Approved in 1996, not 2996.

CSIRO is a government-funded research organisation, it is not a patent troll.

Way back in 1993 when the first development of WiFi was taking place, CSIRO agreed to have the technologies ratified into IEEE standards on the condition they were paid a small royalty for the technology. So their patent was applied for around this time and approved in 2996. Fast forward a few years and WiFi products are now manufactured by all the big names in the tech. industry, and the CSIRO is left without any royalties.

They have been quietly requesting payment since this time, but were ignored or taken advantage of by whatever legal loopholes the American patent law system has. Anyway, in 2005 they decided to proceed with legal action against the companies in question. This decision was not taken lightly as, being primarily a research organisation funded with Australian taxpayers money, the potential problems for using Australian tax dollars to fund a legal case that many people would not understand were obvious. Not only that, but while funding was being diverted to lawyers, it was being diverted away from the CSIROs primary function: research.

More in the news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/02/2533416.htm

The definition of a patent troll is a company who patents pretty much anything they can think of; waiting for some large company to use the idea in their products, then popping up out of nowhere and saying "Hey! We own that idea! Pay up." This is not the course of action that the CSIRO has been taking, and even more so, they are a legitimate research organisation and not a company that exists purely to troll for patent infrigment revenue.

This is hilarious.

Why not install any of the Linux/BSD/Solaris based server operating systems for FREE and have UNLIMITED USERS?

Oh good. More artificially-restricted software for the sake of creating arbitrary price boundaries.

No thanks Microsoft, I'll stick with XP and Linux, thanks.

When improperly configured, the touchpad on my Dell XPSM1330 allows me to move the cursor with my finger up to 1cm above it -- what's the big deal here?

Unless of course this is a very first, very small step towards finger/hand gesture-based computer control.

Wrong.

Opera is a great, free browser. But there are many people who don't use it (myself included) because it is closed source. The idealism behind the open-source community is powerful, and although not present in the majority, it still exists.

That's not even addressing the fact that Microsoft would not be what it is today if Windows was "free".

I'm all about Tabards of Flame.

The N95 is great, until you run out of battery power an hour after you've turned it on.

You can't compare this car to the Veyron. This car isn't a luxury GT like the Veyron.

It's more like a rollcage with advanced aerodynamics and a huge powerful engine -- certainly a marvel of engineering, but not comparable to the Veyron.

You know they have corners in racetracks in Europe.

I think that's why they have so much trouble sourcing American drivers.