Yeah, but if you do that, you will have to answer on my Canadian patent on 'Building constructed out of carefully selected blocks of frozen material'
1) The sovereign nation-state-icecube of Antarctica does not recognize your silly Canadia-based patents!
2) Your patent is useless anyway as I will use haphazardly selected blocks of frozen material, ice is ice is ice and down here we got lots of it bub!
3) Robo-ninjas!
4) ???
5) Profit!!
Sure, I may get an extra five hours of my iPod, but if I have to go though the trouble of refilling the damn thing instead of just plugging it in, then I don't see the point.
Ok, here's how you get the point. Both of us go camping in Maine with our iPods. We each rock out to our very hip playlists for a day or two until the batteries die. I will reach into my backpack and take out a 2 oz bottle of methanol that will last me for a week, while you attempt to plug your iPod into a tree.
It may seem like outlets are ubiquitous, but they're not. The idea is that you can take a number of "recharges" with you and it takes up minimal space. Refilling the cell is also not going to be like pouring oil in your car with a funnel, it's more like refilling a butane lighter by pressing the spout of the fuel can up to the fuel port for a few seconds.
OTOH though, I work with Methanol at my job, and it is some nasty shit. I'm not so sure how consumer friendly this particular fuel cell will be, in general it's a bad idea to be carrying around any amount of methanol. I'll wait for the cells that run off plain old alcohol so my iPod can booze up with me at the bar.
"Bartender! Another round for me, and one for my little friend here!"
If as I said above, you are testing screening, you will want to use data where at least some of the targets being screened for are known.
Perhaps I missed your original grandparent post, but the one I replied to mentioned nothing about using data with known targets for screening. Which, btw, I'm fine with, I think we should go back and review that data to find the indicators. AFAIK the data in question here had nothing to do with the attacks directly though, it was random day to day data from months after. If I'm wrong about that then ignore that point; it still doesn't invalidate the fact that if the passenger data were from September it would be justifiably used in an investigation, but this was not an investigation, this was software QA.
[...] This is how we test software, first we give it known good dummy data, then we give it known bad dummy data, then we test it with sample real world data.
I'm not posting on slashdot because I'm a moron, I do write software for a living, I understand how to test it. No one is concerned with the testing measures, and yes, at some point you have to use a real data set, trust me I know the headaches associated with real datasets. But the way in which the real data was acquired - by being transferred secretly and without permission, and then later the transfer of that data was falsely denied - was immoral, illegal, and unacceptable. Why? because we have privacy laws in place, and because there were other ways of legally obtaining that data, like asking for permission. Increased cost and timeliness are not an excuse for illegal activity, otherwise we might as well just go back to dumping all our industrial waste into the nearest body of water.
> Loy's sworn written response was, "No. TSA has not used any (passenger) data to test any of the functions of CAPPS II."
Forgive my ignorance, but who was this sworn statement given to? Obviously it was written and sworn (what a funny word) for a reason, implying that if it turned out to be false (tada!) then there would be some sort of consequence. Is he in contempt of court? Will there be an investigation or fines?
I just can't believe someone could lie in a "sworn statement" and face zero reprecussions.
but I truly believe most people that want to keep everything out of government hands is because they have something to hide. Perhaps I am wrong in calling them the majority, but I don't understand when someone is worried about your government knowing where you are or how to find you.
Wow. So do you also believe that all people who choose vanilla icecream over strawberry do so because they are allergic to strawberries? I'm not exactly a card carrying member of the tinfoil hat club, but I do value my privacy and actively work to ensure it stays private as much as possible. And not because I'm involved in illegal or illicit activities.
At some point you need to stop asking "Why do I care if the government has all my information?" and start asking "Why does the government care if it has all my information?"
This falls under the slippery slope scenario (yay alliteration!), the first steps seem harmless: provide your ID when you enter, then it's provide a fingerprint, then it's fill out this form for our records, then it's "no thanks, we don't need to see your ID, I know everything about you thanks to your fingerprint tied to this database." and then it's "Johnson, get me the precise location of the man with this fingerprint by tracing the RFID tags in all the clothes he's wearing and see where he was last scanned."
Maybe you don't have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean spit when you're arrested and thrown in jail because your government profile - for whatever reason, mistaken or otherwise - flags you as being dangerous. Sure, eventually the mistake might be found, or your innocence proven, but in the meantime you're still spending some special time in lockdown with Bubba and his chums.
The point here is that at some point the government knows enough to do it's job, and really doesn't need to know when was the last time you bought milk and who you were with. The more information there is the greater the potential for abuse. It is abuse of the system that we are trying to prevent, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of flesh in my book.
I understand the worry and concern about mis-use of this data, BUT as I recall, and you might also, in the short months directly following the 4 attempted attacks using airliners the airlines and associates were running scared and were providing the FBI and later HSA any and all information they had, requested or not
I can understand and forgive providing this type of information in a heightened alert situation, such as what you mentioned above, however the information that was handed over to the TSA in this case was not for immediate security purposes. The data was provided to help develop and test new security screening systems. This means that:
A) dummy data could have been created and used in it's place
B) there was adequate time to request permission or inform those whose data was to be used, since there was no crisis in progress
C) None of the data provided added any measure of security to those flights, i.e. there was no immediate security benefit that would have helped predict or prevent another hijacking attempt. It merely helped the TSA evaluate and debug its new system.
I'm not against this type of screening per se. However I am a little wary about how much information is needed to provide results that are not simply another form of profiling, or if in fact that's all we'll be getting from this system - a bunch of red flags on anyone with low income and of middle eastern descent.
What I, and I think many others, take offense to here is that the data they shared was in violation of the Privacy Act, was more than what they needed (credit card numbers should never have been given), and was done completely under the radar for no legitimate reason beyond avoiding complications and cost of actually getting people's permission.
And frankly, how hard would it have been? When you get your ticket they ask you if you've had your bags the whole time etc, couldn't they have also asked "As part of our increased security screening we are developing a system to evaluate passenger data to find terrorists, would you like to allow our airline to use your passenger data to help develop the system? This will not affect your flight or your business with us in any way." Then they check the yes or the no box on the computer and off you go.
They will not throw out an entire patent based on a claim -- but AFAIK the claims do still need to be unique (as they relate to their "comprised of" statements). Is this incorrect?
No, claims themselves do not need to be unique, the overall patented item must be unique.
If I invent a new kind of lawnmower, one of my claims might be "1) A device for cutting grass using rotating blades."
This is not unique, and may even be the identical wording of a claim from a previously patented lawnmower design. So prior art exists for this claim, but perhaps my next claim is "2) A device capable of autonomous navigation which can sense and react to changes in the environment."
Claim (2) may also be identical to a claim for a previously patented device, however, now with (1) and (2) together I have a unique item, even though the claims which comprise the patent are not unique. (We're assuming I'm the first person to patent an autonomous lawnmower.) Every claim in your patent could be found in prior art, but claims are not voided, it is only the sum of the claims that can be voided. So assuming you're the first one to put all those previously thought-of ideas together into one device, you can still patent it. Aha, I thought of a great example - the swiss army knife. Every damn thing on it is old hat, but cram it all into a folding knife and it's a new and unique thing.
This is not to say that just adding "Claim N+1: and a pony!" to any patent makes your new item patentable, it must be sufficiently demonstrated that your additional claim(s) create a unique or significant improvement over the previous patent. In the case of this M$ patent, because their claims specifically cite prior art, you can bet your last dollar that they did their homework to make sure that all their new claims go above and beyond what was already patented.
My gut says that many of MS's claims are voided by prior art
Individual claims on a patent merely comprise the patent, it is the entire patent which is voided (or not) by prior art. In fact, in many patents some of the claims directly cite prior art, hence the ability to patent an improvement to an existing device or method.
Exempla Gratis:
#1 - Patent for The Thingmeister
Claim A - it has feet
Claim B - it can talk
Claim C - it hates your cat
#2 - Patent for The Rotoscoping Thingmeister
Claim A - it has feet
Claim B - it can talk
Claim C - it hates your cat
Claim D - it hates your dog
Claim E - it has a rotoscope!
#2 must still meet the requirements of being nonobvious and unique, but it can include the identical claims of #1 provided that it elaborates upon the previous thing in such a way as to be considered new and different.
When any of your portable devices detect that the DRM has been violated for their IP, they would like the wearer of the device to recieve a powerful electric shock, capable of causing paralysis.
Senator Orrin Hatch has also requested that if your body devices detect DRM violations, the next time you touch your computer your body bus tazers it so it explodes.
ctrl-alt-delete this!
Current parallel - M$ is doing this now
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Let's see, a conglomerate unleashing an engineered virus into the wild, then offering licensed technology for a fee to counteract or fix the problem?
Why does this immediately remind me of a new brand of antivirus software that would appear to take advantage of (read as: extort) the same type of situation?
maybe the gambit they're making is that they can come out with something which is the cheapest, most beautiful, and easiest to develop for, and that more games will be ported to it if it's that accessible.
Whoa, when did Apple get involved in this?
Hehe. I do agree that if the price is right then this system could rock the proverbial house, but I just don't think it's gonna work like that.
1) this is M$ we're talking about here, there's a $$ in the slashdot abbreviation for a reason.
2) Even when the XBox was new and cost $250 they were taking a hit on hardware costs to subsidize it, lord knows they are now with an MSRP of $150.
3) the $500 figure i made up included two new games at $50+ each, plus a new $50 controller (non compatible controllers too) just so you can play your with your friend. So there's $150 out of the gate just to get some games and a human opponent in the mix.
You also have to figure the starting price will be on par with the current gen of consoles when they first came out. So right away the console alone will likely be $200 to $250. I can't imagine cutting the PC components out is going to bring their costs down much lower than this, so the only way it will be cheaper is if M$ once again subsidizes hardware costs.
So maybe in the end it's not $500, but merely $315 (1 extra $50 game + 1 extra $50 controller + $200 console + 5% tax). Normally I could help balance this cost by selling my old system, but there are still games worth playing on the xbox, and now you have to keep it around if you ever want to play them again. Some people will go whole hog and sell their current system to get the new one, but I just don't think the numbers M$ wants are going to be there, certainly not as many as there would be if you could sell your old xbox and keep the same games to play on the new one.
I wrote a rant about this the last time the whole XBox2 (hereafter: X2) backwards compatability subject came up, and my thoughts still haven't changed.
If the X2 is not backwards compatable then M$ needs to demonstrate to gamers, even in their current user base, that there is some huge compelling reason to buy an X2 at all.
With PS1/PS2 the prior games base was a big soft cushion that gauranteed that if all else failed you already liked this system, but on top of that there was a serious upgrade to graphics and sound that came with it. For non-backwards-compatible consoles such as NES to SNES to N64 there were literally exponential increases in processing power which made up for a lack of compatability.
At this point in the console world we are hitting diminishing returns. The current generation is already extremely powerful, and one is left to wonder what the next gen has left to offer us. Short of Full Motion Video quality graphics, I'd argue there's not a whole hell of a lot. We're probably not going to see some incredibly innovative and widely-enjoyed new form of control, or gameplay, or even game genre. Let's face it, you're gonna be playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Next Week Sometime, Halo 3, and Other Popular Game Part 2+ on your new X2, and even then w/o backwards compatability the game base will be tiny compared to what's already available for the Xbox.
First adopters can't be stopped, hell I'd think at this point they're a standard in the equation used to predict new console sales. Geeks will be geeks, a certain set of people will buy it cuz it's new. But after that people with an XBox/GC/PS2 are gonna be looking at $500+ to get the new system and 2 games, or they could spend half that and get 8 new titles for their still-damn-fine-quality systems.
For people that have no system at all - parents with kids just now old enough to want a gaming system, ppl with new spare income, whatever - the price difference between a new X2 system with no used games market, and an XBox at the new MSRP of $99 with 100 used titles available in the bin next to it, it's no question - the cheaper system still kicks more than enough ass to be worthwhile. (we're not counting spoiled kids who neeeeeeeed the newest toys, they all should be shot anyway if they only reason they need thing A over thing B is because Bobby next door has thing A)
The other point, made by many a poster already, is that of space. I friggin love Halo, I will worship Halo 2, and I will want to play both for a long time to come. But now you tell me I need to keep 2 cubic feet of space free in addition to the spot for the X2, oh and different controllers too you say? Even as a devoted XBox fan, I can't agree with this line of thinking at all. At every marketable point, in every way, an X2 that is not backwards compatible cannot possible shake up the console market and win this for M$.
So tell me, please, Microsoft; why the hell do I want your new machine?
apparently one of the small minority of people that believed the XBox controller to be clunky and uncomfortable (in fact caused serious cramping after short use)
Are you talking about the original controller? If so then I think it's safe to say the majority of gamers (read as: humans with human-sized hands) agree it was a POS, but the scaled down s-controller is perfectly comfortable.
In my experience, having lived with 5 roomates with varying console preferences and having both a PS2 and an Xbox on the same communal tv, the PS2 users cause their hands to cramp up using the xbox because they insist on keeping their fingers in the L1L2 R1R2 positions when those buttons don't exist on the xbox controller. If you relax your hands and approach it as a different controller - not as a poorly designed PS2 contoller - then there shouldn't be any trouble at all.
Here here! I agree 100%, much of our bad legislation is a direct result of congress members who are hardly more than corporate shills simply doing their masters' bidding. Time and again technology and IP legislation is passed that has no basis in reality (addresses no concerns of the public) and puts power and money in the hands of corporations at the expense of the taxpayers - the expense of both money and freedoms. Most of the time we're not even talking about constitutional rights and freedoms, but more common sense everyday things like timeshifting as fair use. There seem to be a lot of laws being put in place that restrict the entire public but the situations they purport to prevent only occur in the minority of cases, leaving those who were previously engaged in defacto legitimate activity suddenly on the wrong side of the legal fence.
And why? because the corporations - who can afford to pay someone full time to whisper in the ear of this or that legislator - want to integrate every nuance of their product curve and make sure John Q. Public pays for their product at every step of the way.
Lobbying as a profession needs to be stopped. There are ways to limit the amount of influence a person or group or company has over a legislator w/o limiting free speech. Democracy (and even democratic republics) work on the one voice one vote principle, out-moded political processes like lobbying take advantage of the bottleneck in the system to forward the agendas of those who can afford it, while drowning out the suggestions and needs of all others, even when those others are the majority of Americans.
Bravo, although I do appreciate - and certainly take advantage of - the "armchair-expert" style of debate that Slashdot affords us, it's extremely refreshing to get the viewpoint of someone who is actually deeply involved in a field relevant to a posting. Hopefully we will be hearing more of your insight into the legal side of patents in future article discussions.
Most experts recommand that you have three to six months worth of funds saved up
So what do these "experts" recommend you spend during those 3 to 6 months?
Honestly, if everyone had the ability to just save up 6 months worth of funds then no one would be bouncing checks or investing in short term disability insurance. I had bills before I had a job, no one gave me a grace period to get together some emergency savings.
I save a pretty good amount, 20% of each check goes straight to savings, but it'll still take me most of a year to get 3 months of backup funds. Someone living on a more hand-to-mouth salary may never get that much saved.
If you need any proof that we fix things more then we break them, you need only look at the average human life expectancy has changed over time.
Humans master fire: + life expectancy goes up. - Number of people being killed (broken) by fire increases dramatically
- Number of forests destroyed(broken) by fire goes up
Humans master agriculture:
+ life expectancy goes up. - millions of acres of forest are clearcut(broken) for farming land and buildings for farming villages
- genetic diversity of agricultural plants stagnates(broken) as farmers regrow seed year to year
Humans master building materials:
+ life expectancy goes up.
- millions of acres of land turned into cities(broken) and towns
- More land clearcut(broken) to make room for enlerging populations
- thousands of species go extinct(broken) as their environments are developed and polluted
Etc Etc Etc
The point here is that we've broken way the hell more than we've fixed just to increase our life expectancy such as we have. Entropy is the nature of the universe. It is very nearly impossible to create without destroying, and humans have proven to be very sloppy up to this point.
Off the bat I'll admit that I didn't RTFA this one time, but it doesn't seem possible that 95% of patent apps are accepted. I clearly remember reading a number of posts in numerous Slashdot patent discussions that state that patent examiners are rated on how many patents they reject. And in fact have something akin to a rejection quota. Don't take me literally on this one, I'm just paraphrasing what I've read, but I've seen it a few different times now.
I just don't see how only 5% of patents are rejected if the emphasis at the patent examination level is to reject, reject, reject.
Your entire post assumes that the universe has an "edge" or a "rim". It doesn't.
Wow, that was useful. Simply stating that the universe has no rim A) does not negate the quandry I proposed and B) does not answer it, whether I assume that fact or not.
It has not been proven (or disproven) that the universe wraps around onto itself, but if we assume that it does not, then there is some point - no matter if it cannot be reached - that is in fact its "edge".
Having done some more reading and given it more thought, the answer to my original question more or less boils down to relativity. Let us assume "edge" in this case means an artificial horizon we have created to measure against. Although the size of the universe can only increase at the speed of light, because it is increasing at some rate at all points then the edge would appear to recede from us faster than the speed of light, but relative to a point immediately adjacent to the edge, it is still only traveling at the speed of light.
I think the original article did a poor job of explaining this but it makes sense. Still, one has to wonder where all this extra space-time between all points is coming from (as in what force), and of course, if the universe is increasing in size, what is it expanding out into?
My advice is don't say things that are totally wrong, even if the excuse is a lack of humor.
I hate responding to ACs, but once again I must point out how moronic they are. My advice now is don't "correct" someone thinking that you're being very snide and clever when in fact all you did was quote a sentence fragment out of context.
I did not say "not everybody dies" - that was a piece of a sentence illustrating that the annual death rate being 100% does not imply everyone dies eventually, it in fact implies everyone dies every year, which is not true either.
Bender: "Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two."
Fry [comforting]: "It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as two."
If you pay close attention to all the 1s and 0s popping up in his nightmare, just before he wakes up they actually do throw a 2 in there. Brilliant.
Slashdot Mirror
1) The sovereign nation-state-icecube of Antarctica does not recognize your silly Canadia-based patents!
2) Your patent is useless anyway as I will use haphazardly selected blocks of frozen material, ice is ice is ice and down here we got lots of it bub!
3) Robo-ninjas!
4) ???
5) Profit!!
Ok, here's how you get the point. Both of us go camping in Maine with our iPods. We each rock out to our very hip playlists for a day or two until the batteries die. I will reach into my backpack and take out a 2 oz bottle of methanol that will last me for a week, while you attempt to plug your iPod into a tree.
It may seem like outlets are ubiquitous, but they're not. The idea is that you can take a number of "recharges" with you and it takes up minimal space. Refilling the cell is also not going to be like pouring oil in your car with a funnel, it's more like refilling a butane lighter by pressing the spout of the fuel can up to the fuel port for a few seconds.
OTOH though, I work with Methanol at my job, and it is some nasty shit. I'm not so sure how consumer friendly this particular fuel cell will be, in general it's a bad idea to be carrying around any amount of methanol. I'll wait for the cells that run off plain old alcohol so my iPod can booze up with me at the bar.
"Bartender! Another round for me, and one for my little friend here!"
I totally I agree, I prefer my pacing to be gratuitous and my nudity nice and slow. ;)
Aha, that must be why I have failed to appreciate it every time I've heard it.
Perhaps I missed your original grandparent post, but the one I replied to mentioned nothing about using data with known targets for screening. Which, btw, I'm fine with, I think we should go back and review that data to find the indicators. AFAIK the data in question here had nothing to do with the attacks directly though, it was random day to day data from months after. If I'm wrong about that then ignore that point; it still doesn't invalidate the fact that if the passenger data were from September it would be justifiably used in an investigation, but this was not an investigation, this was software QA.
[...] This is how we test software, first we give it known good dummy data, then we give it known bad dummy data, then we test it with sample real world data.
I'm not posting on slashdot because I'm a moron, I do write software for a living, I understand how to test it. No one is concerned with the testing measures, and yes, at some point you have to use a real data set, trust me I know the headaches associated with real datasets. But the way in which the real data was acquired - by being transferred secretly and without permission, and then later the transfer of that data was falsely denied - was immoral, illegal, and unacceptable. Why? because we have privacy laws in place, and because there were other ways of legally obtaining that data, like asking for permission. Increased cost and timeliness are not an excuse for illegal activity, otherwise we might as well just go back to dumping all our industrial waste into the nearest body of water.
Forgive my ignorance, but who was this sworn statement given to? Obviously it was written and sworn (what a funny word) for a reason, implying that if it turned out to be false (tada!) then there would be some sort of consequence. Is he in contempt of court? Will there be an investigation or fines?
I just can't believe someone could lie in a "sworn statement" and face zero reprecussions.
Well, ok, anyone who's not a Kennedy.
Wow. So do you also believe that all people who choose vanilla icecream over strawberry do so because they are allergic to strawberries? I'm not exactly a card carrying member of the tinfoil hat club, but I do value my privacy and actively work to ensure it stays private as much as possible. And not because I'm involved in illegal or illicit activities.
At some point you need to stop asking "Why do I care if the government has all my information?" and start asking "Why does the government care if it has all my information?"
This falls under the slippery slope scenario (yay alliteration!), the first steps seem harmless: provide your ID when you enter, then it's provide a fingerprint, then it's fill out this form for our records, then it's "no thanks, we don't need to see your ID, I know everything about you thanks to your fingerprint tied to this database." and then it's "Johnson, get me the precise location of the man with this fingerprint by tracing the RFID tags in all the clothes he's wearing and see where he was last scanned."
Maybe you don't have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean spit when you're arrested and thrown in jail because your government profile - for whatever reason, mistaken or otherwise - flags you as being dangerous. Sure, eventually the mistake might be found, or your innocence proven, but in the meantime you're still spending some special time in lockdown with Bubba and his chums.
The point here is that at some point the government knows enough to do it's job, and really doesn't need to know when was the last time you bought milk and who you were with. The more information there is the greater the potential for abuse. It is abuse of the system that we are trying to prevent, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of flesh in my book.
I can understand and forgive providing this type of information in a heightened alert situation, such as what you mentioned above, however the information that was handed over to the TSA in this case was not for immediate security purposes. The data was provided to help develop and test new security screening systems. This means that:
A) dummy data could have been created and used in it's place
B) there was adequate time to request permission or inform those whose data was to be used, since there was no crisis in progress
C) None of the data provided added any measure of security to those flights, i.e. there was no immediate security benefit that would have helped predict or prevent another hijacking attempt. It merely helped the TSA evaluate and debug its new system.
I'm not against this type of screening per se. However I am a little wary about how much information is needed to provide results that are not simply another form of profiling, or if in fact that's all we'll be getting from this system - a bunch of red flags on anyone with low income and of middle eastern descent.
What I, and I think many others, take offense to here is that the data they shared was in violation of the Privacy Act, was more than what they needed (credit card numbers should never have been given), and was done completely under the radar for no legitimate reason beyond avoiding complications and cost of actually getting people's permission.
And frankly, how hard would it have been? When you get your ticket they ask you if you've had your bags the whole time etc, couldn't they have also asked "As part of our increased security screening we are developing a system to evaluate passenger data to find terrorists, would you like to allow our airline to use your passenger data to help develop the system? This will not affect your flight or your business with us in any way." Then they check the yes or the no box on the computer and off you go.
No, claims themselves do not need to be unique, the overall patented item must be unique.
If I invent a new kind of lawnmower, one of my claims might be "1) A device for cutting grass using rotating blades."
This is not unique, and may even be the identical wording of a claim from a previously patented lawnmower design. So prior art exists for this claim, but perhaps my next claim is "2) A device capable of autonomous navigation which can sense and react to changes in the environment."
Claim (2) may also be identical to a claim for a previously patented device, however, now with (1) and (2) together I have a unique item, even though the claims which comprise the patent are not unique. (We're assuming I'm the first person to patent an autonomous lawnmower.) Every claim in your patent could be found in prior art, but claims are not voided, it is only the sum of the claims that can be voided. So assuming you're the first one to put all those previously thought-of ideas together into one device, you can still patent it. Aha, I thought of a great example - the swiss army knife. Every damn thing on it is old hat, but cram it all into a folding knife and it's a new and unique thing.
This is not to say that just adding "Claim N+1: and a pony!" to any patent makes your new item patentable, it must be sufficiently demonstrated that your additional claim(s) create a unique or significant improvement over the previous patent. In the case of this M$ patent, because their claims specifically cite prior art, you can bet your last dollar that they did their homework to make sure that all their new claims go above and beyond what was already patented.
Individual claims on a patent merely comprise the patent, it is the entire patent which is voided (or not) by prior art. In fact, in many patents some of the claims directly cite prior art, hence the ability to patent an improvement to an existing device or method.
Exempla Gratis:
#1 - Patent for The Thingmeister
Claim A - it has feet
Claim B - it can talk
Claim C - it hates your cat
#2 - Patent for The Rotoscoping Thingmeister
Claim A - it has feet
Claim B - it can talk
Claim C - it hates your cat
Claim D - it hates your dog
Claim E - it has a rotoscope!
#2 must still meet the requirements of being nonobvious and unique, but it can include the identical claims of #1 provided that it elaborates upon the previous thing in such a way as to be considered new and different.
Senator Orrin Hatch has also requested that if your body devices detect DRM violations, the next time you touch your computer your body bus tazers it so it explodes.
ctrl-alt-delete this!
Why does this immediately remind me of a new brand of antivirus software that would appear to take advantage of (read as: extort) the same type of situation?
Whoa, when did Apple get involved in this?
Hehe. I do agree that if the price is right then this system could rock the proverbial house, but I just don't think it's gonna work like that.
1) this is M$ we're talking about here, there's a $$ in the slashdot abbreviation for a reason. 2) Even when the XBox was new and cost $250 they were taking a hit on hardware costs to subsidize it, lord knows they are now with an MSRP of $150. 3) the $500 figure i made up included two new games at $50+ each, plus a new $50 controller (non compatible controllers too) just so you can play your with your friend. So there's $150 out of the gate just to get some games and a human opponent in the mix.
You also have to figure the starting price will be on par with the current gen of consoles when they first came out. So right away the console alone will likely be $200 to $250. I can't imagine cutting the PC components out is going to bring their costs down much lower than this, so the only way it will be cheaper is if M$ once again subsidizes hardware costs.
So maybe in the end it's not $500, but merely $315 (1 extra $50 game + 1 extra $50 controller + $200 console + 5% tax). Normally I could help balance this cost by selling my old system, but there are still games worth playing on the xbox, and now you have to keep it around if you ever want to play them again. Some people will go whole hog and sell their current system to get the new one, but I just don't think the numbers M$ wants are going to be there, certainly not as many as there would be if you could sell your old xbox and keep the same games to play on the new one.
If the X2 is not backwards compatable then M$ needs to demonstrate to gamers, even in their current user base, that there is some huge compelling reason to buy an X2 at all.
With PS1/PS2 the prior games base was a big soft cushion that gauranteed that if all else failed you already liked this system, but on top of that there was a serious upgrade to graphics and sound that came with it. For non-backwards-compatible consoles such as NES to SNES to N64 there were literally exponential increases in processing power which made up for a lack of compatability.
At this point in the console world we are hitting diminishing returns. The current generation is already extremely powerful, and one is left to wonder what the next gen has left to offer us. Short of Full Motion Video quality graphics, I'd argue there's not a whole hell of a lot.
We're probably not going to see some incredibly innovative and widely-enjoyed new form of control, or gameplay, or even game genre. Let's face it, you're gonna be playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Next Week Sometime, Halo 3, and Other Popular Game Part 2+ on your new X2, and even then w/o backwards compatability the game base will be tiny compared to what's already available for the Xbox.
First adopters can't be stopped, hell I'd think at this point they're a standard in the equation used to predict new console sales. Geeks will be geeks, a certain set of people will buy it cuz it's new. But after that people with an XBox/GC/PS2 are gonna be looking at $500+ to get the new system and 2 games, or they could spend half that and get 8 new titles for their still-damn-fine-quality systems.
For people that have no system at all - parents with kids just now old enough to want a gaming system, ppl with new spare income, whatever - the price difference between a new X2 system with no used games market, and an XBox at the new MSRP of $99 with 100 used titles available in the bin next to it, it's no question - the cheaper system still kicks more than enough ass to be worthwhile. (we're not counting spoiled kids who neeeeeeeed the newest toys, they all should be shot anyway if they only reason they need thing A over thing B is because Bobby next door has thing A)
The other point, made by many a poster already, is that of space. I friggin love Halo, I will worship Halo 2, and I will want to play both for a long time to come. But now you tell me I need to keep 2 cubic feet of space free in addition to the spot for the X2, oh and different controllers too you say? Even as a devoted XBox fan, I can't agree with this line of thinking at all. At every marketable point, in every way, an X2 that is not backwards compatible cannot possible shake up the console market and win this for M$.
So tell me, please, Microsoft; why the hell do I want your new machine?
Are you talking about the original controller? If so then I think it's safe to say the majority of gamers (read as: humans with human-sized hands) agree it was a POS, but the scaled down s-controller is perfectly comfortable.
In my experience, having lived with 5 roomates with varying console preferences and having both a PS2 and an Xbox on the same communal tv, the PS2 users cause their hands to cramp up using the xbox because they insist on keeping their fingers in the L1L2 R1R2 positions when those buttons don't exist on the xbox controller. If you relax your hands and approach it as a different controller - not as a poorly designed PS2 contoller - then there shouldn't be any trouble at all.
And why? because the corporations - who can afford to pay someone full time to whisper in the ear of this or that legislator - want to integrate every nuance of their product curve and make sure John Q. Public pays for their product at every step of the way.
Lobbying as a profession needs to be stopped. There are ways to limit the amount of influence a person or group or company has over a legislator w/o limiting free speech. Democracy (and even democratic republics) work on the one voice one vote principle, out-moded political processes like lobbying take advantage of the bottleneck in the system to forward the agendas of those who can afford it, while drowning out the suggestions and needs of all others, even when those others are the majority of Americans.
That's odd, toothless legislative spam fixes never got vetoed in the past just because they'd do nothing to stop the problem - or make it worse. Wonder what makes this one so special?
Bravo, although I do appreciate - and certainly take advantage of - the "armchair-expert" style of debate that Slashdot affords us, it's extremely refreshing to get the viewpoint of someone who is actually deeply involved in a field relevant to a posting. Hopefully we will be hearing more of your insight into the legal side of patents in future article discussions.
So what do these "experts" recommend you spend during those 3 to 6 months?
Honestly, if everyone had the ability to just save up 6 months worth of funds then no one would be bouncing checks or investing in short term disability insurance. I had bills before I had a job, no one gave me a grace period to get together some emergency savings.
I save a pretty good amount, 20% of each check goes straight to savings, but it'll still take me most of a year to get 3 months of backup funds. Someone living on a more hand-to-mouth salary may never get that much saved.
Humans master fire:
+ life expectancy goes up.
- Number of people being killed (broken) by fire increases dramatically
- Number of forests destroyed(broken) by fire goes up
Humans master agriculture:
+ life expectancy goes up.
- millions of acres of forest are clearcut(broken) for farming land and buildings for farming villages
- genetic diversity of agricultural plants stagnates(broken) as farmers regrow seed year to year
Humans master building materials:
+ life expectancy goes up.
- millions of acres of land turned into cities(broken) and towns
- More land clearcut(broken) to make room for enlerging populations
- thousands of species go extinct(broken) as their environments are developed and polluted
Etc Etc Etc
The point here is that we've broken way the hell more than we've fixed just to increase our life expectancy such as we have. Entropy is the nature of the universe. It is very nearly impossible to create without destroying, and humans have proven to be very sloppy up to this point.
I just don't see how only 5% of patents are rejected if the emphasis at the patent examination level is to reject, reject, reject.
Wow, that was useful. Simply stating that the universe has no rim A) does not negate the quandry I proposed and B) does not answer it, whether I assume that fact or not.
It has not been proven (or disproven) that the universe wraps around onto itself, but if we assume that it does not, then there is some point - no matter if it cannot be reached - that is in fact its "edge".
Having done some more reading and given it more thought, the answer to my original question more or less boils down to relativity. Let us assume "edge" in this case means an artificial horizon we have created to measure against. Although the size of the universe can only increase at the speed of light, because it is increasing at some rate at all points then the edge would appear to recede from us faster than the speed of light, but relative to a point immediately adjacent to the edge, it is still only traveling at the speed of light.
I think the original article did a poor job of explaining this but it makes sense. Still, one has to wonder where all this extra space-time between all points is coming from (as in what force), and of course, if the universe is increasing in size, what is it expanding out into?
They do actually.
My advice is don't say things that are totally wrong, even if the excuse is a lack of humor.
I hate responding to ACs, but once again I must point out how moronic they are. My advice now is don't "correct" someone thinking that you're being very snide and clever when in fact all you did was quote a sentence fragment out of context.
I did not say "not everybody dies" - that was a piece of a sentence illustrating that the annual death rate being 100% does not imply everyone dies eventually, it in fact implies everyone dies every year, which is not true either.
Bender: "Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two."
Fry [comforting]: "It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as two."
If you pay close attention to all the 1s and 0s popping up in his nightmare, just before he wakes up they actually do throw a 2 in there. Brilliant.
My advice is don't quote things that are totally wrong, even if the intent is humor.
In other words: the world death rate isn't 100%, that would mean everybody died, not everybody dies.