"Can somebody use another company's property just because it suits them?" That's the question posed by Oracle lawyer Mike Jacobs during the closing arguments in the "copyright phase" of the ongoing court battle between Oracle and Google over the use of the Java programming language on the Android mobile operating system. Oracle is trying to show that Google violated Oracle's copyrights when it built a new version of the Java platform atop Android, and on Monday, Jacobs sought to drive home Oracle's case by tossing this rhetorical question at a California jury.
Get ready for more hatching action. The fifth and last of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology live webcam's great blue heron chicks should hatch any minute now.
Apple and Samsung have been engaged in heated patent litigation since April 2011, but it looks like resolution could finally be imminent. On May 21 and 22, the two companies will meet in a San Francisco court to begin setting their differences.
It turns out that Google's "rogue engineer" excuse for its capture of WiFi data by Street View vehicles wasn?t entirely true. This is yet more bad news for a company whose business model depends on consumers trusting that their personal information will be handled properly. While Google of course deserves much of the blame, the FCC also has much to answer for: The agency concealed the truth from an unsuspecting public.
After ignoring a serious security vulnerability in its product for a year, a Canadian company that makes equipment and software for critical industrial control systems announced quietly on Friday that it would eliminate a backdoor login account in its flagship operating system, following public disclosure of the issue.
North Korea's missile program seems to be moving backwards, with its latest failed launch crapping out earlier than its 2009 dud. Yet House Republicans still want a flying, missile-zapping laser cannon to stop Pyongyang and its ballistic "threats."
There's been a strong correlation between skin and suckiness on HBO's hit show, which is based on George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series . That held true this week, as the total lack of nudity corresponded with one of the stronger episodes in recent memory. Still, there's room for book nerds to quibble.
Sometimes you can learn a lot by looking at what you shouldn't do. Developer Brad Frost points out five things to avoid when building your next responsive website.
With Oracle and Google at each other's throats in a San Francisco courtroom, Java creator James Gosling popped up this weekend and offered his opinion on the intellectual property dispute between the two companies. His take? "Google totally slimed Sun."
United Kingdom internet service providers must block The Pirate Bay, that nation's High Court said Monday.
The Hubble space telescope has taken the most detailed photograph yet of a fading star that's beaming twin searchlights through its dusty grave.
Nintendo attempts to thread the needle, introducing a large-scale plan for direct game downloads without alienating brick and mortar retailers.
We?re less than a week away from the scheduled launch of SpaceX?s Falcon 9 rocket, and today the company will fire the engines at the Kennedy Space Center with the rocket firmly anchored to the ground.
You think markets are efficient? Check this out: Barnes & Noble stock opened 2012 at $14.75 per share and falling fast; by January 5, the opening price was just $9.50. At that price, the entire company was worth just $550 million, and there was a very real fear that the entire company could go to zero, following in the footsteps of Blockbuster and other real-world retailers selling content more easily bought online. Today, of course, all that has changed.
According to some stats Opera Mobile is the most widely used mobile web browser in the world. Now Opera has released a study showing that for 56 percent of its users mobile browsing is not just the preferred way, but the only way to get online.
This piece is, and I can't emphasize this enough, only for people who want spoilers. Seriously, do not read this if you don't want to know anything about what happens in the film. You have been warned.
Toylet, a urine-powered videogame developed in Japan, is now available for purchase from its maker Sega.
An old match factory in East London -- which now houses more than 700 apartments -- could be used as the launch site for anti-aircraft high velocity missiles during the Olympic Games.
DIY.org is an new app and website for you kids to create their own portfolio or their artwork.
Microsoft announced Monday that it is investing $300 million in the Nook, the Barnes & Noble e-reader that is the closest competitor to Amazon's Kindle. The investment gives Microsoft a 17.6 percent stake in a new entity valued, based on the infusion, at $1.7 billion.
Devin Graham, known on YouTube as devinsupertramp, uploaded a new video. If it's anything like his previous works, it won't be long before you watch it. He's a regular Jonas Salk when it comes to viral vids.
National Poetry Month is almost over, but you can make poetry a part of your day year-round. Here are five simple suggestions for fitting poems into your busy schedule:
I'll confess: I was never much of a Playmobil kid. I may have had a figurine or two (and, presumably, some sets to go with them) but honestly I can't remember them and I no longer have them. I leaned toward Lego and other construction toys (anyone remember Construx?) and Playmobil just wasn't really part of my fun equation.
One of the keys to success in life is instilling good habits. We are creatures of habit and our kids are creatures of habit. We may like to think that our daily actions result from deliberation and willpower. But mostly they are the products of our unconscious habits.
An info geek has crunched a massive data set of NBA stats and discovered 13 new positions with the power to help even the Charlotte Bobcats improve their lineup and win more games.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration wants to ramp up the development and deployment of vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems, and the federal agency is actively considering requiring the technology to be fitted to vehicles within the next several years.
New submitter nuvoleweb writes "Drupal Intranets with Open Atrium, by Tracy Charles Smith is a comprehensive guide to Open Atrium, the popular open source Intranet system. Open Atrium is a derivative (distribution) of Drupal specifically meant for group collaboration, and the author works in the Open Atrium core team at Phase2 Technology." Read below for the rest of Andrea's review.
CWmike writes "The internet is no stranger to crime, writes corporate investigator Brandon Gregg. From counterfeit and stolen products, to illegal drugs, stolen identities and weapons, nearly anything can be purchased online with a few clicks of the mouse. The online black market not only can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection, but the whole process of ordering illicit goods and services is alarmingly easy and anonymous, with multiple marketplaces to buy or sell anything you want. Gregg started with $1000 and a took journey into the darker side of the Internet using two tools: Bitcoin and the Tor Bundle."
darthcamaro writes "On 9/11, terrorists took the lives of thousands of Americans — and removed a pair of icons from the New York City skyline. For the last 10+ years, The Empire State Building was the tallest building in NYC, but that changed today. 'Poking into the sky, the first column of the 100th floor of 1 World Trade Center will bring the tower to a height of 1,271 feet, making it 21 feet higher than the Empire State Building.'"
MrSeb writes "Numerous research groups around the world are reporting that they have created silicene, a one-atom-thick hexagonal mesh of silicon atoms — the silicon equivalent of graphene. You will have heard a lot about graphene, especially with regard to its truly wondrous electrical properties, but it has one rather major problem: It doesn't have a bandgap, which makes it very hard to integrate into existing semiconductor processes. Silicene, on the other hand, is theorized to have excellent electrical properties, while still being compatible with silicon-based electronics (abstract). For now, silicene has only been observed (with a scanning tunneling electron microscope), but the next step is to grow a silicene film on an insulating substrate so that its properties can be properly investigated."
SchrodingerZ writes "Just in time to miss the 100-year anniversary of the fatal voyage of the Titanic, Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer announced he has plans to recreate the Titanic, calling it Titanic II. 'It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,' says Palmer. He stated it was to be as close to the original as possible, with some modern adjustments. Its maiden voyage is set for 2016."
alphadogg writes "It's free, easier to use than ever, IT staffers know it and love it, and it has fewer viruses and Trojans than Windows. So, why hasn't Linux on the desktop taken off? When it comes to desktop Linux, the cost savings turn out to be problematic, there are management issues, and compatibility remains an issue. 'We get a lot more questions about switching to Macs than switching to Linux at this point, even though Macs are more expensive,' one Gartner analyst says."
Barence writes "Five of Britain's biggest ISPs have been ordered to block access to The Pirate Bay. Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media have been told to block access to the site. Britain's biggest ISP, BT, has been given a few further weeks to 'consider its position.' Music lobby group, the BPI, welcomed the move, saying music creators 'deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else' and calling for those who use The Pirate Bay to illegally download content to 'explore the many digital music services operating ethically and legally in the UK.'"
cylonlover writes "A University of Dundee research team led by Prof. Mike MacDonald has demonstrated that both levitation and twisting forces can be applied to an object by application of ultrasonic beams. The team of physicists at the University of Dundee in Scotland (with associates at Bristol University in England) have succeeded in generating an ultrasonic vortex beam strong enough to lift and rotate a rubber disk submerged in water. This latest breakthrough is part of a wide-ranging U.K. research effort to develop a device not unlike the "sonic screwdriver" made famous by the TV series Doctor Who." We covered the beginning of the sonic screwdriver project by Bristol University engineers a little over a year ago.
First time accepted submitter NGTechnoRobot writes "In a turn for the books the BBC reports that Microsoft has invested $300 million in Barnes and Noble's Nook e-reader. The new Nook reader will integrate with Microsoft's yet-to-be-released Windows 8 operating system. From the article: 'The deal could make Barnes and Noble's Nook e-book reader available to millions of new customers, integrating it with the Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system. The as-yet unnamed new company will be 82.4% owned by Barnes and Noble, with Microsoft getting a 17.6% stake.' Guess the lawsuit's over, folks."
MrSeb writes "Details of a new, ultra-compact computer form factor from Intel, called the Next Unit of Computing (NUC) are starting to emerge. First demonstrated at PAX East at the beginning of April, and Intel's Platinum Summit in London last week, NUC is a complete 10x10cm (4x4in) Sandy Bridge Core i3/i5 computer. On the back, there are Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB 3.0 ports. On the motherboard itself, there are two SO-DIMM (laptop) memory slots and two mini PCIe headers. On the flip side of the motherboard is a CPU socket that takes most mobile Core i3 and i5 processors, and a heatsink and fan assembly. Price-wise, it's unlikely that the NUC will approach the $25 Raspberry Pi, but an Intel employee has said that the price will 'not be in the hundreds and thousands range.' A price point around $100 would be reasonable, and would make the NUC an ideal HTPC or learning/educational PC. The NUC is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2012."
suraj.sun writes "More than a decade ago, Microsoft execs, led by Chairman Bill Gates, were touting a future where .Net coffee pots, bulletin boards, and refrigerator magnets would be part of homes where smart devices would communicate and inter-operate. Microsoft hasn't given up on that dream. In 2010, Microsoft researchers published a white paper about their work on a HomeOS and a HomeStore — early concepts around a Microsoft Research-developed home-automation system. Those concepts have morphed into prototypes since then, based on a white paper, 'An Operating System for the Home,' (PDF) published this month on the Microsoft Research site. The core of HomeOS is described in the white paper as a kernel that is agnostic to the devices to which it provides access, allowing easy incorporation of new devices and applications. The HomeOS itself 'runs on a dedicated computer in the home (e.g., the gateway) and does not require any modifications to commodity devices,' the paper added. Microsoft has been testing HomeOS in 12 real homes over the past four to eight months, according to the latest updates. As is true with all Microsoft Research projects, there's no guarantee when and if HomeOS will be commercialized, or even be 'adopted' by a Microsoft product group."
nachiketas writes "A study led by Liming Zhou, Research Associate Professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of New York concludes that large wind farms could noticeably impact local weather patterns. According to Professor Zhou: 'While converting wind's kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface-atmosphere exchanges and transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere. These changes, if spatially large enough, might have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.'"
Fluffeh writes "The USPTO is considering a rather interesting request straight from lobbyists via congress: that certain 'Economically Significant' patents should be kept secret during the process (PDF Warning) of being evaluated and granted. While this does occur at the moment on a very select few patents 'due to national security' for things like nuclear energy and the like — this would allow it to go much, much further. 'By statute, patent applications are published no earlier than 18 months after the filing date, but it takes an average of about three years for a patent application to be processed. This period of time between publication and patent award provides worldwide access to the information included in those applications. In some circumstances, this information allows competitors to design around U.S. technologies and seize markets before the U.S. inventor is able to raise financing and secure a market.'"
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have discovered a benign algae eating protozoan in a lake near Oslo, Norway whose gene sequence does not match any known organism living on earth today, and this beasty combines genetic characteristics across plant, animal, and fungal kingdoms. It is believed to be the closest living organism to the original organisms that spawned all animal life on earth."