Archive for: July 14, 2008

July 14, 2008

EBay Wins Lengthy Trademark Battle Against Tiffany

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008
ebay%20tiffany.jpg

On the heels of a $61 million loss to French luxury goods group LVMH, eBay on Monday secured a legal victory in its trademark battle with Tiffany.

The online auction site has been battling with the luxury retailer since 2004, when Tiffany sued eBay for allegedly allowing the sale of counterfeit Tiffany items.

Judge Richard Sullivan for the Southern District Court of New York rejected the idea that eBay is responsible for policing its site for fake Tiffany items.

"The court is not unsympathetic to Tiffany and other rights owners who have invested enormous resources in developing their brands, only to see them illicitly and efficiently exploited by others on the Internet," Sullivan wrote in his 66-page ruling [PDF]. "Nevertheless, the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark, and companies like eBay cannot be held liable for trademark infringement based solely on their generalized knowledge that trademark infringement might be occurring on their websites."

EBay was predictably giddy; Tiffany was not having it. Both companies' full statements after the jump.

From Rob Chesnut, senior vice president and legal counsel at eBay

We are extremely pleased that this ruling supports consumers by allowing them greater choice and value through the global marketplace that eBay provides. This decision validates that eBay has always been committed to fighting counterfeits in a way that goes beyond what the law requires. We see this as an important victory for our global community of buyers and sellers.

This ruling appropriately established that protecting trademarks is the primary burden of rights owners - not marketplaces like eBay. The court ruled that eBay does in fact meet its responsibilities regarding ...

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Terpeak’s Election Projector: If the Presidential Election Were Based on eBay

Filed under: Review, cool_web_sites - 14 Jul 2008

Terapeak - Total Sales

EBay research firm Terapeak unveiled an interesting tool to show off its research and analytic capabilities last week: the Election Projector, which shows visitors what the 2008 Presidential election would look like if it were based on item sales at eBay, average price of eBay items related to one candidate or another, and total sales at eBay over the previous 30 days.

If the 2008 Presidential election were a function of eBay sales and listings, Barack Obama would have a huge lead over John McCain. There's no arguing the fact, and the reasons why are many and complicated, but more people are selling Obama gear such as t-shirts, bumper stickers, and books on eBay than are selling McCain swag. Maybe McCain supporters don't feel the need to wear their affiliations on their chests, or maybe Obama supporters are just more Web-savvy, especially when it comes to fund-raising. Regardless of the reason behind the numbers, one pressing question remains: Why didn't the designers include Ron Paul in its comparison?

Terapeak itself asks, why isn't anyone wearing McCain? I have no idea, but to the credit of the American voter, determining who has the best chance of winning an election and who is the best candidate for office is a bit more complicated than who is more popular on eBay. That being said, Obama supporters will likely not be surprised that their preferred candidate holds a lock on eBay in all areas, including overall sales, items available for purchase, and items sold. Obama supporters even post more listings than McCain supporters do.

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Tokbox Launches AIR Desktop Video Chat Software

Filed under: Review, web_video - 14 Jul 2008
TokBoxVidConver.jpg

Tokbox, a web-based service for video, voice, IM chat, video mail, just came out with the latest in a steady stream of AIR apps being launched of late. This desktop verison of the software looks remarkably like the web client, albeit in a smaller window. It does add an icon to the pack in your system tray in Windows, which means you'll be available for online video chatting without having to be logged in to the Web site. Sound and picture quality were quite good in my brief, preliminary testing, as far as these IP things go. Don't forget you can also send a video mail or add video to Facebook chat with Tokbox. And it's private and public feed feature make it a sort of video Twitter.

Basing it in AIR gives the client some degree of cross-platform support, right now there are AIR runtimes for Windows and Mac--the Linux AIR runtime is still in alpha, so it's way to early to rely on. Why this is better than Skype, which simply has good Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, I'm not completely sure. It seems to me that TokBox being accessible using just a web browser was its advantage over installed-software-only video chat services like Skype, Oovoo, and SightSpeed. I guess AIR gave them a way to program once for multiple platforms.

Pluribo Reads Amazon Reviews So You Don’t Have To

Filed under: Review, free_downloads - 14 Jul 2008

Pluribo - Banner

Amazon customer reviews are helpful when you're deciding whether to buy something; many people rely on them, even if they're shopping for a product on another site. I admit that I've done the same thing: I'll head over to Amazon and look at the customer reviews prior to buying something, and if an item is highly rated, I'm more confident that the item will work for me. If the item is rated poorly, or the low reviews resonate with me, I might shop for something else. In some cases though, an item will have dozens of reviews to sift through.

Pluribo is a Web service that aggregates those reviews for you, boils them down to the highlights, and presents you with the information you need to make an intelligent buying decision based on the experiences of other people.

Pluribo works only with Firefox at the moment and requires you to install the Pluribo Firefox extension. On the plus side, because it's a simple Firefox extension, Pluribo works on any system that Firefox runs under, so it works equally well in MacOS, Windows, and Linux. Simply download the add-on, install it, and start shopping. Pluribo's summarization algorithm automatically scans the Amazon customer reviews on the item you're browsing and condenses the important points into a brief and easy-to-read paragraph that hits all of the important points.

Pluribo - Review

Pluribo currently covers only electronics categories at Amazon, but the developers hope to expand the use of its technology to other items as well. The service is completely automated, and its summaries are generated by machine, not ...

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Microsoft brings Netflix streaming to the Xbox 360 for habitable Gold members

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment
var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/business_finance/Microsoft_and_Netflix_announce_partnership’; After months of speculation and rumors, Microsoft just announced that it’s partnering with Netflix to allow Xbox 360 owners to stream movies from their Netflix qu…

Microsoft announces Lips karaoke game with motion-sensitive mics

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

Filed under: Gaming
We pretty much knew it was coming, but Microsoft just officially announced the Lips karaoke game official. Just like we’d heard, the singalong title will come with a motion-sensitive mic that lights up in moment to your voice. The game interface is somewhat similar to Rock Band, …

Microsoft giving the Xbox 360 a totally new dashboard

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

Microsoft just announced at E3 that they’ll be giving the Xbox 360 a total software overtake that fall. “When citizens turn on their Xbox 360s that fall, they’ll get an entirely new interface and dashboard, an entirely new Xbox through the magic of software.” Peep the liveblog for more info as i…

Microsoft brings Netflix streaming to the Xbox 360

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment
After months of speculation and rumors, Microsoft just announced that it’s partnering with Netflix to allow Xbox 360 owners to stream movies from their Netflix queues for no additional charge. Microsoft says the 360 will be the only game system that allows Net…

Microsoft adds Universal, NBC to Xbox habitable Marketplace, calls #1 in HD

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Microsoft just announced Universal, and NBC Universal programming is coming to Xbox habitable, delivering The Office, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, The Mummy, Bourne Supremacy and others to the service. Xbox habitable Video Marketplace now claims by 10,000 movies …

Lucid Logix HYDRA tech brings together any GPUs for robust matrimony

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

There’s a lot of tech speak to cut through, but whether clear Logix’s claims are true, we might be looking at a revolution in the high-end gaming segment. clear is building a new “real-time distributed processing engine” system on a chip called HYDRA, which can mix and match any GPU from any man…

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Engadget & Joystiq habitable from Microsoft’s E3 2008 keynote

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/xbox/Engadget_Joystiq_live_from_Microsoft_s_E3_2008_keynote’;
We’re here! The line is already mad distant, but we must confess, it feels great to have E3 back at the conference center.9:47 am PT: Alright! We’re waiting in line for the MS press conference! We’re…

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Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus add-on makes the Wii isolated a true 1:1 motion controller

Filed under: Review - 14 Jul 2008

While we saw it hinted at in patents, Nintendo is springing fairly the doozy on us at E3 in the profile of its new Wii MotionPlus add-on. Perhaps in a preemptive strike against supposed Wiimote competition from the likes of Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo is beefing up its motion support with that …

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