Apple and Samsung: brands at war

I was supposed to be on CNN last night to comment on the Apple v. Samsung  patent infringement trial that just started in San Jose, but then Mitt Romney insulted the Palestinians and I was bumped.  The way these things work is CNN calls the day before so I have time to think up something pithy to say. The question now is what to do with all that pith? So I’m dumping it on you. Consider this the long distance view of this legal battle in the context of what it really is — brands at war.

As a practical matter, I think it is very unlikely that Apple can win based on its accusation of […]

By |July 31st, 2012|2012, Breaking News, Business, Companies, Computing, Gadgets, Intellectual Property, Internet, Media, Phones, Tablets, Technology|68 Comments
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Siri may infringe old Excite patents

I was watching this Bloomberg video the other day featuring Shawn Carolan, the venture capitalist who backed the Siri electronic personal assistant startup then sold it to Apple. His was the closest I’d heard to a technical explanation of how Siri works and it surprised me because it sounded a lot like technology I remembered from years ago at Excite, the long-defunct search engine.  Please look at the video and then meet me in the next paragraph.  The part that excited me (no pun intended) is about four minutes in.

Okay, he said they used linguistic techniques to map blocks of words against 10 possible domains of expertise to figure out what the heck you are asking Siri to do, with the real […]

By |January 14th, 2012|2012|73 Comments
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