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An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) is suing Meta (or meta.com)
- w-ll 4y agoThis site is just tried to fake a chrome update for me. Serving up malware. Viewing source their wordpress for sure has been hacked. Obfuscated JS at the bottom of every static js file. Must be something random that it targeted me. cant seam to make it trigger again.
- Lone-Deranger 4y agoIs anybody able to indicate what the obfuscated JS is exactly on the bottom of each page? Or how to reproduce the error?
- VohuMana 4y agoSame thing just happened to me, hope no one falls for it.
- jordigg 4y agoI just dropped a message to the CEO via LinkedIn, hope they can check on it. Didn't pop-up for me, either adblock or just being enabled for a sample of the visitors.
- helij 4y agoHere as well. I loaded the site again and it works fine on a second try. I use Firefox and it automatically downloaded a .zip file and shown a page with instructions to update Firefox for 'better user experience'.
- easrng 4y agoIt's downloading a zipped JScript file, still trying to figure out what it does. It looks like they took an unmodified copy of a normal JS library and wrapped it in an try/catch block so when it errors from not being in the right environment the "error reporter" kicks in and evals some JS is downloads from 582e.call.pgee.org (which appears to be non-functional)
- Lone-Deranger 4y agoHey Easrng, how did you reproduce? Which environment triggers the "error reporter"?
- ouxiez 4y agoWorks fine for me on 20/07
- Lone-Deranger 4y agoWoot, thanks.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoInteresting. Given they've dealt in the VR space before, and registered the trademark, this would seem to be a compelling case. I wish them the best.
- whoibrar 4y agoI also occassionally mourn the death of the word Meta, It was such a beautiful and succinct word. Meta means about the thing itself. It's seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from within the thing, like being self-aware. Not to forget the words like Metadata, Meta-physics, Meta-analysis, Metameme. Long live Meta[adjective].
- willcipriano 4y agoI just realized now if I put meta-programming on my resume the HR drones are going to think I worked for Zuckerberg.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoDoubtful
- jrockway 4y agoYeah, I don't think these holding companies mean much to people inside or outside the company. No random person on the street knows what Alphabet or Meta is, they know Google and Facebook. I certainly don't put "Alphabet" on my resume. I worked there and I don't even know what it meant exactly.
- rococode 4y agoThere's a difference, though. Meta is a renaming. There is no "Facebook" company anymore. It's all Meta. Meta has a product named "Facebook", not a company named "Facebook". Alphabet is a holding company. "Google" still exists as a standalone company, it's just owned by Alphabet.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- martyvis 4y agoI'm not sure about that. Whenever our public TV or radio station, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, makes reference to Google or Facebook in a corporate sense they always clearly mention the parent company.
- jonah 4y agoBack in the day I worked at MetaCreations née MetaTools[0]. We had a web browser plugin that rendered streaming, progressive, interactive 3D - well before WebGL et. al. It shipped with IE and was available for other browsers as well. The MetaStream logo[1][2][3] was surprisingly similar to the Meta one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaCreations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaCreations [1] It was surprisingly hard to find a copy of the logo on image search. [2] https://browserengine.net/wp-content/uploads/metastream3plugin4.png https://browserengine.net/wp-content/uploads/metastream3plug... [3] https://twitter.com/Salliemeta/status/1454571901381058562/photo/1 https://twitter.com/Salliemeta/status/1454571901381058562/ph... Nothing new under the sun...
- mason55 4y agoAhh… sorry for pirating Kai’s Power Tools and Ray Dream Studio when I was like 14!
- xoa 4y agoThere's a fun blast from the past! InfiniD was my first serious 3D graphics software package when I did that for a while way back when on the Mac. I'm trying to remember how I even discovered that one, I vaguely recall Ambrosia Software used it for creating the sprites in Escape Velocity? I think one of my first personal learning projects was using it to make my own ships and plug-ins for EV (all done by hand with ResEdit) which felt pretty neat at the time. Thanks for your part in what MetaCreations did back then, what a wild time that was.
- TN1ck 4y agoI worked in a lab four years ago, where Kai (the designer of MetaTools) was an investor, but it didn't work out as although the tech was impressive and cool, it lacked the other components that are needed for a startup. They are still operating and building stuff in Edinburgh [0]. Sadly, they didn't release anything yet. [0] https://www.kpv-lab.co.uk/ https://www.kpv-lab.co.uk/
- jonah 4y agoSadly, there's been a lot of that over the years - really neat and beautiful ideas which were either ahead of their time, or didn't quite find a use or market fit. Separately, some various Kai Krause related links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Krause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Krause http://kai.sub.blue/en/ http://kai.sub.blue/en/ https://fr.ax/ https://fr.ax/ https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/digicult/dc9704/dc9704.htm https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/digicult/dc970... (Aside: it's kinda neat that this Atlantic archive from 1997 maintains a period-correct look.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_(software)#/media/File:Bryce5screenshot.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_(software)#/media/File:B... (An example of the kind of UI Meta software had.)
- babyshake 4y agoThe term “metaverse” was first used in Neil Stevenson's 1982 novel Snow Crash. IANAL but it seems dubious to me that anyone besides Neil gets to claim dibs on the word "meta" as used in the context of VR.
- mmaunder 4y agoReminds me of eToys vs eToy in the late 90s. Hacking groups targeted eToys and caused many late nights for the ops team. I joined eToys shortly after as a Perl dev and decided to nmap scan ToysRUs and eToys cybersecurity team was on a hair trigger after the eToy hacks. Someone literally came thumping down the hallway and walked straight into my office. I put my hands up and started apologizing profusely and they let it slide. https://www.artforum.com/print/200003/etoys-vs-etoy-278 https://www.artforum.com/print/200003/etoys-vs-etoy-278
- hassanahmad 4y agoMETA looks set to make a lot of money.
- DEveritt 4y agoThere's loads of companies out there with extremely similar names. It's hard to come up with something totally unique. I believe, legally, it just can't be identical to a name already registered in the same state. When I was trying to name my own business, it was amazing to see how many names were already taken just in my state. Not that it makes it right for Meta/Facebook to do whatever they want but any rebranding they chose would probably have stepped on someone's toes.
- reaperducer 4y agoWhen I was trying to name my own business, it was amazing to see how many names were already taken just in my state. It's slightly more complicated than that. It has to be a name that hasn't already been registered to cover one of the pre-existing business categories for your state. And, it also has to be a name that isn't registered nationally to cover one of the federal pre-existing business categories. It's possible, and very common, to register a trademark within a single state only. I've done it about a half-dozen times in two state. You do it if you have a product or service that you never expect to go national. It's how you can have multiple unrelated "#1 Quick Mart" and "Danny's Cleaners" in different parts of the nation. However, in this case, the complainant is in Iceland, so the American rules you and I know don't apply.
- woojoo666 4y ago> Not that it makes it right for Meta/Facebook to do whatever they want but any rebranding they chose would probably have stepped on someone's toes. Exactly why I hope Facebook looses this case. Every other startup is being forced to come up with weird unique names, Facebook shouldn't get a pass just because they're big.
- kjsingh 4y agoWhat if meta.is decides it needs no money and asks FB (I mean meta.com) to do a re-branding :D
- metadat 4y agoIt would be awesome, though [sadly] such events in a high-profile context are exceedingly rare in capitalism. Maybe FB could pivot to MetastasiXed, would be a more suitable name for the stage FB and Zuck have reached.
- _jal 4y agoThey could just rename to "FB, Inc". FBI for short. That won't cause any confusion.
- dustractor 4y agoHow can we sue something for being meta when everything is meta?
- cjrd 4y agoAh yeah - I've been bummed that people now think https://metacademy.org/ https://metacademy.org/ is about meta.
- chadash 4y agoWhile I am not a fan of Facebook/Meta, I actually hope that they do not lose this case. If you want to name your company after a word that is in common usage, then you should have to deal with the fact that others may use the same word for their own purposes. JP Morgan seems like a name that hardly limits anyone trying to name their company. Apple or Meta are just words in common usage.
- augstein 4y agoSince it is such a common and useful word, I hope Facebook looses this case, as I would find it sad if that word is associated with their company by most people for the foreseeable future.
- SahAssar 4y agoApple Computer still paid $80,000 to Apple Corps [1] even though it was 2 decades before they entered the music space. I don't think apple is a good example for your point. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer#1978%E2%80%931981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer#1...
- SoftTalker 4y agoThere was a spat between Domino's Pizza and Domino Sugar. For a while, Domino's Pizza had to use their full name, not just "Domino's", in advertising and even when they answered the phone. That seems to have changed, so maybe some new agreement was reached.
- thr0wawayf00 4y agoTheir argument hinges on the fact that both companies operate in the VR space, and I agree with Meta.is here. Trademark law is pretty clear about protecting a brand name within a given market. "Apple" and "Meta" are just words, yes, but if a second computer company named "Apple" were to appear, this would pretty clearly infringe on the Apple trademark, as opposed to say Apple T-Shirt Company.
- joshmanders 4y ago
- hj9 4y ago
- John9 4y agoI published a NFT app named "Meta" weeks before Facebook was changed to Meta. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ai.art.nft.creator.generator https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ai.art.nft...
- amelius 4y ago> The name Meta is primarily a female name of German origin that means Pearl. https://babynames.com/name/meta https://babynames.com/name/meta