Who says Americans don't do irony?

[rojash]

"Microsoft was ordered to pay $388m in damages for infringing a patent held by anti-piracy software maker Uniloc Inc on Wednesday."

So, basically, in order to stop you stealing 100 quid's worth of XP, MS stole 388,000,000 $ worth of security software :-)

[Gromit]

Why didn't they just nick it from Apple like they normally do?

[rojash]

That would be even more ironic, considering Apple stole their ideas from Xerox :-)

[ChuckFickens]

just think how much different things might be today if it wasn't for Xerox though, they also invented laser printers, optical disks, LCDs, ethernet..... the list goes on and on!

[ACtheTROLL]

but if you sit on one of their photocopiers the end is nigh

[rojash]

Chuck, I thought Philips invented optical disks?

[ChuckFickens]

It wasn't Phillips by a long way (about 10 years) Phillips did make the first CD, but the first optical disks were videodisks not CD's (Phillips got offered the technology, turned it down and then strangely developed it themselves, funny how often that happens!)

though that said I now can't find anything to backup that it was xerox (PARC) so it's does look like I was wrong with that!