Yet another academic plagiarism scandal: blockchains, medical research, and patents

One must be intrinsically motivated to be ethical and honest. Integrity cannot be imposed by peer review.

This is not another SFYL (sorry for your loss) tale of cryptocurrency scamming. That is merely a grace note. Academic plagiarism can happen, regardless of whether bitcoin, blockchains, or cryptocurrency are involved.

One’s own professional community, and the moral implications of having lied and plagiarized i.e. shame, should be enough to keep scientific and other original researchers (and investigatory work in general) honest. It clearly isn’t. I make that observation based on this passage via Andrew Gelman (emphasis mine):

Patent day for Apple

Apple received approval for two patents last week.

Logo Antenna

The Apple logo antenna may seem a bit peculiar.  I am uncertain which devices will use this invention. The range of possibilities mentioned in the PatentlyApple article, see below, included MacBooks, iPhones, wristwatches and pendants. Yes, “pendant” in the traditional meaning of the word, as in “type of jewelry worn suspended from a chain worn around the neck”.

Apple Inc by Phil Bradley

What sort of pendant would need an antenna? I’ve heard mention of an Apple logo watch. It may have been a limited release item, intended for promotional purposes only.

Location sharing by PUSH

The location-sharing update patent at the end of the article is possibly of greater significance. It is PUSH-based. There is an excellent diagram which I couldn’t easily capture without a finesse-less frame.

I wanted to mention an aspect that was of particular interest, although my thoughts are merely conjecture. Recall that geo-locating is accomplished by maintaining a continuous background process running on the user’s device, even if not in active use. Apple’s PUSH based service renders this unnecessary. That’s obviously beneficial for conservation of battery life and power consumption, as touted by the patent.

Might another benefit be health-related? I refer to the possibly reduced exposure to RFD emissions for the user of a PUSH based geolocation technology. I wonder if it can be used for any wireless device, whether Apple or otherwise, be it smart phone or stupid phone?

via www.patentlyapple.com Noteworthy Patent Published Today:

Apple states that a location-sharing mobile device has to maintain an active background process regardless of whether other devices request such up-to-date information from the location information server. Apple’s patent details their very complicated solution to this problem.  Patent application 20100325194.