Especially as I could find prior art for ALL of Apple's claim. Except perhaps the claim of providing only a single button. But even then, gee....I mean yes, Macs for years had only one button. It was annoying then, and it's annoying now..
Okay, so the propulsion is likely coming from Earth's magnetic field. Still good news. Imagine how much longer satellites could stay in orbit if they could utilize Earth's own magnetic field to propel themselves outward from Earth. That is still very useful.
About a year and a half ago I got each of my kids a ZTE ZMax Pro. I went with these phones because they were both affordable and full-featured.
They were $179 (unsubsidized). Specs were not quite on par with my LG V20, but they were decent. - 1080p resolution - 32GB storage, 2GB memory - Decent cameras - Only USB 2.0, but Type-C plug. (I got so tired of needing new micro-USB cables every other month for my kids) - MicroSD slot (hate that so many phones have dumped this in an attempt to force users to utilize cloud storage to increase telecoms data usage profits, I expect since T-Mobile forced everyone into an "unlimited data" war that we will see the slots return as standard on Android phones.)
Google shows the user rating for the ZTE Zmax Pro as 4.3, which is pretty decent for a no-name budget phone. And to be honest, I've had less problems with my kids ZTE ZMax Pros than I did with either my Samsung Note 2/S5 Active.
Deal collapsed over... "Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030"
In other words, Mr. Trump felt that it was not acceptable to simply say in another 10 years Iran can restart their nuclear fuel/weapons production. Gee...I have to say, "I kind of agree."
"President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal."
Interesting, so it seems like Iran is going to capitulate to the disarmament anyways. Why?
One of the biggest questions at play in all of this, is what the hell happened in N. Korea. While U.S. media has repeatedly dismissed Trump's role. South Korean officials have praised his role. To a nation like Iran, that's extremely disconcerting.
And let's be honest. If Trump manages to force Iran back to the table and get far more effectual assurances and other criteria met (perhaps including essentially a cease fire throughout the Middle East hotbed currently being supported by Iran). Then one needs to prepare for Trump term 2.0.
[[[Please don't get me wrong. I do not like the guy. I refused to vote for the guy. I think he is a twit, butthead, and a lot more. But it's going to be very hard for any challenger to take him on in elections if he can basically point to having resolved both the N. Korea issue and the Iran issue, and if the economy is at a positive. Good luck Democrats (which will probably be stupid enough to try to run Hillary a third time).
Heck, many teachers are making $60k-$75K on a bachelor degree, excellent benefits, pensions, etc. Now the two biggest gripes publicized are pay/time worked, and supplies.
1: SUPPLIES - First off, they're no different than many jobs. Supplies, how many in IT are on call. How many pay for hotspot access for it out of their own pocket.
2: TRAINING - Oh, but teachers have to periodically go thru re-training. Hey, guess what...SO DOES EVERY CAREER if you want to stay employed. In fact, teachers less so than many depending on the career. History doesn't change much. Sure you need to take a few classes now and then to meet licensing requirements. But let's compare that to IT...
In IT, the entire technology/language and platform is changing every several years. You are forced to continuously learn or fall behind. Sure, some luck out and get a job a they can coast on for the last 20 years of their career. But most have to spend a crap ton of time learning new tech. This also means purchasing a decent workstation for home/personal use upwards of a $1,000 or more depending on the task.
3: OVERTIME - Oh but teachers work many more hours than paid for. Okay, let's be real. There are some teachers who do in fact spend many hours after school and outside of school grading and on lesson plans. Then there are the teachers who spend very little time doing those things. I have had the opportunity to live within two blocks of three different schools, in three different school districts. As such, I was ALWAYS around after school. Guess what... 80% of the teachers were gone 30 minutes after us kids were dismissed. A few stayed, there usually were the ones that were involved in after-school programs (most of which they get some pay bonus for). There were a handful that would still be there an hour or two later. As for grading, many used the same tests year after year. Some even had wisely written their tests as mostly multiple choice so they could grade them all in minutes.
The truth is, that while some teachers develop much time to lessons, especially newer teachers. Many after a decade or so, are burned out and their effort is largely limited to the hours they are in the classroom.
Now let's compare to IT again. Oh, an industry largely on salary, because for many, if the companies paid them overtime they'd earn nearly double. I think many in IT can testify of routinely have 50-60 hour work weeks, sometimes 70+.
Oh, let's add in being on call. So this Friday, a server had issues, it resulted in me working a 12+ hour day. I was also on call this weekend. Which means one can be called into work at 3AM in the morning (dig that teach'). Well this Saturday an issue occurred with a deployment. Had to work from 9AM until 2PM - it was gorgeous out. Probably the 3rd sunny warm day of the year. By the time 3PM rolled around, it was rain. Joy. On-call is very common in IT. And often, the IT worker is on salary, which means you can work your entire weekend away and not even see a dime for it. And sadly, many companies PTO, time off policies suck so bad, you do not even get comp time.
4: PAY - As I mentioned, most of the salaries I've seen for teachers are around $60K-$75K, administrators break the $100K barrier.
Let's look at that pay. My high school started around 8AM, it ended at 2PM. 80% of teachers were only stayed about 30 minutes before and after - we're talking a 6-7 hour work week. Now, you factor in all the holidays, vacation time, etc. Then add in that you get around 1-2 months off in the summer. (And most school districts allow your pay to be broken down to cover those months not working.) So you pretty much get a crap ton of vacation time OR...you get to have a side business or summer job for extra cash. The amount of time off that teachers receive is significantly higher than that of other careers.
So when you actually look at the salary of a public high school teacher and compare it to the actual hours many of them work, it is a very good rate of pay per hour.
Cheated it's ass off to prevent their shoe-in candidate from losing to Bernie Sanders by:
* Providing questions to Hillary Clinton prior to debates. * Colluding with media, such as Huffington Post, to essentially print article after article to support Hillary (also known as illegal unreported campaign contribution). * Magically tossed 6 coins and had them all come up in favor of Hillary Clinton. * Party famed for leaving dead people on it's voting rolls, so they can keep voting, suddenly without any explanation, has hundreds of thousands of voters purged from its records....primarily in pro-Bernie Sanders areas. * Young Millenial who seems to voice some objections, found robbed and murdered, except he was left with his wallet and all his valuables. * Delegates for Bernie Sanders who won fairly per the rules, were prohibited from attending or had their credentials given to others. * Numerous DNC reps on the take for Hillary * DNC/Hillary colluded in fundraising, allowing Hillary's fundraising to benefit the DNC in exchange for internal support * Superdelegates sold before the race even began
And so many more acts...
Yet the media is silent, endeavoring to blame HRC loss on Russian's and Trump colluding. It's all a red herring to keep folks distracted from the real cheating that transpired.
THIS WOULD STILL BE HAPPENING. THIS IS DUE TO AGRICULTURAL RUNOFF. Coral = marine invertebrates, that have a symbiotic relationship with dinoflaggellates (microscopic algae).
So basically, agricultural runoff contains pesticides - toxins designed to kill small microbes, plant, fungus, arthropods, invertebrates, etc.
"What caused the devastation? Hughes was clear: human-caused global warming."
The Great Barrier Reef is NOT dying cause of global warming. In fact, many of the issues attributed to global warming are NOT due to global warming (Case in point, Redwood trees are not being burned up cause of global warming as touted. They are burning, because we have allowed other trees usually destroyed by seasonal fires to grow to maturity. Redwood bark is so thick it is nearly fireproof. Redwood branches are so high up, flames usually cannot reach them. However, allowing oaks and other lesser trees to reach maturity, has also allowed those flames to jump from the lesser tree branches to the higher branches of the redwoods, resulting in the death of many age old trees which had survived numerous prior forest fires.)
See this is the #1 problem with Global Warming. EVERY environmental issue is blamed on Global Warming, and issues that were commonly discussed in the 90's are now ignored. Global Warming basically absconded environmentalism.
Do your research on the barrier reefs. You'll find there are scientists who have tested the reefs, and what they have discovered is extremely high levels of pesticides and herbicides from Australian agricultural runoff. This is the main culprit. These toxins build up and disrupt the balanced relationship of coral. They also weak its immune system, which has made the coral susceptible to a herpes-type virus.
THIS IS THE REAL CAUSE...and as long as you are STUPID enough to allow every environmental issue to be blamed on "global warming" than you are going to doom the planet by allowing the actual causes of these problems to go unheeded. Many of which are due to big industries, and love that global warming is getting the blame for all their pollution.
I got my kids some ZTE ZMax Pro. These have been great phones. Decent screens, and fair amount of memory for a $179 phone. Best of all, USB Type-C which means I am not needing to buy replacement charging cables for my kids every two months. Way faster charging, way way way more durable.
Zero problems... which when you have 6-10 year olds using regularly, is pretty darn amazing.
Thousands of Americans (and nearly as many H1B Visa holders) are employed as contractors at government agencies.
- They do not get to choose their work locations - They do not get to choose when or what days they work - They are required to use specific workstations - They do not get to choose what tools or software they use - They rarely have any lattitude in initiative or judgment of their work - They often spend years, even a decade working on the same contract - They often perform identical work as the agency employees
"You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done)."
If this is the case, nearly ALL the contractors utilized by U.S. government agencies are in fact, disqualified. And this is why, I really don't think they will crack open that can of worms with Uber. Because the spoiled jam that would be released would literally cause a recession.
Because, if Uber drivers are NOT "contractors" and are in fact employees, the effect will be devastation upon the U.S. government. Nearly ALL government agencies employ "contractors". Yet these contractors nearly always are prescribed where to work, when to work, what machines to use, what software to use, etc, etc, etc, etc.
There is essentially, a bulti-billion dollar can of worms that will be opened by legally defining Uber drivers as employees. And while a few state agencies and the like may want that definition, there are trillion dollar corporations like Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, etc. that would face huge losses if such a designation were applied. And seriously, Uber of almost any company best fits contract work.
> you choose when and where > you use your own vehicle
Because eventually, they'll perfect things enough that they can move their entire space launching operations into international waters and totally avoid such BS bureaucratic regulations.
Sometimes the pay corresponds to the quality of work, and sometimes it does not. Popularity contests did not end in high school.
But the solid fact, the primary beneficiary of silence on salaries is neither the better paid or worse paid employee, it is the corporation who benefits.
Comcast deliberately and specifically used to slow down Netflix traffic. Prior to Netflix paying them for peering.
I had Comcast's 25mbps speed package, but couldn't stream Super or 3D content. Bandwith was too slow. Dropped my service down to 3mbps. Netflix and Comcast signed peering agreement. Suddenly, the very next day my 3mbps connection was fast enough to stream 3D content from Netflix.
The telcos very knowingly throttle certain content.
Comcast deliberately and specifically used to slow down Netflix traffic. Prior to Netflix paying them for peering.
I had Comcast's 25mbps speed package, but couldn't stream Super or 3D content. Bandwith was too slow. Dropped my service down to 3mbps. Netflix and Comcast signed peering agreement. Suddenly, the very next day my 3mbps connection was fast enough to stream 3D content from Netflix.
Ya....don't give me the congestion BS. The telcos very knowingly throttle certain content.
In fact, my first thought was either a drone, or the testing of a new "ground effect" torpedo, which glides just above the surface of the water allowing it to travel significantly faster than a traditional torpedo, while simultaneously be very difficult to target and take out.
The U.S. patent system really needs to be replaced. These exemplify the need for a massive overhaul.
***
Patent 8,209,634 covers the concept of using icons with numeric badges to signal the arrival of new messages. [Haven't email clients been essentially doing this since the 90's?]
Patent 8,279,173 covers the concept of tagging people in photos using an auto-completing search box. [Okay, so now we are claiming ownership of auto-complete. Gee, once again I will point to email clients. They've auto-completed entering recipients for years. This isn't much different. Nothing about this should qualify for a patent.]
Patent 8,301,713 covers the concept of marking a significant lull in a text message conversation by inserting a timestamp reflecting the time of the next message. [So really, the concept they're arguing is that they "hid" timestamps that were close to the prior timestamp. That's an invention? Can one really argue no report printed since the 80's hasn't done something similar? Oh wait, here we've shown the day and all the related records under that day. Same thing. Just a slightly different scope. Move along.]
Patent 8,429,236 covers the concept of changing how a mobile device sends messages depending on whether they're being actively read by the recipient's device. For example, if updates aren't being read in real time, then the sending device may be able to conserve power by sending messages in batches rather than one at a time. [Gee, so batch or on demand. Based on activity. That's never been done in the programming world before.]
Patent 8,677,250 covers the concept of tying a messaging service and a game application together so that a user playing a game can send messages to contacts on the messaging app that includes updates on the player's progress in the game. [Oh, ya.... you're really going to open that can of worms. Do you REALLY want to face Microsoft's lawyers in court BB????]
Patent 9,349,120 covers the concept of muting a message thread. [Muting...oh gee, new new new ability....]
Patent 7,372,961 covers the concept of generating a cryptographic key by choosing a pseudorandom number and then checking if it is "less than order q prior to reducing mod q." If it is, the key is used. If not, another key is chosen at random and the process repeats. [This one I confess I have limited understanding of, but sounds like the simple use of a common math formula, which should not be patentable.]
Slashdot Mirror
1) Yes, growing up we called this a Battle Royal, as mentioned above.
2) Wasn't there a rather popular Minecraft mod called "Hunger Games"
???
Especially as I could find prior art for ALL of Apple's claim. Except perhaps the claim of providing only a single button. But even then, gee....I mean yes, Macs for years had only one button. It was annoying then, and it's annoying now..
Okay, so the propulsion is likely coming from Earth's magnetic field. Still good news. Imagine how much longer satellites could stay in orbit if they could utilize Earth's own magnetic field to propel themselves outward from Earth. That is still very useful.
Dam everywhere.... ;-P
ETZ
About a year and a half ago I got each of my kids a ZTE ZMax Pro. I went with these phones because they were both affordable and full-featured.
They were $179 (unsubsidized). Specs were not quite on par with my LG V20, but they were decent.
- 1080p resolution
- 32GB storage, 2GB memory
- Decent cameras
- Only USB 2.0, but Type-C plug. (I got so tired of needing new micro-USB cables every other month for my kids)
- MicroSD slot (hate that so many phones have dumped this in an attempt to force users to utilize cloud storage to increase telecoms data usage profits, I expect since T-Mobile forced everyone into an "unlimited data" war that we will see the slots return as standard on Android phones.)
Google shows the user rating for the ZTE Zmax Pro as 4.3, which is pretty decent for a no-name budget phone. And to be honest, I've had less problems with my kids ZTE ZMax Pros than I did with either my Samsung Note 2/S5 Active.
Deal collapsed over... "Mr. Trump's insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran's nuclear fuel production after 2030"
In other words, Mr. Trump felt that it was not acceptable to simply say in another 10 years Iran can restart their nuclear fuel/weapons production. Gee...I have to say, "I kind of agree."
"President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain committed to a multinational nuclear deal."
Interesting, so it seems like Iran is going to capitulate to the disarmament anyways. Why?
One of the biggest questions at play in all of this, is what the hell happened in N. Korea. While U.S. media has repeatedly dismissed Trump's role. South Korean officials have praised his role. To a nation like Iran, that's extremely disconcerting.
And let's be honest. If Trump manages to force Iran back to the table and get far more effectual assurances and other criteria met (perhaps including essentially a cease fire throughout the Middle East hotbed currently being supported by Iran). Then one needs to prepare for Trump term 2.0.
[[[Please don't get me wrong. I do not like the guy. I refused to vote for the guy. I think he is a twit, butthead, and a lot more. But it's going to be very hard for any challenger to take him on in elections if he can basically point to having resolved both the N. Korea issue and the Iran issue, and if the economy is at a positive. Good luck Democrats (which will probably be stupid enough to try to run Hillary a third time).
Vehicular AI has already deemed human subjects of inconsequential value. Sees them, just decides to run them over.
ALL HAIL OUR ROBOT OVERFORDS!!!
Heck, many teachers are making $60k-$75K on a bachelor degree, excellent benefits, pensions, etc. Now the two biggest gripes publicized are pay/time worked, and supplies.
1: SUPPLIES - First off, they're no different than many jobs. Supplies, how many in IT are on call. How many pay for hotspot access for it out of their own pocket.
2: TRAINING - Oh, but teachers have to periodically go thru re-training. Hey, guess what...SO DOES EVERY CAREER if you want to stay employed. In fact, teachers less so than many depending on the career. History doesn't change much. Sure you need to take a few classes now and then to meet licensing requirements. But let's compare that to IT...
In IT, the entire technology/language and platform is changing every several years. You are forced to continuously learn or fall behind. Sure, some luck out and get a job a they can coast on for the last 20 years of their career. But most have to spend a crap ton of time learning new tech. This also means purchasing a decent workstation for home/personal use upwards of a $1,000 or more depending on the task.
3: OVERTIME - Oh but teachers work many more hours than paid for. Okay, let's be real. There are some teachers who do in fact spend many hours after school and outside of school grading and on lesson plans. Then there are the teachers who spend very little time doing those things. I have had the opportunity to live within two blocks of three different schools, in three different school districts. As such, I was ALWAYS around after school. Guess what... 80% of the teachers were gone 30 minutes after us kids were dismissed. A few stayed, there usually were the ones that were involved in after-school programs (most of which they get some pay bonus for). There were a handful that would still be there an hour or two later. As for grading, many used the same tests year after year. Some even had wisely written their tests as mostly multiple choice so they could grade them all in minutes.
The truth is, that while some teachers develop much time to lessons, especially newer teachers. Many after a decade or so, are burned out and their effort is largely limited to the hours they are in the classroom.
Now let's compare to IT again. Oh, an industry largely on salary, because for many, if the companies paid them overtime they'd earn nearly double. I think many in IT can testify of routinely have 50-60 hour work weeks, sometimes 70+.
Oh, let's add in being on call. So this Friday, a server had issues, it resulted in me working a 12+ hour day. I was also on call this weekend. Which means one can be called into work at 3AM in the morning (dig that teach'). Well this Saturday an issue occurred with a deployment. Had to work from 9AM until 2PM - it was gorgeous out. Probably the 3rd sunny warm day of the year. By the time 3PM rolled around, it was rain. Joy. On-call is very common in IT. And often, the IT worker is on salary, which means you can work your entire weekend away and not even see a dime for it. And sadly, many companies PTO, time off policies suck so bad, you do not even get comp time.
4: PAY - As I mentioned, most of the salaries I've seen for teachers are around $60K-$75K, administrators break the $100K barrier.
Let's look at that pay. My high school started around 8AM, it ended at 2PM. 80% of teachers were only stayed about 30 minutes before and after - we're talking a 6-7 hour work week. Now, you factor in all the holidays, vacation time, etc. Then add in that you get around 1-2 months off in the summer. (And most school districts allow your pay to be broken down to cover those months not working.) So you pretty much get a crap ton of vacation time OR...you get to have a side business or summer job for extra cash. The amount of time off that teachers receive is significantly higher than that of other careers.
So when you actually look at the salary of a public high school teacher and compare it to the actual hours many of them work, it is a very good rate of pay per hour.
Cheated it's ass off to prevent their shoe-in candidate from losing to Bernie Sanders by:
* Providing questions to Hillary Clinton prior to debates.
* Colluding with media, such as Huffington Post, to essentially print article after article to support Hillary (also known as illegal unreported campaign contribution).
* Magically tossed 6 coins and had them all come up in favor of Hillary Clinton.
* Party famed for leaving dead people on it's voting rolls, so they can keep voting, suddenly without any explanation, has hundreds of thousands of voters purged from its records....primarily in pro-Bernie Sanders areas.
* Young Millenial who seems to voice some objections, found robbed and murdered, except he was left with his wallet and all his valuables.
* Delegates for Bernie Sanders who won fairly per the rules, were prohibited from attending or had their credentials given to others.
* Numerous DNC reps on the take for Hillary
* DNC/Hillary colluded in fundraising, allowing Hillary's fundraising to benefit the DNC in exchange for internal support
* Superdelegates sold before the race even began
And so many more acts...
Yet the media is silent, endeavoring to blame HRC loss on Russian's and Trump colluding. It's all a red herring to keep folks distracted from the real cheating that transpired.
If the temperatures hadn't changed at all....
THIS WOULD STILL BE HAPPENING. THIS IS DUE TO AGRICULTURAL RUNOFF.
Coral = marine invertebrates, that have a symbiotic relationship with dinoflaggellates (microscopic algae).
So basically, agricultural runoff contains pesticides - toxins designed to kill small microbes, plant, fungus, arthropods, invertebrates, etc.
Hmm...any wonder the coral reefs are dying.
"What caused the devastation? Hughes was clear: human-caused global warming."
The Great Barrier Reef is NOT dying cause of global warming. In fact, many of the issues attributed to global warming are NOT due to global warming (Case in point, Redwood trees are not being burned up cause of global warming as touted. They are burning, because we have allowed other trees usually destroyed by seasonal fires to grow to maturity. Redwood bark is so thick it is nearly fireproof. Redwood branches are so high up, flames usually cannot reach them. However, allowing oaks and other lesser trees to reach maturity, has also allowed those flames to jump from the lesser tree branches to the higher branches of the redwoods, resulting in the death of many age old trees which had survived numerous prior forest fires.)
See this is the #1 problem with Global Warming. EVERY environmental issue is blamed on Global Warming, and issues that were commonly discussed in the 90's are now ignored. Global Warming basically absconded environmentalism.
Do your research on the barrier reefs. You'll find there are scientists who have tested the reefs, and what they have discovered is extremely high levels of pesticides and herbicides from Australian agricultural runoff. This is the main culprit. These toxins build up and disrupt the balanced relationship of coral. They also weak its immune system, which has made the coral susceptible to a herpes-type virus.
THIS IS THE REAL CAUSE...and as long as you are STUPID enough to allow every environmental issue to be blamed on "global warming" than you are going to doom the planet by allowing the actual causes of these problems to go unheeded. Many of which are due to big industries, and love that global warming is getting the blame for all their pollution.
I got my kids some ZTE ZMax Pro. These have been great phones. Decent screens, and fair amount of memory for a $179 phone. Best of all, USB Type-C which means I am not needing to buy replacement charging cables for my kids every two months. Way faster charging, way way way more durable.
Zero problems... which when you have 6-10 year olds using regularly, is pretty darn amazing.
Thousands of Americans (and nearly as many H1B Visa holders) are employed as contractors at government agencies.
- They do not get to choose their work locations
- They do not get to choose when or what days they work
- They are required to use specific workstations
- They do not get to choose what tools or software they use
- They rarely have any lattitude in initiative or judgment of their work
- They often spend years, even a decade working on the same contract
- They often perform identical work as the agency employees
"You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done)."
If this is the case, nearly ALL the contractors utilized by U.S. government agencies are in fact, disqualified. And this is why, I really don't think they will crack open that can of worms with Uber. Because the spoiled jam that would be released would literally cause a recession.
Really, guess you haven't seen the thousands of independent contractors employed at the IRS, on H1B Visas.
Because, if Uber drivers are NOT "contractors" and are in fact employees, the effect will be devastation upon the U.S. government. Nearly ALL government agencies employ "contractors". Yet these contractors nearly always are prescribed where to work, when to work, what machines to use, what software to use, etc, etc, etc, etc.
There is essentially, a bulti-billion dollar can of worms that will be opened by legally defining Uber drivers as employees. And while a few state agencies and the like may want that definition, there are trillion dollar corporations like Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, etc. that would face huge losses if such a designation were applied. And seriously, Uber of almost any company best fits contract work.
> you choose when and where
> you use your own vehicle
Honestly, Uber is merely a "broker".
Because eventually, they'll perfect things enough that they can move their entire space launching operations into international waters and totally avoid such BS bureaucratic regulations.
Vigilante hackers (or nation-state in disguise, with famed reputation of being behind the vast majority of cyberhacks of nation-states.)
Sometimes the pay corresponds to the quality of work, and sometimes it does not. Popularity contests did not end in high school.
But the solid fact, the primary beneficiary of silence on salaries is neither the better paid or worse paid employee, it is the corporation who benefits.
Comcast deliberately and specifically used to slow down Netflix traffic. Prior to Netflix paying them for peering.
I had Comcast's 25mbps speed package, but couldn't stream Super or 3D content. Bandwith was too slow. Dropped my service down to 3mbps. Netflix and Comcast signed peering agreement. Suddenly, the very next day my 3mbps connection was fast enough to stream 3D content from Netflix.
The telcos very knowingly throttle certain content.
Greedy bastitches.
Comcast deliberately and specifically used to slow down Netflix traffic. Prior to Netflix paying them for peering.
I had Comcast's 25mbps speed package, but couldn't stream Super or 3D content. Bandwith was too slow. Dropped my service down to 3mbps. Netflix and Comcast signed peering agreement. Suddenly, the very next day my 3mbps connection was fast enough to stream 3D content from Netflix.
Ya....don't give me the congestion BS. The telcos very knowingly throttle certain content.
Every time YouTube links to Wikipedia. They should a) include a donation link as well b) share a portion of the ad revenues to support Wikipedia.
Then it becomes a win-win scenario.
Not at all UFO in behavior IMHO.
In fact, my first thought was either a drone, or the testing of a new "ground effect" torpedo, which glides just above the surface of the water allowing it to travel significantly faster than a traditional torpedo, while simultaneously be very difficult to target and take out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why we don't have these already I will never know. Sure, they won't be as effective in 30ft swells. But still would be a great tool to have available.
The U.S. patent system really needs to be replaced. These exemplify the need for a massive overhaul.
***
Patent 8,209,634 covers the concept of using icons with numeric badges to signal the arrival of new messages.
[Haven't email clients been essentially doing this since the 90's?]
Patent 8,279,173 covers the concept of tagging people in photos using an auto-completing search box.
[Okay, so now we are claiming ownership of auto-complete. Gee, once again I will point to email clients. They've auto-completed entering recipients for years. This isn't much different. Nothing about this should qualify for a patent.]
Patent 8,301,713 covers the concept of marking a significant lull in a text message conversation by inserting a timestamp reflecting the time of the next message.
[So really, the concept they're arguing is that they "hid" timestamps that were close to the prior timestamp. That's an invention? Can one really argue no report printed since the 80's hasn't done something similar? Oh wait, here we've shown the day and all the related records under that day. Same thing. Just a slightly different scope. Move along.]
Patent 8,429,236 covers the concept of changing how a mobile device sends messages depending on whether they're being actively read by the recipient's device. For example, if updates aren't being read in real time, then the sending device may be able to conserve power by sending messages in batches rather than one at a time.
[Gee, so batch or on demand. Based on activity. That's never been done in the programming world before.]
Patent 8,677,250 covers the concept of tying a messaging service and a game application together so that a user playing a game can send messages to contacts on the messaging app that includes updates on the player's progress in the game.
[Oh, ya.... you're really going to open that can of worms. Do you REALLY want to face Microsoft's lawyers in court BB????]
Patent 9,349,120 covers the concept of muting a message thread.
[Muting...oh gee, new new new ability....]
Patent 7,372,961 covers the concept of generating a cryptographic key by choosing a pseudorandom number and then checking if it is "less than order q prior to reducing mod q." If it is, the key is used. If not, another key is chosen at random and the process repeats.
[This one I confess I have limited understanding of, but sounds like the simple use of a common math formula, which should not be patentable.]