Right, and I actually wonder if EchoStar haven't done something very stupid like ripping off a TiVo design wholesale. That TiVo have been forced to sue (rather than come to a licencing agreement) indicates that EchoStar think they can avoid the infringment claim so that's not very likely I guess. Then again ReplayTV apparently have a cross licensing agreement so the TiVo patents must have appeared somewhat important to them.
Sure the TIVO patent is deigned to be quite specific - just to obfucate that the only thing interesting that their talking about is reading a file with at the same time, the file is being writen too.
It doesn't work like that, you can't infringe part of a claim (you can infringe only one claim in a patent though). Also patents are judged on specifics, you can't use a patent full of specifics to sue someone who is doing something similar but that doesn't include the specifics you mentioned. The TiVo patent is saying "our invention is made of these several pieces, connected this way, doing this". If you don't have all the pieces, connected the same way, doing the same things then you're not infringing. That's why a lot of patents try to use very general language, and usually build up from a very simple first claim 1. That doesn't seem to be the case here though.
It like a patent that reads:
"A process of speaking into a phone. While wearing a clown costume, and eating some cheese on toast. "
and then running around claiming that you patented "calling on the phone."
It's really not. TiVo haven't claimed anything other than that EchoStar are violating their patents. They haven't threatened anybody else (at least publicly). If it goes to court then they'll say something along the lines of "this EchoStar device infringes on our patent #X, claim #Y, because this bit is a foo as described here, and it connects to this bar, described here, and that is what claim #Y describes".
There are certainly a lot of problems with frivolous and overly broad patents in the US, but on the face of it, this doesn't seem to be one of them. Either way, getting it into court is a good thing as that is the way that bad patents are invalidated.
I used an MPEG capture card and software to record my home-made videos onto my computer. Just out of curiosity, I opend the MPEG file with a player at the same time the capture card was writing to the file.
It woked just fine (except that the CPU was VERY active)- I was timeshifting just like TIVO does.
You may have been timeshifting, but you did not do it "just like TIVO does".
Here is the text of claim 1 from the "time warp" patent:
1. A process for the simultaneous storage and play back of multimedia data, comprising the steps of:
accepting television (TV) broadcast signals, wherein said TV signals are based on a multitude of standards, including, but not limited to, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) broadcast, PAL broadcast, satellite transmission, DSS, DBS, or ATSC;
tuning said TV signals to a specific program;
providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation;
providing a Media Switch, wherein said Media Switch parses said MPEG stream, said MPEG stream is separated into its video and audio components;
storing said video and audio components on a storage device;
providing at least one Output Section, wherein said Output Section extracts said video and audio components from said storage device;
wherein said Output Section assembles said video and audio components into an MPEG stream;
wherein said Output Section sends said MPEG stream to a decoder;
wherein said decoder converts said MPEG stream into TV output signals;
wherein said decoder delivers said TV output signals to a TV receiver; and
accepting control commands from a user, wherein said control commands are sent through the system and affect the flow of said MPEG stream.
Did you accept a broadcast TV signal and tune it to a specific program? Did you record that program as an MPEG stream and then separate the audio and video? Did you send the final recombined signal to a TV receiver?
I realise it is Slashdot custom to bash patents and patent litigation at every opportunity but my reading of this patent (and IANAPL, of course) gives me the impression that the patent is very specific.
The parent poster has been making a habit of rephrasing other people's posts. The parent post is originally from here. Another example is in the Yahoo/Google story, see the original and the repost.
Searching Google for "physical dimensions" "credit card" gave me this link on the third page. This came up as the first result for "physical characteristics" "credit card". Of course if I had of thought there might be an ISO or ANSI standard for it, adding either of those terms gives a good result in first place. I didn't find Vivisimo's categories immediately helpful for this case (eg none of the FAQ->Specification results looked relevant), but a bit of browsing found the required info fairly quickly. Vivisimo was a little quicker for me than Google, but it only took me 5-10 minutes with Google. I also use Google heavily for dictionary lookups so I'm not ready to switch just yet.
You're naive. That works if there's one person with 66% and the rest of the world with 33%, but in reality, it's more like 33% for the world, 10% for director A, 15% for director B, 20% for director C, etc. All the 33% has to do to get their way is present an idea that C likes too and they are the majority.
You idiot. The 33% owned by the rest of the world is even more fragmented than the 66% owned by the current shareholders.
What I said is that the most serious detractors of these games do NOT charge this.
The post-Columbine rash of people claiming that "video games made them do it" support my assertion that they do make those claims (I don't know if you class these people as "serious detractors" or not, but they were certainly highly visible). Can you produce some evidence that they do not?
Sometimes, epsecially on topics that you are unfamiliar with, it can be difficult to figure out what additional words are going to help to refine your search.
You've got a whole page of results context to pick some common words from (either pick words from bad results to exclude or from good results to include). The one thing Google doesn't do so well in (IMHO) is searching for information on a product - you normally end up with a ton of links to places selling the product, and these are not always easy to exclude.
6 out of 10 links on the first page of google are still about "hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton".
But the first one is the offical Paris Hilton Hotel page. What more do you want? In fact even searching for just "paris hilton" gives you that link on the first page (in 6th place). If the list is not clean enough for you just pick some common terms from the bad results and refine the search to exclude them.
He seriously weakens his point by asserting that any books have caused any deaths. The Bible and Mein Kampf have killed no one. People use books to kill, or encourage others to kill. The book itself causes nothing.
Which is exactly the charge levelled at GTA and other video games. No one has yet suggested that anyone has died on the razor sharp edge of a GTA3 CD.
Almost all CD/DVD drives I've seen detect when someone is pushing on it and engage the motor in the same way as if you had pushed the button. Of course they're not designed to be pushed too hard or all the way in, but doing so gently won't damage most players.
No, real manufacturing output (after adjusting for inflation) has doubled in the last twenty years. Your data only covers 14 years. See the link I provided for full references.
The US population has increased from 220M in 1977 to 272M now (ref). Therefore per capita manufacturing has not doubled, it's increased by 60%.
I find it hard to believe the "I just can't find what I like" excuse.
The problem is that I don't buy stuff I'm not sure about, and with non-mainstream stuff it's more difficult to legally "try before I buy". With mainstream stuff there are plenty of radio stations and this giving away of the music for free fuels CD sales. Personally I went through a period of a couple of years when I didn't listen to the radio at all, and in the time I didn't buy any new music. With non-mainstream stuff I have to either find a radio station that plays that particular music (there is none where I live), go to concerts (which is not free), borrow from friends (which means finding friends with similar tastes) or libraries (not free, generally bad selection), or download illegally.
Do your research so you don't get tricked into buying a one-good-track cd, and then pull out the phonebook. Someone in your area probably sells it. Failing that, try the INTERNET! Amazon is a great resource.
Good advice, but then I'm relying on other peoples opinions. I'd rather just listen myself and I see no good reason not to.
A meta-toolkit is a bad solution - it will result in a lowest common denominator approach where you can only use the functionality common to all the target toolkits. Java's AWT is a classic example of a meta-toolkit.
That thesis doesn't support your position. It found that while using a phone response times and mirror checking frequency were both significantly reduced.
It seems from the link you provided that people tested using cell phones were able to keep their cars inside the lane just fine.
Read the rest of that thesis. Using a phone increased the drivers' response time to the vehicle in front's speed changes by 20% and halved the frequency of mirror checking. Clearly phone conversations are intrusive and it seems reasonable to conclude that the reduced lane position variation is in fact due to the reduced steering that the drivers were doing while on the phone (i.e. a further indication of reduced attention on driving).
That still doesn't explain why the iPod doesn't have a removable battery (like many cameras do) in the first place. You think $50 labour is cheap. I think it's $50 more than I'd have to pay if Apple had of made the right decision in the first place.
Diamond Age has a very interesting vision of the future. But the story itself is dificult to get to terms with because so much of it is just "living in this world". Things are happening but it's not obvious what the point is because none of the main characters really have any sort of quest that they are on. It reminded me of Niven's Destiny Road in that regard. Not so much a story of somebody trying to achieve an end, as a story about part of someone's life.
Most people don't understand box office numbers so I'm going to do a bit of analysis here, just to provide some basis for this statement. I'm taking my numbers from boxofficemojo.com.
Reloaded: Production budget: $150M
Marketing (estimate): $50M
International total: $456.4M
Distributors/studios gross on average 55%* of the box office takings, so WB made approx. $250M. It also has DVD and video rentals and sales of around $30M. A definite financial success.
Revolutions: Production budget: $150M
Marketing (estimate): $35M
International total: $275M
WB made only $150M. With merchandising and video/DVD this would also be a financial success, but not by much.
* It might have been higher for Reloaded with the high degree of early sales and the expectation of high sales.
Well, here's a fact that no one seems to know. That McDonald's drive through is at the top of a very steep hill(greater than 45 degrees).
I call bullshit. The steepest road in the world has a gradient of 37.5% (cite)/. A road with a gradient over 100% would be impossible for most vehicles to navigate.
Everyone with any common sense would know that you don't open hot coffee between your knees when your car is headed down a steep hill.
My only beef with LOR effects was the places where it was so plainly obvious you were looking a miniature set. Like Isengard being washed away. Some of the scenes completely failed, slow motion water or not, to look remotely anything other than little models. I'm surprised by this as in other places the miniature effects were outstanding.
Unfortunately that scene (fall of Isengard) was one of the last filmed. It was started only weeks before scoring started. They literally ran out of time to do a better job.
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Right, and I actually wonder if EchoStar haven't done something very stupid like ripping off a TiVo design wholesale. That TiVo have been forced to sue (rather than come to a licencing agreement) indicates that EchoStar think they can avoid the infringment claim so that's not very likely I guess. Then again ReplayTV apparently have a cross licensing agreement so the TiVo patents must have appeared somewhat important to them.
There are certainly a lot of problems with frivolous and overly broad patents in the US, but on the face of it, this doesn't seem to be one of them. Either way, getting it into court is a good thing as that is the way that bad patents are invalidated.
Here is the text of claim 1 from the "time warp" patent: Did you accept a broadcast TV signal and tune it to a specific program? Did you record that program as an MPEG stream and then separate the audio and video? Did you send the final recombined signal to a TV receiver?
I realise it is Slashdot custom to bash patents and patent litigation at every opportunity but my reading of this patent (and IANAPL, of course) gives me the impression that the patent is very specific.
The parent poster has been making a habit of rephrasing other people's posts. The parent post is originally from here. Another example is in the Yahoo/Google story, see the original and the repost.
Searching Google for "physical dimensions" "credit card" gave me this link on the third page. This came up as the first result for "physical characteristics" "credit card". Of course if I had of thought there might be an ISO or ANSI standard for it, adding either of those terms gives a good result in first place. I didn't find Vivisimo's categories immediately helpful for this case (eg none of the FAQ->Specification results looked relevant), but a bit of browsing found the required info fairly quickly. Vivisimo was a little quicker for me than Google, but it only took me 5-10 minutes with Google. I also use Google heavily for dictionary lookups so I'm not ready to switch just yet.
Hopefully once Froogle goes non-beta they'll be removing commercial links from the main dataset.
Almost all CD/DVD drives I've seen detect when someone is pushing on it and engage the motor in the same way as if you had pushed the button. Of course they're not designed to be pushed too hard or all the way in, but doing so gently won't damage most players.
A meta-toolkit is a bad solution - it will result in a lowest common denominator approach where you can only use the functionality common to all the target toolkits. Java's AWT is a classic example of a meta-toolkit.
That thesis doesn't support your position. It found that while using a phone response times and mirror checking frequency were both significantly reduced.
That still doesn't explain why the iPod doesn't have a removable battery (like many cameras do) in the first place. You think $50 labour is cheap. I think it's $50 more than I'd have to pay if Apple had of made the right decision in the first place.
Reloaded:
Production budget: $150M
Marketing (estimate): $50M
International total: $456.4M
Distributors/studios gross on average 55%* of the box office takings, so WB made approx. $250M. It also has DVD and video rentals and sales of around $30M. A definite financial success.
Revolutions:
Production budget: $150M
Marketing (estimate): $35M
International total: $275M
WB made only $150M. With merchandising and video/DVD this would also be a financial success, but not by much.
* It might have been higher for Reloaded with the high degree of early sales and the expectation of high sales.
General link on movie distribution financials.
Typical. Should've used the preview button ...
A one line +5, and you included two of the most common grammer/spelling errors: effects instead of affects, and your instead of you're. Well done!