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Microsoft steals patents all the time. Makes sense since they have gobs of money with which to control the U.S. patent office.

As a recent example, PriceLine's patented technology is being stolen right now:

CEO Bill Gates told Priceline founder Jay Walker that he wasn't going to let patent infringement claims stand in his way. ... "Mr. Gates went on to say that many other companies were suing Microsoft for patent infringement and that priceline.com could, in effect, get in line."

A little further in the past, GoldTouch technologies filed a lawsuit which is still pending over MS's outright theft of their patented ergonomic mouse technology:

The Meeting with Microsoft 9. In September 1997, during an intensive two-hour meeting, Goldtouch representatives met with Microsoft representatives, disclosed the design of the Goldtouch mouse to Microsoft, and proposed that Microsoft license and market the Goldtouch mouse. Microsoft knew of Goldtouch's pending patent application at the time of this meeting. 10. During the September 1997 meeting, senior Microsoft design staff closely examined a sample of the Goldtouch mouse and extensively questioned Mr.Goldstein on how and why it had been invented. Being very familiar with product design generally, they used their own extensive background to explore in detail both the unique design rationale and the underlying scientific measurements which demonstrated that the Goldtouch mouse was superior to competing mice. Microsoft thus was able to acquire valuable design information even beyond that disclosed in the then-pending patent application (which had not yet been made public). As experienced industry hands, they knew that this information was extremely valuable, not just for Goldtouch's current product line, but for the future innovation which Goldtouch relied on for its very existence. Microsoft Markets the Goldtouch Mouse As Its Own 11. At the conclusion of the September 1997 meeting, Microsoft professed to be completely uninterested in the Goldtouch mouse, and led Goldtouch to believe that Microsoft was entirely satisfied with its existing mouse designs. Despite these representations, only about one year later Microsoft introduced its own ergonomic mouse, the Intellimouse® Pro. In the year following the meeting with Goldtouch, Microsoft copied important features of the Goldtouch sample mouse examined at the September 1997 meeting, implemented additional advanced features discussed at the meeting, and began to manufacture its knock-off product. Microsoft misappropriated Goldtouch's trade secrets to enhance its own inadequate designs. 12. Microsoft's knock-off mouse copies patented features relating to the shape of the Goldtouch mouse and adds rubber inserts to enhance ease of gripping. But the additional inserts themselves are an idea stolen from Goldtouch - a premium feature that was specifically discussed at the September 1997 meeting. Nevertheless, Microsoft's Intellimouse® Pro is an inferior product and it certainly infringes Goldtouch's issued patent. Microsoft is effectively draining Goldtouch's lifeblood by unlawfully exploiting its most carefully guarded ideas and their scientific basis. 13. Through the unconscionable scheme described above, Microsoft has sought to add Goldtouch's purloined intellectual property to Microsoft's already impressive hoard of ill-gotten gains, in so doing, Microsoft has dealt Goldtouch a grievous wound. Goldtouch invokes the jurisdiction of this Court to obtain compensation for Microsoft's theft of benefits which Goldtouch otherwise would have received for its innovation and leadership in ergonomic mouse design. Goldtouch further requests that the Court enter an order enjoining Microsoft from further violations of state and federal intellectual property law.

More is at... Complaint

There's a typo in the link, it should lead to:
http://news.excite.com/news/zd/ 990929/10/jesux-hoax

The main problem with search engines, is the results are usually polluted with porn, warez and other such stuff, by people with loads of METAs or whatever the search engine looks for. What we need is a search engine that starts (from either a directory, or a classic search engine), and re-ranks the results according to how useful people found the site they clicked on.

But, wait a minute, they're here! There are several sites that use a popularity-based reranking system, excite and snap.com being among the most popular. Of course, the other engines are following in their footsteps - it appears that direct hit (who power hotbot and several others are using the same sort of thing.

It'd be even better if it could group users into profiles according to their (user-selected) demographic (eg: doctors, british). That way, if an American types "football" they get links about American Football (gridiron?), if a Brit types "football" they get links about soccer, and if an Australisian types it they get links about rugby.

Search Engine Watch has an article about such a system, by the same people who provide the technology behind snap.com (disclaimer: okay, I work at globalbrain, but I'm talking generally).

I think this is a terrible, awful tragedy, and it sickens me to see this url crossed with this one to get this cruel joke.

The cloning here regenerated a perfect being from the DNA found in the alien space craft wreckage...

If you walk into the store and buy something, you pay Indiana sales tax. Execptions are: (1) Not-for-profits (schools, churches, etc.), (2) other businesses buying stuff for resale, (3) the government (duh!), and (4) things used "directly in direct production" (machine tools, and such). All these people have to provide an exemption certificate. It doesn't matter where you live, the important thing is that the transaction took place in Indiana. If you walk into the store and buy something, but want it shipped elsewhere, you still pay the tax, even if the destination is outside of the state. (Same exceptions apply.) If you call our 800 number and order something shipped, you get taxed if you are an Indiana resident (doesn't matter where you're calling from, just where your card bills to). Call the 800 number, and live outside of Indiana? Bingo, no tax. Since we have no physical presence in any state other than Indiana, we're not required to deal with anybody else's sales tax. [Note that Indiana and some of the surrounding states (Michigan and Illinois, IIRC) have a sales tax compact under which we could collect sales tax from residents of those states, but participation is voluntary and I can't think of any reason anybody would want to volunteer.] However, under your state's laws, you may be responsible for paying your state's tax directly to your state. This is the so-called "use tax": In Indiana there's a line on your annual income tax return where you are supposed to declare "tax due on out-of-state purchases" and pay it.

It's also important to note that if Congress would try to expand the Hollings proposal to cover all interstate transactions, web or not, they would run straight into the Direct Marketing Association, the powerful lobbing group that has successfully blocked similar proposals several times.

But you've got to remember that there's a little division of Compaq from Maynard, Massachusetts. Ever hear of Digital Equipment Corp.? Ever hear of a The Man They Called maddog ?

Of course, one only need to look at Compaq's stock performance to see that DEC has, ahem, infected Compaq's culture. I would hope that Linux, seemingly the last refuge of the desperate in corporate circles, might be able to help them recover a little glory.

And yes, they are expected to continue to give back to the community as well.

Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity

The posts fails to grasp why we are moving back to large systems sitting in the middle of the network instead of little machines talking to each other.

Way back when, Moore noticed and projected his Moore's law saying that the speed and size of an individual processor would keep doubling. Great. So little iron gets the low costs of making millions of the little guys, mass market support, and low upgrade costs. Big iron only benefits from Moore's law, and falls behind. This happens for a decade or two.

Now the decade is over, and the tide turns the other way. Sun Microsystems, especially, has figured out a scaling law that says it can effectively (linearly) network an increasing number of processors. Over some period of time both the number of processors and the speed of processors double. Add in the shift from hardware costs to software costs, and big iron makes a comeback.

So, we've got a reason for big centralized machines to come back. If you want to make a case against this tide of technology, make it. If you can't, protest only as a luddite.

The Devout Capitalist
thalia4242@excite.com (Don't you hate the broken login script).

A few years off, hard-bound books will no longer be commonplace. With better and better display technology it won't make sense to distribute books in physical form. Way down the road, I sense that actual books will become horrendously expensive, thus becoming items coveted by the wealthy, etc... At least the trees will be happy about that.

here's the right link of the quote
--
http://www.beroute.tzo.com

Reminds of something I noticed in a news article yesterday that compared the net worth of Bill Gates to the accumulated International debt of the former Soviet Union.

BG: +$90B
USSR: -$100B

I can definitely see some sort of wealth tax on the Super rich. Congress is right now considering eliminating inheritance taxes, do you realize how much that would be worth to the Gates estate, and how much of an incentive it would be for him not to follow through on his often quoted statement that he intends to give away 95% of his wealth?

This delay seems to be just another piece of the puzzle as to what's going on at Palm. First, Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky (the founders and creaters of the PalmPilot) leave Palm to start Handspring. Robin Abrams is then chosen as the head of Palm Computing at 3Com.

Now, Abrams has resigned to join a start-up venture in Silicon Valley. Palm quickly named Alan Kessler as her successor. Palm is the fastest growing division of 3Com, and for good reason. With the introduction of the IIIx, the V, and the VII in the past few months, they are on fire!

But, there are rumors that Apple is not just looking to build a new handheld device. It sounds like they are considering buying Palm Computing. This would be an expensive purchase, but definately worthwhile. Just imagine: a hybrid of the Palm V and the Newton.

I guesss we'll just have to wait and see. You can get more information about Abrams stepping down here.

That's why I use Yahoo and Excite email. Okay, it's not the reason, but I will now be able to get net time @ BK.

Sorry I keep replying to myself, but I had a couple drinks and can't think straight :] ANyways, heres a ZDNet article on the satillite predicament.

Excite's news posting over a new anarcist page.

"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.

The Melody Index (MELDEX) from is designed to do just that. You sing a few bars and in theory it will come up with the song. I doubt that it will be too successful, as anyone who's ever had a friend who just had to sing that new techno song to you knows. Still, pretty interesting stuff. Pertinent links: http://nt.excite.com/news/r/990419 /08/odd-melody http://mirrored.ukoln.ac.uk/lis-journals/dlib/dlib /dlib/may97/meldex/05witten.html http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~nzdl/meldex

That's easy. Excite for Web Servers is what I use under Linux. It takes some work to get installed (the scripts are totally hosed) but is well worth it. And because it uses a static index, it's quite fast. Just run the index process whenever you add fresh content.

EWS is also free (as in beer, not speech).

Seth