Pinterest’s New Business Tools ( Read The Fine Print) | MarketingVOX.com

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Pinterest took a giant step yesterday toward attracting business users when it unveiled a slew of business tools and resources. First among them, a set of “Business Terms of Service.”

Among them, a warning that you pretty much surrender your rights to anything you post there. “Pinterest and its users a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, store, display, reproduce…” (it goes on).

Second that, unlike most business arrangements, this is not a contract: Pinterest may terminate or suspend this license at any time “with our without cause or notice to you.” Third, an indemnity clause. They don’t summarize it on the Business Terms as they do for the personal terms, but the short story is that if Pinterest gets sued over your post, you pay for it.

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How to Know If You’re Involved in The Petraeus Scandal | Andy Borowitz

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WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In response to a high volume of panicked phone calls from the general public, the C.I.A. has published a new informational brochure entitled “How to Tell if You’re Involved in the Petraeus Scandal.”

The C.I.A. rushed to produce the brochure after it became clear that as many as one in three Americans may have some involvement in the Petraeus affair.

And with the scandal widening every day, “a lot of average folks out there are worried that they might somehow be involved in it without knowing,” says Carol Foyler, director of the C.I.A.’s public-information office. “This booklet should clear up a lot misunderstandings.”

The booklet includes a “simple, user-friendly checklist” that should help people determine whether they are at risk for being implicated in the scandal, she says.

“Have you ever met David Petraeus? Have you ever received and/or sent shirtless photos of an F.B.I. agent? Have you ever exchanged e-mails with Jill Kelley? Under five thousand pages of e-mails and you’re probably O.K., but anywhere between ten thousand and fifteen thousand pages of e-mails could potentially mean you’re involved in some way,” she says.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said today that he expected the Petraeus scandal to wind down by early 2015 but would not commit to an official timetable.

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Liberty, Undeterred | El Cipayo

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To minimize coverage of an anti government protest in Argentina, the government banned access to the airspace around the event to limit images that could lead a viewer to estimate the size of the crowd, or the actions of the authorities.

El Cipayo simply used a radio controlled model helicopter to get the job done, posting the videos on YouTube.

Big Brother may be here, but the common man is sharing the technology.

9 People to Remove From Your Inner Circle | Inc.com

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When you’re trying to get a business off the ground, the people you surround yourself with matter.  Keep these nine types at a distance.

You are what you eat, and you definitely are whom you associate with. The people closest to you make all the difference–in a good and a bad way.

Of course, it can be tough to find great new connections and friends to add to your inner circle; people who will support you, help you, and encourage, motivate, and inspire you.

It’s a lot easier to spot the people in your inner circle who are holding you back.

If you have people like these in your inner circle, remove them:

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C7 Chromebook; How Low They Can Go? | TechCrunch.com

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Google and Samsung recently unveiled a $249 Chromebook, which seemed like a new pricing floor for a capable, light computer that’s designed for users who spend most of their computing time on the web. Today, Google announced the new Acer C7 Chromebook on its website, which ups the ante (while lowering some specs) with a $50 cheaper Chrome OS notebook which also features an 11.6-inch display, but also boasts an Intel Core processor and a 320 GB hard drive.

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Google Android Now Powers 3 in 4 Smartphones | searchenginewatch.com

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Google’s Android platform has reached record worldwide sales numbers, according to analysts. Research firm IDC said that the Google mobile OS is the first to surpass 100 million quarterly shipments in a single quarter.

The platform powered some 136 million handsets, giving Android a 75 percent market share of all shipments. The company noted that Android also saw its shipments rise by 91.5 percent over the previous year’s quarter, a growth rate roughly double that of the smartphone market as a whole.

Analysts credit the soaring sales in part to Google’s ability to build and maintain a large ecosystem for the platform.

“Google has a thriving, multi-faceted product portfolio. Many of its competitors, with weaker tie-ins to the mobile OS, do not,” explained IDC senior research analyst Kevin Restivo. “This factor and others have led to loss of share for competitors with few exceptions.”

Second in the quarter was Apple’s iPhone.

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Canadian Supreme Court Invalidates Viagra Patent | Wired.com

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The Supreme Court of Canada is invalidating Pfizer’s patent on the popular erectile-dysfunction drug Viagra for failing to openly disclose the drug’s active ingredient, as required by Canadian intellectual property law.

The 7-0 decision Thursday to open Viagra to competition ahead of its 2014 patent expiration underscores a major difference in how the Canadian and United States courts are interpreting patent laws.

Both nations have so-called “patent bargains” that require the disclosure of a drug’s chemical compounds in enough detail so that scientists can replicate it and learn from the invention, thus benefiting society. In exchange, the inventor, in this case Pfizer, gets the exclusive rights to market the invention for a limited period.

But “sufficiency of disclosure lies at the very heart of the patent system,” the Canadian high court ruled Thursday, and “adequate disclosure in the specification is a precondition for the granting of a patent.”

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