Apple Defends iOS Developers Against Threats From Lodsys.

“Good News iOS Developers!”

Actually it is good news for a lot more than iOS Developers. Apple has finally spoken out against Lodsys for threatening iOS Developers over some licensing issues.. MacWorld published the full text of the letter Apple Legal sent to Lodsys regarding its patent dispute with app developers.

Apple certainly took the time to review the matter, 10 days after Lodsys sent patent lawsuit threat to iOS Developers (Friday May the 13th, 2011). John Gruber of Daring Fireball seems to think that Apple is doing the right thing by carefully reviewing the matter and preparing an appropriate response.

This would be an interesting case to follow since Apple already licensed the patents in question from Lodsys.

First, Apple is licensed to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio. As Lodsys itself advertises on its website, “Apple is licensed for its nameplate products and services.” See http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html (emphasis in original). Under its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.

It would be interesting to know when Apple become licensed to Lodsys’ four patents; as Google and Microsoft do. Did Lodsys reach out to Apple, Google and Microsoft after iOS, Android and WP7 were released? How significant are these fours patents in the Lodsys portfolio?

It would be an even more interesting development if Apple, possibly joined by Google and Microsoft would seek to invalidate Lodsys’s patents in question.

If Lodsys were to prevail in their threats, it would set a scary precedence for Developers; Android, iOS and WP7.

South Park: Season 15 Episode 5 – “Crack Baby Athletic Association”

The stream for this episode will be available a few hours after it premieres on Comedy Central Wednesday May 25th, 2011 10:00PM Eastern Time.

South Park: Season 15 Episode 5 – “Crack Baby Athletic Association”
Cartman has a new protegé. He found someone who is smart, ambitious and willing to look the other way in order to get to the top. Kyle is brought in on the ground floor of Cartman’s latest business venture, the Crack Baby Athletic Association.
Original Air Date: 2011-05-25

Watch “Crack Baby Athletic Association” at South Park Studios starting May 25th, 2011 after the episode premieres on Comedy Central. You can also buy the episode from Amazon.com and iTunes Store instead of downloading it from some random sites.

Do not bother searching “South Park S15E05” on Google or other search engines, because “Crack Baby Athletic Association” will be available for streaming on May 25th 11:59PM Pacific Time. Well, as long as you are using US IP address.

Preview “Crack Baby Athletic Association” here (“Hear Us Out” – Cartman discusses his plan to help out those poor babies addicted to crack.)

“Crack Baby Athletic Association” will be available for streaming on May 18th 11:59PM Pacific Time.

What you should do:

  • Watch “Crack Baby Athletic Association” on your TV.
  • Watch “Crack Baby Athletic Association” on South Park Studios.
  • Buy “Crack Baby Athletic Association” from Amazon.com and iTunes Store.

What you must not do:

Notes:

  • “Crack Baby Athletic Association” is the fifth episode of Season 15.
  • “Crack Baby Athletic Association” at Wikipedia.
  • Sarah McLachlan – Animal Cruelty Video | SPCA Commercial
  • Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow
  • EA Sports
  • Slash
  • Slash responds to South Park on Twitter.
  • Sweet Child O’ Mine
  • KFC Gravy
  • McDonald’s French Fries
  • Poutine
  • University Of Colorado, at Boulder
  • NCAA
  • The Pearl Necklace
  • “Slash is a make-belief character” just Santa Claus. Oops, you didn’t know that Santa Claus isn’t real? Forget what you’ve just read.
  • In any case that you cannot watch any episodes of South Park at South Park Studios, please be patient, Comedy Central would be really angry if you downloaded the episodes from places other than Amazon.com and iTunes Store or any online stores that generate revenue for Comedy Central. Please do not go to sites such as SouthParkFiles.com to download any of the episodes. Just because you can easily download the episodes from sites such as SouthParkFiles.com, it doesn’t mean Comedy Central say it is right.
  • As usual, this episode will be available for streaming at South Park Studios following the premiere on May 25th, 2011. Uncensored version will follow shortly after.
  • South Park: Season 15 Episode 5 uncensored version will be available purchase starting May 28th, 2011 at Amazon.com and iTunes Store.
  • Stay tuned for more info.

Comedy Central would certainly appreciates those who help them make more money.

From the Comedy Central Press Release:

CARTMAN IS AT THE HELM OF A NEW BUSINESS VENTURE
IN AN ALL-NEW “SOUTH PARK”
ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 AT 10:00 P.M. ON COMEDY CENTRAL

NEW YORK, May 23, 2011 – Crack babies are finally getting the attention they deserve in an all-new episode of “South Park” titled “Crack Baby Athletic Association”, premiering on Wednesday, May 25 at 10:00 p.m. on Comedy Central.

Cartman has a new protegé. He’s found someone who is smart, ambitious and willing to look the other way in order to get to the top.

Kyle is brought in on the ground floor of Cartman’s latest business venture, the Crack Baby Athletic Adventure.

Comedy Central Airing Schedule for South Park: Season 15 Episode 5 (Eastern and Pacific Time)

  • Wednesday May 25 10:00PM
  • Thursday May 26 2011 12:00AM
  • Thursday May 27 2011 10:30PM
  • Sunday May 29 2011 11:30AM
  • Monday May 30 2011 02:00AM

Comedy Central strongly urges you not to download the episode from any sites such as SouthParkFiles.com or any other South Park related sites. Remember that unauthorized download of South Park episodes hurts Comedy Central and South Park team. It is very very wrong to download South Park Episodes from sites like MrTwig.net, because Comedy Central would have to wait for another 2 months to get gold plated shark tank installed in their lobby. Instead, Comedy Central would like you to purchase the episode from vendors like Amazon.com or iTunes Store.

——-

Now available:

South Park: Complete Fourteenth Season
Including all the bleeps on Episode “201” and in the commentary:

DVD | Blu-Ray

Episode “201” is heavily censored just like its broadcast version.

——-

Disclaimer

If you bought anything through Amazon link above, and I get some kickbacks.

“If you buy these DVD’s, I can buy a Zoom Q3HD” to paraphrase the great Robert Schimmel.

——-

Images are courtesy of South Park Studios.

Spammer Alert: superdooperdeals.com

Readers sent us a few info about new round of spam from superdooperdeals.com. Do not give them your email addresses with hope you’d be unsubscribed from their spam bombardments. superdooperdeals.com site includes some fake testimonials that don’t even make any sense.

Whois info on superdooperdeals.com:

Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
Contact: support@namecheap.com
Visit: http://namecheap.com

Domain name: Superdooperdeals.com

Registrant Contact:
SuperDooperDeals
Liam Carroll ()

Fax:
15500 SW Jay Street #38743
Beaverton, OR 97006
US

Administrative Contact:
SuperDooperDeals
Liam Carroll (liam@superdooperdeals.com)
+1.5033038404
Fax: +1.5555555555
15500 SW Jay Street #38743
Beaverton, OR 97006
US

Technical Contact:
SuperDooperDeals
Liam Carroll (liam@superdooperdeals.com)
+1.5033038404
Fax: +1.5555555555
15500 SW Jay Street #38743
Beaverton, OR 97006
US

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
ns1.superdooperdeals.com
ns2.superdooperdeals.com

Creation date: 23 Mar 2011 03:15:00
Expiration date: 22 Mar 2012 22:15:00

Other Domain Registered by superdooperdeals.com:

  • bingolikey.com
  • carz-online.com
  • luxuryhosting.net
  • yourkeywords.net
  • we-mean-business.org
  • playwithusdaily.com

We will add more info whenever we get them.

eNom and namecheap are the DNS Registrar that superdooperdeal.com uses, but they are willing to resolve the issue.

This is a sample of namecheap.com reply to the complaints:

Hello,

Thank you for your email regarding researchsneeze.info domain name. The domain that you reported is registered with NameCheap but hosted with another company. Please contact the hosting company for help with investigating the incident of spam. You will need to forward entire email with full headers to them. Here are contact details of the company that owns IP address assigned to the domain:

http://who.is/whois-ip/108.60.156.10/
——————–
Regards,
Marta K.
Customer Support

http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=108.60.156.10?showDetails=true&showARIN=false

Other good and responsible DNS Registrars would take the complaints seriously and actually do something to disable the offending domains.

File complaints to FTC: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en for the violation of CAN-SPAM Act.

EFF Wants Apple To Defend Its Developers.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is weighing in on Lodsys’s patent threat against iOS Developers. EFF wants Apple to defend its Developers.

Lodsys claims that Apple is licensed to use Lodsys’ patents, even though there’s no detailed explanation of the licensing. At this moment Apple is keeping the silence. Lodsys’ threat against iOS Developers will ultimately hurt iOS App ecosystem if Apple chose to do nothing. Developers can opt to forgo in-app purchasing and upgrades; effectively taking one revenue-generating feature for Developers and Apple.

Apple, it’s your turn!

Yahoo! Messenger for iOS is now optimized for iPad 2.

Yahoo! has just updated its Messenger client for iOS and is now optimized for iPad 2.

  • iPad-optimized layout
  • Voice & video calling for iPad 2
  • Improved spam management: block one or all add requests from a single view
  • Fixed multiple bugs including the unexpected sign-out issue

This update requires iOS 4.0 or Higher

WordPress 2.8 for iOS.

WordPress 2.8 for iOS is now available at iTunes App Store.

New features:

  • Quick Photo button: only available on iPhone for now.
  • Stats
  • Added translations to Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Bosnian, Hebrew, German, Dutch, French and Croatian.

WordPress for iOS now has Stats feature just like its Android counterpart.

In addition to that, WordPress 2.8 for iOS could be the last version that supports iOS 3.x.

Scam Alert: Fake Email Pretending To Be From Apple.

UPDATE:
The DNS registration information was changed on 2011-05-19, also noted by a reader.

Domain Name: APPLESDOWNLOAD.COM
Registrar: ELB GROUP, INC.
Whois Server: whois.retailstudio.com
Referral URL: http://www.retailstudio.com
Name Server: NS1.QUCKBO.RU
Name Server: NS2.QUCKBO.RU
Name Server: NS3.QUCKBO.RU
Name Server: NS4.QUCKBO.RU
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 19-may-2011
Creation Date: 14-mar-2011
Expiration Date: 14-mar-2012

>>> Last update of whois database: Thu, 19 May 2011 20:15:58 UTC <<<

Whois info as of 2011-05-19

Domain Name: APPLESDOWNLOAD.COM

Registrant:
Vanna Berglund
Vanna Berglund        (stalk@mailae.com)
Danska Vagen 68-70
Gothenburg
Västra Gotalandslän,SE-41659
SE
Tel. +46.317078999

Creation Date: 14-Mar-2011
Expiration Date: 14-Mar-2012

Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.quckbo.ru
ns2.quckbo.ru
ns3.quckbo.ru
ns4.quckbo.ru

Administrative Contact:
Vanna Berglund
Vanna Berglund        (stalk@mailae.com)
Danska Vagen 68-70
Gothenburg
Västra Gotalandslän,SE-41659
SE
Tel. +46.317078999

Technical Contact:
Vanna Berglund
Vanna Berglund        (stalk@mailae.com)
Danska Vagen 68-70
Gothenburg
Västra Gotalandslän,SE-41659
SE
Tel. +46.317078999

Billing Contact:
Vanna Berglund
Vanna Berglund        (stalk@mailae.com)
Danska Vagen 68-70
Gothenburg
Västra Gotalandslän,SE-41659
SE
Tel. +46.317078999

Status:LOCKED

——-

A reader sent in a screenshot of an email pretending to be from Apple.

All clicks lead to: http://tariacuri.crefal.edu.mx/dweb/images/smilies/index.php which redirects to applesdownload.com.
It is likely that tariacuri.crefal.edu.mx site has been compromised.

applesdownload.com whois info:

Domain Name: APPLESDOWNLOAD.COM

Registrant:
Lyubov Bushmakina
Lyubov Bushmakina        ()
ul.Yuriya Gagarina d.38 k.2 kv.99
Sankt-Peterburg
Sankt-Peterburg,196105
RU
Tel. +7.8125540822
Fax. +7.8125540822

Creation Date: 14-Mar-2011
Expiration Date: 14-Mar-2012

Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.thejobrano.com
ns2.thejobrano.com

Administrative Contact:
Lyubov Bushmakina
Lyubov Bushmakina        ()
ul.Yuriya Gagarina d.38 k.2 kv.99
Sankt-Peterburg
Sankt-Peterburg,196105
RU
Tel. +7.8125540822
Fax. +7.8125540822

Technical Contact:
Lyubov Bushmakina
Lyubov Bushmakina        ()
ul.Yuriya Gagarina d.38 k.2 kv.99
Sankt-Peterburg
Sankt-Peterburg,196105
RU
Tel. +7.8125540822
Fax. +7.8125540822

Billing Contact:
Lyubov Bushmakina
Lyubov Bushmakina        ()
ul.Yuriya Gagarina d.38 k.2 kv.99
Sankt-Peterburg
Sankt-Peterburg,196105
RU
Tel. +7.8125540822
Fax. +7.8125540822

Status:LOCKED

The site is currently still up.

This is not the first time such email pretending to come from Apple.