News just arrived of the passing of the actor Leonard Nimoy (Photo ©Kelly Walker).He’d been suffering for some time from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a chronic disease that restricts the flow of air into the lungs. In this case, the disease had reached its final stage and a few days ago Nimoy was rushed to the hospital for severe chest pains.
Yesterday, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has approved the new version of Net Neutrality. The result is that now in the USA Internet connections, including mobile ones, are seen as a public utility, such as electricity and water. The new rules, approved by a 3-2 majority, have the purpose of preventing the emergence of a double speed Internet. Internet service providers can’t block or even selectively slow down traffic and web applications to those who don’t pay.
The short story “Whole Truth Witness” by Kenneth Schneyer was published for the first time in 2010.
Manuel “Manny” Suarez is a lawyer who’s having big problems to defend his clients. The new nanotechnology led to the development a way to allow witnesses in a court of law to recall events in a perfect way and at the same time prevents them from lying. However, a good lawyer is always able to adapt to new situations and invent new tricks.
Kenneth Schneyer had very diverse work experiences. He was also the lawyer so he knows the environment described in “Whole Truth Witness” from personal experience. In this short story, the author imagines that the developments of nanotechnology will also influence that field.
The story of Lenovo computers with the Superfish adware preinstalled that causes a huge security hole started having legal consequences too. The first report arrived about a class-action filed in federal court against both Lenovo and Superfish, the company that produced the adware.
Her name is Jessica Bennett and she’s the owner of a Lenovo Yoga 2 PC, one of the models that were sold for a few weeks with the Superfish adware preinstalled. The plaintiff said that she noticed spam advertising with scantily clad women on her laptop. Initially she thought she suffered a hacking but searching on the Internet she found out that other people noticed something similar on other Lenovo laptops.
After discovering that her problem was due to a Superfish adware, Jessica Bennett decided to sue both Lenovo and Superfish. The allegations are that they compromised her PC’s security but also of invasion of privacy for financial gain.
The novel “The Book of Souls” by James Oswald was published for the first time in 2013. It’s the second novel in the Tony McLean series and is the sequel to “Natural Causes”.
Inspector Tony McLean has never totally recovered from the murder of his fiancee. When her murderer Donald Anderson is killed in prison, McLean feels very few emotions even if he goes to see his burial to make sure he’s really dead.
Years have passed since the murder but suddenly in Edinburgh someone finds the body of a woman killed following the same modus operandi of Anderson. How is that possible? For McLean that’s an old wound that gets reopened and the worst thing is that someone insinuates that Anderson wasn’t the murderer. McLean and his colleagues have to find the perpetrator but what does an old book have to do with the crimes?
