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Microsoft registers series of Smart Glass domains
Microsoft was seen running away from the Internet recently with several domain names in hand, all pointing to the company's as-yet-announced AirPlay-style app, Smart Glass. The app, for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices, is said to enable push-style media functionality with the Xbox 360.Of the domains in question, Microsoft registered a series of "Microsoft smart glass" and "Xbox smart glass" addresses. Well, except for xboxsmartglass.com, which was snatched away by someone with faster fingers in China. That rascal! Here's hoping that the company unveils Smart Glass and its hot .info web addresses in the coming days.
ICANN stops taking custom domain names at 7PM ET, details the TLD explosion June 13th
ICANN anticipated that we'd see the first fruits of its open season on top-level domains (TLDs) roughly a year after the hunt began; sure enough, it's winding down applications tonight. If you have the $185,000 plus $25,000 per year to make a domain your own, you've got until midnight GMT (7PM ET) to get that custom spin on the web. Don't think that you'll get the rubber stamp right away, though. ICANN plans to detail the requests on June 13th and consider any objections over similarity or multiple bids for the same name. If all goes smoothly, the first generic TLDs will be active within nine months, while those who face a fight could be waiting roughly one to two years. We're just hoping someone had the courtesy to pick up .gadget for us -- not that ICANN's worried about a gap in registrations after taking $352 million in fees and over 2,000 applications so far.
Chanel counterfeiters beware: US federal court orders domain names seized and de-indexed
We're well versed in the art of the gadget KIRF 'round these parts, but counterfeiting's a problem faced by the fashion world, too. Chanel filed suit in federal court to stop hundreds of websites from selling KIRFs of its gear, and the judge recently ordered the seizure and transfer of those domain names to GoDaddy to hold in trust until the case is resolved. It was also decreed that they be stricken from the indices of search engines and social media -- including, but not limited to Bing, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. So it seems the federal courts have obtained the ability to order that legal remedy (the de-indexing) be given by companies not party to a lawsuit (Google, et al), though we know of no law granting it such powers. Of course, we can't know for sure until one of the accused copycat sites decides to lawyer up and fight back. Until then, fashion KIRFs beware: the feds can apparently wipe every trace of you from the internet.
US judge won't return seized URL to Rojadirecta.com, absolutamente no
Welcome to the homepage of popular sports streaming and p2p site Rojadirecta.com. Why all the birdy logos and harsh words about going to prison? Well, it's a convoluted story, which began when a whole bunch of sports sites -- including Rojadirecta -- were summarily seized by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, based on "probable cause to believe" they'd been involved in copyright infringement. Awkwardly, the Spanish owners of this particular site had already been cleared of any wrongdoing by courts in Spain, but this counted for nada because their .com URL was American. So, their one hope was to convince a US judge that the seizure violated the First Amendment and should be overturned. This case won support from freedom of speech activists like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but on Thursday it finally failed. The presiding judge ruled that no rights had been violated, because Rojadirecta could easily set up shop at a non-US address and continue to function. Bad news indeed for the Spaniards -- maybe they should move to the UK, where due process takes a whole lot longer.
Sun.com, the twelfth oldest domain on the internet, will be decommissioned on June 1st
Sun Microsystems, one of the original gangsters responsible for supplying all the electronics and infrastructure we now know as the internet, ceased to be Sun Microsystems in January of last year. Assimilated into the Oracle juggernaut, its operations no longer carry that familiar logo and soon they'll no longer even be referenced in the same spot on the internet. Yes, after 25 years of answering the call of sun.com, the company that no longer is will be letting go of its former domain name as well. The site has already been redirecting users to Oracle for quite a while, but come June 1st, it'll be like the Sun we knew had never even risen. [Thanks, Jeroen]
Bungie web domains, copyright filings discovered for 'Seven Seraphs,' 'Osiris,' 'New Monarchy,' and 'Dead Orbit'
This past summer, while we were busy jamming to Beach Boys classics and getting our tan on, Bungie was secretly filing copyright claims for a handful of previously unheard phrases and associating web domains with each. "Seven Seraphs," "Osiris," "New Monarchy," and "Dead Orbit" were all copyrighted by the developer, and domain registrations have been spotted. Like the previous "Bungie Aerospace" domain registration, a third-party company was paid to handle the paperwork, lest a paper trail lead back to Bungie (ahem). Supererogatory discovered the domain registrations and copyright filings, and noted that while the phrase's descriptions denote them as "artwork," that description can also include "all sorts of promotional and marketing, like logos." Perhaps logos for that super secret Activision project (the one that might have a persistent world)? We just don't know (yet).
