Late last week, a Wisconsin court ruled that its state police can track whoever they wish, suspect or not, without a warrant or even probable cause, using GPS. Eep.
Here’s an insane move by Apple: sending a cease and desist to a company who makes an iPhone stand called the Podium for using the word “pod” in its name. What in the hell?
If you’re too sexually repressed to watch Pornhub on your lunch break like a normal person, now you can watch a streaming court session involving theRIAA right on your computer.
This is America, the land of the free, where we can say and do what we please without some government overlord pushing us around about it. And there’s a landmark case coming up before the Supreme Court on November 4th, election day, dealing with just this: the right to accidentally drop the F-bomb on live TV and not get in trouble for it. What would our founding fathers do?
The Net Neutrality battles have created and unexpected but welcome side effect. In it’s ruling against Comcast last week, the FCC said in a round about way that unless a you are abusing your Internet connection then the carriers have no right to tell you how you can use it. This could conceivably also be applicable to mobile phone plans, and it could mean cheaper data plans for you.
We’ve been following the story of Shaun Malone, the California teen who was clocked by an officer doing 62MPH (100KPH) in a 45MPH (72KPH) zone, and was issued a ticket for US$190. He took the ticket to trial and lost, as the state brought in a GPS expert via affidavit who said that the units weren’t that accurate. The teen appealed, however, and the same expert revised his testimony on the stand, saying the device was accurate to within 1MPH (1.6KPH). The device in question had the capability of emailing the teen’s parents if he ever went above 70MPH (112KPH), and also logged all other speeds. These logs were used and the judge found enough reason to throw out the original conviction, and will rule in October on the matter that may have far-reaching effects. The real question now is why did the trooper’s radar gun think the speed was 33% faster than it actually was? [Ars]
