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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2004 Acacia Turns Attention to Small Cable Companies Judge Says Child Porn Law Unconstitutional IBM to Go Open Source with Speech Recognition ACACIA TURNS ATTENTION TO SMALL CABLE COMPANIES Acacia Research is expanding its patent-infringement lawsuits to a group of 20 small cable companies, mostly in Arizona, Minnesota, and Ohio, having already filed suits against most of the nation's largest cable providers, including Comcast, Cox Communications, and DirecTV. The company, which claims patent rights for the technology that allows audio and video streaming, has filed numerous lawsuits alleging infringement of those patents and offering licensing deals to those targeted, which include many colleges and universities. Acacia has reached licensing agreements with 175 organizations, including Disney. Many targeted by the lawsuits have decided to contest the patent claims, however, including Comcast. Acacia General Counsel Rob Berman said that although litigation is not the company's "preferred course of action," it is nevertheless often a "necessary part of the licensing business." CNET, 13 September 2004 http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5364023.html JUDGE SAYS CHILD PORN LAW UNCONSTITUTIONAL A federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that a law in that state designed to restrict the availability of child pornography on the Internet is unconstitutional because it blocks sites that are not violating any laws. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), along with the American Civil Liberties Union and ISP Plantagenet, had brought the suit against Jerry Pappert, the Pennsylvania attorney general, after the state ordered ISPs to block access to servers that hosted child pornography. The CDT's John Morris compared the law to insisting that the postal service not deliver mail to an entire apartment building because one resident is believed to be engaged in illegal activity. A spokesman for Pappert rejected the court's argument, saying that if used properly, the filtering technology does not infringe on First Amendment rights. He said the attorney general's office would weigh its options, including whether to ask the court to reconsider its decision or to file an appeal. Reuters, 10 September 2004 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=6208727 IBM TO GO OPEN SOURCE WITH SPEECH RECOGNITION In an effort to encourage growth in speech-recognition technologies and to outpace competitor Microsoft for such tools, IBM will contribute speech-recognition software to two open-source groups, the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation. IBM said the software cost about $10 million to develop and that the move is designed "to spur the industry around open standards to get more and more speech application development." The announcement is the latest in a series of decisions by IBM to support open-source groups with donations of technologies it has developed, including the Cloudscape database. For its part, Microsoft has developed free tools for building speech-recognition applications using the company's .Net architecture, and more than 100,000 developers have reportedly downloaded those tools. New York Times, 13 September 2004 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/technology/13speech.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/ Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For past issues of Edupage or information about translations of Edupage into other languages, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/ ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS EDUCAUSE publishes periodicals, including "EQ" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. For information on EDUCAUSE publications see http://www.educause.edu/pub/ ***************************************************** CONFERENCES For information on all EDUCAUSE learning and networking opportunities, see http://www.educause.edu/conference/ ***************************************************** COPYRIGHT Edupage copyright (c) 2004, EDUCAUSE
