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+20 +1
House votes 325-91 to pass Innovation Act, first anti-patent-troll bill
he Innovation Act, a bill with measures aimed to stop "patent troll" lawsuits, passed the US House of Representatives this morning on a 325-91 vote. Several amendments that would have stripped out key parts of the bill were defeated.
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+25 +1
Kill Off Software Patents
The Supreme Court has a chance to give innovation a boost this year by rolling back one of the country’s most economically stupid policies. With the case of Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International, the justices will dive into the issue of whether companies should be able to patent computer software.
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+15 +1
6 Substances That Wipe Their Ass With the Laws of Physics
Physics is a bastard that can't be trusted. Just walk off a cliff and see how willing it is to turn on your "I love science!" ass with the slightest provocation. Luckily, humanity has its ways of sticking it to the laws of matter and motion. We pointed it out before, but it's worth reiterating that modern geniuses are more than capable of mooning physics with the twin butt-cheeks of innovation and technology.
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+13 +1
Futuristic Toilet Extolls the Health Benefits of Squatting
Innovation, fundamentally, has been about the new and improved. But some recently introduced ideas take us back to an older way of doing things, reversing technological advancements that have led us, somehow, astray. That’s the premise behind things like the Paleolithic or caveman diet and organic agriculture.
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+11 +1
The Bleeding Edge of Pizza-Box Design
An evolution of innovate, technologically advanced pizza boxes.
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+5 +1
Wearable Tech Is Getting a Lot More Intimate
Forget wearable technology. It may not be too much longer before sensors are actually put inside your body. It may sound a little bit futuristic and far-fetched, but the reality is that ingestible sensors and implantable chips are already in use and growing. "We are going to see more sensors everywhere. It's only a matter of time before those migrate under our skin into our bodies," said Peter Eckersley, the lead technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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+19 +1
Can Machine Learning Fix a Broken Patent System?
Last month molecular geneticist and crusader for intellectual property reform Richard Jefferson wrote a Forum column for Scientific American in which he explained the concept of “innovation cartography”—the idea that mapping the vast and inscrutable world of patents will enable more players to create more innovations, some of which might end up doing a lot of good.
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+20 +1
2013: Both a Ho-Hum Year and a Great One for Tech
Christopher Mims of Quartz, like many folks who write about tech, has wrapped up 2013 by reviewing the year’s events. He’s not impressed. Actually, he’s downright merciless, saying that it’s been “a lost year” and “an embarrassment.” His complaints, which are many and varied, include it being a fallow period for smartphones and one in which lots of companies tried their hands at wearable devices but no game-changing device emerged.
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+19 +1
It’s time to Rethink the airline boarding pass
I’ve boarded 14 planes in the last two months. There is something thrilling about flying – soaring thousands of miles at unimaginable speed around the globe. However, somewhere between check-in and boarding, I realised something
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+3 +1
Technology and jobs: Coming to an office near you
The effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs will be immense—and no country is ready for it
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+4 +2
Frustrated Cities Take High-Speed Internet Into Their Own Hands
College Station is right in the middle of Texas — a few hours by car from Austin, Dallas and Houston and home to Texas A&M, a major research university. But if you're in the market for high-speed Internet access, College Station can feel like the middle of nowhere. "It's been pretty bleak. You get too far from the university, and it's nothing," says Andrew Duggleby, co-founder of Exosent Engineering, a company that designs and builds tanker trucks for the oil industry.
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+11 +1
Software Patents Are Bullshit
“Patents are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for a single purpose: to promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Alas, when it comes to software, it is difficult to imagine a system worse at this than the current one.
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+16 +1
Is The Supreme Court About To Rule That Software Is Ineligible For Patent Protection?
If the Court decides that software is not eligible, the Court will destroy numerous patents in the software field.
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+19 +1
The Innovation Act: Good Start, but We Can Do More
Most tech entrepreneurs would jump for joy if the U.S. abolished software patents, but since this isn’t happening anytime soon, I have two less radical requests. First, Senators, do not water down the Innovation Act. Pass or bolster the bill that your colleagues in the House so wisely created. And most importantly, preserve the Innovation Act provisions on detailed pleading, demand letters, fee shifting and limiting discovery.
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-1 +1
This 1981 Computer Magazine Cover Explains Why We're So Bad at Tech Predictions
Thirty-three years later, artist Robert Tinney's concept smartwatch is worth at least a thousand words
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+25 +1
Gillette’s New Razor Is Everything That’s Wrong With American Innovation
The Wall Street Journal obtained the marketing materials for Gillette's new razor, the ProGlide FlexBall. It's a men's razor that does what every other men's razor since time immemorial has done – removes hair from your face – but with "a swiveling ball-hinge" that the company says will make it easier to get a clean shave.
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+4 +1
Is 'pizza cake' the next food game changer?
Chain restaurant Boston Pizza is asking customers to vote on a number of new pizza-themed innovations, including a "pizza cake" and "pizza mints," with a promise to make some of the popular items. Patrons can vote for their favourite innovations on a website dedicated to profiling each of the wacky creations. Topping the list of 13 is the monstrous "pizza cake," which appears to be a cake made up of six different pizza pies stacked on top of each other.
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+7 +1
For world’s biggest troll, first patent case ends up in tatters
Intellectual Ventures rolls out the "inventors"—a lawyer and a lawyer's wife.
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+20 +1
An Ingenious Shock-Absorbing Wheel for Bikes and Wheelchairs
When Israeli farmer Gilad Wolf broke his pelvis in 2008, he resolved not to lets his crops wither on the vine and became determined to turn his wheelchair into a workhorse. After suffering the pain that came from traversing the bumpy rows of his field in a stock chair he began developing new designs better suited to off-road applications.
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+19 +1
We Just Discovered What '4-D Printing' Is, And Our Mind Is Blown
Citi just came out with a list of disruptive innovations that are going to change the world. The top thing on their list is '4-D printing.' Obviously '3-D printing' gets tons of hype, but we had never heard of the 4-D version until then. The concept is the work of Skylar Tibbits, a researcher in MIT's architecture department, in collaboration with Stratasys Ltd. and Autodesk Inc.
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