All we ave to do is give Alan Turing the patent on universal computing devices. It would then be impossible write software that's not covered by his prior art, and Turing has been dead long enough for the patent to have expired.
Ok, here goes... Cube, Cobalt, Apple, NeXT suing each other, patenting various solids, ive got a sillier patent than yours, nCube name used before how about a Beowulf cluster of these?
Ok, that's them done, let's discuss the damn products can we?
How about a 22" 1600x1024 TFT? The Apple Cinema Display fits the bill (even if the bill won't fit the credit card... boo).
Seriously though, I'm surprised they are sticking to the 4:3 aspect ratio here, I think 16:10 (like apple) would be equally if not more consumer acceptable, and require less pixels
For too long, Nintendo have been able to steamroller all other handhelds out of the marketplace, because they had the luck to get Tetris.
This time round, they will be up against the PsOne (the handheld playstation), and I think they'll lose. Those screenshots look ok, but Nintendo have historically been able to price their handheld games very high, and I've alreadty got a dozen better playstation CDs already in my collection.
Funnily enough, the Apple way of "selecting one of the folders to bring it to the front. With a tabbed dialog this is usually the tabs" is to type Apple-tab
Hmm, I could set up something that fulfills all the above criteria using just vanilla Mac OS 6 (and probably much earlier, but I can't remeber back that far!). "Some control option, e.g. colour chooser or whatever" could be a folder icon, and "an area on the computer display in which the group of multiple sets of information is to be displayed" is a window containing folder icons.
AFAIK, I can drag the folders outof the window, nest them, etc. to fulfill all the patent requirments. The only sticking point in the quotes above is the bit about "...second of the multiple sets of information is substituted within the area of the display for the first set of information..." - this would require setting the window positions to overlap exactly, which is possible (if rather pointless).
Is there anything in the rest of the patent which would rule out this possibly, but slightly ununsual array of folders and icons? If not, it's prior art...
There isn't enough detail to tell froim the BBC story, but I suspect this may be the EU trying the exact same case as the US DOJ decided to split M$ over - if it is, MS should be very worried, as all the 'findings of fact' would be there for the prosecutors to study.
While the US seems to have settled for a solution that merely trys to stop M$ from abusing it's position in the future, the EU should be able to get M$ to pay for the damage it did the companies it's trampled over.
Why the US department of 'justice' thinks that M$ shouldn't make any redress for it's illegal abuse of monopoly has always baffled me
That's not what I meant! In the past, Apple have charged very high prices for the plain old ADB mouse I and II. Pricing the new mouse at $60 is roughly in line with *those* high spare parts prices.
...how much is this going to penetrate outside of the Mac market?
Was it ever meant to? I think the nominal $60 price is there to do the following:
a) fleece hockey-puck mouse owners b) make purchasers of the new machines think they are getting a better package deal, and c) keep in line with Apple's high spare parts prices.
Apple will only have 'arguably the nicest looking mouse there is' if it's priced so high PC users won't go for it - which is another reason why it's only got 1 'button', to keep it mac-exclusive.
How about people who's entire OS is optimised for a 1-button mouse? Like, erm, Mac users?
As for serial mice, where exactly are Mac users going to plug those in?
For those who really HAVE to have more buttons, Apple have conveniently put 101(ish) of them on a big flat thing nearby. With the aid of some rubber bands and a rollerskate, you can easily have a 102 button mouse that's about as well thought out as your argument.
n some alternative universe, is there a website where musicians extoll the virtues of General Public Music while blasting software distributors for not paying programmers or allowing them to copy software?
What percentage of the artists at mp3.com do you think use only paid-in-full uncracked software?
Educate the programmer on *why* things like sprintf, strcpy, etc. are Bad Things...
not why, but *when*. If you are knocking up a one time program for your own use, use whatever gets the job done. If you are writing an in-house app for an urgent problem, take the risk that your loyal staff won't be trying to cause buffer overflows. If you are writing for a wider audience, *then* you need to be careful.
Surely the performance hit (and often, more importantly, developer time hit) isn't worth the effort.
Everyone seems in a rush to point out that natural language has it's drawbacks when dealing with OS commands. This is true, but it it relevant? There are plenty of tasks that do lend themselves well to natural language - for example, telephone banking. I already communicate with the computers at firstdirect.co.uk through a natural language voice connection, it's just that the bank is paying for an operator to answer the phone. 95% of my calls there are totally routine and are crying out to be automated.
Use this technology where it's needed, not where it doesn't work well!
Is this a big issue? It's not exactly going to be heavy, now, is it? One hand either side should suffice.
However, if you insist, there is a semi-circular 'mouse hole' in one side at the bottom (presumably where cooling air goes in?), so I guess you'd just put one hand in here and lift.
Well, partly because this is a legal 'grey area', and it would be useful for everyone (supporters of the little iritating guy or the big iritating guys in this case) if there was some case law out there.
They also require a phone number - I'm banned because I want to keep my privacy from telemarketers.
Ebay currently run adverts here with the slogan "all you need is an e-mail address" and, they only raised the phone number issue with me when I complained about spam going to the special mailbox I had set up just for e-bay's use.
Draw your own conclusions - I certainly did!
- Andy R.
Y2K, only.... oh sod it, I'm fed up with this sig now.
Just because you are shouting, doesn't mean you are right!
Can you point to the law that lets you rip off live recording and out-takes, and lets you off the copyrights owned by the authors of the works? Thought not.
I do not understand why the lawyers make a distinction between these two end-user agreements
Simple. The GPL Adds to your normal rights by giving you the option to do certain things with the source code, whereas the other agreement seeks to limit the rights you might reasonably expect to have when you buy something.
The word 'option' is important because if you don't like the GPL, you can decide not to exercise your options under the GPL, you just get the software under the law's 'default copyright settings'- ie no rights to make derivative works, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Problem Solved!
Someone claiming to be (but we can't be 100% sure) Will Price, Director of Engineering, PGP Security, Inc. ... ;-)
Ok, that's them done, let's discuss the damn products can we?
Seriously though, I'm surprised they are sticking to the 4:3 aspect ratio here, I think 16:10 (like apple) would be equally if not more consumer acceptable, and require less pixels
This time round, they will be up against the PsOne (the handheld playstation), and I think they'll lose. Those screenshots look ok, but Nintendo have historically been able to price their handheld games very high, and I've alreadty got a dozen better playstation CDs already in my collection.
Funnily enough, the Apple way of "selecting one of the folders to bring it to the front. With a tabbed dialog this is usually the tabs" is to type Apple-tab
AFAIK, I can drag the folders outof the window, nest them, etc. to fulfill all the patent requirments. The only sticking point in the quotes above is the bit about "...second of the multiple sets of information is substituted within the area of the display for the first set of information..." - this would require setting the window positions to overlap exactly, which is possible (if rather pointless).
Is there anything in the rest of the patent which would rule out this possibly, but slightly ununsual array of folders and icons? If not, it's prior art...
While the US seems to have settled for a solution that merely trys to stop M$ from abusing it's position in the future, the EU should be able to get M$ to pay for the damage it did the companies it's trampled over.
Why the US department of 'justice' thinks that M$ shouldn't make any redress for it's illegal abuse of monopoly has always baffled me
That's not what I meant! In the past, Apple have charged very high prices for the plain old ADB mouse I and II. Pricing the new mouse at $60 is roughly in line with *those* high spare parts prices.
Was it ever meant to? I think the nominal $60 price is there to do the following:
a) fleece hockey-puck mouse owners
b) make purchasers of the new machines think they are getting a better package deal, and
c) keep in line with Apple's high spare parts prices.
Apple will only have 'arguably the nicest looking mouse there is' if it's priced so high PC users won't go for it - which is another reason why it's only got 1 'button', to keep it mac-exclusive.
As for serial mice, where exactly are Mac users going to plug those in?
For those who really HAVE to have more buttons, Apple have conveniently put 101(ish) of them on a big flat thing nearby. With the aid of some rubber bands and a rollerskate, you can easily have a 102 button mouse that's about as well thought out as your argument.
Erm, anyone got a nice flat mousepad sized black hole?
What percentage of the artists at mp3.com do you think use only paid-in-full uncracked software?
not why, but *when*. If you are knocking up a one time program for your own use, use whatever gets the job done. If you are writing an in-house app for an urgent problem, take the risk that your loyal staff won't be trying to cause buffer overflows. If you are writing for a wider audience, *then* you need to be careful.
Surely the performance hit (and often, more importantly, developer time hit) isn't worth the effort.
Use this technology where it's needed, not where it doesn't work well!
Well, if Microsoft are going to do it ;-)
However, if you insist, there is a semi-circular 'mouse hole' in one side at the bottom (presumably where cooling air goes in?), so I guess you'd just put one hand in here and lift.
- Andy R.
Ebay currently run adverts here with the slogan "all you need is an e-mail address" and, they only raised the phone number issue with me when I complained about spam going to the special mailbox I had set up just for e-bay's use.
Draw your own conclusions - I certainly did!
- Andy R.
Y2K, only.... oh sod it, I'm fed up with this sig now.
- Andy R.
Y2K problem? Surely that means we've got 47.5 years to fix the bugs?
Can you point to the law that lets you rip off live recording and out-takes, and lets you off the copyrights owned by the authors of the works? Thought not.
- Andy R.
Y2K - only 47 and half years to go!
Next!
- Andy R.
Simple. The GPL Adds to your normal rights by giving you the option to do certain things with the source code, whereas the other agreement seeks to limit the rights you might reasonably expect to have when you buy something.
The word 'option' is important because if you don't like the GPL, you can decide not to exercise your options under the GPL, you just get the software under the law's 'default copyright settings'- ie no rights to make derivative works, etc.
- Andy R.
Actually, it's because us Europeans use bigger gallons
1 US gallon = approx 0.83 imperial gallons
- Andy R
- Andy R.