What might happen if a patent expires...?

Recently i have been wondering a lot about what will happen when patents expire. Particularly patents that have been generating huge revenues to companies. I was tempted to investigate on this since i came to know LabVIEW, which is National Instruments proprietary software patent is set to expire on 2011. 

What would happen if a patent expires. Usually in the pharma industry, what happens is that, companies spend lot in R&D for developing drugs, which they patent and sell at quite high profitable margins. But once the patent expires, things change. Now other companies also start manufacturing the same drug. So the company that invented drug can no more sell the drug at high margins. There are even possibilities that it can loose the entire market to its competitors.

As far as the software industry is concern, the open source software's are now serious threats to proprietary software's. So like more people are migrating to Linux from windows, to open office from MS office, once a free software comes out then it could seriously affect the market of the proprietary software's. Some proprietary software's are protected by patents. Until then the company that holds the patent can mint money out of it. When the patent expires, then the company has to reduce the pricing, and seriously bank on the support they provide for their software as a weapon to push any free wares that have no support out of market.

So I'm curiously awaiting to watch what happens to LabVIEW, when its patent expires. Its interesting to note that National Instruments has stopped Mathworks from selling simulink, saying its a violation of the patent it holds for graphical data flow programming. LabVIEW is entirely based on this patent.

Working All Day

In the rapid pace of this highly competitive world, working for a fixed amount of time is soon vanishing out. Every where you turn around you could see people working all the time, round the clock, just to emerge better than others. Their very own species.

Starting from school, where you see students, having sleepless night , having tuition's, coaching classes and stuff just to beat their own friends. Just to score few extra marks than others. Then they move on to college, where again only people who put extra effort, emerge better out of the rest. Then they either get into higher studies or get a job.

Again be it a working professional or a person pursuing their PG, have to work hard. just to get better pay hikes, perks and score few extra marks than their colleagues and friends. This competition is severe every where we turn around.

People do suggest us to do smart work than hard work. But you cant beat hard work with your smart work. One day or the other, the hard working guy will have the edge over the smart worker.

I'm not here to blame the concept of this competitive world. Of course this competition is what making us better. Its the only way for improvement. Else the world would be stagnant everywhere, and surely will lead to the end of humans.

I'm simply stun by the pace at which this competition is growing. I guess if this continuous at this rate. Then, man would be highly evolved one day that, he will beat supercomputers, he will beat gigantic machines. Then there wont be any question of machines taking over humans. But its the great pace of technological developments that has caused various sci-fi writers to feel that machines could take over humans one day.

I do not have any proof for my belief. Its just the feeling that i have. I'm wondering where this is heading, and how many generations will this take, so that its effects could be felt.

Infusing AI into machines

I have been recently reading on machine learning. I found it quite interesting. Machine learning is a sub field of artificial intelligence. As I came across, various algorithms in this field and different applications its became more and more thrilling. These algorithms, though do not give computers the ability to think autonomously, there is great level of automation that could be achieved using these algorithms.

Still there are good number of AI problems that should be solved. Problems like scene analysis and natural language processing still have a wide scope for research. I feel there isn't any comprehensive algorithm for such problems that could be applied in for all cases. Though there are quite some algorithms that work well for specific cases of these problems, i feel only if an algorithm can be applied to all problems of a particular kind then it could be said that the algorithm has infused some intelligence to that machine.

There are some predictions that genetic algorithms, or genetic programming could be the stepping stone for such an algorithm, that could be used to infuse intelligence to machines autonomously. But this is debatable. There are still quite some stuff in this part of science, that i feel isn't science yet. It is still an art. For example choosing a good classifier for a particular classification problem is still a state of art. Such stuff cause doubts, that whether an autonomous AI is a possibility in the near feature.

If such things happen, then lot fictions could become true one day. The MATRIX story of man fighting highly intellectual machines could become true some day. But the future is highly unpredictable. I guess an algorithm to predict the future could be of very high value in the market now. :-)

Are you a Good Programmer...?

Most of our reply to the above question is yes. People really fancy being a good programmer. Programmers, whoever they are, whatever be the language that they may use to program, feel they master something. They master the language or the software they use to program. After years of struggle with the programming language or the software they finally end up bored with it or a situation where they are neither satisfied or not satisfied with the work they are doing.

What is the cause for such an attitude change in these programmers. Once they loved their programming language above anything in the world. How come they finally end up bored or semi satisfied state.

Then did they really love that language...? If so when they have years of experience with it why didn't they really fancy it. Does this mean that they really didn't love the language they were using. They were just feeling great when they were using that language. They had a feeling that they could command that language do anything that they wish. But they didn't really love the language they were using. If so they would have been satisfied at the end of the day.

Programmers who really love the job they do are either architects of the software or the developers of the entire software. Such people feel happy about their creations. Yes, people feel happy and satisfied when they create something. When their creations are being used by others. But when programmers just implement a logic, or just a small method in the entire architecture, they might seem to be happy with their work. But finally at the end of the day they might not be.

So the solution to this problem could be either the architect, or create softwares on your own, or be creative and innovative in whatever you do. If you are creative and innovative in every aspect of the work you do then it would feel satisfied at the end of the day.

Some people might argue that even after using a particular language for years together they still feel happy about it. This might be because they would be having the superiority feeling, that they have a large expertise with that language. But that satisfaction is not derived from the work they do.

The subject of this post is not just software programming, this is the case even with hardware programming like embedded, HDL etc.

Are U Working Hard...?

Hi everyone...

We often come across people saying "Hard work is the secret of success". we sometimes do come across people who are really working hard. These fellows, at times inspire us a lot. We tend to imitate these fellows. we try to work really harder.

Do we really work hard. Well some of us would. But not most of us. We think we are really working hard. Spend late hours at our work. We come out feeling satisfied that we are really working hard. But ultimately if think what work we have done, it would have been quite less when compared to the hours that we would have spent on it. 

The fact is we often have assumptions that we really work hard. Get satisfied with whatever we do. But if we have to say we really work hard, it has to based on the effort we put in and not on the time we spent on it. 

This assumption makes us not realize that we are really wasting lot of ouy precious time. We miss quite alot of our day to day activities. We do not spend time with our friends, family and all relations that we have. Eventually we are at the risk of losing them. 

So if one has to rate his work as hardwork, then it has to based on his effort, throughput on his work. In other word s his productivity and not upon the time spent.

I was inspired to write this post on seeing my friends, collegues and on my own experiences. I had realized the fact whether i really work hard. Its time that others too realize it.

Opportunist every were around...

Last weekend i had been to my home town... Usually any long journey is usually tiresome, starting from booking tickets to getting back home. The trip from Bangalore to Madurai and back to Bangalore is also no exception. 

A huge amount of population in Bangalore are not natives of Bangalore, So usually on weekends and Holidays there is tremendous increase in the number of people leaving Bangalore, and coming back after these holidays. Since Both the Bus Stand and Railway station of the city is situated at the heart of the city, traffic will be at its peak on the day before the holidays. The traffic would be literally stand still at these times.

There are quite a lot of people who use this chance to mint money. Previous time i left to Madurai i had to go to the Railway station. Unfortunately it started to rain that day. Auto rates surge when it rains. That day was not an exception. But none of the auto drivers 

that I could get were ready to take me to the station. provided the traffic on that day and rain there wouldnt be any profit to them taking me to the station. But I found few auto's that were ready to give me a ride, but at a higher Price. :-) They were charging high enough that i could pay my onward and return journey for my trip to Madurai in train. :D Does that take so much money for that auto driver to make profit. I don't this so... 

Its reasonable for auto drivers to charge twice the meter ratings in late nights. I think they deserve that money for their work. But what about those fellow who charge four to five times the amount ? These are the opportunist who size such instances to mint money. 

In my last trip to Bangalore i had to take a CAB to hosur in the last minute. The travel agent there again charged me with unreasonable huge sum, since i had no other choices. :( When i reached Bangalore i was about to take an auto back home. It was ten thirty in the morning when the auto fellow was demanding more that twice the amount. I stood in attention to him, gave a salute and started walking. Later i found an auto with slightly more charge to my house. :)

All these fellows were such an opportunist who were unethical. why are these guys like this...? are they really in need of money...? are they in poverty...? I don think so... All these people must be able to make a reasonable living with what they earn. They why were they doing such unethical acts just for the sake of few extra bucks...? How are such people gonna help in country like ours. 

I am not sure why am i feeling weird about these fellows. Am I in such a environment that makes me feel people are ethical ? I'm not sure. These things are very common when we go around. But I felt something was really wrong. So I'm here posting it... :)

 

Now its the Goal thing...

Hi ppl,

Few days back i was talking to one of my friends... We are close... So quite often we discuss about our aspirations, goals, etc... When both of us were in college we had dreams or rather say them to be our goals to work in a particular domain.  But after college we found ourselves working in something different rather than what we desired. Does this mean that we have to be contended with what we have...? No... If we had really wanted to work in that domain the fire has to be there until you reach that goal...

        Lets say that we were satisfied with the job what we got. That cant be the reason that you can give to stop chasing your goal. May be you become fancied by something else. you start chasing it. thats acceptable. But how could you succumb to the fact that you didnt land up in the job that you wanted.

        Failure doesn come to you untill you accept it. So why do you want to accept it. kepp chasing until you reach your goals. Isnt being satisfied with what you got is just an excuse...?I think it is... I feel a true or real engineer or whatever we can call.... should always have the desire to learn, apply and invent. Being satisfied is just an excuse to be lazy.

      Ok... let me conclude by saying what i feel in short. you could be contented with what you are, but that is not the excuse to be ideal or lazy or goal less. :-)