"Google hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, transfer, and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of this implementation of VP8, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by this implementation of VP8."
Modify is the key word you missed. They specify "this implementation" to limit the patents which are licensed (otherwise you could force them to license you patents on entirely unrelated functionality simply by including it with a modified version of WebM).
It would not really be a PC... it would be a Microsoft box with a console form factor which can function as console, PC and mediacenter.
In could function as a console for the same reason that the xbox can function as a console (hardware DRM and a completely locked down windows install is Microsoft administered and only runs certified software). It could function as a PC because it's still a PC (it also has a non locked down windows install).
It wouldn't fragment the their market in the way the XBOX does. Basically there would be two types of games for the box... games which used the hardware DRM and are certified by Microsoft which can run both in console mode and PC mode and games without hardware DRM which can run in PC mode, including legacy games. All of them would push their core business into people's homes, windows.
If they had gone this way they would not have been in the position where they want PC gaming because it's important for their windows market, they literally agree with me on that, while at the same time seeing each PC game sale as a lost XBOX game sale, they literally agree with me on that as well... they are between a rock and a hard place and it's a position of their own making.
I'm pretty sure Valve has made more money off Steam than Microsoft has made cumulatively off the XBOX... that should have been them really...
The PS3 and Kinect showed that price isn't that big an obstacle. A PC can connect to a TV just fine, a monitor is not a necessity. Web access has been moving towards mobile platforms for a long time now... even before the iPad the death of this use case was very clear. The use case of gaming has longer legs.
If they had pushed a standardized "fool proof" PC they could have pushed a dedicated hardware DRM approach at the same time (with existing or custom build PCs needing an expansion card).
Their core business would remain stronger if their new ventures integrated with it. The XBOX does not, but the incompatibility of a fool proof gaming system with predictable performance and windows is of Microsoft's own making... there was no need to make a console other than their lack of focus in adapting windows to the market consoles fill. The XBOX could simply have been a dual install windows on standardized hardware with one install locked down completely and running the "console" games (which would be nothing more than PC games signed by Microsoft to be installable in the console mode, games which could also run on normal windows installs for people who want to build their own PCs).
Instead they compete with themselves and attack the strongest pillar keeping windows PCs in consumer households (gaming).
They must explore other options than shooting themselves in the foot.
They lost focus with the consumer side of their OS division and XBOX is partially responsible for that... lets for sake of argument assume they could have avoided the Vista clusterfuck if they had not gone adventuring with consoles, then clearly that would have been the better decision. Can't turn back the clock and run that experiment of course, but I personally think the XBOX has been one of their greatest mistakes ever.
PS. the XBOX division is in the black year on year, not cumulatively.
The XBOX division is a money pit... yes, they are making decent cash on Live and the Kinect marketing was stunning... but very likely by the time the third XBOX rolls around they will still be in the red when looking across the entire history of the XBOX division. Also their lack of focus in PC gaming has offered companies like Valve a huge opportunity in what should have been their back yard.
Windows is core business, PC gaming is an extension of core business... consoles are actually competing with their core business... it was a huge mistake to ever go this way. They should have had standardized remote administrated windows PCs which ran games completely foolproof (just like a console). That would have made sense.
Steve Jobs is no more or less of a visionary than Bill Gates (I think though they are both very clever they just got extremely lucky, for Gates everything flowed from DOS and for Jobs everything flowed from the iPod).
"Them" is a near infinite pool of misanthropic neckbeards... none of which gives a shit about what happens to the other misanthropic neckbeards currently in trouble.
These are not the countries these jobs go to... outsourcing countries need to have a relatively well educated middle class and a large supply of peasants.
The true shitholes don't get any outsourcing, globalism does nothing for them other than giving them a lot of loans to buy and shinies and then foreclosing and taking the few truly productive assets they have (mines and farms). Hell, that's the same globalism is doing in the first world countries... we just have a lot more assets to mortgage for shinies before we get well and truly fucked.
Globalism has a deflationary bias... debt has just covered it up in the last couple of decades, but the appetite for debt is running out.
Unguided capitalism sinks all boats to let a few own the seas all alone, and a government which can't make sovereign decisions because of free trade can't guide it... outsourcing is unethical in that it's an extension of an unethical economic system which will result in a new feudalism (and this time the peasants won't even have nice view any more, since most farming is automated).
With increasing wealth disparity no matter how small your chances to get to the top, it still makes sense to try. Unless you are a talented entrepreneur or top 1% in ability to begin with a college education is a prerequisite. The majority of people might not need a college education, but the majority of people will get it up the ass from globalization going forward (austerity ahoy). You don't want to be among the majority...
No, it's the fault of corruption... which the US might lack at least overtly, but brings in through the back-door. The revolving door from government to lobbyist firms, campaign funding etc etc.
Your multistory cow and vat grown meat are both genetically engineered animals, no real fundamental differences in the methods necessary to create them or their potential side effects.
The advantage of money printing is that it allocates a percentage of the value available from the debt owned to foreign creditors, something you can't tap with taxation... it can be done with tariffs and limiting capital flows, but printing money is a whole lot easier.
Money creation is how FDR got you (and all of us once our governments followed him to completely rape creditors world wide) out of the great depression.
Ah, but inflation is evil. The majority of US citizens AND the government is up to their necks in debt, a lot of it to foreign creditors, but inflation is evil because it erodes savings... won't someone think of the inflation!!!
No, austerity with a deflationary spiral is a much better idea... of course removing all barriers to foreign capital in the process. So when all is said and done, all farmland and major resources in the US can be owned by multinationals and China. Then too the majority of Americans (excluding the owners of said multinationals and a couple of lucky ones) can fully enjoy the wage slavery enjoyed by that great beacon of capitalism... China.
The number of people able to access any other port than the 1 or 2 necessary for exchange functions should number in the single digits for the production servers... and even they shouldn't use computers with general internet access for that, at most computers with a "hardware" VPN solution. Hell given the amount of money involved I wouldn't even let non production servers and source code be accessed on any computer with general internet access... fuck convenience, for this kind of money you can afford a whole lot of inconvenience.
Ah, but that just means you have to keep them ever on the edge... never truly let them starve, just drive them into smaller and smaller homes, requiring less and less natural resources... leaving more land for the rich (and a better environment to boot! Neo-feudalism might be horrific, but it is green).
50 years ago that would have allowed you to comfortably raise a family on a single income, with plenty of time to spend with your kids...
Pushing everyone without the talent to rise to the top 10% into poverty will end up with most of the citizens into the US confined in ghetto's while the few remaining rich live it up in the majority of the country which they own outright... a new feudalism, except this time they don't need any peasants any more because robots can do the farming.
Except it's not near where your fingers are when you are comfortably holding it, and hell I don't have sufficient dexterity in any fingers but my index finger and thumb for that kind of control even if I wanted to. AFAICS the only way to use it would be like in the video, completely releasing the device with the hand using the bottom touch screen... at which point it just seems awkward and annoying to me.
A small trackball instead of the right trigger button, now that would be useful.
Japan and China did just fine without innovation. They are doing even better now, but copying was enough to get them going. Ultimately productivity increases the standard of living, innovation is a means to an end.
What third world countries are missing is basic competency, good governance and natural resources.
You're right, they can't possibly judge a patent accurately with the time they have... even if they were allowed to use judgement (obviousness is a judgement call, it can NEVER be broken down into some objective test... except by redefining the word obvious, which is what the fucking lawyers try to do time and time again).
So why even try? If patents can only be truly judged by true practitioners (expert witnesses) in a court of law why not dispense with the whole charade? Just let examiners check if all the boxes are filled correctly so they can be entered correctly into the database before rubber stamping them?
Of course if the lower end still has access to freedom and plenty of bomb making materials life can get annoying for the upper culture if they try to push this too far. Also with the exception of the dynastic families not all rich people think it's a good idea... the forces on government might all be monied, but they are not of one mind.
Also in a democracy it takes an awful lot of propaganda to keep such a system in place... it only takes one FDR to unwind decades worth of private debt and turn the clock back.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes you are misreading it ...
"Google hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, transfer, and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of this implementation of VP8, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by this implementation of VP8."
Modify is the key word you missed. They specify "this implementation" to limit the patents which are licensed (otherwise you could force them to license you patents on entirely unrelated functionality simply by including it with a modified version of WebM).
It would not really be a PC ... it would be a Microsoft box with a console form factor which can function as console, PC and mediacenter.
In could function as a console for the same reason that the xbox can function as a console (hardware DRM and a completely locked down windows install is Microsoft administered and only runs certified software). It could function as a PC because it's still a PC (it also has a non locked down windows install).
It wouldn't fragment the their market in the way the XBOX does. Basically there would be two types of games for the box ... games which used the hardware DRM and are certified by Microsoft which can run both in console mode and PC mode and games without hardware DRM which can run in PC mode, including legacy games. All of them would push their core business into people's homes, windows.
If they had gone this way they would not have been in the position where they want PC gaming because it's important for their windows market, they literally agree with me on that, while at the same time seeing each PC game sale as a lost XBOX game sale, they literally agree with me on that as well ... they are between a rock and a hard place and it's a position of their own making.
I'm pretty sure Valve has made more money off Steam than Microsoft has made cumulatively off the XBOX ... that should have been them really ...
The PS3 and Kinect showed that price isn't that big an obstacle. A PC can connect to a TV just fine, a monitor is not a necessity. Web access has been moving towards mobile platforms for a long time now ... even before the iPad the death of this use case was very clear. The use case of gaming has longer legs.
If they had pushed a standardized "fool proof" PC they could have pushed a dedicated hardware DRM approach at the same time (with existing or custom build PCs needing an expansion card).
Their core business would remain stronger if their new ventures integrated with it. The XBOX does not, but the incompatibility of a fool proof gaming system with predictable performance and windows is of Microsoft's own making ... there was no need to make a console other than their lack of focus in adapting windows to the market consoles fill. The XBOX could simply have been a dual install windows on standardized hardware with one install locked down completely and running the "console" games (which would be nothing more than PC games signed by Microsoft to be installable in the console mode, games which could also run on normal windows installs for people who want to build their own PCs).
Instead they compete with themselves and attack the strongest pillar keeping windows PCs in consumer households (gaming).
They must explore other options than shooting themselves in the foot.
They lost focus with the consumer side of their OS division and XBOX is partially responsible for that ... lets for sake of argument assume they could have avoided the Vista clusterfuck if they had not gone adventuring with consoles, then clearly that would have been the better decision. Can't turn back the clock and run that experiment of course, but I personally think the XBOX has been one of their greatest mistakes ever.
PS. the XBOX division is in the black year on year, not cumulatively.
The XBOX division is a money pit ... yes, they are making decent cash on Live and the Kinect marketing was stunning ... but very likely by the time the third XBOX rolls around they will still be in the red when looking across the entire history of the XBOX division. Also their lack of focus in PC gaming has offered companies like Valve a huge opportunity in what should have been their back yard.
Windows is core business, PC gaming is an extension of core business ... consoles are actually competing with their core business ... it was a huge mistake to ever go this way. They should have had standardized remote administrated windows PCs which ran games completely foolproof (just like a console). That would have made sense.
Steve Jobs is no more or less of a visionary than Bill Gates (I think though they are both very clever they just got extremely lucky, for Gates everything flowed from DOS and for Jobs everything flowed from the iPod).
Spoken like a true anonymous ... they would agree with you.
"Them" is a near infinite pool of misanthropic neckbeards ... none of which gives a shit about what happens to the other misanthropic neckbeards currently in trouble.
These are not the countries these jobs go to ... outsourcing countries need to have a relatively well educated middle class and a large supply of peasants.
The true shitholes don't get any outsourcing, globalism does nothing for them other than giving them a lot of loans to buy and shinies and then foreclosing and taking the few truly productive assets they have (mines and farms). Hell, that's the same globalism is doing in the first world countries ... we just have a lot more assets to mortgage for shinies before we get well and truly fucked.
Globalism has a deflationary bias ... debt has just covered it up in the last couple of decades, but the appetite for debt is running out.
Unguided capitalism sinks all boats to let a few own the seas all alone, and a government which can't make sovereign decisions because of free trade can't guide it ... outsourcing is unethical in that it's an extension of an unethical economic system which will result in a new feudalism (and this time the peasants won't even have nice view any more, since most farming is automated).
With increasing wealth disparity no matter how small your chances to get to the top, it still makes sense to try. Unless you are a talented entrepreneur or top 1% in ability to begin with a college education is a prerequisite. The majority of people might not need a college education, but the majority of people will get it up the ass from globalization going forward (austerity ahoy). You don't want to be among the majority ...
No, it's the fault of corruption ... which the US might lack at least overtly, but brings in through the back-door. The revolving door from government to lobbyist firms, campaign funding etc etc.
This is about protection of a monopoly of certified engineers ... it's not about bureaucracy, it's about crony capitalism.
Your multistory cow and vat grown meat are both genetically engineered animals, no real fundamental differences in the methods necessary to create them or their potential side effects.
The advantage of money printing is that it allocates a percentage of the value available from the debt owned to foreign creditors, something you can't tap with taxation ... it can be done with tariffs and limiting capital flows, but printing money is a whole lot easier.
Money creation is how FDR got you (and all of us once our governments followed him to completely rape creditors world wide) out of the great depression.
Ah, but inflation is evil. The majority of US citizens AND the government is up to their necks in debt, a lot of it to foreign creditors, but inflation is evil because it erodes savings ... won't someone think of the inflation!!!
No, austerity with a deflationary spiral is a much better idea ... of course removing all barriers to foreign capital in the process. So when all is said and done, all farmland and major resources in the US can be owned by multinationals and China. Then too the majority of Americans (excluding the owners of said multinationals and a couple of lucky ones) can fully enjoy the wage slavery enjoyed by that great beacon of capitalism ... China.
The number of people able to access any other port than the 1 or 2 necessary for exchange functions should number in the single digits for the production servers ... and even they shouldn't use computers with general internet access for that, at most computers with a "hardware" VPN solution. Hell given the amount of money involved I wouldn't even let non production servers and source code be accessed on any computer with general internet access ... fuck convenience, for this kind of money you can afford a whole lot of inconvenience.
Ah, but that just means you have to keep them ever on the edge ... never truly let them starve, just drive them into smaller and smaller homes, requiring less and less natural resources ... leaving more land for the rich (and a better environment to boot! Neo-feudalism might be horrific, but it is green).
50 years ago that would have allowed you to comfortably raise a family on a single income, with plenty of time to spend with your kids ...
Pushing everyone without the talent to rise to the top 10% into poverty will end up with most of the citizens into the US confined in ghetto's while the few remaining rich live it up in the majority of the country which they own outright ... a new feudalism, except this time they don't need any peasants any more because robots can do the farming.
Is that really the future you want to see?
The people who didn't save or think of the future kept the economy going for the last thirty years ... you couldn't have saved without them.
3 decades of prosperity build on NOTHING but increasing debt.
Except it's not near where your fingers are when you are comfortably holding it, and hell I don't have sufficient dexterity in any fingers but my index finger and thumb for that kind of control even if I wanted to. AFAICS the only way to use it would be like in the video, completely releasing the device with the hand using the bottom touch screen ... at which point it just seems awkward and annoying to me.
A small trackball instead of the right trigger button, now that would be useful.
Japan and China did just fine without innovation. They are doing even better now, but copying was enough to get them going. Ultimately productivity increases the standard of living, innovation is a means to an end.
What third world countries are missing is basic competency, good governance and natural resources.
You're right, they can't possibly judge a patent accurately with the time they have ... even if they were allowed to use judgement (obviousness is a judgement call, it can NEVER be broken down into some objective test ... except by redefining the word obvious, which is what the fucking lawyers try to do time and time again).
So why even try? If patents can only be truly judged by true practitioners (expert witnesses) in a court of law why not dispense with the whole charade? Just let examiners check if all the boxes are filled correctly so they can be entered correctly into the database before rubber stamping them?
Of course if the lower end still has access to freedom and plenty of bomb making materials life can get annoying for the upper culture if they try to push this too far. Also with the exception of the dynastic families not all rich people think it's a good idea ... the forces on government might all be monied, but they are not of one mind.
Also in a democracy it takes an awful lot of propaganda to keep such a system in place ... it only takes one FDR to unwind decades worth of private debt and turn the clock back.