The hyenas are grouping again to grab some chops off Apple with yet-another-class-action suit. This one claims that the iMac’s 20-inch display has been marketed as having the same features as the iMac 24-inch. Looking at Apple’s site, their case seems without much merit (the technical term, I believe, is “bloodyfrikkinstupidtastic”). Here’s Apple description and the lawyers’ press release:

Rich, vivid color. No matter what you like to do on your computer¡ªwatch movies, edit photos, play games, even just view a screen saver¡ªit’s going to look stunning on an iMac. That’s because iMac now features a glossy display with glass cover that makes graphics, photos, and videos come alive with richer colors and deeper blacks.

The lawyers pursuing the case claim that “Apple is deceiving consumers, duping its customers into thinking they’re buying ‘new and improved’ when in fact they’re getting stuck with ‘new and inferior.’ Beneath Apple’s ‘good guy’ image is a corporation that takes advantage of its customers.”

I don’t believe for a second that Apple is a good guy. The fact, however, is that after seeing the iMac 20 and iMac 24 side by side, I can hardly notice the difference. Maybe I’m blind after working with Photoshop since the early ’90s, but the photos, video and the whole interface look incredibly good on the 20-inch models. I can’t find any claims by Apple that this is the same screen, nor I can see what’s wrong or deceiving about Apple’s promotional material.

Brian Kabateck, Managing Partner of Kabateck Brown Kellner also had this to say:

Our goal is to help those customers who were deceived and make sure Apple tells the truth in the future.

And what a noble purpose that is, in the immortal words of Triumph The Insult Dog, “for me to poop on.” We can only hope that, if he wins, Brian Kabateck uses his cut of the money to raise awareness of these issues, help poor people and cure cancer.

Maybe it’s time to start dismissing this kind of “Let’s Get a Big Chunk of the Rich Corporation Shareholder’s Money” just because we can. What do you think? Do you think the iMacs show such a difference? And even if there’s one measurable one, does Apple text seem misleading to you?

Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP PRESS RELEASE

LOS ANGELES, March 31 /PRNewswire/ ¡ª Apple deceptively marketed its new 20-inch iMac in a way that grossly inflated the capabilities of its monitor, which is vastly inferior to the previous generation it replaced, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed today by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP.

According to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose, Apple is deceiving consumers by concealing that the new 20-inch iMac monitors are inferior to the previous generation’s and those of the new 24-inch iMac. In addition, the monitors are incapable of displaying “millions of colors,” despite Apple’s marketing claims.

Apple’s newest iMac ¡ª an “all-in-one” desktop computer that combines the monitor into the same case as the CPU ¡ª was unveiled in August 2007.

“Apple is duping its customers into thinking they’re buying ‘new and improved’ when in fact they’re getting stuck with ‘new and inferior,’” said Brian Kabateck, Managing Partner of Kabateck Brown Kellner. “Beneath Apple’s ‘good guy’ image is a corporation that takes advantage of its customers. Our goal is to help those customers who were deceived and make sure Apple tells the truth in the future.”

Apple told consumers that both the 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs displayed “millions of colors at all resolutions.” Indeed, the new 24-inch iMacs display 16,777,216 colors on 8-bit, in-plane switching (IPS) screens, as did the previous generation of 20-inch iMacs. But the new 20-inch iMac monitors do not even come close, displaying 98% fewer colors (262,144).

While Apple describes the display of both the 24-inch and 20-inch iMacs as though they were interchangeable, the monitors in each are of radically different technology. The 20-inch iMacs feature 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screens, the least expensive of its type.

The 20-inch iMac’s TN screens have a narrower viewing angle, less color depth, less color accuracy and are more susceptible to washout across the screen.

Apple’s Web site tells consumers that “No matter what you like to do on your computer ¡ª watch movies, edit photos, play games, even just view a screen saver ¡ª it’s going to look stunning on an iMac.”

In fact, the inferior technology of the 20-inch iMac is particularly ill-suited to editing photographs because of the display’s limited color potential and the distorting effect of the color simulation processes.

“Apple is squeezing more profits for itself by using cheap screens and its customers are unwittingly paying the price,” Kabateck said.

Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP is one of the nation’s foremost consumer law firms. Its clients have won more than $750 million against Google, Farmer’s Insurance, Eli Lilly and other major corporations. As a plaintiff’s-only firm, Kabateck Brown Kellner is always on the consumers’ side.

Source: gawker.com

Without saying why, the Environmental Protection Agency suspends IBM’s right to bid for contracts. Since other agencies typically follow suit, the company is essentially prevented from accepting government work for an unspecified period of time.

Source: wired.com

wattrlz points out a NYTimes piece on the clout China could soon wield on antitrust matters and the impact it could have on Microsoft’s Yahoo bid. A new Chinese anti-monopoly law takes effect in August that will extend the nation’s economic influence far beyond its borders. Nathan Bush, an antitrust law specialist in Beijing, said the law represents the ascendance of China “as another regulatory capital contending for influence with Brussels and Washington.” The article makes it clear that no one knows how China will play its burgeoning antitrust influence ¡ª conciliatory or nationalistic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

from the heard-it-all-before dept

The New Yorker is running a longish piece about the state of the newspaper industry. It's a decent read, though it doesn't cover any new ground. Newspapers are dying, industry vets are fretting and whining, the internet is rising, but doing so in a different way — a more opinionated, more community-oriented way. There you go. The entire 6,500 word piece in one sentence. What's most amazing to me is how the folks who are complaining and whining about it all can't seem to separate out the fact that "the industry is changing" from the idea that "journalism is dying." As Matthew Yglesias points out, all it's really saying is that the future will be different, and the more you look at the details, the more reason to think that it will be better, not worse.

Robert Niles pulls out a keen observation on the topic over at OJR. It's not that the news business is dying, it's just that, for the first time in history "newspapers" have some competition. They've survived 300 years without any real competition — other than maybe from a small number of other newspapers. This is the first time that they're facing competition from non-newspapers, that are providing the same essential services they have, but are doing it in a different way. And if there's one thing that should be clear from nearly all of economic history, it's that when you get real competition, the end results tend to be much better and much more innovative — which is exactly what we're seeing in the news industry.

It's certainly clear that journalism isn't dying (despite the whines). We've seen that the market for good journalists is incredibly competitive, with news organizations needing to pay top dollar to lure the best talent. And once the old school news professionals realize that news means something different these days than it did when they were the only players in town, there are plenty of ways to provide news that people want, and to make a profit doing so. The news business isn't dying. It's thriving. It's just that it's more competitive. And that's a good thing.

from the well-this-could-be-interesting dept
The Register has an article about one of the patents up for sale in the latest Ocean Tomo auction that could potentially be used to sue pretty much every web 2.0 company. The patent, for “a global sideband service distributed computing method” is described by its owner as being a core component in any kind of AJAX implementation, and lists out basically everyone as infringing. Any site that uses AJAX? Yup. Google, eBay, Yahoo? Yup. Amazon’s S3 service? You bet. Whether or not this patent is valid or whether any of these companies actually infringe on it are two wide open questions, but given how much money is being bet on lawsuits of this nature, you can bet someone will take a shot at it. And how long will it be before one of the patent system defenders shows up to claim that these firms clearly “stole” the technology?

from the fly,-fly,-fly-away-little-razr dept
A few months ago there were rumors that Motorola might sell off its struggling handset division to another provider, however there didn’t seem to be many interested buyers. It appears that Motorola has chosen option two instead: spin off the business to survive (or fail) on its own. The business accounts for the largest chunk of Motorola’s earnings, but it is also a huge drag on earnings. Basically, the other parts of Motorola had been subsidizing the handset business. It’s still rather amazing how slow Motorola is to come out with interesting handsets that people want. It had a huge success with the Startac in the 90s and then took nearly a decade before finding another hit with the RAZR. But just as with the Startac, it milked the RAZR concept for all it was worth and now is left in the dust while other firms are putting out much more innovative phones. Spinning off the business may separate it from the other parts of Motorola’s business, but unless it starts designing phones people actually want, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

from the nobody-here-but-us-safaris dept
Last week, Apple apparently began distributing its Safari web browser to Windows users using the software update mechanism that comes with iTunes. This has generated a firestorm of controversy, notably from Mozilla CEO John Lilly, who says Apple’s behavior undermines users’ trust in the software update process. He’s got a point. What Apple is doing here is a little bit sleazy. Users who opt to download iTunes aren’t necessarily interested in installing or running Safari, and so making installation the default is an abuse of the relationship between Apple and its customers. On the other hand, I think it’s important to make it clear that there’s nothing inherently wrong with Apple using its installed base of iTunes users to help promote Safari. The issue here is that the opt-out mechanism it’s chosen is somewhat misleading. Apple can fix the problem very easily by switching the default, so that Safari is unchecked until the user chooses to check it. Or, if Apple wants to be a little more aggressive, a pop-up window could require the user to make a yes or no choice on installing Safari. If the user clicks “no,” the update mechanism should respect this choice and not bring it up again. The problem, in other words, is not that Apple is using the popularity of iTunes to promote another of its products. The problem is that it’s not being as transparent as it could be with its users.
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

from the User-Generated-Geography dept
A few months ago, we noted that Google had taken some tentative steps to make Google Maps more wiki-like, and we encouraged them to take further steps in that direction. Now Techcrunch reports that they’re doing just that, giving users more ability to edit the data on Google Maps. Now, not only can you move the pin showing the location of a particular address, but you can edit the information associated with that address. Best of all, Google allows you to delete markers that are inaccurate or inappropriate, and even to add new ones. This is going to make Google Maps even more valuable. The next challenge Google is likely to have is dealing with vandalism. They’ve got some tools to deal with that already, but I think they could improve things even more by making the editing process more transparent. For example, as far as I can tell, there’s no way to see all of the markers in a particular small section of the map (say the block where I live). There also doesn’t appear to be any easy way to automatically monitor changes within a certain radius of a particular location. These features (analogous to Wikipedia’s watchlist feature) would make it a lot easier for public-spirited Google Maps users to keep tabs on map changes and quickly revert vandalism. I’d personally be happy to help police edits in the area around my apartment, but there’s currently no easy way for me to do that.
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
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from the deep-breath dept
Websites are wringing their hands about the fact that Google is adding a “search within a search” feature that makes it easier to use Google’s search engine to search a particular website. So, for example, if you want to find something at the New York Times, you can search for “nytimes.com,” and then Google will display a search box that will let you search for content on just the New York Times website. Apparently a lot of websites are up in arms because this will divert traffic away from their own search engines and give Google, rather than the target site, opportunities to serve up ads to those users. The question I was left with after reading the article is: am I the only one who’s been doing this for years with Google’s “site:” syntax? I assumed that anyone who uses Google on a regular basis already knew about this feature. If the ability to search within a particular site is problematic, these sites should have objected years ago, when Google added this functionality.
Anyway, there are two things to say about this. One is that sites should take this as a wake-up call to improve the search functionality on their own sites. For a company whose business is increasingly centered on the Internet, having a decent search engine should be a high priority. Furthermore, although few companies will be able to develop search algorithms as sophisticated as Google’s, they have the big advantage that they’ve got access to a lot of metadata that Google doesn’t. For example, news sites should be able to offer searches by date, author, category, and other criteria that Google might not be able to extract easily from a mere scrape of its pages. They might also be able to use information like the number of page views, the number of times a page has been emailed, etc to decide which pages to list first. With all that extra information, it shouldn’t be that hard to develop (or license) a search engine that will give performance that’s at least roughly comparable to Google for one’s own site. Secondly, if you don’t have a good search engine, isn’t better to have Google helping users find the pages they want on your site than for those users not to find your content at all?
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.