Yes, otherwise I wouldn't be mentioning it here:). In fact I discovered the virus because the 5.25" drive light would come on when a disk was inserted before the drive was even closed.
I am just saying that if Bush is asserting authority he doesn't have and ignoring the constitution, why should we assume anything that appears legitimate in his administration is legitimate?
Basically Bush is saying that they can behave as if we are in martial law without any of that politically embarrassing declaration as such.
It is the same crap they applied during the election that maybe somehow they may 'delay' the elections due to terrorism fears. As far as we know since they interpreted the constitution this way, Bush did elect himself last time. If we are actually permitted to vote 'and' it counts toward the election this time, we should consider ourselves lucky.
They have never planned on owning the markets they are in. They have always wanted to maximize the amount of money they get from the specific consumers that buy their product.
Microsoft won the PC market because they leveraged partners and helped build a large competitive industry around their software. Yes, Apple wants to control 'the user experience' even at the cost of the quality and interoperability of such experience. This has also been apple's way, they hope to provide a controlled experience with their products.
As far as philosophy, control of a 'market' has never been apple's way and anyone who thinks Steve Jobs wants to be Bill Gates is just confused as they appear to be in Bill's market. Steve understands human behavior and has never wanted own the whole market, he wants to lead his consumers. Cult of Mac is no joke. Steve takes care of his children and is rewarded with ownership of his children. It also helps that he has treated media people quite well and even tailored his computers almost exclusively for their use back in the day when no one else would buy the crap.
You can clearly see why Bill is envious of such loyalty, and he does seem quite often wishful in the products Microsoft makes that they would have such loyal followers.
The problem here is that because of the quality of the product and of the current cell phone market in the US, Apple is getting regular buyers/user/consumers and isn't converting them properly. Basically, when you buy an Apple experience, you tend to know you are giving up certain things other products because you are joining not buying. When a consumer chooses Apple, they go through the stages of grief/acceptance for many interoperability(rights)/features missing they find come with a similar product. All cell phone companies in the US control everything they can and that incidentally includes the experience. Apple is in a competitive market(such as it is) for the first time and so their being criticized more heavier here than they are used to and by more people willing to join. People are pissed about having to join AT&T, pissed about dropping some other company they were forced to join before (they have already accepted its limitations and cherish its limited set of features). In the long run, it will likely cause the market to open if Apple competes successfully. If the cell phone companies have to compete on loyalty it will take more than Alltel ads and the bs 'feature' of reasonable prices to succeed. Since experience isn't their expertise or goal, hopefully they will start giving consumers rights to contrast from the Apple/AT&T experience.
This has never, ever been true at anytime. It likely never will. Sony will have shills say such things and other marketoids have said things like that for various other dead systems in the past twenty years. The truth is that when games are compared head to head, consoles just don't match. It is about hardware price, there are no magical cheap chips. You get what you pay for even if you are Microsoft or Sony. If you want to beat a $2000 computer, you need to be selling a $2000 computer. Also even if your chip does cooler things than a chip already out on the market, if it changes the architecture ie. Cell versus x86 or PowerPC it will take years to get important software such as compilers optimized for it as well as a chip already on the market and gone through those growing pains.
The original Xbox was nothing but a cheap PC that was OK performance wise for a $500 PC when it was designed. However, the PC equivalent in hardware actually was cheaper than the Xbox just a few months after the Xbox was released. Now that old Xboxes are dirt cheap, the equivalent PC is more expensive (prices for a computer can't go below about $200 no matter what is in them due to component count and size). Integration/elimination of excess components saves maybe $100 in real manufacturing costs. It was dumb to buy an Xbox and put all that effort into putting Linux on it back then, now it actually makes sense.
If you want to make a console where the price point is below the integration sweet point of $200 based on common components that sells over a million somehow, then you can probably just beat the price/performance ratio of PCs. The Wii is actually pretty close to this where Nintendo is making money and giving people a somewhat reasonable box for the price. The only reason to buy a console is for their exclusive games and the console's simplicity/integration. Kind of like why Apple thinks it can sell Macs for a premium over PCs with the same hardware.
I think that governments are starting to realize that the 'military industrial complex' method of driving technology results in bloated defense contractors and over budget impossibly resourced projects. It works well at first as long as there are clear nationalistic needs and attainable goals. However, this is just centralized planning which can never be efficient and is always open to abuse. Also, deliberately limiting your design and manufacturing sources to trusted companies only works if you can guarantee the best minds will always work there. This is a different world compared to the 60's or even the 80's where that used to mean a specific group of companies in the US, and I think getting the best minds is probably more of an issue than economic efficiency at least for the US government. Maybe S'pore is maybe waking up to this reality as well.
I got hit with 4 bad Abit boards in 2001 back when it was first reported several years ago. I had assumed since then Taiwanese manufacturers would have stopped using the knock off capacitors or would have stolen/bought the correct formula if only to stop threat of lawsuits.
I guess the lawsuits never came. Maybe it would be one time sleazy lawyers could do some good? It is pretty sad that electronics from ten years ago are better quality than todays and they know exactly why and yet it isn't fixed...
GPL based software products are quite aligned to current business models and has more options than commercial software as all commercial software models are valid minus simple end-user retail:
bottled water - (ie. pretty packaging or assurances that your version is best)
This is what most Linux distributions that retail do. It requires branding, good pricing, and quality/features(good reviews by non tech community).
razorblades - (we give you part of the solution - software, but you WILL need 'something' from us - customization/documentation/training) JBoss and most high level business apps do this, but it tends to be like a form of FOSS crippleware.
Services/support can be placed here for some FOSS companies, but it tends to be the model below instead.
freedom/guilt/vendor lock-in - (Donation FOSS ware, some of the bigger support contract Linuxes, and actually most non FOSS commercial software companies) Making customers feel it necessary to pay a specified or unspecified price for continued 'something'(new features, security fixes, support, etc.) that will hopefully be assured by the software maker still being around next year. These pay outs do not have to be specific to actual software buying as many commercial software makers charge per user or by subscription(Microsoft, Sun, most real CADs, etc.). Non-FOSS makers just have more ways to force customers to pay upfront for licenses and agree to harsher licenses.
appliance - (done by many small companies) It is a risky game as you need branding like Cobalt (somehow) had more than specific pricing or quality.
The problem with FOSS as a business model is that anyone can become your competitor selling your own software. This is more of a PR based issue assuming the company has a solid grasp on one and only one of the above models.
For quality based value adding you obviously can't rest on your laurels like proprietary software - you have to work on the software. You have to convince your customers you are working on it (and benefitting them). For service and support, you have to remain the supreme expert on the software (then you can charge more than your competitor for the same work). Since the software is open source, the above have to be backed up with some honest work. For branding, you need to understand the market you want and invest in getting your name in people's minds(same as any market). The amount of effort to make a FOSS product can be minimal, many companies out there are working hard to actually just rebrand other distributions. But at the same time, slight variations evolve to meet customers needs(most commercial Linux distributions started out as Debian or Redhat),
It is up to the state to implement a consumer protection code. However, all states have one of some sort that general says no sales are final unless a sign is posted or it is placed on the receipt. Some states force returns no matter what, but most of the times you will see "All sales final." is when a company is liquidating(so it is unlikely you would have a recourse).
In the garment biz, you can refuse refunds usually if the item is soiled or the tags are cut. Outlet/overstock stores will usually cut the tags on checkout if they don't accept returns. I assume it is different on the highend as opposed to 'off the rack' clothing.
26 banned before import so they must be pirated
on
China Bans 50 Games
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· Score: 2, Informative
That is the way I sorta understand the article/spin.
They made a list of 50 games for their people to look for. The list includes 26 that were never imported officially (most likely not allowed due to censorship). The other 24 were imported and sold before being found containing thoughts that might pervert Chinese society.
European/PAL DVB systems use an encryption system based on CAMs(Conditional Access Module) and smartcards. A CAM is just a customized PCMCIA sheath around the specific smartcard. The smartcard is encrypted in such a way that the CAM must be able to decode it(so a cable company can randomly pick/upgrade the encryption standard). DVB systems are similar to HDTV systems in that there are unencrypted streams and encrypted streams.
Free to air channels can be received without the correct CAM/smartcard - just like current HDTV PCI cards in the US can get unencrypted broadcast HDTV. However, to decode encrypted signals, you must use your ID in the smartcard and unlock the streams using this.
The CAM around the smartcard is just a compact anti-smartcard cloning/hacking tool. The smartcard and usually your cable boxes MAC address are both used to authorize viewing(though MAC addresses can be faked just like regular ethernet).
For DVBs, decrypting/reading smartcard is all done in software. If the cablecard is just the same as DVB CAMs, then it should be able to add them to any current HDTV system with just software.
DVB stuff has well been hacked for PC integration (http://www.dvbshop.net), so maybe this can be the same.
The sad thing is that DVB is not HDTV. I have yet to see any real HDTV DVB systems.
In Singapore, Starhub digital cable is worse than analog because they use cheap decoders like in cheap DVD players (smoke effects artifact/drop frames). So we have dragging PAL frame rates and now this in exchange for slightly better signal. Well at least we have stereo out on the boxes(yes it isn't even freakin' Dolby). The switch to digital cable so far appears to be for making SMS/$.30 TV games and playing Tetris or Battleship on your TV. I am amazed how backwards the Singapore market is in some segments.
The server is almost done. Plan to have SOAP based transfers for client and Tivo-like recording suggestions for viewers to have the incentive to sign up.
The next big step is a general client SDK licensed under BSD with multiple languages to integrate in any PVR/DVR. Need C++ for MythTV, Python for Freevo, and enough docs to help commercial systems integrate it.
Not sure how commercially viable it is, or how popular it can be made...
If anybody wants to work on it with me, please contact me.
What the hell? Trademark, copyright, and patent must all be the same according to the submitter. Hmm, why are they called different things then?
OK, so US Customs is enforcing a trademark violation. Fine.
What is wrong is that Customs does not have jurisdiction inside the US only coming and going from it. Once in the US, it is a civil case that would need at least a hearing or court order to remove merchandise from the store. More than likely, an authorized local authority would then execute the court order(not actual agents).
It is disturbing that Homeland Security did think that Magic Cube and Rubik's Cube are similar in name or that they don't understand what a trademark is. Most disturbing is that Homeland Security obviously does not understand the laws they are trying to enforce or how to legally enforce them.
The only 'wrong' thing going on is that Rubik or whoever reported it is intentionally damaging and interfering with Magic Cubes and Pufferbelly Toys businesses. Homeland Security should immediately return the items to Pufferbelly Toys and apologize. I don't think there is much Pufferbelly Toys can do for restitution directly against Homeland Security. It would be nice to be able to sue the government for incompetence, but then there would be no government left.
Sorry, I don't think you understand the importance of marketing.
Java is not a success, it is just an also-ran language like all others. If it was a success all apps would be written in it.
I know what Orange is even though I don't know of any other European telecom. I assume Branson has one as he spent over a billion marketing one in my country and ran away in less than a year. I don't think knowledge of Orange got into my non-European brain magically.
Wi-Fi is a technology not a competing standard. There is no Un-Fi. Same with 3G, it is an updated set of technologies where there is no standards competition(at least for consumers).
HD-DVD could be lower quality than regular DVD and have a fighting chance against something called Blu-Ray.
Since most people will recognize HD-DVD must be somehow better than DVD while Blu-Ray could be anything from enhanced color laundry detergent to insecticide. Without a ton of marketing and consumer education Blu-Ray will simple lose when the average couch potato goes to buy a new player from the local electronics megabarn.
While this has little to do with why BetaMax (nor why every other Sony proprietary standard has failed), Blu-Ray has some serious marketing problems to over come.
What I was suggesting was that you could still sell your patent if you could not make it yourself if you wanted money. I just think that to actively pursue others for 'damages' it must damage your real business.
On patent whines: I have a stranger patent problem myself. I want to build something that was expensively patented in 1980 that now can be made for $200. That patent is gone, yet it never went to market anyway. However, there is literally a dozen similar but bad patents with claims that cover the expired claims. I would have to pay a lawyer to clear these (confirm they can be defeated or not relevant to my product) before I could ever get funding. This starts at around 50k US and even then most lawyers won't risk malpractice to do it.
I have a design that could save lives as it is a life-safety product and is going to never leave autocad. I have thought about just giving the design away, but it needs some real life testing and customization to be useful to individuals.
In addition to limiting what can be patented and better analysis before granting, there must be some economic morale requirements for enforcement.
There are entirely too many IP shell companies out there that do nothing but threaten and harass useful companies without providing commercial products based on the patents themselves. They have no plans to exploit their manufacturing monopoly in any honest way. Instead, they should be required in some form to manufacturer real products utilizing their IP or risk losing enforeability in some way. That may require them to cross-license needed IP as well as seriously limit this entire anti-social/economic lawyer business. It could be possible that plaintifs in patent cases must first prove their manufacturing intent to some law/court derived set of requirements before action is started.
What we naive little geeks are seeing here is the political washing of a moral discussion. This occurs whenever there is a moral debate and money/fame/power to be had from picking a side. These are the guys that fill the extra seats in political 'news' shows.
Sadly, this is the same weak politicizing shit any wrong and evil big company tries -
cigarettes are cool and they haven't harmed this guy in this example story and all these health studies saying otherwise are flawed compared to the three we paid for saying they make you have nice breath. Trust us, we are your friends doing you a favor not just suits making money off of your addiction.
This guy is an obvious and not too convincing shill. He will continue to do this work - spew lies while talking to himself in the hope someone overhears as long as the money comes in.
This 'work' comes from the fact that they want to dirty the issue as it is freakin' obvious to anyone in the debate - proprietary software is OK but an open source version can't be worse and it should possibly be better.
Once the debate is properly against them (ie. the common man knows the truth). We will see threats come from them when/if political action against them is taken.
It costs too much to force this industry to do 'something good', we will have to do 'something bad for citizens' if this happens.
This is how any corporation fights in politics and now that foss is in the spotlight we got to just laugh some things off. I know, it is hard when we all want to be nice and helpful in providing people with honest answers and guys like this exist. Yes, these people make a living doing that, and no there probably won't be any 'karma' coming back on them. We want to believe in the goodness of others, that is one reason these guys make money.
Truthfully, we have beaten this guy and his lies up enough that any sane discussion has stopped. He will continue to troll to try and be relevant and piss off people. So it is better to ignore him and just reply only if anyone else brings him up. 'We' don't need to be in his debate and fuel him with more quotes to desperately take out of context.
e-mart is probably the best as they are restaurant quality (a restaurant stockist that sells to anyone) so they have great meats, frozen, and non-parishables. Not a large selection though. Site doesn't reflect stock well and things you can put in your cart may be not in stock and vice versa. This is the only one not backed by a regular store chain.
The NTUC (gov't ran trade coop) Fairprice borg of small low selection stores has an online site for non-parishables. The thing was a.net partnership with the government so it isn't a surprise that the shopping cart and browsing system has yet to keep track of multiple page categories nor does the search work very well. Some items they have, you literally can't purchase because of this. Shipping is OK, but it is through our post service which while great as a postal carrier, lacks some customer service for this. No stock control if you can actually find what you want.
Coldstorage (one of the semiindependent 'chains' in S'pore) has great selection of products online, a great search and category system. However, it never has a correct stock count and some items they never stock.
Prices overall for these delivery services are comparable with the regular stores, though because of stock issues you may end up with only half of what you order. It has more than once been a problem that we must go buy missing items at actual the store, hence making home delivery quite pointless and actually time consuming.
If it is just a repackaging of wine, the worst thing is the investments they claim to have received. They haven't done anything to actually help wine yet, and if that money is real, it could have been invested in one of the real wine contributing companies. These guys will probably just run away with the money in the end if they are this bad at faking things.
The world's budget for software is less than the total amount of value publishers want to put on it (as a whole). This is mostly because the world's demand for software far outstrips what it can budget. And publisher's only have a gauge on demand.
This is similar to any economy that has seen a new need/shift - required resources are not always properly rewarded/assigned.
The problem is that in the case of software bootlegging, it is that the individual end user is usually committing the harm(not some privateer or trader). This also directly effects the perceived piracy costs - if you think 1million people should want something at $30, but 30% will just copy it the market price then becomes $50 or so if you want to make most of what you feel you are owed. This ignores the fact that if it was only available at $30, then most of that 30% would probably not buy it anyway.
It comes down to costs for the user/buyer, and as it gets cheaper or more expensive, the number of buyers is not scaling linear(or generally modelable) to the revenue from them. So publishers randomly pick a sweet spot and hope(what the market will bare). What this means is that if you can only afford it at $30, but enough dumb/rich people want it at $50 then the publisher will be a success at $50(if publishers are happy with the number of dumb/rich people paying). If you want it, then you have to wait till there is no one wanting to buy it at any price between 50-30 or just copy it from someone who was rich enough.
The economics for different parts of the world dictate different prices for software. That is why piracy can be good for non-piracy users. ie. In countries with rampant piracy, publishers must compete on price and value.
Companies who have a strangle hold on a specific software domain (ie. MSFT) can do whatever they want once piracy is significantly small enough. If they can guarantee limited piracy then they can force you to buy the product at any price.
Piracy is also good for regular publishers. It creates a market where normally there would not be one. ie. People who should not be buying games, can afford them and get 'hooked' on the low priced ripoffs. Then a few years later, the pirates are removed producing a new market that the publisher would have never entered before. So everyone there either gets more money for this luxury or they trade some other luxury/need.
MSFT did this is many countries, even the US in the 80's. DOS 6.2 was free from their BBS for godsake! This made computers more easy to acquire and become prevalent and a requirement for business and education. Many application publishers got rich this way as then there are more people needing the next upgrade whether pirated or not. All that is left is to slowly crack down on pirates and add copy protection as the market will bare (ie. no new revolts of willful piracy).
Now with P2P and the internet, many things that relied on distribution being the anchor of the market value (ie. the value of geting physical CDs of software, music, even movies) are losing ground. The only publisher solution is to either prohibit copying someway or find another market value (hard for people like the RIAA/MPAA).
The natural tendency of piracy is to make something's value only the cost of distribution.
OT:
Things like F/OSS come from this notion of the value of a copy and the realization that somethings people will just need in a specific society. People using computers on the internet have to have certain software - OS, email, etc. and it is natural for people to develop 'public works' as it were to provide them legally.
This is also why FOSS companies can still succeed if they can bring additional value to market (consulting, support, etc.). FOSS should naturally have a stronger capablility to enter new markets(ie. it is allowing legal 'piracy' build the market for other valuable services).
Uh, well I was going on the fact that there are no OSless embedded hardware systems that can do wireless (these are small mips or other architectures and some run linux) or support a standard hard drive that will do NAS, much less provide a way for the user to configure it.
I am not sure what hardware you are referring to as most hardware in the last 20 years require firmware to operate in any way independently, though most would not be called a full OS.
I think it is hardly possible that this thing can do all it does without a full OS stored in some accessible firmware (though it may be small). The fact the hard drive is add-on might mean the OS is in a DOC or IDE compactflash that can be easily modified.
Not that I read the article, but this sounds like an access point with a hard drive slot. Sounds good for the price, but what OS is it running and can we hack it to do our bidding? If so, then it is really cool.
5,597,307
appears to be a 1995 filed patent on booting from a removable storage media according to the claims. ie. The prior art that invalidates this is from the actual origins of computers depending on when storage media could be determined removable.
5,795,156
is a 1995 filed patent claiming to have invented using a hardware based "output lead" on a peripheral in a computer to detect media. I a, confused here. Assuming they were not developing a computer from scratch(and had never seen a removable media before 1995). I am not sure how they can patent a feature of components they did not develop themselves.
6,249,863
is a claim modified from the above patent of checking for a specific file (ie. like reading a VCD or IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM as in old MSDOS) to make sure the correct or specific media is inserted.
6,418,532
filed in 2001, claims to have invented the play button.
The USPTO is not mandated to verify the novelty of patents. However, patent law must be changed so that the burden of prior art falls on plaintiff in these cases(ie. pay for third party patent researchers).
I would be ashamed to consider myself the inventor of these. They are obviously wanting a small payoff from MS. IANAL
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Yes, otherwise I wouldn't be mentioning it here :). In fact I discovered the virus because the 5.25" drive light would come on when a disk was inserted before the drive was even closed.
I had a DOS virus once and it did this so that any disk in the drive while the virus was in memory would become immediately infected.
So viruses were doing this years before Windows 95.
I am just saying that if Bush is asserting authority he doesn't have and ignoring the constitution, why should we assume anything that appears legitimate in his administration is legitimate?
Basically Bush is saying that they can behave as if we are in martial law without any of that politically embarrassing declaration as such. It is the same crap they applied during the election that maybe somehow they may 'delay' the elections due to terrorism fears. As far as we know since they interpreted the constitution this way, Bush did elect himself last time. If we are actually permitted to vote 'and' it counts toward the election this time, we should consider ourselves lucky.
They have never planned on owning the markets they are in. They have always wanted to maximize the amount of money they get from the specific consumers that buy their product.
Microsoft won the PC market because they leveraged partners and helped build a large competitive industry around their software. Yes, Apple wants to control 'the user experience' even at the cost of the quality and interoperability of such experience. This has also been apple's way, they hope to provide a controlled experience with their products.
As far as philosophy, control of a 'market' has never been apple's way and anyone who thinks Steve Jobs wants to be Bill Gates is just confused as they appear to be in Bill's market. Steve understands human behavior and has never wanted own the whole market, he wants to lead his consumers. Cult of Mac is no joke. Steve takes care of his children and is rewarded with ownership of his children. It also helps that he has treated media people quite well and even tailored his computers almost exclusively for their use back in the day when no one else would buy the crap.
You can clearly see why Bill is envious of such loyalty, and he does seem quite often wishful in the products Microsoft makes that they would have such loyal followers.
The problem here is that because of the quality of the product and of the current cell phone market in the US, Apple is getting regular buyers/user/consumers and isn't converting them properly. Basically, when you buy an Apple experience, you tend to know you are giving up certain things other products because you are joining not buying. When a consumer chooses Apple, they go through the stages of grief/acceptance for many interoperability(rights)/features missing they find come with a similar product. All cell phone companies in the US control everything they can and that incidentally includes the experience. Apple is in a competitive market(such as it is) for the first time and so their being criticized more heavier here than they are used to and by more people willing to join. People are pissed about having to join AT&T, pissed about dropping some other company they were forced to join before (they have already accepted its limitations and cherish its limited set of features). In the long run, it will likely cause the market to open if Apple competes successfully. If the cell phone companies have to compete on loyalty it will take more than Alltel ads and the bs 'feature' of reasonable prices to succeed. Since experience isn't their expertise or goal, hopefully they will start giving consumers rights to contrast from the Apple/AT&T experience.
This has never, ever been true at anytime. It likely never will. Sony will have shills say such things and other marketoids have said things like that for various other dead systems in the past twenty years. The truth is that when games are compared head to head, consoles just don't match. It is about hardware price, there are no magical cheap chips. You get what you pay for even if you are Microsoft or Sony. If you want to beat a $2000 computer, you need to be selling a $2000 computer. Also even if your chip does cooler things than a chip already out on the market, if it changes the architecture ie. Cell versus x86 or PowerPC it will take years to get important software such as compilers optimized for it as well as a chip already on the market and gone through those growing pains.
The original Xbox was nothing but a cheap PC that was OK performance wise for a $500 PC when it was designed. However, the PC equivalent in hardware actually was cheaper than the Xbox just a few months after the Xbox was released. Now that old Xboxes are dirt cheap, the equivalent PC is more expensive (prices for a computer can't go below about $200 no matter what is in them due to component count and size). Integration/elimination of excess components saves maybe $100 in real manufacturing costs. It was dumb to buy an Xbox and put all that effort into putting Linux on it back then, now it actually makes sense.
If you want to make a console where the price point is below the integration sweet point of $200 based on common components that sells over a million somehow, then you can probably just beat the price/performance ratio of PCs. The Wii is actually pretty close to this where Nintendo is making money and giving people a somewhat reasonable box for the price. The only reason to buy a console is for their exclusive games and the console's simplicity/integration. Kind of like why Apple thinks it can sell Macs for a premium over PCs with the same hardware.
Hi Harish!
I think that governments are starting to realize that the 'military industrial complex' method of driving technology results in bloated defense contractors and over budget impossibly resourced projects. It works well at first as long as there are clear nationalistic needs and attainable goals. However, this is just centralized planning which can never be efficient and is always open to abuse. Also, deliberately limiting your design and manufacturing sources to trusted companies only works if you can guarantee the best minds will always work there. This is a different world compared to the 60's or even the 80's where that used to mean a specific group of companies in the US, and I think getting the best minds is probably more of an issue than economic efficiency at least for the US government. Maybe S'pore is maybe waking up to this reality as well.
I got hit with 4 bad Abit boards in 2001 back when it was first reported several years ago. I had assumed since then Taiwanese manufacturers would have stopped using the knock off capacitors or would have stolen/bought the correct formula if only to stop threat of lawsuits.
I guess the lawsuits never came. Maybe it would be one time sleazy lawyers could do some good? It is pretty sad that electronics from ten years ago are better quality than todays and they know exactly why and yet it isn't fixed...
bottled water - (ie. pretty packaging or assurances that your version is best)
This is what most Linux distributions that retail do. It requires branding, good pricing, and quality/features(good reviews by non tech community).
razorblades - (we give you part of the solution - software, but you WILL need 'something' from us - customization/documentation/training)
JBoss and most high level business apps do this, but it tends to be like a form of FOSS crippleware.
Services/support can be placed here for some FOSS companies, but it tends to be the model below instead.
freedom/guilt/vendor lock-in - (Donation FOSS ware, some of the bigger support contract Linuxes, and actually most non FOSS commercial software companies)
Making customers feel it necessary to pay a specified or unspecified price for continued 'something'(new features, security fixes, support, etc.) that will hopefully be assured by the software maker still being around next year. These pay outs do not have to be specific to actual software buying as many commercial software makers charge per user or by subscription(Microsoft, Sun, most real CADs, etc.). Non-FOSS makers just have more ways to force customers to pay upfront for licenses and agree to harsher licenses.
appliance - (done by many small companies)
It is a risky game as you need branding like Cobalt (somehow) had more than specific pricing or quality.
The problem with FOSS as a business model is that anyone can become your competitor selling your own software. This is more of a PR based issue assuming the company has a solid grasp on one and only one of the above models.
For quality based value adding you obviously can't rest on your laurels like proprietary software - you have to work on the software. You have to convince your customers you are working on it (and benefitting them). For service and support, you have to remain the supreme expert on the software (then you can charge more than your competitor for the same work). Since the software is open source, the above have to be backed up with some honest work. For branding, you need to understand the market you want and invest in getting your name in people's minds(same as any market). The amount of effort to make a FOSS product can be minimal, many companies out there are working hard to actually just rebrand other distributions. But at the same time, slight variations evolve to meet customers needs(most commercial Linux distributions started out as Debian or Redhat),
It is up to the state to implement a consumer protection code. However, all states have one of some sort that general says no sales are final unless a sign is posted or it is placed on the receipt. Some states force returns no matter what, but most of the times you will see "All sales final." is when a company is liquidating(so it is unlikely you would have a recourse).
In the garment biz, you can refuse refunds usually if the item is soiled or the tags are cut. Outlet/overstock stores will usually cut the tags on checkout if they don't accept returns. I assume it is different on the highend as opposed to 'off the rack' clothing.
That is the way I sorta understand the article/spin. They made a list of 50 games for their people to look for. The list includes 26 that were never imported officially (most likely not allowed due to censorship). The other 24 were imported and sold before being found containing thoughts that might pervert Chinese society.
European/PAL DVB systems use an encryption system based on CAMs(Conditional Access Module) and smartcards. A CAM is just a customized PCMCIA sheath around the specific smartcard. The smartcard is encrypted in such a way that the CAM must be able to decode it(so a cable company can randomly pick/upgrade the encryption standard). DVB systems are similar to HDTV systems in that there are unencrypted streams and encrypted streams.
Free to air channels can be received without the correct CAM/smartcard - just like current HDTV PCI cards in the US can get unencrypted broadcast HDTV. However, to decode encrypted signals, you must use your ID in the smartcard and unlock the streams using this.
The CAM around the smartcard is just a compact anti-smartcard cloning/hacking tool. The smartcard and usually your cable boxes MAC address are both used to authorize viewing(though MAC addresses can be faked just like regular ethernet).
For DVBs, decrypting/reading smartcard is all done in software. If the cablecard is just the same as DVB CAMs, then it should be able to add them to any current HDTV system with just software.
DVB stuff has well been hacked for PC integration (http://www.dvbshop.net), so maybe this can be the same.
The sad thing is that DVB is not HDTV. I have yet to see any real HDTV DVB systems.
In Singapore, Starhub digital cable is worse than analog because they use cheap decoders like in cheap DVD players (smoke effects artifact/drop frames). So we have dragging PAL frame rates and now this in exchange for slightly better signal. Well at least we have stereo out on the boxes(yes it isn't even freakin' Dolby). The switch to digital cable so far appears to be for making SMS/$.30 TV games and playing Tetris or Battleship on your TV. I am amazed how backwards the Singapore market is in some segments.
The server is almost done. Plan to have SOAP based transfers for client and Tivo-like recording suggestions for viewers to have the incentive to sign up.
The next big step is a general client SDK licensed under BSD with multiple languages to integrate in any PVR/DVR. Need C++ for MythTV, Python for Freevo, and enough docs to help commercial systems integrate it.
Not sure how commercially viable it is, or how popular it can be made...
If anybody wants to work on it with me, please contact me.
OK, so US Customs is enforcing a trademark violation. Fine.
What is wrong is that Customs does not have jurisdiction inside the US only coming and going from it. Once in the US, it is a civil case that would need at least a hearing or court order to remove merchandise from the store. More than likely, an authorized local authority would then execute the court order(not actual agents).
It is disturbing that Homeland Security did think that Magic Cube and Rubik's Cube are similar in name or that they don't understand what a trademark is. Most disturbing is that Homeland Security obviously does not understand the laws they are trying to enforce or how to legally enforce them.
The only 'wrong' thing going on is that Rubik or whoever reported it is intentionally damaging and interfering with Magic Cubes and Pufferbelly Toys businesses. Homeland Security should immediately return the items to Pufferbelly Toys and apologize. I don't think there is much Pufferbelly Toys can do for restitution directly against Homeland Security. It would be nice to be able to sue the government for incompetence, but then there would be no government left.
Sorry, I don't think you understand the importance of marketing.
Java is not a success, it is just an also-ran language like all others. If it was a success all apps would be written in it.
I know what Orange is even though I don't know of any other European telecom. I assume Branson has one as he spent over a billion marketing one in my country and ran away in less than a year. I don't think knowledge of Orange got into my non-European brain magically.
Wi-Fi is a technology not a competing standard. There is no Un-Fi. Same with 3G, it is an updated set of technologies where there is no standards competition(at least for consumers).
Since most people will recognize HD-DVD must be somehow better than DVD while Blu-Ray could be anything from enhanced color laundry detergent to insecticide. Without a ton of marketing and consumer education Blu-Ray will simple lose when the average couch potato goes to buy a new player from the local electronics megabarn.
While this has little to do with why BetaMax (nor why every other Sony proprietary standard has failed), Blu-Ray has some serious marketing problems to over come.
On patent whines: I have a stranger patent problem myself. I want to build something that was expensively patented in 1980 that now can be made for $200. That patent is gone, yet it never went to market anyway. However, there is literally a dozen similar but bad patents with claims that cover the expired claims. I would have to pay a lawyer to clear these (confirm they can be defeated or not relevant to my product) before I could ever get funding. This starts at around 50k US and even then most lawyers won't risk malpractice to do it.
I have a design that could save lives as it is a life-safety product and is going to never leave autocad. I have thought about just giving the design away, but it needs some real life testing and customization to be useful to individuals.
There are entirely too many IP shell companies out there that do nothing but threaten and harass useful companies without providing commercial products based on the patents themselves. They have no plans to exploit their manufacturing monopoly in any honest way. Instead, they should be required in some form to manufacturer real products utilizing their IP or risk losing enforeability in some way. That may require them to cross-license needed IP as well as seriously limit this entire anti-social/economic lawyer business. It could be possible that plaintifs in patent cases must first prove their manufacturing intent to some law/court derived set of requirements before action is started.
Sadly, this is the same weak politicizing shit any wrong and evil big company tries -
cigarettes are cool and they haven't harmed this guy in this example story and all these health studies saying otherwise are flawed compared to the three we paid for saying they make you have nice breath. Trust us, we are your friends doing you a favor not just suits making money off of your addiction.
This guy is an obvious and not too convincing shill. He will continue to do this work - spew lies while talking to himself in the hope someone overhears as long as the money comes in.
This 'work' comes from the fact that they want to dirty the issue as it is freakin' obvious to anyone in the debate - proprietary software is OK but an open source version can't be worse and it should possibly be better.
Once the debate is properly against them (ie. the common man knows the truth). We will see threats come from them when/if political action against them is taken.
It costs too much to force this industry to do 'something good', we will have to do 'something bad for citizens' if this happens.
This is how any corporation fights in politics and now that foss is in the spotlight we got to just laugh some things off. I know, it is hard when we all want to be nice and helpful in providing people with honest answers and guys like this exist. Yes, these people make a living doing that, and no there probably won't be any 'karma' coming back on them. We want to believe in the goodness of others, that is one reason these guys make money.
Truthfully, we have beaten this guy and his lies up enough that any sane discussion has stopped. He will continue to troll to try and be relevant and piss off people. So it is better to ignore him and just reply only if anyone else brings him up. 'We' don't need to be in his debate and fuel him with more quotes to desperately take out of context.
The NTUC (gov't ran trade coop) Fairprice borg of small low selection stores has an online site for non-parishables. The thing was a .net partnership with the government so it isn't a surprise that the shopping cart and browsing system has yet to keep track of multiple page categories nor does the search work very well. Some items they have, you literally can't purchase because of this. Shipping is OK, but it is through our post service which while great as a postal carrier, lacks some customer service for this. No stock control if you can actually find what you want.
Coldstorage (one of the semiindependent 'chains' in S'pore) has great selection of products online, a great search and category system. However, it never has a correct stock count and some items they never stock.
Prices overall for these delivery services are comparable with the regular stores, though because of stock issues you may end up with only half of what you order. It has more than once been a problem that we must go buy missing items at actual the store, hence making home delivery quite pointless and actually time consuming.
If it is just a repackaging of wine, the worst thing is the investments they claim to have received. They haven't done anything to actually help wine yet, and if that money is real, it could have been invested in one of the real wine contributing companies. These guys will probably just run away with the money in the end if they are this bad at faking things.
This is similar to any economy that has seen a new need/shift - required resources are not always properly rewarded/assigned.
The problem is that in the case of software bootlegging, it is that the individual end user is usually committing the harm(not some privateer or trader). This also directly effects the perceived piracy costs - if you think 1million people should want something at $30, but 30% will just copy it the market price then becomes $50 or so if you want to make most of what you feel you are owed. This ignores the fact that if it was only available at $30, then most of that 30% would probably not buy it anyway.
It comes down to costs for the user/buyer, and as it gets cheaper or more expensive, the number of buyers is not scaling linear(or generally modelable) to the revenue from them. So publishers randomly pick a sweet spot and hope(what the market will bare). What this means is that if you can only afford it at $30, but enough dumb/rich people want it at $50 then the publisher will be a success at $50(if publishers are happy with the number of dumb/rich people paying). If you want it, then you have to wait till there is no one wanting to buy it at any price between 50-30 or just copy it from someone who was rich enough.
The economics for different parts of the world dictate different prices for software. That is why piracy can be good for non-piracy users. ie. In countries with rampant piracy, publishers must compete on price and value.
Companies who have a strangle hold on a specific software domain (ie. MSFT) can do whatever they want once piracy is significantly small enough. If they can guarantee limited piracy then they can force you to buy the product at any price.
Piracy is also good for regular publishers. It creates a market where normally there would not be one. ie. People who should not be buying games, can afford them and get 'hooked' on the low priced ripoffs. Then a few years later, the pirates are removed producing a new market that the publisher would have never entered before. So everyone there either gets more money for this luxury or they trade some other luxury/need.
MSFT did this is many countries, even the US in the 80's. DOS 6.2 was free from their BBS for godsake! This made computers more easy to acquire and become prevalent and a requirement for business and education. Many application publishers got rich this way as then there are more people needing the next upgrade whether pirated or not. All that is left is to slowly crack down on pirates and add copy protection as the market will bare (ie. no new revolts of willful piracy).
Now with P2P and the internet, many things that relied on distribution being the anchor of the market value (ie. the value of geting physical CDs of software, music, even movies) are losing ground. The only publisher solution is to either prohibit copying someway or find another market value (hard for people like the RIAA/MPAA).
The natural tendency of piracy is to make something's value only the cost of distribution.
OT:
Things like F/OSS come from this notion of the value of a copy and the realization that somethings people will just need in a specific society. People using computers on the internet have to have certain software - OS, email, etc. and it is natural for people to develop 'public works' as it were to provide them legally.
This is also why FOSS companies can still succeed if they can bring additional value to market (consulting, support, etc.). FOSS should naturally have a stronger capablility to enter new markets(ie. it is allowing legal 'piracy' build the market for other valuable services).
I am not sure what hardware you are referring to as most hardware in the last 20 years require firmware to operate in any way independently, though most would not be called a full OS.
I think it is hardly possible that this thing can do all it does without a full OS stored in some accessible firmware (though it may be small). The fact the hard drive is add-on might mean the OS is in a DOC or IDE compactflash that can be easily modified.
Not that I read the article, but this sounds like an access point with a hard drive slot. Sounds good for the price, but what OS is it running and can we hack it to do our bidding? If so, then it is really cool.
5,795,156 is a 1995 filed patent claiming to have invented using a hardware based "output lead" on a peripheral in a computer to detect media. I a, confused here. Assuming they were not developing a computer from scratch(and had never seen a removable media before 1995). I am not sure how they can patent a feature of components they did not develop themselves.
6,249,863 is a claim modified from the above patent of checking for a specific file (ie. like reading a VCD or IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM as in old MSDOS) to make sure the correct or specific media is inserted.
6,418,532 filed in 2001, claims to have invented the play button.
The USPTO is not mandated to verify the novelty of patents. However, patent law must be changed so that the burden of prior art falls on plaintiff in these cases(ie. pay for third party patent researchers).
I would be ashamed to consider myself the inventor of these. They are obviously wanting a small payoff from MS. IANAL