According to the clip, if he bought it in Canada he might be covered by the Canadian Criminal Code where "there's legal precedent setting cases in law" for this sort of thing.
Or these precedents might only apply to "mice" not hard drives...
"Fact 1: MIT has granted Full Professorships to people without degrees."
Can you cite an example, please?
I don't believe that Ed Fredkin has any degrees (except probably honorary ones, I've seen him titled as "Dr." and he is certainly deserving), but he was appointed a full professor at MIT in electrical engineering in the sixties, while on his way to becoming a pioneer in artificial intelligence (reversible computing, the Fredkin Gate, etc.) and establishing his concept ("digital physics/philosophy") that the universe can be represented as a discrete/finite cellular automata, or essentially as a computer program. He dropped out of Caltech at 19 to become a fighter pilot and built his experience at MIT Lincoln Labs and through a career as an early computer entrepreneur, working with the PDP-1. He has held other positions as a professor in physics and is currently a "Distinguished Career Professor" at Carnegie Mellon.
I'm certain there are other examples where MIT professors lacked advanced degrees particularly in the early computing days and where successful entrepreneurs have returned for appointments. Certainly this is common at Ivy league schools such as Harvard where former politicians and other notable figures frequently hold appointments. To someone's point about accreditation, certainly the qualifications of the faculty are an important component but this does not generally require that 100% of teaching or research staff hold advanced degrees, particularly if they have practical experience and/or published research.
Have you even bothered to look at any of Andreas Pavel's patents?
I've read this one received in 1983 and filed in 1981 (as a continuation of an original June 12, 1979 application) as well as his later one, incorrectly referenced in my comment above.
If you did you would see the great similarity between Pavel's device and the Sony Walkman.
They are both stereo recording/listening devices in a form factor meant to be convenient for personal use, although they suggest very different form factors to make this so. Pavel's arranges all of the elements into a relatively bulky belt design, while Sony miniaturized the components into the more compact "Walkman" form. In Pavel's text he recognizes prior art portable stereo devices but discounts them as either i) awkward for personal use due to bulk or form factor, and/or ii) low-fidelity as the headphones were an afterthought and used the same amplifier as the main loudspeakers. While it seem clear that Pavel was ahead of his time in recognizing the opportunity for personal stereo devices, because his US patent wasn't filed until in 1981 it's hard to say how much of the final text was influenced by the already successful Walkman and its various competitors (I haven't read his German patent). What does seem apparent is that his patent claims are relatively narrow and could be easily worked around (for instance, I don't think a Walkman without a microphone would be covered by his patent). These narrow claims might be the reason the patent was allowed in the first place amid plenty of similar devices already on the market (by the 1981 filing) as well as the reason that his first settlement was limited to Germany.
Remember Sony's forte is mass manufacturing and marketing. Not everything they sell is invented by them or even has basic research and development doen by them.
I don't disagree, although in this case, from an R&D perspective the Walkman was clearly more technically innovative (in terms of reduction to practice, miniaturization etc.) and had a clearly superior form factor to the Stereobelt. Both Pavel and Morita were ahead of their time and share a claim as the fathers of personal stereo systems not because of their technical contibutions (which were minor in comparison to many others) but because of their foresight in recognizing the potential for millions to enjoy their own "personal soundtrack". As the founder and chair of Sony, Morita put the marketing machine in motion behind his insight, while the smaller inventor invested in several profitable patents to stake his claim to a good idea but without any real traction. I mostly take issue with referring to Pavel as the father of the *Walkman* when it appears the two developed in parallel and it was the much different Walkman form factor that launched the category that contines to this day with the iPod and many others -- I doubt that the Stereobelt would have had such impact, even if it was developed and sold.
I also find it strange that Pavel was able to get his patents in '77 and '83, despite his claims of invention dating back to 1972 and his subsequent attempts to sell or license his product without protection -- activities that would normally invalidate his claims (at least under today's laws). Perhaps this further weakened his patent case. Any thoughts?
Regardless of what Sony may have agreed to in their latest settlement, I agree that it's highly erroneous to claim that Pavel invented the "Walkman" and that at best he might have a claim as "a" father of personal music devices, and not "the father" as is claimed in several sources. Although Sony has grown into a huge faceless multi-national (and was already big at the time), it certainly wasn't faceless at the time and any additional due given to Pavel should not be at the expense of some of the most ingenious innovators of our time.
From the article and other sources, Pavel apparently invented what he called the "Stereobelt" in 1972, which may have been the first personal portable stereo player concept to anticipate a number of the features that latter helped to make the Walkman so successful. Other "portable" players may have been commercially available around the same time, but were usually mono, and not strictly "personal" as they were heavier due to elements such as microphones and external speakers (although I haven't found anything to indicate the actual design of the Stereobelt or whether it was even more than a prototype).
He spent years shopping it around his idea to no avail, before finally patenting it in 1977. I'm not sure about the patent laws of the time, so I don't know how he was able to get away with inventing and offering to sell something for 5 years before receiving his first patent (and then proceeding to file other international patents). My guess: from the brief abstract listed elsewhere in the comments, and from the subsequent actions of Sony (modest settlements), I wouldn't be surprised if his actual patent was quite narrow (looks like there is something about retractable cords) and may have been on shakey ground due to his own (and possibly other) prior art and delay in filing.
At the time, Sony was already selling "portable cassette players" but these were heavy and monoaural. One of the co-founders of Sony, Masaru Ibuka, was a frequent user of one of these products (the "Pressman") and asked Kozo Ohsone to come up with a more portable stereo version. Co-founder and then Sony Chairman Akio Morita correctly saw the potential of the new product to create a new category of "personal" music devices and coined the name "Walkman". Because of his vision and success with the Walkman line, Akio Morita has been (in my opinion) quite rightly credited as the father of the personal stereo, even though the actual Walkman concept was invented by Ibuka and Ohsone.
As the article points out, Sony did in fact settle with Pavel over a German patent in the early eighties, but Pavel was frustrated over his claim of inventorship and continued to sue Sony through the 90's dispite continually losing in court. Only after Ibuka and Akio's deaths did Sony Corporation provide a second settlement that apparently provides him with some additional credit tied to the "Walkman" and what is a relatively token amount (probably didn't help much beyond his court costs) to stop him from his public criticism and litigation.
I think it's sad that the significant contributions of Ibuka and especially Morita might be so easily discounted since their death. And while I'm supportive of inventors such as Pavel getting their due, from the face of it I don't think he was particularly hard done by all these millions of dollars later for an idea he had thirty years ago -- this story is a far cry from an entrepreneur that worked hard to implement their idea, start and grow a business, and then had it stolen out from under them. He probably had a valid, if narrow, infringement case when he first settled twenty years ago. But that he could even *consider* suing today's MP3 manufacturers (long after any loosely connected patents have expired) just show how clearly ridiculous his notions are of his intellectual property rights.
I guess such marriages of engineering and business are possible, though very rare.
Actually, I think your great example of Apple as a company that blends the business and engineering worlds is in many ways the norm, not the exception. Engineering is the most common degree held by the CEO's of large publicly traded companies (exceeding MBA's) and a technical background is probably even more common amongst the much larger number of small to medium sized private companies that are often founded and run by engineers, technologists, or trades-people. Some of the best examples of engineers turned successful managers include those with technical Ph.D.'s in engineering or computer science, including Dr. Jack Welch of GE, widely considered by many (but certainly not all) to be one of the greatest managers of all time; and Dr. Bob Metcalfe, the founder of 3Com who proudly touts his abilities in sales over his claim to the invention of ethernet. Within many of the top MBA schools experienced engineers account for 25-33% of the class and are highly sought after by recruiters. While I think we can all relate to experiences with the "Pointy Haired Boss", I actually know a lot more "Dilberts" who run their own companies, large or small. It's just that the PHB's are more likely to seek attention and get all the press (like the disappointed naysayers in this article who proport to be the "business establishment"), while the rest of us quietly go about our business.
The entire point of copyright is the idea that it expires. Copyright wasn't ever intended to be an entitlement for artists; it was intended to be a social contract to encourage creativity.
While agreeing with most of your statements, particularly with respect to US copyright law, I think that your history is a little off. My understanding is that copyrights were originally established by European publishers (and the Stationer's Company in the UK) to protect the monopoly that was threatened with wider scale adoption of the printing press and to allow censureship. The original common law copyrights were "granted" in perpetuity to the publishers. It was only later that limited termed copyrights were established as a social contract to encourage creativity by artists/authors.
The issue is not that copyright has always been a social contract from its very beginning, but that we are reverting back to the dark ages of copyright used for censure and perpetual monopolies -- exactly what the US founding fathers were so much against when they enshrined the social contract viewpoint in the constitution.
Indeed. It's too bad that most of the comments have been cracks about his name or his new title.
Gary Flake's The Computational Beauty of Nature is a classic book that anyone interested or active in engineering or computer science should own and cherish. Not only is it the best introduction and overview to explore and link together a number of popular but often confused concepts, from Fractals and Chaos to Number Theory and Computer Science, it is a beautifully written and presented book itself - perhaps best compared in both subject matter and style to other classics like Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, or perhaps A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram - except that it is shorter and much more accessible for even the layperson to read.
I had no idea what he has been up to lately. That he had left NEC to join Overture and become head scientist for Yahoo! Labs and eventually over to MSN Search certainly seems to fit the billing of "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." better than most stories I read here. My thanks to the submitter and editor for posting this.
Not only do some IBM mainframes run Linux, but according to reviews of the X40, the newer Thinkpads apparently all ship with a Linux-based emergency utility, including a full version of Opera, to recover your laptop and access support even in the event that Windows XP completely fails.
If I understand correctly, then the most trusted laptops used by corporate executives are all shipping with Linux and OSS standard. Linux on the desktop? How about Linux *behind* the desktop, or under the hood? I'm surprised this isn't being played up more by the community. Anyone know more about this?
Google's scanning process "is much gentler with books than other high-speed processes in use today."
My guess? Based on all the descriptions that point to this being something different, gentler, much much faster, I bet they're using a technique that can handle reading text at very sharp angles -- so they only need to quickly "flip" through a fanned out book without even laying it out flat.
This also sounds more like something that Google could develop in house with all of their collected PhD's in AI, since the key technological challenge would not be the scanning hardware, but the algorithms for accurately recognizing elongated text across a background of varying darkness (from the edge of the page to the binding). If so, this might preclude any hope for high quality images though.
Any attempt by citizens to communicate and organize outside of sanctioned government channels will be seen as a threat to security. Welcome to the future.
IN SOVIET RUSSIA... oh, wait, that's what they did in Soviet Russia.
Yakov Smirnoff - bad 80's comedian, or visionary distopian prophet?
Thanks for the post above -- noticed someone modded you redundant (hopefully by mistake) and thought this would be a good place to insert my own "redundant" comment. This is one of those stories (and yours is one of those posts) where moderations of +5 redundant make sense and where there's no shame in saying "me too" especially when you're sharing your own personal experience.
Me, I don't even have an anecdote, but from an Engineer and a Canadian, congratulations and thanks for inspiring us all Mr. Doohan!
One way copyright goes into force is based on as soon as a work is first published publicly. The EFF found the first published date is 1945. That means in order for the copyright to be extended under the rules which were in effect during the time, Ludlow would have had to file an extension no later than 1973. Renewing in 1984 was 11 years too late, because the song would have automatically passed into the public domain in 1973 and once in the public domain, always in the public domain.
I never understood why this logic has not been applied (legally at least) to Happy Birthday which was music originally published in the 1890's (as "Good Morning to All/You"), had the alternative lyrics published or alluded to a number of times from 1909 onwards, but wasn't copyrighted until 1935 by one of the original authors (who didn't even write the changed lyrics!) and is still under copyright until something like 2030, allowing the current holders to sue the Girl Guides and force restaurants to come up with those silly hand clapping songs.
This seems to be an example of how technology has been sold to us ("the public" in this story) as an always-win net gain.
Putting marketing hat on...
Maybe this is just a positioning thing. As far a trendy prefixes go, "Bio-" trumps "E/Cyber-" these days, so what if we started touting "Bio-Voting" as an alternative to "E-Voting"?
For those luddites out there, Bio-Voting is a new voting technology that replaces insecure voting software and hardware with ultra-secure vote-pads, made from organically harvested cellulose fibres, that are permanently marked with carbon graphite rods encased in a hardened bio-sheath.
That's my first pass, maybe someone can "sex" it up a little better before presenting it to the public.
They've been doing real world testing and refinement of their systems, including their 57,000lbf (500,000HP) propulsion system, which had its first successful test as far back as last fall. This is apparently the most powerful rocket ever tested in Canada.
They have based their tried and true aerodynamic design and some other aspects of their project on the V-2 rocket, which has (mostly in unfortunate circumstances, of course) the distinction of being the most widely used space capable rocket in history. Their team leader, Geoff Sheerin, is probably the world's foremost expert on the technical aspects of the historical V-2/A4, based on years (some predating the X-Prize) of collecting and interpreting original source documents and data, comparative analysis of museum pieces and CAD drawings, prototyping, and even consultation with surviving designers.
Perhaps more so than any of the other teams in the race, their goal is very much to create a viable business model for, as they say, "Making SPACE for you", and they have spent resources developing training equipment, facilities, and programs at the expense of necessarily being first. They're also investing considerable resources and time to ensure safe operation, ranging from splashdown to the use of experienced pilots/cosmonauts -- an approach that forces the designers and engineers to not take the same level of risk they might take if they were chancing their own lives.
That said, according to their website and other sources, they are planning to begin further testing in August and intend to launch by the end of the year. So best of luck to the teams of Sheerin, Feeney, Rutan, and any others that are moving closer! As long as everyone runs a safe program there really can't be any losers in this race -- in fact, the more ways that work, the better!
...interesting response, too -- really the silver lining to my more pessimistic comment, I suppose. After posting it, I worried I was being unduly harsh about 2 year programs and prospects for their graduates but I think the real worry is that this is a technical program being marketed as a university program. We really do need more of both, but we also need to be honest with the students about there differences.
If you want help developing well-rounded transferable skills and fundemental knowledge, then go into a 4 year university program and focus on those things that best develop problem solving skills and leadership abilities, including extracurriculars. If you're looking for a more applied fast track route to developing specific technical skills, then look for a program like this. Either way, expect to do most of your "real" learning, whether technical or social, out in the "real" world.
As a defence against outsourcing, I would still recommend a broad 4 year program to those who can, but a strong 2 year technical program is a good alternative to a less technical 2 year one, especially if you plan to continue upgrading your skills and broaden your experience in other ways.
I wonder if they teach Hindi too? 'Cause pretty soon it seems that's the only place most of these outsourcable app-of-the-month skills are going to get you anywhere. Of course India's got some great Universities graduating full 4 year undergraduates and graduate students too, so I wouldn't really promote that option either.
Or to paraphrase Kennedy: We choose not to do these things because they are useful. We choose to do them becase they are a human thing to do.
Not just a paraphrase, I think that's a fair interpretation of the original JFK quote:
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Wow. That gives me shivers and makes me smile. I don't mind spending a few dollars of my tax money just for the sentiment and inspiration embodied in that challenge. Some might see inspiration and adventure as frivolous while people are dying/starving/suffering/poor/etc. but I think that dreams and discovery (whether scientific, personal, or spiritual) are the very things that make life worthwhile, and what we should aspire to be giving those less fortunate a chance to enjoy.
Those things being said, challenge is also the crucible of innovation and overcoming the many challenges of manned space flight has resulted in substantial technical innovations and continued exploration will continue to do so far into the future. But I still like JFK's reason best.
Re:There's no way they could really press charges.
on
419 Scammer Gets Scammed
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· Score: 4, Funny
What about if the government of nigeria doesn't give two dry rat turds about dealing with their scammer population?
You've got a point. Especially considering that the Prince, Prime Minister, Sultanate, Head of State, Military Dictator, and Alien Overlord of Nigeria have each been killed, overthrown, or deposed in a series of bloody uprisings and coups that have apparently tied up millions and millions of that countries personal, palacial, and government assets in secret international banks! With such frequent turmoil I simply can't imagine the resulting state of their legal system...
And they are proud of the fact that they're one of the few parts of government that is a revenue center.
Good points. They are certainly a revenue centre and profitable within their own walls. But are they really a profit centre if you take into account the "total cost of ownership" for the patent system?
To help determine that, I would subtract the costs of handling patent cases by the federal courts and other related non-USPTO expenses, which are costs to the government and taxpayers that are directly incurred due to the policies of the patent system.
Putting aside the traditional arguments about the impact on innovation and other indirect economic issues, the point at which it costs more (or even nearly as much) for the courts to evaluate and uphold or throw out patents as it does for the USPTO to rubber stamp them is the point at which no one could deny that the system is broken.
The USPTO would make a lot less "profit" if it didn't defer all the real work to the courts and the private sector.
Assuming this is an accurate and actual letter, how is it that a company can continue to do business in this manner? This company is not in the softwrae business anymore - it's in the lawsuit business. After all the happenings with Enron and WorldCom, how is it that this company, which has no real business plan (that's evident even outside the letter) attract customers or money?
Along those lines, if their strategy is to just replace any real products with creative lawsuits and complex money raising schemes as described, perhaps people should replace the litigious bastards Google-bomb with "the Enron of Software" or "the next Enron" and start referring to them as such.
If that happened, I could see the mainstream press printing nice little asides like -- "...SCO and the Canopy Group are often described as "the next Enron" or the "Enron of Software" by members of the tech community..."
I'm glad to see a direct example of prior art that seems to clearly invalidates this (although, I have not yet read the actual patent).
The thing is, I think an actual (logical vs. common sense) case can be easily made for obviousness, or at least one that should allow prior art examples of subdomains that don't necessarily match the e-mail name exactly (like many of the ones suggested before yours.
How?
Okay, I know its the process of issuing these names, but this patent seems to imply that it is perfectly fine to issue someone:
bubba@smith.net and http://bubba1.smith.net
however,
bubba@smith.net and http://bubba.smith.net
is illegal.
And what about:
www@mit.edu and http://www.mit.edu
or
shop@ibm.com and http://shop.ibm.com
I just can't imagine a judge that would be so stupid that they could not see how obviously stupid such a restriction is that makes it illegal for people to name their computer or subdomain the same thing as one of their e-mail addresses or aliases. Otherwise we'll have to set up a national registry of e-mail addresses to make sure you don't use the same name as your subdomain, and let's create software that doesn't allow terms like www to be used as a valid e-mail address while we're at it.
This tops the method of swinging sideways on a swing in my books...
And they're not saying, "Here's Playboy"; they're saying, "Here's something you might be interested in."
I really like this analogy, it immediately draws a parallel between this case and the recommendation services that sites like Amazon provide, as well as features of the semantic web, contextual computing, or AI in general.
This ruling could immediately have far ranging and rather chilling consequences...
If you search for book with a trademarked title or subject on Amazon, is it a commercial abuse of the trademark to receive recommendations for other titles? Right now, if you look at subscriptions to Playboy magazine you get an offer to purchase Maxim as well and suggestions for other adult/men's magazines.
If you design or use a commercial AI system, will you be required to restrict the software from treating trademarked terms as generic? I don't think certain intelligent system (robot, data mining software, whatever) are going to be that useful if they're not legally allowed to associate a trademark with related terms -- *especially* those that might be competitive or could act as alternatives.
I'm sure other people can think of plenty of better examples along these lines...
Also, I bet a big chunk of that difference is the start-up costs involved in switching over from one OS to Linux, whereas the Windows systems were probably just upgrades. Sure, this is a fair cost to consider, but this would be especially high back in 1998.
I also like the study that compares the cost of using Linux mainframes to WinTel boxes. I think even a pointy haired boss would realize the apples to oranges comparison going on...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually it reminds me more of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3DYbE44OIE
According to the clip, if he bought it in Canada he might be covered by the Canadian Criminal Code where "there's legal precedent setting cases in law" for this sort of thing.
Or these precedents might only apply to "mice" not hard drives...
"Fact 1: MIT has granted Full Professorships to people without degrees."
Can you cite an example, please?
I don't believe that Ed Fredkin has any degrees (except probably honorary ones, I've seen him titled as "Dr." and he is certainly deserving), but he was appointed a full professor at MIT in electrical engineering in the sixties, while on his way to becoming a pioneer in artificial intelligence (reversible computing, the Fredkin Gate, etc.) and establishing his concept ("digital physics/philosophy") that the universe can be represented as a discrete/finite cellular automata, or essentially as a computer program. He dropped out of Caltech at 19 to become a fighter pilot and built his experience at MIT Lincoln Labs and through a career as an early computer entrepreneur, working with the PDP-1. He has held other positions as a professor in physics and is currently a "Distinguished Career Professor" at Carnegie Mellon.
I'm certain there are other examples where MIT professors lacked advanced degrees particularly in the early computing days and where successful entrepreneurs have returned for appointments. Certainly this is common at Ivy league schools such as Harvard where former politicians and other notable figures frequently hold appointments. To someone's point about accreditation, certainly the qualifications of the faculty are an important component but this does not generally require that 100% of teaching or research staff hold advanced degrees, particularly if they have practical experience and/or published research.
Have you even bothered to look at any of Andreas Pavel's patents?
I've read this one received in 1983 and filed in 1981 (as a continuation of an original June 12, 1979 application) as well as his later one, incorrectly referenced in my comment above.
If you did you would see the great similarity between Pavel's device and the Sony Walkman.
They are both stereo recording/listening devices in a form factor meant to be convenient for personal use, although they suggest very different form factors to make this so. Pavel's arranges all of the elements into a relatively bulky belt design, while Sony miniaturized the components into the more compact "Walkman" form. In Pavel's text he recognizes prior art portable stereo devices but discounts them as either i) awkward for personal use due to bulk or form factor, and/or ii) low-fidelity as the headphones were an afterthought and used the same amplifier as the main loudspeakers. While it seem clear that Pavel was ahead of his time in recognizing the opportunity for personal stereo devices, because his US patent wasn't filed until in 1981 it's hard to say how much of the final text was influenced by the already successful Walkman and its various competitors (I haven't read his German patent). What does seem apparent is that his patent claims are relatively narrow and could be easily worked around (for instance, I don't think a Walkman without a microphone would be covered by his patent). These narrow claims might be the reason the patent was allowed in the first place amid plenty of similar devices already on the market (by the 1981 filing) as well as the reason that his first settlement was limited to Germany.
Remember Sony's forte is mass manufacturing and marketing. Not everything they sell is invented by them or even has basic research and development doen by them.
I don't disagree, although in this case, from an R&D perspective the Walkman was clearly more technically innovative (in terms of reduction to practice, miniaturization etc.) and had a clearly superior form factor to the Stereobelt. Both Pavel and Morita were ahead of their time and share a claim as the fathers of personal stereo systems not because of their technical contibutions (which were minor in comparison to many others) but because of their foresight in recognizing the potential for millions to enjoy their own "personal soundtrack". As the founder and chair of Sony, Morita put the marketing machine in motion behind his insight, while the smaller inventor invested in several profitable patents to stake his claim to a good idea but without any real traction. I mostly take issue with referring to Pavel as the father of the *Walkman* when it appears the two developed in parallel and it was the much different Walkman form factor that launched the category that contines to this day with the iPod and many others -- I doubt that the Stereobelt would have had such impact, even if it was developed and sold.
I also find it strange that Pavel was able to get his patents in '77 and '83, despite his claims of invention dating back to 1972 and his subsequent attempts to sell or license his product without protection -- activities that would normally invalidate his claims (at least under today's laws). Perhaps this further weakened his patent case. Any thoughts?
Regardless of what Sony may have agreed to in their latest settlement, I agree that it's highly erroneous to claim that Pavel invented the "Walkman" and that at best he might have a claim as "a" father of personal music devices, and not "the father" as is claimed in several sources. Although Sony has grown into a huge faceless multi-national (and was already big at the time), it certainly wasn't faceless at the time and any additional due given to Pavel should not be at the expense of some of the most ingenious innovators of our time.
From the article and other sources, Pavel apparently invented what he called the "Stereobelt" in 1972, which may have been the first personal portable stereo player concept to anticipate a number of the features that latter helped to make the Walkman so successful. Other "portable" players may have been commercially available around the same time, but were usually mono, and not strictly "personal" as they were heavier due to elements such as microphones and external speakers (although I haven't found anything to indicate the actual design of the Stereobelt or whether it was even more than a prototype).
He spent years shopping it around his idea to no avail, before finally patenting it in 1977. I'm not sure about the patent laws of the time, so I don't know how he was able to get away with inventing and offering to sell something for 5 years before receiving his first patent (and then proceeding to file other international patents). My guess: from the brief abstract listed elsewhere in the comments, and from the subsequent actions of Sony (modest settlements), I wouldn't be surprised if his actual patent was quite narrow (looks like there is something about retractable cords) and may have been on shakey ground due to his own (and possibly other) prior art and delay in filing.
At the time, Sony was already selling "portable cassette players" but these were heavy and monoaural. One of the co-founders of Sony, Masaru Ibuka, was a frequent user of one of these products (the "Pressman") and asked Kozo Ohsone to come up with a more portable stereo version. Co-founder and then Sony Chairman Akio Morita correctly saw the potential of the new product to create a new category of "personal" music devices and coined the name "Walkman". Because of his vision and success with the Walkman line, Akio Morita has been (in my opinion) quite rightly credited as the father of the personal stereo, even though the actual Walkman concept was invented by Ibuka and Ohsone.
As the article points out, Sony did in fact settle with Pavel over a German patent in the early eighties, but Pavel was frustrated over his claim of inventorship and continued to sue Sony through the 90's dispite continually losing in court. Only after Ibuka and Akio's deaths did Sony Corporation provide a second settlement that apparently provides him with some additional credit tied to the "Walkman" and what is a relatively token amount (probably didn't help much beyond his court costs) to stop him from his public criticism and litigation.
I think it's sad that the significant contributions of Ibuka and especially Morita might be so easily discounted since their death. And while I'm supportive of inventors such as Pavel getting their due, from the face of it I don't think he was particularly hard done by all these millions of dollars later for an idea he had thirty years ago -- this story is a far cry from an entrepreneur that worked hard to implement their idea, start and grow a business, and then had it stolen out from under them. He probably had a valid, if narrow, infringement case when he first settled twenty years ago. But that he could even *consider* suing today's MP3 manufacturers (long after any loosely connected patents have expired) just show how clearly ridiculous his notions are of his intellectual property rights.
I guess such marriages of engineering and business are possible, though very rare.
Actually, I think your great example of Apple as a company that blends the business and engineering worlds is in many ways the norm, not the exception. Engineering is the most common degree held by the CEO's of large publicly traded companies (exceeding MBA's) and a technical background is probably even more common amongst the much larger number of small to medium sized private companies that are often founded and run by engineers, technologists, or trades-people. Some of the best examples of engineers turned successful managers include those with technical Ph.D.'s in engineering or computer science, including Dr. Jack Welch of GE, widely considered by many (but certainly not all) to be one of the greatest managers of all time; and Dr. Bob Metcalfe, the founder of 3Com who proudly touts his abilities in sales over his claim to the invention of ethernet. Within many of the top MBA schools experienced engineers account for 25-33% of the class and are highly sought after by recruiters. While I think we can all relate to experiences with the "Pointy Haired Boss", I actually know a lot more "Dilberts" who run their own companies, large or small. It's just that the PHB's are more likely to seek attention and get all the press (like the disappointed naysayers in this article who proport to be the "business establishment"), while the rest of us quietly go about our business.
The entire point of copyright is the idea that it expires. Copyright wasn't ever intended to be an entitlement for artists; it was intended to be a social contract to encourage creativity.
While agreeing with most of your statements, particularly with respect to US copyright law, I think that your history is a little off. My understanding is that copyrights were originally established by European publishers (and the Stationer's Company in the UK) to protect the monopoly that was threatened with wider scale adoption of the printing press and to allow censureship. The original common law copyrights were "granted" in perpetuity to the publishers. It was only later that limited termed copyrights were established as a social contract to encourage creativity by artists/authors.
The issue is not that copyright has always been a social contract from its very beginning, but that we are reverting back to the dark ages of copyright used for censure and perpetual monopolies -- exactly what the US founding fathers were so much against when they enshrined the social contract viewpoint in the constitution.
Zen and the Art of Search, it seems.
Indeed. It's too bad that most of the comments have been cracks about his name or his new title.
Gary Flake's The Computational Beauty of Nature is a classic book that anyone interested or active in engineering or computer science should own and cherish. Not only is it the best introduction and overview to explore and link together a number of popular but often confused concepts, from Fractals and Chaos to Number Theory and Computer Science, it is a beautifully written and presented book itself - perhaps best compared in both subject matter and style to other classics like Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, or perhaps A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram - except that it is shorter and much more accessible for even the layperson to read.
I had no idea what he has been up to lately. That he had left NEC to join Overture and become head scientist for Yahoo! Labs and eventually over to MSN Search certainly seems to fit the billing of "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." better than most stories I read here. My thanks to the submitter and editor for posting this.
Not only do some IBM mainframes run Linux, but according to reviews of the X40, the newer Thinkpads apparently all ship with a Linux-based emergency utility, including a full version of Opera, to recover your laptop and access support even in the event that Windows XP completely fails.
If I understand correctly, then the most trusted laptops used by corporate executives are all shipping with Linux and OSS standard. Linux on the desktop? How about Linux *behind* the desktop, or under the hood? I'm surprised this isn't being played up more by the community. Anyone know more about this?
Google's scanning process "is much gentler with books than other high-speed processes in use today."
My guess? Based on all the descriptions that point to this being something different, gentler, much much faster, I bet they're using a technique that can handle reading text at very sharp angles -- so they only need to quickly "flip" through a fanned out book without even laying it out flat.
This also sounds more like something that Google could develop in house with all of their collected PhD's in AI, since the key technological challenge would not be the scanning hardware, but the algorithms for accurately recognizing elongated text across a background of varying darkness (from the edge of the page to the binding). If so, this might preclude any hope for high quality images though.
Any thoughts?
Any attempt by citizens to communicate and organize outside of sanctioned government channels will be seen as a threat to security. Welcome to the future.
IN SOVIET RUSSIA... oh, wait, that's what they did in Soviet Russia.
Yakov Smirnoff - bad 80's comedian, or visionary distopian prophet?
Thanks for the post above -- noticed someone modded you redundant (hopefully by mistake) and thought this would be a good place to insert my own "redundant" comment. This is one of those stories (and yours is one of those posts) where moderations of +5 redundant make sense and where there's no shame in saying "me too" especially when you're sharing your own personal experience.
Me, I don't even have an anecdote, but from an Engineer and a Canadian, congratulations and thanks for inspiring us all Mr. Doohan!
One way copyright goes into force is based on as soon as a work is first published publicly. The EFF found the first published date is 1945. That means in order for the copyright to be extended under the rules which were in effect during the time, Ludlow would have had to file an extension no later than 1973. Renewing in 1984 was 11 years too late, because the song would have automatically passed into the public domain in 1973 and once in the public domain, always in the public domain.
I never understood why this logic has not been applied (legally at least) to Happy Birthday which was music originally published in the 1890's (as "Good Morning to All/You"), had the alternative lyrics published or alluded to a number of times from 1909 onwards, but wasn't copyrighted until 1935 by one of the original authors (who didn't even write the changed lyrics!) and is still under copyright until something like 2030, allowing the current holders to sue the Girl Guides and force restaurants to come up with those silly hand clapping songs.
This seems to be an example of how technology has been sold to us ("the public" in this story) as an always-win net gain.
Putting marketing hat on...
Maybe this is just a positioning thing. As far a trendy prefixes go, "Bio-" trumps "E/Cyber-" these days, so what if we started touting "Bio-Voting" as an alternative to "E-Voting"?
For those luddites out there, Bio-Voting is a new voting technology that replaces insecure voting software and hardware with ultra-secure vote-pads, made from organically harvested cellulose fibres, that are permanently marked with carbon graphite rods encased in a hardened bio-sheath.
That's my first pass, maybe someone can "sex" it up a little better before presenting it to the public.
They've been doing real world testing and refinement of their systems, including their 57,000lbf (500,000HP) propulsion system, which had its first successful test as far back as last fall. This is apparently the most powerful rocket ever tested in Canada.
They have based their tried and true aerodynamic design and some other aspects of their project on the V-2 rocket, which has (mostly in unfortunate circumstances, of course) the distinction of being the most widely used space capable rocket in history. Their team leader, Geoff Sheerin, is probably the world's foremost expert on the technical aspects of the historical V-2/A4, based on years (some predating the X-Prize) of collecting and interpreting original source documents and data, comparative analysis of museum pieces and CAD drawings, prototyping, and even consultation with surviving designers.
Perhaps more so than any of the other teams in the race, their goal is very much to create a viable business model for, as they say, "Making SPACE for you", and they have spent resources developing training equipment, facilities, and programs at the expense of necessarily being first. They're also investing considerable resources and time to ensure safe operation, ranging from splashdown to the use of experienced pilots/cosmonauts -- an approach that forces the designers and engineers to not take the same level of risk they might take if they were chancing their own lives.
That said, according to their website and other sources, they are planning to begin further testing in August and intend to launch by the end of the year. So best of luck to the teams of Sheerin, Feeney, Rutan, and any others that are moving closer! As long as everyone runs a safe program there really can't be any losers in this race -- in fact, the more ways that work, the better!
...interesting response, too -- really the silver lining to my more pessimistic comment, I suppose. After posting it, I worried I was being unduly harsh about 2 year programs and prospects for their graduates but I think the real worry is that this is a technical program being marketed as a university program. We really do need more of both, but we also need to be honest with the students about there differences.
If you want help developing well-rounded transferable skills and fundemental knowledge, then go into a 4 year university program and focus on those things that best develop problem solving skills and leadership abilities, including extracurriculars. If you're looking for a more applied fast track route to developing specific technical skills, then look for a program like this. Either way, expect to do most of your "real" learning, whether technical or social, out in the "real" world.
As a defence against outsourcing, I would still recommend a broad 4 year program to those who can, but a strong 2 year technical program is a good alternative to a less technical 2 year one, especially if you plan to continue upgrading your skills and broaden your experience in other ways.
I wonder if they teach Hindi too? 'Cause pretty soon it seems that's the only place most of these outsourcable app-of-the-month skills are going to get you anywhere. Of course India's got some great Universities graduating full 4 year undergraduates and graduate students too, so I wouldn't really promote that option either.
Or to paraphrase Kennedy: We choose not to do these things because they are useful. We choose to do them becase they are a human thing to do.
Not just a paraphrase, I think that's a fair interpretation of the original JFK quote:
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Wow. That gives me shivers and makes me smile. I don't mind spending a few dollars of my tax money just for the sentiment and inspiration embodied in that challenge. Some might see inspiration and adventure as frivolous while people are dying/starving/suffering/poor/etc. but I think that dreams and discovery (whether scientific, personal, or spiritual) are the very things that make life worthwhile, and what we should aspire to be giving those less fortunate a chance to enjoy.
Those things being said, challenge is also the crucible of innovation and overcoming the many challenges of manned space flight has resulted in substantial technical innovations and continued exploration will continue to do so far into the future. But I still like JFK's reason best.
What about if the government of nigeria doesn't give two dry rat turds about dealing with their scammer population?
You've got a point. Especially considering that the Prince, Prime Minister, Sultanate, Head of State, Military Dictator, and Alien Overlord of Nigeria have each been killed, overthrown, or deposed in a series of bloody uprisings and coups that have apparently tied up millions and millions of that countries personal, palacial, and government assets in secret international banks! With such frequent turmoil I simply can't imagine the resulting state of their legal system...
And they are proud of the fact that they're one of the few parts of government that is a revenue center.
Good points. They are certainly a revenue centre and profitable within their own walls. But are they really a profit centre if you take into account the "total cost of ownership" for the patent system?
To help determine that, I would subtract the costs of handling patent cases by the federal courts and other related non-USPTO expenses, which are costs to the government and taxpayers that are directly incurred due to the policies of the patent system.
Putting aside the traditional arguments about the impact on innovation and other indirect economic issues, the point at which it costs more (or even nearly as much) for the courts to evaluate and uphold or throw out patents as it does for the USPTO to rubber stamp them is the point at which no one could deny that the system is broken.
The USPTO would make a lot less "profit" if it didn't defer all the real work to the courts and the private sector.
Assuming this is an accurate and actual letter, how is it that a company can continue to do business in this manner? This company is not in the softwrae business anymore - it's in the lawsuit business. After all the happenings with Enron and WorldCom, how is it that this company, which has no real business plan (that's evident even outside the letter) attract customers or money?
Along those lines, if their strategy is to just replace any real products with creative lawsuits and complex money raising schemes as described, perhaps people should replace the litigious bastards Google-bomb with "the Enron of Software" or "the next Enron" and start referring to them as such.
If that happened, I could see the mainstream press printing nice little asides like -- "...SCO and the Canopy Group are often described as "the next Enron" or the "Enron of Software" by members of the tech community..."
Maybe the litigiousbastards.com guys could buy up nextenron.com and enronofsoftware.com (unless SCO or Canopy already plan to as part of their positioning campaign!).
I'm glad to see a direct example of prior art that seems to clearly invalidates this (although, I have not yet read the actual patent).
The thing is, I think an actual (logical vs. common sense) case can be easily made for obviousness, or at least one that should allow prior art examples of subdomains that don't necessarily match the e-mail name exactly (like many of the ones suggested before yours.
How?
Okay, I know its the process of issuing these names, but this patent seems to imply that it is perfectly fine to issue someone:
bubba@smith.net
and http://bubba1.smith.net
however,
bubba@smith.net
and http://bubba.smith.net
is illegal.
And what about:
www@mit.edu
and http://www.mit.edu
or
shop@ibm.com
and http://shop.ibm.com
I just can't imagine a judge that would be so stupid that they could not see how obviously stupid such a restriction is that makes it illegal for people to name their computer or subdomain the same thing as one of their e-mail addresses or aliases. Otherwise we'll have to set up a national registry of e-mail addresses to make sure you don't use the same name as your subdomain, and let's create software that doesn't allow terms like www to be used as a valid e-mail address while we're at it.
This tops the method of swinging sideways on a swing in my books...
And they're not saying, "Here's Playboy"; they're saying, "Here's something you might be interested in."
I really like this analogy, it immediately draws a parallel between this case and the recommendation services that sites like Amazon provide, as well as features of the semantic web, contextual computing, or AI in general.
This ruling could immediately have far ranging and rather chilling consequences...
If you search for book with a trademarked title or subject on Amazon, is it a commercial abuse of the trademark to receive recommendations for other titles? Right now, if you look at subscriptions to Playboy magazine you get an offer to purchase Maxim as well and suggestions for other adult/men's magazines.
If you design or use a commercial AI system, will you be required to restrict the software from treating trademarked terms as generic? I don't think certain intelligent system (robot, data mining software, whatever) are going to be that useful if they're not legally allowed to associate a trademark with related terms -- *especially* those that might be competitive or could act as alternatives.
I'm sure other people can think of plenty of better examples along these lines...
How many penguins are in Saudi Arabia?
Probably about the same number of (native) penguins that are in North America and Europe.
Also, I bet a big chunk of that difference is the start-up costs involved in switching over from one OS to Linux, whereas the Windows systems were probably just upgrades. Sure, this is a fair cost to consider, but this would be especially high back in 1998.
I also like the study that compares the cost of using Linux mainframes to WinTel boxes. I think even a pointy haired boss would realize the apples to oranges comparison going on...
Here's a little NDA violation:
We found out FreeBSD scales 3 times better than windows 2000 advanced server.
Sorry, but I'd love to see them sue you.
Headline: Microsoft sues their former researchers for disclosing that free software operating system is "3 times better" than Windows.