By Lambert V., The Awesomer – November 11, 2012 at 11:00AM
A time-lapse video of Switzerland by photographer Alessandro Della Bella.The sheer number of locations Della Bella shot from and his long exposure shots near the end are breathtaking.
Teenage Dream A Capella
Dream Music
Why Do We Dream?
Double Dream Hands!
Team America Dream Police
By Brad Woodcox, TechCrunch – Sunday November 11, 2012
Editor’s note: Brad Woodcox is a technical specialist focusing on startup development for Novak Druce + Quigg, an intellectual property super boutique law firm. Follow him on Google+ and Twitter.
Patents. A single word that incites a fervor in the online tech blogging realm, perhaps only after the emotional responses to the iPhone vs. Android battle or TechCrunch using expletives in an article title.
With the publicity of the Apple and Samsung patent litigation, it became evident that some authors and commenters around the web do not fully understand patents and the patent system. In some instances, the scope of a patent was blown way out of proportion and deemed excessively broad. In other instances, conclusory statements were directed toward the entire patent system without an explanation or justification. For example, some people claim that patents are outdated relics that now only serve to stifle innovation. Typically, this argument has been made in regards to so-called “software patents,” but it is interpreted by many as implicating the entire patent system.
Before you accept these articles and statements as fact and write off patents completely, it might be beneficial to understand their history, the process, how they might help your current or future company, and how your company might be impacted by patents in the future. A series of articles will follow that are written in a style and format to provide the savvy entrepreneur/founder enough information to make his or her own decisions regarding patents and their applicability to the business.
Patent systems and other monopoly laws have been used throughout Europe for hundreds of years. The issue was so paramount to the U.S. founding leaders that they included its basic description in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8). The formal U.S. patent system was established shortly after ratification of the Constitution when George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790.
One of the key principles of the patent system is to serve as an incentive for innovation. Thomas Jefferson (who was the first patent examiner and oversaw the patent program) stated, “Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.”
This incentive is created by granting the inventor (or owner of the patent) a temporary monopoly on the invention. The monopoly allows the inventor time to profit from the innovation to recoup the development costs. Such development costs can be rationalized for many products such as hardware or pharmaceuticals. For example, it takes millions or even billions of dollars to develop, test, and get regulatory approval for a pharmaceutical drug. If a generic manufacturer could immediately reverse engineer and produce the drug and undercut the price of the brand name developer, the incentive to develop new pharmaceutical drugs is severely limited.
The system has generally worked as intended for decades. However, as technology progressed, new types of inventions were created. In particular, the rise of computers and software allowed novel ideas to be created quickly with little or no capital expense required, and they created a new virtual field, where inventors applied for patents for seemingly abstract ideas and business methods. Many of these types of patents are now being extensively utilized in litigation, in particular by non-practicing entities (NPEs) and so-called patent trolls, due to the large monetary damages that are being applied in these cases. This along with comparative differences with patent systems in other countries has served as key discussion points for supporters of patent reform.
A patent is often structured into five segments:
The cover page contains several different elements, including the title, inventor, dates of application/grant, and an abstract. The background is a high-level overview of the subject area, often highlighting a problem that is solved by the innovative elements described in the patent. The summary is similar to the abstract, except that it often comprises several paragraphs, where the abstract is limited to a single paragraph.
It should be noted that the title, abstract, and summary may not be very descriptive of what the patent legally covers. Many people less familiar with patents will only focus on these areas when quickly reviewing a patent, which often results in misinterpretation of the true coverage of the patent.
The specification and claims are the heart of the patent. The specification is the what and how of the innovation. It describes the product or process in detail, such that one of ordinary skill in the subject area could build, perform, or recreate the innovation. Claims are the unique and often complex language that defines exactly what innovations are covered by a patent. Each word of the claim may be scrutinized by a patent examiner to determine whether a patent can be granted, or by an attorney in litigation to determine infringement. For these reasons, the claims are the most important part of a patent.
The patent system in the U.S. is quite complex, bridging laws and a defined process established by Congress and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Organization (USPTO). The rules and regulations are methodically defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 37 and a lengthy manual termed Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP). However, the basic application procedure can be distilled down to the following process flow.
Step 1 (Optional): Filing a provisional patent application. This essentially serves as an option or placeholder to file a full application within the next year, while preserving the earlier filing date of the provisional. A provisional application is faster and cheaper than a full application, as it doesn’t typically include a full set of claims. Further, the document isn’t reviewed by the USPTO and it is not enforceable. Filing a provisional also allows you to advertise as patent pending. The cost of filing a provisional is $125 in USPTO fees (small entity) and approximately $2,000-6,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Step 2: Filing a non-provisional application. The most common type is a utility application, which covers any innovation that provides “utility.” It contains the same basic information as the provisional application (perhaps a little further refined) but typically adds a full set of claims. See Step 3 for costs.
Step 3: Prosecution of Application. The non-provisional utility application is then reviewed by a patent examiner who is a subject-matter expert in the field related to the topic of the application. The patent examiner will search the prior art (patents and publications) to see if the innovations described in the claims have been previously disclosed. The patent examiner will issue an office action to the inventor (or the inventor’s attorneys). The Office Action document will specify either that the patent will be granted or that the claims are rejected. If rejected, the inventor may then reply to the office action and present new arguments or modify the claims. This back and forth process can repeat several times until the patent is granted or the application is abandoned. The prosecution process can be quite expensive based on many factors: number of claims, amount of back-and-forth responses required, and speed/priority of application. Often, an entrepreneur may be quoted a figure in the single-digit thousands for filing a patent. Note that this is just the cost of filing a basic initial non-provisional application (i.e. Step 2). It does not include all the fees through granting of the patent. The total cost of obtaining a patent from application through granting is typically $10,000-30,000 (highly dependent on complexity, subject matter, and circumstances of prosecution).
Step 4: Post-Grant. Even after a patent has been granted, additional fees must be paid to keep the patent valid. Further, it is up to the inventor or assignee of the patent to enforce the patent should they feel someone is infringing on the claims of the patent. In fact, failure to enforce the patent may result in forfeiture of some or all of the rights afforded to that patent.
Under a standard application priority, it typically takes 3-6 years for an application to become a granted patent. However, there are a few prioritization methods to reduce this time down to as little as a year, but the priority comes at the expense of an increased cost. If you work with a patent attorney or patent agent, the tasks required of the inventor are minimal and consist of disclosing the idea, signing some documents, and reviewing the application prior to submission.
Next week’s installment of “An Entrepreneur’s Guide To Patents” will be a strategic analysis to help you determine whether patents are a good fit for your company.
By (author unknown), Groklaw NewsPicks – November 10, 2012 at 06:29PM
Call me lazy if you wish, but right now I’m bored with Microsoft’s failing software releases and Apple’s childish tantrums and strategic shortsightedness in its patents litigation. Or perhaps it’s just that the recent hurricane damage and election in the US have distracted me. In any case, I’m going to give the floor here over to Steve Wozniak, speaking in a recent interview.
Woz, as he is known, was a co-founder of Apple along with the late Steve Jobs. Unlike Steve Jobs, Wozniak is still alive and has remained engaged with and occasionally willing to discuss public policy issues relevant to computing and the internet.
Here he is interviewed by Abbey Martin of the RT television network in the following video clip. In it, he discusses some of the current events that I have mentioned above, touching on Megaupload, Wikileaks and Anonymous. – Egan Orion, The Inquirer
By Tim Brookes, MakeUseOf – November 08, 2012 at 09:30PM
If you’ve been searching for a cross-platform means of communication using voice messages, text and images that works on both internal wifi and cellular networks, then Voxer is the app for you. Voxer is designed to be a push-to-talk (PTT) walkie-talkie replacement that works on both local and global networks.
Using the Internet and local Wi-Fi connectability, Voxer removes the restraints associated with radio frequencies while also operating as a standalone cross-platform messaging service that gives WhatsApp a run for its money. You can send voice, text and picture messages between iOS or Android devices – for free!
The age-old concept of a walkie-talkie that depends on a maximum operating range (the more you pay, the bigger the range) is still valid in many situations. If you’re taking a trip to the mountains or an area of exceptionally bad mobile signal, walkie-talkies and spare batteries will serve you well and smartphones probably won’t. To put it frankly, Voxer is not a direct replacement for dedicated units that use radio frequency and various bands. Don’t get caught out cold in the wilderness!
That said, in many situations the app can serve this purpose. Voxer can also serve a more useful purpose, allowing communication between both iPhone and Android contacts using free voice, picture and text messages, much like WhatsApp but without the $0.99 price tag. The app even works in the same way, with users able to identify each other using their real phone number (though the number won’t be publicly visible).
After downloading and launching Voxer for the very first time, you will be prompted to register. All you’ll need to surrender is your name, a valid email and a password before the app lets you start talking to people. On the iPhone version I tested, the app requests access to your contacts (naturally), notifications and location. I set up two iPhones on the same network, with minimal profile information, and without any work on my part both devices could see each other straight away.
Voxer allows you to fill out your profile with city and country information and a custom profile picture, but none of that is necessary if all you want to do is chat. You can also look up users by name or email address, just tap the new conversation button in the top-right and search using the search box. It can be tricky finding people by name and picture only, though it’s nice to have access to the full Voxer database.
With iMessage, WhatsApp, Skype, and good old SMS, communication is something we definitely take for granted these days. Siri and Android speech-to-text features are nice for composing text messages, but none of these services allow you to send audio snippets. That’s where Voxer comes in.
At the bottom of the chat window is the push-to-talk button – tap and hold it, wait for the signature walkie-talkie beep to finish and begin speaking. Before you’ve let go of the PTT button the person you are speaking to will begin to hear your message, and in true two-way style only one person can technically “talk” at a time. Of course, this isn’t a problem because Voxer lets you replay any audio message sent in case you miss something.
To hear a message again tap the “play” button next to it, and Voxer will run through the whole conversation, message by message. This is a particularly nice feature, bolstered by the fact that each message displays the duration and a location pointer, for seeing where the message was sent from. The ability to send an “I’ll wait for you here” message without having to describe where you are is a pretty nifty feature I can actually see myself using.
In addition to voice, there are two extra buttons at the bottom of the screen for photos and text, both are nice features that I definitely take for granted since iMessage arrived with iOS 5. Tap the chat settings button in the top-right corner while viewing a chat to change personal and chat preferences. You can add more participants to the chat along the top of the screen, mute speakerphone, clear message history and block contacts if you need to. There’s also one more feature that I really wish Apple would implement, and that’s the ability to mute push notifications on a per-chat basis, so if you’re part of a loud group chat you can check in when you need to as opposed to being inundated with notifications all the time.
Finally there’s one last little feature that might just pique your interest if you’re not already rushing to the App Store, and that’s the Note to Self feature. From the main chat list, tap the Settings cog in the top-left, choose Account followed by Profile and then Note to Self. This places a chat titled Note to Self on the main chat list which serves as a dictaphone, allowing you to quickly add voice notes.
Download: Voxer for iPhone @ App Store
Download: Voxer for Android @ Google Play
Aside from a few feature requests I can’t find much to fault about Voxer, it’s both genuinely useful and fun to play with. The ability to set up a public Voxer voicemail and host it online would definitely be a feature I’d love to see, and an easier way to connect with all Voxers in your area would be great too.
If you’re young at heart and always wanted walkie-talkies for Christmas then you’ve just found your new favorite app. If you’re working in an office, on a building site or somewhere else where quick voice messages are useful then it might be one of the best apps you can download. If you’re in an area where mobile reception drops calls, but you can still send an email then Voxer might also appeal to you too. And if you’ve not yet fallen for WhatsApp messenger and want a different, entirely free way to communicate cross-platform you can do a lot worse than Voxer. That’s why it’s on our Best Of iPhone Apps page, where it should be!
Have you used Voxer? What did you think? Any features you’d love to see? Have your say in the comments below this post.
By (author unknown), The Ethical Hacker Network RSS News Feed – November 08, 2012 at 07:18AM
EH-Net EXCLUSIVE: eLearnSecurity Officially Launches Hack.me WebApp Labs
Imagine a security virtual lab that is run by the community for the community… Free of charge! This is Coliseum Framework (https://www.coliseumlab.com/), every vulnerable application created on hack.me is run on the fly in an absolutely safe and isolated sandbox. Watch this webinar from October 2012 where Armando Romeo, founder of eLearnSecurity backing the Hack.me project, and Thomas MacKenzie, web application security specialist, unveiled the project and launched it to the world.
Discuss in Forums
By Thorin Klosowski, Lifehacker – November 08, 2012 at 09:00AM
Even if you’ve signed up for the National Do No Call Registry, a few spam text messages or phone calls might slip through the cracks. Reddit user jaxxon recommends creating a contact for each one so you can easily ignore them.
Depending on what type of phone you have, once you save the contact you can then edit it so the calls go directly to voicemail, the text messages are silent and don’t send alerts, or you can block them entirely. The contact trick is especially useful when you’re thrown on a text messaging “deals list” from retailers without your knowledge.
By spinnrad@mac.com (Editor), InnovationDAILY for Syndication – Tuesday November 06, 2012
The Utah Science Technology and Research initiative aims to strengthen Utah’s “knowledge
economy,” generate high-paying jobs and expand the tax base for the state. In its first six years of operation, the initiative has bolstered the innovation infrastructure of Utah, increased the human capital devoted to research, and demonstrated success in technology commercialization. By encouraging
collaboration, USTAR has enabled Utah-based researchers to tackle bigger and more complex projects
and funding opportunities. Brookings Institution has called USTAR “a national best practice.”
The initiative focuses on:
Recruiting industry leading researchers to our two research universities, the University of Utah (U of U) and Utah State University (USU).
