* Posts by elaar

364 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2011

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Jury awards Apple $1bn damages in Samsung patent case

elaar

You may well be correct there, perhaps television manufacturers do have to license the basic innovations I have listed.

However, we do not hear about constant legal battles between them. Having recently bought a "smart" tv, I noticed in the shop they were all now "smart", with apps and games. It's very difficult to spot any differences between them physically, it's all about the picture.

Who has copied who in this instance, and it's obvious from the large amount of choice and healthy competition in that market that they are able to co-exist reasonably peacefully, with no 1 company claiming itself to be the inventor of the smart tv and therefore all other products are imitations and should be banned. The patenting system either works a lot better in that market, or the companies don't concentrate most of their efforts in hoarding patents, or they just don't have as many stupid software patents.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/02/virgin_epg_victory/

As an example, a stupid TV software patent dismissed in court.

elaar

Have Apple actually got any technology patents that have made mobiles what they are today (3G, wireless, battery tech, ICs etc) .... or are they all obvious (as technology evolves) software patents such as gestures, scrolling, image displaying etc?

I don't use Apple or Android devices, but it astounds me what can be patented now days, this will only stifle "innovation" . When/if Apple create a television, will they be accused of completely copying Sony, LG etc. for creating a rectangular screen with a display for video broadcasts? Will they have to pay patent royalties for using a remote control, having an on/off button and other inventions that we all regard as obvious with that technology?

Patents should be for REAL inventions not this rubbish!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love IPv6

elaar

Re: Redistribution

Kirbini,

Cisco website:

"Implementing dynamic NAT automatically creates a firewall between your internal network and outside networks or the Internet. Dynamic NAT allows only connections that originate inside the stub domain. Essentially, this means that a computer on an external network cannot connect to your computer unless your computer has initiated the contact. So you can browse the Internet and connect to a site, even download a file. But somebody else can't simply latch onto your IP address and use it to connect to a port on your computer."

Whether you like it or not, NAT inherently provides some security on a network, that wasn't what it was designed for but it's how it functions.

You boast (unnecessarily) about your great achievements, knowledge and advanced skills in ACLs . But why create and constantly maintain a list of ACLs when 3 lines of code (in Cisco devices anyway) will get NAT functioning for any home user/small business. I don't think anyone was suggesting you actually use NAT when you have enough public IPs for your organisation?

"Pray tell, how is "preventing external hosts directly connecting to inside hosts" a function of NAT at all? NAT simply creates a temporary ACL..."

Read that back, of course it is a (non primary) function of NAT. NAT doesn't "prevent" external hosts as such, it just doesn't know what to do with the packets as there's no mention of it in the state table, and drops them. NAT doesn't create temporary ACLs, it uses a lookup table, these are not the same! However, you can use ACLs in conjunction with NAT pools.

Samsung tells Apple: Quit your 'frivolous' whining over court doc leak

elaar

My money is on the American company with more money winning, regardless of what is presented in court. When has the US ever proven otherwise?

Samsung: 'Apple's proto-iPhone Jony is a Sony phone phoney'

elaar

Gah

What I'd like to know is, if these companies hadn't allegedly copied each others designs, what do the courts think their products would look like today? Would we have phones that are round with triangular screens? No we wouldn't, because there's only certain ergonomic outcomes for products.

It's why all televisions look the same, as do laptops and most other products available.

Expert: EU Microsoft competition fine could reach $7bn

elaar
Facepalm

Re: 0 out of 3

Interesting..

So you believe because there are alternatives and no one is forced to buy an iPod/iPad, then they can't be a monopoly? Well how does that apply to MS? No one is forced to buy a windows pc/laptop and there are plenty of alternatives there too!

You missed my point in your last paragraph so I give up.

elaar

Apple has a monopoly on portable mp3 players and yet has created software that goes to great lengths to lock you into itunes despite the alternatives available.

Apples has a proven monopoly on tablets, where do people buy their apps, music and videos despite the alternatives?

With regards to OS's, it seems as long as you charge a premium for your product and do not become a monopoly you can do whatever you want.

Watching Olympics at work? How to avoid a £1k telly-tax fine

elaar

Re: Employed by the public services?

"For the rest of us that live up North" - Why do people keep saying this? What about the people down south such as Londoners who also have no tickets, paid more than their share for this event to happen through council tax and have to endure the total travel chaos surrounding the Olympics?

I think Northerners have very little to complain about!

Facebook jumps then slumps in first few minutes day's trade

elaar

Re: So they priced the IPO about spot on then

That would be correct, if it wasn't for the fact the price was manipulated.

As soon as the share price started dropping, the investment banks underwriting the IPO stepped in and bought a ton of shares to keep the price up.

Intel bakes palm-sized Core i5 NUC to rival Raspberry Pi

elaar

A core i5 for "kiosks and digital signs", seriously?

Arcam rPac

elaar

Re: The difference is clear?

How can a volume control "lose bits on the way"? It will act on the output buffer and be analogue only, having no affect on the bits.

Anyway, there are so many problems with this DAC it beggars belief.

It uses the PC 5v bus, produced from a noisy SMPS, with a hopeless grounding technique that will only inject noise.

The article states jitter free, but in all likeliness the opposite is true, the DAC must be using an external clock and without a clock-lock method will inherently produce jitter.

And like others have mentioned, it's a pretty cheap IC with far from amazing specs. Most sound cards I have come across have had pretty good onboard DACs and analogue outputs, that at most require a nice little external analogue buffer circuit, especially for those hard to drive headphones.

elaar

Re: Don't be too harsh

Laptops have no connection to earth as they are isolated, GND is not connected to earth in any way, if you don't believe me, crack open a laptop PSU and check. Besides, any decent amplifier should have a star ground topology to prevent earth loops feeding back through the power supply.

Digital outputs and fibre have their own inherent problems requiring perfectly matching clocks either side.

Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo

elaar

The best at what? Surfing the web and playing basic games?

BT trying for fibre 'monopoly', claims TalkTalk chief

elaar

Nope.

Tax Payers received a major benefit, the offloading of an unmanageable pension debt that is close to crippling BT. The largest in the private sector thanks to the governments inability to ever manage pensions. 9 BIllion in deficit at the beginning of this year.

Now explain why they should let everyone share their infrastructure.

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