Tag Archives: Patent

MDA Immersive Audio Demo’d, and Openly (Patently?) More

To copy directly from the Open Source Initiative website:

Open Standards Requirement for Software

The Requirement

An “open standard” must not prohibit conforming implementations in open source software.

The Criteria

To comply with the Open Standards Requirement, an “open standard” must satisfy the following criteria. If an “open standard” does not meet these criteria, it will be discriminating against open source developers.

  1. No Intentional Secrets: The standard MUST NOT withhold any detail necessary for interoperable implementation. As flaws are inevitable, the standard MUST define a process for fixing flaws identified during implementation and interoperability testing and to incorporate said changes into a revised version or superseding version of the standard to be released under terms that do not violate the OSR.
  2. Availability: The standard MUST be freely and publicly available (e.g., from a stable web site) under royalty-free terms at reasonable and non-discriminatory cost.
  3. Patents: All patents essential to implementation of the standard MUST:
    • be licensed under royalty-free terms for unrestricted use, or
    • be covered by a promise of non-assertion when practiced by open source software
  4. No Agreements: There MUST NOT be any requirement for execution of a license agreement, NDA, grant, click-through, or any other form of paperwork to deploy conforming implementations of the standard.
  5. No OSR-Incompatible Dependencies: Implementation of the standard MUST NOT require any other technology that fails to meet the criteria of this Requirement.

One can imagine that each phrase was fought over in countless hours of committee work. Let’s see how the Digital Standard Organization uses “open standard” on their site. Notice the differences and similarities. There will be a test…ongoing and on the floor of conventions and when you read PR everywhere.  Notice that the term is tied to Free in this usage, but that usage comes directly from:

Origins

The Digistan definition of a free and open standard is based on the EU’s EIF v1 definition of “open standard” with the language cleaned-up and made more explicit. Our analysis of the importance of vendor capture in determining the openness of a standard comes from this analysis.

Picking our way through their site:

Politicization of terminology

What is an open standard? The Wikipedia page shows many definitions, which specify characteristics of a specification, or of the processes that produce it and make it available.

To understand why there is no single agreed definition, and to let us build a canonical definition, we can start with two observations:

    1. The standardization process is driven by two conflicting economic motives. Established vendors see standards as a route to direct profits, while the market at large sees standards as a route to lower costs.
    2. As the economic has become digital, governments – both as users and regulators – have become engaged in the conflict between these two interest groups.

The definitions collected on Wikipedia can be grouped into those made by vendors, and those made by the rest of the market. The variation in definition comes from the various viewpoints expressed (e.g. W3C focuses on process while Denmark focuses on user cost).

We, the Digital Standards Organization, explicitly take the side of “the market at large”. We do not accept the definitions of “open standard” produced by vendor bodies, including W3C to some extent. We do not accept the attempts of some legacy vendors to stretch “open standard” to include RAND-licensed standards.

An open standard must be aimed at creating unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users. Any barrier – including RAND, FRAND, and variants – to vendor competition or user choice is incompatible with the needs of the market at large.

There is more at: Digital Standards Organization RationaleFinally, onward to another page, which nicely correlates with the OSI group statement above:

Definition of a Free and Open Standard

The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard as follows:

  • A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
  • The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties.
  • The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute, and use it freely.
  • The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
  • There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of products based on the standard.
What have we learned? There is a community usage of Open Standard with developers. It is clear in that group what they mean by the term. There is another usage that does not fit into the logical extension of anyone’s definition, but which is held tightly by those who want to exploit the words. 


How the term is used in the theatrical exhibition side of professional audio remains to be seen.
There will be more on this topic, but this should start the conversation, and give enough background for some moments of interest at CinemaCon 2014.

MDA Immersive Audio Demo’d, and Openly (Patently?) More

To copy directly from the Open Source Initiative website:

Open Standards Requirement for Software

The Requirement

An “open standard” must not prohibit conforming implementations in open source software.

The Criteria

To comply with the Open Standards Requirement, an “open standard” must satisfy the following criteria. If an “open standard” does not meet these criteria, it will be discriminating against open source developers.

  1. No Intentional Secrets: The standard MUST NOT withhold any detail necessary for interoperable implementation. As flaws are inevitable, the standard MUST define a process for fixing flaws identified during implementation and interoperability testing and to incorporate said changes into a revised version or superseding version of the standard to be released under terms that do not violate the OSR.
  2. Availability: The standard MUST be freely and publicly available (e.g., from a stable web site) under royalty-free terms at reasonable and non-discriminatory cost.
  3. Patents: All patents essential to implementation of the standard MUST:
    • be licensed under royalty-free terms for unrestricted use, or
    • be covered by a promise of non-assertion when practiced by open source software
  4. No Agreements: There MUST NOT be any requirement for execution of a license agreement, NDA, grant, click-through, or any other form of paperwork to deploy conforming implementations of the standard.
  5. No OSR-Incompatible Dependencies: Implementation of the standard MUST NOT require any other technology that fails to meet the criteria of this Requirement.

One can imagine that each phrase was fought over in countless hours of committee work. Let’s see how the Digital Standard Organization uses “open standard” on their site. Notice the differences and similarities. There will be a test…ongoing and on the floor of conventions and when you read PR everywhere.  Notice that the term is tied to Free in this usage, but that usage comes directly from:

Origins

The Digistan definition of a free and open standard is based on the EU’s EIF v1 definition of “open standard” with the language cleaned-up and made more explicit. Our analysis of the importance of vendor capture in determining the openness of a standard comes from this analysis.

Picking our way through their site:

Politicization of terminology

What is an open standard? The Wikipedia page shows many definitions, which specify characteristics of a specification, or of the processes that produce it and make it available.

To understand why there is no single agreed definition, and to let us build a canonical definition, we can start with two observations:

    1. The standardization process is driven by two conflicting economic motives. Established vendors see standards as a route to direct profits, while the market at large sees standards as a route to lower costs.
    2. As the economic has become digital, governments – both as users and regulators – have become engaged in the conflict between these two interest groups.

The definitions collected on Wikipedia can be grouped into those made by vendors, and those made by the rest of the market. The variation in definition comes from the various viewpoints expressed (e.g. W3C focuses on process while Denmark focuses on user cost).

We, the Digital Standards Organization, explicitly take the side of “the market at large”. We do not accept the definitions of “open standard” produced by vendor bodies, including W3C to some extent. We do not accept the attempts of some legacy vendors to stretch “open standard” to include RAND-licensed standards.

An open standard must be aimed at creating unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users. Any barrier – including RAND, FRAND, and variants – to vendor competition or user choice is incompatible with the needs of the market at large.

There is more at: Digital Standards Organization RationaleFinally, onward to another page, which nicely correlates with the OSI group statement above:

Definition of a Free and Open Standard

The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard as follows:

  • A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
  • The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties.
  • The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute, and use it freely.
  • The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
  • There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of products based on the standard.
What have we learned? There is a community usage of Open Standard with developers. It is clear in that group what they mean by the term. There is another usage that does not fit into the logical extension of anyone’s definition, but which is held tightly by those who want to exploit the words. 


How the term is used in the theatrical exhibition side of professional audio remains to be seen.
There will be more on this topic, but this should start the conversation, and give enough background for some moments of interest at CinemaCon 2014.

Higgs!…and other summer distractions

24 July – Yellow Jacket iPhone stun gun case — Indiegogo – One wonders if you can get some extra time from the stun battery?

 

23 July – Maximum PC | White Paper: OLED Screens; Lot of data about something that could have been years ago, but which is quickly going to be happening…

4 July – All United States will mass together and explode fireworks today, as Higgs has been found. (Most didn’t know she was lost.)

For music fun today: 100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock and Roll

OK, for explaining Higgs: What is the Higgs boson? – video | Science | guardian.co.uk

I don’t see it anywhere, but I understand that this field…these particles in this Higgs Field were described in an article written a couple decades ago for some Time or Newsweek like magazine. The scientist called the article something along the lines of “Searching for that God Damn Particle”. The editor, fearing the wrath of mouth-breathers everywhere renamed it “The Search for the God Particle”

1 July – The father of wife Frederique, Bernard Peiffer, has had a 2 album set released…great tunes:

Improvision: Bernard Peiffer: Amazon.fr: Improvisions

Fredy’s father played with the greats, from Django to Torme and dozens of others in between including solo at Carnegie Hall.

22 June – What is OLED TV? | TV and Home Theater – CNET Reviews – hat tip Mark Schubin

Is Condition One the future of video? Mark Cuban thinks so – hat tip Mark Schubin

27 May – Staples eReader interactive infographic – Doesn’t sound as fun as it is; tests your reading skills.

22 May – Rachele Gilmore’s 100 MPH Fastball – Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA)

20 May – 99% Invisible-50- DeafSpace by Roman Mars

17 May – 700 Opening Traps – Bill Wall from Bill Wall Chess Resources

16 May

The Second Circuit Reverses Conviction of Computer Programmer and Holds that Theft of Intellectual Property Is Not Necessarily Criminal – Hat tip to: 1st Joe Wojdacz | Disruptive Innovationist

JD Supra Buzz! — Can an API Be Copyrighted?

Inventors Should File Patent Applications As Soon As Possible | Fox Rothschild – JDSupra

 

What is Missing?

Classic Think Different

Think Different’s The Crazy Ones

{youtube width=”600″ height=”360″}8rwsuXHA7RA{/youtube}

The campaign was made almost entirely in-house by the team at TBWA Chiat/Day, Los Angeles:

Lee Clow, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer Worldwide, Account Director

Creative Directors: Ken Segall, Rob Siltanen, Eric Grunbaum, Amy Moorman.

Jennifer Golub, Executive Producer & Director, Art Director

Art directors: Jessica Schulman, Margaret Midgett, Ken Younglieb, Bob Kuperman, Yvonne Smith, Susan Alinsangan.

Copywriter: Craig Tanimoto.

Dan Bootzin, Senior Editor of the in-house arm, Venice Beach Editorial.

Stock Photo and Film research was carried out by Susan Nickerson, owner and head stock-footage researcher with Nickerson Research.

In 1998 the television spot won the second annual primetime Emmy Award for best commercial from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). The ad also won a Belding, a Silver Lion at Cannes. The long term campaign won an Effie award for marketing effectiveness.

Stephanie Clarkson has had a desktop image page based on the ad, since it aired in 1997. She gives biographical details for each of the people featured in “Think Different #1”. Think different: Desktop Pictures (The last picture is un-noted, but she is the daughter of director Tarsem Singh, who is the featured bicycle rider on the Deep Forest Sweet Lullaby video.)

Richard Dreyfuss reads the voiceover in the most well known version:

Here’s to the Crazy Ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing that you can’t do, is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or, sit in silence and hear a song that hasn’t been written?

Or, gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Think Different #1 featured the following footage:

Albert Einstein, smoking a pipe

Bob Dylan, moving to his harmonica

Martin Luther King, at the end of his Washington speech

Richard Branson, shaking champagne

John Lennon and Yoko Ono singing

Buckminster Fuller demonstrating the Bucky Ball

Thomas Edison thinking

Mohammed Ali dancing for the press

Ted Turner boxing the air with a smile

Maria Callas blowing a kiss

Mahatma Gandhi smiling

Amelia Earhart arriving

Alfred Hitchcock speaking

Martha Graham dancing

Jim Henson puppeteering

Frank Lloyd Wright walking by his home

Picasso painting

A child dreaming

A bit of the background

Steve Jobs had just returned to the struggling company, Apple. Jobs and Lee Clow had collaborated back in 1984 to launch the MacIntosh.

Now was the time to recover the sene of Apple’s place in the world of creative users. The TBWA Chiat/Day team said that Apple should be aligned with the creativity of personalities and people making an impact on the twentieth century. The “Think Different” phrase provided an opportunity to celebrate both the creativity of these people but also the distinctiveness of Apple in the computing world, responding to IBM’s historic campaign motto, “Think”. The campaign was swiftly approved by Apple, then begun with the television commercial, which first ran on Sept. 28 1997, followed by the print ads, billboards and posters.

According to the extinct site: http://tvadverts.blogspot.com/2005/10/apple-think-different.html

Higgs!…and other summer distractions

24 July – Yellow Jacket iPhone stun gun case — Indiegogo – One wonders if you can get some extra time from the stun battery?

 

23 July – Maximum PC | White Paper: OLED Screens; Lot of data about something that could have been years ago, but which is quickly going to be happening…

4 July – All United States will mass together and explode fireworks today, as Higgs has been found. (Most didn’t know she was lost.)

For music fun today: 100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock and Roll

OK, for explaining Higgs: What is the Higgs boson? – video | Science | guardian.co.uk

I don’t see it anywhere, but I understand that this field…these particles in this Higgs Field were described in an article written a couple decades ago for some Time or Newsweek like magazine. The scientist called the article something along the lines of “Searching for that God Damn Particle”. The editor, fearing the wrath of mouth-breathers everywhere renamed it “The Search for the God Particle”

1 July – The father of wife Frederique, Bernard Peiffer, has had a 2 album set released…great tunes:

Improvision: Bernard Peiffer: Amazon.fr: Improvisions

Fredy’s father played with the greats, from Django to Torme and dozens of others in between including solo at Carnegie Hall.

22 June – What is OLED TV? | TV and Home Theater – CNET Reviews – hat tip Mark Schubin

Is Condition One the future of video? Mark Cuban thinks so – hat tip Mark Schubin

27 May – Staples eReader interactive infographic – Doesn’t sound as fun as it is; tests your reading skills.

22 May – Rachele Gilmore’s 100 MPH Fastball – Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA)

20 May – 99% Invisible-50- DeafSpace by Roman Mars

17 May – 700 Opening Traps – Bill Wall from Bill Wall Chess Resources

16 May

The Second Circuit Reverses Conviction of Computer Programmer and Holds that Theft of Intellectual Property Is Not Necessarily Criminal – Hat tip to: 1st Joe Wojdacz | Disruptive Innovationist

JD Supra Buzz! — Can an API Be Copyrighted?

Inventors Should File Patent Applications As Soon As Possible | Fox Rothschild – JDSupra

 

What is Missing?

Classic Think Different

Think Different’s The Crazy Ones

{youtube width=”600″ height=”360″}8rwsuXHA7RA{/youtube}

The campaign was made almost entirely in-house by the team at TBWA Chiat/Day, Los Angeles:

Lee Clow, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer Worldwide, Account Director

Creative Directors: Ken Segall, Rob Siltanen, Eric Grunbaum, Amy Moorman.

Jennifer Golub, Executive Producer & Director, Art Director

Art directors: Jessica Schulman, Margaret Midgett, Ken Younglieb, Bob Kuperman, Yvonne Smith, Susan Alinsangan.

Copywriter: Craig Tanimoto.

Dan Bootzin, Senior Editor of the in-house arm, Venice Beach Editorial.

Stock Photo and Film research was carried out by Susan Nickerson, owner and head stock-footage researcher with Nickerson Research.

In 1998 the television spot won the second annual primetime Emmy Award for best commercial from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). The ad also won a Belding, a Silver Lion at Cannes. The long term campaign won an Effie award for marketing effectiveness.

Stephanie Clarkson has had a desktop image page based on the ad, since it aired in 1997. She gives biographical details for each of the people featured in “Think Different #1”. Think different: Desktop Pictures (The last picture is un-noted, but she is the daughter of director Tarsem Singh, who is the featured bicycle rider on the Deep Forest Sweet Lullaby video.)

Richard Dreyfuss reads the voiceover in the most well known version:

Here’s to the Crazy Ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing that you can’t do, is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or, sit in silence and hear a song that hasn’t been written?

Or, gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Think Different #1 featured the following footage:

Albert Einstein, smoking a pipe

Bob Dylan, moving to his harmonica

Martin Luther King, at the end of his Washington speech

Richard Branson, shaking champagne

John Lennon and Yoko Ono singing

Buckminster Fuller demonstrating the Bucky Ball

Thomas Edison thinking

Mohammed Ali dancing for the press

Ted Turner boxing the air with a smile

Maria Callas blowing a kiss

Mahatma Gandhi smiling

Amelia Earhart arriving

Alfred Hitchcock speaking

Martha Graham dancing

Jim Henson puppeteering

Frank Lloyd Wright walking by his home

Picasso painting

A child dreaming

A bit of the background

Steve Jobs had just returned to the struggling company, Apple. Jobs and Lee Clow had collaborated back in 1984 to launch the MacIntosh.

Now was the time to recover the sene of Apple’s place in the world of creative users. The TBWA Chiat/Day team said that Apple should be aligned with the creativity of personalities and people making an impact on the twentieth century. The “Think Different” phrase provided an opportunity to celebrate both the creativity of these people but also the distinctiveness of Apple in the computing world, responding to IBM’s historic campaign motto, “Think”. The campaign was swiftly approved by Apple, then begun with the television commercial, which first ran on Sept. 28 1997, followed by the print ads, billboards and posters.

According to the extinct site: http://tvadverts.blogspot.com/2005/10/apple-think-different.html