Wednesday, March 26, 2014

IBM Seeks Patent on Software that Incorporates Human Emotion

IBM Seeks Patent on Software that Incorporates Human Emotion - IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Patent Law:

IBM patents emotions. How does that make your feel? Sad? Mad? Glad?

Well, let's not get emotional about this.

But it seems that our friends at IBM, the patent King, has a rather cleaver line on patents. IBM is making efforts to emulate the types of things done by the human emotions. Multiple channels, multiple inputs.

One would assume the same illogical and irrational things that make humans so unique and yet so imperfect. Right.

Steve Brachmann does a nice job of tying in other patent technologies related to communications and information processing that are in the same space.

I like the comment: "It looks like more than a full time job for IBM just keeping track of who is potentially infringing their patents."

True that. But having 10 patents issued per day give IBM a whole lot of leeway if someone comes after IBM.

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Friday, March 21, 2014

Kickstarter CEO: 'Veronica Mars' proves 'the power of audiences' | Inside Movies | EW.com

Kickstarter CEO: 'Veronica Mars' proves 'the power of audiences' | Inside Movies | EW.com:

When you go to watch Veronica Mars, if you haven't already done so...

Think about this. It has been the greatest success for any movie launched by crowd funding!

Capitalism at work by the masses. Very cool.

They blasted through the goal of $2M and raised $5.7M from 91,000+ backers.

Here is the YouTube Video teaser that they used to raise the money and to recruit MARShmellows to jump into the backer frenzy.

Right now I can watch it on Xfinity for only $17.99.

Gotta love it.

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Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Pfizer says U.S. court invalidates Celebrex patent; generics loom -- Reuters

Pfizer -- U.S. court invalidates Celebrex patent; generics loom | Reuters:

Ouch!:-(

Knocking the block of of the buster.

Pfizer is taking a big hit with this court ruling against Celebrex patent. Surprisingly, the stock price, not so much so. Almost not even a jitter as it stays around $32 per share.

That's $3B in annual sales with $2B in the US (relevant to the US court ruling, obviously).

IF the company repeats its $51B in sales from last year (revenues have been dropping over the last 3 years) then that represents about 4% to 6% of the companies sales. But it has to represent a huge hit to the bottom line, let's say 8% to 15%. (It doesn't take much to milk the cash cows; it does however, take a lot of money to invent the cow, clone it, raise the herd to maturity, and then milk each cow for all she's got for about 20 years.)

It look like the patent would have expired in 2015 anyway, so there would be generics already sitting on the sidelines (or the storefront in other countries).

This must have been totally expected. It is hard to imaging a $204B company (based on market cap) that doesn't take a serious tumble when one of its blockbuster products takes a hit.

It is blockbuster patents in Big Pharma going off patent like this that contribute to the slowing of Healthcare spending. That's right. Healthcare spending has only been increasing at about 4% over the last couple years. A big part of that is the patent cliff for big pharma drugs.

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Rita Gunther McGrath on the End of Competitive Advantage

Rita Gunther McGrath on the End of Competitive Advantage:

Great insight on competitive advantage, flexibility, and innovation.

Article, but a nice video of Rita as well.

Book:
McGrath’s most recent book, The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)


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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Pono - HiRes Music - Kickstarter 250% funded - Muzak will never be the same!

Pono Music - Where Your Soul Rediscovers Music by the PonoMusic Team — Kickstarter:

Pono Music... a project funded at Kickstarterhttp://kck.st/1g5xVf3

High resolution music in a world that has gone Digital!

Finally, I can put those olde (analog) records back on the shelf!

This Kickstarter.com campaign is set to roll over $2M in fund raising today. !Oops, took too long to blog! It is already over $2M! Original goal was only $800k. It is headed by Neil Young but has lots and lots of celec muzak backers. Two more added since I took too long to write this (James Taylor autographed player).

If you like this idea, jump on board. You can get a Pono muzak player for $300 this way with 128GB of storage. That actually is less than 1,000 tracks if you store them at the highest resolution. Of course, nobody has music at that high resolution... 

Pono will work with any artist or music company to get the highest resolution available (from masters) for the site. They won't stream initially in part because the size of the stream. Compression gets us the muZak we have today for our MP3 players -- maybe good, but definitely not great.

So, for 300 bucks or so, you to can sponsor this event, and the music site and the player devise. You will get a Pono player free for your sponsorship... well, $99 off of a $399 player. It should play any music, and the high resolution music you can put on it (now, really from PonoMusic.com, once the project is launched). Since the project is 200% funded, one can assume that it will launch. The plan is to build by this summer everything if the money came through from pre-sales and such on Kickstarter. Then all of the sponsors could expect their memorabilia and Pono players soon thereafter, say August.

The IP behind the player.I'm asking the question at Kickstarter about the IP behind the player. But, one of the key components of their IP is a patent by none other than Neil Young, himself. 

Patent Application: PCT/US2012/038099
Title: Multiple-resolution audio and video systems, methods of production, delivery and uses thereof
Priority date: Jan 20, 2009.

It will be interesting to see if it issues?

It will also be interesting to see if they go for a more open architecture like MP3 or proprietary approach.?

Kids, who have been listening to bad (quality) muzak all their lives, will never be the same.:-)

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Saturday, March 1, 2014

Florida Business Incubation Association: Florida Incubators

Florida Business Incubation Association:

Business incubators are so very cool. Generally they bring together all the components a business will need to get started or to expand. This usually includes funding sources. But as important are the key services that every organization needs. Business advice (often tied in to the SBA's Small Business Development Centers -- SBDC)... Accounting, IT, Intellectual Property protection (patents, TM, C,...), secretarial services, etc. Lots of marking help are critical, web site, search engine optimization and more...  See the SBDC for Florida.

Frequently incubators are tied in to the science departments of universities so the inventions of the academic world can be transported into the business world.

An entrepreneur (or two) can't do everything within the startup business. The incubator helps coach them into giving up some of the jobs at the company so that they can focus on one (or two).

Often there are reduced costs for incubatees who are accepted into an incubator...

There always is a graduation process for the incubatee as he/she grows up to be an adult company!:-)

Incubators often have internal and external networks to help engage veterans and peers in their efforts.

Here's the place to go for Business Incubator info -- National Business Incubator Association: https://www.nbia.org/
* Find your incubator here based on region and or type of incubator.

Check out the incubators in your area:
* Florida ... or Florida Business Incubator Association...
* Georgia
* California

Business incubators are some times called accelerators, since they accelerate the process of a business moving forward.

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