IBM is going to offer free programs to compete with Microsoft’s Office programs. A new attempt for some good old Microsoft-bashing, IBM failed in 1990 to compete head-on with its OS/2 system, and an ambitious plan to challenge one of the most lucrative businesses for Microsoft. The more important question here is, not if IBM […]
Over a decade ago, the seminal article, “The Digital Silk Road,” by Norman Hardy and Eric Dean Tribble[1] conceptualized the Internet as “a flee-market where cash and anonymity prevail.” This vision helped spark a flurry of activity and multiple attempts to develop a successful model for collecting payments for small online transactions. After numerous failed […]
Like many cell phone customers, you might be irritated that your service provider locks you in. Shortly after Apple released its iPhone, hackers developed unlocking software so the popular phone could be used on networks other than AT&T. Since it has not been made official that the iPhone is coming to Canada, many buyers are […]
Second Life, as it is aptly named, is a virtual world. Through online personas, known as avatars, users of Second Life interact with each other as well as with the virtual items that they create. Users reap rewards for their creative efforts by retaining and exploiting intellectual property (`IP’) rights in their creations; the result […]
Since the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, domain name registration has provided a constant source of dispute. On the one hand, you have people who are merrily registering domain names of their choosing; on the other hand, you have trademark holders who are frowning at the fact that their most obvious domain […]
It is important to appreciate that the principal issue in this case surrounds the notion of a contract to purchase virtual land. The onus was on Linden Lab to ensure that their online purchasing system was intact and not penetrable to unfair usages by purchasers. On the other hand, it is arguable that Bragg was […]
Legal experts have recently made speculations regarding the blocking of internet pop-up advertisements, and have hypothesized that these web-browser plug-ins may be illegal. Any lawsuit commenced by advertisers would likely involve two arguments: the first one based on copyright infringement through derivative works and secondly, the violation of a website’s terms of agreement. The issue […]
The past two decades have been marked by extreme technological advances.¦lt;br /> The internet has opened many doors in the way of business transactions, availability of resources and research and most notably a new communication ability and efficiency. In 2003, Linden Research Inc. launched Second Life which is one of the newest developments in […]
The murkiness of the legality of unlocking the iPhone was highlighted recently by an AppleInsider article which suggested that actions of the ‘iPhone Dev Team’, hackers who are offering the solution to unlocking the iPhone for free online, may be illegal. The iPhone is locked to one service provider, AT&T, meaning another wireless carrier‘s SIM […]
For many years, the gold standard in word processing has been Microsoft’s Office software. Indeed, Microsoft Word is so entrenched as the word processing software of choice that its name has practically become synonymous with its function - as Kleenex has with facial tissue. But I.B.M., arguably Microsoft’s biggest contender for computer-related supremacy, is gearing […]