a) that most windows users don't have an H264 codec
Great, because some people do not have the codec I will have to continue to use flash on Youtube. Maybe I could download some plugin that allowed me to watch h264 videos because I have the codec. Maybe I should tell everybody how easy it is to download HD TV shows using torrents. Then more people will have the codec.
b) It's pissing on their principles (my words, not theirs)
Too bad.
But I also understand there are a lot of people who read slashdot who just don't seem to understand what the point of freedom is.
Well, I admit I don't. I always though that freedom meant that I could do whatever I wanted (within reason of course). That should include being able to watch h264 videos on Firefox.
So suppose you're in the following scenario: you get to recieve a pile of money in exchange for a corporation to cut off your right leg
Depends n the amount of money. If the amount of money is enough to build a fully functional artificial leg and then there would still be enough for me to never have to work again I'd probably do it.
What if it was only a few toes say of one of your siblings, or a living parent, or one of your children if you have any?
I'd ask the person h(im|er)self.
From my perspective, you have no principles except possibly the pursuit of money which as a goal I just don't see much point
So, you would refuse to sell your leg for any amount of money. You continue to live and work as usual and can be proud and tell everybody "Well, you see, I was offered $XYZ, but I refused, I still have my leg and can continue to enjoy living in fear of losing my job", well, until you get in an accident in which you lose that leg anyway (or maybe you don't).
From where I see it, this decision by Mozilla actually is infringing on my freedom. I want to be able to watch videos in sites that use h.264 codec. Almost everything else uses that codec (anime, HD TV shows, youtube) and a lot of devices support it (PCs, bluray players, my cell phone). So why use the codec that is only supported on PCs and is inferior in quality? OK, you like the codec because of legal reasons, I understand that Mozilla cannot distribute h.264 codec for free etc. OK. So make it possible to write a plugin with that codec.
Or even better, use the codecs that are in the PC already. Ir that particular user does not have h264 codec, the site can guide him to download it or if he can't it certainly won't be worse than it is now, where I can't play the videos even if my PC has the codec.
Going back to your analogy about cutting off a leg. If you respect freedom, than you have to respect my choice to sell my leg (or my kidney, or some of my blood), otherwise your idea of freedom becomes something like "Do whatever you want as long as I approve it". And this is why I can't understand the laws that prohibit the sale of non vital organs. If I can't sell it, you aren't getting it for free either.
Since when did warez groups care about portability?
I don't know the date, but currently a lot of music is in mp3 or flac, usually both are available, also mp3 is the main format. At least in the torrent sites I go to.
Videos, especially TV shows are standard. SDTV is Xvid/mp3/avi, sometimes audio can be AC3, but usually mp3. It is 350MB or 700MB size, fits neatly in CDs, but do not fit so neatly in a DVD - 12 episodes 350MB each and you still have 285MB left, if they chose size for the DVD, they would have chosen 345MB (13 episodes) or 373MB (12 episodes) per episode.
HDTV shows are h264/mkv and are 1.09GB in size, you can record 4 episodes to DVD and they fit nicely, just like SD episodes fit on a CD. HD shows can be h264/mkv because HD players support h264 better than SD DVD players do and SD DVD players do not support HD video even if it was in XviD.
I don't know about you, but to me it looks like the groups actually care about somebody being able to play their releases.
I have ST:TOS downloaded in SD with XviD, that was before the blu ray release, and I am not planning to redownload it. I probably will redownload TNG and DS9 because I have those in the 175MB format (lower quality than 350MB of course) when I decide to record them to tape (I am in the process of slowly copying my DVD-Rs to LTO tape).
$700 is a lot of money, especially if you are going to watch mostly cable TV which is analog and SD for now (there are some HD channels, but for those you need DVB-C receiver with HD support (very expensive) and a decoder card, while you can split the analog signal to however many TVs you want, which we have 4 not counting my VCRs, though I now use a digital receiver with my VCRs, I can see the channels I want even without the card, but in SD).
Yes, HD TV shows are in h.264, so is anime (though sometimes even the SD version of anime is in h264), but SD TV shows are still XviD/avi. The release groups probably know that they can use h264 for DVD rips, but choose not to, because XviD/avi is more common.
Just like audio codecs - ogg and aac may be better, but you can be sure that mp3 will be supported by almost all players (portable and not). So, most of the music is available in mp3 format, because all of the players play it, and all of the players play it because it is so common. When you rip the CD for your own use in a portable player, you can choose whatever codec your player supports, be it ogg, aac or even flac, but if you wanted to release that rip to the internet, you will probably have to choose mp3 because it is more widely supported and transcoding from one lossy codec to another degrades the quality, be it audio or video.
Xvid video with the same quality takes more space than h264 video, but I don't think that people would run to the stores to buy h264 compatible players just so they can download 300MB instead of 350MB. However, I think that xvid will be dropped only when h264 compatible players become as common as divx dvd players are now. Remember - SD TV shows still get released so you can fit 1-2 episodes on a CD-R (350 or 700MB, but usually not 800MB for example) and DVD rips of moves are release in 1 or 2 CD format, usually 1-2 files 700MB each, though now DVDR drives and discs cost about the same as CDR drives and discs.
We have cable, so no rabbit ears. The TV is ~15 years old and has one composite input (and one output). No SCART and no S-Video.
So, buy a new TV = a lot of money. In that case, a cheap DVD player will be better until cheap DVD players start supporting mkv.
Also, running the cable from where? My PC? I could do that already (video card has composite output), but I don't think my parents would like having to use a PC for watching movies.
I just watch movies on my monitor, because it is as big as that TV (both are 21" CRTs), but my parents want a simpler device that they can control using a remote instead of keyboard+mouse.
In any case, the DVD player I bought now supports DVDs and divx, which is still the standard of how TV series are released on torrents (dvd rips too). I hope that h264/mkv supporting devices become cheap by the time tv shows on torrents become h264/mkv even for SD versions.
The Tv can only do 576p - standard PAL video. It supports NTSC too, but that is lower resolution.
Anyway, the price looks kinda normal, but on the high side. It doesn't have a DVD drive though, and the manual does not specify if it supports a USB DVD drive.
In any case, I have the player now, but in the future If I ever need another one, I'll probably give this a try.
A lot of DivX DVD players do not support h264 or mkv. Recently I was looking for a DVD player that supported h264, but I only could find Bluray players (very expensive) and "media centers" (also very expensive) that supported a lot of formats, had an ethernet or WiFi capability and no DVD drive. And I don;t see people buying a new DVD player just because it supports this new codec. Those who need a DVD player should look for one with most capabilities, but those who already have one will continue using it.
I have never used chapters (not on Laserdisc, DVD or mkv files) and I have seen some.avi files with AC3 (which is Dolby digital) audio on them.
I agree about the subtitles, but, unless you are watching anime, you will have to find the subtitles yourself, they will be contained in a separate file and you will be able to watch the movie with subtitles no matter what container it is in. (I prefer hard subs though).
Don't get me wrong - I like h264, I usually download anime in this codec, unless it is not available. But that is because I watch anime on my computer, so I don't have to worry about compatibility problems.
Just like loran-C vs GPS, maybe you should keep dial-up ISP in case your broadband internet begins to fail? Yeah, thought so, you don't have a dial-up ISP anymore do you?
Well, I can connect to the internet using my cell phone (PC->bluetooth->phone->UMTS>internet), so I have a backup. I can also try to connect to one of the many WiFi networks around me. If that fails, I still have my dial-up modem, but I don't know if the telephone company still provides dial-up service (it used to provide a dial up service where you just paid for the minute, but no monthly fee). OTOH, if my aDSL connection failed it would probably mean that the dial-up wouldn't work too, because they both go to the same phone company.
Also, I could get a 64/64kbps connection from my cable TV provider if my main connection was not working for a long time.
I am not that much of a programmer, I use Delphi, because it has the same syntax as Pascal which I learned some time ago. My programs are usually simple (a decent programmer could probably make one in an hour), for example a batch youtube video downloader that automatically selects the best available quality. I googled for such program, but could not find one I like, so I wrote it myself.
why is it that you think you couldn't already use 'pc' hardware with an ARM-based device?
Because some of that hardware might need drivers that the ARM OS does not have.
And yes, x86 is just another instruction set, like ARM, PowerPC and others. However, there are a lot of programs written for Windows on x86. Those programs would not work on another instruction set, even if Windows could, unless Windows on non-x86 CPU could emulate x86 CPU to run those programs, but that would be slower than a native x86 CPU.
A lot of those programs are written in high level programming languages, so in theory they could be recompiled to work on another CPU, but what if the company that made the program no longer exists or wants $(a lot) for the recompiled version?
Windows (currently; except the mobile version) supports only x86 and is compatible with most of the programs written for older versions. I can safely assume that if program x worked on WinNT, it will work on XP, after all, Windows is Windows. There are some programs that do not work on a newer version of Windows, but these are a minority.
Not so much with Linux - while Linux itself is compatible with a lot of CPU architectures, the programs are not. What it means is that a program may work on SuperLinux on my x86 PC it won't work on PhoneLinux on my ARM phone, even thought they are both Linux. Yes, if the program source code is available I could probably recompile it to work on the phone, but not all programs are open source.
OK, I now want a version of vmware that runs on that phone Linux. I know that there is a desktop Linux version of vmware, but does it run on phone Linux?
Also, OS is not a tape recorder - you can still use it the same as before even if blank tapes are no longer made.
I want to run desktop PC applications on my smartphone.
I now have a Nokia N93 which is quite old and may not have all of the features of a new phone (or rather new version of Symbian OS).
It can open MS Office files, but really mangles them - shows only text, no graphics, no formatting and cannot edit the files. This is not because the phone has too little memory - it has 22MB free when booted up. MS Office 97 works on a PC that has 16MB RAM total. I want to watch videos on my phone, but it only supports a very specific format - mp4 container, xvid or x264 codec at specific max bitrates and resolution (compatible with iPod), which means that I cannot just copy a video file to the memory card, I have to convert it first, and converting takes time. On x86 smartphone I could install codecs, filters and splitters to, for example, support mkv container. Or ogg format for audio. There are less programs available for my phone than my PC, also, there are a lot of free (open or closed source) programs for PC, while their counterparts for the phone may be expensive. Also, if the phone had x86 and Windows, I could use PC hardware with it (for example - mouse, keyboard, USB flash memory...).
As for the power issues, I think it would be possible to have two modes of operation. A phone mode, where the x86 cpu is turned off and some other CPU is used for the basic phone functions (calls, SMS, camera) and a full mode when the xd86 CPU is used for everything. The phone may not be able to work for very long in this mode (a few hours), but I would rather carry a small power adapter or a spare battery than a netbook in addition to my phone.
I have a Psion Series 5mx PDA, which is great, but has compatibility problems, for example, while I can browse the internet (using infrared connection to my phone) and download MS Word documents, I have to also have a laptop to convert them to the Psion format. But if I already have my laptop, why would I also carry the Psion? I once installed an emulator that could emulate an 8086 CPU and installed Windows 3.10. I would have used it like this, if it wasn't so slow (Psion 5mx was made in 1999 and has an ARM 710T 36.864MHz CPU). Maybe with modern CPUs this emulation could be possible and maybe I could even run Windows for Workgroups 3.11...
And these new phones will probably have a fan and require 2GB of memory so it can run Windows. lol. If they only talk about Gnu/Linux then we'll know they are serious but if they pull Microsoft in, you know it's a PR game and like the netbook segment, it'll run the prices up so high few will want them.
Why? I would be happy if my cellphone could run Windows NT or 98. They do not require a lot of CPU power and are much more compatible with modern Windows versions than Linux, Symbian or whatever other smartphone OS. I would be happy even with Windows 3.11. There is a lot of software even for this version.
I like realistic graphics and physics. It makes common sense work better in the game. For example - let's say that I found a locked house, but I absolutely must get inside (maybe my mission requires it). A game would usually make me look for the key(s), find them, then unlock the house and get inside, while in real life, I would also be looking for a brick or a stone.
Realistic combat is also a matter of preference. Some people like that they can kill the enemies with one bullet (and not necessarily a headshot), others like the "empty whole magazine at point blank range to actually kill him" version. But there are a lot of aspects of reality that almost nobody would want: need to go to bathroom in-game; need to sleep or eat; fatigue from fighting for 15h of game time and so on.
CPUZ says that the CPUs in my main PC are running at 1994.7MHz instead of 2000MHz. Since there are two CPUs with two cores each I "lost" 21.2MHz. Also modern CPUs perform more work per cycle than old CPUs, so probably the 21.2MHz speed "loss" would be equal to my first laptop that has 486DX 50MHz CPU.
I never understood (from a technical legal perspective, relax Mr. Moderators) how people could be held responsible for their actions while sufficiently inebriated.
The difference between drunk people and insane/mentally retarded people is that the drunk people are sane before they start drinking. They make a conscious decision to drink and therefore are responsible for their actions while drunk.
Holding drunk people as not responsible for their actions also can give an easy pass for crime. Do I want to kill someone? Great, I'll just get drunk and kill him. I was drunk, so I am not responsible for killing him? Wrong, I planned the murder before I was drunk. The same with DUI - except this time I did not specifically plan to cause an accident, but I chose to drive while drunk before I started drinking (I drove to the party alone, did not plan to stay there overnight, did not plan to go home by taxi and get my car the next day, did not take someone with me who would drive me home etc). And being a driver I should know that drunk people are more likely to cause an accident.
I just break into a studio, take the master tape of whatever music I want and leave a reel of blank tape in its place. This way I only steal the music and not the tape itself. The studio experiences the same loss as if I would have just downloaded the music, but this way I get higher quality.
AMD may use their own compiler, but what if the maker of a very popular benchmark used Intel's compiler? Reviewers would use that benchmark to test various CPUs and would see that AMD CPUs are slower. This would get published and less people would buy AMD CPUs (since the reviewers say they suck).
How many times have you relied on a benchmark done by a reviewer to decide which video card or CPU to buy?
Slashdot Mirror
a) that most windows users don't have an H264 codec
Great, because some people do not have the codec I will have to continue to use flash on Youtube. Maybe I could download some plugin that allowed me to watch h264 videos because I have the codec. Maybe I should tell everybody how easy it is to download HD TV shows using torrents. Then more people will have the codec.
b) It's pissing on their principles (my words, not theirs)
Too bad.
But I also understand there are a lot of people who read slashdot who just don't seem to understand what the point of freedom is.
Well, I admit I don't. I always though that freedom meant that I could do whatever I wanted (within reason of course). That should include being able to watch h264 videos on Firefox.
So suppose you're in the following scenario: you get to recieve a pile of money in exchange for a corporation to cut off your right leg
Depends n the amount of money. If the amount of money is enough to build a fully functional artificial leg and then there would still be enough for me to never have to work again I'd probably do it.
What if it was only a few toes say of one of your siblings, or a living parent, or one of your children if you have any?
I'd ask the person h(im|er)self.
From my perspective, you have no principles except possibly the pursuit of money which as a goal I just don't see much point
So, you would refuse to sell your leg for any amount of money. You continue to live and work as usual and can be proud and tell everybody "Well, you see, I was offered $XYZ, but I refused, I still have my leg and can continue to enjoy living in fear of losing my job", well, until you get in an accident in which you lose that leg anyway (or maybe you don't).
From where I see it, this decision by Mozilla actually is infringing on my freedom. I want to be able to watch videos in sites that use h.264 codec. Almost everything else uses that codec (anime, HD TV shows, youtube) and a lot of devices support it (PCs, bluray players, my cell phone). So why use the codec that is only supported on PCs and is inferior in quality? OK, you like the codec because of legal reasons, I understand that Mozilla cannot distribute h.264 codec for free etc. OK. So make it possible to write a plugin with that codec.
Or even better, use the codecs that are in the PC already. Ir that particular user does not have h264 codec, the site can guide him to download it or if he can't it certainly won't be worse than it is now, where I can't play the videos even if my PC has the codec.
Going back to your analogy about cutting off a leg. If you respect freedom, than you have to respect my choice to sell my leg (or my kidney, or some of my blood), otherwise your idea of freedom becomes something like "Do whatever you want as long as I approve it". And this is why I can't understand the laws that prohibit the sale of non vital organs. If I can't sell it, you aren't getting it for free either.
"Hello and welcome to Youtube! To be able to watch our videos in higher quality, please download and install CCCP."
In any case, a lot of users have h.264 codec installed. At least those who watch HD movies on their PCs.
I've been watching "The 1st 48" (US reality show about solving murder cases) for a while.
Thanks. I'm looking for a torrent of this now, will give it a try.
Since when did warez groups care about portability?
I don't know the date, but currently a lot of music is in mp3 or flac, usually both are available, also mp3 is the main format. At least in the torrent sites I go to.
Videos, especially TV shows are standard. SDTV is Xvid/mp3/avi, sometimes audio can be AC3, but usually mp3. It is 350MB or 700MB size, fits neatly in CDs, but do not fit so neatly in a DVD - 12 episodes 350MB each and you still have 285MB left, if they chose size for the DVD, they would have chosen 345MB (13 episodes) or 373MB (12 episodes) per episode.
HDTV shows are h264/mkv and are 1.09GB in size, you can record 4 episodes to DVD and they fit nicely, just like SD episodes fit on a CD. HD shows can be h264/mkv because HD players support h264 better than SD DVD players do and SD DVD players do not support HD video even if it was in XviD.
I don't know about you, but to me it looks like the groups actually care about somebody being able to play their releases.
I have ST:TOS downloaded in SD with XviD, that was before the blu ray release, and I am not planning to redownload it. I probably will redownload TNG and DS9 because I have those in the 175MB format (lower quality than 350MB of course) when I decide to record them to tape (I am in the process of slowly copying my DVD-Rs to LTO tape).
$700 is a lot of money, especially if you are going to watch mostly cable TV which is analog and SD for now (there are some HD channels, but for those you need DVB-C receiver with HD support (very expensive) and a decoder card, while you can split the analog signal to however many TVs you want, which we have 4 not counting my VCRs, though I now use a digital receiver with my VCRs, I can see the channels I want even without the card, but in SD).
Yes, HD TV shows are in h.264, so is anime (though sometimes even the SD version of anime is in h264), but SD TV shows are still XviD/avi. The release groups probably know that they can use h264 for DVD rips, but choose not to, because XviD/avi is more common.
Just like audio codecs - ogg and aac may be better, but you can be sure that mp3 will be supported by almost all players (portable and not). So, most of the music is available in mp3 format, because all of the players play it, and all of the players play it because it is so common. When you rip the CD for your own use in a portable player, you can choose whatever codec your player supports, be it ogg, aac or even flac, but if you wanted to release that rip to the internet, you will probably have to choose mp3 because it is more widely supported and transcoding from one lossy codec to another degrades the quality, be it audio or video.
Xvid video with the same quality takes more space than h264 video, but I don't think that people would run to the stores to buy h264 compatible players just so they can download 300MB instead of 350MB. However, I think that xvid will be dropped only when h264 compatible players become as common as divx dvd players are now. Remember - SD TV shows still get released so you can fit 1-2 episodes on a CD-R (350 or 700MB, but usually not 800MB for example) and DVD rips of moves are release in 1 or 2 CD format, usually 1-2 files 700MB each, though now DVDR drives and discs cost about the same as CDR drives and discs.
We have cable, so no rabbit ears. The TV is ~15 years old and has one composite input (and one output). No SCART and no S-Video.
So, buy a new TV = a lot of money. In that case, a cheap DVD player will be better until cheap DVD players start supporting mkv.
Also, running the cable from where? My PC? I could do that already (video card has composite output), but I don't think my parents would like having to use a PC for watching movies.
I just watch movies on my monitor, because it is as big as that TV (both are 21" CRTs), but my parents want a simpler device that they can control using a remote instead of keyboard+mouse.
In any case, the DVD player I bought now supports DVDs and divx, which is still the standard of how TV series are released on torrents (dvd rips too). I hope that h264/mkv supporting devices become cheap by the time tv shows on torrents become h264/mkv even for SD versions.
Is there a converter that converts the HDMI out to standard composite signal, because the TV only accepts that. No HDMI, no RGB and no S-Video.
The Tv can only do 576p - standard PAL video. It supports NTSC too, but that is lower resolution.
Anyway, the price looks kinda normal, but on the high side. It doesn't have a DVD drive though, and the manual does not specify if it supports a USB DVD drive.
In any case, I have the player now, but in the future If I ever need another one, I'll probably give this a try.
And how much does that cost? More or less that the ~200EUR "media center" or blu ray player?
I bought the DivX DVD player for ~30EUR.
A lot of DivX DVD players do not support h264 or mkv. Recently I was looking for a DVD player that supported h264, but I only could find Bluray players (very expensive) and "media centers" (also very expensive) that supported a lot of formats, had an ethernet or WiFi capability and no DVD drive. And I don;t see people buying a new DVD player just because it supports this new codec. Those who need a DVD player should look for one with most capabilities, but those who already have one will continue using it.
I have never used chapters (not on Laserdisc, DVD or mkv files) and I have seen some .avi files with AC3 (which is Dolby digital) audio on them.
I agree about the subtitles, but, unless you are watching anime, you will have to find the subtitles yourself, they will be contained in a separate file and you will be able to watch the movie with subtitles no matter what container it is in. (I prefer hard subs though).
Don't get me wrong - I like h264, I usually download anime in this codec, unless it is not available. But that is because I watch anime on my computer, so I don't have to worry about compatibility problems.
Just like loran-C vs GPS, maybe you should keep dial-up ISP in case your broadband internet begins to fail?
Yeah, thought so, you don't have a dial-up ISP anymore do you?
Well, I can connect to the internet using my cell phone (PC->bluetooth->phone->UMTS>internet), so I have a backup. I can also try to connect to one of the many WiFi networks around me. If that fails, I still have my dial-up modem, but I don't know if the telephone company still provides dial-up service (it used to provide a dial up service where you just paid for the minute, but no monthly fee). OTOH, if my aDSL connection failed it would probably mean that the dial-up wouldn't work too, because they both go to the same phone company.
Also, I could get a 64/64kbps connection from my cable TV provider if my main connection was not working for a long time.
I am not that much of a programmer, I use Delphi, because it has the same syntax as Pascal which I learned some time ago. My programs are usually simple (a decent programmer could probably make one in an hour), for example a batch youtube video downloader that automatically selects the best available quality. I googled for such program, but could not find one I like, so I wrote it myself.
why is it that you think you couldn't already use 'pc' hardware with an ARM-based device?
Because some of that hardware might need drivers that the ARM OS does not have.
And yes, x86 is just another instruction set, like ARM, PowerPC and others. However, there are a lot of programs written for Windows on x86. Those programs would not work on another instruction set, even if Windows could, unless Windows on non-x86 CPU could emulate x86 CPU to run those programs, but that would be slower than a native x86 CPU.
A lot of those programs are written in high level programming languages, so in theory they could be recompiled to work on another CPU, but what if the company that made the program no longer exists or wants $(a lot) for the recompiled version?
Windows (currently; except the mobile version) supports only x86 and is compatible with most of the programs written for older versions. I can safely assume that if program x worked on WinNT, it will work on XP, after all, Windows is Windows. There are some programs that do not work on a newer version of Windows, but these are a minority.
Not so much with Linux - while Linux itself is compatible with a lot of CPU architectures, the programs are not. What it means is that a program may work on SuperLinux on my x86 PC it won't work on PhoneLinux on my ARM phone, even thought they are both Linux. Yes, if the program source code is available I could probably recompile it to work on the phone, but not all programs are open source.
OK, I now want a version of vmware that runs on that phone Linux. I know that there is a desktop Linux version of vmware, but does it run on phone Linux?
Also, OS is not a tape recorder - you can still use it the same as before even if blank tapes are no longer made.
I don't need 125000 apps in my phone.
Only Win98SE, MS Office, Opera/Firefox (whichever has a newer version that still supports 98), some media player, pdf reader.
I can also write my own apps for it in Delphi7 (Delphi does not work on Linux).
I want to run desktop PC applications on my smartphone.
I now have a Nokia N93 which is quite old and may not have all of the features of a new phone (or rather new version of Symbian OS).
It can open MS Office files, but really mangles them - shows only text, no graphics, no formatting and cannot edit the files. This is not because the phone has too little memory - it has 22MB free when booted up. MS Office 97 works on a PC that has 16MB RAM total.
I want to watch videos on my phone, but it only supports a very specific format - mp4 container, xvid or x264 codec at specific max bitrates and resolution (compatible with iPod), which means that I cannot just copy a video file to the memory card, I have to convert it first, and converting takes time. On x86 smartphone I could install codecs, filters and splitters to, for example, support mkv container. Or ogg format for audio.
There are less programs available for my phone than my PC, also, there are a lot of free (open or closed source) programs for PC, while their counterparts for the phone may be expensive.
Also, if the phone had x86 and Windows, I could use PC hardware with it (for example - mouse, keyboard, USB flash memory...).
As for the power issues, I think it would be possible to have two modes of operation. A phone mode, where the x86 cpu is turned off and some other CPU is used for the basic phone functions (calls, SMS, camera) and a full mode when the xd86 CPU is used for everything. The phone may not be able to work for very long in this mode (a few hours), but I would rather carry a small power adapter or a spare battery than a netbook in addition to my phone.
I have a Psion Series 5mx PDA, which is great, but has compatibility problems, for example, while I can browse the internet (using infrared connection to my phone) and download MS Word documents, I have to also have a laptop to convert them to the Psion format. But if I already have my laptop, why would I also carry the Psion?
I once installed an emulator that could emulate an 8086 CPU and installed Windows 3.10. I would have used it like this, if it wasn't so slow (Psion 5mx was made in 1999 and has an ARM 710T 36.864MHz CPU). Maybe with modern CPUs this emulation could be possible and maybe I could even run Windows for Workgroups 3.11...
And these new phones will probably have a fan and require 2GB of memory so it can run Windows. lol. If they only talk about Gnu/Linux then we'll know they are serious but if they pull Microsoft in, you know it's a PR game and like the netbook segment, it'll run the prices up so high few will want them.
Why? I would be happy if my cellphone could run Windows NT or 98. They do not require a lot of CPU power and are much more compatible with modern Windows versions than Linux, Symbian or whatever other smartphone OS.
I would be happy even with Windows 3.11. There is a lot of software even for this version.
I like realistic graphics and physics. It makes common sense work better in the game. For example - let's say that I found a locked house, but I absolutely must get inside (maybe my mission requires it). A game would usually make me look for the key(s), find them, then unlock the house and get inside, while in real life, I would also be looking for a brick or a stone.
Realistic combat is also a matter of preference. Some people like that they can kill the enemies with one bullet (and not necessarily a headshot), others like the "empty whole magazine at point blank range to actually kill him" version. But there are a lot of aspects of reality that almost nobody would want: need to go to bathroom in-game; need to sleep or eat; fatigue from fighting for 15h of game time and so on.
CPUZ says that the CPUs in my main PC are running at 1994.7MHz instead of 2000MHz. Since there are two CPUs with two cores each I "lost" 21.2MHz. Also modern CPUs perform more work per cycle than old CPUs, so probably the 21.2MHz speed "loss" would be equal to my first laptop that has 486DX 50MHz CPU.
I never understood (from a technical legal perspective, relax Mr. Moderators) how people could be held responsible for their actions while sufficiently inebriated.
The difference between drunk people and insane/mentally retarded people is that the drunk people are sane before they start drinking. They make a conscious decision to drink and therefore are responsible for their actions while drunk.
Holding drunk people as not responsible for their actions also can give an easy pass for crime. Do I want to kill someone? Great, I'll just get drunk and kill him. I was drunk, so I am not responsible for killing him? Wrong, I planned the murder before I was drunk. The same with DUI - except this time I did not specifically plan to cause an accident, but I chose to drive while drunk before I started drinking (I drove to the party alone, did not plan to stay there overnight, did not plan to go home by taxi and get my car the next day, did not take someone with me who would drive me home etc). And being a driver I should know that drunk people are more likely to cause an accident.
And that's why I no longer download music.
I just break into a studio, take the master tape of whatever music I want and leave a reel of blank tape in its place. This way I only steal the music and not the tape itself. The studio experiences the same loss as if I would have just downloaded the music, but this way I get higher quality.
Probably if they have a different ebook reader.
AMD may use their own compiler, but what if the maker of a very popular benchmark used Intel's compiler? Reviewers would use that benchmark to test various CPUs and would see that AMD CPUs are slower. This would get published and less people would buy AMD CPUs (since the reviewers say they suck).
How many times have you relied on a benchmark done by a reviewer to decide which video card or CPU to buy?
Unless the chip detects the increase in capacity and decides to block the charging and tell the laptop that the battery is bad.
IANAL, but maybe if they found some sort of a closed box on the suspect, the police could open it to see if there is, for example, a gun inside.