Vending machines have let you buy things with one click of a button for ages. The fact that it's now in a web page instead of a metal box does not make it innovative at all.
That's the point - if you don't see the license files, the next step before crying foul is to ask the developers if they arranged a different license. Since the developers say they hadn't been contacted, it's safe to assume they didn't arrange a different license.
"there's a schizm between what the OP apparently wants and the "but I just want a phone" crowd"
That's why he is so surprised by the iPhone's hype. Either people want features (in which case other phones should have made it here before iPhone), or they don't (in which case iPhone should not raise so much interest).
The answer may well be that the iPhone hasn't truly raised that much *real* interest other than what the hype-and-cool marketing campaign would make you believe.
Only 150? What DSLR do you have (so that I never buy from them)? My Nikon D70 can take around 800 pictures on a single battery charge. If you use the internal flash and the LCD a lot then it could go down to 200, but that's not really normal usage.
I'm saying it is an "X+Y" patent. A trivial combination of existing well-known features or procedures. Whether a game already existed with that combination of features is irrelevant.
Make the game, publish it, and sue the copycats for plagiarism. Patents should not be and were never meant to be the place for this kind of dispute.
"it narrowly covers a definite physical invention"
The physical part has prior art dating decades; the "usage" part is obvious. Yet another stupid "X + Y" patent. And yet another example why patents today PREVENT rather than HELP innovation: WotC decided not to use the concept in a commercial product, and is now trying to stop someone else from doing it. Result if they get their way? You don't have a "constructible punch out blahblah game."
"It's copy authentication. If you copied a small set of registry entries, it's likely that you copied the program in violation of the End User License Agreement"
That's another half-assed and idiotic idea. Yeah, I'm sure the Registry has prevented all of 3 people from performing some illegal activity. However, it has prevented millions of people from performing perfectly normal and LEGAL activities such as backing up application configuration. Oh sorry, I forgot, backups may be against the law where you live.
The real problem is that too many developers or managers have made half-assed, idiotic decisions based on Microsoft's short-sighted and constantly moving recommendations. At one point in the past, Microsoft encouraged people to install their own DLLs in C:\Windows\...
Some marketing drone must have earned his money, to make someone believe that SWG is significant, growing, or a "future competitor". The only game SWG is trying to defeat is SWG itself. I don't really believe there's currently any game (announced or released) that has a remote chance to dethrone WoW, but to say that SWG is a contender is ludicrous.
>> if you are engaging in the consumption of child porn, you will have your liberties trampled on
If I accept that due process and proper law enforcement are not necessary, then it is MY rights that are being destroyed. And I didn't consume child porn. Nor did hundreds of millions of other people.
>> you seemed to ignore that crucial piece of info
Reread please. "Authority-supervised investigation". (a) Who gave this guy the authority to perform such *illegal* investigation? (b) Who guarantees that what he says about his "targetting" is true?
You can choose to give up on those rights and have your liberties trampled on, but it's your personal choice, not a moral high ground of any sort. It's certainly not a choice I will accept to be imposed on me without resistance.
A pedophile is caught and goes to jail? Good.
A hacker violates the privacy of thousands of people, spies on them, and gets away as a hero? Bad.
Compromising our rights to authority-supervised investigation and due process? Very bad.
Getting dirty in the name of justice destroys the very freedoms you were trying to protect. I'm sorry, but 1 pedophile in jail is not worth waiving my right to privacy. There's no grey there, it's crystal clear. I don't accept your attempt to take the moral high ground.
My iPod was exactly the two things I didn't have, but wanted: a portable USB 40Gb hard drive, and a good MP3 player. The iPhone is a mix of things I already have (phone), things I dont want (PDA), and lacks things I'd want (iPod replacement).
Consoles have traditionally prevented users to develop software for them, only licensed developers could. PS3 Linux and XNA Creator's Club both allow users to develop software for their respective consoles.
Looks like a solid relation to me.
"When games look "real" and are modeling real physics, they are limited in what they can do"
That's a wonderful way to describe the current push for realism.
Oh, Wing Commander and X-Wing were fantastic and genre-defining games, but I'd say Tie Fighter was absolute perfection, the ultimate space combat simulator since which only graphics have been improved.
Not saying everyone has to feel that way (they are all gems), but there are many people who do, hence why it shows up frequently in "best of..." lists.
That argument is the equivalent of "if Hitler was bad, they wouldn't have let him raise to power." Oh wait they didn't and we ended up with WW2. People, organizations and industries paint themselves in a corner all the time, and that's what Jason Della Rocca and Warren Spector explain about the games industry in their articles.
In the context of movie buying, which became mainstream with the arrival of cheap DVDs after 1998, yes it is. If you were a sci-fi fan starved for DVDs, 5th Element was one of the first you could buy. Odd how our brains work huh?
Blu-Ray coming out now means that DVD as a mainstream home movie format is going to effectively last around 10 years only! No f*g way I'm buying all my movies again.
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Vending machines have let you buy things with one click of a button for ages. The fact that it's now in a web page instead of a metal box does not make it innovative at all.
Second Reality was not rubbish, although it was heavily inspired by Desert Dreams by Kefrens (different effects but the same design).
"Arte" indeed is an absolute masterpiece no matter how you look at it.
That's the point - if you don't see the license files, the next step before crying foul is to ask the developers if they arranged a different license. Since the developers say they hadn't been contacted, it's safe to assume they didn't arrange a different license.
"there's a schizm between what the OP apparently wants and the "but I just want a phone" crowd"
That's why he is so surprised by the iPhone's hype. Either people want features (in which case other phones should have made it here before iPhone), or they don't (in which case iPhone should not raise so much interest).
The answer may well be that the iPhone hasn't truly raised that much *real* interest other than what the hype-and-cool marketing campaign would make you believe.
Only 150? What DSLR do you have (so that I never buy from them)? My Nikon D70 can take around 800 pictures on a single battery charge. If you use the internal flash and the LCD a lot then it could go down to 200, but that's not really normal usage.
I'm saying it is an "X+Y" patent. A trivial combination of existing well-known features or procedures. Whether a game already existed with that combination of features is irrelevant. Make the game, publish it, and sue the copycats for plagiarism. Patents should not be and were never meant to be the place for this kind of dispute.
"it narrowly covers a definite physical invention"
The physical part has prior art dating decades; the "usage" part is obvious. Yet another stupid "X + Y" patent. And yet another example why patents today PREVENT rather than HELP innovation: WotC decided not to use the concept in a commercial product, and is now trying to stop someone else from doing it. Result if they get their way? You don't have a "constructible punch out blahblah game.""Sorry but our servers aren't up to this amount of hits"
"It's copy authentication. If you copied a small set of registry entries, it's likely that you copied the program in violation of the End User License Agreement"
That's another half-assed and idiotic idea. Yeah, I'm sure the Registry has prevented all of 3 people from performing some illegal activity. However, it has prevented millions of people from performing perfectly normal and LEGAL activities such as backing up application configuration. Oh sorry, I forgot, backups may be against the law where you live.
The real problem is that too many developers or managers have made half-assed, idiotic decisions based on Microsoft's short-sighted and constantly moving recommendations. At one point in the past, Microsoft encouraged people to install their own DLLs in C:\Windows\...
Some marketing drone must have earned his money, to make someone believe that SWG is significant, growing, or a "future competitor". The only game SWG is trying to defeat is SWG itself. I don't really believe there's currently any game (announced or released) that has a remote chance to dethrone WoW, but to say that SWG is a contender is ludicrous.
This is the way I interpret that sentence:
"release any articles [...] relating to this Agreement [...] or mentioning or implying the name of Google"
That is excessive and uncalled for.
Thankfully they didn't patent the "... on the Internet" version. Oh wait...
PS3 games are region-free, but PS2 games are not. If I am not mistaken, a US PS3 will reject PAL PS2 games. Wonderful, eh?
>> if you are engaging in the consumption of child porn, you will have your liberties trampled on
If I accept that due process and proper law enforcement are not necessary, then it is MY rights that are being destroyed. And I didn't consume child porn. Nor did hundreds of millions of other people.
>> you seemed to ignore that crucial piece of info
Reread please. "Authority-supervised investigation". (a) Who gave this guy the authority to perform such *illegal* investigation? (b) Who guarantees that what he says about his "targetting" is true?
You can choose to give up on those rights and have your liberties trampled on, but it's your personal choice, not a moral high ground of any sort. It's certainly not a choice I will accept to be imposed on me without resistance.
A pedophile is caught and goes to jail? Good. A hacker violates the privacy of thousands of people, spies on them, and gets away as a hero? Bad. Compromising our rights to authority-supervised investigation and due process? Very bad. Getting dirty in the name of justice destroys the very freedoms you were trying to protect. I'm sorry, but 1 pedophile in jail is not worth waiving my right to privacy. There's no grey there, it's crystal clear. I don't accept your attempt to take the moral high ground.
Perhaps having the capability is the only way to force the US to enter that treaty. I hate short-sighted politicians.
My iPod was exactly the two things I didn't have, but wanted: a portable USB 40Gb hard drive, and a good MP3 player. The iPhone is a mix of things I already have (phone), things I dont want (PDA), and lacks things I'd want (iPod replacement).
Wonderful game, for anyone who loved and laughed with the original trilogy as a kid, and for anyone who just enjoys a great game by itself.
Consoles have traditionally prevented users to develop software for them, only licensed developers could. PS3 Linux and XNA Creator's Club both allow users to develop software for their respective consoles. Looks like a solid relation to me.
"When games look "real" and are modeling real physics, they are limited in what they can do" That's a wonderful way to describe the current push for realism.
Oh, Wing Commander and X-Wing were fantastic and genre-defining games, but I'd say Tie Fighter was absolute perfection, the ultimate space combat simulator since which only graphics have been improved. Not saying everyone has to feel that way (they are all gems), but there are many people who do, hence why it shows up frequently in "best of..." lists.
He obviously doesn't agree: http://dukenukem.typepad.com/game_matters/2006/06/ activisions_ceo.html
He pimps Triton, which is being used for Prey.
That argument is the equivalent of "if Hitler was bad, they wouldn't have let him raise to power." Oh wait they didn't and we ended up with WW2. People, organizations and industries paint themselves in a corner all the time, and that's what Jason Della Rocca and Warren Spector explain about the games industry in their articles.
In the context of movie buying, which became mainstream with the arrival of cheap DVDs after 1998, yes it is. If you were a sci-fi fan starved for DVDs, 5th Element was one of the first you could buy. Odd how our brains work huh? Blu-Ray coming out now means that DVD as a mainstream home movie format is going to effectively last around 10 years only! No f*g way I'm buying all my movies again.