cloudguy

Ha ha. Apple wants Steam - a private entity - to release its private data to its competitors to analyze, mine and use to help them better compete with Steam. These competitors include not only Epic Games - who has a direct competing storefront product that operates similarly - and Microsoft - who owns the OS on which nearly all Steam games are distributed, sells their own video games through other channels like the Microsoft Store AND has the XBox hardware and xCloud platforms - but also Apple, who has Apple Arcade, wants to leverage the M1/Mx Macs into a gaming platform and turn Apple TV into a gaming console. And oh yeah has the #2 most profitable gaming platform in the world in iOS (Android nudges it out by a hair if you include the massive Chinese AOSP mobile gaming scene).

And they want Valve to give up their private competitive information as part of a dispute that has absolutely nothing to do with them! Valve does not make a console (anymore). They have largely stopped maintaining steamOS, their Debian-based Linux distro (their project to port it to a ChromeOS container with Google notwithstanding). And they have no presence on mobile beyond a few apps to complement the PC gaming. 

I support Apple in this lawsuit - if you absolutely have to play Fortnite on mobile then please just buy one of these https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/tablets/all-tablets/?screen_size=<9" as they are frequently on sale - but Valve has nothing to do with this. Not having to share data with bigger competitors that have more resources is one of the main benefits of being privately held. I do not want Valve's data to be given to Microsoft nor do I want it given to Apple (who yes is a cutthroat competitor like all the rest). So PLEASE judges deny this unfair motion!

entropys said:

baconstang said:

I love Jane.  
She was so good in so many things.  Especially of late-ish in Newsroom.

She peaked in Barbarella.

Nah, her work for the Viet Cong propaganda machine was some of her best. And since then - doing her level best to deny and ignore that Communist Viet Nam has gone on to be the authoritarian repressive nightmare that pretty much everyone who didn't believe Soviet propaganda knew it would https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/vietnam - was even better because it demonstrated that her ever pretending to care about Viet Nam and its people was all a big act also.

So many CCP lovers. Fine, just don't ever complain about the "lack of social justice" in America again. Funny how that is: SJWs talk endlessly about how bad human rights are in capitalist countries like America but never socialist ones like Cuba, Venezuela, China, Viet Nam, Argentina and Bolivia back in the day etc. The only reason why Russia is public enemy #1 is because they aren't socialist anymore. This same crowd was fine with Putin back when he was a KGB operative for the U.S.S.R. There were TONS of apologists for what the U.S.S.R. was doing. But they switch from socialism to kleptocracy but otherwise keep doing the same as always and NOW they are evil. 

So transparent. And it never changes.

cropr said:

mjtomlin said:

Of course they are. Apple is going to want some of its IP included in the standard to level the playing field when it comes to licensing.

That will be tough.   The big chunk of IP of 5G (and supposedly also of 6G) is on the network infrastructure level.  The network infrastructure standards are typically discussed between the telecom operators (T-Mobile, France Telecom, Telefonica...) and telecom equipment vendors (Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, ...). 

As Apple does not produce or sell telecom equipment, I fail to see how it can influence the 6G standard and the related IP.   That does not mean that Apple can prepare itself to develop its own 6G end user chips, but it will have to follow the standards defined by others, made available on FRAND terms

Not tough at all. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-lays-out-its-plans-for-6g-yes-6g/

While Samsung does make networking equipment, is involved in networking infrastructure and badly wants more market share and influence in that sector, they aren't Huawei, Ericsson or Nokia.

Instead, Samsung and Apple probably have similar goals: to influence the design in a way that benefits them. Right now Qualcomm - for example - is in a good place because 3G, 4G and 5G is based on the 2G and earlier work that Qualcomm (and the companies that they acquired) put in. If Apple, Samsung and others are able to convince the standards boards to scrap those in favor of standards that can be achieved with IP that is or can be open sourced - for example - that would allow anyone and everyone to make their own 6G radios, edge transmitters and relay stations with their own tech without having to pay license fees or deal with industry gatekeepers. Would you buy an Apple-branded 6G edge relay station? Of course you would especially if Apple told you that it was a HomePod, Apple TV or something else!

All right for something that paints Apple in a slightly better light: suppose Apple decides to extend AR into full-blown holograms and the implementation requires a 6G edge device for bandwidth and processing purposes. Not having to license the tech to do so from Qualcomm, Nvidia and whoever else to build the "FaceTime with AppleGram" would be convenient, right?

StrangeDays said:

Other countries report similar conditions tho. What he described in Finland is similar for Sweden. Somehow these nation-states are able to deliver better internet infrastructure value than US states. I for one don't think US carriers are operating under the "delight the customer" paradigm. Our service is poor and the cost high...making it a poor value. Not impressive for the land of big tech, right?!

Yes, other small countries like Finland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy etc. Nothing like serving a far larger population over a much bigger and diverse terrain. Don't get me wrong, I am not being a flag-waving nationalist (this time). Even if I would have had those inclinations in times past, cable and telephone companies teaming up with local governments to block Google Fiber back in the day would have ended it.

Yes, we do need a national top-down strategy for mobile, broadband and - based on what is going on in Texas - electricity. However the Republicans simply repeat "free market" nonsense not caring that it was the interstate highway program plus Cold War era DOE/DOD/NASA spending that heavily contributed to our free market economy. Democrats for their part only care about social issues, so infrastructure is low on the list that they are willing to spend capital on, unless it uses infrastructure/economic plans as a ruse for social ones such as the Green New Deal: purports to be an infrastructure plan when its real goal is to reorganize our economic and regulatory state around social justice. Even nationalizing the industry wholesale wouldn't solve all the problems. It would make some things better: the cell towers that are right now shared between 3 companies could be merged with excess or incompatible equipment being repurposed for other things, and yes the service would be cheaper. But there would still be real problems to prevent achieving Finnish network speeds and costs.