Barnes & Noble’s new ebook reader, the nook, is widely considered a Kindle killer.  (Full disclosure: I was once an employee of Barnes & Noble, but that has nothing to do with this post.)  But a California-based company is suing Barnes & Noble, claiming the publishing and retail giant stole its ideas to make the nook.  (Source)

This company is called Spring Design, and it alleges that it met with Barnes & Noble in February of this year to show the company a product they called “Alex.”  This meeting occurred 5 days after a nondisclosure agreement was allegedly negotiated.  And it is alleged, through the filings, that the features found in the nook were all things envisioned by Spring Design.  So Spring is suing for “breaching the non-disclosure agreement, misappropriating trade secrets, and violating unfair competition laws.”  In addition, Spring would like production of the nook to be ceased.

We’ll see.

It appears that at&t doesn’t like Verizon’s snarky “There’s a Map for That” commercials.  You know, the ones that somewhat inaccurately equate Apple’s “There’s an App for That” slogan with at&t’s native 3G service.  (Kinda shows you just how important the iPhone is to at&t’s viability, doesn’t it? Once that exclusivity is gone, I wonder what will happen to at&t…)

Anyway, at&t has filed suit against Verizon, in Georgia of all places, alleging false and deceptive trade practices. (source)  The ads are pretty aggressive, really, showing that at&t has pretty anemic 3G coverage while Verizon’s is quite extensive.  What at&t doesn’t like is the insinuation that somehow at&t customers aren’t able to access voice and data in the areas not covered by the 3G map.  at&t’s 3G implementation isn’t quite as robust as Verizon’s, but it does have the EDGE network in many places, so at&t customers get a sort of half-fast data network in the places where 3G isn’t available.

That’s why at&t is suing Verizon, because it feels that Verizon is insinuating that at&t customers don’t get any service in the areas where 3G has not been implemented.  Verizon is having none of it, saying that the ads are accurate because they clearly state that they are talking about 3G technology and that at&t data and voice access are still available in many places.

What’s funny is that the whole case has the potential to be completely moot if it actually goes to trial.  By the time that happens, 4G will be the new standard, and 3G probably won’t matter one whit.

It was only a matter of time, really, before Google Maps became a turn-by-turn mobile application.  And now it has.  Gizmodo has a good write-up on its features and abilities, and of course it looks polished even in beta form.  (What isn’t beta in Google-land, besides GMail?  Oh.  Google Apps, actually, and a few other things.  Drat.  It was always fun to joke about how long things stayed in beta with Google.  Oh well, I guess I’ll have to fall back on making jokes about how no one knows you’re a dog on the internet.)  For right now, the application is available only to Android 2.0 users, but there are plans afoot to get it on the iPhone.

Anyway, what surprised me about the Gizmodo review of the application is this:

My fears on zero pricing, for the long term: If Google sells this in the App Store for zero dollars, those millions of bucks Apple makes off of GPS app sales will likely disappear. It’s not for us to worry about until there’s no more GPS competition except Google, and we’re dependent on their pace of progress, but no competition is a bad thing. And it’s a little strange that Google’s search money is going to pay for a free map app that is competitive with stuff that costs $100 a year from full-time GPS makers like TomTom. Unfair is the word that comes to mind. But I can’t say I don’t want this app.

I’ve written about my concerns regarding the freeconomy before, and this Engadget link essentially proves the point.  TomTom’s shares are down about 20% as of the time of this writing, and Garmin isn’t faring much better, down about 15%.  Free is nice and all, but it does have a cost.

(Sure, yeah, fine, in the long run all the buggy-whip manufacturers eventually ended up making something else, right?)

I mentioned a while ago that ASCAP was suing AT&T over ringtones, saying that royalties were owed every time someone’s phone rang.  Public performance and all that.  Well, in addition to suing AT&T, ASCAP sued Verizon for the same thing, and PC World (via Yahoo!) is reporting that District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York has tossed the suit against Verizon.

Judge Cote’s reasoning is refreshing:

“Despite the accusation that Verizon enjoys revenue from publicly played ringtones, Verizon makes no revenue from the playing of ringtones, in public or elsewhere,” Cote wrote. “It makes revenue from selling ringtones, and it already pays a mechanical licensing fee in connection with those sales.”

The Center for Democracy and Technology, which is hosting a copy of the Order, also notes that the Court relied partly on common sense in making its ruling.  It always seemed somewhat strained to argue that Verizon should be liable for a public performance (even to the extent that a ringtone could constitute a public performance) when it had no control over when or how that public performance would occur.

Not really, because there are an awful lot of people committed to making sure that you do your computing remotely, but halfway reading this PC Magazine article (via Yahoo! News), I started thinking, “hey, this sounds like Dvorak.”  No surprise, it was written by him.  He’s been very, and loudly, critical of the Cloud over the years, and the Mass Sidekick Annihilation of 2009 is the perfect opportunity for him to take another swipe at it.  As I am on the record as being pretty anti-Cloud, I of course like the article.  But this post isn’t about his article (which even takes EULAs to task), but about the damned Cloud.

I think the lesson to take from the Sidekick meltdown is that this may be the first time, on a large scale, that a failing Cloud has actually caused serious loss of data.  Whereas previous failures of the Cloud yielded irritation (such as GMail outages and Amazon down-time) this is a failure that actually hurts people where it matters: for a business person using a Sidekick, contacts are money.

Some people, it must be noted, are saying that the Sidekick data loss should not be considered a failure of the Cloud.   Tony Bradley, for example, says:

When Google News or Gmail experience outages the media ([he] included) cries that the cloud has failed. When Danger loses Sidekick data synced online from a million users the media declares it another failure of the cloud.

But, Google is not the cloud. Claiming that a failure by Google is a failure of cloud computing in general is like claiming that New Coke was a failure of all soft drinks. Declaring the loss of Sidekick data a failure of the cloud is like claiming that the failure of the Yugo was a failure of automobiles in general.

He rightly points out that the problem appears to have been improper server maintenance and the failure to adequately back up the remotely-saved data.  And it’s true that–for right now–things like Google Apps and remote synching of phone data are somewhat like New Coke and Yugos: the tech is not yet in wide enough adoption for one to be able to say that New Coke is the only soft drink choice (not that I ever had a problem with New Coke, but I guess I’m a little cola ambivalent when it comes down to it) or that Yugos are the only car choice.  But the impetus behind Cloud computing and SaaS is that it is intended to supplant rather than supplement local storage and computing. (See, e.g., this article in Australia’s The Age.)

The Sidekick has about 1,000,000 users, according to the articles discussing the outage, and apparently there isn’t a convenient way to store the data locally.  Contact info and calendar entries can’t possibly take all that much space on a server, so it should be relatively easy to maintain server health for such a small amount of data.  Think about the problems inherent in trying to maintain server health when hundreds of millions of people are storing much larger amounts of data in a remote location.  And that’s assuming a benign ecosystem, one where there aren’t constant attacks on the storage facilities.  As I noted the other day, however, that isn’t the reality as the Cloud is a prime target for malevolence.

Slippery slope?  Yup, in a way, but by the same token it’s a real problem and I still can’t get behind the idea of giving up local computing.

Ooooh, look at that consonance!  Anyway, it looks like iSinglePayer has been approved after all, sayeth Engadget.

Macworld has an interesting post about the C4 independent developers conference, and the apparent trend towards not developing for the iPhone.  As the post points out, yes, the App Store has been incredibly popular (more than 2 billion served–watch out McDonald’s!), but the frustrations surrounding the platform are mounting.

Among the concerns cited are the tight grip Apple places on developers (which can be seen by looking at the restrictions Apple puts on how Apps and the App Store can be marketed, even down to the amount of white space surrounding the App Store “badge“) and the low return on investment in developing an App.  It’s a good read, so check it out.

It appears, according to the App’s developer, that the App known as “iSinglePayer” has been denied by Apple for being “politically charged.  (Lambdajive via Daring Fireball via Engadget)  I’m not sure what to make of it, as the purported developer (I think it’s Floatopia?) has a website, floatopia.org, and the App doesn’t show up there.  But whatever, the story goes like this: iSinglePayer purports to show Americans what we pay in health costs versus other countries, and provides a location-aware Congressional contact mechanism.  And that appears to be just about it.

Putting aside the legitimate gripe that other politically-themed Apps have been approved, it’s a bothersome development that makes me recall when NARAL had problems with Verizon and some mass text messages.  Though Verizon eventually reversed course, the issue was this: NARAL, an abortion-rights interest group, wanted the ability to have a “short code” which would allow individuals interested in a particular subject get updates about it.  Verizon initially rejected the request, saying that “it ‘does not accept issue-oriented (abortion, war, etc.) programs — only basic, general politician-related programs (Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, etc.)’” but eventually relented, blaming the froo-frah on “’an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy’” that ‘was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.’”  That dusty internal policy was conceived “’before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages.’”  (Source: NY Times.)

Whatever happens with the App, which at least is garnering attention if not downloads, private blocking of speech based on content is going to be something that we’re going to have to wrestle with as a society as we move forward in our interconnected ways.  This won’t be the last time something like this happens, that’s for sure.

I saw this morning that Opera has released a new version of its mini browser.  (See this Gizmodo post and this PC Magazine post (via Yahoo!).)  Being fond of Opera’s desktop efforts, and generally liking its other endeavors for the smartphone market, I gave it a shot.

My quick thoughts on it?  Despite the welcome advancements in bringing tabbed browsing and the speed dial to the device, Opera Mini just seems incredibly slow and sluggish.  That can be forgiven, as it is still in beta.  What is less forgivable is its peculiar habit of dropping letters at the end of apparently random words.  For example, its EULA says things like “Agreemen” instead of “Agreement.”  And when I looked at my previous post (about France’s copyright legislation), it would show “fai” instead of “fair,” or “Registe” instead of “Register,” or “thei” instead of “their,” or “Fo” instead of “For.”  Or “chambe” instead of “chamber.”

The Loki side of me gets stirred when I think of the potential law school hypothetical that presents itself in this situation.  But the rational side of me will just file a bug report and get back to work.

Last night, after struggling to post something through my BlackBerry’s web browser, and failing, I thought “wouldn’t it be nice to have an app on this thing?”

Turns out there is in fact a BB app for WordPress. It’s a little slow, but it’s a hell of a lot better than trying to use the browser. I approve.