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(A) Determining the scope and contents of the prior art;
(B) Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims in issue;
(C) Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art; and
(D) Evaluating evidence of secondary considerations.

To establish a prima facie case of obviousness, three basic criteria must be met. First, there must be some suggestion or motivation, either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art, to modify the reference or to combine reference teachings. Second, there must be a reasonable expectation of success. Finally, the prior art reference (or references when combined) must teach or suggest all the claim limitations.

Sorry I rent new DVDs for $1.25 for a two night rental. That beats Netflix and iTunes. The limitation with Netflix is waiting for DVDs to be mailed to you, might take a few days or a week. I can rent DVDs as quick as I can make it down the block to the video store that gives me my half-off discount for being a loyal customer. No waiting needed, except 15 minutes in the checkout line.

I can run a packet scanner on the iTunes data being sent back to Apple, I did it before and found my personal info in it. It is not anonymous, and even if it was it is still Spyware. Spyware found in iTunes is but one article on it. Another spyware article on iTunes another one on CNet

Sorry I don't want Spyware on my system. Apple is unethical for doing that. It has been verified that iTunes phones home.

I always wondered what would happen if the author of Hybris wanted to harm the systems. I also believe that Virus was so advanced that it got own "uninstall yourself" command from its master/creator.

http://news.com.com/2009-1017-250870.html
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/hybris.shtml

When you look at detail, it is much more advanced than this trojan which does amazing things such as finding out the e-mail addresses via watching the communications just like Ethereal.

The genius of old time DOS viruses is IMHO GoldBug, it did an amazing job as hiding itself to video memory.

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/goldbug.shtml (Mikko Hypponens original analysis)

Now imagine if these guys decided to make money via trojans.

They are trying to do just that:

http://news.com.com/FBI+director+wants+ISPs+to+tra ck+users/2100-7348_3-6126877.html

It'll probably never happen. But ONLY because it's completely impractical from a technical standpoint.

Also, if you've never heard of CALEA, do a search. ISPs are already (as of this month) required to help law-enforcement spy on users. At great expense and hassle.

Those interested in a home theater want dedicated hardware. They don't want audio/visual performance compromised.

I couldn't disagree more. I use the PS2 as my "home theater" DVD player because it's one of the best I've seen/used and I'm a movie nut. I think that the days of having 10 black plastic boxes in your living room just to play the same shiny plastic discs is quickly ending. There's no reason to have all of that redundant electronics when you've got stuff like the PS2. From what I understand, in Japan, and other places where real estate is insanely expensive, that using game boxes as DVD players is actually quite common. (DVD player in the Wii and DVD player in the Xbox 360

I really like having one tiny, unobtrusive box that handles all of my games, music, and movies. I think that having a stand-alone DVD player is absurd in this day and age. There's simply no reason for it in most cases.

"In what market does Apple have a monopoly?"
Any market they can get a foothold in. Currently that seems to be online music (at least to the same extent that MS ever had a monopoly.) For most of us Apple = MS without the success...

"um, no they are not. And what would they be sued for?"
I don't think they're getting sued, but the EU has been putting pressure on the iTunes store for some time.
http://news.com.com/EU+takes+aim+at+Apple+over+iTu nes/2100-1041_3-6166226.html

"I also can't buy a Nokia phone without the Nokia OS in it. Oh the humanity! And why would you want to get a Mac without OS X? What would you gain from that that you couldn't gain from simply buying the computer and erasing the HD? And what does your question have to do with "fair use"? You are not in any shape or form prevented from running some other OS on the Mac."
1) Maybe I already own the OS and I'm disposing of my old Mac? If you believe that the price for the OS isn't built in to every Mac sold then I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you.

"MoAB was a flop, IMO. They stuffed their numbers by adding bugs in applications that had nothing to do with Apple (like VLC)."
It was a flop because you drank the cool-aid.

Read http://news.com.com/SCO+seals+deal+for+legal+expen se+cap/2100-7344_3-5440361.html The lawyers clearly have a vested interest in dragging this case out and, being a good family man, why should Darl complain?

Wait a minute, I've seen this graph somewhere else today. Oh, that's right it is the solution to Lie E8 problem, one of the most complex symmetrical structures in mathematics defining a 248 dimensional object. Here is an other view of the same chart:

Yes, because Russia and China are well-known for both their internet freedom and their unwillingness to kowtow to the RIAA and its ilk. Nowhere is safe.

Yes. They can march into your business/school and demand (DEMAND!) that you provide licenses or face fines. This happend to a lot of schools in Oregon (who had very little money for computers in schools), and also to Ernie Ball (famous guitar string manufacturer). One story is here: http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html, and another was covered by slashdot here: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/22/1719218.shtm l. The BSA operates in Canada and other countries too. They can march in and shut you down if you are using software obtained illegally.

Is there anyone out there that remembers Aurora?

This old cnet article has a pointer to an animation about this and that talks about the black holes themselves colliding. The gravity wave phenomena is potentially very interesting.

However, the original question was about the accretion discs and being in some sort of time-dialated matrix-like slo-mo explosion, which is an entirely different thing...

From here: http://news.com.com/Adobe+ponies+up+for+Apollo/210 0-1012_3-6129403.html

"During a press and anlalyst briefing Wednesday, Adobe's senior vice president and chief software architect Kevin Lynch said Adobe will build its future products using Apollo."

You're not the first one to come up with that joke (as you may already know). Turing Award winner Edsger Dijkstra called his Volkswagen camper the Touring Machine.

You could drop iSCSI and just use layer-2 Ethernet to transfer blocks, but then you'd have to define a comm protocol for disks on layer-2 Ethernet. Not that it couldn't be done, but I'm not aware of one in common use today (at least not on commodity Ethernet hardware).

ATA over Ethernet gets you at least halfway there.

http://www.pcquest.com/content/technology/2006/106 110402.asp
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8149
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10880_11 -6106721.html

Looks like he's spitting the dummy now that he is out of the loop. MS are not a search company

http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&mkt=en-US

MS dont want to be a search company

• The Battle For Better Search (April 2005)
• New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles (May 1 2006)
• Microsoft Wants More Search Share (October 27 2006)
• Microsoft puts Live services into the Labs (January 26 2006)

but as is the way when you are a perceived are the dominant IT player you must be seen to 'compete' with all the 'upstarts' to keep the share holders happy

• Online Search Hits All-Time High; Google Dominant
• (March 3 2006)
• Yahoo! gives up quest for search dominance (January 24 2006)
• Does search engine's power threaten Web's independence? (October 31 2002)

so your business heads gob off about how stupid the opposition business heads are.

Right. That's why google has to be "fucking kill"ed instead of just being allowed to die on its own.

I think most people are going to be very surprised when they realise where MS see their future and while they are currently getting slaughtered in many sections of the press over Vista they are quietly laying the ground work for the next phase, which is largely why there has been so little reaction from Redmond to the adverse press.

Vista IS the groundwork for the next phase. Everything Microsoft does is intended to extend their control over the market. Not a surprise, but still true.

BSA audits aren't FUD they're fact. I give you Ernie Ball (a manufactor of guitar strings and accessories), and the owner's account of a BSA audit. Directly afterwards, he migrated the company to OSS and isn't going back.

I'll take this as sincere and not a troll

originals are Here and here...

Wakey wakey! http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-5095026.html

> It doesn't matter if it is only 1 function that IBM has copied in there.

RTFA. They are talking about function prototypes, not functions. Big difference. Without actually seeing what the beef is, SCO's claims could be as ridiculous as "int foo (void);"

> Just the fact that SCO has not been lying is vindication enough for me.

Where does it say SCO has not been lying? RBC, Microsoft, SCO and Baystar capital* have been in on this pump-n-dump since day one. As far as I'm concerned, they are all crooks and should be brought to court and tried as such. It's no different than Enron and the other MegaCorp swindlers.

[*] http://news.com.com/Fact+and+fiction+in+the+Micros oft-SCO+relationship+-+page+2/2100-7344_3-5450515- 2.html
http://www.newsforge.com/comments.pl?cid=87796&sid =36545

Actually, these days there are a couple of vending machines for iPod purchases available at airports http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=41/. Therefore today I wouldn't think of software sold via a vending machine to be absurd, but several years ago? Yes.

Cunning resemblance:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/images//fetah-benabid3. jpg

http://image.com.com/tv/images/processed/thumb/24/ 4c/10587.jpg

Didn't Walmart do exactly that a couple of years back, with Lindows preinstalled?

You might be referring to a few low end deals like:

• $500 laptop from 2004.
• $400 Desktop from 2002.

The prices were lower, but never much less than Windoze system prices at the same time. The savings were not passed along to the customer to help overcome the perceived risk. Moreover, the systems were never really promoted and I never saw one in a store. Crummy hardware, same price, no advertising, that's not exactly a recipe for success. At the same time, I don't know if they systems actually lost money. As far as Wallmart goes, relation ship with M$ is muddy, and you should do as they do not as they sell.

A company like Dell is in an entirely different position. They have the size to get low hardware costs and can make a dramatic price difference and still make good money. Obviously, the demand is there and the perceived risk is much smaller.

The above points are all well taken -- I guess I was just concerned about corporations throwing their weight around and rushing to litigate in the knowledge that most people will not or cannot afford to fight them. I was working at Palm when Palm sued the owner of www.mypalm.com, in a move that was internally regarded as completely unjustified by everyone who didn't wear a suit to work. Palm eventually dropped the suit and settled with the guy when the developers revolted against corporate on this issue (if only we'd known that was the tip if the iceberg).

I'm afraid that this precedent could lead to many other cases of companies trying to seize domains they want through legal methods. I'd rather see people get their DNS from someone they trust, than a judge decide that Delta Airlines owns the trademark to the word Delta.

On some level, the Authorities quite like heroin addicts, because at least they're predictable. The addict needs to score every so often, and scoring shuts them up for awhile -- if they're "kicking the gong around", they're not out protesting. Of course, they still want "normal" people to think that heroin is a bad and evil substance; the side effects of its illegality certainly present this impression.

The point is, there are some people who are never going to buy Microsoft Office -- not at the full price, anyway -- and Microsoft would be stupid if they hadn't figured that out. From Microsoft's point of view, it's better that these people are using a pirated MS Office than a competitor's product. They're still learning the MS Office Way Of Doing Things, so if/when they get jobs involving computers they will want their employers to use MS Office; and they're still acting as adverts for MS Office. And they're generating files in Microsoft's ill-documented, proprietary formats -- thus ensuring that anyone with whom they exchange documents is obliged to use MS Office. As long as some of those people might be dissuaded from piracy, Microsoft benefit from a few pirates.

Of course Microsoft can't be overt about all this. And they do have to set some sort of a barrier against piracy. Otherwise literally everybody would be using pirated copies of Office, since there would be no benefit to using paid-up software. But the simple fact is that as a private individual, or even a small business in the early years of trading, you are extremely unlikely to be prosecuted for using pirated software. And if you ever do, the chances are greater that you'll stick with the devil you know than turn around and say "screw you".

As for MAC OS X: it may be easy to copy, which isn't all that surprising considering how much of it is actually FreeBSD; but last I heard, it required an expensive dongle .....

>Provide references to someone from MS saying all of those as an official representative of his company or STFU.

Ok, i'll bite.

Microsoft license calls the GPL "viral":
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-268889.html

Open source an intellectual property destroyer:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-257001.html

Ballmer calls GPL a "cancer"
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2092 085,00.htm

Ballmer saying Linux infringes MS IP
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/17/ 1324248

Search for the rest yourself, coward.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=micr osoft+gpl+cancer+&btnG=Search

>Provide references to someone from MS saying all of those as an official representative of his company or STFU.

Ok, i'll bite.

Microsoft license calls the GPL "viral":
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-268889.html

Open source an intellectual property destroyer:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-257001.html

Ballmer calls GPL a "cancer"
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2092 085,00.htm

Ballmer saying Linux infringes MS IP
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/17/ 1324248

Search for the rest yourself, coward.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&q=micr osoft+gpl+cancer+&btnG=Search

Because its not like Apple got $150 million from MS 10 years ago. Oh wait, yes they did.

Not only is not news, it hasn't been news for a long time. Here's what Bill Gates said in 1998 about software piracy (about 9 years ago):

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." -- Bill Gates at University of Washington "town hall" meeting in 1998

So, no, despite what TFA says, it is not the case that Raikes' words "do not appear to echo the sentiments of his company..."

Bill Gates said the same thing 9 years ago.

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

The Chinese were/are pretty sensitive to the "addicted" keyword. It probably reminded them of the British opium business in the 1800s.

Opera person is Håkon Wium Lie

I think some other person explained that html and css don't provide required document layout controls. They are designed for display and not for publication. Can't find a link.

...A decent chance of being sued by SCO for no real reason...

"Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with," Sontag said. "They end up being far stronger than anything you do could do with a patent." [1]

Here's a couple recent linsk for data center photo tour geeks: Info Week just had a slideshow of photos from inside the Sun Blackbox portable data center, while C/Net offered a look inside LucasFilms' Death Star data center in San Francisco.

Sickening. No other word to describe fanboys like you.

"Playstation 2 was supposed to be the god box"

Got a link to anyone from Sony ever making such an inane claim? Oh that's right it's just another tiresome fanboy strawman.

"the supercomputer"

The PS2 floating point performance WAS in the supercomputer range at the time the product shipped. Sorry if that makes you angry. In fact you can't build a comparable price/performance/heat/space computing system either alone or networked than the PS2 back in circa 1999. Again, sorry if that makes you angry.

"It fell DRAMATICALLY short of the announced specifications."

Wait, let me guess...you were about to make the claim about how Sony said 'teh PS2 has teh Toy Story Graphics" AND THEY LIED!

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-250632.html

"One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

"Playstation 3 is too cheap. PSP is a fantastic value and UMDs are highly desirable. Blah blah blah."

Yes, you could have save everyone the time and just gave us the short version of your input: Blah blah blah.

my big problem with this program in particular is that the Department of Homeland Security is notorious for not protecting its data (example #1, example #2). so even if you feel confident that they have a good reason for mining this data, you can't possibly have confidence that someone else isn't mining the DHS's data for their own uses.

Here's another story about it on CNet.

http://news.com.com/Photoshop+gets+HD+Photo+suppor t/2100-1046_3-6165425.html?tag=html.alert

I clicked on the no new security updates planned link and I got this, which doesn't actually say anything at all:

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification
Updated: February 13, 2007
Security Bulletin Advance Notification

The next security bulletin advance notification is scheduled for March 8, 2007, and will outline information for the March 13, 2007 security bulletin release.

Not going to end jpg - everyone dissatisfied with JPG is already using RAW. Everyone satisified with jpg will stick with jpg.

This is going to enjoy the same sort of limited uptake as jpeg2000 vs jpg, mp4/wma/ogg vs mp3, png vs gif, etc.

Few other things to note:

1) The 'HD' doesn't stand for High Definition, it's just there to get the association with HD TV in consumers minds. *rolls eyes*

2) This technology is patented to the hilt & the licensing terms for the HD Photo Device Porting Kit 1.0 licensing terms specifically exclude copyleft (GPL style) licenses.


Ok, you have so many things confused, I'm not even sure they are worth addressing.

People NEED to go look at the HD specifications and see WHY and WHAT MS is trying to achieve with this new format.

It is designed to work better with digital cameras based on how the imaging chip sends data to the device to be stored.

HD Photo also has several features that could be very important in High Quality images being used on the web, as the format supports mipmaping without having to have a predefined thumbnail.

HD Photo brings several new things to an image standard that DOES NOT exist in any SINGLE image format specification, as well as adding in some impressive new compression, resolution, and bit depth beyond even high end Photo formats.

If MS does as they propose, and release this specification to an independant standards body, why should we not see this as a good thing? Which is what the whole point of the buzz of HD Photo has been on various sites, this is not about them demanding licensing or royalties as the parent poster suggests.

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Make+our+HD+Photo+fo rmat+a+standard/2100-1012_3-6165004.html

I have a feeling the iPhone will be able to do all this gizmo does

if you're serious then apple may have at last created the perfect customer!

they don't need to spend big money on marketing lies http://news.com.com/2100-1042_3-5180251.html anymore; when customers are as technically ignorant as you, they can just depend upon your imaginations to build up entirely false expectations.

look fair enough, if you are so bereft of character that you think you can express yourself (and even attract women...lol!) by paying over the odds for underpowered tat then feel free. but don't ever believe that you are anything other than a cretin and a mug to most people, certainly anyone who knows a thing about technology.

Universal WiFi in an urban area is a pipe-dream. Yes you can point to tiny examples here and there like Mountain View where a company with more money than God can make it work, but that's hardly a fair comparison. Downtown Atlanta is not like Mountain View.

Okay instead of Mountain View, let's try San Francisco. That company with "more money than God" along with Earthlink is offering free, as well as a paid for service, wireless there.

I can count the number of fabulous free-internet-for-everybody on .... no fingers of one hand.

Where in the world does "free" access come from? TFA does not use the word "free" once. However Google and Earthlink, both for profit businesses, are setting up wireless broadband access in San Francisco. The two companies are setting up a wireless mesh wherein businesses and residences can signup for a free Meraki wireless router, and can buy a range extender for $50, to join the network. The free basic service is capable of download speeds of around 1Mbps, and there's a paid for service that offers faster speeds. If profitable businesses can offer free service what prevents governments from doing the same? That is other than said governemnt services make it harder for a business to enter the market if they wanted. However they don't want to do otherwise they step up to the plate and setup a network like Earthlink and Google are doing.

Research shows that Linux is gaining on Microsoft as of the year 2000 yet there doesn't seem to be any MS-Office for Linux.

The trend seems to be continuing in 2005 and I would guess 2006 as well if the numbers finally come in for 2006.

Errata Errata has developed another network sniffer that looks for traffic using 25 protocols

Wire Shark Hundreds of protocols are supported, with more being added all the time.
Wireshark's most powerful feature is its vast array of display filters (over 51000 as of version 0.99.5).

Something isn't adding up for Errata having more.

Normally people complain that Wireshark looks at too many protocols and presents a network vulnerability.

http://www.yeahronimo.com/

Well, I think Wikipeida's success is rather proven. Just look at the google trafic: http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikipedia
And the reliability studies show that Wikipedia is just about as reliable as Britannica: http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
Furthermore it puts light on the fact, that you always have to cross test your informations, no matter the source.

How can that not be success?

So no, OOo won't replace MSOffice quite yet

You're absolutely right. I agree 100%.
And that's exactly why governments entities and educational institutions in Texas, Massachusetts, Israel, India, Singapore, Germany, France, Brazil, China, Macedonia, Denmark, and from the opendocument fellowship *deep breath*. Australia, Austria, Belgium, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Croatia, Czech Republic, EU bodies, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, and from the USA: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and New York... are NOT all switching or planning to switch to OpenOffice.

Oh wait. They are!

That's the famous Apple-Microsoft deal.

1997 was the year that Jobs sucked up to Gates on the big screen at MacWorld. That was when Gates' face appeared on the big screen, reminiscent of the Apple "1984" video. A 5-year deal was announced under which Microsoft would continue to support Office on the Mac, and Apple would settle patent and antitrust claims with Microsoft.