They also decided to rig a thermal barrier out of a surplus reference book and all-purpose gray tape.
They fixed it with Duct tape! Red Green would be proud.
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. The phone company _already has_ the data, so if they were to release non identifying information (location, direction, speed) for each unit there are no huge privacy concerns - relative to the benefits.
As someone else mentioned bikes could be a problem - not to mention pedestrians and old guys sitting on benches. The sheer number of data points could be a useful pointer to whether it's a traffic jam or a bunch of people walking... Some smarts could likely filter the data into classes of movement.
Patents only work if you can take one out in all of your competitor markets.
If you cannot patent in one country then all of your competitors will move to / come from that country.
A corollary is:
If yours is the only country in which it is legal to have software patents, then your competitors in other countries can take out patents for their products in your country and you cannot compete with them!
hahah.
I love it.
All companies in India and the EU should make sure they take out patents in the US! Ha!
Slashdot Mirror
I think in this instance it is probably Cover Your Ass. (But I could be wrong)
They fixed it with Duct tape! Red Green would be proud.
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. The phone company _already has_ the data, so if they were to release non identifying information (location, direction, speed) for each unit there are no huge privacy concerns - relative to the benefits. As someone else mentioned bikes could be a problem - not to mention pedestrians and old guys sitting on benches. The sheer number of data points could be a useful pointer to whether it's a traffic jam or a bunch of people walking... Some smarts could likely filter the data into classes of movement.
Patents only work if you can take one out in all of your competitor markets.
If you cannot patent in one country then all of your competitors will move to / come from that country.
A corollary is:
If yours is the only country in which it is legal to have software patents, then your competitors in other countries can take out patents for their products in your country and you cannot compete with them!
hahah.
I love it.
All companies in India and the EU should make sure they take out patents in the US! Ha!