Looking on how the "stupid war" is going on, it seems to me that this "media-slip" of supposed secret information is just a form they found to say they will intensify their infowar against Serbia.
And that's scary. We have seen what have happened since NATO started to talk about intensifying the bombing. First were a few people, then some civilian transports and buildings, then TV centers and embassies. And recently an unfortunate shot "at a human shield".
Now let's think what will happen if CIA goes the same way. Internet has no borders. serbia-info.com is not located even near Serbia. beograd.com is a mix of mirrors everywhere. This is only what concerns web servers. There is a lot of other things around.
Now imagine that CIA tries to "damage" Milosevic's financial channels and makes a full-shot on... Russia! It will be very interesting because it is probable that a significant group of the Russian Internet community will not ask the president to push any buttons or issue any orders.
In general I think that many other groups even in America, will react very negatively to any "oops" in cyberwarfare. But in some countries any sideshot may turn things into a boiling pan.
From CNN's article "If they pull it off, it will be great," the magazine quoted one government cyberwar expert as saying. "If they screw it up, they are going to be in a world of trouble."
I agree that ZenWorks is the best thing to manage NT. Specially when you face a large number of users and machines. However, no matter the effort Novell people have made to do it there is a problem with ZenWorks: the Windows stuff it is supposed to manage.
All I can say after 6 months of ruling a NT network with ZenWorks is that if you have a problem with the OS then no tool will help you on this. Replace the OS.
Zenworks is a superb conception and has a good manageable architecture. It does its job while NT doesn't start to get crazy. But in the case when NT clients start to get problems be ready for serious catasthrophes. Sometimes the relation NTNovell leads to NDS crashes. And its consequences, on a ZenWorks+NT network, may not end on trying to restore a NDS scheme. They may run up on wiping registries, reinstall NT, restore user directories and even remake the whole server. If you have thousands of users and a good lot of machines, that will be Hell.
I would surely recomend the use of ZenWorks on large NT networks (only kamikadzes would risk the same in a pure NT one). However be ready. If people start crying about the rise of crashes, registry damages and login timeouts over an relatively unchanged environment then it is time to do some serious clean up all over. Or to change the user's OS.
"What is Nintendo's Position on the N64 Emulator, the UltraHLE?
The UltraHLE is illegal. The N64 emulator infringes Nintendo's intellectual property rights, including copyrights, and circumvents Nintendo's anti-piracy security system. "
Well it is Nintendo position. It's their right to consider it illegal. The other side of the question is if any court of law in any country has ruled in favour of Nintendo.
I've have saw of some cases of "supposed" copyright infrigements here in Russia. But unfortunately most of them do not run away from a few harsh notes through E-mail. Besides it has to be noted that in some situations the "victim" seems to break the law in some serious points. Recently this could be seen on Macromedia vs Ivanopolo E-mail exchange. Sincerly Macromedia risked the fact that Ivanopolo could sue them for threat of extortion.
Let's face a fact. A product can be illegal if a court of law has ruled against it. The problem is that under such rulings the author of any emulator could face some consequences, so most of them drop their ventures before going to court. But, in fact, until then, there are no reasons to fetch emulators the label "illegal" before a ruling is made. See the similar Diamond's case with RIO player.
Until then, emulators are pure legal guess. So let's guess. Frankly I'm doing some points out of our reality here in Russia. So someway they may not fit other countries.
If I write a program on my own then the thing is my copyright. I can only violate Nintendo's rights if I _insert_ Nintendo's code (source, binary) inside of my program and distribute it together. Whereas Nintendo and my program live away from each other I am not violating Nintendo's rights. Apart from the fact that they fit each other.
Emulators are a huge thing in software. While no one "copies" property code to implement the emulation, these emulators have a right to live.
Meanwhile emulation is an universal conception. Why Nintendo claims to be an exception to the rules? If we think that emulators are illegal then Nintendo is itself in trouble. If it takes a careful look around they will find a whole world of emulators running even on the most simple PC. This might look a little bit philosophical but it is a fact. And even if Nintendo produced toasters they did not have the right to cry against emulation of toasted bread.
Besides there is a serious caveat in Nintendo's claims. They claim illegality of a program because it uses software _ALREADY_ pirated! Why the illegality of one presumes the illegality of the other? Is a lockpick illegal because there are a lot of lockpicked doors around? It's nonsense.
The best argument of Nintendo is the fact that one of these emulators "circumvents" their security. Sorry people. Beyond this you have to prove that exactly this circumvention allows to _distribute_ the product of your work and not the use. And that this distribution affects your profits. In Russia copyright laws only begin to act when the copy/distribution process directly affects the revenue of the copyrightowner. I can make a million copies of Windows CD and fill the walls of my house with them. Microsoft has no right to sniff through my door for this. If Bill tries to step the door of my house without courtruling he surely would get everything out of an AK/47. And I'm in my right to do it. Even if I would keep illegally the weapon. But that would be another case.
It will not. Both will be on front pages. Linux for the working horse and Windows2000 as the question of what will be the next bagaboom.
People has seen 2000 and Linux out-of-the-box running in the same machine. 00 is no match for Linux. Besides it is extraordinary to see that people reacts with the same feeling to 00 independently of each other. In a Celleron 450Mhz, 128Mb, 00 looks like 95 running in a i486 50Mhz 16Mb. No joke, no FUD. 3 different guys said that to one and the same person (the owner of the comp btw). On Linux the machine acted as one would "expect" of such hardware beauty.
There is an opposite sort of fallacy that you forget to mention. FUD fallacy. It is very good to talk about ++-- on NT vs Linux. But the fact is that Linux, in general, is much more reliable, stable and faster than NT when you look at the real thing. I know what I say because I administer a whole network of Linux boxes. Two monthes ago this same network was a Hell of dumb NT workstations.
Besides Linux does not end here. It is more productive than NT. In general you can't get too much out of NT to do a wide range of tasks.
Ex. there is a box here that is used almost in a case to case basis (this box was so forgotten that it kept NT until yesterday:) ). It was almost money thrown in the air but we had to have that box in the place where it is now. The user would hang on it for one/two hours and forget it for a few days. In any case the machine had to work when it was needed to. So we couldn't put anything that would endanger its reliability.
Generally NT is so "personal" that any task out of desktop/user ones is difficult to implement. Right now this box is on Linux. As before almost no one uses it or will use it frequently. Meanwhile it is doing its job on calculating a few things in background processes. And I don't worry on the fact that someone logs in and suddenly background and desktop tasks start to eat each other.
So I'm getting something out of the money spent on this machine. On NT times this would be nearly unthinkable.
Funny to see this question growing up to the level of Slashdot. We had exactly this situation two monthes ago. Yesterday we scrapped the last NT box. Now we are working in a Linux/Netware/Solaris/AIX environment.
Imediate costs and benefits? Well implementing Linux is a tremendous headache. But results overcome expectations.
We are a group divided by three/four teams with 30 people around and serving a whole University network. We had a very interesting place around here called "Internet classes". Some sort of Internet Cafe without coffee. It consists of 70 workstations, several servers of different types and serving more than 2500 users of a wide range of professions and knowledge. The stuff here is quite serious. It is mainly IBM and Sun hardware and it costs a Hell of money.
We started the whole thing on a Solaris/Novell/AIX/NT environment. It didn't work. For 6 monthes we were turned to janitoring constantly a system on which NT was giving tremendous headaches. Things became a major crisis after a serious crash that stopped work for nearly a week.
Some of us lobbied to see NT replaced. After the NT Armageddon's day we got green light to deliver something on Linux in a month. It was Hell. We had problems and problems and problems. But we came with something two months ago.
Results? It is working. Last week we destroyed the NT image that we kept in any case. The last NT box had oxygen cut yesterday at 16:30. People are facing a system several orders more complex than before and are not deeply concerned about it. Some even love it.
The fearful "We want NT back!" didn't last more than a week. Crashes, hangups, coredumps happen but it is several orders of magnitude less than before (some of these new boxes worked nearly two monthes round'clock. A powercut spoiled things).
Do people fear such primitevenesses like the commandline? Yes. But soon they will start (re)using it because there are things that do their job much better than their desktop brothers.
Before we were forced to stick users to "one desktop, one environment". Right now we have a mega-crazyness here where each one chooses the working environment he likes most. And changes the environment as he likes. Before we had a cracking epidemics here. Now we have hackers digging up deeply on the system and helping things grow up. Before we forced everyone to accept the administrative fascism of having a restricted set of apps. Now security is based mostly in supervision. We allow people to do almost everything with their systems as users of a classic UNIX environment.
Right now we have not only a reliable network where people have finally the chance to work. Right now things are overcoming expectations. These two classes are no longer "cafe's". It is Linux Heavy Industries. It is a place where Internet lives not only of browsing. Some users turn their environments to full-fetched working horses. Others use it on developing apps for Internet. And all of us have seen a tremendous boost on development overall. We now are growing things and not janitoring like before. Meanwhile teams are getting free to care for areas that were not touched during the NT hiatus.
Besides we are now planning the future. We are trying to implement things such as clusters here. As an experiment we joined the RC5 contest. Amazingly we are getting a good place over there. There are plans to implement Coda or a huge webcacher based on Squid.
Want to turn to Linux from NT? Take attention to these permises:
You have to take some good time on tuning your hardware. Even in "smooth" installation may hide a lot of "features". And a good careful tuning may turn a rather "slow" machine into something amazing.
Check all those apps over there. Linux is still quite loosen on configurations. And that's a HUGE +. You have a very good chance to fit things much more to your requests.
Office apps are a big problem in Linux. But our world doesn't end here. Try to find a middleterm. When users will note everything else, they will stop whinning and start to hunt you for even more.
If your main language is not english you may find a problem. But most of it is pure cosmetcis. The final result is more rewarding than NT.
Linux is not beautiful. Because power means rawness. And its up to the user to paint it. When he gets there don't get scared. Everyone has a Picasso inside.
Linux crashes. Programs crash. However you have a wide field to maneuver. Even dealing with commercial "crazy" apps is much easier and there's a bigger chance to find solutions.
Take time. The most important is to make a good pre-installation. Get everything you have and try to make the "box of your and their dreams". Check and test it carefully. And then give your users a "gift".
They will cry over you. They will ask your head. They will pass near you and imagine that see you with a rope on your neck they'l be willing to push. But it will not last long. If things were made carefully and well-planned, then NT will be History in a few weeks.
Get a small development team around you. That's very important. Linux is growable and fetching things to specific needs gives a powerful boost on work. If there are no chances to get a developer then roam Internet as much as possible. Even a small sh script may improve things a lot.
Beware. In a few monthes you may note that you are no longer a network administrator...;)
ZDNet's benchmark is relatively correct over several points. I would say they "touch" the reality. I know that because I work with every OS shown in those benchmarks. Well that not completely true... I *worked* with Windows NT. But two months ago I scrapped the last box at my work. (Farewell Microsoft. You recently lost 2500 users. Soon you will loose 3-4000 more).
The article presents some points one may usually find on working either with Linux, Solaris or Novell. However some points are really the result of not caring on doing some tuning. Besides the article is purely biased on the point of "choosing the ONE final high-end".
Somehow the article suggests a person to compare Linux & Solaris. Well sorry both systems have their ++ & --. However I agree that Linux is mostly fitted for an average computer rather than a super-high-end machine like UltraSPARC 4500. Here Solaris beats it.
But does that mean that Linux is not and high-end system? Well let's not forget the cluster systems. Even Linux has a place on top-500 of supercomputers. And it beats some serious machines around there.
Somehow someone may have forgotten here one of the contenders. Novell Netware is a very specific system oriented mostly for a very specific sort of tasks. But it does its job much better than Linux or Solaris. Both in safety and preformance. And don't dare to compare it with NT. One machine now running Novell for the 7th month couldn't even hold a simple transfer of 100Megs over the net. Not talking about preformance (hey Redmonds, I also like to burn some time with my family!)
Really the NT stuff there is pure hype. On my "practical benchmark" NT Servers lived no more than 1 month of real, serious work. After that very sad experience we returned to Novell. On what concerns workstations we recently destroyed every MazDiee soft over 70 machines serving more than 2000 users. And on what concerns "high-end" we don't even dream about Redmond. Everything runs either on Solaris, AIX or Linux.
Some people say that my relation with NT is due to the fact that I didn't taste the "real thing", that I should have been more systematic on "tuning" it. I know only one _real_thing. Two months ago I had several machines running with a miserable preformance and suffering several crashes every day. Now I don't hear complains about slow preformance and the majority of workstations carry uptimes of almost two monthes. Two monthes ago my wife almost forgot that someone else lived in the same apartment. Now I have some time to share with my family.
Oh besides. Now we have the chance to make an high-end machine out of this workstation stuff:)
And you're quite right not to be convinced. There are a few serious problems to consider them from Mars. Some years ago (before this bulaboo about ALHA 84001) I read on a very serious book that all suppositions that this rock came from Mars is because most scientists believed that such rocks could not come from anywhere else. The rock presents properties that shows that it was formed in a Earth like planet abundant in water. However the fact that there we know only two such planets does not force to consider only Mars. In fact the writer warns that this and similar rocks do not fully fit Martian Geochemistry (and much less Earth)
Here it goes. It's Mars round two. Surveyor started the remap, Scientists revive the old-good theory. And we soon are going to start digging on photos and gathering all wiednesses and wild theories. But I wonder. Will Surveryor end its mission in a much like Pathfinder one? A few frames for the public and a nearly silent death? Will these British guys get on the same luck as their American colleagues? Downplays, rumours, discreditation and once more silence? Will such guys, from serious scientists like Molenaar or Van Flandern, through McDaniel down to Vanisko, Olaf or me, jump into the bandwagon of possible life, seas, civilization, catasthrophes, scientific alternatives? And then get fire from all sides who consider such crazy ideas should be silenced? And then will they let Hoagland create havoc once again?
Hoagland maybe whacko but "conspiracies" do exist
on
Star Wars in Egypt
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I make some work on Mars weirdnesses and I can tell you that "Truth is out there" However the real world may be much more monotonous than any X-Files episode. But not less interesting. There are many people who work on searching aliens, Life out of this planet, wierd theories that do not fit over a "standarized" (aka "official") conception. The works of these people are sometimes very serious. They try to deal with things that many academical circles consider "scientific heresies" I would recommend you two sites to visit: www.metaresearch.org www.mcdanielreport.com However what about Hoagland and conspiracies? Hoagland can be considered a whacko. Maybe it would be better to consider him as a smart "hoaxer". In fact he brings out several facts that in reality are quite important. However he always deturps things into crazy interpretations and false conclusions. I cannot trust a word of what he writes. However I know that a lot of things that he brings into his crazy stories is based in these "hidden truths". In one word he desinforms. Yes there are truths that some people try to shut down. But also it is usual that the origin of these things do not come from governments or state institutions. It comes from people who try to hold up theories and ideas that are bound to fall. Theories that many people spent their lives, efforts, dreams, nightmares and illusions. Theories that some people consider they should exist to "preserve society, religion and Science".
Any ideas that go against these theories are frequently attacked and sometimes in a very dirty way. I have been testimony of such situations. And I have been victim of one such situation.
But also about privacy & piracy and most worse about confidentiality. Sometime ago I was told of a very scaring episode that happened to one friend of mine. He grabbed a very hot document to be sent to another company. He took Excel and ripped off every highly confidential information which should not, by any way, be seen by their partners-to-be. Somehow he decided to look at the size of the document. And the thing look bigger than it should have been. Looked through a simple file manager (not from crappy M$ stuff) and OH WONDER! Everything was still there... Together with his name and a lot of more stuff that pointed to him, his office, E-mail and company.
This is a well known feature on M$ Oriffice documents. They have produced several patches and SPs that seem to "solve" it. But I have heard of situations when even SPed systems seem to "revive" these features.
Now add the above story to it, add some imagination, and think: Their partners-to-be are a little smart. They get the doc. And they see what they should not know. So they grab the info, _the_ ID and try to dump into this poor guy's comp. Considering that all is run under M$ crap they may have a chance. A trojan through Outlook for example.
I wonder if in court this doc could have such explosive consequences as to set the whole guilty part over my friend. Maybe he was "offering" his services. Maybe he wanted to put down his company. Considering that some courts hardly understand what's going on here, my friend could have fallen in very big trouble. Just by sending such doc would have given him enough trouble to his sleep. Fortunately a little wondering about sizes, managed him to avoid the possibility of a huge mistake from his part.
I wonder the worse. In a future not far away: "Welcome to Windows2xxx. Where do you wanna go today?" Uh, well Persian Gulf. Coordinates XXE XXN. "Ok grab a cup of coffee and wait a moment while we are proceeding your request..." Meanwhile, somewhere in lost corner of the world, some crazy mojaheddin runs into his colleagues hut and says "Ok Abdullah I just got that damn M$ crap out!!! Let's take that scapegoat of Satan. There's a russian destroyer, also with Win2xxx server ruling it, around in the Red Sea. According to MSWeatherSat, conditions are foggy. Do that and that and let's send USS Yorktown into the deeps of Hell!" Like Bond's stories. It may look childish and quite fantastic, but I'm really afraid if something near this may happen somewhere in the future.
PS: Microsoft's Official reaction: It was not a bug. It was a feature. However who cares after IIIWW?
They are trying to control all
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Windows ID
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Ok, you, me, my brother's comp and my neighbor's one... Besides they are trying to control the Government also. Yesterday I read an article on NT crap security and how the governement institutions are violating rules by installing NT 4 in their comps. The problem was that on one side they wanted to use Office97 and IE on their work. NT 3.5 is the only certified system to go under federal security rules and we all know under what conditions can be set. However in places where Orange Book is law they are using 4.0 _networked_. The article had also a reference on the tribulations of a security expert trying to warn about the danger these institutions were falling in. However he was unsucessful.
The article echoed a suggestion that the US government "was taken hostage by Microsoft".
Well is this ID stuff a sign of it? Do governmental systems send Microsoft _their_ information? Are people at critical sectors aware of this?
We may not stop here. Let's think about any other government of any country (ally, foe, whatever). Let's think about such guys like CityCorp or CMB. Let's think about the UN and its branches. About NATO, Pentagon or even the Russian Army. Let's think even about the American Navy and _that_ ship with NT ruling on it... Or let's think about some critical industrial complex like a Oil rig.
Are these IDs being sent to Redmond? Is there any information where Redmond people may read "General X., commander SuperTaskForce "Kamikadze", Room 0, The Hexagon, MAC XXXXXXXXXX". Can anyone else read this?
If you don't wanna think so high then let's think about your insurance company.
It looks like a nightmare coming right from a SF cheap story. It looks like the "Shadow World Government".
I confess I ran through the article in a fast way. I hoped to read it more calmly at home but it seems that "Slashdot Effect" killed NTMag.
However the very first reaction I had, was that this guy was trying to demonstrate that NT is a UNIX like anyone else. Funny but that was my very first reaction on looking through the whole article at fast speed. It seems that M$% is changing the politics of a "better OS than UNIX" to a "better UNIX than UNIX":)
More. In a very, very broken comp I installed NT. The thing crashed every hour. Sometimes it was crash time. In the same box Linux managed to freeze twice in a month! And I may tell you that I didn't use it just for typing ls -l. The little thing was app fried several times. It even ran with Quake2 (SVGALib) + X + Netscape (downloading compressed files) + gcc (compiling kernel). It cried like Hell. But it kept working. Besides on a IBM's NetFinity with NT Server I wonder until now why nwadmin32 + netscape ONLY, managed to eat up all memory (reinstalling everything didn't help).
Yep! I managed to catch the article on slashdot right hot. The thing was still working there. After almost one hour I lost contact with NTMag. SLASHDOT EFFECT starts to possess nuclear properties...
Well it seems stupidity on Internet is reaching its top. Some years ago we had a well known company trying to trademark the name Windows. Also we had another one trying to do the same thing on x86 numbers. We have passed this one only to wait for a bunch of green horns, who passed more than 2/3 of their lies away from anything related to computers. It is pretty clear that they will get burned on it. Just imagine someone trademarking the word "God" (property of Heaven Industries).
Unfortunately this thing is happening because some people have turned a federal organ in the US into a small street bazaar. As far as I see nowadays any stupid idea, plagiate, dream/nightmare, schizo seems to be possible to register or trademark while you pay for it. Some of the last issued "certificates" of respectability are already creating some serious damage and may undermine what a patent/trademark is made for. At least personally I can't hang on a patent issued by a organ who "certificates" new perpetuom mobiles and clear plagiates that even violate international copyright laws.
Well on the patent issue I mentioned in a previous post that while being vague, this patent _describes_ an invention. I perfectly know how patents can be vague. The "gaming patent" was one of them. But looking carefully at the schemes and claims it is perfectly clear that sightsound is steaming up and nothing more. Probably all this would become clear only in court, when they will be forced to set up all the details of the "invention" (is there a practical realization of it anywhere?) Some claims do sound very near to things related to modern sound systems. However note that this invention is primarly an _hardware implementation_ of a translation system through telecom lines.
Truly I understand the sightsound's letter more as they are participants of the SDMI. You give another interpretation to it. Maybe you're right. But frankly the english in that phrase is a bit obscure and may have some interpretations.
In your interpretation we are dealing with guys suffering of Napoleon complex. I imagine sightsound deciding wether Sony has the right to publish or not music over the Internet...
However I keep my first suspicions alive. I wonder if suddenly mp3.com goes to court with these guys and we find a good veteran lawyer standing on sightsound's side and defending the poor small earnings of this company against the dark underground conspiracies of MP3 community...
The future will say. PS: In Russia algorithms cannot be patented. Copyrighted yes, but never patented.
Well there is a lot of noise about this thing. READ the patents. It is pretty clear that they do not refer to MP3 or even to mp3.com activities. Nor even to Internet. Meanwhile there is a small problem that we might be ignoring. What's this fuss all about? About mp3.com? Or about MP3 format itself. Well I made a small analysis of sightsound's letter and came to three interesting points: 1. These guys do not seem to understand the activities of mp3.com. The terms and conditions of license look like if they even didn't care to take a look at mp3.com's site. Is this letter some sort of template where one of the addresses was mp3.com? 2. The letter is made in a typical provocative formula: "I offer you gold or fire... Choose!". First they propose something in a very abstract manner. Then they end the letter with a clear threat. This is not the usual type of letter one would write to a business. Usually a letter of this kind would put almost anyone in the defensive or counter-attack. So is this some sort of provocation? 3. There is a weird game of words in it. Please look very carefully at the following:
"I'm sure you are aware of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) which is intended to foster, among other things, the selection of an open architecture, secure format for the download sale of music by the end of this year."
So these guys show a clear intention of marriage the anti-MP3 movement that has been roaming for a while. But:
"While SIGHTSOUND.COM is participating in SDMI and determining whether _the_ format will be appropriate for inclusion in a Long Term Patent Licensing Program,(...)"
Now what's that talk about "the format"???? The first statement is rather undetermined on what relates to "format". However in the second statement we see that "an (...) format" becomes "the format". Besides while the first statement talks about a future situation, the second one is about _THE PRESENT_.
Now, are these guys talking about mp3.com? Or about MP3 format? If so who are they to decide about it? The damn context of the statements makes me wonder if the author (authors?) of this letter where making a general intimindating template to throw over the free music community, while they had in mind another target!
Besides it is quite interesting to see the time line of sightsound's letter to almost coincide with the "watermarked MP3 initiative" where some bonzos showed a more softened attitude towards "wild" MP3.
Let's think a little bit on this. Maybe these guys ain't crooks (they would get into trouble). Nor tortugas trying to fly as high as the falcons of music industry (fried in courts and public suicide). Maybe behind the look of sightsound there is someone else who calmly tries to probe the "market" behind such curtain.
If the last case is true we have trouble here. Someone is trying to define what file formats should or shouldn't be. If you didn't get this one try to imagine M$ forcing all computer industry to use the Word format and outlawing HTML. What a beautiful world it would be.
I tried to take a deeper look at some links on sightsound.com. Well their design... For a company throwing such claims for MP3 the "high bandwith demands" of the site are just hillarious. But the most funny is that they don't use their own proprietary system over there. They use Shockwave... A curious question. Has Macromedia been forced to pay them royalties for the patents?:)
Well I roam a little bit the claims and can say the following: These two patents are much more serious than the ill-famous "gaming patent" we saw a little while ago. They are much more concrete and straight on describing the technological process of audio transfer. They could have some "abstract" moments. But in general they are what a patent should be. They describe an invention almost from the top to the bottom of it. HOWEVER... Does this invention applies to MP3 technology and Internet? It does not seem so. While not well described, some points of the claims show moments for which the invention takes the responsability for the information transfer through telecom lines. Besides there is a description of the connection process and what is most important a description of the encoding/decoding process. It even shows hardware implementation for it. So if MP3 does not touch even by a hair the described processes of transfer, more, if MP3 does not "copy" the encoding decoding process, then these guys are just throwing rocks over the Ocean. They have no right to run over mp3.com and cry for whatever royalties they think they deserve. Oh, has anyone took the care to take a look at the Web site of this company (www.sightsound.com)? Well they have a pretty interesting picture down there. Is that the way they see themselves making this whole bulaboo over the Internet?
Maybe I'm missing something but I made two passes over the patent text and couldn't get something straight. What do they mean by "zones of interest"? While I keep on broad english I may try to get the idea of what this could mean. However we are talking about computers and things related to them. They do not define any boundaries on what is a zone. Nor they specify what could mean interest.
Some of you may hate me for what follows but think a little bit on maths and try to link the plain english of the patent. They speak about zones. Well that may mean in the computer world a numeric boundary (ex. [-1,1]). Meanwhile while we humans may understand infinite boundaries, comps can only digere _discrete_ ones (due to their 0,1 logic). So on whatever boundary you talk about, you must be very careful to _translate_ it into the computer world. There are several methods and technologies to do it. Depending on what you're trying to translate. So here we go to the term of "interest".
So what's that "interest" all about? Psychological interest? Well please tell me how you do that. Fuzzy logic? Neuron systems? Anything else? Anyway what is "interest" by itself?
There is also another problem with this "interest" game and its limits. They talk about a server defining a zone of interest. Well what do you mean by server? A computer? A program? A beowulf cluster? Without defining the boundaries and term "interest" I can't get up to what boundaries you're talking about. Well maybe you can hold 100 guys. Maybe 1000. Maybe even the whole population of Earth and somebody else. Without boundary definitions this patent is void in its sense. It's pure verbality.
Well guys. Let's define a new name for Internet: Zone of interest.
Slashdot Mirror
Looking on how the "stupid war" is going on, it seems to me that this "media-slip" of supposed secret information is just a form they found to say they will intensify their infowar against Serbia.
And that's scary. We have seen what have happened since NATO started to talk about intensifying the bombing. First were a few people, then some civilian transports and buildings, then TV centers and embassies. And recently an unfortunate shot "at a human shield".
Now let's think what will happen if CIA goes the same way. Internet has no borders. serbia-info.com is not located even near Serbia. beograd.com is a mix of mirrors everywhere. This is only what concerns web servers. There is a lot of other things around.
Now imagine that CIA tries to "damage" Milosevic's financial channels and makes a full-shot on... Russia! It will be very interesting because it is probable that a significant group of the Russian Internet community will not ask the president to push any buttons or issue any orders.
In general I think that many other groups even in America, will react very negatively to any "oops" in cyberwarfare. But in some countries any sideshot may turn things into a boiling pan.
From CNN's article
"If they pull it off, it will be great," the magazine quoted one government cyberwar expert as saying. "If they screw it up, they are going to be in a world of trouble."
I agree that ZenWorks is the best thing to manage NT. Specially when you face a large number of users and machines. However, no matter the effort Novell people have made to do it there is a problem with ZenWorks: the Windows stuff it is supposed to manage.
All I can say after 6 months of ruling a NT network with ZenWorks is that if you have a problem with the OS then no tool will help you on this. Replace the OS.
Zenworks is a superb conception and has a good manageable architecture. It does its job while NT doesn't start to get crazy. But in the case when NT clients start to get problems be ready for serious catasthrophes. Sometimes the relation NTNovell leads to NDS crashes. And its consequences, on a ZenWorks+NT network, may not end on trying to restore a NDS scheme. They may run up on wiping registries, reinstall NT, restore user directories and even remake the whole server.
If you have thousands of users and a good lot of machines, that will be Hell.
I would surely recomend the use of ZenWorks on large NT networks (only kamikadzes would risk the same in a pure NT one). However be ready. If people start crying about the rise of crashes, registry damages and login timeouts over an relatively unchanged environment then it is time to do some serious clean up all over. Or to change the user's OS.
"What is Nintendo's Position on the N64 Emulator, the UltraHLE?
The UltraHLE is illegal. The N64 emulator infringes Nintendo's intellectual property rights, including copyrights, and circumvents Nintendo's anti-piracy security system. "
Well it is Nintendo position. It's their right to consider it illegal. The other side of the question is if any court of law in any country has ruled in favour of Nintendo.
I've have saw of some cases of "supposed" copyright infrigements here in Russia. But unfortunately most of them do not run away from a few harsh notes through E-mail. Besides it has to be noted that in some situations the "victim" seems to break the law in some serious points. Recently this could be seen on Macromedia vs Ivanopolo E-mail exchange. Sincerly Macromedia risked the fact that Ivanopolo could sue them for threat of extortion.
Let's face a fact. A product can be illegal if a court of law has ruled against it. The problem is that under such rulings the author of any emulator could face some consequences, so most of them drop their ventures before going to court. But, in fact, until then, there are no reasons to fetch emulators the label "illegal" before a ruling is made. See the similar Diamond's case with RIO player.
Until then, emulators are pure legal guess. So let's guess. Frankly I'm doing some points out of our reality here in Russia. So someway they may not fit other countries.
If I write a program on my own then the thing is my copyright. I can only violate Nintendo's rights if I _insert_ Nintendo's code (source, binary) inside of my program and distribute it together. Whereas Nintendo and my program live away from each other I am not violating Nintendo's rights. Apart from the fact that they fit each other.
Emulators are a huge thing in software. While no one "copies" property code to implement the emulation, these emulators have a right to live.
Meanwhile emulation is an universal conception. Why Nintendo claims to be an exception to the rules? If we think that emulators are illegal then Nintendo is itself in trouble. If it takes a careful look around they will find a whole world of emulators running even on the most simple PC. This might look a little bit philosophical but it is a fact. And even if Nintendo produced toasters they did not have the right to cry against emulation of toasted bread.
Besides there is a serious caveat in Nintendo's claims. They claim illegality of a program because it uses software _ALREADY_ pirated! Why the illegality of one presumes the illegality of the other? Is a lockpick illegal because there are a lot of lockpicked doors around? It's nonsense.
The best argument of Nintendo is the fact that one of these emulators "circumvents" their security. Sorry people. Beyond this you have to prove that exactly this circumvention allows to _distribute_ the product of your work and not the use. And that this distribution affects your profits. In Russia copyright laws only begin to act when the copy/distribution process directly affects the revenue of the copyrightowner. I can make a million copies of Windows CD and fill the walls of my house with them. Microsoft has no right to sniff through my door for this. If Bill tries to step the door of my house without courtruling he surely would get everything out of an AK/47. And I'm in my right to do it. Even if I would keep illegally the weapon. But that would be another case.
It will not. Both will be on front pages. Linux for the working horse and Windows2000 as the question of what will be the next bagaboom.
People has seen 2000 and Linux out-of-the-box running in the same machine. 00 is no match for Linux. Besides it is extraordinary to see that people reacts with the same feeling to 00 independently of each other. In a Celleron 450Mhz, 128Mb, 00 looks like 95 running in a i486 50Mhz 16Mb. No joke, no FUD. 3 different guys said that to one and the same person (the owner of the comp btw). On Linux the machine acted as one would "expect" of such hardware beauty.
In one european language Microsoft's logo sounds something like this:
:)
"Where do you wanna be sent tomorrow?"
There? Tomorrow?.. Naa... Maybe in a few years but not tomorrow. And not with their help
There is an opposite sort of fallacy that you forget to mention. FUD fallacy. It is very good to talk about ++-- on NT vs Linux. But the fact is that Linux, in general, is much more reliable, stable and faster than NT when you look at the real thing. I know what I say because I administer a whole network of Linux boxes. Two monthes ago this same network was a Hell of dumb NT workstations.
:) ). It was almost money thrown in the air but we had to have that box in the place where it is now. The user would hang on it for one/two hours and forget it for a few days. In any case the machine had to work when it was needed to. So we couldn't put anything that would endanger its reliability.
Besides Linux does not end here. It is more productive than NT. In general you can't get too much out of NT to do a wide range of tasks.
Ex. there is a box here that is used almost in a case to case basis (this box was so forgotten that it kept NT until yesterday
Generally NT is so "personal" that any task out of desktop/user ones is difficult to implement. Right now this box is on Linux. As before almost no one uses it or will use it frequently. Meanwhile it is doing its job on calculating a few things in background processes. And I don't worry on the fact that someone logs in and suddenly background and desktop tasks start to eat each other.
So I'm getting something out of the money spent on this machine. On NT times this would be nearly unthinkable.
Funny to see this question growing up to the level of Slashdot. We had exactly this situation two monthes ago. Yesterday we scrapped the last NT box. Now we are working in a Linux/Netware/Solaris/AIX environment.
;)
Imediate costs and benefits? Well implementing Linux is a tremendous headache. But results overcome expectations.
We are a group divided by three/four teams with 30 people around and serving a whole University network. We had a very interesting place around here called "Internet classes". Some sort of Internet Cafe without coffee. It consists of 70 workstations, several servers of different types and serving more than 2500 users of a wide range of professions and knowledge. The stuff here is quite serious. It is mainly IBM and Sun hardware and it costs a Hell of money.
We started the whole thing on a Solaris/Novell/AIX/NT environment. It didn't work. For 6 monthes we were turned to janitoring constantly a system on which NT was giving tremendous headaches. Things became a major crisis after a serious crash that stopped work for nearly a week.
Some of us lobbied to see NT replaced. After the NT Armageddon's day we got green light to deliver something on Linux in a month. It was Hell. We had problems and problems and problems. But we came with something two months ago.
Results? It is working. Last week we destroyed the NT image that we kept in any case. The last NT box had oxygen cut yesterday at 16:30. People are facing a system several orders more complex than before and are not deeply concerned about it. Some even love it.
The fearful "We want NT back!" didn't last more than a week. Crashes, hangups, coredumps happen but it is several orders of magnitude less than before (some of these new boxes worked nearly two monthes round'clock. A powercut spoiled things).
Do people fear such primitevenesses like the commandline? Yes. But soon they will start (re)using it because there are things that do their job much better than their desktop brothers.
Before we were forced to stick users to "one desktop, one environment". Right now we have a mega-crazyness here where each one chooses the working environment he likes most. And changes the environment as he likes. Before we had a cracking epidemics here. Now we have hackers digging up deeply on the system and helping things grow up. Before we forced everyone to accept the administrative fascism of having a restricted set of apps. Now security is based mostly in supervision. We allow people to do almost everything with their systems as users of a classic UNIX environment.
Right now we have not only a reliable network where people have finally the chance to work. Right now things are overcoming expectations. These two classes are no longer "cafe's". It is Linux Heavy Industries. It is a place where Internet lives not only of browsing. Some users turn their environments to full-fetched working horses. Others use it on developing apps for Internet. And all of us have seen a tremendous boost on development overall. We now are growing things and not janitoring like before. Meanwhile teams are getting free to care for areas that were not touched during the NT hiatus.
Besides we are now planning the future. We are trying to implement things such as clusters here. As an experiment we joined the RC5 contest. Amazingly we are getting a good place over there. There are plans to implement Coda or a huge webcacher based on Squid.
Want to turn to Linux from NT? Take attention to these permises:
You have to take some good time on tuning your hardware. Even in "smooth" installation may hide a lot of "features". And a good careful tuning may turn a rather "slow" machine into something amazing.
Check all those apps over there. Linux is still quite loosen on configurations. And that's a HUGE +. You have a very good chance to fit things much more to your requests.
Office apps are a big problem in Linux. But our world doesn't end here. Try to find a middleterm. When users will note everything else, they will stop whinning and start to hunt you for even more.
If your main language is not english you may find a problem. But most of it is pure cosmetcis. The final result is more rewarding than NT.
Linux is not beautiful. Because power means rawness. And its up to the user to paint it. When he gets there don't get scared. Everyone has a Picasso inside.
Linux crashes. Programs crash. However you have a wide field to maneuver. Even dealing with commercial "crazy" apps is much easier and there's a bigger chance to find solutions.
Take time. The most important is to make a good pre-installation. Get everything you have and try to make the "box of your and their dreams". Check and test it carefully. And then give your users a "gift".
They will cry over you. They will ask your head. They will pass near you and imagine that see you with a rope on your neck they'l be willing to push. But it will not last long. If things were made carefully and well-planned, then NT will be History in a few weeks.
Get a small development team around you. That's very important. Linux is growable and fetching things to specific needs gives a powerful boost on work. If there are no chances to get a developer then roam Internet as much as possible. Even a small sh script may improve things a lot.
Beware. In a few monthes you may note that you are no longer a network administrator...
ZDNet's benchmark is relatively correct over several points. I would say they "touch" the reality. I know that because I work with every OS shown in those benchmarks. Well that not completely true... I *worked* with Windows NT. But two months ago I scrapped the last box at my work. (Farewell Microsoft. You recently lost 2500 users. Soon you will loose 3-4000 more).
:)
The article presents some points one may usually find on working either with Linux, Solaris or Novell. However some points are really the result of not caring on doing some tuning. Besides the article is purely biased on the point of "choosing the ONE final high-end".
Somehow the article suggests a person to compare Linux & Solaris. Well sorry both systems have their ++ & --. However I agree that Linux is mostly fitted for an average computer rather than a super-high-end machine like UltraSPARC 4500. Here Solaris beats it.
But does that mean that Linux is not and high-end system? Well let's not forget the cluster systems. Even Linux has a place on top-500 of supercomputers. And it beats some serious machines around there.
Somehow someone may have forgotten here one of the contenders. Novell Netware is a very specific system oriented mostly for a very specific sort of tasks. But it does its job much better than Linux or Solaris. Both in safety and preformance. And don't dare to compare it with NT. One machine now running Novell for the 7th month couldn't even hold a simple transfer of 100Megs over the net. Not talking about preformance (hey Redmonds, I also like to burn some time with my family!)
Really the NT stuff there is pure hype. On my "practical benchmark" NT Servers lived no more than 1 month of real, serious work. After that very sad experience we returned to Novell. On what concerns workstations we recently destroyed every MazDiee soft over 70 machines serving more than 2000 users. And on what concerns "high-end" we don't even dream about Redmond. Everything runs either on Solaris, AIX or Linux.
Some people say that my relation with NT is due to the fact that I didn't taste the "real thing", that I should have been more systematic on "tuning" it. I know only one _real_thing. Two months ago I had several machines running with a miserable preformance and suffering several crashes every day. Now I don't hear complains about slow preformance and the majority of workstations carry uptimes of almost two monthes.
Two monthes ago my wife almost forgot that someone else lived in the same apartment. Now I have some time to share with my family.
Oh besides. Now we have the chance to make an high-end machine out of this workstation stuff
:)
About meeting them. Maybe they are we? In fact we may come all from Mars... Remember that phrase?
And you're quite right not to be convinced. There are a few serious problems to consider them from Mars. Some years ago (before this bulaboo about ALHA 84001) I read on a very serious book that all suppositions that this rock came from Mars is because most scientists believed that such rocks could not come from anywhere else. The rock presents properties that shows that it was formed in a Earth like planet abundant in water.
However the fact that there we know only two such planets does not force to consider only Mars. In fact the writer warns that this and similar rocks do not fully fit Martian Geochemistry (and much less Earth)
Here it goes. It's Mars round two.
Surveyor started the remap, Scientists revive the old-good theory. And we soon are going to start digging on photos and gathering all wiednesses and wild theories.
But I wonder. Will Surveryor end its mission in a much like Pathfinder one? A few frames for the public and a nearly silent death?
Will these British guys get on the same luck as their American colleagues? Downplays, rumours, discreditation and once more silence?
Will such guys, from serious scientists like Molenaar or Van Flandern, through McDaniel down to Vanisko, Olaf or me, jump into the bandwagon of possible life, seas, civilization, catasthrophes, scientific alternatives? And then get fire from all sides who consider such crazy ideas should be silenced?
And then will they let Hoagland create havoc once again?
I make some work on Mars weirdnesses and I can tell you that "Truth is out there"
However the real world may be much more monotonous than any X-Files episode. But not less interesting. There are many people who work on searching aliens, Life out of this planet, wierd theories that do not fit over a "standarized" (aka "official") conception.
The works of these people are sometimes very serious. They try to deal with things that many academical circles consider "scientific heresies"
I would recommend you two sites to visit:
www.metaresearch.org
www.mcdanielreport.com
However what about Hoagland and conspiracies? Hoagland can be considered a whacko. Maybe it would be better to consider him as a smart "hoaxer". In fact he brings out several facts that in reality are quite important. However he always deturps things into crazy interpretations and false conclusions. I cannot trust a word of what he writes. However I know that a lot of things that he brings into his crazy stories is based in these "hidden truths". In one word he desinforms.
Yes there are truths that some people try to shut down. But also it is usual that the origin of these things do not come from governments or state institutions. It comes from people who try to hold up theories and ideas that are bound to fall. Theories that many people spent their lives, efforts, dreams, nightmares and illusions. Theories that some people consider they should exist to "preserve society, religion and Science".
Any ideas that go against these theories are frequently attacked and sometimes in a very dirty way. I have been testimony of such situations. And I have been victim of one such situation.
www.ksu.ru/~prosa/cydonia/index.html
But also about privacy & piracy and most worse about confidentiality. Sometime ago I was told of a very scaring episode that happened to one friend of mine. He grabbed a very hot document to be sent to another company. He took Excel and ripped off every highly confidential information which should not, by any way, be seen by their partners-to-be.
Somehow he decided to look at the size of the document. And the thing look bigger than it should have been. Looked through a simple file manager (not from crappy M$ stuff) and OH WONDER! Everything was still there... Together with his name and a lot of more stuff that pointed to him, his office, E-mail and company.
This is a well known feature on M$ Oriffice documents. They have produced several patches and SPs that seem to "solve" it. But I have heard of situations when even SPed systems seem to "revive" these features.
Now add the above story to it, add some imagination, and think:
Their partners-to-be are a little smart. They get the doc. And they see what they should not know. So they grab the info, _the_ ID and try to dump into this poor guy's comp. Considering that all is run under M$ crap they may have a chance. A trojan through Outlook for example.
I wonder if in court this doc could have such explosive consequences as to set the whole guilty part over my friend. Maybe he was "offering" his services. Maybe he wanted to put down his company. Considering that some courts hardly understand what's going on here, my friend could have fallen in very big trouble. Just by sending such doc would have given him enough trouble to his sleep. Fortunately a little wondering about sizes, managed him to avoid the possibility of a huge mistake from his part.
I wonder the worse. In a future not far away:
"Welcome to Windows2xxx. Where do you wanna go today?" Uh, well Persian Gulf. Coordinates XXE XXN. "Ok grab a cup of coffee and wait a moment while we are proceeding your request..."
Meanwhile, somewhere in lost corner of the world, some crazy mojaheddin runs into his colleagues hut and says "Ok Abdullah I just got that damn M$ crap out!!! Let's take that scapegoat of Satan. There's a russian destroyer, also with Win2xxx server ruling it, around in the Red Sea. According to MSWeatherSat, conditions are foggy. Do that and that and let's send USS Yorktown into the deeps of Hell!"
Like Bond's stories. It may look childish and quite fantastic, but I'm really afraid if something near this may happen somewhere in the future.
PS: Microsoft's Official reaction:
It was not a bug. It was a feature. However who cares after IIIWW?
Ok, you, me, my brother's comp and my neighbor's one...
Besides they are trying to control the Government also.
Yesterday I read an article on NT crap security and how the governement institutions are violating rules by installing NT 4 in their comps. The problem was that on one side they wanted to use Office97 and IE on their work. NT 3.5 is the only certified system to go under federal security rules and we all know under what conditions can be set. However in places where Orange Book is law they are using 4.0 _networked_.
The article had also a reference on the tribulations of a security expert trying to warn about the danger these institutions were falling in. However he was unsucessful.
The article echoed a suggestion that the US government "was taken hostage by Microsoft".
Well is this ID stuff a sign of it? Do governmental systems send Microsoft _their_ information? Are people at critical sectors aware of this?
We may not stop here. Let's think about any other government of any country (ally, foe, whatever). Let's think about such guys like CityCorp or CMB. Let's think about the UN and its branches. About NATO, Pentagon or even the Russian Army. Let's think even about the American Navy and _that_ ship with NT ruling on it... Or let's think about some critical industrial complex like a Oil rig.
Are these IDs being sent to Redmond? Is there any information where Redmond people may read "General X., commander SuperTaskForce "Kamikadze", Room 0, The Hexagon, MAC XXXXXXXXXX". Can anyone else read this?
If you don't wanna think so high then let's think about your insurance company.
It looks like a nightmare coming right from a SF cheap story. It looks like the "Shadow World Government".
I confess I ran through the article in a fast way. I hoped to read it more calmly at home but it seems that "Slashdot Effect" killed NTMag.
:)
However the very first reaction I had, was that this guy was trying to demonstrate that NT is a UNIX like anyone else. Funny but that was my very first reaction on looking through the whole article at fast speed. It seems that M$% is changing the politics of a "better OS than UNIX" to a "better UNIX than UNIX"
More. In a very, very broken comp I installed NT. The thing crashed every hour. Sometimes it was crash time. In the same box Linux managed to freeze twice in a month! And I may tell you that I didn't use it just for typing ls -l. The little thing was app fried several times. It even ran with Quake2 (SVGALib) + X + Netscape (downloading compressed files) + gcc (compiling kernel). It cried like Hell. But it kept working.
Besides on a IBM's NetFinity with NT Server I wonder until now why nwadmin32 + netscape ONLY, managed to eat up all memory (reinstalling everything didn't help).
Yep! I managed to catch the article on slashdot right hot. The thing was still working there. After almost one hour I lost contact with NTMag.
SLASHDOT EFFECT starts to possess nuclear properties...
Well it seems stupidity on Internet is reaching its top. Some years ago we had a well known company trying to trademark the name Windows. Also we had another one trying to do the same thing on x86 numbers.
We have passed this one only to wait for a bunch of green horns, who passed more than 2/3 of their lies away from anything related to computers.
It is pretty clear that they will get burned on it. Just imagine someone trademarking the word "God" (property of Heaven Industries).
Unfortunately this thing is happening because some people have turned a federal organ in the US into a small street bazaar. As far as I see nowadays any stupid idea, plagiate, dream/nightmare, schizo seems to be possible to register or trademark while you pay for it. Some of the last issued "certificates" of respectability are already creating some serious damage and may undermine what a patent/trademark is made for. At least personally I can't hang on a patent issued by a organ who "certificates" new perpetuom mobiles and clear plagiates that even violate international copyright laws.
Well on the patent issue I mentioned in a previous post that while being vague, this patent _describes_ an invention. I perfectly know how patents can be vague. The "gaming patent" was one of them.
But looking carefully at the schemes and claims it is perfectly clear that sightsound is steaming up and nothing more. Probably all this would become clear only in court, when they will be forced to set up all the details of the "invention" (is there a practical realization of it anywhere?) Some claims do sound very near to things related to modern sound systems. However note that this invention is primarly an _hardware implementation_ of a translation system through telecom lines.
Truly I understand the sightsound's letter more as they are participants of the SDMI. You give another interpretation to it. Maybe you're right. But frankly the english in that phrase is a bit obscure and may have some interpretations.
In your interpretation we are dealing with guys suffering of Napoleon complex. I imagine sightsound deciding wether Sony has the right to publish or not music over the Internet...
However I keep my first suspicions alive. I wonder if suddenly mp3.com goes to court with these guys and we find a good veteran lawyer standing on sightsound's side and defending the poor small earnings of this company against the dark underground conspiracies of MP3 community...
The future will say.
PS: In Russia algorithms cannot be patented. Copyrighted yes, but never patented.
Well there is a lot of noise about this thing. READ the patents. It is pretty clear that they do not refer to MP3 or even to mp3.com activities. Nor even to Internet.
Meanwhile there is a small problem that we might be ignoring. What's this fuss all about? About mp3.com? Or about MP3 format itself.
Well I made a small analysis of sightsound's letter and came to three interesting points:
1. These guys do not seem to understand the activities of mp3.com. The terms and conditions of license look like if they even didn't care to take a look at mp3.com's site. Is this letter some sort of template where one of the addresses was mp3.com?
2. The letter is made in a typical provocative formula: "I offer you gold or fire... Choose!". First they propose something in a very abstract manner. Then they end the letter with a clear threat. This is not the usual type of letter one would write to a business. Usually a letter of this kind would put almost anyone in the defensive or counter-attack. So is this some sort of provocation?
3. There is a weird game of words in it. Please look very carefully at the following:
"I'm sure you are aware of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) which is intended to foster, among other things, the selection of an open architecture, secure format for the download sale of music by the end of this year."
So these guys show a clear intention of marriage the anti-MP3 movement that has been roaming for a while. But:
"While SIGHTSOUND.COM is participating in SDMI and determining whether _the_ format will be appropriate for inclusion in a Long Term Patent Licensing Program,(...)"
Now what's that talk about "the format"???? The first statement is rather undetermined on what relates to "format". However in the second statement we see that "an (...) format" becomes "the format". Besides while the first statement talks about a future situation, the second one is about _THE PRESENT_.
Now, are these guys talking about mp3.com? Or about MP3 format? If so who are they to decide about it? The damn context of the statements makes me wonder if the author (authors?) of this letter where making a general intimindating template to throw over the free music community, while they had in mind another target!
Besides it is quite interesting to see the time line of sightsound's letter to almost coincide with the "watermarked MP3 initiative" where some bonzos showed a more softened attitude towards "wild" MP3.
Let's think a little bit on this. Maybe these guys ain't crooks (they would get into trouble). Nor tortugas trying to fly as high as the falcons of music industry (fried in courts and public suicide). Maybe behind the look of sightsound there is someone else who calmly tries to probe the "market" behind such curtain.
If the last case is true we have trouble here. Someone is trying to define what file formats should or shouldn't be. If you didn't get this one try to imagine M$ forcing all computer industry to use the Word format and outlawing HTML. What a beautiful world it would be.
I tried to take a deeper look at some links on sightsound.com. Well their design... For a company throwing such claims for MP3 the "high bandwith demands" of the site are just hillarious. :)
But the most funny is that they don't use their own proprietary system over there. They use Shockwave...
A curious question. Has Macromedia been forced to pay them royalties for the patents?
Well I roam a little bit the claims and can say the following:
These two patents are much more serious than the ill-famous "gaming patent" we saw a little while ago. They are much more concrete and straight on describing the technological process of audio transfer. They could have some "abstract" moments. But in general they are what a patent should be. They describe an invention almost from the top to the bottom of it.
HOWEVER...
Does this invention applies to MP3 technology and Internet? It does not seem so. While not well described, some points of the claims show moments for which the invention takes the responsability for the information transfer through telecom lines. Besides there is a description of the connection process and what is most important a description of the encoding/decoding process. It even shows hardware implementation for it.
So if MP3 does not touch even by a hair the described processes of transfer, more, if MP3 does not "copy" the encoding decoding process, then these guys are just throwing rocks over the Ocean. They have no right to run over mp3.com and cry for whatever royalties they think they deserve.
Oh, has anyone took the care to take a look at the Web site of this company (www.sightsound.com)? Well they have a pretty interesting picture down there. Is that the way they see themselves making this whole bulaboo over the Internet?
Maybe I'm missing something but I made two passes over the patent text and couldn't get something straight. What do they mean by "zones of interest"?
While I keep on broad english I may try to get the idea of what this could mean. However we are talking about computers and things related to them. They do not define any boundaries on what is a zone. Nor they specify what could mean interest.
Some of you may hate me for what follows but think a little bit on maths and try to link the plain english of the patent. They speak about zones. Well that may mean in the computer world a numeric boundary (ex. [-1,1]). Meanwhile while we humans may understand infinite boundaries, comps can only digere _discrete_ ones (due to their 0,1 logic). So on whatever boundary you talk about, you must be very careful to _translate_ it into the computer world. There are several methods and technologies to do it. Depending on what you're trying to translate. So here we go to the term of "interest".
So what's that "interest" all about? Psychological interest? Well please tell me how you do that. Fuzzy logic? Neuron systems? Anything else? Anyway what is "interest" by itself?
There is also another problem with this "interest" game and its limits. They talk about a server defining a zone of interest. Well what do you mean by server? A computer? A program? A beowulf cluster? Without defining the boundaries and term "interest" I can't get up to what boundaries you're talking about. Well maybe you can hold 100 guys. Maybe 1000. Maybe even the whole population of Earth and somebody else. Without boundary definitions this patent is void in its sense. It's pure verbality.
Well guys. Let's define a new name for Internet: Zone of interest.