Honestly, I can't see most people caring enough about DRM to leave one service that uses one application to encompass the buying, listening, streaming and loading experience.
Sorry. I just don't see it. iTunes is doing better than ever, and may well have reached critical mass by this point. I've never hearde one person complain about the DRM - except here on Slashdot.
Apple is a company that takes risks. They build products based on what their engineers and designers come up with, not with what the marketroids and focus groups say will sell.
This may have been true during certain times, but not when I worked there. Dirtiest word at Apple during 1996-97?
Per-for-ma.
Ghetto Macs with great software. What a disappointment, and one of the purest marketing-driven products I've ever seen.
There was no new engineering in Performa; just cost-reduction, feature fitment and rolling stuff out as quickly as possible. (In all fairness, they switched to "as well as possible" in 1997 and made a few great machines.)
Apple learned a srong and powerful lesson from Performa, and the Mini is in many ways the penultimate expression of the Performa idea, but without the ghettoization and stigma caused by the Performa brand.
The Mini is as much a Macintosh as any Performa ever was and more; it is a complete Mac, price and feature-competitive with PCs, and bundled with terrific software and great support.
Honestly, though, it would be nice of more of the major OS X apps took advantage of Cocoa instead of hanging onto Carbon for dear life. Dreamweaver MX 2004 runs like a dog, and Photoshop CS is little better.
You can thank Adobe's brain-dead business model for this. Instead of trying to make great stuff that highlights the strength of each OS they develop for, they've largely abandoned doing things first on the Mac in deference to having feature parity at ship time.
This is why Photoshop CS is slower on the same hardware than Photohop 7 - and it's why we Mac users with our 8GB of RAM still can't use more than 2GB for Photoshop, even in Tiger, which will let apps access more than 2GB of RAM if they're 64-bit aware. Adobe refuses to rewrite the imaging engine for Photoshop because not only is there virtually no such thing as 64-bit Windows, it won't be ready for prime time for a couple of years at least.
Re:Another one from the "Duh!" file
on
Microsoft in 2008
·
· Score: 1
That the next iPod will likely have Bluetooth or 802.11b/g/whatever.
-Stream to AirPort Express -"Remote controls" available that work with Bluetooth from Apple and third parties.
Should be an interesting year. They gotta suppport that $249.00 and up price point by further differentiation. Mot wouldn't be doing this otherwise.
Don't get me started about "Jokely". Beautiful sunglasses - for a few weeks. Every pair I've owned (at least six pair since 1988, including the original Eyeshade) has failed to provide adequate protection against nefarious sunglass-killing and losing forces.
A pair of Oakleys with a homing device - now that, I'd pay for.
will sell a ton of Mac Minis in two years. When people realize they can't run the latest and greatest, they will have to buy a new machine to keep up with the Joneses.
Given the creeping resource requirements of Longhorn, you'll need something relatively powerful to run it. Powerful usually means big and loud. The mini suports quartz extreme with it's 32MB Radeon, but $500.00 mass-manufactured PCs definitely don't, Buy a new $500.00 PC today and you'll get shared DRAM video memory, unsuitable for Longhorn's graphics model.
When Longhorn finally ships, you get to spend money and time upgrading your video card and buying more RAM - or you can just buy a new machine ready to run, virus-free, and which requires only an upfront investment in a keyboard and mouse. Everyone has a TV - and the Mac mini connects to a TV out of the box.
And do you really think even a midrange PC today will be capable of running any decent video editing app in Longhorn?
Now remember, these people already have monitors, keyboards, and mice. The mini comes with none of these. Just replace your old, decrepit PC with a Mac mini.
Apple is introducing this new idea and expression of the home computer now, because it gives them time to gradually inform the market, generate buzz, and work up to a similar condition to what we se with the iPod today.
They will learn from this first, good product, and make something even better. The iMac was the first example of this thinking; iPod was the most successful. Start with only the best ideas and build upon them. Kill the bad ideas quickly. Drop the size, drop the cost. Apple is innovating at hyperspeed, catching up for years lost wandering in the wilderness.
If you're going to spend $500.00 on a new machine so you can run a new OS, what's to keep you from geting one of these Mac Mini things anyway? Especially when you can just hook it to the TV, put it in Simple Finder, and give one to granny for e-mailing pictures of her fancy dog to her friends with fancy dogs?
Just my two cents. Everyone's in the PC business has been secretly that afraid Apple would do this for years now. Now they're left to squeeze their margins even further, remaining at the sole mercy of Microsoft - who appear to be displaying an incredible ability to screw up nearly everything they've touched over the past couple of years.
(it was one of the downfalls of the USSR, and I still thank Reagan for leading them to their doom).
Phil, better ask a history professor what really led to the downfall of the Soviet Union - it wasn't that they were outspent so much as people saw what the west was enjoying and they wanted it. Jeans, Rock and Roll, you name it - cultural and social pressures were far more erosive to the Soviet Union than any amount of super-spending we could ever have done.
Crediting Reagan with the downfall of the Union by simply writing bigger and more checks is a popular myth among talk radio wonks who are afraid to speak about the advanced concepts (social justice, cultural change) that scare them the most.
What should Bush had done after the August 6th briefing?
How about staying in the fucking office and working, rather than taking a month-long fucking vacation?
Jesus H. Christ, man. Shut off the Rush and Hannity and get relative.
Bush holds the record for the most days spent "at leisure" by a President - that is, outside the White House - while our country had a P-3 Orion forced down, was attacked by OBL, started one war, started another on overwhlmingly false pretenses, and now we have YET ANOTHER FAILURE (in this not-ready-for-prime-time system called missile defense). And people still find a way to defend the man and his actions. This, truly is not the United States I grew up in.
Keeping in mind the August memo was really really vague in it's warnings.
Yeah, like this line: "bin Laden wanted to follow the example of the World Trade Center attack by Ramzi Yusef..."
Or maybe this very vague line: "bin Laden wanted to hijack U.S. aircraft to gain the release of..."
Or maybe this is the vague part:"FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks including recent surveilance of federal buildings in New York."
Now, I know Bush isn't a mind reader, but when someone tells you that it maybe, might rain, do you grab your umbrella as you leave the house?
Keep in mind that this "test" employed no decoy warheads and that the test ICBM had a freaking HOMING BEACON on it! That's how we build a missle defense system - hey wait, can we get a set of $50 Million training wheels for this piece of shit?
So my dealer tells me to use premium gas. I decide to be a smart-ass and put in regular because the gas station tells me it will be fine, even though the manufacturer specifically recommends against it. After a while, it breaks.
This is a good comparison, but not truly accurate; I don't think Real's Harmony scheme would damage anything but the iTMS' profit margins.
However, if you elect to use = 93 octane, you will damage it - up to and including valve seat and facing damage and burned piston crowns.
I don't know that any "incompatible" or workaround DRM could damage an iPod in the same way.
Still, I think Apple has a case for removing compatibility with Harmony in the latest iPod firmware upgrade.
The second part is to create the display system, which Ross likens to building an "electronic Sistine ceiling." It will have 16 times greater data display capabilities than one currently in use at Sandia, among the world's most advanced. The display would provide an overall view of images at a very large scale while allowing viewers to perceive extremely fine detail.
I did read the post.
Processing a 4X5 chrome on a dip-n-dunk line takes what, 20 minutes? I would think that an optical profjection system is the most cost-efective and highest-quality way to display images quickly after exposure.
Projectors work quite well with slide film. I've heard that even static 35mm frames hold up quite well at over 100 feet. I'll have to go to the movies and make sure.
There's no need to introduce a scanner into the display part of this problem unless you must have the image in a digital form.
I have a Bausch and Lomb K-14 shutterless aerial lens similar to the one used in the R1. It's pretty cool - makes a 9X9 image on film, paper, or whatever photosensitive stuff you put exactly 24 inches behind the lens. But I don't use it for snapshots because it is a pain in the butt. (Besides that, with the Thorium in the rear element of the lens, it's slightly radioactive.)
I applaud Ross' work on this, but I don't see it as a necessary or even wise use of time and money that could go toward more innovative digital imaging projects.
No. the best way to scan 4X5 transparencies and negatives is still the Tango.
Flatbeds can't approach the micron-tolerance focus and dimensional stability of Kami-mounted drum scans. Oil-mounted scans can have a detrimental effect on film over time.
You can liquid mount to a flatbed for extra flatness, if you've got optically clear mylar, some 3M mounting tape and some Kami fluid laying around. (At $13.00 an 11X14 sheet...) Just make sure to do all this with the scanner unplugged, as Kami is highly flammable.
8X10 inch images are virtually always captured on film (polyester base) rather than glass plates. Today's film and film holders have good enough dimensional stability, and glass plates aren't needed to retain consistent focus across the entire image anymore.
Glass plates would be a little tough to mount on a drum scanner. I'm thinking some extreme heat would have to be involved.
I've got mod points, but I'm going to contribute to this thread instead of modding. There's a lot of assumption about image quality based on numbers alone, and fortunately I worked and taught in a terrific digital studio for the past two years, so I want to set striaght a couple of things.
4X5 inch film comprises an imageable area of about 19 square inches with a lens that covers this film adquately.
19 square inches of high-resolution color film - Fuji Provia or Velvia (limiting myself to color for the sake of this discussion) will capture about 2400 dpi worth of useful image data at 8 bpp. The film can easily be scanned to higher resolutions and higher bit depths, but the main reason to do this on a high-end drum scanner is to avoid having to use software to interpolate the image for extremely large prints that exceed the resolution of the original scan.
19 square inches * 2400dpi * 8bpp = just under 300MB.
That's about 100 megapixels, give or take a few percentage points. Cost of film and developing per shot is about $3.50 for color, about $.80 for black and white.
Scanning a 4X5 inch sheet of film costs about $80.00 at my favorite lab. (I use westcoastimaging.com, even though I'm down the street from Calypso Imaging in Santa Clara. WCI does an incredible job, and nearly everyone on staff is actually a photographer, or married to one.)
Add $20.00 for FedEx back and forth from the lab, and you've got a 100 megapixel image with some slight imperfections (dust spots, chromatic aberration from some older lenses) for about $105.00 per exposure. At this point, the fun begins; the photographer can use Photoshop or the GIMP to make tonal and contrast changes, attempt to match the chrome, or get really fanciful.
You could make a 16-bit scan of a photograph that contains super-subtle tonal gradation to ensure against banding in the final print, but since most digital photographic printers like the LightJet and Chromira only print 8-bit files, it's usually a moot point.
Normally, lower-end scanners have to scan in 16-bit to eliminate noise and increase quality to a point where they can stand close to an 8-bit drum scan from a Tango.
Without explaining the vagaries of scanning backs, it is possible to directly capture a 100MP image from a conventional 4X5 inch camera - but only if the subject isn't moving. Even the 40-year old shutter in my Schneider 90mm lens can work at 1/500 sec, given sufficient light for the film I have loaded. No "gagapixel" camera can do this yet - not even remotely.
This whole "gigapixel" push is a scam. After making some 30X40 test prints from the Canon EOS1-D mkII the other day, I can say without question that digital cameras are pushing the boundries of medium format film while remaining under the 30 megapixel benchmark.
The proof is in the print. In a world where most digital images are posted and viewed on web pages, no one will easily tell the difference between a 30k JPEG that started life as a high-resolution scan and one that started life in a.06MP Apple QuickTake from 1996. A print on paper at a equivalent resolution is the best wayo to test real image quality.
In this case, megapixel comparisons are moot. Because the characteristics of film and digital are different, you can't accurately compare a scan from film and a digital file of the same size on screen alone.
The most accurate way to determine the quality of an image is to look at a print. When they reach 30-40 megapixels, with forgettable battery life and no crashes, I may be tempted to give up my view camera for a DSLR, but some features still won't be there (full tilt/swing/shift movements, for one).
For me, 20 pounds of view camera equipment (using exactly one battery, for my spot meter) is still (and may reamin for several years) the easiest way to capture high-resolution photographs in the field. That's what I like to do with my camera - if my goal was to get quick turnaround studio shots, then I'
As a just-separated IT Manager at one of the best digital labs in the United States, I can say unequivocally that linux does not fulfill any of our needs, except possibly as a server.
Unfortunately, my job didn't allow me the time to climb that particular learning curve, and I stuck with Mac OS 9.x AppleShare (feature-poor, but fast and runs well on retired desktops) and Mac OS X Server 10.3. (It's a young business and doesn't choose to allocate IT capitol to the newest-and-bestest when we can recycle the dependable and cheap.)
None of our Apprentice or Master Printers (staff members who use Photoshop more than 80% of the day) has the time or bandwidth (or inclination) to learn a completely new set of tools for the sake of using Linux.
While the GIMP is a nice feature demo, it isn't nearly as capable as Photoshop in the areas we need it to be, like integrated color management, layer and type tools. Photoshop's feature and interface parity across platforms allow a consistent vocabulary of tools and actions for us and our customers.
I think Linux is a fine product, but the more mature systems (Mac OS X to be exact in our case) are often cabable of serving sermi-vertical markets like professional photographer and photographic printers much better.
Photography has a largely technophobic element of users; despite the photovested gear-queers and their toys, most photographers want effective, simple solutions. While Linux has made great strides in usability (no, really!), Windows and Mac OS X will continue to be the preferred operating systems for professional photographers for the forseeable future.
You can still see the remains of the Taligent sign on Sunnyvale-Saratoga road across the street from the Apple campus in Cupertino.
Not to nitpick, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong about this.
The old Taligent building is across from DeAnza Three (20525 Mariani Ave.), the Mid-80s headquarters building. It is once again occupied by Apple, and they reskinned the old Taligent sign, but it is no longer recognizable as such. Packeteer, once in the building next to Taligent, has had a "phantom sign" out front for some time, and this may be what you're thinking of.
It's my recollection that FirePower tried to cherry-pick quite a few engineers from Apple right after Motorola bought them. Had an open house of sorts where some people were a little embarassed to be seen by others until they realized that everyone there had the same secret to keep.
One of Mot's Rubenstein-inspired products was a portable PPC Macintosh with built-in pager/cellphone technology. Soirt of a Laptop Lojack of sorts.
I overheard this at Fibbar MacGee's once, so the usual disclaimers about pints, lies, and exaggerations apply.
Why spend the energy consistantly cooling your engine with a fan mechanically powered by the engine when it doesn't need it at times?
Because it is not detrimental to the engine, and the energy spent is nominal.
Wrong.
Contantly cooling the engine and engine coolant (as with a mechanically-linked fan) can be detrimental to the car's performance in at least two ways:
Modern cooling systems run at higher pressures than before, and the thermostat opens later to allow the engine to warm quickly. (the faster an engine and exhaust reach operating temperature, the lower total emissions of HCs and Oxides of Nitrogen). A constantly cooled radiator and engine could not maintain precise coolant and engine temperature with fluctuating road speeds.
Even with a temperature-controlled clutch, a mechanical fan is a parasitic draw 100% of the time, and the draw increases with engine speed. A constantly spinning fan exposed to airflow under the car also creates some significant drag as the car moves. With a mechanical link, there's no provision to stop the fan when the engine doesn't need cooling, and no way to increase the cooling by running the fan faster or starting a second fan.
Electric fans are a good thing. My car has a sensor on the thermostat, another on the intake manifold, and a third coolant temperature sensor on the coolant reservoir. Each of these three can throw a fault light if the fan or sensors fail, alerting me to a possible overheat situation before it occurs.
Mechanically-linked fans should have gone out with cars like my 1978 Buick Electra. I occasionally hear the roar of clutched engine fans in Chevy Blazers and the like, but I for one am glad we've moved on.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, I can't see most people caring enough about DRM to leave one service that uses one application to encompass the buying, listening, streaming and loading experience.
Sorry. I just don't see it. iTunes is doing better than ever, and may well have reached critical mass by this point. I've never hearde one person complain about the DRM - except here on Slashdot.
Apple is a company that takes risks. They build products based on what their engineers and designers come up with, not with what the marketroids and focus groups say will sell.
This may have been true during certain times, but not when I worked there. Dirtiest word at Apple during 1996-97?
Per-for-ma.
Ghetto Macs with great software. What a disappointment, and one of the purest marketing-driven products I've ever seen.
There was no new engineering in Performa; just cost-reduction, feature fitment and rolling stuff out as quickly as possible. (In all fairness, they switched to "as well as possible" in 1997 and made a few great machines.)
Apple learned a srong and powerful lesson from Performa, and the Mini is in many ways the penultimate expression of the Performa idea, but without the ghettoization and stigma caused by the Performa brand.
The Mini is as much a Macintosh as any Performa ever was and more; it is a complete Mac, price and feature-competitive with PCs, and bundled with terrific software and great support.
You can thank Adobe's brain-dead business model for this. Instead of trying to make great stuff that highlights the strength of each OS they develop for, they've largely abandoned doing things first on the Mac in deference to having feature parity at ship time.
This is why Photoshop CS is slower on the same hardware than Photohop 7 - and it's why we Mac users with our 8GB of RAM still can't use more than 2GB for Photoshop, even in Tiger, which will let apps access more than 2GB of RAM if they're 64-bit aware. Adobe refuses to rewrite the imaging engine for Photoshop because not only is there virtually no such thing as 64-bit Windows, it won't be ready for prime time for a couple of years at least.
Damn, dude, you stole my comment. Good on ya'.
If this is using something like Portal Player's 5002/5003 chips? Those "media chips" were based around a dual ARM core.
That the next iPod will likely have Bluetooth or 802.11b/g/whatever.
-Stream to AirPort Express
-"Remote controls" available that work with Bluetooth from Apple and third parties.
Should be an interesting year. They gotta suppport that $249.00 and up price point by further differentiation. Mot wouldn't be doing this otherwise.
Don't get me started about "Jokely". Beautiful sunglasses - for a few weeks. Every pair I've owned (at least six pair since 1988, including the original Eyeshade) has failed to provide adequate protection against nefarious sunglass-killing and losing forces.
A pair of Oakleys with a homing device - now that, I'd pay for.
Give the AC a prize. S/he's completely right.
will sell a ton of Mac Minis in two years. When people realize they can't run the latest and greatest, they will have to buy a new machine to keep up with the Joneses.
Given the creeping resource requirements of Longhorn, you'll need something relatively powerful to run it. Powerful usually means big and loud. The mini suports quartz extreme with it's 32MB Radeon, but $500.00 mass-manufactured PCs definitely don't, Buy a new $500.00 PC today and you'll get shared DRAM video memory, unsuitable for Longhorn's graphics model.
When Longhorn finally ships, you get to spend money and time upgrading your video card and buying more RAM - or you can just buy a new machine ready to run, virus-free, and which requires only an upfront investment in a keyboard and mouse. Everyone has a TV - and the Mac mini connects to a TV out of the box.
And do you really think even a midrange PC today will be capable of running any decent video editing app in Longhorn?
Now remember, these people already have monitors, keyboards, and mice. The mini comes with none of these. Just replace your old, decrepit PC with a Mac mini.
Apple is introducing this new idea and expression of the home computer now, because it gives them time to gradually inform the market, generate buzz, and work up to a similar condition to what we se with the iPod today.
They will learn from this first, good product, and make something even better. The iMac was the first example of this thinking; iPod was the most successful. Start with only the best ideas and build upon them. Kill the bad ideas quickly. Drop the size, drop the cost. Apple is innovating at hyperspeed, catching up for years lost wandering in the wilderness.
If you're going to spend $500.00 on a new machine so you can run a new OS, what's to keep you from geting one of these Mac Mini things anyway? Especially when you can just hook it to the TV, put it in Simple Finder, and give one to granny for e-mailing pictures of her fancy dog to her friends with fancy dogs?
Just my two cents. Everyone's in the PC business has been secretly that afraid Apple would do this for years now. Now they're left to squeeze their margins even further, remaining at the sole mercy of Microsoft - who appear to be displaying an incredible ability to screw up nearly everything they've touched over the past couple of years.
You might be closer to the truth than you think.
Then again, Apple s good at playing vendors off each other.
(it was one of the downfalls of the USSR, and I still thank Reagan for leading them to their doom).
Phil, better ask a history professor what really led to the downfall of the Soviet Union - it wasn't that they were outspent so much as people saw what the west was enjoying and they wanted it. Jeans, Rock and Roll, you name it - cultural and social pressures were far more erosive to the Soviet Union than any amount of super-spending we could ever have done.
Crediting Reagan with the downfall of the Union by simply writing bigger and more checks is a popular myth among talk radio wonks who are afraid to speak about the advanced concepts (social justice, cultural change) that scare them the most.
How about staying in the fucking office and working, rather than taking a month-long fucking vacation?
Jesus H. Christ, man. Shut off the Rush and Hannity and get relative.
Bush holds the record for the most days spent "at leisure" by a President - that is, outside the White House - while our country had a P-3 Orion forced down, was attacked by OBL, started one war, started another on overwhlmingly false pretenses, and now we have YET ANOTHER FAILURE (in this not-ready-for-prime-time system called missile defense). And people still find a way to defend the man and his actions. This, truly is not the United States I grew up in.
Keeping in mind the August memo was really really vague in it's warnings.
Yeah, like this line: "bin Laden wanted to follow the example of the World Trade Center attack by Ramzi Yusef..."
Or maybe this very vague line:
"bin Laden wanted to hijack U.S. aircraft to gain the release of..."
Or maybe this is the vague part:"FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks including recent surveilance of federal buildings in New York."
Now, I know Bush isn't a mind reader, but when someone tells you that it maybe, might rain, do you grab your umbrella as you leave the house?
Keep in mind that this "test" employed no decoy warheads and that the test ICBM had a freaking HOMING BEACON on it! That's how we build a missle defense system - hey wait, can we get a set of $50 Million training wheels for this piece of shit?
This is a good comparison, but not truly accurate; I don't think Real's Harmony scheme would damage anything but the iTMS' profit margins.
However, if you elect to use = 93 octane, you will damage it - up to and including valve seat and facing damage and burned piston crowns.
I don't know that any "incompatible" or workaround DRM could damage an iPod in the same way.
Still, I think Apple has a case for removing compatibility with Harmony in the latest iPod firmware upgrade.
Nitpick: I had a Sony 3.5" floppy drive in my Macintosh 512k Enhanced - in 1985.
The second part is to create the display system, which Ross likens to building an "electronic Sistine ceiling." It will have 16 times greater data display capabilities than one currently in use at Sandia, among the world's most advanced. The display would provide an overall view of images at a very large scale while allowing viewers to perceive extremely fine detail.
I did read the post.
Processing a 4X5 chrome on a dip-n-dunk line takes what, 20 minutes? I would think that an optical profjection system is the most cost-efective and highest-quality way to display images quickly after exposure.
Projectors work quite well with slide film. I've heard that even static 35mm frames hold up quite well at over 100 feet. I'll have to go to the movies and make sure.
There's no need to introduce a scanner into the display part of this problem unless you must have the image in a digital form.
I have a Bausch and Lomb K-14 shutterless aerial lens similar to the one used in the R1. It's pretty cool - makes a 9X9 image on film, paper, or whatever photosensitive stuff you put exactly 24 inches behind the lens. But I don't use it for snapshots because it is a pain in the butt. (Besides that, with the Thorium in the rear element of the lens, it's slightly radioactive.)
I applaud Ross' work on this, but I don't see it as a necessary or even wise use of time and money that could go toward more innovative digital imaging projects.
No. the best way to scan 4X5 transparencies and negatives is still the Tango.
Flatbeds can't approach the micron-tolerance focus and dimensional stability of Kami-mounted drum scans. Oil-mounted scans can have a detrimental effect on film over time.
You can liquid mount to a flatbed for extra flatness, if you've got optically clear mylar, some 3M mounting tape and some Kami fluid laying around. (At $13.00 an 11X14 sheet...) Just make sure to do all this with the scanner unplugged, as Kami is highly flammable.
Nitpick:
8X10 inch images are virtually always captured on film (polyester base) rather than glass plates. Today's film and film holders have good enough dimensional stability, and glass plates aren't needed to retain consistent focus across the entire image anymore.
Glass plates would be a little tough to mount on a drum scanner. I'm thinking some extreme heat would have to be involved.
I've got mod points, but I'm going to contribute to this thread instead of modding. There's a lot of assumption about image quality based on numbers alone, and fortunately I worked and taught in a terrific digital studio for the past two years, so I want to set striaght a couple of things.
.06MP Apple QuickTake from 1996. A print on paper at a equivalent resolution is the best wayo to test real image quality.
4X5 inch film comprises an imageable area of about 19 square inches with a lens that covers this film adquately.
19 square inches of high-resolution color film - Fuji Provia or Velvia (limiting myself to color for the sake of this discussion) will capture about 2400 dpi worth of useful image data at 8 bpp. The film can easily be scanned to higher resolutions and higher bit depths, but the main reason to do this on a high-end drum scanner is to avoid having to use software to interpolate the image for extremely large prints that exceed the resolution of the original scan.
19 square inches * 2400dpi * 8bpp = just under 300MB.
That's about 100 megapixels, give or take a few percentage points. Cost of film and developing per shot is about $3.50 for color, about $.80 for black and white.
Scanning a 4X5 inch sheet of film costs about $80.00 at my favorite lab. (I use westcoastimaging.com, even though I'm down the street from Calypso Imaging in Santa Clara. WCI does an incredible job, and nearly everyone on staff is actually a photographer, or married to one.)
Add $20.00 for FedEx back and forth from the lab, and you've got a 100 megapixel image with some slight imperfections (dust spots, chromatic aberration from some older lenses) for about $105.00 per exposure. At this point, the fun begins; the photographer can use Photoshop or the GIMP to make tonal and contrast changes, attempt to match the chrome, or get really fanciful.
You could make a 16-bit scan of a photograph that contains super-subtle tonal gradation to ensure against banding in the final print, but since most digital photographic printers like the LightJet and Chromira only print 8-bit files, it's usually a moot point.
Normally, lower-end scanners have to scan in 16-bit to eliminate noise and increase quality to a point where they can stand close to an 8-bit drum scan from a Tango.
Without explaining the vagaries of scanning backs, it is possible to directly capture a 100MP image from a conventional 4X5 inch camera - but only if the subject isn't moving. Even the 40-year old shutter in my Schneider 90mm lens can work at 1/500 sec, given sufficient light for the film I have loaded. No "gagapixel" camera can do this yet - not even remotely.
This whole "gigapixel" push is a scam. After making some 30X40 test prints from the Canon EOS1-D mkII the other day, I can say without question that digital cameras are pushing the boundries of medium format film while remaining under the 30 megapixel benchmark.
The proof is in the print. In a world where most digital images are posted and viewed on web pages, no one will easily tell the difference between a 30k JPEG that started life as a high-resolution scan and one that started life in a
In this case, megapixel comparisons are moot. Because the characteristics of film and digital are different, you can't accurately compare a scan from film and a digital file of the same size on screen alone.
The most accurate way to determine the quality of an image is to look at a print. When they reach 30-40 megapixels, with forgettable battery life and no crashes, I may be tempted to give up my view camera for a DSLR, but some features still won't be there (full tilt/swing/shift movements, for one).
For me, 20 pounds of view camera equipment (using exactly one battery, for my spot meter) is still (and may reamin for several years) the easiest way to capture high-resolution photographs in the field. That's what I like to do with my camera - if my goal was to get quick turnaround studio shots, then I'
Either that, or Metricom.
Apple. March 14, 1997. That was massive layoffs.
This? Not a big deal, by comparison. I don't think the headline is misleading, but it is a little sensationalist.
I feel for those losing their jobs. hopefully they land on their feet and get decent separation packages.
As a just-separated IT Manager at one of the best digital labs in the United States, I can say unequivocally that linux does not fulfill any of our needs, except possibly as a server.
Unfortunately, my job didn't allow me the time to climb that particular learning curve, and I stuck with Mac OS 9.x AppleShare (feature-poor, but fast and runs well on retired desktops) and Mac OS X Server 10.3. (It's a young business and doesn't choose to allocate IT capitol to the newest-and-bestest when we can recycle the dependable and cheap.)
None of our Apprentice or Master Printers (staff members who use Photoshop more than 80% of the day) has the time or bandwidth (or inclination) to learn a completely new set of tools for the sake of using Linux.
While the GIMP is a nice feature demo, it isn't nearly as capable as Photoshop in the areas we need it to be, like integrated color management, layer and type tools. Photoshop's feature and interface parity across platforms allow a consistent vocabulary of tools and actions for us and our customers.
I think Linux is a fine product, but the more mature systems (Mac OS X to be exact in our case) are often cabable of serving sermi-vertical markets like professional photographer and photographic printers much better.
Photography has a largely technophobic element of users; despite the photovested gear-queers and their toys, most photographers want effective, simple solutions. While Linux has made great strides in usability (no, really!), Windows and Mac OS X will continue to be the preferred operating systems for professional photographers for the forseeable future.
Not to nitpick, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong about this.
The old Taligent building is across from DeAnza Three (20525 Mariani Ave.), the Mid-80s headquarters building. It is once again occupied by Apple, and they reskinned the old Taligent sign, but it is no longer recognizable as such. Packeteer, once in the building next to Taligent, has had a "phantom sign" out front for some time, and this may be what you're thinking of.
It's my recollection that FirePower tried to cherry-pick quite a few engineers from Apple right after Motorola bought them. Had an open house of sorts where some people were a little embarassed to be seen by others until they realized that everyone there had the same secret to keep.
One of Mot's Rubenstein-inspired products was a portable PPC Macintosh with built-in pager/cellphone technology. Soirt of a Laptop Lojack of sorts.
I overheard this at Fibbar MacGee's once, so the usual disclaimers about pints, lies, and exaggerations apply.
YHBD. HAND.
That is precisely the reason. They don't want people's senses impaired or attention diverted when a critical announcement is made.
The command to evacuate the aircraft, for instance.
Because it is not detrimental to the engine, and the energy spent is nominal.
Wrong.
Contantly cooling the engine and engine coolant (as with a mechanically-linked fan) can be detrimental to the car's performance in at least two ways:
Electric fans are a good thing. My car has a sensor on the thermostat, another on the intake manifold, and a third coolant temperature sensor on the coolant reservoir. Each of these three can throw a fault light if the fan or sensors fail, alerting me to a possible overheat situation before it occurs.
Mechanically-linked fans should have gone out with cars like my 1978 Buick Electra. I occasionally hear the roar of clutched engine fans in Chevy Blazers and the like, but I for one am glad we've moved on.