The Supreme Court should make clear that nobody should be allowed to claim a monopoly over an abstract idea simply by tying it to a computer.
via Abstract Ideas Don’t Deserve Patents – NYTimes.com.
How Dropbox Knows When You’re Sharing Copyrighted Stuff Without Actually Looking At Your Stuff | TechCrunch
A fun look at “Hashing”, private data and the DMCA.
Twitter lit up this weekend with a notice of a Dropbox DMCA takedown:
https://twitter.com/darrellwhitelaw/status/450096476060794880
Is DropBox looking at your files? Not really…
The system is neither new, nor sketchy. It’s been in place for years, and it’s about as unsketchy as an anti-copyright infringement system can get. It allows Dropbox to block pre-selected files from being shared from person-to-person (thus keeping Dropbox from getting raided by the Feds), without their anti-infringement system having any idea what most of your files actually are.
Google wants to literally drive traffic to your business
Google was awarded a patent on a free cab service that could drive customers to advertisers.
If one of the biggest problems for Brick and Mortar advertisers is getting customers through the door, Google could at least help get them TO the door.
Via: Ars Technica
Is it time to break Moore’s Law?
IN 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore described a trend he saw in computing hardware. “Moore’s Law” indicated that the number of transistors on integrated circuits was doubling every couple of years.
(Or to put it plainly… computers will get exponentially faster).
This past week, Henry Samueli, CTO of Broadcom, indicated that that trend appeared to finally be coming to an end.
“The cost curves are kind of getting flat,” Samueli told reporters at an evening Broadcom event at the Tank18 wine bar in San Francisco’s trendy South of Market district. Instead of getting more speed, less power consumption and lower cost with each generation, chip makers now have to choose two out of three.
(Photo: Flickr)
Tablets will make up half of PC sales in 2014
As desktop and laptop sales decline, tablet shipments accounted for 40% of the PC market in the 3rd quarter of 2013.
Forecaster Canalys is predicting that tablets will outship all other form factors, with an estimated 50% of the market, by the end of 2014.
This prediction compresses similar forecasts from the spring, pointing towards a 2015 market overtake.
The cost-favorable Android OS is expected to lead sales, with 32% of the market. Microsoft seems to have the most ground to cover with 5% of the market.
A critical first step is to address the coexistence of Windows Phone and Windows RT. Having three different operating systems to address the smart device landscape is confusing to both developers and consumers alike.
Via: Canalys
What teens are doing online (It’s not as cool as you think)
Teens don’t (Fill in the blank) anymore. They (Fill in the blank, again).
As the digital space seems more and more complicated, the usage habits of teens seem fairly simple.
They text, email and play games.
In a graphic from Statista, with information from the Family Online Safety Institute, 87% of teens age 13-17 sent or received a text message. A fairly large gap emerged once the questions got more platform specific. Buzz-worthy tools like Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat were all used by significantly less than half of the users.
TV is Dying (And so are Internet TV Subscriptions)
From Business Insider: TV providers lost 113,000 subscribers last month INCLUDING Internet subscribers.
- Increasingly, prime time is being given to the tablet.
- 40% of all YouTube traffic comes from mobile.
- Ad revenue is up (and that’s hiding the trends)
- Less than 1/2 of broadband subscribers subscribe to cable TV (For the first time ever)
Probably the most interesting trend is the decline in paid broadband subscriptions. Increasingly, consumers are relying on the free connections at work or at the coffee shop to deliver their content.
So if fewer people are watching cable TV and fewer people are paying for Internet service, does that mean that we just don’t care about watching our favorite shows anymore?
Not necessarily.
Free wifi — at work, in coffee shops, and on campuses — is making it easier for consumers to get the shows, movies and videos they want without subscribing to any kind of cable or broadband service
via: Business Insider
(Photo: Flickr: KB35)
Your next phone may have a curved screen
Bloomberg is citing a source indicating a couple new technologies to be introduced in future Apple iPhone models.
The first is a curved screen, and the second is a pressure sensitive touch interface.
Two models planned for release in the second half of next year would feature larger displays with glass that curves downward at the edges, said the person, declining to be identified because the details aren’t public. Sensors that can distinguish heavy or light touches on the screen may be incorporated into subsequent models, the person said.
Via: Bloomberg
Apple on privacy and data collection
Apple released a formal report, today, regarding federal data collection requests.
They seem to include clear jabs at Google and Facebook with comments such as:
We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers. We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.
via: All Things D
Photo sharing and the web
According to a new study by the Pew Center’s Internet Project, 54% of Internet users have shared original photos on websites.
“Sharing photos and videos online adds texture, play, and drama to people’s interactions in their social networks,” said Pew Internet’s Maeve Duggan, author of a report on the new findings. “Pictures document life from a special angle, whether they relate to small moments, personal milestones, or larger news and events. Mobile connectivity has brought these visuals into countless lives in real-time. This all adds up to a new kind of collective digital scrapbook with fresh forms of storytelling and social bonding.”
From:http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Photos-and-videos.aspx