At the time AT&T bought BellSouth, AT&T was certainly not the old long distance company. That had been bought by SBC a year or two previously. SBC renamed itself to AT&T, and that corporation swallowed BellSouth.
All of which is a shame, because BellSouth was actually a fairly decent company - well, fairly decent as monopolistic local telcos can be.
This would be far more interesting and relevant if you explained why the shelter was set up specifically for Indian/Pakistani wives, and why you'd consider such culturally distinct groups to be sensibly lumped together for making this shelter (it's a little like creating a shelter for Turkish/Greek wives.)
My mother helped run a battered wives shelter when I was a pre-teen, and because of my age I was one of the few males allowed in it. Seemed to be predominantly white women, as you'd expect in a country that's 90% white. I'm trying to fathom the purpose of your comment, as it doesn't seem to pertain to the issue except, perhaps, by using innuendo to suggest a particular problem in two countries that isn't in any way really represented by the evidence you present.
At one point to BeOS was considered a potential successor to Mac OS by Apple, after the collapse of the Copland project, but in the end Apple picked NEXTSTEP, supposedly because of two major issues with BeOS. The first was that Be, Inc. was asking too much. The other was that it was unfinished at the time it was under consideration, notably lacking a comprehensive printing system - which, at the time, was a major issue given Apple's success in the DTP market.
They were speculating, yeah, but I heard equal speculation at the time that it was Iraq. I wouldn't read too much into initial press speculation - what do you expect them to say?
"Breaking News: Planes fly into buildings in New York. We don't know why. Could be terrorism, kinda looks like it, but we wouldn't want to speculate. Who would do such a thing? While America has some fairly prominent enemies, we don't want to name any. In other news, Britney Spears is pregnant. Who's the father? We know a few people she's had sex with, and it seems all but certain to be one particular person that she's been hanging out with, but it wouldn't be proper to name them at this time. And the President is to address the nation later today: but which one? With all this terror around, it could be the current President is dead, or going to be assassinated before he gets to make his speech. We have a list of names of people who might make that speech, as President of the United States, but it would be completely improper of us to actually name any names."
Thanks for demonstrating exactly what I was talking about.
Apple stopped releasing source code. There was an outcry. They reversed themselves. The Apple apologists claimed that Apple had merely "not released the code yet", despite the fact that Apple had stopped releasing code, with several binary releases going by without any source releases.
When various groups started to raise the issue, with a number of open source developers making it clear they weren't happy developing for Darwin any more, Apple began to reverse themselves.
And so, now, anyone who points out that Apple did, actually suspend source releases for XNU is flamed by Apple apologists who'll repeat the PR talking point, and the rest of us no longer see the point in arguing. We know Apple only does the "right thing" if they're browbeaten into doing it, but they'll ensure those who pointed out the problems get slimed in the process. Which is why, after a point, we give up. Microsoft is not this dishonest.
Here's what's going to happen. It'll happen because it always happens.
Apple gets caught with its pants down. Everyone condemns Apple while its PR teams huddle together to find a way to deal with the issue. Finally, Apple announces that the issue was to do with an oversight caused by a miscommunication caused by an unrelated issue that actually was a case of the application not being approved yet, not that it was really rejected.
People outside of Apple circles will laugh, but then be flamed endlessly for laughing to the point that we no longer want to talk about it any more.
Happened when Apple was using cheap third world labour to build iPods. Happened when Apple stopped releasing source code to Darwin. And it's going to happen again. Apple will, as with those issues, completely reverse itself, while making it sound like it was its policy all along.
So I'm not even going to bother. Here's the thing though: this is Apple's mentality. They will try to lock down iPhone if they can. They do in many areas already, and they will continue to do so. I can swap out a SIM in an iPhone and tether my laptop to a real cellphone instead, and it'll work, but Apple bans applications that allows you to use iPhone for this. I can install any application I want on my Motorola V635 - which isn't even something most people would describe as a "smartphone" but is, thanks to J2ME, completely programmable and has oodles of storage space thanks to microSD - but I can only install "approved" applications on an "smart" iPhone.
So yes, Apple will reverse itself on this issue, and all of you criticizing it now will be criticized as lying Apple haters who misrepresented what Apple was doing. But iPhone will always be a locked down platform. And as long as it is, there will be many of us who will just steer clear of it.
And if what you want is a locked down platform, don't start whining when you hear some app developer has been screwed over because of it.
So, in a nutshell, you now pay for the RIAA to prop up their outdated and failed business model
Nope. You pay because the RIAA's own attempts to enforce copyright law have stalled, largely because armies of geeks have been trying to find ways of ensuring people can violate copyright without actually enough evidence existing to lead to successful trials.
The RIAA itself doesn't have a business model that's relevant to this discussion (any more than the MPAA, AAA, NRA, or any other organization that plays a representative role has), but if you're referring to the music industry's general model of "selling copies of things people want", I'm not really sure how the model is "outdated" or "failed". Because it requires copyright law to enforce it? And? How many businesses do you think survive without any laws at all to ensure people play fair and don't use the fruits of their labors without paying towards the costs? If your employer suddenly started withholding all your paychecks, and you found that your attempts to enforce the law against your employer were fruitless because he or she knew thousands of loopholes, and you found everyone else was in the same boat, do you think it'd be fair for everyone to turn around and tell you your "Employee business model" is "outdated and failed"?
We could have avoided this. There'd be no reason for "copyright cops" if people bought the content they wanted and were prepared to pay for, and steered clear of content they didn't want to pay for. The fact geeks went over the top to create mechanisms to by-pass paying doesn't mean copyright cops are unneeded. It means a bunch of people acted anti-socially, and now we all have to suffer through higher taxes and a greater risk of being caught in the dragnets.
Thanks a lot Ray Beckerman. Thanks a lot Shawn Fanning. So you sowed, so shall we have to reap.
Because you want to watch movies on your laptop, but you don't want to carry around the original copies of your DVDs with you, both because you don't want them lost and because they're extra crap you don't want to have to carry around with you.
Well, at least one person has spoken publicly about being involved in the protests about the library fiasco at the time. I'm not sure what exactly was published at the Daily Kos, but it's no more legitimate to say it didn't happen than to suggest Osama Bin Laden didn't topple the twin towers because supporters of the Bush administration was wrong about Saddam Hussein being involved.
I remember listening to a Paultard explain to me once that Ron Paul was a libertarian because he believes the states should clamp down on drugs and abortion, and ban gay marriages. The explanation given was the fact that Ron Paul felt that states should be fascistic overlords and the Fed shouldn't made him a "libertarian".
This is a somewhat odd definition that most of us would say makes no sense whatsoever, but I guess if you have one group saying "The feds shouldn't do that! The 10th reserves that right for us", and then some other group saying "Hmm, the 10th says "states and the people", they must have meant states", then you can probably get to that bizarre viewpoint.
Where am I going with this? Well, Palin's a book banner. She had a city revolt against her because she fired a librarian for refusing to take certain books out of the library.
But, huh, she's a "libertarian" because... well, I don't know. Because Ron Paul's a "libertarian" I guess. Because liberty doesn't belong to individuals, it belongs to a government, we're not sure which one today but we know it belongs to one of them.
If you vote for Palin because you think the jackboots she wears makes her look like a cute libertarian, then you're a tool.
It's a link to a blog entry with the video of the ad. I suggest reading this discussion to find equivalent links. I guess that user's blog entry was set as "friends only" or something.
A large table dominates the room. Sleek metal chairs are located around the table, all of which sits on a raised platform above a large pool full of sharks. Various nervous looking henchmen sit in the chairs, watching their beloved leader. A squeaking whiny voice speaks:
Bill Gates (for it is he): Now, I've been thinking about our advertising, how we get the message out that Vista is the best operating system ever written, and I was watching TV last night.
Steve Ballmer: Oh, excellent my master! Excellent!
Steve chortles uncontrollably
Bill Gates: Shut up number 2. Now, I noticed two things. First of all, there is a hilarious comedian on the television called Jerry Seinfeld.
Various flunkies nod.
Number 8: Oh yes, he's very funny
Number 9: I agree my master. We were all talking about his hilarious show around our water cooler earlier today.
Number 5: Indeed. In my department, I couldn't get to the water cooler because of the number of people talking about his show. It is the funniest show on television. You are so right number one, you are...
Bill Gates sighs
Gates: Silence! Now, the other thing I noticed was a theme to many of the advertisements. Let me show you.
The table turns around, with the chairs parting to form a straight line parallel to and facing a giant unfolding screen. The lights dim, and an image appears on screen.
McCain: I'm John McCain, and I approve this message. Barack Obama says he's for the common man. But he's actually just a typical liberal elitist.
Obama: Poor people suck. I'm a big dofus. Look at me with my big car and fancy house.
McCain: Do you really want this person becoming President, or would you rather that a real American be in the White House?
The screen changes to show a new ad. This time the word "Hope" appears in big letters on the screen.
Obama: I know what it's like to be at the bottom. I grew up in a family so poor we used to have to live in a paper bag. Every morning, we used to have to get up before we went to bed, lick road clean, and every night our parents would beat us, bury us, and dance on our graves. But my opponent John McCain was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, listen to his real world experience:
McCain: Look at me, I'm an old person who doesn't even know how to use an Interweb. I have sixteen houses because I keep forgetting where they all are and so have to keep buying new ones to live in.
Obama: Do you really think that guy can relate to us? Do you really want him to become President? Vote for me, change you can believe in. I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.
The lights come back on and the table and chairs go back into position.
Gates: You see, I'm noticing a common theme. What the common people want is to know their leaders aren't elitist, whatever that means.
Number 17: Er, Mr Gates. I don't want to talk out of turn, but those are election ads, they're not trying to sell computer operating systems.
There is a deathly hush. Gates motions to Balmer:
Gates: Number 2...
Balmer picks up a chair. Number 17 gets up and starts to back away.
Number 17: Please! I meant no disrespect! I was just trying to help! No! Please!
Balmer coldly follows 17 and carefully aims the chair. Finally, with a single thrust of the arms, the chair is thrown. All four legblades hit 17 together. He staggers backwards, bleeding profusely, and falls off of the platform into the shark tank, screaming as he goes.
Gates: As I was saying. The people want to know that their leaders are not elitists, that we can relate to the comm
The main feature for most DVDs is usually around 4Gb, and this is compressed using MPEG2 and with half a dozen different sound tracks. The use of dual layer is normally to incorporate extra features and cater for the movies that are over two hours long. Even then, you'll not find many dual-layer DVDs with 8.5Gb of data on them.
Realistically, a DVD-quality two hour movie usually weighs in at around 1G when compressed using H.264 or better and when a single sound track is provided. I believe Amazon are using Flash, which is using a DRM-wrapped version of H.264, so I'd be very surprised if they're going for over 500Mb per hour of video.
Yep. Store-bought/pressed DVDs that follow the DVD2.0 standard would play in existing players (but wouldn't have the advanced features, obviously.) Disks downloaded over the Internet would probably require DVD2.0 players though.
What would be nice is if the Blu-ray Disc Association and DVD Forum actually agreed to work together on this rather than making it another war. It would be a clean way for Blu-ray discs and players to avoid obsolescence, which I think is inevitable within three to five years if they don't make the format integrate cleanly into a future that's very obviously going to be online. It would also avoid a format war that doesn't need to be a format war. The whole HD DVD vs Blu-ray thing was unnecessary too, there was little reason the HD DVD people couldn't have adopted the physical Blu-ray disc format, or the Blu-ray people the higher level format of HD DVD, other than "NIH" attitudes. I'm sure one side doing that would have won the other side over.
This might be a second opportunity, or they could continue just being nasty to each other, leaving us as the losers.
Your entire argument hinges on the implication that the studios don't want illegitimate DVDs made;
No, it doesn't. That wasn't my argument at all, or in any way resembled my argument. I'd try to explain it again, but to be honest, everyone else replying to my comment seems to have "got it", so I doubt a rehash would be any more comprehendable to you. What I do suggest is that you look up CPRM, and determine what application it is for, and then relate it to my original post and the Ghostbusters-on-a-USB-stick thing that this article is about.
Samsung's been a backer of Blu-ray from the start, though at one point they were planning (and possibly made, I'm not sure) an HD DVD/Blu-ray combo player. So I don't think this is coming from an HD DVD supporter.
Honestly, I think Samsung's stating the obvious, or if anything becoming too optimistic. It's not going to be long before standardized downloads become a reality. Consumers want convenience and features first, quality second, and Blu-ray fails on both scores. So it's not going to have a terribly long lifespan, existing primarily as a "last resort" for people who "need" HD but can't wait for the infrastructure to be set up to do it using 21st Century technologies.
Are you kidding? I can fit around 50 (rough estimate, I don't have them in front of me) USB thumbdrives in the same space as one HD DVD/Blu-ray case (and those cases are around half the volume of regular DVD cases.) All other things being equal (and of course, they're not right now) I'd way prefer movie distribution to be on little thumbdrives.
Not exactly a fair comparison (though I agree the "loss-leader" thing is overstated.) Nintendo hasn't been able to keep up with demand for the Wii since its creation. Dropping the price would do nothing to increase sales, which is the purpose of loss-leading. Making more of them is the only thing Nintendo can do at this stage to increase sales.
I suspect he didn't have to "prove" anything about plastic bags, any more than he'd have to prove the sky's blue.
As far as your forcing comment goes, the old adage is "Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose". Unless you're polluting private property, you can't reasonably have the expectation that people aren't going to tell you to refrain from certain polluting acts. The terrible communistic liberal dictators are also forcing you to not shit in the street. How'dya feel about that?
The solution as far as plastic bags mentioned above goes makes perfect sense to me: pollution ends up having a direct cost to the polluter which is in-proportion to the affect they're having. Previously, non-polluters subsidized polluters by paying increased grocery costs to subsidize disposable plastic bags. No incentive there to re-use anything. With this law change, it's easier to not pollute, because the bags are now reusable, and lower grocery costs more than off-set the temporary increase in carrier costs. Only those who still treat the bags as disposable are worse off, and, well, they should be.
We go from a situation where the responsible are no longer subsidizing the irresponsible. We're no longer spending as much on street cleaning, our food isn't costing more because of carrier bag subsidies, we're correctly managing costs. Only someone who wants to pollute and who wants others to pay for that could possibly complain.
I'm saying there's an upcoming revision of the DVD standard.
DVD is neither on the way out nor futureproof at this point in time. Over-all, sales of disc-based media is falling, and this is whether you just count DVD, or count DVD+Blu-ray+{Miscellaneous also-rans}, but it's not falling so fast that you can safely say the format is dying, it's within the tolerances you should expect for sales during a time of dismal releases and a faltering economy.
The BDA have really screwed up with Blu-ray. It gives you a higher quality picture - but that, obviously, is only going to be visible for people with fairly expensive TVs. It gives you marginally better sound - though most people will not be able to tell the difference between a well-mastered FR DTS 5.1 track and a lossless TrueHD track. And, er, that's it. It doesn't really give you anything else, and if you buy a Blu-ray disc you'll have to replace all the DVD players you have with Blu-ray players to achieve the same utility.
So the DVD Forum is going to bung a bunch of HD DVD technologies into DVD and is calling it DVD 2.0. The working group doing this is WG12. You can expect, at minimum, backwards compatibility for pressed media (the main feature being 480{p/i}/576{p/i} MPEG2, accessible on red-laser layers to regular plain-old DVD players), the ability to download and burn CPRM controlled discs, some kind of additional help for upscalers, the Advanced Content system (HDi) that seamlessly integrates online and offline content, and Mandatory Managed Copy - so you'll be able to copy all your movies to a hard disk to play on demand, or copy them to a portable player without having to carry discs around.
Whether it will be a success or not is, at this stage, difficult to tell. What the DVD Forum was aiming at with HD DVD, and appears to be still aiming at with DVD 2.0, was making the format "future proof" by making it seamlessly integrate and be part of a future infrastructure based primarily upon downloaded content rather than physical discs. Right now there's no standard for online downloads, and a number of companies - Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, Sony - are acting as "gatekeepers" for proprietary systems. Pretty much the entire industry understands that online is the future, but I doubt anyone actually wants the proprietary gatekeeper environment to exist forever.
So on the one hand, the studios would probably prefer an open standard be introduced, and they'd be receptive to an independent organization like the DVD Forum setting standards especially if it offers a seamless upgrade path from what we have today, and doesn't cut off people who don't have Internet connections capable of supporting online downloads.
On the other hand, you only have to look at the insane HD DVD vs Blu-ray war to see there are some vicious politics involved, politics that the DVD Forum seems to be bad at playing. Sony has lost $3B on Blu-ray already, and is unlikely to be overly keen on a technology path that brings forward its complete obsolescence as a movie distribution technology. Certain companies, notably Fox, picked Blu-ray over HD DVD due to extreme conservatism on their part, seeing "Supposedly far more secure, more of the same" as superior to "Slightly more secure, far more capabilities and futureproofing". Online, while inevitable, is also scary to these companies.
My gut tells me that "DVD 2.0" may well fail because of the politics involved, but something will emerge from the ruins of both DVD 2.0 and Blu-ray that could well succeed. I think it's all a crying shame though. Had HD DVD succeeded, we might have been on a path towards standardized online downloads already, with stores migrating to the HD DVD system now it had been standardized and with manufacturers starting to build players, burners, and media in earnest. Right now the only possible hope is that the studios come to their senses, otherwise we're going to be stuck with half a dozen incompatible proprietary download systems and a media format that's just not plain worth spending thousands on especially given we all know it'll be obsolete within three-to-five years.
So, which Hollywood studio is offering you a process for downloading content for burning to DVD? And what store sells CPRM-coded DVD-Rs? And what DVD players play DVD-Rs with CPRM-controlled content?
If I was lying, you could probably quote some studios, software, stores (and branded media), and DVD models, rather than throw around vague generalities that suggest you don't know the difference between CPRM-controlled media and ordinary DVD-Rs.
Hollywood supported VHS when it was the only game in town, but it wasn't digital so it's kind of beside the point.
Right now, the movie industry does not support writable DVDs. You can't go to a website, buy the movie you want, download it, and burn it to a DVD readable in a "real" DVD player. You could (technically - obviously no movie studio actually offered the service, no burners existed, and no suitable blank media existed, but nominally there was nothing stopping any of these things from existing. At the very least, all players supported playing the discs) do that with HD DVD, because HD DVD supported CPRM right off the bat. DVD2.0 will also include the technology, so you'll be able to buy blank DVD-Rs with serial numbers embedded in them, buy a movie over the Internet, download a copy that's tied to a DVD-R with that serial number, burn it, and play it on any player that supports DVD2.0 (or "Download/DL" as this feature will be branded. A DVD player that's branded "Download/DL" is just one that supports CPRM.)
Then again, there is the whole "transition to digital TV" thing, and high-quality picture on digital cable and satellite has inspired many people to go out and buy brand-new, high resolution TVs. The DVD format does nothing for these sets.
No, but the sets do something for DVD. I personally very nearly didn't bother trying an HD player because DVD looked so damned good on my new LCD TV it seemed close to impossible to see how HD DVD (or Blu-ray) could be any better. And it is better, usually, but not so much that we dislike watching DVDs. In fact, my wife has told me she can't tell the difference, and a friend of mine who bought a much flashier, larger, TV than I did has told me he sees no difference at all.
In any case, don't over-estimate the impact of digital TVs. TVs capable of showing a difference between ED and HD in a picture from the other side of a small room start at around $500-600, with, realistically, $1,000-2,000 being necessary. In the meantime, 90% of people I've seen with large TVs watch SD channels in stretch-o-vision. With the economy tanking as it is, I find the probability people are going to run out to buy TVs so big that even 480p24 (that is, reverse-pulldowned) DVD looks anything other than great supremely unlikely.
By the time we see a large up-take of large HD screens, I expect digital downloads to be in full force.
Now imagine if the show actually looked better on TV before you bought the DVD
You'd be surprised. VHS lasted for two decades, and people used it to manually collect TV serieses, or often as their primary way to watch TV.
And don't discount the disadvantages of the format. That Blu-ray disc set may look great on the living room TV, but it's not going to play anywhere else until you're willing to buy Blu-ray players for every TV in the house. With most households becoming multi-TV, and with portable DVD players becoming increasingly commons, both standalone and installable in SUVs etc, a DVD is pretty damned useful, and replacing that infrastructure even if portable Blu-ray players appear within the next couple of years, and even if Blu-ray players fall below $200, is pretty damned expensive.
If you're a parent, and you want to buy a Disney movie to keep the kids quiet, are you going to pay over-the-odds for the Blu-ray version and give up your living room everytime your kids want to watch it, or are you going to stick with the DVD version? Are your kids even going to care about the high definition?
Blu-ray is a less useful format that offers improved image quality and marginally better audio quality, but even in those cases requires infrastructure capable of showing the difference, and eyeballs and ears that enjoy the difference. Personally, I'm of the opinion that HD DVD at least had a shot, on the grounds that it was an improvement even for SD users (managed copy, downloadable content, download-and-burn, etc), but BD doesn't even have that. It's not a more useful format than DVD. Which is why DVD will continue to live for many years, and why Blu-ray is unlikely to ever gain any traction.
Blu-ray has yet to get any traction, and in all honesty, with only higher quality video and marginally better audio to have over DVD, I seriously doubt it ever will. It's going to remain a niche videophile technology for the foreseeable future, until HD downloads become commonplace and available under reasonable pricing terms.
It might survive as a data storage technology though. The multilayer BD disk thing may not be suitable for pressed media, but it should work pretty well as a rewritable storage thing. 200Gb removable disks. Yum.
They're more interested in proving the principle of the thing than protecting this particular film. If it gets ripped, Hollywood isn't going to be as upset as they would be if, say, Quantum of Solace were ripped. If it doesn't get ripped, well, distributing Return of the Revenge of Batman in 2012 on a 32Gb SD card isn't going to seem so crazy.
The idea of tying digital copies to a particular storage device isn't new, and several parties have been trying to persuade Hollywood that this idea works for a while. HD DVD supported something called CPRM, where each writable disk could have embedded upon it, in an unwritable part of the disk, a key that copies could be tied to. The idea was that you'd (or a kiosk would) be able to download and burn to a disk an official, authorized, copy of a movie, that would be just as uncopyable as a regular AACS-controlled disk. This was an extension of attempts by the DVD Forum to make CPRM work with regular DVDs for some years, which looks set to be a part of the next revision of the DVD standard. You can imagine how attractive this is to studios who do not want to put hundreds of thousands of copies of low-interest content in stores around the world.
Likewise, the "SD" in "SD card" is about a similar system, and initially that was the major difference between SD cards and MMC cards, though the two standards have grown apart since in other ways.
Whether this is good or bad depends on your point of view to a certain extent, but what is clear is that Hollywood isn't planning on abandoning DRM any time soon. As a result, they're not going to adopt any form of writable media to store digital copies unless it has some kind of DRM system built-in. This is a step towards that goal.
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At the time AT&T bought BellSouth, AT&T was certainly not the old long distance company. That had been bought by SBC a year or two previously. SBC renamed itself to AT&T, and that corporation swallowed BellSouth.
All of which is a shame, because BellSouth was actually a fairly decent company - well, fairly decent as monopolistic local telcos can be.
This would be far more interesting and relevant if you explained why the shelter was set up specifically for Indian/Pakistani wives, and why you'd consider such culturally distinct groups to be sensibly lumped together for making this shelter (it's a little like creating a shelter for Turkish/Greek wives.)
My mother helped run a battered wives shelter when I was a pre-teen, and because of my age I was one of the few males allowed in it. Seemed to be predominantly white women, as you'd expect in a country that's 90% white. I'm trying to fathom the purpose of your comment, as it doesn't seem to pertain to the issue except, perhaps, by using innuendo to suggest a particular problem in two countries that isn't in any way really represented by the evidence you present.
Nope.
At one point to BeOS was considered a potential successor to Mac OS by Apple, after the collapse of the Copland project, but in the end Apple picked NEXTSTEP, supposedly because of two major issues with BeOS. The first was that Be, Inc. was asking too much. The other was that it was unfinished at the time it was under consideration, notably lacking a comprehensive printing system - which, at the time, was a major issue given Apple's success in the DTP market.
"Breaking News: Planes fly into buildings in New York. We don't know why. Could be terrorism, kinda looks like it, but we wouldn't want to speculate. Who would do such a thing? While America has some fairly prominent enemies, we don't want to name any. In other news, Britney Spears is pregnant. Who's the father? We know a few people she's had sex with, and it seems all but certain to be one particular person that she's been hanging out with, but it wouldn't be proper to name them at this time. And the President is to address the nation later today: but which one? With all this terror around, it could be the current President is dead, or going to be assassinated before he gets to make his speech. We have a list of names of people who might make that speech, as President of the United States, but it would be completely improper of us to actually name any names."
Thanks for demonstrating exactly what I was talking about.
Apple stopped releasing source code. There was an outcry. They reversed themselves. The Apple apologists claimed that Apple had merely "not released the code yet", despite the fact that Apple had stopped releasing code, with several binary releases going by without any source releases.
When various groups started to raise the issue, with a number of open source developers making it clear they weren't happy developing for Darwin any more, Apple began to reverse themselves.
And so, now, anyone who points out that Apple did, actually suspend source releases for XNU is flamed by Apple apologists who'll repeat the PR talking point, and the rest of us no longer see the point in arguing. We know Apple only does the "right thing" if they're browbeaten into doing it, but they'll ensure those who pointed out the problems get slimed in the process. Which is why, after a point, we give up. Microsoft is not this dishonest.
Here's what's going to happen. It'll happen because it always happens.
Apple gets caught with its pants down. Everyone condemns Apple while its PR teams huddle together to find a way to deal with the issue. Finally, Apple announces that the issue was to do with an oversight caused by a miscommunication caused by an unrelated issue that actually was a case of the application not being approved yet, not that it was really rejected.
People outside of Apple circles will laugh, but then be flamed endlessly for laughing to the point that we no longer want to talk about it any more.
Happened when Apple was using cheap third world labour to build iPods. Happened when Apple stopped releasing source code to Darwin. And it's going to happen again. Apple will, as with those issues, completely reverse itself, while making it sound like it was its policy all along.
So I'm not even going to bother. Here's the thing though: this is Apple's mentality. They will try to lock down iPhone if they can. They do in many areas already, and they will continue to do so. I can swap out a SIM in an iPhone and tether my laptop to a real cellphone instead, and it'll work, but Apple bans applications that allows you to use iPhone for this. I can install any application I want on my Motorola V635 - which isn't even something most people would describe as a "smartphone" but is, thanks to J2ME, completely programmable and has oodles of storage space thanks to microSD - but I can only install "approved" applications on an "smart" iPhone.
So yes, Apple will reverse itself on this issue, and all of you criticizing it now will be criticized as lying Apple haters who misrepresented what Apple was doing. But iPhone will always be a locked down platform. And as long as it is, there will be many of us who will just steer clear of it.
And if what you want is a locked down platform, don't start whining when you hear some app developer has been screwed over because of it.
Nope. You pay because the RIAA's own attempts to enforce copyright law have stalled, largely because armies of geeks have been trying to find ways of ensuring people can violate copyright without actually enough evidence existing to lead to successful trials.
The RIAA itself doesn't have a business model that's relevant to this discussion (any more than the MPAA, AAA, NRA, or any other organization that plays a representative role has), but if you're referring to the music industry's general model of "selling copies of things people want", I'm not really sure how the model is "outdated" or "failed". Because it requires copyright law to enforce it? And? How many businesses do you think survive without any laws at all to ensure people play fair and don't use the fruits of their labors without paying towards the costs? If your employer suddenly started withholding all your paychecks, and you found that your attempts to enforce the law against your employer were fruitless because he or she knew thousands of loopholes, and you found everyone else was in the same boat, do you think it'd be fair for everyone to turn around and tell you your "Employee business model" is "outdated and failed"?
We could have avoided this. There'd be no reason for "copyright cops" if people bought the content they wanted and were prepared to pay for, and steered clear of content they didn't want to pay for. The fact geeks went over the top to create mechanisms to by-pass paying doesn't mean copyright cops are unneeded. It means a bunch of people acted anti-socially, and now we all have to suffer through higher taxes and a greater risk of being caught in the dragnets.
Thanks a lot Ray Beckerman. Thanks a lot Shawn Fanning. So you sowed, so shall we have to reap.
Because you want to watch movies on your laptop, but you don't want to carry around the original copies of your DVDs with you, both because you don't want them lost and because they're extra crap you don't want to have to carry around with you.
Well, at least one person has spoken publicly about being involved in the protests about the library fiasco at the time. I'm not sure what exactly was published at the Daily Kos, but it's no more legitimate to say it didn't happen than to suggest Osama Bin Laden didn't topple the twin towers because supporters of the Bush administration was wrong about Saddam Hussein being involved.
I remember listening to a Paultard explain to me once that Ron Paul was a libertarian because he believes the states should clamp down on drugs and abortion, and ban gay marriages. The explanation given was the fact that Ron Paul felt that states should be fascistic overlords and the Fed shouldn't made him a "libertarian".
This is a somewhat odd definition that most of us would say makes no sense whatsoever, but I guess if you have one group saying "The feds shouldn't do that! The 10th reserves that right for us", and then some other group saying "Hmm, the 10th says "states and the people", they must have meant states", then you can probably get to that bizarre viewpoint.
Where am I going with this? Well, Palin's a book banner. She had a city revolt against her because she fired a librarian for refusing to take certain books out of the library.
But, huh, she's a "libertarian" because... well, I don't know. Because Ron Paul's a "libertarian" I guess. Because liberty doesn't belong to individuals, it belongs to a government, we're not sure which one today but we know it belongs to one of them.
If you vote for Palin because you think the jackboots she wears makes her look like a cute libertarian, then you're a tool.
It's a link to a blog entry with the video of the ad. I suggest reading this discussion to find equivalent links. I guess that user's blog entry was set as "friends only" or something.
A large table dominates the room. Sleek metal chairs are located around the table, all of which sits on a raised platform above a large pool full of sharks. Various nervous looking henchmen sit in the chairs, watching their beloved leader. A squeaking whiny voice speaks:
Bill Gates (for it is he): Now, I've been thinking about our advertising, how we get the message out that Vista is the best operating system ever written, and I was watching TV last night.
Steve Ballmer: Oh, excellent my master! Excellent!
Steve chortles uncontrollably
Bill Gates: Shut up number 2. Now, I noticed two things. First of all, there is a hilarious comedian on the television called Jerry Seinfeld.
Various flunkies nod.
Number 8: Oh yes, he's very funny
Number 9: I agree my master. We were all talking about his hilarious show around our water cooler earlier today.
Number 5: Indeed. In my department, I couldn't get to the water cooler because of the number of people talking about his show. It is the funniest show on television. You are so right number one, you are...
Bill Gates sighs
Gates: Silence! Now, the other thing I noticed was a theme to many of the advertisements. Let me show you.
The table turns around, with the chairs parting to form a straight line parallel to and facing a giant unfolding screen. The lights dim, and an image appears on screen.
McCain: I'm John McCain, and I approve this message. Barack Obama says he's for the common man. But he's actually just a typical liberal elitist.
Obama: Poor people suck. I'm a big dofus. Look at me with my big car and fancy house.
McCain: Do you really want this person becoming President, or would you rather that a real American be in the White House?
The screen changes to show a new ad. This time the word "Hope" appears in big letters on the screen.
Obama: I know what it's like to be at the bottom. I grew up in a family so poor we used to have to live in a paper bag. Every morning, we used to have to get up before we went to bed, lick road clean, and every night our parents would beat us, bury us, and dance on our graves. But my opponent John McCain was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, listen to his real world experience:
McCain: Look at me, I'm an old person who doesn't even know how to use an Interweb. I have sixteen houses because I keep forgetting where they all are and so have to keep buying new ones to live in.
Obama: Do you really think that guy can relate to us? Do you really want him to become President? Vote for me, change you can believe in. I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.
The lights come back on and the table and chairs go back into position.
Gates: You see, I'm noticing a common theme. What the common people want is to know their leaders aren't elitist, whatever that means.
Number 17: Er, Mr Gates. I don't want to talk out of turn, but those are election ads, they're not trying to sell computer operating systems.
There is a deathly hush. Gates motions to Balmer:
Gates: Number 2...
Balmer picks up a chair. Number 17 gets up and starts to back away.
Number 17: Please! I meant no disrespect! I was just trying to help! No! Please!
Balmer coldly follows 17 and carefully aims the chair. Finally, with a single thrust of the arms, the chair is thrown. All four legblades hit 17 together. He staggers backwards, bleeding profusely, and falls off of the platform into the shark tank, screaming as he goes.
Gates: As I was saying. The people want to know that their leaders are not elitists, that we can relate to the comm
The main feature for most DVDs is usually around 4Gb, and this is compressed using MPEG2 and with half a dozen different sound tracks. The use of dual layer is normally to incorporate extra features and cater for the movies that are over two hours long. Even then, you'll not find many dual-layer DVDs with 8.5Gb of data on them.
Realistically, a DVD-quality two hour movie usually weighs in at around 1G when compressed using H.264 or better and when a single sound track is provided. I believe Amazon are using Flash, which is using a DRM-wrapped version of H.264, so I'd be very surprised if they're going for over 500Mb per hour of video.
Yep. Store-bought/pressed DVDs that follow the DVD2.0 standard would play in existing players (but wouldn't have the advanced features, obviously.) Disks downloaded over the Internet would probably require DVD2.0 players though.
What would be nice is if the Blu-ray Disc Association and DVD Forum actually agreed to work together on this rather than making it another war. It would be a clean way for Blu-ray discs and players to avoid obsolescence, which I think is inevitable within three to five years if they don't make the format integrate cleanly into a future that's very obviously going to be online. It would also avoid a format war that doesn't need to be a format war. The whole HD DVD vs Blu-ray thing was unnecessary too, there was little reason the HD DVD people couldn't have adopted the physical Blu-ray disc format, or the Blu-ray people the higher level format of HD DVD, other than "NIH" attitudes. I'm sure one side doing that would have won the other side over.
This might be a second opportunity, or they could continue just being nasty to each other, leaving us as the losers.
No, it doesn't. That wasn't my argument at all, or in any way resembled my argument. I'd try to explain it again, but to be honest, everyone else replying to my comment seems to have "got it", so I doubt a rehash would be any more comprehendable to you. What I do suggest is that you look up CPRM, and determine what application it is for, and then relate it to my original post and the Ghostbusters-on-a-USB-stick thing that this article is about.
Samsung's been a backer of Blu-ray from the start, though at one point they were planning (and possibly made, I'm not sure) an HD DVD/Blu-ray combo player. So I don't think this is coming from an HD DVD supporter.
Honestly, I think Samsung's stating the obvious, or if anything becoming too optimistic. It's not going to be long before standardized downloads become a reality. Consumers want convenience and features first, quality second, and Blu-ray fails on both scores. So it's not going to have a terribly long lifespan, existing primarily as a "last resort" for people who "need" HD but can't wait for the infrastructure to be set up to do it using 21st Century technologies.
Are you kidding? I can fit around 50 (rough estimate, I don't have them in front of me) USB thumbdrives in the same space as one HD DVD/Blu-ray case (and those cases are around half the volume of regular DVD cases.) All other things being equal (and of course, they're not right now) I'd way prefer movie distribution to be on little thumbdrives.
And let's not talk about SD-cards!
Not exactly a fair comparison (though I agree the "loss-leader" thing is overstated.) Nintendo hasn't been able to keep up with demand for the Wii since its creation. Dropping the price would do nothing to increase sales, which is the purpose of loss-leading. Making more of them is the only thing Nintendo can do at this stage to increase sales.
I suspect he didn't have to "prove" anything about plastic bags, any more than he'd have to prove the sky's blue.
As far as your forcing comment goes, the old adage is "Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose". Unless you're polluting private property, you can't reasonably have the expectation that people aren't going to tell you to refrain from certain polluting acts. The terrible communistic liberal dictators are also forcing you to not shit in the street. How'dya feel about that?
The solution as far as plastic bags mentioned above goes makes perfect sense to me: pollution ends up having a direct cost to the polluter which is in-proportion to the affect they're having. Previously, non-polluters subsidized polluters by paying increased grocery costs to subsidize disposable plastic bags. No incentive there to re-use anything. With this law change, it's easier to not pollute, because the bags are now reusable, and lower grocery costs more than off-set the temporary increase in carrier costs. Only those who still treat the bags as disposable are worse off, and, well, they should be.
We go from a situation where the responsible are no longer subsidizing the irresponsible. We're no longer spending as much on street cleaning, our food isn't costing more because of carrier bag subsidies, we're correctly managing costs. Only someone who wants to pollute and who wants others to pay for that could possibly complain.
I'm saying there's an upcoming revision of the DVD standard.
DVD is neither on the way out nor futureproof at this point in time. Over-all, sales of disc-based media is falling, and this is whether you just count DVD, or count DVD+Blu-ray+{Miscellaneous also-rans}, but it's not falling so fast that you can safely say the format is dying, it's within the tolerances you should expect for sales during a time of dismal releases and a faltering economy.
The BDA have really screwed up with Blu-ray. It gives you a higher quality picture - but that, obviously, is only going to be visible for people with fairly expensive TVs. It gives you marginally better sound - though most people will not be able to tell the difference between a well-mastered FR DTS 5.1 track and a lossless TrueHD track. And, er, that's it. It doesn't really give you anything else, and if you buy a Blu-ray disc you'll have to replace all the DVD players you have with Blu-ray players to achieve the same utility.
So the DVD Forum is going to bung a bunch of HD DVD technologies into DVD and is calling it DVD 2.0. The working group doing this is WG12. You can expect, at minimum, backwards compatibility for pressed media (the main feature being 480{p/i}/576{p/i} MPEG2, accessible on red-laser layers to regular plain-old DVD players), the ability to download and burn CPRM controlled discs, some kind of additional help for upscalers, the Advanced Content system (HDi) that seamlessly integrates online and offline content, and Mandatory Managed Copy - so you'll be able to copy all your movies to a hard disk to play on demand, or copy them to a portable player without having to carry discs around.
Whether it will be a success or not is, at this stage, difficult to tell. What the DVD Forum was aiming at with HD DVD, and appears to be still aiming at with DVD 2.0, was making the format "future proof" by making it seamlessly integrate and be part of a future infrastructure based primarily upon downloaded content rather than physical discs. Right now there's no standard for online downloads, and a number of companies - Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, Sony - are acting as "gatekeepers" for proprietary systems. Pretty much the entire industry understands that online is the future, but I doubt anyone actually wants the proprietary gatekeeper environment to exist forever.
So on the one hand, the studios would probably prefer an open standard be introduced, and they'd be receptive to an independent organization like the DVD Forum setting standards especially if it offers a seamless upgrade path from what we have today, and doesn't cut off people who don't have Internet connections capable of supporting online downloads.
On the other hand, you only have to look at the insane HD DVD vs Blu-ray war to see there are some vicious politics involved, politics that the DVD Forum seems to be bad at playing. Sony has lost $3B on Blu-ray already, and is unlikely to be overly keen on a technology path that brings forward its complete obsolescence as a movie distribution technology. Certain companies, notably Fox, picked Blu-ray over HD DVD due to extreme conservatism on their part, seeing "Supposedly far more secure, more of the same" as superior to "Slightly more secure, far more capabilities and futureproofing". Online, while inevitable, is also scary to these companies.
My gut tells me that "DVD 2.0" may well fail because of the politics involved, but something will emerge from the ruins of both DVD 2.0 and Blu-ray that could well succeed. I think it's all a crying shame though. Had HD DVD succeeded, we might have been on a path towards standardized online downloads already, with stores migrating to the HD DVD system now it had been standardized and with manufacturers starting to build players, burners, and media in earnest. Right now the only possible hope is that the studios come to their senses, otherwise we're going to be stuck with half a dozen incompatible proprietary download systems and a media format that's just not plain worth spending thousands on especially given we all know it'll be obsolete within three-to-five years.
Lies?
So, which Hollywood studio is offering you a process for downloading content for burning to DVD? And what store sells CPRM-coded DVD-Rs? And what DVD players play DVD-Rs with CPRM-controlled content?
If I was lying, you could probably quote some studios, software, stores (and branded media), and DVD models, rather than throw around vague generalities that suggest you don't know the difference between CPRM-controlled media and ordinary DVD-Rs.
Hollywood supported VHS when it was the only game in town, but it wasn't digital so it's kind of beside the point.
Right now, the movie industry does not support writable DVDs. You can't go to a website, buy the movie you want, download it, and burn it to a DVD readable in a "real" DVD player. You could (technically - obviously no movie studio actually offered the service, no burners existed, and no suitable blank media existed, but nominally there was nothing stopping any of these things from existing. At the very least, all players supported playing the discs) do that with HD DVD, because HD DVD supported CPRM right off the bat. DVD2.0 will also include the technology, so you'll be able to buy blank DVD-Rs with serial numbers embedded in them, buy a movie over the Internet, download a copy that's tied to a DVD-R with that serial number, burn it, and play it on any player that supports DVD2.0 (or "Download/DL" as this feature will be branded. A DVD player that's branded "Download/DL" is just one that supports CPRM.)
No, but the sets do something for DVD. I personally very nearly didn't bother trying an HD player because DVD looked so damned good on my new LCD TV it seemed close to impossible to see how HD DVD (or Blu-ray) could be any better. And it is better, usually, but not so much that we dislike watching DVDs. In fact, my wife has told me she can't tell the difference, and a friend of mine who bought a much flashier, larger, TV than I did has told me he sees no difference at all.
In any case, don't over-estimate the impact of digital TVs. TVs capable of showing a difference between ED and HD in a picture from the other side of a small room start at around $500-600, with, realistically, $1,000-2,000 being necessary. In the meantime, 90% of people I've seen with large TVs watch SD channels in stretch-o-vision. With the economy tanking as it is, I find the probability people are going to run out to buy TVs so big that even 480p24 (that is, reverse-pulldowned) DVD looks anything other than great supremely unlikely.
By the time we see a large up-take of large HD screens, I expect digital downloads to be in full force.
You'd be surprised. VHS lasted for two decades, and people used it to manually collect TV serieses, or often as their primary way to watch TV.
And don't discount the disadvantages of the format. That Blu-ray disc set may look great on the living room TV, but it's not going to play anywhere else until you're willing to buy Blu-ray players for every TV in the house. With most households becoming multi-TV, and with portable DVD players becoming increasingly commons, both standalone and installable in SUVs etc, a DVD is pretty damned useful, and replacing that infrastructure even if portable Blu-ray players appear within the next couple of years, and even if Blu-ray players fall below $200, is pretty damned expensive.
If you're a parent, and you want to buy a Disney movie to keep the kids quiet, are you going to pay over-the-odds for the Blu-ray version and give up your living room everytime your kids want to watch it, or are you going to stick with the DVD version? Are your kids even going to care about the high definition?
Blu-ray is a less useful format that offers improved image quality and marginally better audio quality, but even in those cases requires infrastructure capable of showing the difference, and eyeballs and ears that enjoy the difference. Personally, I'm of the opinion that HD DVD at least had a shot, on the grounds that it was an improvement even for SD users (managed copy, downloadable content, download-and-burn, etc), but BD doesn't even have that. It's not a more useful format than DVD. Which is why DVD will continue to live for many years, and why Blu-ray is unlikely to ever gain any traction.
Nope. Blu-ray hasn't won anything. HD DVD lost.
Blu-ray has yet to get any traction, and in all honesty, with only higher quality video and marginally better audio to have over DVD, I seriously doubt it ever will. It's going to remain a niche videophile technology for the foreseeable future, until HD downloads become commonplace and available under reasonable pricing terms.
It might survive as a data storage technology though. The multilayer BD disk thing may not be suitable for pressed media, but it should work pretty well as a rewritable storage thing. 200Gb removable disks. Yum.
They're more interested in proving the principle of the thing than protecting this particular film. If it gets ripped, Hollywood isn't going to be as upset as they would be if, say, Quantum of Solace were ripped. If it doesn't get ripped, well, distributing Return of the Revenge of Batman in 2012 on a 32Gb SD card isn't going to seem so crazy.
The idea of tying digital copies to a particular storage device isn't new, and several parties have been trying to persuade Hollywood that this idea works for a while. HD DVD supported something called CPRM, where each writable disk could have embedded upon it, in an unwritable part of the disk, a key that copies could be tied to. The idea was that you'd (or a kiosk would) be able to download and burn to a disk an official, authorized, copy of a movie, that would be just as uncopyable as a regular AACS-controlled disk. This was an extension of attempts by the DVD Forum to make CPRM work with regular DVDs for some years, which looks set to be a part of the next revision of the DVD standard. You can imagine how attractive this is to studios who do not want to put hundreds of thousands of copies of low-interest content in stores around the world.
Likewise, the "SD" in "SD card" is about a similar system, and initially that was the major difference between SD cards and MMC cards, though the two standards have grown apart since in other ways.
Whether this is good or bad depends on your point of view to a certain extent, but what is clear is that Hollywood isn't planning on abandoning DRM any time soon. As a result, they're not going to adopt any form of writable media to store digital copies unless it has some kind of DRM system built-in. This is a step towards that goal.