One time pads are secure based on the key generator being totally random, the key remaining secret, and never reused.
It is secure because without having the random key, if you used all possible keys you would get all possible outputs. IE not only would you get the secret message, you would get the gettysburg address, your shopping list, grandma's favorite cookie recipe, a private message from god to you, and an alphabetical list of all the killers involved in the JFK assasination.
Any key exchange involved would be as secure as the mechanism to exchange the keys. It actually sounds like there is a short key used to generate a long key, and that attacking the key generator is going to be the way to break the cypher.
There is little compelling need for desktop users (the ones that create the volume for commoditization) to move to 64 bit systems.
Until there is breakthrough brought on by computing speed, we will see a stall in computer upgrading as we have seen in the past.
I expect we will see more things like the Imac (very cool computers), before we see a press for new computers for speed.
The two things I think will create the next level breakthrough.
Real Time CGI imaging at Toystory/Mosters INC/FF, level of quality. We can probably predict precisely WHEN that will be possible by mapping the development speed of 3d hardware, memory, software breakthroughs, and polygon density to date, and where the predictable bottlenecks will appear. (My suspicion is that we are 5-8 years away).
The other breakthrough which I think would do it, and right now it is very difficult to predict when it will happen, but I suspect that adoption would be pretty rapid, is real time voice interaction that is 5 9's accurate. This is likely to appear after a certain speed level of computers, and a breakthrough understanding/algorithm for speech recognition.
However, I suspect the AMD x86-64 solution may be adopted much faster than the Itanium solution. Likely there is an app out there that may have a large enough niche to require 64 bit apps, and the rest of the apps on the computer would be 32 bit. I suspect that the app will be imaging or video related, and that will create an adoption around the AMD solution, before the Itanium moves out of the server market to the desktop market where it will be commoditized.
But that isn't really what PVR owners find dramatic about their PVR's. It isn't that it is cool to record to a hard drive.
It is that it changes how people watch tv, and until you have lived with a PVR you cannot understand the fundamental difference.
How many slashdotters have broadband? Is it just for speed, or is it because it is always on, and it changes the way that you use the internet?
But, it is very difficult to explain to people the benefit of always on internet access, and how it changes the relationship you have with internet resources. And broadband has done just about as well as PVR.
Having a PVR, means, you watch TV when you want, and you watch WHAT you want, when you want to.
It means not having to live with commercials, and that you only have to spend 22 minutes watching a 30 minute show.
But more importantly, you can ask the question, what did they say? Did you see that? Having been a PVR customer now for about a year, and being comfortable with the PVR lifestyle, I find it very irritating to watch TV any other way. Oddly, I have found that when I am in other passive viewing environments (like movies or sporting events), that I will have a similar reaction (what did they say? What was that), and have a strong desire for wanting to resee the last 10 seconds over again.
Just as AOL has access to the Internet, and it is hard to explain the difference between always on and dial-up, and VCR's provide time shifting and movies, it is hard to explain convincingly the benefits of a PVR beyond a VCR.
But I will not give mine up, either my DSL, or my PVR, because they are fundamental now to my interaction with the Internet, and my interaction with TV content.
Your right it does cost money.
There are 14 million DSS customers, and probably lets say 10 million Digital Cable customers.
That would make the mpeg 2 licenses so far on the line upwards of $50 MILLION dollars. That pays for ALOT of academic research.
Now if those folks get transferred to mpeg4 (which there is a pretty high desireability from a consumer standpoint, more effective use of bandwidth means more and better channels), that goes from $50 million dollars of licensing fees to at the rate of lets say 8 cents a day to a licensing rate of 3 million dollars a day, or over a billion dollars a year.
Oh yeah, everyone deserves a billion dollars a year for licensing fees.
With fees as rich as that, no one will pay them. Either customers will not get access to mpeg4 technology, or a cheaper technology will be developed. Either way the mpeg folks won't get thier billions.
Ok, there are two basic classes of PVR's out now...
Ones for Digital Satellite Systems (They record the bit stream directly from the satellite without an analog to digital encoding process), and those for other systems (They convert analog TV into a digital MPEG stream and store it on disk).
To understand satellite systems. Incoming signals are buffered off the hard drive. (Long discussion about MPEG multicasting not gone into here, but the hard drive allows a longer error buffer to catch out of sequence key frames). You can then watch that stream or another stream off the hard drive. This allows you to watch a recorded show and record at the same time. But you cannot watch live and record something else.
DISH SYSTEM
Two Basic Systems
Dishplayer/WebTV (7100 and 7200)
The software for these were created by a division of microsoft. (Based on a unix core!).
They basically record the bitstream to disk. They have a very nice UI compared to other dish recievers. They have a 7 day guide, and support searching. (The searching is not as deep or complete as TIVO's searching).
They also have games (DOOM, You don't know jack, and solitare).
They also can be used as webtv terminals (though the software for webtv is a generation behind standalone webtv boxes).
The devices are somewhat hackable. You can put much larger drives in than came stock.
The software is buggy. Much more buggy than UltimateTV which uses alot of the same code as Dishplayer.
Dish Network and Microsoft have never been able to get the software update process smooth between them.
DISH PVR 501.
This is a Dish Product that is based on OpenTV and the software is written in house.
It has no search function, and has been recently upgraded to support a 9 day guide.
There are NO additional monthly subscription fees with the box.
DISH PVR 721 Next generation box due out early next year. Number one feature is to record more than one channel at a time. And to watch something live, and record at the same time.
NO monthly subscription fees.
DIRECT TV
Two basic choices.
Ultimate TV By Microsoft. Similar to Dishplayer, but able to record two streams simultaneously. A LOT less buggy than Dishplayer.
10 a month fee to use PVR.
DirectTivo
Same UI as regular Tivo, but records bitstream directly, and recently upgraded to record two streams simultaneously.
However, people are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for just a little gained utility. If I remember my economics classes correctly, price discrimination is only a viable business strategy for a monopoly.
That would explain Acura, Infinity, and KIA how? How about, Target, and say Brooks Brothers... Or Harley vs Kawasaki.
Price discrimination often is used to successfully market otherwise small features to a large marketplace, that is often commodity based.
Price discrimination is satisfied when the *CUSTOMER* percieves or heck even recieves value for the money, and the product they are looking for.
He is correct that a rewrite is expensive, and can (and usually does) take a long time.
However, the mistake is not in doing the rewrite, but in not managing the process well.
The number one reason for doing a rewrite is for a cleaner, more stable architecture for writing new features against. The need for a new architecture is discovered in the process of adding new code to the old, and discovering issues that were not adequately addressed in the older version, or in learning better methodologies, or in the existence of better tools and programming processes.
Programs that have been improved by a total rewrite...
Windows NT/XP over DOS (and DOS windows)
Excel over Multimate
Word For Windows over Word for DOS.
Adobe Indesign over PageMaker
Quake over Doom
Quake II over Quake
That is off the top of my head...
ALL real successful software was origninally generated by extremely small teams of EXCELLENT *STAR* quality programmers. (There are not very many of them. If you don't believe that programming is a talent industry, you don't really understand what it takes to make successful commercial software).
The only real other option is unlimited resources (time and money) and it seems that where this exists is at Microsoft, and in some open-source projects.
The biggest problem comes from management believing that random team of programmers can create a new platform from scratch and that it can be done in a schedule that permits dropping the old code base.
ID does it by continuing to build new platforms with very small extremely talented teams.
ADOBE and Microsoft did it, with lots of time energy and effort, with parallel development against the old code base.
But this does not mean that it shouldn't be done. Those that do not rewrite eventually lose, because they are not able to respond to the market on the old code base, and are not able to make the kind of advances that a required by the customer base to upgrade if they use thier product already, or to switch or begin using their product if they hadn't already been convinced.
Managers are going to be disserved in the long term by reading Joels thoughts on the process, and ultimately the companies they work for will be eaten for lunch by new competitors that are not burdened by legacy code, but also really understand well the problem space they are trying to solve.
Ok, slashdotters, think outside the "box" will ya...
Ok, it is a little about broadcast material. It will allow transfer of information outside the advertisor's area. (look at the SHIVA laws regarding protection of local broadcast rights and the effect it is going to have on picture quality of DBS systems)...
But here is where it really matters. ALL PAY PER VIEW material. This includes Actual PPV, Premium Channels, DVD's, and Video's from blockbuster. Since the Replay will be able to record anything coming in on a given channel (like channel 3) at high resolution, and then distributed across the Internet to those that have not payed for the privelage, a technology like this, will result in less potential income to content producers. Less money to HBO, less to Disney, Less to Don King, less to the WWF.
The biggest difference between this and VCR is convenience and distribution. Distribution of Video tapes is so limited to not really matter in terms of money. When distribution becomes "easy" (And in this case, Napster is an appropriate analog), then non-payment use of PPV material becomes rampant and uncontrolled.
In this case it will only be a matter of creating "replay" groups that will create material that will be "easy" to get... "Hey, I missed the last episode of the Soprano's can someone send it to me?" "Does, any one have "Shrek?""
Fair use laws never intended to allow easy distribution of copies of material in a fashion that allows use outside of the intended commercial distribution method. It is meant to allow fair personal use.
IANAL but I think that they can demonstrate that this moves from personal use, to extra-commercial distribution of intellectual property, without compensation to the owners of that property.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now, the founders put the word UNREASONABLE in there for a reason. They could have left that word out, and prevented all searches except by warrant.
In order to protect the public interest of not being killed by terrorists, is this search "unreasonable?"
Also the search is voluntary, not mandatory. Because it is not mandatory for you to go to the building. You are NOT being compelled to go there, you have really good reasons to go there, but it is different than being compelled.
While it is likely that the search would be upheld as reasonable, it may be only useful as prophylactic. IE, the fruits of the search may turn out NOT to be admissable. But that is likely not the point of the search.
The only really interesting thing about your case is the fact that it is a "government" facility and that you are a civilian employee. I suspect you signed some sort of employment contract in which you agreed to certain rules, and relinquished some of your rights.
Format Compatability...
This is going to be extremely difficult to overcome, and probably not worth it.
First there are viewers with print compatability for free from microsoft. Most documents are shared, not edited by other people.
The requirement of "perfect" filters require several steps.
Data compatability. This is probably the easiest to achieve, but not what people talk about when talking about "perfect".
Semantic Compatability. This requires semantic parity between products. Office is an extremely rich semantic set of products, and is a moving target. You have a short period of time to first achieve semantic parity, and then create filter mapping.
Layout Compatability. Once you have semantic compatability, people want the documents to LOOK the same, again the word "perfect" is being bandied about. Layout compatability has many facets including proprietary H&J algorithms.
Graphic Compatability. Office depends upon GDI to create it's graphics. WMF files are direct calls to GDI. You would have to create a bug perfect rendition of GDI, or Mapping from GDI to other rendering graphic format to duplicate this.
Automation Compatability. Office has a deep attachment with VBA, especially Excel. This would require duplicating, or re-coding VBA for use in your product, including a compatable object model.
Format Reading. The file format uses something called OLE File Streams, that can be custom extended by the application.
Instead of "PERFECT" filters it is probably "OK" to have Acceptable filters that can get data into other applications where it can be further manipulated.
Step 2 make it available everywhere. The AOL model is a poor choice. AOL worked because it provided a zero knowledge user with an easy path to connect. And was targeted to the end user. What CAN be done is to create easy network binary installs. Both run off Internets, and Intranets. Simply customer aquisition costs over zero are going to be too expensive for anyone to overcome office.
Step 3. Look and feel. They already have done this. From a user standpoint many of the "office" applications are already good enough.
Step 4. Cost analysis. This is the major win. It is both the ongoing license tax, and new user cost that is expensive for a company. Creation of filters that can go to MS OFFICE, as opposed to FROM MS OFFICE, is going to be a better leverage point to getting the first, the second, then next installation of a non-msoffice product into a business.
The major leverage point is not going to be the word processing package, but rather the spreadsheet package. Executives buy EXCEL. It requires the steepest learning curve of any of the user based products, and represent the highest level of intense customer generated documents. Once you own Excel, you get the rest for "free".
Lawyers love the slippery slope.
If a user has software that alters the appearance of the page (like a browser) is the software or user guilty of a copyright violoation... No.
If I hijack your content to make it look as part of my publication is that a copyright violation... Yes.
If I place content in your content as a price of service... (free email, both in the email stream and in presentation) is that a copyright violation.. No...
If a user runs a product that ADD'S information to the copyrighted information is that a copyright violation. Probably not.
If my audience for my material is taken away or is monetized without my permission or compensation, is that a copyright violation. No. But it probably IS a civil violation, and therein lies the real complaint.
JK -- the First Amendment, now clearly being undermined in the name of copyright protection by the DMCA. This is the opposite of what copyright law was meant to do.
Copyright law is NOT meant to protect the first amendment. It is to provide a monopoly of literary and commercial works to their creators. Thomas Jefferson was concerned about monopolies when working on the constitution and the bill of rights. But conceded that copyright was important.
JK -- Pentagon Papers stuff...
THIS is precisely what was meant to be protected by the first amendment. Discourse about the government. The Pentegon Papers raised a bright line on the what would be more important, protection of national security secrets, or prior restraint of publication of those secrets. This has NOTHING to do with the DMCA as it has nothing to do with National Security Secrets.
This case has received mainstream press interest including:
Reuters
ZD
Industry Standard
Forbes
The Wall Street Journal
Associated Press
Upside Today
JK -- No "serious" lawyer or constitutional lawyer sees a problem...
Except the judge that ruled against 2600. Except the lawyers that wrote the law. Except the lawyers trying to get the law enforced.
JK -- DMCA addresses things outside current copyright law...
DUH! It is new law. It addresses new things. It specifically addresses a new paradigm that has never really existed. Namely, inexpensive or free, and widespread distribution of copyrighted material. Prior to the world we lived in, copyrighted materials were protected by economic realities. It cost money to create and distribute infringing materials. This economic disincentive prevented mass amounts of people from infringing, and those that did, often did for profit and were clear targets for prosecution. In an era where the masses are infringing, there are no economic barriers to infringement and duplication, and it is not done for economic benefit, it lowers the value of copyrighted works to a fraction of thier previous value.
In order to overcome the current massive change in distribution that is brought about in a networked world, the question is how to maintain value in copyrighted works. One solution is to technically make it more difficult to copy those works.
However, if technological solutions can be easily circumvented, this will have no end result to the problem of declining value of copyrighted works by free distribution. Hence, the creation of a force of law to prevent the distribution of such technological circumventions.
And Voila, the DMCA.
The major caselaw here would have to do with the BetaMax case, which had the language regarding "substantial" non-infringing uses.
The major differences between the betamax case and today are two-fold, first is that the DCMA exists, is the law, and the betamax case involved significant economic investment to substantially lower the value of copyrighted works.
A technological circumvention has a SPECIFIC function above and beyond a "record" button, and an OS provided "copy" command. It's sole purpose is to provide a methodology to prevent the utilization of a technology to defeat those commands.
JK -- The DMCA undermines security, which it is supposed to protect...
Sorry this is just wrong. The DMCA protects technologies designed to defeat ordinary methods of copying. Just because a technology is weak, flawed, etc, does not mean that it doesn't fulfill it's primary purpose. To prevent ordinary methods of copying and distribution. What the DMCA prevents is dissemination of information regarding circumventing a specific technological implementation.
All of the above aside. I am NOT a supporter of the DMCA. I believe that the law *is* fundamentally abhorrent to basic citizenship rights of education, discovery, reverse engineering, publication, and the right to not only speak, but to be heard.
The interesting question, though, is if NOT the DMCA, than what? How do we protect the economic value of copyrighted works in a world of "free" copying and distribution? If we can't, it can be argued that we will be living in a world where there is LESS significant contribution to the artistic and intellectual advancement in the world.
From a management perspective...
Prima Donnaship is a cost of doing business.
It either costs you too much, or it doesn't.
If it costs too much don't spend it. If it doesn't (IE return on investment is substantial), figure out how to deal with it. And if you can't then the management cost is too high, and you upper management will have to adapt, change, or the company will suffer and possibly die.
Much of successful commercial software is talent based. It is very similar to other Intellectual Property pursuits. Often the most commercially successful Talents, have management issues regardless of the field. Successful management understands that and provides the appropriate environment for the talent.
Just because it is a business cost does not mean that you don't spend it.
You're right, your response is complete and utter bullshit...
There have been several REAL video poker games with positive expectations with correct play.
Correct play is often NOT simple, and when video poker machines first came out, the correct plays were not known, and when discovered led to quite a high expectation. (on par with perfect play at Blackjack)
For "Play" money video poker often have positive expectations for what should be obvious reasons.
Finally, it is a cool hack because of the ability to read what the cards are.
IANAAC...
However, I do have opinions...
"Art" should present an asthetic that is suprising to the viewers expectation of the medium.
"Art" should evoke a response beyond the mere representation of the subject.
"Art" should reflect an originality and skill beyond what current "craftsmen" of the medium are doing.
That said, "ART" is rarely accepted as "ART" right away, because the skill of the artist, the message of the artist, or the meaning of the artist is not understood. ART that is even "accepted" contemporarily is often controversial and scorned mearly for being contemporary.
The only defense to that controversy is an unwavering exploration of the medium and the message by the artist. Whether it gets recognized, ever, is an intellectual exercise of the Critic, Historian, Public, and Scholar.
That said, contemporary art, is often a matter of acceptance that SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, felt that it was art. And that SOMEBODY has the financial wherewithal to set the price of the ART, and are well known enough to determine the acceptance of the ART. Often times this is done by selling a piece to a person that has the ability to control purchases in large private or public collections, and is often just a game of greed and ego, and little to do with "ART"
EVERYBODY has eyes good enough for this invention. Ultimately the goal would be to have print quality text on screen.
The goal is not to have 10 pixel text. The goal is to have 10 point text with LOT'S of pixels. The more pixels the better. The more pixels the easier it is to read the screen if your eyes are BAD.
This is so wrong, I don't even no where to start.
First of all, SOMETHING has to RASTERIZE the Image. Putting it into the monitor or into something that sits next to the monitor is only a matter of cable length. Doesn't matter where the rasterizer is.
Second the assumption that display PS is the most efficient meta language is suspect as well. For monitor usage it is too much and too slow. This is why OSX uses PDF rather than PS as it's metalanguage.
There are many meta languages that are available, from GDI, to X, DPS and PDF, and others that are fine.
The dependency comes on the rasterizers and the languages. Most of the time it is moved to the video card and rasterized there. That is what a video driver does... (Takes machine side Meta language and converts to hardware rasterization, Sometimes taking pixels, sometimes taking vector data.).
Normal PS rips that do high resolution are BIG and EXPENSIVE, and SLOW (for video purposes).
Damn, I just used up all my mod points, so I was forced to respond.
What would really float my boat would be TWO ethernet ports.
In order to provide additional security to my servers, I have private and public interfaces. No write services allowed via public interfaces attached to the internet. Write and monitoring services allowed via private interfaces to intranet.
If these suckers had two ethernet ports they would be worth their cubic volume in gold.
Slashdot Mirror
One time pads are secure based on the key generator being totally random, the key remaining secret, and never reused.
It is secure because without having the random key, if you used all possible keys you would get all possible outputs. IE not only would you get the secret message, you would get the gettysburg address, your shopping list, grandma's favorite cookie recipe, a private message from god to you, and an alphabetical list of all the killers involved in the JFK assasination.
Any key exchange involved would be as secure as the mechanism to exchange the keys. It actually sounds like there is a short key used to generate a long key, and that attacking the key generator is going to be the way to break the cypher.
There is little compelling need for desktop users (the ones that create the volume for commoditization) to move to 64 bit systems.
Until there is breakthrough brought on by computing speed, we will see a stall in computer upgrading as we have seen in the past.
I expect we will see more things like the Imac (very cool computers), before we see a press for new computers for speed.
The two things I think will create the next level breakthrough.
Real Time CGI imaging at Toystory/Mosters INC/FF, level of quality. We can probably predict precisely WHEN that will be possible by mapping the development speed of 3d hardware, memory, software breakthroughs, and polygon density to date, and where the predictable bottlenecks will appear. (My suspicion is that we are 5-8 years away).
The other breakthrough which I think would do it, and right now it is very difficult to predict when it will happen, but I suspect that adoption would be pretty rapid, is real time voice interaction that is 5 9's accurate. This is likely to appear after a certain speed level of computers, and a breakthrough understanding/algorithm for speech recognition.
However, I suspect the AMD x86-64 solution may be adopted much faster than the Itanium solution. Likely there is an app out there that may have a large enough niche to require 64 bit apps, and the rest of the apps on the computer would be 32 bit. I suspect that the app will be imaging or video related, and that will create an adoption around the AMD solution, before the Itanium moves out of the server market to the desktop market where it will be commoditized.
The next lawsuit is someone that states that the "cached" version of the web page is going to be a copyright violation using this case as an example.
Mirroring without permission. Then there is Akamai.
TIVO is great precisely because there is nothing on NOW.
Even with 99% crap, with 57 stations it means that in every 100 broadcast hours, 1 broadcast hour is worth watching, or 12 hours a day.
TIVO effortlessly gets you the gravy, the cream, the good stuff.
YOU are the target, but you just don't know it, which is also why the category is having problems.
But that isn't really what PVR owners find dramatic about their PVR's. It isn't that it is cool to record to a hard drive.
It is that it changes how people watch tv, and until you have lived with a PVR you cannot understand the fundamental difference.
How many slashdotters have broadband? Is it just for speed, or is it because it is always on, and it changes the way that you use the internet?
But, it is very difficult to explain to people the benefit of always on internet access, and how it changes the relationship you have with internet resources. And broadband has done just about as well as PVR.
Having a PVR, means, you watch TV when you want, and you watch WHAT you want, when you want to.
It means not having to live with commercials, and that you only have to spend 22 minutes watching a 30 minute show.
But more importantly, you can ask the question, what did they say? Did you see that? Having been a PVR customer now for about a year, and being comfortable with the PVR lifestyle, I find it very irritating to watch TV any other way. Oddly, I have found that when I am in other passive viewing environments (like movies or sporting events), that I will have a similar reaction (what did they say? What was that), and have a strong desire for wanting to resee the last 10 seconds over again.
Just as AOL has access to the Internet, and it is hard to explain the difference between always on and dial-up, and VCR's provide time shifting and movies, it is hard to explain convincingly the benefits of a PVR beyond a VCR.
But I will not give mine up, either my DSL, or my PVR, because they are fundamental now to my interaction with the Internet, and my interaction with TV content.
Your right it does cost money.
There are 14 million DSS customers, and probably lets say 10 million Digital Cable customers.
That would make the mpeg 2 licenses so far on the line upwards of $50 MILLION dollars. That pays for ALOT of academic research.
Now if those folks get transferred to mpeg4 (which there is a pretty high desireability from a consumer standpoint, more effective use of bandwidth means more and better channels), that goes from $50 million dollars of licensing fees to at the rate of lets say 8 cents a day to a licensing rate of 3 million dollars a day, or over a billion dollars a year.
Oh yeah, everyone deserves a billion dollars a year for licensing fees.
With fees as rich as that, no one will pay them. Either customers will not get access to mpeg4 technology, or a cheaper technology will be developed. Either way the mpeg folks won't get thier billions.
Except that PDF is an open and published standard.
Adobe however, does make the worlds best tools for authoring PDF from a variety of sources...
Scene
In tense moment while the council is meeting, and the lord of the elves has given his speech...
Audience Feedback...
"The name is NEO!"
Scene
Bad ass orc just has arm knocked off...
Audience Feedback
"I'm Not dead yet!"
Scene
Bad ass orc is decapitated...
Audience Feedback
"Ok, I guess I'm dead now..."
Scene
Near end of movie when frodo has a flashback to gandalf about "how you act in your time"
Audience Feedback
"Use the force Luke"
Ok, there are two basic classes of PVR's out now...
Ones for Digital Satellite Systems (They record the bit stream directly from the satellite without an analog to digital encoding process), and those for other systems (They convert analog TV into a digital MPEG stream and store it on disk).
To understand satellite systems. Incoming signals are buffered off the hard drive. (Long discussion about MPEG multicasting not gone into here, but the hard drive allows a longer error buffer to catch out of sequence key frames). You can then watch that stream or another stream off the hard drive. This allows you to watch a recorded show and record at the same time. But you cannot watch live and record something else.
DISH SYSTEM
Two Basic Systems
Dishplayer/WebTV (7100 and 7200)
The software for these were created by a division of microsoft. (Based on a unix core!).
They basically record the bitstream to disk. They have a very nice UI compared to other dish recievers. They have a 7 day guide, and support searching. (The searching is not as deep or complete as TIVO's searching).
They also have games (DOOM, You don't know jack, and solitare).
They also can be used as webtv terminals (though the software for webtv is a generation behind standalone webtv boxes).
The devices are somewhat hackable. You can put much larger drives in than came stock.
The software is buggy. Much more buggy than UltimateTV which uses alot of the same code as Dishplayer.
Dish Network and Microsoft have never been able to get the software update process smooth between them.
DISH PVR 501.
This is a Dish Product that is based on OpenTV and the software is written in house.
It has no search function, and has been recently upgraded to support a 9 day guide.
There are NO additional monthly subscription fees with the box.
DISH PVR 721 Next generation box due out early next year. Number one feature is to record more than one channel at a time. And to watch something live, and record at the same time.
NO monthly subscription fees.
DIRECT TV
Two basic choices.
Ultimate TV By Microsoft. Similar to Dishplayer, but able to record two streams simultaneously. A LOT less buggy than Dishplayer.
10 a month fee to use PVR.
DirectTivo
Same UI as regular Tivo, but records bitstream directly, and recently upgraded to record two streams simultaneously.
10 a month fee to use PVR
NON Satellite
TIVO
Replay
This needs to be sold like leather trim, and alloy wheels...
Wrap it into the cost of the vehicle and put it into the monthly payment. (And come up with a "lifetime price" like $300 dollars).
In the course of a few years you will start seeing tons of new subscribers....
However, people are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for just a little gained utility. If I remember my economics classes correctly, price discrimination is only a viable business strategy for a monopoly.
That would explain Acura, Infinity, and KIA how? How about, Target, and say Brooks Brothers... Or Harley vs Kawasaki.
Price discrimination often is used to successfully market otherwise small features to a large marketplace, that is often commodity based.
Price discrimination is satisfied when the *CUSTOMER* percieves or heck even recieves value for the money, and the product they are looking for.
He is correct that a rewrite is expensive, and can (and usually does) take a long time.
However, the mistake is not in doing the rewrite, but in not managing the process well.
The number one reason for doing a rewrite is for a cleaner, more stable architecture for writing new features against. The need for a new architecture is discovered in the process of adding new code to the old, and discovering issues that were not adequately addressed in the older version, or in learning better methodologies, or in the existence of better tools and programming processes.
Programs that have been improved by a total rewrite...
Windows NT/XP over DOS (and DOS windows)
Excel over Multimate
Word For Windows over Word for DOS.
Adobe Indesign over PageMaker
Quake over Doom
Quake II over Quake
That is off the top of my head...
ALL real successful software was origninally generated by extremely small teams of EXCELLENT *STAR* quality programmers. (There are not very many of them. If you don't believe that programming is a talent industry, you don't really understand what it takes to make successful commercial software).
The only real other option is unlimited resources (time and money) and it seems that where this exists is at Microsoft, and in some open-source projects.
The biggest problem comes from management believing that random team of programmers can create a new platform from scratch and that it can be done in a schedule that permits dropping the old code base.
ID does it by continuing to build new platforms with very small extremely talented teams.
ADOBE and Microsoft did it, with lots of time energy and effort, with parallel development against the old code base.
But this does not mean that it shouldn't be done. Those that do not rewrite eventually lose, because they are not able to respond to the market on the old code base, and are not able to make the kind of advances that a required by the customer base to upgrade if they use thier product already, or to switch or begin using their product if they hadn't already been convinced.
Managers are going to be disserved in the long term by reading Joels thoughts on the process, and ultimately the companies they work for will be eaten for lunch by new competitors that are not burdened by legacy code, but also really understand well the problem space they are trying to solve.
Say it isn't so. A bug that potentially exposes thousands or millions of machines on the net to root access?
Ok, slashdotters, think outside the "box" will ya...
Ok, it is a little about broadcast material. It will allow transfer of information outside the advertisor's area. (look at the SHIVA laws regarding protection of local broadcast rights and the effect it is going to have on picture quality of DBS systems)...
But here is where it really matters. ALL PAY PER VIEW material. This includes Actual PPV, Premium Channels, DVD's, and Video's from blockbuster. Since the Replay will be able to record anything coming in on a given channel (like channel 3) at high resolution, and then distributed across the Internet to those that have not payed for the privelage, a technology like this, will result in less potential income to content producers. Less money to HBO, less to Disney, Less to Don King, less to the WWF.
The biggest difference between this and VCR is convenience and distribution. Distribution of Video tapes is so limited to not really matter in terms of money. When distribution becomes "easy" (And in this case, Napster is an appropriate analog), then non-payment use of PPV material becomes rampant and uncontrolled.
In this case it will only be a matter of creating "replay" groups that will create material that will be "easy" to get... "Hey, I missed the last episode of the Soprano's can someone send it to me?" "Does, any one have "Shrek?""
Fair use laws never intended to allow easy distribution of copies of material in a fashion that allows use outside of the intended commercial distribution method. It is meant to allow fair personal use.
IANAL but I think that they can demonstrate that this moves from personal use, to extra-commercial distribution of intellectual property, without compensation to the owners of that property.
DANGIT... I have no moderation points, will SOMEONE PLEASE give this the flamebait that this deserves.
It is wrong, racist, and well flamebait.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now, the founders put the word UNREASONABLE in there for a reason. They could have left that word out, and prevented all searches except by warrant.
In order to protect the public interest of not being killed by terrorists, is this search "unreasonable?"
Also the search is voluntary, not mandatory. Because it is not mandatory for you to go to the building. You are NOT being compelled to go there, you have really good reasons to go there, but it is different than being compelled.
While it is likely that the search would be upheld as reasonable, it may be only useful as prophylactic. IE, the fruits of the search may turn out NOT to be admissable. But that is likely not the point of the search.
The only really interesting thing about your case is the fact that it is a "government" facility and that you are a civilian employee. I suspect you signed some sort of employment contract in which you agreed to certain rules, and relinquished some of your rights.
Format Compatability...
This is going to be extremely difficult to overcome, and probably not worth it.
First there are viewers with print compatability for free from microsoft. Most documents are shared, not edited by other people.
The requirement of "perfect" filters require several steps.
Data compatability. This is probably the easiest to achieve, but not what people talk about when talking about "perfect".
Semantic Compatability. This requires semantic parity between products. Office is an extremely rich semantic set of products, and is a moving target. You have a short period of time to first achieve semantic parity, and then create filter mapping.
Layout Compatability. Once you have semantic compatability, people want the documents to LOOK the same, again the word "perfect" is being bandied about. Layout compatability has many facets including proprietary H&J algorithms.
Graphic Compatability. Office depends upon GDI to create it's graphics. WMF files are direct calls to GDI. You would have to create a bug perfect rendition of GDI, or Mapping from GDI to other rendering graphic format to duplicate this.
Automation Compatability. Office has a deep attachment with VBA, especially Excel. This would require duplicating, or re-coding VBA for use in your product, including a compatable object model.
Format Reading. The file format uses something called OLE File Streams, that can be custom extended by the application.
Instead of "PERFECT" filters it is probably "OK" to have Acceptable filters that can get data into other applications where it can be further manipulated.
Step 2 make it available everywhere. The AOL model is a poor choice. AOL worked because it provided a zero knowledge user with an easy path to connect. And was targeted to the end user. What CAN be done is to create easy network binary installs. Both run off Internets, and Intranets. Simply customer aquisition costs over zero are going to be too expensive for anyone to overcome office.
Step 3. Look and feel. They already have done this. From a user standpoint many of the "office" applications are already good enough.
Step 4. Cost analysis. This is the major win. It is both the ongoing license tax, and new user cost that is expensive for a company. Creation of filters that can go to MS OFFICE, as opposed to FROM MS OFFICE, is going to be a better leverage point to getting the first, the second, then next installation of a non-msoffice product into a business.
The major leverage point is not going to be the word processing package, but rather the spreadsheet package. Executives buy EXCEL. It requires the steepest learning curve of any of the user based products, and represent the highest level of intense customer generated documents. Once you own Excel, you get the rest for "free".
If I hijack your content to make it look as part of my publication is that a copyright violation... Yes.
If I place content in your content as a price of service... (free email, both in the email stream and in presentation) is that a copyright violation.. No...
If a user runs a product that ADD'S information to the copyrighted information is that a copyright violation. Probably not.
If my audience for my material is taken away or is monetized without my permission or compensation, is that a copyright violation. No. But it probably IS a civil violation, and therein lies the real complaint.
Copyright law is NOT meant to protect the first amendment. It is to provide a monopoly of literary and commercial works to their creators. Thomas Jefferson was concerned about monopolies when working on the constitution and the bill of rights. But conceded that copyright was important.
JK -- Pentagon Papers stuff...
THIS is precisely what was meant to be protected by the first amendment. Discourse about the government. The Pentegon Papers raised a bright line on the what would be more important, protection of national security secrets, or prior restraint of publication of those secrets. This has NOTHING to do with the DMCA as it has nothing to do with National Security Secrets.
This case has received mainstream press interest including:
Reuters
ZD
Industry Standard
Forbes
The Wall Street Journal
Associated Press
Upside Today
JK -- No "serious" lawyer or constitutional lawyer sees a problem...
Except the judge that ruled against 2600. Except the lawyers that wrote the law. Except the lawyers trying to get the law enforced.
JK -- DMCA addresses things outside current copyright law...
DUH! It is new law. It addresses new things. It specifically addresses a new paradigm that has never really existed. Namely, inexpensive or free, and widespread distribution of copyrighted material. Prior to the world we lived in, copyrighted materials were protected by economic realities. It cost money to create and distribute infringing materials. This economic disincentive prevented mass amounts of people from infringing, and those that did, often did for profit and were clear targets for prosecution. In an era where the masses are infringing, there are no economic barriers to infringement and duplication, and it is not done for economic benefit, it lowers the value of copyrighted works to a fraction of thier previous value.
In order to overcome the current massive change in distribution that is brought about in a networked world, the question is how to maintain value in copyrighted works. One solution is to technically make it more difficult to copy those works.
However, if technological solutions can be easily circumvented, this will have no end result to the problem of declining value of copyrighted works by free distribution. Hence, the creation of a force of law to prevent the distribution of such technological circumventions.
And Voila, the DMCA.
The major caselaw here would have to do with the BetaMax case, which had the language regarding "substantial" non-infringing uses.
The major differences between the betamax case and today are two-fold, first is that the DCMA exists, is the law, and the betamax case involved significant economic investment to substantially lower the value of copyrighted works.
A technological circumvention has a SPECIFIC function above and beyond a "record" button, and an OS provided "copy" command. It's sole purpose is to provide a methodology to prevent the utilization of a technology to defeat those commands.
JK -- The DMCA undermines security, which it is supposed to protect...
Sorry this is just wrong. The DMCA protects technologies designed to defeat ordinary methods of copying. Just because a technology is weak, flawed, etc, does not mean that it doesn't fulfill it's primary purpose. To prevent ordinary methods of copying and distribution. What the DMCA prevents is dissemination of information regarding circumventing a specific technological implementation.
All of the above aside. I am NOT a supporter of the DMCA. I believe that the law *is* fundamentally abhorrent to basic citizenship rights of education, discovery, reverse engineering, publication, and the right to not only speak, but to be heard.
The interesting question, though, is if NOT the DMCA, than what? How do we protect the economic value of copyrighted works in a world of "free" copying and distribution? If we can't, it can be argued that we will be living in a world where there is LESS significant contribution to the artistic and intellectual advancement in the world.
From a management perspective... Prima Donnaship is a cost of doing business. It either costs you too much, or it doesn't. If it costs too much don't spend it. If it doesn't (IE return on investment is substantial), figure out how to deal with it. And if you can't then the management cost is too high, and you upper management will have to adapt, change, or the company will suffer and possibly die. Much of successful commercial software is talent based. It is very similar to other Intellectual Property pursuits. Often the most commercially successful Talents, have management issues regardless of the field. Successful management understands that and provides the appropriate environment for the talent. Just because it is a business cost does not mean that you don't spend it.
You're right, your response is complete and utter bullshit... There have been several REAL video poker games with positive expectations with correct play. Correct play is often NOT simple, and when video poker machines first came out, the correct plays were not known, and when discovered led to quite a high expectation. (on par with perfect play at Blackjack) For "Play" money video poker often have positive expectations for what should be obvious reasons. Finally, it is a cool hack because of the ability to read what the cards are.
IANAAC... However, I do have opinions... "Art" should present an asthetic that is suprising to the viewers expectation of the medium. "Art" should evoke a response beyond the mere representation of the subject. "Art" should reflect an originality and skill beyond what current "craftsmen" of the medium are doing. That said, "ART" is rarely accepted as "ART" right away, because the skill of the artist, the message of the artist, or the meaning of the artist is not understood. ART that is even "accepted" contemporarily is often controversial and scorned mearly for being contemporary. The only defense to that controversy is an unwavering exploration of the medium and the message by the artist. Whether it gets recognized, ever, is an intellectual exercise of the Critic, Historian, Public, and Scholar. That said, contemporary art, is often a matter of acceptance that SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, felt that it was art. And that SOMEBODY has the financial wherewithal to set the price of the ART, and are well known enough to determine the acceptance of the ART. Often times this is done by selling a piece to a person that has the ability to control purchases in large private or public collections, and is often just a game of greed and ego, and little to do with "ART"
EVERYBODY has eyes good enough for this invention. Ultimately the goal would be to have print quality text on screen. The goal is not to have 10 pixel text. The goal is to have 10 point text with LOT'S of pixels. The more pixels the better. The more pixels the easier it is to read the screen if your eyes are BAD.
This is so wrong, I don't even no where to start. First of all, SOMETHING has to RASTERIZE the Image. Putting it into the monitor or into something that sits next to the monitor is only a matter of cable length. Doesn't matter where the rasterizer is. Second the assumption that display PS is the most efficient meta language is suspect as well. For monitor usage it is too much and too slow. This is why OSX uses PDF rather than PS as it's metalanguage. There are many meta languages that are available, from GDI, to X, DPS and PDF, and others that are fine. The dependency comes on the rasterizers and the languages. Most of the time it is moved to the video card and rasterized there. That is what a video driver does... (Takes machine side Meta language and converts to hardware rasterization, Sometimes taking pixels, sometimes taking vector data.). Normal PS rips that do high resolution are BIG and EXPENSIVE, and SLOW (for video purposes). Damn, I just used up all my mod points, so I was forced to respond.
What would really float my boat would be TWO ethernet ports. In order to provide additional security to my servers, I have private and public interfaces. No write services allowed via public interfaces attached to the internet. Write and monitoring services allowed via private interfaces to intranet. If these suckers had two ethernet ports they would be worth their cubic volume in gold.