While that sounds awesome, Google is still gaining access to vast quanitities of copyrighted material without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. For every other company in the world, they need to obtain permission first before potentially profiting off of a work (Google will profit from subscriptions to their service). For Google, somehow, they do not need to obtain permission. Rather, a copyright holder needs to go through a process in order to object and have their material removed. While that sounds good and all, it is ridiculous that copyright holders need to spend time and money to assert rights that should be intrinsically part of copyright.

Mpapet: Per the settlement, Google has "non-exclusive" rights. If works are actually in the public domain and not copyright protected, anyone else can use the information and profit from it. The issue is not pertaining to true public domain works. The issue is that actual copyright holders have no rights unless they go through potentially convoluted procedures to object. If they do not spend time and money to object to their works being digitized, Google can keep on truckin. Google can profit off their work, and I did not see anything in the settlement that requires Google to pay back royalties (outside of the initial monetary settlement).

The settlement is very clear. Google has "non-exclusive" rights over all the books it digitizes. This means that everyone else simply needs to follow copyright standards. If a book is no longer under copyright, people could do anything with it. If a book is under copyright, people would need to obtain permission and could then do anything with that material. However, Google, per the settlement, is granted rights to every single out of print book unless the author/publisher/copyright holder takes the time to object.

Actually, if you read the actual settlement that was linked on the page linked yesterday, you would find that Google does not retain any rights on books published in the future. This is a misnomer. Microsoft stated that (paraphrased) Google will obtain permission to perform future copyright infringement through their settlement. However, if you actually read the settlement, you will find that the settlement has a strict deadline (this year), and any books published after that deadline are not covered under the settlement. Microsoft's claim that Google is permitted future copyright violations is true. However, these "future" copyright infringements referred to current out of print books that Google has not yet digitized. I am still against the court settlement in general, and I will make another post tomorrow with more exact info linked form the actual briefs. Bottom line, however, is....technically copyright owners retain their rights to refuse being printed via google books. However, they will need to spend time and money in order to go through procedures to stop google from printing their books online. It really should be the other way around.

Debate the article's position and take off your tinfoil hat regarding Microsoft's intentions. While many readers, myself included, do not trust Microsoft's intentions, I would rather argue the points raised in the article.

Did you even RTFA?

The main point the man made was simple. Contributions to a standard may be patent protected, but not within the scope of the standard. Companies and individuals would be able to use the standard and the patented items therein as long as they are using the patented items within the scope of the standard.

Read his analogy about the hypothetical patented aphrodesiac that was a good fit for a particular standard.

While I doubt that he is entirely forthcoming about Microsoft's intentions, he makes a good point.

If I wasn't bound by privacy agreements, I could post a picture of a 120 foot long distillation column 15 foot in diameter getting trucked down the interstate. It is far larger than any of these wind turbines and took up 2 lanes of interstate while traveling 40 miles an hour. The types of things transported by industry in America are heavier and larger than wind turbine blades. This story is ridiculous. Maybe they should focus stimulus money towards already crumbling roads and bridges? There's no chance roads just started crumbling after a few loads of wind turbines.

Typically, if a road is not suited for trucks in the U.S., the village/township/county puts up a "NO TRUCKS OVER 2 TONS SIGN." This prevents small village roads from being treated as a "rat run." Tom Tom and Garmin are not to blame for trucks using unsuitable roads. This could happen anyway if the road is convienently placed. It is up to the local government to place signage to prevent this occurence.

So, considering they are as cheap to produce as normal lightbulbs, we can expect to see these on the shelves in...2050?

As was stated above... "Yes - the dimension of the system is just the number of independent variables, the 3 wavelengths and the 2 polorisations." The article is correct in saying that there are 5 dimensions. The fact that you can make 6 different permutations does not mean there are 6 dimensions.

What your speakers play is very different than what that file intends. Virtually everyone should be able to hear a very annoying sound when they open that file because most speakers (and probably all computer speakers) are unable to produce those high frequency sounds above our range. So all you old geysers who are overjoyed you can hear something meant for younger kids, Despair! It is only your speakers making a lower pitched sound!