One of the most-touted features in Apple‘s Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" operating system is an integrated backup feature called Time Machine, which offers users a sleek, graphical way to create incremental backups and restore documents—or their entire machine—back to a fixed point in time. Now, Apple is facing a patent infringement lawsuit over Time Machine from Mirror Worlds, a now-defunct company that tried to be a player in the enterprise and desktop search arena and which used time-based "stacks" as a metaphor for interacting with files and objects.
The suit has been filed in the Eastern District of Texas, which is well-known for ruling on the side of patent holders. Before folding up shop in 2005, Mirror World developed enterprise and desktop search software under the "Scopeware" name: it enabled users to organize documents and results in a time-ordered stream instead of a traditional file hierarchy. The company eventually reportedly shut down in the face of competition in both the desktop and enterprise arena from companies like Google, and Microsoft’s plans to integrate desktop search into what would become Windows Vista.
Some Industry watchers contend Apple may be able to argue something like HyperCard—the company’s groundbreaking authoring and multimedia tool from the mid 1980s‐might constitute prior art for something like Time Machine and other time-based organizational metaphors, although that seems weak: one could build a time-based view of objects and files using HyperCard (and, indeed, some multimedia presentations and products built with HyperCard did just that; the same can be said for Macromedia Director in the same era), HyperCard didn’t ship that way out of the box. Mirror Worlds’ suit reference patent 6,006,227, 6,638,313, 6,725,427, and 6,768,999. Although recent judicial decisions have reduced the ability of so-called "patent trolls" to purse infringement claims on "obvious" patents the contain no fundamental innovations, the concepts expressed in Mirror Worlds’ patents appear non-obvious to some industry experts.
Apple representatives declined to comment on the suit.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.