geekosystem

A regional parliament in Germany has officially eliminated the need for among the longest word in the German language -- Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, a 63-letter monstrosity pertaining to the the testing and labeling of beef.

Germany is a country that takes its privacy very seriously. Google has had a number of problems with German privacy laws in the past, which is why it's surprising to see that the country's national rail system is considering using surveillance drones to stop people from vandalizing railway stations. When I say, "stop people," they'll just be gathering evidence as a preventative measure, not firing missiles at vandals or anything like that. At least not yet.

While no one was paying attention, someone in Germany pulled off what is clearly the heist of the century, and maybe the finest and most worthwhile criminal act of all time -- sorry, Great Train Robbery. This weekend saw thieves in the town of Bad Hersfeld make off with a parked trailer containing five and a half tons of delicious, creamy, chocolatey Nutella.

In December of last year, Google Maps was facing scrutiny in Germany for potentially violating European Union privacy laws. Things haven't gotten easier for Google in that country, because now Google Maps faces a complete ban in Germany due to a patent dispute with Microsoft. If Microsoft wins the ruling, Google will have to take some pretty extreme measures to keep Google Maps out of Germany. Hope you didn't want to find your away Germany, everybody. It's about to get a little more difficult for you, or more expensive for Google.

Solar power is one of those divisive political issues that stereotypical Republicans hate and stereotypical Democrats love. Alternative energy in general falls pretty strictly down party lines, but solar power tends to receive the most flak. Government subsidies and the like are constantly talked about for one reason or another. Germany's producing a whole mess of solar energy, on the other and, and Fox & Friends apparently seems to think that it's because "they've got more sun than we do." One guess as to how accurate that statement is.

Do you want to get a glimpse of the life that dominated Earth during prehistoric times without being menaced by hyper-intelligent raptors? A German cold spring with a unique environment can offer you a look back into our planet's past, to a time when simple life forms known as archaea made the rules. Granted, it's not exactly Jurassic Park.  You'll need a high powered microscope just to see these prehistoric creatures, and they're not exactly as exciting to watch as a triceratops. Then again, they're also not going to try to murder and eat you, proving once again that life is a series of compromises leading inexorably to bitter disappointment. As if there were any doubt.

Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit like cold hard science. That's why the news that German scientists are planning to clone the perfect Christmas tree has me feeling so festive. The plan is to increase the percentage of saplings that grow to mature Christmas trees of a popular species. This should make the tree selection process a lot simpler, since they'll all be pretty much identical.

Pirates that also happen to be children might have just been given a free pass. After a 2007 case saw the parents of a then 13-year-old pirate get stuck with a bill of 5,380 euros for lack of parental supervision, the duo appealed on the grounds that they had told their son it was illegal. They argued that, by informing, they'd met their parental obligations. Yesterday, Germany's Federal court agreed and dismissed the case entirely.

Twitter's not often one to involve themselves in somewhat controversial actions. Twitter users, sure, but not the company itself. This is why their announcement back in January that they now could effectively censor tweets that break local speech laws was seen as an issue. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, dissenters said, and this kind of prohibitive action would make future social uprisings far more difficult. Yesterday, Twitter officially used this power for the very first time to censor the tweets of a group called Besseres Hannover from appearing in Germany.

We can all agree that, at times, the incessant clicking of keyboards can be a noise issue. If you're in the library, and folks are elaborately typing away to either side of you, it's certainly a situation worthy of a sigh or two. This is also how the German parliament feels, as they're now wanting to officially ban laptops from their meetings. In protest of this proposed action, Patrick Breyer and Torge Schmidt apparently showed up to today's meeting with a typewriter.

How did all of my polar bears get herpes? It's an uncomfortable question that we've all been forced to ask ourselves at one point or another. At least, all of us who are zookeepers at Germany's Wuppertal Zoo, where no less than 10 polar bears came down with the virus in 2010. Still -- awkward, right? The good news is this: there is probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for how this happened, and chances are it involves no weird cross-species makeout sessions. The bad news? Nobody knows what that answer is. Right now, it's just a story of bizarre new strains of herpes virus and a dead polar bear, which we can all agree is super-sad.

Last September, the kid pictured above appeared in Berlin, Germany and asked for help at City Hall. He said that his name was Ray, that he had no memory, and that he had lived in some woods for five years. German police are now releasing his picture hoping to find anyone who may recognize the young man. More importantly, does anyone remember the story of Kaspar Hauser?

There's some potentially bad news for Microsoft in Germany; the Mannheim Regional Court has awarded Motorola an injunction that could effectively block all sales of Windows 7 and the Xbox 360 in Germany. The whole case revolves around a pair of patents that Motorola Mobility holds, concerning "adaptive motion compensation" and "adaptive compression of digital video data." The court found that Microsoft's Media Player, Internet Explorer, and Xbox 360 all infringe on the patents held by Motorola, and the resulting injunction blocks the distribution of the infringing products and allows Motorola -- in theory -- to order the destruction of all physical copies of Windows 7 and any Xbox 360s currently for sale in the country. Whether or not the injunction will actually be enforced, however, is another point of contention entirely.

YouTube hasn't been having a good month. First, Viacom's billion dollar lawsuit against the company was raised from the dead and allowed to proceed, and now a German court has ruled that YouTube is solely responsible for the content uploaded by their users. By extension, YouTube can and will probably be held responsible for paying back royalties on infringing content. It might not be a billion bucks, but it's still likely to be a hefty fee.

Opening a new chapter in the series of lawsuits between Apple and just about everyone else in the consumer electronics industry, the German courts have awarded Motorola Mobility with an injunction that could prevent Apple from selling products within the country. This is a surprising turn for Apple's fortunes, as the company had won a similar injunction against Samsung in August. As is the case with most legal proceedings, the situation is far more complicated than it first appears.