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We’ve noted the very clear a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080625/0045471509.shtml”shift in patent strategies/a at Microsoft over the years — from a company that hated patents to one that now views them as central to its mission, and often uses them to a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071009/135529.shtml”threaten/a competitors. However, you want to know when things have really gone too far? It’s when the company is a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10041410-16.html?part=rss#038;subj=news#038;tag=2547-1_3-0-20″ target=”_new”sending out the legal department to provide press quotes on a “product launch”/a that is tied to a technology licensing deal. As Matt Asay points out in the link here, in a story about Novell launching Linux on a Windows virtualization offering, there are two quotes from Microsoft employees — and both appear to come from the legal department rather than a product role. What used to be an innovative company working on new stuff is apparently turning into a legal firm trying to put tollbooths on innovation. It’s sad.
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pspan class=”mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image” style=”display: inline;”img alt=”gates and seinfeld_cr.jpg” src=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/gates%20and%20seinfeld_cr.jpg” width=”492″ height=”303″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”" //spanbr clear=”all”br / The odd couple of adland, Bill Gates Jerry Seinfeld, have been given their marching orders. /p pThe two were the spearhead of the $300 million ad attack that Microsoft hopes [needs] to make Vista interesting and PC users cool. On the evidence of the first two ads, it’s unlikely that they succeeded. /p pThe a href=”http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/09/05/jerry_seinfeld_bill_gates_not.html”first ad/a was just plain odd and largely, well, sucked, while the second was actually amusing. Did I learn anything about Vista and how PC users can be cooler? No. But I did learn that Bill Gates can do the robot and you should never let either of these men stay in your home because they will steal things. /pimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://feeds.uk.gizmodo.com/c/552/f/9581/s/1ea7db9/mf.gif’ border=’0′/div class=’mf-viral’table border=’0′trtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/09/18/microsoft_fires_bill_jerry.htmllink=Microsoft Fires Bill Jerry” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif” border=”0″ //a/tdtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=http://uk.gizmodo.com/2008/09/18/microsoft_fires_bill_jerry.htmllink=Microsoft Fires Bill Jerry” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif” border=”0″ //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/19345352933/f/9581/c/552/s/32144825/a2.htm”img src=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/19345352933/f/9581/c/552/s/32144825/a2.img” border=”0″//a

I recognize that I was in the a href=”http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080905/1337532180.shtml”minority/a of folks who actually thought the Microsoft Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld ads were good and entertaining, but I’m still quite surprised to see Valleywag report that a href=”http://valleywag.com/5051455/microsoft-to-announce-jerry-seinfeld-ads-cancelled-tomorrow” target=”_new”Microsoft is ending the Seinfeld ads/a, despite plans for a huge $300 million ad campaign around them. Microsoft is trying to claim that this is a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10044931-56.html?part=rss#038;subj=news#038;tag=2547-1_3-0-20″all according to plan/a, but that seems difficult to believe — especially since the “narrative” of the ads had only just begun. It looks like Microsoft basically caved to all the online critics, which makes no sense to me. Even if some people didn’t get the ads, people were talking about them. Caving, rather than going through with the rest of the planned ads and laying out the message that they had planned to lay out, just makes the company look foolish. The first two ad segments clearly set the framework for numerous commercials that Microsoft could use to both humanize itself and inform people about what Microsoft was doing — and now it’s basically a dead end. Yes, there were some very vocal critics of the ads, but bowing to their pressure sends exactly the wrong message.
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It all started a few days ago when a scanned page from a forthcoming Woolworths catalogue showed cheaper Xbox 360s and now, in uncharacteristic fashion, Microsoft has confirmed that European Xbox 360 price cuts are imminent.

From September 19, the Arcade unit drops to £129.99, the Premium version with 60GB hard disk drive drops to £169 and the top of the line Elite with 120GB HDD costs £229.

As we pointed out yesterday, that makes the Arcade and Premium Xbox 360s cheaper than the Wii. Let’s hope Nintendo takes note. Overall, gamers can expect to save £30 on each console if they hold off until the end of the week.

Pathfinders for Independent Living, Inc., a nonprofit organization, was founded after the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.) Pathfinders provides information and assistance to elderly and disabled individuals and their caregivers on how to live as independently as possible. Its core value is to Promote Self-Reliance. The culture within Pathfinders is one of [...]

I know plenty of folks (including my wife) who have purchased the Nike+iPod device to use with non-Nike sneakers. The device puts a sensor in your shoe, which communicates with a separate dongle connected to your iPod (or built in to the new iPod Touch), and tracks your running stats, which you can then upload. Many Nike sneakers have a little cutout underneath the insoles where you can stick the sensor, but you can buy (or make) a little pouch and connect it to shoelaces on non-Nike shoes. However, not only is Apple thinking about ways to stop this — it’s trying to patent those ways. It’s got a patent application in for smart garments which would create basically a DRM for devices — forceably pairing a device like the Nike+iPod sensor to a specific shoe.

This seems odd for a whole variety of reasons. First, it seems positively silly for Apple to do this, as it severely limits the market for the devices, and lessens the value of the iPod. You can see why Nike might ask for it, but it’s hard to see why Apple would implement it. Second, however, is that this seems highly questionable as a patent. I mean why would you patent something that makes your product less desirable? Would Apple actually sue someone else (say, Microsoft) for doing the same thing? That would (oh no!) force Microsoft to make its product more useful and more valuable. Finally, as a patent, how is this not “obvious”? It seems like a bad idea to implement, but that doesn’t make it non-obvious. If any engineer wanted to create such a system, it wouldn’t take much thought at all. The whole thing seems rather pointless.

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You just can’t get the staff these days. Or, in our case, these are the kind of retail staff we love. It seems Woolworth’s is about to mirror the generous US price cuts Microsoft made on the Xbox 360 in the UK, thanks to an employee scan of its upcoming retail catalogue.

Either Woolies is going out on a retail limb here or they’ve been given the royal nod by Microsoft that price cuts are imminent.

According to the scanned page Arcade will sell for £129.99, the Premium or Core for £169.99 and the Xbox 360 Elite for £229.99. Right now, that compares with £159.99, £199.99 and £259.99, respectively. That makes the Arcade and Premium Xbox 360s cheaper than the Wii.

We try to avoid most of the gadget destruction videos because, well, most of them are crap and we kinda like gadgets. Even the old ones that don’t really work anymore and take up space in the corner gathering dust and spiders.

The above one though is almost arty in the way that this owner despatches a dead MacBook Pro. We even have a soulful piano score to accompany the slo-mo destruction of what was once a well-loved companion. Maybe be this could be the new Microsoft ad.

Last week, we showed you - and some would say ‘inflicted’ - the first Microsoft ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. Entitled ‘Shoe Circus’ it really did very little for the funny bones of the world as the odd couple spoke in riddles about shoes, life and technology before heading off together through the carpark.

And yes, Bill did shake his booty.

The second instalment is better, a lot better, but that wouldn’t be hard.

Are you the kind of guy who’s always looking to do more. I know I sure am. You think that’s all you can do with your television, well, think again. Chances are someone has already figured it how to do something even more creative and pleasurable with that mp3 player you have in your hand. [...]