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Apple Possibly Pursuing Another iMac-look Clone
Cybersonic writes: "Cnet has an interesting story where they are thinking about going after yet another company making a translucent PC. " It's a company from Australia that makes something called "FishPC". It's not a standalone machine like the iMac is, which the company pointed out when interviewed.Update: 04/24 03:54 by H :I've been told that the case is actually AMD's EasyNow! design - thanks to Chris Tom for the head's-up. Wonder why they aren't suing AMD?
Holy Wars are almost always pointless, but this one takes irrelevance to an extreme. If the primary factor in using a mac is the product design, then the OS must be irrelevant. It's not - the Mac is the MacOS, not the hardware.
Here's what I wrote to the author of a MacCentral article on the topic last week:
Regarding the FishPC -
While this does show resemblance to the original iMac's Blue & White color scheme, this is no eOne. The photo in your article shows that the guts of the machine are all contained in a seperate CPU tower, a tower which looks nothing like apple's G3 Blue & White CPU. At most, the monitor's translucent plastic looks very similar to Apple's B&W 17" monitor scheme.
While the FishPC may not be breaking much in the way of new ground in industrial design, I don't think this is as blatant a case of copyright infringement as we've seen in the past. In fact, I may even be rooting for FishPC's success in the inevitable lawsuit. After all, just because you can't afford a G4 doesn't mean you should be doomed to a lifetime of ugly computer cases.
-carl hirsch
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
IP must be protected at all costs. It is this doggedness that has made Apple the success they are. Their zeal to protect their hardware and keep it closed has propelled them from the #1 computer company to number #43. Clearly, they feel more comfortable as the underdog and this move will ensure that they stay behind the pack.
Well done, Apple !
Apple doesn't have a leg to stand on. Those "jelly sandle" people from the late '80s should be suing Apple.
Am I the only one who thinks the iMac looks like "Barbie's Dream Computer"?
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Apple have every right in the world to go after other computer manufacturers that steal the "look and feel" of their machines. Apple spent a lot of money in doing market research and coming up with innovative ideas when designing the iMac, and it is quite right that they should be the sole benefits of this work and effort.
Unless a company has the right to protect the fruits of their time, money and effort then they will not bother to come up with such innovations and new technologies. This is very much related to the whole issue of patents - a company that spends time and money on something should be allowed to benefit from that money without fear of it being stolen. After all, why bother to innovate if another company is going to steal your work a month later? This is what most /.ers seem to fail to realise in their knee-jerk anti-patent fanaticism.
The fact is, at the end of the day our society is based around an ultra-capitalist ideal - the "American dream" of bettering yourself by gaining money and influence at the expense of others. The corporation is simply the Platonic ideal of this social structure, and as such, they deserve to be able to defend themselves from predators - and in this way, patents serve as the "anti-bodies" of the economy, and are just as necessary for a healthy organism.
One of the disadvantages of living in a real-time world is that there's a pressure to "break" stories even before they have a chance to become real. If you actually read the story, you'll find that Apple is still evaluating the situation. It's true that Apple has pursued other "imitators" in the past, but are they going to pursue FishPC? It's not clear at this point.
The fact that the article stated that attempts to contact AMD but couldn't reach anyone because of the Easter weekend is another tipoff about how quickly such articles are getting thrown together. This isn't necessarily bad, but unfortunately not all Slashdot readers seem to understand the difference between "a developing story", where the facts are still being researched, and a more thoughtful analysis news piece which fairly tells both sides of the story, such as you might find in a quality monthly news/analysis magazine. Both have their places, but people seem to instantly jump on these developing pieces without recognizing that that all of the facts might not yet be in yet, and that in this case Apple may not have even decided what to do yet.
FishPC, that is.
... a foot-tall fish-shaped system unit, with separate monitor and separate speakers.
First it checks your plugins. Note that this is slow enough (on a 28.8k modem) that it can put up a page saying what it is doing.
Then you get a page that presumably has some huge graphic on it. I didn't wait for it to load - I clicked on "enter html page". The alternative was flash.
Next another page, possibly also with a huge graphic. The only text on the page? A link, titled enter. I clicked it.
Now another of these slow "I'm checking you out" pages. This one is trying to find out what browser I'm using. How long can it take them to look in the http headers? I click on "netscape / ie 4.0 + 5" because I think that might be what I have.
Finally (the name of the file is frame_four.html) I get to the content. It is graphic intensive, and the main graphic is an animated gif, which rotates so fast you can't actually make out any details. But amidst the blurs I can make out
No wonder Apple are suing. I've half a mind to sue these bastards myself.
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E_NOSIG
...In other news today, Apple announced the company had filed suit against the Pacific jellyfish Aequoria victoria. Legal representatives for the company cited the gelatinous organism's rounded shape, translucent body, colorful bioluminescence, and utter brainlessness.
According to the Apple spokesman, "We believe our lawsuit is justified, as the resemblence to the iMac is obvious". No comment was available from the jellyfish, which was last seen munching on zooplankton.
And I am a hacker. I actually own two cats... One is more of a hacker, the other is a cracker. One spends the entire day building cool stuff with boxes, the other is trying to exploit the security on the cupboard that contains the catnip! I guess I should rename the cracker cat to 5cr1p7 k177y or something... I like it...