Re: PR stunt
No matter how slow you are going it is possible for someone to step out close enough so that you cannot avoid them. The only safe speed is stopped.
20 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2007
Two stage processes are normally used to avoid a single point failure. Arming a control brings you back to a single failure condition (Unless there were still more safety devices.
However you also have to remember that the more interlocks the greater the chance of one of them failing and the resulting complexity actually increasing the risk of failure.
So what's the inventive step here, using 2 screens has been done before, putting a flexible screen on a curved surface is the whole point of them.
In fact I would have expected a system using flexible screens to use only one and wrap it all around the object, displaying only on the parts that were needed at the time. Hardly rocket science and pretty obvious even to someone not in the industry.
IANAL
I thought that in the UK licences have to be written and have to have the ability to be modified by both sides, anything else is illegal so the contract is null and void. Hence the still dubious nature of click through licences which I don't believe have been tested in court. If it is void do they give your money back?
Also recently a the European court said that licences can be sold regardless of the wishes of the vendor ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/oracle-can-t-stop-software-license-resales-eu-court-says-1-.html ) so if you have a licence to the Itunes software you can sell it / give it away. Of course you have to be European so Bruce may still have a problem.
Why don't they control bandwidth instead? They could drop your bandwidth to 128kbps (or whatever) every 3rd second to nobble video applications without affecting voice. As long as the low speed was fast enough so that buffering of Youtube... smoothed out problems it would only affect people needing a high QoS. That way they can claim neutrality whilst hitting badly written apps.
It won't stop prior art invalidating a patent that's a completely separate issue. Prior art has to be published so if only you kept your invention a secret (which pretty much means you can't use it) would you lose out. if someone else also invented it. If you don't want someone else to patent it then print it in some oscure publication (though there may be rules around how obsure)