Slashdot Mirror

...not Phillips, and Philips is a Dutch company with focus on light, consumer lifestyle and medical technologies.

...not Phillips, and Philips is a Dutch company with focus on light, consumer lifestyle and medical technologies.

...not Phillips, and Philips is a Dutch company with focus on light, consumer lifestyle and medical technologies.

so all the actors would have to lay down to get scanned i think.

According to Philips the first discs from the assembly line in Langenhangen were ABBA's "The Visitor".

Philips has a video fingerprinting system. From the site:

The system is robust against severe degradations like low bit rate video compression, scaling, rotation, cropping, noise addition, median filter and noise removal. [...]
A 5 second video fingerprint on any segment of video content is sufficient to uniquely identify that segment.

You obviously need more than a simple re-encode to get around that and I'm sure Googles system won't be fooled by simple tricks either.

design high end interfaces for home theaters (where the remote it's self costs around $2500.00US or more.) and the number one thing my customers like is not the fancy graphics, cool animations or nicely laid out controls on the touchscreen.. but the VOLUME CONTROL HARD BUTTONS built into the side edge.

A $2500 remote, and you make do with +/- buttons to adjust the volume? Augh! +/- buttons are a miserable way to adjust such an analogue function. Adjustment is either too slow (going up/down 1 dB per keypress) or too fast (when you hold the button down and the acceleration function kicks in).
A linear slider or a rotary knob is much better: it allows both fine control, and huge, fast adjustments (without too much overshoot) when needed.

As far as I know, there are only two remotes that get this right: the Philips SRU 9600, and Quad once had a remote like this.

I'm using a Griffin Powermate to control the volume when watching TV on my computer. It's brilliant.

However, Sony vice-president Norio Ohga, who was responsible for the project, did not agree. "Let us take the music as the basis," he said. He hadn't studied at the Conservatory in Berlin for nothing. Ohga had fond memories of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ('Alle Menschen werden Brüder'). That had to fit on the CD. There was room for those few extra minutes, the Philips engineers agreed. The performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, lasted for 66 minutes. Just to be quite sure, a check was made with Philips' subsidiary, PolyGram, to ascertain what other recordings there were. The longest known performance lasted 74 minutes. This was a mono recording made during the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951 and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. This therefore became the playing time of a CD. A diameter of 12 centimeters was required for this playing time.

In this way the specifications of the CD were determined by means of intensive contact between Philips and Sony.

http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/dossier /optrec/beethoven.html

Just thought you'ld like to know

qz

Don't know how you figure LEDs are 10x more efficient than CFLs?

LED bulb lumens/watt average from the table you reference: 32 lumens per watt (low of 15.5, high of 62.5)

CFL lumens per watt: 60 lumens per watt
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_l amp

Philips PL-C 27watts 1325 design lumens = 49 lumens/watt
  http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/us/ecatalog/cf l/

Looks to me like CFLs are the clear winner on lumens per watt.

According to the article, after breaking the lightbulb in her daughter's bedroom, Mrs Bridges called Home Depot which directed her to Poison Control hotline which directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, which sent a specialist.

The specialist found an unacceptable quantity of mercury (six times the "safe" level), and directed Mrs Bridges to a cleanup firm that gave the U$ 2.000 estimate (way high in my opinion, is it that hard to clean?).

Insurance, as usual, won't cover it (sounds reasonable this time).

An interesting point is that each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, and Maine's "safety" standard is 300 nanograms per cubic meter.

By comparison, according to Wikipedia, "the typical "fever thermometer" contains between 0.5 to 3 g (.3 to 1.7 dr) of elemental mercury."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-in-glass_ther mometer

She could have saved some money by reading this:

"Cleaning Up Small Mercury Spills, For spills of less than two tablespoons:" by the government of Michigan
http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3307_2969 3_4175-11751--,00.html

or this (PDF warning) http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/mercury/smallspil ls.pdf

Not every CFL has that much mercury:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/gl_en/news/press/s ustainability/archive_2006/reduction_in_mercury.ph p?main=global&parent=4390&id=gl_en_news&lang=en

Still, it's good to be warned and be aware about the potential environmental hazard.

"Google doesnt have technology to magically scan pixel patterns and match them up to CBS tv shows when someone uploads a video" There are ways of fingerprinting video content in a reliable way. http://www.business-sites.philips.com/contentident ification/about/article-15207.html So, yes, Google *can* magically scan pixel patterns and match them up. They've got billions of dollars, a huge supply of PhD's and coders, and immense amounts of hardware. They even have a "don't be evil" mantra, which never seems to specify a "to".

...or you just get a decent universal remote, like a Philips Pronto, and make your life simple without sacrificing quality...

They aren't cheap, but good things never are. I have an early model Pronto, and it works great. You can program it for pretty much anything, and because it's a touchscreen there's no worry that it won't have the buttons you need.

Best part is that you can set up macros. My Pronto's main screen just has a list: Watch TV, Watch DVD, Play PS2, Play Wii...

When I touch "Play PS2"

• the TV turns on
• the TV input gets set to Video 3
• the TV's color mode is set to Standard (which is set brighter than the Pro setting I use for watching TV, so games aren't too muddy) using a sequence of menu commands
• the receiver gets turned on and set to TV
• the PlayStation gets turned on
• the Pronto's display changes to a new screen with the options "Back to TV" and "Turn All Off"

That's the proper geek way to handle remotes -- more technology!

Your comment smacks of ignorance. Digital steganographic watermarking is far more robust and prevalent than you realize.

And then there's technology that doesn't even need the watermarks in the first place.

... playsforsure is compatible with all sorts of hardware.

Where from the "all" remark comes from? Last time I checked it is only available on hardware from manufacturers who have sold their souls to The Beast of Redmond. And if you have sold your soul to M$ - you are also by contract forbidden to look into competing music formats (e.g. MP4 or OGG or MPC or FLAC or whatever).

At least Apple with its DRM is open and honest that they want world domination...

I'm not a woman, but the flicker is the worst thing about CFL bulbs. It's quite bothersome. I have 2 in my house, but I put them in places like the hallway. They're places I don't spend much time in, but due to the frequency of travel and lack of switches from every doorway in the hall, I tend to leave it on when I'm home at night.
I couldn't read comfortably with a CFL, as I'm sensitive to the flicker. Plus, the CFL tends to take a minute to reach full brightness, which is annoying for a room where you turn it off and on frequently.

But the secondary issue is that they're just not that bright, and they're just not pleasant.

What I've done in recent years is spent a little more money on halogen bulbs that screw into normal light sockets (not the small specialty halogen lights). I'm talking the Philips Halogena or the GE Edison bulbs. They're more efficient (more lumens/wattage) and longer lasting than standard light bulbs. They're worth it if CFLs don't suit your needs. And I've yet to have one burn out on me. They're not the cheapest, but sometimes you find multi-packs on sale for very good prices. I dunno if they save a significant amount of money in the end, but they're BRIGHT and they're hassle and flicker free.

http://www.business-sites.philips.com/3dsolutions/ about/Index.html ...after checking the name of his logo, "philips3d.jpg."

and seeing a "GoDaddy" proxied registration.

Come on, guys. Even the most cursory inspection indicates "Fountain Consulting" is phoney-baloney.

No, you're wrong. In fact, these 3D projection monitors already exist and have already been sold for a couple of years.

In top middle of the panel (or at the edges) there is an eye motion sensor that tracks the viewer's eye movements and then adjust the view on the screen accordingly.

For instance, have a look at This product from Philips.

But there are also 3D projection systems that use drops of vapor that are illuminated via laser: Wired Article

Google is your friend!

This being slashdot, I though more people would be using electric shavers. In fact, I thought the Philishave Coolskin shavers would be the ultimate in geek shaving gear.

For the record, I use a philishave electric razor myself...

And here is my favourite gilette/shick parody ad. It's actual Philips advertisement:
http://www.coolskin.philips.com/

P.S. Nope, nobody paid me for posting this one;)

Example: I was trying to burn a DVD using the Mac Mini. I was using some new Memorex 16x compatible DVD+R discs that the lab had purchased. Our lab has a policy of burning the data at a low speed - 1x or 2x - since some IT guy decided it ensures the best chance of a successful write. Anyway, I try to burn the CD using Mac OS's built in software - basically by dragging and dropping files on the DVD, then clicking the "record" button once I'm done. I set the record speed to 1x.

The Philips displays released last year October have 9 views and those are used to create 3D as explained here: http://www.business-sites.philips.com/3dsolutions/ 3dtechnology/multiviewlenticulardisplay/index.html

look harder. you can easily find HDTVs in the $400-500 range, CRT, 30-32". best buy is where i got mine. yes my tv does 1080i.

http://www.outlet.philips.com/b2c_redesign/catalog /categorieInPath.do?page=first&key=0/4190799E9A6F0 08D00000000828BD472/41907ABB9A6F008D00000000828BD4 72&shop=OUTLET

best buy has a 27" 4:3 insignia HDTV for $378 right now and a 30" widescreen for $530.

the xbox needs the mod chip for xbox media center. the regular xbox dvd player doesn't upconvert, but the one in media center does.

the signal loss and interference in component cables in a 6 foot run are not significant.

most movies on dvd that are 2.35 instead if 16:9 will still show black bars even on an HDTV because the picture is still wider than the tv. there are no 2.35 tv's (there are some projectors that will do 2.35 anamorphic)

They're Philips Marathon Dimmables. As for the generics, happy hunting.

- Tash

Oh great, now they're going to to have the 'TSAA', to protect the tee-shirt artists from shirt emulation.

Here is the hi-resolution version in case anyone cared:

http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/picture s/downloads/ldm-lighting_14-0_h.jpg

I'd say about 5 minutes.

Keep in mind that their own management can't get their own products to work.

The issue isn't people who want to go to aaa.cm accidently typing aab.cm, it's people wanting to go to aaa.com and forgetting the 'o'.

I think you are missing the point. The owner of, say, neimanmarcus.com would be a victim of typosquatting if someone else took the domain name niemanmarcus.com, because someone typing in the latter spelling would really be deceived if it went to the wrong page. He could look carefully at what he typed and think, "yes, niemanmarcus.com, that's right." But if you type neimanmarcus.cm, the mistake is obvious when you look again.

When trying to allow for users' mistakes, at some point you have to draw a line. Beyond a certain point, the user has to take responsibility to type what he or she means. For example, philips.com and phillips.com are different domains. Neither is typosquatting; the user has to get it right. Top-level country domains are a much clearer case than that.

Ok, I've now googled around a bit and found this. Given that it is from a Philips server, it should be a reliable source. Seems what I've heared was not entirely correct, but also not entirely wrong either :-)

This would be quite surprising to me. It is true that you can copy any personal detail you want into these cards.

But besides some personal details passports are also supposed to have a secret in them that gets proved without revealing it. The article makes no mention of it. Its called "active authentication", RSA labs has been writing about it for years. The US and many others are supposed to require it. IIRC it is done by having the passport sign a challenge with a secret key or something like that.

The only way to get to a secret in the chip would be to really mess with the chip, acids, electron microscopes, side channels, the article mention just "reading" it.

The RFID tag is supposed to tamper resistant. That is, it is supposed to forget whatever secrets it holds if it detects any attempt to tamper with the chip. One manufacturer advertises with voltage, frequency, temperature and light sensors.

Philips also appears quite serious about preventing side channel analysis attacks as well.

Now I have the impression that the whole point of standardizing on complex contactless cards was to keep little players out of the market. (RFID is covered by several patents and hard to implement power efficiently without serious fabrication facilities) The only excuse I heard for requiring contactless cards was that it somehow saved time standardizing the readers....

This is why I would expect other big manufacturers to have done their homework as well.

Is there a chance this attack only clones the parts that are supposed to be readily accessible? Fooling a reader without the "active authentication" is easy. And since a reader would need a government public key I guess getting a reader with it would be a little harder than just buying one.

(Also the Basic Access Control feature sucks. With moderate computing power you can understand the communication between passport and reader at an airport without seeing the passport.)

BASF Research
Batelle
BBC Research & Development
General Electric Global Research

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Motorola Labs
Microsoft Research
HP Labs
IBM Research
Intel Research
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Philips Research
Corporate Research
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Toshiba Research Europa
Toyota Central R&D Labs
Viewpoints Research Institute

You can buy one from Philips:
Company website (UK).
Developed years ago. Nothing new.

Gawd I just got a DVD player that can play Xvid and anything else I can throw at it. I torrent, I burn, I watch. What in the hell do I need and thing else for?

TrimensionDNM is a software implementation of the motion compensated frame rate converter that is known as Digital Natural Motion. This is a very successful feature that is currently used in high end TV sets.

A standard PC monitor displays images with a rate of 60 to 100 images per second. Films are however recorded at 24 images per second. When this film material such as a DVD is displayed on a PC monitor, the frame rate has to be converted, for instance from 24 to 60 frames per second. In this case, the frame rate of the monitor is 2.5 times higher than that of the film. Without TrimensionDNM, each image is shown twice or three times, which is known as 2:3 pulldown.

Due to this repetition, smoothly moving objects will appear to be shaking, which is often referred to as motion judder. Visually this is perceived as trembling, a loss of sharpness or as double images. TrimensionDNM solves this fundamental problem by replacing the repeated images by motion compensated images in which moving objects are at the correct place.

Phillips has three WUXGA desktop displays available.
http://www.consumer.philips.com/lcdmonitors/

Philips presented a 'no moving parts' lens back in 2004.

http://www.research.philips.com/newscenter/archive /2004/fluidfocus.html

http://www.research.philips.com/technologies/light _dev_microsys/fluidfocus/index.html

Video of this lens working
mms://ntstream2.ddns.ehv.campus.philips.com/efi/86 090/fluid_focus/fluid_focus.wmv

Philips' FluidFocus system mimics the action of the human eye using a fluid lens that alters its focal length by changing its shape.

> researchers are developing fashion accessories on which patterns and designs can change according to the wearer's whim

It has already been developed, by Philips Research in the Netherlands, with the possibility to modify the patterns on your textiles e.g. by bluetooth or GSM.

I sent Philips a note and here's the reply:

Hi Jeffrey,

Thanks for the note.

Unfortunately, the initial reports were inaccurate.

Please see our statement, that we issued on Wednesday after the first media reports, below, as well on our own website:
http://www.usa.philips.com/about/news/section-1352 7/article-14677.html

Andre A STATEMENT FROM PHILIPS ELECTRONICS REGARDING US PATENT APPLICATION
#20060070095 - CONCERNING TELEVISION VIEWING AND ADVERTISING COMMERCIALS

New York, United States, April 19 2006. To clarify any confusion regarding the intent of this application, Philips stated,
"Inventors from Royal Philips Electronics (Philips) filed a patent application, as yet not granted, that enables watching a television movie without advertising. However, some people do want to see the ads. So, we developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads. It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services.

Philips never had the intention to force viewers to watch ads against their will and does not use this technology in any current Philips products, nor do we have any plans to do so."(emphasis is mine)

For further information, contact:

United States
Andre Manning
Director Corporate Communications Philips Electronics North America
Global & Europe:
Caroline Kamerbeek
Director Communications Philips Intellectual Property & Standards

...Is a patent for [..] "a device that cuts out your eyelids" said one Phillips executive as he vanished in a cloud of his own vomit.

You may be on to something. Considering that Philips is big in surgery equipment, patient monitoring and razors such a device would fit perfectly in their product portfolio.

...Is a patent for [..] "a device that cuts out your eyelids" said one Phillips executive as he vanished in a cloud of his own vomit.

You may be on to something. Considering that Philips is big in surgery equipment, patient monitoring and razors such a device would fit perfectly in their product portfolio.

I for one would like to remind Phillips that the customer is always right. I also think they should learn about the Slashdot effect.

If you would like to join me, use the information below:

Terry Fassburg
Vice President
Brand Communications
Email: terry.fassburg@philips.com

http://www.feedback.philips.com/dedicated/news/
http://www.feedback.philips.com/consumer/?param1=N O_PRODUCT_SELECTED

To whom it may concern:

I have just learned about Phillips' recent application for a patent entitled "Apparatus and method for preventing switching from a channel during an advertisement display" numbered 20060070095.

I'm writing to inform you and your company that, due to this patent, I have decided never to purchase a Phillips product again. While my family and I have bought many Phillips products in the past, we feel that this patent serves only to hinder my enjoyment of television programming.

For your reference, I have found useful information at the following Web locations:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/ 18/2032219
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9011-inv ention-the-tvadvert-enforcer.html
http://tinyurl.com/ostqn
Regards,

-- Ghodmode

I for one would like to remind Phillips that the customer is always right. I also think they should learn about the Slashdot effect.

If you would like to join me, use the information below:

Terry Fassburg
Vice President
Brand Communications
Email: terry.fassburg@philips.com

http://www.feedback.philips.com/dedicated/news/
http://www.feedback.philips.com/consumer/?param1=N O_PRODUCT_SELECTED

To whom it may concern:

I have just learned about Phillips' recent application for a patent entitled "Apparatus and method for preventing switching from a channel during an advertisement display" numbered 20060070095.

I'm writing to inform you and your company that, due to this patent, I have decided never to purchase a Phillips product again. While my family and I have bought many Phillips products in the past, we feel that this patent serves only to hinder my enjoyment of television programming.

For your reference, I have found useful information at the following Web locations:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/ 18/2032219
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9011-inv ention-the-tvadvert-enforcer.html
http://tinyurl.com/ostqn
Regards,

-- Ghodmode

http://www.newscenter.philips.com/about/news/secti on-13070/index.html

No that's cool- I can take a look and decide if I like what I see. I'm Irish so the scheduling options that are generally available aren't much good to me, unless someone's providing stuff for both UK and Ireland (there are only 6-7 extra Irish stations over here so they might do). I could use a player with an integrated burner, too as Hard Disks have a *slight* tendency to fill up when I'm around.

My current recorder is a philips HDD/DVD recorder, which works very well and has a 6 hour buffer that it records your instant replay info into. It works extremely well and it's going to be hard to replace it, but I think i can:
http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/catalog/c atalog.jsp?fhquery=fh_secondid%3Ddvdr3300h_05_ie_c onsumer%26fh_location%3D%2F%2Fconsumer%2Fen_IE%2Fc ategories%3Ccatalog_ie_consumer%2Fcategories%3Chom e_audio_video_gr_ie_consumer%2Fcategories%3Cdvd_pl ayers_recorders_ca_ie_consumer%26&productId=DVDR33 00H_05_IE_CONSUMER&activeCategory=HOME_AUDIO_VIDEO _GR_IE_CONSUMER&fredhopperpage=detail.jsp&language =en&country=IE&catalogType=CONSUMER&proxybuster=OW NAUOPPFFE5FJ0RMRESHQFHKFSEKI5P

CD was successful on replacing LP because of convenicence and usability. Beeing able to store all tracks on one side, random access, fast forward, repeat, shuffle - remote controlled - all on a tiny disc was the LP killer. The same with MP3 vs CD - it's not because of sound quality - it's easy of use. I'd prefere WinAmp any day against a CD player.

Without Sony's support the CD format would hold less than one hour, be a 14-bit format and the discs would have been bigger. Matshushita had no part in the design of the red-book format.

  http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/patent/ cd/

MemoryStick is still the second largest flash memory format. Both MS-PRO and MS-M2 was co-developed with SanDisc - and any MS tech can be licenced by anyone. It's just as proprietary as any other format and is fullt backwards compatible (but because of smaller physical size you might need an adaptor to fit the small "duo" and "mini" cards into a full-size MS-slot).

  http://www.memorystick.org/

DAT was fairly succesful with both pro and audiophiles, MD is still popular in Japan and is/was quite popular in EU (the MD system is nearly 15 years old and they still produce new models - I would call that a success).

Blu-Ray is just as cross-industry as DVD was and is not a "Sony" format. Sony owns much of the patents they intend to use, just as it did with the original DVD (and the loosing HD DVD format). There are just as many members of the BD forum as it was in the original DVD forum (consortium).

Actually the most proprietary Sony product ever might have been the 3.5" "floppy" disk system - it survived ZIP drives MiniDiscData and tons of others.

Sorry for the knee-jerk pet-peeve reaction, but ... Philips spells its name with one L only. I guess the tendency to double it is for easier/more natural pronounciation in English, but ... It's still not right. :)

You're joking right? Just another DVD/CD player?!?

We're talking about a fancy pants multiple focus combined blue/red laser with a numerical aperature of 0.85; the technology required to even manufacture this thing didn't even exist 2 years ago!

To put those numbers into a bit of perspective, DVD lasers have an NA of 0.6, while HD-DVD's lasers have an NA of 0.65.

In technological terms, the tolerances required to manufacture this thing are in the same league as manufacturing a piece of bleeding edge medical equipment.

Also, since they hold the patents for all the blu-ray standards, they don't have to pay any royalties

This is completely incorrect; Sony acts as the entity gathering liscensing all of that patents, but they do not own all of them. For example, Philips owns several of the patents used by blu-ray.

since Sony is simply trying to get the Blu-Ray standard out into the world quickly, its to their advantage to set the price pretty low

Just because they can afford to take a loss doesn't mean that it is cheap to manufacture.

Not all that different from the philips announcement last month

http://www.research.philips.com/initiatives/entert aible/index.html

Check it out:
http://www.research.philips.com/initiatives/entert aible/index.html