Apple's patent claim is for a portable device that uses a single image. The video does not demonstrate a portable device, nor is it done using a single image. Notably, as shown in the screen capture or TFA, two different images represent ON vs. OFF.
To be clear...you are stating why this video may not apply to show that the Apple's patent may be non-novel, because it may be an improvement over the prior art, however, that certainly doesn't mean it's nonobvious, right?
Note: I haven't read the actual patent's claims so I have no idea if there's anything nonobvious in there (patent claims != title, unlike what most/.'ers think), but your points of "on a portable device" and "done using a single image" sure don't seem nonobvious.
That's because the Supreme Court has taken cases before they went to the federal appellate level. Those disputes, which seemingly pale in comparison to the NSA surveillance at issue, involved the constitutionality of the US Sentencing Commission, the value of a floundering railroad, a coal strike, and the eviction of an Ohio tenant from a housing rental.
So pretty much, they say they take things that seem to have an immediacy. The thing is, not only does this affect everyone with a phone or Internet access, but it is affecting all of us right now. This is not a question over whether or not what the NSA was doing in the past violated the constitution, but that what they are doing right now violates the constitution. Thus providing an example that what they choose to allow to bypass the lower courts has nothing to do with importance, immediacy, or public interest, and everything to do with politics.
They just need more time for their corporate puppetmasters to tell them what to do.. that's all.
No, they are doing exactly what their puppet masters want them to do. If they heard the case then they'd have to rule and something might change, not to mention they'd have a really hard time writing an opinion that says the surveillance in question doesn't violate the constitution. Refusing to hear the case means that the status quo is maintained for a while longer.
Mobile phone 'could have been used to channel hop'
Um, so pretty much doesn't that mean the drone was running on WiFi? So it was most likely simply interference, another device was trying to use the same channel has his device. Lesson 1: If you're going to operate a UAV over WiFi, check to make sure nothing else is on the channel. Lesson 2: If you're going to operate a UAV over WiFi, don't fly it where it could crash into somebody because you never know when another device is going to interfere with the channel you're using. Lesson 3: If something in the area interfered with it in the morning, don't fly it over humans without figuring out the interference.
He said a full check was conducted and the device was taken elsewhere for a test flight, but he said no issues were detected.
Which means whatever it was interfering with was in the area you were operating it in when it crashed, not the area where you tested it.
Mr Abrams said an initial investigation had indicted that someone nearby "channel hopped" the device, taking control away from the operator.
So somebody switched on their mobile hotspot and it was on the same channel as your UAV.
The videographer added that there had been a similar incident when the drone was flown earlier in the day.
Wow. Had this not happened I'd say the guy doesn't understand technical stuff (he's a photographer, not an IT guy) and that this was an unfortunate accident, but considering it happened earlier, he didn't consult with a technical person, and he still flew it over humans that's downright negligence and he should be responsible for the competitor's medical expenses, entry fee and any travel expenses. Perhaps even prosecuted for endangerment (either reckless endangerment or public endangerment, I think Australia has those laws similar to most US states).
Please link me to the page where I can sign my mom up for this extended support for XP. I'm sure she'd be willing to pay a nominal fee.
Her Microsoft Security Essentials is now trying to spook her into upgrading too, by becoming a System Tray-based reminder that XP support is about to end. I'm waiting for her to crack so I can move her over to Linux Mint/Cinnamon.
Your mom likely has no excuse not to upgrade. What essential software is she running that only runs on XP? The only legit reason to not upgrade is if an organization is running old crappy software that only runs on XP and would be too expensive to replace, which unfortunately is pretty damn common, especially software written for large organizations (like medical institutions) whose development was focused on checking off requirements rather than quality. I blame those software vendors, but there's not a lot the organizations can do about it. Many of them make their software crap so that they can make a ton of money off of implementation (to make it do what it should do out of the box anyway), which is why it's often too expensive to upgrade (and that's in situations where the vendor still exists). While it would be easy to blame the bureaucrats who chose that software, in many situations there's just no better alternative, they or their predecessor had to choose between a turd sandwich and a giant douche.
I'm trying to come up a car analogy for this. Is it like typical manufacturers defects, where it can be fixed under warranty for a limited number of years, or is it like a safety recall, where there is no expiration?
The US has the "surveillance" symbol and the "imprisonment" symbol. Shouldn't that equate to censorship? "We're gonna watch everything you do, and we're gonna imprison you if we don't like what you're doing by calling it 'terrorism' or a 'national security threat,' but no, we're not censoring you, you can say whatever you want!"
Going back and retroactively persecuting people for their views before the consensus formed seems grossly unfair.
And did Eich say something like, "In the past I believed gay marriage should be illegal, but my views have evolved and I now support the legal right of any two consenting adults to marry?" Unless he did and I missed it, then your analogy is completely broken.
there is no justification for equating the regular, children-producing marriage and gay-unions.
So then a heterosexual marriage that doesn't produce children, either because the couple is medically unable to or doesn't want to, should be treated equally to gay marriage, right? And therefore, if a non-child-producing heterosexual marriage is legal, then a gay marriage should be legal too, right?
Indeed, no culture in the history of humanity has done so — even those, who (like ancient Athens) were perfectly tolerant of homosexuality.
So what? You're saying that our culture should be just like historical cultures? We should have slavery? There should be no equal rights for women? It should be perfectly legal and acceptable to beat our children or wives bloody for misbehaving? We should be imprisoned for speaking out against the government? Also, there are plenty of things that apply to historical cultures that don't apply today. The most important in this case being population numbers. Back then, more people died from things like disease and war, so the members of that population had as many kids as they could in order to keep up their population numbers to grow their culture and prevent their culture from being wiped out (this can be seen in modern times by the growth of Mormonism). This doesn't apply to today, when our problem is overpopulation, not underpopulation.
But therein lies the problem. There are other people involved.
So what if there's other people involved? Perhaps something like asking for volunteers to work on the project rather than threatening to fire somebody who doesn't want to work on the project would solve that issue. I'm sure there would be plenty of people already working at NASA who would love to work on the project and who wouldn't have a problem with an astronaut volunteering for a one way trip.
And, why can the military kill people who didn't even volunteer to die? Why can the military use aggressive and deceptive recruiting tactics and then put its own people in situations where other people are trying really, really hard to kill them, but NASA can't send volunteers who know what they're getting into on a one-way trip? In the military, once you sign the 4-year contract you can't opt-out of specific missions. In this case, people would be volunteering for a specific mission, and could even opt-out at any time before launch without going to federal prison.
Well, then it's a good thing that's not at all what the patent referenced in the article is. Not only that, but the claims don't even mention a phone. Okay, I get not reading the patent. Even not reading the article and making uninformed comments is pretty much standard protocol, but if you had even read past the 1st sentence in the summary it might have given you a clue that it's a little more than just "$PriorArt on a phone." Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of patents like that out there, this just isn't one of them so stop crying wolf.
I'm sorry but this has existed in one form or other on hundreds of different cameras for many decades! Simply adding one more camera to the list (iPhone) does not make it a new and patentable device! Clearly this is prior art and the patent should have been rejected by the patent office.
Why is it that so many people think that the title is the patent (in this case the title of the news article, not even the patent title)? They're not patenting the idea of using any interchangeable camera lens on a phone. They are patenting a specific mechanism for an interchangeable camera lens. I'm not trying to say anything about the merits of the patent, just that it is certainly not trying to patent the idea of any and all interchangeable camera lenses on a phone.
I know, I know, actually reading the patent before passing judgement is very unslashdotish, but gimme a break. There are enough horribly broad patents out there that you don't need to be crying wolf over every single patent just because you don't understand that a patent title is not the patent, the title is merely telling you the subject of the patent.
In climate science, the real debate has never been between "deniers" and the rest, but between "lukewarmers," who think man-made climate change is real but fairly harmless, and those who think the future is alarming.
Never? That is absolutely false. First, it was denying climate change was actually happening. Then, when that didn't work due to overwhelming evidence, it was okay, climate change is happening, but it couldn't possibly be caused by humans. Then, when that didn't work due to overwhelming evidence, it's now become okay, climate change is clearly happening and clearly caused by humans, but the effects don't matter. The next step we'll probably be, yep, climate change is happening, it's caused by human, the effects will soon be serious, but if we invest resources into making it better then the owners of this news conglomerate won't be quite as filthy rich, so why not just let the next generation worry about it?
I'm torn in this case. I dislike patent trolls and loathe their entire business model, but at the same time I view Cisco with the same disgust I normally reserve for bot fly larvae and candiru fish. Not sure who I want to win this one.
Right, because the winner of the case should have absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case, and should be based solely on the names of the companies involved.
This is a good thing, as it will help prove the downfall of the current patent system. When you can get the big patent holders scared of other patent holders, we can get some progress in trimming the power of the vague and obvious patent.
Except that's just not how large companies behave. Rather than having the mindset of, "we got hurt by game, the game sucks, let's get rid of the game or change it," it's more like, "we got hurt by the game, we need to play harder!" We it time and time again.
Not to defend Microsoft's actions, but this does seem like exceptionally poor judgement on the part of the leaker, on par with robbing a bank and having them put the money in your safe deposit box.
That's true. And in your analogy, the bank couldn't just open up your safety deposit box. In that case, law enforcement would have to obtain a warrant in order to open your safe deposit box. The question is not wether the leaker made a bad call by sending it to the blogger's hotmail account, it wether Microsoft had the right to search the blogger's (it wasn't even the employee's account) emails.
"Courts do not, however, issue orders authorizing someone to search themselves, since obviously no such order is needed," Microsoft Deputy General Counsel John Frank explained in the blog post. "So even when we believe we have probable cause, there’s not an applicable court process for an investigation such as this one."
Preventing this situation is exactly why private entities aren't allowed to get court order for searches...because that's law enforcement's job! If they truly had probably cause, then the legal course of action would have been to present that probably cause to law enforcement, which law enforcement could then use to obtain a court order. Since the guy got arrested, this obviously went beyond a civil matter. I hope to hell that this evidence is thrown out of court as being inadmissible, because it needs to be made clear that this type of behavior is not legal. Then again, MS probably figures if the federal government doesn't have to follow the law to search private emails, then why should they?
Wow, one whole case. How many people are extremely successful that are college educated vs not college educated? One out success out of millions of non-college-educated is utterly meaningless, and to bring it up without additional context is intentionally misleading and deceptive. How about citing the percentage of people making 7 figures or more that are college educated vs. not?
Despite the prior news story about a guy getting off for upskirt photos, this law seems like a solution looking for a problem. Has upskirt photography been such a large problem in Massachusetts that a law was required?
In short, yes, it's been a problem in general for a while, enough so that camera phones are have been required for about 5 years by federal law (the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act) to make a noise when they take a picture to make it harder to sneak an up skirt photo on the subway.
Do you technically run afoul of the law anytime you take a photo where a woman in a skirt is elevated from your current location, such as a place with an elevated walkway? Do you risk arrest for taking a picture in a location with an escalator or glass-walled elevator like many shopping malls? even if you are close to neither one?
Assuming you mean somebody accidentally captured an up skirt photo in the frame, then no. Not only would there be no criminal intent in that case, but according to TFA "The legislation says anyone who tries to photograph another person's sexual or intimate parts without that person's consent..." so there was no trying involved in that case (of course, the article could just be worded poorly, but there would still be no criminal intent).
Sometimes, I just don't understand the Lawyer outlook of the world.
What's not to understand? If you're talking to a mechanic, then yeah, they'll tell you that you need a mechanic to fix that. If you're talking to an electrician then they'll sure as hell tell you not to even think about touching that and to call an electrician. Why would you expect lawyers to be any different? The problem is, most of the folks who make the laws that we all have to follow are themselves lawyers.
So, the laws are written by lawyers working for the lobbyists, who then pass it along to other lawyers (with titles like "Congressman" or "Senator") who are also working for the lobbyists...
Now it is used to predict how much effort one is willing to put into it to game the system.
Which sounds like a pretty good indication of certain aspects of college success (not the only one, of course). It's an indicator of being able to do what it takes to succeed. Part of what makes college different from a vocational school is that you have to have a broader range of knowledge, which pretty much takes the form of requiring some classes you probably don't want to take, either because they are a prerequisite for an interesting class or in another discipline. And even in the subjects that are interesting to you, there is going to be material or projects that feel like slow death. For example, an engineering major might be bored to tears in a humanities class, and may hate their writing class (even though writing is a pretty damn important skill for an engineer), and a sociology major might seriously struggle through a math class. Being able to do the scut work of preparing for the SATs is a good indication that those people will be able to get through those classes.
Oh, and before you say "that's why college is stupid" it's also a good indicator of job success. No matter what your job, you're going to have to do things you don't want to. Maybe it's something boring that you have to do to get to the interesting stuff, maybe it's something stupid your boss wants you to do, or maybe (whether you work for yourself or not) it's something stupid the customer wants you to do.
Of course, this is different from the original intent of the SAT which was to measure aptitude, and I'm not advocating that the SATs in their current form are a good thing...just saying that it's still has some meaning as an indicator of potential success.
And, btw, in most cities there are a lot of SAT prep courses nowadays that don't cost a lot of money, you don't have to take an expensive one from Kaplan. It's tougher to find a cheap one if you live in a less populated area without options.
Even without the $25m owed in the contract, Oracle is probably still profitable on the deal.
I bet they maintain 60-70% margins... and that's on the services side...
Probably, but at least Oracle has a $25m incentive to make the damn thing work. Maybe if more government entities did this then big contractors might realize there is incentive to actually make what they're building work. The real question everywhere else should be...why the hell is [companyX] getting paid for something that's not usable? Or are those contracts written so horribly that the company gets paid for a nonfunctional product?
c.) The problem [India | United States | China etc etc etc] has now is not so much as not having money. It does not have non-corrupt institutions to properly distribute the resources. They will improve as education improves in subsequent generations who will then elect better politicians, demand cleaner systems and more effectively fight for their rights. Projects like these inspire students.
FTFY. Also, the part about fixing it being reality is the funniest bit of satire I've read in a long time
The real question, however, is why every user effectively engaged in P2P communication (like webchat, IM, or Skype), allows a man-in-the-middle attack to collect and process their personal data, when the ONLY useful aspect of the service is connecting the users together in the first place.
Apparently, because doing that is patented. No, really! Apple tried it with Facetime, and got sued by a troll*, VirnetX. Initially that's how Facetime worked, Apple's servers authenticated you and connecting you together, but then the 2 devices connected directly for the content of the video/call, not through Apple's servers. They lost a $368million verdict and they were forced to change it so everything has to get relayed through their servers.
*I don't know much else about the company, but in this case I call VirnetX a troll because a) they didn't invent it themselves, b) they don't practice the invention, and c) it's so fucking obvious even a Slashdot Anonymous Coward came up with it independently.
The first occupant was not arrested for "Obstruction" but in connection to a robber that had just occurred. Changing what actually occurred to match your views is not valid. If your scenario actually occurred the case would be thrown out based on false arrest as refusal of a search is not obstruction.
So, if they had enough probably cause to arrest him, shouldn't they have had enough probably cause for a warrant? Perhaps either the cops were too lazy to do their jobs and get a search warrant, or they arrested him knowing they didn't really have enough probable cause, figuring they'd get it once they searched the house.
What's perhaps worse is that the cops knew they needed to get a warrant once the guy refused, because this all happened before the court ruling. So to summarize: they were too lazy to get a warrant in the first place and searched anyway when they knew it was illegal to do so at that time.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple's patent claim is for a portable device that uses a single image. The video does not demonstrate a portable device, nor is it done using a single image. Notably, as shown in the screen capture or TFA, two different images represent ON vs. OFF.
https://www.google.com/patents/US8046721
To be clear...you are stating why this video may not apply to show that the Apple's patent may be non-novel, because it may be an improvement over the prior art, however, that certainly doesn't mean it's nonobvious, right?
Note: I haven't read the actual patent's claims so I have no idea if there's anything nonobvious in there (patent claims != title, unlike what most /.'ers think), but your points of "on a portable device" and "done using a single image" sure don't seem nonobvious.
FTA:
That's because the Supreme Court has taken cases before they went to the federal appellate level. Those disputes, which seemingly pale in comparison to the NSA surveillance at issue, involved the constitutionality of the US Sentencing Commission, the value of a floundering railroad, a coal strike, and the eviction of an Ohio tenant from a housing rental.
So pretty much, they say they take things that seem to have an immediacy. The thing is, not only does this affect everyone with a phone or Internet access, but it is affecting all of us right now. This is not a question over whether or not what the NSA was doing in the past violated the constitution, but that what they are doing right now violates the constitution. Thus providing an example that what they choose to allow to bypass the lower courts has nothing to do with importance, immediacy, or public interest, and everything to do with politics.
They just need more time for their corporate puppetmasters to tell them what to do.. that's all.
No, they are doing exactly what their puppet masters want them to do. If they heard the case then they'd have to rule and something might change, not to mention they'd have a really hard time writing an opinion that says the surveillance in question doesn't violate the constitution. Refusing to hear the case means that the status quo is maintained for a while longer.
Mobile phone 'could have been used to channel hop'
Um, so pretty much doesn't that mean the drone was running on WiFi? So it was most likely simply interference, another device was trying to use the same channel has his device. Lesson 1: If you're going to operate a UAV over WiFi, check to make sure nothing else is on the channel. Lesson 2: If you're going to operate a UAV over WiFi, don't fly it where it could crash into somebody because you never know when another device is going to interfere with the channel you're using. Lesson 3: If something in the area interfered with it in the morning, don't fly it over humans without figuring out the interference.
He said a full check was conducted and the device was taken elsewhere for a test flight, but he said no issues were detected.
Which means whatever it was interfering with was in the area you were operating it in when it crashed, not the area where you tested it.
Mr Abrams said an initial investigation had indicted that someone nearby "channel hopped" the device, taking control away from the operator.
So somebody switched on their mobile hotspot and it was on the same channel as your UAV.
The videographer added that there had been a similar incident when the drone was flown earlier in the day.
Wow. Had this not happened I'd say the guy doesn't understand technical stuff (he's a photographer, not an IT guy) and that this was an unfortunate accident, but considering it happened earlier, he didn't consult with a technical person, and he still flew it over humans that's downright negligence and he should be responsible for the competitor's medical expenses, entry fee and any travel expenses. Perhaps even prosecuted for endangerment (either reckless endangerment or public endangerment, I think Australia has those laws similar to most US states).
Please link me to the page where I can sign my mom up for this extended support for XP. I'm sure she'd be willing to pay a nominal fee.
Her Microsoft Security Essentials is now trying to spook her into upgrading too, by becoming a System Tray-based reminder that XP support is about to end.
I'm waiting for her to crack so I can move her over to Linux Mint/Cinnamon.
Your mom likely has no excuse not to upgrade. What essential software is she running that only runs on XP? The only legit reason to not upgrade is if an organization is running old crappy software that only runs on XP and would be too expensive to replace, which unfortunately is pretty damn common, especially software written for large organizations (like medical institutions) whose development was focused on checking off requirements rather than quality. I blame those software vendors, but there's not a lot the organizations can do about it. Many of them make their software crap so that they can make a ton of money off of implementation (to make it do what it should do out of the box anyway), which is why it's often too expensive to upgrade (and that's in situations where the vendor still exists). While it would be easy to blame the bureaucrats who chose that software, in many situations there's just no better alternative, they or their predecessor had to choose between a turd sandwich and a giant douche.
I'm trying to come up a car analogy for this. Is it like typical manufacturers defects, where it can be fixed under warranty for a limited number of years, or is it like a safety recall, where there is no expiration?
The US has the "surveillance" symbol and the "imprisonment" symbol. Shouldn't that equate to censorship? "We're gonna watch everything you do, and we're gonna imprison you if we don't like what you're doing by calling it 'terrorism' or a 'national security threat,' but no, we're not censoring you, you can say whatever you want!"
Going back and retroactively persecuting people for their views before the consensus formed seems grossly unfair.
And did Eich say something like, "In the past I believed gay marriage should be illegal, but my views have evolved and I now support the legal right of any two consenting adults to marry?" Unless he did and I missed it, then your analogy is completely broken.
there is no justification for equating the regular, children-producing marriage and gay-unions.
So then a heterosexual marriage that doesn't produce children, either because the couple is medically unable to or doesn't want to, should be treated equally to gay marriage, right? And therefore, if a non-child-producing heterosexual marriage is legal, then a gay marriage should be legal too, right?
Indeed, no culture in the history of humanity has done so — even those, who (like ancient Athens) were perfectly tolerant of homosexuality.
So what? You're saying that our culture should be just like historical cultures? We should have slavery? There should be no equal rights for women? It should be perfectly legal and acceptable to beat our children or wives bloody for misbehaving? We should be imprisoned for speaking out against the government? Also, there are plenty of things that apply to historical cultures that don't apply today. The most important in this case being population numbers. Back then, more people died from things like disease and war, so the members of that population had as many kids as they could in order to keep up their population numbers to grow their culture and prevent their culture from being wiped out (this can be seen in modern times by the growth of Mormonism). This doesn't apply to today, when our problem is overpopulation, not underpopulation.
But therein lies the problem. There are other people involved.
So what if there's other people involved? Perhaps something like asking for volunteers to work on the project rather than threatening to fire somebody who doesn't want to work on the project would solve that issue. I'm sure there would be plenty of people already working at NASA who would love to work on the project and who wouldn't have a problem with an astronaut volunteering for a one way trip.
And, why can the military kill people who didn't even volunteer to die? Why can the military use aggressive and deceptive recruiting tactics and then put its own people in situations where other people are trying really, really hard to kill them, but NASA can't send volunteers who know what they're getting into on a one-way trip? In the military, once you sign the 4-year contract you can't opt-out of specific missions. In this case, people would be volunteering for a specific mission, and could even opt-out at any time before launch without going to federal prison.
"$PriorArt, on a phone."
Innovation worthy of a patent, indeed. >_>
Well, then it's a good thing that's not at all what the patent referenced in the article is. Not only that, but the claims don't even mention a phone. Okay, I get not reading the patent. Even not reading the article and making uninformed comments is pretty much standard protocol, but if you had even read past the 1st sentence in the summary it might have given you a clue that it's a little more than just "$PriorArt on a phone." Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of patents like that out there, this just isn't one of them so stop crying wolf.
I'm sorry but this has existed in one form or other on hundreds of different cameras for many decades! Simply adding one more camera to the list (iPhone) does not make it a new and patentable device! Clearly this is prior art and the patent should have been rejected by the patent office.
Why is it that so many people think that the title is the patent (in this case the title of the news article, not even the patent title)? They're not patenting the idea of using any interchangeable camera lens on a phone. They are patenting a specific mechanism for an interchangeable camera lens. I'm not trying to say anything about the merits of the patent, just that it is certainly not trying to patent the idea of any and all interchangeable camera lenses on a phone.
I know, I know, actually reading the patent before passing judgement is very unslashdotish, but gimme a break. There are enough horribly broad patents out there that you don't need to be crying wolf over every single patent just because you don't understand that a patent title is not the patent, the title is merely telling you the subject of the patent.
In climate science, the real debate has never been between "deniers" and the rest, but between "lukewarmers," who think man-made climate change is real but fairly harmless, and those who think the future is alarming.
Never? That is absolutely false. First, it was denying climate change was actually happening. Then, when that didn't work due to overwhelming evidence, it was okay, climate change is happening, but it couldn't possibly be caused by humans. Then, when that didn't work due to overwhelming evidence, it's now become okay, climate change is clearly happening and clearly caused by humans, but the effects don't matter. The next step we'll probably be, yep, climate change is happening, it's caused by human, the effects will soon be serious, but if we invest resources into making it better then the owners of this news conglomerate won't be quite as filthy rich, so why not just let the next generation worry about it?
Because scary reports must logically be false.
Only if it's actually based on science. If it's from the "common sense" of a celebrity like Jenny McCarthy, then it must be true.
I'm torn in this case. I dislike patent trolls and loathe their entire business model, but at the same time I view Cisco with the same disgust I normally reserve for bot fly larvae and candiru fish. Not sure who I want to win this one.
Right, because the winner of the case should have absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case, and should be based solely on the names of the companies involved.
This is a good thing, as it will help prove the downfall of the current patent system. When you can get the big patent holders scared of other patent holders, we can get some progress in trimming the power of the vague and obvious patent.
Except that's just not how large companies behave. Rather than having the mindset of, "we got hurt by game, the game sucks, let's get rid of the game or change it," it's more like, "we got hurt by the game, we need to play harder!" We it time and time again.
Not to defend Microsoft's actions, but this does seem like exceptionally poor judgement on the part of the leaker, on par with robbing a bank and having them put the money in your safe deposit box.
That's true. And in your analogy, the bank couldn't just open up your safety deposit box. In that case, law enforcement would have to obtain a warrant in order to open your safe deposit box. The question is not wether the leaker made a bad call by sending it to the blogger's hotmail account, it wether Microsoft had the right to search the blogger's (it wasn't even the employee's account) emails.
"Courts do not, however, issue orders authorizing someone to search themselves, since obviously no such order is needed," Microsoft Deputy General Counsel John Frank explained in the blog post. "So even when we believe we have probable cause, there’s not an applicable court process for an investigation such as this one."
Preventing this situation is exactly why private entities aren't allowed to get court order for searches...because that's law enforcement's job! If they truly had probably cause, then the legal course of action would have been to present that probably cause to law enforcement, which law enforcement could then use to obtain a court order. Since the guy got arrested, this obviously went beyond a civil matter. I hope to hell that this evidence is thrown out of court as being inadmissible, because it needs to be made clear that this type of behavior is not legal. Then again, MS probably figures if the federal government doesn't have to follow the law to search private emails, then why should they?
Wow, one whole case. How many people are extremely successful that are college educated vs not college educated? One out success out of millions of non-college-educated is utterly meaningless, and to bring it up without additional context is intentionally misleading and deceptive. How about citing the percentage of people making 7 figures or more that are college educated vs. not?
Despite the prior news story about a guy getting off for upskirt photos, this law seems like a solution looking for a problem. Has upskirt photography been such a large problem in Massachusetts that a law was required?
In short, yes, it's been a problem in general for a while, enough so that camera phones are have been required for about 5 years by federal law (the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act) to make a noise when they take a picture to make it harder to sneak an up skirt photo on the subway.
Do you technically run afoul of the law anytime you take a photo where a woman in a skirt is elevated from your current location, such as a place with an elevated walkway? Do you risk arrest for taking a picture in a location with an escalator or glass-walled elevator like many shopping malls? even if you are close to neither one?
Assuming you mean somebody accidentally captured an up skirt photo in the frame, then no. Not only would there be no criminal intent in that case, but according to TFA "The legislation says anyone who tries to photograph another person's sexual or intimate parts without that person's consent..." so there was no trying involved in that case (of course, the article could just be worded poorly, but there would still be no criminal intent).
Sometimes, I just don't understand the Lawyer outlook of the world.
What's not to understand? If you're talking to a mechanic, then yeah, they'll tell you that you need a mechanic to fix that. If you're talking to an electrician then they'll sure as hell tell you not to even think about touching that and to call an electrician. Why would you expect lawyers to be any different? The problem is, most of the folks who make the laws that we all have to follow are themselves lawyers.
So, the laws are written by lawyers working for the lobbyists, who then pass it along to other lawyers (with titles like "Congressman" or "Senator") who are also working for the lobbyists...
Now it is used to predict how much effort one is willing to put into it to game the system.
Which sounds like a pretty good indication of certain aspects of college success (not the only one, of course). It's an indicator of being able to do what it takes to succeed. Part of what makes college different from a vocational school is that you have to have a broader range of knowledge, which pretty much takes the form of requiring some classes you probably don't want to take, either because they are a prerequisite for an interesting class or in another discipline. And even in the subjects that are interesting to you, there is going to be material or projects that feel like slow death. For example, an engineering major might be bored to tears in a humanities class, and may hate their writing class (even though writing is a pretty damn important skill for an engineer), and a sociology major might seriously struggle through a math class. Being able to do the scut work of preparing for the SATs is a good indication that those people will be able to get through those classes.
Oh, and before you say "that's why college is stupid" it's also a good indicator of job success. No matter what your job, you're going to have to do things you don't want to. Maybe it's something boring that you have to do to get to the interesting stuff, maybe it's something stupid your boss wants you to do, or maybe (whether you work for yourself or not) it's something stupid the customer wants you to do.
Of course, this is different from the original intent of the SAT which was to measure aptitude, and I'm not advocating that the SATs in their current form are a good thing...just saying that it's still has some meaning as an indicator of potential success.
And, btw, in most cities there are a lot of SAT prep courses nowadays that don't cost a lot of money, you don't have to take an expensive one from Kaplan. It's tougher to find a cheap one if you live in a less populated area without options.
Even without the $25m owed in the contract, Oracle is probably still profitable on the deal.
I bet they maintain 60-70% margins... and that's on the services side...
Probably, but at least Oracle has a $25m incentive to make the damn thing work. Maybe if more government entities did this then big contractors might realize there is incentive to actually make what they're building work. The real question everywhere else should be...why the hell is [companyX] getting paid for something that's not usable? Or are those contracts written so horribly that the company gets paid for a nonfunctional product?
c.) The problem [India | United States | China etc etc etc] has now is not so much as not having money. It does not have non-corrupt institutions to properly distribute the resources. They will improve as education improves in subsequent generations who will then elect better politicians, demand cleaner systems and more effectively fight for their rights. Projects like these inspire students.
FTFY. Also, the part about fixing it being reality is the funniest bit of satire I've read in a long time
The real question, however, is why every user effectively engaged in P2P communication (like webchat, IM, or Skype), allows a man-in-the-middle attack to collect and process their personal data, when the ONLY useful aspect of the service is connecting the users together in the first place.
Apparently, because doing that is patented. No, really! Apple tried it with Facetime, and got sued by a troll*, VirnetX. Initially that's how Facetime worked, Apple's servers authenticated you and connecting you together, but then the 2 devices connected directly for the content of the video/call, not through Apple's servers. They lost a $368million verdict and they were forced to change it so everything has to get relayed through their servers.
*I don't know much else about the company, but in this case I call VirnetX a troll because a) they didn't invent it themselves, b) they don't practice the invention, and c) it's so fucking obvious even a Slashdot Anonymous Coward came up with it independently.
The first occupant was not arrested for "Obstruction" but in connection to a robber that had just occurred. Changing what actually occurred to match your views is not valid. If your scenario actually occurred the case would be thrown out based on false arrest as refusal of a search is not obstruction.
So, if they had enough probably cause to arrest him, shouldn't they have had enough probably cause for a warrant? Perhaps either the cops were too lazy to do their jobs and get a search warrant, or they arrested him knowing they didn't really have enough probable cause, figuring they'd get it once they searched the house.
What's perhaps worse is that the cops knew they needed to get a warrant once the guy refused, because this all happened before the court ruling. So to summarize: they were too lazy to get a warrant in the first place and searched anyway when they knew it was illegal to do so at that time.