The facts sound roughly similar to Sega v. Accolade, a 1992 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case in which Sega (whom you all know) sued Accolade, who made Sega Genesis-compatible games without obtaining a license to do from from Sega.
Sega sued the crap out of them, alleging among other things trademark infringement. Basically, the Genesis console has a bit of code in the bootloader that checks that the game cartridge has the word "SEGA" in a particular location. That triggers a display that says "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES LTD" for a few seconds on the screen.
Sega was trying to be clever. If you manufactured a game cartridge without the "SEGA" code, it wouldn't run. And if you manufactured one with it, then you caused the display to appear. And if that statement was false (because you hadn't actually obtained a license), Sega could sue you for trademark infringement! Hehehehe.
The court told Sega to get a life. Trademarks are a limited monopoly allowing the holder exclusive use of certain aspects of words, pictures, or phrases. They certainly can't be used to tie monopoly purchases to nonprotected things, thereby extending the limited monopoly to them. If you could, then every manufacturer would have monopolies on everything they manufactured, as well as every replacement part, or compatible product, etc. etc. etc. They'd simply manufacture a patented, copyrighted, or trademarked doodad and then make sure that their entire product depended on that item to operate.
This sounds like what Lexmark was trying to do -- they had some sort of computer chip that verified that things were legit, and then they sued anyone who needed to copy that chip in order to make replacement parts. The lesson from Sega v. Accolade is: don't do this.
October 7: X-10 loses the lawsuit. Compensatory damages are $4.3 million. The punitive damages hearing, where the huge dollar figures are likely to be determined, is to take place October 22.
October 8-20: X-10 and its lawyers think about how to generate the most sympathy for their plight -- specifically, how to make themselves sound pathetic so that the jury will keep the punitive damages figure low.
October 21: X-10 files for bankruptcy the day before the punitive damages hearing was to take place. But they don't really file for bankruptcy: As the CNet article states, "X10 filed what the bankruptcy court termed a 'deficient' filing, meaning that it lacked a statement of its financial affairs." In other words, X-10 is a privately held company, and like any private company it doesn't want to divulge its financial affairs. So it claims that it's filed for bankruptcy, getting all the PR benefit of a true filing without any of the real costs, such as having to disclose private financial affairs.
The best estimate of their debts that they can come up with is between $10 million and $50 million? They really have no idea whether they owe $10 million or $50 million??? Or maybe they just prefer not to say -- and why would you specify your debts publicly if you didn't have to?
I bet they never complete their bankruptcy filing. It seems like nothing more than a tactical maneuver to keep the overall damages low.
Since the original article mentions Windows XP, I suppose this is fair game. Qurb is a plugin for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. Spoof-proof whitelist, optional challenge-response.
I'm curious: What's the environmental impact of manufacturing a new car? I imagine it must be significant -- making or recycling steel and aluminum, emitting toxic chemicals, and so on.
If I buy a brand-new Prius or Insight (that would need to be manufactured for me out of raw materials), will my actions have less impact on the environment than if I bought a late-model, used, conventional-engine vehicle (that is already a sunk cost in terms of manufacturing)?
Or might it actually be worse for the environment?
I'll probably get flamed for even suggesting this, but a visit to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA meets your criteria: inexpensive -- it's free to visit; of interest to geeks -- even the most vociferous free software advocates must admit Microsoft's significance in computing history; and the kind of thing worth mentioning to your grandkids -- "I visited Microsoft when Bill Gates was still alive!"
In particular:
Walk by Building 8 in the grassy commons area. Look toward the center of the building. That's Bill's office (ooooh). At least, as of a year or two ago it was his office. Note the person-sized rectangular concrete area in front of you: the joke is that's where you kneel when you're praying to Bill.
Go to the plaques in the sidewalk. Ask someone how to get there; I think it's near Building 8. There's a big metal plaque embedded in the sidewalk for each product Microsoft has ever released. It's fun, as a geek, to look back to particular products, see the date it was released, and try to remember what you were doing that year.
Ride the shuttle around. It may take some social engineering to do this without being disturbed. It's free, and it's a nice way to see the whole campus.
Generally, try and grasp just how frickin' big that place is. It's amazing.
Depending on how successful you've been in traveling cheaply to this point in your journey, you may or may not want to consider applying for a job. After having gone on a geek vacation, at least you'll have a lot to talk about during your interview.
Even if you're so anti-Microsoft that you wouldn't think of visiting it, you might as well hit the Pacific Northwest on your trip; it's a nice part of the country.
First of all, the 2002 Burning Man project I did that involved a couple hundred RGB LEDs spinning in a persistence-of-vision-based nighttime animated display. Here is the best picture of it. This is the page about the development details.
The LEDs I used were manufactured by Kingbright. The model I used, the LF819EMBGMBC, is big (10mm) and relatively bright for an RGB LED. I couldn't find any U.S. retailers that actually told the truth about whether they stocked them, so I ended up buying 400 directly from Kingbright for I think a little more than $2.50 each. I still have a few left.
Atmel AVR microcontrollers are just a few bucks each, easily programmable with the STK-500 programmer, also cheap at around $80. I used the ATMega8, which was more than sufficient for my needs. I imagine the original Slashdotter could use one of the ATTiny MCUs, since it really needs only 3 or 4 I/O lines (fewer depending on how many helper circuits you decide to use).
The boards were manufactured by PCBExpress and I was very happy with them. The CAD/CAM software was Eagle, which except for some crashing/redrawing bugs was really amazing. The version I used was free. I tried to buy it but CadSoft has (had?) a fairly crazy pricing scheme that actually left you worse off in terms of acceptable usage if you paid them money than if you used the free version.
The best part of using the Atmel MCU was that GCC can cross-compile for it. So you're basically writing regular old C code but it runs on a little tiny piece of silicon. You'll want to subscribe to the quite active avr-gcc mailing list. Save every message from Marek Michalkiewicz; in my opinion he's the god of GCC-for-AVR development.
They're pretty cool if you think about it. A whole bunch of ink that rolls out onto the paper over a tiny little ball. If you remember to keep the cap on and don't leave it on the dashboard of your car in the sun, it doesn't leak. And you can buy 12 for $1.00 at the office supply store, which if you didn't lose them all in a month would be a lifetime supply.
Given how many files were downloaded in such a short time, the IP address is probably a NAT'ed company with many employees using file-sharing services behind a single IP address.
If I were the RIAA, I'd dig -x on the IP address before getting the court involved, and make sure that finding out the identity of this one "customer" was going to pay off big.
nakhla writes: "This article at [a news web site] details how [a software company] is expanding its [flagship product] to [sell more]. Rather than relying on [open standards implemented by many companies] to [get work done], [the company] wants [its proprietary product] to be used [to replace existing open standards]. [Trust us, says the company, we will do all the heavy lifting for you]. With [state issue here that this product does not address], could something like this be the answer? The article also mentions how [company] is on a campaign to have its [product] [offered even more widely than it is today]."
[Here is some fuel for those of you taking these comments seriously.]
Let's face it. If the terms of service say you can't connect multiple computers to the cable modem service, then you can't do it (legally, at least). If you don't like it, don't sign up.
Unfortunately, many people won't follow that rule (they won't like it but they WILL sign up). They'll pay the $3/computer or whatever, and Comcast will get their way.
It's our job as technophiles to EDUCATE friends and family about alternatives (mainly DSL with an acceptable TOS policy, and then a basic home gateway with NAT). Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have _so_ many options (cable, analog modem, or any of dozens of DSL providers), but most people just go with whoever mails them the most colorful flyer.
If we help teach others that they have choices, then they will make the right decision. The free market will work. Comcast and similar companies will realize that they're losing revenue, and they'll adjust their pricing models (as well as stop using inflammatory terms like "stealing bandwidth").
Hewlett-Packard Company today announced it has been awarded a key patent that could remove a major obstacle to making molecular-scale computing a reality.
I can see RMS exploding with rage right now if he's reading this sentence. How exactly did the patent remove the obstacle? Did they mean "...a key patent on technology that could remove..." or did they really mean what they said? If the latter, then what was the obstacle? Their competition?
What if car manufacturers quit making better engines and only focused on making more comfortable seats and installing better stereos?
But would that be such a bad thing? Setting aside the issue of alternative energy sources for personal transportation, the gasoline engine is pretty good right now, and frankly doesn't show any signs of getting significantly better. Most consumers accept engines that deliver between 50 and 150 horsepower and get from 10 to 50 miles per gallon of gas. Nobody expects Moore's Law or anything similar ever to apply to the performance of automobile engines -- forget about doublings of horsepower or efficiency. Cars are good enough for getting people from point A to point B. Of course they're not perfect, yet nobody is bemoaning the failure of current automobile technology to permit visionaries to realize their dreams of better gasoline-engine-based transportation. Instead, automobile manufacturers are focusing on other issues: safety, better navigation systems, more environmental friendliness (both in the operation of and eventual disposal of automobiles), and -- yes -- more comfortable seats and better stereos. There's plenty of room to innovate in those areas.
Some technology problems can be solved, and engineering effort moved on to new problems.
Re:laptop without screen and battery - bright idea
on
Super Tiny Espresso PC
·
· Score: 1
Hehehehehehe, you said "one-handed chording keyboard in the pocket."
Sorry folks, it's not perjury until it's submitted to a court. The paragraph this legal assistant has used is just a form that lawyers use.
Usually, any document submitted as evidence in court must be authenticated, meaning that a human being whose credibility the factfinder is able to evaluate says "yes, I wrote that document." Just submitting the document alone isn't enough. However, in some circumstances, courts will accept a document (called a "declaration" or "affidavit") that contains language equivalent to what the witness would have said if he or she were in court.
No, it doesn't make any sense -- why doesn't the witness then have to authenticate that document? -- but it's a practical solution to a stringent legal requirement, especially if it's a routine matter you're testifying to, or if the witness has been (for example) killed in a terrible accident before he had a chance to testify.
So, to sum up, attorneys frequently put that boilerplate language on just about anything that might someday be submitted to a court (particularly when written by a legal assistant). But until it's really offered in lieu of court-sworn testimony, it's not subject to perjury laws.
Instead of applying for a software patent, just don't disclose your algorithm, and instead protect it -- it's much cheaper and you don't have to talk to a lawyer. Then you can claim trade secret status. For example, in California see Civil Code Section 3426, Uniform Trade Secrets Act:
"Trade secret" means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process, that:
(1) Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to the public or to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and
(2) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.
Hey, wait a minute, if you read Slashdot, then you probably support open source, and you despise software patents. Who are you, anyway?
"The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest."
Huh? Show me a company that doesn't act in its own self-interest and I'll show you a company with a Q at the end of its stock symbol.
Will someone knowledgeable about this subject please explain:
I understand that all DVD players except Xing encoded the list of 40-bit decryption keys, but even if Xing had encrypted it, musn't any software player know how to decrypt its own list (meaning that reverse engineering must eventually expose the decrypted list)?
In other words, encrypted data is theoretically useless unless you have the key to decrypt it. But a DVD player must use the key list, so it must also have the key to decrypt the list, right? So wouldn't it have been trivial to step through any software player and find where it decrypts the list?
There has to be something I'm not understanding here. Please explain!
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's how Skynet got started.
The facts sound roughly similar to Sega v. Accolade, a 1992 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case in which Sega (whom you all know) sued Accolade, who made Sega Genesis-compatible games without obtaining a license to do from from Sega.
Sega sued the crap out of them, alleging among other things trademark infringement. Basically, the Genesis console has a bit of code in the bootloader that checks that the game cartridge has the word "SEGA" in a particular location. That triggers a display that says "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES LTD" for a few seconds on the screen.
Sega was trying to be clever. If you manufactured a game cartridge without the "SEGA" code, it wouldn't run. And if you manufactured one with it, then you caused the display to appear. And if that statement was false (because you hadn't actually obtained a license), Sega could sue you for trademark infringement! Hehehehe.
The court told Sega to get a life. Trademarks are a limited monopoly allowing the holder exclusive use of certain aspects of words, pictures, or phrases. They certainly can't be used to tie monopoly purchases to nonprotected things, thereby extending the limited monopoly to them. If you could, then every manufacturer would have monopolies on everything they manufactured, as well as every replacement part, or compatible product, etc. etc. etc. They'd simply manufacture a patented, copyrighted, or trademarked doodad and then make sure that their entire product depended on that item to operate.
This sounds like what Lexmark was trying to do -- they had some sort of computer chip that verified that things were legit, and then they sued anyone who needed to copy that chip in order to make replacement parts. The lesson from Sega v. Accolade is: don't do this.
For $500, you can turn your $5,000 TV into a $5 poster.
October 7: X-10 loses the lawsuit. Compensatory damages are $4.3 million. The punitive damages hearing, where the huge dollar figures are likely to be determined, is to take place October 22.
October 8-20: X-10 and its lawyers think about how to generate the most sympathy for their plight -- specifically, how to make themselves sound pathetic so that the jury will keep the punitive damages figure low.
October 21: X-10 files for bankruptcy the day before the punitive damages hearing was to take place. But they don't really file for bankruptcy: As the CNet article states, "X10 filed what the bankruptcy court termed a 'deficient' filing, meaning that it lacked a statement of its financial affairs." In other words, X-10 is a privately held company, and like any private company it doesn't want to divulge its financial affairs. So it claims that it's filed for bankruptcy, getting all the PR benefit of a true filing without any of the real costs, such as having to disclose private financial affairs.
The best estimate of their debts that they can come up with is between $10 million and $50 million? They really have no idea whether they owe $10 million or $50 million??? Or maybe they just prefer not to say -- and why would you specify your debts publicly if you didn't have to?
I bet they never complete their bankruptcy filing. It seems like nothing more than a tactical maneuver to keep the overall damages low.
Since the original article mentions Windows XP, I suppose this is fair game. Qurb is a plugin for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. Spoof-proof whitelist, optional challenge-response.
It's also my company. :)
Wow, those guys ARE good. They even ported their company web server to a TRS-80.
But some areas of the code still need work:
int fork() { return 1; }
I'm curious: What's the environmental impact of manufacturing a new car? I imagine it must be significant -- making or recycling steel and aluminum, emitting toxic chemicals, and so on.
If I buy a brand-new Prius or Insight (that would need to be manufactured for me out of raw materials), will my actions have less impact on the environment than if I bought a late-model, used, conventional-engine vehicle (that is already a sunk cost in terms of manufacturing)?
Or might it actually be worse for the environment?
I'll probably get flamed for even suggesting this, but a visit to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA meets your criteria: inexpensive -- it's free to visit; of interest to geeks -- even the most vociferous free software advocates must admit Microsoft's significance in computing history; and the kind of thing worth mentioning to your grandkids -- "I visited Microsoft when Bill Gates was still alive!"
In particular:
Even if you're so anti-Microsoft that you wouldn't think of visiting it, you might as well hit the Pacific Northwest on your trip; it's a nice part of the country.
Lotsa links here...
First of all, the 2002 Burning Man project I did that involved a couple hundred RGB LEDs spinning in a persistence-of-vision-based nighttime animated display. Here is the best picture of it. This is the page about the development details.
The LEDs I used were manufactured by Kingbright. The model I used, the LF819EMBGMBC, is big (10mm) and relatively bright for an RGB LED. I couldn't find any U.S. retailers that actually told the truth about whether they stocked them, so I ended up buying 400 directly from Kingbright for I think a little more than $2.50 each. I still have a few left.
Atmel AVR microcontrollers are just a few bucks each, easily programmable with the STK-500 programmer, also cheap at around $80. I used the ATMega8, which was more than sufficient for my needs. I imagine the original Slashdotter could use one of the ATTiny MCUs, since it really needs only 3 or 4 I/O lines (fewer depending on how many helper circuits you decide to use).
The boards were manufactured by PCBExpress and I was very happy with them. The CAD/CAM software was Eagle, which except for some crashing/redrawing bugs was really amazing. The version I used was free. I tried to buy it but CadSoft has (had?) a fairly crazy pricing scheme that actually left you worse off in terms of acceptable usage if you paid them money than if you used the free version.
The best part of using the Atmel MCU was that GCC can cross-compile for it. So you're basically writing regular old C code but it runs on a little tiny piece of silicon. You'll want to subscribe to the quite active avr-gcc mailing list. Save every message from Marek Michalkiewicz; in my opinion he's the god of GCC-for-AVR development.
They're pretty cool if you think about it. A whole bunch of ink that rolls out onto the paper over a tiny little ball. If you remember to keep the cap on and don't leave it on the dashboard of your car in the sun, it doesn't leak. And you can buy 12 for $1.00 at the office supply store, which if you didn't lose them all in a month would be a lifetime supply.
Given how often people say "DNS server," why not drop the redundant "S" to save bandwidth?
Given how many files were downloaded in such a short time, the IP address is probably a NAT'ed company with many employees using file-sharing services behind a single IP address.
If I were the RIAA, I'd dig -x on the IP address before getting the court involved, and make sure that finding out the identity of this one "customer" was going to pay off big.
nakhla writes: "This article at [a news web site] details how [a software company] is expanding its [flagship product] to [sell more]. Rather than relying on [open standards implemented by many companies] to [get work done], [the company] wants [its proprietary product] to be used [to replace existing open standards]. [Trust us, says the company, we will do all the heavy lifting for you]. With [state issue here that this product does not address], could something like this be the answer? The article also mentions how [company] is on a campaign to have its [product] [offered even more widely than it is today]."
[Here is some fuel for those of you taking these comments seriously.]
As Palm says here:
"Email is end-to-end secured in triple des. base 64 encryption."
I assume "triple des." means "triple DES," which is fine, but who at Palm believes that base-64 encoding is a form of encryption?
Let's face it. If the terms of service say you can't connect multiple computers to the cable modem service, then you can't do it (legally, at least). If you don't like it, don't sign up.
Unfortunately, many people won't follow that rule (they won't like it but they WILL sign up). They'll pay the $3/computer or whatever, and Comcast will get their way.
It's our job as technophiles to EDUCATE friends and family about alternatives (mainly DSL with an acceptable TOS policy, and then a basic home gateway with NAT). Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have _so_ many options (cable, analog modem, or any of dozens of DSL providers), but most people just go with whoever mails them the most colorful flyer.
If we help teach others that they have choices, then they will make the right decision. The free market will work. Comcast and similar companies will realize that they're losing revenue, and they'll adjust their pricing models (as well as stop using inflammatory terms like "stealing bandwidth").
I hadn't realized that the PowerPC architecture dates this far back.
But would that be such a bad thing? Setting aside the issue of alternative energy sources for personal transportation, the gasoline engine is pretty good right now, and frankly doesn't show any signs of getting significantly better. Most consumers accept engines that deliver between 50 and 150 horsepower and get from 10 to 50 miles per gallon of gas. Nobody expects Moore's Law or anything similar ever to apply to the performance of automobile engines -- forget about doublings of horsepower or efficiency. Cars are good enough for getting people from point A to point B. Of course they're not perfect, yet nobody is bemoaning the failure of current automobile technology to permit visionaries to realize their dreams of better gasoline-engine-based transportation. Instead, automobile manufacturers are focusing on other issues: safety, better navigation systems, more environmental friendliness (both in the operation of and eventual disposal of automobiles), and -- yes -- more comfortable seats and better stereos. There's plenty of room to innovate in those areas.
Some technology problems can be solved, and engineering effort moved on to new problems.
Hehehehehehe, you said "one-handed chording keyboard in the pocket."
Sorry folks, it's not perjury until it's submitted to a court. The paragraph this legal assistant has used is just a form that lawyers use.
Usually, any document submitted as evidence in court must be authenticated, meaning that a human being whose credibility the factfinder is able to evaluate says "yes, I wrote that document." Just submitting the document alone isn't enough. However, in some circumstances, courts will accept a document (called a "declaration" or "affidavit") that contains language equivalent to what the witness would have said if he or she were in court.
No, it doesn't make any sense -- why doesn't the witness then have to authenticate that document? -- but it's a practical solution to a stringent legal requirement, especially if it's a routine matter you're testifying to, or if the witness has been (for example) killed in a terrible accident before he had a chance to testify.
So, to sum up, attorneys frequently put that boilerplate language on just about anything that might someday be submitted to a court (particularly when written by a legal assistant). But until it's really offered in lieu of court-sworn testimony, it's not subject to perjury laws.
I'm thinking in particular Neal Stephenson, Philip K. Dick, and Robert A. Heinlein.
They may not be geeks themselves. But they have inspired legions of geeks.
"Trade secret" means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process, that:
(1) Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to the public or to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and
(2) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.
Hey, wait a minute, if you read Slashdot, then you probably support open source, and you despise software patents. Who are you, anyway?
Huh? Show me a company that doesn't act in its own self-interest and I'll show you a company with a Q at the end of its stock symbol.
Will someone knowledgeable about this subject please explain:
I understand that all DVD players except Xing encoded the list of 40-bit decryption keys, but even if Xing had encrypted it, musn't any software player know how to decrypt its own list (meaning that reverse engineering must eventually expose the decrypted list)?
In other words, encrypted data is theoretically useless unless you have the key to decrypt it. But a DVD player must use the key list, so it must also have the key to decrypt the list, right? So wouldn't it have been trivial to step through any software player and find where it decrypts the list?
There has to be something I'm not understanding here. Please explain!
The rules say one entry per person... not one correct entry per person, so you'd better double-check your answer before you send it in.