Ron Guilmette writes “As reported in the Washington Post’s Security Fix blog, a substantial hunk of IP address space has apparently been taken over by notorious mass e-mailing company Media Breakaway, LLC, formerly known as OptInRealBig, via means that are at best questionable. The block in question is 134.17.0.0/16, which I documented in depth in an independent investigation. (Apparently, the President of Media Breakaway has now admitted to the Washington Post that his company has been occupying and using the 134.17.0.0/16 block and that front company JKS Media, which provides routing to the block, is actually owned by Media Breakaway.) Remarkably, the president of Media Breakaway, who happens to be an attorney, is trying to defend his company’s apparent snatching of this block based upon his own rather novel legal theory that ARIN doesn’t have jurisdiction over any IP address space that was handed out before ARIN was formed, in 1997.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Goobermunch sends in a law.com article going into questions about the validity of current patent rulings (within the past eight years) by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, due to the unconstitutionality of the method for appointing patent and trademark appeals judges. The problem arises because the patent appeals judges were appointed by the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, rather than the Secretary of Commerce. Under Article 2, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the power to appoint “inferior officers” of the government may be vested in “in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.” The patent appeals judges are likely inferior officers, and therefore must be appointed by the President, the courts, or a department head. Quoting: “The US Patent and Trademark Office may have a major problem on its hands — the possibly unconstitutional appointment of almost two-thirds of its patent appeals judges. Such a constitutional flaw, if legitimate, could call into question the hundreds of decisions worth billions of dollars in the past eight years. The flaw, discovered by highly regarded intellectual property scholar John Duffy of George Washington University Law School, could also afflict the appointment of almost half of the agency’s trademark appeals judges.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Bad news, Products and services, Consumer experience, Internet, Competitive strategy, Tech for the rest of us, Personal finance

A simple 24 hour email outage for a system upgrade has turned into a 3 day technical nightmare for Hughes Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: HUGH). Initially, the company informed customers that email service would be suspended for a 24 hour period, from 6pm Saturday, April 26 through 6pm Sunday, April 27. As of this writing, HughesNet email service is still down.

I guess one can live without email for a few more days, although some might have important data to transmit via email. It’s data which could affect one’s career advancement. I guess in my case I could hand it off to my ground based mail carrier. However, because I’ve become quite accustomed to lackluster performance from Hughes Communications, I’m glad I’m not invested in it.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Industry, Competitive strategy, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Battle of the Brands

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you like, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

For two companies with similar backgrounds, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and Honda Motor Co. (NYSE: HMC) have grown markedly different. Toyota has taken a vertical approach to become arguably the world’s premier brand in combining high volume sales with high-quality products. Honda has taken a much more horizontal route, dipping its feet successfully into a wide range of products.

In 2007 Toyota passed Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) as the world’s second largest auto manufacturer. However, some question whether this victory came at the sacrifice of quality; Consumer Reports, which had consistently rated the company’s vehicles at the top of its quality rankings, declined to recommend many of its models due to concern about slipping reliability. Its secondary line of autos, the Scion, which is targeted to a younger driver, is still scrambling for traction in this crowded field.

Honda’s horizontal approach has taken it into farm and garden equipment, lawn mowers, motorcycles, even airplanes and soybeans. However, four-wheeled automobiles remain its core industry. Toyota’s quality stumbles have opened up the field for Honda’s reliable, affordable if unsexy lineup. The new subcompact Fit has replaced the Civic at the bottom of its price structure.

Both have successfully integrated domestic production with imports, and have thriving dealer networks. Both are also racing into China, lagging behind GM but with ambitious plans in place to expand mainland manufacturing. This may well be the battleground on which the war is won or lost.

My take? Both companies have strong product lines and aggressive visions. However, I’m a believer in Honda’s ability to find new niches, spreading its risk across numerous sectors. I’d be happy to own either (and I do own a tiny bit of Honda), but in this battle, I’m taking Honda in a photo-finish.

Vote in our poll for Toyota or Honda as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Forecasts, Management, Competitive strategy, Starbucks (SBUX)

Tomorrow afternoon, Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) will be joining the earnings parade when it reports its second quarter numbers.

The last time that the company reported earnings was on January 30, when the company beat analyst expectations by a penny, posting 29 cents a share. But that was still not enough to get buyers enthusiastic about the stock.

Shares have fallen around 13% since then. This time around, analysts are looking for the company to show earnings of 15 cents a share.

The company has already warned Wall Street that it could be a weak quarter, with consumers cutting back spending in reaction to the slowing economy and rising fuel costs.

The only bright side is that since everyone is anticipating the company to show weak earnings, even if the news is bad, the stock could be OK. Most analysts have already been bracing for bad news, so most of the bad news has already been priced into the stock.

Larry Miller, from RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a letter to his clients that the company will probably be reporting same store sales falling in the mid-single digits, making it the worst quarter ever for the company in this regard. He went on to say that he expects the company to have more setbacks in the future as it continues to try to turn around the business.

It has been a pretty tough year for the stock. Shareholders have seen shares gradually fall over the past 12 months to its current price, which is roughly 50% lower than this time last year. For a better idea of just how hard the stock has been hit, let’s take a look at a current chart on the stock. As you can see, the stock could really use some good news tomorrow.

The quarterly numbers will be out after the market closes tomorrow, and we’ll post the earnings results as soon as they are available.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL), Research in Motion (RIMM), Battle of the Brands

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

Research in Motion Ltd.’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry wireless email device has been a staple of the corporate world for years now. RIM, a Canadian company, took the function everyone wanted — simple and superb access to mobile email — and turned that single function into an entire industry. Of course, RIM’s wireless units now handle voice calls, pictures, document editing and more, but that’s not what customers buy BlackBerries for. The single function of secure, instant and mobile email is still the killer application for the BlackBerry.

Enter Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its uber-popular iPhone that’s been on sale for coming up on a year now. The company has sold way over 4 million of the devices since then and has taken a big swipe at the “smartphone” wireless handset category where the iPhone competes. Reminder: the unit has not even been on the market for a year. Apple has selectively released upgrades to the iPhone to make it more competitive in the business customer arena, and with the possibility of the iPhone being able to handle corporate push email, it might become an even bigger threat to RIM in the very near future.

Yet, the iPhone is still marketed as a consumer device — not a business one. But that’s Apple’s magic: many of its products are meant for and marketed as consumer devices but as just as useful in a corporate setting. Perhaps that is Apple’s secret: use the cloak of a slick consumer device to slowly but surely infiltrate the corporate space. So far, RIM really has not indicated that it’s seen a threat from Apple’s iPhone. The threat was there before the iPhone was launched last June, and it’s growing every single month. This battle has only just begun.

Vote in our poll for iPhone or BlackBerry as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Features, Web services, DLS Interviews, iPhone

The “social networking” space is chock-full of applications, plug-ins and other bits and pieces designed to hopefully enhance the user’s experience on the web and potentially in their real lives as well. Unfortunately, some of these applications or plug-ins are often uninspired and do little, if anything, to accomplish this goal.

Sometimes, however, an application or plug-in is able to provide user’s with useful services and a forum to express themselves. Case in point, “Where I’ve Been,” an application and a stand-alone website which can actually enhance the user’s experience by providing useful tools such as travel-related tips, interactive maps and a forum to showcase and discuss where they’ve traveled to.

At the helm of “Where I’ve Been” is CEO Michael Dalesandro who, in a short time, has managed to transform “Where I’ve Been” from its humble beginnings into a very successful application in use by millions of users everyday. Recently, I sat down with with him to discuss “Where I’ve Been,” what it does and where its going.

CHRIS ULLRICH: Michael, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

MICHAEL DALESANDRO: Not a problem.

CU: How and when did you first get involved with “Where I’ve been”?

MD: Craig Ulliott was working for Blueye.com as a developer when he brought me the concept for “Where I’ve Been.” He wrote the application and then it launched on Facebook first. That’s where it all started.

CU: For someone unfamiliar with “Where I’ve been”, can you describe it?

MD: “Where I’ve Been” is a simple way for people to connect and express themselves primarily through their travel experiences. It allows the user to highlight their travels graphically and show what places, cities, countries they’ve been to.

The can share where they’ve been, where have lived and where they want to go with friends, family and others.

CU: How does “Where I’ve been” benefit the user? Why should someone use it?

Continue reading Interview: Michael Dalesandro, CEO “Where I’ve Been”

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Business, World wide web, Web services, web 2.0

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a bit of a revolt among eBay power sellers. Basically, eBay increased some fees, which led some buyers to hold a boycott. But the truth of the matter is eBay is a giant, and if you make a decent portion of your income buying and selling goods on eBay, there aren’t a ton of good alternatives. Wigix wants to change that, and the site is willing to waive fees on all items sold for less than $25 to do it. For pricier items, WIgix has significantly lower transaction fees than you’ll find on eBay.

Wigix isn’t exactly an auction like eBay. Rather, it’s an “exchange,” which lets buyers and sellers connect with one another. Sellers don’t have to fill out product descriptions manually. Instead they select from a database of products which already have product descriptions. This database also makes the search process easy for buyers. When you start to enter a term in the search box, Wigix will provide a list of items to selected from before you even hit enter. When you find the item you’re looking for, you can see how many buyers and sellers there are, and you can set a price at which you’re wiling to purchase an item. As soon as the item is available for that price, Wigix will hook you up with a seller.

You can conduct similar transactions with eBay’s Half.com, which lets you “pre-order” an item which will automatically be purchased as soon as someone offers one for sale at your desired price. But Half.com only includes books, movies, music, and video games, while Wigix users can sell pretty much anything.

[via Mashable]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Audio, World wide web, Video, Web services, web 2.0

SeeqPod is a search engine for finding music on the internet. But it’s much more than that. Enter an artist or song title in SeeqPod and it will look for MP3s, video files, or web sites related to you term and present them in a nice clean list — with links to play the files on the site. You can use SeeqPod without registering for an account, but if you want to save playlists you’ll want to sign up for a free account.

SeeqPod has been around since last year, but we’re having one of those days where we keep thinking of cool things we’ve never shared with you before. This morning it was the K-Meleon web browser, and now we bring you SeeqPod.

There are a few other nifty things you can do with SeeqPod, like embed audio clips on your web page or find lyrics or tour dates from an artist. Or you can even embed an audio search and playback widget on your web site.

Bear in mind, many of the songs that SeeqPod finds on the internet are not exactly being legally distributed. But since SeeqPod isn’t actually hosting the files itself, the company is sort of gray market and may be able to stand up against any future legal challenges. Or it might not.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Time-Wasters, web 2.0

You probably think you’re hot stuff because you can type 90+ words per minute. But how well do you perform when you’ve got a couple of other speed typists hot on your heels? While competitive typing isn’t likely to hit the Olympics, or even ESPN2 anytime soon, TypeRacer is an online game that makes typing speed tests a bit more interesting by letting you see how your skills stack up against others.

TypeRacer asks you to type a relatively short snippet of text, which might be a quote from a book, motion picture, or something else you can buy on Amazon (the site is designed to make money by getting you to click on Amazon affiliate links). As you’re typing, a little car will move across the screen and you can see other drivers/typists racing. New races begin pretty regularly so you should only have to wait a few seconds to join a race.

Just remember, if you spend too much time eying the competition, you’re going to fall behind and then you’ll never make the high scores list.

[via AppScout]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Share This