Anyway, while it's obviously true that Google Maps isn't the first internet map product, it is also obvious that the new MS service has blatantly copied much of the interface from Google Maps, specifically the dragging behaviour.
Maybe this new service is even better than Google Maps, I don't know yet, all I know is that it feels like I'm using Google Maps.
You (and the mods) can call me a troll if you want, but if patent law is supposed to protect innovation, how is that happening here? Did the first IM client abandon protection by not filing for a patent? Would it have gotten protection if it did?
And I may have a tendency to bash MS from time to time, but I'm not even complaining about MS here. It's patent law that's bothering me right now. Shrug.
Fair enough. So here's a question (no, I don't understand the patent system): If Google Maps was to apply for a patent (specifically with regard to their interface, which seems extremely familiar) now, what would happen? Would it be refused on the grounds that people (MS) have been using it already? Would it be granted, but MS could continue because they'd already been using it? Would it be granted and MS would be sued and/or forced to pay license fees?
Re:Bird's Eye view is amazing - just needs few twe
on
Windows Live goes Local
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· Score: 2, Funny
"Wait to go Microsoft!" So you're saying I should keep using Google Maps and see how this project progresses later?;)
...is how One-Click Shopping can get patented, but Microsoft can get away with such blatant copies as this (of Google Maps), MSN Messenger (of ICQ), and so forth.
Yeah. The attitude of an American government division going so far as to condemn a decision by another government begins to explain why the antitrust suits brought against MS in the US don't seem to have done anything.
Though I am a fellow hater of Gator/Claria, I don't actually disagree with your quote from Lydia Parnes. For instance, I like the way Gmail does it. It doesn't install ANYTHING client-side, so it's not wasting my computing resources, and if a Webmail service is going to show me ads to make it viably profitable, at least this one is going to show me ones that are more likely to be stuff I'm interested in.
National Institute on Media and the Family
on
The ESRB Gets An 'F'
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Is it just me, or does that name just SCREAM "fundamentalist, religious, biased prudes"?
"Random button smashing usually denotes a fed-up, pissed off customer, and that's the last kind of customer you want the system to simply give up on." Evidently you don't work in customer service. Fed-up, pissed off people are who I don't want to talk to. Also, stupid people are who I don't want to talk to. Obviously, a phone system is going to end up controlled by the owners who want to make profit, so step one is for customers to quit businesses that provide poor service, stating poor service as the reason. Additionally, phone systems should probably be designed to screw the customers that call back over and over for no reason, wasting employees' time.
The ability to react to a computer in a fluid manner is becoming a required skill. Learn to recognize a trustworthy change versus something that's going to bite your box in the butt, or get left behind. The IM generation can (often) do it, so it doesn't seem to me to be an issue of smarts per se. I don't know what it is about getting old, but people seem to lose their ability to learn. To adapt. I think that's the problem here, although even here I have to question the smarts a little if Firefox is different enough from IE that he can't navigate.
"the property we worked hard for" Hard work often results in very different outcomes, especially when someone lacks the means to overcome a barrier to entry. A rich person with a good idea can develop and implement it, and reap many rewards. A poor person with the same good idea needs to attract investors to overcome the barriers, and then once they do, they have to share the profits with the investors, whose only required skills are having money and being able to tell a good idea from a bad one (not trivial, sure, but it's still infinitely preferable to being the poor guy).
"Hording doesn't make wealth, hard work does." Investing is an opportunity the poor don't have.
"The poor have more opportunities to become rich in a free market than in a regulated one." Depends how it's regulated.
The main difference is the intent of the legislation. IP law is designed to encourage innovation, and this use of it does the exact opposite. Real property law has completely different goals.
And what if, say, an oil company purchases the patent for some exciting new fuel technology, and then just sits on it so it won't threaten their business. Seems to me that forcing a company/individual to make an honest attempt to market their product to have any kind of IP law protections MIGHT help some, but fundamentally I think the whole idea of IP law needs to be at least rethought and possibly scrapped altogether.
Yes, this is an appeal to authority, but please. The public is the LAST group you want involved with decisions like this. The vast majority of people have not studied nuclear systems or the waste involved, and should probably not have a say in it. Sure the government's job is to do the will of the people, but the will of the people who don't know anything about the topic at hand should be to defer to those who do.
"Criminals and terrorists can easily bypass these measures using encryption, stegonography, etc. The real purpose is to give the Recording Industry access to people who trade music files. Anne McLellan has been working with them on this for a couple of years. For the sake of the greed of a few huge music corporations they're taking up the tools of the Police State. Political surveillance is a heartbeat away from this.You are the target. "
It is perhaps also worth noting that in the US, the penalties for uploading a CD (copyright infringement) seem to be VASTLY worse than those for stealing said CD from a store (theft).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, apparently I'm the troll today. Whatever.
Anyway, while it's obviously true that Google Maps isn't the first internet map product, it is also obvious that the new MS service has blatantly copied much of the interface from Google Maps, specifically the dragging behaviour.
Maybe this new service is even better than Google Maps, I don't know yet, all I know is that it feels like I'm using Google Maps.
You (and the mods) can call me a troll if you want, but if patent law is supposed to protect innovation, how is that happening here? Did the first IM client abandon protection by not filing for a patent? Would it have gotten protection if it did?
And I may have a tendency to bash MS from time to time, but I'm not even complaining about MS here. It's patent law that's bothering me right now. Shrug.
Fair enough. So here's a question (no, I don't understand the patent system): If Google Maps was to apply for a patent (specifically with regard to their interface, which seems extremely familiar) now, what would happen? Would it be refused on the grounds that people (MS) have been using it already? Would it be granted, but MS could continue because they'd already been using it? Would it be granted and MS would be sued and/or forced to pay license fees?
"Wait to go Microsoft!" ;)
So you're saying I should keep using Google Maps and see how this project progresses later?
...is how One-Click Shopping can get patented, but Microsoft can get away with such blatant copies as this (of Google Maps), MSN Messenger (of ICQ), and so forth.
Yeah. The attitude of an American government division going so far as to condemn a decision by another government begins to explain why the antitrust suits brought against MS in the US don't seem to have done anything.
The ruined feeling is probably because 9 times out of 10 the lyrics suck more ass than a donkey vacuum.
"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."
-Voltaire
Hey, maybe the people who started calling them "freedom fries" just did so too early and for the wrong reason. :)
Though I am a fellow hater of Gator/Claria, I don't actually disagree with your quote from Lydia Parnes. For instance, I like the way Gmail does it. It doesn't install ANYTHING client-side, so it's not wasting my computing resources, and if a Webmail service is going to show me ads to make it viably profitable, at least this one is going to show me ones that are more likely to be stuff I'm interested in.
Is it just me, or does that name just SCREAM "fundamentalist, religious, biased prudes"?
"Random button smashing usually denotes a fed-up, pissed off customer, and that's the last kind of customer you want the system to simply give up on."
Evidently you don't work in customer service. Fed-up, pissed off people are who I don't want to talk to. Also, stupid people are who I don't want to talk to. Obviously, a phone system is going to end up controlled by the owners who want to make profit, so step one is for customers to quit businesses that provide poor service, stating poor service as the reason. Additionally, phone systems should probably be designed to screw the customers that call back over and over for no reason, wasting employees' time.
The ability to react to a computer in a fluid manner is becoming a required skill. Learn to recognize a trustworthy change versus something that's going to bite your box in the butt, or get left behind. The IM generation can (often) do it, so it doesn't seem to me to be an issue of smarts per se. I don't know what it is about getting old, but people seem to lose their ability to learn. To adapt. I think that's the problem here, although even here I have to question the smarts a little if Firefox is different enough from IE that he can't navigate.
Wasn't Microsoft planning to remove this crapware? Does that mean THEY would be violating the DMCA?
"the property we worked hard for"
Hard work often results in very different outcomes, especially when someone lacks the means to overcome a barrier to entry. A rich person with a good idea can develop and implement it, and reap many rewards. A poor person with the same good idea needs to attract investors to overcome the barriers, and then once they do, they have to share the profits with the investors, whose only required skills are having money and being able to tell a good idea from a bad one (not trivial, sure, but it's still infinitely preferable to being the poor guy).
"Hording doesn't make wealth, hard work does."
Investing is an opportunity the poor don't have.
"The poor have more opportunities to become rich in a free market than in a regulated one."
Depends how it's regulated.
"voting only with your dollars", eh?
And I'm sure everyone gets an equal amount of votes...
No, that's communism.
The main difference is the intent of the legislation. IP law is designed to encourage innovation, and this use of it does the exact opposite. Real property law has completely different goals.
And what if, say, an oil company purchases the patent for some exciting new fuel technology, and then just sits on it so it won't threaten their business. Seems to me that forcing a company/individual to make an honest attempt to market their product to have any kind of IP law protections MIGHT help some, but fundamentally I think the whole idea of IP law needs to be at least rethought and possibly scrapped altogether.
Could a company advertise to the effect of the following?
"We copied the Nintendo Entertainment System! Play all your old Nintendo games! Buy the Clonebox today!"
If I had mod points right now, they'd be yours. Very nicely put.
Yes, this is an appeal to authority, but please. The public is the LAST group you want involved with decisions like this. The vast majority of people have not studied nuclear systems or the waste involved, and should probably not have a say in it. Sure the government's job is to do the will of the people, but the will of the people who don't know anything about the topic at hand should be to defer to those who do.
Homer: In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Not to mention the fact that if he eats bacon and acts like a pig, that's a bit cannibalistic.
News flash, the US patent system is so broken it's not even funny. Let's not forget they allowed Amazon to patent one-click-shopping.
The second comment on the article says it all:
"Criminals and terrorists can easily bypass these measures using
encryption, stegonography, etc. The real purpose is to give the
Recording Industry access to people who trade music files. Anne
McLellan has been working with them on this for a couple of years. For
the sake of the greed of a few huge music corporations they're taking
up the tools of the Police State. Political surveillance is a heartbeat
away from this.You are the target. "
Nice.
It is perhaps also worth noting that in the US, the penalties for uploading a CD (copyright infringement) seem to be VASTLY worse than those for stealing said CD from a store (theft).