New Zealand has had a look at how the US software patents work and the mess they’ve made of things, so they’ve written up a bill stating that software is unpatentable. NZCS News – – NZ Computer Society.

This shows how from every $1000,- of revenue, the average music artist makes around $23,- out of which the record company then recoups ‘expenses’. ” In a traditional loan, you invest the money and pay back out of your proceeds. But a record label deal is nothing like that at all. They make you a [...]

Star Wars creator George Lucas is trying to stop a company from making a high-powered laser that bloggers around the world have dubbed “a real-life lightsaber”. The laser is cool, but isn’t called a lightsaber by the producer. It’s bloggers that made teh comparison. This goes to show how outdated copyright law is: the original [...]

The Dutch government has released the current text of ACTA and invites comments on it. Overheid.nl | Consultatie ACTA. I’ve run through the text and this is my take: 2.3.2. Each Party shall further provide that its judicial authorities shall have the authority to order that materials and implements the predominant use of which has [...]

Measuring the role of online in the consumer journey from research to purchase The CCB is a free online research tool providing consumer insights across 27 countries and 36 product categories. Using the tool, you can understand and interrogate how consumers across markets use the internet to buy and research different products Consumer Commerce Barometer.

The Combined Online Information System COINS is a database of UK Government expenditure provided by government departments. The data is used to produce reports for Parliament and the public including: expenditure data in the Budget and Pre-Budget reports; Supply Estimates; Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses PESA; the monthly Public Sector Finance Releases. It is also used [...]

England, the home of tidal energy generator projects, has a new one: a Swedish startup has models of a turbine attached to a kite wing and rudder tethered to the ocean floor. ‘Underwater kite’ aims to turn energy tide – CNN.com.

So these guys who were busted by the bankers in the credit crunch have found a way to fight back: sue the credit collection agencies on technicalities. They win a lot of settlements, get out of their debts and make some money! Dallas News – Better Off Deadbeat: Craig Cunningham Has a Simple Solution for [...]

SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish. The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing [...]

All your banking details will be given to the Americans, who can then also pass it on to third parties as they so wish. The EU will not be able to sift through US banking data. Why the EU gave away our private data is a totaly mystery. Privacy rights? Whatever. EU to approve more [...]

Some background on the cost/value of gold and fiat currencies. In a world with multiple fiat moneys, the zero value of money equilibrium lurks for each of the fiat currencies, including gold.  Admittedly, as regards gold, so far so good.  Gold has positive value.  It has had positive value for nigh-on 6000 years.  That must [...]

Which goes to show – it’s the Ipod / Iphone which is floating the Apple. Nope, Macs just suck and their fanboy users are a teeny tiny minority. And the rest of the I-Have-A-Mac smug bastards are hypocrites. You wouldn’t need a PC if your Mac was so perfect, now would you, mister I’m a [...]

St. Anthony’s Central hospital charged a man $730,- for a couple of tablets he takes regularly at home. The cost for him at home? Around $30,-. After a complaint he got a 40% discount. Still ridiculous. Patient Disputes Mark Up In Medication – cbs4denver.com.

What if we could turn all the plastic waste we create on a daily basis into fuel to power our cars? A Washington, DC-based company called Envion claims it can do just that with a process that turns plastic into an oil-like fuel for just $10 per barrel. According to Envion, the resulting fuel can [...]

Massachusets, USA, is doing something that should have been done a long time ago: Car manufacturers are computerising their cars to a greater and greater degree. This is great – more power, more control, more safety, more fun. Unfortunately, the software and interfaces for these computers are closed – repairmen are not given access to [...]

The Germans want to create a swarm power plant by putting gas fired fridge sized units in people’s basements. They should release less CO2 than other power methods and they want to roll out 100,000 in the coming year, which will create the same amount of power as 2 nuclear plants. They’re calling it SchwarmStrom [...]

Hot on the now allready very old news about the Apple vs Microsoft TV ads (where Apple has just released it’s answer to Laptop Hunters) and the Apple vs Palm Pre Itunes Sync and the Apple vs Palm “let’s make an illegal agreement not to poach each others’ employees any more” comes the latest installment: [...]

Super Repo men get back your 747, learjet, whatever. They’ll reposess from men with guns, whole helicopter fleets, whatever. They make low to middle 7 figures every year. James Bond, eat your heart out..

Apple has decreed that any user may buy an application and have it refunded within 90 days – but that Apple will keep the protection money – euhm commission. So who pays the commission? The developer!

All those greedy content producers trying to hang on to their old delivery and economic models by their fingernails must be crying about this: Monty Python decided to put all their content onto YouTube for free and in high quality with links to their stuff. This raised their sales by 23000%. So it’s not about [...]

The size of the bailout plan is truly staggering. Not just a little bit huge but immensely massive. Did you know it was larger than the following combined: • Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion • Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion • Race to the Moon: [...]

In the US wind farm power is so subsidised, that in Texas power prices around 33% of the year were negative, ie. the more power a consumer user, the more they got paid to use it!

In a surprise move, e-gold was dumped on by the US justice system because prosecution stated they must have known crooks were using the system to transfer money. Doesn’t this now mean that all banks in the US have to be slapped in the face, because, well, let’s face it – there are a load [...]

This is one of the reasons why defence contracting costs can go through the roof. This man wants to donate a high grade piece of marble and the costs of transporting it to the US military graveyard to fix a break on the Tomb of Unkowns. The cost of the marble, selected from the same [...]

Where cocaine smugglers used to use cigarette boats, very fast boats and small aircraft to move drugs into the US, now they’re using partial submersibles, which travel just below the surface of the water and are easily scuttled. If the crew is caught by the navy, they sink the ship and the navy is left [...]