Snap Suing To Trademark the Word ‘Spectacles’ For Its Smart Glasses

Snap is suing the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for rejecting its application to trademark the word “spectacles” for its digital eyewear camera device. But the USPTO has maintained that “spectacles” is a generic term for smart glasses and that Snap’s version “has not acquired distinctiveness,” as required for a trademark. The Verge reports: In its complaint filed Wednesday in US District Court in California, Snap claims that the Spectacles name “evokes an incongruity between an 18th century term for corrective eyewear and Snap’s high-tech 21st century smart glasses. SPECTACLES also is suggestive of the camera’s purpose, to capture and share unusual, notable, or entertaining scenes (i.e., “spectacles”) and while also encouraging users to make ‘spectacles’ of themselves.” Snap first introduced its camera-equipped Spectacles in 2016 (“a wearable digital video camera housed in a pair of fashionable sunglasses,” according to its complaint), which can take photos and videos while the user wears them and connects with the Snap smartphone app. […]

Snap’s new complaint posits that there’s been enough media coverage of Spectacles, bolstered by some industry awards and its own marketing including social media, to support its claim that consumers associate the word “spectacles” with the Snap brand. Snap first filed a trademark application for Spectacles in September 2016, “for use in connection with wearable computer hardware” and other related uses “among consumer electronics devices and displays.” During several rounds of back-and-forth with the company since then, the USPTO has maintained that the word “spectacles” appeared to be “generic in connection with the identified goods,” i.e. the camera glasses. Snap continued to appeal the agency’s decision. In a November 2021 opinion, the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (pdf) upheld the decision, reiterating that the word “spectacles” was a generic term that applied to all smart glasses, not just Snap’s version. Despite the publicity Snap claimed its Spectacles had received from its marketing and social media, the board noted in its opinion that Spectacles’ “social media accounts have an underwhelming number of followers, and the number of followers is surprisingly small,” which didn’t support the company’s argument that there had been a high enough level of consumer exposure to Snap’s Spectacles to claim that consumers associated the word with Snap’s brand.

In its Tuesday complaint, Snap’s attorneys argued that “spectacles is an old-fashioned term popular in the 18th century,” and that it “is not often used today in the United States,” especially by Snapchat’s young audience. “This indicates that modern-day usage of “spectacles” in the United States — especially among a younger demographic of consumers who are the relevant consumers of Snap’s SPECTACLES camera product — is not commonly understood to mean eyeglasses, and certainly not a wireless-enabled video camera product.” But the USPTO appeal board said in November that the evidence didn’t support that argument, and that the word “spectacles” still retains its generic meaning and therefore can’t be trademarked. The board noted that in its own marketing, Snap had demonstrated that its Spectacles “eyeglasses form is a feature, function and characteristic of the camera, not only functionally but aesthetically.” Snap’s lawsuit, which names acting USPTO director Drew Hirshfeld, seeks to have the appeal board’s November decision reversed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony Will Explore Building Electric Cars

At CES in Las Vegas this evening, Sony’s Chairman, President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida showed off a brand new prototype of its Vision S concept electric car, and announced that the Sony Group is starting a new division — the Sony Mobility Inc — which will start commercializing its electric vehicles. TechCrunch reports: On the CES stage during the Sony press conference, the company showed off its existing Sony Vision-S sedan, which was revealed at CES last year. This year, it also flexed a new model in the lineup, the Sony Vision-S SUV prototype. “The excitement we received after we showed off the Vision-S really encouraged us to further consider how we can bring creativity and technology to change the experience of moving from one place to another,” said Yoshida, before revealing the new Vision-S SUV prototype. “This is our new Vision-S SUV. Vision-S has been developed on a foundation of safety, adaptability and entertainment. Safety has been our No. 1 priority in creating a comfortable mobility experience. That has not changed when building this SUV. A total of 40 sensors are installed inside and outside of the vehicle to monitor safety.

“In terms of adaptability, we have connectivity that enables us to build a vehicle that continuously evolves. It also makes it possible to personalize the cabin for each user. With 5G, it enables high speed, high capacity and low-latency connectivity between the in-vehicle system and the cloud. The Vision-S also evolves mobility as an entertainment space,” said Yoshida. “The Vision-S also evolves mobility as an entertainment space, including gaming experience and audio. We have learned more about mobility through our exploration of Vision-S and through our partners who have supported this effort.” There’s been a lot of EV announcements today. Not only did GM reveal an electric version of the Chevy Silverado, but Chrysler announced plans to go all-electric by 2028, starting with the Airflow, “a concept crossover that appears to be close to ready for production,” reports Ars Technica.

BMW also unveiled color-changing paint for its vehicles that relies on the E-ink electronic paper technology found in e-readers like the Kindle.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BMW’s Color Changing Car Concept Works Just Like An E-Reader

At CES 2022, BMW unveiled color-changing paint for its vehicles that relies on the E-ink electronic paper technology found in e-readers like the Kindle. Engadget reports: [N]o, this futuristic feature is nowhere near production ready despite appearing at the show on a live demonstration vehicle, dubbed the BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink. The electrophoretic coloring material itself is applied as a vehicle body wrap but works just like it e-ink displays do in your Kindle. The wrap is embedded with millions of microcapsules each containing a negatively-charged white pigment and a positively charged-black pigment. Depending on the setting, applying an electrical charge to the material will cause either the white or black pigments to rise to the top of the microcapsule, changing the vehicle’s color in moments.

While the current iteration can only swap between a pair of colors, the palette could eventually be expanded to display a rainbow’s worth of differing shades. “This gives the driver the freedom to express different facets of their personality or even their enjoyment of change outwardly, and to redefine this each time they sit into their car,” Stella Clarke, Head of Project for the BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink, said in a prepared statement. […] E-ink exterior displays could also prove useful in more practical applications such as changing colors depending on the weather to increase a vehicle’s battery life (and therefore, range) in cold climates or reduce the need for air conditioning in balmy weather.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Crypto Platform ARBIX Flagged As a Rugpull, Transfers $10 Million

Arbix Finance, an audited and supposedly trustworthy yield farming platform, has been flagged as a ‘rugpull,’ deleting its site, Twitter, and Telegram channel and transferring $10 million worth of deposited cryptocurrency. Bleeping Computer reports: Rugpulls, otherwise known as “exit scams,” are when pseudo-anonymous platforms or cryptocurrencies are created twith the ultimate goal of collecting funds for an allegedly legitimate “service” and then disappear with deposited funds. Because decentralized networks are inherently untrustworthy, entities like CertiK attempt to evaluate them through audits that analyze a token’s smart contracts for signs of fraud, vulnerabilities, privacy problems, etc. In Arbix’s case, CertiK’s conducted an audit on November 19th, 2021, whose findings had initially been a reason for users to trust Arbix Finance.

However, today CertiK tweeted that Arbix is now classified as a rugpull after the token’s smart contract was detected minting 10 million ARBIX to addresses under the owner’s control and then dumping them for Ethereum. The operators of Arbix also moved $10 million in funds deposited by users to “unverified pools,” where they were converted to Ethereum. The scammers then transferred the Ethereum to Tornado.cash, which acts as a mixer to make it harder to trace the funds. The funds and their movements are being traced, but the chances of them being recovered are slim at this point.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lawsuit Says Google Pays Apple To Keep Away From Internet Search Market

A class action lawsuit has been filed in California against Google, Apple and the CEOs of both tech giants for allegedly violating antitrust laws, according to a press release. The complaint calls for the breakup of Google and Apple into separate and independent companies in keeping with the precedent of the of Standard Oil company into Exxon, Mobile, Conoco, Amoco, Sohio, Chevron and others, the release stated. PYMNTS.com reports: Charges in the suit allege that Google and Apple have agreed that Apple would keep out of the internet search business against Google, according to the release. It also claims Google shares its search profits with Apple and gives Apple preferential treatment for all Apple devices; annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; suppression of smaller competitors to keep them from the search sector; and acquiring competing companies. Allegations also include higher advertising rates than rates that would be in a competitive system, the release stated.

Attorneys are seeking an end to the alleged billion-dollar payments to Apple from Google and asking the court to prohibit non-compete agreements between the two companies and end the profit-sharing agreement and the preferential treatment for Google on Apple devices, according to the release. “These powerful companies abused their size by unlawfully foreclosing and monopolizing major markets which in an otherwise free enterprise system would have created jobs, lowered prices, increased production, added new competitors, encouraged innovations and increased the quality of services in the digital age,” Joseph M. Alioto of Alioto Law, who is representing the plaintiffs, said in the release.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Psilocybin Has No Short- Or Long-Term Detrimental Effects In Healthy People

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, in partnership with COMPASS Pathways, has established that psilocybin can be safely administered at doses of either 10mg or 25mg to up to six participants simultaneously. King’s College London reports: The research, published in The Journal of Psychopharmacology, is an essential first step in demonstrating the safety and feasibility of psilocybin — a psychedelic drug isolated from the Psilocybe mushroom — for use within controlled settings alongside talking therapy as a potential treatment for a range of mental health conditions, including treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and PTSD. Current treatment options for these conditions are ineffective or partially effective for many people, resulting in a significant unmet need. Early research has indicated a potential for psilocybin therapy to treat these groups, but no trials have been undertaken at the scale needed for regulatory approval to make the therapy available.

The trial is the first of its kind to thoroughly investigate the simultaneous administration of psilocybin. 89 healthy participants with no recent (within 1 year) use of psilocybin were recruited. 60 individuals were randomly picked to receive either a 10mg or 25mg dose of psilocybin in a controlled environment. In addition, all participants were provided with one-to-one support from trained psychotherapists. The remaining 29 participants acted as the control group and received a placebo, also with psychological support. Participants were closely monitored for six to eight hours following administration of psilocybin and then followed up for 12 weeks. During this time, they were assessed for a number of possible changes, including sustained attention, memory, and planning, as well as their ability to process emotions. Throughout the study, there were no instances of anyone withdrawing from the study due to an adverse event, and no consistent trends to suggest that either of the psilocybin doses had any short- or long-term detrimental effects on participants.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Record 4.5 Million Americans Quit Their Jobs In November

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November while openings remained elevated, highlighting persistent churn in the labor market. The increase in departures was broad across industries and pushed the quits rate up to 3%, matching the most in data back to 2000. Meanwhile, the number of available positions fell to 10.6 million from an upwardly revised 11.1 million in October, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed Tuesday.

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a rise to 11.1 million job openings. While the drop was the largest since April 2020, vacancies remain well above pre-pandemic levels. The unprecedented level of quits — including a record 1 million in leisure and hospitality alone — suggests a lingering struggle for employers to retain talent. Meanwhile, the month’s increase in hiring showed companies were able to make at least some headway filling vacancies. The data come ahead of Friday’s monthly employment report from the Labor Department, which is currently forecast to show that the U.S. added 420,000 jobs in December. […] Total hires were little changed in November at 6.7 million. Layoffs and discharges were also steady.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty

After deliberating for more than 40 hours over six days, jurors in the Elizabeth Holmes criminal trial have found Holmes guilty on four of 11 charges of defrauding the company’s investors and patients. She was found not guilty on four counts. NPR reports: When the verdict was read, Holmes had no visible reaction. She sat masked in the courtroom and later hugged members of her family in the front row of the court. Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison, although legal experts say her sentence is likely to be less than that. During the nearly four-month federal trial in San Jose, jurors heard from over 30 witnesses called by prosecutors. Together, they painted Holmes as a charismatic entrepreneur who secured hundreds of millions of dollars in investment for a medical device that never delivered on her promises. When Theranos’ technology fell short, the government argued, Holmes covered it up and kept insisting that the machines would transform how diseases are diagnosed through blood tests. The jury’s decision followed seven days of deliberations. Still, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on three charges, which will be resolved at a later date..

Holmes took the witness stand for more than 20 hours to defend herself. She accused her ex-boyfriend and former deputy at Theranos, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, of sexual abuse, saying that clouded her sense of judgement. Balwani faces a separate fraud trial in the same court in February. Holmes also showed remorse on the stand. She said she wished she had handled some key business matters differently. But she blamed others for the downfall of Theranos. She said lab directors whom she had trusted were the ones closest to the technology. And she said Balwani, not her, oversaw the company’s financial forecasts, which were later discovered to be grossly inflated. Yet the government offered evidence that Holmes had an iron grip on Theranos’ operations. Prosecutors argued she did not stop — and even helped spread — falsehoods about the company that misled investors into pouring millions into the startup. Theranos’ value, once estimated at more than $9 billion, was ultimately squandered.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese Fusion Reactor Maintains 70 Million Degrees Celsius For More Than 17 Minutes

Bowie Estate Sells Songwriting Catalog to Warner Music

David Bowie’s estate has sold his entire songwriting catalog to Warner Music, including classics like “Space Oddity,” “Let’s Dance” and “Heroes,” in the latest blockbuster deal for music rights. The New York Times reports: Warner’s music publishing division, Warner Chappell, announced the agreement on Monday, saying that it encompassed Bowie’s entire corpus as a songwriter, from the material on his 1967 debut album, “David Bowie,” to his final album, “Blackstar,” released just before Bowie’s death in 2016 at age 69. The deal, for more than 400 songs, also includes soundtrack music; the material for Bowie’s short-lived band Tin Machine from the late 1980s and early ’90s; and other works. The price of the transaction was not disclosed, but is estimated at about $250 million. “These are not only extraordinary songs, but milestones that have changed the course of modern music forever,” Guy Moot, the chief executive of Warner Chappell, said in a statement. David Bowie, the so-called “most wired rock star on the planet,” has been featured in a number of Slashdot stories over the years.

In 2002, Bowie talked about his new album, distribution deal with Sony, and how he’s “fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.”

In the late 90s, Bowie advocated for MP3s, telling The Guardian that they “could change the entire idea of what music is — and that isn’t so bad.” Years later, he seemed to agree that concert ticket prices needed to increase to offset the rise in P2P file sharing and illegal downloads.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.