hhavensteincw writes "IBM is molding its Jazz technology, which helps software development teams collaborate, in the image of its popular Eclipse open source community. IBM said that today's move to open access to its Jazz.net portal to anyone to peruse its code, access bug lists, etc. puts it on the path to completely open-source the Jazz technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Back in November, we wrote about a rather bizarre patent lawsuit filed against Google. It concerned a patent held by a professor at Northeastern, named Kenneth Backlawski, and had to do with doing searches across a distributed database. The key point was that Backlawski himself didn't even think that Google infringed on the patent (which had been granted years earlier) until a patent attorney told him he should sue over it -- and even then it took two and a half years to actually find a patent attorney who thought the patent was worth suing over. Google has now struck back, claiming that the patent is clearly invalid and even if it was valid, the company isn't infringing. It also claims that Backlawski didn't file the suit in a timely manner, invoking the doctrine of laches, which is used occasionally in patent disputes, but is far from common. Basically, Google is throwing everything in the book at this patent. Once again, this is a clear example of how the patent system was not supposed to work. No one is accusing Google of "stealing" this idea or benefiting from the work done by Backlawski. The fact that Backlawski himself didn't even realize that Google potentially infringed on his patent is quite telling. It is clearly a case of someone trying to squeeze money out of a successful company, using a patent as the weapon of choice.

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dptalia writes "Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. Thesse carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the ShopRite site from home, and then pull up the list on their grocery cart when they swipe their card. The new carts will also display advertisements depending on where in the supermarket the cart is, using RFID technology to help locate it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Obviously trying to deflate a possible Apple announcement about movie rentals, Netflix has announced a service for unlimited movie downloads that lets its customers stream as many shows as they can watch to their PCs. Netflix has been testing this 'unlimited' offering for a few months with its new subscribers -- and it's not exactly surprising that Netflix would have to offer an all-you-can-eat plan at some point, given its existing DVD-based service plans. But Netflix is still playing with the term 'unlimited' in that the downloaded movies are streaming, so presumably, unlimited actually means something more like "up to 744 hours of video" in a month with 31 days (if you don't stop to sleep or eat).

More interestingly, though, is that this announcement places Netflix firmly in the movie downloads business. Mailing DVDs will clearly remain part of Netflix for quite some time due to the lack of broadband penetration for many US customers, but the increasing costs of shipping physical media will likely doom that business. So now the questions of how to handle the distribution of digital data will really become a mainstream issue -- and a serious business test for Netflix. Will the delivery of streaming movies be hampered by the likes of Comcast and ISPs who compete with their own movie downloading services? Does the iTunes pay-per-title model make more sense than a subscription plan? Netflix faces a number of large competitors, as well as pirating consumers. On the upside, however, there is also potential to expand internationally if Netflix doesn't rely on the USPS.

Netflix is trying a few different tactics to support downloading, but its real threats may be the copyright holders who could giveth and taketh away the shows and movies. With around 6,000 titles available for streaming from Netflix, that's only around a year of straight watching if you actually wanted to watch everything -- and didn't need to sleep.

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Reservoir Hill writes "A New York Times blog notes that attorneys general of 49 states are announcing a partnership with MySpace to fight sexual predators on social networks by letting parents submit the e-mail addresses of their children, so the company can prevent anyone from using that address to set up a profile. MySpace will also set up a 'closed' section for users under age 18 so only their established online friends can visit their pages. MySpace also promises to hire a contractor to identify and delete pornographic images on the site. 'This set of principles is a landmark and milestone because it involves an acknowledgment of the importance of age and identity authentication,' said Connecticut attorney General Richard Blumenthal." Blumenthal also actually said "If we can put a man on the moon..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SirLurksAlot writes "An article up on Ars Technica reports on a study of telecommuting from the point of view of those who show up at the office every day. The study discovered that telecommuting can have adverse effects on the office-bound. Researcher Timothy Golden 'found that in-office employees took less satisfaction in their jobs and felt less of a relationship and obligation to their company as the number of telecommuting coworkers grew. In-office employees in his study became disappointed at having fewer and weaker relationships. They also got frustrated at a perceived increase in workload and difficulties that telecommuting can present to finishing projects and building strong working relationships.'" The article notes that telecommuting is "not an exact science." Some good insights in the discussion forum too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tesla_Downunder is a site for Australian Tesla coil builders. The photos are astounding. Link (Thanks, Luke!)

All too often, we're seeing the DMCA abused by people who aren't using it to takedown copyright infringing materials, but to shut down sites they don't like. The latest example involves some filmmakers and a movie review site. The review certainly was not particularly positive, leading to a rather random series of complaints and threats against its author. While we won't get into the claims of libel and defamation, which go into an entirely separate arena, the fact is that the filmmakers are using the DMCA to try to get the site taken down completely, bringing up all sorts of claims in the DMCA notice. It's difficult to see how a review of a movie can infringe on the copyrights of that movie unless it was showing the movie itself (which does not appear to be the case). It's worth pointing out that a DMCA takedown notice is only supposed to be for copyright infringing material, so including charges of libel and defamation in the takedown seem rather unnecessary. Even more amusingly, though, the takedown notice includes a bunch of random charges that aren't actually illegal, such as: "linking to other websites without any authorization to do so." In fact, the whole thing is so over-the-top, you have to wonder if it's simply part of an attempt to use the Streisand Effect to drum up some publicity for the movie.

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Illo is a gorgeous new magazine about contemporary illustrators. The interviews are lively and supplemented with lots and lots of color illustrations.

The first issue (thumbnails) features Mitch O'Connell, Mark Schultz, Nathan Jurevicius, and Brian Taylor. The second issue (thumbnails) will feature Michael Cho, James Gurney, Zina Saunders, and Nancy Stahl. Link

This oral biography of Hunter S. Thompson, written by Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour, consists of anecdotes culled from interviews with 120 of Thompson's acquaintances, beginning with his childhood in Kentucky and ending with his death in 2005 in Woody Creek, Colorado.

Some people -- most notably Thompson's second wife -- have complained that this oral biography paints an ugly picture of Thompson. I'm not in a position to say whether or not the material was skewed to present a misleading image of Thompson. I think Thompson was a tremendously talented writer (my favorite book of his is Hell's Angels, which was published in 1966) who lived a far out life, and what I learned from reading this book doesn't seem to be out of line with what I imagined he might be like as a person. He was fiercely loyal to his friends but could be also be abusive and cruel. His first wife, Sandy, was interviewed extensively for the book, and her description of Thompson as an exceedingly charismatic man who could be lovable and funny one moment and brutally inconsiderate the next seems to echo the opinions of most of the other people who offered their stories in the book.

It's interesting to note, however, that most of the people who were friends with Thompson remained friends with him for life. Despite his flaws, his generosity and love made up for his frequent bouts of bad behavior. Here's an example of Thompson's (reckless) bigheartedness:

Tim Ferris [former New York Bureau Chief for Rolling Stone]: Around that time, I was leaving New York to go on tour with David Bowie. [Rolling Stoneeditor] Jann [Wenner] was in New York, and we had a meeting. I had my bag with me because I was on my way to the airport, and Jann fired me -- which happened periodically during downturns. When I called Owl Farm, Sandy answered and said that she had just spoken to Hunter, who was in his room at the Watergate. I asked her how things were going, and she said, "Pretty well, but we're worried about money. That's what we were just talking about. We only have four hundred dollars left in the bank and we don't know where any more money is going to come from." We talked a bit more, and then I hung up and immediately called Hunter. He said, "How's it going?" I said, "I just got fired by Jann." And Hunter said, "Do you need any money? I can lend you four hundred dollars."

My gut feeling tells me this book comes as close as possible to being an accurate portrayal of Thompson. Whether I'm right or not, it was absolutely addictive: as soon as I cracked it open, I could hardly stop reading, and I tore through all 467 pages in two days. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Hunter Thompson's widow unhappy with new bio
• Hunter S Thompson tribute beers with Steadman labels
• Hunter S Thompson's ashes in fireworks display

With increased home connectivity and gas prices on the rise, telecommuting has grown in popularity. But, a recent study warns that organizations with high numbers of telecommuters can damage traditional workers' job satisfaction. The study, published by RPI management professor, Timothy Golden, found a correlation between the number of teleworkers in the office and lower job satisfaction in non-teleworkers. Perhaps a better explanation would be that the non-teleworkers feel like they're being treated unfairly. Although studies have shown that telecommuters are happier and less stressed, the happiness actually comes not from the telecommuting itself, but from the higher flexibility and autonomy afforded by telecommuting policies. By not chaining workers to a desk for 8 hours a day (which has also been shown to stifle productivity), employees are afforded the flexibility they need to mold their job around their busy lives, and not the other way around. Golden does realizes this fact in his report, so instead of making the telecommuters feel "special," he recommends that telecommuting be approached at an organizational level rather than a case-by-case basis. Whether or not your desk sits in your house, at the office, or both, it is not the location of the desk that is important, but rather the flexibility to choose when and where you sit.

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Riding with Robots writes "Today, more than three decades after the last spacecraft visited Mercury, Messenger buzzed just 200 kilometers above the planet's surface. During the encounter, the robotic spacecraft conducted a range of scientific observations, including imaging swaths of Mercury's surface that have never been seen up close before. A few of the first pictures are now available, with many more to come in the next few days."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My iTunes library got so big recently that I didn’t trust Shuffle mode anymore. Scrolling through my library was a memory exercise instead of a quick path to an ear massage. Plus I missed that feeling I had when I was 14, with a shelf full of maybe 50 CDs, each of them dear to my heart. While I felt the frustration growing, it seemed like too daunting a task to actually filter through 60 gigs of music. But an unexpected event suddenly gave me an opportunity.

A couple weeks ago, my hard drive went belly-up and I had to restore everything from backups (thank you SuperDuper). Restoring from a crash is like moving to a new apartment. You can cargo cult and just move everything from point A to point B, or you can take the opportunity to reevaluate what you should keep and what you should toss.

This reminded me of a tip Jason told me for unpacking from a move. The idea is you dump all the packed boxes into the middle of the living room. Then you take things out one-by-one only as you feel the need for them. After a couple weeks of unpacking only what you need, you discover the rest of the pile is prime material for donations or the dumpster.

I loved the idea. And my hard drive crash was the perfect chance to test it on my overgrown music collection.

So here’s what I did.

1. I made my living room pile. I found the iTunes Music Library folder on my backup and copied it to my Desktop as a folder named “Music”.

2. I opened iTunes and kept it completely blank. I set it to Album View to replicate my CD shelf of yore. Then I waited for an itch.

3. When a craving hit, I opened my Music folder on the Desktop, found the Album I wanted, and dropped it into iTunes.

Two weeks later, I have a beautiful hand-picked selection of Albums in iTunes. And since that “Music” folder only takes up 48×48 pixels on my Desktop, I’ll leave it there as long as I want as an Archive in case a rare itch hits.

You don’t need a hard drive disaster to replicate this tip. Just copy ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ to your Desktop and rename it “Music”. Then inside iTunes, delete everything. Wait for the itch, and start cherry-picking your own small music collection. Enjoy!

Here is an unsurprisingly cheesy demo video of the potentially interesting Gibson Robot Guitar. It tunes itself. Fortunately for me (and Sonic Youth), you can switch it to manual tuning. Just about the only thing I can do on a guitar is tune it. And play the opening chords to Ziggy Stardust. Oh yeah, and the bassline to Bela Lugosi's Dead. Retail price for the Robot Guitar is $2499.
Link to YouTube video, Link to Gibson Robot Guitar (Thanks, Dave Gill!)

Previously on BB Gadgets:
Gibson Robot Guitar official Link

An anonymous reader writes "National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is currently helping to draft a new Cyber-Security Policy that could make the debate over warrantless wiretaps seem like a petty squabble. The new policy would allow the government to access to the content of any email, file transfer, or web search."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Quick reminder: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 17th Birthday Bash is tomorrow night, the 15th of January, at the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Don't forget to RSVP!

The birthday bash will be on January 15, 7-11 PM, at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Headliners Adrian & the Mysterious D (A+D), the DJ duo that founded the seminal mashup party "Bootie," will be dropping a shameless, genre-smashing blend of tracks, backed up by DJ sets from Bay Area copyfighters Ripley, Kid Kameleon and EFF's own J Tones and Qubitsu.

The EFF party will also feature an exclusive chocolate sampling with TCHO, "a new chocolate company for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts." Founded by Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto and legendary chocolatier Timothy Childs, himself a former technologist, TCHO will be bringing a "beta release" of its best dark chocolate to the party table. Attendees are invited to vote for their favorite TCHO beta chocolate flavors at the party -- feedback that will help define TCHO's next steps as they gear up for a national release.

January 15, 7-10 PM
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna Street
San Francisco, CA

Link

Have a peruse at the 54 pages (and counting) worth of entries in this "Design a Nanohazard Logo" competition. Then, add your own! Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

Steampunk maker Jake von Slatt sends us this short video of his old school bus that has been converted to a handsome "Victorian RV:" Link