The fact that the Wii can be used outside of therapy seems to be the main arguing point, but does it matter?
Even if there was a land rush for "free" Wiis, $300 game consoles are going to cost tax payers and insurance companies less than most treatments, the cost of related fraud may even be decreased.
Fraud aside, whats the big deal about Wii also being a video game console? So in spending $300 dollars for rehab equipment (that works remarkably well given its price) the insurance company/gov improves the receiver's quality of life (ostensibly) - thats a happy coincidence.
Fraud not aside, again, with conviction, its $300! Thats small potatoes, a drop in the bucket of prescription drug abuse and wrongful welfare.
IF the guy pays insurance, or the gov is OK with spending the money on some form or rehab, and Wii Fit can be shown to fill that need - then go for it.
And as far as reselling it to recoup the costs, I think thats a bad idea - the cost of employing people to do that, and the system to track it, and triplicate storage of that data, probably outweighs the money that would be made back.
You absolutely have a choice, or had one, when you started to work for the company, and signed papers, and got paid.
If you want to stand up for what you believe about IP ethics, now is a pretty shitty time to do it.
If you're not okay with the company policy, quit. If you can't quit because your job is too valuable, then that's the extent of how important not patenting your work is to you.
You don't try to return a steak for being overdone after you've eaten 3/4's of it, at least not if you have any integrity.
On the other hand, if you didn't sign papers, or if this policy wasn't made clear to you, then - obviously - you have grounds.
It's a lot of time and money put into chaining servos together, something like this could likely be put together using parts from lynxmotion.
What would be impressive is to get onboard power, communication and sensors onto this body without hampering its physical abilities, then give it some sort of capability for autonomy. This thing presents a sensor integration nightmare, and solving that would be useful indeed.
I for one would love ads on Wikipedia if it meant I didn't have to be guilty for not donating. I would go as far to log on to my account there, and see ads by preference. Maybe this is a possibility, give users the option of seeing ads (off by default) on wP as a sort of donational action. Imagine how much more you could charge for ads if you were assured they would not piss anyone off that would be viewing them.
...yeah in times like these when a post is bogged down by people with nothing better to do to than complain about non-existent grammar errors, only to be intelligently and respectfully corrected by someone who is then further challenged by those with nothing better to do but argue about the bloody headline some more...
I just have to say
OOOOOOOH SNAP!! You just got your bitch-ass served, didn't you??
Thank you so much to the above; not only have I learned something interesting about British business lexicon today - complete with corroborating URLs, but I get to a see such a glorious shoving of humble pie down a well-deserving slashdotter's throat.
On that line of thought I think many people are missing the fact that real time translation has MORE data to help it along, ike the timeing and intensity of words which are lost in text. An AI system could definately use these axis of data effectively to help decode the semantics of a sentance.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that the Wii can be used outside of therapy seems to be the main arguing point, but does it matter? Even if there was a land rush for "free" Wiis, $300 game consoles are going to cost tax payers and insurance companies less than most treatments, the cost of related fraud may even be decreased. Fraud aside, whats the big deal about Wii also being a video game console? So in spending $300 dollars for rehab equipment (that works remarkably well given its price) the insurance company/gov improves the receiver's quality of life (ostensibly) - thats a happy coincidence. Fraud not aside, again, with conviction, its $300! Thats small potatoes, a drop in the bucket of prescription drug abuse and wrongful welfare. IF the guy pays insurance, or the gov is OK with spending the money on some form or rehab, and Wii Fit can be shown to fill that need - then go for it. And as far as reselling it to recoup the costs, I think thats a bad idea - the cost of employing people to do that, and the system to track it, and triplicate storage of that data, probably outweighs the money that would be made back.
You absolutely have a choice, or had one, when you started to work for the company, and signed papers, and got paid. If you want to stand up for what you believe about IP ethics, now is a pretty shitty time to do it. If you're not okay with the company policy, quit. If you can't quit because your job is too valuable, then that's the extent of how important not patenting your work is to you. You don't try to return a steak for being overdone after you've eaten 3/4's of it, at least not if you have any integrity. On the other hand, if you didn't sign papers, or if this policy wasn't made clear to you, then - obviously - you have grounds.
It's a lot of time and money put into chaining servos together, something like this could likely be put together using parts from lynxmotion.
What would be impressive is to get onboard power, communication and sensors onto this body without hampering its physical abilities, then give it some sort of capability for autonomy. This thing presents a sensor integration nightmare, and solving that would be useful indeed.
I for one would love ads on Wikipedia if it meant I didn't have to be guilty for not donating. I would go as far to log on to my account there, and see ads by preference. Maybe this is a possibility, give users the option of seeing ads (off by default) on wP as a sort of donational action. Imagine how much more you could charge for ads if you were assured they would not piss anyone off that would be viewing them.
...yeah in times like these when a post is bogged down by people with nothing better to do to than complain about non-existent grammar errors, only to be intelligently and respectfully corrected by someone who is then further challenged by those with nothing better to do but argue about the bloody headline some more...
I just have to say
OOOOOOOH SNAP!!
You just got your bitch-ass served, didn't you??
Thank you so much to the above; not only have I learned something interesting about British business lexicon today - complete with corroborating URLs, but I get to a see such a glorious shoving of humble pie down a well-deserving slashdotter's throat.
On that line of thought I think many people are missing the fact that real time translation has MORE data to help it along, ike the timeing and intensity of words which are lost in text. An AI system could definately use these axis of data effectively to help decode the semantics of a sentance.