Inventor: Paul Allen Filed: August 27, 2010 Abstract: A method for preventing innovation, specifically in the tech sector, by way of a dangerous misconception of what is patentable and a sadly overtaxed intellectual property regulatory system. Summary of the Invention: During a period of change and invention, ideas may occur to a person, and a few possible ways of manifesting those ideas. By instantly submitting a patent request, the person can secure as their own property not only the methods they have actually invented, but all possible derivatives and independent creations resembling said methods. After waiting a suitable period of time, during which the entire landscape of the industry may change, the patent holder then can exchange these patents for riches, while simultaneously nullifying the gains of a decentralized, idea-powered economy. → Read More
Yesterday, Facebook held a developer’s garage event at their headquarters in Palo Alto. To kick things off, CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to talk a bit about the history of Facebook. Notably, he focused on Facebook Photos as being a key catalyst that led to everything the social network is today.
He noted that when they launched the product, they didn’t have all of the features that their competitors did. For example, they didn’t have high-resolution photos and you couldn’t print them. But one thing they did have was the social element — and this changed everything.
“Those features by themselves were more important than anything else combined,” Zuckerberg said of the social elements of Facebook Photos. He then dropped the competitor bomb. “The photo product that we have is maybe five or six times more used than every other product on the web — combined,” Zuckerberg stated. → Read More
How do you recharge an electric vehicle in 59 seconds? Simple. You swap out the battery. Tokyo’s largest taxi company has been testing a rather surprising and innovative method of extending the range on their electric fleet: swapping out the battery. Makes sense really, if you think about it. → Read More
UK startup Blinkbox is to get a shot in the arm after securing a partnership with YouTube’s new UK movies service. YouTube has created a new Movies section of the site, allowing UK viewers watch over 400 films for free, by striking deals with US film studios including Sony Pictures, as well as Blickbox.
The content is past mainstream hits and cult classics. The move follows the launch of a Movies section for its US audience in April last year and YouTube is already running catch-up TV programmes made available by Channel 4 and Five at www.youtube.com/shows.
Blinkbox is making 165 films available as part of the new Movies section. Since it normally charges £1.99 to rent movies and TV shows, in this instance it will get revenue from ads surrounding the films with pre-rolls and mid-rolls ads, and of course get exposure to YouTube’s audience. The site was founded by Michael Comish and Adrian Letts with investment from Eden Ventures, Nordic Venture Partners and others. → Read More
While not the biggest Microsoft-related lawsuit news of the day, Microsoft just announced that it’ll be taking its patent infringement case against Canadian technology firm i4i to the highest level, the US Supreme Court.
Last August a federal court of appeals upheld the decision of a lower court that Microsoft had in fact infringed i4i’s XML patent (’449), by introducing Microsoft WORD in 2003 and continuing the XML editing capabilities through 2007. Microsoft was ordered to pay i4i $290 million dollars in fees and change the disputed version of Word. → Read More
It’s no secret that social link sharing community Reddit isn’t singing the praises of its corporate parent Condé Nast, which acquired the company in 2006. Earlier today the two sparred over running ads in support of California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana in the state. And Reddit has previously written about the shortage of resources that Condé Nast is willing to provide. Now Ben Huh, founder and CEO of the Cheezburger network, is offering to take Reddit off Condé’s hands.
In a letter published by The Daily What (a part of the Cheezburger network), Huh writes that he’s offered to buy Reddit before privately, and he’s now making it public. From the post:
Condé Nast, I’m publicly offering to buy Reddit. → Read More
Today on their blog, URL shortening service Bit.ly unveiled a cute new feature: Clickabit. It’s a Twitter account that surfaces some of the “surprising and bizarre” links being shortened and shared across their network. But the feature also hints at something we’ve been talking about for a while: Bit.ly Now.
“We’re currently hard at work on several systems that will expose some of the interesting data we’re playing with. In the meantime, we’d like to introduce @clickabit,” Bit.ly writes in the post. They key part is obviously the first half. We’ve known for a while that Bit.ly has been planning some sort of service to expose the best links being shared across the web — kind of like Tweetmeme or Digg. But Bit.ly links are shared on email and Facebook too; it would be about more than Twitter. → Read More
It’s pretty much an accepted fact that the iPhone is a great mobile gaming platform. What is also accepted is that the controls are somewhat less then optimal for some kinds of games. Enter the iControlPad. Now, I’m not 100% behind this idea, mainly because it takes a mobile gaming device and makes it decidely less mobile. I guess you could carry the iControlPad with you, and just put your iPod in when you want to use it, but that doesn’t sound very convenient either. Of course, the kind of games that support the iControlPad require a jailbroken iPhone, and some additional downloads to use them. No word on pricing or availability yet, but you can check out their website for details or to sign up to be notified when it’s available. [via Crave] → Read More
It looks like that Xerox IP isn’t the only thing Steve Jobs appropriated for Apple. Here he is in all his chubby 1997 glory, introducing the TBWA/Chiat Day produced “Think Different” campaign with an unattributed quote from poet Jack Kerouac, “People who think they are crazy enough to change the world, are the ones who actually do.”
What’s most jarring about this video is the chasm between what Jobs holds as Apple’s core values in 1997 and those of the patent hungry-monopoly that is the Apple of today. As one commenter pointed out:
“Think different… as long as we approve your application for download on the app store.”
Are any of you intending to rock? Well then I salute you and offer one of two You Rock Guitars from InspiredInstruments. This $199 git-fiddle is actually a MIDI guitar that connects with either the Wii or the PS3 and can be used to play games like Guitar Hero, Band Hero, Rock Band, Klezmer Hero, and Konami’s upcoming Big Band Hero featuring a 28 piece orchestra for you and your friends. You get to be Django Reinhardt! It seems to do an amazing amount of stuff including: Is a real MIDI guitar that plugs into an amp • Acts as a cross-platform videogame controller for all Guitar Hero and Rock Band games • Plugs into an iPhone/iPad, you can record music on it • Can be uploaded to your computer and share with friends • So much more. So much more, indeed. But how do you win? → Read More
Remember last year when that massive blizzard hit the east coast? I do. My wife ended up trapped in Washington D.C. for 6 days while waiting for a flight out. It could have been worse though, at least the hotel she was staying at didn’t lose power, and she was able to keep in touch via her cell phone. But what if this had gone from bad to worse? What if the infrastructure hadn’t kept running, and the power had gone out? Her phone — a smartphone — would have been the first thing to go. With big ol’ screens and radios galore, it’s tough to keep these things away from the wall for too long. So what do you do to make sure you don’t lose communication? → Read More
As you all know, any chance I get to mix soccer and tech is a chance I will absolutely take, and with zero hesitation. On today’s edition: Real Madrid! Yes, the 31-time Spanish champions, and nine-time European champions (a por la décima and all that) have something in the works that may interest those of you keen on Apps of all shapes and sizes. In the near future, you’ll be able to bring los galácticos with you wherever you travels may take you. → Read More
Nurph, the boostrapped startup working on a platform which turns Twitter into realtime chat, has closed it’s first round of angel funding from a private investor. Terms were undisclosed.
You can already try out Nurph, which has been developed by Elliott Kember and Neil Cauldwell, although, to be frank there’s not a lot to see just yet since Nurph Channels are based on Twitter profiles and you have to have people using it to see something. → Read More
Twitter has been open about its desire for advertising to be a pillar of its revenue strategy. The company has launched a number of experiments with advertising on the site, rolling out Promoted Tweets, which serves up ads based on keywords in Twitter search queries; and Promoted Trends. But Twitter cracked down on in-stream advertising on third-party clients; which was thought to be a direct attack on some of the Twitter ad networks in the space, such as 140 Proof, Ad.ly and others (it turned out that the new TOS didn’t kill these companies). However, now it looks like Twitter is actually partnering with Twitter ad networks to sell its inventory on Promoted Tweets.
We’ve learned that Twitter has ‘informally’ partnered with 140 Proof, a Twitter-based ad network that launched earlier this year, to allow the ad network to sell ad inventory for Promoted Tweets along side 140Proof’s own inventory. 140 Proof allows 3rd-party Twitter clients, like Echofon, Hootsuite and UberTwitter, to sell space on the network to advertisers. → Read More
When it comes to online video, there is YouTube and then there is everyone else. Increasingly, videos on the service are getting a million or more views and some stars (like that Bieber kid) are getting made. So just upload a video to YouTube and became the next big thing, right? Well, not exactly.
While there are an increasing number of massively huge videos on YouTube, there’s also just more videos in general. And despite what you may think, not all of them can be watched every second of the day by everyone on the planet. In fact, there are plenty of — and very likely more — videos on the service with very, very few views. And believe it or not, there are some with zero views. Thankfully, there is a Tumblr blog to highlights those. → Read More
Earlier today I reported on a class action lawsuit against Facebook which argued that when it comes to teenagers, the social network should not be able to use their name or likeness to promote either Facebook itself or on behalf of advertisers without parental consent. “If you don’t like the law, change the law, John C. Torjesen, one of the lawyers bringing the suit, tells me. “But I think people like that law.”
There are two main ways he says Facebook is using the names and likenesses of minors for commercial endorsements. One is through search. If you search for a teenager on Google, supposedly you will find a link to their Facebook profile, which brings you to a landing page enticing you to sign up or sign into Facebook to get the full profile. But Facebook says this is just not the way it works. A Facebook spokesperson provided the following screenshot at left (click to enlarge), which I will call Exhibit A. → Read More
Last fall Zynga sued rival gaming developer Playdom (recently acquired by Disney) for an array of issues including misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and breach of the duty of loyalty.
In short Zynga accused Playdom of stealing its confidential ‘Zynga Playbook‘.
The case continues, but the drama has reached its peak. The court today held one former Zynga and Playdom employee, Raymond Holmes, in contempt and sentenced him to ten days in county jail and a $4,000 fine. Fortunately for Holmes, Judge Mark Pierce then suspended the sentence. That means Holmes won’t do the time unless he continues to, well, piss off Judge Pierce. The full order is embedded below. → Read More
The iPod revolutionized the portable media player market. The iPhone shook up the smart phone market. The iPad is setting the standard for the revived tablet market. What is it about Apple that makes these products so great? In part it’s Apple’s dedication to user experience; but I’d argue that the larger factor in their success is Apple’s end-to-end control of the product. They make the hardware and the operating systems, and build the two to work in near-perfect synchronicity. A lot of CrunchGear commenters say they’re really waiting for a Windows 7 tablet to compete with the iPad, but I say they’ll be waiting for a long, long time: Windows 7 on the multitude of tablet hardware options will be just like Windows 7 on desktop PCs: an appeal to the lowest common denominator, thereby hobbling both hardware and OS advances. (And I actually like Windows 7, so belay the Apple fanboy comments for a moment.) But what about an Ubuntu tablet? The svelt, modular Linux kernel has breathed new life into many aging PCs, and Canonical has been working on a netbook-specific interface for Ubuntu for some time. They have multitouch support, now, too, so couldn’t they pretty quickly roll out a wonderful Ubuntu-powered tablet? → Read More
Earlier today, Erick wrote about Windows Live Sync becoming Windows Live Mesh. Basically, it’s a service that allows people to sync files between PCs and with the cloud. As a product, it sounds great — as Erick says, there’s definitely a huge need for someone to do this right. But as usual with Microsoft, I have to ask: what on Earth is up with the branding?
Yes Microsoft needed to combine Live Sync and Live Mesh as they were similar products. But doesn’t “Sync” make a lot more sense than “Mesh”? What the hell is a mesh? I had to Google it. → Read More
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