Patent trolls rack up legal and licensing bills.
The scourge of inventors everywhere are firms that collect and enforce patents of dubious value—with no intention of creating the invention described in those patents. They force large companies to rack up legal and licensing bills, and scare away startups from putting out novel products. These firms raise prices for all of us, and they generally slow down the future. Everyone hates them.
Colorado’s savvy entrepreneurs and highly skilled workforce make it a perfect location for a new satellite patent office.
Colorado is a hub for economic innovation. Colorado has some of the most savvy entrepreneurs, a highly skilled workforce and an array of top-tier research institutions that help make Colorado a place where innovation thrives.
Continue reading… “Bring a patent office to Colorado petition”
Associate professor Christopher Hayes and graduate student Christina Beck researching.
What if bacteria could talk to each other? What if they had a sense of touch? A new study by researchers at UC Santa Barbara suggests both, and theorizes that such cells may, in fact, need to communicate in order to perform certain functions…
Continue reading… “Bacteria communicate by touch, new research suggests”
I got this tower, see…
From Lists of Note, the 10 Commandments for Con Men as set out by Victor Lustig a con-legend who once took $5K off Al Capone and sold the Eiffel Tower…
Continue reading… “10 commandments for con artists”
Those of us who merely watched the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake on screens got to witness something amazing: the resiliency and resourcefulness of the Japanese people. And we’re still seeing it as Japan prepares for future earthquakes. Here’s one example. Youichi Sakamoto invented a foundation structure that raises buildings on air pockets as soon as an earthquake starts…
Continue reading… “Inventor proposes levitating buildings on air cushions during earthquakes”
The U.S. government says it must govern Internet technology more closely to protect against cyberattacks.
The research that led to the internet may have been funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, but freewheeling innovation created the patchwork of privately owned technology that makes up the Internet today. Now the U.S. government is trying to wrest back some control, as it adjusts to an era when cyberattacks on U.S. corporations and government agencies are common.
Continue reading… “U.S. Department of Defense wants more control over the internet”
Construction workers scored high for happiness.
If you work in retail or media it isn’t just your imagination when you think your friends who work in education and real estate are all happier than you.
Continue reading… “The happiest and unhappiest fields to work in”
Pinterest had nearly 12 million unique visitors in January, 2012.
When you walk into a teenage girl’s bedroom what would you see on the walls? Probably pictures torn from magazines, drawings, maybe inspirational quotes. If you transform that visual collage into a social media site, and you have Pinterest. The site launched in 2011 and has really taken off with nearly 12 million unique visitors in January, 2012, and its membership has been accelerated by Facebook tie-ins that show your friends’ Pinterest activity.
Continue reading… “What can Pinterest do that Facebook can’t?”
Smartphone sales will exceed 1.5 billion units per year by 2016.
Last year smartphone sales blew past the number of PCs sold, and they’ll be nearly twice PC sales this year, analyst Alex Cocotas of BI Intelligence predicts.
Last week’s news cycles were dominated in part by rising gas prices, and the political parties’ response to costs at the pump inching closer to $4 per gallon. The GOP is outraged, rather, is feigning to be outraged, and is disingenuously blaming Obama’s energy policies for the spike.
But all this political football obscures one important fact…
Continue reading… “The true cost of gasoline is closer to $15 a gallon”
Lamar Smith has a unique vision for your internet rights.
Lamar Smith (R-TX), author of the ill-starred SOPA Internet regulation, has an even dumber idea for the Internet. In the name of fighting child pornography, he wants to force ISPs to log everything you do online, then make it available to police and government agents without a warrant. Leslie Meredith has a writeup on the mounting opposition to Smith’s latest act of unconstitutional lunacy…
The Middle Ages may not have actually been the way you thought.
No matter how interested you are in history, you probably have still heard a lot about the Dark Ages, but much of that information, even the stuff you learned back in school, is actually fiction. Here are five commonly held beliefs about the Middle Ages that aren’t actually fact.
Continue reading… “Five common misconceptions about the Middle Ages”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.