Social media’s social activist moment is officially here. Votereport.com is using Twitter and special applications for the iPhone and Android cell phones, to monitor polling conditions, voting wait times, voter registration problems, and voting machine dysfunction in the US presidential election.

Anyone with a Twitter account, or with an iPhone or Android phone, can participate:

http://twittervotereport.com/spread-the-word/

RDR Books, based in Muskegon, Michigan, won’t be publishing Steven Vander Ark’s much-anticipated “Harry Potter Lexicon.” Not any time soon, and not any time. A US District Court judge in Manhattan has issued a permanent injunction against publication of the work, finding that it infringes copyrights in the popular Harry Potter series of [...]

You can download a copy of the judge’s Opinion and Order in Warner Brothers Entertainment and J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books here at Arborlaw (PDF).
Many thanks to Dineen Pashoukos Wasylik for pulling this down off PACER.

New snooping device can snarf phone numbers, data, call logs and text messages off Motorola and Samsung phones
Think twice before leaving your Motorola or Samsung cell phone on the table in a public place, or in the pocket of your coat. Or leaving your cell phone anywhere, for that matter.
CNet News reported yesterday that [...]

I couldn’t resist picking up this little gem from the excellent blog Staring at Strangers by Jennifer J. Rose and David Leffler (thanks David for correcting me!):
Lynne G. Beresford, commissioner for trademarks in the Patent and Trademark Office, stated that 85% of the trademark office’s 390 examining attorneys work primarily from home.
To my mind, this [...]

Google is threatening to do to venture capital funding what it has done to the search, browser, applications software, advertising and publishing worlds: turn the status quo upside down. The company has been quietly making relatively small investments in the $500K range in promising technology startups since 2Q 2007 — and then typically buys [...]

Business owners who are behind in paying their taxes to the IRS are going to pony up more dough.
The IRS raised the interest rate on taxes past due to 6% for balances existing or beginning in the third quarter of 2008. That’s an interest rate increase of a full point (and reflects the fact [...]

Target has settled for $6M with the National Federation of the Blind in defense of its class-action lawsuit over accessibility of the Target website and web site design to blind users. The court settlement requires that blind guests using screen-reader software on Target.com must be able to “acquire the same information and engage in [...]

How did he know I was working on one of these today??

Tip o’ the hat to the (new) legal writer which appears to be a completely fabulous water cooler for contract nerds to gather at.