Fanboy drivel

Copying a feature or two is vastly different than copying an entire concept, the icons, the shape and size and color and on and on. Even Samsung's damn charger is identical to Apple's. Surely you're not saying Google's pull-down notification is in the same class as redefining the industry with the iPhone? As for licensing from Nokia, they did license it. That whole thing was more about getting the best possible deal than anything else.

And please, can't we all get past the whole name-calling thing? Really? I mean, can't you make an intelligent argument that stands on its own without that?

Actually, the more I think about it, the more offended I am by the very nature of this post.

Your basic premise is that nothing is different because everything is copied, so the only way to exist is to continue to make new things for others to copy. I'm sorry, that's just not acceptable. It's not good for business, it's not good for "innovation", it's not good for consumers.

Sure, Samsung might make some phones that are cheaper than iPhones (although they often do not do so) and that is good for consumers in the sort term. But if folks like Apple lose their incentive to bring out new features (because they just get copied, anyway), then what you get is differentiation based on price. This is where the PC market is today - all the PCs are essentially the same, and your average consumer buys strictly on price. There's no margin for real R&D, and the products themselves are cheaply made. In the long run, the consumer is harmed by having nothing but a sea of vanilla (or imitation vanilla) to choose from, harmed because no one has any money to invent really new things.

In Apple's case specifically, they are a hardware manufacturer that uses software to differentiate their products. They make their money on the hardware and give the software for those devices away. Mountain Lion is $20, and that covers all the computers you own. iOS upgrades are completely free. When someone like Google/Samsung copies the "cool stuff" from Apple's labs, then that differentiation disappears, and Apple ends up being compelled to chase their products down the rathole of price, along with everyone else.

Aside from all that, it is simply wrong, IMHO, to allow and support blatant copying. It's not right that Milo T. Farnsworth never made any real money from inventing TV. Just wrong. The fact that Apple (or any other corporation) is not an individual doesn't change that. True innovators deserve our respect and support.

There are plenty of ways to make a smart phone that don't have the same UI as an iPhone. I personally am proud of Palm and Microsoft for inventing totally different paradigms. They both did things that are very interest. THAT is innovation. THAT leads to better products. THAT is what the world and consumers need.

Copying someone else and putting some lipstick on it is NOT innovation, it's criminal.

How about both.

Why bother to innovate if Google is just going to copy it into Android? What good would it do Apple to innovate?

You can still do this. The developer program is free here https://developer.apple.com/programs/register/ , as are the developer tools. The sand boxing requirements only apply if you want to sell your app through the apple store. You can do anything you want on your own computer.

What you gotta realize is that the stock market, and especially the price of certain closely watched stocks like Apple's, are driven by trader's emotions and expectations. If they believe the price will go up, they buy, and the price goes up. If they believe it will fall, they sell, and the price goes down.

If it were objective, based solely on P/E ratios and such, Apple would already be trading at over $1,000.

Troll much?

Let's try this again. :)

It's clear that the current machines DO give false positives for the substances of which you are speaking. However, that means NOTHING in regards to the current laser-based scanner this article is about. That would be guilt by association. It's the assumption part of your statement up there that is the issue.

Your statement about trace molecules causing problems is valid, to a degree, depending on just how accurate this new technology is (of which we have no idea), and whether or not the software is calibrated to ignore amounts that are truly "trace". Again, we have no idea.

You don't know what the new device looks for. You don't know if the spectroscopy technique being used can tell the difference, or if the software is specifically designed to avoid this issue. You seem to think that these people are stupid, and that only you and Slash denizens care about or are aware of the false positive problem. The real purpose of your original post is get people on Slash to like you, perhaps even to get your comment modded up, to get some warm and fuzzies by being like the rest of the crowd. You'd be better off learning to think critically.

I say again, you are purely assuming, with no actual FACTS, that the machine will give false positives on "laundry detergent and makeup". While I agree that it is likely to give false positives, the rate at which it does so and the substances which cause it are unknown to those of us on slashdot. My point is that one should not be all upset about false positives until such time that real FACTS about them are available. Once can be concerned that there may be false positives, but one should not state categorically that "Laundry detergent and makeup can actually give a false positive" without those actual FACTS.

You have no idea if this laser backscatter machine gives false positives.

As usual droidbois are trying to negate all intelligent discussions with an ad-hominem name-calling fallback. And you called me an i fan simply because I had something non-negative to say about Apple. Nice. You know, I really should just ignore AC's.

You're response is kinda funny, anyway: you basically say it's just like an iPad except when it isn't.

I dunno. Maybe. Here is a nice shot of what "tablets" looked like before and after the iPad. Looks to me like no one thought of the simple, rounded-corner, black slate before the iPad. Maybe the idea to have a "device that has no controls except the touch screen itself" was the new idea.

It means it moves to the bottom line as a loss, and is no longer an asset.