Posts by wsm
135 posts • joined Tuesday 5th August 2008 17:44 GMT
Discrete?
Discrete regular patches sounds more like Apple charging for service packs. Is Microsoft so desperate for revenue streams?
Not again
Apple is going off the deep end with yet another attempt to patent the world. They may actually break the patent system so badly that all patents will be made worthless by backlash legislation.
Posted in Apple gets patent for ‘unlock gesture’
What is not obvious about touch and movement being needed to operate any part of a touch-screen device? What is not prior art about all of the other devices that used touching and moving to "unlock" them?
Insanity has not been patented, it has only been practiced by the USPTO. Plenty of prior art there.
Choice(s)
Something MS never seems to think about, but it's what pleases everyone: the ability to make your own choice. Providing clear choices for interface and layout would be the best operating system choice.
What?
This resembles the nightmares of people who fear the Internet is taking over their lives. When and how does anyone remove their information? Once your identity is on the Internet, it's not yours anymore.
Posted in Galaxy Tab remains illegal in Germany
Optional--as in shirt and shoes?
Finally, a patent on smooth surfaces on anything rectangular without sharp corners. We can't let just anybody produce these things! That could lead to $99 thingies with touchpads!
Posted in 'Lost' dollars turn up in gaming outfit
Translation...
We welcome any means of obtaining revenue from something we have already done. After all, that's what royalties and licensing are all about.
Incredible future
What's next--offline word processing? What a brave new world....
Windows Exploder can't do math
The problem with MS file management has always been that the progress indicator for copying or moving files took the total number of files measured against the rate of transfer for the most recent few files to arrive at a total time estimate, which was updated periodically. This made for time estimates of, at first, 2 minutes, followed by 3 days, then 18 hours, 14 minutes, 98 minutes, and so on.
Using the total number of bits to transfer divided by the transfer rate would have been better, but apparently too complicated for MS programmers.
Posted in Apple pictures iOS on your wall
Wait, wait, wait...
I hold the patent on any device that can place an image on a wall, platform or motion picture screen by means of light projection from an electronic source without the use of film or glass slides.
I'm gonna be rich.
Not again
These cloud systems have fallen down more often than any data center I have been involved with. They must be too complex for the people running them--or have management decisions, influenced by marketing types, led to over-promising things that haven't been designed into the systems?
You wouldn't see these situations if they stuff they promised was actually functional.
Posted in Apple sued over Mac OS X 'quick boot'
Could it be?
The way to riches is to file a patent based on Microsoft technology, then sue Apple for infringing on your IP rights?
Short term memory
I seem to remember that Apple required credit card information for even the "free" content on iTunes, then lost the credit card information.
I was affected by this and I don't intend to give Apple any more information than I have to. This could mean the end of Hulu as anything useful for the advertisers. They may be buying into ill will.
Well...
Rooftop concerts still not permitted, then?
Posted in Segway death blamed on good manners
Segway are limited to...
The Segway does seem limited to novelty use. The last time I saw one, it was being operated by a security person in fishnet stockings and short-shorts inside a mall in Las Vegas.
As they say, what happens in 'Vegas...
Posted in Dell to buy AMD?
All hat and no cattle?
Does that mean that Dell (man or company) are not dumb enough to eliminate the competition that benefits them?
That ARM suggestion is interesting, though. Faster, lighter and an everywhere presence is the future of computing devices.
MS phones home?
When has their software done anything else? Now they are charging their users data plan for the privilege.
Posted in Nvidia licenses Rambus memory tech
Underhanded doesn't begin to describe these people
Rambus = SCO , except for being more successful for a longer period. Hopefully, Rambus will be dissolved in the end.
Legal system...
or lottery system. Take your pick. The plaintiff apparently has already made his choice.
Stevens got it right
Of course, the majority opinion can't make sense and be clear. This is the Supreme Court.
Posted in Feds move in on elite iPad email leak
F.B.I.
Never before have so many given so much for so few...
Rethink
It's high time to rethink the idea of patents on mere methodology. No one was ever able to patent algebra or calculus, but if current laws had existed then, it would have been possible.
Free heat, just a few payments away.
I can imagine anyone who lives near an airport getting free heat for the winter months. If the reverse could be done, like Servel refrigerators, they could chill their veggies also.
Too bad the expense of a conversion kit for the central heating would probably limit this to government projects.
Posted in PARIS pops down to QinetiQ
On telly?
I believe I saw this experiment on a talk show--or was that YouTube? It was something to do with toy balloons and water. Can't think of what might happen if you mixed those two.
I could have sworn my science instructors did the same things at university, but only in demonstrations to the incoming classes. The upper-classmen would have laughed at these sorts of things.
Mixed messages
Technology to give astronauts a life-saving escape route moves forward while putting astronauts on rockets does not.
The motivations, leadership and intentions are all confused, as always.
Nothing new
The politics of federal prosecution have never been pretty, or balanced. Hence the saying: "Don't make a federal case out of it!"
Carbon credtis anyone?
Is this lifetime limit like carbon credits? Could I possibly be as virtuous as Al Gore and trade in my lifetime limit for those more worthy of Apple technology purchases?
Do I hope to know the unknowable?
Source code?
Is this anything like lifting the source code for an encryption algorithm? Doesn't mean you can crack it, does it?
Still, why didn't it take Trojans upon Trojans to get to things that should be locked up and not connected to this Internet thing we keep hearing about? At least, it shouldn't be accessible in one piece without bits missing.
Unintended consequences
Was it ever the intention of the Microsoft anti-trust actions to create an avenue for selling toolbars? Will Larry Ellison finally top the richest man in the world list due to the income from Yahoo payments?
Stay tuned for results...
Posted in King of the geeks leaves Oracle
What is an executive, anyway?
Without anyone to "execute" what will he be? If he were really any good, he wouldn't need Oracle to prop up his position.
If he doesn't get his own company going to produce something worthwhile, he will be just another has-been in the history of dead (programming) languages.
Posted in Microsoft boffin scoops Turing Award
More boxes
When someone tries to be clever and tells you to think outside the box and if you can restrain yourself from doing him damage, do you ask "what box?" Or do you simply make more boxes.
This fellow has made more boxes for the rest of us to escape. Not a bad career move, but still just one which makes another set of limitations.
Posted in Paypal freezes Cryptome
Paypal has no money
If you look at the Paypal agreements, if you can call them that, they have the money and account holders have only that--accounts. Paypal can freeze anything for any reason. They are not subject to banking or credit card regulations.
Perhaps someday this will change, but for now they are only a debit system with their own rules.
I successfully got funds back after a judgement against them, but I won't use them or any other similar service again.
Posted in Apple is suing HTC
I hereby patent the world
Now you all owe me.
Ever wonder if all of this will make most technology patents illegal? Other than devices and processes, there is not much defensible about many patents. But still, claiming to own an idea for pointing and touching?
More to come
Some Google executives could be headed to prison:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-eu-italy-google-trial,0,1564059.story
@Someone talking sense
Not everyone is aware, but there is such an agreement for "a few quid" to copy copyrighted works at U.S. universities, at least as it pertains to the photocopy problem. If a journal or any other publication is part of said agreement, the photocopy center can provide copies of articles for distribution to students, for classes or individual research.
The problem with the RIAA and others seems to be that they know people will listen to that MP3 forever. How would such an agreement enrich them? Come to think of it, haven't they tried to license every copy of a song when you've bought the CD? They don't want you to put it on your your own iWhatever unless you pay again for each and every device you own or will own. Then the possibility of someone sharing one of those files frightens their accountants.
So, fear from the industry people is what is driving the guilty-until-driven-broke idea of pursuing someone with a few songs is all about. Yes, a simple fee system for those who want to share would be too easy.
Apparently
My intentions mean everything and my false claims mean even more. Please disregard anything that doesn't make me always right. Thank you for not thinking.
More reliable than...
the Google cloud, or say, your average super-collider?
Maybe, just maybe
Jobs was on to something? None of the manufacturers seems to like Flash and most Firefox users disable it. With HTML5 working out, why open your system to the insecurities of Adobe products?
Not again
Unintended consequences from courts of law. How could such a thing happen?
Maybe the judge subscribes to the theory that there is nothing evil in the Internet, just the uses to which it is put. But the lawmakers, what will their response be? Since most of their legislation is purchased, what can we expect?
Poor Steve
We could say the same things about what Steverino has done to Nokia and any number of smaller developers after he borrowed NetBSD and put his spin on it.
He's right about Adobe, though. Nobody as big has done so much foot-dragging about 64-bit apps and fixing their own work.
Posted in Obama scraps Constellation moon mission
Budget?
What budget? Washington has a budget? Who knew? In Washington, money is an abstract concept having something to do with obtaining votes through indulgences and thereby having the ability to keep spending...more money.
Questions
Are we Googling, or are we about to get Googled? Looks like Google is moving toward absolute power over the Internet as it is an international entity unto itself, all financed by advertising revenues.
Seems mad to me. About the only thing that will stop them is some higher power paying some attention to them. Will we soon see the monopoly trial of this century? If enough governments smell money in it, it will happen.
Strange, but not unexpected
That Ubuntu would step on the search provider deal that provides Firefox with 80% of its income is typical of somewhat open-source companies trying to profit from "relationships." Even though easily reversed, the Google default has been lucrative for Firefox, but now Canonical expects to benefit from the faltering Yahoo?
Likely suspect?
And the reason the young woman was chosen as the object of the "joke?" Sounds like something the PFY would do.
Consumerism
Pure and simple, the iPad will be the combo device to sell songs, movies, and now books through the iTunes store.
I have to agree it's the ultimate channel device for Jobsian marketeering.
Explosions in space?
The biggest bangup in years and I must have missed this one. Is it on YouTube?
Saab over
Saab is no more!
Another folly
Just great. More spending on joyrides and television commercials, all for the sake of Hollywood? Why so much concern for entertainment? Never before have so many been so overpaid for so little. Maybe that's why government types sympathize with the purveyors.
Posted in Chocolate Factory does url shortening
Domain of the short
Shortened attention spans, shortened effort, shortened (nearly incomprehensible) messages can all be blamed on information overload.
But when you have 400 staff members who can't put a link back together from a message sent through an e-mail system out of your control, the shortened links can be a blessing. Except when the aforementioned arbitrary e-mail administrators block things like bit.ly because of the abuses of others.
My point is that everything has its use, but how do Greenland feel about this? Isn't Google a country of its own?
Open Source?
Hmmm, is this anything like selling open source applets? Where will that lead?
