So what Apple has won is a formal import ban scheduled to commence on April 19, 2012, but relating only to HTC Android phones implementing one of two claims of a "data tapping patent": a patent on an invention that marks up phone numbers and other types of formatted data in an unstructured document, such as an email, in order to enable users to bring up other programs (such as a dialer app) that process such data.
So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?
They already do that to some extent, running analysis before each game and trying to distill the most salient bits of data into things for the coach/players to memorize. I agree it'd up it another order of magnitude if they allowed it in real time, though at this point it's already a weird sort of quasi-athletic competition where how good the coach is at memorizing things is a significant factor...
This is not really the first practical such system, nor have all previous systems been a trillion times slower. As seems to be a pattern with MIT press releases, the press release makes exaggerated claims, but the paper itself is actually quite good and gives proper credit where it's due, discussing a number of previous systems that implement related functionality, and some existing algorithms from the literature that they borrow and implement directly in CryptDB.
Clearly DeBeers needs to hire you to lead their next ad campaign, "Diamonds are quite long-lasting relative to other materials, though they will eventually decay".
There's some evidence beyond only mineral composition for the earth's core, mostly from seismic data; the discontinuities observed in seismic wave travel put constraints on what has to be the case at different layers. At least, it's more data than we have about the interior of Jupiter, which afaik is entirely based on mineral composition and modeling.
As far as I know, that question was still open to at least some debate. It's hypothesized that there should be a solid core based on the mineral composition and some simulations, but I don't believe there's any direct evidence of it, at least until the mission (mentioned in the article) to measure its gravitational field with an orbiting probe reaches it.
It actually probably requires less money in your twenties. In your forties, the average person wants money for their mortgage, cars, kids, whatever, and probably needs $50k/yr minimum, maybe $80k+ depending on your lifestyle and location. But a frugal group of twenty-somethings should be able to live on $10k/yr each, maybe less if they share accommodations, don't blow it on eating out, and live somewhere cheap (Moxie himself lived in a shared house in Pittsburgh, iirc). You can make that kind of money with some part-time jobs, freelancing, tutoring, whatever.
He's the author of the linked article. Slashdot seems to now be using a heuristic grab-photo-from-linked-page algorithm, like Facebook and Google Plus do, that often screws up.
Ah yeah, it looks like this is the cut-price "feed it alkalines" model. You can get the one with a rechargeable battery and dock for the dearer price point of $220.
In my experience, the average person can't do any of those things in either Linux or Windows, unless you give them very precise, step-by-step instructions (and even then it's pretty iffy).
Yeah, I would be more ok with Google just saying "this isn't a service for children" if they didn't also make TV ads about children having Google accounts. Pick one or the other!
I'm not sure Windows's usability is that good, though I can believe it'd beat out some of the Linux desktop environments (at least for a certain class of users). To the extent that Windows turns out to be usable, I think it's mostly just through age: lots of Windowsisms are now familiar to a large portion of the computer-using population, and therefore that population is able to use them reasonably well, whether or not the features were actually good ideas when first introduced 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
I'd be interested to see a study of average amounts of money spent on lobbying over the past 200 years. I would guess it's way up, even after adjusting for inflation or economy size.
The single, centrally-managed, integration-tested and conflict-resolved tree is sort of the main advantage of Debian, though. I can see alternate possibilities, but they would be quite different models for distribution management.
Compared to the situation on, say, OSX (which I use more often these days), what I like about Debian's one tree is that there's less buck-passing. If it's in Debian, it's a bug somewhere in Debian. I might've reported it to the wrong package, but then the maintainer will usually reassign it to the right one, not just throw up their hands and say, "sorry, not our bug" like you get with reporting bugs to Apple. Sometimes they'll forward the bugs upstream and wait for a resolution, but they'll also try to figure out how to mitigate impact or incompatibilities locally, if possible. I'm not sure how you could maintain that working structure without the single tree.
I think they've more or less given up on Java as a desktop platform, and are focusing on a mixture of enterprise (all that J2EE and Java Beans stuff) and mobile (hence the Google lawsuit).
OpenJDK is based on the open-sourced version of Java, and Canonical continues to distribute that (and it's the default on Ubuntu). What's being removed is the official Sun (now Oracle) Java packages. They used to include those as well, because there were some compatibility issues with OpenJDK and some apps (especially commercial apps).
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?
They already do that to some extent, running analysis before each game and trying to distill the most salient bits of data into things for the coach/players to memorize. I agree it'd up it another order of magnitude if they allowed it in real time, though at this point it's already a weird sort of quasi-athletic competition where how good the coach is at memorizing things is a significant factor...
This is not really the first practical such system, nor have all previous systems been a trillion times slower. As seems to be a pattern with MIT press releases, the press release makes exaggerated claims, but the paper itself is actually quite good and gives proper credit where it's due, discussing a number of previous systems that implement related functionality, and some existing algorithms from the literature that they borrow and implement directly in CryptDB.
Hilarious that it's named OPEN, but I guess Newspeak bill names aren't even novel anymore.
Clearly DeBeers needs to hire you to lead their next ad campaign, "Diamonds are quite long-lasting relative to other materials, though they will eventually decay".
You could just repost a version of that objection for almost any piece of science research without immediate applications...
There's some evidence beyond only mineral composition for the earth's core, mostly from seismic data; the discontinuities observed in seismic wave travel put constraints on what has to be the case at different layers. At least, it's more data than we have about the interior of Jupiter, which afaik is entirely based on mineral composition and modeling.
As far as I know, that question was still open to at least some debate. It's hypothesized that there should be a solid core based on the mineral composition and some simulations, but I don't believe there's any direct evidence of it, at least until the mission (mentioned in the article) to measure its gravitational field with an orbiting probe reaches it.
I believe he bought the yacht with money made from working on boats, and then used it himself to make money, doing deliveries.
It actually probably requires less money in your twenties. In your forties, the average person wants money for their mortgage, cars, kids, whatever, and probably needs $50k/yr minimum, maybe $80k+ depending on your lifestyle and location. But a frugal group of twenty-somethings should be able to live on $10k/yr each, maybe less if they share accommodations, don't blow it on eating out, and live somewhere cheap (Moxie himself lived in a shared house in Pittsburgh, iirc). You can make that kind of money with some part-time jobs, freelancing, tutoring, whatever.
Offer also subject to restrictions when redeemed at engineering schools...
He's the author of the linked article. Slashdot seems to now be using a heuristic grab-photo-from-linked-page algorithm, like Facebook and Google Plus do, that often screws up.
Yeah, I notice that while they did deny one possible reason:
Adds some information-security problems, but reduces a huge IT problem with procuring/managing/repairing the devices.
Ah yeah, it looks like this is the cut-price "feed it alkalines" model. You can get the one with a rechargeable battery and dock for the dearer price point of $220.
In my experience, the average person can't do any of those things in either Linux or Windows, unless you give them very precise, step-by-step instructions (and even then it's pretty iffy).
Yeah, I would be more ok with Google just saying "this isn't a service for children" if they didn't also make TV ads about children having Google accounts. Pick one or the other!
I'm not sure Windows's usability is that good, though I can believe it'd beat out some of the Linux desktop environments (at least for a certain class of users). To the extent that Windows turns out to be usable, I think it's mostly just through age: lots of Windowsisms are now familiar to a large portion of the computer-using population, and therefore that population is able to use them reasonably well, whether or not the features were actually good ideas when first introduced 10, 15, or 20 years ago.
I'd be interested to see a study of average amounts of money spent on lobbying over the past 200 years. I would guess it's way up, even after adjusting for inflation or economy size.
Well, the 'iRobot Create" isn't actually a vacuum cleaner, though it looks a lot like a Roomba and probably is the same base platform.
It's a bit higher than that price range though, at $130.
The single, centrally-managed, integration-tested and conflict-resolved tree is sort of the main advantage of Debian, though. I can see alternate possibilities, but they would be quite different models for distribution management.
Compared to the situation on, say, OSX (which I use more often these days), what I like about Debian's one tree is that there's less buck-passing. If it's in Debian, it's a bug somewhere in Debian. I might've reported it to the wrong package, but then the maintainer will usually reassign it to the right one, not just throw up their hands and say, "sorry, not our bug" like you get with reporting bugs to Apple. Sometimes they'll forward the bugs upstream and wait for a resolution, but they'll also try to figure out how to mitigate impact or incompatibilities locally, if possible. I'm not sure how you could maintain that working structure without the single tree.
I think they've more or less given up on Java as a desktop platform, and are focusing on a mixture of enterprise (all that J2EE and Java Beans stuff) and mobile (hence the Google lawsuit).
OpenJDK is based on the open-sourced version of Java, and Canonical continues to distribute that (and it's the default on Ubuntu). What's being removed is the official Sun (now Oracle) Java packages. They used to include those as well, because there were some compatibility issues with OpenJDK and some apps (especially commercial apps).
I think that has to do more with its use as a heroin replacement for addicts than its use as a painkiller...