Too bad. I think RIM has a case given that their servers are ex-USA. Of course, the USA too often thinks it owns the whole world when it comes to patent and copyright enforcement -- and I'm a USA citizen saying this.
I think the argument for this is that RIM is providing a product/service inside the USA and as such, the portion in the USA is subject to USA Patents. Likewise, I would expect someone trying to sell a product/service in Canada, even if it is based or created in the USA, to be subject to Canadian patent laws. Or, would prefer that someone can evade any and all patent laws inside a country by moving to another one with little or no patent laws at all?
Patents are easy to get. It seems that what I'd call "obvious" and what the USPTO and the courts are calling "obvious" are very different. Perhaps that's because I'm a mathematician but I'm not so sure. If your creative genius was to combine already-existing devices A and B together the way there were designed (many examples of this in the car industry), then you aren't creative enough to get monopoly on this. If your grand idea is to have a computer do what a person did before (think most e-commerce patents), then the patent office should say "duh" and send you home. Also, extending patent protection to things like "business methods" is getting silly. If you can make good money off it directly (think most "business methods"), you don't need patent protection to develop it! And we have yet to reach software patents.
I've heard that the main problem with the patent system granting "obvious" patents is that companies have sued, and won, when the patent office denied a patent. Thus, we have various courts essentially legislating what "obvious" is. From this, we have reached a point where it is impossible if not illegal (in this case refering to the courts imposing what obvious is) to deny a patent in almost all cases.
One thing more about what you say when someone combines two previously existing items and patents the result. If I take A and B and combine them, and they are performing the exact same roles as before, but the result is something no one ever thought of before, a patent should be granted. A new form of electric motor would be one historical example. Several processes for creating better silicon chips are another (where the process for creating the silicon chips is patentable, not the patenting of silicon chips in general). Although, the photolithography technique was probably patented and is a good example of taking existing things and puting them together.
So, what if I develope something or work it out. However, I can't mass produce it myself. So I goto a company to try to license my idea. They refuse, but start to manufacture it on their own. If I try to sue them, they can point to the court that I am not making anything with it and get the patent invalidated. Thus, while I came up with something, I still lose out on it.
Here's an example that this would fall under, the Hoola Hoop or the Skate Board.
you need protection from backhoe fade, you have to do the interagency engineering for separate feeds on separate systems from separate directions. will at least triple your cost to bring it up.
I believe it is called a Sonnet Net. Two completely independant paths that are at no time closer than 25 feet from each other, including the locations where they exit the building. Various telcos offer this.
Same with power transmission lines. There's nothing stopping them from using Aluminum if copper becomes too expensive.
Actually, I get the feeling that copper will stay in transmission lines, over aluminum. CAT5 will probably loose copper first. Aluminum isn't anywhere near as efficient at transmitting electricity as copper is. The difference is at least 20%, probably more. Although I think they would love to put in superconductors if they become cheap enough.
As to your main point, yeah, we need space mining at some point.
No no no, you miss my point. If you have something that is mission critical, why use either GPS or Galileo since they can fail or be jammed. I guess you're looking at it from the EUs point of view. I'm thinking about it from the companies/individuals that are supposed to be using this. If you have something that mission critical, why use something like this at all? Why not use something that can't be jammed or that you build yourself?
I completely agree with this from a military point of view, that the EU should have their own system. However, I'm wondering why companies would use such a thing (Galileo or GPS).
I would think the reason is completely obvious: It's a really bad idea to have your critical infrastructure depend on something external you can't control.
In that case, why would you be suing GPS or GALILEO at all? Both can be jamed by anyone with basic electronics knowledge, so why would one bother using it at all? Even the US military doesn't use GPS as it's end all navigation system, they have multiple backups.
From what the article presents, it would seem that they're just throwing out knee-jerk responses to a development they do not have the background to sufficiently understand.
Or maybe they don't want them because the find wind mills ugle and/or believe they will lower the property value. That has nothing to do with ecological or health issues and, for the first part at least, is purely a matter of opinion.
if the guy holding the patent even lets the automakers use his "patented" technology.
Given that he owns a company and sells a product covered under the patent, he will (very probably) license it. I'm going to guess something like $5 to $50 per car. Given the number of hybrid cars sold in the US, that will come to million.
"While the ITC can not assess damages against an infringer, it can issue an exclusion order prohibiting the importation of infringing technology. We will continue our effort to protect our intellectual property to the fullest extent possible."
So the goal is to prevent this technology from being available to people??? What a selfish prick.
He never said he wanted to prevent access to the technology. Also, as has been noted elsewhere, they are already making and selling a product using this specific technology. What he wants is for Toyota to stop infringing his patent. Three ways to do this, 1) stop selling the Prius in the US, 2) Change the technology used, 3) LICENSE THE PATENT.
I think he would rather have Toyota do #3 than either of the others.
Although, the length of utility and plant patent protection
(patent term) was previously seventeen years from the date of
patent grant, utility and plant patents filed after June 8, 1995
now have a patent term of up to twenty years from the date of
filing of the earliest related patent application. Utility and
plant patents which were applied for prior to June 8, 1995, and
which were or will be in force after June 8, 1995, now have a
patent term of seventeen years from the date of patent grant or
twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related
patent application, whichever is longer. Utility patents are
subject to the payment of periodic maintenance fees to keep the
patent in force. Patent terms can be extended under some specific
circumstances. See the U.S. Code Title 35 - Patents for a full
description of patent laws.
Why bother reposting? Just put a small frame on the main page, so that whenever someone visits slashdot.org they visit GP2X's website simultaniously? That should be a pretty effective DDoS right there? Hmmm.... Now if you excuse me, I'm off to hack the/. main page to add a frame that points at microsoft.
learly they won't be able to run the "reactor" at super high temperatures, since it depends on the liquid phase of the water to work. So how will they extract enough electricity out of a relatively small temperature gradient to make the whole thing worthwhile?
They can run it similar to how they do now. Have two sets of water. One inner loop highly presurized (remember, the higher the pressure, the higher the boiling point) and one inner loop at a lower presure (perhaps normal pressure, 1 atmoshpere?). Run the two through a heat exchanger so that you get steam from the lower pressure outerloop and you can still keep the inner core as a liquid. Run the steam through a turbine and you are all set.
How much are you willing to pay for that hydrogen? 'Cause producing it, compressing it, storing it, transporting it, then pumping it into your car (where it will again need to be compressed) is wasteful and expensive. Hydrogen is not a viable solution IMO.
How much are people willing to pay for Gas? 'Cause finding it, drilling it, pumping it, transporting it, refining it, transporting it again, then pumping it into your car is expensive too. I'm not sure how Hydrogen would be much more wasteful than Gasoline. As for the compression required, that all depends on the setup. Assuming we can measure the gas acurately enough, just having a highly compressed source in the gas station tanks, and a gas tank with little compression, should supply a large ammount of compressed hydrogen for a full tank. Put a valve in the car or gas station pump that keeps the car tank pressure from getting too high and you can have the gas station tank compressed at a much higher pressure than the car gas tank.
The only issue here is how much it will cost. Given that Hydrogen vehicles don't have to be piston based and could be turbine based, they can be more efficient (reducing effective cost). Couple this with electric vehicles as a generator (in addition to a battery) and you have a possible replacement for petrol engines.
"The money is going to provide them with things they need to fix the bugs, which is bug reports. That is a lot better than they have now, which is nothing,"
While a agree with Engler's comment here, I also have to wonder, without proper funding to fix these bugs, what good will it do? And if a list of bugs and exploits comes out on well used Open Source Software, without the means to fix them, and these lists are leaked, it could create havoc.
I'd just like to rephrase one thing you ask a little:
without proper funding to write these programs, what good will it do? A list of requirements and demand comes out on well used Open Source Software without the means to write them, and no one will program them.
If the people that are writing these programs can do so on current funding, which in many cases is zero, why wouldn't they fix bugs in the program with current funding?
Sure drives fail but you won't be spinning them that often. I'm begining to think it may be worth it for the long term. Then use the USB drive or SATA as needed and if need be burn a disk.
RAID. "Cheap" USB RAID boxes can be bought today and the computer doesn't even need new drivers.
Anybody else think that the only reason the government still denies the existance of area 51 is to keep people looking at it? Makes you wonder why, doesn't it?/conspiracy theory
They also argue that when the government fails to confirm the obvious, it both undermines governmental authority and legitimacy, and contributes to wild speculation, such as aliens and soundstages in underground hangars at Area 51.
Part of inteligence is counter inteligence. If you make enough "noise", the truth will be hidden amongst so much wild speculation no one will be able to figure out what actually goes on there. It probably also serves as a nice decoy for other facilities.
2. Waste storage. Where do we put the waste products after burning it?
As I understand it, the junk left over after reprocessing nuclear fuel is about as radioactive as radioactive ore and has a much shorter half-life. So the solution is to reprocess in breeder reactors and to store the spent fuel in the same mines we took the uranium ore out of in the first place.
Or you could just use the electricity as electricity, maybe?
Electricity->Hydrogen would most likely be used as a substitute for petrol in cars. Currently, batteries would take several hours to take a full charge, where I could just use hydrogen and have a full tank in under 10 minutes. Electricity->Hydrogen is going to be the fuel for the forseable future.
Cool as beans, but still won't save dear old Hubble, will it? The one thing Hubble can't find, no matter how much straining of limits is the willingness of NASA to save the faithful servant. With recent budget cuts for Katrina and the on-going war, don't hold your breath for a reprieve.
Or, better yet, we could scrap hubble and use the money we saved to build a telescope twice as powerful for half as much, including giving it a properly ground mirror this time.
I'd like to add one more thing to help debunk this guy.
The Internet and the Web would be fabulous Antigoras if they were privately owned.
Here he proves he knows nothing about the internet, or at least the internet in the US. The net is almost completely (if not completely) privately owned in the US.
#1 is perfectly true, though. If it can be bootlegged, it will. Still, in that case the store makes money off of the rental, right?
Gah, I missed the part about renting the game. But yeah, rent with the option to buy would be one buisness plan. Only problem with that I can see is with those of us that don't want to buy a previously "used" game (think scratched disks). But then again, they're more likely to buy the game outright anyway without trying it out first. The copying is still the main issue, though. It would have to be solved before most places would try this out.
Furthermore, #2 on that list nobody's fault but the game industry. I can sit in Barnes and Noble and read an entire book theoretically, but in practice there is usually too much content to "use" it all in one short time period.
Tetris, PacMan, Pong, Bubble Bobble, SuDoKu, all the repetitive games that only have slight variations in each level. However, I do see your point.
Now my reply is as confusing as the article, sheesh.
Let me try to deconfuse your theory.
1) We don't know what will hapen with the internet.
2) Pointing to what happened with other older technologies does not always apply to newer technologies.
3) We don't have new ideas yet to revolutionize the world or we would have tried them already.
4) We're still learning what we can do with this thing, partly we're seeing what we can do online that we can already do offline, partly we're trying to see what we can do that no one has ever done before.
Slashdot Mirror
Too bad. I think RIM has a case given that their servers are ex-USA. Of course, the USA too often thinks it owns the whole world when it comes to patent and copyright enforcement -- and I'm a USA citizen saying this.
I think the argument for this is that RIM is providing a product/service inside the USA and as such, the portion in the USA is subject to USA Patents. Likewise, I would expect someone trying to sell a product/service in Canada, even if it is based or created in the USA, to be subject to Canadian patent laws. Or, would prefer that someone can evade any and all patent laws inside a country by moving to another one with little or no patent laws at all?
Patents are easy to get. It seems that what I'd call "obvious" and what the USPTO and the courts are calling "obvious" are very different. Perhaps that's because I'm a mathematician but I'm not so sure. If your creative genius was to combine already-existing devices A and B together the way there were designed (many examples of this in the car industry), then you aren't creative enough to get monopoly on this. If your grand idea is to have a computer do what a person did before (think most e-commerce patents), then the patent office should say "duh" and send you home. Also, extending patent protection to things like "business methods" is getting silly. If you can make good money off it directly (think most "business methods"), you don't need patent protection to develop it! And we have yet to reach software patents.
I've heard that the main problem with the patent system granting "obvious" patents is that companies have sued, and won, when the patent office denied a patent. Thus, we have various courts essentially legislating what "obvious" is. From this, we have reached a point where it is impossible if not illegal (in this case refering to the courts imposing what obvious is) to deny a patent in almost all cases.
One thing more about what you say when someone combines two previously existing items and patents the result. If I take A and B and combine them, and they are performing the exact same roles as before, but the result is something no one ever thought of before, a patent should be granted. A new form of electric motor would be one historical example. Several processes for creating better silicon chips are another (where the process for creating the silicon chips is patentable, not the patenting of silicon chips in general). Although, the photolithography technique was probably patented and is a good example of taking existing things and puting them together.
So, what if I develope something or work it out. However, I can't mass produce it myself. So I goto a company to try to license my idea. They refuse, but start to manufacture it on their own. If I try to sue them, they can point to the court that I am not making anything with it and get the patent invalidated. Thus, while I came up with something, I still lose out on it.
Here's an example that this would fall under, the Hoola Hoop or the Skate Board.
you need protection from backhoe fade, you have to do the interagency engineering for separate feeds on separate systems from separate directions. will at least triple your cost to bring it up.
I believe it is called a Sonnet Net. Two completely independant paths that are at no time closer than 25 feet from each other, including the locations where they exit the building. Various telcos offer this.
Same with power transmission lines. There's nothing stopping them from using Aluminum if copper becomes too expensive.
Actually, I get the feeling that copper will stay in transmission lines, over aluminum. CAT5 will probably loose copper first. Aluminum isn't anywhere near as efficient at transmitting electricity as copper is. The difference is at least 20%, probably more. Although I think they would love to put in superconductors if they become cheap enough.
As to your main point, yeah, we need space mining at some point.
No no no, you miss my point. If you have something that is mission critical, why use either GPS or Galileo since they can fail or be jammed. I guess you're looking at it from the EUs point of view. I'm thinking about it from the companies/individuals that are supposed to be using this. If you have something that mission critical, why use something like this at all? Why not use something that can't be jammed or that you build yourself? I completely agree with this from a military point of view, that the EU should have their own system. However, I'm wondering why companies would use such a thing (Galileo or GPS).
I would think the reason is completely obvious: It's a really bad idea to have your critical infrastructure depend on something external you can't control.
In that case, why would you be suing GPS or GALILEO at all? Both can be jamed by anyone with basic electronics knowledge, so why would one bother using it at all? Even the US military doesn't use GPS as it's end all navigation system, they have multiple backups.
From what the article presents, it would seem that they're just throwing out knee-jerk responses to a development they do not have the background to sufficiently understand.
Or maybe they don't want them because the find wind mills ugle and/or believe they will lower the property value. That has nothing to do with ecological or health issues and, for the first part at least, is purely a matter of opinion.
if the guy holding the patent even lets the automakers use his "patented" technology.
Given that he owns a company and sells a product covered under the patent, he will (very probably) license it. I'm going to guess something like $5 to $50 per car. Given the number of hybrid cars sold in the US, that will come to million.
"While the ITC can not assess damages against an infringer, it can issue an exclusion order prohibiting the importation of infringing technology. We will continue our effort to protect our intellectual property to the fullest extent possible."
So the goal is to prevent this technology from being available to people??? What a selfish prick.
He never said he wanted to prevent access to the technology. Also, as has been noted elsewhere, they are already making and selling a product using this specific technology. What he wants is for Toyota to stop infringing his patent. Three ways to do this, 1) stop selling the Prius in the US, 2) Change the technology used, 3) LICENSE THE PATENT.
I think he would rather have Toyota do #3 than either of the others.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/p atdesc.htm
Although, the length of utility and plant patent protection (patent term) was previously seventeen years from the date of patent grant, utility and plant patents filed after June 8, 1995 now have a patent term of up to twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related patent application. Utility and plant patents which were applied for prior to June 8, 1995, and which were or will be in force after June 8, 1995, now have a patent term of seventeen years from the date of patent grant or twenty years from the date of filing of the earliest related patent application, whichever is longer. Utility patents are subject to the payment of periodic maintenance fees to keep the patent in force. Patent terms can be extended under some specific circumstances. See the U.S. Code Title 35 - Patents for a full description of patent laws.
Why bother reposting? Just put a small frame on the main page, so that whenever someone visits slashdot.org they visit GP2X's website simultaniously? That should be a pretty effective DDoS right there? Hmmm.... Now if you excuse me, I'm off to hack the /. main page to add a frame that points at microsoft.
learly they won't be able to run the "reactor" at super high temperatures, since it depends on the liquid phase of the water to work. So how will they extract enough electricity out of a relatively small temperature gradient to make the whole thing worthwhile?
They can run it similar to how they do now. Have two sets of water. One inner loop highly presurized (remember, the higher the pressure, the higher the boiling point) and one inner loop at a lower presure (perhaps normal pressure, 1 atmoshpere?). Run the two through a heat exchanger so that you get steam from the lower pressure outerloop and you can still keep the inner core as a liquid. Run the steam through a turbine and you are all set.
How much are you willing to pay for that hydrogen? 'Cause producing it, compressing it, storing it, transporting it, then pumping it into your car (where it will again need to be compressed) is wasteful and expensive. Hydrogen is not a viable solution IMO.
How much are people willing to pay for Gas? 'Cause finding it, drilling it, pumping it, transporting it, refining it, transporting it again, then pumping it into your car is expensive too. I'm not sure how Hydrogen would be much more wasteful than Gasoline. As for the compression required, that all depends on the setup. Assuming we can measure the gas acurately enough, just having a highly compressed source in the gas station tanks, and a gas tank with little compression, should supply a large ammount of compressed hydrogen for a full tank. Put a valve in the car or gas station pump that keeps the car tank pressure from getting too high and you can have the gas station tank compressed at a much higher pressure than the car gas tank.
The only issue here is how much it will cost. Given that Hydrogen vehicles don't have to be piston based and could be turbine based, they can be more efficient (reducing effective cost). Couple this with electric vehicles as a generator (in addition to a battery) and you have a possible replacement for petrol engines.
"The money is going to provide them with things they need to fix the bugs, which is bug reports. That is a lot better than they have now, which is nothing,"
While a agree with Engler's comment here, I also have to wonder, without proper funding to fix these bugs, what good will it do? And if a list of bugs and exploits comes out on well used Open Source Software, without the means to fix them, and these lists are leaked, it could create havoc.
I'd just like to rephrase one thing you ask a little:
without proper funding to write these programs, what good will it do? A list of requirements and demand comes out on well used Open Source Software without the means to write them, and no one will program them.
If the people that are writing these programs can do so on current funding, which in many cases is zero, why wouldn't they fix bugs in the program with current funding?
Sure drives fail but you won't be spinning them that often. I'm begining to think it may be worth it for the long term. Then use the USB drive or SATA as needed and if need be burn a disk.
RAID. "Cheap" USB RAID boxes can be bought today and the computer doesn't even need new drivers.
Anybody else think that the only reason the government still denies the existance of area 51 is to keep people looking at it? Makes you wonder why, doesn't it? /conspiracy theory
They also argue that when the government fails to confirm the obvious, it both undermines governmental authority and legitimacy, and contributes to wild speculation, such as aliens and soundstages in underground hangars at Area 51.
Part of inteligence is counter inteligence. If you make enough "noise", the truth will be hidden amongst so much wild speculation no one will be able to figure out what actually goes on there. It probably also serves as a nice decoy for other facilities.
2. Waste storage. Where do we put the waste products after burning it?
As I understand it, the junk left over after reprocessing nuclear fuel is about as radioactive as radioactive ore and has a much shorter half-life. So the solution is to reprocess in breeder reactors and to store the spent fuel in the same mines we took the uranium ore out of in the first place.
The US government has been against breeder reactors because they can be used to generate munitions-grade plutonium
A single execuitive order by Jimmy Carter does not translate to an opinion of anyone else that is or has ever been in power.
Or you could just use the electricity as electricity, maybe?
Electricity->Hydrogen would most likely be used as a substitute for petrol in cars. Currently, batteries would take several hours to take a full charge, where I could just use hydrogen and have a full tank in under 10 minutes. Electricity->Hydrogen is going to be the fuel for the forseable future.
Cool as beans, but still won't save dear old Hubble, will it? The one thing Hubble can't find, no matter how much straining of limits is the willingness of NASA to save the faithful servant. With recent budget cuts for Katrina and the on-going war, don't hold your breath for a reprieve.
Or, better yet, we could scrap hubble and use the money we saved to build a telescope twice as powerful for half as much, including giving it a properly ground mirror this time.
Namco, Pacman, Raves + Speed/Pills.
I'd like to add one more thing to help debunk this guy.
The Internet and the Web would be fabulous Antigoras if they were privately owned.
Here he proves he knows nothing about the internet, or at least the internet in the US. The net is almost completely (if not completely) privately owned in the US.
#1 is perfectly true, though. If it can be bootlegged, it will. Still, in that case the store makes money off of the rental, right?
Gah, I missed the part about renting the game. But yeah, rent with the option to buy would be one buisness plan. Only problem with that I can see is with those of us that don't want to buy a previously "used" game (think scratched disks). But then again, they're more likely to buy the game outright anyway without trying it out first. The copying is still the main issue, though. It would have to be solved before most places would try this out.
Furthermore, #2 on that list nobody's fault but the game industry. I can sit in Barnes and Noble and read an entire book theoretically, but in practice there is usually too much content to "use" it all in one short time period.
Tetris, PacMan, Pong, Bubble Bobble, SuDoKu, all the repetitive games that only have slight variations in each level. However, I do see your point.
Now my reply is as confusing as the article, sheesh.
Let me try to deconfuse your theory.
1) We don't know what will hapen with the internet.
2) Pointing to what happened with other older technologies does not always apply to newer technologies.
3) We don't have new ideas yet to revolutionize the world or we would have tried them already.
4) We're still learning what we can do with this thing, partly we're seeing what we can do online that we can already do offline, partly we're trying to see what we can do that no one has ever done before.