Comments on: Another ‘Magic’ Compression Patent: Claims 1.28GB on a Floppy

By: Earl Colby Pottinger

Earl Colby Pottinger — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:04:08 +0000

You don’t believe what?

The compression claims? Or the rebuttal?

By: fornetti

fornetti — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:53:03 +0000

I do not believe this

By: Earl Colby Pottinger

Earl Colby Pottinger — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:54:56 +0000

Really, I think you misunderstood the invention. It is not a true compression scheme, it is an encoding one. Basicly, instead of recording pure digital states (ie one bit at a time) the invention records analog signals that that can encode more than one bit at a time. This is how modems greater than 600 bps already operate for years over telephone lines.

Problems:
(1) No data compression takes place, thus it still remains the same amount of data - this invention does not speed up transmitions over present systems.

(2) Floppy disk drives as I already pointed out at digital in their recording. This system will *NOT* work with any present floppy drive system out there. And the hard drive manufacturers already are using their own versions of analog recording to pack more data, they don’t need to pay for some outsider’s design.

(3) I just picked up a 4GB USB dongle for $19.95 this weekend at Best Buy - It works on all my machines and all my friends machines, why do I want a floppy that does not work anywhere else?

PS. Search for my name in comp.compression, I known this stuff as garbage for many years.

By: Daniel Lavieri

Daniel Lavieri — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:52:24 +0000

Earl, if would be possible this kind of compression, it could revolutionize the way we transfer data over web. Imagine if we could download a whole DVD movie in a matter of minutes… but, trust me: this guy who announced such foolishness is a joker. There’s a proof that could uncourage those who think it’s possible to make a “revolutionary” or “magic” algorithm at this link above:

http://www.ecs.csun.edu/~dsalomon/DC3advertis/counting.arg.pdf

Download it and see what I’m saying.

Hugs.

By: Earl Colby Pottinger

Earl Colby Pottinger — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:15:26 +0000

I also have to ask, why would you want to store 1.28GB on a floppy today when 2-4-8 GB USB dongles are cheaper, smaller, and more durable.

And yes cheaper. The hardware in present floppy drives is digital only, to support analog recording you are going to need a new floppy drive designed from the ground up. That is going to cost.

By: Daniel Lavieri

Daniel Lavieri — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:09:07 +0000

This is a joke. Matemathically talking, any kind of compression algorithm is limited to the basic principle that the number os combinations of a number of, say, n bits, is bigger than the set of n-1 bits.

For example: for a 3 bits number, we have 2^3, or 8 possibilities. If we intend to compress a number of 3 bits, in this case, the worst case we MUST have a number of 2 bits. The number of combination possibilities is 2^2, or 4 possibilities, which is less than the set of combinations of a number composed by 3 bits. This involves that compression algorithms could compress only SOME bit combinations.

Daniel Lavieri.

By: Klaus

Klaus — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:10:38 +0000

Note that a touch-tone telephone encodes 2 bits per frequency. Is it therefore “prior art”? Nope, since the touch-tone telephone did nothing to Prevent Terrorism!

By: Klaus

Klaus — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:01:00 +0000

Great. Finally someone invented FSK. I just didn’t know that FSK invalidates the Nyquist-Shannon Theorem.

Must dig out my old FSK modem from thw early 80s. Just a simple bit of overclocking, and it Save Energy, Enhance Quality of Life and, of course, Prevent Terrorism.

What? You don’t believe the claims? I’ll prove it!

The 80s, when we used the (now-patented) FSK technology for information interchange, are nowadays regarded by many people as the “good old times”, because we had Less Pollution, No Siginificant Terrorism and, in general, A Much Better Quality of Life. Isn’t that proof enough!

By: Andrew Polar

Andrew Polar — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:54:40 +0000

When I read the patent I think I did not pay much attention to its best part. It is fourth object of the invention the encryption that according to inventor will help in counter terrorism. That will certainly work if terrorists can’t read English or don’t have access to Internet. Otherwise they also can use suggested encryption so the fourth object of invention has to be changed into following: “It will help both terrorists and counter terrorists whoever finds the way to reduce the invention to practice”. There is the chance, however, that terrorists believe that USPTO experts are engineers and issue patents in accordance with the patent law. In this case they may try to implement the invention, go bankrupt and loose capability to damage United States of America, by which they make an inventor a national hero. Looks like idea for a movie (Can’t be considered as a trade secret and submitted to Hollywood for compensation because expressed publicly).

By: Andrew Polar

Andrew Polar — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:24:44 +0000

There are very many reasons to obtain the patent apart from ones admitted by patent law. The patent law delegates monopoly for manufacturing and selling an invention during 20 years for a patent holder. Any other reason for patenting is against the law. Those reasons might be but not limited to:
1. To become famous, to draw the attention
2. To brainwash the investors that company is on cutting edge technology
3. To mislead competitors regarding the research
4. Personal ambitions of high rank employee
5. To intimidate individual researchers that they can be sued by publishing free software (works with arithmetic encoding as we know)
6. Setting score with rival corporation by patenting their field of research (some sort of submarine patent, filed by individuals as well)
The patent law also clearly says that invention must be reduced to practice and abstract ideas are not patented. We know that patents obtained with violation of patent law can be terminated and know the cased when it has been done. But there is one more aspect that people don’t know. Patenting is tax deductible in United States. That means that knowingly obtaining the patent by violating the patent law and claiming tax exemption constitute a felony when deduction exceeds certain limit.

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 06:31:24 +0000

Jeff intends only to license the technology. He has no plans to implement/market this himself (due to very obvious reasons).

By: Stevie G

Stevie G — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:40:03 +0000

yes ok but wheres the software/harware needed?

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:37:18 +0000

What were his opinions on where it can’t be applied? The press release seems to imply it can be used everywhere.

Did he specified what kind of 1.28 GB data can be stored on a 1.44 MB floppy using his method? Or is the method independent of data source?

btw, there is a related comp.compression discussion some of you might want to follow.

By: Dave Therrien

Dave Therrien — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:04:50 +0000

I spoke with Jeff Fries last week by phone. Give him a call yourself and speak with him. His number’s on his resume at his website. We had a good conversation about the technology and where it could and could not be applied.

By: Matt Mahoney

Matt Mahoney — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 20:22:39 +0000

I read the patent. It looks like they patented multilevel pulse code modulation, e.g. using 16 frequency levels to encode 4 bits in a single pulse. They assume somehow that it is possible to store analog signals on a disk or CD. They also claim an encryption method which is basically a Caesar cipher.

So after 4 years the USPTO couldn’t find prior art?