Four short links: 5 October 2017
Patent Shenanigans, FX History, Storied Career, and Pixel Buds
- Allergan Gave Patents to the Mohawk Tribe (Ars Technica) — Lawyers for Allergan are hoping that the principle of sovereign immunity, in which Native American tribes are treated as sovereign nations in certain ways, will protect their patents from government review. (via Slashdot)
- Oral History of the Tech of Terminator 2 — I was like, ‘Awesome.’ When someone says, ‘Yeah, we’re not sure how to do this,’ you can’t do worse.
- A 35-Year Old BASIC Program and Its Author — this guy’s career is impressive, and a great example of “be in the right place at the right time with the right skills”. At Wal-Mart, his Telxon project led to the first large-scale deployment of barcode technology in retail and to him writing the first two FM wireless digital data transfer protocols (P-TAP and R-TAP). Oh, and he wrote DarkStar BBS.
- Google Pixel Buds — in-ear buds that do real-time translation. Brilliant competitive move, using G’s home-field advantage of AI to make Apple’s earbuds look primitive.
