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The Silencing of Maya

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Re: The Silencing of Maya

#41

Post by nichrome »

MBlume wrote: post #29

I've said this before and I'll say it again. One of the villains in this piece is Apple. Many of the people reading this comment are talented engineers. What Apple needs to survive, more than anything, are talented engineers. So don't work at Apple. Don't work for companies that compromise ethics in this way. There's a reason Microsoft has been failing to compete for a while. It's because its practices got so evil th…

I don't agree that public shaming is the primary reason for Microsoft's demise -- there are lots of people who are attracted to work for the least ethical firms, just like Wall Street.

But, I agree with you, there should be more shaming when working for certain companies or in certain jobs. For instance, the companies that produce internet filters that are suitable for monitoring the traffic of entire countries.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#42

Post by wtracy »

Things like this make me wonder if we're missing something by decrying the patent trolls.

When the patent holder is a non-practicing entity, there is no incentive for the holder to interfere with the creation of competing products (abusive attempts to extract a settlement notwithstanding). Anything covered by the patent is a potential source of licensing fees, simple as that.

I'm going to start thinking out loud here: Imagine patent holders are disallowed from directly exercising the techniques covered by their patents. Corporations that patent technology in their field essentially have to sell their patents to NPEs and license them back. The researching corporation gets an up-front return on their R&D investment (and a potential head start in implementing the new patents before the rest of the public actually sees them) and the public suffers none of the side effects of a government-granted monopoly.

The biggest wrinkle in a system like this would be the whole mess of submarine patents. If NPEs could be incentivised to make their patents broadly known, and approach licensees before they implement those patents, they could actually become a real value-ad to the system rather than a parasite: Imagine a one-stop shop where you could license a patent, get a reference implementation, and access experts who could help you apply that patent to your product. It could be similar to companies like ARM that license reference chip designs to manufacturers.

Again, I'm just thinking out loud here, so feel free to let me know if I'm off-base here.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#43

Post by kvnn »

kvnn wrote: post #40

The following is from PRC's Facebook page [1]. Most of it is in defense of their lawsuit, while the last paragraph is in defense of their request to remove the app from the Apple store. Last week Prentke Romich Company (PRC) learned that Apple removed a language assistance app from its iTunes® store pending the outcome of a patent infringement lawsuit filed against the company that developed the iPad® app. PRC and th…

The founders of the company marketing this app are speech-language pathologists who were trained by PRC, and who used their knowledge of the Unity system to develop a Unity-like app of their own and market it in the Apple iTunes store.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#44

Post by nl »

monochromatic wrote: post #26
domwood wrote: post #13

rant/ Nothing instills rage in me more than companies, knowing how essential what they sell is, slagging each other for petty, pointless money. I hate to be dramatic, but these are disabled adults and children for christ's sake, people who need things like SfY. I just do not understand how someone at the litigating company thought "hey, let's go sue a company over some very complex and possibly unfounded patent alleg…

> petty, pointless money Oh, you mean that same money that is literally the only reason that they provide these "essential" products?

Oh, you mean that same money that is literally the only reason that they provide these "essential" products?

That simply isn't true.

I know a lot of people who work on apps similar to this, or in related fields, and money is far from the only reason they do it. Infact, I know people who literally give away their work to make sure people can use it.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#45

Post by kvnn »

MBlume wrote: post #29

I've said this before and I'll say it again. One of the villains in this piece is Apple. Many of the people reading this comment are talented engineers. What Apple needs to survive, more than anything, are talented engineers. So don't work at Apple. Don't work for companies that compromise ethics in this way. There's a reason Microsoft has been failing to compete for a while. It's because its practices got so evil th…

I mean, take a look at this quote:

The founders of the company marketing this app are speech-language pathologists who were trained by PRC, and who used their knowledge of the Unity system to develop a Unity-like app of their own and market it in the Apple iTunes store.

If PRC was able to prove that to Apple, you hadn't read the OP but PRC had posted something about how people they trained stole their technology, would you direct the word "villain" towards Apple, PRC, or the makers of SpeakForYourself?

If I had a choice I'd keep the app on the app store. But, its important to keep a cool head and consider things objectively.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/PrentkeRomichCompany

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#46

Post by californian »

meaydinli wrote: post #27

Does SfY have iOS specific functions? If not, one option would be to port it to Android, and then use it on a rooted android device. Since android doesn't depend on a single marketplace, it would be harder to remove it completely.

Just to clarify, there's no need to root the android device to run an app that's not on Google's market. There's a checkbox you fill that allows installation from "unknown sources". SfY could sell directly from their website if they wanted.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#47

Post by roguecoder »

earl wrote: post #15
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Ok, I've read it twice. I'm not sure I understand the argument. It reads like the argument is "This technology helps handicapped people so you shouldn't allow it to be patented." Is that a reasonable argument? PRC seems to have a valid patent, they sell a device the people in the article could use, Speak For Yourself infringed without a license and they are the good guys why? The patent argument would go, "PRC figure…

clicking glyphs on a screen and having a device speak the words the glyphs represent is patent worthy? It's a perfect parallel to ASL. And there's enough social utility that we should help companies gouge parents $8k a pop [1] instead of $400 ipad + $unknown for software? [1] http://store.prentrom.com/

"It's a perfect parallel to ASL."

Untrue. ASL is its own, unique language with distinct vocabulary, syntax, morphology and grammar. It's actually of significant interest to linguists due to the interesting spatial frames that appear to be unique to visual language.

However, this mechanism for communication does parallel books that have been used for years and electronic devices involving Bliss symbols (a paper from 1981 describing this: http://www.speech.kth.se/prod/publications/files/qpsr/1981/1...)

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#48

Post by MichaelGG »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Ok, I've read it twice. I'm not sure I understand the argument. It reads like the argument is "This technology helps handicapped people so you shouldn't allow it to be patented." Is that a reasonable argument? PRC seems to have a valid patent, they sell a device the people in the article could use, Speak For Yourself infringed without a license and they are the good guys why? The patent argument would go, "PRC figure…

Perhaps SfY is seen as the good guys as they've been able to deliver a quality product at an attractive price point, on commodity hardware? As compared to thousands of dollars for clunky hardware? Not to mention that patents are generally harmful, and this patent does not seem to be contributing anything truly groundbreaking...

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#49

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

rpedroso wrote: post #23
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Ok, I've read it twice. I'm not sure I understand the argument. It reads like the argument is "This technology helps handicapped people so you shouldn't allow it to be patented." Is that a reasonable argument? PRC seems to have a valid patent, they sell a device the people in the article could use, Speak For Yourself infringed without a license and they are the good guys why? The patent argument would go, "PRC figure…

I'm not sure that the argument is the important part of this article; a lot of it was about lamentation. The author admits to having little knowledge of patent laws, and is offering their story for perspective. As far as I can tell there were two points being made: 1. Apple might have been premature in pulling the app from the App Store. Not being under any immediate legal obligation to block the app, nor a ruling on…

>I mention the prices because I wondered why the author couldn't just go buy one of PRC's products. They may be prohibitively expensive.

He covered that: He said that he'd spoken with PRC and Maya couldn't use their device (PRC's).

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#50

Post by jemfinch »

kvnn wrote: post #45
MBlume wrote: post #29

I've said this before and I'll say it again. One of the villains in this piece is Apple. Many of the people reading this comment are talented engineers. What Apple needs to survive, more than anything, are talented engineers. So don't work at Apple. Don't work for companies that compromise ethics in this way. There's a reason Microsoft has been failing to compete for a while. It's because its practices got so evil th…

I mean, take a look at this quote: The founders of the company marketing this app are speech-language pathologists who were trained by PRC, and who used their knowledge of the Unity system to develop a Unity-like app of their own and market it in the Apple iTunes store. If PRC was able to prove that to Apple, you hadn't read the OP but PRC had posted something about how people they trained stole their technology, wou…

Absent a court-ordered injuction, Apple has no obligation to read, let alone give credence to anyone's claims in this matter, and that's exactly what they should have done: let the courts sort it out. Make PRC get the injuction, don't just give it to them for free.
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