I know, right? I mean, if the primary audience of/. readers were residents of coastal Japan who were considering iPhone purchases but who wouldn't switch until this feature was available, this would be HUGE. But while it's a cool feature, its appeal is to a fairly limited demographic, and since it's not a major new innovation, it's really just a bullet point in a sales sheet as far as mobile phones in Japan go.
I do. I spent many happy hours on a small network of Apollo workstations back in my university days. Of course, that was in the early days of the web, when it was easier to find what you wanted on Usenet than via any HTTP browser.
The minted bitcoins may be "legal" in the context of the bitcoin community, but I think what the GP poster is getting at here is that the fact that illicit means are being pursued to generate these bitcoins may indeed be causing the bitcoin community to be considered as being less-than-trustworthy.
The whole idea behind bitcoin was, IIUC, that it could exist in a fully unregulated environment, and that it was effectively as safe (and as dangerous, i.e. possible to lose) as cash. If the mainstream public perceives it as something that is used by drug dealers and people willing to break into massive numbers of computers, then it may never achieve widespread use.
Personally, I think it's an interesting idea, but at this point, this currency has no more value to me than in-game currencies like in Eve Online or Everquest. Specifically: none. It's a game I choose not to play, and these sorts of stories don't encourage me to change my mind.
Whoosh? I know I didn't quote perfectly, but that was a pretty clear reference to Jules' (the Samuel L. Jackson character) line just a few minutes before he killed three people.
Forget about the US Navy; if these folks are so rich it's worthwhile to establish a new country to avoid taxes, then I have a feeling that a navy if privateers, er pirates, would be more than happy to extract their own pound of flesh.
Is there really a place called the Big Kahuna Burger? You know, the Hawaiian burger joint? I've never tried them because my wife is a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian...
Have you ever worked for an organization larger than 1000 employees? Larger than 10,000? I don't know how many people are employed by the federal government, but it's a lot. And there are a lot of programs that have interwoven dependencies. Whether you think that the government should be smaller or not, whether you think that all the programs are worthwhile or not, big decisions have big implications, and it's not usual for large organizations to take several years to make a decision and even longer to implement them.
To that end, it's entirely possible that these datacenters were planned during the Bush years based on policy decisions made in the Clinton era, which were in turn affected by the Reagan/Bush1 years. Wings of a butterfly and all.
The point of the GP was not, as far as I can tell, "BUSH BAD OBAMA GOOD!", but rather, "This is not an example of a bad decision made in haste and reversed in haste."
No, actually, my point is key. An invention isn't just an amorphous concept like "grid of icons". It goes to the implementation of the thing. You can have one grid of icons UI that is basically unusable, and another which looks the same at first glance, but is incredibly useful. It is the details of the implementation that hold the innovation. To say that Apple didn't invent anything because all their UI is is a grid of icons is to ignore the essence of innovation.
Put simply, if they hadn't added their own elements to the equation--by innovating--the iPhone experience would be no different from the BB Pearl experience. You're right that it doesn't matter which is better; they could have invented something that was far worse. But it'd still be an invention.
IANAL, but my wife is, and based on what I've learned from her, I can guarantee you that if indeed the reason for the patent enforcement is a trade agreement or treaty, that the locals have some means of addressing inadequacies that they find in anything that they are expected to enforce. Most Aussies I know don't take no shit from nobody. Most lawyers I know don't take no shit from nobody. I'm sure that Aussie lawyers are not a group to be messed with.
Haven't you seen that YouTube video, "Aussie Lawyer don't give a shit"?
Seriously, the volume of venom and vitriol whenever Apple does ANYTHING is ridiculous.
Agreed. You Apple fanbois should really take a chill pill.
I see what you did there. There are definitely annoying fanbois out there, as there are fandroids.
There are a dozen handset and tablet makers whom Apple is not suing for anything
Really? Are you not aware of the Apple, Microsoft, Oracle alliance that purchased the Nortel patents with the intent of using them against Google? How about Apple and Microsoft's suit against Motorola?
Intent? Don't give me intent. That's silly. If they open up a dozen new lawsuits against all the top Android manufacturers, I'll change my tune and agree with you on this point.
But don't forget, Apple did buy these patents in alliance with two other major companies, both of which could be major competitors in the handset/tablet market. WP7 and Java are real platforms, just as Android is. WP7 is pretty innovative. And pretty cool, actually; I'd consider it for a future phone. Why do you think that it is that Apple is not going after Microsoft at all on that one? Maybe because it's a radically different interface design, built from the ground up to occupy the same space without just copying the most popular platform.
I had a BlackBerry Pearl for years before I got an iPhone. It had a grid of icons that you accessed using a little track ball.
That phone was a steaming pile of shit from the moment I pulled it out of the box. It was OK as a phone, but the beauty of the BlackBerry design was that it was so annoying to use, you would never, ever, ever want to actually fire up any other application. The music player SUCKED. The browser SUCKED. The Outlook client SUCKED. Even simple things like notifications SUCKED. There was no way to turn off the vibrator; I get 200 emails a day, and that thing was going off constantly. I had to turn it off in order to get work done, them my boss would freak out because he couldn't reach me by phone.
Just having a grid of icons doesn't cut it. I didn't come to the iPhone until #4, but the user experience is so incredibly different that it's like they were invented in different centuries.
Straw man argument. Apple never said that they innovated more than anyone else, nor that they owned the right to all touch-screen phones. But nobody--silly article title aside--would confuse the LG and the iPhone. And even that F700 is strikingly different in many of its design features.
We can certainly argue the merits of the different types of laws (patents &c) that cover this sort of thing, but are you really (a) saying that you think that the LG/F700 share as much with an iPhone as the more recent Samsung products, and (b) that given those laws, there is absolutely no problem that Apple solved in a way that was unique and non-obvious enough at the time of their solution that they have a right to protect it?
Apple is going after Samsung for some very specific things. It's not that they're making a tablet or a touch-screen phone, but rather that they are using specific design elements which Apple feels were unique at the time of creation, and which Apple feels are signature items.
The question is, should knock-offs like you see in the China market be legal? How far should it be allowed to go? Similar look and feel? Similar branding? What if Samsung actually changed their logo to an apple with the bite going the other way, and called it an !Phone or better yet, a Phone or jPhone? Once a product is popular, should it be open season, and should its makers take the imitation as flattery?
The other day, I wanted to buy Tiny Wings, a game for iOS (and maybe Android, I don't know), and I had forgotten the name. I searched for Little Wings. Similar names, graphics similar enough to what I had recalled from the screen shot I'd seen, and 99c. Woo hoo! I bought it! Worst game in the world. Clearly--CLEARLY--capitalizing on the success of Tiny Wings. They've probably made hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars making a crappy mock up of a great game. And they probably get to keep that money because the 30 minutes it'd take me to try to return it, contest the charge, etc, costs more than the dollar I spent.
Is that the same thing as what's happening between Apple and Samsung? I don't know. Apple certainly thinks so. They may be wrong, but they have the right to throw down the gauntlet, and Samsung are big boys and girls. They can defend themselves.
Anyway, what I don't understand are two things: the level of vitriol, and the insane double-speak from the anti-Apple crowd. The same person will decry Apple as stifling innovation while also trumpeting the "fact" that Android is "winning". If Android is winning, then go ahead, let Apple fight a few battles to protect their IP. Regardless of the outcome, Samsung will do fine, as will HTC, as will Google. And maybe Apple will, too.
Samsung didn't copy Apple any more than Apple copied a whole bunch of previous products. Samsung has definitely improved on what Apple has done and that is why Apple is feeling threatened.
I'm not sure I agree.
I love it how ACs come in here and try to re-write history.
Seriously, the volume of venom and vitriol whenever Apple does ANYTHING is ridiculous. There are a dozen handset and tablet makers whom Apple is not suing for anything, and their actions haven't stopped a bazillion Android activations per day. They're clearly not stifling competition.
This business seems like dancing in a mosh pit, and Apple's right in the middle. There's a lot of incidental contact, and Apple's not doing anything because they don't have any basis, and they're bumping some other guys pretty good themselves. But if you've ever been in a mosh pit and seen that one asshole who keeps throwing an elbow whenever you go by him... that's what Apple thinks of Samsung. Of course they're going to try to jump them in the parking lot.
I'm sure Apple and Samsung and all those folks are trying to file patents wherever their products are likely to show up. I'm sure that, if a judge approved the injunction, it's not just based on a US-granted patent; it'd have to be either a local patent, or a non-local patent in combination with some treaty which made it reasonable for the judge to bring down the gavel.
I presume that this is more rhetorical curiosity than real curiosity, but I'll go ahead and answer question #2 as well: they are pursuing it in the US as well. There simply hasn't been an injunction to my knowledge. Why? Well, if only PJ would follow this stuff, we'd actually understand it instead of throwing out the first emotional response that comes to mind.
Joking aside, I've got a kid, and while I don't let him watch too much TV, when we're on a long drive or some such, having access to the whole DVD collection is key to keeping things sane. Plus it allows me to put the collection away (not just the kid's stuff, but the rest of the collection, too) but still have access to it disc free via my AppleTV. At today's drive costs, I'd say I use about $35 worth of disk space for this purpose. I don't have a TB drive yet, but I did just move up from a 500MB to a 750MB in my laptop.
I've seen Ice Age, and a sequel, I think, but when I first read "Dice Age", if it hadn't been in the context about a movie studio claiming to own the name of an epoch, I would not have confused the two in any way. And watching the video on Kickstarter, it's even less confusing.
Should no one be able to create anything with remotely similar names without expecting this to happen? What about "rice age", "nice age", "spice age"? Or a little further out? "Rice rage"? "Mice Mage"? "Price Gauge"? When do you feel that it ceases to be "obvious that this would happen"?
Now, if it were a game based on similar characters, or even a the geological epoch with a similar mission theme, I'd say your statement might have some merit. Might. But as it stands, it's ridiculous.
I was once served with a C&D regarding a trademark I was supposedly infringing on. With the first notice, I explained why there was no TM conflict and provided some documentation regarding the merits of their requests. With the second notice, I re-sent my first response and offered some options of remediations, including offering to sell them the domain in question for what it would cost me to re-brand it and re-establish my new brand. Again, the only response I got was another C&D, and at that point I told them to fuck off or I'd sue them for harassment.
Amazingly enough, they stopped. A lot of this sort of activity is similar to that of bighorn sheep butting heads in the wild. Show of force, lots of bluster. If it's handled right nobody really gets hurt.
And Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland... Socialism has, unfortunately, become a bad word, but European democratic socialism has been working very well for a fair number of first-world countries. Yes, the challenges are different, but as is implicit in your post, if the millionaires and billionaires are willing to pony up just a bit more, we can continue providing all sorts of reasonable services instead of reverting to the old west.
Slashdot Mirror
I know, right? I mean, if the primary audience of /. readers were residents of coastal Japan who were considering iPhone purchases but who wouldn't switch until this feature was available, this would be HUGE. But while it's a cool feature, its appeal is to a fairly limited demographic, and since it's not a major new innovation, it's really just a bullet point in a sales sheet as far as mobile phones in Japan go.
I do. I spent many happy hours on a small network of Apollo workstations back in my university days. Of course, that was in the early days of the web, when it was easier to find what you wanted on Usenet than via any HTTP browser.
The minted bitcoins may be "legal" in the context of the bitcoin community, but I think what the GP poster is getting at here is that the fact that illicit means are being pursued to generate these bitcoins may indeed be causing the bitcoin community to be considered as being less-than-trustworthy.
The whole idea behind bitcoin was, IIUC, that it could exist in a fully unregulated environment, and that it was effectively as safe (and as dangerous, i.e. possible to lose) as cash. If the mainstream public perceives it as something that is used by drug dealers and people willing to break into massive numbers of computers, then it may never achieve widespread use.
Personally, I think it's an interesting idea, but at this point, this currency has no more value to me than in-game currencies like in Eve Online or Everquest. Specifically: none. It's a game I choose not to play, and these sorts of stories don't encourage me to change my mind.
Thank you, thank you; I'll be here all week!
Whoosh? I know I didn't quote perfectly, but that was a pretty clear reference to Jules' (the Samuel L. Jackson character) line just a few minutes before he killed three people.
Man up indeed.
Forget about the US Navy; if these folks are so rich it's worthwhile to establish a new country to avoid taxes, then I have a feeling that a navy if privateers, er pirates, would be more than happy to extract their own pound of flesh.
Is there really a place called the Big Kahuna Burger? You know, the Hawaiian burger joint? I've never tried them because my wife is a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian...
Finally, Alex Cox will be able to put some brand name products into Repo Man!
Double-plus good!
Have you ever worked for an organization larger than 1000 employees? Larger than 10,000? I don't know how many people are employed by the federal government, but it's a lot. And there are a lot of programs that have interwoven dependencies. Whether you think that the government should be smaller or not, whether you think that all the programs are worthwhile or not, big decisions have big implications, and it's not usual for large organizations to take several years to make a decision and even longer to implement them.
To that end, it's entirely possible that these datacenters were planned during the Bush years based on policy decisions made in the Clinton era, which were in turn affected by the Reagan/Bush1 years. Wings of a butterfly and all.
The point of the GP was not, as far as I can tell, "BUSH BAD OBAMA GOOD!", but rather, "This is not an example of a bad decision made in haste and reversed in haste."
No, I'm pretty sure the GP poster was suggesting that enemy intelligence forces communicate with bird calls. "Coo coo!"
I'm sure he's responsible for this somehow. Probably because he can't innovate!!
No, actually, my point is key. An invention isn't just an amorphous concept like "grid of icons". It goes to the implementation of the thing. You can have one grid of icons UI that is basically unusable, and another which looks the same at first glance, but is incredibly useful. It is the details of the implementation that hold the innovation. To say that Apple didn't invent anything because all their UI is is a grid of icons is to ignore the essence of innovation.
Put simply, if they hadn't added their own elements to the equation--by innovating--the iPhone experience would be no different from the BB Pearl experience. You're right that it doesn't matter which is better; they could have invented something that was far worse. But it'd still be an invention.
IANAL, but my wife is, and based on what I've learned from her, I can guarantee you that if indeed the reason for the patent enforcement is a trade agreement or treaty, that the locals have some means of addressing inadequacies that they find in anything that they are expected to enforce. Most Aussies I know don't take no shit from nobody. Most lawyers I know don't take no shit from nobody. I'm sure that Aussie lawyers are not a group to be messed with.
Haven't you seen that YouTube video, "Aussie Lawyer don't give a shit"?
Seriously, the volume of venom and vitriol whenever Apple does ANYTHING is ridiculous.
Agreed. You Apple fanbois should really take a chill pill.
I see what you did there. There are definitely annoying fanbois out there, as there are fandroids.
There are a dozen handset and tablet makers whom Apple is not suing for anything
Really? Are you not aware of the Apple, Microsoft, Oracle alliance that purchased the Nortel patents with the intent of using them against Google? How about Apple and Microsoft's suit against Motorola?
Intent? Don't give me intent. That's silly. If they open up a dozen new lawsuits against all the top Android manufacturers, I'll change my tune and agree with you on this point.
But don't forget, Apple did buy these patents in alliance with two other major companies, both of which could be major competitors in the handset/tablet market. WP7 and Java are real platforms, just as Android is. WP7 is pretty innovative. And pretty cool, actually; I'd consider it for a future phone. Why do you think that it is that Apple is not going after Microsoft at all on that one? Maybe because it's a radically different interface design, built from the ground up to occupy the same space without just copying the most popular platform.
I had a BlackBerry Pearl for years before I got an iPhone. It had a grid of icons that you accessed using a little track ball.
That phone was a steaming pile of shit from the moment I pulled it out of the box. It was OK as a phone, but the beauty of the BlackBerry design was that it was so annoying to use, you would never, ever, ever want to actually fire up any other application. The music player SUCKED. The browser SUCKED. The Outlook client SUCKED. Even simple things like notifications SUCKED. There was no way to turn off the vibrator; I get 200 emails a day, and that thing was going off constantly. I had to turn it off in order to get work done, them my boss would freak out because he couldn't reach me by phone.
Just having a grid of icons doesn't cut it. I didn't come to the iPhone until #4, but the user experience is so incredibly different that it's like they were invented in different centuries.
Straw man argument. Apple never said that they innovated more than anyone else, nor that they owned the right to all touch-screen phones. But nobody--silly article title aside--would confuse the LG and the iPhone. And even that F700 is strikingly different in many of its design features.
We can certainly argue the merits of the different types of laws (patents &c) that cover this sort of thing, but are you really (a) saying that you think that the LG/F700 share as much with an iPhone as the more recent Samsung products, and (b) that given those laws, there is absolutely no problem that Apple solved in a way that was unique and non-obvious enough at the time of their solution that they have a right to protect it?
Apple is going after Samsung for some very specific things. It's not that they're making a tablet or a touch-screen phone, but rather that they are using specific design elements which Apple feels were unique at the time of creation, and which Apple feels are signature items.
The question is, should knock-offs like you see in the China market be legal? How far should it be allowed to go? Similar look and feel? Similar branding? What if Samsung actually changed their logo to an apple with the bite going the other way, and called it an !Phone or better yet, a Phone or jPhone? Once a product is popular, should it be open season, and should its makers take the imitation as flattery?
The other day, I wanted to buy Tiny Wings, a game for iOS (and maybe Android, I don't know), and I had forgotten the name. I searched for Little Wings. Similar names, graphics similar enough to what I had recalled from the screen shot I'd seen, and 99c. Woo hoo! I bought it! Worst game in the world. Clearly--CLEARLY--capitalizing on the success of Tiny Wings. They've probably made hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars making a crappy mock up of a great game. And they probably get to keep that money because the 30 minutes it'd take me to try to return it, contest the charge, etc, costs more than the dollar I spent.
Is that the same thing as what's happening between Apple and Samsung? I don't know. Apple certainly thinks so. They may be wrong, but they have the right to throw down the gauntlet, and Samsung are big boys and girls. They can defend themselves.
Anyway, what I don't understand are two things: the level of vitriol, and the insane double-speak from the anti-Apple crowd. The same person will decry Apple as stifling innovation while also trumpeting the "fact" that Android is "winning". If Android is winning, then go ahead, let Apple fight a few battles to protect their IP. Regardless of the outcome, Samsung will do fine, as will HTC, as will Google. And maybe Apple will, too.
Samsung didn't copy Apple any more than Apple copied a whole bunch of previous products. Samsung has definitely improved on what Apple has done and that is why Apple is feeling threatened. I'm not sure I agree.
I love it how ACs come in here and try to re-write history.
Seriously, the volume of venom and vitriol whenever Apple does ANYTHING is ridiculous. There are a dozen handset and tablet makers whom Apple is not suing for anything, and their actions haven't stopped a bazillion Android activations per day. They're clearly not stifling competition.
This business seems like dancing in a mosh pit, and Apple's right in the middle. There's a lot of incidental contact, and Apple's not doing anything because they don't have any basis, and they're bumping some other guys pretty good themselves. But if you've ever been in a mosh pit and seen that one asshole who keeps throwing an elbow whenever you go by him... that's what Apple thinks of Samsung. Of course they're going to try to jump them in the parking lot.
I'm sure Apple and Samsung and all those folks are trying to file patents wherever their products are likely to show up. I'm sure that, if a judge approved the injunction, it's not just based on a US-granted patent; it'd have to be either a local patent, or a non-local patent in combination with some treaty which made it reasonable for the judge to bring down the gavel.
I presume that this is more rhetorical curiosity than real curiosity, but I'll go ahead and answer question #2 as well: they are pursuing it in the US as well. There simply hasn't been an injunction to my knowledge. Why? Well, if only PJ would follow this stuff, we'd actually understand it instead of throwing out the first emotional response that comes to mind.
Hell, you should patent that! It's a great idea. And considering Apple is using "Slide to UNlock", you could probably get away with it.
I always figured 640k would be enough for anyone.
Joking aside, I've got a kid, and while I don't let him watch too much TV, when we're on a long drive or some such, having access to the whole DVD collection is key to keeping things sane. Plus it allows me to put the collection away (not just the kid's stuff, but the rest of the collection, too) but still have access to it disc free via my AppleTV. At today's drive costs, I'd say I use about $35 worth of disk space for this purpose. I don't have a TB drive yet, but I did just move up from a 500MB to a 750MB in my laptop.
In a word: no.
I've seen Ice Age, and a sequel, I think, but when I first read "Dice Age", if it hadn't been in the context about a movie studio claiming to own the name of an epoch, I would not have confused the two in any way. And watching the video on Kickstarter, it's even less confusing.
Should no one be able to create anything with remotely similar names without expecting this to happen? What about "rice age", "nice age", "spice age"? Or a little further out? "Rice rage"? "Mice Mage"? "Price Gauge"? When do you feel that it ceases to be "obvious that this would happen"?
Now, if it were a game based on similar characters, or even a the geological epoch with a similar mission theme, I'd say your statement might have some merit. Might. But as it stands, it's ridiculous.
I was once served with a C&D regarding a trademark I was supposedly infringing on. With the first notice, I explained why there was no TM conflict and provided some documentation regarding the merits of their requests. With the second notice, I re-sent my first response and offered some options of remediations, including offering to sell them the domain in question for what it would cost me to re-brand it and re-establish my new brand. Again, the only response I got was another C&D, and at that point I told them to fuck off or I'd sue them for harassment.
Amazingly enough, they stopped. A lot of this sort of activity is similar to that of bighorn sheep butting heads in the wild. Show of force, lots of bluster. If it's handled right nobody really gets hurt.
My question is, why wasn't she wearing a seatbelt?
Canada, Germany, and the UK
And Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland... Socialism has, unfortunately, become a bad word, but European democratic socialism has been working very well for a fair number of first-world countries. Yes, the challenges are different, but as is implicit in your post, if the millionaires and billionaires are willing to pony up just a bit more, we can continue providing all sorts of reasonable services instead of reverting to the old west.