Author: Serkadis

Google announced in a Google Groups thread that it has added arrow key navigation to Gmail.

Google technical program manager Richard John Wu writes:

Now, you can use the keyboard arrow keys to navigate your labels (the navigation panel on the left that includes the Inbox, Sent Mail, and Drafts links), and also to navigate the conversation threadlist (the message list panel on the right) in Gmail.

When you navigate using these keys, the browser will focus on selected items, enabling screenreaders to read out what’s selected.

Previously, using the arrow keys would have caused your browser to scroll up or down the webpage.

In other semi-Gmail related news, Google just added Google Calendar to the Gmail Search Field Trial, and a Gmail Attachments feature has been spotted in Google Drive.

How could I resist something like this? A bug in Amazon Kindle for iOS 3.6.1 de-registers the iPad or iPhone, deleting all content and settings from the device. Because of the iTunes Store review process, Amazon resorts to posting a warning that existing customers shouldn’t install the app. What’s wrong with this picture? That’s my question for you, oh faithful, snarky commenters (surely you have words for me, too — ouch).

Amazon’s app note: “There is a known issue with this update. If you are an existing Kindle for iOS user, we recommend you do not install this update at this time”. That was hours and days ago. Today, Amazon bumped up the app to v3.6.2, which supposedly resolves the problem. I don’t have an iOS device, so would you mind checking for us all please — lab rat in the Kindle Store.

For those folks panicking about deleted content, you can breathe easy. Amazon keeps everything in the cloud. Your books are just gone from the device, which can easily and quickly be registered and resynced.

My colleague Alan Buckingham asked when I told him about the warning: “Do they also recommend buying a Kindle to fix the problem?” Hell, that’s good marketing advice.

Back in November, news came out that Rovio had partnered with Kaiku on Angry Birds prepaid Visa cards. Today, Kaiku announced the launch of the cards, which come in four designs.

The cards are available in: Red Bird, Yellow Bird, Bomb Bird and Bad Piggies – the basic designs you would want.

“We’re excited to be working with Kaiku on this fun new way to bring Angry Birds into the physical world and fans’ everyday lives,” said Rovio CMO Peter Vesterbacka.

Kaiku CEO Jon Round added, “Kaiku’s partnership with Rovio allows us to continue taking our prepaid Card to a broader audience by empowering consumers with differing needs to maximize their financial future. The collection of Kaiku Angry Birds Cards will not only resonate with the vast number of Angry Birds’ gaming fans, but also consumers who are looking for a smart and affordable financial option in a dynamic and colorful prepaid card.”

I’m not sure at exactly what point Angry Birds became a true pop culture phenomenon. It was certainly quite some time ago, but between this and the upcoming cartoon series, it looks like it won’t be going away anytime soon. Oh yeah, there’s also a movie coming out.

While Cisco may see long-term threats to its business from software-defined networking, VoIP and competing collaboration and video conferencing products, the networking giant is sitting pretty with 54 percent of the market share in the six networking categories shown below for 2012.

Research from Synergy shows that Cisco has the lion’s share of the market in switches and routing, reaching roughly 65 percent and 70 percent respectively. In 2012 the six main segments within the enterprise networking market generated $45 billion in revenues for technology vendors, with Ethernet switches now accounting for almost half of all spending.

So even as Cisco comes off a successful reorganization and faces existential threats to its networking business from the commodification of the router, it’s daunting to see what its fighting to keep. It will not go gently.

Check out Cisco at our Structure Data conference in New York City March 20 and 21.

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Google announced today that it has added Google Calendar data to the Gmail Search Field Trial. This is the feature that lets you search Google’s regular web search and get relevant content from your Gmail account right on the main search results page.

I’ve been part of the field trial since the beginning, and personally, I find it to be one of the most useful things Google has done in quite some time. This notion was only amplified when Google added Drive content into the mix, and I would imagine that Calendar data would only enhance it further.

With the update, you can search for your agenda, and find appointments saved to your Google Calendar.

I should note that I’ve been experiencing some problems with the feature actually returning results for the past week or so. I reached out to Google about the issue, and have so far been unable to get an explanation, though I’m told nothing has changed, and it’s likely something specific to my own account.

When the feature works though, it really is helpful on a daily basis.

What other Google services would you like to see implemented in this feature?

I love hardware. That’s why I want you guys to bring some of the coolest hardware projects imaginable to Disrupt NY this year. That’s why I want you guys in our Hardware Alley.

Hardware Alley is a one-day celebration of hardware start ups both young and old. The goal has always been to show off amazing hardware that we have written about over the past few months, as well as a few surprises. Last Disrupt we featured the guys from Thermovape, Makerbot, and Lit Motors. This year we want to fill Disrupt NYC with more amazing companies.

For more details on Disrupt head over here. We’re looking for new or even unlaunched products, as well as potential Kickstarter projects. Prototypes are fine as long as they’re amazing.

You can see the previous Hardware Alley participants here. You can sign up here. Bootstrappers can contact me directly at [email protected] if you need a break on price. Hope to see you in the alley… the Hardware Alley.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our amazing sponsorship team here [email protected].

Google Drive could be on the road to becoming a major file sharing tool for people with Google accounts.

It’s clear that Google is building toward consolidating its various products into a central Google experience. If nothing else, last year’s privacy policy changes indicated as much (not to mention the continued integration of Google+ into all things Google). Google has been making a number of moves with Google Drive to make it a more useful storage provider.

On the search front, Google is already offering Google Drive (along with Gmail) results on regular web search results pages. It’s in preview mode, but it’s an incredibly useful addition to the Google universe, and it needs to become available to all users, at least on an opt-in basis. It can save a great deal of time if you often refer to files from your Google Drive account or emails from your Gmail account. Combine that with Chrome, and it’s never been as easy to locate files as it is when you type in a few keywords into the omnibox.

Google is also teaching developers how to make searchable Google Drive files.

Yesterday, Google shared an animated GIF on Google+ in a post talking about searching the Help Center from Drive. Jérôme Flipo noticed something quite interesting in that file (somehow):

Here you can see “Gmail Attachments” in the menu on the left-hand side:

Alex Chitu at Google Operating System picked up on his post, and notes, “It turns out that there are many references to Gmail attachments in Google Drive’s code, so this new feature is not yet enabled in the public version of Google Drive, but Google employees test it.”

“It’s likely that you’ll be able to manage Gmail attachments from Google Drive, find attachments and share them with other people,” Chitu adds. “Google Drive is already the central file repository for most Google services.”

A couple people commented on Chitu’s post saying that it’s not the central file repository for photos, music or YouTube uploads. However, that doesn’t mean that Google won’t work toward a more integrated system that combines all of this stuff. This does seem to be the general path Google is on, in terms of making its services work better with one another.

On the video front, interestingly enough, the Google Drive Android app got video streaming capabilities in a recent update. Additionally, Google announced a new file preview feature for Drive last week, which could also come in handy for locating and sharing files.

And since Google launched Google+, it has continued to try and improve the actual experience of sharing content on the web. Just this week, Google launched the new Google+ Sign-in.

Email attachments are essentially just another file sharing tool, and giving them easy access from Google Drive would only serve to make Drive a more useful file sharing tool itself. If nothing else, it would at least give Google users another option for locating and sharing files.

Mobile app developers looking to boost revenue may want to take a close look at the newest effort from Electronic Arts. As reported by Polygon, on Wednesday EA announced a new partnership between its Chillingo division and Samsung called “100% Indie”. Developers that sign up and participate by adding their app to the Samsung Apps store will get 100 percent of revenues for the first six months.

The monetary boost doesn’t stop there, however. After every six-month period from the beginning of the program, which starts on March 4, the developer cut decreases 10 percent, down to the industry standard of 70 percent after two years.

This differs from the two other major Android app stores. Google offers a 70 percent cut in Google Play, as does Amazon’s Appstore but it generally retains more control over mobile app prices and therefore, developer revenues. For example, Amazon picks a free app each day and also can also lower app prices to match promotions in competing app stores.

I see no mention of exclusivity in the program, but even if it is required, it may not give developers a reason to shy away. Samsung devices account for the largest share of all Android phones sold: 42.5 percent of the global total last year, says Gartner research. The opportunity for a higher revenue percentage then could easily outweigh any audience limitations from keeping the app in the Samsung Apps store.

If nothing else, this may even provide some incentive for devs to bring their newest, best titles to Samsung devices first before offering them to others through Google Play or the Amazon Appstore. That could add more fuel to the growing fire between Samsung and Google as the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google is already concerned by Samsung’s influence over the Android platform as a whole.

The “100% Indie” initiative kicks off on March 4 and the first 3,000 developers to sign up will be fast-tracked in the program.

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General Motors is hoping to build a $258 million data center at a research facility it owns in Milford, Michigan. The company is seeking tax abatements for the project at the Milford Proving Ground, which would feature a 100,000 square foot data center and employ about 20 workers.

“GM is developing a business case regarding a possible future investment to construct and equip a consolidated GM information technology data center facility in Milford, Mich., on the GM Proving Ground campus,” the company told the Detroit Free Press.

The Milford site appears to be the second data center to be built as part of a huge data center consolidation at GM that would centralize its IT infrastructure, consolidating from 23 sizable data centers worldwide to just two facilities in Michigan. Last June, GM announced that the first of the new data hubs would be a $130 million facility located in Warren, Mich.  As part of that process, the company will refresh its server and storage gear to bring higher levels of automation and efficiency to its infrastructure.

The consolidation is part of a GM initiative to drastically reduce its reliance upon third-party outsourcing firms. The automaker currently outsources about 90 percent of its IT services to systems integrators including HP/EDS, IBM, Capgemini, and Wipro.

GM is requesting a 50 percent tax abatement on real property and personal property for 15 years in Milford, township officials said. The GM Milford Proving Ground was the industry’s first dedicated automobile testing facility when it opened in 1924, and covers 4,000 acres.

I hate Darth Vader and it has nothing to do with the cruel acts that he perpetrated against the good folk of the galaxy while leading the military arm of the Empire or to his earlier life as the brat Anakin Skywalker.

I hate The Sith because, in his full black suit of armor and wielding a lightsaber, he destroyed enough of my balls on the Empire Strikes Back … (read more)

Virus Bulletin has put out a report saying that its own data supports recent security claims made by Google about Gmail.

Last week, Google put out a blog post claiming to have substantially reduced the amount of compromised accounts. The company said hit has reduced the number by 99.7% since 2011.

Google security engineer Mike Hearn wrote:

Every time you sign in to Google, whether via your web browser once a month or an email program that checks for new mail every five minutes, our system performs a complex risk analysis to determine how likely it is that the sign-in really comes from you. In fact, there are more than 120 variables that can factor into how a decision is made.

If a sign-in is deemed suspicious or risky for some reason—maybe it’s coming from a country oceans away from your last sign-in—we ask some simple questions about your account. For example, we may ask for the phone number associated with your account, or for the answer to your security question. These questions are normally hard for a hijacker to solve, but are easy for the real owner. Using security measures like these, we’ve dramatically reduced the number of compromised accounts by 99.7 percent since the peak of these hijacking attempts in 2011.

According to Virus Bulletin this “could be the case,” but “Yahoo!, and to a lesser extent Hotmail (now Outlook.com), has a real problem.”

Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted a link to the report, calling it “some external validation that Google has radically reduced email spam from hijacked Gmail accounts”.

The report itself says:

The legitimate feeds we use do receive the occasional spam email – usually from compromised accounts and typically sent to addresses contained in the compromised accounts’ address books. We have noticed a few emails from compromised Gmail accounts among these spam emails, but noticed that Yahoo! emails are far more prevalent. We were initially hesitant to draw conclusions from this: it is well possible that the feeds we receive are skewed towards certain email providers.

Indeed, they are skewed, but towards Gmail, whose messages are far more prevalent among the legitimate feeds. This makes the situation a lot worse for Yahoo!: over the last eight months of testing we have found that, in the legitimate email feeds, about one in 115 emails from the Sunnyvale-based company were spam, compared with fewer than one in 4,800 from Gmail. Hotmail, Microsoft’s free webmail service (now Outlook.com), isn’t doing particularly well either, with almost 1 in 325 emails being spam.

Not good news for Yahoo, which recently revamped its email service, and is currently facing a lot of user complaints about a homepage redesign. Nor is it great news for Microsoft who is heavily campaigning for Gmail users to switch to Outlook.com based on the notion that Google is somehow violating their privacy by algorithmically serving them ads as it has for nearly a decade.

Big data software and tools provider Revelytix announced early access availability of Loom Dataset Management for Hadoop which makes it easier for data scientists to work with Hadoop and easier for their organizations to manage the huge challenges of big data files created with Hadoop.  Loom tracks the lineage and provenance of all registered HDFS data and offers query execution using SQL, SPARQL or HiveQL, as well as integration with R.

Dataset Management for Hadoop

“Loom makes it easy for data scientists and IT to build more analytics faster with easy-to-use interfaces that simplify getting the right data for the job quickly and managing datasets efficiently over time with proper tracking and data auditing,” said Revelytix CEO

Mike Lang.  Loom includes dataset lineage so you know where a dataset came from, Active Scan to dynamically profile datasets, Lab Bench for finding, transforming, and analyzing data in Hadoop and Hive; data suitability, and open APIs.

Based on nearly a decade of designing and building big data fabrics and solutions for the U.S. Department of Defense, the leading intelligence organizations in the United States and major pharmaceutical, financial services and life sciences companies, Loom is the product of deep big data experience. Because Hadoop makes practical so many new analytics and datasets, Loom’s tracking and management capabilities are fundamental to managing datasets in Hadoop.

Relationship with U.S. DoD Expanded

Revelytix also announced that it will provide big data software and services for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) during 2013, deepening the multi-year big data relationship already in place. The DOD has relied on Revelytix for three years to create its data architecture and provide support to allow it to establish common architecture and semantics across all military service branches.

“The management team at Revelytix has been working on complex data processing and data management problems for the federal government for the past 12 years,” Lang said. ”Our first company, Metamatrix, now part of Red Hat, produced data processing software used in the intelligence community and the DOD. Revelytix has been working for the DOD for the past four years specifically on the problem of processing and managing highly distributed sets of data. The resulting Revelytix technology is now in full production.”

Google announced the launch of a new game under the Chrome Experiments label. It’s called Chrome Super Sync Sports, and lets up to four people compete in running, swimming and cycling on a shared computer screen, using their smartphones or tablets as the game controllers.

The game takes advantage of HTML5 features like WebSockets, Canvas and CSS3.

To play, just go to the Super Sync Sports page on your computer, choose a game and select the number of players. From there, visit g.co/super in Chrome on your smartphone or tablet, and type in the code that is displayed on the computer. This syncs the devices, and puts you in gameplay mode.

“Use the arrow pad on your smartphone or tablet to select one of 50 athletes and prepare yourself for the competition,” says Steve Vranakis, Executive Creative Director, Google Creative Lab. “The motions you make on your mobile touchscreen will move your athlete on your computer screen. To move your athlete forward and win the race, you need to make the correct gestures as quickly as possible. The better you are, the higher your chances of making it to the global leaderboard.”

The game is available for Chrome v15 and up, and for Android 4.0+ and iOS 4.3+ devices.

Several cooling vendors have announced new products this week. Here’s an overview:

Minkels Updates Cold Corridor Containment – Data center maker Minkels, part of the listed company Legrand  has launched its Next Generation Cold Corridor, a modular and highly flexible aisle containment solution that separates hot and cold airflows in an energy-efficient manner. Minkels launched the first version of the Cold Corridor in 2006, in a time when attention to energy efficiency was still very much a new trend. Minkels is scheduled to exhibit the Next Generation Cold Corridor to users for the first time at Data Centre World 2013, which is being held in London today and tomorrow. “Virtualisation and cloud computing have given data centre dynamics a considerable boost,” says Jeroen Hol, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Minkels. “As an extension of this development, users are expressing a growing need for highly scalable and therefore flexible data centre solutions. They want to be able to conveniently upscale or downscale a data centre whenever necessary. Cost considerations also play a role in this call for flexibility. This highly modular design offers extensive opportunities to implement such a Cold Corridor solution in stages, and therefore more cost effectively, too.”  Thanks to its modular structure, the Next Generation Cold Corridor can be flexibly adapted to the specific building environment.

STULZ Introduces CyberCon Cooling for Containers – STULZ introduced the STULZ CyberCon modular, outdoor cooling system, a highly energy-efficient, self-contained, external cooling solution designed for rapid deployment with containerized computer rooms (PODs). “STULZ CyberCon is a true all-in-one cooling solution,” said Joerg Desler, Vice President of Production and Engineering for STULZ. “With STULZ CyberCon, STULZ is providing a precision cooling solution that can be tailored to meet all IT manufacturer and data center needs worldwide.” The modular design of the new STULZ CyberCon permits the ability to scale capacity and quickly align with IT demand and rapidly changing environmental conditions. Since STULZ CyberCon is constructed in advance of installation, it reduces upfront capital costs associated with the construction of a brick-and-mortar data center. To permit ease of shipping, doors, fans, and louvers have been designed so that they do not exceed the external dimensions of the STULZ CyberCon system. David Joy, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for STULZ, noted, “Given the rapid growth of modular data centers over the past two years, the STULZ CyberCon’s modular design makes it ideally suited to the precision cooling needs of containerized data centers.”

In case you haven’t heard, they’re making a Titanic II. Not a sequel to the James Cameron movie, but a sequel to the actual ship. The project was announced last April by Australian tycoon Clive Palmer, as the flagship of Blue Star Line, his cruise company. The plan is for it to launch in 2016.

The ship’s blueprint has now been unveiled, along with artists’ renderings of what the interior will look like. The Daily Mail shares this video:

Noted Titanic experts Steve Hall and Daniel Klistorner were announced as design consultants in October.

The ship will begin a six-day voyage in late 2016, if everything goes according to plan. It is supposed to follow a similar route to that of the original ship. Construction will begin this year.

A dinner is being held in London on March 2nd, and it will display items salvaged from the original Titanic.

The O’Reilly Strata Conference is underway this week in Santa Clara, and Cloudera, DDN and MapR all have big data announcements. The Strata Conference online conversation can be followed on the Twitter hashtag #Strataconf.

Cloudera Enterprise evolves. Cloudera announced the next evolution of its platform for big data, Cloudera Enterprise, designed to meet and exceed enterprise business continuity and compliance requirements and simplify integration with existing data management systems. New advancements in the Enterprise platform include Cloudera Navigator, Cloudera Enterprise BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery), along with version 4.5 of the company’s market-leading management interface, Cloudera Manager. ”The market has reached an important milestone,” said Mike Olson, CEO of Cloudera. “There is now a wave of mainstream enterprise interest in the integration of Apache Hadoop into existing IT environments. At Cloudera, our experience — our large installed base includes more than half the Fortune 100 — gives us a clear understanding of enterprise requirements. With the new enhancements announced today, we offer customers the most advanced, most mature business-ready solution capable of supporting critical enterprise data and systems management needs.”

DDN launches hScaler appliance. DataDirect Networks (DDN) announced the hScaler appliance, an Apache Hadoop platform for big data with integration and flexibility optimized specifically for the enterprise. As an enterprise appliance the hScaler features a plug-and-play experience with a single-pane-of-glass management interface to simplify monitoring of the entire Hadoop infrastructure. It combines high throughput shared storage, powered by DDN’s Storage Fusion Architecture (SFA) capabilities, and a high performance server framework. It leverages the SFA12K platform, a 40GB/s InfiniBand storage appliance that crunches big data with 1.4M sustained SSD IOPS in real-time. “DDN’s hScaler appliance represents the next step forward in the democratization of big data. It takes an advanced analytics solution that was economical for only the richest and most information-driven organizations in the world and puts it well within the grasp of enterprise CIOs,” said Jean-Luc Chatelain, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Technology, DDN. ”For enterprises seeking to maximize the value of their information, hScaler technology presents an opportunity to do so at a lower cost — in terms of time, money, and resources — than ever before.”

MapR sets MinuteSort record.  MapR Technologies announced a new world record for MinuteSort, sorting 15 billion 100-byte records (a total of 1.5 trillion bytes) in 60 seconds using Google Compute Engine and the MapR Distribution for Apache Hadoop. The benchmark, often referred to as the World Cup of data sorting, demonstrates how quickly data can be sorted starting and ending on disks. The benchmark was completed on 2,103 virtual instances in the Google Compute Engine. Each virtual instance consisted of four virtual cores and one virtual disk, for a total of 8,412 virtual cores and 2,103 virtual disks. “The record is significant because it represents a total efficiency improvement executed in a cloud environment,” said Jack Norris, VP of marketing, MapR Technologies. “In an era where information is increasing by tremendous leaps, being able to quickly scale to meet data growth with high performance makes business analytics a reality in situations previously impossible.”

It appears that after seven years of coaching the Team USA basketball team, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski (otherwise known as Coach K) will not be coaching it any longer.

Krzyzewski said on ESPN’s Mike & Mike in the Morning, “I’ve loved, loved, loved, and it’s been an honor being with the USA Basketball team. And to coach the team and work with [chairman and president Jerry Colangelo] for seven years has been marvelous.”

In 2005, Krzyzewski was appointed coach. His record as head coach of the USA National Team was 62–1. His team got four golds in all (FIBA Americas Championship 2007, 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2010 FIBA World Championship and the 2012 Summer Olympics) and one bronze (2006 FIBA World Championship).

Here’s what people are saying on Twitter:

If Coach K is done coaching the USA team, the 3 replacement candidates should be (in no order) Gregg Poppovich, Doc Rivers, or Rick Carlisle

— GrizzlyBlair (@grizzlyblair) February 27, 2013

Coach K is steps down as coach of Team USA. He finally realized to deal with NBA attitudes, he just needs to keep coaching college.

— Captain Chris (@CatCappy) February 27, 2013

Saw a story that said “Coach K Done” I must admit my heart skipped a beat before I clicked on the story. #Relief

— Gylee Brooke (@gbrooke21) February 27, 2013

Amazing work what Coach K did with Team USA…Made it popular again for our best athletes to represent our country.

— Kevin Snyder (@CoachKSnyd) February 27, 2013

Team USA facing crisis as both Kobe Bryant and Coach K not returning to future FIBA or olympic games!!

— Joshua Koh (@JoshuaKys) February 27, 2013

@kyrieirving should try play for Australia now that Coach K has stepped down as coach of Team USA! would love to see him in the Green & Gold

— James Darrell (@JimmyDaReal) February 27, 2013

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today. -Mike Krzyzewski

— Duke Vitale (@DukeVitale) February 27, 2013

In my opinion, Doc Rivers. RT @sinow: Who should replace Coach K as head coach for Team USA? bit.ly/WgOj9i

— Arthurlee Mitchell (@Arthurlee_M) February 27, 2013

Canadian government agency Public Safety Canada, which is tasked with overseeing cyber-security across all federal departments, has issued a memo warning government workers that communicating using BlackBerry Messenger PIN-to-PIN messaging is “the most vulnerable method of communicating on a BlackBerry.” Canada’s Postmedia News obtained the memo this week, which repeatedly advises workers to avoid sending PIN-to-PIN messages on their BlackBerry (BBRY) phones.

Continue reading…

Android users pining over Apple’s Passbook wallet functionality need pine no more, provided they plan to use a Samsung smartphone. At a developer event on Wednesday, Samsung announced its own wallet software that replicates Apple’s Passbook functionality, complete with an open API for partner integration. Ironically, right after Apple announced Passbook ticket support at 13 Major League Baseball parks, Samsung noted that the MLB is an initial partner for its new wallet.

Samsung explained the new wallet feature along with a list of other launch partners during the developer session:

One of the most popular sessions this year featured the introduction of the open API for the Samsung Wallet service, which allows users to collect coupons, membership cards, tickets, and boarding passes from partners’ applications and store them in one place. The service’s launching partners like Walgreens, Belly, Major League Baseball Advanced Media , Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Lufthansa were announced during the session.

I’m conflicted by the news. It’s actually good for consumers to have similar functionality on both iOS and Android, provided the partner list is generally the same. I don’t want to have choose a platform, for example, because its wallet app is the only one that works with vendors I use. But I have to wonder: Why is Samsung doing this and not Google itself for Android?

This question gets back to the concern I just noted about platform choice. Because this app will only work with Samsung devices, it now becomes a choice of what brand of Android phone to use in support of wallet features. This shouldn’t be an initiative with an original equipment manufacturer; this should be a project for Android as a whole. I don’t blame Samsung; it accounts for more of the Android device market than any of its peers so why shouldn’t it keep pushing ahead?

Regardless, I love the idea of a digital wallet. Although I haven’t used it lately, I’m a big fan of paying for goods or services through my NFC-enabled phone with Google Wallet. But the point of a digital wallet is to eliminate our big, bulky physical wallets that are filled with currency, cards and whatever else we need to carry. Do we really want to start carrying multiple digital wallet solutions on our devices or choose a phone based on what wallet features it supports? I certainly don’t.

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A group of newspapers, including The New York Times, has lent its support to The Associated Press in a lawsuit against Meltwater, a company that scans news from around the world, and helps businesses track keywords and topics of interest. The service reportedly reproduces headlines and story snippets for clients, along with links to the actual stories – pretty much like a search engine.

The TImes filed a brief with the court, calling Meltwater a “free-rider,” which engages in the “wholesale copying and redistribution” of its news reports.The brief is also endorsed by other publishers including Gannett and McClatchy (via PaidContent).

As described on its site, Meltwater offers a product that tracks keywords, phrases, and topics in over 192,000 sources from over 190 countries and 100 languages, and monitors these sources consistently throughout the day. It searches an unlimited amount of keywords throughout the publications, and lets customers receieve daily reports at the timing and frequency of their choosing, “collated into easily digested categories,” as the company describes it.

Interestingly, the brief paints Google News in a positive light, at least in comparison to Meltwater. The publishers claim that the rate of clickthrough is much greater with Google News and similar services than it is for Meltwater.

TechDirt reported on the battle between the AP and Meltwater as far back as last April, saying that if the AP’s argument gains traction, it could “effectively outlaw search engines”. Mike Masnick shared this statement from Meltwater at the time:

Plaintiff’s claims are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of copyright misuse. Through this Complaint and through other means, Plaintiff seeks to misuse its limited copyright monopoly to extend its control over the Internet search market more generally, thereby improperly expanding the protections afforded by U.S. copyright law. Among other things, AP has misused its copyright monopoly by demanding that third parties take licenses for search results, which do not require a license under U.S. copyright law, and AP has also formed a consortium (called NewsRight) with the purpose of further misusing its copyright monopoly to extract licensing fees that exceed what the law allows.

We’ve discussed Newsright in the past.

Meltwater has actually filed a counter-suit against the AP on the grounds of libel, and has the support of the EFF, and as Jeff John Roberts at PaidContent points out, even the Google-backed Computer and Communications Industry Association has backed Meltwater’s claim that it’s a search engine. He shares the NYT Amicus Brief:

NYT Amicus Brief for Meltwater by

Earlier this month, Meltwater issued a press release saying it was taking the fight to protect Internet users from unintentionally infringing copyright law.