A Chinese online game player who stabbed a competitor to death for selling his cyber-sword has been given a suspended death sentence, which in effect means life imprisonment.

The case had created a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons.

Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold Chengwei’s “dragon sabre”, used in the popular online game, “Legend of Mir 3“, the China Daily said on Wednesday.

Qiu and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan ($870), the newspaper said.

Qui went to the police to report the “theft” but was told the weapon was not real property protected by law.

The court was told: “Zhu promised to hand over the cash but an angry Qui lost patience and attacked Zhu at his home, stabbing him in the left chest with great force and killing him.”

Source: Silocon.com

Yahoo has quietly updated its Instant Messenger software to be fully compatible with Firefox, almost three months after it pledged to do so. Yahoo introduced avatars to its Messenger service in April 2004, when it completely revamped the service to include more graphics and animation. However, users could only customize their avatars using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.

Source: News.com

The U.S. patent system will undergo its most substantial overhaul in decades if a bill introduced on Wednesday becomes law.

Rep. Lamar Smith, who heads the House of Representatives committee responsible for drafting patent law, said his proposal would improve the overall quality of patents and target some of the legal practices that have irked high-tech companies.

Probably the most sweeping change would be the creation of a process to challenge patents after they are granted by the Patent and Trademark Office. “Opposition requests” can be filed up to nine months after a patent is awarded or six months after a legal notice alleging infringement is sent out.

Another major change would be to award a patent to the first person to submit their paperwork to the Patent Office. Currently, patents are awarded to the first person who concocted the invention, a timeframe that can be difficult to prove.

Source: News.com

Google plans to use trucks equipped with lasers and digital photographic equipment to create a realistic 3D online version of San Francisco, and eventually other major US cities.

The trucks would drive along every San Francisco street using the lasers to measure the dimensions of buildings, to create a 3D framework onto which digital photos can be mapped. This would complement the mostly top-down view of San Francisco available through Google’s Keyhole satellite photo application.

The goal is to create similar 3D online versions of other cities in the US and overseas.

Source: SiliconValleyWatcher

Keeping up in the heated race to build the best video search engine, America Online has signed 10 new content partners, including parent-company property CNN.

AOL’s audio and video search engine Singingfish inked partnerships to include searchable video feeds from Atom-Films, CBSNews.com, Hollywood.com, Like Television, ManiaTV.com, MarketWatch and The One Network, among others.

Source: ZDNet