Given I haven't claimed any real benefits, I'm not sure there's anything to disagree with either. Unless you're talking about the original writeup?
But if you want to talk about benefits, here are some:
10% to 15% more CPU available to the user, instead of being eaten up by the graphics; graphics will necessarily become more complex as we get bigger desktops and displays, since there's more information to display, and more techniques to display them in useful manners, so offloading this to the GPU means less 'stolen' from the CPU
An example of this would be using color, graphics, and motion to present information, rather than strictly black and white text. In this manner the user is spared information overload because instead the computer is performing work to do so.
A list of 100 files in a folder is hard to quickly scan if they are in text form only. One solution is to use color coding, such that protected read only files are a shade of grey, while system files that can only be accessed by root or super-users are red, program files are orange, and user files are blue. Then you've got icons sitting next to each file so that, at a glance, you can differentiate the photos from the documents from the movies. Heck, you might even have the movies with animated filmstrip icons, while music has animated waveforms...
You see what I mean? Each time we apply more complicated UI, it eats up CPU, and using the GPU to handle most of this means we have more CPU.
Perhaps 'commonly accepted' is a localism then, since I'm in the Silicon Valley, home to SGI, OpenGL, Apple, the Mac OS, Irix, and the WiMP metaphor:)
All Apple (and I think Microsoft) has done with 3d accelerated hardware is to refine the WiMP without radically changing it; so I wouldn't call it a 3d desktop until someone actually changes the WiMP interface.
As for the writeup, I'm not sure either. It would seem he's never used the Mac OS X, so all of these features are new to him, while being something like 3 years old to me.
Words are defined by people. I too am a person, and by my usage of a word, a word is defined. I am not many people, but I do have influence with the people I hang out with, and they have influence and on and on, via the 6 degrees mechanism. So the whole definition of meaning and minority and majority is always in flux. Linux is the OS and kernel to you. To me Linux is the kernel, and Debian is the OS, since I use Debian. You might use RedHat, so your OS would be RedHat. If you asked me what OS I ran, and I said Debian, would you misunderstand? Probably not.
I have as much power to gainsay the new definition as anyone, since, in a very democratic process, words and definitions are dictated by usage.
So if I look silly and annoying, it's not because I go around telling people how to speak and being an asshole. You're the one here trying to tell me how to speak, by calling me silly and annoying, and calling me an asshole. So look in the mirror first before you go around labeling and calling names:)
Hmm, except it doesn't play MP3s. Or Breakout. Or Solitaire. Or let you view notes. Or your contacts. Or your calendar. Or recharge while it's tranfserring data.
So... did I miss anything in it's functionality other than the differences I already listed?
This was paragraph 3: The easy answer is that a 3d accelerated desktop means more of the graphics functions is performed by the GPU instead of the CPU, leaving you with more CPU time and a higher performance machine.
A 2d accelerated desktop only accelerates some of the functions, and I said that *more* of the graphics functions is performed by the GPU; I never implied a 3d desktop is required, it just offloads stuff from the CPU (that 2d acceleration cannot handle) and gives it to the GPU to do in 3d hardware.
It's commonly accepted that a 3d desktop is, like, Irix, or something, and not just multiple levels of windows. Otherwise you might as well say that the Mac OS, since it's inception, is a 3d desktop because it had the capability to handle multiple windows in different levels... and this was in 1984!
The reality is that for 18 years the CPU had to handle all of these multiple windows, until the advent of Mac OS X, in which all the windows became their own surfaces governed by 3d accelerated hardware; nothing fundamentally changed, the behavior is the same, but instead of being handled by the CPU, it is instead handled by the GPU. Does that make Mac OS X a 3d desktop? Not at all, not unless you want to say the original Mac OS is also a 3d desktop.
Where did I say a 3d accelerated desktop is required to accelerate 2d graphics?
And why do you think I've never heard of 2d acceleration? What did I say to imply that?
But to say more on the topic, 3d is a superset of 2d: So 3d acceleration is necessarily also going to be able to handle 2d acceleration, while 2d acceleration cannot necessarily handle 3d acceleration.
Here's a trick: Lets say you have to manage 15 windows. With 3d acceleration you can take advantage of the Z/height buffer to keep track of all of them, since they all live on different levels. Without 3d acceleration, you have to create a data structure and window managment system, which necessarily requires the CPU and memory subsystems to deal with all the windows.
See, if only for that, 3d acceleration trumps 2d acceleration. There are more situations like that too:)
You're confusing a 3d desktop and a 3d accelerated desktop; the two are not identicaly. You can have a 3d desktop without 3d acceleration, and you can have 3d acceleration without a 3d desktop.
What are you asking, then? What use is a 3d desktop? Or what use is a 3d accelerated desktop?
The easy answer is that a 3d accelerated desktop means more of the graphics functions is performed by the GPU instead of the CPU, leaving you with more CPU time and a higher performance machine.
3d desktop? Beats me, I haven't seen a workable 3d desktop yet.
You could just say "Debian" or "Slackware" or "RedHat" or "Gentoo", for example.
Names give things power, gives them shape and meaning and context.
Linux is the kernel. That's all.
GNU softawre is GNU software. A large portion of it is used in any distro, it's unavoidable, and to use the name GNU/Linux is to give GNU credit where credit is due.
Note, i don't necessarily say GNU/Linux, but I do say Debian or RedHat, etc.
I use Fink; among other things, it's a port of the GNU system onto OS X. Fink is not a port of Linux onto OS X, and you'd never say, "I installed Linux on OS X with Fink".
To be clear, I haven't used Linux for nearly 3 years; I use Debian!
You go back and follow the links, 'Other customers bought...' and 'Top downloads' and 'New releases'... You don't have to finish the album from those artists, you just need more music that other people liked, that like the same music you do:)
There's no guarantee that the master -> CD downsample is superior to a master -> AAC downsample, you do know that, right?
Now a master -> CD is definitely going to be higher fidelity than master -> CD -> AAC, but there's no guarantee it is *superior*, it only means there are less compression and aliasing errors.
So you should, at the least, try this:
Buy an AAC from Apple. Compare to an AAC you ripped from the CD you own Compare to the CD itself
Luckily, with an iPod, you can play all three (m4p, m4a, and aiff) and do a local comparison.
But your argument is different than the original poster, so you're essentially drifting off topic. You *can* afford a Mac, you just choose to discount it in comparison with PCs.
You label the the 800MHz G3 processor as outdated without giving a metric to which a dated processor is defined. If you're playing music, it works. If you're making DV movies, it works. If you're making photo albums, writing word documents, sending email, watching DivX, it works. By what metric is 800MHz or a G3 outdated?
Similarly you say the GHz G4 is slow. I have a 933MHz G4 desktop that's slower than those PowerBooks, and it's encoding AAC, making DV movies, burning DVDs, watchind DivX, compiling Mozilla... what is your metric of slow? 2.5GHz in Intel laptops does not define fast, how long it takes for you to get your task done defines fast. I guess if you're playing Unreal Tournament 2003 on your laptop, then yeah, a 2.5GHz P4 is faster, but I don't know if that makes the G4 slow, either.
You say that the $2k investment will be obsolete in a couple of months... yet where/what is your metric? By your statement, my 933MHz PowerMac will similarly be outdated in a couple of months, and I can easily see it lasting me for another year, maybe two. Or my 400MHz PowerBook; yes it is old, but it will still last me another 6 months, if not longer.
So you want to encode video? Macs can do that. You want to do it faster? They have dual 1.4GHz PowerMacs that can encode video plenty fast. Fast enough for you? I dunno, how fast do you want it? Fast enough for me? Sure.
You talk about how long your PC notebook would stay current... how long would it stay current? I've had my PowerBook for 2 years, and am probably going to upgrade it at the 3 year mark. My PowerMac has been around for less than a year, and again I'll probably upgrade the CPU, hard drive, and video within a year, and then the whole machine within 2, maybe 3. What's a usable lifespan? I think that is dictated by *you*, and not the market or the machine.
Are you going to be running your own wireless network? You should probably get school okay. How about your own file servers? The content needs to be okay and okayed too. Web server? Student accounts? Perhaps a gaming network?
All of those are neat projects that are definitely useful skills as well (maintanence, IT stuff, etc), especially if you have a diverse and cross platform network (A couple OS 9 Macs, some OS X Macs, a few Linux machines, Windows 9x and Windows 2k machines, perhaps a real, if old, donated HP Apollo or two, some BSD machines, etc, as well as routers, switches, hubs, APs, print servers, etc).
The real question is, will the club be *helping* the school? Because if the club just fosters kids wih bad attitude, I don't think a computer club is that hot an idea.
There was a time when a 486 cost $3k, but today Macs, taking into account deflation, cost less than half that.
If you *wanted* a Mac, you can afford it. If you can't afford it, it isn't really the price that's stopping you.
Of course there are exceptions, but on the general, a Mac today is so affordable that to use the price of a Mac over that of a PC is hardly a hefty argument. A better argument would be, "But no one I know uses a Mac, so I'd have to figure out everything on my own," or "I've got $1,000 worth of software on my PC that I can't use on my Mac," or "All my games live on my PC, if I bought a Mac I can't play those games anymore," are all more valid reasons than "An iBook costs 15% more than a similar PC laptop," or "An iMac costs 20% more than a similar PC desktop."
Well, I'm optimistic it will be successful. We'll know shortly, at which point we can see if this is a valid model for video on demand or not.
So I'm curious, why is it bizarre? Or totally frikkin' stupid?
You ask about how Apple's service has succeeded? Given it's only been out for 2 days, success can't be measured yet; what we do know, though, is that as of last October Apple had 180k.Mac subscribers, so we know that there's possibly that many customers willing to pay for the Apple experience. Not a direct number, but it does show us that Apple does have a customer base.
So here's Apple's business model for downloadable music:
Offer an easy to search collection: Search by any ID3 tag, or a combination of tags, including genre, name, album, artist, composer, making finding music much easier and simpler than via free services where all the info is instead crammed into the name of the song. The search is also sortable by categories, as well as a 'relevance' category. Not only is the search easier though, so is the find: Get a result in seconds, rather than looking for hours based on different names, different search networks, and different times, when different people have logged on. It's there, or it isn't, and it's easy to find.
Not only is it easy to find, it's easy to jump from a song to an album, from an album to an artist, and to other albums by the same artist. Then there are links 'Other similar items' and 'Customers also liked these' and 'Top downloads' that come up with each search.
Finally, buying is easy; too easy, according to some who have already tried the service. Find a song, click, you own, you download, it's yours, next song! By making finding and buying so easy (less than a minute per song), you make the $1 price not the price of the song, only, but also the price of the convenience: You can literally find/purchase a hundred songs in an hour if you so want... though spending that much money is probably not wise:)
Hmm, perhaps something to research, then, would be Apple's newly released Music On Demand service, as a model? Wherein CDs are made obsolete by broadband, Visa, iTunes4, Quicktime, AAC, and iPods? You'd therefore want/need something similar in place to implement Video on Demand, if you envision something similar replacing DVDs and movie distribution.
Notice though that Apple isn't marketing it as a pay per view system, but a pay for the convenience of finding what you want when you want it system.
So in a world with fatter pipes, more aggressive encoding, and a defined distribution system, I can't see why Video on Demand can't work, as long as consumers have the ability to play an unlimited number of times, download at will, and burn to CD/DVD at will.
This doesn't mean DVDs are dead, it merely leverages the internet as a more efficient distribution method, without any of the political doublespeak of DivX or content leasing, or EULAs.
Though if you thought about it carefully, the success of Apple's model does demphasize the medium, it only does so because you have content you don't care to purchase, like other tracks, or because it's hard to find. A similar video solution, then, might not have the multiple languages, subtitiles, commentary, etc, which you would still want a DVD for.
Yes, but IE for the Mac is almost crippled. Your blink of an eye is 30 seconds on a Mac!
So rather than rely on Microsoft to remedy this, Apple went ahead and created their own browser and HTML framework.
Imagine it this way: Apple creates Quicktime on the Mac as a first class citizen, and a second class citizen on the PC; Microsoft releases Windows Media Player, and it's as good as Quicktime on the Mac!
You rave about WMP, and everyone else with a Mac goes, WTF? Quicktime was always this fast.
Haha, that was a story we tell at Caltech about how we did that to one of our profs. It was a math prof I think.
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:50:47 PST From: hcate.OSBU_North@XEROX.COM Subject: Life 3.9 A collection of clean humor gathered on: 16 Jun 88
I got this from the June issue of "Discover".......Among science students Caltech is the capital of retaliation. A particularly satisfying incident in the early 1970's involved a math professor who annoyed students by his mechanical, predictable approach to teaching - his lecture notes were straight from his book. One student got hold of a device that changed the normal frequency in an electrical outlet to any desired value. He plugged the classroom clock into it and, over serveral weeks, upped the speed -first by 10 percent, then 12.5 percent, then 15 percent. Each day the frazzled professor raced through the tried-and-true lecture faster and faster, until finally he was reduced to fast-forward gibberish.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish they tested that too, the encoder isn't free, but it is cheap. Then the question is, is the price worth it?
Easy. I already said in my original post that I don't go around saying GNU/Linux. What part of that didn't you understand?
Given I haven't claimed any real benefits, I'm not sure there's anything to disagree with either. Unless you're talking about the original writeup?
But if you want to talk about benefits, here are some:
10% to 15% more CPU available to the user, instead of being eaten up by the graphics; graphics will necessarily become more complex as we get bigger desktops and displays, since there's more information to display, and more techniques to display them in useful manners, so offloading this to the GPU means less 'stolen' from the CPU
An example of this would be using color, graphics, and motion to present information, rather than strictly black and white text. In this manner the user is spared information overload because instead the computer is performing work to do so.
A list of 100 files in a folder is hard to quickly scan if they are in text form only. One solution is to use color coding, such that protected read only files are a shade of grey, while system files that can only be accessed by root or super-users are red, program files are orange, and user files are blue. Then you've got icons sitting next to each file so that, at a glance, you can differentiate the photos from the documents from the movies. Heck, you might even have the movies with animated filmstrip icons, while music has animated waveforms...
You see what I mean? Each time we apply more complicated UI, it eats up CPU, and using the GPU to handle most of this means we have more CPU.
Perhaps 'commonly accepted' is a localism then, since I'm in the Silicon Valley, home to SGI, OpenGL, Apple, the Mac OS, Irix, and the WiMP metaphor :)
All Apple (and I think Microsoft) has done with 3d accelerated hardware is to refine the WiMP without radically changing it; so I wouldn't call it a 3d desktop until someone actually changes the WiMP interface.
As for the writeup, I'm not sure either. It would seem he's never used the Mac OS X, so all of these features are new to him, while being something like 3 years old to me.
And I know *I* am arrogant, so that's something.
:)
Words are defined by people. I too am a person, and by my usage of a word, a word is defined. I am not many people, but I do have influence with the people I hang out with, and they have influence and on and on, via the 6 degrees mechanism. So the whole definition of meaning and minority and majority is always in flux. Linux is the OS and kernel to you. To me Linux is the kernel, and Debian is the OS, since I use Debian. You might use RedHat, so your OS would be RedHat. If you asked me what OS I ran, and I said Debian, would you misunderstand? Probably not.
I have as much power to gainsay the new definition as anyone, since, in a very democratic process, words and definitions are dictated by usage.
So if I look silly and annoying, it's not because I go around telling people how to speak and being an asshole. You're the one here trying to tell me how to speak, by calling me silly and annoying, and calling me an asshole. So look in the mirror first before you go around labeling and calling names
Hmm, except it doesn't play MP3s. Or Breakout. Or Solitaire. Or let you view notes. Or your contacts. Or your calendar. Or recharge while it's tranfserring data.
So... did I miss anything in it's functionality other than the differences I already listed?
If you want to call it 3d, go right ahead :)
This was paragraph 3:
The easy answer is that a 3d accelerated desktop means more of the graphics functions is performed by the GPU instead of the CPU, leaving you with more CPU time and a higher performance machine.
A 2d accelerated desktop only accelerates some of the functions, and I said that *more* of the graphics functions is performed by the GPU; I never implied a 3d desktop is required, it just offloads stuff from the CPU (that 2d acceleration cannot handle) and gives it to the GPU to do in 3d hardware.
It's commonly accepted that a 3d desktop is, like, Irix, or something, and not just multiple levels of windows. Otherwise you might as well say that the Mac OS, since it's inception, is a 3d desktop because it had the capability to handle multiple windows in different levels... and this was in 1984!
The reality is that for 18 years the CPU had to handle all of these multiple windows, until the advent of Mac OS X, in which all the windows became their own surfaces governed by 3d accelerated hardware; nothing fundamentally changed, the behavior is the same, but instead of being handled by the CPU, it is instead handled by the GPU. Does that make Mac OS X a 3d desktop? Not at all, not unless you want to say the original Mac OS is also a 3d desktop.
Where did I say a 3d accelerated desktop is required to accelerate 2d graphics?
:)
And why do you think I've never heard of 2d acceleration? What did I say to imply that?
But to say more on the topic, 3d is a superset of 2d: So 3d acceleration is necessarily also going to be able to handle 2d acceleration, while 2d acceleration cannot necessarily handle 3d acceleration.
Here's a trick: Lets say you have to manage 15 windows. With 3d acceleration you can take advantage of the Z/height buffer to keep track of all of them, since they all live on different levels. Without 3d acceleration, you have to create a data structure and window managment system, which necessarily requires the CPU and memory subsystems to deal with all the windows.
See, if only for that, 3d acceleration trumps 2d acceleration. There are more situations like that too
You're confusing a 3d desktop and a 3d accelerated desktop; the two are not identicaly. You can have a 3d desktop without 3d acceleration, and you can have 3d acceleration without a 3d desktop.
What are you asking, then? What use is a 3d desktop? Or what use is a 3d accelerated desktop?
The easy answer is that a 3d accelerated desktop means more of the graphics functions is performed by the GPU instead of the CPU, leaving you with more CPU time and a higher performance machine.
3d desktop? Beats me, I haven't seen a workable 3d desktop yet.
Yeah, but for all intents an purposes, they *are* all Debian.
:)
If the person I'm speaking with needs more clarification, then I can provide more architecture and hardware details
You could just say "Debian" or "Slackware" or "RedHat" or "Gentoo", for example.
Names give things power, gives them shape and meaning and context.
Linux is the kernel. That's all.
GNU softawre is GNU software. A large portion of it is used in any distro, it's unavoidable, and to use the name GNU/Linux is to give GNU credit where credit is due.
Note, i don't necessarily say GNU/Linux, but I do say Debian or RedHat, etc.
I use Fink; among other things, it's a port of the GNU system onto OS X. Fink is not a port of Linux onto OS X, and you'd never say, "I installed Linux on OS X with Fink".
To be clear, I haven't used Linux for nearly 3 years; I use Debian!
Apple allows burning to CD, up to batches of 10 before altering the playlist, so you can burn 10 more CDs, of the purchased music.
Just because you use it, it isn't closed or proprietary? Fraunhoffer clearly owns the patents, and encoders clearly pay license fees for usage...
That's like claiming a PPC is proprietary; heck, what makes anyone think a P4 or Athlon isn't proprietary?
Not unless the RIAA/music industry gets to them first, right?
Apple, the harbinger of change and competition!
Oh, that's easy.
:)
You go back and follow the links, 'Other customers bought...' and 'Top downloads' and 'New releases'... You don't have to finish the album from those artists, you just need more music that other people liked, that like the same music you do
There's no guarantee that the master -> CD downsample is superior to a master -> AAC downsample, you do know that, right?
Now a master -> CD is definitely going to be higher fidelity than master -> CD -> AAC, but there's no guarantee it is *superior*, it only means there are less compression and aliasing errors.
So you should, at the least, try this:
Buy an AAC from Apple.
Compare to an AAC you ripped from the CD you own
Compare to the CD itself
Luckily, with an iPod, you can play all three (m4p, m4a, and aiff) and do a local comparison.
But your argument is different than the original poster, so you're essentially drifting off topic. You *can* afford a Mac, you just choose to discount it in comparison with PCs.
You label the the 800MHz G3 processor as outdated without giving a metric to which a dated processor is defined. If you're playing music, it works. If you're making DV movies, it works. If you're making photo albums, writing word documents, sending email, watching DivX, it works. By what metric is 800MHz or a G3 outdated?
Similarly you say the GHz G4 is slow. I have a 933MHz G4 desktop that's slower than those PowerBooks, and it's encoding AAC, making DV movies, burning DVDs, watchind DivX, compiling Mozilla... what is your metric of slow? 2.5GHz in Intel laptops does not define fast, how long it takes for you to get your task done defines fast. I guess if you're playing Unreal Tournament 2003 on your laptop, then yeah, a 2.5GHz P4 is faster, but I don't know if that makes the G4 slow, either.
You say that the $2k investment will be obsolete in a couple of months... yet where/what is your metric? By your statement, my 933MHz PowerMac will similarly be outdated in a couple of months, and I can easily see it lasting me for another year, maybe two. Or my 400MHz PowerBook; yes it is old, but it will still last me another 6 months, if not longer.
So you want to encode video? Macs can do that. You want to do it faster? They have dual 1.4GHz PowerMacs that can encode video plenty fast. Fast enough for you? I dunno, how fast do you want it? Fast enough for me? Sure.
You talk about how long your PC notebook would stay current... how long would it stay current? I've had my PowerBook for 2 years, and am probably going to upgrade it at the 3 year mark. My PowerMac has been around for less than a year, and again I'll probably upgrade the CPU, hard drive, and video within a year, and then the whole machine within 2, maybe 3. What's a usable lifespan? I think that is dictated by *you*, and not the market or the machine.
Are you going to be running your own wireless network? You should probably get school okay. How about your own file servers? The content needs to be okay and okayed too. Web server? Student accounts? Perhaps a gaming network?
All of those are neat projects that are definitely useful skills as well (maintanence, IT stuff, etc), especially if you have a diverse and cross platform network (A couple OS 9 Macs, some OS X Macs, a few Linux machines, Windows 9x and Windows 2k machines, perhaps a real, if old, donated HP Apollo or two, some BSD machines, etc, as well as routers, switches, hubs, APs, print servers, etc).
The real question is, will the club be *helping* the school? Because if the club just fosters kids wih bad attitude, I don't think a computer club is that hot an idea.
Right, that's always been an argument.
There was a time when a 486 cost $3k, but today Macs, taking into account deflation, cost less than half that.
If you *wanted* a Mac, you can afford it. If you can't afford it, it isn't really the price that's stopping you.
Of course there are exceptions, but on the general, a Mac today is so affordable that to use the price of a Mac over that of a PC is hardly a hefty argument. A better argument would be, "But no one I know uses a Mac, so I'd have to figure out everything on my own," or "I've got $1,000 worth of software on my PC that I can't use on my Mac," or "All my games live on my PC, if I bought a Mac I can't play those games anymore," are all more valid reasons than "An iBook costs 15% more than a similar PC laptop," or "An iMac costs 20% more than a similar PC desktop."
Well, I'm optimistic it will be successful. We'll know shortly, at which point we can see if this is a valid model for video on demand or not.
.Mac subscribers, so we know that there's possibly that many customers willing to pay for the Apple experience. Not a direct number, but it does show us that Apple does have a customer base.
:)
So I'm curious, why is it bizarre? Or totally frikkin' stupid?
You ask about how Apple's service has succeeded? Given it's only been out for 2 days, success can't be measured yet; what we do know, though, is that as of last October Apple had 180k
So here's Apple's business model for downloadable music:
Offer an easy to search collection: Search by any ID3 tag, or a combination of tags, including genre, name, album, artist, composer, making finding music much easier and simpler than via free services where all the info is instead crammed into the name of the song. The search is also sortable by categories, as well as a 'relevance' category. Not only is the search easier though, so is the find: Get a result in seconds, rather than looking for hours based on different names, different search networks, and different times, when different people have logged on. It's there, or it isn't, and it's easy to find.
Not only is it easy to find, it's easy to jump from a song to an album, from an album to an artist, and to other albums by the same artist. Then there are links 'Other similar items' and 'Customers also liked these' and 'Top downloads' that come up with each search.
Finally, buying is easy; too easy, according to some who have already tried the service. Find a song, click, you own, you download, it's yours, next song! By making finding and buying so easy (less than a minute per song), you make the $1 price not the price of the song, only, but also the price of the convenience: You can literally find/purchase a hundred songs in an hour if you so want... though spending that much money is probably not wise
Hmm, perhaps something to research, then, would be Apple's newly released Music On Demand service, as a model? Wherein CDs are made obsolete by broadband, Visa, iTunes4, Quicktime, AAC, and iPods? You'd therefore want/need something similar in place to implement Video on Demand, if you envision something similar replacing DVDs and movie distribution.
Notice though that Apple isn't marketing it as a pay per view system, but a pay for the convenience of finding what you want when you want it system.
So in a world with fatter pipes, more aggressive encoding, and a defined distribution system, I can't see why Video on Demand can't work, as long as consumers have the ability to play an unlimited number of times, download at will, and burn to CD/DVD at will.
This doesn't mean DVDs are dead, it merely leverages the internet as a more efficient distribution method, without any of the political doublespeak of DivX or content leasing, or EULAs.
Though if you thought about it carefully, the success of Apple's model does demphasize the medium, it only does so because you have content you don't care to purchase, like other tracks, or because it's hard to find. A similar video solution, then, might not have the multiple languages, subtitiles, commentary, etc, which you would still want a DVD for.
Than get a 20GB iPod. The smallest available is 5GB, since 2001 :)
Yes, but IE for the Mac is almost crippled. Your blink of an eye is 30 seconds on a Mac!
So rather than rely on Microsoft to remedy this, Apple went ahead and created their own browser and HTML framework.
Imagine it this way: Apple creates Quicktime on the Mac as a first class citizen, and a second class citizen on the PC; Microsoft releases Windows Media Player, and it's as good as Quicktime on the Mac!
You rave about WMP, and everyone else with a Mac goes, WTF? Quicktime was always this fast.
How is that for an analogy?
Why wouldn't an app written in Java using *either* Rendevous not be cross platform?
:D
Apple has released the source to Rendevous already; Tibco has not
Haha, that was a story we tell at Caltech about how we did that to one of our profs. It was a math prof I think.
...Among science students Caltech is the capital of retaliation. A
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 13:50:47 PST
From: hcate.OSBU_North@XEROX.COM
Subject: Life 3.9 A collection of clean humor gathered on: 16 Jun 88
I got this from the June issue of "Discover"....
particularly satisfying incident in the early 1970's involved a math
professor who annoyed students by his mechanical, predictable
approach to teaching - his lecture notes were straight from his
book. One student got hold of a device that changed the normal
frequency in an electrical outlet to any desired value. He plugged
the classroom clock into it and, over serveral weeks, upped the
speed -first by 10 percent, then 12.5 percent, then 15 percent.
Each day the frazzled professor raced through the tried-and-true
lecture faster and faster, until finally he was reduced to
fast-forward gibberish.