Items tagged with 'law'
California Demands TVs Suck Down Less Power
Love the Earth? Sure, we all do--after all, we live here. Love it enough to throw out your current TV and buy one that meets heightened energy requirements? Um....Just this week California regulators adopted the "nation's first energy-efficiency standards for televisions," with hopes of reducing energy drain during a period... Read More
FCC To Examine Google Voice Service
According to people familiar with the matter, the Federal Communications Commission plans to open an inquiry into Google's Voice service, looking into how the service works and whether or not the Internet giant is restricting calls. Earlier this week, a group of 20 Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives... Read More
Government Seeks Ban To Prevent Interstate Bus Drivers & Truckers From Texting
AAA recently declared a goal to ban texting while driving. The automobile club is not alone. Yesterday, the Obama administration said it would seek to ban text messaging by interstate bus drivers and truckers and would encourage states to pass their own laws against driving cars while distracted. According to Transportation... Read More
More data breach info to consumers in CA bill
With data theft seeming to be increasing in frequency (read this and this), a California legislator has introduced a bill that would make companies report more information to people affected by the breaches.State Sen. Joe Simitian's bill would require companies involved to report to the state attorney general any data breach... Read More
Windows Vista Kernel Flaw Found
When pimping Windows Vista prior to its release, Microsoft called it "the most secure OS ever." Of course, software is just software, and there are bugs in anything. And on Friday, security firm Phion AG announced they had discovered a TCP/IP stack buffer overflow. As researcher Thomas Unterleitner indicated: Since this... Read More
Spore's DRM = Class-Action Lawsuit for EA
Spore is a critically-acclaimed game, but (at least by users) its DRM has been universally panned. Many of those who know anything about the SecuROM copy protection used in the game don't want it near their computers, unless they absolutely have to. And while Electronic Arts (EA) has "loosened things up" slightly, the DRM... Read More
NVIDIA Slapped With Lawsuit Over Flawed GPUs
NVIDIA has been hit with a securities fraud class action lawsuit over the defective GPUs which it admitted to in July. The complaint was filed by New York-based law firm Shalov Stone Bonner & Rocco. It alleges that NVIDIA knew about the flawed GPUs as early as November 8th, 2007 though no public announcement was made... Read More
EU Considering Three Strikes Downloading Law
France and the UK have already begun considering such "three strikes" downloading laws, but with France taking over the EU presidency on 7/1, there is talk - and a vote upcoming - on a E.U. version.Now Sarkozy, who took over the European presidency this week, is trying to stretch the measure across Europe through amendments... Read More
Cyberbullying Outlawed in Missouri
The latest events in the Megan Meier MySpace suicide case took place Monday, when Missouri governor Matt Blunt signed into law a bill which revised the the state's already existing harassment law to include telephone and electronic communication.Those under 21 would face only a misdemeanor, but for adults, this is a felony,... Read More
"Mighty Mouse" Lawsuit Smells Like Limburger
Apple is certainly litigious over the use of the word "pod," and on Wednesday it received a taste of its own medicine, as it was sued over its "Mighty Mouse." No, it's not for the reason you might think, as its already licensed the name "Mighty Mouse" from CBS.Apple is facing a new lawsuit over its Mighty Mouse peripheral,... Read More
Forget Moore's Law. We Need Olukotun's Ordinance
We don't know what to do with all the multi-core chips we already have, never mind the eight and sixteen core processors looming on the horizon. The software is not keeping pace with the hardware. That realization is dawning over all the big players in computer chip design and tech educators. Think tanks dedicated... Read More
No Appeal For "Vista Capable"...Law Suit
Microsoft's latest attempt to derail the "Vista Capable" class-action law suit via another appeal has been stymied:"In a brief order dated April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Microsoft's request to overturn a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman in February that granted class-action... Read More
A Sorta Mac Mini For $399? Lawyer Up, Psystar
I know it's Microsoft that has the reputation for being computer monopolists. But all they supply to the affair is the Operating System and a free browser, after all. You can run it on any computer you like, or one that has enough horsepower to render Vista, anyway. You want a monopoly? Apple is a vertically integrated... Read More
Another Week, Another Apple Lawsuit
People and/or companies filing suit against Apple ought to get a volume discount these days.The latest lawsuit, filed by Stacie Somers in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Apple uses unfair business practices. Unfair could mean a lot of different things, but in this particular... Read More
$8,000 Per Gallon Printer Ink = Lawsuit
It is no secret that in the printer market, the money is all in the consumables. Paper, ink, and the like are where the money is made, not printers themselves. As such, a Boston man has filed a lawsuit against Staples and HP on collusion and anti-trust grounds.A Boston man has filed a class-action lawsuit accusing... Read More
Another iPhone Lawsuit
You can nearly set your watch by the weekly Apple lawsuits, and future generations may count them to establish a sense of time between historic tech events in the same that way we count tree-rings to determine when natural disasters took place.This week's lawsuit was filed on behalf of Klausner Technologies and asserts... Read More
Weekly Apple Lawsuit...Settled
Apple and Burst.com have settled their patent dispute for $10 million USD after two years of litigation. The initial complaint was over four separate patents that covered transmission of compressed audio and video files that were used in iLife, iTunes, QuickTime and of course, the iPod. Given the digital media... Read More
MySpace Suicide Case Results in New Law
The Megan Meier MySpace case, in which Megan committed suicide after a MySpace hoax committed by no less than an adult, has caused a Missouri community to craft a law to prevent something from this from happening again, at least without some punishment for the perpetrators.The goal of the ordinance, said Assistant City... Read More
Another Week, Another Apple Law Suit
It seems that Apple get slapped with a new law suit every time anybody in their Cupertino headquarters sips a latte.A new law suit filed by SimmonsCooper LLC on behalf of DBC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Digital Background Corporation claims that the video backdrop feature for iChat... Read More
Yahoo Settles Its China Lawsuit
Yahoo has been embroiled in a lawsuit over information it gave the Chinese government regarding several Chinese dissedents. Last week it took a huge amount of criticism at a Congressional hearing. Today it settled that case.No details have been given of the settlement but Yahoo will be covering legal costs.The... Read More
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