harvard

The lengthy legal fight between social-networking scion Facebook and onetime rival ConnectU isn't over yet. New developments in the dispute on Wednesday probed deeper into the question of exactly what happened in 2004, when both sites were early-stage start-ups run essentially out of Harvard University dorm rooms.

The best-known component of the court drama has been ConnectU's allegation that Zuckerberg pilfered the former's business plan while he was a student at Harvard with ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (they're twins) and Divya Narendra. In a San Jose, Calif., courtroom on Wednesday, however, the conversation turned … Read more

There's nothing like nerd humor to keep the world's problems in perspective.

Harvard University once again played host to the Ig Nobel awards given out by the "Annals of Improbable Research," a parody of the Nobel prizes awarding people for scientific inventions that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."

This year's Ig Nobel peace prize brought new meaning to the phrase "make love, not war."

It went to the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. The group invented a chemical weapon, nicknamed the "gay bomb," … Read more

The New York Observer reported Monday that Greg Atwan and Evan Lushing, two recent Harvard graduates living in New York, have reportedly earned a five-figure book deal for a satirical take on social-networking phenomenon Facebook. The book pitch, called The Facebook Book, sold to Harry N. Abrams, Inc. for somewhere around $50,000, according to The Observer.

Facebook famously started in a Harvard dorm in 2004, with founder (and eventual dropout) Mark Zuckerberg and several friends creating the social network as an alternative to the school's physical "facebook" with photographs and contact information for the student body.… Read more

It goes without saying that in addition to a stellar reputation for academic innovation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology is renowned for its geeky pranks. The best-known of these was perhaps the time when students decorated the campus' Great Dome to look like Star Wars robot R2D2 in celebration of the legendary film series' first prequel in 1999.

But Star Wars prequels are so last decade. These days, it's all about the much-hyped Xbox 360 title Halo 3. And why prank your own campus when you can pull a fast one on those snotty Crimsons next door?

Consequently, MIT pranksters … Read more

Leave it to Harvard to replace spies with flies.

According to the MIT Technology Review, robotic insects may be the future of military surveillance.

With funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a team of Harvard researchers led by Robert Wood have developed a robotic fly that could be used for surveillance and chemical-detecting missions.

Videos of the fly taking off and a slow-motion clip of the wing mechanics are available on the Technology Review site.

With a wingspan of 3 centimeters and a scant weight of just 60 milligrams, the fly's tiny robotic parts are … Read more

BOSTON--The judge's message Wednesday to ConnectU over its intellectual property lawsuit against fellow social-networking site Facebook was clear: show us the evidence.

ConnectU, which accuses Facebook of stealing its ideas, has been in legal pursuit of its rival, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and early employees Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes for nearly three years, and there still isn't an end in sight.

Massachusetts Federal Judge Douglas P. Woodlock repeatedly stressed that there was simply not enough evidence to back up allegations that Zuckerberg, who had performed programming work for ConnectU while it … Read more

BOSTON--A federal judge in a Massachusetts district court gave the founders of college-based social networking site ConnectU two weeks to revise the complaint that they have filed against Facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and four other early employees of the fast-growing social network. The ConnectU founders, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their fellow 2004 Harvard graduating classmate Divya Narendra, have accused Zuckerberg and his company of stealing their code and business plan when Zuckerberg was casually employed as a programmer for ConnectU in the 2003-2004 academic year.

Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, during the case's dismissal hearing on Wednesday … Read more

Electronic records hold the potential to improve medical care by flagging problems such as drugs that shouldn't be combined, but a study by Stanford and Harvard medical school researchers has concluded that so far they haven't improved the quality of outpatient health care.

The researchers studied a database of 1.8 billion doctor visits in 2003 and 2004 and examined performance on 17 indicators of quality. The results were mediocre, according to Stanford.

"In essence, we found little difference in the quality of care being provided by physicians with electronic health record systems, compared to those without … Read more