NewsWatch: Information Technology -- Abortion by Telemedicine in Iowa; Free Wi-Fi at Starbucks; President to Control Internet; Software Licenses; Nation's Longest Traffic Light

Starbucks Will Offer Free We-Fi at all U.S. Stores
On July 1, Starbucks will join McDonalds in offering free Wi-Fi services at all its U.S. Stores. Wall Street Journal.

Bill Would Grant President Emergency Internet Powers
A new U.S. Senate bill would grant the president far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of or even shut down portions of the Internet. The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines, or software firms that the government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined. CNET

Do You Own Your Software or Just 'License' It?
A man who acquired several copies of AutoCAD listed those copies for sale on eBay, According to Law.com. Autodesk sent the online auction company a takedown notice accusing him of copyright infringement. The man sued, saying the copies were legitimate and he had a right to sell them. Federal district court judge Richard Jones ruled  in the man's favor and Autodesk appealed that decision. If the 9th Circuit affirms the district court ruling in the man's favor, many standard software licenses -- some form of which cover nearly all consumer software -- could become legally meaningless.

Abortions by Telemedicine in Iowa
A doctor consults by video with a patient at a clinic, then remotely opens a drawer with two abortion drugs. Then, with a click of his mouse, a modified cash register drawer pops open in front of the woman seated next to a nurse in a clinic -- perhaps 100 miles from this city -- with mifepristone, the medicine formerly known as RU-486, that is meant to end her pregnancy. Efforts to provide medical services by videoconference, a notion known as telemedicine, are expanding into all sorts of realms, but these clinics in Iowa are the first in the nation, and so far the only ones, experts say, to provide abortions this way. New York Times.

Nation's Longest Traffic Light
It has been called the nation's longest traffic light, and no one argues the point. In the time it takes to travel through this maddening double intersection in Passaic County, a motorist can: o Read eight pages of a novel o Microwave a chicken dinner o Get in a fast mile of running. "I just smoked almost a whole cigarette," said driver Dave Roberts, trapped in the double intersection at Clinton Road and Route 23 in West Milford. New Jersey Star-Ledger.