I'm not talking about the actual patent protection itself. I understand that there is additional protection afforded by the possession of a patent (and perhaps did not adequately assert that above). However, I clearly recall reading that the first inventor of a new item does receive some protection that, while not necessarily of the same caliber as the patent itself, is sufficient to contest others that came along later and attempted to usurp rights by filing their own patent.
Unfortunately, I am unable to find the link, but the context of the article was that patents are often quite expensive, and that it makes no sense to file for a patent when you have not yet exposed your product to the market. The author indicated of this protection and went on to state that it is more often wiser to wait for the market to prove that your product is profitable before spending money patenting it.
Admittedly, the author of that article could be wrong, too. Does anyone have information on the specific protections afforded to inventors in the absence of a patent?
I particularly liked #3. I was always told that - "If you don't go right out and patent your idea, someone will up and steal it right out from under you."
But he just reiterates what I've read in many other places (although he puts a different spin on it).
I've read that you are essentially protected, as an inventor, by the act of inventing. You have created the work on which other things may try to be based, but you are protected by virtue of the fact that you first created it. The patent puts some extra teeth into the matter, but most of it is completed by the creation itself.
I've never quite heard it reasoned, however, in the way the author did.
It's also refreshing to read this from a business perspective instead of from the perspective of "Inventors - pay us money to patent your ideas, and then you'll be rich (if you can find a way to do something with your idea)."
Unfortunately, the company that makes the virtual keyboards, Lumio (www.lumio.com), doesn't draw the picture on the desk in quite that way. From what I understand, it's a static image, reproduced by diffractive optics.
While the website does indicate that they have the capacity for programmable, dynamic images, that is limited to a much smaller size. The demo on their site shows it for simple things like security passcodes.
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I like the concept of rewriting Asimov's laws for customer service, except that the order in which they would be written would have to be reversed so that the precedence still worked properly.
1. The franchisee is always right.
2. The use of burgers must be done in the most efficient manner possible, so long as this does not conflict with Rule #1.
3. The customer is always right, so long as he does not conflict with Rules #1 & 2.
Really, any laws could be inserted in Rule 1 and 2, but "The customer is always right" would have to be at the bottom, lest the Asimov-esque robo-McManager happily comply with the demand for "free burgers and fries for all".
if a worker slacks off? Is the computer going to get frustrated, tell the employee off, and then eventually do the job itself?
We've been going about getting computers to do the dirty work all the wrong way. We need to put them in positions of authority, and then do such a bad job at what they tell us to do that they have to take over and do it themselves.
This would constitute what...reverse psychology for robots?
I think this could also work with parking garages. "Here, take my car, see if I care!"
Is it just me, or do we have a nasty habit as humans in creating the things that will be our downfall? Whether it be creating computers that start World War III, or our discovery and breeding of viruses that turn us into zombies, or now our creation of super-chickens, we always seem to have a hand in our own destruction.
Surely we can just learn our lesson and stop this nonsense...
I'd love to see a beowulf cluster of those...but not just the PCs, the whole setup. It's just that, if we can learn something from knocking down a building, how much more could we learn by knocking down an entire city. My greatest fear would be to be the guy that wrote the code and to find a bug, or an incorrect parameter, after the building was destroyed.
To paraphrase Dave Barry, "Everything should go well, provided the researchers remember to change the settings from 'Biblical Flood' to 'Hurricane'."
Instead of a pen as an interface, why not something people will be familiar with in time...the Wiimote. With a couple wiimotes, you could do all kinds of realworld office activities.
You could make a ripping motion to delete a document, or a throwing-it-across-the-room motion to turn off the computer.
With just a little bit more work put into how we interact with this interface, we could make the computer so much like working on a real desktop that no one would ever want to spend more that a few minutes there at a time.
I recall a game from not too long ago wherein one would push lighted buttons, and they would alternate the lighted status of those buttons around it. The objective was to turn off (or on, I forget) all the buttons on the unit.
With this, assuming that each key has a light associated with it, one could do the same thing with a whole keyboard.
And for those who don't have any issues with being violent towards their computers, you could reset it a la Etch-a-Sketch with the motion sensor.
It's not enough that we get numerous automovie analogies on Slashdot - now we get them in the articles as well. I expect the next step is the "+1, Car Analogy" mod (or -6, as the case may be).
I haven't played with legos for years, but I've heard of these things.
Just look at that robot on that homepage. Imagine all the things that it can do. Why, if Lego scaled up all its parts, I bet it could take on ASIMO easily.
But seriously, if more work were put into developing things like this - toys such that everyday people with some ingenuity and some creativity could program their own robots, I believe that we would have a lot more ideas as far as where to take robots.
Right now, major robotic undertakings seem to be limited to those with the research capital and funding to make them happen. If this were the thing that was researched, I would think that we would be seeing a lot more cool stuff developed as a result.
Especially with the release of the firmware as open source. Lego is just inviting people of all capabilities to work with it.
I don't so much disagree with these in theory. But in practice, how many more problems are going to arise as a result of this?
What happens when a wallet gets stolen? How many hoops do you have to jump through to prove that you are who you say you are, so that you can get a new card? If I lose my credit card, I make a phone call and they cancel it and send me a new one - surely it wouldn't be that easy with some form of national identification.
And like the previous poster stated - how much longer before this really does turn into compulsory chipping (except in Wisconsin)? While I am not afraid of the government, and have nothing to hide, I'm not exactly enamoured by the idea of being required to have some form of absolute ID on me (or in me) at all times.
Where does this all end? Gattica had the nifty system of checking DNA for everything...will the Police officer someday just ask for a strand of hair? I like my bodily fluids, and I don't want to give them away, especially not for something as mundane as identification...it would be okay to give them to the proverbial "female".
While this is cool to contemplate for FPS and RTS and the like in general, I will find it both ironic and enjoyable to finally play a Matrix game released for a system that uses a neural interface.
With proper design, bullet-time wouldn't be something that you have to push a button to engage, it would be directly related to how focused you actually are. Now that would be cool!
Also, the whole idea of the game slowing down based on anxiety levels was just an option that they gave. It would be just as easy for the game designers to reverse that. When (in the Matrix example) an Agent can see that you are getting worn out and frustrated, they start fighting harder. The more stressed and off-balance you are, the harder the game gets. I would enjoy that.
I thought Dell was looking to solidify its position when it acquired Alienware? While a yet more souped up PC is sure to get them some more revenue from gamers, the hardcore gamers will still end up going to Alienware (which is now Dell owned anyways), won't they?
Plus, if I have a computer that's capable of doing all that simultaneously, I would want that extra power available for use within my game - an extra few frames per second would always make me happy.
So now we are learning that dinosaurs are capable of effectively dealing with things in a group. Does this put dinosaurs at the same level as cockroaches? Perhaps, conversely, this means that cockroaches are as dangerous as dinosaurs?
Perhaps, given sufficient numbers, prehistoric cockroaches could take out much larger animals, too...like the T-Rex.
I was looking at the website, and it clearly depicts how Windows handles this. Windows believes that you have a single monitor that is three times as wide. The problem with this is that if I maximize a windowed application, it spans three monitors. It even shows a picture of this happening in their little demo advertisement.
This totally defeats the purpose for productivity type things. I want to be able to maximize things onto a single monitor. I don't want to take the extra step of properly sizing something to fill a third of my "monitor".
Do they provide a means to trick Windows into artificially separating the monitor? Perhaps they could team up with Sony and provide a rootkit that does it for me that I can never remove, so that when I get rid of this, I only ever maximize things to one-third of my screen. That would be a hoot.
Working as a software engineer, I enjoy using multiple monitors for efficient multi-tasking (ie - I do not have to mess around with sizing different windows, I just throw them onto the other monitor).
However, I wonder at what point this becomes no more beneficial. I could foresee finding uses for three monitors in a work environment (although less frequently than I utilize two monitors). But four monitors? Five?
At some point, its got to become more difficult to keep track of where you've put everything than the efficiency of having everything available warrants.
I can understand the benefit in games with immersive environments. I've played many a game where I would have enjoyed having three or more monitors in front of me, all useful to the game itself, but as far as productivity applications go, there's got to be a limit. More can't always be better.
And then there's the...other...application. Will Slashdotters soon find themselves utilizing three whole monitors of porn? I know I like to keep my monitors having screenfulls of fluffy bunnies and puppies.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, I am unable to find the link, but the context of the article was that patents are often quite expensive, and that it makes no sense to file for a patent when you have not yet exposed your product to the market. The author indicated of this protection and went on to state that it is more often wiser to wait for the market to prove that your product is profitable before spending money patenting it.
Admittedly, the author of that article could be wrong, too. Does anyone have information on the specific protections afforded to inventors in the absence of a patent?
But he just reiterates what I've read in many other places (although he puts a different spin on it).
I've read that you are essentially protected, as an inventor, by the act of inventing. You have created the work on which other things may try to be based, but you are protected by virtue of the fact that you first created it. The patent puts some extra teeth into the matter, but most of it is completed by the creation itself.
I've never quite heard it reasoned, however, in the way the author did.
It's also refreshing to read this from a business perspective instead of from the perspective of "Inventors - pay us money to patent your ideas, and then you'll be rich (if you can find a way to do something with your idea)."
While the website does indicate that they have the capacity for programmable, dynamic images, that is limited to a much smaller size. The demo on their site shows it for simple things like security passcodes.
7. Profit!!
--insert random text from random book--
"It looks like you're trying to make some fries. Would you like step-by-step instructions?"
1. The franchisee is always right.
2. The use of burgers must be done in the most efficient manner possible, so long as this does not conflict with Rule #1.
3. The customer is always right, so long as he does not conflict with Rules #1 & 2.
Really, any laws could be inserted in Rule 1 and 2, but "The customer is always right" would have to be at the bottom, lest the Asimov-esque robo-McManager happily comply with the demand for "free burgers and fries for all".
We've been going about getting computers to do the dirty work all the wrong way. We need to put them in positions of authority, and then do such a bad job at what they tell us to do that they have to take over and do it themselves.
This would constitute what...reverse psychology for robots?
I think this could also work with parking garages. "Here, take my car, see if I care!"
Surely we can just learn our lesson and stop this nonsense...
To paraphrase Dave Barry, "Everything should go well, provided the researchers remember to change the settings from 'Biblical Flood' to 'Hurricane'."
You could make a ripping motion to delete a document, or a throwing-it-across-the-room motion to turn off the computer.
With just a little bit more work put into how we interact with this interface, we could make the computer so much like working on a real desktop that no one would ever want to spend more that a few minutes there at a time.
It would be a revolution in efficiency reduction.
With this, assuming that each key has a light associated with it, one could do the same thing with a whole keyboard.
And for those who don't have any issues with being violent towards their computers, you could reset it a la Etch-a-Sketch with the motion sensor.
I did that long ago. The problem was that the CRT made the laptop a bit top heavy.
It's not enough that we get numerous automovie analogies on Slashdot - now we get them in the articles as well. I expect the next step is the "+1, Car Analogy" mod (or -6, as the case may be).
I, for one, welcome our easily assembled, reprogrammable overlords...
Just look at that robot on that homepage. Imagine all the things that it can do. Why, if Lego scaled up all its parts, I bet it could take on ASIMO easily.
But seriously, if more work were put into developing things like this - toys such that everyday people with some ingenuity and some creativity could program their own robots, I believe that we would have a lot more ideas as far as where to take robots.
Right now, major robotic undertakings seem to be limited to those with the research capital and funding to make them happen. If this were the thing that was researched, I would think that we would be seeing a lot more cool stuff developed as a result.
Especially with the release of the firmware as open source. Lego is just inviting people of all capabilities to work with it.
What happens when a wallet gets stolen? How many hoops do you have to jump through to prove that you are who you say you are, so that you can get a new card? If I lose my credit card, I make a phone call and they cancel it and send me a new one - surely it wouldn't be that easy with some form of national identification.
And like the previous poster stated - how much longer before this really does turn into compulsory chipping (except in Wisconsin)? While I am not afraid of the government, and have nothing to hide, I'm not exactly enamoured by the idea of being required to have some form of absolute ID on me (or in me) at all times.
Where does this all end? Gattica had the nifty system of checking DNA for everything...will the Police officer someday just ask for a strand of hair? I like my bodily fluids, and I don't want to give them away, especially not for something as mundane as identification...it would be okay to give them to the proverbial "female".
With proper design, bullet-time wouldn't be something that you have to push a button to engage, it would be directly related to how focused you actually are. Now that would be cool!
Also, the whole idea of the game slowing down based on anxiety levels was just an option that they gave. It would be just as easy for the game designers to reverse that. When (in the Matrix example) an Agent can see that you are getting worn out and frustrated, they start fighting harder. The more stressed and off-balance you are, the harder the game gets. I would enjoy that.
Wow...this interface really is a long way off.
I would think that if they decoded it properly, the answer they got was correct, regardless of what the intended message was.
If I make a typo and Rot13 it, you can Rot13 it and get my typo back, and it doesn't make you wrong. It means I can't spell.
I haven't RTFA, but the summary makes it look like I can correct others for my own mistakes. Cool!
Plus, if I have a computer that's capable of doing all that simultaneously, I would want that extra power available for use within my game - an extra few frames per second would always make me happy.
Perhaps, given sufficient numbers, prehistoric cockroaches could take out much larger animals, too...like the T-Rex.
Aah...that would be a sight to see.
This totally defeats the purpose for productivity type things. I want to be able to maximize things onto a single monitor. I don't want to take the extra step of properly sizing something to fill a third of my "monitor".
Do they provide a means to trick Windows into artificially separating the monitor? Perhaps they could team up with Sony and provide a rootkit that does it for me that I can never remove, so that when I get rid of this, I only ever maximize things to one-third of my screen. That would be a hoot.
However, I wonder at what point this becomes no more beneficial. I could foresee finding uses for three monitors in a work environment (although less frequently than I utilize two monitors). But four monitors? Five?
At some point, its got to become more difficult to keep track of where you've put everything than the efficiency of having everything available warrants.
I can understand the benefit in games with immersive environments. I've played many a game where I would have enjoyed having three or more monitors in front of me, all useful to the game itself, but as far as productivity applications go, there's got to be a limit. More can't always be better.
And then there's the...other...application. Will Slashdotters soon find themselves utilizing three whole monitors of porn? I know I like to keep my monitors having screenfulls of fluffy bunnies and puppies.
So they've built a spambot that runs from inside a game? And all it took was 10 years. Wow...what innovation.