Items tagged with law
San Francisco, home of the Giants and land of sometimes questionable mandates, like the one passed last year that would require cell phone retailers to slap a label on their devices indicating radiation levels. The measure created a bit of a firestorm on the Internet over whether such a label was really needed or simply ridiculous. For now,...
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Did you know that you can purchase a cell phone in the United States without actually handing over any personal information at all? It's true. For years, consumers have been able to purchase pre-paid cell phones from stores such as Wal-Mart, and since they can be purchased with cash, there's little to no trace left...
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You've heard all the arguments before: violent video games are corroding our youth, Grand Theft Auto makes kids want to beat up pedestrians, Doom and other first person shooters corrupt young minds into going on shooting sprees, and so forth and so on. The Supreme Court will hear these same arguments and decide whether a California ban on...
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The Internet is abuzz this morning over Apple's "2010 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report." In it are some 24 pages detailing the results of Apple's self-imposed audit of all of its suppliers to ensure that each one meets the company's "Supplier Code of Conduct." What has the Internet swarming with activity is this little tidbit:"Apple...
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You may recall "I Am Rich," the somewhat bogus $1,000 iPhone app that made it into the App Store in mid-2008, then was dropped when Apple realized how silly it was. Despite that, six people actually purchased it before it was booted out. Now we have another $1,000 app, and this one might be worth it. "I Am Rich" simply showed a...
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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 where many Americans...
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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 who mostly represent...
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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...
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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 that affected...
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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 buffer overflow overwrites...
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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 has spawned thousands...
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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 until July 2, 2008....
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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 (pdf) to the Telecoms...
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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, with a sentence...
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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, reports say....
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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 to parallel computing...
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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 status to a lawsuit...
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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 competitor killer. Psystar,...
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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 suit it refers...
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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 hardware maker...
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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 that the Visual Voicemail...
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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 nature of the listed...
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