Posts by stuff and nonesense
84 posts • joined Friday 8th October 2010 18:06 GMT
Re: No surprise there
There is no arguing that intel have done a good job getting performance up and power down in it's x86 processors.
Some of us remember that intel got the contracts (ratified) to build the x86 stuff for PCs on the backs of others. IBM demanded a second source.
Since the 386 when intel believed they could "go it alone" they have tried to sue the competition out of the business (486 time), used anti-competitive practices (buy the competition out of the market by bribing system manufacturers), they have used skewed benchmarks (read anandtech and toms hardware around the time of the athlon / p3).
Anything can be proven using the "right" benchmarks.
As for hating intel, naa, not really.. I just don't buy from convicted monopolists.
Re: Right.
Targeted monitoring is acceptable, the wholesale monitoring of the populous is not.
No-one knows (outside of the security services) what was known about these individuals. All that has been released is that they were on a list.
An attack of this type doesn't need a huge amount of planning. There is no need to co-ordinate with other perpetrators. There is no need for a huge amount of money to fund the operation. There is little need for any communication outside of the 2 individuals who have been shot and arrested.
You would need to be very careless to leave a trail for anyone to follow if you were planning an attack of this type. Anyone can get a knife or a meat cleaver from Tesco or Asda. Planning can be done over a beer while watching a movie. External communication is not needed.
So back to the article, Politicians of all colours want control, the security services need to have access to everything for the politicians to have the control they want. Just because there is a horrific incident does not justify wholesale surveillance.
Application of existing laws - incitement to (commit crime) should be applied to the people preach hate. Existing wire tap laws should be used where there is intelligence pointing to a crime.
Judges and the home secretary should remain in the path required to get a warrant to execute a wire tap/ internet monitoring.
With regard to the reference to Islam, NO religion on planet earth preaches hate. These people were acting outside of the teachings of their faith.
Re: Google Analytics
NoScript - google APIs are blocked too
Re: Google Analytics
NoScript and Ad Block
All scripts are blocked unless explicitly allowed.
Scroogle as my search engine
Anyone got any more ideas how I can keep the (do no) evil empire out?
I have in my hand...
a Fireball 500MB disk drive. It was a n awesome drive for the time. quiet and quick. Shame quantum have all but disappeared.
Re: Agreed.
"Hell half of these 'ideas' aren't even patent worthy, some should be trademarked, others should be copywritten, but none should be patentable."
For the software, mathematical solutions to a series of problems, it ought to be copyright, never patented.
There are many ways to cook a curry just as there are many ways to write a software solution.
For the hardware design - similarities are in the eye of the beholder.
Re: Good
Apple were buying ICs from Qualcom.
Qualcom had a licence to sell said chips to 3rd parties. (the licence to use the chips is transferred to the buyer)
Google/Motorola told Qualcom to stop selling to Apple or lose their licence.
Google/Motorola tries to gouge Apple (for standards necessary patents)
The victims here are Qualcom - caught between a rock and a hard place and Apple, Motorola were discriminatory in their pricing and actions.
Re: Prior Art
Both facetime and quicktime use H.264. The first draft of the standards came out in 2003. This long predates the taiwanese patent claim.
Incidentally, are they going to sue Sony for Blu Ray?
(Speak in a kirk style voice) Whyyyyyyy?
There is no reason to not put the computer icon on the desk top by default.
3 steps to get the bloody thing back is a pain AND un-necessary...
Windows 95 was
dos 7 with a 32 bit windows environment. As I remember Mary Jo Foley praised it as the most advanced PC operatng system even though OS/2 warp and NT were around.
I stopped reading articles by her at that time. She was/is too much of a Microsoft evangelist. Even Microsoft about faces are wonderful examples of their benign devinity... as written up by MJF...
Hotmail still looks the same to me........
.........using Mozilla Thunderbird as the reading client.
No adverts either!
Re: simply wants to "monetize"
True, but in the beginning Motorola told a chip suppler to stop supplying Apple with chips and then sued Apple for patent royalties....
Re: Dyslexic analysis disorder
Diet soda uses aspartame as the sweetener.
Aspartame is a source of phenylananine (sp), an amino acid that has been suspect in mental disorders for the past 3 decades (at least).
It inhibits seratonin production/retention in the brain. Seratonin is a neurotransmitter that is present when we feel happy.
A number of anti-depressants on the market work by "inhibiting the absorbtion" of seratonin.
Drinking diet soda isn't a good idea if you are on anti depressants.
Also in the report, It seems that if you have depressive tendencies diet drinks can make the depression worse but if you are not affected by such problems diet drinks have little/no effect.
Re: Android phones running 2.3 still being sold
@chipextreme - read the guy's post.
"Even my 4 year old iPhone 3GS can run iOS 6 so from a security and feature point of view I am still able to 'use' the phone."
He isn't saying about newer features, merely security.
Re: Ooh, voice-guided turn by turn nav?
I've had turn by turn voice guided satnav for a few years now on my iPhone, Navfree.
It stores maps on my phone, no need to down load data and its quick!
Re: Careful what you wish for Google
The Dr Strangelove scenario might not be bad.
Anything that destroys SOFTWARE patents is a good thing.
-There is more than one way to cook a curry!
Re: There is no reaction image for this
"If the likelihood is high that someone skilled in the art could come up with the same solution at the same time, then it is not innovative or non-obvious, it is evolutionary." -
Not so, as an earlier poster said, If they are working on the same problems a similar solution will be developed.
Most patented designs/products are developments of prior art, the patents and previous designs are listed in the patent references. The Latest and greatest adds some new twist of the previous offerings.
Sometimes a *NEW* product is developed, that is becoming more difficult as so much has been done already
Posted in Apple iPhone 5 review
Re: better
I was under the impression that LTE is FRAND. Patent holders will have to allow use of their patents for the appropriate non-discriminatory fee.
Re: Mmmm.
O2 Pricing link,
An iPhone 5 at £36 per month - down payment £100
Galaxy S3 at £36 per month - down payment £20
http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/iphone-5
http://shop.o2.co.uk/mobile_phones/Pay_Monthly
Both give unlimited minutes, texts and 1GB data.
Given that (historically) can sell an iPhone on for the downpayment price... it isn't so expensive compared to the competition.
Re: @ AC 1433h - All seems rather unfair......
Samsung and Motorola submit their patented tech to the standards bodies for inclusion in the standards.
Re: All seems rather unfair......
Samsung can't deny Apple use of FRAND licenced tech. Apple must pay royalties though.
Re: Chilling effects on innovation
You offer your tech for use in a standard on FRaND trems to receive royalties of pennies in the pound compared to licencing the tech exclusively to select third parties.
The advantage is that you get pennies from everyone who conforms to the standard, hopefully more pennies than if you licenced the tech exclusively.
Re: Eh?
Dock was there in OS/2 Warp, the icons weren't as pretty but the functionality was there..
Re: "It's a good thing cross platform stuff ..."
Not true, cross platform is a good idea BUT the machine specific environments, within which the cross platform software runs, need to be secure.
Developing once for many environments is a huge benefit for developers.
Sun need to make Java environments safe.
Re: Is it just me?
@ Chika -- there was no good reason for the Allegro.... none whatsoever.. even with it's quartile wheel
3G - FRAND
Wireless - buy an implementation
Battery tech - Li Ion, could develop own management or buy in the tech.
Multi touch - the implementation of multi touch hardware FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION CAN be patented so long as the patent references prior art AND pays any royalties due. (Or you buy the company that developed it and you hold the original patents)
Software 2 parts-
1, Software should not be patentable, it should be copyright. This allows competition through parallel developments.
2, The result of a parallel development should not end up looking like a clone of the original. That infringes on trade dress.
The most successful inventions are those that are non-obvious before development but in hindsight we find we can't do without.
Re: Sounds like she thinks they're going to go against Apple
@AC
"Follow the money, Apple brings billions in tax profits to the bay area, they basically pay the judge and her bosses salary. To make her bosses happy the judge's goal is to keep the money flowing into the Bay Area economy and their pockets. A jury trial prevents her from doing anything more than block evidence that favors Samsung - which she has done. She has just heard the best that the Apple lawyers could dish out and it is apperant that they are likely to loose so to protect her salary and those who pay it she is trying desperately to pressure Samsung to pay on these worthless patents. Also, remember that the Bias the judge has shown towards Apple has already established a baseline for Samsung to appeal( and win), so... push Samsung to settle... as in give Apple another income stream( and hence her bosses). But also remember it won't stop here, if Samsung caves and pays on these bogus patents then every other manufacturer will eventually find the same crooked tactics used on them."
I'd challenge you to repeat that in the Judge's courtroom...
Re: Lets not pull any punches
@ ukgnome: There are charges that can be laid for being associated with a crime, "accessory to", "aiding and abetting", "accessory after".
By withdrawing the software from the store they are demonstrating that they are not aiding and abetting a potential "crime". Apple are acting in a way that is protecting their business.
Crime is in quotes because it is another software patent. The Interface mentioned in previous articles can be written a myriad number of ways. The software shouldn't be under any threat.
The power of an 80's super computer....
And it still takes forever to load up Word!!!!
Re: Re: Prior art
"And the catch on my briefcase.
The fact that when Apple brought it out, noone said "what a curious way to unlock the screen""
Nope they said "that's neat!"
Re: Prior art
Patents refer to something new, novel and non-obvious.
For a patent to be worth a grain of salt there must be a market for the device/component described within the patent.
The most marketable devices are those which people "wonder how did I survive without that?"
An example might be.. digital cameras - they revolutionised the way we take photographs. No need to spend a fortune at the developers (that put my cousin out of business), you can take as many pictures as you want (thousands on a 16gig card), see the results on a computer and print your own selected images.
That process seems obvious NOW, but at the time the hardware/software was developed it was revolutionary.
When people say an invention is obvious it always makes me ask... "Why didn't you do it first then?"
Ecosystem
Apple makes a tablet/phone/pocket game toy set that are matched to iOS. Swipe your finger across the screen the icons scroll smoothly. It gives a "feeling" of quality missing from the 2011 tablets I have seen. (I haven't been tempted to buy a tablet of any flavour)
The Ecosystem that Apple has developed has an air of security about it*. People trust it. People, whether they love or hate iTunes, feel comfortable buying software, music or movies.
Software gets approved, the rights and wrongs of the policies are debatable but the "walled garden" does minimise (not eliminate-100% safety isn't possible) the risk of viruses invading the iDevices.
The integration between iDevice, iTunes software and The App Store is tight. The purchasing of media is seamless and very easy whether bought via PC or direct to the device. It does "just work".
"The story was different for IBM PS/2 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Channel_architecture)"
Completely agree, MCA was entirely proprietary to IBM. For IBM, sadly by then the clone market was strong enough to implement the VESA extensions. Board makers didn't pay IBM the license for MCA. VESA flourished for a while. MCA became a historical footnote. In the end though Intel won with PCI...
IBM did withold various timing details regarding the ISA bus. This caused some incompatibilities with add in boards and clone computers.
Going back to my original point, the original PC hardware was not patentable.
Its BIOS was Copyright protected.
That third parties created a "clean room implementation" of the BIOS circumvented the copyright.
Had a patent been used to protect the BIOS code then the "clean room implementation" would not have been allowed.
In the EU it is not currently possible to patent a process.
"examples where patents actually protected consumer rights." - Patents protect the inventor's rights and investments.
The CD itself is a patentable object. Any "CDs" manufactured by a third party company during the patent lifespan would have been manufactured under license- Phillips would still get their cut. Any discs that were not manufactured under a license during the duration of the patent would have been illegal and the manufacturers would have been in an actionable position.
After the expiration of a patent anyone can make copies. Some will be of good quality, some marginal and some plain bad.
Patents for novel, original hardware inventions are necessary to protect investment.
Software is a mental process written in an ordered manner, as is music, as is literature. It (in the EU, Halliburton not withstanding) falls under the rules of copyright.
The IBM PC, in its original form was built from off the shelf parts. The only proprietary "component" was the BIOS. It would not have been possible to protect the PC hardware with patents. Anyone could have imitated the hardware but without the BIOS it would have been a box of wired bits.
The clean room reverse engineering* of the BIOS allowed compatibles that followed the IBM design and software function to be built.
*One engineer analyses the hardware functions of the BIOS chip
*Said engineer writes a specification
*Same engineer leaves the project - No further contact with him/her is allowed.
New engineer reads the specification and writes a program against the specification. The engienner has no sight of the BIOS chip or its operation. His/her code is original.
This code was to all intents and purposes functionally identical to the IBM BIOS. (These days a patent breach) The copy BIOS contained no IBM code, copyright remains in tact.
In turn, this meant that Microsoft only needed to make one version of DOS instead of the vatiations that were being planned / produced for the "nearly compatible" computers that were in the pipeline.
A standard PC clone was born and the rest is history...
This sort of action
shows why the patent system is broken.
Mental exercises, algorithms, programmes should be COPYRIGHT, not patented.
If software patents had been used in 1981/2 there would not have been a PC clone. BIOS would have remained firmly in the hands of IBM.
Dave Gormon was dead right..
Look at the time on the SII phones, and then look at a few analogue clock adverts, the hands on analogue clocks (mostly) show a hand pointing to 10 and a hand pointing to 2, this is a marketeer's idea.
Make a happy face...
Volcano Insurance
Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance Volcano Insurance
I can't believe he bought it....
The first step to my mind is simple:
Cancel ALL software patents.
Replace them with copyright for the developed - released code.
Any un-executed software patent - let it die.
There would not have been so many PC manufacturers if software was patented in the early 80s. IBM would have killed Phoenix (or whoever).
Posted in Are we in the middle of a PATENT BUBBLE?
"The "physical" part was not there to exclude software, but to exclude theories, mathematical formulas or other pure ideas."
Software was covered by copyright.
There are many ways to solve a problem, take the routine :
proc make_curry(ingredients)
begin
follow family recipe(ingredients);
end
There are many recipies, many ideas, just as there are many ways to write a sort routine. Software is a mental act in the same way as a mathematical proof. That is why it was not patentable (until last month in the UK)
Posted in Are we in the middle of a PATENT BUBBLE?
I hate to support big pharma... it takes years to develop a new drug, then there is testing, licencing and release. This costs millions. The patent is granted to allow recovery of monies spent and make a profit.
A year wouldn't cut it...
Posted in Are we in the middle of a PATENT BUBBLE?
"The problem with a lot of the patents is that they are not innovative and what they cover is obvious to experts in the domain of the patent. "
The best inventions seem completely obscure and when completed seem completely obvious. The toys you wonder how you never coped without.
After the invention has come to market and been played with it seems obvious.
I use FF8 FF9 and nightly, Adblock and no script are installed. Google scripts are blocked on principle. Each new site I visit has the minimum number of scripts enabled to show the content.
Google "do no evil" is a joke. Their data harvesting is vast and every new beta product they release is designed to scrape more information about users. To Google we are product, information for their customers, businesses.
It won't happen, sadly, but the world and his dog really should block 3rd party cookies, also, use noscript, use ad block, flag do not track, use the tools suggested in the article.
This could kill off many advertisers, the intrusive ones at least.
Another trick, click on the "click through" adverts, give google some money in the short term, dont buy anything... make the click through advertising system worthless, persuade the customers, businesses, that they are wasting their time.
(BTW.. the internet is so much cleaner with noscript and ad block running, pages don't have the messy flash crud blinking up, down and across them)
Posted in UK shamed in high-speed broadband study
Coal
Steel
Rail
Buses
Telecommunications
You missed out Gas, Water and Electricity.
The common element with the consumer facing companies above is that they overcharge like crazy and give out huge bonusses to their directors.
The non-consumer facing companies have effectively gone bust (steel has been sold many times).
Health
State Benefits
These are services paid for in taxation. Healt and Benefits are necessarily expensive. There must be redundancy in the systems for them to be able to function PROPERLY when STRESSED - that is, when there is a period of high demand such as winter flu.
NHS wait times came down from 18 months for non-essential consultations (arthritic knees) to 18 weeks over the 13 years from 1997 to 2010. In 1994 I had wisdom teeth removed (NHS), I had waited in pain for 3 years.
Posted in UK shamed in high-speed broadband study
Anyone remember
50 baud punched tape BT teletype machines?
70 baud and then 100 baud felt like huge upgrades!
"Seriously, these guys just decided to get together and keep the price up, which is what happens everyday everywhere in all kinds of markets."
It is illegal for companies to get together and fix a price. This is true for a mass market (CRT/LCD) or for niche markets. (you bid higher than me on this one and I will do the same for you later...)
"Or maybe check the market price in the ads and adjust accordingly"
No problem with that, the companies pitch their wares according to the value that will be perceived, (Android phones/AMD processors)
"People who complain about this would probably have complained about "a race to the bottom" or "unfair competition" or "manipulation of the <currency>" if there had been actual price competition going on. Then they would have gone and bought the overpriced stuff anyway because they are haughty snobs and don't "buy cheap"."
Cartels fix a minimum price for their wares, they force the whole market up and gain inflated profits. They are anti-competitive in the same way as an illegal monopoly.
"On February 1, 2010, Fusion Garage CEO Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan announced that JooJoo pre-orders had increased following the debut of the Apple iPad"
JooJoo as a parallel development contemporary with the iPad, there is no problem with either of them in the market.
Galaxy tab is a later project and too similar to both the JooJoo and iPad. Sony's tablet shows flair and originality. It isn't necessary to slavishly copy the first device(s) to enter the playground.
