Unless it's the size of, say, a parking lot, you're going to wait a good long time for your car to charge back up.
Like it or not, the gas station infrastructure is pretty darn reliable. I don't think there's any way to charge these battery packs in less than a few hours, so that's a pretty serious limitation. You can't wave your hands and make that go away.
Yeah, just so long as nothing happens to the batteries to cause the hideously toxic contents to leak out. You know, like an AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.
See, one thing that a lot of people forget about is the production hazards of these 'green' technologies. Photovoltaic cells have a lot of extremely toxic by products. So does your motherboard. This is an issue that is not getting enough attention.
I agree with you, in principle, that software patents are bad. However, they're never going to go away, and in the mean time the MP3 patent is not being abused by Fraunhofer (in my opinion). To my mind, they have a better claim on the justifiability of their patent because a) the psychoacoustics are pretty non-obvious, by virtue of the fact that they did a lot of R&D on the codec and b) they seem to be pretty evenhanded about their licensing (they aren't playing favourites).
You can split hairs about what is or is not "firmware". Pick a term that makes you happy; it's not germane to our discussion here.
So now you want Ogg RECORDING on the iPod? Dude, don't hold your breath. Or go write it yourself. I, for one, am not one of those people who has a burning desire to run Linux on my tennis shoes, so iPod Linux has zero appeal.
It sound to me like the product you want is a not-an-iPod. That's fine. There are dozens out there. Go buy one. You'll be happy.
"most of the SK's target audience doesn't even use Outlook."
That, to me, is just a stupid statement.
Who the hell are they targeting, if not users of the most popular PIM on the fucking planet? I mean, I won't go near Outlook exept under duress, but if I'm selling a phone/PDA, and some marketing flack tells me that Outlook is not important to the success of my device, I'm going to get myself a new marketing flack.
Or just spend that money on better engineering, and let my product do the talking. Much better idea. THAT is the target audience I'm in: Well engineered, well-thought-out products that suit my needs thoroughly.
Which is why I can't wait for the Samsung SGH-i500 to ship on my continent.
Even better would be "Mash a button, record that part of the call". Boy, that'd be a super-cool feature. Is that available on any smartphone right now?
Does it sync itself to my PC so I don't lose all my data if I lose the device?
For me, that is THE killer app for PDAs over paper planners. The only reason I want my PDA and my phone to talk to one another (or, even better, be in the same hunk o' plastic) is so I only have to maintain one contact list.
I don't know any men who keep crap in their shirt pockets either, so settle down. Maybe they're not being sexist, maybe they're trying to describe the size of an object relative to a (commonly sized) shirt pocket.
There are enough iniquities in this world that we don't have to go making up ridiculous ones like this. Product reviews are ALWAYS the opinion of one and only one reviewer. You read them critically with this fact in mind, and you glean data that might be relevant to your experience.
Apple has a long tradition of using relatively low screen resolutions. Their 14" and 16" Trinitron monitors were fixed-resolution: You couldn't change them at all. The 15" MultiScan was the first multiple resolution monitor. The reason being, they set their screen resolution so it would be 1:1 with the paper output. True WYSIWYG. That was their design driver, not "I have great eyesight and I want all the text to be microscopic".
That might be one reason not to use crazy-high resolutions. The other might be that Apple was not able to source enough high-quality panels. My opinion is that the Apple laptop displays are much easier on my eyes than most PC displays, and I'll be glad to trade a bit of screen real estate for that quality.
Would I personally take a higher-resolution screen, all other things being equal? To a point, sure. But, since laptop monitors look like ass when rendering at anything other than their native resolution, I'd want to make sure that either the OS did a good job of scaling EVERYTHING (which Windows is HORRIBLE at), in case I get tired of staring at teeny tiny text. The Quartz rendering engine is supposed to be pretty resolution independent, but I don't believe that there are any native tools that allow scaling of screen fonts. I haven't explored this thoroughly, so I could easily be mistaken.
So, no design is perfect. Apple's design suits me. Don't like it? That's cool. There are lots of other options out there.
Non-onerously means that they license their technology for a relatively small fee. If you think it's too expensive, that's certainly your prerogative. It is, however, the patent holder's privilege to disagree with you.
Yes, I'd prefer to destroy software/algorithm patents, but the MP3 licenser (Fraunhofer?) doesn't seem to be nearly as unreasonable as some. That's "non-onerous", in my opinion.
The processor and the OS on board the iPod is what I'm glomming under the title of "firmware". I don't know if the MP3/AAC decoding is done by a general purpose DSP (that might be easy to adapt to OGG decoding) or if it's a hardware decoder, which would require a major hardware revision for what I believe is a pretty irrelevant improvement.
There have been posts elsewhere for how to get ogg playback in iTunes, so knock yourself out. iPod support is a different kettle of fish.
I agree that the patent-free nature is great. However, the patents that compete with it are licensed non-onerously, and Vorbis isn't better enough to warrant support in firmware.
Would it be nice? Sure. Am I holding my breath? Hell no.
They didn't use bt for bandwidth, they used it so you don't have to use a dongle on most of the new hardware. See how much sense that makes?
Apple has always serviced its bleeding-edge customers with fun toys.
Incidentally, bt has nowhere near the bandwidth of a USB connection. If I remember correctly, the sustainable throughput is around 1 megabit. High bandwidth is not the itch bt was designed to scratch.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. Stupid people, expressing their opinions. You get the torches, I'll bring the pitchforks.
Uh huh. Until you have to supply trust certificates any time you want to, like, use software you've purchased.
If you think this is just an innocuous tool, you're a tool.
Yeah, if you don't have any integrity, you sure would.
Stupid vampires...they're into everything.
Pull out a solar panel...right.
Unless it's the size of, say, a parking lot, you're going to wait a good long time for your car to charge back up.
Like it or not, the gas station infrastructure is pretty darn reliable. I don't think there's any way to charge these battery packs in less than a few hours, so that's a pretty serious limitation. You can't wave your hands and make that go away.
Twelve miles per gallon, from a CIVIC? You're nuts. Twice that is reasonable.
Yeah, just so long as nothing happens to the batteries to cause the hideously toxic contents to leak out. You know, like an AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.
See, one thing that a lot of people forget about is the production hazards of these 'green' technologies. Photovoltaic cells have a lot of extremely toxic by products. So does your motherboard. This is an issue that is not getting enough attention.
Yeah, get back to me when you have to drop $8000 on a new battery pack next year.
I agree with you, in principle, that software patents are bad. However, they're never going to go away, and in the mean time the MP3 patent is not being abused by Fraunhofer (in my opinion). To my mind, they have a better claim on the justifiability of their patent because a) the psychoacoustics are pretty non-obvious, by virtue of the fact that they did a lot of R&D on the codec and b) they seem to be pretty evenhanded about their licensing (they aren't playing favourites).
You can split hairs about what is or is not "firmware". Pick a term that makes you happy; it's not germane to our discussion here.
So now you want Ogg RECORDING on the iPod? Dude, don't hold your breath. Or go write it yourself. I, for one, am not one of those people who has a burning desire to run Linux on my tennis shoes, so iPod Linux has zero appeal.
It sound to me like the product you want is a not-an-iPod. That's fine. There are dozens out there. Go buy one. You'll be happy.
Oh, well, that's all right then. Thanks for saving us from redundancy by providing ABSOLUTELY NO CONTENT WHATSOEVER.
Full marks.
"most of the SK's target audience doesn't even use Outlook."
That, to me, is just a stupid statement.
Who the hell are they targeting, if not users of the most popular PIM on the fucking planet? I mean, I won't go near Outlook exept under duress, but if I'm selling a phone/PDA, and some marketing flack tells me that Outlook is not important to the success of my device, I'm going to get myself a new marketing flack.
Or just spend that money on better engineering, and let my product do the talking. Much better idea. THAT is the target audience I'm in: Well engineered, well-thought-out products that suit my needs thoroughly.
Which is why I can't wait for the Samsung SGH-i500 to ship on my continent.
What if I don't trust their server? Can I sync it to my hard drive?
I know I'm being paranoid, but if the company folds...
And sold, what? Four or five of them?
Come on. Apple made RISC a viable household PC. Were they the first? Perhaps not. They were, by any rational measure, the most successful.
Even better would be "Mash a button, record that part of the call". Boy, that'd be a super-cool feature. Is that available on any smartphone right now?
Okay, how many hands do you have? One to hold the phone, one to hold the PDA, a third to navigate on the PDA...
I just use a headset. Works fine.
Does it sync itself to my PC so I don't lose all my data if I lose the device?
For me, that is THE killer app for PDAs over paper planners. The only reason I want my PDA and my phone to talk to one another (or, even better, be in the same hunk o' plastic) is so I only have to maintain one contact list.
Until Apple started shipping them. *smirk*
...except the samsung sgh-i500. Which I wait for with bated breath.
I don't know any men who keep crap in their shirt pockets either, so settle down. Maybe they're not being sexist, maybe they're trying to describe the size of an object relative to a (commonly sized) shirt pocket.
There are enough iniquities in this world that we don't have to go making up ridiculous ones like this. Product reviews are ALWAYS the opinion of one and only one reviewer. You read them critically with this fact in mind, and you glean data that might be relevant to your experience.
That said, The Gadgeteer is excellent.
Will it have gameplay that is fun, too? That'd be great!
Don't be silly.
Apple has a long tradition of using relatively low screen resolutions. Their 14" and 16" Trinitron monitors were fixed-resolution: You couldn't change them at all. The 15" MultiScan was the first multiple resolution monitor. The reason being, they set their screen resolution so it would be 1:1 with the paper output. True WYSIWYG. That was their design driver, not "I have great eyesight and I want all the text to be microscopic".
That might be one reason not to use crazy-high resolutions. The other might be that Apple was not able to source enough high-quality panels. My opinion is that the Apple laptop displays are much easier on my eyes than most PC displays, and I'll be glad to trade a bit of screen real estate for that quality.
Would I personally take a higher-resolution screen, all other things being equal? To a point, sure. But, since laptop monitors look like ass when rendering at anything other than their native resolution, I'd want to make sure that either the OS did a good job of scaling EVERYTHING (which Windows is HORRIBLE at), in case I get tired of staring at teeny tiny text. The Quartz rendering engine is supposed to be pretty resolution independent, but I don't believe that there are any native tools that allow scaling of screen fonts. I haven't explored this thoroughly, so I could easily be mistaken.
So, no design is perfect. Apple's design suits me. Don't like it? That's cool. There are lots of other options out there.
Non-onerously means that they license their technology for a relatively small fee. If you think it's too expensive, that's certainly your prerogative. It is, however, the patent holder's privilege to disagree with you.
Yes, I'd prefer to destroy software/algorithm patents, but the MP3 licenser (Fraunhofer?) doesn't seem to be nearly as unreasonable as some. That's "non-onerous", in my opinion.
The processor and the OS on board the iPod is what I'm glomming under the title of "firmware". I don't know if the MP3/AAC decoding is done by a general purpose DSP (that might be easy to adapt to OGG decoding) or if it's a hardware decoder, which would require a major hardware revision for what I believe is a pretty irrelevant improvement.
There have been posts elsewhere for how to get ogg playback in iTunes, so knock yourself out. iPod support is a different kettle of fish.
I agree that the patent-free nature is great. However, the patents that compete with it are licensed non-onerously, and Vorbis isn't better enough to warrant support in firmware.
Would it be nice? Sure. Am I holding my breath? Hell no.
They didn't use bt for bandwidth, they used it so you don't have to use a dongle on most of the new hardware. See how much sense that makes?
Apple has always serviced its bleeding-edge customers with fun toys.
Incidentally, bt has nowhere near the bandwidth of a USB connection. If I remember correctly, the sustainable throughput is around 1 megabit. High bandwidth is not the itch bt was designed to scratch.
NOBODY CARES ABOUT OGG VORBIS.
Right. Just thought I'd share. If you want Ogg support, download it. Nobody else gives a crap.