hovelander - Slashdot User

Submission + - How can I succeed as a small developer in the patent war era? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by hovelander on Monday October 08, 2012 @06:28AM

hovelander writes: "For three decades, Mr. Phillips had focused on writing software to allow computers to understand human speech. In 2006, he had co-founded a voice recognition company, and eventually executives at Apple, Google and elsewhere proposed partnerships. Mr. Phillips’s technology was even integrated into Siri itself before the digital assistant was absorbed into the iPhone. But in 2008, Mr. Phillips’s company, Vlingo, had been contacted by a much larger voice recognition firm called Nuance. “I have patents that can prevent you from practicing in this market,” Nuance’s chief executive, Paul Ricci"

I don't have the money yet to retain a patent monkey, sorry lawyer, and don't wish to live in the movie "Brazil"! What are some pragmatic options?

Submission + - Google Search losing th "+" Operator (google.com)

Submitted by hovelander on Wednesday October 26, 2011 @01:02AM

hovelander writes: Looks like Google has changed the behavior of the Boolean plus(+) operator and now wants searchers to use double quotes("") instead. Personally I used the (+) often to make sure a certain word was included and do not find that quoting around a word easier. Minus(-) still works to specifically exclude a word, so why drop the (+)? Google+ is the most obvious culprit, but an explanation of the change has not been given as of yet. This change affects a lot of usage scenarios without actually improving basic search. Is Google entering the phase where large Corp's believe marketing changes actually help their customers? (My captcha for this submission, entertainingly enough, is "downfall").

Submission + - "That One" brings down Cafepress.com

Submitted by

hovelander

on Wednesday October 08, 2008 @05:18AM

hovelander writes: "The second Presidential Debate was mostly boring, stump speech, talking points again except for the point where McCain used an odd turn of phrase to refer to his opponent. "Who voted for it? Might never know. That one." McCain stated while pointing towards Obama. Within an hour after the debate's end there were T-shirts for sale at CafePress with the slogan "I am THAT ONE too". Within 3 hours the site was unreachable and only came back up a few hours later with what is now an avalanche of "That One" spin and variations on theme. Does the /. community think that future History can be forecast by the likes of custom T-shirt and tchotchki merchandisers?"

Submission + - R. "Doc" Baily's Rendering Engine "SPO

Submitted by

Hovelander

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @03:07AM

Hovelander writes: "Over a year has passed since the death of visionary CGI artist Richard "Doc" Baily, the man behind the visuals in movies such as "Solaris", "Tron", and "Fight Club". His custom particle rendering "SPORE" software that helped create some of those visions resides in the hands of a few, if any, and is most definitely in danger of being lost to time or powers that will exploit the software for their own limited gain. How is it this groundbreaking code has not been allowed out now that its genius creator has passed? Baily states: "...the workings of my system are so different from polygonal, nurby, volume or scanline renderings that i literally had to unlearn a lot of concepts that are inherent in "traditional" CG systems which I've been using for close to 30 years." The man seemed to have been a rebel that Hollywood tolerated on his terms and his work may well be lost to the rich and connected. By all appearances he would have wanted his baby to keep evolving and actively creating. Who is holding this code up and out of our hands?"

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