An article from the Washington Post tells the unfortunately not-quite- unbelievable story of a judge in Nebraska who ordered a father "not to speak the Hispanic language" around his daughter. At the crux of the case is the defendant's relationship with his 5-year-old daughter from his girlfriend. It appears that …

In a setback for regulators and an advancement for competition on Voice-over- IP telephone services, Vonage has prevailed in a case against the State of Minnesota Public Utility Commission, according to an article from Wired. The decision from the US District Court for the district of Minnesota on October 16th …

According to an article from Wired, Verisign is selling off Network Solutions' registrar unit to a private organization. Verisign will be keeping the underlying registry and control of the systems and contracts that maintain the .com and .net domains.

Thanks to Todd for passing along a pointer to Digit Wireless who are making an interestingly small keyboard layout for mobiles, PDAs, and other devices that require a small keyboard. As far as I can tell, there aren't any takers yet, but the dual-height mixed- mode keyboard may well be …

Congratulations to all of the folks at Project Gutenberg for the early publication of their 10,000th manuscript, the Magna Carta. These 10,000 represent thousands of hours of work by volunteers and are completely free (of copyright as well as download charges). Take a look for some of your …

SCO, the company made famous this spring by suing IBM for infringing copyright on Unix source code, has announced that they have received a $50M investment from BayStart Capital, evidencing that the economy has now recovered to the point that people are making really stupid investments again.

As the Apple home page said, "Hell Froze Over." Apple has made iTunes for Windows absolutely identical to the Macintosh version, right down to the brushed metal. Importantly, you can find Mac servers (or Windows servers) using Rendezvous and play music from one computer on another (even cross platform).

Apple unleashed a flurry of new features and tweaks for the iPod and iTunes today. Among them are Windows iTunes, AOL integration, gift certificates, and allowances for iTunes; and voice recording and photo storage for the iPod. Here's the low-down: AOL Integration - AOL users can use their screennames and passwords …

According to an article in the Scotsman, the Scotish doctor who first used fingerprints to convict and exonerate suspects will be getting a long-overdue monument in his home country. Dr. Henry Faulds, a doctor from Scotland who worked much of his life healing the sick in Tokyo, Japan, first theorized …

According to an article from BBC News, Chinese doctors at Sun Yat-Sen University have created a fetus from two women and a man. The process, outlawed in the US and the UK (and probably other places as well) involves taking the DNA from the "birth mother", transferring it into an …

An article from Extreme Tech announces Sharp's new RD3D notebook that has a 3D display. According to the press release on Sharp3D.com, the system uses a parallax barrier to direct different images to the left and right eyes (eliminating the need for glasses or other devices usually used to …

An article from the Washington Post discusses some of the possible implications of a opinion by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which vacates an FCC ruling that cable modem internet services are an "information service" as opposed to a "telecommunications service" and thus are not subject …

For those of us who like to catalog things, Baracoda has announced the BaracodaPencil, a bluetooth-enabled barcode reader. This device looks quite nifty, untethering your barcode wand from your processor by up to 10 meters. It should be available next week.

While we're on the topic of movie piracy today, I'd like to chime in on the MPAA "policy" advertisements that have been airing since August on movie screens prior to major feature films. This ridiculous campaign is certainly rubbing me the wrong way and I don't think I'm the only …

Roger Ebert has a good article about the new move by the MPAA to ban the sending of DVDs prior to this year's Oscars and its likely chilling effect on independent films. At issue is a decree made last month by Jack Valenti (head of the MPAA) in an effort …

As usual, pictures will eventually be forthcoming, but the trip to the Patagonia region of Chile to the Explora was spectacular. We spent 4 nights and three days at the resort hotel, hiking and trekking during the day and feasting on fine food and Chilean wines at night. The accommodations …

Any good Macintosh übergeek will be at their local Apple Store (in the case of Northern Virginia, it'll have to be Clarendon, since the Tyson's store is closed for remodeling) on October 24 to fork over $129 for Panther. Of course, you may want to wait on the $129, but …

Apple released new versions of iCal and iSync yesterday that add a number of useful new features. The updates are both available from the Software Update panel in Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2), although iCal must be updated first and then iSync since there is a dependence on the …

A good article on CNet today by Declan McCullagh about his recent set of exchanges with the FBI about preserving his records of interviews with accused hacker Adrian Lamo. Once again, the subject is the Patriot Act and its amazing expanding powers.

An article from BBC News reports that the High Court (one step down from the Court of Appeals in the UK) has let stand a law that calls for consent of both parents when using a frozen embryo. The case involves two women who are now incapable of bearing children …