Pqatent trolls are companies that buy patents and use them, Immersion actually invented these things. IIRC they were the company that invented that whole Force Feedback fad back in the late 90s.
Some things are instinctive. If you see food and are hungry your instincts would tell you to eat it, no matter whom it belongs to. A kid that isn't taught to behave in any special way will still have his instincts and most of them aren't socially acceptable. Thus, by the standards of society kids are automatically "bad" until taught otherwise. Of course the poster was more complaining about the sentiment that kids are always considered innocent (after all, they don't know much more than their instincts at the time) yet when they behave in an "untainted" way their actions are seen as bad. Of course there's also the instinctive rebellion against your parents, that's probably the most mistaken behaviour.
Some of that comes from the selective memory of older people, too. They forget that they didn't follow authority, they think they always were good kids and they see that kids don't behave like "good" kids so they think something has changed between today's kids and the kids back then. Then they look at the newest fad and since they didn't have it back then they think it's the difference causing the "new" behaviour. Bonus points if the old people don't know much about what they are accusing and only heard about it through exaggerated stories in tabloids.
Yet you haven't acted on any of those impulses. Neither does the vast majority of the populace (99.9 and some more 9s %). People who act upon those impulses in serious ways number in the single digits and there's probably more wrong with them than just that. We've got more people decide they need some money and mug people on the street or kill themselves because their friend broke up with them. While games aren't necessarily harmless they aren't significant enough to warrant special laws.
That Sony even responded to the rumor was a mistake, had they taken the normal "no comment" stance noone would have taken this rumor as more valid than any other.
The geek would stay in the basement and say nothing which would still be considerably better than most of the crap Sony manages to spout these days. Their decision makers constantly pretend that there is no problem withg the PS3. While that may be supposed to instill confidence and make people believe there are really no problms it actually looks more like that Iraqi information minister guy. It also makes people wonder if Sony even realizes its mistakes (which is the necessary first step for fixing them).
Right, because Nintendo invented motion sensing in video games. Just because they announced it first doesn't mean that Sony wasn't planning on including it also.
If they really were planning that from the start they might have told developers a bit earlier than two weeks before E3, barely enough to hack some motion controls into one demo.
The reason you don't see Microsoft doing this is that they already tried it a few years ago with the Freestyle Pro and realized that tilt sensors in a traditional controller shape suck.
Stopping business is a pretty harsh way. The EU isn't out to just destroy MS, they want to punish them and force them back in line. For now it's enough to seize assets.
Also what they called lacking innovation is the interface MS was supposed to document. You can't tell me something like SMB is soooo hard to think up that you have to demand huge royalties to cover the cost.
That and all money in accounts and all property of the company are open for confiscation if necessary. AEven if MS withdrew all money, any money they made from further sales would be in reach for the government still.
Jobs said it would get rid of DRM in a heartbeat on all media on the iTunes Music Store. I believe that to be true.
Getting rid of the DRM isn't the same as offering the files in a format that's available to everyone. He could still use a DRM-less format that doesn't play on non-iPod players either. You could convert them but that would be lossy and inconvenient.
The point is that you pay at purchase instead of pickup so you have no financial incentive to just dump it somewhere in the countryside.
Electronics are hazardous waste, you can't stuff them into normal recycling plants, you'll always pay for getting rid of them. Better force people to pay that right away rather than make them decide it's cheaper to chug that stuff into other people's backyards.
I'm curious as to how the EU would go about collecting the fine.
MS will comply with that. They may be a big company but they aren't big enough to fight a government. Keep in mind that MS doesn't control their European operations from outside the continent, they have several subsidiaries within the EU and have to pay taxes and whatnot anyway.
Trade secrets don't have to be unique enough to be patented, but they are still protected by criminal penalties. If the EU can force American companies to give them up, that pretty much invalidates the entire statute.
Well, in the EU personal data is protected by criminal penalties but the US government has been extracting that from SWIFT through subpoenas. That's one of the risks of being a multinational corporation, some of these countries may have incompatible laws.
Also the trade secrets they are forced to reveal are those they use to prevent competition from properly interacting with MS proprietary "standards".
They are being fined because they demand too much money for those interface specifications they were supposed to release when there's nothing innovative about them. Means the court thinks MS is just increasing prices to prevent competitors from being able to afford the specs.
And frankly, I don't see how this helps them really. The costs will be passed onto their countries, and of course EUers will simply blame big corporations for the higher prices or more limited products.
I think you missed something there. If raising the price would bring in more money, why haven't they done it already? Corporations are out to make money, they'll always go for the price that brings in the most money. Since software has almost zero per-unit cost and these fines won't affect that price either the margin per copy doesn't get smaller. It hits their total profit but their per-unit profit is still the same. As such the price for optimum returns doesn't change and a price increase would actually decrease their profits (higher price means less sales, at the optimum price the profit per unit multiplied with the sales is maximal therefore any change would no longer be optimal). Passing costs on only works if the cost is per-unit and decreases the margin enough that the price increase makes up for the lost sales.
Slashdot Mirror
The Donkey Kong Country games got ports to the GBA already, you can play them on your DS that way.
Pqatent trolls are companies that buy patents and use them, Immersion actually invented these things. IIRC they were the company that invented that whole Force Feedback fad back in the late 90s.
Rumble is easy to make optional (see e.g. the N64 or PS1).
For that and for selling over 100 million devices that violate the patent.
They knew thy were wrong but both they and Immersion knew that Sony would have to pay less for that than they would have for licensing the patent.
Some things are instinctive. If you see food and are hungry your instincts would tell you to eat it, no matter whom it belongs to. A kid that isn't taught to behave in any special way will still have his instincts and most of them aren't socially acceptable. Thus, by the standards of society kids are automatically "bad" until taught otherwise. Of course the poster was more complaining about the sentiment that kids are always considered innocent (after all, they don't know much more than their instincts at the time) yet when they behave in an "untainted" way their actions are seen as bad. Of course there's also the instinctive rebellion against your parents, that's probably the most mistaken behaviour.
Some of that comes from the selective memory of older people, too. They forget that they didn't follow authority, they think they always were good kids and they see that kids don't behave like "good" kids so they think something has changed between today's kids and the kids back then. Then they look at the newest fad and since they didn't have it back then they think it's the difference causing the "new" behaviour. Bonus points if the old people don't know much about what they are accusing and only heard about it through exaggerated stories in tabloids.
Yet you haven't acted on any of those impulses. Neither does the vast majority of the populace (99.9 and some more 9s %). People who act upon those impulses in serious ways number in the single digits and there's probably more wrong with them than just that. We've got more people decide they need some money and mug people on the street or kill themselves because their friend broke up with them. While games aren't necessarily harmless they aren't significant enough to warrant special laws.
That Sony even responded to the rumor was a mistake, had they taken the normal "no comment" stance noone would have taken this rumor as more valid than any other.
The geek would stay in the basement and say nothing which would still be considerably better than most of the crap Sony manages to spout these days. Their decision makers constantly pretend that there is no problem withg the PS3. While that may be supposed to instill confidence and make people believe there are really no problms it actually looks more like that Iraqi information minister guy. It also makes people wonder if Sony even realizes its mistakes (which is the necessary first step for fixing them).
Right, because Nintendo invented motion sensing in video games. Just because they announced it first doesn't mean that Sony wasn't planning on including it also.
If they really were planning that from the start they might have told developers a bit earlier than two weeks before E3, barely enough to hack some motion controls into one demo.
The reason you don't see Microsoft doing this is that they already tried it a few years ago with the Freestyle Pro and realized that tilt sensors in a traditional controller shape suck.
Why not? As long as you're not changing the texture in realtime (e.g. UT's and Serious Sam's effect textures) there shouldn't be a difference.
Stopping business is a pretty harsh way. The EU isn't out to just destroy MS, they want to punish them and force them back in line. For now it's enough to seize assets.
Also what they called lacking innovation is the interface MS was supposed to document. You can't tell me something like SMB is soooo hard to think up that you have to demand huge royalties to cover the cost.
That and all money in accounts and all property of the company are open for confiscation if necessary. AEven if MS withdrew all money, any money they made from further sales would be in reach for the government still.
I don't think sales bans start being used this early, first there's the option of confiscating assets and freezing accounts.
Perhaps it's just because all they hear of it is what's posted on Slashdot and Slashdot considers itself US-centric.
Jobs said it would get rid of DRM in a heartbeat on all media on the iTunes Music Store. I believe that to be true.
Getting rid of the DRM isn't the same as offering the files in a format that's available to everyone. He could still use a DRM-less format that doesn't play on non-iPod players either. You could convert them but that would be lossy and inconvenient.
The point is that you pay at purchase instead of pickup so you have no financial incentive to just dump it somewhere in the countryside.
Electronics are hazardous waste, you can't stuff them into normal recycling plants, you'll always pay for getting rid of them. Better force people to pay that right away rather than make them decide it's cheaper to chug that stuff into other people's backyards.
I guess this "threaten" refers to XP and before? So old news again for Microsoft.
I'd assume the verdict will apply to all future versions of their software as well.
I'm curious as to how the EU would go about collecting the fine.
MS will comply with that. They may be a big company but they aren't big enough to fight a government. Keep in mind that MS doesn't control their European operations from outside the continent, they have several subsidiaries within the EU and have to pay taxes and whatnot anyway.
Currently? The PS2.
Trade secrets don't have to be unique enough to be patented, but they are still protected by criminal penalties. If the EU can force American companies to give them up, that pretty much invalidates the entire statute.
Well, in the EU personal data is protected by criminal penalties but the US government has been extracting that from SWIFT through subpoenas. That's one of the risks of being a multinational corporation, some of these countries may have incompatible laws.
Also the trade secrets they are forced to reveal are those they use to prevent competition from properly interacting with MS proprietary "standards".
They are being fined because they demand too much money for those interface specifications they were supposed to release when there's nothing innovative about them. Means the court thinks MS is just increasing prices to prevent competitors from being able to afford the specs.
Even Jack Thompson has a certificate claiming he is sane.
And frankly, I don't see how this helps them really. The costs will be passed onto their countries, and of course EUers will simply blame big corporations for the higher prices or more limited products.
I think you missed something there. If raising the price would bring in more money, why haven't they done it already? Corporations are out to make money, they'll always go for the price that brings in the most money. Since software has almost zero per-unit cost and these fines won't affect that price either the margin per copy doesn't get smaller. It hits their total profit but their per-unit profit is still the same. As such the price for optimum returns doesn't change and a price increase would actually decrease their profits (higher price means less sales, at the optimum price the profit per unit multiplied with the sales is maximal therefore any change would no longer be optimal). Passing costs on only works if the cost is per-unit and decreases the margin enough that the price increase makes up for the lost sales.
You can patent software even in the EU but it's much more restrictive than in the US. And of course bullshit like one-click isn't patentable.