Indeed, Google is patenting the group balance-and-payment system, not splitting a restaurant check. There is a ton of prior art on this - I'm the CEO of Splitwise, a start-up that would be affected by the patent, but most of the best prior art comes from Billmonk and PayDivvy from 2006-2011 (or see Wie Betaalt Wat in Dutch).
Why is everyone acting so shocked? This was only partially about corporate America... the main dynamite in the bill was the expiring wiretapping clause, not the immunity. It would be political suicide to let all the post 9-11 wiretapping powers go away, because even if slashdot doesn't like them, I'm sure a majority of Americans wants at least some of them.
The primary attack Obama faces from the right is that he won't be "tough on terrorism." He needed to vote "tough" to beef up his security credentials.
I'm not apologizing for Obama here, but yes, if he wants to get elected this is political reality. Hilary knew it was going to pass anyway, no doubt, and can afford to vote against it because she isn't campaigning.
Basically electrons traveling down wires travel only about 50-75% the speed of light Not to nitpick (very informative post), but the electrons themselves usually move at something around 1mm per second. It's only the signal that travels a significant fraction of the speed of light.
Gratuitous Wikipedia reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_current#Current_in_a_metal_wire
Yes, Apple cares about the user experience, but in terms of economics they are keeping the OS exclusive to their computers to maintain high prices on their hardware. It's brilliant - lure the end-user with what they really want (a simple, hip, sexy interface/OS etc) and then force them not to cherry-pick commodity hardware. The margins they make on their systems makes this whole trick very lucrative.
Of course, if they ever gain enough market share to have real market power, I would argue this is against anti-trust laws in the US. But while they remain a niche competitor, I'm sure this is legally OK, EULA problems non-withstanding (and of course, technically obnoxious / frustrating).
It isn't that quantum encryption is unbreakable, it's that a one-time random pad cipher is unbreakable, mathematically. Quantum encryption is a way to securely transmit a one time random pad, which is effectively 100% secure if implemented correctly. In the standard protocol, there is roughly a 1/2^n chance of an Eve guessing correctly how to intercept the message, and you can send lots of test bits to make sure that this essentially never happens). This also, as others mentioned, lets you see if anyone is listening, so long as you design a protocol that checks for this. Again, unless Eve makes n correct 50/50 guesses for arbitrary n. (The randomness comes from the quantum randomness that happens from when you project a pure basis polarization state onto another basis that is 45 degrees rotated from the first one. It's the most fundamentally random process known to philosophy.)
Quantum encryption protocols will probably be broken when someone finds a flaw in a sloppy implementation, or in the random number generators generating the bits being sent or bases being chosen, or something of that nature. It's very unlikely the physics of the transmission will be exploited, as quantum mechanics and its children are probably the best-tested and most closely scrutinized scientific theories in human history.
To add to a good point, I feel like the pessimists among us overstate the magnitude of the present day problems. Weren't the problems of the 20th century a lot worse? Tens of MILLIONS of people died in world wars that accomplished nothing. Regimes ruling sizable chunks of the world oppressed their own populaces and killed millions more. We lived with a daily threat of nuclear strikes and nuclear retaliation. Environmental damage, pollution, and resource utilization were widely ignored.
This stuff is not over but we have made and are making traction. Our quality of life is out-of-control-better than it was 100 years ago - kings would have given their throne to live a modest 21st century lifestyle. It's hard to understand how we can be so pessimistic when our elders were so optimistic in the face of so much death and loss and insanity.
Actually, one important theory of sleep says the opposite - that we evolved it to keep us OUT of trouble - saving energy and avoiding roaming, which puts us at greater risk of meeting predators. As I recall, this theory is (partially) supported by diet being one of the best predictors of the amount of sleep an animal needs. Of course if that was sleep's only purpose, you'd think we'd stay conscious for it so we could react to a predator that found us... so it's probably quite multi-faceted.
Sleep - See preservation and protection theory
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed, Google is patenting the group balance-and-payment system, not splitting a restaurant check. There is a ton of prior art on this - I'm the CEO of Splitwise, a start-up that would be affected by the patent, but most of the best prior art comes from Billmonk and PayDivvy from 2006-2011 (or see Wie Betaalt Wat in Dutch).
:)
For us, this represents a very weird turn of events. Google is simultaneously trying to lobby me / Splitwise for patent reform at the same time as patenting trolling us about what we already do. I've written a blog post about my most surreal week of business life here: http://blog.splitwise.com/2013/10/10/google-trying-to-patent-bill-splitting-while-lobbying-splitwise-for-patent-reform/
You can see a very detailed list of prior art on AskPatents: http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5182/tracking-and-managing-group-expenditures-google-patent-application-prior-a
It is one good reason for me, among many, to support patent reform
Why is everyone acting so shocked? This was only partially about corporate America... the main dynamite in the bill was the expiring wiretapping clause, not the immunity. It would be political suicide to let all the post 9-11 wiretapping powers go away, because even if slashdot doesn't like them, I'm sure a majority of Americans wants at least some of them.
The primary attack Obama faces from the right is that he won't be "tough on terrorism." He needed to vote "tough" to beef up his security credentials.
I'm not apologizing for Obama here, but yes, if he wants to get elected this is political reality. Hilary knew it was going to pass anyway, no doubt, and can afford to vote against it because she isn't campaigning.
Yes, Apple cares about the user experience, but in terms of economics they are keeping the OS exclusive to their computers to maintain high prices on their hardware. It's brilliant - lure the end-user with what they really want (a simple, hip, sexy interface/OS etc) and then force them not to cherry-pick commodity hardware. The margins they make on their systems makes this whole trick very lucrative.
Of course, if they ever gain enough market share to have real market power, I would argue this is against anti-trust laws in the US. But while they remain a niche competitor, I'm sure this is legally OK, EULA problems non-withstanding (and of course, technically obnoxious / frustrating).
Somebody beat you to it.
It isn't that quantum encryption is unbreakable, it's that a one-time random pad cipher is unbreakable, mathematically. Quantum encryption is a way to securely transmit a one time random pad, which is effectively 100% secure if implemented correctly. In the standard protocol, there is roughly a 1/2^n chance of an Eve guessing correctly how to intercept the message, and you can send lots of test bits to make sure that this essentially never happens). This also, as others mentioned, lets you see if anyone is listening, so long as you design a protocol that checks for this. Again, unless Eve makes n correct 50/50 guesses for arbitrary n. (The randomness comes from the quantum randomness that happens from when you project a pure basis polarization state onto another basis that is 45 degrees rotated from the first one. It's the most fundamentally random process known to philosophy.) Quantum encryption protocols will probably be broken when someone finds a flaw in a sloppy implementation, or in the random number generators generating the bits being sent or bases being chosen, or something of that nature. It's very unlikely the physics of the transmission will be exploited, as quantum mechanics and its children are probably the best-tested and most closely scrutinized scientific theories in human history.
To add to a good point, I feel like the pessimists among us overstate the magnitude of the present day problems. Weren't the problems of the 20th century a lot worse? Tens of MILLIONS of people died in world wars that accomplished nothing. Regimes ruling sizable chunks of the world oppressed their own populaces and killed millions more. We lived with a daily threat of nuclear strikes and nuclear retaliation. Environmental damage, pollution, and resource utilization were widely ignored.
This stuff is not over but we have made and are making traction. Our quality of life is out-of-control-better than it was 100 years ago - kings would have given their throne to live a modest 21st century lifestyle. It's hard to understand how we can be so pessimistic when our elders were so optimistic in the face of so much death and loss and insanity.
Actually, one important theory of sleep says the opposite - that we evolved it to keep us OUT of trouble - saving energy and avoiding roaming, which puts us at greater risk of meeting predators. As I recall, this theory is (partially) supported by diet being one of the best predictors of the amount of sleep an animal needs. Of course if that was sleep's only purpose, you'd think we'd stay conscious for it so we could react to a predator that found us... so it's probably quite multi-faceted. Sleep - See preservation and protection theory