternative, we suggest that the hand proportions that allow the formation of a fist may tell us something important about our evolutionary history and who we are as a species," Carrier adds. "If our anatomy is adapted for fighting, we need to be aware we always may be haunted by basic emotions and reflexive behaviors that often don't make sense – and are very dangerous – in the modern world," says biology Professor David Carrier.

Carrier and his collaborators not only have argued our hands evolved partly for punching but that the faces of human ancestors, the australopiths, evolved to resist punching – and that human faces became more delicate as our violence became less dependent on brute force. The new study sought more experimental evidence for his theory using nine male cadaver arms purchased from the university's body donor program and from a private supply company.

Shoryuken!

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Self-styled political outsiders Donald Trump (a billionaire businessman) and Ben Carson (a former neurosurgeon) are the frontrunners for the 2016 GOP nomination for the US Presidency, according to the Real Clear Politics average of five major polls conducted between October 10-18, 2015: Trump's 27 pct and Carson's 21 pct are far ahead of the next tier, which consists of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (9 percent), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (8 pct) and former Florida Gov Jeb Bush (7 pct).

The betting markets view the race differently. Rubio has recently taken over as front-runner in most of the political books and prediction markets, replacing Bush, who is now in second place. This duo is followed by Trump, and then (in varying order) Carson, Cruz, and former businesswoman Carly Fiorina. The remaining nine candidates who have participated in at least one televised GOP debate, and who have not dropped out, are given long odds, typically between 15-1 and 100-1.

Here is the current betting line from Ladbrokes, a London-based bookmaker. For those who enjoy staring at spreadsheets, here is the rollup of online bookmakers and prediction markets.

A few books admit the possibility that a presently-undeclared candidate such as Mitt Romney or Michael Bloomberg could win the GOP nomination, perhaps to break a voting deadlock at the convention; they are given long odds.

Betting on political elections is prohibited in the USA, but overseas bettors aren't subject to such puritanical restrictions. A UK journalist, commenting on the betting action over who would be the country's prime minister after the upcoming general election, explained why the betting markets are often a more reliable guide than the pollsters. Incidentally, they turned out to be right in the case discussed in the article; incumbent David Cameron retained the office after the Conservatives won enough seats in Parliament to assemble a working majority.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers from the University of Florida have discovered certain bacteria on the ocean floor could neutralize massive quantities of industrial carbon dioxide.

Because carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activity, is a key culprit in climate change, scientists from a variety of disciplines have been searching for ways to effectively capture and neutralize the gas.

The UF researchers discovered that an enzyme produced by the bacteria Thiomicrospira crunogena, can convert the harmful gas into a benign compound. The enzyme carbonic anhydrase can actually strip carbon dioxide from organisms, the researchers say.

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Phoenix666 writes:

In the drive to miniaturize electronics, solenoids have become way too big, say Rice University scientists who discovered the essential component can be scaled down to nano-size with macro-scale performance.

The secret is in a spiral form of atom-thin graphene that, remarkably, can be found in nature, according to Rice theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues.

"Usually, we determine the characteristics for materials we think might be possible to make, but this time we're looking at a configuration that already exists," Yakobson said. "These spirals, or screw dislocations, form naturally in graphite during its growth, even in common coal."

The researchers determined that when a voltage is applied, current will flow around the helical path and produce a magnetic field, as it does in macro inductor-solenoids. The discovery is detailed in a new paper in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

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Runaway1956 writes:

Discussion from a September SoylentNews article.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Stepping into the furor over eye-popping price spikes for old generic medicines, a maker of compounded drugs will begin selling $1 doses of Daraprim, whose price recently was jacked up to $750 per pill by Turing Pharmaceuticals.

San Diego-based Imprimis Pharmaceuticals Inc., which mixes approved drug ingredients to fill individual patient prescriptions, said Thursday it will supply capsules containing Daraprim's active ingredients, pyrimethamine and leucovorin, for $99 for a 100-capsule bottle, via its website.

The 3 1/2-year-old drug compounding firm also plans to start making inexpensive versions of other generic drugs whose prices have skyrocketed, Chief Executive Mark Baum told The Associated Press.

"We are looking at all of these cases where the sole-source generic companies are jacking the price way up," Baum said in an interview. "There'll be many more of these" compounded drugs coming in the near future.

The high price of prescription medicines in the U.S. — from drugs for cancer and rare diseases that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year down to once-cheap generic drugs now costing many times their old price — has become a hot issue in the 2016 presidential race.

News that Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and other drugmakers have bought rights to old, cheap medicines that are the only treatment for serious diseases and then hiked prices severalfold has angered patients. It's triggered government investigations, politicians' proposals to fight "price gouging," heavy media scrutiny and a big slump in biotech stock prices.

Well, that certainly didn't take long. At $99/100 pills, I expect the profits are slim indeed - but there is probably a profit. The company certainly can't afford to just give the stuff away.

So - if one company can show a profit at $1/pill, how in hell does anyone justify selling the pill for hundreds of dollars?

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iWantToKeepAnon writes:

Marketoonist ran a story about marketers saying, "Oops, our bad."

The Interactive Advertising Bureau issued a remarkable mea culpa last week about the state of online advertising. In response to the rise of ad-blocking software, IAB VP Scott Cunningham said digital advertisers should take responsibility for annoying people and driving them to use ad blockers:

"We messed up. As technologists, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience....

"We build advertising technology to optimize publishers' yield of marketing budgets that had eroded after the last recession. Looking back now, our scraping of dimes may have cost us dollars in consumer loyalty...

"The consumer is demanding these actions, challenging us to do better, and we must respond."

Nod to pipedot for running this story.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes; everyone has one. But not Google's executive suite these days. When Google restructured itself as the "Alphabet" holding company, the visionary IoT and science projects were moved out of Google division, and Indian-born Sundar Pichai was named CEO of the core Google company which handles search, Android, YouTube, and all the other high-volume IT stuff. And that's a good thing, according to a couple ex-Googlers interviewed by Re/code: "All the assholes have left" ; Pichai apparently has a rare blend of hard and soft skills.

At Google, this guy has moved upstairs. And apparently having a CEO who was a brilliant entrepreneur but also a complete jerk was hardly unique to Google, Steve Jobs being the canonical example among tech CEOs. We've recently learned about the way Jeff Bezos runs Amazon. An obvious question from these examples is, can an ambitious tech company rule the universe without being run by assholes?

Original Submission

Hyperturtle writes:

According to Bloomburg, Comcast is rumored to be planning on offering a wireless telephony service, in partnership with Verizon Wireless.

I expect that the wifi calling features will heavily lean on their rollout of Wifi APs installed in customer homes, and when there is a lack of coverage, the Verizon Wireless services will pick up the slack.

Would anyone opt to use this service, knowing that in their home and neighborhoods, they are likely to get a "strong signal" if the data signal for wifi is already strong due to a previous Xfinity rollout? It could be there are areas of poor coverage due to a lack of Xfinity wifi, but overall, if seems that they have a strong placement in the communities they serve.

As a user of voip, and voip over wifi, the complications inherent in providing a consistent audio experience can be a difficult problem to solve, and it often deals with numerous differing devices that may not provide the same level of performance due to hardware or software, let alone network conditions. BYOD can be challenging due to the costs of providing a consistent service for inconsistent hardware.

Comcast has a lot of that problem solved, though, as they control the network and most of the APs. It isn't suggested anywhere, but I would guess that the performance for calls would hinge on the availability of their Xfinity access points, managed by them, and not by people like me with APs in my home providing coverage that their Xfinity device does not. They would need to offer a phone that uses Verizon, so we know that the client hardware will also be well controlled and not subject to differences between vendors.

If the costs are competitive, would you use this service? Does anyone have problems with Verizon Wireless as the backfill for when the wifi capabilities are unavailable?

And lastly, is this of value to any if they provided an application to let you make calls on your tablet/phone/computer, all originating and receiving calls to the same number that is portable and can ring across all of your devices?

All in all, even if video calls are not discussed as part of the offering, this could be an excellent alternative to Skype and similar services. It isn't free, but it will promise a more consistent experience guarantee due to their ability to control qos/data marking of the the end-to-end connectivity on their network.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists on Friday identified two complex organic molecules, or building blocks of life, on a comet for the first time, shedding new light on the cosmic origins of planets like Earth.

Ethyl alcohol and a simple sugar known as glycolaldehyde were detected in Comet Lovejoy, said the study in the journal Science Advances.

"These complex organic molecules may be part of the rocky material from which planets are formed," said the study.

Other organic molecules have previously been discovered in comets, most recently in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, on which the European space agency's Philae found several organic molecules -- including four never detected before on a comet.

takyon: About the scale of the alcoholic activity:

"We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity," said Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory, France, lead author of a paper on the discovery published October 23 in Science Advances.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

If you think it is okay to talk to your car infotainment system or smartphone while driving or even when stopped at a red light, think again. It takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, University of Utah researchers found in a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

One of the studies showed that it is highly distracting to use hands-free voice commands to dial phone numbers, call contacts, change music and send texts with Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri and Google Now smartphone personal assistants, though Google Now was a bit less distracting than the others.

The other study examined voice-dialing, voice-contact calling and music selection using in-vehicle information or "infotainment" systems in 10 model-year 2015 vehicles. Three were rated as moderately distracting, six as highly distracting and the system in the 2015 Mazda 6 as very highly distracting.

"Just because these systems are in the car doesn't mean it's a good idea to use them while you are driving," says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, senior author of the two new studies. "They are very distracting, very error prone and very frustrating to use. Far too many people are dying because of distraction on the roadway, and putting another source of distraction at the fingertips of drivers is not a good idea. It's better not to use them when you are driving."

Original Submission