I don't understand the 300mS cross-US latency figure -- my informal ping'ing has an average roundtrip less than 20mS across the US. And AFAIK, the QoS requirements of VoIP require a max of 120mS to 150mS (eg, http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-QOS). I don't use VoIP or Skype on a regular basis...has anyone ever experienced 300mS?
Heyaz. Just wanted to contribute a totally harmless piece of self-promotion here.:) I'm the admin behind the open-source Kaboodle project at http://kaboodle.org/. Many of our users use the tool for not much more than mapping their wireless LAN (technically, just their class-C subnet) to see who's actually connected.
This is very similar to nmap's capability, of course. Kaboodle just makes it point-and-click doable for the average Internet user (ie, someone who knows their email address, but not their IP address).
The author says I can patent a business method, to "outlaw my competition". Well, sorta. The "legal monoply" of a patent can be argued in court (expensive for individuals, trivial for Fortune-500) or it can be waited out for 20 years (boring)...but, okay, it makes a fine assertive closing.
Makes me wonder, though: are business method patents more unhealthy for an industry than the opposite situation? That is, in the author's analogy, if the novel business methods of Benjamin Day of New York Sun fame were *immediately* copied by his competition...would there be any New York Sun fame?
Put another way...I'm willing to bet that more entreprenaurs have been screwed by competitors copying their novel ideas and methods, than competitors have been screwed by entreprenaurs obtaining business method patents.
I recall the laserdisk version of the Grail actually has the scenes leading up to the "Get On with it!" yell. It has Zuet's twin sister Nina worrying if doing this scene at all was a good idea, with multiple flashes to other cast members (Tim, Old Man from scene 24, etc) all encouraging her, with increasing emphasis, to "Get on with it". She finally gets on with it when the crowd yells at her...
Ah, didn't see that Regulation-A bit. Whoops.:}
But still...AFIAK, there's a hard-limit on these RegA "not-so-public" IPO's that's really low. Like, $4M or $5M or something. Great for a coffee shop, but not for a software company with a burn rate of $1M/month.
IANAL, but I'm fairly sure that if Mandrake is a US corporation, the SEC wouldn't allow that. They have fairly strict rules about how private companies can take in investment money. If the company wants to sell stock to the general public, even on EBay or something, it requires an IPO. You know, a "real" one.
Errr...reading claim-1 of the patent (IANAL, but my understanding is that it is in the claims of a patent where it all matters), it describes a digital-VCR process which coverts an input TV signal into MPEG, writes that MPEG to a hard drive, reads an second MPEG stream from the same hard drive, and coverts it into a output TV signal. All simultaneosly.
Sorry, but that's pretty cool, especially for 3 years ago. It's also the basis of TiVo's business, and given the dozen reference to prior art, it looks to me like they invented it. So...what's the hangup? Are *all* patents evil? This one certaintly doesn't claim anything about *watching* TV, it describes a process for recording it that's not possible with convential single-tape VCR's. So, why the fuss?
My apologies if this consideration is old-hat, and has been discarded by greater minds than my own. I've read quite a bit about Napster, but haven't yet seen this solution presented. Thought I would pour it into the dish and see if the cat licks it up.
First, Napster isn't about filesharing MP3's. Gasp.:) No, seriously: Napster is *really* about filesharing MP3's *easily*. I get 5 hits on Google for "NewYork,NewYork.mp3", but I've no idea if those sites are up, what the sample rate is, what the download speed is, etc. Napster answers these questions for me, all in one groovy app. If it didn't exist...I'd still get the file, just not as easily.
But would I pay for it? Maybe, if they could add one thing: reliability. If you got a slow connection, and you're downloading from someone shutting down for the night...suddenly you've wasted an hour. Grrr.:) So what *I'd* pay for is knowing there's Akamai servers cache'ing the content. I'd pay for knowing the download would be as fast as possible and as reliable as possible.
So...*how* would I pay for it. Here's what I think has been overlooked: I'd pay for it in "download credits". Online credits like a PayPal system, only *specific* to Napster (mp3-pence?). I'd get these credits the usual way sure (ie, credit-card), but I'd *also* get them for being a Good Consumer from the pov of RIAA. That is...when I buy a CD from Amazon, I'd get some credits. When I bought a ticket from ticketmaster, I'd get some. CDNOW could run a special on a new release, where you'd get 2x the credits this week and this week only! And gift-certificate credits, of course.
Anyhow, that's the angle. IMO, it's a helluva business model, and everyone wins, more or less.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand the 300mS cross-US latency figure -- my informal ping'ing has an average roundtrip less than 20mS across the US. And AFAIK, the QoS requirements of VoIP require a max of 120mS to 150mS (eg, http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-QOS). I don't use VoIP or Skype on a regular basis...has anyone ever experienced 300mS?
Heyaz. Just wanted to contribute a totally harmless piece of self-promotion here. :) I'm the admin behind the open-source Kaboodle project at http://kaboodle.org/. Many of our users use the tool for not much more than mapping their wireless LAN (technically, just their class-C subnet) to see who's actually connected.
This is very similar to nmap's capability, of course. Kaboodle just makes it point-and-click doable for the average Internet user (ie, someone who knows their email address, but not their IP address).
-Scott
The author says I can patent a business method, to "outlaw my competition". Well, sorta. The
"legal monoply" of a patent can be argued in court (expensive for individuals, trivial for
Fortune-500) or it can be waited out for 20 years (boring)...but, okay, it makes a fine
assertive closing.
Makes me wonder, though: are business method patents more unhealthy for an industry than the
opposite situation? That is, in the author's analogy, if the novel business methods of Benjamin
Day of New York Sun fame were *immediately* copied by his competition...would there be any New York
Sun fame?
Put another way...I'm willing to bet that more entreprenaurs have been screwed by competitors
copying their novel ideas and methods, than competitors have been screwed by entreprenaurs
obtaining business method patents.
I recall the laserdisk version of the Grail actually has the scenes leading up to the "Get On with it!" yell. It has Zuet's twin sister Nina worrying if doing this scene at all was a good idea, with multiple flashes to other cast members (Tim, Old Man from scene 24, etc) all encouraging her, with increasing emphasis, to "Get on with it". She finally gets on with it when the crowd yells at her...
Ah, didn't see that Regulation-A bit. Whoops.:}
But still...AFIAK, there's a hard-limit on these RegA "not-so-public" IPO's that's really low. Like, $4M or $5M or something. Great for a coffee shop, but not for a software company with a burn rate of $1M/month.
IANAL, but I'm fairly sure that if Mandrake is a US corporation, the SEC wouldn't allow that. They have fairly strict rules about how private companies can take in investment money. If the company wants to sell stock to the general public, even on EBay or something, it requires an IPO. You know, a "real" one.
Errr...reading claim-1 of the patent (IANAL, but my understanding is that it is in the claims of a patent where it all matters), it describes a digital-VCR process which coverts an input TV signal into MPEG, writes that MPEG to a hard drive, reads an second MPEG stream from the same hard drive, and coverts it into a output TV signal. All simultaneosly.
Sorry, but that's pretty cool, especially for 3 years ago. It's also the basis of TiVo's business, and given the dozen reference to prior art, it looks to me like they invented it. So...what's the hangup? Are *all* patents evil? This one certaintly doesn't claim anything about *watching* TV, it describes a process for recording it that's not possible with convential single-tape VCR's. So, why the fuss?
Hey, my first Slashdot post. :)
:) No, seriously: Napster is *really* about filesharing MP3's *easily*. I get 5 hits on Google for "NewYork,NewYork.mp3", but I've no idea if those sites are up, what the sample rate is, what the download speed is, etc. Napster answers these questions for me, all in one groovy app. If it didn't exist...I'd still get the file, just not as easily.
:) So what *I'd* pay for is knowing there's Akamai servers cache'ing the content. I'd pay for knowing the download would be as fast as possible and as reliable as possible.
My apologies if this consideration is old-hat, and has been discarded by greater minds than my own. I've read quite a bit about Napster, but haven't yet seen this solution presented. Thought I would pour it into the dish and see if the cat licks it up.
First, Napster isn't about filesharing MP3's. Gasp.
But would I pay for it? Maybe, if they could add one thing: reliability. If you got a slow connection, and you're downloading from someone shutting down for the night...suddenly you've wasted an hour. Grrr.
So...*how* would I pay for it. Here's what I think has been overlooked: I'd pay for it in "download credits". Online credits like a PayPal system, only *specific* to Napster (mp3-pence?). I'd get these credits the usual way sure (ie, credit-card), but I'd *also* get them for being a Good Consumer from the pov of RIAA. That is...when I buy a CD from Amazon, I'd get some credits. When I bought a ticket from ticketmaster, I'd get some. CDNOW could run a special on a new release, where you'd get 2x the credits this week and this week only! And gift-certificate credits, of course.
Anyhow, that's the angle. IMO, it's a helluva business model, and everyone wins, more or less.
cheers,
Scott (who could be wrong)