Sure, input directly to the brain is hard, but for the equivalent of a Gibsonesque interface, you don't need input directly to the brain. All the metaphors that we read about are audiovisual anyway, so why reinvent the wheel?
Sure, an ultraviolet host won't look more real than reality, and there surely are new senses that could be invented with a direct brain interface, but getting good, clean, general output is all we need in order to take a big step forward.
OK, so I left out touch,taste, and smell, but for most "clean" applications, they're superfluous;)
To begin withm I've never been impressed with a color screen on a PDA. A friend's Nino with it's hi-res color screen isn't nearly as readable as my trusty palm v's screen. in fact, i'm not even impressed by the palm's support of grayscale. the display is crisper in b/w, and that 0.5 second delay switching modes just bugs me.
The speed doesn't impress me. No app I run is bloated enough that I wait for it. Well, automatically adding bookmarks in my doc reader takes a while, but this should happen on the desktop anyway.
What I want to see is a smaller, more rugged PDA. I hate the fact that I can't put my palm in my back pocket. Well, i did once, and now the case has some interesting stress marks where the metal bent. And I hate the fact the I have to treat the screen like it's made of gold. I want to feel safe touching the damn thing when I want to press an on screen button, even if my hands are dirty from changing a flat tire or something.
So I'm rambling. But when I pay $400 bucks for a PDA that I always have on me, I'd like to be able to treat it like the other things I always have on me: my watch and wallet. They take a lot of abuse, they keep on going, and they're well below the size limit that makes me ask "do i really need to bring this with me?"
Actually, JavaScript can be quite useful. Not that it's a great language, but you can build apps in it, using HTML+CSS as a (handicapped) GUI toolkit.
You want get crazy with stateful information and talking to a database or whatnot? Then put your javascript in a frame, and use another frame for submitting forms. Use your javascript to build and submit forms to a server and have your javascript parse the results. You can tune this to get a robust app that uses the server like CGI, but is as responsive as pure client-side javascript. Try it. It's fun. Really.
Hmm, don't know where I was headed with that... oh yeah. It's a universal interface for some pretty damn complex applications, you just have to put some leverage into it.
Even if people can't agree that NCs are a Good Thing in cubicle land, I would love to see them in
classrooms
hotel rooms
public places like airports, freeway rest stops, etc
public labs in libraries
and so on...
basically, wherever you don't have a one-to-one relationship between users and computers, NCs are a no brainer. when there is that 1-1, then i guess it's a matter of religious conviction: were ya raised on a single-user OS or a multi-user OS?
You mean, there are actually people in Russia trying to hack into US computers? I knew it! They must be in league with the kid from Spain that just portscanned my box.
And all this time, I thought that hackers were just kids in suburban US basements...
The short answer is yes. But I think there are two issues here:
creating content for pda platforms
everyone in my company who owns a palm uses it (daily) to read avantgo stories. the screen width is about the same as a column of newspaper text, and i find it easier to read on the palm than on my monitor. plus, i love having the Times in my shirt pocket for whenever i happen to have a few minutes to waste. so i'd keep this in mind for the near future.
making your web sites pda friendly
once time while on the road, i had a meeting with a company i knew nothing about (long story). the only computing device i had with me was the palm, so i downloaded their website with proxyweb and read it on the cab ride over. it was a highly designed site that degraded very un-gracefully, so i have found a great appreciation for palm-friendly web design. and i think this kind of thing is probably becoming common.
So, i guess the short answer was "palm content: good".
Don't get too cocky just because you run linux. Ever downloaded a binary (perhaps an rpm) and installed it? or maybe run someone else's binary as a user, then done an "su"?
unless you're really damn cautious, you are vulnerable.
and since a good rule of thumb is that anyone with an account on a 'nix-ish box can probably get root some way or another, you have to be more careful than you'd think...
i don't think you'd ever need permission from Sun to distribute any software you wrote, including a Java interpreter, as long as you don't call it a "Java" interpreter, since Java is a trademark owned by Sun.
perhaps i'm naive, but i think the real issue is if microsoft is allowed to call it java.
According to the (gulp) Wired interview with him that appeared a couple of months ago, he has been sold on the MP4 format. Thinks it has better sound quality and better compression (maybe it does). I had assumed he was against the so called "secure" formats, but perhaps I'm wrong (or perhaps he's been courted by GMO).
Perhaps "average rating" would be more appropriate. Total rating will skyrocket on stories with lots of posts, since you get 1 point just for not being an AC. Or, perhaps the sum of (rating-1) for all the comments. Or, the sum of the moderator-delta (or whatever you call they're contribution to the score)... Or perhaps...
I've been waiting for this for a long time. I've almost convinced a BIG client to use GRASS for a web-app, and some of 5.0's new features may make it a reality. Being forced to use proprietary ol' ArcInfo might kill me, since parts of this app require adding custom GIS routines.
Down with ESRI, and open up the MapQuest source code!
Slashdot Mirror
No no no! "Lots of encryption" is not the answer. A correctly implemented, wee bit o encryption, with a secure protocol is the answer.
Sure, input directly to the brain is hard, but for the equivalent of a Gibsonesque interface, you don't need input directly to the brain. All the metaphors that we read about are audiovisual anyway, so why reinvent the wheel?
;)
Sure, an ultraviolet host won't look more real than reality, and there surely are new senses that could be invented with a direct brain interface, but getting good, clean, general output is all we need in order to take a big step forward.
OK, so I left out touch,taste, and smell, but for most "clean" applications, they're superfluous
To begin withm I've never been impressed with a color screen on a PDA. A friend's Nino with it's hi-res color screen isn't nearly as readable as my trusty palm v's screen. in fact, i'm not even impressed by the palm's support of grayscale. the display is crisper in b/w, and that 0.5 second delay switching modes just bugs me.
The speed doesn't impress me. No app I run is bloated enough that I wait for it. Well, automatically adding bookmarks in my doc reader takes a while, but this should happen on the desktop anyway.
What I want to see is a smaller, more rugged PDA. I hate the fact that I can't put my palm in my back pocket. Well, i did once, and now the case has some interesting stress marks where the metal bent. And I hate the fact the I have to treat the screen like it's made of gold. I want to feel safe touching the damn thing when I want to press an on screen button, even if my hands are dirty from changing a flat tire or something.
So I'm rambling. But when I pay $400 bucks for a PDA that I always have on me, I'd like to be able to treat it like the other things I always have on me: my watch and wallet. They take a lot of abuse, they keep on going, and they're well below the size limit that makes me ask "do i really need to bring this with me?"
blah
Actually, JavaScript can be quite useful. Not that it's a great language, but you can build apps in it, using HTML+CSS as a (handicapped) GUI toolkit.
You want get crazy with stateful information and talking to a database or whatnot? Then put your javascript in a frame, and use another frame for submitting forms. Use your javascript to build and submit forms to a server and have your javascript parse the results. You can tune this to get a robust app that uses the server like CGI, but is as responsive as pure client-side javascript. Try it. It's fun. Really.
Hmm, don't know where I was headed with that... oh yeah. It's a universal interface for some pretty damn complex applications, you just have to put some leverage into it.
- classrooms
- hotel rooms
- public places like airports, freeway rest stops, etc
- public labs in libraries
- and so on...
basically, wherever you don't have a one-to-one relationship between users and computers, NCs are a no brainer. when there is that 1-1, then i guess it's a matter of religious conviction: were ya raised on a single-user OS or a multi-user OS?You mean, there are actually people in Russia trying to hack into US computers? I knew it! They must be in league with the kid from Spain that just portscanned my box.
And all this time, I thought that hackers were just kids in suburban US basements...
- creating content for pda platforms
- everyone in my company who owns a palm uses it (daily) to read avantgo stories. the screen width is about the same as a column of newspaper text, and i find it easier to read on the palm than on my monitor. plus, i love having the Times in my shirt pocket for whenever i happen to have a few minutes to waste. so i'd keep this in mind for the near future.
- making your web sites pda friendly
- once time while on the road, i had a meeting with a company i knew nothing about (long story). the only computing device i had with me was the palm, so i downloaded their website with proxyweb and read it on the cab ride over. it was a highly designed site that degraded very un-gracefully, so i have found a great appreciation for palm-friendly web design. and i think this kind of thing is probably becoming common.
So, i guess the short answer was "palm content: good".Don't get too cocky just because you run linux. Ever downloaded a binary (perhaps an rpm) and installed it? or maybe run someone else's binary as a user, then done an "su"?
unless you're really damn cautious, you are vulnerable.
and since a good rule of thumb is that anyone with an account on a 'nix-ish box can probably get root some way or another, you have to be more careful than you'd think...
perhaps i'm naive, but i think the real issue is if microsoft is allowed to call it java.
i just want the "misc bit of Q3A paraphenalia". ahh, what a damn cool company id is.
According to the (gulp) Wired interview with him that appeared a couple of months ago, he has been sold on the MP4 format. Thinks it has better sound quality and better compression (maybe it does). I had assumed he was against the so called "secure" formats, but perhaps I'm wrong (or perhaps he's been courted by GMO).
Perhaps "average rating" would be more appropriate. Total rating will skyrocket on stories with lots of posts, since you get 1 point just for not being an AC. Or, perhaps the sum of (rating-1) for all the comments. Or, the sum of the moderator-delta (or whatever you call they're contribution to the score)... Or perhaps...
now i can upgrade my libretto, instead of finding another manufacturer.
Down with ESRI, and open up the MapQuest source code!