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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 08:47 AM EST |
As this is could be quite important I am re-posting to canvass opinion before I
reply.
---
Silverwav (Not logged in)
Quote:
"Dear [redacted],
Thank you for your email regarding the European Unitary
Patent.
There has been a lot of confusion on what the new European
Patent would cover, and it is important to make clear that
this new patent package does not cover software patents as
many have been led to believe. Software patents are outside
the scope of the European Unitary Patent and not concerned
by these rules.
The Patent Package proposed by the European Commission was
voted upon on 11 December by the European Parliament. It
will allow for a unitary patent which will be valid
throughout the EU. This package contains three parts: a
draft regulation which sets up the unitary patent, another
regulation on translation rules, and a draft
intergovernmental agreement setting up the patent court
system.
Previously, an individual wishing to protect a patent had to
make a request through the national patent offices in the
different Member States in which the patent was to be
protected. An alternative was to go through the European
Patent Office, but this route still required a validation
process in each EU Member State, which was very burdensome
and also very costly. The package will reduce patenting
costs by up to 80% and improve European competitiveness as
US patents, for example, are currently substantially cheaper
than patents in the EU. In addition, this unitary patent
will avoid legal confusion as there will be one united
European Patent legal basis.
I hope that this is helpful."
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 11:38 AM EST |
Behind Apple’s Big Stock Decline
Apple’s stock is down and its products are getting discounted at Walmart.
Suddenly, the company is suffering on Main Street and Wall Street.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/18/behind-apple-s-big-stock-declin
e.html
Hey, Tim! How's that Global Thermonuclear War working out for you?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 03:44 PM EST |
There are already some news picks related to this story, but I have already
read a better one on this: Instagram users snap over photo selling to advertisers . I think the
following quote from the story sums up the issue quite
simply:
Queen’s University sociology professor David
Murakami Wood calls the move dishonest.
"The problem with Instagram and
indeed with its parent company, Facebook, is that it is working by a form of
deception: users are sucked in and upload all kinds of content, and then the
company changes the rules and says – ‘we will own all of this (unless you tell
us otherwise by a certain date),’" said Murakami Wood in a statement. Wood is a
professor working at the university's Surveillance Studies
Centre.
"It's particularly deceptive because they present it as minor
terms of service changes. What we need is transparency on the part of these
companies so users can make informed decisions. Informed consent is a basic
principle of data protection and privacy provision."
I
would go a bit farther on this however, and say that for the typical person
"informed consent" is a pretty meaningless concept. The concept of "informed
consent" is based on the idea that people will carefully scrutinize the
constantly changing "terms of service". However, the companies which provide the
services can afford to pay teams of people full time to change the "terms of
service", while the each user has only limited time available to monitor and
study these terms from multiple companies. It's a game which is heavily weighted
in favour of the house.
The only real solution is one based on
"trust". Why would you trust Facebook with your information? Even if you don't
have a problem with that, what gives anyone the right to inform on their friends
and family?
Facebook won't preserve your (or your friend's) privacy.
Anything the public can't currently see is simply information that Facebook
hasn't found a way to sell yet. If you don't care about yourself, then at least
care about other people and don't upload their information to Facebook.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 04:17 PM EST |
The To
p 10 Youtube Videos List in Canada for 2012 includes some fairly obvious
ones. "Gangnam Style" is number 1, which should be no surprise. Indeed, Gangnam
Style makes two appearances on the list. Justin Beiber also makes an appearance,
to no surprise.
But the one that surprised me was Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates Epic
Rap Battles of History Season 2" . The fact that a large number of people
would watch this sort of stuff tends to go against the conventional wisdom that
the average person knows nothing and cares even less about computers.
The Linux connection in this appears near the end of the video, where
Jobs has passed on "to show heaven how to turn a profit", and Gates is raving
megalomaniacally about "ruling the world" only to find himself trumped by a
computer which mentions that it is running Linux.
Psy has shown with
Gangnam Style that public perception can't always be controlled by large
advertising and promotion budgets. While the "Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates" isn't
about Linux, it does put the name in the public eye and presents it as
being already ubiquitous. This is the sort of exposure that Linux (and Free
Software in general) needs. One trivial and ridiculous video has managed to put
the name "Linux" in front of more people than all the carefully crafted
"advocacy" efforts of enthusiasts put together. There is no simple formula on
how to do this, but it's certainly food for thought.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 05:40 PM EST |
There's an article here about ARM's
"security improvements". Does
anybody know what thay are and
whether they will have any impact on the freedom
to run free
operating systems on ARM cpus?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 07:18 PM EST |
nasa
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 09:23 PM EST |
While waiting recently for package lists to download I cursed the patent system
as I often do for the slowness of it all. Many years ago I recall a discussion
where I was told that the reason the entire package tree has to be downloaded
each time instead of just checking a few signatures process is an obstructive
patent on the basic ideas of using file signatures on the internet to only
download files which have changed. And then a thought struck me. You know it was
many years ago that I was told this perhaps that patent has expired? And then I
wondered if it mattered. The chance that the internet could be rearchitectured
more efficiently in this way has gone - it is far too late. The train has left
the station. So we are stuck with a needlessly inefficient internet because once
upon a time this patent existed.
There is a hidden cost to patents here that is seldom discussed. The software
stack grows like a tree with new bits added on top of the old. Patents are an
artificial constraint that causes the tree to grow crooked. Yes they may be
temporary - they only last for 14 years plus lifetime of a lawyer - or whatever
it is these days but the fact that they are temporary is actually pretty useless
because they cause the tree to grow crooked, and by the time the patent expires
the tree is too big to bend the trunk back into a more efficient shape.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 10:11 PM EST |
| picture ==>
http://imgur.com/gallery/kdCES/ [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 10:24 PM EST |
Like PJ would need yet another reason:
http://www.infowars.com/facebook-suspends-account-for-questioning-official-narra
tive-on-shooting
-Tom from Detroit[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 18 2012 @ 10:53 PM EST |
They're not threatening bankruptcy, they're just talking personal
legal action against individuals under statutes that they wrote, bought, and
paid for, where the fines involved are designed to bankrupt the losers. But
they're not threatening bankruptcy, oh no.
Finally, Mr Liversage, whose
employers are funded by companies that stole $45
million in royalties from musicians using a Canadian legal shell-game,
routinely fiddle their accounting to
their artists, and who ran off-the-books "third-shift" pressings of CDs that could
be sold without ever paying royalties to artists until the Sarbanes-Oxley
act made their execs personally criminally liable for the
practice.
Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 12:23 AM EST |
Here is one mentally charged point of view:
'Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association, on Monday said if it
makes sense to use armed adults to protect dignitaries or trucks of money, it
also makes sense to use them to protect children. Hiding and waiting for law
enforcement to arrive is simply not effective when a gunman is on a killing
spree. “What you really need is one person who is on the inside to stop it,”
Irvine said. “Guns are a piece of the safety puzzle.”'
That piece was from
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/article/20121218/NEWS01/312180023/Ohio-gun-lob
by-Give-teachers-guns-defense
Well. Now I have seen and heard it all. Yes, guns are a piece of the safety
puzzle. But not the way Jim thinks.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 01:53 AM EST |
alex
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 06:42 AM EST |
| Kevin sends his Xmas
email [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 07:14 AM EST |
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The latest numbers for mobile are out, and Tomi has a report up. When
Mobile Computing is included with the Desktop, Microsoft's market share is
less than 30%. Isn't that interesting...
Communities Dominate
Brands by Tomi Ahonen
Oh yeah, and I'm ordering a Raspberry Pi
today. Going to use it as a
desktop, and see how that plays out
;)
Waynehttp://madhatter.ca [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 10:06 AM EST |
Link.
Sun has proven to be one of
the most
strategic and profitable acquisitions we have ever made. Sun
technology enabled Oracle to become a leader in the highly
profitable
engineered system segment of the hardware
business. I believe that products
like Exadata and the SPARC
SuperCluster will not only continue to drive
improved
profitability in our hardware business, by the end of this
fiscal
year, they will also drive growth in our hardware
business.
No mention of Java, and the billions to be made
off of
Google's back once they win the appeal. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 12:15 PM EST |
Link - but the only
important info is
here...
Dec 19 (Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co agreed to
sell
its digital imaging patents for about $525 million, a
key step to bringing
the photography pioneer out of
bankruptcy in the first half of
2013.
The patent deal [for the 1,100 patents] was reached with a
consortium led by Intellectual
Ventures and RPX Corp. A portion of the
purchase price
will come from 12 intellectual property
licensees.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 02:34 PM EST |
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We need £5,000 to develop the must-have RaspberryPi peripheral. For
that
money we want to send a HotPi to at least 500 people.
Launched: Nov 20, 2012
Funding ends: Dec 20,
2012
HotPi is a peripheral for your Raspberry Pi, it's not for
experimentation, it's
not for learning to code, it's plain and simple a device
for making a
RaspberryPi a slightly more useful computer by adding some cool
functionality.
The HotPi has the following
features;
Infra-Red Remote Control Transmitter and Receiver which
works as an
LIRC device, and has reasonable range.
A Full Colour
Range RGB LED with some handy scripts to create fades
and flashes for various
notifications (e.g. software update available, system
offline).
A
Battery Backed Real Time Clock to keep the time accurate when the Pi is
turned
off, or disconnected from a network.
A Speed Controlled Fan Connector
and Software which can respond to
temperature rises in the SoC core of the
Raspberry Pi.
With the HotPi board each group of parts can be omitted
as necessary. For
instance maybe the IR Transmitter is more than your
requirements, maybe
you don't want a Real Time Clock.
The HotPi can
be a mini-project to assemble, or just a simple way to
improve your Raspberry
Pi's capabilities. We hope to build both the
hardware and a community of users
and to support those users by
maintaining the software in the years to come.
We'd like to drive our kernel
configuration changes (ds1307 RTC and LIRC)
upstream into Rasbian, and
help get the lirc-rpi driver upstream into LIRC and
hopefully the linux kernel.
Which would enable a more "out-of-the-box" feel for
the product.
The idea with the HotPi is to expand that little
RaspberryPi just a little, just
enough.
HotPi on
Kickstarter
The above is directly from the Kickstarter page. I'd
finally decided to buy a
Raspberry Pi. Just as I was looking for my credit
card, when an
acquaintance tweeted about this project.
So I dropped
£20.00 on one of these. It looks neat. I'm planning
on using my Pi as a
desktop... Hey, everyone knows I'm crazy
:)
Waynehttp://madhatter.ca
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19 2012 @ 03:05 PM EST |
Semiaccurate looks at these topics in
three
recent
articles .
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