Accused Fraudster Strapped His Ankle Bracelet to a Robot
“Contraption” might be a better word that “robot.”
Technology
Where Not to Write the Password for Your Fancy Data-Mining Software
How about on a whiteboard that you're planning to stand in front of while being interviewed by CNN? The LAPD is keeping tabs on drivers with automatic license-plate readers, and keeping all the information on citizens' movements (among other things)…
Supreme Court: Want to Search a Cellphone? “Get a Warrant.”
Something seems very wrong here, because the report is that the Supreme Court has unanimously held in Riley v. California (NYT, SCOTUSblog, opinion) that the police need to get a warrant before rummaging through the cellphone of someone they've arrested. Have…
FAA Nixes Beer Delivery by Drone
With everything this country is using drones for, they crack down on beer delivery. The video below is a commercial for Lakemaid Beer, brewed in Minnesota, and it shows a small drone being used to deliver a 12-pack of beer…
Coders, Know Your Rights
That's the title of a seminar being offered at MIT on Jan. 22, according to this announcement I saw on Twitter. It sounds really interesting, but I also wanted to mention it here because of the awesome graphic (by Libby…
U.S. Pat. No. 35,600: The Plow Cannon
This might be where the term "Yankee ingenuity" came from, although if it was, somebody was being sarcastic: Two New Yorkers invented this and had it patented in 1862. At the time, the battles of First Bull Run and Shiloh…
2013 Ig Nobel Prizes Announced
The 2013 Ig Nobel Prizes were given out last night at Harvard University, and the winners were outstanding as always. At first glance, only a couple of them look relevant to the law, but you never know, and besides any…
Google Might Need to Re-Scan Plato’s Laws [Updated]
I thought Google used fancy machines to scan all those books, but based on this image I came across while doing some research, maybe not: If somebody is actually turning all those pages by hand, I hope he has an…
The Blonsky Device
I'm a big fan of the Improbable Research group and the Ig Nobel Prizes they give out every year. Usually the achievements they recognize are scientific, but if there is any connection at all with the legal field I am always happy to…
What? I Said “Trust NASA.” What Did You Think I Said?
Surely this was just a typo: When this is actually what was going on: Based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, the Post reports that the NSA, to which the President seemed to be referring last week, has in fact "broken…