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Samsug vs Apple -- a critical distiction: | 287 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Fighting Facebook, a Campaign for a People’s Terms of Service
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 02:01 AM EDT

There are a good many "contracts" foisted on the public that are one sided. Here in Canada, the CRTC (Canadian-Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) has just ruled that consumers will be relieved of a number onerous conditions imposed by cell phone carriers. This includes the right to terminate their cell phone "contract" after two years, the right to unlock their phones which they pay for and own, and caps on various extra roaming and data charges.

We are all more than aware now that the digital age has given businesses the ability to track and gouge consumers on the most trivial and infinitesimal services while laying waste to any semblance of privacy and they will not reign themselves in. Facebook, cell phone contracts, abusive licensing of software are all of the same ilk. Hopefully the awakening will continue with more of these greedy practices shut down.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

ITC Bans import of Apple products
Authored by: Kalrog on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 11:12 AM EDT
I haven't seen this one mentioned... Old Apple products banned Computer World even seems to understand that FM isn't exactly as reliable as many others seem to think. The tide may actually be turning, although with the age of the products banned, it isn't a death blow by any stretch. How's that nuclear war working out for ya, Apple?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick
Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 12:37 PM EDT
Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick
Let's be clear, Fukushima was hit by a worst-case scenario: the world's fifth-most-powerful earthquake since 1900, a tsunami twice as high as the plant was built to withstand, and follow-up quakes of magnitudes 7.1 and 6.3. A Japanese commission of inquiry described it as a "man-made disaster" because of regulatory failure and lack of a safety culture. This "perfect storm" hit a nuclear plant built to a 50-year- old design and no one died. Japan moved a few metres east during a three-minute quake and the local coastline subsided half a metre, but the 11 reactors operating in four nuclear power plants in the region all shut down automatically. None suffered significant damage. (The tsunami disabled Fukushima's cooling system.)
Yet such is the imbalance of dread to risk on matters nuclear that this accident was enough to turn public opinion and governments against nuclear power. Never mind that coal mining kills almost 6000 people a year, or that populations of coal-mining areas have death rates about 10 per cent higher than non-mining areas, or that coal emissions drive global warming.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Samsug vs Apple -- a critical distiction:
Authored by: darkonc on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 03:51 PM EDT
Apple went after Samsung with (often weak) software patents. Samsung wet after Apple with Hardware patents. Even if you were to invalidate all software patents today, Samsung would still have a case to bar Apple at the ITC.

Apple is like the bully who got thrown by the kid he was accosting. Not only did Apple have a karmic debt in this beating in that they started this fight -- they got taken down by a clean hit when they were fighting dirty.

---
Powerful, committed communication. Touching the jewel within each person and bringing it to life..

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Judge Rader speals out,
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 04:46 PM EDT

Have not read it yet, but seems Judge Rader cowrote a NYTimes oped.

MouseTheLuckyDog

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Problem With Patents: Operating with Blunt Instruments
Authored by: JamesK on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 04:59 PM EDT
Perhaps one thing that might help is that when someone is making a patent
infringement claim, they be required to explicitly detail the infringement, with
failure to do so, nullifying their claims.


---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Making Google’s CalDAV APIs available for everyone
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 11:34 PM EDT
In March we announced that CalDAV, an open standard for accessing calendar data across the web, would become a partner-only API because it appeared that almost all the API usage was driven by a few large developers.
googledevelopers.blogspot

When Apple released their first version of iCal it didn't implement the full RFC, but at the same time it didn't do anything obviously contrary. The single most popular user requested feature was to make it syncable with Outlook's calendar. To do this Apple have had to deviate from from the RFC in the same direction as MS. Could these possibly be the "few large developers" referred to by Google?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

PatentMarks: devices transferring files over cellular or WiFi networks infringe new pat
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 06 2013 @ 07:18 AM EDT
I cannot see how a patent that describes what looks like a specific
implementation of an internet protocol should have been issued.

If your newly issued patent is infringed by a large number of companies then you
are admitting that it isn't a new invention.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Newspicks: This American Life Transcript
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 06 2013 @ 08:02 PM EDT
I was appalled to read that the USPTO had granted a license for an
over-the-network backup system. Had no one ever heard of Tar? Sure, its name
comes from Tape Archive, but archiving/backing up over a network is one of its
functions - at least with GNU TAR, and that's been around in its current form
since about the late eighties. And updating a computer over a network - CMU's
SUP - Software Upgrade, used for its Mach 3.0 microkernel - has been around
since at least 1990.

Good grief, the USPTO'll be granting patents to the wheel next.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Any artistic person who can improve the (mis)conception on patent troll as depicted by WH.GOV ?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 06 2013 @ 09:11 PM EDT
In the news article: "Tech industry groups like Obama’s patent
crackdown" there is a troll depicted waving a club at innovators.

Thinking it over: this is simplified into being wrong (IMHO)
The troll in reality is not waving "a club" by itself.
The club is waved by legislators / patent office / lawyers and judges on behalve
of the troll.
Unfortunately my artistic gifts (slim to none) are not up to the task to make a
nice picture of that.

But I would like to see the troll as a puppet master (string)controlling
forementioned l/po/l&j who swing the bat at innovators.
Or maybe they give or are the bat, but the troll as puppet master is a stronger
image, and closer to the truth (I think).

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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