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Slashdot Stories Firehose All Popular Polls Ask Events -- Deals Submit Search Slashdot Login or Sign up Topics: Devices Build Entertainment Technology Open Source Science YRO more... -- Follow us: RSS Facebook Google+ Twitter Newsletter Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading! Nickname: Password: Public Terminal Forgot your password? Close binspam dupe notthebest offtopic slownewsday stale stupid fresh funny insightful interesting maybe offtopic flamebait troll redundant overrated insightful interesting informative funny underrated descriptive typo dupe error ! -- Mirror your GitHub releases to SourceForge quickly and easily with this tool . Check out all of SourceForge’s improvements. | Check out Slashdot on LinkedIn × 124234250 story Apple, Broadcom Ordered To Pay $1.1 Billion To CalTech In Patent Case (reuters.com) 50 -- 50 Posted by BeauHD on Thursday January 30, 2020 @06:02PM from the proof-is-in-the-patents dept. The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) said it won a $1.1 billion jury verdict in a patent case against Apple and Broadcom . Reuters reports: In a case filed in federal court in Los Angeles in 2016, the Pasadena, California-based research university alleged that Broadcom wi-fi chips used in hundreds of millions of Apple iPhones infringed patents relating to data transmission technology. "While we thank the members of the jury for their service, we disagree with the factual and legal bases for the verdict and intend to appeal," Broadcom said in a statement. Apple said it plans to appeal the verdict, but declined further comment. The company had said in court filings that it believed all of the university's claims against it resulted from it using Broadcom's chips in its devices, calling itself "merely an indirect downstream party." The verdict awarded CalTech $837.8 million from Apple and $270.2 million from Broadcom. "We are pleased the jury found that Apple and Broadcom infringed Caltech patents," CalTech said in a statement. "As a non-profit institution of higher education, Caltech is committed to protecting its intellectual property in furtherance of its mission to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education." apple court hardware 124080414 story US Colleges Are Trying To Install Location Tracking Apps On Students' Phones (theverge.com) 137 -- 137 Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday January 28, 2020 @07:02PM from the quietly-being-normalized dept. Some U.S. colleges are now apparently requiring students to install a location tracking app to track attendance . Sean Hollister writes for The Verge: The Kansas City Star reported that at the University of Missouri, new students "won't be given a choice" of whether to install the SpotterEDU app, which uses Apple's iBeacons to broadcast a Bluetooth signal that can help the phone figure out whether a student is actually in a room. But a university spokesperson told Campus Reform on Sunday that only athletes are technically required to use the app, and a new statement from the university on Monday not only claims that it's "completely optional" for students, but that the app's being piloted with fewer than 2 percent of the student body. What the reports do agree on: the app uses local Bluetooth signals, not GPS, so it's probably not going to be very useful to track students outside of school. "No GPS tracking is enabled, meaning the technology cannot locate the students once they leave class," reads part of the university's statement. SpotterEDU isn't just used at the University of Missouri, though -- it's being tested at nearly 40 schools, company founder and former college basketball coach Rick Carter told The Washington Post in December . The Post's story makes it sound remarkably effective, with one Syracuse professor attesting that classes have never been so full, with more than 90 percent attendance. But that same professor attested that an earlier version of the app did have access to GPS coordinates, if only for a student to proactively share their location with a teacher. The Post reports that Degree Analytics is also being used in an additional 19 schools, but unlike SpotterEDU, it uses Wi-Fi signals instead of Bluetooth. The New York Times also reported in September of a similar app from a company called FanMaker that provides "loyalty points" to students who stick around to watch college sports games at the stadium instead of skipping out. That app is in use at 40 schools, the Times wrote. privacy software education 124030892 story Apple Imagines iMac Built Into Curved Sheet of Glass (theverge.com) 59 -- 59 Posted by BeauHD on Monday January 27, 2020 @07:02PM from the think-outside-the-box dept. Apple applied for a patent for an ambitious design for a new all-in-one computer which integrates both its keyboard and screen into a single curved sheet of glass . The Verge reports: The patent application , which was first spotted by Patently Apple , and which was filed in May last year, describes how the iMac-like computer's "input area" and "display area" could be built into a single continuous surface, while a support structure behind the display could then contain the computer's processing unit, as well as providing space for all the machine's ports. It's a pretty striking design for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the amount of curved glass involved is far more than Apple has ever used in one of its products before. It's also interesting to see that the company is thinking about taking the iMac's all-in-one design even further, by integrating not just the computer and display together, but also a keyboard and touchpad as well (although the application also describes how the keyboard could be detached during use). The patent also describes how one could dock a MacBook into the device and output the screen to the iMac's display, while its keyboard would pass through a hole in the middle of the machine to let you use it as normal. Additionally, "the application suggests that its single sheet of glass could fold down its middle to allow you to pack it away when not in use," reports The Verge. apple design hardware 123825762 story 'Unauthorized Bread': A Tale of Jailbreaking Refugees Versus IoT Appliances (arstechnica.com) 32 -- 32 Posted by BeauHD on Thursday January 23, 2020 @08:25PM from the come-and-get-it dept. Science fiction writer, journalist and longtime Slashdot reader, Cory Doctorow, a.k.a. mouthbeef , writes: My novella "Unauthorized Bread" -- originally published last year in Radicalized from Tor Books -- has just been published on Ars Technica : it's an epic tale of jailbreaking refugees versus the disobedient IoT appliances they're forced to use, and it's being turned into a TV show by The Intercept's parent company and a graphic novel by First Second with help from Jennifer Doyle. Making the story open access was in honor of the book being shortlisted for Canada Reads , Canada's national book award. The story builds on the work I've done with EFF to legalize jailbreaking, including our lawsuit to overturn parts of the DMCA . The story is part of a lineage with a long history of /. interest, starting with my 2002 Salon story 0wnz0red , and it only seemed fitting that I let you know about it! books internet privacy 123785284 story How Dual-Screen Apps Will Run On Windows 10X, Android (theverge.com) 29 -- 29 Posted by BeauHD on Thursday January 23, 2020 @05:00AM from the ready-or-not-here-they-come dept. Microsoft has published a blog post detailing exactly how it imagines dual-screen apps will run on devices like the Surface Duo and Surface Neo -- two foldable devices unveiled back on October that run Android and Windows 10X, respectively. The Verge reports: By default, an app will occupy a single screen according to Microsoft. Surface Duo or Surface Neo users can then span the app across both displays when they're in double-portrait or double-landscape layout. Microsoft en...