So reading through your link it seems that the problem here was that Skyhook was set as default and would prevent them gathering any location information. This does not contradict the statement that "Google allows competition on Android with their own services." They only required that the Google service was the default.

Not only that, but it doesn't prevent you from launching an android phone if you don't follow their tests. Nothing stops an OEM from loading stock android without Google's apps and releasing it. They just can't claim it is Google Approved and use the Google Apps, which is perfectly reasonable.

You're assuming that Company B told Company C how they did it. Otherwise Company C has to either spend their R&D on developing their own idea (usually what happens) or spend their R&D on figuring out how Company B solved it, which usually leads to improving on the idea. Not only that, but if the price was determined based on how much was spent in R&D (for tech) then surely the price should go down after a while? The two major factors for price in tech are market prices of comparable products and manufacturing costs. So sorry, I don't buy your argument.

You do realize that Android was in development far before the release of the iPhone right?

Xerox did no such thing. If they did, then why did they sue?

Just because the idea is a natural progression, doesn't mean that the implementation before this was really good.

Oh goddamn it.

While agreeing with you that a Unix equivalent would likely have shown up, I'm not so sure about C. (Granted this goes for Kerninghan too, not just Ritchie.) The world prefers to take something it has and continue to improve upon it. C had a ridiculous impact on the syntax and usage of programming languages. The most widely used languages all use many facets of C-Like syntax. Especially in the tech world where legacy code frequently causes projects to never get re-written in a better language. A Unix equivalent would have been written in one of the available languages or a new/completely different language. But it wouldn't have been C.

Despite how long our industry has existed and how fast it moves, the advent of widely used programming languages is surprisingly slow.

I'll agree that we would have equivalents to the languages, devices, and software we have now. But it wouldn't be the same at all, maybe better, maybe worse, but not the same. But you have to admit that the advent of C and Unix shaped the entire direction of the Computing field. It's similar to Steve Jobs. You can't claim that others would not have come up with the same advances in computing, smart phones, portable devices, etc. without him, but you can definitely see that he shaped the entire direction of these things.

No one said he was the only person, obviously we also have Thompson, Kerninghan, McIlroy, and Ossana. However, without any one of them, the result would have been much different and it is right to point out that the community as it is right now, is what it is due to his accomplishments.

Aren't patents that are "the only way to do it" considered to be invalid an unpatentable?

Unfortunately more times than not, companies will pay the license fee regardless of applicability due to it being cheaper to just pay up than to go to court....which is not how patents are supposed to work.

Evidence. Nice, simple, evidence. You continue to say that I'm disagreeing with long accepted theories, that "majority of studies" find "significant increases in violent behavior". Yet you continually have no evidence to back up your claim. You are convinced that games definitively do increase violence yet have provided not a shred of evidence. The people who performed the study this article is about claimed that they only saw an increase in competitive aggression, and it was not limited to the violent games. Now you say the study itself is not freely readable. Well, then I'll take their word for the results of the study and not yours, if you don't mind.

I never said that I did. I only said that after that 40 years of psychological research, the people who are performing the studies STILL don't agree with each other. Some remain steadfast that they increase violent behavior, others don't.

What long accepted theories am I disagreeing with? I'm merely agreeing with one set of studies, and you agree with a different set of studies. The fact that so many studies can have such wild variety in results when studying the same thing means someone is making mistakes somewhere either in interpretation of results, methodology, or whatever. But what it does mean, is that there is no "accepted" theory yet. There are merely a few different theories that each have their own following of small numbers of people. I've done research of my own! :)

There's two studies here, complete with hypotheses tested, studies carried out, etc. The first study was to determine whether short-term aggression in a laboratory environment could be replicated for violent vs non-violent games (hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar). They determined that males were more aggressive than females. However ther was no evidence to suggest that people who play and prefer violent games are innately more aggressive than those who do not, aside from the biological effect of males being more aggressive than females. The second study examined whether video game violence exposure retains a predictive value regarding violent crime (controlling for family violence exposure, trait aggression and gender). Turns out it doesn't.

Here's a lovely paper about the overinterpretation of these "studies" and the myths about video game violence.

This one is a meta-analysis of a few different studies, showing some flaws in both the methodology, conclusions, and how these could be fixed to get better, more accurate studies. In addition, adequately explaining certain variables and theoretical questions that need to be addressed before any study could adequately explain the effects of violent video games.

I can provide more if you like. If you'll actually read them or care what they say. Essentially, there's a publication bias to keep producing studies and papers that claim video games cause violence. While there's also a publication bias to keep producing studies and papers that say they don't. So far neither side has conclusively proved anything. This one covers that angle and also talks about the limits to the ability of actually testing and measuring violence and aggression caused by video games.

Your move, if you decide to respond. I've provided evidence to you. Both studies that "prove" that video games do not cause violent behavior and proof that there is no real consensus over psychological opinion whether or not video games actually do cause violence or not and why.

Back at you bub, please explain why so many studies find that there are not significant increases in violent behavior, some even performing the same experiments. You're not entitled to your own facts.

Citation needed.

My opinion is extremely clear.

Violent video games do not cause an increase in violent behavior in someone who does not already have a problem with violent behavior.

They can however, as do movies, books, comics, music, and basically all other media (not restricted to violent) cause an increase in aggression temporarily. Not permanently, and not significantly.

However this is my opinion based on my interpretation of the many studies I have read, and the results they have found. I would not presume to state that my opinion is the "settled" opinion of the science by psychologists, because there is no settled and agreed opinion that violent video games do or do not cause violent behavior. Which is the point I've been saying all along. You are claiming that they "definitely cause violent behavior" and that it is "settled science" and anyone who disagrees with you is "ignoring common sense". All of that is completely wrong.

Well, until I read the study, I'm not just going to take your word on it.

How was 'violent behavior" measured? One of the biggest problems with many of these studies is that the "measurement of violent behavior" is often ridiculous, convoluted, and stupid. Many times they are measuring aggression not violent behavior, but calling it violent behavior anyway. Giving someone "explo_e" and seeing who puts a "d" for explode versus an "r" for explore doesn't measure anything, yet there was a study that used that as part of its measure of "aggressive thoughts."

Really? What was the control group? You listed four experimental groups. If there was no control group then this can't prove causation because it did not sufficiently exclude other influences. Also, how did they chose who got to play which game? Did the subjects know specifically what they were being tested for? Do they account for this? How do they explain the studies which don't show this increase for violent video games? You want to back the study off your own interpretation of what things mean, answer the questions.

Racing and running an opponent off the road or causing him to crash is just not comparable to shooting/gore/beating up/etc. Unless the racing game in question is arming the cars with guns and explosives, I would not call it a violent game. Aggressive perhaps, but not violent. If the scientists who ran the study didn't consider it violent, then either you're calling into question their methodology at which point all of the results are suspect and need to be gone over again, or you're wrong.

Hmmm, nice way of twisting my words around. I stated that they are just not as influencing of behavior as people like to believe. I did not state they "don't have any effect." I did however state they have no greater effect than that of movies, books, comics, etc. To which you had no response. I also gave you the example that the position of Psychological studies is not settled. There is no consensus by psychologists that video games do or do not cause violent behavior. There are many who believe it does and there are just as many who believe it does not. There are flawed studies that attempt to show video games increase violence and there are flawed studies that attempt to show they do not. Do not go around stating the falsehood that it is settled and agreed by psychologists that violent video games cause violent behavior. You are attempting to claim that it's "common sense" that violent video games will cause violent behavior. Your "common sense" has no place in science.

Parenting has not only a much bigger influence, but so far no one has proved that video games have enough of an influence to override good parenting. This isn't throwing around "inapplicable soundbytes" as I was not discussing this specific study, as I didn't read the study. In the studies I was referring to, it's completely applicable and an existing problem with many studies.

Sorry, unless you give me fully how they measured this violent behavior and/or the actual study text, I'm not taking your word for it. If it's not publicly accessible, then I'm only going to go on what the people who wrote the study actually said. That there was increased aggressiveness in competitive, but not necessarily violent, games. Which, specifically, contradicts how you're describing the study. So who to believe? Some random guy on slashdot or the people who actually did the study?

Regardless which side of the Nature vs Nurture debate you fall on, the claim that video games can undo good parenting is just ridiculous.

Except not a single one of these studies have proven that. In fact, they are closer to proving that competition irrespective of violent content, is the main motivator for aggressive, not violent behavior. Holy crap, people who play competitive games (sports, video games, board games, whatever) are sometimes aggressive about their competitiveness. Hmm...perhaps competitive people play competitive games. Considering that the only thing that has been shown is a correlation (to aggressiveness, not violent behavior) claiming that they cause violent behavior is a flat out lie.

If you read what the studies actually say, the honest psychologists never claimed that violent media caused violent behavior, only that there is a correlation. The honest ones also showed that video games are not alone, all violent media has roughly the same effect. Games (video, card, board, sports, etc.) are only different in the existence of competitiveness. When it comes to the violent imagery, they are no different that tv, movies, books, comics, etc. Maybe the reason why we've been testing the same thing for 40 years is because everyone THINKS that they must cause it (because they don't want to take responsibility for raising their own children) and they keep re-testing it because they haven't gotten the answer they want yet. Nah, that couldn't be it.....

Except the study said no such thing. The study actually explicitly stated that the violent content in the games doesn't do anything unless you have specific personality traits that could be affected. Newsflash! If your kid has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, don't let them play a violent game. If your kid is already aggressive, violent and moody, don't let them play a violent game. It has nothing to do with the video game causing anything, it just reinforces a pre-existing issue with the person. Violent games will not cause a perfectly normal person to become a violent person. It just doesn't happen and it's not possible. The study actually stated: "We found — irrespective of violent content — the two highly competitive games produced more aggressive behavior than the two less competitive games." So the factor is competitiveness, not violence. And the result is aggressiveness, not violence. Holy crap, people who play competitive games will become aggressive because they are competitive! I never guessed that! Maybe they want to win or something?

Politics refuses to accept the answer that media (whether it's movies, video games, punk rock, comic books, etc.) is just not as influencing of behavior as they like to believe. People need to be able to blame something other than themselves for the perceived "immorality" of young people today. Every time some new media comes around, it is vilified and eventually proven to not be the cause of all of life's woes like people claim. Your post is a prime example of politicizing science. You have no evidence whatsoever yet claim to interpret what many studies say. Read the Supreme Court decisions on Brown v EMA. Even the supreme court came to the conclusion that the studies that people claim show that violent video games cause violent behavior, are just bunk, stupid experiments, that have no basis in common sense.