3D-printed legs for amputees, courtesy GMSV

Thursday, May 3, 2012

3D-printed legs for amputees, courtesy GMSV

QUOTED
"We just did three other legs for three guys in Germany, all to reflect their very distinct personalities."
— Scott Summit, co-founder of Bespoke Innovations in San Francisco, talks about creating 3D-printed legs for amputees. The dishwasher-safe artificial gams from Bespoke cost about a tenth of traditional prosthetics, which can run about $60,000 to $75,000, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, and can be more fashionable and unique. Talking about a leg for another guy, Summit said, "we are designing a Porsche 911 aesthetic for him. It's a really classic design with clean lines and timeless detailing." In a separate article recently, Ashlee Vance reported that one estimate for the worth of the 3D-printing industry today is $1.7 billion, with a prediction that in three years it will be worth $3.7 billion. As GMSV mentioned earlier this year, another body part that has been created using a 3D printer: a replacement jaw.
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SiliconValley.com <e-news@newsletters.siliconvalley.com>
Date: Thu, May 3, 2012 at 12:05 PM
Subject: Good Morning Silicon Valley: Copyright decisions: on APIs, and blocking The Pirate Bay; earnings peeks; more
To: Connie ODell <odellconnie@gmail.com>

Good Morning Silicon Valley

Decisions, decisions: EU rules APIs can't be copyrighted; the U.K.'s Pirate Bay block party

By Levi Sumagaysay

A couple of copyright-related developments in Europe could have wide-reaching implications:
• In a decision in the "the European software copyright case of the century," the European Union's highest court ruled Wednesday that software APIs (application programming interfaces) can't be copyrighted. The ruling is a defeat for American company SAS Institute, which claimed that England-based World Programming Ltd. infringed on its copyrights when it developed a program that built upon the functionality of SAS scripts, according to Wired, which says there's no proof WPL had access to SAS's source code. Software functionality isn't subject to copyright, the court said.
Those who are following the San Francisco court battle between Oracle and Google over Android's use of Java know that this is a key question in the case. Oracle contends Google infringed on Java API copyrights. As the Mercury News' Brandon Bailey has reported, Google argues that "APIs are simply building blocks that are comparable to letters or words in a language." The jury has been deliberating the copyright phase of the trial since Monday in a case that's being closely watched by the software industry. Timothy Lee of Ars Technica writes: "After Wednesday's ruling, European software users enjoy broader rights to clone software than do users on this side of the pond."
• Meanwhile, after the British high court on Monday ordered Internet service providers to block The Pirate Bay because it was found to have flouted copyright laws, Virgin Media has begun to comply. The action by Virgin Media, the No. 2 ISP in the U.K., affects about 4 million subscribers, according to the Telegraph. Four other major U.K. ISPs were ordered to do the same and are expected to follow suit in coming weeks — a victory for the music industry, which requested the blocking, the Guardian says.
The Pirate Bay is a Sweden-based file-sharing entity that has been around for nine years and has more than 5.5 million registered users, according to a check of its site today. It calls itself "the galaxy's most resilient BitTorrent site" and has become symbolic of the fight against anti-piracy measures that some find to be too heavy-handed. It has been credited with inspiring the rise of the Pirate movement in Europe, political parties that started off with copyright-reform-related concerns that have grown to include other political issues. But the anti-piracy forces are resilient, too, so the Pirate Bay's legal obstacles continue to pile up. Earlier this year, it was blocked by Dutch ISPs after a court order in that nation. In February, Sweden's highest court upheld the convictions of four men who ran the Pirate Bay. (See Anti-piracy 'storm' still raging: The Pirate Bay defiant after convictions upheld.) Still, an anonymous Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak that news of the British ISP blocking order has boosted traffic to the site.

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QUOTED

"We just did three other legs for three guys in Germany, all to reflect their very distinct personalities."
— Scott Summit, co-founder of Bespoke Innovations in San Francisco, talks about creating 3D-printed legs for amputees. The dishwasher-safe artificial gams from Bespoke cost about a tenth of traditional prosthetics, which can run about $60,000 to $75,000, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, and can be more fashionable and unique. Talking about a leg for another guy, Summit said, "we are designing a Porsche 911 aesthetic for him. It's a really classic design with clean lines and timeless detailing." In a separate article recently, Ashlee Vance reported that one estimate for the worth of the 3D-printing industry today is $1.7 billion, with a prediction that in three years it will be worth $3.7 billion. As GMSV mentioned earlier this year, another body part that has been created using a 3D printer: a replacement jaw.
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Pre/post earnings: LinkedIn, SunPower, Yelp:
• LinkedIn shares are up slightly, about 0.5 percent to $106.97 as of this post, amid a down day for many other tech stocks and ahead of its earnings announcement Thursday afternoon. Analysts expect the Mountain View-based professional social network to post first-quarter adjusted earnings of 9 cents a share on $179 million in revenue. In February, the company wowed investors by reporting that its fourth-quarter revenue doubled.
• SunPower, the San Jose-based solar-technology company that's majority owned by French oil giant Total, is also seeing its shares trading higher ahead of its expected earnings report. Shares are up nearly 0.75 percent to $5.70 as of this post. SunPower is expected to report a loss of 15 cents a share on $525 million in revenue amid what Dow Jones Newswires calls a tough first quarter for solar companies. Since reporting a loss but issuing a bright outlook in the previous quarter, SunPower has changed CFOs, and announced that it had landed a plum contract to supply solar panels for Apple's data center in North Carolina.
• Meanwhile, Yelp is seeing a sell-off the day after reporting a wider first-quarter loss despite increased revenue. The San Francisco-based online-reviews site's shares are down almost 9 percent to $21.20 as of this post. Yelp reported increased spending on marketing, additional employees and international expansion.
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Off topic: Ad life, lunch breaks, plastic-surgery spending, rating 'Law & Order': Examining the "emotions of life in advertising" through animated GIFs, a Tumblr. (via Good) In Minneapolis schools, 11 minutes for lunch; at workplaces in Sweden, dancing during lunch breaks. U.S. spending on plastic surgery, an infographic. And a former federal prosecutor who is now a novelist blogs about episodes of "Law & Order: SVU." (via Boing Boing)

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Send re-invented Bic pens to lsumagaysay@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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