Microsoft Granted Motion to stay Word Injunction

XML-Related Patent Issues Cause Trouble for MS, Company Will Appeal

Update: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reportedly granted Microsoft's motion to stay an injunction that would prohibit the software giant from selling Word. The injunction had an effective date of Oct. 10, but the motion to stay blocks the injunction until the appeal process is complete, according to The Microsoft Blog.

Original Article: A Texas judge has reportedly ruled that Microsoft cannot sell any version of Word in the US that can open .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML. Seattlepi's Microsoft Blog points to an announcement by the plaintiff, i4i.

In May, i4i in Toronto got $200 million from Microsoft, when a federal jury found that Microsoft infringed on the company's patent. That patent is 11 years old. The abstract reads:

A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations. The system, for use by computer software developers, removes dependency on document encoding technology. A map of metacodes found in the document is produced and provided and stored separately from the document. The map indicates the location and addresses of metacodes in the document. The system allows of multiple views of the same content, the ability to work solely on structure and solely on content, storage efficiency of multiple versions and efficiency of operation.


The entire thing can be read here.

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling," a Microsoft spokesman is quoted as saying in a statement. "We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict."

Four New Gmail Themes Released

Gmail users who require that everything be just so may be in luck; a few new personalization opportunities have been made available in the form of four new themes. And in fact, one of the four themes caters to indecisive types, so members of the Gmail team really covered their bases.

All right, we admit it - these Gmail themes aren't going to generate Google's next billion dollars. In all likelihood, they won't even convince more than one or two souls (if that) to switch from Hotmail or Yahoo Mail.

Still, these are the first new themes in about ten months, so on we go.

Pictured on the left below is a screenshot of what Googlers Jake Knapp and Manu Cornet identified on the Official Gmail Blog as the "Orcas Island" theme. Knapp promised "a new image each day of the week."

On the right, you can see what Cornet called "High Score." It should seem familiar to anyone who spent more than a few minutes playing the original Nintendo.

The third theme is called "Turf." It shows some green grass and not much more. Finally, Cornet wrote that the "Random" theme "merely cycles through all the others."

Knapp and Cornet welcomed feedback if you're inclined to give it, and they also indicated that still more themes might wander down the pipeline at some point.

Bit.ly Shortens URL Shorteners

On Twitter, Every Character Counts

URL-shortening service bit.ly, the favorite of Twitter, has introduced a new URL-shortening service, or an extension of the original one rather. The new one is j.mp, which as you can see by looking at it resides at a domain with very few characters.

That is exactly the reason bit.ly has introduced it. The company says that for some people, "every character counts," and that is certainly true in the Twitter age, where a maximum of 140 characters is allowed per tweet.

"j.mp has the same short URLs, metrics, history, user accounts (you’ll have to login again, but your bit.ly accounts will carry over), and customization you’ve come to enjoy on bit.ly, all on a short, memorable domain," says bit.ly on its blog.

So by simply using j.mp instead of bit.ly, you will be saving two characters automatically. This doesn't seem like a major difference, but it could be the difference between including one more word or not.

To some people - particularly marketers, tweets could almost be thought of like an email subject line. Having the right words can be key in getting someone to click a link (the tweeting equivalent to an email open).

Then there is the subject of being found in real-time searches. Keywords play a very important role in what tweets appear in these results. When there is a 140-character max, every character certainly can count. Either way, using a service like j.mp could save you from having to abbreviate certain words, which can frankly, sometimes make your message sound dumber.

We've certainly seen a lot of URL-shortening services appear over the last year or so, and I suspect we'll see quite a few more. I have a feeling that we might see more going for this as-short-as-possible approach with them in the future. J.mp has a pretty good advantage being an extension of bit.ly though.
source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/09/04/bitly-shortens-url-shorteners