Apple Bans Non-Graphic, VR Representation Of Ferguson Shooting For No Coherent Reason

from the would-you-please-make-some-sense dept

Apple's ridiculous, inconsistent and incoherent app store approval process is now a thing of legend. The company has long banned apps simply for being able to access other, vaguely-controversial content, whether that's a dictionary (because some words are naughty), or comic book and e-book readers (because, occasional booby references). But Apple's also been known to ban apps critical of Apple products, games with Nazis in it, DUI checkpoint apps, and anything with a confederate flag in it (even if historically accurate). Basically, Apple governs its app store approval process like a puritanical child in the throes of an epic acid trip, and conversations trying to decipher company intent goes accordingly.

Apple's latest ingenious app store approval ban? Virtual reality journalism. Graphic artist Dan Archer thought it might be cool to build a 3D representation of the Ferguson shooting to help people better understand precisely what happened. Note there's no graphic content whatsoever; the app simply shows a 3D representative of the crime scene, 3D models of Michael Brown and Darren Wilson and their alleged locations, and lets the user simultaneously peruse publicly-filed evidence, witness testimony, and published radio chatter: Note that in and of itself a VR exploration of what happened isn't specifically controversial, and it's a very handy tool in trying to better understand the details of the story. Yet Archer received a phone call from Apple, explaining cryptically that his app would not be allowed on the store because its "scope was too narrow":

"According to the phone call I received, Ferguson Firsthand was disallowed because it “refers to a very specific event, and therefore its scope is too narrow.” I was encouraged to try again with an app that is “topical, but not focusing on any one single incident or topic.” Ferguson Firsthand, in its current state, would need to be “changed so significantly for it to be approved.” The representative was unable to clarify whether an app that reported on multiple, nationwide allegations of police misconduct would better fit the recommendations she had mentioned."

As with previous bans, getting Apple to transparently and more precisely illuminate the exact problem with the VR app was utterly unfruitful. In a companion piece over at Medium, Archer quite-correctly notes that the continued reliance on arbitrary, non-transparent gatekeepers is the last thing the soon-to-explode virtual reality market needs. Sure, those that can afford the $500 for the upcoming HTC Vive or Oculus Rift (not to mention a high-end graphics card) will likely be slightly less-reliant on gatekeepers for content access, but having Apple determine what qualifies as an acceptable journalism tool on less expensive smartphone VR platforms is a scary proposition:

"Leading VR headsets in the market still cost hundreds of dollars (despite becoming a decimal point or two cheaper in the last decade) and a powerful PC to run home experiences. Google cardboard, the SDK that allows journalists to port a game engine experience into VR, was designed to work brilliantly with smartphones, but in light of my phone call with Ms. Apple, almost half (44.1%, according to June 2015 data published by Comscore) of that market share in the US was effectively being cut off."

Archer also notes that Apple's decision directly contradicts its own over-arching principles for its own guidelines:

"Thank you for developing for iOS. Even though this document is a formidable list of what not to do, please also keep in mind the much shorter list of what you must do. Above all else, join us in trying to surprise and delight users. Show them their world in innovative ways, and let them interact with it like never before. In our experience, users really respond to polish, both in functionality and user interface. Go the extra mile. Give them more than they expect. And take them places where they have never been before. We are ready to help."

Or, try to do exactly that and get your project blocked for no coherent reason.

Filed Under: app store, arbitrary, ferguson, journalism, news, rejections, vr
Companies: apple

Good News: US Patent Office Now Rejecting A Lot More Software Patents

from the good-news-all-around dept

The impact of the Supreme Court's ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank continues to reverberate around the industry. We've already noted that courts have been rapidly invalidating a bunch of patents, and that related lawsuits appear to be dropping rapidly as well. And, now, a new analysis from a (pro-patent) law firm suggests that the US Patent Office is rejecting a lot more software patents as well.

Following the ruling, the US Patent Office issued new rules for examiners, and even withdrew some notices of allowances. And it appears all of this is having an impact. The link above is Vox summarizing some findings from patent lawyer Kate Gaudry of law firm Kilpatrick Townsend, who argues that the data suggests the USPTO is rejecting software patents at a much higher rate. In short, back in January, art units at the USPTO rejected applications based on Section 101 of US Patent law only about 24% of the time. Section 101 covers what is patent eligible, and was the key part in the decision in the Alice case. Effectively, in the Alice ruling, the Supreme Court said that just doing something on a generic computer wasn't patent eligible under Section 101. Following that ruling, in July, the rejection rate jumped to 78%. Yes, from 24% in January to 78% in June. That's massive. The data also shows that units that focus on "other kinds of technology saw little change in their rejection rates."

As the Vox story notes, Gaudry is freaked out that this will destroy innovation. "Without incentive, say goodbye to the quick pace of innovation we enjoy." But that's ridiculous, as anyone who actually works in software innovation knows. Patents have long been a drag on innovation in the field, setting up minefields and tollbooths that have worked to limit the pace of innovation, not speed it along. The idea that without patents there are no incentives is pure ignorance. The incentive is building a useful tool or service and being able to monetize it in a variety of ways. The idea that competition destroys incentives is simply ignorant of the history of innovation and basic economics.

The rapid decline in software patents is a huge boon for innovation.

Filed Under: business method patents, patents, rejections, software patents, uspto
Companies: alice, cls bank

ICE Rejects My Request To Waive FOIA Fees 'Because .' Yes, 'Because .'

from the why?-because. dept

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the troubling reports that Homeland Security's ICE division had teamed up with domain registrar/hosting company GoDaddy to help censor a Mexican political protest site. GoDaddy had suspended the domain, and when the site's administrators asked why, they were sent information saying that it was from a "Special Agent Homeland Security Investigations." Homeland Security Investigations is part of the new branding for ICE, but it's still the same old ICE. The contact email they were told to reach out to was an @ice.dhs.gov email address.

Given all of this, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request via MuckRock, a service I've used many times in the past to file FOIA requests, without issue. A standard part of doing so, is to ask for a fee waiver. Under FOIA, government agencies can charge for the requested work, but they're supposed to waive the fees if the request is for the public interest or reporting. Basically, the only times they're not supposed to waive the fees is when it's for some sort of (non-reporting) commercial purpose (e.g., a company looking to sell a database that it collects via FOIA requests).

So I was a bit surprised to get back a notice saying that ICE had rejected my fee waiver request. There are very limited reasons for why a government agency can reject such a request, and my request should absolutely have received the waiver. So, I read the waiver rejection letter to find out why, and was... well... a bit surprised to see this: Specifically, after listing out the six factors, none of which should exclude me from getting the waiver, it says:

Based on my review of your March 4, 2014 letter and for the reasons stated herein, I have determined that your fee waiver request is deficient because .

"Because ." Well, that is kind of useless, no? Either way, the rejection is totally bogus, but to claim that the reason is... " ." is sort of the icing on the cake. They also claim that my "fee waiver request has failed to satisfy each of the required factors."

Except that's not true. I actually satisfy all of the factors. Let's take a look.

Whether the subject of the requested records concerns "the operations or activities of the government."

Why, yes it does. I'm trying to find out why the US government requested GoDaddy censor a political protest site.

Whether the disclosure is "likely to contribute" to an understanding of government operations or activities.

Again, yes, of course it will, because I'll be reporting on the results, contributing to the understanding of why ICE felt the need to try to censor political speech in Mexico.

Whether disclosure of the requested information will contribute to the understanding of the public at large, as opposed to the individual understand of the requestor or a narrow segment of interested persons

Again, since the request is for reporting purposes, and I'll be reporting on the results, this should once again be in favor of the waiver.

Whether the contribution to public understanding of government operations or activities will be "significant."

I would think it would be. After all, we're talking about a government agency censoring a foreign website for no clear reason. That seems rather significant.

Whether the requestor has a commercial interest that would be furthered by the requested disclosure

Nope. And, honestly, this is the main one that they normally use to reject fee waivers. It clearly does not apply here.

Whether the magnitude of any identified commercial interest to the requestor is sufficiently large in comparison with the public interest in disclosure, that disclosure is primarily in the commercial interest of the requestor.

Again, I have no commercial interest here, but a journalistic one. And, for those who claim that there's a "commercial interest" as a news site, that is specifically exempted from the FOIA definitions of commercial interest. The DHS's own rules note that, when it comes to journalists: "a request for records supporting the news-dissemination function of the requestor shall not be considered to be used for commercial use." And, again, I've done a bunch of FOIA requests and never had a single fee waiver rejected before.

In other words, none of the conditions set forth as reasons why ICE can reject my fee waiver request have been met, and yet ICE still rejected the request -- and rather than explain why (perhaps because they can't), they said "because ." Yay, government.

I'll be appealing this decision shortly, but it hardly inspires much confidence in the FOIA department at ICE to actually be of any help at all in this matter.

Filed Under: dhs, fee waiver, foia, homeland security investigations, ice, rejections

Apple Rejects Thomas Jefferson Book App, Claiming It's Just A Book... Even Though It's Not

from the this-is-not-a-book dept

Apple's legendary arbitrariness in keeping things out of its walled garden has struck again. As a bunch of folks have sent over, some professors at the University of Virginia have put together what sounds like a wonderful app for the iPad, which takes different early versions of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (the only full-length book he ever wrote) and allows users to compare the different versions, and to get a glimpse into Jefferson's writing process and how his thoughts changed over time. It sounds both fascinating and like a really excellent use of tablet app technology -- to do something that really would have been much more difficult to do in physical form. Except... Apple has rejected the app over and over again, claiming that it is merely "a book" not an "app" and thus needs to be formatted as an iBook, with all of the restrictions that entails. Unfortunately, those restrictions also mean that as an "iBook" it won't do what the app is supposed to do.

But when we submitted the app to Apple for approval, it was turned down. Why? The reason the App Review Team gave (again and again) was that our app was “simply” or “just a book” (their words), and that it therefore had to be formatted in Apple’s iBooks Author program in order to be distributed through the iBookstore. We decided to play along and make a good-faith effort to convert our app into an iBook, only it doesn’t work. We cannot reproduce all of the features of our app–including some of the ones that we think the app needs to be useful to anyone–and for reasons no one has been able to explain, the iBooks Author file seems to expand well beyond the maximum size for an iBook (currently 2 GB). We’re stuck with an app that does just about everything we envisioned, that has impressed the many people to whom we have shown it on our own iPads, that does something that no app or printed book out there does–but that Apple won’t allow to be listed in its App Store. So, yes, it is possible to download an app called “Burp and Fart Piano” that does pretty much what you’d expect such an app to do, but a free, edited edition of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia that lets you compare Jefferson’s and Lafayette’s own copies and to zoom in on Jefferson’s handwritten corrections? No dice.

As they note, this is absolutely Apple's prerogative, just as it's their prerogative to point out how ridiculous this whole thing is. In the meantime, they've found another solution:

In the meantime, we’re looking for a programmer who can help us port our app to Android.

Filed Under: arbitrary, ebooks, ibooks, rejections, thomas jefferson, walled gardens
Companies: apple

Shouldn't The Patent Office Be Able To Reject A Bad Patent Application For Real?

from the just-a-thought dept

A few people have been submitting various versions of the story about how online gaming company OnLive is claiming a patent on its system for cloud-based video games. You can see the actual patent (7,849,491), if you'd like to dig into the details.

However, rather than dig into the specifics on this particular patent, I did want to dig into one somewhat offhand comment that Dean Takahashi made in his writeup of this patent over at VentureBeat, where he gets in a little dig at the Patent Office:

it was originally filed in December, 2002... The patent was granted last week, showing just how far behind the patent office is in acknowledging inventions.

Similarly, in the WSJ article where OnLive's Steve Perlman claims this is a "pivotal patent," he also complains about how slow the patent office is, and how annoying it was that he had to wait so long to get this patent.

Now, I'm not known for standing up for the Patent Office on much, and everyone seems to agree that the USPTO has a huge backlog that it takes them a while to get through, but the implication here is that if you just submit an application, you'll have to wait 8 years to get that patent approved. That's not really fair or accurate. I went and looked at the history of this particular patent and it's a lot more complicated than that. First of all, while it was initially filed in 2002, the application wasn't actually complete until April of 2003. Then, it appears that a whole bunch of additional information was filed over the years -- which is perfectly fine (as new things come out, you're supposed to file such information disclosure statements), but each of those need to be reviewed as well.

But what's a lot more telling is that the patent was "rejected" by the patent examiner not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but five times before it was finally approved. However, the way the patent system works is that there's no such thing as a real rejection of a patent application. Even if there is something called a "final rejection" (the second rejection here was officially a "final rejection"), that's clearly misnamed, as the applicant is able to keep requesting new examinations, perhaps with adjustments to the patent, or after the applicant (or, more likely, a patent attorney they hired) argues that the patent should be approved.

So, perhaps it's not just that the patent office is "behind" on "acknowledging inventions," it's that patent applicants can just keep trying and trying and trying over and over and over again until they finally convince the examiner to approve the patent. Of course, all of this does contribute to the actual backlog -- because each time the examiner has to deal with a "rejected" application request for another examination, and hear them out on why it should be approved, or review the changes, that's time that could be spent reviewing a different patent application.

What I still don't understand is why we still let the system work this way. I can understand being able to make your case as to why a patent should be approved after an examiner initially rejects it -- and perhaps potentially an opportunity for an appeal -- but why do we let the system be so open ended? And, to be clear, I'm not saying if this particular patent is a "bad patent." I really don't know (though, I assume some of you may have some opinions on that). I'm just pointing out that, contrary to the claim in that article, the delay here might not have just been about a slow patent office, but about the fact that the patent was "rejected" so many times, and each time OnLive was able to come back and get another crack at the apple...

Filed Under: cloud gaming, patents, rejections, steve perlman, video games
Companies: onlive, uspto