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The suit, filed in federal court in San Diego by Cary Jardin, charges that Datallegro and CEO and founder Stuart Frost, infringed on a patent held by Jardin. The suit alleges that Frost gained access to Jardin’s technology while he was CEO of Xprime, where Jardin worked, in 2003.

Updated, 4:45, with comment from Datallegro CEO Stuart Frost

Data warehousing software maker Datallegro, which is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft, was hit with a patent infringement lawsuit on Wednesday.

Microsoft announced last month that it was acquiring Datallegro, which is based in Orange County, Calif.

“After analyzing the claims, we feel strongly that they’re completely without merit and intend to vigorously defend our position,” Frost said. “Given the prior art in this area, we’re also considering asking the Patent Office to re-examine Jardin’s patent.”

Microsoft has declined to comment.

The lawsuit also alleges that Frost attempted to patent Jardin’s technology and also used the technology, for which Jardin has a patent, while at Datallegro.

The suit seeks damages, which it asks to be tripled for willful infringement, as well as temporary and permanent injunctions against Datallegro and Frost.

Update: As he noted in the comments section, Frost has posted a blog in response to the suit.

“Shortly after leaving Xprime, defendant Frost attempted to convert Jardin’s inventions to his own by filing with the USPTO patent applications in the distributed database architecture field, the same subject matter as Jardin’s intellectual property,” according to the complaint. “At Datallegro, defendant Frost used and incorporated Jardin’s intellectual property into Datallegro’s products.”

The anniversary site offers a timeline that spotlights historical moments such as Andy Bechtolsheim’s $100,000 spur-of-the-moment investment in 1998, the date in 2000 when it reached 1 billion pages in its index of the Web, the 2002 adoption of a pay-per-click model for AdWords advertisers using the search engine for ads, the 2004 filing for an initial public offering, iGoogle and Mobile Web Search in 2005, Google Finance and Google Docs in 2006, and Universal Search and Gears in 2007.

(Via Search Engine Land.)

The top 100 ideas will be announced January 27, 2009, at which point people may vote on the top 20, Google said.

“Beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people,” Google said. “If you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, we want to hear about it. We’re looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we’re committing the funding to launch them. You can submit your ideas and help vote on ideas from others.”

Project 10 to the 100th–which refers to a googol, the number of 1 followed by 100 zeros–aims to let people help each other, part of the company’s do-good ethos. People can submit their ideas by October 20, and Google will fund the best with $10 million. An advisory board will select up to five winning ideas.

(Credit:
Google)

Celebrating its recent anniversary, Google has published a guided tour of its ten years in business and launched its Project 10 to the 100th to try to improve the world.

Google launched its Project 10 to the 100th to find ideas for helping people.

Two such efforts are going to be on display here at D: G.ho.st (which presents Wednesday) and Glide, which presents on Thursday.

1. Multitouch is going to be ubiquitous. And by this I don’t just mean on every Windows machine. I also expect Apple to have a similar feature on its computers, and quite possibly ahead of Windows 7 final ship date.

As is often the case, things were a little less compelling when it comes to the business model and the drivers that will push someone to one of these efforts over another. Leka said the company can make money off commerce and by selling premium subscriptions on top of the 5GB of free storage Glide provides.

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

2. We’re going to see touch on a lot more machines ahead of Windows 7. I expect this will help convince PC makers to include touch screens even in Vista machines so they can be “7-proof.” Touch can come in many forms. We’ve already seen that the laptop’s touch pad can prove to be a cost-effective spot for gesture sensitive touch, and I think we will see other interesting gesture recognition approaches beyond just making the full screen touch sensitive.

Analysis and context: I took three major things away from the multitouch demo.

A Microsoft blog with a demo can be found here and I’ve added in Microsoft’s video as well at the end of the post.

3. User interfaces are a key selling point in Microsoft’s No. 1 longterm Windows goal–making the OS matter. Windows is not just under attack from Apple. It’s also under attack from forces that threaten to make the OS less relevant, whether it’s browser-based applications or (pardon the phrase, boss) Web operating systems.

Microsoft had previously hinted that the touch gestures would find their way into Windows. In an interesting twist though, the new technology will work with existing touch screens, Microsoft said. They showed it running on an existing Dell laptop.

I spoke with CEO Donald Leka, who talked about how Glide allows documents to be shared across devices, such as a
Mac user trying to share a QuickTime file with a mobile phone user that happens to have RealPlayer or Windows Media on their device. The company’s support for the iPhone, in particular, has been a boon, Leka said.

“The iPhone is probably the best thing that ever happened,” he said.

“It’s much faster to do certain tasks than using a mouse,” Larson-Green said. She also showed rotating photos by pinching and rotating, much like Microsoft’s surface or Apple’s
iPhone.

Update: Ballmer says it will come in late 2009. Corporate VP Julie Larson-Green demonstrated the multitouch technology, painting with several fingers at the same time to show how it can process not just touch, but multiple simultaneous input.

CARLSBAD, Calif.–In an interesting but perhaps unsurprising move, Microsoft plans to add multitouch interface to
Windows 7, CNET News.com has learned. The interface will be shown in just a few minutes as part of Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates’ keynote at the D6 event here.

Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.

Google has released an open-source software project called Update Engine that programmers can use to keep their
Mac OS X software up to date.

The Update Engine project is hosted at Google’s open-source site.

“Update Engine can update all the usual suspects, like Cocoa apps, preference panes, and screensavers. But it can also update oddballs like arbitrary files, and even things that require root–like kernel extensions. On top of that, it can update multiple products as easily as it can update one,” Greg Miller, a programmer on the update engine team, said in a blog posting Monday.

(Credit:
Wikipedia)

Aerovironment’s wind turbines, now installed in a few locations, are essentially miniature wind turbines perched on the edges of buildings. Another approach is the vertical axis turbine from Mariah Power.

(Credit:
Windation)

Windation, which formed last year, is looking to raise up to $5 million in the next two years and then raise another $20 million for further expansion, Sheikhrezai said.

The overall design breaks with that of other small wind turbines, which tend to look a lot more like wind turbines.

A new wind-power machine has been inspired by a centuries-old idea: Persian “wind catchers.”

Windation’s appliance looks more like an HVAC machine than a turbine.

There’s a 8-by-8-foot frame around a 10-foot-high cylinder. Wind blows in the top and is directed to the bottom where the wind turns a turbine to make up to 5 kilowatts of electricity. A single unit wouldn’t generate enough power for an entire office building but could offset a significant portion, the company says.

The company is set to install one unit at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in California and plans to begin manufacturing more units for delivery in February. It then intends to ramp up manufacturing in the following two years. The product will be made in old windmill factory in Nebraska.

Sheikhrezai said one of the biggest advantages of Windation’s appliance is its shape and ease of installation. Since all moving parts are contained, there isn’t potential danger to birds, bats, or people, he noted.

“Cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Cleveland–places you wouldn’t think–are all good wind places,” he said.

Financially, an investment in a 5-kilowatt appliance, which comes with its own inverter, recoups the installation cost of $45,000 to $50,000 in five to seven years, he said. Depending on the wind or sun resource, a wind machine could deliver a quicker payback than installing a solar array on commercial flat-top roof, he asserted.

Windation CEO and founder, Mark Sheikhrezai, who is originally from Iran, said he was inspired by ancient Persian buildings that use air currents and reservoirs of water to cool buildings. Using differences in air pressure, these wind catcher buildings create a steady flow of air without any mechanical devices.

Small wind turbines are poised for more growth in light of the recently passed economic recovery act. The federal law includes a tax credit of up to $4,000 for small wind turbines, which the mayors of New York City and San Francisco have endorsed for city buildings.

Windation Energy Systems, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based start-up, has developed a wind appliance that looks more or less like the modern heating and cooling equipment you see on flat corporate building rooftops.

The units will work well with what’s called “dirty wind,” or gusty, inconsistent wind, Sheikhrezai said.

The urban wind appliance from Windation is inspired by Persian wind catchers that used naturally occurring air movements and water to cool buildings.

Although Windation’s wind appliance does draw air from the top like these buildings, Sheikhrezai said he used his expertise in centrifuges and rotors to manipulate the movement of the wind to generate electricity.

• Yahoo hired Elisa Steele, formerly Network Appliance’s senior vice president of corporate marketing, to fill a new post of chief marketing officer.

Ashish Patel, who formerly led products work, now is leader of the product architecture and evangelist group, reporting to Balogh. “His group will focus on mapping out and determining our overall product strategy, architecture, and portfolio,” Yahoo said.

Yahoo has undergone plenty of reorganizations and executive turmoil in the past year, not to mention two major layoffs, but this time the changes are being driven by an assertive new CEO who brings fresh eyes to the challenge. And Bartz has no trouble expressing frustration with the molasses-like pace of change at Yahoo.

The move is the first major one since Bartz took over the CEO role from co-founder Jerry Yang in January. The company has been struggling to become more competitive and profitable for years, and now faces that challenge during a very difficult economy.

To try to make sure Yahoo personnel listen to outsiders as well as themselves, Bartz established a new customer advocacy group.

• David Dibble, hired in December and most recently chief technology officer at First Data Corp., leads the new service engineering and operations team responsible for Yahoo’s computing infrastructure. He reports to Bartz.

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• David Windley leads human resources, Michael Callahan leads the legal group, and Joel Jones is Bartz’s chief of staff.

• David Ko moves a step up the pecking order by taking over the mobile group and reporting to Schneider. Boerries previously led this area. “Mobile will continue to be a key priority for Yahoo,” the company said.

“Today I’m rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo a lot faster on its feet,” Bartz said in a blog post Thursday. Specifically, Yahoo is getting rid of some fiefdoms and setting up a group to pay more attention to customers.

Here are more details:

• Yahoo will merge product and technology work into one group led by Ari Balogh, who adds executive vice president of products to his chief technology officer title. His group is “responsible for the vision, strategy, and quality” of all Yahoo’s products globally. He reports to Bartz.

In one change, Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen will leave the company as soon as a replacement is found, Yahoo said.

Update 10:14 a.m. PST: “The company has initiated a search for a new chief financial officer. Mr. Jorgensen will remain with the company as its chief financial officer through a transition period,” Yahoo said in a regulatory filing. Further details on the reorganization weren’t immediately clear.

Update 10:47 a.m. PST: Now we have some details on the changes. One interesting nugget: Yahoo said nobody is leaving the company beyond already announced departures including Marco Boerries, who led mobile and TV work, and Neeraj Khemlani, who led news, and Jorgensen.

“People here have impressed the hell out of me. They’re smart, dedicated, passionate, driven, and really nice. There’s so much great energy and frankly lots of optimism. But there’s also plenty that has bogged this company down. For starters, you’d be amazed at how complicated some things are here,” she said in the blog posting.

Bartz also wants to buff Yahoo’s brand.

• For delivering those products, along with Yahoo’s content and services, Yahoo has two groups: North America and International. Hilary Schneider leads the North American group, and a leader for the international group “will be hired soon,” Yahoo said. These leaders report to Bartz. Previously, Yahoo had separate groups for North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and emerging markets.

“For us working at Yahoo, it means everything gets simpler. We’ll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorious silos are gone, and we have a renewed focus on the customer,” Bartz said. “For you using Yahoo every day, it will better enable us to deliver products that make you say, ‘Wow.’”

Photos: The Bartz gang–a breakdown of Yahoo’s reorg

Update 11:03 a.m. PST: Here are some more details:

“Mention Yahoo practically anywhere in the world, and people yodel. But in the past few years, we haven’t been as clear in showing the world what the Yahoo brand stands for. We’re going to change that. Look for this company’s brand to kick ass again,” Bartz said.

“I’ve noticed that a lot of us on the inside don’t spend enough time looking to the outside. That’s why I’m creating a new customer advocacy group. After getting a lot of angry calls at my office from frustrated customers, I realized we could do a better job of listening to and supporting you,” she said.

New Chief Executive Carol Bartz has reorganized Yahoo in an attempt to make the Internet pioneer faster, simpler, and more responsive to those who use its services.

• Yahoo still is looking for a person to lead the customer advocacy group. That group will help Yahoo hear what its two big constituents–site users and advertisers–have to say. This executive will report to Bartz.

(Credit: CC Just-Us-3)

While I don’t intend to spoil all your enjoyment of this most sobering science, I really must quote just one short paragraph from the Brickhouse site: “On Sunday morning, he left the house and told you he was going to play golf. Then, when he came home and took a shower, you grabbed his underwear and did the test. If you detected semen, what is he going to say? ‘I was masturbating on the golf course.’”

Mr. Harding tells the tragic story of an Iraq vet who came home and discovered his wife’s heinous affair by looking at her Mii performance records on their
Nintendo Wii console.

Some commentators are getting their knickers in a twist because they feel they are now unable to twist their lover’s knickers around their fingers.

I have heard it said that many long-term relationships are currently being held together by economic imperatives rather than the atomic thrust of love. But I am a romantic at heart, and I want to be convinced that the true exciting beauty of the illicit affair is not quite dead.

I am also interested to hear whether the ubiquity of your technological footprint really is making it more difficult for you to cheat on your spouses. Or whether, in fact, the younger ones among you have decided that, perhaps, marriage at a young age simply isn’t such a good idea.

The world is, apparently, experiencing major changes in extramarital sexual behavior. And the reason for these changes is the development of superior technological gadgetry over the last few years.

It recorded the long nights of virtual bowling by the Iraq vet’s wife with someone out there, bowling that appears to have escalated to a slightly less virtual and virtuous rolling. In the hay, as it were.

According to Nick Harding of London’s Independent newspaper, the United Kingdom’s divorce rate is going down, and one of the reasons, he posits, is that it is far too easy for your spouse to catch you cheating, if not in flagrante delicto, then certainly communicanto.

Essentially, the GPS Snitch enables you to follow your spouse’s
car wherever he or she may go. Or roam. But if you’re really suspicious, you could try wandering over to Brickhouse Security’s very thorough site.

Or, for those of you whose Latin is restricted to Russell Crowe in Gladiator, a snoopy spouse can find out where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing not by asking you or even catching you out in person, but by taking a voyeur’s voyage around your gizmos.

Word has slipped out in only the last 24 hours that the propensity to have an affair, at least for men, may be genetically determined. But being a people sort of person, I am very keen to discover whether readers have been, well, caught. If not in the act, then at least very shortly afterward.

Mr. Harding appears keen to suggest that younger people, who are more tech-savvy, are the ones who are keeping clear of infidelities, especially long-term ones. He quotes a psychologist called Andrew Marshall: “Keeping an affair going has become almost impossible. I would regularly counsel couples where an affair had lasted more than three years. Today, he or she will first get proof and confront. The result is that the length of affairs has dropped dramatically. Looking at all the evidence, it seems that the end of the secret affair is in sight.”

Just a cursory googling brought me to a site that will happily sell you something called a GPS Snitch, which is “small and has advanced features in real time,” for a mere $399.

But technology isn’t merely wrecking the joy of extramarital sex in the ways that many readers might have already experienced–the text message that gets read by the wrong person, the e-mail that gets surreptitiously scanned and interpreted. Or even misinterpreted.

Brickhouse Security is keen to sell you a semen detection kit. (Sale price: $49.95.) I would underline the fact that this masterful technology works on garments of all materials, colors, and genders.

Lycos Europe to close portal, end Web hosting

Getting schooled in formation flying

Listen now:

A new economic team is heading to Washington and while it’s still hard to gauge what the new administration will do vis a vis high tech, President-elect Barack Obama may have sent a message with the appointment of an Internet commerce expert.

Ares rocket development updates posted to iTunes

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Obama taps Internet commerce expert