Product Review: Jott

As part of testing another online service, I've been trying out Jott, and am impressed. It lets you dial up a toll-free (in the US) number, pick out a recipient from a contact list you've supplied, dictate a message, and have a transcribed version zip along via email to the destination. You can't dial it from just any phone; you need to register the numbers you'll be using with Jott. That could be a problem if you aren't calling from your usual cell. I tried calling from my home number (don't get out much, anymore) and sending messages to myself. Before you write that off as quasi-pathetic, remember that there are plenty of times you'll think of something when traveling and you'll want to make sure you remember. Instead of jotting a note, you can Jott an email. Simple messages worked well, so I decided to try something complex without taking the time to spell difficult words:

My eyes are fully open to my awful situation – I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration. I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses,And I don't care twopence-halfpenny for any consequences. Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger, but a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger, and a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter, but I've got to die tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter!

It's from the patter song in Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore. Here's what I got in the email:

Note: We had difficulty understanding some parts of this message. Please Listen to the original message [this part is a link to the actual recording] if some parts are unclear.]

My eyes are fully open to my awful situation. I shall go at once to Roderick and make him anoration(?). I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses and I don't care to pen(?) sap(?) penny(?) for any consequences. Now I do not wish to perish by the sword or by the dagger, but a marker may indulge a little partanipple(?) swagger and in order to have compliment my vanity would flatter, but I've got to die tomorrow. So, it really doesn't matter.

A bit unintentionally humorous toward the end, but pretty good, and paired with hearing the original, you could certainly get the message. You cannot enter contacts on the fly, so if you suddenly needed to send an email to someone new, you're out of luck. But there is plenty of utility in this.

You can also send messages to various services, including Google, Blogger, and others, including some that manage projects and collaboration, reminder services, Trapster (alerts about speed traps), and T-Sheets (a time tracking system I'll review).

During the beta phase, and I don't know how long that continues, Jott is free, so no reason not to give it a shot.

Book Review: No by Jim Camp

I reviewed this on my blog about the writing business, but it's just as applicable to regular business. I htink this is a must read - one of the few business books I've seen with an experience-based take on an important topic that offers a plan for how to improve things. Here's the link to the review.

Peer Patent Reviews Start at USPTO

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has just started on a year-long experiment in peer patent review. The way the process now works is that companies and people submit patents, often with broadly-phrased claims, in hopes of getting a license on a new way of doing something. PTO examiners will push back on many of the claims (fewer than half of applications reviewed last year were immediately granted a patent). But there's been question in the patent community with how well the process is working. For example, look at the case of a company suing the Blackberry's manufacturer for patent infringement. RIM lost in court and had to pay hundreds of millions to the plaintiff, yet now there are some challenges to the patent, which may not survive. It would be too late for Blackberry, which wouldn't get to recoup the money.

So the PTO is working with New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy to try a peer review approach. Companies (including Microsoft and IBM) voluntarily provide software patent applications and anyone can comment and look for prior art that would show the invention isn't new or novel.

The idea isn't actually new; both the European and Japanese patent offices have used a different patent model from the US. Instead of doing all reviewing in-house, they grant applications and then providing a period of time in which others can challenge the basis of the patent. And software is a great place to try this - it's one of the biggest causes of patent application overload and one area where much of the community is already used to peer review in the form of open source software. But with backlogs that can run from a couple of years to five or six (particularly in biotech), it's worth a try. Almost anything is.