ok, but how does it recognise your voice (or your girlfriends.... ok, or your mates voices) and not those of Brad Pitt shouting during a movie? Cancelling out background noise and music is one thing, cancelling out some voices and not others is a bit more tricky.
yes, but the on demand services are primarily internet based. These 'smart TVs' will allow you to watch those services as easily as you currently watch TV broadcasts.
Add some general internet surfing, apps, streaming media, and PVR capabilities and I think they've finally got there.
The fact that the hardware manufacturers are selling these means it might work out, before you had to be really interested in buying a new device to sit under your TV, and for 99% of the population, they just didn't care. Now they get it for 'free' and I imagine they will start using it.
somebody pays, always. In your case (and I'm guessing based on my experiences with 3rd world shitholes where I used to work on billing systems), the entire thing was subsidised by the military/ruling party/"government" so the bods in charge could have a telephone network for their personal use, that they kindly allow the little people to use too.
the fact that it is not congested is usually due to the overspeccing going on in the initial contracts, usually paid for by foreign taxpayers in a vague attempt at "infrastructure" modernisation and/or relatively few users. Certainly, most 3rd world places don't have the same kind of bandwidth hogs that the west has. Wait until they do, and then see if you're still happy with the service.
(actually, you might be, 'cos they'll be arrested for having subversive or just suspicious activities)
ie, the target audience barely knows what a Mbit is, and to be fair, they don't need to know and no-one needs to tell them. They stay within the 'normal' consumption levels (as those levels are designed around them) and the network performs fine.
As for QoS, there are providers (mine for example) that gives you more bandwidth or priority traffic. I buy the 'pro' package that gives me more network during the day, and prioritised VPN (and other stuff) traffic. Of course, I pay more for this, and there are other packages for (eg) gaming.
I think the whining is from those who want everything yet pay nothing.
There's little research on this subject and I think its mainly due to the exams being "different" rather than easier (well, that and kids tutored to specifically pass the exam regardless of what they learn)
Build out some network bandwidth, then divide it by the number of subscribers you have, and charge them for their slice of the whole.
Make sense?
I doubt you'd agree when you get charged the hundreds of dollar per month that would cost you. Besides, its a bit daft to think that every subscriber uses 100% of their bandwidth 24/7, so why not oversell it? After all, if I use 10% of my total bandwidth, there's no reason why you can't allocate that to 9 more subscribers, thus bringing the price down to 1/10th of what it was.
So obviously overselling is ok, but what level is reasonable for this? There's a tradeoff between the price of the network, shared out amongst all subscribers, and the bandwidth you get. Most people don't use much bandwidth - your average mom and pop will use it to surf a little, read emails, etc and use 1Gb per month max, so if you assume all your subscribers are like that, the service should be dirt cheap.
Until you get someone who comes along and basically abuses the system by keeping it on 24/7, streaming torrents or running a video webserver. These people skew (or should that be screw) the carefully planned subscriber/bandwidth ratio which basically means everyone else is subsidising their use of the network, to the detriment of everyone's use of the network.
Tax breaks on new cars where MPG meets a certain requirement?
How abotu a rolling tax break on cars with increasingly higher MGP? ie, as the efficiency goes up and the MPG goes up, the amount of tax you pay is reduced?
I think that would be great.... all you need to do is tax gas. The less your car uses, the less tax you pay. Simple.
Nokia itself wouldn't have wanted to be sold to Microsoft, but Elop would be more than willing to part with it for the usual management takeover golden parachute cash deal.
I doubt this would happen though, MS already owns Nokia effectively. Unless the executive management wanted to give more cash to their buddies, things'll stay as they are.
Good for you - but if you can't be bothered, you can buy realtek 1186-based boxes where they're already done this work. And the realtek chip will decode practically every movie format there is.
On the other hand, if you do make such a thing, publish the specs and tutorials - it'll be a practical real-world use to put the Pi to, and I'm sure the software will be vastly improved over the existing boxes.
However, the 'popcorn hour' and similar (cheaper) boxes like the Himedia, WD TV Live, Elion Labon, Mede8er etc are all pretty nice. They're basically streamer clients - you plug it into your network and then you can stream your video files from your PC to it and watch them on yout TV with minimum (ie no) hassle.
The better ones come with video jukebox style screens, and can have HDDs embedded in them. But basically, that's all they are - video decoders for your TV.
They're quite convenient things to have though, I recommend a cheap one (the elion for example is possibly the best of the cheapest).
What you have described above isn't a trivial effort
nor is Linux itself, or any of the features that it has. Being a bit tricky has never stopped any linux developer from producing such fantastic stuff, why should this be any different to something like LVM, ext4, or GFS?
sure, but a quick and dirty hack only proves some possible potential of the platform, it does not mean its ready for real-world use as no-one wants a platform that only supports a ton of hacking to get it to work.
Until they release MAME in a maintainable form that is supported upstream (as that would be a fine recommendation of fitness for purpose), this is just a toy to be played with.
I don't understand it either - but I assumed they were either totally ignorant of the difference between NAT and Firewall, or trolling.
To put it in a way they can't explain away - sure a NAT router provides blocking of incoming requests, just like a firewall. Until the user decides to check out that 'DMZ' configuration option, or his uPNP software decides to do it for him, so he can run some skype, p2p or web server and suddenly his NAT router is no longer providing an incoming blocking service.
certainly they used the same cultural bias the poster did - I'm waiting for all female profiles who have pictures of themselves with heads uncovered to be banned. Islam seems to be getting more popular every day, and vocal, so it's only a matter of time before the Google censors bow to such "politically correct" pressure.
I suppose the difference is that you'll be escorted off the premises if someone complains. If no-one has a problem with it, what's the problem?
Google, unfortunately, takes the approach usually preferred by dictatorships and fanatic groups where they decide what is and isn't allowed and then enforces it, regardless of whether the common userbase (or populace) has a problem with it.
The argument of "don't like it don't use it" starts to fall apart when the service becomes large enough. For example, you may not like Facebook, but refusing to use it locks you out of the service that all your friends use - which is counter-productive. In such cases it is better to demand change. I think that all these services should become regulated when they reach a critical mass to prevent abuse from the owning corporations. If the corps don't like it, they should foster serious competition instead.
especially given what would happen if the default search engine for the majority of the web users became Bing - in IE, in FF, in anyone stupid enough to install Yahoo and it's toolbar or the "Bing Bar" crapware.
Imagine a world where Bing was the majority search engine. (I know, it's difficult). Such a thing could happen if MS paid enough money out. Imagine saying "I'll just bing that".
Its bad enough that the voice activation on xbox only responds to "bing x" for search.
So - $300m for Firefox default search, very much worth it. At least MS didn't push the price up to $8.5bn, amateurs:)
I'd also say that the API to develop on WinPhone8 will end up being WinRT - just like Win8. Sinofsky doesn't want to support multiple developer lines, they want a single API (admittedly which will be subsets here and there for various platforms) so WinRT must become the API for the phone development over time, and that will let MS start to reuse their developer resources.
I guess that'll be the plan at MS - which is why Win8 gets the metro UI, the phone will end up running Win8.
No, I don't think they can pull it off acceptably either, but that won't stop them from trying.
that's partly because of past experience. People use Windows because they have to, not because they want to. They remember Word crashing and taking their document with it and that's still stuck in people's minds. They don't want a phone that does that, no sir. (even if its untrue today, they don't care, they still remember).
For Apple, their products were always marketed as 'it just works, works well and looks nice' and that's what people want. They don;t tend to buy macs because they have to use Windows, so when they got the chance to buy something that was in a whole new area that Windows didn't dominate, they jumped at the chance.
The i-things turned out to be rather good too, so people who bought one were happy. The rest will be history.
ok, but how does it recognise your voice (or your girlfriends.... ok, or your mates voices) and not those of Brad Pitt shouting during a movie? Cancelling out background noise and music is one thing, cancelling out some voices and not others is a bit more tricky.
So Brad reads the line "lets Bing sex aids" during some comedy, and .... you don't want to know what happens next
then change them back using group policy to force Google on everyone.
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/61275-ie8-default-google-search-via-gpo-some-other-method.html
who'd have thought Bing Crosby and Bing surfboards were that popular!
Unless they're searching for Carmella Bing, as I'm told that Bing is the best porn search engine :)
That's a great feature in Bing, actually. Especially if looking for more adult material.
so Bing is the porn search engine of choice?
gives "let me Bing that for you" a whole different meaning.
yes, but the on demand services are primarily internet based. These 'smart TVs' will allow you to watch those services as easily as you currently watch TV broadcasts.
Add some general internet surfing, apps, streaming media, and PVR capabilities and I think they've finally got there.
The fact that the hardware manufacturers are selling these means it might work out, before you had to be really interested in buying a new device to sit under your TV, and for 99% of the population, they just didn't care. Now they get it for 'free' and I imagine they will start using it.
somebody pays, always. In your case (and I'm guessing based on my experiences with 3rd world shitholes where I used to work on billing systems), the entire thing was subsidised by the military/ruling party/"government" so the bods in charge could have a telephone network for their personal use, that they kindly allow the little people to use too.
the fact that it is not congested is usually due to the overspeccing going on in the initial contracts, usually paid for by foreign taxpayers in a vague attempt at "infrastructure" modernisation and/or relatively few users. Certainly, most 3rd world places don't have the same kind of bandwidth hogs that the west has. Wait until they do, and then see if you're still happy with the service.
(actually, you might be, 'cos they'll be arrested for having subversive or just suspicious activities)
"but how many musics can I download then"
ie, the target audience barely knows what a Mbit is, and to be fair, they don't need to know and no-one needs to tell them. They stay within the 'normal' consumption levels (as those levels are designed around them) and the network performs fine.
As for QoS, there are providers (mine for example) that gives you more bandwidth or priority traffic. I buy the 'pro' package that gives me more network during the day, and prioritised VPN (and other stuff) traffic. Of course, I pay more for this, and there are other packages for (eg) gaming.
I think the whining is from those who want everything yet pay nothing.
There's little research on this subject and I think its mainly due to the exams being "different" rather than easier (well, that and kids tutored to specifically pass the exam regardless of what they learn)
http://www.badscience.net/2010/08/exams-are-getting-easier/
what's the alternative?
Build out some network bandwidth, then divide it by the number of subscribers you have, and charge them for their slice of the whole.
Make sense?
I doubt you'd agree when you get charged the hundreds of dollar per month that would cost you. Besides, its a bit daft to think that every subscriber uses 100% of their bandwidth 24/7, so why not oversell it? After all, if I use 10% of my total bandwidth, there's no reason why you can't allocate that to 9 more subscribers, thus bringing the price down to 1/10th of what it was.
So obviously overselling is ok, but what level is reasonable for this? There's a tradeoff between the price of the network, shared out amongst all subscribers, and the bandwidth you get. Most people don't use much bandwidth - your average mom and pop will use it to surf a little, read emails, etc and use 1Gb per month max, so if you assume all your subscribers are like that, the service should be dirt cheap.
Until you get someone who comes along and basically abuses the system by keeping it on 24/7, streaming torrents or running a video webserver. These people skew (or should that be screw) the carefully planned subscriber/bandwidth ratio which basically means everyone else is subsidising their use of the network, to the detriment of everyone's use of the network.
Tax breaks on new cars where MPG meets a certain requirement?
How abotu a rolling tax break on cars with increasingly higher MGP? ie, as the efficiency goes up and the MPG goes up, the amount of tax you pay is reduced?
I think that would be great.... all you need to do is tax gas. The less your car uses, the less tax you pay. Simple.
Nokia itself wouldn't have wanted to be sold to Microsoft, but Elop would be more than willing to part with it for the usual management takeover golden parachute cash deal.
I doubt this would happen though, MS already owns Nokia effectively. Unless the executive management wanted to give more cash to their buddies, things'll stay as they are.
$40, no.. the cheapest I think is about $120 but I think a raspberry will be a better solution - in time.
With XBMC or YAMC on it, mmmmmmm. Things can only be good for the future.
Good for you - but if you can't be bothered, you can buy realtek 1186-based boxes where they're already done this work. And the realtek chip will decode practically every movie format there is.
On the other hand, if you do make such a thing, publish the specs and tutorials - it'll be a practical real-world use to put the Pi to, and I'm sure the software will be vastly improved over the existing boxes.
pretty much.
However, the 'popcorn hour' and similar (cheaper) boxes like the Himedia, WD TV Live, Elion Labon, Mede8er etc are all pretty nice. They're basically streamer clients - you plug it into your network and then you can stream your video files from your PC to it and watch them on yout TV with minimum (ie no) hassle.
The better ones come with video jukebox style screens, and can have HDDs embedded in them. But basically, that's all they are - video decoders for your TV.
They're quite convenient things to have though, I recommend a cheap one (the elion for example is possibly the best of the cheapest).
Even the yeast that make the stuff actually get killed by it.
and we toast them for their noble sacrifice daily!
What you have described above isn't a trivial effort
nor is Linux itself, or any of the features that it has. Being a bit tricky has never stopped any linux developer from producing such fantastic stuff, why should this be any different to something like LVM, ext4, or GFS?
and, of course, if "browser" based UIs are truly poor, then I don't hold out much hope for Windows 8.
sure, but a quick and dirty hack only proves some possible potential of the platform, it does not mean its ready for real-world use as no-one wants a platform that only supports a ton of hacking to get it to work.
Until they release MAME in a maintainable form that is supported upstream (as that would be a fine recommendation of fitness for purpose), this is just a toy to be played with.
ActiveX was not adopted because it required (basically) Windows. If you tried porting it to another platform, you'd be onto an never-ending port.
I don't understand it either - but I assumed they were either totally ignorant of the difference between NAT and Firewall, or trolling.
To put it in a way they can't explain away - sure a NAT router provides blocking of incoming requests, just like a firewall. Until the user decides to check out that 'DMZ' configuration option, or his uPNP software decides to do it for him, so he can run some skype, p2p or web server and suddenly his NAT router is no longer providing an incoming blocking service.
They don't like to consider that scenario.
certainly they used the same cultural bias the poster did - I'm waiting for all female profiles who have pictures of themselves with heads uncovered to be banned. Islam seems to be getting more popular every day, and vocal, so it's only a matter of time before the Google censors bow to such "politically correct" pressure.
I suppose the difference is that you'll be escorted off the premises if someone complains. If no-one has a problem with it, what's the problem?
Google, unfortunately, takes the approach usually preferred by dictatorships and fanatic groups where they decide what is and isn't allowed and then enforces it, regardless of whether the common userbase (or populace) has a problem with it.
The argument of "don't like it don't use it" starts to fall apart when the service becomes large enough. For example, you may not like Facebook, but refusing to use it locks you out of the service that all your friends use - which is counter-productive. In such cases it is better to demand change. I think that all these services should become regulated when they reach a critical mass to prevent abuse from the owning corporations. If the corps don't like it, they should foster serious competition instead.
especially given what would happen if the default search engine for the majority of the web users became Bing - in IE, in FF, in anyone stupid enough to install Yahoo and it's toolbar or the "Bing Bar" crapware.
Imagine a world where Bing was the majority search engine. (I know, it's difficult). Such a thing could happen if MS paid enough money out. Imagine saying "I'll just bing that".
Its bad enough that the voice activation on xbox only responds to "bing x" for search.
So - $300m for Firefox default search, very much worth it. At least MS didn't push the price up to $8.5bn, amateurs :)
I'd also say that the API to develop on WinPhone8 will end up being WinRT - just like Win8. Sinofsky doesn't want to support multiple developer lines, they want a single API (admittedly which will be subsets here and there for various platforms) so WinRT must become the API for the phone development over time, and that will let MS start to reuse their developer resources.
I guess that'll be the plan at MS - which is why Win8 gets the metro UI, the phone will end up running Win8.
No, I don't think they can pull it off acceptably either, but that won't stop them from trying.
that's partly because of past experience. People use Windows because they have to, not because they want to. They remember Word crashing and taking their document with it and that's still stuck in people's minds. They don't want a phone that does that, no sir. (even if its untrue today, they don't care, they still remember).
For Apple, their products were always marketed as 'it just works, works well and looks nice' and that's what people want. They don;t tend to buy macs because they have to use Windows, so when they got the chance to buy something that was in a whole new area that Windows didn't dominate, they jumped at the chance.
The i-things turned out to be rather good too, so people who bought one were happy. The rest will be history.