Legal Research

Steve Goes to the Head of the Line [UPDATED]

Posted on June 22, 2009
On Saturday the WSJ reported (sub required) that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant back in April in Tennessee to treat the medical condition that left him emaciated. Why not California? “Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states...

Be Careful What You Ask For

Posted on June 19, 2009
After Jammie Thomas was dinged for $200,000 in her first trial for illegally sharing 24 songs, she got her wish: a retrial. Won’t get dinged again, right? (Get it? It’s The Who. Won’t Get Fooled Again. Get it?) Right. This time she got clobbered, to the tune of (pun intended) $2 million...

Finally Somebody Explains It!

Posted on June 18, 2009
I was watching the last few minutes of the PBS NewsHour last night. Margaret Warner was interviewing Reza Aslan, author and assistant professor at UCal Riverside and Robert Faris of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society about the role Twitter is playing in disseminating info on the chaos in Iran...

This Video Was Very Painful To Watch

Posted on June 17, 2009
I’m so close to the forest that I can’t see the trees anymore. I can discuss market share among the top 5 browsers, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and tell you which one I’d use under certain circumstances. But I’m atypical...

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Will Facebook Kill Twitter?

Posted on June 17, 2009
Facebook is currently testing a real-time search tool with “a small group — just a fraction of a percent of the people on Facebook”. Will it spell the end for Twitter? I’m thinking not. (Just like Twitter isn’t a Google-killer...

iPhone OS 3.0 Upgrade Available Today [UPDATED]

Posted on June 17, 2009
For those of you unfortunate non-Android users, today’s the day you get cut-n-paste, landscape soft keyboard, MMS messages, and more. UPDATE (because I’m ADD today) - Should have mentioned that it’ll be available sometine after 12:00 noon today.

My Kid Can Beat Your Kid

Posted on June 17, 2009
If I had only known about this contest beforehand, I’d have entered my son. Fifty thousand bucks for texting? There’s your college tuition right there, Gil.

MedlinePlus Search Clouds

Posted on June 16, 2009
Recently MedlinePlus introduced a nifty feature called search clouds.   These “clouds” are arranged alphabetically and display the top 100 searches run using the MedlinePlus search box, with the size of the cloud representing the number of times that term was searched...

T-Mobile Will Introduce the Second Android Phone

Posted on June 16, 2009
The WSJ’s Digits blog is reporting that T-Mobile will introduce another U.S. Android-based phone shortly, called the myTouch 3D. Digits says “the myTouch 3D is much thinner than the G1, which has a clunky swivel-out keyboard.” Clunky? I beg to differ...

This Is Cool. I Just Don’t Know What To Do With It Yet.

Posted on June 16, 2009
Opera, the browser people, have introduced a service that turns your PC or laptop into a Web server so that you can share your files and images with other people, stream your MP3 files, host a Website, and more, without uploading anything to the Web. It’s called Opera Unite...

2 Social Networks Going In Opposite Directions

Posted on June 16, 2009
Facebook has new digs, hot usernames, and is now the largest social network in the U.S. MySpace? They’re cutting 30% of their staff. The NY Times says “its brand is becoming synonymous with one of those perpetually declining Internet properties like AOL...

Microsoft Plays Whac-A-Fraudster

Posted on June 16, 2009
Yesterday Microsoft filed suit in U.S. District Court in Seattle against 3 members of a Vancouver BC family, accusing them of “perpetrating a massive ‘click fraud’ scheme on the online advertising network operated by Microsoft”...

The Privilege of Silence: Fifth Amendment Protections Against Self-Incrimination

Posted on June 15, 2009
By Steven M. SalkyThis book explains the contours of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in practice, providing a guide for both the civil litigator who may encounter it infrequently, as well as the criminal lawyer who seeks to advance his or her client’s interests through the use of the Fifth Amendment...

This Weekend Twitter Earned Some of its Hype

Posted on June 15, 2009
The ReadWriteWeb, NY TImes, and WSJ Digits blog all note how CNN failed to adequately cover the protests in Iran this past weekend following the disputed presidential election. Twitterers created a new hashtag, #cnnfail, which trended on Saturday and Sunday (but isn’t as of now)...

Now We’ve Got 2 Decision Engines, Plus a Discovery Engine, and a Computational Knowledge Engine

Posted on June 15, 2009
Hunch, a new Decision Engine, has launched. (Coverage here, here, and here.) How’s it work? Here’s what the site’s “About” page says: “In 10 questions or less, Hunch will offer you a great solution to your problem, concern or dilemma, on hundreds of topics...

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Posted on June 15, 2009
As of 12:15 am Saturday morning, half a million rabid Facebookers had registered their usernames. Dangian wasn’t a hot property, so I was able to snag it about 10 hours later. Flush with success, I decided it was time to install my DTV converter box...

I Guess Wolfram Got Google’s Attention

Posted on June 10, 2009
GoogleBlogoscoped has a post today about a new service from Google Labs: Fusion Tables, which allows you to upload spreadsheets, visualize the data on maps, timelines and charts, and share the data with others. Philipp Lenssen says, “Somewhat confusingly, this product seems like a set of features that already is, or seemingly could become, integrated in [...

All in Favor, Say “Arrrr”

Posted on June 10, 2009
Eugene, our long-suffering IT guy, passed this one on to me. Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants to reform copyright and strengthen privacy laws (among other things), has won a seat in the European Parliament. (The party won 7.1% of the vote in Sweden, which is significant, considering the PP is only about 3 years old...

I’ll No Longer Be Just a Number on Facebook Come Saturday Morning

Posted on June 10, 2009
Right now on Facebook, I’m simply a number: 570062098. But come 12:01 am on Saturday, I can be any name I want. HunkaHunkaBurningLove? Nah. TwinkleToes? Heck no. Dangian, like I am on LinkedIn? Now you’re talking. We’ll see if it’s available …

Wolfram|Alpha Now Knows About The Love Apple

Posted on June 09, 2009
Wolfram|Alpha has announced that they’ve “just made live the first broad updates to the core code and data of Wolfram|Alpha.” They’ve provided a list of more than 20 additions and changes to their data set, including “Improved linguistic handling for many foods (e...

Say That To My Face

Posted on June 09, 2009
A few months ago I blogged about the 10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse. Today it’s the Top 10 Ways to Provoke a Geek Argument. As with my previous post, I must confess that I’ve actually discussed numbers 2 and 9 today at work with colleagues...

Safari 4 Is Out Of Beta

Posted on June 09, 2009
I’ve upgraded on both my Mac and office Windows-based laptop. I like it, but it’s going to remain my #3 browser after Firefox and Chrome. Link via Lifehacker.

If People Would Just Stop Looking for Freebies, the Web Would be a Safer Place

Posted on June 09, 2009
McAfee has just released a report on The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms. It all boils down to this: people who search for freebies — MP3s, screensavers, ringtones, games, work from home for free, whatever — are probably 20 to 30 times more likely to be exposed to pages containing malware (spyware, viruses, and Trojan [...

Electronic Evidence and Discovery: What Every Lawyer Should Know Now, 2nd Edition

Posted on June 08, 2009
By Michele C.S. Lange, Kristin M. NimsgerThe advancement of technology in the past decade has catapulted the prominence of electronic evidence. It is not only making discovery faster, easier and less expensive for practitioners and their end-clients, but it is opening the doors of possibility toward a path of substantially reducing the total cost [...

iPhone 3GS Due on June 19. I Won’t Jump On That.

Posted on June 08, 2009
Another big thing from Apple’s WWDC 2009 is the next-gen iPhone. It’ll be faster, with better battery life, a zoom camera (plus video), and voice control. Two colors: white or black. Two sizes: 16GB ($199) or 32GB ($299). I’ll pass — I’m still happy with my G1, especially now that it has the “cupcake” software upgrade.

Snow Leopard for $29? I’ll Jump On That.

Posted on June 08, 2009
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) will ship in 3 months. It’ll be faster and smaller (by 6GB). Price: $29. For twenty bucks more, I can get the family pack and upgrade my daughter’s Mac Book. Honey, don’t worry, I swear you won’t even notice that I upgraded the OS...

Twitter Proves The 80/20 Rule

Posted on June 08, 2009
According to TechCrunch, there seems to be a lot more listening than talking going on with Twitter: Twitter accounts with less than 10 followers: 80.3% Accounts with 10+ followers: 19.7% Twitter accounts with less than 10 Tweets: 78.1% Accounts with 10+ Tweets: 21...

China Outsources the Whole Justice Potter Stewart “I Know It When I See It” Pornography Thing

Posted on June 08, 2009
The Chinese government has announced that all new PCs sold in China must have a porn filter installed on them. They’ve given the PC manufacturers all of 2 1/2 weeks to comply — the law takes effect July 1. The software, called “Green Dam-Youth Escort” regularly checks a list of banned sites so that it can [...

The Short Happy Life of Bing

Posted on June 08, 2009
TechCrunch tells us that Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, shot up to #2 behind Google (and ahead of Yahoo) for exactly one day, June 4. Then it was back to business-as-usual: Microsoft was #3 and trying to buy #2.

Steve Jobs Is On The Mend

Posted on June 05, 2009
Steve Jobs was in a bad way when he announced a six-month leave of absence back in January. The Wall Street Journal quotes an anonymous source in an article today: “He was one real sick guy. Fundamentally he was starving to death over a nine-month period...

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