Touchscreens—particularly resistive touchscreens—often need recalibration. On a poorly calibrated screen, tapping on one button could select the one adjacent. Not good in a voting machine with a column full of candidates in densely packed rows.
Note: I haven't read TFA, this is just the first thing that came to mind.
Even a 'simple' telepresence robot with the dexterity to operate a vehicle and perform various manual tasks would be incredibly useful in hazardous environments—including battlefields. I can see why DARPA doesn't mind it being human operated.
But I admit the remote control aspect causes it to lose a bit of the 'cool' factor; that's why I'm more intrigued by DARPA's other project, "Build a fully autonomous robot which can locate a single individual in the city of Los Angeles."
I can't really see Apple having a monopoly in anything. They actively avoid the lower end of markets both to maintain their status as a premium brand and because *not* having a monopoly lets them maintain a lot more control over their products.
Should Microsoft ever bow out of desktop operating systems (which seems extraordinarily unlikely, but then, Windows 8...) the main beneficiary will probably be Google. They're as well known as Apple and Microsoft, and unlike Apple quite happy to target the vast low-end and offer their advertising-supported OS free to all the major PC OEMs.
Having run my own apps in the iPhone/iPad simulator, I can say it's nowhere near as good as the real thing. And apps on 'the real thing' are usually nowhere near as good as they would be on my desktop, except for portability and touchscreen-specific features. I have no desire for a solution that combines all the downsides of both PCs and portable devices.
Admittedly, there is the rare phone app that, for no obvious reason, has no match on the PC, but even rarer is an app that would be worth the inconvenience and inevitable compatibility issues that would come from using a shim-ulator like this. And for those, why not just... use your phone?
Unfortunately, if this takes off (and I can't really imagine it will), it would only encourage lazy developers to build compromised designs that work passably on phones and PCs without taking advantage of the unique strengths of either. It would be another decade of the same write-once-suck-everywhere that Java and Flash brought us.
And for all of you, who I'm certain aren't interested in the slightest, here's my dramatic reading of the announcement:
[The new hotness will] allow the more than 500,000 mobile apps to run on your PC
*based on our estimate that soon all PCs will be Windows 8 multi-touch tablets—Steve Ballmer said so!—and all Android developers partner with us.
'What's special about the player on AMD-based products?
We call it: "Vendor lock-in!"
There are many challenges with running apps that were originally designed for phones or tablets on a PC that in most cases has a larger screen and higher resolution display
Likewise, there are many challenges with using the Mario Kart wheel to control a 747.
To solve this, BlueStacks has designed and optimized the player for AMD Radeon graphics and in particular, our OpenGL drivers found in our APUs and GPUs so you get a great 'big-screen' experience.
To solve this, we use only pink Mario Kart wheels, and in particular, pink wheels covered in our proprietary glitter for the best possible experience.
Additionally, the apps are integrated into AppZone, our online showcase and one-stop-shop for apps accelerated by AMD technology.'
You'll be able to use ANY Android app...that's tweaked for our service and available in our store. There'll be dozens!
BlueStacks has achieved some incredible momentum
We think it will revolutionize the whole software market, just as CrossOver made Windows a thing of the past!
Or, more accurately, AMD's integrated video is better than Intel's integrated video (seriously, that's all they tested!). And these AMD chips still double the system power consumption over their Intel counterparts.
So if you're part of the subset of gamers that morally object to dedicated video cards but still enjoy noisy fans and high electricity bills, AMD has a product just for you! Woo!
Agreed. Not that long ago I was reading (on Slashdot) about the scourge of 'authors' that do nothing but spam the Kindle store with content they trawl from the web, and how Amazon desperately needed to crack down. Damned if you do...
So it's not great, but on par with the midrange iPhone.
And a lot more changes on phones than storage. New generations of wireless make phones more spectrum-efficient. CPUs, graphics, and screens improve. If your service provider is willing to subsidize $400 every two years and you pay the same for service either way, why not upgrade and donate your old phone to someone who can't afford one?
The phone with a MicroSD slot is the Nokia 820. The phone without a SD slot, Micro- or otherwise, is the 920. It's been a while since any phones had full-size SD card slots.
TL;DR; It is not cruel to let a robot work until it wears out or breaks, biological or not. It is however cruel to program said robot to feel pain when it wears out/breaks and then force it to do so.
I suppose it depends on how you define 'cruel'. In a strict sense, engineering humans or other sentient beings to delight in sacrificing themselves for your pleasure* would not be 'cruel', because you are not causing physical pain or suffering. But I believe most would consider such a thing to be deplorable and the product of a cruel and sociopathic mind.
When a user of your app specifies they want to use a file or a folder, the system adds the associated path to your app’s sandbox. Say, for example, a user drags the ~/Documents folder onto your app’s Dock tile (or onto your app’s Finder icon, or into an open window of your app), thereby indicating they want to use that folder. In response, the system makes the ~/Documents folder, its contents, and its subfolders available to your app.
Starting in OS X v10.7.3, you can retain access to file-system resources by employing a security mechanism, known as security-scoped bookmarks , that preserves user intent. Here are a few examples of app features that can benefit from this:
A user-selected download, processing, or output folder
An image browser library file, which points to user-specified images at arbitrary locations
A complex document format that supports embedded media stored in other locations
It seems like the simplest solution is to have the user choose the folder the videos are in, not the video itself.
You could just have the user pick the folder their video library is stored in, and the player can even create a 'bookmark' so the app can access that folder (and its contents) persistently across restarts.
I see it as a coup. The PC is king, and Microsoft is the cruel general behind the throne. Rather than be ousted when the regime finally falls, Microsoft chooses to assassinate the aging King, be seen as a revolutionary, and, with his new image, ally with the new leader and insinuate himself back into the same position he held before.
They turn off the phone? Or just switch it to "Airplane Mode"?
And please don't say 'but it could still be transmitting!' We have these amazing gizmos called 'antennas' that can—I am told—detect radio transmissions. Transmitting also takes power. If smartphones really kept transmitting while off or in air mode, (a) the battery would drain relatively quickly even when the phone is off, (b) some paranoiac with a microwave receiver would have already discovered the unauthorized transmissions, and (c) the FAA (among other groups) would be all over the manufacturer.
Oh, but I forget: TV provides irrefutable evidence 'they' can track phones which are turned off; at least, when 'they' are not too busy uncropping photos and tracking your IP with a GUI interface made in Visual Basic.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/gaming/mice-keyboard-combos/g600-mmo-gaming-mouse
For some reason, this comes to mind.
Touchscreens—particularly resistive touchscreens—often need recalibration. On a poorly calibrated screen, tapping on one button could select the one adjacent. Not good in a voting machine with a column full of candidates in densely packed rows.
Note: I haven't read TFA, this is just the first thing that came to mind.
Even a 'simple' telepresence robot with the dexterity to operate a vehicle and perform various manual tasks would be incredibly useful in hazardous environments—including battlefields. I can see why DARPA doesn't mind it being human operated.
But I admit the remote control aspect causes it to lose a bit of the 'cool' factor; that's why I'm more intrigued by DARPA's other project, "Build a fully autonomous robot which can locate a single individual in the city of Los Angeles."
I can't imagine a world where perfectly healthy people feel the need to take addictive stimulants just to help them focus throughout the day.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Starbucks.
I can't really see Apple having a monopoly in anything. They actively avoid the lower end of markets both to maintain their status as a premium brand and because *not* having a monopoly lets them maintain a lot more control over their products.
Should Microsoft ever bow out of desktop operating systems (which seems extraordinarily unlikely, but then, Windows 8...) the main beneficiary will probably be Google. They're as well known as Apple and Microsoft, and unlike Apple quite happy to target the vast low-end and offer their advertising-supported OS free to all the major PC OEMs.
Having run my own apps in the iPhone/iPad simulator, I can say it's nowhere near as good as the real thing. And apps on 'the real thing' are usually nowhere near as good as they would be on my desktop, except for portability and touchscreen-specific features. I have no desire for a solution that combines all the downsides of both PCs and portable devices.
Admittedly, there is the rare phone app that, for no obvious reason, has no match on the PC, but even rarer is an app that would be worth the inconvenience and inevitable compatibility issues that would come from using a shim-ulator like this. And for those, why not just... use your phone?
Unfortunately, if this takes off (and I can't really imagine it will), it would only encourage lazy developers to build compromised designs that work passably on phones and PCs without taking advantage of the unique strengths of either. It would be another decade of the same write-once-suck-everywhere that Java and Flash brought us.
And for all of you, who I'm certain aren't interested in the slightest, here's my dramatic reading of the announcement:
[The new hotness will] allow the more than 500,000 mobile apps to run on your PC
*based on our estimate that soon all PCs will be Windows 8 multi-touch tablets—Steve Ballmer said so!—and all Android developers partner with us.
'What's special about the player on AMD-based products?
We call it: "Vendor lock-in!"
There are many challenges with running apps that were originally designed for phones or tablets on a PC that in most cases has a larger screen and higher resolution display
Likewise, there are many challenges with using the Mario Kart wheel to control a 747.
To solve this, BlueStacks has designed and optimized the player for AMD Radeon graphics and in particular, our OpenGL drivers found in our APUs and GPUs so you get a great 'big-screen' experience.
To solve this, we use only pink Mario Kart wheels, and in particular, pink wheels covered in our proprietary glitter for the best possible experience.
Additionally, the apps are integrated into AppZone, our online showcase and one-stop-shop for apps accelerated by AMD technology.'
You'll be able to use ANY Android app...that's tweaked for our service and available in our store. There'll be dozens!
BlueStacks has achieved some incredible momentum
We think it will revolutionize the whole software market, just as CrossOver made Windows a thing of the past!
Thank you, Press-release-dot.
Now explain why I would even *want* to use phone apps on my desktop?
Or, more accurately, AMD's integrated video is better than Intel's integrated video (seriously, that's all they tested!).
And these AMD chips still double the system power consumption over their Intel counterparts.
So if you're part of the subset of gamers that morally object to dedicated video cards but still enjoy noisy fans and high electricity bills, AMD has a product just for you! Woo!
Wow, inflation is really hitting these things...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/03/31/1914217/software-defined-radio-for-11
How did we get on the subject of Internet Explorer?
"...and, you know, world peace would be great. Somebody should do that."
Agreed. Not that long ago I was reading (on Slashdot) about the scourge of 'authors' that do nothing but spam the Kindle store with content they trawl from the web, and how Amazon desperately needed to crack down. Damned if you do...
I'm more impressed with how they managed 100 successful launches with only 37 rockets. Trebuchet-to-orbit isn't as easy as it sounds.
Charge these organizations a nuisance fee for false positives. Problem solved.
Or perhaps they didn't want the robot accidentally hurled into the back wall at 30mph?
Actually, I think it is all Clinton's fault. If he hadn't been such a tool, Bush never would have gotten elected.
You're being shortsighted. There's a butterfly in Mongolia I'm really pissed off at right now.
The 820 has 8GB onboard and a MicroSD slot.
The 920 has 32GB onboard and no slot.
So it's not great, but on par with the midrange iPhone.
And a lot more changes on phones than storage. New generations of wireless make phones more spectrum-efficient. CPUs, graphics, and screens improve. If your service provider is willing to subsidize $400 every two years and you pay the same for service either way, why not upgrade and donate your old phone to someone who can't afford one?
The phone with a MicroSD slot is the Nokia 820. The phone without a SD slot, Micro- or otherwise, is the 920. It's been a while since any phones had full-size SD card slots.
[homeopathic remedies should be] provided at public expense by the NHS
Why didn't I think of this? Give away bottles of water, er, "remedies", and take the profit away from the snake oil salesmen.
Genius.
TL;DR; It is not cruel to let a robot work until it wears out or breaks, biological or not. It is however cruel to program said robot to feel pain when it wears out/breaks and then force it to do so.
I suppose it depends on how you define 'cruel'. In a strict sense, engineering humans or other sentient beings to delight in sacrificing themselves for your pleasure* would not be 'cruel', because you are not causing physical pain or suffering. But I believe most would consider such a thing to be deplorable and the product of a cruel and sociopathic mind.
* as Douglas Adams so aptly depicted
From Apple's design guide:
It seems like the simplest solution is to have the user choose the folder the videos are in, not the video itself.
You could just have the user pick the folder their video library is stored in, and the player can even create a 'bookmark' so the app can access that folder (and its contents) persistently across restarts.
I see it as a coup. The PC is king, and Microsoft is the cruel general behind the throne. Rather than be ousted when the regime finally falls, Microsoft chooses to assassinate the aging King, be seen as a revolutionary, and, with his new image, ally with the new leader and insinuate himself back into the same position he held before.
And is colloquially known as "Stephen Fry".
They turn off the phone? Or just switch it to "Airplane Mode"?
And please don't say 'but it could still be transmitting!' We have these amazing gizmos called 'antennas' that can—I am told—detect radio transmissions. Transmitting also takes power. If smartphones really kept transmitting while off or in air mode, (a) the battery would drain relatively quickly even when the phone is off, (b) some paranoiac with a microwave receiver would have already discovered the unauthorized transmissions, and (c) the FAA (among other groups) would be all over the manufacturer.
Oh, but I forget: TV provides irrefutable evidence 'they' can track phones which are turned off; at least, when 'they' are not too busy uncropping photos and tracking your IP with a GUI interface made in Visual Basic.