As far as I know (and as far as this article says) Rhapsody does use WMA for streaming. Real simply bought it, and, while they certainly do want it to use Real format, the upgrade is simply not there (also try go to their help section and enter "what codec" into question field -- result says WMA and is updated 01/08/2004 06:49 PM ) Which makes the fact that Real sued Microsoft even more funny, and wish to cozy up to anyone but Microsoft somewhat more logical.
I mean look for yourself -- they increase price, sales in legitimate stores fall down significantly, sales of physical CDs won't pick up, so they start a new round of screaming that P2P is killing them (again/even more than before/despite legit options -- pick one). And all of a sudden new law that makes P2P connection criminal offense with minimal mandatory sentencing of 5 years in federal prison and 20 000 dollars fine gets passed.
No Service "honeypot" would only work if it overpowers everything else AND creates horrible interference. Otherwise anyone who's phone is put into "my own network only/disable roaming" mode won't pay any attention to strong signal from alien network (just like AT&T's phones prefer even weakest AT&T signal over stronger signal from other networks). Interference creation is illegal. So back to illegal "noise on all cell phone frequencies" devices then... I like Quiet Zone bluetooth solution way more, but all CDMA operators hate bluetooth technology:(
Yes, I may be wrong, but I prefer generic '.com' or geographical '.**'. I don't want my web site to be.google/.ISP/.Earthlink/.WhateverMarketoidsThinkOf . Because I am not a part of those organizations and, hopefully, won't be. And I bet as soon this madness with a gazillion of zones happens, there will be no easy way to get domain in other company's zone. Each time hosting changes it will be "Sorry, Sir, but we only support our domains. We can offer you a discount on YourSire.Schmuk...". Unless, of course, one can get personal zone for, say, $15 a year...
For example, I tried to call yesterday to cancel old tivo service. Yes, auto-customer-support-system could figure out I wanted to cancel. It probably also could figure out how pissed off I was by low growling. But no, to cancel Tivo you only have to cancel from 8AM to 8PM PST and talk to live person. And if you happen to be able to call only AFTER 8PM none of that frustration-meter stuff will help you, as call center is closed, and while it's easy to sign up for new service ("just click here!" on their web site) there are 15 hoops to jump through to cancel ("sorry, for security reasons you have to speak to a live agent" riiiiight, signing up was security-less? and if you want to talk to a live person for any other reason your wait time is 84 (!!) minutes).
As companies save more and more money by cutting support staff all these improvements will go on unused, as only automatic support will be available.
What I don't understand, is why people don't research anything and then bitch about "how expensive it is". It is NOT expensive. If anyone actually bothered to go to T-Mobile web site and see the service plans, you would know you can get DAY pass for $10. And if you have T-Mobile cell phone, unlimited WiFi is $20 a month. Beats many dial up providers by mobility AND price. And, while on the subject, WiFi might become even less needed as same T-Mobile now offers free WAP browsing, and unlimited "corporate" GPRS is also $10.
Access is getting cheaper and cheaper, allthough there will always be providers, that try to charge twice as much for the same service.
Perhaps it makes sense to switch between voicemail and fax on the second call? I.e. when you call your home number, fax picks up, records the caller id info. Then you hang up, and dial number again. Seeing that caller ID is the same, and last attempt to receive fax has failed, fax ignores this call completely and you get to your voicemail. At this point flag gets reset again, and next call will be picked up by fax etc...
For a while, my insurance company had been including a little leaflet with correspondence, that says clearly: if you see a "mysterious" or inappropriate fee on the claim, call them and tell them about it. If they get doctor to reverse it, you get 20% of disputed amount credited to your account.
Now, of course, this can only be done if that "consulation" was what it was -- the charge for 2 minute talk, explaining what peaks and valleys are, and EKG itself and result interpretation were charged separatedly.
Anything that has link to non-"old-standard" site in the body of the message yet got sent to plain old latin US domain can be easily throwin into SPAM folder. Might not work for companies but certainly will for individuals.
I always thought that prices per se can't be copyrighted. Now situation when people post scan of upcoming ads (which was not the case with BestBuy and FatWallet) can probably fall under copyright violation, as only author of that page can lawfully distribute it (short of posting it with design/layout critique and "never use this font in publication" kind of thing:) )
In this particular case it's not worth it anyways, as most of the deals were easily available from other retailers for about the same price. It would be good though, to finally get those lawyers into the court and get a precedent of them being slapped with "No can't do" decision. That way any upcoming price-related DMCA cases would be still-born:)
Just like that. Yes, it's cool to watch. But no: 1. You have to learn it. That round thingies are used for this, star-like thingies for that 2. Implementation shown is not logical. You either project supplemental interface from the top -- then any hand movement distorts it, or from the bottom, where hand movement and physical interface object distort/shadow it. Simple solution? Make the object virtual.
Oh, wait. Isn't it the type of interface those hollywood designers made for Voyager, where you click, slide, and so on on touch panel? If avbailable, hand movement scanning technology can be added for those, who are handicapped and can't touch the panel with sustainable force for, say, sliding. Some form of force feedback or "bulging" of touchable pannel can be used to help track the range of movement.
Imagine how many problems shown tangible interface will bring to someone who has arthritis or bad coordination, or difficulty to grip those thingies. It's much easier to virtualize them and make motions needed to control intuitive.
Example of real life application -- touch-sensitive light switches, where you just tap it. Or you can slide it up for brighter light and down.
All manufacturers have to do, is use the rebate schema. Digital tuner is made as an insert module (say, from the back of the unit) and then customer can return the unit to the manufacturer and receive $70 cheque. Then this returned unit gets inserted into new TV, sold, returned, inserted, sold, returned etc:) New TV boxes will sport huge "TV TUNER RECYCLE! GET $75 BACK!" stickers, and local ABC news will hiss of anger, and nervously flip the evil...err.... digital contention protection bit.:)
Operating system of one of the descendants of those astronauts (by a quirk of fate called Neo) discovers it has had a wireless module all alone. Neo (watching metallic octopus-like creatures floating in his direction): "Wait! This time it's different! I can feel them" Operating system: "New devices of type 'Sentinel 2.3' are nearby. Please wait while drivers are being installed..." Neo spreads his arm forth, trying to point his wireless module antenna at creatures, which overloads his RF module and aborts driver installation.
Operating system: "Driver installation was aborted! Devices may not work properly!"
Sentinels perform unrecoverable error because of interrupted connection init sequence and blow up.
Neo's operating system, socked by sudden disappearance of freshly discovered network objects shows Blue Screen of Death, stores dump then reboots.
Neo falls on the ground in coma, waiting until Scandisk finishes checking all of his memory....
I, personally, think it is bad for independent films. When this ban was just announced, independents started to moan because their films are not widely available in local cinemas. Now keep in mind, that in most cases it is the big studios that distribute those indie movies. Studio affiliations allow them to share some glory (they're the one, who found "diamond in a rough" which receives an Oscar for... ), earn big bucks (indie film costs pennies compared to supermegablockbuster from W. Brothers;)) and improve their return on investment.
What would be the easiest way for them to keep the Oscars coming and money flowing? Push those movies into more cinemas in more cities. Yes, the latest alternative movie would probably still not be available on every screen in every cinema in your city, but it might be available in one or two arthouse cinemas (which generally is enough for limited audience films), and, potentially, growing to dozens of cinemas if it happens to be a hit.
Now we're back to "release in 5 cinemas in the US, send 5,700 tapes/dvds to Academy members" scenario (with winner getting a bit more attention, and loosers never seeing the eye of the public in not-so-cosmopolitan cities).
Hell already froze over when iTunes for windows was released. It can't freeze over again due to Microsoft cheerful acceptance of competitor's product for windows -- give it time to thaw.:)
A truckload of DVDs:) No, really. A nice truck filled with DVDs would deliver more information to the destination in shorter time than ultra-highspeed connection. Of course it's not quite the same as sustained connection...
And, if you look at comparision chart you will see that Polywell Polystation Two with 128Mb video card (same as Apple) beat Apple's dual processor unit in Photoshop 17/18 and 47/51:) Was it the other way around there'd be loud shouts on how unbiased and fair this test was:)
As far as I remember ALL Microsoft programs for Macs are written from scratch. Not ported. Well, if you call writing separate version with same functions for different platform "porting", then yes, ported.
Easy:) "Warmth" : presence of an extra compensation capacitor or high second order harmonic distortion:) "Depth" : Frequency response above 70 Hz is without significant jumps/falls (compare graphs of "high rated speakers":) ) "Presence" : Described in here:)
Frankly, I am surprised nobody brought this up yet. All of the government, military and national security projects have to be done in the US, period. For some reason people don't seem to be concerned, that stuff that army uses gets made in China or India. Parts of the databases and other projects get to be indirectly outsourced. Do they know who built the server they're going to run it? Did they check every employee of their foreign affiliate to make sure there is no link to terrorism, no time bombs, phone home beakons? Did each and every part got inspected? I doubt it. Is the certification comprehensive enough to spot parts of the "phone home" subsystem that only works when used with another product? Say evil developer in foreign country installs one piece in Windows 2003 Server, and another in Backup Controller System, which, when combined, results in periodical attempts to contact some external server? I know it sounds paranoid, but I always thought that military and government have to be.
And as soon as all of those nice and lucrative contracts will start to vanish from companies, involved in outsourcing in any way, the tax dollars spent on those systems will remain here, rather than increase trade balance gap. You want foreign workers, bring them here, let them work.
"By opening this CD case you agree to be bound by the license and pay us one million dollars for each stupid lawsuit we can file against you for using our product" Now that'd be a comprehensive EULA. Though I probably should not give them any ideas...:)
Well, as greedy states will most likely base collection on the destination address (all legalize on where the purchase is taking place aside), it means that mail forwarding services in No Sales Tax states will get busy. You get yourself a nice forwarding address, and buy and ship your next SLR Camera there. It gets forwarded to your home, but hey, that's not a purchace at this point. No sales tax. Insignificant shipping difference. Savings for consumers. Angry tax people.
Perhaps there will be even "one time forwarder" companies, for those, who just wanted to buy something nice and expensive every once in a while...:)
So, why would not they make a desk with UV lamp, where people can put their phones/PDAs/whatever else. Hard UV radiation is quite effective as a decontamination mechanism. In some countries (Russia, for example), UV lamp is used daily in examination rooms (while no humans are present, of course;) ), to reduce amount of airborne contaminants in the air and on irradiated surfaces.
Not sure if it would harm the screen of cellphone (a simple UV protective transparent sticker would help) but all other surfaces would be clensed without problems. No?
While it's always nice to have more choices, I think this new PDA is somewhat unasked for. There are two Zaurus models (5500 is already cheaper than $300, and 5600 is heading that way). Most of the iPaqs can run linux on them (IPAQLinux.com), and they are way cheaper and been around awhile, so all the quirks were worked out. Will the new $300 device be more attractive than currently available models, be it not for the "it comes with linux" factor? I am not sure. Those who want Linux on their PDA are usually skilled enough to get it already:)
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As far as I know (and as far as this article says) Rhapsody does use WMA for streaming. Real simply bought it, and, while they certainly do want it to use Real format, the upgrade is simply not there (also try go to their help section and enter "what codec" into question field -- result says WMA and is updated 01/08/2004 06:49 PM )
Which makes the fact that Real sued Microsoft even more funny, and wish to cozy up to anyone but Microsoft somewhat more logical.
I mean look for yourself -- they increase price, sales in legitimate stores fall down significantly, sales of physical CDs won't pick up, so they start a new round of screaming that P2P is killing them (again/even more than before/despite legit options -- pick one). And all of a sudden new law that makes P2P connection criminal offense with minimal mandatory sentencing of 5 years in federal prison and 20 000 dollars fine gets passed.
No Service "honeypot" would only work if it overpowers everything else AND creates horrible interference. Otherwise anyone who's phone is put into "my own network only/disable roaming" mode won't pay any attention to strong signal from alien network (just like AT&T's phones prefer even weakest AT&T signal over stronger signal from other networks). Interference creation is illegal. So back to illegal "noise on all cell phone frequencies" devices then... :(
I like Quiet Zone bluetooth solution way more, but all CDMA operators hate bluetooth technology
Indian writers will write for Indian developers :)
I mean come on, developers are mostly in India now. So writers, and coffee makers should follow.
Yes, I may be wrong, but I prefer generic '.com' or geographical '.**'. I don't want my web site to be .google/.ISP/.Earthlink/.WhateverMarketoidsThinkOf . Because I am not a part of those organizations and, hopefully, won't be. And I bet as soon this madness with a gazillion of zones happens, there will be no easy way to get domain in other company's zone. Each time hosting changes it will be "Sorry, Sir, but we only support our domains. We can offer you a discount on YourSire.Schmuk...".
Unless, of course, one can get personal zone for, say, $15 a year...
For example, I tried to call yesterday to cancel old tivo service. Yes, auto-customer-support-system could figure out I wanted to cancel. It probably also could figure out how pissed off I was by low growling. But no, to cancel Tivo you only have to cancel from 8AM to 8PM PST and talk to live person. And if you happen to be able to call only AFTER 8PM none of that frustration-meter stuff will help you, as call center is closed, and while it's easy to sign up for new service ("just click here!" on their web site) there are 15 hoops to jump through to cancel ("sorry, for security reasons you have to speak to a live agent" riiiiight, signing up was security-less? and if you want to talk to a live person for any other reason your wait time is 84 (!!) minutes).
As companies save more and more money by cutting support staff all these improvements will go on unused, as only automatic support will be available.
What I don't understand, is why people don't research anything and then bitch about "how expensive it is". It is NOT expensive.
If anyone actually bothered to go to T-Mobile web site and see the service plans, you would know you can get DAY pass for $10. And if you have T-Mobile cell phone, unlimited WiFi is $20 a month. Beats many dial up providers by mobility AND price.
And, while on the subject, WiFi might become even less needed as same T-Mobile now offers free WAP browsing, and unlimited "corporate" GPRS is also $10.
Access is getting cheaper and cheaper, allthough there will always be providers, that try to charge twice as much for the same service.
Perhaps it makes sense to switch between voicemail and fax on the second call? I.e. when you call your home number, fax picks up, records the caller id info. Then you hang up, and dial number again. Seeing that caller ID is the same, and last attempt to receive fax has failed, fax ignores this call completely and you get to your voicemail. At this point flag gets reset again, and next call will be picked up by fax etc...
For a while, my insurance company had been including a little leaflet with correspondence, that says clearly: if you see a "mysterious" or inappropriate fee on the claim, call them and tell them about it. If they get doctor to reverse it, you get 20% of disputed amount credited to your account.
Now, of course, this can only be done if that "consulation" was what it was -- the charge for 2 minute talk, explaining what peaks and valleys are, and EKG itself and result interpretation were charged separatedly.
Anything that has link to non-"old-standard" site in the body of the message yet got sent to plain old latin US domain can be easily throwin into SPAM folder.
Might not work for companies but certainly will for individuals.
I always thought that prices per se can't be copyrighted. Now situation when people post scan of upcoming ads (which was not the case with BestBuy and FatWallet) can probably fall under copyright violation, as only author of that page can lawfully distribute it (short of posting it with design/layout critique and "never use this font in publication" kind of thing :) )
:)
In this particular case it's not worth it anyways, as most of the deals were easily available from other retailers for about the same price. It would be good though, to finally get those lawyers into the court and get a precedent of them being slapped with "No can't do" decision. That way any upcoming price-related DMCA cases would be still-born
Just like that.
Yes, it's cool to watch. But no:
1. You have to learn it. That round thingies are used for this, star-like thingies for that
2. Implementation shown is not logical. You either project supplemental interface from the top -- then any hand movement distorts it, or from the bottom, where hand movement and physical interface object distort/shadow it. Simple solution?
Make the object virtual.
Oh, wait. Isn't it the type of interface those hollywood designers made for Voyager, where you click, slide, and so on on touch panel?
If avbailable, hand movement scanning technology can be added for those, who are handicapped and can't touch the panel with sustainable force for, say, sliding.
Some form of force feedback or "bulging" of touchable pannel can be used to help track the range of movement.
Imagine how many problems shown tangible interface will bring to someone who has arthritis or bad coordination, or difficulty to grip those thingies. It's much easier to virtualize them and make motions needed to control intuitive.
Example of real life application -- touch-sensitive light switches, where you just tap it. Or you can slide it up for brighter light and down.
All manufacturers have to do, is use the rebate schema. Digital tuner is made as an insert module (say, from the back of the unit) and then customer can return the unit to the manufacturer and receive $70 cheque. Then this returned unit gets inserted into new TV, sold, returned, inserted, sold, returned etc :) New TV boxes will sport huge "TV TUNER RECYCLE! GET $75 BACK!" stickers, and local ABC news will hiss of anger, and nervously flip the evil...err.... digital contention protection bit. :)
Operating system of one of the descendants of those astronauts (by a quirk of fate called Neo) discovers it has had a wireless module all alone.
Neo (watching metallic octopus-like creatures floating in his direction): "Wait! This time it's different! I can feel them"
Operating system: "New devices of type 'Sentinel 2.3' are nearby. Please wait while drivers are being installed..."
Neo spreads his arm forth, trying to point his wireless module antenna at creatures, which overloads his RF module and aborts driver installation.
Operating system: "Driver installation was aborted! Devices may not work properly!"
Sentinels perform unrecoverable error because of interrupted connection init sequence and blow up.
Neo's operating system, socked by sudden disappearance of freshly discovered network objects shows Blue Screen of Death, stores dump then reboots.
Neo falls on the ground in coma, waiting until Scandisk finishes checking all of his memory....
I, personally, think it is bad for independent films. ;)) and improve their return on investment.
When this ban was just announced, independents started to moan because their films are not widely available in local cinemas. Now keep in mind, that in most cases it is the big studios that distribute those indie movies. Studio affiliations allow them to share some glory (they're the one, who found "diamond in a rough" which receives an Oscar for... ), earn big bucks (indie film costs pennies compared to supermegablockbuster from W. Brothers
What would be the easiest way for them to keep the Oscars coming and money flowing? Push those movies into more cinemas in more cities. Yes, the latest alternative movie would probably still not be available on every screen in every cinema in your city, but it might be available in one or two arthouse cinemas (which generally is enough for limited audience films), and, potentially, growing to dozens of cinemas if it happens to be a hit.
Now we're back to "release in 5 cinemas in the US, send 5,700 tapes/dvds to Academy members" scenario (with winner getting a bit more attention, and loosers never seeing the eye of the public in not-so-cosmopolitan cities).
Hell already froze over when iTunes for windows was released. It can't freeze over again due to Microsoft cheerful acceptance of competitor's product for windows -- give it time to thaw. :)
A truckload of DVDs :)
No, really. A nice truck filled with DVDs would deliver more information to the destination in shorter time than ultra-highspeed connection. Of course it's not quite the same as sustained connection...
And, if you look at comparision chart you will see that Polywell Polystation Two with 128Mb video card (same as Apple) beat Apple's dual processor unit in Photoshop 17/18 and 47/51 :) :)
Was it the other way around there'd be loud shouts on how unbiased and fair this test was
As far as I remember ALL Microsoft programs for Macs are written from scratch. Not ported. Well, if you call writing separate version with same functions for different platform "porting", then yes, ported.
Easy :) :) :) ) :)
"Warmth" : presence of an extra compensation capacitor or high second order harmonic distortion
"Depth" : Frequency response above 70 Hz is without significant jumps/falls (compare graphs of "high rated speakers"
"Presence" : Described in here
Frankly, I am surprised nobody brought this up yet. All of the government, military and national security projects have to be done in the US, period. For some reason people don't seem to be concerned, that stuff that army uses gets made in China or India. Parts of the databases and other projects get to be indirectly outsourced. Do they know who built the server they're going to run it? Did they check every employee of their foreign affiliate to make sure there is no link to terrorism, no time bombs, phone home beakons? Did each and every part got inspected? I doubt it.
Is the certification comprehensive enough to spot parts of the "phone home" subsystem that only works when used with another product? Say evil developer in foreign country installs one piece in Windows 2003 Server, and another in Backup Controller System, which, when combined, results in periodical attempts to contact some external server? I know it sounds paranoid, but I always thought that military and government have to be.
And as soon as all of those nice and lucrative contracts will start to vanish from companies, involved in outsourcing in any way, the tax dollars spent on those systems will remain here, rather than increase trade balance gap.
You want foreign workers, bring them here, let them work.
"By opening this CD case you agree to be bound by the license and pay us one million dollars for each stupid lawsuit we can file against you for using our product" :)
Now that'd be a comprehensive EULA.
Though I probably should not give them any ideas...
Well, as greedy states will most likely base collection on the destination address (all legalize on where the purchase is taking place aside), it means that mail forwarding services in No Sales Tax states will get busy. You get yourself a nice forwarding address, and buy and ship your next SLR Camera there. It gets forwarded to your home, but hey, that's not a purchace at this point.
:)
No sales tax. Insignificant shipping difference. Savings for consumers. Angry tax people.
Perhaps there will be even "one time forwarder" companies, for those, who just wanted to buy something nice and expensive every once in a while...
So, why would not they make a desk with UV lamp, where people can put their phones/PDAs/whatever else. Hard UV radiation is quite effective as a decontamination mechanism. In some countries (Russia, for example), UV lamp is used daily in examination rooms (while no humans are present, of course ;) ), to reduce amount of airborne contaminants in the air and on irradiated surfaces.
Not sure if it would harm the screen of cellphone (a simple UV protective transparent sticker would help) but all other surfaces would be clensed without problems. No?
While it's always nice to have more choices, I think this new PDA is somewhat unasked for. There are two Zaurus models (5500 is already cheaper than $300, and 5600 is heading that way). Most of the iPaqs can run linux on them (IPAQLinux.com), and they are way cheaper and been around awhile, so all the quirks were worked out. Will the new $300 device be more attractive than currently available models, be it not for the "it comes with linux" factor? I am not sure. Those who want Linux on their PDA are usually skilled enough to get it already :)
Now he knows how Billy feels every morning :)