11.20.10
Posted in Patents at 8:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Karel de Gucht (shown above) and the USPTO carry on with their race for ACTA, which is an enemy of software freedom as well as many other freedoms
LAST WEEK we mentioned Karel de Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, who argues falsely that ACTA won’t harm free software. This man turned into another foe of Europe’s interests by choosing to push the US initiative known as ACTA (which is unconstitutional). Its purpose is to help mega-corporations gain even more power over society all across the world. Karel’s slip of the tongue has just caused TechDirt to state that:
As US Insists ACTA Is Not A Treaty, EU Trade Commissioner Admits It’s A Treaty
We’ve already posted about David Kappos’ non-response to legality questions about ACTA, but at the bottom of KEI’s coverage of this story there’s another interesting point. ACTA supporters in the US have been bending over backwards to insist that ACTA is not a treaty. Any time anyone mentions it as a treaty in the comments here, one of the ACTA supporters among our readership will quickly admonish them for being clueless about the law and will insist that this is nothing more than an “executive agreement,” which does not need Senate approval. It’s one of ACTA supporters’ favorite talking points. Of course, there are some serious constitutional questions about that.
However, much more telling is that many ACTA supporters will outright admit it’s a treaty. We already noted that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) did just that a few weeks ago (and also falsely claimed it had already been signed by 37 countries).
Hello, Kappos? Et tu, BSA?
Notice the role played by the USPTO there. Kappos is of no use because of his views on the status quo. Credit must go to the brilliant Bernard Sanders, whose actions are noted by KEI right now:
Non-responsive letter from David Kappos of USPTO to Senators Sanders and Brown regarding ACTA consistency with US law
In a October 19, 2010, Senators Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) wrote to David Kappos, the Director of the USPTO, asking for an assessment of conflicts between the October 2010 ACTA text, and U.S. law. (attached here).
KEI also has this new paper [PDF] titled “Innovation Inducement Prizes to Reduce Costs, Enhance Productivity, and Expand Access”. It’s from two days ago and the target is Europe. KEI — like us — wishes to help Americans. But what’s good for American conglomerates, for example, is not necessarily good for citizens of the United States. Let’s expose the hawks (not eagles) of society and expose their malicious, self-serving agenda which USPTO helps perpetuate. The USPTO — like lobbyists — is there to serve counterproductive lawyers and massive corporations, so the “US” in “USPTO” can be as deceiving as the “NZ” in “NZICT” (it lobbies for the interests which are opposite to New Zealand's). █
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Posted in Courtroom at 7:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: In his censorship rampage, Wayne Crookes tries to make the linking to articles he does not agree with grounds for defamation
“I didn’t know if you’d heard about this Canadian law suit,” wrote to us one member of Techrights. “I couldn’t remember reading anything about it on Techrights. Anyway, it seems serious, so I thought I’d send it, just in case…maybe a mention of this law suit on Techrights will get more folks to help out.
“Here’s the link and an excerpt from the p2pnet article:
…The scales of justice aren’t balanced by what’s right and fair. They’re balanced by how much money a given party can drop onto them. And I don’t have enough money to get there and back.
I’m not exaggerating when I say the case is the most important in the history of the internet in Canada because if Crookes wins, there won’t be an internet in Canada.
“We’ve pointed in the past to some rather ridiculous situations in Canada concerning libel law”, said Mike Masnick on TechDirt, recently, going on >>>
One key case involved a guy named Wayne Crookes, who not only sued major internet sites like Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and MySpace for hosting content he believed to be defamatory towards himself, but he also sued Jon Newton of the site P2Pnet.net for merely linking to the content Crookes believed to be defamatory. A court in Canada eventually ruled that merely linking to potentially defamatory material is not defamation, and an appeals court agreed. Last I heard, the case had moved up to the Canadian Supreme Court.
Mike Masnick (TechDirt) and myself (Techrights) received similar threats, so this is relevant to us. More formal details can be found here. Do not let bullying and crooks silence or impede speech. We gave an example earlier today. █
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Posted in Deception, Hardware, Marketing, Microsoft at 7:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Despite spendings of close to a billion dollars in just marketing of Vista Phony 7 [sic] and KINect, Microsoft cannot really sell those gadgets in sufficient quantities
MICROSOFT IS BECOMING a successful incubator of patent trolls while its software business is declining (Microsoft fakes reports to hide problems including debt) and its attempts to reinvent itself on the Web cost around $3 billion in losses every single year.
Another area where Microsoft was never truly successful is hardware. Microsoft tried to sell its phone called the “KIN” and it was a disaster of unprecedented proportions. Then, Microsoft tried throwing an advertising budget at the problem, just heavily marketing Vista Phony 7 [sic]. We’re looking at the expense of about half a billion dollars. That’s an insane amount to spend on deceiving the public, almost like spending $1.5 for each US citizen to become aware of a platform with 0.00% market share. Some say that “KIN” is still around, not just in its Vista Phony 7 [sic] incarnation (the story of both shows a similar trajectory). As OpenBytes put it two days ago:
People often say when talking about Microsoft products “same old, same old” is there really anything new happening with WP7 and is it any surprise that its rumored to have only sold around 40,000 units? You decide.
For me Microsoft and its “mobile solutions” won’t be fooling me again and Im already on record saying that I believe WP7 will flop.
“Embarrassed to recommend Microsoft software” is the title of this new post which helps explain Microsoft’s status crisis. Its brand suffers a lot after products like “KIN” and Vista Phony 7 [sic] will do it no favours.
In summary, I’m not impressed at all with offline files. Especially when I compare it to solutions like rsync in Linux, which works perfectly every time, and works very very well. Why can’t Microsoft learn from previous mistakes, and fix their software? It’s embarrasing to recommend these products and sell the idea of using Microsoft software to somebody, when it will work for a while then break all of a sudden out of the blue. I should have learned, that it’s OK to recommend Microsoft software if absolutely necessary, but I no longer guarantee that it will work as designed.
Here is another take on Vista Phony 7 [sic], which starts receiving some bad press now that the huge marketing budget (means of softly bribing journalists/publications via PR agencies) dries up.
Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 in the US market recently. Despite massive advertising budget thrown at the new operating system release, there was no great over night, iPhone-like queue snaking around the block, which the Microsoft management so desperately needed.
The hyped release failed to generate the required buzz and the turnout wasn’t so flash. Add to this, there have been some decidedly unenthusiastic reviews for the devices in publications.
Techrights was apparently correct when predicting that Vista Phony 7 [sic] would fail just like “KIN” (although unlike “KIN”, Vista Phony 7 [sic] is just the platform, which is based on a dying project, Silverlight), but the huge Vista Phony 7 [sic] marketing expenses should assure more sales, not to mention giveaways to staff. It’s a short-term boost.
Another hardware product which is not doing so well so far is KINect. We’ll explain why the short-term boost is disappointing.
First of all, our reader Will shares this story about prerequisites which Microsoft understates. The devices is unsuitable for many homes and there have been reports of people breaking their belongings due to KINect.
Xbox Japan’s Kinect displays have 0.9 meter (2.9 feet) paper measure for gamers to take home and suss out their gaming quarters. 2.9 feet? Kinect needs around 8 feet to hit the sweetspot of certain games.
“I found this link kinda funny,” wrote Will in IRC. “The gist of my article is that Japanese Kinect displays have a paper tape measure to help people determine if they have enough space in their homes for the Kinect to work properly. The catch is, the paper measure is only 2.9 feet long, but the Kinect reportedly requires at least 8 feet.”
“The gist of my article is that Japanese Kinect displays have a paper tape measure to help people determine if they have enough space in their homes for the Kinect to work properly. The catch is, the paper measure is only 2.9 feet long, but the Kinect reportedly requires at least 8 feet.”
–WillPersonally, I have not been keeping up to date with KINect for about a month (TechBytes takes up a lot of time), but the number of sales quoted by Will helped me deduce that it’s failing to sell well. It’s only a month away from Christmas and a very small proportion of Xbox 360 owners bought a KINect in the first week and a half. Only 2-3% of people who bought Xbox 360 bothered getting such an overprices remote in the first 10 days after a massive marketing campaign estimated to have cost close to half a billion dollars. It’s the type of product which Nintendo just gives away with its console (although it’s not exactly the same type of peripheral).
People would be wise to avoid KINect for other reasons, for instance the spy factor which we wrote about some days ago. “Big Xbox is watching you” is a new article worth reading:
But if your hardware has facial recognition, then it could in theory recognize not just faces, but facial expressions. Imagine a world where your TV watches your face to see how you respond emotionally to the content it’s showing you. And reports on it.
Microsoft only pretends to respect people’s privacy [1, 2, 3]. It’s one of the most intrusive companies, usually for marketing reasons. Nintendo has only little or no interest at all in such personal data. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft, Patents at 6:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The patent-trolling spinoff of Bill Gates and Microsoft carries on destroying the Internet and extorting competition
Microsoft generates top patent trolls, it does not only feed some patent trolls with extra cash which they in turn use to attack GNU/Linux with lawsuits. Microsoft’s former CTO and a close friend of Bill Gates has built a pyramid scheme using patents, which the Gates Foundation helped bankroll. Yes, it helped fund the world’s biggest patent troll, who extorts companies and offers zero value to society, just exploiting it instead and keeping people awake at night. This new article from a familiar author is shrewd enough to point out in the headline that a “Myhrvold-Connected Firm” is the one suing. Myhrvold uses attacks dogs, still. There are over 1,000 such proxies, so it’s hard to keep track.
An obscure Virginia company, Pragmatus AV, has sued YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Photobucket.com, claiming the companies infringe three of its patents related to playing digital video. Who is Pragmatus? It’s a company that was formed only five months ago after acquiring a batch of patents from Intellectual Ventures, the giant patent-holding company run by ex-Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) CTO Nathan Myhrvold.
It isn’t clear whether the terms of the deal with Pragmatus give Intellectual Ventures a cut of any settlement money or litigation win. About a year ago, Intellectual Ventures started selling off some of its 30,000 patents to small, startup outfits much like Pragmatus—companies often derided in tech circles as “patent trolls.”
In a civilised society, people like Myhrvold would be in prison, not live in a castle next to Bill Gates’ mansion. But we still live in a greedy society, not a civilised society. That is at least the mindset that’s coming out of Microsoft. They would rather crush people and destroy the industry, as long as they manage to make a buck in the process. █
“The last thing this company needs is another fucking language.”
–Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft
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Posted in Marketing, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer at 5:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another fine example of copyright being misused to suppress free speech and the Seattle Times acting as though it’s Microsoft’s PR department redressed to look like “official” and “professional” news
THE RATHER appalling ‘newspaper’ called Seattle Times is more of a propaganda tool for the Gates Foundation and for Microsoft, which is taking Seattle Times staff out for meals and briefs reporters so that they just print Microsoft’s spin. We have posted many examples before (almost a hundred in the past year alone), so we are not going to post more examples. They are just a small subset and they can be found in our archives.
The latest blunder from the Seattle Times is that they had an image removed from a competitor’s site. They are attacking fair use (humour purposes) to defend an unethical bully, Steve Ballmer. This only contributes to our negative characterisation of the the Seattle Times, which is not news; it’s corporate press and it’s in the pocket of companies that include Microsoft.
Luckily, after or just before the Seattle Times helped censor Engadget’s work, many people in the comments created other, derivative images (which the Seattle Times has not formally complained about) and we include all of them below in the interests of freedom of speech. █
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Posted in Database, Microsoft at 5:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft wanted Web SQL dead “just because they don’t have sql92 level sqllite implementation,” alleges a reader of ours
IN RECENT weeks we’ve written critically about the W3C [1, 2, 3], which does dubious things that help Microsoft (it has a chair there).
According to an update from 2 days ago (18 November 2010), “W3C kills Web SQL Database,” says Reddit. Over a hundred comments were posted about it and one reader of ours, who is very knowledgeable in the area of databases, came to say: “w3c (Microsoft) kills web sql (just because they don’t have sql92 level sqllite implementation)” █
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Posted in Microsoft, OpenDocument, Red Hat at 5:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Far-fetched theory suggests that Microsoft may be trying to dilute/cheapen the “ODF” brand, as well as others
IN AN article which we mentioned earlier this week there’s something new called “Open Deal Format”, which calls itself ODF. We’ve heard about it from 3 sources so far as it helps dilute the ODF brand, the OpenDocument Format one. Two weeks ago one of our readers theorised that something called “Red Hat Society” was possibly ill untended with its name because it had entered Red Hat news and had nothing whatsoever to do with Red Hat the company. “Maybe Microsoft pays them to dilute brand of real Red Hat,” this reader speculated. There is little basis for it that can be substantiated, but Microsoft has a long history of cheapening competitor’s brand, including “Open Source”, OpenOffice, and Palm. We explained each of these examples years ago.
The FFII noticed that same article about “Open Deal Format” and wrote:
Seattle creates their own #ODF
It will be interesting to know the history of people behind Tippr. A lot of former Microsoft staff does malicious things to promote Microsoft even after ‘leaving’ the company. We covered some examples.
If they choose to be called ODF, they knowingly dilute/cheapen the brand of OpenDocument Format. I have asked Rob Weir (top OpenDocument person) if he heard about it and his response was:
Didn’t search Google before choosing “ODF” as the abbreviation for new “Open Deal Format” standard ? A big SEO fail.
It seems safe to assume that the choice of “ODF” as an acronym is an innocent act. Not everyone agrees and the FFII thinks that Seattle has something to do with it. For those who do not know what Seattle does to ODF, recall an event from one year ago. █
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Posted in America, Microsoft, Patents at 4:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
(ODF | PDF | English (original))
Resumen: ¿Por qué Techrights es un amigo de los Estados Unidos, sobre todo cuando se critica lo que considera que las instituciones de delincuentes dentro de este país?
CASI LA MAYORÍA de los lectores de este sitio web son estadounidenses. Esto no es sorprendente teniendo en cuenta el idioma del sitio. Sólo quería aclarar algo, sobre todo después de los mensajes como el anterior[http://techrights.org/2010/11/16/india-swpats-and-rand/].
Muchas de las empresas a las que se crítica en este sitio web tienen su sede en los Estados Unidos. Criticar a ellas no tiene nada que ver con la nacionalidad (que son multinacionales, es un hecho concreto). Algunos de nuestros críticos pueden tratar de caracterizar nuestra posición como “nacionalistas”*, lo que sería francamente ridículo ya que los servidores que se hospeda este sitio se han basado siempre en los Estados Unidos, sólo para empezar. Es una de esas trampas como “sexismo” o “racismo”, donde se rechaza un dictamen sobre la única base de la discriminación percibida en la mente del mensajero. Es el mismo viejo juego del etiquetado [1[http://techrights.org/2008/01/26/stereotypes-response/], 2[http://techrights.org/2008/01/23/the-microsoft-hater-label/], 3[http://techrights.org/2009/09/20/stereotypical-words-for-critics/]].
“Es una de esas trampas como “sexismo” o “racismo”, donde se rechaza un dictamen sobre la única base de la discriminación percibida en la mente del mensajero.”“Es una de esas trampas como” sexismo “o” racismo “, donde se despide a un dictamen único sobre la base de la discriminación percibida en la mente del mensajero.” Crítica de la USPTO (Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos)[http://www.uspto.gov/]no es una crítica de los Estados Unidos y la crítica de la política exterior de cualquier país es a menudo una crítica al gobierno del mismo, que no necesariamente reflejan la opinión de su pueblo. La intención es ayudar al “real” Estados Unidos (el pueblo), que se salve a sí mismo de la de las minorías opulentas (1% -recuerden que los Estados Unidos se ha convertido en una Republica Bananera), la oligarquía que se aprovecha de ella[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=1].
Esto es sólo un punto menor que era necesario aclarar y sacarlo de mi pecho, porque algunas frases puede generalizarse fácilmente y por lo tanto puedo ser entendido mal. Admiro mucho al pueblo estadounidense y tengo familia en los Estados Unidos y, a veces la mejor manera de mostrar el cuidado de uno es criticar a aquellos que perjudiquen a la población que dicen y pretenden representar.
“Letter To The American People” is another personal note from the kind thinker and translator, Eduardo Landaveri, who adds to the above:
Your “Writing to the Americans” have the importance that have to be available in Spanish as well. The point that you mention how the great majority are oblivious to the UPSTO dealings and the things that affect their children future.
It also have a great meaning to the Latinos inside America whose great percentage lives barely making it day by day as well as for African Americans. Many of them shaped by the system: “I have to have this proprietary trash”, just because of the advertisement and the way how monopolies have corrupted politicians and educative authorities by teaching them proprietary technologies.
It’s sad to see kids getting out of school saying “Ohh I only know how to use MS Word” and even saddest the teachers who refuse to learn alternatives seeing that the great majority of students CAN’T afford to spend daddys’s weekly salary to buy a proprietary Office Suite. Like Mr. Pogson and many have pointed out how MS have get rid of the competency. Even Ballmer said: “anything the consumer can use at home, they will develop a point of view on and ask for it at work. And eventually, IT will give it to them” http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/11/ars-talks-to-steve-ballmer.ars
Thus why they have hijacked the American Education system && Gates become its Minister. They know whaterver kids learn at school once they grow up its hard to change. This situation is immoral and have to change. The same is occuring in Latin America where teachers are teaching using these proprietary trash ignoring the alternatives that will free them and the coming generations from digital colonialism.
“Hey Latino , hey brother, hey friend, never sell your destiny for gold or comfort, do not stop ’cause we need to walk a lot, we all go forward together to end the ignorance that brings us bewitched to imported models are not solution … Do not be confused, REMEMBER WE SEE THE FACES BUT NEVER THE HEART.”
—-Ruben Blades
Or in Spanish:
“Escribiendo a los estadounidenses” tiene una gran importancia que tiene que estar disponible en español. El punto que usted menciona cómo la gran mayoría de estadounidenses son ignorantes acerca de la Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos UPSTO y las muchas cosas que afectan al futuro de sus hijos.
También tiene un gran significado para los hispanos dentro de Estados Unidos, cuyo gran porcentaje vive apenas día a día, así como para los afroamericanos. Muchos de ellos alienados por el sistema: “Tengo que comprar esta basura propietaria”, sólo por la publicidad y la forma como los monopolios han corrompido a los políticos y las autoridades educativas, enseñándoles tecnologías propietarias.
Es triste ver a los niños salir de la escuela diciendo “Ohh Sólo sé cómo utilizar Microsoft Word” e incluso más triste de los profesores que se niegan a aprender alternativas al ver que la gran mayoría de los estudiantes no pueden darse el lujo de gastar el salario semanal de sus padres para comprar una proprietaria Suite de Office. Al igual que el Sr. Pogson y muchos han señalado cómo Microsoft se han de deshecho de la competencia en los Estados Unidos. Incluso Ballmer dijo: “todo lo que el consumidor puede usar en casa, van a desarrollar un punto de vista y preguntar por ella en el trabajo y eventualmente, le dará a ellos”. http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/ 2010/11/ars-talks-to-steve-ballmer.ars
Así es como han secuestrado el sistema de Educación de los Estados Unidos y Gates se ha convertido en su ministro. Ellos saben que cualquier cosa que los niños aprenden en la escuela, una vez que crecen sus habitos seran difíciles de cambiar. Esta situación es inmoral y tiene que cambiar. Lo mismo está ocurriendo en América Latina, donde los maestros están enseñando a usar estos basura propiertaria (ellos mismos los estan encadenando) ignorando las alternativas que los van a libera a ellos y a las generaciones venideras del colonialismo digital.
“Oye latino, oye hermano, oye amigo, nunca vendas tu destino por el oro ni la comodidad, no te detengas pues nos falta andar bastante, vamos todos adelante para juntos terminar con la ignorancia que nos trae sugestionados por modelos importados que no son la solucion………NO TE DEJES CONFUNDIR, RECUERDA SE VEN LAS CARAS PERO JAMAS EL CORAZON.”
—-Ruben Blades
Many thanks to Eduardo for his translation. █
_____
* Si yo hubiera estado viviendo en los Estados Unidos, esta etiqueta puede ser algo así como “traición a la patria” y la gente honesta como Richard Stallman podrán optar por aclarar al declarar en la primera página de su sitio web [http://stallman.org/] que “Estados Unidos significa Libertades Civiles … Patriotismo significa protegerlos”.
“Los que esperan cosechar las bendiciones de la libertad deben, como hombres, sufrir la fatiga de apoyarla”.
- Thomas Paine
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