This rather poor reaction on their part seems to be thinking like a software developer when giving away hardware.
Software for a long time it seems has been developing these ridiculous licenses which the developer could make the end user "legally" bound to use their product anyway they wanted to. This has slowly built up to the point where the developers have and are attempting to pass legislation to protect these ridiculously broad IP "rights" which they have developed (ie DMCA and UTICA). These changes to IP make these developers think they can control their market by writing a license restricting the use of their software rather than designing a sound buisness model.
The problem is that this sort of use license shouldn't be available for any IP, in software or hardware.
What DC has done is attempt to extend these rights to a piece of hardware, and they can't seem to understand why this doesn't make sense to people. Oddly enough, people however still seem to think hardware that they have in their hands is theirs. Hopefully this attitude will be much harder to change than the attitude to software was.
While a separate e-mail program is useful a browser doesn't need it as an integral component.
This is especially true now that web-based e-mail is easily available for use. If you have a browser you can use a web based e-mail program to send and recieve e-mail for most or all of your correspondance.
Now a good feature would be for the browser to be able to open a new window at your web e-mail site (specified in options) when mail links are clicked.
This means that this letter is even more moronic than it first appears.
What they should have done is approach the program developer, and ask to include a reference to their servers for each scan so they can get paid and continue to provide their hardware.
Instead they knee-jerk threaten the developer, poison almost any chance they had of dealing with the community he was serving with software written to use their hardware with threat of legal action which doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on (although you can file a civil suit without any basis for the suit, you just lose).
So now the software will spread even quicker (DeCSS anyone) without any chance of them wanting to help this company ever.
The best course of action for the company at this point would be to send a quick apology and ask for changes to the software to allow them to continue providing their hardware and still make a profit.
Obviously they were clueless in thinking that these would only be used how they specified. They gave them away at RadioSnack a pretty geeky place.
No av still has the search with date. Its just that their site designers were on crack when they made the new horrible interface to their search engine.
To get the powerful controls, go to the left column area and there's a web search heading and then under that go to power search.
It's too bad that someone couldn't have designed a better front end for av when they modified it (I was actually much happier with the old version). It's a shame because the search engine is pretty good (although not revolutionary any more) when you use the force and exclude (+ -) and it has a long history in internet time.
Actually I don't use a Palm but I've heard good things (still deciding if I want one). However I have used the specially designed single finger keyboard design which you can get for the Palm replacing the grafitti interface (can't remember the name of it at the moment but its very well designed) on my desktop for occasional mouse entry and can get to about 1/2 my hunt and peck speed without trying very hard (~20wpm or so) and have heard reports of people who use it seriously getting ~40-50wpm.
Also this is still a useful area of reseach. If you can get fast data entry (~40 wpm) in a device without a keyboard (even a folding one) is a great advantage because this and the screen are the two largest items.
Now all we need is a foldable paper thin 11x17" display. ummmmm..:)
Actually the only real reason to do away with the keyboard is for mobility. Frankly its a pain to haul around a standard sized keyboard for data entry. For desktop I think the keyboard replacement is a tough sell.
The moble market however doesn't need voice recognition to get rid of the keyboard, Palm seems to have done a fairly good job of it with their entry system. Other companies could come up with a similar easy to use entry system, or an even better one. Indeed some alternates are already available for the Palm.
One question is do you really want to use a lot of computing/hardware power for voice recognition, or would you rather use it for something else (assuming software designers can come up with an efficient use for that power).
The "mapping" programs often choose the state routes because the distances are a bit shorter, but the highways out here often have speed limits of 75mph (compared to 55 or 65 on the state routes).
Also the point about local traffic is well taken, it would be really cool if these planners took into account the time of day you left, the local traffic conditions, and planned alternate routes if you hit certain waypoints in your trip (near high traffic areas) at bad times (ie DC down Pennsylvania or rush hour route 128) where its almost always quicker to go around the traffic even with the lower speed limits and stop lights. Of course this would require a much better database, but would be significantly more useful. I'm surprised someone isn't working/charging for this already (or maybe they are, NDA interviews anyone;) ).
Yes I guess the part I don't quite get is why it was necessary in a job interview to tell you this information. The skills needed for both implemetations are optics and signal processing so all they really needed to reveal was they were working on a pen based interface and investigated your knowledge of optics and signal processing. If they needed to be more specific than that because of questions you had, then they could ask you to sign an NDA and tell you that the more specific information you wanted is critical to their business and they need to protect it. However if you are already interested in this field the general information seems to be enough to decide, unless you were a real hotshot and knew the flaws of the other designs and wanted to make sure they weren't going that route (although this is information you can give them before signing the NDA and they can just tell you that, no they were going with different technology, and can tell you but you need to sign an NDA.
It does not just allow people to engage in socially unaceptable acts, it allows people to engage in acts which are not locally acceptable.
The general attitude of people towards certain actions in New York is very different from for example a small southern community. The net allows people of like interests to connect with each other, even if the group is small and scattered, and find people who have similar views toward their actions.
This is a good thing for people who are not considered normal in their local communities, however those local communities may have a problem with this.
And this is a prime example of a company thinking they are the only ones to ever think of an idea which has been discussed in other places in this thread.
Pen based interfaces were being thought about ~5 or more years ago ( Read chapter 6 and note this was written and on the web in 1995) admittedly the company developing the C-pen might not have wanted anyone to know its particular implementation of a pen based interface. However, their idea was hardly unique and they could have discussed that they were developing a pen based computing interface, and not discussed the specific implemetation they were designing.
OTOH maybe they didn't want anyone to know anything about what they were doing, but keeping that kind of secret is extrodinarily difficult even with NDA's, people want to talk to friends etc. about what they are doing. It might not end up in the hands of a competitor, but it probably will if the competitor is actively seeking information.
Probably, but I'm not sure you might need a reason to need it. Companies doing defense contracting pay the government a fee to cover the cost of the FBI investigation needed to approve a security clearance. I believe it runs to around $30,000 or so (maybe up to $60,000) I'm sure a company would let you pay your own way (but why would you want to?).
Even if you get a clearance all it means is that people can talk to you about secure projects and give access to secure files and areas, you don't just get access to everything. However it does improve your hiring prospects when a company can hire you without having to pay for your clearance, and some people will get a job at one of the national labs (LANL for example) to get a clearance so that they can get work with better pay at a contractor or consulting firm working for those lbs or the gov't.
Sensitive positions in the defense industy are filled by applicants without a security clearance (although they prefer to hire people who have clearance, because of the cost to clear) without disclosing any sensitive information to the applicant. It seems that a tech company interviewer should be able to determine if a canidate is qualified, and get the canadate interested in the position without revealing any critical secrets about the company. Maybe these companies just don't trust their interviewers not to spill the beans...
A corellary to this question is why can't you "break into" data storage media which you have purchased and supposedly own, this is NOT the same as breaking into someone else's property no matter how many times the MPAA says it.
Actually it appears you are trolling, but I'll bite anyway (its late:) ).
1) I have heard of Cassini, it is an intersting exploration probe of the Saturn system. As an aside where do you get your Pu toxicity data? Here's a link to a paper on the subject by Bernard Cohen. Do you have information from a radiation health researcher to back your claims?
2) In order to expolore the outer solar system there are good reasons to use plutonium as a power source (in an RTG, Radioisotope Thermal Generator). It is compact (low mass/energy), long lived, and reliable. Other possible power sources have inherently serious problems.
3) Also they do contain the Pu in many layers of protection in case of an accidental reentry to prevnt the release of the Pu in the atmosphere.
Perhaps the press has been "nonchalant" because the danger is miniscule and only the extremists are upset by a non-existant danger.
That is a very stupid argument that global warming is a myth, unfortuately this is the level of science a lot of people use to make complex decisions on the direction of science policy in the US (and likely other countries as well).
There are reasons to think global warming is going to be a problem, however direct evidence or even accurate models are hard to come by because of the difficulty of dealing with a problem as complex as planetary scale climate modelling.
The question is at what point are the future costs which may occur due to global warming outweigh the advantages of using cheap fossil fuels, and how good are our predictive models which we are relying on to attempt to make this decision.
Right now our models aren't great and we are trying to examine what the effects will be at a substantially distant point in the future. These things combine to make it hard to convince the average person that this is something important to think about.
There was a very good Frontline/Nova report on this issue a few months ago which explained the problem in detail, and showed the rather convincing evidence seen. Also it was interesting to see the extremist points of view;
big oil: no problem what's all the fuss about
enviromentalist: no power generation except solar and wind
The energy production of solar and wind generation are currently, and as far as can be predicted in the future, not efficeint enough to produce our energy need in a reasonable amount of space (and land in expensive), the density is simply too low.
They also explained why nuclear fission isn't a cure all because the fuel supply is too limited.
The conclusion was that global warming if it occurs as predicted will force a reduction in fossil fuel usage within the next century, where if global warming were not an issue these fuels would be substantially gone in 2 or so centuries. Thus the global warming issues move the date when we need to have other means to supply our energy needs up by a century.
Only a new technology which avoids these problems will prevent this crisis from occuring. One example is fusion energy production, unfortunately this has been 40 years away for about 50 years. Maybe nano technology will solve this problem after all its only 40 years away;).
Now the question is is the supermarket responsible for allowing the people who stole the jam from the national maker to trade, or are the people stealing the jam to give it away responsible?
Stealing to give away socially responsible is still illegal. It may be morally right, it may be civil disobedience, but it's still illegal. And as long as the law isn't changed, it remains that way.
Ahh but who's stealing the supermarket or the "theives" trading in the supermarket.
btw. I agree copyright infringement is illegal (although nearly unenforcable, which is why its such a problem) and I choose not to "borrow" my music, but I think RIAA and MPAA have gone way over the line one too many times and I personally wouldn't mind seeing them slapped down a bit.
It's closer to a national supermarket chain carrying 2 brands of Jam. Shelves of say "Smuckers" or a big national brand and 1 or 2 jars of your brand new private label brand.
Then the national brand files a suit againts the supermarket chain for being a jam trading hub and illegally allowing people to give stolen samples of the national brand jam away. The judge then bars all jam sales at the supermarket.
Now the big national brand can still get their jam to your area via other supermarkets (and you can too but you had a good relationship and following at that market).
Now to top it off you have to pay the national jam maker, who you are competing against, a fee passed by congress for each and every jam jar you use for bottling.
Now the question is is the supermarket responsible for allowing the people who stole the jam from the national maker to trade, or are the people stealing the jam to give it away responsible?
And is it really fair to tax the slight competition you have and line your pockets under the guise of trying to prevent the theft of your jam?
I know this isn't a perfect analogy but its as least as good as yours.
But Olympic had been in common use, the only reason it was able to be trademarked was through a specific act of congress, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
For instance no matter how much money I pour into branding a drink called Water, I can't get trademark rights to it. This is why AMD comes up with lame names for its products like the Duron, so that they can create a branded product with trademark protection.
A trademark can only be retained indefinately if it retains its uniqueness, which if it enters the common vernacular (as was the case with the specific examples above) you lose it. This generally means if your brand becomes associated with an entire class of products you will end up losing your trademark.
But you are correct that it is not the same as patents or copyrights, but in any normal sense the olympic trademark would have been denied because the term had been in common usage for centuries.
Slashdot Mirror
This rather poor reaction on their part seems to be thinking like a software developer when giving away hardware.
Software for a long time it seems has been developing these ridiculous licenses which the developer could make the end user "legally" bound to use their product anyway they wanted to. This has slowly built up to the point where the developers have and are attempting to pass legislation to protect these ridiculously broad IP "rights" which they have developed (ie DMCA and UTICA). These changes to IP make these developers think they can control their market by writing a license restricting the use of their software rather than designing a sound buisness model.
The problem is that this sort of use license shouldn't be available for any IP, in software or hardware.
What DC has done is attempt to extend these rights to a piece of hardware, and they can't seem to understand why this doesn't make sense to people. Oddly enough, people however still seem to think hardware that they have in their hands is theirs. Hopefully this attitude will be much harder to change than the attitude to software was.
I agree.
While a separate e-mail program is useful a browser doesn't need it as an integral component.
This is especially true now that web-based e-mail is easily available for use. If you have a browser you can use a web based e-mail program to send and recieve e-mail for most or all of your correspondance.
Now a good feature would be for the browser to be able to open a new window at your web e-mail site (specified in options) when mail links are clicked.
Make sure to send it back postage due too, since they seem to want it so bad make'em pay for it.
Their model almost has to be some pay per scan.
This means that this letter is even more moronic than it first appears.
What they should have done is approach the program developer, and ask to include a reference to their servers for each scan so they can get paid and continue to provide their hardware.
Instead they knee-jerk threaten the developer, poison almost any chance they had of dealing with the community he was serving with software written to use their hardware with threat of legal action which doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on (although you can file a civil suit without any basis for the suit, you just lose).
So now the software will spread even quicker (DeCSS anyone) without any chance of them wanting to help this company ever.
The best course of action for the company at this point would be to send a quick apology and ask for changes to the software to allow them to continue providing their hardware and still make a profit.
Obviously they were clueless in thinking that these would only be used how they specified. They gave them away at RadioSnack a pretty geeky place.
No av still has the search with date. Its just that their site designers were on crack when they made the new horrible interface to their search engine.
To get the powerful controls, go to the left column area and there's a web search heading and then under that go to power search.
It's too bad that someone couldn't have designed a better front end for av when they modified it (I was actually much happier with the old version). It's a shame because the search engine is pretty good (although not revolutionary any more) when you use the force and exclude (+ -) and it has a long history in internet time.
Actually I don't use a Palm but I've heard good things (still deciding if I want one). However I have used the specially designed single finger keyboard design which you can get for the Palm replacing the grafitti interface (can't remember the name of it at the moment but its very well designed) on my desktop for occasional mouse entry and can get to about 1/2 my hunt and peck speed without trying very hard (~20wpm or so) and have heard reports of people who use it seriously getting ~40-50wpm.
:)
Also this is still a useful area of reseach. If you can get fast data entry (~40 wpm) in a device without a keyboard (even a folding one) is a great advantage because this and the screen are the two largest items.
Now all we need is a foldable paper thin 11x17" display. ummmmm..
I agree, this would be much more useful if they could fit it into a Palm or calculator form factor. With a port for a keyboard though.
Actually the only real reason to do away with the keyboard is for mobility. Frankly its a pain to haul around a standard sized keyboard for data entry. For desktop I think the keyboard replacement is a tough sell.
The moble market however doesn't need voice recognition to get rid of the keyboard, Palm seems to have done a fairly good job of it with their entry system. Other companies could come up with a similar easy to use entry system, or an even better one. Indeed some alternates are already available for the Palm.
One question is do you really want to use a lot of computing/hardware power for voice recognition, or would you rather use it for something else (assuming software designers can come up with an efficient use for that power).
Yes this is particularly annoying in the west.
;) ).
The "mapping" programs often choose the state routes because the distances are a bit shorter, but the highways out here often have speed limits of 75mph (compared to 55 or 65 on the state routes).
Also the point about local traffic is well taken, it would be really cool if these planners took into account the time of day you left, the local traffic conditions, and planned alternate routes if you hit certain waypoints in your trip (near high traffic areas) at bad times (ie DC down Pennsylvania or rush hour route 128) where its almost always quicker to go around the traffic even with the lower speed limits and stop lights. Of course this would require a much better database, but would be significantly more useful. I'm surprised someone isn't working/charging for this already (or maybe they are, NDA interviews anyone
Yes I guess the part I don't quite get is why it was necessary in a job interview to tell you this information. The skills needed for both implemetations are optics and signal processing so all they really needed to reveal was they were working on a pen based interface and investigated your knowledge of optics and signal processing. If they needed to be more specific than that because of questions you had, then they could ask you to sign an NDA and tell you that the more specific information you wanted is critical to their business and they need to protect it. However if you are already interested in this field the general information seems to be enough to decide, unless you were a real hotshot and knew the flaws of the other designs and wanted to make sure they weren't going that route (although this is information you can give them before signing the NDA and they can just tell you that, no they were going with different technology, and can tell you but you need to sign an NDA.
The general attitude of people towards certain actions in New York is very different from for example a small southern community. The net allows people of like interests to connect with each other, even if the group is small and scattered, and find people who have similar views toward their actions.
This is a good thing for people who are not considered normal in their local communities, however those local communities may have a problem with this.
And this is a prime example of a company thinking they are the only ones to ever think of an idea which has been discussed in other places in this thread.
Pen based interfaces were being thought about ~5 or more years ago ( Read chapter 6 and note this was written and on the web in 1995) admittedly the company developing the C-pen might not have wanted anyone to know its particular implementation of a pen based interface. However, their idea was hardly unique and they could have discussed that they were developing a pen based computing interface, and not discussed the specific implemetation they were designing.
OTOH maybe they didn't want anyone to know anything about what they were doing, but keeping that kind of secret is extrodinarily difficult even with NDA's, people want to talk to friends etc. about what they are doing. It might not end up in the hands of a competitor, but it probably will if the competitor is actively seeking information.
Probably, but I'm not sure you might need a reason to need it. Companies doing defense contracting pay the government a fee to cover the cost of the FBI investigation needed to approve a security clearance. I believe it runs to around $30,000 or so (maybe up to $60,000) I'm sure a company would let you pay your own way (but why would you want to?).
Even if you get a clearance all it means is that people can talk to you about secure projects and give access to secure files and areas, you don't just get access to everything. However it does improve your hiring prospects when a company can hire you without having to pay for your clearance, and some people will get a job at one of the national labs (LANL for example) to get a clearance so that they can get work with better pay at a contractor or consulting firm working for those lbs or the gov't.
Sensitive positions in the defense industy are filled by applicants without a security clearance (although they prefer to hire people who have clearance, because of the cost to clear) without disclosing any sensitive information to the applicant. It seems that a tech company interviewer should be able to determine if a canidate is qualified, and get the canadate interested in the position without revealing any critical secrets about the company. Maybe these companies just don't trust their interviewers not to spill the beans...
A corellary to this question is why can't you "break into" data storage media which you have purchased and supposedly own, this is NOT the same as breaking into someone else's property no matter how many times the MPAA says it.
Actually it appears you are trolling, but I'll bite anyway (its late :) ).
1) I have heard of Cassini, it is an intersting exploration probe of the Saturn system. As an aside where do you get your Pu toxicity data? Here's a link to a paper on the subject by Bernard Cohen. Do you have information from a radiation health researcher to back your claims?
2) In order to expolore the outer solar system there are good reasons to use plutonium as a power source (in an RTG, Radioisotope Thermal Generator). It is compact (low mass/energy), long lived, and reliable. Other possible power sources have inherently serious problems.
3) Also they do contain the Pu in many layers of protection in case of an accidental reentry to prevnt the release of the Pu in the atmosphere. Perhaps the press has been "nonchalant" because the danger is miniscule and only the extremists are upset by a non-existant danger.
Oops, here's a link to some info on that Nova/Frontline report
That is a very stupid argument that global warming is a myth, unfortuately this is the level of science a lot of people use to make complex decisions on the direction of science policy in the US (and likely other countries as well).
;).
There are reasons to think global warming is going to be a problem, however direct evidence or even accurate models are hard to come by because of the difficulty of dealing with a problem as complex as planetary scale climate modelling.
The question is at what point are the future costs which may occur due to global warming outweigh the advantages of using cheap fossil fuels, and how good are our predictive models which we are relying on to attempt to make this decision.
Right now our models aren't great and we are trying to examine what the effects will be at a substantially distant point in the future. These things combine to make it hard to convince the average person that this is something important to think about.
There was a very good Frontline/Nova report on this issue a few months ago which explained the problem in detail, and showed the rather convincing evidence seen. Also it was interesting to see the extremist points of view;
big oil: no problem what's all the fuss about
enviromentalist: no power generation except solar and wind
The energy production of solar and wind generation are currently, and as far as can be predicted in the future, not efficeint enough to produce our energy need in a reasonable amount of space (and land in expensive), the density is simply too low.
They also explained why nuclear fission isn't a cure all because the fuel supply is too limited.
The conclusion was that global warming if it occurs as predicted will force a reduction in fossil fuel usage within the next century, where if global warming were not an issue these fuels would be substantially gone in 2 or so centuries. Thus the global warming issues move the date when we need to have other means to supply our energy needs up by a century.
Only a new technology which avoids these problems will prevent this crisis from occuring. One example is fusion energy production, unfortunately this has been 40 years away for about 50 years. Maybe nano technology will solve this problem after all its only 40 years away
Maybe /. could add Region coding to its content ;).
Very true, replace MHz with Mb/s and bus speed with bandwidth.
;)
When can I get an OC48 to my door
Now the question is is the supermarket responsible for allowing the people who stole the jam from the national maker to trade, or are the people stealing the jam to give it away responsible?
Stealing to give away socially responsible is still illegal. It may be morally right, it may be civil disobedience, but it's still illegal. And as long as the law isn't changed, it remains that way.
Ahh but who's stealing the supermarket or the "theives" trading in the supermarket.
btw. I agree copyright infringement is illegal (although nearly unenforcable, which is why its such a problem) and I choose not to "borrow" my music, but I think RIAA and MPAA have gone way over the line one too many times and I personally wouldn't mind seeing them slapped down a bit.
Ok if you're going to use analogies....
It's closer to a national supermarket chain carrying 2 brands of Jam. Shelves of say "Smuckers" or a big national brand and 1 or 2 jars of your brand new private label brand.
Then the national brand files a suit againts the supermarket chain for being a jam trading hub and illegally allowing people to give stolen samples of the national brand jam away. The judge then bars all jam sales at the supermarket.
Now the big national brand can still get their jam to your area via other supermarkets (and you can too but you had a good relationship and following at that market).
Now to top it off you have to pay the national jam maker, who you are competing against, a fee passed by congress for each and every jam jar you use for bottling.
Now the question is is the supermarket responsible for allowing the people who stole the jam from the national maker to trade, or are the people stealing the jam to give it away responsible?
And is it really fair to tax the slight competition you have and line your pockets under the guise of trying to prevent the theft of your jam?
I know this isn't a perfect analogy but its as least as good as yours.
Actually I got much better results from Google, go figure.
Not to be released on the 11 o'clock news (hopefully).
But Olympic had been in common use, the only reason it was able to be trademarked was through a specific act of congress, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
For instance no matter how much money I pour into branding a drink called Water, I can't get trademark rights to it. This is why AMD comes up with lame names for its products like the Duron, so that they can create a branded product with trademark protection.
A trademark can only be retained indefinately if it retains its uniqueness, which if it enters the common vernacular (as was the case with the specific examples above) you lose it. This generally means if your brand becomes associated with an entire class of products you will end up losing your trademark.
But you are correct that it is not the same as patents or copyrights, but in any normal sense the olympic trademark would have been denied because the term had been in common usage for centuries.