Techdirt. Stories about "adobe" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "adobe"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 7 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Fixing Photos And Fooling Folks Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110826/01372215702/dailydirt-fixing-photos-fooling-folks.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110826/01372215702/dailydirt-fixing-photos-fooling-folks.shtml
  • Adobe presented a photo fixing feature that can almost magically un-blur digital images. That video could use some "enhance" capabilities for itself. [url]
  • Xerox labs has created software that can predict whether or not a photography will be aesthetically pleasing. Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder, but now there's an algorithm to help predict it. [url]
  • Virtual fashion models are about to replace human models in advertising. H&M has already started using completely computer-generated lingerie/swimsuit models on its website. Some people are complaining about being tricked by the fake people, but fake people aren't going away anytime soon. [url]
  • Maybe you can fool some of the people some of the time, but there's software that will point out photoshopped images. "It seems the scientific community is very aggressive about beautifying its images." [url]
  • To discover more interesting photography-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  
    • By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110826/01372215702     Thu, 5 May 2011 07:11:16 PDT How Adobe Drives Infringement Of Its Products Through Incompatibility Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110421/02013513984/how-adobe-drives-infringement-its-products-through-incompatibility.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110421/02013513984/how-adobe-drives-infringement-its-products-through-incompatibility.shtml highly questionable tactics in "raiding" companies and accusing them of having infringing software and forcing them to pay up. And, yet, at the same time, its own actions may be one of the biggest causes of infringement of its software. Part of it is pricing. Adobe's products have become something of a standard in the design world, and because of that, there's something of a monopoly tax (though, some new entrants really are trying to break that). But, as Joe Karaganis pointed out a few weeks ago (yes, this one's old, but I'm catching up), Adobe seems to go to ridiculous lengths to make things worse for paying customers by not making some of its products backwards compatible. That's fine if only you are using the product. But when -- as is almost always the case in design -- there are collaborative efforts where files need to be shared, it's deathly. And Adobe seems to have perfected death by incompatibility:
    Like a lot of publishing projects, the production of MPEE was a small scale collaboration involving free lance help for book layout, maps, and proofing. Once the text is laid out in publishing software (for us, InDesign), all of these stages are most easily done in InDesign. Here, we learned a painful lesson. Adobe has released 3 versions of InDesign in 4 years. All of them break compatibility with the previous versions. So when our layout designer (CS3) handed the doc off to our map illustrator (CS4), the document saved up and was no longer readable by the former. We bought CS5 in our Columbia U office (via a not-ridiculously-priced academic license at $300), but the original layout had used Mac fonts, which the PC rendered differently. Ultimately, everyone had to upgrade to the trial version of CS5, and then the clock was ticking and we had 1 month to finish.
    Adobe's response to all of this is, effectively, "well, buy a copy of all versions." Easier said than done, of course, and that's where it helps drive unauthorized infringement. Many people will buy one version, but feel that it's somewhat extortionate to force people to buy the latest version just to open files.

    Now, some may point out that this is Adobe's way of doing implicit price discrimination. If it's not really enforcing copyright on most players, then those who are able to afford the upgrades do, and those who can't, don't (but likely get unauthorized versions). And that would work if there wasn't such a huge risk in doing so. When the BSA actively urges employees to "rat out" their employers, and seems, at times, to relish going after small businesses, this creates serious chilling effects.

    Of course, it also seems like it should be an opportunity for others in the market. To date, it's definitely been difficult for others to get into the market -- and part of that is the proprietary nature of the way Adobe saves files. Opening that up would definitely drive significantly more competition (which is why Adobe doesn't want to do it). So how do people break that cycle? When the "lock-in" from the user base is pretty strong, how is it possible to get people to move to solutions that aren't so anti-consumer? Alternatively, how could Adobe itself adjust, so that it's more reasonable?

    I would argue that even if Adobe's lock-in position is dominant today, it won't always be, and pissing off consumers with ridiculous stunts like this won't help. If Adobe's smart, it'll head off competitors not by continuing this sort of anti-consumer behavior, but by focusing on continuing to add more value to the products, while making them more consumer friendly. Many people are happy to buy Adobe products. But forcing them to buy multiple versions makes them a lot less happy. That may be good for the bottom line in the short run, but it's really risky in the long run.

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    ]]>     you're-not-helping http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110421/02013513984     Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:48:51 PDT Tons Of Companies Sued Over Broad Patent On Controlling Workstations In A Computer Network Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100622/0302119916.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100622/0302119916.shtml Glyn Moody points us to the news of a lawsuit that has been filed against 26 different software companies for violating an incredibly broad patent (5,832,511) on "Workgroup network manager for controlling the operation of workstations within the computer network" (say that 10 times fast). The list of companies sued is a who's who in software:
    Apple, Activision, Adobe, Autodesk, Capcom, Citrix, Corel, Dassault, Delcam, Square Enix, Electronic Arts, Frontrange Solutions, IBM, Intuit, Konami, Digital Entertainment, Maximizer Software, Nuance, Parametric Technology, Sage Software, Sega, Skype, SPSS, Teradata, THQ and Legacy Interactive
    I'm sure none of those companies could have possibly come up with a system for controlling the operation of workstations within a computer network without this patent. At some point, isn't the fact that such a vast number of companies appear to have come up with the same basic thing independently a perfect prima facie case of obviousness?

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    ]]>     sue,-sue,-sue,-sue http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100622/0302119916     Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:58:59 PDT Apple: Closed, Proprietary Systems Are Bad (Unless They're Our Own) Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100429/1107129242.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100429/1107129242.shtml "Thoughts on Flash" posted on the Apple site. In short, he says that Adobe looking out just for its own interests in drawing developers to its "100% proprietary" Flash ecosystem while Apple supports a great, open standards-based world. But just as we pointed out a couple of weeks ago when Apple moved to block cross-platform development tools, regardless of what Apple says, its interest is locking developers into its Apple-controlled and dominated ecosystem. Nearly every accusation Jobs levels at Adobe and its products can be made about Apple and the way it seeks to control iPhone app development. Jobs brings up Apple's support for open Web standards, but that's really little more than a red herring to distract attention from how Apple wants to lock down developers into its own ecosystem. Jobs makes it clear that he has no interest in developers using any platform apart from the iPhone, and any tool that helps them do so is worthy of his scorn. So for him to talk about supporting Web standards -- with the point being that they're standards, available across platforms -- is disingenuous when Apple's strategy for apps is guilty of pretty much everything he accuses Adobe of. None of this, on a strategic level, is particularly reprehensible, they're just business decisions (even if we don't agree with the approach). But Apple's apparent insistence on playing by a different set of rules to everyone else, and the hot air that accompanies it, grates just a little bit.

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    ]]>     do-as-I-say-not-as... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100429/1107129242     Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:33:00 PDT Apple Reminds Everybody That It Controls The iPhone Ecosystem Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100412/0850488972.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100412/0850488972.shtml blocks developers from using cross-platform development tools and third-party development environments. So, for instance, if a developer already had an app written in .NET, they can no longer use something like Monotouch to port it to the iPhone. There has been a lot of speculation that this was just the latest step in the ongoing spat between Apple and Adobe, since the latter company will soon release a Flash-to-iPhone compiler, triggering a "go screw yourself Apple" from an Adobe employee.

    But this move is actually bigger than that: it's Apple's attempt to lock developers in solely to the iPhone. Steve Jobs claims "intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform", and they do -- from Apple's perspective. By requiring developers to use Apple's tools and follow its rules, the hope is that developers will follow along blindly and develop first for the iPhone, since it's currently the best monetized channel to market for them, and then will develop for other platforms later, if at all. The issue for Apple, though, is that it's not competing in a vacuum. Everybody and their mother are opening app stores, with other major smartphone platforms like Android and BlackBerry building theirs into viable competitors for the Apple channel. And as the App Store continues to get flooded with apps and becomes more competitive (and it becomes more difficult for developers to earn a living there), its position at the top of the pile is far from assured. At that point, heavy restrictions on developers and the closed ecosystem becomes a real burden for the company, not a benefit.

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    ]]>     from-the-do-you-have-permission-for-that?-dept. http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100412/0850488972     Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:33:06 PST Secretive Patent Holder Sues Lots Of Companies For Remote Activation Software Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091216/0819597385.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091216/0819597385.shtml Brian points us to the news of yet another questionable patent lawsuit filed by yet another shell company, yet again in Eastern Texas against a ton of software companies. The patent in question (5,222,134) is for a "secure system for activating personal computer software at remote locations," and was originally filed back in 1991 and granted in 1993 -- meaning that the patent is actually nearing end of life. Odd, then, that it was suddenly noticed that all these companies were infringing. The lawsuit is filed by a shell company called BetaNet, and no one seems willing to speak. The lawyers representing BetaNet won't say who is behind the company, or how they even got the patent. This is typical. Many of these types of lawsuits are filed by shell companies to hide who is actually behind them. As for the defendants, here's the list:
    Adobe, Apple, Arial Software, Autodesk, Carbonite, Corel, Kodak, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, McAfee, Online Holdings, Oracle, Rockwell, Rosetta Stone, SAP, Siemens, and Sony.
    Obviously, none of those companies could have come up with ways to remotely activate software without this patent (yes, that's sarcasm). As the Register notes in the link above, even some of the software products listed as violating this patent don't seem to involve activation at all, raising serious questions about how they could possibly violate this patent. This sounds like yet another case of someone having read the book Rembrandt's in the Attic and deciding to go trolling for companies to sue with a meaningless patent.

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    ]]>     gotta-get-it-done-before-bilski http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091216/0819597385     Wed, 7 Oct 2009 09:40:00 PDT Eolas Is Baaaaaaaaack; And It's Suing Everyone Over Embeddable Web Widgets Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091006/1718536434.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091006/1718536434.shtml 5,838,906) on browser plugins. The company sued Microsoft, and a long drawn-out battle ensued. Even though web inventor Tim Berners-Lee presented prior art and asked the USPTO to invalidate Eolas' ridiculously broad and obvious patent, the USPTO eventually upheld the patent (after initially rejecting claims). Even as Microsoft began presenting evidence that it actually had made use of the technology in question before Eolas applied for its patent, losses in the courts and the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case eventually resulted in Microsoft agreeing to settle rather than continue to fight.

    Since then (two years ago), plenty of people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, concerning Eolas' plans to sue others. Now we know why it waited. It's now received a new patent -- a continuation patent, which is often used to abuse the patent system by putting forth a broad patent, then filing for continuations to make changes that let an earlier "invention" cover technologies that later become popular. In this case, the new patent (7,599,985), which basically just extends the earlier patent on browser plugins, and extends it to javascript widgets. Yes, those embeddable widgets used all over the web? It appears that Eolas thinks that those are infringing and everyone should pay up.

    The new lawsuit has been filed against Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, Go Daddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Staples, Sun, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube. Apparently, starting small isn't part of the plan. Not surprisingly, Eolas filed in Eastern Texas using McKool Smith -- one of the most popular law firms representing patent holding firms in East Texas.

    I am honestly curious how patent system defenders, who are also programmers, can defend this. I'm sure non-programmers will claim that the patent is valid, but I can't imagine how anyone who has any knowledge of basic programming principles can claim that such a patent is valid. In the meantime, tons of companies doing an incredibly basic thing on the web will now have to waste millions of dollars fighting a ridiculous patent lawsuit. How is this promoting innovation in any way shape or form?

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    ]]>     because-otherwise... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091006/1718536434     Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:04:52 PDT Copyright Infringement Requires A Lot More Than Vague Similarities Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090610/2159205195.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090610/2159205195.shtml Michael Scott points us to a story about a lawsuit accusing Adobe of copyright infringement for its InDesign software product. The complaint was from a company called Brookhaven Typesetting Services. The judge sided with Adobe -- and it isn't difficult to see why. What is difficult is figuring out how or why Brookhaven thought it had a case. The company apparently had a page layout software product called K2 back in the early 90s. At some point, the company tried to license it to Aldus, who had a popular page layout software called PageMaker -- including sending Aldus the source code. Aldus, of course, was eventually bought by Adobe, and Adobe eventually released InDesign as a replacement for PageMaker. So what's the complaint? Well, when InDesign was in development, its code name was K2. So, yes, it was a similar page layout software, and the code name was the same as Brookhaven's product name. So you could see where Brookhaven would be initially suspicious. But the problem was that there was no fire behind the smoke. A comparison of the two products' source code showed no similarities whatsoever. The product was clearly entirely separate. Yet, once Brookhaven lost the case... it still appealed, only to have now lost again. For some reason, some people seem to think that any similarity at all is copyright infringement, but that's simply not true.

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    ]]>     ain't-the-same http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090610/2159205195     Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:56:24 PDT Will The Freemium Model Work For Photoshop? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080327/144009669.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080327/144009669.shtml launching a free web-based low-end version of Adobe Photoshop. The idea is that Adobe hopes this will convince people to upgrade to the for-fee desktop software packages or (potentially) higher end online offerings from Adobe. This should be an interesting experiment for a variety of reasons. First, it definitely makes sense for Adobe to head down this path -- because if it didn't others would pop up and do the same (in fact there already are a few web-based Photoshop clones out there). So, joining this space earlier, rather than later, gives Adobe a chance to help define it, rather than be defined by it.

    Adobe also has an advantage in the fact that it dominates this market. Even with free offerings like The Gimp out there, many graphic designers and photographers swear by the Photoshop interface and tools. The question, though, is how well this offering will be adopted. There are already some concerns about performance, which can matter a great deal when doing image editing. Furthermore, if this free online offering is there to serve as a way to push people to sign up for paid offerings, there will be pressures on the development team not to make the product as good as can be -- and that will keep open a wide opportunity for others to come in and provide a better product. No matter what, it's nice to see yet another large traditional client-side software provider experimenting with web-based offerings. Finally, simply porting a desktop software to the web isn't all that appealing. Services like Writely took off not because they were word processing clones (or free) but because they offered something useful that was different. In the case of Writely, it was the ability to do real-time collaboration over a document. So as long as Adobe focuses on creating those useful things that are different than what can be done on the desktop client, this could have some potential. But merely moving a feature-lacking version of a desktop client to the web probably isn't enough.

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    ]]>     may-be-a-tough-call http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080327/144009669     Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:38:00 PST Why Is Adobe Trying To Add DRM To Flash? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080220/121537306.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080220/121537306.shtml Adobe's plans to add DRM to Flash. Flash has become something of a defacto standard online, and it's partly the lack of included DRM that allowed this to happen, encouraging creative uses, such as mashups. However, with the latest version of Flash, apparently Adobe wants to include DRM. As the EFF notes, this clearly is not to stop copyright infringements -- as no DRM has ever stopped copyright infringement. However, thanks to the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, it will make it possible for Adobe to block out competitors from making tools and players to work on Flash, by failing to license that DRM to them as well. This was not the purpose of the DMCA at all.

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    ]]>     anti-competitive-reasons http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080220/121537306     Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:42:00 PST Adobe Spying On Its Customers Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071228/020818.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071228/020818.shtml Valleywag, Adobe's CS3 design software includes a system to provide your usage data quietly to a "behavioral analytics" firm named Omniture. Of course, it does this without ever asking you if you want some random company knowing every time you use this piece of software. While it may not be doing anything nefarious, this certainly has all the hallmarks of spyware, including the fact that it tries to (weakly) disguise the connection to Omniture by making it look like it's simply pinging your local network. It's really amazing that companies keep doing this type of thing thinking that people won't catch on. There may be plenty of legitimate reasons for tracking the usage of a piece of software -- but if so, why not be upfront about it and let the user of the software opt-in to sharing his or her data? Yet another reason to use a firewall that catches these sorts of sneaky outbound connections. Update: John Dowdell, an Adobe employee (and long time Techdirt reader) has replied in the comments, noting that he's talking to folks at Adobe to find out the whole story, but he thinks it's the "live update" function. I'm not sure I understand why a live update function would call an analytics firm -- or why the ping to that analytics firm should be disguised as a local network ping, but that's the story coming out of Adobe right now. Will update again if any more details become clear. Update 2: Further response from Adobe here. It explains what the connection does and also admits that the company should have done a better job making it clear.

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    ]]>     now-that's-just-not-very-nice http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071228/020818     Mon, 1 Oct 2007 07:08:00 PDT Suddenly Everyone Wants An Online Office Suite Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071001/004939.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071001/004939.shtml competed with Microsoft's dominant office suite offering, noting that it was looking increasingly like Microsoft supposed monopolistic domination of the space might not be as strong as some (i.e., European regulators) believed. It certainly looks like more companies smell blood in the water. Adobe has now announced that it has purchased Virtual Ubiquity, makers of an online word processor called Buzzword, just to throw some more well-backed competition into the space. Of course, at some point, you have to wonder how this market shakes out. Obviously, Microsoft is still dominant, but can that continue when it charges so much against free products? The real question, though, may be what everyone else in the market can do to compete. We recently had the Techdirt Insight Community tackle exactly that issue for a client, and the experts there came up with a few key areas that online office suite providers should specialize in to differentiate themselves from both Microsoft and Google in the space. We can't share that specific analysis, but if you're in that space and want the Community to help you craft a strategy to stand out and succeed, contact us.

    In the meantime, while I can't reveal what they said, I can give you my own quick analysis for free. It's going to be very difficult for most of these online office suites to get much traction if they don't have a larger platform to plug into. Players like Zoho and Thinkfree are basically trying to build that platform from scratch, but they'll probably need to open up more to third party developers if they want to really gain traction. Google can succeed in the space, in part just by being Google -- but also as it continues to integrate its office suite offerings into other parts of Google. If and when Google finally does realize that it's become a platform play, then perhaps they'll open up the ability to develop apps on top of Google's office apps as well. On Adobe's side, they're trying to build this platform, but it's unclear how much adoption it's really getting or how well they'll be able to integrate this new purchase into the platform play.

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    ]]>     how-to-compete? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071001/004939