Copyright should be automatic for ten or fifteen years then after that you should have to pay for continued protection. If it's still making money then paying isn't a problem. If it isn't making money and/or being actively promoted it should drop into public domain.
This is a great idea! If people pay to extend the copyright, it's very likely that they hold on to a copy, and probably distribute it. If they don't, then anyone can copy it, and it will be much more safe against oblivion. One problem is when everyone moves to streaming and "the cloud", there will no longer be collectors to keep those copies. There could be online services that stream public domain works for a fee, though. An alternative to Joce640k's idea would be to require that the copyright holder filled in a form, but didn't have to pay. Maybe some small-time creators would prefer that.
Are you kidding? They would LOVE that. There's a reason cable companies haven't been made Common Carriers, and instead fought for the DMCA: being a Common Carrier comes with responsibilities and limits on power. Verizon would absolutely cream themselves if they were suddenly permitted to block any communication they felt was "dangerous" or "controversial" or "against company policy".
They have to realise that it's a bargain they're getting: they can't exercise editorial control on the information on the internet, but in return they don't get liability for every copyright infringement, death threat, illegal drug sale, conspiracy to commit terrorism, etc, committed over their network.
To answer my question, the wikipedia article says it's not clear if the mobile connection can be activated without a "crash". From ref. 3 in the WP article;
It is important to highlight that with the eCall service proposed, the in-vehicle system will not continuously be tracked by a third party, as it will not be permanently connected to the mobile communications networks, but only when it is activated in case of an accident or manually by the vehicle occupants.
AFAIK, due to the fact that the system use an emergency call, no SIM card is required, so the cost will probably be billed to the emergency call center. I am not certain about that, Need verification.
Another concern; Is it connected to the mobile network continually, or does it only turn on when there is an accident. I would hope the latter is the case, and then the potential for abuse and tracking would be almost null. There would be no way to contact the device remotely. If it's turned on all the time, the mobile company always knows where it is (which tower it's connected to), but the info is probably not logged. It would also waste some energy and could cause interference in some cases (for example, mobile phones are forbidden near radio telescopes, this would prevent cars from driving near). And finally, it would cause a large burden on the GSM network, with hundreds of extra nodes in busy places. So surely the GSM modules are off, right?
Sure, just go on and make everything mobile and cloudy. I'll be here on my linux box with KDE if you need me. -- When MS or Apple comes out with something new and interesting, I'll give it a try. When Bill Gates tells me to replace my desktop with a tablet, I just roll my eyes and post on slashdot, like this. Only problem is that parts for my desktop will become more expensive, but thankfully they last a long time. Also, there are many others like me, so there will be a market for computer parts unless someone invents something better than a desktop.
I had a malfunctioning microphone that picked up the 50 Hz RF from the wires around the house (even on a laptop running on battery). Some distance away from the house there was no signal. I think they should be worried about RF from the wires instead;)
If your a GNU/ Linux user who likes to game then why don't you dual boot or virtualize? GNU/Linux is NOT meant for desktop level gaming, if Blizzard didn't release a Linux binary then clearly they have NO interest in you gaming on Linux.
I'm very put of by the requirement for an internet connection, but on the other hand people are extatic about the game, and my brother is playing, so I'm considering to get it. Maybe I'm a special case, but I don't like rebooting my Linux. I have ZFS, and rebooting means flushing all the filesystem cache, including an SSD, making everything slightly slower. I'd have to quit all my applications, including multi-day computation jobs just to game for a bit. I have VirtualBox (and I seem to shit windows licenses), but if it performed better in Wine, I would easily choose that.
I guessed that this was probably something GSM related, but TFA says "It's believed that the patents in question have to do with the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard". It's hard to imagine that Asus doesn't already have a license for essential wifi patents, they must have sold millions of devices over the last few years that have featured wifi as standard.
Bit odd that this has not been an issue until the moment that they release a Google branded device.
Well, you know how it goes with SW patents, it could be something silly like displaying an icon next to the SSID while connecting to a network and then changing the icon when the connection is complete.
I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. "The availability of literature" is not in question, is it? You pay the rights holder what he asks for his work, it's available. Or is there some subtle point about your right to things that don't belong to you that I'm missing?
Fair use means that you are allowed to use copyrighted material for free in certain circumstances, such as education and news reporting (subject to limitations on how much you copy, etc). If these laws for whatever absurd reason don't cover digital media, then that's a major problem. A particular problem is if Australia has a DMCA-like anti-circumvention law, which makes it illegal to break DRM, regardless of whether one has a fair-use claim to the protected material.
Oh fuck no! It's like they do everything to fuck over people who use software that doesn't meet their high ideological standards (or is just non -standard). I'm using ZFS and I have to rebuild the kernel modules every time after an update, then reboot. Seriously, is there no sensible Linux distro left? Debian?
Spad said this in a comment above, but they also are killing Flash on desktop LInux ! It seems like that should be mentioned, as this is slashdot, maybe the site with most linux users in the world (was there a previous article,maybe?)
From the roadmap linked from the article;
Linux: Adobe has been working closely with Google to develop a single, modern API for hosting plug-ins within the browser. [...] Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a "Pepper" [ http://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ ] implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser [...]For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plug-in for Linux will only be available via the "Pepper" API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe. Adobe will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release.
Makes sense that they pull out of China, since the government was so apathetic regarding the hacking incidents, and Google have had a lot of negative rhetoric against China. They could get a "patriotic" boost in the huge US market if they did tout it in their marketing, but maybe they think it will reflect badly on their other products. They can also more easily ensure good conditions for the workers, less pollution, etc, and use that in marketing. US is probably less than 30 % (PNOOMA) of the world market for cheap tablets, and the others will care about "concience" and quality, not moving jobs to US. Quality is probably identical; the same component costs and tolerances go into the calculation. As labour is more expensive, more work will proabbly be automated, perhaps leading to more consistent quality. The environmental and worker quality of life benefits could have been achieved in China as well; probably not a driving force. So to sum it up; antagonism towards (and from) China, patriotism from Google itself & US customers, better oversight .
I may be crazy (quite likely), but I prefer an anonymous broadcast over DVB filled with un-targetted ads to someone knowing exactly what I watched and when I watched it, but not showing any ads. I'll probably change my mind, or be forced to use streaming as the only option....
Doing research requires setting up a lot of one-off services, like a logbook, wiki, etc. Getting correct certificates for these things is a pain, and it's just not done. So users end up having to accept a large number of self-signed certificates, and bypass the annoying warnings in Firefox. SSL seems to have been designed for large shopping websites, while temporary and small-time web sites / services can't use it effectively. Using a self-signed certificate is much better than not encrypting data, as it prevents snooping in most cases (except for MITM attacks), so this is done. It would be good if browsers adopted a model more similar to SSH's "known_hosts", where there was a simple prompt for first-time visits to sites with unknown self-signed certificates, and the certificate was saved. They could reserve the ridiculous end-of-the-world warnings (like they show currently) for when the certificate changed unexpectedly. People should probably never use short expiry dates for self-signed certificate (unless they set up a CA)
Even Microsoft is not stupid enough to implement a system as insecure as WebGL.
Ahem... ActiveX? Maybe MS learned from their mistakes:) WebGL is just ActiveX without the user confirmation dialog, but for running binary code on the GPU, not the CPU
The funny/sad thing about GNOME 3 and Unity is that they exist because their respective developers actually seem to believe that the design decisions made in each DE are what's needed for mainstream success.
There's a good chance that they're right about that. It's like when people replace their laptops with iPads (I've heard the anecdotes, but I don't know if it's actually the case) But it takes a huge amount of work to make a good experience for "normal" people, it's not just about re-skinning the desktop. The problem is, like you suggested, that they alienated their existing users (power users), and there is nobody left to suggest Linux to their less techy friends.
That *IS* the point of the boot-loader. Being signed (so secure-boot can accept it), but being able to chain load anything the user want (custom kernel or even GRUB boot manager).
The reason it's called "Secure" boot is that it solves the marginal problem of having malware install itself in memory before the OS even starts to load. If malware could install the Ubuntu bootloader and then chainload itself, there wouldn't be any point to "secure boot" at all
They're probably already worried about it being used in quantity for drug running.
What a cool idea! If it really is cheap, it could do for cargo what the internet did for information. Only problem would be that irresponsible users would fill the ocean with junk.
I run MythTV, and it's pretty nice (can be combined with a storage server, and in my case, a workstation). Still feels like recording songs off the radio, but the quality is good and the TV industry are only just now starting to provide fair alternatives. (the reason i have a DVR is to watch stuff when I want. Let me know when you can give me that with streaming, without arbitrarily pulling content.) Mythtv is a bit "temperamental" in my experience, and it provides a reasonable interface that could have been better. You can use mythtv with over-the-air digital TV and supplement with other services if necessary
Which isn't exactly a new idea - both stealing secrets and sabotage.
Indeed, the NY Times (?) article that started this "exposure" of the cyber stuff casually mentioned that US arranged to ship faulty components to Iran that would explode. If it's a war or not depends on what the victim does.. It's arguably more direct involvement than the Afghan government had with the 9/11 attacks.
I believe that most Google staff are Linux users and they are rather well paid. So you might be right. I imagine the average hobbyist Linux user would be a hard sell for escort services. "You charge what?? I could get a new computer for that and I wouldn't need to shower after I'd paid for it."
I'd imagine that the number of people who use Linux primarily because of cost reasons is pretty low... Because you get a Windows license with every computer that you don't build yourself, most techies will probably even have a few unused licenses from old machines.
I'm surprised Facebook still requires an email to sign up. Seems like they really want to replace all open and closed internet communications protocols (except VoiP and games). I give it about two years before most consumers no longer have e-mail addresses. I don't really like it, but SMTP seems like a perfect target for the likes of Facebook and Google to replace, because it's so open, valuable and a bit clumsy/anachronistic.
Apparently Utah has passed a law that prohibits anyone making laws that restrict firearms. So no charges can be brought against anyone who starts a fire while shooting on public lands. At a guess you'be absolved from blame for shooting those pesky liberals, like Orin Hatch.
Perhaps they could make a law against carelessly exposing objects of high temperature on dry land, without mentioning guns. It has some risk of being too broad (for example, fireworks and campfires would be illegal too, but that's probably good). [ If that kind of law would be forbidden, then why not take it to the logical extreme: State bans texting while driving? Use a gun to type on the keypad, and it's legal. ]
Slashdot Mirror
Copyright should be automatic for ten or fifteen years then after that you should have to pay for continued protection. If it's still making money then paying isn't a problem. If it isn't making money and/or being actively promoted it should drop into public domain.
This is a great idea! If people pay to extend the copyright, it's very likely that they hold on to a copy, and probably distribute it. If they don't, then anyone can copy it, and it will be much more safe against oblivion. One problem is when everyone moves to streaming and "the cloud", there will no longer be collectors to keep those copies. There could be online services that stream public domain works for a fee, though. An alternative to Joce640k's idea would be to require that the copyright holder filled in a form, but didn't have to pay. Maybe some small-time creators would prefer that.
Are you kidding? They would LOVE that. There's a reason cable companies haven't been made Common Carriers, and instead fought for the DMCA: being a Common Carrier comes with responsibilities and limits on power. Verizon would absolutely cream themselves if they were suddenly permitted to block any communication they felt was "dangerous" or "controversial" or "against company policy".
They have to realise that it's a bargain they're getting: they can't exercise editorial control on the information on the internet, but in return they don't get liability for every copyright infringement, death threat, illegal drug sale, conspiracy to commit terrorism, etc, committed over their network.
To answer my question, the wikipedia article says it's not clear if the mobile connection can be activated without a "crash". From ref. 3 in the WP article;
It is important to highlight that with the eCall service proposed, the in-vehicle system
will not continuously be tracked by a third party, as it will not be permanently connected
to the mobile communications networks, but only when it is activated in case of an
accident or manually by the vehicle occupants.
I wouldn't mind having this at all then.
AFAIK, due to the fact that the system use an emergency call, no SIM card is required, so the cost will probably be billed to the emergency call center. I am not certain about that, Need verification.
Another concern; Is it connected to the mobile network continually, or does it only turn on when there is an accident. I would hope the latter is the case, and then the potential for abuse and tracking would be almost null. There would be no way to contact the device remotely. If it's turned on all the time, the mobile company always knows where it is (which tower it's connected to), but the info is probably not logged. It would also waste some energy and could cause interference in some cases (for example, mobile phones are forbidden near radio telescopes, this would prevent cars from driving near). And finally, it would cause a large burden on the GSM network, with hundreds of extra nodes in busy places. So surely the GSM modules are off, right?
Sure, just go on and make everything mobile and cloudy. I'll be here on my linux box with KDE if you need me. -- When MS or Apple comes out with something new and interesting, I'll give it a try. When Bill Gates tells me to replace my desktop with a tablet, I just roll my eyes and post on slashdot, like this. Only problem is that parts for my desktop will become more expensive, but thankfully they last a long time. Also, there are many others like me, so there will be a market for computer parts unless someone invents something better than a desktop.
I had a malfunctioning microphone that picked up the 50 Hz RF from the wires around the house (even on a laptop running on battery). Some distance away from the house there was no signal. I think they should be worried about RF from the wires instead ;)
If your a GNU/ Linux user who likes to game then why don't you dual boot or virtualize? GNU/Linux is NOT meant for desktop level gaming, if Blizzard didn't release a Linux binary then clearly they have NO interest in you gaming on Linux.
I'm very put of by the requirement for an internet connection, but on the other hand people are extatic about the game, and my brother is playing, so I'm considering to get it. Maybe I'm a special case, but I don't like rebooting my Linux. I have ZFS, and rebooting means flushing all the filesystem cache, including an SSD, making everything slightly slower. I'd have to quit all my applications, including multi-day computation jobs just to game for a bit. I have VirtualBox (and I seem to shit windows licenses), but if it performed better in Wine, I would easily choose that.
Sorry, I don't seem to have RTFS. "standards essential patent" is a stretch for my example. Please ignore.
I guessed that this was probably something GSM related, but TFA says "It's believed that the patents in question have to do with the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard". It's hard to imagine that Asus doesn't already have a license for essential wifi patents, they must have sold millions of devices over the last few years that have featured wifi as standard.
Bit odd that this has not been an issue until the moment that they release a Google branded device.
Well, you know how it goes with SW patents, it could be something silly like displaying an icon next to the SSID while connecting to a network and then changing the icon when the connection is complete.
I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. "The availability of literature" is not in question, is it? You pay the rights holder what he asks for his work, it's available. Or is there some subtle point about your right to things that don't belong to you that I'm missing?
Fair use means that you are allowed to use copyrighted material for free in certain circumstances, such as education and news reporting (subject to limitations on how much you copy, etc). If these laws for whatever absurd reason don't cover digital media, then that's a major problem. A particular problem is if Australia has a DMCA-like anti-circumvention law, which makes it illegal to break DRM, regardless of whether one has a fair-use claim to the protected material.
Oh fuck no! It's like they do everything to fuck over people who use software that doesn't meet their high ideological standards (or is just non -standard). I'm using ZFS and I have to rebuild the kernel modules every time after an update, then reboot. Seriously, is there no sensible Linux distro left? Debian?
Spad said this in a comment above, but they also are killing Flash on desktop LInux ! It seems like that should be mentioned, as this is slashdot, maybe the site with most linux users in the world (was there a previous article,maybe?)
From the roadmap linked from the article;
Linux: Adobe has been working closely with Google to develop a single, modern API for hosting plug-ins within the browser. [...] Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a "Pepper" [ http://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ ] implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser [...]For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plug-in for Linux will only be available via the "Pepper" API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe. Adobe will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release.
It's a good thing that Flash use is declining...
Makes sense that they pull out of China, since the government was so apathetic regarding the hacking incidents, and Google have had a lot of negative rhetoric against China. They could get a "patriotic" boost in the huge US market if they did tout it in their marketing, but maybe they think it will reflect badly on their other products. They can also more easily ensure good conditions for the workers, less pollution, etc, and use that in marketing. US is probably less than 30 % (PNOOMA) of the world market for cheap tablets, and the others will care about "concience" and quality, not moving jobs to US. Quality is probably identical; the same component costs and tolerances go into the calculation. As labour is more expensive, more work will proabbly be automated, perhaps leading to more consistent quality. The environmental and worker quality of life benefits could have been achieved in China as well; probably not a driving force. So to sum it up; antagonism towards (and from) China, patriotism from Google itself & US customers, better oversight .
I may be crazy (quite likely), but I prefer an anonymous broadcast over DVB filled with un-targetted ads to someone knowing exactly what I watched and when I watched it, but not showing any ads. I'll probably change my mind, or be forced to use streaming as the only option....
Doing research requires setting up a lot of one-off services, like a logbook, wiki, etc. Getting correct certificates for these things is a pain, and it's just not done. So users end up having to accept a large number of self-signed certificates, and bypass the annoying warnings in Firefox. SSL seems to have been designed for large shopping websites, while temporary and small-time web sites / services can't use it effectively. Using a self-signed certificate is much better than not encrypting data, as it prevents snooping in most cases (except for MITM attacks), so this is done. It would be good if browsers adopted a model more similar to SSH's "known_hosts", where there was a simple prompt for first-time visits to sites with unknown self-signed certificates, and the certificate was saved. They could reserve the ridiculous end-of-the-world warnings (like they show currently) for when the certificate changed unexpectedly. People should probably never use short expiry dates for self-signed certificate (unless they set up a CA)
Even Microsoft is not stupid enough to implement a system as insecure as WebGL.
Ahem... ActiveX? Maybe MS learned from their mistakes :) WebGL is just ActiveX without the user confirmation dialog, but for running binary code on the GPU, not the CPU
The funny/sad thing about GNOME 3 and Unity is that they exist because their respective developers actually seem to believe that the design decisions made in each DE are what's needed for mainstream success.
There's a good chance that they're right about that. It's like when people replace their laptops with iPads (I've heard the anecdotes, but I don't know if it's actually the case) But it takes a huge amount of work to make a good experience for "normal" people, it's not just about re-skinning the desktop. The problem is, like you suggested, that they alienated their existing users (power users), and there is nobody left to suggest Linux to their less techy friends.
That *IS* the point of the boot-loader. Being signed (so secure-boot can accept it), but being able to chain load anything the user want (custom kernel or even GRUB boot manager).
The reason it's called "Secure" boot is that it solves the marginal problem of having malware install itself in memory before the OS even starts to load. If malware could install the Ubuntu bootloader and then chainload itself, there wouldn't be any point to "secure boot" at all
They're probably already worried about it being used in quantity for drug running.
What a cool idea! If it really is cheap, it could do for cargo what the internet did for information. Only problem would be that irresponsible users would fill the ocean with junk.
I run MythTV, and it's pretty nice (can be combined with a storage server, and in my case, a workstation). Still feels like recording songs off the radio, but the quality is good and the TV industry are only just now starting to provide fair alternatives. (the reason i have a DVR is to watch stuff when I want. Let me know when you can give me that with streaming, without arbitrarily pulling content.) Mythtv is a bit "temperamental" in my experience, and it provides a reasonable interface that could have been better. You can use mythtv with over-the-air digital TV and supplement with other services if necessary
I regret that last comparison, the damage was very different. sorry...
Which isn't exactly a new idea - both stealing secrets and sabotage.
Indeed, the NY Times (?) article that started this "exposure" of the cyber stuff casually mentioned that US arranged to ship faulty components to Iran that would explode. If it's a war or not depends on what the victim does.. It's arguably more direct involvement than the Afghan government had with the 9/11 attacks.
I believe that most Google staff are Linux users and they are rather well paid. So you might be right. I imagine the average hobbyist Linux user would be a hard sell for escort services. "You charge what?? I could get a new computer for that and I wouldn't need to shower after I'd paid for it."
I'd imagine that the number of people who use Linux primarily because of cost reasons is pretty low... Because you get a Windows license with every computer that you don't build yourself, most techies will probably even have a few unused licenses from old machines.
I'm surprised Facebook still requires an email to sign up. Seems like they really want to replace all open and closed internet communications protocols (except VoiP and games). I give it about two years before most consumers no longer have e-mail addresses. I don't really like it, but SMTP seems like a perfect target for the likes of Facebook and Google to replace, because it's so open, valuable and a bit clumsy/anachronistic.
Apparently Utah has passed a law that prohibits anyone making laws that restrict firearms. So no charges can be brought against anyone who starts a fire while shooting on public lands. At a guess you'be absolved from blame for shooting those pesky liberals, like Orin Hatch.
Perhaps they could make a law against carelessly exposing objects of high temperature on dry land, without mentioning guns. It has some risk of being too broad (for example, fireworks and campfires would be illegal too, but that's probably good). [ If that kind of law would be forbidden, then why not take it to the logical extreme: State bans texting while driving? Use a gun to type on the keypad, and it's legal. ]