The M3G file loader is a bit too powerful, because it can load general Java objects
This is incorrect. The file loader allows loading of the M3G scene objects, plus a hash table of string/string pairs. That's all. There is no "virus" issue.
Plus, loading Java objects isn't a security hole in the first place. Loading external Java classes might be, but that's not enabled on any of the MIDP platforms.
Scene graph systems are somewhat out of favor in the game developer community.
In the console developer community, maybe. With C or C++, there's no performance differential between code you wrote to do your scene management, and code the middleware people wrote. You can always write a specialized scene mahagement/traversal engine that works faster for your one game than the general purpose middleware one, and you have space to burn on your CD.
In mobile Java, scene graphs can be very useful. Using them allows you to move all your scene graph management code into native code. And since the native code is already on the handset, you free up space from your precious 256K download budget for more actual game code.
I'm afraid that this is incorrect. M3G does, intentionally, borrow concepts from OpenGL and is implementable on top of OpenGL, but M3G is not just OpenGL/ES wrappers for Java. (That's JSR-231 and JSR-239.)
The article in the original post is part 1 of 2. Part 2 will show the scene tree manipulation functions and the high-level stuff. This includes file loading, animation, alignment, etc.
The comparison with the PSP was in the original link, not my post. These are very different games on very different platforms.
On the one hand, we have the PSP - an ultra-slick, hardware-accelerated, single-purpose device which is excellent at playing action games.
On the other, we have almost-ubiquitous Java handsets (here in Europe, anyway), with enough processing power to run simplified versions of the console games. That is a niche begging to be filled.
The hardcore g4merz will have a PSP. And probably a GBA, a GBM and an Atari Lynx just in case. Everyone else will have a cellphone. They are very different markets and will have very different expectations and different needs.
The original expert group included Nokia, Vodafone, Sony Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola. They were willing to bet some pretty hard cash that it is not a bad idea.
3D games are not necessarily console games. 3D, like vector graphics or color screens, is another tool for the game developer to use. And you use the tools you have to get the best out of the platform you're on. More tools at your disposal should be better for the game developers, and that impacts consumers positively too.
Well, obviously, 3D games aren't going to be for everybody. There are some people who are quite happy playing "Snake", thank you very much.
One of the things that the M3G group was very careful about, though, was to ensure that it wasn't "just" a game engine. It's a fully-featured 3D engine which means that developers can use it for whatever they want.
Obviously, games are likely to always be the most popular application, but others are possible.
I had this from my mother-in-law recently. We went into town to the Vodafone shop. A small handset with all the latest features, on a pay-as-you-go tariff was about £40 ($80). Vodafone also do a "simply" range of handsets which just do phone, text, and nothing else. The cost? £70 ($140).
Actually, this isn't really a fair comparison - the simple phone was bigger and had a much larger screen, which is a big part of the material cost on a phone.
Quite a few handsets already support M3G, among them the Siemens S65, Motorola E680, E1000, V980, SonyEricsson V800 and K750i, and the Nokia 6630 and 6680.
M3G is a lot lighter weight than Java3D, has high and low level APIs, and has its own compact file format for efficient packaging of assets.
I've been developing M3G technology, both engines and games, since day 1 (I was our company's representative on the expert group), and I am happy that Slashdot has at last highlighted it.
If you think retreads of "Mr. Do" and "Snake" are going to cut it in the Java space from now on, think again. You might like to look at Superscape's site for a taste of the kind of 3D games that are already out there.
...as long as it is secure. And a central point of failure is a bad move.
As far as all my software licenses are concerned, I need my software to do my job. If someone gets through via a social engineering attack ("Yes, my mother's maiden name is Bougm") then they've instantly got all my license keys and it'll be a severe uphill struggle to convince them that I am the real me.
Worse, full system mirroring? With all my sensitive documents, website records, and personal pictures? We see identity theft problems as it is.
Worse still, as you say, single point of supply. Once your service provider has you bent over a barrel, you know what's coming next and it's not going to be pleasant.
In fact, I am waiting for a cheap music player that *just* does OGG, perhaps using Finearch's 12MHz OGG decoder chip. Probably from Korea, probably with 1GB on board, definitely under $100.
This is partly because I like OGG, partly because I don't want to pay for MP3 or DRM licences, even indirectly.
One of my team wrote a little interface wrapper between Ant (build system) and AlienBrain (source code management software), because he couldn't find one anywhere else.
I argued that, without the FOSS nature of Ant, we had saved money and it was therefore our duty to contribute.
The main stumbling block was that I had to show that this wouldn't materially advantage our competitors.
>> Everything still supports it. > Except for the mac.
And my PC.
When I bought a Firewire board for my PC, it needed one of those small power connections from the PSU, like the floppy drive uses. Since they were all (both) already in use, I had to choose between Firewire board and floppy drive.
The floppy drive is now in my "obsolete computer bits" pile, along with my zip drive and 4x CDROM.
This is easily the best suggestion so far. Mod parent up!
It will require a lot of courage to go through with it, though. Point out the fact, however, that you are protecting the company as a whole against potential liability, and you're not just doing it to be petty-minded.
A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer visit the men's room. After using the facilities, the mathematician washes his hands very thoroughly.
"We mathematicians are trained to be thorough!" he smugly exclaims.
The engineer then washes his hands quickly and efficiently. "We engineers are trained to be efficient!" he says.
The physicist heads straight for the door. He looks back at the other two, now standing with their hands under the dryer, and says "Looks like only physicists are trained not to p*ss on our hands."
Not a chance. If you can, refuse (politely of course). If not, start looking for another job.
Look at it this way: 1% of a 40 hour work week is 24 minutes.
What are you going to be in charge of? Off the top of my head, I can think of:
- Mail server - Spam filter (including dredging out false positives) - Web server (if you have one) - Phone system (don't look at me like that - you will end up dealing with this sooner or later) - Software installation - Software purchasing, upgrades and updates - Security, including virus disinfection - Hardware (my hard drive just died) - Backups
Backups alone will more than fill your 24 minutes a week, I guarantee it.
Also, most of your users are techies. That means that the only problems you'll get to see from them are the ones that are too difficult for a non-sysadmin techie guy to solve (which is, by your own admission, what you are).
They will also try to get around your nice permission structure, or develop their own fixes to problems best addressed by you, "so as not to bother you with this trivial problem". I know - I am one of those techies and I do it all the time.
If fixing one of these when it goes wrong takes you an afternoon, then that's your sysadmin time for the next 10 weeks eaten up. Fix it now? Fine, but no backups till September.
As a reference point, the company I work for has about 50 people on site, and two full-time sysadmins. They are usually busy.
I would definitely rate the Atmel AVR series higher than the PICs. They have a more modern architecture internally, and run faster at the same clock speed.
The Atmel ATMega8 is a wonderful beginner's chip. It's cheap at about $5, and it has on-board clock and reset circuits, so you really do only need a 5v supply and some programming hardware. It also has at least one of most of the peripherals available in the AVR architecture: ADC, timers, USART, SPI interface, I2C interface, symmetric digital I/O, watchdog timer, etc. etc.
Oh, and there's the wonderful community website http://www.avrfreaks.net/ where you'll find loads of support, help and ideas.
If you're going to do anything outside of just digital electronics, then I thoroughly recommend "The Art of Electronics" by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-37095-7.
It starts off with the real basics, and has a very readable style and lots of practical advice.
It's pretty expensive (about $50) but well worth it. If I'd had this at University, I would have done a whole lot better in my practical electronics courses.
You charge the consumer $11-$15 more up front, and the recycling center GIVES him that extra $5 back when he recycles.
Just like the 5c on soda cans, but with dollars.
And if you can't be bothered, there'll always be some homeless guy, rag-and-bone man or local do-gooder who'll be happy to lug a monitor to the recycle point for you for free, just to get that $5 rebate.
There's already a whole infrastructure set up just for the 5c bounty on soda cans. Can't be too much overhead to the system then, can there?
Seriously, I have not met a single person with a single good thing to say about the new-look weather at the BBC.
For a couple of years, I've been silently congratulating the BBC for their clear, no-nonsense style when all around (ITV, yes, I'm talking about you) were changing to stupid, over-detailed, animated rubbish.
Looks like I should have been less silent about it.
As far as I can tell, the new maps are the product of someone at the BBC graphics department who SHOULD KNOW BETTER showing off their l33t gr4f1x sk1llz at the expense of clarity, legibility, and good taste.
When the maps first were aired, about half of each forecast was devoted to explanation. On a 90 second slot, if you have to explain it, YOU HAVE FAILED.
Come to think of it, this could be one bloody good use of software patents (excuse my language). Just get a patent on "3-D weather maps" - OK, they've been done for years, but that doesn't usually stop a software patent - and then sue the BBC for infringement. They'll *have* to go back to the previous, easy-to-see, obvious-to-all, no-instructions-required, actually-designed-by-someone-who-can-walk-AND-talk -at-the-same-time weather presentations.
Oops. All of the above was supposed to read "me too", but I think it touched a nerve.
Ant Tasks for AlienBrain was something we needed in-house, but realised would be generally useful. After a debate with my boss, we got clearance to release.
OK, it's not the GIMP or anything, but every little helps...
Slashdot Mirror
The M3G file loader is a bit too powerful, because it can load general Java objects
This is incorrect. The file loader allows loading of the M3G scene objects, plus a hash table of string/string pairs. That's all. There is no "virus" issue.
Plus, loading Java objects isn't a security hole in the first place. Loading external Java classes might be, but that's not enabled on any of the MIDP platforms.
Scene graph systems are somewhat out of favor in the game developer community.
In the console developer community, maybe. With C or C++, there's no performance differential between code you wrote to do your scene management, and code the middleware people wrote. You can always write a specialized scene mahagement/traversal engine that works faster for your one game than the general purpose middleware one, and you have space to burn on your CD.
In mobile Java, scene graphs can be very useful. Using them allows you to move all your scene graph management code into native code. And since the native code is already on the handset, you free up space from your precious 256K download budget for more actual game code.
I'm afraid that this is incorrect. M3G does, intentionally, borrow concepts from OpenGL and is implementable on top of OpenGL, but M3G is not just OpenGL/ES wrappers for Java. (That's JSR-231 and JSR-239.)
The article in the original post is part 1 of 2. Part 2 will show the scene tree manipulation functions and the high-level stuff. This includes file loading, animation, alignment, etc.
The comparison with the PSP was in the original link, not my post. These are very different games on very different platforms.
On the one hand, we have the PSP - an ultra-slick, hardware-accelerated, single-purpose device which is excellent at playing action games.
On the other, we have almost-ubiquitous Java handsets (here in Europe, anyway), with enough processing power to run simplified versions of the console games. That is a niche begging to be filled.
The hardcore g4merz will have a PSP. And probably a GBA, a GBM and an Atari Lynx just in case. Everyone else will have a cellphone. They are very different markets and will have very different expectations and different needs.
But can anyone *really* see into the future?
Of course I can.
The original expert group included Nokia, Vodafone, Sony Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola. They were willing to bet some pretty hard cash that it is not a bad idea.
3D games are not necessarily console games. 3D, like vector graphics or color screens, is another tool for the game developer to use. And you use the tools you have to get the best out of the platform you're on. More tools at your disposal should be better for the game developers, and that impacts consumers positively too.
Well, obviously, 3D games aren't going to be for everybody. There are some people who are quite happy playing "Snake", thank you very much.
One of the things that the M3G group was very careful about, though, was to ensure that it wasn't "just" a game engine. It's a fully-featured 3D engine which means that developers can use it for whatever they want.
Obviously, games are likely to always be the most popular application, but others are possible.
I had this from my mother-in-law recently. We went into town to the Vodafone shop. A small handset with all the latest features, on a pay-as-you-go tariff was about £40 ($80). Vodafone also do a "simply" range of handsets which just do phone, text, and nothing else. The cost? £70 ($140).
Actually, this isn't really a fair comparison - the simple phone was bigger and had a much larger screen, which is a big part of the material cost on a phone.
Quite a few handsets already support M3G, among them the Siemens S65, Motorola E680, E1000, V980, SonyEricsson V800 and K750i, and the Nokia 6630 and 6680.
M3G is a lot lighter weight than Java3D, has high and low level APIs, and has its own compact file format for efficient packaging of assets.
I've been developing M3G technology, both engines and games, since day 1 (I was our company's representative on the expert group), and I am happy that Slashdot has at last highlighted it.
If you think retreads of "Mr. Do" and "Snake" are going to cut it in the Java space from now on, think again. You might like to look at Superscape's site for a taste of the kind of 3D games that are already out there.
Developers might also want to visit Benhui.net's 3D Developer Forum.
...as long as it is secure. And a central point of failure is a bad move.
As far as all my software licenses are concerned, I need my software to do my job. If someone gets through via a social engineering attack ("Yes, my mother's maiden name is Bougm") then they've instantly got all my license keys and it'll be a severe uphill struggle to convince them that I am the real me.
Worse, full system mirroring? With all my sensitive documents, website records, and personal pictures? We see identity theft problems as it is.
Worse still, as you say, single point of supply. Once your service provider has you bent over a barrel, you know what's coming next and it's not going to be pleasant.
Indeed. I'm in the same boat.
In fact, I am waiting for a cheap music player that *just* does OGG, perhaps using Finearch's 12MHz OGG decoder chip. Probably from Korea, probably with 1GB on board, definitely under $100.
This is partly because I like OGG, partly because I don't want to pay for MP3 or DRM licences, even indirectly.
That's what I did.
One of my team wrote a little interface wrapper between Ant (build system) and AlienBrain (source code management software), because he couldn't find one anywhere else.
I argued that, without the FOSS nature of Ant, we had saved money and it was therefore our duty to contribute.
The main stumbling block was that I had to show that this wouldn't materially advantage our competitors.
The final version is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/antab/ in case anyone wants to look at it.
Nerdcore now refers to artists waxing lyrical about topics as disparate as engineering and Lord of the Rings.
Now there is truly no purpose left for heavy metal...
>> Everything still supports it.
> Except for the mac.
And my PC.
When I bought a Firewire board for my PC, it needed one of those small power connections from the PSU, like the floppy drive uses. Since they were all (both) already in use, I had to choose between Firewire board and floppy drive.
The floppy drive is now in my "obsolete computer bits" pile, along with my zip drive and 4x CDROM.
This is easily the best suggestion so far. Mod parent up!
It will require a lot of courage to go through with it, though. Point out the fact, however, that you are protecting the company as a whole against potential liability, and you're not just doing it to be petty-minded.
A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer visit the men's room. After using the facilities, the mathematician washes his hands very thoroughly.
"We mathematicians are trained to be thorough!" he smugly exclaims.
The engineer then washes his hands quickly and efficiently. "We engineers are trained to be efficient!" he says.
The physicist heads straight for the door. He looks back at the other two, now standing with their hands under the dryer, and says "Looks like only physicists are trained not to p*ss on our hands."
Not a chance. If you can, refuse (politely of course). If not, start looking for another job.
Look at it this way: 1% of a 40 hour work week is 24 minutes.
What are you going to be in charge of? Off the top of my head, I can think of:
- Mail server
- Spam filter (including dredging out false positives)
- Web server (if you have one)
- Phone system (don't look at me like that - you will end up dealing with this sooner or later)
- Software installation
- Software purchasing, upgrades and updates
- Security, including virus disinfection
- Hardware (my hard drive just died)
- Backups
Backups alone will more than fill your 24 minutes a week, I guarantee it.
Also, most of your users are techies. That means that the only problems you'll get to see from them are the ones that are too difficult for a non-sysadmin techie guy to solve (which is, by your own admission, what you are).
They will also try to get around your nice permission structure, or develop their own fixes to problems best addressed by you, "so as not to bother you with this trivial problem". I know - I am one of those techies and I do it all the time.
If fixing one of these when it goes wrong takes you an afternoon, then that's your sysadmin time for the next 10 weeks eaten up. Fix it now? Fine, but no backups till September.
As a reference point, the company I work for has about 50 people on site, and two full-time sysadmins. They are usually busy.
I would definitely rate the Atmel AVR series higher than the PICs. They have a more modern architecture internally, and run faster at the same clock speed.
The Atmel ATMega8 is a wonderful beginner's chip. It's cheap at about $5, and it has on-board clock and reset circuits, so you really do only need a 5v supply and some programming hardware. It also has at least one of most of the peripherals available in the AVR architecture: ADC, timers, USART, SPI interface, I2C interface, symmetric digital I/O, watchdog timer, etc. etc.
Oh, and there's the wonderful community website http://www.avrfreaks.net/ where you'll find loads of support, help and ideas.
If you're going to do anything outside of just digital electronics, then I thoroughly recommend "The Art of Electronics" by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-37095-7.
It starts off with the real basics, and has a very readable style and lots of practical advice.
It's pretty expensive (about $50) but well worth it. If I'd had this at University, I would have done a whole lot better in my practical electronics courses.
So, you have a $6-$10 recycling charge.
You charge the consumer $11-$15 more up front, and the recycling center GIVES him that extra $5 back when he recycles.
Just like the 5c on soda cans, but with dollars.
And if you can't be bothered, there'll always be some homeless guy, rag-and-bone man or local do-gooder who'll be happy to lug a monitor to the recycle point for you for free, just to get that $5 rebate.
There's already a whole infrastructure set up just for the 5c bounty on soda cans. Can't be too much overhead to the system then, can there?
Well, when I was at school...
From age 7-10, we had one subject's homework per night, estimated time 45 minutes.
From age 11-18, we had 3 subjects per night, except Thursdays, when we had 4. Estimated time 45 minutes each.
Luckily, I could usually do the maths in about 15 minutes, which left more time for the tedious history and English lit.
Kids today - don't know they're born, etc. etc. back to Russia.
... I will switch back to Windows immediately!
k -at-the-same-time weather presentations.
Seriously, I have not met a single person with a single good thing to say about the new-look weather at the BBC.
For a couple of years, I've been silently congratulating the BBC for their clear, no-nonsense style when all around (ITV, yes, I'm talking about you) were changing to stupid, over-detailed, animated rubbish.
Looks like I should have been less silent about it.
As far as I can tell, the new maps are the product of someone at the BBC graphics department who SHOULD KNOW BETTER showing off their l33t gr4f1x sk1llz at the expense of clarity, legibility, and good taste.
When the maps first were aired, about half of each forecast was devoted to explanation. On a 90 second slot, if you have to explain it, YOU HAVE FAILED.
Come to think of it, this could be one bloody good use of software patents (excuse my language). Just get a patent on "3-D weather maps" - OK, they've been done for years, but that doesn't usually stop a software patent - and then sue the BBC for infringement. They'll *have* to go back to the previous, easy-to-see, obvious-to-all, no-instructions-required, actually-designed-by-someone-who-can-walk-AND-tal
Oops. All of the above was supposed to read "me too", but I think it touched a nerve.
Anyone who writes to their MEP on this issue, why not post a link here to how you got on?
My original letter only got a handful of replies. Let's see how a new letter gets on...
Conspicuously absent. For shame!
Ant Tasks for AlienBrain was something we needed in-house, but realised would be generally useful. After a debate with my boss, we got clearance to release.
OK, it's not the GIMP or anything, but every little helps...