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Comment Re:Good. (Score 1) 483

by ardyng (#32698658) Attached to: ASCAP Declares War On Free Culture, EFF
No, people DO care when the movie that they've legally bought doesn't play, or when the game that they just legally purchased doesn't work.

Perhaps they don't care about DRM as an acronym, but they care when stuff doesn't work after they've shelled out money.
Cellphones

Tetris Clones Pulled From Android Market 396

Posted by Soulskill from the bad-news-bears dept.
sbrubblesman writes "The Tetris Company, LLC has notified Google to remove all Tetris clones from Android Market. I am one of the developers of FallingBlocks, a game with the same gameplay concepts as Tetris. I have received an email warning that my game was suspended from Android Market due to a violation of the Developer Content Policy. When I received the email, I already imagined that it had something to do with it being a Tetris clone, but besides having the same gameplay as Tetris, which I believe cannot be copyrighted, the game uses its own name, graphics and sounds. There's no reference to 'Tetris' in our game. I have emailed Google asking what is the reason for the application removal. Google promptly answered that The Tetris Company, LLC notified them under the DMCA (PDF) to remove various Tetris clones from Android Market. My app was removed together with 35 other Tetris clones. I checked online at various sources, and all of them say that there's no copyright on gameplay. There could be some sort of patent. But even if they had one, it would last 20 years, so it would have been over in 2005. It's a shame that The Tetris Company, LLC uses its power to stop developers from creating good and free games for Android users. Without resources for a legal fight, our application and many others will cease to exist, even knowing that they are legit. Users will be forced to buy the paid, official version, which is worse than many of the ones available for free on the market. Users from other countries, such as Brazil in my case, won't even be able to play the official Tetris, since Google Checkout doesn't exist in Brazil; you can't buy paid applications from Android Market in these countries."

Comment Things that make you go, hmmm. (Score 1) 264

by ardyng (#30174722) Attached to: Netbooks Have Higher Failure Rate Than Laptops
The data are fishy. Do they fail because people buy a netbook because they can take them more places, and thus have a higher incidence of failure because they're being carried and used in more places? My own experience with a netbook vs laptop is that the Asus EEE PC I purchased nearly two years ago is still going strong without a single hardware issue, vs the cheap Dell that lasted a year before developing critical power issues (right after my warranty expired, of course) and the Fujitsu Lifebook likewise failing with hinge death at about a year and a half, after a long run of problems. My Asus netbook seems to just be more rugged than your average PC. Also, I take the thing everywhere, where my last laptops were left home a lot more because they weighed so much more.

Comment Re:What's in that paper? (Score 1) 571

by ardyng (#27578287) Attached to: I prefer to consume my caffeine from a vessel of ...

Different parts of your tongue can be more or less sensitive to certain tastes. Sipping through a hole in the lid forces the coffee over the front part of your tongue where the sensitivity to sweetness is most prominent. The sides of your tongue, by contrast, are generally more sensitive to bitterness.

Bunk. Sorry, the Tongue map has been disproven for ages.

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