04.01.16
Posted in America, Europe, IBM, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 4:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
From USPTO Director to Lobbyist for Patent Maximalism and Software Patents?
No comment necessary
Summary: Reports from the Fordham IP Conference serve to show nefarious bias which serves not only patent lawyers and their large clients (like Microsoft or IBM) but also software patents (which Microsoft and IBM have turned into their business model as sales continue to nosedive)
THE Fordham IP Conference (i.e. stuffed and/or staffed with lawyers, no public interest representatives) has just ended and there was material in it which related to the EPO, the UPC, and software patents in Europe (to be covered separately). Unless you are very wealthy, you’re unlikely to have been able to attend and unless you are a patent maximalist, you wouldn’t have had a chance to speak there (just listen). It’s an echo chamber, a meeting behind closed doors (almost), a conspiracy or a think tank (to put it politely). It’s one of several such events (in big and overpriced cities) which are efforts to collectively shape the law and influence policy. Output/reports are like a think tank’s bit of “research”. Dissenting voices are not allowed, let alone invited to offer input.
“It’s one of several such events (in big and overpriced cities) which are efforts to collectively shape the law and influence policy.”Right now software patents in Europe are a big deal because the US basically pushes back against such patents, much to the chagrin of patent lawyers who profited from them (usually at the expense of programmers like myself and millions of others).
David Kappos, formerly of USPTO and IBM (now increasingly notorious for aggression with software patents), is acting as though he’s above a Supreme ruling or as if SCOTUS is wrong (because of his own financial interests). One must recall what Kappos did after leaving the USPTO (now a patent profiteering person, who is still pushing for software patents).
“David Kappos – not a fan of the Supreme Court’s decisions on section 101,” says the caption below his face. We will cover the latest developments regarding section 101 some time in the weekend.
According to this outline of the event, composed by a proponent of software patents, Alice upsets Kappos:
In terms of Supreme Court decisions, especially the CLS v Alice Bank decision, David said that it is impossible to make sense of the Supreme Court jurisprudence on section 101. In trying to make sense of section 101, the PTO is trapped by a set of Supreme Court decisions which are incomprehensible. That is has been the architect of PTO’s real struggle to get to grips with patentable subject matter. Judge O’Malley agreed that it is difficult to understand what is and is not left in terms of patentable subject matter, but this challenge has led to many more creative arguments from lawyers who try to distinguish their inventions from the realm of a CLS v Alice Bank situation. Sir Robin chimed in stating that in the real world the patent office does issue bad patents – it is inevitable This is because its a one-sided examination process conducted by an examiner who may not have all of the prior art before him or her and who is generally under-resourced. You can see this in Europe where an opposition takes 10-15 years to decide whether a patent is valid. This is a broken system. The America Invents Act, to Sir Robin, looks great in comparison as it provides a quicker, more efficient regime to address validity. It also provides certainty, which is hugely important.
David agreed about the inevitably of some patents being wrongly granted. In particular, this is an issue when an examiner is being asked whether an invention is abstract – that very question is entirely subjective and, as Sir Robin noted, in such a situation of course wrongly granted patents will be inevitable.
Michael Loney, who went to New York to cover this event for MIP, wrote about the role/input of Kappos as follows:
David Kappos who, (as Hansen says) everyone knows, has 10 priorities for whoever is the next US president:
Innovation = action, progress, leadership
US must resume its role as world leader in innovation
Federal government will lead in championing and rewarding innovation
Government needs to recognise innovators need incentives
Patent system is our system for incentivising innovation – we need a strong patent system
Administration should not shy away from leadership in tuning patent system, from a position of strength
Curtail abuses, but with the view that the benefits of patents far outweigh occasional misuses
Patent system must take precedence in conflicts with other systems of law, especially antitrust law
We will favour creation of new technologies and dynamic competition not protecting status quo (as antitrust law does)
Patent system is enshrined in the constitution because innovation is about exalting what’s next not what’s now.
In the Q&A, he says he feels the current (Obama) administration, in its second term, has not been as supportive of patents as it was before or should be.
It would be a lot nicer if Kappos just stayed out of policy and didn’t contribute to the impression that patent lawyers and patent aggressors such as IBM steer policy in their favour, such that money (billions of dollars) is passed into their pockets without them lifting a finger. They self-discredit their firms and also discredit this system as a whole. It’s no better than what we find in ISDS (e.g. in TTIP/TPP) or ACTA, but there’s less public outrage because few members of the public ‘grok’ patent law. █
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Posted in America, Patents at 2:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Publicado en America, Patentes at 4:18 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Sumario: Más seudo-soluciones para un actual severo, (y creciente) problema que se resume a una baja calidad de patentes, notablemente patentes de software
El Acta VENUE fue cubierta aquí varias veces temprano este mes y ahora es la palabra (o término) en los labios de varias personas, incluso en los de los compadres de los trolles de patentes, quienes en artículos no relacionados mencionan: “El Venue Equity y el Acta de No-Uniformidad del 2016 restringiría juicios de patentes a cortes distritales donde las partes estan incorporadas o donde ellos tengan localizado físicamente en el desarrollo de la tecnología en disputa o infringimiento.”
El Acta VENUE, a pesar de su nombre pegajoso, no es una solución. Es simplemente un esfuerzo en demorar el problema mientras que continuamente empeora, usualmente en Texas. “el Acta VENUE apunta a disminuir la facilidad de llenar juicios de patentes en el Distrito Este de Texas” dice el titular de este nuevo artículo. Para citar de el:
Un proyecto de ley propuesto recientemente en el Senado de EE.UU. puede ser la clave para frenar el abuso de las demandas de patentes rampante en la jurisdicción demandante de usar Distrito Este de Texas.
Propuesto por los Sendores Republicanos Jeff Flake (Arizona), Cory Gardner (Colorado) y Mike Lee (Utah), el Acta Venue Equity and Non-Uniformity Elimination Act (VENUE Act) se dirige a una parte muy específica del problema con el abuso de patentes conocida como la búsqueda de foro.
“El Acta VENUE podría hacer más difícil para que las compañíás llenen/soliciten juicios en distritos que no tengan connección significativa con el juicio,” Daniel Nazer, abogada del Electronic Frontier Foundation y Mark Presidente cubano para eliminar las patentes estúpida, dijo el sureste de Texas Registro. “Este proyecto de ley es realmente acerca de asegurarse de que los conflictos que se presenten en algún lugar que tenga sentido.”
En lugar de permitir que un propietario de patentes presente demandas en cualquier lugar que les guste, según el proyecto de ley, una persona debe presentar una demanda en la ciudad donde se creó la invención o donde la empresa demandada este localizad o donde fabrique sus productos. En otras palabras, nuevas empresas pequeñas de California ya no podrían ser demandadas por un inventor de California en el Distrito Este de Texas, si el Acta VENUE se convirtie en ley.
Sin embargo, esto no es la solución. Como muchas propuestas de ´reforma´ antes que ella, meramente sirve para dar la ilusión que los problemas son enfréntados, cuando en realidad es lo contrario. Otro sitio, propiedad de un grupo de fachada perteneciente a grandes corporaciones que se enfoca en su mayoría en trolles de patentes, habla acerca de algo llamado reforma ITC, cualquier cosa que ello signifique (algo vago). Matt Levy (CCIA) escribe:
El último par de semanas se han visto dos ´buenos´ proyectos de ley introducidos, primero el Acta
VENUE, ya ahora el Acta de Protección Contra Trolles. Este proyecto de ley bipartidario cierra hoyos a la Comisión Internacional de Comercio que ha sido explotada por los trolles de patentes.
La Comisión de Comercio Internacional (CCI) es una agencia cuyo trabajo principal es proteger a las industrias estadounidenses de la competencia desleal en el extranjero. Si una compañía de EE.UU. piensa otra compañía importó bienes injustamente, puede pedir a la ITC investigar. Si la Comisión considera que el importador (llamado el demandado) ha violado las leyes de comercio (que incluyen infacció de las patentes de EE.UU.), puede emitir una orden de exclusión. La orden instruye bloquear los productos de los que se trate en la frontera.
La ITCmaneja un buen número de casos de patentes, debido a la posibilidad de obtener una orden de exclusión es esencialmente la misma que una orden judicial en los tribunales de distrito. Y ahí es donde los trolls de patentes entran en juego.
La ITC tiene muchos problemas, pero eso no significa que dentro de la ITC (aplicación por embargo/sanciones) existe una solution al problema en su totalidad, que es la baja cálidad de patentes (e.g. de software) siendo otorgadas virtualmente con no control de calidad. La USPTO cada vez más parece una oficina de aplicación de patentes, no una oficina de examinación. Trataremos de esto en un próximo post más tarde. █
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, IBM, OIN, Oracle, Patents at 2:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Publicado en Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, IBM, OIN, Oracle, Patentes at 4:01 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Una solución que sólo los agresores de patentes y sus proponentes como IBM pueden coexistir
Photo fuente (modificada ligéramente): Las 10 Mujeres Más Poderosas en Tecnología Hoy
Sumario: Oracle (de la OIN) esta enjuciando a Google (también de la OIN) por Android (Linux-based) y buscándo casi $10,000,000,000 en ‘daños’ sirve para mostrar que la OIN no es una atajo/solución al problema clave, que son las patentes de software
La guerra de patentes de Apple contra Android todavía esta en los titulares esta semana [1, 2, 3] y también hay un montón de artículos del caso de Oracle contra Android en nuestras diarias links. No hay duda, dado que Oracle reciéntemente se unió a la OIN, su ataque contra Android comprueba que la OIN está muy lejos de una solución. Oracle quiere recuperárse de la compra de Sun al usar patentes de software por la que los trabajadores de Sun trabajaron, junto a derechos de autor. “El caso tendrá ramificaciones mayores para las patentes de software y licensiamento en todo el mundo,” dijo este reportaje.
Aqui esta un nuevo artícule acerca de la Linux Foundation y la OIN. Para citar las partes más relevantes:
Cumplir con los requisitos legales es uno de los elementos clave que las grandes compañías de software sopesan en sus ciclos de lanzamiento. Tienen equipos que comprueban las patentes de software que puedan impactar en su código, asegúrarse de que todos los derechos de autor sean reconocidos y mirar las cláusulas detalladas de uso en cualquier software de terceros que utilicen.
Una de las razones para hacer esto es para evitar litigios costosos de compañías que se conocen como trolles de patentes. Estas son empresas que han comprado grandes grupos de patentes de software. Su modelo de negocio es como sigue, utilizar estas patentes para demandar a los desarrolladores y en la última década hemos visto una serie de demandas de alto nivel contra compañías como IBM, Microsoft, Google y otros. Algunas de ellas han sido rechazadas por los tribunales, pero otros han sido reafirmadas lo que cuesta cientos de millones de dólares en multas y costos.
Mientras que desarrolladores de código de fuente abierta puedan pensar que ellos están inmunes a este tipo de ataque, lo cierto es que no. Pueda ser que una pieza de software publicada como open source es más tarde presuntamente haber infringido una patente de software. Esto podría significar que alguien usando ese software sea encontrado culpable de infracción.
Para reducir el impacto de reclamo de patentes Google, IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, NEC, Philips y Sony crearon el Open Innovation Network. Su objetivo fue crear una pool (grupo) de patentes defensivas que pudiera ser usada para proteger Linux y a sus desarrolladores. Este ha hecho que más de 1946 compañías se unan a la OIN para usar sus patentes para defenderse así misma de ataques.
Cuando tu trabajas en patentes de software para una compañíá – no importa cuán benigna esa compañía sea – tu nunca sabes quién las conseguirá/usará. Vean la respuesta que recibí de de un trabajador de Red Hat (Alexandre Oliva) después de haber escrito esto, habiendo hecho un llamado a Red Hat detenerse en perseguir patentes de software y descolmillar las existentes. Como Oliva lo puso, “cuando me di cuenta de esto hace 6 años, comenze una campaña para que Red Hat convierta su Promesa de Patentes en una licensia actual, pero hasta hora no suerte. hasta que este problema mayor sea arreglado, no más aplicaciones de patentes de mi…”
Un crítico por largo tiempo de la OIN, Florian Müller, fue uno de los primeros en señalar que la OIN no sería efectiva ya que un miembro de la OIN (Oracle) enjuició a otro (Google). El tiene este nuevo post que dice: “Hay un interesante paralelo entre Apple versus Samsung (quiero decir su primer caso, con respecto al cual la Corte Suprema ha otorgado certiorari) y el Oracle versus Google Android-Java litigación sobre derechos de autor: en ambos casos, la mayoría de los cargos en disputa están basados en la teoría de restitución de los beneficios del infractor, y a primera vista, el monto reclamado por los propietarios de derechos parecen muy altísimos. Hay incluso más similaridades. Por ejemplo, en ambos casos, los acusados son protagonistas claves de Android. Pero también hay importantes diferencias reales, no limitados al hecho que patentes de diseño y derechos de autor son diferentes tipos de propiendad intelectual.
Estos casos de alto nivel sirver para demostrar los peligros de las patentes de software (Novell terminó en manos de Microsoft, Oracle en las manos de Apple y Red Hat podría terminar en cualquier lugar, dependiendo de quién lo compre y cuándo) y la inútil que es la OIN. La verdaderos personaje buscando por una reforma deben hacer campaña para la completa abolición de las patentes de software ellos mismos. El próximo post tratará con otras ideas de reforma/estrategias deficientes. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Publicado en Europe, Patents at 1:32 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Una serie de artículos que dependen/provienen de otras fuentes
Sumario: Relacionens entre la Oficina Europea de Patentes y Microsoft son exploradas a fond, especialmente su inapropiedad
AYER escribimos acerca del tratamiénto especial de la EPO a los usuarios de Windows, después de lo cual recibimos algunos tips acerca de la alternativa Web, de la que ya sabíamos (y difícimente cambia algo de lo que escribimos). En realidad, un lector nos escribió para decirnos acerca de “Microsoft en la EPO” y explicó lo que basado en la Web siginifica dentro de la-EPO. Para citar: “Interesante post acerca de la tendencia de la EPO para fraternizar con el Lado Oscuro. Gracias. Es realmente absurdo que en el 2016 la EPO esperara que sus clientes usen. Sin embargo, la EPO está alcanzando; también tiene un portal Web, el cual es independiente de plataforma. Le importaría, “platforma independiente” significa algo diferente en el habla de la EPO; significa que tu puedes usar el portal web si tu estás usando Firefox (o algo llamado “Internet Explorer”, lo que eso sea) en Microsoft Windows. Necesitas una smart card de la EPO y un USB smart card reader de Gemalto (Gemalto ¿también favorecido?), pero la EPO sólo provee instrucciones para instalar el card reader en Windows. Es posible installar los drivers en una Mac, o en Linux, pero la EPO evita hablar decomo esto puede ser hecho. Por Mac, primero tienes que llamar por teléfono al apoyo técnico de la EPO, y ellos te mandarán por correo electrónico la link para bajar los drivers para ´su´ card-reader (la link no es pública, porque las Mac no son apoyadas). Para Linux, primero debes obtener el número de teléfono de un especial IT guru de la EPO, explicando quien eres y porque quieres usar Linux, y si el esta de buen humor te enviará su propia copia no oficial de los drivers de Gemalto para Linux, mientras al mismo tiempo te advertirá de las tribulaciones que te sobrevendran.”
“Le importaría, “platforma independiente” significa algo diferente en el habla de la EPO; significa que tu puedes usar el portal web si tu estás usando Firefox (o algo llamado “Internet Explorer”, lo que eso sea) en Microsoft Windows.”
–AnonymousTodavía estamos espernado de que alguien arroje luz sobre la secreta relación financiera/técnica entre Microsoft y la EPO (donde pesos y contrapesos no existen y el contrato presidencial fue puesto en la oscuridad cuando se hizo cargo Battistelli).
En order de equiparnos con información verificable e imposible de negar todavía estamos persiguiendo huellas del contrato de Battistelli (los cuales no deberían ser secretos en primer lugar, su predecesora compartió la suya) Todavía estamos espernado de que alguien nos arroje información sobre el secreto contrato entre Microsoft y la EPO (en IT). Apostamos que es sobrevalorado, basado en lo que nos hemos enterado en el pasado y en lo que algunos periodistas nos han dicho. La EPO es muy sensitiva en cuanto se trata de gente que explora su relación con Microsoft, quién es actualmente notorio por sus contractos CORRUPTOS y SOBORNOS (con fallos judiciales que confirma esto, así que no hay punto en mandarme más cartas amenazantes, Sr. Battistelli). █
“Me gustaría ver toda la innovación de open source suceda arriba de Windows.” [¿incluso Ubuntu/Bash?]
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
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Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, SCO, UNIX at 2:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Publicado en GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, SCO, UNIX at 12:26 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz
See Lawrence R. Goldfarb (Wikipedia)
Sumario: el caso SCO no ha acabado todavía, y permanece no claro quié esta subsidiando el caso
El caso SCO “se levanta de la tumba de nuevo,” dice hoy el titular de los medios Británicos (que lanzaron la historia). Esta historia que podría ser del 2009, 2010 y todo hasta el 2016. Nunca acaba. ¿De dónde viene el financiamiénto?
“Bueno, SCO levanta de la tumba o tal vez la información no era exacta. Se nos ha dicho esto durante 7 años y hasta hace 2 meses nosotros dudamos que esto fue el final de todo.”Bueno, SCO levanta de la tumba o tal vez la información no era exacta. Se nos ha dicho esto durante 7 años y hasta hace 2 meses nosotros dudamos que esto fue el final de todo. La razón que relmente no creímos que es el final de toda esa litigación es todo ese modelo de Groklaw (o medios citando Groklaw) de decir que estaba lejos de terminar. Groklaw todavía esta publicando PDFs que se relacionan a este caso y medios Británicos los citan (sabiéndo magicamente donde estos documentos están). Para citar a The Inquirer: “En un comunicado, el juez David Nuffer argumentó que “la naturaleza de las reclamaciones son tales que ninguna corte de apelación tendría que decidir los mismos problemas más de una vez si había alguna posteriores recursos”, efectívamente sugiriéndo que el caso tiene para rato.
“El 1 de marzo, que la presentación fue respaldada por una explicación completa del juez, declarando vencedor IBM enfático en la larga saga.”
“Se ordena y se adjudicó que de acuerdo con las órdenes del tribunal presentó el 10 de julio, 2013 5 de febrero de 2016, y 8 de febrero, 2016, se dictó sentencia a favor del acusado y las causas de los demandantes de acción son despedidos con prejuicio” se indica en el documento.”
“Para implementar exitósamente E.E.E. algo que debes dar es la impresión de buenas intenciones.”“Ahora, sin embargo, SCO se ha presentado una vez más para apelar la sentencia aunque, con precisión los motivos que aún reclaman no se han dado a conocer.”
También afirma que “no es claro quién continúa financiando el caso.” Bueno, talvez pregunten eso a Microsoft. Insiste que todavía “ama a Linux” mientras al mismo tiempo saca un E.E.E. sobre el (incluso hace unas horas). Para implementar exitósamente E.E.E. algo que debes dar es la impresión de buenas intenciones. █
“…Microsoft quiso promover a SCO y su juicio pendiente contra IBM y el sistema operativo Linux. Pero Microsoft no quiso ser visto como atacando IBM o Linux.”
–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, accionista clave en SCO abordado por Microsoft
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Posted in Europe, Patents, RAND at 2:08 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Publicado en Europe, Patents, RAND at 7:29 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz
No es difícil imaginar quién se beneficiaría de hacer lo abstracto patentable
Sumario: La UPC también tiene un ángulo/elemento FRAND en ella y así, en muchos casos, patentes de software en Europa (impuesto sobre patentes y/o juicios por software, que es copiado y distribuído en vez de fabricado o producido)
LA gerencia de la EPO, parece esta trabajando para las grandes corporaciónes (que no son incluso Europeas)*, tratándo de manera no democrática impulsar a la hóstil contra las PYMEs UPC, por extensión esparciéndo las patentes de software en el continente/Comunidad/naciones Europeas y más allá de ellas (la EPO es más amplia que ello) – una herramienta de colonización/dominación viniendo del otro lado del charco -. Los exáminadores de la EPO no toleran esto ya que pone en peligro la calidad de patentes y daña la credibilidad de la EPO, conjuntamente con el valor percibido de las patentes Europeas (EPs). Ya hemos presentado esto en muchos artículos, citando expertos en el campo, diciéndo que la UPC traería las patentes de software a Europa.
“Los exáminadores de la EPO no toleran esto ya que pone en peligro la calidad de patentes y daña la credibilidad de la EPO, conjuntamente con el valor percibido de las patentes Europeas (EPs).”Una materia sobre la que hemos estado escribiéndo por más de 9 años es RAND (algunas veces conocido como FRAND por un mucho más ¨justo¨ extra eúfemismo). Este nuevo artículo de la prensa India (donde el debate acerca de las patentes de software ha estado caliente reciéntemente) habla acerca de ¨FRAND¨ como sigue: “La semana pasada tuvimos un artículo en estandar patentes esenciales (“SEPs”) por Divya Rajput, y como us licensiamento en Justo, Razonable, y No-Discriminatorio (“FRAND”) términos ayuda a varias industrias para operar y server clientes. Ms. Rajput hace varios puntos intersantes, pero estos no estan basados en la realidad y reflejan inconsistencias lógicas.
“Ya hemos presentado muchos artículos, citando a expertos en el campo, diciéndo que la UPC traería patentes de software a Europa.”“Hubo un tiempo en el que servidumbre por contrato (en LatinoAmerica la tuvimos hasta mediados del siglo pasado con la venia de los Estados Unidos, y en Mexico todavía algunos reductos que sirven grandes campos de cultivo que alimentan a los vecinos del norte) fue considerada una cosa buena. Gracias a Dios no estamos viviéndo aquellos días. Hoy, es una ofensa criminal. Lo mismo es verda del licensiamiento de SEPs. Lo que fué una excelente práctica de negocios en los 90s, no es viable estrategia de negocios hoy. De los cinco originales (Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nortel), ninguno permanece proveyendo y fabricándo teléfonos mobiles. En vez, todos están envueltos en licensiamiento de patentes de una forma u otra. Los grados de cross-licensing en estos dias no pueden ser usados como puntos de referencias hoy.”
Bueno, basados en este nuevo reporte de MIP, la UPC permanece siendo un Caballo de Troya para FRAND y así las patentes de software en Europa (escribimos muchos artículos acerca de esto cerca del 2008). Para citar MIP (detrás de un muro de pago): “Nuesto últmo escenario de la UPC envuelve un caso de patente esencial/estandar. Michael Carter, Nick Cunningham y David Barron consideran las opciónes de un acusado en el nuevo sistema de corte” (vean este reciénte ejemplo).
“…Es imperativo refutar esas pretensiones que vienen primariamente de los abogados de patentes, la EPO, y periodistas crédulos que imprimen cualqier cosa que les dicen esos dos grupos anteriores.”Lectores deben ser conscientes de en círculos cabilderos anti-FOSS (e.g. la Business Software Alliance o la Association for Competitive Technology) FRAND se convirtió en un refrán para patentes de software e incompatibilidad con FOSS. Ellos trltan de reducir progresivamente FOSS fuera de existencia, o simplemente hacerlo arbitráriamente sujeto a pagos (veán lo que Microsoft esta haciéndo a Linux y Android por instancia), he aqui oneroso y díficil/imposible/prohibido de redistribuir. La UPC es una cosa peligrosísima. Hay un artículo en Alemán acerca de ello] (reciéntemente publicado, traducciones serían muy apreciadas) y dados los altos (y creciéntes) niveles de desinformacion en los medios acerca de la UPC, es imperativo refutar esas pretensiones que vienen primariamente de los abogados de patentes, la EPO, y periodistas crédulos que imprimen cualqier cosa que les dicen esos dos grupos anteriores. █
_____
* Es suficiente decir, que la EPO no es Europea pero un cuerpo internacional (exempto incluso de las leyes Europeas). Lo único “Europeo” acerca de ella son sus empleados. A pesar de trabajar paara un cuerpo internacional, estos empleados son también Europeos (ciudadanos de la UE), por lo tanteo deberían tener intereses Europeos que defender, a diferencia de la gerencia (DIRIGIDA POR O HECHA PARA COMPLACER INTERESES EXTRANJEROS).
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Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Ubuntu at 1:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Publicado en Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Ubuntu at 8:00 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz
O como ´amigos´ como estos, ¿Quién necesita enemigos?
BP ama a puppies
Sumario: Creciente percepción de que Microsoft esta simplemente mintiéndo a todo el mundo mientras activamente ataca a GNU/Linux a puertas cerradas (arreglos secretos, sobornos, extorsión de patentes y lo demás)
Esta mañana hubieron muchas diátribas online acerca de lo que Canonical ha hecho con Microsfot para ayudarle a vender Vista 10 y poner Ubunto dentro de un hypervisor proprietario, completo con keyloger, puertas traseras, y lo deás. No deseamos pasar más tiempo hablando de las ramificaciones (hay algo de ellon en nuestras links diarias), pero mucha gente lo ha etiquetado/llamado E.E.E (y muy corréctamente). Escribimos acerca de ello anoche, también notando lo que Microsoft ha estado haciéndo en China y Romania (esto esta siendo discutido en Soylent News profundamente hoy).
“Está enamorado de Linux, así que esta tratándo de aplastar a Linux.”Un artículo particular, nos fue enviado esta mañana por un lector, dice: “Relaciones con el Estado Rojo han recorrido un largo camino desde los planes a ‘Dewindowsify’ fueron anunciadas en 2014, sugiriéndo que Microsoft sería echado de lado en favor de un sistema proprietario basado en Linux. Esto todavía continúa, and NeoKylin ya está siendo usado en algunos sistemas claves del gobierno.”
Correcto, pero Microsoft ama a Linux. Lo dice. Está enamorado de Linux, así que esta tratándo de aplastar a Linux. Basado en reportajes, Microsoft todavía trabaja activamente para socavar esta masiva migración. Si la clase gobernante se traga el cuento debido a la corrupción de algunos burócratas vendidos a Microsoft caerán de nuevo en manos de la CIA. Recuerden como fue saboteado el programa atómico de Iran, simplemente usaban Windows en sus centrales nucleáres. Rusos no sean cojudos! Si esta es la compañía que ¨ama a Linux¨, entonces ya perdimos vista de lo que es un enemigo. Incidentálmente, como fué señalado por este mismo lector, IDG, de nuevo esta difundiéndo propaganda para Microsoft, poco tiempo despues de haber atacado a GNU/Linux con informaciones falsas (mismo autor). Este ayayerismo se resume a, Microsoft ha perdido y no tiene oportunidad de recuperárse. He aquí ganó. ¿Es este periódismo? Ni siquiera comprueban los hechos. ¿Qué es lo próximo? ¿Otro artículo de Microsoft ¨ama a Linux¨? Ellos emiten esto cada dos días (aquí hay un ejemplo de la semana pasada). Es más una campaña de relaciónes públicas que periodismo. █
“Una estrategia que Microsoft ha empleado en el pasado es pagar por el silencio de personas y compañías. Charles Pancerzewski, antiguo jefe auditor de Microsoft, se enteró de esta práctica de Microsoft de pasar ganancias de un periódo contable al siguiente, conocida como ¨manejo de ganancias¨. Esta práctica alisa reportados fuentes de ingresos, aumenta el valor compartido y engaña a los empleados y accionistas. Además de ser no ético, es también ilegal bajo la Ley de Seguridades de los US y viola Prácticas Contables Aceptadas Generalmente (Fink).
–2002 Historia acerca de Charles Pancerzewski, Microsoft
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Posted in News Roundup at 9:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Desktop
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Intel is selling well in up-scale machinery like premium PCs, servers and some gadgets, many running GNU/Linux.
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Kernel Space
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No one becomes a programmer to become an intellectual property (IP) expert. But, in today’s lawsuit-happy world, with patent trolls ready to attack and licensing becoming increasingly complicated, developers needs to know some IP law.
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Open source development looks to be here to stay, and the TODO Group and Linux Foundation want all industries to push much, much farther into open source software development.
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Linux Foundation Tosses Legalese Lifeline to Software Developers
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The open source ecosystem gained another major partner collaboration this week with the announcement that the TODO Group has become a Linux Foundation project, increasing the investment of a number of major companies in open source.
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Graphics Stack
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If you are looking for some Wayland drama, check out the most commented on mailing list thread this week: collaboration on standard Wayland protocol extensions.
Drew DeVault who has been developing the Sway Wayland compositor as a drop-in replacement to X11′s i3 window manager, started this mailing list thread in trying to foster more collaboration over Wayland protocol extensions between the different desktop environments / compositors.
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It seems we’re currently pacing at a rate where almost each day there is new OpenGL 4.x or OpenGL ES 3.2 activity reaching Mesa Git master.
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The interesting slides from this month’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) are now available online.
GDC’16 happened a few weeks back and while there’s been the video recordings of some of the sessions to surface online, more of the presentation slides are now available for those not having the time to sit through an entire video presentation.
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Following a two week delay to the schedule, the list of nominees for the X.Org 2016 Board of Directors elections was published this morning.
The nominees include Bryce Harrington, Alex Deucher, Egbert Eich, Keith Packard, and Lucas Stach. These five individuals are competing for four board seats with the terms ending for Alex Deucher, Matt Dew, Egbert Eich, and Keith Packard.
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Applications
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As a Windows user, my options for decent text editors to write my articles with are fairly limited. The majority of them are either best suited for coding or too greedy for system resources.
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ALSA 1.1.1 is out today as the newest version of this Linux audio library, utilities, plugins, and tinycompress for the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
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Proprietary
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Back in 2011, when Microsoft bought Skype for US$8.56 billion, people were wondering if it would continue to update the Linux client that the VoIP platform had.
It looks like the fears of these folk are slowly coming true. The last release of Skype for Linux was a 32-bit update in 2014 to version 4.3.
Those who had paid for subscriptions in the hope that they would one day get a 64-bit client with an improved user interface have been waiting and waiting in vain.
Now a group of users is reporting that from, February 22, the Linux Skype client is unable to join calls.
They say that numerous tweets to @SkypeSupport have gone unanswered.
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Opera Software, through Błażej Kaźmierczak, today, March 31, 2016, proudly announced that the highly anticipated Ad Blocker functionality to be implemented in future versions of the Opera web browser has just landed in the Beta channel.
Earlier this month, we had the great pleasure of exclusively reporting on the release of the Opera 37 web browser with integrated ad-blocking capabilities, which promised an increase in browsing speed of up to 90 percent. However, at that moment in time, Opera 37 lived only in the Developer channel.
That changes today, as Opera Software has pushed the anticipated Opera 37 web browser to the Beta channel for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows, offering users a much more stable Ad Blocking experience, and many other great improvements.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Wine or Emulation
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CrossOver developer CodeWeavers has just informed us via an email announcement about the immediate availability of CrossOver 15.1.0 graphical interface for Wine, for both GNU/Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
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CodeWeavers this morning announced the release of CrossOver 15.1 as the latest version of their software to allow Windows programs to run on Linux and OS X. CrossOver 15.1 is now powered by Wine 1.8.1.
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Games
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Yes, that’s right, you’re reading it correctly: as of today, March 31, 2016, there are over 2,000 games on Steam that offer support for the Linux platform, including Valve’s SteamOS gaming operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux.
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Today, March 31, 2016, Epic Games has had the great pleasure of announcing the general availability of its brand-new Unreal Engine 4.11 game engine software for all supported platforms.
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After more than four months of development, free RTS (real-time strategy) game 0 A.D. was updated on March 31, 2016, by developer Wildfire Games to version Alpha 20, dubbed Timosthenes.
0 A.D. Alpha 20 Timosthenes comes with a bunch of cool new features, among which we can mention ten new maps, including the Stronghold, Hell’s Pass, Empire, Ambush, Lions Den, Island Stronghold, Flood. There are also Frontier random maps, and the Golden Island and Forest Battle skirmish maps for two and four players, respectively.
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Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked Expansion is a pretty big expansion to the really great survival game Don’t Starve. It is now fully available and features Linux support.
I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet myself, but the reviews are suggesting it’s amazing.
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1993 Space Machine a game that was originally supposed to be on Amiga, but never released is out for other platforms. The developer has confirmed it’s on its way to Linux.
It doesn’t just look retro, it really is retro. The game was built in 1993 and has been released in 2016. Now this right here is a proper classic game.
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The anticipated Hyper Light Drifter role-playing game that was first spotted on Kickstarter two and a half years ago, has been finally released today on Steam.
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Epic Games is ending out the month by releasing the newest version of UE4, Unreal Engine 4.11.
Unreal Engine 4.11 delivers a wide variety of performance improvements, greater parallelism thanks to threading improvements. new realistic hair shading, realistic eye shading, improved skin shading, realistic cloth shading, capsule shadows, particle depth of field, improved hierarchical LOD, support for LLVM Clang 3.7 on Linux, and a ton of other improvements.
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With yesterday’s Nouveau Kepler vs. Maxwell Performance On Linux 4.6 + Mesa 11.3-dev benchmarks, a number of Phoronix readers expressed their surprise how well the GeForce 600/700 “Kepler” series hardware was performing on the open-source Nouveau driver once manually re-clocking these graphics cards. It’s certainly much better than the GTX 900 series performance on Nouveau as the Maxwell GPUs don’t have any re-clocking support on Nouveau at all. I’m working on some fresh Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Kepler tests and for one Steam Linux game, this reverse-engineered NVIDIA open-source driver is able to beat out the “binary blob” from NVIDIA.
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I have double checked this, and it seems to be accurate. Linux now has 2,000 games on Steam, and that’s a pretty healthy milestone.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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As QtWebKit will be remove from official Qt package I decided some months ago to evaluate QtWebEngine.
For sure QtWebEngine < 5.6 was too limited. But I started to use it. I evaluated QtWebEngine 5.5 but some features were missing (as possibility to block request or use custom scheme url).
I started to focus on Akregator as it still used khtml, I migrated it to QtWebKit and after that to QtWebEngine. (For 16.04 there is a experimental option to activate compilation).
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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The GTK+ open-source GUI (Graphical User Interface) toolkit has been updated today, March 31, 2016, to version 3.20.2, the second maintenance release in the stable 3.20 series of the software heavily used in the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment.
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The strange thing about PCs is that as they get older, even though they appear to be working fine, they can eventually become unusably slow. Successive operating systems take up more and more resources until your PC grinds to a halt.
You don’t need to throw your computer away and upgrade to get access to the latest software, though; a lightweight Linux-based operating system will let you have the latest web browser and office software, while running smooth as silk in as little as 256MB RAM. Here’s our pick of the best lightweight Linux distros for older computers – and best of all, they’re all free.
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New Releases
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The developer of SparkyLinux, a Debian-based Linux operating system made in Poland, announced today, March 31, 2016, the immediate availability of the third milestone towards SparkyLinux 4.3.
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Earlier today, March 31, 2016, the developers behind the Simplicity Linux project, a GNU/Linux distribution derived from LXPup, a Puppy Linux variant built around the LXDE desktop environment, announced the release of Simplicity Linux 16.04 Beta.
The Beta of Simplicity Linux 16.04, which should see the light of day later this Spring, at the end of April, comes one month after the release of the Alpha builds on February 29, 2016, bringing a new kernel rebased on the upstream Linux 4.4.4 LTS (Long-Term Support) branch, thus adding support for new and modern hardware components.
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OpenSUSE/SUSE
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I am currently in the process of interviewing the leaders of every Linux distribution on the planet, with the goal of helping us get to know the people behind the projects better. Having just wrapped up discussions with the heads of both elementary and Fedora (and others in the works) I decided it was time to talk about openSUSE.
This gets a little tricky as, earlier this year, I was elected to a position on the openSUSE board. I thought, for a moment, about either skipping the openSUSE interview or having someone else conduct it – to avoid the perception of bias.
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There are 15 more days to submit a proposal for the openSUSE Conference in Nuremberg June 22 – 26, so I would like to provide an update to the community about the conference.
As you might already be aware, there will be SaltStack, ownCloud, Kolab and SUSE Labs summits during the conference and we also plan on having a program for kids on Saturday, June 25.
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Red Hat Family
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Sam Varghese today again asked about Red Hat and its dealing with the NSA saying, “Red Hat is receiving a goodly sum to assist the NSA in activities that infringe on people’s privacy.” Red Hat today offered its enterprise operating system free of cost to developers and Phoronix.com said Fedora 24 is “looking great.” Paul Thurrott posted screenshots of Ubuntu Bash on Windows 10 and Bryan Lunduke today asked, “Will openSUSE develop the SUSE Phone?”
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This catalogue of resources now includes access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite as well as the Red Hat JBoss Middleware portfolio, both available via no-cost developer subscriptions.
With this suite, developers have access to development tools and in addition to the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server.
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Two years after making its JBoss suite of middleware tools free for non-production use, Red Hat Inc. is introducing the ability to download its flagship Linux distribution under the same terms. The move should make it much more straightforward for developers to take advantage of the platform, which has until now been fairly tricky to access without a paid support subscription even though it’s open-source.
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite now available through no-cost developer subscription, helping to streamline the creation of traditional and cloud-native enterprise applications
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Red Hat Ceph Storage software is now officially tested, optimized and certified to run on SanDisk’s InfiniFlash storage system thanks to a strategic partnership between the two vendors.
The alliance – announced this week – is Red Hat’s first partnership involving an all-flash array. Ross Turk, director of storage product marketing at Red Hat, said running Ceph software-defined storage on performance-optimized hardware has been a hot topic of discussion at events and conferences.
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It’s always been easy to get started with Linux development. Download a distro, learn some C, and you were ready to go. But, to program for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), you needed more. Sure, Fedora, Red Hat’s community Linux, and CentOS, Red Hat’s free server Linux, can help, but it’s not the same thing.
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Finance
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Fedora
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Trailing the Fedora 24 Alpha x86 release by a few days is now the secondary architecture spins for POWER and AArch64 (64-bit ARM).
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With testing Fedora 24 Alpha this week, I also spent some time test driving the GNOME on Wayland experience even though developers have already decided F24 will continue to use the X.Org Server by default.
I did run some quick game tests this afternoon of Fedora 24 Alpha when running on the X.Org Server (default) and then when running GNOME on Wayland where the games end up getting piped through XWayland. For your viewing pleasure, here are those quick results.
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Since Tuesday’s release of Fedora 24 Alpha I’ve been having a wonderful time trying out this test release with all of the exciting changes building up for Fedora 24.
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Fedora Project’s Peter Robinson announced on March 31, 2016, the release and immediate availability for download of the Fedora 24 Alpha operating system for POWER and AArch64 hardware architectures.
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RPM of PHPUnit version 5.3 are available in remi repository for Fedorra ≥ 21 and in remi-test repository for Enterprise Linux (CentOS, RHEL…).
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Debian Family
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Derivatives
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A new Linux distribution based on Knoppix will be written entirely in the COBOL programming Language.
COBOL has been given a lease of new life in recent years including the birth of object oriented COBOL.
COBOL can also be used as a client side scripting language and many people see it as a replacement for JavaScript. Forget JQuery, the new kid on the block is COBQuery and angularCOBOL.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Canonical and BQ may have partnered to create the first Ubuntu tablet to ship with support for both mobile and desktop user interfaces. But if you’re looking for something a bit more powerful than the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet which recently went up for pre-order, a startup called MJ Technology thinks it has the answer.
Earlier this year MJ Technology announced plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a 10 inch tablet with an Intel Atom Cherry Trail processor and Ubuntu software. While the campaign is launching a little later than expected, it’s now live at Indiegogo, and the developer hopes to ship the first tablets in August, assuming the campaign raises at least $200,000.
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We reported earlier this month that Dell launched its highly anticipated XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop in US, as well as the worldwide launch of the Dell Precision line of Ubuntu-based workstations.
And today, March 31, 2016, Dell is happy to announce that the XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop, which also ships with the Ubuntu Linux operating system pre-installed, is available in countries around Europe too, including United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
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Canonical’s open source software finally gets into the mobile devices officially. After being babbling about the mobile experience for years, they finally get to field their Ubuntu US in a tablet device, which has now started entered the pre-order phase.
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Canonical and BQ may have partnered to create the first Ubuntu tablet to ship with support for both mobile and desktop user interfaces. But if you’re looking for something a bit more powerful than the BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet which recently went up for pre-order, a startup called MJ Technology thinks it has the answer.
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The RaspEX Linux distribution for Raspberry Pi 3 single-board computers has been updated today, March 31, 2016, by developer Arne Exton, bringing support for various hardware components on the new Raspberry Pi board.
RaspEX Build 160331 arrives today as a free upgrade for existing users, and includes the Kodi media center software, Wicd network manager, Mozilla Firefox web browser, VNC4Server VNC connection manager, Samba file sharing tool, PulseAudio sound server, and Bluetooth support.
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Sadly Victor, Chrome isn’t available for the Pi 2. There are however, various methods for installing Chromium onto your Pi if you’re needing something that it provides. I must warn you though, you’re not going to be watching much browser powered video on your Pi 2. If you do, you will be pretty disappointed.
Instead, might I encourage you to do the following instead. Install an alternative browser like QupZilla or Midori. For YouTube videos, you might try something like SMTube or Minitube. Personally, I’d suggest Minitube as it provides the best overall experience. Still, watching videos on a Pi 2 is going to depend on what else you have running at the time.
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Makeblock’s “Codeybot” is a dancing, singing, laser-shooting robot that runs OpenWrt Linux, and teaches kids how to program using mBlockly.
With 42 days left on Kickstarter, Shenzhen-based Makeblock is close to achieving its $100,000 goal for its Codeybot educational robot. The $99 packages are gone, but you can still pick up a Codeybot with docking station for $129, or $149 with one laser LED add-on. Deliveries are expected in August.
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The Arduino is a truly powerful piece of electronics. Small, low power, flexible, and completely open source. Lots of makers and hackers have already figured out that giving their project an Arduino-brain ensures a simple, yet powerful and reliable core. There are more and more Arduino libraries and shields being released every day, so there’s a good chance you won’t even have to write a lot of code to use one.
In celebration of Arduino Day tomorrow—April 2, 2016—here are three Arduino-powered projects that I like lately. And, if you’re new to Arduino, here are three projects to get you started. Remember fellow makers and tinkerers, the Internet of Things is just a fancy way of saying, “I can hack an Arduino into that.”
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Phones
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Tizen
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Today, the Tizen Store received a major update in terms of both the user Interface for consumers and also back end for developers that will be discussed later. Just in case you didn’t know the Tizen Store is the online shop that houses all the current smartphone apps. The Store will begin automatically updating itself once it is launched, taking it to version 1.5.0. The new app has a much simpler layout that provides you version number, file size and ratings at a glance.
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Android
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It seems hard to understand what is currently going on with BlackBerry. Although to be fair, many will say that has long been the case with BlackBerry as they have been a company that until recently stuck to their guns relentlessly and continued on pushing their own operating system, in spite of sales figures and adoption rates making it clear that the rest of the world had moved on. But BlackBerry did move on and really well. After mountings of speculation, BlackBerry did finally confirm that they were going to release a handset which solely ran on the Android operating system. A move which although many saw as an admission of the failings of their own OS, was a move which was significantly long overdue. Nevertheless, they did announce an Android smartphone and towards the close of the year, they did release it. Enter, the BlackBerry PRIV.
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A few days after the launch of the iPhone SE by Apple, the ‘Apple of China’, Xiaomi published data and an image of its new 4.3-inch Mi 5 Mini with a Snapdragon 820 processor. Chinese media outlets see the Mi 5 Mini as Xiaomi’s response to the 4-inch smartphone from Apple.
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Android 6.0 Marshmallow was announced nearly six months ago and according to Google, it has only found its way to 2.3% of Android devices so far. That… is not a lot of Android phones. Since Marshmallow has been available for six months and it’s only found on less than 3% of devices, you can imagine how long it will be before Android N makes its way to end users. Google surprised us all when it released a developer preview build earlier this month, and the final build of Android N is expected to be released sometime this summer. So if trends stay true, we can expect N to become the most widely used version of Android sometime in 2018. Seriously.
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The tablet keyboard is a personal thing. To one user, it’s just a means for typing messages and statuses, entering data while on the go. To someone else, it’s a way of making the mobile experience more efficient and enjoyable.
Out of the box, the Android keyboard is serviceable… especially on the smartphone form. But once you venture into the realm of the tablet, that stock keyboard seems a bit less than user-friendly.
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There are other differences between the two devices. The Nexus 6P doesn’t have wireless charging or expandable storage, nor does is it have IP68 certification. For most consumers, these features aren’t crucial to the experience though they’re certainly nice to have. Once you do use a device with wireless charging, it’s hard to live without.
Most people will go with Samsung simply because it’s a recognizable and trusted brand. And, let’s be honest, on paper it’s superior to the Nexus 6P. But it’s not always about specs—often times it’s about the experience that counts.
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Despite the general public displeasure with all things on the Internet come April 1, the big companies in the tech space just can’t help themselves. Year after year we get tons of April Fools’ Day jokes, gags and pranks. Most are flops and some are worth a chuckle, and no matter how well they go over we’re rounding them all up right here.
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Ever wished to create your own digital assistant that talks back to you and completes your day-to-day tasks? Now it’s easier than ever with an open source tool Abot that’s written in Go programming language. Know more about it here and start coding one for you.
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Software source codes and hardware designs tend to be closely guarded trade secrets. But researchers recently made the full design of one of their microprocessors available as an open-source system.
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Before I discovered open source software in 2005, I had never touched a digital design package and probably couldn’t have named one. In fact, I never believed myself to be creative in any way, let alone thought about teaching myself an entirely new discipline.
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Starting a successful open source project requires a lot more than technical skills. You need to have wise strategies, which Michael DeHaan, founder of the IT automation company Ansible, clearly explains in this valuable video. In this talk, recorded March 22 on the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University, he explains that for users to adopt your open source creations, the documentation needs to be outstanding. Your web site needs to be very well done. Learn these and other tips in this video.
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This year, we are delighted to say hello to 335 new and returning members. This means that our membership numbers are up 172% over last year, which is wonderful to see!
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James Wallbank is a founder of one of the longest-running hackerspaces in the U.K. Access Space opened in the center of the northern industrial city of Sheffield in 2000 with the goal of being open to all.
Beyond being a place for coding and programming, Access Space refurbishes donated laptops for charitable use. It was also the subject of a recent academic study on barriers to womens’ participation in hackerspaces and makerspaces. In this interview, Ikem Nzeribe of Moss Code and I ask Wallbank about his experience running the hackerspace, revealing lessons that all projects looking to support diversity can use for themselves. The hackerspace model of economic self-empowerment could lead to a more diverse tech sector, but Wallbank makes it clear that there are no short cuts. The challenge may be finding enough champions of genuine diversity with the right balance of vision, critical evaluation, and persistence to enable under-represented communities.
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Web Browsers
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Mozilla
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Brett Gaylor is a Director at the Mozilla Foundation, where he helps helm the current encryption education campaign. He also oversees Mozilla’s Open Web Fellows program, which places open source technologists and activists at leading nonprofits like Amnesty International and ACLU.
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SaaS/Back End
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As it began to develop, the Big Data trend–sorting and sifting large data sets with new tools in pursuit of surfacing meaningful angles on stored information–remained an enterprise-only story, but now businesses of all sizes are evaluating tools that can help them glean meaningful insights from the data they store. As we’ve noted, the open source Hadoop project has been one of the big drivers of this trend, and has given rise to commercial companies that offer custom Hadoop distributions, support, training and more.
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Databases
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Other specific features are performance boosters for today’s more powerful big iron servers, analytics and productivity enhancements to speed complex query capabilities on extreme data volumes, and a foundation for horizontal scalability across multiple servers for importing entire tables from external databases.
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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On March 31, 2016, The Document Foundation Co-Founder Italo Vignoli announced the release plan for the upcoming major release of the world’s popular free office suite, LibreOffice 5.2.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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GNU social was created as a companion to my earlier project, GNU FM, which we created to build the social music platform, Libre.fm. After only a few short months, Libre.fm had over 20,000 users and I realized I didn’t want to be another social media silo like MySpace or Facebook, so I came up with this vague idea called GNU social. A few prototypes were built, and eventually we started making GNU social as a series of plugins for Evan Prodromou’s StatusNet project, with some help from Ian Denhardt, Craig Andrews and Steven DuBois. Later, StatusNet, GNU social and Free&Social (a fork of StatusNet) would merge into a single project called GNU social. If that sounds confusing and convoluted, it is.
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RMS was in India, the Netherlands, and Canada this past month. He started his trip in February in Pilani, in Delhi, and in Roorkee, where he spoke, at APOGEE 2016, the annual Birla Institute of Technology & Science–Pilani technical festival, at Tryst, the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi’s annual science and technology festival, and at Cognizance,1 IIT–Delhi’s annual technical festival. He then moved on…
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Programming/Development
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Prominent mobile device companies like Apple and Samsung have recently added the ability to run ad blockers on their phones and tablets. And many users have been installing them, making ad blockers some of the most popular apps in app stores.
Ad blockers are a hot topic of debate though, with revenue-starved sites being pitted against users who are concerned about malware as well as their overall reading experience. Users are defending their right to run ad blockers, while sites are requesting that they turn them off.
But there’s another reason why so many people are using ad blockers on their mobile devices: mobile data allotments. It turns out that advertising can eat up a user’s fixed data allotment very, very quickly and that could result in expensive overage charges.
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To the broader outside world, Horn was best known as a Native American code talker who fought with the storied WWII deep penetration unit known as Merrill’s Marauders. But to those who knew him best, he was simply “Uncle Gil,” chief of the Fort Belknap Assiniboine Tribe.
“My dad touched a lot of people’s lives in a good way,” said Willowa “Sis” Horn, Gilbert Horn’s oldest daughter. “But to me he was just daddy – just my dad.”
Horn was born May 12, 1923, during an era when much of white society viewed Native culture as a quaint anachronism – something that would be gradually extinguished as Indian people were assimilated into the dominant western culture.
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Health/Nutrition
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A representative of Sequirus, one of the largest vaccine manufacturers, on behalf of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA), the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), and another industry group, said industry supports the PIP Framework.
Genetic sequence data of influenza viruses with pandemic potential are not WHO PIP biological materials per the definition of PIP biological materials, the representative said. It is critical that GSD remain in the public domain for continued influenza R&D efforts, she said. In the context of the PIP Framework review, “industry is willing to consider an appropriate revision to the PIP biological definition to reflect anticipated technological advances.”
However, “not all influenza IVPP and IVPP GSD should be included in the definition and subject to the WHO PIP Framework obligations,” the industry representative said, rather only GSD which is used directly to develop and manufacture commercial IVPP products. “Attaching obligations to the general use and the sharing of publicly available GSD could potentially inhibit influenza R&D.”
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Many of us identify with the growing movement to better understand our collective and individual impact on the environment and one another. We can look to our own communities for working examples of regulations, initiatives, and programs that have been developed to tackle the growing problem of electronic waste. Curbside donation programs have sprung up in many communities around the U.S., but most of us stop thinking about the disposal process once it leaves our hands. There has been a lack of media coverage regarding the global community’s outsourcing of electronic waste.
Steps have been taken on an international level to promote responsible disposal, for example with the creation of the Basel Convention. However, loopholes exist. In her report, Madeleine Somerville points to the fact that externalizing the costs of disposal contributes to the exploitation of marginalized communities as well as the environment. The fundamental problem is not that we don’t care about the effects of e-waste, but that we are relatively unaware of the complete life cycle of the electronics we use. We are not yet tuned in to how our everyday lifestyles contribute to the amount of production and subsequent waste.
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President Obama has unveiled a series of steps aimed at addressing the epidemic of opioid addiction in the United States. We speak with journalist Maia Szalavitz about her new book, “Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction,” and about her own experience of overcoming addiction. “We need to create a more compassionate and loving drug policy,” Szalavitz says. “Nobody is going to believe that addiction is a disease as long as the behavior is criminal.”
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The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that trek between farms and clinics and across international boarders is unquestionably one of the most serious public health threats of our time. They currently sicken around two million people in the US each year, killing at least 23,000. To tackle the issue, the Obama Administration last year released a National Action Plan and established a panel of diverse experts to research and guide the government’s efforts to squash those deadly superbugs.
That 15-person panel, called the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria or PACCARB, convened this week in Washington, DC to discuss and vote on its first progress report and key recommendations, which now head to the president’s desk. Thursday, the council unanimously voted for six recommendations, which spanned calls for funding and collaboration. But chief among them is the call for the president to establish a White House-level leader that could coordinate all of the government agencies’ efforts to fight drug resistance.
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Security
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Building botnets made up of routers, modems, wireless access points and other networking devices doesn’t require sophisticated exploits. Remaiten, a new worm that infects embedded systems, spreads by taking advantage of weak Telnet passwords.
Remaiten is the latest incarnation of distributed denial-of-service Linux bots designed for embedded architectures. Its authors actually call it KTN-Remastered, where KTN most likely stands for a known Linux bot called Kaiten.
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Malware coders have created a new DDoS bot called Remaiten that targets home routers running on common Linux architectures, which also shares a lot of similarities with other DDoS bots like Tsunami and Gafgyt.
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Or worse. The open direct could lead to spyware and malware, rather than just advertising masquerading as content or bottom-feeder clickbait. Fortunately, you can keep an eye on what URLs are being reached using these open redirects via this link. Unfortunately, it may be only citizens keeping an eye on that page, and they’re in no position to prevent further abuse.
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People’s passwords and their relative strength and weakness is a subject I know quite well. As part of my business, we regularly battle users who think very simple passwords, often times relating to their birthdays and whatnot, are sufficient. Sometimes they simply make “password” or a similiar variant their go-to option. So, when CNBC put together a widget for readers to input the passwords they use to get feedback on their strength or weakness, I completely understand what they were attempting to accomplish. Password security is a real issue, after all — which is what makes it all the more face-palming that the widget CNBC used was found to be exploitable.
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Just recently, a ransomware attack affected Hollywood Presbyterian in California, causing the hospital to pay $17,000 to regain access to its databases.
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The United States and Canada on Thursday issued a rare joint cyber alert, warning against a recent surge in extortion attacks that infect computers with viruses known as “ransomware,” which encrypt data and demand payments for it to be unlocked.
The warning follows reports from several private security firms that they expect the crisis to worsen, because hackers are getting more sophisticated and few businesses have adopted proper security measures to thwart such attacks.
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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed new encryption methods for securing financial data and other sensitive information.
The NIST publication SP 800-38G authored by Morris Dworkin specifies cryptography standards for both binary and non-binary data, preserving the look and feel of the unencrypted digits. Earlier encryption methods designed by NIST worked for binary data. But for strings of decimal numbers, there was no feasible technique to produce coded data that preserves the original format.
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Defence/Aggression
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Every travel story about North Korea reads the same:
We went to North Korea voluntarily, and were shocked to find that we couldn’t like hang out at clubs with everyday Koreans, and the dudes there, like, spied on us.
And we couldn’t use WhatsApp or take selfies anywhere we wanted, or like mock the hell out of the fat guy who dictates the place LOL. It’s like so oppressive and I’m so glad to be back in the U.S. where sh*t is totally free, I mean literally, bro.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
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There is a pervasive idea in today’s American society that regardless of political philosophy or party affiliation, one must never criticize the members of the United States military. Conventional wisdom holds that we must appreciate the sacrifice soldiers have made to “fight for our freedom,” and even if one is against the war, they must always “support the troops.” This line of thinking is not coming solely from the pro-war crowd; many of those who consider themselves antiwar (or at least oppose a specific war or conflict) have the utmost regard for those who fight in them. But is this canonization of those who take up arms in the name of the United States government truly just? Or is it a falsehood based on propaganda, emotion, and a lack of critical thinking?
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That promise was not kept. Instead, the lobbyists, both foreign and domestic, went into overdrive in a campaign to extend NATO to the very gates of Moscow. It was a lucrative business for the Washington set, as the Wall Street Journal documented: cushy fees for lobbyists, influence-buying by US corporations, as well as political tradeoffs for the administration of George W. Bush, which garnered support for the Iraq war from Eastern Europe’s former Warsaw Pact states in exchange for favorable treatment of their NATO applications.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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The Progress Report covers the second Italian OGP Action Plan (for the period 2014-2015), which was adopted in December 2014. The plan was developed by the new government that was installed at the beginning of that year and that “planned to set up structural reforms in many sectors of public administration, stressing the relevance of transparency, accountability, and open data.”
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Finance
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The rise in public awareness of the dangers of corporate sovereignty provisions in agreements like TPP and TAFTA/TTIP has brought with it a collateral benefit: academics are starting to explore its effects in greater depth. An example is a new paper from Krzysztof J. Pelc, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, at McGill University in Canada. Called “Does the Investment Regime Induce Frivolous Litigation?” (pdf), it looks at how the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism has evolved in recent years, and in a very troubling direction.
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CurrencyFair, an open-source, peer-to-peer, international currency exchange with offices in the U.K., Ireland and Australia, has raised an additional €8 million and announced a new chief marketing officer.
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Sometimes Vox does actually link to something at least attempting consensus, as they have done here and here. But more often, even when an attempt at consensus is reached, it’s plagued with blinders that render the “most economists” distinction suspect.
For example, the University of Chicago “poll” that sampled economists about the value of Uber, showing uniform consensus about how great it was, did not contain a single African-American or Hispanic economist. Does the class and racial composition —let alone the University of Chicago’s notorious association with free-market ideology—affect what this cohort of “most economists” thinks? Probably. Does anyone at Vox care? Evidently not.
Sometimes the “most economists” device is just a lazy placeholder, and it’s entirely possible that “most economists,” if subjected to anything approaching a scientific poll, would actually agree with the author’s assertion. Sometimes vague intuitions about what others think are true!
But like Fox News‘ use of “some say,” “most economists” or “most experts” is often a weasel phase that permits the writer to smuggle in their own opinion and ideology where it ought not be, and couches their own subjective, ad hoc analysis as something reflecting scientific consensus. Certainly, if “most experts” on a subject agree, what they agree on must therefore be objectively and undoubtedly true.
Ultimately, the “most expert/economists” cliche is a lazy appeal to authority that shortcuts actually showing one’s homework—how one got from premise to conclusion. If the news is going to be “explained” rather than just asserted, most media critics agree that Vox should drop this tic altogether.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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There is a huge amount of polling evidence over decades that shows that the perception that a party is divided causes much damage to that party’s popularity rating. Indeed the perception of division or unity is almost as important as what the actual policies are. The spectacular tumbling of popular Tory support in the UK is therefore entirely expected when the Tories are kicking pieces out of each other over Europe and Osbornomics.
The corporate media, including the BBC, of course know this very well. That is why ever since those opinion polls the bitter Tory internal battles have simply stopped being reported. I have no doubt their political correspondents are having conversations like the one I had with an MP this morning, several times every day. Yet when did you last see one reported? Compare this to the regular reporting of every tittle tattle of anonymous Blairite briefing against Corbyn.
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A new report from FAIR looks at a year’s worth of anonymity in the New York Times, with media critic Reed Richardson taking an in-depth look at how unnamed sources were used in the paper in 2015. His research substantiates that the observation Times public editor Margaret Sullivan made in 2014 (12/29/14) is still true: “Anonymity continues to be granted to sources far more often than a last-resort basis would suggest.”
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Wall Street’s sinister influence on the political process has, rightly, been a major topic during this presidential campaign. But history has taught us that the role that the media industry plays in Washington poses a comparable threat to our democracy. Yet this is a topic rarely discussed by the dominant media, or on the campaign trail.
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Error Keeps Sanders off D.C. Ballot [iophk: The establishment, in pushing Clinton, is really pulling some dirty tricks.]
Bernie Sanders is not on the ballot for Washington, D.C.’s Democratic primary on June 14, thanks to a clerical error.
Both Sanders, a senator from Vermont, and front-runner Hillary Clinton submitted their paperwork and the $2,500 fee in advance of the March 16 deadline. But due to a clerical error, the D.C. Democrats did not notify the Board of Elections until March 17, according to WRC-TV in Washington.
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Rachel Maddow posed an interesting question to Sen. Bernie Sanders during their interview on Wednesday: Would he like to see the Republican Party just disappear? Sanders’ answer was also an interesting one. He didn’t take the bait; instead, he offered an alternative theory—the GOP would disappear if corporate media simply told the truth about the party’s agenda.
[...]
“The Republican Party today now is a joke,” he continued, “maintained by a media which really does not force them to discuss their issues.”
Sanders was returning to one of his driving issues over the years—a fervent belief that corporate-owned media was steering democracy off a cliff. In 1979, he wrote an essay arguing that TV networks were “using the well-tested Hitlerian principle that people should be treated as morons and bombarded over and over again with the same simple phrases and ideas” to prevent them from thinking critically about the world around them. He hit those same themes (albeit more diplomatically) in his book, Outsider in the House, arguing that TV news coverage was dumbing down America by inundating viewers with superficial coverage of O.J. Simpson instead of “corporate disinvestment in the United States.” Not surprisingly, when Maddow asked Sanders in an interview last fall what his dream job might be, he quickly blurted out, “president of CNN.”
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Last week, “Trump 2016” was chalked in many places across Emory University’s campus. The backlash was swift. Students called for an immediate investigation. Emory administrators responded quickly, saying they would review security footage in order to find the “perpetrators” to then execute disciplinary protocol.
In consistency with the free speech editorial we wrote in the fall, we write this in the hopes of criticizing this kind of censorship and policing culture often taken by college administration in response to speech that could be construed as hate speech.
We certainly are not condoning the type of rhetoric that Donald Trump espouses or the type of politics that he inspires, but rather are calling for a more long-term strategy for protecting the rights of the marginalized. As many legal experts have noted, the type of precedent this Orwellian approach to censoring and stifling speech — however advantageous in the short term it may be — will come to disproportionately affect students’ ability to voice opinions later. If the chalkings were anti-University administration, students have now inadvertently created a protocol under which that too can be stifled by Emory officials.
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Manhattan-based artist Joyce Yu-Jean Lee never guessed she was in for a bit of international intrigue and even global headlines when she launched a show and accompanying discussion panels in February at a couple of alternative venues on the Lower East Side.
The installation, which lasted a month, was a pop-up Internet cafe dubbed “Firewall.” This is a reference to the “Great Firewall of China” (officially the “Golden Shield”) that filters the Internet in the People’s Republic.
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Apple recently patented a software system that can automatically detect and remove swear words from streamed audio tracks. The patent, dubbed “Management, Replacement and Removal of Explicit Lyrics during Audio Playback” scans a piece of music, compares the lyrics against a database of banned words, marks any explicit bits it finds and then removes the offending content, replacing it with either a beep or silence. The technology can also, according to its patent filing, detect the background music and boost that to cover what’s being censored. The system isn’t limited to music, mind you, it can just as easily be applied to audio books. As with many of Apple’s patents, there is no word on when — or even if — the technology will ever make it into an actual product.
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Apple has been granted a patent for technology that can automatically scan songs being streamed online and edit out any swear words in the lyrics.
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Pissed Consumer has uncovered an apparent abuse of the court system by reputation management firms. Getting allegedly defamatory links delisted by Google requires a court order, which is something very few people can actually obtain. But the plaintiffs featured in this Pissed Consumer post seem to have no trouble acquiring these — often within a few days of filing their lawsuits.
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We’re proud to announce today’s release of Onlinecensorship.org’s first report looking at how content is regulated by social media companies. Onlinecensorship.org—a joint project of EFF and Visualizing Impact (VI) that won the 2014 Knight News Challenge—seeks to encourage social media companies to operate with greater transparency and accountability toward their users as they make decisions that regulate speech.
Onlinecensorship.org was founded to fill a gap in public knowledge about how social media companies moderate content. As platforms like Facebook and Twitter play an increasingly large role in our lives, it’s important to track how these companies are regulating the speech of their users, both in tandem with governments and independent of them. As self-ordained content moderators, these companies face thorny issues; deciding what constitutes hate speech, harassment, and terrorism is challenging, particularly across many different cultures, languages, and social circumstances. These U.S.-based companies by and large do not consider their policies to constitute censorship. We challenge this assertion, and examine how their policies (and their enforcement) may have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
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Texas police launched a “complaint censorship” attack on David Warden’s YouTube channel News Now Houston, claiming his videos violate their privacy.
Which is a lie, because in public, nobody has a right or expectation of privacy.
Least of all public officials like police.
You can see a new video below, Warden talking about the agony of having been first assaulted and then attacked with complaint censorship on his news channel and three false complaints aimed at censoring his citizen journalism.
It’s his only way to monetize important public interest news-gathering activities.
It’s where he tells the world about official abuse.
Complaint censorship happens with false or improper complaints submitted with intent to damage a citizen journalist or news outlet’s online publishing access or tools.
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A prominent Vietnamese blogger and his assistant were sentenced to prison last week in Hanoi for their work on a popular web site, read by millions of Vietnamese, that reported on human rights and government corruption. The case raises alarms of a new wave of repression against independent media and free expression online in Vietnam.
On March 23 a Hanoi court sentenced Nguyen Huu Vinh, a former police officer and the son of Vietnam’s ambassador to the former Soviet Union, to five years in prison for “abusing democratic freedoms to harm the interests of the state.” Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, Vinh’s assistant, was sentenced to three years. Vinh, better known as Anh Ba Sam, set up a popular blog in 2007 and later launched two others. The sites provided news and comments about democracy, social and economic issues from state media and activists, and articles critical of Vietnamese government policies. One site, AhnBasam, was repeatedly attacked by hackers in 2013 and 2014; Vinh and Thuy were arrested in May 2014 in Hanoi and indicted on charges that articles posted on the sites had “untruthful” content and “distort the lines and policies” of the ruling Community Party.
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The producers of the film “Barney’s Wall,” about the creative vision and legacy of Barney Rosset, need money to cover post-production costs.
The film focuses on the man and the mural he made in his later years on the main wall of his apartment and office space in the East Village. He worked on the mural until the last days of his life in 2012. In the years following his death, the apartment was sold to developers, and it was clear that the mural would not survive there.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday advanced a proposal to ensure the privacy of broadband Internet users by barring providers from collecting user data without consent.
The proposed regulation from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler won initial approval with a 3-2 vote to require broadband providers to obtain consumer consent, disclose data collection, protect personal information and report breaches — but would not bar any data collection practices.
“It’s the consumers’ information and the consumer should have the right to determine how it’s used,” Wheeler said.
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Egypt blocked Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) Free Basics Internet service at the end of last year after the U.S. company refused to give the Egyptian government the ability to spy on users, two people familiar with the matter said.
Free Basics, launched in Egypt in October, is aimed at low-income customers, allowing anyone with a cheap computer or smartphone to create a Facebook account and access a limited set of Internet services at no charge.
The Egyptian government suspended the service on Dec. 30 and said at the time that the mobile carrier Etisalat had only been granted a temporary permit to offer the service for two months.
Two sources with direct knowledge of discussions between Facebook and the Egyptian government said Free Basics was blocked because the company would not allow the government to circumvent the service’s security to conduct surveillance. They declined to say exactly what type of access the government had demanded or what practices it wanted Facebook to change.
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Social networking forum reddit on Thursday removed a section from its site used to tacitly inform users it had never received a certain type of U.S. government surveillance request, suggesting the platform is now being asked to hand over customer data under a secretive law enforcement authority.
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Reddit has removed the warrant canary posted on its website, suggesting that the company may have been served with some sort of secret court order or document for user information.
At the bottom of its 2014 transparency report, the company wrote: “As of January 29, 2015, reddit has never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information. If we ever receive such a request, we would seek to let the public know it existed.”
That language was conspicuously missing from the 2015 transparency report that was published Thursday morning. (Disclaimer: Ars and Reddit are owned by the same parent company, Advance Publications.)
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Signal is a pretty amazing app; it manages to combine great security with great simplicity.
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New Report Analyzes How Crypto Backdoors, Interference with Crypto, and Compelled Disclosure of Encryption Keys All Impact Free Expression and Privacy
Defending encryption is a human rights issue, according to a new Amnesty International report. The report calls on nation-states to promote the use of encryption tools as part of their international human rights obligations to protect the privacy of their populations.
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National Security Agency (NSA) director Michael S. Rogers adamantly refused on Thursday to say whether Hillary Clinton’s private email server was ever hacked.
“It’s something I’m just not going to get into,” Rogers told Yahoo! News’ Michael Isikoff when asked in an interview if Clinton’s server was ever compromised.
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The American government built underwater drones in the 1990s to tap into fiber-optics cables, he claims.
[...]
He later called it a “new series of fiber optic [remotely operated vehicles].”
Edward Snowden, who knows some things about secrets, called the disclosure “probably the most incredible leak of compartmented [top secret] material I’ve ever seen on LinkedIn.”
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IT systems in both the public and private sectors are woefully unprepared for an environment in which cyberthreats are becoming more constant and complex, according to Curtis Dukes, director of the National Security Agency’s Information Assurance Directorate.
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The FBI’s request was part of a sustained government effort to exercise novel law enforcement power.
The government insisted that its effort to force Apple to help break into an iPhone as part of the investigation into the 2015 San Bernardino shootings was just about that one case. Even though the FBI no longer needs Apple’s help in that case, the FBI’s request was part of a sustained government effort to exercise novel law enforcement power.
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The TOR Project has expressed its commitment to researching and developing new ways to mitigate the threats of security failure. Meanwhile, if TOR developers are asked to deploy some backdoor in the software, they would rather resign than honor the request.
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The intelligence community is close to completing a plan to let the National Security Agency share more of the raw data it collects with other U.S. spy agencies, a system that would put an end to more than a decade of wrangling among the different organizations.
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This would allow the FBI, for instance, to use NSA-gathered information to investigate crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism.
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A top lawyer for the nation’s intelligence agencies is pushing back on mounting criticism about new plans to widely share intercepted data throughout the federal government.
Robert Litt, the general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed that the change in policy is “in the final stages of development and approval” in a post on national security legal blog Just Security on Wednesday.
But Litt denied allegations that the change would allow the FBI and other agencies to use the sensitive data for domestic law enforcement matters, which members of Congress had speculated could be unconstitutional.
“There will be no greater access to signals intelligence information for law enforcement purposes than there is today,” Litt claimed in his blog post. “These procedures will only ensure that other elements of the intelligence community will be able to make use of this signals intelligence if it is relevant to their intelligence mission.”
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Yesterday, at the excellent RightsCon event in San Francisco, Senator Ron Wyden gave a barn burnder of a speech, in which he detailed why it was so important to protect our privacy and security in a digital age, at a time when law enforcement and the intelligence communities are digging deeper and deeper into all of our personal information.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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America makes a lot of questionable decisions, and when we do, the world is quick to call us out on it. For example, remember that time we impeached our president over an extramarital affair and countries lined up to express their amusement over the fact that we’d take such drastic steps over a relatively minor thing?
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I’m not sure people are going to be more comforted that people are carrying guns they can’t see, especially not US law enforcement, which has already demonstrated it fears cell phones as much as it fears guns.
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Black Lives Matter activists are planning a protest in Minneapolis tonight after Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced no charges will be filed against the two Minneapolis police officers involved in the shooting death last fall of Jamar Clark, an unarmed 24-year-old African American. Clark was shot in the head after a scuffle with officers who responded to a report of an assault. In announcing the decision, Freeman rejected claims by multiple witnesses that Clark was shot while handcuffed. Freeman also claimed Clark placed his hand on an officer’s gun during the scuffle. Clark’s death sparked a series of protests in Minneapolis.
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Opponents call it “the Bathroom Bill.” In a special session last week, the North Carolina state legislature passed HB2, officially called the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act. Gov. Pat McCrory signed the law that night. The new law denies transgender people use of the bathroom, changing room or locker room that matches their gender identity. Resistance to the bill is fierce, and growing daily.
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To make clear their rights, the ACLU has just released a Know Your Rights guide for women and girls who wear hijab.
Libraries and schools are supposed to be inclusive spaces for learning, growing, and tolerance. But two women last week — one in California, one in D.C. — learned these safe spaces do not always live up to their reputation.
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The first year was hard. While my husband enjoyed his new position at the university, I was having a difficult time finding work in my field — civil rights. I took up cooking and working out, trying to keep up with these very elegant Southern moms who always looked well-manicured. I even joined the PTA. At my first meeting, I was approached by someone who appeared to be the head lady of the group.
“What church do you go to?” she asked, smiling from ear to ear.
“Church? Oh. Uh. I don’t. I’m Muslim.”
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British hacker Lauri Love stands accused of causing “millions of dollars” in damages to US government computers — charges he’s been facing for more than two years. These charges originate in the US, but it’s the UK that’s been trying to get Love to give up his encryption keys for the past couple of years.
Under RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000), the UK government can charge Love with “failure to cooperate” by refusing to comply with the order to decrypt files. To date it has not done so, despite Love blowing off its demands since the middle of February 2014.
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At a court hearing earlier this month, the UK’s National Crime Authority (NCA) demanded that Lauri Love, a British computer scientist who allegedly broke into US government networks and caused “millions of dollars in damage,” decrypt his laptop and other devices impounded by the NCA in 2013, leading some experts to warn that a decision in the government’s favor could set a worrisome precedent for journalists and whistleblowers.
Arrested in 2013 for the alleged intrusions but subsequently released, Love was re-arrested in 2015 and is currently fighting extradition to the United States. He has so far refused to comply with a Section 49 RIPA notice to decrypt the devices, a refusal that carries potential jail time. However, British authorities have not charged Love with any crime, leading him to counter-sue in civil court for the return of his devices.
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Another indigenous environmentalist has been murdered in Honduras, less than two weeks after the assassination of renowned activist Berta Cáceres. Nelson García was shot to death Tuesday after returning home from helping indigenous people who had been displaced in a mass eviction by Honduran security forces. García was a member of COPINH, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, co-founded by Berta Cáceres, who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize last year for her decade-long fight against the Agua Zarca Dam, a project planned along a river sacred to the indigenous Lenca people. She was shot to death at her home on March 3. On Thursday, thousands converged in Tegucigalpa for the start of a mobilization to demand justice for Berta Cáceres and an end to what they say is a culture of repression and impunity linked to the Honduran government’s support for corporate interests. At the same time, hundreds of people, most of them women, gathered outside the Honduran Mission to the United Nations chanting “Berta no se murió; se multiplicó – Berta didn’t die; she multiplied.” We speak with Cáceres’s daughter, Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, and with Lilian Esperanza López Benítez, the financial coordinator of COPINH.
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Describing a backdrop of long-term US “meddling” in Honduras, Caceres spoken out publicly in 2014 against Hillary Clinton’s role as US Secretary of State in the 2009 coup that ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and opened what the Goldman Prize website described as the “explosive growth in environmentally destructive megaprojects that would displace indigenous communities.”
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting Washington, D.C. this week — and his security team has brought along some of its tactics for shutting down dissent and free speech.
Outside a planned speech at the Brookings Institution on Thursday, confrontations between protesters and Erdogan’s guards devolved into violence. Eyewitnesses reported that Turkish security forcibly removed one journalist from the scene, while another was kicked and a third was thrown to the sidewalk. Inside the event, journalists reported being forced to leave by Turkish security.
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Cherelle Baldwin has been freed after a 12-member jury in Bridgeport, Connecticut found her not guilty of murder in the death of her abusive ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey Brown. According to the Huffington Post, Baldwin “collapsed to the floor in tears as the verdict was announced,” crying, “My baby will have his mommy back.”
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EFF’s efforts to fix holes in oversight of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS) are paying off.
New data and records released by California Department of Justice (CADOJ) show a steep increase in the number of agencies disclosing cases of abuse of the state’s network of law enforcement databases—a major victory for transparency and law enforcement accountability.
Last year, EFF identified major failures in how a CADOJ committee charged with overseeing the system—the CLETS Advisory Committee (CAC)—reviews misuse investigations. The body, EFF found, had failed to follow established procedures for disciplining users who break access rules, leading to a 100% increase in reported misuse since 2010.
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The cops raided my wife’s pediatric practice looking for a fugitive, last week.
Actually, let’s put the word “fugitive” in quotes. The story is an eye-opening tale in itself. It’s also a glimpse at how business-as-usual in courts and cop shops around the country screws with people’s lives and alienates the public from those who are allegedly their protectors.
My wife, Dr. Wendy Tuccille, was on her way to the office in Cottonwood, Arizona, when her phone rang. Frantic staff called to tell her that the clinic’s parking lot was full of cops, there to arrest one of her employees, C.H. (it’s a small town so we’ll stick with her initials), on an outstanding warrant.
When my wife arrived she found a gaggle of cops—12 to 15 she told me, some in battle jammies—in plain view at the rear corner of the building. The parking lot was full of police vehicles, in sight of families and children arriving to be seen and treated.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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We all know now that the Internet began as a US government project. Administration of parts of it was eventually outsourced, first to Network Solutions Inc and then to a non-profit corporation created just for the task: ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). ICANN operates autonomously, but under a contract from the US government, specifically from the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) in the US Department of Commerce.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Following the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in the Trunki design dispute, Managing IP summarises practical tips from UK practitioners on filing designs and eight lessons from the judgment
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Copyrights
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Anti-piracy cash settlement outfit Rightscorp has just announced a net loss of $3.5m for its operations during 2015. Interestingly the company cites a number of reasons, some of them cryptic, for decreasing revenues. Alongside the mysterious “shutting down” of unnamed file-sharing infrastructure, VPN use and ISP reluctance to assist trolling are major factors.
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Further Recent Posts
- Links 6/1/2017: Irssi 1.0.0, KaOS 2017.01 Released
Links for the day
- Watchtroll a Fake News Site in Lobbying Mode and Attack Mode Against Those Who Don't Agree (Even PTAB and Judges)
A look at some of the latest spin and the latest shaming courtesy of the patent microcosm, which behaves so poorly that one has to wonder if its objective is to alienate everyone
- The Productivity Commission Warns Against Patent Maximalism, Which is Where China (SIPO) is Heading Along With EPO
In defiance of common sense and everything that public officials or academics keep saying (European, Australian, American), China's SIPO and Europe's EPO want us to believe that when it comes to patents it's "the more, the merrier"
- Technical Failure of the European Patent Office (EPO) a Growing Cause for Concern
The problem associated with Battistelli's strategy of increasing so-called 'production' by granting in haste everything on the shelf is quickly being grasped by patent professionals (outside EPO), not just patent examiners (inside EPO)
- Links 5/1/2017: Inkscape 0.92, GNU Sed 4.3
Links for the day
- Links 4/1/2017: Cutelyst 1.2.0 and Lumina 1.2 Desktop Released
Links for the day
- Financial Giants Will Attempt to Dominate or Control Bitcoin, Blockchain and Other Disruptive Free Software Using Software Patents
Free/Open Source software in the currency and trading world promised to emancipate us from the yoke of banking conglomerates, but a gold rush for software patents threatens to jeopardise any meaningful change or progress
- New Article From Heise Explains Erosion of Patent Quality at the European Patent Office (EPO)
To nobody's surprise, the past half a decade saw accelerating demise in quality of European Patents (EPs) and it is the fault of Battistelli's notorious policies
- Insensitivity at the EPO’s Management – Part V: Suspension of Salary and Unfair Trials
One of the lesser-publicised cases of EPO witch-hunting, wherein a member of staff is denied a salary "without any notification"
- Links 3/1/2017: Microsoft Imposing TPM2 on Linux, ASUS Bringing Out Android Phones
Links for the day
- Links 2/1/2017: Neptune 4.5.3 Release, Netrunner Desktop 17.01 Released
Links for the day
- Teaser: Corruption Indictments Brought Against Vice-President of the European Patent Office (EPO)
New trouble for Željko Topić in Strasbourg, making it yet another EPO Vice-President who is on shaky grounds and paving the way to managerial collapse/avalanche at the EPO
- 365 Days Later, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas Remains Silent and Thus Complicit in EPO Abuses on German Soil
The utter lack of participation, involvement or even intervention by German authorities serve to confirm that the government of Germany is very much complicit in the EPO's abuses, by refusing to do anything to stop them
- Battistelli's Idea of 'Independent' 'External' 'Social' 'Study' is Something to BUY From Notorious Firm PwC
The sham which is the so-called 'social' 'study' as explained by the Central Staff Committee last year, well before the results came out
- Europe Should Listen to SMEs Regarding the UPC, as Battistelli, Team UPC and the Select Committee Lie About It
Another example of UPC promotion from within the EPO (a committee dedicated to UPC promotion), in spite of everything we know about opposition to the UPC from small businesses (not the imaginary ones which Team UPC claims to speak 'on behalf' of)
- Video: French State Secretary for Digital Economy Speaks Out Against Benoît Battistelli at Battistelli's PR Event
Uploaded by SUEPO earlier today was the above video, which shows how last year's party (actually 2015) was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire, echoing the French government's concern about union busting etc. at the EPO (only to be rudely censored by Battistelli's 'media partner')
- When EPO Vice-President, Who Will Resign Soon, Made a Mockery of the EPO
Leaked letter from Willy Minnoye/management to the people who are supposed to oversee EPO management
- No Separation of Powers or Justice at the EPO: Reign of Terror by Battistelli Explained in Letter to the Administrative Council
In violation of international labour laws, Team Battistelli marches on and engages in a union-busting race against the clock, relying on immunity to keep this gravy train rolling before an inevitable crash
- FFPE-EPO is a Zombie (if Not Dead) Yellow Union Whose Only de Facto Purpose Has Been Attacking the EPO's Staff Union
A new year's reminder that the EPO has only one legitimate union, the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO), whereas FFPE-EPO serves virtually no purpose other than to attack SUEPO, more so after signing a deal with the devil (Battistelli)
- EPO Select Committee is Wrong About the Unitary Patent (UPC)
The UPC is neither desirable nor practical, especially now that the EPO lowers patent quality; but does the Select Committee understand that?
- Links 1/1/2017: KDE Plasma 5.9 Coming, PelicanHPC 4.1
Links for the day
- 2016: The Year EPO Staff Went on Strike, Possibly “Biggest Ever Strike in the History of the EPO.”
A look back at a key event inside the EPO, which marked somewhat of a breaking point for Team Battistelli
- Open EPO Letter Bemoans Battistelli's Antisocial Autocracy Disguised/Camouflaged Under the Misleading Term “Social Democracy”
Orwellian misuse of terms by the EPO, which keeps using the term "social democracy" whilst actually pushing further and further towards a totalitarian regime led by 'King' Battistelli
- EPO's Central Staff Committee Complains About Battistelli's Bodyguards Fetish and Corruption of the Media
Even the EPO's Central Staff Committee (not SUEPO) understands that Battistelli brings waste and disgrace to the Office
- Translation of French Texts About Battistelli and His Awful Perception of Omnipotence
The paradigm of totalitarian control, inability to admit mistakes and tendency to lie all the time is backfiring on the EPO rather than making it stronger
- 2016 in Review and Plans for 2017
A look back and a quick look at the road ahead, as 2016 comes to an end
- Links 31/12/2016: Firefox 52 Improves Privacy, Tizen Comes to Middle East
Links for the day
- Korea's Challenge of Abusive Patents, China's Race to the Bottom, and the United States' Gradual Improvement
An outline of recent stories about patents, where patent quality is key, reflecting upon the population's interests rather than the interests of few very powerful corporations
- German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, Who Flagrantly Ignores Serious EPO Abuses, Helps Battistelli's Agenda ('Reform') With the UPC
The role played by Heiko Maas in the UPC, which would harm businesses and people all across Europe, is becoming clearer and hence his motivation/desire to keep Team Battistelli in tact, in spite of endless abuses on German soil
- Links 30/12/2016: KDE for FreeBSD, Automotive Grade Linux UCB 3.0
Links for the day
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