In a moment gamers around the world have been awaiting for years, one of gaming’s most vocal and extreme critics, attorney Jack Thompson, has been disbarred. Best known for his attacks on the Grand Theft Auto series and publicized sparring with gaming advocates like the authors of Penny Arcade, Thompson’s over-the-top methods were also the final straw that lead the Supreme Court of Florida to take away his license to practice law.
Tag Archive: Thompson
PayPal Turns 10
It’s 10 years since the concept became concrete. The idea was simple enough – letting customers pay online merchants easily, without revealing personal details, and at the same time letting merchants receive payment quickly.
And so PayPal was born.
Along the way, as well as helping people, it’s made its founders rich, to the tune of the $1.5 billion eBay paid to acquire the service six years ago.
The company was put together by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who, among them, have gone on to help create sites like LinkedIn and YouTube.
Vizio Sued Over MPEG Video Patents
A number of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-definition televisions have filed a patent suit against low-cost HDTV maker Vizio, claiming the company is violating some 15 patents key to supporting MPEG-2 video in its products. According to the complaint, both the individual companies—which include heavy hitters like Sony, Samsung, Mitsubishi, and Phiips—has pursued Vizio about licensing the patents, but the company has refused to deal with them individually or with the MPEG Licensing Authority trade group. The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan on June 2; other parties to the suit include Columbia University of New York, Victor Co. of Japan, and Thompson; the suit seeks an order to prevent Vizio from using the patents, as well as financial compensation.
BBC iPlayer For Mac This Year
It was a decision that raised a lot of hackles. But when the BBC officially launched its iPlayerservice that lets people stream or download programs and watch them for a week after they were first aired, it was only available for PC. It’s still that way, but at least there’sfinally hope for Mac users. In a blog posting, BBC director general Mark Thompson wrote, "I hope this good news is evidence of the hard work that the BBC is committing tosupporting other platforms." It’s a little late, but certainly better than not at all. Thompson defended the decision to initially release just a PC version by explaining that itwas a way to make the service available quickly to the majority of users. "Were we to choose to not develop any systems or services until they could be received by every single individuallicence-fee payer, our capacity for development and innovation – in the interest of serving those who fund our services – would be severely limited." So those Mac users who miss theweek’s episode of Dr. Who will have to wait a little while longer to catch up. Or just, er, look elsewhere.
SanDisk Sues 25 Companies On Memory Patents
In a massive legal move, storage and portable media player developer SanDisk has filed three patent infringement lawsuits alleging some 25 companies that manufacture, import, or sell everything from USB flash drives to multimedia cards to portable media players infringe on SanDisk patents. The suits were filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin and with the U.S. International Trade Commission; the suits allege that the companies are actively infringing on SanDisk’s system-level patents. SanDisk is seeking an injunction on manufacturing infringing products and importing them into the United States, as well as unspecified monetary damages.
Epic Game Violence Debate Foiled By Secrecy
In the ongoing debate over video-game violence, no players are perhaps more vigorous and vitriolic in their opposition to one another than Jack Thompson and the guys at Penny Arcade, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. After several public quarrels through e-mail and phone calls, the duo at Penny Arcade apparently decided it best to let Thompson confront someone from the gaming industry in a face-to-face debate at their annual Penny Arcade Expo.
Samsung Supplies DirecTV With Set-Top Boxes
The shipments of more than 1 million units will be made in the latter half of this year. DirecTV holds a subscription base of 12 million persons with annual sales of US$2.3 billion.
Samsung began its set-top box businesses in 2001 and supplied Movie Beam, a product for the VoD services, to Disney in 2003.
This conflicts with earlier reports that Thompson will be suppling DirecTV with their own set-top boxes. Read that story here.
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