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r00t writes:
"Taking a page out of Lexmark playbook, the Keurig company, famous for it's one-cup coffee making system, now comes with new and improved 100% DRM. Apparently, Keurig is upset over re-usable third-party 'coffee pods' which allow the consumer to escape the Keurig throw-away models which carry a retail price 5% to 25% more. Keurig's CEO, Brian Kelly referred to the move as 'game-changing performance.' Perhaps this will finally be the year of Linux on the Coffe Maker?"
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DRM: Coming to a Coffee Maker Near You
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Funny) by Evil_Crash on Monday March 03 2014, @07:21PM
Most likely the new pots will have a circuit that checks to see if the pod installed has the chip on it from the manufacturer. Just like the newer ink cartridges do now. No chip, no coffee. Probably will have a display reading "no pod installed" of "Cannot detect pod" or if they are feeling cheeky, "Stop being cheap and buy our pods you insensitive clod!"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @07:51PM
If RFID, tape single chip to top of Keurig. If not RFID...???
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday March 03 2014, @08:01PM
Its going to be RFID, or optical. Chances are the detector will be deeply embedded in
the machine so you can't get at it.
I suspect they will claim that defeating it violate the DMCA, but since the only purpose
of this chip will be to make sure you only pound Their nails with Their hammer, I suspect
it will fail in court. There is no copyright or patent involved in using a different
source of coffee. If there were, they would go after the suppliers.
This backfires faster than New Coke.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Monday March 03 2014, @08:20PM
Yeah, but none of what you said makes jack diddly *%&$ of difference in court.
The DMCA is so wonderful in that regard to the IP holders. All of the arguments about whether it should be protected fall on deaf ears in the courts. It's still fundamentally unlawful to bypass copyright protection measures .
It's one of the few legal situations in which if you run into a building saving old ladies and kittens left and right, that it was still illegal to enter the building period.
They, the legislators, made it unlawful to even touch the lock with anything but a key. Even if the lock is just a flimsy piece of wet cardboard that a 5 year old could bypass. Not just security through obscurity, but security through inane laws.
Next thing you know, and just you watch, that Keurig will require the Internet and the ability to phone home and authorize the unit to produce coffee. It's just so blindingly insane and stupid it could work! Their stock will go up, even though the investors first cognitive dissonant thought is, "I should buy the cheap coffee and not use these idiots".
Of course, all that being said, I would *LOVE* to see Keurig find somebody and take them to court over it. I'll make popcorn (not with that microwave that only recognizes Orville Redenbacher's)
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday March 03 2014, @08:27PM
I will remind you that Lexmark LOST in court.
So apparently it DOES make a difference.
Read the lexmark decision. Link in the summary.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday March 03 2014, @08:37PM
Really? That's awesome.
I've never heard of the DMCA losing in court like that. They've always just won on the technicality that the copyright protection measures were bypassed, and that was against the law.
Apple was the only notable exception to that rule with the justices saying that jailbreaking was acceptable, even though they failed to apply that same logic equally to Non-apple technology.
Cool. Something in our favor for once.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:31PM
I'm not so sure this falls under the scope of the DMCA even a little, as there's no copyright at work here to begin with. Patents, perhaps, though I'd assume that if the third party refills were in violation of patents in the first place, they'd be getting dealt with that way.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:07PM
My understanding is that the DMCA protects the hardware irrespective of the content being protected. Even if there is Public Domain inside, or maybe even your own property (licensed or otherwise), that bypassing the lock itself is a separate crime.
However, Frojack (I think I spelled that right) pointed out that Lexmark had lost a case. Which does set some precedence. Only other precedence I was aware of was a one-off with iPhone jailbreaking that wasn't evenly applied to the rest of technology.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday March 03 2014, @07:59PM
That is just so intensely wasteful though. I love the idea of a k-cup, but adding to the landfills just to keep people using your own brand is ridiculous. I can't possibly see what pro-consumer information or capabilities are in that chip at all.
It's greed like this that continues to look for ways to monetize and forcibly capture 'audiences' instead of thinking about how to make things reusable and efficient.
I wish people would keep the environment and sustainability in mind when coming up with designs. It's not hard to do. There are many companies now doing it, and this is about bringing efficiency.
100 years from now when there is no coffee people will look back at the height of our luxury and marvel that we had the resources to so blithely toss into the trash.
The older I get, it's simply amazing and deeply terrifying how much we are like Rome in the final days.....
P.S - Treating people like captured audiences is exactly why we are all her at Soylent and not visiting Slashdot anymore.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:34PM
I wouldn't guess all or even most of us don't visit slashdot anymore, but then, when I do (it's still in my RSS reader), it's the quickest way to get me to come over here. Every time I'm over there, I find something else to hate about beta...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:14PM
I don't even really think about Slashdot anymore. I know that others outside of Slashdot always derided the community for it's apparent unreasonableness when it comes to change, but there was more to it than that. It didn't even have anything to do with Javascript, which a lot on Slashdot irrationally hated. When used properly there is nothing wrong with it. Personally, the old interface we have here is comfy and familiar, but it could be spiced up quite a bit with some simple AJAX calls that don't require me to open a new tab or jump through hoops to post a comment.
It was summed up so damn well by one poster on Slashdot at the time, and that was that we are emphatically not an audience. We are Slashdot, and that's not egoist or entitlement speaking.
Beta wasn't just a change in aesthetics. Beta was a change in the core culture and concepts, and embraced corporate/marketing culture that is quite frankly an anathema to most Slashdotters.
I only bring it up because the audience/community discussion is very appropriate to a lot of what is going on in this country at many levels. We've become audiences that are spoken at.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 03 2014, @09:50PM
I am glad the Insensitive Clod meme has carried over from Slashdot of old.
(Score: 4, Funny) by istartedi on Tuesday March 04 2014, @12:28AM
PC LOAD POD
Followed by baseball bats in the park.
'nuff said.