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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

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Citations Sarcasm: How Gizmodo Got A Defamation Lawsuit SLAPPed Down

Gizmodo.com published an article, Smoke & Mirrors: The Greatest Scam in Tech , about Redmond's venture, Peep Telephony. In addition to using the word "scam" in the title, the article had lots of denigrating things to say about Peep and about Redmond's prior initiatives. (The opinion lays out the beefs, although some of the hot spots are apparent from a quick review of the initial article). Gizmodo subsequently published Redmond's rebuttals . Later, Redmond apparently decided the rebuttal wasn't enough and asked Gizmodo to remove both articles, which Gizmodo declined to do. Redmond then sued Gizmodo's parent Gawker Media for defamation. The court dismissed the case on anti-SLAPP grounds , and that means Redmond will owe a check to Gawker for his lawsuit.

The court has no problem finding that Peep Telephony's activities were a matter of public interest, as Peep Telephony had received...

Plunging Through Time To Rescue Out Of Print Sci-Fi Books

From time to time, we talk about the issue of orphaned works and how these out of print books are doing nobody any good. The public loses out as they are out of print and very often can't be found. The authors or owners of the copyright lose out because no one is buying them any more. Often times, the person who owns the copyright has no idea they own it. There is a definite need to help all parties involved in this murky area by bringing these works back to life. That is what one recently opened book store, Singularity & Co ., plans to do.

Via BoingBoing , we learn that this store plans to rescue one out of print sci-fi book each month by seeking out the owner of the copyright and purchasing the rights to publish the ebook.

We love books. A lot. And we love...

Next TPP Negotiation Session Has Only 3 Hours Allotted For Negotiators To Talk To Public Interest Advocates

The USTR's handling of public interest access to TPP negotiators has bounced around over the last few negotiating sessions, with many suggesting that last months' meetings in San Diego were actually handled somewhat decently. However, with the upcoming negotiating round in Virginia, apparently there's no more time to be talking to anyone representing the public interest. The oddly named "Direct Stakeholder Engagement" period is from 11am to 2pm on Sunday, September 9th and that's it. So not only have they reduced the length from previous sessions, but they put it at the same time as lunch. So if these groups actually want to talk to negotiators, they might want to serve some food... Either way, it really feels like the whole "stakeholders" sessions are just the USTR's way of saying "see? we're letting people in!" But, of course, that's completely different from real transparency.
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DailyDirt: Simulations For Living On Mars

Manned missions to Mars aren't going to happen for decades (if ever?), but in the mean time, we have awesome robots roaming the surface of Mars for us. We also have some simulations of living on Mars -- like the Mars500 project -- and the unforgettable original Total Recall movie. Here are just a few more Martian simulations if you need some help escaping from the realities of Earth.

Will Wright, the creator of SimCity, has imagined what the first Mars settlement might look like in 2047. A Martian town with a population of 8,000 inhabitants sounds somewhat unlikely in less than 50 years, but it might happen someday. [ url ]
An open source Mars Simulator built in Java has been around since 1998. SimMars was never commercially released, so this open source project was the only game in town -- until the mod for SimCity 4. [ url ...

Last Chance To Help With Some Research On The Impact Of Patent Trolls

A few weeks ago, we wrote about some...

First Mummies May Have Been Inspired by Field of Corpses

sciencehabit writes with a story about a field strewn with corpses in shallow graves. From the article: "Trekking through Chile's Atacama Desert 7000 years ago, hunter-gatherers known as the Chinchorro walked in the land of the dead. Thousands of shallowly buried human bodies littered the earth, their leathery corpses pockmarking the desolate surroundings. According to new research, the scene inspired the Chinchorro to begin mummifying their dead, a practice they adopted roughly 3000 years before the Egyptians embraced it."...

Project Troglodyte: Trying To Pre-Defuse Possible Patent Trolls In Important Areas

Three guys from Finland who have been inspired by the EFF's patent busting project have recently launched a new effort, called Project Troglodyte , which is designed to pre-vet certain patents that they fear have a high likelihood of blocking innovation thanks to trolls.

We want to take the EFF’s idea one step further: we scan for patents that have not YET caused problems, but have potential to do so in the future. We have chosen a few basic criteria:
1. Technologies that will be crucial in the near future.
2. Technologies that are potentially vulnerable to single patents.
3. Technologies that we understand at least somewhat.
4. Sometimes technologies we are just interested in. We are doing this because we feel strongly about the issue of patent misuse, and want to see innovation that enables a better future. Between us we have quite a lot of experience in creating...