The just appointed Elop as the new CEO last year. As he came from MS, I think this is a deal that's been in de making for a while, and has been engineered by the board of directors.
That might be true from a developer perspective, but as a user the WinCE/PocketPC/WindowsMobile offerings were very poor. I had several from 1999-2006. They never ever got a properly working interface for left-handed users like me. When using a stylus that is very annoying. And it took them forever to get ActiveSync to anywere near reliable. Or backing up your data, appointments and contacts, unless you of course had Outlook&Exchange as well, which we didn't where I worked.
I used Visual Studio 6 with the WinCE extensions (eMbedded?) to write applications for it. It was a pain compared to the Borland stuff we used in the rest of the company. Only when VS.Net came around and started to support it did things start to improve. I left around that time and got a Symbian 60 phone.
Maybe things have improved since then. But what I've seen is that MS only tries to make a good product if they have a real competitor. Maybe Apple woke them up like Netscape, Borland, Mozilla and others have done in the past. MS doesn't really innovate and improve things if left to their own devices.
Even 10 years ago there was very capable hardware out there. My Casio Cassiopeia had a 206 MHz ARM cpu, 32MB RAM up to 4 GB of CF, 240x320 pixels 64k colour display. In 2000.
Those are almost the same specs as the first iPhone had over 7 years later. But it didn't have a good user experience. The 16MHz Palm Tungsten V was much better. The hardware was there, but MS lacked the vision.
The thing is that there are two problems for Nokia with that: 1) The low end is slowly being eroded by cheaper offerings from China and India. Their top end is being squeezed out by iOS and Android. In the long run there will be no space between those for Nokia to exist. 2) Margins. The cheaper less capable phones have very thin margins. Not enough to support any sizeable R&D effort. So that's another reason it's a dead end for Nokia.
Nokia needs to be in the high end phone market and doing well there to survive in the long run as a mobile device maker.
It looks like some Artificial Intelligence from a SF movie.
Re:In that case, MS has failed beyond belief
on
Why Nokia Is Toast
·
· Score: 1
I think you mean Xerox PARC not NeXT. And Apple bought the ideas from Xerox for 100,000 Apple stocks, they didn't steal it.
And yes, Microsoft's path is littered with those burned by cooperating with it. So much so that I think MS is finding a lot of players do not want to work with them any more (except if your CEO is a former MS apparently). Just to name a few: IBM, Apple, Stac Electronics, Netscape, Digital Research, WordPerfect, Sun, Real Networks, Borland, 3Com, Spyglass, all the PlayForSure partners (Yahoo, AOL, Creative Labs, Denon, iriver, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, etc.), Sharp, Caldera, etc.
Microsoft has 2 things that make a real profit: Windows and Office. Google has 1 thing that really makes a profit: Search, (maybe YouTube?)
(I mean contributing more than a Billion to their profits, not counting something that might make them a dime somewhere)
Google is sitting on a chair with one leg and is in a war of attrition with Microsoft already. If they next big thing comes along they can be toast pretty fast, why do you think they're doing this Android stuff? They would love to diversify to increase their odds of long term survival.
It's not just branding, Apple in general makes stuff of very high quality and with a lot of effort in usability design. I've used many computers, laptops, mp3 players and mobile phones over the years. I bought and iPod in 2005, a Macbook Pro in 2007 and an iPhone in 2009. Before that my exposure to Apple had been limited to a couple of times at an aunt who owned one for DTP work. I have used nearly all flavours of Windows and Linux, over 50 different mobile phones (job related), over a dozen PDAs (Palm, WinCE PocketPC, WinMob). Only some stuff from IBM (now Lenovo) comes close in build quality.
I'm not saying it never breaks or doesn't have design flaws sometimes, but in general it's a joy to use Apple products. The interfaces are very intuitive, consistent and a real effort has been made to minimize the effort you have to do to get to your goal. Sometimes at the expense of choice and features. The best example is still that when the iMac came out, it had just USB and Firewire, no Serial or Parallel ports, PS/2 or floppy drive. At the time they were laughed at, peripherals would never use USB and the floppy was essential. I think time proved that they were right.
Since I started buying Apple, my "gadget hunger" has greatly diminished. The only thing I am considering is an iPad and I since bought a NAS for backup purposes. None of the other things I used to look at hold any interest to me any more, it just doesn't compete. The Apple stuff might be a bit on the expensive side, but because it has high end specs when new, they last very long, especially because Apple keeps providing software updates. My 4 year old Macbook is still fine, it's only got updated to OSX 10.6 from 10.4 for 29 euros. All the updates to my iPhone 3GS have been free. Between those two devices there isn't a single thing that I can't do, but want to do.
I know that I'm sounding a bit like a fanboy, and maybe I am, but that's especially because I have used so many other devices from other manufacturers and none have given me as few reasons to want to throw it out the window as the Apple products I have.
I'd like to know more about that Ground Based Beam Forming tech, sounds nifty, must be a pretty advanced antenna pattern.
The whole plan would cost many millions of course. The 150k mentioned is only supposed to be a start so they can get real investors interested.Heck, building the ground station alone might be 10 million (I'm thinking a 20m dish with control mechanisms and such). The satellite itself is probably at least 150 million or so, if it comes up for sale at all, the owner is only in chapter 11. Then suppose you park it over Africa, you probably need a big pipe to your ground station. maybe you can get away with having your ground station in Spain or something like that.
And then to run it you need skilled staff (satellites are funny things to track and correct orbits), bandwidth, electricity, etc. Maybe running costs of 0.5-1 million a year?
I only switched to Mac 3 years ago. I used Linux before that, and Windows before that.
To simply get work done and have stuff "just work", Apple still offers one of the best, if not the best product out there.
I find it's not the really tech savvy people who go back to Windows, but those that though they knew a thing or two, but basically new only a few more tricks than the basic non-tech population. The techies in my environment really relish the Unix core, once they adapt, and all the power and transparency that comes with it.
Only thing I couldn't get working with my laptop was my 9 years old scanner. Everything else has been fine.
Apple originally set out to build appliances, and now does so very successfully with their iPod, iPhone and iPad. (not so much AppleTV). As this is the core of what they do it will be hard for others to really beat them at their own game.
When you really look at what Apple offers, you will find that they are not charging premium prices. When you select a system with the same specs at Dell, you'll get the same price. It's just that Apple doesn't sell the crappy versions that everyone else offers.
Nobody sets the bar as high as Apple sets it for itself. They choose not to sell to the markets that can only afford the el cheapo knockoff.
Steve Jobs is at the core of this philosophy, he's been doing business like that since the company started in the 70s. You could say he has expensive tastes, if he was building cars it would be Rolls-Roys or maybe Mercedes, BMW or Audi. He isn't interested in building the Skoda or Daihatsu of the computer world.
The way they were beaten in the 80s was by flooding the markets with cheap, but inferior clones. Google has read a couple of chapters from MS' playbook and is now trying it with Android. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the long term in the laptop, mp3 player and smartphone/tablet market. Currently Apple leads and eveyone is playing catch up. But especially MS known to come to the game late and still win in the end. Google is another big unknown and existing players like Nokia and Sony aren't done yet either.
4) Try finding a laptop with the same specs as a Macbook for less. you might, but not by a large margin and it will depend on if you value weight and size and build quality into it.
I know that when I did the comparison for my Macbook Pro 3 years ago, a Dell with the same specs was 20 euros more expensive. Sure you could buy a Dell for half the price, but you would get half the laptop.
The reason that Apple is fairing better in the phone, mp3 player and tablet market, is because those are closer to the appliance philosophy that Apple has always had then what we call the traditional PC market.
I might sound as a bit of a fanboy and maybe I have become one, but I only own a Mac since three years, although I occasionally used them for nearly 15. Apple never was a technical innovator, but in design and concept they have been way ahead of everyone else, at least in those years that Steve Jobs has been in control. This made them great in creating something new from existing technology. From the first Apple Computer, the Mac, MacOs, the Powerbook, iMac, iPod, OSX, iTunes, iPhone AppStore and iPad. Sure there have also been failures, Newton, Xserver, AppleTV?
As an engineer I know that the hardest thing is to get your user interface right. Apple is a master at that. Steve Jobs isn't a technical guy, he's a designer and a marketeer. But most of all a user.
Except for those years where an aggressive MS combined with the board kicking Steve out because he was to young to be considered CEO of the company he founded, Apple has only gone up and up under his leadership. I'm amazed to see giants as Nokia, Sony, MS, Google struggle to come up with an answer to products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. I think it's because they have become so used to selling to OEMs and Corporations, that they struggle change focus. I think that Google is the only one that can also play that game.
I've always told my grandparents not to bother with computers. (they're almost 90). The iPad is the first computer device that I think they'd actually might be able to use. Set up a WiFi access point and configure things, and they might even be able to use some internet.
I think that even to consider that means that everybody younger than about 75 can probably use one very comfortably. That's a huge potential market, even if a lot of them own a PC today. My guess is that within 5 years tablets are the primary form factor at home, replacing netbooks, laptops and desktops. Only business and high end gaming will not move to these.
I think that Google and Apple are seeing this and trying to create enough momentum that MS can't catch up. It might break their OS monopoly, like the IE dominance has been dwindling over the past couple of years as well. I think MS is terrified of that scenario, but apparently they haven't found an answer yet and are lagging seriously behind.
I got a Mac as well. People always complain how expensive they are, but if you select the same hardware and software options at Dell, Lenovo or HP, you get to within 50 euros usually. It's just that Apple doesn't sell the crappy stuff. And even then a high end Dell Lattitude, isn't going to be as light and thin as an equivalent Macbook Pro. The only brand I've ever used that came close to the Apple build quality was an IBM laptop, I assume that even though it's Lenovo nowadays, that might still hold true.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd buy a Macbook again in a heartbeat, and if it has to be a Windows laptop, then a Lenovo. If you can't afford that, then any cheapo laptop from the local supermarket is just as good as what else is available. And the cheapo laptop saves you a lot of money, so when it breaks, you throw it away and get another one.
You just made me remember reformatting my 10MB MFM harddisk when I got a faster CPU to change the sector interleave. Oh the memories, running code by invoking the right address on the HD-controller ROM.
Most stuff I'm interested in doesn't even get picked up by any of the local radio/TV. I live in the Netherlands but happen to have very international tastes.
There are two separate issues: - Regional availability - Format
Neither should be a problem in the Internet Age, but they are.
I simply can't pay for the content I want, because nobody wants to sell it so me because of the country I live in. See my longer reply to the grandparent. Services like iTunes and Amazon carry the stuff I'm interested in, but will not sell to IP addresses or credit-card holders in my geographical location.
And it's not some weird backwater that I live in. It's basically Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
But as soon as you live outside the main target market, you can often only obtain certain content illegally. How much content in French, Japanese, Swahili or Hindi do you have access to?
Seriously, if you want the content then pay for it. if you can't afford it then don't watch/listen. I can almost guarantee that losing the latest stuff that the porn industry has turned out will in no way impair your enjoyment of life. If it isn't available in your country then it isn't. The same caveat applies...not having it probably won't hurt you much.
I would like to pay for it. But nobody is selling it.
I'm not talking about porn. But products like movies and TV series and books.
A lot of what is produced in a certain country will never be available outside it. This certainly holds true for stuff made in Japan, India or France, but even a lot of stuff that gets made in the USA never gets outside Region 1. If you happen to be an expat, or just interested in a culture that's not your own, you often have very little legal options.
The second problem is format. This is two-fold. On the one side older material is often not available in newer format, and on the other side a lot of the newer formats are not yet available where I live. The only way to often watch/listen/read stuff like this, is to first shift it's format to a newer one. Sometimes it's just inconvenience, like when you have a choice between watching something on VHS on your VCR and TV at home, or in some digital form on your iPad on a train.
I would say that over 80% of the material I would want to watch/listen/read is currently not legally obtainable for me, not even for a million euros, if I had them. Once you get outside the main area of distribution of the stuff you're interested in, this becomes a very real problem.
Your argument no longer is sufficient, unless I would limit myself to browsing slashdot and walks in the park. Most of what the local media offer just doesn't have my interest, or is not in a format that I can use.
I have even written to various content providers, and potential distributors, to plead with them to make certain things available. But until now this has had no effect. Even a service like iTunes or Amazon doesn't carry the stuff I'm interested in. Well they do, but not if you have an IP address from the wrong geographical location. They simply refuse to sell to me because of the country I live in.
Wrong. The US has both due process and a right to appeal. Comparing the situation in the US to that in Egypt is overgeneralizing in a way which is both incorrect and insultingly trivializing the troubles in those parts of the world that do not have US rights.
The scenario seems to be: 1) What if there is prior art, but it was not found discovered during the patent application review so the patent was granted. 2) Now the patent owner goes after the creator of the prior art and sues for violating the patent. 3) The creator does not have the money to defend him/herself in court.... Profit for the patent holder?
What is there to stop this scenario, and does the proposed change in the litigation make it harder or easier?
The USA has by far the highest percentage of it's population in prison, the longest and toughest penalties (Including the death penalty!) of anywhere in the civilized world.
It also has some of the highest crime and murder rates in the world.
I've had MotionX GPS on my iPhone as well, but I prefer the TomTom application. I use some of the MotionX stuff to navigate and map my trips when walking though, TomTom doesn't do that.
I've been using TomTom on the iPhone in a lot of different countries (USA, Europe, New Zealand). It's been great. Constant updates, completely offline mode, etc.
I've got an iPhone dock in my own car, and use one of these holders that attach to the windscreen when abroad in a rental car.
The iPhone 1&2 don't have a GPS unit, but can be used with the TomTom windscreen kit, as it has it's own GPS receiver.
I have navigated in places were there certainly wasn't a cell tower anywhere near, and these work fine without one. The only thing is that if now powered the iPhone will run out of battery life in a 3-4 hours when using the GPS. My own iPhone dock and the TomTom windscren attached unit, have power supplied either though my radio, or though the cigarette lighter connection.
Slashdot Mirror
any mobile platform... PERIOD.
Any platform you mean? Why restrict it to mobile ones?
The just appointed Elop as the new CEO last year. As he came from MS, I think this is a deal that's been in de making for a while, and has been engineered by the board of directors.
That might be true from a developer perspective, but as a user the WinCE/PocketPC/WindowsMobile offerings were very poor. I had several from 1999-2006. They never ever got a properly working interface for left-handed users like me. When using a stylus that is very annoying. And it took them forever to get ActiveSync to anywere near reliable. Or backing up your data, appointments and contacts, unless you of course had Outlook&Exchange as well, which we didn't where I worked.
I used Visual Studio 6 with the WinCE extensions (eMbedded?) to write applications for it. It was a pain compared to the Borland stuff we used in the rest of the company. Only when VS.Net came around and started to support it did things start to improve. I left around that time and got a Symbian 60 phone.
Maybe things have improved since then. But what I've seen is that MS only tries to make a good product if they have a real competitor. Maybe Apple woke them up like Netscape, Borland, Mozilla and others have done in the past. MS doesn't really innovate and improve things if left to their own devices.
Even 10 years ago there was very capable hardware out there. My Casio Cassiopeia had a 206 MHz ARM cpu, 32MB RAM up to 4 GB of CF, 240x320 pixels 64k colour display. In 2000.
Those are almost the same specs as the first iPhone had over 7 years later. But it didn't have a good user experience. The 16MHz Palm Tungsten V was much better. The hardware was there, but MS lacked the vision.
The thing is that there are two problems for Nokia with that:
1) The low end is slowly being eroded by cheaper offerings from China and India. Their top end is being squeezed out by iOS and Android. In the long run there will be no space between those for Nokia to exist.
2) Margins. The cheaper less capable phones have very thin margins. Not enough to support any sizeable R&D effort. So that's another reason it's a dead end for Nokia.
Nokia needs to be in the high end phone market and doing well there to survive in the long run as a mobile device maker.
It looks like some Artificial Intelligence from a SF movie.
I think you mean Xerox PARC not NeXT. And Apple bought the ideas from Xerox for 100,000 Apple stocks, they didn't steal it.
And yes, Microsoft's path is littered with those burned by cooperating with it. So much so that I think MS is finding a lot of players do not want to work with them any more (except if your CEO is a former MS apparently).
Just to name a few: IBM, Apple, Stac Electronics, Netscape, Digital Research, WordPerfect, Sun, Real Networks, Borland, 3Com, Spyglass, all the PlayForSure partners (Yahoo, AOL, Creative Labs, Denon, iriver, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, etc.), Sharp, Caldera, etc.
I'm not sure Nokia has better options though.
Microsoft has 2 things that make a real profit: Windows and Office.
Google has 1 thing that really makes a profit: Search, (maybe YouTube?)
(I mean contributing more than a Billion to their profits, not counting something that might make them a dime somewhere)
Google is sitting on a chair with one leg and is in a war of attrition with Microsoft already. If they next big thing comes along they can be toast pretty fast, why do you think they're doing this Android stuff? They would love to diversify to increase their odds of long term survival.
It's not just branding, Apple in general makes stuff of very high quality and with a lot of effort in usability design. I've used many computers, laptops, mp3 players and mobile phones over the years. I bought and iPod in 2005, a Macbook Pro in 2007 and an iPhone in 2009. Before that my exposure to Apple had been limited to a couple of times at an aunt who owned one for DTP work. I have used nearly all flavours of Windows and Linux, over 50 different mobile phones (job related), over a dozen PDAs (Palm, WinCE PocketPC, WinMob). Only some stuff from IBM (now Lenovo) comes close in build quality.
I'm not saying it never breaks or doesn't have design flaws sometimes, but in general it's a joy to use Apple products. The interfaces are very intuitive, consistent and a real effort has been made to minimize the effort you have to do to get to your goal. Sometimes at the expense of choice and features. The best example is still that when the iMac came out, it had just USB and Firewire, no Serial or Parallel ports, PS/2 or floppy drive. At the time they were laughed at, peripherals would never use USB and the floppy was essential. I think time proved that they were right.
Since I started buying Apple, my "gadget hunger" has greatly diminished. The only thing I am considering is an iPad and I since bought a NAS for backup purposes. None of the other things I used to look at hold any interest to me any more, it just doesn't compete. The Apple stuff might be a bit on the expensive side, but because it has high end specs when new, they last very long, especially because Apple keeps providing software updates. My 4 year old Macbook is still fine, it's only got updated to OSX 10.6 from 10.4 for 29 euros. All the updates to my iPhone 3GS have been free. Between those two devices there isn't a single thing that I can't do, but want to do.
I know that I'm sounding a bit like a fanboy, and maybe I am, but that's especially because I have used so many other devices from other manufacturers and none have given me as few reasons to want to throw it out the window as the Apple products I have.
I'd like to know more about that Ground Based Beam Forming tech, sounds nifty, must be a pretty advanced antenna pattern.
The whole plan would cost many millions of course. The 150k mentioned is only supposed to be a start so they can get real investors interested.Heck, building the ground station alone might be 10 million (I'm thinking a 20m dish with control mechanisms and such). The satellite itself is probably at least 150 million or so, if it comes up for sale at all, the owner is only in chapter 11. Then suppose you park it over Africa, you probably need a big pipe to your ground station. maybe you can get away with having your ground station in Spain or something like that.
And then to run it you need skilled staff (satellites are funny things to track and correct orbits), bandwidth, electricity, etc.
Maybe running costs of 0.5-1 million a year?
I only switched to Mac 3 years ago. I used Linux before that, and Windows before that.
To simply get work done and have stuff "just work", Apple still offers one of the best, if not the best product out there.
I find it's not the really tech savvy people who go back to Windows, but those that though they knew a thing or two, but basically new only a few more tricks than the basic non-tech population. The techies in my environment really relish the Unix core, once they adapt, and all the power and transparency that comes with it.
Only thing I couldn't get working with my laptop was my 9 years old scanner. Everything else has been fine.
Apple originally set out to build appliances, and now does so very successfully with their iPod, iPhone and iPad. (not so much AppleTV). As this is the core of what they do it will be hard for others to really beat them at their own game.
When you really look at what Apple offers, you will find that they are not charging premium prices. When you select a system with the same specs at Dell, you'll get the same price. It's just that Apple doesn't sell the crappy versions that everyone else offers.
Nobody sets the bar as high as Apple sets it for itself. They choose not to sell to the markets that can only afford the el cheapo knockoff.
Steve Jobs is at the core of this philosophy, he's been doing business like that since the company started in the 70s. You could say he has expensive tastes, if he was building cars it would be Rolls-Roys or maybe Mercedes, BMW or Audi. He isn't interested in building the Skoda or Daihatsu of the computer world.
The way they were beaten in the 80s was by flooding the markets with cheap, but inferior clones. Google has read a couple of chapters from MS' playbook and is now trying it with Android. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the long term in the laptop, mp3 player and smartphone/tablet market. Currently Apple leads and eveyone is playing catch up. But especially MS known to come to the game late and still win in the end. Google is another big unknown and existing players like Nokia and Sony aren't done yet either.
4) Try finding a laptop with the same specs as a Macbook for less. you might, but not by a large margin and it will depend on if you value weight and size and build quality into it.
I know that when I did the comparison for my Macbook Pro 3 years ago, a Dell with the same specs was 20 euros more expensive. Sure you could buy a Dell for half the price, but you would get half the laptop.
Apple stuff is expensive, but not overpriced.
Apple is doing what it has always been doing.
The reason that Apple is fairing better in the phone, mp3 player and tablet market, is because those are closer to the appliance philosophy that Apple has always had then what we call the traditional PC market.
I might sound as a bit of a fanboy and maybe I have become one, but I only own a Mac since three years, although I occasionally used them for nearly 15. Apple never was a technical innovator, but in design and concept they have been way ahead of everyone else, at least in those years that Steve Jobs has been in control. This made them great in creating something new from existing technology. From the first Apple Computer, the Mac, MacOs, the Powerbook, iMac, iPod, OSX, iTunes, iPhone AppStore and iPad. Sure there have also been failures, Newton, Xserver, AppleTV?
As an engineer I know that the hardest thing is to get your user interface right. Apple is a master at that. Steve Jobs isn't a technical guy, he's a designer and a marketeer. But most of all a user.
Except for those years where an aggressive MS combined with the board kicking Steve out because he was to young to be considered CEO of the company he founded, Apple has only gone up and up under his leadership. I'm amazed to see giants as Nokia, Sony, MS, Google struggle to come up with an answer to products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. I think it's because they have become so used to selling to OEMs and Corporations, that they struggle change focus. I think that Google is the only one that can also play that game.
I've always told my grandparents not to bother with computers. (they're almost 90). The iPad is the first computer device that I think they'd actually might be able to use. Set up a WiFi access point and configure things, and they might even be able to use some internet.
I think that even to consider that means that everybody younger than about 75 can probably use one very comfortably. That's a huge potential market, even if a lot of them own a PC today. My guess is that within 5 years tablets are the primary form factor at home, replacing netbooks, laptops and desktops. Only business and high end gaming will not move to these.
I think that Google and Apple are seeing this and trying to create enough momentum that MS can't catch up. It might break their OS monopoly, like the IE dominance has been dwindling over the past couple of years as well. I think MS is terrified of that scenario, but apparently they haven't found an answer yet and are lagging seriously behind.
It will be interesting how this plays out.
I got a Mac as well. People always complain how expensive they are, but if you select the same hardware and software options at Dell, Lenovo or HP, you get to within 50 euros usually. It's just that Apple doesn't sell the crappy stuff.
And even then a high end Dell Lattitude, isn't going to be as light and thin as an equivalent Macbook Pro.
The only brand I've ever used that came close to the Apple build quality was an IBM laptop, I assume that even though it's Lenovo nowadays, that might still hold true.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd buy a Macbook again in a heartbeat, and if it has to be a Windows laptop, then a Lenovo. If you can't afford that, then any cheapo laptop from the local supermarket is just as good as what else is available. And the cheapo laptop saves you a lot of money, so when it breaks, you throw it away and get another one.
He he he.
You just made me remember reformatting my 10MB MFM harddisk when I got a faster CPU to change the sector interleave.
Oh the memories, running code by invoking the right address on the HD-controller ROM.
Thanks.
I would have gone to court, even if it would have cost me more in the end, purely on principle.
Most stuff I'm interested in doesn't even get picked up by any of the local radio/TV. I live in the Netherlands but happen to have very international tastes.
There are two separate issues:
- Regional availability
- Format
Neither should be a problem in the Internet Age, but they are.
I simply can't pay for the content I want, because nobody wants to sell it so me because of the country I live in. See my longer reply to the grandparent.
Services like iTunes and Amazon carry the stuff I'm interested in, but will not sell to IP addresses or credit-card holders in my geographical location.
And it's not some weird backwater that I live in. It's basically Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
But as soon as you live outside the main target market, you can often only obtain certain content illegally. How much content in French, Japanese, Swahili or Hindi do you have access to?
Seriously, if you want the content then pay for it. if you can't afford it then don't watch/listen. I can almost guarantee that losing the latest stuff that the porn industry has turned out will in no way impair your enjoyment of life. If it isn't available in your country then it isn't. The same caveat applies...not having it probably won't hurt you much.
I would like to pay for it. But nobody is selling it.
I'm not talking about porn. But products like movies and TV series and books.
A lot of what is produced in a certain country will never be available outside it. This certainly holds true for stuff made in Japan, India or France, but even a lot of stuff that gets made in the USA never gets outside Region 1. If you happen to be an expat, or just interested in a culture that's not your own, you often have very little legal options.
The second problem is format. This is two-fold. On the one side older material is often not available in newer format, and on the other side a lot of the newer formats are not yet available where I live. The only way to often watch/listen/read stuff like this, is to first shift it's format to a newer one. Sometimes it's just inconvenience, like when you have a choice between watching something on VHS on your VCR and TV at home, or in some digital form on your iPad on a train.
I would say that over 80% of the material I would want to watch/listen/read is currently not legally obtainable for me, not even for a million euros, if I had them. Once you get outside the main area of distribution of the stuff you're interested in, this becomes a very real problem.
Your argument no longer is sufficient, unless I would limit myself to browsing slashdot and walks in the park. Most of what the local media offer just doesn't have my interest, or is not in a format that I can use.
I have even written to various content providers, and potential distributors, to plead with them to make certain things available. But until now this has had no effect. Even a service like iTunes or Amazon doesn't carry the stuff I'm interested in. Well they do, but not if you have an IP address from the wrong geographical location. They simply refuse to sell to me because of the country I live in.
Wrong. The US has both due process and a right to appeal. Comparing the situation in the US to that in Egypt is overgeneralizing in a way which is both incorrect and insultingly trivializing the troubles in those parts of the world that do not have US rights.
Guatanamo Bay?
Yes, but that's not what the example is about.
The scenario seems to be: ...
1) What if there is prior art, but it was not found discovered during the patent application review so the patent was granted.
2) Now the patent owner goes after the creator of the prior art and sues for violating the patent.
3) The creator does not have the money to defend him/herself in court.
Profit for the patent holder?
What is there to stop this scenario, and does the proposed change in the litigation make it harder or easier?
You are correct.
The USA has by far the highest percentage of it's population in prison, the longest and toughest penalties (Including the death penalty!) of anywhere in the civilized world.
It also has some of the highest crime and murder rates in the world.
But statistics doesn't get you votes.
I've had MotionX GPS on my iPhone as well, but I prefer the TomTom application. I use some of the MotionX stuff to navigate and map my trips when walking though, TomTom doesn't do that.
I've been using TomTom on the iPhone in a lot of different countries (USA, Europe, New Zealand). It's been great. Constant updates, completely offline mode, etc.
I've got an iPhone dock in my own car, and use one of these holders that attach to the windscreen when abroad in a rental car.
The iPhone 1&2 don't have a GPS unit, but can be used with the TomTom windscreen kit, as it has it's own GPS receiver.
I have navigated in places were there certainly wasn't a cell tower anywhere near, and these work fine without one. The only thing is that if now powered the iPhone will run out of battery life in a 3-4 hours when using the GPS. My own iPhone dock and the TomTom windscren attached unit, have power supplied either though my radio, or though the cigarette lighter connection.