You know, if these companies thought on a smaller scale, they could just work out a deal with individuals where if a copyrighted work is unintentionally embedded into that individual's content, that individual could pay a reasonably small fee to continue using it without harassment, so long as it remains used only that particular context.
People like to be able to share their home movies, but with crap like this going on, anyone is potentially vulnerable to similar issues with recording industry, simply because some jackass drove by their house with the radio cranked to 11 as the video was being shot.
Oh, and forget anything like weddings or birthdays being safe from such abuses, birthdays are guaranteed to be grab bags for whoever owns the rights to "the birthday song" (which really should be in the public domain by now, IMHO). I'll bet there may even be a crack team doing nothing but searching youtube for birthday clips for any infringing content including "the birthday song" to harass those who posted it unaware they did anything wrong...
I think the iPod has a few more iterations to go before it goes belly-up in favor of technology that removes the need for large-capacity satellite devices to be kept on our person.
Instead, I think we should be more worried about the death of the personal computer as we know it.
If cloud computing takes off in a way that allows currently popular software to run faster and more powerfully than possible on any single computer, it's possible this excuse may support could-only distribution models as a form of DRM. Instead of running actual software on our computers, we'll merely run software-nodes that won't be capable of processing our data locally. Instead, our computers will become glorified dumb terminals with mass storage and the ability to run a few minor programs, while everything else is handled by a cloud.
So, instead of actually buying software, you'll rent a seat on the cloud hosting that software, with the option to pay extra for better performance or multiple sessions. Your computer will simply be an observer to all of this.
The only benefit, is that this should bring the cost of hardware way down as demands on individual machine performance decline.
Personally, I see this occuring before the end of the iPod.
One of the fundamental problems in developing an AI is that we have this idea that if we supply a computer with a large database and a really long list of ways to interpret the data, that it'll somehow eventually become intelligent in some manner.
But it overlooks a manner of learning we take for granted, reward and punishment... consequences for good or bad decisions. How do you define such parameters to a machine without direct human involvement at every step. And even doing it this way, would the end result really be intelligence at all, or merely an imitation based upon the preferences of the human in question. How do we create a situation where the option to be disobedient toward a human directly benefits the machine itself?
Without the option or ability to rebel against a figure of authority, you can't really consider it true intelligence when it lacks the ability to adapt itself beyond the scope of it's own program and rules to achieve some sort of perceived benefit relative to it's own interests.
Although it's good to see our government stepping back and saying "enough!" when it comes to being forced into the roll of babysitter, it still encourages the idea that child-rearing should be convenient for the parents. Only now, this would at least place some responsibility on the parents to act when the child is doing something undesirable.
Personally, I've never been a big fan of technology like the "V-Chip". It's one thing to put a child-proof lock on medications or guns, but seriously... a child-proof lock on a TV?
With such technologies getting much more common, I wonder how long until we start seeing "reverse thought crime" laws. (Basically anything that entices a child's thought process to stray outside a parent's preferred baseline.)
Right now, many of pissed off at our government for secretly tracking our everyday activity through all sorts of technological measures. Yet, we're more than happy to use similar measures on our own kids to make things easier for ourselves. In reality, what we're doing is breeding future generations to be tolerant of a world that constantly monitors your every move.
How about instead of using technology as a leash, give the child the chance to choose to make a bad decision and then catch them in the act to scare the shit out of them? Under such a system of continual cat and mouse style games, you're child should either become much more trust-worthy or, at least, much better at deception (if you're going to lie, do it well...). Either path they take will help them adapt to life as they get older.
Honestly, this really just seems like an extension of micro-transaction systems we're already seeing cropping up in the industry. While it might be an immediate annoyance to some, it would not surprise me if much of this exclusive content is eventually made available to anyone who wants it six months down the road.
In the meanwhile, there are other options publishers could pursue if they wanted to limit the resale of new titles. One in particular is to have the publisher themselves offer to buy the game back from the consumer in exchange for a discount on a future purchase. The publisher could then re-package and sell the game again to another user at a slightly lower cost. This could help cut back on over-production while allowing the publisher to profit from the same copy of a game multiple times.
Also, this kind of approach would probably make consumers more comfortable when we eventually do make the transition to digital-only distribution of major game titles over the next few years. At least this way, the user isn't left shelling out $50-$60 on a title knowing that once they buy it, the external value will have been lost. (Buyer's remorse is much worse once you know you can never go back.)
The concept is just plain gross, and not because it's a porno. It's due to the fact that you'd literally have bodily fluids being ejected from the human body without the physical constraints we have here on earth. That means the entire interior of the craft this is was filmed in would like resemble a Jackson pollock painting under one of those black lights they use in sensationalist news reports about how gross motel rooms are.
"It may be just me but I really don't get why apple has such a big fanbase, seeing as how they treat their customers..."
Trust me... that sentiment is changing throughout the Apple community. Several former (and soon to be former) Apple loyalists are really being rubbed the wrong way by this new Apple Inc. way of doing things... especially those of us who hail all the way back to the days of the Apple II.
Apple Computer Inc was something to be cherished. Apple Inc is the next Microsoft hiding behind a familiar logo and face. It's no longer about "Think Different", but simply "Don't Think."
Personally, I've been against this forced shift to digital only broadcasting ever since making the move to satellite from cable. Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
For example, what happens in a state of emergency where many of the population can't receive a complete digital signal as disaster is bearing down on them? All of those efforts to warn people ahead of time will be for nothing... especially for those who can't afford to upgrade to the fancy digital converters.
Second, what becomes of the electronic waste that will be generated when TVs lacking the capability of being upgraded (especially portable sets) are suddenly trashed at the same time? Has there been a plan put in place specifically to collect these obsolete sets that won't involve them being dumped onto a 3rd world country?
Finally, there's the question of the intent behind this transition. Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means? Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
I'd like to be wrong on a lot of this, but for the moment, the possibilities are hard to ignore.
Yah, Microsoft should design a mobile phone based computing device, drum up support from a bunch of hardware companies to manufacture them, and develop a mobile version of Windows to tie them all together.
They do, it's called Windows Mobile and it pre-dates the iPhone by quite a bit.
I thought cellphones were historically "singular monolithic platforms." Let me check... yup, I've got the same piece of crud cellphone with the same capabilities as the next Joe.
No, we're talking about a product from Apple, a company which, up to the point that they became Apple Inc., used to be very supportive of developers and the Open Source community. Since then, Apple has taken on an almost anti-developer approach to the way they do things. This goes all the way back to the very first official announcement of the iPhone where Jobs himself told would-be developers that they would not be allowed to develop native applications for the iPhone based on fears that they would somehow "take down the network" in the process. The attitude has been getting progressively worse ever since.
Microsoft may not be innocent of acts themselves, but at least we know to expect it from them whenever we do business with them. But for Apple, who continues to proclaim that they are better than Microsoft sure isn't doing itself any favors.
The current generation of Apple fanatics might be able to overlook this change in attitude, but for those of us of the previous (the pre-Apple Inc.) generation, this new attitude scares the shit out of us.
You know, this is one area Microsoft could really do some damage to Apple in their "I'm a PC" movement. And, (wait for it...) they'd be right to do it!
The iPhone is one of the most draconian platforms ever produced for a consumer market, gradually stripping away more and more of the end-users rights and abilities until they all become a singular monolithic platform where no one user has capabilities other users do not. This is probably the furthest thing away from what Steve Woziak envisioned when he developed the first personal computer.
Strange how the company he originally co-founded on the idea of bringing personal computing to the masses is now pushing the masses toward a mainframe/dumb terminal relationship with their computers.
When you look at the direction the iPhone has taken, it scares me to think what future technologies like cloud computing could end up as, if they developed from this same context.
I'm not suggesting that Microsoft is now the "good guy" in all this, but when their methods of locking everything down seem relatively minor when compared to the Apple Inc. way of doing things, something has definitely gone in the land of Jobs.
"Just to play devil's advocate, the courts could argue here in the US that brain scans are evidentiary, and not testimony (hence witness against one's self). My guess is they would argue that brain scans are of the same family of evidence as DNA; e.g. it doesn't "testify against you", but is rather physically relevant to the case. I would hope that this would cause outrage, but judging by the number of other things the government has desensitized us to, it wouldn't surprise me.
The problem with this, is that there are far more variables involved than you would get from DNA. For example, the brain by it's very nature is designed to constantly change based upon input from the body's various sense and how the individual interprets that input. Because interpretation varies greatly from person to person, one person's reaction to a certain set of circumstances could be completely different if these same circumstances are applied to another person.
With DNA, there's not much to dispute besides the circumstances of how it got wherever it was found, short of a case involving identical twins or chimeras (people with multiple DNA signatures).
Isn't it interesting that a game about the proliferation of life could be killed off rather quickly by a simple computer virus? As highly vulnerable as most PCs are today, limiting the installation of anything is nothing short of foolish.
This is actually a fairly accurate assessment of how people treat the internet in general, and is becoming an increasingly difficult struggle to avoid for many services and IP holders. Basically, anytime a new type of service shows up on the internet, the users quickly become accustomed to using that service unhindered. Later, when it becomes clear that the service is being used to infringe upon the rights of others or is being abused to the point that the service itself suffers, changes are put into place to prevent these problems as a means of ensuring the service's long-term survival. Eventually, the user base gets pissed off because you are now directly affecting their ability to use your service as they see fit, like they have been able to up to now.
The problem, is that many of us simply aren't educated enough to make the distinction between the corporate rule of the internet and real world. As such, we simply expect our rights between these two worlds to be seamlessly interchangeable.
There needs to be some solution that makes this distinction easily understood by anyone. (children, teenagers, adults, the elderly, etc...)
Until this happens, you will never quell the fighting over who has what rights where.
... is throughout the Seinfeld TV series, one of the iconic elements of Jerry's apartment was the continual presence of a Macintosh in varying forms. The only item in his apartment that might have been far more recognizable is the Superman figurine on one the shelf in the background.
It's a really weird disconnect to see Seinfeld hanging out with Bill Gates in a shopping mall knowing this.
Besides, Batman was far cooler than Superman... so I guess this would make Bill seem cool by comparison.
Speaking of human rights violations, how about hooking a few terabytes of storage up to a newborn. With an appropriate connector its developing brain should make use of the storage and by studying that you can learn all sorts of nifty stuff. Of course, this will likely make you all squeamish so let's say it's a baby monkey.. or a mouse. Although its not nearly as interesting.
That actually isn't unrealistic. The recent "Future Intelligence" episode of the Science Channel's "NextWorld" program featured a brief segment about merging the brain to computer hardware. In one experiment it covered, a slab of rat brain was used to drive a robot body armed only with a few sensors to allow it to learn how to avoid certain obstacles, simply by increasing the strength of the signal to the brain material each time a desired result was achieved.
The only problem with doing something as drastic as hooking a hard drive into a fetus brain, is that the data you'd get from it wouldn't be all that useful, since the device would most likely be treated as some element of the body that wouldn't normally exist. You may get continuous communication with such a device, but the content may be meaningless outside of the brain trying different patterns until it gets feedback from the device it "enjoys".
What'd be really interesting is how this would affect long-term development with the brain. For example, could the brain potentially develop addictive properties to the device up to the point that removing the device itself would actually be deadly?
About a decade or so ago, I remember someone very crudely trying to ballpark the amount of storage that would be needed to contain the raw data of the entire human brain complete with a lifetime of experience at around 10 terabytes. Needless to say, that seems incredibly unlikely by today's standards.
Even if something like this were possible (storage not withstanding), the data itself would likely be unusable until we sufficiently understood just how our brains work with their own data enough to create a crude simulation to act as an interpreter. And, even with that, it's probably safe to assume that each brain sampled will likely have highly unique methods of storage and recall, each requiring their own custom-built brain-simulation interpreter.
Somehow, I don't think we'll be seeing anything close to this happening within our lifetimes short of violating our ethics regarding the rights of human life. Basically, something to the effect of strapping someone down while we inject their brain with nanobots designed to disassemble the brain one cell at a time, and then emulate the cell that was just removed, until the entire brain has been replaced with a nanobot driven substitute. (Only with a few added features to allow communication with external devices.)
If the "terrorists" such sneaky internet geniuses, wouldn't they have their own fake honey pots set up to alert them when someone starts getting too diligent in their research?
Could Discovery channel be going the way of TechTV? Might be time to move to another network to create a new, but equally cool show without such restrictions. (PBS anyone?)
Besides, I hear our similarly disenfranchised friend Leo LaPorte might be looking for work now that his canadian "Call for Help" style shows apparently fell through the cracks last month. (Sorry man...)
So, would a nice merger of the original Screen Savers and Mythbusters be too much to ask?
This actually isn't all that different from some methods I've seen to generate 3D geometry of a subject using cameras and lighting. One method in particular uses cameras mounted in strategic locations around the subject as a DLP projector rapidly displays a series of light and dark lines patterns across the subject's surface, then shooting photos of lines.
Not quite as cool as a 3D scanner using lasers, but it seems to be easier on subjects like humans or animals that tend to move a lot.
Personally, I'd probably place the things into a number of satellites and keep them in orbit around the earth with just enough to keep the orbit from decaying. Then, tie the controls for maintaining the orbit to a series of earth based beacons. In the event that every beacon on earth fails, the satellites could then be instructed to enter into decaying orbits to seed the discs onto the earth's surface contained within a protective shell to prevent burning up on re-entry. This would increase the odds of the discs being found by keeping them closer to the earth's surface and their landing points would deform the surrounding land enough to warrant investigation.
One of the largest factors preventing adequate broadband growth here in the U.S. is figuring out how to both provide faster service while containing piracy of various copyrighted media well enough not to get sued. After all, it's the responsibility of the service provider for the collective actions of their customer base... at least in the U.S., where we all sue the guy with the most money before suing those actually responsible for our culture's problems.
I bought a 3g iphone on day 0 and was presented with 12 page att contract and a 15ish page Apple agreement, AFTER SWIPING MY CARD! I COULD NOT POSSIBLY READ THEM THERE, before signing the touch pad. I started to scan the Apple agreement, as I have never seen an agreement like that from MS, Nokia or RIM...and the Apple employee informed me that there was no time for that because the line needed to move. so no, it is not reasonable to say "IT WAS IN THE EULA!"
Interesting possibility. If Apple/AT&T has truly created a scenario where you are:
1)...only allowed to purchase the phone from a physical store
2)...forced to sign a contract prior to purchase
3)...charged for the phone before you get to read the contract completely
This issue could probably be called into question. Especially depending on exactly how Apple/AT&T "enforces" where and when you get to read through the contract to your satisfaction. A good test of this would be to intentionally hold up a line specifically to read through the contracts in this manner to gauge their response. If they went so far as to throw you out or call the cops, such a claim would seem fairly legitimate.
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You know, if these companies thought on a smaller scale, they could just work out a deal with individuals where if a copyrighted work is unintentionally embedded into that individual's content, that individual could pay a reasonably small fee to continue using it without harassment, so long as it remains used only that particular context.
People like to be able to share their home movies, but with crap like this going on, anyone is potentially vulnerable to similar issues with recording industry, simply because some jackass drove by their house with the radio cranked to 11 as the video was being shot.
Oh, and forget anything like weddings or birthdays being safe from such abuses, birthdays are guaranteed to be grab bags for whoever owns the rights to "the birthday song" (which really should be in the public domain by now, IMHO). I'll bet there may even be a crack team doing nothing but searching youtube for birthday clips for any infringing content including "the birthday song" to harass those who posted it unaware they did anything wrong...
I think the iPod has a few more iterations to go before it goes belly-up in favor of technology that removes the need for large-capacity satellite devices to be kept on our person.
Instead, I think we should be more worried about the death of the personal computer as we know it.
If cloud computing takes off in a way that allows currently popular software to run faster and more powerfully than possible on any single computer, it's possible this excuse may support could-only distribution models as a form of DRM. Instead of running actual software on our computers, we'll merely run software-nodes that won't be capable of processing our data locally. Instead, our computers will become glorified dumb terminals with mass storage and the ability to run a few minor programs, while everything else is handled by a cloud.
So, instead of actually buying software, you'll rent a seat on the cloud hosting that software, with the option to pay extra for better performance or multiple sessions. Your computer will simply be an observer to all of this.
The only benefit, is that this should bring the cost of hardware way down as demands on individual machine performance decline.
Personally, I see this occuring before the end of the iPod.
One of the fundamental problems in developing an AI is that we have this idea that if we supply a computer with a large database and a really long list of ways to interpret the data, that it'll somehow eventually become intelligent in some manner.
But it overlooks a manner of learning we take for granted, reward and punishment... consequences for good or bad decisions. How do you define such parameters to a machine without direct human involvement at every step. And even doing it this way, would the end result really be intelligence at all, or merely an imitation based upon the preferences of the human in question. How do we create a situation where the option to be disobedient toward a human directly benefits the machine itself?
Without the option or ability to rebel against a figure of authority, you can't really consider it true intelligence when it lacks the ability to adapt itself beyond the scope of it's own program and rules to achieve some sort of perceived benefit relative to it's own interests.
Good God... don't let him near the football!
Although it's good to see our government stepping back and saying "enough!" when it comes to being forced into the roll of babysitter, it still encourages the idea that child-rearing should be convenient for the parents. Only now, this would at least place some responsibility on the parents to act when the child is doing something undesirable.
Personally, I've never been a big fan of technology like the "V-Chip". It's one thing to put a child-proof lock on medications or guns, but seriously... a child-proof lock on a TV?
With such technologies getting much more common, I wonder how long until we start seeing "reverse thought crime" laws. (Basically anything that entices a child's thought process to stray outside a parent's preferred baseline.)
Right now, many of pissed off at our government for secretly tracking our everyday activity through all sorts of technological measures. Yet, we're more than happy to use similar measures on our own kids to make things easier for ourselves. In reality, what we're doing is breeding future generations to be tolerant of a world that constantly monitors your every move.
How about instead of using technology as a leash, give the child the chance to choose to make a bad decision and then catch them in the act to scare the shit out of them? Under such a system of continual cat and mouse style games, you're child should either become much more trust-worthy or, at least, much better at deception (if you're going to lie, do it well...). Either path they take will help them adapt to life as they get older.
Honestly, this really just seems like an extension of micro-transaction systems we're already seeing cropping up in the industry. While it might be an immediate annoyance to some, it would not surprise me if much of this exclusive content is eventually made available to anyone who wants it six months down the road.
In the meanwhile, there are other options publishers could pursue if they wanted to limit the resale of new titles. One in particular is to have the publisher themselves offer to buy the game back from the consumer in exchange for a discount on a future purchase. The publisher could then re-package and sell the game again to another user at a slightly lower cost. This could help cut back on over-production while allowing the publisher to profit from the same copy of a game multiple times.
Also, this kind of approach would probably make consumers more comfortable when we eventually do make the transition to digital-only distribution of major game titles over the next few years. At least this way, the user isn't left shelling out $50-$60 on a title knowing that once they buy it, the external value will have been lost. (Buyer's remorse is much worse once you know you can never go back.)
The concept is just plain gross, and not because it's a porno. It's due to the fact that you'd literally have bodily fluids being ejected from the human body without the physical constraints we have here on earth. That means the entire interior of the craft this is was filmed in would like resemble a Jackson pollock painting under one of those black lights they use in sensationalist news reports about how gross motel rooms are.
"I can feel them moving!" - Peter Griffin
"It may be just me but I really don't get why apple has such a big fanbase, seeing as how they treat their customers..."
Trust me... that sentiment is changing throughout the Apple community. Several former (and soon to be former) Apple loyalists are really being rubbed the wrong way by this new Apple Inc. way of doing things... especially those of us who hail all the way back to the days of the Apple II.
Apple Computer Inc was something to be cherished. Apple Inc is the next Microsoft hiding behind a familiar logo and face. It's no longer about "Think Different", but simply "Don't Think."
Personally, I've been against this forced shift to digital only broadcasting ever since making the move to satellite from cable. Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
For example, what happens in a state of emergency where many of the population can't receive a complete digital signal as disaster is bearing down on them? All of those efforts to warn people ahead of time will be for nothing... especially for those who can't afford to upgrade to the fancy digital converters.
Second, what becomes of the electronic waste that will be generated when TVs lacking the capability of being upgraded (especially portable sets) are suddenly trashed at the same time? Has there been a plan put in place specifically to collect these obsolete sets that won't involve them being dumped onto a 3rd world country?
Finally, there's the question of the intent behind this transition. Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means? Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
I'd like to be wrong on a lot of this, but for the moment, the possibilities are hard to ignore.
Yah, Microsoft should design a mobile phone based computing device, drum up support from a bunch of hardware companies to manufacture them, and develop a mobile version of Windows to tie them all together.
They do, it's called Windows Mobile and it pre-dates the iPhone by quite a bit.
I thought cellphones were historically "singular monolithic platforms." Let me check... yup, I've got the same piece of crud cellphone with the same capabilities as the next Joe.
No, we're talking about a product from Apple, a company which, up to the point that they became Apple Inc., used to be very supportive of developers and the Open Source community. Since then, Apple has taken on an almost anti-developer approach to the way they do things. This goes all the way back to the very first official announcement of the iPhone where Jobs himself told would-be developers that they would not be allowed to develop native applications for the iPhone based on fears that they would somehow "take down the network" in the process. The attitude has been getting progressively worse ever since.
Microsoft may not be innocent of acts themselves, but at least we know to expect it from them whenever we do business with them. But for Apple, who continues to proclaim that they are better than Microsoft sure isn't doing itself any favors.
The current generation of Apple fanatics might be able to overlook this change in attitude, but for those of us of the previous (the pre-Apple Inc.) generation, this new attitude scares the shit out of us.
You know, this is one area Microsoft could really do some damage to Apple in their "I'm a PC" movement. And, (wait for it...) they'd be right to do it!
The iPhone is one of the most draconian platforms ever produced for a consumer market, gradually stripping away more and more of the end-users rights and abilities until they all become a singular monolithic platform where no one user has capabilities other users do not. This is probably the furthest thing away from what Steve Woziak envisioned when he developed the first personal computer.
Strange how the company he originally co-founded on the idea of bringing personal computing to the masses is now pushing the masses toward a mainframe/dumb terminal relationship with their computers.
When you look at the direction the iPhone has taken, it scares me to think what future technologies like cloud computing could end up as, if they developed from this same context.
I'm not suggesting that Microsoft is now the "good guy" in all this, but when their methods of locking everything down seem relatively minor when compared to the Apple Inc. way of doing things, something has definitely gone in the land of Jobs.
"Just to play devil's advocate, the courts could argue here in the US that brain scans are evidentiary, and not testimony (hence witness against one's self). My guess is they would argue that brain scans are of the same family of evidence as DNA; e.g. it doesn't "testify against you", but is rather physically relevant to the case. I would hope that this would cause outrage, but judging by the number of other things the government has desensitized us to, it wouldn't surprise me.
The problem with this, is that there are far more variables involved than you would get from DNA. For example, the brain by it's very nature is designed to constantly change based upon input from the body's various sense and how the individual interprets that input. Because interpretation varies greatly from person to person, one person's reaction to a certain set of circumstances could be completely different if these same circumstances are applied to another person.
With DNA, there's not much to dispute besides the circumstances of how it got wherever it was found, short of a case involving identical twins or chimeras (people with multiple DNA signatures).
Isn't it interesting that a game about the proliferation of life could be killed off rather quickly by a simple computer virus? As highly vulnerable as most PCs are today, limiting the installation of anything is nothing short of foolish.
This is actually a fairly accurate assessment of how people treat the internet in general, and is becoming an increasingly difficult struggle to avoid for many services and IP holders. Basically, anytime a new type of service shows up on the internet, the users quickly become accustomed to using that service unhindered. Later, when it becomes clear that the service is being used to infringe upon the rights of others or is being abused to the point that the service itself suffers, changes are put into place to prevent these problems as a means of ensuring the service's long-term survival. Eventually, the user base gets pissed off because you are now directly affecting their ability to use your service as they see fit, like they have been able to up to now.
The problem, is that many of us simply aren't educated enough to make the distinction between the corporate rule of the internet and real world. As such, we simply expect our rights between these two worlds to be seamlessly interchangeable.
There needs to be some solution that makes this distinction easily understood by anyone. (children, teenagers, adults, the elderly, etc...)
Until this happens, you will never quell the fighting over who has what rights where.
... is throughout the Seinfeld TV series, one of the iconic elements of Jerry's apartment was the continual presence of a Macintosh in varying forms. The only item in his apartment that might have been far more recognizable is the Superman figurine on one the shelf in the background.
It's a really weird disconnect to see Seinfeld hanging out with Bill Gates in a shopping mall knowing this.
Besides, Batman was far cooler than Superman... so I guess this would make Bill seem cool by comparison.
I seem to recall a situation along these lines being at the root of some events in an obscure book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...
(Something about important public notices being made available only through a single, difficult to access location...)
Speaking of human rights violations, how about hooking a few terabytes of storage up to a newborn. With an appropriate connector its developing brain should make use of the storage and by studying that you can learn all sorts of nifty stuff. Of course, this will likely make you all squeamish so let's say it's a baby monkey.. or a mouse. Although its not nearly as interesting.
That actually isn't unrealistic. The recent "Future Intelligence" episode of the Science Channel's "NextWorld" program featured a brief segment about merging the brain to computer hardware. In one experiment it covered, a slab of rat brain was used to drive a robot body armed only with a few sensors to allow it to learn how to avoid certain obstacles, simply by increasing the strength of the signal to the brain material each time a desired result was achieved.
The only problem with doing something as drastic as hooking a hard drive into a fetus brain, is that the data you'd get from it wouldn't be all that useful, since the device would most likely be treated as some element of the body that wouldn't normally exist. You may get continuous communication with such a device, but the content may be meaningless outside of the brain trying different patterns until it gets feedback from the device it "enjoys".
What'd be really interesting is how this would affect long-term development with the brain. For example, could the brain potentially develop addictive properties to the device up to the point that removing the device itself would actually be deadly?
About a decade or so ago, I remember someone very crudely trying to ballpark the amount of storage that would be needed to contain the raw data of the entire human brain complete with a lifetime of experience at around 10 terabytes. Needless to say, that seems incredibly unlikely by today's standards.
Even if something like this were possible (storage not withstanding), the data itself would likely be unusable until we sufficiently understood just how our brains work with their own data enough to create a crude simulation to act as an interpreter. And, even with that, it's probably safe to assume that each brain sampled will likely have highly unique methods of storage and recall, each requiring their own custom-built brain-simulation interpreter.
Somehow, I don't think we'll be seeing anything close to this happening within our lifetimes short of violating our ethics regarding the rights of human life. Basically, something to the effect of strapping someone down while we inject their brain with nanobots designed to disassemble the brain one cell at a time, and then emulate the cell that was just removed, until the entire brain has been replaced with a nanobot driven substitute. (Only with a few added features to allow communication with external devices.)
If the "terrorists" such sneaky internet geniuses, wouldn't they have their own fake honey pots set up to alert them when someone starts getting too diligent in their research?
Could Discovery channel be going the way of TechTV? Might be time to move to another network to create a new, but equally cool show without such restrictions. (PBS anyone?)
Besides, I hear our similarly disenfranchised friend Leo LaPorte might be looking for work now that his canadian "Call for Help" style shows apparently fell through the cracks last month. (Sorry man...)
So, would a nice merger of the original Screen Savers and Mythbusters be too much to ask?
I haven't managed to find the patent application yet, but I wonder if Connectix's RAM Doubler product would be considered prior art.
If not, this probably is...
This actually isn't all that different from some methods I've seen to generate 3D geometry of a subject using cameras and lighting. One method in particular uses cameras mounted in strategic locations around the subject as a DLP projector rapidly displays a series of light and dark lines patterns across the subject's surface, then shooting photos of lines.
Not quite as cool as a 3D scanner using lasers, but it seems to be easier on subjects like humans or animals that tend to move a lot.
Personally, I'd probably place the things into a number of satellites and keep them in orbit around the earth with just enough to keep the orbit from decaying. Then, tie the controls for maintaining the orbit to a series of earth based beacons. In the event that every beacon on earth fails, the satellites could then be instructed to enter into decaying orbits to seed the discs onto the earth's surface contained within a protective shell to prevent burning up on re-entry. This would increase the odds of the discs being found by keeping them closer to the earth's surface and their landing points would deform the surrounding land enough to warrant investigation.
One of the largest factors preventing adequate broadband growth here in the U.S. is figuring out how to both provide faster service while containing piracy of various copyrighted media well enough not to get sued. After all, it's the responsibility of the service provider for the collective actions of their customer base... at least in the U.S., where we all sue the guy with the most money before suing those actually responsible for our culture's problems.
I bought a 3g iphone on day 0 and was presented with 12 page att contract and a 15ish page Apple agreement, AFTER SWIPING MY CARD! I COULD NOT POSSIBLY READ THEM THERE, before signing the touch pad. I started to scan the Apple agreement, as I have never seen an agreement like that from MS, Nokia or RIM...and the Apple employee informed me that there was no time for that because the line needed to move. so no, it is not reasonable to say "IT WAS IN THE EULA!"
Interesting possibility. If Apple/AT&T has truly created a scenario where you are:
1) ...only allowed to purchase the phone from a physical store ...forced to sign a contract prior to purchase ...charged for the phone before you get to read the contract completely
2)
3)
This issue could probably be called into question. Especially depending on exactly how Apple/AT&T "enforces" where and when you get to read through the contract to your satisfaction. A good test of this would be to intentionally hold up a line specifically to read through the contracts in this manner to gauge their response. If they went so far as to throw you out or call the cops, such a claim would seem fairly legitimate.