There are lots of ways to 'set the price'. Cost to seller plus; worth to buyer; fair market; marginal increase in worth, cost of alternatives, and so forth. While I would agree, the price shouldn't be set by google, it should also not be the price set by the "guy with the gun" (the current trademark holder).
Also, while there is parallel reasoning here, the property in question is not real property, but instead, the right to government protection, this is a material fact. That right can be moved and changed or terminated, as long as that decision (and precedent repercussions) are considered best for the greater good economy.
Please don't think that I would advocate anything but the strictest interpretation of immanent domain rules with regards to real property. However, extending the Del Webb analogy, this is more the equivalent of a po-dunk quickie-mart owner hindering the path of a hyper-fast international highway affecting millions of people per day because he's holding out for millions more than fair-market value. (For the non-legal, the quickie mart wouldn't win this.)
I beg to differ, trademark law is optimized for commerce, not "protecting the little guy". The Uniform Commercial Code and large chunks of federal and state code, and even case law is there to keep the wheels of our economy moving smoothly. Here is 15 U.S.C. 1051, the source of our trademark law- I doubt if GB is far off, they mimic most of our commerce laws.
As such, the 'little guy' here has perverted the notion of trademark protection. The courts are much more practical and not nearly so much about 'stickling' as much as Hollywood would have us believe. These guys want to get rich, not provide a competing service. I would hope the GB courts will realize this.
I wear a white hat, not a black pointy one; There's a huge difference between a megacorp "stomping" a little-guy, and a generally good company, stumbling on a obscure little-used trademark in one country; subsequently trying to do the right thing and buy the domain, etc., and being stifled by the greedy little-guy who's suddenly found themselves holding a platinum piece of virtual real estate and wanting to cash in since the domain just went from 1% to 99.5% of their now-great-with-child balance sheet.
My original point was not that we need to enable "stomping" of the little guy, but rather recognize that domain names have very different implications (jurisdiction-ignoring technology) than could the framers of trademark laws have ever predicted.
I agree 100%. The issue here is that Google seems to have tried the greenmail solution with no remedy.
What do you do in this situation, when the big company is trying to do the right thing, and the little-guy is basking in their lottery-ticket domain; at the same time, monkey-wrenching a ubiquitous name on the internet...
I'm in law school. I'm a geek. Using lawyers to handle a jackass company (gmail trademark holder) is not backstabbing, its exactly what lawyers are for. The think about trademarks is that that its old law. It doesn't recognize the concept of a world-wide information network at all. If google loses this one, frankly its a result of lawyers not using the correct arguments to the court(s) involved. (What should be put forward is the vast balance of people greatly inconvenienced versus the "I got here first" doctrine that has traditionally prevailed in trademark cases.
I wouldn't worry too much, Divx lives again: (quoting article)
"music studios can release albums or whole collections of musical groups on a single memory card that consumers could buy at stores [ . . . ] They can listen to the music tracks they paid for, or pay additional money to get a security code that unlocks additional songs."
...like this will ever happen; yet again, the content-industries simply don't understand their customers. So, if all of the anti-iPod guys can kindly simmer down seeing how much this could be made, Apple did it right (first), playing fair to the involved parties. This is SanDisk and the content-industries being nasty, greedy, and wanting still more. The best part is this is just a marketing gank on the part of SanDisk:
"The toughest thing was to convince the studios that this was more secure than anything else out there"
A shame? Not really. The point of a true 64-bit desktop OS is what exactly? Applications have no problem using 64 bits of addressing goodness, and thats what matters. Sure, a 64-bit OS would be nifty, and (on a 64-bit processor) come with some performance boosts, and sure, it will come eventually, but it shouldn't be (and isn't) a monumental priority.
There are 64-bit processors and there are 64-bit solutions the latter of which includes those little bits like memory controllers and other details that make up a useful computer. AMD didn't offer that. I like AMD, but they put out a processor, not a computer, thats a big difference.
As for the other 64 bit machines; Yes, yes, we know they've been out for ages. They weren't, however, ever remotely targeted for consumers, and therefore largely in a different class ($5k machines and up). (Its just like how there's Sun, SGI, and all of the other flavors, but when Apple started shipping OS X as the standard install, it became the "largest vendor of Unix in the world" overnight.)
Really. It isn't. Standard oil was a monopoly at 23% market share because they negotiated better contracts, pricing others out of the market.
Good thing Microsoft is only 90% of the market and is a noble, ethical, do-right business and never uses its size or influence to hurt competition or threaten other companies, or heaven forbid, force them out of business.
(By the way, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you if you're interested.)
WuphonsReach wrote: "I'd point them at a Mac as a good starter machine."
I would too, however, (and maybe only a semantic misstatement) but a Mac makes a pretty stellar machine, period. I consider myself a pretty serious power-user and wouldn't be without my PowerBook for love or money.
For an entry user, yeah, there's pretty much no choice, get a Mac; but if one is a hardcore data-hurler (one who thinks Windows is just what you need to use for real business) they would be well-served to find a couple weeks, suspend everything they know about windows, and get some quality time with OSX to give it a fair shake. (So kudos!)
Many of these types think of a Mac as a 'jr' machine, and nothing could be further than the truth, so I wanted to make the distinction clear.
Yes. Apple has a (very) highline support service 'AppleCare Pro'. You get ahold of clueful people every call, much better treatment. On the other hand, the extended warranty you get aka 'AppleCare' also sometimes gets you more equal than equal treatment.
Apple's support people are some of the best I've ever seen once you get past the 'warm body' level. Apple like everyone else is dealing with uncountable swarms of people who are unable to read dialog boxes.
Frankly though, if you spend the time looking through Apple's knowledge base, don't find a fix and call them (and explain the steps you've performed) you'll move 'up the ladder' much more quickly.
This is what I consider one of those forehead-slapping-in-frustration type "inventions". Its the type that people come up with when they're trying to invent something. I won't go through all the layers of reasons why a laptop alarm is stupid. (A bunch of the comments already do a good job.)
Want a GOOD idea? Why not make a nice tiny USB fob with an alarm and a motion sensor. Stick it in, launch the app that comes with it (maybe include a 8mb flash disk with an app version for Win/Mac/Linux) and type your password. It it requires that password typed on the machine to move the motion sensor without it screaming bloody murder.
For whatever reason, the world still tends to ignore anything but Intel and friends' processors. Intel and AMD working on negotiating a 64-bit desktop standard does not represent the beginning of 64-bit on the desktop. IBM and Apple make a pretty nice 64-bit desktop machine thats been out for months.
Try again, 64 bit is very useful for lots of things. Keep in mind that when you 'offload to a 3D card' as you so easily put it, you're using a largely specific-purpose processor. This means that you've got to be in the canon of algorithms that the hardware-maker thought you'd use. A general purpose 64bit is very useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, while there is parallel reasoning here, the property in question is not real property, but instead, the right to government protection, this is a material fact. That right can be moved and changed or terminated, as long as that decision (and precedent repercussions) are considered best for the greater good economy.
Please don't think that I would advocate anything but the strictest interpretation of immanent domain rules with regards to real property. However, extending the Del Webb analogy, this is more the equivalent of a po-dunk quickie-mart owner hindering the path of a hyper-fast international highway affecting millions of people per day because he's holding out for millions more than fair-market value. (For the non-legal, the quickie mart wouldn't win this.)
As such, the 'little guy' here has perverted the notion of trademark protection. The courts are much more practical and not nearly so much about 'stickling' as much as Hollywood would have us believe. These guys want to get rich, not provide a competing service. I would hope the GB courts will realize this.
My original point was not that we need to enable "stomping" of the little guy, but rather recognize that domain names have very different implications (jurisdiction-ignoring technology) than could the framers of trademark laws have ever predicted.
What do you do in this situation, when the big company is trying to do the right thing, and the little-guy is basking in their lottery-ticket domain; at the same time, monkey-wrenching a ubiquitous name on the internet...
I'm in law school. I'm a geek. Using lawyers to handle a jackass company (gmail trademark holder) is not backstabbing, its exactly what lawyers are for. The think about trademarks is that that its old law. It doesn't recognize the concept of a world-wide information network at all. If google loses this one, frankly its a result of lawyers not using the correct arguments to the court(s) involved. (What should be put forward is the vast balance of people greatly inconvenienced versus the "I got here first" doctrine that has traditionally prevailed in trademark cases.
"music studios can release albums or whole collections of musical groups on a single memory card that consumers could buy at stores [ . . . ] They can listen to the music tracks they paid for, or pay additional money to get a security code that unlocks additional songs."
"The toughest thing was to convince the studios that this was more secure than anything else out there"
Lame.
Well put, add another hash mark here! (For I too am a product of sex.)
A shame? Not really. The point of a true 64-bit desktop OS is what exactly? Applications have no problem using 64 bits of addressing goodness, and thats what matters. Sure, a 64-bit OS would be nifty, and (on a 64-bit processor) come with some performance boosts, and sure, it will come eventually, but it shouldn't be (and isn't) a monumental priority.
There are 64-bit processors and there are 64-bit solutions the latter of which includes those little bits like memory controllers and other details that make up a useful computer. AMD didn't offer that. I like AMD, but they put out a processor, not a computer, thats a big difference.
As for the other 64 bit machines; Yes, yes, we know they've been out for ages. They weren't, however, ever remotely targeted for consumers, and therefore largely in a different class ($5k machines and up). (Its just like how there's Sun, SGI, and all of the other flavors, but when Apple started shipping OS X as the standard install, it became the "largest vendor of Unix in the world" overnight.)
Go Intel! only 7.5 months behind Apple and IBM who collaborated to put out a nice 64 bit solution in August of '03.
Good thing Microsoft is only 90% of the market and is a noble, ethical, do-right business and never uses its size or influence to hurt competition or threaten other companies, or heaven forbid, force them out of business.
(By the way, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you if you're interested.)
I would too, however, (and maybe only a semantic misstatement) but a Mac makes a pretty stellar machine, period. I consider myself a pretty serious power-user and wouldn't be without my PowerBook for love or money.
For an entry user, yeah, there's pretty much no choice, get a Mac; but if one is a hardcore data-hurler (one who thinks Windows is just what you need to use for real business) they would be well-served to find a couple weeks, suspend everything they know about windows, and get some quality time with OSX to give it a fair shake. (So kudos!)
Many of these types think of a Mac as a 'jr' machine, and nothing could be further than the truth, so I wanted to make the distinction clear.
Apple's support people are some of the best I've ever seen once you get past the 'warm body' level. Apple like everyone else is dealing with uncountable swarms of people who are unable to read dialog boxes.
Frankly though, if you spend the time looking through Apple's knowledge base, don't find a fix and call them (and explain the steps you've performed) you'll move 'up the ladder' much more quickly.
This is what I consider one of those forehead-slapping-in-frustration type "inventions". Its the type that people come up with when they're trying to invent something. I won't go through all the layers of reasons why a laptop alarm is stupid. (A bunch of the comments already do a good job.)
Want a GOOD idea? Why not make a nice tiny USB fob with an alarm and a motion sensor. Stick it in, launch the app that comes with it (maybe include a 8mb flash disk with an app version for Win/Mac/Linux) and type your password. It it requires that password typed on the machine to move the motion sensor without it screaming bloody murder.
For whatever reason, the world still tends to ignore anything but Intel and friends' processors. Intel and AMD working on negotiating a 64-bit desktop standard does not represent the beginning of 64-bit on the desktop. IBM and Apple make a pretty nice 64-bit desktop machine thats been out for months.
Try again, 64 bit is very useful for lots of things. Keep in mind that when you 'offload to a 3D card' as you so easily put it, you're using a largely specific-purpose processor. This means that you've got to be in the canon of algorithms that the hardware-maker thought you'd use. A general purpose 64bit is very useful.