thisStrangeEngine.com

Well, it’s not that extreme, but a web firm in California has recently acquired a patent for rich-media over the Internet. That basically means anything from Flash to Java to AJAX that is put on the Internet that is accessed from any kind of client whatsoever. What’s interesting is the company doesn’t plan to enforce it. Instead, they plan on selling it to the highest bidder, which could involve some very big dogs.

Article Here

Hat tip to Jeffry Zeldman’s site, who tactfully and succinctly put in words what I’m sure a lot of people are thinking:

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but I suspect it will involve lawyers.

Yep. I finally gave in.

An observation.

I’ve noticed a new trend among my friends on the web: they’re closing their blogs/online journals or merely no longer posting to them. Just like every big internet fad before it, I think it’s finally starting to stabilize to a reasonable level. It mirrors fairly closely the trend of everyone creating a personal website in the late 90’s. Everyone wanted to create one for the heck of it, and there were plenty of free services to meet the demand, but the initial charm eventually wore away when people realized maintaining one took effort. Most of them end up being deleted for lack of activity, and then the free shared webhost services started to die out. I think we’re starting to see the very same thing with weblogs.

And the world keeps on spinning.

Google continues to take over the internet today with the release of Google Talk, their entry into the IM world. In true Google fashion, the native client is a minimalized and uncomplicated interface that only stresses the message and voice chat features. Also in true Google fashion, the IM network is based on the open Jabber protocol. What does that mean? That means third party clients are free and open to use the Google Talk network. That’s impressive that they would do that from the starting line. Most IM networks still aren’t technically open, and most 3rd party clients only have access to them because of the programmers’ hacking.

Google takes it a step further: they advertise the availability to use third party clients and will even tell you how to set it up. Very cool. However, to try the service, it requires a GMail account. I avoided getting a GMail account for a long time, but I wanted to try out the IM service, so I finally cracked and joined the herd. Therefore, you can find me on Google Talk at chucksplatt at gmail dot com.

Oh, when I signed up for my GMail account, the initial suggested username was hnguyenenator@gmail.com. Funny. When I tried hung.nguyen@gmail.com, they said it was taken (no surprise) but they offered some alternatives which were amusing. My favorite? nguyennecessary@gmail.com

A man in Florida gets arrested for “wardriving”, the practice of going around and trying to pick up unprotected wireless access to the internet. Here be a link.

Benjamin Smith III was arrested and charged with unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony in the state of Florida.

The stupid thing about this is that the arrest was made for a crime not committed. There is no such thing as unauthorized access to a completely open wireless network. Nothing has to be broken into or circumvented – all you have to do is stand in the proximity of the wireless signal! A co-worker thinks the case will be thrown out.