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"Virtual Bridge" Between London, Vienna Et Al.
dr.matrix writes "Read in Heise
(German) how Tholos Systems wants to create a huge outdoor 360 degree video conference between all european capitals, starting with London and Vienna." Pretty impressive technology, but the purpose is still a bit unclear.
Pretty impressive technology, but the purpose is still a bit unclear.
That's art! It doesn't have to serve a purpose, but still may be useful for somebody.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I thought we were meant to be nerds - since when did cool technology need a purpose? Build the huge outdoor 360 degree video conferencing system and we'll find a use for it.
Anyone for the biggest game of UT ever? (And don't even try to tell me nobody's going to try to use it for that...)
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
"The purpose is unclear" :-)
who cares - it would be coool
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
What bothers me is that there is no sign of any technical specifications at all.
20 mega pixels - five times HDTV resolution
Sure, very nice if they were to show it on a screen as large as a 28" TV, but on a screen with an area of 66 m^2? 560 pixels/m? That doesn't sound very highres to me.
Lets calculate bandwidth. 20 Mpix = 20971520*24*3 = 1440 MB/s, uncompressed. That's a lot. Let's say they manage to compress the video 20 times, which could be difficult or expensive with real time compression. That leaves us with 72 MB/s video only over far distances, excluding sound. How are they going to get that through the 100 MBit network they mention in the article?
Also, I can find no references from google regarding "Hypersound(C), a revolutionary directional sound technology". If it was that revolutionary, someone would have written something about it, you might think.
I really don't know. It's a cool idea, but it sounds fishy. Is there a working prototype at all, or are they still in the attract-investor-money phase?
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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
Knowing my countrymen as well as I sadly do, I can't help but feel that while this is a very cool idea, it would soon be hijacked by the wrong elements.
Look, for example, at the reaction David Blaine got here for his "living in a box" stunt - heckled, taunted, and attacked by a man with golf balls. Personally I was massively entertained by this as Mr Blaine chose to put himself at the mercy of the English public - however, once a few BNP party members are out drunk and want the opportunity to abuse and insult some foreigners, they're going to make their way to the cylinder, where it'll be innocent Viennese passers-by who get the heckling.
Cool idea, but I can't help but feel it'll engender more international hostility than co-operation. Cynical, aren't I?
"The Brits might be a bit more reserved, but hey you'd be if it rained most of the time"
That's a common misconception. It hardly rains at all in Britain (compared with somewhere where it REALLY DOES, like Seattle), the reason we have this reputation is that it's overcast (and therefore looks as if it MIGHT rain) fully 50% of the time.
Honestly, this year in particular it's been amazingly dry, and we've still had only a few days of significant rainfall in London since the start of summer.
That was classic intercourse!
Set up a huge panel with DECSS clearly printed on it and aim it at the Washington DC cameras.
Seriously though I wonder though if they intend to do anything about nudity and obscenity. You know that there are going to be people flashing themselves and holding up big banners with obscenities, particularly anti-Bush stuff (assuming, god forbid, that he's re-elected).