When it comes to distracted driving, the authorities might be done playing nice. Police have warned us, begged us and even tried to force us to stop texting and calling while we're behind the wheel. And still, says U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, some 3,000 people were killed in 2011, and 387,000 more were injured, thanks to distracted drivers. So what else can they do? Well...
The latest from a federal appeals court in Chicago may make civil liberties advocates cheer, but will likely unsettle parents of children who frequent social networks: The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that barring registered sex offenders from using Facebook and other social networks is unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union in Indiana had filed...
Remember the tidbit last month about the woman who got slapped with a $750,000 lawsuit for writing a scathing review of her contractor on Yelp and Angie’s List? Jane Perez didn’t just recount her frustrations, she also levied accusations involving missing jewelry and urged people not to hire the company. Ultimately, the judge sided with the plaintiff, granting a temporary injunction...
The patent system is busted. Litigious companies suing over vaguely worded claims, tying up courts and throwing obstacles at each other, preventing consumers like you and me from getting our tech goodies, make that perfectly clear. That fact isn’t lost on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office either. That’s why the USPTO is planning to hold an open forum of sorts in New York and Silicon...
Ever been ticked off enough by a company or local business to write a scathing review? (Who hasn’t?) Well, you might want to cool off before you hit that submit button. The line between sharing an experience and engaging in defamation is a fuzzy one, and Jane Perez just ran smack dab into it. When she told the Interwebs exactly how she felt about her dealings with her contractor, the...
Looks like Apple’s not the only one interested in spanking Samsung in the courts. Today, Ericsson filed a lawsuit against the South Korean company, alleging — you guessed it — patent infringement. Although direct consumer sales haven’t been super-lofty for Ericsson, it is still the dominant leader in cellular networking equipment, with most major smartphones and tablets using the...
Can you steal something that has no physical properties? That’s a tough nugget to crack, as arguments abound over whether taking software code constitutes theft. Sergey Aleynikov would definitely say no. The programmer was convicted for theft of trade secrets when he left Goldman Sachs with some exclusive code in tow. And it seems the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals agrees — it overturned...
Rick Stratton had no idea what was going on. As founder of Feed.us, he would’ve loved to have been featured on a high-profile tech blog. But his venture didn’t get the attention — his face did when it happened to appear in a screengrab used in a 2011 TechCrunch story. How ironic. And Stratton totally got that when he posted a funny comment under the article: “Hey I finally made it onto...