When Technology Gets Creepy

A couple of years ago I received a copy of William Shatner’s book, Star Trek®; I’m Working on That, from someone who knew I was a science fiction junkie. Shatner, of course, was the original Captain Kirk in the short run science fiction TV show, which originally aired in 1966 and lasted only three seasons.

 

Shatner’s book is interesting primarily because it points out just how many gadgets the show’s writers invented solely for the purpose of the TV fantasy series, only to find real inventers later came up with the product in the real world. Early in the book Shatner recounts a chat with Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the MIT Media Lab, who told him that there was a “curious connection” between Star Trek and much of the work being done in the lab.

 

Stating that “the number of times that we’ve realized we are inventing something here in the lab from Star Trek, is spooky,” Gershenfeld went on to say there were two theories for this curious connection. The first was that ideas planted by the TV show were subconsciously guiding ideas they pursued. The second was that, just as with the show’s writers, the lab folks were simply arriving at the same conclusions.

 

Many science fiction nuts, and perhaps others, give the TV series credit for being the basis of many modern technological devices. One of the best known is the “communicator’s” younger brother, the cell phone, which might either not exist, or possibly would have come into existence much later without the catalyst of the TV show.

 

The writers came up with plots which sometimes required research for plausible element to connect plot lines. One example of the plot giving birth to technology may still be in the works, and have lent itself to the title of the book. The writers’ need to plausibly explain how a future space crew could quickly travel distances we now find otherwise incredible, was resolved by creation of the “warp drive.” This new “technology” was given much thought in the TV series, and problems with the fictional technology received detailed treatment in many episodes of the show.

 

When Dr. Stephen Hawking played a cameo role in one episode and toured the engineering set, Shatner says he saw the warp drive engines and said “I’m working on that.” Hawking, a noted British physicist and author of the book, A Brief History of Time, held the same position at Cambridge University (Lucasian Professor of Mathematics) that Sir Isaac Newton held three hundred years earlier.

 

Now, it appears, science fiction is again creeping into our every day lives. Mattel has now come out with a game. That’s not too surprising, since that’s what they do. What may surprise some is that this particular game, Mind Flex, relies on NeuroSky’s technology, adapted from EEG medical equipment, using theta-waves generated by the brain to move a ball without touching it. The game is a concentration test in that the more you concentrate, the better you are able to move the ball around an obstacle course. The ball rises because of a fan, giving the user the illusion of having telekinetic powers. In reality, the ball will rise, the higher your theta waves, and fall, the less successful your concentration becomes. Another toy, the Jedi Force Trainer, is expected out later this year using the same technology.

 

Aside from the Jedi trainer seen in various episodes of the Star Wars series, I am reminded of some scenes from one of my favorite science fiction movies of all time, Forbidden Planet. That 1956 movie set a new standard for the genre. The plot involved the attempt to rescue the survivor of a crash on a distant plant. Only one original crew member remains alive, the rest of the survivors having fallen prey to a mysterious monster.

 

During an early part of the movie, the surviving crew member, Dr. Morbius, demonstrates a “toy” left behind by the once powerful but now vanished Krell race which had inhabited the planet. The toy was used by the vanished Krell as a sort of kindergarden educational device, with the “kids” using their brain waves to cause an object to levitate. When one of the uninitiated rescuers sneaks back into the Krell lab to try out this toy, which the Krell children used to increase the efficiency of their brain, he nearly dies from the strain.

 

As the movie turns out, the Krell developed such powerful minds they were able to build and use a huge machine to create a world in which they only had to think of a need and the brain-controlled machine would fulfill it for them. It seems, however, that as their minds became more and more powerful, they overlooked the growing power of the id, which also tapped into the great machine, causing it to generate unstoppable monsters which wiped them out in a single night.

 

The id monster is a reference to Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche, the id, ego, and super-ego being the three parts of the “psychic apparatus.” In Freud’s model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the “id”; the organized realistic part of the psyche is the “ego,” and the critical and moralizing function the “super-ego.” In other words, despite their brains being expanded by devices strikingly similar to Mattel’s new toy, they still let their instinctual passions get the best of them.

Is Your Customer Service All A Twitter?

Just when you thought you were regaining a handle on marketing, things get all “a twitter.” As Kevin O’Keefe points out in a recent post to his blog, Real Lawyers Have Blogs, many companies are using Twitter, the free social networking and micro-blogging service to get customer feedback and improve relations. This is now being used by such institutions as BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, and even law firms.

 

Another blogger, Chris Brogan, has posted a nice step-by-step article on his site, which outlines “50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business.” Twitter advertises itself as:

 

“a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

 

Twitter, which officially launched in 2006, began as an R&D project inside San Francisco start-up, Obvious, used internally by the company’s employees. Earlier this summer, Twitter acquired Summize, another start-up. Using Summize technology Twitter Search now allows companies to track comments about themselves, including service issues, and to respond to them very quickly. They can catch unhappy customers, respond to them and gain positive results from others who see the company taking care of its customer’s problems in near real time.

 

Twitter continues to gain momentum as a social networking tool and has added a host of tools. Twitter utilizes a technique called “micro-blogging,” a form of blogging which allows users to publish short text updates (usually 140 characters). The user can configure micro-blogs to either to be viewed by anyone or only by a restricted, user-selected group. These short messages can be pushed to the recipients by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3, and the Web.

Facebook and Others Accused of Violating the Privacy of Users

Suit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Facebook and other defendants, including Blockbuster, Hotwire, Overstock.com, Zappos and Gamefly. The litigation, Lane et al, vs. Facebook et al, alleges the group of defendants violated a variety of laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and the California Computer Crime Law.

 

Facebook, a social networking site, was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, while at Harvard University. Zuckerberg has been the target of several earlier suits from former classmates who say he stole their intellectual property, including computer source code. He has also been the subject of a suit by ConnectU, which hired him during his sophomore year at Harvard, to complete programming for their site. The ConnectU suit, which was dismissed without prejudice on technical grounds, claimed Zuckerberg intentionally sabotaged development there, while using the stolen code to help develop Facebook.

 

Facebook launched the Beacon system in 2007, which allowed third-party websites to include a Facebook script by on their sites, to send information about the actions of Facebook users on those sites, such as purchases made, commenting, and games played, back to Facebook. This opt-out scripting prompted serious privacy concerns and eventually led to a change in policy by Facebook

 

The Lane litigation focuses on the joint marketing venture between Facebook and the other defendants, which the plaintiffs allege violated users’ privacy by sharing personal information about other Web sites. Information about those activities was then published on the user’s home and profile pages on Facebook and broadcast to designated “friends” on Facebook.com.

 

The plaintiffs are asking the court to certify the class and award injunctive relief and monetary damages. A copy of the Complaint is available online.

Barbie Girls™ Beat Bratz™ in Copyright Litigation

A U.S. District Court jury, after a three month long trial, has awarded Mattel a combined verdict of $100 million against MGA. Mattel makes the Barbie doll, while MGA makes the “saucier” Bratz dolls. Since the Bratz dolls entered the club, Barbie declining sales have started to make her look like a wall flower.

 

As the first round of this battle nears completion, the size of the verdict may look to the uninitiated as if Barbie has smacked the smile off the pouty lips of rival Bratz. Mattel, however, had asked for $1.8 billion and the war is likely to continue for some time.

 

Both sides in the copyright litigation claimed some measure of victory. Although large by most standards, the award was relatively small under the circumstances, and the defendants have already said they would appeal. The verdict did not include punitive damages.

 

The core issue relates to Mattel’s employment exclusivity contract with designer Carter Bryant, who allegedly developed the Bratz concept while still working for Mattel. MGA made nearly $779 million on the Bratz line since it was introduced in 2001, according to arguments made by Mattel during the trial.

 

The jury verdict dealt with three separate causes of action – intentional interference with contractual relations, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and aiding and abetting breach of the duty of loyalty damages. Still to be decided are issues such as:

• whether some of the various individual awards, which are aggregated in the $100 million figure, are duplicative;
• will the court enjoin MGA from making more of the Bratz dolls, or perhaps just the early ones more clearly tied to work done while Bryant worked for Mattel;
• whether the court might allow MGA to keep manufacturing, but pay Mattel royalties for what they make;
• how Mattel’s separate trade secret litigation against MGA will conclude; and
• how MGA’s unfair competition litigation against Mattel will conclude, which deals with Mattel’s My Scene dolls.

 

Wii™ Will Rock You? Patent Infringement Game Over or Just Starting?

Start-up company, Hillcrest Labs, has filed a patent infringement action in the U.S. District Court in Maryland and a patent infringement complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), against Nintendo. Hillcrest claims “two separate but related technologies and products are at issue.” The first relates to “graphics-based, interactive interfaces for multimedia content.” The second relates to “three-dimensional pointing devices used to interface with multimedia content…” which “differ from conventional two-dimensional pointing device, such as a typical ‘mouse’ moved along a desktop to interface with a personal computer. The three-dimensional pointing device allows users to interface with content by translating or rotating the pointing device in space, rather than detecting movement relative to a flat surface.”

 

The actions allege the relevant Hillcrest patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,158,118, 7,262,760, and 7,414,611, (related to a hand-held 3-D pointing device), and U.S. Patent No. 7,139,983, (related to a navigation interface display system which graphically organizes content for display on a TV).

 

Hillcrest Labs states that it holds 29 patents in this area worldwide, has filled for more than 100 related patents since 2001, and has pioneered technology that allows consumers to interact with digital media on television using motion-control and pointing techniques. The actions are primarily related to the Nintendo® Wii™ video game system, which Hillcrest claims Nintendo of Japan is infringing on their patents and are being manufactured by a third party outside of the United States and imported through Nintendo of America.

 

You can read a copy of some of the filings online.

 

Can Copyright Violation Cause a Political Campaign to Run on Empty?

Singer, Jackson Browne, has filed a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles against presidential candidate, John McCain, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Ohio Republican Party (ORP), accusing them of copyright infringement, statutory violations, and violation of the right of publicity. He has asked for injunctive relief to prevent unauthorized use of his copyrighted musical works, damages, attorney’s fees and costs.

 

Brown’s alleges McCain, the RNC and the ORP ran a TV commercial with Browne’s song “Running On Empty” playing in the background, “in which McCain mocks the suggestion” of Obama “that the country can conserve gasoline by keeping their automobile tires inflated to the proper pressure.” Browne further alleges that the commercial creates the false impression that he endorses or is associated with McCain, while nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Obviously, candidates and their media specialists would be smart to obtain appropriate licensing for such copyrighted material in all cases, let alone those where the artist might be someone who supports their opponent.