Yahoo Exec Makes Yuil: Looks Like Cuil, With Better Results

It was only a matter of time. Cuil, the "massive" new search engine that was supposed to be able to keep up with Google, has just gotten its first knockoff. It's Yuil,
a Yahoo-powered mashup that looks almost exactly like Cuil. And, oddly
enough, Yuil might actually work better than its much-hyped
predecessor.

In a surprising (and hilarious) twist, Yuil is actually the product
of Yahoo VP of Platforms, Sam Pullara, who is using the site to show
off Yahoo's recently-released
BOSS API. BOSS is unique among search engine APIs, giving developers an
unprecedented level of control over results generated by Yahoo's search
engine. And while Yuil isn't really doing anything new with its search
results, they're more relevant than the occasionally bizarre ones we've been getting from Cuil.

Developers are only just starting to tap into the power afforded by the
BOSS API - we'll probably see dozens of similar search engines like
this pop up over the next few months. The difference between these, and
the generic API-based engines we've seen before, is that developers
will be able to manipulate and reorder the results to make them more
meaningful - something that APIs from most other search engines
prohibit.

Update: Looks like someone in the Yahoo or Cuil camp doesn't have a sense of humor. Pullara has just updated his blog to say he's taken Yuil down:

From : http://www.washingtonpost.com/

SueTube redux: Italian broadcaster targets YouTube

YouTube is once again being targeted for widespread copyright
infringement, except this time the lawsuit is originating from Europe.
Italian broadcaster Mediaset SpA announced
today that it was going after Google for at least €500 million in
damages, which translates to just over $750 million at today's exchange
rates. Combine this with the $1 billion sought by Viacom, and YouTube
is looking at the possibility of some serious legal liability.

Mediaset said that it found some 4,600 of its own videos and clips on
the popular video sharing site, which the company equates to 315,672
(viewer) days of broadcasting, or more than 325 solid hours of
transmission. The €500 million is just the beginning, too—Mediaset said
that further damages could be tacked on if the company determines that
it lost advertising revenue thanks to the videos being put on YouTube.

On cue, YouTube reiterated that it's not all about copyright
infringement and that it respected the rights of content owners.
"YouTube respects copyright holders and takes copyright issues very
seriously," Google said in an e-mailed statement to Dow Jones and a number of other media outlets. "There is no need for legal action and all the associated costs."

Mediaset's lawsuit comes just over a year after Viacom sued YouTube
for "brazen" copyright infringement, demanding $1 billion in damages.
According to the complaint, Viacom identified 150,000 of its clips on
the service that had been viewed an "astounding" 1.5 billion times. The
company accused YouTube and Google of profiting from the posting of
copyrighted works and even deliberately withholding filtering
technology that could prevent such infringement.

The Viacom suit laid largely dormant up until earlier this month, when a judge ruled that Google would have to turn over 12TB of YouTube data
to Viacom as part of the discovery process for the lawsuit. As a
result, Viacom will soon find out exactly how many video clips have
been removed from YouTube and access data about how many users watched
which videos, although the two companies have agreed to let Google anonymize the user data before handing it over out of privacy concerns.

Google has long maintained that it is protected by the DMCA's Safe
Harbor clause, which limits the liability of service providers when
users post copyrighted content. What's unclear is whether YouTube
counts as a service provider, or whether Congress only meant to protect
ISPs. If YouTube is a service provider, many believe that a success for
Viacom it could have widespread implications across how content is
handled across the entire Internet. Both Google and the Electronic Frontier Foundation
have made this argument, saying that if Safe Harbor is limited to ISPs,
many Internet-based companies (including Ars Technica and any site that
has a forum) could suffer or go out of business.

Of course, Mediaset's lawsuit was filed in Rome, where the DMCA doesn't
reach. While it won't have implications for US Safe Harbor rules, it
still carries with it implications for how strictly video upload sites
operating in Europe need to police their users' submissions for
infringing material.

From : http://arstechnica.com/

Dell tests music player to renew iPod battle: report

BANGALORE (Reuters) - In recent months, personal computer
maker Dell Inc. (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research), has been testing a digital music
player that could go on sale as early as September, the Wall
Street Journal newspaper said, citing several Dell officials.

Dell's new foray would put it into an Apple-led (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research)
market that has defied assaults.

Companies like Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Sony Corp
(6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) have tried -- and failed -- to make a dent in the
market dominated by Apple's iPod players and iTunes store, the
Journal said.

The music player which Dell has been testing features a
small navigation screen and basic button controls to scroll
through music play lists, the Journal reported.

It would connect to online music services via a Wi-Fi
Internet connection, and Dell would likely price the model at
less than $100, the Journal said. Dell's first foray into the
music market in 2003 was a huge disappointment. It withdrew
from the music-player market after its DJ Ditty player failed
to make major inroads.

This time, if the company goes ahead with the music player,
the strategy is different, Michael Tatelman, Dell's vice
president of consumer sales said, according to the paper.

Instead of simply selling a piece of hardware tied to
someone else's music service, as it did in 2003, Dell is
working on software for a range of portable PCs that will let
users download and organize music and movies from various
online sources, the paper added.

From : http://uk.reuters.com/

Amazon Music on an iPod

Q. Do digital songs from Amazon.com work on an iPod, and if so, how do you get them onto the thing from the Web?

A. The song files for sale in Amazon’s Digital Download area can work on just about any portable player that can handle MP3 files — including Apple iPod, Microsoft Zune, Creative Zen and other devices.

These
MP3 files are referred to as “D.R.M.-free” and do not contain the
digital-rights management software used to restrict playback.

The
easiest way to move purchased Amazon music to the iPod is to download
the free Amazon MP3 Downloader from the site. This program works on
Windows, Macintosh and Linux systems. There is a link to it on the main
MP3 Downloads page.

Once a user installs Amazon’s helper software, the albums and songs bought from the store are automatically dumped into iTunes.

From
there, they can be loaded onto an iPod like any other song, by
automatically synching the player with the computer or manually copying
them onto the iPod.

Users need the MP3 Downloader to buy multiple
songs and whole albums at once. Users can skip installing it if they
want to buy single songs one at a time. In that case, the MP3 files
land on the desktop (or wherever Web downloads are configured to go).
To get them into iTunes, just drag them onto the Library icon in the
iTunes window.

Users can also go to the iTunes File menu,
choose “Add to Library” and select the tracks on the hard drive to pull
them into the program.

Questions
about computer-based technology may be sent to QandA@nytimes.com. This
weekly column will address questions of general interest, but e-mail
and letters cannot be answered individually.

From : http://www.nytimes.com/

Scrabble vs. Scrabulous: A lesson in copyright law

Wednesday's demise of the Scrabulous application on Facebook led some of our readers to question the legal claim
Hasbro has on Scrabble, the official game. The toy company last week
filed a copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit against the
developers of Scrabulous, an online word game that played very much
like Scrabble.

Invented in 1938 by a New York architect named Alfred Mosher Butts,
Scrabble counts millions of players worldwide. Hasbro estimates that
more than 100 million copies of the board game have been sold in 29
languages and 100 countries. Hasbro, through its subsidiary Milton
Bradley, bought the North American rights to the game in 1987.

To answer our readers' questions on Hasbro's copyright and trademark
case, we turned to Ian Ballon, an intellectual property and Internet
attorney with Greenberg Traurig. What follows is an abridged interview
with Ballon, who also wrote the four-volume treatise, "E-Commerce &
Internet Law."

----

Q: Many people think that because Scrabble is 70 years old, it should be in the public domain. Why isn't it?
A: A copyright claim lasts for the life of the author, plus 70 years.

Q: Butts passed away in 1993, which would extend the copyright in this case to the year 2063.

A: Yes, but it’s really important to remember that the plaintiff is
also asserting a trademark claim, and that lasts as long as you exploit
it. Marks like Coca-Cola, Mercedes -- those can continue indefinitely
as long as it remains in use. The law prevents third parties from
making both literal use of a trademark as well as uses that are
confusingly similar. The term “Scrabulous” is obviously intended to
evoke the name Scrabble. Plainly, the people who created the game were
trying to evoke the Scrabble mark.

Q: What’s the policy argument for having copyrights in the first place?
A:
Th term of protection is what allows authors, composers and other
creators to successfully exploit their works. If material immediately
came into the public domain, then there would be no financial incentive
to write a song, film a movie or undertake similar creative ventures.
The reality is that all of the great authors, composers and artists
wouldn’t be able to make a living. The public benefits by encouraging
the arts. In return, artists and creators are compensated. If you took
that away, you would have a much smaller body of creative works.

Q: So why create an expiration date?
A: It’s a balance that the
framers of the Constitution had to make. They wanted to create
financial incentives for artists and creators. But they also wanted to
foster free speech. The quid pro quo is that after the period expires, a work comes into the public domain.

Q: Why 70 years?
A: That was fixed by an international treaty so
that U.S. authors, performers and creators have the same right as
people in other countries. The term of protection used to be shorter.

Q: What if the creators of Scrabulous were to change the name to
“XYZ Game” and tweak the board and point system for their application.
Would that make it legally permissible?
A: People are always free
to create their own original games. But if they copy the creative
expression of a third party, or they try to mimic the logos or
trademarks for a famous brand, they will typically be enjoined.
Intellectual property law protects against copying and unfair
competition. But people are always allowed to engage in fair
competition which would require them to create their own original game.
The law requires a minimal level of “original and creative expression”
to be entitled to copyright protection.

From : http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/

Quantum porn engine foiled by strawberries and muffins

Yes, Cuil is pants. Though its
founders insist they're building a Google killer, the results turned up
by this new-age search engine are even more ridiculous than its name.
Which is still pronounced "Cool."

Quantum computing queries have been known to reveal random pornography (NSFW) - even when "safe search" is turned on. And as countless Reg readers will tell you, that's just a start.

But there's reason to forgive the company's epic ineptitude. Cuil is
the helpless victim of outlandish Silicon Valley social norms that
force net startups into wasting their venture capital on strawberries
and muffins while giving employees free rein to work as little as they
like.

Ireland-based Sunday Times columnist Sarah Carey is an old
college friend of Cuil CEO Tom Costello, and the Palo Alto,
California-based startup recently hired her as its "Strategist to the
CEO" - even though she sees Silicon Valley as a some sort of Stepford Wives-like alternate universe.

The strategic mother of two describes her first descent into the Valley's heart of darkness in a recent column posted to her personal web site.
"I stay in a hotel in Palo Alto and walk around to the office each
morning, slowly adjusting to the fact that I am supposed to smile and
greet fellow pedestrians and joggers," she writes. "The tree-lined
streets are perfumed with flowers and weirdly quiet. They have so much
space here that buildings are low rise, mostly only two-storey and the
noise of their huge cars is lost into the atmosphere."

At one point, she even suspected that much of Palo Alto's native
population had been kidnapped and sent north in boxes. "The serenity is
catching – I become conscious of my foot fall. People speak quietly,
even the children. It’s beautiful, but surreal. You can’t help
wondering if all the loud, crazy people have been rounded up and
shipped into San Francisco."

But what amazed her most was the way Tom Costello and the Cuil kids
spent their $33 million in venture capital. "Lunch is ordered in every
single day," she writes. "Huge fridges burst with snacks and drinks.
Bowls of strawberries and muffins lie around the rest area.

"The company pays for a personal trainer and gym membership for
everyone. A doctor calls round each Friday, after the weekly barbeque,
to see if everyone’s in good health. Employees drift in an out at times
that suit themselves."

In attempt to earn her keep as Strategist to the CEO, she warned her
college classmate that he was heading down the road to ruin. But he
explained that in the Valley, that path is unavoidable.

"When I observed this [strawberry and muffin] behaviour first I was
appalled and took my CEO friend aside," Carey says. "This was
disastrous! His company would never succeed if he wasted money like
this and didn’t crack the whip. He laughed. This is the way it works
out here. You have to be nice to people."

And in the end, even Sarah Carey was sucked into the Valley's
swirling vortex of profligacy. "Well, if that was the case, he could be
nice to me," she says. "I wasn’t going to fly home in the back of the
plane. I summoned up the audacity to ask for business class travel and
was granted it without hesitation. Knowing the cost of the ticket was
over €2000, which is about $5 million given the current exchange rate,
I had to walk around for 15 minutes afterwards chanting 'I’m worth it.
I’m worth it. I’m worth it.'"

Yes, she convinced herself. When you're in Valley, you can't help
but give in. So forgive Cuil for launching a shite search engine. And
forgive them for calling it Cuil. ®

From : http://www.theregister.co.uk/

Link To Website : Cuil