patrick.net

More than a decade before the first iPhone, before Steve Jobs' return to Apple, the TC1000 had a graphical user interface including a touch screen with square "buttons" that had rounded corners:

http://www.remotecentral.com/ureview/13-3.htm

http://www.remotecentral.com/take/index.html

BTW, it was made by Harmon Kardon and JBL in cooperation with MICROSOFT.

A problem for Samsung in the recent Apple v Samsung trial though, was that Samsung had deliberately tried to copy the iPhone. When Google reps told Samsung their phone was too similar to the iPhone and should be made more different, Samsung executives told their engineers the opposite. Instead of being allowed to innovate, Samsung engineers were ordered to copy the iPhone.

I saw a news interest story the other day, a segment here in SoFla called "Help me Howard" where a guy patented a perpetual electric contraption.
An electric generator that fed into a an electric motor. His patent expired, but the late notice was sent to Microsoft in Redmond Washington of all places, had nothing to do with the gentleman.

The patent expired but he can still save it by paying a 3800 fee plus some 1200 late fee, the numbers might be off, as I'm going from memory but that was gist of the story. It was well over $4000 grand he had to come up with.

Now my gripe wasn't the legality of everything wrong with that story, like why was the renewal reminder sent to Microsoft, and not him. As it turns out, he is responsible for knowing when to pay the fee to keep the patent current.

I'm saying what in the hell is wrong with the system, that the fees are so oppressive to muscle inventors out of their creation, most tinkerers live hand to mouth, and can't afford to keep up on the fees. Lest not the lofty fee to keep the patent active, let alone the late fee.

This can only be the work of the Lobbyists like the lawyers at Apple that end up taking peoples inventions with legal brute force.

I don't ever feel any love for these companies that complain about copyright and patent infringement. Chances are they stole it from someone else anyway.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/technology/apple-iphone-5-event/index.html?iid=Lead

The new smartphone features an improved "iSight" camera, with a better ability to take low-light photos and a new mode that allows for panoramic shots. It also allows users to take photos while shooting videos -- an increasingly popular feature found on rival smartphones.

But it's OK if they copy other companies. Apple is so full of the smug "Do as I say not as I do" crap that ruining this country.

CaptainShuddup says

I saw a news interest story the other day,

Never trust a commercial "news interest story" without checking the facts. A basic patent filing fee is under $400, and if you are a "small entity" and file electronically it's under $100:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee092611.htm

If you want additional services, e.g. if you hire professional representation or if you want to appeal PTO's determination for further review, the costs can escalate. A larger issue is, small businesses often lack the resources to pursue infringers in court, so they worry they're giving away their IP in exchange for IP "rights" that they won't be able to enforce. This is especially likely when Republicans "help small business" with "tort reform," i.e. making it even harder for the little guys to enforce their rights in court.

CaptainShuddup says

I saw a news interest story the other day, a segment here in SoFla called "Help me Howard" where a guy patented a perpetual electric contraption.
An electric generator that fed into a an electric motor.

This "perpetual electric contraption" sounds like a perpetual motion energy from nothing machine?

If so I hope Howard advised the guy to go ahead, save the money, and let the patent expire.

Patenting an impossible -- or near impossible -- device does not mean that the device actually works. There are quite a few patents on things like time machines, perpetual motion, mind control devices, etc.

leo707 says

Patenting an impossible -- or near impossible -- device does not mean that the device actually works. There are quite a few patents on things like time machines, perpetual motion, mind control devices, etc.

Penis enlargement devices. None of them work, or so I've heard...

the internet is a mind-control device. don't think it's been patented though.

suspiria_2 says

the internet is a mind-control device

Bhaa! Who needs mind-control, when brain-control is better:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/eH_sKOmkB14

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FFhjDX-DUew

http://www.youtube.com/embed/UUb6LngRZ-8

http://www.youtube.com/embed/RMav-SvT7iU

What's new in the computer sector? Just about nothing. 99.999% of the blowhards who say they are "innovating" are just putting a new shine on old ideas and claiming it as their own.

Personally I hate the word innovation, it's too often used as though at it were INVENTION.

The depressing thing to me is how much shittier some of the DEEP stuff under the hood is getting, and nobody seems to care as long as it has a glitzy GUI.

Douglas Englebart. The badass that did it all first. Before Xerox Parc. Before Apple. In fact, the Parc group were his own interns and researchers jumping ship and taking his work with them. The Graphical User Interface, the mouse, hypertext, hierarchical linking, augmented networking systems. And his entirely ignored work over the past 25 years was so far out-of-the-box, it has yet to be explored at all.

R.I.P. Mr. E. There are still a few who remember who the DaVinci of our time truly was.

100 years from now, the stars of the show will be:

1) The inventors of the transistor plus a few other materials and fabrication breakthroughs
2) Turing, von Neumann, Tony Hoare (quicksort), and a few other theoretical guys
3) Cerf and the other internet pioneers
4) A few visionary corporate/capital types, probably including Jobs and Brin/Schmidt, maybe Bezos, but probably not Gates

The membership in group 4 will probably be light: if it weren't for the iPhone, I doubt Jobs would merit membership, no matter how successful he was in most of his ventures. The iPhone was a pretty damned good move.

Bezos is the dark horse: the founding of Amazon may prove to be a scary-smart move.

Thinking about the whole industry: the hype-to-innovation ratio is stupendously high.

curved flexible displays are innovation.
exist now on tv sets...coming to your smartphone shortly.

Vicente says

Personally I hate the word innovation, it's too often used as though at it were INVENTION.

Jobs loses out due to his stupidity in refusing leading edge cancer treatment for some holisitic shit nonsense.

HydroCabron says

I doubt Jobs would merit membership, no matter how successful he was

Dan8267 says

From the graphical user interface to the circular slider to Internet apps, Apple has always stolen all their ideas from other companies.

Innovation doesn't stop as an idea in a lab of something that *could* be done.
It's when you actually make it work seamlessly, have all functions to actually make it useful, have a stylish package, and the market it successfully.

Cell phones before the Iphone were designed by evil warlocks.

HydroCabron says

100 years from now, the stars of the show will be:

I'm hoping Gene Roddenberry will get some credit for the then commonplace Alcubierre drive.

Heraclitusstudent says

Dan8267 says

From the graphical user interface to the circular slider to Internet apps, Apple has always stolen all their ideas from other companies.

Innovation doesn't stop as an idea in a lab of something that *could* be done.

It's when you actually make it work seamlessly, have all functions to actually make it useful, have a stylish package, and the market it successfully.

The things I mentioned were useful, seamless, and stylish long before Apple stole them.

Of course, some Apple fanboys insist that stylish is defined by "as Apple does it" and will think a Casio watch is the greatest thing ever if you slap an Apple logo on it.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/v9JQsXPd41U

Sure Apple will claim they invented things they didn't, and they will *try* to lock your balls in concrete. Whatever. They are successful company that is successful for making items that are pretty good, especially compared to what was available when they first made them. They are not successful for digging oil, like XOM. And at least their products are not absolute crap forced on a locked-in customer base like MSFT is doing.

If you don't like Apple, use something else. Who cares?

Heraclitusstudent says

If you don't like Apple, use something else. Who cares?

That's not the point. If Apple is going to claim inventing things that it didn't to prevent other company's from using the same damn thing, like the magnetic power cord invented by the Japanese, then yes, I'm going to oppose this criminal abuse of the patent system.

If Apple is going to keep promoting the false stereotype that computer people are social pariahs like they do with those juvenile I'm a MAC commercials, then I'm going to expose their bullshit. Remember, it's exactly that bullshit that causes there to be so few women in I.T. It's Apple, not sexism, that causes I.T. to be male dominated.

Heraclitusstudent says

They are not successful for digging oil, like XOM.

No, just causing their impoverished workers to commit suicide.

Yes, there are worse companies than Apple, but there's no reason we should tolerate fraud from Apple or their attempts to engineer our culture for the worse. Apple has a right to make their case that the 95% of people who use PCs are despicable nerds. I have the right to make them look like asses when they do. It's called a social debate, and it's a good thing. You don't get rid of bad ideas through censorship; you get rid of bad ideas by actively and aggressively countering them.

Dan8267 says

That's not the point. If Apple is going to claim inventing things that it didn't to prevent other company's from using the same damn thing, like the magnetic power cord invented by the Japanese, then yes, I'm going to oppose this criminal abuse of the patent system.

If you want to oppose the patent system, I hear you, but why write a thread about Apple?

Apple is certainly not the only company using patents.

Dan8267 says

If Apple is going to keep promoting the false stereotype that computer people are social pariahs like they do with those juvenile I'm a MAC commercials

[shrug] They present their computer people as hipsters and competition as uncool. Who cares? Isn't that what other companies try to do?
This is advertisement, what do you expect? Are other advertisements honest? realistic?

Dan8267 says

No, just causing their impoverished workers to commit suicide.

Who assembles every motherboards in every computers including probably the one you are using?
Is it really just Apple?

Dan8267 says

Yes, there are worse companies than Apple, but there's no reason we should tolerate fraud from Apple or their attempts to engineer our culture for the worse.

Yes exactly there are worse companies.

Engineer culture? They wish.

Heraclitusstudent says

why write a thread about Apple?

Because Apple and their cult claim that Apple invented everything when in fact they've invented nothing.

I have no problem calling bullshit on other companies, but that doesn't mean I can't speak ill of the ill that Apple does. You seem to be suggesting that no one should ever say something bad about Apple. I will not abide by that request. I have no problem saying bad things about Microsoft when they do bad things. I'm not giving Apple a pass.

Heraclitusstudent says

They present their computer people as hipsters and competition as uncool. Who cares?

The 12-year-old girl who then thinks that using computers for business makes someone socially unacceptable and thus chooses not to enter engineering.

The multitudes of feminists, bloggers, and journalist who then blame the lack of women in engineering on the "bad, sexist male engineers who create a culture of harassment". Of course, that's complete bullshit and we engineers should not take it.

Dan8267 says

The 12-year-old girl who then thinks that using computers for business makes someone socially unacceptable and thus chooses not to enter engineering.

The multitudes of feminists, bloggers, and journalist who then blame the lack of women in engineering on the "bad, sexist male engineers who create a culture of harassment". Of course, that's complete bullshit and we engineers should not take it.

Dan, it's that studying engineering is hard work and that that payoff, is not that much greater (usually it's lower) than being an MBA-ologist a.k.a management consulting type.

Think about it, the degree, Doctor of Medicine M.D., is a masters degree in applied physiology/biosciences with clinical rotations. This program has no problems filling more than 50% of its freshman classes with women students. It counts as a biological science program.

On the other hand, engineering curricula has courses like statistical thermodynamics, digital circuit design, complex variables, and so on. Now, why would a majority of women students want to study that stuff, just to later apply for an MBA program? Isn't it better to study economics, take the basic premed requisites, and then opt for a job at Boston Consulting Group? She then spends two years doing spreadsheet BS & presentations, and then, applies for an MBA or an MD (if she wants a secure lifelong job)?

You see, the ppl who'd study engineering are mainly guys (a/o women from Asian societies), who'd always been into science and math and don't care about being saddled with the extra schoolwork, throughout college.

Rin says

You see, the ppl who'd study engineering are mainly guys (a/o women from Asian societies), who'd always been into science and math and don't care about being saddled with the extra schoolwork, throughout college.

Ah, but why are women so not into science and math? It's the social stigma that Hollywood and Apple promote.

The fact is that such nonsense, as inaccurate as it is, has a strong influence on impressionable children and adolescents. And the last thing our stupid country needs is to further look down at intellectualism, math, science, and engineering.

Apple integrates things.

I wouldn't say Apple says computer people are nerds.
They say their nerds are cooler than the others.

Entitlemented says

Apple integrates things.

So do sewers.

In any case, Apple "integrating" things should not give Apple the license to prevent other people and companies from integrating things. The round-corner fiasco is a perfect example.

Heraclitusstudent says

I wouldn't say Apple says computer people are nerds.

They say their nerds are cooler than the others.

Nit pick all you want. That 12-year-old girl sees John Hodgman's character as proof that she should not study engineering.