Cody Taylor

eldavojohn writes “A policy from the Bush era seen as a hurtle to the government prosecuting companies under antitrust laws has been withdrawn by Obama’s Department of Justice. From the article, ‘The DOJ’s Antitrust Division has withdrawn a September report that “raised too many hurdles to government antitrust enforcement and favored extreme caution” toward antitrust enforcement action, the DOJ said. The change in policy could mean that the department looks harder at the actions of technology vendors such as Google, Oracle and IBM, as detractors have raised antitrust concerns about all three in recent months.’ You may recall that Google has come under some antitrust scrutiny recently and the pressure may have just gotten a little more intense.”

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theodp writes “On Thursday, the USPTO disclosed that self-described patent reform leader IBM wants a patent covering its System and Method for Enhancing Productivity. So what exactly have the four IBM inventors — including two Distinguished Engineers — come up with? In a nutshell, the invention consists of not permitting business meetings to be scheduled for a full hour during certain parts of the day. From the application: ‘The observation is that if an hour were shorter, by a small amount, we would be more focused, and accomplish the same amount of work, but in less real time, thereby increasing productivity.'” I just knew someone would one up my 43-minute-meeting patent. That’s why I’ve already begun intense R&D on my latest invention: the 37-minute meeting! Register early for an early-bird discount. Register even earlier for more of one.

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An anonymous reader writes “One day before Amazon is scheduled to unveil its widescreen Kindle aimed at newspaper readers, the e-commerce giant has been awarded its first US patent for an e-book reader. The new patent, D591,741, is a design patent which protects the look and feel of the Kindle shell, not for fundamental technologies. Those patents are mostly held by E Ink Corp., which makes the ‘liquidless paper’ display. Sony, IBM, and the Discovery cable TV network also have e-book patents. Amazon, though the leading e-book seller, has none, but the patent award indicates they’ve applied for at least four recently.” Also in Kindle news, PC World has a brief article up on the larger-screen Kindle DX (expected to launch Wednesday), including pictures first spotted on Engadget.

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bobby f. writes “Infoworld has published its list of the biggest cults in tech — including Palmists, Newtonians, Commodorians, the Brotherhood of the Ruby, IBM power systems fanboys, Ubuntu-ists, and Lispers. A pretty fun read (unless you really are a cult member).” Although I think it’s pretty clear that the Apple camp isn’t an opinionated cult, they’re just always right. Fire away.

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Many sources are reporting that SpringSource has acquired Hyperic, creating a company that could go after IBM and Microsoft. SpringSource has long dreamed of being able to offer a complete open source solution that accelerates the entire build, run, manage Java application lifecycle, and Hyperic offers the last piece of the puzzle. “Regardless, the SpringSource/Hyperic combination creates a clear and present danger to IBM and Microsoft, two companies that have largely stood alone in the ability to build, run, and manage applications. It’s also a significant boon to companies looking to open source to save money and improve productivity. Is it a sign of good things to come from not only SpringSource, but also open source, generally? Time will tell, but I suspect we’re on the cusp of an aggressive and ambitious new phase in open-source competition.”

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Taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, IBM has doubled the monetary incentives they are offering to ditch Sun gear. Offering ,000 in software or services for every Sun Sparc processor ditched for an IBM Power server, the program seems to be paying off. IBM has helped 1,640 customers migrate from other manufacturers’ hardware over the last year. “The program applies to Sparc-based Sun hardware, such as the Sparc, UltraSparc, and Sparc 64 servers, and also to Fujitsu systems that run on Sparc chips. A customer that moves off a Sparc-powered system running, say, eight processors would be eligible for up to ,000 worth of rewards.”

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An anonymous reader writes “Larry Lessig, known (hopefully) to everyone around here as a defender of all things having to do with consumer rights and fair use rights when it comes to copyright, is now on the receiving end of a DMCA takedown notice from Warner Music, who apparently claimed that one of Lessig’s famous presentations violated on their copyright. Lessig has said that he’s absolutely planning on fighting this, and has asked someone to send Warner Music a copy of US copyright law that deals with ‘fair use.'” Reader daemonburrito notes that the (rehosted) “video remains available at the time of this submission.”

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theodp writes “As GE, Google, Intel, IBM, Microsoft and others pile into the business of computerized medical files in a stimulus-fueled frenzy, BusinessWeek reminds us that electronic health records have a dubious history. Under the federal stimulus program, hospitals can get several million dollars apiece for tech purchases over the next five years, and individual doctors can receive up to ,000. There’s also a stick: The feds will cut Medicare reimbursement for hospitals and practices that don’t go electronic by 2015. But does the high cost and questionable quality of products currently on the market explain why barely 1 in 50 hospitals have a comprehensive electronic records system, and why only 17% of physicians use any type of electronic records? Joe Bugajski’s chilling The Data Model That Nearly Killed Me suggests that may be the case.”

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longacre writes “I.B.M. plans to announce Monday that it is in the final stages of completing a computer program to compete against human ‘Jeopardy!’ contestants. If the program beats the humans, the field of artificial intelligence will have made a leap forward. … The team is aiming not at a true thinking machine but at a new class of software that can ‘understand’ human questions and respond to them correctly. Such a program would have enormous economic implications. … The proposed contest is an effort by I.B.M. to prove that its researchers can make significant technical progress by picking “grand challenges” like its early chess foray. The new bid is based on three years of work by a team that has grown to 20 experts in fields like natural language processing, machine learning and information retrieval. … Under the rules of the match that the company has negotiated with the ‘Jeopardy!’ producers, the computer will not have to emulate all human qualities. It will receive questions as electronic text. The human contestants will both see the text of each question and hear it spoken by the show’s host, Alex Trebek. … Mr. Friedman added that they were also thinking about whom the human contestants should be and were considering inviting Ken Jennings, the ‘Jeopardy!’ contestant who won 74 consecutive times and collected .52 million in 2004.”

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