Not necessarily. Part of the question lies in what constitutes the "voting system". ESS obviously considered the voting system to lie in the functional operation. Somebody in the state government considered it otherwise (or saw a chance to make some hay).
Regardless, the courts will sort it out and say who is wrong and right. An interesting estoppel argument for ESS is that this machine was clearly labled differently. If they explained the change and the counties bought the machines anyway, the state could be stopped from claiming any damages since the voting officials in the counties didn't believe it was a change to the voting system either.
America and Americans are generally seduced by technology. It is in our culture to invent and to innovate. We're always pushing for the next thing, always trying to go further. If you need any proof, just look at our Navy - all nuclear, top of the line technology. And yet, an inexpensive Chinese submarine can appear in the middle of a battle group.
At times, this goes too far. Voting is one of those areas. There is nothing accomplished by computerized voting machines that could not be accomplished with a piece of paper, a black marker and some volunteers to count. After all, tallying a vote is just that, counting. And it is infinitely more difficult to tamper with a properly controlled paper balloting system than it is with a computer voting system. Perhaps it is "old-fashioned", but I see nothing wrong with marking a piece of paper.
One problem here is that by leaking such a document on a wiki, the leakers spoil its legitimacy. Regardless of how many others step up and vouch for it, the accuracy of the document can always be discounted. The document can never be trusted. This is one reason why you need an official release.
Innovation might be EA's mantra, but their actions are fighting against it. When you're working in the fields of innovation, for every spectacular success, there will be at least one spectacular failure. And probably many more than one. If you're not willing to accept those failures as the cost of innovation, then you have no business calling yourself an innovative company. EA just told every one of their developers "don't take a risk. Do it the safe way."
If you want to blame anyone, blame the management. With proper technique, they should have known well before final production which games would make it and which would flop. EA is obviously a company on the decline.
I found another link that gives the information. The patents claimed in the suit are 5,282,222, RE37,802 () and 5,956,323. The filing dates are 1992, 1997 and 2000. You can Google the numbers to try to understand what the patents are about, but unless you have a deep understanding of RF technology, its will probably be greek.
Exactly. Without intending offense to Dr. Papandriopoulos, this is really not news, nor does it have widespread implications for future bandwidth availability across the globe. Global bandwidth is more about high speed backbones, which this technology does not even begin to approach. It is only useful in solving the last mile problem of getting things off the backbone to a terminal. And by the time this gets commercialized, I think we can count on at least three other technologies being faster still, with cellular style broadband probably at the top of the list.
The date that the patent is published is important too. When patents are submitted, they are private. They remain private for somewhere between 12 and 18 months. As a general rule, if other people invent the same thing you did during that time period, obviousness is proven.
Of course, in this case, it sounds pretty clearly like prior art dates back to the 90s with Wikipedia.
Brian
One thing I wondered about from the NASA report - they said that something occurred twice as often in their study as it did in the FAA report. Could that be because NASA interviewed pilots while the FAA counted planes or incidents? In the commercial world, there are two pilots per plane, which would eliminate the discrepancy.
I used to install passive RFID tagging system. To say that the technology sucks is being generous. Tag read rates are not anywhere near 100% and they will never be. Unlike the read rates on barcode labels, this is not a case of needing better quality control to get darker and straighter lines, but a case of the underlying physics being flawed. In particular, it is very difficult to get a read from a box containing a large amount of water or metal since both scatter radio waves. And, you can absolutely not get a read if a box is turned sideways. These things were true when RFID was introduced and they will continue to be true as long as the technology is being pushed. RFID is not ready for prime time yet and probably never will be.
People have been expecting the cost of tags to drop, allowing greater implementation of RFID. But this thinking is backwards. It is expanded implementations that will cause the price of tags to drop...Economics 101. Prices stabalize at the supply/demand equalibrium. They will tend to fall with more vendors in the mix because of a loss of price setting power.
The only RFID implementations I can see that are feasible:
1) Active tag tracking of very valuable assets.
2) RFID on conveyor where you can have a photo-eye detect when a box passes a point without a read. However, the same functionality is available with barcodes and there isn't a great deal of advantage to adding a tag.
3) Single tags at a pallet level coupled with Advanced Shipping Notices (ASN) to do automatic receiving. Again, the advantages over barcodes is not sufficient to warrant new tech.
None of these are what Wal-Mart is doing. Big surprise that their plan isn't working. Bigger surprise that none of their vendors are thrilled about spending yet more money to sell through Wal-Mart.
Once again, the patent office shows us why we need actual experts examining software patents, not just scholarly bookworms. A software expert would recognize the difference between software requirements and actual implementation. Here's a hint: when your patent covers the process of how something is being performed, you're trying to patent requirements.
If the telephone had been patented this way, they would have patented holding one or more sound producing devices to one or more ears while speaking into a one or more noise transmission devices.
Why does it seem like the PTO dwells in the realm of the Galactically Stupid?
You're dead on - what's the news story here? There are thousands (millions?) of videos on Google Video. That there are only 300 copyright violations is astonishing. If there were 3000 or 30,000 violations, I would still be impressed by how low that number is.
RTFP - Read The Friendly Patent. The claim is for a keyboard that comes back in the same place every time. The claimed problem is that people move their keyboard around and then can't figure out how to use it. So, their innovation is that the keyboard is always in the same place. You can't move the iPhone keyboard because it takes up the entire screen. There's no place to move it to.
I wish I could say that I don't understand how this patent was ever granted in the first place, but we all know how it happens.
What irritates me about patents like this is that they fail not just tests of obviousness and novelty, but tests of history. Years ago, I used a program that had a statically placed pop-up keyboard. The keyboard always came up in a location that blocked data behind it. Didn't the patent examiner realize that the ability to move the keyboard around WAS AN INNOVATION IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Removing an added feature hardly qualifies as something worthy of a patent.
I'm not a fan of the iPhone, but I really hope this patent gets squashed with prejudice.
Why not just cut costs? Ummmm, because it doesn't work. If EA is like other companies, they don't know which 50% of the games will be liked. If you just cut half, you'll wind up cutting successful games too. Probably, about half of the games cut would have been successful. This is the very dilemma of innovation and product development...where, BTW, a 50% success rate is phenomenal.
Here, here. The last real innovation in gaming happened about ten years ago. JR is just stating what everyone in the industry should already know - gaming is dieing. Coming on the heels of recent stories that this may be the last E3, I think it ought to be sending up alarm bells.
Those who study business have discovered that there is a cycle to industry. Tech is born, flourishes, matures and begins to wane. Innovation is necessary to renew that cycle, to refresh the fading technology. Innovation is never a sure thing and will carry its share of failures. More and better ideas can help increase the odds of getting successes.
This is also true of gaming, except that the industry is too insular to bring in ideas from outside. The odds are very good that most gaming companies will continue to put out cruddy games and will lose money from now until they shut down. The only thing that will change the pattern is if someone invents a truly innovative game, whether by chance or by intent.
The "good" answer comes from Peter Drucker. This might not land you the job, but it will at least neutralize the question. "I ask myself what I need to do today to best contribute to the organization." Drucker's point was that executive (and managers) rarely apply themselves effectively.
The answer sounds like you're kissing someone's butt, right? You are. So if that's what the good answer sounds like, why would you use this question? (Hint, its a horrible question.) There are very few positive answers to this question, but plenty of ways to shoot yourself in the foot...say by being honest. 90% of people will admit to coffee and email. The other 10% lie about it. This question is weeding out honest people, which is generally a bad thing to do in an interview.
It appears that Zonk has misunderstood Microsoft's statement. I will not say whether he did it willfully or not.
The summary is very misleading. I read the statement as saying that Microsoft believes they do not use or distribute software covered under the version 3 license. You could just as easily read this statement to be a reassurance to their customers that the support vouchers have not suddenly become invalid, but they are limited. Since Microsoft is not the one doing the limiting, they can't be the one responsible for it.
Furthermore, I find it incredibly offensive that FSF would stoop to tactics like this. It goes far beyond their mandate and it causes me to question the fitness of the current FSF leadership. Say what you like about Microsoft (and I'd probably join you), the FSF does not provide software even approaching the same quality as the commercial products.
It lies with patent examiners. Here's the way it works: They research and gather a certain number of references related to the application. The references are judged against the application's claims. If they are judged to represent one of the claims, they are declared "Prior Art". Prior Art is a legal determination. The references are gathered by someone (who?) expert in researching and finding published documents, then compared against the claims, written by patent attorneys who are interested in their claim not matching anything.
We have a bunch of well meaning patent examiners who are expert scholars, determining whether or not software (or fill in the blank) references pertain to claims written by lawyers determined that the claims not match anything. The examiner might have some knowledge in the field, but not to the extent that they can recognize undocumented obviousness. People wonder why experts in the field complain about overly broad patents? It should be almost expected that we have this outcome.
New worst idea ever. Public disclosure of an idea eliminates any possibility of patent rights. If you realize the next day that the idea was huge, you're SOL for world patent rights. And, you only have a year to submit a US patent.
The problem is in what the PTO accepts and finds as prior art. Blog posts, even documented via something like WayBack, aren't good enough.
Well, if you remove your name and address from the file, that is circumvention of DRM, right.
Now go away before I am forced to fart in your general direction.
Additionally, innovation serves to renew product life cycles. As products reach the commoditization or decline points of their life span, innovation (either incremental or revolutionary) will differentiate the product again and make move it back to the front of its life. Constant innovation by business means improving and replacing products, so appreciation of existing products is a non-factor.
Slashdot Mirror
Not necessarily. Part of the question lies in what constitutes the "voting system". ESS obviously considered the voting system to lie in the functional operation. Somebody in the state government considered it otherwise (or saw a chance to make some hay).
Regardless, the courts will sort it out and say who is wrong and right. An interesting estoppel argument for ESS is that this machine was clearly labled differently. If they explained the change and the counties bought the machines anyway, the state could be stopped from claiming any damages since the voting officials in the counties didn't believe it was a change to the voting system either.
America and Americans are generally seduced by technology. It is in our culture to invent and to innovate. We're always pushing for the next thing, always trying to go further. If you need any proof, just look at our Navy - all nuclear, top of the line technology. And yet, an inexpensive Chinese submarine can appear in the middle of a battle group.
At times, this goes too far. Voting is one of those areas. There is nothing accomplished by computerized voting machines that could not be accomplished with a piece of paper, a black marker and some volunteers to count. After all, tallying a vote is just that, counting. And it is infinitely more difficult to tamper with a properly controlled paper balloting system than it is with a computer voting system. Perhaps it is "old-fashioned", but I see nothing wrong with marking a piece of paper.
One problem here is that by leaking such a document on a wiki, the leakers spoil its legitimacy. Regardless of how many others step up and vouch for it, the accuracy of the document can always be discounted. The document can never be trusted. This is one reason why you need an official release.
amateurs
Shame, shame, shame.
Innovation might be EA's mantra, but their actions are fighting against it. When you're working in the fields of innovation, for every spectacular success, there will be at least one spectacular failure. And probably many more than one. If you're not willing to accept those failures as the cost of innovation, then you have no business calling yourself an innovative company. EA just told every one of their developers "don't take a risk. Do it the safe way."
If you want to blame anyone, blame the management. With proper technique, they should have known well before final production which games would make it and which would flop. EA is obviously a company on the decline.
Brian
The way it works is that the people in Nigeria send you money. I'm waiting on my 5% commission for moving $48,000,000,000 right now!
Using the story of troy to define a trojan virus? Brilliant!
Try a printing a different model structure or using a different input material...
I found another link that gives the information. The patents claimed in the suit are 5,282,222, RE37,802 () and 5,956,323. The filing dates are 1992, 1997 and 2000. You can Google the numbers to try to understand what the patents are about, but unless you have a deep understanding of RF technology, its will probably be greek.
Brian
Exactly. Without intending offense to Dr. Papandriopoulos, this is really not news, nor does it have widespread implications for future bandwidth availability across the globe. Global bandwidth is more about high speed backbones, which this technology does not even begin to approach. It is only useful in solving the last mile problem of getting things off the backbone to a terminal. And by the time this gets commercialized, I think we can count on at least three other technologies being faster still, with cellular style broadband probably at the top of the list.
The date that the patent is published is important too. When patents are submitted, they are private. They remain private for somewhere between 12 and 18 months. As a general rule, if other people invent the same thing you did during that time period, obviousness is proven. Of course, in this case, it sounds pretty clearly like prior art dates back to the 90s with Wikipedia. Brian
One thing I wondered about from the NASA report - they said that something occurred twice as often in their study as it did in the FAA report. Could that be because NASA interviewed pilots while the FAA counted planes or incidents? In the commercial world, there are two pilots per plane, which would eliminate the discrepancy.
Just a thought...
Brian
I used to install passive RFID tagging system. To say that the technology sucks is being generous. Tag read rates are not anywhere near 100% and they will never be. Unlike the read rates on barcode labels, this is not a case of needing better quality control to get darker and straighter lines, but a case of the underlying physics being flawed. In particular, it is very difficult to get a read from a box containing a large amount of water or metal since both scatter radio waves. And, you can absolutely not get a read if a box is turned sideways. These things were true when RFID was introduced and they will continue to be true as long as the technology is being pushed. RFID is not ready for prime time yet and probably never will be.
People have been expecting the cost of tags to drop, allowing greater implementation of RFID. But this thinking is backwards. It is expanded implementations that will cause the price of tags to drop...Economics 101. Prices stabalize at the supply/demand equalibrium. They will tend to fall with more vendors in the mix because of a loss of price setting power.
The only RFID implementations I can see that are feasible:
1) Active tag tracking of very valuable assets.
2) RFID on conveyor where you can have a photo-eye detect when a box passes a point without a read. However, the same functionality is available with barcodes and there isn't a great deal of advantage to adding a tag.
3) Single tags at a pallet level coupled with Advanced Shipping Notices (ASN) to do automatic receiving. Again, the advantages over barcodes is not sufficient to warrant new tech.
None of these are what Wal-Mart is doing. Big surprise that their plan isn't working. Bigger surprise that none of their vendors are thrilled about spending yet more money to sell through Wal-Mart.
Once again, the patent office shows us why we need actual experts examining software patents, not just scholarly bookworms. A software expert would recognize the difference between software requirements and actual implementation. Here's a hint: when your patent covers the process of how something is being performed, you're trying to patent requirements. If the telephone had been patented this way, they would have patented holding one or more sound producing devices to one or more ears while speaking into a one or more noise transmission devices. Why does it seem like the PTO dwells in the realm of the Galactically Stupid?
You're dead on - what's the news story here? There are thousands (millions?) of videos on Google Video. That there are only 300 copyright violations is astonishing. If there were 3000 or 30,000 violations, I would still be impressed by how low that number is.
RTFP - Read The Friendly Patent. The claim is for a keyboard that comes back in the same place every time. The claimed problem is that people move their keyboard around and then can't figure out how to use it. So, their innovation is that the keyboard is always in the same place. You can't move the iPhone keyboard because it takes up the entire screen. There's no place to move it to.
I wish I could say that I don't understand how this patent was ever granted in the first place, but we all know how it happens.
What irritates me about patents like this is that they fail not just tests of obviousness and novelty, but tests of history. Years ago, I used a program that had a statically placed pop-up keyboard. The keyboard always came up in a location that blocked data behind it. Didn't the patent examiner realize that the ability to move the keyboard around WAS AN INNOVATION IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Removing an added feature hardly qualifies as something worthy of a patent.
I'm not a fan of the iPhone, but I really hope this patent gets squashed with prejudice.
Brian
Could be - now that you put it that way, I can see that too.
Why not just cut costs? Ummmm, because it doesn't work. If EA is like other companies, they don't know which 50% of the games will be liked. If you just cut half, you'll wind up cutting successful games too. Probably, about half of the games cut would have been successful. This is the very dilemma of innovation and product development...where, BTW, a 50% success rate is phenomenal.
Brian
Here, here. The last real innovation in gaming happened about ten years ago. JR is just stating what everyone in the industry should already know - gaming is dieing. Coming on the heels of recent stories that this may be the last E3, I think it ought to be sending up alarm bells.
Those who study business have discovered that there is a cycle to industry. Tech is born, flourishes, matures and begins to wane. Innovation is necessary to renew that cycle, to refresh the fading technology. Innovation is never a sure thing and will carry its share of failures. More and better ideas can help increase the odds of getting successes.
This is also true of gaming, except that the industry is too insular to bring in ideas from outside. The odds are very good that most gaming companies will continue to put out cruddy games and will lose money from now until they shut down. The only thing that will change the pattern is if someone invents a truly innovative game, whether by chance or by intent.
Brian
The "good" answer comes from Peter Drucker. This might not land you the job, but it will at least neutralize the question. "I ask myself what I need to do today to best contribute to the organization." Drucker's point was that executive (and managers) rarely apply themselves effectively.
The answer sounds like you're kissing someone's butt, right? You are. So if that's what the good answer sounds like, why would you use this question? (Hint, its a horrible question.) There are very few positive answers to this question, but plenty of ways to shoot yourself in the foot...say by being honest. 90% of people will admit to coffee and email. The other 10% lie about it. This question is weeding out honest people, which is generally a bad thing to do in an interview.
My opinion - your mileage may vary
Brian
It appears that Zonk has misunderstood Microsoft's statement. I will not say whether he did it willfully or not.
The summary is very misleading. I read the statement as saying that Microsoft believes they do not use or distribute software covered under the version 3 license. You could just as easily read this statement to be a reassurance to their customers that the support vouchers have not suddenly become invalid, but they are limited. Since Microsoft is not the one doing the limiting, they can't be the one responsible for it.
Furthermore, I find it incredibly offensive that FSF would stoop to tactics like this. It goes far beyond their mandate and it causes me to question the fitness of the current FSF leadership. Say what you like about Microsoft (and I'd probably join you), the FSF does not provide software even approaching the same quality as the commercial products.
It lies with patent examiners. Here's the way it works: They research and gather a certain number of references related to the application. The references are judged against the application's claims. If they are judged to represent one of the claims, they are declared "Prior Art". Prior Art is a legal determination. The references are gathered by someone (who?) expert in researching and finding published documents, then compared against the claims, written by patent attorneys who are interested in their claim not matching anything.
We have a bunch of well meaning patent examiners who are expert scholars, determining whether or not software (or fill in the blank) references pertain to claims written by lawyers determined that the claims not match anything. The examiner might have some knowledge in the field, but not to the extent that they can recognize undocumented obviousness. People wonder why experts in the field complain about overly broad patents? It should be almost expected that we have this outcome.
Brian
New worst idea ever. Public disclosure of an idea eliminates any possibility of patent rights. If you realize the next day that the idea was huge, you're SOL for world patent rights. And, you only have a year to submit a US patent.
The problem is in what the PTO accepts and finds as prior art. Blog posts, even documented via something like WayBack, aren't good enough.
Well, if you remove your name and address from the file, that is circumvention of DRM, right. Now go away before I am forced to fart in your general direction.
I can hear it now from EMI - "Hey, under the DMCA, you can't circumvent digital management." "Oh, wait. This wasn't DRM. Never mind."
Additionally, innovation serves to renew product life cycles. As products reach the commoditization or decline points of their life span, innovation (either incremental or revolutionary) will differentiate the product again and make move it back to the front of its life. Constant innovation by business means improving and replacing products, so appreciation of existing products is a non-factor.