Mac should introduce handwriting recognition devices
I think it will be a cold day in the Valley before Apple go near handwriting recognition again. 8-)
Have you used handwriting recognition ? It's horrible; you can't do it mobile, you can't do it quickly, and some of us can barely scrawl anyway. Handwriting recognition is not where it's at for new interfaces.
I want wearable computers that can take notes in meetings at reasonable speeds. I want cameras that know how to email images, and where the speed-dial directory is (filtered already to those people I'm in the habit of sending images too). I want adaptive interfaces that only need two buttons and know that if I've just had a phone call from a client I'll either want my notebook or my phone dialler.
Handwriting ? That's too inherently bandwidth limited.
If the Mac's invention of the GUI, "put a dent in the universe" it was only by falling into a very large Xerox-shaped hole. NeXT gets a mention, but only for the Unix aspects and for Jobs, not for NeXTStep - a bigger leap in GUI redesign than either of the three they showcase here.
We all like to rag journalists for being clueless and gullible, but did anyone find where they'd hidden the content in this piece ?
Unless it snuck in when I wasn't looking, Opera still doesn't do Unicode. This is a big downer for anyone working in multiple languages, and finally multi-language support seems to be really happening on the Web.
How many years is it that M$oft has been shipping usable Unicode product....
Thanks for the stable CSS guys, but XML text support doesn't get far until you sort the character sets too.
I'd say chances are most people who use Linux do so because they like it.
No, most Linux "users" (by a simple numerical count) are doing it because they think it makes them instant 3L33T H4X0R D00Ds. They still have a dual boot '98 for playing games on, and they don't even know how to drive Windows properly, let alone a *nix box. The set of Linux users who know more than a web or IRC client is a depressingly small fraction of the total.
As you say, we certainly don't need the Jihad, and we need more code.
Fortunately I work for a company that's officially embracing (sic) Open Source 8-) They might not always take this too seriously, but a CEO's statement is great for embarassing your manager into allowing things to be released that way.
I forwarded this article to my DBA, only to find out *he* posted it
ROFL !
How big is this thing ? The trouble with a DB2 port, compared to an Oracle -> SQL Server port, is that it really is quite different internally. A good Oracle data model looks a lot like a good SQL Server data model, and both subset quite trivially onto a MySQL data model (which isn't good, but it's the best you'll get).
DB2, OTOH, will suck performance-wise, unless it's re-designed and tweaked by someone dressed in a white shirt and a dark suit. It's a whole different bucket of cod, and you need to grok IBM to get far with it.
If it's a little thing, then you can live with the lumps. If it's a biggie, then you need help to do the tweaking. Last time I looked (early '99) IBM were pretty clued up on being helpful with this.
The SQL dialects are about as equivalent as English and Welsh.
I used to take apart all sorts of computer parts that weren't supposed to be taken apart in highschool.
I always used to wonder about those warranty stickers on hard drives, "Must only be dismantled in college".
I thought this was quite a sad article. Have we really got to the point where Slashdot geeks need instructions on how to dismember kit ? What happened to simply getting in there and finding out for yourself ?
My young son is just about at the point where he's dangerous with a screwdriver. He also understands perfectly well that I'll never tell him off for dismantling the VCR (but equally he'll never get to watch "Bob the Builder" again). Fortunately I also keep him well supplied with bits of obscure scrap so he's never short of something to pull apart and investigate.
I doubt I'll ever be caught by it. Rather than worrying about the dialog, I favour a pre-emptive strike on all M$oft email (and DNS) products. OTOH, my Mother uses M$oft products and so do half of my neighbours. Not everyone has your incredible powers of guruship, and any vendor has a responsibility (which is recognised in law) to make products that are usable by and non-harmful to a reasonable person, not just the divine gamorck.
And you think that's a valid defence against IP theft ?
I'm a developer. I get pretty pissy when people steal my IP, so I can understand PlasticPussy feeling the same. I don't know if there's a patent in here (there shouldn't be, because handle servers & Cooltown are clear prior art), but there's certainly copyright and trade secrets. If (as I believe) the developers clean-roomed this and didn't have access to any materials on which they could breach copyright, then that doesn't seem to apply.
Trade secrets though, they're certainly involved. The mapping from character string to URL is non-trivial (in a legal sense), even if it's trivial in a technical sense. The fact that it's _weak_ IP doesn't mean that it deserves any less protection. Pity these people - it's the only shit-hot tech they've got, no wonder they're attached to it. 8-)
NONE of their IP was stolen, or reverse-engineered
The piece of IP that was reverse-engineered was that which translates the scanned string to a URL. This is non-trivial (in a legal sense) and so is defensible IP.
Of course, in Europe (a neo-communist hellhole, according to most of/.), we have laws that protect the right to reverse engineer commercial products.
They can easily make the business model (AIUI) work under Linux
The business model relies on a web server-based lookup, based on the handle that the plastic cat reads. If they have the dawnings of a clue, then their server won't care what the client is.
Potentially, big content-scarfing scripts that then duplicated their server's function elsewhere could be seen as breaking the business model, but simply running your web browser under Linux shouldn't do it.
Nobody is misusing their intellectual property by using their hardware
They're not claiming this. They're claiming that using the hardware is OK, and even that writing Linux drivers would have been OK, provided that the driver developers had discussed it first (and quite possibly signed an NDA over the specific IP-sensitive parts).
Of course, it may be impossible to open source a project that involves NDAs, but this doesn't itself mean that you can't develop a non OS-ed piece of code that made this device available to the Linux community.
Intellectual property would be a patent on barcoding
You don't need a patent to have IP rights.
They do have IP rights on specific issues of their barcoding, even if they don't have rights to barcoding in general.
The Microsoft apps people who inflicted ILU on us deserve to be gibbeted in a server cage. OutHouse, the mail client written by people who don't use the Net, for people who have their secretaries print their email out before reading it.
But are these the same people, or even the same company, who gave us Win2K ? Microsoft might not be broken up yet, but there have been visible cracks for a long time. The culture and cluefulness level between M$oft divisions is quite variable. I spend much of my time inside SQL7, and you'd hardly realise it was a M$oft product ! 8-)
Copper is really, really, expensive, which is why it's only used in really high-tech equipment, and never for something as mundane as plumbing....
Seriously, aluminium is used because it's a joy to manufacture by extrusion of complex shapes. Few other metal alloys are as easy to shape, so you're reduced to more complex and expensive manufacturing technology.
All heatsinks (actually all real-world heat transfer problems) can easily be shown that the problem isn't in the bulk items, but in the gaps between them. A thin layer that conducts poorly will drastically reduce overall conductivity. This is why it's so important to use thermal grease, rather than an air gap, and why the clamping forces have to be so chip-crushingly high.
Copper's higher conductivity, rather than aluminium, is of marginal benefit to heatsinking. However, current CPUs are pushing their heat generation abilities so far beyond their relatively simple packaging that they need every bit of help they can get.
We reserve the right to make changes to our site, policies, and these conditions of use at any time
Sure, they can change the conditions. What they can't do is have these new conditions apply retrospectively to a pre-existing contract. When you shop (or even browse) at Amazon, you enter into an implicit contract with them, that by using the site, you're accepting their terms (as defined to apply to browsing shoppers). If you then buy something, you enter into further contracts; a contract to buy books and pay for them, and also a contract over data collection according to the terms for purchasers. This is a binding contract on both parties, even if no payment is exchanged for it.
Amazon can't retrospectively change their existing agreements, just because they make a new policy for the future ones. Equally, the previous contract with Amazon can't be upheld against a liquidator if Amazon go bust, because the legal entity that was a party to the contract (Amazon) no longer exists. OTOH, if the company went into official receivership, this contract still would be valid, as the original entity is still in existence.
Once again I say, read Lawrence Lessig and why we don't need "a law of the horse".
I think Amazon have behaved responsibly and reasonably here. The Toysmart issue raised a real problem, and they've addressed it, not just hidden or ignored it. It's not a good result, but it wasn't Amazon's doing.
BTW, I'm no Amazon apologist or PR flack (I've made this same point previously and had flame mail over it). Re: the OneClick patent -- I hope Amazon get themselves nailed to the wall over that, and the US PTO is burnt down by a rioting mob of peasants armed with pitchforks, screaming to burn the monster lest it destroy us all.
This is one of a whole pile of data convergence applications now appearing. HP have Cooltown, a somewhat similar (although much broader) concept.
If you want to build your own version of CueCat, a look at the Handle Servers concept gives you most of the infrastructure almost straight out of the box.
If it can be changed later without the customer's knowledge, what good is it?
P3P recognises this, and has mechanisms to support it. You're allowed to make a new policy whenever you wish, but the original one must be preserved, must remain accessible, and must be distinguishable from the new one. There are solid business reasons why you might want to (or be forced to) change it. A generous interpretation of Amazon.com's changes are that they're clarifying their position after the ToySmart privacy issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Mac should introduce handwriting recognition devices
I think it will be a cold day in the Valley before Apple go near handwriting recognition again. 8-)
Have you used handwriting recognition ? It's horrible; you can't do it mobile, you can't do it quickly, and some of us can barely scrawl anyway. Handwriting recognition is not where it's at for new interfaces.
I want wearable computers that can take notes in meetings at reasonable speeds. I want cameras that know how to email images, and where the speed-dial directory is (filtered already to those people I'm in the habit of sending images too). I want adaptive interfaces that only need two buttons and know that if I've just had a phone call from a client I'll either want my notebook or my phone dialler.
Handwriting ? That's too inherently bandwidth limited.
If the Mac's invention of the GUI, "put a dent in the universe" it was only by falling into a very large Xerox-shaped hole. NeXT gets a mention, but only for the Unix aspects and for Jobs, not for NeXTStep - a bigger leap in GUI redesign than either of the three they showcase here.
We all like to rag journalists for being clueless and gullible, but did anyone find where they'd hidden the content in this piece ?
Unless it snuck in when I wasn't looking, Opera still doesn't do Unicode. This is a big downer for anyone working in multiple languages, and finally multi-language support seems to be really happening on the Web.
How many years is it that M$oft has been shipping usable Unicode product....
Thanks for the stable CSS guys, but XML text support doesn't get far until you sort the character sets too.
I'd say chances are most people who use Linux do so because they like it.
No, most Linux "users" (by a simple numerical count) are doing it because they think it makes them instant 3L33T H4X0R D00Ds. They still have a dual boot '98 for playing games on, and they don't even know how to drive Windows properly, let alone a *nix box. The set of Linux users who know more than a web or IRC client is a depressingly small fraction of the total.
As you say, we certainly don't need the Jihad, and we need more code.
Fortunately I work for a company that's officially embracing (sic) Open Source 8-) They might not always take this too seriously, but a CEO's statement is great for embarassing your manager into allowing things to be released that way.
I forwarded this article to my DBA, only to find out *he* posted it
ROFL !
How big is this thing ? The trouble with a DB2 port, compared to an Oracle -> SQL Server port, is that it really is quite different internally. A good Oracle data model looks a lot like a good SQL Server data model, and both subset quite trivially onto a MySQL data model (which isn't good, but it's the best you'll get).
DB2, OTOH, will suck performance-wise, unless it's re-designed and tweaked by someone dressed in a white shirt and a dark suit. It's a whole different bucket of cod, and you need to grok IBM to get far with it.
If it's a little thing, then you can live with the lumps. If it's a biggie, then you need help to do the tweaking. Last time I looked (early '99) IBM were pretty clued up on being helpful with this.
The SQL dialects are about as equivalent as English and Welsh.
I used to take apart all sorts of computer parts that weren't supposed to be taken apart in highschool.
I always used to wonder about those warranty stickers on hard drives, "Must only be dismantled in college".
I thought this was quite a sad article. Have we really got to the point where Slashdot geeks need instructions on how to dismember kit ? What happened to simply getting in there and finding out for yourself ?
My young son is just about at the point where he's dangerous with a screwdriver. He also understands perfectly well that I'll never tell him off for dismantling the VCR (but equally he'll never get to watch "Bob the Builder" again). Fortunately I also keep him well supplied with bits of obscure scrap so he's never short of something to pull apart and investigate.
Have you ever done this ?
Quite obviously not.
Stop whining about it
So you really think that this is a good idea ?
I doubt I'll ever be caught by it. Rather than worrying about the dialog, I favour a pre-emptive strike on all M$oft email (and DNS) products. OTOH, my Mother uses M$oft products and so do half of my neighbours. Not everyone has your incredible powers of guruship, and any vendor has a responsibility (which is recognised in law) to make products that are usable by and non-harmful to a reasonable person, not just the divine gamorck.
I can't imagine how this qualifies as front-page News For Nerds (was it the passing mention of Linux?)
It's the other one -- a chance to beat up on UPS, the M$oft of the shipping world.
It's a Hack, in the classical sense. Of course it's a good thing.
Maybe the deveopers weren't the talkitive type?
And you think that's a valid defence against IP theft ?
I'm a developer. I get pretty pissy when people steal my IP, so I can understand PlasticPussy feeling the same. I don't know if there's a patent in here (there shouldn't be, because handle servers & Cooltown are clear prior art), but there's certainly copyright and trade secrets. If (as I believe) the developers clean-roomed this and didn't have access to any materials on which they could breach copyright, then that doesn't seem to apply.
Trade secrets though, they're certainly involved. The mapping from character string to URL is non-trivial (in a legal sense), even if it's trivial in a technical sense. The fact that it's _weak_ IP doesn't mean that it deserves any less protection. Pity these people - it's the only shit-hot tech they've got, no wonder they're attached to it. 8-)
NONE of their IP was stolen, or reverse-engineered
The piece of IP that was reverse-engineered was that which translates the scanned string to a URL. This is non-trivial (in a legal sense) and so is defensible IP.
Of course, in Europe (a neo-communist hellhole, according to most of /.), we have laws that protect the right to reverse engineer commercial products.
They can easily make the business model (AIUI) work under Linux
The business model relies on a web server-based lookup, based on the handle that the plastic cat reads. If they have the dawnings of a clue, then their server won't care what the client is.
Potentially, big content-scarfing scripts that then duplicated their server's function elsewhere could be seen as breaking the business model, but simply running your web browser under Linux shouldn't do it.
Nobody is misusing their intellectual property by using their hardware
They're not claiming this. They're claiming that using the hardware is OK, and even that writing Linux drivers would have been OK, provided that the driver developers had discussed it first (and quite possibly signed an NDA over the specific IP-sensitive parts).
Of course, it may be impossible to open source a project that involves NDAs, but this doesn't itself mean that you can't develop a non OS-ed piece of code that made this device available to the Linux community.
Intellectual property would be a patent on barcoding
You don't need a patent to have IP rights.
They do have IP rights on specific issues of their barcoding, even if they don't have rights to barcoding in general.
The Microsoft apps people who inflicted ILU on us deserve to be gibbeted in a server cage. OutHouse, the mail client written by people who don't use the Net, for people who have their secretaries print their email out before reading it.
But are these the same people, or even the same company, who gave us Win2K ? Microsoft might not be broken up yet, but there have been visible cracks for a long time. The culture and cluefulness level between M$oft divisions is quite variable. I spend much of my time inside SQL7, and you'd hardly realise it was a M$oft product ! 8-)
If he's choosing eCommerce products on the basis of their happy, smiley GUI, then he's stuffed already.
Time to upgrade the user.
Einstein had better graphics and branding than Niels Bohr.
How many "typical people" know anything more about Einstein other than the haircut, and the fact he invented the atom bomb (sic).
Famous for her nanoseconds (foot long pieces of wire, the distance an electrical signal can travel in a nanosecond) and for giving the world COBOL.
I am glad that I don't know what brains taste like.
No problem ! Order some tasty ones on-line.
Copper is really, really, expensive, which is why it's only used in really high-tech equipment, and never for something as mundane as plumbing....
Seriously, aluminium is used because it's a joy to manufacture by extrusion of complex shapes. Few other metal alloys are as easy to shape, so you're reduced to more complex and expensive manufacturing technology.
All heatsinks (actually all real-world heat transfer problems) can easily be shown that the problem isn't in the bulk items, but in the gaps between them. A thin layer that conducts poorly will drastically reduce overall conductivity. This is why it's so important to use thermal grease, rather than an air gap, and why the clamping forces have to be so chip-crushingly high.
Copper's higher conductivity, rather than aluminium, is of marginal benefit to heatsinking. However, current CPUs are pushing their heat generation abilities so far beyond their relatively simple packaging that they need every bit of help they can get.
IANAL (Bob be thanked), but....
We reserve the right to make changes to our site, policies, and these conditions of use at any time
Sure, they can change the conditions. What they can't do is have these new conditions apply retrospectively to a pre-existing contract. When you shop (or even browse) at Amazon, you enter into an implicit contract with them, that by using the site, you're accepting their terms (as defined to apply to browsing shoppers). If you then buy something, you enter into further contracts; a contract to buy books and pay for them, and also a contract over data collection according to the terms for purchasers. This is a binding contract on both parties, even if no payment is exchanged for it. Amazon can't retrospectively change their existing agreements, just because they make a new policy for the future ones. Equally, the previous contract with Amazon can't be upheld against a liquidator if Amazon go bust, because the legal entity that was a party to the contract (Amazon) no longer exists. OTOH, if the company went into official receivership, this contract still would be valid, as the original entity is still in existence.
Once again I say, read Lawrence Lessig and why we don't need "a law of the horse".
I think Amazon have behaved responsibly and reasonably here. The Toysmart issue raised a real problem, and they've addressed it, not just hidden or ignored it. It's not a good result, but it wasn't Amazon's doing.
BTW, I'm no Amazon apologist or PR flack (I've made this same point previously and had flame mail over it). Re: the OneClick patent -- I hope Amazon get themselves nailed to the wall over that, and the US PTO is burnt down by a rioting mob of peasants armed with pitchforks, screaming to burn the monster lest it destroy us all.
This is one of a whole pile of data convergence applications now appearing. HP have Cooltown, a somewhat similar (although much broader) concept.
If you want to build your own version of CueCat, a look at the Handle Servers concept gives you most of the infrastructure almost straight out of the box.
how common is it to read magazines while conveniently next to your computer? [...] That's what the toilet is for
Actually, No. That is Not what the toilet is for.
Now, about the state of this bookcase.....
This is NOT the same as selling data I willingly provided to Toysmart or Amazon. One involves consent and the other does not.
"Willingly Provided" isn't strictly accurate. It was provided on the basis that it wouldn't be sold, so it's not true to claim consent for its sale.
If it can be changed later without the customer's knowledge, what good is it?
P3P recognises this, and has mechanisms to support it. You're allowed to make a new policy whenever you wish, but the original one must be preserved, must remain accessible, and must be distinguishable from the new one. There are solid business reasons why you might want to (or be forced to) change it. A generous interpretation of Amazon.com's changes are that they're clarifying their position after the ToySmart privacy issue.