Yahoo IP lawsuit: We patented Facebook's entire social network model
"'Facebook's entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles for and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo!'s patented social networking technology,' Yahoo claims in the lawsuit, filed yesterday in US District Court in Northern California. 'Prior to adopting Yahoo!'s patented social networking technology in 2008, Facebook was considered one of the worst performing Internet sites for advertising. Facebook's use of that social networking model has reportedly dramatically driven up Facebook's advertising click through rates.'
Nearly all the technology that makes Facebook successful is based on Yahoo patents, the company further states.
'For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first and was therefore granted patents by the United States Patent Office to protect those innovations. Yahoo!'s patents relate to cutting edge innovations in online products, including in messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud, and privacy controls,' Yahoo alleged in its court filing. 'These innovations dramatically improve user experience, privacy, and security and enhance the ability of advertisers to connect with users.'"
(Jon Brodkin, 13 March 2012, Ars Technica)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Marshall McLuhan debates his ideas on Australian TV in 1977
"In June 1977 Marshall McLuhan visited Australia and was a guest on Monday Conference, a popular live ABC television show hosted by Robert Moore. McLuhan debated his ideas with Moore and took questions from a feisty studio audience made up of members of the media and advertising industry, including TV boss Bruce Gyngell (see Part One at 14 mins), and young, funky Derryn Hinch (see Part Two from 3 mins).
McLuhan had been brought to Australia to address a broadcasting conference organised by Sydney radio station 2SM, and the Monday Conference was broadcast from the ballroom of the Sydney Hilton Hotel.
Many in the audience clearly admired McLuhan who has well into his prime and at ease with the live television situation. The discussion covered an eclectic range of topics, from television, privacy and Richard Nixon to holograms, transcendental meditation, Jane Austen, Euclidean geometry, denim jeans and nude streaking.
Towards the end of the program the always unpredictable McLuhan can be heard just off-mic, saying to Moore, 'I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to have to sneak off and have a pee!'."
(ABC Radio National, Australia)
Fig.1,2&3 Marshall Mcluhan, lecture recorded by ABC Radio National Network on 27 June 1977 in Australia.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Every click you make, Facebook tracker will be watching you
"Facebook also introduced new features aimed at marketing companies that let users monitor what their fellow members are watching and listening to online instantly. ...
'Retention of information online has always been a problem. If information comes and goes fleetingly there's less likelihood it will be used other than for the purpose you put it up, which is just to keep people in touch with what you're doing,' Mr Vaile said.
'This is in line with my concern about Facebook trying to change how people think and encourage them to normalise over-sharing and abandon any restraint on storage and use and exposure of private information.'"
(Andrew Colley, 24 September 2011, The Australian)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Making up Postcards: expressing real and fictional stories
"To me Postcards and Blogs share something in common. Both contain basically private information but can be read by people who have nothing to do with the writers. There is nothing wrong with reading a postcard that is not addressed to you or checking out a blog that is all about the personal life of an unknown person. A typical way of protecting privacy is using information that will be understood only by the people whom the message is addressed to. Another defensive approach is to be laconic, rather inexpressive. This last strategy is typically seen in postcards.
This blog is intended to play in a sense with these issues of privacy. For this reason my approach is purely literary (another way of protection). Here I mix together real and fictional stories. Some people who 'receive' a postcard from me are real people, others unrelated or almost unknown to me. Of course I, as an architect, 'send' only architectural postcards. Some of them were already postally used and therefore now they are being rewritten by me. In short, I am just making up postcards.
Las Tarjetas Postales de siempre tienen algo en comun con los Blogs de ahora. Su caracter es publico, (cualquiera puede leer su contenido) aunque su intencion sea privada (la correspondencia va dirigida a una persona o grupo concreto). Un blog es publico porque cualquier persona tiene acceso a el, pero su caracter tiene algo de privado porque va dirigido a alquien en particular. Se escribe un blog pensando en un grupo de personas mas o menos numeroso pero concreto. Eso no quita para que haya blogs mas 'universales' con los que algun 'desconocido' pueda identificarse. Pero aun asi, todos los blogs tienen algo de personales, de diarios.
Mi blog versa sobre arquitectura moderna, que es algo que me interesa mucho. Esta es revisada a traves de tarjetas postales de arquitectura que son reales (las cuales yo poseo y colecciono). Las tarjetas estan dirigidas a personas concretas que conozco, conoci en el pasado o quise conocer. Algunas tarjetas son recientes, otras muy antiguas y las demas ni lo uno ni lo otro. Algunas estan escritas y enviadas, otras por escribir. Lo que yo hago aqui es escribirlas o a veces reescribirlas. En todo caso reinventarlas. Son pues Postales Inventadas."
(Rafael Cazorla)
Fig.1 7 March 2011: Hotel Savoy-Bandung- Indonesia
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
A house is a symbolic place that regulates privacy
"A house is a symbolic place combining paradoxical concepts that can easily be identified as 'binary codes.' Internal and external, private and public, female and male, sacred and profane, clean and dirty are binary codes used to explain roles and activities of people in spaces (Lawrence, 1990; Ünlü, 1999). The spatial configuration of house layouts may be different in different periods, regions, cultures, and societies. Societies establish order in their livelihood spaces and reflect their personalities in these spaces.
There is a mutual relationship between space and human relations. The differences in social systems reveal morphological diversity in house layouts. The family contains the socio-economical structure of society; although it is a small element, it is the cornerstone that forms the future of society. The family needs a specific space, a house, to achieve this function based on their characteristics and the desired level of privacy (Sungur and Çagdas, 2003).
Privacy is a dynamic topological property of space; therefore, it should be approached in an analogous manner. Spaces could be categorized not only depending on their degree of privacy, but also according to their capacity to regulate privacy. At the same time, complementary approach counters the strict categorization of spaces into either public or private. According to that point of view, architectural space and its various elements should act as regulators of privacy. Space and its elements should be able to increase or decrease privacy according to the customized needs of its occupants (Georgiou, 2006).
Robinson (2001) identified different zones of privacy within a single Midwestern house and pinpointed their importance for the individual. Robinson argues that through a series of spaces with different degrees of privacy, the autonomy of the resident within a small social group is provided. Furthermore, the individual is granted a large measure of control over time, space, activity, and social interaction."
(Faris Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Sanusi Hassan and Salahaddin Yasin Baper, August 2010)
Faris Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Sanusi Hassan and Salahaddin Yasin Baper (2011). 'Institutional Space, Domestic Space, and Power Relations: Revisiting territoriality with space syntax', Asian Social Science, Vol. 6, No. 8, ISSN 1911-2025 (Online), Canadian Center of Science and Education
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
