It's very common these days for companies to allow universities to use their technology at the cost of tying the company into the university's patent revenue. And of course this is often publicly-funded research, so not only is the taxpayer paying for the development of patents used to sue that same taxpayer, the patents go directly to a company from academia.

Well, it's "talk to us first" which probably means "if you want to patent this, you're going to have to license it to us" sort of deal.

I mean, think about it - the company is offering researchers the chance to work on a live product. If the researchers generate something good, then patent it, the company could find that it is hamstrung because the university it gave research materials to has now blocked it from producing the next-generation product.

Basically the companies want to give researchers materials they need to do their research, but they're also not wanting to shoot themselves in the foot for their generosity (which often includes engineering support at the highest levels) by now being forced to pay huge sums of money for the privilege of furthering research.

So there are several reasons.

One is simple fairness - materials were provided for your research and it would be appreciated to not bite the hands that feed you. So if something gets patented, then perhaps a license to use those patents can be negotiated, with a slight discount

If it results in patents that others are licensing, then maybe a tiny royalty for providing the materials to fund the research.

If a university objects, the simple answer is to not accept the offer and to use other materials.

It's really no different than if a company provided funds for a research grant, except instead of providing cash, they're providing materials.

My current car (a 12 Infiniti) has the steering headligts - great in the parking lot, really makes a different, not sure how much it matters at speed. It's currently a luxury feature, but with time and technology it won't be.

Steering headlights aren't used as much at speed because at speed, you generally have far greater field of view so you can see farther ahead to anticipate.

Steering headlights are useful at low speeds, generally urban turns and corners where the light suddenly pointing out a pedestrian is far more useful.

And no pocket is being picked. Companies willingly pay them for their channel because the vast majority of cable subscribers want it. They always want to pay less, of course, but the other option (no ESPN) just isn't viable in most cases.

ESPN is the most expensive channel on cable, and it comprises probably close to HALF the cost of basic cable - ESPN charges cable providers around $12/month/subscriber.

Contrast with History or Discovery - you can get every channel on either network for under $1/month/subscriber - the amount you pay on basic cable for each amounts to under 50 cents. And practically all the cable channels are paid like that - well under a quarter each.

That's why ESPN is angry - because having every subscriber pay it tons of money every month is a great business model - including those who don't want it.

2 years is a long run? Hard drives used to have 5 year warranty. Many still have 2 year warranty. Cutting off a people who use the device to store their personal info after 2 years is a "long run"? Aha.

2 years is a wonderfully long run for Android stuff... you're usually lucky to get ANY software update, and here it's brought to the latest and greatest. Especially since I think the 2013 N7 went from Jelly Bean to Kit Kat and now Lolipop. Which is remarkable in a Nexus device in general.

Translation: The app store wasn't ready when the 1st gen iPhone was released (Apple had already been experimenting with 3rd party apps for the iPod before the iPhone was even announced). Like all Apple products, the 1st generation is beta testing of an incomplete product (iWatch buyers beware).

Actually, the App Store wasn't even in the works - Apple really did insist people write web-apps if they wanted to extend the iPhone. It's why Apple released Safari for Windows (so Windows devs could test their web apps), why Apple went to add HTML5 extensions to access the sensors (accelerometer), touchscreen, and camera, etc.

It was only after seeing the devs cry for a native SDK AND seeing the jailbreak community with their own "app store" that Apple realized there might be potential. The App Store policies were revealed then as well - if you didn't want to go through the review process, write a web app. Else submit for approval.

A few days afterwards Google announced Android would have an open app store.

The App Store really took after the old Installer.app in the jailbreak days - previous app stores included Steam, Xbox Live, PSN, and the dozens of others for platforms like Symbian, PalmOS, and Windows Mobile, which were basically external 3rd party websites that you paid money to and they sent you a file or registration code.

I just feel that it's strange for some people to say they won't contribute to wikipedia - because they fear somebody else with an agenda will just revert their edits.. on any subject.. all the time.. with nobody backing them up despite facts - and at the same time complain about lack of certain information on wikipedia. At the point where they won't contribute, themselves, they should have written off wikipedia as a source of information entirely; unless they think they're special and everybody else's contributions are free of such tyranny.

it's not fear of reversions - reversions happen all the time. It's rather the waste of time putting real effort in, tagging, citing and doing everything properly, then boom, revert.

Doesn't matter if you spent a whole week perfecting the article and made it a stunning example of what could be done, it just takes power-mad editor 2 seconds to say "I hate it, revert" and that's that.

Edit wars are a sign that people still care to take the time to invest in editing. But after you spent an hour fixing a problem, only to see it reverted the next day, you start feeling your time could be better spent elsewhere.

People won't bother to contribute if they feel their contributions won't be taken seriously. Fixing a simple date in an article that takes 2 minutes is one thing, but fixing up an article to the point where it's fully in compliance takes hours or days, all of which can be lost in seconds.

That's the environment Wikipedia has become.

No device maker is forced to include an SD card slot

You know, Google's actually quite good about patents. They actually worked around all the patents in Android - it was only the likes of Samsung that decided that the de-facto Android UI wasn't 'good enough' and decided to follow the iPhone. Which is why Apple went after Samsung, and not Google. Because Google worked around it in Android (the rounded corners patent), while Samsung basically implemented the entire patent.

Google got rid of the SD slot on the Galaxy Nexus for that reason as well - they saw the patents, and the easiest way to avoid it was to not have to worry about it. So you dump the SD slot, which means you don't need to support FAT32. Ah, but internal storage - you solve that by using MTP instead of MSC. Boom, you do not need to license FAT32 at all on a Google Nexus device.

Android avoids a lot of patent issues. It's just that manufacturers bring them back in - want MSC or SD slot? Now you have to support to FAT32. Want to look like an iPhone? Now you have to pay Apple.

Google+ would have been great had they taken the people out of it. It would have been great for devices to talk to other devices. It could have been the facebook for IoT.

But they missed the mark.

As far as history rhymes Islam goes through its version of the 30 years' war right now.

Lots of useful things can happen even if most file systems don't mount.

I have systems in data centers half way around the world. I want sshd to wake up as soon as the networking is up. Once the whole thing is up and stable, I want the initial sshd to be killed off and the normal production one started. The sshd started early uses no shared libraries and uses a config that lets root login. This means that if the machine is screwed up, I can get in if things are broken without depending on the lights out management card or some other virtual console hack.

Remember that on very large systems there are always errors on a disk and some systems are large enough that their mean time between failures is always now. That doesn't mean the systems aren't still useful in production.

What is the solution,

Popcorn.

As in "Oh, Yellowstone is erupting. I'll get some popcorn to watch until all the news broadcasters are dead. Then get on with my life."

A Yellowstone supervolcano would be devastating for the United States and most of Canada. At home, we might even get some ash fall (but we get that from Iceland already). Wouldn't be good for crops for the next couple of years, but we could probably use a 50% population drop. It'll be back in less than a century. Fuck up comms ofr a couple of years too, but the world will go on.

Never considered an Apple product since, and only touched them on occasions (to move them out of the way).

I'm guessing the next rev will have a 4k display. I believe the competition is also looking into that as well. Given the extra R&D on an entirely new concept with equally impressive tech; I give the launch date late 2016 or early 2017 for a consumer product.

And the question is - is it too late? I mean, we've been hearing about OR for years now, and all the wonderful things it can do. Consumers are ripe for *ANYTHING* to come onto the market.

An enterprising Chinese manufacturer can release POS versions of OR with crappy screens and laggy tech and make it for $150. If they release it by the holidays, that will be the big Christmas gift of the year.

And by CES 2016, everyone would wonder what the hype was about, and damage the concept so badly, even an Apple version wouldn't get the market going again.

The technology is being hyped up way beyond reasonable. The first out of the gate could really go and spoil it for everyone.

Yes, a high-res display is nice, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if it wasn't there. You want the low latency and fast response and that is already there. Someone releasing a crappy version would bring about the same thing that happened every time it's tried - it flops, and the technology gets shelved for another decade.

Hubble only feels like 24.99996 years old.

Isn't it the other way? 25 years on the surface of the earth would mean MORE time has passed for something that's in Earth's orbit - time slows the deeper you are in a gravity well.

So technically, Hubble more than 25 years old by now, even though on the surface of Earth, only 25 years has passed.