A Pandora 2 Concept

[WizardStan]

My point is, it would never be fought in the first place. Can we put a stop to this thread derailment now

Never say never. Lawyers initiate lawsuits all the time over things far more frivolous than lawsuits. Patent lawsuits over obvious inventions are pretty much a daily occurrence to the point that I've long since noticing when someone sues someone else over whatever pointless widget of the moment is. I can't just let this drop because you are wrong on this and I don't want people taking the wrong ideas from this conversation. Don't use someone else's patented idea unless you are ready to fight it because odds are that you will be called to fight it. It happens all the time with unknown patent trolls, it happens less so with well established patents because the smart companies know to avoid the established patents. I don't believe OPT is a stupid company, but if they try to use a known patented idea that opinion will change rapidly.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Are you saying a 360 degree hinge as Binky suggested is patented?. Id like to see the patent on that then. It would make interesting reading

 

[WizardStan]

The patent is held by Lenovo. They applied for it years ago and it was brought up when the first Pandora design was in discussion.


Unfortunately Lenovo just announced a product, the YOGA, which uses this dual hinge design, so Google results are returning nothing but page upon page of press releases and people gushing about how awesome/lame the design is. Can't seem to find the actual patent number right now.


The fact that Lenovo is now using their patent should be an even bigger deterrent to trying to use it without their permission.

 

[vcoleiro1]

A number of hinges are capable of 360 degree rotation. they have been around for quite the while . Are they impeding on Lenovo's patent , or did you really mean there's a patent Lenovo have for a particular way to establish 360 degree rotation. I think you mean the later. A 360 degree hinge has been around for ages and cannot be patented in a general and all emcompassing manner which has been my point. Binky mentioned implementing a 360 degree hinge , it can be done without impeding any Patent Lenovo might have(if they have one) on there design as there are many other options to choose from . ie the general concept of a 360 degree hinge is not patented. It would be like trying to patent the wheel.

 

[Zuk]

On the next note, how many uses are there for L2/R2? Only Playstation. Saturn could also benefit having 6 face buttons originally, but the Emu crawls at 1-2 fps anyway.


So, add L2 and R2 only for PSX Emulation and have that affect the whole machine? Makes no sense to me.

A new Pandora brings new specs. I would hope that a new version would allow more console emulation that would require more buttons.


A second shoulder button could be placed on the back, just inside past the first button. Though, that might be hard to reach for some people.


I'm down for nub click buttons too.

 

[MrChops]

Once again, where to add l2/r2? under l1/r1? Makes the buttons too small to comfortably use or the device bigger than needed.


The other option is an arrangement like on the old wii classic controller. Which may even be patented, haven't seen that anywhere else. That could also mean that people don't like that arrangement, I don't either. AFAIK the newer classic controller has the 1s and 2s stacked vertically. The downsides of having those buttons in a horizontal line would be awkward controls AND reduced space for all those ports people are crying for.


On the next note, how many uses are there for L2/R2? Only Playstation. Saturn could also benefit having 6 face buttons originally, but the Emu crawls at 1-2 fps anyway.


So, add L2 and R2 only for PSX Emulation and have that affect the whole machine? Makes no sense to me.


I'd rather have analogue L and R.

psx? as long as we're dreaming about quad-core cpu's why not plan on ps2 emulation, full speed saturn, and hell, why not throw gamecube and xbox in there as well? Sky's the limit


[edit] h34r:

 

[WizardStan]

A number of hinges are capable of 360 degree rotation. they have been around for quite the while .

I'd love to hear a way of doing it effectively that doesn't rely on a dual hinge. Triple/quad/etc hinges not withstanding. Can you show some examples?


edit: actually it doesn't matter. The point I was getting at, the point that any amount of examples will not change, is that you are advocating using a patented design on the grounds of it being unenforceable and therefore it will "never go to court" anyway. I feel I've demonstrated that people do go to court over frivolous patents and pay a great deal of money out of court for these patents that are eventually rejected frequently enough to demonstrate that your advice is terrible. OpenPandora does not have the resources to fight a patent war, even if it is frivolous. Your ideas about whether it would get thrown out or not do not coincide with reality.

 

[Caine]

On the next note, how many uses are there for L2/R2? Only Playstation. Saturn could also benefit having 6 face buttons originally, but the Emu crawls at 1-2 fps anyway.


So, add L2 and R2 only for PSX Emulation and have that affect the whole machine? Makes no sense to me.

Any original or ported game utilizing left-nub for movement and right-nub for "mouse-look" would benefit from having more than two easily accessible buttons.


Before you ask, no I don't have any idea where to put them either.

 

[FRZ]

What would people think about a 360° hinge?

Same thing when it was considered for the Pandora one: lawsuit will find you.


Flipping the screen backwards and rotating it and folding it back again are both heavily patented inventions. It'd be very difficult to do either without a license, or at the very least a really good lawyer.

Dont think that would happen unless the pandora started flying off the shelves of walmart and best buy.

 

[FRZ]

We get another one of these threads every 3-6 months don't we?


My Ideal Pandora 2


Same keyboard and gaming controls.


Two card slots capable of keeping up with the largest & fastest sdxc cards coming on the market. Boot from one of them by default.


A power/standby switch that works.


Move the volume dial to the side. Put in a second audio jack or move the audio jack to the side. The purpose of this is to be able to listen to and control the volume of music playback while the device is in a pocket.


Two trigger buttons per side.


GPS, accelerometer, tilt, compass, barometer (altimeter), thermometer.


802.11 bgn


5" Pixel Qi 800x600 equivalent screen. Yeah, I know they don't make one that size. Ask them to?


Stack of 4 tiny speakers per side instead of the one small one to make room for the bigger screen.


USB 3.0 host port


Mini USB 3.0 OTG type port


DVI or HDMI video out


Quad core CPU


1GB RAM


Enough NAND to carry a skeletal OS that can be booted from if the SDXC boot card fails.


Then - figure out a way to make it thinner - as in sub 20mm thin.

+1

 

[craigix]

You should be aware that a company did try to take OP to court a couple of years ago over the internal design of the Pandora (it was something to do with the way the OMAP3 interfaced with something else, I don't have the papers anymore). They made some thuggish threats and tried to scare us.


I don't have the papers anymore because TI were nice enough to refer them to Arkell vs. Pressdram on our behalf.

 

[Binky]

While there are people from the core team reading this, is something like exPandora at all likely to happen?

 

[quartercast]

I don't have the papers anymore because TI were nice enough to refer them to Arkell vs. Pressdram on our behalf.

Damn, you made me look that up I like it.

 

[vcoleiro1]

@Wizardstan


I at no stage advocated using a patented design. You made a covering statement that 360 degree hinges are patented. I said that you could implement a 360 degree hinge as it wouldn't infringe on a patent as no one could cover all designs of a 360 degree hinge. Your talking about the hinge here dude, something thats existed for 1000's of years, quite literally, something thats right up there with the wheel in terms of it's history. Sure a hinge that goes all the way around 360 degrees might not go back that far, but they do exist for quite the while. A quick search has shown numerous examples. You need to remember that the hinge is a universal device used in a bloody lot of applications not just tech. A lot of those appications have also used a 360 degree hinge.


My statement was that you could use a 360 degree hinge. It's a large field , there's many options to use and not infringe on a particular design. You cannot say 360 hinges are patented , again it's like saying the wheel is patented. Utterly ridiculous.

 

[TrashyMG]

sure they can't patent the hinge itself because it existed prior to patents, but people/corperations can and have patented things like "gaming/media device with 360 degree hinge"

 

[vcoleiro1]

sure they can't patent the hinge itself because it existed prior to patents, but people/corperations can and have patented things like "gaming/media device with 360 degree hinge"

They woluldn't be able to use a generic 360 hinge on a gaming device and then say , hey it's on a gaming device with a a 360 hinge, there we patent it as a whole and as something new. It doesn't work like that, the design for the hinge would need to be new.


On the flip side, if you had a design that you patented and someone used it in a different context / device , you could sue them , even though they are using it in something else entirely to what you may have used it for. This happens a lot in the tech world.

 

[TrashyMG]

Well the thing is, people can litigate for just having a design similar or elements of a design similar to another device.. Even if it is baseless the big guys always win because the small guys can't afford to contest the allegations because it costs big money to do so.

 

[vcoleiro1]

No one will litigate against you if you use a generic/historical 360 degree hinge . They wouldn't have any grounds to do so. If you were to take that attitude , you wouldn't do anything in the tech world as everything you do could get you potentially sued if you were to go with your line of thinking.


Im sure 360 hinges used on some wharehouse door's for the last century or 2, won't be ripped down for fear of a tech company taking them to task over there generic hinges being remotely similiar in concept to the generic design.


On a different note: I can't believe I got drawn into a conversation on hinges. - lol

 

[quartercast]

^ That's a pretty funny analogy vcoleiro. I'm not sure if that would stand up in court though, what about 360 degree hinge pertaining to handheld devices? I think you have to be more specific?


Reminds me of Monster cable vs Blue Jeans RCA plug litigation issue. It's worth reading those letters if you have time

 

[vcoleiro1]

A hinge used for the purpose of a hinge is - believe it or not - still a hinge. Whether it be on a gaming device, a door or anything else . It's still being used as a hinge. If it were to be used in some other manner for a completely different purpose (other than a hinge), then perhaps, but if it's still being used in the function of a hinge, then no - no issue there.