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Apple Seeks Patent On Operating System Advertising
patentpundit writes "On April 18, 2008, Apple Computer applied for a patent relating to an 'invention' that allows for showing advertisements within an operating system. The first named inventor on the patent application is none other than Steve Jobs. The patent application published and became available for public inspection on October 22, 2009. If implemented, the invention would make it possible for advertisements to be displayed on a variety of devices, including desktop computers, cell phones, PDAs, and more. In one alarming aspect, the device could be disabled while the advertisements run, thereby forcing users to let the advertisement run its course before the system would unlock and allow further use. In an even more invasive scenario, explained in the patent application, the user could be required to do something, such as click to continue, in order to verify that they are actively watching the advertisement and haven't simply walked away while the ad runs. Whether Apple would implement such an invention is unknown, but it is possible that they think there are others out there who might want to implement such invasive advertising. It is possible Apple wanted to get ahead of the curve and file this patent so that if any company is silly enough to engage in Big Brother advertising, then Apple will get a royalty. I sure hope this is not the future of advertising."
I really hope they get the patent because then nobody else will be able to do it.
In other news, I use linux?
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
So long as there is a Free (not $$$ free) alternative, all they will do is push users to it.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Doesn't putting a logo or a brand name on a product constitute advertising? That's been done all over operating systems since the beginning of time - prior art?
Without collusion that would drive buyers to other OSs.
Not even MS would do something that doucebaggery on their own
Confine advertising to OSX, sounds good to me.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I think the majority of the stupid patents from the big companies are just to protect them from the patent trolls in the future
.... for an explanation from the apple fan boys why this is so awesome!
I recall reading about "free" PCs running Windows 98 that required the user to click and view ads every 30-60 minutes of computer use.
There were also plenty of "free" dial-up ISPs that required you to click their advertising banner every so often for the connection to stay alive.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Maybe they're going to start giving away Mac OS X or iPhones for "free" -- if you allow advertising? It's the NetZero approach to OS distribution!
To turn off the ads, you just have to sign up for MobileMe at $99/year. That's all! Small price to pay to bask unimpeded in the Shekinah Glory of Macintosh. (Shekinatosh?)
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
Or buy anything new that requires the new OS.
And let me throw in a gratuitous gripe for them not supporting PowerPC in SnowLeopard too while I'm at it.
First, there's prior art for this of course. Second, it's just like the old con of putting "on the internet" on the back of any old idea and claiming it's new.
Is Apple going to get one upped when some super-genius comes up with the amazing idea of Advertising on the OS...on a netbook! or Advertising on the OS...on a laptop! It's ridiculous. Advertising on _anything_ is inherently an obvious idea.
Is an operating system not software?
Seems to be a patent based on semantics really
What distinguishes software named "operating system" from software named "web server" for example?
Hope is the currency of fools
As somebody who avoids Apple products I hope they are granted the patent and it is vigorously enforced. If a company wants to pursue such amazingly stupid advertising techniques like these, I'd be just fine with having them confined to the Apple product line. (What I find interesting is Steve Jobs being listed as the "inventor". Does he have nothing better to do than sit around and come up with ways to screw over his customers?)
Even better is requiring other companies (who also wish to shoot themselves in the face) to pay to license the technology. Stupid company + expensive licensing fees + lost customers = failed stupid company == the system works.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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http://www.ubersoft.net/comic/hd/2000/12/next-logical-step
http://www.ubersoft.net/comic/hd/2000/12/next-logical-step-ii
Apple, if you really want to go forward with this please have your lawyers shower me with cash.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
welcome our advertising-patenting overlords.
Seriously. I hope Jobs all the best in this patent pursuit. If Apple succeeds, then I can avoid occurrences of this amazingly offensive idea by the simple expedient of avoiding Apple operating systems, a course of action I'm already pretty much committed to for ample reasons of Apple's corporate citizenship and customer relations.
As far as I'm concerned, this patent will be the legal equivalent of encysting a noxious parasite for 20 years.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I don't want my desktop invaded by ads. It's bad enough I have to sit through 30 seconds of ads when watching hulu videos or even sometimes youtube videos. Who ever came up with this idea needs a good 'ol shot in the face.
company is silly enough to engage in Big Brother advertising
The Big Brother metaphor has finally been dealt its final blow. Big Brother advertising is propaganda. I think a better term for this new patent would be "Jerk Advertising"
If such a pointless idea succeeds, more people will begin using FreeBSD and Linux ;)
But seriously... I like apple 0 % (The hardware is over priced and the operating system is derived from a free OS). No matter what they may say, they are a company trying to make money. Thus, apple is not an innocent party, they are just watching out for their own skin.
I would be happy to have someone patent this pile of crap idea!!
If other people would be forced to pay them money for adding annoying crap to my OS..then perhaps they are less likely to do it.
Whether Apple would implement such an invention is unknown, but it is possible that they think there are others out there who might want to implement such invasive advertising. It is possible Apple wanted to get ahead of the curve and file this patent so that if any company is silly enough to engage in Big Brother advertising, then Apple will get a royalty. I sure hope this is not the future of advertising.
Riiiiiight. Hey, anything is possible.
My first thought was "I wonder if it is possible to apply for a patent with a spoofed name", you know, to make someone look bad. But in view of the money grubbing BS that can no more be removed from the Apple Experience than missing features and brushed aluminum, I have not trouble believing that Apple is interested in this kind of "monetizing".
Call me a cynic. I got another word for anyone who believes that Apples is reserving this concept in order to protect users from someone else implementing it.
There is prior art from 2002: http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/10/bsod_ads.html
After all, they are the advertising kings and now they may have to pay royalties to Apple for the right to embed ads in their own Android OS. How embarrassing for them.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
That's like them not supporting 68k chips past OS 8.1. Technology moves on, and after a while it won't make sense to support the oldest models anymore.
I think this is a great move by Apple, I don't believe they would use these sort of tactics on Apple products. It looks to me like they want block or cash in on other companies like M$ or Google using such advertising in products such as Android. This really helps people like myself who have Android phones.
--Jason--
Isn't this the definition of adware ?
Given Mr. Jobs' preference for minimalistic case and interface design, I really can't see this being implemented on *any* Apple-branded product. It's so contrary to his "vision" if you will. As others have pointed out... perhaps it was just to ensure Apple had called "shotgun" on any use of this technology by someone else.
And screw all the pretentious Mac/iPhone/iPod/iFoTM users that got them where they are today.
There was a company ( here is a link to a story Cringley did on it at the time) that gave away a desktop system with a program that loaded a "frame" around the Windows desktop that streamed advertising. You basically filled out a questionnaire about your interests and if you fit their profile you got a PC. A coworker checked everything ( I ridiculously actually put the things I was interested in) and got one of the first PC's. I think that venture lasted about six months.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
..so software that creates unwanted advertising pop-ups is called "malware" and the authors of such are prosecuted, but then someone decides to write an operating system that does that by design!? What sort of Bizzarro universe did I wake up into this morning anyway? No fucking way, not even if the OS is free would I put up with that shit!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
There were a lot of companies doing or trying to offer advertising in free computers or free Internet access. If someone has copies of The Computer Paper from Canada from the late 90's and early 2000 there should be ads in there for those kinds of offers.
http://usproxy.bbc.com/2/hi/business/275213.stm
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
and makes it nearly impossible to install the OS (or first boot) a mac without buying .mac.
I have to experience with the former statements, but this is utter crap. I have installed 2 different releases on my Macbook, and never once did I see more than an ad for .Mac during the install. I was never prompted to create an account. It certainly never hindered my ability to book my machine.
It is possible Apple wanted to get ahead of the curve and file this patent so that if any company is silly enough to engage in Big Brother advertising, then Apple will get a royalty.
So, best case scenario, Apple is a patent troll?
Traditional media advertising and our consumer based economy are joined at the hip. Content creators are looking for other ways to generate content and the way it looks is that the infrastructure that delivers the media will be the new "publishers" of content. Think of it like the display computers inside TV's, digital television services and telesmartphones will drive content creation rather than the networks and publishers. Because...that is who will have the money and that is where the point of contact is. Content creators will battle and be paid directly by apple to provide exclusive content. For advertisers it will be way cheaper to buy ads that display on a TV that displays hundreds of channels. Than buying ad space for hundreds of channels.
When the device trumps the content for advertising delivery you can kiss goodbye traditional media like network TV and print. Device makers with proprietary operating systems will own the white space. They will buy the content. They will discount the device in lieu of more advertising.
Content will be on-demand and/or subscription based. This I think will be a boon for creativity as the stranglehold mainstream media has on culture and content will finally be relinquished when they no longer have any advertisers to help create quality programming and content.
How is this not obvious? There are already devices that lock you out until you watch some advertising. DVD players, for example. This is just a case of grafting something like "in a computer operating system" onto the description of something that's already common. BTW - It could be argued that DVD players have a "primative" operating system
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
... go ahead and spoil my payday!
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Not to mention the utter lack of any shovelware on a Mac install. No McAfee adds, Quicken shortcuts on your desktop, Printer supplies, etc, etc. There is none of that on any Mac. You get the OS, and no 3rd party crap that has to be uninstalled as soon as you unbox it.
I just don't see Apple pushing any of this into any of it's products, but it can certainly prevent others from doing it as well.
I will pay a significant amount of money (at least a few hundred dollars)
Per month? Because eventually, a home Internet connection that's compatible with an operating system that doesn't display ads will cost that much. Consider Trusted Network Connect, which allows a DHCP server to quarantine traffic until the the ISP can verify that your computer is running specific proprietary software. No ads, no IP address outside 169.254.0.0/16.
Given the proliferation of ad supported free apps on the iPhone, perhaps Apple is building an ad-display framework for developers to hook into, rather than have them continually re-invent the wheel for each app. And since it would technically be "part of the OS," perhaps this is a defensive mechanism to prevent patent trolls from pouncing once they implement it.
$comment =~ s/($verb)\s+($noun)/IN SOVIET RUSSIA, $2 $1s YOU!/g;
Laptop hunter!
"Technology moves on, and after a while it won't make sense to support the oldest models anymore."
Tell that to Linux. Tell that to any embedded OS maker. Get laughed at.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If by "nearly impossible" you mean checking the radio button that says "no thanks, I don't want to try .mac now" then I'm amazed you could even find the power button to boot the Mac up in the first place.
I would bet a lot of money on the fact that advertising giant Google's Chrome OS would have this built in.
If I understand patents correctly, they don't need to patent it to be protected as long as they have been working on it for a while and can prove it.
Weren't Microsoft talking about doing this years ago? It may have been in respect of Office instead of Windows, but I'm pretty sure there's plenty of prior talk about it. I wouldn't mind a free copy of Office or Visual Studio if it was ad-supported, but I draw the line at operating systems. I would not be prepared to use an OS that bombarded me with ads - that would be enough to make me switch to Ubuntu exclusively.
Wow, you are a genius. Why didn't I see it like that? Oh, wait a minute.
I'm not talking about oldest models, I'm talking about 2,3,4 year old G4s and G5s. Hardly what I'd call "oldest models."
Snow Leopard is/was widely advertised as being tweaks and tuning of Leopard to reduce size and improve speed, plus some new ideas in the UI.
I'm am an Apple fan to be sure, but even I'm starting to get fed up.
Note the patent belongs to Steve Jobs, not some Joe Nobody intern guy or some lawyer.
If SJobs gets patent himself, it is unlikely an preemptive patent.
You are right though, a lot of patents are taken just to stop those trolls.
Duh.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Now we will see soon a beowulf cluster of advertisements...
My idea is to create an adblocker for advertising in operating systems.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
BMW, Victoria's Secret and Guitar Hero on OSXI.
You mean the same people who paid to software (OS) and hardware combination and didn't ask Apple what the heck that "impossible to change" Google search in OS Default browser will cause a riot against some ads?
What made me more than angry was the first release and later releases of Safari on fscking Windows had Yahoo search option. iPhone/iPod too. Believe or not, Apple is after couple of cents from Google and that is why they include Google by default. Apple, the 1.6 billion profit making company... I understand Mozilla, Opera but NOT Apple. Even MS is decent enough to show you choices in first IE screen.
I believe that's what the off button is for. Or pulling the battery.
And if it would come to fruition, then it would be time for a new unit without this bunch of bull.
I think the Mac is in need of advertising inside the OS. I mean, how else is Apple going to make up for its low price, especially the low-priced hardware? Mac users need to pay for this luxury in some way.
I just don't see Apple pushing any of this into any of it's products, but it can certainly prevent others from doing it as well.
It's fairly easy to see Apple putting this into one of their products. It's also fairly obvious that that's exactly what this patent is for.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I know the first OSX Mac I ever had (can't remember the OS version 10.3 probably), but it was an original Mac Mini - I had a really hard time trying to skip the ad/signup sheet for .Mac - I really didn't understand how to skip past this step, and it wasn't even necessary. As I recall after a while I figured out you could quit the app that launched the Ad/signup form, but it wasn't even remotely intuitive.
Mac's are like this though - when its working its a really nice environment and very pleasant, but when they mess up that experience they really kick you in the nuts hard and take your lunch money.
So yes, you can skip the .Mac thing, but if your a new user and naive like me - it really doesn't seem like you can, and its not at all intuitive (they may have changed this...) to skip.
And you know what Apple? If it was free I probably would have signed up.
I definitely approve of companies patenting technology I never want to see anywhere.
"The urge to fly from modern systems, instead of moving through them to even greater, fairer things is, I think, an indi
I'd think that the nvidia logo displayed by Xorg at startup might qualify as prior art. as part of Xorg, it is arguably part of the OS, and stops the progress of the OS while it is displayed on screen. it certainly is advertising.
I would personally be happy to view an add every hour or so if they gave me a free top-of the line laptop to do it on
-- Adam McCormick
Well officer as soon as I came across my wife with my 5 Iron implanted in her head I tried to call 911 but you see I had my phone switched off and I had to wait for all the commercials to run through before I could actually make the call. If only my phone was on the para-medics could have been here at least 2 minutes earlier and she might be alive today.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Because making something shitty and marketing the hell out of it is more profitable than making something worthwhile.
... what the movie distributors do to us when we load a DVD into our player and we're forced -- by disabling all the remote control buttons -- to watch advertisements and/or previews for other DVDs? We recently rented a DVD that disallowed us from using the player's Pause button giving us the option of letting dinner get cold or resuming our viewing by searching for where we left off. (That disc didn't even have a scene menu; we had to fast forward -- oddly, that button still worked -- through the entire first half of the movie to resume watching it.)
So Apple thinks it's a good idea to be able to force you to watch ads while a cellphone is booting before it becomes functional? Let's say you're out on the street late one night and something horrible happens. Imagine the publicity -- and the inevitable close-the-doors-and-sell-all-the-furniture-you-are-now-bankrupt lawsuit -- when someone is robbed and killed or they die from a heart attack and it comes out that they were forced to wait for their cellphone to finish displaying an ad before they could dial 911. We can only hope that Apple only decided to patent this is because they plan on demanding licensing fees that are so outrageous that nobody on the panet would ever even consider developing such a function into their devices.
(When are those OSS-based cellphones coming out? November? I can hardly wait.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The G5 hasn't been sold for 3 years. The G4 is closer to 6. Lifecycle of a new computer maxes at 4 years, then the "users" become "hobbyists." Most of the reason they can make thos "tweaks" to "reduce size and improve speed" come from not having to account for the older chipset and concentrating on making the code better
-- Adam McCormick
I think it changed recently, but the QT light that is installed by default/required pretty closely qualifies as shovelware on the mac. Everytime you used it, a really annoying "would you like to upgrade" window came up. Haven't used a mac in awhile, but I believe omni outliner trial was installed by default.
On the PC, QT definitely qualifies as shovelware (and is close to malware). -- Why does it need to start at boot/log in and sit in the system tray? It's almost impossilble to turn off or make behave.
Back in the dot com days there was a company that was probably called Freepc.com or something really similar. There was no gimmick: you filled a really long marketing questionnaire, and if you fit certain profiles you were sent a free PC. It was yours to keep as long as you surfed the net X hours per month (it was very low, probably 10 hrs) and you kept whatever made Windows 95/98 or whatever it had to display the ads.
I signed up for it and yup, they sent me one at zero cost to me. It was a cheap Compaq with a 15 or 15 inch monitor. But what the hell, it was free!
The screen was setup so about 800x600 was usable, with the rest of the 1024x768 full of ads. I set it up for my wife and it worked pretty good for as long as we had it. The ads were displayed based on your marketing profile. Most of the time the ads were very relevant.
Eventually that company died, and they gave us the computers because it was too expensive to have them shipped back and disposed through a liquidator. As soon as they went belly up, it became my testbed for SuSe, which it ran really damn nice for a long time. It wasn't fast, but it was very usable.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Steve Jobs is probably looking at giving away a version of the OS (or software) for free in the future that will pay for itself via ads...
Mob after work at my place to kill Steve Jobs. Who's in?
And this has been another installament of Captain Obvious!
If I was going to put a free-to-use computer in, say, a mall, then I might do something like this. Could this be what Apple is planning to do? I mean, what better way to advertise your own hardware than to put one in every shop for people to use? People get more used to seeing them everywhere, so they buy one for their home. Plus, the bonus money from advertisers is nice, too.
Isn't this kind of thing the exact reason windows was so insecure? Perhaps a misunderstanding but I thought the "openess" of windows for marketing was a major factor in it's insecure nature.
Is anyone else tired of the constant squeezing of the consumer via advertising?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It "sort of" makes sense if the whole OS is a front end to TV. Although a minimalist browser piping ads is probably just as good. That said, a process/thread/whatever running and piping ads to a windows is patentable ? Jeez, if it's configurable I'd configure it to /dev/null.
And you know what Apple? If it was free I probably would have signed up.
Why should it be free. It's not in Apple's business model to offer a free online service with remote storage. Google can afford to offer free web applications because that is their business model, to make as many people use their advertisement supported services. I really don't get everyone's expectation that things should be free just because they are unwilling to pay for it.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Man, if Microsoft did this, everyone would be screaming bloody murder
You mean, like this?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
And a number of them are simply so noone else can use the idea. Hopefully, this is one such patent that Apple plans to never use, and will enfore so that noone else does either.
Using a patent to regulate the behavior of your competitors for the better of all... :)
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Hulu (or similar service) tells your OS that it is running an ad for a show you are streaming. Your OS locks you out as your computer turns into a television while the ad runs. Once the ad finishes, your show starts up again, and you have access to your computer again.
I'm not saying I like that AT ALL, but that is what I think this ad is for. To prevent people from muting their computers, or ignoring ads.
I do my part and write a letter to any company that blocks the mute button or even worse, includes 'interactive' advertisements. I let them know that I will avoid their product and encourage all of my friends and family to do the same.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
That reminds me of the good old Windows messenger service pop-up ads.... Microsoft is probably is a good position to contest this pattern.
Some people say the patent system should be abolished.
This patent is the exact reason why the patent system should stay; companies patenting stupid ideas make it harder for competitors to implement whatever stupid idea was patented.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I hope his liver rejects and he dies a slow lingering painful death.
I erroneously assumed this was a patent concerning advertising ABOUT operating systems. Meaning that Microsoft could be restrained from referencing Apple's patented "I'm an X"--"And I'm a Y" ad pattern in their own ads. This might work out better for Microsoft because in saying that their users "are PC's" (having them exclaim "I'm a PC" in their commercials) they are dehumanizing their own user base, reducing them to the status of objects rather than people. Clue time: Justin Long and John Hodgman aren't supposed to be USERS of Macs and PCs, they are human representations of a Mac and a PC, anthropomorphized metaphors. When Microsoft makes their users shout "I'm a PC" they objectify their customers and imply that they are mechanistic devices rather than people. I use a Mac--that doesn't mean I *am* a Mac. But apparently according to Microsoft using a PC makes you become one. Meaning that... you get "stuck" when trying to accomplish more than one task, "crash" regularly, and are subject to rabid infection from a wide variety of easy-to-avoid ailments. Anyone proud to say "I'm a PC" is an idiot--who would want to represent themselves as a mere machine? (Apparently users of Windows... according to the very company which makes that product.) It just shows the lack of imagination in the minds of people who work at Microsoft in thinking that users should think of themselves AS the machines they use. Do they also scream "I'm a Buick!" or "I'm a Maytag!"???
Guess I am not seeing the issue here.
If a company wanted to offer an 'advertising subsidized' device or OS and wanted to ensure that you watched the ads you agreed to when you agreed to the free / discounted device terms, this would be the way to do it.
This patent sounds like it would be used in such a device and not randomly inserted in to your normal OS installs.
If you could get an Apple product at a greatly reduced rate by watching a 30 second ad each time you boot it, would you agree to such a thing? Even if you wouldn't use it, would you be against others having that option? If you think having a subsidized device would be a good option for anyone, why would you be against Apple being to enfore the terms that were agreed upon?
At least since 10.4, the .mac screen has had 4 options: .mac credentials .mac .mac trial .mac
1) Put in your existing
2) Purchase
3) Sign up for a
4) No thanks, I don't want
Pretty straight forward to me.
Well like I said - it was an original mac mini - so this probably was 10.3.x, and no it wasn't straight forward.
Glad to hear they fixed it though.
They are clearly very interested in signing you up for the service though.
Not even Microsoft pushes .net, windows live or msn during install.
If you have products that are out of date, you see a prompt asking if you want to upgrade, with a checkbox to never show it again.
The 'shovelware' you are referring to is part of the product, just as the Java updater is, and the Adobe Reader product. It takes up a few Kb and no CPU cycles. The background task is used to launch iTunes when you plug in an iPod or iPhone.
To add or remove iTunes from the system tray in Windows XP or Windows 2000 or Windows Vista, on the Edit menu, click Preferences, and then click the Advanced tab. Then select or deselect the “Show iTunes icon in system tray” checkbox.
You get the OS, and no 3rd party crap that has to be uninstalled as soon as you unbox it.
Not strictly true. There have been third-party apps, such as a version of Omnigraffle and various games that have shipped with Macs and MacOS. However, it's generally not crap, doesn't draw attention to itself through advertising or require removal, it just sits there dormant unless you decide to use it. Apple also puts trial versions of iWork on Macs, and if memory serves correctly, has also pre-installed trial versions of MS Office in the past (but I might be wrong about that one) and definitely shipped with Internet Explorer at one time.
... and then they built the supercollider.
They're welcome to implement any feature they want. It's just business, nothing personal.
But if Apple *does* implement that particular feature, I will join Al Queda. Just sayin'.
To top it off, I have limited bandwidth, occasionally use metered bandwidth,
Who cares if they do this on desktops. Since you will typically connect through the same router, it would be trivial to configure the router to block all remote content from whatever servers they employ. You cannot realistically write the OS to stop functioning when an ad server cannot be contacted, as short outages or spotty connectivity would destroy any value of said OS. Just turn on all the 'stream me adds, I am a coporate whore' options on the box' to enable features and block it at the port.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Apple's never going to implement this.
It's part of a sneaky, long-term strategy. Apple will enter some sort of intellectual property quarrel with Microsoft, which will be resolved through cross-licensing and the transfer of some patents... including transferring this one to MS. With something this evil placed right in their hands, can MS actually abstain from using it?
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Well, it really depend on the quality of the ad you push through to my face, I don't watch US TV simply because I want to escape from intellectually insulting ad bombardment. Something is deeply rotted with the US TV operation model ! I prefer to watch the BBC via its iPlayer. Further, I think they have been 'testing' the technique quite some time now on the display mac in Apple Stores, don't they?
Apple wants the patent so they can kill it by not licensing it. That would be bad on the iPhone.
qz
Just like MSFT's patents they are not the first to do it (and once again being software its based on math which has already been ruled can't be patented). In this case Windows OS's have had this ability since evil Active-x was created, we see it happen on spyware/adware affected pc's and even in running chat programs like Yahoo chat and MSN chat. Therefore because 1) Math isn't patantable, therefore software can't be patented and 2) Apple is not the first to do this I don't believe this "patent" should be allowed.
They should get a patent on getting patents for just about anything.
You just got troll'd!
No ads please. If a vendor starts forcing ads on me I won't buy their product. I've got real work to do. Anything that distracts me from my work is expensive and not appreciated. If Apple does this they'll lose me, and a lot of other people who are doing real work.
They improved the situation with Leopard. With Tiger before you had to enter details like your name and address before you can access the OS for the first time. It was a problem for us at work because we had to enter the customer's details in order to boot and update the Mac for them. It was also pretty pushy about registering for .mac.
In Leopard you can skip most of that stuff.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
... it is truly unfortunate that Linux doesn't really have a field sales force.
The PTO *should* will deny this application as obvious. This tries to patent disabling computer functionality when an ad runs. Lots of web sites already do this... you often can't see the "real" content without sitting through an ad. DVD players have been doing this too. Of course, for the last number of years the PTO has decided that its job is to grant the maximum number of patents to patent requestors, and NOT to protect the public from invalid patents, so expecting the PTO to follow common sense may be asking for too much. Sigh. I actually think patents have a place, but if we must continue to have nonsense like software patents and business method patents, it may be better to eliminate the patent system entirely; unless the Supreme Court can scale them back, they patent system is causing more harm than good.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
...because reading Apple's patents is a 100% guaranteed way to see what they will do in the future.
Like anyone can even know that