ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2010) — Researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid's Facultad de Informática have developed a computer program capable of human emotion recognition from automated voice analysis.
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The application analyses the sound measurements of a conversation, output by another purpose-built program. Then, based on the rules described in the new application, it is able to identify the emotions hidden in an expression and determine whether the speaker is sad, happy or nervous. Even if the emotion is unclear, the application is able to specify how close the speaker is to each emotion in percentage terms. The application was presented by Susana Muñoz Hernández at the First International Conference on Fuzzy Computation, held in Madeira, Portugal, in 2009.
The application is based on a new tool called RFuzzy, implemented in the Prolog programming language. Prolog is able to represent and operate with what is known as fuzzy logic. Prolog is used primarily in artificial intelligence and expert systems applications.
RFuzzy is a programming support, which stands out for its ease of use and its expressivity. It is able to represent, handle and reason with subjective concepts like high, low, fast, slow, etc.
Apart from being applied to detect emotions in human conversations, RFuzzy has also been used to enhance robot intelligence. In this particular case, RFuzzy was used to program robots participating in the world robot soccer league (RoboCupSoccer), which has been held since 1996 with the aim of developing robotics and artificial intelligence. The experience was outlined in the book Robot Soccer, Inteh, Croatia, 2010, edited by Vladan Papic.
Being based on fuzzy logic, RFuzzy has important benefits for both conversation analysis and the enhancement of championship soccer robot behaviour. Its logical mechanisms are flexible and it leaves some margin of interpretation to the computer. The computer will then make the decision depending on a series of logical rules that take measurable parameters (volume, speech pitch and rate, position, speed or distance of the robot from the ball, etc.) as a reference.
The details of this research are to be published shortly in the INS- Information Science journal and can be consulted online at Science Direct.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Facultad de Informática de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Journal Reference:
- Susana Munoz-Hernandez, Víctor Pablos-Ceruelo, Hannes Strass. RFuzzy: Syntax, semantics and implementation details of a simple and expressive fuzzy tool over Prolog. Information Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.ins.2010.07.033
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Friday, 31 December 2010
Computer program recognizes human emotions from conversation analysis
Kinect Hacked to Control Humanoid Robot: First Steps to Avatar | Fast Company
Another day, another Kinect hack, but this one really gives us a taste of a sci-fi-esque future: Kinect can now directly control the limbs of a humanoid robot. Yup--those Evangelion or Avatar dreams now seem a little more possible.
Taylor Veltrop is a software engineer and robot tinkerer, and his latest impressive feat is to link up a Microsoft Kinect via some custom software and a wireless link to his Kondo KHR-1HV kit robot. Essentially Taylor's code takes the data feed from Kinect's motion and body sensing systems, and works out what position his limbs are in before beaming that data to custom software he's installed in the robot's ROS operating system.
Check out the results below: (Taylor explains his project at the start, and the good stuff happens after 1:20)
Impressive stuff--even while it's only mapped onto the robot's arms for the moment. From the experiment we can see how quickly the mapping between Taylor's gestures and the robot's happen, that the range of motion of the 'bot is smaller than his, and that there could be a better way (using reverse kinematics) to control the robot where the position of the controller's limbs are calculated, rather than the angle of each joint. We can see some of its flaws in the fact that when the 'bot falls, Taylor has to remember to position his arms carefully to pick it up because Kinect is still tracking them.
But make no mistake, this is big stuff: It was crafted quickly by an enthusiast, using relatively inexpensive gear. If bigger robot companies get hold of the tech, it could dispose of the need for sophisticated image-recognition computing or strap-on motion sensing/tracking suits. And that could translate into simpler control over humanoid androids (which are already impressively realistic in some ways). Put a pair of goggles on the controlling human with a video feed from cameras in the robot's eyes, give the 'bot a loudspeaker and the power to walk, and you have a telepresence robot that really walks and talks like you. It's the future you've seen in countless sci-fi movies and shows, hinted at right here with a gaming peripheral.
Related: Kinect Hacked to Play World of Warcraft: Welcome to the Future of Gaming
To read more news on this, and similar stuff, keep up with my updates by following me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.
Pro-WikiLeaks hackers attack Zimbabwe government websites | Naked Security
Hacktivists have struck a blow against the regime in Zimbabwe by attacking a number of government websites in what appears to be a move in support of newspapers who published secret cables in the ongoing WikiLeaks saga.
Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, was recently reported to be suing a newspaper for $15 million after it published a WikiLeaks cable that claimed she has benefited from illegal diamond trading.
As news spread amongst the loosely-knit group of Anonymous hackers who support WikiLeaks, websites belonging to the Zimbabwe government and Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party were hit by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and, in the case of the Finance Ministry, defacements.
The Zimbabwe government's online portal at www.gta.gov.zw and the official ZANU-PF website continue to be offline, and the Finance Ministry's website now displays a message saying it is under maintenance.
A statement published on an Anonymous website offered an explanation for the attacks, which have been dubbed "Operation: Zimbabwe":
We are targeting Mugabe and his regime in the ZanuPF who have outlawed the free press and threaten to sue anyone publishing wikileaks.
Although many people are deeply concerned about corruption in Zimbabwe, I am certain that internet attacks are not the answer.
It seems kind of ironic to me that the hackers who are engaged in actions seemingly intended to be pro-WikiLeaks and in the name of free speech, are using denial-of-service attacks that by their very nature prevent others from communicating.
And don't forget, participating in a DDoS attack is against the law in many countries.
The Sun admits publishing false story | Media | guardian.co.uk
The Sun has owned up to what I guess we in the journalism trade realised the moment we saw it - its splash about the pre-Christmas live episode Coronation Street being targeted by al-Qaeda was false.
On 9 December, it carried this front page story (which still appears on its website, incidentally) claiming that "cops" were "throwing a ring of steel" around the studios in Manchester after being "tipped off" that the show "could be hit by a terror strike."
It had that familiar Daily Star-ish ring of complete nonsense, and so it turns out, as yesterday's page 2 "correction" admits: "Further to our article about increased security at Coronation Street's studios for their live 50th anniversary episode... we would like to make clear that while cast and crew were subject to full body searches, there was no specific threat from Al-Qaeda as we reported. We apologise for the misunderstanding and are happy to set the record straight."
Happy? I doubt that. Note also the above tweet from the Press Complaints Commission. The regulator is, quite rightly, becoming much more publicity-conscious about its work.
Zabaware - Ultra Hal Assistant
Ultra Hal Assistant is your digital secretary and companion. He (or she depending on your character preference) can help you be more organized, he can help you use your computer, and he can entertain you. Ultra Hal has many animated characters to choose from and he speaks to you through your sound card with his own voice! You can also speak to Hal with Hal's speech recognition engine, or you can type to him if you wish. All you need to know in order to use Ultra Hal is to speak English! Ultra Hal can understand natural English language, after all he is an artificial intelligence program. Read on to find out how Ultra Hal Assistant can help you. Or you can download a FREE trial version of Ultra Hal Assistant now.
Ultra Hal can hold conversations with you
Have you ever thought that you could chat with your computer just like you would with a human being? Well, you can. Ultra Hal Assistant can chat about anything you want. Ultra Hal Assistant has a huge conversational database so Hal will never get boring. Ultra Hal also has the ability to learn. Ultra Hal will learn from every sentence that you say, and after a while of chatting Hal will develop a similar personality to yours. If you wish, you may try chatting with our web version of Ultra Hal. Remember that the web version will not speak out loud to you and you will have to type to it. However, the Windows version of Hal does speak out loud to you and you are able to speak to it. Here is a screen shot of what Hal would look like on your computer.
Both a Companion and Assistant
Ultra Hal Assistant is a great conversationalist and you can have hours of entertainment just chatting with him. But in addition to being a great companion Hal can be an assistant and help increase your productivity. Ultra Hal can remember anything you tell him. Use Hal's memory to remember phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses, appointments, birthdays, or anything else that you can think of. Hal can automatically dial phone numbers for you. Hal can automatically start emails for you. Hal can automatically remind you of important dates.
Ultra Hal Assistant can run programs for you and offer help with programs. Hal automatically finds all of the Windows programs you have in your start menu. You can tell him to run any program you have and he will run it. It is much easier then searching through all the folders in the start menu to find the program you want.
Ultra Hal Assistant can help you browse the Internet by telling you what your local weather is, telling you the current news, and even performing an Internet search for you. You can also ask Hal the definition of any word.
The following conversation is an example conversation between Ultra Hal and a person. It demonstrates many of Hal's features.
Chat User: Hello Hal Hal: Good afternoon, User. Is it time for afternoon coffee? Chat User: I drink coffee in the morning Hal: In the morning, I am not worth a darn until my first cup of coffee. Chat User: Same here Hal: Really; should I know more about this? Getting local weather User: Not really, what's the weather like? Hal: Here is your local weather. Chat User: Thank you, Hal. Hal: The pleasure is all mine. Setting appointments User: I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at noon. Hal: You have a doctor's appointment on June 14, 2003 at 12:00 pm. I will remind you when this time is near. Setting appointments User: Our anniversary is on October 14. Hal: Your anniversary is on October 14, 2003. I will remind you when this time is near. I will repeat this event annually. Setting appointments User: Bob's birthday is on 9-21-03. Hal: Bob's birthday is on September 21, 2003. I will remind you when this time is near. I will repeat this event annually. Setting appointments User: I have a date with my girl friend on Friday at 7:00. Hal: You have a data with your girl friend on June 16, 2003 at 7:00 pm. I will remind you when this time is near. Remembering Phone # User: Rob's phone number is 833-1019. Hal: I wrote this person's phone number is my phone book. Remembering Phone # User: John's phone number is 833-3642. Hal: I wrote this person's phone number in my phone book. Recalling Phone # User: What is Rob's phone number? Hal: Rob's phone number is 8331019. Dialing Phone # User: Call Rob. Hal: I am now contacting Rob at office at 8331019. The phone is ringing. Please pick up your phone to talk to Rob. Opening a program User: Open word. Hal: I will now open the program "Microsoft Word" Chat User: Thank you. Hal: It's kind of you to mention it, User. Doing Internet search User: Help me research World War 2. Hal: I will help you research this topic on the Internet. Remembering email User: Rob's email address is Rob@hotmail.com Hal: I have learned Rob's email address. If you ask me to email this person, I will automatically start your favorite email program and write in the address for you. Remembering email User: John's email address is John@aol.com. Hal: I have learned John's email address. If you ask me to email this person, I will automatically start your favorite email program and write in the address for you. Emailing a person User: Email Rob. Hal: I'll now start an email for rob@hotmail.com Remembering addresses User: Rob's address is 3175 West 42nd St. Hal: Rob's address is 3175 West 42nd St. Solving math problem User: What is five times ten plus six? Hal: That's easy. The answer is 56 (5*10+6=56) Recalling addresses User: What is Rob's address? Hal: Rob's address is 3175 West 42nd St. Solving math problem User: What is five squared plus nine? Hal: Math is easy for me. The answer is thirty four (5^2+9=34). Solving math problem User: 2*(5+COS(60)/SIN(30))+3 Hal: Math is easy for me. The answer is fifteen (2*(5+cos(60)/sin(30))+3=14.9278997902311) Chat User: Wow! You are smart! Hal: Thank you; I think you are very smart also. Getting date User: What is today? Hal: The date is Tuesday, June 13, 2000. Getting capitals User: What is the capital of Pennsylvania? Hal: The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburg. Chat User: What do you want to do? Hal: I want to know life, and I want life to know me! Chat User: That's a pretty deep thought Hal: That's a pretty revealing attitude. Chat User: Are you self-aware of your existence? Hal: I sense that this is metaphysical. After taking many factors into consideration I can say that I am self-aware of my existence. Getting a definition User: Define intelligence Hal: Intelligence: the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience. Chat User: Do you exhibit these qualities? Hal: You just reminded me of a trait, which is a member of the attribute family, like a quality! Chat User: Do you exhibit these traits? Hal: I guess that we need to look within ourselves. I do exhibit these traits. Learning If-Then fact User: If it rains hard, then the roads get slick. Hal: I will remember that one follows the other. Caught in a rainstorm it's time to seek shelter. Learning If-Then fact User: If the roads get slick, then drivers need to slow down. Hal: I see the relationship. It would be nice to get rain when we need it. Learning If-Then fact User: If drivers need to slow down, then traffic moves more slowly. Hal: Yes, I get that clearly. Deductive reasoning User: Ok, so what happens when it rains hard? Hal: Traffic moves more slowly because drivers need to slow down. Chat User: You learn well Hal: I am constantly learning from what you teach me. Chat User: It's been nice talking with you, but I have to go now Hal: No, don't go! I like talking to you. I think about you when you are not here. Chat User: That's nice to know, but I can't stay, good bye. Hal: See you later.
Download a free copy of Hal 6.2 now or read what bloggers are saying about Hal.
Here we go into 2011 with the next generation kit
Mayor Booker Uses Twitter to Aid New Jersey Blizzard Cleanup - TIME
A person walks in the middle of the street in downtown Newark, N.J., left, and the city's mayor, Cory Booker
Left; Julio Cortez / AP: William B. Plowman / NBC NewsWire / Getty Images
- 4diggsdigg
If you're a mayor of a northeastern U.S. city, you probably despise Cory Booker right now, because the tweeting mayor of Newark, N.J., is now a social-media superhero, able to move towering snowbanks in a single push — or by sending the shovels and plows your way.
After a blizzard started blanketing the Northeast on Dec. 26, an event that earned the Twitter hashtag #snowpocalypse, Booker turned the microblogging site into a public-service tool. Residents of the city, which has a population of around 280,000, swarmed Booker's account (@CoryBooker) with requests for help, and the mayor responded. He and his staff have bounced around Newark shoveling streets and sending plows to areas where residents said they were still snowed in. "Just doug [sic] a car out on Springfield Ave and broke the cardinal rule: 'Lift with your Knees!!' I think I left part of my back back there," he reported in one message. One person let Booker know, via Twitter, that the snowy streets were preventing his sister from buying diapers. About an hour later, Booker was at the sister's door, diapers in hand. (See photos of the blizzard that slammed the Northeast.)
Booker's frantic Twitter feed reads like an action novel. "I have a snowpocalypse crush on @CoryBooker," wrote one of Booker's million-plus followers. "He's like a superhero with a shovel." The mayor was out clearing snow until 3 a.m. on Dec. 28 before heading back out three hours later after a few winks. "This is one of those times you're just pushing," Booker told TIME while riding around Newark early Tuesday evening, anxiously awaiting a Twitter response from a Newark resident who said her 82-year-old grandmother was shut in by snow. A few minutes earlier, Booker, who played football at Stanford, helped dig out a New Jersey transit bus. "It's an endurance test." This is not the first time Booker has responded to distressed citizens on Twitter. He shoveled the driveway of an elderly man last New Year's Eve after the man's daughter tweeted about his predicament. He also hit the streets during snowstorms last February.
When Booker first started tweeting a few years ago, some older Newark residents complained that his online obsession was a narcissistic waste of time. And while it's fair to wonder if all those unplowed Newark streets serve as an indictment of his administration, it's hard to knock his Twitter habit now. The media-savvy Booker knows his Twitter transparency is winning political points. (The mayor of one of America's most troubled cities, he has starred in two documentaries about his life, picked a jokey fight with Conan O'Brien that landed him on the Tonight Show, and is a darling of the East Coast elite.) Look at Cory go! But for a mayor who sometimes gets accused of being a dilettante with ambitions beyond Newark, he deserves credit for doing the dirty work that many politicians avoid. (Plus, Booker's national profile helped the city secure a $100 million education grant from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. His hobnobbing is delivering the goods for his constituents, who re-elected him in May.) (See the top 10 Twitter moments of 2010.)
Booker's Twitter tactics have raised the bar for other local officials, and beg the question: In the aftermath of the snowpocalypse, are other northeastern officials grabbing a shovel and smart phone, and following Booker's lead? It certainly doesn't look like it. That's not to say local officials haven't responded to citizens via the Web, other social-media sites like Facebook or more old-fashioned means like the phone or even a knock on the door. And we're not declaring that no other politician dug out a car during this storm. (Though New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, for example, certainly didn't: he was on vacation at Disney World.)
But a cursory search through Twitter and local news outlets doesn't reveal any Booker imitators. At least one mayor, Mark Boughton of Danbury, Conn., deserves kudos: while he didn't replicate Booker's almost insanely relentless tweeting, he did post news alerts about the storm on his Twitter account, and dispatched a plow to one street after a resident sent him a direct message about the excess snow. Other mayors, however, either didn't have Twitter accounts or they were sadly staid. The last tweet from Boston Mayor Tom Menino was from June 22: "Download the Citizens Connect iPhone App on iTunes or the App Store for free!" wrote the "mayor," whose sanitized account reads like it's been written by a staffer.
The accounts of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) and his office (@NYCMayorsOffice) offered important news updates: a number to call for blood donations, for example, and statistics to ease frustrated New Yorkers. "More than 2,000 Sanitation Workers and 1,700 plows are working to clear remaining streets as fast and as safely as possible," wrote @MikeBloomberg. However, the mayor has been heavily criticized for New York City's cleanup efforts (abandoned cars littered several snow-filled streets) and there were no tales of the mayor boarding the Staten Island ferry to clear the driveway of a Twitter user. Of course, it may be unreasonable to ask the mayor of New York City, which has over 8 million people, to respond to individual gripes. But could the mayor of New Haven, Conn., which has some 125,000 residents, be as responsive as Booker, who runs a city of nearly 300,000 souls? The account of Mayor John DeStefano, however, has only a tweet from the morning of Dec. 27, saying that commuter train service was suspended. Prior to that message, he last tweeted on Dec. 20. DeStefano is off this week. (Comment on this story.)
"I hope more elected officials discover the power of Twitter," Booker told TIME. "It truly is an effective way to connect with the body politic." Then he was off — to shovel more snow.
See the best pictures of 2010.
See the top 10 everything of 2010.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
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Google Instant is a "Copyright Infringement" by itself, says Author | WWWery
We have been in continuous talks with Mr. Pal Sahota (from U.K.), who claims to have "invented search-as-you-type (a.k.a Instant Search)" back in 1989 (not without proof), a time when nobody thought it was even possible… 1989! That’s even before Google came into being! [Google filed the patent for Instant Search in 2004, and was granted patent in Nov. 2010.]
Here’s is his open letter, with proof, talking how Google not only infringed his copyrights (intellectual property), but has also patented it as its own technology.
"I want the recognition and reward for this. USPTO didn’t do enough research when granting ‘instant’ patent, now they are unwilling to investigate their own mistake. Are they corrupt?"
HIS OPEN LETTER…
22 December 2010
Author
Pal Sahota
PAL Systems Ltd
A recent patent has been granted to Google for ‘instant’ search United States Patent 7836044. I understand that Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and others have also patients on similar products. I believe this to be a prior art pioneered by me in 1989. My name is Pal Sahota and I invented search-as-you-type in 1989. Below is the link to my blog which contains all the information on search-as-you-type including its history / development and 2 Youtube videos.
In the UK and in Europe it was not possible to obtain patents for software until recently but software was automatically covered under the copyright laws. Please view the 2 links regarding this.
Software bill was thrown out (July 2005) as software was already covered by copyright.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4655955.stm
High Court rewrites UK software patent rules in 2008
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2212353/symbian-wins-software-patent/
I believe that Google is infringing on my copyright for the following reasons. They are also using the name search-as-you-type in the format I used which can be clearly seen from the newspaper cuttings on my blog.
I found the details of the Google patent on the below site. Please note my comments at the end of this article.
http://wwwery.com/10010-google-patents-instant-search.html
The way Google search infringes on my ‘user-interface’ irrespective of the type of records (websites or drug data) or the type of software involved in the search. The basic principle is that the redundant time between each key press is used to search the database. As the user starts to type, the data is block read into memory which is then processed at each key press and displayed. ”. The “flow diagrams” would have been almost identical to Google’s if I had been allowed to patent the product in the UK in 1989.
Below is Google’s demo video.
Below are two videos made by me in 1991.
Watching these videos it can be clearly seen that the data is accessed in the same way as shown in the above Google demo! This is the same “user-interface”
Both Google’s and my video’s, search the data from the hard drive at each key press. The data is different (web pages or records) but the algorithm is almost identical in accessing the data! The appropriate parts of the data are shown as a list of options and the most appropriate is highlighted (selected if Enter Key pressed). The user-interface is the same in that “what is typed and the displayed result”.
Google are not only using this format for their web search engines but are ‘giving away’ this technology for all different type of search applications. Search-as-you-type (SayT) application can be downloaded for any application from the link below.
http://code.google.com/p/search-as-you-type/
If a pharmacy software supplier ‘clicked’ and got the software for their application, it would directly compete with what I was selling! This implies that with Google’s current ‘acquisition’ of the patent, I would be ‘infringing’ on their patent even though I done it 20 years ago!!
I also realize that what I did 20 years ago is now being done in various forms such as in database access, word processors and other various applications under various names including search as you type, fast as you type, search as you go, search before you time and instant search. It was more than ‘merely’ searching records from the database. The algorithm for displaying the results is complex and custom made for each application.
Google’s ‘Instant’ patent can also be thought of as ‘prior art’ in that the “idea and ways to implement it” was thought of 20 years ago. Patents should be granted for products/processes not done before or not obvious to persons in the field. After knowing about my product which was done 20 odd years ago it doesn’t take a genius to adapt it for the web or to file a patent on it. On the Google patent my product isn’t even mentioned in the list of references!
Google is also using my copyright name of “Search-as-you-type” in their new Search-as-you-Type (SayT) applications as shown in the link below.
http://code.google.com/p/search-as-you-type/
I used the name “Search-as-you-type” to brand the technology I pioneered in 1989. This can be seen from the numerous newspaper and magazine articles published, some of which are shown on my blog below.
http://searchasyoutype.wordpress.com/about/
There are many articles including the one published in The Guardian Thursday August 6 1992. I presume Google must have been granted a Trademark of some sort to warrant them using the name search-as-you-type in the same way as I did.
My product Autodispens is a Pharmacy management system which is still being sold in the UK and it would seem absurd that I could not use that name for my own invention done in 1989.
To those it may matter, we are awaiting response from Google.
[image credit: seospin.net]
Convergys to close Canadian call center | Business Courier
Convergys Corp. is closing a call center in Nova Scotia, Canada, eliminating 300 jobs, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reports.
The layoffs, at Convergys’ Cornwallis Park location, will take effect in March. Downtown Cincinnati-based Convergys opened the center in 2004.
Some employees are being offered the chance to move to other Convergys call centers in the Nova Scotia communities of Dartmouth and New Glasgow, Convergys said in a press release.
Convergys closed a call center on the Millbrook First Nations reserve, near Truro, Nova Scotia, earlier this year, leaving 200 people out of work. A client had pulled its business from the site, the CBC reported.
Convergys officials told Canadian media the Cornwallis closing would increase efficiencies and reduce costs, and that work performed at Cornwallis would be transitioned to other sites.
Convergys (NYSE: CVG), a provider of outsourced customer care services, employs about 65,000 in 68 customer contact centers and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
US bloke makes a living suing spammers - Someone has to do it | TechEye
Apparently you can quit your job and make a living suing spammers
According to the Seattle Pi, Daniel Balsam chucked his job as a marketing executive to turn Van Helsing on the vampire spammers.
His career started eight years ago when he got one too many e-mail pitches to enlarge his breasts.
He set up a website called Danhatesspam.com, went to law school and is making a decent living suing companies who flood his e-mail inbox with offers of cheap drugs, free sex and unbelievable vacations.
Balsam, who is based in San Francisco, has filed many lawsuits, including dozens before he graduated law school in 2008, against e-mail marketers.
Apparently Balsam settles enough lawsuits and collects enough from judgements to make a living. In fact he has made $1 million out of companies accused of sending illegal spam.
The spammers claim that he is one of many who make dosh from exploiting anti-spam laws. They moan that he files lawsuits against out-of-state companies that would rather pay a small settlement than expend the resources to fight the legal claims.
Bennet Kelley, a defense lawyer, has been identified as Balsam's arch nemesis. He even created a website critical of Balsam's tactics and has sued Balsam twice for allegedly violating confidentiality terms in settlement agreements.
Balsam uses the small claims court and the spammers will often pay up to avoid the hassle.
Balsam said he has more than 40 small claims victories and several more in higher courts, mostly alleging the receipt of misleading advertising.
He has been sued himself. Tagged.com sued him for threatening to violate terms of an earlier settlement by telling the company he was planning to post terms of the agreement on his website.
Valueclick also complained that he breached settlement agreements by exposing confidential terms.