According to a story in the Boston Globe, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has finally started to come to its senses over some of the meaningless patents that are being filed. So far, the area is the Human Genome and they have decided to actually require people filing …

In a break from our usual fare, we go to Australia, where New Scientist reports in an article that an Australian has invented a new underwater jet engine that uses steam and a unique new airflow system to generate substantially more thrust than its competitors.

In an article in InfoWorld, the reporter covers a debate between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft officials over the relative merits of each other's next generation programming tools. Read more for some background... .Net Microsoft's .Net architecture is based on the use of a Common Runtime Library (referred to as the …

I read with interest an article posted about the Norwegian browser manufacturer Opera giving up on the Macintosh market after the release of Safari. The Opera claim is that they can't compete with Apple's nameplate in the Macintosh market and that because of that, they are going to bow out …

Norwegian news site InfoSync offers this article about an upcoming GPS device from Navman which will feature Bluetooth as its key communication protocol. Now, you'll be able to put your GPS where it receives a good signal without having to drape lengthy cables all over the place to reach your …

A good article from the PBS web site goes through some ideas for fighting SBC's newly found patent on linking that the PTO so graciously issued to them in 1996... yeah, no prior art there...

MacCentral is reporting in an article that AT&T Wireless is teaming up with Wayport and building out their own network to provide 802.11b service (note: not a). The new service is called GoPort and will cost $69.95/mo unlimited at all locations (comparable to T-Mobile's HotSpot service …

Apple Computer announced today speed bumps in the G4 line (including 1.25 and 1.42GHz G4's based on the Xserve architecture with 333MHz DDR DRAM and 2MB DDR SRAM L3 caches per CPU).

Wes, husband of Mikki, and all-around good guy has won the Annual and Grand prizes in the photo contest at Habitat Dive Resorts in Bonaire (and Curcao), NA. Go to the winner's page at Habitat's web site.

As was written in the first week of January, I've been looking for a high- quality photo printer. At MacWorld, I was repeatedly told that the right printer to get was the Epson Stylus Photo 2200, with its 80-year archival inks and beautiful black and white reproduction, it seemed like …

Well, according to an article on CNet, Microsoft fell prey to their own problems with the MS SQL product (exposed this weekend through the latest internet worm). I can't say this is entirely related, but I installed XP (yeah, don't talk to me about it) on Saturday and it took …

OSNews has a great parody of the "It's time for Linux on the Desktop" articles seen appearing from time to time.

The summary: the card is probably too hot and noisy to justify incremental performance improvement over the comparable ATI 9700 Pro card. Of particular concern is the apparent performance degradations that occur as resolutions increase. Of course, as you expect from Tom's Hardware, the review has excruciating detail (including MP3's …

Wired Magazine has a more in-depth article on the selection process for Adnan Osmani's project to build the world's fastest web browser. Apparently full access to the source and the ability to actually test the speed of the software were two tools not employed in the determination of the wining …

The ACLU has created a page where you can send a fax to your Senators to encourage them to co-sponsor and support S.188 (The Data- Mining Moratorium Act) . The service alternatively will send an email or postal letter if you prefer. It's a very easy way to participate in …

In an effort to assuage fears that the DMCA would stifle creativity (ahem), the Copyright Office is required to review the DMCA every 3 years to find exemptions that should be added to the law (or at least how it is applied). The comment period for this three year period …

Although there are many people out in the business community who think that solidified international standards are the end-all and be-all of existence (especially in Europe, as this article from ZDNET UK shows), the history of the Internet shows us that innovation occurs before standards are solidified. I understand the …

A news release from NCAR (the National Center for Atmospheric Research) outlines a new program that they are running with the FHWA (the Federal HighWay Administration) to put real-time highway and highway-related weather information on the internet for drivers and for coordination amongst organizations that maintain the roads.

Illegal Art is a museum exhibit showing in Chicago for the next month or so that is designed to exhibit items that have generated controversy due to intellectual property concerns. Subtitled Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age, the exhibit contains a wide variety of material in video, print, and …

The Register has an article discussing some frightening .mil vulnerabilities, including a publicly available site for registering .mil domains.