The main reason I can see NOT to do this, is because it would make it next to impossible for any innovation to occur outside a corporate environment. I think that if an academic, or even just some guy in his garage, comes up with some clever new thing, they should have every right to patent it. I already think the high filing fees, and necessary legal involvement make patents prohibitive enough to all but the most wealthy individuals, but what you are suggesting would pretty much make it impossible to patent anything unless you were a company planning to produce a product.
Not necessarily. Because all that person would have to do is develop a prototype to show they were working on producing the invention. In fact, if they partnered with a bigger company, or sold them the patent, then they could jointly-develop the product.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the lone inventor would be least-harmed by this. As you say, filing fees are high and legal fees higher, so I don't think too many people intend to invent an idea, pay (personally) for the cost of patenting it, just to let it sit in the file cabinet. But corporations do just that all the time
It seems logical to me that when granting a patent, the USPTO should stipulate that the invention being patented actually be produced or used to some degree, within a certain timeframe. Now, I realise that it would be important to come up with a clear definition of what consitutes implementation, but other than that purely logistical point, can anyone see a reason why we shouldn't do this?
Put another way, are there any valid reasons to allow companies to hold patents for devices that they have no intention of ever developing?
I think this logic is faulty. Kids will always find a way around things. I don't believe that violent video games should be banned, and I don't believe that parents should abdicate all their responsibility, but I just can't see how a law preventing *children* (and only children) from buying violent video games is that terrible. While I think adults should have the right to watch what they want, kids should face restrictions, because they simply aren't ready to handle such themes.
We have rating systems on movies, because we don't want kids getting in to see Arnie's movies. That doesn't mean it prevents me from seeing them.
In fact, this is even less limiting that theatre-ratings. If a parent is monitoring what their kids play, and thinks they are old enough or mature enough to handle violent games, that parents can buy the kid the violent game, bring it home, and give it to them. There is nothing in this law preventing parents from monitoring what their kids play; all it's doing is throwing up one more roadblock that will prevent some kids from being able to buy it on their own.
Slashdotters get all up in arms any time such a restriction is put in place, but they forget one thing: kids have fewer rights. They can't vote, they can't buy alcohol or tobacco, they can't rent violent movies or porn. They can't decide whether or not to go to school, they can't drive, etc. Why? Because kids just aren't ready to make those decisions on their own yet. The parents can add further restrictions (no junk food before dinner etc) if they wish, but the state has the right to protect its most vulnerable citizens through legal means. That's what this law does: it doesn't prevent adults from buying violent games, just kids.
Well what about those semi-random discounts that stores have from time to time? You know the ones where you pop a balloon and it gives you a discount. Might be 5%, might be 10%, you might win your purchase for free, etc.
If I pop a balloon and get 5% while the guy next to me pops one and gets 25% off, I'm not pissed. It just happens that way sometimes. Maybe next time, I'll get 50% off and he'll get 10%. The luck of the draw.
I agree, in general, and my first question was about power failures as well. However, I think with some careful planning, this could be mitigated. Although the article is a little short on all the technical details, it seems like this could be modified to augment an existing key system, rather than replacing it. That is, you can open the door either via keys, or via the RFID tag.
Therefore, if the power fails, you can still get access through the traditional method (keys). I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall being in a hotel where they had this sort of setup with their swipe-card system. It used a swipe-card by default, but swiping your card merely pushed the latch in, which you could also accomplish with keys if the need arose (in this case, only the front desk had the keys, but still....)
I think what will happen more and more is that Microsoft will simply create more and more cross-patenteing agreements. Instead of trying to settle everything in court, they'll just agree to share patents with other companies in exchange for the rights to use their patents. Whichever company has the smaller set of patents will pay a fee to the company with the larger set, and patent litigation will go away. Of course, if you're an independent developer with few or no patents, to get in on this you have to pay far more than you can afford.
Which leads me to my next point...
I don't think the "thermonuclear option" will happen, because Microsoft (and all other big patent-holders) will simply continue with the "sniper option". They'll pick individual patents they hold and use it to slow development or cripple distribution of competing products. They'll stay under the radar of the FTC and whatnot, while easily making productive competing development nigh impossible
The biggest thing that I don't get about the RIAA's tactics of late (lawsuits and so on) is why they don't expend more effort and more money on combating pirated CDs in China/Brazil/etc. I'm not saying that downloading or illegal copying in North America is any "better", but the problem with duplicated CDs just seems so much bigger. My only guess is one of three things:
1) They are going after CD-duplicating pirates in Asia/S. America et al. and we just don't hear about it
2) They think that the battle against downloaders (and now satellite radio) is more "winnable"
3) (The jaded, cynical option) They know that the markets where illegal dupes are sold don't have any money to buy the real deal with, so they look at it as advertising. Whereas North American consumers do have money, and the RIAA thinks that if they can get people to stop downloading (HA!) then people will just go back to buying CDs.
One thing not addressed in the review is whether it would still make a good movie if you haven't seen the Firefly. He makes it clear you'll love it if you have seen Firefly, but never truly indicates if it's good for us Firefly-virgins.
I think it looks like a great movie, but have yet to see the original series (and please, spare me all the banal "turn in your geek card" jokes, I don't own a TV and haven't gotten around to renting the DVDs to watch on my computer). But if it will be much better for having seen the TV series, I will hold off on the movie until Have done so.
So, for those that have already seen Serenity, please weigh in and let me know your thoughts.
I think if you're an Apple investor, you're probably happy enough about the near-quintupling in the last 2 years that a 4% drop isn't the end of the world.
Very cool concept. I'd love to see some of this technology trickle down to the consumer level (hand crank, cheap ruggedized case etc). In fact, I'd love to see these available to the consumer at $200. For every unit you buy at $200, you are buying one for a developing country. It'd be like buying a cheap laptop and donating to charity all at once.
My biggest concern with this, and all other laptops-for-schoolkids programs is that they actually do proper class programming with them (programming as in lecture design etc, not Objective-C/Java/etc). It's not simply enough to hand kids a laptopo and expect them to suddenly learn more. You have to shape the classes and the materials in such a way as to be well-suited to a classroom full on network-connected, laptop-toting schoolkids. This can be done, but it does take thought; hopefully the school boards engaging in such programs have done this planning.
It seems a logical next step for this to be used to only allow certain installs. After all, the carriers have long-since wanted you to *only* install stuff you pay them to download. I mean MP3 ringtons are just that-MP3s (short, 32Kbps ones even), yet you often can't transfer them simply by USB, you need to pay the carrier $3 for them.
So, why would it be surprising that the carriers would want yet another layer of hardware/software protection to ensure that this golden revenue stream is the only way for people to add games/ringtones/wallpaper etc?
Personally, I think the best method is to make sentences. For example, you could use the fairly indecipherable password 1Cps2PtS3?4P! which looks like nothing but gibberish
However, it is in reality, an acronym for the classic Slashdot joke: 1) Create password scheme 2) Post to Slashdot 3) ? 4) Profit!
The result is a mixed-case, alphanumeric password that's nigh-impossible to guess randomly, but is easy enough to remember and I don't need to carry around a card for it. Even simple sentences ("My birthday is July 26") can become decent passwords ("MbdiJ26")
When I look at local computer parts prices, DRAM has been stuck at the $100 / GB range for three years now. Flash passed its price point earlier this year and is not looking back. I used to marvel at how RAM prices used to drop. (Flash is slower and can only be written a limited number (1E5) of times.)
Demand. There just simply isn't the demand for that much RAM. It used to be that you could always use more, because new operating systems required it, and new games needed it, etc. But now, with Longhorn/Vista still en route, and given that Tiger's requirements are not much more than Panther's or even Jaguar's, the OSs aren't driving people to get that much more RAM. And games are becoming less and less of an issue on computers as consoles grab bigger pieces of the marketshare.
In short, without the demand driving the competition, there simply isn't the incentive to drop prices that much. Flash, on the other hand, let's you work toward solid-state hard drives, bigger memory cards and MP3 players and so forth. So the demand still exists in that sector.
He's fast, witty and very entertaining, even when they have to answer the question about where the (cw) in their nicknames comes from for what must have been the 103rd time of the weekend.
So, for those of us that weren't there, where does the (cw) come from? What does it mean?
What you simply don't get is that with Linux most people write the software to use it themselves. Those people advocating Linux for Joe Sixpack are not the people writing the software. Those just write the software exactly the way they like it and that is good. If any change is necessary than it is the advocates who have to stop pretending Linux was written with the "normal" user in mind.
Fine, but if we are to accept that, then we need to see the end of articles like this one mocking people for not installing Linux when Linux is so easy to install and use.
An article like this one (and many others here on Slashdot) gives the impression (accurate or not) that Linux should be (or already is) easy to use, and that everyone (not just the hardcore geeks) should be using it, and people who aren't are just Microsoft shills or simply don't realise how wonderful and easy Linux is. That position is fine, but then you have to expect critique from people who say it's not easy based on what the "average" user expects.
I agree, there are some area where Linux still is trickier than competing systems (I use OS X).
Two examples, just off the top of my head:
Look at the list of Distros at Distrowatch: There are, by my count, 342 different distros. Now, choice is good and all, but I don't think you can say that having that many options makes it "easier" for an average user, much less a new user.
Look at the dependencies list for Gnumeric. 10 required dependencies, and 8 optional ones. Again, for the average user, this is a lot more complicated than running the Excel installer and having it install whatever it needs.
Linux is certainly getting easier to use, but as the parent stated, there's still enough of a learning curve to deter even fairly advanced users (I'm a computer engineer who's been using computers for the past 18 years, since I was 7)
Nothing since the iMac G3 has been quiet enough? If nothing else, what about the G4 cube? It was, in fact, totally silent (no fan at all). The only noise it produced was from the hard drive whirring, and that was imperceptible.
In the end, which format "wins" won't be based on a "here's the features, pick your favourite" type of poll. The marketing and cost of each will be a huge factor, but more importantly, it will rely on network effects. Whichever format can get more released for it will, because if I go into Best Buy and see 200 Blu-Ray movies and 30 HD-DVD movies, my choice will be easy and all other factors will be irrelevant.
So what if it is a dupe? I missed the original (it wasn't in the RSS feed), and saw this one. So, I for one am glad it was duped.
Nobody is forcing you to look at the dupes. If the title is the same, then just ignore it. In fact, by the time you see the dupe, identify it as such, load the article, hit "reply", type up the snippy "this-is-a-dupe" comment and hit "submit", you probably could have read the summary for a whole other article.
Look, I agree with you points about a phone ringing like a phone. I also wish that it was possible to buy a phone with no wallpaper, no colour screen, no MP3 ringtons, etc, but great battery life and reception, and a small form factor.
But to assert that everyone should feel this way doesn't exactly espouse the freedom (as in speech) that Slashdot is all about. I should be able to get a back-to-basics phone, but I should also be able to get a colour-MP3-wallpaper-video-phone if I wish. That's what consumer choice is all about.
By all means, share your opinions with us. But don't be so surprised if not everyone agrees with you.
No, the Civilization series is about having a few hours to kill, but then realising you've wasted all day playing "just one more turn". I swear, the hours I have lost to Sid Meir's creations!
Slashdot Mirror
The main reason I can see NOT to do this, is because it would make it next to impossible for any innovation to occur outside a corporate environment. I think that if an academic, or even just some guy in his garage, comes up with some clever new thing, they should have every right to patent it. I already think the high filing fees, and necessary legal involvement make patents prohibitive enough to all but the most wealthy individuals, but what you are suggesting would pretty much make it impossible to patent anything unless you were a company planning to produce a product.
Not necessarily. Because all that person would have to do is develop a prototype to show they were working on producing the invention. In fact, if they partnered with a bigger company, or sold them the patent, then they could jointly-develop the product.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the lone inventor would be least-harmed by this. As you say, filing fees are high and legal fees higher, so I don't think too many people intend to invent an idea, pay (personally) for the cost of patenting it, just to let it sit in the file cabinet. But corporations do just that all the time
It seems logical to me that when granting a patent, the USPTO should stipulate that the invention being patented actually be produced or used to some degree, within a certain timeframe. Now, I realise that it would be important to come up with a clear definition of what consitutes implementation, but other than that purely logistical point, can anyone see a reason why we shouldn't do this?
Put another way, are there any valid reasons to allow companies to hold patents for devices that they have no intention of ever developing?
I think this logic is faulty. Kids will always find a way around things. I don't believe that violent video games should be banned, and I don't believe that parents should abdicate all their responsibility, but I just can't see how a law preventing *children* (and only children) from buying violent video games is that terrible. While I think adults should have the right to watch what they want, kids should face restrictions, because they simply aren't ready to handle such themes.
We have rating systems on movies, because we don't want kids getting in to see Arnie's movies. That doesn't mean it prevents me from seeing them.
In fact, this is even less limiting that theatre-ratings. If a parent is monitoring what their kids play, and thinks they are old enough or mature enough to handle violent games, that parents can buy the kid the violent game, bring it home, and give it to them. There is nothing in this law preventing parents from monitoring what their kids play; all it's doing is throwing up one more roadblock that will prevent some kids from being able to buy it on their own.
Slashdotters get all up in arms any time such a restriction is put in place, but they forget one thing: kids have fewer rights. They can't vote, they can't buy alcohol or tobacco, they can't rent violent movies or porn. They can't decide whether or not to go to school, they can't drive, etc. Why? Because kids just aren't ready to make those decisions on their own yet. The parents can add further restrictions (no junk food before dinner etc) if they wish, but the state has the right to protect its most vulnerable citizens through legal means. That's what this law does: it doesn't prevent adults from buying violent games, just kids.
Well what about those semi-random discounts that stores have from time to time? You know the ones where you pop a balloon and it gives you a discount. Might be 5%, might be 10%, you might win your purchase for free, etc.
If I pop a balloon and get 5% while the guy next to me pops one and gets 25% off, I'm not pissed. It just happens that way sometimes. Maybe next time, I'll get 50% off and he'll get 10%. The luck of the draw.
I agree, in general, and my first question was about power failures as well. However, I think with some careful planning, this could be mitigated. Although the article is a little short on all the technical details, it seems like this could be modified to augment an existing key system, rather than replacing it. That is, you can open the door either via keys, or via the RFID tag.
Therefore, if the power fails, you can still get access through the traditional method (keys). I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall being in a hotel where they had this sort of setup with their swipe-card system. It used a swipe-card by default, but swiping your card merely pushed the latch in, which you could also accomplish with keys if the need arose (in this case, only the front desk had the keys, but still....)
I think what will happen more and more is that Microsoft will simply create more and more cross-patenteing agreements. Instead of trying to settle everything in court, they'll just agree to share patents with other companies in exchange for the rights to use their patents. Whichever company has the smaller set of patents will pay a fee to the company with the larger set, and patent litigation will go away. Of course, if you're an independent developer with few or no patents, to get in on this you have to pay far more than you can afford.
Which leads me to my next point...
I don't think the "thermonuclear option" will happen, because Microsoft (and all other big patent-holders) will simply continue with the "sniper option". They'll pick individual patents they hold and use it to slow development or cripple distribution of competing products. They'll stay under the radar of the FTC and whatnot, while easily making productive competing development nigh impossible
The biggest thing that I don't get about the RIAA's tactics of late (lawsuits and so on) is why they don't expend more effort and more money on combating pirated CDs in China/Brazil/etc. I'm not saying that downloading or illegal copying in North America is any "better", but the problem with duplicated CDs just seems so much bigger. My only guess is one of three things:
1) They are going after CD-duplicating pirates in Asia/S. America et al. and we just don't hear about it
2) They think that the battle against downloaders (and now satellite radio) is more "winnable"
3) (The jaded, cynical option) They know that the markets where illegal dupes are sold don't have any money to buy the real deal with, so they look at it as advertising. Whereas North American consumers do have money, and the RIAA thinks that if they can get people to stop downloading (HA!) then people will just go back to buying CDs.
Now the whole neighbourhood can watch me download porn if I forget to turn encryption on!
Really? I had it worked out to approximately a hojillion. I'd better double-check my figures. Maybe I carried the one in the wrong place....
One thing not addressed in the review is whether it would still make a good movie if you haven't seen the Firefly. He makes it clear you'll love it if you have seen Firefly, but never truly indicates if it's good for us Firefly-virgins.
I think it looks like a great movie, but have yet to see the original series (and please, spare me all the banal "turn in your geek card" jokes, I don't own a TV and haven't gotten around to renting the DVDs to watch on my computer). But if it will be much better for having seen the TV series, I will hold off on the movie until Have done so.
So, for those that have already seen Serenity, please weigh in and let me know your thoughts.
I think if you're an Apple investor, you're probably happy enough about the near-quintupling in the last 2 years that a 4% drop isn't the end of the world.
Very cool concept. I'd love to see some of this technology trickle down to the consumer level (hand crank, cheap ruggedized case etc). In fact, I'd love to see these available to the consumer at $200. For every unit you buy at $200, you are buying one for a developing country. It'd be like buying a cheap laptop and donating to charity all at once.
My biggest concern with this, and all other laptops-for-schoolkids programs is that they actually do proper class programming with them (programming as in lecture design etc, not Objective-C/Java/etc). It's not simply enough to hand kids a laptopo and expect them to suddenly learn more. You have to shape the classes and the materials in such a way as to be well-suited to a classroom full on network-connected, laptop-toting schoolkids. This can be done, but it does take thought; hopefully the school boards engaging in such programs have done this planning.
According to this story at Macworld and the official MIT site, they will have 1 gig of RAM. Which should be more than enough for a stripped-down version of Linux.
It seems a logical next step for this to be used to only allow certain installs. After all, the carriers have long-since wanted you to *only* install stuff you pay them to download. I mean MP3 ringtons are just that-MP3s (short, 32Kbps ones even), yet you often can't transfer them simply by USB, you need to pay the carrier $3 for them.
So, why would it be surprising that the carriers would want yet another layer of hardware/software protection to ensure that this golden revenue stream is the only way for people to add games/ringtones/wallpaper etc?
Personally, I think the best method is to make sentences. For example, you could use the fairly indecipherable password 1Cps2PtS3?4P! which looks like nothing but gibberish
However, it is in reality, an acronym for the classic Slashdot joke:
1) Create password scheme
2) Post to Slashdot
3) ?
4) Profit!
The result is a mixed-case, alphanumeric password that's nigh-impossible to guess randomly, but is easy enough to remember and I don't need to carry around a card for it. Even simple sentences ("My birthday is July 26") can become decent passwords ("MbdiJ26")
The biggest problem they have is signing all the checks Apple sends them.
Don't feel bad for them, they've got direct-deposit now!
When I look at local computer parts prices, DRAM has been stuck at the $100 / GB range for three years now. Flash passed its price point earlier this year and is not looking back. I used to marvel at how RAM prices used to drop. (Flash is slower and can only be written a limited number (1E5) of times.)
Demand. There just simply isn't the demand for that much RAM. It used to be that you could always use more, because new operating systems required it, and new games needed it, etc. But now, with Longhorn/Vista still en route, and given that Tiger's requirements are not much more than Panther's or even Jaguar's, the OSs aren't driving people to get that much more RAM. And games are becoming less and less of an issue on computers as consoles grab bigger pieces of the marketshare.
In short, without the demand driving the competition, there simply isn't the incentive to drop prices that much. Flash, on the other hand, let's you work toward solid-state hard drives, bigger memory cards and MP3 players and so forth. So the demand still exists in that sector.
So, for those of us that weren't there, where does the (cw) come from? What does it mean?
Fine, but if we are to accept that, then we need to see the end of articles like this one mocking people for not installing Linux when Linux is so easy to install and use.
An article like this one (and many others here on Slashdot) gives the impression (accurate or not) that Linux should be (or already is) easy to use, and that everyone (not just the hardcore geeks) should be using it, and people who aren't are just Microsoft shills or simply don't realise how wonderful and easy Linux is. That position is fine, but then you have to expect critique from people who say it's not easy based on what the "average" user expects.
I agree, there are some area where Linux still is trickier than competing systems (I use OS X).
Two examples, just off the top of my head:
Linux is certainly getting easier to use, but as the parent stated, there's still enough of a learning curve to deter even fairly advanced users (I'm a computer engineer who's been using computers for the past 18 years, since I was 7)
Nothing since the iMac G3 has been quiet enough? If nothing else, what about the G4 cube? It was, in fact, totally silent (no fan at all). The only noise it produced was from the hard drive whirring, and that was imperceptible.
In the end, which format "wins" won't be based on a "here's the features, pick your favourite" type of poll. The marketing and cost of each will be a huge factor, but more importantly, it will rely on network effects. Whichever format can get more released for it will, because if I go into Best Buy and see 200 Blu-Ray movies and 30 HD-DVD movies, my choice will be easy and all other factors will be irrelevant.
So what if it is a dupe? I missed the original (it wasn't in the RSS feed), and saw this one. So, I for one am glad it was duped.
Nobody is forcing you to look at the dupes. If the title is the same, then just ignore it. In fact, by the time you see the dupe, identify it as such, load the article, hit "reply", type up the snippy "this-is-a-dupe" comment and hit "submit", you probably could have read the summary for a whole other article.
Look, I agree with you points about a phone ringing like a phone. I also wish that it was possible to buy a phone with no wallpaper, no colour screen, no MP3 ringtons, etc, but great battery life and reception, and a small form factor.
But to assert that everyone should feel this way doesn't exactly espouse the freedom (as in speech) that Slashdot is all about. I should be able to get a back-to-basics phone, but I should also be able to get a colour-MP3-wallpaper-video-phone if I wish. That's what consumer choice is all about.
By all means, share your opinions with us. But don't be so surprised if not everyone agrees with you.
No, the Civilization series is about having a few hours to kill, but then realising you've wasted all day playing "just one more turn". I swear, the hours I have lost to Sid Meir's creations!