Three deer were stranded on the ice of Minnesota’s Albert Lea lake. MedCity workers used a hovercraft to cross the ice, wrangle the deer, and slide them back to safety, all captured using iMovie and a GoPro Hero.
Up to this point, software has only been eligible for limited patent protection. The general thinking is that abstract concepts cannot be patented. The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear the case Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International.
From the SCOTUS Blog:
Alice International, an Australian company that is half-owned by the National Australia Bank Ltd., obtained patent protection on a method invented by its founder, Ian Shepherd, for exchanging financial instruments, with the aim of assuring that, when two parties have agreed to an exchange of currency or other financial goods, they actually deliver on the deal. Because such agreements are often delayed at least a few days in implementation, there is a risk that one side won’t live up to the agreement. The invented program works out a settlement arrangement to determine which side is obliged to deliver. It generates instructions to the institutions involved to carry out their agreement.
Decisions that affect the degree to which software can be patentable can have far reaching implications. Companies like Google and Netflix fall on one side, favoring looser protections, while others, such as IBM, favor more protections. As you’d expect, the Electronic Frontier Foundation opposes the current system, claiming:
Patents may have been created to help encourage innovation, but instead they regularly hinder it. The US Patent Office, overwhelmed and underfunded, issues questionable patents every day. “Patent trolls” buy too many of these patents and then misuse the patent system to shake down companies big and small. Others still use patents to limit competition and impede access to new knowledge, tools, or other innovations.
Interesting case.
Looks like a pretty good deal.
If bright and dazzling is your thing, these cases definitely bring the bling. If you need a visual cue, either as a hearing assist or an alternative to an audio alert, this might be just the thing.
The iCella 5 series flashing case covers the iPhone flash with a diffuser that sends the light bouncing throughout the case. Follow the headline link for an animated GIF. The case makes use of the iOS accessibility option that enables the flash for alerts (Settings > General > Accessibility > LED Flash for Alerts).
Not clear how this case impacts the flash when you take a picture, but it’s certainly an option to consider if you have the need or will be attending a holiday party this year and do a mean Ron Burgundy impression.
Thanks to Doxie for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS this week. Go paperless with Doxie – tiny and beautifully designed mobile scanners that scan everything, starting at just $149.
Doxie scans your paper: simply and automatically. Battery power and built-in memory means you can scan anywhere, then tuck Doxie away when you’re not using it. Once you’ve scanned everything, Doxie’s included Mac software makes organizing it all easy. Save, share, create searchable PDFs, and send to the cloud.
The Loop readers get free U.S. shipping and Guaranteed Christmas Delivery for all orders placed through December 19th. Order your Doxie today and give the gift of paperless.
Love it. I’m totally behind this.
The publisher of The Occasional by Funny or Die has decided that the iOS-only publishing model is a dead-end and they are moving the periodical to the web instead.
McLaren P1 vs. the Nürburgring-Nordschleife:
V/O: “The world’s most challenging racetrack. 154 bends. 20.83 kilometres. Too dangerous for Formula 1.
As Thomas von Hassel said on Twitter, “Oh good Lord – that noise.”
I am in no way a good photographer, but I found this story very interesting.
Very interesting experiment by Kirk McElhearn.
The Guardian:
“You’re having a dispute with your neighbour,” he hypothesised. “How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?”
Mr Schmidt, do you actually know what Google Maps and Google Earth do?
And as Peter Cohen said on Twitter, “I think it’s hilarious that the guy whose company is making self-driving cars has a bug up his ass about drones.”
I find it amazing that they went with this logo and theme. Logo looks like something from a Bond film. If nothing else, a bit tin-eared to all that’s been happening. Makes me think of evil villain laughter.
This is great design, especially well suited for avid campers. The PowerPot sits on a heat source, such as a camp stove, and generates electricity so you can charge your phone or tablet.
The original PowerPot debuted in April, 2012, but there’s a new model, with more power, better charging options. Good stuff.
Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Dave Foley, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson, together known as The Kids in the Hall, are gearing up to begin a world tour. They are starting with a run in Toronto and, if I’m lucky, they’ll perform in a venue in my neck of the woods sometime next year.
If you are a big KitH fan, you’ll enjoy the article linked by the headline. If you are new to them, here’s one of my favorite sketches.
Massive global search and destroy mission against ZeroAccess Malware.
The “botnet,” a group of connected programs, is used to redirect queries in search engines owned by companies such as Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft, to certain sites to steal money generated by ad clicks. It also creates automated Web traffic that simulates users’ clicks on ads, for which advertisers pay.
“Due to its botnet architecture, ZeroAccess is one of the most robust and durable botnets in operation today and was built to be resilient to disruption efforts,” Microsoft said in the statement. The malware relies “on a peer-to-peer infrastructure that allows cybercriminals to remotely control the botnet from tens of thousands of different computers.”
Chris Holmes has one of the best jobs in the world. He’s a DJ who travels with Sir Paul McCartney and frequently serves as an opening act. Chris just shared an incredible gift, a remix he’s hand-crafted over the years. I absolutely love it.
I am the opening act for Paul McCartney (paulmccartney.com), this a collection of some of my favorite remixes I’ve made over the 4 years touring with paul. I want to thank Brian Liesegang and Cory Nitta for help tweaking and ironing out a bunch of these mixes and most importantly Paul McCartney and his amazing crew for giving me the opportunity to be able to play with him on tour. It is the best job, with the nicest boss in the world.
Want the track list? Check Chris’s original SoundCloud page.
This video gives a good sense of the range of Siri commands. It’s not complete, and if you use Siri a lot already, there’s not a lot that’s new, but I did learn a few things. My favorite new Siri command is:
“Listen to me”
Heh.
Brad McCarty:
I had my first quarterly review a few weeks ago. Things didn’t go very well. Though I had exceeded a few of the goals that we set up when I started, there was one key area in which I had undoubtedly failed. That failure led to a stern discussion with my VP of Biz Dev (my direct boss) and the CEO (his boss).
Incredibly open article.
According to research from Parks Associates, Apple is the top brand in a wide range of categories, including tablets, laptops, smartphones, home networking routers, MP3 players, and streaming media devices.
So basically, Apple isn’t the top brand in cars and hockey sticks.
Apple on Thursday answered a question that many people have wondered: How is the adoption of iOS 7 going? According to data on Apple’s Web site, I’d say pretty well.
First show at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, iOS 7 was released to the public in September. As of December 1, 2013, iOS 7 is on 74% of Apple devices. Considering Apple has hundreds of millions of iOS devices around the world, that is a significant achievement.
As measured by the App Store during a 7-day period ending December 1, 2013.
The information also shows that 22% of users are still using iOS 6, with only 4% of users on older versions of iOS.
Meanwhile, Google’s latest release of Android, codenamed KitKat, only has 1.1 percent of active Android devices. In fact, Android’s new release is doing so poorly, the older version of the operating system is actually gaining in popularity among Android users.
Businessweek:
Over the last two months, Bloomberg Businessweek spoke to dozens of current and former BlackBerry employees, vendors, and associates. Here is their account of the thrill of BlackBerry’s ascension—and the heartache of watching its demise.
Not a pretty story from RIM insiders.
Very sad.
Observatory:
Here’s my JCP story. It’s loaded with the things we love about this business: drama, crushed dreams, out-of-control egos and unintentional comedy.
Segall is a guy who was there and his timeline of the frequent missteps at JCP show a company and a board of directors that has no idea what they are doing. I predict JCP will not be around in less than ten years.
He leans forward. I can feel his breath in my ear.
“I’ve touched everybody on the nose, man,” he says, quietly. “There ain’t nobody I can’t touch on the nose.” He tilts to one side and says, “I know what you’re thinking. Just relax.” A while later, he says, “If I can touch you, I can kill you.”
Holy shit that must have been scary. The article is seven pages long, so plan ahead.
Great article from John Kirk.
There’s a “View All Images” link on the page so you don’t have to go through the slideshow.
Radiant Orchid. In other words, Purple.
US President Barack Obama admitted Wednesday he was not allowed to have an iPhone owing to security fears — explaining why he is sometimes seen with a bulky super secure Blackberry.
“I’m not allowed for security reasons to have an iPhone,” Obama told a group of young people at the White House for an event promoting his health care law.
He added that his daughters Sasha and Malia spend a lot of time on their iPhones.
I didn’t think that was the case any more.
In this issue Brianna Wu looks at the status of women in the gaming industry; Matt Gemmell explains why he likes analog tools like pens and notepads to plan; Matt Dusenbury talks about how technology is supposedly helping our health; In New York, Seamus Bellamy takes a trip around town to all the pubs his favorite writer visited; and Steven Aquino talks about why he loves subscription music services.
