There's a difference between arguing for obfuscation and arguing for a term that hasn't been demonised.
The phrase "GM food" has been systematically attacked and painted as dangerous, unnatural, unhealthy, toxic, damaging and so on.
My point is not "there should be no labelling", my point is merely that the terminology accurately reflect the product without it also being tied to smear campaigns.
I suppose an alternate analogy would be if regulators forced MRIs to be accurately described as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging scanners. Of course, the fact that they simply drop that first word, and that they are functionally almost identical to laboratory NMR machines doesn't change what they do at all, but it does alter the public's perception.
How many MRI scans do you think would be turned down if the doctor was obligated to tell you that you were having a nuclear magnetic resonance scan?
One could argue that the nature of the scanner has been obfuscated, but not in the way the public perceives it. They hear the word "nuclear" and they think it involves radiation when of course it means nothing of the sort in this context - it refers to the nuclei of atoms, not radioactivity or ionising radiation which is what many people associate with the term.
Right now if you use the term "GM food" it conjures up far more than a simple public awareness campaign in a large number of people.
I think we are both arguing the same point here. I'm not against accurate labelling of food - I think it is essential. What I am against is forcing a label that has been tainted onto current and all future GM foods. That is why I chose the Dasani example - the brand was tainted and stopped selling. If Coke were to bring that product back to the UK they certainly wouldn't call it Dasani again (or release any new product under that name).
The problem would be if a regulator forced them to put a label on the bottle that said "this product is Dasani".
We need a term that has not been trashed by the anti-GM crowd, that's all. I'm not arguing for obfuscation at all. I just don't think it's fair that the only option for labelling is effectively "you must now label any GM product with 'warning, this is a franken-food!' label".
They are arguing a platform of craziness, and it's been the worst thing that has happened to the GOP - they've been sucked into this in the wake of their defeat to Obama in 2008 and have quickly realised it has been a gigantic mistake. The fact that no serious GOP candidate wanted to run for the presidency is evidence.
It's difficult to argue with facts and figures against the Tea Party because they are simply so absurd. The group that wants to force the US to default like a crazy guy holding a grenade saying "do what I want or I blow you up" is simply not a party to take seriously.
The sooner the GOP ditches them and gets back to what it *really* believes in, the better US politics will be as a whole for both sides of the political spectrum.
Well, ok, to be accurate, most of those *behind* the Tea Party are not batshit insane - they're well funded, powerful and very ood at propaganda.
Those duped into believing the Tea Party has their interests at heart (ie, anyone not in the top 0.5% of income earners) is just voting against their interests.
The key thing to note here is that the Tea Party itself does not mean "all Republicans", although the current problem the GOP has is that it laid down in bed with the batshit crazy folks and now can't get away.
For the record on her side of things, she endorses pages about impeaching Obama (due to him being a non-white, muslim, non-American illegal occupant of the White House), not because of any of his policies or actions. Well, unless you count "being a Democrat" - and even that's debatable - he's pretty centrist, but then being centre right is being "socialist" according to the Tea Party....
It entirely depends on the dielectric properties of the liquid you're heating, the shape of the vessel, the material it's made from and the wavelength of the microwaves - even water can be difficult to heat in the "right" (or wrong as it would be) circumstances.
No, they are not entitled to successful food sales, but they are entitled to fair treatment. That is the point of the argument.
GM food's commercial failure might turn out to be a "problem" in the long run, or it might not be. We have no idea how things will play out as the population increases.
They're not asking for special treatment, they're just asking to not be treated unfairly.
Coke had to stop selling Dasani bottled water here in the UK because it was found to contain higher-than-average (but still tiny) quantities of carcinogenic water, at higher levels than the tap water it's made from, earning it the nickname "cancer water". Unsurprisingly the sales tanked, and never recovered and it was withdrawn from sale.
The "GM" label has taken on the same negative connotations - just look at some of the other descriptions in this very thread, like "franken-food" and so on. It certainly wasn't the food manufacturers who categorised GM foods in this way.
The situation is also not black and white, as much as slashdot likes to boil things down to either 100% pure good or 100% pure evil with no middle ground.
So that would be every single variety of corn since the Egyptian times then. We have been genetically modifying plants and animals for thousands of years.
I take it my dairy cow can't be called a cow because that's "false advertising" and "fraud" because it's not a natural animal? Dairy cattle did not evolve naturally.
Nor did many species of high-yield corn - they were selectively grown to accentuate wanted features.
The problem is that the label has been tainted by the anti-GM folks. We don't really know one way or the other whether GM food is ultimately something we want to keep eating, but the problem is that "GM" has already been demonised in the eyes of a large number of consumers.
Perhaps if the labelling were different but still accurate then it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Something like "directed breeding" or "accelerated breeding" to distinguish it from the many thousands of years of "natural" GM foods and animals.
And he can deprive anyone of using that photo if he wants, since he owns the copyright.
Unless you think it's ok for me to just ignore copyright on anything - say, some GPL code. I'll just make that Tivo box and ignore the GPL's requirements because really, who needs to obey it right?
She was also using the image on a for-profit site (the SEO marketing site thing) that was linked to her non-profit stuff since I assume her hosting package allows multiple domains all connected to one account.
Her use of the image was not for a non-profit, it was for commercial use. She's just using the non-profit excuse because she knows she's in the wrong and is trying to generate some sympathy for her side.
Right, that's why she likes the facebook page "impeach Barry Saotoro aka Barack Obama NOW", supports Newt Gingrich and rants about the liberal media on her blog?
Mmm. We got a real Dirty Red here boys!
Did you actually do *any* research on her at all before coming to that conclusion? By "research" I mean "skim reading anything about her at all on the internet".
Classic slashdot - don't actually read anything before spouting your "informed" opinion on the topic.
He used the DMCA as it was designed to be used - specific targeting of websites who are infringing on your copyright. He even did it himself (rather than farming the job out to a lawfirm).
He did exactly what you're meant to do - and as he said, the vast majority of those he contacted either took the image down or asked him about licensing it. It only went wrong when Tea Party Crazy Fucker decided to go on an assblasting entitlement rant and threatened to sue him because she was doing something illegal.
How else would you have suggested he go about it? He contacted the owners of the site via DNS lookup or via a provided DMCA form for those hosts who have one.
I have a very hard time how he's "abusing" the system when he is:
a) actually has a valid claim for every single DMCA notice he sent out b) only sent them to sites that were actually infringing c) made an effort to reconcile with the party in question rather than suing them (ie, stop using the picture or pay a small amount to license it)
If that's "abuse" then I really don't know what the MPAA/RIAA's blanket "oh just send them to everyone, via our lawyers, I don't care if there's actual infringement - just assume they are and send a notice" could be described as.
Because she's batshit insane and has the biggest entitlement complex I've ever seen. She's classic Tea Party (her facebook page has "impeach Barry Saotoro aka Barack Obama" liked, which is the least surprising thing about her).
Her first reaction to not getting her way was to wail like a spoiled child, and then you could sense the cogs turning in her mind as she got her way (the guy retracted the DMCA request and got her sites restored when he didn't have to) and then she went into an entitlement rage.
I don't think her daddy has ever said no to her. It tends to create entitled cunts who act like they've been *viciously* wronged when someone points out they have done something they're not supposed to have done, and then tries to justify it as right purely because she did it.
The fact that she's worked closely with actual attorneys is even more hilarious given that she wants to sue this guy for a long list of random complaints - presumably whatever she could think up on the spot. She'll be laughed out of court so hard that the judge will probably have a hernia, but it's just a shame that Jay Lee will have to waste time getting it all sorted out.
No, there is no preferential treatment - that is the entire point of FRAND pools. Everyone pays the same rate.
If you are in the pool then you are certainly at an advantage - you can cross licence patents that are already in, so you effectively pay less, but only because you own one (or more) of the patents in question.
If you are on the outside, you must pay to use all of the patents in question. You can use other patents as part of the deal, or you can just use cash or anything else you can trade, but the total value is the same, always.
Inside or outside, total licensing value is the same.
"The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it."
Then you don't get to put patents in it. Therefore you don't get FRAND. PART OF THE COST OF THE LICENSE is to put in to the pot.
Hey, kid, get a clue here. Here's a taster of what one is like. Patents cover things like "how do you make a more efficient antenna cheaper?". That'd be a GSM worthy patent.
What ISN'T worthy is "Make the box surrounding the GSM radio transmitter shiny black with rounded corners".
"There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it."
Yes, and that isn't being paid by Apple because Apple want the BETTER rate that others who get to put money in the pot for the GSM standard get.
Dimwad.
"Dimwad" ha.
You clearly don't understand how this works. GSM is a standard. It is required to make a cellular phone.
Companies all pool patents together to make the standard, in exchange for putting their patents in the pool the standards body puts them under FRAND terms.
Company X comes along, who had nothing to do with establishing the standard. They don't even have a radio division, however they wish to make a cellphone. They are required to use GSM (otherwise the phone would not work), therefore they need to licence the patents. Fortunately, to prevent the incumbent manufacturers from preventing new entries into the market, the patent pool is covered by FRAND terms, so they HAVE NO CHOICE but to licence the patents to whoever wants to make a cellphone.
It makes no difference what that company has to offer - it could be money, it could be other patents, it could be shares, it could be a pile of gold. The owners of the FRAND patents *must* licence them for the same value that everyone else paid.
"Worthy" doesn't even come into it. They have no choice. They *can* argue about just how much Apple's "dressing up the box" is worth, but ultimately it comes down to a cash value and Apple could pay in cash if they wanted to.
If I choose to make a cellphone in my garage, then I too have to pay the same amount that Apple is being charged, or that Motorola paid, or Sony, or Nokia. We all pay the same. Even though I have nothing to offer in return other than cash, that is how I would get to use the patents.
That's the entire point of the FRAND system, and you don't seem to understand that. You're very quick to throw around terms like "dimwad" though, which is pretty amusing.
There is no "better" rate - THERE IS ONLY ONE RATE AND IT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE. That is the literal meaning of "FAIR, REASONABLE AND NON-DISCRIMINATORY.
The FRAND holders *cannot* offer a cheaper rate to those already in the pool, nor can they charge more for those who do not have anything in the pool. They must all pay the same. You can cross licence patents as payment, but they must have an assigned value. So, if company A and B who both have patents in the pool cross licenced patent A and patent B then the two patents are of equal value, but they do have a cash value, so that Company C can purchase a licence to use Patent A for the cash amount from company A, and the exact same amount of money for patent B from company B.
They certainly can't say "well, your fancy box is nothing compared to our R&D for the antenna, so you don't get to use these patents, or if you want them you have to pay more". Bzzzzzzzzztt! Wrong!
The purpose of the FRAND pool is to repay all that "worthy" R&D. It isn't to create a dick waving contest for "who deserves the money?". So, the big radio players made better antennas and a system for wireless communication? Great! Now it means that other manufacturers can make products that use those innovations by using off-the-shelf radio hardware. Want to get paid for that R&D? Sure! Join this FRAND pool - now everyone will use the same standard! But wait! If you thought you could use your standards-enforced monopoly to throw your weight around, think again! Conditions for including your patent in the pool are that you licence it to everyone for the same cost, regardless of who that is and what they have to offer in return. If all they have is cash, then that is what they'll pay with.
Far more simple would be the interpretation given by Tim Cook himself, and quoted in the summary - he prefers negotiation over lawsuits. He also recently took over as CEO and now has control over what Apple does. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was a fan of lawsuits.
Now, Cook isn't simply going to roll over - it's been started, so he'll see it out, but I'm not expecting such a large flurry of suits to come out of Apple in the future once this current crop have wound up.
If you put patents in the pool, you get FRAND access to patents in the pool.
If you don't want to put your patents in the pool, you don't get FRAND access to patents in the pool.
Apple didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the patent pool. Therefore they don't get the reduced price.
What is this nonsense?
Apple "didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the pool"??! What are you smoking? The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it.
The standard is fixed, and the patents in it are fixed. There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it. If you have nothing to cross licence then you can pay cash or horses or vanilla fudge or anything in trade, but it must be the same value as someone else who is also licensing the patent pool. That's what FRAND means - you give up your ability to selectively licence and set a price because you're assured that everyone will be licensing from you.
There is *no obligation* to contribute anything to the patent pool if you want to use it (say, if you're Apple and you want to make a phone), all you have to do is pay the FRAND cost that everyone else paid. Those are the terms of the contract. Many companies cross licence other patents, but this is not a requirement.
I suppose it is, where "outsourcing" means you ship your manufacturing outside of the USA. I mean, Texas is pretty much not in the US any more anyway, might as well call it a foreign country.
Why does it have to be mutually exclusive? Just because there have been cooling issues with some Mac designs? You'll note that I said that you could get well made Dell laptops too - they just cost more.
There certainly have been some overheating issues with Apple laptops (almost exclusively related to Nvidia GPUs causing the whole thing to fail), but otherwise Apple's laptops have been pretty successful on that front. I know that the aluminium unibody ones can get quite hot and some people dislike that, but that's the design - the case forms part of the heatsink.
My issue with the cheaper Dells, and an issue I've seen first hand on a friend's former laptop, is that the thermal design is right on the edge so that using it to play a game like Civ4 would cause it to shut down (as in, thermal cutout emergency powering off the machine fully). There is no way that the system should be able to get hot enough under maximum CPU+GPU load to cut out, and it happens because the design is already close to the limit with no room for error, so when the case flexes because it's plastic, the heatsink separates slightly from the chip and it becomes even less effective and the system overheats. The same problem arises if dust builds up on the heatsink fins, reducing airflow. Because it's already marginal, any blockage puts you in danger of thermal cutout so you have to ensure you blow the dust out frequently.
My friend used to get around it by tabbing out of the game every 10 minutes or so to allow the system to cool down, otherwise it would simply shut off when the thermal limit was reached.
Now, the Macbook Pro might get hot on the outside (uncomfortably so in some models) but it doesn't shut off because it overheats at 100% CPU and GPU use.
Re:Oct, 1991, comp.os.minix
on
Linux 3.4 Released
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I went back to college in 2008 and casually turned to one of my peers and said "do you remember when Back To The Future came out?" and he said "no, because I was born in 1990".
Slashdot Mirror
There's a difference between arguing for obfuscation and arguing for a term that hasn't been demonised.
The phrase "GM food" has been systematically attacked and painted as dangerous, unnatural, unhealthy, toxic, damaging and so on.
My point is not "there should be no labelling", my point is merely that the terminology accurately reflect the product without it also being tied to smear campaigns.
I suppose an alternate analogy would be if regulators forced MRIs to be accurately described as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging scanners. Of course, the fact that they simply drop that first word, and that they are functionally almost identical to laboratory NMR machines doesn't change what they do at all, but it does alter the public's perception.
How many MRI scans do you think would be turned down if the doctor was obligated to tell you that you were having a nuclear magnetic resonance scan?
One could argue that the nature of the scanner has been obfuscated, but not in the way the public perceives it. They hear the word "nuclear" and they think it involves radiation when of course it means nothing of the sort in this context - it refers to the nuclei of atoms, not radioactivity or ionising radiation which is what many people associate with the term.
Right now if you use the term "GM food" it conjures up far more than a simple public awareness campaign in a large number of people.
I think we are both arguing the same point here. I'm not against accurate labelling of food - I think it is essential. What I am against is forcing a label that has been tainted onto current and all future GM foods. That is why I chose the Dasani example - the brand was tainted and stopped selling. If Coke were to bring that product back to the UK they certainly wouldn't call it Dasani again (or release any new product under that name).
The problem would be if a regulator forced them to put a label on the bottle that said "this product is Dasani".
We need a term that has not been trashed by the anti-GM crowd, that's all. I'm not arguing for obfuscation at all. I just don't think it's fair that the only option for labelling is effectively "you must now label any GM product with 'warning, this is a franken-food!' label".
Sorry, but it is.
They are arguing a platform of craziness, and it's been the worst thing that has happened to the GOP - they've been sucked into this in the wake of their defeat to Obama in 2008 and have quickly realised it has been a gigantic mistake. The fact that no serious GOP candidate wanted to run for the presidency is evidence.
It's difficult to argue with facts and figures against the Tea Party because they are simply so absurd. The group that wants to force the US to default like a crazy guy holding a grenade saying "do what I want or I blow you up" is simply not a party to take seriously.
The sooner the GOP ditches them and gets back to what it *really* believes in, the better US politics will be as a whole for both sides of the political spectrum.
I'm sorry, but Tea Party = batshit insane.
Well, ok, to be accurate, most of those *behind* the Tea Party are not batshit insane - they're well funded, powerful and very ood at propaganda.
Those duped into believing the Tea Party has their interests at heart (ie, anyone not in the top 0.5% of income earners) is just voting against their interests.
The key thing to note here is that the Tea Party itself does not mean "all Republicans", although the current problem the GOP has is that it laid down in bed with the batshit crazy folks and now can't get away.
For the record on her side of things, she endorses pages about impeaching Obama (due to him being a non-white, muslim, non-American illegal occupant of the White House), not because of any of his policies or actions. Well, unless you count "being a Democrat" - and even that's debatable - he's pretty centrist, but then being centre right is being "socialist" according to the Tea Party....
It entirely depends on the dielectric properties of the liquid you're heating, the shape of the vessel, the material it's made from and the wavelength of the microwaves - even water can be difficult to heat in the "right" (or wrong as it would be) circumstances.
No, they are not entitled to successful food sales, but they are entitled to fair treatment. That is the point of the argument.
GM food's commercial failure might turn out to be a "problem" in the long run, or it might not be. We have no idea how things will play out as the population increases.
They're not asking for special treatment, they're just asking to not be treated unfairly.
Coke had to stop selling Dasani bottled water here in the UK because it was found to contain higher-than-average (but still tiny) quantities of carcinogenic water, at higher levels than the tap water it's made from, earning it the nickname "cancer water". Unsurprisingly the sales tanked, and never recovered and it was withdrawn from sale.
The "GM" label has taken on the same negative connotations - just look at some of the other descriptions in this very thread, like "franken-food" and so on. It certainly wasn't the food manufacturers who categorised GM foods in this way.
The situation is also not black and white, as much as slashdot likes to boil things down to either 100% pure good or 100% pure evil with no middle ground.
Does that mean that I can buy watermelons that will walk out to my car without having to carry them? Where can I buy these amazing delicacies?!
Ah, I see. Nomenclature trumps all eh?
Would it make you feel better if they named it "Lovely Corn Five", "Great Corn Sideways"?
You seem to be fixated on the names. Let me guess, you didn't buy rape seed oil but you do buy canola oil, right?
So that would be every single variety of corn since the Egyptian times then. We have been genetically modifying plants and animals for thousands of years.
I take it my dairy cow can't be called a cow because that's "false advertising" and "fraud" because it's not a natural animal? Dairy cattle did not evolve naturally.
Nor did many species of high-yield corn - they were selectively grown to accentuate wanted features.
The problem is that the label has been tainted by the anti-GM folks. We don't really know one way or the other whether GM food is ultimately something we want to keep eating, but the problem is that "GM" has already been demonised in the eyes of a large number of consumers.
Perhaps if the labelling were different but still accurate then it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Something like "directed breeding" or "accelerated breeding" to distinguish it from the many thousands of years of "natural" GM foods and animals.
And he can deprive anyone of using that photo if he wants, since he owns the copyright.
Unless you think it's ok for me to just ignore copyright on anything - say, some GPL code. I'll just make that Tivo box and ignore the GPL's requirements because really, who needs to obey it right?
She was also using the image on a for-profit site (the SEO marketing site thing) that was linked to her non-profit stuff since I assume her hosting package allows multiple domains all connected to one account.
Her use of the image was not for a non-profit, it was for commercial use. She's just using the non-profit excuse because she knows she's in the wrong and is trying to generate some sympathy for her side.
She's a twatwaffle of the highest order.
Right, that's why she likes the facebook page "impeach Barry Saotoro aka Barack Obama NOW", supports Newt Gingrich and rants about the liberal media on her blog?
Mmm. We got a real Dirty Red here boys!
Did you actually do *any* research on her at all before coming to that conclusion? By "research" I mean "skim reading anything about her at all on the internet".
Classic slashdot - don't actually read anything before spouting your "informed" opinion on the topic.
He used the DMCA as it was designed to be used - specific targeting of websites who are infringing on your copyright. He even did it himself (rather than farming the job out to a lawfirm).
He did exactly what you're meant to do - and as he said, the vast majority of those he contacted either took the image down or asked him about licensing it. It only went wrong when Tea Party Crazy Fucker decided to go on an assblasting entitlement rant and threatened to sue him because she was doing something illegal.
How else would you have suggested he go about it? He contacted the owners of the site via DNS lookup or via a provided DMCA form for those hosts who have one.
I have a very hard time how he's "abusing" the system when he is:
a) actually has a valid claim for every single DMCA notice he sent out
b) only sent them to sites that were actually infringing
c) made an effort to reconcile with the party in question rather than suing them (ie, stop using the picture or pay a small amount to license it)
If that's "abuse" then I really don't know what the MPAA/RIAA's blanket "oh just send them to everyone, via our lawyers, I don't care if there's actual infringement - just assume they are and send a notice" could be described as.
Because she's batshit insane and has the biggest entitlement complex I've ever seen. She's classic Tea Party (her facebook page has "impeach Barry Saotoro aka Barack Obama" liked, which is the least surprising thing about her).
Her first reaction to not getting her way was to wail like a spoiled child, and then you could sense the cogs turning in her mind as she got her way (the guy retracted the DMCA request and got her sites restored when he didn't have to) and then she went into an entitlement rage.
I don't think her daddy has ever said no to her. It tends to create entitled cunts who act like they've been *viciously* wronged when someone points out they have done something they're not supposed to have done, and then tries to justify it as right purely because she did it.
The fact that she's worked closely with actual attorneys is even more hilarious given that she wants to sue this guy for a long list of random complaints - presumably whatever she could think up on the spot. She'll be laughed out of court so hard that the judge will probably have a hernia, but it's just a shame that Jay Lee will have to waste time getting it all sorted out.
No, there is no preferential treatment - that is the entire point of FRAND pools. Everyone pays the same rate.
If you are in the pool then you are certainly at an advantage - you can cross licence patents that are already in, so you effectively pay less, but only because you own one (or more) of the patents in question.
If you are on the outside, you must pay to use all of the patents in question. You can use other patents as part of the deal, or you can just use cash or anything else you can trade, but the total value is the same, always.
Inside or outside, total licensing value is the same.
"The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it."
Then you don't get to put patents in it. Therefore you don't get FRAND. PART OF THE COST OF THE LICENSE is to put in to the pot.
Hey, kid, get a clue here. Here's a taster of what one is like. Patents cover things like "how do you make a more efficient antenna cheaper?". That'd be a GSM worthy patent.
What ISN'T worthy is "Make the box surrounding the GSM radio transmitter shiny black with rounded corners".
"There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it."
Yes, and that isn't being paid by Apple because Apple want the BETTER rate that others who get to put money in the pot for the GSM standard get.
Dimwad.
"Dimwad" ha.
You clearly don't understand how this works. GSM is a standard. It is required to make a cellular phone.
Companies all pool patents together to make the standard, in exchange for putting their patents in the pool the standards body puts them under FRAND terms.
Company X comes along, who had nothing to do with establishing the standard. They don't even have a radio division, however they wish to make a cellphone. They are required to use GSM (otherwise the phone would not work), therefore they need to licence the patents. Fortunately, to prevent the incumbent manufacturers from preventing new entries into the market, the patent pool is covered by FRAND terms, so they HAVE NO CHOICE but to licence the patents to whoever wants to make a cellphone.
It makes no difference what that company has to offer - it could be money, it could be other patents, it could be shares, it could be a pile of gold. The owners of the FRAND patents *must* licence them for the same value that everyone else paid.
"Worthy" doesn't even come into it. They have no choice. They *can* argue about just how much Apple's "dressing up the box" is worth, but ultimately it comes down to a cash value and Apple could pay in cash if they wanted to.
If I choose to make a cellphone in my garage, then I too have to pay the same amount that Apple is being charged, or that Motorola paid, or Sony, or Nokia. We all pay the same. Even though I have nothing to offer in return other than cash, that is how I would get to use the patents.
That's the entire point of the FRAND system, and you don't seem to understand that. You're very quick to throw around terms like "dimwad" though, which is pretty amusing.
There is no "better" rate - THERE IS ONLY ONE RATE AND IT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE. That is the literal meaning of "FAIR, REASONABLE AND NON-DISCRIMINATORY.
The FRAND holders *cannot* offer a cheaper rate to those already in the pool, nor can they charge more for those who do not have anything in the pool. They must all pay the same. You can cross licence patents as payment, but they must have an assigned value. So, if company A and B who both have patents in the pool cross licenced patent A and patent B then the two patents are of equal value, but they do have a cash value, so that Company C can purchase a licence to use Patent A for the cash amount from company A, and the exact same amount of money for patent B from company B.
They certainly can't say "well, your fancy box is nothing compared to our R&D for the antenna, so you don't get to use these patents, or if you want them you have to pay more". Bzzzzzzzzztt! Wrong!
The purpose of the FRAND pool is to repay all that "worthy" R&D. It isn't to create a dick waving contest for "who deserves the money?". So, the big radio players made better antennas and a system for wireless communication? Great! Now it means that other manufacturers can make products that use those innovations by using off-the-shelf radio hardware. Want to get paid for that R&D? Sure! Join this FRAND pool - now everyone will use the same standard! But wait! If you thought you could use your standards-enforced monopoly to throw your weight around, think again! Conditions for including your patent in the pool are that you licence it to everyone for the same cost, regardless of who that is and what they have to offer in return. If all they have is cash, then that is what they'll pay with.
Far more simple would be the interpretation given by Tim Cook himself, and quoted in the summary - he prefers negotiation over lawsuits. He also recently took over as CEO and now has control over what Apple does. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was a fan of lawsuits.
Now, Cook isn't simply going to roll over - it's been started, so he'll see it out, but I'm not expecting such a large flurry of suits to come out of Apple in the future once this current crop have wound up.
If you put patents in the pool, you get FRAND access to patents in the pool.
If you don't want to put your patents in the pool, you don't get FRAND access to patents in the pool.
Apple didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the patent pool. Therefore they don't get the reduced price.
What is this nonsense?
Apple "didn't want to put any patents for GSM into the pool"??! What are you smoking? The GSM standard is set - you don't just go around adding things to it.
The standard is fixed, and the patents in it are fixed. There is a fixed cost for implementing it for anyone who wants it. If you have nothing to cross licence then you can pay cash or horses or vanilla fudge or anything in trade, but it must be the same value as someone else who is also licensing the patent pool. That's what FRAND means - you give up your ability to selectively licence and set a price because you're assured that everyone will be licensing from you.
There is *no obligation* to contribute anything to the patent pool if you want to use it (say, if you're Apple and you want to make a phone), all you have to do is pay the FRAND cost that everyone else paid. Those are the terms of the contract. Many companies cross licence other patents, but this is not a requirement.
That puzzled me too - I thought Android supported USB keyboards out of the box? I'm sure someone told me they worked fine.
I suppose it is, where "outsourcing" means you ship your manufacturing outside of the USA. I mean, Texas is pretty much not in the US any more anyway, might as well call it a foreign country.
Apple outsources ALL of its commercial production.
Even those processors that Samsung makes for it in Texas?
Those who *can* play Diablo 3 for 12 hours on a Sunday must have access to those super secret "working" servers....
*ducks*
Why does it have to be mutually exclusive? Just because there have been cooling issues with some Mac designs? You'll note that I said that you could get well made Dell laptops too - they just cost more.
There certainly have been some overheating issues with Apple laptops (almost exclusively related to Nvidia GPUs causing the whole thing to fail), but otherwise Apple's laptops have been pretty successful on that front. I know that the aluminium unibody ones can get quite hot and some people dislike that, but that's the design - the case forms part of the heatsink.
My issue with the cheaper Dells, and an issue I've seen first hand on a friend's former laptop, is that the thermal design is right on the edge so that using it to play a game like Civ4 would cause it to shut down (as in, thermal cutout emergency powering off the machine fully). There is no way that the system should be able to get hot enough under maximum CPU+GPU load to cut out, and it happens because the design is already close to the limit with no room for error, so when the case flexes because it's plastic, the heatsink separates slightly from the chip and it becomes even less effective and the system overheats. The same problem arises if dust builds up on the heatsink fins, reducing airflow. Because it's already marginal, any blockage puts you in danger of thermal cutout so you have to ensure you blow the dust out frequently.
My friend used to get around it by tabbing out of the game every 10 minutes or so to allow the system to cool down, otherwise it would simply shut off when the thermal limit was reached.
Now, the Macbook Pro might get hot on the outside (uncomfortably so in some models) but it doesn't shut off because it overheats at 100% CPU and GPU use.
I went back to college in 2008 and casually turned to one of my peers and said "do you remember when Back To The Future came out?" and he said "no, because I was born in 1990".
I felt old.