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Comment Re:Too lazy to do more research (Score 1, Informative) 219

How many times have you heard... Dubya as "President George Herbert Walker Bush?"

Well considering that 'Dubya' is President George Walker Bush (43, Pres. 2001-2009, A.K.A. George W. Bush, Shrub, The Decider, or "Mission Accomplished") and his father is President George Herbert Walker Bush (41, Pres. 1989-1993, A.K.A. George H.W. Bush, Bush Sr., or "Read my lips, no new taxes") it would make sense that the answer to that question would be never.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush

Comment Re:A week? (Score 1) 1004

This is even more shocking than at first glance - and I would say a rather strong indictment of the current business model. The USA has roughly 310M people and accounts for 9.7% of the pirated downloads cited in the article. On the other hand, Australia has ~22M, accounts for 10.1%. If you take the top 5 countries that are not the USA, (Australia, Canada, the UK, The Netherlands and Norway you account for 1/3 of the pirate copies. However as a population, those countries only represent 140m potential pirates. You are talking a roughly 6 times higher density in pirates per capita in these other 5 countries. Australia is over 15 times more dense!

Comment Re:You're doing it wrong. (Score 1) 730

You're going to have a hard time getting $150k from Rumblefish, exerting copyright over the content is not one of the 6 exclusive rights of copyright. The only IP scehme in the USA that deals with an affirmative right is trademark. Copyright in a work, does not guarantee the creator the right to freely distribute and exploit their own work. You might have an interference or fraud claim but you'll likely be limited to actual damages.

The problem here is with the DMCA scheme and the copyright framework. The incentives are setup to encourage youtube to restrict content and spend no effort refuting or investigating the claims of alleged content holders. If there were a better structure for falsely claiming ownership in cases like this through statutory fines and other penalties along with a better safe haven for the service providers you might get something more rational but as it is from YouTube's perspective once Bumblefish claims it's their content, YouTube has to decide if they want to go against Rumblefish's claims but if they do they are now no longer protected by the safe harbor and are exposed to the DMCA and Copyright statutory damages. Even if the user is right, YouTube is still exposed to costly litigation expenses and it's simply not in their interest to post the content.

This will only get worse with SOPA and it's progeny. Big content owners have clearly taken a shoot first, ask questions later stance online.

Comment Re:You know why Apple's winning? It's not about sp (Score 5, Insightful) 390

If that's true, why can I buy 100,000 battery cradles, camera add ons, cases, credit card readers, sushi makers and personal massager extensions for my iphone but there are barely any Android specific accessories besides a few cases and some carrier marketed dash/desk mounts. I'll tell you why. The Samsung Galaxy S II HD Prime XD Touch SDHC AMOLED+ Carbon Fibre Edition (tm) doesn't use the same peripherals as the Nexus Prime Squared Factorial 4. The iPhone 4 and 4s have given accessories manufacturers essentially 1 shape/interface with which to build an accessory for a potential market of 100m+ users.

Great Android selling phones do about 10% of a single iPhone model. There are 3 significant iPhone models still in the wild and 2 of them and 90+% of the volume are the same form factor. Is there a Moto Droid RAZR Deli Slicer 7.1 Kevlar port in your car? No, but my Elantra came with an iPhone dock (as does about 70% of US automobiles.)


If we can actually get to TFA! Shocker that a chip that has only been available in engineering samples is outpacing a chip that shipped in a device in March. So in other news, chips get faster over time? Shocked. Even if this were important (and it isn't) this is not a fair fight. All it does is give Apple a benchmark/target to aim for with the A6 or what ever it will be that they ship in the iPad 3 in about 3-4 months, which oh by the way, will be showing up about the same time that a device with this chip in it makes it to market too.

It's not just about chip speed. It's about battery life, user experience, polish, and efficiency. The quicker the Android licensees stops marketing their phones like they are hocking graphics cards in 2004 the sooner one of them will have an individual hit.
Google

Judge Orders Hundreds of Websites Delisted From Search Engines, Social Networks 308

An anonymous reader writes "A federal judge has ruled that a number of a websites trafficking in counterfeit Chanel goods can have their domains seized and transferred to a new registrar. Astonishingly, the judge also ordered that the sites must be de-indexed from all search engines and all social media websites. Quoting the article: 'Missing from the ruling is any discussion of the Internet's global nature; the judge shows no awareness that the domains in question might not even be registered in this country, for instance, and his ban on search engine and social media indexing apparently extends to the entire world. (And, when applied to U.S.-based companies like Twitter, apparently compels them to censor the links globally rather than only when accessed by people in the U.S.) Indeed, a cursory search through the list of offending domains turns up poshmoda.ws, a site registered in Germany. The German registrar has not yet complied with the U.S. court order, though most other domain names on the list are .com or .net names and have been seized.'"

Comment Re:Opening (Score 1) 215

We have spent countless resources training people not to stick unknown USB keys they get in the mail into things. Now we have a huge userbase of idiots who are going to get a package in the mail with a USB key and be told to stick it in their car (legitimately). It's not a giant leap of faith or logic until somone repackages this into something that completely fucks with PC's or SmartPhones. Snearknet viruses return!
Software

How Ford Will Upgrade Owners' Display Screens 215

gManZboy writes "'Sometime early next year, Ford will mail USB sticks to about 250,000 owners of vehicles with its advanced touchscreen control panel. The stick will contain a major upgrade to the software for that screen. With it, Ford breaks the model in which the technology in a car essentially stayed unchanged from assembly line to junk yard' — and Ford becomes a software company. This shift created a hot new tech job at Ford: human-machine interface engineers — people who come from a range of backgrounds, from software development to mechanical engineers, and who can live in the worlds of art and science at once."
Businesses

Two Porn Companies Take ICANN and .xxx Registrar To Court 272

SharkLaser writes "Two of the largest porn companies on the internet, Manwin and Digital Playground, yesterday sued both ICANN and ICM Registry, which runs the .xxx TLD, over extorting defensive registrations with ICANN's blessing. 'The complaint focuses on ICM's recently concluded "sunrise" period, during which porn companies, for about $200, could apply to own a .xxx address matching their trademark or .com domain.' Schools also felt the same way, and had to reserve domains under their name so that no porn content could be put up on them. The .xxx TLD has also previously been subject to criticism by both religious groups and adult industry, but for different reasons. Religious groups believe the .xxx TLD legitimizes pornography, while the adult industry believes it could lead to censorship."

Comment Re:Evidence that patents need a limited time frame (Score 5, Informative) 323

20 years from filing - earliest filing - even in a reissue.

Therefore, at most Feb 2018 or about 6 more years.

A reissue filed 10 years after issuance is only able to narrow the scope of patents.

You armchair patent lawyers sure love your hysteria in the morning. Switch to coffee.

Comment Re:I use my iPhone very judiciously (Score 1) 254

I use mine incessently. Gaming/browsing/calling/texting both ways on a nearly 2 hour masstransit commute and often several hours at home while in front of the TV. Even with sporatic office usage thrown in, I get about 2 full days of use from an iPhone 4s. My Bluetooth radio is permanently on (though not always in use) and the wifi switches over when it's in range (I don't micromanage the radios). Just because your Dual Core 1.7GHz Samsung Galaxy S Prime Touch II FauxG S Platinum Edition with AMOLED5HD doesn't get the same performance doesn't mean that a phone has to be completely disabled to last more than 8 hours on a charge. This is something I struggled with coming from Android. I look at the spec sheet and see that the iPhone should be inferior, but the biggest advantage you get is that because it's not running extreme hardware it can last through a full day of even the most demanding use. The spec sheet is irrelevant when you are out of juice. I'm actually a little surprised that Apple hasn't gotten Justin Long and John Hodgeman to run an ad campaign on this fact alone.

Comment Re:Talk about clueless IT (Score 1) 370

If Corporate IT got paid what these guys get paid, they'd be at another IT shop faster than you could say "Federal Pay Freeze"

Everyone bitches that Federal Civilians are paid too much, but this is the reality of a compensation system that is 15-30%+ below the prevailing market rate (by their own employer's standards). http://www.opm.gov/oca/payagent/2010/PayDisparities.asp Imagine if your employer put out a report that said you got paid 35% less than you were worth and then asked you to take a pay freeze while campaigning on further reducing your compensation so they can get reelected. It becomes hard to attract and retain talent.

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