The Oatmeal has triumphed. Matthew Inman, creator of the popular web comic and subject of one of the odder lawsuits to enchant the Internet in recent times, has raised $211,223.04 for charity and wriggled free of the charges that inspired the fundraiser in the first place.
Digital Life has a blow-by-blow account of the surprising story, but here it is in brief: A few weeks ago, Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, became the subject of a bizarre lawsuit. Seattle lawyer Charles Carreon, on behalf of a website called FunkyJunk, was pressing Inman for $20,000 in a defamation case. The funny thing was, Inman had alleged FunkyJunk had plagiarized Inman extensively and for a significant period some months earlier.
Inman turned the whole loony episode into a comic strip to bring the Internet in on the situation. While he had everyone’s attention, though, Inman also set up a donations bin on Indiegogo--for charity--to match the $20,000 that was being demanded of him. The Internet responded with that amount in 64 minutes, racking up a grand total that's more than ten times the figure Inman was hoping to achieve. Carreon then launched his own lawsuit threatening Inman and the charities he had promised the money to.
With the collapse of the cases, due to Carreon's withdrawal, Inman's now closed the fundraiser and cashed in. But before sending away all that money to do some good, he decided to post some victory photographs on his website. A bonus: Tucked in there is a snap of the custom care package he plans to mail to Charles Carreon.
AT&T Opens Up Watson Speech API To Developers
AT&T has released the API for its speech recognition software “Watson,” allowing developers to access it and integrate it into their products for devices. John Donovan, senior executive VP at AT&T, made the announcement in a blog post, and suggests a few scenarios that app developers can put the Speech API to use. He lists voice Web searches, voicemail transcription, SMS texts sent by voice, among others. More features are coming up shortly, Donovan promises. AT&T has had this software cooking a while, and has pocketed 600 patents in its making. In April, the company announced it would be making the API public.
RIM Facing Potentially Difficult Annual Shareholder Meeting
RIM is looking to save $1 billion to tide it through a precarious time by selling one of its two company jets Bloomberg has heard. Earlier, in late June, part of cost-cutting strategies, RIM announced it would be cutting 5,000 jobs after reporting a net loss of $192 million. The company is under pressure to ditch its own BlackBerry 10 OS (the first of those phones are expected to launch not until January next year) in favor of a rival OS. Evidence of these or other turnaround strategies could be revealed at RIM's annual meeting being held this afternoon, which kicked off with the re-election of the company's board.
Google, FTC Approach $22.5 Million Settlement For Safari Privacy Violation
Google and the FTC are converging on a settlement over Google’s user tracking and privacy violation via Apple’s Safari browser. Earlier this year, Google was caught installing cookies in the browser that tracked users, circumventing user-adjustable browser settings designed to disable tracking. The Wall Street Journal has heard that Google has agreed to a sum of $22.5 million as atonement for the transgression--a record sum as far as settlements go, but a tiny fraction of Google’s revenues, all things considered.
Kickstarter Expanding To Fund U.K. Projects
In a tweet late yesterday, crowdfunding enterprise Kickstarter revealed that it's taking its first proper steps overseas and will, beginning in the fall, offer the ability to fund projects in the U.K. Little more information is known about the new vebture as yet. But it does represent a significant step forward in Kickstarter's own business model. Plus it'll tap the innovative brains in a nation that was responsible for some of the early developments in home computing and gaming, and where ARM chips were dreamed up.
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