drunkle j - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Did it not occur to PALM that this is BAD? (Score 5, Insightful) 314

by drunkle j on Wednesday August 12, 2009 @03:12PM (#29042427) Attached to: Palm Pre Reports Your Location and Usage To Palm

In fact, I just mentioned this article to a co-worker who was showing off his shiny new Pre to me late last week, which after using it for a few days and finding out contrary to what the clerk told him that he could in fact not sync with iTunes, He's clocking out now to return it to the store he bought it from and promised to be headed to Bestbuy to pick up an iPhone 3GS on the way back...

So wait.. your coworker was so mad that Palm wouldn't parry Apple's anti-competitive measures and Palm's collection of usage/GPS data, that he rushed out to sign a contract with the company at the center of the warrantless wiretapping debacle? The same company that, in response to hoards of customer complaints, pulled strings in congress to get an unconstitutional ex-post-facto law passed to prevent them from being criminally prosecuted for turning over every bit of customer data they could get their hands on to the feds? Yea, I can see how the average American consumer would make that choice.

Comment Re:patent: new, useful, non-obvious, inventive ste (Score 2, Insightful) 205

by drunkle j on Tuesday July 21, 2009 @03:37PM (#28773695) Attached to: Doctors Fight Patent On Medical Knowledge

A discovery cannot be patented by itself. To be patentable, there is an explicit requirement under US law for an "inventive step" to be taken.

While I usually cringe when thinking of responding to patent related topics here, the fact that this got modded up to "4, Informative" made me cringe more.. 35 USC 101 is the key to what can and cannot be patented in the US, and it starts: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful..." so, yeah "discoveries" can be patented. If you "discover" a new rock mineral that cures cancer, you are entitled to a patent on the mineral itself (given you can prove it's "usefulness", i.e. actually curing cancer).

Both patents suck, but for other reasons.

On this part, I completely agree, but hopefully things are different now that KSR caselaw is in place.

Sony Files Patent On "Any-Object" Motion Control 69

Posted by Soulskill on Monday July 06, 2009 @03:15PM from the +1-car-keys-of-smiting dept.

Oracle Goddess writes "Sony filed a patent for a system where a camera can dynamically map any real world object for use in a video game. The patent states that the objects 'include items such as coffee mugs, drinking glasses, books, bottles, etc.' While these are given as examples, the object mapping system is not limited to those objects; it can identify any three dimensional object. The system looks similar to Microsoft's Project Natal, but instead of driving with an imaginary steering wheel, players can use an everyday item like a plate. Although this may seem a bit silly at first, the eventual uses for such a system could be wide-ranging and lead to novel and useful controllers for all sorts of systems and applications."

Steorn's "Free Energy" Jury Comes Back To Bite Them 213

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 24, 2009 @10:42AM from the time-to-backpedal dept.

chiark writes "Remember Steorn? Free energy for all, coming soon, and a gauntleted slap in the face to the physics establishment: 'come be our jury, and prove us right or wrong.' Well, 2 years later, the jury's verdict is in, and it's not the validation Steorn was hoping for: 'Twenty-two independent scientists and engineers were selected by Steorn to form this jury. It has for the past two years examined evidence presented by the company. The unanimous verdict of the Jury is that Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy. The jury is therefore ceasing work.' Steorn had the choice to either accept this and move on, or attempt to rebut. Guess which approach they took?"

Ghostbusters Game Coming From Atari 48

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 08, 2008 @04:32AM from the who-you-gonna-call dept.

Variety reported last week that Atari secured the rights to a Ghostbusters video game from Activision Blizzard, intending to publish something next year to coincide with the first movie's 25th anniversary. "The Ghostbusters game, which features all four actors from the original movie and a new script by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, is a follow-up to Ghostbusters II." Now, Eurogamer confirms that the game is indeed in development for the PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360 and DS.

Introducing the Slashdot Firehose 320

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 02, 2007 @02:33PM from the who-wants-to-drink-from-the-firehose dept.

Logged in users have noticed for some time the request to drink from the Slashdot Firehose. Well now we're ready to start having everybody test it out. It's partially a collaborative news system, partially a redesigned & dynamic next-generation Slashdot index. It's got a lot of really cool features, and a lot of equally annoying new problems for us to find and fix for the next few weeks. I've attached a rough draft of the FAQ to the end of this article. A quick read of it will probably answer most questions from how it works, what all the color codes mean, to what we intend to do with it.

Slashdot Top Deals