Adapta: Enterprise solutions press review (ERP, SCM, CRM, BI, Web2.0)

The company also accused Facebook of not having a good-faith belief in the counterclaim it filed almost a month ago.

“Today Yahoo! filed additional claims against Facebook in U.S. District Court related to two additional patents on which Facebook infringes,” Yahoo said in an emailed statement.

“As we have stated previously, Yahoo!’s technologies are the foundation of our business that engages over 700 million monthly unique visitors and represent the spirit of innovation upon which Yahoo! is built. We intend to vigorously protect these technologies for our customers and shareholders.”

In the face of the new claims, Facebook was more succinct: “We remain perplexed by Yahoo’s erratic actions,” a Facebook spokesperson said, also in an emailed statement. “We disagree with these latest claims and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.”

With the “erratic” dig, Facebook seems to be depicting Yahoo as the tech-company equivalent of a crotchety old man. Considering Yahoo specifically calls out Facebook for using recently acquired patents as the basis of its lawsuit — even though some of the patents in Yahoo’s claim were acquired as well — the image may well stick.

A quick recap: Shortly after appointing former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as CEO, Yahoo warned Facebook that the social network was infringing on its intellectual property — specifically, 10 patents that relate to Internet technologies.

It then went ahead and sued Facebook a few weeks later, becoming something of a tech-industry pariah in the process.

Facebook, rather than try to end the suit with a quick settlement, set out to arm itself for a retaliatory strike. The social network quickly acquired many patents from both IBM and Microsoft. Facebook also countersued Yahoo — saying that it, too, was guilty of patent infringement.

The whole affair would be funny if it wasn’t a symptom of a wider, all-out patent war. In the last year we’ve seen Apple, Google, Microsoft and a host of others sue the pants of each other, and a company that barely does anything can claim to hold a patent on the web itself.

So this latest salvo in the Facebook-Yahoo patent war likely won’t be the last. What’s your take on the ongoing dispute? Sound off in the comments.

More About: Facebook, patents, Yahoo

Deciding to leave your full-time job for your startup isn’t easy. But what happens when one founder is on board and the other would rather continue to take home a steady paycheck?

That issue plays itself out in the third episode of TechStars, where one company’s co-founder decides to stick with their day job instead of join the accelerator program full-time. The problem: she still wants to keep her unvested equity in the startup she helped create.

In this episode, we also see the TechStars startups deal with challenges defining their business models and face questions from investors over their expertise in the industry they’re trying to transform (New York City real estate).

Check out the latest episode above, and be sure to leave your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

TechStars on Mashable

Getting into a top startup accelerator program can make the difference between a company making it big and being lost in the ether. Mashable is going behind the scenes of that experience by bringing the show TechStars to our community.

We’ve made the entire series available on-demand, and chopped it up into short segments that are ideal for Internet viewing. Over the course of the next couple of months, we’ll also be sharing each episode as part of a Mashable post, giving our community a chance to discuss the themes of each show in our comments section. You can read more about TechStars on Mashable here.

More About: mashable video, techstars

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We spoke with Linda Schupack, EVP of Marketing at AMC, about pitch process for the key art around The Pitch that the network engaged in with its agency, Empire Designs. Schupack walked us through the process of deciding on the right elements for the campaign, as well as some of the rejected concepts.

The Pitch, which premieres on April 30, 2012 at 9:00pm, is a show that brings viewers into the world of advertising as two agencies compete head-to-head to win the work of a new client. Each week, different agencies face off to win the work of a new client, including major brands such as Subway or the environmental solution leader Waste Management.

When deciding on the key art for the show, Schupack says the network needed to focus on understanding the show, its audience and what elements of the show will appeal to the broadest audience.

“With The Pitch, we felt that it was the real-life competition aspect, the personal drama and the sense of high-stakes/real stakes,” Schupack says.

Schupack also wanted to focus on some of the differentiating factors between The Pitch and other unscripted shows. “We wanted a campaign that felt different from other unscripted shows out there,” Schupack adds.

Focusing on the competition aspect of the show, Empire Designs initially offered up some concepts with real people in a competition setting. The problem with this approach, says Schupack, was because there wasn’t a set of recurring characters, the network would be forced with using stock photography of people — never an ideal situation.

After that idea was nixed, Empire and AMC went for a more high concept and typographical campaign.

Early iterations showcased office supplies used as weapons. These concepts, which included Sharpie’s turned into bow and arrows, were popular, but the network was concerned that the concept wouldn’t be able to work digitally.

An episode of The Pitch premiered earlier this month on AMCTV.com and on Netflix — and the network anticipates a lot of online and digital interaction with the series — thus, it was essential that the key art translate across different mediums.

Ultimately, it was the pitch process itself that led Empire Designs to arrive at the final idea: An exploration and visual representation of the pitch process itself.

Click through the gallery to see some of the various iterations of this campaign before Empire Designs and AMC finally found the winner.

Memo

Click here to view this gallery.

And the Winner Is

This is the final key art AMC chose for the campaign.

Let us know what you think of the various concepts, as well as the final choice. The Pitch premieres April 30 on AMC.

More About: amc tv, Marketing, pitching, The Pitch

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Mice-a-Palooza

More Microsoft mice than I've ever seen in one spot.

Click here to view this gallery.

Microsoft has been making hardware for a long time. That’s right — the company best known for its world-dominating operating system, Windows, has been spitting out gadgets for 30 years.

And while they haven’t always been pretty, some of these devices have become industry, business and household staples.

During my recent trip to Microsoft’s sprawling Redmond campus, I was led into a room that one might call the hardware vault. This relatively small conference room did not include every piece of hardware Microsoft has ever made, but it did offer an impressive collection and glimpses of more than a few classics.

There were many mice — who does not remember their first Microsoft Mouse? — some early ones, some new. Keyboards? Yes, a ton them. Here and there, I also spotted a bunch of yellowing, older gear and a few things I’ve never seen before.

Noticeably absent was some of Microsoft’s successful hardware: the Xbox (any generation) and the new Kinect. Also missing: Microsoft’s misguided forays into sound cards and routers. Fortunately, I can still close my eyes and see them.

Microsoft is quite proud of its hardware history and some of its latest innovations. In recent years, it’s done some impressive stuff with mice. The latest Explorers offer haptic feedback and, with new Windows 8 drivers, will allow you to scroll horizontally (if you’ve seen the new Metro interface, this actually makes a lot of sense).

Microsoft Senior Manager Ben Reed told me that as the world moved to mobile computing (laptops now outsell desktops), a person’s mouse has become “a vehicle of self-expression.” To wit, Reed proudly showed off a collection of designer Wireless Mobile Mice Microsoft commissioned last year and some of the latest designs they just introduce in March. The limited-edition mice are only on sale for six months.

As he spoke he used what I consider the best Microsoft mouse ever made, the new wireless ArcTouch mouse. It’s a device that literally changes shape to fit the curve of your hand.

To commemorate 30 years of hardware, Microsoft took 30 of those mice and had them hand-painted and then numbered. So now they’re unique, not for sale and, yes, Mashable has one of them.

Check out some of the classic hardware and Microsoft’s new gear in the gallery, and don’t miss the 30th Anniversary Mouse. Later this week, we’ll tell you how you can win it.

More About: Hardware, keyboard, mice, microsoft

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Ethan W. is on his way to YouTube stardom. A few new videos of the smiley six-year-old playing classic piano pop songs have been uploaded, and one of them — Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” — has caught fire on the web, garnering nearly 80,000 views in three days.

We’ve seen many remarkable kid musicians on YouTube, but Ethan is particularly amazing. According to the description on the videos, he’s playing the songs from memory — in some cases, after hearing them only once.

Check out more of his stellar performances below. It may well be the best thing you’ve seen all day.

1. "Piano Man" - Billy Joel

The video that hit it big.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: autism, Cute, features, Kids, Music, videos, viral

Three photo-loving engineers want to simplify digital photography with a simple cord-and-phone-app combo that’s gaining immense support on Kickstarter.

Photographers, meet the TriggerHappy Camera Remote — a device that turns your phone into an external camera remote for most modern Nikon and Canon DSLRs.

Though it’s still six days away from its Kickstarter funding deadline, TriggerHappy has blown past its original $25,000 goal. So far, the team has collected $185,247 at the time of posting. Backers who pledge $50 or more will receive the TriggerHappy cord and app. The cord will connect to nearly all iOS and Android devices through a standard audio jack.

TriggerHappy lets a user quickly snap pictures without fail and fire rapid sequences of shots with one touch. The app also allows individuals to create easy presets — automatic interval changes, duration of shots and shutter speed settings.

The app streamlines processes. Photographers can easily navigate the app instead of scrolling through every tab within the camera to find specific menus. High dynamic range time-lapse series and complicated functions are easy to set.

The patent-pending invention can, among other features, trigger a camera, manage time-lapse photography and shoot in HDR mode.

The team of engineers behind the TriggerHappy unit and app are Kevin Harrington, Brett Gottula and Luke Duffield. With the money raised, the engineers will incorporate new features to the app including face-detection capabilities, lightning detection and audio waveform detection.

The TriggerHappy Camera Remote will cost $69.99 plus shipping. There are adapters for most Nikon and Canon models. TriggerHappy can also be used with many Kodak, FujiFilm, Sony and Olympus models.

Is there a need for TriggerHappy? What other camera functions would you like an external app for? Tell us in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Ben Fredericson

More About: camera, Canon, DSLR, kickstarter, Nikon