09/08, 8:20pm
Senate clears America Invents Act
The US Senate passed in an 89 to 9 vote a bill originally put through Congress that could theoretically curb patent troll lawsuits. It will let the USPTO get more control over its fees and reduce the instances of its budget being diverted somewhere else. The bi-partisan vote was made with the hope of recruiting more examiners and modernizing equipment, both to speed up the process and to prevent overly broad patents from slipping through and being used to sue for dubious reasons.
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05/21, 4:40pm
Ionic wind for PC cooling
In the quest to make notebook computers lighter and quieter, researchers are developing new ways of cooling the microprocessors that power these devices. San Jose, CA-based chip-packaging company Tessera has recently demonstrated a new ionic-cooling system that was integrated into a fully functional notebook. Together with researchers at the University of Washington, Tessera believes it would provide 30 percent cooling compared to a traditional fan while consuming half as much power. It would additionally eliminate moving parts and thereby offer quiet operation.
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