Check out this infographic from Sortable.com that explains Apple’s success:

Sortable Apple by the Numbers

Full Article at UPI

Full Article at Huffington Post

Full Article at Lifehacker

In what will almost certainly be viewed as a gaff, or in 80s movie sidekick terminology, a “grade-A all-time bone-head move,” the University of Florida is gutting their computer science department. Almost any research being done in the computer science department has been halted. They will be teaching only, which doesn’t seem like a big deal at first, but there is a significant amount of research done at the university level that will not be possible now. Without new developments in computer science, we wouldn’t have access to new technologies like touchscreens, solid-state drives, and cloud computing. In a time when technology is one of the only industries still growing in the US and creating new jobs, it’s odd for a university to drop support like this.

Full Article at Ars Technica

Cancer researchers are using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud to run extremely complicated experiments. They only had 3 hours, but in that time they tested 21 million synthetic compounds that could eventually be used in drugs. The total cost was about $15,000.

Full Article at Ars Technica

Apparently another magician saw Teller’s trick in Las Vegas and developed his own version. He sells the secret of the trick for $3000, along with instructions and a DVD. To promote the product, he posted a video of himself performing the trick to YouTube. When Teller found out, he used YouTube DMCA policy to file a takedown request. When Teller requested that the magician stop using his routine entirely, the magician refused. Teller offered to buy him out, but when they couldn’t agree on a price, Teller decided to take him to court.

To me, this brings up an interesting question. If a magic trick is a sequence of actions that make up a performance, how is that any different than a song, a comedy routine, a dance, etc.? How does copyright apply in this case?

Shadows:

Full Article at Ars Technica

Despite the controversy, it’s been signed by Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the United States and the European Union. The European Parliament is set to vote on ACTA, possibly to stop it dead in its tracks, and it appears it’s losing support by the truckload. David Martin, a British Member of the European Parliament, who has been guiding ACTA through the European Parliament, has no come out in opposition. He is quoted as saying:

Today’s conference has confirmed my suspicion that ACTA raises more fears than hopes. What it delivers in terms of important intellectual property rights is diminished by potential threats to civil liberties and internet freedom. When the European Parliament rejects ACTA, the Commission must work to find other ways to defend European intellectual property in the global marketplace.

Coming from the guy who has been driving the ACTA bus, this is a huge development in the ACTA case and could result in total loss of support for ACTA.

Full Article at akascope

It’s refreshing to know that there’s someone looking out for the consumer during what has seemed to be a widespread, long-term crackdown on Internet privacy over the past few years.

A new ISP is being developed by Nicholas Merrill, a former ISP exec who is best known for fighting, and winning, against the Patriot Act. He challenged the FBI in court after they ordered that he give them information from his ISP and told him that he could not acknowledge the existence of that order.

He’s pledged that his new ISP will use every legal and technical method possible to protect the privacy of its customers.

Full Article at CNet