I was interviewed by Kenneth Wong writing for Cadalyst on the topic of using MindManager. I’d like to invite you to read the article at Cadalyst. I strongly advocate the use of MindManager it is extremely benefitial to me and I use it every day. So please stop in and review Kenneths article and let me know what you think!

MindManager Won’t Think for You — But it Helps - Mind-mapping tool enhances collaboration for business planning, project brainstorming, design what-ifs and more - CAD Management

“Can you read somebody’s mind? probably not — that is, unless the thinker happens to own a copy of MindManager from Mindjet . . . more“

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The world has gone patent litigation happy.

Everyone has decided to litigate and counter litigate everyone. In case you lost track over the last week or two, here’s a quick run down. Please comment if I’ve missed any. I only went back about 1 week (Google News top 20 pages).
Updates(Added 6-28-06)
Palm v IBM SETTLED - Palm pays IBM $22.5m in patent suit that lasted 9 years
Xerox v Media Sciences
Supreme Court Reviewing a Gas Pedal patent Case - Potential Precedent Setting
Health Discovery v. Cyphergen Biosystems
Copart v. Manheim - settled
Finisar wins v. DirectTV - $78m
King of Thailand Granted Patent for Making Rain - its not a lawsuit yet . . . but does sound amusing!
Warner v Watson - Oral Contraceptive

Updates (Added after 6-20-06)
Verizon v. Vonage
Microsoft v. Amado - Ruling Against Microsoft - Patent technology that links spreadsheets and databases - Patent date 1994
USA Video Tech v. Charter & Cox - Video on Demand Patent
Netflix v. Blockbuster
Google (Earth) v. Skyline via Keyhole
C2 Communications v 7 Large Phone companies

Original List

Creative v. Apple (This is Patent)
Now Net2Phone v. Skype (aka Ebay)
NTP v BlackBerry
Visto v Blackberry (yes this is a new one)
Alien v Intermec (RFID fight)
Apple v. Apple (OK that was trademark)
Samsung v Cho Kwan-hyung - (Samsung is reported here to be in a position where it might lose)
Lazare v Photoscribe (not just silicon this one is over diamond etching)
Texas Patent Co v. Black and Decker (settled)
Nokia v. Qualcomm
Medtronic v. Boston Scientific
TiVo v Echostar
Amazon v Barnes Noble (the famous one-click patent now back up for grabs)
EBay v. MercExchange
Microsoft v Lucent Technologies
Olympus v Given Imaging
Motorola v RUS GPS (Russian firm suing Motorola over patents possibly covering Russian model cell phones)
Reunion.com v Plaxo
And those are just the lawsuits in the news in Google News top 20 pages.

Let’s face it everyone is litigating everyone!

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Maven Mapper’s is now available as an audio podcast. You can subscribe to the download version, or you can listen while you are here. See the new listen now and subscribe buttons on the right side bar!

We welcome feedback on this new service.

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US and British researchers are making progress in developing computers that will have the ability to read part of your mind. The emotional part that is.

Computers are being developed to interpret your emotions through facial characteristic recognition techniqes. Researchers have discussed that this could benefit advertisers, such that they could target you with an ad when you are ready to receive it. Of course, everything computer related must have an advertising capability.

The real benefit with reading faces is not just in the reading, but in the translation. People transmit vast amounts of information non-verbally through their facial expressions. This information is lost when a person communicates with someone on the internet. This tool could benefit online instructors so that they could literally see the lightbulbs going off or the dark cloud of confusion when a student ‘gets it’ and when a student ‘gets lost.’

Similarly, technologies that push online meeting or chat rooms could interpret facial expressions and pass that information along to people on the other end, such that its not necessary to type in silly smily characters like :0 etc. The computer would read your expression and pass it along. If you are laughing Out Loud (LOL), then the computer would gather that info in and power up your simulated image on the other side to start laughing.

If you are playing online poker, you just turn the system off maybe, when you hit the ‘Poker Face’ Button.

Coming soon — mind-reading computers��Reuters.com

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Phil Zimmermann has released the Windows version of Zfone. Zfone is a VOIP encryption standard that secures VOIP phone calls at 256 bit AES cipher and a 3kb key exchange.

In light of recent relevations of the US Government monitoring phone records and listening into phone calls of American citizens, this software when used in conjunction with VOIP systems could provide businesses and users that extra level of security they need to insure they have privacy.

From another perspective if a major phone company has accessed your phone calls on behalf of the government or as part of a larger batch for the government, this tool can provide security from the people in that company and the people that illegaly get access to that information from within or outside the company. Or another way to put it is how safe is your information as its held by the government or the phone companies? When’s the last time you heard about the government or phone companies having their security breached through the internet or lost laptops? You may trust the government, but do you trust the people that hack information away from the government?

Phil Zimmermann is no stranger to encryption, he is probably most famous for releasing PGP e-mail an email encryption program released in 1991 that spawned an entire business including PGP Desktop, which Maven Mapper’s wholeheartedly recommends.

Zfone was previously available for OS X and Linux and has recently been released for Windows in Beta.

For more articles on Zfone:

1. New York Times: Voice Encryption May Draw U.S. Scrutiny
   
2. International Herald Tribune: Encryption tool rekindles security debate
   
3. Technology Review: Encryption Software May Halt Wire Tapping
   
4. Red Herring: Zfone May Protect VoIP Calls
   
5. United Press International: PGP founder unveils new VoIP security
   
6. Wired News: A Pretty Good Way to Foil the NSAPrivacy Guru Locks Down VOIP
   
7. The Register: PGP creator offers VoIP crypto to Windows users
   
8. Blue Box - The VoIP Security Podcast: Phil Zimmermann interview about Zfone
   
9. Associated Press: PGP Inventor to Encrypt Net Calls
   
10. eWeek: Privacy Pioneer Promises Secure VOIP
    
11. TechWorld: Encryption guru returns with VoIP software
    
12. CNET News: Encryption pioneer expands on VoIP plans

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