Anyone with an EDGE-enabled phone, and a desire to hear more than their local radio stations, probably knows this is potentially awesome.
Sure, shoutcast is great on my Nokia 6620, but HE-AAC (AAC+) hits a sweet spot at 48kbps... something many of the stations simply don't do, being MP3 and all. That means way better quality at lower bitrates... good for listeners and the providers.
Personally, I'd pay for this in a heartbeat... so long as it isn't as god damned repetitive as the playlists on ClearChannel or both of the satellite radio services.
It's too bad this didn't work the other way around... with MS staying in the television partnership and bailing out on the website.
NBC News is fairly respectable, yet they're shooting themselves in the foot by alienating anyone who doesn't use Internet Explorer and Windows.
They'd probably have even better numbers (even if they are already skewed by MSN...) if they allowed people using other platforms to view video content.
But be realistic - you were notified that the domain was expiring. You failed to act within what is now a very generous expiration window.
Really... the last thing expiring domains need is one more "last-chance" for the people who fail to pay for their domain. The best solution, if you're really worried about keeping a name, is to buy a five or ten-year claim.
I don't get why people are upset about these bundles... price point be damned.
Back when the Playstation2 came out, many who were actually able to get one turned around and sold it on eBay for 2x-3x as much as Sony's $300 MSRP. So this time around, the retailers are trying to cash in on the people with wads of money to spend and a burning desire to be the first one on the block to get the new XBox.
Can you blame 'em?
Again, people were buying new PS2s on eBay for $900... without extra accessories! At least the retailers are driving up prices by bundling a bunch of extras and not just inflating the price "base" system.
Supply and demand, here, people.
Too few units at launch coupled with people willing to pay for expensive bundles... hell, I'll be shocked if the retailers complain "nobody's buying!" I strongly doubt that'll be the case.
Back in 2000, I was using AOL on top of Earthlink dial-up... it was pretty nice... $10 for as many hours as I wanted...
then I received a bill for like $200.00, IIRC.
Turns out that my account was somehow switched from BYOA $10/unlimited/month to $10/5hrs/month + $6 for every hour over the initial 5. Mind you, I set up screen names for the rest of my family... 50-hour months were not out of the ordinary...
At any rate, I called AOL, explained that I had been a member for a good year or two, and that the change was obviously a mistake since we had used roughly the same amount of time each month... "why would I make a change to pay more?"
Since I said an unauthorized change was made to my account, I was almost automatically transferred to AOL's fraud dept.
The person I spoke to from the fraud department emphatically denied that anyone but me could have possibly made the changes and was very blunt - I would be paying the whole charge. Oh, and it had already been billed to my credit card... "have a nice day."
I immediately asked to talk to her supervisor but got the same spiel.
Pissed... I called my credit card company. The rep I reached was awesome... she treated it as though my credit card was physically stolen. In effect, she prevented AOL (or anyone else, for that matter) from charging against my account. Then, she marked the account to prevent AOL from making a charge in the event that the $200 bill had already gone onto my "pending charges."
Ready to play ball, I called AOL back...
I ended up talking with a supervisor who was generously willing to cut my bill in half and offered an apology for the whole mess. Mock-worried... I whined that cutting my bill in half was pointless because I had already been charged.
Miraculously, the guy was able to issue a credit to my account for about a hundred dollars... despite the fact that it had been closed for about an hour at that point. Oh, and I hadn't been charged for the $200 yet. w00t.
When everything was said and done, I wound up actually getting the "refund" and was never charged for the erroneous $200 AOL bill.
I'm not sure what was worth more to me... the extra cash... or the sweet satisfaction of knowing I screwed them for trying to screw me.
I can't think of a single media playback device that did not enjoy a healthy kick in sales simply because it allowed a buyer to make/playback copies of original media... or from hacks which allowed the machine in question to do more than originally advertised.
Beta tapes and VHS recorders --"You mean I can go to the store, set one deck to playback on channel 3 and set the other to record channel 3, and I have a copy? Schmeet!"
Audio cassettes -- Same deal.
CD Burners -- Again, essentially the same deal.
Playstations -- I can play imported games and as a side benefit, play "backup" games? Where do I get one of these mod-chips? See: CD-Burner sales.
Dreamcast -- Homebrew games and backups? All I have to do is use a special boot-cd? I think I'll pick one up since they're so cheap. See: CD-Burner sales.
DVD Burners -- I can backup my important data plus burn movies and games? I want one!
XBOX -- Relatively shitty sales compared to the gold-standard Playstation2 'til the modders started to have fun with the internal hard drive. Drop some NES/SNES/Genesis emulators on there...
Sony PSP --Aside from the weak (IMHO) "I have one before you!" factor... probably the only thing driving sales... the ability to make it do things it didn't do out-of-the-box.
Anyone denying that the sale of almost every new format's success was riding on the possibly of pirating is damn near delusional. Maybe it isn't the deciding factor for every single person buying the widget, but it's definitely a sizable minority... if not majority.
Frankly, this time around, we're really faced with a stalemate between Hollywood and consumers. Sure, early adopters will buy whatever hits the market... but not in droves.
This time around, if the hardware makers don't follow the wishes of Hollywood, prices probably won't decline, volumes will remain flat, and Toshiba and Sony both will be faced with a format that's dead right out of the gates.
However, without laying the DRM on thick, Hollywood won't play ball with the next generation of video players. Catch-22.
It's silly not to attribute a sizable portion of the success of DVD to the cracking of CSS -- like it nor not.
Sure, this decision may make for less "competition"... in the sense that ILECs are now free from being required to share "their" lines... and maybe the little Mom and Pop local DSL ISP is going to be murdered through this decision.
But... the whole idea of shared-line competition was fishy to begin with. It stifled any real progress because it left the CLECs at the mercy of the local teleco for the infrastructure.
Sure, there are some isolated success stories... but the bottom line here is that the original 1996 act which made this all possible did not help those in an area where the local teleco had neither the capital or the inclination to provide DSL service... so it really didn't create competition (or actual service!) in places that needed it most.
This ruling isn't going to make it any worse (or better) for those who live in rural America. It's only going to have an effect on a very small percentage of people who have Speakeasy, Earthlink, and the like. And those companies can only really compete in customer service and price... not the actual up/downlink... so what's the point? Service doesn't improve... it just moves sideways.
Don't get me wrong... the argument presented by the RBOCs complaining how they didn't want to upgrade infrastructure and the be forced to share it was simply greedy and disingenuous, to say the least. But now they have their way. So I hope to see a huge push for FiOS... true competition for the cable companies.
In short... if this ruling eliminates fishy psudo-competition and replaces it with real genuine competition... what's not to like?
People who choose to live in rural areas shouldn't force those who live in denser-populated areas to subsidize their telecomunication services. End of story.
I don't mean to come off as uncaring, but, one shouldn't expect to get, for example, 1.5/512 for $45 when the cost to actually provide that service is substantially higher than in even a small-ish city. The only way to help reduce rates is to raise the rates for city-dwellers or establishing some sort of rural broadband tax... which is complete bullshit.
I really don't get how some who live in rural areas expect cheap bandwidth in places where houses are spread so far apart that it makes laying the infastructure prohibitively expensive. There's a reason why WiMax and other wireless broadband initiatives are being looked at... connecting Backwoods America to the 'Net is one of them.
Still, if you're living in BFN America and really want to see change in your local community, talk to your local public utilities commission and get your friends involved. Depending on the area and topography, good things may happen. But, if you can't round up the support... you're probably better off moving because the lack of demand would be yet another obstacle to overcome.
Bottom line -- if you live in rural America, please don't expect to get cheap Internet. Hell, tell your local congress critter to chop a couple hundred million off the DoD's budget to help with rural broadband infrastructure.
...Someone needs to put a stop to the spinsters at Sony Computer Entertainment.
Am I the only one who sees this as nothing more than a ploy to make the PS3 appear to be more attractive as an "investment?"
"Invest" in a PS3 because it'll let you play the latest overpriced EA game, watch BluRay movies, manage your finances, even butter your toast! Why buy any other console when this is one is designed to last a DECADE! Only 15 easy payments of $49.95! But wait, call right now and we'll make one payment FOR YOU!
Guh.
They're merely trying to gloss over (or soften the impact from) what'll be an insane initial price point.
Still... when PS2s first came out, people with way too much money to spend plunked down around $800 on eBay for imported PS2s when they began to trickle out into the market. Maybe this time around, SCE should charge a hundred or two over cost and eliminate the middle-men.
At any rate, while Nintendo's vague comments about Revolution are annoying, to say the least ( HA HA.) at least they're not trumping their product up by being a pack of liars.
Ten years? Are they really that dumb? Or do they simply think the buying public is?
I'll leave the debate over Konfabulator vs. Dashboard to the other kids... here's what I'm upset about...
"The acquisition of Konfabulator may not be the last Mac compatible product users see from Yahoo! While Schneider wasn't specific, he did say that there was interest in the Mac. 'There is a move at Yahoo! -- in addition to Konfabulator -- to move more onto the Mac,' said Schneider. 'We want to make sure we find a way to be more cross platform.'"
OK, great. So start by making it possible to browse everything on Yahoo from a Mac! It's really annoying getting a message that my browser (nay, platform) isn't supported by a website. It's not like I'm using an obscure operating system like OS/2 or something.
Furthermore, I'm a cross-platform guy. I grew up using Macs & PCs, though I definitely prefer OSX. Recently, I've found a new love for my old Dell Latitude simply because of the awesomeness that is Yahoo Music Unlimited. What sucks is that I can't use it on my iBook.
For those who don't know, for less than the cost of a case of beer every month, Y! Unlimited is, essentially, a music on-demand system with DRM that's easy to live with. Personally, it's not very important that I "own the music." What's important to me is that I've discovered new music in a way I've missed since the original Napster was destroyed. Only LAUNCHcast and Y! Unlimited is WAY better than everything out there that's currently like it (I'm looking at you remixed Napster and Rhapsody.)
Sure, the download catalog isn't as deep as iTunes Music Store... but I'm sure the gap will eventually shrink. Yahoo is a large company with enough resources to make that happen.
LAUNCHcast, Yahoo's "radio" service, lets me rate music then taylors future songs to my preferences and tastes. It basically serves songs up on the fly without ads. It's really fucking slick.
At any rate, I wish they'd offer Y! Unlimited (or more to the point, Yahoo Music Engine) for OS X, but since it uses WM9 and whatever portable management system requires WinXP, I'm guessing that a port to Macs will probably never materialize. Which is too bad. I'd love to be able to use YME with Airfoil so I could stream it to my Airport Express... without Virtual PC.
First off, say what you want about American TV... but this is really cool.
I've seen products from Adelphia, Comcast, FrontierVision, and Time Warner in action... *nobody* comes close to the user-friendliness and speed of a TW Passport box. Extrapolating (erroneously?) from that, I'm going to assume that this service is going to be just as spiffy as their other magical stuff like Video OnDemand and whatnot.
This article finally confirms something I had a feeling about but never bothered to verify -- TW is actually using their (inflated?) services fees to develop better services for their customers.
Frankly, the only flaw I see in this test is that they're using Real instead of h.264, but hell... at least they aren't using WMV. I dislike RealNetworks, mostly for political reasons, but at least their codec is pretty solid.
Anyway, use this service on a laptop w/ WiFi and goodbye cumbersome CRT! How cool is that?
I've seen this issue raised numerous times over the past several years... hell, I've brought it up in random conversation quite a bit...
But...
The question that I've *never* heard asked...
Is America the only country where the native language is so disappointingly mangled by the vast majority of native citizens?
The funny/sad thing is when an American will gripe about a foreigner verbally mangling English... yet that same American most likely can't even speak a 2nd language... let alone speak it fluently. Bah.
If all of the US carriers just went to 3GSM... we'd have better phones... faster... and the underlying infrastructure (things like mobile sites/towers) would be cheaper as well.
Granted, they'd have to be tuned to different frequencies here in the states... but the prices would come down a bit since the market would be much larger. Hell, Nortel and Nokia are probably making hardware that simply has modules that are swapped in depending on the intended geographic location...
A list of the submissions that didn't make the cut.
My black and white TV is good enough. Is there a model out there without all of these newfangled technologies like color and stereo sound?
My '57 BelAir gets me from point A to point B just fine... problem is... nobody makes parts for it anymore. Can anyone recommend a similar car without power steering and respectable milage?
Is it just me or do they have better spinsters than engineers over at Sony Computer Entertainment?
I'm sorry for the trollish opening, but the thing that really chafes my balls about the hype surrounding the Playstation3 can be boiled down to this:
The PS2 was purported to have "Hollywood-style" graphics capabilities.
Anyone remember the line about the PS2 being able to render Toy Story in real-time? I do - it was such a boldfaced lie. Dreamcast had better graphics than the second-gen Playstation. and it was older! Hell, Super Nintendo had better graphics than Sony's first offering... and again, it was older, too.
Quick! Grab your umbrella! There's about to be a flood of crotchedy old techies who think mobile phones that serve more than one purpose are crazy! Crrraaazaaay!!
Seriously though, I'm not the only one who WANTS to see the day where we have a phone, iPod, and PDA all in one device... right? Sure, bring on the "jack-of-all-trades master-of-none" arguement... but carrying around one device that does it all is better than having multiple gadgets. So what if the current creations need a little more R&D... it's not like basic phones can't be purchased anymore.
You're probably right. Chances are, we're all going to be seeing HDTV in MPEG-4 part 10 -- also known as H.264 or AVC. It'll be in Blu-Ray, HD DVD, DirecTV, and QuickTime 7... not to mention a whole slew of other applications. I wouldn't be surprised to see cable companies using it... plus the telecos.
It's an amazing codec since it actually allows stellar HD at surprisingly low bitrates.
You're also right that Mircosoft has an uphill battle to fight considering nobody really wants to give them control over what will be the future of video. Microsoft's only playing card seems to be licensing. If they can undercut MPEGLA, companies will chose it over AVC.
But for simplicity's sake... I hope Microsoft loses. They have just as much a right as any other organization at submitting a standard... but what's better about WMV? If the current incarnation is any indication, it'll be Windows-centric and will leave everyone outside of the platform left virtually stranded. In the grand scheme of things, Microsoft will use it as leverage for future Windows purchases... great for them.. but what about everyone else?
It's just too bad most of the mods around here think that Apple's need for profit=(hand_over_fist) is somehow rightfully tied into purposely crippling capable hardware. But this isn't the first time this debate has come up.
Many Apple iBooks have the ability to run an additional display in spanning-mode just like the more expensive PowerBooks. However, iBooks are purposely "locked" to mirror-only by Apple. It's pretty easy to enable the functionality through a software patch... just like this trackpad functionality can be added via some loving software hackery.
Apple is clearly using this trackpad feature as a nudge for people to upgrade to the new PowerBooks and I can't fault them for that. Still, that doesn't mean Apple should simply ignore users with the hardware ("W Trackpad") that indeed supports this neat software hack just in the name of product differentiation. Hell, they can add it to Tiger and justify it as a feature upgrade included with the price of the update. Imagine that! Apple still makes money and users with old hardware get increased functionality! Cats and dogs, living together!
I remember back when users were adding extras to their original iPods and Apple quickly followed... officially updating them to do new things. Then, when newer iPods came out, users (this one included) asked Apple to support the older iPods and create an update so they could to do the things the newer ones could do... namely playlists-to-go. But the overwhelming majority of people I heard from on/. thought called me a blasphemous freeloading commie hippie baby killer. The new functionality wasn't advertised an advertised feature of the original iPods, they barked, so why should Apple stoop so low to support the plebeians still using antiquated (6-month old) hardware!
We wouldn't want everyone's favorite little computer company, just barely making ends meet every quarter, throwing a bone out for the users of older hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
On August 29th, 2007, Skynet will become self aware.
Anyone with an EDGE-enabled phone, and a desire to hear more than their local radio stations, probably knows this is potentially awesome.
Sure, shoutcast is great on my Nokia 6620, but HE-AAC (AAC+) hits a sweet spot at 48kbps... something many of the stations simply don't do, being MP3 and all. That means way better quality at lower bitrates... good for listeners and the providers.
Personally, I'd pay for this in a heartbeat... so long as it isn't as god damned repetitive as the playlists on ClearChannel or both of the satellite radio services.
It's too bad this didn't work the other way around... with MS staying in the television partnership and bailing out on the website.
NBC News is fairly respectable, yet they're shooting themselves in the foot by alienating anyone who doesn't use Internet Explorer and Windows.
They'd probably have even better numbers (even if they are already skewed by MSN...) if they allowed people using other platforms to view video content.
But be realistic - you were notified that the domain was expiring. You failed to act within what is now a very generous expiration window.
Really... the last thing expiring domains need is one more "last-chance" for the people who fail to pay for their domain. The best solution, if you're really worried about keeping a name, is to buy a five or ten-year claim.
I don't get why people are upset about these bundles... price point be damned.
Back when the Playstation2 came out, many who were actually able to get one turned around and sold it on eBay for 2x-3x as much as Sony's $300 MSRP. So this time around, the retailers are trying to cash in on the people with wads of money to spend and a burning desire to be the first one on the block to get the new XBox.
Can you blame 'em?
Again, people were buying new PS2s on eBay for $900... without extra accessories! At least the retailers are driving up prices by bundling a bunch of extras and not just inflating the price "base" system.
Supply and demand, here, people.
Too few units at launch coupled with people willing to pay for expensive bundles... hell, I'll be shocked if the retailers complain "nobody's buying!" I strongly doubt that'll be the case.
Back in 2000, I was using AOL on top of Earthlink dial-up... it was pretty nice... $10 for as many hours as I wanted...
then I received a bill for like $200.00, IIRC.
Turns out that my account was somehow switched from BYOA $10/unlimited/month to $10/5hrs/month + $6 for every hour over the initial 5. Mind you, I set up screen names for the rest of my family... 50-hour months were not out of the ordinary...
At any rate, I called AOL, explained that I had been a member for a good year or two, and that the change was obviously a mistake since we had used roughly the same amount of time each month... "why would I make a change to pay more?"
Since I said an unauthorized change was made to my account, I was almost automatically transferred to AOL's fraud dept.
The person I spoke to from the fraud department emphatically denied that anyone but me could have possibly made the changes and was very blunt - I would be paying the whole charge. Oh, and it had already been billed to my credit card... "have a nice day."
I immediately asked to talk to her supervisor but got the same spiel.
Pissed... I called my credit card company. The rep I reached was awesome... she treated it as though my credit card was physically stolen. In effect, she prevented AOL (or anyone else, for that matter) from charging against my account. Then, she marked the account to prevent AOL from making a charge in the event that the $200 bill had already gone onto my "pending charges."
Ready to play ball, I called AOL back...
I ended up talking with a supervisor who was generously willing to cut my bill in half and offered an apology for the whole mess. Mock-worried... I whined that cutting my bill in half was pointless because I had already been charged.
Miraculously, the guy was able to issue a credit to my account for about a hundred dollars... despite the fact that it had been closed for about an hour at that point. Oh, and I hadn't been charged for the $200 yet. w00t.
When everything was said and done, I wound up actually getting the "refund" and was never charged for the erroneous $200 AOL bill.
I'm not sure what was worth more to me... the extra cash... or the sweet satisfaction of knowing I screwed them for trying to screw me.
This brings up a question I've wondered for a while now...
Is there a Windows equivelent of Airfoil, the Airport Extreme audio sender... ?
I can't think of a single media playback device that did not enjoy a healthy kick in sales simply because it allowed a buyer to make/playback copies of original media... or from hacks which allowed the machine in question to do more than originally advertised.
Beta tapes and VHS recorders --"You mean I can go to the store, set one deck to playback on channel 3 and set the other to record channel 3, and I have a copy? Schmeet!"
Audio cassettes -- Same deal.
CD Burners -- Again, essentially the same deal.
Playstations -- I can play imported games and as a side benefit, play "backup" games? Where do I get one of these mod-chips? See: CD-Burner sales.
Dreamcast -- Homebrew games and backups? All I have to do is use a special boot-cd? I think I'll pick one up since they're so cheap. See: CD-Burner sales.
DVD Burners -- I can backup my important data plus burn movies and games? I want one!
XBOX -- Relatively shitty sales compared to the gold-standard Playstation2 'til the modders started to have fun with the internal hard drive. Drop some NES/SNES/Genesis emulators on there...
Sony PSP --Aside from the weak (IMHO) "I have one before you!" factor... probably the only thing driving sales... the ability to make it do things it didn't do out-of-the-box.
Anyone denying that the sale of almost every new format's success was riding on the possibly of pirating is damn near delusional. Maybe it isn't the deciding factor for every single person buying the widget, but it's definitely a sizable minority... if not majority.
Frankly, this time around, we're really faced with a stalemate between Hollywood and consumers. Sure, early adopters will buy whatever hits the market... but not in droves.
This time around, if the hardware makers don't follow the wishes of Hollywood, prices probably won't decline, volumes will remain flat, and Toshiba and Sony both will be faced with a format that's dead right out of the gates.
However, without laying the DRM on thick, Hollywood won't play ball with the next generation of video players. Catch-22.
It's silly not to attribute a sizable portion of the success of DVD to the cracking of CSS -- like it nor not.
Sure, this decision may make for less "competition"... in the sense that ILECs are now free from being required to share "their" lines... and maybe the little Mom and Pop local DSL ISP is going to be murdered through this decision.
But... the whole idea of shared-line competition was fishy to begin with. It stifled any real progress because it left the CLECs at the mercy of the local teleco for the infrastructure.
Sure, there are some isolated success stories... but the bottom line here is that the original 1996 act which made this all possible did not help those in an area where the local teleco had neither the capital or the inclination to provide DSL service... so it really didn't create competition (or actual service!) in places that needed it most.
This ruling isn't going to make it any worse (or better) for those who live in rural America. It's only going to have an effect on a very small percentage of people who have Speakeasy, Earthlink, and the like. And those companies can only really compete in customer service and price... not the actual up/downlink... so what's the point? Service doesn't improve... it just moves sideways.
Don't get me wrong... the argument presented by the RBOCs complaining how they didn't want to upgrade infrastructure and the be forced to share it was simply greedy and disingenuous, to say the least. But now they have their way. So I hope to see a huge push for FiOS... true competition for the cable companies.
In short... if this ruling eliminates fishy psudo-competition and replaces it with real genuine competition... what's not to like?
People who choose to live in rural areas shouldn't force those who live in denser-populated areas to subsidize their telecomunication services. End of story.
I don't mean to come off as uncaring, but, one shouldn't expect to get, for example, 1.5/512 for $45 when the cost to actually provide that service is substantially higher than in even a small-ish city. The only way to help reduce rates is to raise the rates for city-dwellers or establishing some sort of rural broadband tax... which is complete bullshit.
I really don't get how some who live in rural areas expect cheap bandwidth in places where houses are spread so far apart that it makes laying the infastructure prohibitively expensive. There's a reason why WiMax and other wireless broadband initiatives are being looked at... connecting Backwoods America to the 'Net is one of them.
Still, if you're living in BFN America and really want to see change in your local community, talk to your local public utilities commission and get your friends involved. Depending on the area and topography, good things may happen. But, if you can't round up the support... you're probably better off moving because the lack of demand would be yet another obstacle to overcome.
Bottom line -- if you live in rural America, please don't expect to get cheap Internet. Hell, tell your local congress critter to chop a couple hundred million off the DoD's budget to help with rural broadband infrastructure.
...Someone needs to put a stop to the spinsters at Sony Computer Entertainment.
:(
Am I the only one who sees this as nothing more than a ploy to make the PS3 appear to be more attractive as an "investment?"
"Invest" in a PS3 because it'll let you play the latest overpriced EA game, watch BluRay movies, manage your finances, even butter your toast! Why buy any other console when this is one is designed to last a DECADE! Only 15 easy payments of $49.95! But wait, call right now and we'll make one payment FOR YOU!
Guh.
They're merely trying to gloss over (or soften the impact from) what'll be an insane initial price point.
Still... when PS2s first came out, people with way too much money to spend plunked down around $800 on eBay for imported PS2s when they began to trickle out into the market. Maybe this time around, SCE should charge a hundred or two over cost and eliminate the middle-men.
At any rate, while Nintendo's vague comments about Revolution are annoying, to say the least ( HA HA.) at least they're not trumping their product up by being a pack of liars.
Ten years? Are they really that dumb? Or do they simply think the buying public is?
Don't answer that.
So much for proofing for spelling mistakes. D'oh.
I'll leave the debate over Konfabulator vs. Dashboard to the other kids... here's what I'm upset about...
"The acquisition of Konfabulator may not be the last Mac compatible product users see from Yahoo! While Schneider wasn't specific, he did say that there was interest in the Mac. 'There is a move at Yahoo! -- in addition to Konfabulator -- to move more onto the Mac,' said Schneider. 'We want to make sure we find a way to be more cross platform.'"
OK, great. So start by making it possible to browse everything on Yahoo from a Mac! It's really annoying getting a message that my browser (nay, platform) isn't supported by a website. It's not like I'm using an obscure operating system like OS/2 or something.
Furthermore, I'm a cross-platform guy. I grew up using Macs & PCs, though I definitely prefer OSX. Recently, I've found a new love for my old Dell Latitude simply because of the awesomeness that is Yahoo Music Unlimited. What sucks is that I can't use it on my iBook.
For those who don't know, for less than the cost of a case of beer every month, Y! Unlimited is, essentially, a music on-demand system with DRM that's easy to live with. Personally, it's not very important that I "own the music." What's important to me is that I've discovered new music in a way I've missed since the original Napster was destroyed. Only LAUNCHcast and Y! Unlimited is WAY better than everything out there that's currently like it (I'm looking at you remixed Napster and Rhapsody.)
Sure, the download catalog isn't as deep as iTunes Music Store... but I'm sure the gap will eventually shrink. Yahoo is a large company with enough resources to make that happen.
LAUNCHcast, Yahoo's "radio" service, lets me rate music then taylors future songs to my preferences and tastes. It basically serves songs up on the fly without ads. It's really fucking slick.
At any rate, I wish they'd offer Y! Unlimited (or more to the point, Yahoo Music Engine) for OS X, but since it uses WM9 and whatever portable management system requires WinXP, I'm guessing that a port to Macs will probably never materialize. Which is too bad. I'd love to be able to use YME with Airfoil so I could stream it to my Airport Express... without Virtual PC.
A guy can dream...
First off, say what you want about American TV... but this is really cool.
I've seen products from Adelphia, Comcast, FrontierVision, and Time Warner in action... *nobody* comes close to the user-friendliness and speed of a TW Passport box. Extrapolating (erroneously?) from that, I'm going to assume that this service is going to be just as spiffy as their other magical stuff like Video OnDemand and whatnot.
This article finally confirms something I had a feeling about but never bothered to verify -- TW is actually using their (inflated?) services fees to develop better services for their customers.
Frankly, the only flaw I see in this test is that they're using Real instead of h.264, but hell... at least they aren't using WMV. I dislike RealNetworks, mostly for political reasons, but at least their codec is pretty solid.
Anyway, use this service on a laptop w/ WiFi and goodbye cumbersome CRT! How cool is that?
I'd hit it!
Wait a minute... someone's at the door...
OH NO SOMEONE HELP M!???
NO CARRIER
I've seen this issue raised numerous times over the past several years... hell, I've brought it up in random conversation quite a bit...
But...
The question that I've *never* heard asked...
Is America the only country where the native language is so disappointingly mangled by the vast majority of native citizens?
The funny/sad thing is when an American will gripe about a foreigner verbally mangling English... yet that same American most likely can't even speak a 2nd language... let alone speak it fluently. Bah.
If all of the US carriers just went to 3GSM... we'd have better phones... faster... and the underlying infrastructure (things like mobile sites/towers) would be cheaper as well.
Granted, they'd have to be tuned to different frequencies here in the states... but the prices would come down a bit since the market would be much larger. Hell, Nortel and Nokia are probably making hardware that simply has modules that are swapped in depending on the intended geographic location...
It makes too much sense, I guess. : (
A list of the submissions that didn't make the cut.
My black and white TV is good enough. Is there a model out there without all of these newfangled technologies like color and stereo sound?
My '57 BelAir gets me from point A to point B just fine... problem is... nobody makes parts for it anymore. Can anyone recommend a similar car without power steering and respectable milage?
Bla bla bla...
Is it just me or do they have better spinsters than engineers over at Sony Computer Entertainment?
I'm sorry for the trollish opening, but the thing that really chafes my balls about the hype surrounding the Playstation3 can be boiled down to this:
The PS2 was purported to have "Hollywood-style" graphics capabilities.
Anyone remember the line about the PS2 being able to render Toy Story in real-time? I do - it was such a boldfaced lie. Dreamcast had better graphics than the second-gen Playstation. and it was older! Hell, Super Nintendo had better graphics than Sony's first offering... and again, it was older, too.
Hasn't Quark been doing this for years, too?
And they plan to enforce this... how?
Quick! Grab your umbrella! There's about to be a flood of crotchedy old techies who think mobile phones that serve more than one purpose are crazy! Crrraaazaaay!!
Seriously though, I'm not the only one who WANTS to see the day where we have a phone, iPod, and PDA all in one device... right? Sure, bring on the "jack-of-all-trades master-of-none" arguement... but carrying around one device that does it all is better than having multiple gadgets. So what if the current creations need a little more R&D... it's not like basic phones can't be purchased anymore.
You're probably right. Chances are, we're all going to be seeing HDTV in MPEG-4 part 10 -- also known as H.264 or AVC. It'll be in Blu-Ray, HD DVD, DirecTV, and QuickTime 7... not to mention a whole slew of other applications. I wouldn't be surprised to see cable companies using it... plus the telecos.
It's an amazing codec since it actually allows stellar HD at surprisingly low bitrates.
You're also right that Mircosoft has an uphill battle to fight considering nobody really wants to give them control over what will be the future of video. Microsoft's only playing card seems to be licensing. If they can undercut MPEGLA, companies will chose it over AVC.
But for simplicity's sake... I hope Microsoft loses. They have just as much a right as any other organization at submitting a standard... but what's better about WMV? If the current incarnation is any indication, it'll be Windows-centric and will leave everyone outside of the platform left virtually stranded. In the grand scheme of things, Microsoft will use it as leverage for future Windows purchases... great for them.. but what about everyone else?
You're right.
It's just too bad most of the mods around here think that Apple's need for profit=(hand_over_fist) is somehow rightfully tied into purposely crippling capable hardware. But this isn't the first time this debate has come up.
Many Apple iBooks have the ability to run an additional display in spanning-mode just like the more expensive PowerBooks. However, iBooks are purposely "locked" to mirror-only by Apple. It's pretty easy to enable the functionality through a software patch... just like this trackpad functionality can be added via some loving software hackery.
Apple is clearly using this trackpad feature as a nudge for people to upgrade to the new PowerBooks and I can't fault them for that. Still, that doesn't mean Apple should simply ignore users with the hardware ("W Trackpad") that indeed supports this neat software hack just in the name of product differentiation. Hell, they can add it to Tiger and justify it as a feature upgrade included with the price of the update. Imagine that! Apple still makes money and users with old hardware get increased functionality! Cats and dogs, living together!
I remember back when users were adding extras to their original iPods and Apple quickly followed... officially updating them to do new things. Then, when newer iPods came out, users (this one included) asked Apple to support the older iPods and create an update so they could to do the things the newer ones could do... namely playlists-to-go. But the overwhelming majority of people I heard from on
We wouldn't want everyone's favorite little computer company, just barely making ends meet every quarter, throwing a bone out for the users of older hardware.
Give me a break.
"Snocap"
There's a joke in there... somewhere.