Intellectual property use / abuse ?

I find that, in recent times, one of the most abused area in tech business, to make a quick buck is Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).  Not a day goes by without reading some tech company suing some other company over some insignificant piece of design, which I honestly doubt the creators would've even stolen consciously ! From protecting ownership, this IP has become more of a tool for cash-strapped companies to make a quick buck.  You know , kind of , legal extortion ! I feel as if this IPR, while on one hand protects the rights of ownership for the individual, is stifling creativity and innovation.
       Lets take the simple example of touch screen phones.  Now, Apple invaded the mobile phone market around 5 years back with its iphone 2G, and changed the landscape forever.  Not only did it bring up a barrage of copycats, it also, brought with it a slew of lawsuits, with every company suing every other company.   So, how do the other companies escape the charge , if they can't afford the royalty ? They just have to re-do everything from scratch.  You already have this touch screen technology here, but instead of building upon it and improving it, most other companies are spending so much of resources on just re-inventing the same thing, albeit with some minor difference ! Google has a search algorithm which gives excellent results, but can MS improve on that ? Or can anyone improve on that ? NO !  MS has an in-house group spending millions of dollars to do the same thing which google has already accomplished ! Why ? Because the algorthm is an IP of Google.  You either cough up millions of dollars in royalty, or make your own thing from scratch.
     Now, please dont mistake me here.  I'm not saying its right to steal the hardwork of others.  But, I wonder, if our progress will be the same, if we start restricting sharing of knowledge using tools like IP and copyright ? What if Newton had patented the 3 basic laws of physics or if Alexander fleming had patented penicillin ? Would the world have been the same ? Netwton wasn't wrong when he said, "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants", I wonder, can anyone else in this day and age, dare make such a statement ? Well, they can't if they do, the giants will sue them to eternity.
     Although it seems more like a hope as of now, I wish these tech companies learn to live together and still go in for a healthy competition and not sue one other over crazy insignificant IPs.  It doesn't help the industry as a whole, and can only make it stagnant instead of taking it forward. Here's to hoping for a healthy competition .... signing off for now .... catch you in some time :)

Project Skyrim

My immediate goal in my free time is to complete and wrap up Skyrim.  I've clocked in upwards of 40 hours and nowhere near the end.  If info on the interwebz are to be believed , I still have around 60-80 hours of game to burn.  Now, I'm the sort of person, who can't take up another game until I finish one.  So, I've this huge back log of other games waiting to be played.  And then, there's the release of Mass Effect 3 looming in my face.

So, I'm starting "Project Skyrim", which is basically completion of the game as soon as possible (2 weeks).  I'm planning to ensure that I can dedicate as much of my free time at home as possible to complete this.  Which means, giving up on watching movies, facebook, idle browsing, and reading up on game tech.  However, Skyrim being a mammoth game, I can't complete each and every quest and get every piece of that finesse armor/equipment available in the game.  So, this is what I plan to complete in the coming weeks, before I start up another game.
1. Thieves guild quests
2. Dark Brotherhood quests
3. Imperial legion quests
4. Bard college quests
5. Main quest

I plan to re-visit the game when it has a DLC and go on with other random quests and get all those rare equipment and armors in the game.

Lets see how my project goes.  Wish me luck....off to play Skyrim now !

Oh Well....I got promoted !!

YAY !!

Got promoted to Senior Engineer.  Nice happy occasion.  It was quite some time since I had been promoted - maybe 3 years I guess.  Spoke to some of my family members, but I had to sugarcoat my new role - you know, Senior Engineer in India, is a post, you get after 2 years into the job.  Not after 8 years.  Funny how much difference the cultures make.

Anyway, this is good news for a many reasons.  First, I don't need to worry about the next promotion for atleast another couple of years.  So , it means, I can just focus on my job, and not worry about impressing anyone.   Second, I don't need to work my ass off pulling 16 hour work days.  Working for 10 hours as I do generally and pulling in a late night whenever the work demands should suffice.  Its really refreshing to get out of the rat race and finally be able to do what I want.  Which is write good programs, learn some interesting stuff on directx, learn some basic photography with my DSLR, and get to explore this country I'm living in currently - Korea.  Not to mention , spend more time with my wife and daughter along the way :)

Oh by the way, I plan to shift this blog wordpress from blogspot in sometime.  Still figuring things out on how to use Wordpress.  The main reason of the shift is the wordpress support on android and well, I see that its much more robust than blogger.  Only downer is that it doesn't allow me to post google ads.  Not that, I've too many readers here who would make me rich.  Are there ? lol !  Also, another idea is to keep this blog as it is, and have another blog in wordpress to talk mostly about my technical ramblings.  Let me see how it all works out.

Anyway, signing off for now....good night !