I've been to China, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand... You're not likely to talk on your cell phone much since rates overseas are usually US$1-$4 per minute.
Not in Japan obviously, but in the other countries, if you buy a local SIM card, you'll be paying less than 25 cents per minute to call the USA. Here in Malaysia it was 2.5 cents/minute for direct-dialed calls to the USA last year; sadly they doubled it to $0.05 on January 1.
GSM cell phone. If it can do email that's a nice bonus. (borrow/rent CDMA if you are in a country without GSM)
Small solar calculator (for negotiations if you need to buys something and don't speak the language)
Are there any phones that don't contain a calculator?
Of course not. But I'd rather not whip out my rather nice cell phone in certain locations such as an outdoor market when it is raining. (don't laugh I've had it happen) I'd rather have a tiny junk calculator that weighs nothing. YMMV.
Currency for the countries you are visiting (airport/hotel conversion rates are expensive)
But ATMs are cheap, as long as you have a traveler-friendly bank. Changing cash is for chumps with money to burn.
You said it yourself, some people don't have travel friendly banks. I happen to be one of them unfortunately. (yes I have good reasons for this) ATMs can be a great option and paying with credit cards can be too. ATMs are often but not always available right at the airport however and if you take a cab you'd better have a way to pay. Having cash ahead of time is hardly a chump move. I know a local bank where I live which does cash exchanges for reasonable rates. Use what you have available.
An international calling card with at least 500 minutes
That's got to be the most expensive way of calling home short of launching your own satellite. There are cheap call shops everywhere that will beat the rate on any calling card purchased outside that country. Or just use your phone, as mentioned above, it's most likely much cheaper than going through the calling card too.
A calling card is a backup for when your cell phone doesn't work, which in my experience was pretty often. My phone barely worked in Vietnam and Malaysia and much of China at the locations I was staying. Cheap call shops are not always readily available in all locations and if you travel on business trips like I do, you may not have time to find one. As for their cost, calling cards can be very cost effective. I've gotten rates of $0.25-1.35/minute which ain't cheap but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than my cell phone.
I was usually able to find an internet cafe in most big cities and rural areas typically lack net access.
Rural areas in the countries you list (except parts of Vietnam) certainly do not lack net access, unless you mean places that actually have no people in them.
Ummm, yeah they do lack net access (FOR TRAVELERS) just like they do anywhere else in the world. Sure internet access is usually around but it's not (usually) a matter of simply whipping out your laptop any old place. Not to mention firewalled countries like China where even "good" access is quite slow. There was no free wifi at the local coffee shops near where I stayed. For that matter there were often no coffee shops either. Even where it is available, it might not be (and often isn't) convenient. You might have access through your phone but that's location dependent and potentially pricey. Some of the countries I was in did in fact have reasonably accessible internet access, some didn't. I could find my way online through hotels, internet cafes, and a few other ways often enough to stay in touch with home but it wasn't always easy. Usually it was available enough unless I was out in the countryside, which happened pretty often.
I've been to China, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and all over Mexico and Canada. While tempted I'd generally recommend leaving the laptop at home unless you have a specific need for it. They're heavy and generally redundant. I was usually able to find an internet cafe in most big cities and rural areas typically lack net access. I took:
Camera (digital's better but whatever you've got is fine)
Extra batteries
GSM cell phone. If it can do email that's a nice bonus. (borrow/rent CDMA if you are in a country without GSM)
Notepad & pencil/pen
Currency for the countries you are visiting (airport/hotel conversion rates are expensive) plus some US$.
Some books to read on plane/bus/train
Small solar calculator (for negotiations if you need to buys something and don't speak the language)
A compact language guide and/or travel guide (optional though)
Some sleep aids, especially if you are radically changing time zones
Some medicine for gastro-intestinal distress. Trust me on this one. Odds are good you'll need it.
Any important medical records as well as contact information for local embassies.
The address of your hotel and the nearest airport written in the local language (for cab drivers)
iPod if you can't live without your tunes - I left mine at home usually
Universal power adapter/converters (use USB as much as possible to reduce cords
GPS with correct maps if appropriate to the trip
An international calling card with at least 500 minutes
You'll notice that there isn't much technology on there. Generally you'll need it far less than you might think. You're not likely to talk on your cell phone much since rates overseas are usually US$1-$4 per minute. Email is better so get the most compact email system (smartphones or cellphone/pda with bluetooth are great) you can manage. Don't depend on it working though because it might not. Generally avoid the any beverages that don't come sealed (including water and ice). Take a few snacks you know you like but be aware of local customs regulations. (don't take fruit, veggies or meat)
Otherwise have fun. Traveling overseas is a blast.
Google may be rich, but they are nowhere near big enough to bankrupt Viacom. Viacom has a revenue of over $9.6 Billion USD, whilst Google has $10.6 Billion (according to Wikipedia), but this isn't the case of a smaller firm trying to sue a giant. If anything, Viacom, as a conglomerate, will probably have greater cash reserve and certainly has more assets which can be sold off in the event of it needing more cash.
Google may be rich, but they are nowhere near big enough to bankrupt Viacom.
You're right that Google can't bankrupt Viacom via a lawsuit. Viacom is a big company with a reasonably strong balance sheet. Viacom's market cap is about $27B and Viacom has roughly $700M in cash and $7.65B in debt. No where near as strong a balance sheet as Google, but plenty to fund a big lawsuit. That said, Google has a market cap of $138B, $11.2B in cash and zero debt. Google would have to take on debt or do a stock swap to buy Viacom but since Google cash worth almost 50% of Viacom's market cap, Google could purchase Viacom if the deal was offered. I can't imagine Google doing this because it would be really stupid (IMO) for a lot of reasons but I'm just pointing out it is possible.
I know nothing of the particulars of this lawsuit but if I was a Google shareholder (I'm not) I would be worried. Even the most airtight lawsuit still can go the wrong way in front of a jury. I've never met a (responsible) lawyer who would claim there is better than a 90% chance of victory in any case. Google obviously knew Youtube was lawsuit bait when they bought them so they are potentially staking the entire enterprise on a lawsuit (or series of them) which doesn't strike me as responsible even if they think they are likely to prevail. If Google loses, Viacom will not be the last media company to sue Google. There is potentially a lot of upside for Google if they win but that is hardly assured. I suspect this will end up settled since both sides have a lot to lose if the lawsuit goes the wrong way and a lot to gain through cooperation.
It's fun to ponder and an interesting combination but it will never happen unless both the management of Apple and Intel both suffer severe brain aneurysms. Why? Culture and the difficulties of vertical integration. Also, if you want to see the dangers of vertical integration, look no further than Sun and SGI. If you are really big like IBM it's possible to be a soup to nuts vendor but even then it is rare. IBM after all just got out of the PC business which is Apple's core market. It's just really hard for management to competently deliver every aspect of the product. It's not impossible but it is really really really hard.
Regarding culture, Intel has a notoriously combative culture. Intel's products are generally high quality but they aren't consumer products. Intel doesn't have consumer DNA in them really. Their products are for vendors and techies. Kind of like Nutra-sweet, they've mastered the "branded ingredient" strategy (i.e. "Intel Inside" and Centrino) but they don't really sell to consumers directly. You don't buy an Intel PC, you buy a Dell or HP with "Intel Inside". Apple conversely is one of the best at designing elegant consumer products but doesn't really work deeply with other vendors since most of their sales are to consumers. If Apple had to work with other computer vendors in a big way in all likelihood most of the magic of their products would be lost. Both companies have engineers, salespeople, marketing, and company structures to support these VERY different strategies. It would be a herculean task to make the two companies work well together.
Noon is supposedly the time when the sun is at its highest point, meaning half the daylight is gone. Schedules vary but for most of us noon is not actually the middle of the day. Personally I wake around 7 most days and go to bed around 10-11. I don't dictate this, the companies I work with/for determine the hours of operation. For those keeping score that is ~5 hours before noon and ~10 after noon. (and no getting up earlier isn't really an option for me) It's just a lot nicer to have as many daylight hours as possible in the evening for exercise, errands, socializing, whatever... Cost savings are nice but I really am more interested in the quality of life. YMMV but I'm quite sure I'm not the only one judging by other comments. Daylight Saving Time just recognizes the reality that our schedules differ from the arbitrarily chosen noon time.
A work can be checked out from a library without anyone making any illegal copies.
Exactly my point. Also a mp3 file can be played from a remote computer without anyone making any illegal copies. I do this from my server all the time. Libraries also provide copy machines if we are going to be pedantic. The point is that there are legal and illegal uses for ALL technologies. Simply utilizing P2P software is not inherently illegal even though it frequently (alright usually) is used for purposes of copyright infringement. P2P software is not logically any different than an FTP site hosting those same files found via Google. More convenient perhaps but it's the same process. Should P2P or ftp sites be illegal? Of course not. Could it be abused for copyright infringement? Already has been. Is "making files available" knowing that they may be used for potential copyright infringement? No more so than a library allowing books to be borrowed. There are only two differences. The first is economic as there is almost no marginal cost to copying a computer file whereas copying a book or CD has significantly higher economic cost. The second is accountability in that a library has your name and address and could provide this to the legal authorities under appropriate circumstances whereas most P2P system have little/no accountability controls. Otherwise the principles at stake are exactly the same in either case.
The problem as I see it is that copyright law has permitted a relatively small group of companies to control distribution for an entire class of media. These companies have profited and while you can argue the ethics of their behavior, the law generally permits them to do what they do. But the world has changed. Authors, muscicians, book publishers, the RIAA members and the MPAA members made their business models primarily on selling discrete bits of paper and plastic rather than licensing rights. That works ok in a world where distribution has a tangible cost but technology has undercut that business model and copyright hasn't yet adjusted to that new reality. We're still writing the rules for the digital age. Should the new rules be written to favor these industry cartels or some other group? That's what this whole discussion is about. No one should be surprised at their behavior but if you feel strongly about it support those organizations (like the EFF) who are trying to get sensible rules written.
Copy, in this context, doesn't mean "to duplicate".
Sure it does. Granted I'm tremendously simplifying and there are a lot of details and nuances to the issue. But it really just comes down to who is allowed to copy a work (including derivative forms) and distribute said work. In its simplest form that is all copyright entails. No more, no less.
Let's break the word down. We have "copy" meaning to make a duplicate of and "right" meaning the creator retains some rights regarding who can make and distribute those copies. What could copyright possibly have to do with making a work available? Libraries make works available. Has nothing to do with copyright infringement. Likewise Google makes works available but it just points out where they are. Are we seriously entertaining the notion that a figurative card catalog is copyright infringement?
I understand people wanting to protect their copyrights. Despite some of the excesses that have arisen, copyright is a good thing. But this sort of lawsuit is just a waste of everyone's time, energy and money in addition to being a blatant power grab. I guess I shouldn't be amazed at how low some people will stoop for a dollar.
I would be 7 kinds of mad if anyone was using gmail and IM in my office. We work with NATO restricted data. *Everything* requires appropriate handling. E-mail is carefully fenced and the IM service is encrypted.
Solid-state drives could be considered a crackpot idea for two reasons: first because regular hard drive technology is insanely cheaper than solid-state and it looks like it will continue that way.
Absolutely true but possibly irrelevant depending on the application. For applications where $/megabyte is the overriding concern hard drives are going to remain the way to go for the near future. But for applications like laptops where other concerns like weight, shock resistance, and boot speed are important I think you'll find people willing to pay a premium for those features. After all if $/megabyte was the only concern anyone had we'd still be using tape drives which beat hard drive by a wide margin even today. Honestly I only need about 40-60GB of drive space on my work laptop and I would happily pay a little extra for a solid state drive. I doubt I'm the only one.
Second because for most desktop systems solid state drives are patently unsuitable because of their relatively low rewrite limits compared to standard drives -- most flash chips are only reliable up to 500,000 rewrites, if that sounds like a lot to you, try using flash for your swap partition on your desktop, you're lucky if you can get two years out of it, I'd estimate more like 6 months.
If you don't have enough RAM, yeah this might be a problem. I think 6 months is rather pessimistic but your point remains that the drive wearing out is a potential concern. But solid state drives are really going to find their applications in mobile devices first. Desktop machines will probably use traditional hard drives for the near future. The only real advantage to them with flash that most people care about is faster boot times. People will use the technology that has the best trade-offs of cost versus features. Right now it's hard drives but solid state storage is catching up in a lot of applications.
Some of these are great ideas but the technology is in the (possibly distant) future (i.e. superconductivity at room temp) or are government/corporate desires that will be resisted until their more intrusive/abusive issues are addressed (ebooks, total information awareness).
The only ones I see that are near term likely and widely relevant:
2. Solid-state drives Already here in some applications. Just needs a touch more capacity (I think around 32GB is the tipping point) and economies of scale to bring the price to reasonable levels. This will have a tremendous impact on laptops enabling them to be smaller, lighter and more durable. I would love to replace my laptop hard drive with something solid state. Damn thing is fragile enough as it is.
3. Autonomic computing Think about all the spam, viruses, etc. We're already building what amounts to an immune system for our computer networks. It just needs to become a little more automated and clever. IBM is actually right in that it will be an incremental addition to existing technologies. It's not going to be a top-down mandated thing but rather a collection of technologies to deal with specific issues which (ideally) can work with each other.
4. DC Power I've wondered for some time why we don't have a standardized DC outlet for home use. Have 1 big efficient transformer instead of 50 little inefficient power bricks. The downside is that you are introducing a single point of failure but it's a well understood and pretty reliable technology. Every circuit board requires DC anyway so why not have a standard DC along side AC in the house or office? May require some government assistance and/or standards organizations to make it work but it's a good idea. I'm pretty sure we'll see this in data centers sooner rather than later if the power savings really are there.
8. Desktop web applications Gmail and web calendaring have made their way into my every day tool chest. It's only natural that we'll start to make these applications more accessible via traditional applications.
I believe they'll have a harder time now with the tired old mantra 'There's no customer demand for Linux.'
Maybe but as a business owner I can tell you that what people say they want and what they are actually willing to fork over money for are often very different things. Dell does $60 billion in revenue annually which means Dell needs a huge number of people to buy linux equipped machines for it to be worth the investment. To keep Wall Street happy they'll need to grow around 14% next year. (very rough growth estimate based on year over year quarterly revenue growth) That means Dell needs to find about $8.4 BILLION in new sales next year or their stock goes in the crapper. Is there enough demand for linux to be a substantial part of that growth? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. Dell offering linux is really just them buying an option in case linux really takes off in the market. Probably worth doing but I wouldn't expect Dell to really push the issue.
Please don't get me wrong. I hope Dell hits a home run by pre-installing linux. I think it would be great for consumers. I'm just pointing out that what people say they want and what they actually buy are very often not at all the same. I'm sure Dell would be thrilled to not have to fork over giga-bucks to Microsoft but I doubt they are counting on it happening.
I've read the TFA and I'm not really sure what they are accusing IBM of doing. Microsoft has a de-facto standard format that provides them a competitive marketplace advantage. Microsoft is attempting to get parts of it put through a standards organization supposedly as a token of good faith towards interoperability. Presumably the motivation for this is to head off widespread adoption of a more open format by parties (governments for example) in a position to do so.
Some randomly selected points from TFA.
In fact, Office has long supported multiple formats.
True but irrelevant since the others are rarely used and everyone (but especially Microsoft) knows it is the default format that matters.
The specification enables implementation of the standard on multiple operating systems and in heterogeneous environments, and it provides backward compatibility with billions of existing documents.
Billions? Maybe that is technically true but Microsoft's record on backwards compatibility isn't great even within their own product suites. I'm pretty dubious that with OpenXML all my old Word documents will convert with perfect formatting. I'm even more dubious that OpenXML will be be read/write with perfect formatting in other applications. It's a 6000 page specification after all and I'm quite sure there is plenty of ambiguity even if the attempt to specify everything was a good faith effort. And with only 30 days to review all 6000 pages I'm not confident it will be evaluated with a satisfactory level of scrutiny.
Open XML should not even be considered on its technical merits because a competing standard had already been adopted.
OK. Let's assume that IBM is being a bad guy here. It's possible. Wouldn't be the first time. Is there something about ECMA International" that prohibits competing standards? Honest question, I don't really know. If not Microsoft is entitled to complain. But on the other hand the process is moving forward and there is little doubt it will be approved in due time. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to why I should care if IBM was obstructive, even assuming they were? IBM is one of the few companies that really isn't especially beholden to Microsoft's monopoly power so I'd expect them to be a bit more prickly. Let me be clear, for me to trust Microsoft I will need to see a lot more than a format approved by a standards body to believe they are going to compete openly and fairly in the marketplace. This is a company convicted in a court of law of abusing their monopoly power to the detriment of consumers. Implicitly trusting them is foolish.
how many businesses do you know, outside the aviation industry, that receive regular funding from the government?
Oil, farming, auto (roads), space (NASA), rail (AMTRAK), the defense industry, telecom, utilities,... Do I need to go on? The government subsidizes most industries to some extent and some (defense and farming among others) to a very large extent. Sometimes it's grants, sometimes it's in the form of tax relief, sometimes its as a customer but the government funds a huge variety of industries.
This is just a new application of automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS). They've been around for quite some time in warehousing applications, particularly for manufacturing and libraries. They're particularly useful when dense storage of a wide variety of items is needed. They can be quite secure since you only have to control access to the user terminal to control what goes in or out. They also are generally very reliable and easy to use.
The downsides? All that automation is pretty expensive. Unless one has fairly specific needs there usually are cheaper and simpler alternatives. There also is the risk of breakdowns and regular maintenance is of course required. Power outages obviously will shut the system down and prevent access. The biggest problem though is that if one isn't careful about data entry regarding where things are stored, doing physical inventory and finding lost items can be a BIG problem. If you say the item is in bin 6A and it's really in bin 7C, there is generally no easy way to find it other than searching bin by bin. Not fun even on a small AS/RS system. RFID and barcoding can help in some cases but it's still a serious challenge.
True, but most volunteer OSS programmers already have these things (paid for by the day job),the marginal capital cost of participating in OSS is negligible.
You're missing the main point. At no point did I mention that the capital costs of software development were necessarily high, though they certainly can be. I said quite explicitly that programming is NOT a capital intensive endeavor, whether we're talking proprietary or open-source. The point was that is is not free (as in beer) as the original poster claimed. Even if the marginal cost of participating is small, the time for that participation is paid for by someone, somewhere. Whether it be a for-profit business or volunteer work is beside the point. Someone had to fork over real money for that development to occur. It might not be you (as the programmer) ponying up the capital but the point is that it wasn't free either.
The beauty of software is that it takes no capital to develop it...
While I don't have any issue with the rest of your post, this sentence is just ludicrously wrong. While it's true that software development is labor intensive rather than capital intensive it is completely wrong to say software development requires no capital. This is true even for open source software. Computers, electricity, shelter (for the programmer), food, etc are not free. You might volunteer your time to an open source project, but you are the one donating the capital instead of an employer. There is no free lunch. Someone else simply picked up the tab.
The beauty of open source for corporations is that someone else spends much or even all of the capital for development. Instead of IBM having to outlay the capital to develop linux in order to sell services, they can simply provide services. Companies like RedHat invests in linux development as a loss leader so that they can sell assorted linux services while maintaining a competitively advantageous position in the market. But the point is that someone, somewhere is paying for development.
However, this also means that some YouTube content will now be sold, which detracts from one of the allures it has always had, which was that all content was free and accessible.
Why would "some YouTube content" being sold make it less alluring? I'm genuinely curious. What (theoretically) prevents you from using it for all the things you use it for now? There's no inherent reason the paid content couldn't just be an addition to the free stuff without detracting from it. Sure they might screw it up but it's all hypothetical at this point anyway. YouTube can't exist indefinitely without some way to pay the bills. Google's so far got a decent track record for integrating paid & non-paid content in non-irritating ways.
I'm by no means an expert in string theory. I barely grasp the basic concepts. However I am an engineer who has taken a LOT of physics classes over the years and I'm not completely ignorant either.
String theory has always struck me as a modern day version of epicycles before it was realized that planets follow ellipses instead of circles. It just seems like we're trying to fit the math to the model instead of modifying the model so that the math makes sense. Add in the fact that it makes no testable predictions (not yet anyway) and it's bordering on not being science anymore. Maybe technology advances will change that but then again maybe not.
Maybe string theory is right, I don't honestly know. But it seems like a lot of group think is going on and little progress is being made.
The simple shocking ugly truth is that 90% of the problems in the IT industry are caused specifically because of proprietary crap being rammed down peoples throat. Get rid of copyrights and patents (which are a fradulent property right and incentive to begin with), and this problem would be solved in 5 seconds flat.
This is flamebait but the sentiments are common enough to be worth responding to.
Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are not evil. Are they perfect? Of course not. They can be abused like any other rules. But without them you have a situation like that in China where IP is barely respected. Without IP laws it is virtually impossible to do anything innovative because there is little economic incentive to do anything novel. Create something profitable and you'll have thousands of knockoffs quickly follow. There is no value in being first.
Proprietary software isn't necessarily bad if someone is willing to pay for it. It should be a choice as much as possible but if someone is adding value with a proprietary solution (and not overcharging) that's not a bad thing. The problem comes when a proprietary solution controls basic infrastructure and utilities. (ala Windows) Then you have a serious problem that really can hamper innovation.
Are there problems with the current patent/copyright regime? Sure. They've been discussed here to death. Patent terms are FAR too long given the pace of the industry. Defensive patent portfolios are a serious issue. "Business process" patents are an abomination. Patents are granted on things like software where copyright is more appropriate. Copyright terms are ridiculously long and too supportive of corporate interests. Lots of problems. But they also create a lot of incentive for very productive and innovative work that would otherwise not exist.
"But open source will fix this" goes the cry. No it won't. Open source doesn't do away with basic economic principles. All open source does is shift where is is possible to make a profit to arenas which (hopefully) are less damaging to society. It's a good thing but it not only doesn't eliminate the need for IP, open source (in the GPL definition at least) depends on copyright laws for its very existence.
A patent is only useful if you have the money to defend the patent in court. Same with a trademark or copyright. Without lots of cash a patent is an empty threat.
The Zune is basically Microsoft trying to "Netscape" Apple. A huge percentage of Apples sales and profits these days come from the iPod. This not only benefits Apple's iPod "division" but it also funds development of the Macintosh, OS X and all the other goodies Apple is involved in. If Microsoft can hurt iPod sales, they limit Apple's ability to intrude on the marketshare of Windows. Microsoft is getting into this market as a hedge and to hurt a competitor. When you've got almost as much cash as your competitor's market cap, you can afford a lot of pain to protect your key products.
Microsoft got into the Xbox for much the same reason. While they would like it to be profitable, a huge part of the reason they got into the market was to prevent Sony, Nintendo and Sega from supplanting the PC as the main computing device in the household. If the PS3 could replace your PC and doesn't have Windows, that's not a future Microsoft wants.
Remember that even now, virtually all Microsoft's profits come from Windows and Office. While they'd like to diversify their revenue, they also are going to do everything possible to protect those product lines.
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Not in Japan obviously, but in the other countries, if you buy a local SIM card, you'll be paying less than 25 cents per minute to call the USA. Here in Malaysia it was 2.5 cents/minute for direct-dialed calls to the USA last year; sadly they doubled it to $0.05 on January 1.
Of course not. But I'd rather not whip out my rather nice cell phone in certain locations such as an outdoor market when it is raining. (don't laugh I've had it happen) I'd rather have a tiny junk calculator that weighs nothing. YMMV. You said it yourself, some people don't have travel friendly banks. I happen to be one of them unfortunately. (yes I have good reasons for this) ATMs can be a great option and paying with credit cards can be too. ATMs are often but not always available right at the airport however and if you take a cab you'd better have a way to pay. Having cash ahead of time is hardly a chump move. I know a local bank where I live which does cash exchanges for reasonable rates. Use what you have available.That's got to be the most expensive way of calling home short of launching your own satellite. There are cheap call shops everywhere that will beat the rate on any calling card purchased outside that country. Or just use your phone, as mentioned above, it's most likely much cheaper than going through the calling card too.
A calling card is a backup for when your cell phone doesn't work, which in my experience was pretty often. My phone barely worked in Vietnam and Malaysia and much of China at the locations I was staying. Cheap call shops are not always readily available in all locations and if you travel on business trips like I do, you may not have time to find one. As for their cost, calling cards can be very cost effective. I've gotten rates of $0.25-1.35/minute which ain't cheap but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than my cell phone.Rural areas in the countries you list (except parts of Vietnam) certainly do not lack net access, unless you mean places that actually have no people in them.
Ummm, yeah they do lack net access (FOR TRAVELERS) just like they do anywhere else in the world. Sure internet access is usually around but it's not (usually) a matter of simply whipping out your laptop any old place. Not to mention firewalled countries like China where even "good" access is quite slow. There was no free wifi at the local coffee shops near where I stayed. For that matter there were often no coffee shops either. Even where it is available, it might not be (and often isn't) convenient. You might have access through your phone but that's location dependent and potentially pricey. Some of the countries I was in did in fact have reasonably accessible internet access, some didn't. I could find my way online through hotels, internet cafes, and a few other ways often enough to stay in touch with home but it wasn't always easy. Usually it was available enough unless I was out in the countryside, which happened pretty often.You'll notice that there isn't much technology on there. Generally you'll need it far less than you might think. You're not likely to talk on your cell phone much since rates overseas are usually US$1-$4 per minute. Email is better so get the most compact email system (smartphones or cellphone/pda with bluetooth are great) you can manage. Don't depend on it working though because it might not. Generally avoid the any beverages that don't come sealed (including water and ice). Take a few snacks you know you like but be aware of local customs regulations. (don't take fruit, veggies or meat)
Otherwise have fun. Traveling overseas is a blast.
You're right that Google can't bankrupt Viacom via a lawsuit. Viacom is a big company with a reasonably strong balance sheet. Viacom's market cap is about $27B and Viacom has roughly $700M in cash and $7.65B in debt. No where near as strong a balance sheet as Google, but plenty to fund a big lawsuit. That said, Google has a market cap of $138B, $11.2B in cash and zero debt. Google would have to take on debt or do a stock swap to buy Viacom but since Google cash worth almost 50% of Viacom's market cap, Google could purchase Viacom if the deal was offered. I can't imagine Google doing this because it would be really stupid (IMO) for a lot of reasons but I'm just pointing out it is possible.
I know nothing of the particulars of this lawsuit but if I was a Google shareholder (I'm not) I would be worried. Even the most airtight lawsuit still can go the wrong way in front of a jury. I've never met a (responsible) lawyer who would claim there is better than a 90% chance of victory in any case. Google obviously knew Youtube was lawsuit bait when they bought them so they are potentially staking the entire enterprise on a lawsuit (or series of them) which doesn't strike me as responsible even if they think they are likely to prevail. If Google loses, Viacom will not be the last media company to sue Google. There is potentially a lot of upside for Google if they win but that is hardly assured. I suspect this will end up settled since both sides have a lot to lose if the lawsuit goes the wrong way and a lot to gain through cooperation.
Whatever happens it will be interesting to watch.
It's fun to ponder and an interesting combination but it will never happen unless both the management of Apple and Intel both suffer severe brain aneurysms. Why? Culture and the difficulties of vertical integration. Also, if you want to see the dangers of vertical integration, look no further than Sun and SGI. If you are really big like IBM it's possible to be a soup to nuts vendor but even then it is rare. IBM after all just got out of the PC business which is Apple's core market. It's just really hard for management to competently deliver every aspect of the product. It's not impossible but it is really really really hard.
Regarding culture, Intel has a notoriously combative culture. Intel's products are generally high quality but they aren't consumer products. Intel doesn't have consumer DNA in them really. Their products are for vendors and techies. Kind of like Nutra-sweet, they've mastered the "branded ingredient" strategy (i.e. "Intel Inside" and Centrino) but they don't really sell to consumers directly. You don't buy an Intel PC, you buy a Dell or HP with "Intel Inside". Apple conversely is one of the best at designing elegant consumer products but doesn't really work deeply with other vendors since most of their sales are to consumers. If Apple had to work with other computer vendors in a big way in all likelihood most of the magic of their products would be lost. Both companies have engineers, salespeople, marketing, and company structures to support these VERY different strategies. It would be a herculean task to make the two companies work well together.
Noon is supposedly the time when the sun is at its highest point, meaning half the daylight is gone. Schedules vary but for most of us noon is not actually the middle of the day. Personally I wake around 7 most days and go to bed around 10-11. I don't dictate this, the companies I work with/for determine the hours of operation. For those keeping score that is ~5 hours before noon and ~10 after noon. (and no getting up earlier isn't really an option for me) It's just a lot nicer to have as many daylight hours as possible in the evening for exercise, errands, socializing, whatever... Cost savings are nice but I really am more interested in the quality of life. YMMV but I'm quite sure I'm not the only one judging by other comments. Daylight Saving Time just recognizes the reality that our schedules differ from the arbitrarily chosen noon time.
Exactly my point. Also a mp3 file can be played from a remote computer without anyone making any illegal copies. I do this from my server all the time. Libraries also provide copy machines if we are going to be pedantic. The point is that there are legal and illegal uses for ALL technologies. Simply utilizing P2P software is not inherently illegal even though it frequently (alright usually) is used for purposes of copyright infringement. P2P software is not logically any different than an FTP site hosting those same files found via Google. More convenient perhaps but it's the same process. Should P2P or ftp sites be illegal? Of course not. Could it be abused for copyright infringement? Already has been. Is "making files available" knowing that they may be used for potential copyright infringement? No more so than a library allowing books to be borrowed. There are only two differences. The first is economic as there is almost no marginal cost to copying a computer file whereas copying a book or CD has significantly higher economic cost. The second is accountability in that a library has your name and address and could provide this to the legal authorities under appropriate circumstances whereas most P2P system have little/no accountability controls. Otherwise the principles at stake are exactly the same in either case.
The problem as I see it is that copyright law has permitted a relatively small group of companies to control distribution for an entire class of media. These companies have profited and while you can argue the ethics of their behavior, the law generally permits them to do what they do. But the world has changed. Authors, muscicians, book publishers, the RIAA members and the MPAA members made their business models primarily on selling discrete bits of paper and plastic rather than licensing rights. That works ok in a world where distribution has a tangible cost but technology has undercut that business model and copyright hasn't yet adjusted to that new reality. We're still writing the rules for the digital age. Should the new rules be written to favor these industry cartels or some other group? That's what this whole discussion is about. No one should be surprised at their behavior but if you feel strongly about it support those organizations (like the EFF) who are trying to get sensible rules written.
Sure it does. Granted I'm tremendously simplifying and there are a lot of details and nuances to the issue. But it really just comes down to who is allowed to copy a work (including derivative forms) and distribute said work. In its simplest form that is all copyright entails. No more, no less.
Let's break the word down. We have "copy" meaning to make a duplicate of and "right" meaning the creator retains some rights regarding who can make and distribute those copies. What could copyright possibly have to do with making a work available? Libraries make works available. Has nothing to do with copyright infringement. Likewise Google makes works available but it just points out where they are. Are we seriously entertaining the notion that a figurative card catalog is copyright infringement?
I understand people wanting to protect their copyrights. Despite some of the excesses that have arisen, copyright is a good thing. But this sort of lawsuit is just a waste of everyone's time, energy and money in addition to being a blatant power grab. I guess I shouldn't be amazed at how low some people will stoop for a dollar.
Could these articles be any more annoying to read?
They painstakingly
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pull data
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off the
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damaged drive
Sure they can. They can fire you.
But apparently slashdot is totally kosher...
Absolutely true but possibly irrelevant depending on the application. For applications where $/megabyte is the overriding concern hard drives are going to remain the way to go for the near future. But for applications like laptops where other concerns like weight, shock resistance, and boot speed are important I think you'll find people willing to pay a premium for those features. After all if $/megabyte was the only concern anyone had we'd still be using tape drives which beat hard drive by a wide margin even today. Honestly I only need about 40-60GB of drive space on my work laptop and I would happily pay a little extra for a solid state drive. I doubt I'm the only one.
If you don't have enough RAM, yeah this might be a problem. I think 6 months is rather pessimistic but your point remains that the drive wearing out is a potential concern. But solid state drives are really going to find their applications in mobile devices first. Desktop machines will probably use traditional hard drives for the near future. The only real advantage to them with flash that most people care about is faster boot times. People will use the technology that has the best trade-offs of cost versus features. Right now it's hard drives but solid state storage is catching up in a lot of applications.
Some of these are great ideas but the technology is in the (possibly distant) future (i.e. superconductivity at room temp) or are government/corporate desires that will be resisted until their more intrusive/abusive issues are addressed (ebooks, total information awareness).
The only ones I see that are near term likely and widely relevant:
2. Solid-state drives
Already here in some applications. Just needs a touch more capacity (I think around 32GB is the tipping point) and economies of scale to bring the price to reasonable levels. This will have a tremendous impact on laptops enabling them to be smaller, lighter and more durable. I would love to replace my laptop hard drive with something solid state. Damn thing is fragile enough as it is.
3. Autonomic computing
Think about all the spam, viruses, etc. We're already building what amounts to an immune system for our computer networks. It just needs to become a little more automated and clever. IBM is actually right in that it will be an incremental addition to existing technologies. It's not going to be a top-down mandated thing but rather a collection of technologies to deal with specific issues which (ideally) can work with each other.
4. DC Power
I've wondered for some time why we don't have a standardized DC outlet for home use. Have 1 big efficient transformer instead of 50 little inefficient power bricks. The downside is that you are introducing a single point of failure but it's a well understood and pretty reliable technology. Every circuit board requires DC anyway so why not have a standard DC along side AC in the house or office? May require some government assistance and/or standards organizations to make it work but it's a good idea. I'm pretty sure we'll see this in data centers sooner rather than later if the power savings really are there.
8. Desktop web applications
Gmail and web calendaring have made their way into my every day tool chest. It's only natural that we'll start to make these applications more accessible via traditional applications.
Maybe but as a business owner I can tell you that what people say they want and what they are actually willing to fork over money for are often very different things. Dell does $60 billion in revenue annually which means Dell needs a huge number of people to buy linux equipped machines for it to be worth the investment. To keep Wall Street happy they'll need to grow around 14% next year. (very rough growth estimate based on year over year quarterly revenue growth) That means Dell needs to find about $8.4 BILLION in new sales next year or their stock goes in the crapper. Is there enough demand for linux to be a substantial part of that growth? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. Dell offering linux is really just them buying an option in case linux really takes off in the market. Probably worth doing but I wouldn't expect Dell to really push the issue.
Please don't get me wrong. I hope Dell hits a home run by pre-installing linux. I think it would be great for consumers. I'm just pointing out that what people say they want and what they actually buy are very often not at all the same. I'm sure Dell would be thrilled to not have to fork over giga-bucks to Microsoft but I doubt they are counting on it happening.
Some randomly selected points from TFA.
True but irrelevant since the others are rarely used and everyone (but especially Microsoft) knows it is the default format that matters.
Billions? Maybe that is technically true but Microsoft's record on backwards compatibility isn't great even within their own product suites. I'm pretty dubious that with OpenXML all my old Word documents will convert with perfect formatting. I'm even more dubious that OpenXML will be be read/write with perfect formatting in other applications. It's a 6000 page specification after all and I'm quite sure there is plenty of ambiguity even if the attempt to specify everything was a good faith effort. And with only 30 days to review all 6000 pages I'm not confident it will be evaluated with a satisfactory level of scrutiny.
OK. Let's assume that IBM is being a bad guy here. It's possible. Wouldn't be the first time. Is there something about ECMA International" that prohibits competing standards? Honest question, I don't really know. If not Microsoft is entitled to complain. But on the other hand the process is moving forward and there is little doubt it will be approved in due time. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to why I should care if IBM was obstructive, even assuming they were? IBM is one of the few companies that really isn't especially beholden to Microsoft's monopoly power so I'd expect them to be a bit more prickly. Let me be clear, for me to trust Microsoft I will need to see a lot more than a format approved by a standards body to believe they are going to compete openly and fairly in the marketplace. This is a company convicted in a court of law of abusing their monopoly power to the detriment of consumers. Implicitly trusting them is foolish.
Oil, farming, auto (roads), space (NASA), rail (AMTRAK), the defense industry, telecom, utilities,
This is just a new application of automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS). They've been around for quite some time in warehousing applications, particularly for manufacturing and libraries. They're particularly useful when dense storage of a wide variety of items is needed. They can be quite secure since you only have to control access to the user terminal to control what goes in or out. They also are generally very reliable and easy to use.
The downsides? All that automation is pretty expensive. Unless one has fairly specific needs there usually are cheaper and simpler alternatives. There also is the risk of breakdowns and regular maintenance is of course required. Power outages obviously will shut the system down and prevent access. The biggest problem though is that if one isn't careful about data entry regarding where things are stored, doing physical inventory and finding lost items can be a BIG problem. If you say the item is in bin 6A and it's really in bin 7C, there is generally no easy way to find it other than searching bin by bin. Not fun even on a small AS/RS system. RFID and barcoding can help in some cases but it's still a serious challenge.
The beauty of open source for corporations is that someone else spends much or even all of the capital for development. Instead of IBM having to outlay the capital to develop linux in order to sell services, they can simply provide services. Companies like RedHat invests in linux development as a loss leader so that they can sell assorted linux services while maintaining a competitively advantageous position in the market. But the point is that someone, somewhere is paying for development.
Why would "some YouTube content" being sold make it less alluring? I'm genuinely curious. What (theoretically) prevents you from using it for all the things you use it for now? There's no inherent reason the paid content couldn't just be an addition to the free stuff without detracting from it. Sure they might screw it up but it's all hypothetical at this point anyway. YouTube can't exist indefinitely without some way to pay the bills. Google's so far got a decent track record for integrating paid & non-paid content in non-irritating ways.
I'm by no means an expert in string theory. I barely grasp the basic concepts. However I am an engineer who has taken a LOT of physics classes over the years and I'm not completely ignorant either.
String theory has always struck me as a modern day version of epicycles before it was realized that planets follow ellipses instead of circles. It just seems like we're trying to fit the math to the model instead of modifying the model so that the math makes sense. Add in the fact that it makes no testable predictions (not yet anyway) and it's bordering on not being science anymore. Maybe technology advances will change that but then again maybe not.
Maybe string theory is right, I don't honestly know. But it seems like a lot of group think is going on and little progress is being made.
This is flamebait but the sentiments are common enough to be worth responding to.
Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are not evil. Are they perfect? Of course not. They can be abused like any other rules. But without them you have a situation like that in China where IP is barely respected. Without IP laws it is virtually impossible to do anything innovative because there is little economic incentive to do anything novel. Create something profitable and you'll have thousands of knockoffs quickly follow. There is no value in being first.
Proprietary software isn't necessarily bad if someone is willing to pay for it. It should be a choice as much as possible but if someone is adding value with a proprietary solution (and not overcharging) that's not a bad thing. The problem comes when a proprietary solution controls basic infrastructure and utilities. (ala Windows) Then you have a serious problem that really can hamper innovation.
Are there problems with the current patent/copyright regime? Sure. They've been discussed here to death. Patent terms are FAR too long given the pace of the industry. Defensive patent portfolios are a serious issue. "Business process" patents are an abomination. Patents are granted on things like software where copyright is more appropriate. Copyright terms are ridiculously long and too supportive of corporate interests. Lots of problems. But they also create a lot of incentive for very productive and innovative work that would otherwise not exist.
"But open source will fix this" goes the cry. No it won't. Open source doesn't do away with basic economic principles. All open source does is shift where is is possible to make a profit to arenas which (hopefully) are less damaging to society. It's a good thing but it not only doesn't eliminate the need for IP, open source (in the GPL definition at least) depends on copyright laws for its very existence.
A patent is only useful if you have the money to defend the patent in court. Same with a trademark or copyright. Without lots of cash a patent is an empty threat.
Using RFID to track where things are. Those folks are CRAZY! CRAZY I tell you...
The Zune is basically Microsoft trying to "Netscape" Apple. A huge percentage of Apples sales and profits these days come from the iPod. This not only benefits Apple's iPod "division" but it also funds development of the Macintosh, OS X and all the other goodies Apple is involved in. If Microsoft can hurt iPod sales, they limit Apple's ability to intrude on the marketshare of Windows. Microsoft is getting into this market as a hedge and to hurt a competitor. When you've got almost as much cash as your competitor's market cap, you can afford a lot of pain to protect your key products.
Microsoft got into the Xbox for much the same reason. While they would like it to be profitable, a huge part of the reason they got into the market was to prevent Sony, Nintendo and Sega from supplanting the PC as the main computing device in the household. If the PS3 could replace your PC and doesn't have Windows, that's not a future Microsoft wants.
Remember that even now, virtually all Microsoft's profits come from Windows and Office. While they'd like to diversify their revenue, they also are going to do everything possible to protect those product lines.