US Patent Office Grants 'Photography Against A White Background' To Amazon
What the fuck.
Is apocalypse really that close? Or is the patent a bit more specific than "Photography with white background"?
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
Embodiments of the disclosure are directed to an arrangement of various elements to form a studio in which items, people, products, clothing, or any other objects can be photographed and/or filmed to achieve a particular effect. More specifically, embodiments of the disclosure can allow images and/or video of an item placed in a studio arrangement as described herein to be captured with a background that appears, when captured with an image capture device, as a near perfect white without the need for post-processing, retouching, or other image manipulation. In other words, images and video of items captured in the studio arrangement appear against a background that is equivalent to a white background when converted into a web color hexadecimal triplet corresponding to a true white. A hexadecimal triplet corresponding to a true white according to various browser standards, such as hypertext markup language (HTML), cascading style sheets (CSS), and other standards, can be represented by three bytes corresponding to a red parameter, a green parameter, and a blue parameter, each with a maximum value of 255. Additionally, embodiments of the disclosure also achieve an effect, without any image manipulation, of an object photographed and/or filmed in the studio arrangement that appears to be floating in front of the true white background with a reflection of the object appearing beneath the object.
Prior art solutions for achieving such a result for capturing images and/or video of objects set against a true white background include solutions that often involve some type of image retouching, post processing, “green screen” techniques, or other special effects and image and video manipulation to achieve the result of an object set against a true white background. Accordingly, as will be described herein, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a studio arrangement in which an object can be photographed and/or filmed, and the images and/or video captured by the camera achieve the effect noted above without any image manipulation due to the particular arrangements of the subject, camera, lighting and background.
Yeah, admittedly, though, I can't quite understand that.
Folks around here don't think it's a big deal since it's so specific
Well, perhaps it's a bit too specific to be important, but I think it doesn't matter since the thing patented is, to me, not in any way an *invention*......
I'm really starting to dislike Amazon.com, we should start ordering from other websites whenever possible... RMS also has some negative things to say about their business practices. :/
I do not buy on amazon, because, at least in the UK, they do not pay their tax.
Last time I used was September last year,
I think I'll patent storing atmospheric oxygen within heamoglobin. Don't worry the license will be gratis. Except for some people who'll you'll all be in complete agreement about :-}.
Then won't it be illegal to breathe?
(We'll probably turn blue before you get around to issuing us a license.)
EDIT: ;) //So you know I'm joking
'Then won't it be illegal to breathe?'
Only if I won't license the patent to you. Which I'll do for no fee
for most people. The people we don't like is an entirely different
matter. E.g. Bill Gates' license fee will go towards paying for more
free software. How much an hour do you think I should charge him? :-)
A couple of cases of a mailing list user (me) being caught out by forum edits which aren't reflected on it here.
ROFL
Er, the phrase "prior art" springs to mind.
Followed by this...
"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you, you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand
Brought to you by the Department of Irony
'Er, the phrase "prior art" springs to mind.'
USPO allows patents on human genes so why not metabolic reactions?
All it will take is an expensive patent attorney. :-}
Leny
If I remember correctly, abuot 8 or so years ago, someone in America applied for a patent to cover the act of putting food in the mouth, chewing and swallowing it - in order to hilight the absurdity and general brokenness of the US Patent system. Alas, as with so many other areas of life - the Corporations are ruining it but are so rich and well connected they can buy politician's silence and complicity.
The single biggest problem we face in the modern era is the concept of 'fiduciary duty'. If could get that redefined to include social responsibility, we'd have a chance, but whilst every business and organisation is mandated to act only in the interests of financial improvement, everything else gets trampled in the process.
> If I remember correctly, abuot 8 or so years ago, someone in America
> applied for a patent to cover the act of putting food in the mouth,
> chewing and swallowing it - in order to hilight the absurdity and
> general brokenness of the US Patent system. Alas, as with so many
Thanks, I didn't know. It was probably carefully chosen for its
patentability. Mine was chosen for the humour.
> other areas of life - the Corporations are ruining it but are so rich
> and well connected they can buy politician's silence and complicity.
>
> The single biggest problem we face in the modern era is the concept of
> 'fiduciary duty'. If could get that redefined to include social
> responsibility, we'd have a chance, but whilst every business and
> organisation is mandated to act only in the interests of financial
> improvement, everything else gets trampled in the process.
I'm not knowledgeable, wise or intelligent enough to work out what the
key difficulties in a complex evolving human system like capitalism
are. TBH I suspect nobody is, and even if there was someone and we
had a definitive answer it would be exactly the same situation as
climate change - there'd be those who claimed and campaigned otherwise
in the face of what is proven and now obvious fact.
However, I do know the answer to the problems, which as you're using
Trisquel you know already - do something about what you believe.
Personally for economic matters I favour the 'Think globally, act
locally' approach which is applicable to many large problems.
E.g. buy from ethical traders or fairtrade/ethical products and
service where available. So in the UK make your supermarket the
Cooperative. Work for or start an ethical business. And so on.
Ghandi said something like 'You have to live the tomorrow you want
today.' It takes surprisingly few people doing that to change things.
Just a few can change a whole nation. Go watch the current film about
the LGBT community helping out miners during the strike here in the
UK. That was the seed of all the related legislative change in the UK
since. As per Spain today, and the million who marched trying to stop
Blair taking the UK into the Iraq War, you can have many more protest
and change not happen.
the same situation as climate change - there'd be those who claimed and campaigned otherwise in the face of what is proven and now obvious fact.
Nothing about the 'human activity produced C02 driven global warming' theory is either proven or 'obvious fact'. On the contrary - there has been no warming since around 1999 (admitted by the BBC a few weeks ago), yet C02 has risen year on year. Therefore the theory that C02 is a greenhouse gas that is driving temperatures on earth ever upwards is completely disproven. If the theory is suggested that A + B = C and you get 15 years of A + B not equaling C then the theory is busted. It's only because there is so much political opportunism now attached to global warming and because the idiot media have gotten hold of the story, that we're were we are today.
I don't say any of this because I have some dubious lifestyle I wish to preserve. My resource footprint is less than '1 earth' and has been for years - long before the global warming idiots began to squawk. I say this because man made global warming is a lie and lies are dangerous and must be spoken out against at every opportunity. To remain silent in the face of known lies is to be a party to them.
Fiduciary duty requires the officers of a company or Corporation always to act in the Company's best financial interests. It is this 'duty' that is leading to the destruction of sane human society, in favour of a giant Corporatised profit generating planet of unquestioning slaves. It is this that allows Corporations to pollute the airwaves with adverts claiming to be people of compassion and vision on the one hand, and for the same organisation to pursue tax evasion and offshoring, without recourse to the consequences, on the other. It's what allows them to claim 'green credentials' whilst dumping industrial waste into rivers and oceans. Fiduciary duty says that if telling the truth would lead to a fall in profits then you must lie. Fiduciary duty places money above all things. Redefining this duty so it has a social development aspect could make a world of difference and stop our societies from flushing themselves down the toilet in pursuit of perpetually increasing profits.
Oh, my...
It shouldn't be true.
In theory, the patent system was created to encourage the creation of new works and technology but it is a proven failure, a completely broken mechanism maintained by broken people. Something like this should not be allowed.