so it sounds they've solved the whole thing...except for, um, the hard part...where everyone playing the game is supposed to have a consistent experience despite the difference in 'local time'.
can i get paid to do work like this? sheesh.
...another shining example of your (US) tax dollars at work.
If you think its BS that things like this can be patented without a shred of actual invention, CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON.
While you have them on the line, ask them why copyrights on movies and music ought to last 90 years when a patented cure for cancer would expire and become public-domain in 20...
Maybe that's the point...if they annoy you, you are *noticing* them after all!
Kinda like guys driving Harleys with big fat straight pipes--annoying, but you damn sure know when they're in your blind spot
...14-person company is making $25M a year
Profit/employee = $1.7M/year
What the heck do they need to go public for? It'd be much easier just cut everyone a check for $1.7M every Christmas...no SEC, no lock-up period, no Sarbanes-Oxley, everyone still gets rich
While you're at it, write your congressperson and ask them what year you will be able to perform "Happy Birthday" in public without paying royalties or getting sued.
At least for real 'invisibility'. I saw it in person at NextFest in San Francisco. It's a neat gimmick, but you're only *invisible* if your enemy is carrying a video projector and a video camera and projecting camouflage onto you.
On the other hand you could watch TV on J.Lo's butt. Now that's useful.
ppppphhphphtttBAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The other 4 pens are well and good but the 'projection display' pen is going to be sci-fi for a while.
I hope you like your 10 minute battery life....ok maybe 20 mins with a nice fuel cell...
By 'extraordinarily intense' i mean 'would likely vaporize human tissue, fast', like an industrial laser capable of cutting through stuff. Ambient sunlight really doesn't cut it. Maybe really, really, highly-focused sunlight, but I doubt this would work either.
In short--had the patent not expired already--I wouldn't give this guy $1...
Let's say you illuminate this device with a green laser, of wavelength lambda 500nm. Knowing the speed of light we can convert wavelength of the electromagnetic wave to frequency:
F = c/lambda
For this wavelength light this frequency is about 600THz. This means that our 'rectifier' must switch on and off in femtoseconds. This is just plain impossible today, by a factor of like 1,000...the fastest semiconductors are up there in the 100's of GHz.
There are additional practical problems:
1. real sunlight is incoherent; the 'voltage' waveform to rectify will not be a sinusoid but just 500THz-ish noise. This would reduce the effectiveness of the resonance of the antenna
2. real rectifiers need *some* forward voltage to work. Assuming semiconductor rectifiers, it'd probably be real hard to generate potential of a fraction of a volt across such a tiny distance, without extraordinarily intense light.
So basically this patent is a crock of BS. Though it would make a good EE PhD quals or interview question to explain why...
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...if they patent this, then nobody *else* will do it, and than we can all just go and not buy Philips TVs.
so it sounds they've solved the whole thing...except for, um, the hard part...where everyone playing the game is supposed to have a consistent experience despite the difference in 'local time'. can i get paid to do work like this? sheesh.
Lithium polymer batteries are pretty dangerous too: http://www.thunderpower-batteries.com/images/THPSa fetyWarnings.pdf
It's pinball! It's a video game! Both suck!
...another shining example of your (US) tax dollars at work. If you think its BS that things like this can be patented without a shred of actual invention, CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON. While you have them on the line, ask them why copyrights on movies and music ought to last 90 years when a patented cure for cancer would expire and become public-domain in 20...
Maybe that's the point...if they annoy you, you are *noticing* them after all! Kinda like guys driving Harleys with big fat straight pipes--annoying, but you damn sure know when they're in your blind spot
1. Get an EE--then you'll know how all this stuff actually works 2. Get a law degree and be a patent lawyer. Good patent lawyers make pretty big $$$.
this is clearly a fraud!
Scientists who know what they're talking about do.
'Hertz per second' = how fast the signal's frequency (in Hertz) is changing per unit time (seconds).
It's a good thing you're not reading New Scientist, apparently you wouldn't get it anyway.
...14-person company is making $25M a year Profit/employee = $1.7M/year What the heck do they need to go public for? It'd be much easier just cut everyone a check for $1.7M every Christmas...no SEC, no lock-up period, no Sarbanes-Oxley, everyone still gets rich
While you're at it, write your congressperson and ask them what year you will be able to perform "Happy Birthday" in public without paying royalties or getting sued.
At least for real 'invisibility'. I saw it in person at NextFest in San Francisco. It's a neat gimmick, but you're only *invisible* if your enemy is carrying a video projector and a video camera and projecting camouflage onto you. On the other hand you could watch TV on J.Lo's butt. Now that's useful.
What's the 'Free Trade Software Foundation' in item 7? Is that like NAFTA?
ppppphhphphtttBAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The other 4 pens are well and good but the 'projection display' pen is going to be sci-fi for a while. I hope you like your 10 minute battery life....ok maybe 20 mins with a nice fuel cell...
god i hope someone revs one of these up in my next meeting. I'll fall out of my chair laughing at the sound effects...!
By 'extraordinarily intense' i mean 'would likely vaporize human tissue, fast', like an industrial laser capable of cutting through stuff. Ambient sunlight really doesn't cut it. Maybe really, really, highly-focused sunlight, but I doubt this would work either. In short--had the patent not expired already--I wouldn't give this guy $1...
Let's say you illuminate this device with a green laser, of wavelength lambda 500nm. Knowing the speed of light we can convert wavelength of the electromagnetic wave to frequency: F = c/lambda For this wavelength light this frequency is about 600THz. This means that our 'rectifier' must switch on and off in femtoseconds. This is just plain impossible today, by a factor of like 1,000...the fastest semiconductors are up there in the 100's of GHz. There are additional practical problems: 1. real sunlight is incoherent; the 'voltage' waveform to rectify will not be a sinusoid but just 500THz-ish noise. This would reduce the effectiveness of the resonance of the antenna 2. real rectifiers need *some* forward voltage to work. Assuming semiconductor rectifiers, it'd probably be real hard to generate potential of a fraction of a volt across such a tiny distance, without extraordinarily intense light. So basically this patent is a crock of BS. Though it would make a good EE PhD quals or interview question to explain why...