Most existing IP valuation methods are either inexpensive but yield very coarse results, or so expensive they’re beyond the reach of cash-strapped TTOs. A new software-based method, the Competitive Advantage Valuation (CAV) system, was specifically developed to provide the precision you need at a price you can afford. No other valuation method yields its level of precision at such a low price — now even lower under a collaboration with 2Market Information Inc., parent company of Tech Transfer E-News. The CAV method was developed over many years to value IP assets and formulate technology commercialization strategies on behalf of corporate, university and federal laboratory clients of the Technology Commercialization Research Center at Syracuse University. The CAV method provides accurate, affordable and objective valuation results that are:
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The CAV Software gives inventors, licensors, and licensees a single, straightforward method for determining IP value. Created by nationally recognized IP law expert Ted Hagelin, the software yields clear and logical valuation results through a single program platform for effective negotiation, planning and reporting. The easy-to-use CAV system includes detailed explanations and instructions for each step of the process, and over 75 research resources to obtain the information needed for valuation. For a limited time this unique tool is available for only $380 (regularly $630). For complete details and to order, CLICK HERE.
EJI is working to assist people who have been forced into homelessness, denied critical medical care, and subjected to permanent imprisonment as a result of Alabama’s Community Notification Act.
Materials scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have found a new use for a chemical compound that traditionally has been viewed as an electrical conductor. By orienting the compound in a different way, the researchers have transformed it into a thin film insulator, which blocks rather than enhances the flow of electricity while inducing large electric currents elsewhere. The material, called solution-deposited beta-alumina, could have applications in transistor technology and in devices such as electronic books. The discovery is described in Nature Materials. “This form of sodium beta-alumina has some very useful characteristics,” says Howard E. Katz, PhD, chair and professor of materials science and engineering, who supervised the Johns Hopkins team. “The material is produced in a liquid state, which means it can easily be deposited onto a surface in a precise pattern for the formation of printed circuits,” he explains. “But when it’s heated, it forms a solid, thin transparent film. In addition, it allows us to operate at low voltages, meaning it requires less power to induce useful current.” Thus, applications could operate with batteries instead of a wall outlet. The transparency and thinness of the material make it ideal for use in the increasingly popular e-book readers, which rely on see-through screens and portable power sources, Katz said. Potential transportation applications include instrument readouts that can be displayed in the windshield of an aircraft or a ground vehicle.
Working like an architect, Hagit Eldar-Finkelman, a professor in the department of human molecular genetics and biochemistry at Tel Aviv (Israel) University’s Sackler School of Medicine, is “building” a new drug — L803-MTS — to treat central nervous system (CNS) diseases such as Alzheimer’s. In preclinical studies, the compound also shows promise against Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and diabetes. L803-MTS is based on the physical structure of the GSK3 protein, which plays a causative role in insulin resistance and type II diabetes. Working with chemists, biotechnologists, and 3-D modelists, Eldar-Finkelman and colleagues built — like engineers constructing a building — a drug that locks onto the GSK3 protein, rendering it harmless and unable to wreak havoc inside the body. Research findings on the L803-MTS drug have been published in the Journal of Molecular Biology and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Proteins and Proteomics.
Since Eldar-Finkelman linked GSK3 to insulin resistance in diabetes more than 10 years ago, a race has been on among drug manufacturers to find a drug that can potentially turn off the harmful effects of the protein. Rather than build on existing drugs, Eldar-Finkelman and her colleagues worked from the ground up. “I decided to take a completely different approach from all the big drug companies rushing to find the ultimate drug,” Eldar-Finkelman says. “I designed my own.” Preclinical results have been positive, and the new drug does not exhibit dangerous toxic side effects — a problem with existing formulations. While L803-MTS cannot reverse the onset of a CNS disease, Eldar-Finkelman believes it can slow devastating effects such as memory impairment, depression, and insulin-resistance. With seed money from Ramot, the university’s TTO, she’s taken her basic research to the next step and is seeking a strategic partner to guide the research through the clinical process and eventual commercialization.
Here’s another episode of my little side project, the HourTime Podcast. This time we talk about a $500K sports watch and the history of timekeeping and some of your favorite brands. Hope you’re enjoying this and we’d love some feedback.
Today the USPTO is hosting a roundtable on international work sharing.This forum will bring together distinguished panelists from interested stakeholder groups to have an open discussion on the issues and implications around work sharing. Work sharing is an important tool for speeding the processing of applications filed in multiple jurisdictions by enabling patent offices to avail themselves of work done by another patent office. Of course, work sharing does not substitute for decisions on patentability—which are and will continue to be made solely by USPTO examiners as to applications pending in the USPTO.But work sharing is a powerful tool, like other tools, enabling our employees to extract value from the efforts of other similarly skilled examiners in other patent offices, including prior art found in the course of searching, and office actions applying patentability criteria that are in many cases very similar across patent systems.
The amount of repetitious work involved in examining patent filings first filed in other patent offices represents a significant impact on the USPTO’s workload and the workload of other offices, and contributes to our backlog and long pendency periods.Thus, I see work sharing as one of our most important tools to speed patent examination and enhance quality. We’re eager for today’s discussion and look forward to hearing the insights and perspectives of the participants.
Just last week, I attended the Trilateral Conference and Industry Trilateral meetings in Kyoto, Japan, where the USPTO, the EPO, and the JPO entered into a series of bilateral agreements to expand the existing Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) work share program.These new PPH agreements between the Trilateral Offices will enable us to use international search reports, written opinions, and international preliminary examination reports developed within the framework of the international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), in examining patent applications filed at the USPTO.
These new agreements greatly expand the potential of the PPH program.By permitting a Trilateral Office to draw upon the positive examination result from the PCT work product of another Trilateral Office, the PPH will now be available to a larger number of applicants.This will make it possible to obtain patent protection in multiple countries more quickly and easily, and less expensively.
In addition, the Trilateral Offices are developing new information systems and a new generation of information products and services. For example, we are undertaking efforts to move toward use of a more efficient means of processing data through use of an Extensible Markup Language (XML) data format, and to develop tools to encourage XML filing by applicants.
These are some of our work sharing initiatives both at home through the multilateral fora.By further expanding our work sharing efforts the USPTO will be better-positioned to meet the needs of the constantly evolving global intellectual property landscape.
Please stay tuned as we advance in embracing work sharing, and please do send along your comments.
TiVo has finally dropped the price on the HD and HD XL DVRs. These models have been rocking their initial MSRP for years now, but now they can be had for a little bit less. The 160GB HD model is now $249 and the 1TB model, $499 down from $599. Of course you still have to pay a monthly fee to use these DVRs, but I’m not one to snub a modest price drop.
I wonder if this was a reaction to the Moxi price drop from last week. Probably not because these things are usually planned months out, but you never know. Maybe TiVo is starting to feel a little heat from their closest competitors, who now have a 3-tuner DVR by the way…
NeoReader is a mobile application that turns a mobile phone camera into a code scanner and provides one-click access to mobile content on the go, anytime and anywhere. NeoReader features NeoMedia’s patented resolution technology and Gavitec’s ultra-small footprint and platform-independent code scanning algorithms. The software is available on Symbian, iPhone and now Windows Mobile.
The application supports Data Matrix, QR code, Aztec code, EAN, UPC and Code 128, unfortunately Microsoft Tag is not included.
The software is available to download by visiting get.neoreader.com from your mobile browser.
Oeufs en cocotte, with their simple elegance, make a for a charming, nourishing breakfast and are well-suited to a variety of accompaniments: fresh herbs, raw milk cheeses, ham or bacon or even my favorite – homemade gravlax. Easily prepared in single-serving portions, oeufs en cocotte are perfect for those cooking for only themselves or for a very small family. On hectic mornings – which, I might add, is nearly every morning – it’s easy to crack an egg into a dish, season it and slide it into a waiting oven. By the time I’ve finished my shower, breakfast is ready. This is fast food – in the true meaning of the words and without the disturbing additives or discomforting ecological, economical and social impacts.
Eggs make for a good breakfast – packed with vitamin A, riboflavin, selenium and other micronutrients in beautiful combination with wholesome fats and protein. Better yet if your egg comes from a hen raised on pasture. Research into the nutritional composition conducted by the Weston A Price Foundation indicates that the yolk of a pasture-raised egg contains 8 times the vitamin A of a conventional, store-bought egg. It’s no wonder. An comparison of the yolks alone yields a remarkable story itself. The yolk of a pasture-raised egg will be a rich orange compared to a conventional egg which is pallid and dull by comparison. Remember, where there’s color and flavor, there’s nutrients.
In this recipe, I combine pasture-raised egg with pecorino romano cheese, unrefined celtic sea salt and home-cured gravlax. The gravlax, with its salty sweetness, adds a lovely richness to the dish and contributes much needed omega-3 fatty acids including EPA and DHA. Gravlax is a raw food – cured at home easily and, in the best tradition of real food, without complication. Wild-caught salmon or other oily fish combines with unrefined sugar, salt, fresh herbs and spices, is weighted down and allowed to cure in the fridge for a few days or up to a week before being served. Wary of cooking’s effect on fragile polyunsaturated fatty acids found in salmon, I prefer to serve my fish raw or cured.
When you’re rushed for time, consider the minimal effort and spectacular nutritional composition of this simple, wholesome dish. It takes only a few minutes, and is well worth it. If you don’t have gravlax on hand – and it’s likely you won’t as it’s not a regular feature in most kitchens – you can substitute purchased lox or smoked salmon, herbs or even ham or bacon.
Oeufs en Cocotte with Lox: The Recipe
This recipe serves 1; however, it is easily doubled, tripled, quadrupled … For a heartier breakfast, consider serving these eggs with buttered sprouted grain toast and fresh fruit or a tomato salad.
1 Tablespoon Raw Milk Artisan Cheese, Grated (see sources)
1 oz Lox, Smoked Salmon or Home-cured Gravlax, Chopped Fine
2 Teaspoons Chopped Fresh Herbs (Parsley and Chives work well for me)
Unrefined Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper to Taste
½ Teaspoon Butter from Grass-fed Cows (see sources)
Oeufs en Cocotte with Lox: Instructions
Butter a small 4-oz ramekin.
Crack the egg and pour the contents into the buttered ramekin. Take care not to break the yolk.
Add the lox to the dish.
Sprinkle the cheese, herbs, salt and pepper to the egg.
Bake in a water bath at 350º F until egg white is set, but the yolk is still runny or done to your liking. Baking takes approximately 12 – 15 minutes – just enough time for a nice long shower.
More from Nourished Kitchen
Looking for grass-finished beef or wild-caught fish? What about that exotic sourdough starter you’ve been after? Or water kefir grains? Check out the Nourished Kitchen Where to Buy List that outlines great companies that sell or support real and traditional foods.
Don’t forget: I’m not a doctor, I’m a mom who loves preparing wholesome, natural foods for her family and I enjoy sharing our reasons in choosing these nourishing foods. Read the disclaimer and advertising/link policy and the privacy policy.
Remember the good old days when video game machines ALWAYS came with a free game? Sometimes even two! Nintendo had Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, Sega had Hang On! and Astro Warrior. Well that gravy train ended a while ago but you can hop back on, today only, as Amazon is offering a free game or headset with the purchase of a white Nintendo DSi.
Now don’t get too excited just yet. Your game options are limited to Style Lab: Makeover, Style Lab: Jewelry Design, Dinosaur King, or Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and your headset options are limited to just the Nintendo DS Ear Force D2.
Here’s to hoping that there’s a kid in footy pajamas somewhere out there begging his or her parents for a white DSi and Style Lab: Makeover and that those parents say, “Sorry honey but we only have $170 to spend! We can only afford the DSi, but not the game. Now give us some quiet time to read CrunchGear.”
Most records and documents created and filed within court systems and police departments in the U.S. are public. And Google is trying to make it feel that way.
The company that conquered the web and coined the phrase “Don’t Be Evil” announced yesterday in a blog post that it was adding full-text decisions from federal and state legal courts to Google Scholar.
This announcement means the free web becomes a richer source not only for education and research, but also for those of us trying to overturn injustice through the court system.
The law is still a paper profession. It’s changing, but slowly. Google’s move only covers opinions filed by courts; those are currently among the easier documents to find. For real reform, we need a sea change in the way the law looks at data. We need to bring the digital revolution to the courtroom and the police station. During the Presidential campaign last year, Barack Obama talked about a Google for Government. He’s right. We need to Google-ize our courts.
Wrath is a retro space shooter for the BlackBerry Storm. Using the accelerometer or touchscreen, you control your ship as it picks up power-ups and blasts space aliens. If things look like they’re getting messy, click the screen to super-nuke everything.
One of the coolest features in this game is the ability to listen to your own music while you play. Just make a playlist in the BlackBerry Media player, and Wrath will use it for the in-game music.
With of an infrastructure of social location information just starting to coagulate, the monetization side is raring to go. Since real-time mobile advertising is inherently somewhat invasive (and by extension, somewhat creepy), these products end up less groundbreaking than they could be. (Which is OK by me.)
A new offering from a San Francisco-based company called 1020 Placecast — which is announcing today that it’s raised a $5 million Series B — will be trialed with three retailers over the holidays; it uses a double-opt-in relationship built directly between users and their favorite shops. Once users sign up to receive alerts on a phone that has persistent location information (BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android), they get pinged with marketing messages from that brand every time they enter a “geo-fence” targeted area, as small as a single city block.
Another way to geo-target users is to advertise to them when they’ve checked into a known venue — say, a baseball stadium for a game. Startups like mDialog are trying to make this work. To me, that makes a little more sense than waiting for a previously identified customer to wander onto your block.
1020 Placecast raised the Series B round from Quatrex Capital, Onset Ventures and Voyager Capital; it brings total investment in the 3.5-year-old company to about $10 million. The company makes money by charging brands a set-up fee and then a monthly fee based on number of users. It says its technology is ready and it just needs the cash for marketing and biz dev.
Though 1020 Placecast is really more of a mobile marketing company, any startup involved in advertising or mobile is pretty psyched about what Google’s bid-up $750 million AdMob buy does to its valuation.
For more on the promise and worry of push-based location-aware mobile advertising, see this panel writeup from our Mobilize conference a couple months ago.
He’s been called “the Salvador Dalí of the kitchen” for creations ranging from beetroot and yogurt ice-cream lollipops to a deconstructed Spanish omelet served in a parfait glass. Each year, some 2 million hopeful diners vie to be one of the fifty customers he serves each evening for the six months that elBulli, his restaurant, is open. The world is beating a path to Chef Ferran Adrià’s door, but why?
“Creativity comes first; then comes the customer,” he has said. So what can HBS students learn about marketing from a business owner who says he doesn’t care whether or not customers like his product?
HBS assistant professor Michael Norton’s interest in what motivates seemingly irrational consumer behavior has found a perfect subject in Adrià. To eat at elBulli, customers must navigate a mysterious reservations system. If they are lucky enough to be one of the 8,000 who get a booking that year, they are then given a date and time to show up. Reaching elBulli’s coastal perch involves traveling to Barcelona, then negotiating two hours of narrow, twisting mountain roads. But then they enjoy a five-hour meal of thirty-some completely original, whimsical dishes prepared by Adrià and his team of thirty to forty cooks. The meal costs roughly 230 euros and represents hours of laborious research, testing, and preparation. In addition to engaging a diner’s five senses, Adrià and his team hope to evoke irony, humor, and even childhood memories with their creations. “We have turned eating into an experience that supersedes eating,” he has said.
“If the product is merely food, Adrià should move the restaurant to Barcelona or Madrid,” says Norton, who has written a case on elBulli with Julián Villanueva and Luc Wathieu. “Another view is that the product is the whole experience, from start to finish—so driving for two hours in the mountains is a crucial aspect of the product.”
The case also highlights the distinction between understanding and listening to customers. “Adrià’s idea is that if you listen to customers, what they tell you they want will be based on something they already know,” Norton observes. “If I like a good steak, you can serve that to me, and I’ll enjoy it. But it will never be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To create those experiences, you almost can’t listen to the customer.”
Norton asks students to consider the operations and marketing of elBulli. There is much about the restaurant that is inefficient, as MBAs are quick to note: Adrià should lower his staff numbers, use cheaper ingredients, improve his supply chain, and increase the restaurant’s hours of operation. But “fixing” elBulli turns it into just another restaurant, says Norton: “The things that make it inefficient are part of what makes it so valuable to people.”
Adrià’s other business ventures include publishing elBulli-related catalogs, consulting to large food manufacturers, and the launch of an elBulli hotel and a chain of reasonably priced restaurants called Fast Good. But what is the balance between leveraging the Adrià/elBulli brand and breaking its core meaning? In a classroom discussion of first-year Marketing students, Norton says opinion was divided. Some felt sure that Adrià should be doing more to cash in on his name; others said he would destroy what he has worked so hard to build.
In December, students had the opportunity to hear from the man himself when Adrià visited Norton’s Marketing class, where his comments made it clear that for this particular business owner, creativity and innovation trump any traditional decisions about pricing and operations.
“I should charge 600 euros [for a meal at elBulli],” Adrià has said, “but I do not cook for millionaires. I cook for sensitive people.”
Because Adrià doesn’t adhere to business norms, the elBulli case shows just how broad the spectrum for marketing a “product” can be—and that’s not a bad thing for MBAs to learn. “Marketing is a science, but it’s also an art,” Norton remarks.
“Adrià says he doesn’t listen to customers, yet his customers are some of the most satisfied in the world. That’s an interesting riddle to consider.”
Between 1986 and 2005, Indian growth put to rest the concern that there was something about the “nature of India” that made rapid growth difficult. Following broad-ranging reforms in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, the state deregulated entry, both domestic and foreign, in many industries, and also hugely reduced barriers to trade. Laura Alfaro of Harvard Business School and Anusha Chari of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyze the evolution of India’s industrial structure at the firm level following the reforms. Despite the substantial increase in the number of private and foreign firms, the overall pattern that emerges is one of continued incumbent dominance in terms of assets, sales, and profits in both state-owned and traditional private firms. Key concepts include:
In sectors dominated by state-owned and traditional private firms before liberalization (with assets, sales, and profits representing 50 percent or higher shares), these firms remain the dominant ownership group following the reforms.
Rates of return remain stable over time and show low dispersion across sectors and across ownership groups within sectors.
The high levels of state ownership and ownership by traditional private firms in India raise the question of whether existing resources could be allocated more efficiently and whether remaining barriers to competition jeopardize the effectiveness of reform measures that have been put in place.
Abstract
Using firm-level data this paper analyzes, the transformation of India’s economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly-listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services industries and ownership structures such as state-owned firms, business groups, private and foreign firms. Detailed balance sheet and ownership information permit an investigation of a range of variables such as sales, profitability, and assets. Here we analyze firm characteristics shown by industry before and after liberalization and investigate how industrial concentration, the number, and size of firms of the ownership type evolved between 1988 and 2005. We find great dynamism displayed by foreign and private firms as reflected in the growth in their numbers, assets, sales and profits. Yet, closer scrutiny reveals no dramatic transformation in the wake of liberalization. The story rather is one of an economy still dominated by the incumbents (state-owned firms) and to a lesser extent, traditional private firms (firms incorporated before 1985). Sectors dominated by state-owned and traditional private firms before 1988-1990, with assets, sales and profits representing shares higher than 50%, generally remained so in 2005. The exception to this broad pattern is the growing importance of new and large private firms in the services sector. Rates of return also have remained stable over time and show low dispersion across sectors and across ownership groups within sectors.
55 pages.
Gamingnewslink.com’s self-help guide for fixing Left 4 Dead 2 crashes, freezes and steam/install errors Spread the link to this page if you find this post useful ^_^
One last note before proceeding to the list of Left 4 Dead 2. If you encounter errors or issues with Left 4 Dead 2 that are not included in the list below, issues which the solutions listed does not resolve, Tell us about it by Posting it in the comment box at the bottom of this page (No registration required). Include details about the Left4Dead 2 error and the specifications of the system you are running L4D2 on. It doesn’t have to be a fullblown dxdiag log, just the Video Card, Processor and amout of RAM and of course the Operating System (and service pack versions) you are playing Left 4 Dead 2 on. REMEMBER to check the comments at the bottom of this post.
List of Known Left 4 Dead 2 errors and solutions/workarounds
Problem #1 : Left4Dead 2 error message “Incomplete Installation (35)” Fix : make sure your firewall allows outbound TCP connections to port 27019 and 27031. credits: Richkaethler
Problem #2 : L4D 2 slowdown/lagging everytime the map is changed Fix : Tab-out and get back in the game again credits: Heino Kaveri
Problem #3 : Left 4 Dead 2 freezing/stuttering/lagging every x seconds Fix #1 : Turn off mutli-core rendering Fix #2 : Turn off Vsync credits: Dunastrig
Problem #4 : L4D2 Pink/dark texture problem Fix : no known fix as of this posting
Problem #5 : Left4Dead 2 headless models problem Fix : Update your graphics card to the latest version
Problem #6 : L4D2 error “Unable to load library client” Fix : no known fix as of this posting
Problem #7 : Left 4 Dead 2 always crashes on Windows Vista 64bit Fix : START > MY COMPUTER > WINDOWS > RIGHT CLICK ‘CSC’ > PROPERTIES > SECURITY
Make the ADMINISTRATOR own the folder credits: Havok
Problem #8 : L4D2 always crashing randomly Fix :
1. Close Steam
2. Go to ..\steam\steamapps\
3. Delete left 4 dead 2 common.ncf, left 4 dead 2 client.ncf
4. Restart Steam
5. Right Click L4D2 click Install credits: Freyar
Problem #9 : L4D2 can’t run after install: Verify steam service is running Fix :
credits: JoeR
Problem #10 : Left4Dead 2 problematic lag(freezing intermitently), slowdown and eventually crashing Fix 1 : Disable multicore rendering Fix 2 : mat_queue_mode 0 (console command) Fix 3 : Update Nvidia Drivers to Beta 195.39 credits: oct42, redninja, mic
Problem #11 : Left 4 Dead 2 CTD (crash to desktop) fix Fix :
1)Navigate to your windows folder (usually c:/windows/)
2)Inside there, goto the CSC folder
3)Try to open the folder and it should fail (if it doesn’t, you have a different problem). It’ll come up with ‘You don’t currently have permission to access this folder’ at which time you keep pressing continue until it says you’ve been denied.
4)Right-click the folder, go to properties.
5)Go to the security tab at which point it’ll say ‘To continue, you must be an administrative user with permission to view this object’s security properties’ at which point you click continue.
6)Click on admin in the owner tab which will swap the owner to the administrator then click OK.
7)You then click on OK once again which will bring up the security tab.
8)Tick ‘full control’, press OK twice to get out of the properties tabs.
9)Run the game. credits: fuloran
Problem #12 : Post Your Left 4 Dead 2 error at the comment box below if you are experiencing errors that are not listed here Solution : Help out and post solutions to L4D2 errors at the comment box below if you know one credits: YOU!
Important!:If you are experiencing errors with Left 4 Dead 2 that are not listed above or is not solved by the specified fixes,Tell us about it by posting in the comment box below (include system specs, OS, and description of the error you encounter in Left 4 Dead 2), NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED TO POST/ASK QUESTIONS/POST SOLUTIONS
The debate over Droid v. iPhone rages on, but lots more Android surprises are on the way. Get ready for the Google Phone. It’s no longer a myth, it’s real.
The next “super” Android device will almost certainly be a HTC phone that’s much thinner than even the Droid or iPhone – The Dragon/Passion. This is the phone the senior Android guys at Google are now carrying around and testing, at least as of a couple of weeks ago. If you’re willing to give up the Droid’s keyboard, the Dragon/Passion is going to be a really cool phone. It should be fully available very soon.
But it isn’t the Google Phone. Everything up until now has just been a warm up to the Google Phone.
Way more interesting are the rumors we’ve been hearing for months about a pure Google-branded phone. Most of our sources have unconfirmed information, which we describe below. But there are a few things we have absolutely confirmed: Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding (Microsoft did the same thing with their first Zunes, which were built by Toshiba).
There won’t be any negotiation or compromise over the phone’s design of features – Google is dictating every last piece of it. No splintering of the Android OS that makes some applications unusable. Like the iPhone for Apple, this phone will be Google’s pure vision of what a phone should be.
That’s it for confirmed, super-high confidence information, which frankly isn’t a whole lot more than we all heard back in late October. But we also have a few more details as well that we’ve gathered from a number of sources. Everything that follows we still consider to be just well-sourced rumors:
For years, Microsoft has been among the loudest complainers concerning “piracy” in China, so it’s a bit of a surprise to see things switched around a bit. Mesanna was the first of a few to alert us that a Chinese court has found Microsoft guilty of violating the intellectual property of a local firm, Zhongyi Electronics, and demanded that the company cease selling Windows XP throughout China. The issue is the Chinese character fonts. According to Zhongyi, Microsoft licensed them for Windows 95, but not other versions. Microsoft, of course, insists that it is not infringing, and says it will appeal the ruling.
Still, with this ruling, as well as the recent attack on Google for violating copyright in China, it makes you wonder if China is doing this in an attempt to show American firms what might happen if they actually get what they “want” in terms of stronger copyright enforcement in China.
Berry Wars has been given a huge update and is now a visually stunning BlackBerry game called Druglord Wars. The game is just like the original Dope Wars, where the aim is to buy low and sell high, all the while avoiding the cops.
Some new features to the game include:
Global online leaderboard to compare your skills to the world.
17 drugs to buy and sell in 11 beautifully rendered cities.
18 weapons and storage containers to take down enemies and hold more drugs.
Over 125 custom designed images just for BlackBerry.
Save games and preview progress before resuming.
Unlimited gameplay mode to see how far you can take your drug empire.
The wait for Google Chrome OS is almost over as the company is getting ready to reveal the upcoming operating system in an event tomorrow at Googleplex, the company’s headquarters. It’s unclear whether Google will release any actual code or a rough, working version, but there will definitely be plenty of details and an in-depth overview of the web-based OS as well as more clearly laid out plans for the launch schedule.
Rumors about an impending launch surfaced last week and Google has now more or less confirmed them, with the only unknown left being the issue of whether there will be any code available or not. Google sent out invites to several industry insiders announcing that it would reveal a lot of information on the project. The event will be lead by Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP of Product Management, and Matthew Papakipos, Google engineering director for Google Chrome OS.
Google will show the audience just how far along it is with the OS which was only revealed last summer. The dev team must be confident enough with the state of the project if it’s ready to reveal it to the world and judging by Google’s usual pace and the state of the initial releases of its products its safe to assume that the foundation is well laid out by now. The project, though, is likely to be very rough around the edges and,… (read more)
Most records and documents created and filed within court systems and police departments in the U.S. are public. And Google is trying to make it feel that way.
With of an 
The debate over 
The wait for Google Chrome OS is almost over as the company is getting ready to reveal the upcoming operating system in an event tomorrow at Googleplex, the company’s headquarters. It’s unclear whether Google will release any actual code or a rough, working version, but there will definitely be plenty of details and an in-depth overview of the web-based OS as well as more clearly laid out plans for the launch schedule.