Not unlike cleaning out your closet, it tends to clean the soul.  Also like cleaning out your closet, there’s a certain profile of items you tend to get rid of each time, twindling down until you have the guts to get rid of all of these types of things.

So here’s a list of the profiles that I get rid of when I do my Twitter Spring Cleaning… (and I can say “spring” cleaning for a post in December because I’m in the southern hemisphere where it’s spring, woohoo!)

Image from a Similar Post on Twittercism.com

• The Automated DM – Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of automated messages as soon as I start following someone thanking me for following them and what they’re all about.  Is this supposed to make me think the message isn’t automatic and you’re actually interested in our virtual friendship?  I don’t care how much of a big deal you are, these messages are phony!  They’re the products that don’t even make it to spring cleaning because as soon as you buy them, they come with a defect and you have to return them right away or else you won’t get your money back (dignity = money in this analogy in the Twittersphere).  These are the kind of people who will #FF you if you #FF them or only write you a LinkedIn recommendation after you write theirs, and so on…
• The Obnoxious Friend/Colleague – You know who I’m talking about.  The person who is your friend or who you work with who started following you but who doesn’t know how to use Twitter.  They think it’s Facebook or you know… their e-mail account, a new way to send text messages, or their online center of narcissism.  This person tweets things like, “@soandso, what time are we meeting up for dinner tonight?” (ok, text or e-mail that) “what a great 10 mile run” (… i hate people who talk about how in shape they are …), “woke up feeling so sad today” (the person who’s always complaining about life and needs attention), “get a life and stop talking shit about me!” (the epic indirect totally direct comment sans the @), and of course the ultimate waste of a tweet “Good Morning Twitter!”  I wait for that person to get enough followers and unfollow after I can’t take it anymore.  The spring cleaning analogy?  You know that shirt you bought on sale and never wore but only bought it because it was on sale?  Yeah… get rid of it.  Someone else will put it to good use.
• The Web Rockstar – Unless you have good content, I don’t follow you if you have more than 10,000 followers and follow 2 people (actual celebrities aside)… your boyfriend/girlfriend and the company sponsoring you. And if there was an option to follow yourself, you would do that too.  Oh, and if you tweet that you’re “Only 100 followers away from 15,000,” make that 101.  This is the most self absorbed twitter profile that exists.  The person probably isn’t really that popular in real life but put up a cute profile picture and initially had good content and BAM, blew up online and now charges a grand per sponsored tweet.  They live on retweets and followers.  These are those really expensive jeans you bought because @soandso told you they make her look 5 lbs thinner, but your ass couldn’t look any bigger in them.  Don’t do that to your self image.  Don’t let the brand name get in the way of your well being…
• The Industry Expert – I work in the Search Marketing industry and nothing annoys me more than an SEO or Search Marketer who only tweets about SEO.  On one hand, these people make me feel better about life because I realize I have a social life outside of work and they probably don’t.  On the other hand, they make me sad because it makes me feel like I don’t work hard enough. I realize people have twitters that are focused on a certain industry or sector, but when your tweets consist of 100% dialogue with other people in the industry and referencing articles and posts 24/7 as soon as their posted, you lose a little bit of credibility as a human being in my point of view.  So take this as you’d like, but to me, this “book” you bought that references every other book you’ve already read is unecessary, send it to your public library and invest in more leisureful (is that a word?) literature.
• The Nosy Neighbor – This person is the one who is constantly butting in on your tweets with other people.  If I find a video that reminds me of a friend of mine and I tweet, “Love this video! http://youtu.be/1234 – Reminds me of @soandso and our weekend at the beach!”  I’ll get this 5.7 seconds after my tweet “HOW ROMANTIC!!! RT @_polyana Love this video! http://youtu.be/1234 – Reminds me of @soandso and our weekend at the beach!” (ok that may be more than 140 characters.  This person is that thing that was rotting at the back of your fridge that you’ve been too lazy to take out… really, it’s going to make the rest of what’s in your fridge smell pretty soon too…
• The Promo Freak – This one’s THAT GIRL who all she does is tweet promos and contests she’s trying to win.  In between these tweets she is a mix of the obnoxious friend/colleague and the nosy neighbor.  These are your old college t-shirts from random events and parties you got for free and are 8 sizes too big (or too small).  Not everything that was free should be cherished nor people who spend their day thinking up ways to get free stuff… you can make do without them
• The Self Promoter – All this guys does is tweet his blog posts, links to interviews and podcasts featuring him, and RT’s tweets of his that other people retweeted!! He’s not in a category of his own… this guy is almost always either an industry expert or a web rockstar!

Am I PMSing?  Maybe.  Am I bitter towards these types of people? No, just who they become on their Twitter accounts.  I’m really quite friendly, I promise… I’m just practical.  And keeping these kinds of people off my following list helps me stay that way!

Who do you love to unfollow on Twitter?

*Oh, and feel free to call me out on any of the above if you see this sort of behavior on my twitter account – @_polyana – I would hate to be called a hypocrite!!

Apple has purchased the patents for an electronic casing industry called Liquidmetal®.

On August 5, 2010, Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Liquidmetal”), entered into a Master Transaction Agreement with Apple Inc., a California corporation (“Apple”), pursuant to which (i) Liquidmetal contributed substantially all of its intellectual property assets to a newly organized special-purpose, wholly-owned subsidiary (the “IP Company”), (ii) the IP Company granted to Apple a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products in exchange for a license fee, and (iii) the IP Company granted back to Liquidmetal a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in all other fields of use (together with all ancillary agreements, the “Master Transaction Agreement”).

This video show the elasticity of the compound.

From the companies website:

“As the demand for product “miniaturization” continues in the electronic casings industry, Liquidmetal® alloys enable smaller, thinner and more durable designs. Current casings technology is pushed to the limit in supporting these new designs and specifications, especially requirements for larger LCD screens, thinner wall sections and pure metallic surface finishes for products such as mobile phones, PDA’s and cameras.

Liquidmetal alloys possess a unique combination of performance and processing characteristics that are in many ways superior to all available high performance materials such as magnesium, aluminum, titanium and plastics, providing innovative design and manufacturing solutions to the electronic casings industry.

Key Casings Advantages:

With approximately 2.5 times the strength of commonly used titanium alloy and 1.5 times the hardness of commonly used stainless steel, Liquidmetal alloys enable sophisticated, engineered designs required by the evolution of new technologies
Enables thinner, smaller designs while providing greater protection for internal components
Permits thinner walls while providing greater strength
Allows larger, wider screens for expanded features and capabilities
With precision net-shape casting, Liquidmetal alloys can be readily fashioned into intricate, innovative designs resulting in a unique aesthetic advantage
Excellent durability
Scratch and corrosion resistant
Non-reactive

As the demand for innovative electronic casings product designs increases worldwide, Liquidmetal alloys’ cutting edge materials technology is finding an ever increasing and important role in providing designers, engineers and manufacturers solutions to meet expanding customer needs. Liquidmetal alloys combine the processing and cost advantages of competing technologies and performance characteristics that exceed current super alloys which position Liquidmetal alloys in the forefront of many design centers around the globe.”

As seen on Gizmodo.

HP had previously acquired Compaq, the maker of the long-defunct iPAQ, and has a yet-unreleased tablet computer called the HP Slate.  Palm practically invented the handheld market and most recently released the lauded (but commercially unsuccessful) Pre handset and webOS mobile operating system.  The press release reads, as follows:

PALO ALTO, Calif. & SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–HP (NYSE: HPQ – News) and Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM – News) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”

“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, Palm. “We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Palm stockholders will receive $5.70 in cash for each share of Palm common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger. The merger consideration takes into account the updated guidance and other financial information being released by Palm this afternoon. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of domestic and foreign regulatory approvals and the approval of Palm’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close during HP’s third fiscal quarter ending July 31, 2010.

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

Already, there is buzz around the possibility of the HP Slate running webOS, as opposed to Windows 7 which it presently is scheduled to run.  A Slate with webOS? Yes, please!

03/21/10 03/21/10

Caltech-led Team Provides Proof in Humans of RNA Interference Using Targeted Nanoparticles

Researchers unveil scientific results from siRNA Phase I clinical trial in cancer patients

Related Links: Mark Davis’s faculty page Podcast of Mark Davis discussing his RNAi research

PASADENA, Calif.—A California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle—used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient’s bloodstream—can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), and turn off an important cancer gene using a mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi). Moreover, the team provided the first demonstration that this new type of therapy, infused into the bloodstream, can make its way to human tumors in a dose-dependent fashion—i.e., a higher number of nanoparticles sent into the body leads to a higher number of nanoparticles in the tumor cells.

This electron micrograph shows the presence of numerous siRNA-containing targeted nanoparticles both entering and within a tumor cell. [Credit: Caltech/Swaroop Mishra]

These results, published in the March 21 advance online edition of the journal Nature, demonstrate the feasibility of using both nanoparticles and RNAi-based therapeutics in patients, and open the door for future “game-changing” therapeutics that attack cancer and other diseases at the genetic level, says Mark Davis, the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at Caltech, and the research team’s leader.

The discovery of RNA interference, the mechanism by which double strands of RNA silence genes, won researchers Andrew Fire and Craig Mello the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The scientists first reported finding this novel mechanism in worms in a 1998 Nature paper. Since then, the potential for this type of gene inhibition to lead to new therapies for diseases like cancer has been highly touted.

“RNAi is a new way to stop the production of proteins,” says Davis. What makes it such a potentially powerful tool, he adds, is the fact that its target is not a protein. The vulnerable areas of a protein may be hidden within its three-dimensional folds, making it difficult for many therapeutics to reach them. In contrast, RNA interference targets the messenger RNA (mRNA) that encodes the information needed to make a protein in the first place.

“In principle,” says Davis, “that means every protein now is druggable because its inhibition is accomplished by destroying the mRNA. And we can go after mRNAs in a very designed way given all the genomic data that are and will become available.”

Still, there have been numerous potential roadblocks to the application of RNAi technology as therapy in humans. One of the most problematic has been finding a way to ferry the therapeutics, which are made up of fragile siRNAs, into tumor cells after direct injection into the bloodstream. Davis, however, had a solution.

The targeted nanoparticle used in the study and shown in this schematic is made of a unique polymer and can make its way to human tumor cells in a dose-dependent fashion. [Credit: Caltech/Derek Bartlett]

Even before the discovery of RNAi, he and his team had begun working on ways to deliver nucleic acids into cells via systemic administration. They eventually created a four-component system—featuring a unique polymer—that can self-assemble into a targeted, siRNA-containing nanoparticle. The siRNA delivery system is under clinical development by Calando Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Pasadena-based nanobiotech company.

“These nanoparticles are able to take the siRNAs to the targeted site within the body,” says Davis. Once they reach their target—in this case, the cancer cells within tumors—the nanoparticles enter the cells and release the siRNAs.

The scientific results described in the Nature paper are from a Phase I clinical trial of these nanoparticles that began treating patients in May 2008. Phase I trials are, by definition, safety trials; the idea is to see if and at what level the drug or other therapy turns harmful or toxic. These trials can also provide an in-human scientific proof of concept—which is exactly what is being reported in the Nature paper.

Using a new technique developed at Caltech, the team was able to detect and image nanoparticles inside cells biopsied from the tumors of several of the trial’s participants. In addition, Davis and his colleagues were able to show that the higher the nanoparticle dose administered to the patient, the higher the number of particles found inside the tumor cells—the first example of this kind of dose-dependent response using targeted nanoparticles.

Even better, Davis says, the evidence showed the siRNAs had done their job. In the tumor cells analyzed by the researchers, the mRNA encoding the cell-growth protein ribonucleotide reductase had been degraded. This degradation, in turn, led to a loss of the protein.

More to the point, the mRNA fragments found were exactly the length and sequence they should be if they’d been cleaved in the spot targeted by the siRNA, notes Davis. “It’s the first time anyone has found an RNA fragment from a patient’s cells showing the mRNA was cut at exactly the right base via the RNAi mechanism,” he says. “It proves that the RNAi mechanism can happen using siRNA in a human.”

“There are many cancer targets that can be efficiently blocked in the laboratory using siRNA, but blocking them in the clinic has been elusive,” says Antoni Ribas, associate professor of medicine and surgery at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “This is because many of these targets are not amenable to be blocked by traditionally designed anti-cancer drugs. This research provides the first evidence that what works in the lab could help patients in the future by the specific delivery of siRNA using targeted nanoparticles. We can start thinking about targeting the untargetable.”

“Although these data are very early and more research is needed, this is a promising study of a novel cancer agent, and we are proud of our contribution to the initial clinical development of siRNA for the treatment of cancer,” says Anthony Tolcher, director of clinical research at South Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START).

“Promising data from the clinical trials validates our years of research at City of Hope into ribonucleotide reductase as a target for novel gene-based therapies for cancer,” adds coauthor Yun Yen, associate director for translational research at City of Hope. “We are seeing for the first time the utility of siRNA as a cancer therapy and how nanotechnology can target cancer cells specifically.”

The Phase I trial—sponsored by Calando Pharmaceuticals—is proceeding at START and UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the clinical results of the trial will be presented at a later time. “At the very least, we’ve proven that the RNAi mechanism can be used in humans for therapy and that the targeted delivery of siRNA allows for systemic administration,” Davis says. “It is a very exciting time.”

In addition to Davis, Ribas, Tolcher, and Yen, the coauthors on the Nature paper, “Evidence of RNAi in humans from systemically administered siRNA via targeted nanoparticles,” are Caltech graduate students Jonathan Zuckerman (an MD/PhD student doing his MD work at UCLA) and Chung Hang Choi; former Caltech graduate student Christopher Alabi, now a postdoctoral scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Seligson, director of the UCLA Tissue Array Core Facility at the David Geffen School of Medicine; and Jeremy Heidel, who is currently a consultant for Calando Pharmaceuticals.

The work described in the paper was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute and the Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Biomarker Laboratories. Caltech, Davis, and Heidel have a financial interest in Calando Pharmaceuticals.

Image courtesy Gizmodo. Article seen via Gizmodo.

March 9, 2010 03:21 PM

ByW. David Gardner
InformationWeek

Cisco chief executive John Chambers’ prediction long ago that video one day would disrupt the Internet is nearly a reality. On Tuesday, the company announced a powerful router designed to help make that prediction come true.

With 100G networks still something of a Holy Grail in networking, Cisco believes its new CRS-3 router will represent a powerful central nervous system for enterprises wishing to reach that goal. The Federal Communications Commission is a proponent of sweeping broadband improvements, which are articulated in its National Broadband Plan to Congress.

Cisco claims the CRS-3, which will be available in a few months for prices beginning at $90,000, has 12 times the traffic capacity of its nearest competing system. The Tuesday announcement was hyped for weeks as an event that would “change the Internet forever,” and the implication now is that Cisco is betting on the CRS-3 as its entry in the race to roll out 100G networks.

Pankaj Patel, SVP and general manager of Cisco’s Service Provider Business, predicted the CRS-3 will become the company’s flagship router of the future and will form the foundation of intelligent and advanced broadband networks in the Internet.

The presentation Tuesday also featured an appearance by AT&T’s Keith Cambron, who talked about the carrier’s successful 100G field trial between Florida and Louisiana as a harbinger of better networking things to come. Cambron, who is president and CEO of AT&T Labs, noted that AT&T’s video traffic is growing at a rate of 80% a year.

AT&T has been under pressure to speed up its wireless network, because its exclusive arrangement with Apple to provide the iPhone has pressured AT&T’s mobile network while the carrier’s landline broadband struggles to keep up with growing traffic.

Praising Cisco’s CRS-3, Cambron said: “We are entering the next stage of global communications and entertainment services and applications, which requires a new set of advanced Internet networking technologies. AT&T’s network handled 40% more traffic in 2009 than it did in the previous year and we continue to see this growth in 2010.”

Cisco said the CRS-3 has three times the scale of its CRS-1 predecessor and two times more service intelligence. It has a total capacity of as much as 322 Terabits per second — a metric that translates to the downloading of the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in just over one second.

The CRS-3 has been developed to enable its users to access both traditional networks and emerging data center clouds. The router features a Network Positioning System that covers Layers 3 to 7 application information. Its cloud virtual private network with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) paves the way for “pay-as-you-go” services.

Cisco’s new QuantumFlow Array processor, included in the CRS-3 design, enables users to access unprecedented levels of applications and devices while consuming a low level of power, according to Cisco.

Chambers said the Tuesday Webinar (liveblogged here) was not just about the CRS-3, but was really “an announcement about the future of InternetYou will see a series of announcements coming.”

In a sense, Cisco is travelling full circle in its Internet vision — from Chambers’ prediction about video as a disruptive force, to the CRS-3 and the firm’s belief it will sit at the core of the Internet vision with consumer video at the edge.

As if to illustrate the point Chambers on Tuesday waved around a Flip video camera from Pure Digital Technologies, a firm Cisco acquired last year.

Cisco has a press release as well:

Cisco Introduces Foundation for Next-Generation Internet: The Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System .  Advanced Platform Designed to Deliver New Wave of Video, Mobile and Data Center/Cloud Services

Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 9, 2010 – Cisco today announced a major advancement in Internet networking – the Cisco® CRS-3 Carrier Routing System (CRS) – designed to serve as the foundation of the next-generation Internet and set the pace for the astonishing growth of video transmission, mobile devices and new online services through this decade and beyond.

With more than 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, the Cisco CRS-3 is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace.

And here is the introduction of the CRS-3:

Overview:

• The Cisco CRS-3 triples the capacity of its predecessor, the Cisco CRS-1 Carrier Routing System, with up to 322 Terabits per second, which enables the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second; every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously; and every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.
• The Cisco CRS-3 enables unified service delivery of Internet and cloud services with service intelligence spanning service provider Internet Protocol Next-Generation Networks (IP NGNs) and data center.  The Cisco CRS-3 also provides unprecedented savings with investment protection for the nearly 5,000 Cisco CRS-1 deployed worldwide.  Cisco’s cumulative investment in the Cisco CRS family is $1.6 billion, further underscoring the company’s commitment.
• AT&T, one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, recently tested the Cisco CRS-3 in a successful completion of the world’s first field trial of 100-Gigabit backbone network technology, which took place in AT&T’s live network between New Orleans and Miami.  The trial advances AT&T’s development of the next generation of backbone network technology that will support the network requirements for the growing number of advanced services offered by AT&T to consumer and business customers, both fixed and mobile.
• The Cisco CRS-3 is currently in field trials, and its pricing starts at $90,000 U.S.

Highlights and Capabilities for the Next-Generation Internet:

• Unmatched Scale:  With a proven multi-chassis architecture, the Cisco CRS-3 can deliver up to 322 tbps of capacity, more than tripling the 92 tbps capacity of the Cisco CRS-1 and representing more than 12 times the capacity of any other core router in the industry.
• Unique Core and Data Center/Cloud Services Intelligence:  In addition to capacity requirements, the growths of mobile and video applications are creating new multidirectional traffic patterns with the increasing emergence of the data center cloud.  The new Cisco Data Center Services System provides tight linkages between the Cisco CRS-3, Cisco Nexus family and Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) to enable unified service delivery of cloud services.  This intelligence also includes carrier-grade IPv6 (CGv6) and core IP/MPLS technologies that permit new IP NGN architectural efficiencies required to keep pace with the rapidly growing cloud services market.  Unique capabilities include:
  • Network Positioning System (NPS) — provides Layers 3 to 7 application information for best path to content, improving consumer and business experiences while reducing costs.
  • Cloud virtual private network (VPN) for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)-enables ‘pay-as-you-go’ for compute, storage and network resources by automating Cisco CRS-3 and Cisco Nexus Inter-Data center connections for Cisco UCS.
• Unprecedented Savings:  The Cisco CRS-3 offers dramatic operational expense savings and up to 60 percent savings on power consumption compared to competitive platforms.  The Cisco CRS-3 also delivers significant capital expenditures savings and investment protection for existing Cisco CRS-1 customers.  The new capabilities in the platform can be achieved by reusing the existing chassis, route processors, fans and power systems with the addition of new line cards and fabric.  These upgrades can be performed in-service and be provided by Cisco Services to ensure a smooth transition.
• Silicon Innovation:  The Cisco CRS-3 is powered by the new Cisco QuantumFlow Array Processor, which unifies the combined power of six chips to work as one, enabling unprecedented levels of service capabilities and processing power.  Making this implementation even more unique is its ability to deliver capabilities with a fraction of the power required by lesser performing chipsets.  The Cisco QuantumFlow Array chipset was designed to provide the new system the ability to scale with the ever increasing demands being placed on the IP NGN by the many different applications and billions of devices being used by both businesses and consumers in the Zettabyte era.

Last year, the Express published two articles detailing similar extortion claims by local business owners, which were cited in the lawsuit announcement. In this case, the plaintiff — a veterinary hospital in Long Beach — had contacted Yelp and asked that the company remove an allegedly false and defamatory review from its web site. After refusing, Yelp then had its sales representatives call the hospital and demand a roughly $300 per month payment in exchange for “hiding or removing the negative review,” according to the release.

Gregory S. Weston, managing partner of the Weston Firm, one of two firms that filed the lawsuit, Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital Inc. v. Yelp Inc., said his client was never contacted by Yelp sales reps until the hospital contacted the company about the false review. Sales reps then contacted the hospital “almost immediately. And they were very frequent and high pressure,” he said.

Yelp continues to deny such allegations. And in response to the lawsuit, the company told TechCrunch: “The allegations are demonstrably false, since many businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews. … While we haven’t seen the suit in question, we will dispute it aggressively.”

Feeling helpless against damaging reviews, some business owners and individuals have filed lawsuits against Yelp, but the online site has always been protected from liability of third-party content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But, following publication of our articles,Yelp decided to allow business owners to respond to reviews if they signed up for a free business-owner account.

Yet this lawsuit has nothing to do with defamation, says Weston. “The lawsuit is not about what people say about Yelp but about Yelp’s attempts to say, ‘Give us money and then we’ll take down these negative reviews,’” he said.

Weston added that a lawsuit is the only way to stop this practice. “My client contacted Yelp many times,” he said. “Trying to negotiate before filing suit would be fruitless because this is a very widespread practice. Your article didn’t get them to change their practice. … I think they need to be forced by a federal judge to stop the practices.” Weston cited the Napster case as evidence that it’s possible for a judge to order web sites to change their practices.

Yelp has 21 days following the lawsuit filing to respond. Weston says they plan to obtain and comb through Yelp’s sales e-mails. “We’ll probably also see evidence that Yelp executives knew of this and didn’t care and were more concerned with covering it up than stopping the practice,” he said.

A class-action suit can have more than one lead plaintiff, he noted. “I’m happy to take their call.”

via East Bay Express & Techcrunch

Apple, who believes that everyone in the real world (see outside of Cupertino) has hands like a Simpson character, has been granted a patent for multitouch capacitive screens.

You can readt it here.

“A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time…”

We don’t know what exactly the patent entails as far as restriction on other multitouch devices, but in any case, this can not be good for the industry.

via Gizmodo [freepatentsonline via Engadget]

I'll take two.

Google has decided to push the ISP industry into the future.  This seems to be similiar to the way the Nexus One has resulted in improved hardware in the cellular industry.  If you are interested in a possible (see slim) chance of getting your Interwebz at over 1 gigabit per second.  Sign up here:

http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi

MIT research is cutting edge.  While not yet of the commercial variety, the trickle down effect eventually comes into our current technologies, as they were all lab based at one point in time. It may be 5 to 10 years before we see 500 Ghz CPUs pop up, but we can still dream.

According to an MIT article,

New research findings at MIT could lead to microchips that operate at much higher speeds than is possible with today’s standard silicon chips, leading to cell phones and other communications systems that can transmit data much faster.

The key to the superfast chips is the use of a material called graphene, a form of pure carbon that was first identified in 2004. Researchers at other institutions have already used the one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms to make prototype transistors and other simple devices, but the latest MIT results could open up a range of new applications.

The MIT researchers built an experimental graphene chip known as a frequency multiplier, meaning it is capable of taking an incoming electrical signal of a certain frequency – for example, the clock speed that determines how fast a computer chip can carry out its computations – and producing an output signal that is a multiple of that frequency. In this case, the MIT graphene chip can double the frequency of an electromagnetic signal.

Frequency multipliers are widely used in radio communications and other applications. But existing systems require multiple components, produce “noisy” signals that require filtering and consume large power, whereas the new graphene system has just a single transistor and produces, in a highly efficient manner, a clean output that needs no filtering.

Intel has to get in on this action as they start testing the first graphene wrapped CPUs and ramp up to 100Ghz.   Engadget has an article about it. So, along with Light Peak, Intel seems to keep raising the bell curve on technology advancement. Wiki excerpt below:

“Light Peak is Intel‘s code-name for a new high-speed optical cable technology designed to connect electronic devices to each other in a peripheral bus. It has the capability to deliver high bandwidth, starting at 10 Gbps, with the potential ability to scale to 100 Gbps. It is intended as a single universal replacement for current buses such as SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire, and HDMI. In comparison to these buses, Light Peak is much faster, longer ranged, smaller, and more flexible in terms of protocol support.

May be one day, with 500-1000 Ghz processors, speech recognition in any dialectic would be effortlessly understood, bringing on a renaissance  in computer interactions, and a revolution in productivity worldwide.

Light Peak was developed as a way to reduce the proliferation of ports on modern computers. Bus systems like USB were intended to do the same, and successfully replaced a number of older technologies like RS232 and Centronics printer ports. However, increasing bandwidth demands have led to the introduction of a new series of high-performance systems like E-SATA and DisplayPort that USB and similar systems could not address. Light Peak provides enough bandwidth to allow all of these systems to be driven over a single type of interface, and in many cases on a single cable using a daisy chain.”

It’s no secret that newspapers and magazines are hurting for revenue.   Why would someone be willing to receive for fee, when you can download it 5-8 hours earlier online for free?  What can be done to place a tourniquet on the financial and subscription bleeding and hemorrhaging money the way they currently suffer from.

The doctor says “The prognosis doesn’t look so good, newspapers.”

Sell, Mortimer!! Sell!!!!

In a month long study of the behavior of the American internet users to reading online newspapers, here are the results:

You can literally hear the trees screaming at the LA Times Printing Facility.

Unique visitors : 70.3 million
i.e. one-third of the internet population

Number of page views : 3.5 billion
Total time spent : 2.7 billion minutes
Total number of sessions : 597 million
i.e. 4.5 minutes and 5.9 pages per session

In contrast to the NAA’s survey findings, a recent study by Harris Interactive put newspaper ads behind TV ads as the most helpful to consumers making purchase decisions.

Another survey, commissioned by Google, found that newspaper ads do drive consumers to the web, heightening the importance of newspaper websites and the growing need for them to be integrated with other types of offline media.

Newspapers have to evolve.

I really like the idea of the branded journalist.  Being freelance and free to write where and what you please in the niche markets that support your ideas.  What has to happen is the journalist needs split of revenue, instead of large fat salaries.   It keeps them hungry.  And half of the time, the most passionate writers are the one who aren’t even getting paid.  Just the prospect of sharing your voice is recognition enough.

One thing that I think we will start to see more of, is virtual meetings, interviews, trainings and discussions via Second Life-type communities.  MobLoSo plans on having weekly discussions where 50-100 people can come into a private room and we can have discussion sessions on many different topics and articles.

A key feature of this, is you are able to charge per ticket.  So, you could have exclusive, one time events and share revenue with the author, the interviewee, the trainer… etc.  The site is MingleVerse.

Sylvie Barak recently shared this site with me, and we had a business “mingle”.   What is a “Mingle”?  Well, what you do is you get a username and create an Avatar.  It takes a picture of your face and places it on a stock body image… or you can upload YOUR body.  You then are in a Second Life-type world, where you choose the 3D room and you then charge admission into these rooms.  Or offer the tickets for free.

Malcolm Gladwell, recently had a mingle where they charged $60 per ticket, depending on how many were in the room, that would have been a nice haul.  The possibilities for this thing are enormous.

Two Weekly Mingles, we just set up to check out and get a community discussing topics in a new way:

• Monday Mingle ::: 9pm CST — Tech, Gadgets, Mobile, Local, Social Media in an Open Mastermind Forum. Experience MingleVerse with 25-50 of us talking and learning.
• Tuesday News Day Mingle ::: 2pm CST — We will discuss the impact of technology on the newspaper industry. And how online news sources are beating newspapers to a pulp. And to brainstorm on what journalists can do to protect themselves and what newspapers can do to innovate. We will talk about on how newspapers and journalists can make money and transition into this new virtual economy.   It is an open mingle at 2pm CST, first 50 to register get in.

Mingleverse also keeps track of how many carbon credits we save by not meeting in public.  I foresee many uses for this new technology. Virtual Video Conferencing free over VOIP. It’s such a fun way to communicate with people and talk to them with audio, but never exchanging phone numbers.

People want to read what these newspapers have to say.  People like informed opinions and news stories in the topics that they are interested in.  Well, you can find many different sources for intelligent thought and news in 2010.  So, the Newspaper industry is going to have to be creative and find interesting ways to add to their revenue.  

The journalist now is like a free agent that can be rendezvousing with many publications. You earn X amount per article. Now, the price is being driven down by low cost article producers on crowdsourcing websites. So, journalists are going to have to be creative. In 2010 and beyond, it’s all about personal branding.

If technologies like Mingleverse don’t help the newspaper industry, perhaps the iPad or other tablet based services will help. But, in the age of free, don’t expect many to jump on a subscription model. Obviously, with over 1/3 of people coming to newspaper online websites… the demand is there.  These large organizations need to learn to cut costs and move into this virtual space where costs are relatively low, where trees aren’t being cut down.  It’s a win-win.