But the shutter speed is done in software (or by adjusting the signal processors, which are in hardware, but it's still "programming", rather than a mechanical mechanism). The term "shutter speed" is becoming vestigial.
This entire field can easily be extrapolated. First, the shutter is a mechanical components that isn't required -- every portable computer has video camera that can take still images. The reason we still have shutters in high-end cameras is because of the way sensors are currently designed, and the fact that modern DSLRs are basically upgraded film SLRs.
And what about the lens? If the sensors are omnidirectional and can simply keep reporting their state at a high frequency, the "lens" (its optical purpose) can be done in software. You just need a high density of sensors and the ability to process the information fast enough.
Obviously, the individual sensors can't be truly omnidirectional, but rather their visibility angle would depend on the geometry of the surface they're placed on -- which could be a hemisphere, or even an almost complete sphere. As you mentioned, the angle of light would still be relevant, but this would be done on an individual sensor basis -- rather than one lens orchestrating the entire image.
Most steampunk is crappy anyway. It's been so every since the steam engines started featuring LEDs. Now it's not really possible to define it, most of it looks like a low-budget sci-fi from the 80's.
Cyberpunk died of "natural causes", it wasn't because it got mainstream -- there was simply too much of it for a span of time and the market got saturated. I miss is though, especially the stuff that was written by people who knew what they were writing about. The hard-science cyberpunk, that was mostly based on things you could, in theory, pull off. Now everything is "cyber-saturated", it's simply not 'exotic' anymore.
Personally I'd just like people to realize that dropping mentos in coke bottles isn't "doing science". Mythbusters is good as an introduction, as something to draw people's attention to what you can do if you understand the more fundemental nature of things, but Mythbusters in and of itself is not really educational in a meaningful way, and the same would apply for Make. I think that Gothmolly's overall sentiment is the same as a programmer watching hackers. In a way, making science "pop-culture" demeans it. OTOH, the ends justifies the means -- if it gets more kids (and, dare I suggest, adults) interested in science, then it's worth it in the long run.
Encase the above statement with "in theory". In practice, Flash is an IDE that programmers *and* artists use to develop content, and they can do so on the same software. What would you have Flash-trained graphic designers use that's even remotely capable of letting them be as productive as they are with Flash? Without production software, and a large company behind it to support users, HTML5 will not reach the same level of variety and interactivity as Flash. Yes, you'll have polymaths that can create both the graphics and the code, but they're individuals, there's no training course for "graphic design & JavaScript & HTML5 all in plain text".
I can't find the article now, but there were a bunch of interviews done with people working at some of the larger Flash gaming sites. It turns out that they were given "hints" from Adobe that Flash will make it into the iPhone eventually, and that they should prepare touch-interfaces using some simulation tools. I wonder how many man-hours were spent developing UIs for a device that would never support the software.
Why are corporate employees watching Youtube at work? Obviously there may be some useful technical talks and the like, but in most companies very few people have a legitimate reason for doing so.
For the same reason they'd browse Facebook and have a twitter app on the side -- people aren't machines. It's true that quite a few companies block facebook/youtube/twitter/myspace, but they're not the majority. Any "sane" company worries about employee output, not how said employees go about producing it.
And any company which locks their employees into using IE probably deserves everything they get.
This includes many government institutions in the western world. They use IE because it's easy to administer across a large network. The major hurdle for any non-IE browser is to get into corporate environments -- people using their computers at home already know (for the most part) that pretty much any browser is better than IE.
Sure, and piss off IT support all over the world. Companies that lock their employees in IE don't let them install plugins apart from a pre-approved list, which is usually installed in advanced. They have the corporate world to deal with, and they won't be as easy to convince as average Joe will.
They won't. TFA is just extrapolating in fictitious directions to get attention (what else is new). They'd damage the most valuable thing they have: their massive audience. How did people react when they started pulling support for IE6? Multiply that by a few thousands. It makes a nice story about how Google would "force their way" onto the industry, but it doesn't work like that. They care, dearly, about what their users do/think/behave, and pissing them off by doing something that the vast majority of users won't understand the reason for is something they would never do.
I had intended to reply with something like "semantics", but you're right, I shouldn't confuse the two on mobile platforms. To clarify: I want to browse, stop at a certain point on a page, possibly with some form fields filled in, and send a message to someone. When I'm done, I want to be able to get back with the page still on the spot I left it on, and still with the form fields with the content I entered. Instead of sending a message, I may want to do one of the following things in that scenario: place a call, receive a call, pick something to listen to, pause music (or skip to the next track), use a calculator app, view my calendar, or check an E-mail. So technically I want to save the state of the browser at exactly that point. I'm not sure that this is covered by just switching tasks, but depending on the OS, it may be. I may want to pause watching a video to do one of the above tasks, and again, I'm just saving the state, since the video would stop playing while I do something else.
There are scenarios where it would be multi-tasking, however -- anything that involves playing music, for example. This would also include anything which involves sending/receiving a large chunk of data -- I'd like to do something else while I wait. Basically, I want choice. I don't ever want to close an app, in the middle of using it, just because I remembered that there's something else I need to get done first.
So in the end, it boils down to the same thing: let me choose. I know that the device I'm using has the CPU "power" to do this, and I'd like to be the one to choose what to do with the rope that I'm handed -- even if it does involve hanging myself.
Here's another serious question: why is multitasking support really that important on a phone? Like many people these days, my only personal phone line is my cell phone so I'd like it to run for a minimum of two days without charging (in case I forget to charge it one night or something). I've used Windows Mobile devices before, and it's absurd that a user should have to be frequently checking their "running programs" list to make sure stuff isn't draining their battery/CPU/memory resources. That's assuming the user is even aware that there is such a list. There's the obvious negatives, so where are the positives? What are some examples of practical tasks to perform on a phone that require multitasking?
So I can google something while composing an E-mail. So I can text someone while browsing. So I can look over my contacts list while on a phone call.
We're talking about a Smartphone, which is effectively a miniature, handheld PC. If you don't want it, then argue that they should give users the option to turn off multitasking. I think that most users *want* to run more than one app at a time, but for those who don't, they could turn it off. The point is -- make it the user's decision, don't force your company's mentality on me.
Why on earth won't it support multitasking when the previous versions have done so quite well? That's like asking whether Windows 7 will support these newfangled things called mice.
Multitasking is not even a feature to ask about unless you're coming from the Apple camp.
That sounds completely reasonable, until you google "windows mobile 7 multitasking". Here's what I got: one, two, three. That last one is official.
MS is attempting to get into the market by doing what they used to do best: Cloning. This means get every last bit of detail into their version of the product, *including* the drawbacks. They can fix this in later versions, and in the meantime they can say "what? it's not like the competition supports it...". This industry is absurd.
How sad is it that this is a serious question? Not too long ago, "does it support copy&paste" would have also been a legitimate question to ask. Thanks, Apple.
Vista isn't vapor. It's cement, mixed with lead and uranium. It's as real and as nimble as a glacier. I've seen tar pits that seem more fluid than a computer running Vista. Whatever it is, Vista is NOT vapor.
As a complete Apple fanboi, and one who owns 3 macs and swears by his iPod Touch (I don't like AT&T), I've got to say, that thing looks like it has a really nice interface. Kudos to MS
You're a plant -- admit it. How much is MS paying you? Are you freelancing or is this full time?
It's 16%, which I believe is in between "marginal" and "quaint". Growth rate is the much more impressive stat on that particular graph, but keep in mind that Androids are on their way to far more countries than iPhones are. The iPhone has a dominant position in several large markets, even influential ones, but it's still A) a consumer device, and B) completely locked down -- making it inappropriate for commercial/corporate use, even if some sectors *wanted* to use it (doctors, lawyers, etc.). There are quite a few counties where the iPhone's closed nature would inhibit it from gaining traction, and others where it wouldn't make financial sense to launch it in. At any rate, "world domination" is a hyperbole.
Yes, but this is like walking before running. Pumping water with miniature compressors within a semiconductor would mean a complex mechanical system which would be difficult to scale (in production, I mean). While the convex hull remains the same, you can still increase the surface area, which will help with heat transport if the material that envelopes it is a better heat conductor than the semiconductor material.
Slashdot Mirror
But the shutter speed is done in software (or by adjusting the signal processors, which are in hardware, but it's still "programming", rather than a mechanical mechanism). The term "shutter speed" is becoming vestigial.
This entire field can easily be extrapolated. First, the shutter is a mechanical components that isn't required -- every portable computer has video camera that can take still images. The reason we still have shutters in high-end cameras is because of the way sensors are currently designed, and the fact that modern DSLRs are basically upgraded film SLRs.
And what about the lens? If the sensors are omnidirectional and can simply keep reporting their state at a high frequency, the "lens" (its optical purpose) can be done in software. You just need a high density of sensors and the ability to process the information fast enough.
Obviously, the individual sensors can't be truly omnidirectional, but rather their visibility angle would depend on the geometry of the surface they're placed on -- which could be a hemisphere, or even an almost complete sphere. As you mentioned, the angle of light would still be relevant, but this would be done on an individual sensor basis -- rather than one lens orchestrating the entire image.
There, we solved it. Engineers, get to work!
And then your post complains about Slashdot. Add that to the nutshell.
Just hit the "Pause" button.
Most steampunk is crappy anyway. It's been so every since the steam engines started featuring LEDs. Now it's not really possible to define it, most of it looks like a low-budget sci-fi from the 80's.
Cyberpunk died of "natural causes", it wasn't because it got mainstream -- there was simply too much of it for a span of time and the market got saturated. I miss is though, especially the stuff that was written by people who knew what they were writing about. The hard-science cyberpunk, that was mostly based on things you could, in theory, pull off. Now everything is "cyber-saturated", it's simply not 'exotic' anymore.
(yes, I was born old)
Personally I'd just like people to realize that dropping mentos in coke bottles isn't "doing science". Mythbusters is good as an introduction, as something to draw people's attention to what you can do if you understand the more fundemental nature of things, but Mythbusters in and of itself is not really educational in a meaningful way, and the same would apply for Make. I think that Gothmolly's overall sentiment is the same as a programmer watching hackers. In a way, making science "pop-culture" demeans it. OTOH, the ends justifies the means -- if it gets more kids (and, dare I suggest, adults) interested in science, then it's worth it in the long run.
citation
Encase the above statement with "in theory". In practice, Flash is an IDE that programmers *and* artists use to develop content, and they can do so on the same software. What would you have Flash-trained graphic designers use that's even remotely capable of letting them be as productive as they are with Flash? Without production software, and a large company behind it to support users, HTML5 will not reach the same level of variety and interactivity as Flash. Yes, you'll have polymaths that can create both the graphics and the code, but they're individuals, there's no training course for "graphic design & JavaScript & HTML5 all in plain text".
I can't find the article now, but there were a bunch of interviews done with people working at some of the larger Flash gaming sites. It turns out that they were given "hints" from Adobe that Flash will make it into the iPhone eventually, and that they should prepare touch-interfaces using some simulation tools. I wonder how many man-hours were spent developing UIs for a device that would never support the software.
Why are corporate employees watching Youtube at work? Obviously there may be some useful technical talks and the like, but in most companies very few people have a legitimate reason for doing so.
For the same reason they'd browse Facebook and have a twitter app on the side -- people aren't machines. It's true that quite a few companies block facebook/youtube/twitter/myspace, but they're not the majority. Any "sane" company worries about employee output, not how said employees go about producing it.
And any company which locks their employees into using IE probably deserves everything they get.
This includes many government institutions in the western world. They use IE because it's easy to administer across a large network. The major hurdle for any non-IE browser is to get into corporate environments -- people using their computers at home already know (for the most part) that pretty much any browser is better than IE.
Sure, and piss off IT support all over the world. Companies that lock their employees in IE don't let them install plugins apart from a pre-approved list, which is usually installed in advanced. They have the corporate world to deal with, and they won't be as easy to convince as average Joe will.
They won't. TFA is just extrapolating in fictitious directions to get attention (what else is new). They'd damage the most valuable thing they have: their massive audience. How did people react when they started pulling support for IE6? Multiply that by a few thousands.
It makes a nice story about how Google would "force their way" onto the industry, but it doesn't work like that. They care, dearly, about what their users do/think/behave, and pissing them off by doing something that the vast majority of users won't understand the reason for is something they would never do.
Oh goody! I got modded "troll" for a posting a joke!
(I mean really, would anyone read that and think it was serious?)
I had intended to reply with something like "semantics", but you're right, I shouldn't confuse the two on mobile platforms. To clarify: I want to browse, stop at a certain point on a page, possibly with some form fields filled in, and send a message to someone. When I'm done, I want to be able to get back with the page still on the spot I left it on, and still with the form fields with the content I entered. Instead of sending a message, I may want to do one of the following things in that scenario: place a call, receive a call, pick something to listen to, pause music (or skip to the next track), use a calculator app, view my calendar, or check an E-mail. So technically I want to save the state of the browser at exactly that point. I'm not sure that this is covered by just switching tasks, but depending on the OS, it may be. I may want to pause watching a video to do one of the above tasks, and again, I'm just saving the state, since the video would stop playing while I do something else.
There are scenarios where it would be multi-tasking, however -- anything that involves playing music, for example. This would also include anything which involves sending/receiving a large chunk of data -- I'd like to do something else while I wait. Basically, I want choice. I don't ever want to close an app, in the middle of using it, just because I remembered that there's something else I need to get done first.
So in the end, it boils down to the same thing: let me choose. I know that the device I'm using has the CPU "power" to do this, and I'd like to be the one to choose what to do with the rope that I'm handed -- even if it does involve hanging myself.
Here's another serious question: why is multitasking support really that important on a phone? Like many people these days, my only personal phone line is my cell phone so I'd like it to run for a minimum of two days without charging (in case I forget to charge it one night or something). I've used Windows Mobile devices before, and it's absurd that a user should have to be frequently checking their "running programs" list to make sure stuff isn't draining their battery/CPU/memory resources. That's assuming the user is even aware that there is such a list. There's the obvious negatives, so where are the positives? What are some examples of practical tasks to perform on a phone that require multitasking?
So I can google something while composing an E-mail. So I can text someone while browsing. So I can look over my contacts list while on a phone call.
We're talking about a Smartphone, which is effectively a miniature, handheld PC. If you don't want it, then argue that they should give users the option to turn off multitasking. I think that most users *want* to run more than one app at a time, but for those who don't, they could turn it off. The point is -- make it the user's decision, don't force your company's mentality on me.
Why on earth won't it support multitasking when the previous versions have done so quite well? That's like asking whether Windows 7 will support these newfangled things called mice. Multitasking is not even a feature to ask about unless you're coming from the Apple camp.
That sounds completely reasonable, until you google "windows mobile 7 multitasking".
Here's what I got: one, two, three. That last one is official.
MS is attempting to get into the market by doing what they used to do best: Cloning. This means get every last bit of detail into their version of the product, *including* the drawbacks. They can fix this in later versions, and in the meantime they can say "what? it's not like the competition supports it...". This industry is absurd.
Software developers are artists now? What???
Well, right now they're mostly "starving artists", which, as any artist will tell you, is the most pure form of artist.
Does it support multitasking?
How sad is it that this is a serious question? Not too long ago, "does it support copy&paste" would have also been a legitimate question to ask. Thanks, Apple.
Vista isn't vapor. It's cement, mixed with lead and uranium. It's as real and as nimble as a glacier. I've seen tar pits that seem more fluid than a computer running Vista. Whatever it is, Vista is NOT vapor.
As a complete Apple fanboi, and one who owns 3 macs and swears by his iPod Touch (I don't like AT&T), I've got to say, that thing looks like it has a really nice interface. Kudos to MS
You're a plant -- admit it. How much is MS paying you? Are you freelancing or is this full time?
While that might sound like marketing gobbledygook
It does. I checked with my gobbledygook-o-meter, and it's screaming like a geiger counter in chernobyl.
It's 16%, which I believe is in between "marginal" and "quaint". Growth rate is the much more impressive stat on that particular graph, but keep in mind that Androids are on their way to far more countries than iPhones are. The iPhone has a dominant position in several large markets, even influential ones, but it's still A) a consumer device, and B) completely locked down -- making it inappropriate for commercial/corporate use, even if some sectors *wanted* to use it (doctors, lawyers, etc.). There are quite a few counties where the iPhone's closed nature would inhibit it from gaining traction, and others where it wouldn't make financial sense to launch it in. At any rate, "world domination" is a hyperbole.
What dog? It's, you know, for kids...
Yes, but this is like walking before running. Pumping water with miniature compressors within a semiconductor would mean a complex mechanical system which would be difficult to scale (in production, I mean). While the convex hull remains the same, you can still increase the surface area, which will help with heat transport if the material that envelopes it is a better heat conductor than the semiconductor material.
Think of it this way: They'll be carbon-based, like us!