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Unisys will sue Forgent for not paying any royalties on the software used to generate the 42 gif images on their webpage.

While that is going on. Forgent will sue Unisys for not paying any royalties on the .JPG image on their webpage (http://www.unisys.com/corporate/images/home/home/ content/main_photo_homepage.jpg)

When the lawyers have taken all of their money, both of them will declare bankruptcy and go out of business.

"The UK's response to this action to date has been through mandating open standards and specifications in its e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) ..."

I wonder what Unisys has to say about that.

JPEG2000 is more encumbered by patents than GIF. It'll never see the light of day.

The latter does not follow from the former because those companies who currently claim patents on part 1 of JPEG2000 have also agreed to license their patents to the general public without royalty, unlike the recognized owner of LZW (GIF's back end) and the apparent owner of RLE-plus-Huffman (JPEG's back end).

Well, it depends on what you're talking about...

It is well-known that near the equator and near the surface, the winds are generally light. But there is what's called the "Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone", an area of convergent winds. You can see that on a satellite picture of the western Pacific (look at the bottom edge, near the equator, obviously...). The latitude of this zone varies by season, moving always toward the summer hemisphere. It is an important component in what is called the "Hadley cell", which is an important circulation since it carries a great deal of heat from the tropics to the mid-latitudes and helps explain the placement of the major deserts. A good discussion of the very general "General Circulation of Earth's Atmosphere" can be found here, however some of the more interesting "facts" in it are currently in debate (for example, the existence of the Ferrel cell... the Hadley cell is definitely there, though).

So, the tropics aren't totally wind-free and are actually quite important to what happens through the rest of the world. I believe that it's been calculated that the average residence time of an air parcel in any one hemisphere is about 2 to 4 years, meaning that most parcels travel between hemispheres decently frequently.

Other factors to include is what's called the "Quasi-Biennial Oscillation" or QBO. This is strictly a lower stratospheric phenomenon (30 hPa is a pressure with sea level around 1000 hPa... 30 hPa is somewhere around 30 km above sea level.)

For some info on the QBO, check out:
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~cwhung/qbo.html
http://tao.atmos.washington.edu/data_sets/qbo/

Hope this helps. In short, a balloonist could be able to cross the equator. But you'd want to avoid it since the equator is normally pretty stormy.

-Jellisky

I bet about half of your books are already online.

Also, for your compression you should NOT use JPEG. JPEG is optimized for smooth tones and will badly blur hard edges like text. On the other hand, JPEG performs relatively poorly at compressing large areas of the same color (i.e. white backgrounds.) [Note for the nit-pickers, both of these JPEG issues will be reduced/eliminated in JPEG2000.]

I scan documents to either compressed TIFF (tend to be large), PNG, or (*shudder*) GIF.

From the Project Gutenberg "Making Etexts from Paper Originals" paper": (You can bet these guys know how to scan...)

A general rule is to store scanned images to JPEG and store computer-generated pictures (like diagrams etc.) to GIF. The exception is if you scan in grayscale, then use GIF. Never scan pictures as lineart. If acceptable from a file size perspective use the highest possible quality setting for JPEG.

What's really amusing is that, following their foray into UNIX, Unisys has returned to its roots. They're still selling servers that run OS 2200, the 36-bit OS descended from UNIVAC Exec 8 from the 1960s.

What's really amusing is that, following their foray into UNIX, Unisys has returned to its roots. They're still selling servers that run OS 2200, the 36-bit OS descended from UNIVAC Exec 8 from the 1960s.

What's really amusing is that, following their foray into UNIX, Unisys has returned to its roots. They're still selling servers that run OS 2200, the 36-bit OS descended from UNIVAC Exec 8 from the 1960s.

My question is, are these really 32 processor machines running Windows or just multiple 4 way systems in the same box. Even the Unisys site isn't very clear.

You are correct, Unisys sells the es7000. It is a 32way Intel box with up to 64GB RAM. It is meant for server consolidation. I know some companies who have had Unisys in to demo the unit and help them migrate (consolidate) to it. I have not seen any actual results from this...

Although the author may be responding to Seymour Cray's first supercomputers circa 1960 it is untrue that complex computations weren't being performed electronically until the 1960s.

The History of Unisys shows the earliest milestones with the following one almost certainly qualifying as "complex computation":

1952 UNIVAC makes history by predicting the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as U.S. president before polls close.

Just when it looks like the US might be realizing it's gone overboard with copyright and patent law, now here's a proposal to have the EU copy everything that's gone wrong with US IP law.

I thought originally patents were supposed to cover mechanisms. In the loose sense of the word, I suppose an algorithm is a mechanism, but *not* like Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, for crying out loud! In early landmark cases like Apple vs. Franklin (1983; Apple sued Franklin Computer for copying the ROM's on the Apple II+ directly to make a clone), the courts applied *copyright law*, not *patent law*. (Apparently you can only get a patent on generic ROM chips, not on ROM chips programmed a specific way.) The court used the (at the time) new Copyright Act of 1976 (which IMHO was much more reasonable than the DMCA is now!) to frame their decision. Unfortunately, the Lotus 123 case (Lotus vs. Microsoft), the Pentium name trademark case, and the Apple vs. Microsoft case, the courts significantly eroded copyright's ability to provide meaningful protection to software. So I think that's why companies have turned to software patents, because legally speaking, they're much more intractable. (Although there was obviously prior art for ripping off people through patents, e.g. LZW compression which *wasn't even original* (it was a derivative of the earlier LZ compression), yet was awarded a software patent.

Anyway, this is unfortunate, but it doesn't surprise me that the BSA would be pushing software patents. After all, they're the same people who estimate "sales lost to piracy" by counting the number of PC's sold without Windows and Office and ASSUMING that everyone having one of those PC's (a) really *is* running Windows and Office, they just pirated it, (b) would have paid for it to begin with. Plus they send threatening letters to companies telling them that "the BSA police might come knocking on their door," while simultaneously telling disgruntled employees to turn in their employers. Nothing like a little backstabbing to make our lives easier, eh. Oh well, the world is full of scumbags. Just my $0.02.
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Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise!

Just when it looks like the US might be realizing it's gone overboard with copyright and patent law, now here's a proposal to have the EU copy everything that's gone wrong with US IP law.

I thought originally patents were supposed to cover mechanisms. In the loose sense of the word, I suppose an algorithm is a mechanism, but *not* like Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, for crying out loud! In early landmark cases like Apple vs. Franklin (1983; Apple sued Franklin Computer for copying the ROM's on the Apple II+ directly to make a clone), the courts applied *copyright law*, not *patent law*. (Apparently you can only get a patent on generic ROM chips, not on ROM chips programmed a specific way.) The court used the (at the time) new Copyright Act of 1976 (which IMHO was much more reasonable than the DMCA is now!) to frame their decision. Unfortunately, the Lotus 123 case (Lotus vs. Microsoft), the Pentium name trademark case, and the Apple vs. Microsoft case, the courts significantly eroded copyright's ability to provide meaningful protection to software. So I think that's why companies have turned to software patents, because legally speaking, they're much more intractable. (Although there was obviously prior art for ripping off people through patents, e.g. LZW compression which *wasn't even original* (it was a derivative of the earlier LZ compression), yet was awarded a software patent.

Anyway, this is unfortunate, but it doesn't surprise me that the BSA would be pushing software patents. After all, they're the same people who estimate "sales lost to piracy" by counting the number of PC's sold without Windows and Office and ASSUMING that everyone having one of those PC's (a) really *is* running Windows and Office, they just pirated it, (b) would have paid for it to begin with. Plus they send threatening letters to companies telling them that "the BSA police might come knocking on their door," while simultaneously telling disgruntled employees to turn in their employers. Nothing like a little backstabbing to make our lives easier, eh. Oh well, the world is full of scumbags. Just my $0.02.
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Windows 2000/XP stable? safe? secure? 5 lines of simple C code say otherwise!

The balloons pop around 100,000 feet, 2.5 to 3 hours after launch. The styrofoam radiosonde (weather instrument) take awhile to float to the ground, but are not in the air for 12 hours.

There are reliablility problems, balloons every so often ice up or pop prematurely... so they don't reach full height. However, I have yet to hear of a plane running into a weather balloon and crashing.

btw, here's me releasing a weather balloon back in 1992.

What about the ? 32 Pentium III Xeons in one Windows OS image, AND it's Itanium ready. In addition, it's got ECC and full data path checking.

In ignoring this system, you're comparing a top of the range, 64-processor enterprise-level server with high-end commodity 8-ways.

Pay Unisys before you display pr0n on your website

In certain cases, no license fees may be required

OK, so that potentially makes LZW-writing software gratis, but gratis != free. As I stated above, the typical Unisys LZW license "does NOT permit copying [or] modification" and thus prohibits use of LZW technology in free software as defined by FSF or by the Debian social contract.

There are fewer than 17 months left in the U.S. patent on LZW, which expires no later than June 20, 2003 (filed + 20 years).

One thing I haven't seen asked is how does this affect DivX? That is MPEG4, right?

But MPEG4 algorithms are independent of the particular implementation. If the licensing terms for MPEG4 do not permit licensing end-user products as free software, then open DivX as we know it will cease to exist in the United States, and some of the developers will move on to Ogg Tarkin.

Just a freely developed version

That doesn't matter. Unisys has publicly declared that it will not license the LZW patents to developers of free software: "For example, the typical Unisys license for standalone software does NOT permit copying, modification, resale, use on a server or in a network, or use for Internet/Intranet/Extranet or Web site operation."

The LZW patent is set to expire at the end of this year

Not according to this it's not. The patent was granted in 1985. 1985+20=2005. Or you could read at Unisys itself.

~

It wasn't a solution or a proposal.

I know, bad wording. Sorry ,man.

~

MPEG-4 will be exactly the same algorithm in a decade as it is now.

You are 100% correct, but my point is no one will care. We will have GREATLY moved on by then, and the guts of MP4 will be very little more than an eye-brow raiser.

Too much of a hassle. Just use GIF instead.

Except Datacenter is not Workstation or Server, which run on more-or-less ordinary PC style hardware.

Datacenter is for Teh Uber Boxen.

But who knows, it's MS after all.

You'll notice though that pretty much nobody actually runs it as flat 32 way SMP. The Unisys 32 CPU boxes are normally configured as a 4 x 8 way CMP machine (basically a cluster in a box). In fact, the 16/32 processor Compaq machines are rebadged Unisys ES7000s.

Back to the topic, as mentioned by other posters, you don't need IIS if you're just using the DC box a a big f*ck-off database server. In fact, you're better off not having IIS on there - especially if you're open to RDS (the s'kiddies favourite) as they can cause untold havoc using SQL server. Personally, if I had to use IIS for something public, I'd have a second firewall between the IIS box and the data box with no data at all on the IIS box.

Oh, and another point, if you are using SQL 7, then forget clusters/CMP. It just about works with SQL 2000, but has no load balancing (you can do it manually by partitioning the database) and the failover time is 1 - 5 minutes.

From what I can gather, DC and AS are very similar (although MS will deny this). Both have address extensions allowing over 4GB to be used, > 4 way SMP etc., but DC comes with all the drivers etc. checked out on the specific hardware so - hopefully - not as many BSODs. I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes up with the reg settings to turn AS into DC (Max_Processors=32, Max_Cluster_Boxes = 4) - but you'd have to frig with a DC box first - if you can get your hands on one.

So Enhydra may have other intellectual property problems.

So Enhydra may have other intellectual property problems.

This is a link to Microsoft's Partnership Profile on Unisys' web site.

"Unisys and Microsoft have had a working relationship since the early 1980s, and a strategic partnership for over 10 years, meeting the information technology needs of clients. Today Microsoft products are an important part of virtually all Unisys solutions and technology platforms. Because of the increasing success of this relationship Unisys has been named a Tier 1 partner for Microsoft.

I can't tell if their apology is tongue-in-cheek, or if they really mean it. If they really mean it, then some of the pioneers of the Internet should be writing their apologies. (I'll get on the phone and see if Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, and Marc Andreesen are available, among others.)

Of course, the whole thing could just be a plug for their current computing technology, in which case I've been cleverly drawn into their trap.

Linux has to come bundled with software too. Would you like to run a plain kernel? I would think not. The OS itsself does nothing. It's the software that does the work.

So why can't Microsoft come up with something better than command.com (not nearly as powerful as even old-skool sh), MS Paint (no antialiasing, no filters), or Notepad/Wordpad (no regexp searching, no programmability, no M-x tetris)? Why can't they match bash, GIMP, or Emacs? MS doesn't even include a compiler for Christ's sake.

The USPTO.gov server seems a bit slow today, so here are the patents from Delphion: 4496395 (a method of tempering magnets), 4851058 (material composition), 4802931 (another material composition), 5411608 (yet another composition), 4902361 (even more composition), and especially 5172751 (more tempering). As usual, look at the first few claims to get a general idea of the scope of the patent.

In addition, you're probably interested in things that you can touch. They have always made mainframes and the software to go with them. There are two lines of machines: the OS2200 Series from the Sperry-Univac side of the company and the A-Series from the Burroughs side. Their latest machine (mentioned in another post) is the ES7000, a 32-way Intel box that can be partitioned into up to 8 independent machines in the same chassis (it will be able to run Itanium chips alongside P3's, when they are available).

Disclaimer: I play with the big-boy toys (A-Series) at Unisys, but I do not speak for them. That's what their webpage is for.

My dad works for Unisys, for the most part they just release new operating systems. But, they are coming out with a server that uses 32 pentium chips.es7000. They used intel chips so it will run win2000. Sick isn't it?

Even if you weren't in the jet stream, high-altitude winds often cruise right along. Take a look at this page; at the time I clicked on it, a healthy fraction of the upper-air wind speeds were 40 knots or above, and the majority appeared to be 30 knots or better. A 30 knot wind, even at half of sea-level pressure (500 millibars), still packs a whale of a lot of power.
--
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day.

Here's a link to Unisys' information about the license. Notice how LZW compromises alot of standards: GIF, TIFF-LZW, PDF, Postscript-2 and V.42bis. To use them you have to pay Unisys outrageous license fees. Those using Windows, are already indirectly paying license fees for Microsoft products. This does not give you any rights though, and you must make sure you are licensed yourself.

- Steeltoe

Sure, why not?

I bet 10GB of RAM will be standard long before 10 years. You could get a lowly Windows machine that will run 32 CPUs and 64GB of RAM today. I remember 3 years or so ago. A server with 2GB of RAM was just ridiculous and most had 128MB or 256MB. Today 128MB and 256MB desktops are common and a lot of people have more. There are several new technologies that could see production in the next 5 years that make huge leaps forward(if they pan out).

Firstly, QNX is pronounced Queue-nicks, not Queue-nucks.

Secondly, it was developed at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada and then spun off into a company.

Thirdly, it is not *just* an embedded OS, its most prominant use (atleast to Ontario and Quebec elemenrtary and secondary school students some 10 years ago) was on the PC powering that evil Unisys companies line of diskless 80186 based network computers called the Icon of which our schools had ungodly amounts of. QNX is also used quite extensively in the Canadian Armed Forces and can be used as a desktop OS.

-- iCEBaLM

Swoogan

Swoogan

Unisys's ES7000 will support dynamic partitioning on Intel PIII and Itanium processors. It will be able to run mutiple operating systems at the same time. Supported operating systems include Windows NT, Windows 2000, and SCO Unix.
Although the entire system isn't mainstream, it does use some standard parts. It supports up to 32 CPUs, 64 GB of memory, and 96 PCI slots.

dude, did you read that article from linuxplanet awhile back? Twas awesome! If you thought that article was awesome, check out this sweet piece of hardware.

It just dawned on me. Unisys and AccuWeather are competing providers of weather data, such as value added weather radar feeds. So my suspicion is that this may be more than just trying to get huge royalties. It may also be to try and cripple a competitor. I didn't see any mention of this in the CNET article, but I think it's important enough to bring up. It may even be relevant and further show why so many patents are really bad tools to put in the hands of business. It could help explain why they wanted so much from AccuWeather.

Say, whatever happened to tagged storage?

It's in the PowerPC AS/400's, at least according to Frank Soltis' Inside the AS/400 book - there are tag bits in the extended PowerPC architecture used in the AS/400's.

It's also presumably still in the the Unisys ClearPath LX and ClearPath NX series, which include processors that are presumably the latest generation of the line of machines that started with the Burroughs mainframes.

Say, whatever happened to tagged storage?

It's in the PowerPC AS/400's, at least according to Frank Soltis' Inside the AS/400 book - there are tag bits in the extended PowerPC architecture used in the AS/400's.

It's also presumably still in the the Unisys ClearPath LX and ClearPath NX series, which include processors that are presumably the latest generation of the line of machines that started with the Burroughs mainframes.

http://www.unisys.co m/events/comdex99/presentations/uis-ms.asp

Their Windows2000 setup handled "More than 3 billion Web hits per day and 300 million page requests per day against up to 2 terabytes of data" and wasn't even using the W2K Advanced Datacenter Server.

http://www.unisys.co m/events/comdex99/presentations/uis-ms.asp "Aberdeen finds that Unisys' new Windows 2000 solution clearly and convincingly demonstrates Microsoft Windows 2000's ability to handle the scalability, availability, manageability, and security needs of most - if not all - of today's most demanding enterprise-data-center-type IS environments." In addition to this NT4 has been handling some of the largest web sites on the Internet for quite some time, can Unix do the same thing? Of course, but saying that NT doesn't scale is just showing your ignorance.

This?

They'll be burning-in Intel's microprocessors.. Unisys recently acquired a company that does that sort of thing and got a contract with 'em. Press Release. They're also in bed with Microsoft trying to make Mainframe-like servers with loads of Intel processors and Windows NT. Could be interesting.

Does this patent apply in Germany? I wouldn't think so.

Unisys evidently does think so. Look at the first paragraph of their LZW FAQ -- they assert patents in the US, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the UK.

Some operators of Intranet and Billboard Web sites have had difficulty determining whether they need a license from Unisys for use of our LZW patented technology. If you use any of the types of images specified above on your Web site that you received from an unlicensed software developer
or service, you should have a license from Unisys to use the LZW patent. Or even if the developer
or service provider has a license, but it doesn't cover your use of the particular application you
received, you should have a license from Unisys to use the LZW patent.

Well I'm glad that cleared that up.
Whats really interesting is if you read theirlicensing definitions apparently this $5000 dollar license is strictly for noncommercial websites. Commercial websites need to negotiate the license seperatly for each case. This could easly lead to Unisys choosing to apply a heavy hand to some and not to others.

Unisys have no problem with this because Netscape, the producers of the software have paid them money.

I scan an image, click a button and Corel Photopaint uses LZW to compress the image. Again, this is fine because Corel have paid up their license.

Apparently, if I put this file on a geocities page I may owe Unisys a license. If they deem me to be the operator of a Intranet Web site or an Internet Billboard Web site.

If I am such an operator eitherer Corel took care of the licensing issue (and passed part the cost on to me for me) or Unisys are ripping them off.

Either way, all I did was click a button. I didn't shift the bits around myself. I used a licensed algorithm. I don't know or care how it works.

Everyone is proposing new image formats, PNG in particular. Bugger that. I get hardly any people looking at my stuff anyway. The few I do probably don't run browsers that support these uncommon if technically superior formats. Not that I really use images much anyway.

I have sent an email to unisys asking if I need a license and also questioning if the license purchased by Corel covers my if they think I do. I've cc'd it to corel. If the /. effect is in force I bet I don't get an answer.

Open http://corp2.unisys.com/Images/unilogo.g if in The GIMP (1.0.4) and you'll see what I mean. This whole thing is so terribly silly. I wish patents would stop being used in such a way as many large companies do. My 2 cents.