Huh? Does my viewing Slashdot mean that I am monitoring all of their network traffic? I think the word "monitored" was a poor choice when "viewing" is most likely what was happening.
If they really wanted to view all his network traffic I imagine they would get a warrent and monitor it from the ISP thus avoiding even showing up in his logs.
It seems to me the patent relates to any interface that changes stylus strokes into text. So wouldn't all PDAs be open to lawsuits since any PDA that does not use a keyboard uses a method of interpreting stylus strokes into text.
I wonder why the actual language was not taken into account since unistrokes seem to have only a couple of characters that match Graffiti strokes.
It seems that this patent, based on the ruling, would cover any interface that uses a motion (it did mention the fingers of the writer) that is recognized and translated to text. Even if another type of program was used what is to stop them from claiming the same case of infringement?
I know a couple of people that have gotten well paying jobs straight out of high school, and I'm not talking about professional sports. These guys taught themselves their skills, worked for low pay just for some on the job experience and really sold themselves well to get a job. They had learned all they needed on their own or in high school and applied it to getting a job instead of spending the money on college.
Perhaps it was just me, but most of my job skills and tech skills were self-taught. The computer classes I took were not very useful or even applicable, but that was more likely a result of the CPS schedule. Additionally, if we were just going to educate someone with applicable "real-world" skills why would they need 4 years. Some of my classes at college were not directed toward my degree or even of interested to me, but I had to take them. If I were to strip all required classes and electives/minors out and just focused on the core program it would be around 2 years.
Now if they extended the federal/state/local paid schooling to include higher education would it apply to all people or just those that could not afford it? Do we not already do this through the various scholarships, grants and loans that are available for anyone who wants to attend college? I think if someone truly wanted to attend college but could not afford it could be given the chance through these programs. If not then, perhaps these programs could be expanded, but it should not be completely paid for by the government. I could not afford college, but through a combination of grants, loans, college job and my parents I was able to attend and graduate from college.
I just worry that when people are given all sorts of hand-outs from the government that they will become more dependant on the government to give them everything they need and not to earn it themselves.
I agree and disagree with what you say society owes itself. I do believe that a person should be provided every effort to obtain a K-12 education. Be it in public schools, JVS, prison, whatever. We should push to have 100% of students graduating high school or getting their GED.
Where I don't agree with you is on higher education. To attend college it is a more of a privilege than a right. Not just because of the economic issues, but since a college/university does not have to take every student that applies. Getting picked by a well regarded school is a privilege since that school was not forced to accept your proposal just because you sent one.
Perhaps in addition to the K-12 education they could get associate degree. And it could be paid for by a combination of federal/state money and money they would earn themselves. If they were in prison they could earn the money through work-release programs, in-prison work, etc. This way they do not get the education for free and if they truly want to learn they have to learn some job skills to earn the rest of the money needed.
So in addition to learning the technical skills they could learn some of the office/work skills that could prevent them from getting a job.
I believe at the University of Dayton the new law building they built had internet connections at every desk and multiple locations outside of the classrooms. I also think they required you to have a laptop so you could connnect to the internet in class. The main reason being that it is much easier to carry a laptop and access legal rulings than to carry around paper tomes with this information.
While not all classes would need a net access I think finding it on the net would be faster and cheaper than buying all the relevant books.
I do the same thing and I am left handed and use the mouse in my left hand. I do not use the left hand config for the buttons though. The reason I shove it off the the right is either for scrolling or because I tend to line my windows up on the left leaving room on the right for the cursor.
I do wonder if they can track the mouse wheel? Since if I am not using the page-up/page-down keys I use the mouse wheel. Rarely do I use the mouse to drag the scroll bar.
Sure there are multi-zone climate controls which distinguish between driver and passengers, but how many cars have these systems? I would imagine they make a small percent of all the cars on the road.
Just for kicks, say all cars had the multi-zone climate system, how well would this system work if the windows are down? If you have the windows opens I would imagine the wind would whip around the air to a point where it might not get a good reading. I think this would also lead to false positives since with a lot of air flow a drunk passenger might set off the sensor.
I can see these big brother systems leading to people being slower to buy the new items with these "features."
I still remember a study I saw done where they injected spiders with various drugs to see what it did to their web making ability. Here is a link that has some information on the study. I could not find a "official" link to the study. But you can see get a idea of the effect of caffine on their ability to spin webs. Pretty amazing what caffine did to their abilities. Just got to wonder what it does to a human.
Sure it sounds like bitching to us reading it now, but perhaps when they wrote this it was in a effort to make the stay there better for future occupants. Also they may have been told to write down all there experiences so we can get a better understanding of prolonged space living.
With the DVD screen. Could it not be used for storing technical documents and diagrams in addition to a entertainment function? Since shipping up a DVD player and some DVDs would take up a lot less space than a library of technical books. So, if the screen was too small it would be hard to read the information on the screen.
And this is suprising how? Granted movie ticket prices are starting to get way out of hand, but still, compare say a $5 movie ticket with a $40 video game. Even with some big blockbuster movies if there are any flashy new games I bet they will sell enough to surpass movie sales.
And of course the trend will continue since some games are costing more and until movie tickets increase a lot in price I imagine games sales will make more money.
I took the idea of using the AOL CDs as coasters a bit further. I nuked them in the microwave to get that nice pattern in them. I then got some corkboard and cut out a CD sized chunk. Drilled a couple of drain holes into the CD and then using a all-purpose epoxy attached the CD to the cork. Works great and the holes help keep condensation from running off the CD onto the table.
I might have to take a look at my ISP's agreement to see if there is anything about them being able to monitor my traffic when I am connected to them.
Also I would think that the first ISP to agree to have this attached to their systems might see a bunch of customers leaving. I think I would drop my ISP if I heard that they agreed to host this system.
I think one way to help control this is to take the control of the box away from the FBI and put it in the ISP's control. This would be somewhat similar to wiretaps. Instead of the FBI doing it they present the warrent to allow a tap and let the phone company do it at its switches. Maybe this is how Carnivore should work. It is only installed when a warrent for a tap is presented instead of it always sitting there gathering information on anyone it chooses.
This thing is starting to sound scarier and scarier. Now even though I doubt they would monitor me (working on a Government contract with clearances they already know a lot about me), but the thought of it being able to without anyone but the Government to say it can't does not make me happy. There needs to be checks/balances for its operation.
Check out this site MP3Mobile . This guy built a in-dash MP3 player and has the steps and material he used. And I believe he is working on making a commercial version of it available. You should be some good ideas from this site on how to build the player.
Well, with this one you do get 64MB of memory on it.
2 x 0.35-inch MP3 module around a 74-MHz ARM7 processor from Cirrus Logic Inc., 64 Mbytes of NAND flash memory and a 1-bit D/A converter from
Cirrus' Crystal division, at 24-bit resolution and a 96-kHz sample rate.
There is also the one from InnoGear called the MiniJam that just came out as well. This one uses Multimedia Cards (MMC) that store the MP3s. Looks like they have cards in 32 and 64MB sizes and the player can hold 2 of those cards. While it is a little bigger than the SoundsGood, but it is only $249.00. You can read a review of the MiniJam here VisorCentral
I myself am somewhat of a closet Amigian. I loved my A500 (with its monster 1MB of RAM) and loved to work with the drawing/3D programs that ran on it. Whenever somewhat brings up multimedia I always mention how when Amiga did it they did it right and have since been copied.
They had great ideas. Separate processors for sound and video. Hmmm, only in the past few years have PC video card makers been doing that. A true multitasking OS. Very rarely did I have the OS crash when a program crashed. The software available was some of the most amazing stuff and you could create some amazing things with the limited amount of memory. 3D ray-tracing programs that could not only run in 1MB of memory, but also generate frames using that same memory with no hard drive is pretty impressive.
But even with my love of that platform I must say I am wary of any new developments. I think the big reason that Amiga was so successful was the combination of hardware and software. Both pieces were basically designed to do multimedia very well compared to other things in the market at the time. Now many of those niche features are in many different programs and OSes. I worry that any new developments may mar the history that is the Amiga.
Now I am in favor of finding a better way to log into systems. I hate having to remember tons of passwords, even worse when they rotate a lot. Many times I find myself typing in my old password due to finger memory.
But with a fingerprint scanner I would think they would have to have a decent amount of leyway in their scanning. What if you get a cut that scars your fingerprint, then you have to get a new scan done. Or, I landscaped for a couple of summers and after a couple of days my fingertips were all torn up. Since I imagine it would be tough to get a clean scan of my fingerprint I would have problems accessing systems that used this type of system.
As for retinal scans. I have not researched this subject much, but how would having contacts effect the accuracy of the scan?
The one thing I have seen that might be slightly secure is a card that you input a numeric key into. This generates a key that you use as the password. This password is basically a one-time pad key. Once you use it it cannot be used again. The password only stays visible for a few seconds, less than 30 seconds I believe. After that you have to input your passkey again.
Until there is a safe and accurate ability to verify a person passwords are about the best we will get. But even still passwords can be cracked or interigated out.
I would agree with you on all the points except #2. Michael Caine has only won 2 Oscars (including the one last night). Concidering how many films he has been in I am suprised that he has only won twice and has only been nominated 4-5 times.
I am a little confused as to the formats that the book comes in. First there is the Rocket eBook which is a pretty nifty thing. Second is from Barnes & Noble called a Glassbook format. Third, from Softlock it appears that the book is in pdf format.
For me I would think that the pdf format would be the best since I can transort it to just about any platform. But I am wondering how they enable the copying protection that they mention. I have never heard of any type of copying protection like this available through a pdf file.
Not only that, but there is that easter egg in Excel 6.0 (I believe) that when activated displayed a 3D world you could fly around in and there was a stone structure that had the programming credits for Excel scrolling on it.
Plus I believe there was credits included in Win3.11 the could be accessed through easter eggs.
Maybe what they meant was that credits were never directly listed from Microsoft. If you wanted to see the credits it was related to a easter egg that you had to find.
Now the thought that crashing probes into a planet would yeild valuable infomration for a cheap price is a pretty interesting concept.
My question is if they are looking for water on Mars, don't you think 3 feet is a bit shallow? Now I understand that since this is the first test with crashing a probe and there is no real proof that they will survive and function as expected, but I think that future crash-probes should look deeper into the soil to find any traces of water.
Also it would be interesting to try to use some of the same technology to try to see if there are indead liquid oceans beneath the ice of Europa.
Actually the Amiga would not be at odds with MS. I remember when I have my Amiga 500 the main competition was with the Mac. If the Amiga was still around in full power today it would be competing with Apple and not MS.
The reason for this is that the Amiga was an amazing graphic machine for its time. With Deluxe Paint being a revolutionary program that gave you a lot of tools to create graphics, but also included the abilty to generate animations and do morphing. There was also a nice 3D modeling software program available that worked very well on the limited processor power and memeory available. I managed to generate 3 fully textured, 3D modeled frames on my 500 with only 1 meg of memory and no hard drive. Pretty impressive to me.
Also the hardware architecture was similar to what is being made today. Using a seperate processor to handle the graphic display is something that we have been seeing with current graphic cards.
I always saw the Amiga as being a graphic powerhouse and not so much a business system. So MS would not be the competition, but Apple. Even though it is dead here in the US, I have heard that there is still a following in Europe and Japan.
Slashdot Mirror
Society of Hardware and Information Technology Helpers Executive Administration Division
Huh? Does my viewing Slashdot mean that I am monitoring all of their network traffic? I think the word "monitored" was a poor choice when "viewing" is most likely what was happening.
If they really wanted to view all his network traffic I imagine they would get a warrent and monitor it from the ISP thus avoiding even showing up in his logs.
It seems to me the patent relates to any interface that changes stylus strokes into text. So wouldn't all PDAs be open to lawsuits since any PDA that does not use a keyboard uses a method of interpreting stylus strokes into text.
I wonder why the actual language was not taken into account since unistrokes seem to have only a couple of characters that match Graffiti strokes.
It seems that this patent, based on the ruling, would cover any interface that uses a motion (it did mention the fingers of the writer) that is recognized and translated to text. Even if another type of program was used what is to stop them from claiming the same case of infringement?
I know a couple of people that have gotten well paying jobs straight out of high school, and I'm not talking about professional sports. These guys taught themselves their skills, worked for low pay just for some on the job experience and really sold themselves well to get a job. They had learned all they needed on their own or in high school and applied it to getting a job instead of spending the money on college.
Perhaps it was just me, but most of my job skills and tech skills were self-taught. The computer classes I took were not very useful or even applicable, but that was more likely a result of the CPS schedule. Additionally, if we were just going to educate someone with applicable "real-world" skills why would they need 4 years. Some of my classes at college were not directed toward my degree or even of interested to me, but I had to take them. If I were to strip all required classes and electives/minors out and just focused on the core program it would be around 2 years.
Now if they extended the federal/state/local paid schooling to include higher education would it apply to all people or just those that could not afford it? Do we not already do this through the various scholarships, grants and loans that are available for anyone who wants to attend college? I think if someone truly wanted to attend college but could not afford it could be given the chance through these programs. If not then, perhaps these programs could be expanded, but it should not be completely paid for by the government. I could not afford college, but through a combination of grants, loans, college job and my parents I was able to attend and graduate from college.
I just worry that when people are given all sorts of hand-outs from the government that they will become more dependant on the government to give them everything they need and not to earn it themselves.
I agree and disagree with what you say society owes itself. I do believe that a person should be provided every effort to obtain a K-12 education. Be it in public schools, JVS, prison, whatever. We should push to have 100% of students graduating high school or getting their GED.
Where I don't agree with you is on higher education. To attend college it is a more of a privilege than a right. Not just because of the economic issues, but since a college/university does not have to take every student that applies. Getting picked by a well regarded school is a privilege since that school was not forced to accept your proposal just because you sent one.
Perhaps in addition to the K-12 education they could get associate degree. And it could be paid for by a combination of federal/state money and money they would earn themselves. If they were in prison they could earn the money through work-release programs, in-prison work, etc. This way they do not get the education for free and if they truly want to learn they have to learn some job skills to earn the rest of the money needed.
So in addition to learning the technical skills they could learn some of the office/work skills that could prevent them from getting a job.
I believe at the University of Dayton the new law building they built had internet connections at every desk and multiple locations outside of the classrooms. I also think they required you to have a laptop so you could connnect to the internet in class. The main reason being that it is much easier to carry a laptop and access legal rulings than to carry around paper tomes with this information.
While not all classes would need a net access I think finding it on the net would be faster and cheaper than buying all the relevant books.
Only the packaging.
I do the same thing and I am left handed and use the mouse in my left hand. I do not use the left hand config for the buttons though. The reason I shove it off the the right is either for scrolling or because I tend to line my windows up on the left leaving room on the right for the cursor.
I do wonder if they can track the mouse wheel? Since if I am not using the page-up/page-down keys I use the mouse wheel. Rarely do I use the mouse to drag the scroll bar.
Sure there are multi-zone climate controls which distinguish between driver and passengers, but how many cars have these systems? I would imagine they make a small percent of all the cars on the road.
Just for kicks, say all cars had the multi-zone climate system, how well would this system work if the windows are down? If you have the windows opens I would imagine the wind would whip around the air to a point where it might not get a good reading. I think this would also lead to false positives since with a lot of air flow a drunk passenger might set off the sensor.
I can see these big brother systems leading to people being slower to buy the new items with these "features."
ummm, and this person if criticizing the writer of the virus? Guess someone needs some gooder spellchecking software.
I still remember a study I saw done where they injected spiders with various drugs to see what it did to their web making ability. Here is a link that has some information on the study. I could not find a "official" link to the study. But you can see get a idea of the effect of caffine on their ability to spin webs. Pretty amazing what caffine did to their abilities. Just got to wonder what it does to a human.
Sure it sounds like bitching to us reading it now, but perhaps when they wrote this it was in a effort to make the stay there better for future occupants. Also they may have been told to write down all there experiences so we can get a better understanding of prolonged space living.
With the DVD screen. Could it not be used for storing technical documents and diagrams in addition to a entertainment function? Since shipping up a DVD player and some DVDs would take up a lot less space than a library of technical books. So, if the screen was too small it would be hard to read the information on the screen.
And this is suprising how? Granted movie ticket prices are starting to get way out of hand, but still, compare say a $5 movie ticket with a $40 video game. Even with some big blockbuster movies if there are any flashy new games I bet they will sell enough to surpass movie sales.
And of course the trend will continue since some games are costing more and until movie tickets increase a lot in price I imagine games sales will make more money.
I took the idea of using the AOL CDs as coasters a bit further. I nuked them in the microwave to get that nice pattern in them. I then got some corkboard and cut out a CD sized chunk. Drilled a couple of drain holes into the CD and then using a all-purpose epoxy attached the CD to the cork. Works great and the holes help keep condensation from running off the CD onto the table.
I might have to take a look at my ISP's agreement to see if there is anything about them being able to monitor my traffic when I am connected to them.
Also I would think that the first ISP to agree to have this attached to their systems might see a bunch of customers leaving. I think I would drop my ISP if I heard that they agreed to host this system.
I think one way to help control this is to take the control of the box away from the FBI and put it in the ISP's control. This would be somewhat similar to wiretaps. Instead of the FBI doing it they present the warrent to allow a tap and let the phone company do it at its switches. Maybe this is how Carnivore should work. It is only installed when a warrent for a tap is presented instead of it always sitting there gathering information on anyone it chooses.
This thing is starting to sound scarier and scarier. Now even though I doubt they would monitor me (working on a Government contract with clearances they already know a lot about me), but the thought of it being able to without anyone but the Government to say it can't does not make me happy. There needs to be checks/balances for its operation.
2 x 0.35-inch MP3 module around a 74-MHz ARM7 processor from Cirrus Logic Inc., 64 Mbytes of NAND flash memory and a 1-bit D/A converter from Cirrus' Crystal division, at 24-bit resolution and a 96-kHz sample rate.
There is also the one from InnoGear called the MiniJam that just came out as well. This one uses Multimedia Cards (MMC) that store the MP3s. Looks like they have cards in 32 and 64MB sizes and the player can hold 2 of those cards. While it is a little bigger than the SoundsGood, but it is only $249.00. You can read a review of the MiniJam here VisorCentral
I myself am somewhat of a closet Amigian. I loved my A500 (with its monster 1MB of RAM) and loved to work with the drawing/3D programs that ran on it. Whenever somewhat brings up multimedia I always mention how when Amiga did it they did it right and have since been copied.
They had great ideas. Separate processors for sound and video. Hmmm, only in the past few years have PC video card makers been doing that. A true multitasking OS. Very rarely did I have the OS crash when a program crashed. The software available was some of the most amazing stuff and you could create some amazing things with the limited amount of memory. 3D ray-tracing programs that could not only run in 1MB of memory, but also generate frames using that same memory with no hard drive is pretty impressive.
But even with my love of that platform I must say I am wary of any new developments. I think the big reason that Amiga was so successful was the combination of hardware and software. Both pieces were basically designed to do multimedia very well compared to other things in the market at the time. Now many of those niche features are in many different programs and OSes. I worry that any new developments may mar the history that is the Amiga.
Now I am in favor of finding a better way to log into systems. I hate having to remember tons of passwords, even worse when they rotate a lot. Many times I find myself typing in my old password due to finger memory.
But with a fingerprint scanner I would think they would have to have a decent amount of leyway in their scanning. What if you get a cut that scars your fingerprint, then you have to get a new scan done. Or, I landscaped for a couple of summers and after a couple of days my fingertips were all torn up. Since I imagine it would be tough to get a clean scan of my fingerprint I would have problems accessing systems that used this type of system.
As for retinal scans. I have not researched this subject much, but how would having contacts effect the accuracy of the scan?
The one thing I have seen that might be slightly secure is a card that you input a numeric key into. This generates a key that you use as the password. This password is basically a one-time pad key. Once you use it it cannot be used again. The password only stays visible for a few seconds, less than 30 seconds I believe. After that you have to input your passkey again.
Until there is a safe and accurate ability to verify a person passwords are about the best we will get. But even still passwords can be cracked or interigated out.
I would agree with you on all the points except #2. Michael Caine has only won 2 Oscars (including the one last night). Concidering how many films he has been in I am suprised that he has only won twice and has only been nominated 4-5 times.
I am a little confused as to the formats that the book comes in. First there is the Rocket eBook which is a pretty nifty thing. Second is from Barnes & Noble called a Glassbook format. Third, from Softlock it appears that the book is in pdf format.
For me I would think that the pdf format would be the best since I can transort it to just about any platform. But I am wondering how they enable the copying protection that they mention. I have never heard of any type of copying protection like this available through a pdf file.
Not only that, but there is that easter egg in Excel 6.0 (I believe) that when activated displayed a 3D world you could fly around in and there was a stone structure that had the programming credits for Excel scrolling on it.
Plus I believe there was credits included in Win3.11 the could be accessed through easter eggs.
Maybe what they meant was that credits were never directly listed from Microsoft. If you wanted to see the credits it was related to a easter egg that you had to find.
Now the thought that crashing probes into a planet would yeild valuable infomration for a cheap price is a pretty interesting concept.
My question is if they are looking for water on Mars, don't you think 3 feet is a bit shallow? Now I understand that since this is the first test with crashing a probe and there is no real proof that they will survive and function as expected, but I think that future crash-probes should look deeper into the soil to find any traces of water.
Also it would be interesting to try to use some of the same technology to try to see if there are indead liquid oceans beneath the ice of Europa.
Actually the Amiga would not be at odds with MS. I remember when I have my Amiga 500 the main competition was with the Mac. If the Amiga was still around in full power today it would be competing with Apple and not MS.
The reason for this is that the Amiga was an amazing graphic machine for its time. With Deluxe Paint being a revolutionary program that gave you a lot of tools to create graphics, but also included the abilty to generate animations and do morphing. There was also a nice 3D modeling software program available that worked very well on the limited processor power and memeory available. I managed to generate 3 fully textured, 3D modeled frames on my 500 with only 1 meg of memory and no hard drive. Pretty impressive to me.
Also the hardware architecture was similar to what is being made today. Using a seperate processor to handle the graphic display is something that we have been seeing with current graphic cards.
I always saw the Amiga as being a graphic powerhouse and not so much a business system. So MS would not be the competition, but Apple. Even though it is dead here in the US, I have heard that there is still a following in Europe and Japan.