Harsh J

Read this PDF of Paul Allen and Interval Licensing L.L.C.’s patent infringement complaint against AOL, eBay, Apple, Google, Netflix, Facebook (Yeah, Microsoft vs. Allen), Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.

Interval and Allen’s four US Patents in this complaint here deal with the following aspects:

1. Identify, process and alert items of “current interest” to users of online content; i.e. what you’ve seen before as “Users who bought this also bought:” and “Most bought overall” like sections.
2. Displaying an attention message to the user unobtrusively; i.e. your smooth notification popups and/or bubble popups that display information. Also the way Mac’s Dashboard appears when activated (similar to Yahoo’s Widgets dashboard).
3. Displaying items of related interest around a topic; i.e. Related news/pages, etc.

This case is going to be quite fun to follow, as it defines a large chunk of the “related” web (or social web, if you hang that way) we have today. It almost could tear Facebook down to nothingness if justice were dictatorial (No FOAF!).

If you ask me, this is the height of a patent, to hold rights to an idea and also its out-scope itself, not a particular implementation of it. We have a chance now, and we should take it and abolish such stupidness.

I’d “lost” my flash drive a few months ago. I never lose my things generally, but I had a suspicion I may have dropped it during the public transport to work or back. Not that I could believe I did that, as I’m kind of careful with my items, I searched my entire room and was unable to find it. Also had searched my washed pants and the washing machine back then but didn’t see it in them either. So I gave up and accepted the reality – I lost my first ever flash disk, a Transcend 2 GB JF 168 “Bamboo” themed device that had great speeds; unlike those black standard ones available back then.

JetFlash 168 - Bamboo

Then today morning, I woke up and saw it on my desk. Someone had found it while cleaning the washing machine’s internals a bit. It’s been inside the washing machine for two months and still works like a charm. Its rusted in parts now, which is sad cause I kept it in really good condition, but at least I got it back without having to buy one of those bigger capacity, slightly crappier ones available today in the low price range.

The first hardware of a kind is always special in some way

I have to play every Spider-Man game produced, somehow. So I went ahead and got my hands on the most recent one of them, “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions“, and oh boy. I’m blown away!

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions Box Cover showing all four playable Spider-Men -- 2099, Amazing, Noir and Ultimate (The Ultimate character comes with a Venom suit)

After playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, my bar that sets the definition of a good RPG action game just took a shot towards the sky. The game-play in it was the most involving for a comic character based RPG, based on a comic character who’s at human heights. The fights were great, the moving around the area fluid and just like how the character would do, etc.. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the game if you play it, cause the story doesn’t disappoint you either.

Along came the Spider-Man game, and brought in perhaps for the first time ever, the Spider-Man 2099 and the Spider-Man Noir characters into video games! I think they’re great characterizations. The former imposing the role upon himself to get rid of a drug addiction, and the latter just facing a twisted history with his timeless humor. Their comics are great too.

Spider-Man Noir -- Incapacitating a henchman. All in total silence. Way cool.

Now case-in-point: Spider-Man Noir. The Noir Spider-Man levels in Shattered Dimensions is very similar to what much of Arkham Asylum had to offer. Only, it has much more pace. Any Spider-Man game worth its salt would offer deadly combos and faster-than-eye-can-follow agility during battles, and Shattered Dimensions doesn’t disappoint. The way you could incapacitate a henchman in Arkham Asylum, you can do it with Spider-Man Noir using webbing. Sneak up on them in the darkness, and web yank them to blackouts. Its Arkham Asylum all over, but with webs and sticking on walls! I’m not getting enough of this, so am going and playing more of it now. What’s more is that it offers a great bunch of classic rogues from Spider-Man gallery, across different timelines; yet you don’t get lost!

You should try this game out, its good fun with not too repetitive themes. For Spider-Man fans, it is an imperative. Stan Lee has himself voiced over a few narrations. This one is surely a timeless classic.