i don't need the man telling me how to cook!
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RFID Cookware
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· Score: 1
this seems more like a thing for microwaves or ovens for TV dinners. maybe scan the box and insert frozen crap? that may be nice if your internet connected oven could have its characteristics tune the cooking instructions. does this already exist? anyway, it's not for me, i like to actually cook. food you cook in a pot or pan does not seem like it would benefit from this. there are so many variables in cooking (like how often you stir it!) that come into play, plus a little variety is what makes cooking have more soul than fast food take-out. think about making cookies for example, some people cook them a little longer to make them crunchy and some like them softer. people that like to cook usually like to have their personal taste and input. good luck to them, but i don't see a big demand in this direction.
yeah... i got an early icebook ibook from a friend and use that as my throw around portable, and have an older G4 tower at home. the ibook is only a 500, but it works for mobile web access and some other tasks (updating web pages from the road etc). i have upgraded the CPU in the tower, and the video card, and added hard drives and lots of ram. i don't intend to keep my next machine this long, but you never know! i almost bought a Mac Mini last year to hold me over till the new Intel tower came out.
my gut tells me to hold out for the tower replacement, but i don't know if i want to possibly wait till the end of the year. who knows. my uninformed prediction is that something may be coming in march/april. Apple, Microsoft and Quark all said they will have pro level apps native for Intel processors in March. i assume that means that we will not see the tower (or tower replacement) before that. big upgrades in March could mean a March or April hardware update. 1-April is the 30th Anniversary of Apple incorporating, who knows if they will acknowledge it. the goofy 20th anniversary machine was done when Steve Jobs was not around.
i lost hosting because of recieving spam!
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Spam is Dead
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· Score: 1
i have gotten so much in 2004 and 2005 that i had to change hosting companies. they said my spam flooded out the mail server, and my current host deactivated my main email address without telling me in advance. it now just goes to blackhole. before i tried sending unrouted mail to:fail: and the bounce backs got me flagged as a spammer. it was a combination of my main email address getting picked up and unrouted mail to my host (once upon a time i used a catch all). all this with spam assassin and whatnot installed at the servers. darn virtual hosting. if it was a commercial site i would spend money to resolve it (that always works!), since it's just for fun i have to cope.
interesting.... i had not heard it that way, and i guess i was thinking to back in the day LCD prices. i have seen them and they look nice, but not being a professional, nor seeing them side by side, nor really testing one as though i was about to buy it i figured i was not picking up on the quality difference.
now that i am actually looking at the numbers the 20" cinema display is $799 right now, and the 20" iMac is $1699.... so $900 for the rest of the business... and the convenience of it all being rolled into one. interesting. i do agree about them being desirable. i never thought i would want an all-in-one computer (except a laptop), but these are really nice enough to make me consider changing my preference of minitowers.
now we could take a Mac with a specific Intel chip, and a windows machine with the same specific windows chip (though remember this chip JUST came out officially so it's barely been announced in any products yet).
then compare to the same size, dimensions (wide vs square), and quality of LCD. for example the iMac LCD is not as nice as the cinema displays. Apple cinema display LCDs are generally VERY high quality and when fairly compared are actually good values, it's just that most people do not need absolute high end LCDs to use AOL so they seem expensive compared to whatever is on sale at best buy. i don't know how the iMac screen stacks up offhand.
then compare the same hard drive, included airport, bluetooth, ethernet and other bits. all those things add up. there, obviously, are not a ton of all-in-one windows things to compare it to, and i doubt any with the exact same specs. i am guessing the true side by side will have to wait till the towers or maybe the mini comes out?
beyond comparing the pure hardware, you can argue for years about the included software. Apple still has the angle that they can make free software available on Macs because it only works on Macs. even if somebody copies iLife or something off a new Mac to another Mac, it will only work on a machine that was made by Apple. that being said it is hard to not include the bundled software in a side by side shootout if the windows user would have to go buy something equivalent.
in short, even with intel processors i am sure this battle will not end anytime soon. computer journalists everywhere can easily get a few more years out of this one.
the key points being (as put by macrumors): Apple would be releasing 42inch and 50inch Plasma Displays at Macworld San Francisco. the new plasma displays will be powered by Intel's recently announced Viiv multimedia platform running Mac OS X 10.4.4 for x86 (Intel). Prices for the displays/computers are reportedly $2599 and $3299.
ok, pure speculation, but.... i would assume they get the brunt of these complaints because they have had shows jump to cable channels with far smaller promotion budgets and they become hits. not just for viewers, but the DVD sales. that makes you wonder what Fox did wrong. (also people are still angry about firefly and think it could have had a good run... maybe John Doe too)
didn't fox also have Stargate initially? that show just keeps going on cable. if the current team was running Fox TV the same way years ago i am sure the X-Files would have been axed in one or two seasons. there are people now just as upset that Arrested Development was axed. the producer(s) said they want to move it to another network/cable/anywhere, and as far as critic approved cult TV shows that is definitely one of them. i think it's too weird for the average TV watching dullard. the lack of a laugh track may also make them uncomfortable. some people have to be assured something was funny.
Piasecki Aircraft in PA had something like this in the 80s. http://www.piasecki.com/pa-97.htm it was intended for heavy lifting. a blimp with 4 helicopters on outriggers. the company has building helicopters as long as they have existed, so if the last 20 years did not make that one pan out, it makes you wonder if there is enough need that people/government would invest in them? i am sure there are times somebody wishes they had something with that amazing lifting power (like to transport godzilla). you figure you can do some amazing moving with a Sikorsky Skycrane http://www.aviation-history.com/sikorsky/s64.htm
true.... that's why my laptop is a 12" ibook G3 500. cheap (because i got it a year ago), small, portable and more than enough for web fun, runs OS X 10.4.x. all i had to do was get a new battery (a super long life one from Newer Technology) and it's more than adequate.
who knows if these will have wifi? that would add a lot of cost i think? i would guess that would depend on where they will be deployed, and with the ideas of 1,000,000 units/order minimum they can make specific configurations for specific regions/countries and still keep costs low.
as for use in the United States, with cities adding full coverage wifi there will be a call for some sort of cheap computer/internet appliance to get the masses online. what a city saves in clerks, copies of forms, phones, phone lines, operators bla bla bla could be incentive for them to do what they have to and get as many citizens online as possible. the Philadelphia plan to get full wifi coverage is just phase one. phase two (not really talked about too much yet?) is to figure out a way to get computers to the masses. besides the coolness of wifi, it is also a desire by the city government to make every citizen have decent web access so they can get to city forms etc.
these are not to be sold at CompUSA or even walmart..... if they read the specs and explanations for these they would know that they are not intended to be state of the art, and they cost $100 each in quantities of a million or something. the one prototype or mockup that was posted here before even had a crank to generate power because they are going to be used in places either without electricity or with unreliable electricity. if somebody is in that situation i don't think they will give a crap how well the machine can run Doom (or whatever the hip game is now). it's more of a "my first sony" approach than Apple Powerbook. that being said even for $200 it may be fun to have one?
i say more power to them. if they can get them out there and run some lo-fi linux software then great. they will be able to load them with edu software and possible some form of internet access? if it works maybe we will see some form of freeware educational e-books. it seems like a noble effort to help educate people. honestly if there was no other way to do it, wouldn't loading educational stuff on something akin to a Palm Pilot be better than nothing? you figure Palm was selling handhelds for $99 retail a while back. buying a million, being non-profit and a few years of trickle down technology makes me think it is possible.
Re:"Several posts" on a few boards = "very" unstab
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Xbox 360 Very Unstable
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· Score: 1
i am not saying they deserve it, but it is not like we have not seen this before. anybody reading Slashdot should realize the system is fucked, especially when it comes to Micro$oft products. Are they ever good out of the box? i personally don't have any installed on any of my machines (Macs), and if i did it would probably be some old version of excel i needed 10 years ago for a class.
something as focused and dedicated as a game system should be easier to make work properly. it is a pretty closed system at this point so they *should* have known there were issues, unless it is just quality control and the few that slipped through are getting a ton of attention. even the local even news here devoted 15 or 20 seconds to it.
i have more leniency for something like a laptop that may be subject to 3rd party devices and software and exposed to environmental conditions (and users) they did not simulate in the lab.
yeah, gifts throw it all out the window
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Amazon Goes Wiki
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if there is a way to remove items that were gifts from contributing to your profile, then it is not super obvious or one click easy. that may be most of the reason the recommendations i get are worthless to me personally. i don't care enough about having Old Man Amazon suggest more things for me to buy, so i never dug too far to figure out how to remove items or flag them as having been gifts. does it not add them to your profile if you ship them to another address? i only used that a few times, but i never pondered if those had an influence on my Amazonian Profile (patent pending).
people outside Apple caught wind of it and ran with the story trying to take shots at Apple's actually decent market share or portables. the name about it burning up is kind of stupid considering how many other companies actually have to recall batteries, power supplies etc from customers to replace them from overheating. just in the last year or two we heard about "risky" laptop batteries and game system power supplies out in the public. Apple caught it before they were released, so nobody outside Apple ever actually experienced the flaw.
the machine itself had some other design bugs, but the flaming powerbook one was what people used to scare Apple customers. "the machine may set your lap on fire" sounds a lot more threatening than "this portable has a crappy hinge".
the comment above linked to LowEndMac.com's page for the 5300. that site has a whole section dedicated to Road Apples (Macs that failed to live up to their potential). it's a pro-Apple site so it's interesting to see what they consider stinkers. they also have their Best Buys page for the best of older Apple hardware. neither of those has anything from the last few years, so keep that in mind if you only know more current Apple hardware. i think the newest stinker is from around 2000 and the last best buy is older than that.
Re:"Several posts" on a few boards = "very" unstab
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Xbox 360 Very Unstable
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you figure the people posting their woes are probably furious. when you consider all the effort they seemed to put into getting their prized new gaming system early. i don't really feel bad for them, but i can understand they would be irrational after camping out in a parking lot for 24 hours to bring home a system that is buggy. personally i would not wait in a checkout line of 20 minutes to buy any game system, let alone camp in a parking lot.... but that's just me.
one day people will learn that being an early adopter means you take some risks. it's not like they were buying a cabbage patch kid. there are not really software updates for xbox or PS systems... right? you take what you get.
agreed. i know people that would have bought another 12" ibook if they could get the features of the 12" powerbook. the 12" ibook can not be configured with a superdrive direct from Apple. the 12" powerbook lacks some of the cool features of its bigger friends (FW800, backlight keyboard etc) but it has things the ibooks do not, like monitor spanning. i know most ibooks can be hacked to add that, but it's just one feature.
they obviously sell enough to keep making them. some people want little portables. i have a tower at home and a 12" ibook, and when i replace the ibook, i want another 12" screen. it's not my only machine, and the portability factor beats out the relatively small size. if they made a 14" wide screen, i would be interested maybe? anyway, if i was shopping today it would be one of the 12" portables depending on how much i wanted to spend.
they did it a few years ago, and again this past summer at a Star Wars convention. i saw it on MIT campus, and it was amazing. this time they are combining the original three films into a roughly three hour production.
yeah, i know more than one of those. they still can run their old favorite apps via X11, but the normal day to day stuff is just easier. the ones i know stopped wanting to spend their home free time tweaking installs, since they do it all day at work.
anyway, the thing about bank notes is not that important. the important point is that it seems RFID chips will burn up under a microwave. best case scenario they get deactivated, and the worst case is your passport catching on fire. even if deactivated, you may be (at least temporarily) flagged for having a sketchy passport. the whole point of the chip working is that a fake passport will not have a functional chip......... so you know where that can get you.
but if you cook it a second or two longer than needed it will burn the area where the chip is. a chip embedded in a plastic ID card is easier to destroy than one embedded in a basically paper document. did you ever see the pictures of the money people microwave? they have obvious burn marks where the chips supposedly are.
and as also stated, having a non-functional passport may be flagged as possible forgery and lead to bigger issues.
i am just as against the chips as anyone else, but think it through before you react. personally my passport needs to be renewed now so i will do that and not be an early adopter of the RFID model. hopefully any issues will show up and a fix will be worked out before i get a chipped one. by fix i even mean some 3rd party idea of a shielded passport wallet or something if that is what it comes down to.
within a week of the iPod video release Steve Jobs was still saying there is not really a mass market for this thing yet. i guess he was talking more specifically of the ability to watch videos on the iPod (as opposed to an actual computer). from what i remember reading he said it was not unlike the iPod Photo in the sense that the full sized iPod has the ability to play video, but you do not have to use it. it is not like they have a choice of video enabled iPods and monochrome ones. the new iPods are priced inline with their predecessors, so what's to lose? it seems like Apple knows this is going to be something standard down the line(in some form), and their technology allowed them to roll it out now (in some smaller form), so why not?
i guess the questions is how the sales keep going and if people actually watch the content on the iPod itself, or on their computer, or use the iPod's AV cables to send it to a TV. if it keeps up for a little while i am sure there will be more content. new stuff, as well as old stuff that was not deemed worthy of DVD collections. for a prime example look how Motown opened up the vaults of old songs that have been out of print since they stopped pressing them on 7inch vinyl. a lot of their long lost content is now on iTMS. it took less investment for them to do that than figure out how to make CD sets, and the fans get to pick and choose what they want. everyone wins. i don't see how this will be any different.
you can already buy TV episodes without commercials, on DVD. you just have to wait till the summer after the season is over. $1.99/episode of a TV show that is full season (say Lost) is financially a better deal than buying the DVD box set. yes, you lose some packaging and extras (maybe there will be some workaround in the future?). it is not unlike how buying an album from iTMS is generally cheaper than going to a traditional CD store. there have also been rumors for a while of a way to stream video to a TV from a Mac. either wirelessly like airport express, or some networked box thing. if we see it or not, i am sure there is at least one prototype in the Apple R+D cave.
also remember that these shows/videos/shorts are not just to watch on an iPod. they can be watched from your computer. no iPod needed, like for music. i know people that buy songs from iTMS that do not own any MP3 player at all. they just buy single songs and listen to them on their PC (not even Mac users). anyway, the idea of transferring to the iPod may be as much about loading it so you can take it to a TV in your house, or somebody else's. the idea of those exclusive shorts, home movies, videos and TV shows the day after they air might appeal to many people.
remember the new iPods cost no more than the iPods they were selling last week, and have bigger drives. you do not HAVE to use the video option, as you did not have to use the photo option or the contact list. as other people have posted, this also may be a way for cult shows to survive without a traditional TV outlet. it does not require an iPod, but just a Mac or PC with iTunes installed. that's for today, we knew this was coming in some form and Apple is not the only company that has been working on this. the real issue was what to sell considering how many people have broadband. everyone got hung up on selling/renting movies and stalled opening these new stores. was Apple jumping the gun? i would guess not since they have the infrastructure already in place for the music store, and the store makes a small profit as is. i am guessing in the future TV networks will be selling shows themselves with windows media DRM or some REAL product.
Re:Those numbers are extremely over-inflated
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Video iPod Oct 12?
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true, but PSP is a unique format... right? the iPod is already a staple technology device for many people. you are not buying a physical cartridge that will forever remind you how silly it was (like 8-tracks?). if there is a way to load it with a movie (from a store, kiosk, or online) and watch it oon the dumb little screen, OR feed it to a TV then it may have some possibility? maybe?
you figure the future of the brick and mortar video store is limited. there is no way they will last forever even the mighty netflix may have a limited future. i think those operations have many years left, but they are making less money than even... even from digital cable and on-demand. i know people that live in cities, have memberships to well stocked indie movie rental places, and are all still regular netflix users. it's not laziness, it's convenience mixed with a massive catalog of titles. if movies are rented in the form of 1s and 0s there there would be no need to put movies in cue, or reserve it.
actually the quarterly report is the day before
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Video iPod Oct 12?
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· Score: 2, Informative
Apple is doing the quarterly report on Tuesday October 11th, the day before the media event. macminute.com had that in their news today. i am guessing that is why the release was not on the usual tuesday? the earnings reports are always done after the market closes, so at 1600 or 1700 eastern time. makes sense, if the quarter was good. if apple announces anything tuesday morning, then earnings tuesday evening, one would be lost in the shuffle. this implies the earnings are at least ok, if not pretty good. AAPL stock is at an all time high these days, so i assume things are financially solid.
iPod=digital wallet? what would it take?
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Video iPod Oct 12?
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maybe this is just a bump to make the iPod more of a platform independent portable digital wallet? if this is what is coming wednesday, then they are making a bigger deal out of it so i would assume something else to make it make sense. is it possible Apple has a partnership with, say, blockbuster so you take in an iPod and load a movie or two... and that movie expires unless you "renew it" online. in theory that DRM exists now. this just popped in my head, and not some master scheme i have pondered for more than a minute. it seems plausible though. i guess even at the store it would take a lil while to upload content that large?
what kind of hardware upgrades would the iPod take to display and feed out video? can they technically do it now? i personally do not know enough about the guts of the iPod, but i know other people have done similar things with little devices. iPods have an AV out cable now to display photos on a TV or whatever. if it is a minor upgrade, it may be like iPod Photos. it's a feature that is there, but you do not have to use it. off the top of my head people may use them for: music videos, sharing iMovies, keynote presentations (easier to hook up an iPod than carry a laptop?), video podcasts.
the streaming content to phones here is not taking off, but it is relatively new. it is not super supported and is pretty expensive for what you get IIRC. look how long it took text messaging to blow up in the united states. granted, a lot of that was the blockage between carriers, and a lot of unsupported phones out there. then again, people here complain that the cost of songs should be 99 cents or less, yet look what people pay for crappy polyphonic ring tones because they do not know how to upload them manually. they even pay that much for chopped up MP3 files. $2 or $3 last i remember looking.
usually public transportation is a weird organization. they are massively funded by taxpayers, but may not totally be government owned in the traditional sense. it may be more of a (partial?) government takeover of what was once a public company that got a monopoly on the market. i don't know for sure, but what i do know........
the article i read about this last week mentioned that he, or somebody else, was basically redrawing the map to avoid the copyright issues. i do not remember if that was for NY or SanFran.. or both? it seemed like his understanding was that he could draw his own and be legally ok. the question was if he could use the same fonts, and if he had to change the colors of the lines (which may lead to confusion when crossing it with another map). i know for NYC there are plenty of lil reprints for tourists or people attending a convention. they are not reprints of the exact same map, but they do follow the color schemes.
the article also mentioned that the NY transit system is on a crackdown of copyrights because they want to stop people from cashing in on those t-shirts etc with the subway line numbers/letters/symbols on them and want a cut of that money. we all know that if you let copyrights slide on one area, the other can be harder to enforce. the fact that he is not selling the maps, and merely redistributing free ones is what makes it sketchy. maybe his addition of google ads tot he page is the line he crossed? maybe he could just link to their websites page where they would offer their own version? it is nice that his site has a bunch of cities in one spot.
Slashdot Mirror
this seems more like a thing for microwaves or ovens for TV dinners. maybe scan the box and insert frozen crap? that may be nice if your internet connected oven could have its characteristics tune the cooking instructions. does this already exist? anyway, it's not for me, i like to actually cook.
food you cook in a pot or pan does not seem like it would benefit from this. there are so many variables in cooking (like how often you stir it!) that come into play, plus a little variety is what makes cooking have more soul than fast food take-out. think about making cookies for example, some people cook them a little longer to make them crunchy and some like them softer. people that like to cook usually like to have their personal taste and input. good luck to them, but i don't see a big demand in this direction.
yeah... i got an early icebook ibook from a friend and use that as my throw around portable, and have an older G4 tower at home. the ibook is only a 500, but it works for mobile web access and some other tasks (updating web pages from the road etc). i have upgraded the CPU in the tower, and the video card, and added hard drives and lots of ram. i don't intend to keep my next machine this long, but you never know! i almost bought a Mac Mini last year to hold me over till the new Intel tower came out.
my gut tells me to hold out for the tower replacement, but i don't know if i want to possibly wait till the end of the year. who knows. my uninformed prediction is that something may be coming in march/april. Apple, Microsoft and Quark all said they will have pro level apps native for Intel processors in March. i assume that means that we will not see the tower (or tower replacement) before that. big upgrades in March could mean a March or April hardware update. 1-April is the 30th Anniversary of Apple incorporating, who knows if they will acknowledge it. the goofy 20th anniversary machine was done when Steve Jobs was not around.
i have gotten so much in 2004 and 2005 that i had to change hosting companies. they said my spam flooded out the mail server, and my current host deactivated my main email address without telling me in advance. it now just goes to blackhole. before i tried sending unrouted mail to :fail: and the bounce backs got me flagged as a spammer. it was a combination of my main email address getting picked up and unrouted mail to my host (once upon a time i used a catch all). all this with spam assassin and whatnot installed at the servers.
darn virtual hosting. if it was a commercial site i would spend money to resolve it (that always works!), since it's just for fun i have to cope.
interesting.... i had not heard it that way, and i guess i was thinking to back in the day LCD prices. i have seen them and they look nice, but not being a professional, nor seeing them side by side, nor really testing one as though i was about to buy it i figured i was not picking up on the quality difference.
now that i am actually looking at the numbers the 20" cinema display is $799 right now, and the 20" iMac is $1699.... so $900 for the rest of the business... and the convenience of it all being rolled into one. interesting. i do agree about them being desirable. i never thought i would want an all-in-one computer (except a laptop), but these are really nice enough to make me consider changing my preference of minitowers.
now we could take a Mac with a specific Intel chip, and a windows machine with the same specific windows chip (though remember this chip JUST came out officially so it's barely been announced in any products yet).
then compare to the same size, dimensions (wide vs square), and quality of LCD. for example the iMac LCD is not as nice as the cinema displays. Apple cinema display LCDs are generally VERY high quality and when fairly compared are actually good values, it's just that most people do not need absolute high end LCDs to use AOL so they seem expensive compared to whatever is on sale at best buy. i don't know how the iMac screen stacks up offhand.
then compare the same hard drive, included airport, bluetooth, ethernet and other bits. all those things add up. there, obviously, are not a ton of all-in-one windows things to compare it to, and i doubt any with the exact same specs. i am guessing the true side by side will have to wait till the towers or maybe the mini comes out?
beyond comparing the pure hardware, you can argue for years about the included software. Apple still has the angle that they can make free software available on Macs because it only works on Macs. even if somebody copies iLife or something off a new Mac to another Mac, it will only work on a machine that was made by Apple. that being said it is hard to not include the bundled software in a side by side shootout if the windows user would have to go buy something equivalent.
in short, even with intel processors i am sure this battle will not end anytime soon. computer journalists everywhere can easily get a few more years out of this one.
implies they will updating their displays.
v e_apple_plasma_displays_to_rock_mwsf_updated.html# 008526
read the interesting story that PowerPage posted just the other day.....
http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2006/01/exclusi
the key points being (as put by macrumors):
Apple would be releasing 42inch and 50inch Plasma Displays at Macworld San Francisco.
the new plasma displays will be powered by Intel's recently announced Viiv multimedia platform running Mac OS X 10.4.4 for x86 (Intel).
Prices for the displays/computers are reportedly $2599 and $3299.
ok, pure speculation, but....
i would assume they get the brunt of these complaints because they have had shows jump to cable channels with far smaller promotion budgets and they become hits. not just for viewers, but the DVD sales. that makes you wonder what Fox did wrong. (also people are still angry about firefly and think it could have had a good run... maybe John Doe too)
didn't fox also have Stargate initially? that show just keeps going on cable. if the current team was running Fox TV the same way years ago i am sure the X-Files would have been axed in one or two seasons. there are people now just as upset that Arrested Development was axed. the producer(s) said they want to move it to another network/cable/anywhere, and as far as critic approved cult TV shows that is definitely one of them. i think it's too weird for the average TV watching dullard. the lack of a laugh track may also make them uncomfortable. some people have to be assured something was funny.
Piasecki Aircraft in PA had something like this in the 80s. http://www.piasecki.com/pa-97.htm
it was intended for heavy lifting. a blimp with 4 helicopters on outriggers. the company has building helicopters as long as they have existed, so if the last 20 years did not make that one pan out, it makes you wonder if there is enough need that people/government would invest in them? i am sure there are times somebody wishes they had something with that amazing lifting power (like to transport godzilla). you figure you can do some amazing moving with a Sikorsky Skycrane http://www.aviation-history.com/sikorsky/s64.htm
true.... that's why my laptop is a 12" ibook G3 500. cheap (because i got it a year ago), small, portable and more than enough for web fun, runs OS X 10.4.x. all i had to do was get a new battery (a super long life one from Newer Technology) and it's more than adequate.
who knows if these will have wifi? that would add a lot of cost i think? i would guess that would depend on where they will be deployed, and with the ideas of 1,000,000 units/order minimum they can make specific configurations for specific regions/countries and still keep costs low.
as for use in the United States, with cities adding full coverage wifi there will be a call for some sort of cheap computer/internet appliance to get the masses online. what a city saves in clerks, copies of forms, phones, phone lines, operators bla bla bla could be incentive for them to do what they have to and get as many citizens online as possible. the Philadelphia plan to get full wifi coverage is just phase one. phase two (not really talked about too much yet?) is to figure out a way to get computers to the masses. besides the coolness of wifi, it is also a desire by the city government to make every citizen have decent web access so they can get to city forms etc.
these are not to be sold at CompUSA or even walmart..... if they read the specs and explanations for these they would know that they are not intended to be state of the art, and they cost $100 each in quantities of a million or something. the one prototype or mockup that was posted here before even had a crank to generate power because they are going to be used in places either without electricity or with unreliable electricity. if somebody is in that situation i don't think they will give a crap how well the machine can run Doom (or whatever the hip game is now). it's more of a "my first sony" approach than Apple Powerbook. that being said even for $200 it may be fun to have one?
i say more power to them. if they can get them out there and run some lo-fi linux software then great. they will be able to load them with edu software and possible some form of internet access? if it works maybe we will see some form of freeware educational e-books. it seems like a noble effort to help educate people. honestly if there was no other way to do it, wouldn't loading educational stuff on something akin to a Palm Pilot be better than nothing? you figure Palm was selling handhelds for $99 retail a while back. buying a million, being non-profit and a few years of trickle down technology makes me think it is possible.
i am not saying they deserve it, but it is not like we have not seen this before. anybody reading Slashdot should realize the system is fucked, especially when it comes to Micro$oft products. Are they ever good out of the box? i personally don't have any installed on any of my machines (Macs), and if i did it would probably be some old version of excel i needed 10 years ago for a class.
something as focused and dedicated as a game system should be easier to make work properly. it is a pretty closed system at this point so they *should* have known there were issues, unless it is just quality control and the few that slipped through are getting a ton of attention. even the local even news here devoted 15 or 20 seconds to it.
i have more leniency for something like a laptop that may be subject to 3rd party devices and software and exposed to environmental conditions (and users) they did not simulate in the lab.
if there is a way to remove items that were gifts from contributing to your profile, then it is not super obvious or one click easy. that may be most of the reason the recommendations i get are worthless to me personally. i don't care enough about having Old Man Amazon suggest more things for me to buy, so i never dug too far to figure out how to remove items or flag them as having been gifts.
does it not add them to your profile if you ship them to another address? i only used that a few times, but i never pondered if those had an influence on my Amazonian Profile (patent pending).
people outside Apple caught wind of it and ran with the story trying to take shots at Apple's actually decent market share or portables. the name about it burning up is kind of stupid considering how many other companies actually have to recall batteries, power supplies etc from customers to replace them from overheating. just in the last year or two we heard about "risky" laptop batteries and game system power supplies out in the public. Apple caught it before they were released, so nobody outside Apple ever actually experienced the flaw.
the machine itself had some other design bugs, but the flaming powerbook one was what people used to scare Apple customers. "the machine may set your lap on fire" sounds a lot more threatening than "this portable has a crappy hinge".
the comment above linked to LowEndMac.com's page for the 5300. that site has a whole section dedicated to Road Apples (Macs that failed to live up to their potential). it's a pro-Apple site so it's interesting to see what they consider stinkers. they also have their Best Buys page for the best of older Apple hardware. neither of those has anything from the last few years, so keep that in mind if you only know more current Apple hardware. i think the newest stinker is from around 2000 and the last best buy is older than that.
you figure the people posting their woes are probably furious. when you consider all the effort they seemed to put into getting their prized new gaming system early. i don't really feel bad for them, but i can understand they would be irrational after camping out in a parking lot for 24 hours to bring home a system that is buggy. personally i would not wait in a checkout line of 20 minutes to buy any game system, let alone camp in a parking lot.... but that's just me.
one day people will learn that being an early adopter means you take some risks. it's not like they were buying a cabbage patch kid. there are not really software updates for xbox or PS systems... right? you take what you get.
agreed. i know people that would have bought another 12" ibook if they could get the features of the 12" powerbook. the 12" ibook can not be configured with a superdrive direct from Apple. the 12" powerbook lacks some of the cool features of its bigger friends (FW800, backlight keyboard etc) but it has things the ibooks do not, like monitor spanning. i know most ibooks can be hacked to add that, but it's just one feature.
they obviously sell enough to keep making them. some people want little portables. i have a tower at home and a 12" ibook, and when i replace the ibook, i want another 12" screen. it's not my only machine, and the portability factor beats out the relatively small size. if they made a 14" wide screen, i would be interested maybe? anyway, if i was shopping today it would be one of the 12" portables depending on how much i wanted to spend.
they did it a few years ago, and again this past summer at a Star Wars convention. i saw it on MIT campus, and it was amazing. this time they are combining the original three films into a roughly three hour production.
here's a link to the group that is putting it on: http://web.mit.edu/mtg/www/
yeah, i know more than one of those. they still can run their old favorite apps via X11, but the normal day to day stuff is just easier. the ones i know stopped wanting to spend their home free time tweaking installs, since they do it all day at work.
wow, but i first read that on slashdot!?!
anyway, the thing about bank notes is not that important. the important point is that it seems RFID chips will burn up under a microwave. best case scenario they get deactivated, and the worst case is your passport catching on fire. even if deactivated, you may be (at least temporarily) flagged for having a sketchy passport. the whole point of the chip working is that a fake passport will not have a functional chip......... so you know where that can get you.
but if you cook it a second or two longer than needed it will burn the area where the chip is. a chip embedded in a plastic ID card is easier to destroy than one embedded in a basically paper document. did you ever see the pictures of the money people microwave? they have obvious burn marks where the chips supposedly are.
and as also stated, having a non-functional passport may be flagged as possible forgery and lead to bigger issues.
i am just as against the chips as anyone else, but think it through before you react. personally my passport needs to be renewed now so i will do that and not be an early adopter of the RFID model. hopefully any issues will show up and a fix will be worked out before i get a chipped one. by fix i even mean some 3rd party idea of a shielded passport wallet or something if that is what it comes down to.
within a week of the iPod video release Steve Jobs was still saying there is not really a mass market for this thing yet. i guess he was talking more specifically of the ability to watch videos on the iPod (as opposed to an actual computer). from what i remember reading he said it was not unlike the iPod Photo in the sense that the full sized iPod has the ability to play video, but you do not have to use it. it is not like they have a choice of video enabled iPods and monochrome ones. the new iPods are priced inline with their predecessors, so what's to lose? it seems like Apple knows this is going to be something standard down the line(in some form), and their technology allowed them to roll it out now (in some smaller form), so why not?
i guess the questions is how the sales keep going and if people actually watch the content on the iPod itself, or on their computer, or use the iPod's AV cables to send it to a TV. if it keeps up for a little while i am sure there will be more content. new stuff, as well as old stuff that was not deemed worthy of DVD collections. for a prime example look how Motown opened up the vaults of old songs that have been out of print since they stopped pressing them on 7inch vinyl. a lot of their long lost content is now on iTMS. it took less investment for them to do that than figure out how to make CD sets, and the fans get to pick and choose what they want. everyone wins. i don't see how this will be any different.
you can already buy TV episodes without commercials, on DVD. you just have to wait till the summer after the season is over. $1.99/episode of a TV show that is full season (say Lost) is financially a better deal than buying the DVD box set. yes, you lose some packaging and extras (maybe there will be some workaround in the future?). it is not unlike how buying an album from iTMS is generally cheaper than going to a traditional CD store. there have also been rumors for a while of a way to stream video to a TV from a Mac. either wirelessly like airport express, or some networked box thing. if we see it or not, i am sure there is at least one prototype in the Apple R+D cave.
also remember that these shows/videos/shorts are not just to watch on an iPod. they can be watched from your computer. no iPod needed, like for music. i know people that buy songs from iTMS that do not own any MP3 player at all. they just buy single songs and listen to them on their PC (not even Mac users). anyway, the idea of transferring to the iPod may be as much about loading it so you can take it to a TV in your house, or somebody else's. the idea of those exclusive shorts, home movies, videos and TV shows the day after they air might appeal to many people.
remember the new iPods cost no more than the iPods they were selling last week, and have bigger drives. you do not HAVE to use the video option, as you did not have to use the photo option or the contact list. as other people have posted, this also may be a way for cult shows to survive without a traditional TV outlet. it does not require an iPod, but just a Mac or PC with iTunes installed. that's for today, we knew this was coming in some form and Apple is not the only company that has been working on this. the real issue was what to sell considering how many people have broadband. everyone got hung up on selling/renting movies and stalled opening these new stores. was Apple jumping the gun? i would guess not since they have the infrastructure already in place for the music store, and the store makes a small profit as is. i am guessing in the future TV networks will be selling shows themselves with windows media DRM or some REAL product.
true, but PSP is a unique format... right? the iPod is already a staple technology device for many people. you are not buying a physical cartridge that will forever remind you how silly it was (like 8-tracks?). if there is a way to load it with a movie (from a store, kiosk, or online) and watch it oon the dumb little screen, OR feed it to a TV then it may have some possibility? maybe?
you figure the future of the brick and mortar video store is limited. there is no way they will last forever even the mighty netflix may have a limited future. i think those operations have many years left, but they are making less money than even... even from digital cable and on-demand. i know people that live in cities, have memberships to well stocked indie movie rental places, and are all still regular netflix users. it's not laziness, it's convenience mixed with a massive catalog of titles. if movies are rented in the form of 1s and 0s there there would be no need to put movies in cue, or reserve it.
Apple is doing the quarterly report on Tuesday October 11th, the day before the media event. macminute.com had that in their news today. i am guessing that is why the release was not on the usual tuesday? the earnings reports are always done after the market closes, so at 1600 or 1700 eastern time. makes sense, if the quarter was good. if apple announces anything tuesday morning, then earnings tuesday evening, one would be lost in the shuffle. this implies the earnings are at least ok, if not pretty good. AAPL stock is at an all time high these days, so i assume things are financially solid.
maybe this is just a bump to make the iPod more of a platform independent portable digital wallet? if this is what is coming wednesday, then they are making a bigger deal out of it so i would assume something else to make it make sense. is it possible Apple has a partnership with, say, blockbuster so you take in an iPod and load a movie or two... and that movie expires unless you "renew it" online. in theory that DRM exists now. this just popped in my head, and not some master scheme i have pondered for more than a minute. it seems plausible though. i guess even at the store it would take a lil while to upload content that large?
what kind of hardware upgrades would the iPod take to display and feed out video? can they technically do it now? i personally do not know enough about the guts of the iPod, but i know other people have done similar things with little devices. iPods have an AV out cable now to display photos on a TV or whatever. if it is a minor upgrade, it may be like iPod Photos. it's a feature that is there, but you do not have to use it. off the top of my head people may use them for: music videos, sharing iMovies, keynote presentations (easier to hook up an iPod than carry a laptop?), video podcasts.
the streaming content to phones here is not taking off, but it is relatively new. it is not super supported and is pretty expensive for what you get IIRC. look how long it took text messaging to blow up in the united states. granted, a lot of that was the blockage between carriers, and a lot of unsupported phones out there.
then again, people here complain that the cost of songs should be 99 cents or less, yet look what people pay for crappy polyphonic ring tones because they do not know how to upload them manually. they even pay that much for chopped up MP3 files. $2 or $3 last i remember looking.
usually public transportation is a weird organization. they are massively funded by taxpayers, but may not totally be government owned in the traditional sense. it may be more of a (partial?) government takeover of what was once a public company that got a monopoly on the market. i don't know for sure, but what i do know........
the article i read about this last week mentioned that he, or somebody else, was basically redrawing the map to avoid the copyright issues. i do not remember if that was for NY or SanFran.. or both? it seemed like his understanding was that he could draw his own and be legally ok. the question was if he could use the same fonts, and if he had to change the colors of the lines (which may lead to confusion when crossing it with another map). i know for NYC there are plenty of lil reprints for tourists or people attending a convention. they are not reprints of the exact same map, but they do follow the color schemes.
the article also mentioned that the NY transit system is on a crackdown of copyrights because they want to stop people from cashing in on those t-shirts etc with the subway line numbers/letters/symbols on them and want a cut of that money. we all know that if you let copyrights slide on one area, the other can be harder to enforce. the fact that he is not selling the maps, and merely redistributing free ones is what makes it sketchy. maybe his addition of google ads tot he page is the line he crossed? maybe he could just link to their websites page where they would offer their own version? it is nice that his site has a bunch of cities in one spot.