This may sound strange, but if we, technophiles, start helping lawyers in identifying patent-infringements, then we might just be able to bring down the patent system, or at least give the government some motivation to re-evaluate the underpinnings of the patent-system.
So how would that work? Well, imagine us teaming up with the lawyers, and helping them identify plausible patent-cases. Then these lawyers could contact the respective companies and explain the viability of starting a law-suit, and actually bring the infringing companies to court. Now, with a hoax of patent-lawsuits, eventually people at the top of the government will start suspecting that something is severely wrong with the system and it needs some radical changes.
The only problem is that some "innocent" bystanders will get hurt... but this might happen anyhow, and radical changes sometimes may require radical actions, unfortunately.
It really strikes me as odd that such generic information as for example Facebook and Twitter are storing is kept by private companies. I mean, imagine that e-mail had been invented by Twitter, then all e-mail addresses would have been ending in "@twitter.com" and we would all rely on a private company that would have had insight into all our communications. How long would it have taken us to conclude that such a situation is absurd? Five years? Ten years? Forever?
Of course, someone should be running the servers, but a federated approach would be much better.
Although probably nobody at the upper layers of the German government realizes this, these legal steps of Germany at least raise attention on the importance of privacy.
Good point. But somehow when it comes to sharing infromation in the form of piracy, there always seems to be a technological solution when some file sharing method is blocked. So why not in the case of censoring in China?
We can all help China by running proxies on our computers. If everybody (or a critical mass) cooperates, there is no way for the Chinese government to block proxy IP addresses (or they will need to effectively shut themselves off from the rest of the world, and that will not happen of course). This could be similar to Tor, except more efficient, because only one hop is needed. Also, the development of software for encryption or steganography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) could help to make network traffic transparent.
Yes, but the majority of people do not think like that. Hence, expect all printers to be serving ads in the future. Sad but true. Kind of like the lock-down practices of Apple.
The iPhone has written in its manual that, in order to safely use the phone, you should keep it at 1 inch distance from your head. Now, I think that phone manufacturers should be required to change the form-factor of the device so that you can only use it in a safe way.
Actually, yes. But I think I should have put more emphasis on "with minor extensions for accessing local stuff". It might be of minor difficulty to implement this in a browser, but being able to access the local filesystem is a major feature which would allow web apps, like you mention, to behave more like native apps.
So until something like google gears comes to the iphone, we're still mostly stuck with the proprietary api from apple.
Also, I think for this to be practical, the browser, which acts only as a layer, will have to become a little more concealed (no menu, no buttons, especially no back-button).
It would be nice if we could run javascript/html5/css3 code on Apple products (plus minor extensions for accessing local stuff etc), via Mozilla. Then we could finally write useful platform-independent apps that also run on Apple products.
-- while [ 1 ]; do curl "http://apple.com" >/dev/null; done
The right to consume is not recognized by law, nor should it be.
Piracy (or consumption though piracy) has become a social obligation, since everybody does it, and not doing it yourself will render you an outcast quite soon. IMHO, this provides sufficient basis to have it recognized by law in some form.
1) some bunch of technically skilled people with a lot of spare time put together a proposal for a linux based tablet system 2) those people ask for funding (for example on http://www.kickstarter.com/ 3) slashdot crowd starts donating money 4) people start developing the device 5) profit!
What I don't get is why Microsoft doesn't disallow to run windows on a mac (inside vmware or otherwise natively). I mean, a big argument in favor of buying a mac is that it can always run windows anyway. That argument would then disappear. Less people would be inclined to buy apple, and as a nice side-benefit, Jobs would get to swallow some of his own tricks.
Does this mean that when I make a backup copy of a DVD to a web-based storage system (which should be perfectly legal imho), that my ISP will block me automatically?
You know what will happen... we will see a ton of apps for the iPhone and iPad, having no compatible counterpart on any of the other platforms (remember, they were compiled for a closed API). And/or a lot of wasted effort (for example, a government agency now has to implement their stuff twice, once for flash and once for iPhone OS).
In other words, consumer hell, and developer hell will result.
Slashdot Mirror
This may sound strange, but if we, technophiles, start helping lawyers in identifying patent-infringements, then we might just be able to bring down the patent system, or at least give the government some motivation to re-evaluate the underpinnings of the patent-system.
So how would that work? Well, imagine us teaming up with the lawyers, and helping them identify plausible patent-cases. Then these lawyers could contact the respective companies and explain the viability of starting a law-suit, and actually bring the infringing companies to court. Now, with a hoax of patent-lawsuits, eventually people at the top of the government will start suspecting that something is severely wrong with the system and it needs some radical changes.
The only problem is that some "innocent" bystanders will get hurt... but this might happen anyhow, and radical changes sometimes may require radical actions, unfortunately.
Talking about walled gardens, perhaps we can also replace the iPhone and iPad by PCs?
It really strikes me as odd that such generic information as for example Facebook and Twitter are storing is kept by private companies. I mean, imagine that e-mail had been invented by Twitter, then all e-mail addresses would have been ending in "@twitter.com" and we would all rely on a private company that would have had insight into all our communications. How long would it have taken us to conclude that such a situation is absurd? Five years? Ten years? Forever?
Of course, someone should be running the servers, but a federated approach would be much better.
Although probably nobody at the upper layers of the German government realizes this, these legal steps of Germany at least raise attention on the importance of privacy.
Good point. But somehow when it comes to sharing infromation in the form of piracy, there always seems to be a technological solution when some file sharing method is blocked. So why not in the case of censoring in China?
We can all help China by running proxies on our computers. If everybody (or a critical mass) cooperates, there is no way for the Chinese government to block proxy IP addresses (or they will need to effectively shut themselves off from the rest of the world, and that will not happen of course). This could be similar to Tor, except more efficient, because only one hop is needed.
Also, the development of software for encryption or steganography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography) could help to make network traffic transparent.
Mod parent up!
The end of this standards misery is closer than most might think.
However, NaCl must still provide an API for playing video of course.
And when tech companies do not compete, the consumer becomes a slave to lock-in and 'the share holders bottom line'
Of course, this does not hold for google.
You didn't notice the 'not' operator at the beginning of his sentence?
Once e-ink comes out in color that will remove one of the last complaints people have with it. Well that and the ability to easily annotate entries.
You forgot to mention the slowness of e-ink screens. For example, it is impossible to scroll e-ink like you can scroll a computer screen.
You forgot to mention the nanobots that will be swimming through our blood vessels.
Yes, but the majority of people do not think like that. Hence, expect all printers to be serving ads in the future. Sad but true. Kind of like the lock-down practices of Apple.
The iPhone has written in its manual that, in order to safely use the phone, you should keep it at 1 inch distance from your head. Now, I think that phone manufacturers should be required to change the form-factor of the device so that you can only use it in a safe way.
I just checked out this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tetris_Company
and I noticed the reference to this slashdot article at the bottom.
Wow. That's fast.
and the subscriber can sue the service provider.
but I guess that google is in a different role here than being a "service provider".
probably they have some small print that allows them to withdraw any content they like.
Actually, yes. But I think I should have put more emphasis on "with minor extensions for accessing local stuff". It might be of minor difficulty to implement this in a browser, but being able to access the local filesystem is a major feature which would allow web apps, like you mention, to behave more like native apps.
So until something like google gears comes to the iphone, we're still mostly stuck with the proprietary api from apple.
Also, I think for this to be practical, the browser, which acts only as a layer, will have to become a little more concealed (no menu, no buttons, especially no back-button).
It would be nice if we could run javascript/html5/css3 code on Apple products (plus minor extensions for accessing local stuff etc), via Mozilla. Then we could finally write useful platform-independent apps that also run on Apple products.
-- /dev/null; done
while [ 1 ]; do curl "http://apple.com" >
But those products will go nowhere, because Windows 7 is simply not the right operating system for a slate.
Yeah, I guess windows 7 is too open.
-- /dev/null; done
while [ 1 ]; do curl "http://apple.com" >
The right to consume is not recognized by law, nor should it be.
Piracy (or consumption though piracy) has become a social obligation, since everybody does it, and not doing it yourself will render you an outcast quite soon.
IMHO, this provides sufficient basis to have it recognized by law in some form.
Here's another idea:
1) some bunch of technically skilled people with a lot of spare time put together a proposal for a linux based tablet system
2) those people ask for funding (for example on http://www.kickstarter.com/
3) slashdot crowd starts donating money
4) people start developing the device
5) profit!
What I don't get is why Microsoft doesn't disallow to run windows on a mac (inside vmware or otherwise natively).
I mean, a big argument in favor of buying a mac is that it can always run windows anyway. That argument
would then disappear. Less people would be inclined to buy apple, and as a nice side-benefit, Jobs would get to
swallow some of his own tricks.
Or in other words, a city full of little mirrors ;)
How about an automatically adapting network of "line-of-sight" connections?
At what point is a work a new derived work.
Just imagine what a judge or a jury would think.
To a judge, intentions are important. A judge doesn't look at a problem like a computer would.
Does this mean that when I make a backup copy of a DVD to a web-based storage system (which should be perfectly legal imho), that my ISP will block me automatically?
Let the market decide?
You know what will happen... we will see a ton of apps for the iPhone and iPad, having no compatible counterpart on any of the other platforms (remember, they were compiled for a closed API). And/or a lot of wasted effort (for example, a government agency now has to implement their stuff twice, once for flash and once for iPhone OS).
In other words, consumer hell, and developer hell will result.