Posts by Gobhicks
95 posts • joined Tuesday 19th February 2008 17:05 GMT
"My Mind is Blown" - Eraserhead pic would be good, but might have licensing issues.
"Are You Tripping?" - sunshine blotter design, maybe?
Optional
Pertinaceously, I favour "pertinacity" over "pertinaceousness".
Re: Ice age?
Which hand?
Posted in Bond fans: Test your 007 trivia, now!
17/50
Yes, I was clicking at random (most of the time).
Took my 11-year-old to see Skyfall last weekend. He thought it was brilliant.
14 Billion Years
This probably doesn't answer bolccg's question, but it's pretty cool...
http://scaleofuniverse.com/
Re: Uh...
You must be a Merkin. Over here the first floor is the one on top of the ground floor.
Awesome achievement...
... but I bet NASA's sorry they caved in and shelled out for the extended guarantee
OR
Spacetruckinlasertotinnukepoweredrockerbogiedgalerovinlifesensincooltechof....NASA!
Re: So
It is, in fact, very common for the US patent appeals court (the CAFC) to over-rule first instance findings. In a case of this complexity there are likely to be multiple grounds of appeal on different aspects of the original trial, each of which could be reversed or returned to the court of first instance to be looked at again in light of directions from the CAFC. Beyond the CAFC there is the Supreme Court, but there is no automatic right of appeal to the Supremes.
Obligatory HP Lovecraft reference re any Antarctic wierdness...
... message ends
Re: What exactly is 218 patent?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. This patent originated in 1994. Read the background section. We tend to forget how quickly techniology has evolved in recent decades, and to undervalue the vision and ingenuity that made this possible.
Re: "what happened before the big bang"
...Bang/Crunch/Bang/Crunch/... not a new idea. I recall musing on the possibility of sentient entities that might persist through Bang/Crunch cycles. Aye them were't days, lad, the days of shrooms and poses.
Is this for real?...
.. or has reality been confused with an episode of the Big Bang Theory???
Damn...
...someone beat me to the penguin!
All very interesting...
... but (off topic, but not completely): while we are diligently surveying Universe with all kinds of instruments at all kinds of wavelengths, are we systematically collapsing the Cosmic Wave Function towards one out its many potential states, and when this process is complete, will cats inherit whatever remains?
Paris, cuz you know she thinks about this stuff all the time.
RTFP
From claim 1:
"in response to an input by a user, displaying simultaneously a plurality of objects that correspond to the plurality of soft keyboards; and, in response to selection of one of the plurality of objects by the user, displaying in the first area the soft keyboard that corresponds to the selected object"
The other independent claims have similar limitations. You need to do something before you get a choice of keyboards to select from. I'm not saying it's patentable, but it doesn't cover an Android keyboard with a permanently visible keyboard-toggle button.
Re: You better stay away from Copperhead Road
I had a feeling that would come back to bite me. Must do more research.
You better stay away from Copperhead Road
Just a pity that a copperhead is a viper and not a rattler...
... or so "they" would have you believe
You may never touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures
Re: Read the Patent
Then again, the patent does seem to be talking about "throwing" individual items off the screen, rather than switching screens. This would be a matter of claim interpretation, which in the USA involves a preliminary hearing. The judge decides what the claims actually mean and the jury is constrained by the judge's interpretation. The judge's interpretation is not always intuitively obvious (ahem...)
Re: Read the Patent
Hmmm - you might have a point there...
Read the Patent
All of the independent claims include this or similar wording:
"when the image is being dragged ... and the system detects that the velocity with which the image is being dragged exceeds a threshold velocity, the system responds by removing the image from the display without leaving any representative thereof in the display"
i.e. you can kinda "flick" items off the screen without actually dragging them off the edge.
Do iPhones do that? I'm pretty sure my Android doesn't.
"...emerging concept..."?
... mining the asteroid belt has been a staple of science fiction for decades!
Cool as far as it goes...
... but where is Imipolex after all these years since Gravity's Rainbow?
Possible answer: already invented, now highly Classified?
Amazing...
... just amazing, that anyone even cares about James Bond in C21...
Posted in Apple wants to OWN YOUR VERY SOLE
BTW
Before getting one's (smart) knickers in a twist, one should look at the actual patent, which cites hundreds of prior art references and has really quite narrow claims....
Posted in Apple wants to OWN YOUR VERY SOLE
Try getting in to a night club...
... wearing those "smart garments"...
Hmmm - interesting
Their argument seems to be that there is no artistic copyright in the image (dubious) over which the Warhol Foundation can exercise control, but that VU have acquired trade mark rights through extended use (at least potentially valid - you can acquire (limited) trade mark rights even in commonly used words in such a way, and the VU banana is certainly distinctive). There is likely some conflict between respective copyright and trade mark rights - I very much doubt that in the heady days of the Factory these fine legal nuances would have been thrashed out between the VU and Warhol.
Predicted score: lawyers 5 - 0 other parties. I'll settle for All Tomorrow's Parties.
Cohabitate?!
Urgh
Clearly inhabitated by illiterates.
To be continued later, down the pub...
I hardly think that an El Reg comment thread is likely to resolve one of the great questions of the human condition - the meaning of “human rights” - especially on a Friday. I will say this though:
There is a difference between rights to exist, think, speak, associate etc. without being oppressed and rights of access to any particular resource, whether that resource is clean water, any medicine you care to name, education, the Internet, etc.
The former can be declared to be rights that any society claiming to be civilised must assert.
The latter are dependent on a society’s ability to deliver them. Any society claiming to be civilised must surely set standards for itself in relation to such rights, and such standards must necessarily evolve over time.
Not so long ago, literacy and numeracy were the preserve of a tiny elite. Now, some minimum standard of literacy and numeracy must be regarded as a basic right in any modern civilised society; i.e. a right of access to some level of education.
A right of access to the Internet is in the same category, it’s just a question of what society chooses as the minimum bandwidth that should be available to all.
D'oh!
This headline got me confused with the Foo Fighters seismograph thang - who was that pint-sized star-sucker?
Not...
Obama isn't an alien. He was grown in a vat by the CIA. GH Bush started the program. GW Bush was a first, not very good, effort.
Fine...
... but what about thawing permafrost?
Posted in Apple shouldn't bother with TV...
Sony Bravia internet TV (iPlayer, Youtube, LoveFilm etc), D-Link powerline adapters, bog-standard USB HDD + Android Sony Remote Media app... simples (and much more simples than I anticipated). OK, still a way to go in terms of complete access to everything anywhere, but getting easier and cheaper all the time.
Ackshly...
Don't know if you're aware of the extent of patent shenanigans surrounding Electronic Program Guides for TVs...
Posted in Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56
US Patent 8,032,843, issued October 4, 2011
US Patent 8,032,843, issued October 4, 2011
Inventors: Ording; Bas (Sunnyvale, CA), Jobs; Steven P. (Palo Alto, CA), Lindsay; Donald J. (Mountain View, CA)
Assignee: Apple Inc. (Cupertino, CA)
Claim 1
A method for displaying graphical representations of launchable applications on a display of a device comprising: displaying on the display a visible mechanism for launching one or more launchable applications, wherein the visible mechanism comprises multiple user-activatable graphical representations that respectively correspond to multiple launchable applications; detecting a position of a user input proximate to at least one of the graphical representations; in response to the detecting, increasing in size the at least one of the graphical representations; and increasing one or more of the remaining graphical representations to one or more respective sizes, each size being at least approximately inversely related to a distance between the respective one of the remaining graphical representations and the detected position.
No comment
It won't be his last. Steve is named as an inventor in numerous patent applicaitons still pending.
Posted in Belgian buccaneers invade Rockall
Re Anthrax
You're thinking of Gruinard Island, which is actually less than a mile offshore and was quarantined from WW2 until 1990.
Actually...
... a PCT "International" patent application does not turn into an "International" Patent. You need to prosecute it to grant separately in each country where you want protection, ending up with a bundle of independent national patents. The main benefit of a PCT application is to keep your options open at relatively low cost before committing to the expense of those individual national applications.
The dream of reason...
... produces monsters. AKA the law of unintended consequences.
Accidents of history and the vagaries of fortune do it too. A runaway success like Google, and like Microsoft before it, creates a virtual monopoly/monoculture that ultimately isn't good for anyone without a vested interest.
Lest we forget
Let's also blow a trumpet for Rodime, the Scottish-based company who (arguably) invented the modern HDD as we know it.
IMHO
The iPod/iTunes would never have gained traction without Gracenote, and subsequent history would have been very different.
uh-huh
Comedy is a serious business. Funny that...
Posted in NASA Legonauts set for Jupiter voyage
Title
From New Scientist’s Juno story:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20765-waterscouting-probe-to-take-off-for-jupiter.html
“… no one knows what matter does at the extreme pressures inside such a massive body.
“These pressures are estimated to be 50 million Earth atmospheres, says Bagenal: "Think of 100 elephants standing on top of each other with the bottom elephant standing on one foot – on a stiletto heel."”
50*10^6 A = 1 hecto-jumbo-mono-something?
Come on you Reg
Oi, where's the Reg's own First Earth Trojan story?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14307987
News?
see US Patent 5737439, published in 1998.
@ Thomas 4
If you need to fire a million rounds a minute ... you're probably in WWZ.
Posted in On counterfeits, fakes and Apple stores
FWIW
The salesbod in the second pic is kinda square shaped with rounded corners, but he's leaning over quite a ways so probably no IP infringement...
Godspeed
I haven't felt this sad about a robot since the first time I saw Silent Running as a kid.
Posted in End user productivity revisited
Too long...
I started to do this but lost the will to live half way through.
Tricky fella, Johnny Trademark
FWIW and whether you like it or not...
There are "trade marks" and there are "registered trade marks".
If you can successfully register a trade mark you gain certain statutory rights. You generally can't register a trade mark that is not "distinctive", so generic words that are descriptive of your goods or services usually can't be registered as trade marks. However, an inherently non-distinctive trade mark can acquire distinctiveness through use, over time. You can register it if you can provide evidence that it has come to be strongly associated with your particular goods and services. This usually needs years of consistent use and substantial turnover figures.
You can apply the "TM" superscript to anything you use as a trade mark, whether it's distinctive or not, and over time you will acquire some common-law rights in the mark (as distinct from the statutory rights you get from registration). It's much harder to enforce such rights, but the "TM" discourages others from adopting similar marks.
M$ applied "TM" to WINDOWS for many years before they were able to register it successfully.
IMHO, Apple don't have enough use to have "acquired distinctiveness" in App Store, and the more that others use similar termionology in the meantime, the weaker their case will become.
