The fact that others like the Palm Treo in the past have copied Blackberry only supports the argument. Palm paid Blackberry for a license to do so.

Of course, the iPhone has very little in common with those phones, and only a passing commonality with the Prada - which is why when the first iPhone was unveiled it was completely revolutionary. The problem with average slashdot reader comparing the Prada to the iPhone is that the typical slashdoter, after stairing for hours at vim, has no grasp of the importance of design. Design can be seen as the three Fs: Function, Functionality and form. Your average slashdotter/programmer/engineer has a difficulting understanding anything other than pure Function. This is why you see arguements here that read like feature check list comparisons.

The Prada is a phone (check), the prada has a touch screen (check), the prada has no physical keyboard (check). But does that make it anything like the iPhone? No. it is worlds apart in functionality and form (and function in this case). The patent case that just occurred was about a series of patents that covered these unique bits of look and feel that come together as a well designed product. This is a story of innovative functionality and form being protected in patents just like basic function is, even if it can't be easily turned into a check list of features.

No, they are asking android not to copy. Android phones are free to come up with their own concept.

Look at Windows 8 phones. Late to the game, yes. Any good, I don't know. But it is a different and innovative approach, not just a iPhone copy-cat.

Personally I've never found anything good to say about Android. The first version were totally awful. The latest seem like a 2nd rate iPhone, that despite the word-play is no more "open" than the iPhone. And most phones run a custom OS version that boxes customers into a non-upgradable through-away device. People should stop waving Googles flag because they are geeks too. Googles business model put them in a very ethically sketchy position with customers, and I avoid it at all costs.

That said the a huge part of the traffic at sites like slashdot are actually marketing firm paid posters. From the type of comentary at slashdot, it seems Google hires a lot more of them than Apple.

Why is Apple the bad guy? Lets see So Googles CEO sat on Apples board and had advanced and privileged information on Apples iPhone development. He used this knowledge to build his own competitive copy-cat Android OS and then give it away to Apple competitors for free. These competitors hadn't done anything innovative with their phones in over a decade. But after Apple came out with a game changing new device, they all hopped on the Apple's bandwagon.

It seems to me that the only bad actor here is Google and the Android manufacturers. What they did was illegal, and at best unethical.

That is because most of you are hired by googles media engine to write pro-android bias, and aren't real commentators.

I wish there were fewer hired marketing firm monkeys like you trolling down other peoples products for a fee.

As for nuclear, it has many drawbacks including the failsafes can never be engineered to be 100% perfectly failsafe - it is just scientifically impossible.

And the statistics after 50 years of operation are quite poor. The stats on meltdown probability has turned out to be 3-4 orders of magnitude higher than predicted, and the higher rate of serious, but not quite meltdown problems is staggering. (people only pay attention once every 10-15 years when there is a meltdown.)

And the end question is why? If it was the only option and cheap then maybe the risks are worth it. But it isn't and it's not.

Solar and nuclear right now are running head to head on cost, and nuclear is far more expensive than wind and geothermal. And with a fraction of the funding that nuclear has received, solar and wind have driven down their costs exponentially while nuclear has not. It is to the point that wind in the last decade has installed 10 times more capacity than Nuclear world-wide. There just isn't a strong business case for nuclear in the world today.

Solar is nuclear with built in wireless distribution. And the power density is high enough to be quite dense, yet still be safe for life to thrive on the planet.

What other technology has 1kW/m^2 beamed wirelessly universally throughout the planet? None! Solar's built-in wireless power distribution infrastructure has an unbelievably high dollar value.

Lets talk density. My photovoltaic system takes 1/6th of my roof area, yet produces all of my electrical needs. I just completed a carport build of 1600 sqft of photovoltaic panels (the average roof size of the typical american rambler), which produces over 100 kWh/day, about 4-5 American houses worth. In fact according to the US census there is about 6 times the required roof area in the US to produce all of our power needs - that is not including covered parking lots, parking garages, medians and other reusable space.

So is solar energy dense? It is perfectly dense, and distributed for free.

First $1B for 110 MW is very similar to the capital cost of other energy plants such as nuclear. Current estimate on nuclear are in the $5-6/w capital cost range according to several google-able papers. That doesn't include external costs that are HUGE for nuclear (waste management, security issues, fuel transport and disposal, regulatory management, etc), nor does it include fuel costs.

Whereas the solar system has no fuel costs and few externalities.

The real question is does it work out economically? Apparently so, since this is a commercial venture not a demo project. In addition, Bill Weihl Google.orgs energy investor, Vinod Khosla, and NREL are all predicting this type of solar hitting $0.05/kWh by 2015. That competes with coal and soon.

On the issue of clouds: You need to do you're research. The Solar-one demo project using this same technology has a 99% availability. That is huge. No other plant has that kind of availability. Nuclear in recent history has just passed the 90% mark, after being stuck at 80% for 3 decades. And their good reason for this:

1. The sun never fails to come up
2. It has built in storage
3. Yes there is solar availability even in cloudy weather

Snore.... Slashdot is paranoid about Apple, like teabaggers are about taxes.

Nothing about Apples motives here have anything to do with exclusivity. That is why Apple is leading the way with a standards body. Apple is not the conspiracy that Slashdot makes it out to be. Apple is easy to understand, and their motive is always been clear:

1. Sure they are insanely profitable and have a somewhat walled garden. But to see this as greed is to totally misunderstand Apple culture and Steve Jobs. It is all about Idealism and designing the "one perfect thing". In fact, Steve Jobs idealism for making "beautiful devices" that will "change the world" far outstrips any profit motive he has.

2. Sealed batteries, smaller sim cards and the like are critical paths to Apple's future product plans. Just like technological advances enables product development, Apple sees industrial design and packaging on a equal footing with technology. They have conceptual products they are laying the groundwork for years in advance. Don't look at the current need look at the possible needs down the road.

Haven't Got Service Yet, and don't want it
    Comcast: "We want your money. Please sign-up for service."
    ME: "Fuck you." (hangs-up on comcast sales idiot)

    Government: "We want your money next year for your services."
    ME: "Fuck you." ( Leaves country to another country )."

Has Received Services, and won't pay
    Comcast: "We want your money. You haven't paid in a year."
    ME: "Fuck you."
    Comcast: We are disconnecting your service and going to have a judge throw you in jail if you don't pay.

    Government: "We want your money for last years taxes."
    ME: "Fuck you.""
    Government: "We are going to disconnect your citizen services by throwing you in prison."

Let me guess you are a developer, or your use linux, and you argue if emacs is better than vi.

Slashdot readers are notorious at not fathoming what is this "invention" from a company like Apple. It is not just marketing that separates a company like Apple from one that has a big checklist of features. While there are many unique elements on the iPhone that made it work for the first time (like the way multi-touch turned a tiny screen into something actually viable for websurfing), the real invention IS the gestalt - The whole shebang, the feel, the integration, the interaction, how the UI works as a transparent extension of your arm, the 1000 elements that come together in a product.

If I could get my developers to grasp this fact... I'm always having to spend days tweaking a UI given to me as a final.

But the rest of the world gets it, which is why the industry has copied Apple for 30 years. They innovate and tweak at a level of detail that most other companies don't even grasp.

I agree that patents are good vehicles for protection of your ideas. However, I think the current controversy hinges on this:

1. Are you contributing to a productive world and utilizing your patent to protect a device or product you or a licensee are actually making.
2. Or are you just churning out patents for things your never intend to use, but are gambling that through law suits you can make money.

If it is the second option, that represents a type of "anti-creativity" and "anti-productivity" that just bogs the world down slows down the pace of innovation.

Apple isn't running a patent troll shop by any stretch of the imagination. They patent their creativity embodied in real products to protect them from copy cats.

Apple has driven the whole industry for 30 years for setting the benchmark on how we interact with devices, They have set the standard for computers, music, phones, and tablets. And the industry follows.

The iPhone was introduced 3 years ago. For 20 years there wasn't anything like an iPhone, now every phone out there is an iPhone look alike. It is so pervasive that people can't even remember what phones were like before the iphone.

Most pro monitors don't have matte screens anymore, that is pretty old school. Check out Apples pro monitor or NEC multi-sync etc - clear gloss screens.

LCD TVs are not in the same league.. and have other considerations: view-ability by the largest number of people in bad lighting at the sacrifice of quality is a reasonable approach for a lower price point than a AR coating.

As for maximum contrast and viewability not being what you want, that is not a quality criteria. Laptops didn't have poor viewing angles for security, they had them because they used bad quality TN screens. A good quality, good color rendering IPS screen insure you will have good viewing angles.

In short bright gloss screens don't just sell well, they sell because they render better detail and better contrast and beat sun glare while doing it. Just take a matte screen and a bright gloss screen outdoors in full sun and test for your self.