Something must qualify as prior art. If not commercial TV or radio, how about those free newspapers that I keep finding on my lawn?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/28/2057230&from=rss

Microsoft Patent Envisions Free Computing

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 28, @05:15PM from the free-is-a-variable-term dept. Microsoft Hardware

Dotnaught writes "A Microsoft patent application published on Thursday shows the company contemplating free computers and software for its customers. It suggests 'a service provider such as a telephone company, an Internet service provider, or a leasing company may provide computer systems or components to users at a reduced charge or for free in exchange for targeted advertising delivery.'"

Tools to watch.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/29/0634232&from=rss

Text Mining the New York Times

Posted by Zonk on Saturday July 29, @06:29AM from the good-place-to-mine dept. Software Technology

Roland Piquepaille writes "Text mining is a computer technique to extract useful information from unstructured text. And it's a difficult task. But now, using a relatively new method named topic modeling, computer scientists from University of California, Irvine (UCI), have analyzed 330,000 stories published by the New York Times between 2000 and 2002 in just a few hours. They were able to automatically isolate topics such as the Tour de France, prices of apartments in Brooklyn or dinosaur bones. This technique could soon be used not only by homeland security experts or librarians, but also by physicians, lawyers, real estate people, and even by yourself. Read more for additional details and a graph showing how the researchers discovered links between topics and people."

Is this a viable technique? Does the fact that a bigger fish isn't named in the suit any kind of defense?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060728/1351256.shtml

Torrentspy Asks Why Hollywood Isn't Suing Google Too

from the don't-give-them-any-ideas dept

For years, we've pointed out that the entertainment industry doesn't seem to get that many of the individuals and companies they go after for file sharing are just search engines. Just because they're vertically focused, it doesn't make them any different than Google. In fact, last year, when Norway tried to outlaw sites that simply linked to downloadable MP3s, we wondered if they had effectively outlawed Google. It seems that the folks at torrent search engine Torrentspy have picked up on this line of reasoning as well. If you remember, Torrentspy is challenging the entertainment industry, pointing out that they're just a search engine, they don't infringe and (a la the Grokster decision) they don't induce infringement either. They've now put that "just a search engine" defense directly into their court filings. Threadwatch points out that their latest filing to dismiss the case wonders why the MPAA isn't suing Google as well, since they effectively do the same thing. As the filing notes: "There is nothing alleged to distinguish defendants' website from that maintained by Google. Everything alleged about defendants' website is true about Google, and even more so, because Google outperforms the allegations in the complaint." Of course, given the way the entertainment industry reacts these days, you never know... they might just sue Google next.

Unless they're Oakland fans, clearly those folks are up to no good.

http://digg.com/football/Federal_judge_football_fans_can_t_be_searched_at_the_gate

Federal judge: football fans can't be searched at the gate

giantAppleCore submitted by giantAppleCore 15 hours 59 minutes ago (via http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articleArchive/jul2006/patwnfootball.php )

Security "pat-downs" of fans at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games are unconstitutional and unreasonable, a federal judge ruled Friday, throwing into question the practice at NFL games nationwide.