Essentially, it's a sculpted, programmable keypad. Iit plugs into a keyboard port and generates scan codes; pressing a thumb button, for instance, might broadcast a signal for 's'.
Devices like this in functionality (but not form) have been used for quite some time by hard-core flight-simmers who prefer to use a device resembling a control panel, rather than memorizing a few dozen keyboard commands.
If you're just looking for nuisance protection, how much encryption do you really need? For CE, it probably doesn't matter much at all. Seriously, how many 31337 h4x0r5 would try to root a PDA?
I hate having to correct people, but StaticLimit was right. One watt is one joule per second. It measures instantaneous power. Watt-hours are simply watt multiplied through by unit of time relavent to this application, multiplied by an appropriate conversion factor (3600s/hr). Thus, one watt-hour is 3600 joules.
Now, look at his math. 79W-hr*3600s =2.84e5J. Okay, that's stored energy. Looks good so far.
2.84e5J / 3.5hr = 8.12e4 J/hr. Hmm, non-standard unit. Let's convert those hours into seconds.
8.12e4 J/hr / 3600s = 22.6 J/s. Why looky here! Joules per second! That, my friend, is out long-lost Watt.
Perhaps registration is the answer, unless registered users are simply trolling anonymously.
However, (and I realize the irony of where I'm posting) a reply to a troll 'first post' is not the greatest place to vent those frustrations. Look at the first three responses to your post... you bit troll bait, and now you're feeding a few 'trolls' from your own hand.
I agree that the sheer volume of AC's, offtopic, and troll posts is excessive; this story has about 220 comments thus far, half of which are scored below 1. That's why moderation and thersholds exist; if you don't want to read AC posts, browse at 1.
Skylab was a hack, made from Apollo components (I believe, the upper stage of a Saturn rocket) after the last three scheduled moon missions were canceled.
But the tarball isn't on tripod; it's on official Be distrobution sites. Since the copyright holder made the software available on its own sites, it should fall under fair use.
Felony? You gotta be kidding. A $100 civil forfeiture is hardly a felony, especially if it hasn't been enforced in forty years (and then only as a matter of politics).
I am assuming you made a typo and are talking about photons. Photons are massless; otherwise they would have an infinite mass at a velocity equal to c, due to special relativity.
More importantly, the process you describe involves Nwetonian physics (F=ma, or F=Gm1m2/r^2 in the general case) as opposed to general relativity. General relativity states that any mass will distort space around it, causing anything passing through that space, regardless of mass, to have a path that appears bent.
A trademarked color would fall under the same restrictions as any other trademark. Dell can't use IBM blue without violating IBM's trademark, but I could open a grocery store that was painted that color because IBM isn't in that business; their trademark does not extend to food stores.
I suppose it would be up to the USPTO do determine whether two similar trademarks could exist in the field; for example, a Macrosoft has been producing software since 1987.
The difference between a color and a book is that the book falls under copyright. The trademarked color is disclosed to the government and is made public knowledge, much like a patent would be. However, any witten material automatically is protected by copyright, without the need for registration. You could feasibly publish (and take credit for) a summary or interpretation of a copyrighted work if it was in your own words, but if it was simply a copy, you would have violated the original owner's copyright. This is how the IBM PC BIOS was legally reverse-engineered and published for profit in the early 1980's.
RocketBoard's website isn't helpful; it looks like you can't get the keyboard yet. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed drivers for it. Even Microsoft's new keyboards need drivers for any extra button functionality beyond volume and suspend.
Interestingly, the title of this story is at odds with its contents. It could impact Apple's case against eMachines, but only if Apple didn't have a design patent on the iMac. Unlike utility patents, which cover everything from engines to (ick) once-click shopping, design patents allow protection of the appearance or design of an object, but not its function. Ergo, a "practical" innovation like 3-point seat belts may receive a utility patent, but the distinctive shape of a VW Beetle might be covered by a design patent.
Don't confuse copyrights with trademarks. Any new written material, whether it is software, a book, sheet music, art, or this post, is protected under copyright law.
BTW, although 0x35 0x38 0x36 couldn't be trademarked, 0x50 0x65 0x6E 0x74 0x69 0x75 0x6D has been an Intel trademark for several years now. Put enough numbers together and you can do anything.
I concede that the method of encryption/decryption is a trade secret. We've seen that it is possible to reverse-engineer the method (DeCCS) and that right should be protected, if for nothing else but precedent (eg, IBM PC BIOS). However, why wouldn't the actual keys fall under copyright law?
Yank APEX's CCA license. If they don't have a license for a CCA key, APEX can no longer sell DVD players, since the CSS code within would be unlicensed and therefore infinge on CCA's copyright. In other words, the player becomes hardware DeCSS.
If you're a professional movie pirate, with thousands upon thousands of dollars of duplication equipment and a DVD press, you can create as many perfect copies as you want.
If you're just an average guy with a DVD-RAM, it won't work becasue the DVD-RAM (or DVD-RW or whatever writable DVD format) blanks have zeroes written to the area which normally stores the CSS keys. Unless you decrypt the bitstream before copying, you will have just made yourself a $30 coaster.
This sort of protection appears to be designed to prevent the average user from making a casual copy to give to his friends rather than shutting down overseas pirates, keeping in mind that the cost of a writable disc will be negligible in a few years.
With VHS, region protection was a non-issue; if you produced a video for Europe, for instance, you couldn't watch it in the States without a PAL/SECAM to NTSC convertor. The incompatibilities of the technologies served, accidentally, as a tool for the studios to limit distribution of their products by region.
Slashdot Mirror
But it's not a mouse.
Essentially, it's a sculpted, programmable keypad. Iit plugs into a keyboard port and generates scan codes; pressing a thumb button, for instance, might broadcast a signal for 's'.
Devices like this in functionality (but not form) have been used for quite some time by hard-core flight-simmers who prefer to use a device resembling a control panel, rather than memorizing a few dozen keyboard commands.
CG Simpsons?
<voice="homer">
Mmmmm... erotic cakes!
</voice>
If you're just looking for nuisance protection, how much encryption do you really need? For CE, it probably doesn't matter much at all. Seriously, how many 31337 h4x0r5 would try to root a PDA?
I hate having to correct people, but StaticLimit was right. One watt is one joule per second. It measures instantaneous power. Watt-hours are simply watt multiplied through by unit of time relavent to this application, multiplied by an appropriate conversion factor (3600s/hr). Thus, one watt-hour is 3600 joules.
Now, look at his math. 79W-hr*3600s =2.84e5J. Okay, that's stored energy. Looks good so far.
2.84e5J / 3.5hr = 8.12e4 J/hr. Hmm, non-standard unit. Let's convert those hours into seconds.
8.12e4 J/hr / 3600s = 22.6 J/s. Why looky here! Joules per second! That, my friend, is out long-lost Watt.
Perhaps registration is the answer, unless registered users are simply trolling anonymously.
However, (and I realize the irony of where I'm posting) a reply to a troll 'first post' is not the greatest place to vent those frustrations. Look at the first three responses to your post... you bit troll bait, and now you're feeding a few 'trolls' from your own hand.
I agree that the sheer volume of AC's, offtopic, and troll posts is excessive; this story has about 220 comments thus far, half of which are scored below 1. That's why moderation and thersholds exist; if you don't want to read AC posts, browse at 1.
ftp3.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6_PR1/wind ows/win32/sea/NetscapeSetup.exe
It's the full 16.8MB Win32 download.
Skylab was a hack, made from Apollo components (I believe, the upper stage of a Saturn rocket) after the last three scheduled moon missions were canceled.
But the tarball isn't on tripod; it's on official Be distrobution sites. Since the copyright holder made the software available on its own sites, it should fall under fair use.
Felony? You gotta be kidding. A $100 civil forfeiture is hardly a felony, especially if it hasn't been enforced in forty years (and then only as a matter of politics).
I am assuming you made a typo and are talking about photons. Photons are massless; otherwise they would have an infinite mass at a velocity equal to c, due to special relativity.
More importantly, the process you describe involves Nwetonian physics (F=ma, or F=Gm1m2/r^2 in the general case) as opposed to general relativity. General relativity states that any mass will distort space around it, causing anything passing through that space, regardless of mass, to have a path that appears bent.
A beowulf cluster of Cisco routers? Isn't that the internet?
I thought that they were told not to run a screensaver because it steals system resources.
Instability of kernel-mode drivers is really a key cause of BSOD's, which is why one would be a fool to run an NT server at anything above VGA.
Yeah! A Slashdot virus! Press a button to read your mail, and you end up reading a grits troll!
A trademarked color would fall under the same restrictions as any other trademark. Dell can't use IBM blue without violating IBM's trademark, but I could open a grocery store that was painted that color because IBM isn't in that business; their trademark does not extend to food stores.
I suppose it would be up to the USPTO do determine whether two similar trademarks could exist in the field; for example, a Macrosoft has been producing software since 1987.
The difference between a color and a book is that the book falls under copyright. The trademarked color is disclosed to the government and is made public knowledge, much like a patent would be. However, any witten material automatically is protected by copyright, without the need for registration. You could feasibly publish (and take credit for) a summary or interpretation of a copyrighted work if it was in your own words, but if it was simply a copy, you would have violated the original owner's copyright. This is how the IBM PC BIOS was legally reverse-engineered and published for profit in the early 1980's.
RocketBoard's website isn't helpful; it looks like you can't get the keyboard yet. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed drivers for it. Even Microsoft's new keyboards need drivers for any extra button functionality beyond volume and suspend.
Interestingly, the title of this story is at odds with its contents. It could impact Apple's case against eMachines, but only if Apple didn't have a design patent on the iMac. Unlike utility patents, which cover everything from engines to (ick) once-click shopping, design patents allow protection of the appearance or design of an object, but not its function. Ergo, a "practical" innovation like 3-point seat belts may receive a utility patent, but the distinctive shape of a VW Beetle might be covered by a design patent.
Well, all the bars aren't gray fer nuthin!
Dave...
Dave.. I can't allow you to do this, Dave.
-HAL
Don't confuse copyrights with trademarks. Any new written material, whether it is software, a book, sheet music, art, or this post, is protected under copyright law.
BTW, although 0x35 0x38 0x36 couldn't be trademarked, 0x50 0x65 0x6E 0x74 0x69 0x75 0x6D has been an Intel trademark for several years now. Put enough numbers together and you can do anything.
I concede that the method of encryption/decryption is a trade secret. We've seen that it is possible to reverse-engineer the method (DeCCS) and that right should be protected, if for nothing else but precedent (eg, IBM PC BIOS). However, why wouldn't the actual keys fall under copyright law?
Yank APEX's CCA license. If they don't have a license for a CCA key, APEX can no longer sell DVD players, since the CSS code within would be unlicensed and therefore infinge on CCA's copyright. In other words, the player becomes hardware DeCSS.
If you're a professional movie pirate, with thousands upon thousands of dollars of duplication equipment and a DVD press, you can create as many perfect copies as you want.
If you're just an average guy with a DVD-RAM, it won't work becasue the DVD-RAM (or DVD-RW or whatever writable DVD format) blanks have zeroes written to the area which normally stores the CSS keys. Unless you decrypt the bitstream before copying, you will have just made yourself a $30 coaster.
This sort of protection appears to be designed to prevent the average user from making a casual copy to give to his friends rather than shutting down overseas pirates, keeping in mind that the cost of a writable disc will be negligible in a few years.
With VHS, region protection was a non-issue; if you produced a video for Europe, for instance, you couldn't watch it in the States without a PAL/SECAM to NTSC convertor. The incompatibilities of the technologies served, accidentally, as a tool for the studios to limit distribution of their products by region.
Somehow I doubt it...
The self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet avoided all courses in mathematics and logic throughout college...
Funny you mention it...
IBM introduced the VGA port on its PS2 way back in 1987.
Somehow I doubt one of those fine 386's could handle Kessen, though.