Are they really working hard on these things? I'm curious. Those are more home or desktop only type user things. Just as an example, it's not as if Solaris will ever be used for pro music production or anything -- none of the industry standard apps are available for it. Who are they working on the multimedia, audio, etc support for exactly? I'm not doubting what you say, I'm just curious what their goal is.
Haven't you heard, people who don't like MS are yesterday's MS? If you are one us, you are supposed to bash, by accusing them of bashing MS, people who dislike MS or its products. I can't believe you didn't know that. You must have a shitty karma level.
All these comments about how weird it looks and how it will cause accidents because it is too shiny...it's a concept car! Do you not understand the concept of a concept car? They are merely exercises in experimentation design-wise, with particular emphasis on capturing people's attention, and often have 10x more outrageous elements than the shiny finish on this one.
Also, have you people never heard of Airstream trailers? They're a pretty damn famous American icon and symbol of an era where people were actually fascinated by America's "open road" and vast landscape. A lot of people like them and, frankly, I think it's cool here the way Ford is evoking that spirit and their utilitarian aspects. Anyway, the concept car is obviously polished aluminum. There have been many polished aluminum concept cars. When you don't go through the additional step of not polishing it, aluminum is not any more shiny than silver painted cars. So relax people, everything is going to be ok.
hah, I'm hardly a MS shill -- I use not a single MS product I can think of. I'm typing this on my iMac though. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm pretty confident Apple is not going to make the mistake of committing exclusively to Sony's BluRay. I know they've generally been a supporter in the past, however that began before all the problems that BluRay has had, and the underwhelming reception of the PS3 by public. If you want to know my opinion, Apple isn't going to introduce BluRay to its machines before it introduces HD-DVD at the same time -- they're going to do a SuperDrive that does both.
The Treo originated as a PDA (ie a device/miniature PC designed for installing 3rd party applications) that acquired phone functionality. This is not the case with the iPhone. Neither cell phones nor the iPod were conceived for the purpose of being able to install 3rd party applications. Some phones developed that capability, but if anything (Microsoft phone for example), they've proven more that the capability definately does compromise the phone aspects.
I have no interest in a PDA phone and neither do the vast majority of people. I'm glad the iPhone looks like it has been focused on uncompromised strength in the two things that people have proven to want more than any other personal portable electronic devices -- phone and iPod.
they are using the same codecs now for future releases, but if you read the reviews of the movies that have been released thus far, you'll see that the HD-DVD releases have been getting higher marks for image quality. This has been ascribed to Bluray's initially inferior codecs.
Look, a single sided, one-layer HD-DVD has enough storage for lossless audio and 1080p. That's what's needed. That's what is going to be important. What incredibly expensive drive some geek selects to put in his computer so he can store more than 30GB per disk, is not important.
Even if it were the case that more than.01% of potential consumers had any significant use for BluRay's greater capacity, Double Layer HD-DVD, which will be out probably years before any 100GB+ Blu Ray discs, will be out way before it even makes any kind of financial sense to use recordable BluRay disks for storage.
Sony was stupid to do what they've done -- they created a new format that requires all new manufacturing equipment, all new technologies in the components for playback -- a ton of unnecessary expense for something the consumer has no use for -- more storage than is necessary for HD video with lossless audio on a single layer, one-sided disk.
I'm as much a technophile as anyone else. That's why I wish Sony had invested the effort they put into creating this new proprietary format that noone needs, somewhere else.
I would like to call for the desistance of calling HD-DVD "technically inferior" on the simple-minded basis of its only very limitedly lower theoretical storage capacity. This seems to be a very popular thing to do by people who like to think they know what they are talking about. However, it is actually stupidly simplistic and inaccurate.
Blu-ray is capable of having some more storage capacity. Meanwhile, HD-DVD disks are cheaper to make, do not scratch as easily, are more backwards compatible, have a more capable and author friendly development environment/UI system, more advanced video encoding algorithms (as of at least very recently), and support the highest available resolution available (1080p)!
Apparently, what people mean by "technically superior" is "has a little more storage capacity". I prefer my way of looking at things -- HD-DVD is "better" and was more intelligently designed because it has all the advantages above over BluRay. It appears that Sony reinvented the wheel for negligible gain, yet many-fold setback.
I respectfully disagree. I think it's clear that Apple has to keep their products secret more so than any other competitor because they are cloned and copied so much more than any other competitor. In my opinion, the buzz benefits are secondary. Apple invests very heavily in the design side of things and has a very distinctive design tradition. Since design is something that can so easily be stolen, Apple has to put special effort into keeping its designs secret. Why do you feel this explanation alone isn't sufficient?
You consider yourself schooled because you read a wikipedia article about the EV1? Dude, get a clue. My life is devoted to engineering. I have studied with, worked together with (in research environment), and/or had conversations with some of the most distinguished names in the fields of energy conversion and engines. I even have a friend who's a prominent engineer at Saturn for chrisake (EV1 was nominally a Saturn). We talk about things like the EV1 and we are also very conscious/faced daily with the realities of how difficult it is to make more environmentally friendly products attractive to the public.
If you want to spend your time reading conspiracy theories about how everyone in world is out to screw up the world then fine and don't listen to me. However, talk to anyone in the field of thermodynamics, mechanical engineering, etc. and you will learn that saving energy is absolutely at the top of everyone's priorities. The limiting factor is always how much money the consumer is going to have to spend to save that energy. You are talking about a couple hundred people who got turned down from buying EV1s when the program ended.
Is it really completely unbelievable to you that GM is telling the truth when they say that it doesn't make any sense for them to be liable for the dangers of people driving around in cars that they'd have no way of guaranteeing either the ability for repairs or safe operation over the long term?
Anyway, your little article there in no way supports your claim that GM had some kind of evil intent somewhere with the EV1. It does say that each car cost GM $80,000 to build, however. They leased them for like $300 a month on 3 year leases.
As a mechanical engineer with very detailed knowledge of the history of automotive propulsion, the contributions in the forms of specific engine and propulsion technologies each auto company has made throughout this history, the pros and cons of many many propulsion technologies/approaches that have been considered, studied, developed in the industry (of which I've never seen mentioned in mass media), and even more detailed knowledge of the theory behind (and experience with) the design of both internal and external combustion engines, etc. I am amazed by all this anti-GM conspiracy theory stuff.
The EV1, in my opinion, was one of the most impressive accomplishments in energy efficient design the industry has ever seen. It's failure, in my opinion and many others', was primarily the result of a huge discrepancy between what the public said it would buy and what the public actually does buy when it comes down to actually opening their wallets -- it's as simple as that. The EV1 was unchartered territory so they had to put tremendous effort and trust into asking the public what they wanted, but it turned out there was huge difference between what a consumer says he or she would buy and what he or she actually does buy when it actually comes down to it.
By the way, before you accuse me of working for some evil oil company or the evil Big 3 or something -- I am not an automotive engineer and have never worked anywhere in the industry. However, I have done a lot of work in energy systems and did considerable research in propulsion technologies.
You don't give a toss eh? When people identify business practices as monopolistic and unethical, it's not about how the businesses are being run by Very Very Bad Men doing Immoral Things. It's that it results in the still birth of new technology -- it's the antithesis to innovation. It results in the consumer having to pay exorbitant money for software that sucks. You don't care about that?
When he said "recognized as existing" he clearly meant by the record industry (ie the one behind RIAA and the Grammies). Gnarls Barkley of course did not win Grammy.
Perhaps you haven't stopped to think where that electricity that it is using in all-electric mode comes from -- it comes from converting hydrocarbons into mechanical energy and then mechanical energy into electricity. This is actually a less efficient process than direct conversion of hydrocarbons into mechanical energy, of course. The primary reason hybrids get good mileage in cities is that they are able to shut off engine at idle and that they are able to recoup energy otherwise lost energy through regenerative braking. This is why hybrids do not get as good mileage as diesels outside of city driving.
Anyway, all-electric mode isn't really a distinction with much practical value -- that electricity was generated in the same ways electricity is in combo mode.
It was so funny I remember people talking about how the PS2 was going to be a supercomputer not allowed into certain countries because it was so powerful it could give them nukes and how its emotion engine was going to make gaming almost indistinguishable from the real world. It was the biggest sham in the world. There were several games that actually looked better on Dreamcast than they did on the PS2.
This is actually the strategy that MS has used whenever Macs start getting a lot of attention. MS always says they have an OS with everything that Mac has Plus a whole bunch of new things that are going to revolutionize everything. And then the OS comes out five years late with, not only nothing revolutionary, but not even having the things Mac had 5 years earlier (two most salient examples: Win95 was supposed to be all new OS but at last second was switched to DOS at heart, Vista was supposed to have all these new techs yet now, years late, it's just terribly resource intensive XP with copy of Mac Aqua GUI).
I think this is Sony's strategy. They come up with these catchy names to go along with console like Emotion Engine or Cell (which really just another IBM chip only with more spikes and valleys in its capabilities -- not net positive) and trumpet them like nothing has ever been trumpeted before in front of would-be other console buyers for two years ahead of actual release just so that people will figure they better wait until the PS comes out because it is going to be teh omg SO revolutionary. Which it never is. Rant over. It just funny. It's sort of a total business model.
I would like to have a Mac, yet I am a mechanical engineer who works with CAD all the time. None of the industry standard CAD softwares are available for Mac. Thus, even if I had a Mac, I would have to spend more time booted into Windows than OSX. Whoever can provide 3D acceleration for PC apps in OSX will part the clouds for a whole new throng of would-be Mac users who are trapped in Windows.
The highest American troop strength in history was in 1968 at 1.57 million. I don't have figures for 2006, but at the beginning of 2005 it was 495,112. This was a war, after years of undoubtedly the most intensive recruitment efforts since the Vietnam war. You'll forgive me if I take your cynical assessment with a little grain of salt?
As a present graduate student who's entire schooling is being paid for by Darpa, I'm well familiar with the role of military funding in the promotion and backing of technology research in this country.
The good side of military spending is that, other than during times of war, the fraction of the money that goes to the military for having troops around and building few hundred tanks every once in a while is tiny compared to the amount of money that goes toward science, research, technology. For every troop that is getting paid to be on base, the military is probably putting food on the tables of 30 researchers or engineers to develop new technologies. For example, lets say the military gets a new model of tank. Well, the cost of actual steel, plastic, computer chips, etc that constitute the tanks that are produced themselves are really nothing compared to the amount of money that went into advancing technologies and employing engineers. A B2 bomber costs a couple billion because incredible science and technology had to be realized in order to make the plane possible. Like 20 of them or something were ever to be actually made. That price doesn't reflect the sum of the physical components and labor of assembling them, but rather, the price tag reflects the amount of engineering and science work that had to be done to realize the level of technology necessary for the existence of such a plane.
The bright side of military spending is that most of that money basically goes to putting food on the tables of tens of thousands of engineers in our country. With labor costs so high and manufacturing going to everywhere in the world other than our own country, technology is our stock-in-trade. As it turns out, the structure of the govt sponsoring military technology programs with a long-term and unified approach in contrast to the much more duplicative and reactive, smaller investments for shorter-term results, approach seen in the development of technology only in the hands of individual companies reacting to market pressures method, has been very fruitful indeed.
The XBox360 has 3 cores, yet it is widely known that the vast majority of games presently only utilize one of those cores.
I wish the console makers and all the fanboys would all just shut up their mouths. Wouldn't that be nice? Just make machines and people just play games on them and let the best machine win. It seems like the console gaming world is 95% hype, trash-talking, FUD, and blind fanaticism that all has nothing to do with whether or not the gaming is actually good.
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Are they really working hard on these things? I'm curious. Those are more home or desktop only type user things. Just as an example, it's not as if Solaris will ever be used for pro music production or anything -- none of the industry standard apps are available for it. Who are they working on the multimedia, audio, etc support for exactly? I'm not doubting what you say, I'm just curious what their goal is.
Haven't you heard, people who don't like MS are yesterday's MS? If you are one us, you are supposed to bash, by accusing them of bashing MS, people who dislike MS or its products. I can't believe you didn't know that. You must have a shitty karma level.
SNL - Nick Burns
All these comments about how weird it looks and how it will cause accidents because it is too shiny...it's a concept car! Do you not understand the concept of a concept car? They are merely exercises in experimentation design-wise, with particular emphasis on capturing people's attention, and often have 10x more outrageous elements than the shiny finish on this one.
Also, have you people never heard of Airstream trailers? They're a pretty damn famous American icon and symbol of an era where people were actually fascinated by America's "open road" and vast landscape. A lot of people like them and, frankly, I think it's cool here the way Ford is evoking that spirit and their utilitarian aspects. Anyway, the concept car is obviously polished aluminum. There have been many polished aluminum concept cars. When you don't go through the additional step of not polishing it, aluminum is not any more shiny than silver painted cars. So relax people, everything is going to be ok.
And everyone hates them -- perfect example of what I'm talking about
hah, I'm hardly a MS shill -- I use not a single MS product I can think of. I'm typing this on my iMac though. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm pretty confident Apple is not going to make the mistake of committing exclusively to Sony's BluRay. I know they've generally been a supporter in the past, however that began before all the problems that BluRay has had, and the underwhelming reception of the PS3 by public. If you want to know my opinion, Apple isn't going to introduce BluRay to its machines before it introduces HD-DVD at the same time -- they're going to do a SuperDrive that does both.
The Treo originated as a PDA (ie a device/miniature PC designed for installing 3rd party applications) that acquired phone functionality. This is not the case with the iPhone. Neither cell phones nor the iPod were conceived for the purpose of being able to install 3rd party applications. Some phones developed that capability, but if anything (Microsoft phone for example), they've proven more that the capability definately does compromise the phone aspects.
I have no interest in a PDA phone and neither do the vast majority of people. I'm glad the iPhone looks like it has been focused on uncompromised strength in the two things that people have proven to want more than any other personal portable electronic devices -- phone and iPod.
they are using the same codecs now for future releases, but if you read the reviews of the movies that have been released thus far, you'll see that the HD-DVD releases have been getting higher marks for image quality. This has been ascribed to Bluray's initially inferior codecs.
Look, a single sided, one-layer HD-DVD has enough storage for lossless audio and 1080p. That's what's needed. That's what is going to be important. What incredibly expensive drive some geek selects to put in his computer so he can store more than 30GB per disk, is not important.
.01% of potential consumers had any significant use for BluRay's greater capacity, Double Layer HD-DVD, which will be out probably years before any 100GB+ Blu Ray discs, will be out way before it even makes any kind of financial sense to use recordable BluRay disks for storage.
Even if it were the case that more than
Sony was stupid to do what they've done -- they created a new format that requires all new manufacturing equipment, all new technologies in the components for playback -- a ton of unnecessary expense for something the consumer has no use for -- more storage than is necessary for HD video with lossless audio on a single layer, one-sided disk.
I'm as much a technophile as anyone else. That's why I wish Sony had invested the effort they put into creating this new proprietary format that noone needs, somewhere else.
I would like to call for the desistance of calling HD-DVD "technically inferior" on the simple-minded basis of its only very limitedly lower theoretical storage capacity. This seems to be a very popular thing to do by people who like to think they know what they are talking about. However, it is actually stupidly simplistic and inaccurate.
Blu-ray is capable of having some more storage capacity. Meanwhile, HD-DVD disks are cheaper to make, do not scratch as easily, are more backwards compatible, have a more capable and author friendly development environment/UI system, more advanced video encoding algorithms (as of at least very recently), and support the highest available resolution available (1080p)!
Apparently, what people mean by "technically superior" is "has a little more storage capacity". I prefer my way of looking at things -- HD-DVD is "better" and was more intelligently designed because it has all the advantages above over BluRay. It appears that Sony reinvented the wheel for negligible gain, yet many-fold setback.
I respectfully disagree. I think it's clear that Apple has to keep their products secret more so than any other competitor because they are cloned and copied so much more than any other competitor. In my opinion, the buzz benefits are secondary. Apple invests very heavily in the design side of things and has a very distinctive design tradition. Since design is something that can so easily be stolen, Apple has to put special effort into keeping its designs secret. Why do you feel this explanation alone isn't sufficient?
Windows has in-built ftp? This script is able to pass that much info (like url and sequence of app launching/operation commands)?
You consider yourself schooled because you read a wikipedia article about the EV1? Dude, get a clue. My life is devoted to engineering. I have studied with, worked together with (in research environment), and/or had conversations with some of the most distinguished names in the fields of energy conversion and engines. I even have a friend who's a prominent engineer at Saturn for chrisake (EV1 was nominally a Saturn). We talk about things like the EV1 and we are also very conscious/faced daily with the realities of how difficult it is to make more environmentally friendly products attractive to the public.
If you want to spend your time reading conspiracy theories about how everyone in world is out to screw up the world then fine and don't listen to me. However, talk to anyone in the field of thermodynamics, mechanical engineering, etc. and you will learn that saving energy is absolutely at the top of everyone's priorities. The limiting factor is always how much money the consumer is going to have to spend to save that energy. You are talking about a couple hundred people who got turned down from buying EV1s when the program ended.
Is it really completely unbelievable to you that GM is telling the truth when they say that it doesn't make any sense for them to be liable for the dangers of people driving around in cars that they'd have no way of guaranteeing either the ability for repairs or safe operation over the long term?
Anyway, your little article there in no way supports your claim that GM had some kind of evil intent somewhere with the EV1. It does say that each car cost GM $80,000 to build, however. They leased them for like $300 a month on 3 year leases.
As a mechanical engineer with very detailed knowledge of the history of automotive propulsion, the contributions in the forms of specific engine and propulsion technologies each auto company has made throughout this history, the pros and cons of many many propulsion technologies/approaches that have been considered, studied, developed in the industry (of which I've never seen mentioned in mass media), and even more detailed knowledge of the theory behind (and experience with) the design of both internal and external combustion engines, etc. I am amazed by all this anti-GM conspiracy theory stuff.
The EV1, in my opinion, was one of the most impressive accomplishments in energy efficient design the industry has ever seen. It's failure, in my opinion and many others', was primarily the result of a huge discrepancy between what the public said it would buy and what the public actually does buy when it comes down to actually opening their wallets -- it's as simple as that. The EV1 was unchartered territory so they had to put tremendous effort and trust into asking the public what they wanted, but it turned out there was huge difference between what a consumer says he or she would buy and what he or she actually does buy when it actually comes down to it.
By the way, before you accuse me of working for some evil oil company or the evil Big 3 or something -- I am not an automotive engineer and have never worked anywhere in the industry. However, I have done a lot of work in energy systems and did considerable research in propulsion technologies.
You are joking, right?
You don't give a toss eh? When people identify business practices as monopolistic and unethical, it's not about how the businesses are being run by Very Very Bad Men doing Immoral Things. It's that it results in the still birth of new technology -- it's the antithesis to innovation. It results in the consumer having to pay exorbitant money for software that sucks. You don't care about that?
When he said "recognized as existing" he clearly meant by the record industry (ie the one behind RIAA and the Grammies). Gnarls Barkley of course did not win Grammy.
yes!!!!!! had to do it once. sorry, but I've been a member for like 10 years and had to once.
first post?
Perhaps you haven't stopped to think where that electricity that it is using in all-electric mode comes from -- it comes from converting hydrocarbons into mechanical energy and then mechanical energy into electricity. This is actually a less efficient process than direct conversion of hydrocarbons into mechanical energy, of course. The primary reason hybrids get good mileage in cities is that they are able to shut off engine at idle and that they are able to recoup energy otherwise lost energy through regenerative braking. This is why hybrids do not get as good mileage as diesels outside of city driving.
Anyway, all-electric mode isn't really a distinction with much practical value -- that electricity was generated in the same ways electricity is in combo mode.
It was so funny I remember people talking about how the PS2 was going to be a supercomputer not allowed into certain countries because it was so powerful it could give them nukes and how its emotion engine was going to make gaming almost indistinguishable from the real world. It was the biggest sham in the world. There were several games that actually looked better on Dreamcast than they did on the PS2.
This is actually the strategy that MS has used whenever Macs start getting a lot of attention. MS always says they have an OS with everything that Mac has Plus a whole bunch of new things that are going to revolutionize everything. And then the OS comes out five years late with, not only nothing revolutionary, but not even having the things Mac had 5 years earlier (two most salient examples: Win95 was supposed to be all new OS but at last second was switched to DOS at heart, Vista was supposed to have all these new techs yet now, years late, it's just terribly resource intensive XP with copy of Mac Aqua GUI).
I think this is Sony's strategy. They come up with these catchy names to go along with console like Emotion Engine or Cell (which really just another IBM chip only with more spikes and valleys in its capabilities -- not net positive) and trumpet them like nothing has ever been trumpeted before in front of would-be other console buyers for two years ahead of actual release just so that people will figure they better wait until the PS comes out because it is going to be teh omg SO revolutionary. Which it never is. Rant over. It just funny. It's sort of a total business model.
I would like to have a Mac, yet I am a mechanical engineer who works with CAD all the time. None of the industry standard CAD softwares are available for Mac. Thus, even if I had a Mac, I would have to spend more time booted into Windows than OSX. Whoever can provide 3D acceleration for PC apps in OSX will part the clouds for a whole new throng of would-be Mac users who are trapped in Windows.
The highest American troop strength in history was in 1968 at 1.57 million. I don't have figures for 2006, but at the beginning of 2005 it was 495,112. This was a war, after years of undoubtedly the most intensive recruitment efforts since the Vietnam war. You'll forgive me if I take your cynical assessment with a little grain of salt?
As a present graduate student who's entire schooling is being paid for by Darpa, I'm well familiar with the role of military funding in the promotion and backing of technology research in this country.
The good side of military spending is that, other than during times of war, the fraction of the money that goes to the military for having troops around and building few hundred tanks every once in a while is tiny compared to the amount of money that goes toward science, research, technology. For every troop that is getting paid to be on base, the military is probably putting food on the tables of 30 researchers or engineers to develop new technologies. For example, lets say the military gets a new model of tank. Well, the cost of actual steel, plastic, computer chips, etc that constitute the tanks that are produced themselves are really nothing compared to the amount of money that went into advancing technologies and employing engineers. A B2 bomber costs a couple billion because incredible science and technology had to be realized in order to make the plane possible. Like 20 of them or something were ever to be actually made. That price doesn't reflect the sum of the physical components and labor of assembling them, but rather, the price tag reflects the amount of engineering and science work that had to be done to realize the level of technology necessary for the existence of such a plane.
The bright side of military spending is that most of that money basically goes to putting food on the tables of tens of thousands of engineers in our country. With labor costs so high and manufacturing going to everywhere in the world other than our own country, technology is our stock-in-trade. As it turns out, the structure of the govt sponsoring military technology programs with a long-term and unified approach in contrast to the much more duplicative and reactive, smaller investments for shorter-term results, approach seen in the development of technology only in the hands of individual companies reacting to market pressures method, has been very fruitful indeed.
The XBox360 has 3 cores, yet it is widely known that the vast majority of games presently only utilize one of those cores.
I wish the console makers and all the fanboys would all just shut up their mouths. Wouldn't that be nice? Just make machines and people just play games on them and let the best machine win. It seems like the console gaming world is 95% hype, trash-talking, FUD, and blind fanaticism that all has nothing to do with whether or not the gaming is actually good.
Just shut up your mouths you ridiculous peoples!