Mike deVice - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google+ leaking information on mobile site

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 10, 2011 @01:27PM

An anonymous reader writes: Google Plus' mobile site is listing extra contact information, such as other phone numbers, email, and personal/work addresses that it has deduced from your activity and information on your contacts list, on your mobile profile about page. This information does not show up on the desktop site, and there is no way to control who sees it, or how to delete it.

Comment Re:Is his design patented? (Score 1) 130

by Mike deVice on Saturday June 11, 2011 @09:13PM (#36414876) Attached to: How One Man Helps Keep Game Controllers Accessible

Just publish the designs on the web. You don't have to own it to pass it on, you simply have to share it. -- Hiten

I'm not sure, as IANAL, and stuff. But my understanding is, in the U.S. at least, that if a design is patented, then it can't be legally manufactured by an unauthorized party. Publishing the design on the web or other public forum doesn't change the protection a patent offers. Remember, patents and all they describe are all available to the public already from the USPO itself.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to hate on this guy. I admire his work, and he's just the sort of person patents are intended to benefit.

Comment Is his design patented? (Score 1) 130

by Mike deVice on Saturday June 11, 2011 @08:34PM (#36414674) Attached to: How One Man Helps Keep Game Controllers Accessible

I wondered whether he decided to patent his design, in an effort to license it to a manufacturer. The reason I wonder about this is that if he stops making these because of health or death, no one else will be able to make them either, unless the patent ownership is passed on, sold, or the patent expires. Which would seem like a shame.

Submission + - Blender 2.43 has been released!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Blender 2.43, cross-platform, open source 3d suite, has been released. This version brings powerful new features within reach of every person. These features include sculpt modeling, retopologing tools, render passes, render baking, support for multi-uvs, enhanced fluid simulator with particles, new rigid body engine, numerous new compositing nodes including defocus (DOF) node and much more. Full list of additions as well as the program itself can be found at http://www.blender.org/ . Also feature videos are available.

Submission + - Steve Jobs: Lets abolish DRM

Submitted by Arjun Ravi Narayan on Tuesday February 06, 2007 @04:22PM

Arjun Ravi Narayan writes: Steve Jobs writes an open letter talking about DRM, music and how DRM has no effect really on piracy. He talks about the problems that DRM entails to consumers, and explains how he dislikes DRM (and that he would support removing DRM from the iTunes store 'in a heartbeat') and that the only reason it is there is because of the 'Big Four' cartel (Sony BMG, Universal, Warner and EMI). He also talks about opposition to DRM stemming from European countries (starting with Norway as reported here. Is this the beginning of the end for DRM? Will the music industry finally wake up to the problems of DRM?

Submission + - Viacom claims copyright on Irrlicht video.

Submitted by stinkytoe on Tuesday February 06, 2007 @08:47AM

stinkytoe writes: Nikolaus Gebhardt, developer of the cross-platform game engine library irrlicht, recently had one of his video tutorials taken off of youtube. From his blog:
"Viacom, the corporation behind MTV, DreamWorks and Paramount is now claiming they own the copyright on a video of an Irrlicht tutorial. Which is completely ridiculous, of course: The whole thing has been written by me and the Irrlicht team, even textures and skins and logos have been created by me, and an Irrlicht Engine user (veegun?) simply filmed and published it on Youtube.com. Here is a screenshot of the tutorial, it's really just a 2D GUI rendered using the 3D engine, nothing special at all."
Here is a thread on irrlicht's forum which contains a copy of the takedown notification. Makes me wonder what exactly about the video tweaked Viacom's interest.

Submission + - Apple and Apple form new trademark agreement

Submitted by

tlhIngan

on Monday February 05, 2007 @12:45PM

tlhIngan writes: "Apple Inc. and Apple Corps. (Beatles, remember them?) have entered into a new agreement that supercedes the previous 1991 agreement. Under the new agreement, Apple Inc. will own all "Apple" related trademarks while Apple Corps. will ilcense certain parts of that trademark. Existing lawsuits will be dropped on both sides, with each paying their own legal fees, and Apple Inc will keep its use of the Apple logo on iTunes and the iTunes store."

Submission + - Stallman says Linus is not a righteous dude

Submitted by

AlanS2002

on Monday February 05, 2007 @12:42PM

AlanS2002 writes: "Nearthwort Obtain currently has a podcast interview with Richard Stallman on it's site. In the interview Richard answers some questions which seem to be the standard for Stallman interviews. Beyond this Stallman talks about why Linus Torvalds is not such a righteous dude and how Apple is as evil as Microsoft. Also discussed is the ease of use of F/OSS software as compared to proprietary software (such as Windows or OS X), the compatibility of F/OSS with market capitalism, the current status of human freedom and the reasons for Stallman's passion for the Free Software movement."

Submission + - Miguel de Icaza on office document formats.

Submitted by jotaeleemeese on Monday February 05, 2007 @12:22PM

jotaeleemeese writes: "The EU Prosecutors are Wrong" is the strong statement with which de Icaza's blog starts a dissection of the advantages he perceives in favour of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) against Open Document Format (ODF), centering mostly in how throughly each format is documented. He is uniquely well placed regarding this issue given its prominence as an Open Source developer and advocate as well as an employee of Microsoft's bussiness partner, Novell.

The analysis is quite thorough and, as a former spreadsheet developer, de Icaza's has a few punchy comments regarding the matter: "Depending on how you count, ODF has 4 to 10 pages devoted to it [the standard to document the formulas and functions in a spreadsheet]. There is no way you could build a spreadsheet software based on this specification."

He makes the point that a standard well documented is more desirable than one that isn't, although skirts completely issues like patents and who will control such standard (which may be addressed elsewhere).

Is de Icaza's heart on the right place by suggesting it would be more beneficial for the Open Source community to use OOXML given its thorough documentation?

Submission + - Ubuntu Canada vs. Microsoft's Digital Ice House

Submitted by Dave on Sunday February 04, 2007 @06:32PM

Dave writes: This past week, Microsoft Canada had a house made of ice at Dundas Square, raffling off free copies of Windows Vista and Office 2007, and demonstrating the "all new features" of their flagship products. The folks at Ubuntu Toronto set up shop just outside of the ice house on Friday and Saturday, fully equipped with a 10-foot inflatable version of Tux, the Linux penguin, handing out freshly burned CDs and flyers. Despite initial discouragement and words from Toronto Police, they report that the campaign was a success. Check out the scoop here, and photos of the event are here.

Comment Re:Other Subtle Details (Score 1) 110

by Mike deVice on Friday July 28, 2006 @05:22AM (#15797280) Attached to: PSP Firmware Update 2.8 Available

I noticed the same thing shortly after grabbing an AVC video via an RSS feed. Also that the Spiderman trailer from Sony's Connect site was AVC and worked. Most of my videos were created with PSPVideo 9, which uses the MobileHackerz modified ffmpeg. So it may be an bug with that encoder. :(

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