DailyDirt: Diamonds Don't Just Look Pretty....

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Diamond is a fascinating material due to its extraordinary hardness (and other properties such refractive index, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and chemical inertness). Diamonds have also been historically difficult to synthesize in desired quantities. However, making artificial diamonds is becoming a practical process, so it's possible we'll see more and more products made from artificial diamond. Here are just a few interesting links on this awesome allotrope of carbon.

• Chemical impurities locked inside diamonds could help clarify some major geological processes. We don't know much about how the carbon cycle from the ocean floor mixed with the Earth's mantle, but superdeep diamonds could give us some clues. [url]
• About 4,000 contact lenses with embedded gold flakes and diamonds will be made available for sale in India. "Your optometrist must have been a thief because he stole some gold and diamonds and put them in your eyes..." [url]
• De Beers is investing in artificial diamond manufacturing for the semiconductor industry. In a few years, maybe marriage proposals will include microchips that are graded on their color, cut, clarity, etc... [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: allotrope, carbon, diamonds, semiconductor
Companies: de beers

De Beers About To Learn That The Streisand Effect Is Forever

from the let's-explain-how-this-works dept

It would appear that the lawyers at diamond conglomerate De Beers are unaware of the Streisand Effect. As you might have heard, a week after the US Presidential election, some prankster put out a spoofed version of a future New York Times. It got plenty of attention for a few days and then people moved on. Well, apparently not everyone. De Beers is upset that the online version of the spoof contained a fake De Beers ad. Rather than recognize that this was a spoof (ha ha) that everyone had pretty much forgotten about, the company had its lawyers send off a threat letter. However, rather than target the creators of the spoof, or even the hosting firm, De Beers threatened the registrar who handled the domain registration for the site, demanding that it take down the site or face a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Of course, as the EFF notes at the above link, intermediaries (third party service providers) are clearly well protected against liability for the actions of their users in the US. And, of course, there's the whole issue of parodies being protected from infringement suits. However, even more ridiculous is the fact that De Beers is now calling more attention to the ad. The spoof of the entire newspaper did get some attention, but that attention quickly waned, and it's unlikely that too many people paid attention to the spoof banner ad on a spoof website for the NY Times. I hadn't even heard about the ads. Almost all of the attention was on the spoof stories. Yet, now that De Beers is threatening to sue, a lot more folks are going to know about and see the ad. How is that possibly a smart move on the part of De Beers?

Filed Under: intermediary, registrars, spoof, streisand effect
Companies: de beers