Trademarks are supposed to prevent consumers from being confused as to the source of a product. There is no chance someone who is looking to buy a bottle of whiskey is going to be duped into buying a book instead. This supposedly 'classy' move is nothing more than an attempt to sweet-talk the guy into changing something that no court would order him to change.
They could be confused into thinking JD is somehow involved or supporting the book or the content within it.
And don't be so sure about how the courts might rule on the issue. Trademark Fair Use != Copyright Fair Use.
In a company with 10,000 workers, I'd wager that one of them could do a reasonable or better job than the CEO. We're in a CEO bubble right now and their prices are being artificially inflated by market distortions limiting the size of the pool to a subset of those who are capable of the job.
You could see it as being 10,000 months of pay, for a single worker. That is 833 years. The $3M is just the CEO's bonus for one year.
Take one of those factory floor workers and make them CEO for a year. Can the company still have a record-setting year for revenues? Would make interesting television but I'm pretty sure I could predict the Vegas odds.
I have a Razr Maxx because I want the larger battery, but would prefer a size closer to an iPhone. If a device with a 4" screen were available with a ~3,300mAh battery, I would have bought that instead. Same goes for an unlocked bootloader.
Their CEO isn't very well plugged into reality. Somehow they went from being THE phone for business customers to going out of business in just a few short years. Bravo!
I'll bet he has a college degree.
He's only been CEO for six months. The problems didn't happen on his watch and he has an impossible task to fix them.
The brilliant thing about apps, from a manufacturer's perspective, is they lock the consumer into using a particular platform. Apple users are reluctant to abandon their app libraries, as are Android users. Folks who have already left RIM for the others over the past couple of years won't be be coming back without something really extraordinary coming from RIM. Which does not appear likely. At best they can hope to mitigate the exodus in order to buy enough time to win some market share back. Personally, I think it's hopeless.
Your old meter can only accumulate the power usage over its readout (by the power company) interval, usually 1 year or so. So the power company knows you used 1500 kWh last year, but not when that happened.
With a smart meter, the readout is available for 15 minute intervals. So the power company knows when you sleep, when you wake up, when you leave for work, when you come back, when you start cooking, when you start watching TV, etc etc etc.
If that isn't an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.
Traditional meters are typically examined monthly, not annually. An actual person comes onto your property to do so. I'd prefer they knew my energy usage in 15-minute increments than have a complete stranger on my property every month.
They really do exist, as I saw one once, last summer in real life. Our rep had one. Never saw it again. Now i know why.
I'm looking at one on my desk right now. It's a decent phone and convenient to snatch it out of the cradle and walk around mid-call, but I'd rather have something else for a tablet device. There are a number of flaws that make it a poor choice for a road warrior, like needing a power brick to charge. Putting the focus on software is the right move.
I don't know. I loved my Nokia E71 before Nokia suicided, and many of my business friends swear by their Crackberries. Most of the business people that jumped on the iPhone train are now sick of it and looking to switch.
My employer is a Fortune 500 technology firm that has a BYOD smartphone policy. Employees pay out of pocket for the device of their choice and are generally eligible to upgrade once a year (18 months for iPhone). Consider the following (in order of growth):
5,234 Android devices with an adoption rate of 9.5% annually 20,581 iPhone devices with an adoption rate of 3.9% annually 12,290 Blackberry devices with an adoption rate of -1.6% annually 2,185 other devices (Palm, Nokia, etc.) with an adoption rate of -3.8% annually
This isn't anecdotal. Those iPhone users? They might be sick of their iPhones but if they are they're switching to Android, not Blackberry.
Much as I love my S2, I miss the proper keyboard and battery life is as bad as the iPhone once you put on several VoIP apps to speak with friends abroad for free.
If Blackberry produced a razor thin phone that lasted for days on end and had keyboard plus slick integration, then I would love to have one for business which I put in my suit pocket and then a Note for personal use.
If Blackberry were to release such a device it would give existing Blackberry users pause when they consider their next smartphone. But would it convince anyone to switch away from a competing flagship smartphone like a iPhone 4S or a Motorola Razr Maxx (which actually does have a battery that lasts for days)? I don't think so.
I had an E71i before going to Android, but I didn't love it all that much. I didn't love the HTC Thunderbolt that replaced it, either. The Razr Maxx, on the other hand, I do love.
BB is a business phone, I think any attempt to make it more of a toy can only make matters worse.
Apple and Android are very tough competitors, no point aiming at ousting them.
Business people (if they exist, of course) need a phone which performs the usual basic office tasks, can be used a whole day without the battery dying and easily ties in to the corporate communications suite.
You're dead wrong. RIM must offer devices that can be used for work AND play, because that's what their competition offers and that's why customers aren't choosing Blackberry when they are offered a choice. If they don't change, they're sunk.
The fact that one company owns the license to this technology and makes no guarantees to _not_ increase licensing costs means that once h.264 support is the be-all end-all solution to web video, this one company has a monopoly on the sole video technology that drives the web. Most people running windows/mac have probably indirectly paid for licensing fees for h.264 multiple times. Nice racket they've got there and nobody is complaining, yet.
To use and distribute H.264, browser and OS vendors, hardware manufacturers, and publishers who charge for content must pay significant royalties—with no guarantee the fees won’t increase in the future. To companies like Google, the license fees may not be material, but to the next great video startup and those in emerging markets these fees stifle innovation. []
This is why Mozilla will just pass H.264 along to whatever decoder the OS has available and not bundle H.264 into Firefox at all. This position makes the most sense for them and the users. Every device I use already has a H.264 decoder with hardware support. I just need Firefox to get out of the way.
It proves what a bunch scummy dirtbags the publishers are. If they can make a profit selling the book for 10% of what they charge in the US, then they are robbing the citizens of the US...
More like we're subsidizing the cheap prices elsewhere in the world. Would it be better if the cost was $45 in both India and the US? Nope, that wouldn't work either.
"The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website."
Al is just pissed that a neophyte producer was successful without him.
Would it have killed the submitter to include about three to five words informing us who the frack "Louis CK" is? Yes, it's just a Google away, but it would have been nice to mention it in the submission. (Or the editors could have added it.)
He's a comedian who released his latest produced video directly to the consumer and DRM-free. He made it extremely easy and friendly to access and made a shitload of money in a very short amount of time.
from a TV set, a VCR, a car radio or any other usually stolen good. If you get your device stolen, it's completely and totally your own damn fault. Don't get me wrong, yes, it sucks, but how is it in any way shape or form AT&T's problem?
If your stolen TV or VCR is recovered, you get it back. AT&T has the ability to tie stolen phones to the people using them, who may or may not be the thief. Either way, the legitimate owner would get their property back.
WIth that said, sure, AT&T could probably come up with a solution and market it, but don't pretend criminals won't just unlock them and bring 'em to verizon, or sprint, etc... heck, iPhone are great iPod touches too.
Network compatibility issues aside, IMEI numbers can uniquely identify a phone regardless of carrier. Which is why they're launching a national database that includes all the major providers.
What I have a beef with is that no one is forcing anyone to buy something new. And then what's stopping someone from selling their iPhone for cash, then claiming it was stolen? No, this is going too far.
I imagine people would learn very quickly to get a receipt when they buy something. I ask for one when I buy something off Craigslist. It's not difficult, just write down what was sold, for how much, and when, then sign it.
You know those 802.11 wireless standards implemented in just about every wireless network device in the world? These guys wrote them. Literally. Rest assured they understand what they're doing.
You have a point about future support, but characterizing them as just a bunch of guys with badges who barely have a clue makes you seem ignorant.
They can always arrest you for breaking some other law. Not sure which? Oh, there will be one, somewhere. Everyone is a potential criminal, it's just a matter of hunting hard enough. Ever dropped some litter and been caught on CCTV? How many times? I'm sure those fines all add up to a fair bit.
Arrest doesn't invalidate your Fourth Amendment rights. If you have a passcode, they need a warrant. They cannot legally force you to unlock your phone yourself without one.
If you do not have a passcode, any data on your phone is considered to be in plain sight and a warrant is not required. Use a passcode.
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Trademarks are supposed to prevent consumers from being confused as to the source of a product. There is no chance someone who is looking to buy a bottle of whiskey is going to be duped into buying a book instead. This supposedly 'classy' move is nothing more than an attempt to sweet-talk the guy into changing something that no court would order him to change.
They could be confused into thinking JD is somehow involved or supporting the book or the content within it.
And don't be so sure about how the courts might rule on the issue. Trademark Fair Use != Copyright Fair Use.
In a company with 10,000 workers, I'd wager that one of them could do a reasonable or better job than the CEO. We're in a CEO bubble right now and their prices are being artificially inflated by market distortions limiting the size of the pool to a subset of those who are capable of the job.
Which one and how would you know that?
Take that CEO and let him work for his regular annual pay but without bonus and see what becomes of the company.
I'm convinced he would compared to the regular workers still be able to live a life of luxury.
Of course he would still live better than the factory floor worker, his annual salary is about $1M. I'm not seeing your point.
You could see it as being 10,000 months of pay, for a single worker. That is 833 years. The $3M is just the CEO's bonus for one year.
Take one of those factory floor workers and make them CEO for a year. Can the company still have a record-setting year for revenues? Would make interesting television but I'm pretty sure I could predict the Vegas odds.
...they wouldn't buy them.
I have a Razr Maxx because I want the larger battery, but would prefer a size closer to an iPhone. If a device with a 4" screen were available with a ~3,300mAh battery, I would have bought that instead. Same goes for an unlocked bootloader.
Their CEO isn't very well plugged into reality. Somehow they went from being THE phone for business customers to going out of business in just a few short years. Bravo!
I'll bet he has a college degree.
He's only been CEO for six months. The problems didn't happen on his watch and he has an impossible task to fix them.
The brilliant thing about apps, from a manufacturer's perspective, is they lock the consumer into using a particular platform. Apple users are reluctant to abandon their app libraries, as are Android users. Folks who have already left RIM for the others over the past couple of years won't be be coming back without something really extraordinary coming from RIM. Which does not appear likely. At best they can hope to mitigate the exodus in order to buy enough time to win some market share back. Personally, I think it's hopeless.
Your old meter can only accumulate the power usage over its readout (by the power company) interval, usually 1 year or so.
So the power company knows you used 1500 kWh last year, but not when that happened.
With a smart meter, the readout is available for 15 minute intervals. So the power company knows when you sleep, when you
wake up, when you leave for work, when you come back, when you start cooking, when you start watching TV, etc etc etc.
If that isn't an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.
Traditional meters are typically examined monthly, not annually. An actual person comes onto your property to do so. I'd prefer they knew my energy usage in 15-minute increments than have a complete stranger on my property every month.
They remind me of Internet Time. An interesting curiosity.
They really do exist, as I saw one once, last summer in real life. Our rep had one. Never saw it again. Now i know why.
I'm looking at one on my desk right now. It's a decent phone and convenient to snatch it out of the cradle and walk around mid-call, but I'd rather have something else for a tablet device. There are a number of flaws that make it a poor choice for a road warrior, like needing a power brick to charge. Putting the focus on software is the right move.
Many /. commentators, including the OP, don't know shit about the stock market.
I suppose the Videolan client (VLC Player) will run on Windows 8? Then maybe we don't need to buy Media Center.
For the three people still putting an actual DVD disc into an optical drive to watch a movie on their desktop, yes.
I don't know. I loved my Nokia E71 before Nokia suicided, and many of my business friends swear by their Crackberries. Most of the business people that jumped on the iPhone train are now sick of it and looking to switch.
My employer is a Fortune 500 technology firm that has a BYOD smartphone policy. Employees pay out of pocket for the device of their choice and are generally eligible to upgrade once a year (18 months for iPhone). Consider the following (in order of growth):
5,234 Android devices with an adoption rate of 9.5% annually
20,581 iPhone devices with an adoption rate of 3.9% annually
12,290 Blackberry devices with an adoption rate of -1.6% annually
2,185 other devices (Palm, Nokia, etc.) with an adoption rate of -3.8% annually
This isn't anecdotal. Those iPhone users? They might be sick of their iPhones but if they are they're switching to Android, not Blackberry.
Much as I love my S2, I miss the proper keyboard and battery life is as bad as the iPhone once you put on several VoIP apps to speak with friends abroad for free.
If Blackberry produced a razor thin phone that lasted for days on end and had keyboard plus slick integration, then I would love to have one for business which I put in my suit pocket and then a Note for personal use.
If Blackberry were to release such a device it would give existing Blackberry users pause when they consider their next smartphone. But would it convince anyone to switch away from a competing flagship smartphone like a iPhone 4S or a Motorola Razr Maxx (which actually does have a battery that lasts for days)? I don't think so.
I had an E71i before going to Android, but I didn't love it all that much. I didn't love the HTC Thunderbolt that replaced it, either. The Razr Maxx, on the other hand, I do love.
BB is a business phone, I think any attempt to make it more of a toy can only make matters worse.
Apple and Android are very tough competitors, no point aiming at ousting them.
Business people (if they exist, of course) need a phone which performs the usual basic office tasks, can be used a whole day without the battery dying and easily ties in to the corporate communications suite.
You're dead wrong. RIM must offer devices that can be used for work AND play, because that's what their competition offers and that's why customers aren't choosing Blackberry when they are offered a choice. If they don't change, they're sunk.
The fact that one company owns the license to this technology and makes no guarantees to _not_ increase licensing costs means that once h.264 support is the be-all end-all solution to web video, this one company has a monopoly on the sole video technology that drives the web. Most people running windows/mac have probably indirectly paid for licensing fees for h.264 multiple times. Nice racket they've got there and nobody is complaining, yet.
Here's a pretty good article:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/a-closer-look-at-the-costs-and-fine-print-of-h264-licenses/2884
from the article:
To use and distribute H.264, browser and OS vendors, hardware manufacturers, and publishers who charge for content must pay significant royalties—with no guarantee the fees won’t increase in the future. To companies like Google, the license fees may not be material, but to the next great video startup and those in emerging markets these fees stifle innovation. []
This is why Mozilla will just pass H.264 along to whatever decoder the OS has available and not bundle H.264 into Firefox at all. This position makes the most sense for them and the users. Every device I use already has a H.264 decoder with hardware support. I just need Firefox to get out of the way.
Why should American students get fucked over to subsidize the same assholes that are taking a lot of American jobs?
Replace "India" with whatever your favorite impoverished nation of the week is. There, feel better now?
It proves what a bunch scummy dirtbags the publishers are. If they can make a profit selling the book for 10% of what they charge in the US, then they are robbing the citizens of the US...
More like we're subsidizing the cheap prices elsewhere in the world. Would it be better if the cost was $45 in both India and the US? Nope, that wouldn't work either.
"The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website."
Al is just pissed that a neophyte producer was successful without him.
Would it have killed the submitter to include about three to five words informing us who the frack "Louis CK" is? Yes, it's just a Google away, but it would have been nice to mention it in the submission. (Or the editors could have added it.)
He's a comedian who released his latest produced video directly to the consumer and DRM-free. He made it extremely easy and friendly to access and made a shitload of money in a very short amount of time.
https://buy.louisck.net/
Overpriced, fragile, insecure BS!
That describes my HTC Android phone pretty well, too.
from a TV set, a VCR, a car radio or any other usually stolen good. If you get your device stolen, it's completely and totally your own damn fault. Don't get me wrong, yes, it sucks, but how is it in any way shape or form AT&T's problem?
If your stolen TV or VCR is recovered, you get it back. AT&T has the ability to tie stolen phones to the people using them, who may or may not be the thief. Either way, the legitimate owner would get their property back.
WIth that said, sure, AT&T could probably come up with a solution and market it, but don't pretend criminals won't just unlock them and bring 'em to verizon, or sprint, etc... heck, iPhone are great iPod touches too.
Network compatibility issues aside, IMEI numbers can uniquely identify a phone regardless of carrier. Which is why they're launching a national database that includes all the major providers.
What I have a beef with is that no one is forcing anyone to buy something new. And then what's stopping someone from selling their iPhone for cash, then claiming it was stolen? No, this is going too far.
I imagine people would learn very quickly to get a receipt when they buy something. I ask for one when I buy something off Craigslist. It's not difficult, just write down what was sold, for how much, and when, then sign it.
To see how many readers dislike? Add one more for me, please.
How is it different from Slashdot, Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc?
On Slashdot, I own the comments I write. It says so right on the bottom of every page.
You know those 802.11 wireless standards implemented in just about every wireless network device in the world? These guys wrote them. Literally. Rest assured they understand what they're doing.
You have a point about future support, but characterizing them as just a bunch of guys with badges who barely have a clue makes you seem ignorant.
They can always arrest you for breaking some other law.
Not sure which? Oh, there will be one, somewhere. Everyone is a potential criminal, it's just a matter of hunting hard enough. Ever dropped some litter and been caught on CCTV? How many times? I'm sure those fines all add up to a fair bit.
Arrest doesn't invalidate your Fourth Amendment rights. If you have a passcode, they need a warrant. They cannot legally force you to unlock your phone yourself without one.
If you do not have a passcode, any data on your phone is considered to be in plain sight and a warrant is not required. Use a passcode.