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Honoring the 2018 Pioneer Award Winners and John Perry Barlow EFF’s annual Pioneer Awards Ceremony recognizes extraordinary individuals for their commitment and leadership in extending freedom and innovation on the electronic frontier. At this year’s event held on September 27 in San Francisco, EFF rededicated the Pioneer Awards to EFF co-founder and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. Barlow’s commitment to online freedom was commemorated by dubbing the Pioneer Awards statuette the “Barlow.” EFF welcomed keynote speaker Daniel Ellsberg, known for his work in releasing the Pentagon papers, to help award the very first Barlows. This year’s honorees were fair use champion Stephanie Lenz, European Digital Rights leader Joe McNamee, and groundbreaking content moderation researcher Sarah T. Roberts. Read the transcript of the full 2018 Pioneer Awards Ceremony here . The evening kicked off with EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn who had the honor of renaming the Pioneer Award as ...

EFF Helps Launch Anti-SLAPP Task Force ‘Protect the Protest’ Aboard the Arctic Sunrise, a working icebreaker that has sailed to the Arctic Circle, the Congo, and the Amazon Rivers under Greenpeace’s stead, EFF joined several civil liberties and environmental rights groups to send a message: no longer will we be bullied by malicious lawsuits that threaten our freedom of speech. “We have the Constitution, we have our rights, and now, we have each other,” said Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard. On September 5, EFF helped launch Protect the Protest , a coalition of nearly 20 organizations committed to fighting back against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, also known as SLAPPs. The coalition includes EFF, ACLU, Greenpeace, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. (Left to right) Mother Jones CEO Monika Bauerlein, Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard, Rainforest Action Network director of communications Christo...

Stupid Patent of the Month: Bigger Screen Patent Highlights a Bigger Problem For more than three years now, we’ve been highlighting weak patents in our Stupid Patent of the Month series. Often we highlight stupid patents that have recently been asserted, or ones that show how the U.S. patent system is broken. This month, we’re using a pretty silly patent in the U.S. to highlight that stupid U.S. patents may soon—depending on the outcome of a current Supreme Court case—effectively become stupid patents for the entire world. Lenovo was granted  U.S. Patent No. 9,875,007  [PDF] this week. The patent, entitled “Devices and Methods to Receive Input at a First Device and Present Output in Response on a Second Device Different from the First Device,” relates to presenting materials on different screens. The first claim of the patent is relatively easy to read and understandable, for a patent. What Lenovo claims is: A first device, comprising: at least one processor; storag...

In recent months, augmented reality (AR) has gained much attention across both business and consumer marketplaces. Although AR technologies have been around for at least 15 years, mainstream adoption is a recent phenomenon within the manufacturing industry. New breakthroughs in the affordability and applicability of AR technology have accelerated the rate of adoption. Traditional AR installations involved expensive equipment, a complex rollout, and a high degree of technical expertise.  Now, a flood of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets combined with some innovative software engineering tools have made it possible for developers across industries to achieve affordable AR solutions. Manufacturing companies large and small find themselves in a position to capitalize on AR and to pursue new opportunities that significantly boost operational productivity and enhance competitiveness. What is augmented reality? Within the realm of industrial manufacturing, augmented realit...