22july2013

That chart isn't distressing for Apple users, it's actually comforting. Only a 10% difference, despite the fact that Intel's data uses a chip that hardly anyone owns yet.

AppleZulu said:

I recently bought (and quickly returned) an IR hub device that was to be run by a third-party iOS app. As none of the branding was anything familiar to me, I read the user agreements closely and found the very interesting idea within that the user would be agreeing to codes of speech and conduct that were compliant with and affirming of the Chinese constitution. The agreements were written in good enough English that they didn't appear to be auto translated, which would suggest that they were written for non-Chinese users. One wonders what the purpose of that would be. Presumably none of that would be enforceable outside of China, but I do wonder how many people have clicked right through and agreed to all that. I wasn't one of them.

I'm not sure how the app store review would catch that sort of thing, but I do wonder if there are any app store rules against it.

That's interesting. So is this: the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a documented history of violating many of the constitution's provisions and censoring calls for greater adherence to it. Claims of violations of constitutional rights cannot be used in Chinese courts. And the legislative committee responsible for constitutional review has never ruled a law or regulation unconstitutional. This is what you get in a one party system without fair elections and without an independent judiciary. If the constitution of China isn't enforceable inside China, then it isn't enforceable outside China either.

If you don't agree with most of that paragraph, don't take it up with me, go edit the source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China

I'm in Canada. When I clicked on the link in the story for SanDisk I was redirected to a "fr-ca" branch of their website. Apparently SanDisk thinks all people in Canada are French, so the buttons, the cookie warning and the menus at the bottom of the page were in French only. Although the product descriptions were in English, there was no button to take me to a website that had English buttons and links.

This would be roughly equivalent to having a Spanish-only page for everyone in America.

rob53 said:

Isn't there a model of the FitBit that does ECG? I've also seen other products that do this. Are all of them infringing on the same patents, have they licnesed them, or are there other patents that have been approved to do the same thing?

We may never know if company X licenses patent Y from company Z. Neither X nor Z are required to release that information. So Apple can't say "You are letting others use your patent for free," because that's not a defense anyway, and Apple probably wouldn't know.

Patents have a short lifetime anyway. They were only 17 years in duration until 1995 when they were lengthened to 20 years. Design patents are only 15 years. The duration may differ in other countries. And that includes all the time from when you file it to when you first start selling things with it, which often takes a few years. So the practical lifetime of a patent is only 10 to 15 years. Compare that with copyrights which are (typically) 70 years past the death of the copyright holder (which sometimes adds up to 150 years) and trademarks which are permanent.

While trademark lifetimes probably should be indefinite, copyrights of 150 years seem to be way too long and patents seem to be way too short. For example, if I write a novel, I really don't expect to be earning royalties for 70 years past my death. I'm not motivated to create things for money that I can earn after my death. Most copyrighted IP is past its prime after 10 to 20 years anyway, while many patents could be useful for 20-100 years. I remember when the Segway was released around 2001. It's patent has probably expired by now, even though the thing could still be useful and profitable to sell for another 50 years.

The reflection in those glasses on the left are the Unicode numbers for the emojis for "fork and knife," "sleep" and "laptop."

My opinion is that this is a clue as to what will be announced. The laptop is obvious: MacBooks (probably Pro) will be announced.

The sleep icon may refer to the fact that Apple bought Beddit four years ago and this may be announcing the first product based on that acquisition. 

As for the eating icon, I'm not sure, but what I want it to be is software for iOS devices to let me photograph the food that I eat and use AI to convert that to a caloric intake and digital accounting of everything I eat. This would be in keeping with Apple's main direction of health technology for everyone.