I don't see another lossless image format with alpha channel support and 8/24bit colour depth around, do you?
BMP, TIF, TGA, EXR, WEBP, various 'raw' formats.
Some of these go well beyond what you specced, others are generally considered obsolete but find defacto use.
Perhaps you meant to say "widely supported, especially in browsers" - but that's more of an unwillingness of browser developers to add support (given most graphic viewer support the above formats and several dozen more, there's no reason they couldn't) or offload image loading to the host system (where applicable), rather than a lack of format existence.
I'm curious - why not go with WebP instead? I haven't looked too closely at the format, licensing, burden on CPU/memory, etc.
I do however know from my own tests that it generally performs better than PNG and already has animation support (though the Chromium team has rejected supporting it last month due to performance issues - but they also don't support APNG out of the box, you have to get a plugin).
Or skip the 'animated image' stage altogether and go straight to video (though there's more concerns there, especially in terms of lack of transparency support).
Going with APNG (or MNG, or trying to hack higher bitdepths onto animated GIFs as some propose, especially for transparency) seems like a dubious sideways step, if not a step backwards.
( Asking for money to be thrown at it is another issue - but more power to them. )
I'll actually start with the Paperwhite, considering I own one. I rarely use the backlight feature and when I do, rarely at full. In daylight and full sunlight, it's completely unneeded and reading is awesome. Indoors as long as you have decent lighting, still not needed - same as a book. If it's dimmer, adding a little backlight can be nice just to get greater contrast, but it does make my eyes tired more quickly. However, whether that's the backlight, the general lack of ambient light, or the fact that most of those situations tend to be at the end of the day when I'm likely to be tired anyway, I can't really determine.
As for e-readers vs tablets.. e-readers were initially much cheaper and their very marketing prowess were the ease-on-eyes and the longevity of the battery (5 weeks into vacation, still haven't had to recharge my paperwhite), whereas the tablets were fairly bulky, pricey, with low battery life and not all that much you could do with them. Fast forward to now, and tablets get reasonable battery life, are almost all thin and light enough to carry around casually, and cheap enough that I see people getting one for each of their kids to use in the car/etc. And adults, just as kids, don't use these tablets to read. Not because they're necessarily awful to read on, but because they find greater entertainment in playing games (candy crush seems popular around here, along with my singing monsters for those with ipads), watching movies/TV shows, or browsing (mostly youtube).
Personally I'd still love to see a best-of-both-worlds type display (I suppose velcro'ing an e-reader to the back of a tablet will have to do for now), but I suspect that most people would still be using the result mostly for interactive and video content. But at least if they wanted to read a book there's the eye-friendly display.
I'm curious.. why not record the shows that come on at a time that is inconvenient for you?
I realize that the line between recording the show and downloading it for purposes of watching later is rather blurry, but since you didn't mention it while it's the first thing that comes to my mind (and I'm from an area where you need a separate recorder.. quite unlike the directv box I've got access to right here which has it built-in, along with search options, etc.), I can't help but ask.
I think the definition tends to be unclear when people want it to be unclear. Not saying that it isn't unclear, but from the Bitcoin reddits, bitcointalk, etc. it becomes pretty clear that a lot of Bitcoin users want Bitcoin to be a currency one way (use it to pay everywhere, getting everybody and their dog to accept it, create physical tokens embodying a particular Bitcoin value, etc.), but abhor the idea of it being a currency in other ways (regulation, taxation, etc.)
The computing power in the bitcoin pool today is 8 times the computing power of the top 500 fastest super computers in the world combined.
Keep in mind that a lot of that computing power in the pool currently comes from ASICs, some FPGAs, a bunch of GPUs, and oodles of CPUs from users who forgot to disable CPU mining/giving up entirely.
Basically, a few ASICs will easily outclass a supercomputer for the specific task of Bitcoin mining.
So while all the supercomputers combined would bring nothing beefy to the table, governments could, in theory if nothing else, buy all the ASIC chips (or make their own), drop 'm onto boards, and outclass the pool.. and it wouldn't be an immense effort (though certainly out of my reach).
Parent poster's snarky remark aside, the post deserves being modded up. If your experience with QR codes is anything like GP's, you may be using an app that simply fails at scanning.
While I haven't seen a QR code worth scanning in a while, last time I did (as part of trying to scan a bar code resulting from a bar code font, printed on custom forms before standardized ones with proper bar codes were made available - had to try 5 different apps on an iPad 2 before one of them finally decided to read it where others decided it wasn't a valid barcode and thus wouldn't even bother), my phone scanned the code while I brought it up to put the code into view. It was somewhat blurry, it was at an angle, it was keystoned, and the app still correctly scanned it and pointed me to the associated URL before I could even maneuver the phone around to get a nice straight-on shot.. and this is on a budget Android 2.1-era phone. Of course if your phone only has a QVGA camera that needs full sunlight just to take murky pictures, you're doomed. But then you'd probably not be in the target market for that QR code either.
QR codes and even cameras are rarely the problem - the apps to scan them with vary greatly.
That said, I still haven't seen any particularly good use for them outside of, say, relaying a Bitcoin address.
The American Civil Liberties Union has released documents confirming that police license plate readers capture vast amounts of data on innocent people, and in many instances this intelligence is kept forever.
According to documents obtained through a number of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by ACLU offices across the United States, law enforcement agencies are tracking the whereabouts of innocent persons en masse by utilizing a still up-and-coming technology.
Presuming it can be plugged in - there's always the IOIO, though that does add another few $$ to the price. But since most people tend to use their RPi as little more than a media streamer or bitcoin mining host for FPGA's / ASICs, etc. then the Android devices are a better option - and GPIO can be added on later if they wanted to (and can then be re-used if they switch/upgrade their Android device, etc.).
Oh come on. The standard was that people would choose whether or not to enable 'do not track', without being specific about how that should be chosen.
So Microsoft let users choose during installation, express settings, or custom settings, with the effects of the express settings (including the DNT setting) elaborated above: http://i.imgur.com/Wo8nG.png
But then people cried foul and quickly suggested that they meant that people would have to specifically choose for that very specific option a 'yes or no' choice, rather than part of a package of options.
But let's face it, if they still put that in the installation screen, on a separate page, asking users if they would like to be tracked by the advertising industry yes/no, they would still catch a lot of flak and they would quickly suggest that what they really meant was that DNT should be off by default, and the option to turn DNT on should never be advertised (hehe) and instead hidden deeply away in a configuration dialog and named something like "Disable tailor-made rich content that enhances your browsing experience." - and if enough people did manage to find their way there (due to people telling each other about it on social media), the advertising industry would quickly ignore it anyway since there's no legal backing behind it that would result in fines for such disregarding the users' choice.
If anything, Microsoft should be applauded for this. Even if the intended effect may not have been to essentially kill DNT by exposing what a horribly useless feature it is, I don't think anybody sane is losing sleep over the fact that it did.
Too bad the W3C hasn't fully caught on yet and is still at least considering a DNT thing. But good on them for rejecting the current proposal from the advertising industry, I guess.
[How would you know what location word1 word word 3 is?] Through the website obviously. That is their service.
I suspect other aspects of that service would be charging for access (especially mobile apps) and, assuming it proves popular, selling word combinations to companies that would prefer their own vanity word combinations and are more than willing to pay for it.
I do think the idea is neat, but between either specifying the location where it can easily be found in the first place, and just sending the location data in a text / IM / whatever (somebody else suggested GPS coordinates, a reply there was that those are difficult to remember/convey.. but most location websites/apps simply allow you to copy a link / share the location without having to worry about the GPS coordinates at all), I'm not sure it's a service that's filling an actual need.
*If we are being particular, they are citing a torrent page, not VLC itself. Thus your comment is even more incorrect as even if your misunderstanding was accurate they'd be claiming copyright of a page on torrentportal, not VLC.
Which, of course, makes a world of difference from what is implied by the story's title and summary.
My guess is that they found a forum post linking to a bunch of episodes which also included a link to VLC (as a useful "use this to play them" by the post's author), and that got copy/pasted to the people who distill things into a DMCA complaint, while nowhere along the line it was actually checked whether each link was valid under the complaint.
Dumb mistake and I agree with others that they should be punished for it, but this is hardly a case of HBO nefariously trying to get rid of VLC.
I pitched a western game and the response was "westerns don't sell." And then Red Dead Redemption came out. Stuff doesn't sell until someone makes one that sells, and no amount of data can reveal what new thing is going to sell. The metrics and data guys, and the publishing guys will never come up with the next big thing.
And, statistically speaking, neither will game developers. For every big hit of a game there's dozens more that perform okay enough to recoup costs but any follow-up titles are completely up in the air, and hundreds more that go nowhere.
Just because in one instance a publisher said 'western games don't sell' and was then proven wrong, doesn't mean that everybody thinking they can disprove a publisher when they say their Game X is going to be the next Red Dead Redemption is going to be right. We can pretty much know this for a fact by looking at all the 'indie' games on mobile platforms and being launched through KickStarter (not counting the ones who are just using it as marketing hoping to attract the actual big money..from publishers). Although at least the latter can give an indication as to what people may be craving, it doesn't mean the end-result is going to deliver.
Yeah but that whole independence thing tends to stop at the state level.
I.e. rephrase as follows... The question for you in Austin or wherever is this: Do you want millions of Houstonians telling you how to live, through state legislation, or do you want your county's citizens to decide how you do things there in Travis, and we can do it our way in Harris?...and there'll be many in Houston, Dallas, etc. who would absolutely love it if Austin and others were controlled top-down by a more politically aligned state.
I think that's what the "who makes a clean getaway" was added for;)
Although if they didn't even try for that, I suspect "guy shoots suspect in other case just because" would still be a much cheaper trial than what the justice department is facing right now.
I don't think he was suggesting that the system goes through all the legal steps which are indeed extremely costly, as the document you linked to details.
But if the guy got shot dead in the mean time by a random citizen who makes a clean getaway, how would the cost of that + the fallout from it compare to the costs of the trials+either death penalty or life imprisonment?
Not advocating somebody do this - just saying that this is the more likely match to what GP was saying.
Right, because false plates are totally unheard of, let alone having plates on a buddy's trailer that's behind your car, obstructing any view of your car's plates.
Plates alone cannot be used to identify a vehicle and should be (not saying they are, but they should be) checked against the characteristics of the car. ( More often than not, in the case of false plates, this means the person getting the ticket has to object to the ticket, demand the photo (if not included), and then point out that it's not even the right car. )
Turns out that some of those proponents really mean that 'public' means anybody who they deem to be part of that 'public'. Which may exclude creeps, stalkers, and government (entities).
Between people's desire for individual freedom, lack of a proper transit network, and the popular opinion that buses are not something you want to be found on for cited security and hygiene reasons, at least people in DC don't seem to need much of another reason.
Which is a shame, really, and here's why. I'll be visiting DC (IAD, technically in VA) and have to go to, say, Charlotte Hall in MD.
Cab: $150 SuperShuttle: $160 (no longer does shared rides that far south) SupremeAirportShuttle (shared ride): $135 (fluctuates - their site is a mess) Rental car: $6.35 for gas (assuming 2012 Ford Fiesta), oodles more for rental+insurance (remains cheaper than the above for the first 2-3 days or so). Bus (5A to Rosslyn and 909 down south): $10.35
If buses were held in higher esteem (and Dillon's seems a perfectly good commercial operator, but not many people seem to actually review bus service over there), made more stops (there's just a few along that entire route, though local transport including taxis may be viable from there), and drove a little faster, I'd say buses would be a great option there.. electric or otherwise.
( I was disappointed to find that the railroad tracks there are only used for goods, and not for people movers. Unless I missed something. )
True - though this depends on what tech you licensed for the encoding, most do have in their EULA that the license doesn't cover the Packaged Medium license (I think that's what you're referring to, at least).
It would indeed be interesting to see if PA are setting up a similar structure and declaring each podcast item * subscriber as a single 'packaged medium' or any other metric.
Note that for most video this is a somewhat academic issue. If you wanted to share a video now, YouTube - even if they pay you - has licensing in place so that you don't have to worry about it.. as do other video platforms. Obviously if you want to sell physical discs - maybe as a perk in a KickStarter campaign - that could be more problematic. Though even there, MPEG-LA really doesn't care much.. it'll cost them more than they stand to gain from such small scale issues.
Well if we're going to argue about what the question was, we might as well quote it:
Can you explain, in terms I could tell the average person, how your patent is novel enough that anyone who wants to distribute audio over the internet should license it from you? I'd appreciate it if you could address how the distributions of podcasts today widely differs from downloading audio files in 1995 and how your patent help change this.
I'll fully admit that my "Why should I license your patent" interpretation is my interpretation and may be flawed. If it is, I'm not seeing in what way that would be.
I'm also not demanding that he answer the question. He has already stated that he would be in trouble with his lawyer because his words would get used against him in court. That's fine, I get that. But his lawyer should, in fact, be able to explain in the same way they would in court. Unless of course they're doing their best to just not say anything except in court, when so asked (or as a pre-emptive defense). That, too, would be fine - but doesn't help you, me, or anybody else in terms of the follow-up I also mentioned.
I'm more than happy to await the outcome of the court case if that's what is needed to get a less circumspect answer. However, if somebody were to start offering audio files off their website and PA deemed it to be infringing, yet if asked "how so?" the answer would be "it just is", then it's no surprise people either cry foul, or just pay up because they don't want to deal with any legal hassles (be that hiring a patent lawyer to figure out if they're really infringing, or ending up getting sued for refusal to license) in the mean time. And maybe they're okay with that. I don't see why we would be, however.
I, for one, am looking forward to the licensing options being laid out in the coming weeks.
Slashdot Mirror
BMP, TIF, TGA, EXR, WEBP, various 'raw' formats.
Some of these go well beyond what you specced, others are generally considered obsolete but find defacto use.
Perhaps you meant to say "widely supported, especially in browsers" - but that's more of an unwillingness of browser developers to add support (given most graphic viewer support the above formats and several dozen more, there's no reason they couldn't) or offload image loading to the host system (where applicable), rather than a lack of format existence.
I'm curious - why not go with WebP instead? I haven't looked too closely at the format, licensing, burden on CPU/memory, etc.
I do however know from my own tests that it generally performs better than PNG and already has animation support (though the Chromium team has rejected supporting it last month due to performance issues - but they also don't support APNG out of the box, you have to get a plugin).
Or skip the 'animated image' stage altogether and go straight to video (though there's more concerns there, especially in terms of lack of transparency support).
Going with APNG (or MNG, or trying to hack higher bitdepths onto animated GIFs as some propose, especially for transparency) seems like a dubious sideways step, if not a step backwards.
( Asking for money to be thrown at it is another issue - but more power to them. )
I'll actually start with the Paperwhite, considering I own one. I rarely use the backlight feature and when I do, rarely at full. In daylight and full sunlight, it's completely unneeded and reading is awesome. Indoors as long as you have decent lighting, still not needed - same as a book. If it's dimmer, adding a little backlight can be nice just to get greater contrast, but it does make my eyes tired more quickly. However, whether that's the backlight, the general lack of ambient light, or the fact that most of those situations tend to be at the end of the day when I'm likely to be tired anyway, I can't really determine.
As for e-readers vs tablets.. e-readers were initially much cheaper and their very marketing prowess were the ease-on-eyes and the longevity of the battery (5 weeks into vacation, still haven't had to recharge my paperwhite), whereas the tablets were fairly bulky, pricey, with low battery life and not all that much you could do with them.
Fast forward to now, and tablets get reasonable battery life, are almost all thin and light enough to carry around casually, and cheap enough that I see people getting one for each of their kids to use in the car/etc. And adults, just as kids, don't use these tablets to read. Not because they're necessarily awful to read on, but because they find greater entertainment in playing games (candy crush seems popular around here, along with my singing monsters for those with ipads), watching movies/TV shows, or browsing (mostly youtube).
Personally I'd still love to see a best-of-both-worlds type display (I suppose velcro'ing an e-reader to the back of a tablet will have to do for now), but I suspect that most people would still be using the result mostly for interactive and video content. But at least if they wanted to read a book there's the eye-friendly display.
I'm curious.. why not record the shows that come on at a time that is inconvenient for you?
I realize that the line between recording the show and downloading it for purposes of watching later is rather blurry, but since you didn't mention it while it's the first thing that comes to my mind (and I'm from an area where you need a separate recorder.. quite unlike the directv box I've got access to right here which has it built-in, along with search options, etc.), I can't help but ask.
I think the definition tends to be unclear when people want it to be unclear. Not saying that it isn't unclear, but from the Bitcoin reddits, bitcointalk, etc. it becomes pretty clear that a lot of Bitcoin users want Bitcoin to be a currency one way (use it to pay everywhere, getting everybody and their dog to accept it, create physical tokens embodying a particular Bitcoin value, etc.), but abhor the idea of it being a currency in other ways (regulation, taxation, etc.)
Can't really have it both ways.
Keep in mind that a lot of that computing power in the pool currently comes from ASICs, some FPGAs, a bunch of GPUs, and oodles of CPUs from users who forgot to disable CPU mining/giving up entirely.
Basically, a few ASICs will easily outclass a supercomputer for the specific task of Bitcoin mining.
So while all the supercomputers combined would bring nothing beefy to the table, governments could, in theory if nothing else, buy all the ASIC chips (or make their own), drop 'm onto boards, and outclass the pool.. and it wouldn't be an immense effort (though certainly out of my reach).
Parent poster's snarky remark aside, the post deserves being modded up. If your experience with QR codes is anything like GP's, you may be using an app that simply fails at scanning.
While I haven't seen a QR code worth scanning in a while, last time I did (as part of trying to scan a bar code resulting from a bar code font, printed on custom forms before standardized ones with proper bar codes were made available - had to try 5 different apps on an iPad 2 before one of them finally decided to read it where others decided it wasn't a valid barcode and thus wouldn't even bother), my phone scanned the code while I brought it up to put the code into view. It was somewhat blurry, it was at an angle, it was keystoned, and the app still correctly scanned it and pointed me to the associated URL before I could even maneuver the phone around to get a nice straight-on shot.. and this is on a budget Android 2.1-era phone.
Of course if your phone only has a QVGA camera that needs full sunlight just to take murky pictures, you're doomed. But then you'd probably not be in the target market for that QR code either.
QR codes and even cameras are rarely the problem - the apps to scan them with vary greatly.
That said, I still haven't seen any particularly good use for them outside of, say, relaying a Bitcoin address.
http://rt.com/usa/aclu-license-plate-surveillance-216/
Presuming it can be plugged in - there's always the IOIO, though that does add another few $$ to the price. But since most people tend to use their RPi as little more than a media streamer or bitcoin mining host for FPGA's / ASICs, etc. then the Android devices are a better option - and GPIO can be added on later if they wanted to (and can then be re-used if they switch/upgrade their Android device, etc.).
Oh come on. The standard was that people would choose whether or not to enable 'do not track', without being specific about how that should be chosen.
So Microsoft let users choose during installation, express settings, or custom settings, with the effects of the express settings (including the DNT setting) elaborated above:
http://i.imgur.com/Wo8nG.png
But then people cried foul and quickly suggested that they meant that people would have to specifically choose for that very specific option a 'yes or no' choice, rather than part of a package of options.
But let's face it, if they still put that in the installation screen, on a separate page, asking users if they would like to be tracked by the advertising industry yes/no, they would still catch a lot of flak and they would quickly suggest that what they really meant was that DNT should be off by default, and the option to turn DNT on should never be advertised (hehe) and instead hidden deeply away in a configuration dialog and named something like "Disable tailor-made rich content that enhances your browsing experience." - and if enough people did manage to find their way there (due to people telling each other about it on social media), the advertising industry would quickly ignore it anyway since there's no legal backing behind it that would result in fines for such disregarding the users' choice.
If anything, Microsoft should be applauded for this. Even if the intended effect may not have been to essentially kill DNT by exposing what a horribly useless feature it is, I don't think anybody sane is losing sleep over the fact that it did.
Too bad the W3C hasn't fully caught on yet and is still at least considering a DNT thing. But good on them for rejecting the current proposal from the advertising industry, I guess.
I suspect other aspects of that service would be charging for access (especially mobile apps) and, assuming it proves popular, selling word combinations to companies that would prefer their own vanity word combinations and are more than willing to pay for it.
I do think the idea is neat, but between either specifying the location where it can easily be found in the first place, and just sending the location data in a text / IM / whatever (somebody else suggested GPS coordinates, a reply there was that those are difficult to remember/convey.. but most location websites/apps simply allow you to copy a link / share the location without having to worry about the GPS coordinates at all), I'm not sure it's a service that's filling an actual need.
Which, of course, makes a world of difference from what is implied by the story's title and summary.
My guess is that they found a forum post linking to a bunch of episodes which also included a link to VLC (as a useful "use this to play them" by the post's author), and that got copy/pasted to the people who distill things into a DMCA complaint, while nowhere along the line it was actually checked whether each link was valid under the complaint.
Dumb mistake and I agree with others that they should be punished for it, but this is hardly a case of HBO nefariously trying to get rid of VLC.
And, statistically speaking, neither will game developers. For every big hit of a game there's dozens more that perform okay enough to recoup costs but any follow-up titles are completely up in the air, and hundreds more that go nowhere.
Just because in one instance a publisher said 'western games don't sell' and was then proven wrong, doesn't mean that everybody thinking they can disprove a publisher when they say their Game X is going to be the next Red Dead Redemption is going to be right.
We can pretty much know this for a fact by looking at all the 'indie' games on mobile platforms and being launched through KickStarter (not counting the ones who are just using it as marketing hoping to attract the actual big money..from publishers). Although at least the latter can give an indication as to what people may be craving, it doesn't mean the end-result is going to deliver.
'woosh' comes to mind :)
Yeah but that whole independence thing tends to stop at the state level.
I.e. rephrase as follows... ...and there'll be many in Houston, Dallas, etc. who would absolutely love it if Austin and others were controlled top-down by a more politically aligned state.
The question for you in Austin or wherever is this:
Do you want millions of Houstonians telling you how to live, through state legislation, or do you want your county's citizens to decide how you do things there in Travis, and we can do it our way in Harris?
At least, that's what an Aggie told me ;)
I think that's what the "who makes a clean getaway" was added for ;)
Although if they didn't even try for that, I suspect "guy shoots suspect in other case just because" would still be a much cheaper trial than what the justice department is facing right now.
I don't think he was suggesting that the system goes through all the legal steps which are indeed extremely costly, as the document you linked to details.
But if the guy got shot dead in the mean time by a random citizen who makes a clean getaway, how would the cost of that + the fallout from it compare to the costs of the trials+either death penalty or life imprisonment?
Not advocating somebody do this - just saying that this is the more likely match to what GP was saying.
Which doesn't preclude this from happening anyway.
Which renders the next statement incorrect.. or at least incomplete.
Right, because false plates are totally unheard of, let alone having plates on a buddy's trailer that's behind your car, obstructing any view of your car's plates.
Plates alone cannot be used to identify a vehicle and should be (not saying they are, but they should be) checked against the characteristics of the car.
( More often than not, in the case of false plates, this means the person getting the ticket has to object to the ticket, demand the photo (if not included), and then point out that it's not even the right car. )
Since this is already about cars, I guess it's time for an internet analogy.
Plates are like IP addresses. They cannot be used to identify a specific computer (car) let alone a specific user (driver).
Or they just admitted to more taps than other governments.
Or they inflated the number of taps to scare people.
Unless there's a 'Dutch Snowden' willing to blow open that can of worms, any guess goes.
Even some of the staunchest "don't post in public that which you don't want to be public" proponents tend to draw lines.
Remember this thing?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/31/0145218/man-creates-creepy-stalking-app
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/04/02/1432257/worlds-creepiest-iphone-app-pulled-after-outcry
( tl;dr: App that combined public foursquare and facebook data so you could quickly find out more details about a person in a given location, like, say, how hot they are. )
Or similarly (not directly public):
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/04/28/1719247/gps-maker-tomtom-submits-your-speed-data-to-police
( tl;dr: Drivers supplied data (opt-in) to TomTom, who in turn sold aggregated data to the public, one business member of which generated reports about congestion, speeds, etc. and sold that on to the police. )
Turns out that some of those proponents really mean that 'public' means anybody who they deem to be part of that 'public'. Which may exclude creeps, stalkers, and government (entities).
Slightly off-topic..
Between people's desire for individual freedom, lack of a proper transit network, and the popular opinion that buses are not something you want to be found on for cited security and hygiene reasons, at least people in DC don't seem to need much of another reason.
Which is a shame, really, and here's why.
I'll be visiting DC (IAD, technically in VA) and have to go to, say, Charlotte Hall in MD.
Cab: $150
SuperShuttle: $160 (no longer does shared rides that far south)
SupremeAirportShuttle (shared ride): $135 (fluctuates - their site is a mess)
Rental car: $6.35 for gas (assuming 2012 Ford Fiesta), oodles more for rental+insurance (remains cheaper than the above for the first 2-3 days or so).
Bus (5A to Rosslyn and 909 down south): $10.35
If buses were held in higher esteem (and Dillon's seems a perfectly good commercial operator, but not many people seem to actually review bus service over there), made more stops (there's just a few along that entire route, though local transport including taxis may be viable from there), and drove a little faster, I'd say buses would be a great option there.. electric or otherwise.
( I was disappointed to find that the railroad tracks there are only used for goods, and not for people movers. Unless I missed something. )
True - though this depends on what tech you licensed for the encoding, most do have in their EULA that the license doesn't cover the Packaged Medium license (I think that's what you're referring to, at least).
It would indeed be interesting to see if PA are setting up a similar structure and declaring each podcast item * subscriber as a single 'packaged medium' or any other metric.
Note that for most video this is a somewhat academic issue. If you wanted to share a video now, YouTube - even if they pay you - has licensing in place so that you don't have to worry about it.. as do other video platforms. Obviously if you want to sell physical discs - maybe as a perk in a KickStarter campaign - that could be more problematic. Though even there, MPEG-LA really doesn't care much.. it'll cost them more than they stand to gain from such small scale issues.
Well if we're going to argue about what the question was, we might as well quote it:
I'll fully admit that my "Why should I license your patent" interpretation is my interpretation and may be flawed. If it is, I'm not seeing in what way that would be.
I'm also not demanding that he answer the question. He has already stated that he would be in trouble with his lawyer because his words would get used against him in court. That's fine, I get that. But his lawyer should, in fact, be able to explain in the same way they would in court. Unless of course they're doing their best to just not say anything except in court, when so asked (or as a pre-emptive defense). That, too, would be fine - but doesn't help you, me, or anybody else in terms of the follow-up I also mentioned.
I'm more than happy to await the outcome of the court case if that's what is needed to get a less circumspect answer. However, if somebody were to start offering audio files off their website and PA deemed it to be infringing, yet if asked "how so?" the answer would be "it just is", then it's no surprise people either cry foul, or just pay up because they don't want to deal with any legal hassles (be that hiring a patent lawyer to figure out if they're really infringing, or ending up getting sued for refusal to license) in the mean time. And maybe they're okay with that. I don't see why we would be, however.
I, for one, am looking forward to the licensing options being laid out in the coming weeks.