Red Hat demands software patents ban

Open source software firm Red Hat has called on the US Supreme Court to ban software patents, says Computing.co.uk.

The company said in a legal filing (PDF) this week that the practice of registering software patents stifles the industry and leaves developers open to exploitation.

The papers were filed in the Bilski case, which involves the patenting of a business process, but Red Hat believes the case shares many similarities with software patents.

The Mozilla Foundation has unveiled an early version of its Firefox browser that it says could virtually eliminate one of the most common attack forms now menacing the Web, reports The Register.

It implements an inchoate technology the foundation calls CSP, short for the Content Security Policy specification. It allows Web developers to embed a series of HTML headers into their sites that by default block some of the most abused features from being offered.

Newer versions of Firefox, and other browsers, if they adopt the standard, would then enforce those policies across the site's entire domain.

Robots that mimic the behaviour of fish have been developed by Japanese car firm Nissan, which believes the technique can be used in crash avoidance systems, says The BBC.

The tiny robots, called Eporo, can move in a fleet without bumping into their travelling companions.

It is the second time the firm has looked to the animal kingdom for inspiration for its designs.

According to research by Brian Solis, sourcing his data from Google's Ad Planner, the majority of functioning beings on almost all social networking sites are women, reports CNet.

Published on Information is Beautiful, the numbers might create an encouraging belief that if social networking is the future, then the future is female.

Solis's figures suggest there is only one major social networking site that is predominantly male: Diggm, which appears to be 64% male.