Home / techdirt.com rss archive / September-10-2007


The 'Ringle,' Or What Passes For Innovation In The Recording Industry
It's no secret that the record labels face a chronic inability to innovate in their business models, choosing instead to continually repackage content and seek ways to force people to buy stuff they don't want in order to get the things they do want. It's this sort of thinking which has brought about the "ringle": a combination of a single and ringtone, and apparently Sony BMG and Universal Music's latest strategy masterstroke. Buyers would get a CD with the full-length track, a B-side or two, and a ringtone for $6-7 -- which doesn't really compare favorably to a 99-cent download and a few bucks for a ringtone (or a download and free homemade ringtone). Is there any real benefit for the consumer here? It's hard to see any, but that's not really surprising. It seems more like an attempt by the record labels to try and deter people from buying single-track downloads, since they don't like the low price and the way they've blown up the album sales model -- which itself is another...

If One Country Does A Bad Job Approving A Patent, Should Other Nations Approve The Same Patent More Quickly?
It seems that the patent offices in both the US and the UK are going to be starting a little experiment, where patents that are being applied for in both countries can have the review process sped up once the patent is approved in one of the countries. Basically, this "Patent Prosecution Highway" (yes, that's what it's called) is designed to speed up the backlog of patents by allowing examiners in one country to speed up their review by simply relying on the work done in the patent office on the other side of the Atlantic. The UK patent office has already run a similar project with the Japanese patent office. It all sounds nice, and the idea of speeding up the patent granting process could ease some of the current backlog. However, it certainly seems like it could be pretty risky. If a patent is accidentally granted in one country when it shouldn't have been, doesn't that just make it easier to get approved elsewhere? Assuming that more countries get involved in this...

Why Does Capgemini Need An Agreement With Google To Push Google Apps?
The media is having a field day with the news that IT consulting firm Capgemini has come to an agreement with Google to push Google's online apps into enterprise customers. It's true, as many of the stories point out, that this is a huge win for Google, and is likely to help increase adoption of its apps within the enterprise. However, what's not clear and not explained is why the two companies needed an agreement first. As the article notes, it appears that there were financial considerations in the agreement as well. If anything, this should call into question Capgemini's impartiality in recommending apps to its customers. If Google Apps is the best solution, then shouldn't Capgemini support it with or without an agreement? Waiting until the two companies have an agreement (and announcing that fact) just makes it sound like Capgemini's recommendations are going to be based on who paid them some money, rather than on what's the best solution for customers. ...

Artificial Artificial Intelligence Tries To Track Down Steve Fossett
As the best thinkers are discussing the future of AI at theSingularity Summit, perhaps we shouldn't just be looking at ways to create better computer artificial intelligence, but at ways to more efficiently make use of human intelligence that's available all the time. For example, take a look at the technologies being used to harness human cognitive abilitiesto help in the search for Steve Fossett's plane in the vast desert ofNevada. Searchers are leveraging Amazon's Mechanical Turk community toquickly scan through Google Earth satellite imagery to flag areaswhere the plane might have crashed or eliminate barren areas whererescue pilots shouldn't focus on. At the time of this post, there arestill over 100,000 blocks to be looked over with each block representing a 278x278 sq ft. area. At what appears to be ascanning rate of about 10-20 square grids/sec by the Turk community, the entire area of interestcould theoretically be searched in less than 5 hours -- assuming that the...

Did TJX Know About Massive Security Breach Long Before It Revealed It?
We've already seen that, as with just about every other data leak, the massive data leak from clothing retailer TJX was a lot worse than originally reported. However, some are now asking whether the company also hasn't come entirely clean about when the breach occurred and when the company knew about it. The official statements from TJX suggest that the company became aware that its own horrible security was breached on December 18th, 2006, and informed the FBI by December 22nd. However, as the article above notes, there's evidence suggesting that TJX was familiar with the breach well before that. Remember that a bunch of folks had been arrested in Florida for using the TJX data in scams. The police in that case have filed some reports, noting that TJX had alerted them to a breach back in March of 2006 -- and, in fact, the Florida investigators filed reports on their investigation in November 2006... well before TJX even claims that it knew of the breach. It certainly...

Do ISPs Ignore Security Researchers Who Point Out Zombied Machines?
Over the last few years, we've all heard stories about how organized crime groups have taken to using botnets of "zombied" computers to run all sorts of scams and spam campaigns. ISPs have been somewhat slow to react. While they try to use fairly blunt instruments, like cutting off certain ports, many don't seem to have a very good process in place for tracking down and stopping customers whose machines have become unwitting members in a botnet. In fact, security researchers are growing frustrated that when they come across evidence of a hijacked computer, ISPs don't respond at all when told that a customer is causing trouble. There certainly are a few ISPs that are careful to help get rid of botnets, doing things like quarantining or cutting off certain users from their internet access until their machines are cleaned up, but most of the bigger ISPs don't appear to do very much at all. Of course, there is the other side of this story -- which is that when ISPs may be...

Judge Tosses Out RIAA Suit For Being Based On Nothing More Than Speculation
Recently, we've seen the courts getting less and less willing to accept the RIAA's flimsy evidence as being enough to convict someone of breaking the law with file sharing applications. The latest such case is along those lines, as a judge dismissed a case noting that it was just a "boilerplate listing," lacking enough substance to make a case. Specifically, the judge found that: "Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant." It's about time that courts realized that the RIAA shouldn't be able to run around accusing all sorts of people without any real evidence.

VeriChip Kept Quiet On Cancer Link... Yet Were Pretty Vocal On Fake FDA Approvals
The Associated Press has a story that got plenty of attention this weekend, pointing out that a series of studies which found that VeriChip's RFID products induced malignant tumors in animals. This information was not made public as the company continued to hype the devices for implant into humans. The article notes that the devices were approved by the FDA... but leaves out a rather revealing bit of history. VeriChip and its parent company Applied Digital have done an amazing job generating publicity for the company, but often in very questionable ways. It might help to go through some of the history.Back in 2002, prior to getting FDA approval, there was the too good to be true story of an entire family that just couldn't wait to get themselves chipped. The whole thing sounded sketchy from the beginning, and many suspected that the entire thing was merely created by VeriChip to get publicity. Soon afterwards, VeriChip announced that the FDA had said that implantable...

Russia Cracking Down On Software Piracy... But Only On Gov't Critics?
It's no secret that the US has been pressuring Russia to crack down on intellectual property abuses which are rampant throughout the country. And, in fact, there's been some evidence that Russia is now trying to crack down on abuses in order to keep the US happy (and aid its own chances in joining the WTO). However, some are suggesting that while things like unauthorized software use is rampant almost everywhere in Russia, the only ones who are being targeted in the "crackdown" happen to be those who are critical of the current Russian government. Perhaps the authorities in Russia saw it as a way of killing two birds with one stone: show a crackdown on companies using unauthorized software to make the US happy... and come up with something to use to silence local government critics. Remember how the Big Copyright players were claiming that file sharing helps support terrorism (without any real evidence to support it)? Does that mean we can now claim that cracking down...

New iPods Demonstrate BLS BS
The obvious response to folks complaining about the iPhone price cut is that of course the price was going to be cut, because it's a tech item, and the cost of technology invariably marches lower. Yes, technology is a constant deflationary force, not just because prices of it keep dropping, but because the quality of any given item tends to rise over time. We've made this point in the past, that inflation statistics have a hard time dealing with tech items, because the measures only look at price and have a difficult time adjusting for quality improvements. As economist Russ Roberts notes, the new iPod Classic is not just $50 cheaper than the original, it holds 40 times as much data. In other words, doing a like-for-like comparison between the original iPod and the new one vastly understates the amount of progress that was made in such a short time. What's more, while it's easy to note the data storage comparisons, how do you quantify the addition of video playback or...

Shocking: Patent Examiners Against Patent Reform That Tries To Fix Patent Examiner Mistakes
This ought to come as no surprise at all. A group that supposedly represents patent examiners has come out against the latest attempt at patent reform. As we've made clear, the attempt at patent reform certainly has some major problems, but those don't seem to be the focus of the complaint. Instead, the document seems to be a combination of patent examiners claiming "it's not our fault!" for approving all sorts of awful patents along with a plea to hire more patent examiners. This is wrong on both accounts -- though, perhaps you can blame others (the USPTO and the courts, for instance) for pushing patent examiners to approve patents that had no business being approved. As for the old myth that hiring more patent examiners will fix the problem, that's been thoroughly debunked. Patent examiners simply don't scale at the same pace as innovation. The problem isn't that we need more examiners, but that too many people have lost sight of the real purpose of the patent system:...