Like you would sit at your job and say "hey, some guy threatened to blow up my building, via a tweet... I am so sure this is not credible that I am willing to literally bet my (and many others') life that it isn't credible. I think i will willfully ignore it, and tell everyone that contrary to what THEY might think, there is no threat." Come on.
Nobody thought it was a threat until the media got interested and then suddenly nobody dared to let the poor guy go. This despite the fact they were all professionals who should be able to distinguish between a threat and a bad joke. If you're not ready to make those calls you shouldn't be in a job where you have to think at all.
- The airport manager "reported it to his superior, who rated it "non credible" as a threat" - Airport police then "waited two days before passing on the investigation to their colleagues at Doncaster police station" (bet they were worried, huh ?) - The police thought it was a joke : "[the case file ] states: "There is no evidence at this stage that this is anything other than a foolish comment posted on Twitter as a joke for only his close friends to see."" - But of course by then the media were interested so : "With Paul Chambers out on bail and "huge public and media interest" (as a further statement put it) no doubt causing jitters higher up the pecking order, South Yorkshire police turned to the CPS for a "decision on disposal""
Ultimately, this boils down to patenting "scroll with one finger or pinch-to-zoom with two"
No, scroll with one, or gesture with two, where gesture is any operation that follows 2 or more simultaneous inputs.
Your argument seems to be that it's okay for Apple to patent the combination of these very basic and natural actions and gestures because this isn't that hard to design around?
I don't care about patents. We could throw away the whole patent system tomorrow and it's be no skin off my back. It wouldn't change the fact Samsung is copying Apple here. But as long as we are operating within this system you have to apply its rules consistently and that means you can't just throw out cases because you don't like the claimant because that's just arbitrary. That's what I'm doing: arguing within the logic of an illogical system.
The saddest part of this story is that it could've been stopped before it began: the manager who discovered the tweet, the airport police, the police, none of them thought there was a credible threat but rather than assume responsibility they decided to pass the buck to someone else effectively pushing the case further and further up the chain.
For those following along at home, this is what happens when a lawyer does describe a pinch to zoom gesture :
"1. A method, comprising: detecting at least two first contacts on a display surface of a multi-touch-sensitive display device; detecting a first motion associated with the at least two first contacts, wherein the first motion corresponds to a multi-touch gesture; adjusting a parameter of a graphical object in accordance with the first motion; detecting a breaking of the at least two first contacts; after detecting the breaking of the at least two first contacts, detecting at least two second contacts on the display surface; detecting a second motion associated with the at least two second contacts, wherein the second motion corresponds to the multi-touch gesture and the at least two second contacts are detected within a pre-determined time interval after the breaking of the at least two first contacts is detected; and continuing to adjust the parameter of the graphical object in accordance with the second motion. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the parameter is a non-linear function of a displacement of the first contacts during the multi-touch gesture. 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the parameter comprises a magnification of the graphical object. [...]"
Well aren't you fancy with all your latin:). It means "for example" of course, I also know that in a legal text if you don't define something exactly lawyers will find a way around it. You brought it up, I don't think the directionality of the scrolling matters only the difference between the scroll action and the resultant end-of-screen bounce (what this patent is really all about) and how that's different from a not further defined gesture action resulting in scaling.
No, "scaling" is what the interface does as the result of a gesture, pinching is what the fingers do which again is not defined in the document. There's a reason the patent is called "Application programming interfaces for scrolling operations": it focusses on scrolling and how that operation is distinguished from a gesture. And a gesture is just defined as having 2 ore more input points without further elaborating on the state of those input points.
"Scrolling is the act of sliding a directional (e.g., horizontal or vertical) presentation of content, such as text, drawings, or images, across a screen or display window. In a typical graphical user interface, scrolling is done with the help of a scrollbar or using keyboard shortcuts often the arrow keys. Gesturing is a type of user input with two or more input points. Animating operations include changing content within a given time period."
There have been many "defining" moments in modern computer history. What's so defining about this particular moment with its clone army of touchscreen phones?
Look around on trains and subways or coffee shops: personal computers are going mainstream in a way they haven't before, crucially even among those we would consider to be tech-illiterate. Like the Mac (or Lisa) decades ago(*), we're defining a new way of interacting with our computers that'll probably be with us for a good long time and it'll impact more people than ever before.
(*) Because I know someone will bring this up, yes there was Xerox but the Mac, with all the changes it made to the Xerox model, was the one who went out into the world, got copied by everyone and became the archetypal GUI.
Ah, but it doesn't mention pinching, what it is is a method to determine an action based on the fact if 1 (resulting scrolling) or 2 fingers (resulting in a gesture) are on the screen. It doesn't define the gesture, whence the workaround mentioned in the article of having 2 finger scrolling so this patent is circumvented because there is no differentiation being done based on the 1 finger -> scroll, 2 fingers -> gesture method. Or so I gather, I am no lawyer.
Meh, maybe someone will actually read the article and take away a new insight or learn something they didn't before, I know I did. I'd call that a win. The comments here will be... well like they always are, good or bad that's Slashdot. I don't think this court case is a defining moment, but the rise of smartphones and tablets is and at te very least all these court actions expose what the main players are thinking, where they come from and where they want to go. At the same time there's the entire discussion that keeps raging about patents and what should and shouldn't be patentable. I think it's definitely interesting and worth following closely. Also: huge arguments about tiny details, it's what geeks do best.
"So let's just be extremely clear about this: the jury ruled that 21 of 24 accused Samsung phones infringed claim 8 of Apple patent 7,844,915, which specifically covers a programming interface which detects if one finger on a screen is scrolling or two or more fingers are doing something else. It is one possible step along the road to pinch-to-zoom, but it is definitely not pinch-to-zoom itself. And — crucially — it may not be that hard to design around."
I submitted this article because firstly this has been such a huge story in the mainstream press that it's good opportunity to investigate how reliable the information coming from them about tech matters is and secondly because there is a lot of confusion even among geeks about what was at stake in this trial resulting in a low signal to noise ratio in the discussions. Personally I do also believe we are at a defining moment in the modern computing industry so even if this lawsuit may end up being of little to no importance the close attention is warranted.
You've got the floor here. Offer any kind of proof or even a plausible argument instead of baseless allegations. I've never seen anyone do that instead of just insinuating things.
He says "Build quality is terrible even by Samsungs low standards." I assume that since this is a review on an Android site he sees a fair number of these. Thought it was interesting, I'm not into Android so I can't gauge how that community actually feels about Samsung products but clearly some are less than enthusiastic. And of course I love the glass and aluminum thing so anything plastic (and I do own that kind of gadget) feels cheap and creaky so it speaks to my biases.
Possibly. In the end it's all just speculation. Could be just a marketing push that was scheduled to precede the expected new iPhone launch for example. We'll not know until some time has passed and we get quarterly figures (and even then.)
some of them who interpreted the news coverage as an ad for Samsung, saw the "banned sales" headlines and rushed out to buy devices. Hey, if they are worth banning, they must be good right?
Truly an example of the intelligent and discerning Android customer.
(OK I admit it, this one is little troll-ish but come on.)
Maybe they're actually making good phones that do what people want.
When a recent review for a Samsung tablet by an Android site says something like this I doubt it :
"The build quality. Terrible even by Samsung's low standards. The back is actually squishy, and you can feel it deform while holding it. It's noisy too, the plastic creaks, groans, and grinds when you pick it up. Regular, strong plastic would still be unacceptable when everyone else uses aluminum, but this... this is insulting for a $500 tablet"
In the case you cite, it's just speculation by a non-expert backed up by data with an unreasonably small sample size.
ALL these numbers are suspect including the ones cited by Forbes. These "tech analysts" are notoriously unreliable, and you can find one willing to support any argument you want to make.
Marketwatch sees a completely different phenomenon :
"While many experts predict Apple Inc.’s court victory over Samsung could shake up the wireless industry over the long term, it’s already having an impact on one key area: the resale market.
Since the $1.05 billion verdict Friday — which found that Samsung infringed on six Apple AAPL -1.04% patents — customers of Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones over the past three days, which has led to a 10% drop in prices for those devices"
We're talking about the place where electron microscopes, CAT scanners, and several more of the most amazing medtech breakthroughs in history have been made. *Nobody* is interested in setting up shop there except Boots, Capital One, Experian and Games Workshop?? Makes me wonder why...
It's a planned economy coupled with cargo cult economics ("if you build it they will come".)
It also has a GDP nearly that of the UK, despite having 25 million less inhabitants. To compare, the UK is £1,278.2 billion in debt with an unemployment rate of 8%. Tech is also a growth industry which the UK needs since it is now too dependent on financial services, a sector that hasn't been doing especially well. That said I don't think this scheme will succeed but you can see why they would want it to.
So if it's so obvious why hasn't any other company shown off its prototypes, like Apple has going back all the way to a 2002 iPad prototype ? If it's so obvious why nearly all of the tech world scoff at both the iPhone (eg. “The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks." - Bloomberg) and the iPad ("little more than a giant iPhone." - Wired, and "In the end, I think that the iPad will eventually be regarded [as] product that Jobs should have left on the drawing boards." - TechRepublic.) when they were first released ? In the case of the iPhone much of the ridicule was even specifically aimed at the touchscreen interface, the very thing which you now claim was obvious : "it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine" - Steve Ballmer. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Slashdot Mirror
Like you would sit at your job and say "hey, some guy threatened to blow up my building, via a tweet... I am so sure this is not credible that I am willing to literally bet my (and many others') life that it isn't credible. I think i will willfully ignore it, and tell everyone that contrary to what THEY might think, there is no threat." Come on.
Nobody thought it was a threat until the media got interested and then suddenly nobody dared to let the poor guy go. This despite the fact they were all professionals who should be able to distinguish between a threat and a bad joke. If you're not ready to make those calls you shouldn't be in a job where you have to think at all.
- The airport manager "reported it to his superior, who rated it "non credible" as a threat"
- Airport police then "waited two days before passing on the investigation to their colleagues at Doncaster police station" (bet they were worried, huh ?)
- The police thought it was a joke : "[the case file ] states: "There is no evidence at this stage that this is anything other than a foolish comment posted on Twitter as a joke for only his close friends to see.""
- But of course by then the media were interested so : "With Paul Chambers out on bail and "huge public and media interest" (as a further statement put it) no doubt causing jitters higher up the pecking order, South Yorkshire police turned to the CPS for a "decision on disposal""
Once in legal system the guy's goose was cooked.
Ultimately, this boils down to patenting "scroll with one finger or pinch-to-zoom with two"
No, scroll with one, or gesture with two, where gesture is any operation that follows 2 or more simultaneous inputs.
Your argument seems to be that it's okay for Apple to patent the combination of these very basic and natural actions and gestures because this isn't that hard to design around?
I don't care about patents. We could throw away the whole patent system tomorrow and it's be no skin off my back. It wouldn't change the fact Samsung is copying Apple here. But as long as we are operating within this system you have to apply its rules consistently and that means you can't just throw out cases because you don't like the claimant because that's just arbitrary. That's what I'm doing: arguing within the logic of an illogical system.
Yeah I confused myself there. This one is the scrolling patent, then there are separate bounce and pinch patents.
The saddest part of this story is that it could've been stopped before it began: the manager who discovered the tweet, the airport police, the police, none of them thought there was a credible threat but rather than assume responsibility they decided to pass the buck to someone else effectively pushing the case further and further up the chain.
For those following along at home, this is what happens when a lawyer does describe a pinch to zoom gesture :
"1. A method, comprising: detecting at least two first contacts on a display surface of a multi-touch-sensitive display device; detecting a first motion associated with the at least two first contacts, wherein the first motion corresponds to a multi-touch gesture; adjusting a parameter of a graphical object in accordance with the first motion; detecting a breaking of the at least two first contacts; after detecting the breaking of the at least two first contacts, detecting at least two second contacts on the display surface; detecting a second motion associated with the at least two second contacts, wherein the second motion corresponds to the multi-touch gesture and the at least two second contacts are detected within a pre-determined time interval after the breaking of the at least two first contacts is detected; and continuing to adjust the parameter of the graphical object in accordance with the second motion.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the parameter is a non-linear function of a displacement of the first contacts during the multi-touch gesture.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the parameter comprises a magnification of the graphical object.
[...]"
Simple, right ?!
Well aren't you fancy with all your latin :). It means "for example" of course, I also know that in a legal text if you don't define something exactly lawyers will find a way around it. You brought it up, I don't think the directionality of the scrolling matters only the difference between the scroll action and the resultant end-of-screen bounce (what this patent is really all about) and how that's different from a not further defined gesture action resulting in scaling.
No, "scaling" is what the interface does as the result of a gesture, pinching is what the fingers do which again is not defined in the document. There's a reason the patent is called "Application programming interfaces for scrolling operations": it focusses on scrolling and how that operation is distinguished from a gesture. And a gesture is just defined as having 2 ore more input points without further elaborating on the state of those input points.
Scrolling is defined in the full patent text as :
"Scrolling is the act of sliding a directional (e.g., horizontal or vertical) presentation of content, such as text, drawings, or images, across a screen or display window. In a typical graphical user interface, scrolling is done with the help of a scrollbar or using keyboard shortcuts often the arrow keys. Gesturing is a type of user input with two or more input points. Animating operations include changing content within a given time period."
So, they only mention the 2 axis.
There have been many "defining" moments in modern computer history.
What's so defining about this particular moment with its clone army of touchscreen phones?
Look around on trains and subways or coffee shops: personal computers are going mainstream in a way they haven't before, crucially even among those we would consider to be tech-illiterate. Like the Mac (or Lisa) decades ago(*), we're defining a new way of interacting with our computers that'll probably be with us for a good long time and it'll impact more people than ever before.
(*) Because I know someone will bring this up, yes there was Xerox but the Mac, with all the changes it made to the Xerox model, was the one who went out into the world, got copied by everyone and became the archetypal GUI.
Ah, but it doesn't mention pinching, what it is is a method to determine an action based on the fact if 1 (resulting scrolling) or 2 fingers (resulting in a gesture) are on the screen. It doesn't define the gesture, whence the workaround mentioned in the article of having 2 finger scrolling so this patent is circumvented because there is no differentiation being done based on the 1 finger -> scroll, 2 fingers -> gesture method. Or so I gather, I am no lawyer.
Meh, maybe someone will actually read the article and take away a new insight or learn something they didn't before, I know I did. I'd call that a win. The comments here will be ... well like they always are, good or bad that's Slashdot.
I don't think this court case is a defining moment, but the rise of smartphones and tablets is and at te very least all these court actions expose what the main players are thinking, where they come from and where they want to go. At the same time there's the entire discussion that keeps raging about patents and what should and shouldn't be patentable. I think it's definitely interesting and worth following closely. Also: huge arguments about tiny details, it's what geeks do best.
Nilay Patel of the verge, an actual honest-to-god copyright lawyer not just someone who plays an expert on the web, disagrees in his aptly named "The myth of pinch-to-zoom: how a confused media gave Apple something it doesn't own":
"So let's just be extremely clear about this: the jury ruled that 21 of 24 accused Samsung phones infringed claim 8 of Apple patent 7,844,915, which specifically covers a programming interface which detects if one finger on a screen is scrolling or two or more fingers are doing something else. It is one possible step along the road to pinch-to-zoom, but it is definitely not pinch-to-zoom itself. And — crucially — it may not be that hard to design around."
Maybe read up there too ?
I submitted this article because firstly this has been such a huge story in the mainstream press that it's good opportunity to investigate how reliable the information coming from them about tech matters is and secondly because there is a lot of confusion even among geeks about what was at stake in this trial resulting in a low signal to noise ratio in the discussions. Personally I do also believe we are at a defining moment in the modern computing industry so even if this lawsuit may end up being of little to no importance the close attention is warranted.
You've got the floor here. Offer any kind of proof or even a plausible argument instead of baseless allegations. I've never seen anyone do that instead of just insinuating things.
He says "Build quality is terrible even by Samsungs low standards." I assume that since this is a review on an Android site he sees a fair number of these. Thought it was interesting, I'm not into Android so I can't gauge how that community actually feels about Samsung products but clearly some are less than enthusiastic. And of course I love the glass and aluminum thing so anything plastic (and I do own that kind of gadget) feels cheap and creaky so it speaks to my biases.
Possibly. In the end it's all just speculation. Could be just a marketing push that was scheduled to precede the expected new iPhone launch for example. We'll not know until some time has passed and we get quarterly figures (and even then.)
some of them who interpreted the news coverage as an ad for Samsung, saw the "banned sales" headlines and rushed out to buy devices. Hey, if they are worth banning, they must be good right?
Truly an example of the intelligent and discerning Android customer.
(OK I admit it, this one is little troll-ish but come on.)
People who follow tech trials are also plenty fed up with patent nonsense so heck, let's support the underdog. They tend to innovate better anyhow.
Samsung ... the underdog ? This is a mega conglomerate that had a revenue of $247.5 billion in 2011 compared to Apple's $108.249 billion
Maybe they're actually making good phones that do what people want.
When a recent review for a Samsung tablet by an Android site says something like this I doubt it :
"The build quality. Terrible even by Samsung's low standards. The back is actually squishy, and you can feel it deform while holding it. It's noisy too, the plastic creaks, groans, and grinds when you pick it up. Regular, strong plastic would still be unacceptable when everyone else uses aluminum, but this... this is insulting for a $500 tablet"
In the case you cite, it's just speculation by a non-expert backed up by data with an unreasonably small sample size.
ALL these numbers are suspect including the ones cited by Forbes. These "tech analysts" are notoriously unreliable, and you can find one willing to support any argument you want to make.
Marketwatch sees a completely different phenomenon :
"While many experts predict Apple Inc.’s court victory over Samsung could shake up the wireless industry over the long term, it’s already having an impact on one key area: the resale market.
Since the $1.05 billion verdict Friday — which found that Samsung infringed on six Apple AAPL -1.04% patents — customers of Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones over the past three days, which has led to a 10% drop in prices for those devices"
We're talking about the place where electron microscopes, CAT scanners, and several more of the most amazing medtech breakthroughs in history have been made. *Nobody* is interested in setting up shop there except Boots, Capital One, Experian and Games Workshop?? Makes me wonder why...
It's a planned economy coupled with cargo cult economics ("if you build it they will come".)
It also has a GDP nearly that of the UK, despite having 25 million less inhabitants. To compare, the UK is £1,278.2 billion in debt with an unemployment rate of 8%. Tech is also a growth industry which the UK needs since it is now too dependent on financial services, a sector that hasn't been doing especially well. That said I don't think this scheme will succeed but you can see why they would want it to.
That wouldn't displace enough poor people.
Of course once you actually build your products there your IP will also "disappear".
So if it's so obvious why hasn't any other company shown off its prototypes, like Apple has going back all the way to a 2002 iPad prototype ? If it's so obvious why nearly all of the tech world scoff at both the iPhone (eg. “The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks." - Bloomberg) and the iPad ("little more than a giant iPhone." - Wired, and "In the end, I think that the iPad will eventually be regarded [as] product that Jobs should have left on the drawing boards." - TechRepublic.) when they were first released ? In the case of the iPhone much of the ridicule was even specifically aimed at the touchscreen interface, the very thing which you now claim was obvious : "it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine" - Steve Ballmer. Hindsight is always 20/20.