Wednesday, September 05, 2007
MetaCard: The World’s First Virtual World Credit Card
The MetaCard works in the same way as a normal first life credit card works. Applicants are provided with a credit limit and present the card when purchasing goods at merchants who accept the card.
MetaCard comes in two flavors: Basic and Gold. The Basic card is subject to a avatar check and provides a credit limit of L$5000 ($18.60) per month. A Gold MetaCard offers a credit limit of L$10,000 ($37.20) per month and can only be obtained by providing real world credentials and a real life credit card for automatic payments. Interest is charged at between 0.13% and 0.15% per day, which would we roughly 54% per annum, but compounding. Payments are 2% of the total amount used plus fees outstanding at the end of the month, and users have 21 days to make their monthly payment. MetaCard holders must also spend L$500 ($1.86) per month or face a monthly maintenance fee of L$300 ($1.12).
FirstMeta also offers MetaCard holders a savings account under the MetaSavings brand, offering interest rates of between 0.06%-0.09% daily.
Although the amount of credit offered by FirstMeta is (in real life terms) rather low, it will be interesting to see how services like these develop in online worlds given that in effect they are financial services that would likely be subject to real life laws. Whilst Second Life companies such as the World Stock Exchange clearly state that they are in effect pretend outfits (ie: games), and therefore are not subject to real world laws, FirstMeta is actually providing credit that is tied to a real world account; in effect by securing their credit services they have crossed the line into the real world.
(in part via SL Insider)
Panasonic shows off big and bright LED display
It's far from the biggest LED display we've seen, but Panasonic's new Astrovision/AZ-LE12F series display is certainly impressive enough in its own right, thanks in no small part to its blinding 5,000 cd/m2 brightness rating. At over 13 feet across and nearly ten feet high, it's also hard to go unnoticed, which appears to be the intention as the first such display has now been installed in the new "Qiball" building in Chiba City, Japan. Passers-by should also be able to get a good look at the display thanks to its wide 145 degree horizontal viewing angle and 80 degree vertical viewing angle, with the display also promising "excellent RGB blending" from its 3-in-1 LEDs. Sadly, there's no word on a home version just yet, so it looks like you'll have to make do with some of the slightly smaller options currently at your disposal.
Amazon, Google, Yahoo, And Others Sued For Automating Their E-mail
The companies are accused of violating a patent on automatic message routing held by Polaris IP. The patent has a long history in litigation, but all the cases have been settled out of court.
By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
August 28, 2007 04:40 PM
AOL, Amazon(AMZN), Borders, Google( GOOG), IAC, and Yahoo(YHOO) stand accused of violating a patent on automatic message routing held by Texas-based Polaris IP Attorneys representing Polaris IP filed a claim of patent infringement on Monday in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, Texas. The lawsuit charges the companies with implementing systems that "comprise interpreting electronic messages with rule base and case base knowledge engines The lawsuit seeks an injunction against continued infringement. If granted -- a remote prospect at best -- the injunction would have a significant impact on the defending companies. A more likely scenario appears to be a payday for the plaintiff. "It looks like Polaris IP is in the business of licensing patent rights and has no desire to enforce its requested injunction," said Dennis Crouch, associate professor of law at University of Missouri School of Law and the author of the law blog Patently-O, in an e-mail. "I expect that Polaris IP will be willing to settle these cases for what it believes is a reasonable six- or seven-digit figure." Crouch pointed out that the message routing patent at issue has been involved in litigation many times. "There are no published opinions associated with these cases and they have all been settled," he said. Polaris IP, Crouch observed, "appears to be part of a web of IP-related companies associated with attorney David Pridham." These companies include Orion IP, Constellation IP, IP Navigation Group, Cushion Technologies, CT IP Holdings, Triton, Circinus IP, and Firepond. Pridham did not respond to a request for comment. The method and system detailed in the patent describes a way "for automatically interpreting an electronic message including the steps of (a) receiving an electronic message from a source; (b) interpreting the electronic message using a rule base and case base knowledge engine; and (c) retrieving one or more predetermined responses corresponding to the interpretation of the electronic message from a repository for automatic delivery to the source." The Eastern District of Texas has become a favored venue for filing patent lawsuits. Polaris IP has launched three other patent cases there in the past two years against numerous technology companies, including Art Technology Group,Oracle( ORCL), and Sirius Satellite Radio. All three of these cases have involved the same patent, which has a long legal history. "The Eastern District of Texas has seen a flood of patent litigation in recent years based on its reputation as a patent-friendly court," said Crouch. "Interestingly, that reputation is rapidly changing as the court invalidates more patents." Attorneys representing Polaris IP did not return calls seeking comment. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Six major Internet companies have been sued for using computers to process their e-mail. 
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Floating Russian Chopper Seems to Fly Without Spinning its Rotors
This Russian helicopter is shown flying around with its rotors not moving. Have the Ruskies reverse-engineered some alien technology to create hovering helicopters? If so, why did the jackasses bother to put rotors on? Allow me to answer those questions. It's a normal helicopter — no alien technology here, unfortunately. It's actually an optical illusion caused by the video camera. It's shooting at a high frame rate, high enough to match the speed of the rotors. What results is every frame capturing the rotors in the same position, making them seem motionless with no blur. So there you have it; the Russians still can't build hovering helicopters. But hey, you never know what they're working on. [Boing Boing Gadgets]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
