Morning Media Summary

Tech:

Apple Sues Amazon Over App Store Trademark:

“Apple Inc has sued Amazon.com Inc in a bid to stop the online retailer from improperly using Apple’s APP STORE trademark, according to a court filing.”

Google Spends $1 Million on censorship and throttling detection:
“Google has awarded $1 million to Georgia Tech researchers so that they can develop simple tools to detect Internet throttling, government censorship, and other “transparency” problems.”

Google Releases open source Bitcoin client:
“A Google engineer has released an open source Java client for the Bitcoin peer-to-peer currency system, simply called BitcoinJ.”

Linus Torvalds: Android copyright violation claim is “bogus”:
“Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds has said new claims that Android violates the Linux license are “totally bogus.” ”

NASA Building Network of Smart Cameras Across the US:
“A major government agency is looking to blanket the US with cameras that will never stop their surveillance. But don’t worry privacy pundits, those cameras will be spying on the sky, not civilians. NASA’s All-sky Fireball Network is a series of cameras that track meteorites as they enter the atmosphere.”

Cutting prices is the only way to stop piracy:
“The Media Piracy Project, published last week by the Social Science Research Council, reports that illegal copying of movies, music, video games and software is “better described as a global pricing problem” – and the only way to tackle it is for copyright holders to charge consumers less money for their wares.”

NYC Judge Calls Off Plans For Google Library:
“A judge rejected a deal between Google and the book industry Tuesday that would have put millions of volumes online, citing anti-trust concerns while acknowledging the potential benefit of putting literature in front of the masses.”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

Top Oil Rig Suppliers to Obama: Your Response to the Gulf Oil Spill Is Unreasonable, Unwarranted, Unfair & Unlawful (Video):
“They’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore…”

Insurance / Gambling:

Capital News: Betting gaming parlors will find ways to skirt law:
“Attorney General Mike DeWine called last week for increased state oversight of so-called skill-based and sweepstakes amusement games.”

Health / Safety:

FDA halts food imports from affected area of Japan:
“The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it will halt imports of dairy products and produce from the area of Japan where a nuclear reactor is leaking radiation.”

Economics:

Americans losing confidence in government debt:

“The wisest and most successful bond investor of all time, Bill Gross, has dumped his bond fund’s $150 billion investment in U.S. bonds. One should not ignore the importance of this event. The largest bond fund in America no longer believes that Treasury bonds are a good investment. Moreover, Gross is not alone. Blackrock, the world’s largest money manager, is now underweighting Treasuries overall and reducing the duration of the bonds it still holds. That means they are dumping their long-term bonds, which are the most sensitive to interest-rate changes, in favor of Treasury instruments that mature in a year or less.”

Legal:

Woman suing Carnival: Ship sailed too fast, made me sick:
“An Indiana Court of Appeals this week took up the case of a woman who claims she got sick on a Carnival cruise ship because it was going too fast.”

NCAA, Homeland Security partner in planning a safe Final Four:
“Fans attending this year’s March Madness games will be greeted by a video of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and NCAA President Mark Emmert encouraging them to “say something” if they see suspicious activities.”

Labor:

Union floats budget proposal:
“Oregon state government needs to slash its management ranks and curtail its contracting out of services and instead use public employees to do the work, one of the state’s largest public employee unions urged on Tuesday. Plus, the state needs to eliminate or scale back some tax breaks, especially for wealthy people, the union urged.”

Sherrod Brown: Card Check Is Dead:
Former SEIU official demanded action to destabilize banking system, overthrow capital:
“The Blaze and Business Insider bring us a rather remarkable speech from former SEIU executive Stephen Lerner from last weekend, describing how to make unions relevant again and bring back stability to the American economy. Apparently, Lerner comes from the “you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” school of economics, because Lerner’s ideas of bringing stability seem to be taken from the ending of Fight Club. The Blaze has the pertinent clip and the longer, full audio, while BI provides the transcript:”

Violence warning as unions plan mass march:
“The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said more than 100,000 people are expected at the march on Saturday to protest at deep government spending cuts and tax rises.”

Transportation/ Land Use:

NH committee approves eminent domain bill:
“A New Hampshire House Committee has recommended passing a bill that would slow down a project to carry hydroelectric power from Canada to southern New England.”

Republicans to Perdue: Give high speed rail money back:
“Balking at the enormous price tag of investing in high speed rail, several Republicans at the North Carolina State House have introduced a bill to try to force Gov. Bev Perdue to return more than a half billion dollars in federal money meant for the project.”