How does reclassifying a 1950 intelligence assesment that stated that Chinese was not probable, when the Chinese invaded two weeks later, count as a compromise? That's just covering up embarassment.
sending kids camping with a gay guy as their chaparone is just as much a liability as sending them camping with an adult of the opposite sex as their chaparone
Somehow the boyscouts in most other countries seem to manage.
I was really hoping that this patent dispute would destroy the company -- not because I don't like RIM, but because it'll take something that drastic to get the government's head out of it's ass and notice how fucked up our patent situation is.
Do you honestly think the US govt cares about a Canadian company?
I am a professor in a Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. While wireless communication is not my area of research (Software Maintenenace and Security). I have sat on thesis examination and comp-1 committees for graduate students working in the wireless communication area. Believe me, there is much, much more than "at most, a few minutes or hours of brainstorming for an experienced programmer". I don't think you realize how much (continuing) research underlies something as simple as your cell phone. I certainly don't understand most of it.
I believe the NTP patents to be overbroad since they basically say (as I understand it) make a connection to an email server and get your email by RF. I haven't seen any details so I may be wrong. The RIM work that I saw had much more to do with the underlying protocols of how do you locate the wireless device (so you can send it the wakeup message), and how do you build the network connection in the most power efficient manner in the first place. How do you minimize the PCAP traffic between your server and the cells (and between the cells)? They managed to do it in such a way that the original blackberry could run 2 weeks of average use on 2 AA batteries.
Also as I said before, I don't believe in software patents in any way, so I am not defending anyone here and I personally believe theat the NTP patents in particular are overbroad.
Also as I said before some of the details are fuzzy from time. But there is more than "just a communication" and "one entity initiates the communication, and the other replies". It is not about the '"push" network fad'. The world is not TCP/IP over the internet where power.
In mobile communincations, it is always about battery life. Simplistic protocols like TCP and UDP do not hold up in such an evironment. Saying that it is as simple as "send a packet from the server to the client" and the client replies ignores all sorts of details that are fundamentally different from what happens on a simple ethernet or Wi-Fi network. Wireless devices in this environment have to run for a week or more on a single charge. They move around in a way that makes routing less than optimal. Ignoring the details is like saying there is no difference between a bus and an airplane because they both get you from point A to point B.
The closer analogy is SMS, and much of RIM's innovation was not based on the concept of "wireless email" but was based on two way transport of email over long distance wireless networks running TCAP that did not support SMS at the time.
Re:wireless Email, I'm so confused!
on
RIM - The Whole Story
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· Score: 3, Informative
Not really, xbiff is just a process that does periodic checker and changes its icon. That is exactly what they don't do. The server sends out a message through the network to a device that is on standby, just like a cell system sends out a message to a phone that is on standby. The innovation is in the details of the network handling, which is not a simple TCP/IP connection over wireless.
Re:wireless Email, I'm so confused!
on
RIM - The Whole Story
·
· Score: 3, Informative
While you are partially right in that the two are an obvious combination, there is a bit more to RIM than simply using pop over wireless. The cost of constant connections to check you mail would drain the battery in short order. It closer to what happens in SMS. When the server receives new email for you, it actively sends out a message through the wireless network to your device which is most likely in standby mode (like a cellular phone). That makes your device notify you that you have email. It is not a TCP/IP connection.
I'm glossing over many of the details. I went to a RIM presentation at a conference 1.5 years ago, and the details are a bit fuzzy. I don't agree with software patents in the first place, so a pox on both houses. But there is a bit more happening than tcp over general wireless network.
I'm a free market guy -- I truly believe that everyone performs actions that help themselves first (and others, secondly, if they want to continue doing what they do). I believe we take jobs in order to pay our bills, and we do our jobs with the consideration of what will keep us employed, and what will give us bigger financial opportunities in the future. I believe that employers are the customers of employees, and that is how I judge employer-employee relations.
While this is true for some people, others are motivated by other considerations. After I received my Ph.D. I spent a year as a Post Doc and then spent 6 years in the private sector before returning to the academia. I currently have an academic position at a research university and I could easily add 50% to my salary if I decided to move to the private sector. The hours of work would also be much more reasonable in the private sector as well. So why am I in an academic position for 2/3 the money and working much longer hours? There have been times I have seriously considered it (especially when marking yet another ugrad exam between Xmas and New Years).
There are several reasons. One, I actually enjoy teaching (but not the marking part). While some of the students make it a chore, the other students that are actually interested in learning more thank make up for it. But the other reason is that I get to decide what is important in my research. As long as I can convince others in the area that it is important (by publishing papers) I get a free reign to pursue research that may not have a commercial impact for 10 or more years. I've had direct experience with technology and techniques that I saw being researched as a graduate student 15 years ago that are now some of the hottest commercial work going in the software maintenance and security fields. When I was in the private sector there were several times that promising avenues of development were readily apparent to those of us in the company, but there was no client to pay for the development and as a result, it was dropped on the floor.
In days gone by, there was basic research that was funded by industrial sources. Many companies had research labs that competed toe-to-toe with some of the best academic departments. Unfortunately, most of that is gone. There are some corporate labs that focus on basic research, but most of it is applied research.
Scientists are starting to scare me. Many scientists find funding through government or taxpayer-funded programs and grants. Are we dealing with the same quality of people who review and allow frivolous patents and lawsuits to be enforced? Will we start seeing more scientists under review for doing what we all do in our jobs -- try and find ways to increase our pay while keeping our work the same (or lower).
In the past there was peer review, but when we involve public funds, I fear what I saw in my consulting business: many consultants bidding on public jobs in a "boat race" -- 5 or 6 state-licensed consultants allowing each other to win a bid in a round robin fashion. I don't do any state jobs because of the collusion I saw in my industries.
I worry more about the use of private funds. I live in Canada, and the primary funding agency here is NSERC (Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council). But I have also served on peer review panels for the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the states and other granting agencies in Canada. I can't really speak for the EU or elsewhere, but the peer review of public funds in both Canada and the US is very high. Everyone in the process takes it very seriously. There are not that many
dollars to go around and everyone feels a great deal of responsiblity to make sure that only valid research is funded. There are strict conflict of interest guidelines. When serving on one of these committees, I must leave the room when a grant proposal from my university, or from anyone with w
I think the grandparent post was not suggesting that he hack the messages, but suggest that that the company set up internal servers. If he had the servers set up and ready to go, then they would not be able to complain that it was too much work.
I remember seeing something like this about 5-6 years ago (during the dot boom) for email (funny how the article mentions they plan to add email soon). I don't remember the details, but I remember being unimpressed by the tech.
Same concept as this article: You sent your email to the service, they saved it on a server and sent the recipient an email with a link. After the mail was read it was deleted.
I never heard about it again. I don't think the company made enough money to stay in business.
If the game looks similar and plays the same, but does not have its rules phrased the same as the original game, is this a violation of copyright? I'm genuinely curious
Two words:
derivative work.
Changing the name and changing the rules might be enough.I haven't seen the online version. But if you change the way results are calculated (instead of rolls of 6 sided dice) and change the resupply algorithm, it might be sufficient
I agree. I teach a 3rd year operating system class and I use linux as the lab platform. We run it inside of Virtual PC since the lab machines are all XP. The student disk images are all stored on a central server so that they can get to them from several different labs. However this limits us (for various reasons) to 500 MB per student. Slackware was one of only twp distribution that I could put a reasonable environment in that space from the main installer without doing a lot of manual tinkering with individual packages.
See my journal for the long story of my experience getting this class up and running.
Have you told Sony so that they know? A nice letter to thier public relations dept indicating why you chose a different brand might help them notice the loss a bit sooner.
Re:Kind of
on
Java Puzzlers
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
See, to a C coder, this is non-obvious because both the types would be signed, and if you wanted it unsigned you would have to say so.
Sigh... Not true. Wether chars default to signed or unsigned is vendor specific in the ANSI C spec. If you code depends on chars being signed or not then you have to state it explicitly if you want your code to be portable. I have been bitten by this on one important occasion when I was still in Industry and have never forgotten it.
Another thing retail loves is called a loss leader -- something which is a staple, like milk, priced so low it will actively get people to come into your store, where they'll naturally buy other items which are priced higher. This works because people might know, for example, that $1.50 a gallon milk is an absurdly good deal, but putting together a list of all the items you need is very difficult, so you just get people to comparison shop on a few high-profile items and nickle-and-dime them on, say, cereal. (This is also one thing small stores LOVE to do to Wal-Mart, since it is very, very difficult to beat Wal-Mart's pricing across the board.) You can have loss-leaders which are much more expensive than milk though -- computer monitors, for example.
Actually, the loss leader is the thing that Wallmart excells in, and they do it at the higher level items. They advertise the $30 DVD player, and it is the cheapest you will find, but it will be lacking many of the features that many people want. Sitting just up the ailse will be a DVD player with more features that will be more expensive. Having seen the cheaper DVD player which really is the lowest price, your expectation has been set up that DVDs are cheap at Wallmart. The one with the better features is actually not the cheapest, but may be cheaper at a different store just down the road. And they do this with more than just Consumer Electronics.They do it with kitchen appliances, jewelry and others.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple: you soon have a new girlfriend named Bubba
Funny, I thought it was Creative that patented the menu system and was threatening
to sue Apple over the iPod.
How did the parent get modded as insightful?
How does reclassifying a 1950 intelligence assesment that stated that
Chinese was not probable, when the Chinese invaded two weeks later,
count as a compromise? That's just covering up embarassment.
maybe?
Somehow the boyscouts in most other countries seem to manage.
Do you honestly think the US govt cares about a Canadian company?
Nahh, just reading too much Tom Clancy
I am a professor in a Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. While wireless communication
is not my area of research (Software Maintenenace and Security). I have sat on thesis examination
and comp-1 committees for graduate students working in the wireless communication area.
Believe me, there is much, much more than "at most, a few minutes or hours of brainstorming
for an experienced programmer". I don't think you realize how much (continuing) research underlies
something as simple as your cell phone. I certainly don't understand most of it.
I believe the NTP patents to be overbroad since they basically say (as I understand it) make a
connection to an email server and get your email by RF. I haven't seen any details so I may be
wrong. The RIM work that I saw had much more to do with the underlying protocols of how do
you locate the wireless device (so you can send it the wakeup message), and how do you build the
network connection in the most power efficient manner in the first place. How do you minimize
the PCAP traffic between your server and the cells (and between the cells)? They managed to do
it in such a way that the original blackberry could run 2 weeks of average use on 2 AA batteries.
Also as I said before, I don't believe in software patents in any way,
so I am not defending anyone here and I personally believe theat the
NTP patents in particular are overbroad.
Also as I said before some of the details are fuzzy from time. But there
is more than "just a communication" and "one entity initiates the communication,
and the other replies". It is not about the '"push" network fad'.
The world is not TCP/IP over the internet where power.
In mobile communincations, it is always about battery life. Simplistic protocols
like TCP and UDP do not hold up in such an evironment. Saying that it is as simple
as "send a packet from the server to the client" and the client replies ignores
all sorts of details that are fundamentally different from what happens
on a simple ethernet or Wi-Fi network. Wireless devices in this environment have
to run for a week or more on a single charge. They move around in a way that makes
routing less than optimal. Ignoring the details is like saying there is no difference
between a bus and an airplane because they both get you from point A to point B.
The closer analogy is SMS, and much of RIM's innovation was not based on the
concept of "wireless email" but was based on two way transport of email over
long distance wireless networks running TCAP that did not support SMS at the time.
Not really, xbiff is just a process that does periodic checker and changes
its icon. That is exactly what they don't do. The server sends out a message
through the network to a device that is on standby, just like a cell system
sends out a message to a phone that is on standby. The innovation is in
the details of the network handling, which is not a simple TCP/IP connection
over wireless.
While you are partially right in that the two are an obvious combination, there is a bit
more to RIM than simply using pop over wireless. The cost of constant connections
to check you mail would drain the battery in short order. It closer to what happens
in SMS. When the server receives new email for you, it actively sends out a message
through the wireless network to your device which is most likely in standby mode
(like a cellular phone). That makes your device notify you that you have email. It
is not a TCP/IP connection.
I'm glossing over many of the details. I went to a RIM presentation at a conference 1.5
years ago, and the details are a bit fuzzy. I don't agree with software patents in the
first place, so a pox on both houses. But there is a bit more happening than tcp over
general wireless network.
Which one? The other three major search engines rolled over without a fight.
I think the grandparent post was not suggesting that he hack the messages, but
suggest that that the company set up internal servers. If he had the servers set
up and ready to go, then they would not be able to complain that it was too much
work.
It still came from manure (in this case sea bird guano).
I remember seeing something like this about 5-6 years ago (during the
dot boom) for email (funny how the article mentions they plan to add
email soon). I don't remember the details, but I remember being
unimpressed by the tech.
Same concept as this article: You sent your email to the service, they saved
it on a server and sent the recipient an email with a link. After the mail was
read it was deleted.
I never heard about it again. I don't think the company made enough
money to stay in business.
Yeah, most of us take showers.
The saltpeter used in the Revolution came from manure.
I see. It's turtles all the way down.
Two words:
derivative work.
Changing the name and changing the rules might be enough.I haven't seen the online version. But if you change the way results are calculated (instead of rolls of 6 sided dice) and change the resupply algorithm, it might be sufficient
I agree. I teach a 3rd year operating system class and I use
linux as the lab platform. We run it inside of Virtual PC since
the lab machines are all XP. The student disk images
are all stored on a central server so that they can get
to them from several different labs. However this limits
us (for various reasons) to 500 MB per student. Slackware
was one of only twp distribution that I could put a reasonable
environment in that space from the main installer without
doing a lot of manual tinkering with individual packages.
See my journal for the long story of my experience getting
this class up and running.
signed char c;
As I said before if you say just
char c;
it may be signed, it may be unsigned, it depends on the vendor of your compiler.
Have you told Sony so that they know? A nice letter to
thier public relations dept indicating why you chose a different
brand might help them notice the loss a bit sooner.
Sigh... Not true. Wether chars default to signed or unsigned is vendor specific in the ANSI C spec. If you code depends on chars being signed or not then you have to state it explicitly if you want your code to be portable. I have been bitten by this on one important occasion when I was still in Industry and have never forgotten it.
Actually, the loss leader is the thing that Wallmart excells in, and they do it at the higher level items. They advertise the $30 DVD player, and it is the cheapest you will find, but it will be lacking many of the features that many people want. Sitting just up the ailse will be a DVD player with more features that will be more expensive. Having seen the cheaper DVD player which really is the lowest price, your expectation has been set up that DVDs are cheap at Wallmart. The one with the better features is actually not the cheapest, but may be cheaper at a different store just down the road. And they do this with more than just Consumer Electronics.They do it with kitchen appliances, jewelry and others.