They've definitely come down dramatically in price, but the two "profile 2.0" players that everyone usually looks at as a reference are the PS3, which start out at ~$400 (for a non-refurbished unit), and the Panasonic DMP-BD35 at ~$245-299 (which just got the CNet editors choice for matching the PS3 at a lower price point).
Going with the $245 as the best player for the cheapest price, thats still over twice the price of $115 (and realistically most places are still selling it for ~$300 which is almost 3x as much as $115).
I'm not denying that BD players are dropping in price like mad at the moment (which is a good thing), but DVD players are still much cheaper and more ubiquitous (at least until more computers start shipping with BD drives).
Batman is definitely one of the most interesting SuperHeroes for me precisely because he doesn't have any super powers, so he's (theoretically at least), someone that any of us could aspire to become, and yet, without any powers, he's still one of the most formidable "super heroes" in his universe.
Heck, in one story arc I remember he gets taken over by some foreign entity and essentially manages to take out every other member of the Justice League, single handedly (including keeping a piece of kryptonite on reserve "just in case").
The movies have done a good job of treating the idea the same way by having him using specialized but quasi-realistic devices. That, along with the phenomenal back-story and acting, are what make them successes.
Could a generic super hero fill in the same void? Sure, but someone would need to come up with the same sort of detailed back story, even if its just for the film writer to pick and chose from or reinvent from.
Beats having to gouge on popcorn and Pepsi to turn a profit, doesn't it?
Nah. They'd still gouge on concession stand food.
Then, once the movie studio's dried up, the movie theaters would have to either revert to "classics", pay for foreign films, or start making new movies themselves (perhaps including a contract clause in purchasing a ticket so that if they tracked a leak back to you, you would be responsible for sales losses, essentially bankrupting you for life).
Then the cycle would start all over again (except that the U.S. would lose out on the last thing we actually still produce in our own country, Movies and Television).
Actually, jokes aside, I tend to use my computer to keep track of news, since I often want to check into a story more than TV lets me. Its too passive a media.
When I'm using a TV its because I want to be entertained, not so much informed (unless its the weather:) ).
Once Hulu comes to my Tivo (I hate having a million boxes for different things), I'd reconsider why I even pay for even the cheapest tier cable.
Cable is in for lots of rude awakenings in the coming year or two.
Once digital TV goes live, and signal strength increases on the digital signals, a lot of people in formerly "I can get a usable signal" areas will suddenly get crystal clear reception.
I live in the canyons of concrete and steel in NYC and went from missing a couple of channels and lots of snow (on analog signals) to crystal clear reception on all channels plus sub channels, plus some I didn't expect (on digital). That, plus some supplemental downloading Amazon, Sony, iTunes to fill in a "first run cable" series or two (or even just waiting for syndication), and cutting the cable back to just an ISP seems much more promising.
If only FiOS was here over DSL I'd ditch cable as an ISP also.
Hulu is on the PS3 now - the Roku isn't that big a step away. But I'd like to see one box that can do hulu, netflix hd, and local upnp/DLNA streaming with hdmi output.
Exactly. Between my PS3 and TiVo I've got almost all the bases covered (since TiVo added the Netflix streaming in addition to the Amazon Video support).
Likewise a PS3 and an XBox360 would also cover most of the streaming video options, or a 360 and an AppleTV, or lots of other combinations.
Lets count the media sources together: Sony's Video store on the PS3 MS's Video store on the 360 Apple's iTunes Amazon's Video store (formerly unBox) Netflix Hulu
Once people have access to "enough" media sources, their usually set, and each Set Top Box seems to be getting more and more access to more and more sources.
For best results I'd wait till after the MacWorld San Francisco, in January, since it is extremely likely that Apple will update the MacMini hardware (greatly, considering it hasn't been updated since Aug 2007).
I installed the retail version, and it's the first time where I've had an OS on my machine that lasted almost 2 years without being formatted.
Really? I had Win98SE installed for about 2-3 years, and I'm coming up on three years for my latest install of XP (only reinstalled because I upgraded the hardware and built a new box. Before that it was installed for another two years in its previous hardware incarnation).
The only time I really see any instability with any OS is if I'm:
A) changing the hardware around (messing with drivers CAN count)
B) adding or removing large amount of software that "touch" the drivers (mostly games that include/require updated drivers or updated core libraries)
It will be like all those people who got stuck with ME...
No, because back then the other MS "alternative" was Win98SE which didn't need to phone home to be authorized, so all you really needed to do was find a friend with a copy of the CD (and the boot floppy, because MS couldn't be bothered to make the CD bootable), and reinstall the OS.
Since it never phoned home, you didn't have to worry about authorization, and the WinME license should have covered a "downgrade" to WIn98.
Reminds me of a cartoon about the new OS from MS. They were going to combine CE, ME and NT to for the basis of MS CEMENT.
it's not hard to grasp, I just don't agree with it. I want OS X, I don't want Mac hardware, I should be able to buy them separately.
Ok. You feel you should be able to buy them separately. I'll even go so far as to agree with you.
Unfortunately for both of us, the people who are in the legal position to decide that (the CEO and Board of Directors of Apple), have decided that they do not want to sell it that way.
I'd like to use the Wii OS on my home built game-system Know where I can buy a copy?
"iPods might be hip, but iMacs, Apple TV, OS X, iLife, iWork, Airport Extreme, Time Capsule, etc?"
All of those other products are for people who already own Apple hardware. They don't count unless your a Mac user. Otherwise you would not be interested in those products.
You're certainly right that iLife, iWork and TimeCapsule are pretty useless if you don't already own a mac.
On the other hand, I know quite a few people who own iPods, Apple TVs and Airport Extremes all while being Windows users.
iTunes on windows works just fine, if you are using iTunes (on ANY computer) Apple TV starts to look attractive, and the Airport Extreme is one of the best made SoHo WiFi routers.
It is the only one that I am aware of that supports IPv6 out of the box. Wirelessly bridging two of them (or one of them and an Airport Express) is easy and intuitive. the footprint is small, and the embedded/oriented antennas give me much better signal strength and range than most other SoHo WiFi routers I've used before them.
Basically the bots use the IRC channel themselves for Inter Process Communication.
Perhaps they even have a two tier approach where mid level zombies act as control nodes to co-ordinate a series of zombies. Then the IPC can simply take place back and forth between those nodes. The IRC channel can divie up resources (or re-allocate them) however often it wants/needs to, and then each of the control nodes can use its "zombie hordes" to run through an algorithm.
No big surprise or big "ooooo", just standard programming adapting to different circumstances.
A switch would be much better than a hub. Go look up CSMACD.
"Old" 10MB ethernet could have packet collide and you would hit a quick drop off in bandwidth once you had more than a certain percentage of utilization happening. Switches created isolated segments for each connection, limiting the collision domain so you could talk two different destinations could talk without interfering with each other.
100MB connections and up had send and receive on different lines so it was impossible to really collide.
One good use for an old 10MB hub though, connect it up between your external router and Internet "source" (Cable Modem, DSL Modem, etc), and use it as a "poor man's tap" so you plug your computer into the line and sniff the network traffic (http://www.wireshark.org/). It can be amazing fun to watch the trash that might wash up against your external connection.
Note: Make sure the interface you plug in for monitoring won't take an IP address. You don't need one to monitor traffic, if might confuse the Cable/DSL modem, and it will open up that machine to possible external connections, which are happening without the benefit of your usual router between you and the internet.:)
Not so much (5'8"). I guess I should say its easy to figure out the stride.
When I'm measuring by strides I know that I have to take full strides. If I walk "normally" then I'll come out short of a yard. With only a little bit of practice its easy to work out (still baffles the heck out of the wife;) ).
Something else useful that I learned growing up is that 1 Yard is ~a full relaxed stride. Most people can get used to this with a little bit of experience.
My wife decided we needed to get carpeting in our apartment. I "strode" around and took measurements. Then we went to the surplus store and had them cut down a remnant into four pieces (three cuts).
She fought me the whole way and was amazed when the measurements matched what we needed perfectly.
Alternatively I wonder if you could just add flashdrives. Since you'd need a fair amount of space for the textures you could cache them in the flash drive for faster access than the hard-drive or (i bet) the network.
Since an 8GB flash drive is now ~30$ this certainly seems possible from the cost perspective (at least).
Umm... the Internet access on phones certainly isn't something new and I am willing to concede that there might have been a "full browser" (Opera Mini maybe), available on a phone before the iPhone, however I am not aware of any other phone that preceded it, that had:
- a Full browser - a screen you could easily rotate to landscape orientation to handle websites that expected a certain height/width ratio (even leaving aside the device automatically switching orientation) - touchscreen controls for "mouse-like" navigation (even if it didn't include gestures for zooming)
Adding things like gestures to control zoom and movement around a web page, and the iPhone/Touch make web browsing as easy as possible while staying inside the "small fits in pocket/largest screen available" range. Thats one of the reasons that shortly after its release Safari numbers boomed and websites reported more hits from iPhones than other internet enabled phones.
The iPhone certainly wasn't the first phone that had internet (I remember lots of friends with blackberries they checked and used incessantly, heck, even my old Samsung brick can browse the web), but it did offer a much easier browsing experience than people were used to getting on a phone.
Its not so much the "day of the techie" but shifting markets.
In some way this is similar to the way the Wii has dominated this generation of console development. It hasn't brought better graphics (barely improving on GameCube level), it bundled in a Gimmick of a controller, but what they DID was appeal to a much larger audience that normally wouldn't have even bothered buying a console.
Buy enlarging the market, and taking all of those new users as their own, they retook the console lead.
Likewise the market for handheld and smartphones is blossoming from "techies" and pure business users, to everyone. Techies and business users each have one set of requirements. A device that appeals to everyday users has another set. Ultimately what powers the iPhone's appeal is two things. The first is a simple and elegant interface design. When the first gen iPhone came out people were talking how it didn't have more features than other smartphones, but it made the features it had more accessible, so more people were using them. The second thing the iPhone has going for it is the App Store. The success of getting people to develop applications for the iPhone help transfor the generic device into something that can fit what each user needs. The fact that Apple acts as gatekeeper also tries to keep a consistent level of quality in the apps (even if you don't agree with their decisions about what Apps are allowed in the store).
For android to match that, they'll need to match both things. I haven't seen the interface live but the demos I've seen look functional but slightly less "polished". The thing they can't match though is the App Store. Until they develop enough of a critical mass of programs, they won't be able to, and without some central and easy way for micropayments to happen that developers buy into, its tougher to gain the momentum.
The other thing the iPhone has going for it is just what you said "Gapless playback and Album Art". Lots of people own an iPod. An iPhone integrates directly with their iTunes library which, for many people, is a big plus right there.
A media-player should have real buttons for play, pause, previous and next.
Already gone. At least as far as "Mainstream" is concerned. Not saying that iPod is the best media player out there, but most markets look at it as the "one to beat/imitate". That being the case I expect to see more and more media players change to touch screen for the primary control.
A phone, at least for answer and hang-up functions, preferably for dialing too...
I think most of the "hot" phones have none of those buttons you mentioned.
I agree that cameras MIGHT be one of the few cases where physical buttons with tactile feedback MUST stay, since you are often using the buttons without physically looking at the device. Take a look at the newest sony and canon "pocket" cameras. They often have physical buttons for shutter, zoom, and mode. Maybe one or two other things, but thats about it. The rest of the settings are via menus (even if they aren't touch screen menus).
I think this is the real differentiating factor. If you use a control while you are looking at it, then its a good candidate for a non-physical replacement (personal media player, telephone, etc.). If you aren't looking at it when you are using it, then you NEED that tactile feedback in order to use the control well (basic camera controls, volume/track controls on media player... even the iPod had corded remote with physical buttons, keyboard, etc.)
I agree, and I was trying to find a succinct way of putting it, so I'm glad you did. I still wouldn't be surprised if it is their informal "mission statement".:)
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They've definitely come down dramatically in price, but the two "profile 2.0" players that everyone usually looks at as a reference are the PS3, which start out at ~$400 (for a non-refurbished unit), and the Panasonic DMP-BD35 at ~$245-299 (which just got the CNet editors choice for matching the PS3 at a lower price point).
Going with the $245 as the best player for the cheapest price, thats still over twice the price of $115 (and realistically most places are still selling it for ~$300 which is almost 3x as much as $115).
I'm not denying that BD players are dropping in price like mad at the moment (which is a good thing), but DVD players are still much cheaper and more ubiquitous (at least until more computers start shipping with BD drives).
Batman is definitely one of the most interesting SuperHeroes for me precisely because he doesn't have any super powers, so he's (theoretically at least), someone that any of us could aspire to become, and yet, without any powers, he's still one of the most formidable "super heroes" in his universe.
Heck, in one story arc I remember he gets taken over by some foreign entity and essentially manages to take out every other member of the Justice League, single handedly (including keeping a piece of kryptonite on reserve "just in case").
The movies have done a good job of treating the idea the same way by having him using specialized but quasi-realistic devices. That, along with the phenomenal back-story and acting, are what make them successes.
Could a generic super hero fill in the same void? Sure, but someone would need to come up with the same sort of detailed back story, even if its just for the film writer to pick and chose from or reinvent from.
Nah. They'd still gouge on concession stand food.
Then, once the movie studio's dried up, the movie theaters would have to either revert to "classics", pay for foreign films, or start making new movies themselves (perhaps including a contract clause in purchasing a ticket so that if they tracked a leak back to you, you would be responsible for sales losses, essentially bankrupting you for life).
Then the cycle would start all over again (except that the U.S. would lose out on the last thing we actually still produce in our own country, Movies and Television).
You say that like it a bad thing ... :)
Actually, jokes aside, I tend to use my computer to keep track of news, since I often want to check into a story more than TV lets me. Its too passive a media.
When I'm using a TV its because I want to be entertained, not so much informed (unless its the weather :) ).
Cable is in for lots of rude awakenings in the coming year or two.
Once digital TV goes live, and signal strength increases on the digital signals, a lot of people in formerly "I can get a usable signal" areas will suddenly get crystal clear reception.
I live in the canyons of concrete and steel in NYC and went from missing a couple of channels and lots of snow (on analog signals) to crystal clear reception on all channels plus sub channels, plus some I didn't expect (on digital). That, plus some supplemental downloading Amazon, Sony, iTunes to fill in a "first run cable" series or two (or even just waiting for syndication), and cutting the cable back to just an ISP seems much more promising.
If only FiOS was here over DSL I'd ditch cable as an ISP also.
Exactly. Between my PS3 and TiVo I've got almost all the bases covered (since TiVo added the Netflix streaming in addition to the Amazon Video support).
Likewise a PS3 and an XBox360 would also cover most of the streaming video options, or a 360 and an AppleTV, or lots of other combinations.
Lets count the media sources together:
Sony's Video store on the PS3
MS's Video store on the 360
Apple's iTunes
Amazon's Video store (formerly unBox)
Netflix
Hulu
Once people have access to "enough" media sources, their usually set, and each Set Top Box seems to be getting more and more access to more and more sources.
For best results I'd wait till after the MacWorld San Francisco, in January, since it is extremely likely that Apple will update the MacMini hardware (greatly, considering it hasn't been updated since Aug 2007).
There is also the fact that they dropped DirectX support for Win2K (was it anything besides half-hearted?)
Sorta pushed you to XP for gaming, kinda like MS is trying to do with DirectX 10.
Really? I had Win98SE installed for about 2-3 years, and I'm coming up on three years for my latest install of XP (only reinstalled because I upgraded the hardware and built a new box. Before that it was installed for another two years in its previous hardware incarnation).
The only time I really see any instability with any OS is if I'm:
A) changing the hardware around (messing with drivers CAN count)
B) adding or removing large amount of software that "touch" the drivers (mostly games that include/require updated drivers or updated core libraries)
No, because back then the other MS "alternative" was Win98SE which didn't need to phone home to be authorized, so all you really needed to do was find a friend with a copy of the CD (and the boot floppy, because MS couldn't be bothered to make the CD bootable), and reinstall the OS.
Since it never phoned home, you didn't have to worry about authorization, and the WinME license should have covered a "downgrade" to WIn98.
Reminds me of a cartoon about the new OS from MS.
They were going to combine CE, ME and NT to for the basis of MS CEMENT.
Ok. You feel you should be able to buy them separately. I'll even go so far as to agree with you.
Unfortunately for both of us, the people who are in the legal position to decide that (the CEO and Board of Directors of Apple), have decided that they do not want to sell it that way.
I'd like to use the Wii OS on my home built game-system Know where I can buy a copy?
You're certainly right that iLife, iWork and TimeCapsule are pretty useless if you don't already own a mac.
On the other hand, I know quite a few people who own iPods, Apple TVs and Airport Extremes all while being Windows users.
iTunes on windows works just fine, if you are using iTunes (on ANY computer) Apple TV starts to look attractive, and the Airport Extreme is one of the best made SoHo WiFi routers.
It is the only one that I am aware of that supports IPv6 out of the box. Wirelessly bridging two of them (or one of them and an Airport Express) is easy and intuitive. the footprint is small, and the embedded/oriented antennas give me much better signal strength and range than most other SoHo WiFi routers I've used before them.
Quite fine until you reach the critical point in the plotline where the device needs to function, at which point you will have to either:
A) sacrifice one of your hard-earned gadgets to repair the it.
or
B) go on a side-quest to a far flung destination to replace it.
Basically the bots use the IRC channel themselves for Inter Process Communication.
Perhaps they even have a two tier approach where mid level zombies act as control nodes to co-ordinate a series of zombies. Then the IPC can simply take place back and forth between those nodes. The IRC channel can divie up resources (or re-allocate them) however often it wants/needs to, and then each of the control nodes can use its "zombie hordes" to run through an algorithm.
No big surprise or big "ooooo", just standard programming adapting to different circumstances.
A switch would be much better than a hub. Go look up CSMACD.
"Old" 10MB ethernet could have packet collide and you would hit a quick drop off in bandwidth once you had more than a certain percentage of utilization happening.
Switches created isolated segments for each connection, limiting the collision domain so you could talk two different destinations could talk without interfering with each other.
100MB connections and up had send and receive on different lines so it was impossible to really collide.
One good use for an old 10MB hub though, connect it up between your external router and Internet "source" (Cable Modem, DSL Modem, etc), and use it as a "poor man's tap" so you plug your computer into the line and sniff the network traffic (http://www.wireshark.org/). It can be amazing fun to watch the trash that might wash up against your external connection.
Note: Make sure the interface you plug in for monitoring won't take an IP address. You don't need one to monitor traffic, if might confuse the Cable/DSL modem, and it will open up that machine to possible external connections, which are happening without the benefit of your usual router between you and the internet. :)
Not so much (5'8"). I guess I should say its easy to figure out the stride.
When I'm measuring by strides I know that I have to take full strides. If I walk "normally" then I'll come out short of a yard. With only a little bit of practice its easy to work out (still baffles the heck out of the wife ;) ).
Something else useful that I learned growing up is that 1 Yard is ~a full relaxed stride. Most people can get used to this with a little bit of experience.
My wife decided we needed to get carpeting in our apartment. I "strode" around and took measurements. Then we went to the surplus store and had them cut down a remnant into four pieces (three cuts).
She fought me the whole way and was amazed when the measurements matched what we needed perfectly.
Alternatively I wonder if you could just add flashdrives. Since you'd need a fair amount of space for the textures you could cache them in the flash drive for faster access than the hard-drive or (i bet) the network.
Since an 8GB flash drive is now ~30$ this certainly seems possible from the cost perspective (at least).
People keep "getting it wrong", because a lot of owners/potential owners have a huge PS2 library but relatively few PS1 disks.
Speaking as a 60GB owner, I think the lack of any PS2 compatibility in the current models on sale is sad.
Umm ... the Internet access on phones certainly isn't something new and I am willing to concede that there might have been a "full browser" (Opera Mini maybe), available on a phone before the iPhone, however I am not aware of any other phone that preceded it, that had:
- a Full browser
- a screen you could easily rotate to landscape orientation to handle websites that expected a certain height/width ratio (even leaving aside the device automatically switching orientation)
- touchscreen controls for "mouse-like" navigation (even if it didn't include gestures for zooming)
Adding things like gestures to control zoom and movement around a web page, and the iPhone/Touch make web browsing as easy as possible while staying inside the "small fits in pocket/largest screen available" range. Thats one of the reasons that shortly after its release Safari numbers boomed and websites reported more hits from iPhones than other internet enabled phones.
The iPhone certainly wasn't the first phone that had internet (I remember lots of friends with blackberries they checked and used incessantly, heck, even my old Samsung brick can browse the web), but it did offer a much easier browsing experience than people were used to getting on a phone.
Its not so much the "day of the techie" but shifting markets.
In some way this is similar to the way the Wii has dominated this generation of console development. It hasn't brought better graphics (barely improving on GameCube level), it bundled in a Gimmick of a controller, but what they DID was appeal to a much larger audience that normally wouldn't have even bothered buying a console.
Buy enlarging the market, and taking all of those new users as their own, they retook the console lead.
Likewise the market for handheld and smartphones is blossoming from "techies" and pure business users, to everyone. Techies and business users each have one set of requirements. A device that appeals to everyday users has another set. Ultimately what powers the iPhone's appeal is two things. The first is a simple and elegant interface design. When the first gen iPhone came out people were talking how it didn't have more features than other smartphones, but it made the features it had more accessible, so more people were using them. The second thing the iPhone has going for it is the App Store. The success of getting people to develop applications for the iPhone help transfor the generic device into something that can fit what each user needs. The fact that Apple acts as gatekeeper also tries to keep a consistent level of quality in the apps (even if you don't agree with their decisions about what Apps are allowed in the store).
For android to match that, they'll need to match both things. I haven't seen the interface live but the demos I've seen look functional but slightly less "polished". The thing they can't match though is the App Store. Until they develop enough of a critical mass of programs, they won't be able to, and without some central and easy way for micropayments to happen that developers buy into, its tougher to gain the momentum.
The other thing the iPhone has going for it is just what you said "Gapless playback and Album Art". Lots of people own an iPod. An iPhone integrates directly with their iTunes library which, for many people, is a big plus right there.
Already gone. At least as far as "Mainstream" is concerned. Not saying that iPod is the best media player out there, but most markets look at it as the "one to beat/imitate". That being the case I expect to see more and more media players change to touch screen for the primary control.
That also seems to be dying.
I think most of the "hot" phones have none of those buttons you mentioned.
I agree that cameras MIGHT be one of the few cases where physical buttons with tactile feedback MUST stay, since you are often using the buttons without physically looking at the device. Take a look at the newest sony and canon "pocket" cameras. They often have physical buttons for shutter, zoom, and mode. Maybe one or two other things, but thats about it. The rest of the settings are via menus (even if they aren't touch screen menus).
I think this is the real differentiating factor. If you use a control while you are looking at it, then its a good candidate for a non-physical replacement (personal media player, telephone, etc.). If you aren't looking at it when you are using it, then you NEED that tactile feedback in order to use the control well (basic camera controls, volume/track controls on media player ... even the iPod had corded remote with physical buttons, keyboard, etc.)
Just out of curiosity, is this the fastest a Google product has ever gone from "released as Beta" to "its not Beta, its Production"?
Of course the fact that Omni has a long established reputation has nothing to do with people spending money for their product.
I agree, and I was trying to find a succinct way of putting it, so I'm glad you did. I still wouldn't be surprised if it is their informal "mission statement". :)