Once Again: The Number Of Patents You Hold Does Not Equal How Much Innovation You've Done

from the please-stop-that-myth dept

We've complained in the past when companies, the press and analysts try to use number of patents as a "proxy" for innovation. It's quite misleading -- and various studies have made that clear. You can have tremendous innovation without patents, and you can have tons of patents, without any real innovation. Yet, as reader Nick points out, a report looking at the alternative energy auto space dings Ford for "lagging" in "the alternative energy race" because it doesn't have as many patents as others.

This is a real shame, because we've discussed before how the massive patent thickets in the hybrid car space have been holding back innovation and development in that space. In fact, Ford had a big tussle with Toyota a few years back after Toyota sued Ford and the two companies wasted tons of money and time in court, until the court finally pointed out that Ford did not infringe. On top of that, Ford has been one of the earlier adopters of hybrid offerings and remains the third largest hybrid seller after Toyota and Honda. So, claiming that it's somehow "lagging" because of fewer patents is quite misleading.

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Can A Moron Driving A Porsche Recognize The Difference Between The Car And A Pair Of Crocs?

from the that's-for-the-judge-to-determine dept

Reader Sceptic alerts us to a new lawsuit that seems perfect (on various levels) for the old "moron in a hurry" trademark test. Automaker Porsche -- for drivers in a hurry -- has sent a cease-and-desist letter to footwear maker Crocs, claiming that the company's use of "Cayman" for one of its shoes is a violation of Porche's trademark on the same term. As the folks at Footnoted point out:

Now few people would probably confuse Crocs Cayman sandal for the Porsche Cayman. After all, one sells for $29.99 and the other starts at $51,000.

Of course, this is apparently taking place in Germany, and (tragically) the moron in a hurry test (as far as we know) has still only been used in the UK, the US and Canada. But here's a perfect opportunity for its introduction (in a hurry) in Germany.

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Fake Car Noises Being Added To Many New Cars... May Be Required Soon

from the vroom-vroom dept

Last year, we pointed out that some car companies were experimenting with adding fake engine noises to their cars, after complaints were heard that hybrid and electric vehicles were "too quiet" and sneaking up on people. Apparently, those original experiments are turning into a groundswell. After some politicians decided to put forth legislation requiring such sounds, apparently lots of car companies are adding sounds to their cars, such as Nissan's recently announced plan to include futuristic Blade Runner-style sounds. Reading through that NY Times article, it seems like the car companies are less concerned about the safety issues, but are excited about the idea of opening up a new market for selling "car tones" -- like ringtones, but for your car noise. Can't we just set it to vibrate? In the meantime, there appears to be no evidence that these hybrid and electric "menaces" are causing any more accidents in their "silent, but deadly" current state.

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Nissan To Add Futuristic Sound Effects To Its Electric Car To Keep It From Hitting Unaware Pedestrians

from the so-that's-why-they-sound-that-way dept

Ever wonder why futuristic vehicles in science fiction movies have loud whirring/buzzing noises? Perhaps it's because of people worried about pedestrians getting hit by silent vehicles. You may recall that there has been some effort underway to push the makers of hybrid or electric vehicles to add engine noises to their cars, because the electric engines are "too quiet" and unsuspecting pedestrians who fail to look both ways are getting hit. Or so we're told. I've yet to see much actual evidence of the rash of pedestrians-hit-by-Priuses, but the story has gained some legs. In fact, some politicians are even pushing for government mandates to require such cars to be noisier. In an effort to live up to any such requirements, while still making its all electric vehicle still feel futuristic, apparently Nissan is looking to add those Blade Runner-style vehicle noises to the upcoming Nissan Leaf. There's no functional reason for it, other than that they want to make the car noisier, and fake engine noises didn't seem as fun (or, one would imagine, marketable).

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Up Next, The Subaru App Store

from the click-click-vroom dept

Mobile-phone makers and operators are falling over themselves trying to launch their own application storefronts following the success of Apple's iPhone App Store. But they're not the only ones: Hughes Telematics, which makes in-car communications and computing systems, says the next generation of its technology, scheduled for release in 2010, will let people install apps in their cars. Ideas being kicked around now include a carbon-footprint calculator and remote-starting and monitoring software. There are lots of interesting possibilities here, but there's one stumbling block: most cars don't come with any ability to connect to the internet, making distribution difficult and limiting the apps' utility. Solving that issue would be huge, and open up a enormous opportunity for all sorts of new apps and features: streaming audio, traffic information, in-car music downloads and so on. Just as other platforms like mobile phones and computers have benefited from the addition of mobile data connectivity, so too will cars.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Auto Forum Moderator Sued For Highlighting Problems With Aftermarket Maker

from the can't-take-the-criticism,-so-we'll-sue dept

It really amazes me when we see companies go out of their way to sue critics or those who post negative reviews of their products or practices. If those companies put the same amount of effort into actually treating their customers right and taking the criticism as feedback, they'd probably be doing a lot better. Instead, companies that treat customers badly usually discover that suing critics only helps turn more people off to the company. Reader Crash70rs points us to a post on the HotRodders.com forum, where one of the moderators at the site is being sued for defamation by an aftermarket manufacturer named Streetbeasts.

The moderator had written a wiki article about the company, highlighting the fact that the company was connected to another company that had been found guilty of wire fraud and defrauding customers. Streetbeasts seems upset about a bunch of things that were said about the company -- though, some of them clearly seem to be opinion-based, and others hardly seem defamatory. The moderator notes that this is basically a SLAPP lawsuit designed to silence him rather than to win a defamation case, and he's decided to fight it (good for him). Maybe, one day, companies will realize that dealing with your problems is better than suing those who point them out.

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Kia Decides That It No Longer Wants Its TV Commercials To Be Entertaining

from the um...-why? dept

For a while now, we've been pointing out how, for advertising to be effective, it also needs to be good content that people don't just "not mind" seeing, but which they're willing to actively seek out. It appears that automaker Kia has decided to go with the exact opposite strategy. Reader Brooks writes in to point us to the news that Kia's new marketing director in the US doesn't want people entertained:

"We don't want to spend a good chunk of our time in a 30-second spot trying to entertain people."

That's part of his plan to move away from a series of rather entertaining commercials that have provided plenty of free advertising for the firm, as people passed them around virally. Apparently, Kia would prefer that no one help them advertise and, indeed, that no one actually watches their ads. Time to think again, Kia. If you want advertising to be effective, it does need to entertain people.

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Do You Really Want Your Car To Be A Rolling WiFi Hotspot?

from the might-lead-to-some-other-problems dept

Apparently Chrysler is looking to turn your car into a rolling WiFi hotspot, allowing you to connect to the internet both for the sake of accessing information, but also for providing it (such as traffic info). Of course, automakers have talked about internet access in cars before, but it hasn't gone very far -- so unless you brought your own EVDO card, you weren't doing much. But is there really a strong demand for such things? As some analysts note, it seems like the automakers may be "leapfrogging the market," when they should be focused on making cars work better with the gadgets we already have. This is a problem that has come up before. Automakers love to build new technology into their cars in order to control the experience, but that's not what consumers want. Having an MP3 player is nice, but it's easier if you can just use your iPod. Having a built in GPS system is cool, but the new Garmin has a lot more features. Working with consumer electronics devices that people buy seems like it may be a lot more sensible than trying to recreate the wheel. And, then, of course putting WiFi connectivity in cars may eventually lead to xkcd-style scenarios:

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Why Are ISPs Trying To Sell Cars And Homes?

from the diversification? dept

We all know that various broadband ISPs are trying to get away from being "just dumb pipes," by providing "value added services" that most people ignore, such as customizable home pages and email, but we had no idea that broadband providers like Time Warner and Cox are both pushing their own car selling websites as well. Plus, it appears that Cablevision is doing something similar with home sales. It seems likely that all of these companies are merely putting their brand on someone else's car lead generation service, but it really does seem like an odd service for these ISPs to be offering. While broadband providers eventually are going to have to get comfortable with the whole notion of being a dumb pipe, you'd still think that if they want to offer additional value added services, they'd at least work on things that actually were somewhat related to the broadband they were providing.

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Can Cars Ever Be Too Safe?

from the i-want-a-giant-spike-on-my-steering-wheel dept

Whenever technology begins to take over, there are those who worry about what's "lost" in relying too heavily on technology. Remember people who said that kids wouldn't understand math if they used calculators? Or those who are now afraid that kids won't be able to write because they spend so much time typing? Or those fears that we're all so used to Google being available all the time, that we're letting our memory go? Along those lines, Wired is asking if all of the next generation of safety features in cars means that we're becoming too complacent as drivers. After all, with new technologies that effectively take over for a driver if it looks like a crash is about to happen, or at the very least try to alert the driver of that possibility, perhaps people will start relying on the technology too much. When it comes to driving, we've certainly seen a few too many examples of drivers trusting their GPS devices over their own eyes. So, it's not out of the realm of possibility (especially with technology being as unreliable as it often is) that people will become so reliant on these technologies that they'll become somewhat more careless, but that hardly seems like a good reason to stop this type of technology from moving forward. After all, you could take it to the extreme, and note that if everyone drove around with giant spikes on their steering wheels instead of airbags, everyone would drive a lot more carefully -- but no one wants that to happen.

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Company Betting On GPS-Based Driving Tax

from the we-know-where-you've-been-driving dept

Back in 2003, the state of Oregon considered a driving tax, which would involve putting GPS devices on cars so the government could see how far you drove, and then tax you for it. The idea being that those who drive more should pay a larger portion of taxes to support the roads they drive on. Of course, for many, many people, the idea of the government keeping tabs on where you drive and how far you go seems rather Big Brotherish -- and those people note that you can accomplish pretty much the same thing (making heavy drivers pay more taxes) simply by taxing gasoline. Soon afterwards, the head of California's DMV suggested that a similar taxing and tracking plan made sense. Over in the UK, they've looked at similar proposals as well. It certainly seems a bit early to bet on such a concept as the next big thing, but that apparently hasn't stopped one company from building a device for exactly this purpose and showing it off at a recent conference. The company is smart in positioning it less as a device for tracking drivers and more as a way of "creating toll roads out of every road." The News.com article then goes on to rail against the very idea of toll roads -- but perhaps that's because they're quite rare here in northern California. In other parts of the country, they're a lot more common. Rather than worrying about the toll road aspect, it seems like the idea of government agencies having immediate access to information about where you drove at what time is a lot more troublesome.

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