Wouldn't using USB make this a major challenge for the companies building the accessories?
There are no shortage of accessories for Android phones, so I guess the answer to your question is and emphatic NO.
There are a small handful of USB compatible sockets that allow charging with a standard USB charger, even though a slightly different cable can do additional things, such as direct HDMI tv connections, allow you to mount disk drives and thumb drives to the phone, etc.
The idea is that if you forgot your charger cable, you could still charge your phone without buying a high priced proprietary charger. Any cheap USB charger cable would do.
The fact that you couldn't dock with your bedside speakers was never the issue. Most people don't travel with those.
No, its radically different, and different radically. Can you see murder and burning if someone stands outside of the Basilica and insults the pope? The other religions are a product of their times, and have grown up. Not so with islam. Its still a religion lead by gangs of uneducated teenage boys.
Further, in what other culture can an insult to a long dead religious figure trigger riots and murder?
Criticize a dead Pope? Get in line. Criticize Buda? You get tolerant smiles. Criticize a Rabbi, living or dead? Yiddish curses. Criticize L Ron Hubbard? hmmmm, lemmie think about that one.
But muhammad? people have to die for that, any people, just kill someone.
Where did "selling Android Apps" enter the picture? Turns out the patent has nothing to do with "things X-Plane has done for decades". Couldn't the editors have checked that?
It enters into the picture because x-Plain is using a standard Android API developed by Google and shipped with Android to check if the user bought the package before allowing it to be used.
This pretty much means Google is going to go after the Troll since the patents cited have plenty of prior art that the patent office overlooked.
The editors could have checked for this, but quite frankly you could have clicked a link an RTFA.
Android is already pretty good at this, by giving users a pretty detailed list of what information an app has access to at the time the app is installed
Well, not really all that good. Its there, but does your mom understand it?
Why should merely mentioning that the Game you just installed has access to your address book be enough?
Android needs, (and there is some movement towards this) a much finer grain control, where an app will be subject to a permissions module that the user can control to deny access to specific things at the OS level. If said games stop working because the users deny access to contacts or emails, thats fine. At least we know where we stand and what kind of ratbastards we are dealing with.
Go read the bill folks. All it does is mandate DISCLOSURE
It doesn't mean that you get to disapprove of the monitoring software and still get to to keep the device or maintain service to the device. Where have you ever seen the ability to selectively accept or decline the boilerplate provisions of your contract? Check this box saying you agree to all the terms here in or we can terminate your contract and require you pay your Early Termination Fee.
The biggest hole is with manufacturer installed monitoring software. Its not at all clear that disclosure would be required if it was on the device at the point of manufacture as opposed to being added later (2a3).
Further the Exemptions clause (2d) is so broad the you could drive a truck thru it. No disclosure necessary if there was a "reasonable expectation" that monitoring software might exist on the device. What precisely is Reasonable? Some mumbo-jumbo about service quality management buried in the fine print?
Its a good start, it just needs to be tougher. Simply prohibit carrier or manufacturer installation of such software outright. Make it an after market package you can sign up for if you have problems and uninstall after the fact.
That you can find exceptions to my rule merely proves the rule.
All too common, some obscure court case takes away what the legislature clearly mandated. Yet the law sits on the books like a La Brea Tar Pit, waiting to trap the innocent. I've even seen cases where executive branch agencies refuse to honor a public records law until there was a court decision affirming it, EVEN where no such cases were even pending. They simply said "If you don't have a citation we aren't going to honor your request".
I would question the research of any scientist who willingly used a unit of measurement that, even at the moment of its conception, would have a volatile conversion to solid units.
So, you relegate the entire field of Astronomy to the fate of Astrology then Mr. AC?
Most of the time, 150 gigameters will probably be close enough, similar as to how 300,000 km/s is "close enough" to the speed of light for many things or 3.1415 is "close enough" to pi for many things.
Well the speed of light can be measured fairly precisely and Pi is available to just about any random number of digits you want. You are free to choose the level of precision that fits the problem at hand.
The distance to the sun, on the other hand, was always imprecise, and constantly changing. It depended on when you measured it. Apparently this drift in the AU constant started to matter in some calculations, and perhaps threatened interpretation of historical references and calculations.
The difference of using 150 gigameters is OVER one light-second (402129 km), so there would have had to be a significant rewriting of historical research and measurements. Not an insurmountable problem, just a messy one.
you'd think they could have rounded up to 150 gigameters. if politicians can be SD-conservative, why can't astronomers? we all know that significance is precious and rare...
Interesting point. If you are going to pic arbitrary number, why not pick an easy one?
I suspect there is a desire to keep all past references to AU meaningful within a small margin of error, so as to not have to translate any written works. The difference between the new arbitrary number and the prior imprecise one is probably infinitesimally small for the scale of reference AUs are use for.
Rounding it up almost half a million kilometers (quarter million miles) maybe not so much.
I suspect that since it was imprecise in the first place, and used for almost nothing except astronomical reference, preserving existing references in the literature was more important than the ease of writing it down.
Just because a job is important doesn't mean that those who do it aren't allowed to enjoy themselves.
On the other hand, the pursuit of justice is supposedly the whole purpose, is it not?
A lawyer that persists in a matter in spite of knowing there is a specific statute or case law that unhinges his case is as guilty of obstruction of justice as someone lying to the police.
Pfffft, what am I saying. Pursuit of justice!! What a joke.
Even if a judge knows a better argument a lawyer could be making he cannot step in and help. It's up to the lawyers to present their case as best they can.
Well not exactly. The higher courts often reach to statutes and case law that was never mentioned by either side during their arguments.
I suspect that nearly everyone except the lawyers and leadership wish we could get along.
Actually I suspect Woz gets a big bitchslap by the legal staff tomorrow morning. I further bet he tells them to go to hell. He owns his stock and there is nothing they can do about it.
Why would anyone install this software, all it does is limit the installer, not anyone else.
So everyone who gets saddled with this software on their computer, saves the images with an Android phone, or Linux, or Mac computer. Problem solved. And a hack for removing the watermark ought to be possible about 37 minutes after the images find their way onto the net.
I can see why your mom might buy you a computer infected with this technology, but I can't see why any any adult would buy one for themselves.
Personally, I'm glad for this extension. There are still evildoers, particularly Islamic terrorists that are bent on harming America. Just wittness the latest attack in Libya.
Wait, how would warrantless wiretaps have prevented THAT? You planning to tap phones in Libya? And don't we have warrantless wiretaps today and yet we still have THAT?
And if there is a risk that can be averted with a wiretap, why not get a warrant?
While this does sound funny at first, I find it intriguing. Who knows?
While we probably can't know for certain, we can look around and notice no planet nearby that could have supported life that complex with the possible exception of mars.
Then we can look at the fact that only 68% survived a mere 10 days after being specially treated to do so.
Then we can speculate about the amount of time it might take for a blasted out chunk of mars to find its way to earth. Hundreds of years is my guess. Millions if it came from further.
We can further speculate what percentage would survive the journey and then survive a fiery entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Then we can set aside ALL of that speculation until there is ANY evidence of life on Mars more advanced than an accidental amino acid.
The inescapable preponderance of evidence is that it originated here. And simply because it can survive an odd experiment is no reason to speculate extraterrestrial origin.
Regardless of the merits of this case (or any of the other cases) one can only hope that these lawsuits call attention to the huge flaws in our patent system and how they stifle innovation. Of course realistic me knows that lobbyists will prevent any real reform from happening but anything that slows the tide of stupid patents being issued would be a good thing.
Actually there are really only three big problems with patents that need immediate fixing, the rest could wait:
1) In spite of them being ruled illegal three times, the patent office insists on issuing software patents. 2) Patents are overly broad for trivial things. 3) Patent trolling is allowed.
If I had to pick ONE thing to get solved first it would be Trolling.
By trolling I mean:
Patent trolls can be individuals or companies, and they have no intention to manufacture or sell whatever the patent describes. In fact, their entire business model relies on buying patents, and finding companies to threaten (with the goal of settlement) and sue.
The simplest change would be a "Use it or Lose it" restriction on any patent.
You must License it or Manufacture it within 2 to 4 years or you lose the patent all together, and it becomes public domain (yet remains in effect to prevent someone else patenting the same thing).
After all, the idea of patents was to serve society, not one person's bank account. We allow the inventor to make money, as long as society gets the patent. But if only half the bargain is enforced its hardly fair.
Forced licensing at fair rates is long overdue. There also needs to be some attention to what is "fair" in licensing terms so that entire products don't bet banned or made uneconomic because of a simple tiny patent that the troll wants an arm and a leg for.
When Apple wants to ban something as complex as a cell phone simply because it has rounded corners that is simply obscene.
now that Steve Jobs is dead, there is no reason to continue his personal thermonuclear war. Tim Cook should get together with Samsung, Google, HTC et al and sign the equivalent of ABM treaty and cross-license all patents like all normal industries.
Tim Cook needs to get his product blocked and his patents invalidated before he will see the light. The Samsung verdict is 90% sure to be overturned on appeal if for no other reason than Jury Misconduct, and the patents Apple relied on were trivial UI features (software patents).
But as long as Cook's lawyers keep dragging in billion dollar judgements for million dollar expenditures Cook will not stop.
Maybe if Cook spent the Lawyer money improving the iPhone's user interface the man who's campaign chest he is filling could actually figure out how to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
How happy will he be when the EU bans import?
The law wasn't a suggestion.
Wouldn't using USB make this a major challenge for the companies building the accessories?
There are no shortage of accessories for Android phones, so I guess the answer to your question is and emphatic NO.
There are a small handful of USB compatible sockets that allow charging with a standard USB charger, even though a slightly different cable can do additional things, such as direct HDMI tv connections, allow you to mount disk drives and thumb drives to the phone, etc.
The idea is that if you forgot your charger cable, you could still charge your phone without buying a high priced proprietary charger. Any cheap USB charger cable would do.
The fact that you couldn't dock with your bedside speakers was never the issue. Most people don't travel with those.
No, its radically different, and different radically.
Can you see murder and burning if someone stands outside of the Basilica and insults the pope?
The other religions are a product of their times, and have grown up.
Not so with islam. Its still a religion lead by gangs of uneducated teenage boys.
Further, in what other culture can an insult to a long dead religious figure trigger riots and murder?
Criticize a dead Pope? Get in line.
Criticize Buda? You get tolerant smiles.
Criticize a Rabbi, living or dead? Yiddish curses.
Criticize L Ron Hubbard? hmmmm, lemmie think about that one.
But muhammad? people have to die for that, any people, just kill someone.
Is that you Mr. Uniloc?
Plus, I bet Google steps in. Its a Google API he is using that is the subject of the troll.
Where did "selling Android Apps" enter the picture? Turns out the patent has nothing to do with "things X-Plane has done for decades". Couldn't the editors have checked that?
It enters into the picture because x-Plain is using a standard Android API developed by Google and shipped with Android to check if the user bought the package before allowing it to be used.
This pretty much means Google is going to go after the Troll since the patents cited have plenty of prior art that the patent office overlooked.
The editors could have checked for this, but quite frankly you could have clicked a link an RTFA.
Android is already pretty good at this, by giving users a pretty detailed list of what information an app has access to at the time the app is installed
Well, not really all that good.
Its there, but does your mom understand it?
Why should merely mentioning that the Game you just installed has access to your address book be enough?
Android needs, (and there is some movement towards this) a much finer grain control, where an app will be subject to a permissions module
that the user can control to deny access to specific things at the OS level. If said games stop working because the users deny access to
contacts or emails, thats fine. At least we know where we stand and what kind of ratbastards we are dealing with.
Its there, but its weak. See section 3.
Exactly.
Go read the bill folks. All it does is mandate DISCLOSURE
It doesn't mean that you get to disapprove of the monitoring software and still get to to keep the device or maintain service to the device. Where have you ever seen the ability to selectively accept or decline the boilerplate provisions of your contract? Check this box saying you agree to all the terms here in or we can terminate your contract and require you pay your Early Termination Fee.
The biggest hole is with manufacturer installed monitoring software. Its not at all clear that disclosure would be required if it was on the device at the point of manufacture as opposed to being added later (2a3).
Further the Exemptions clause (2d) is so broad the you could drive a truck thru it. No disclosure necessary if there was a "reasonable expectation" that monitoring software might exist on the device. What precisely is Reasonable? Some mumbo-jumbo about service quality management buried in the fine print?
Its a good start, it just needs to be tougher.
Simply prohibit carrier or manufacturer installation of such software outright.
Make it an after market package you can sign up for if you have problems and uninstall after the fact.
That you can find exceptions to my rule merely proves the rule.
All too common, some obscure court case takes away what the legislature clearly mandated. Yet the law sits on the books like a La Brea Tar Pit, waiting to trap the innocent. I've even seen cases where executive branch agencies refuse to honor a public records law until there was a court decision affirming it, EVEN where no such cases were even pending. They simply said "If you don't have a citation we aren't going to honor your request".
I would question the research of any scientist who willingly used a unit of measurement that, even at the moment of its conception, would have a volatile conversion to solid units.
So, you relegate the entire field of Astronomy to the fate of Astrology then Mr. AC?
Most of the time, 150 gigameters will probably be close enough, similar as to how 300,000 km/s is "close enough" to the speed of light for many things or 3.1415 is "close enough" to pi for many things.
Well the speed of light can be measured fairly precisely and Pi is available to just about any random number of digits you want.
You are free to choose the level of precision that fits the problem at hand.
The distance to the sun, on the other hand, was always imprecise, and constantly changing. It depended on when you measured it.
Apparently this drift in the AU constant started to matter in some calculations, and perhaps threatened interpretation of historical references and calculations.
The difference of using 150 gigameters is OVER one light-second (402129 km), so there would have had to be a significant rewriting of historical research and measurements. Not an insurmountable problem, just a messy one.
you'd think they could have rounded up to 150 gigameters.
if politicians can be SD-conservative, why can't astronomers? we all know that significance is precious and rare...
Interesting point.
If you are going to pic arbitrary number, why not pick an easy one?
I suspect there is a desire to keep all past references to AU meaningful within a small margin of error, so as to not have to translate any written works.
The difference between the new arbitrary number and the prior imprecise one is probably infinitesimally small for the scale of reference AUs are use for.
Rounding it up almost half a million kilometers (quarter million miles) maybe not so much.
I suspect that since it was imprecise in the first place, and used for almost nothing except astronomical reference, preserving existing references in the literature was more important than the ease of writing it down.
New law takes precedence.
However, any case law or ruling by any two bit judge in any podunk jurisdiction trumps the legislature every time.
Just because a job is important doesn't mean that those who do it aren't allowed to enjoy themselves.
On the other hand, the pursuit of justice is supposedly the whole purpose, is it not?
A lawyer that persists in a matter in spite of knowing there is a specific statute or case law that unhinges his case is as guilty of obstruction of justice as someone lying to the police.
Pfffft, what am I saying. Pursuit of justice!! What a joke.
THIS
Even if a judge knows a better argument a lawyer could be making he cannot step in and help. It's up to the lawyers to present their case as best they can.
Well not exactly.
The higher courts often reach to statutes and case law that was never mentioned by either side during their arguments.
I suspect that nearly everyone except the lawyers and leadership wish we could get along.
Actually I suspect Woz gets a big bitchslap by the legal staff tomorrow morning.
I further bet he tells them to go to hell. He owns his stock and there is nothing they can do about it.
Exactly.
Why would anyone install this software, all it does is limit the installer, not anyone else.
So everyone who gets saddled with this software on their computer, saves the images with an Android phone, or Linux, or Mac computer.
Problem solved. And a hack for removing the watermark ought to be possible about 37 minutes after the images find their way onto the net.
I can see why your mom might buy you a computer infected with this technology, but I can't see why any any adult would buy one for themselves.
Personally, I'm glad for this extension. There are still evildoers, particularly Islamic terrorists that are bent on harming America. Just wittness the latest attack in Libya.
Wait, how would warrantless wiretaps have prevented THAT? You planning to tap phones in Libya?
And don't we have warrantless wiretaps today and yet we still have THAT?
And if there is a risk that can be averted with a wiretap, why not get a warrant?
How do we know humans didn't lose their second head when they hitchhiked here from Betelgeuse?
OCCAM!
While this does sound funny at first, I find it intriguing. Who knows?
While we probably can't know for certain, we can look around and notice no planet nearby that could have supported life that complex with the possible exception of mars.
Then we can look at the fact that only 68% survived a mere 10 days after being specially treated to do so.
Then we can speculate about the amount of time it might take for a blasted out chunk of mars to find its way to earth. Hundreds of years is my guess. Millions if it came from further.
We can further speculate what percentage would survive the journey and then survive a fiery entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Then we can set aside ALL of that speculation until there is ANY evidence of life on Mars more advanced than an accidental amino acid.
The inescapable preponderance of evidence is that it originated here. And simply because it can survive an odd experiment is no reason to speculate extraterrestrial origin.
Occam, guys, Occam.
Apple doesn't make hardware either.
Regardless of the merits of this case (or any of the other cases) one can only hope that these lawsuits call attention to the huge flaws in our patent system and how they stifle innovation. Of course realistic me knows that lobbyists will prevent any real reform from happening but anything that slows the tide of stupid patents being issued would be a good thing.
Actually there are really only three big problems with patents that need immediate fixing, the rest could wait:
1) In spite of them being ruled illegal three times, the patent office insists on issuing software patents.
2) Patents are overly broad for trivial things.
3) Patent trolling is allowed.
If I had to pick ONE thing to get solved first it would be Trolling.
By trolling I mean:
Patent trolls can be individuals or companies, and they have no intention to manufacture or sell whatever the patent describes. In fact, their entire business model relies on buying patents, and finding companies to threaten (with the goal of settlement) and sue.
The simplest change would be a "Use it or Lose it" restriction on any patent.
You must License it or Manufacture it within 2 to 4 years or you lose the patent all together, and it becomes public domain (yet remains in effect to prevent someone else patenting the same thing).
After all, the idea of patents was to serve society, not one person's bank account. We allow the inventor to make money, as long as society gets the patent. But if only half the bargain is enforced its hardly fair.
Forced licensing at fair rates is long overdue. There also needs to be some attention to what is "fair" in licensing terms so that entire products don't bet banned or made uneconomic because of a simple tiny patent that the troll wants an arm and a leg for.
When Apple wants to ban something as complex as a cell phone simply because it has rounded corners that is simply obscene.
now that Steve Jobs is dead, there is no reason to continue his personal thermonuclear war. Tim Cook should get together with Samsung, Google, HTC et al and sign the equivalent of ABM treaty and cross-license all patents like all normal industries.
Tim Cook needs to get his product blocked and his patents invalidated before he will see the light. The Samsung verdict is 90% sure to be overturned on appeal if for no other reason than Jury Misconduct, and the patents Apple relied on were trivial UI features (software patents).
But as long as Cook's lawyers keep dragging in billion dollar judgements for million dollar expenditures Cook will not stop.
Maybe if Cook spent the Lawyer money improving the iPhone's user interface the man who's campaign chest he is filling could actually figure out how to use it.