Patent for everything that accesses the internet..
on
Online Rich Media Patented
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· Score: 2, Informative
Did anyone else notice that this guy is also claiming the patent covers pretty much any device that can access the internet?
"The patent covers all rich-media technology implementations including Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX and XAML and all device footprints which access rich-media Internet applications including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes and video game consoles," Balthaser added.
Actually, I think they would be much happier if you just paid the subscription fees every month and never actually played the game. They would save a fortune on their servers and net even more profit.
I seriously hope they never start pricing based on length or 'quantity of game play' or else studious will start stuffing their games with mindless repetition in order to boost both of those stats. It's bad enough with the current crop of RPGs which either feature mind-numbing repetitios features (maybe it's to prepare you for the level grind of MMORPGs) or endless cut scenes interspersed with 10 minutes of actual game play.
That says you can buy a PC at retail consumer electronic stores, direct from PC manufacturers, or through online consumer electronics Web sites with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 pre-installed.
You're buying a PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The phrasing doesn't make that 100% clear.
According to Wikipedia, "The Red Cross is an emblem which, under the Geneva Conventions, is to be placed on humanitarian and medical vehicles and buildings to protect them from military attack on the battlefield."
Seems to me the Red Cross organization doesn't have exclusive rights to the symbol.
Yeah, you have to love that sequel fatique....and how/. moderators know how to spell so well. I mean, the Q key is halfway across the keyboard from the G key (on a qwerty) so don't be calling it a typo;).
It may be funny, but this appears to be the direction these companies are headed. Even if they aren't going to actively block email from companies that don't pay, they seem to be saying "We're going to strengthen our filters which will result in far more false positives than currently occur. If you want to ensure that your email makes it to your customers so they don't get mad at you, you better fork over some of that green."
The Mafia says "Pay us or we'll break your legs," AOL and Yahoo say "Pay us because we're inept and can't design a functional spam filter."
It isn't so much the fact that you aren't allowed to see the butt of a 14 year old girl, it's that the girl shouldn't be put in the position where she is showing her butt. Laws against child porn are not meant to prevent people from viewing it but to protect the children who are victimized for the sake of the people who view it. Going after the people who view it is a way of regulating the supply by attempting to reduce the demand.
The definition of 'porn' is also key in that it requires some sexual aspect. It's usually fine to have naked pictures of your young kids as long as they aren't sexual in nature (baby in the bath-type pics). I do agree that the line that defines porn has been moved so that things that were harmless 10 years ago might now be seen as kiddie porn by hypersensitive groups (including those same baby in the bath pics).
As for banning the movies, that's not at all what I'm saying. Kiddie porn is a special case in that a child is victimized in order for the material to even exist. Without the victimization, it's not kiddie porn. Movies about rape and murder are different in that the people aren't actually victimized, but rather are pretending to be. If someone is actually raped and/or murdered in order to create the movie, it's already illegal because a crime is required in order to create the material, the same as in kiddie porn. Games are more ambiguous, but it's like I said in my previous comment -- people who aren't already pedophiles (or having strong pedophillic tendencies) wouldn't play a game simulating pedophillia (or rape for that matter), whereas lots of people in our current culture are used to playing games (video and otherwise) about murder and have been for thousands of years.
Children are harmed by the proliferation of child porn, and thus the copying/burning of it because it reinforces the economic benefits of creating it in the first place. The more there is available, the more demand there will be for it, and the higher the payoff will be for creating it (and not getting caught). Is there less porn on the internet (for sale or free) than there was before people were able to download it en masse? No, there's far more because the demand has gone up and supply followed. That said, creating and copying are two completely different things, and this person really should be guilty of distributing child porn, not creating it.
He did act on his attraction by downloading the child porn. That means he supported the creation of it in the first place, and he's guilty of harming the kid(s) involved indirectly. That's called conspiracy. It's the same with other crimes -- if you know something is stolen when you buy it, you're guilty of possessing stolen goods. And if someone was murdered in the theft and you knew about it but still bought the item, you may be charged with conspiracy after the fact in the murder because you aided the person who committed the murder by providing financial gain.
All laws are based on some sense of morality. Many go too far, some not far enough. The government intrudes far too much into our personal lives, and releases are necesary, however, pedophilia tends to be a progressive act. If you allow a pedophile to act out some level of his/her fantasy, the chance of escalation is much much greater than the chance that they will stop at that level.
I'm sure someone will start equating me with Jack Thompson because of #3, but it's apples and oranges. I'm not saying watching kiddie porn turns people into pedophiles, but pedophiles who watch kiddie porn are more likely to escalate beyond just watching. Playing Need For Speed won't turn you into a street racer, but if you're a street racer who plays NFS, don't you think it will spark the desire for the rush of actually racing?
A bigger issue is the ownership of downloaded songs. We're moving toward a scheme in the music industry that will match what has been done in the software industry for a long time now: you do not own the music/software, you merely have been granted a license to use it.
Such a license could also be created so as to be non-transferrable, in that if you sell someone the original media, they don't get the license. In addition, the license may expire after some arbitrary amount of time. This is what the music industry is ultimately attempting to do with DRM (forget the whole piracy argument, it's mainly a front for getting the DRM in place).
Now, if the price of music were hugely reduced by the new licensing scheme, since renting is cheaper than owning (and by hugely I mean less than 1% of current costs), that might be acceptable, but the ultimate goal is to implement the licensing without reducing the price of music.
For this scheme to work, all of the major labels would have to be in collusion or else market forces would tend to reduce the price (although not as much as in other markets, since artists are restricted to a single label, and people tend to buy music based on the artist, not on which artist is cheaper). We all know the music industry doesn't engage in price fixing
People need to wake up about this, although I don't see that happening until after everyone's music starts to expire after 5 plays or 30 days, whichever comes first
It was Kirby Dick's documentary entitled "This Film is not yet rated". The thing is that he had EXPLICITELY asked them NOT to make copies of the movie.
If they had some formal agreement to that effect, the film maker would probably have a better case under contract law, which is less ambiguous than copyright law. This is especially true if the 'digital format' used wasn't encrypted.
Anonymity doesn't play nearly as much a role as most people think. This had to do with politics, and that inevitably leads to a flame war, on the internet and in real life. Just look at Congress. Besides, internet anonymity is a myth for the vast majority of people.
The 'pay per (bandwidth) use' plan you describe is just another version of the 'pay per hour of access' that has done so well for AOL in recent years that they scrapped it and went to unlimited access. Nobody wants to pay for limited use, especially when they will only save $5 and if they get over it will cost them $20 in charges. It's also the same lesson the Bells should be learning from the mass of people leaving POTS for unlimited talk time with VOIP, and the push for unlimited talk time with cell phones. Limited access for anything is a bad consumer move these days.
And in other news, the Phantom console is the greatest gaming console ever created and will cause Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to bow down to it's awesomitude.
I'd like to see something like this using actual stable molecules. This is hardly different than a list of words that can be spelled using a calculator, or a list of words that can be spelled using half the alphabet. Not much in the way of thought behind it.
Slashdot Mirror
And a lot of the solid food is actually plastic.
Actually, I think they would be much happier if you just paid the subscription fees every month and never actually played the game. They would save a fortune on their servers and net even more profit.
I seriously hope they never start pricing based on length or 'quantity of game play' or else studious will start stuffing their games with mindless repetition in order to boost both of those stats. It's bad enough with the current crop of RPGs which either feature mind-numbing repetitios features (maybe it's to prepare you for the level grind of MMORPGs) or endless cut scenes interspersed with 10 minutes of actual game play.
That says you can buy a PC at retail consumer electronic stores, direct from PC manufacturers, or through online consumer electronics Web sites with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 pre-installed.
You're buying a PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The phrasing doesn't make that 100% clear.
And then whoever creates the hack is sued into oblivion by Skype using the DMCA (along with every person they can find who used it).
Simple statements with little or no context (and statements taken out of context) are misunderstood ~50% of the time.
--Captain Obvious
According to Wikipedia, "The Red Cross is an emblem which, under the Geneva Conventions, is to be placed on humanitarian and medical vehicles and buildings to protect them from military attack on the battlefield."
Seems to me the Red Cross organization doesn't have exclusive rights to the symbol.
Yeah, you have to love that sequel fatique....and how /. moderators know how to spell so well. I mean, the Q key is halfway across the keyboard from the G key (on a qwerty) so don't be calling it a typo ;).
It may be funny, but this appears to be the direction these companies are headed. Even if they aren't going to actively block email from companies that don't pay, they seem to be saying "We're going to strengthen our filters which will result in far more false positives than currently occur. If you want to ensure that your email makes it to your customers so they don't get mad at you, you better fork over some of that green."
The Mafia says "Pay us or we'll break your legs," AOL and Yahoo say "Pay us because we're inept and can't design a functional spam filter."
because students won't be able to play any games on them!
(And we all know how much teachers like apples to begin with)
It isn't so much the fact that you aren't allowed to see the butt of a 14 year old girl, it's that the girl shouldn't be put in the position where she is showing her butt. Laws against child porn are not meant to prevent people from viewing it but to protect the children who are victimized for the sake of the people who view it. Going after the people who view it is a way of regulating the supply by attempting to reduce the demand.
The definition of 'porn' is also key in that it requires some sexual aspect. It's usually fine to have naked pictures of your young kids as long as they aren't sexual in nature (baby in the bath-type pics). I do agree that the line that defines porn has been moved so that things that were harmless 10 years ago might now be seen as kiddie porn by hypersensitive groups (including those same baby in the bath pics).
As for banning the movies, that's not at all what I'm saying. Kiddie porn is a special case in that a child is victimized in order for the material to even exist. Without the victimization, it's not kiddie porn. Movies about rape and murder are different in that the people aren't actually victimized, but rather are pretending to be. If someone is actually raped and/or murdered in order to create the movie, it's already illegal because a crime is required in order to create the material, the same as in kiddie porn. Games are more ambiguous, but it's like I said in my previous comment -- people who aren't already pedophiles (or having strong pedophillic tendencies) wouldn't play a game simulating pedophillia (or rape for that matter), whereas lots of people in our current culture are used to playing games (video and otherwise) about murder and have been for thousands of years.
I'm sure someone will start equating me with Jack Thompson because of #3, but it's apples and oranges. I'm not saying watching kiddie porn turns people into pedophiles, but pedophiles who watch kiddie porn are more likely to escalate beyond just watching. Playing Need For Speed won't turn you into a street racer, but if you're a street racer who plays NFS, don't you think it will spark the desire for the rush of actually racing?
Which do you mean, African or European avians?
A bigger issue is the ownership of downloaded songs. We're moving toward a scheme in the music industry that will match what has been done in the software industry for a long time now: you do not own the music/software, you merely have been granted a license to use it.
Such a license could also be created so as to be non-transferrable, in that if you sell someone the original media, they don't get the license. In addition, the license may expire after some arbitrary amount of time. This is what the music industry is ultimately attempting to do with DRM (forget the whole piracy argument, it's mainly a front for getting the DRM in place).
Now, if the price of music were hugely reduced by the new licensing scheme, since renting is cheaper than owning (and by hugely I mean less than 1% of current costs), that might be acceptable, but the ultimate goal is to implement the licensing without reducing the price of music.
For this scheme to work, all of the major labels would have to be in collusion or else market forces would tend to reduce the price (although not as much as in other markets, since artists are restricted to a single label, and people tend to buy music based on the artist, not on which artist is cheaper). We all know the music industry doesn't engage in price fixing
People need to wake up about this, although I don't see that happening until after everyone's music starts to expire after 5 plays or 30 days, whichever comes first
ok, /rant
It was Kirby Dick's documentary entitled "This Film is not yet rated". The thing is that he had EXPLICITELY asked them NOT to make copies of the movie.
If they had some formal agreement to that effect, the film maker would probably have a better case under contract law, which is less ambiguous than copyright law. This is especially true if the 'digital format' used wasn't encrypted.
My 0 degrees as 64 degrees, so my temperature reduction is (14/0)% = (infinity)%. I win. :)
Anonymity doesn't play nearly as much a role as most people think. This had to do with politics, and that inevitably leads to a flame war, on the internet and in real life. Just look at Congress. Besides, internet anonymity is a myth for the vast majority of people.
The 'pay per (bandwidth) use' plan you describe is just another version of the 'pay per hour of access' that has done so well for AOL in recent years that they scrapped it and went to unlimited access. Nobody wants to pay for limited use, especially when they will only save $5 and if they get over it will cost them $20 in charges. It's also the same lesson the Bells should be learning from the mass of people leaving POTS for unlimited talk time with VOIP, and the push for unlimited talk time with cell phones. Limited access for anything is a bad consumer move these days.
And in other news, the Phantom console is the greatest gaming console ever created and will cause Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to bow down to it's awesomitude.
I'd like to see something like this using actual stable molecules. This is hardly different than a list of words that can be spelled using a calculator, or a list of words that can be spelled using half the alphabet. Not much in the way of thought behind it.
Soylent green is....old programmers!
And half the time the FREE ATI drivers make my freakin computer crash.
But would you know which song lyrics to buy without finding the song through a lyrics site first?
On that note, how long until AJAX sues for trademark infringement?