That this is going to court at all is still a sign of multiple fuckups with patents.
Patents are not the problem, because the guy doesn't have a patent. He applied for a patent, then didn't pay his fees, so the patent application was abandoned.
This whole article is based on a completely wrong premise: That the computer of a self driving car would be programmed or able to predict that people would be injured or killed. It doesn't work that way.
What the computer cares about is hitting things. It avoids hitting things. It will likely be programmed to give preference to avoiding soft things, a bit more preference to avoiding human-looking things, and maybe a bit more preference to avoiding small human-looking things (but that depends on whether small human-looking things suffer more damage from a collision than bigger ones, which I don't know). Very high priority would be given to avoiding hard and heavy objects moving at speed in the opposite direction (oncoming traffic, especially trucks or buses), and a lot less to objects moving into the same direction (like a bus driving in the same direction).
A future self-driving car will be better at protecting you, because if there is an accident, it can predict it ("I will crash into this wall in exactly 0.105 seconds"). Steering wheels and pedals can be moved out of the way, seat belts tightened up, airbags exploded at exactly the right time - not waiting until the crash happens.
Now the scenario of ten pedestrians in the street... That would happen in an area with a speed limit. Whatever happens, the car will be braking from 30mph to 20mph or lower, which with preparation is quite safe. Even if there was a situation where the car drove into oncoming traffic, with lots of cars computer controlled a message would be sent out so that everyone brakes hard and gets out of the way. One human-driven car driving into oncoming traffic is not the same as one computer-driven car giving its mates a warning long ahead, everyone does an emergency brake immediately, and then you go into incoming traffic.
Any rules that a self driving car must sacrifice the driver to save more than one pedestrians will quickly be voided as soon as gangs of thugs (or just one thug with a few dummies that only have to be good enough to fool an AI) figure out that they can get a car to kill a driver and therefor collect all the loot just by having the AI see a handful of pedestrians jump out on the street (preferably a nice winding mountain road). Do you really want self driving cars where a violent mob can force the car to kill the driver, or stop so that the mob can pry open the car and kill the driver?
Typical slashdot idiocy. The same thugs can today arm themselves and start shooting when a car comes round the corner, with the same effect. It doesn't happen. The difference is that with the self driving car, there will be a complete recording of the event, an immediate message to the police, every car nearby alarmed to be on the lookout for the guys, and they probably get turned in by their own getaway car.
So it should slow-down even if the pedestrian is on the sidewalk?
Yes, you should, depending on the pedestrian. If it's a young child, big enough to run quickly, and maybe in addition you spot something that could distract the child, you need to slow down.
Let me start off by saying that I don't value my life above others.
I _do_ value my life above others. However... we should assume that all self driving cars are programmed in the same way. If we look at accidents involving one driver and ten pedestrians, there are ten times more pedestrians involved in that kind of accident, therefore I'm ten times more likely being involved in such an accident as the passenger, and not the driver. Therefore, the best strategy _for me_ assuming that everyone uses the same strategy is the one that minimises the number of victims.
So "jury nullification", is that a US system where jurors blatantly ignore evidence and laws and find for defendants if it is financially useful for them?
My hope is this won't have been tucked away in some 80 page long wall of legalese text that I had to click through when updating to said software version...
Every privacy related feature, if you submit an app to the store Apple checks that you have a good reason to request the information and rejects your app if it doesn't. And it rejects your app if it doesn't work (in a possibly reduced way) if the user doesn't give permission. Which avoids users having the choice of givning up privacy or not using an app, as in Android.
An app cannot use data considered private without asking you, and you can change the settings at any time in "Settings" under "Privacy". You will get for example a complete list of apps that can find the phone's location, and remove any app from that list.
So Apple says they'll do voluntarily what Google does only after having been forced and fined in the EU: Adhere to existing data protection laws, and at least ask for consent before selling your data? There used to be times when it was pretty common (around here) to not run businesses on illegal activities.
You must be an Apple fanboy, telling us how Google is breaking the law and Apple isn't.
Not all companies do. For example, Digi-Key gives asks me if I want my CC data saved. Of course, I always decline.
No decent company stores your credit card number. Ever. What they can do is exchange the credit card number into a token that allows them to move money from your account into theirs. If that token is stolen, the hacker cannot put any money into their account.
It's rather stupid to believe that the NSA would rely on misleading half truths.
If they want you to know something, they will tell you the truth. If they don't want you to know something, they either don't tell, or they lie. There is absolutely no reason why the NSA would try to to tell you misleading truths, when they can much easier tell you misleading lies.
No, it would just ensure that every large corporation would show up with a team of 50 lawyers to every case. Knowing that you could end up paying each one of them $500/ hour if you lose because your lawyer was having a bad day, or the judge made a mistake. Including the amount of time each would be billing for for case prep and such, it would mean financial ruin from most people if they lose.
Again, how this would play out in Germany for a â500 case: This team of 50 lawyers turn up in court. Judge looks at his watch. They all tell the judge their names. Judge decides that this is enough time spent on a â500 case and sends them all home, no claims stated, case lost.
Loser pays would also make it basically impossible to sue any entity that has more money than you. The risk would be far too great, even if you had a legitimate dispute.
Not if lawyer costs are limited. Like in Germany, where the lawyer gets paid a small percentage of the amount the parties argue about. In Germany, you would have no problem suing Microsoft for â1000 even with "loser pays", because there is a very low limit what the lawyers can charge.
In countries where the loser pays the legal fees, the person with more money is never taken to court because suing will bankrupt the little guy if he loses. I'm not going to sue for my $500 loss if I have a 10% chance of losing and he'll spend 30k defending himself. Loser pays means that poor and middle class can't seek justice at all.
In Germany, for a $500 case the cost will be around $100. The lawyer won't do much work, and the judge will also not do much work, for a $500 case.
In Germany, the judge first figures out how much we are arguing about, here: $30,000. Or $29,955 if the guy offered to return the $45. Then the judge looks up what the fees or the court and the lawyers would be for a $30,000 case, maybe $3,000 altogether. That's what court and lawyers get (court is not free).
Should the judge order a payment of $60, that's 0.2% of what they argued about, then the defendent pays $60 plus 0.2% of the cost (court and both lawyers), that's another six dollars, while the plaintiff gets $60 and pays 99.8% of the cost, that is $2,994.,
That's why people in Germany don't go to court and ask for ridiculous amounts of money.
Actually, work force would probably get cheaper for the companies as well because the minimum wage could easily be lowered accordingly. There is no reason for a 15 bucks and hour minimum wage anymore if a basic income is guaranteed already.
That would completely defeat the purpose.
There are people who are just too lazy to work, or who are for some reason incapable of holding a job. You don't want to let these people starve, so you have a general payout.
But currently there are many people who are on benefits and make the rational decision that a low paying job is not worth it, because whatever money they make, they lose in benefits. In the UK, there are people who have less money in their pocket because they work. That must be changed. _Everyone_ should be significantly better off by having a job.
That's all achieved by having a minimum payout, a decent minimum wage, and say a 40% tax rate up to the point where the tax equals the minimum payout. If the minimum payout is X, then everyone would have X, someone earning X would have 1.6X, someone earning 2.5X would have 2.5X. And from then on a "normal" tax rate as you have it now.
People don't buy Macbooks because they are lighter, or thinner, or faster. They buy them because they run Mac OS X.
But then they have the choice between different models, and buy different models depending on whether they want fast, light, or cheap.
But you are right, this won't move people from buying a MacBook to buying an ASUS laptop. It will move some people from buying a heavy Windows laptop to buying an ASUS laptop.
"So that we can be defenseless, as the Europeans are now finding out to their chagrin?"
Fact: In the last year, 56 people in the USA were shot by children under three year old. Fact: In the UK, nobody can carry a gun legally, and ordinary police doesn't carry guns. But if you are a criminal (or not) an armed response unit will come down on you so hard you won't know what hit you. Criminals don't carry guns, because carrying a gun is so out of the ordinary that the police isn't going to stop until they have them.
This assumes that there is a single person with access to all the source code. It wouldn't surprise me if the various parts of iTunes were written by independent teams with no access to each others code, intended to prevent an employee from stealing the source code and selling it to a competitor.
God, I thought nobody could be so clueless about software development, and about copyright law.
If you were an Apple employee and tried to sell the iTunes source code lets say to Microsoft, they would call their lawyer, who would call Apple's lawyers and the police, and you would go into the history books as one of the most stupid criminals ever.
"No, it's competing with the moto360 and the urbane. And it's losing."
Apple Watch has been beating Rolex in revenue ($6bn vs. $4.5 bn). I'm sure you can tell use how moto360 and urbane are doing in revenue and profits, if you are so sure that Apple is losing.
What you describe is not the German court system. I assume it's not the Austrian court system either.
He has apparently sent letters demanding payment to 440 different companies using his photos, asking each for a relatively small amount. If any of these cases goes to court, it will go through very quickly. And what a case: "I sold these pictures to Sofitel for 4,400 Euros. Which proves how much they are worth. This company uses them without paying me and mentioning my name, so I want the same payment from them."
For a case for 4,400 there is no way that a company would get an appeal. Instructing your lawyer to draw the case out is quite pointless for 4,400 Euros. In Germany, lawyer fees (and court fees, courts are not free) are a fixed percentage of the amount that you are arguing about, that is 4,400 Euros. The percentage is fixed by the judicial system. And loser pays, so if he wins, he'll get 4,400 Euros. Obviously what he wins is income, so income tax will be paid. Same as if he had charged Sofitel 2 million in the first place, he'll have to pay tax on it.
But 50%? Unlikely. Again, I don't know enough details of the system. In the UK, he would likely have a limited company. The two million would be profit, so he'd pay 20% corporation tax. Then the company has 1.8 million in the bank. With that money, he can stop working and the company pays him a dividend every year for the rest of his life, at a very low tax rate.
The photographer charged Sofitel â4200 for the photos. He then discovered 170 magazine covers with unlicensed copies of his photos, and uses by 440 different parties.
His lawyer has sent letters to all 440 parties, probably asking them for â4,200 each, would would add up to about 2 million Euros or Dollar (amounts are roughly the same). Anyone paying him could then turn to Sofitel for damages.
And finally, Sofitel has offered â400,000 to make this go away.
Most of the work is done by Chinese slave labor and so has no contribution to the US economy.
I'd want to see some evidence of your "slave labor" claim, but I think we can savely assume that you are just full of shit and no evidence will be forthcoming.
I beg to differ, atheists and agnostics being now the second largest group behind Christian Evangelists, lots of people don't believe anymore in 'sins', suicide included and are not afraid to pull a stop if they have enough.
Idiot. I'm not afraid of a sin, I'm afraid of being dead. As an atheist, I know there is one life and one life only and if you throw it away it's gone.
Most people who "have enough" are not in a life situation where a suicide would be objectively justified, but suffer from some mental problem, like depression. Since they suffer from a mental problem that is so bad they are willing to throw their life away without an objectively good reason, why would they care that someone tells them it's a sin?
Slashdot Mirror
That this is going to court at all is still a sign of multiple fuckups with patents.
Patents are not the problem, because the guy doesn't have a patent. He applied for a patent, then didn't pay his fees, so the patent application was abandoned.
This whole article is based on a completely wrong premise: That the computer of a self driving car would be programmed or able to predict that people would be injured or killed. It doesn't work that way.
What the computer cares about is hitting things. It avoids hitting things. It will likely be programmed to give preference to avoiding soft things, a bit more preference to avoiding human-looking things, and maybe a bit more preference to avoiding small human-looking things (but that depends on whether small human-looking things suffer more damage from a collision than bigger ones, which I don't know). Very high priority would be given to avoiding hard and heavy objects moving at speed in the opposite direction (oncoming traffic, especially trucks or buses), and a lot less to objects moving into the same direction (like a bus driving in the same direction).
A future self-driving car will be better at protecting you, because if there is an accident, it can predict it ("I will crash into this wall in exactly 0.105 seconds"). Steering wheels and pedals can be moved out of the way, seat belts tightened up, airbags exploded at exactly the right time - not waiting until the crash happens.
Now the scenario of ten pedestrians in the street... That would happen in an area with a speed limit. Whatever happens, the car will be braking from 30mph to 20mph or lower, which with preparation is quite safe. Even if there was a situation where the car drove into oncoming traffic, with lots of cars computer controlled a message would be sent out so that everyone brakes hard and gets out of the way. One human-driven car driving into oncoming traffic is not the same as one computer-driven car giving its mates a warning long ahead, everyone does an emergency brake immediately, and then you go into incoming traffic.
Any rules that a self driving car must sacrifice the driver to save more than one pedestrians will quickly be voided as soon as gangs of thugs (or just one thug with a few dummies that only have to be good enough to fool an AI) figure out that they can get a car to kill a driver and therefor collect all the loot just by having the AI see a handful of pedestrians jump out on the street (preferably a nice winding mountain road). Do you really want self driving cars where a violent mob can force the car to kill the driver, or stop so that the mob can pry open the car and kill the driver?
Typical slashdot idiocy. The same thugs can today arm themselves and start shooting when a car comes round the corner, with the same effect. It doesn't happen. The difference is that with the self driving car, there will be a complete recording of the event, an immediate message to the police, every car nearby alarmed to be on the lookout for the guys, and they probably get turned in by their own getaway car.
So it should slow-down even if the pedestrian is on the sidewalk?
Yes, you should, depending on the pedestrian. If it's a young child, big enough to run quickly, and maybe in addition you spot something that could distract the child, you need to slow down.
Let me start off by saying that I don't value my life above others.
I _do_ value my life above others. However... we should assume that all self driving cars are programmed in the same way. If we look at accidents involving one driver and ten pedestrians, there are ten times more pedestrians involved in that kind of accident, therefore I'm ten times more likely being involved in such an accident as the passenger, and not the driver. Therefore, the best strategy _for me_ assuming that everyone uses the same strategy is the one that minimises the number of victims.
So "jury nullification", is that a US system where jurors blatantly ignore evidence and laws and find for defendants if it is financially useful for them?
My hope is this won't have been tucked away in some 80 page long wall of legalese text that I had to click through when updating to said software version...
Every privacy related feature, if you submit an app to the store Apple checks that you have a good reason to request the information and rejects your app if it doesn't. And it rejects your app if it doesn't work (in a possibly reduced way) if the user doesn't give permission. Which avoids users having the choice of givning up privacy or not using an app, as in Android.
An app cannot use data considered private without asking you, and you can change the settings at any time in "Settings" under "Privacy". You will get for example a complete list of apps that can find the phone's location, and remove any app from that list.
So Apple says they'll do voluntarily what Google does only after having been forced and fined in the EU: Adhere to existing data protection laws, and at least ask for consent before selling your data? There used to be times when it was pretty common (around here) to not run businesses on illegal activities.
You must be an Apple fanboy, telling us how Google is breaking the law and Apple isn't.
Not all companies do. For example, Digi-Key gives asks me if I want my CC data saved. Of course, I always decline.
No decent company stores your credit card number. Ever. What they can do is exchange the credit card number into a token that allows them to move money from your account into theirs. If that token is stolen, the hacker cannot put any money into their account.
Seems Acer is not a decent company.
It's rather stupid to believe that the NSA would rely on misleading half truths.
If they want you to know something, they will tell you the truth. If they don't want you to know something, they either don't tell, or they lie. There is absolutely no reason why the NSA would try to to tell you misleading truths, when they can much easier tell you misleading lies.
No, it would just ensure that every large corporation would show up with a team of 50 lawyers to every case. Knowing that you could end up paying each one of them $500/ hour if you lose because your lawyer was having a bad day, or the judge made a mistake. Including the amount of time each would be billing for for case prep and such, it would mean financial ruin from most people if they lose.
Again, how this would play out in Germany for a â500 case: This team of 50 lawyers turn up in court. Judge looks at his watch. They all tell the judge their names. Judge decides that this is enough time spent on a â500 case and sends them all home, no claims stated, case lost.
Loser pays would also make it basically impossible to sue any entity that has more money than you. The risk would be far too great, even if you had a legitimate dispute.
Not if lawyer costs are limited. Like in Germany, where the lawyer gets paid a small percentage of the amount the parties argue about. In Germany, you would have no problem suing Microsoft for â1000 even with "loser pays", because there is a very low limit what the lawyers can charge.
In countries where the loser pays the legal fees, the person with more money is never taken to court because suing will bankrupt the little guy if he loses. I'm not going to sue for my $500 loss if I have a 10% chance of losing and he'll spend 30k defending himself. Loser pays means that poor and middle class can't seek justice at all.
In Germany, for a $500 case the cost will be around $100. The lawyer won't do much work, and the judge will also not do much work, for a $500 case.
Does it work differently in any other country?
In Germany, the judge first figures out how much we are arguing about, here: $30,000. Or $29,955 if the guy offered to return the $45. Then the judge looks up what the fees or the court and the lawyers would be for a $30,000 case, maybe $3,000 altogether. That's what court and lawyers get (court is not free).
Should the judge order a payment of $60, that's 0.2% of what they argued about, then the defendent pays $60 plus 0.2% of the cost (court and both lawyers), that's another six dollars, while the plaintiff gets $60 and pays 99.8% of the cost, that is $2,994.,
That's why people in Germany don't go to court and ask for ridiculous amounts of money.
Actually, work force would probably get cheaper for the companies as well because the minimum wage could easily be lowered accordingly. There is no reason for a 15 bucks and hour minimum wage anymore if a basic income is guaranteed already.
That would completely defeat the purpose.
There are people who are just too lazy to work, or who are for some reason incapable of holding a job. You don't want to let these people starve, so you have a general payout.
But currently there are many people who are on benefits and make the rational decision that a low paying job is not worth it, because whatever money they make, they lose in benefits. In the UK, there are people who have less money in their pocket because they work. That must be changed. _Everyone_ should be significantly better off by having a job.
That's all achieved by having a minimum payout, a decent minimum wage, and say a 40% tax rate up to the point where the tax equals the minimum payout. If the minimum payout is X, then everyone would have X, someone earning X would have 1.6X, someone earning 2.5X would have 2.5X. And from then on a "normal" tax rate as you have it now.
People don't buy Macbooks because they are lighter, or thinner, or faster. They buy them because they run Mac OS X.
But then they have the choice between different models, and buy different models depending on whether they want fast, light, or cheap.
But you are right, this won't move people from buying a MacBook to buying an ASUS laptop. It will move some people from buying a heavy Windows laptop to buying an ASUS laptop.
"So that we can be defenseless, as the Europeans are now finding out to their chagrin?"
Fact: In the last year, 56 people in the USA were shot by children under three year old. Fact: In the UK, nobody can carry a gun legally, and ordinary police doesn't carry guns. But if you are a criminal (or not) an armed response unit will come down on you so hard you won't know what hit you. Criminals don't carry guns, because carrying a gun is so out of the ordinary that the police isn't going to stop until they have them.
You meant unlink() right?
Probably FSDelete :-(. Although it should rely be removeItemAtURL:
This assumes that there is a single person with access to all the source code. It wouldn't surprise me if the various parts of iTunes were written by independent teams with no access to each others code, intended to prevent an employee from stealing the source code and selling it to a competitor.
God, I thought nobody could be so clueless about software development, and about copyright law.
If you were an Apple employee and tried to sell the iTunes source code lets say to Microsoft, they would call their lawyer, who would call Apple's lawyers and the police, and you would go into the history books as one of the most stupid criminals ever.
"No, it's competing with the moto360 and the urbane. And it's losing." Apple Watch has been beating Rolex in revenue ($6bn vs. $4.5 bn). I'm sure you can tell use how moto360 and urbane are doing in revenue and profits, if you are so sure that Apple is losing.
What you describe is not the German court system. I assume it's not the Austrian court system either.
He has apparently sent letters demanding payment to 440 different companies using his photos, asking each for a relatively small amount. If any of these cases goes to court, it will go through very quickly. And what a case: "I sold these pictures to Sofitel for 4,400 Euros. Which proves how much they are worth. This company uses them without paying me and mentioning my name, so I want the same payment from them."
For a case for 4,400 there is no way that a company would get an appeal. Instructing your lawyer to draw the case out is quite pointless for 4,400 Euros. In Germany, lawyer fees (and court fees, courts are not free) are a fixed percentage of the amount that you are arguing about, that is 4,400 Euros. The percentage is fixed by the judicial system. And loser pays, so if he wins, he'll get 4,400 Euros. Obviously what he wins is income, so income tax will be paid. Same as if he had charged Sofitel 2 million in the first place, he'll have to pay tax on it.
But 50%? Unlikely. Again, I don't know enough details of the system. In the UK, he would likely have a limited company. The two million would be profit, so he'd pay 20% corporation tax. Then the company has 1.8 million in the bank. With that money, he can stop working and the company pays him a dividend every year for the rest of his life, at a very low tax rate.
The photographer charged Sofitel â4200 for the photos. He then discovered 170 magazine covers with unlicensed copies of his photos, and uses by 440 different parties.
His lawyer has sent letters to all 440 parties, probably asking them for â4,200 each, would would add up to about 2 million Euros or Dollar (amounts are roughly the same). Anyone paying him could then turn to Sofitel for damages.
And finally, Sofitel has offered â400,000 to make this go away.
Most of the work is done by Chinese slave labor and so has no contribution to the US economy.
I'd want to see some evidence of your "slave labor" claim, but I think we can savely assume that you are just full of shit and no evidence will be forthcoming.
I beg to differ, atheists and agnostics being now the second largest group behind Christian Evangelists, lots of people don't believe anymore in 'sins', suicide included and are not afraid to pull a stop if they have enough.
Idiot. I'm not afraid of a sin, I'm afraid of being dead. As an atheist, I know there is one life and one life only and if you throw it away it's gone.
Most people who "have enough" are not in a life situation where a suicide would be objectively justified, but suffer from some mental problem, like depression. Since they suffer from a mental problem that is so bad they are willing to throw their life away without an objectively good reason, why would they care that someone tells them it's a sin?
In the middle of London, just outside Fenchurch Street station: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...
And 50 metres away: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...