This comment is exemplary of a common misconception in patents. They are not covering the results! They are covering the mechanism and methodology. The "machine" if you will. The patent would cover a specific method for interpreting/receiving/whatever the gesture and passing it along to the service so it would do the expected thing. There could be a thousand ways to do this, and thus, a thousand different patents that all accomplished the same thing, and that's okay. Reality is, there are usually only a handful of effective ways to accomplish tasks like these and so you end up with patent lawsuits, and preemptive licensing. Woo.

Indeed. However it's worth noting that almost all of this information is based on reinterpreted rumor. I wouldn't be surprised to see a clarification within the next week or so that changes some of these details for the iPad.

iPhone though... well sure. This was a long time coming. I consider myself a moderate data user on 3G (lots of data but no streaming video/audio) and my usage has peaked at 540mb in a month, but usually sits around 300mb. I do all my email, push from work as well, so it's not as though I'm really a light user in disguise. Even better, with the $15 option I can cut my bill because my wife peaks at about 100mb a month usually sitting at about 50mb as she is home most of the time, well in range of Wi-Fi.

In the end I'll save $20 cutting down plan costs, just enough to enable tethering if I ever need it... though so far, I've never needed such a feature (Wi-Fi is everywhere around here and I don't travel.)

I do hope there is a clarification on iPad 3G. I can imagine Stevie's inbox is packed with "WTF" letters right now. Given the way the data plans were announced alongside the iPad, I would be surprised if Apple is happy about this change. In fact, one could construe this as an act by AT&T against Apple, supporting the rumors that Apple is going to produce iPhones for competing networks.

Exciting times!

I'm not sure which revisionist idiot informed the general OSS/Google fanboy world that selling unlocked phones directly to consumers was somehow innovating. Nokia has been doing this for years. I bought my last Nokia phone, the E70, well before even the iPhone was out directly via Nokia's website. You can still buy many Nokia products this way, including the venerable N900.

The prices may not always be the very best you can find but at least they are a trusted source.

I realize these ideas, of tracking, id, etc. are not popular in the slashdot crowd. What I am not aware of is any well thought out, well grounded, and generally objective essays, or perhaps more importantly, concrete and real historical examples of why compulsory identification is bad or wrong.

I mean, I can use my imagination to come up with some random nightmare scenarios but almost universally I eventually see how those situations either happen anyway or are ridiculously unlikely.

So, I ask you slashdotters who are already fuming at my interrogation :) Where's the beef? Please respond with some resources so that, if any are actually convincing, I can finally have something to back up my own disdain for this sort of identification and potentially monitoring.

Also as a special request, please don't respond with pointers at fictional works, no matter how compelling or convincing they are.

I have to disagree very strongly as someone who supports the concept of first sale doctrine in a highly service-oriented economy. All that EA is effectively doing here is representing what they offer in terms of a service that has classically been silently included in the price of a title. So, in effect, this action is making it clear that they are not just selling a game but additional service offered through the internet of some sort. Whether you feel it's worth the $10 or not is your choice, you still get the game to play and sell as you see fit. No violation or circumvention of first sale is made, and what's more, there is better transparency about what you are purchasing when you pay full price vs. used.

If anything should come of this, it really ought to be stores like Gamestop selling used copies for greater than 5 stupid dollars difference from the retail price. Not that I would have before, but I certainly wouldn't pay for any used game with this sort of secondary service offering if it was not at least $15 cheaper than current MSRP.

I have a lot of responsibilities as well as interests besides gaming. It has been over 10 years since I could, say, spend a whole weekend diving through a Final Fantasy title. I love the epic game style, 60 hour game? yes please. But please, let me play it in 120 30 minute increments and feel good about it. Even if you can only break it down to as small as 2 hours, that is a healthy compromise. I'm a big, big fan of the idea of serialized/episodic games, especially if I know it will eventually reach a conclusion. It's not about getting the game sooner or whatever, it's about having smaller less intimidating nuggets of joy that each have their own temporary conclusion between instances like a good multi-novel sci-fi series. On top of that, if after a few episodes I find it's awful? I am sick of it? I can save my cash not buying the rest.

Unfortunately I have no idea how long I'll want to stick around for the story in a game these days. I am afraid to start into an arc that's going to strongly draw me in for more than an hour or so, and all too often I opt for a bite-size chunk of far less satisfying gaming because I'm sure I have the time. Even if, ironically, I end up doing that for over 2 hours.

Even if a game is sold all at once, I'd really appreciate if a developer wrote the story in well defined chunks and actually told me the estimated time to completion of the upcoming chunk before I started it so I could plan my time. Just like I plan time to watch movies or tv shows, and I can always find out the times for those.

This is probably good advice... for someone. I don't think it's what the OP is wondering about. I don't think they want to make the game, they just want to write it, so to speak.

There is no market for this because there is no market for well-vetted game ideas. There's no need. People will be whatever garbage rolls off the truck that day as long as it vaguely resembles something familiar. There are maybe 10 visionaries in terms of overall game design in the industry at any one time and that's enough to consume all available major investments that are based on an idea, rather than an iteration.

That said, if someone really wants to make their game idea come to fruition, a solid business plan and the intention that you will make it yourself, or at least, hire people and produce the game, is probably the best bet. This is especially true if your idea can target the booming iPad audience as multiple VC firms have capital just waiting to be spent specifically on iPad development. Any similar market situation would do as well.

What you won't see is a company like Valve or EA taking nothing more than a mockup and making a game. Even in the case of Portal, the game existed, playably, before Valve got involved.

We have this going on already. The apartment complex where I live opted everyone in. The choice to override the system is not one of going and hitting a button but one of calling the power company and opting back out. That might not be the same as this article but that's not really the point.

The real significance with the setup we have is that it's meant to replace rolling blackouts in that, instead of a full blackout, they will do rolling AC shutoffs instead. This is the first year we'll have it in place, so it remains to be seen if I will care. The facts support the suggestion that we won't even notice, though. For one, we use central air and when used properly it's maintaining temperatures all day, not just at peak times. Though it works harder at peak times, the power company's strategy is to shut it off for 10 or 15 minutes a day. The realities here are two-fold, one is, the house will not turn super hot in that time. The other is, the cooling unit for the central air is in the shade during peak hours, chances are, it will continue to remain cold. The fans are NOT disabled, and thus, the coolant will continue to do its job, probably for a good five minutes. There's also a chance that during the off time, it won't even be in use.

All of those factors, as well as some others add up to my belief that it won't impact our comfort noticeably, and if it helps out the ailing power grid, then fine. I'm all for it. I have experienced summer heat-induced power outages before and I'd rather avoid that.

Well that's because they realized it was actually 300,000 iPads searching desperately for the nearest WiFi hotspot all at once :)

It was the collission of electromagnetic energy from 300,000 iPads being turned on next to 700,000 people pretending they don't want one.

In nearly every home in the US, let alone the world, the doorways are locked with $5 pieces of tin and maybe a tiny bolt of metal shoved through some wood. There is little challenge to defeat these locks, either through picking or just jostling the door open or breaking the jamb. Furthermore, it's often the case that the doors are not locked at all, or perhaps a window is left open, or unlocked, and it's just assumed that since it's a second story window, that nobody would try it.

So many of these homes are invade by thieves. And yet, there is no question that those invading were violating a law.

If you enter a public place, rules tend to change. Despite the doors not being locked, I can walk into a grocery store and not feel like I've trespassed because it's a business and that's expected. However, I've often seen unmarked doors in dark corners of large stores, or even doors marked "Employee Only" or maybe an unlabeled staircase leading to who-knows-where. I know I'm not welcome in those areas, and if I entered one and was subsequently accosted for it, should I be shocked?

Now we start talking about computers, and their presence on public networks. To me this is some kind of bizarre combination of the two previous physical scenarios. The computers themselves are viewed as having the privacy rights of the house, where-as their offering and the environment in which they make the offer is more like the store, or even another unmentioned public situation: A public park. So how do we come to the conclusions we make? Why is "security by obscurity" not enough to justify criminal charges to those who would violate it?

Or, if you see things the other way, then I ask why you think that the public accessing a publicly offered machine is somehow unlawful, even if they are walking through those otherwise unmarked doors or looking for out-of-the way staircases?

Just because a person doesn't break a lock to get into a home doesn't mean it's not breaking and entering, and just because a door at a store is unmarked doesn't mean the person's trying to break the law either. In the internet, your computer is knowingly placed in the public arena with open attempts at making it easy for the public to find and access, yet somehow accessing an unadvertised part of that computer is a violation?

I don't think the answers are clear but I do think some of the associated assumptions on both sides are questionable. It's interesting to thing about at least. Who has the responsibility here, is it the site admin's responsibility to batten down every hatch or is it reasonable to expect people not to snoop around? You tell me...

It seems likely that they just applied an average contractor cost to the work demonstrated by their source control records. (Record in the context of your question being the general term for submitted evidence.)

For example, they could've asked an unaware third party software contractor for an estimate to do the work that was already done, or just some of it, or similar work, or whatever, to prove that the work represented something that could be considered value in monetary terms.

But it's hard to say for certain without more specific information about the actual submitted evidence just how they proved the monetary value. The article does not detail the submitted evidence. Though I think it's clear from context that the "record" term is being used in a judicial context. Either way, the judge agreed with whatever they submitted.

These sort of laws always seem so ridiculous until you learn how criminal law comes into application in real practice. Laws like this one enable police organizations to expand their scope of suspicions to an area of law that is less scrutinized that violent crimes. This type of law is also used to enhance punishments during investigations for the cases where say, the police are pretty sure these guys were planning to do some terrorizing but couldn't prove it but with this law they can show the far more vague notion of being a group with desires for overthrowing gov't. (Wouldn't many republicans count? hehe, anyway...) so they can put them in jail or otherwise limit their freedom of movement and privacy while continuing to investigate and try to prove more malicious actions or intent.

So the law might seem ridiculous but it's exactly this kind of law that is constantly misused and abused in our legal/police system every day, both for good and bad.

On a related note, many traffic codes and laws are created for the purpose of enhancing fines and punishments allowable to people who cause accidents. Consider any traffic law that seems impossible to catch a person breaking, then realize that when that person crashes or causes a crash, any number of such laws can be applied, merely with witness testimony, to enhance fines and so on. For example, many states have had laws for years that require you use your hands for nothing besides driving. This is classically used to assert fault on, say, a woman doing her make-up while driving or a driver distracted by children. They just need an eye witness to corroborate for determination of fault.

First, I'll admit, taking notes in a professional context is way easier than class notes. Firstly, I'm an "expert" and rarely if ever actually depend on the notes I take, they are more like reminders. Second, when details are very important there are two vital tools that eliminate the need for writing every single word down: digital audio recorder, and digital camera. I have both of those on my iPhone, though I can't snap a shot and record at the same time (a rare case where multitasking would be nice) I don't have an issue with it in practice as everyone else snaps shots of the whiteboards between erases anyway, so there is a cooperative break for everyone to do that. It's also nice to have a natural break between recordings and new topics based on this micro-epoch in the meetings.

I haven't even tried to find an App that will do several note-taking tasks at once, but, I imagine they exist, so if I really cared I could probably go get one.

In school though, I remember, it was pretty important to capture every detail. I would be very tempted, if it was allowed (and I know, it probably isn't) to simply bring an HD camcorder with optical zoom, a mini-tripod, and tape every lecture and the writing on the board, etc. then I would note important moments with short reminders and probably a time reference in the recording.

Oh man am I glad I don't have to go to school and take notes like that anymore :)

You would need to be scanned at least 2,777 times in a single year before you exceed the maximum single-source dosage safety levels. For a more useful number, it will take over 100 exposures to even exceed a single mrem, which is considered negligiable. Maybe if you had to fly over 100 times per year you'd be even remotely justified in being concerned about this.

For citations see the section of the Wikipedia article, and its cited article's citations (yeah, sorry, welcome to the internet): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray#Health_effects

The main thing to remember here as that the radiation is very, very, very low compared to normal X-ray because the radiation does not need to travel through the person, just needs to bounce off of them like sonar. In fact, many scanning stations are not even backscatter anyway, many are millimeter wave scanners instead, which are actually much better as they produce 3D images. Though, ironically, while the research is new, there are indications that these scanners could be much more dangerous for your health than radiation! heh, go figure.