Vermont’s legislature recently amended its consumer fraud statute with a new law aiming to prevent bad faith assertions of patent infringement against individuals or entities based in Vermont. The new law is awaiting the governor’s signature. Vermont’s law is the first of its kind, though there have been federal efforts to [...]
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Would you shop less online if you had to pay sales tax at the point of purchase? This may happen if the Marketplace Fairness Act, a.k.a. the “Internet Sales Tax,” is passed. On May 6, 2013, the Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013. The legislation has now moved on to the House [...]
Continue Reading →You can resell your old CDs, tapes, and records. That’s a no-brainer for music lovers who have sifted through piles of records to find old-school gems. But, according to a federal court in New York’s Southern District, the same right does not apply to the resale of digital files. So much for keeping that tradition [...]
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Lawmakers in West Virginia have proposed a new bill that bans wearing the new Google Glass device while driving. (For background info on this high-tech headpiece, see fellow blogger Katie Kuhn’s post.) The bill would subject drivers who use “a wearable computer with a head-mounted display” to a fine.
Apparently prompted by a Continue Reading →
Google applies for a patent on an interface between its Google Glass augmented reality display and your microwave (and all your other appliances too) [H/T qrcodepress.com] Largest DDoS ever publicly disclosed afflicts Spamhaus anti-spam group. If CyberBunker really behind it, and as they apparently claim, they have [...]
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California can’t seem to decide whether texting while driving is safe. Back in 2009, California implemented its first ban on the practice. That law banned any reading or sending text messages while driving. However, the Auto Club found that the percentage of drivers who texted while driving actually doubled in the year after the [...]
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On February 27th, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) reintroduced a “new and improved” Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act of 2013 (or “SHIELD Act,” pleasing fans of both acronyms and imagery of strife). The legislation is intended to curb the rapid ascent of so-called “patent trolls,” which are reported to have [...]
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Privacy concerns for cloud computing range from hackers obtaining personal information to searches by the government. What is rarely considered are the autoscan searches routinely conducted by some cloud providers. These autoscans usually search material when it is uploaded or downloaded. The cloud providers accomplish this by comparing “ Continue Reading →
The Federal Aviation Administration currently approves the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, in U.S. airspace on a case-by-case basis. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act, which was signed into law last year, requires the FAA to create six test ranges in the United States in order to work toward integrating unmanned [...]
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Since the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, policymakers and hospital management professionals have sought to curb rising health care costs while simultaneously offering care to more individuals nationwide. The idea is that more efficient health care will reduce costs, thereby enabling the government to use the surplus funds in the national health [...]
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