Nobody that resorts to such a cowardly and fear driven act as torture is a badass. A badass wouldn't be so scared of the consequences of not torturing someone that they would be willing to give up their humanity. Only fear, paranoia, and revenge can drive someone to torture another.

Dropbox has Condoleeza Rice on its board of directors. If anyone remembers, she was Secretary of State and also the president's National Security Advisor during the Bush administration. She basically allowed torture, and is responsible for Guantanamo. She had no problem with torturing people without even doing a basic check to see if the person being tortured was guilty of the crime he was being tortured for. And you want to talk about spying? She was part of the administration that developed the PATRIOT Act. The justification being "it's ok to spy on foreigners" .. Oh and we can DECLARE you a foreigner without any due process by making you prove your Americanness. She was cool with torturing foreigners without giving them any sort of due process, so why would you assume that she wont torture citizens if she was scared into doing so? We already know she doesn't think people need privacy.

Everytime the LHC makes the news ... I think congratulations to the EU and then I think about the Superconducting Super Collider being built in Texas which was cancelled in 1993. We should have had these breakthroughs come out 15 years ago. In the United States. Thanks Congress for slowing down the pace of physics. Much appreciated .. NOT.

Wow, the FBI is so awesome, they can predict exactly what a criminal is gonna do in advance. How about they actually solve a murder, rape, or kidnapping once in a while? 35% of murders don't get solved .. maybe when they get that number down to like 5% I'll start believing the feds when they say it's gonna rain tomorrow. Meanwhile anything to reduce the 30,000 highway deaths per year will be appreciated. If automated cars are illegal, only the federales will have automated cars with a dummy driver.

LOL +Insightful +Funny if I had the mod points

I agree with your comment. I remember when I posted right here on slashdot in 2005 that phone displays were too small and that we needed touchscreen and voice UIs .. of course I got response that phones didn't need to have a big screen because people have TVs --seriously?

Proof: http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...

But very soon smartwatches will require no charging at all. My guess is they will work off whole room chargers at first and in a few years they'll be so low power that they'll be automatic off movement kinetics -- this would require the display to be ultra low power OLED or e-ink or something like that.Still, at first they can work off whole room charger systems like the one produced by Ossia (google it). Ultimately of course we need new battery technology.

And what about Hendrik Schön, where was he from?

Or maybe it's not just the Chinese, your brain locks onto fake patterns.

It would be trivial for a computer to realize something is being said mid-sentence by measuring the time between your previous word and when you say "computer, adjust the volume".. AS for a demo playing in the background .. yeah that is an issue but i try not to play demos of voice UI interaction in the car. If I did, I would make sure the trigger word to activate a voice command is not "computer" but some name that is rarely used like "Cthulu of the Netherworld".

Well we have known this for a long long time. Problem is how do we get the government to stop subsidizing fossil fuel?
Voting against the tea party nutcases might be a good start. They are they ones forcing these subsidies: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/29/...

Land Area that is needed to power the whole world with solar panels using existing technology: http://www.gembapantarei.com/s...

i) I did quote you (using " " rather than quote parent) in my response at http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
ii) I did answer the ones worth answering. If you have specific ones ask them again I will answer.
iii) I may have been wrong about 35 USC 135 or 35 USC 156 being abused. However my main point is that patent attorneys (probably ones more competent than you) know how to manipulate the patent system such that their patent applications get delayed for long periods. I admit I am very likely wrong about the details of the process in which that is achieved. I thought it was by getting the patent appeal to respond to various issues raised in the application. For example, after you respond to an RCE .. doesn't it throw the clock back onto the USPTO such that the delay extends the term (if it goes over 3 years)? I know that the USPTO delays are not random .. there is something about the patent application that causes it to get into delay hell .. and that's being manipulated. Why is it that the HDTV patents are still unissued? When they do get issued it means (for example) Sony will be able to continue to collect royalties for 17 years from that date. That means HDTV technology will not enter public domain for a very long time.

Without usable voice control, this thing is useless. And the only way to make voice control work non-annoyingly is if someone like Google open sources their Google Now speech to text stuff and put the needed patents into the public domain.

You said that USC 135 cannot be used to delay a patent in a manner that counts toward it being extended.

1. Have you ever filed a petition to institute a derivation proceeding?
2. How long did they take to even get back to you with a response?

As for 35 USC 156, do I need to handhold you through the million ways they can make a product subject to regulatory review? One way is to say is that it's going to be in a medical device or a medical device is going to use it.

AFTER I said "the patent issuance delays are not random .. anyone skilled in the art knows how to manipulate it." You said

"There are reasons we manipulate delays - for example, where the patent owner is unsure whether to proceed with the application or not, and wants to stall while they release their product or talk to investors - but to get increased patent term extension is not one of them. "

So you admit that the delays can be manipulated, yet patent term extensions aren't a reason. This strongly implies that an applicant has no interest in having a delayed issue date. The only reason they would have no interest in a delayed issue date is if it offered no gain.

1. A greatly delayed issue date can result in a term extension.
2. You state that applicants/their lawyer have ways to cause patent issuance delays.
3. You say that applicants have no interest in a term extension.

The only reason #3 would make sense is if there was no interest, financial or otherwise in a delay.

Also, your reasoning that applicants merely want to stall while they talk to investors or decide whether to proceed makes no sense. They've already paid the fees, why would they need to stall or not proceed with an application? Unless we are talking about a situation where they are concerned about trade secrets, there is no reason for someone to not want a patent. Going the trade secret route is very very risky. Also, since the application is already in process it would get revealed within 18 months anyway and if it gets abandoned .. there is zero protection.