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Turkey Revenge
The turkeys are pissed this Thanksgiving they are seeking revenge.
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Smartphone Sanitizing: A Practical Guide
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Why Soft Skills Matter in Today’s Job Market
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Wi-Fi Settlement to Cost Billions
Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has won its Wi-Fi patent troll case. They confirmed (4-22-09) that the patent cases heard in the Eastern District Court of Texas as concluded “successfully.” CSIRO sued most of the tech world over its claim of inventing the technology behind Wi-Fi Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs).
CSIRO claims to have patented core elements of the technology used in 802.11a and 802.11g wireless devices. “CSIRO has negotiated settlement with each of the 14 companies involved in four concurrent litigation cases,” the agency said in a statement. “The commercial terms of the settlements with these companies will remain confidential.”
Wi-Fi patent claim
The CSIRO first applied for the US patent in 1993. It was awarded US patent number 5,487,069, entitled “Wireless LAN” on 23 January 1996. The patent describes a “peer-to-peer wireless LAN” that can operate in the kind of multi-path environment created by radio echoes in typical office buildings. It includes three ways to get high-speed transmission despite the hostile conditions in an office environment. First, they describe transmitting over a relatively large number of parallel sub-channels within the available bandwidth so that each channel has a low bit rate. Second, the patent describes transmitting data in small packets with forward error correction (FEC) and using interleaving. These concepts are all featured in descriptions of the 802.11 physical layer CISRO claims to have patented core elements of the technology used in 802.11a, 802.11g, and 802.11n wireless devices.
CSIRO has previously said that its patent allowed speed increases up to a factor of five over previous WLANs. They claimed to have, “offered licenses on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to major suppliers as soon as they started selling devices which used the CSIRO technology.”
However, troubles began following the Cisco (CSCO) acquisition of Radiata from Macquarie University. The university had carried out for the purpose of commercializing CSIRO’s technology. Now CSIRO claims the work forms a key part of commonly used Wi-Fi products
The CSIRO filed Wi-Fi patent infringement suits against 3Com, Accton (2345), ASUS (2357), Belkin, D-Link (DLINK), Fujitsu (6702), Marvell (MRVL), (manufacturers of Apple’s (AAPL) iPod), Nintendo (7978), SMC and Toshiba (TOSBF). Several large technology vendors bit back – with Apple, Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT), and Netgear (NTGR) bringing cases against CSIRO in trying to have the patent invalidated.
In June 2007, the CSIRO won a case in the U.S. Federal Court against Japanese manufacturer Buffalo Technologies. This win is the basis the firm has used to demand royalties from a broader set of manufacturers that market Wi-Fi equipment.
As the case has played out in the last few weeks in and out of the Texas court, CSIRO struck individual deals with its adversary’s including; Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, and Microsoft
HP was the first to settle on 04-02-09. CSIRO spokesperson Huw Morgan said, “CSIRO can confirm that a settlement has been reached with Hewlett-Packard Company in relation to the wireless patent case.” Mr. Morgan continued in the Sydney Morning Herald, “There will be no further comment at this time due to confidentiality and ongoing litigation.”
Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. was dismissed by the Court with prejudice in the first court-approved settlement to emerge in the case on April 8. The terms of the settlement remain confidential.
PC manufacturer Asus and Microsoft separately settled their lawsuits with the CSIRO on 04-14-09 terms of the settlement were not disclosed. CSIRO had accused Microsoft of wrongfully using its patent. Microsoft was seeking a ruling of non-infringement for the wireless technology included in the Xbox video-game system.
Intel and Dell also settled on 04-19-09 for undisclosed and confidential terms.
Accton Technology Corp., SMC Networks, Belkin Corp. and Belkin International, Inc., D-Link Systems, Inc., Netgear, Inc., Nintendo of America, Inc., Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., and 3Com Corp., announced on 4-20-09 that they had reached a settlement with CSIRO.
Cisco and its Linksys division aren’t on CSIRO’s list. Cisco agreed to patent terms when it acquired an Australian network authentication firm a few years ago. Apple dropped out in December 2006.
Dr. Alex Zelinsky, director of the CSIRO ICT Center confirmed that all CSIRO opponents had chosen to settle the wireless case. CSIRO deputy chief of operations Mike Whelan said that the terms of the settlement would remain strictly confidential. Dr. Zelinsky speculated to ITNews, however, that the payoff could be worth upwards from $100 million up to a billion dollars and keep royalty payment flowing into the agency for up to a decade.
Timeline
- November 1993: CSIRO lodges a US patent for the invention of a wireless LAN.
- January 1996: US patent 5,487,069 is issued to CSIRO.
- 1997: CSIRO and Macquarie University form Radiata, a company established for the purposes of commercializing the patent.
- 2001: Cisco Systems acquires Radiata for $295 million.
- 2003: CSIRO engages in patent licensing discussions with several manufacturers, none of which agree to pay licensing fees.
- February 2005: CSIRO lodges a suit against Buffalo Technology for alleged patent violation in the Eastern District of Texas Court as a test case for its patent.
- May 2005: Two groups of industry heavyweights — including Dell and Intel, and Microsoft, HP, and Netgear, lodge lawsuits against CSIRO seeking to overturn its patent.
- November 2006: CSIRO has its patent upheld by the Eastern District of Texas Court in its case against Buffalo Technology.
- September 2006: CSIRO counter-sues the industry parties attempting to overturn its patent, claiming these companies infringe on its patents.
- September 2007: CSIRO refuses to offer any amnesty to IEEE members that infringe on its patent.
- April 02, 2009, HP settles suit.
- April 13, 2009, Microsoft settles suit
- All other firms settle the suit on April 20, 2009.
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If your installation includes Aruba, Meru, or Trapeze, you can hope that CISRO goes back to developing Wearable Instrument Shirts or Airhockey Over a Distance, and not squeezing more revenue for the taxpayers of Australia out of this initial victory by going after all the other Wi-Fi vendors. If upheld, CSIRO will collect what it has often described as a small royalty on all devices containing Wi-Fi.
The cases are:
- Intel Corp. v. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, 06cv551
- Microsoft Corp. v. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, 06cv549, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Tyler)
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
DRP’s Must Include Social Media Threats
Domino’s Pizza is the latest firm to realize that social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises. Domino’s Vice President of Communications Tim McIntyre told AdAge.com: “Any idiot with a webcam and an internet connection can attempt to undo all that’s right about the brand” in reaction to several videos posted on YouTube (and now elsewhere) on Monday (04-13-09) by two Domino’s Pizza employees in North Carolina which showed them allegedly tampering with food to be served to customers.
On Tuesday (04-14-09), the Domino’s franchise owner brought in the local health department, which advised him to discard all open containers of food, which cost hundreds of dollars and fired the employees, identified as Kristy Lynn Hammonds, 31, of Taylorsville, N.C., who was convicted of sexual battery last June and was convicted of possession of stolen goods and damaging a vending machine in 1995 according to media reports and Michael Anthony Setzer, 32, of Conover N.C. are each charged with felony distributing prohibited foods Setzer was released from the Catawba County jail on $7,500 bond, while Hammonds remained in custody.
Domino’s McIntyre said, “We’re re-examining all of our hiring practices to make sure that people like this don’t make it into our stores,” McIntyre continues, “We got blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea.”
In just a few days, Ann Arbor, MI-based Domino’s reputation was damaged. The perception of its quality among consumers went from positive to negative since Monday (04-13-09), according to the research firm YouGov. “It’s graphic enough in the video, and it’s created enough of a stir, that it gives people a little bit of pause,” said Ted Marzilli, global managing director for YouGov’s BrandIndex in an NYT article.
The company considers each viewing of the video to be damaging to the Domino’s Pizza brand, McIntyre said. “We are absolutely 100 percent going after these people,” McIntyre said. “Our brand is far too valuable to let these guys try to ruin it all in the guise of a hoax.”
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This incident is further proof that companies cannot afford to ignore social media. The Domino’s incident proves that responding to social-media incidents has to be added to disaster recovery plans. Firms need to pay close attention to what is being said about them online. In this case, Domino’s only found out about the videos because a blogger told them, according to the New York Times.
Firms need to add situations including negative stories that appear in social media to their DRP’s. The benefit of a DRP is that a plan of action is in place. During a social-media crisis, there is no time to figure out the technology. Domino’s response was not to respond aggressively, hoping the controversy would quiet down. “What we missed was the perpetual mushroom effect of viral sensations,” McIntyre said. It is reported that the Domino’s videos were viewed more than 1 million times on YoutTube, references to it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter before they were taken down by the poster.
In the heat of a crisis, there is little time to open accounts on YouTube, Twitter, or the Web 2.0 du jour, get up to speed on how to use the technology, and formulate the response to the problem while that problem is unfolding.
Firms that are not involved in social media should set up a web 2.0 presence for a defensive position. Firms can use their existing online channel to immediately get their message out to interested readers. The firm’s larger follow-up response should match the offending social-media vector, be it Twitter and YouTube.
Like other elements of the firm’s disaster recovery plan, firms should stage a mock social-media crisis and figure out what to do if an employee or a customer posts harmful social-media information online.
Of course, all good security policies and DRP’s need strong enforceable policies. The DRP should describe how to respond. in this case, the company “decided not to respond aggressively, hoping the controversy would quiet down. “What we missed was the perpetual mushroom effect of viral sensations,” Domino’s official, Tim McIntyre, told the Times Before a crisis strikes, the firms must develop a company policy that explains the impact of social media and outlines what employees can and cannot do on social media sites when they are identifiable as members of your value-chain.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Category: Uncategorized |
Tags: 2009, Ann Arbor, Business Continuity, Disaster recovery, Dominos, DPZ, DRP, Michigan, Pizza, Social media, Web 2.0, YouTube
Fashionable Flash Drive
Art.Lebdev Studio in the UK has designed a flash drive that strikes my sense of irony. The Folderix flash drive is a 4 Gb drive with an aluminum shell designed to look like a folder icon. It is available in three colors: purple, blue, and yellow.
Folderix can be purchased online in the US at Charles and Marie.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Feds Aim to Nationalize Private Networks
In the tradition of federalization of the auto industry. And in keeping with promises made in the 2008 campaign. The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are proposing to increase cybersecurity by federalizing networks. The legislation, co-sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D.”The Internet Should Never Have Existed” Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), was drafted with White House input.
The Rockefeller-Snowe measure would create the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, the White House cybersecurity “czar.” The czar would report directly to the president and would coordinate defense efforts across government agencies. The proposed bills go beyond securing government networks and puts the White House in charge of the security of private networks with the authority to shut them down. Under the guise of “critical infrastructure”, the Feds are going to nationalize banking, utilities, air/rail/auto traffic control, and telecommunications networks.
The new rules are proposed in two senate bills, S.773 the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, and S.778. S.778 is a bill to establish, within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of National Cybersecurity Advisor. S.773 is “A bill to ensure the continued free flow of commerce within the United States and with its global trading partners through secure cyber communications, to provide for the continued development and exploitation of the Internet and intranet communications for such purposes, to provide for the development of a cadre of information technology specialists to improve and maintain effective cybersecurity defenses against disruption, and for other purposes.”
It would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish “measurable and auditable cybersecurity standards” that would apply to private companies as well as the government. It also would require licensing and certification of cybersecurity professionals.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged there will be privacy concerns about centralizing cybersecurity, and he told the Washington Post that the program should be designed in a way that gives Americans confidence that it is “not being used to gather private information.”
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How does the Obama Cyber Czar plan to ensure the continued free flow of commerce when they take the Telco networks off-line. In case they haven’t noticed, the telcos provide most of the long-haul interconnect for the Internet. If the Obama Cyber Czar decides to take the banks offline, there are going to be bigger problems. Can you say bank run? I will pull my cash out at the local branch.
Finally, this is a bad policy, because the Security Czar is a political appointment and network security is too important to be left to politics unless of course, it is in the corporate boardroom.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Tech Layoffs Continue to Mount
351,202 families’ lives have been disrupted in the tech sector since October 2008, when the banks lead us into the current depression recession economic downturn. 32,820 layoffs have been announced in the tech sector during March 2009.
The tech layoff leaders for March 2009
- Tyco Electronics 20,000
- IBM 5,000
- Agilent Technologies 2,700
- National Semiconductor 1,725
- Nokia 1,700
The March total is the lowest since the depression recession economic downturn started.
- February 2009 = 48,064
- January 2009 = 150,014
- December 2008 = 36,278
- October 2008 = 50,204
This does not include the chaos the President Obama’s abandonment of the working class, by sending GM and Chrysler into likely bankruptcy. We are seeing the further dismemberment of the middle class as Chrysler has outsourced its IT to India’s Tata Consultancy Services in “a multi-year contract” worth about $120 million.
Chrysler layoffs
Chrysler’s remaining 2,100 person information technology department, mostly in Auburn Hills, MI will immediately lose 200 salaried technology workers. The balance of the layoffs will come from the ranks of contract workers in that department. They will leave in greater numbers, but Jan Bertsch Chrysler vice president and chief information officer didn’t offer specifics in the Detroit News article.
Some employees may be hired by Tata or Computer Sciences, she said, and some work will be moved entirely off-site. According to the media, Tata will provide support, maintenance, and services that “will encompass a portion of the functional areas within Chrysler, such as Sales and Marketing and Shared Services.”
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Category: Uncategorized |
Tags: 2009, Business, Chrysler, General Motors, IBM, Layoffs, Michigan, Outsourcing, Recession, Tata Consultancy Services