Apple has, thus far, been difficult when it comes to licensing FRAND patents. Essentially, a patent holder will say something like "Our standard rate is 2.5%", at which point Apple responds with "NO FAIR!!! Our phone is EXPENSIVE! You set that rate when phones were CHEAP! Not going to pay!" *stamps foot*
...which is another reason the Samsung verdict in the US made no sense. Apple did just that, and after the foreman made his "Let's punish Samsung for stealing inventions", they opted not to punish Apple for refusing to pay anything for patents it knew it had to license.
For regular Intel Win32/Win64 apps, yes, Windows isn't going to stop you installing iTunes any time soon.
However, you cannot run software Microsoft hasn't approved in the Metro environment, or on ARM. So going forward, there are certainly ways in which Microsoft can tighten the noose around any application it doesn't like. At the very least, Microsoft can make running iTunes on Windows tablets a painful experience, and use the death of a thousand API cuts to make running iTunes under Desktop Windows an experience not dissimilar to running a Win16 app under Windows 7.
I can typically get two days of moderate use out of a fully charged Kindle Fire, which is a hell of a lot better than my incompetently designed Galaxy Nexus (even with an extended battery I'm lucky to get 24 hours out of it with light use.) So I suspect you just have a bad battery.
I'm pretty sure the Fire uses a capacitive screen. I recall the Nook Touch used an infrared screen, and did so because it was cheaper.
Leaving aside the fact I can't find anything online to contradict the above, as I understand it, you'd expect a raised bezel for an infrared system - the Fire's surface is completely flat. I have one right next to me. Looks, feels, and acts, like a capacitive touch screen.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you complain that a lot of focus was on one patent, claiming it wasn't brought up, when it was...
Leaving aside the irony for a moment, consider what it means.
Yes, you may still be right about "Pinch to zoom", but I'll be honest, virtually all the snarks, jokes, criticism, etc, that didn't go into heavy detail, have been on rounded rectangles. You may have come across other comments on pinch-to-zoom, but they're hardly the majority. And if they're not the majority, then an article sliming the majority of the commentariat for getting the trial issues wrong is no longer relevent or appropriate.
And, BTW, you even managed to attack Samsung's comments on rounded rectangles. Might you, possibly, have paused a moment before writing that wondering, perhaps, if Samsung knew just a little more about the trial and the patents raised in it, than most? That if they make a comment implying something was a part of the trial that, well, perhaps the information you got suggesting it wasn't should be looked at again.
You can get a cheap, no-name, Android tablet with a capacitive touchscreen for less than $150 and the KF's specs were always fairly low. The CPU's OK, but the screen is 1024x600, there's stereo speakers but no microphone, there's no camera, and the only ports are audio out and micro USB - no video, no audio in. Oh, and it has a whopping 6G of RAM.
I suspect, actually, the KF does cost less than $200 to build. Not much less, but enough for it not to make a loss if someone buys one and never buys a single app or piece of music.
This development strikes me as a classic "Build anticipation for KF2" thing, not a "Phew, we got rid of the things. They were taking up space" type complaint.
Bear in mind that if the KF2 is a sub-$100 device, or alternatively is a $200 device with specs rivaling the N7, people who just bought a KF1 a few days before are going to be very upset with Amazon unless they issue free upgrades. Older Slashdotters may remember Amstrad's CPC664 fiasco where Amstrad replaced a 64K home computer with a 128K one over night, and the resultant bad press it got Amstrad! Consumers think they're being ripped off if a manufacturer makes their brand new device obsolete.
I'm very interested to see what the KF2 will be. Are Amazon going to go for cheap, or are they going to go for a Nexus 7 competitor?
Being curious, I decided to RTFA to find out the actual truth. The GP is telling the truth, and you're not.
This is:
1. Not an app. Apple is not involved in any way whatsoever. They have not, to the best of my knowledge, approved anything from this company, not even a different related or unrelated app, and even if they had it wouldn't mean anything - see on.
2. Despite the hysterical write up, the "proxying" is for a legitimate reason. The concept is that the proxies insert additional information thus customizing, to a certain extent, the apps already on the phone (such as Safari, Maps, etc) with additional features. These are potentially useful enhancements that someone might want. For details of what, I suggest you RTFA.
3. While proxies can be abused for violating user's privacy, there's no evidence they are in this case - it's merely the technology choice that seems to have prompted the attack. This is a little like saying "OMG! Google has produced an Android app that can listen to you at any time and send what you've said to Google's HQ!!!" because... uh, Voice Dialer uses the microphone.
I'm not a fan of Apple as my comment history shows. This article does not show *any* malpractice or deriliction of responsibility *whatsoever* by Apple. The write-up is tabloidesque hysteria. And you can stalk the GP as much as you want, the GP is telling the truth.
No, you chose to see something in the sentence that you quoted where "No, you just chose to see evidence that supported your worldview" would have been a legitimate response.
In fact, "No, you just chose to see evidence that supported your worldview" is not a reasonable or legitimate response to "Actually, because of a combination of bad lawyering and bad judging (mostly the latter), we ended up seeing more evidence than the jury did." It makes no sense. It's stupid. And you should be embarrassed for hitting the "Submit" button. Next time, read, attempt to understand, and then reply.
Actually, because of a combination of bad lawyering and bad judging (mostly the latter), we ended up seeing more evidence than the jury did.
Even so, yes, it is possible, from the comments the jurors themselves have made, to make the judgement that the jury completely, totally, and utterly, fucked up, even based on the limited evidence they were allowed to see.
Specifically: The Jury decided to ignore prior art. It wasn't that it wasn't shown. It wasn't that it wasn't valid. The jury decided, instead, to simply ignore its existence because ignoring it made it easier for them.
On what planet is a verdict not idiotic if you're judging whether someone stole someone else's inventions, and ignore evidence (as in refuse to evaluate) that the invention was never the other party's to begin with?
Virtually nothing I mentioned as examples of America's greatness took place during wartime.
The fact is this is possible. We have the right people and we have the ability to get this done. Virtually every American working on this project will know how necessary this is. It's about ending our dependency on foreign power, and finally regaining our independence without constantly having to - literally - fight for it. It's about solving the biggest environmental problem since mankind first invented fire, one that threatens to create famines and destroy our way of life permanently if we don't do something about it. And it's pretty much the only way we're going to peacefully rebuild our economy, shattered by decades of Reaganite neglect from the politicians that have failed us so often.
And like I said, the steps aren't even difficult. Conversion kits for existing vehicles. A vehicle designer's wet dream in terms of a synphony of new vehicle types and shapes. The railroads and existing rights of way leveraged for new types of public transportation.
At the end of the project we'd have energy independence, we'd have taken steps to secure the future of this planet, we'd have seen the same economic stimulus put money into pockets that we've seen over and over again from WW-II to the 19th Century railroad system. And money will be flowing within our country again, rather than being jetissoned out often going directly to our enemies.
The Hate America politicians won't go for it of course. They'd rather see Americans killed on battlefields and our economy go down the drain than upset their Fifth Columnist Oil masters.
You don't have to be part of the hate America crowd. You just have to be willing to support the Can Do America the rest of us know it to be.
I think you underestimate America and Americans. What makes this country great is that we can set ourselves a goal like this and do it. We have both the greatest engineers in the world, and the greatest businessmen to organize them and the flow of capital to them.
There are many, many, ways to handle the problem, to handle it technically, to make sure that every person in the country still has transportation post-2015. You'd see engine replacement programs for existing vehicles, you'd see all manner of new types of vehicle introduced at every price point. You'll see a resurgence of privately run unsubsidized public transportation - we're seeing this in Florida right now.
I appreciate the America and American-haters, the people who consistently underestimate what Americans can do, who refuse to look at the astonishing achievements brought by America's industrialists, its unionized workers, its scientists and engineers, its thinkers and intellectuals, who built its railroads, its industries, and who put a man on the moon; I appreciate those haters
may piss and moan and whine that it can't be done. As usual, you're just fooling yourself.
The team was divided into pairs. One programmer programmed. The other's job was to look for mistakes, and then yell at the first for making the error. If the error was severe enough, he would announce it on the loudspeaker. What constituted an error was never clearly defined. Sometimes it was a logic error, or a typo, but other times it was allowing code to be too flexible and too open for future expansion, even when that was the best way to write something anyway. I got in trouble for writing a FOR loop with a named constant as one of the limits. "Named constants", it was explained to me, "mean you're looking at solving tomorrow's problems, not today's. Your code just needs to work for today. If the program can only support 100 simultaneous connections, write 100, not MAX_CONNECTIONS"
Now, perhaps you should rewrite your comment changing who, exactly, is "purposely trying to muddle the differences between (the products of Apple and Samsung)"! You might also want to look at the court evidence that Apple submitted, such as the infamous "pre" and "post" iPhone images - that looked absurd when Samsung produced its own version with a much wider, less edited, range of phones on show.
Only one of these two companies is trying to prevent you from owning the other's products.
View of Samsung? Neutral to positive. They employ people, build good stuff, and don't appear to have significant negatives.
View of Apple? Negative. While they also employ people and build "good" stuff (I don't like iPhones myself, but others do and should have the right to be able to buy them), they do use lawsuits to attack my choices at the end of the day, and prevent others from being employed, and others from building good stuff I actually want.
1. Googlarola is suing Apple for not paying FRAND royalties and demanding its own, lower, rates.
2. Apple's case against Samsung was pretty awful: that they won had more to do with bad management of the case by the judge (and a failure to anticipate that by Samsung's lawyers) rather than anything about the merits of the case. The fact is, and this is not even open for debate, the look of Samsung's products has not changed significantly since before the iPhone - that is, Samsung already had products out or announced that had the critical design elements in place, before the iPhone announcement. (It's not even hard to see why - rounded corners, a bezel, shiny blackness, as thin as possible, etc, are common design elements on virtually anything with a flat face and a screen. Most TVs have them. The iPhone's design elements weren't radical.)
It was a stupid lawsuit, aided by an awful, awful, judge.
There's no signficant difference between Samsung's products pre- and post-2010 beyond the slow evolution you'd expect. So that assertion is ridiculous.
That said, this entire lawsuit is the result of a judge who decided to run her courtroom as a game rather than a search for truth, and an utterly dishonest set of lawyers for Apple who knew the game and played it. I'd be surprised if this entire thing isn't overturned 100% on appeal.
I don't recall anything like that. In fact, I recall quite a few people concerned that if the US got involved, it would actually turn public support in favor of the existing regime.
Surprising as it may sound, the people of most countries do not, usually, want a foreign power meddling in their affairs. And the US (and UK) is extremely unpopular in Iran, because of prior meddling.
Don't you know? The only true Christians are the ones who believe exactly the same things as I do. We're not all stupid and take all of the Bible literally except for the parts that we don't. Some of us don't take all of the Bible literally, except for the parts we do.
Now, if you excuse me, there's a slut in the market square and I need to stone her for adultery.
You pretty much do need to grow TV size to make a higher resolution more practical. But that's happening, anyway. My parents' "big" TV was a 24" console. My "big" TV is a 71" DLP.
Well, now, hold on a moment. While the trend towards larger TVs has been a welcome one (FWIW I grew up with a 14" B&W!) there are, too, diminishing returns with larger sizes. As TVs grow, so do the rooms that hold them (which, of course, they can't.) Something eventually has to give.
While my 50" may not be the largest TV out there, it's already wider than most of the furniture in the same room - only our couch and reclining loveseat is wider, from memory, and I have to say it would be awkward to find space for a bigger set. There'd also be the viewing distance issue - we'll have to move our furniture back or else suffer eye bleeding closeness.
I know we'll still go larger over time, but are we really likely to see a situation where most people have TVs over, say, 100"?
We have a couple of 720p (not 1080p, 720p) TVs in our house, a 32" LCD, and a 50" plasma (hey, 720p plasma's cheap.)
How decent is 720p? Well, both TVs appear to be about the same quality as, or often a little higher than, watching a friggin' movie at the cinema, if the source is decent and relatively free of artifacts.
I think, for the most part, we're talking diminishing returns at this point adding pixels. So I'm a little baffled by this announcement. Is it real? Is there a serious market for TV for people with super exceptional eyesight? Is video compression technology really going to improve so much over the next ten years that this'll be worth using - especially over the Internet, which, let's be honest, is where everything's going at the moment.
I'm glad to see innovation, but I'm just finding it hard to believe that this improvement is significantly useful: arguably, like Blu-ray, it might actually hold back HD, rather than help it.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple has, thus far, been difficult when it comes to licensing FRAND patents. Essentially, a patent holder will say something like "Our standard rate is 2.5%", at which point Apple responds with "NO FAIR!!! Our phone is EXPENSIVE! You set that rate when phones were CHEAP! Not going to pay!" *stamps foot*
For regular Intel Win32/Win64 apps, yes, Windows isn't going to stop you installing iTunes any time soon.
However, you cannot run software Microsoft hasn't approved in the Metro environment, or on ARM. So going forward, there are certainly ways in which Microsoft can tighten the noose around any application it doesn't like. At the very least, Microsoft can make running iTunes on Windows tablets a painful experience, and use the death of a thousand API cuts to make running iTunes under Desktop Windows an experience not dissimilar to running a Win16 app under Windows 7.
I can typically get two days of moderate use out of a fully charged Kindle Fire, which is a hell of a lot better than my incompetently designed Galaxy Nexus (even with an extended battery I'm lucky to get 24 hours out of it with light use.) So I suspect you just have a bad battery.
I know! One think I hate about reading on my e-Ink Kindle is how when you're outside and it starts raining, all the e-ink starts to smudge...
It's OK, I feel like a complete dumbass over it. Normally I would flame someone over such a mistake! I think I'm just getting old...
I'm pretty sure the Fire uses a capacitive screen. I recall the Nook Touch used an infrared screen, and did so because it was cheaper.
Leaving aside the fact I can't find anything online to contradict the above, as I understand it, you'd expect a raised bezel for an infrared system - the Fire's surface is completely flat. I have one right next to me. Looks, feels, and acts, like a capacitive touch screen.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you complain that a lot of focus was on one patent, claiming it wasn't brought up, when it was...
Leaving aside the irony for a moment, consider what it means.
Yes, you may still be right about "Pinch to zoom", but I'll be honest, virtually all the snarks, jokes, criticism, etc, that didn't go into heavy detail, have been on rounded rectangles. You may have come across other comments on pinch-to-zoom, but they're hardly the majority. And if they're not the majority, then an article sliming the majority of the commentariat for getting the trial issues wrong is no longer relevent or appropriate.
And, BTW, you even managed to attack Samsung's comments on rounded rectangles. Might you, possibly, have paused a moment before writing that wondering, perhaps, if Samsung knew just a little more about the trial and the patents raised in it, than most? That if they make a comment implying something was a part of the trial that, well, perhaps the information you got suggesting it wasn't should be looked at again.
Brain fart. Yes, I meant flash, or whatever it is you youngsters call non-volatile memory used for long term storage these days.
You can get a cheap, no-name, Android tablet with a capacitive touchscreen for less than $150 and the KF's specs were always fairly low. The CPU's OK, but the screen is 1024x600, there's stereo speakers but no microphone, there's no camera, and the only ports are audio out and micro USB - no video, no audio in. Oh, and it has a whopping 6G of RAM.
I suspect, actually, the KF does cost less than $200 to build. Not much less, but enough for it not to make a loss if someone buys one and never buys a single app or piece of music.
This development strikes me as a classic "Build anticipation for KF2" thing, not a "Phew, we got rid of the things. They were taking up space" type complaint.
Bear in mind that if the KF2 is a sub-$100 device, or alternatively is a $200 device with specs rivaling the N7, people who just bought a KF1 a few days before are going to be very upset with Amazon unless they issue free upgrades. Older Slashdotters may remember Amstrad's CPC664 fiasco where Amstrad replaced a 64K home computer with a 128K one over night, and the resultant bad press it got Amstrad! Consumers think they're being ripped off if a manufacturer makes their brand new device obsolete.
I'm very interested to see what the KF2 will be. Are Amazon going to go for cheap, or are they going to go for a Nexus 7 competitor?
Being curious, I decided to RTFA to find out the actual truth. The GP is telling the truth, and you're not.
This is:
1. Not an app. Apple is not involved in any way whatsoever. They have not, to the best of my knowledge, approved anything from this company, not even a different related or unrelated app, and even if they had it wouldn't mean anything - see on.
2. Despite the hysterical write up, the "proxying" is for a legitimate reason. The concept is that the proxies insert additional information thus customizing, to a certain extent, the apps already on the phone (such as Safari, Maps, etc) with additional features. These are potentially useful enhancements that someone might want. For details of what, I suggest you RTFA.
3. While proxies can be abused for violating user's privacy, there's no evidence they are in this case - it's merely the technology choice that seems to have prompted the attack. This is a little like saying "OMG! Google has produced an Android app that can listen to you at any time and send what you've said to Google's HQ!!!" because... uh, Voice Dialer uses the microphone.
I'm not a fan of Apple as my comment history shows. This article does not show *any* malpractice or deriliction of responsibility *whatsoever* by Apple. The write-up is tabloidesque hysteria. And you can stalk the GP as much as you want, the GP is telling the truth.
No, you chose to see something in the sentence that you quoted where "No, you just chose to see evidence that supported your worldview" would have been a legitimate response.
In fact, "No, you just chose to see evidence that supported your worldview" is not a reasonable or legitimate response to "Actually, because of a combination of bad lawyering and bad judging (mostly the latter), we ended up seeing more evidence than the jury did." It makes no sense. It's stupid. And you should be embarrassed for hitting the "Submit" button. Next time, read, attempt to understand, and then reply.
There's such a thing as a happy woman?
Actually, because of a combination of bad lawyering and bad judging (mostly the latter), we ended up seeing more evidence than the jury did.
Even so, yes, it is possible, from the comments the jurors themselves have made, to make the judgement that the jury completely, totally, and utterly, fucked up, even based on the limited evidence they were allowed to see.
Specifically: The Jury decided to ignore prior art. It wasn't that it wasn't shown. It wasn't that it wasn't valid. The jury decided, instead, to simply ignore its existence because ignoring it made it easier for them.
On what planet is a verdict not idiotic if you're judging whether someone stole someone else's inventions, and ignore evidence (as in refuse to evaluate) that the invention was never the other party's to begin with?
One of the reasons for the lack of backward compatibility was that the original GNOME was pretty awful and had to be almost completely rewritten.
Irony!
Virtually nothing I mentioned as examples of America's greatness took place during wartime.
The fact is this is possible. We have the right people and we have the ability to get this done. Virtually every American working on this project will know how necessary this is. It's about ending our dependency on foreign power, and finally regaining our independence without constantly having to - literally - fight for it. It's about solving the biggest environmental problem since mankind first invented fire, one that threatens to create famines and destroy our way of life permanently if we don't do something about it. And it's pretty much the only way we're going to peacefully rebuild our economy, shattered by decades of Reaganite neglect from the politicians that have failed us so often.
And like I said, the steps aren't even difficult. Conversion kits for existing vehicles. A vehicle designer's wet dream in terms of a synphony of new vehicle types and shapes. The railroads and existing rights of way leveraged for new types of public transportation.
At the end of the project we'd have energy independence, we'd have taken steps to secure the future of this planet, we'd have seen the same economic stimulus put money into pockets that we've seen over and over again from WW-II to the 19th Century railroad system. And money will be flowing within our country again, rather than being jetissoned out often going directly to our enemies.
The Hate America politicians won't go for it of course. They'd rather see Americans killed on battlefields and our economy go down the drain than upset their Fifth Columnist Oil masters.
You don't have to be part of the hate America crowd. You just have to be willing to support the Can Do America the rest of us know it to be.
I think you underestimate America and Americans. What makes this country great is that we can set ourselves a goal like this and do it. We have both the greatest engineers in the world, and the greatest businessmen to organize them and the flow of capital to them.
There are many, many, ways to handle the problem, to handle it technically, to make sure that every person in the country still has transportation post-2015. You'd see engine replacement programs for existing vehicles, you'd see all manner of new types of vehicle introduced at every price point. You'll see a resurgence of privately run unsubsidized public transportation - we're seeing this in Florida right now.
I appreciate the America and American-haters, the people who consistently underestimate what Americans can do, who refuse to look at the astonishing achievements brought by America's industrialists, its unionized workers, its scientists and engineers, its thinkers and intellectuals, who built its railroads, its industries, and who put a man on the moon; I appreciate those haters may piss and moan and whine that it can't be done. As usual, you're just fooling yourself.
Reposted from years ago, my experience of Exxxxxxxxxxxxxxtreme programming!
This is a Droid Charge:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/droid-charge-review/
Now, perhaps you should rewrite your comment changing who, exactly, is "purposely trying to muddle the differences between (the products of Apple and Samsung)"! You might also want to look at the court evidence that Apple submitted, such as the infamous "pre" and "post" iPhone images - that looked absurd when Samsung produced its own version with a much wider, less edited, range of phones on show.
Only one of these two companies is trying to prevent you from owning the other's products.
View of Samsung? Neutral to positive. They employ people, build good stuff, and don't appear to have significant negatives.
View of Apple? Negative. While they also employ people and build "good" stuff (I don't like iPhones myself, but others do and should have the right to be able to buy them), they do use lawsuits to attack my choices at the end of the day, and prevent others from being employed, and others from building good stuff I actually want.
Fuck Apple.
2. Apple's case against Samsung was pretty awful: that they won had more to do with bad management of the case by the judge (and a failure to anticipate that by Samsung's lawyers) rather than anything about the merits of the case. The fact is, and this is not even open for debate, the look of Samsung's products has not changed significantly since before the iPhone - that is, Samsung already had products out or announced that had the critical design elements in place, before the iPhone announcement. (It's not even hard to see why - rounded corners, a bezel, shiny blackness, as thin as possible, etc, are common design elements on virtually anything with a flat face and a screen. Most TVs have them. The iPhone's design elements weren't radical.)
It was a stupid lawsuit, aided by an awful, awful, judge.
There's no signficant difference between Samsung's products pre- and post-2010 beyond the slow evolution you'd expect. So that assertion is ridiculous.
That said, this entire lawsuit is the result of a judge who decided to run her courtroom as a game rather than a search for truth, and an utterly dishonest set of lawyers for Apple who knew the game and played it. I'd be surprised if this entire thing isn't overturned 100% on appeal.
I don't recall anything like that. In fact, I recall quite a few people concerned that if the US got involved, it would actually turn public support in favor of the existing regime.
Surprising as it may sound, the people of most countries do not, usually, want a foreign power meddling in their affairs. And the US (and UK) is extremely unpopular in Iran, because of prior meddling.
Don't you know? The only true Christians are the ones who believe exactly the same things as I do. We're not all stupid and take all of the Bible literally except for the parts that we don't. Some of us don't take all of the Bible literally, except for the parts we do.
Now, if you excuse me, there's a slut in the market square and I need to stone her for adultery.
Well, now, hold on a moment. While the trend towards larger TVs has been a welcome one (FWIW I grew up with a 14" B&W!) there are, too, diminishing returns with larger sizes. As TVs grow, so do the rooms that hold them (which, of course, they can't.) Something eventually has to give.
While my 50" may not be the largest TV out there, it's already wider than most of the furniture in the same room - only our couch and reclining loveseat is wider, from memory, and I have to say it would be awkward to find space for a bigger set. There'd also be the viewing distance issue - we'll have to move our furniture back or else suffer eye bleeding closeness.
I know we'll still go larger over time, but are we really likely to see a situation where most people have TVs over, say, 100"?
We have a couple of 720p (not 1080p, 720p) TVs in our house, a 32" LCD, and a 50" plasma (hey, 720p plasma's cheap.)
How decent is 720p? Well, both TVs appear to be about the same quality as, or often a little higher than, watching a friggin' movie at the cinema, if the source is decent and relatively free of artifacts.
I think, for the most part, we're talking diminishing returns at this point adding pixels. So I'm a little baffled by this announcement. Is it real? Is there a serious market for TV for people with super exceptional eyesight? Is video compression technology really going to improve so much over the next ten years that this'll be worth using - especially over the Internet, which, let's be honest, is where everything's going at the moment.
I'm glad to see innovation, but I'm just finding it hard to believe that this improvement is significantly useful: arguably, like Blu-ray, it might actually hold back HD, rather than help it.