The S2 ban may be a bit of a problem as it's still sold as Samsung's budget smartphone, just as Apple sells it's previous model as a budget version of the iPhone.
However, it may not cause them much financial harm as the Galaxy Nexus wasn't covered by this ban and is similarly specced, so Samsung should be able to fill any void selling this handset instead as it was released around the same time, and is similarly specced, and hell, it's already running Jelly Bean to boot which afaik the S2 isn't yet.
Samsung also asked for the ban on the Galaxy Tab to be removed as this was apparently found not infringing in the very same case. Something which seems to have gone largely unreported.
So a question, does this mean Apple will have to pay damages for loss of sales from the Tab ban due to it apparently being frivolous?
I did use the site some years ago (I think when Spooks was on about season 4, before iPlayer provided it) and they always were very blunt about having to be a valid license holder to use the site, and were quite open that you would be banned if you were not, and that they in fact did even ban people quite often for exactly that, so with regards to points 1 and 2 it's merely a question of whether that was legitimate enough enforcement. I'd say it probably was which is precisely why it's taken so long (best part of a decade) for FACT to even dare try and go near them when others have fallen much more quickly. Perhaps they changed since I went there and stopped enforcing the rules so strictly and that's why they're now under fire, but either way they were safe with their rules for the best part of a decade and had even been in touch with various organisations such as the BBC and ITV to check what they could and couldn't do too. It wasn't just some run of the mill rogue piracy site like The Pirate Bay.
Point 3 is largely irrelevant, for a couple of reasons:
1) We're not talking about the internet, which is pay per click, TV advert contracts are decided before broadcast. Removal of adverts would hence be of little relevance, because if it's deemed they'd be ignored/removed by post-broadcast audiences then they wouldn't factor into the contract anyway. The money paid by the advertisers doesn't keep increasing each time some omnipresent entity detects someone has watched the ads - there's simply no way to judge this, so it's based on predicted viewing figures, something like UK Nova isn't going to change that.
and more importantly:
2) It's not illegal to skip/strip adverts on recorded content anyway in the UK. The other TV companies are subsidised by the TV license in that they get to use the broadcast infrastructure that it funds - i.e. that the public pay for, hence why it is deemed enough that they be guaranteed profit from live broadcast adverts, product placement (which the BBC is not allowed to use) etc.
"Contrary to you belief though they can can pull your car over just because it has a marker on it, they do not need any further reason."
They can do this regardless of any marker anyway and this is the same in most countries. They're allowed to do spot checks for drink driving, or to check your car is roadworthy for example, so I'm not really sure there's much to complain about here unless you want to have a debate as to whether police should ever be allowed to do such spot checks, but that's a different discussion and one that is long lost in almost every country in the world.
Yes, whilst studying maths I've long learnt that doing assignments last minute isn't a good idea, not because you may run out of time in the classic sense, but because you might run out of nights where you can sleep on the more difficult problems.
I tended to find if I work through an assignment, and get really stuck, the best thing to do is sleep on it. The next day I'll have figured much of it out in my head.
Interestingly I find water to have a similar effect, showering, bathing, or swimming underwater bring a certain calmness where I seem to have most of my Eureka moments. Similarly to sleeping, if I have a tough problem in my mind that I've been struggling with and go for a swim, and do a fair bit of underwater swimming, I often come out the pool with a solution.
I have a friend who is a botanist and who was researching the history of a specific taxonomic classification to find the reasons for the classicification as he was trying to determine with modern knowledge, whether the classification was still valid.
I can't remember the exact details, but the book in which the classification was defined was published in something like 1916, but for some reason was allowed to be re-published (as an updated version perhaps) in about 1937. The only place he could find a copy was on Google Books, scanned it, but due to retrospective increases in copyright (95 years?) this book wont be available until 2032 to be read fully. By the time that has happened the book will be irrelevant as it's classification will be confirmed or changed regardless of the book's original reasons through DNA sampling. So yes, you're absolutely spot on, IP laws do indeed last well beyond the time the material is worthless.
This is stupid. It prevents the progress of science, no one was going to buy the book because it's not been in print for about 75 years, the author is long, long dead. This to me was an astounding example of how broken copyright law is and a demonstration that terms of such length benefit absolutely no one and are massively detrimental to society. There is simply no net-positive to the implementation of said law.
In the UK we pay a TV license which is what covers the TV that UK Nova hosted, and it's not clear that UK Nova was actually doing anything illegal by allowing people to share recorded TV we've all already paid for like this as it was deemed akin to simply recording a show on VHS and sharing it with your friends.
They've shut down because they can't afford to fight this sort of organisation, not because they were necessarily doing anything illegal.
Your argument may have made sense in other countries, but here in the UK it does not. FACT is effectively denying us access to content we've already paid for if we happen to miss it's live broadcast or fail to record it ourselves.
To be fair, and I don't know if it's changed, the ANPR cameras used to only log your details if your plate could be cross-referenced with another list such as a list of stolen cars, a list of uninsured/declared off the road vehicles etc. or vehicles on a specific watch-list which IIRC they do actually have to obtain a warrant to add a vehicle to. So the only time they'd log and flag is if you were actually breaking the law in the first place. Similarly many people believe speed cameras are always filming but this is completely false, they only take a snapshot of you if you actually break the law. I think it's worth keeping this distinction in mind with this sort of technology - that much of it doesn't actually just spy on every average joe, it inherently only catches people who genuinely are classed as criminals at the point the logged data is captured (e.g. speed camera only takes and stores your photo once you've been detected speeding). Whether you agree that a speeder going 4mph over the speed limit should be classed as a criminal is a different (but fair) argument of course.
It's still a slippery slope though, but as with many of the "bad" laws in the UK, they're at least not as bad as sensationalists make out. The RIPA password law for example clearly states that the police have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you know the password if they're to throw the book at you for not disclosing the password, meaning all the FUD about how you could get banged up for not knowing the password simply isn't true.
This isn't to say we shouldn't be vigilant against scope creep, but honestly, many of the things people fret about do actually have an awful lot more safeguards in than people are led to believe by the popular press on the issue. Of course, where councils started using RIPA to spy on private citizens we have an example of the law genuinely being far too broad and being used far beyond the scope we were told it would so there is always a danger and that sort of thing should be heavily condemned to keep politicians in check.
So why are Apple now so slavishly copying Android features such as the notification bar if they have a genuine interest in innovation?
Innovation has nothing to do with it as Apple copies as much as anyone (bear in mind they've lost a lot of court cases across the world themselves), if it was entirely about innovation then they wouldn't copy themselves, but they do. Since about Android 2.3 iOS has started to look more and more like Android rather than vice versa.
You're right Metro hasn't been brought into the frame but are you aware Apple was willing to make a cross-licensing deal with Microsoft on mobile patents that it wouldn't with other manufacturers? Although metro has a different front-end it also otherwise infringes on many of these patents such as bounce back, and rectangle with rounded corners, however Apple is happy to license to them because a) Microsoft is more of a patent threat to Apple if Apple plays that game with it, and b) Microsoft is nowadays an irrelevant non-threat to Apple in the mobile market.
Keep in mind that Apple was going after Nokia until Microsoft de-facto took them over and then suddenly Apple settled. Funny that isn't it?
Apple wont touch MS, not because they're any more innovating, but because they're shit scared of waking up that giant in the patent battles.
The weak point exists for the reason that car dealerships claim they need to be able to print show plates for cars on show at their garages. Also, some people like custom plates, nationalists like having their countries flag on rather than the standard EU style plate for example.
It is extremely easy to get them printed, an old colleague's ex owned such a printing business and was done for working with an organised crime gang who stole luxury cars and used him to print the plates. He tried to use the excuse to the police that he thought he was just selling them show plates, but that excuse doesn't go down too well with them.
I do agree with you, the arguments for allowing any old joe to produce plates are frankly fucking stupid. You actually have to be registered to produce legit plates, and IIRC, can only take traceable payment for them (i.e. not cash) and have to ask for ID etc. and can be spot checked to be sure you do this, but what use is this when people claim they have the plate making kit for just making show plates and don't have to go through any of this and don't have to register, and hence have spot checks?
"Has anyone seriously taken the time to calculate the amount of money changing hands in these Technical Law Suits ? If they would simply STOP suing each other and start COLLABERATING they might find the world a better place to live."
No, Apple's belief is that it can crush Samsung, Motorola etc. in the courts and remove them from the equation altogether so that they can have the entire smartphone market to themselves. From their point of view, they believe they can win, and that if they win the world will be a better place for them. You may be right that if they were to collaborate then the world would be better for everyone else, but the problem is they don't give a shit about everyone else and simply want to build an even bigger money pile than the one they have now.
"(Here's some commentary from Reuters and CNet. Also remember, BOTH APPLE AND SAMSUNG VETTED THEM, and were able to remove whomever they wanted; I understand Apple got rid of a Google employee)."
But bear in mind Samsung can only have so many removed, and this trial was a few miles from Apple's buildings. In that context it's next to impossible to remove every juror and find objective replacements who have no bias towards Apple when the area is so dependent on it for it's income and wealth.
This is the underlying problem. Such an important trial shouldn't ever be allowed to be held so close to one party's offices under any circumstances. It doesn't happen in criminal trials - where there is a danger a member of a community would be prejudged by everyone in that community if the trial is held in that community, hence why they move the trial elsewhere, and it shouldn't happen in civil trials either when the stakes are so high.
You know personally, the problem I have with all this is not so much Samsung being found guilty of infringement which has been the focus of every discussion surrounding this case, the problem I have is that all Samsung's claims were thrown out - what happened to them? where is the commentary on them? If Samsung was found guilty of infringing Apple's rectangulary phone patent which is merely opinion depending on how close you believe a phone can be to such a patent, then how could Apple not be found guilty of infringing Samsung's wireless patents in Samsung's counter-claim, a fact which is provable and not open to mere opinion like the design patents are.
It's that that is the most damning evidence for me that this trial was fundamentally flawed, if Samsung infringed fine, but it's just nonsensical to say Samsung infringed, but somehow Apple didn't, as Apple's works are simply far more blatantly infringing than Samsungs are- Apple kit used tech Samsung has patents on, and contested in this trial, there's simply no question about that, yet those claims apparently vanished into the ether and Apple got everything they wanted. I fully except this may have just been a pro-patent jury who were always going to back patent enforcement and bad luck to Samsung, but then why did they not back Samsung's patents too? The fact they only backed Apple's does pretty much confirm this was not merely a pro-patent jury, but a pro-Apple jury.
"Score against the people they're standing up for (the public) - millions of lives ruined as their credit goes to pot, countless hours and days of effort spent to try and recover, thousands of dollars of extra interest payments now their credit score has been dropped down, potential bankruptcies and divorces and split households from the stress...
What a bunch of jackasses. Maybe these people should think who they're really hurting once in a while."
Hi, in the UK we have sane banking laws whereby if something like this were to happen to you and you were to get a bad credit score as a result and company giving said bad credit score did not work to reverse this reputation they had given you you could claim a fair amount of compensation.
I don't know what fucked up country you live in, but the fact that this can't actually happen in the UK is evidence enough that your theory that the hackers are responsible for ruining lives is completely ass-backwards and it is in fact inept governance, coupled with perhaps corporate lobbying against such laws by banks against consumer protection that is the fundamental fault.
I had my card details stolen from an online retailer once, and they were used to buy 300 euros of mobile phone credit in Italy within an hour of me taking cash from a cash machine in the UK. This is despite my bank blocking a £720 transaction for a high end monitor from a well known online retailer once, simply because they felt it was a dodgy looking transaction for some god unknown reason. I'm far more angry towards the retailer who obviously allowed my details to be leaked, and the bank for allowing an impossible transaction despite having the ability to jump on other transactions (that were actually legitimate) and inconvenience me when it suits than I am the people who took and sold my details, but despite this it caused my no inconvenience, the bank had to shoulder the interest payments, my credit score didn't suffer one ounce, there was no bankruptcy, there was no split household, and frankly, there was no real fucking stress.
Honestly, either lobby your government, or move to a country where you are actually protected as a consumer and not screwed over for a company's fuckup if it bothers you that much.
Perhaps it allows Apple to skirt round the otherwise embarassing comments they made previously about how no one would ever want a 7" tablet so they can hence claim "It's not a 7" tablet, it's a 7" media player with tablet features!" ?
You forgot the bit about the Judge, Lucy Koh, having worked for Apple before via her previous employer when she was a lawyer.
As cases go, Samsung never really stood a chance, that's why I've been less interested in this case than many of the other ones across the globe, as this case tells us nothing about the validity of Apple's claims, whilst those in other jurisdictions do. The UK trial for example was always going to be much more objective because it gave not a shit about what either company thought as the UK has no stake in either company's success or failure, whilst of course no matter how hard you try, you're never going to eliminate things like xenophobia and enforce objectivity in a jury, especially if the trial is right in one of the firms own backyards, because even if the jury have no self-interest you can guarantee they'll have friends/family that work at that firm when it's such a large employer in the area. People are still people at the end of the day, and a case like this should never have been allowed to be heard against a backdrop. Normally when a suspect in a small community is being tried for something the trial is held elsewhere if there is any scope that the community from which the jurors would be picked would in any way be likely to have any reason to pre-judge the case. I've no idea why this sort of case is treated any differently.
I don't know how the US appeals process works, does an appeal have to be held well away, or can Apple just pick the next court around the corner? anyone know?
Samsung has had stands like these in various UK shopping centres pop up for years, well before Apple even opened it's stores.
The Sydney store just looks like a shop full of the sorts of stands Samsung has always had, so calling it an Apple store is a bit of a joke. If anything it would suggest Apple copied Samsung's style of popup stands, but it wasn't even just Samsung.
In shopping centres in the UK these sorts of stands have been commonplace for other vendors too, it's not something unique to Apple. Even Sony's stores dating back quite some years in major shopping centres here in the UK tended to look like this. It's a style that many mobile phone shops have used for well over a decade also.
The only unique thing about Apple stores is, that they have Apple logos plastered around in them, the airy layout, style of furniture etc. was never either new or unique to Apple.
What next? Walmart copied Apple because Walmart stores have doors and Apple stores do too?
"Hell, my girlfriend is technical enough to fix her own router, but I haven't seen her do anything on her laptop that she couldn't do on a tablet in the four months we've been living together."
Well, let's just hope that she doesn't have to download a firmware update from her router and upload it to the device through a standard HTML file upload form element on her iPad then.
Yes, that's right, because of iOS' restrictions, it can't even perform this sort of basic task.
"The alternative would be something like the BBC, where I'd have to pay $230 a year to watch NBC. $230 a year to watch ABC. $230 a year to watch CBS. And on and on and on. Pretty soon I'd have a $2000 bill just to watch television I currently get for free. (Add another $1000 to get cable.)"
That's not the way the UK TV license fee works, you don't pay it per channel, you pay it once per household and get a number of channels (including non-BBC ones) funded/subsidised by that cost.
The license fee is used to help fund the UK's public broadcast infrastructure, such that other channels (and radio) can use it mitigating the cost they would otherwise have in implementing and managing this sort of infrastructure themselves.
A portion of the fee goes to the BBC for programming itself, but the BBC's commercial arm (i.e. the arm that sells Planet Earth DVD/Bluray sets etc.) also help subsidise it. A portion is given to other broadcasters such as ITV, and Channel 4.
All in all, it seems to work fine, we get over 50 channels, the main and most high quality of which (which are the bulk of people's viewing) have no ads during programmes or reduced ads depending on the amount of license subsidy they receive, certainly we don't pay per channel, and the idea that the license fee funds just the BBC and nothing else is a complete myth, it doesn't, it funds a number of channels and the infrastructure itself.
In contrast, when I've watch American (and Canadian for that matter) TV I've found the ads to be awful, you can't go 5 minutes in some programmes without seeing ads, of an hour long show over half that may be ads on US/Canadian TV it seems, here it's restricted to something like 12mins out of an hour for the low/no subsidy channels that use the public infrastructure the license fee pays for, and about 7 or 8 minutes for the BBC, but not during the middle of a show.
Sure your theorised $2000 bill for TV sounds excessive, but in reality no, it's just a straight $230 (I don't know where you got that figure, at current exchange rates it'd actually be about $190 USD) for the year, to get 50 odd channels with limited ads, including some channels which are HD, and some which even broadcast in 3D (i.e. much of the Olympics was available in 3D). We also get iPlayer, and equivalents for all other major channels too.
We still get ads, but the limitations on them leave them no big deal, compared to US/Canadian TV where they just kill the experience (though I assume you get used to it if you know nothing else). Most importantly of all though, we get objectivity and quality TV, because news and even shows (due to product placement limitations) on the major channels aren't anywhere near as tainted in their objectivity or quality by commercial interests.
I don't think $190 is bad at all for the amount of content - not just from the BBC, but other broadcasters too, and quality of content we get. I certainly far prefer it to the alternative. We even have the option here via Sky or Virgin media to use private infrastructure to view their channels, but the content on the bulk of the channels (excluding the premium ones you pay yet more for) these provide is far worse than that on the publicly funded/subsidised Freeview channels, and the news (e.g. Sky News) is heavily tainted by a lack of objectivity. It's not Fox News, but it's getting there thanks to Murdoch's influence.
To be fair, it does raise questions as to what the fuck the point is in Apple's extremely rigorous and invasive recruitment process such as multiple credit checks etc. though.
If they go to such extremes when hiring but can still get away with the excuse that "Well, this happens in any store", then maybe they could at least stop subjecting potential employees to such an awkward recruitment process, or at least stop pretending the recruitment process in any way improves the quality of employee they hire in their stores.
The guy did this job for a year and was a contractor, it doesn't really matter if Google weren't clear what was involved in the job description, he stayed in the job far longer than he had to so it was entirely his choice.
I agree there should be a support program, but were Google even aware of the issues he was facing from this job? If he sat in it for a year without saying anything then did they really know any better? did he really address the issues with them?
It's easy to have a pop at Google, but this could just as well be a bitter ex-contractor who was actually genuinely laid off due to incompetence for all we know.
Certainly if it was having so much impact and he got so little support then why on earth did he stay for a whole year? you'd know within a week if this is the sort of thing that's going to make you sick. Fuck, I stumbled across a beheading on the internet years ago, and it's still enough for me to know to this day that it's something I'd never ever want to do for a living no matter how much I was getting paid. It would be pretty clear pretty quickly that this wasn't the job for you.
Yet despite socialism's "drag" the socialist economies in Europe have a better economic output than the US combined, and Norway which is very socialist even has a higher GDP per capita, and this is despite the US having a massive advantage in these areas due to it being in the fortunate position of being able to dictate most world trade rules in place today.
So how does that figure into your equation? Why are people in socialist countries also more productive?
You obviously haven't really thought through your point, but let me explain why this is generally the case. The reasons are varied but fairly simple, that without a sensible social security blanket, such as socialised healthcare, you end up with people being taken out of the productive portion of the economy, people get sick and can't become productive again because of lack of suitable healthcare to do so. You also have greater access to education when it receives more state funding, and you have people with benefits able to get back on their feet more easily rather than completely falling into ruin and ending up a burden on the state, often resorting to crime etc.
This isn't to say socialism is all great, it does have it's disadvantages, it does mean less elite universities for the small fragment of the population that can afford it, it does mean let billionaires, etc. What it does do is help the average person though, it allows the average to be better educated, it allows the average to be happier, it allows the average to be healthier. It means more people a better off, more people are healthier, and more people are happier. It means you don't end up with parts of your country being basically third world, like parts of New Orleans, and Detroit.
So sure, the US system is great if you're one of the few fortunate enough to be born into, or even fewer lucky enough to make it into the elite, but for everyone else, including people like you, it's far worse, so you're a fool for defending it, one of the fools discussed here:
But I'm sure you wont get this, your post was ignorant and short sighted, and with that kind of ignorance of different political systems it's unlikely that you'll be able to have a sensible and rational conversation on this. Still, hopefully you'll suprise me and be able to show at least some grasp of the different merits of socialism and capitalism rather than an outright clueless troll suggesting that socialism is never productive. You only have to look at the UK, which is one of the least socialist and most pro-capitalist states in Europe to see that more capitalism has far from helped us, as we're still a weaker economy than France and Germany, and despite 2 years of more capitalist oriented changes to our economy by the government, things have only gotten worse.
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The S2 ban may be a bit of a problem as it's still sold as Samsung's budget smartphone, just as Apple sells it's previous model as a budget version of the iPhone.
However, it may not cause them much financial harm as the Galaxy Nexus wasn't covered by this ban and is similarly specced, so Samsung should be able to fill any void selling this handset instead as it was released around the same time, and is similarly specced, and hell, it's already running Jelly Bean to boot which afaik the S2 isn't yet.
Samsung also asked for the ban on the Galaxy Tab to be removed as this was apparently found not infringing in the very same case. Something which seems to have gone largely unreported.
So a question, does this mean Apple will have to pay damages for loss of sales from the Tab ban due to it apparently being frivolous?
I did use the site some years ago (I think when Spooks was on about season 4, before iPlayer provided it) and they always were very blunt about having to be a valid license holder to use the site, and were quite open that you would be banned if you were not, and that they in fact did even ban people quite often for exactly that, so with regards to points 1 and 2 it's merely a question of whether that was legitimate enough enforcement. I'd say it probably was which is precisely why it's taken so long (best part of a decade) for FACT to even dare try and go near them when others have fallen much more quickly. Perhaps they changed since I went there and stopped enforcing the rules so strictly and that's why they're now under fire, but either way they were safe with their rules for the best part of a decade and had even been in touch with various organisations such as the BBC and ITV to check what they could and couldn't do too. It wasn't just some run of the mill rogue piracy site like The Pirate Bay.
Point 3 is largely irrelevant, for a couple of reasons:
1) We're not talking about the internet, which is pay per click, TV advert contracts are decided before broadcast. Removal of adverts would hence be of little relevance, because if it's deemed they'd be ignored/removed by post-broadcast audiences then they wouldn't factor into the contract anyway. The money paid by the advertisers doesn't keep increasing each time some omnipresent entity detects someone has watched the ads - there's simply no way to judge this, so it's based on predicted viewing figures, something like UK Nova isn't going to change that.
and more importantly:
2) It's not illegal to skip/strip adverts on recorded content anyway in the UK. The other TV companies are subsidised by the TV license in that they get to use the broadcast infrastructure that it funds - i.e. that the public pay for, hence why it is deemed enough that they be guaranteed profit from live broadcast adverts, product placement (which the BBC is not allowed to use) etc.
"Contrary to you belief though they can can pull your car over just because it has a marker on it, they do not need any further reason."
They can do this regardless of any marker anyway and this is the same in most countries. They're allowed to do spot checks for drink driving, or to check your car is roadworthy for example, so I'm not really sure there's much to complain about here unless you want to have a debate as to whether police should ever be allowed to do such spot checks, but that's a different discussion and one that is long lost in almost every country in the world.
Yes, whilst studying maths I've long learnt that doing assignments last minute isn't a good idea, not because you may run out of time in the classic sense, but because you might run out of nights where you can sleep on the more difficult problems.
I tended to find if I work through an assignment, and get really stuck, the best thing to do is sleep on it. The next day I'll have figured much of it out in my head.
Interestingly I find water to have a similar effect, showering, bathing, or swimming underwater bring a certain calmness where I seem to have most of my Eureka moments. Similarly to sleeping, if I have a tough problem in my mind that I've been struggling with and go for a swim, and do a fair bit of underwater swimming, I often come out the pool with a solution.
I can cite an anecdote over this too.
I have a friend who is a botanist and who was researching the history of a specific taxonomic classification to find the reasons for the classicification as he was trying to determine with modern knowledge, whether the classification was still valid.
I can't remember the exact details, but the book in which the classification was defined was published in something like 1916, but for some reason was allowed to be re-published (as an updated version perhaps) in about 1937. The only place he could find a copy was on Google Books, scanned it, but due to retrospective increases in copyright (95 years?) this book wont be available until 2032 to be read fully. By the time that has happened the book will be irrelevant as it's classification will be confirmed or changed regardless of the book's original reasons through DNA sampling. So yes, you're absolutely spot on, IP laws do indeed last well beyond the time the material is worthless.
This is stupid. It prevents the progress of science, no one was going to buy the book because it's not been in print for about 75 years, the author is long, long dead. This to me was an astounding example of how broken copyright law is and a demonstration that terms of such length benefit absolutely no one and are massively detrimental to society. There is simply no net-positive to the implementation of said law.
In the UK we pay a TV license which is what covers the TV that UK Nova hosted, and it's not clear that UK Nova was actually doing anything illegal by allowing people to share recorded TV we've all already paid for like this as it was deemed akin to simply recording a show on VHS and sharing it with your friends.
They've shut down because they can't afford to fight this sort of organisation, not because they were necessarily doing anything illegal.
Your argument may have made sense in other countries, but here in the UK it does not. FACT is effectively denying us access to content we've already paid for if we happen to miss it's live broadcast or fail to record it ourselves.
To be fair, and I don't know if it's changed, the ANPR cameras used to only log your details if your plate could be cross-referenced with another list such as a list of stolen cars, a list of uninsured/declared off the road vehicles etc. or vehicles on a specific watch-list which IIRC they do actually have to obtain a warrant to add a vehicle to. So the only time they'd log and flag is if you were actually breaking the law in the first place. Similarly many people believe speed cameras are always filming but this is completely false, they only take a snapshot of you if you actually break the law. I think it's worth keeping this distinction in mind with this sort of technology - that much of it doesn't actually just spy on every average joe, it inherently only catches people who genuinely are classed as criminals at the point the logged data is captured (e.g. speed camera only takes and stores your photo once you've been detected speeding). Whether you agree that a speeder going 4mph over the speed limit should be classed as a criminal is a different (but fair) argument of course.
It's still a slippery slope though, but as with many of the "bad" laws in the UK, they're at least not as bad as sensationalists make out. The RIPA password law for example clearly states that the police have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you know the password if they're to throw the book at you for not disclosing the password, meaning all the FUD about how you could get banged up for not knowing the password simply isn't true.
This isn't to say we shouldn't be vigilant against scope creep, but honestly, many of the things people fret about do actually have an awful lot more safeguards in than people are led to believe by the popular press on the issue. Of course, where councils started using RIPA to spy on private citizens we have an example of the law genuinely being far too broad and being used far beyond the scope we were told it would so there is always a danger and that sort of thing should be heavily condemned to keep politicians in check.
Except it's an offence in itself to have a non-legible number plate.
So why are Apple now so slavishly copying Android features such as the notification bar if they have a genuine interest in innovation?
Innovation has nothing to do with it as Apple copies as much as anyone (bear in mind they've lost a lot of court cases across the world themselves), if it was entirely about innovation then they wouldn't copy themselves, but they do. Since about Android 2.3 iOS has started to look more and more like Android rather than vice versa.
You're right Metro hasn't been brought into the frame but are you aware Apple was willing to make a cross-licensing deal with Microsoft on mobile patents that it wouldn't with other manufacturers? Although metro has a different front-end it also otherwise infringes on many of these patents such as bounce back, and rectangle with rounded corners, however Apple is happy to license to them because a) Microsoft is more of a patent threat to Apple if Apple plays that game with it, and b) Microsoft is nowadays an irrelevant non-threat to Apple in the mobile market.
Keep in mind that Apple was going after Nokia until Microsoft de-facto took them over and then suddenly Apple settled. Funny that isn't it?
Apple wont touch MS, not because they're any more innovating, but because they're shit scared of waking up that giant in the patent battles.
The weak point exists for the reason that car dealerships claim they need to be able to print show plates for cars on show at their garages. Also, some people like custom plates, nationalists like having their countries flag on rather than the standard EU style plate for example.
It is extremely easy to get them printed, an old colleague's ex owned such a printing business and was done for working with an organised crime gang who stole luxury cars and used him to print the plates. He tried to use the excuse to the police that he thought he was just selling them show plates, but that excuse doesn't go down too well with them.
I do agree with you, the arguments for allowing any old joe to produce plates are frankly fucking stupid. You actually have to be registered to produce legit plates, and IIRC, can only take traceable payment for them (i.e. not cash) and have to ask for ID etc. and can be spot checked to be sure you do this, but what use is this when people claim they have the plate making kit for just making show plates and don't have to go through any of this and don't have to register, and hence have spot checks?
You mean the ones that flash up your speed if you go near the limit in the place you're driving? If so then no, no they don't read your plates.
"Has anyone seriously taken the time to calculate the amount of money changing hands in these Technical Law Suits ? If they would simply STOP suing each other and start COLLABERATING they might find the world a better place to live."
No, Apple's belief is that it can crush Samsung, Motorola etc. in the courts and remove them from the equation altogether so that they can have the entire smartphone market to themselves. From their point of view, they believe they can win, and that if they win the world will be a better place for them. You may be right that if they were to collaborate then the world would be better for everyone else, but the problem is they don't give a shit about everyone else and simply want to build an even bigger money pile than the one they have now.
"(Here's some commentary from Reuters and CNet. Also remember, BOTH APPLE AND SAMSUNG VETTED THEM, and were able to remove whomever they wanted; I understand Apple got rid of a Google employee)."
But bear in mind Samsung can only have so many removed, and this trial was a few miles from Apple's buildings. In that context it's next to impossible to remove every juror and find objective replacements who have no bias towards Apple when the area is so dependent on it for it's income and wealth.
This is the underlying problem. Such an important trial shouldn't ever be allowed to be held so close to one party's offices under any circumstances. It doesn't happen in criminal trials - where there is a danger a member of a community would be prejudged by everyone in that community if the trial is held in that community, hence why they move the trial elsewhere, and it shouldn't happen in civil trials either when the stakes are so high.
You know personally, the problem I have with all this is not so much Samsung being found guilty of infringement which has been the focus of every discussion surrounding this case, the problem I have is that all Samsung's claims were thrown out - what happened to them? where is the commentary on them? If Samsung was found guilty of infringing Apple's rectangulary phone patent which is merely opinion depending on how close you believe a phone can be to such a patent, then how could Apple not be found guilty of infringing Samsung's wireless patents in Samsung's counter-claim, a fact which is provable and not open to mere opinion like the design patents are.
It's that that is the most damning evidence for me that this trial was fundamentally flawed, if Samsung infringed fine, but it's just nonsensical to say Samsung infringed, but somehow Apple didn't, as Apple's works are simply far more blatantly infringing than Samsungs are- Apple kit used tech Samsung has patents on, and contested in this trial, there's simply no question about that, yet those claims apparently vanished into the ether and Apple got everything they wanted. I fully except this may have just been a pro-patent jury who were always going to back patent enforcement and bad luck to Samsung, but then why did they not back Samsung's patents too? The fact they only backed Apple's does pretty much confirm this was not merely a pro-patent jury, but a pro-Apple jury.
"Score against the people they're standing up for (the public) - millions of lives ruined as their credit goes to pot, countless hours and days of effort spent to try and recover, thousands of dollars of extra interest payments now their credit score has been dropped down, potential bankruptcies and divorces and split households from the stress...
What a bunch of jackasses. Maybe these people should think who they're really hurting once in a while."
Hi, in the UK we have sane banking laws whereby if something like this were to happen to you and you were to get a bad credit score as a result and company giving said bad credit score did not work to reverse this reputation they had given you you could claim a fair amount of compensation.
I don't know what fucked up country you live in, but the fact that this can't actually happen in the UK is evidence enough that your theory that the hackers are responsible for ruining lives is completely ass-backwards and it is in fact inept governance, coupled with perhaps corporate lobbying against such laws by banks against consumer protection that is the fundamental fault.
I had my card details stolen from an online retailer once, and they were used to buy 300 euros of mobile phone credit in Italy within an hour of me taking cash from a cash machine in the UK. This is despite my bank blocking a £720 transaction for a high end monitor from a well known online retailer once, simply because they felt it was a dodgy looking transaction for some god unknown reason. I'm far more angry towards the retailer who obviously allowed my details to be leaked, and the bank for allowing an impossible transaction despite having the ability to jump on other transactions (that were actually legitimate) and inconvenience me when it suits than I am the people who took and sold my details, but despite this it caused my no inconvenience, the bank had to shoulder the interest payments, my credit score didn't suffer one ounce, there was no bankruptcy, there was no split household, and frankly, there was no real fucking stress.
Honestly, either lobby your government, or move to a country where you are actually protected as a consumer and not screwed over for a company's fuckup if it bothers you that much.
Perhaps it allows Apple to skirt round the otherwise embarassing comments they made previously about how no one would ever want a 7" tablet so they can hence claim "It's not a 7" tablet, it's a 7" media player with tablet features!" ?
You forgot the bit about the Judge, Lucy Koh, having worked for Apple before via her previous employer when she was a lawyer.
As cases go, Samsung never really stood a chance, that's why I've been less interested in this case than many of the other ones across the globe, as this case tells us nothing about the validity of Apple's claims, whilst those in other jurisdictions do. The UK trial for example was always going to be much more objective because it gave not a shit about what either company thought as the UK has no stake in either company's success or failure, whilst of course no matter how hard you try, you're never going to eliminate things like xenophobia and enforce objectivity in a jury, especially if the trial is right in one of the firms own backyards, because even if the jury have no self-interest you can guarantee they'll have friends/family that work at that firm when it's such a large employer in the area. People are still people at the end of the day, and a case like this should never have been allowed to be heard against a backdrop. Normally when a suspect in a small community is being tried for something the trial is held elsewhere if there is any scope that the community from which the jurors would be picked would in any way be likely to have any reason to pre-judge the case. I've no idea why this sort of case is treated any differently.
I don't know how the US appeals process works, does an appeal have to be held well away, or can Apple just pick the next court around the corner? anyone know?
Because he's probably been told the longer he cooperates, the more lenient sentence he'll get.
Whether that ends up being true in the end remains to be seen, they may just fuck him anyway.
Samsung has had stands like these in various UK shopping centres pop up for years, well before Apple even opened it's stores.
The Sydney store just looks like a shop full of the sorts of stands Samsung has always had, so calling it an Apple store is a bit of a joke. If anything it would suggest Apple copied Samsung's style of popup stands, but it wasn't even just Samsung.
In shopping centres in the UK these sorts of stands have been commonplace for other vendors too, it's not something unique to Apple. Even Sony's stores dating back quite some years in major shopping centres here in the UK tended to look like this. It's a style that many mobile phone shops have used for well over a decade also.
The only unique thing about Apple stores is, that they have Apple logos plastered around in them, the airy layout, style of furniture etc. was never either new or unique to Apple.
What next? Walmart copied Apple because Walmart stores have doors and Apple stores do too?
Sure, but that doesn't excuse Apple's flagship devices missing support for basic HTML form elements in the browser they ship with.
"Hell, my girlfriend is technical enough to fix her own router, but I haven't seen her do anything on her laptop that she couldn't do on a tablet in the four months we've been living together."
Well, let's just hope that she doesn't have to download a firmware update from her router and upload it to the device through a standard HTML file upload form element on her iPad then.
Yes, that's right, because of iOS' restrictions, it can't even perform this sort of basic task.
"The alternative would be something like the BBC, where I'd have to pay $230 a year to watch NBC. $230 a year to watch ABC. $230 a year to watch CBS. And on and on and on. Pretty soon I'd have a $2000 bill just to watch television I currently get for free. (Add another $1000 to get cable.)"
That's not the way the UK TV license fee works, you don't pay it per channel, you pay it once per household and get a number of channels (including non-BBC ones) funded/subsidised by that cost.
The license fee is used to help fund the UK's public broadcast infrastructure, such that other channels (and radio) can use it mitigating the cost they would otherwise have in implementing and managing this sort of infrastructure themselves.
A portion of the fee goes to the BBC for programming itself, but the BBC's commercial arm (i.e. the arm that sells Planet Earth DVD/Bluray sets etc.) also help subsidise it. A portion is given to other broadcasters such as ITV, and Channel 4.
All in all, it seems to work fine, we get over 50 channels, the main and most high quality of which (which are the bulk of people's viewing) have no ads during programmes or reduced ads depending on the amount of license subsidy they receive, certainly we don't pay per channel, and the idea that the license fee funds just the BBC and nothing else is a complete myth, it doesn't, it funds a number of channels and the infrastructure itself.
In contrast, when I've watch American (and Canadian for that matter) TV I've found the ads to be awful, you can't go 5 minutes in some programmes without seeing ads, of an hour long show over half that may be ads on US/Canadian TV it seems, here it's restricted to something like 12mins out of an hour for the low/no subsidy channels that use the public infrastructure the license fee pays for, and about 7 or 8 minutes for the BBC, but not during the middle of a show.
Sure your theorised $2000 bill for TV sounds excessive, but in reality no, it's just a straight $230 (I don't know where you got that figure, at current exchange rates it'd actually be about $190 USD) for the year, to get 50 odd channels with limited ads, including some channels which are HD, and some which even broadcast in 3D (i.e. much of the Olympics was available in 3D). We also get iPlayer, and equivalents for all other major channels too.
We still get ads, but the limitations on them leave them no big deal, compared to US/Canadian TV where they just kill the experience (though I assume you get used to it if you know nothing else). Most importantly of all though, we get objectivity and quality TV, because news and even shows (due to product placement limitations) on the major channels aren't anywhere near as tainted in their objectivity or quality by commercial interests.
I don't think $190 is bad at all for the amount of content - not just from the BBC, but other broadcasters too, and quality of content we get. I certainly far prefer it to the alternative. We even have the option here via Sky or Virgin media to use private infrastructure to view their channels, but the content on the bulk of the channels (excluding the premium ones you pay yet more for) these provide is far worse than that on the publicly funded/subsidised Freeview channels, and the news (e.g. Sky News) is heavily tainted by a lack of objectivity. It's not Fox News, but it's getting there thanks to Murdoch's influence.
To be fair, it does raise questions as to what the fuck the point is in Apple's extremely rigorous and invasive recruitment process such as multiple credit checks etc. though.
If they go to such extremes when hiring but can still get away with the excuse that "Well, this happens in any store", then maybe they could at least stop subjecting potential employees to such an awkward recruitment process, or at least stop pretending the recruitment process in any way improves the quality of employee they hire in their stores.
The guy did this job for a year and was a contractor, it doesn't really matter if Google weren't clear what was involved in the job description, he stayed in the job far longer than he had to so it was entirely his choice.
I agree there should be a support program, but were Google even aware of the issues he was facing from this job? If he sat in it for a year without saying anything then did they really know any better? did he really address the issues with them?
It's easy to have a pop at Google, but this could just as well be a bitter ex-contractor who was actually genuinely laid off due to incompetence for all we know.
Certainly if it was having so much impact and he got so little support then why on earth did he stay for a whole year? you'd know within a week if this is the sort of thing that's going to make you sick. Fuck, I stumbled across a beheading on the internet years ago, and it's still enough for me to know to this day that it's something I'd never ever want to do for a living no matter how much I was getting paid. It would be pretty clear pretty quickly that this wasn't the job for you.
Yet despite socialism's "drag" the socialist economies in Europe have a better economic output than the US combined, and Norway which is very socialist even has a higher GDP per capita, and this is despite the US having a massive advantage in these areas due to it being in the fortunate position of being able to dictate most world trade rules in place today.
So how does that figure into your equation? Why are people in socialist countries also more productive?
You obviously haven't really thought through your point, but let me explain why this is generally the case. The reasons are varied but fairly simple, that without a sensible social security blanket, such as socialised healthcare, you end up with people being taken out of the productive portion of the economy, people get sick and can't become productive again because of lack of suitable healthcare to do so. You also have greater access to education when it receives more state funding, and you have people with benefits able to get back on their feet more easily rather than completely falling into ruin and ending up a burden on the state, often resorting to crime etc.
This isn't to say socialism is all great, it does have it's disadvantages, it does mean less elite universities for the small fragment of the population that can afford it, it does mean let billionaires, etc. What it does do is help the average person though, it allows the average to be better educated, it allows the average to be happier, it allows the average to be healthier. It means more people a better off, more people are healthier, and more people are happier. It means you don't end up with parts of your country being basically third world, like parts of New Orleans, and Detroit.
So sure, the US system is great if you're one of the few fortunate enough to be born into, or even fewer lucky enough to make it into the elite, but for everyone else, including people like you, it's far worse, so you're a fool for defending it, one of the fools discussed here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8474611.stm
But I'm sure you wont get this, your post was ignorant and short sighted, and with that kind of ignorance of different political systems it's unlikely that you'll be able to have a sensible and rational conversation on this. Still, hopefully you'll suprise me and be able to show at least some grasp of the different merits of socialism and capitalism rather than an outright clueless troll suggesting that socialism is never productive. You only have to look at the UK, which is one of the least socialist and most pro-capitalist states in Europe to see that more capitalism has far from helped us, as we're still a weaker economy than France and Germany, and despite 2 years of more capitalist oriented changes to our economy by the government, things have only gotten worse.