Author: coutinho

By Scott Merrill, TechCrunch – August 22, 2012 at 01:02PM

When I think of APIs, I tend to think of mostly end-user data being passed back and forth between consumer websites and various client apps. Automated uploading to Flickr, for example, or consuming Twitter data in some way. I don’t think of chemical patent searches. SureChem just announced an API for just that function, though, which goes to show that automation and ubiquitous computing is penetrating more and more industries.

I’m not a chemist, nor a patent attorney, nor am I engaged in any way with medical research. But if I were, I imagine that SureChemDirect would be a very useful tool. SureChemDirect enables customers to incorporate sophisticated chemical patent search into their workflows, and perform batch queries using their own internal platforms.

I asked Nicko Goncharoff, SureChem’s founder, for details about the API.

We have a RESTful API that enables users to directly search our database of 12 million chemical structures, 20 million full text annotated patents and 70 million patent abstracts. Results include chemical structures and their associated meta-data, patent numbers, patent meta-data and full text records. In future the chemical meta-data will also include links to our public and proprietary content partners – so for example, if you get back a chemical structure, we will tell you where it occurs not only in SureChem, but in PubChem, ChemSpider, Royal Society of Chemistry journals, etc.

The interface purports to allow users to draw chemical structures and work through the database that way, rather than simply use keyword searching. I suppose if you’re a chemist, this is a pretty big advancement.

Goncharoff also pointed out that SureChem would be depositing all of their chemical structure data into PubChem. “This will be the first time that a complete patent chemistry collection has been made freely available,” Goncharoff told me.

By Zachary Knight, Techdirt. – August 22, 2012 at 06:07AM

While some schools and teachers are looking for ways to make education, and especially textbooks, cheaper for students, others seem bent on doing everything possible to keep prices artificially high. Because colleges essentially have the textbook market cornered, they can require students to purchase just about anything in order to bring in more revenue. Unfortunately for the students, this can mean increased costs and and annoyance with the process itself.

Enter Luke Thomas, who had a very annoying textbook situation in an English class. All Luke and his wife wanted to do was take an English class together. They figured that they could get by with a single textbook between the two of them, but things in college are never that easy. You see, the professor for their class required a specific book, which he had authored, as well as an one time use access code to an online discussion board. However, the only way to get that code was to buy a brand new textbook.

My wife and I were taking that same class, and we were unable to purchase an access code without purchasing two copies of the book, which was very upsetting. I asked the individuals working at the bookstore if they sold unbundled copies of the access code, and to my dismay, they did not.

Because buying two books for two people who lived together and took the class together was a pointless endeavor, Luke decided to take matters into his own hands. He contacted the service provider of the discussion board and was able to buy the code directly through them for $20 plus shipping. Yes, the code had to be physically shipped to him. Of course, this was an option that neither the professor nor the book store offered him to begin with.

As a former college student in this internet connected world, I am also aware of such shady textbook deals. One Trigonometry class I took required the purchase of a $75 access code to the online textbook and quizzes. While my course wasn’t tied to a physical book, it did limit the end of semester cash that most students are used to getting as they sell off their books — something that schemes like this do not allow.

Of course Luke didn’t let it end with him just buying his code and getting through the course. He also spoke to the head of the bookstore as well as researched the law behind such bundles. What he found was a treat for any school or professor that would attempt to do something like this in the future:

After researching this issue, there’s a federal law which requires the unbundling of textbooks. How often is this law enforced? I have no idea…

UNBUNDLING OF COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS FROM SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS.—A publisher that sells a college textbook and any supplemental material accompanying such college textbook as a single bundle shall also make available the college textbook and each supplemental material as separate and unbundled items, each separately priced.

Wow! Wouldn’t that be something to bring up to that professor and his supervisors? That is, if they will actually listen. However, there is also another path that might serve a student in getting a quick resolution to the matter of being forced to buy a new book to get such online materials: patent law. Perhaps this professor is unaware that his method of forcing students to buy a new book and prevent sharing has been patented. Wouldn’t that patent showdown be a joy to watch unfold?

Lucky for us, there are plenty of people out there looking after the plight of the poor college student. Luke takes the time to highlight a few notables out there.

It looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, companies like Boundless Learning, Lore, and the plethora of ed-tech startups are seeking to disrupt these greedy giants. Go get em guys!

With all the attention that high college tuition prices get in the media, one would think that the textbook industry would be a prime target for an area to reduce the cost of an education for students. Sadly, the textbook industry gets a pass by most budget hawks as they tend to focus the majority of their attention on the sticker price of college. If they would expand their focus they could probably see a lot of room for improvement in additional costs outside tuition. Until then, good luck paying for all those books you may or may not need.

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By Mike Masnick, Techdirt. – August 22, 2012 at 10:11AM

A few years ago, we wrote about a horrifying ruling in which a blogger who was sued for libel was told he had to pay $60,000, even though it was shown that what he had said was entirely truthful. It’s an oft-repeated statement that truth is an absolute defense against defamation claims, but in this case, things got weird (and troubling). The ruling found that even though the statements were truthful, they represented “tortious interference” with employment. The case involved a blogger named John Hoff who blogged, truthfully, about Jerry Moore’s involvement in a high-profile mortgage fraud situation. Moore had been hired by the University of Minnesota, but was apparently let go soon after Hoff’s post. It seemed absolutely ridiculous that providing truthful information about someone should ever be seen as illegal, but that seemed to be the case here. The original ruling was a jury verdict and we had hoped that the court would set aside that verdict, but it chose not to, going against a rather large collection of case law (and common sense).

Thankfully, Hoff appealed, and the appeals court has now reversed the original ruling. The appeals court made the point clearly and concisely:

Because truth is an absolute defense to a claim for defamation, truth should also be a defense to a claim for tortious interference with a contract arising out of an allegedly defamatory statement.

The court goes into much more detail over its decision to reverse and send it back to the lower court, but it all comes back to the basics. If the content is truthful, then there’s no issue:

Moore argues that Hoff is not shielded from tort liability simply because Moore could not prove the falsity of Hoff’s statement. Rather, Moore urges us to rely instead on Hoff’s motivation for making the allegedly defamatory statements. Moore asserts that because Hoff had an ulterior motive of getting Moore fired, he can be liable for the tortious-interference claims. We disagree.

When a person conveys unflattering and possibly damaging information to another person’s employer, it is unlikely that the motivation for conveying that information is borne out of affection. It is much more likely that the intent is for the employer to take responsive action — up to and including termination — based on the content of that information. Regardless of the motivation of the messenger, if the information conveyed is true, it is not appropriate for liability to attach.

It’s good that the courts seem to have fixed the earlier decision, but it’s still crazy that it even got this far.

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By Adam Dachis, Lifehacker – August 21, 2012 at 05:30PM

Developing for iOS isn’t the easiest task in the world, and it’s hard to know where to get started. App developer and Instructables user A-Nony-Mus decided to help out and put together a guide to get you coding your first iPhone app as well as learn the basics of the Xcode platform.

The guide won’t teach you to make an app that you’ll want to submit to the iTunes App Store, but it’ll get you acquainted with all the unfamiliar territory that Apple’s platform provides. You’ll learn how to get a copy of Xcode, set up your first project, get used to the various files it creates for you, and actually write code in Objective C. Whether you’re new to programming or coming from a web development background, learning to code for iOS is going to feel a little foreign. When you’re starting off, it’s good to have a guide like this to hold your hand so you can get used to the differences when writing software for an Apple product. If you want to make an iPhone app, you’ll want to check out this guide first.

Creating your first iOS app | Instructables

By Nerdist News, GeekChicDaily – Feed Your Inner Geek – August 21, 2012 at 10:48AM

College is a place where smart, driven young people strive to learn more and better their standings. It’s also a place where you can join a frat and drink until your liver bleeds, but too many movies get made about the latter group already. Yes, we all love Animal House, but there’s no room for Bluto on this list. To celebrate the other offerings in university life and film we have compiled a list of the best college movies for intelligent people (like yourselves).Single Image Layout

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Foursquare Layout

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By Thorin Klosowski, Lifehacker – August 21, 2012 at 08:30AM

Mac: Ever wondered where your applications were sending and receiving data from? Private Eye is a real time network monitoring app that shows all of your live connections from all you open software, and includes where they’re sending data to.

Private Eye displays all connections your applications have to the web, the time, and the IP address connected to the app. You can then filter those results by app, or by incoming and outgoing traffic. Private Eye doesn’t have the power to alter any of these connections once they happen, but it does give you enough information to know if an app is connecting somewhere it shouldn’t be. If you’re interested in security, or you just want to track where your apps are sending data, Private Eye is a free utility that’s easy to use. If you want to stop those network connections, we like the lightweight firewall utility Radio Silence for preventing your apps from phoning home. Radio Silence is developed by the same developer as Private Eye.

Private Eye | via One Thing Well

By Joshua Lockhart, MakeUseOf – August 20, 2012 at 09:30PM

Ah, wisdom teeth surgery… A lot of people have to go through with it, right? It seems to be pretty common. However, what we tend to forget is that with all the gas intake people take in to put them to sleep and dumb down the pain, people can have some very weird reactions after the operation. Fortunately for us, friends and family tend to record these reactions…

I want to invite you to another side of YouTube: the one where home movies go viral, and videos normally shared with just friends and family make it to a world-wide audience. Today, I want to show you a bunch of videos that show people after their wisdom teeth operations! The videos are definitely hilarious, and hopefully, you’ll find some that you think are worth sharing.

Brother & Sister Take A Ride Home

This is one of the most humorous videos I’ve seen, but to be quite honest, it’s very slow. However, throughout the clip are a few different chuckle-worthy moments, so it’s worth the time. The video features a brother and a sister riding home after they have both had the wisdom teeth operation. With that said, the interaction between the siblings is highly entertaining.

Seeing Unicorns?

This video features a girl right after her operation, and within it, she goes on to explain just how she feels. The video info itself features the full transcript, but to sum things up, the girl feels as though a unicorn has taken her to a magical place. (Furthermore, for context, she dives into a classic 90s Christian rap tune by a fellow named Carman – “Who’s in the house? JC…”) To be honest, like all of these, this video is fairly long, but every second is worth watching.

Guy Sings Song Post-Op

Remember that good old classic, “On The Road Again”? Although simple, this video is absolutely one of the funniest things possible when you get right down to it. Admittedly, it’s one of those things that you’ll watch for a few minutes (or a few times), and say, “This is really stupid.” However, give it a go. I’d say it’s pretty great.

I Have Two Tongues

Although a little tamer than others, the sheer look of distraught on this wisdom teeth victim’s face is utterly hilarious. The situation at hand with this particular girl is a little different than others. Simply put, she believes that she has a second tongue… The realization comes towards the end of the video, but the build-up is certainly enticing.

Girl Thinks She’s A Wizard

As we’ve already gathered, there are quite a few people who fall under the impression that they are seeing things or have had some type of change to their being. In this case, we have a poor girl who has come under the impression that she is a wizard. Furthermore, she believes that the wisdom tooth operation was actually a spell cast upon her. The reaction in this video is absolutely hilarious, and despite having vertical video syndrome, it’s worth sticking around for.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all the dental operation patients we have for you today, folks. (I say that as if this is a regular thing.) However, we are sure that you’ve seen a few of your own, or maybe you’ve even made some of your own videos!

With that said, we’d love to see what you have to bring to the table. Have you made a video like this one? Have you seen better ones than these?

Image Credit: mconnors

By Adam Pash, Lifehacker – August 20, 2012 at 02:00PM

You know what’s awful about YouTube videos? Sure you do! Annotations are awful. Because more often than not, they’re less “annotation” and more “HEYDIDYOULIKETHIS?!!? SUBSCRIBE NOW BUY ON ITUNES!!!!!” Most of you probably click off annotations (and to a lesser degree captions) nearly every time you watch a YouTube video. Do yourself a favor and turn them off for good, right now.

1. Visit your YouTube Playback Settings page.
2. Untick Show annotations on videos.
3. Untick Always show captions.
4. Click Save.

That was easy, right? Now you won’t have to deal with the almost-always-annoying annotations and the sometimes-unnecessary captions ever again (or at least as long as you’re logged into your YouTube/Google account). You can always turn them back on any time you want, but you’ll no longer need to turn them off nearly every time you watch a video.

As for your other YouTube annoyances? Here’s how to fix those.

The image above is from YouTube user schmoyoho: extremely talented person, confirmed annotation abuser.

By Lambert V., The Awesomer – August 19, 2012 at 12:00PM

DAYUM DAYUM DAAAAYUM! The Gregory Brothers’ latest hit is a remix of YouTuber Daym Drops’ glowing and hilariously passionate review of Five Guys Burger and Fries. Available on iTunes.

• Hat Tip
• Link

More Awesome Stuff for You to Click On:

Charlie Sheen: Winning Song
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By The Awesomer, The Awesomer – August 19, 2012 at 11:00AM

The idea of an electronic device that stops bug bites from itching seems implausible, the Therapik actually works, using heat to “deactivate” the venom of numerous insects and sea creatures.

• Hat Tip
• Link
• Price: $13

More Awesome Stuff for You to Click On:

Shark Bite Oven Mitt
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