My So-Called Digital Life

The Launch of Visual Search

I don't know how many of you have checked out www.like.com, but honestly, you should head right over there. For years, people have been discussing and testing the idea of visual search technology. A search technology that would be more than just text links and descriptions. Like.com has done it one better by matching pics with "like" products that can be found and bought online. And how do you cleverly launch that...well hook people up with the products similar to what the celebrities are wearing!

And you can submit to their database, you products, which in turn, finesse their technology when more people use it. I submitted www.snazzygirl.com to see what would happen. And considering some of the products that the celebrities are wearing are actually available on snazzygirl.com, it should be a no-brainer.

There are other visual search engines...sort of, like pricecanada.com, shoptoit.ca, shop.com, shopping.com and others, but this one takes it up a notch by letting people see ahead what they would like to shop for and then using search in a very creative way, to solve the problem. All visually.

Outsourced Work Makes Up 90% Of Taiwan's Animation Industry

Outsourced animation work in Taiwan makes up 90% of the country’s animation industry revenues in 2005, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) announced Wednesday, which was report on at au.biz.yahoo.com.

CEPD figures show that Taiwan’s total production revenue topped NT$4.8 billion (US$146.14 million). By 2008, the government organization projects the Taiwanese market to reach NT$9.4 billion. CEPD states that growth is being seen in animated TV commercials and other CG productions.

Teaching at the University of British Columbia

I'm happy to say that I'll be teaching starting in January at the University of British Columbia continuing studies. I'll be teaching three courses. An introductory and an advanced course on etailing and a course on the business of new media. Check out more info when it's posted soon at UBC's web site.

Animation in China

A cartoon industry forum was held in Qingdao this past weekend. One of the numbers thrown around was that China has around 500 million readers of animation and watchers of cartoons.

About 60% of those fans are from 14-17 years old. Adults make up about 30% of the fans.

Chinese animation is criticized for not having creativity and for suffering at the hands of government controls.

Japanese anime is hugely popular with China's 250 million children. Even America's The simpson's has gained a following. The government promotes watching The Simpsons as more evidence why China should not be a free country like the US.

China has produced 50,000 minutes of animation so far this year, already surpassing last year's total.

iTune songs play on rival players

Recently I was speaking a digital entertainment conference in Hong Kong called Digital Entertainment World 2006 and digital rights were a hot issue. Ron Wheeler, SVP, Content Protection from Foxy Entertainment Group spoke about the issue and all the techonlogies and agreements that are being created to stifle sharing music and video.

He made an interesting comment that its mostly the home users, the personal users who buy a CD, burn it and lend it out or give it to friends. That is where the industry is losing most of its money.

Found this on www.broadbandreports.com. Interesting twist on digital rights and not surprising.

"John Johansen claims to have created software that unlocks playback restrictions of Apple iPod and iTunes music products. And he intends to licenses it for sale to online music stores. Songs bought online from iTunes Music Store can't be played on portable devices made by other companies. Songs purchased from other online music stores also won't work on iPods because they similarly use a form of copy-protection that Apple doesn't support. Johansen's software gets around those restrictions."

There will always be those who keep working on technology hacks and new tech gets created. What will be intestesting is if creating such a "hack" or software for sale would be considered a criminial act.

More of the story can be found here.

Overstock.com’s oversight

This is something that is my personal worry everytime I update a client's site or Snazzygirl.com. I worry of a spelling mistake that I didn't catch, a broken graphic, etc. And if something happens, I feel I'm generally fast enough to fix it before anyone notices. Or at least I hope so.

Problem is, as of 11:20am PST on Monday, October 30th, the problem is still there on Overstock.com. No joke, check it out. But I wasn't the smartie to find this. It was the clever people at Varian who did...and I guess thousands...and millions of others who are shopping on Overstock.com right now.

What happened? They doubled their ‘coming soon’ tab that link nowhere. (see graphic). Additionally, why would anyone, especially a company like overstock.com put a "coming" soon tab in their tab area or even at the top of their site. Remember way back when, when people would have a "under construction" graphic on their site or a link to an underconstruction page. Who cares!!! Never, ever, ever, ever, link to nowhere or link to a page where people can't do, see, shop, read, scratch, sniff...whatever. Bad idea and bad for the brand! An ecommerce site is for commerce...i.e. buying stuff. Linking to something that is coming in the future is both annoying and unnecessary.

Ecommerce in United States will Top 120 Billion in 2006

October 29, 2006 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Ecommerce in the United States will top 120 billion dollars in 2006, website Leadpile.com (http://www.LeadPile.com) forecasted this week. The figure validates the company’s July 2005 prediction that ecommerce in the US would be around the 100 billion mark.

"We are delighted that our prediction looks to be right on the money. For the remainder of 2006, we continue to hold steady on our forecast that 100 Billion in US E-Commerce sales will easily be reached,” suggested CEO of Leadpile.com Mr. Andy Jacob. “The US Department of Commerce has already reported 1st and 2nd quarters 06 at a combined 51.5 Billion in retail sales. Not only do we believe that 100 Billion is a done deal, but it is highly likely that 2006 US E-Commerce Sales will top 120 Billion."

"Everyone seems to be talking about ‘baby boomers’”, added Mr. Jacob. “Leadpile believes that the recent focus on America's aging population has blinded many experts from seeing the explosive growth that will come on the web from the "next generation" of younger, super-internet consumers. These Super Kids in Digital Space, or "SKIDS", as coined by Leadpile in 2005, will lead to explosive growth on the Internet. Leadpile believes that the biggest impact on our world and our culture will come from the "SKIDS", who will help change the entire way we currently think about the internet, wireless devices, and our future. With regard to US E-Commerce, you haven't seen anything yet".

Supreme Court to Review Microsoft-AT&T Patent Case

Today, the Associated Press reported that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a patent disput between Microsoft and AT&T. This particular suit has to do with the Windows programs distributed overseas, which already has me interested. But this has more to do with the speech-coding technology that they use...but here is the kicker.

Microsoft has admitted damages in the US...problem is, what they are fighting is that they have to pay for the same product in the foreign market.

Yet the US congress had already established in another case, that US patents can be extended for foreign sales. The juice is definately there. Read the full article below from the Wall Street Journal.

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Supreme Court to Review Microsoft-AT&T Patent Case
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Friday it would hear a patent dispute between giants Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Corp. over Windows programs distributed overseas.

An appeals court ruled that Microsoft had infringed on an AT&T patent for a type of speech-coding technology.

The outcome could be worth more than $1 billion to Microsoft if the justices find that the lower court ruling improperly extended U.S. patent protections to overseas transactions, said Dennis Crouch, a visiting law professor at Boston University.

"Almost every patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft asks for damages for U.S. sales as well as foreign export sales," Mr. Crouch said. Microsoft has acknowledged its liability for domestic sales.

Microsoft lawyers claimed the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in favor of AT&T "threatens to impose massive liability on U.S. software companies" and could prompt companies to move their research facilities out of the country.

Solicitor General Paul Clement, invited by the court to offer his views, urged justices to take the case. AT&T's remedy "lies in obtaining and enforcing foreign patents, not in attempting to extend United States patent law to overseas activities," Mr. Clement said.

AT&T lawyers said that the ruling only protected its patent, which covers a program with a "speech codec" that digitizes speech. "Congress's congressional authority is to protect the rights of U.S. inventors, not U.S. infringers," they said.

Congress extended the reach of patent protections after the Supreme Court ruled against the holder of a patent on a shrimp deveining machine who complained that a manufacturer shipped component parts overseas to avoid U.S. patent law.

The high court had earlier refused to consider a separate case stemming from a jury's decision that Microsoft should pay $521 million for infringing patents held by Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California. Microsoft challenged a ruling that the award should be based on worldwide sales rather than domestic sales.

Copyright © 2006 Associated Press

IBM Sues Amazon Over Patents

It seems that everyone is patent crazy right now..or at least crazy to file them and not use them or not use them and go after those who make good with something slightly similar. Have we all not had enough. I'm not one to say that if people have good ideas then they are not entitled to file a patent and keep the idea theirs. The thing is...if one is not going to do anything with the patent except hoard them until technology advances enough where people need to use, I think its wrong.

But that is not what is happening in the case of IBM and Amazon.com. IBM is claiming that Amazon.com has "knowingly infringed" on five of IBM's patents. If anyone has seen a real patent book, especially one from IBM, where they must own thousands of patents, it would not be surprising if something was missed.

That said, this case is a little different, as many people pay IBM for a license to sue their patents, which they claim are the basis of Amazon.com's business model. If you want to read more on the story, keep reading below.

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Market Scan
Update -- IBM Sues Amazon Over Patents
Matthew Kirdahy, 10.24.06, 1:25 PM ET
On the eve of Amazon.com’s third-quarter earnings report, IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) announced that it is suing the online retail powerhouse for “knowingly infringing” on five of IBM’s patents.

The most viable defense Amazon.com has against IBM, must somehow disprove the validity of the computer company’s patents. Suffice it to say, the retailer has some homework to do.

“They (Amazon.com) have people doing homework today that I can assure you,” said Ronald Mann, professor at the School of Law at the University of Texas.

Amazon.com did not return a call for comment, but will certainly field questions on the matter when it announces its third-quarter earnings Tuesday after market close.

The retailer’s stock was trading up on Tuesday, showing almost a 2% increase, or 56 cents, compared with the previous market close of $32.88.

IBM shares increased slightly, trading at $91.70.

Mann said that if a company can prove that the same product was in use prior to the issuance of a U.S. patent, then the current patent is void. But in this case, when dealing with Internet retail, a business barely in its teens, it’s unlikely the patents were in use before Amazon.com was established.

“These are high-quality patents and important IBM intellectual property that are core to Amazon.com’s business,” said Ed Barbini, IBM spokesperson. “In fact, Amazon.com has built its business model on these patents.”

In a statement, IBM said the lawsuit involves patents pertaining to Amazon.com’s customer recommendation and purchases, advertising, Web site navigation and data storage.

Mann said the patent that pertains to ordering items using an electronic catalogue is the oldest of the five patents. It was issued in 1994.

“There weren’t a lot of Internet retail stores back then, if any,” he said.

With this new lawsuit, Amazon.com is treading on familiar ground. Mann cited the 1-Click purchasing dispute between IPXL Holdings and Amazon.com, which Amazon.com won in November 2005.

IBM said it would prefer to deal with this without litigation, but more than a dozen attempts since 2002 to get Amazon.com to pay for using these patents proved fruitless. Meanwhile, IBM licenses these patents and others to companies who pay for them.

IBM would not name the companies that are licensed to use these patents.

Charles King, an IT analyst at the Hayward, Calif.-based Pund-IT, said it’s too early to say how this lawsuit would affect Amazon.com’s business. “Where there might be some concern, depending on how long that the suit is out in light of day, any pressure exerted on Amazon.com would come either from the company’s partners or from the large institutional shareholders,” King said. “They could decide that there is a potential liability there."

King also said IBM prides its innovation in the world of technology on intellectual property and certainly values privacy. Taking this issue to the mats is uncharacteristic of the organization, so this approach might get IBM exactly what it wants – just payment.

The company spends about $6 billion on research and development annually. In the past 13 years, IBM has earned more U.S. patents than any other company in the world. Last year, it was granted nearly 3,000 patents.

“The implications of the lawsuit, if it went to court, could be pretty fundamental for Amazon.com if a judge rules in IBM’s favor,” King said. “And the fact that this intellectual property has been licensed would suggest that other companies believe there is value in this material.”

MTV and China's Baidu.com

MTV Networks, owned by Viacom Inc., announced today a landmark content and advertising alliance with Baidu.com, Inc., China's #1 search engine, at a press conference in Beijing. The new strategic partnership will give China's 123 million Internet users easy access to 15,000 hours of MTV and Nickelodeon original video content and music videos licensed by five top Chinese and Asian music companies for online viewing or download through http://www.baidu.com starting today. As part of the agreement, MTV will provide the first-ever branded area featured on Baidu - MTV Zone, which will include advertising at launch by Motorola and P&G. This deal extends MTVN China's digital media position, where MTV has 100% reach of the country's mobile subscribers through partnerships with China Mobile and China Unicom.

More here.