Integrated Circuit Patents (copyright issues)

As lots of other inventions in the world, many are not eligible for patents. Patentable things must be useful, novel and unobvious. Same applies to IC industry. After reading the agreement on IP at my company, it was interesting to find out that numerous integrated circuits do not meet the requirement of novelty, hence, not patentable and not protected. Even though a lot of effort is taken to design an IC, it is not necessarily unobvious.

That puts IC companies in a place where they are not protected against their circuits being copied. With modern technologies, even the resin protected chips can be scanned and replicated. This becomes a real issue when selling to countries that do not have IP laws.

On the good side, there is Integrated Circuit Topography Act that can protect not patented IP. If Company B patents what was previously registered with IC Topography Ministry by Company A, the latter can file a patent infringement case against Company B and be successful.

Conclusions are: be careful when selling chips or other IP to countries that have weak patent laws, and also cautious when filing a patent to avoid IP infringement with another company.

Ralph Baer - the inventor of console games

.. is an American inventor who was designed, implemented, and most importantly, patented, the modularized circuit board that was sold to Magnavox and later became a part of the first interactive gaming console that used a TV as a screen. In 2006 he received a National Medal of Technology for his invention.

[wikipedia]

SarbOx Agreement

Recently, at my workplace I had to sign the SarbOx conduct agreement. After numerous scandals with large corporations in the last decade, companies are trying to protect themselves by making employees sign it.

From Wikipedia.org:
"The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 and commonly called SOX or Sarbox; is a United States federal law signed into law on July 30, 2002 in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals resulted in a decline of public trust in accounting and reporting practices. Named after sponsors Senator Paul SarbanesD-MD) and Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH), the Act was approved by the House by a vote of 423-3 and by the Senate 99-0. President George W. Bush signed it into law, stating it included "the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt."

Live Coverage of gPhone Mobile OS

As posted on www.Engadget.com

Working at Google before and after IPO

Blogoscoped's post talks about experience of working at Google before IPO and after. Read here.

New iPhone models by Fall 2008?

With Apple's goals to ship 50 million iPhones by the end of 2009, the author of this blog suggests that several new models should come out by Fall 2008 the latest. There are rumors that there'll be a lower end model without the touch screen capability and a higher end one. Read the post here.

I've been thinking about getting iPhone or even iTouch for myself for a while now. Without flash memory, the 16 gig limit for the top of the line $450+ iTouch does not attract me that much. The phone part can justify itself. However, the iTouch has to have something more to justify my investment.

What I need in a PDA device:

• Internet access (free wifi is great)
  
• Storage (I like photography and it would have been nice to be able to show pictures to friends without the need to erase the old ones to free up space for new; with 1-3 Mb Mp3s, it might be harder to manage. Hence, the bigger the better)
  
• Organizational software
  

Hence, a few points against iTouch (for me):

• Vancouver, BC is not a wireless city (yet), especially if you go outside of downtown area
• There is no expandable memory. SD slot would have been nice.
  
• There is no todo or calendar software. It's ok when you are online as many online tools can take care of that. However, if you are not connected half of the time, what's the point? Reminders can be easily missed. This will be fixed with time with the new software add-ons coming out.
  

and a few Pros:

• Controlling computer and other devices at home will be really easy with the new iTouch - much better than with a cell phone. Hacking iTouch or iPhone must be a pleasure
  
• Touch screen is awesome. It beats the lack of memory. I am really tempted.
  

Just these two points above are enough to convince me to buy the "i". I do not care about YouTube or iTunes. The first one most of the time is for time wasting. And the second one can be done from your home computer just as easy. But the hacking and remote control parts can open up the new horizons. More on this later.

iPhone in Canada

Again, supposedly insider information. Read here and here.

If the price for iPhone will indeed be $799, there's no way I am buying it! iTouch simply as a gadget would be a better option for me then. I have a feeling though that it's an old political trick of overshooting (originally used by ancient Romans). Intentionally raise the expected price high, and then offer it at a better one, making buyers happy to have the lesser of two! Romans used it for interrogation to make the victim accept the lesser of two evils.

I think the strategy worked quite well before when Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, offered a $100 discount towards future shopping at Apple Store to those who bought iPhone early. That's only after dropping iPhone's price by $200 after 68 days following its release. Consumers were happy even though they lost $100!

Near-invisible UI improvements

The newest issue of EDN magazine had and article explored near-invisible user interface improvements. While a user is spending time with the system, he/she might not mention little modifications done in the background by a team of developers.

"...expert foley (sound effects) is invisible to a movie viewer, until the foley is either missing or implemented poorly." [read it]

That reminds me the words of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, during StartupSchool conference held in March 2007 at Stanford, who have mentioned that they are doing little improvements to the site every day. Small patches of code are constantly added seamlessly improving the user experience.

Intro

Intead of keeping paper notes and updating Favorites of an internet browser, I've decided to keep an online version of the things I find out on the Internet, useful tweaks and anything relevant to computers and technology here, in one spot - not only for my personal use, but also for people who might find it useful.

lomtik