It's Time to Make Vague Software Patents More Clear

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking input on software-related patents beginning with its first-ever public roundtable in Silicon Valley next week, so Wired Opinion is closing its special series on “The Patent Fix” with specific solutions like these that don’t require changing the law. This expert’s opinion is one of the proposals under consideration by the USPTO.

The issues and fallout around software patent protection have manifested in many ways — from patent trolls to patent thickets. But at the heart of the problem are fuzzy boundaries in the patent claims.

Any incentive system that’s based on protecting exclusive rights depends on the ability of competitors to determine where the rights of others end and where theirs begin: where they can productively pursue their projects. This is true in developing land, and it’s true in patenting inventions.

But where land boundaries are clear and searchable, the boundaries surrounding software patents are notoriously fuzzy.

Unfortunately, wholesale reshaping of the IP protection system for software appears to be out of reach as there are political and pragmatic constraints on such reform. So I have advocated putting more onus on the patent applicants to clarify the boundaries of their claimed inventions at the outset of the process.

This approach improves the quality of patent examination, enabling competitors to more easily navigate patent boundaries. It reduces the tremendous confusion surrounding the interpretation of patent claims by judges. And it can do these things without any new legislation.

Why are software patents so vague? Many software inventions are inherently abstract. But the PTO also doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on ensuring applicants clearly delineate their inventions; examiners get little or no reward from scrutinizing claim scope, and it takes time to fine-tune the many claims set forth in so many applications. Since the inventor (or prosecuting attorney) gets to define the scope of the patent, there is an incentive to seek broad and malleable claims. Together, these factors cost the technology sector, investors, courts … all of us.

So the patent system needs to take patent claim clarity more seriously.

Patent claims should be presented through a standardized, detailed format, with check-boxes and related explanatory fields for clarifying the meaning and boundaries of claims. Such a structure should:

Separate claim restrictions. Currently, the only constraints on claim format are the “one sentence” rule (an antiquated rule requiring patent claims to be drafted as single sentences) and other provisions governing dependent claims. The frequent result, especially in software-related inventions, is amorphous claims. But requiring claim restrictions to be set forth in separate fields would help examiners, the public, and courts distinguish the claim components accurately and easily. Furthermore, search engines would be able to parse patent claims by claim restrictions — the most useful search unit for locating relevant prior art.

Define ambiguous terms, and include a glossary of specialized terms. Any potentially ambiguous claim terms — including terms of degree (“approximately,” “substantially) — should be defined. Applicants would include a glossary of terms that are prone to confusion, and designate a default dictionary for guiding the interpretation of any undefined claim terms.

Distinguish between limitative and illustrative embodiments. The form should force applicants to expressly indicate whether examples in the specification are intended to limit — or merely illustrate — the patent claims. This is a critical distinction in determining the scope of patent claims, yet applicants currently have no duty to clarify their intentions here. The current approach allows applicants to pick a position based on litigation strategy … which leaves their competitors, and the courts, in the dark.

Identifying means-plus-function elements. Patent law only presumes that the phrase “means for” invokes the “means-plus-function” interpretive rule [section 112(f)]]. It is not often clear which examples set forth in the specification correspond to the “means” clause. As a result, competitors and courts struggle to interpret such claim elements. Much of this confusion can be eliminated by having a check box for applicants to designate their intention (to invoke section 112f), along with hyperlinking or other transparent techniques for specifying the corresponding “structure, material, or acts.” This would turn an often muddy claim element into a crystalline disclosure.

Record interviews. The PTO permits phone or in-person interviews with applicants to better understand what’s being claimed and the basis for a patent’s validity. Since these discussions form a basis for granted patents, they ought to become part of the public record so others can better understand why a patent was granted. Such statements help limit the scope of patent claims by clarifying what the examiner and the applicant understood up-front. 

Make the form electronic. All of the above should be implemented through an electronic application form, resulting in a hyperlinked, red-lined, layered, online-accessible form. That way, examiners could easily highlight ambiguous claim terms in their requests for clarifications, and applicants could annotate their responses. Capturing this interchange would enable competitors, subsequent inventors, litigants, and courts to more easily decipher how and why patent claims were crafted so in the first place.

This proposal provides simple, cost-effective ways of delineating claims at the front-end of the patent life cycle. It would also move the arcane, 19th century paper patent file system into the 21st century, not to mention enable a new generation of search and evaluation tools.

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Well: The 'Monday Morning' Medical Screaming Match

I did not think I would ever see another “morbidity and mortality” conference in which senior doctors publicly attacked their younger colleagues for making medical errors. These types of heated meetings were commonplace when I was a medical student but have largely been abandoned.

Yet here they were again on “Monday Mornings,” a new medical drama on the TNT network, based on a novel by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent and one of the executive producers of the show. Such screaming matches may make for good television, but it is useful to review why new strategies have emerged for dealing with medical mistakes.

So-called M&M conferences emerged in the early 20th century as a way for physicians to review cases that had either surprising outcomes or had somehow gone wrong. Although the format varied among institutions and departments, surgery M&Ms were especially known for their confrontations, as more experienced surgeons often browbeat younger doctors into admitting their errors and promising to never make them again.

Such conferences were generally closed door — that is, attended only by physicians. Errors were a private matter not to be shared with other hospital staff, let alone patients and families.

But in the late 1970s, a sociology graduate student named Charles L. Bosk gained access to the surgery department at the University of Chicago. His resultant 1979 book, “Forgive and Remember,” was one of the earliest public discussions of how the medical profession addressed its mistakes.

Dr. Bosk developed a helpful terminology. Technical and judgment errors by surgeons could be forgiven, but only if they were remembered and subsequently prevented by those who committed them. Normative errors, which called into question the moral character of the culprit, were unacceptable and potentially jeopardized careers.

Although Dr. Bosk’s book was more observational than proscriptive, his depiction of M&M conferences was disturbing. I remember attending a urology M&M as a medical student in which several senior physicians berated a very well-meaning and competent intern for a perceived mistake. The intern seemed to take it very well, but my fellow students and I were shaken by the event, asking how such hostility could be conducive to learning.

There were lots of angry accusations in the surgical M&Ms in the pilot episode of “Monday Mornings.” In one case, a senior doctor excoriated a colleague who had given Tylenol to a woman with hip pain who turned out to have cancer. “You allowed metastatic cancer to run amok for four months!” he screamed.

If this was what Dr. Bosk would have called a judgment error, the next case raised moral issues. A neurosurgeon had operated on a boy’s brain tumor without doing a complete family history, which would have revealed a disorder of blood clotting. The boy bled to death on the operating table. “The boy died,” announced the head surgeon, “because of a doctor’s arrogance.”

In one respect, it is good to see that the doctors in charge were so concerned. But as the study of medical errors expanded in the 1990s, researchers found that the likelihood of being blamed led physicians to conceal their errors. Meanwhile, although doctors who attended such conferences might indeed not make the exact same mistakes that had been discussed, it was far from clear that M&Ms were the best way to address the larger problem of medical errors, which, according to a 1999 study, killed close to 100,000 Americans annually.

Eventually, experts recommended a “systems approach” to medical errors, similar to what had been developed by the airline industry. The idea was to look at the root causes of errors and to devise systems to prevent them. Was there a way, for example, to ensure that the woman with the hip problem would return to medical care when the Tylenol did not help? Or could operations not be allowed to occur until a complete family history was in the chart? Increasingly, hospitals have put in systems, such as preoperative checklists and computer warnings, that successfully prevent medical errors.

Another key component of the systems approach is to reduce the emphasis on blame. Even the best doctors make mistakes. Impugning them publicly — or even privately — can make them clam up. But if errors are seen as resulting from inadequate systems, physicians and other health professionals should be more willing to speak up.

Of course, the systems approach is not perfect. Studies continue to show that physicians conceal their mistakes. And elaborate systems for preventing errors can at times interfere with getting things done in the hospital.

Finally, it is important not to entirely remove the issue of responsibility. Sad to say, there still are physicians who are careless and others who are arrogant. Even if today’s M&M conferences rarely involve screaming, supervising physicians need to let such colleagues know that these types of behaviors are unacceptable.

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Barron H. Lerner, M.D., professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, is the author, most recently, of “One for the Road: Drunk Driving Since 1900.”

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DealBook: Einhorn Sues Apple Over Plan to Discard Preferred Stock

11:41 a.m. | Updated

The hedge fund magnate David Einhorn has long been known as a fervent fan of Apple. But he is making an unusually public stand to oppose a move by the company: a lawsuit.

His hedge fund, Greenlight Capital, sued Apple on Thursday in an effort to block a move that would eliminate preferred shares. In a letter to fellow stockholders, Mr. Einhorn said the move to amend the company’s charter would unnecessarily limit the technology giant’s ability to create value for shareholders and called on them for support.

“This is an unprecedented action to curtail the company’s options,” he wrote in the letter. “We are not aware of any other company that has ever voluntarily taken this step.”

The stated goal of the legal action is technical, based on an accusation that Apple is violating securities rules by bundling several shareholder initiatives in one proposal. But underneath it lies deeper dissatisfaction with the company.

Activists have taken on increasingly bigger targets in recent years, including the likes of Hess and Procter & Gamble. But no one has dared to take on the onetime darling of the hedge fund community.

The opposition by Mr. Einhorn is the latest sign of investor anger with a company whose stock price in recent years had been almost unearthly in its gains. That growth attracted Greenlight, which now holds 1.3 million shares – a stake of more than $590 million – and a wide array of hedge funds that hitched their investment performance to Apple’s rising star.

Over the last several months, however, shares in Apple have tumbled, leaving many with a sour taste in their mouths. In a letter to Greenlight investors last month, Mr. Einhorn joked that some of his fund’s stumbles were because “our apple was bruised.”

On Thursday, however, he took a more adversarial tone.

Mr. Einhorn praised Apple as “a phenomenal company filled with talented people creating iconic products that consumers around the world love.” But he expressed deep dissatisfaction over how Apple was managing its finances, complaining that the company’s enormous $137 billion cash hoard was shortchanging shareholders.

It appears that the move by Apple to eliminate preferred shares in its charter is the final straw. Mr. Einhorn said he had called upon the company to issue existing shareholders a perpetual preferred stock that would pay out a dividend. In one suggested outcome, the company would initially distribute $50 billion carrying a 4 percent annual dividend, and then issue more over time.

Mr. Einhorn said he had raised the issue with Apple executives several times, only to be rejected.

As Apple’s share price has fallen – it is down more than 26 percent over the last six months – Mr. Einhorn has said shareholders are owed more.

“The recent, severe underperformance of Apple’s shares, which are down approximately 35 percent from their peak valuation, underscores the need for the company to apply the same level of creativity used to develop revolutionary technology for its consumers to unlock the value of its strong balance sheet for its shareholders,” he wrote in the letter.

On CNBC, Mr. Einhorn likened Apple, whose near-collapse in 1997 profoundly scarred the company, to his his grandmother, who survived the Great Depression. Both have adopted tendencies to amass far more cash than they need, instead of putting it to more productive investments.

Apple is like “someone who’s gone through traumas,” the hedge fund magnate said. “They sometimes feel they can never have cash.”

Mr. Einhorn also protested that Apple was tying the preferred stock proposal to two other initiatives he supported: allowing for simple majority voting for directors and establishing a par value for common stock.

Shares in Apple were up slightly in early morning trading on Thursday, at $457.57. That remains well below its 52-week high of $705.07.

David Einhorn's Lawsuit Against Apple by

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Boy Scouts postpone decision on admitting gays

A decision on whether the Boy Scouts of America will keep its policy that excludes gay members and leaders will not be voted on until the organization's annual meeting in May.

By Michael Muskal and Molly Hennessy-Fiske

February 6, 2013, 9:18 a.m.

IRVING, Texas -- The Boy Scouts of America decided Wednesday to put off a decision on whether to lift a national ban of gay members and leaders, saying the issue of sexual orientation was too complex and needed more time for study.

The decision to wait came after the organization recently announced that it would consider changing its policies and might allow local chapters to decide whether to admit gays as Scouts and leaders.

“After careful consideration and extensive dialog within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy,” Deron Smith, the BSA director of public relations, said in a statement.

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“To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards,” he stated.

The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May in Grapevine, Texas, he said.

It was the Scouts that put the issue back on the agenda for the current executive board meeting, held in its headquarters in Irving. But the move also came amid declining membership, questions by corporate sponsors and public pressure from activists who oppose the current national ban.

“Today the Boy Scouts of America have chosen to remain irrelevant by delaying the vote,” said James Dale, who was expelled from the Scouts in 1990 for being openly gay. “For over 23 years, since I was expelled from the Scouts, I have held out hope that the Boy Scouts would end their discriminatory policy. With each passing day the Scouts will continue to lose members, sponsors and funding. No parent or child should associate with an organization that sends a toxic message telling children they are immoral if they are gay.”

GLAAD, the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group, condemned the decision to wait.

“An organization that serves youth and chooses to intentionally hurt dedicated young people and hard-working parents not only flies in the face of American principles, but the principles of being a Boy Scout,” GLAAD President Herndon Graddick stated.

“The Boy Scouts of America is choosing to ignore the cries of millions, including religious institutions, current Scouting families, and corporate sponsors, but these cries will not be silenced. We're living in a culture where hurting young gay people because of who they are is unpopular and discriminatory. They had the chance to end the pain this ban has caused to young people and parents; they chose to extend the pain.”

Those seeking to keep the ban were also vocal. A majority of the Boy Scout organizations are sponsored by local churches, many of which have religious objections to homosexuals.

About 100 people gathered outside Boy Scouts headquarters in suburban Dallas carrying signs that said “Save our boys from homosexual acts;” “God votes no gays” and “Don't invite sin into the camp.”

Texas Values, a conservative group that organized a prayer vigil this week in support of keeping gays out of the Scouts, said the Scouts organization was right to delay a decision.

“It's a temporary victory,” Jonathan Saenz said of Wednesday's vote. “Good for them -- they're obviously listening. We are encouraged and we're glad they're going to delay the decision. When you deal with such fundamental principles, it's not something you want to tinker with overnight.”

Robert Davis, 48, of Benbrook, Texas, wore his Longhorn Council Scouting uniform and brought his two sons to the protest Wednesday.

“I think it's a good sign,” he said of the organization’s vote. “The Boy Scouts of America is one of the last moral high grounds in this country. I hate to see it die.”

Among politicians, both President Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have been part of the debate.

“My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life,” said Obama, who as U.S. president is the honorary president of BSA, in a Sunday interview with CBS.

Perry, the author of the book “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For,” said in a speech Saturday that “to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate.”

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Twitter Locks Kids Out of Its Vine Video App

Twitter now requires people to certify they are at least 17 years old before running the Apple version of the company’s video app Vine. Twitter says the iOS app is for adults because it contains ”frequent/intense sexual content or nudity,” among other things, signaling that Vine will continue to traffic in risqué content.

People flipped out last week when a Twitter staffer accidentally selected a pornographic Vine video as an “Editor’s Pick,” thus recommending it to all the service’s users. Twitter apologized for the mistake, but that doesn’t mean that adult content was banished from Vine. Indeed, there is nothing in Vine’s Terms of Service that prohibits sexually explicit videos. Vine even includes a mechanism that hides videos marked as inappropriate, requiring a second click to view them.

Apple reportedly pushed Twitter to put the age restriction in place, presumably because Vine can hypothetically be used to view porn, even though it’s not expressly designed for such content. The iOS version of Google’s Chrome web browser, which can (conceivably!) also be used to view porn, is similarly restricted to adults only, as are other iOS web browsers. Of course, like an “R” rating on a movie, a 17+ restriction on an app does not dampen its appeal to teenagers. This move could actually make Vine more common in high schools rather than less, if, that is, Twitter can convince teens to take any time away from SnapChat.

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Dick Morris dropped by Fox News

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Dick Morris will no longer be serving as a contributor at Fox News, a spokesperson for the network told TheWrap.

Morris’ contract had recently expired, and Fox will not be renewing it, the spokesperson said.

Morris, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who later turned into a harsh critic for the Clintons, had been a longtime contributor to Fox, but has not appeared on the cable network in recent months.

But while Morris may no longer be a presence on Fox News’ airwaves, he isn’t disappearing from television news – at least not immediately.

Morris announced on his website Tuesday that he will appear on Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight.”

“You read it right! I will be a guest on The Piers Morgan Show on CNN, yes CNN, this Wednesday night at 9 PM EST,” Morris wrote. “I’ll spell out what the Republican Party must do to win national elections again and will discuss how House Speaker Boehner has become Obama’s captive. Tune in!”

Morris’ exit at Fox News comes less than two weeks after news broke that former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who had been a contributor for the cable news network since January 2010, had parted ways with the network. That departure came following reports that Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes was so angry about Palin announcing her plans for the 2012 presidential election on a rival outlet that he wanted to bench her.

In recent months, Fox News has added former “The Man Show” co-host Adam Carolla and former congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who’s known for his liberal views, to its roster of contributors. The network has also re-upped Karl Rove, the former senior adviser to George W. Bush, through the 2016 presidential election.

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Trade Group Lawsuit Challenges Olive Oil Labeling

The North American Olive Oil Association, a trade group that represents the olive oil business in the United States and Canada, is suing Kangadis Food, saying that it falsely labeled its Capatriti brand as olive oil when the product is a fat from leftover olive skins and pits.

That fat, known as olive pomace oil or olive residue oil, is extracted using high heat and chemical solvents including hexane. “Olive pomace oil is not allowed in any grade of olive oil under any standard anywhere in the world,” said Eryn Balch, executive vice president of the association. In addition, she said, “The cost of producing oil that way is a fraction of what it costs to produce authentic olive oil.”

Themis Kangadis, an executive with the company, said he had not heard of the lawsuit and would ask the company’s lawyers to look into it. “I had no idea,” Mr. Kangadis said.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent Kangadis, which is based in Hauppage, N.Y., and operates under the name The Gourmet Factory, from selling any pomace product that is not so labeled and to notify retailers and other buyers of pomace products that they were buying an adulterated product. The suit was filed Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Ms. Balch said Capatriti’s pricing was one-third to one-half the price of competitive brands, so the association hired an independent contractor to buy nine tins of Capratiti “100% Pure Olive Oil” product from three lots. Identifying materials were removed from the samples, and they were shipped to a lab in Spain that is certified by the International Olive Council, an organization based in Spain that sets the standards for olive oil purity and quality.

“When the results came back, they clearly confirmed that none of the samples were olive oil,” Ms. Balch said. “Instead, they were some type of pomace oil and pomace oil and seed oils.”

Dan Flynn, executive director of the Olive Center at the University of California, Davis, said he was not surprised to hear of the lawsuit. “There have been too many reports that the grading and labeling of olive oil are a big problem,” Mr. Flynn said.

Other studies by the center on olive oils sold in supermarkets and used in the food service industry have found that many failed to meet the standards of the grade listed on their labels.

In 1982, the Food and Drug Administration defined “virgin olive oil” as a term that may be used on labels only for oil from the first “pressing” of olives and fit for consumption without further processing. “Oil extracted from olive pomace and pits by chemical means and refined to make it edible must be labeled either ‘refined olive residue oil’ or ‘refined extracted olive residue oil,’ according to the agency’s regulations.

More recently, the Agriculture Department has published voluntary guidelines for grading olive oil. New York State has more stringent laws than the federal government, stating that any compound or blended olive oil be labeled as such and include the percentage of olive oil that is in the total.

Diluting olive oils with seed and other oils has been a persistent problem, attracting growing consumer complaints, as has the grading of extra virgin olive oil.

“Information about hazelnut, walnut and other seed oils being in olive oils has been misrepresented in the press,” she said. “Most of what has been talked about lately is not about authenticity, it’s about labeling within a grade, whether something is really extra virgin or not.”

In the complaint against Capatriti, the association said that because of the differences in the way olive oil and pomace were produced, the presence of pomace in a single tin meant that all tins in the same lot contained pomace. Capatriti bottles and cans are labeled “Extra Virgin Olive Oil,” “100% Pure Olive Oil” and “Light Olive Oil,” and its Web site says it is “proud to introduce” a new line of “All Natural Blended Olive Oil.”

“This is a very, very clear-cut case of false advertising,” said Timothy J. Treanor, a lawyer at Sidley Austin who is representing the association. “This is not a case where there is room for argument about degrees of truthfulness. Here, 100 percent olive oil is what it states on the tin and by any standard, that’s not true.”

The association contends that Kangadis had to have known about the adulteration of its products because of a complaint it filed after the Connecticut General Assembly in 2008 adopted the criteria set by the International Olive Council for assessing olive oil quality and set penalties for companies that sell olive oils cut with hazelnut, soy or peanut oils.

Kangadis tried to stop the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection from enforcing the state’s law on olive oil, saying the company’s “reputation and business relationships have already been harmed by adoption of the state olive oil standards.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 6, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled the surname of a laywer at Sidley Austin representing the North American Olive Oil Association. He is Timothy J. Treanor.

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Obama urges short-term solution to prevent steep budget cuts

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to come up with short-term spending cuts and revenue increases that would stave off more drastic cuts set to take effect in March.

In a brief appearance in the White House briefing room, Obama asked lawmakers to come up with a quick fix that would postpone the automatic cuts and their "devastating" effects on the economy.

The economy is in recovery, Obama said, but that won’t continue if there are “self-inflicted wounds” caused by elected officials. 

The economy shouldn’t be at risk “just because folks in Washington couldn’t come together to eliminate a few special-interest tax loopholes or government programs that we agreed need some reform,” he said.

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The president said he still wants to deal with deficits over the longer term, but that he doesn’t want to see workers laid off and critical programs lapse while Congress works its way to a more broad-based budget solution.

When the automatic cuts were first devised in 2011, the $1.2-trillion in so-called sequester cuts were intentionally designed to be severe. Lawmakers on all sides believed they would force Congress to come up with a better alternative for deficit reduction.

But the deadline is drawing close and the sides are nowhere near a permanent solution. Democrats want to exchange the pending across-the-board cuts for tax revenue generated in part by ending tax breaks for oil and gas companies.

Republicans, meanwhile, see the looming sequester as one of their best chances to exact steep spending cuts. They want to steer away from reductions at the Pentagon and toward Medicare, food stamps and other domestic programs.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s second inauguration

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, calls the Democrats' ideas “gimmicks.” House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) argues that the public doesn’t support the idea of raising taxes in place of cutting spending.

“The president’s sequester should be replaced with spending cuts and reforms that will start us on the path to balancing the budget in 10 years,” Boehner said.

Speaking to reporters, Obama said he believes “modest reforms” in social insurance programs would eventually have to be paired with tax reform.

For the moment, he said, it appears a full budget “may not be finished” before the automatic cuts kick in. Congress can’t let that happen, he said.

QUIZ: Test your knowledge about the debt limit

“If Congress can’t act immediately on a bigger package,” he said, “they should at least pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months.”

After that, he said, the two sides can work together to replace cuts with a “smarter solution.”

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christi.parsons@latimes.com

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Instagram Finally Feeds the Web, But We're Still Hungry

Instagram launched a web-based interface on Tuesday that largely mirrors its mobile app, allowing users to log in from a browser to view and interact with photos from people in your feed. It’s a big move from the company that grew to prominence as a mobile-only social network.

Although Instagram had previously launched web profiles for its users and did give people the ability to interact with others’ photos on the web, it had not offered a way to log in and browse your network’s photo stream in the same way you can within the app. As of today it offers that same experience on the web.

While the ability to interact and view a feed from the desktop is great, it’s also a bit puzzlingly put together. The linear experience of vertical photos presented one at a time doesn’t work nearly as well on the web as it does mobile. It means there’s a lot of wasted space on either side of the image. Meanwhile, for a single image, the photos themselves are quite small. It would be great to see them either blown up, or tiled, to make better use of the desktop screen.

Mat Honan is a senior writer for Wired's Gadget Lab and the co-founder of the Knight-Batten award-winning Longshot magazine.

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Follow @mat on Twitter.

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Kristen Wiig joins “Anchorman” sequel

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Kristen Wiig will contribute to the lunacy in “Anchorman: The Legend Continues.”

Director Adam McKay announced on Facebook that the “Bridesmaids” star had joined the cast of the follow-up to the 2004 hit.

“Kristen Wiig is officially on board for Anchorman 2,” McKay wrote. “Couldn’t be more excited.”

TheWrap first reported that Wiig was eyeing the project in December. McKay did not say what role she would play in the film, but sources told TheWrap at the time that she would play the love interest of Brick Tamland, the dim-witted weatherman played by Steve Carell in the first movie.

Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate and Paul Rudd are all reprising their roles in the sequel, with Judd Apatow once again producing the picture.

“Anchorman: The Legend Continues” will hit theaters on December 20, 2013.

The “Saturday Night Live” vet, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay for 2012′s breakout hit “Bridesmaids,” will star opposite Ben Stiller in the remake of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and will lend her voice to “Despicable Me 2.”

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