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Microsoft retreats on rules for Xbox One after gamers complain | 343 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Microsoft retreats on rules for Xbox One after gamers complain
Authored by: bilateralrope on Thursday, June 20 2013 @ 06:11 AM EDT
What is the real reason for MS backing down ?

The outrage should not have been a surprise. Not after people reacted to the
rumors about the Xbox One.

Gamers making a lot of noise over DRM rarely, if ever, lead to a loss of sales
for the game(s) they are complaining about. Making noise is easy, refusing to
buy a product you like is hard. Leading to screenshots like this:
http://imageshack.us/a/img40/4317/boycottmw2.jpg

Given all the Steam users I saw complaining, I saw any boycott threats as even
less likely than normal.

Sony didn't reveal any surprises. Yet MS backing down only makes sense if
something surprised them.

Could it be some government looked at the NSA, looked at the required camera,
then decided to remind MS about their privacy laws ?

Could it be that one of the developers threatened to pull the Xbox version of
their game because they can't play it in their own country ?
Losing a game featured in the Xbox conference would be a major blow.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apple Inc. Patent Chief Steps Down
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 20 2013 @ 07:07 PM EDT
I suspect the reference to Bill Gates is a typo, and that it should have been
"... Steve Jobs and Tim Cook ..."

Interesting Freudian slip if that is true,
though.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nathan Myhrvold seeks to avoid testifying in Lodsys litigation
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 20 2013 @ 08:02 PM EDT
Nathan Myhrvold seeks to avoid testifying in Lodsys litigation. A few hours of
time would be "a great burden." Unable to read the document as I
don't have a
Pacer login.

https://twitter.com/ThomasClaburn/status/347354865661521921

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Mozilla Moves Ahead With Do Not Track Browser
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, June 21 2013 @ 08:09 AM EDT
Funnily enough, M$ have been running an extensive advertising campaign in the UK, claiming that they protect your privacy in the latest version of Inept Exploder.

I will continue to use Firefox!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Use of Tor and e-mail crypto could increase chances that NSA keeps your data
Authored by: 351-4V on Friday, June 21 2013 @ 11:28 AM EDT
I guess the only real answer is for everyone to use Tor and crypto.

What seems naive to me about this data gathering project is that it's long term viability is totally dependent upon remaining secret. Have we really not yet learned that there is no longer the possibility of total secrecy either in our personal actions or the actions of our governments? If the best and brightest of our intelligence community have made such a horrific blunder, we truly are hosed. Not to mention that even the village idiot can tell you that amassing such a huge haystack of data will never be helpful in preventing the violent actions of an infinitesimal few individuals. Even a cursory look at the numbers tells us that the false positives would so far out number the actual threats as to create an environment so counter productive that even doing nothing would be an improvement.

The only real value of a data store of such magnitude that I can come up with would be in the use of high frequency trading algorithms based on social metrics. Perhaps this explains the role of the Carlyle Group in this dubious project?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Adding 'On The Internet' Makes An Abstract Idea Patentable
Authored by: Ian Al on Saturday, June 22 2013 @ 02:46 AM EDT
This might be an interesting one for the Supreme Court. It ticks all of the wrong boxes.

First, it breaks PolR's First Law of Computing:
a programmed computer contains circuitry unique to that computer. That “new machine” could be claimed in terms of a complex array of hardware circuits, or more efficiently, in terms of the programming that facilitates a unique function.
Second, it breaks breaks the Supreme Court 'Flook' rule about narrowing an abstract idea to a technological environment - do it inna computer on the Internet.
Viewing the subject matter as a whole, the invention involves an extensive computer interface. Unlike Morse, the claims are not made without regard to a particular process. Likewise, it does not say “sell advertising using a computer,” and so there is no risk of preempting all forms of advertising, let alone advertising on the Internet.
Thirdly, functions are claimed without means. The 'extensive computer interface' is defined with steps, graphs and charts of the abstract functions without explaining the means by which the computer and the interweb serves up the abstract functions.
Finally, the claim appears far from over generalized, with eleven separate and specific steps with many limitations and sub-steps in each category. The district court improperly made a subjective evaluation that these limitations did not meaningfully limit the “abstract idea at the core” of the claims.
That is a §112 fail.

It is the ideal patent to take back to the Supremes: it is illegal, immoral and it makes patent lawyers, fat.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

citrix-founder-and-key-os2-player-ed-iacobucci-dead-at-59
Authored by: pgmer6809 on Saturday, June 22 2013 @ 02:50 AM EDT
The above Slashdot story also mentions that MS had a "dirty tricks" campaign against OS/2. Here is a link to some of the background. A quote is below. Will you be surprised to learn that back in 1994 MS used character assassination, fake threatening emails to OS/2 critics purporting to come from OS/2 supporters but in fact written by MS advocates, and destroying uncomfortable evidence? Didn't think so. A leopard (SB?) does not change its spots nor an apple fall far from the tree. pgmer6809
On the flip side, Team OS/2's lack of structure meant that it was vulnerable. Various journalists have documented a "dirty tricks" campaign by Microsoft. [Stevens, Elizabeth Lesly. "Making Bill" Brill's Content, September 1998, p. 109] Online, numerous individuals (nicknamed "Microsoft Munchkins" by John C. Dvorak) [cite web url = http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1891782,00.asp title = Is Microsoft Up to Some New Tricks? first = John last = Dvorak date=2005-11-21 accessdate = 2008-05-31 publisher = PC Magazine] used pseudonyms to attack OS/2 and manipulate online discussions. Whittle was the target of a vicious character assassination campaign, and anyone friendly to OS/2 faced numerous vociferous attacks as well.fact|date=March 2007 Some journalists who were less than enthusiastic about OS/2 received death threats and other nasty e-mail from numerous sources, always identified in taglines as "Team OS/2". Ultimately, at least some of Microsoft's efforts were exposed on Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on CompuServe, where the owner of one particular account, ostensibly belonging to "Steve Barkto", (who had been attacking OS/2, David Barnes, Whittle, and other OS/2 fans) was discovered to be funded by the credit card of Rick Segal, a high-level Microsoft employee / evangelist, who had also been active in the forums. [cite web url = http://www.pjprimer.com/jihad.html title = jihad first = Joe last = Barr date=1994-09 accessdate = 2008-05-31 publisher = The Dweebspeak Primer] James Fallows, a nationally-renowned journalist, even weighed in to state that the stylistic fingerprint found in the Barkto posts were almost certainly a match with the stylistic fingerprints in the Microsoft evangelist's postings. [Archival records of Canopus forum postings in the possession of numerous individuals, including forum owner Will Zachmann.] Microsoft Will Zachmann sent an open letter to Steve Ballmer,futilely demanding a public investigation into the business practices of the publicly traded Microsoft. What is clear is that Microsoft was taking seriously the threat posed by Team OS/2 and their online and real-world activities.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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