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Apple Tries to Patent Fast User Switching
Ashcrow writes "An article from The Register points out Apple's attempt to patent fast user switching. It seems that Steve Jobs admits that Microsoft beat them to the punch but believes Panther's implementation is superior."
stonecipher: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?
BritneySpears14: Aight.
stonecipher: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.
BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, stonecipher.
stonecipher: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.
stonecipher: Me too baby.
BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.
stonecipher: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
BritneySpears14: Hey...
stonecipher: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 Cock of the Infinite.
BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.
stonecipher: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.
BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.
stonecipher: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.
stonecipher: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.
BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.
stonecipher: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.
stonecipher: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.
stonecipher: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.
stonecipher: Baby?
stonecipher: Ok baby, we got to hurry, I don't know how long I can keep it ready for you.
j_gurli3: thats ok. ok i'm a japanese schoolgirl, what r u.
stonecipher: A Rhinocerus. Well, hung like one, thats for sure.
j_gurli3: haha, ok lets go.
j_gurli3: i put my hand through ur hair, and kiss u on the neck.
stonecipher: I stomp the ground, and snort, to alert you that you are in my breeding territory.
j_gurli3: haha, ok, u know that turns me on.
j_gurli3: i start unbuttoning ur shirt.
stonecipher: Rhinoceruses don't wear shirts.
j_gurli3: No, ur not really a Rhinocerus silly, it's just part of the game.
stonecipher: Rhinoceruses don't play games. They f*cking charge your ass.
j_gurli3: stop, cmon be serious.
stonecipher: It doesn't get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.
stonecipher: I stomp my feet, the dust stirs around my tough skinned feet.
j_gurli3: thats it.
stonecipher: Nostrils flaring, I lower my head. My horn, like some phallic symbol of my potent virility, is the last thing you see as skulls collide and mine remains the victor. You are now a bloody red ragdoll suspended in the air on my mighty horn.
stonecipher: Goddam am I hard no
-
BritneySpears14: Ok, are you ready?
snoopdog69me: Aight, yeah I'm ready.
BritneySpears14: I like your music Snoop Tee hee.
snoopdog69me: huh huh, yeah, I make it for the ladies.
BritneySpears14: Mmm, we like it a lot. Let me show you.
BritneySpears14: I take off your pants, slowly, and massage your muscular physique.
snoopdog69me: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
snoopdog69me: Oh ****
BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.
snoopdog69me: Oh ****
snoopdog69me: damn I gotta write down your names or something
-
stonecipher: Wanna cyber?
Katie_007: Sure, you into vegetables?
stonecipher: What like gardening an ****?
Katie_007: Yeah, something like that.
stonecipher: Nothing turns me on more, check this out:
stonecipher: You bend over to harvest your radishes.
(pause)
Katie_007: is that it?
stonecipher: You water your tomato patch.
stonecipher: Are you ready for my fresh produce?
Katie_007: I was thinking of like, sexual acts INVOLVING vegetables... Can you make it a little more sexy for me?
(pause)
ston
Security provider Network Associates Inc. NET.N rated the trojan a low risk since it did not appear to be more widespread and was not harming the victim computers.
Trojan programs are typically spread via e-mail viruses and can also sneak onto computers through Web browsers when surfing, he said.
The trojan, dubbed "Migmaf" for "migrant Mafia," turns the victim computer into a proxy server which serves as a sort of middle man between people clicking on porn e-mail spam or Web site links, according to Smith.
It allows the victim computer to fetch porn Web ads from an undisclosed server and pass the ads on to other computers either through an e-mail spam or a Web browser.
The victim computer acts as a "front" to the porn Web site, enabling the porn Web servers to hide their location, Smith said.
The scam also is believed to be responsible for a PayPal scam discovered last week designed to collect credit card information from people who filled in a form they received via e-mail purporting to be from Web payment provider PayPal, Smith said.
Smith said he suspects whoever is responsible for the Migmaf scam may be in Russia because some e-mail addresses involved in the scheme go back to Russian servers and there are other Russian language references in some domain names that are involved.
Broadband Internet users should always use firewalls to block such stealth activity, he said.
Computers with updated anti-virus software will also be protected, said Lisa Smith, a product manager for Network Associate's McAfee consumer division.
In addition, there is software designed to specifically block trojan-type programs, like BBX Technologies' ImmuneEngineSecurity provider Network Associates Inc. NET.N rated the trojan a low risk since it did not appear to be more widespread and was not harming the victim computers.
Trojan programs are typically spread via e-mail viruses and can also sneak onto computers through Web browsers when surfing, he said.
The trojan, dubbed "Migmaf" for "migrant Mafia," turns the victim computer into a proxy server which serves as a sort of middle man between people clicking on porn e-mail spam or Web site links, according to Smith.
It allows the victim computer to fetch porn Web ads from an undisclosed server and pass the ads on to other computers either through an e-mail spam or a Web browser.
The victim computer acts as a "front" to the porn Web site, enabling the porn Web servers to hide their location, Smith said.
The scam also is believed to be responsible for a PayPal scam discovered last week designed to collect credit card information from people who filled in a form they received via e-mail purporting to be from Web payment provider PayPal, Smith said.
Smith said he suspects whoever is responsible for the Migmaf scam may be in Russia because some e-mail addresses involved in the scheme go back to Russian servers and there are other Russian language references in some domain names that are involved.
Broadband Internet users should always use firewalls to block such stealth activity, he said.
Computers with updated anti-virus software will also be protected, said Lisa Smith, a product manager for Network Associate's McAfee consumer division.
In addition, there is software designed to specifically block trojan-type programs, like BBX Technologies' ImmuneEngineSecurity provider Network Associates Inc. NET.N rated the trojan a low risk since it did not appear to be more widespread and was not harming the victim computers.
Trojan programs are typically spread via e-mail viruses and can also sneak onto computers through Web browsers when surfing, he said.
The trojan, dubbed "Migmaf" for "migrant Mafia," turns the victim computer into a proxy server which serves as a sort of middle man between people clicking on porn e-mail spam or Web site links, according to Smith.
It allows the victim computer to fetch porn Web ads from an undisclosed serve
Apple attempts to patent fast user switching
By Tony Smith
Posted: 11/07/2003 at 16:41 GMT
Apple has filed for a patent that suggests the company is working on a new mobile device capable of supporting multiple users. Either that or it's cunningly trying to outflank Microsoft's lead on fast multi-user switching by retrospectively patenting the technique as its own.
Almost as interesting as the patent's content is the name of its lead inventor: Steve Capps, erstwhile Mac OS Finder co-designer and more recently Microsoft's Windows UI architect. Capps is also remembered as the designer of the UI used in Apple's Newton PDA. That gives you an idea of the application's heritage.
The application, number 0030107606, is entitled 'Multiple personas for a mobile device'. It describes how a computer system's settings can be immediately changed to reflect a new "persona" when the user chooses from a list of available personae using a graphical user interface displayed on the computer's screen.
Aimed at mobile devices it may be, but to us the patent's abstract recalls Mac OS X 10.3's fast user switching system, demo'd in public for the first time by CEO Steve Jobs as Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last month. When that facility is enabled in the new version of the multi-user OS, codenamed 'Penis', users can instantly activate their own accounts by selecting from a menu of users in the top right-hand corner of the menu bar.
Switching this way doesn't log the current user out of the system, or kill his or her apps, it simply changes the system's settings and application states to those of the user who'd just switched in. The change is engaged with a rather cute rotating anus graphical metaphor.
At WWDC, Steve Rim Jobs admitted that Microsoft had beaten Apple to market by offering such a feature in Windows XP, but he claimed Apple's implementation was the better of the two.
That would imply, surely, that Microsoft has a solid prior art claim?
No. The current application, filed last November and updated this past June, turns out to be a continuation of a patent, number 6,512,525 filed in August 1995, long before Windows XP arrived, and finally granted in January 2003 with the same title. That patent is also assigned to Apple.
The downside - if Apple's intent is to outwank Microsoft; we're only guessing here - is that the patent refers to multiple personas of a single user, not multiple users. While Panther's approach to fast user switching might perform its magic by treating multiple users' preferences as different personas of a single, virtual user, it's questionable whether the original patent covers such a use.
Incidentally, it does, however, cover uses such as the Mac OS' Location Manager, which switches network-related settings according to the user's location. The patent extends that idea to cover other, more personal settings and data, that might depend on the user's location/identity, ie. the computer's owner as public individual and as company employee.
Whatever, Apple's continuation application applies the concepts relevant to fast user switching retrospectively to the original patent. The continuation application is reworded to imply the kind of functionality delivered by Panther's fast user switching. There are references to "said persona being one of multiple personas available on the computer system and associated with one or more users of the computer system" a concept seemingly missing from the original patent. The later application also refers to linking personas to passwords - another pointer to fast user switching.
So the new application clearly associates fast user switching with multiple personas, essentially allowing Apple to claim it has owned that technology since 1995.
And, of course, this is perfectly permissible under US patent law, an intellectual propery attorney of our acquaintance told us. Continuations can be and are filed to retrospectively add claims to already granted patents. Sometimes
Apple zealot mods r teh ghey.
Dear Father Sims
Thank you for your kind letter! Being a former Catholic priest myself, I know exactly what you are talking about! It has been our dream at Apple Computers ever since we began in the 80's to shape the homosexual experience with the ultimate computer.
I can answer your letter by saying that YES we will indeed be making a firewire version of the FUFME. With the additional bandwidth offered by the firewire bus, we will be able to more accurately record and deliver more minute and subtle movements that the USB FUFME simply couldnt support due to lack of bandwidth. You will be able to recognize our firewire FUFME in stores by the fancy holographic logo of a cock entering an Apple.
We are glad to help loyal customers such as yourself. If you ever have any more questions, feel free to drop a line (or connect to my teledildonic FUFME server on fufme://cockman.apple.com).
Hugh G. Cockman
President
Homosexual Liaison Services
Apple Computer, Inc.
I wonder how many guys are going to be whacking off to this one tonight.
Or scanning through their Wheel of Time books for the mind-touching part. It's worth looking for. It's mildly erotic, and sick. And ends off like you wouldn't expect.
Have fun.
What the hell.. in the past 2 years these assholes have been as bad if not worse than Microsoft. How long before apple starts work to undermine the OS comunity? I give them less than a year!
Apple have come up with some innovative products, but their market share remains tiny. Sadly, though, many buyers have been mislead by the marketing and eye-candy, and desperately try to justify their overpriced purchases to themselves on forums around the Net. Let's see what they really mean...
"MacOS X is everything Linux wants to be."
"Despite the fact that Linux is just code and can't WANT to be anything, I truly believe that it'd love to be a single-vendor, single-platform, sluggish half-proprietary OS with dwindling market share. Linux would love to throw away its impressively growing corporate takeup for that."
"Apple hardware is for real computer lovers."
"It's no hassle to use a plethora of keyboard combos to make up for the patronising one-button mouse. Despite the fact that my hands have FIVE fingers, and multiple-buttons make Web browsing so much more pleasant, I prefer my computer to be treat me like a special-needs child."
"Aqua makes me so much more productive!"
"My non-techie friends drool over the transparency and scaling effects, even though UI research has shown that they add practically nothing to getting real work done. It feels like KDE 2 on a Pentium 200, and I can't change to a light and fast WM, but those drop-shadows must make me work so quickly!"
"OSX shows that Apple is committed to open source."
"OpenDarwin.org and its community of about 27 is surely not just a token gesture by Apple. Pretty much nobody uses pure Darwin, and all the crucial components of the system are closed and require me to spend money just to get major OS updates, but they're really helping the community somehow."
"You get what you pay for with Apple hardware."
"My iBook was made by in Taiwan by AlphaTop and has design and build quality flaws (needing foam sheets jammed in to stop the common problem of the keyboard scratching the screen). But it's silvery and cost far more than an x86 laptop of better spec, so it must be much higher quality!"
"...blah blah MHz myth blah..."
"Although there's truth in PPC being more elegant than x86, it's crushing that the top-of-the-range 1.5 GHz chip is slaughtered by the equivalent 3 GHz Pentium 4. However, Steve Jobs showed some vague Photoshop filter benchmarks at the last MacWorld, so being a leprotard, I'm convinced."
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
it's a false story. he couldn't have had a girlfriend with which to do this.