Precicely, and it's a real bitch to meet up with the nitpicking requirements of the US govt.
Take CARB for instance. We had to develop a special on-board-diagnostics protocol (CARB-OBD) specifically for California before they would let Toyota continue selling cars there.
Fortunately, they later agreed on the OBD-II protocol.
Ex: Toyota has a car that has a electric/gas hybrid engine called the Prius that gets something like 70mpg in town. This vehicle has been available in Japan for at least five years.
The Prius was released in Japan at the beginning of this year.
I should know, since I'm building the ECU reprogramming system for it.
usual mo disks don't exist... there are grips of standards for them. for practical intents and purposes, md's *are* mo disks.
They do in Japan, and have for years. There's one in the machine right beside me at work. They are now up to 640MB MO drives (you can get 640MB disks for about $30 and the player is about $350). The standard for MO drives in Japan is called (surprise) MO
I've always whanted to store data on MiniDiscs. Think of it: 1)7x7cm (2x2 inch.) could store 100-150MB worth of data* 2)The discs come in a plastic case which is (mostly) dust and scratch-proof 3)They can be read/written using the same technique as usual M/O discs.
I'd rather store data on my smartmedia cards. Think of it: 1) 2x2cm (and 1.5mm thick!) 2) the cards are solid state, so they are dust and scratch proof 3) They are flash storage, so access is almost instantaneous
I'm thinking of buying one of the new 120MB versions so I can load that much more music into the mp3 player I bought in Akihabara for $80.
North America and Europe come up with new technology. Japan takes the technology and does it right.
Example: All major roads have reflector posts along both sides and in the middle. On the face of each reflector is a fan with bristles on each of the three blades. When the wind blows (and it blows often), the bristles clean the surface of the reflector.
Japan has a very long history of copying and improving what they like in other countries. With the exception of Chinese characters, they seem to have done pretty well.
For that matter, why didn't the minidisc take off here in the states?
The same reason that Beta died. Hint: Both are made by Sony and both have restrictive licensing.
Update: To continue the long line of Dumb Sony Things, Sony has released their Memory Stick, with restrictive lisencing, and in the face of Compact Flash and Smart Media! Way to go, Sony!
In other news, I just bought a scsi reader for my 32MB smartmedia and compact flash cards...
Has anyone actually seen these things or are they some urban legend? I've been to Japan twice, actively looked for them both times, and could never find any.
There's a sex shop just around the corner from Akihabara station that sells them. Go out the main North entrance and go into the covered area across the street and through a corridor. You'll see a porno shop entrance to the right as you walk through. Go up to the 4th floor (the SM and other weird stuff section). Beware, most of them cost upwards of $100, so it's a pretty expensive novelty item.
...
Er umm.. that is I *heard* that's where you can find them.. ahem..
On another note the phones don't seem to have many new features compared with what we are used to in europe anyway, except for the colour screens, which are new features anyhow.
Really? I thought we had some pretty hot stuff in Japan... Docomo has their I-Mode phones, that have internet access as well as NTT's information network (things like movie schedules, train schedules, weather information, entertainment guides and such). Tsuka has their own network called SkyWeb which is fairly similar. Most phones now offer internet e-mail, as well. The color phones just came out at the end of last year and they are pretty cool, though a bit expensive (like almost $40!! ouch!). I'd rather get a free phone, myself. They're a bit older and bigger (mine weighs in at a hefty 7x15x1.5cm!), but they're free so what the hell.
I'm waiting for them to get the navi systems small enough that they can fit them on the phones. Now THAT will be cool!
As far as freedom of speech goes, we have a lot more of it in Japan than the USA does.
No, the sites may not contain any nudity, but they do contain information that will enable one to access all the CyberPatrol-blocked sites -- including those with lots and lots of nudity. So the mirrors are being treated as a "special case".
That wouldn't hold up. What use is a list of blocked sites to a cyber-patrolled machine? You can't reach them anyway, since they are blocked.
If these companies start getting into the "links to links" jumble we saw from the RIAA and other undesirables, we'd soon have a worldwide censor of the net itself.
The funny thing is, I checked out the article and while it did mention l0pht crack by name, possession of burglary tools was not listed in the indictments in the story. Looks like the slash-hacks should read a bit more carefully before posting inflammatory stories.
Looks like you should read more carefully:
David Thomas Bell, 33, of Coon Rapids, faces 11 felony charges. They include three counts of unauthorized computer access, two counts of theft of trade secrets, two counts of attempted theft of trade secrets, two counts of computer theft and two counts of possession of burglary or theft tools (specifically, a software program for extracting user IDs and passwords from a computer system).
Mind you, TaoJones has got to be the world's biggest buffoon if he thinks that this is some sort of conspiracy to further make certain computer software illegal.
TaoJones, stop posting shit. And CmdrTaco, try checking up on your sources once in a while.
Why not just stop telling men and women how they should play their roles and just let them play the roles?
All of this "equal opportunity" and "gender neutral" bullshit is really getting tiring.
It stinks so bad of affirmative action that you'd wonder if it was the same jokers who came up with them both.
Give up already!
There's no conclusive evidence to show that the roles we play are purely environmental and all this meddling without examining the consequences is creating such a sexually confused generation, it's a wonder we haven't started fucking the disk drive slot yet.
I am not an expert on american law by I am sure M$ would not put ".. you will not reverse engineer this product..." , and , in the case of SQLServer ".. you will not publish or publicly discuss the results of any benchmark tests you may make.." --- unless they though they could make it stick.
Actually, you've just nailed the reason why they do it: Since it's in there, you just assume that it's legal and they can do it. If push comes to shove, they just tie you up in court until you run out of money. Either way they win.
DVD piracy isn't even cost-effective. What we seek to facilitate is fair use - namely, being able to play the damn things.
Actually, no. I'm in it to protect my rights under the consumer act to keep a backup copy of my DVDs so that I can keep the original safe from harm and protect my investment in the goods they sell me.
DeCSS provides a mechanism to do this. They say it allows pirates to illegally copy movies? Any system that allows the consumer to excercise his right to make a backup copy will also allow pirates to make illegal copies.
Legislating against systems that allow copying will not stop piracy, nor will it even slow it, because the pirates are not interested in the law and are for the most part unreachable by the law.
This is almost as bad as the anti-gun lobbying that swept North America and left its citizens cowering in the corner waiting for some thug to waltz up and rob them.
Or didn't you notice the recent legislation trends that just happen to step on the rights of a few people here, a few people there... You never care until it's you who they're beating up.
Did you know that right now in Canada it is illegal to say or write anything that can be construed to offend anyone based on race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, income level, language, culture, political views, and a few other things I've forgotten. Not only that, but it doesn't actually matter if what you've said is true or not.
Fortunately, I no longer live there, and so I can safely say that the commie mutant scum has infiltrated alpha complex without fear of retribution from the Communist Party of Canada.
Don't think you're immune fron this kind of thing. They'll get around to you eventually.
7. On information and belief, this proprietary information was obtained by willfully "hacking" and/or improperly reverse engineering software created by CSS licensee Xing Technology Corporation ("Xing"). Xing's software is and was licensed to users under a license agreement which specifically prohibits reverse engineering.
The law does allow them to put such a clause in their lisencing agreement.
The law also allows me to put in a lisencing agreement that the person using my software must do so standing on their head.
Fortunately, such clauses are unenforceable (i.e. not legally binding).
Reverse engineering is legal since it was a consumer product release for general distribution, not a special prototype board released specifically to an individual under an NDA.
They'll scare you as much as they can, and will probably strong arm you in court, but the end result is that they technically have no legal ground to stand on. Whether or not you can convince some hick county judge who has never used a computer is another story. (and you can bet your arse they will try that)
The legal system is not, and never was based upon justice; it is based upon power.
Just like with the whole Scientology discussion that happened a couple of weeks ago, people are confusing the church with teh religion.
The scary thing is that scientology has captures so many people...
L. Ron Hubbard even wrote in one of his novels before he became a religious leader that the best way to make loads of cash is to found an organized religion. Guess he finally took his own advice.
I'd make one too, but it's too much work having to listen to everyones problems and give them a misplaced hope.
You're certainly one to talk.. It's easy to say I'm just heaping all the bad stuff on and then not provide any counter-evidence.
Give some examples of new ideas that a) brought a revolution in our ways of thought and living, and b) were embraced, rather than oppressed by the church.
The point I was making, and the point that everyone except you got, is that the church has a history of protecting The Truth (tm) from anything that has the semblance of threatening it. It's been constant battle between those who "know the truth" versus those who are honestly searching for it. This fact has been documented time and time again throughout our miserable history up until this very day even. From geography to astronomy to geology to anthropology to generic engineering, there has been a constant struggle between the church and the scientist.
Care to guess how many times the church was in the right?
I heard some guy on the radio saying that "A scientist who doesn't believe in evolution is like a plumber who doesn't believe in pipes". That's a load of crap. Evolution doesn't say anything about what goes into the pipe in the first place.
Neither does a plumber really care what goes into the pipe, so long as it doesn't stop things up.
But really, if we are going to use this rather stupid analogy, these scientists are interested precicely in what is going into the pipes. This experiment is designed to give them a better understanding of that.
Hmm.. a pound of shit here, some hair over there.. We probably don't need the Rolex...
Remember, your "god" frowns on your sending those packages to the science lab, in order to "stop" this. Good luck getting your six buddies together to start a "Crusade", where you can put those who disagree with your, if I may say so, narrow views, to the sword.
Oh come on! This is a cheap shot. They may be religious nutters, but 99.9% of them are not the psychos who leave care packages.
And which "god" are we going to ask permission from? It makes as much sense to ask my cat.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's see how many people post replies without actually reading the article and realizing that the newspaper is a tabloid.
Precicely, and it's a real bitch to meet up with the nitpicking requirements of the US govt.
Take CARB for instance. We had to develop a special on-board-diagnostics protocol (CARB-OBD) specifically for California before they would let Toyota continue selling cars there.
Fortunately, they later agreed on the OBD-II protocol.
Ex: Toyota has a car that has a electric/gas hybrid engine called the Prius that gets something like 70mpg in town. This vehicle has been available in Japan for at least five years.
The Prius was released in Japan at the beginning of this year.
I should know, since I'm building the ECU reprogramming system for it.
Get your head out of the sand.
usual mo disks don't exist... there are grips of standards for them. for practical intents and purposes, md's *are* mo disks.
They do in Japan, and have for years.
There's one in the machine right beside me at work.
They are now up to 640MB MO drives (you can get 640MB disks for about $30 and the player is about $350).
The standard for MO drives in Japan is called (surprise) MO
I've always whanted to store data on MiniDiscs.
Think of it:
1)7x7cm (2x2 inch.) could store 100-150MB worth of data*
2)The discs come in a plastic case which is (mostly) dust and scratch-proof
3)They can be read/written using the same technique as usual M/O discs.
I'd rather store data on my smartmedia cards.
Think of it:
1) 2x2cm (and 1.5mm thick!)
2) the cards are solid state, so they are dust and scratch proof
3) They are flash storage, so access is almost instantaneous
I'm thinking of buying one of the new 120MB versions so I can load that much more music into the mp3 player I bought in Akihabara for $80.
Correct!
North America and Europe come up with new technology.
Japan takes the technology and does it right.
Example: All major roads have reflector posts along both sides and in the middle. On the face of each reflector is a fan with bristles on each of the three blades. When the wind blows (and it blows often), the bristles clean the surface of the reflector.
Japan has a very long history of copying and improving what they like in other countries.
With the exception of Chinese characters, they seem to have done pretty well.
For that matter, why didn't the minidisc take off here in the states?
The same reason that Beta died.
Hint: Both are made by Sony and both have restrictive licensing.
Update: To continue the long line of Dumb Sony Things, Sony has released their Memory Stick, with restrictive lisencing, and in the face of Compact Flash and Smart Media! Way to go, Sony!
In other news, I just bought a scsi reader for my 32MB smartmedia and compact flash cards...
Has anyone actually seen these things or are they some urban legend? I've been to Japan twice, actively looked for them both times, and could never find any.
There's a sex shop just around the corner from Akihabara station that sells them. Go out the main North entrance and go into the covered area across the street and through a corridor.
You'll see a porno shop entrance to the right as you walk through. Go up to the 4th floor (the SM and other weird stuff section).
Beware, most of them cost upwards of $100, so it's a pretty expensive novelty item.
...
Er umm
They're digital AI fish.
You can feed them and do fishy things.
Wanna know something really funny?
It's illegal to talk on a cel phone while driving in Japan, but it's not illegal to watch TV while driving =)
Hoo-rah, more pocket philosophy.
A thought-free way to promote regularity.
On another note the phones don't seem to have many new features compared with what we are used to in europe anyway, except for the colour screens, which are new features anyhow.
Really? I thought we had some pretty hot stuff in Japan...
Docomo has their I-Mode phones, that have internet access as well as NTT's information network (things like movie schedules, train schedules, weather information, entertainment guides and such).
Tsuka has their own network called SkyWeb which is fairly similar.
Most phones now offer internet e-mail, as well.
The color phones just came out at the end of last year and they are pretty cool, though a bit expensive (like almost $40!! ouch!). I'd rather get a free phone, myself. They're a bit older and bigger (mine weighs in at a hefty 7x15x1.5cm!), but they're free so what the hell.
I'm waiting for them to get the navi systems small enough that they can fit them on the phones. Now THAT will be cool!
As far as freedom of speech goes, we have a lot more of it in Japan than the USA does.
No, the sites may not contain any nudity, but they do contain information that will enable one to access all the CyberPatrol-blocked sites -- including those with lots and lots of nudity. So the mirrors are being treated as a "special case".
That wouldn't hold up.
What use is a list of blocked sites to a cyber-patrolled machine? You can't reach them anyway, since they are blocked.
If these companies start getting into the "links to links" jumble we saw from the RIAA and other undesirables, we'd soon have a worldwide censor of the net itself.
The funny thing is, I checked out the article and while it did mention l0pht crack by name, possession of burglary tools was not listed in
the indictments in the story. Looks like the slash-hacks should read a bit more carefully before posting inflammatory stories.
Looks like you should read more carefully:
David Thomas Bell, 33, of Coon Rapids, faces 11
felony charges. They include three counts of
unauthorized computer access, two counts of theft of
trade secrets, two counts of attempted theft of trade
secrets, two counts of computer theft and two counts of
possession of burglary or theft tools (specifically, a
software program for extracting user IDs and
passwords from a computer system).
Mind you, TaoJones has got to be the world's biggest buffoon if he thinks that this is some sort of conspiracy to further make certain computer software illegal.
TaoJones, stop posting shit. And CmdrTaco, try checking up on your sources once in a while.
Now that many of the slashdot readers have experienced the magic of IPOs, I'm wondering what their experiences have been with trading companies?
Are the online trading companies worth it?
This is what passes for journalism these days?
Come on!
Why not just stop telling men and women how they should play their roles and just let them play the roles?
All of this "equal opportunity" and "gender neutral" bullshit is really getting tiring.
It stinks so bad of affirmative action that you'd wonder if it was the same jokers who came up with them both.
Give up already!
There's no conclusive evidence to show that the roles we play are purely environmental and all this meddling without examining the consequences is creating such a sexually confused generation, it's a wonder we haven't started fucking the disk drive slot yet.
I am not an expert on american law by I am sure M$ would not put ".. you will not reverse engineer this product
Actually, you've just nailed the reason why they do it: Since it's in there, you just assume that it's legal and they can do it.
If push comes to shove, they just tie you up in court until you run out of money. Either way they win.
DVD piracy isn't even cost-effective. What we seek to facilitate is fair use - namely, being able to play the damn things.
Actually, no. I'm in it to protect my rights under the consumer act to keep a backup copy of my DVDs so that I can keep the original safe from harm and protect my investment in the goods they sell me.
DeCSS provides a mechanism to do this.
They say it allows pirates to illegally copy movies?
Any system that allows the consumer to excercise his right to make a backup copy will also allow pirates to make illegal copies.
Legislating against systems that allow copying will not stop piracy, nor will it even slow it, because the pirates are not interested in the law and are for the most part unreachable by the law.
This is almost as bad as the anti-gun lobbying that swept North America and left its citizens cowering in the corner waiting for some thug to waltz up and rob them.
Or didn't you notice the recent legislation trends that just happen to step on the rights of a few people here, a few people there...
You never care until it's you who they're beating up.
Did you know that right now in Canada it is illegal to say or write anything that can be construed to offend anyone based on race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, income level, language, culture, political views, and a few other things I've forgotten.
Not only that, but it doesn't actually matter if what you've said is true or not.
Fortunately, I no longer live there, and so I can safely say that the commie mutant scum has infiltrated alpha complex without fear of retribution from the Communist Party of Canada.
Don't think you're immune fron this kind of thing. They'll get around to you eventually.
7. On information and belief, this proprietary information was obtained by willfully "hacking" and/or improperly reverse engineering
software created by CSS licensee Xing Technology Corporation ("Xing"). Xing's software is and was licensed to users under a license agreement which
specifically prohibits reverse engineering.
The law does allow them to put such a clause in their lisencing agreement.
The law also allows me to put in a lisencing agreement that the person using my software must do so standing on their head.
Fortunately, such clauses are unenforceable (i.e. not legally binding).
Reverse engineering is legal since it was a consumer product release for general distribution, not a special prototype board released specifically to an individual under an NDA.
They'll scare you as much as they can, and will probably strong arm you in court, but the end result is that they technically have no legal ground to stand on.
Whether or not you can convince some hick county judge who has never used a computer is another story. (and you can bet your arse they will try that)
The legal system is not, and never was based upon justice; it is based upon power.
The same wire states that Amazon was loosing millions of dollars while this award was given.
Will somebody PLEASE inform the American wetback that it is spelled "losing", not "loosing".
This misspelling occurs with such frequency that you'd swear they were teaching it that way in school.
Just like with the whole Scientology discussion that happened a couple of weeks ago, people are confusing the church with teh religion.
The scary thing is that scientology has captures so many people...
L. Ron Hubbard even wrote in one of his novels before he became a religious leader that the best way to make loads of cash is to found an organized religion.
Guess he finally took his own advice.
I'd make one too, but it's too much work having to listen to everyones problems and give them a misplaced hope.
You're certainly one to talk..
It's easy to say I'm just heaping all the bad stuff on and then not provide any counter-evidence.
Give some examples of new ideas that a) brought a revolution in our ways of thought and living, and b) were embraced, rather than oppressed by the church.
The point I was making, and the point that everyone except you got, is that the church has a history of protecting The Truth (tm) from anything that has the semblance of threatening it.
It's been constant battle between those who "know the truth" versus those who are honestly searching for it.
This fact has been documented time and time again throughout our miserable history up until this very day even. From geography to astronomy to geology to anthropology to generic engineering, there has been a constant struggle between the church and the scientist.
Care to guess how many times the church was in the right?
I heard some guy on the radio saying that "A scientist who doesn't believe in evolution is like a plumber who doesn't believe in pipes". That's a load of crap. Evolution doesn't say anything about what goes into the pipe in the first place.
Neither does a plumber really care what goes into the pipe, so long as it doesn't stop things up.
But really, if we are going to use this rather stupid analogy, these scientists are interested precicely in what is going into the pipes. This experiment is designed to give them a better understanding of that.
Hmm.. a pound of shit here, some hair over there.. We probably don't need the Rolex...
I just thought I would point out that the majority of the oxygen that we breathe comes from the ocean, and not from trees.
And WHEN will people realize that we can't just keep cutting down oceans wholesale... er... nevermind =)
We should probably raise an issue with the orientals since they are eating all the seaweed =P
Ok, I'm in a mischievous mood today. Sue me =)
Remember, your "god" frowns on your sending those packages to the science lab, in order to "stop" this. Good luck getting your six buddies together to start a "Crusade", where you can put those who disagree with your, if I may say so, narrow views, to the sword.
Oh come on! This is a cheap shot.
They may be religious nutters, but 99.9% of them are not the psychos who leave care packages.
And which "god" are we going to ask permission from? It makes as much sense to ask my cat.
=)