If you want to know just how litigious our world has become, all you need to know is that the lawyers for China's famed Shaolin Temple (yes, it has lawyers) are demanding that an anonymous online forum poster apologize for claiming that a group of Shaolin monks had been beaten in unarmed combat by a Japanese ninja. Apparently, for all their fancy martial arts moves, the Shaolin monks aren't particularly familiar with how internet forums work. Here's a hint: people make stuff up all the time. And no one believes it. And no one pays any attention to it. Of course, now that you're demanding an apology for this "horrible deed" (horrible? really?) all that's done is draw a lot more attention to a story that no one would have read (much less cared about) in the first place.

ThinkPad760 writes "Early in September All Nippon Airways (ANA) of Japan will complete their rollout of a ticketless check-in and boarding pass service called SKiP! You book the ticket online thru either a computer or your mobile phone. Prior to arriving at the airport, you 'place' the ticket onto your IC-chipped ANA Mileage card, or have the booking dowloaded into your IC-enabled phone. When you get to the airport you just wave your mobile or IC card at the reader. It confirms your booking, the light turns green, and off you go to the gate. At the gate it's the same thing. I've been using this service out of Haneda to Osaka for the past year. It is fantastic. Since I never have to check bags, I turn up to the airport just short while before my flight, walk straight through security and onto the plane."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In certain paranoid circles, there's a big fear that at some point, people will be forced to get RFID implants. North Dakota and Wisconsin have already passed laws making it illegal to force somebody to get an RFID implant, and now a California state senator has pushed a similar bill through. This isn't new ground for Joe Simitian, the senator in question. He's sponsored anti-RFID bills in the past, but with little success. The fact remains that few people have any interest in RFID implants, while even the federal government has said that tracking humans with RFID isn't a good idea. Perhaps the bill will assuage the senator's paranoia, but meaningless bans like this won't do much to deal with the real privacy issues surrounding RFID.

Greg Storey doth speaks the truth: "There are no circumstances that will ever make it a good idea to link to the site you stole the design from ... It's how you're going to be caught". #

ajs writes "Moriarty, over on Ain't It Cool News is running a column about the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. In it, he discusses some theories about where the movie is going, but doesn't reveal his sources. He claims that Nimoy's Spock, not the younger versions of the original Trek trio, will be the primary star of the film; and that the movie will make some very substantial changes to the Trek lore in a way that is internally consistent with what went before, but opens up many more options for future franchise films or series. If he's right, there are some pretty substantial spoilers in the column." Obviously, as unverifiable speculation this should be taken with a grain of salt. Live long and prosper.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this month, we noted that it had been a year since Google had done a deal with the Associated press and there appeared to be nothing to show for it. That led to speculation that the deal really had nothing to do with with some new "news" product, and it was really about paying off the AP so it didn't sue Google for linking to AP stories (the way some other news organizations had done). That seemed strange because it was quite difficult to see what the Associated Press or anyone else had to argue about if Google News was providing their news partners more traffic. However, the snickering over a lack of any real project seems to have kicked Google into action, and they've just announced that they're going to start hosting news content on their own site from the AP and a few other news organizations the company has done deals with. Amusingly, I was unable to find the AP version of this story hosted on Google itself, but did find the Canadian Press version. There don't appear to be any advertisements on the Google hosted version, but there are links to "related news" -- which makes a lot of sense. Of course, if I were a publisher partner of the Associated Press, I'd actually be really upset by this deal -- but directed at the Associated Press, rather than at Google. This deal is likely to lower traffic to other sites that republish AP reports. So all those partners get no benefit from the deal and actually lose out on traffic. If there are newspapers who want to get upset about Google News, they should get upset at the AP for basically giving a bunch of their traffic directly to Google.

InfoWorldMike passed us a link to a story at his site about a way to perform computer functions on the atomic level. IBM has pioneered the process at their Almaden Research lab in California. Essentially, researchers detect 'magnetic anisotropy, a property of the magnetic field that gives it the ability to maintain a particular direction'. Since the process allows the detection of the 'direction' individual atoms are facing, this is the first step towards the ones and zeroes used in binary. "In a second report, researchers at IBM's lab in Zurich, Switzerland, said they had used an individual molecule as an electric switch that could potentially replace the transistors used in modern chips. The company published both research reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science.The new technologies are at least 10 years from being used for components in commercial products, but the discoveries will allow scientists to take a large step forward in their quest to replace silicon, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Darren Barefoot sez, "Apparently sat-nav systems are hazardous to the health of British (and visiting) drivers:"

Vale of Glamorgan Council in South Wales is the first in the UK to use visual signs warning drivers not to believe sat-nav advice after once peaceful villages were reduced to bedlam when heavy-goods lorries got stuck in tiny country lanes.

Now a sign aimed largely at foreign drivers has been put up on the outskirts of the village of St Hilary.

"The proliferation of satellite navigation aids used in heavy goods vehicles, and their over-reliance, especially by overseas drivers, has presented itself as a problem within the Vale of Glamorgan," a spokesman for the council's highways department said.

Link (Thanks, Darren!)

The FCC has announced that it wants to fine three mobile operators a total of $2.825 million (a staggering figure, we know) for their continued failure to meet E911 standards. The rules said that by the end of 2005, operators had to be able to locate 95% of their subscribers within a certain distance when they called 911, and these operators still haven't met the standard, apparently -- thanks in part to their use of handset-based location technology, and a good number of users who haven't upgraded their phones. Surely the FCC fines will make them move, right? Because all the other meaningless fines the FCC's doled out have really worked. While the FCC tries to look tough by "cracking down" on the operators, plenty of places still don't have 911 call centers that can actually use the location information -- in part because they frittered away the funds that were supposed to pay for call center upgrades on ballpoint pens and winter boots.

Last night at the World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan, I sat down for an interview with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the editor who runs the largest science fiction line in the world for Tor Books. Patrick is my editor and a friend, and we had a rollicking, quick discussion about copyright, technology and the future of science fiction. It's live now on the Tor podcast, for your listening pleasure. MP3 link, Link to Tor podcast homepage, Link to podcast feed

Loving these anatomically correct knee-socks -- they remind me of Grade Six Hallowe'en skeleton costumes. Link (via Neatorama)

See also: Detailed anatomical t-shirts

tonganqn writes "Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope scientists have discovered huge amounts of water vapor in the young star system, called NGC 1333-IRAS 4B. From the article: 'The water vapor is pouring down from the system's natal cloud and smacking into a dusty disk where planets are thought to form. The observations provide the first direct look at how water, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, begins to make its way into planets, possibly even rocky ones like our own.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tiger4 writes "Let's say I have a photograph, or a television script, or have finally perfected the water-to-gasoline conversion process, or some other piece of non-software but copywritable or patentable IP. I know I want it secured in my name, on this date, in a provable and verifiable way. But being an Open Source, free-to-the world sort of person, I'm willing to share my knowledge to the world, as long as all credit points unambiguously to me. Any attempts at theft could, would, and must be immediately rebuffed by my offer of proof from when I first secured the IP. What, if any, tool or method is available to me in the digital world? MD5 and the like are available to show that copied files are the same as the original source, but they don't show time of authorship unambiguously. The same with Public Key crypto. I could lock it up with a time stamp, but what prevents me from faking the stamp that locks the file? Is there a way to homestead a little chunk of time with my IP's name on it?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about American Airlines was suing Google for trademark infringement due to keyword ads on Google using the phrase "American Airlines" that pointed visitors to competing airline sites or sites that sold American Airlines tickets alongside those of competitors. The history of similar cases suggests that American Airlines is going to have a tough time making its case. First of all, it's not illegal to use the trademarked name of another company in an advertisement as long as there's no indication that the ad is for them (in other words there's no customer confusion). Second, if there is confusion in the ad, then the problem isn't between American Airlines and Google, but American Airlines and the advertiser.

It's not clear why, but a week and a half after this story appeared, someone dropped by to add a comment to the story insisting that American Airlines is in the right here, though they don't give any support reasons why. What was odd, though, was that the comment linked to the copyright page of the website of a credit card processing service, saying that you could download the PDF of AA's filings there. That seemed especially strange. It's not clear why it was linking to a credit card processing service (which originally made me wonder if the comment was merely spam) or why any company would put up the details of a totally unrelated lawsuit on its own copyright page. The lawsuit isn't even about copyright, but trademark. However, what struck me is that the copyright page itself is wrong. It claims:

"No portions of this website may be reproduced or copied without the express written permission of the owner."

And then goes on to selectively highlight or quote certain parts of copyright law. Of course, this is wrong. As I did above, you can absolutely reproduce or copy portions of this company's website without the express written permission of the owner. It's called fair use, and while many copyright holders want to pretend it doesn't exist -- it absolutely does. Quoting a small portion of a website, especially for the purpose of, say, educating people about fair use, is fair use at work. Of course, this reminds me of when law professor Wendy Seltzer got a DMCA notice for trying to point out that the NFL misapplies copyright law in its own copyright statements that make a similar claim as the site above does.

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The United Nations today sent about 10,000 text messages to help inform Iraqi refugees in Syria, via their cellphones, that an international food distribution for them will start tomorrow. Snip from Bloomberg item:

The UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Program will initially distribute enough rations to feed 33,000 Iraqis in Syria and about 50,000 by the end of the year, the UN said today in a statement. The UN agencies have pledged about $4.14 million to provide food for the next four months.

Syria has struggled to keep up with the surge of refugees from neighboring Iraq since violence increased there in May 2006, said World Food Program spokeswoman Brenda Barton. "There are refugees that used to cross, but host families were able to take care of them," Barton said in a telephone interview from Rome. While the UN began providing some refugee food aid in Syria in March, the program that begins tomorrow will feed "significantly more" Iraqis than before, she said.

Link (thanks, Cyrus Farivar)