One of the big hopes of the ESA Galileo system is better accuracy than the current GPS system. If they can get out of the box accuracy under three meters it will make it possible to have Galileo-guided "total blind" landing and takeoff systems that is unfazed by visibility limitations such as rain and fog, not to mention very accurate landing pattern guidance to avoid controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) crashes that plague airports in mountainous areas.
I'm surprised that no one has tried until now to create a standard for the kilogram that could be repeated easily like atomic measurement of the length of a meter and the computation of a second of time based on the resonance frequency of a caesium atom.
If they succeed, we can get a reference standard for a kilogram that can be easily generated for scientific research.
I think it's obvious that the merger of the cellphone and PDA has been going on for some time.
After all, the Handspring Treo incorporates the function of the Handspring Visor PDA into a GSM-compatible cellphone; Samsung last year released a cellphone with similar features.
I expect within 2-3 years many high-end cellphones will be like the T-Mobile Sidekick, with full PDA functions complete with small keyboard on one unit with a separate headset; it will sport Bluetooth functions that allow the unit to operate in a Bluetooth-equipped automobile in a true hands-free fashion.
Re:High-efficiency automobile lighting?
on
Mastering Light
·
· Score: 1
A windsheild that converts infrared to visible light. No need for headlights!
In theory that would be great except that IR night vision can be blocked. The military found out that certain types of chemical smoke blocks the IR radiation from any source behind the smoke, and they use these smoke screens to protect tanks from being detected at night.
This research could point the way for automotive lighting systems that are far more efficient than today's lights but use a tiny fraction of its power.
Already, we've seen LED taillights on a number of cars such as the Nissan Skyline (as the Infiniti G35 is known in most of the world). This research could lead to LED-based automobile headlights that are just as bright as the high-intensity discharge (HID) xenon headlights found on more expensive automobiles but doesn't need the expensive power generating system HID headlights now need and uses a tiny fraction of the power needed for regular headlights. Other lighting systems such as fog lights could benefit from these new technologies, too.
I can say right now that both Boeing and Airbus Industrie have their own in-house wind tunnels that can do model testing of new airplanes. In fact, Germany's DASA--now part of the EADS group that includes Airbus Industrie--has excellent scale-model wind tunnels that were used to verify the aerodynamic design of the upcoming Airbus A380 super jumbo jet.
Between that and today's supercomputers that can do large-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) very accurately, small wonder why large wind tunnels are falling out of favor. A 500-600 machine setup running Linux with Beowulf clustering right now can do pretty good CFD computations--and it's cheap to build such a system, too.
However, some of the Amtrak reformers have the right idea. Abandoning the long-distance lines (which attract 20% of the riders but have 80% of the costs) and increasing the regional networks.
I think this is a GREAT idea, especially for cities east of the Mississippi, where the distances between large population centers are quite a bit closer. Amtrak should pour in as much money as possible to turn the entire Northeast Corridor line from Boston to Washington, DC into a true high-speed line with its own dedicated right of way; this will allow Acela trains to possibly lower times between New York and Boston and New York and Washington, DC by 40 minutes or more.
Here in California, they could use the money saved from no long supporting long-distance trains to upgrading the Capitols (San Jose to Roseville) and San Joaquin (Oakland to Bakersfield) operations so the lines they run on are true dual-track operations with full CTC control. This will allow much faster operations and also increase the number of passenger trains running on these lines--along with the benefit of less interference from freight trains that use these lines also.
I think there are two reasons why the American method of transport end up like it is now:
1. Americans love to be able to go anywhere easily on vacation. With America's highly-efficient road system most of the USA is well within reach of 4-5 day's drive.
2. Truckers love it because it allows a massive amount of goods to be shipped anywhere in a matter of days. Why do you think Wal-Mart maintains such a huge fleet of trucks?
3. The USA is a very large country for the Lower 48 states, with considerable distances between population centers especially west of the Mississippi River. Small wonder why road systems developed so rapidly, because they often went places beyond the reach of the railroads.
1. While the original subway system used steam-powered trains, the problem of pollution from the steam engine exhaust and asphyxiation problems was a major impetus to electrify all the Underground lines by 1920.
2. Because the Underground could travel quite a bit faster than streetcars, their reach from the center of London is considerable. Many of the far-flung suburbs of London grew up around these Underground line extensions (frequently running above ground beyond the London city center).
I believe that London is kind of unique for building a heavy mass transit system on dedicated lines on a large scale well before the widespread use of automobiles.
I think for a true car-free city to work, it has to be reasonably compact.
Take for example Tokyo and New York City. The actual amount of land used in the center city is quite small, small enough that walking or using a mass-transit system becomes quite viable.
You definitely cannot do that in Los Angeles, that's to be sure--it's so spread out that you'll need exorbitant amounts of money to build a mass transit system the cover the whole Los Angeles Basin.
Note that in the case of London, England, the Underground subway system got there first before motor vehicle traffic because London HAD to build something to alleviate the horrible street-level traffic of horse-drawn carriages of various types in the late 19th Century immediately. That's why the Underground travels all over the London metro area--in fact, the Underground helped develop a number of London suburbs!
I think Torvalds has more than passing interest in the suit since he more or less developed the first version of Linux and is a supporter of the GPL licensing model.
If SCO wins its suit against IBM, SCO could legally put a major kibosh into commercial Linux distributions, let alone the "roll it yourself" distributions! It could literally stop the Open Source movement in its tracks for some time, that's to be sure. =(
You know, in all this mess about SCO suing IBM and possibly Linux commercial distribution manufacturers over stolen code in Linux, there's one question I have to ask: what is Linux Torvalds' stand on this suit? I'm sure he won't approve for obvious reasons given that Linux by definition cannot have patents or copyrights on any code incorporated into Linux as defined by GPL.
The only real advantage of being 64 bit will be the ability to address more memory.
Guess what? Today's multimedia applications can use 64-bit addressing because they have become VERY intensive in the use of computer system resources in general. Why do you think computers that are used to render computer animation usually have several gigabytes of system RAM and very fast hard drive access?
Going to 64-bit computing will make system resource-intensive programs like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro actually run a lot faster because they now have potential access to huge amounts of RAM and wider data paths throughout most of the motherboard's innards.
There are a couple of instances where new hardware is a good idea:
1. Multimedia processing. Image-editing programs and video-editing programs are MAJOR hogs of CPU power, and you definitely want a decently fast CPU to edit pictures downloaded from your digital still camera or videos downloaded from your MiniDV/MicroDV camcorder. In my opinion, you probably want at least a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz (Northwood-core version) or an Athlon XP 1900+ CPU if you want to do multimedia processing decently fast.
2. The latest games. Let's face it: by the end of 2003 we'll be seeing plethora of games that will require the use of DirectX 9.0/9.0a features. You want to get a graphics card that supports DX9 features in hardware; cards that use ATI's R300/R350 GPU and nVidia's NV30/NV35 GPU do this and will allow the latest games to run smoothly even on highly-complex backgrounds (e.g., Doom III).
I think people are starting to find out that multimedia applications such as still-image processing, audio editing and video editing does require serious amounts of CPU power if you want anything done reasonably quickly.
Take for example Adobe Photoshop. The Photoshop LE edition that comes with some software CD-ROM discs included with your new digital camera may not have all the doodads of the full version of the program, but it still uses a lot of CPU power to do things like creating special effects for your pictures or to correct things like removing red eye, removing power lines, sharpening the clarity of background objects, etc.
Video editing is another program that really uses a lot of CPU power. After downloading your home videos from your MiniDV and MicroDV cameras, the editing process is quite complex and takes a lot of CPU power to create a final edited home video that you can burn onto a recordable CD or DVD disc.
...You can get a card that WILL run the upcoming "hot" games without undue performance slowdowns, mostly because they can run DirectX 9.x functions in hardware (e.g., ATI Radeon 9500/9600 series).
Games like Doom III, EverQuest II, and a whole host of other long-awaited games that will ship before the end of 2003 are going to need DX9 support; why stay with a graphics card that will cause these new games to bog down quickly in complex scenes because they lack hardware DX9 support?
I wonder when the Detonator 50.xx driver series are released it will also fix the issue of the boards based on the GeForce FX 5200 and 5600 being dog-slow compared to its ATI competition. The current lower-cost ATI boards that use the R300 GPU (Radeon 9500/9600 series) run rings around its closest competitors.
With RealAudio (.ra) and Windows Media Audio (.wma/.asx) formats, you can stream quite clear audio at only 16 kilobits per second data rate, probably as good as you can get on AM broadcasts.
With modern codecs, an entire 3-4 hour radio show could be packed into a file just about 10 MB in size.
You must be thinking of the Rush Limbaugh of the early 1990's that weighed 315 pounds.
Ever since doctors warned against his continued high weight (due to a family history of cardiac problems), Rush has now slimmed down to 164 pounds, and in fact he regularly plays golf as much as his busy schedule allows.
Some of the early post-MGM Hanna-Barbera cartoons shown there are often quite fun to watch despite their limited animation--do you remember Huckleberry Hound, Quickdraw McGraw, and Yogi Bear?
The big issue now with HDTV is the cost of the viewing monitor itself. Decent monitors that can play back 720p/1080i HDTV signals are still costing well over US$1,200, which limits the audience for HDTV for now.
However, I expect the transition to 16:9 aspect ratio monitors to accelerate over the next 36 months, which will finally get the critical mass to make HDTV really viable. After all, it took over three years for DVD's to reach critical mass in terms of popularity; the acceleration of DVD acceptance began when players capable of 480-line progressive scan video became available widely in 2001.
I think there will be these technologies that will revive the tech sector:
1. IPv6. Let's face it: using routers, subnetting, etc. to extend the life of IPv4 addressing can only take you so far. With more and more devices being Internet-accessible, the massively-larger pool of IPv6 addresses will make Internet connectivity of your home entertainment center, home office and various home appliances much easier, not to mention giving IP addresses to your various handheld devices! The problem is that many of today's installed routers and Internet backbone wiring are not ready to support IPv6, and it will require lots of hardware upgrading (and also software upgrades) to get IPv6 support on a wide scale.
2. 3G cellular telephones. Today's latest picture-enabled cellphones are only beginning of things to come; we will eventually include true broadband (384 kilobits per second data transfer rates and faster) over standard cellphone networks, which could end up competing with 802.11b/g wireless connections but 3G could offer more reliable connections with less issues of interference. Again, there will be a need to upgrade the cellphone infrastructure to support full broadband 3G operations.
3. High-Definition TV. We're only beginning the rollout of 720p/1080i digital television with picture quality far superior to today's NTSC standards. By 2010, 720p/1080i 16:9 aspect ratio digital TV signals will be delivered by over-air broadcasts, through your cable line and through small satellite dishes all over the USA on a large scale. Again, this will require large-scale sales of new 16:9 aspect ratio TV sets, sales of new hardware to support upgraded TV broadcasting infrastructure needed for HDTV, and new production hardware sales (cameras, video recorders, video editing facilites, etc.) for broadcasters to handle HDTV.
In fact, by 2010 people will be wondering how quaint IPv4, voice only cellular phone, and NTSC-standard 4:3 aspect ratio TV are. =)
There are two other reasons why Microsoft will still dominate the desktop space for now:
1. Consistency of interface. Sure, the folks who develop KDE and GNOME are trying to work out interoperability issues, but you can't beat Window's generally consistent interface for the end user. Note that outside of the configuration options, Windows' general interface has been pretty much consistent from Windows 95 all the way up to Windows XP at the desktop level; the Start button, the Taskbar, and the way icons work on the desktop has changed very little even though the look of the Windows 95 and Windows XP interfaces are in many ways quite different.
2. Unmatched hardware support. Practically all the the PC-compatible hardware currently sold out there have software drivers that enable the hardware to work under Windows 98 to Windows XP for desktop machines. And more importantly, the driver takes full advantage of the hardware; for example, does the Open Source Linux driver for the Sound Blaster Audigy sound card take full advantage of all of the card's hardware features? Sadly, no.
However, for server use, where interface consistency and easy of use are much less of an issue, Linux is making inroads because Linux (especially since the release of the 2.4.x OS kernel) is now powerful enough to handle the high-volume transactions needed for server operations.
Because one of the big selling points of the US ATSC digital TV standard IS 1080i/720p 16:9 aspect ratio high-definition broadcasts, I expect an acceleration of more and more new TV sets (CRT, flat panel, rear and front projection) to go to 16:9 aspect ratio over the next few years. Indeed, I can guess by 2006 the US market will have passed the point where most new sets will sport 16:9 aspect ratios.
This will happen when CRT tube manufacturers learn how to produce 16:9 aspect ratio CRT tubes cheaply over the next few years.
I've seen DVD playback on a widescreen projection TV from a progressive-scan DVD player and the picture quality is OUTSTANDING. =)
Yes, on movies shot in 2.35:1 aspect ratio you will still see some letterboxing on 16:9 widescreen TV, but it is much less obtrusive than playing back that same movie on a 4:3 aspect ratio TV.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the big hopes of the ESA Galileo system is better accuracy than the current GPS system. If they can get out of the box accuracy under three meters it will make it possible to have Galileo-guided "total blind" landing and takeoff systems that is unfazed by visibility limitations such as rain and fog, not to mention very accurate landing pattern guidance to avoid controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) crashes that plague airports in mountainous areas.
I'm surprised that no one has tried until now to create a standard for the kilogram that could be repeated easily like atomic measurement of the length of a meter and the computation of a second of time based on the resonance frequency of a caesium atom.
If they succeed, we can get a reference standard for a kilogram that can be easily generated for scientific research.
I think it's obvious that the merger of the cellphone and PDA has been going on for some time.
After all, the Handspring Treo incorporates the function of the Handspring Visor PDA into a GSM-compatible cellphone; Samsung last year released a cellphone with similar features.
I expect within 2-3 years many high-end cellphones will be like the T-Mobile Sidekick, with full PDA functions complete with small keyboard on one unit with a separate headset; it will sport Bluetooth functions that allow the unit to operate in a Bluetooth-equipped automobile in a true hands-free fashion.
A windsheild that converts infrared to visible light. No need for headlights!
In theory that would be great except that IR night vision can be blocked. The military found out that certain types of chemical smoke blocks the IR radiation from any source behind the smoke, and they use these smoke screens to protect tanks from being detected at night.
Hmmm.
This research could point the way for automotive lighting systems that are far more efficient than today's lights but use a tiny fraction of its power.
Already, we've seen LED taillights on a number of cars such as the Nissan Skyline (as the Infiniti G35 is known in most of the world). This research could lead to LED-based automobile headlights that are just as bright as the high-intensity discharge (HID) xenon headlights found on more expensive automobiles but doesn't need the expensive power generating system HID headlights now need and uses a tiny fraction of the power needed for regular headlights. Other lighting systems such as fog lights could benefit from these new technologies, too.
I can say right now that both Boeing and Airbus Industrie have their own in-house wind tunnels that can do model testing of new airplanes. In fact, Germany's DASA--now part of the EADS group that includes Airbus Industrie--has excellent scale-model wind tunnels that were used to verify the aerodynamic design of the upcoming Airbus A380 super jumbo jet.
Between that and today's supercomputers that can do large-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) very accurately, small wonder why large wind tunnels are falling out of favor. A 500-600 machine setup running Linux with Beowulf clustering right now can do pretty good CFD computations--and it's cheap to build such a system, too.
However, some of the Amtrak reformers have the right idea. Abandoning the long-distance lines (which attract 20% of the riders but have 80% of the costs) and increasing the regional networks.
I think this is a GREAT idea, especially for cities east of the Mississippi, where the distances between large population centers are quite a bit closer. Amtrak should pour in as much money as possible to turn the entire Northeast Corridor line from Boston to Washington, DC into a true high-speed line with its own dedicated right of way; this will allow Acela trains to possibly lower times between New York and Boston and New York and Washington, DC by 40 minutes or more.
Here in California, they could use the money saved from no long supporting long-distance trains to upgrading the Capitols (San Jose to Roseville) and San Joaquin (Oakland to Bakersfield) operations so the lines they run on are true dual-track operations with full CTC control. This will allow much faster operations and also increase the number of passenger trains running on these lines--along with the benefit of less interference from freight trains that use these lines also.
I think there are two reasons why the American method of transport end up like it is now:
1. Americans love to be able to go anywhere easily on vacation. With America's highly-efficient road system most of the USA is well within reach of 4-5 day's drive.
2. Truckers love it because it allows a massive amount of goods to be shipped anywhere in a matter of days. Why do you think Wal-Mart maintains such a huge fleet of trucks?
3. The USA is a very large country for the Lower 48 states, with considerable distances between population centers especially west of the Mississippi River. Small wonder why road systems developed so rapidly, because they often went places beyond the reach of the railroads.
1. While the original subway system used steam-powered trains, the problem of pollution from the steam engine exhaust and asphyxiation problems was a major impetus to electrify all the Underground lines by 1920.
2. Because the Underground could travel quite a bit faster than streetcars, their reach from the center of London is considerable. Many of the far-flung suburbs of London grew up around these Underground line extensions (frequently running above ground beyond the London city center).
I believe that London is kind of unique for building a heavy mass transit system on dedicated lines on a large scale well before the widespread use of automobiles.
I think for a true car-free city to work, it has to be reasonably compact.
Take for example Tokyo and New York City. The actual amount of land used in the center city is quite small, small enough that walking or using a mass-transit system becomes quite viable.
You definitely cannot do that in Los Angeles, that's to be sure--it's so spread out that you'll need exorbitant amounts of money to build a mass transit system the cover the whole Los Angeles Basin.
Note that in the case of London, England, the Underground subway system got there first before motor vehicle traffic because London HAD to build something to alleviate the horrible street-level traffic of horse-drawn carriages of various types in the late 19th Century immediately. That's why the Underground travels all over the London metro area--in fact, the Underground helped develop a number of London suburbs!
DeeK,
I think Torvalds has more than passing interest in the suit since he more or less developed the first version of Linux and is a supporter of the GPL licensing model.
If SCO wins its suit against IBM, SCO could legally put a major kibosh into commercial Linux distributions, let alone the "roll it yourself" distributions! It could literally stop the Open Source movement in its tracks for some time, that's to be sure. =(
You know, in all this mess about SCO suing IBM and possibly Linux commercial distribution manufacturers over stolen code in Linux, there's one question I have to ask: what is Linux Torvalds' stand on this suit? I'm sure he won't approve for obvious reasons given that Linux by definition cannot have patents or copyrights on any code incorporated into Linux as defined by GPL.
The only real advantage of being 64 bit will be the ability to address more memory.
Guess what? Today's multimedia applications can use 64-bit addressing because they have become VERY intensive in the use of computer system resources in general. Why do you think computers that are used to render computer animation usually have several gigabytes of system RAM and very fast hard drive access?
Going to 64-bit computing will make system resource-intensive programs like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro actually run a lot faster because they now have potential access to huge amounts of RAM and wider data paths throughout most of the motherboard's innards.
There are a couple of instances where new hardware is a good idea:
1. Multimedia processing. Image-editing programs and video-editing programs are MAJOR hogs of CPU power, and you definitely want a decently fast CPU to edit pictures downloaded from your digital still camera or videos downloaded from your MiniDV/MicroDV camcorder. In my opinion, you probably want at least a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz (Northwood-core version) or an Athlon XP 1900+ CPU if you want to do multimedia processing decently fast.
2. The latest games. Let's face it: by the end of 2003 we'll be seeing plethora of games that will require the use of DirectX 9.0/9.0a features. You want to get a graphics card that supports DX9 features in hardware; cards that use ATI's R300/R350 GPU and nVidia's NV30/NV35 GPU do this and will allow the latest games to run smoothly even on highly-complex backgrounds (e.g., Doom III).
I think people are starting to find out that multimedia applications such as still-image processing, audio editing and video editing does require serious amounts of CPU power if you want anything done reasonably quickly.
Take for example Adobe Photoshop. The Photoshop LE edition that comes with some software CD-ROM discs included with your new digital camera may not have all the doodads of the full version of the program, but it still uses a lot of CPU power to do things like creating special effects for your pictures or to correct things like removing red eye, removing power lines, sharpening the clarity of background objects, etc.
Video editing is another program that really uses a lot of CPU power. After downloading your home videos from your MiniDV and MicroDV cameras, the editing process is quite complex and takes a lot of CPU power to create a final edited home video that you can burn onto a recordable CD or DVD disc.
...You can get a card that WILL run the upcoming "hot" games without undue performance slowdowns, mostly because they can run DirectX 9.x functions in hardware (e.g., ATI Radeon 9500/9600 series).
Games like Doom III, EverQuest II, and a whole host of other long-awaited games that will ship before the end of 2003 are going to need DX9 support; why stay with a graphics card that will cause these new games to bog down quickly in complex scenes because they lack hardware DX9 support?
I wonder when the Detonator 50.xx driver series are released it will also fix the issue of the boards based on the GeForce FX 5200 and 5600 being dog-slow compared to its ATI competition. The current lower-cost ATI boards that use the R300 GPU (Radeon 9500/9600 series) run rings around its closest competitors.
That is correct.
With RealAudio (.ra) and Windows Media Audio (.wma/.asx) formats, you can stream quite clear audio at only 16 kilobits per second data rate, probably as good as you can get on AM broadcasts.
With modern codecs, an entire 3-4 hour radio show could be packed into a file just about 10 MB in size.
You must be thinking of the Rush Limbaugh of the early 1990's that weighed 315 pounds.
Ever since doctors warned against his continued high weight (due to a family history of cardiac problems), Rush has now slimmed down to 164 pounds, and in fact he regularly plays golf as much as his busy schedule allows.
I'm glad you mentioned the Boomerang network.
Some of the early post-MGM Hanna-Barbera cartoons shown there are often quite fun to watch despite their limited animation--do you remember Huckleberry Hound, Quickdraw McGraw, and Yogi Bear?
The big issue now with HDTV is the cost of the viewing monitor itself. Decent monitors that can play back 720p/1080i HDTV signals are still costing well over US$1,200, which limits the audience for HDTV for now.
However, I expect the transition to 16:9 aspect ratio monitors to accelerate over the next 36 months, which will finally get the critical mass to make HDTV really viable. After all, it took over three years for DVD's to reach critical mass in terms of popularity; the acceleration of DVD acceptance began when players capable of 480-line progressive scan video became available widely in 2001.
I think there will be these technologies that will revive the tech sector:
1. IPv6. Let's face it: using routers, subnetting, etc. to extend the life of IPv4 addressing can only take you so far. With more and more devices being Internet-accessible, the massively-larger pool of IPv6 addresses will make Internet connectivity of your home entertainment center, home office and various home appliances much easier, not to mention giving IP addresses to your various handheld devices! The problem is that many of today's installed routers and Internet backbone wiring are not ready to support IPv6, and it will require lots of hardware upgrading (and also software upgrades) to get IPv6 support on a wide scale.
2. 3G cellular telephones. Today's latest picture-enabled cellphones are only beginning of things to come; we will eventually include true broadband (384 kilobits per second data transfer rates and faster) over standard cellphone networks, which could end up competing with 802.11b/g wireless connections but 3G could offer more reliable connections with less issues of interference. Again, there will be a need to upgrade the cellphone infrastructure to support full broadband 3G operations.
3. High-Definition TV. We're only beginning the rollout of 720p/1080i digital television with picture quality far superior to today's NTSC standards. By 2010, 720p/1080i 16:9 aspect ratio digital TV signals will be delivered by over-air broadcasts, through your cable line and through small satellite dishes all over the USA on a large scale. Again, this will require large-scale sales of new 16:9 aspect ratio TV sets, sales of new hardware to support upgraded TV broadcasting infrastructure needed for HDTV, and new production hardware sales (cameras, video recorders, video editing facilites, etc.) for broadcasters to handle HDTV.
In fact, by 2010 people will be wondering how quaint IPv4, voice only cellular phone, and NTSC-standard 4:3 aspect ratio TV are. =)
There are two other reasons why Microsoft will still dominate the desktop space for now:
1. Consistency of interface. Sure, the folks who develop KDE and GNOME are trying to work out interoperability issues, but you can't beat Window's generally consistent interface for the end user. Note that outside of the configuration options, Windows' general interface has been pretty much consistent from Windows 95 all the way up to Windows XP at the desktop level; the Start button, the Taskbar, and the way icons work on the desktop has changed very little even though the look of the Windows 95 and Windows XP interfaces are in many ways quite different.
2. Unmatched hardware support. Practically all the the PC-compatible hardware currently sold out there have software drivers that enable the hardware to work under Windows 98 to Windows XP for desktop machines. And more importantly, the driver takes full advantage of the hardware; for example, does the Open Source Linux driver for the Sound Blaster Audigy sound card take full advantage of all of the card's hardware features? Sadly, no.
However, for server use, where interface consistency and easy of use are much less of an issue, Linux is making inroads because Linux (especially since the release of the 2.4.x OS kernel) is now powerful enough to handle the high-volume transactions needed for server operations.
Not to worry.
Because one of the big selling points of the US ATSC digital TV standard IS 1080i/720p 16:9 aspect ratio high-definition broadcasts, I expect an acceleration of more and more new TV sets (CRT, flat panel, rear and front projection) to go to 16:9 aspect ratio over the next few years. Indeed, I can guess by 2006 the US market will have passed the point where most new sets will sport 16:9 aspect ratios.
This will happen when CRT tube manufacturers learn how to produce 16:9 aspect ratio CRT tubes cheaply over the next few years.
I've seen DVD playback on a widescreen projection TV from a progressive-scan DVD player and the picture quality is OUTSTANDING. =)
Yes, on movies shot in 2.35:1 aspect ratio you will still see some letterboxing on 16:9 widescreen TV, but it is much less obtrusive than playing back that same movie on a 4:3 aspect ratio TV.