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Amazon tries bringing in lawyers for sellers claiming patent infringement
Amazon has been battling counterfeit products and knock-off goods for years. It's tried charging merchants large fees, creating a registry of approved vendors and launching a self-service tool for removing knockoffs. Now, according to The Information, the company is testing a program to help fight utility patent infringements. It's meant to be a cheaper, faster alternative to traditional patent lawsuits, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years to settle.
Amazon is inserting sponsored products into baby registries
Parents putting together baby registries on Amazon have begun to notice a pesky problem, one that has resulted in parents receiving items they neither listed nor wanted. The online retailer has been placing sponsored products in baby registries, the Wall Street Journal reports, but because the ads look so similar to other registry items, people are purchasing them, unaware that the items weren't added to the registry by parents. Like added items, the sponsored products include an image, rating, price and a "0 of 1 Purchased" tag. The only thing that distinguishes them is a small, gray "Sponsored" label situated just above the item name.
The UN wants all drones registered in a global database
The United Nations' aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), plans to support a single worldwide drone registry. This singular ledger would be easier for law enforcement to sift through than each country's individual UAV ledger.
Apple will use the iPhone to encourage new organ donors
Apple CEO Tim Cook knows firsthand the agony of watching a close friend wait for an organ transplant, so his company is doing something to help ease the shortage. With iOS 10, Apple will add a new button to the Health app that will allow users to enroll in with Donate Life America. That non-profit organization promotes organ donation and facilitates registries, including its own National Donate Life registry.
Confusion over FAA drone registry results in privacy problems
Correction: This story states that the FAA's new drone registry database is searchable and exposes the private data of citizens and hobbyists. Currently, this is incorrect. The drone registry is not searchable at this time, as stated by the FAA's website -- though the agency has also said it will be searchable in the future. What is searchable is the registry for commercial plane operators, which can be easily confused with the new drone database. The results for private citizens that turned up in searches were found due to drone owners mistakenly registering their aircraft in the wrong database -- one intended for tracking commercial craft -- which left their information exposed.
Over 45,000 drone pilots have registered with the FAA
Now that the FAA's mandatory drone registrations are open, how many people are rushing to sign up? Quite a few, actually. The administration reports taking over 45,000 registrations since the program opened up two days ago, on December 21st. In fact, the demand was sufficiently "overwhelming" that the FAA's site has occasionally buckled under the load. It's temporarily shutting down the site overnight (between the 23rd and 24th) to make sure that it can cope with the likely flood of registrations from people getting robotic flyers as gifts.
FAA: No, you won't need to pay someone to register your drone
You may not like the idea of having to register your drone to fly it in the US, but you likely won't need to pay someone to handle the paperwork. The Federal Aviation Administration is telling would-be flyers to think twice before signing up with any company that promises to register your drone for a fee. You can "probably" do it yourself whenever the program kicks in, the FAA says, and the process won't be much different than registering products with their manufacturers. In short, anyone asking for your money right now is an opportunist -- they're hoping that your aversion to filling out forms overcomes your rational side.
ICANN lists first custom TLDs up for consideration, starts with Chinese word for 'Catholic'
The bidding process for custom top-level domains led to many candidates, but there can only be one that ICANN considers first. Which one gets the honor? Thanks to a semi-random draw, it's .天主教, or "Catholic" in Chinese -- a domain registered by the Catholic church's Pontifical Council for Social Communication. The position could give the church one of the first active custom TLDs in 2013, ahead of Amazon, VeriSign and others that were among the frontrunners in a 1,930-domain pack. There's no guarantees that the church or any of the other early bidders will be accepted when there's substantial dispute over who, if anyone, should own many of the given domains. Knowing who goes through ICANN's scrutiny, due early next year, may still prepare us for a changed internet landscape.
RIPE NCC handing out its last block of IPv4 addresses, tries to fend off internet survivalism
In a world where IPv6 lives and IPv4 addresses are scarce, network providers must fight for survival... or at least, claim their IP blocks quickly. The RIPE NCC, the regional internet registry for Asia, Europe and the Middle East, warns that it's down to assigning its last set of 16.8 million IPv4 addresses as of this weekend. That sounds like a lot, but we'd do well to remember that the registry churned through about 5.2 million addresses in just the past two weeks. What's left won't be around for long, folks. To cut back on the number of Mad Max-style battles for dwindling resources, RIPE NCC is rationing out IPv4 for local registries in 1,024-address chunks -- and only to those who both have IPv6 assignments as well as proof of a need for IPv4. With just a bit more than half of the RIPE NCC's customers currently on IPv6, that could still trigger a shortfall among networks that haven't prepared for the internet protocol apocalypse. We'd advise that companies stock up on IPv6 supplies before launching the raiding parties.
Windows Phone 7 hack brings instant app resumption, mobile multitasking to the masses
Looking for a little snappier response when jumping to and fro between apps on your WP7 device? Well, do we have just the hack for you -- a dev from Windows Phone Hacker, Jaxbot, did some poking around in the Window's Phone registry and found a way to instantly resume apps, no muss, no fuss. By setting the "DehydrateOnPause" registry key value to zero, he got rid of that pesky app dehydration / rehydration process altogether. Keep in mind there may be some "undesirable" side effects from force-feeding your device multitasking (ADD?) ahead of schedule and you'll need a developer-unlocked device to access the registry, so only advanced users need apply -- you taking notes, Mr. Ballmer? Hit up the source link for the full monty, and check out the hack in action after the break.
ICANN has .xxx domain names? Yes!
The controversial step to approve .xxx domain names has today been taken by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, paving the way for a whole slew of new addresses suffixed by the famous triplicate x. Funnily enough, before the decision was made today, opposition to it was proffered by both conservative groups opposed to pornography and adult entertainment companies fearing they'd be more easily compartmentalized and potentially blocked by overzealous governments. Moreover, every popular adult website at present will pretty much be forced to buy its .xxx version, which, for an industry famous for its frugality, will be an understandably tough pill to swallow. We are surprised not to see the people of Amsterdam consulted, however -- their city's emblem features three Xs too, shouldn't they have a say in this? A further meeting is scheduled by ICANN for June 20th to discuss opening up all possible domain name suffixes to registration, pending the validation of a set of guidelines for approval. That's looking quite likely to be passed too, as the AFP sagely notes that there's a celebratory party scheduled for two days after the event. URLs are about to get a lot more varied, it seems; they're certainly going to feature a lot more of the (English) alphabet's 24th letter, whatever the case.
Internet Explorer 9 RC causing Netflix errors in Windows Media Center? Here's a fix
Apparently some of those who are catching Netflix Watch Instantly streams on their Windows 7 Media Center PCs are getting cut off after installing the Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, but they're in luck as there is a fix. The Digital Media Zone points out a Microsoft Knowledge base article 2512239 that can solve the problem either with a one click "Fix It For Me" option or just the instructions on how to dig deep in the registry and DIY if you're so inclined. The problem is apparently caused by some changes to the way the new version of IE handles JavaScript, but we'd rather you get back to watching season two of the X-Files or whatever you were watching than worry about details like that.
Registry hack allows for direct loading of media on Windows Phone 7 devices
Prefer to load media onto your Windows Phone 7 device the old fashioned way? Then it looks like your solution is just a simple Windows registry hack away. Coming shortly after the USB tethering hack, the folks at Mobile Tech World have now discovered that you can effectively turn your Windows Phone into a USB drive by modifying just three entries in the registry of your Windows desktop PC. Once done, you'll be able to drag and drop files to your heart's content -- albeit only on a computer that's had the registry hack done, of course. Hit up the source link below for the complete details.
Think different? You bet I do!
It's a common theory that Apple is a "hardware company" not a "software company." What does that mean? Doesn't it actually sell both? The idea is that Apple uses software to push more hardware sales. If Apple was a software company, you wouldn't see the fantastic and very useful iLife bundle of applications included for free on every new Mac, including the el-cheapo Mini. Instead, they might decide to charge $99 for it, or worse, break it up into pieces and distribute it as separate packages, each with its own price. Snow Leopard's price also seems to support this theory, especially when contrasted to Microsoft's pricing model. Any "dot-oh" operating system upgrade priced at $29 is simply amazing. And given the fact that you can upgrade a whole home or small office full of Macs for less than the price of an Xbox 360 game...well, that's just a special kind of awesome. The main OS competitor, however, has graciously offered its upgrade, similar in "just fixing stuff and making it run better" nature to Apple's update, at the low, low price of $129. Ouch! At least you can save a substantial amount by buying Microsoft's family pack at a tick under 150 bucks, but that discount will only get you three copies instead of Apple's five. And it's still three times the price of Snow Leopard's bundle! But I realized something interesting about the whole "hardware company vs. software company" argument. As a Mac convert, I've noticed that I think quite a bit less about the hardware than I do the software. In the PC world I still live in, we talk about processor benchmarks, motherboard options, frontside bus speeds, and other Ambien replacements. However, when I talk Mac, I'm often concerned much more with the software it's running, what OS version is installed, and where I can find a free app to do what I need.
Wii tops Amazon wedding gift registry
When my wife and I tied the knot, the most interesting things we received were an embroidered pillow and a Waterford crystal bowl, the former of which now languishes in a moving box while the latter was, interestingly enough, recently shattered during a particularly feverish bout of Wii Sports boxing (sorry mom!). There is symmetry here, however, that does not go unnoticed, as Amazon currently lists the Wii as the top gift requested by newlyweds registered on the site. Unfortunately, Amazon also notes that the popular console is currently 'out of stock,' leaving couples to instead settle for the second most requested gift, Pyrex's 10-piece food storage set, a poor substitute given its inherent lack of waggle. Wii accessories, including the remote, nunchuck, and Nyko charging station, were also included in the compilation of popular wedding gifts, though without a system to use them on these sorts of presents just smack of being cruel. Interestingly, both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were also found in the list as well, both products of what we can only assume to be wishful thinking or misaligned priorities -- perhaps a bit of both. [via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
