Find a company which "owns" a gene that controls some specific disease, like a cancer. Now, everyone with that disease files a lawsuit against the patent holder. They own it, they should be liable for the damages it is causing by being released into the general population. By claiming a patent, this implies invention, therefore we can infer liability!

After a few multi-million dollar lawsuit awards, no one would want to "own" a gene. Problem solved.

I'm more than happy to let Nokia claim a patent on tethering a cell phone with a cable to a PCMCIA card. Doesn't Nokia have any patents with vacuum tubes?

There are obviously very polar opinions on this topic. The important thing to realize is that both of the poles are right, but only for the holders of the opinion.

If you don't mind constantly swimming in Google's petri dish, dive in and enjoy. At the end of the experiment, there will likely be more petri dishes to explore. If on the other hand, you prefer your basic use technology to just work and remain invisible, you'll probably want to be a bit skeptical of some of their offerings.

I find that Google's decision making, both on what to release and what to kill, borders on immature, especially given their resources and market position. Others seem to be happy with it, and I wish them all the best. If there was a universal best way, it probably would have been found already, and we wouldn't have much to discuss.

Strange world where Keep qualifies as "innovation" or "pushing the envelope." I suspect you can find lots of Evernote users who disagree with both of those assertions. Pretty, maybe useful to some, but Keep doesn't sound very ground breaking.

When they innovate, I pay attention. If they are playing catch up, I'd prefer to wait until the dust settles a bit. They do innovate, a few examples:

Wave - very neat, should have been aimed at corporations not general public, it would have been very useful for non-geographically determined teams.

Android - awesome. When I see a six year old playing with a Nabi tablet I realize how brilliantly their loosely controlled creation fosters innovation in the market in ways Apple's iMonopoly never will.

Web Speech API - potentially very useful, especially if it was supported in their mobile Chrome version. Until then, just a cute toy. Being put forward as an open standard gives one hope that other implementations will appear so it won't just disappear if it is judged not cost effective.

There are many others, but Keep just doesn't make the same list. There are lots of existing models to have studied before jumping into the market, so maybe this commodity item has a hope of lasting though a few springs. We'll see.

I keep hearing phrases like, "Don't worry. They will give you a way to get your data." For some reason, that is supposed to be a determining factor. So what?

Google says "Here is a fantastic new app to use. Please make part of your daily workflow." Some arbitrary amount of time later, Google says "Nevermind." If I have indeed made it a part of my workflow, I am required to change my workflow on their schedule on their notice. Maybe you are lucky enough to have never had life fall apart. Maybe you've never been so busy taking care of life changing issues, you could miss everything short of bombs exploding in your path. At such times, the last thing you need is for stupid little things, like a note taking app, to require attention.

As Google has a proven record of discarding their "Wow, Cool, check this out!" technologies in a fairly short time, the risk of putting the newest into a position where it will exclusively control an important workflow is too high from my perspective. Sure, I can get my data. Then what do I do with it? I have this great XML dump that nothing else can make sense of. I need something to rely on, free or not.

The fact that they announced this right on the heels of their spring cleaning product killing spree shows that as a company, they don't care. I, as an individual have the same sentiment about their new product. This has to be one of the worst marketing strategies ever attempted.

Reading the article shows there were two politically motivated individuals, both attempting to alter the result of the election using the war as the control. A recording shows that one of those parties openly discusses his view of the situation as fact, and those around him who depend on his approval for their power agree with him. Since both of the parties were known to be more than a bit paranoid and megalomaniacal, I don't see how this is "proof" of anything other than, perhaps, that both parties were scum. In the context of US presidential politics, that is hardly a revelation.

In the case of the translate API, I fully understand their reasons and can fully support their need, even responsibility to pull the plug on a cash drain. What I find disturbing is the shortsightedness in pushing such things into the wild without any plan for how to make it last. Loosing reader doesn't represent me loosing a substantial investment. Pulling the plug on the wildly popular translate wasted vast, uncounted investments. It broke things that then needed to be fixed. Because they waited until it was popular before they asked "How are we going to make money off of this," they cost others lots of time. Lots of time, which translates to lots of money. They shut it down not with the 3 year notice they had established in their own agreement, but invoked an emergency clause to accelerate it. One small meeting before releasing it would have cost them a few man hours, and prevented the whole situation. Instead, they suffered "substantial economic burden." They also thrust a substantial economic burden on the community by wasting huge numbers of man hours in development time. While, as previously stated, I understand the need, I maintain that the irresponsibility they displayed in this case is nothing short of evil. For the record, I don't block ads. I do stop visiting sites when the ads become too intrusive. I disable Flash as a rule, but not javascript. I don't mind ads too much, and once in a while, I actually follow up on one. I don't expect entitlement, but I do expect corporate responsibility. I pay for services all the time. Do the math, set a fair price up front, you might find me a valued customer. Act like Google did in this case, and I'll defend people's right to be pissed for a long time to come.

The translate API was axed because it was too popular.

I understand how he got elected. People just check the box for whatever with little reasoning or research. What I can't figure out is how someone this stupid figured out how to run for office in the first place.

Sportsbook also comes to mind.

these things need to be told to your doctor, not a facebook page. your doctor will then report this to the company...

Typically, a doctor's primary communication with any drug company is through a sales representative, and that sales rep earns a living by making information flow FROM the drug company TO the prescriber.

While I will totally agree that disusing issues with your provider is important, the belief that the information will magically make its way back to the manufacturer is nonsense.

Oh, just twist that Idea around a little bit. I have no problem with a firm patenting a gene, as long as that also means they are 100% responsible for it if it causes harm when it gets loose in the wild.

"The bad news is you have cancer. The good news, is that some fool patented the gene responsible. These lawyers over here will make sure you are compensated and get the best treatment possible at that fool's expense. That gene was after all his invention."

Seems fair to me.

Tortious interference doesn't involve truth, just interference with intent to disrupt a business relationship without privilege in that relationship. When Hoff went directly to the employer, the University of Minnesota, the line was crossed, and it stopped being journalism and turned into tortious interference. I'm not attempting to justify this as right, morally or otherwise, but it does follow the logic of the law.

If I were to be looking for a real villain, I'd pick Don Allen, who involved Hoff's blog in his personal shot at Moore, the mortgage fraudster, via the U of M, then as co-defendant, settled with Moore and turned witness against Hoff. There is no integrity to be found in those actions. It appears both Allen and Moore both deserve to burn in their own hells. But, good luck Johnny Northside; you're going to need it.