Nintendo will have much of the old SNES and Sega Genesis catalog available for download. There's a lot of games out there that I didn't get to play the first time around. Heck, this would be a lot like the Phantom game console, only real.
A good scheduler can't increase throughput. If you're compressing 3 video streams at the same time, a dual 2 Ghz should always outperform a single 3 Ghz machine. And while the article seems to be mostly an add for Intel, I don't think the predictions are far from the mark. In the comming years, we will start to see the rise of the home server. It's far more economical to have a central server and cheap terminals scattered about the house than it is to have a unit in every room capable of recording, processing and archiving material. Especially if the server is a computer that you'd be buying anyway. Not to mention that it's far easier to sit down at a desktop with a mouse to edit and archive material to DVD or what not.
Well, if the prices are right, they can count on me to buy a unit. Will they make replicas of the original controllers for gamers to use? That'd rock. I haven't bought a console in a very long time (except for some of those joysticks that have Pac Man and Pole Position and plug into the TV directly.)
Ah, but here's how it gets tricky, and what I think the **AAs of the world are getting at:
At work, we make a system that monitors standby generators and makes sure they're working correctly. Some of our customers are medical facilities. The system alerts me via email if there is a problem with a generator so that it can be fixed promptly. In theory then, under the proposed exemption, any system on which I might get email on, I should be able to remove any DRM software that might in any way interfere with the normal operation of the system. Now, I don't allow DRM on my system anyway, but that's not really the point. But that's the objection that the **AA has.
The solution is to not try and DRM everything, of course. Watermarking would be far more effective -- compliance through paranoia. The only place for DRM that I can see is subscription type services where media has to self destruct after you cancel.
I've always wondered why companies generally are not compensated for complying with subpoenas and search warrants given that the fifth amendment includes this bit in no small part, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.". Perhaps someone lawyerly can clue me in on this.
It will indeed be interesting (not that we're likely to be privy to it) to see how many deleted emails Google is able to produce. I would think that such a request would involve pulling every backup going back to the creation of the account and looking for messages not already recovered. I'd also like to know what sort of fee (if any) Google charges for this. While it may not be too difficult to pull up the live data, sorting through backups could involve a lot of man hours and be quite costly.
The first image that jumps to my mind is that old National Lampoon cover that instead reads "pay for email or we'll kill this dog". And I believe that they would in fact kill the dog.
Once you've fixed up the website, the next step is to go out where your target market hangs out (ie, Slashdot, other programming/development forums) and get involved with your target market. Make sure your.sig file points back to your website. At the very least, you'll improve your search engine results. Don't worry about trying to blatantly plug your product unless you see someone who's asking for a product that does what your product does.
Next, ask yourself, what do people use my product with? If there's a specific compiler or platform or widget that you depend on, try to get them to plug you. You'll probably have to pay for the privelege, but that's how marketing works.
And lastly, keep in mind that sales may be slow to start. You will lose money in the beginning; the challenge is to keep that to a minimum while your sales build.
Well, the patent was also granted in 1988, so it may have been a more reasonable claim at the time, though I doubt it. Work on 3D graphic manipulations was going on back in the 1960s. In any event, this patent is at or near expiration which explains why the settlement was so low.
You've obviously never run a computer lab. If you can get the TAs to try some of the work before it's assigned, you're doing good. The professors will all tell you that they don't have the time. So they give it to a TA who decides that his research is more important. Testing never gets done. Then the professor (forgetting all his instructions) comes looking for the lab admin demanding to know why the software doesn't work because his students have an assignment due the next day. Answer? I'm not qualified to test it. I'm not a ChemE and have no idea how to use Hysis. So you find a TA who has time to work with you and find the problem with the installation so you can schedule an update for that night (and hope it works so you don't come back in at 7am to reimage 150 units before angry students show up).
Oh, I don't know, I've seen far more rediculous columns from Mr. Dvorak. But he's missing the key ingrediant in a switch to Windows: porting the Mac API, desktop apps, and Aqua interface. That's work that could be done in a couple of years. Once that's done, you've got a PC running Windows, that looks and feels like a Mac (because it is one) that runs Mac and Windows software seamlessly. No more driver issues for the Mac faithful. And you've removed the one big barrier - software compatibility - that keeps people from buying Macs. Apple then sits on top of the market with the premier consumer PC, plus, they can finally start to penetrate the business market. If Apple survives the transition to Intel CPUs - and it's looking like they will - then this is a likely next step. Apple may well switch to Windows, but they'll never give up the look and feel of the Mac. Otherwise, they're just another hardware vendor selling premium hardware in a comodity market.
Even better, watermarking the files is a great way to prove ownership so you can resell your digital files. I don't particularly care about file sharing. But if I'm going to buy digital media, I want it to be a permanent asset that I can sell if I lose interest in it. I can take my CDs and DVDs to any number of used shops, sell them on EBay, etc. Those secondary markets are a good thing and benefit me as a consumer. And while you might say, a totally unencumbered non-watermarked file should be resellable, let's be honest: the powers what is will never let that happen.
Bzzzt, wrong - inferior math. It is computationally conveniant to use C as a fundamental constant to derive time since it is inherently impossible to directly measure time. It is not time that changes but other basic measurements that change. Time is a very arbitrary abstraction to begin with. I shun your assertion that time is whatever shows on the clock. Rather I find the clock to be symptomatic of the effects of physics.
Or rather, when you finally go in to interview for the job you find out that what you're really doing is maintanence on a legacy app written 8 years ago in Visual Basic. You then find out that the reason that PHP, Java and C# are on the list of qualifications is that they're standard on the corporate development desktop PC.
Really, to be workable, a patent needs to be based on date of publication, but prior art must be based on date of invention. IE, if person B invents the same thing as person A before person A's work is published, the invention is therefore not patentable. If person B can reasonably claim that they were completely unaware of person A's work, they should not be held for infringement.
Demand that the inventor demonstrate a functional prototype before a patent is issued
Ok, I'm down with that. Even a mostly funcitonal prototype that implements the core claims of the patent. The prototype should even be kept for the duration of the patent so that subsequent court challenges have something to compare to.
Annul any unworked patents after two years
Doesn't the functional prototype kind of invalidate this? If they must demonstarte a prototype, the patent has therefore been worked? Or is this an alternative to the functional prototype - have a working model available within 2 years?
Pay a bounty for evidence of prior art What is this Slashdot obsession with bounties? Haven't we learned yet that these idiotic financial incentives are what get us into trouble in the first place? How about we get the courts to be more open minded about what constitutes prior art as well as applying the proper standard for obviousness.
No patents on mathematics Why do you hate math so? Someone spends months or years finding a really good way to factor very large numbers, doesn't that deserve a reward of some sort? It's bad enough that the Nobels don't reward math. I think we can keep an open mind about what constitutes an invention. That said, I really wouldn't expect to see much pure math come about that was patentable, however, a lot of inventions are based upon mathematical insights that most people wouldn't see.
That really is about the size of things. For the big dogs (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, whatever), patents are kind of like nuclear weapons. They get patents mostly to keep the other big dogs from using patents against them. Furthermore, if you really have a good algorithm that no one else has thought up before, it's in your best interest to patent it. So yeah, if you don't like being part of the problem, quit. You are fundamentally incompatible with your employer. Or quietly lobby your member of Congress for patent reform.
PS, who modded parent +1 funny? We need a +1 obvious mod. (ok, so we can use the underrated mod, but it's just not the same)
See, there's a problem you've got here. Once the easements are already in place, you're sorta screwed. What you need to do first is bribe your local city council to use the power of Emminent Domain to recover those easements so you can redevelop the service running on your land. Then you're in the driver's seat and you can impose terms of service on whoever runs wires there.
They aren't necessarily out to defeat the determined. They can however, quickly and easily sanitize the popular perceptions by sweeping things under the rug. To the average citizen, they do a little search and never see anything particularly shocking. Mission accomplished. And as I said, given time, the determined will eventually get their message across. The Internet just adds another layer to a game that's been going on since the dawn of government.
Ok, forget the community standards of the recipient. Do it at the place of origin. If your neighbors are appaled that you're handing out smut to kids you go to jail. It's not that complicated. And the fact that web servers generally dish pages without knowing who's on the other end is just willful ignorance and that is not a defense. There are reasonable steps that can be taken to keep kids out. It's the responsibility of the web site owner to do so.
important to remember that the internet is *not* like the real world,
Wrong! The Internet is a part of the real world. I'm sick of this mentality that because someone has a computer they should somehow be exempt from the laws that govern any other day to day activity. If a kid walks in to an adult bookstore, they should promptly be shown the door.
No, the Internet really is a "delivery" mechanism. A computer sends a request to a server. The server delivers data back. The fact that requests are generally treated and serviced anonymously isn't important. If I own a pornography store on Main Street and I put free samples out for anyone who walks by, I'll get arrested as soon as a couple of kids grab some. Why is this some how different if I use a computer to do so? There are ways out there of authenticating identities. Sure, some kids will get fakes or find a way around the systems. On the other hand, you can also limit the amount of information transmitted in the identity. Want to look at porn? All it needs to do is identify that you are at least 18 years old.
But you have to ask yourself, if you can't put this on a billboard along the freeway, why should it be ok to put it up on a public web site? It's a double standard and I intrinsicly dislike double standards.
Well, this isn't to say that there isn't some role for DRM to play. IE, for subscription type services. Listen to anything you want as long as you're paying a monthly fee. On the other hand, for permanent ownership, instead of DRM, there should be digital signing. That way I can prove that the song I bought is mine and I can easily resell it to someone else. It's been my experiance that if you offer a product on a reasonable basis at a reasonable price, most people who want it will be more than happy to pay for it. On the other hand, it's also been my experiance that a generation of kids and adults who have never seen a work fall into the public domain have lost all respect for copyright.
Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo will have much of the old SNES and Sega Genesis catalog available for download. There's a lot of games out there that I didn't get to play the first time around. Heck, this would be a lot like the Phantom game console, only real.
A good scheduler can't increase throughput. If you're compressing 3 video streams at the same time, a dual 2 Ghz should always outperform a single 3 Ghz machine. And while the article seems to be mostly an add for Intel, I don't think the predictions are far from the mark. In the comming years, we will start to see the rise of the home server. It's far more economical to have a central server and cheap terminals scattered about the house than it is to have a unit in every room capable of recording, processing and archiving material. Especially if the server is a computer that you'd be buying anyway. Not to mention that it's far easier to sit down at a desktop with a mouse to edit and archive material to DVD or what not.
Well, if the prices are right, they can count on me to buy a unit. Will they make replicas of the original controllers for gamers to use? That'd rock. I haven't bought a console in a very long time (except for some of those joysticks that have Pac Man and Pole Position and plug into the TV directly.)
Ah, but here's how it gets tricky, and what I think the **AAs of the world are getting at:
At work, we make a system that monitors standby generators and makes sure they're working correctly. Some of our customers are medical facilities. The system alerts me via email if there is a problem with a generator so that it can be fixed promptly. In theory then, under the proposed exemption, any system on which I might get email on, I should be able to remove any DRM software that might in any way interfere with the normal operation of the system. Now, I don't allow DRM on my system anyway, but that's not really the point. But that's the objection that the **AA has.
The solution is to not try and DRM everything, of course. Watermarking would be far more effective -- compliance through paranoia. The only place for DRM that I can see is subscription type services where media has to self destruct after you cancel.
I've always wondered why companies generally are not compensated for complying with subpoenas and search warrants given that the fifth amendment includes this bit in no small part, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.". Perhaps someone lawyerly can clue me in on this.
It will indeed be interesting (not that we're likely to be privy to it) to see how many deleted emails Google is able to produce. I would think that such a request would involve pulling every backup going back to the creation of the account and looking for messages not already recovered. I'd also like to know what sort of fee (if any) Google charges for this. While it may not be too difficult to pull up the live data, sorting through backups could involve a lot of man hours and be quite costly.
Chill dude, you weren't going to meet them anyway.
The first image that jumps to my mind is that old National Lampoon cover that instead reads "pay for email or we'll kill this dog". And I believe that they would in fact kill the dog.
Screw that. If I'm still alive in 2102, I'm going to do my best to be at the point of impact, 'cuz what a way to go.
Once you've fixed up the website, the next step is to go out where your target market hangs out (ie, Slashdot, other programming/development forums) and get involved with your target market. Make sure your .sig file points back to your website. At the very least, you'll improve your search engine results. Don't worry about trying to blatantly plug your product unless you see someone who's asking for a product that does what your product does.
Next, ask yourself, what do people use my product with? If there's a specific compiler or platform or widget that you depend on, try to get them to plug you. You'll probably have to pay for the privelege, but that's how marketing works.
And lastly, keep in mind that sales may be slow to start. You will lose money in the beginning; the challenge is to keep that to a minimum while your sales build.
TV is not drugs
You've probably never seen a 3 year old child watching Dora the Explorer. The similarity between them and a heroin addic getting their fix is spooky.
Well, the patent was also granted in 1988, so it may have been a more reasonable claim at the time, though I doubt it. Work on 3D graphic manipulations was going on back in the 1960s. In any event, this patent is at or near expiration which explains why the settlement was so low.
You've obviously never run a computer lab. If you can get the TAs to try some of the work before it's assigned, you're doing good. The professors will all tell you that they don't have the time. So they give it to a TA who decides that his research is more important. Testing never gets done. Then the professor (forgetting all his instructions) comes looking for the lab admin demanding to know why the software doesn't work because his students have an assignment due the next day. Answer? I'm not qualified to test it. I'm not a ChemE and have no idea how to use Hysis. So you find a TA who has time to work with you and find the problem with the installation so you can schedule an update for that night (and hope it works so you don't come back in at 7am to reimage 150 units before angry students show up).
Oh, I don't know, I've seen far more rediculous columns from Mr. Dvorak. But he's missing the key ingrediant in a switch to Windows: porting the Mac API, desktop apps, and Aqua interface. That's work that could be done in a couple of years. Once that's done, you've got a PC running Windows, that looks and feels like a Mac (because it is one) that runs Mac and Windows software seamlessly. No more driver issues for the Mac faithful. And you've removed the one big barrier - software compatibility - that keeps people from buying Macs. Apple then sits on top of the market with the premier consumer PC, plus, they can finally start to penetrate the business market. If Apple survives the transition to Intel CPUs - and it's looking like they will - then this is a likely next step. Apple may well switch to Windows, but they'll never give up the look and feel of the Mac. Otherwise, they're just another hardware vendor selling premium hardware in a comodity market.
Even better, watermarking the files is a great way to prove ownership so you can resell your digital files. I don't particularly care about file sharing. But if I'm going to buy digital media, I want it to be a permanent asset that I can sell if I lose interest in it. I can take my CDs and DVDs to any number of used shops, sell them on EBay, etc. Those secondary markets are a good thing and benefit me as a consumer. And while you might say, a totally unencumbered non-watermarked file should be resellable, let's be honest: the powers what is will never let that happen.
Bzzzt, wrong - inferior math. It is computationally conveniant to use C as a fundamental constant to derive time since it is inherently impossible to directly measure time. It is not time that changes but other basic measurements that change. Time is a very arbitrary abstraction to begin with. I shun your assertion that time is whatever shows on the clock. Rather I find the clock to be symptomatic of the effects of physics.
Or rather, when you finally go in to interview for the job you find out that what you're really doing is maintanence on a legacy app written 8 years ago in Visual Basic. You then find out that the reason that PHP, Java and C# are on the list of qualifications is that they're standard on the corporate development desktop PC.
Really, to be workable, a patent needs to be based on date of publication, but prior art must be based on date of invention. IE, if person B invents the same thing as person A before person A's work is published, the invention is therefore not patentable. If person B can reasonably claim that they were completely unaware of person A's work, they should not be held for infringement.
Demand that the inventor demonstrate a functional prototype before a patent is issued
Ok, I'm down with that. Even a mostly funcitonal prototype that implements the core claims of the patent. The prototype should even be kept for the duration of the patent so that subsequent court challenges have something to compare to.
Annul any unworked patents after two years
Doesn't the functional prototype kind of invalidate this? If they must demonstarte a prototype, the patent has therefore been worked? Or is this an alternative to the functional prototype - have a working model available within 2 years?
Pay a bounty for evidence of prior art
What is this Slashdot obsession with bounties? Haven't we learned yet that these idiotic financial incentives are what get us into trouble in the first place? How about we get the courts to be more open minded about what constitutes prior art as well as applying the proper standard for obviousness.
No patents on mathematics
Why do you hate math so? Someone spends months or years finding a really good way to factor very large numbers, doesn't that deserve a reward of some sort? It's bad enough that the Nobels don't reward math. I think we can keep an open mind about what constitutes an invention. That said, I really wouldn't expect to see much pure math come about that was patentable, however, a lot of inventions are based upon mathematical insights that most people wouldn't see.
That really is about the size of things. For the big dogs (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, whatever), patents are kind of like nuclear weapons. They get patents mostly to keep the other big dogs from using patents against them. Furthermore, if you really have a good algorithm that no one else has thought up before, it's in your best interest to patent it. So yeah, if you don't like being part of the problem, quit. You are fundamentally incompatible with your employer. Or quietly lobby your member of Congress for patent reform.
PS, who modded parent +1 funny? We need a +1 obvious mod. (ok, so we can use the underrated mod, but it's just not the same)
See, there's a problem you've got here. Once the easements are already in place, you're sorta screwed. What you need to do first is bribe your local city council to use the power of Emminent Domain to recover those easements so you can redevelop the service running on your land. Then you're in the driver's seat and you can impose terms of service on whoever runs wires there.
They aren't necessarily out to defeat the determined. They can however, quickly and easily sanitize the popular perceptions by sweeping things under the rug. To the average citizen, they do a little search and never see anything particularly shocking. Mission accomplished. And as I said, given time, the determined will eventually get their message across. The Internet just adds another layer to a game that's been going on since the dawn of government.
Ok, forget the community standards of the recipient. Do it at the place of origin. If your neighbors are appaled that you're handing out smut to kids you go to jail. It's not that complicated. And the fact that web servers generally dish pages without knowing who's on the other end is just willful ignorance and that is not a defense. There are reasonable steps that can be taken to keep kids out. It's the responsibility of the web site owner to do so.
important to remember that the internet is *not* like the real world,
Wrong! The Internet is a part of the real world. I'm sick of this mentality that because someone has a computer they should somehow be exempt from the laws that govern any other day to day activity. If a kid walks in to an adult bookstore, they should promptly be shown the door.
No, the Internet really is a "delivery" mechanism. A computer sends a request to a server. The server delivers data back. The fact that requests are generally treated and serviced anonymously isn't important. If I own a pornography store on Main Street and I put free samples out for anyone who walks by, I'll get arrested as soon as a couple of kids grab some. Why is this some how different if I use a computer to do so? There are ways out there of authenticating identities. Sure, some kids will get fakes or find a way around the systems. On the other hand, you can also limit the amount of information transmitted in the identity. Want to look at porn? All it needs to do is identify that you are at least 18 years old.
But you have to ask yourself, if you can't put this on a billboard along the freeway, why should it be ok to put it up on a public web site? It's a double standard and I intrinsicly dislike double standards.
Well, this isn't to say that there isn't some role for DRM to play. IE, for subscription type services. Listen to anything you want as long as you're paying a monthly fee. On the other hand, for permanent ownership, instead of DRM, there should be digital signing. That way I can prove that the song I bought is mine and I can easily resell it to someone else. It's been my experiance that if you offer a product on a reasonable basis at a reasonable price, most people who want it will be more than happy to pay for it. On the other hand, it's also been my experiance that a generation of kids and adults who have never seen a work fall into the public domain have lost all respect for copyright.