"In making this statement about their awareness of past work, I am not criticizing Westerman, the iPhone, or Apple. It is simply good practice and good scholarship to know the literature and do one's homework when embarking on a new product. What I am pointing out, however, is that "new" technologies - like multi-touch - do not grow out of a vacuum. While marketing tends to like the "great invention" story, real innovation rarely works that way. In short, the evolution of multi-touch is a text-book example of what I call "the long-nose of innovation.""
The link also provides a nice overview of the history of touch.
Well the Palm Pilot isn't multitouch so ofcourse you can't do a pinch there.
But double click just works out of the box on almost all devices when an existing OS is used.
I think you should give this a read: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html and notice these words: "What I am pointing out, however, is that "new" technologies - like multi-touch - do not grow out of a vacuum."
Would you ever think about patenting a double touch interaction when you were the first to implement a double click action on a touchscreen? I think these things are so obvious I would even be ashamed to call them my innovation.
This note is very clever. A lot of "fact" are just wrong but they are written in a very convincing manner so that nobody will check them.
"sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right"
Well Steve Jobs liked to quote something like this: "Good artists copy. Great artists steal." Jobs was clearly spreading the message that Apple liked to steal mastering the "borrowed" product making it into a product of their own. Apple made no secret about stealing design from Braun and Sony. Jobs had great respect for those companies.
And I think the same applies to Samsung. They have great respect to Apple (although today that may have changed) and mastered the iPhone into an even greater product than the iPhone.
"We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth."
Well they may be the best looking products on earth for some, but they are absolutely not the best products. Apple mouses look great and are great to obtain RSI. MacOs is looking great but I can't get as productive with it as with Windows or Linux. The Mac Mini is looking great but I can buy twice the power for the same price. Most Apple products are looking great but why not supply a standard connector? Well we know the reason for that one. And now they are called the most valuable company of today.
Yes Samsung did look very closely to Apple's products but so did Apple to other products.
We all copy!
-edit1- Brown -> Braun ;) thanks.
-edit2- I also was thinking about a tablet I once bought. This was a complete copy of the iPad. Even the box had the same white design. But Apple didn't go after that company. Why? Because it was a peace of crap. You had to break the tablet before the screen became responsive and the battery didn't last 10 minutes.
"Apple is the world’s largest company". Last time I checked Apple was listed somewhere around 30 (20th for most profitable). Maybe Day4 didn't check there facts...
Every font is designed for a purpose. Serif fonts are designed to help the brain recognize the different letters. Comic Sans was designed to be used informal. Helvetica was designed to be used in signage. Verdana was designed to be readable from (72dpi) computer screens. And so on.
So as screen resolutions increase a serif font can help the brain to recognize small letters increasing readability.
So does the user sprinkle the powder after each slice, or does the machine somehow do it? How would the machine make an even layer of powder?
I can't make it up from the pictures, but most printers just trow a pile of powder on top of the last layer and flatten this with an arm. But I think this video will show it much more clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD9-QEo-qDk (take a look from 1:50).
Why doesn't the powder stick to the print head, or get pushed around unevenly by the print head?
Because the print head never touches the powder. Just like it doesn't touch the paper in your inkjet printer.
1: A very thin layer of powder (plastic) is evenly spread. Then the print head prints a binder on the places where you want to create a slice of your 3D model. Then another layer of powder is layered on top of it and GOTO 1. When all slices are printed your 3D model will be covered in powder which is also the support material for overhanging slices.
It's very hard to make this up from the photos but I think you can see the container for the powder and model with a movable bottom.
-EDIT-
This printer uses a binder, but other models melt the powder with a laser (Selective Laser Sintering).
Also: I'm on Opera and get a lot of CSS errors. Some are strange: "-o-opacity is an unknown property".