Japan radiation Higher Then Reported
"Both Reuters and the BBC are carrying the story of an increase in radiation levels reported by Tepco for contaminated water leaking from storage tanks on site.
When this leak was discovered almost two weeks ago, Tepco reported
that the radiation level was 100-millisieverts. It now transpires that
100-millisieverts was the highest reading that the measuring equipment
in use was capable of displaying.
The latest readings (with upgraded
equipment) are registering 1800-millisieverts which, according to both
news sources, could prove fatal to anyone exposed to it for four hours.
Coincidentally (and somewhat ironically), today is earthquake disaster
prevention day in Japan, with safety drills taking place nationwide."
Patent Trolls Strike Again And Stall A New Transit App
SFGate has the story of Aaron Bannert, creator of a San Francisco
transit app called Smart Ride. The app was developed to provide arrival
times for the city's bus system. Smart Ride was supported by ads, and
Bannert had not yet turned a profit on it when he received a legal threat from a company claiming patent infringement.
"It was from a company with ties to Martin Kelly Jones, who holds a
series of patents claiming ownership of technologies for tracking
vehicles and providing users with electronic updates. A handful of
affiliated companies, including ArrivalStar and Melvino Technologies,
have threatened or sued hundreds of organizations in recent years, from
small entrepreneurs like Bannert to large corporations like American
Airlines. ...
ArrivalStar filed more than half the patent lawsuits in
South Florida federal courts last year, according to the South Florida
Business Journal. ...
ArrivalStar will demand as much as $200,000 for a
license, according to reports in other publications." The cost to the
patent troll for filing a lawsuit is around $500, but Bannert was forced
to spend over $10,000 on a legal defense and delay the launch of a new
version for months.
He's unable to provide details on the outcome of the
case. "As high as the legal expenses were for Bannert, he thinks the
bigger toll from patent trolling is the indirect cost to society, the
products and innovation that don't make it off the drawing board."
The Start Of Some Push Back Against Patent Trolls
"A group of technology and retail groups is beginning a national ad campaign targeting so-called patent trolls.
The Internet Association, National Restaurant Association, National
Retail Federation and Food Marketing Institute Patent trolls — a term
known more among geeks than the general public — are about to be the
target of a national ad campaign.
Beginning Friday, a group of retail
trade organizations is launching a radio and print campaign in 17
states. They want to raise awareness of a problem they say is draining
resources from business and raising prices for consumers."
Lockbox Aims To NSA Proof The Cloud
"Lockbox, a tech startup
founded in 2008, just received $2.5 million in seed funding for its
end-to-end
encryption cloud service, Client Portal. So, how does end-to-end cloud encryption
work? Lockbox encrypts and compresses files before they are uploaded to
the cloud. Only a person in possession of the corresponding key can
unlock, or decrypt, the files. This means that the NSA, malicious
hackers, business competitors, and even crazy girlfriends and boyfriends
won't be be able to peer into users' most sensitive and private files."
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