Leftovers

• Standards/Consortia

  • C4ISRNET ☛ New Defense Department experimentation series targets data integration

    Sheppard said that while larger GIDEs function more as operational test demonstrations, the smaller events explore how the team can get after more discrete technical or systems integration issues that need to be resolved before conducting the larger experiments.

    That could involve integrating a sensor’s data feeds or creating a path to pull readiness data from a platform, she said during a Hudson Institute event Monday in Washington, D.C.

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Lip-Bu Tan's first speech as defective chip maker Intel CEO focuses on innovation and working with foundry customers

    Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan made his first keynote speech, laying down the path he intends to take for the company and soliciting customer feedback.

  • Hackaday ☛ A Forgotten Photographic Process Characterised

    Early photography lacked the convenience of the stable roll film we all know, and instead relied on a set of processes which the photographer would have to master from film to final print. Photographic chemicals could be flammable or even deadly, and results took a huge amount of work.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Arm aims to capture 50% of data center CPU market in 2025

    Arm Holdings aims to boost its data center CPU market share from 15% to 50% by the end of 2025, betting on AI-driven servers and growing support from major cloud service providers.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • New York Times ☛ Pope Francis’ Health Continues to Improve, Vatican Says

    A little over a week after returning to the Vatican guesthouse to convalesce, the pope was showing gradual improvements in his movements and speech.

  • Science Alert ☛ Iron in The Brain Might Help Explain Curious Link Between ADHD And Dementia

    A critical clue.

  • Science Alert ☛ Measles Devastates Your Body in a Variety of Ways. Here's What's at Risk.

    It's no mere rash.

  • Science Alert ☛ Vitamin D Could Be an Effective Way to Slow Progress of MS

    This looks promising.

  • New York Times ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man Aid Cuts End Contraception Access for Millions of Women

    The United States was a key supplier of contraceptives in many developing countries. The Forrest Dump administration has ended that support.

  • Latvia ☛ Hospitals can be penalised for poor data entry practices

    Despite the financial support given to hospitals to digitise their data, not all of them enter their records into the online e-Health system. Hospitals that do not enter all prescriptions and notes on the platform as of 1 April will be charged 10% of the state funding, the National Health Service (NVD) said.

  • Federal News Network ☛ What happens next at Health and Human Services with a quarter of the workforce gone?

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. wants to trim 20,000 employees or about 1 in 4 employees.

  • Federal News Network ☛ Mass layoffs are underway at the nation’s public health agencies

    Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department received notices Tuesday that their jobs were being eliminated, part of a sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink the agencies responsible for protecting and promoting Americans’ health. The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues. HHS said layoffs are expected to save $1.8 billion annually — about 0.1% — from the department’s $1.7 trillion budget, most of which is spent on Medicare and Medicaid health insurance coverage for millions of Americans.

• Security

  • Devices/Embedded

    • The Record ☛ Lawmakers warn of impact HHS firings will have on medical device cybersecurity efforts

      During a subcommittee hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce , multiple members of Congress peppered five medical device cybersecurity expert witnesses with questions about how the firings will impact efforts to check the devices for cybersecurity protections before and after they are sold to hospitals.

      [...]

      A 2022 bill mandated that medical device manufacturers abide by new cybersecurity rules and submit devices for verification by the FDA.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Federal News Network ☛ Targeted pay bump for junior enlisted troops goes into effect this month

    Congress approved a significant pay raise for active duty service members ranks E-1 through E-4, which is set to go into effect this month.

  • New York Times ☛ Cory Booker Condemns Convicted Felon’s Policies in Longest Senate Speech on Record

    The New Jersey senator spent much of his speech, which ended after more than 25 hours, assailing the Convicted Felon administration. He eclipsed Strom Thurmond’s filibuster of a civil rights bill in 1957.

  • NYPost ☛ Moments from Cory Booker’s record-breaking Senate floor speech

    Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) has held the floor of the Senate hostage for more than 24 hours as part of a marathon session opposing Hell Toupée’s agenda in Congress. The New Jersey Democrat broke the record for the longest Senate speech in US history which was previous held by the late South Carolina Sen. Strom...

  • France24 ☛ US senator breaks record with over 24-hour speech against Convicted Felon's policies

    Democratic Senator Cory Booker broke the record for the longest US Senate speech, exceeding 24 hours in a fiery protest against Hell Toupée's "unconstitutional" actions. Remaining standing throughout, Booker's marathon mirrored the iconic scene from the 1939 film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

  • China muzzles online debate on construction standards after Bangkok building collapse

    Reports and discussions on the China-built audit office collapse vanish from Chinese platforms.

  • CS Monitor ☛ What gives him hope for rebuilding Gaza? Dialogue and science.

    The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, headed by Tareq Abu Hamed, is leveraging science to aid the Gaza Strip.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Latvia ☛ Latvia awaits regulation on bomb shelters

      Bomb shelters have been discussed in Latvia since Russia launched a full-scale war in Ukraine. A draft law on Civil Protection and Disaster Management, which will finally say everything about bomb shelters, entered Parliament in mid-March. Latvian Television's "Forbidden Method" aired on 31 March investigated the state of some shelters in Latvia.

    • Stanford University ☛ Puri | Betraying Ukraine is the worst thing Convicted Felon has ever done

      The president has chosen to align the U.S. with a barbaric tyrant rather than the courageous nation holding him at bay, Puri writes.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Still no consensus on using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine

      Western leaders are still unable to reach a consensus on the use of around $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to finance the Ukrainian war effort, writes Mark Temnycky.

    • Defence Web ☛ Drones changing the rules of modern conflict

      The wider use of unmanned vehicles in the Ukrainian theatre has changed the rules of modern conflict, and all armed forces will probably use unmanned systems in future combat. This is according to Viktor Listopadov, Regional Director of Ukraine’s SpetsTechnoExport.

    • France24 ☛ Russian advance in Ukraine slows for fourth consecutive month, ISW data shows

      Russian forces continue to advance in Ukraine but at a slower pace than in recent months, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which shows Moscow's territorial gains slowing down for the fourth consecutive month in March.

    • France24 ☛ Russia accuses Ukraine on firing on energy sites

      Russia's Defence Ministry on Tuesday accused Ukraine of attacking Russian energy infrastructure twice in the past 24 hours despite a U.S.-brokered moratorium on striking each other's energy facilities. Ukrainian drones hit electricity substations in part of Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine, and in Russia's southern Belgorod region, leaving residents without power, the ministry said. France24 Senior Reporter Catherine Norris Trent explains.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuania backs NATO Article 5 guarantees for Ukraine, says official

      NATO's Article 5 guarantees for Ukraine could be one of the ways to maintain peace in the country, Marius Česnulevičius, a national security advisor to President Gitanas Nausėda, said on Tuesday.

    • Meduza ☛ Ukraine not preparing for elections, says senior lawmaker

    • Meduza ☛ Russia complains to U.S. and U.N. that Ukraine keeps attacking its energy infrastructure

    • Meduza ☛ The Ukrainian mineral deposits Trump is after

    • Defence Web ☛ Many obstacles remain for Russian naval base in Sudan

      After years of on-again, off-again negotiations, Sudan has agreed to let Russia establish its first naval base on the continent along the war-torn country’s Red Sea coast.

    • LRT ☛ Georgians decry Kremlin-funded photographer winning World Press Photo Award

      Georgian photographers who have covered months of protests in their capital, Tbilisi, say they are "deeply disturbed" at the awarding of a World Press Photo prize to a photographer working with the Russian state news agency TASS.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Russian, Chinese foreign ministers discuss Iran's nuclear program and Korea, Russia says

      Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, the situation on the Korean Peninsula as well as Iran's nuclear program, the Russian foreign ministry said late on Tuesday.

    • Meduza ☛ Six E.U. countries declare readiness to increase pressure on Russia and impose new sanctions — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ How Russia forced a man with intellectual disabilities to join the war

    • Meduza ☛ Transgender teenager is sixth Russian LGBTQ asylum seeker to die in Dutch detention in three years — Meduza

    • New York Times ☛ A Prison Death Highlights Russia’s LGBTQ Crackdown

      The Russian government has unleashed a wave of repression against L.G.B.T.Q. people, with the police raiding gay night clubs and investigators targeting people they suspect of being gay.

    • Meduza ☛ Censor forces outlet to unpublish ‘discrediting’ report about strike on Kharkiv that didn’t even mention Russia’s military

    • Meduza ☛ Argentina arrests notorious Russian cult leader after hospital scandal alerts police

    • Meduza ☛ U.K. adds Russia to ‘enhanced tier’ of threats identified under new regulations

    • LRT ☛ American detained in Belarus not linked to Pabradė rescue operation – VSAT

      After Belarus announced that it had detained a US national who crossed illegally from Lithuania, the country’s border guard service says he has nothing to do with the events in Pabradė training area where a search continues for a missing US soldier.

    • LRT ☛ Lithuanian border guards refused to accept asylum requests, says NGO

      Border guards at the Medininkai checkpoint on Lithuania’s border with Belarus have turned back five Africans who were seeking asylum, an NGOs says.

    • New York Times ☛ Fourth U.S. Soldier Is Found Dead in Lithuania

      The soldier and three others had gone on a training mission in a 70-ton vehicle that sank in a bog near the border with Belarus.

• Environment

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Coal layoffs leave Wyoming community grappling with good, bad of energy transition

      Linda Slovernick’s husband works at the Kemmerer coal mine that recently laid off 28 workers. Though he survived the cut, her husband is “the breadwinner of the household,” Slovernick told WyoFile, leaving her worried about the possibility of more layoffs.

      After living in Kemmerer for decades, the couple’s home is almost paid off — a luxury in a skyrocketing housing market — and they don’t want to have to move. Kemmerer is their home. It’s where they plan to retire. If her husband does get laid off, it’s doubtful he will find another job that pays as well as the mine, said Slovernick, who manages the JCPenney store in downtown Kemmerer.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Breach Media ☛ ‘Hard and fast from every direction’: inside the group plotting Poilievre’s blitzkrieg of cuts

    Pierre Poilievre’s first days in government would rely on ‘the Mike Harris playbook’

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ US sanctions 6 officials, inc. justice minister and police chief, as Hong Kong condemns ‘despicable behaviour’

    Hong Kong has slammed the United States for placing sanctions on six local and Chinese officials for their involvement in what Washington calls “transnational repression” and the implementation of the Beijing-imposed national security law.

  • New York Times ☛ Turnout Strong as Wisconsin Decides Key Court Contest

    More than two million people are expected to vote to decide the balance of the state’s Supreme Court, as MElon is paying $50 to anyone who uploads a photo of a resident outside a precinct.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Press Gazette ☛ Noel Clarke ‘pressured women to keep quiet’ ahead of Guardian publication

    Guardian head of investigations Paul Lewis gives evidence in libel trial.

  • France24 ☛ Dihydroxyacetone Man threatens $9 billion in Harvard funding over 'anti-Semitism'

    The US government will review $9 billion of funding for Harvard University over alleged anti-Semitism on campus, authorities said Monday, after it cut millions from Columbia University, which has also seen fierce pro-Palestinian student protests. Lecturer in public advocacy at Sciences Po Paris, Lex Paulson, explains.

  • JURIST ☛ Rights group urges Iran to ‘unconditionally release’ Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) demanded Monday the unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi after the Iranian government threatened to reimprison the human rights activist in an attempt to silence her. Mohammadi’s health condition dramatically worsened during the prison sentence she has been serving since 2016.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Press Gazette ☛ Vox sees boom in paying readers for explainer journalism under Convicted Felon 2

    Editor Swati Sharma on how Vox has evolved now everyone is doing explainers.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • New York Times ☛ In Adams Case, Some Say It’s Not the Time for Narrow Reading of the Law

    Some legal observers say the court-appointed expert who recommended dismissing charges against Mayor Eric Adams failed to account for the extraordinary factors in the case.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Patents

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ The Return of Robust Discretionary Denials [Ed: More corruption from above]

    Last week, Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart granted Director Review and vacated the PTAB's decision instituting several inter partes reviews (IPRs) in Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Stellar, LLC. [IPR2024-01205, -01206, -01207, -01208 Director Review Decision] Stewart's March 28 decision applies the Fintiv factors more aggressively than the Board, signaling a shift toward increased discretionary denials under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a).

  • Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ Convoyed Sales: Federal Circuit Washes Away $2.6M in Patent Damages

    The Federal Circuit’s March 2025 decision in Wash World v. Belanger, attempts to clarify an important distinction between apportionment and convoyed sales in patent monopoly damages jurisprudence, dissolving nearly $2.6 million from a jury’s $9.8 million lost profits award. Wash World Inc. v. Belanger Inc., No. 2023-1841, slip op. at 26 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 24, 2025). A jury found that Wash World’s “Razor EDGE” car wash system infringed Belanger’s U.S. Patent No. 8,602,041, which claimed a vehicle spray washer with lighted spray arms.  Adding lights is a simple transformation, but apparently the particular arrangement of flashing lights running down the length of each during vehicle entry to create a “goalpost effect” that guides drivers to position their vehicles.

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • JUVE ☛ Nokia targets Asian hardware makers in new UPC and Munich patent monopoly suits [Ed: UPC is illegal and unconstitutional; the judges in this kangaroo 'court' are part-time Nokia employees; this is EPO corruption cross-pollinating the EU, in turn destabilising Europe]

      Nokia is enforcing three patents against Taiwanese hardware manufacturers Acer and Asus, and Chinese electronics company Hisense. The Finnish company has filed three lawsuits against each manufacturer at both the Munich Regional Court and at the UPC local division Munich.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTAB Posts April 2025 Hearing Schedule

    The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (Tee-Tee-Ā-Bee) has scheduled four (4) oral hearings for the month of April 2025. All will be held virtually. Briefs and other papers for each case may be found at TTABVUE via the links provided.