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I think that I actually agree with Blackberry on this one, though I'd think this would fall into trademark territory more than patent technology. Maybe the curved ridges on the keys somehow have a patent I guess...

Rule of thumb: IP law is so complicated that it's safe to assume that (1) TFA got it wrong, (2) the Slashdot summary and title got it wrong, (3) all slashdot posters (including me) got it wrong, with the sole exception of NewYorkCountryLawyer. I think the only way is to read what the actual filing said, and then look up patents, and then look up the claims section of those patents.

As far as I can tell, Blackberry complained that Typo Keyboard infringed one or more of:

* US Patent 7629964 - a patent about the invention of a particular angling+placement of keys on a handheld mobile device where the keys are optimally placed and angled to allow two-thumb typing. It looks like there was thought and extensive user research into figuring out that particular angling and placement. While it was obvious that some kind of angling+placement would be good, I guess no one had done the inventive work to figure out that particular angling+placement.

* US Patent 8162552 - a patent about the invention of a particular ramping of individual keys for the same end. I know that HP had beveled keys before. This patent is for a particular angling and beveling and crest and so on. Again it looks obvious that some kind of beveling is useful, but I guess no one had done the inventive work to pick out this particular angling and beveling. It looks like anyone who used a DIFFERENT angling and beveling wouldn't infringe on this patent.

* US Design Patent D685775 - a design patent which is very specifically for Blackberry's design. Design patents are for the ornamental shape of a functional item, and only apply when the design is novel and not the obvious shape for devices. I guess we didn't have the particular Blackberry proportions or layout on other devices before.

* Blackberry's trade dress. Trade dress is about the recognizable look of a product, that would let consumers readily recognize whether something is distinctively a Blackberry from its distinctive shape, colors etc.

I don't know on the basis of which of these the temporary sales ban was enacted. But I do know that Blackberry keyboards are indeed nicer to type on than any other phone keyboards I've used, and it really does suggest there was something non-obvious about their research into key placement and contours and their particular results. And I do think that Blackberry keyboards have a distinctive recognizable look. From photos, that Typo keyboard really did look a heck of a lot like a Blackberry in both its overall form. If indeed it also copied the particulars of Blackberry placement/beveling, rather than using any of the INFINITE other possible placement/beveling, then it seems like a slam dunk for Blackberry.

Really? Because I'm pretty fucking sure they did, in fact, do exactly that. Samsung vs Apple involved patent USD504899, which claims "the ornamental design for an electronic device, substantially as shown and described", to wit a rectangular cuboid with rounded corners. So, yes, Apple did sue Samsung over rounded corners (although the jury did find Samsung did not infringe, that does not change the fact that Apple did in fact sue Samsung over a thin rectangular design with rounded corners.)

Really? Because I'm pretty fucking sure they did, in fact, do exactly that. Samsung vs Apple involved patent USD504899, which claims "the ornamental design for an electronic device, substantially as shown and described", to wit a rectangular cuboid with rounded corners. So, yes, Apple did sue Samsung over rounded corners (although the jury did find Samsung did not infringe, that does not change the fact that Apple did in fact sue Samsung over a thin rectangular design with rounded corners.)

Funny. There's a shit-ton of Chinese messaging phones using Blackberry style keyboards with shaped keys (oooh so innovative). I doubt they're licensing the patent given the low price point these sell at in emerging markets.

There was a time when cell phones lasted weeks on standby. You can still get them if you don't fall prey to the smartphone fad. Mine lasts 2+ weeks between charges on a 1 year old battery.

Yes. I don't know if it is accurate, but you should at least verify that google maps doesn't show area 51 before making statements like this. https://maps.google.com/maps?f...

Sure, the concept of a To-Do list can be done in a few words of a high-level language...but that a program does not make. There is an infinitesimal number of other decisions/other command that must be defined and described. In the end, his cute little program would have to be just as long and complex as any JS or PHP script that did the same thing.

Good point. However: "infinitesimal"--I don't think that word means what you think it means.

from https://www.google.com/#q=us+c..., the closest to what you are asserting is http://www.latinopost.com/arti... where someone had his ranch seized where he was raping his children, and a polygamist. Is that all you got? Rapist child abusers who also happen to be polygamists should have a polygamy shield?

Firstly, we have no evidence of any CA being compromised by intelligence agencies despite the obvious appeal to them of doing so. This is remarkable. Despite the huge number of Snowden documents so far none of them have even hinted at compromise of the CA infrastructure.

x509 has already been b0rked numerous times. Just look at the slashdot archives: there are a number of case where:
- stolen keys were used to sign malware
- a "legit" certificate was obtain from a CA for nefarious purposes.
(by "legit" I mean that it's a valid certificate signed by an official Certificate Authority. It's 100% legit as the identity signed there is completely wrong. Like a malware compagny getting a certificate issued for "Microsoft" by some obscure CA which isn't the one Microsoft is using, and which is ready to sign a certificate with "microsoft" written on it, even if the guy handing the certificate is you and not bill gates)

That has so often happened, that:
- Some CA were plain black-listed. I don't mean that a few such bogus certificates were revoked. No, I mean that some vendors (linux distribution, opensource software, etc) have decided to say "fuck you" to the root certificate of such sloppy CA that can't be trusted with the key they sign.
- There are several firefox extension (like "Certificate Patrol") which specially track when the CA who's signed the site you are visiting: if suddenly https://google.com/ isn't signed by "Geotrust" but by "TurkTrust", it might that you are infact being "Man-in-the-Middle" 'd by a crook who has managed to get a certificate for "Google" signed by "TrukTrust".

I'm not speaking about "Hypothetical Attack Vectors" which are currently debated by the academics and which could be used to create problems.
I'm speaking about actual occurences, documented in the press and reported here.
Several actual cases.

If any random crook can do it, chances are that CIA, FSB/KGB/TchK, MSS or any other government can pull the same trick.

The fact that none of the file of Snowden mentions it (and I doubt it, I'm sure I've read about this somewhere) has probably more to do with random chance (not worth mentionning on any of those particular documents, or any of the mentioned cases happens not to use a bogus certificate), than officials not being able to do it.

Google bought Makani, which endeavors to produce a kite generator which provides a far larger 'effective' surface to capture wind energy. It is also entirely safe (glider), and doesn't use our precious helium up. Google will get it done... http://www.google.com/makani/

All yeast dies off from alcohol at some level. If this is a serious commercial adjustment to the organism then I would be working on increasing alcohol tolerance. This would give better yields for the distillers and new wine and beer/ale/mead concoctions that will be ass kicking. Fortunately the Beer Pong Table industry is ready!
https://www.google.com/search?q=Beer+Pong+tables&num=30&newwindow=1&safe=off&sa=X&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=UKA1U6LtIKPnsATSlIHABg&ved=0CEsQsAQ&biw=771&bih=428

When I worked at VMware...

Where'd you work?

There are no "freak" in "fries"!

... yeah, what stoner thought there was a case here?

Perhaps people who've seen how much grief Google are given over their results, which are nowhere near as biased as Baidu's?

http://www.google.com/search?q...

They are not the big bad evil company everyone makes them out to be.

And nazies are not the big bad evil everyone makes them out to be either.

I didn't know soldering some electronics together and porting a language to a platform is Ph.D. level work.

Agreed. This is my research http://scholar.google.com/cita... . WearScript is a tool that helps us in our current research (which is an extension of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ). When you do research you can either use tools that already exist or you can take a detour and invest in making better tools so you can do more effective research, that's what this is.

It's better, on an Apple?

Not really, it'd be better on a platform most people actually use.

Given that there's now more Android devices than Windows or Apple machines put together, you have to ask yourself why MS isn't making Office available for the dominant platform. They obviously have a good reason, but it doesn't appear to involve sales of the Office suite. Leveraging their lockin desktop office document formats to disadvantage their key competitor maybe?

Fortunately, Open Office is already available on Android, and has better compatibility than MS office with their own formats.

https://play.google.com/store/...

Of course, an air gap isn't enough to defeat all malware:

http://arstechnica.com/securit...

I guess if they have no speakers and the internal beeper is disabled, the black hats will have to find another covert channel, though. Watch out for steganographic TCP/IP-over-Osciloscope.

This has been debunked in several places.

Well, this is what happens when the "flywheel" is in the engine of a plane:
A380 rotor burst

Great summary.

As you, I have doubts that they have a leg to stand on (disclaimer: IANAL). Assuming Waze is the owner of all the source code, then no one else would have a claim to it and they would be free to license or re-license it as they chose, regardless of whether or not they rewrote it when going from v2 to v3. There's no obligation for them to keep it GPL'd forever, so if they wanted to take it proprietary, there's nothing stopping them from doing so, at least inasmuch as the code is concerned.

If they accepted code contributions from others that were licensed under GPL2 (which I don't think they did), then the question becomes one of whether or not they actually rewrote that code when going from Waze v2 to Waze v3, since leaving it in there would mean that they could potentially be in violation of the GPL, but if they never accepted any outside contributions and all work was done for-hire, then it would seem that they'd have every right to close it up.

The data, as you said, is a separate matter, but I'm a bit confused about the issue as well. The basis for the claim seems to be that Freemap promised to make all user contributions freely available, so because Waze used Freemap's data, it has a responsibility to uphold that promise as well. I can't find the terms of the agreement in English, but from what it sounds like, Freemap's data, which Waze used, was dual-licensed under the GPL and a proprietary license. The Google translation of Freemap's ToU seems to suggest that commercial entities were expected to procure the rights via the proprietary license, so I would assume that Waze used the proprietary license. As such, any of Freemap's code would not stand in the way of Waze going closed-source, and since user contributions to Waze would be governed by Waze's ToU, not Freemap's ToU, and would not necessarily be contributed back to Freemap in the first place, I can't see how the plaintiff has a leg to stand on. Waze would have every right to use Freemap's data as a starting point under a proprietary license and then accept data contributions on top of that without passing those contributions back to Freemap.

TL;DR: It sounds like regardless of whether a code rewrite was done or not, there isn't any GPL code in Waze anyway, meaning they're under no obligation to release it, nor is Waze under any obligation to pass user-submitted map contributions back to the source (Freemap) from which they got a subset of their data.

via google translate: Le Monde

At the beginning of the article, you ask:

"Why do Netflix and a few other companies keep the DVD format alive, when streaming is more convenient for almost all users?

At the End of the article you then say:

I'd be interested in hearing other theories, as long as people understand the question: Why movie studios don't allow movies to be streamed in a manner that mimics, as closely as possible, the experience of checking out DVDs by mail from Netflix (including, say, a mandatory delay between the time you select the movie and the time that you can watch it).

"as long as people understand the question:"?
Which question? The second question clearly answers the first question by asking "Why movie studios don't allow movies to be streamed...". The question itself is saying that movie studios don't allow streaming in a manner to match DVD by mail, so that's why Netflix doesn't do it.

Netflix already explained why they don't license everything for streaming.
https://help.netflix.com/en/no...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/sha...

I used a almost secret hacker tool (used by the CIA, FBI, and NSA!) to get this information.
Try it: http://google.com/

Since you are looking for an open source GPS application take a look a My Tracks android application for tracking, location, speed, altitude over time.

I can't speak to how well it's coded, but the application design is simple, and elegant

Code quality in the Linux kernel varies a lot per individual driver or subsystem

Well, Linus uses a broader definition of kernel than is customary, referring to a monolithic (macro) kernel. If you really seek elegance in OS code, you start by looking at microkernels, stripped of all the device-dependent clutter. Harmony, for instance was a mere 20 kbyte kernel, even on 68K architectures. http://books.google.com/books?id=xvOpC0_r14wC&pg=PA100 http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234826460_Harmony_as_an_object-oriented_operating_system This led to the even more succinct MQX, which is embedded in quajjillions of devices.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQX

Wait... You mean all the time I spent playing Simple Rockets on my Android smartphone doesn't qualify me to build rockets?

if that thing were any bigger and heavier, it would need braces to your shoulders and hips. non-starter

Yes, because we all know that technology never evolves. This thing will always remain big and heavy, and no amount of Facebook money will ever allow for a rev 2.0 design that is smaller, lighter, more stylish, or more capable.

I mean, aren't you still sporting a cell phone like Gordon Gekko? Doesn't your laptop still weigh 25 pounds?

I think we are describing the same thing. Facebook convinced a couple manufacturers to pre-install that overlay in shipped units, and those probably did not sell great. But the overlay can still be manually installed from Google Play store, as far as I know, as is still in active development. I don't know how many downloads have been made to date.

Looks like a tad over 33,000.

What's stopping Google from particpating in Lyft or Uber using their driverless car combined with Google Maps?

Rio Tinto is employing automation to mining rigs - it's only a matter of time until that tech filters down to general commercial freight.

There is absolutely no point in using your left foot to brake in a road car. If you ever get back in a manual and split-second forget so in an emergency, you'll be pressing the clutch instead of the brake. If you're a professional driver (karting, rally, Formula etc) then that's different, and you as a driver are different, but normal road drivers should never ever left foot brake.

Total BS. I almost always brake with my left foot (in automatics). When in traffic, it allows much faster reactions to surprise changes in conditions and is safer. It's also much smoother for normal transition between brake & gas when you don't have to pick up your whole leg (or even just foot if the pedals are close). The whole "you might forget which foot you're using" is nonsense. That's never happened to me ever in 14 years of driving. That's like saying you might forget which way to turn the wheel to go right.

And no, there's no confusion when I'm driving a manual, either. I do race at an amateur level ( very amateur), and the car's I've raced were manuals, but I don't heel/toe; I'm not a "special" driver of any kind.

It does not hold true. Gwinnett county, Georgia USA.

Neighbor to the right of my girlfriend shot in the chest in his home January 1st 2013 1am from a 9mm bullet that came through the exterior wall. Dies approximately 1 hour later at hospital.

January 1st 12:30am approximately(half hour earlier), neighbor across the street hearing celebratory gunfire from the apartment complex behind his house, the son of the owner of the house walks outside with fathers 9mm fires 5 shots into the ground emptying the clip in more celebratory gunfire. Then goes back inside. More shots are heard from around the neighborhood.

January 1st 1:15am approximately, Gwinnett county police find 5 casings and 5 spent bullets in the ground, arrest the father, the home owner and registered owner of the gun. The fatally shot bullet is too marred to make a positive match. In court it was determined that the trajectory the bullet took was in a downward path. The owner of the home that got shot and died house is 30 feet higher up on a hill than the neighbor across the street who was shooting into the ground.

The apartment complex behind the house of the neighbor across the street is up on a hill more than 50 to 60 feet up and more than 100 feet away through a bunch of trees. It was determined that the apartment complex was more than 20 feet higher than house of the owner that got shot providing a downward trajectory.

Didn't matter. The father, the home owner and owner of the gun is now serving 3 1/2 years in prison for a murder that he didn't commit. His son, late 20's early 30's should have known better. The father should have known better. It is a very unfortunate series of events that many people involved should have known better.

I don't know the full case but 3 1/2 years for murder doesn't seem like they convicted him on murder charges.

But in this case, the home owner was in fact held liable.

here is a map of the house https://www.google.com/maps?q=...

And anyone good at searching addresses, here is the address of the courts http://www.gwinnettcourts.com/

Google Reader is the closest thing to a replacement...but it's really not. Basically it was an RSS reader with a *very* different UI and some widgets for things like gmail, weather, games, etc...

https://commons.lbl.gov/downlo...

And yeah, it was actually a pretty big deal when it shut down...were you living in a cave or something? ;)
https://www.google.com/search?...

Google now incorporates things such as your search history and your emails to provided a customized start page.

Unfortunately in the process of doing this they abandoned the incredibly handy iGoogle page despite much protest but Google's "solution" was to tell everyone to switch to the Chrome browser from whatever browser you're using.

No thank you I'll continue to use Firefox and use igHome or My Yahoo! instead.

NOTHING to do with Canonical at all.

Yet there is Mark Shuttleworth, replying the same day to this supposedly "personal" blog with:

It was amazing to me that competitors would take potshots at the fantastic free software work of the Mir team

But hey... that's Google+, not ubuntu.com or whatever, so that's got nothing to do with Canonical either. Right?

There are a lot of rookie developers out there these days. And some more experienced ones who say bugs are not a big deal.

With that kind of outlook, it's not surprising they are making rookie mistakes.

And wrong. The link you gave does not disprove it, it simply points out they don't know. We knew that already. Others so though. They're called "botanists".

All plant life on earth is carbon limited. You are aware CAM plants can handle hundreds of times the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now, right? Why do you suppose that is?

Suggest you talk to people that actually grow plants. There isn't one that doesn't respond positively to increased CO2; it's used in commercial production of both aquatic and terrestrial plants and a whole industry exists to supply those needs.

People don't buy them because they don't work. THey're not cheap either. Even the coral reef guys have to add CO2.

These jokers have been denying CO2's role or ages. In 2010 they "discovered" this (what any firsr year botany student already knew)

"Forests play a larger role in Earth's climate system than previously suspected for both the risks from deforestation and the potential gains from regrowth, a benchmark study released Thursday has shown.

The study, published in Science, provides the most accurate measure so far of the amount of greenhouse gases absorbed from the atmosphere by tropical, temperate and boreal forests, researchers said.

"This is the first complete and global evidence of the overwhelming role of forests in removing anthropogenic carbon dioxide," said co-author Josep Canadell, a scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national climate research centre in Canberra.

"If you were to stop deforestation tomorrow, the world's established and regrowing forests would remove half of fossil fuel emissions," he told AFP, describing the findings as both "incredible" and "unexpected".

http://www.google.com/hostedne...

Cough. Choke. "unexpected". Please...

Maybe it's something to do with NASA in 2009 figuring out is plants get bigger because of more CO2, they use more CO2. It only took biologists 20 years of nagging to get them to add this term.

"8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise."

"New NASA model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64C warming
'Important to get these things right', says scientist"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

Then there's this paper that shows without more CO2 we won't be able to grow enough food for a more populous world:
http://www.liebertpub.com/MCon...

You really haven't read this stuff?

Whay do you feel qualified to discuss something you know so little about?

According to Google, the 10 second limit is just the default, not the max time.

https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3079296?hl=en

And you could stream for a while via your phone. Mine makes a lovely wifi hotspot, and with my battery pack, I can stay on for over 8 hours.

Blinking LEDs are easily subverted also. Back in the day, with the huge VHS camcorders, I recorded concerts on the request of the musicians. To keep from distracting people, I had cut a small piece of electrical tape to cover the LED. Sure, they saw me with the camera, but the light wasn't on, so I "wasn't" recording. Even when you're shooting with permission, people act differently with the camera pointed at them. The best shots and videos have always been when it doesn't look like I'm shooting.

With film cameras, photographers were known to pretend to shoot rolls of film, just to get the model to loosen up and get used to the camera. It was usually around the 3rd roll of "film" that they'd actually put film in the camera. Now with digital cameras, it doesn't hurt so much to really take the pictures, even though you'll just delete them after. Worst case, you have to swap a few extra memory cards. Any decent photographer has a pocket full when they're out on a shoot anyways.

https://plus.google.com/+Googl...

...is a little out of date. https://www.google.com/maps/pl...

"Kindly"? Are you serious? There was nothing "kind" about it. It's anti-Android PR for Microsoft. Why the hell do you think Microsoft was involved with looking into it in the first place? The goodness of their hearts? Puh-leeeeeze.

What do you think of IE vulnerabilities found by Googlers ?

http://www.google.com/about/ap...

I only picked the info-wars link because it was the first thing that came up in google images with a static path. Pick one you like more... https://www.google.com/search?...

Hardcore guys ride V-twins and run Emacs on their android https://play.google.com/store/... .

https://groups.google.com/foru...

"It's going to be an awful lot of work, with the result that not all systems will be supported, new bugs introduced and what's the gain for the end user exactly?

Total refactoring is not a solution. It's much better to improve what we have. Perhaps with some small refactorings specifically aimed at making Vim work better for users."

Apologies for the shameless self promotion, but I've been working on a new type of display that offers a truly social gaming experience. It's called The Voxiebox. It's a 3D 'Holographic' Display that you and your friends can gather around to play games and have fun. We're still a way off the consumer market but we are working towards it. Our initial focus for gaming will be on the arcade sector.

If you're interested in developing games for The Voxiebox you can sign up for our early access Developer Kit.

Coop
n., a cage or pen for confining poultry.
"A chicken coop"
synonyms: pen, run, cage, hutch, enclosure

*whoosh*

https://www.google.com/search?...

Scroll through those image results and see how many brands of "yellow multimeter with grey face plate you can find!"

Sam

Reminds me of the time this happened to a Norwegian guy who forgot he had bought $24.00 of bitcoin, after the price shot up he wound up with $850000 worth.

Which reminds me of this other time another college kid said he invested $1500 in bitcoin, forgot the password, and when he finally remembered it was worth about $150000, not bad for a college kid.

Happens more often than you'd think.

I lost some on a flashdrive once. I thought the drive was empty, but I had just formatted it EXT3 and stupidly forgot how inferior MS operating systems are -- "Unformatted", yeah right Windoze. Glad I don't trust MS to format drives, ever, I was one click away from letting evil proprietary software destroy yet another batch of hard earned bits.

> nuclear power plants]GENERATE electricity?
> All you would need to do ...

No.

You can look this up for yourself
https://www.google.com/search?..."grid+loss"
  or trust me and the AEC and the plant operators on the subject.

Are they using SSL, or are they using TLS? Which version of either are they using? Most modern browsers support TLS 1.1 and 1.2, but I can imagine Google falling back to 1.0 or even SSL for compatibility with fossils.

As much as I personally love Google Talk, it's about as dead as you can get. Most links have been redirected to Hangouts, and those that aren't, you have to access manually. If anyone cares, here's the only working link that I'm aware of for Google Talk: http://www.google.com/talk/ind...

http://edge.org/conversation/h...

Why is it that "heretics" need to indulge in easily debunked ad hominem attacks like this:

It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

Here are some people wearing winter clothes and measuring what is really happening outside. Perhaps Professor Dyson should get out of his "air-conditioned" Princeton office and do some climatology field work.

You know, I thought you were talking about the white guy who slaughtered those innocent people in a Knoxville Church during the children's holiday play, because he'd been conditioned by right-wing media to believe that Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals deserve murder. But then I googled your terms and realized it's a different tune you're whistling. Let me see if I can harmonize with you!

Maybe we could strap representatives of the problem population to a cross, and set it on fire. Of course we'd have to wear some kind of outfits to protect ourselves from the fire... maybe something white with a hood would do the job...

Am I thinking what you're thinking, pinky? Ah, I thought so. Sig Heil!

accessible from anywhere

This is what I get, at this very moment, at https://drive.google.com/

Google Drive
Currently you can not access the application.