Mar 27

Microsoft asks state lawmakers to make domestic companies pay for foreign firms’ software piracy

Posted in: Law, legal, patent, patents, Software, Today's Chili

Microsoft’s pirated software police have been going after companies abroad for years, but getting those far-away folks into US courtrooms isn’t easy. What is easy, however, is suing the folks in your own back yard — which is why Microsoft is lobbying to get laws passed in several states that’ll put US businesses on the hook for the pirating ways of their foreign suppliers. For example, if a manufacturer uses pirated software in the “manufacture, distribution, marketing, or sales” of products sold in Washington, Microsoft could sue the vendor of those products and get an injunction to stop the goods from being sold. So Washington widget retailers would be liable for the piracy of their foreign widget manufacturers, even if the illicit act was merely creating the sales invoice on a counterfeit copy of Word.

The Washington state Senate and House have already approved different versions of the bill, and the legislature is in the process of merging the two together for final approval. Louisiana passed a similar law last year, and analogous bills have been proposed in Oregon and several other states as well. Numerous companies — including Dell, IBM, Intel, and HP — oppose the laws, as they see them giving Microsoft the power to not only drag them into court, but also futz with their supply chains. (There’s bound to be some counterfeit software being used in Shenzhen, right?) As Microsoft’s latest anti-piracy scheme unfolds, there should be plenty more legislative action to come. Evidently the crew in Redmond doesn’t see piracy as a problem to be fixed by lowering prices.

Microsoft asks state lawmakers to make domestic companies pay for foreign firms’ software piracy originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 09:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechDirt  |  sourceGroklaw, WA State Senate (PDF), OR House of Reps (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 27

Nintendo 3DS launch game roundup

Posted in: Today's Chili

With the Nintendo 3DS launching today in the U.S., we’ve rounded up 14 mini-reviews of some of the launch titles available now!

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Mar 27

Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure

Posted in: Medicine, nanotechnology, NASA, research, Today's Chili

No one keeps carbon nanotubes down — especially not these guys. The always popular allotropes have been enlisted by researchers at Rice University to create a composite material that gets stronger under pressure. When combined with polydimethylsiloxane, a rubbery polymer, the tubes form a nanocomposite that exhibits self-strengthening properties also exhibited in bones. During testing, the team found the material increased in stiffness by 12 percent after 3.5 million compressions. Apparently, the crew is stumped on why it reacts this way, but is no less eager to see it working in the real world — discussion is already underway to use the stuff as artificial cartilage. And here we thought aerogel was cool. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure

Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 06:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CrunchGear  |  sourceRice University  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 27

Launchy 1.0 Released: Hunt Down Files, Search Bookmarks, and More!

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 31, 2007 by CyberNet.

I’ve had several people email me in the past week telling me what a great application Launchy is, and I realized that which is why I wrote about it back in September of 2006. At first I just thought that it was some new people stumbling upon the application, but then Radu pointed out that this is the final 1.0 release which just happened on January 23.

Launchy is a nifty little application that will let you launch applications simply by starting to type the name of the program in the window. With Launchy 1.0, however, you can do even more! 

Launchy

So what’s new? I pulled up the forum and it looks like Launchy supports plug-ins to make your experience even better!

  • Launchy now supports plugins! Check out the “Plugins” folder inside your Launchy directory, you can add and remove plugins from there when Launchy is not running. Following are the plugins that come with Launchy by default, I expect many others to be developed by myself and the community.
    • Weby Plugin

      Perform Web Searches: Launchy now supports the following search keywords: google, msn, yahoo, live, weather, amazon, wikipedia, dictionary, thesaurus, imdb, netflix, and msdn websearch. Type in any of these keywords, hit tab, type in your search query, and hit enter!

      Add custom web searches: Please see Quicksearches in the Foxy plugin

      Launch Webpages: Type in the url such as ‘www.launchy.net’ or ‘http://www.launchy.net’ and hit enter

    • Foxy Plugin

      Bookmarks: The Foxy plugin will automatically load your FireFox bookmarks into the database. Just search for them as you would applications.

      Quick searches: Launchy loads Firefox quick searches and will index the keyword into the database. Use it like you would a web search.

    • Explory Plugin

      Browse: Type in c: and then hit tab, now type in a couple letters of the next directory, and hit tab. You can press enter at anytime to launch the currently selected file or folder. Notice, you must tab after each file/folder.

      Browse from shortcut: If you type in “my docu”, hit tab, and then type in “my musi” and hit tab, Launchy will switch into browsing mode. Any directory or shortcut to a directory can convert into browsing mode.

    • Calcy Plugin

      Calculate: Type in some math.. Launchy will figure out what you want to do. Warning: This calculator is limited to +,/,-,* and parenthesis.

  • Now Ctrl+Backspace deletes a word at a time and Alt+Backspace clears the text 
  • Too many bug fixes to count or remember!

As this program keeps getting new features it continues to become more and more useful. It is skinnable so you can make it look however you like, and I have to admit that it has a lot of eye appeal to it.

Now that Vista has both indexed searching and a sidebar with gadgets built-in I think some of these other companies, like Google, will be looking to extend their applications feature set to help increase its appeal. If they start adding features similar to what Launchy offers then I think more people will consider downloading their desktop search application. I really don’t know what else these search application can add because they definitely won’t be able to compete with Vista’s integrated search feature!

Download Launchy

 Thanks to everyone who sent in this tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Mar 27

Qatar building fleet of remote control ‘clouds’ for World Cup 2022

Posted in: cloud, robot, Today's Chili, Transportation
When Qatar, an insanely wealthy Arab emirate roughly the size of Connecticut, won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, one of the stipulations was that its newly constructed open-air soccer stadiums would be air conditioned. Of course, this is Qatar we’re talkin’ about here, so the solution would have to be as extravagant as its insanely wealthy Arab emirate status implies. That’s why it was no huge shock when The Peninsula reported plans to cool at least some of the nine stadiums by using a fleet of solar powered “clouds,” designed and constructed by a certain Dr. Saud Abdul Ghani and his team. Dr. Ghani, the head of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Qatar University, said that the aircraft (more accurately described as really, really slow drones) will be operated by remote control, made of 100 percent light carbonic materials, and will initially cost half a million dollars each. But, really, what’s a few million dollars when it’s for a good cause?

Qatar building fleet of remote control ‘clouds’ for World Cup 2022 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 03:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink NBC  |  sourceThe Peninsula  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 26

LanSchool iPad application shoots out, sends back test questions

Posted in: app, AppStore, education, ios, ipad, Today's Chili

LanSchool’s iPad app has been out for a tick, but the latest update adds an extra that should please both teachers and pupils alike. It’s a testing feature that enables professors to send tests of up to 100 questions to students who are running the LanSchool iPad Student application; from there, the test results can be shot back and displayed in real time on the teacher’s console and come back graded with the ability to export or print the results. Those in charge can establish true / false, multiple choice or short answer questions, and graphics have a green light as well. Tests have to be built out using a Mac or PC, but after that, they can then be sent to iPads, computers or thin clients. You can hit the source link to download the program for free, but you’ll need a current classroom license for LanSchool to get anything accomplished. Whatd’ya — A for effort?

Continue reading LanSchool iPad application shoots out, sends back test questions

LanSchool iPad application shoots out, sends back test questions originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceiTunes  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 26

iMobot creeps, crawls, cranes its way into our hearts (video)

Posted in: research, robot, robotics, Today's Chili, video

It may not look like much, but this little modular robot’s got the stuff to give Keepon a run for its money — oh yeah, and according to its creators, iMobot’s got big implications for the field of robotics too. Sporting four degrees of freedom, two rotating joints, and a pair of faceplates that act as wheels, the patent-pending device can crawl, drive, and potentially act as an autonomous camera platform. The surprisingly agile hunk of machinery was developed by two UC Davis professors who say their versatile invention could aid in search and rescue, as well as education and research. We think it’s super cool that iMobot could be a hero, but really, we just want to see it bust a move. Check out a video of our new robo love after the break.

Continue reading iMobot creeps, crawls, cranes its way into our hearts (video)

iMobot creeps, crawls, cranes its way into our hearts (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhysOrg  |  sourceUC Davis (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 26

Samsung’s 11.6-inch 9 Series laptop official at $1,199, still comes with 64GB SSD

Posted in: laptop, notebook, pre-order, PreOrder, samsung, SSD, Today's Chili

An Italian demonstrator gave us hope, but now we’re empty inside — the exceptionally thin 11.6-inch version of Samsung’s 9 Series laptop will indeed come with a puny 64GB solid state drive. Well, perhaps empty is a bit of an exaggeration, as the machine’s gorgeous duralumin curves fill our hearts with joy, as does the comparatively inexpensive $1,199 price tag that Sammy just confirmed on its website. And hey, we know of an Engadget editor making do with just 60GB of storage in his notebook, so it’s not an untenable thing — but when Samsung’s marketing materials proudly boast that “You’ll have room to bring it all with you with the 64GB drive,” it’s hard to repress the tears. That said, if “portable” is your middle name, you’ll find all the pre-orders you need at our source link.

[Thanks, Brian]

Samsung’s 11.6-inch 9 Series laptop official at $1,199, still comes with 64GB SSD originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSamsung  | Email this | Comments

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Mar 26

Bill Gates Dethroned as Richest Man

Posted in: General, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

Carlos SlimAfter 13-years, Bill Gates is no longer considered the world’s richest man. Carlos Slim is his replacement, and it comes as no surprise as he is a Mexican telecommunications leader with a bank-busting net worth of $67.8 billion.

Bill Gates is worth a mere $59.2 billion, so the lead that Slim has is quite significant. Of course, if you’re gonna do a comparison like that you should also include philanthropy work. Bill Gates is reported to have given away more than $29 billion to charities since 2000, where Slim has decided to up his commitment from $4 billion to $10 billion over the next four years. That means in four years Slim will have donated 1/3 of what Bill Gates has already done by this year.

So what company does Carlos Slim own that made him so wealthy? It’s called América Móvil and offers telecommunication services around the world. There are more than 131 million subscribers, some of which reside here in the United States. In the U.S. it is not known as América Móvil, instead it is a subsidiary called Tracfone…ring a bell? That’s a popular pay-as-you-go service for cellphones which can be purchased in retail stores around the United States.

Around the world there are 946 billionaires according to the March 2007 report by Forbes, which combined have a net worth of $3.5 trillion. So where are you at on that list? ;)

Source: Times Online

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Mar 26

This Fighter Jet Runs on Biofuel

Posted in: green, military, science, Today's Chili

F22 Raptor

Jet fuel – especially the kind used in fighters and other military applications – is a heavily refined product that’s generated somewhat meticulously. It can be expensive to manufacture, even when oil prices are low. When gas prices at the pump are high, keep in mind that the price of jet fuel goes up just as much if not more, and the US Air Force isn’t immune from the sting. 
To that end, this F-22 Raptor fighter jet was loaded up with a 50/50 blend of its normal jet fuel, a propellant called JP-8, and a plant-based biofuel from the camelina sativa plant. Sure enough, the Raptor was able to climb to altitudes as high as 40,000 feet and reach top speeds of Mach 1.5. 
The whole project is part of the Air Force’s program to evaluate the potential for biofuels in its air and ground-based weapons systems that currently use traditional petroleum products. The camelina plant is actually a member of the mustard family, and is a fast-growing crop that can survive on little water: making it a perfect candidate for a biofuel. Best of all, using the camelina blend in the F-22 reduced its carbon emissions by close to 80%. 
With more testing, you never know; the Air Force may be able to arm itself with fighter jets that are deadly to the enemy, but harmless to the environment. 
[via Gizmag]
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