Yes Apple does own a Trademark on Tiger the "computer operating system software". Use the trademark link in the parent post and search for serial number 78269988.
Many people hold trademarks on tigers and apples. It's the context that is important. My guess is that someone owned the trademark to both Tiger and Apple way before Tiger Direct and Apple Computer were founded. However Apple's trademark is on a "computer operating system". Kellogg's probably has a trademark on the cartoon character. Neither can sue each other (and win), unless either Kellogg's starts making software, or Apple puts Tony the Tiger on their software box.
Now the software revolution may have knocked the Frosted Flakes fan sights out of the top spots, but that doesn't mean they have a case against Apple.
I very strongly support Ben's statements. You seem to enjoy playing with home networking equipment and gadgets. Someone with your skill set should already be qualified to work with your Housing/Campus IT group on residential networking issues. Many universities have ResNet programs that offer paid positions helping other students with their networking and computer related issues.
Outside of the dorms, there are also campus computer labs and often research institues that operate on campus. The research institues are often doing real world research and often look for interns willing and able to help out. You don't necessarily have to help them with experiments, many researchers need IT help, either with their computers, or writing code to support their work.
As you'll find out later, it's not what you know, but who you know. Through working within these organizations you'll find that they often have ties to other organizations and companies. A recommendation from a manager who has ties with a company you'd like to work for will go further than the 5+ years of experience the HR dept was told to look for. It's a weeding tool, your personal network will help get you past this.
Once you're in the door and at an interview, show them how the experience gained via ResNet, Lab, and institue positions apply to the work you'd be doing for them. ResNet - Dynamic problem solving skills, teamwork and interpersonal communication. Lab - Technological familiarity with commonly used tools, applications, and their interactions with corporate networks. Institue - Experience actually helping get something done. Show the potential employer how you helped the project. This was your first real job, and experience here shows that you aren't the same as the rest of the recent college grads.
With that said, take the best position available to you, but stay in your field. Writing automated test cases and doing QA work, might not be what you want to do forever, but at least you're writing code. If you want to be a developer, you need to start writing code. Don't take a job waiting tables, answering phones, or filing papers. These jobs don't further your career or get you experience. When "things get better", you don't still want to be competing with college grads. If you're 21 and don't know anything companies think they can work with you (if you can get in the door). Companies frown on folks that are 25+ and still don't know anything.
Hope this helps all you recent and future grads. Have a plan, start small, and START EARLY.
Although they didn't plug it in this press release. If you like what you see here, and like the product, you might be interested in the Mandrake Club. The Mandrake Club offers the ability to "donate" money to the Mandrake development effort.
The club has three pricing levels, each with slightly different benefits. What I get from the club is their community RPMs, and discussion boards. Silver members get DL access to their PowerPack ISOs for free as well. Club members get to help shape what goes into future releases, and have early access to Mandrake RPMs of new releases. Mozilla, NVIDIA Drivers, etc. Don't see an RPM you want, vote for it, and someone will probably generate it.
Anyway, if you think that MandrakeSoft is doing right by the Linux community, this may be a nice way of sending them some cash, while getting a little more use from the distro you're probably already using.
I personally like this idea. I think that open sourcing Java would allow other projects to take off much easier (I'm thinking gcj, but I'm sure there are others).
However how is this effort different from:
Kaffe - Open Source, way behind the times, in general more annoying that useful, IMO.
Blackdown JVMs - Best Java JVM available for free on Linux (again IMO). Uses Sun's code, has valuable contributions, but isn't maintained by a large group. As far as I know, only a handful of dedicated people, and only one or two are very public.
Also, why would Sun suddenly be willing to Open Source Java now when they weren't before? Have any of the open issues changed?
As far as I know it's a compatibility/brand issue. If Java were open source, anyone could grab the source, tweak it and release their own JVM. If there are a zillion JVMs running around it's possible some won't be compliant.
What about the JCK? It works fine, but you still run into the embrace and extend issue. Someone takes Java 1.4 and builds custom enhancements to support his/her own Javaesque features. Programms written for this JVM now no longer work on a stock 1.4 VM. Is this VM now legal "Java". I think Sun would say no.
What about the Java Community Process? Many anti-fork advocates might suggest just contributing to Java via regular channels. Do these channels work? If not, should they be repaired instead of or in addition to Open Source Java?
I admit, thinking of new ways of sticking to spammers is fun. What would be the flip side to such a law?
Would it end free E-mail services (or at the very least require a credit card ID)? How would ISP's protect themselves from their users' possible infractions (if somehow they could be found guilty of contributing to the problem by providing the means)? Would this contribute a to higher price at the pumps (Cable/DSL bills)?
In short, could such an agressive law cause more problems than it solves?
Did bounties do anything to curb crime in the Wild West? Significantly? Plus way back then people only cared if the bounty was high. $100, $500, $1000 was a boatload of money back then. Heck if I could make that much now per message I'd be happy. But it won't happen.
We already have $50 per message laws on the books (at least in CA) and with the exception of a hand full of publicized cases, there has been little uptake.
In a world where one should be able to retire off the earnings of a family AOL account, it's a wonder existing laws aren't enough. It's simply too much work for too little return. It's too time consuming to plow through the forged headers, sue Yahoo for account information for user 123jlk213lkj and then still get nowhere.
If there was a tough national anti-spam law I'd support it. But for the love of God, give it teeth. Include a sliding scale for infractions ($500 for first, $5000 second, $50000 third). Include jail time for forged headers, and force persons operating under the "business relationship" clause to offer proof of such relationship in the message (at least a link one can follow to verify the relationship as well as request that the relationship be terminated). Require that the transfer of such a relationship be opt-in.
If this type of bounty system was put into place, the war on spam may actually be effective. Otherwise, good luck.
Of course it would probably double, if not tripple the bandwidth used by Slashdot. Something that gets very, very expensive. So while disk space is cheap, and the cache seems technically doable, I bet it's prohibative for other reasons.
It does kind of sound like he's working for nutjobs. It's too bad. However if the company is just resistant to hiring more people, which I think is kind of understandable, they may be willing to fork over some money and allow for higher short terms costs to pay for this higher level of productivity. However, if they've been nutjobs in the past, it may not work, and you can only use the carrot so many times before it doesn't work anymore no matter now much you spend.
I believe that working continuous long days and weekends ultimately decreases long term productivity. People get tired, they get frustrated, they make more mistakes and while they may spend more time 'on the job', their actual productivity tends to slip. After the first spike in productivity due to more time 'on the job', productivity will start to even out, even with longer work days, and eventually start to decline. So, this is usually not a good way to go.
Second:
But...there are times when increased work time is a tremendious benefit. Having the opportunity for contiguous thought and work for example. I know I've worked some 36 hour days to get massive work accomplished on a project. Now this was on my own accord and when finished I had time for significant down time and 'fun' work, but it was a long day, and was very productive. Second, with the proper motivation even medium length work spikes can yield high production. This production isn't without costs however. As another example our company asked engineering to work 10-11 hour days and Saturday for 3 months in prep for the rollout of our first product. However included with this, were many consessions made by management including: Additional time off, bonuses, free dinner & beer (yep that's right), flexible hours, the ability the throw nurf balls at management (who was there late too) and the realization that we were all working for a common goal. In this case we weren't under the gun due to crappy planning, but we wanted to get to market fast and everyone agreed and stood to benefit. Another example of long hours paying off.
So I guess my point is that long hours aren't enherently bad. They have to be taken in context of how they're used, how they're brought about (motivated), and what the end goal result will be. It should also be noted that in each case of longer working better, it also cost much more. Explain that in order for productivity to actually match what they expect, they'll have to take into account that it will most likely cost a few orders of magnitude more to due it.
And if my 'spare' set of keys gets stolen from my apt. manager I want to know. It's not only the right thing to do, but an issue of security. Physical security, financial, you name it. I have the right to know and the company has the duty to disclose this info to me. Maybe not the rest of the world, but at least to me. IMHO:)
PS: I think we have a whistleblowing act in the US as well. I've heard mention to it with respect to a whistleblower at the FBI.
I like, and would recommend NetBeans myself. I haven't developed add on packages but I use it for development on a daily basis. Some features Netbeans has that I believe would be of value.
* Modularity. Many IDEs are modular these days, but from the level of integration I've seen from third party ISVs, the level of support for external modules is extensive (able to modify and enhance every aspect of the IDE).
* Support for various languages. Despite what some might say, Netbeans doesn't support Java exclusively. There are Java editors, C++, XML, plain, etc. It would be a straight forward task to add Perl support, both in external compiler and editor support. It doesn't come out of the box, but the extensibility is quite there.
* Speed. Many people have complained that Netbeans is slow. Sure I wish it would load a little faster, but once loaded runs fine on my PII 450 system. Speed is a fundemental interative problem. Enhancements in JVMs and architecture will yield speed improvements. Improved computer system will yield speed improvements. So if the current speed is acceptable to you, having it go faster but giving up something else is a drawback.
So to sum up. I like Netbeans. I think a pure Java IDE impl is good. Netbeans modularity and ISV support is great and the speed is acceptable. Check out Eclipse too and let the community know down the road which route you decided to go, and why. I for one would be interested in knowing.
I'd be interested to know how this 'bullet' technology works. I know a few people who have been having problems with the receivers in their VCRs (they choose not to rent a box and don't have premium/PPV channels) lately. Sure it could be a flaky VCR, but it's happened to more than one person with newish VCRs.
If Comcast is found to be damaging personal hardware with their 'bullet' it would be funny if those users were able to clame irreparable harm and sue for millions. In short, I think that Comcast better be very careful where they point their guns. In the end this can only be bad for them.
It's sticky. However I think that courts have said that it's ok to do the following.
1. Invite friends over to watch X-Files.
2. Tape X-Files for later viewing, with friends, or alone.
3. Tape X-Files for later viewing without commercials.
4. Tape X-Files and watch it at a friends house on his VCR.
5. Tape X-Files for a friend who would have otherwise missed the show, and give them the tape.
I believe that courts have upheld this type of fair use. You're allowed to tape stuff off the TV and Radio. You're allowed to consume these tapes in any way you wish, and are allowed to share with family and friends as long as you're not profiting. You are not allowed to share with everyone. I think the friends and family aspect is what SonicBlue is going for. They only let you share a show like 5 times, eliminating the risk of proliferation to the world, while providing a service that allows you to essentially let a friend borrow your CD or tape.
And about HBO. Again, this should be good for HBO. It gains loyalty and brand recognition.
As for being illegal. ReplayTV only allows a limited number of show 'sends'. Also given the reality of most people's internet bandwidth. ReplayTV will be used for the most part to send shows from a TV in one room to a TV in another (via local lan). Also these limited sends should be no more illegal than having people over to my house to watch HBO. They don't pay for the service, but I'm still allowed to let my friends watch my TV on my dime.
Also since people are watching and sharing these shows off of a hard drive HBO no longer pays the cable companies for distribution over their lines. If anything the cable companies are the real loosers in this whole mess, and the court has already ruled on this issue.
Now I could be wrong, but get this. The industry has no way of knowing exactly how many people actually watch their shows. Sure based on a sample of people who agree to be polled, they're able to estimate. And based on these estimations they're able to charge for advertising.
If you think about it, at this point they have their money. Nealson has already counted these views, whether or not commercials were skipped via conventional (bathroom) means or electronic means. I find is suspicious that these companies are now asking for this type of information. I could see the various companies who advertise complaining, but they don't seem to be. And if they did the TV industry would say that since taped views don't add to the ratings, those views aren't represented. So either quit bitching or we'll have to count those views in our ratings and raise rates accordingly.
Either way I don't really see how the industries argument carries any weight. This is a game of averages folks and advertisers know this. Plus the industries accounting mechanism rounds for the industry anyway. I just don't see what their problem is.
What's next, publishers demanding that table of contents information be removed from books, due to inherent use for skipping sections of already read material? And what about TVGuide, it allows you to eliminate whole shows you'd rather not see.
Come on Turner. This sort of add revenue is used to offset production and distribution costs. Assuming that a person watches these commercials once, Turner should be happy. After all additional views aren't being broadcast, and thus costs Turner nothing. Time shifting is legal, and Turner, I would think, would want people to view Turner shows often. This would raise interest in Turner programming. The more interest in Turner programming the more they'll be able to charge for adds anyway.
Also given that the interest level of the average commercial is rather low (ie, people would rather do something else than watch a commercial, and often do). I would think Turner would look into ways of making commercials more interesting. Failing that, it's actually quite ironic that in order to tape a show "without commercials" one actually has to intently watch a show with commercials in order to cut them out. So Turner actually get's more bang for their commercial buck from people who use a VCR to tape a show "without commercials".
And last thought. Why does Turner even care? After all they charge for commercial time based on viewership numbers estimated by third party polls. These polls don't take into account estimated numbers of people who recorded the show for later viewing. View the show later and skip all the commercials you want, Turner still got it's money and gains viewer loyalty in the process. Sounds like nothing but a win for them to me.
I think I'd be disturbed as well. I'm all for the availability of technology and the potential for it's use to do good. However it's my optinion that people either through ignorance or intention would misuse this "gift".
Sure it might be nice to be able to tinker on a laptop while watching a movie, order drinks, dinner, and whatnot.
But what about the problems? People have mentioned the key chattering. I think this would be a killer itself. But what about "bright" monitors, and all those people who can't figure out how to turn off the sound on their laptops. People are up in arms over cell phones in movie theaters. I have no doubt that people would have issues with constant: eep, ding, you've got mail, the Windows startup/shutdown jingle, and many, many others.
So that's my take. I'm for it, if it can be used correctly. If someone is able to figure out a way not to ruin the movie via unwanted typing, light or noise. Make sure that copyrights aren't violated via video or audio capture devices (commonly found on many laptops these days). And can in general provide me with a more enjoyable experience, then I'd be for such a system. Maybe the theaters can take advantage of such a network so that they can offer better services. I think these services should probably be offered via theater controlled devices and not given to the theater public at large though.
Anyone know of problems related to the EM field generated by magnets in todays hardware?
I used to think this was a bad idea, people always used to warn of such things. I used to see people stick refridgerator magnets on their metalic computer cases. These people always seemed to have computer problems. I don't know if it was the magnets or just the breed.
Are computers more tollerant these days of magnets and electrostatic discharges? Or have people forgotten about these types of problems? After all I guess bugs (insects) can still do damage to computers they just don't blow the vacuum tubes like they used to.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes Apple does own a Trademark on Tiger the "computer operating system software". Use the trademark link in the parent post and search for serial number 78269988.
Many people hold trademarks on tigers and apples. It's the context that is important. My guess is that someone owned the trademark to both Tiger and Apple way before Tiger Direct and Apple Computer were founded. However Apple's trademark is on a "computer operating system". Kellogg's probably has a trademark on the cartoon character. Neither can sue each other (and win), unless either Kellogg's starts making software, or Apple puts Tony the Tiger on their software box.
Now the software revolution may have knocked the Frosted Flakes fan sights out of the top spots, but that doesn't mean they have a case against Apple.
Confusing laws, they're grrrreat!
Dumb question but how can a star made up entirely of nutrons (particals without charge) have a strong magnetic field? Something to do with spin?
I very strongly support Ben's statements. You seem to enjoy playing with home networking equipment and gadgets. Someone with your skill set should already be qualified to work with your Housing/Campus IT group on residential networking issues. Many universities have ResNet programs that offer paid positions helping other students with their networking and computer related issues.
Outside of the dorms, there are also campus computer labs and often research institues that operate on campus. The research institues are often doing real world research and often look for interns willing and able to help out. You don't necessarily have to help them with experiments, many researchers need IT help, either with their computers, or writing code to support their work.
As you'll find out later, it's not what you know, but who you know. Through working within these organizations you'll find that they often have ties to other organizations and companies. A recommendation from a manager who has ties with a company you'd like to work for will go further than the 5+ years of experience the HR dept was told to look for. It's a weeding tool, your personal network will help get you past this.
Once you're in the door and at an interview, show them how the experience gained via ResNet, Lab, and institue positions apply to the work you'd be doing for them.
ResNet - Dynamic problem solving skills, teamwork and interpersonal communication.
Lab - Technological familiarity with commonly used tools, applications, and their interactions with corporate networks.
Institue - Experience actually helping get something done. Show the potential employer how you helped the project. This was your first real job, and experience here shows that you aren't the same as the rest of the recent college grads.
With that said, take the best position available to you, but stay in your field. Writing automated test cases and doing QA work, might not be what you want to do forever, but at least you're writing code. If you want to be a developer, you need to start writing code. Don't take a job waiting tables, answering phones, or filing papers. These jobs don't further your career or get you experience. When "things get better", you don't still want to be competing with college grads. If you're 21 and don't know anything companies think they can work with you (if you can get in the door). Companies frown on folks that are 25+ and still don't know anything.
Hope this helps all you recent and future grads. Have a plan, start small, and START EARLY.
You gotta wonder when that version of Office 2004 you DLed is 10MB. Although these days even a beta of the splash screen would be something. :)
The club has three pricing levels, each with slightly different benefits. What I get from the club is their community RPMs, and discussion boards. Silver members get DL access to their PowerPack ISOs for free as well. Club members get to help shape what goes into future releases, and have early access to Mandrake RPMs of new releases. Mozilla, NVIDIA Drivers, etc. Don't see an RPM you want, vote for it, and someone will probably generate it.
Anyway, if you think that MandrakeSoft is doing right by the Linux community, this may be a nice way of sending them some cash, while getting a little more use from the distro you're probably already using.
Connect Four
I get what you're saying.
Are you familiar with the Netbeans Open Source project? If so, would you like Java to be handled the same way?
I personally like this idea. I think that open sourcing Java would allow other projects to take off much easier (I'm thinking gcj, but I'm sure there are others).
However how is this effort different from:
Kaffe - Open Source, way behind the times, in general more annoying that useful, IMO.
Blackdown JVMs - Best Java JVM available for free on Linux (again IMO). Uses Sun's code, has valuable contributions, but isn't maintained by a large group. As far as I know, only a handful of dedicated people, and only one or two are very public.
Also, why would Sun suddenly be willing to Open Source Java now when they weren't before? Have any of the open issues changed?
As far as I know it's a compatibility/brand issue. If Java were open source, anyone could grab the source, tweak it and release their own JVM. If there are a zillion JVMs running around it's possible some won't be compliant.
What about the JCK? It works fine, but you still run into the embrace and extend issue. Someone takes Java 1.4 and builds custom enhancements to support his/her own Javaesque features. Programms written for this JVM now no longer work on a stock 1.4 VM. Is this VM now legal "Java". I think Sun would say no.
What about the Java Community Process? Many anti-fork advocates might suggest just contributing to Java via regular channels. Do these channels work? If not, should they be repaired instead of or in addition to Open Source Java?
Frell=f-word "Frell me dead."
Dren=s-word "This smells like dren."
Hezmana=hell "What in Hezmana is going on here?"
Yotz=hell (maybe from a Hynerian point of view?)
Mivonks=balls "Do Scarrans have mivonks?"
Tralk(sp.?)=slut "They called me PK Tralk girl."
I know there's more, but that's all I can think of right now. Anyone else?
I admit, thinking of new ways of sticking to spammers is fun. What would be the flip side to such a law?
Would it end free E-mail services (or at the very least require a credit card ID)? How would ISP's protect themselves from their users' possible infractions (if somehow they could be found guilty of contributing to the problem by providing the means)? Would this contribute a to higher price at the pumps (Cable/DSL bills)?
In short, could such an agressive law cause more problems than it solves?
Did bounties do anything to curb crime in the Wild West? Significantly? Plus way back then people only cared if the bounty was high. $100, $500, $1000 was a boatload of money back then. Heck if I could make that much now per message I'd be happy. But it won't happen.
We already have $50 per message laws on the books (at least in CA) and with the exception of a hand full of publicized cases, there has been little uptake.
In a world where one should be able to retire off the earnings of a family AOL account, it's a wonder existing laws aren't enough. It's simply too much work for too little return. It's too time consuming to plow through the forged headers, sue Yahoo for account information for user 123jlk213lkj and then still get nowhere.
If there was a tough national anti-spam law I'd support it. But for the love of God, give it teeth. Include a sliding scale for infractions ($500 for first, $5000 second, $50000 third). Include jail time for forged headers, and force persons operating under the "business relationship" clause to offer proof of such relationship in the message (at least a link one can follow to verify the relationship as well as request that the relationship be terminated). Require that the transfer of such a relationship be opt-in.
If this type of bounty system was put into place, the war on spam may actually be effective. Otherwise, good luck.
Of course it would probably double, if not tripple the bandwidth used by Slashdot. Something that gets very, very expensive. So while disk space is cheap, and the cache seems technically doable, I bet it's prohibative for other reasons.
I tend to agree with this. Caching the frontpage news wouldn't take up much space. I wonder if there are copyright or other legal issues.
It does kind of sound like he's working for nutjobs. It's too bad. However if the company is just resistant to hiring more people, which I think is kind of understandable, they may be willing to fork over some money and allow for higher short terms costs to pay for this higher level of productivity. However, if they've been nutjobs in the past, it may not work, and you can only use the carrot so many times before it doesn't work anymore no matter now much you spend.
I guess there are two parts to this post. First:
I believe that working continuous long days and weekends ultimately decreases long term productivity. People get tired, they get frustrated, they make more mistakes and while they may spend more time 'on the job', their actual productivity tends to slip. After the first spike in productivity due to more time 'on the job', productivity will start to even out, even with longer work days, and eventually start to decline. So, this is usually not a good way to go.
Second:
But...there are times when increased work time is a tremendious benefit. Having the opportunity for contiguous thought and work for example. I know I've worked some 36 hour days to get massive work accomplished on a project. Now this was on my own accord and when finished I had time for significant down time and 'fun' work, but it was a long day, and was very productive. Second, with the proper motivation even medium length work spikes can yield high production. This production isn't without costs however. As another example our company asked engineering to work 10-11 hour days and Saturday for 3 months in prep for the rollout of our first product. However included with this, were many consessions made by management including: Additional time off, bonuses, free dinner & beer (yep that's right), flexible hours, the ability the throw nurf balls at management (who was there late too) and the realization that we were all working for a common goal. In this case we weren't under the gun due to crappy planning, but we wanted to get to market fast and everyone agreed and stood to benefit. Another example of long hours paying off.
So I guess my point is that long hours aren't enherently bad. They have to be taken in context of how they're used, how they're brought about (motivated), and what the end goal result will be. It should also be noted that in each case of longer working better, it also cost much more. Explain that in order for productivity to actually match what they expect, they'll have to take into account that it will most likely cost a few orders of magnitude more to due it.
We're from the government and we're here to help...
And if my 'spare' set of keys gets stolen from my apt. manager I want to know. It's not only the right thing to do, but an issue of security. Physical security, financial, you name it. I have the right to know and the company has the duty to disclose this info to me. Maybe not the rest of the world, but at least to me. IMHO :)
PS: I think we have a whistleblowing act in the US as well. I've heard mention to it with respect to a whistleblower at the FBI.
I like, and would recommend NetBeans myself. I haven't developed add on packages but I use it for development on a daily basis. Some features Netbeans has that I believe would be of value.
* Modularity. Many IDEs are modular these days, but from the level of integration I've seen from third party ISVs, the level of support for external modules is extensive (able to modify and enhance every aspect of the IDE).
* Support for various languages. Despite what some might say, Netbeans doesn't support Java exclusively. There are Java editors, C++, XML, plain, etc. It would be a straight forward task to add Perl support, both in external compiler and editor support. It doesn't come out of the box, but the extensibility is quite there.
* Speed. Many people have complained that Netbeans is slow. Sure I wish it would load a little faster, but once loaded runs fine on my PII 450 system. Speed is a fundemental interative problem. Enhancements in JVMs and architecture will yield speed improvements. Improved computer system will yield speed improvements. So if the current speed is acceptable to you, having it go faster but giving up something else is a drawback.
So to sum up. I like Netbeans. I think a pure Java IDE impl is good. Netbeans modularity and ISV support is great and the speed is acceptable. Check out Eclipse too and let the community know down the road which route you decided to go, and why. I for one would be interested in knowing.
I'd be interested to know how this 'bullet' technology works. I know a few people who have been having problems with the receivers in their VCRs (they choose not to rent a box and don't have premium/PPV channels) lately. Sure it could be a flaky VCR, but it's happened to more than one person with newish VCRs.
If Comcast is found to be damaging personal hardware with their 'bullet' it would be funny if those users were able to clame irreparable harm and sue for millions. In short, I think that Comcast better be very careful where they point their guns. In the end this can only be bad for them.
It's sticky. However I think that courts have said that it's ok to do the following.
.
1. Invite friends over to watch X-Files.
2. Tape X-Files for later viewing, with friends, or alone.
3. Tape X-Files for later viewing without commercials.
4. Tape X-Files and watch it at a friends house on his VCR.
5. Tape X-Files for a friend who would have otherwise missed the show, and give them the tape
I believe that courts have upheld this type of fair use. You're allowed to tape stuff off the TV and Radio. You're allowed to consume these tapes in any way you wish, and are allowed to share with family and friends as long as you're not profiting. You are not allowed to share with everyone. I think the friends and family aspect is what SonicBlue is going for. They only let you share a show like 5 times, eliminating the risk of proliferation to the world, while providing a service that allows you to essentially let a friend borrow your CD or tape.
And about HBO. Again, this should be good for HBO. It gains loyalty and brand recognition.
As for being illegal. ReplayTV only allows a limited number of show 'sends'. Also given the reality of most people's internet bandwidth. ReplayTV will be used for the most part to send shows from a TV in one room to a TV in another (via local lan). Also these limited sends should be no more illegal than having people over to my house to watch HBO. They don't pay for the service, but I'm still allowed to let my friends watch my TV on my dime.
Also since people are watching and sharing these shows off of a hard drive HBO no longer pays the cable companies for distribution over their lines. If anything the cable companies are the real loosers in this whole mess, and the court has already ruled on this issue.
Now I could be wrong, but get this. The industry has no way of knowing exactly how many people actually watch their shows. Sure based on a sample of people who agree to be polled, they're able to estimate. And based on these estimations they're able to charge for advertising.
If you think about it, at this point they have their money. Nealson has already counted these views, whether or not commercials were skipped via conventional (bathroom) means or electronic means. I find is suspicious that these companies are now asking for this type of information. I could see the various companies who advertise complaining, but they don't seem to be. And if they did the TV industry would say that since taped views don't add to the ratings, those views aren't represented. So either quit bitching or we'll have to count those views in our ratings and raise rates accordingly.
Either way I don't really see how the industries argument carries any weight. This is a game of averages folks and advertisers know this. Plus the industries accounting mechanism rounds for the industry anyway. I just don't see what their problem is.
What's next, publishers demanding that table of contents information be removed from books, due to inherent use for skipping sections of already read material? And what about TVGuide, it allows you to eliminate whole shows you'd rather not see.
Come on Turner. This sort of add revenue is used to offset production and distribution costs. Assuming that a person watches these commercials once, Turner should be happy. After all additional views aren't being broadcast, and thus costs Turner nothing. Time shifting is legal, and Turner, I would think, would want people to view Turner shows often. This would raise interest in Turner programming. The more interest in Turner programming the more they'll be able to charge for adds anyway.
Also given that the interest level of the average commercial is rather low (ie, people would rather do something else than watch a commercial, and often do). I would think Turner would look into ways of making commercials more interesting. Failing that, it's actually quite ironic that in order to tape a show "without commercials" one actually has to intently watch a show with commercials in order to cut them out. So Turner actually get's more bang for their commercial buck from people who use a VCR to tape a show "without commercials".
And last thought. Why does Turner even care? After all they charge for commercial time based on viewership numbers estimated by third party polls. These polls don't take into account estimated numbers of people who recorded the show for later viewing. View the show later and skip all the commercials you want, Turner still got it's money and gains viewer loyalty in the process. Sounds like nothing but a win for them to me.
Sure it might be nice to be able to tinker on a laptop while watching a movie, order drinks, dinner, and whatnot.
But what about the problems? People have mentioned the key chattering. I think this would be a killer itself. But what about "bright" monitors, and all those people who can't figure out how to turn off the sound on their laptops. People are up in arms over cell phones in movie theaters. I have no doubt that people would have issues with constant: eep, ding, you've got mail, the Windows startup/shutdown jingle, and many, many others.
So that's my take. I'm for it, if it can be used correctly. If someone is able to figure out a way not to ruin the movie via unwanted typing, light or noise. Make sure that copyrights aren't violated via video or audio capture devices (commonly found on many laptops these days). And can in general provide me with a more enjoyable experience, then I'd be for such a system. Maybe the theaters can take advantage of such a network so that they can offer better services. I think these services should probably be offered via theater controlled devices and not given to the theater public at large though.
I used to think this was a bad idea, people always used to warn of such things. I used to see people stick refridgerator magnets on their metalic computer cases. These people always seemed to have computer problems. I don't know if it was the magnets or just the breed.
Are computers more tollerant these days of magnets and electrostatic discharges? Or have people forgotten about these types of problems? After all I guess bugs (insects) can still do damage to computers they just don't blow the vacuum tubes like they used to.