Here is a tidbit of information: other engineering disciplines can and do hold the engineers (and not their employers) responsible. This is not always the case, but it happens. For example, assume Joe Smith works for Civil Engineering 'R Us (herein referred to as CEU for simplicity). Next, assume CEU is contracted to construct a bridge, and Joe Smith is the lead engineer and performs all of the stress and strain analysis for the bridge. Joe Smith completes his analysis and makes materials recommendations. Joe Smith knows, however, that his stress analysis is slightly flawed because he forget to take into account the yearly average low temperature, but to do the recalculation is to time consuming and he feels that it will probably be ok to just leave it as is. Now, the bridge is constructed and on the first cold day it collapses. Joe Smith CAN be held liable for his gross negligence, and this is not necessarily a case of vicarious liability. Software should be no different. Far to many times I've seen people avoid fixing critical stability or security holes because "it takes too long." This is nonsense, and would not be tolerated in other engineering disciplines. The members of the industry need to stop acting like "artistic book writers" and should start acting like engineers.
Passive RFID does not "broadcast" anything. Passive tags use an incoming wave as both a communication and power source; it bounces an incoming wave back at a fraction of the energy of what it was when it arrived. The other portion of energy is partially wasted through dissipation and partially consumed by the antenna/chip to read an EPC or some other number off of the chip.
So far, I've read arguments ranging from "slavery", to a company like Microsoft is protected by "patents", to "he won't be able to eat."
Seriously, think about these arguments. They don't make much sense.
The man made enough money that he can "eat" or he could work someplace as an executive that would not violate his non-compete/non-disclosure. Patents do not help at all. Believe it or not, business is not about cool algorithms; he has detailed strategic knowledge, a play-book, if you will, about what Microsoft's plans are. Allowing a competitor to short circuit this is unfair trade practice and does not allow for clean competition. Period. Granted, non-competes are silly for plain employees (developers, sales, etc.) But for someone who does have access to and possibly helped design the play-book, different story.
Here's a slightly more detailed look, genius. http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/supe rdome_high_end/specifications.html
Here is a tidbit of information: other engineering disciplines can and do hold the engineers (and not their employers) responsible. This is not always the case, but it happens. For example, assume Joe Smith works for Civil Engineering 'R Us (herein referred to as CEU for simplicity). Next, assume CEU is contracted to construct a bridge, and Joe Smith is the lead engineer and performs all of the stress and strain analysis for the bridge. Joe Smith completes his analysis and makes materials recommendations. Joe Smith knows, however, that his stress analysis is slightly flawed because he forget to take into account the yearly average low temperature, but to do the recalculation is to time consuming and he feels that it will probably be ok to just leave it as is. Now, the bridge is constructed and on the first cold day it collapses. Joe Smith CAN be held liable for his gross negligence, and this is not necessarily a case of vicarious liability. Software should be no different. Far to many times I've seen people avoid fixing critical stability or security holes because "it takes too long." This is nonsense, and would not be tolerated in other engineering disciplines. The members of the industry need to stop acting like "artistic book writers" and should start acting like engineers.
Passive RFID does not "broadcast" anything. Passive tags use an incoming wave as both a communication and power source; it bounces an incoming wave back at a fraction of the energy of what it was when it arrived. The other portion of energy is partially wasted through dissipation and partially consumed by the antenna/chip to read an EPC or some other number off of the chip.
So far, I've read arguments ranging from "slavery", to a company like Microsoft is protected by "patents", to "he won't be able to eat."
Seriously, think about these arguments. They don't make much sense.
The man made enough money that he can "eat" or he could work someplace as an executive that would not violate his non-compete/non-disclosure. Patents do not help at all. Believe it or not, business is not about cool algorithms; he has detailed strategic knowledge, a play-book, if you will, about what Microsoft's plans are. Allowing a competitor to short circuit this is unfair trade practice and does not allow for clean competition. Period. Granted, non-competes are silly for plain employees (developers, sales, etc.) But for someone who does have access to and possibly helped design the play-book, different story.