Herein you’ll find articles on a very wide variety of topics about technology in the consumer space (mostly) and items of personal interest to me. I have also participated in and created several podcasts most notably Pragmatic and Causality and all of my podcasts can be found at The Engineered Network.
Patent Bile
With popularity and success in the emerging technology market, where new ideas and inventions drive high profits for new products, not far behind are the fortune seekers wishing to piggy-back on the success of others. Sometimes these can add value to the experience (for example, Apple developers succeed because of Apples new iOS platform being successful itself) and other times they simply wish to bleed the success of others into their own pockets.
The favoured method of choice is the patent - or rather the breach of a patent relating to the new fantastic product that is making money hand over fist. The latest to get popularity in the press is none other than Lodsys. They claim that a patent that they obtained indirectly (i.e. someone else filed it and they bought it) US Patent # 7,222,078 has been used by Apple iOS developers that use In-App Purchasing without paying Lodsys 0.575% of the developers US Revenue.
Whoever believed that ideas and concepts should be patentable without evidence of their existence should be, quite frankly, shot. When filing a patent no evidence needs to be submitted that the ideas conveyed are possible with current technology or would ever work in reality (call them “stab in the dark” patents if you like). Hence it is possible to file patents for whatever you like and in the future, should someone have the same or remotely similar idea and that idea makes money, you can sue or threaten to sue them. The people that made it work lose. The people that filed it without ever making it work or intending to make it work, get money for nothing.
Whether this is a fair situation isn’t relevant - the fact is that the patent system is broken in this way. It may well function in some other ways for legitimate claims, however the broadness and vagueness of most patents renders it difficult to tell the difference between a valid patent and a stab in the dark patent.
In an attempt to justify their position Lodsys released an FAQ and I particularly like the first part and I quote:
“As a comparative example, it is the owner of the hotel who is responsible for the overall service (value proposition) that guests pay for, not the owner of the land that the hotel may be leasing, not the travel agent that sold the reservation, not the manufacturer of tools such as hammers, nor the provider of materials such as nails or steel beams, which may be used in building the hotel; nor is it the outsourced linen washing service or the architect of the building who is responsible. Lodsys’ patent portfolio is being used as a part of an overall solution and we are seeking to be paid for the use of patent rights by the accountable party.”
Alas the inventor of the idea (or the first person to patent the idea of a hotel) isn’t getting a cent from the Hotel owner or its guests either directly or indirectly. (Not wanting to give Lodsys more ideas for patents but maybe patenting the concept of a Hotel could pan out for them…) To continue the Lodsys analogy: Apple (the Hotel owner) invited their developers (the hotel guests) to use In-App Purchasing as a service (the in-room telephones). The patent holder for the telephone as “an overall solution” for talking to someone far away, can not extort the guests for additional costs for using the in-room phone as those costs are borne by the hotel owner, not the guests. The Hotel owner chose the phones, set the rates (if any) and maintained the service for those guests.
That said, a patent holder may try scaring the guests and shaking them for chump change and might stand a change of getting some money for nothing, whereas a big lawsuit with the hotel owner just might cost them money in the long run. On ‘ya Lodsys.
Epilogue: My app does not use In-App purchasing
Social by Interruption vs Social On-Demand
In recent times I’ve been thinking about what makes Facebook and Twitter so popular as social networking devices. Sure there are the games (on Facebook) and the brief snippets of other peoples thoughts, sharing of photos and videos and so on, but I think the single reason it has become popular is due to that fundamental human truth: we are all lazy.
That truth drives innovation: “There must be a better way” “We can devise a machine to do that menial task for us” Why? Because we would rather kick back and have a nice cold drink because we are lazy.
In recent times this seems to have now extended to our social lives as well. In the past we would walk, ride, drive to a friends/neighbours house for a nice social evening with drinks and a game or two or three. Times changed and the games evolved: Chess, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, pick whichever you like. Now we have social networking to fill that gap. From the comfort of your own home you can sit down with friends over Facebook and play the modern scrabble equivalent. Compete against your friends for the best scores in some game or other and chat with them disjointedly sentence by sentence.
This has driven another interesting social change: the casual conversation. No longer are you stuck in a room with another person where both parties feel obligated to talk about anything to fill up the air time. The art of small talk is beginning to wither and fade. Why? At any time you can walk away from your Twitter or Facebook or any one of dozens of instant messaging alternatives including mobile phone SMSes. Leaving a conversation halfway through is becoming acceptable - you’re far too busy these days for a full, long conversation right?
Therein lies the truth: we like the convenience of social networking online because it is on-demand. People only get our undivided attention when we choose it. When one walks into a room to talk to someone it becomes quite difficult to avoid the conversation without losing face, but when online these messages are easily lost when it’s understood that the other person is just too busy. Alternatively they’re just too busy and people think they’re being snubbed. But I digress.
Social networking is not going away and it’s not a fad. It will only get stronger and more pervasive. What that means in the long term however I fear it will lead to less social interaction and the further erosion of manners and etiquette in conversation.
Thankfully it’s not all bad news. There’s one great thing social photo sharing has achieved for us all. No longer are we stuck in a small room having to sit through someone elses holiday photo albums.
MACDefender: The Next Push for an OSX Lockdown
The most prevalent virus/malware for OSX is the MACDefender trojan horse. So called because you need to let it into your system and select “OK” to install after handing over your password. These have been around for years on Windows but now they have started to become more common on the Mac running OSX. The problem is that Malware such as this is just going to push Apple to really lock down OSX.
Let’s change gears for a moment and look at iOS and the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch and how they don’t have any Malware. The App Store popularized the way people look for and find applications for their computer hardware. First on iOS with version 2.0 in 2008 then as an option for the Mac as of OSX 10.6.6 update. Both stores have an approval process to weed out Malware (amongst other things) and make it easy to install software on your device.
Apple weren’t the first to try the concept of an App Store (some Linux builds have supported centralised application distribution for over a decade) but they brought it en masse to the public on a popular device. On iOS it’s not possible to load any applications onto the device any other way than via the App Store unless you jailbreak your device. The majority of people don’t jailbreak their device and if they do most use the Cydia application store which still has some credibility.
This means that unless Apple let’s Malware applications through by accident, there is no way for them to get into your device. If one does, it gets reported and automatically deleted by Apple. This is why there is no MACDefender or any other virus or trojan horse on iOS.
Now look at the Mac. It’s always been possible to install applications through web browser installers or from anywhere on the internet simply because without an App Store it was a necessity. Now the Mac App Store has started to provide an alternative way for people to find and install applications that they know are safe - checked and controlled by Apple. All Apple needs to do is wean people off non-App Store installations, lock OSX down to App Store only installations and Malware and viruses can never again touch the Mac.
Imagine a desktop PC that was guaranteed to be safe from Malware and viruses without virus scanners. Would people refuse to buy Macs because you couldn’t side load applications anymore? Some would, but not enough for Apple to not seriously consider it. The alternative is to go down the Microsoft road and introduce a Mac equivalent to the Windows Defender tool.
For Apple there would always be jailbreakers for such a version of OSX. People would always want to tweak their OS the way they wanted to (just like jailbreakers of iOS are now) however that will be the minority of users. No matter how many times I go over this ground, I am convinced this is what Apple will inevitably do. It may not happen with 10.7 Lion, but expect it in the next few years - maybe 10.8. Coming to a Mac App Store near you.
The Problem Incentivising/Undermining Existing Monopolies
The current debacle in Australia regarding the National Broadband Network (NBN) and Telstra Universal Service Obligation (USO) is becoming bigger news insofar as the ramifications of undermining Telstras monopoly are becoming more apparent beyond parliament. In recent times Telstra has been nearly fully privatised (the 2009 share dump leaves government ownership at about 10%) and as it is no longer a public asset it must turn a profit to succeed. Unfortunately Telstra owns the millions of dollars worth of copper in the ground and have put it off limits to the NBN. The government can’t afford to buy it back and are hence forced to run fiber-optics to the home and this makes the NBN much more expensive. Then again, it also allows the final top data rates to be much higher.
Telstras literal interpretation of section 3.1 of the USO and the knowledge their monopoly is being removed from around them (so far as wireline goes) gives them little incentive to care and as such they are still rolling out RIMs (Remote Integrated Multiplexers) and WLLs (Wireless Local Loops) in most new housing developments which at best can provide a handful of ADSL 1 connections and at worst provide no wireline internet access at all. Telstras answer: use Next-G. Whilst wireless is fine in theory it’s much more expensive, less reliable and with patchy service coverage it can be simply unavailable. Legally Telstra is doing nothing wrong as the USO treats internet access as a value-add service that is charged separately and hence it does not apply beyond untimed local dial-up calls (originally intended for dial-up internet access).
The government will have difficulty making Telstra do anything now with regards to the USO as it relates to internet access and until the NBN is fully installed Australia-wide, the consumer will ultimately suffer from Telstras private business wrath.