Surely any country other than the USA, or at least any country not on the american continental shelf, is by definition "un-American".
Oh, and while I've got my pedant's hat on, Communist Russia wasn't a country, it was a federal state, like Texas (or perhaps given its predominance in the Soviet Union, England as a constituent nation of the United Kingdom is a better analogy).
In particular, it fails to mention their efforts to hobble consumer devices, including but not limited to ATRAC and Magic Gate.
RTA:
Some analysts question whether Sony will trip over itself as its content divisions -- which make movies and films -- insist on ways to control or limit technologies that deliver that content to consumers.
the program has to convert songs to Sony's proprietary Atrac3 format, the only file type the portable players will support.
Magicgate is presumably not relevant as these are hard-drive based players rather than ones using Sony's proprietary memory stick cards. When the products actually come to market it will be clear if Magicgate forms part of Sony's strategy for them.
Still, an article on Sony gave you an opportunity to post that quote you've been saving up, didn't it.
The grandparent is joking. It's a reference to War Games, quite a good hacker film about a computer applying its realisation that it is not able to beat itself at tic tac toe to its simulated model of world nuclear conflict. It realises then that "the only way to win is not to play the game".
A computer that could perform abstract comparisons of that type would be a superb form of AI!
it seems to be like Google shouldn't be liable unless this company can prove they used the code knowing it was swiped
Well... They may not be liable to pay damages for their past use of the code, but the article kind of indicates that the infringing code is still in Google's current product. So, if the code was stolen they could get an injunction against google (I think this might be called cease and desist order in the US, but same difference) to force them to stop using it.
When people leave old jobs for new, it can be difficult to divide the ideas developed at one location from those at another, and if Google was acting in good faith, they shouldn't be forced to pay damages at least until they were put on notice of the infringement.
What Google presumably wants, however, is to avoid disruption to its services and reputation, so if there is merit to the accusation, expect some kind of out of court deal that avoids both parties being dragged through the courts.
What can't be settled out of court so easily would be if there is enough evidence against the developer for a criminal case.
Seems to be a very good testing ground for durabl touch screen displays. Sun, sand, water and salt. Gotta be more fun than testing for resistance to these things in a lab.
I'd laugh if it didn't work when they got it out of the water though!
New Scientist refers to their original article of 24 May (print edition only) discussing the same subject. Rheinmetall is a serious player in the defence industry and their product, while still under development, looks like it may work.
For instance, the Plasma Taser (working title) being investigated at Rheinmetall W&M's center of competence for weapons and munitions in Unterlüß is said to immobilize aggressors at a distance of more than ten meters. A 40 mm grenade gun ejects a plasma cloud (e.g. carbon) that conducts pulsed electrical energy to the target - without actually physically harming the targeted person.
The vapourware company was presumably able to get its press release through the editorial board at New Scientist because they already knew that such products were out there, and the reporting is of the "look how soon they are getting it to market" variety.
My 2p's worth: Both proposals seem to have one flaw, at least for military application, for the same reason gas-based weapons have not been popular since the First World War: If the wind changes, the gas can blow back into your own trenches. I guess a quick-minded operator will switch off the current, but it seems risky.
On the show one of the presenters had a German powerplant blast him with a few minutes worth of lightning. It was pretty cool, but I can't find the pictures.
Although the early entries on the wiki approach the site as a forum, this is not its founders' stated intention.
They are asking proficient users of linux distros to sit down with a newbie for a few hours, observe them, and report back to the forum on the problems that newbie has had with operating the distro. The results of these will obviously take a fair bit of time to feed through, so it is not surprising that contributors had not posted their feedback from their experiences yet.
The posts on the wiki explaining, for example, what a BIOS is, would no doubt be useful to some people. Perhaps at some point these will be ported to the forums mentioned by the parent, and the wiki can be turned over to the results of such research.
The grandparent's use of the slippery slope argument is valid.
The British government is debating bringing in biometric ID cards: it seems logical that if RFID technology proves "useful" to the government in identifying cars, they may also include it in this device, if they are making it anyway.
The later example is speculation, but valid: the widespread acceptance of deeper invasions of privacy is likely to cause complacency. Despite the UK being the most watched (via CCTV in public) of the Western democracies, the introduction of more cameras tends to provoke little public response.
Although there are many factors motivating scientists to publish papers, the principle one is that a track record of publication is normally a requirement to get further funding from universities.
Here in the UK, most university funding comes through government and EU research boards. Even in the US, most research universities are heavily dependent on government: whether from direct grants or more indirect routes like tax exemptions for R&D.
And who was it at Apple who thought users couldn't be trusted to hard-eject CDs and floppies?
For a basic level user, there is considerable confusion between ejecting your floppy/CD and ejecting the device (assuming an external drive).
Apple's GUI, even in its OSX form, is generally, I find, easier to use than Windows (a reason I switched for home purposes), but not in this example! In XP you can safely dismount a device simply by right-clicking on its icon in My Computer.
The poster has an iMac. S/he wants to give it away. Why be mean and quibble about OSes? Windows, Mac, Linux, have their different merits in different environments but if it's free (as in beer) then no-one need gripe.
Broadcast rights have been reserved by the record companies since when they well, just made records (of the round black variety).
That said, historically the record companies have as often been complicit in illicit broadcasting as they have been desparate to shut it down; in the UK for instance to get around the quota system for live vs. recorded music, pop records were beamed over from Luxembourg and even 'pirate ships' in the North Sea . More recently, much "urban" music owes its intital sucess to underground radio stations like the now-legal Kiss 100.
Just a shame that Google is one of the few search engines that are any good.
I always use All the Web when looking for any company or organisation I know the name of, but for more general queries I'm looking for a clean, fast, non-buggy alternative to the google giant. Preferably open source.
Remember that MS can afford 100 fines this size without it even affecting their profits.
Surely every fine this size will affect their profits.
They won't be bankrupted, but the bad publicity can only knock sales. If it goes on the public record that Microsoft has used monopolistic tactics it could also make for some very interesting licensing price negotiations between Microsoft and its biggest customers, including governments, industry and universities.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely any country other than the USA, or at least any country not on the american continental shelf, is by definition "un-American".
Oh, and while I've got my pedant's hat on, Communist Russia wasn't a country, it was a federal state, like Texas (or perhaps given its predominance in the Soviet Union, England as a constituent nation of the United Kingdom is a better analogy).
Still, an article on Sony gave you an opportunity to post that quote you've been saving up, didn't it.
"it just works" in iTunes for both Windows and PC."
Hey you're underestimating it - it works on Macintoshes too!
BBC execs' thought processes...
1. Hire Billie Piper
2. ?
3. Hot Grits!
The grandparent is joking. It's a reference to War Games, quite a good hacker film about a computer applying its realisation that it is not able to beat itself at tic tac toe to its simulated model of world nuclear conflict. It realises then that "the only way to win is not to play the game".
A computer that could perform abstract comparisons of that type would be a superb form of AI!
Why doesn't ICANN just take a few months off, stop any new sites coming out while it fixes the old ones.
There seems to be more and more internet every day. At this rate I'll never finish reading it.
Anyway, why would Affinity accept Google's choice of neutral expert?
Well... They may not be liable to pay damages for their past use of the code, but the article kind of indicates that the infringing code is still in Google's current product. So, if the code was stolen they could get an injunction against google (I think this might be called cease and desist order in the US, but same difference) to force them to stop using it.
When people leave old jobs for new, it can be difficult to divide the ideas developed at one location from those at another, and if Google was acting in good faith, they shouldn't be forced to pay damages at least until they were put on notice of the infringement.
What Google presumably wants, however, is to avoid disruption to its services and reputation, so if there is merit to the accusation, expect some kind of out of court deal that avoids both parties being dragged through the courts.
What can't be settled out of court so easily would be if there is enough evidence against the developer for a criminal case.
"Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content"
Really?
Seems to be a very good testing ground for durabl touch screen displays. Sun, sand, water and salt. Gotta be more fun than testing for resistance to these things in a lab.
I'd laugh if it didn't work when they got it out of the water though!
You may be trolling, but some things are too important to be denied unchallenged.
The vapourware company was presumably able to get its press release through the editorial board at New Scientist because they already knew that such products were out there, and the reporting is of the "look how soon they are getting it to market" variety.
My 2p's worth: Both proposals seem to have one flaw, at least for military application, for the same reason gas-based weapons have not been popular since the First World War: If the wind changes, the gas can blow back into your own trenches. I guess a quick-minded operator will switch off the current, but it seems risky.
There's a new merc that's a Faraday Cage, see this review from BBC's Top Gear.
On the show one of the presenters had a German powerplant blast him with a few minutes worth of lightning. It was pretty cool, but I can't find the pictures.
The Great Wall of China did not do its specified task very well.?
You then go on to say that one dynasty survived behind it for nearly 300 years, the next for c.360. Sounds like a pretty good defensive record to me.
Only hope the great firewall falls much quicker. Can you see their suppression of information from space?
Although the early entries on the wiki approach the site as a forum, this is not its founders' stated intention.
They are asking proficient users of linux distros to sit down with a newbie for a few hours, observe them, and report back to the forum on the problems that newbie has had with operating the distro. The results of these will obviously take a fair bit of time to feed through, so it is not surprising that contributors had not posted their feedback from their experiences yet.
The posts on the wiki explaining, for example, what a BIOS is, would no doubt be useful to some people. Perhaps at some point these will be ported to the forums mentioned by the parent, and the wiki can be turned over to the results of such research.
If I could stop all the spam I get...I'd feel like a whole string quartet!
Make no nanobots without the following hardwired instruction set:
(1) A nanobot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
(2) A nanobot must obey the orders given to it by the human beings, except where such orders would conflict with (1); and
(3) A nanobot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with (1) or (2).
The grandparent's use of the slippery slope argument is valid.
The British government is debating bringing in biometric ID cards: it seems logical that if RFID technology proves "useful" to the government in identifying cars, they may also include it in this device, if they are making it anyway.
The later example is speculation, but valid: the widespread acceptance of deeper invasions of privacy is likely to cause complacency. Despite the UK being the most watched (via CCTV in public) of the Western democracies, the introduction of more cameras tends to provoke little public response.
Although there are many factors motivating scientists to publish papers, the principle one is that a track record of publication is normally a requirement to get further funding from universities.
Here in the UK, most university funding comes through government and EU research boards. Even in the US, most research universities are heavily dependent on government: whether from direct grants or more indirect routes like tax exemptions for R&D.
And who was it at Apple who thought users couldn't be trusted to hard-eject CDs and floppies?
For a basic level user, there is considerable confusion between ejecting your floppy/CD and ejecting the device (assuming an external drive).
Apple's GUI, even in its OSX form, is generally, I find, easier to use than Windows (a reason I switched for home purposes), but not in this example! In XP you can safely dismount a device simply by right-clicking on its icon in My Computer.
The poster has an iMac. S/he wants to give it away. Why be mean and quibble about OSes? Windows, Mac, Linux, have their different merits in different environments but if it's free (as in beer) then no-one need gripe.
Broadcast rights have been reserved by the record companies since when they well, just made records (of the round black variety).
That said, historically the record companies have as often been complicit in illicit broadcasting as they have been desparate to shut it down; in the UK for instance to get around the quota system for live vs. recorded music, pop records were beamed over from Luxembourg and even 'pirate ships' in the North Sea . More recently, much "urban" music owes its intital sucess to underground radio stations like the now-legal Kiss 100.
Just a shame that Google is one of the few search engines that are any good.
I always use All the Web when looking for any company or organisation I know the name of, but for more general queries I'm looking for a clean, fast, non-buggy alternative to the google giant. Preferably open source.
Any suggestions?
Remember that MS can afford 100 fines this size without it even affecting their profits.
Surely every fine this size will affect their profits.
They won't be bankrupted, but the bad publicity can only knock sales. If it goes on the public record that Microsoft has used monopolistic tactics it could also make for some very interesting licensing price negotiations between Microsoft and its biggest customers, including governments, industry and universities.
99 cents? Not likely considering the rumours are for a EURO1.50 price in the EU.
Dunno how they'll price it for the non-Euroified members of the EU though.
Why doesn't Slashdot let me type the EURO symbol?