Monday, October 5, 2009
Apple Challenges Woolworths Over Logo Similarities
Woolworths Supermarkets describes its new logo as “an abstract leaf symbol” intended to represent fresh food. But to Apple, the stylized “W” looks far too much like its own namesake fruit, which could be problematic should the supermarket chain someday decide to peddle its own brand of consumer electronics. And so Apple is petitioning IP Australia, the local agency that governs trademarks, to reject the Woolworths application for the mark.
Evidently, Google’s efforts to create a new CAPTCHA system that requires people to rotate images until they’re upright aren’t moving as quickly as the company would like. Because this morning, the search giant said it had acquired reCAPTCHA, developer of the Web’s preeminent CAPTCHA technology.
Speaking at Apple’s music event, CEO Steve Jobs, in his first public appearance since his medical leave of absence, introduces iTunes 9. After noting that iTunes is the largest music store in the world, boasting some 100 million accounts, Jobs rattles off some of the software’s new features. Among them: Genius Mixes and improved synching. The latter enables more specific synching and supports a new way of managing applications for the iPhone and iPod touch with a nice drag-and-drop feature. Very easy to organize and reorganize applications. The crowd really likes this one. 
Reporting second-quarter results earlier this year, Microsoft cited “a continued shift to lower-priced netbooks” as one factor degrading its financial performance. The netbook’s ascension meant, and continues to mean, that Windows client-licensing revenue is down. So the company will surely be aghast to learn that netbook sales are growing twice as quickly as those of full-sized laptops. 
China’s youth must face the corrupting influence of Internet porn without government guidance for a brief while longer. The Chinese government said Tuesday it will delay enforcing a new requirement that all new computers sold in the country include Green Dam/Youth Escort Web-filtering software. 
Google’s mission, to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, has once again run afoul of the Chinese government, which has a similar goal, but would much prefer that certain information stay inaccessible. And so, on Wednesday evening, Chinese citizens found themselves once again unable to use Google, Gmail, and YouTube as their government condemned Google as a purveyor of porn. 
Microsoft’s proposal to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7 in Europe may put the company in compliance with European law, but it’s not going to lead to better competition in the browser market. That’s the word from Microsoft’s rivals at home and abroad who say the “must-carry” provision the European Commission has been mulling as a solution to the company’s antitrust indiscretions is the only one that will work.
Looks the three-hour deposition Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave in the so-called “Vista Capable” class action suit was for naught. A judge Wednesday ruled that the lawsuit, which has troubled Microsoft for nearly two years now, cannot go forward as a class action.
If life is a cement trampoline, then Fairchild Semiconductor just performed a flat back landing. It’s hand forced by those oft-cited “market conditions,” the company said Friday it is sacking 12 percent of its workforce in an attempt to reduce expenses and spread holiday cheer. 
If there was any comic relief during Tuesday’s Apple event, it was provided by Microsoft, which played Curly to CEO Steve Jobs’s Moe and COO Tim Cook’s Larry. Discussing the dramatic increase in the Mac’s market share in the past year, Cook said it was driven partially by “something we didn’t do: Vista.”
