Freelancer.com acquires vWorker

After their recent acquisition of Scriptlance, Freelancer.com now also acquired vWorker (former Rent-a-Coder).

VWorker account holder received the following email:

Freelancer.com is proud to announce that we have just acquired vWorker, and we are delighted to welcome you to our vibrant freelancing marketplace. We have a suite of great features that will be of benefit to you, including our Rewards system and our great UI.

Our Rewards system is our way of recognising your professionalism and performance, and as you gain experience points, you will unlock unique benefits for your account, badges for your profile, and Freelancer.com credits. Basic, Standard and Premium members can then redeem these credits for rewards, including highlighted bids, a Freelancer T-shirt, and even a Skype session with the CEO!

Our UI is clean and intuitive. Gone are the days of tearing your hair out trying to manage a project. Freelancer.com streamlines and simplifies communication between employer and freelancer, taking the stress out of managing and working on projects.

Your vWorker account has been migrated into our marketplace. Included in this migration is your profile, balances, reputation, messages, existing and past projects, feedback, attachments and more. The migration of your feedback, attachments and past projects may take up to two weeks. During this time, your reputation may vary slightly - but after two weeks, it should very closely match the reputation you had on vWorker. We will also be giving you a unique vWorker Foundation Member badge!

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Wikipedia founder takes 'a lot of credit' for collapse of SOPA

At RSA Europe, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said the site's blackout played a key part in defeating the USA's controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The English version of Wikipedia, Reddit and hundreds of other smaller websites coordinated a notional service blackout for a day in mid-January to raise awareness of SOPA. Wales described SOPA as introducing a Chinese-style blocking system in response to complaints about copyright infringement. In response, Wales said, 10 million people contacted Congress (an unnamed senator told Wales) and the bill was pulled days later.

Jimmy Wales:

I am quite anti-piracy. This was a strike against bad legislation.

20% of online newspapers now have paywalls

More than one-fifth of U.S. newspapers now require a paying subscription for full digital access, twice the number that did a year ago.

That's according to News&Tech, whose growing list of newspapers with metered paywalls or some other form of digital subscription plan has surpassed 290. There are 1,387 daily newspapers in the U.S. as of 2009, says a Pew study published earlier this year.

Girl Gets Locked Up For Saying LOL on Facebook

One teen's misguided sense of humor earned her jail time when she posted a Facebook status update LOL-ing at the fact that she was cited for DUI.

Kentucky teenager Paula Asher had one too many that fateful night she decided to drive, and she sideswiped another car as a result. Though there were four people in the car hit, thankfully no one was hurt. Asher was cited by police for driving under the influence.

The 18-year-old laughed about driving drunk on her Facebook page after the fact, posting a status update reading,

"My dumbass got a DUI and hit a car LOL."

The judge presiding over Asher's case found little humor in a crime that results in, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 28 deaths each and every day. Asher was ordered to shut down her Facebook page as a result, and when she refused, the judge held her in contempt of court and had her thrown in jail for two days.

Asher's told her local NBC affiliate,

"I didn't think LOL would put me in jail."

Namecheap: 99 cent coupon

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Unitary patent brings back the software patents debate

The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament is preparing these days in view of the discussion on unitary patent on 17 and 18 September 2012. The issue of interest is whether these discussions will bring back the return of software patents as it seems to be the case, having in view the recent patent wars in the US (like that of Apple against Samsung). There is also the threat of letting companies monopolize the market thus preventing innovation and the introduction of new products.

Several groups, like April and FSFE, call for a general mobilisation to contact all MEPs, so that the European Parliament finally tackles the issue of the software patentability.

Gérald Sédrati-Dinet, April's patent advisor:

"Software patents are a real scourge for companies and software developers. They do not contribute to innovation whatsoever, but prevent us from developing new products while exposing us to ever increasing legal uncertainty."

Although European laws prohibit software patents, the European Patent Office (EPO) has been trying for years to legalize software patents and, under the new proposal to be discussed, the power and control on the law on patentability would be left to an organisation, without any democratic control or the opinion to go before an independent court.

Under the current proposal, the European Patent Office has the right to award a patent, but also takes the final decision on whether it remains valid when someone complains.