I'm starting to think that Richard Stallman is to free software what PETA and the NRA are to vegetarians and gun owners, respectively: Usually there's a kernel of a valid point buried in there somewhere, but the rhetoric is so shrill and overblown that nobody ends up listening for long. All the worse, people start associating all lovers of free software with his level of rhetoric, and zealotry is assumed where none exists.
This is like the US saying "A cure for cancer would be a major setback to the US, as it would also enable our enemies to be cancer-free".
New, FOSS software which is awesome is a Good Thing, for the community as a whole. Sure, its license allows people who don't care for FOSS to use it, but surely a net improvement in the community's state of the art can't be a bad thing. If nothing else, this licensure allows people with bigger wallets to pay for improvements which they need, and to have those available to the community too, allowing copylefties more time to work on other things.
I love that somebody's pursuing this. It seems strikingly elegant to consider ways that obscure pockets of nature has already solved these same problems, and room-temperature approaches not requiring exotic metals are almost surely a good thing.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Every instance of "In the Cloud", facing a naive end user, should be replaced with "On somebody else's computer". This study shows that people have absolutely no idea what The Cloud is, and that might, just maybe, be affecting their choice of what to upload to it. "I keep our business records in the cloud" sounds sane, but “Oh, don’t worry, all of our business information is backed up on somebody else’s computer” doesn't.
After watching the video, it seems that what they've done is create gloves which recognize the various fingerspelling signs. If somebody wants to sign "I need to withdraw money" (like, at a bank), what this allows them to do is to make the sign for "I", then "N, E, E, D", then "T,O", and so forth. Then the gloves feed that output into a TTS system. This works (because ASL users and English speakers share a writing system), but is horribly inefficient, and would be equivalent to a translation module that makes you speak every letter of the written words individually before putting the words into Spanish.
This is fundamentally different from "translating sign language", where the gloves would recognize the (much more complex and spatially oriented) sign for "I", for "need", for "withdraw" and for "money", and then translate that into "I need to withdraw money" and speak it aloud. Adding in the fact that ASL syntax is fundamentally different than in English, it's quite a tall order. Interpreters need not fear.
This is cool, nobody's denying that, and for some jobs, this might be great, but at the moment, I don't see it working much faster than taking out the requisite smartphone and writing down what you're trying to get across.
As a linguist myself (working with a few different revitalization projects), you can think about linguistic diversity as being like biodiversity: Examining the differences across many different, unrelated (or nearly so) languages gives better insight into Language (with a capital L) on the whole. Sure, losing an individual language doesn't destroy everything, but each language that's lost is one less (incredibly rich) datapoint which can be used to better understand how people do language, and what other ways things can be done.
For instance, in Wichita, a language which may or may not be dead based on the health of its last few speakers, one could express "the buffalo ran up and down the village several times while scaring people" using a single, very long, very complex word. There are other languages which act like this ("polysynthetic languages"), but Wichita is really, frighteningly good at it. Don't you think that it'd be fascinating to do some MRI studies to see how Wichita people are parsing words, compared to speakers of, say, Mandarin Chinese, which isolate nearly every concept, grammatical or otherwise, into single words?
In addition, as other people have pointed out, when you lose the language, you lose the culture very easily (and vice versa). Even if you're not interested in the specifics of how language works in the mind (or just in general), understanding different cultural approaches to the world provides more information on the human condition. If your culture doesn't permit or believe in the idea of "selling land", that's interesting data, and food for thought for most other cultures.
In short, practically, in terms of trade or war or politics, there's little reason to have a group of 50,000 people speaking three languages rather than one. But if you're interested in how human language, culture, and cognition works, that diversity and those comparisons offer data that a homogenous group would not.
...guess I thought Tor probably already had an FBI/CIA back door.
... and this article disproves that how? If the FBI had a back door to Tor, the first thing they'd be doing is running articles like this one. That way everybody who wants to do something outside of FBI purview starts logging in, and Tor becomes one big honeypot for them to skim.
I want Tor to exist and succeed for privacy and free speech, especially for people in less free countries than the US. I also know victims of childhood sexual abuse and the lasting effects it has. The FBI breaking or backdooring Tor means that kiddie porn producers get rounded up, but it also means that free speech loses one more haven. I have no idea who I'm cheering for here.
Reading the comments on this thread, I'm realizing that likely within our lifetimes, we'll be having the same debate about strong cryptography that we're now having about guns, likely spurred on by stories like this about pedophiles, terrorists, "hackers" and all those other scary people on the internets.
Some of the same talking points are already in use ("We'll need them when the government comes for us", "Only criminals need them", "If they're banned, only criminals will have them and we'll be defenseless", etc), and strong cryptography, much like guns, are something that the governments and law enforcement fear as they can make it possible for people to break the law (just or otherwise) without the government being able to stop them.
I hope I'm wrong, and of course, you can't quite ban code so easily, but still, a scary future and an unpleasant debate may well be ahead.
Hopefully this is a nail in the coffin for College Football. The fact that playing the sport is now seen to be damaging to the mind and brain at the basest levels should quell some of the "We're turning out well-balanced scholars, fit in body and mind" that advocates are spouting. Colleges need football teams like fish need bicycles, and universities of all sorts should be the last institutions encouraging this.
Encouraging tourists who've tired of travel?
on
BlackBerry 10 Unveiled
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It's not unreasonable to say that at this point, most people who want smartphones and would be in their market have purchased one, and many are one or two years away from being able to by a Blackberry 10 device anyways.
Many people have already become involved in a non-RIM ecosystem (iOS, WM, or Android), and ecosystem inertia is a huge factor. The sunk cost in buying the compliment of apps one wants or needs is huge, and makes people very reluctant to "try something new" for a phone. At best, I think RIM is competing to keep the people who use Blackberries now, and haven't yet moved to another system. Which is good, but not ultimately sustainable, and is aiming for reduced shrinkage rather than actual growth.
They can lure developers, but all that that does it make it hurt less for users to switch to Blackberry (because they'll still never compete with Apple or Android in app variety). They could lure consumers with pricing, but for most people, any ecosystem switch has a $100+ app re-purchase penalty, not to mention the apps that simply can't be purchased at all and the time it would take to move over.
Simply put, the only thing (I think) that can save RIM would be something revolutionary. Some feature, certification, approach, or situation that makes people say "You know what, screw the apps, screw the extra time and money, I want THAT, and I'll do what it takes to get it."
I don't see that having happened here, sorry, RIM, but the writing's on the wall.
Why do we even have SIM cards at all? My impression is that they're basically read-only storage for a set of identifiers/credentials used by the carrier. Why not just allow the customer or company to input/transfer those credentials as needed? Or just allow a customer to fire up a new phone, input a username and password for their account, and then have the phone download the information needed to some bit of internal storage?
I'm actually asking, as I honestly don't know. What does the continued existence of a read-only SIM card which must be inserted into the phone win us?
I recently found myself in the market for a digital piano. I went to my local (actually local) piano store and checked what they had (wanting to feel the keys more than anything else), and fell in love with a particular model. They had it for $699. I went online and found an online retailer who had it for $499 ($20 shipping) in a special sale. As this is an actual local store, with actual local owners, I called the owner up and explained the price I had found (with a printout ready, which he didn't even demand).
Although he said he couldn't match that price without taking a loss, he immediately offered to knock $100 off his price, and to take my old model on consignment. In addition, he offered some great advice about stands, offered to deliver it for free. He also explained that he wanted me to be happy with it, so I shouldn't hesitate to return it if I had any problems with it. So, I went with the local guys, and picked it up (and the owner even stayed around 15 minutes after closing to seal the deal that very day).
All told, I probably ended up paying around $100 extra to stay local. But with the return policy being humane, the service incredible, and with actual expertise on the accessories needed, I still feel good about it, and feel it was money well spent. Had I demoed the unit at Best Buy and they'd had such a high price, I likely would've ordered online without a second thought, as I know they have a crappy return policy, no expertise, and no service to speak of.
Retailers need to know that price is not the sole factor that drives people towards (or away from) online retailers. Showrooming isn't all about price. With the piano, I paid the extra money for service and expertise (and to support that service and expertise being available in the future), online didn't just win instantly because of price. Lower prices aren't the reason I use Best Buy (and their ilk) as a showroom. Crappy service, pushy sales, and bad policies are the reason I showroom. Prices are just the excuse.
There are hackers, phishers, spammers, and other untrustworthy people on the internet. The FBI seems to have just realized that they can't prevent them from existing, and now tells us that we'll "never be secure", and people react. But this has always been the case offline as well. There are thieves, murderers, and con-artists, and we can never make them go away either, and as such, here too, we will never be secure.
That said, if you use common sense, encrypt your important data, don't click links in unsolicited emails, and use a password better than "12345", you'll already be enough of a pain to most "hackers" that they'll not bother, because next door, there's a guy who's got a plaintext full of banking passwords on his desktop with file sharing on.
There's a saying that if attacked by a hungry bear, you don't need to outrun the bear, just the other people at the campground. Same goes here.
One way to save a bit of cash is to buy a USB eSATA drive dock (single or double) with some bare eSATA drives. This cuts the enclosure out, and allows you to buy bare drives, which are often cheaper than enclosed drives.
You could also consider Drobo or one of the Wiebetech multi-drive RAID containers. But encryption + cloud isn't all bad.
Right now, it seems like the majority of Lytro pictures are technology demos, a fire hydrant in the foreground and a building in the background, or some equivalent, which just invites you to click both and move on. You can just hear the enthusiastic early adopter in the background of these pictures saying "OK, _now_ click the building! Whoa! Cool, huh?!". These shots are, to my mind, the photographic equivalent of arrows or spears coming out towards the audience in early 3D movies. Gimmicks which break the fourth wall, saying "Hey, remember, you're looking at a Lytro (tm) image, not just anything!".
I can't wait for real photographers and artists to actually find situations, styles and aesthetics where Lytro sorts of cameras can be used in a way that both effectively uses the new capabilities of the format _and_ produces something artistically and aesthetically wonderful. I think the technology has a ways to go, but right now, the biggest problem facing Lytro (and light field photography) is that it's a new medium that nobody has a clue how to use effectively.
Until we reach that point where people see a great Lytro picture and actually feel inspired, it's going to be tough to sell what is currently a low-spec camera with one big gimmick. So, if you want Lytro to take off, buy one for the craziest artist you know.
Right now, in the short game, everybody wants the ability to govern the internet, with the assumption that they'll do it right for their constituents/country/special interests, and with the flawed assumption that they'll be on top forever.
The problem is that by attempting to run the internet your way and lock everybody into that _right now_, you're making it easier for somebody else who you disagree with more to take your place, leaving them controlling your internet in a way you may not want. You can't build an elaborate censorship, surveillance and control system on the internet and not expect it to be used against you the next time the torch is passed.
In the long game, though, what everybody _should_ be wanting is the hardening of the internet against governance, tracking and regulation, by anybody, and de-centralize it enough that it doesn't matter who thinks they're running things. Only then can you ensure that your use-case is still functional, no matter who's "in charge".
Doing all the documentation for a few small IT projects, I've found that I'm better served creating task-based and user-based documentation than holistic documentation of the system. If you've a limited amount of time, I suspect it will be better spent creating easy-to-use guidelines for the most common interactions with the tech you're working with that people other than you will have. Step by step, idiot resistant, and with the technical nitty gritty just deep enough under the surface that somebody who understands, will, and that end users won't be troubled by it.
It's a wonderful thing to imagine documenting all of it in some detailed, top-down and holistic way, but chances are that you (or whoever they replace you with) will be the only one looking at those guidelines, and that nobody will appreciate all that work, compared to a set of PDFs allowing anybody in the company with authorization to do X, Y or Z which make you look both useful and benevolent.
This definitely reeks of a personality cult, in the most disturbing, North Korean sort of way. Nobody has the rights to Dear Leader's image but us, and how dare you produce false idols. At least they didn't keep his body in state on the Apple campus...
There's no wall here at all, just a foundation. You can still do whatever the heck you want with your device as a consumer, and this is just saying that manufacturer's shouldn't completely break the underlying UI structure, even if they want to supplant it with some theme of their own. "Do what you want with the field, just don't salt the Earth so nobody else can use it".
"manufacturer's themes", that is. Not a plural apostrophe.
There's no wall here at all, just a foundation. You can still do whatever the heck you want with your device as a consumer, and this is just saying that manufacturer's shouldn't completely break the underlying UI structure, even if they want to supplant it with some theme of their own. "Do what you want with the field, just don't salt the Earth so nobody else can use it".
I can't think of anything I'd want _less_ than a candidate for public office sending me campaign-related text messages. Does anybody outside of the campaigns themselves actually want this, or is this a social marketing consultant's wet dream?
Acoustical modeling to determine the point of origin of sounds is nothing new, and although it's a wonderful idea to implement it as they are here, it'll go to hell the moment there are other vibrations on the surface. A low-pass filter should stop most environmental noise bouncing off the table/surface from triggering it, but if you put down your coffee mug on your desk, or bump your leg to the table, you'll likely get false input. Not to mention, as others have pointed out, the processing costs.
This could be another of those technologies which is great for allowing input on an inert and durable psuedo-sterile and wipe-clean surface in a quiet, controlled room, but likely won't be worth much outside of bizarre use cases like that. But it's still amazing research.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm starting to think that Richard Stallman is to free software what PETA and the NRA are to vegetarians and gun owners, respectively: Usually there's a kernel of a valid point buried in there somewhere, but the rhetoric is so shrill and overblown that nobody ends up listening for long. All the worse, people start associating all lovers of free software with his level of rhetoric, and zealotry is assumed where none exists.
This is like the US saying "A cure for cancer would be a major setback to the US, as it would also enable our enemies to be cancer-free".
New, FOSS software which is awesome is a Good Thing, for the community as a whole. Sure, its license allows people who don't care for FOSS to use it, but surely a net improvement in the community's state of the art can't be a bad thing. If nothing else, this licensure allows people with bigger wallets to pay for improvements which they need, and to have those available to the community too, allowing copylefties more time to work on other things.
"Remember kids: If you find a bug in Paypal's system, you'll get paid more for selling it to the black hats."
I love that somebody's pursuing this. It seems strikingly elegant to consider ways that obscure pockets of nature has already solved these same problems, and room-temperature approaches not requiring exotic metals are almost surely a good thing.
I think this is right choice from Microsoft. They know what's best for us developers. Hell, they made the best IDE on planet - Visual Studio - too!
I'm thinking that we need a new moderation: "-1 Shill"
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Every instance of "In the Cloud", facing a naive end user, should be replaced with "On somebody else's computer". This study shows that people have absolutely no idea what The Cloud is, and that might, just maybe, be affecting their choice of what to upload to it. "I keep our business records in the cloud" sounds sane, but “Oh, don’t worry, all of our business information is backed up on somebody else’s computer” doesn't.
After watching the video, it seems that what they've done is create gloves which recognize the various fingerspelling signs. If somebody wants to sign "I need to withdraw money" (like, at a bank), what this allows them to do is to make the sign for "I", then "N, E, E, D", then "T,O", and so forth. Then the gloves feed that output into a TTS system. This works (because ASL users and English speakers share a writing system), but is horribly inefficient, and would be equivalent to a translation module that makes you speak every letter of the written words individually before putting the words into Spanish.
This is fundamentally different from "translating sign language", where the gloves would recognize the (much more complex and spatially oriented) sign for "I", for "need", for "withdraw" and for "money", and then translate that into "I need to withdraw money" and speak it aloud. Adding in the fact that ASL syntax is fundamentally different than in English, it's quite a tall order. Interpreters need not fear.
This is cool, nobody's denying that, and for some jobs, this might be great, but at the moment, I don't see it working much faster than taking out the requisite smartphone and writing down what you're trying to get across.
As a linguist myself (working with a few different revitalization projects), you can think about linguistic diversity as being like biodiversity: Examining the differences across many different, unrelated (or nearly so) languages gives better insight into Language (with a capital L) on the whole. Sure, losing an individual language doesn't destroy everything, but each language that's lost is one less (incredibly rich) datapoint which can be used to better understand how people do language, and what other ways things can be done.
For instance, in Wichita, a language which may or may not be dead based on the health of its last few speakers, one could express "the buffalo ran up and down the village several times while scaring people" using a single, very long, very complex word. There are other languages which act like this ("polysynthetic languages"), but Wichita is really, frighteningly good at it. Don't you think that it'd be fascinating to do some MRI studies to see how Wichita people are parsing words, compared to speakers of, say, Mandarin Chinese, which isolate nearly every concept, grammatical or otherwise, into single words?
In addition, as other people have pointed out, when you lose the language, you lose the culture very easily (and vice versa). Even if you're not interested in the specifics of how language works in the mind (or just in general), understanding different cultural approaches to the world provides more information on the human condition. If your culture doesn't permit or believe in the idea of "selling land", that's interesting data, and food for thought for most other cultures.
In short, practically, in terms of trade or war or politics, there's little reason to have a group of 50,000 people speaking three languages rather than one. But if you're interested in how human language, culture, and cognition works, that diversity and those comparisons offer data that a homogenous group would not.
...guess I thought Tor probably already had an FBI/CIA back door.
... and this article disproves that how? If the FBI had a back door to Tor, the first thing they'd be doing is running articles like this one. That way everybody who wants to do something outside of FBI purview starts logging in, and Tor becomes one big honeypot for them to skim.
I want Tor to exist and succeed for privacy and free speech, especially for people in less free countries than the US. I also know victims of childhood sexual abuse and the lasting effects it has. The FBI breaking or backdooring Tor means that kiddie porn producers get rounded up, but it also means that free speech loses one more haven. I have no idea who I'm cheering for here.
Reading the comments on this thread, I'm realizing that likely within our lifetimes, we'll be having the same debate about strong cryptography that we're now having about guns, likely spurred on by stories like this about pedophiles, terrorists, "hackers" and all those other scary people on the internets.
Some of the same talking points are already in use ("We'll need them when the government comes for us", "Only criminals need them", "If they're banned, only criminals will have them and we'll be defenseless", etc), and strong cryptography, much like guns, are something that the governments and law enforcement fear as they can make it possible for people to break the law (just or otherwise) without the government being able to stop them.
I hope I'm wrong, and of course, you can't quite ban code so easily, but still, a scary future and an unpleasant debate may well be ahead.
Hopefully this is a nail in the coffin for College Football. The fact that playing the sport is now seen to be damaging to the mind and brain at the basest levels should quell some of the "We're turning out well-balanced scholars, fit in body and mind" that advocates are spouting. Colleges need football teams like fish need bicycles, and universities of all sorts should be the last institutions encouraging this.
It's not unreasonable to say that at this point, most people who want smartphones and would be in their market have purchased one, and many are one or two years away from being able to by a Blackberry 10 device anyways.
Many people have already become involved in a non-RIM ecosystem (iOS, WM, or Android), and ecosystem inertia is a huge factor. The sunk cost in buying the compliment of apps one wants or needs is huge, and makes people very reluctant to "try something new" for a phone. At best, I think RIM is competing to keep the people who use Blackberries now, and haven't yet moved to another system. Which is good, but not ultimately sustainable, and is aiming for reduced shrinkage rather than actual growth.
They can lure developers, but all that that does it make it hurt less for users to switch to Blackberry (because they'll still never compete with Apple or Android in app variety). They could lure consumers with pricing, but for most people, any ecosystem switch has a $100+ app re-purchase penalty, not to mention the apps that simply can't be purchased at all and the time it would take to move over.
Simply put, the only thing (I think) that can save RIM would be something revolutionary. Some feature, certification, approach, or situation that makes people say "You know what, screw the apps, screw the extra time and money, I want THAT, and I'll do what it takes to get it."
I don't see that having happened here, sorry, RIM, but the writing's on the wall.
I'm glad that mutt isn't stagnating, and that there are people dedicated to keeping it awesome, relevant and supported. Rock on, you crazy forkers.
Why do we even have SIM cards at all? My impression is that they're basically read-only storage for a set of identifiers/credentials used by the carrier. Why not just allow the customer or company to input/transfer those credentials as needed? Or just allow a customer to fire up a new phone, input a username and password for their account, and then have the phone download the information needed to some bit of internal storage?
I'm actually asking, as I honestly don't know. What does the continued existence of a read-only SIM card which must be inserted into the phone win us?
I recently found myself in the market for a digital piano. I went to my local (actually local) piano store and checked what they had (wanting to feel the keys more than anything else), and fell in love with a particular model. They had it for $699. I went online and found an online retailer who had it for $499 ($20 shipping) in a special sale. As this is an actual local store, with actual local owners, I called the owner up and explained the price I had found (with a printout ready, which he didn't even demand).
Although he said he couldn't match that price without taking a loss, he immediately offered to knock $100 off his price, and to take my old model on consignment. In addition, he offered some great advice about stands, offered to deliver it for free. He also explained that he wanted me to be happy with it, so I shouldn't hesitate to return it if I had any problems with it. So, I went with the local guys, and picked it up (and the owner even stayed around 15 minutes after closing to seal the deal that very day).
All told, I probably ended up paying around $100 extra to stay local. But with the return policy being humane, the service incredible, and with actual expertise on the accessories needed, I still feel good about it, and feel it was money well spent. Had I demoed the unit at Best Buy and they'd had such a high price, I likely would've ordered online without a second thought, as I know they have a crappy return policy, no expertise, and no service to speak of.
Retailers need to know that price is not the sole factor that drives people towards (or away from) online retailers. Showrooming isn't all about price. With the piano, I paid the extra money for service and expertise (and to support that service and expertise being available in the future), online didn't just win instantly because of price. Lower prices aren't the reason I use Best Buy (and their ilk) as a showroom. Crappy service, pushy sales, and bad policies are the reason I showroom. Prices are just the excuse.
There are hackers, phishers, spammers, and other untrustworthy people on the internet. The FBI seems to have just realized that they can't prevent them from existing, and now tells us that we'll "never be secure", and people react. But this has always been the case offline as well. There are thieves, murderers, and con-artists, and we can never make them go away either, and as such, here too, we will never be secure.
That said, if you use common sense, encrypt your important data, don't click links in unsolicited emails, and use a password better than "12345", you'll already be enough of a pain to most "hackers" that they'll not bother, because next door, there's a guy who's got a plaintext full of banking passwords on his desktop with file sharing on.
There's a saying that if attacked by a hungry bear, you don't need to outrun the bear, just the other people at the campground. Same goes here.
One way to save a bit of cash is to buy a USB eSATA drive dock (single or double) with some bare eSATA drives. This cuts the enclosure out, and allows you to buy bare drives, which are often cheaper than enclosed drives.
You could also consider Drobo or one of the Wiebetech multi-drive RAID containers. But encryption + cloud isn't all bad.
Right now, it seems like the majority of Lytro pictures are technology demos, a fire hydrant in the foreground and a building in the background, or some equivalent, which just invites you to click both and move on. You can just hear the enthusiastic early adopter in the background of these pictures saying "OK, _now_ click the building! Whoa! Cool, huh?!". These shots are, to my mind, the photographic equivalent of arrows or spears coming out towards the audience in early 3D movies. Gimmicks which break the fourth wall, saying "Hey, remember, you're looking at a Lytro (tm) image, not just anything!".
I can't wait for real photographers and artists to actually find situations, styles and aesthetics where Lytro sorts of cameras can be used in a way that both effectively uses the new capabilities of the format _and_ produces something artistically and aesthetically wonderful. I think the technology has a ways to go, but right now, the biggest problem facing Lytro (and light field photography) is that it's a new medium that nobody has a clue how to use effectively.
Until we reach that point where people see a great Lytro picture and actually feel inspired, it's going to be tough to sell what is currently a low-spec camera with one big gimmick. So, if you want Lytro to take off, buy one for the craziest artist you know.
Right now, in the short game, everybody wants the ability to govern the internet, with the assumption that they'll do it right for their constituents/country/special interests, and with the flawed assumption that they'll be on top forever. The problem is that by attempting to run the internet your way and lock everybody into that _right now_, you're making it easier for somebody else who you disagree with more to take your place, leaving them controlling your internet in a way you may not want. You can't build an elaborate censorship, surveillance and control system on the internet and not expect it to be used against you the next time the torch is passed. In the long game, though, what everybody _should_ be wanting is the hardening of the internet against governance, tracking and regulation, by anybody, and de-centralize it enough that it doesn't matter who thinks they're running things. Only then can you ensure that your use-case is still functional, no matter who's "in charge".
Doing all the documentation for a few small IT projects, I've found that I'm better served creating task-based and user-based documentation than holistic documentation of the system. If you've a limited amount of time, I suspect it will be better spent creating easy-to-use guidelines for the most common interactions with the tech you're working with that people other than you will have. Step by step, idiot resistant, and with the technical nitty gritty just deep enough under the surface that somebody who understands, will, and that end users won't be troubled by it. It's a wonderful thing to imagine documenting all of it in some detailed, top-down and holistic way, but chances are that you (or whoever they replace you with) will be the only one looking at those guidelines, and that nobody will appreciate all that work, compared to a set of PDFs allowing anybody in the company with authorization to do X, Y or Z which make you look both useful and benevolent.
This definitely reeks of a personality cult, in the most disturbing, North Korean sort of way. Nobody has the rights to Dear Leader's image but us, and how dare you produce false idols. At least they didn't keep his body in state on the Apple campus...
There's no wall here at all, just a foundation. You can still do whatever the heck you want with your device as a consumer, and this is just saying that manufacturer's shouldn't completely break the underlying UI structure, even if they want to supplant it with some theme of their own. "Do what you want with the field, just don't salt the Earth so nobody else can use it".
"manufacturer's themes", that is. Not a plural apostrophe.
There's no wall here at all, just a foundation. You can still do whatever the heck you want with your device as a consumer, and this is just saying that manufacturer's shouldn't completely break the underlying UI structure, even if they want to supplant it with some theme of their own. "Do what you want with the field, just don't salt the Earth so nobody else can use it".
I can't think of anything I'd want _less_ than a candidate for public office sending me campaign-related text messages. Does anybody outside of the campaigns themselves actually want this, or is this a social marketing consultant's wet dream?
Acoustical modeling to determine the point of origin of sounds is nothing new, and although it's a wonderful idea to implement it as they are here, it'll go to hell the moment there are other vibrations on the surface. A low-pass filter should stop most environmental noise bouncing off the table/surface from triggering it, but if you put down your coffee mug on your desk, or bump your leg to the table, you'll likely get false input. Not to mention, as others have pointed out, the processing costs. This could be another of those technologies which is great for allowing input on an inert and durable psuedo-sterile and wipe-clean surface in a quiet, controlled room, but likely won't be worth much outside of bizarre use cases like that. But it's still amazing research.