Hasta La Gadget!

In a growing list of various locales that Google Glass has already been banned before its public release, casinos are starting to add on to that list. Caesers Palace in Las Vegas is the first major casino to prohibit Google Glass from being worn on the gambling floor to prevent cheating during casino games.

Caesars Palace says that they won’t allow anyone gambling to use Google Glass, but it seems that casino officials will let you at least wear it when simply wondering around, as long as you’re not recording — casinos usually frown on taking pictures or video, even if you’re not gambling. Casinos see recording devices as a means to get an unfair advantage at the tables.

Recently, within the last few months, establishments have been popping up saying that they will not allow Google Glass inside their facilities, including a bar in Seattle, as well as movie theaters and other places where taking photos and recording videos is already prohibited. Lawmakers are even wanting to ban Google Glass while driving, saying that the spectacles can be a distraction while behind the wheel.

Of course, this isn’t surprising by any means. Many luddites believe that Google Glass is an invasion of privacy, allowing Glass users to secretly take photos and record video, but in a world where it’s increasingly more difficult to keep your privacy while out in public, is this really anything new? Does Google Glass offer anything that we haven’t already seen in surveillance equipment and such?

[via Computerworld]

Casinos banning Google Glass over cheating threat is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The White House has hired its first ever chief privacy officer, and the the person to take the helm for the first time is Twitter‘s legal director Nicole Wong, who has over a decade of experience dealing with both copyright and privacy law. The appointment of a chief privacy officer comes at a curious time, when a handful of privacy bills are trying to make their way through Congress.

Before Twitter, Wong served as the vice president and deputy general counsel at Google for eight years, in which she headed a team of lawyers that were responsible for reviewing various aspects of a new product from the company, including details like privacy, copyright, and removal requests.

Details on the new gig are scarce, but CNET reports that the new position will report to the chief technology officer as a senior advisor of sorts. The current chief technology officer of the White House is Todd Park, who was just hired on about two months ago. Wong’s job will focus on internet and privacy policy.

Before working at Google, Wong received her law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Frankly, we’re not surprised that the White House hired Wong. She hasn’t been at Twitter for that long, but the social media service has received high marks for its privacy policies and its user data protection.

[via CNET]

White House hires Twitter legal director as chief privacy officer is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Just under one year ago, the story of a $1 million dollar Tyrannosaurus Rex made its way across newslines due to its rarity and the fact that it’d been stolen from Mongolia. Fast forward to now and this Tarbosaurus Bataar thunder lizard is finally headed back to its home, the until-recently holder of this collection of fossils headed to court with a collection of charges against him. Eric Prokopi is not having a good day today.

This looted beast was spoken about by professionals and the scientific public alike, petitions having been signed and professors making the case for the impossibility of legality in the auction that was to take place in the Spring of 2012. Back then it was Dr Mark A Norell, Chairman and Curator, Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of National History who made one of several compelling cases for this construction of bones to have been looted illegally.

“In the current catalogue Lot 49317 (a skull of Saichania) and Lot 49315 (a mounted Tarbosaurus skeleton) clearly were excavated in Mongolia as this is the only locality in the world where these dinosaurs are known. The copy listed in the catalogue, while not mentioning Mongolia specifically (the locality is listed as Central Asia) repeatedly makes reference to the Gobi Desert and to the fact that other specimens of dinosaurs were collected in Mongolia.

As someone who is intimately familiar with these faunas, these specimens were undoubtedly looted from Mongolia. There is no legal mechanism (nor has there been for over 50 years) to remove vertebrate fossil material from Mongolia.” – Dr Mark A Norell for American Museum of National History

The “unusually complete” skeleton is set to be returned to Mongolian representatives today by Homeland Security officials in a ceremony near the United Nations. Prokopi meanwhile is currently free on bail and faces up to 17 years in prison. According to the NY Times, Prokopi agreed to a guilty plea with the court on December 27th of 2012 along with a forfeiture of several other skeletons that he’d apparently come into possession of illegally as well.

Prokopi surrendered the main Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton in question along with a second, slightly smaller Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton (surprise! he had two!), two Saurolophus skeletons, and two Oviraptor skeletons. His next court date will take place August 30th, 2013.

Mongolia’s stolen T-Rex finally headed home: one year later is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola abused its dominance in wireless patents when it tried to block Apple’s iPhone in Germany, the European Commission has judged, potentially paving the way to official antitrust penalties against the Google-owned smartphone firm. The EU had been investigating Motorola’s use of standards-essential GSM patents to spar with Apple in Europe, citing the company’s intention to chase sales injunctions over use of technologies that had been agreed as core to the GSM standard, despite Apple suggesting it was willing to license them.

The so-called FRAND patents – patents which must be licensed under “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” terms, as they are standard-essential – were intended to make a level playing field on which all mobile device manufacturers would begin. However, Motorola Mobility took a more aggressive stance, with reports that the company was demanding around 2.25-percent royalties, a figure Apple insisted was nowhere near fair.

The EC apparently feels the same way, at least according to these preliminary findings. The Commission will send a Statement of Objects to Motorola Mobility, laying out its concerns as well as highlighting the fact that it believes Motorola acted in a way that led to less consumer choice.

“The protection of intellectual property is a cornerstone of innovation and growth. But so is competition. I think that companies should spend their time innovating and competing on the merits of the products they offer – not misusing their intellectual property rights to hold up competitors to the detriment of innovation and consumer choice” Joaquín Almunia, Commission Vice President in charge of competition policy, EC

However, it’s not to say that the final outcome of the investigation will rule in the same way as the Statement does. Motorola – and new owners Google – will now have to demonstrate to the Commission that, by pushing ahead with a request for injunctions when Apple had already said it would license the patents and allow for a third-party to negotiate the terms, it did not commit antitrust-style behavior.

Even if the company’s lawyers can do that, there still remain other complaints leveled against Motorola. Microsoft also accused the company of antitrust, claiming that Motorola insisted on 1,125x the going rate in royalty payments, when it came to licensing video playback and wireless connectivity technology in PCs and Xbox consoles.

[via NYTimes]

EU sees Motorola’s anti-Apple patent ploy as antitrust, Commission warns is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’ve never seen Keyboard Cat or Nyan Cat, welcome to your first day on the Internet. That aside, both videos, one lovable and the other maddening in a good way, are the source of a lawsuit against Warner Brothers due to its use of them without permission, credit, or compensation to their creators. Game developer 5th Cell was also tagged in the lawsuit.

If you’ve never seen Nyan Cat, prepare to have the 3-minute video stuck in your head for the next ten or so hours. As the lawsuit specifies, the video features a cat-faced character with “a body resembling a horizontal breakfast bar with pink frosting sprinkled with light red dots” (aka, a cat stuck in a Poptart) soaring through the air beyond a tail of rainbows colors. Without further ado, check it out in the video below.

Keyboard Cat, meanwhile, is cute in direct proportion to Nyan Cat’s annoyance factor, featuring a cat wearing a tiny suit jacket in front of a keyboard, jamming away at the keys with a half-asleep look on his face that says, “Charlie Schmidt has made me do this a million times.” You can check it out in its full 55-seconds of 480p awesomeness in the video below.

If you liked those two videos, you’re not the only one – Warner Bros. published a a video game called Scribblenauts that features them, which was developed by 5th Cell. Perhaps unbeknownst to the developer, both videos have been trademarked by their respective video creators. Adding insult to injury, the two characters were used to market the game, a transgression for which Warner Bros. has not yet made a comment. The case is being handled in California.

[via ars technica]

Warner Bros. hit with lawsuit over Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat use is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.