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FORT BRAGG, N.C. (USASOC News Service, May 27, 2011) — The United States Army Special Operations Command paid tribute to fallen comrades killed in combat during the past year with a somber ceremony at Meadows Memorial Plaza, May 26. The ceremony was the culmination of a full day all-star treatment for the Gold Star families of 30 Army Special Operation Soldiers killed during combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lt. Gen. John F. Mulholland Jr., Commanding General, USASOC, addressed an audience of more than 500 fellow Soldiers, family members, friends and special guests. “We are here to honor a...

RALEIGH -- David N. Cox says he was merely exercising his right to petition the government, but a state Department of Transportation official has raised allegations that Cox committed a misdemeanor: practicing engineering without a license. Cox and his North Raleigh neighbors are lobbying city and state officials to add traffic signals at two intersections as part of a planned widening of Falls of Neuse Road. After an engineering consultant hired by the city said that the signals were not needed, Cox and the North Raleigh Coalition of Homeowners' Associations responded with a sophisticated analysis of their own.

(AP) MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. and the chief rules enforcer for Xbox Live are apologizing to a small West Virginia town and a 26-year-old gamer accused of violating the online gaming service's code of conduct by publicly declaring he's from Fort Gay - a name the company considered offensive. The town's name is real. But when Josh Moore tried to tell Seattle-based Microsoft and the enforcement team at Xbox Live, they wouldn't take his word for it. Or Google it. Or check the U.S. Postal Service website for a ZIP code.

Warning: this one is depressing if you believe in the public domain. You may recall that last year, a district court made a very important ruling on what appeared to be a minor part of copyright law. The "Golan" case asked a simple question: once something is officially in the public domain, can Congress pull it out and put it back under copyright? The situation came about because of (yet another) trade agreement that pulled certain foreign works out of the public domain. A district court had initially said that this move did not violate the law, but the appeals...

Apple is using its strong patent portfolio to fight iPhone competitors in court. Its latest target is HTC. Apple has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the cell phone manufacturer. The suit involves “20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.” Steve Jobs is quoted in a press release saying: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” The lawsuit itself is...

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that...

After King County Superior Court Judge Gregory Canova awarded Microsoft an $8.7 million judgment in a 2008 lawsuit involving unpaid software licenses, he might have been surprised to learn that Microsoft isn’t actually in the software licensing business in Washington – or at least that’s what it reports to the state Department of Revenue. For tax purposes, Microsoft reports that it’s earned its estimated $143 billion in software licensing revenue in Nevada, where there is no licensing tax. However, for legal purposes, Microsoft executes its licensing contracts so they are governed by and rely on the protections of Washington law...

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A judge Tuesday heard arguments in a dispute over software sales that could potentially have repercussions on the secondhand sale of virtually any copyright material. The suit was filed by Timothy Vernor, a seller on eBay, after Autodesk, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, asked eBay to remove some of its software products that Vernor had listed for sale there, and later to ban him from the site. Vernor had not illegally copied the software but was selling legitimate CDs of the products secondhand. For that reason, he argued, he was not infringing Autodesk's copyright. Autodesk countered that because it...

Thanks to Baron Scarpia for alerting us to this website, which outlines the rigorous academic standards [Quote-miners, please note: this is sarcasm] which William Dembski’s students have to achieve in his courses on Intelligent Design and Christian Apologetics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: http://www.designinference.com/teaching/teaching.htm If you follow the links, you will see that it is full of gems: we won’t spoil them for you by flagging them all up, but – just to whet your appetite – you will notice that, at both undergrad and masters level, there are courses for which 20% of the final marks come from having...

Just as Bing is gaining popularity, some disturbingly pro-Microsoft and anti-Apple search results rear their ugly heads. Oh Microsoft, just when we were starting to believe in this thing called Bing, you go messing with the search results. Case in point: a search on Bing for the phrase, "Why is Windows so expensive?" returned this as the top link.... "Why are Macs so expensive." That's right. You're not hallucinating. That was the top response on Bing to a question about the price of Windows.

Criminals running an ATM card-skimming scam made a big mistake this week: They tried to hit the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas. As the conference was kicking off a few days ago, attendees noticed that an ATM placed in the Riviera Hotel, which plays host to the annual event, didn't quite look right, according to a senior conference organizer who identified himself only as Priest. "They looked at the screen where there would normally be a camera," he said. "It was a little bit too dark, so someone shined a flashlight in there and there was a PC." The...

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Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday evening, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick "the right person" as its copyright czar. Just days after four Pirate Bay defendants were found guilty in Sweden, Biden warned of the harms of piracy at a private event organized by the Motion Picture Association of America in the sumptuous, newly renovated Great Hall of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. "It's pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American people as consequence of loss...

I can't believe there's yet more major news, all in one day. But there is, from the bankruptcy front. SCO's period of exclusivity is over, as you can see from the minutes of today's hearing [PDF]. Look at number 1 on the list under the heading "Proceedings" and you will see the word: "DENIED". This was regarding the SCO motion [PDF] to extend the period of exclusivity, it's 4th, the motion that Al Petrofsky objected to pro se, as you can see on the Notice of matters on the agenda for today. So now IBM and Novell and the US...

Asks for time to make up its mind in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Cloud, a Pennsylvania case in which the RIAA's statutory damages theory -- seeking from 2200 to 450,000 times the amount of actual damages -- is being tested, the United States Department of Justice has filed papers indicating that it is considering intervening in the case to defend the constitutionality of such awards, and requesting an extension of time in which to make the decision. United States Motion for Extension of Time in Which to Determine if Intervention is Appropriate...

Yesterday Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) re-introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.  This year it's H.R. 801 (last year it was H.R. 6845), and co-sponsored by Steve Cohen (D-TN), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Robert Wexler (D-FL).  The language has not changed.  The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism.  It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency.  The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where Conyers is Chairman, and where he has consolidated his power...

RIAA-fan Biden's influence in the Obama administration may be larger than anticipated, at least when it comes to file sharing: His good pals with RIAA and BSA connections keep getting Department of Justice's seats. According to CNET, "President Obama is continuing to fill the senior ranks of the U.S. Department of Justice with the copyright industry's favorite lawyers" with the selection of Donald Verrilli, from the Verrilli Family, el Señor Presidente's latest acquisition.

Steven Sinofsky this week reaffirmed that Windows 7 would only have a single public beta release—build 7000, still available for download for a few more days. The current expectation is that there will be a single Release Candidate in April, with RTM around July, and Windows 7 hitting stores a few months later. This plan marks a significant departure from Microsoft's historic Windows release strategy. Previous editions have had at least two betas and two Release Candidates; even Windows XP, a minor update to Windows 2000, received this treatment. Windows Vista went even further during its extended development period. In...

After a great deal of courtroom drama and mounting legal fees, the SCO Group is expected to file its Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan in court tomorrow. Jeff Hunsaker, SCO’s president, wouldn’t provide exact details of the plan, but he said the reorganization will hopefully help the company come out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which the company filed for in September 2007. Utah-based SCO has been up to its ears in legal battles over the years, a notable one being a suit against Novell over who was the true owner of Unix. In August 2007, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled...