ZeroMQ — bold claim of “Fastest. Messaging. Ever.” LGPL, C++ with bindings for many languages, past version 2 already. (via edd on Twitter)
Prediction Market News (David Pennock) — HSX is going to be a real marketplace with real $. The real HSX will of course say goodbye to the virtual specialist and the opening weekend adjust, two facets of the game that make it fun to play, but that create significant amounts of (virtual) wealth out of thin air. The Cantor Gaming group is engaged in other interesting initiatives. They are taking over a sportsbook in Las Vegas and turning it into more of a derivatives exchange with live in-game betting, a step toward my dream of a geek-friendly casino. Interestingly, another company called Veriana Networks is close to launching a competing Hollywood derivatives market called the Trend Exchange.
A Pivot Visualization of my WordPress Blog (Jon Udell) — using pro-am data exploration tools from Microsoft (Pivot) to work with information from his blog. Contains the scripts he used to do it.
Select Committee Report on Patents Bill (PDF) — New Zealand Government select committee recommends no software patents in NZ. We recommend amending clause 15 to include computer programs among inventions that may not be patented. We received many submissions concerning the patentability of computer programs. Under the Patents Act 1953 computer programs can be patented in New Zealand provided they produce a commercially useful effect [footnote: Under the Patents Act 1953 mathematical algorithms as such are not patentable. They may be patented under the Patents Act when used in a computer, so long as they produce a commercially useful effect.] Open source, or free, software has grown in popularity since the 1980s Protecting software by patenting it is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no “inventive step” in software development, as “new” software invariably builds on existing software. They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position.
