In the 1980's, Apple tried to claim ownership of all modern GUIs; they lost on a technicality.
Multitouch as an input method goes back a long time; it wasn't put to much use because the hardware was expensive and GUI library developers were still coping with bigger issues.
Apple shouldn't be allowed to monopolize multi-touch, in any shape or form: not only would it be bad public policy, Apple simply didn't invent this stuff. Pretty much the only patents that should be valid in this space in 2008 are patents on better multi-touch hardware and low-level firmware.
With installable applications, Microsoft or Amazon or eMusic or whoever can create a player for the iPhone and iPod that connects to their store, completely circumventing Apple iTunes and the iTunes store.
You can bet that that's what Apple wants to prevent; that's why they want to control what applications do and do not go on the iPhone. All this bullshit about "security" is just a smokescreen.
There's a sizable amount of circumstantial evidence that he did it, with little plausible explanations in his defense. And no, "the other guy did it" doesn't convince me.
So, you're saying that he is guilty by a preponderance of the evidence (I personally think that there is a 50/50 chance that he did it). That's nice, but the standard for a murder conviction is that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Apple on dangerous ground? They may lose.01% of their market! People who crack the DRM on iTunes (and their purchase hinges on that) are a tiny part of the market.
Maybe. But Apple's success since OS X is due in large part to the perception and reputation of the company. If geeks start to spurn them and if they get a reputation for being evil, this may hurt them badly, even if the immediate sales losses are small.
If MS really wants to buy Yahoo! they will offer a higher price, why go with a low price if you can get a higher one?
Well, that's the question: can they get a higher one? If yes, their action is justified. If not, the lawsuit is justified.
I don't think they can get a higher price. I think Yahoo! had peaked and it was downhill from now on. Microsoft already offered a premium over Yahoo's price.
Sure they do. In fact, their products are like crack: addictive and they make you feel good for 15 minutes, but then you need more and they empty your pockets.
Now tell me how is this not evil and not unlike Microsoft?
Nor is it particularly new. Apple has a long history of this kind of thing, from deliberate incompatibilities to claiming that they invented the GUI and trying to prevent everybody else (including open source) from implementing GUIs for any kind in the 1980's. They lost on a technicality. Apple is, and has always been, evil. But they do make nice products. Think of it as the beautiful girlfriend with no morals.
If this is true, then Sony behaved anti-competitively and should be punished severely.
And Betamax may well not have been the "better format": it may have had higher quality, but that came at a price... the Sony connection, for example, and probably higher device and tape prices.
I think from the point of view of Yahoo stockholders, turning down the offer really was a bad choice; I don't see Yahoo making such big gains on their own any time soon.
In any case, Microsoft is more interested in creating doubt than anything, as long as they can create doubt they'll convince most PHBs from keeping away from free software, and that's what they want. Patents are one way to achieve that.
Only if people like you keep spreading Microsoft's FUD for them.
Any piece of commercial or free software is a potential target for patent litigation from many sources; open source software is far better equipped for dealing with patent threats than commercial software.
And given that Microsoft's patent portfolio is fully known and heavily scrutinized, Microsoft is one of the less likely sources of successful patent litigation against Linux or open source software.
Thinking Microsoft has very little is an opinion, and possibly a valid one. Saying they have nothing, is something else, and quite stupid.
No, what is stupid is to think that there are some magical hidden patents out there. The MS Office format has been around for many years, Microsoft's patents are all known and published, and people look at this stuff regularly.
If you try to make people concerned about Microsoft patents without giving specifics, you're spreading FUD and playing right into Microsoft's hand.
So, either put up and show us specific patents and specific ways in which interoperable open source implementations would infringe, or stop spreading Microsoft's FUD.
Microsoft may brag about their "intellectual property" and put in language like "licensed for non-commercial distribution", but what rights to they actually have? Does anybody seriously think that they have enforceable patents on the binary MS Office format? On OOXML? On the C# language or their half-hearted Java API clones? What kinds of damage claims could they possibly make if people built more interoperable tools? "Judge, our business has been seriously damaged because we have been prevented from monopolizing the market with our obsolete and cumbersome technology?"
Microsoft is in retreat, they just can't get themselves to admit it publicly.
I suspect that we'll probably see a temporary reappearance of volume-based pricing for broadband; the current "all you can eat" plans don't make much sense in the days of 100 Mbps last mile connections and vast on-line video offerings. Still, for the average user, prices probably won't be going up since I think $50-$100/month is kind of the limit.
We may also see increases in the prices charged to content providers like BBC.
Business models like Joost, however, are probably going to fail. People may be willing to pay to redistribute free content, but they probably won't want to pay to redistribute corporate ads.
I've worked on a few medium-sized software projects, so I have a little appreciation for how complex big software projects can be. Please note that I didn't say
Medium sized software projects aren't the same as the complex engineering (software and hardware) projects that occur in space and defense. You simply can't extrapolate from one to the other.
to suggest that the *entire* field of physics is less complex than a big software project.
You're a sloppy reader; that is not precisely what I said. What I said should be pretty self-evident if you do a back of the envelope calculation. Keep in mind that every line in a computer program amounts to an equation, and every part (down to the screw) is a complex system, subject to numerous physical and legal constraints that many man hours of design have gone into. The fact that you don't even notice this complexity is because engineering manages it so well.
for (I presume) a non-physicist
Getting into pissing contests about qualifications on Slashdot is pointless. If you have a point, make it.
I think you greatly underestimate the complexity of large engineering projects. They may not be intellectually as challenging as theoretical physics, but they have an enormous amount of detail.
Physics is not engineering. If you get things wrong in physics, usually, nothing happens except maybe an angry letter to the editor. Physicists regularly produce incomplete or even contradictory theories, and nobody dies. Physics doesn't have to interface with people; when coming up with a theory of quantum gravity, you don't have to worry about people pushing the wrong button. And the complexity (in terms of variables, equations, etc.) of all of theoretical physics taken together is probably still less than that of a single big software project.
Then fucking advertise it as what it is for god's sake. Don't claim that you have "Unlimited bandwidth"
I don't see that anywhere on their ads. They advertise peak speeds and say so.
and "lightning fast speeds"
And they deliver that, for peak speeds, as they claim.
Stop fucking over your base of consumers!!!
What are you screaming at me for? I am a customer. And I don't like getting fucked over by people like you, people who don't understand the difference between peak and sustained bandwidth, people who don't read their TOS.
You'd be hard pressed to convince them to switch away from Visual Studio after a 6 month co-op using it. It is far from perfect, but it is a great product and is used happily by many.
Many people happily use crack, but that doesn't make crack a great product or good for you.
The real issues stem from the close minded cultural and social attributes of most professors I know. Nearly every CS class I sit through includes the instructor making at least one Microsoft bashing comment.
I suspect it's simply that they're smarter and better informed than you.
I wish cable companies would simply go back to volume pricing.
I want a cheap high-bandwidth connection. I don't need a lot of volume. I'm happy with a connection with a 10Gbyte/month volume cap.
If you want to run file sharing 24/7 and max out your connection, fine, but you should pay for that yourself. Every Gbyte you transfer costs the ISP.
I suspect that when all is said and done, my connection would end up being priced around $30/month, while a maxed-out unlimited connection would end up being priced upwards of $200/month. Of course, that's effectively what home cable vs. business cable costs anyway.
So, what about it? Let's drop unlimited volumes and account for actual usage.
The "capacity upgrades" are obviously needed if you're having problems with "the bandwidth-hogging activities of a few."
My daily average bandwidth usage is probably less than 50kbps, but I want 16 Mbps peak bandwidth for web browsing. And that's what I'm paying for with consumer cable. Why should I pay more so that you can get 16 Mbps sustained?
Shut up, cut your salaries for a couple quarters, and invest in the goddamn infrastructure.
You're an idiot if you think that giving everybody 16 Mbps sustained bandwidth to the home can be paid for by "cutting salaries for a couple of quarters". In fact, at this point, that kind of bandwidth is technically not feasible.
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In the 1980's, Apple tried to claim ownership of all modern GUIs; they lost on a technicality.
Multitouch as an input method goes back a long time; it wasn't put to much use because the hardware was expensive and GUI library developers were still coping with bigger issues.
Apple shouldn't be allowed to monopolize multi-touch, in any shape or form: not only would it be bad public policy, Apple simply didn't invent this stuff. Pretty much the only patents that should be valid in this space in 2008 are patents on better multi-touch hardware and low-level firmware.
With installable applications, Microsoft or Amazon or eMusic or whoever can create a player for the iPhone and iPod that connects to their store, completely circumventing Apple iTunes and the iTunes store.
You can bet that that's what Apple wants to prevent; that's why they want to control what applications do and do not go on the iPhone. All this bullshit about "security" is just a smokescreen.
It runs something even better than Vista... XP. And even better still, you can always install Linux :-)
Mostly it is the seat.
Have you been in a CRX? It's a tiny car.
There's a sizable amount of circumstantial evidence that he did it, with little plausible explanations in his defense. And no, "the other guy did it" doesn't convince me.
So, you're saying that he is guilty by a preponderance of the evidence (I personally think that there is a 50/50 chance that he did it). That's nice, but the standard for a murder conviction is that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Apple on dangerous ground? They may lose .01% of their market! People who crack the DRM on iTunes (and their purchase hinges on that) are a tiny part of the market.
Maybe. But Apple's success since OS X is due in large part to the perception and reputation of the company. If geeks start to spurn them and if they get a reputation for being evil, this may hurt them badly, even if the immediate sales losses are small.
If MS really wants to buy Yahoo! they will offer a higher price, why go with a low price if you can get a higher one?
Well, that's the question: can they get a higher one? If yes, their action is justified. If not, the lawsuit is justified.
I don't think they can get a higher price. I think Yahoo! had peaked and it was downhill from now on. Microsoft already offered a premium over Yahoo's price.
Sure they do. In fact, their products are like crack: addictive and they make you feel good for 15 minutes, but then you need more and they empty your pockets.
Now tell me how is this not evil and not unlike Microsoft?
Nor is it particularly new. Apple has a long history of this kind of thing, from deliberate incompatibilities to claiming that they invented the GUI and trying to prevent everybody else (including open source) from implementing GUIs for any kind in the 1980's. They lost on a technicality. Apple is, and has always been, evil. But they do make nice products. Think of it as the beautiful girlfriend with no morals.
If this is true, then Sony behaved anti-competitively and should be punished severely.
And Betamax may well not have been the "better format": it may have had higher quality, but that came at a price... the Sony connection, for example, and probably higher device and tape prices.
I think from the point of view of Yahoo stockholders, turning down the offer really was a bad choice; I don't see Yahoo making such big gains on their own any time soon.
In any case, Microsoft is more interested in creating doubt than anything, as long as they can create doubt they'll convince most PHBs from keeping away from free software, and that's what they want. Patents are one way to achieve that.
Only if people like you keep spreading Microsoft's FUD for them.
Any piece of commercial or free software is a potential target for patent litigation from many sources; open source software is far better equipped for dealing with patent threats than commercial software.
And given that Microsoft's patent portfolio is fully known and heavily scrutinized, Microsoft is one of the less likely sources of successful patent litigation against Linux or open source software.
Thinking Microsoft has very little is an opinion, and possibly a valid one. Saying they have nothing, is something else, and quite stupid.
No, what is stupid is to think that there are some magical hidden patents out there. The MS Office format has been around for many years, Microsoft's patents are all known and published, and people look at this stuff regularly.
If you try to make people concerned about Microsoft patents without giving specifics, you're spreading FUD and playing right into Microsoft's hand.
So, either put up and show us specific patents and specific ways in which interoperable open source implementations would infringe, or stop spreading Microsoft's FUD.
Microsoft may brag about their "intellectual property" and put in language like "licensed for non-commercial distribution", but what rights to they actually have? Does anybody seriously think that they have enforceable patents on the binary MS Office format? On OOXML? On the C# language or their half-hearted Java API clones? What kinds of damage claims could they possibly make if people built more interoperable tools? "Judge, our business has been seriously damaged because we have been prevented from monopolizing the market with our obsolete and cumbersome technology?"
Microsoft is in retreat, they just can't get themselves to admit it publicly.
The summary didn't say, but the colors MUST be false color, since atoms are smaller than light wavelengths
It is false color, but it wouldn't have to be. It's possible to probe individual atoms with visible light of different wavelengths using STMs.
I suspect that we'll probably see a temporary reappearance of volume-based pricing for broadband; the current "all you can eat" plans don't make much sense in the days of 100 Mbps last mile connections and vast on-line video offerings. Still, for the average user, prices probably won't be going up since I think $50-$100/month is kind of the limit.
We may also see increases in the prices charged to content providers like BBC.
Business models like Joost, however, are probably going to fail. People may be willing to pay to redistribute free content, but they probably won't want to pay to redistribute corporate ads.
There are lots of choices:
-- get a computer with a fingerprint reader
-- get face recognition authentication (not very secure but good enough)
-- put the home directory on a USB flash drive
-- put the login key on a USB flash drive and use a modified PAM
-- get a wireless screen lock/unlock fob (special purpose or bluetooth based)
-- get a motherboard or drive with a removable hardware disk encryption key
-- use a smartcard reader and smartcard authentication
Since when have facts, logic, and rationality been part of a good anti-Microsoft argument?
Since anti-trust investigations, leaked memos, and careful code analysis revealed the extent of Microsoft's anti-competitive and anti-user practices.
Start here if you need to come up to speed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_antitrust
I've worked on a few medium-sized software projects, so I have a little appreciation for how complex big software projects can be. Please note that I didn't say
Medium sized software projects aren't the same as the complex engineering (software and hardware) projects that occur in space and defense. You simply can't extrapolate from one to the other.
to suggest that the *entire* field of physics is less complex than a big software project.
You're a sloppy reader; that is not precisely what I said. What I said should be pretty self-evident if you do a back of the envelope calculation. Keep in mind that every line in a computer program amounts to an equation, and every part (down to the screw) is a complex system, subject to numerous physical and legal constraints that many man hours of design have gone into. The fact that you don't even notice this complexity is because engineering manages it so well.
for (I presume) a non-physicist
Getting into pissing contests about qualifications on Slashdot is pointless. If you have a point, make it.
I think you greatly underestimate the complexity of large engineering projects. They may not be intellectually as challenging as theoretical physics, but they have an enormous amount of detail.
Presumably, they want to get rid of their Windows machines and Macs as much as possible.
Physics is not engineering. If you get things wrong in physics, usually, nothing happens except maybe an angry letter to the editor. Physicists regularly produce incomplete or even contradictory theories, and nobody dies. Physics doesn't have to interface with people; when coming up with a theory of quantum gravity, you don't have to worry about people pushing the wrong button. And the complexity (in terms of variables, equations, etc.) of all of theoretical physics taken together is probably still less than that of a single big software project.
Then fucking advertise it as what it is for god's sake. Don't claim that you have "Unlimited bandwidth"
I don't see that anywhere on their ads. They advertise peak speeds and say so.
and "lightning fast speeds"
And they deliver that, for peak speeds, as they claim.
Stop fucking over your base of consumers!!!
What are you screaming at me for? I am a customer. And I don't like getting fucked over by people like you, people who don't understand the difference between peak and sustained bandwidth, people who don't read their TOS.
You'd be hard pressed to convince them to switch away from Visual Studio after a 6 month co-op using it. It is far from perfect, but it is a great product and is used happily by many.
Many people happily use crack, but that doesn't make crack a great product or good for you.
The real issues stem from the close minded cultural and social attributes of most professors I know. Nearly every CS class I sit through includes the instructor making at least one Microsoft bashing comment.
I suspect it's simply that they're smarter and better informed than you.
I wish cable companies would simply go back to volume pricing.
I want a cheap high-bandwidth connection. I don't need a lot of volume. I'm happy with a connection with a 10Gbyte/month volume cap.
If you want to run file sharing 24/7 and max out your connection, fine, but you should pay for that yourself. Every Gbyte you transfer costs the ISP.
I suspect that when all is said and done, my connection would end up being priced around $30/month, while a maxed-out unlimited connection would end up being priced upwards of $200/month. Of course, that's effectively what home cable vs. business cable costs anyway.
So, what about it? Let's drop unlimited volumes and account for actual usage.
The "capacity upgrades" are obviously needed if you're having problems with "the bandwidth-hogging activities of a few."
My daily average bandwidth usage is probably less than 50kbps, but I want 16 Mbps peak bandwidth for web browsing. And that's what I'm paying for with consumer cable. Why should I pay more so that you can get 16 Mbps sustained?
Shut up, cut your salaries for a couple quarters, and invest in the goddamn infrastructure.
You're an idiot if you think that giving everybody 16 Mbps sustained bandwidth to the home can be paid for by "cutting salaries for a couple of quarters". In fact, at this point, that kind of bandwidth is technically not feasible.