Monthly Archives: March 2007

Lost jumped the shark again!

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I honestly didn’t think it was possible, but Lost managed to jump the shark again last night. No, it didn’t go back to being good. It just got more ridiculous.

While it was interesting to find out how Locke got into the wheelchair and that Ben was born on the island, the reveal at the end of the episode with Locke’s “father” being held captive was not necessary to the storyline.

Adding this only pushes me more into thinking that everything is in Jack’s mind (like Stephen King said, which would suck) or that the characters are in Purgatory, which would also suck.

I think we should be seeing something relating to any one of the following loose story threads: Where are Walt and Michael? Where is the team sent by Desmond’s fiancé? What happened to the dinosaur (or whatever it was) that yanked the pilot from the cockpit in Season 1?

It’s good CTU on 24 isn’t real

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Why? It would be bad (I repeat: bad) policy for the Counter-Terrorist Unit to be constantly infiltrated by moles. On tonight’s episode, we learn that the latest group has breached CTU’s computer security from a facility three blocks away. I assume we’ll learn whether Nadia is involved or not. Regardless, some kind of internal investigation needs to be done. I mean, this happens every season! Yeesh! You’d think someone would catch on by now.

Patents issued on March 13, 2007

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7,189,913  Method and apparatus for time compression and expansion of audio data with dynamic tempo change during playback  (18 pages)

7,190,577  Cooling system with integrated passive and active components  (15 pages)

7,191,118  Method for dynamic context scope selection in hybrid N-gram+LSA language modeling  (13 pages)

7,191,242  Methods and apparatuses for transferring data  (27 pages)

7,191,266  Method and apparatus for supporting and presenting multiple serial bus nodes using distinct configuration ROM images  (12 pages)

RFID network arrangement

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Title:  RFID network arrangement

Patent application publication number:  20070054616  (7 pages)

Publication date:  March 8, 2007

Filing date:  September 6, 2005

AIPW Summary:  A system for automatically authenticating and configuring a network device. The system uses RFID, with a tag in the device and a receiver in the base station. When the device is located close to the base station, the base station writes the necessary network parameters to the RFID tag on the device. The device then reads the configured RFID tag to determine the network parameters, and uses the network parameters to establish a normal network connection to the base station (paragraph 0013).

In an alternate embodiment, the device had a read-only RFID tag. When brought close to the base station, the base station reads the ID in the tag of the device and stores the ID for later authentication. When the device attempts to access the network through a normal connection, it provides the ID. The base station admits the device, since it has already authenticated it (paragraph 0017).

Change in site coverage

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After having worked on this site for a few months now, I have realized that I cannot possibly keep up with analyzing all of Apple’s issued patents and published applications. (As it stands right now, I am a few days behind.) I would essentially be performing in-house patent work, which I simply cannot do if I want to keep my job, my life, and my sanity (not necessarily in any order of preference).

So, effective immediately, I will be changing how I cover things. I will list all issued patents and published applications, with links to the USPTO Web site and local links for the PDF file. I will be discussing some of the more interesting inventions in more detail. I should have enough time to do that.

As always, comments or e-mails are welcome.

King Tut exhibit ripoff

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A note to anyone who is planning on attending the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute – avoid the Tut gift shop! The King Tut exhibit book that they are selling for $49.95 can be bought on Amazon.com for $23.10 (click the link to buy it at Amazon). Plus the book has a list price of $35.00. So you would be paying a lot more money for a book jacket that had the words “February 2007″ on it plus a Mellon Bank sticker identifying them as a sponsor.

Other than that, the exhibit was quite interesting. We didn’t do the audio tour, since we weren’t sure it would add much to the experience and it was another $7 per person. It took about 90 minutes to see everything and we read just about every word that was there. Overall, I think it was worthwhile.