anyone of any advanced age should remember call rates in "multiple $ / min" for some international destinations in the full analog days. These days for $5-10/mth on top of local call service I can get call rates in the "cents per minute" range from the local telephone companies, or fractions of cents / minute using international calling cards.
likewise for mobile/cell phones...
but i think many of envy the old user experience we used to yet:-(
It started last year and will continue over a 10-year time frame to replace the entire copper telephony network in Australia.
And while it is quite a technical detail, it does serve to re-iterate that this is telephony&internet project ie. supplying the equivalent of 50-line telephony via FTTH.
No sure how many other countries have rolled out a full fibre telephone network - so not sure if this is really news though...
Pointless for you perhaps... and by the sound of the complaints you'd be US-based I'd guess
ITU is not a US organisation !
Other parts of the world value quality over quantity moreso than the US and have decent quality digital TV... we don't have to put up the lowest common denominator issue where everyone wants everything for next-to-no-cost and the aficionados get dragged down...
Do you require this much resolution IRL? I'd venture to guess if you had an ultra-high resolution view of your pillow (including dust mites) you'd probably not be able to sleep.
God yes... human visual acuity is in the 100-500MP range depending on eye movement, field-of-view and interpolation assumptions. Even 8K video is only around 30MP in a static pattern.
But also remember your taste in 'reality' may not be everyone else's taste - you (and I) have probably been trained that low resolution, grainy film is 'suspension of belief' just as the in 50s/60s the dodgy film colours (technicolor?) were part of the suspension or in the 30s/40s/50s with black-and-white doing that job or in the 1910s/20s the sound issue.
like vinyl vs CD, people will adapt and wonder how they lived without it looking back in retrospect... it called progress and we all need to adapt (me included!)
Certainly is work in that direction... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding... That gets you a 50% reduction in bit rates over MPEG-4/AVC - which in turn is 50% reduction over MPEG-2 used in many most digital TV standards
So that's a 2-4x increase in efficiency + modulation improvements that are bound to happen = plenty of scope for 4K digital TV
How decent is 720p? Well, both TVs appear to be about the same quality as, or often a little higher than, watching a friggin' movie at the cinema, if the source is decent and relatively free of artifacts.
Wow - you really need access to a better cinema then... I can assure you 720p (from a good source) is miles behind a good digital cinema...
I, for one, have a 85ft (110ft diagonal) 4K digital locally in addition to IMAX, film and 2K digital... I was fortunate to see The Bourne Legacy recently in 4K digital and it was stunning compared to even 2K digital, let alone 1080p and 720p.
If i can have a high-tech $1,000 4K 80" screen in 5 years or high-value $500 1080p 50" screen in 5 years.. hmmm... easy decision.. bring on the tech I say:-)
Correct call but you don't need to be a genius to work that out.
All business have a finite life and well predicted cycle - just some are on cycle measured in by centuries (eg Encyclopædia Britannica, Kodak, NY Times) while others are measured in years or decades.
Only question is not whether Facebook will decline but how much it can cash-in before that happens which is really dictated the length of decline itself - market valuations are more in line strong growth and a life of AT LEAST 10-20 years while I think people's gut-feel is often more on the order 5 years.
Oops - question was how did this get moderated "interesting" rather "rude a-hole" ? The OP contributed a quite reasonable thought to kick off the discussion !
Representative governments work because people has better things to do than ALL be involved with EVERYTHING.
That is a sure way destroy an economy and then destroy a social by being controlled by vocal minority wackos - in fact, I'd suggest that some people would view current governments as already being too driven by vocal minorities.
For which I'm sure all the people without jobs, homes & healthcare are very grateful.
Anyway that brings the people that care to maybe some of 27% Americans + whoever is from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Uganda, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Georgia, Lebanon, Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Grenada, El Salvador & whatever 3rd world country is lucky enough to be next on the list.
"Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out." We sense the "consummation" of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
Unfortunately that peak is behind us: Clinton, Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and all future American leaders are merely playing their parts in the greatest of all historical dramas, repeating but never fully grasping the lessons of history in their insatiable drive for "economic progress," to recapture former glory... while unwittingly pushing our empire to the edge, into collapse.
Don't kid yourself... 99% of the non-US population couldn't tell you which party Obama represents let alone what his policies are. There is that little difference between the left and right of US politics (in a global context) that the whole event is meaningless to us.
Likewise 99% of Americans couldn't tell you anything about foreign politics.
So thats a wash... except 3 out 4 Slashdot readers are not American and not caring about US politics.
Interestingly have a look at TIME most influential list... at a quick glance I see Bashar Assad, Vladimir Putin & Aung San Suu Kyi all more influential than Barrack Obama. And in case the penny hasn't dropped yet Shakira, Lady Gaga and Adele are also all more influential.
I don't know if your president are effectively hamstrung by congress or their own party or the electorate when it comes to international policy - but military aside, who was the last president to have real impact on the world stage?
Given 73% of Slashdot's traffic is non-US based (and the lack of cross-over between geek news and politics), surely this musters a giant yawn at best ??
I think i know another part to the answer to that and it is alternate drugs.
Australia is low on opiates but VERY high on cannabis and amphetamines (particularly ecstasy)... in our case (being an isolated island) it's all about what it easy to import which also drives costs - I guess also partly about law enforcement which cocaine/heroin is in a different class to ecstasy.
I'd guess Netherlands is probably a little the same with a higher proportion of recreational drugs and less hard drugs... but no doubt social forces (including laws) make a huge difference.
I know you're being funny and I got a chuckle out of it... but just fyi:
South American has the lowest levels of opiates use of any region in the world, cocaine at about half the rate of first-world countries and cannabis lower that all areas except SE Asia.
In the contemporary cultural meaning, the Western world includes many countries of Europe as well as many countries of European colonial origin in the Americas and Oceania, such as the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Spot on ...
5Mbps TC-1 (ie 50 lines) seems to be priced around $330/month ... I'd guess that is HUGELY cheaper than a pair of T1's
crappy but cheap ...
anyone of any advanced age should remember call rates in "multiple $ / min" for some international destinations in the full analog days. These days for $5-10/mth on top of local call service I can get call rates in the "cents per minute" range from the local telephone companies, or fractions of cents / minute using international calling cards.
likewise for mobile/cell phones ...
but i think many of envy the old user experience we used to yet :-(
i think that is answered by the number of time "small business" is scattered throughout the linked article.
presumably medium-large businesses dont use copper now and wont be using a standard NBN connection as their key telephony source ???
What do you mean 'will never be built'?
It started last year and will continue over a 10-year time frame to replace the entire copper telephony network in Australia.
And while it is quite a technical detail, it does serve to re-iterate that this is telephony&internet project ie. supplying the equivalent of 50-line telephony via FTTH.
No sure how many other countries have rolled out a full fibre telephone network - so not sure if this is really news though ...
Yep - because EVERYONE had the exact same preference/requirements as you ...
No-one could possibly be replacing broken HDTV or buying their first HDTV in the next 5-10 years.
No-one could possibly be using a display size where 1080p is sub-optimal.
No-one could possibly want to enlarge part of a 4K signal on a lower resolution display and still have detail.
No-one could possibly want to have higher resolution for the extra $5 of hardware it will cost to decode.
Pointless for you perhaps ... and by the sound of the complaints you'd be US-based I'd guess
ITU is not a US organisation !
Other parts of the world value quality over quantity moreso than the US and have decent quality digital TV ... we don't have to put up the lowest common denominator issue where everyone wants everything for next-to-no-cost and the aficionados get dragged down ...
Don't you love how the English language evolves such that resolution does not have a static meaning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution
The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed
16x the pixel is a perfectly fine interpretation of resolution ... 16x the pixel DENSITY (ie per square inch) was not discussed anywhere
Sure - because the standards developers are the people who develop content?
Or should standards not develop because of content ... I know, let's not make good cars either because a lot of roads are crap ;-)
Do you require this much resolution IRL? I'd venture to guess if you had an ultra-high resolution view of your pillow (including dust mites) you'd probably not be able to sleep.
God yes ... human visual acuity is in the 100-500MP range depending on eye movement, field-of-view and interpolation assumptions. Even 8K video is only around 30MP in a static pattern.
But also remember your taste in 'reality' may not be everyone else's taste - you (and I) have probably been trained that low resolution, grainy film is 'suspension of belief' just as the in 50s/60s the dodgy film colours (technicolor?) were part of the suspension or in the 30s/40s/50s with black-and-white doing that job or in the 1910s/20s the sound issue.
like vinyl vs CD, people will adapt and wonder how they lived without it looking back in retrospect ... it called progress and we all need to adapt (me included!)
Certainly is work in that direction ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding ... That gets you a 50% reduction in bit rates over MPEG-4/AVC - which in turn is 50% reduction over MPEG-2 used in many most digital TV standards
So that's a 2-4x increase in efficiency + modulation improvements that are bound to happen = plenty of scope for 4K digital TV
8K is a bit more a stretch at the moment
How decent is 720p? Well, both TVs appear to be about the same quality as, or often a little higher than, watching a friggin' movie at the cinema, if the source is decent and relatively free of artifacts.
Wow - you really need access to a better cinema then ... I can assure you 720p (from a good source) is miles behind a good digital cinema ...
I, for one, have a 85ft (110ft diagonal) 4K digital locally in addition to IMAX, film and 2K digital ... I was fortunate to see The Bourne Legacy recently in 4K digital and it was stunning compared to even 2K digital, let alone 1080p and 720p.
If i can have a high-tech $1,000 4K 80" screen in 5 years or high-value $500 1080p 50" screen in 5 years .. hmmm ... easy decision .. bring on the tech I say :-)
We have Bluray that can pump out 40 Mbps and a new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard coming that support 4K/60Hz video at around 40 Mbps
We also have a few 4K displays just starting to appear.
And now a UHDTV 4K video standard (as well as 8K).
So looking good for the new gen with broadcast, storage, encoding and display standards all sorted out .. bring it on !!!
Ummm ... no
Source: 40 years of "Could Flying Cars Actually Be On Their Way?" experience
Serious question not a troll, what is the difference between the 2 definitions? I honestly don't know.
Is it an API and third party applications for a smart phone versus locked-in phone feature in ROM for a feature phone? Or something else?
Correct call but you don't need to be a genius to work that out.
All business have a finite life and well predicted cycle - just some are on cycle measured in by centuries (eg Encyclopædia Britannica, Kodak, NY Times) while others are measured in years or decades.
Only question is not whether Facebook will decline but how much it can cash-in before that happens which is really dictated the length of decline itself - market valuations are more in line strong growth and a life of AT LEAST 10-20 years while I think people's gut-feel is often more on the order 5 years.
Oops - question was how did this get moderated "interesting" rather "rude a-hole" ? The OP contributed a quite reasonable thought to kick off the discussion !
Just some thoughts that come to mind
In this case those are gross overstatements.
This is a joke, right?
Representative governments work because people has better things to do than ALL be involved with EVERYTHING.
That is a sure way destroy an economy and then destroy a social by being controlled by vocal minority wackos - in fact, I'd suggest that some people would view current governments as already being too driven by vocal minorities.
For which I'm sure all the people without jobs, homes & healthcare are very grateful.
Anyway that brings the people that care to maybe some of 27% Americans + whoever is from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Uganda, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Georgia, Lebanon, Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Grenada, El Salvador & whatever 3rd world country is lucky enough to be next on the list.
http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/25/decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire.html
"Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out." We sense the "consummation" of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.
Unfortunately that peak is behind us: Clinton, Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and all future American leaders are merely playing their parts in the greatest of all historical dramas, repeating but never fully grasping the lessons of history in their insatiable drive for "economic progress," to recapture former glory ... while unwittingly pushing our empire to the edge, into collapse.
As you sow so shall you reap !!
Don't kid yourself ... 99% of the non-US population couldn't tell you which party Obama represents let alone what his policies are. There is that little difference between the left and right of US politics (in a global context) that the whole event is meaningless to us.
Likewise 99% of Americans couldn't tell you anything about foreign politics.
So thats a wash ... except 3 out 4 Slashdot readers are not American and not caring about US politics.
Interestingly have a look at TIME most influential list ... at a quick glance I see Bashar Assad, Vladimir Putin & Aung San Suu Kyi all more influential than Barrack Obama. And in case the penny hasn't dropped yet Shakira, Lady Gaga and Adele are also all more influential.
I don't know if your president are effectively hamstrung by congress or their own party or the electorate when it comes to international policy - but military aside, who was the last president to have real impact on the world stage?
Given 73% of Slashdot's traffic is non-US based (and the lack of cross-over between geek news and politics), surely this musters a giant yawn at best ??
Um, cocaine is not an opiate.
Correct - that why I mentioned opiate, cocaine and cannabis separately.
I think i know another part to the answer to that and it is alternate drugs.
Australia is low on opiates but VERY high on cannabis and amphetamines (particularly ecstasy) ... in our case (being an isolated island) it's all about what it easy to import which also drives costs - I guess also partly about law enforcement which cocaine/heroin is in a different class to ecstasy.
I'd guess Netherlands is probably a little the same with a higher proportion of recreational drugs and less hard drugs ... but no doubt social forces (including laws) make a huge difference.
I know you're being funny and I got a chuckle out of it ... but just fyi:
South American has the lowest levels of opiates use of any region in the world, cocaine at about half the rate of first-world countries and cannabis lower that all areas except SE Asia.
I see your Wikipedia and raise you 1 Wikipedia ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world
In the contemporary cultural meaning, the Western world includes many countries of Europe as well as many countries of European colonial origin in the Americas and Oceania, such as the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, etc.