Part of the application appears to be describing the auto-discovery methods of detecting feeds in a page, but what about the rest of it? Is it for desktop Windows applications? Is it web aggregators? Time to call the lawyer.
If granted, one proposed patent would cover “finding and consuming Web subscriptions in a Web browser.” The invention, for example, could allow a user to “subscribe to a particular Web feed, be provided with a user interface that contains distinct indicia to identify new feeds, and…efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a Web browser.”
I’d like to know what effect this is going to have in Google Reader, Bloglines, Netvibes, PageFlakes, etc, etc and OF COURSE, podcast.com (which is nearing the end of a major overhaul with regards to feed reading and feed folder organisation – and ‘amplification’) !!! The whole podcast industry (yes, there is one) relies on this so-called invention.
The application was made in July 2005, so surely there’s plenty of prior art? I don’t get it?
Nick Bradbury, creator of FeedDemon apparently does not want to call Microsoft ‘evil’ just yet, but personally I feel like we just had a major shot across our bows. Friendly fire? I think not.
Is this just a way for lawyers to make money? I sometimes I think these departments just sit around working out ways to make eachother money while screwing consumers in the process. A little bit like a nation’s defence department working out ways to keep us on the brink of mass destruction in order to keep their budgets up and brass polished.
Further to the previous post about Second Life, here’s more evidence of ‘accessibility’ to people. Last night I got an invite from the guys at MillionsOfUs to attend a screening of Eduardo Sánchez‘ new movie, ‘Altered‘. I hadn’t watched a full feature film in world before, so I teleported over to a drive-in cinema in SL and sat on the floor (I didn’t bring the car) then set my viewing camera angle right up at the screen and sat back and watched it.
It was great! I really like films of this genre. They’re fun. The framerate was great and the film ran perfectly.
But the really cool part was that after everyone had finished the movie, we gathered around and chatted with the director himself! Eduardo, who also directed The Blair Witch Project was there to answer any questions about Altered and BWP. Some great Qs and As. His favourite horror flicks are The Exorcist and The Shining He’d like to try machinima, but will be sticking with horror for now. He may still use consumer cameras in the future and he loves YouTube and the internet for getting attention.
Altered was originally a comedy script. He has never had a close encounter, but his ‘mad aunt’ has had many and used to go about them all the time!
It’s not all about zombies, aliens, ghosts, witches and intestines you know. Eds dream is to raise a few million and give 10-20 filmmakers the chance to make a movie for 100K. Nice dream!
posted by Koz Farina on Ride using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]
1. I used to love acting. Probably still would if given the time/chance That’s me in the photo aged 17 in a Vaudevillian role. I had over half the lines in the play which I learned the night before dress rehearsal by recording my cues and lines to a tape cassette and falling asleep with headphones on. It worked
2. I’m half German, but don’t speak it. I should learn (again after lessons at school). It’s strange, sometimes I understand it spoken and I can get the gist of it when reading, with a little help from dictionaries, but I can’t speak it fluently.
3. I have attended 13 years of Glastonbury Festival – the best festival in the world (and only 25 mins drive from where I grew up – hehe!)
4. The name ‘Kosso’ is a nickname derived from my surname, which is ‘Kossmann’. When I was at school, people called me ‘Kossy’. When I was at college I was known as ‘Kossa’. People tend to call me ‘Koz’ alot these days. Can’t think why
5. I believe that so-called extra-terrestrial visitors are actually inhabitants of Earth from the future, coming back to obtain various resources since depleted. Sightseeing time-travelling tourists too! If we do manage to survive on this planet for another couple of thousand years, we will have gone through many changes caused by the increase in radiation levels from the sun, over time. This could include natural eye protection and potential lack of genitalia. Ouch!
What makes Second Life eerily powerful is the zero-distance between thinkers and technology by ZDNet‘s Dana Gardner (and the ‘Briefings Direct’ podcast)– There is an egalitarian equalizing effect when your avatar IMs with another … even if you know who they are. There’s a comfort level with being virtual, and the IBMers seemed eager to chat with lots of folks. I can see getting better access to executives and the creative minds at IBM in Second Life than I do in real life, and that’s a good thing.
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He’s right. But people also said that the internet and computers themselves take away a certain amount of the human experience too. I was told this ever since I fell in love with ‘playing’ on a computer as a child. I was told I was wasting my time and ‘missing out’. I sat and thought that I was seizing an opportunity to learn about these things, as we’d soon be surrounded by them everywhere we went. Whether for business or pleasure.
Then, when the Web and interent came along, I immediately connected and communicated with people all around the world (this totally blew my mind). Some of these people have become good friends who I go to stay with, or vice versa, in the ‘real world’.
Communication like this is so unbelievably powerful and incredibly resourceful, it almost brings a tear to my eye. Just about all the fundamental knowledge in various programming languages I know came from information from people on the internet, directly or indirectly. (I owe them all big time – and try to share knowledge back to this new ‘community resource’ as much as possible – and more in the future, in a more structured way).
I was invited to this IBM event too. Who me? Little old me? Sat at home on a computer? Yes. Me. How cool is that!? Unfortunately I couldn’t make it. We know the world is round, but sometimes we forget the time differences in a global forum.
I had the pleasure of having lunch with Dana back in the summer too. All through connections made through work, which in themselves are a product of my online world. A great, smart guy. A pleasure to talk to.
Second Life provides us with a feeling of ‘proximity’ to people we communicate with and gesture to. It’s hard to explain. It’s not like the odd feeling you get having a video conference with someone, where you look into the camera or not. It kind of feels more natural in a virtual world. (For me, anyway)
This platform is so powerful it must not be ignored. The interfaces will become more stable and realistic as time goes by. The landlord of the metaverse of the future might not be Linden Lab. It could be you. It could be the person sat next to you. Whoever it is, I promise you it’s not going to go away. It’s going to get BETTER.
Embrace it. You will thank yourself for it in the future. And who knows, you might actually make some money and new friends and have some fun on the way!
What on earth are Microsoft trying to do here? This is the US Software Patent office at its most ridiculous ever!! It has filed a patent on the Windows RSS Platform. Does this apply to Europe?
He’d like to try 
