This company will be shot in the foot before long. It's not hard for email services such as hotmail and yahoo to protect the privacy of its users to filter out the cookie-cut inline image. How's this company supposed to charge for a service that they can't guarantee will work for every email address
There are probably thousands of willing gunho islamic extremists that would sacrifice their life to destroy a domestic american target. These are good people who believe that America is an enemy to God. They have no previous extremist activity linking them to terrorism and thus would not be flagged as they enter the country.
Great ideas that lead to bigger and better things never get there when people are at risk of losing their big paychecks. Some guy is a millionaire because he owns a publishing company that can sell textbooks at $100+ a pop. He's not gonna sit there and watch his annual income go down the toilet. Same thing with the oil, alcohol, medical, computer industry etc...
I don't have any statistics to back this up but I wouldn't be surprised if over half of the patents issued have not and will never be developed. So much for innovation. Along with filing a patent companies should be required to submit proof of development of the product protected by the patent or incur stiff penalties. Fines could be placed based off of an initial report estimating the cost to develop the product protected by the patent. Patents are supposed to protect people with good ideas who are going to DEVELOP it not for just good ideas to stay locked up in a vault.
TECHNOLOGY
The Techno Maestro's Amazing Machine Kohei Minato and the Japan Magnetic Fan Company
A maverick inventor's breakthrough electric motor uses permanent magnets to make power -- and has investors salivating
by John Dodd
NEW! -- See video of motors working.
When we first got the call from an excited colleague that he'd just seen the most amazing invention -- a magnetic motor that consumed almost no electricity -- we were so skeptical that we declined an invitation to go see it. If the technology was so good, we thought, how come they didn't have any customers yet?
We forgot about the invitation and the company until several months later, when our friend called again.
"OK," he said. "They've just sold 40,000 units to a major convenience store chain. Now will you see it?"
In Japan, no one pays for 40,000 convenience store cooling fans without being reasonably sure that they are going to work.
The maestro
The streets of east Shinjuku are littered with the tailings of the many small factories and workshops still located there -- hardly one's image of the headquarters of a world-class technology company. But this is where we are first greeted outside Kohei Minato's workshop by Nobue Minato, the wife of the inventor and co-director of the family firm.
The workshop itself is like a Hollywood set of an inventor's garage. Electrical machines, wires, measuring instruments and batteries are strewn everywhere. Along the diagram-covered walls are drill presses, racks of spare coils, Perspex plating and other paraphernalia. And seated in the back, head bowed in thought, is the 58-year-old techno maestro himself.
Minato is no newcomer to the limelight. In fact, he has been an entertainer for most of his life, making music and producing his daughter's singing career in the US. He posseses an oversized presence, with a booming voice and a long ponytail. In short, you can easily imagine him onstage or in a convertible cruising down the coast of California -- not hunched over a mass of wires and coils in Tokyo's cramped backstreets.
Joining us are a middle-aged banker and his entourage from Osaka and accounting and finance consultant Yukio Funai. The banker is doing a quick review for an investment, while the rest of us just want to see if Minato's magnetic motors really work. A prototype car air conditioner cooler sitting on a bench looks like it would fit into a Toyota Corolla and quickly catches our attention.
Seeing is believing
Nobue then takes us through the functions and operations of each of the machines, starting off with a simple explanation of the laws of magnetism and repulsion. She demonstrates the "Minato Wheel" by kicking a magnet-lined rotor into action with a magnetic wand.
Looking carefully at the rotor, we see that it has over 16 magnets embedded on a slant -- apparently to make Minato's machines work, the positioning and angle of the magnets is critical. After she kicks the wheel into life, it keeps spinning, proving at least that the design doesn't suffer from magnetic lockup.
She then moves us to the next device, a weighty machine connected to a tiny battery. Apparently the load on the machine is a 35kg rotor, which could easily be used in a washing machine. After she flicks the switch, the huge rotor spins at over 1,500 rpms effortlessly and silently. Meters show the power in and power out. Suddenly, a power source of 16 watt or so is driving a device that should be drawing at least 200 to 300 watts.
Nobue explains to us that this and all the other devices only use electrical power for the two electromagnetic stators at either side of each rotor, which are used to kick the rotor past its lockup point then on to the next arc of magnets. Apparently the angle and spacing of the magnets is such that once the rotor is moving, repulsion between the stators and the rotor poles keeps the rotor moving smoothly in a counterclockwise direction. Either way, it's impressive.
We waste so much of our tax money on this kind of mentality. It's everywhere and it drives me nuts. Just who do these guys think they are. If you ask me they sound like 14 year olds. Some governments have implemented what's called LOSER pays and it sure stops idiot lawsuits like this from popping up. It makes people think twice before suing because they have nothing to lose if they lose.
The GMAIL service will provide one of the largest userbases on the net. With a drop of a couple million dollars to start it up this idea is way more powerful than spending a million dollars to advertise for 30 seconds during the superbowl.
I agree with another slashdot user that it should be called Moogle and they're slogan should be "Great Googley-Moogley!!!"
It's not that they can't sell CDS cheap it's that they won't. Artists and Actors although get promised big money by producers and so they charge big dollars to back up that promise.
Music, Movies, Sports will never get cheaper. There are too many people that want to get rich quick and will exploit those domains to do it since entertainment is a HUGE market. People are not going to get bored of entertainment.
What's amazing to me is that we are spending $9 to go see a movie at the theaters and then add on any snacks. We are spending more money per person at the theaters then it costs to buy one cd. I don't know why we don't complain about this as much as we do about CD prices since you can take the CD home and listen to it over and over.
Pirating any copyrighted material creates a userbase that allows the product to remain alive and increase it's popularity(if it's a good product) If kids wern't able to get a pirated copy of Photoshop they won't go and buy it, they just don't have that kind of money. However they get it for free and this creates a huge userbase for the product, free marketing for adobe. The product becomes so popular that sales actually increase. There's is no doubt that the userbase of piraters may eventually convert to the userbase of purchasers of the product.
The RIAA's argument is that if they force people not to download MP3s then they are forced to go buy the album, which is more affordable for most people on their budget. I guess that seems pretty fair for the artist that is trying to sell the album. I think that peer2peer sharing would directly decrease cd sales if popularity and userbases would not increase for the artist. However this is not the case. Artists userbases are strengthened and a more widespread popularity for people to buy the album is created.
I've found that the scammers usually have some long explanation for why they are selling it so cheap. Most of the legit auctions don't have this.
i.e. My girlfriend just got in an accident in Romania and I need to sell this $2000 camcorder for $1000 so I can send her money. I will put you on the buyer list if you agree to pay me through Western Union.
From what I've heard American Express is the best with dealing with disputed charges. If you pay for an item on ebay with an american express card through paypal and get stiffed just call american express and tell them the charge is being disputed. Because of how paypal works the seller will have already received his money. However paypal would have dug into their own pockets to pay that seller because american express isn't going to hand over any money to paypal until the transaction dispute is resolved. Maybe this will put pressure on ebay and paypal to protect its customers better.
I think that paypal is a very convenient way of transfering money but I don't think that it is providing the kind of consumer protection that it could. It will evolve just like every other business...hopefully for the better. If you're expecting paypal to be foolproof you're expecting too much. I don't think we should forget that even the credit card companies are still dealing with a large amount of fraud.
I was in Wal-Mart with my buddy and I noticed that my T-Mobile phone had 0 reception within the building where his AT&T phone had full reception. As soon as I walked out the door my reception returned to 100% This happens every time I go to Wal Mart even to my other friends that have T-Mobile
Can someone please tell the ignorant people that are being duped by whoever built this system that you can make an audio cd with a CD-R that is not labled CD-R Audio. I didn't even know that the wool was being pulled over so many peoples eyes until I was helping my friends dad with his computer and we needed to burn some data. I asked him for a blank cd and he said that all he had left were "CD-R Audio" and that he would go buy some "CD-R data" Are the CD-R companies labling seperatly on purpose or what? What are they trying to pull?
Also it's robbery for an $820 tariff on a 40gb IPOD.
Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo now offers 2 GB accounts for $19.99/year. The free accounts are a generous 100mb. It would take me a couple years to even use up 100mb.
I guess I'm not a big enough nerd to know what SMP is
(sigh) one day....
This company will be shot in the foot before long. It's not hard for email services such as hotmail and yahoo to protect the privacy of its users to filter out the cookie-cut inline image. How's this company supposed to charge for a service that they can't guarantee will work for every email address
There are probably thousands of willing gunho islamic extremists that would sacrifice their life to destroy a domestic american target. These are good people who believe that America is an enemy to God. They have no previous extremist activity linking them to terrorism and thus would not be flagged as they enter the country.
Great ideas that lead to bigger and better things never get there when people are at risk of losing their big paychecks. Some guy is a millionaire because he owns a publishing company that can sell textbooks at $100+ a pop. He's not gonna sit there and watch his annual income go down the toilet. Same thing with the oil, alcohol, medical, computer industry etc...
This isn't news. Alias' Marshall has been doing it for years.
Now Kevin Rose can spend more time making more "The Broken" episodes. Which means more Ramsey!!
me too! hehe . I submitted the same story a while ago and the status is still pending. weird
I don't have any statistics to back this up but I wouldn't be surprised if over half of the patents issued have not and will never be developed. So much for innovation. Along with filing a patent companies should be required to submit proof of development of the product protected by the patent or incur stiff penalties. Fines could be placed based off of an initial report estimating the cost to develop the product protected by the patent. Patents are supposed to protect people with good ideas who are going to DEVELOP it not for just good ideas to stay locked up in a vault.
TECHNOLOGY
The Techno Maestro's Amazing Machine
Kohei Minato and the Japan Magnetic Fan Company
A maverick inventor's breakthrough electric motor uses permanent magnets to make power -- and has investors salivating
by John Dodd
NEW! -- See video of motors working.
When we first got the call from an excited colleague that he'd just seen the most amazing invention -- a magnetic motor that consumed almost no electricity -- we were so skeptical that we declined an invitation to go see it. If the technology was so good, we thought, how come they didn't have any customers yet?
We forgot about the invitation and the company until several months later, when our friend called again.
"OK," he said. "They've just sold 40,000 units to a major convenience store chain. Now will you see it?"
In Japan, no one pays for 40,000 convenience store cooling fans without being reasonably sure that they are going to work.
The maestro
The streets of east Shinjuku are littered with the tailings of the many small factories and workshops still located there -- hardly one's image of the headquarters of a world-class technology company. But this is where we are first greeted outside Kohei Minato's workshop by Nobue Minato, the wife of the inventor and co-director of the family firm.
The workshop itself is like a Hollywood set of an inventor's garage. Electrical machines, wires, measuring instruments and batteries are strewn everywhere. Along the diagram-covered walls are drill presses, racks of spare coils, Perspex plating and other paraphernalia. And seated in the back, head bowed in thought, is the 58-year-old techno maestro himself.
Minato is no newcomer to the limelight. In fact, he has been an entertainer for most of his life, making music and producing his daughter's singing career in the US. He posseses an oversized presence, with a booming voice and a long ponytail. In short, you can easily imagine him onstage or in a convertible cruising down the coast of California -- not hunched over a mass of wires and coils in Tokyo's cramped backstreets.
Joining us are a middle-aged banker and his entourage from Osaka and accounting and finance consultant Yukio Funai. The banker is doing a quick review for an investment, while the rest of us just want to see if Minato's magnetic motors really work. A prototype car air conditioner cooler sitting on a bench looks like it would fit into a Toyota Corolla and quickly catches our attention.
Seeing is believing
Nobue then takes us through the functions and operations of each of the machines, starting off with a simple explanation of the laws of magnetism and repulsion. She demonstrates the "Minato Wheel" by kicking a magnet-lined rotor into action with a magnetic wand.
Looking carefully at the rotor, we see that it has over 16 magnets embedded on a slant -- apparently to make Minato's machines work, the positioning and angle of the magnets is critical. After she kicks the wheel into life, it keeps spinning, proving at least that the design doesn't suffer from magnetic lockup.
She then moves us to the next device, a weighty machine connected to a tiny battery. Apparently the load on the machine is a 35kg rotor, which could easily be used in a washing machine. After she flicks the switch, the huge rotor spins at over 1,500 rpms effortlessly and silently. Meters show the power in and power out. Suddenly, a power source of 16 watt or so is driving a device that should be drawing at least 200 to 300 watts.
Nobue explains to us that this and all the other devices only use electrical power for the two electromagnetic stators at either side of each rotor, which are used to kick the rotor past its lockup point then on to the next arc of magnets. Apparently the angle and spacing of the magnets is such that once the rotor is moving, repulsion between the stators and the rotor poles keeps the rotor moving smoothly in a counterclockwise direction. Either way, it's impressive.
Now I'll be able to do something useful with the AOL cds. Wipe my butt!!
We waste so much of our tax money on this kind of mentality. It's everywhere and it drives me nuts. Just who do these guys think they are. If you ask me they sound like 14 year olds. Some governments have implemented what's called LOSER pays and it sure stops idiot lawsuits like this from popping up. It makes people think twice before suing because they have nothing to lose if they lose.
The GMAIL service will provide one of the largest userbases on the net. With a drop of a couple million dollars to start it up this idea is way more powerful than spending a million dollars to advertise for 30 seconds during the superbowl.
I agree with another slashdot user that it should be called Moogle and they're slogan should be "Great Googley-Moogley!!!"
It's not that they can't sell CDS cheap it's that they won't. Artists and Actors although get promised big money by producers and so they charge big dollars to back up that promise.
Music, Movies, Sports will never get cheaper. There are too many people that want to get rich quick and will exploit those domains to do it since entertainment is a HUGE market. People are not going to get bored of entertainment.
What's amazing to me is that we are spending $9 to go see a movie at the theaters and then add on any snacks. We are spending more money per person at the theaters then it costs to buy one cd. I don't know why we don't complain about this as much as we do about CD prices since you can take the CD home and listen to it over and over.
Pirating any copyrighted material creates a userbase that allows the product to remain alive and increase it's popularity(if it's a good product) If kids wern't able to get a pirated copy of Photoshop they won't go and buy it, they just don't have that kind of money. However they get it for free and this creates a huge userbase for the product, free marketing for adobe. The product becomes so popular that sales actually increase. There's is no doubt that the userbase of piraters may eventually convert to the userbase of purchasers of the product.
The RIAA's argument is that if they force people not to download MP3s then they are forced to go buy the album, which is more affordable for most people on their budget. I guess that seems pretty fair for the artist that is trying to sell the album. I think that peer2peer sharing would directly decrease cd sales if popularity and userbases would not increase for the artist. However this is not the case. Artists userbases are strengthened and a more widespread popularity for people to buy the album is created.
I've found that the scammers usually have some long explanation for why they are selling it so cheap. Most of the legit auctions don't have this.
i.e. My girlfriend just got in an accident in Romania and I need to sell this $2000 camcorder for $1000 so I can send her money. I will put you on the buyer list if you agree to pay me through Western Union.
I'd hate to be the one who was the victim of fraud through the thugs4hire.com website.
From what I've heard American Express is the best with dealing with disputed charges. If you pay for an item on ebay with an american express card through paypal and get stiffed just call american express and tell them the charge is being disputed. Because of how paypal works the seller will have already received his money. However paypal would have dug into their own pockets to pay that seller because american express isn't going to hand over any money to paypal until the transaction dispute is resolved. Maybe this will put pressure on ebay and paypal to protect its customers better.
I think that paypal is a very convenient way of transfering money but I don't think that it is providing the kind of consumer protection that it could. It will evolve just like every other business...hopefully for the better. If you're expecting paypal to be foolproof you're expecting too much. I don't think we should forget that even the credit card companies are still dealing with a large amount of fraud.
Everyone thank Al Gore for the source code. Thanks AL!!!
Lego wold have gotten my parents money when I was a kid and probably the money of a lot of other people if they wern't so overpriced.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/carnivore.htm
that would suck if I accidentally formatted my brain
I was in Wal-Mart with my buddy and I noticed that my T-Mobile phone had 0 reception within the building where his AT&T phone had full reception. As soon as I walked out the door my reception returned to 100% This happens every time I go to Wal Mart even to my other friends that have T-Mobile
Can someone please tell the ignorant people that are being duped by whoever built this system that you can make an audio cd with a CD-R that is not labled CD-R Audio. I didn't even know that the wool was being pulled over so many peoples eyes until I was helping my friends dad with his computer and we needed to burn some data. I asked him for a blank cd and he said that all he had left were "CD-R Audio" and that he would go buy some "CD-R data" Are the CD-R companies labling seperatly on purpose or what? What are they trying to pull?
Also it's robbery for an $820 tariff on a 40gb IPOD.