...if it is time for Google to introduce some judiciously placed non-existing place names in their maps. Something which would beyond a shadow of a doubt prove that wherever they show up, they're sure to have been scraped off Google Maps. They did this when they suspected Microsoft of scraping search results, and lo! those nonsensical results ended up on Bing in no time.
What now is the non-existing place of 'Oosterbeekerswaard' suddenly shows up on an iDevice? Nobody would mind not finding anything there, the question is 'where did they get these data from'?...
Of course those maps might be full of such random data already, who knows...
I have a waterproof phone. I don't use it under the shower though... It does survive my rather boisterous life style, from forest stream to stubble field to that rainy day on my bike. It even runs the latest incarnation of Android so if you really feel the need to inhibit your creativity under the shower there is not much stopping you...
...we gathered bits in the autumn with a pick and shovel, assembled them all winter long and punched out turing tapes for the stuff to run on come spring.
Apart from that:
SLS (1992) - Slackware - Redhat and Debian - Dumped Redhat, gained Ubuntu, kept Debian - Dumped Ubuntu (wife still runs it though), kept Debian
Debian because it lends itself to all purposes, from lightweight base for eg. i-Opener and Webplayer to server and desktop. Not to mention the fact that you can move between these configurations without needing a re-install.
10,-? The previous two were 8,-, surely you made a mistake?
Nay, the total income for this joint just went through the roof, must be that bunch of leeches in suits who came in a few minutes ago. Prices are set according to some fancy profit-maximizing model, and that model told my cash register to charge more. Sorry 'bout that...
Don't you have that the other way around? I'd say that given the direction Apple is going in with its phone and tablet offerings they are trying to create their version of recent Android-powered devices. From multitasking to drag-down notifications to bigger screens to the demise of *beep* iTunes for some functionality to, well, you name it. All those 'new' things Apple comes up with have been done before in Android (and many other systems, but Apple-Android folks seem to prefer dichotomies).
Then again, the same could be said for their original iPhone. They might copy and mix with style, but it is still copying and mixing. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they don't try to create exact copies to confuse potential customers (they didn't) or turn around after copying something to claim they invented and innovated and came up with it all by themselves (they did...). That is what separates Apple from most other companies in this field - their stuck-up arrogant nose-in-the-air holier-than-thou attitude.
Does The Firm need to be defended in this way? By trying to downplay the lack of quality in their products? If that is the case the situation is even worse than I thought. Not using one of their products and thereby having to go by hear-say I thought that their product quality generally was OK, if somewhat limited in its scope.
This type of apologetic behaviour is what I've come to associate with users of mediocre products who feel the need to defend their choice. Reality distortion at its finest, I guess.
So what you are saying is that a guy who pours significant amounts of time into developing an algorithm, making it space and time efficient, modelling it to resolve concurrency issues, etc... should not get patent protection and that you are 'entitled' to use his algorithm without compensating him for all his hard work?
As long as you implement your own version of that algorithm, yes. Software is protected by copyright, and that is enough. Just like it is enough for books and music.
Please explain why software needs patent protection, and what benefits you see in providing that protection.
This isn't an Apple problem, this is a patent problem.
This is both an Apple problem as well as a patent problem.
Many companies which are active in the same business as Apple have been able to do what Apple is now trying to do - block competition by abusing the braindead patent system. The difference between those many companies and Apple is that the majority of them have not stooped so low as Apple in their abuse of the system. Those companies which did use patents against Apple did so only after Apple fired the initial shots.
Mind you, I'm talking about 'real' companies here, not about patent trolls. Patent trolls stand to companies like tumours stand to organs.
Apple is a patent lowlife. The dysfunctional patent system makes it possible for them to try to push competition out of the market by claiming sole proprietorship of basic building blocks of whatever field they want to claim for themselves.
FWIW, Elop has also demonstrated zero Plan B, because no doubt he doesn't expect to be there for Plan B should the Plan B option even exist once he's finished.
The mere fact that Elop has not publicly presented a plan B does not mean once does not exist. I'm fairly sure it does... Plan B is most likely for Microsoft to buy Nokia for pennies to the dollar once plan A has run its course. They will keep the patents and shed the rest. Those patents will be used to shake down the rest of the industry. Isn't patent law wonderful?
Maybe the name Plan B is not really applicable. Maybe it should be called 'plan A-2' or 'plan A.bis'.
Why is the paperback priced lower than the Kindle? I paid $100 for an eReader and publishers want me to pay more...
You just answered your own question. You obviously had $100 to spare for what is currently a non-essential device - in other words, a luxury product - and with that showed you are both able as well as willing to spend more money for a perceived advantage over the lowest priced alternative. Since Amazon wants to profit as much as possible from whatever they do, they set their prices to what they think you will pay.
I'd say you now have two alternatives. You can either stop buying those overpriced e-books, or you can decide that what you actually pay for is a license to read the book and thus buy the lowest priced version of a book you can find and download the same work off the 'net. Read the downloaded copy, stash the bought version away for a rainy day. Although probably not legal in the current system, it would make sense if it were. Electronic books are essentially no-price to publishers as they can just take the typeset manuscript they used to feed the printer/press and convert it to whatever e-book format they want.
Strange. I have never had to replace a broken battery cover on a phone. I have replaced batteries though.
Please define the concept of an 'outdated phone', as I fail to grasp the difference in functionality between a 10 year old GSM handset and a newly minted version. GSM has not changed, and the old phone still works, so why replace it? You might not want it for its bells and whistles but these old things work just as well in their original capacity - as mobile phones - as they did when they were launched.
Replacing a battery for 'around $100' is not a service. That is what is called 'highway robbery' where I come from. New batteries cost a few euros/dollars and are available at many locations. Replacing them takes almost no time.
Consumer phones with built-in batteries are designed that way for one reason, and one reason only: built-in obsolescence. That '$100 battery replacement service' is nothing more than a '$X profit guarantee' - we intend to make an X amount of profit on you, no matter whether you buy a new phone or decide to keep the current one.
Possibly an eye-opener: if Samsung slavishly copied Apple, who did Apple copy? The differences between Apples first attempt at a mobile phone and earlier phones from more experienced manufacturers are not that big, all the way from the basic shape (rounded cornered rectangle, screen dominated front, speaker and microphone at logical positions) through the basic interface (a grid of icons) to more specific features (slide to unlock, context-sensitive actions on text, etc). Literally all of this had been done before. Nobody had made an iPhone before, and nobody - other than Apple - has made one ever since. The same can be said though for, eg, the HTC Prophet. HTC never claimed they owned the basic shape of this device, nor did they claim to own the basic interface (a grid of icons). LG did not claim they owned the concept of a rectangular, rounded cornered screen dominated slab with a capacitive touch screen. Which is logical - they did not invent the capacitive touch screen, nor did they invent the rectangle or the colour black. You did not see any HTC or LG (or any of the other manufacturers') users claiming these things either. Samsung never claimed to own these things, even though they had several products which predated Apple's first phone while encompassing many of its features.
Oddly enough Apple does make these claims, and many Apple users parrot them.
Please take some effort to answer this question: who did Apple copy? If your answer is 'nobody, they invented all of this themselves' then I'm afraid you'll have to do some more studying.
Apple made a popular phone, which sold by the millions even though the price was inflated. It still sells by the millions, and these sales have made Apple a stupendous amount of profit (both because of the obscene profit margin on these phones as well as the sheer number of phones they sold). In other words, they made a successful product. Where they went wrong was when they started claiming to be the sole proprietors of the basic concepts behind this phone.
Please use some common sense before you parrot their statements. Have a look at the television wall in some electronics store to see what I mean. Look at the washing machines, or the calculators, or just about any other product. Look around you and see - nobody is an island. No company creates something out of nothing. This includes Apple. They, like everyone else, look around them and base their products on what they've seen. The difference between Apple and most other companies is that they then turn around and claim never to have looked, that they came up with it all by themselves. This is wrong, and you know it is wrong.
And now Fruit wants to ban this lawyer-designed phone? Well smoke me a kipper, either the reality distortion field seems to cause lasting damage or they are communicating with St. Steve through an Ouija board. In any case it does not make sense. And they think they can gain what by doing this? Respect? Money? Time? What, exactly?
As far as I can see all they earn by going on a sueing spree is ridicule, contempt and hatred. For some reason many people seem to get almost religiously attached to their mobile gadgets, and Fruit now acts as if they are the Church of Scientology. Bad fruit. Soon anonymous will start staking out their sales churches.
...has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. It is not an invention per se as there is nothing new. It is not novel either, as the same thing has been done on many different types of devices before someone at this company thought to file a patent for it. Let's pick the thing apart, shall we? Claim by claim - though we'll skip a few for brevity.
Claim 1 asserts a base station which communicates with wireless clients and pushes relevant configuration data to them. It can only do that when the wireless device is in range. As a rough equivalent, think of a wireless router pushing network configuration data through DHCP to relevant clients. It can send specific data to specific clients (based on MAC, etc). The wireless clients generally notify the user ('wireless network detected!') and perform the configuration changes as pushed by the base station (can be anything from simple network configuration to more elaborate changes). If DHCP is not enough for your configurations needs, try ACAP (rfc 2244) as it has been languishing since 1997... would be nice to use it as I thought it showed promise back then.
Claims 2-8 just say this should be applied to a mobile device connected to the WWAN. Big deal. They narrow down the patent a bit, probably to make it easier to get it past the examiners. There is no inventiveness nor novelty in changing these specific parameters of a device configuration so it does not really make sense to have these claims - it is not as if the application of the mechanisms used by the likes of DHCP suddenly becomes novel and inventive when applied to the intensity of the backlight instead. It is, in other words, obvious to anyone in the field.
Claim 9 touches ACAP again, of course you need authentication to change certain parameters. You don't want that base station at the corner coffee shop to change your PROXY settings to run everything through their cousin's server.
Claim 10 tells the device to go into sleep mode. Yes, and? Why is this worthy of a claim in a patent application? Where is the novelty or inventiveness? What is the difference between putting the device in sleep mode and, eg, putting the backlight or the ringer in 'sleep mode' (ie. turning it off)? Next, please...
Claims 11-13 cover location assertion based on various methods, as all devices which are equipped with the right hardware have been doing since this hardware became available. Next.
Claim 14 tries to make a special case for a mobile device which uses its WLAN interface instead of WWAN. Next.
Claims 15 and onwards are of the same calibre - a total and utter lack of either inventiveness or novelty permeates them. As it does this whole 'patent'.
Still, the patent was awarded. And as such it can be used to stifle competition, force wanton changes in competitors' devices under the threat of litigation and actual litigation. If this comes before a jury the outcome can be anything as shown by the recent 1 billion dollar charade. If it comes before a panel of experts I have some hope that it will be squashed.
A friend of mine is a patent liaisons specialist ('patentgemachtigde'). When I speak to her about these issues she keeps on responding that bad patents are not a problem since they will be turned down in court. It has been a while since I spoke to her so I don't know if she still makes these claims, but it should be clear as daylight that the court is NOT the place to decide whether something is worth patenting. This should be handled by the patent office, NOT in the courts. The current system where patentability seems to be determined by 'throwing claims at the office to see which sticks' causes untold grief and massive economic losses for anyone not involved in the actual patenting process. And that is probably also why the likelihood of any significant changes is rather low, as the ones deciding on these changes are often direct beneficiaries of the current system: lawyers...
Maybe because of the scourge of tech: licensing fees?
It might well be quite a bit cheaper to produce a phone-less camera - albeit with 3G connectivity - than one which includes traditional voice service...
Of course this being Android, it would not surprise me if you could just add Phone.apk and TelephonyProvider.apk to get a working phonecamera... It already has a microphone and a speaker after all. No earpiece though so you'll always be on speakerphone...
Sure, the Dutch are no saints, and never did I imply they were or that they have a patent on being non-saints, to keep this somewhat on-topic.... It does not take away anything from those lines of verse though. It also helps that the writer of these lines did not exactly agree to the behaviour of the Dutch in their (former) colonies, and that those misdeeds mostly took place before these lines were placed on that wall for all to see - and for me to quote.
If only those free of sin would be allowed to participate in the discussion this forum would be empty...
But why even go that way? If you want to drop a bomb on location X, just send a ballistic missile. If you don't want to launch it from a static silo, put it in a sub or on a train. What would the advantage of a space-launched bomb be? The disadvantage is clear - it orbits the planet like a sitting duck...
The term 'going Dutch' are usually applied to situations where you are supposed to take care of yourself in a group situation. Now those Dutch are pretty crafty folk, and do they have some good ideas every now and then. One of those ideas has been inscribed on a wall to remind people of what happens when you give in to tyrants. The monument was made to commemorate 30 resistance fighters who fought in a struggle which makes this patent business pale beyond recognition, but the inspiration given by these lines works for all struggles against tyrants of any sort:
Een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht, zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen, dan dooft het licht...
This translates to
'a people who give in to tyrants, will lose more than body and property, the flame (literally 'light') will be extinguished'
Of course there is no reason to give in to these silly demands of a commercial entity which has grown beyond its capacities for reason. Of course the CEO of said entity should think different from the way he currently does, and steer his ship around for fear of running it into the minefield of his own ordination.
And of course the way the patent system is abused - not only in the USA but worldwide - undermines the stated concepts which form the grounds for implementing those laws. Anyone who tries to explain this away should read those lines again. If you don't understand Dutch or English, feed them to your favourite translation program or service.
Now that I think of it there is a saying in the USA which applies to this as well:
The price of freedom (or liberty) is eternal vigilance
While it might be the end of general purpose computing for fashionable-iThing-users and work-mandated cookie-cutter-PC operators, it will by no means mean the end of general purpose computing for Joe and Janice random hacker. The hacker scene existed before the availability of ubiquitous cheap general purpose consumer computing devices, and it will exist after these have been replaced by three-letter-acronym designed patent-encumbered media consumption gadgets. If ever there was an 'itch to scratch', it would be the subversion of these devices to my will... and if I don't succeed there are countless others with similar intentions. Many eyes, shallow bugs... so no fear, those who are in need of general purpose computing devices will be able to acquire them, even if it means voiding the warranty - and who knows how many laws and statutes - before flicking the switch. Not that different from the way it is now, really...
The huge problem here is the multi-touch patents Apple has.
You forgot to add in the United States of America.
In other words, 5% of the world population will be limited to multi-touch devices from one manufacturer only. The other 95% will be free to choose between a multitude of vendors.
From the '677 (miserable excuse for a) patent description (emphasis mine):
"...The electronic device is not limited to the scale shown herein. As indicated in the title, the article of manufacture to which the ornamental design has been applied is an electronic device, media player (e.g., music, video and/or game player), media storage device, a personal digital assistant, a commu- nication device (e.g., cellular phone), a novelty item or toy..."
So Apple did actually patent a rectangular, screen-dominated form factor for just about anything electronic. Read the patent - there is not that much to read. Look at the pictures. Look at what they show. Compare these to the devices which have been found 'infringing'. Look at what the 'experts' say on this subject - often they claim you have to see design patents as 'a whole', not just pick out the parts. Now tell me how a series of devices which, as a whole, look nothing like the (vague) drawings in the design patent other than being rounded cornered, rectangular, screen dominated fronted slabs just like those vague drawings can be found infringing.
This is not justice. This is a farcical charade. This is not what the founding fathers - whom Americans like to pull in to so many debates - wanted their country to turn into.
To all Apple users I say: dump your iTools into the harbour, it is time for another tea party.
Ever since I started reading on my N-Gage (which I got because it was the cheapest smart phone back in those days) I have not looked back. The phone is nearly always with me, it fits in my hand, it can be used both day and night without the need for external lighting, it can contain half a library and has access to the other half over the 'net. I can read whenever I want, wherever I want - even if I only have a few minutes to spare as often happens, that is enough to read a page or 2.
Yes, the screen on the phone is small. It helps to have good eyes. Don't try to compare reading on these devices to reading a traditional paper book - the reading experience is completely different. You don't read so much 'by the page' since - especially on more limited phones like the aforementioned N-Gage - a screen does not fit that much text. On my current phone (a Motorola Defy+) I can actually fit more than one traditional paperback page on one screen but that is because I like small print. Using a program like coolreader I can minimize the amount of interface clutter and more or less ignore the original book style. Holding the phone in one hand, I can walk through the book by just touching the left or right (or top or bottom, or wherever - configure it to your liking) of the screen - easy.
My parents both have a dedicated Sony reader. My brother has all the iGadgets St. Steve ordained. Me? I read more than all of them combined.
So if you already have a phone, and that phone happens to have a nice screen, just give it a try. You might like it.
What you buy is a license to use the content in the way described by the vendor. Licenses are usually transferable.
Copyright law was written before the advent of zero-cost copying, so the laws were targeted at the right to copy the content (by means of a printing press or a copier (man or machine) instead of the right to use it since that seemed a logical toll gate for ensuring remuneration for content owners. The use of copyright law in the current age depends on some legal back-bending where the toll gates are moved from the printing presses to the copying happening over the computer bus when using the content.
Objection, your honour. Any tablet with a resolution above XGA should be sufficient. I use a Chinese Android-powered 8" device with a WXGA (1280x800) screen which performs just fine. You can buy a stack of these things for the price of one fruitPad.
I don't think there is anything keeping anyone from combining the two - live on a farm and do the usual farming business (the silage is just in, let it rain...) and make a living as a hacker for hire. There is a lot of overlap between these two actually since both take a lot of creativity and tend to attract the self-reliant. You might not end up running the largest farm in the county but that is not important. You live out in the country, work the land, work your head and get the whole yin and yang in one fell swoop. No air conditioning though, but that might be because I live in Sweden where the air tends to condition itself.
Slashdot Mirror
...if it is time for Google to introduce some judiciously placed non-existing place names in their maps. Something which would beyond a shadow of a doubt prove that wherever they show up, they're sure to have been scraped off Google Maps. They did this when they suspected Microsoft of scraping search results, and lo! those nonsensical results ended up on Bing in no time.
What now is the non-existing place of 'Oosterbeekerswaard' suddenly shows up on an iDevice? Nobody would mind not finding anything there, the question is 'where did they get these data from'?...
Of course those maps might be full of such random data already, who knows...
I have a waterproof phone. I don't use it under the shower though... It does survive my rather boisterous life style, from forest stream to stubble field to that rainy day on my bike. It even runs the latest incarnation of Android so if you really feel the need to inhibit your creativity under the shower there is not much stopping you...
...we gathered bits in the autumn with a pick and shovel, assembled them all winter long and punched out turing tapes for the stuff to run on come spring.
Apart from that:
SLS (1992) - Slackware - Redhat and Debian - Dumped Redhat, gained Ubuntu, kept Debian - Dumped Ubuntu (wife still runs it though), kept Debian
Debian because it lends itself to all purposes, from lightweight base for eg. i-Opener and Webplayer to server and desktop. Not to mention the fact that you can move between these configurations without needing a re-install.
Coming soon to a venue close to you:
Two pints please
Here you go, that will be 10,-
10,-? The previous two were 8,-, surely you made a mistake?
Nay, the total income for this joint just went through the roof, must be that bunch of leeches in suits who came in a few minutes ago. Prices are set according to some fancy profit-maximizing model, and that model told my cash register to charge more. Sorry 'bout that...
Don't you have that the other way around? I'd say that given the direction Apple is going in with its phone and tablet offerings they are trying to create their version of recent Android-powered devices. From multitasking to drag-down notifications to bigger screens to the demise of *beep* iTunes for some functionality to, well, you name it. All those 'new' things Apple comes up with have been done before in Android (and many other systems, but Apple-Android folks seem to prefer dichotomies).
Then again, the same could be said for their original iPhone. They might copy and mix with style, but it is still copying and mixing. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they don't try to create exact copies to confuse potential customers (they didn't) or turn around after copying something to claim they invented and innovated and came up with it all by themselves (they did...). That is what separates Apple from most other companies in this field - their stuck-up arrogant nose-in-the-air holier-than-thou attitude.
Does The Firm need to be defended in this way? By trying to downplay the lack of quality in their products? If that is the case the situation is even worse than I thought. Not using one of their products and thereby having to go by hear-say I thought that their product quality generally was OK, if somewhat limited in its scope.
This type of apologetic behaviour is what I've come to associate with users of mediocre products who feel the need to defend their choice. Reality distortion at its finest, I guess.
As long as you implement your own version of that algorithm, yes. Software is protected by copyright, and that is enough. Just like it is enough for books and music.
Please explain why software needs patent protection, and what benefits you see in providing that protection.
This is both an Apple problem as well as a patent problem.
Many companies which are active in the same business as Apple have been able to do what Apple is now trying to do - block competition by abusing the braindead patent system. The difference between those many companies and Apple is that the majority of them have not stooped so low as Apple in their abuse of the system. Those companies which did use patents against Apple did so only after Apple fired the initial shots.
Mind you, I'm talking about 'real' companies here, not about patent trolls. Patent trolls stand to companies like tumours stand to organs.
Apple is a patent lowlife. The dysfunctional patent system makes it possible for them to try to push competition out of the market by claiming sole proprietorship of basic building blocks of whatever field they want to claim for themselves.
A bad system abused by a bad company.
The mere fact that Elop has not publicly presented a plan B does not mean once does not exist. I'm fairly sure it does... Plan B is most likely for Microsoft to buy Nokia for pennies to the dollar once plan A has run its course. They will keep the patents and shed the rest. Those patents will be used to shake down the rest of the industry. Isn't patent law wonderful?
Maybe the name Plan B is not really applicable. Maybe it should be called 'plan A-2' or 'plan A.bis'.
You just answered your own question. You obviously had $100 to spare for what is currently a non-essential device - in other words, a luxury product - and with that showed you are both able as well as willing to spend more money for a perceived advantage over the lowest priced alternative. Since Amazon wants to profit as much as possible from whatever they do, they set their prices to what they think you will pay.
I'd say you now have two alternatives. You can either stop buying those overpriced e-books, or you can decide that what you actually pay for is a license to read the book and thus buy the lowest priced version of a book you can find and download the same work off the 'net. Read the downloaded copy, stash the bought version away for a rainy day. Although probably not legal in the current system, it would make sense if it were. Electronic books are essentially no-price to publishers as they can just take the typeset manuscript they used to feed the printer/press and convert it to whatever e-book format they want.
Strange. I have never had to replace a broken battery cover on a phone. I have replaced batteries though.
Please define the concept of an 'outdated phone', as I fail to grasp the difference in functionality between a 10 year old GSM handset and a newly minted version. GSM has not changed, and the old phone still works, so why replace it? You might not want it for its bells and whistles but these old things work just as well in their original capacity - as mobile phones - as they did when they were launched.
Replacing a battery for 'around $100' is not a service. That is what is called 'highway robbery' where I come from. New batteries cost a few euros/dollars and are available at many locations. Replacing them takes almost no time.
Consumer phones with built-in batteries are designed that way for one reason, and one reason only: built-in obsolescence. That '$100 battery replacement service' is nothing more than a '$X profit guarantee' - we intend to make an X amount of profit on you, no matter whether you buy a new phone or decide to keep the current one.
Don't just blindly parrot the party line.
Always follow the party line, no matter what. "Die partei, die partie, die hat immer recht"
Possibly an eye-opener: if Samsung slavishly copied Apple, who did Apple copy? The differences between Apples first attempt at a mobile phone and earlier phones from more experienced manufacturers are not that big, all the way from the basic shape (rounded cornered rectangle, screen dominated front, speaker and microphone at logical positions) through the basic interface (a grid of icons) to more specific features (slide to unlock, context-sensitive actions on text, etc). Literally all of this had been done before. Nobody had made an iPhone before, and nobody - other than Apple - has made one ever since. The same can be said though for, eg, the HTC Prophet. HTC never claimed they owned the basic shape of this device, nor did they claim to own the basic interface (a grid of icons). LG did not claim they owned the concept of a rectangular, rounded cornered screen dominated slab with a capacitive touch screen. Which is logical - they did not invent the capacitive touch screen, nor did they invent the rectangle or the colour black. You did not see any HTC or LG (or any of the other manufacturers') users claiming these things either. Samsung never claimed to own these things, even though they had several products which predated Apple's first phone while encompassing many of its features.
Oddly enough Apple does make these claims, and many Apple users parrot them.
Please take some effort to answer this question: who did Apple copy? If your answer is 'nobody, they invented all of this themselves' then I'm afraid you'll have to do some more studying.
Apple made a popular phone, which sold by the millions even though the price was inflated. It still sells by the millions, and these sales have made Apple a stupendous amount of profit (both because of the obscene profit margin on these phones as well as the sheer number of phones they sold). In other words, they made a successful product. Where they went wrong was when they started claiming to be the sole proprietors of the basic concepts behind this phone.
Please use some common sense before you parrot their statements. Have a look at the television wall in some electronics store to see what I mean. Look at the washing machines, or the calculators, or just about any other product. Look around you and see - nobody is an island. No company creates something out of nothing. This includes Apple. They, like everyone else, look around them and base their products on what they've seen. The difference between Apple and most other companies is that they then turn around and claim never to have looked, that they came up with it all by themselves. This is wrong, and you know it is wrong.
Don't just blindly follow the party line.
Think Different.
Remember what the press was saying when Samsung debuted the SIII?
The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers
And now Fruit wants to ban this lawyer-designed phone? Well smoke me a kipper, either the reality distortion field seems to cause lasting damage or they are communicating with St. Steve through an Ouija board. In any case it does not make sense. And they think they can gain what by doing this? Respect? Money? Time? What, exactly?
As far as I can see all they earn by going on a sueing spree is ridicule, contempt and hatred. For some reason many people seem to get almost religiously attached to their mobile gadgets, and Fruit now acts as if they are the Church of Scientology. Bad fruit. Soon anonymous will start staking out their sales churches.
...has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. It is not an invention per se as there is nothing new. It is not novel either, as the same thing has been done on many different types of devices before someone at this company thought to file a patent for it. Let's pick the thing apart, shall we? Claim by claim - though we'll skip a few for brevity.
Claim 1 asserts a base station which communicates with wireless clients and pushes relevant configuration data to them. It can only do that when the wireless device is in range. As a rough equivalent, think of a wireless router pushing network configuration data through DHCP to relevant clients. It can send specific data to specific clients (based on MAC, etc). The wireless clients generally notify the user ('wireless network detected!') and perform the configuration changes as pushed by the base station (can be anything from simple network configuration to more elaborate changes). If DHCP is not enough for your configurations needs, try ACAP (rfc 2244) as it has been languishing since 1997... would be nice to use it as I thought it showed promise back then.
Claims 2-8 just say this should be applied to a mobile device connected to the WWAN. Big deal. They narrow down the patent a bit, probably to make it easier to get it past the examiners. There is no inventiveness nor novelty in changing these specific parameters of a device configuration so it does not really make sense to have these claims - it is not as if the application of the mechanisms used by the likes of DHCP suddenly becomes novel and inventive when applied to the intensity of the backlight instead. It is, in other words, obvious to anyone in the field.
Claim 9 touches ACAP again, of course you need authentication to change certain parameters. You don't want that base station at the corner coffee shop to change your PROXY settings to run everything through their cousin's server.
Claim 10 tells the device to go into sleep mode. Yes, and? Why is this worthy of a claim in a patent application? Where is the novelty or inventiveness? What is the difference between putting the device in sleep mode and, eg, putting the backlight or the ringer in 'sleep mode' (ie. turning it off)? Next, please...
Claims 11-13 cover location assertion based on various methods, as all devices which are equipped with the right hardware have been doing since this hardware became available. Next.
Claim 14 tries to make a special case for a mobile device which uses its WLAN interface instead of WWAN. Next.
Claims 15 and onwards are of the same calibre - a total and utter lack of either inventiveness or novelty permeates them. As it does this whole 'patent'.
Still, the patent was awarded. And as such it can be used to stifle competition, force wanton changes in competitors' devices under the threat of litigation and actual litigation. If this comes before a jury the outcome can be anything as shown by the recent 1 billion dollar charade. If it comes before a panel of experts I have some hope that it will be squashed.
A friend of mine is a patent liaisons specialist ('patentgemachtigde'). When I speak to her about these issues she keeps on responding that bad patents are not a problem since they will be turned down in court. It has been a while since I spoke to her so I don't know if she still makes these claims, but it should be clear as daylight that the court is NOT the place to decide whether something is worth patenting. This should be handled by the patent office, NOT in the courts. The current system where patentability seems to be determined by 'throwing claims at the office to see which sticks' causes untold grief and massive economic losses for anyone not involved in the actual patenting process. And that is probably also why the likelihood of any significant changes is rather low, as the ones deciding on these changes are often direct beneficiaries of the current system: lawyers...
Maybe because of the scourge of tech: licensing fees?
It might well be quite a bit cheaper to produce a phone-less camera - albeit with 3G connectivity - than one which includes traditional voice service...
Of course this being Android, it would not surprise me if you could just add Phone.apk and TelephonyProvider.apk to get a working phonecamera... It already has a microphone and a speaker after all. No earpiece though so you'll always be on speakerphone...
Was that an attempt at the Wookie defense?
Sure, the Dutch are no saints, and never did I imply they were or that they have a patent on being non-saints, to keep this somewhat on-topic.... It does not take away anything from those lines of verse though. It also helps that the writer of these lines did not exactly agree to the behaviour of the Dutch in their (former) colonies, and that those misdeeds mostly took place before these lines were placed on that wall for all to see - and for me to quote.
If only those free of sin would be allowed to participate in the discussion this forum would be empty...
But why even go that way? If you want to drop a bomb on location X, just send a ballistic missile. If you don't want to launch it from a static silo, put it in a sub or on a train. What would the advantage of a space-launched bomb be? The disadvantage is clear - it orbits the planet like a sitting duck...
The term 'going Dutch' are usually applied to situations where you are supposed to take care of yourself in a group situation. Now those Dutch are pretty crafty folk, and do they have some good ideas every now and then. One of those ideas has been inscribed on a wall to remind people of what happens when you give in to tyrants. The monument was made to commemorate 30 resistance fighters who fought in a struggle which makes this patent business pale beyond recognition, but the inspiration given by these lines works for all struggles against tyrants of any sort:
Een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht,
zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen,
dan dooft het licht...
This translates to
'a people who give in to tyrants,
will lose more than body and property,
the flame (literally 'light') will be extinguished'
Of course there is no reason to give in to these silly demands of a commercial entity which has grown beyond its capacities for reason. Of course the CEO of said entity should think different from the way he currently does, and steer his ship around for fear of running it into the minefield of his own ordination.
And of course the way the patent system is abused - not only in the USA but worldwide - undermines the stated concepts which form the grounds for implementing those laws. Anyone who tries to explain this away should read those lines again. If you don't understand Dutch or English, feed them to your favourite translation program or service.
Now that I think of it there is a saying in the USA which applies to this as well:
The price of freedom (or liberty) is eternal vigilance
While it might be the end of general purpose computing for fashionable-iThing-users and work-mandated cookie-cutter-PC operators, it will by no means mean the end of general purpose computing for Joe and Janice random hacker. The hacker scene existed before the availability of ubiquitous cheap general purpose consumer computing devices, and it will exist after these have been replaced by three-letter-acronym designed patent-encumbered media consumption gadgets. If ever there was an 'itch to scratch', it would be the subversion of these devices to my will... and if I don't succeed there are countless others with similar intentions. Many eyes, shallow bugs... so no fear, those who are in need of general purpose computing devices will be able to acquire them, even if it means voiding the warranty - and who knows how many laws and statutes - before flicking the switch. Not that different from the way it is now, really...
You forgot to add in the United States of America.
In other words, 5% of the world population will be limited to multi-touch devices from one manufacturer only. The other 95% will be free to choose between a multitude of vendors.
The land of the free... indeed.
From the '677 (miserable excuse for a) patent description (emphasis mine):
"...The electronic device is not limited to the scale shown herein.
As indicated in the title, the article of manufacture to which
the ornamental design has been applied is an electronic
device, media player (e.g., music, video and/or game player),
media storage device, a personal digital assistant, a commu-
nication device (e.g., cellular phone), a novelty item or toy..."
So Apple did actually patent a rectangular, screen-dominated form factor for just about anything electronic. Read the patent - there is not that much to read. Look at the pictures. Look at what they show. Compare these to the devices which have been found 'infringing'. Look at what the 'experts' say on this subject - often they claim you have to see design patents as 'a whole', not just pick out the parts. Now tell me how a series of devices which, as a whole, look nothing like the (vague) drawings in the design patent other than being rounded cornered, rectangular, screen dominated fronted slabs just like those vague drawings can be found infringing.
This is not justice. This is a farcical charade. This is not what the founding fathers - whom Americans like to pull in to so many debates - wanted their country to turn into.
To all Apple users I say: dump your iTools into the harbour, it is time for another tea party.
Ever since I started reading on my N-Gage (which I got because it was the cheapest smart phone back in those days) I have not looked back. The phone is nearly always with me, it fits in my hand, it can be used both day and night without the need for external lighting, it can contain half a library and has access to the other half over the 'net. I can read whenever I want, wherever I want - even if I only have a few minutes to spare as often happens, that is enough to read a page or 2.
Yes, the screen on the phone is small. It helps to have good eyes. Don't try to compare reading on these devices to reading a traditional paper book - the reading experience is completely different. You don't read so much 'by the page' since - especially on more limited phones like the aforementioned N-Gage - a screen does not fit that much text. On my current phone (a Motorola Defy+) I can actually fit more than one traditional paperback page on one screen but that is because I like small print. Using a program like coolreader I can minimize the amount of interface clutter and more or less ignore the original book style. Holding the phone in one hand, I can walk through the book by just touching the left or right (or top or bottom, or wherever - configure it to your liking) of the screen - easy.
My parents both have a dedicated Sony reader. My brother has all the iGadgets St. Steve ordained. Me? I read more than all of them combined.
So if you already have a phone, and that phone happens to have a nice screen, just give it a try. You might like it.
BEEEP - wrong.
What you buy is a license to use the content in the way described by the vendor. Licenses are usually transferable.
Copyright law was written before the advent of zero-cost copying, so the laws were targeted at the right to copy the content (by means of a printing press or a copier (man or machine) instead of the right to use it since that seemed a logical toll gate for ensuring remuneration for content owners. The use of copyright law in the current age depends on some legal back-bending where the toll gates are moved from the printing presses to the copying happening over the computer bus when using the content.
Objection, your honour. Any tablet with a resolution above XGA should be sufficient. I use a Chinese Android-powered 8" device with a WXGA (1280x800) screen which performs just fine. You can buy a stack of these things for the price of one fruitPad.
I don't think there is anything keeping anyone from combining the two - live on a farm and do the usual farming business (the silage is just in, let it rain...) and make a living as a hacker for hire. There is a lot of overlap between these two actually since both take a lot of creativity and tend to attract the self-reliant. You might not end up running the largest farm in the county but that is not important. You live out in the country, work the land, work your head and get the whole yin and yang in one fell swoop. No air conditioning though, but that might be because I live in Sweden where the air tends to condition itself.