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Microsoft Engineers Invent Displays That Top LCDs For Efficiency
MechEMark writes with this excerpt from a hope-inspiring article at the IEEE Spectrum, which says "Researchers from Microsoft say they've built a prototype of a display screen using a technology that essentially mimics the optics in a telescope but at the scale of individual display pixels. The result is a display that is faster and more energy efficient than a liquid crystal display, or LCD, according to research reported yesterday in Nature Photonics ... The design greatly increases the amount of backlight that reaches the screen. The researchers were able to get about 36 percent of the backlight out of a pixel, more than three times as much light as an LCD can deliver. But Microsoft senior research engineer Michael Sinclair says that through design improvements, he expects that number to go up — theoretically, as high as 75 percent."
Well..is it?
--
Wi-Fizzle Blaahgish heap..
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
The only colour plane that works right now is blue.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Every time I hear about the great research that MS does I think about how great it is that they are putting their money into these IT projects. Then I stop and think "wait a minute, will this only work on Windows?"
Well it seems obvious to me that a display technology should not be impacted by an OS but then my more synical nature takes over and asks if there is SOMEHOW a way that they could make this a Windows only thing.
Well is it possible?
http://projectleader.wordpress.com
It says that it uses mirrors? Will these new LCDs suffer rainbows now like single-chip DLP projects?
Aren't OLED displays already a lot more efficient?
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
OLEDs and SEDs have many advantages over LCD (the big disadvantage being that they're not mass-produced cheaply currently: OLEDs are produced but they're not cheap)..
So I'm not very excited about a technology which only cuts the power consumption of LCDs..
And that's uselessly low.
It's easy to make an LCD more efficient, just block less light. The problem is that the contrast ratio is the difference between the least amount of light you can block and the most you can block. They've just basically made a system that isn't capable of blocking much light and so it's brighter. But at the expense of the contrast ratio.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I always said that Microsoft was pretty good as a hardware company.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That's one reason it gets such good battery life. It uses the magic of diffraction gratings to use nearly all the light that it receives. I read that the creator of the screen is in the process of commercializing it, and I can't wait for it to get into the world of readily-available products.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
...is the faster switching speed. Considering this prototype has a ~1ms switching time, and LED backlights are already popular, it may be feasible to create, in effect, a flat panel DLP display by rapidly cycling the backlight color.
Current flat panel displays have three sub-pixels in every pixel. One only allows red light, one blue, and one green. It's very inefficient: You need three LCD elements to display each pixel, and two-thirds of the backlight is blocked outright by the color filters.
With a color-cycling display, every element displays every color in turn, so (all else being equal) you triple the resolution *and* the efficiency.
The only downside is a possible rainbow effect if the display does not cycle colors quickly enough.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I guess I'm looking at this from a different point of view from most of the comments so far. I read the article, and I'm thinking "Wow! What a cool new way of attacking an old problem!" It's a brand new technology, I don't expect it to be immediately better than decades old technology overnight. I just like the new technique and the micro-scale optics. Then again, I am studying optics in graduate school so I might be a bit biased...
Anna Pyayt led the research as part of her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Washington in collaboration with two Microsoft engineers. Microsoft funded the work and has also applied for a patent on the technology.
See, they may not manufacture it themselves, but they'll certainly be getting license fees for each unit sold...
They need something to make up for their lack of Vista sales.
Who knows, maybe the display will incorporate a TCPA/Palladium chip, so a licensed OS will be required also.
e.g. For an OS to be able to display something on this type of the monitor, the OS vendor must license the patent and pay the fee
And support the TCPA specs.
What better way to push Vista than to make the hardware explicitly require it? XP doesn't support the advanced DRM required for the more modern lines of efficient displays (which will eventually be mandated by law, just like laws will eventually be passed banning traditional lightbulbs).
this has already been posted :(
Microsoft has said that, the MPAA has said that, many many hardware vendors have stated that it just "doesn't work for Linux." Give open source hackers 2 months, and I promise you that hardware will be working with the kernel, and ready to get ported to other OS kernels.
It was done by a student, the Microsoft engineers were probably taking notes ;-) business as usual.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
lame
Way to go. They addressed one of the issues of LCD screens.
Samsung if I remember correctly works on the color problem: they have already 10BPP, too bad more bits per pixel would require 3 or more DVI connectors...
There also was a demo for "real" black lcd screen somewhere.
Now the remaining problems of response time, native resolution and viewing angle need to be solved. There are some solutions but they are at the expense of other qualities. For example response time decrease is usually achieved by lowering the color depth.
The price of LCDs isn't too great either.
Sounds like the same concept can be applied to OLED screens. Quick create a company in eastern texas and patent it!
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
I can even think of two ways to block Linux.
If you can too, SHUT UP ABOUT IT!
No. I know of very few screens that run an OS (isn't there one that will play media from a flash drive?). Now whether Linux can run it is another story. If it can accept VGA/DVI input (CRT and LCD are two very different technologies, but they use the same interface), sure. But if it needs a new interface (or uses one whether it needs it or not), it could be a few weeks.
rrod much?
Why isn't invention compatible with open source 'schtuf'?
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Wasn't Billy said that the hardware will be free?.
Damn, I've got mod points and there's no "-1, Wrong"
If Microsoft is making hardware now, shouldn't they change the name of the company to Microhard? Or perhaps they should keep the name and in 50 years, when they come to the conclusion that there is no more money to be made in computer hardware or software, and they become an ice cream company, Microsoft will be an excellent name to market their popular soft serve.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Although you're 40 minutes too late, are you two related? http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=625353&cid=24330495
Is the mammoth losing the front on software, realizing the recent futilities in software patents... and moving on to challenge the hardware market? :O
That means that Microsoft has, for the very first time, invented something useful.
No, please, I'm dead serious about this !
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the diffraction grating 'helps' by replacing the color filter. The color filter absorbs a portion of light, so when there is no color filter, then there is less light lost. Less light lost translates into less light you have to generate, and a power savings.
I believe the OLPC screen has 2 modes. Mode 1 is for backlit color like a normal screen, and mode 2 is for reflective black and white for use on a sunny day.
Microsoft is innovating? But slashdot has taught me that such an event is unconceivable... my world is destroyed!
Microsoft have engineers? Shit! What next!!!
I mean I know that they design software and they outsource everything else, but inhouse hardware engineers?
Is this new? Have they had them for long? R&D???
I'm gobsmacked!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
... quickly bash them, before they do anything good.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Ummmm..... Have you ever seen an old ATI Video Card or any Broadcom Wifi Card?!?
I've been waiting YEARS for that crap to work properly (wifi just started working recently and ati works with half the features)
reported on Slashdot.
Error - does not compute
I think I just BSOD'd myself.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Yes, how dare someone who has invested money and effort, not to mention talent, into innovating be rewarded for that investment with exclusive rights for a limited period of time via a patent?
Of course by patenting it, the details of how it works become public and once the patent expires the technology is up for grabs for whoever wants to use it, too.
Read Pynchon.
If this really works like a telescope, then wouldn't that mean the display would have a very low viewable angle? After all, a telescope is just a telephoto lens. And telephoto lenses have a narrow field-of-view.
So, you'd probably have to look directly at the display from a perpendicular angle. Move a little to the side, and you're going to lose the image altogether, or have it severely degraded. LCDs are already bad enough in this respect.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I'm still waiting for a decent resolution full color display that doesn't require a backlight at all, but is instead illuminated by front lighting just like other objects that don't emit their own light.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Microsoft has engineers? And they invented something useful??
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???
Troll!? Where has my /. gone?
Do you really want over a million Microsoft-constructed telescopes pointing at you while you *ahem* surf the web?
that has already been posted, twice :(
did you made windows while you where able to be a decent hardware manufacturer.
Red Colour Hue on MVLB Displays
Some users have noticed a slight rosy color hue on their new Microsoft(TM) MVLB (MakeVistaLookBetter) displays. This is a design feature, but users who have downgraded their computer systems to vastly inferior Operating Systems (Windows XP or Lin.. [MSKb Editor: REMOVED - Mention that and you're sacked]) may wish to obtain MVLB Service Pack 1 to re-balance the colors to a more natural 'look-and-feel'.
Article ID : 45888372
Last Review : July 25, 2008
Revision : 1.0
SYMPTOMS:
You look at your MVLB display and the world seems rosy.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
MVLB display optics have been chromatically adjusted to emphasise the red end of the color spectrum to enhance the user experience with Windows(TM) Vista.
RESOLUTION:
Users can obtain MVLB Service Pack 1, which comprises 3932160 (1280x1024x3) colour-corrected nano-dots. Using the supplied grid alignment device (ruler) and tweezers, one dot should be carefully applied to the surface of the MVLB immediately above each pixel. Note that each nano-dot is color-balanced for a specific pixel color (red, green and blue) and so must be applied above the correct display pixel - each nano-dot has an identifying letter ('R', 'G' and 'B') stamped on its edge. Users will require a tube of superglue and possibly a scanning electron microscope.
NOTE: Do not sneeze whilst applying the nano-dots.
APPLIES TO:
MVLB V1.0 displays
KEYWORDS: MVLB, rosy, tinted, Vista
AT&ROFLMAO
Of course by patenting it, the details of how it works become public and once the patent expires the technology is up for grabs for whoever wants to use it, too.
But by then, it might become obsolete before some other, even better display system. And so the cycle repeats...
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
No. I know of very few screens that run an OS (isn't there one that will play media from a flash drive?).
Yes. http://www.geardiary.com/2008/07/20/aoc-rivio-2230fm-22-lcd-review/
I'd like to show them the disappearing pencil trick.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
The technology, which is use in this LCD, is really very high. So cost of this LCD will be high. __________________________ smac http://www.selectwealthsystem.com/?t=wc
I have no clue why. Dell/HP/Logitech mice, meh, they're essentially disposable -- I get a new one with every new computer because they're generally on their last legs by then. Persistent gunk issues, laser malfunctioning when running over certain colors, total hardware failure, button responsiveness drops, what have you.
I got a Microsoft laser mouse for ~$50 back in, crikey, must have been about 2000. It isn't a gamer anything -- just two buttons and a wheel -- but that thing is an absolute tank. If its reliability continues like it has through the last near decade of heavy, heavy use it might very well be the last mouse I ever buy.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Something that was invented 20 years ago. I wonder if Texas Instruments have their lawyers on standby...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLP
Linux is an operating system kernel. Microsoft ( note not Windows ) is a huge multi billion dollar technology company with diverse interests. You are a troll and whoever modded you insightful - what happened, linux ran off with your girlfriend ?
Pixels are placed next to each other so that the maximum possible fill factor of 78% is achieved. [...]
The maximum transmission of a single pixel in the on state can be derived from the fact that the secondary mirror has a diameter equal to half that of the primary mirror and blocks 25% of the backlight. Thus, 75% of the backlight will reach the primary mirror. Simulations indicate that 95% of the light from the primary mirror can reach the pixel's output. In the experiment it was measured to be 61%, which can be further optimized.
The total amount of backlight that can be transmitted by a telescopic pixel display based on the experiment is pi/4 times 0.75 times 61% approximately 36%, and simulations show that up to 56% is possible. The current experimental value is 3.5-7 times greater than that of LCDs, and therefore for the same backlight intensity, the telescopic pixel is 3.5-7 times brighter.
That pi/4 (78.5%) filling density comes from the fact that the circle-shaped pixels are aranged in a square grid, if they arrange them in a hexagonal grid, they would achieve efficiency of pi/(2*sqrt(3)) - 90.7%.
'Invention' is compatible with open source 'schtuf', but the GP is right that Linux is a unix-clone and therefore, limited in the amount of (software) invention it will allow. Granted, /any/ OS is limited and unix is a better choice than most, but there /are/ better models out there, including, ironically, models invented by the very inventors of unix that were already available when Linux was still in its infancy. All you get from cloning unix is a lot of eyeballs and a lot of already compilable source-code. But many choices of better desktop-OS-es and better server-OS-es and better embedded-OS-es have since come and gone.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
You can make a very good argument that Vista is crap technology, but lack of sales is not something they really have to worry about. Microsoft has sold something like 100 - 150 million copies of Vista.
You're all wrong - open source software IS capable of innovation. For instance, take a look at LyX, a document processor that beats all else hands down. For that matter, LaTeX itself is open source and is the gold standard in creating technical documents. Neither of these is a copy of a closed source original.
The free software/open source approach works well where people can scratch their own itches - in fields where those who need technical innovation are also capable of developing the technology to do it, such as science and mathematics. It fares less well for products which are developed to be sold to someone else - `office suite' software, or for that matter computer monitor hardware (to get us back onto topic). However, saying that open source is incapable of innovation is like saying that all major discoveries are made by commercial entities rather than universities.
I like to make MS jokes right along side of the rest, but I feel the need to point out that had Apple invented something like this we'd be seeing a lot more cogent discussion about it and a lot of fanbois would be creaming in their pants. Instead we have one big jokefest!
I'm not joking here, I'm genuinely confused.
Why is it that Microsoft is actually a pretty good hardware company? All their peripherals are pretty good. Xbox has a few issues but it's really a one off.
Intel on the other hand is just about the worlds best software company. I spent a lot of time at university working with intel developer tools and libraries without ever encountering a single issue.
I would be very surprised if Microsoft did not patent this (IMHO they would be crazy if they did not), has anyone found the patent number?
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Polo mints. I wonder what they did with the holes?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
You can make a very good argument that Vista is crap technology, but lack of sales is not something they really have to worry about. Microsoft has sold something like 100 - 150 million copies of Vista.
The problem with this is how many copies of Vista came with new PC's? Also if a business has a corporate license then they have the right to the total number of Vista licenses that they paid for and this counts as Vista licenses sold even if the corporation does not install Vista.
It would be much more telling if Microsoft let out the number of Vista licenses paid for by the home user to upgrade their XP machines. I won't hold my breath on this though.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Are you writing a novel soon? I sure hope so with that imagination and prose.
Moderators can't comment as the mod points will be invalidated. You can't blame them for using the points in the only way possible.
The one thing that I really do like about the closed model is that Apple and Microsoft seem to be the only two American companies capable of actually taking on foreign competition in their core competencies and winning.
They are just kicking the shit out of Sony and as guy who watched RCA flounder and go down for an answer to the Walkman every iPod and xBox 360 sold just gives me great delight. And now, the even possibility of Microsoft taking back at least the design of electronic screens back from asian manufacturers is pretty damned sweet.
You all may hate Microsoft and Apple and love Linux, but is there any doubt that if Ford and GM were as adeptly run as Microsoft and Apple were, American car companies wouldn't be caught building giant trucks -again- and then take seemingly 5 years to turn around.
This is my sig.
Haha. Yeah, it is IMPOSSIBLE for a KERNEL to invent a new display kind...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
The problem with this is how many copies of Vista came with new PC's?
Why is this a problem ? Most (non-corporate) users get a newer version of Windows with a new computer because, to most people, the computer and the OS are a single unit. On average, people replace PCs about every 3-4 years, which means Vista isn't going to be even close to a majority share before mid-2009.
Corporate users are beholden to their IT departments, who generally work on conservative, 3-5 year schedules. So no-one sane expected Vista to start appearing in large-scale corporate rollouts until *at least* 2009 and probably more like 2010-2011.
The above have been true of every version of Windows since Windows 95. Why anyone expects it to be different with Vista, is beyond me.
Wait, you mean Microsoft does something besides create fodder for anti-Microsoft discussions here? Aaaah! (all of Slashdot implodes)
stuff |
What's number #24?
You guys should simply be ashamed of yourself.
If ANY other company than M$ had invented this, you'd be having an intersting discussion about it.
If someone involved with linux or open source had invented it, you'd all be gushing.
Instead you see how many assinine jokes you can come up with - actually it was most of you commenting on the same one wannabe rather than even coming up with something of your own.
What a bunch of losers. Get your heads out of yours collective asses.
Kudos to the TWO people that actually posted something worth reading. This site is becoming more and more worthless everytday. If I wanted jokes about everything, I'd subscribe to a mailing list.
EK
I smell something fishy
"The researchers were able to get about 36 percent of the backlight out of a pixel, more than three times as much light as an LCD can deliver."
...interesting....
So now..
36% > 300%
Your point has been repeated over and over. You are -1, Redundant.
Linus Torvalds is not a great thinker, but he has some reasonable ideas. Not long ago he said that innovation is overrated. Anybody can come up with new ideas. The thing is implementing them, and good.
Xerox was great, but Macintosh was more important in bringing the desktop to people.
There are good ideas everywhere, we don't need new ideas, we already know what we want, what is needed is good implementations.
Aside from that, MS is not that good an innovator, either. They didn't come up with WIMP, they didn't come up with the idea of selling it to the masses. They didn't come up with office productivity software. They didn't come up with media players, consoles, mouses, anything.
The thing they are good at is building a product that is good enough (good, when it comes to hardware), and selling it. They rule at marketing. They are the kings of it. They are innovators in that area. But that doesn't benefit the users, so I think it's not important for us, but for their shareholders.
GNU/Linux is a way to get good software, on _my_ terms. It's what I want, and it works. There are alternatives, a lot worse in most regards, and somewhat better in other, but they are not provided on terms that are fair to me, so it's a no-brainer who I will choose. It's not about innovation either. It's about fulfilling my needs, without asking for my first born baby in return.
That "upgrade" could be a BIOS upgrade, which would cause a good proper bricking if interrupted. So not necessarily misuse.
</pedant>
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I have a wireless Microsoft mouse. Now, the radio transmitter sucks a lot of power, so to save batteries Microsoft decided to to include a capacity sensor to sense the approach of your hand, so the mouse can turn itself on when you want to use it and be dormant otherwise. So far so good.
However, the sensor consists of a sticker with carbon ink lines on it stuck to the interior of the mouse. Against this sticker presses a little antenna-like piece of metal, that is connected to the circuitry. So as you use the mouse, the little antenna slowly but steadily scrapes away the ink from the sticker, eventually losing the connection, rendering the mouse dead.
I've bent the antenna to a fresh piece of ink to scrape away at and it works again, but at some point this will not be possible anymore. Mouse dead while all important parts are still functional. It almost feels like they deliberately included a weak part in the design to force people to buy a new one, even though their old mouse could have kept working for a long time if the design of the connection had been more robust.
Microsoft doesn't make their own peripherals. Nor do they design the guts. (They didn't invent the optical mouse, as is commonly thought.) They generally contract out the design and manufacturing of all "Microsoft" products.
That's why the XBox was such a big deal. It was the first in-house hardware project. And what did they do? The put a low-powered PC in a box, and called it a gaming console.
Much better is the 360, which is an actual gaming console, and not just a PC pretending to be a gaming console. And, the case isn't fugly.
My only complaint: all the fucking ads on every fucking screen. The blade interface is essentially the same as Sony's XMB, but they had to clutter it up with ads. On every fucking page. And I have to pay for decent on-line access.
Of course, the on-line access is superior to the Playstation Network. But I'm paying for it. And it's filled with ads. On every fucking page.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Too bad the display only works with Windows. :-)
-gc
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
One could say the same thing about Microsoft's software division.
Contrast Ratio is not misleading if you have any idea of what it means. Contrast ratio is a measure of how black your blacks will be on the tv. Black levels are one of the most important parameters in determining how good the picture quality will be on a tv.
Black levels are not focused on enough in the TV buying world, and many consumers are buying inferior displays because of it.
Not talking about blacks would be like not talking about bass in an audio system. Professionals, reviewers, calibrators all agree blacks are hugely important. They cannot be talked about enough, imo. Unfortunately in the Best buys of the world they are talked about very little.
You might ask about the deepness of a color? Black levels is where it comes from. This is the main reason why blacks are so important. Light leakage kills those colors, and if a display can't create black, it can't create deep, pleasing colors. Of course a displays inability to display black shades kills detail in shadows as well. Really a display that can't display black properly is crippled in a technical sense.
I'm sorry but anyone who says black level isn't important to picture quality doesn't know what he's talking about.
The only thing you are correct on is that for lower tier manufacturers will try to lie about their black levels. They will list a black level that is only achievable in an extremely rare viewing condition. The good manufacturers (at least for plasmas) are panasonic and pioneer and they are pretty accurate in their marketing.
You're missing the point:
Every manufacturer measures contrast ratio differently.
There is no universal standard for measuring contrast like there is for measuring resolution or refresh rate.
And actually, what you're describing -- How black are the blacks -- is referred to as "black level" (which is a term you use in your post)
Technically, contrast ratio is the ratio between the darkest darks and brightest brights. A low contrast ratio could indicate either that the blacks aren't very black, or the lights aren't very light. Poor contrast ratio doesn't necessarily correlate to poor black levels.
Of course, right now, contrast ratio doesn't necessarily correlate to anything. Because, as I said, every manufacturer is measuring it differently. It's misleading for that reason.
It's like a newtonian telescope, in that there's a big mirror with a clear spot in the middle, and a smaller mirror in front of it, facing the other way. This gives a similar folded light path as what you see in those telescopes. the field of view of an optical system is related to the focal length of the various lenses and mirrors (and the focal length of your eye's lens, but this system is mounted "the other way around", so your eye doesn't enter into it).
The focal length of the system, in this case, is going to be about 2x the distance between the two plates of glass in the display, so very short. That should give a good wide field of view. They ought to be able to tune it by changing the thickness of the active layer.
Back before we all got LCD monitors, where each pixel in the graphics system directly corresponds to a triplet of RGB cells on the display, there was this device known as a Cathode Ray Tube display, where the grid of light-emitting elements on the display didn't have any relationship to the grid of pixels in the graphics system.
In fact, several popular CRT designs used a triangular arrangement of phosphor dots. There were also striped displays, and staggered stripes, and possibly a few other variants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask
As long as the individual light-emitting cells are at a higher pitch than the graphics system's pixel grid, there isn't any particular need for them to be in the same arrangement.
It's not that F-Lock is so bad, it's the fact that it is ON BY DEFAULT EVERY TIME YOU BOOT THE FRIGGIN PC that's the problem.
The keyboard I'm on right now (a Logitech) has the F-Lock key and I never think about it because it remembers the setting between reboots.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
What's number #24?
You're posting on it.
There was a story the other day about Linux's ambitions to create desktop hardware to compete with the Mac.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9110548&intsrc=news_ts_head
WTF? Why is GP being modded interesting?
Summary: GP is objectively wrong. Look it up if you must.
Here's a link to the white paper from DCP (owners of HDCP) (pdf).
One the fancy new "features" of Vista is "Output Content Protection", which makes your pc compatible with HDCP-enabled sinks (and now with hdmi, any 1080p device). Here's the docs (from 3 years ago): http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/media/output_protect.mspx.
@Ahnteis: Nothing personal.
I think that the real news here is that M$ has researchers working for it! Heck, I thought that they just bought the good ideas and put the M$ name on it. Huh. Whoduv thunk?!
GNU is a UNIX clone. Linux is a kernel, one that had a pretty original design.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Uh, yes I can. Sensoring non-troll and valid comments is not what mod-points are intended for, but it's what they're used for.
If they have to choose between censorship and responding to what they see as a false argument, if they've got a brain and a response, they should refute the comment. Instead most people just censor... and I conclude it's because they don't have a response.
Hehe.. Yes both are very much supported. It's called compiling the kernel module. broadcom wireless has been working since mac80211 was in development, and old ati cards have worked forever. I had an ancient 16MB ati video card working with drm support in the early 2.4 kernel just fine. You just have to *shocks* compile that kernel module.
Indeed, RTF uses TeX syntax. Save an RTF in WordPad and open it up in Notepad--those braces and "\tag"s are everywhere.
The Knuth giveth, and the Microsoft taketh in this case.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Where've you been the last few months? /. has been swarmed with Anti-Anti-Microsoft Trolls. And the Anti-Twitter Trolls take the remaining space here.
Welcome back!
Leave it to Microsoft to create pixel-level DRM.
"Error 234312: Pixel color of pixel 673423 is a registered trademark of Microsoft. Terminating display of all pixels."
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Correct to a degree - that Linux implements POSIX, and (according to kernel.org) seeks to implement the "Single UNIX Specification". However, it was originally just a Minix clone, which is what Torvalds has always said it was - a Minix clone. Linux is, however, a completely separate implementation that is designed far differently from any UNIX and most UNIX clones.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
why is microsoft wasting money opn shit like this? This is not their area, the board needs to take a hard look at just how this company is squandering it's cash reserves.
Can they design into the fundamental technology some factor that will only work with Windows?
OS X is not just a Unix clone, but an actual certified UNIX implementation. But you don't hear many people claiming that Apple is lacking in the area of software invention.
Being based on Unix doesn't affect innovation at all in the areas where it's visible. For example, GNOME is not constrained by the design of CDE.
The first prototype's contrast ratio was 20:1, mainly due to the use of non-collimated back light. This was a limitation of the current prototype, not of the technology. This is supported by simulations (see Supplementary Information, Fig. S5), which show that a ratio of at least 800:1 is possible. The software used for the simulations was a finite-difference time-domain program (OptiFDTD, Optiwave).
I thought I was being amusing. Shit.
> Researchers from Microsoft say they've built a prototype of a display screen using a
> technology that essentially mimics the optics in a telescope but at the scale of
> individual display pixels.
From Microsoft's own press release:
"Our first prototypes are for a 640 x 480 screen, and will be buffed for mass production. That should be good. 640 x 480 is enough for anybody."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Dollars to donuts, if the story said "Apple" or "Google" rather than "Microsoft", you'd be praising it to the heights.
Take of your "I hate Microsoft" blinders when evaluating a technology, and you'll get a better perspective on whether it's good or not.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Wow, what a total idiot you are.
Well you've lost, the reason I reacted the way I did is that it must be the third time that I read about this LCD improvement which I consider to be less interesting than OLED or SED techno.
I don't like Microsoft softwares&tactics in general, but that's not the reason why I reacted like this. Note that the company at the forefrount of the OLED is Sony, the rootkit company..
Now of course, any working technology is better than 'pipe dream', but the prototypes shown by Sony make me hope that OLEDs will truly arrive in a few years (there is speculation that Sony's XEL-1 despite its price is sold at a loss):
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/01/sony_27inch_oled_tv_prototype.html
All you get from cloning unix is a lot of eyeballs and a lot of already compilable source-code. But many choices of better desktop-OS-es and better server-OS-es and better embedded-OS-es have since come and gone.
Yeah. Exactly on the point "and gone".
Whereas Linux stayed and is very well alive.
Because Linux is kernel was designed to be POSIX-compliant and UNIX-compatible, once you have, blam ! instant GNU running on it and a complete UNIX-compatible system is available almost overnight.
And as the resulting system is compatible, you have thousand of possible application - the already compilable code that you mention.
But in the end THAT is exactly what matters. Otherwise you only have a very original and revolutionary OS without much to run on it.
Speaking of revolutionary design, what are the current user base of BeOS/Haiku ? Plan 9 ? ErOS, CoyoteOS and other capability based OSes ?
What is the success of the small OS project that seems to mostly pop on a daily basis : MenuetOS, Syllable, SkyOS ? They are nice, they fit some need, but lack a decent user base and software ecosystem to be relevant to anyone but their authors and a small group of fans.
That's why the other OSes are gone.
It's nice to have brilliant ideas, it's nice to have the desire to be revolutionary.
But in the end, you'll realise the being *evolutionary* is what comes best. Leverage what's done before.
ReactOS is probably the only of those minor OS that has any chance to survive, because they collaborate a lot with other projects like Wine, and because they aim at running win32 application and thus have at least some software to run on them.
Beside being compatible for a whole ecosystem of users and softwares, going the unix route has other advantages : versatility.
Because unix is basically a huge collection of very small tools that do only 1 function but try to do it well, you can pretty much rearrange all this components or swap them on an individual basis.
The result is a single architecture which enables 1 single system - Linux or the *BSDs and Mac OS X - to scale from running embed inside router set top boxes, all the way up to giant multi processors clusters, with PDA, Desktops and Servers somewhere in between. All this enables lots of creative usage and help up take of the new comer.
Compared to that, BeOS / Haiku is a nice design. But it's basically just a desktop/workstation OS. I've never heard of huge clusters powered by it. And Palm didn't manage to easily scale it down to PDA, but had instead to cut and paste small pieces at a time.
Also the modularity enable smoother transition : GNU userland was written to replace to original proprietary UNIX userland one piece at a time. Enabling potential users to try it new component one by one.
No huge jump "let's throw away all thing old OSes have and try this completely revolutionary design of mine"
Last but not least, the unix componentised structure *actually is* a good environment for innovation, because you can slowly innovate 1 component at a time. Take 3D acceleration : there have been several jump forwards in the underlying technology - plain X -> Mesa -> DRI -> DRI2 -> Gallium3D, etc. all smoothly done because you still had a new complete system with lots of applications and developers (the same as before, just the new technology swapped in).
Speaking of 3D, the same also with desktop compositing : in Microsoft land, well, you have to take a new OS - Vista - whether you like it of not. Linux : just swap the window manager. Install compiz and get exactly the same desktop as before, only with rotating cube in addition.
Wanting to innovate with completely ground breaking design is good on the paper. But it's harder to do in practice when you don't offer a smooth transition path to the users & developers
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]