"No Walls" Trademark Dispute (Maybe Microsoft Should Bring Back Seinfeld)

An unusual Israeli-Palestinian joint venture start-up, which makes a cloud-based Web operating system letting users access their desktops from any computer with an Internet connection, is alleging a trademark violation by Microsoft in its new $300 million advertising campaign. G.ho.st, which stands for “Global Hosted Operating System,” claims it has a pending trademark registration for the tagline “no walls.” Microsoft disputes G.ho.st’s contention.

The Entire D6 Gh.os.t Demo

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May. Unfortunately, due to issues too complicated to go into, we have to post all the D6 interviews in several 15-minute parts (I know, I know). But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column. In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at the D6 conference. Last, but not least: the G.ho.st Web operating system, which lets users access their desktop from any computer with an Internet connection. It’s also the name of a one-of-a-kind joint technology venture between Israelis and Palestinians.

D6 Conference Recap

Here are all of the highlights from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference, organized by day and speaker: Day One Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft You would have loved Windows 1.0. Walt. You would have LOVED it.” –Ballmer Session post  |  Videos: One and Two Windows 7 Demo Day Two Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com People loved their horses, too. But you don’t keep riding your horse to work just because you love it.” –Bezos on the difference between physical books and digital ones Session post  |  Videos: One and Two Bobby Kotick, Activision The social element has really transformed the gaming experience.” – Kotick on the impact of games like Guitar Hero Session post  |  Video Guitar Hero IV Demo with Tony Hawk and Paula Abdul Howard Stringer, Sony If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.” –Stringer on the success of Sony’s LCD business Session post  |  Video Barry Diller, IAC Hollywood is a community that’s so inbred, it’s a wonder the children have any teeth.”   Session post  |  Video Michael Dell, Dell I could take him.” –Dell on his chances of success in a brawl with Apple CEO Steve Jobs Session post  |  Video Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, Yahoo I will never be a CEO again.” –Yang Session post  |  Videos: One and Two Jeff Bewkes, AOL AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”   Session post  |  Video Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures We invest in the creation of ideas… It’s like Baby Mama, with me as the mama.”   Session post  |  Video Demo: G.ho.st Web Operating System Lets users access their desktop from any computer with an Internet connection. Session post  |  Video Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters We have one great advantage over bloggers: we write once, and sell many times to many different media outlets.” Session post  |  Video Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook I won’t ever stop until you’re either the biggest thing around, or you’re dead.” –Kara Swisher on her relentless coverage of Facebook Session post  |  Videos: One and Two Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation I want to meet Obama. I want to know if he’s going to walk the walk.”     Session post  |  Full Session Videos: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six Day Three Demo: evri An application that graphs the Web via grammatical information. Session post  |  Video Demo: 23andMe Web-based, direct-to-consumer genome services. Session post  |  Video Melinda Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation All lives are equal.” Session post  |  Videos: One and Two Demo: TransMedia’s Glide A mobile-operating system that cuts across all operating systems. Session post  |  Video Tom Rogers, TiVo The TV set and its primary position in the home isn’t going anywhere in the future.” Session post  |  Videos: One and Two Demo: Deka The “Luke Arm” prosthesis, a state-of-the-art bionic arm. Session post  |  Video Kevin Martin, FCC and Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless You’re the chairman of the FCC. How did you allow this to happen?” –Walt Mossberg grills Martin on the lousy broadband situation in the States Session post  |  Videos: One and Two
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Get Ready for the Yahoo Reorg: Whither Yang?

“Where’s Jerry here? He is like a ghost,” said a Yahoo exec to me last week. The exec was referring to the plans for a major overhaul of the management structure of the troubled Internet company–the dreaded and inevitable reorg that BoomTown wrote about in detail last week that is expected to be announced this week. Many execs have told BoomTown that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has been strangely absent from the communications around the reorg, which has been driven largely by President Sue Decker. Well, ghosts aren’t real, but fear and uncertainty clearly are at Yahoo these days.

Demo: G.ho.st Web Operating System

What is G.ho.st? Two things: It’s a Global Hosted Operating System, one that aims to give users a free, Web-based virtual computer that lets them access their desktop and files from any computer with an Internet connection. It’s also the name of a one-of-a-kind joint technology venture between Israelis and Palestinians. G.ho.st is taking disparate Web-based applications and unifying them into a single environment. The platform is hosted by Amazon.