Starting a regular engine is a scary proposition. A starter motor is mechanically connected to the engine, and forces the engine to turn at maybe 500 rpm. Fuel is injected into the cylinders, and ignited, forcing the pistons down. The engine suddenly finds itself jumping from 500 rpm to 1500 rpm. The starter motor must immediately disengage from the engine. The engine block, initially quite cold, finds itself rapidly heating due to the fire inside it. Parts rapidly expand.
Starting the Prius's Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) is a more gentle operation. A hot water bottle injects the hot coolant into the block, preheating the engine block. The power is applied to the electric motor connected to the "sun" gear of the planetary gear system, which in turn causes the ICE engine connected to the planet gears to start turning. Once the ICE has been gently spun up to 1000 rpm, fuel is injected into the cylinders, and ignited... but only a little fuel is required, since the engine is being spun by the electric motor. As more fuel is added, the ICE takes over responsibility for turning itself over, and eventually providing the power to turn the electric motor as well... turning it into an electric generate which recharges the battery. It is complex ballet, but the result is significantly less stress on the engine components.
When the Prius's ICE shuts off, the hot engine coolant is shunted off and stored in the hot water bottle... to be used to pre-heat the engine block the next time it is started.
True, the Prius's engine is more complex. But much of that complexity goes into prolonging the life of the engine.
The Prius's CVT is... not exactly a CVT. It is a planetary gear system. The center (sun) gear is driven by an electric motor; the "planet" gears are driven by the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE); the outer gear is connected to the drive shaft and a second electric motor. There are no belts or pulleys. There is no mechanism for changing which gear teeth mesh with which other gear teeth. In short, there are no moving parts... or rather, there are moving parts, but the moving parts don't move with respect to each other. Because the gear configuration doesn't change, there is no need for synchromesh. Nothing will wear out due to a poorly executed gear shift, because the gears can't shift.
So, how can it be a CVT? Well, it's not. It is just a planetary gear system.
But the Prius doesn't boast having a CVT. It boasts an EC-CVT... an Electrically Controlled CVT. By varying the speed of the electric motor connected to the "sun" gear, you change the ratio of the ICE speed and wheel speed... what we normally think of as the gear ratio. The EC-CVT is the combination of electric motors and the planetary gear system, power electronics (thyristors) and a computer.
So... how complex and costly-to-maintain is the Prius's CVT? I'd claim not very. The planetary gear system just needs lubricant. The electric motors are brushless motors (they use a permanent magnet rotor), so again should just need lubricant. The power electronics is all solid-state. [HVDC power transmission has for many years used thyristors for switching around 230kV at currents of around 100kA or so. The voltages, currents (and thyristors) in a car are all much, much smaller.] The computer is probably the weakest link in the whole EC-CVT system!
Compared to a transmission, which changes which gears physically mesh with other gears, and needs to change the gears without stripping the teeth, the EC-CVT may be physically simpler. The conventional transmission needs a slip-clutch or torque converter to allow the engine to spin when the vehicle is stopped... and to smoothly transition from that stop. The EC-CVT just reduces the "gear" ratio to zero.
On the other hand, understanding how the power transfer occurs in the EC-CVT, along with the power-electronics, probably requires a university degree in electrical and/or mechanical engineering, where as it is pretty easy to visualize how a different sized gears meshing together would change the gear ratio. In this respect, the EC-CVT is much more complex than a standard transmission. But in terms of mechanical reliability, the EC-CVT may be simplier.
If you're considering a maintenance item like the battery, you really should also consider all the other maintenance items. My Prius's brakes haven't had to be replaced yet, since it mostly uses regenerative braking. Then there is no fan belts to break, no starter motor or clutch to wear out, and no gear-shifting. You might eventually pay more for battery maintenance, but you'll pay less in other areas much sooner.
[Oh, and no speeding tickets. Nothing has improved my driving habits more than a continuous MPG display. Not buying those special, decorative, non-equity shares in AnywhereUSA has got to be worth something!]
...
This book does not attempt directly to address any of these problems. Rather, it suggests an approach to knowledge perhaps more attuned to the needs of the twenty-first century as described above. Some readers will no doubt see this approach as more evidence of the "dumbing-down" of recent years. But the same was said about the first printing press, newspapers, calculators and the removal of mandatory Latin from the curriculum....
We have huge libraries, which store books about how various technology works. We're not going to loose that knowledge just because we can't keep it *all* in our brains anymore.
As necessary knowledge fields are depopulated, the renumeration for their skills will increase, slowing or reversing the depopulation. Supply and demand. How much did FORTRAN programmer get during the "Y2K crisis"?
However, there's nobody who reads that scenario who doesn't get what Dave actually meant to communicate: That Anna is married, with children.
Funny, I read that answer as a "yes, she's available," but added additional information: don't ask her out unless you are willing to accept the entire package.
In a different language, I could still see a literal translation of the question and answer as communicating the same information. The "higher level meaning" is not embedded in the words or language. The exchange, "available?" "kids." does not mean "not available," but is more of a trinary response.
... for CDMA-based cell phones. They won't be confused by a change in daylight savings times start/end date. At least, they won't be confused as long as the network providers change the DAYLT flag at the correct start/end dates.
Certain other gadgets get time from the a broadcast source as well (PBS cable channel, US atomic clock,...). Assuming the broadcast includes the DAYLT flag, those devices should be fine as well.
Well, yes, you can pick up many more cell towers. But it is unlikely you'll connect to all of them.
The cell towers are generally optimized to broadcast and receive signals horizontally. Sure you can get reflections bouncing up that your phone might see at 10,000ft... but the cell isn't likely to see your reverse link, since it doesn't "look" upwards.
Then there is doppler. The plane is moving (say) 400mph, towards some cell towers and away from other cell towers. If the phone locks onto the forward link frequency from one cell tower, the other forward link signals will be at a doppler shift, and will appear to be noise to the phone.
If the phone does see many forward link signals, and manages to get a reverse link down to one cell tower, it reports what it can see. The network will decide which cell towers to put in the traffic channel's active set... certainly not all cell towers the phone can see.
Then, network planners need to reuse frequencies and code when they cover an area. In a dense, urban area, the cells are small and reuse is rapid. If a phone looking down sees reused frequencies/codes, it will have issues decoding the forward link. In a rural area, cells can be larger, so reuse of a frequency/code is less often and the cell tower transmission conflicts will be less.
The phone's transmit power will need to higher to reach the cell towers from 10,000 ft, through the plane's skin. Since cell phones are designed for use on the ground, their transmit power is limited, and it might not be capable of transmitting at the necessary level. If it does, it will certainly certainly drain the battery quickly. The phone will cross many registration boundaries as the plane flies, necessitating the phone to frequently re-register in each new region, again draining the battery... and possibly invoking the carrier's service anti-theft procedures as the same phone seems to register in many, many areas within minutes of each other.
The carriers investigate areas with many dropped calls, in order to improve customer service. (Can you hear me now?) If you make a call from a plane, and it moves away from the tower before a handoff can be performed, the call drops. So the carriers don't want you to make calls from a phone directly to the terrestrial network; the calls drop, and customers complain *and* they spend resources trying to determine why many calls drop in certain areas.
As you said, it makes more sense to have the plane be its own cell tower, and transmit the signal to the terrestrial network over specialized, dedicated hardware. The doppler problem goes away (for the phone); no pilot polution; the phone doesn't have to transmit at max power draining the battery; the phone doesn't cross registration boundaries continuously, causing it to repeated register (draining the battery, and raising anti-piracy flags); the call drops are reduced (customer + carrier happy).
Then, the only unhappy people are the people who don't want the passengers around them talking on the phone. A picocell can help here, too. The phone finds the nice, close picocell, and listens to it for incoming calls. Except, the picocell doesn't relay any. Voila! No incoming calls. And what the heck, "service unavailable" for outgoing calls.
So, picocells in planes is good, no matter which camp you are in. They can improve the reliability of the phone calls, or block them entirely.
Considering that cell phones use highly optimized VOCODERS to compress *voice* down to 8k (or 13k) bps, most *music* will fail the coding process. Try it for yourself - call your home phone from your cell, hold the cell to the radio, and listen on your home phone. You'll hear *words* with little or no music - the amount of music coming through depending on the instruments and the specific vocoder.
To have a good change a determining what the song is, you'll want to have your 15-second snippit during the a lyrics portion, not an instrumental portion.
For purely instrumental music, such as classical, I can't imagine much hope of identifying it.
The reason is the client can be hacked to allow the player do violate the rules, like walking through walls, etc.
A PPU on the server might help the server support more complex environments, more users per server, etc.
For stand alone games, and scientific applications, this is a pretty neat idea. But I don't think the power-gamers are going to be purchasing extra hardware that just sits there, while the server does the physics.
The CD key is -- among other things - typically a magic 1-month free code.
You bought a game for $x, and you can use it right out of the box... via the free month that the CD key buys you. After that month, you cough up $y/month to continue using it.
In this case, the used game was put back in the box and sold as a used game. The CD key has already been used, so it is not connected to a free month anymore. The price of the boxed used game should reflect this fact.
Viewed this way, the "box" value is just the value of the manual, maps, etc. The retail box price includes the first month usage as a CD key.
Could someone buy a game, install it, and immediately pass it to a friend, who installs it but doesn't get the first month free, since the original owner got that? Why not? The company still gets paid via the subscription for that month. The company actually may have a cost savings since they don't need to manufacture as many boxes. However, the distributors would suffer. The company may have signed an agreement with the distributors that prevents "buy one box, install 10 times, pay for 10 accounts online", so the distributors get the box sales.
What about buying the game, playing it for 6 months, getting bored with it, and selling it used to another person? The same CD-key would be entered, and no free month would exist. Assuming the first person cancelled their account, on the surface, this seems legitimate. A new "key' could be generated on the spot to be associated with the new account. Now what if the first person wants to re-activate their account? If the company allows this, then the Distributers can cry "foul" since one 'box' is now two 'games'. But the company wants to allow the original owner to come back to the game after a long absense, since that would mean more revenue for the company, and happy customers. How could we make that happen?
Theoretically, the original owner doesn't own the software anymore, so they can't return to it without reacquiring the software... from the store or second hand. If they bought a new box, it would come with a new CD-key, which should allow them to create a new account, or reactivate their old account, both with a 1-month credit. If they buy or otherwise acquire a used box, it would have a used CD key, which should be associated with a cancelled account, and could be reassociated with account being activated.
The only real issue is ensuring that the account associated with a CD-key is deactivated in order for the game to be sold "used". Of course, I wouldn't want to have my credit card dinged every month for a game I've sold to someone else, so this shouldn't really be a problem.
Many "software" patents from my company were written as "A method and apparatus to..." The patent described a combination of hardware and software: "a device composed of a CPU or microcontroller, memory, I/O, and an algorithm which could be implemented in software, hardware, or firmware."
If you can't patent the software itself, you can add the hardware required for the software to work, resulting in a physical device, which like having a technical effect, allows it to be patentable.
Anyone would be free to use the software without infringing on the patent, unless they also happen to use hardware to run the software on. In which case, you may as well let the software be patentable, since it makes it easier to read the patent description to get at the meat of what is really being protected.
I didn't say it *would* work. I said the only way I *could* see it working was (paraphrasing) to move the decryption closer to the image projection, to prevent, or make it harder for, device-in-the-middle copying of the decrypted bits.
The problem with it: when a key is compromised, instead of requiring people to buy a new player ($100's), people would need to buy a new monitor ($1000's), which wouldn't fly to well.
An IP enabled monitor, with downloadable keys would solve *that* issue, but opens up other issues. You mentioned one: if you *cracked* your *expensive* TV to capture the decrypted bits, when the key is invalidated, you could simply (even transparently) get a new key, and keep copying the decrypted bits.
But an IP enabled TV (while gives you WebTV!) opens another can of worms: What if, in DivX style, your TV "called home" to get permission to view a video stream? You could buy pay-per-view style, or lifetime style, or a "n-Pixar movies per month" subscription style. Each decoder might have its own private/public key, and decoded video may have the decoder's serial number watermarked into it, so if you did crack your TV, copy the bits, and release it publically, your compromised TV would be disabled next time you connected to "buy" a movie. And since you had to pay for the movie, your billing information could be matched with the serial number, for legal action.
Do we want to go DivX style, and have the decoder "phone home"? If we did, then the media for a DVD should be the cost of the disk, not the content, and if you copied the DVD from a fried to your computer, no one would care since you'd still "buy" it the first time you watch it. But then Big Brother would know how many times you watch Eyes Wide Shut. What about portable players, which can't "phone home"?
If you did copy the decrypted video, can you expunge, or corrupt any watermarking that the decoder adds? Probably. Especially if you know what it is watermarked with... such as your decoder's serial number. In which case, we can wind up with unencrypted, untraceable HD movies, which is what we were trying to prevent.
The decoder in the TV isn't the end-all solution. It just makes it harder to copy the decrypted bits, by preventing the easy device-in-the-middle copying.
I remember the old times of the commodore 64 when the floppy disks (less than 180K per disk - wow) had copy protection.. that could be circumvented by good disc copying programs.
I remember these copy protection techniques actually working fairly well. "Copy software to disk, burn hole in disk at specific track." When the software ran, it tried to format 2 tracks. If it was able to format the first track, the disk was a copy onto clean media. If it could not format the second track, the copy protection tab had been taped over, to prevent the first track from being formatted. In either case, the software didn't run. In essance, the disk was the dongle for the software. You couldn't copy the disk, because the disk copy software couldn't DAMAGE the new disk at the correct spot. (You could still defeat the copy protection mechanism by modifying the software, but that is no longer just "copying" the disk.)
This same technique could work for HD-DVD's. Put a recordable track, and a damaged-recordable track on the media (different for each movie). If the player can format one track, and not the other, it is the original media. Of course this requires HD-DVD players to be able to test whether (certain parts of) the media can be recorded to. And it would also require a more expensive disk manufacturing process.
This merely makes the disk into a dongle, and with the right equiptment, you *could* damage the copied media in the correct way to make it behave like the original... but not using a typical home computer. The people who (try to) make money selling copied DVD's might invest in the equiptment required to do this. And this prevents the honest people making fair-use backups of their DVD's, to insure against their kids scratching the heck out of one when they forget to take the DVD out and the kid drops it when putting their DVD in.
... is if the DVD players streamed the encrypted bits out to your TV monitor, and the monitor itself did the decryption. A "digital in" on your TV set, much like the "digital in" on surround sound receivers.
That way, those people who make devices that can capture S-Video, Component, or Composite video (and audio) won't have a decrypted signal to work with. You'd have to take apart your thousand dollar high-definition TV in order to find the decoded RGB signal you wanted to capture. [Or you'd have to capture the video via a Video camera, with the degradation that entails.]
As a benefit, since your TV now accepts encrypted bits, you could stream HD video from your computer, or any other source, since it is the TV that does the decryption. I'm thinking the digital in on the TV, and out on the HD-DVD should be IP-based.
[Of course this needs new TV sets, with the encrypted "digital in" port. To support older sets, you'd still need composite out, etc. So the copy protection would only apply to the HD video. You could copy & pirate the lower quality video, but not the High Definition video.]
This would be great... until a key was cracked, and the new HD-DVD's used a new key. "Sorry folks, you don't need a new player; you need a new TV, with a new decryption key." Well, technology moves along, so you might want to upgrade to a better TV anyway, right? But the resale value on your current TV would drop, because it can't play newer movies. I don't think so! Obviously, a way to install new keys is needed... but since the TV is already IP enabled, this shouldn't be that difficult.
"... A small in-cabin CDMA cellular base station on the plane, that uses standard cellular communications, was connected to the worldwide terrestrial phone network by an air-to-ground Globalstar satellite link...."
Similarly, hydroelectric power isn't renewable: there are only so many rivers that can be dammed, and a finite amount of rain falling into the water systems that feed them.
You're mixing "renewable" with "infinitely expandable". In a given year, a finite amount of rain falls over a certain area. The next year, approximately the same finite amount will fall.
Now, it is true that you can only extract a finite amount of potential energy from that finite volume of water on its way back to sea level. Next year, however, you get to do it all over again.
... the binary pattern
0x01 0x01 0x20 0x05 has been found in many executable files on many different and diverse operating systems.
Users are strongly cautioned not to use their computers on January 1st, 2005!
[Editor's note: many more executables also match the less restrictive byte patterns
0x01..0x12 0x01..0x31 0x20 0x05 Using your computer on any day in 2005 may be dangerous!]
If I wanted to take out (say) FlyByNight.com for (of all things) not offering any night-time flights, I could send out spam on their behalf, safe in knowing millions of zombie screen-savers will start attacking their site.
Forget trying to break into various machines around the world, to find a few thousand you can make into a zombie for DDoS attacks! Just use the millions where lusers voluntarily install the zombie software for you!
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Starting a regular engine is a scary proposition. A starter motor is mechanically connected to the engine, and forces the engine to turn at maybe 500 rpm. Fuel is injected into the cylinders, and ignited, forcing the pistons down. The engine suddenly finds itself jumping from 500 rpm to 1500 rpm. The starter motor must immediately disengage from the engine. The engine block, initially quite cold, finds itself rapidly heating due to the fire inside it. Parts rapidly expand.
... but only a little fuel is required, since the engine is being spun by the electric motor. As more fuel is added, the ICE takes over responsibility for turning itself over, and eventually providing the power to turn the electric motor as well ... turning it into an electric generate which recharges the battery. It is complex ballet, but the result is significantly less stress on the engine components.
... to be used to pre-heat the engine block the next time it is started.
Starting the Prius's Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) is a more gentle operation. A hot water bottle injects the hot coolant into the block, preheating the engine block. The power is applied to the electric motor connected to the "sun" gear of the planetary gear system, which in turn causes the ICE engine connected to the planet gears to start turning. Once the ICE has been gently spun up to 1000 rpm, fuel is injected into the cylinders, and ignited
When the Prius's ICE shuts off, the hot engine coolant is shunted off and stored in the hot water bottle
True, the Prius's engine is more complex. But much of that complexity goes into prolonging the life of the engine.
The Prius's CVT is ... not exactly a CVT. It is a planetary gear system. The center (sun) gear is driven by an electric motor; the "planet" gears are driven by the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE); the outer gear is connected to the drive shaft and a second electric motor. There are no belts or pulleys. There is no mechanism for changing which gear teeth mesh with which other gear teeth. In short, there are no moving parts ... or rather, there are moving parts, but the moving parts don't move with respect to each other. Because the gear configuration doesn't change, there is no need for synchromesh. Nothing will wear out due to a poorly executed gear shift, because the gears can't shift.
... an Electrically Controlled CVT. By varying the speed of the electric motor connected to the "sun" gear, you change the ratio of the ICE speed and wheel speed ... what we normally think of as the gear ratio. The EC-CVT is the combination of electric motors and the planetary gear system, power electronics (thyristors) and a computer.
... how complex and costly-to-maintain is the Prius's CVT? I'd claim not very. The planetary gear system just needs lubricant. The electric motors are brushless motors (they use a permanent magnet rotor), so again should just need lubricant. The power electronics is all solid-state. [HVDC power transmission has for many years used thyristors for switching around 230kV at currents of around 100kA or so. The voltages, currents (and thyristors) in a car are all much, much smaller.] The computer is probably the weakest link in the whole EC-CVT system!
... and to smoothly transition from that stop. The EC-CVT just reduces the "gear" ratio to zero.
So, how can it be a CVT? Well, it's not. It is just a planetary gear system.
But the Prius doesn't boast having a CVT. It boasts an EC-CVT
So
Compared to a transmission, which changes which gears physically mesh with other gears, and needs to change the gears without stripping the teeth, the EC-CVT may be physically simpler. The conventional transmission needs a slip-clutch or torque converter to allow the engine to spin when the vehicle is stopped
On the other hand, understanding how the power transfer occurs in the EC-CVT, along with the power-electronics, probably requires a university degree in electrical and/or mechanical engineering, where as it is pretty easy to visualize how a different sized gears meshing together would change the gear ratio. In this respect, the EC-CVT is much more complex than a standard transmission. But in terms of mechanical reliability, the EC-CVT may be simplier.
If you're considering a maintenance item like the battery, you really should also consider all the other maintenance items. My Prius's brakes haven't had to be replaced yet, since it mostly uses regenerative braking. Then there is no fan belts to break, no starter motor or clutch to wear out, and no gear-shifting. You might eventually pay more for battery maintenance, but you'll pay less in other areas much sooner.
[Oh, and no speeding tickets. Nothing has improved my driving habits more than a continuous MPG display. Not buying those special, decorative, non-equity shares in AnywhereUSA has got to be worth something!]
As necessary knowledge fields are depopulated, the renumeration for their skills will increase, slowing or reversing the depopulation. Supply and demand. How much did FORTRAN programmer get during the "Y2K crisis"?
Funny, I read that answer as a "yes, she's available," but added additional information: don't ask her out unless you are willing to accept the entire package.
In a different language, I could still see a literal translation of the question and answer as communicating the same information. The "higher level meaning" is not embedded in the words or language. The exchange, "available?" "kids." does not mean "not available," but is more of a trinary response.
... for CDMA-based cell phones. They won't be confused by a change in daylight savings times start/end date. At least, they won't be confused as long as the network providers change the DAYLT flag at the correct start/end dates.
...). Assuming the broadcast includes the DAYLT flag, those devices should be fine as well.
Certain other gadgets get time from the a broadcast source as well (PBS cable channel, US atomic clock,
Well, yes, you can pick up many more cell towers. But it is unlikely you'll connect to all of them.
... but the cell isn't likely to see your reverse link, since it doesn't "look" upwards.
... certainly not all cell towers the phone can see.
... and possibly invoking the carrier's service anti-theft procedures as the same phone seems to register in many, many areas within minutes of each other.
The cell towers are generally optimized to broadcast and receive signals horizontally. Sure you can get reflections bouncing up that your phone might see at 10,000ft
Then there is doppler. The plane is moving (say) 400mph, towards some cell towers and away from other cell towers. If the phone locks onto the forward link frequency from one cell tower, the other forward link signals will be at a doppler shift, and will appear to be noise to the phone.
If the phone does see many forward link signals, and manages to get a reverse link down to one cell tower, it reports what it can see. The network will decide which cell towers to put in the traffic channel's active set
Then, network planners need to reuse frequencies and code when they cover an area. In a dense, urban area, the cells are small and reuse is rapid. If a phone looking down sees reused frequencies/codes, it will have issues decoding the forward link. In a rural area, cells can be larger, so reuse of a frequency/code is less often and the cell tower transmission conflicts will be less.
The phone's transmit power will need to higher to reach the cell towers from 10,000 ft, through the plane's skin. Since cell phones are designed for use on the ground, their transmit power is limited, and it might not be capable of transmitting at the necessary level. If it does, it will certainly certainly drain the battery quickly. The phone will cross many registration boundaries as the plane flies, necessitating the phone to frequently re-register in each new region, again draining the battery
The carriers investigate areas with many dropped calls, in order to improve customer service. (Can you hear me now?) If you make a call from a plane, and it moves away from the tower before a handoff can be performed, the call drops. So the carriers don't want you to make calls from a phone directly to the terrestrial network; the calls drop, and customers complain *and* they spend resources trying to determine why many calls drop in certain areas.
As you said, it makes more sense to have the plane be its own cell tower, and transmit the signal to the terrestrial network over specialized, dedicated hardware. The doppler problem goes away (for the phone); no pilot polution; the phone doesn't have to transmit at max power draining the battery; the phone doesn't cross registration boundaries continuously, causing it to repeated register (draining the battery, and raising anti-piracy flags); the call drops are reduced (customer + carrier happy).
Then, the only unhappy people are the people who don't want the passengers around them talking on the phone. A picocell can help here, too. The phone finds the nice, close picocell, and listens to it for incoming calls. Except, the picocell doesn't relay any. Voila! No incoming calls. And what the heck, "service unavailable" for outgoing calls.
So, picocells in planes is good, no matter which camp you are in. They can improve the reliability of the phone calls, or block them entirely.
Considering that cell phones use highly optimized VOCODERS to compress *voice* down to 8k (or 13k) bps, most *music* will fail the coding process. Try it for yourself - call your home phone from your cell, hold the cell to the radio, and listen on your home phone. You'll hear *words* with little or no music - the amount of music coming through depending on the instruments and the specific vocoder.
To have a good change a determining what the song is, you'll want to have your 15-second snippit during the a lyrics portion, not an instrumental portion.
For purely instrumental music, such as classical, I can't imagine much hope of identifying it.
... not the client, in MMORPG's.
The reason is the client can be hacked to allow the player do violate the rules, like walking through walls, etc.
A PPU on the server might help the server support more complex environments, more users per server, etc.
For stand alone games, and scientific applications, this is a pretty neat idea. But I don't think the power-gamers are going to be purchasing extra hardware that just sits there, while the server does the physics.
Profit!!!
You can use the software right out of the box.
... via the free month that the CD key buys you. After that month, you cough up $y/month to continue using it.
... from the store or second hand. If they bought a new box, it would come with a new CD-key, which should allow them to create a new account, or reactivate their old account, both with a 1-month credit. If they buy or otherwise acquire a used box, it would have a used CD key, which should be associated with a cancelled account, and could be reassociated with account being activated.
The CD key is -- among other things - typically a magic 1-month free code.
You bought a game for $x, and you can use it right out of the box
In this case, the used game was put back in the box and sold as a used game. The CD key has already been used, so it is not connected to a free month anymore. The price of the boxed used game should reflect this fact.
Viewed this way, the "box" value is just the value of the manual, maps, etc. The retail box price includes the first month usage as a CD key.
Could someone buy a game, install it, and immediately pass it to a friend, who installs it but doesn't get the first month free, since the original owner got that? Why not? The company still gets paid via the subscription for that month. The company actually may have a cost savings since they don't need to manufacture as many boxes. However, the distributors would suffer. The company may have signed an agreement with the distributors that prevents "buy one box, install 10 times, pay for 10 accounts online", so the distributors get the box sales.
What about buying the game, playing it for 6 months, getting bored with it, and selling it used to another person? The same CD-key would be entered, and no free month would exist. Assuming the first person cancelled their account, on the surface, this seems legitimate. A new "key' could be generated on the spot to be associated with the new account. Now what if the first person wants to re-activate their account? If the company allows this, then the Distributers can cry "foul" since one 'box' is now two 'games'. But the company wants to allow the original owner to come back to the game after a long absense, since that would mean more revenue for the company, and happy customers. How could we make that happen?
Theoretically, the original owner doesn't own the software anymore, so they can't return to it without reacquiring the software
The only real issue is ensuring that the account associated with a CD-key is deactivated in order for the game to be sold "used". Of course, I wouldn't want to have my credit card dinged every month for a game I've sold to someone else, so this shouldn't really be a problem.
There is another way around this as well.
..." The patent described a combination of hardware and software: "a device composed of a CPU or microcontroller, memory, I/O, and an algorithm which could be implemented in software, hardware, or firmware."
Many "software" patents from my company were written as "A method and apparatus to
If you can't patent the software itself, you can add the hardware required for the software to work, resulting in a physical device, which like having a technical effect, allows it to be patentable.
Anyone would be free to use the software without infringing on the patent, unless they also happen to use hardware to run the software on. In which case, you may as well let the software be patentable, since it makes it easier to read the patent description to get at the meat of what is really being protected.
Actually, I do get it.
... such as your decoder's serial number. In which case, we can wind up with unencrypted, untraceable HD movies, which is what we were trying to prevent.
I didn't say it *would* work. I said the only way I *could* see it working was (paraphrasing) to move the decryption closer to the image projection, to prevent, or make it harder for, device-in-the-middle copying of the decrypted bits.
The problem with it: when a key is compromised, instead of requiring people to buy a new player ($100's), people would need to buy a new monitor ($1000's), which wouldn't fly to well.
An IP enabled monitor, with downloadable keys would solve *that* issue, but opens up other issues. You mentioned one: if you *cracked* your *expensive* TV to capture the decrypted bits, when the key is invalidated, you could simply (even transparently) get a new key, and keep copying the decrypted bits.
But an IP enabled TV (while gives you WebTV!) opens another can of worms: What if, in DivX style, your TV "called home" to get permission to view a video stream? You could buy pay-per-view style, or lifetime style, or a "n-Pixar movies per month" subscription style. Each decoder might have its own private/public key, and decoded video may have the decoder's serial number watermarked into it, so if you did crack your TV, copy the bits, and release it publically, your compromised TV would be disabled next time you connected to "buy" a movie. And since you had to pay for the movie, your billing information could be matched with the serial number, for legal action.
Do we want to go DivX style, and have the decoder "phone home"? If we did, then the media for a DVD should be the cost of the disk, not the content, and if you copied the DVD from a fried to your computer, no one would care since you'd still "buy" it the first time you watch it. But then Big Brother would know how many times you watch Eyes Wide Shut. What about portable players, which can't "phone home"?
If you did copy the decrypted video, can you expunge, or corrupt any watermarking that the decoder adds? Probably. Especially if you know what it is watermarked with
The decoder in the TV isn't the end-all solution. It just makes it harder to copy the decrypted bits, by preventing the easy device-in-the-middle copying.
I remember these copy protection techniques actually working fairly well. "Copy software to disk, burn hole in disk at specific track." When the software ran, it tried to format 2 tracks. If it was able to format the first track, the disk was a copy onto clean media. If it could not format the second track, the copy protection tab had been taped over, to prevent the first track from being formatted. In either case, the software didn't run. In essance, the disk was the dongle for the software. You couldn't copy the disk, because the disk copy software couldn't DAMAGE the new disk at the correct spot. (You could still defeat the copy protection mechanism by modifying the software, but that is no longer just "copying" the disk.)
This same technique could work for HD-DVD's. Put a recordable track, and a damaged-recordable track on the media (different for each movie). If the player can format one track, and not the other, it is the original media. Of course this requires HD-DVD players to be able to test whether (certain parts of) the media can be recorded to. And it would also require a more expensive disk manufacturing process.
This merely makes the disk into a dongle, and with the right equiptment, you *could* damage the copied media in the correct way to make it behave like the original ... but not using a typical home computer. The people who (try to) make money selling copied DVD's might invest in the equiptment required to do this. And this prevents the honest people making fair-use backups of their DVD's, to insure against their kids scratching the heck out of one when they forget to take the DVD out and the kid drops it when putting their DVD in.
... is if the DVD players streamed the encrypted bits out to your TV monitor, and the monitor itself did the decryption. A "digital in" on your TV set, much like the "digital in" on surround sound receivers.
... until a key was cracked, and the new HD-DVD's used a new key. "Sorry folks, you don't need a new player; you need a new TV, with a new decryption key." Well, technology moves along, so you might want to upgrade to a better TV anyway, right? But the resale value on your current TV would drop, because it can't play newer movies. I don't think so! Obviously, a way to install new keys is needed ... but since the TV is already IP enabled, this shouldn't be that difficult.
That way, those people who make devices that can capture S-Video, Component, or Composite video (and audio) won't have a decrypted signal to work with. You'd have to take apart your thousand dollar high-definition TV in order to find the decoded RGB signal you wanted to capture. [Or you'd have to capture the video via a Video camera, with the degradation that entails.]
As a benefit, since your TV now accepts encrypted bits, you could stream HD video from your computer, or any other source, since it is the TV that does the decryption. I'm thinking the digital in on the TV, and out on the HD-DVD should be IP-based.
[Of course this needs new TV sets, with the encrypted "digital in" port. To support older sets, you'd still need composite out, etc. So the copy protection would only apply to the HD video. You could copy & pirate the lower quality video, but not the High Definition video.]
This would be great
Just pray your rotating mirrors/motors don't stop all of a suddened, or you'll encounter a new meaning for "burn in".
http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2004/04071
You're mixing "renewable" with "infinitely expandable". In a given year, a finite amount of rain falls over a certain area. The next year, approximately the same finite amount will fall.
Now, it is true that you can only extract a finite amount of potential energy from that finite volume of water on its way back to sea level. Next year, however, you get to do it all over again.
... the binary pattern
0x01 0x01 0x20 0x05
has been found in many executable files on many different and diverse operating systems.
Users are strongly cautioned not to use their computers on January 1st, 2005!
[Editor's note: many more executables also match the less restrictive byte patterns
0x01..0x12 0x01..0x31 0x20 0x05
Using your computer on any day in 2005 may be dangerous!]
Ahem...
"Artist" "U2" "Play all"
Why do you need a screen?
[Of course, the odds this new iPod has voice command input is probably 2 orders of magnitude lower than the new iPod actually existing.]
... more statistics.
... or 480 ... are non-PTC.
99.8% are PTC? That means 0.2% of the 240,000
Two years earlier, the number was 350. Did the PTC exist? Is so, what percentage? If not, it means the non-PTC increase is 37%.
I wouldn't be too worried about false positives.
What of abuse?
If I wanted to take out (say) FlyByNight.com for (of all things) not offering any night-time flights, I could send out spam on their behalf, safe in knowing millions of zombie screen-savers will start attacking their site.
Forget trying to break into various machines around the world, to find a few thousand you can make into a zombie for DDoS attacks! Just use the millions where lusers voluntarily install the zombie software for you!
That would be defeated by having two (or more) cameras. The second would catch the person who shot at the first.
Of course, if you believe in the 'second gunman hypothesis...'