Triple redundancy is pretty much a standard for critical control systems; airliners, nuclear power plant, chemical refineries and so on. It is pretty well tested.
I think that/. readers are getting their panties in a bunch needlessly over this. Most people who buy IPOs are not THAT stupid. Most IPOs need a top tier underwriter to do at all well. RedHat had Goldman Sachs, the toppest of the top. VA Linux and Andover had decent underwriters.
LinuxOne is trying to fly on their own, which to any investor who knows anything is an immediate red light and siren warning.
There are plenty of scam artists trying to attach their name to whatever is hot at the moment - from Black Light Power to LinuxOne. LinuxOne isn't the first company to try a fast one like this, nor are they the last. Will investors pay any attention to LinuxOne? Not any more than they will to the thousands of con artists that have tried to take advantage of other stock fads.
What is the most likely consequence of the LinuxOne IPO? A securities fraud case, and jail time for those involved.
A bitmap, which is compressed before transmission, can transport text, layout and graphics in a standardized format.
Don't forget sending a Fax is a lossy process, too. Any time I've sent a fax with images, the quality degradation has made me regret it. If you want to send images and have the result look good, email is better.
Well, this seems to me to be a non-starter. Gives you all the disadvantages of paper (fragility, environmental impact) multiplied by a factor of 50 in cost in a single use computer form.
We should be looking to get rid of single use stuff, not spread the use of it.
The only thing I can think of that is as silly is the Fax machine. Send a mammouth bitmap to a piece of paper when in fact you could send 1K of ASCII test in the form of an email and convey the same information.
I ask you, what influence did Lenin have on Marshall, or Marshall on Mao?
Well, of course Stalin was Lenin's direct successor - who could have had more influence in shaping Stalinism? - in many ways Lenin creates Stalin by establishing the structure that makes Stalin possible. If Marshall is reacting to Stalin, he is also reacting to the Soviet Union independent of Stalin knowing full well that the policies that are being put in place are designed to have an impact for far greater than one ruler's term. Marshall is in effect reacting to the INSTITUTIONS established by Lenin that are represented by Stalin. Stalin did not last long after WWII, however the impact of the Marshall Plan was felt long after the demise of Stalinism.
Mao's influence is important because it represents the expulsion of colonial empires from the largest nation on Earth. China has emerged to be immensely more important than Russia at the end of the 20th century. Mao is influenced by Stalin to some extent - but in reality much more so by Lenin. Stalin was no idealist in the way of either Lenin or Mao.
Stalin is a key figure in 20th century history. But at the end he lies repudiated and deconstructed by even the institutions that created him. Those institutions in turn have failed to survive as well.
As far as the Phillipine War goes, TR became president two years AFTER the start of the war, in late 1901, when the war was nearly over. The Spanish-American War was in fact instigated by business interests who Teddy vigorously opposed during his Presidency. There is also the issue of other colonial powers in the region including Spain, England and Germany. The German fleet was actually operating in Manila Harbor during the time the US and Spain were fighting. Do ypu think that the Filipinos would have been better off as German subjects after the Spanish-American War?
The comment about 1 million civilians deaths is also a crock. Most historians put the number at more like 100,000, and not due to military action but rather disease and famine which may or may not have occurred anyway.
The problem with this whole episode in history is that it is impossible to evaluate without taking a very close look at what ALL the Eurpoean nations were doing in the area at the time.
As far as TR's record goes, Teddy Roosevelt is the only American President to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and is in fact the first American to win ANY Nobel Prize. His inaugural speech was singular in that it is the only one in US history that does not contain the word 'I'.
He also led the dissassembly of the American monopolies, and was the first President to realize the importance of preserving the environment.
He also founded the FDA, assuring food and drug regulation in the US.
While I don't hink he is man of the Century, he is a far more important figure than most Americans realize.
Jefferson proposed that slavery be outlawed in both his version of the Declaration, and during the Constitutional Convention. He was voted down both times.
Jefferson led a very self-contradictory life. While opposed to slavery he owned slaves. While hating aristocracy he enjoyed living at the Parisian court and owning Monticello.
All in all though, if you look at his life and what he accomplished his lasting influence is undeniable.
So, while George Marshall was certainly a great man, he was not a man I could nominate for this title as I am European.
Your chauvanism (a French word!) betrays you.
So far the only Europeans we have seen nominated here are Hitler and Stalin. While you may impune the motives of Marshall, I think they stand up pretty well in comparison to Hitler and Stalin.
American man of the Century? Are you daft? One of the main reasons he is proposed as man of the century here is his profound influence on Europe. Both by providing the means to roll back the Third Reich, but for funding the economic reconstruction, and putting into place the policies that kept Soviet expansionism from overtaking Western Europe. In terms of a purely American figure, somebody like FDR is much more important.
I am appalled at the lack of knowledge of history and international politics that the European readers of slashdot are showing. Americans are often criticised for their lack of internationalism; yet the Europeans don't even seem to have a clue about their own history.
Adolf Hitler, while intensely important for a short period did not a particularly large impact outside the second world war. In fact some will argue that the Treaty of Versailles made Hitler inevetable. Hitler did not shape history the way Marshall did; he was in fact the result of failed previous policies, and a failure himself.
why on earth would anyone in their right mind support a politician from the last century as the greatest anything
Did you even read the essay?
In the first place George Marshall was never elected to any office by the general population. First he was appointed Joint Chief of Staff and ran the war effort. Later he was coaxed out of retirement and appointed Secretary of State.
He is as much a politician as I am a flying pig.
Secondly, you have a overly cynical view of politicians. There are in fact people elected to office in the country on a routine basis that run for office because they want to make a differnce, to really SERVE the nation. Look at post political lives of some of our ex-presidents like Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter as proof. They are still serving this country well, even in absence of political office.
Certainly there are many who should never have been elected, yet there are in fact noble politicians in the service of this country. Look what has happened in Northern Ireland just this year.
If you ask a REAL historian what his evaluation of the quality of leadership we have had was and is, he will say 'the best in human history'.
The problem with picking Stalin is that by the end of the 20th Century his influence has been eclipsed by the postwar policies known as the Marshall Plan. While Stalin was certainly a major influence, I think he was overshadowed by several figures including Marshall, Mao and Lenin in importance.
Is this 'irrational exuberance'? Or is this a new phenomenon?
Suppose these companies never turn an accounting profit or share holders never see a dividend. Would that be money lost? Or might it reflect a non-tax, non-government method of funding society's infrastructure?
Complicated question. There is certainly a huge potential for future growth here. RedHat's capitalization, while seemingly huge, is still only 2% of Microsoft. Is Linux worth that? I think it is worth MORE. But can Redhat generate the profits that Microsoft does? Doubtful. It is a different biz.
When you buy a stock, you are generally buying into the idea of future growth. This is why some companies are selling at 50 times REVENUES while others are selling at 10 times PROFITS. Amazon is priced high not because of what they are doing today, but because of their growth prospects. When the growth rates of these new companies slow, their valuations will mirror those of more conventional companies.
As to the question regarding dividends, these are not anywhere as important as they used to be. Very few technology companies issue dividends. If a company has a lot of extra cash, they typically return the money by buying back stock which drives up the value of the stock remaining in the market. IBM is a master of this game. Companies like this strategy because it is much more flexible than dividends.
Is it a way to fund infrastructure? You bet. This is in fact the essence of capitalism in action. There is no more compelling story than what is happening here today with the funding of the future in these capital markets. It is the palpable action of the invisible hand of Adam Smith operating to remake the world.
Is it irrational exuberance? This is the hardest of all questions to answer because it is something you can only fully determine in hindsight. There is a lot of economic debate as to exactly how rational or irrational the stock market is in setting prices.
My own opnion? There is a lot of extrapolation going on here. While the value in say the internet sector as a whole is probably justified because of the demonstrated impact it is already having on the economy, it is very hard to pick out which companies are going to be the long term beneficiaries of this. You are betting on a horse in a race that has just started. Who knows if your horse will be the winner?
There have been parallels in US history. Two of the best are the railroads and the development of the automobile industry. If you invested in the winners, your decendents are rich today.
Why should Red Hat, or VA Linux, care what their shareholders think?
Even though the RedHat Founders still own the bulk of the company, the minority shareholders can sue if they think they were misled into losing money.
I don't think RedHat is going to close anything any time soon for the following reasons:
1. People would just switch to an open distro. 2. Many key RedHat employees are OSS evangalists.
So long as Redhat describes their OSS business model and the risks thereof clearly in their prospectus I think they are pretty safe from threats from minority stockholders that would force them to close their future work.
Any time you are messing with windows there is a potential problem because you are making an assumption about what 100 years span you are working in. Windowing buys you time; and given that the expected job tenure in the programming profession is 16 months the amount of time it buys you may be more than enough. A lot depends on how far back your databases go. Mine start in 1987, so I have until 2087 before a problem occurs. Since I'll be retired long before that I'm not too worried.
The only real solution is 4 digit years (until Y10K anyway).
There is no question in my mind of the greatness of George Marshall. He is the greatest statesman of the century and the man who is responsible in large part for the success of democracy over tyranny in the second half of the 20th century.
There are very few others that I would place in the same league. Perhaps Zhang Zemin and Teddy Roosevelt.
From the technology field I'd pick Einstein and Fleming. But at this elevated level the competition is so great....
The real question I wonder about is who is the man of the millenium...
My choice is Thomas Jefferson. When John Kennedy gave a state dinner for American Noble Prize winners (about 100 attended) he started off his introduction with... "Never has there been assembled at the White House such talent since Thomas Jefferson dined here... alone".
You have to remember this is the country where the duck hunters go on strike, and the prime meridian runs through Paris, and Napoleon was victorious at Waterloo.
seem to indicate that both the state and federal governments are immune to infringement claims. You might be entitled to compensation under eminent domain, but that is not the same as infringement.
The TRIPS agreement under the WTO makes me believe that there will be even more governemnt immunity in the future.
Amazon is merely a catalog company using the web instead of a print catalog. Sure, there are a lot of really great advantages to doing that, but nothing earth shattering. eBay, on the other hand, really did put technology to create something that simply wasn't possible before.
There are a number of features on Amazon that cannot be done in a catalog. The most important of those, and something that Amazon did first, and still best is the customer reviews. Regardless of where I buy a book or piece of electronics, or a video, I always check the customer reviews at Amazon first.
you have to admit that it is a more innovative application of e-commerce than Amazon.
In terms of it's value to me, Amazon's customer feedback is a far more important innovation.
Robert A. Mundell - American born Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Granted the 1999 Nobel Prize in Economics. Did the basic research showing the importance of freely exchangable currencies to economic growth. His work has led to the startling growth of international trade improving prosperity for most of mankind as countries changed their currency policies according to his research. Also known as the grandfather of the Euro because of his development of the idea of "optimal currency areas". Few people have had a more profound impact on the world, yet are so little known outside academia.
Douglas Englebart - The ubergeek. Most famous for the invention of the mouse, but in fact had a far more profound influence. He envisioned computers as a revolution because of their potential to extend and enhance the fundamental intellectual processes of man. On December 9, 1968 he gave what has come to be known as the 'mother of all demos'; the first public demonstration (beore Xerox PARC was founded) of a computer that offered a windows interface, videoconferencing, internet connectivity, black on white text, context-sensitive help, and a mouse.
While a lot of other people give Timothy Berners-Lee credit for deveoping the world wide web, it is notable that all of the technologies used in a web connected computer were demonstrated by Doug Engelbert 25 years earlier.
I agree that DVD is waaay better then VHS, and my DVD library is already nicely stocked. But what will happen to it when HDTV rolls around?
DVD isn't capable of delivering the bit rates that the max resolution HDTV format uses. Eventually there will probably be some sort of enhanced DVD with a higher storage density and bit delivery rate. Whether or not you will be able to notice the difference has yet to be determined. It may also be a few years away.
DVD is not showing it's full capability with because of NTSC limitations; eventually I expect that you will have a DVD player with a Firewire interface to your HDTV monitor. How good this will be compared full HDTV I don't know. It may be a case where most of the original software isn't as good as the display hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand how any governmental institution could trust their top secrets to an operating system
They don't trust top secrets to ANY operating system. Computers that contain REAL secrets are not put on open networks, PERIOD.
The name of the game is physical security.
Triple redundancy is pretty much a standard for critical control systems; airliners, nuclear power plant, chemical refineries and so on. It is pretty well tested.
This is an International Patent
In a pig's eye it is.
THIS IS NOT A PATENT It is an application that was rejected by the European Patent Office.
WO series numbers are APPLICATIONS. If you even took the time to look at it you would see that it saya APPLICATION right along the top.
I think that /. readers are getting their panties in a bunch needlessly over this. Most people who buy IPOs are not THAT stupid. Most IPOs need a top tier underwriter to do at all well. RedHat had Goldman Sachs, the toppest of the top. VA Linux and Andover had decent underwriters.
LinuxOne is trying to fly on their own, which to any investor who knows anything is an immediate red light and siren warning.
There are plenty of scam artists trying to attach their name to whatever is hot at the moment - from Black Light Power to LinuxOne. LinuxOne isn't the first company to try a fast one like this, nor are they the last. Will investors pay any attention to LinuxOne? Not any more than they will to the thousands of con artists that have tried to take advantage of other stock fads.
What is the most likely consequence of the LinuxOne IPO? A securities fraud case, and jail time for those involved.
Linux is not going to get a black eye over this.
A bitmap, which is compressed before transmission, can transport text, layout and graphics in a standardized format.
Don't forget sending a Fax is a lossy process, too. Any time I've sent a fax with images, the quality degradation has made me regret it. If you want to send images and have the result look good, email is better.
Well, this seems to me to be a non-starter. Gives you all the disadvantages of paper (fragility, environmental impact) multiplied by a factor of 50 in cost in a single use computer form.
We should be looking to get rid of single use stuff, not spread the use of it.
The only thing I can think of that is as silly is the Fax machine. Send a mammouth bitmap to a piece of paper when in fact you could send 1K of ASCII test in the form of an email and convey the same information.
I ask you, what influence did Lenin have on Marshall, or Marshall on Mao?
Well, of course Stalin was Lenin's direct successor - who could have had more influence in shaping Stalinism? - in many ways Lenin creates Stalin by establishing the structure that makes Stalin possible. If Marshall is reacting to Stalin, he is also reacting to the Soviet Union independent of Stalin knowing full well that the policies that are being put in place are designed to have an impact for far greater than one ruler's term. Marshall is in effect reacting to the INSTITUTIONS established by Lenin that are represented by Stalin. Stalin did not last long after WWII, however the impact of the Marshall Plan was felt long after the demise of Stalinism.
Mao's influence is important because it represents the expulsion of colonial empires from the largest nation on Earth. China has emerged to be immensely more important than Russia at the end of the 20th century. Mao is influenced by Stalin to some extent - but in reality much more so by Lenin. Stalin was no idealist in the way of either Lenin or Mao.
Stalin is a key figure in 20th century history. But at the end he lies repudiated and deconstructed by even the institutions that created him. Those institutions in turn have failed to survive as well.
read up on the US-Phillipine war. (1899-1902)
As far as the Phillipine War goes, TR became president two years AFTER the start of the war, in late 1901, when the war was nearly over. The Spanish-American War was in fact instigated by business interests who Teddy vigorously opposed during his Presidency. There is also the issue of other colonial powers in the region including Spain, England and Germany. The German fleet was actually operating in Manila Harbor during the time the US and Spain were fighting. Do ypu think that the Filipinos would have been better off as German subjects after the Spanish-American War?
The comment about 1 million civilians deaths is also a crock. Most historians put the number at more like 100,000, and not due to military action but rather disease and famine which may or may not have occurred anyway.
The problem with this whole episode in history is that it is impossible to evaluate without taking a very close look at what ALL the Eurpoean nations were doing in the area at the time.
As far as TR's record goes, Teddy Roosevelt is the only American President to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and is in fact the first American to win ANY Nobel Prize. His inaugural speech was singular in that it is the only one in US history that does not contain the word 'I'.
He also led the dissassembly of the American monopolies, and was the first President to realize the importance of preserving the environment.
He also founded the FDA, assuring food and drug regulation in the US.
While I don't hink he is man of the Century, he is a far more important figure than most Americans realize.
Jefferson proposed that slavery be outlawed in both his version of the Declaration, and during the Constitutional Convention. He was voted down both times.
Jefferson led a very self-contradictory life. While opposed to slavery he owned slaves. While hating aristocracy he enjoyed living at the Parisian court and owning Monticello.
All in all though, if you look at his life and what he accomplished his lasting influence is undeniable.
So, while George Marshall was certainly a great man, he was not a man I could nominate for this title as I am European.
Your chauvanism (a French word!) betrays you.
So far the only Europeans we have seen nominated here are Hitler and Stalin. While you may impune the motives of Marshall, I think they stand up pretty well in comparison to Hitler and Stalin.
Do you have a better EUROPEAN candidate?
American man of the Century? Are you daft? One of the main reasons he is proposed as man of the century here is his profound influence on Europe. Both by providing the means to roll back the Third Reich, but for funding the economic reconstruction, and putting into place the policies that kept Soviet expansionism from overtaking Western Europe. In terms of a purely American figure, somebody like FDR is much more important.
I am appalled at the lack of knowledge of history and international politics that the European readers of slashdot are showing. Americans are often criticised for their lack of internationalism; yet the Europeans don't even seem to have a clue about their own history.
Gandhi's character was a prime model not only for Dr. King
Both Ghandi and King derived their philosophy from Thoreau.
Adolf Hitler, while intensely important for a short period did not a particularly large impact outside the second world war. In fact some will argue that the Treaty of Versailles made Hitler inevetable. Hitler did not shape history the way Marshall did; he was in fact the result of failed previous policies, and a failure himself.
Mao to me has had FAR more influence.
why on earth would anyone in their right mind support a politician from the last century as the greatest anything
Did you even read the essay?
In the first place George Marshall was never elected to any office by the general population. First he was appointed Joint Chief of Staff and ran the war effort. Later he was coaxed out of retirement and appointed Secretary of State.
He is as much a politician as I am a flying pig.
Secondly, you have a overly cynical view of politicians. There are in fact people elected to office in the country on a routine basis that run for office because they want to make a differnce, to really SERVE the nation. Look at post political lives of some of our ex-presidents like Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter as proof. They are still serving this country well, even in absence of political office.
Certainly there are many who should never have been elected, yet there are in fact noble politicians in the service of this country. Look what has happened in Northern Ireland just this year.
If you ask a REAL historian what his evaluation of the quality of leadership we have had was and is, he will say 'the best in human history'.
The problem with picking Stalin is that by the end of the 20th Century his influence has been eclipsed by the postwar policies known as the Marshall Plan. While Stalin was certainly a major influence, I think he was overshadowed by several figures including Marshall, Mao and Lenin in importance.
Is this 'irrational exuberance'? Or is this a new phenomenon?
Suppose these companies never turn an accounting profit or share holders never see a dividend. Would that be money lost? Or might it reflect a non-tax, non-government method of funding society's infrastructure?
Complicated question. There is certainly a huge potential for future growth here. RedHat's capitalization, while seemingly huge, is still only 2% of Microsoft. Is Linux worth that? I think it is worth MORE. But can Redhat generate the profits that Microsoft does? Doubtful. It is a different biz.
When you buy a stock, you are generally buying into the idea of future growth. This is why some companies are selling at 50 times REVENUES while others are selling at 10 times PROFITS. Amazon is priced high not because of what they are doing today, but because of their growth prospects. When the growth rates of these new companies slow, their valuations will mirror those of more conventional companies.
As to the question regarding dividends, these are not anywhere as important as they used to be. Very few technology companies issue dividends. If a company has a lot of extra cash, they typically return the money by buying back stock which drives up the value of the stock remaining in the market. IBM is a master of this game. Companies like this strategy because it is much more flexible than dividends.
Is it a way to fund infrastructure? You bet. This is in fact the essence of capitalism in action. There is no more compelling story than what is happening here today with the funding of the future in these capital markets. It is the palpable action of the invisible hand of Adam Smith operating to remake the world.
Is it irrational exuberance? This is the hardest of all questions to answer because it is something you can only fully determine in hindsight. There is a lot of economic debate as to exactly how rational or irrational the stock market is in setting prices.
My own opnion? There is a lot of extrapolation going on here. While the value in say the internet sector as a whole is probably justified because of the demonstrated impact it is already having on the economy, it is very hard to pick out which companies are going to be the long term beneficiaries of this. You are betting on a horse in a race that has just started. Who knows if your horse will be the winner?
There have been parallels in US history. Two of the best are the railroads and the development of the automobile industry. If you invested in the winners, your decendents are rich today.
Why should Red Hat, or VA Linux, care what their shareholders think?
Even though the RedHat Founders still own the bulk of the company, the minority shareholders can sue if they think they were misled into losing money.
I don't think RedHat is going to close anything any time soon for the following reasons:
1. People would just switch to an open distro.
2. Many key RedHat employees are OSS evangalists.
So long as Redhat describes their OSS business model and the risks thereof clearly in their prospectus I think they are pretty safe from threats from minority stockholders that would force them to close their future work.
Any time you are messing with windows there is a potential problem because you are making an assumption about what 100 years span you are working in. Windowing buys you time; and given that the expected job tenure in the programming profession is 16 months the amount of time it buys you may be more than enough. A lot depends on how far back your databases go. Mine start in 1987, so I have until 2087 before a problem occurs. Since I'll be retired long before that I'm not too worried.
The only real solution is 4 digit years (until Y10K anyway).
There is no question in my mind of the greatness of George Marshall. He is the greatest statesman of the century and the man who is responsible in large part for the success of democracy over tyranny in the second half of the 20th century.
There are very few others that I would place in the same league. Perhaps Zhang Zemin and Teddy Roosevelt.
From the technology field I'd pick Einstein and Fleming. But at this elevated level the competition is so great....
The real question I wonder about is who is the man of the millenium...
My choice is Thomas Jefferson. When John Kennedy gave a state dinner for American Noble Prize winners (about 100 attended) he started off his introduction with... "Never has there been assembled at the White House such talent since Thomas Jefferson dined here... alone".
You have to remember this is the country where the duck hunters go on strike, and the prime meridian runs through Paris, and Napoleon was victorious at Waterloo.
Don't worry too much about it.
How did the guy manage to get $25M in funding?
Could be anything - his dad, some naive private investor. Or he could be just making it up.
http://www.promega.com/pcrref/exempt.html
and
http://www.umass.edu/langctr/supremecourt.html
seem to indicate that both the state and federal governments are immune to infringement claims. You might be entitled to compensation under eminent domain, but that is not the same as infringement.
The TRIPS agreement under the WTO makes me believe that there will be even more governemnt immunity in the future.
Amazon is merely a catalog company using the web instead of a print catalog. Sure, there are a lot of really great advantages to doing that, but nothing earth shattering. eBay, on the other hand, really did put technology to create something that simply wasn't possible before.
There are a number of features on Amazon that cannot be done in a catalog. The most important of those, and something that Amazon did first, and still best is the customer reviews. Regardless of where I buy a book or piece of electronics, or a video, I always check the customer reviews at Amazon first.
you have to admit that it is a more innovative application of e-commerce than Amazon.
In terms of it's value to me, Amazon's customer feedback is a far more important innovation.
Robert A. Mundell - American born Professor of Economics at Cornell University. Granted the 1999 Nobel Prize in Economics. Did the basic research showing the importance of freely exchangable currencies to economic growth. His work has led to the startling growth of international trade improving prosperity for most of mankind as countries changed their currency policies according to his research. Also known as the grandfather of the Euro because of his development of the idea of "optimal currency areas". Few people have had a more profound impact on the world, yet are so little known outside academia.
Douglas Englebart - The ubergeek. Most famous for the invention of the mouse, but in fact had a far more profound influence. He envisioned computers as a revolution because of their potential to extend and enhance the fundamental intellectual processes of man. On December 9, 1968 he gave what has come to be known as the 'mother of all demos'; the first public demonstration (beore Xerox PARC was founded) of a computer that offered a windows interface, videoconferencing, internet connectivity, black on white text, context-sensitive help, and a mouse.
While a lot of other people give Timothy Berners-Lee credit for deveoping the world wide web, it is notable that all of the technologies used in a web connected computer were demonstrated by Doug Engelbert 25 years earlier.
I agree that DVD is waaay better then VHS, and my DVD library is already nicely stocked. But what will happen to it when HDTV rolls around?
DVD isn't capable of delivering the bit rates that the max resolution HDTV format uses. Eventually there will probably be some sort of enhanced DVD with a higher storage density and bit delivery rate. Whether or not you will be able to notice the difference has yet to be determined. It may also be a few years away.
DVD is not showing it's full capability with because of NTSC limitations; eventually I expect that you will have a DVD player with a Firewire interface to your HDTV monitor. How good this will be compared full HDTV I don't know. It may be a case where most of the original software isn't as good as the display hardware.