Ponca City, We Love You writes “Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically. Blizzard states the software bot infringes the company’s copyright and potentially damages the game. ‘Blizzard’s designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time,’ Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 duplicates of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly states his tool does not infringe Blizzard’s copyright because no ‘copy’ of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case.”

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First to submit writes “Ars Technica analyzes the Patent Reform Act that has passed the Home and is being debated in the Senate. Unfortunately for those longing for real, meaningful patent reform, the bill comes up short in some significant ways. ‘Despite the heated rhetoric on both sides, it is unclear if the legislation will do much to fix the most serious flaws in the patent system. A series of appeals court rulings in the 1990s greatly expanded patentable subject matter, making patents on software, business methods, and other abstract concepts unambiguously legal for the first time.’”

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Filed under: World wide web, Office, Web services, Google, web 2.0

Google has rolled out two new features for Google Docs, the company’s on the internet word processing application. The first is a new improved menu toolbar. Well, improved might be a subject term. To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t appear to add a whole lot of new features. But it looks far more like the menu toolbar you’d expect to find in a desktop application, complete with File, Edit, Insert, Format, Tools, and Table options.

Google has also added the capability to select colors for your labels/folders. This is a feature that Google added to Gmail a few months ago. And we’ve to state, it’s one of those features you didn’t necessarily know you needed until you’ve it and then it’s hard to imagine life without it.

If you use Google Docs regularly, these two features, particularly the colored labels could make life a lot easier. But as much as we love us some free Google office applications, we’ve to state, Zoho Writer still blows Google Docs away in a feature by feature comparison.

[via Google Operating System and… Google Operating System]

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Filed under: Developer, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Kevin Marks talks Open Social with Download Squad’s Christina Warren from Download Squad on Vimeo.
With all the buzz around OpenSocial, it’s simple to get lost in hype. While we were at SXSW we caught up with Kevin Marks, a man with more techno-credibility than you can shake a stick at. He’s currently working on OpenSocial for Google, and he’s got a lot to state about the concepts behind organizing and connecting the diaspora which is the current say of the social web. Our own Christina Warren cuts through the hype in this short interview.

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Finance Department
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Filed under: International markets, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), India, Headline news, Tata Mtrs Ltd (TTM)

It was reported long ago that Ford Motor (NYSE: F) was shopping its Jaguar and Land Rover brands. This day it finally announced it has closed the deal to sell these premier British brands to Tata Motors (NYSE: TTM) of India for $2.3 billion. Ford, which has been losing money, found its share price way down, closing yesterday at $5.96 (now up a few cents in premarket trading) and was in need of a cash infusion.

Tata Motors, having just introduced a low-end $2,500 vehicle to the Indian market, is now filling out the upper end of the spectrum by bringing these two well known British brands to a country with a tradition and heritage long ago saturated with British “imperialist” remnants like cricket and tea time. If Jaguar and Land Rover are to be revitalized, then Tata Motors probably has a superior chance of success than most.

Ford purchased Jaguar for $2.5 billion in 1989 and Land Rover for $2.7 billion in 2000. Nine months ago I posted Chasing Value: Tata Motors LTD - patience, patience, GOT IT! and now Tata has got it! What it hopes to do with these brands is gain some international credibility, based on a solid Indian foundation.

Tata’s stock closed yesterday at $17.36, up slightly on the rumors. It is about midway between its 52-week low of $14.71 and its high or $21.30. This deal could send both companies forward humming a new tune. I would even speculate more wildly just for fun that in this world of expanding markets, integrated economies and corporate consolidation, Ford and Tata Motors could one day find reason to unite.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: We own shares in TTM.

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Filed under: Launches, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Intel (INTC), Motorola (MOT), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Comcast Cl’A’ (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC)

Cable companies are at a disadvantage. Their telecom rivals can offer wireless service along with home broadband and Television. This “bundling” helps marketing to customers and keeping them once they sign up.

The massive companies in the cable business are aiming to change that. Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) are working on a plan to fund a national WiMax service to be run by startup Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) and Sprint (NYSE: S).

According to The Wall Street Journal, “Under the plan the parties are reviewing, Comcast — the largest cable operator with 24 million subscribers — would put as much as $1 billion into the venture, with No. 2 operator Time Warner Cable adding $500 million.” Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Motorola (NYSE: MOT) have already invested in Clearwire.

The deal might be cable’s only way out of a bind that has telecom companies putting fiber in homes to offer a direct competition to cable TV. The fiber also provides for fast broadband.

If the deal goes through, it will usher in an entirely new generation of competition where the consumer may have several more choices for getting wireless voice and data services. With more players, there’s usually active price competition. This will be good for customers, but could cut telecom company wireless margins.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst..com.

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Catoonsis writes “Reuters is reporting that ‘Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to use cutting-edge, spy-in-the-sky technology to beef up their fight against crime.’ The police force is planning to make use of a small aerial drone, capable of hovering and swift maneuvers, to monitor the Miami-Dade and alert officers of potential problems. The device, manufactured by Honeywell, is awaiting FAA approval before it can be put into use. This decision is just the latest chapter in the developing relationship between law enforcement and robotic assistants. ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been flying drones over the Arizona desert and southwest border with Mexico since 2006 and will soon deploy one in North Dakota to patrol the Canadian border as well. This month, Customs and Border Protection spokesman Juan Munoz Torres said the agency would also begin test flights of a altered version of its large Predator B drones, built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, over the Gulf of Mexico.’”

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Business Finance Vendors | Financial Services | Business.com
Providers of business financial services including banking, Forex, credit card, and venture capital services. Vendors offering merchant account systems and providers of business

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TTUHSC :: Finance & Administration : News
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OTDR alerts us to the latest software patent stupidity in the news as patent number 6,418,462, “methods allowing clients to perform tasks through a sideband communication channel, in addition to the main communication channel between a client and server,” snubs its nose at AJAX, ftp, and decades of prior art and goes on sale next month in San Fransisco. “Singled out are AJAX mashups including Google Maps and Gmail, and Microsoft ‘Live’… Also in the frame are Amazon’s S3 and EC2 and clusters from Microsoft, VMware, and Oracle. eBay’s Skype, Napster, and Microsoft’s Groove are also listed as potentially infringing on the patent in P2P.”

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