The distortion could be improved drastically with fisheye lenses or very wide angle lenses. The sensors they used have a narrow field of view (52 degrees). They have very very little overlap on their images even with 36 sensors
I think it would be awesome to also incorporate some kind of 3D scanner into a sphere like this. With enough overlap and a large sphere stereovision could work. An infrared flash would work for inside shots(the intensity of the infrared would tell you how far away from the ball it is).
Fucking patents... They are planning on patenting this and Sony has the patents for stitching together fisheye images...
They still have tons of unlimited data plans on their books. I'd bet money that 99% of the top 5% are people watching Netflix on an unlimited data plan.
Going back to the original point I was trying to make- ARM is not "open" in any sense of the word. You don't get the core unless you have a lot to invest, and we are a long, long way from from someone using their makerbot to whip up a new processor.
So something can't be "open" unless you can do it at home on the cheap? This argument is silly.
...We can quibble about what 'no cost' truly means...
High performance CPUs are expensive to design and fab... deal with it. ARM is many thousands of times cheaper to license than anything comparable and thus "open". It looks like that "open" column in the Wikipedia table you pointed to means the company freely gives you a VHDL description of the base architecture(which is neat, but really only lets you simulate the chip in software very accurately). Applying open-source-software dogma here doesn't make sense.
there is absolutely *NOTHING* in what you actually do with a modern microprocessor that forces you to a single (core) architecture.
Is this in a hypothetical world where anything might exist or are you still talking about this world? Lots of stuff dictate what architecture you use, and they all pretty much boil down to cost: compiler/tools, foundries willing to fab your design, access to engineers, current design characteristics(power draw, int/float/vector performance, number of IO pins).
Going back to the original point I was trying to make- ARM is not "open" in any sense of the word. You don't get the core unless you have a lot to invest, and we are a long, long way from from someone using their makerbot to whip up a new processor.
So something can't be "open" unless you can do it at home on the cheap? This argument is silly.
Going back to one of my previous posts- ARM isn't magic, and ARM and x86 aren't the only cores out there, let alone the only cores that can run Linux. Given a good kernel and a good compiler, the core doesn't matter.
HARDWARE DOES MATTER!!! I'll completely disagree with you here. ARM allows people to develop high-end systems on a chip that meet exact needs which is exactly why they are SOOO popular.
Having to sign up for multiyear contracts to get a decent price and very few networks being available in some areas make it extremely difficult or impossible for many people.
Developing a device around an ARM core is expensive and has high start-up costs. Remember that $1.8M is the average cost of a license, some people pay more, some less, but ARM holdings is a for-profit company, not a charity. They are out to make money.
Considering you have the likes of TI and Samsung mixed in the hundred or so licenses, the average price is going to be WAY higher than the smallest. If you are actually designing a custom modern CPU that you plan to make in a fab, you will be planning to make at least 100K pieces and paying salaries in the millions to your engineers. You also have to look at the alternatives; getting a current x86 license means you need to buy Via, Intel, or AMD since those companies are the only three that will likely ever have a license(i.e. billions for an x86 license).
It looks like they are actually making it something like magsafe. It's literally half a headset jack with a magnet to hold the plug to your phone (they will also be making plugs split in half so it will be flat with the phone's case. If you stick a normal headset to the phone it will stick out a little.
Licensing ARM is trivial, x86 is more or less impossible to license. The cost you are quoting is the average license cost, Wikipedia also breaks it down to a per-device cost of $0.11 per device.
Language speed doesn't matter as much in some games ( e.g. http://media.tojicode.com/q3bsp/ ), but you could easily be shooting yourself in the foot if you start with performance penalties imposed by the language and aren't getting any extra benefits..Net doesn't bring much to the table.
It's very likely Microsoft will never release anything that will satiate people who understand licenses and value freedom. Microsoft likes you to sign crazy NDAs for access to specs and source and ties their own developers and evangelists hands. I was at a WP7 presentation a month ago given by MS's WP7 evangelist for my region. He couldn't hook the WP7 phone he had to the projector like he normally does because Microsoft's legal department took away the cable he had been using for presentations...
Probably better to start lawsuits against MS demanding money for anything that's half legit(e.g. demanding your money back for the copy of Window that was bundled with your computer).
Once the initial HTTPS connection is done it's not too much more resource intensive, but that initial handshake and key passing does put a decent strain on a server when you are only doing one-off tiny downloads.
Only company from the list that I worry about is Apple. They're really been left and right everyone about patent issues. Microsoft, not so much, unless some patent troll has attacked them first. Same goes for RIM. Sony is bad in other fronts, they're not really suing for patent issues. But Apple has been handling their patent related issues really dirty, dumping thousand+ page sues, trying to enforce ban on competitor products and in their developer agreement for iPhone/iPad they require all software developers to give away their ideas to Apple when submitting their application - after which they can decide if to accept or reject the app and maybe implement it themselves. Like when Apple ripped off an wireless sync app made by a one guy.
Honestly, the services AT&T provide allow for much worse invasions of privacy. The threat of someone tagging a picture of a non-user and someone finding said pic is extremely minor and can be done with any image upload service.
I was hoping that this would bring WebGL to the mainline Opera. The shipping Safari should be WebGL enabled soon and Chrome and Firefox are already here.
this is the bit I don't get. Nobody would write any system in HTML5+js. It would be the presentation layer only, and be accessed via nice, easy-to-use APIs that bring the barrier of GUI development down. The meat of the app would be written in C++ or C#.
For apps that have very little meat you can. There seem to be a lot of apps like this in business(glorified spreadsheets and specialized calculators).
I think that's a pie in the sky idea; In reality.Net is getting marginalized. The only APIs I've seen that actually work between many different languages are ones that are mapped off of C APIs that don't have any object oriented ideas attached to calling conventions(e.g. OpenGL and SDL).
API Parity for something like.Net-WPF/Java-SWT/C++-MFC/Javascript-HTML5-Canvas doesn't work when languages have different takes on object oriented paradigms(C++ is compile-time focussed with a rich inheritance model, Java/C# are runtime focused with much simpler inheritance, Javascript isn't even really object oriented). Microsoft had to bastardize the hell out of C++ to make it work with.Net (Managed C++).
It would be neat to calculate the intrinsic value of US currency... anyone have any idea how to tell what bills/coins are circulating. I do know that pennies minted before 1982 were made of solid copper and are worth more than a penny in scrap copper today(now they are copper plated zinc).
Slashdot Mirror
The distortion could be improved drastically with fisheye lenses or very wide angle lenses. The sensors they used have a narrow field of view (52 degrees). They have very very little overlap on their images even with 36 sensors
I think it would be awesome to also incorporate some kind of 3D scanner into a sphere like this. With enough overlap and a large sphere stereovision could work. An infrared flash would work for inside shots(the intensity of the infrared would tell you how far away from the ball it is).
Fucking patents... They are planning on patenting this and Sony has the patents for stitching together fisheye images...
http://www.panoguide.com/howto/panoramas/spherical.jsp (explaining about fisheye panorama) http://www1.futureelectronics.com/doc/STMICROELECTRONICS/VS6724Q0FB.pdf (specs for sensors used in ball)
They still have tons of unlimited data plans on their books. I'd bet money that 99% of the top 5% are people watching Netflix on an unlimited data plan.
Where are you located?
Going back to the original point I was trying to make- ARM is not "open" in any sense of the word. You don't get the core unless you have a lot to invest, and we are a long, long way from from someone using their makerbot to whip up a new processor.
So something can't be "open" unless you can do it at home on the cheap? This argument is silly.
...We can quibble about what 'no cost' truly means...
High performance CPUs are expensive to design and fab... deal with it. ARM is many thousands of times cheaper to license than anything comparable and thus "open". It looks like that "open" column in the Wikipedia table you pointed to means the company freely gives you a VHDL description of the base architecture(which is neat, but really only lets you simulate the chip in software very accurately). Applying open-source-software dogma here doesn't make sense.
there is absolutely *NOTHING* in what you actually do with a modern microprocessor that forces you to a single (core) architecture.
Is this in a hypothetical world where anything might exist or are you still talking about this world? Lots of stuff dictate what architecture you use, and they all pretty much boil down to cost: compiler/tools, foundries willing to fab your design, access to engineers, current design characteristics(power draw, int/float/vector performance, number of IO pins).
Going back to the original point I was trying to make- ARM is not "open" in any sense of the word. You don't get the core unless you have a lot to invest, and we are a long, long way from from someone using their makerbot to whip up a new processor.
So something can't be "open" unless you can do it at home on the cheap? This argument is silly.
Going back to one of my previous posts- ARM isn't magic, and ARM and x86 aren't the only cores out there, let alone the only cores that can run Linux. Given a good kernel and a good compiler, the core doesn't matter.
HARDWARE DOES MATTER!!! I'll completely disagree with you here. ARM allows people to develop high-end systems on a chip that meet exact needs which is exactly why they are SOOO popular.
Having to sign up for multiyear contracts to get a decent price and very few networks being available in some areas make it extremely difficult or impossible for many people.
Developing a device around an ARM core is expensive and has high start-up costs. Remember that $1.8M is the average cost of a license, some people pay more, some less, but ARM holdings is a for-profit company, not a charity. They are out to make money.
Considering you have the likes of TI and Samsung mixed in the hundred or so licenses, the average price is going to be WAY higher than the smallest. If you are actually designing a custom modern CPU that you plan to make in a fab, you will be planning to make at least 100K pieces and paying salaries in the millions to your engineers. You also have to look at the alternatives; getting a current x86 license means you need to buy Via, Intel, or AMD since those companies are the only three that will likely ever have a license(i.e. billions for an x86 license).
It looks like they are actually making it something like magsafe. It's literally half a headset jack with a magnet to hold the plug to your phone (they will also be making plugs split in half so it will be flat with the phone's case. If you stick a normal headset to the phone it will stick out a little.
Licensing ARM is trivial, x86 is more or less impossible to license. The cost you are quoting is the average license cost, Wikipedia also breaks it down to a per-device cost of $0.11 per device.
What do you use Google+ for if you disable the stream/wall? Google had messaging and email... seems like you are doing it wrong
Language speed doesn't matter as much in some games ( e.g. http://media.tojicode.com/q3bsp/ ), but you could easily be shooting yourself in the foot if you start with performance penalties imposed by the language and aren't getting any extra benefits. .Net doesn't bring much to the table.
Well, the numbers they are using are the most skewed numbers you can find... but they aren't far off from reality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
Hard to find the download link, but it's on the front page disguised as a title http://www.dumpsterdrive.com/releases/DumpsterDrive.dmg
It's very likely Microsoft will never release anything that will satiate people who understand licenses and value freedom. Microsoft likes you to sign crazy NDAs for access to specs and source and ties their own developers and evangelists hands. I was at a WP7 presentation a month ago given by MS's WP7 evangelist for my region. He couldn't hook the WP7 phone he had to the projector like he normally does because Microsoft's legal department took away the cable he had been using for presentations...
Probably better to start lawsuits against MS demanding money for anything that's half legit(e.g. demanding your money back for the copy of Window that was bundled with your computer).
Your link goes to an article behind your university's firewall... Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_ethanol#Problems_associated_with_corn-derived_ethanol for the widely known problems with corn ethanol.
Once the initial HTTPS connection is done it's not too much more resource intensive, but that initial handshake and key passing does put a decent strain on a server when you are only doing one-off tiny downloads.
YES!
Only company from the list that I worry about is Apple. They're really been left and right everyone about patent issues. Microsoft, not so much, unless some patent troll has attacked them first. Same goes for RIM. Sony is bad in other fronts, they're not really suing for patent issues. But Apple has been handling their patent related issues really dirty, dumping thousand+ page sues, trying to enforce ban on competitor products and in their developer agreement for iPhone/iPad they require all software developers to give away their ideas to Apple when submitting their application - after which they can decide if to accept or reject the app and maybe implement it themselves. Like when Apple ripped off an wireless sync app made by a one guy.
based on what?
Probably the worst thing Microsoft is currently doing is threatening and then shaking down Android device manufacturers( http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/microsoft-inks-android-patent-deal-with-itronix-causes-more-hea/), it's also hard to ignore:
There isn't an optical Lightpeak/Thunderbolt yet. Sony(not Toshiba) is sticking a copper Thunderolt in the USB port instead of the Displayport.
Thunderbolt uses the same protocol and similar speeds to PCIe, which should make external video cards and other IO adapters pretty easy.
Honestly, the services AT&T provide allow for much worse invasions of privacy. The threat of someone tagging a picture of a non-user and someone finding said pic is extremely minor and can be done with any image upload service.
I was hoping that this would bring WebGL to the mainline Opera. The shipping Safari should be WebGL enabled soon and Chrome and Firefox are already here.
this is the bit I don't get. Nobody would write any system in HTML5+js. It would be the presentation layer only, and be accessed via nice, easy-to-use APIs that bring the barrier of GUI development down. The meat of the app would be written in C++ or C#.
For apps that have very little meat you can. There seem to be a lot of apps like this in business(glorified spreadsheets and specialized calculators).
I think that's a pie in the sky idea; In reality .Net is getting marginalized. The only APIs I've seen that actually work between many different languages are ones that are mapped off of C APIs that don't have any object oriented ideas attached to calling conventions(e.g. OpenGL and SDL).
.Net-WPF/Java-SWT/C++-MFC/Javascript-HTML5-Canvas doesn't work when languages have different takes on object oriented paradigms(C++ is compile-time focussed with a rich inheritance model, Java/C# are runtime focused with much simpler inheritance, Javascript isn't even really object oriented). Microsoft had to bastardize the hell out of C++ to make it work with .Net (Managed C++).
API Parity for something like
It would be neat to calculate the intrinsic value of US currency... anyone have any idea how to tell what bills/coins are circulating. I do know that pennies minted before 1982 were made of solid copper and are worth more than a penny in scrap copper today(now they are copper plated zinc).