Shamoon was one of the original four scientists who developed watermarking -- a way to lace digital content with invisible copyright information that can then be used to limit access
And here I thought that watermarking came before any kind of digital media, guess I know better now.
I would hardly place blame on someone for being ambitious, and I don't think it has recieved a whole lot of praise, I just don't think people should be complaining about someone's else's supposed waist of time even if that is what it turns out to be.
Stop Press: we've just had a word with Discreet's Josie Pearson, and she's confirmed that not only will gMAX be free for download, it's also going to be Open Source. As in free-for-you-to-customise. Blimey. Great news for coders, gamers and game designers alike.
I just read the article and at the bottom is states that it will be open source as well as free. No word on the license which I would imagine won't be as liberal as most licenses (assuming they make their own) but it opens up so many doors for so many things, not the least of which is jump starting Free 3d graphics products for linux. And with good Free 3d graphics comes corporate contribution which makes for better software (in the GPL realm) and so on and so on.... As far as I know this easily one of the most ambitious open sourcings yet. If it turns out to be completely true that is.
I would have to say that I am somewhat dissapointed in all the negativity surrounding this announcement. What is the worst that can happen? The project goes nowhere. So what? It's not your time, you don't have to participate. There are alot of other things that are worse uses of time I am sure.
There are incredible benifits if this turns out to be even moderatly succesful. First of all, it there was an open source OS that made windows irrelevant, then open source would go from being something on the fringe and an "upcoming trend in software" to the standard, and people would realize that they wouldn't have to settle for anything less.
I think that the thing that most people really don't like about Microsoft is their unethical and monopolistic buisness tactics. I think that both windows and linux (and I am sure other OS's which I haven't tried ) have some great features and things that need to be improved (windows more than most as far as anything under the covers). Something like this, if successful would really cause microsoft to take a hit, and maybe even make a better OS. One of the indirect benifits of Linux is that it is causing Micrsoft to actually compete with someone instead of going at their own pace, and giving people just enough to keep upgrading or using windows. Any competition is good competition, I imagine this could have the same effect.
As for the time it would take, I am sure it would be substantial, but the hardest part for me when writing a program is just being sure about exactly what I want. A benifit about this is that you know how everything should react and look, so all the design is already done.
I think it would be great if slashdot could get an interview with these guys.
(No I am not sticking up for windows, I like linux alot better, and am still trying to learn it well enough to use it exclusivly)
Actually I have found sites on pricewatch where you can buy full computers without monitor but with linux preloaded for $300. AMD K6-2 300 and lots of onboard stuff (which the i-mac also "boasts") but still, I think that cheapest is probably an exageration.
That's actually a very interesting concept, "perfection is a very strong statement" (to quote sphere, the book). Kind of like the article about flywheels where the design is simple, its just the fact that nothing is lost that is the real key.
Is it possible to play a DVD with unencrypted (but still compressed obviously) video on a normal DVD player that is fully licensed and CSS comatible? I think the worst thing would be not if people couldn't copy DVD's but if small time movie makers couldn't make their own DVD's. With digital video flooding in there are bound to be some great independant movies made completely digital and on a very low budget. Mass producing DVD's should be much cheaper in the long run than mass producing VHS tapes so I am wandering if they will be able to put there work onto DVD's to distribute? It would be horrible if the MPAA controlled the content of DVD's as well as the distribution. Does anyone know?
I don't think any history becomes completely irrelevant. Maybe it doesn't teach you a skill or open up any doors immediatly but the point of history is to get a better perspective on "How it is". I really don't like history that much to be honest but it does give a good grounding in what to expect from different situations. Computer history I think is more interesting because it actually is relevant, computers are continually derived from the previous generations just like civilizations, but everything happens so quickly in computers the origins of computer history are only 50 years ago, which is the dawn of time as far as computers are concerned. (Babbage doesn't count, not really) I love computer history, because the results seem so close, most of the fathers of computing are still alive. Me defending history, what are the odds?
I know this is somewhat offtopic but pricewatch.com should be plugged a little because the more people that go to it, the better it will be. It does deal with hardware after all. slashdot pricewatch yeah!
I wish more companies would do this. I saw on a Lightwave (another 3D app) newsgroup someone said newtek (the company that makes it) would never make a port of lightwave to linux, linux people aren't the type to buy lightwave. But with software like this, everything else revolves around it, the OS, the hardware, input devices etc. So the question is, not will linux people run lightwave, but will lightwave people run linux? I think the answer is yes, because of many different factors, especially memory management and stability. I hope this encourages many companies to do the same thing, then many hardware vendors may jump on and make drivers for linux to support video capture, graphics tablets and a host of other stuff ( not even to mention better 3D support which everyone wants!). This could really be where linux picks up quick if the right people want it to.
it is possible you are remembering a popular science article where there was an optical cube that was going to fit 10 g's in the size of a sugar cube and have almost instant transfer rates I am surprised no one has brought this up yet. That was a while ago when 500 megs and 100Mhz was king so it was pretty outragious. It might not have been IBM. If this wasn't what your were thinking of, why not? Optical? oh yeah!
One time I read in popular science that there was a car powered by liquid nitrogen that could go up to 20 mph. It made me start thinking about different things and it led me to think of this large daydream. What if...
There was a car that ran on liquid hydrogen, which used the decompression to give it some power, then ingnited the same hydrogen to give it more power. The resulting water could be used to cool the engine as well as the liquid hydrogen itself (which would decompress from the heat etc.). Liquid hydrogen would have to be in abundance for this to work, but if pipeline was laid to take it from plants that generated it, it could be ditributed. Not only that, to make it more profitable, cabling could be laid inside of the pipes thus creating super-conducting wires that could carry not only highly efficient electrical powering, but very effcient data at the same time. Not only that, liquid hydrogen could be shipped into people's homes which could help with the refrigerator, air conditioner, and with stadarization, super cool home computers, which if they were cooled wouldn't need to be in every room, simply servers (which could very well be the next thing anyway, which could be where linux is headed, the home server market, but that is a whole different story all together). Far off I know, but doesn't it fit together nicely?
you would think that since it is a yale student that it wouldn't be so sensationalistic. I was looking forward to something a little more concrete or maybe just why some of the things were said, like how everything is "obsolete" and that the last great advancement in software was from macintosh 16 years ago.
I would just like to note that Lynx was made (or at least started) by people at Kansas University. When alot of people think of Kansas they assume that everyone is a farmer and that everyone lives in a small town which is not necessarily true. With a little plug for Lynx from slashdot, I wanted to make sure I acknowledged that not all computer innovation has to come from crowded cities and long commutes.
Things might eventually come down to fame and not fortune. The article mentioned a little about concerts and movie theatres still being things that people will pay for and I think that that will be a trend that people will start to take. Ponder for a second what would happen if the moment a movie comes out in the theatres it was available from an fserve on IRC or on GNUtella. If it was good enough quality to be worth skipping the theatres, then the theatres themselves would certainly have access to even better connections. This would mean that digitally distributed movies should move in at about the same time that piracy of movies becomes anything of a threat. That will mean that movies will not cost near as much to distribute (read: nothing) which could mean cheaper movie theatre prices and even better quality. But where will they make their money? Food, toys, knick nacks, all those things that you can't copy no matter how fast your connection is. Does anyone really believe that a tub of popcorn should cost $4.00? It could be justified though. Discount theatres that show movies after they have been out a while already make a good profit that way. It also might force theatres to stay one step ahead of the game by ramping up the sound quality to DVD-A (hehe anyone seen orgazmo?). It also might bring in 3d movies which would be incredible but probably pretty far off.
As for concerts, they must rake in an incredible amount of money. You get screwed every which way. I would suspect that just the promise of the money from conerts and the rush someone must get by playing in front of 25000 people would be enough for someone to make music without being able to actually sell it.
I have thought about this alot and while I haven't actually seen battlefield earth, I have decided that the three worst movies recently made are thus: 3. Wing Commander - maybe if I had played the game more I would have understood it, but the realationships between cahracter are just so stupid. 2. Mortal Kombat II - Can't get much worse than this, I don't what is worse the acting of the fact that the previous actors didn't even come back. 1. Omega Code - Holy crap what who would pump money into this thing?
there is no reason why the DeCSS case should be affected by mpeg 4. What cracking the compression does is it gives access to the actual file or files on the DVD. If those are passed around then it is absolutly flawless copying. On the other hand, if you think about it, if you can see it you can copy it. On the lowest end is video taping your TV screen with a video camera (of course this wouldn't be the best way to go about it). But if mpeg 4 is going to be used for copying movies then DeCSS really won't have any effect on that. mpeg 2 even on DVD is still a very lossy compression, and if you are using that as the base for copying then you are still recompressing the video which is just as bad (as in quality) and sometimes worse than copying it to an anolog format. But when something like DeCSS gives access to the original then it can be passed around without fault because there is no recompression involved. And by the way, don't think that I don't hate the MPAA too.
I started out with javascript events in html after html got too simple (about an day). That was the best way I think, although I didn't realize what was happening with functions and forms and why things were the way they were, but it was easy enough to start with. Also, with html and javascript you aren't penalized near as bad for making a mistake so things don't get so frustrating so quickly eg. C. I now know about 5 languages and can actually do alot of useful things with java. I went from html (not real programming I know - "static programming") to javascript to VB to C++ to C (I know, weird again) to java and now I am Learning Perl which is going pretty nicely. Just my thoughts and experiences.
hey, I'm in topeka, the capital of Kansas, and while yes I don't like Kansas, just because there are idiots who by some miracle got responsibility, it doesn't mean that there aren't smart people in Kansas. Ever heard of newtek or Quvis? http://www.newtek.com http://www.quvis.com
Slashdot Mirror
Shamoon was one of the original four scientists who developed watermarking -- a way to lace digital content with invisible copyright information that can then be used to limit access
And here I thought that watermarking came before any kind of digital media, guess I know better now.
I would hardly place blame on someone for being ambitious, and I don't think it has recieved a whole lot of praise, I just don't think people should be complaining about someone's else's supposed waist of time even if that is what it turns out to be.
Stop Press: we've just had a word with Discreet's Josie Pearson, and she's confirmed that not only will gMAX be free for download, it's also going to be Open Source. As in free-for-you-to-customise. Blimey. Great news for coders, gamers and game designers alike.
.... As far as I know this easily one of the most ambitious open sourcings yet. If it turns out to be completely true that is.
I just read the article and at the bottom is states that it will be open source as well as free. No word on the license which I would imagine won't be as liberal as most licenses (assuming they make their own) but it opens up so many doors for so many things, not the least of which is jump starting Free 3d graphics products for linux. And with good Free 3d graphics comes corporate contribution which makes for better software (in the GPL realm) and so on and so on
I would have to say that I am somewhat dissapointed in all the negativity surrounding this announcement. What is the worst that can happen? The project goes nowhere. So what? It's not your time, you don't have to participate. There are alot of other things that are worse uses of time I am sure.
There are incredible benifits if this turns out to be even moderatly succesful. First of all, it there was an open source OS that made windows irrelevant, then open source would go from being something on the fringe and an "upcoming trend in software" to the standard, and people would realize that they wouldn't have to settle for anything less.
I think that the thing that most people really don't like about Microsoft is their unethical and monopolistic buisness tactics. I think that both windows and linux (and I am sure other OS's which I haven't tried ) have some great features and things that need to be improved (windows more than most as far as anything under the covers). Something like this, if successful would really cause microsoft to take a hit, and maybe even make a better OS. One of the indirect benifits of Linux is that it is causing Micrsoft to actually compete with someone instead of going at their own pace, and giving people just enough to keep upgrading or using windows. Any competition is good competition, I imagine this could have the same effect.
As for the time it would take, I am sure it would be substantial, but the hardest part for me when writing a program is just being sure about exactly what I want. A benifit about this is that you know how everything should react and look, so all the design is already done.
I think it would be great if slashdot could get an interview with these guys.
(No I am not sticking up for windows, I like linux alot better, and am still trying to learn it well enough to use it exclusivly)
they should invnet cool new technologies that make Windows irrelevant - not simply reimplement the damn thing
Don't you think that reinventing windows in a better way would be a cool new technology that would make windows irrelevant?
Why won't you answer this question? Stumped the NSA oh yeah!
Actually I have found sites on pricewatch where you can buy full computers without monitor but with linux preloaded for $300. AMD K6-2 300 and lots of onboard stuff (which the i-mac also "boasts") but still, I think that cheapest is probably an exageration.
That's actually a very interesting concept, "perfection is a very strong statement" (to quote sphere, the book). Kind of like the article about flywheels where the design is simple, its just the fact that nothing is lost that is the real key.
Is it possible to play a DVD with unencrypted (but still compressed obviously) video on a normal DVD player that is fully licensed and CSS comatible? I think the worst thing would be not if people couldn't copy DVD's but if small time movie makers couldn't make their own DVD's. With digital video flooding in there are bound to be some great independant movies made completely digital and on a very low budget. Mass producing DVD's should be much cheaper in the long run than mass producing VHS tapes so I am wandering if they will be able to put there work onto DVD's to distribute? It would be horrible if the MPAA controlled the content of DVD's as well as the distribution. Does anyone know?
I don't think any history becomes completely irrelevant. Maybe it doesn't teach you a skill or open up any doors immediatly but the point of history is to get a better perspective on "How it is". I really don't like history that much to be honest but it does give a good grounding in what to expect from different situations. Computer history I think is more interesting because it actually is relevant, computers are continually derived from the previous generations just like civilizations, but everything happens so quickly in computers the origins of computer history are only 50 years ago, which is the dawn of time as far as computers are concerned. (Babbage doesn't count, not really) I love computer history, because the results seem so close, most of the fathers of computing are still alive. Me defending history, what are the odds?
www.pricewatch.com oh yeah!
I know this is somewhat offtopic but pricewatch.com should be plugged a little because the more people that go to it, the better it will be. It does deal with hardware after all. slashdot pricewatch yeah!
I wish more companies would do this. I saw on a Lightwave (another 3D app) newsgroup someone said newtek (the company that makes it) would never make a port of lightwave to linux, linux people aren't the type to buy lightwave. But with software like this, everything else revolves around it, the OS, the hardware, input devices etc. So the question is, not will linux people run lightwave, but will lightwave people run linux? I think the answer is yes, because of many different factors, especially memory management and stability. I hope this encourages many companies to do the same thing, then many hardware vendors may jump on and make drivers for linux to support video capture, graphics tablets and a host of other stuff ( not even to mention better 3D support which everyone wants!). This could really be where linux picks up quick if the right people want it to.
it is possible you are remembering a popular science article where there was an optical cube that was going to fit 10 g's in the size of a sugar cube and have almost instant transfer rates I am surprised no one has brought this up yet. That was a while ago when 500 megs and 100Mhz was king so it was pretty outragious. It might not have been IBM. If this wasn't what your were thinking of, why not? Optical? oh yeah!
One time I read in popular science that there was a car powered by liquid nitrogen that could go up to 20 mph. It made me start thinking about different things and it led me to think of this large daydream. What if...
There was a car that ran on liquid hydrogen, which used the decompression to give it some power, then ingnited the same hydrogen to give it more power. The resulting water could be used to cool the engine as well as the liquid hydrogen itself (which would decompress from the heat etc.). Liquid hydrogen would have to be in abundance for this to work, but if pipeline was laid to take it from plants that generated it, it could be ditributed. Not only that, to make it more profitable, cabling could be laid inside of the pipes thus creating super-conducting wires that could carry not only highly efficient electrical powering, but very effcient data at the same time. Not only that, liquid hydrogen could be shipped into people's homes which could help with the refrigerator, air conditioner, and with stadarization, super cool home computers, which if they were cooled wouldn't need to be in every room, simply servers (which could very well be the next thing anyway, which could be where linux is headed, the home server market, but that is a whole different story all together). Far off I know, but doesn't it fit together nicely?
you would think that since it is a yale student that it wouldn't be so sensationalistic. I was looking forward to something a little more concrete or maybe just why some of the things were said, like how everything is "obsolete" and that the last great advancement in software was from macintosh 16 years ago.
I would just like to note that Lynx was made (or at least started) by people at Kansas University. When alot of people think of Kansas they assume that everyone is a farmer and that everyone lives in a small town which is not necessarily true. With a little plug for Lynx from slashdot, I wanted to make sure I acknowledged that not all computer innovation has to come from crowded cities and long commutes.
Things might eventually come down to fame and not fortune. The article mentioned a little about concerts and movie theatres still being things that people will pay for and I think that that will be a trend that people will start to take. Ponder for a second what would happen if the moment a movie comes out in the theatres it was available from an fserve on IRC or on GNUtella. If it was good enough quality to be worth skipping the theatres, then the theatres themselves would certainly have access to even better connections. This would mean that digitally distributed movies should move in at about the same time that piracy of movies becomes anything of a threat. That will mean that movies will not cost near as much to distribute (read: nothing) which could mean cheaper movie theatre prices and even better quality. But where will they make their money? Food, toys, knick nacks, all those things that you can't copy no matter how fast your connection is. Does anyone really believe that a tub of popcorn should cost $4.00? It could be justified though. Discount theatres that show movies after they have been out a while already make a good profit that way. It also might force theatres to stay one step ahead of the game by ramping up the sound quality to DVD-A (hehe anyone seen orgazmo?). It also might bring in 3d movies which would be incredible but probably pretty far off.
As for concerts, they must rake in an incredible amount of money. You get screwed every which way. I would suspect that just the promise of the money from conerts and the rush someone must get by playing in front of 25000 people would be enough for someone to make music without being able to actually sell it.
Sorry about the slightly midleading subject, I could only think of three.
I have thought about this alot and while I haven't actually seen battlefield earth, I have decided that the three worst movies recently made are thus: 3. Wing Commander - maybe if I had played the game more I would have understood it, but the realationships between cahracter are just so stupid. 2. Mortal Kombat II - Can't get much worse than this, I don't what is worse the acting of the fact that the previous actors didn't even come back. 1. Omega Code - Holy crap what who would pump money into this thing?
there is no reason why the DeCSS case should be affected by mpeg 4. What cracking the compression does is it gives access to the actual file or files on the DVD. If those are passed around then it is absolutly flawless copying. On the other hand, if you think about it, if you can see it you can copy it. On the lowest end is video taping your TV screen with a video camera (of course this wouldn't be the best way to go about it). But if mpeg 4 is going to be used for copying movies then DeCSS really won't have any effect on that. mpeg 2 even on DVD is still a very lossy compression, and if you are using that as the base for copying then you are still recompressing the video which is just as bad (as in quality) and sometimes worse than copying it to an anolog format. But when something like DeCSS gives access to the original then it can be passed around without fault because there is no recompression involved. And by the way, don't think that I don't hate the MPAA too.
I started out with javascript events in html after html got too simple (about an day). That was the best way I think, although I didn't realize what was happening with functions and forms and why things were the way they were, but it was easy enough to start with. Also, with html and javascript you aren't penalized near as bad for making a mistake so things don't get so frustrating so quickly eg. C. I now know about 5 languages and can actually do alot of useful things with java. I went from html (not real programming I know - "static programming") to javascript to VB to C++ to C (I know, weird again) to java and now I am Learning Perl which is going pretty nicely. Just my thoughts and experiences.
hey, I'm in topeka, the capital of Kansas, and while yes I don't like Kansas, just because there are idiots who by some miracle got responsibility, it doesn't mean that there aren't smart people in Kansas. Ever heard of newtek or Quvis? http://www.newtek.com http://www.quvis.com
www.microsoft.com the smell? fish.
Ouch. Butthat figures. Not that women and technology don't mix, it just explains the erratic behovior I think.
he has one of the wekest bodies and the most powerful mind on the planet right now, it's just such a cool contrast!