38 civil liberties groups from around Europe have combined to form a new coalition to oppose the proposed EU intellectual property enforcement directive. "The groups argue that the proposed IP Enforcement Directive, is a "DMCA on steroids" that would hand broad anti-competitive powers to large foreign companies, limit competition, and erode the traditional rights of consumers to use the products they purchase as they see fit." It includes the UK's Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).

Microsoft have been fined $520 million for patent infringement after a jury concluded they stepped on Eolas Technologies and University of California patents.

Aaron Swartz paints Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway) in a new light for me. "All you technologists get an A+ for doing great things but a D- for being socially responsible...Your technology isn’t going to do what you think it will. Answering machines were supposed to make sure we can talk to everyone, but now we use them to screen calls. Cell phones were supposed to connect us to everyone, but instead they separate us from the people in the same room. We won’t solve the digital divide with more technology. The most important thing we can invent is inventors. If we keep having more people with less resources the world is going to be an ugly place." Nicely said. A man with a mission and let's hope he has some success. This short superhero feature on Kamen focussed me, for the first time really, on his social conscience, whereas I've primarily always thought of Kamen as a passionate technology advocate.

CSAPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) are launching a boycott Gillette campaign because Gillette (or, more accurately, their retailers) are using RFID tags in their products to surreptitiously take photographs of shoppers. Tescos are running a trial at their Cambridge store, which the Guardian headined as Tesco tests spy chip technology.

USA Today report on the mass deployment of webcams throughout schools in the Biloxi district of Mississippi. "So far, Biloxi is the only school district in the nation to install Webcams in every classroom -- nearly 500 so far." This is allegedly for security. No comment