Year: 2006

Touchability Cues

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When I wrote “Touchability,” it had already been a while since a buddy had shown me a haptic mouse he was working on. For example, you could feel an actual bump when the mouse enters and leaves an object (a real version of what developers sometimes call rollover). Force feedback was such an obviously good thing that I didn’t even mention then the cool stuff that’s now happening in this area.

As much as I think physical touchability is good, I want to be clear that I want to make Croquet applications be emotionally touchable, too. I want to capture what it is that makes things seem (be?) real. Even without physical force feedback, it should still be fun to fondle stuff because of active visual and aural responses and good 3D design.

To be sure, I’d love to add to the effect with more sensory stimulus. There are huge possibilities, and I hope folks will explore them. This stuff is cool. There’s someone working on stereo display for Croquet. Others working on large screens in public spaces. I don’t doubt that we’ll see Croquet on small or cheap devices. There’s plenty of room for innovation.

Strange Fruit Heartbreaker

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OK I’ll admit that I watch football, NFL (USian) football sometimes, especially now these recent years when my local team the Patriots, also known as the Massachusetts Liberals, have been kicking ass left right and central (and also teams from Texas, such as the Houston Halliburtons and the Dallas Swaggering Ignorami, have generally sucked–an extra bonus).

So I have not been able to avoid noticing that the Rolling Stones will be playing the half-time extravaganza at the SuperDuperBowl this year, because during other NFL games on TV, approximately every three bleeping minutes there’s another “Rolling Stones at SuperDuperBowl” commercial. Which their playing this gig is not a bad thing in itself, I guess, since although the Rolling Stones have indeed intermittently been over the last several decades just what they claimed to be, that is, The Greatest RockaRoll Band inna World, they’ve never been celebrated for their good taste, so why shouldn’t they highlight the world’s largest annual celebration of the aesthetic of kitsch?

But the use of their song “Heartbreaker” to market the SuperDuperBowl is deeply sad and offensive to me. And I don’t mean in the way Led Zep selling Cadillacs or the Who selling whatever, or even Bob Dylan selling investment portfolio management, for the love of Christ, with “The Times They Are A-Changing” is sad and offensive. It’s more as if Billie Holiday were to have used her song Strange Fruit to market Fruit Loops cereal or strawberry Pop Tarts.

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Do we really need to regulate space travel?

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The FAA has released proposed rules for space travel. They are fairly extensive. And they worry me. I believe that continued U.S. leadership in the global economy depends on expanding commercial space industries, especially human space flight. The regulatory regime proposed is not one designed to get the commercial space industry off the ground.

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Jews for Jesus Rises Again

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According to this blog entry, Jews for Jesus has sued Google over use of a third level domain name: jewsforjesus.blogspot.com You can read the complaint here.

As Ron Coleman’s Likelihood of Confusion blog observes, Jews for Jesus achieved one of the early awful victories for trademark holders in 1998 over this very same issue. In Jews for Jesus v. Brodsky, 993 F.Supp 282 (D.NJ 1998), Jews for Jesus won a trademark infringement claim against the user of the name “jewsforjesus.org” and “jews-for-jesus.com.” (Coleman was Brodsky’s attorney and provides a good summary and links.) This case is actually used to be pretty famous (or infamous) in domain name/TM circles. As use and sophistication about the Internet has grown, however, courts have backed away from it and the pendulum has begun to swing the other way (as I noted last year in my entry on the jerryfalwell.com case).

Comparing the 1998 case and the 2006 case provides some interesting lessons in how much the world has changed in 8 years. My thoughts below, but some disclosure first- I helped draft an amicus brief in support of Brodsky in 1998 in my roll as assistant general counsel to the now defunct Domain Name Rights Coalition.

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Here They Come Again! Anti-Muni Bill in Indiana.

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Nothing like a fresh new year! State legislators return to their respective capitals to once again do the work of the people. Or, in the case of Indiana State Senator Brandt Hershman, the work of AT&T (formerly SBC). The eager Mr. Hershman has already introduced a bill, SB 245, that deregulates the phone industry, eliminates local franchising, etc., etc.

And tucked away on page 97 of this 107 page bill is an anti-muni broadband provision remarkably similar to one that went down in flames last year.

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