These are ARM based platforms, but unlike the PC, there's not one single platform.
On a PC, you know where everything is - and if not, the BIOS helps you. A lot of basic peripherals are at well-known locations (serial ports, keyboards, mice, etc). And for PCI, it exists in a well-known location as well. The BIOS does offer a memory map, but it's just to map physical RAM (which also exists at a well known location - it starts from 0).
If you wanted to write a basic OS, you can accomplish a lot since you know RAM starts at 0, BIOS puts tables at well-known locations (ACPI, memory, etc), and where to expect a video adapter (already set up for you by BIOS), serial port, basic I/O. Add in a little code to do a little PCI probing to discover other adapters (mass storage, USB, etc), but that can wait since the basics are there. Heck, you can often guess a network controller might be placed at IO 0x300.
On ARM, there's no such thing. You can't buy an "ARM Processor" - they don't really exist except as SoCs with onboard memory controllers, display controllers and other peripherals. And each chip can have different addresses for them. And while the ARM cores start at well-known location (0 - reset vector), there's often ROM there that does security boot, or just boot from NAND/SD/etc. And each peripheral exists in a different location - serial ports may be at 0x80000000 physical on one SoC, 0x80108000 on another, etc. RAM isn't based in any standard location - 0x40000000, 0x80000000, 0xC0000000 or other locations are possible. Ditto a PCI(e) bridge - it's somewhere in the memory map, but where you need to read the SoC manual to find out. End result is the OS has to be customized per-SoC and per-hardware because people can put things anywhere (for Linux, this just means the kernel since the POSIX abstraction layer hides the rest - provide a nice userspace and devices don't care).
We don't think of it much, but the PC hasn't differed that much since IBM released their version of a desktop nearly 30 years ago. Heck, Intel's Pine Trail isn't PC-compatible, but it's an x86-based platform. Which is why Linux runs, but not Windows (desktop - you can probably get Windows CE running on it).
That itself is a huge challenge. It's akin to consoles - all three consoles currently out (PS3, Xbox360, Wii) all have PowerPC processors inside them, but you can say none are compatible with each other, even though the lowlying ISA is the same.
I guess, until Slashdot enables the UTF character set like everyone else has for the past decade or so,
1. There will be some domain names that we can't link to on Slashdot
Slashdot did allow Unicode. Then things like like this happened. Blame the comment trolls for forcing Slashdot to use a whitelist of characters allowed.
As for domain names, from what I see, they start with a standard prefix (I think it's "xn--") followed by the Unicode codepoints. Just so they're compatible across all systems. Browsers can choose to display the codepoints, or, I'm seeing an option to not do that, so you can tell Paypal.com from xn--blahblabblah.xn--blah.
That's the risk that anyone runs by being an early adopter of any new tech. I had a similar experience with the Xbox 360 (though MS did man up and extend the original warranty). That is why I waited for a few generations to get a PS3.
Except Sony's rewarded early adopters of PS3s with PS3s that do more than the current PS3 (save one feature). Launch PS3s could do backwards compatibility (it had a full PS2 inside it, unlike second revision GPU-only). It used to do Linux. It had a card reader (useful if you want to toss your photos up). 4 USB ports. The only thing it doesn't have is bitstream audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS Master Audio), but you can just have the PS3 decode it and send it as PCM.
Late adopters get screwed. Microsoft did a more traditional thing where features were added - HDMI, smaller size with Kinect power power, etc, so people want to upgrade to it, not hang onto their old boxes till the end of time.
The only problem is, I'd be getting a 4th PS3, which drops the attach rate for me down horribly (from just under 3 to 2). My Xbox360 has a far better attach rate (20+). Even my Wii has more and I haven't played it in the past year (5+).
That tablet is utter crap. I used one for 4 weeks and sent it back for a full refund. I then tried several others.... they all suck right now.
Yes you still need to wait. What is available is junk right now.
Not to mention, you can't root it. And it's stuck at 1.6, and won't ever get 2.x. Which is a horrendous issue for Android devices - it seems there are great models (Nexus One) with full rootability and the like. Others that are bound to a carrier can have special root-proof firmware installed (Rogers did just that with a mandatory update - sure it fixed a critical bug, but it also removed the ability to root it). And always the question of whether or not your phone will officially get 2.x. Sure there's unofficial mods (provided you root your phone), but it seems there aren't that many that are "good" (rootable, futureproof, etc).
Probably my one complaint is how carriers have all seemed to conspire to collectively try to hobble Android. Couldn't Google have done an iPhone and pretty much say "This is the way we're doing it, and if you don't like it, tough!" like Apple?
My guess is they did testing in an RF chamber. They never had anyone hold the phone during testing and then they put test phones in cases as a disguise. They just never did a valid real world test. More than one company has made that mistake. What is so funny is how everybody now is going duh...
A good guess, actually, because when you're doing FCC testing, you pretty much use an instrumented RF chamber to gather field data. You can't have people in it for obvious reasons.
Even in real world testing, you might not find it - after all, once this hit, people have tried to replicate the result, failed, then watched a dozen YouTube videos seeing how to replicate it. After seeing them, they have to purposely set their hands in one position. Other people, trying to see the effect, have dropped their phones. It really depends how you hold the phone - some people like ot hold the bottom and use leverage to hold it to their ear (results in problem - you have to "cup" the bottom), others hold the top and press their hands to their ear. The latter, except for those with the right hand geometry, probably can't figure out how to do it.
Hell, I've seen phones where the radio locks up if you do *just* the right set of motions. One of my coworkers spent a week riding the commuter train with a phone, laptop, and debug hardware because that was the only reliable way to reproduce the issue. And you have 5 minutes because it happens in just one particular part, then you get off and have to ride it the other way to set up for the next round of debugging.
For phone testing, there's tons of issues a limited testing won't find. The only way you'll find them is well, release it to the public
Oh, so today we're mad at Apple for dastardly approving apps that they should have rejected on the grounds of software look-and-feel... because that totally holds up in court, not to mention it's totally Apple's job to ensure that every app has no resemblance to any other software ever published. Got it!
Actually, Apple lost the look-and-feel lawsuit because they had licensed it to Microsoft. In a huge case of "left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing". the lawyers didn't know that Apple had already licensed Microsoft all the GUI stuff. All Microsoft did was pull up this agreement, and... whoops.
But will current android apps with this port? In other words, are apps interpreted or binary?
If they are binary, then google has to make sure developers make a universal binary, like apple did with their PPC->intel transistion.... or this effort will be DOA.
Most apps should work. It's just Java, after all!
The ones that need porting are things that have native code in them. In which case they need to be recompiled. Not sure if there exists a universal binary format for Android to support this though, but I'm assuming it's regular ELF at the lowlevel so there's a chance.
There's also MIPS android as well - MIPS wants to get back into the phone game. Would be interesting to see a triple architecture binary...
That really blows. We're informing our web clients that we're no longer supporting IE 6 and that any IE 6 visitor will land on a "nice, soft" page requesting that they upgrade to one of the many other available browsers. We just got one client to agree to upgrade their 25 employees from IE 6 to IE 8 (they already had FF installed but they have some 3rd party sites that require ActiveX).
If you're stuck doing it for an employer or client you may be better served by spending some time nudging them away from IE 6 because it will save you painful hours in the long run.
Ironically, companies are using that "feature" as a reason to stay on IE6. Seems people can't view YouTube/Facebook/etc using IE6, which means companies avoid having to actually do filtering. The IT policy simply states that IE6 is the only browser, rather than saying YouTube/etc are blocked.
So businesses may pay to stick with IE6 just because all those "non work" websites don't support it. And suppliers get stuck supporting IE6 because otherwise they'd lose a customer.
Just for a few more years, though. A few more years... business can't stay with IE6 forever, after all. But for the next few years, everyone trying to push people away from IE6 may just keep people on it...
The other thing is, it looks like it handles just the buyer's side, not the merchant's.
The real reason for Paypal right now is it lets almost anyone accept credit cards. Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, and the like are all merchant accounts and you pretty much have to be a store to use them. If you want to accept a one-time credit card payment for something, you can't really use Google Checkout and the like. Or even if you're just a Joe doing a garage sale online with eBay. (That, and many merchant accounts are pointless if you want to accept payments that happen infrequently).
eBay would be pretty much dead without sellers supporting credit card payments - imagine any online retailer not supporting credit cards, for example. And since you can't expect every seller to get their own merchant account, the only way to get sellers to be able to handle irregular credit card payments is pretty much Paypal.
Paypal knows this, and that's why they can screw merchants so easily. The real question is why there isn't an alternative for sellers to use besides Paypal? All it has to handle is credit card payments where sellers may not individually qualify for merchant accounts, but lets almost anyone accept credit card payments for infrequent non-store transactions...
Looking at just the gfx chip features would draw the conclusion that the PowerVR chips found in a good number of portables is more powerful. It seems to provide ammunition to Apple for them to say the iphone is more powerful.
It probably is. In stereo mode, the resolution is 400x240 (x2), so when you're generating the scene, there's no point using high-res textures and high-res models because the extra detail will be lost. This is different in 2D mode, where you'll have to push 800x240 pixels and could use the extra definition.
The iPhone 4 and iPad have to push 640x960 or 768x1024 screens, and those screens demand higher res models and textures just to look nice. This makes the GPU have to work harder since it's pushing higher res models and textures to a larger screen. If we go with the 320x480 resolution of the iPhone pre-4, it still requires a higher res texture and model to look good (despite having less pixels than the 3DS screen).
Sure, each scene in the 3DS has to be rendered twice, but when you're starting with low-res models and textures to begin with, it's a lot easier than rendering a screen with twice the pixels that requires higher res models and textures. The 3DS "wins" by simply having less detailed models and textures to begin with which consume the most GPU resources.
I don't know about that. I suspect that Firefly was the victim of the fact that not many people enjoyed it. The fanbase is devoted, but pretty damn small.
I personally couldn't stand it, and I was predisposed to enjoy it, because I generally enjoy sci-fi (unlike most people). It's not that difficult to believe that the masses saw nothing to like, and the show was canceled as a result.
I think it was because Fox decided to show pretty much the worst episode as the opener (sorry, not a fan of westerns, and throwing a spaceship into a western isn't sci-fi). It was such a yawner that I really ended up not caring much for Firefly. I only started getting back into it in the later episodes (it was one of those "it's on next and there's nothing else on" shows). When I got the DVD set and watched it in the proper order, it was much better and more enjoyable. I also skipped over what Fox said was the pilot (it was a boring episode, IMHO).
They're all like that. At least Microsoft hasn't really done much (other than updates fouling Xbox360-Linux efforts), mostly because their piracy requires hardware mods to perform.
Sony's removed features as time goes on (launch unit PS3s still command a small premium because of it), neverminding the fact that Sony's also removed advertised feaures (Linux was heavily advertised, even at E3 to combat Microsoft). Nintendo's really only tried to sabotage homebrew, but that's about all their updates ever do.
And Apple, really, only screwed developers, probably the lightest touch of the bunch. (Yeah, Apple's got a stance against jailbreaking, but the same stance is shared by Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo as well). Hell, I think the Apple screwage is far less severe than Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo require for game developers.
Hrm. Did I just praise Apple and Microsoft? *shudder*
Not expecting any loss of sales/profits due to the VAT increase then?
Either his prices will have to rise or his profit margins fall. It's loose-loose.
Would be interesting to see what happens first - complaints about how UK/EU always "overpays" for stuff or how big the price changes are.
Unlike most of North America, UK/EU prices build in all the sales taxes, so what you see is what you pay. Now, with the VAT going up, what will that do to prices? After all, I'm assuming retailers love doing the 199.99 thing - are they going to eat the extra 5-ish pounds, or will they rise to 204.99? Or 209.99? (After all, a 199.99 price is much "nicer" to humans than slightly oddball amounts like 204.99 or 209.99).
Of course, it also means that in North America, sales taxes increasing means consumers see it directly...
Windows 7 is touch-enabled out of the box, and the interface is far more suited to touch than the older one, with the large task buttons etc. Leave it to Slashdot to be out of touch (har har).
Problem is, Windows 7 is just the OS. Apps are the biggest problem and having to right/middle click is a royal PITA with a touchscreen. Either you have to use an active touchscreen (no finger pointing - special stylus needed), or a passitve one with various gesturing to achieve a right-click (tap-and-hold being a common one).
And then there's the idiot app developers who hide all functionality inside a right-click menu, without making an accessible way of getting them without right-clicking.
(It's partly why Macs have one-button mice but support multibutton mice just fine - Mac users get really pissed off if a developer tries something like this - right-clicking is an accellerator (right-click -> action, versus select -> menu -> action), not a place to hide features. Ironically, it also makes MacOS more touch-friendly since right-clicking is optional)
Having kids, a busy job and a generally hectic life I just don't have time to get to the cinema as often as I would like to. I would more than happily pay the equivalent, or even a small premium, to see a new release at home... why? Because going to the cinema is not just going to the cinema - it is an event with baby-sitter costs, a meal, drinks and generally making the most of a rare night out. Why oh why can't the movie business see this market (I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, well maybe on slashdot) and cater to my needs? I mean really! They are bonkers, the lot of them. Hell, I'd even subscribe and watch a new release once a week.
That's supposedly the reason behind the push to get the FCC to approve "Selective Output Control" - basically kill the analog outputs so the movie studios can release movies earlier. (The FCC did, but restricted its use - from the moment it's made available and uses it, until 90 days later or when the movie is for retail sale - whichever is earlier). Of course we all see it as the MPAA and the like taking control of our cableboxes and obsoleting equipment, but they claim it's because there's a market for those who want to see a movie at home earlier than the usual 3-4 months between theatrical and home video release (via Video on Demand type cablebox service).
Only time will tell if this is the case or it's horribly abused.
Although Nokia also have Maemo, which is Linux:) And note that whilst Symbian isn't Unix, it is open source which I think deserves some credit (not that you ever hear about it on Slashdot - once upon a time, Slashdot would focus on open source even when they were less popular; now, the open source platforms get ignored in place of closed locked down platforms, even when the open source one has vastly more market share).
And then you'd have to add iOS as "open source" as well, because well, it runs on top of the Darwin-ARM kernel which is open-source BSD. The proprietary bits are on top and on the side yes, but it's not like the situation is any different with Android or WebOS. Especially since a number of Android devices are effecitvely un-rootable (even rootable ones can have their firmware made unrootable, see Rogers forced G1 update, Archos Internet Tablet, etc.).
Though, at least with Apple/Microsoft/Symbian I know what I'm getting (it may be open, or not, but it's locked down). It seems of all the Android devices out there, 95% can be rooted, the other 5% can be locked down hard enough that rooting isn't an option. And then there's the few where the carriers decide you shouldn't be rooting at all and lock down rootable models. Guess it means the only phone is the Nexus One.
and see students from the MIT Robotics Lab test their machine that they say can avoid the Bankrupts and find that Million Dollar wedge on the Wheel of Fortune
With a little empirical testing, it should be possible. Bankrupts are at known positions on the wheel, and you know the starting location. If you can model the physics of the wheel well enough, you can easily avoid them. (Unless the wheel has external influences - e.g., a brake and a motor that randomly apply and remove energy from the wheel making it less predictable).
Million dollar wedge is a bit more difficult, but given such wedges are covered up by something else, it may be possible to detect them looking at the high-def (and high-def 3D stream). Maybe during a few spins it may be possible to detect what's underneath it and detect the coloring.
I've got a better idea. Just keep using spinning liquid mercury, but put it in an artificial gravity field so that you can point it in any direction with "down" still being at the base of the mirror. This only needs some small advances in the field of physics.
What advance in physics is needed? Gravity works by the attraction of objects to each other, so all you need is a really, really, really massive object at the base of mirror. Such objects could easily range from a planet to a small black hole.
On the ARM side, the world is crawling with vendors who have their own, slightly different, spins of ARM core + functional units. The barrier to entry to having your own isn't exactly huge; but neither are the margins or differentiation. The fact that Apple also has one, to suit their particular embedded devices, isn't surprising; but it isn't a huge strategic thing. All the assorted ARM licensees of a particular ARM generation are pretty similar.
Except, Apple's got a microarchitecture license. They haven't really used it much, aince the A4 is a modified Cortex A8, but the other licensees are Marvell (who got it from Intel, who got it from Compaq, who got it from DEC...), and Qualcomm (for the Snapdragon).
Next, Apple acquires Intrinsity, who up to then had been working with Samsung (who used to provide the processors for Apple) to modify the Cortex A8 core to be faster or more power efficient.
Apple's bought a lot of VLSI talent. They have PA Semi, who are well known at making very low power PowerPC chips, and Intrinsity, who are great at modifying existing designs. PA Semi may be working on a brand new ARM-compatible chip, while Intrinsity works on improving the A8/A9/etc, so Apple has a range of options for processors. Intrinsity gets them a processor "now" (since it's modified A8 plus peripherals), while PA Semi works on a future processor.
The A4 isn't interesting at all. The next gen chips, though, are. And Apple is poised to be a gadget provider that makes their own processors. If PA Semi + Intrinsity comes up with a super high speed design or super lower power design, it's all Apple's IP and technology, and Apple doesn't have to share wirh anyone else.
Anyone get one of those surveys asking about the utility of/.? They use your/. account details and email (from a comment posted, I guess), and how they're doing research for some university in China? (Hong Kong, actually, but China is accurate).
I never answered mine - there was a little nagging feeling at the back of my mind saying "scam!!!" which is enough to avoid it.
I gotta admit, after having seen one of the new 3D LED flatscreens in action at a Best Buy, it doesn't fuck around. The commercials where it looks like stuff is just popping out of the screen isn't too far off base...it does add a lot to the cost of the TV, and it is kinda gimmicky, but I highly recommend naysayers going into a Best Buy (or similar store) and at least giving it a looksie. Gimmick or no, the results are impressive.
Yeah, the demos are good. However, unlike say IMAX 3D, the FOV of a screen is much smaller, so when an object "in front of" the screen reaches the edge, it gets abruptly chopped off. Almost makes you want to pause and look to the side to see "inside" the object.
It may become the way to keep viewers from getting sick is to have the objects be in 3D but appear behind the screen so the screen is more like a window and reaching the edge doesn't result in an object suddenly vaporizing at the edges. Or an object appearing from the sides doesn't suddenly have half of it pop up in front of you with the other half not there.
Yes, it's the customers' fault that even the MS patches can be buggy, isn't it?
Yes, sometimes it is. Remember that patch a few months ago that bluescreened a bunch of PCs?
Turned out, those PCs were infected with a rootkit. The rootkit had a bug that relied on symbols not moving around in DLLs, and one of those DLLs was updated by the patch.
Microsoft was forced to recall the patch and release an update that supported the rootkit.
Neverminding the general shape of the Move controller itself, am I the only one that thinks the glowy ball looks goofy? It's like a color-changing lightbulb someone stuck out of a phallic lamp. Surely Sony could've integrated the glowing part into the controller itself? Perhaps like a lighted end cap or something? Sony's got the design skills to make it look all high-tech and cool, but the best they can do to an ergonomic controller is to stick a ball onto it?
As for Portal 2 - is it going to be as gimped as the PS3 version of Orange Box was? (Orange Box for PS3 basically sucked - low framerates, stuttering, and all around unplayable...).
I have to agree with you. I was a bit confused by this sudden surge of 3D movies and tech in the last year. 3D has been around for so long, why is it suddenly being marketed so heavily now? I also do not see any real benefit from it; it seems to me like a silly gimmick.
Because people aren't going to theatres anymore. Whether by piracy or the rise of the home theatre, the movie studios need something to justify people going out to watch a movie rather than waiting for it on Blu-Ray and DVD. IMAX has 3D for what, at least a decade and a half now, but IMAX screens are few and far between (due to technical requirements that are quite onerous and limit seating capacity). But a regular theatre can be cheaply outfitted for 3D (and since they had to renovate anyhow for digital movie projection, it's a 2-for-1 shot).
The reason the tech is filtering down to home equipment is the same - people see it in theatres and (a few) want it in their homes as well. That, and there's no real new tech in TVs these days - you have your 240Hz refresh LCDs that get bigger and bigger every year and cheaper, but it's pretty much nothing new or innovative in TVs. Sure you have quad-1080p coming out, but with no programming in that format, it's not terribly useful at the moment. But people have 3D content available (somewhat), and they'll hopefully be wanting more.
Now, I see it as a gimmick as long as you need glasses for them because well, those glasses suck if you multitask. If you sit in front of the TV and watch it, they're fine, but if you read a book with a TV on, or do other things, it really sucks. And the proportion of people who don't multitask is getting smaller. But 3D movies, and 3D gaming is likely to take off since in both cases the user tends to put their full attention on the screen. Casual TV viewing, probably not.
You got really lucky then. 100 dollars was on the low-end of the book spectrum when I was doing engineering and maths 6-8 years ago. Hell the book for Reals was like 100 pages long and 6 inches by 9 yet cost around 100 dollars. It wasn't uncommon to spend 500-800 a quarter if you bought stuff from the bookstore. And this was all undergrad (although good undergrad is probably the same books as a crappy masters at some schools.)
Yeah, I did this for my first year, then the second year I started hunting for deals. Third and fourth year, my friends and I (a group of about 8 or so people) would buy one copy, march down to the local copyshop not too far off campus, grab a counter and sit there photocopying. We could do about a book an afternoon, and the counter meant when it was all said and done we paid for the entire run in one go, rather than break out the change and plugging the machines away.
Ended up being around $10-30 each, and the original would be returned, so the complete cost was an afternoon per book. We wisely did it by having one person do one copy and taking that and making second-gen copies out of that using the ADF (seriously speeds things up, though you get a degradation). Over the course of a week, we could be seriously productive and have a complete set of textbooks done for all our courses.
Still had to buy a book or two for the courses we didn't have in common, but yowch, that saved a lot of cash.
Publishers need to realize that college kids are short on cash, but do have tons of time available. These days it's even easier when you torrent the texts.
Slashdot Mirror
These are ARM based platforms, but unlike the PC, there's not one single platform.
On a PC, you know where everything is - and if not, the BIOS helps you. A lot of basic peripherals are at well-known locations (serial ports, keyboards, mice, etc). And for PCI, it exists in a well-known location as well. The BIOS does offer a memory map, but it's just to map physical RAM (which also exists at a well known location - it starts from 0).
If you wanted to write a basic OS, you can accomplish a lot since you know RAM starts at 0, BIOS puts tables at well-known locations (ACPI, memory, etc), and where to expect a video adapter (already set up for you by BIOS), serial port, basic I/O. Add in a little code to do a little PCI probing to discover other adapters (mass storage, USB, etc), but that can wait since the basics are there. Heck, you can often guess a network controller might be placed at IO 0x300.
On ARM, there's no such thing. You can't buy an "ARM Processor" - they don't really exist except as SoCs with onboard memory controllers, display controllers and other peripherals. And each chip can have different addresses for them. And while the ARM cores start at well-known location (0 - reset vector), there's often ROM there that does security boot, or just boot from NAND/SD/etc. And each peripheral exists in a different location - serial ports may be at 0x80000000 physical on one SoC, 0x80108000 on another, etc. RAM isn't based in any standard location - 0x40000000, 0x80000000, 0xC0000000 or other locations are possible. Ditto a PCI(e) bridge - it's somewhere in the memory map, but where you need to read the SoC manual to find out. End result is the OS has to be customized per-SoC and per-hardware because people can put things anywhere (for Linux, this just means the kernel since the POSIX abstraction layer hides the rest - provide a nice userspace and devices don't care).
We don't think of it much, but the PC hasn't differed that much since IBM released their version of a desktop nearly 30 years ago. Heck, Intel's Pine Trail isn't PC-compatible, but it's an x86-based platform. Which is why Linux runs, but not Windows (desktop - you can probably get Windows CE running on it).
That itself is a huge challenge. It's akin to consoles - all three consoles currently out (PS3, Xbox360, Wii) all have PowerPC processors inside them, but you can say none are compatible with each other, even though the lowlying ISA is the same.
I guess, until Slashdot enables the UTF character set like everyone else has for the past decade or so,
1. There will be some domain names that we can't link to on Slashdot
Slashdot did allow Unicode. Then things like like this happened. Blame the comment trolls for forcing Slashdot to use a whitelist of characters allowed.
As for domain names, from what I see, they start with a standard prefix (I think it's "xn--") followed by the Unicode codepoints. Just so they're compatible across all systems. Browsers can choose to display the codepoints, or, I'm seeing an option to not do that, so you can tell Paypal.com from xn--blahblabblah.xn--blah.
Except Sony's rewarded early adopters of PS3s with PS3s that do more than the current PS3 (save one feature). Launch PS3s could do backwards compatibility (it had a full PS2 inside it, unlike second revision GPU-only). It used to do Linux. It had a card reader (useful if you want to toss your photos up). 4 USB ports. The only thing it doesn't have is bitstream audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS Master Audio), but you can just have the PS3 decode it and send it as PCM.
Late adopters get screwed. Microsoft did a more traditional thing where features were added - HDMI, smaller size with Kinect power power, etc, so people want to upgrade to it, not hang onto their old boxes till the end of time.
The only problem is, I'd be getting a 4th PS3, which drops the attach rate for me down horribly (from just under 3 to 2). My Xbox360 has a far better attach rate (20+). Even my Wii has more and I haven't played it in the past year (5+).
Not to mention, you can't root it. And it's stuck at 1.6, and won't ever get 2.x. Which is a horrendous issue for Android devices - it seems there are great models (Nexus One) with full rootability and the like. Others that are bound to a carrier can have special root-proof firmware installed (Rogers did just that with a mandatory update - sure it fixed a critical bug, but it also removed the ability to root it). And always the question of whether or not your phone will officially get 2.x. Sure there's unofficial mods (provided you root your phone), but it seems there aren't that many that are "good" (rootable, futureproof, etc).
Probably my one complaint is how carriers have all seemed to conspire to collectively try to hobble Android. Couldn't Google have done an iPhone and pretty much say "This is the way we're doing it, and if you don't like it, tough!" like Apple?
A good guess, actually, because when you're doing FCC testing, you pretty much use an instrumented RF chamber to gather field data. You can't have people in it for obvious reasons.
Even in real world testing, you might not find it - after all, once this hit, people have tried to replicate the result, failed, then watched a dozen YouTube videos seeing how to replicate it. After seeing them, they have to purposely set their hands in one position. Other people, trying to see the effect, have dropped their phones. It really depends how you hold the phone - some people like ot hold the bottom and use leverage to hold it to their ear (results in problem - you have to "cup" the bottom), others hold the top and press their hands to their ear. The latter, except for those with the right hand geometry, probably can't figure out how to do it.
Hell, I've seen phones where the radio locks up if you do *just* the right set of motions. One of my coworkers spent a week riding the commuter train with a phone, laptop, and debug hardware because that was the only reliable way to reproduce the issue. And you have 5 minutes because it happens in just one particular part, then you get off and have to ride it the other way to set up for the next round of debugging.
For phone testing, there's tons of issues a limited testing won't find. The only way you'll find them is well, release it to the public
Actually, Apple lost the look-and-feel lawsuit because they had licensed it to Microsoft. In a huge case of "left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing". the lawyers didn't know that Apple had already licensed Microsoft all the GUI stuff. All Microsoft did was pull up this agreement, and... whoops.
Most apps should work. It's just Java, after all!
The ones that need porting are things that have native code in them. In which case they need to be recompiled. Not sure if there exists a universal binary format for Android to support this though, but I'm assuming it's regular ELF at the lowlevel so there's a chance.
There's also MIPS android as well - MIPS wants to get back into the phone game. Would be interesting to see a triple architecture binary...
Ironically, companies are using that "feature" as a reason to stay on IE6. Seems people can't view YouTube/Facebook/etc using IE6, which means companies avoid having to actually do filtering. The IT policy simply states that IE6 is the only browser, rather than saying YouTube/etc are blocked.
So businesses may pay to stick with IE6 just because all those "non work" websites don't support it. And suppliers get stuck supporting IE6 because otherwise they'd lose a customer.
Just for a few more years, though. A few more years... business can't stay with IE6 forever, after all. But for the next few years, everyone trying to push people away from IE6 may just keep people on it...
The other thing is, it looks like it handles just the buyer's side, not the merchant's.
The real reason for Paypal right now is it lets almost anyone accept credit cards. Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, and the like are all merchant accounts and you pretty much have to be a store to use them. If you want to accept a one-time credit card payment for something, you can't really use Google Checkout and the like. Or even if you're just a Joe doing a garage sale online with eBay. (That, and many merchant accounts are pointless if you want to accept payments that happen infrequently).
eBay would be pretty much dead without sellers supporting credit card payments - imagine any online retailer not supporting credit cards, for example. And since you can't expect every seller to get their own merchant account, the only way to get sellers to be able to handle irregular credit card payments is pretty much Paypal.
Paypal knows this, and that's why they can screw merchants so easily. The real question is why there isn't an alternative for sellers to use besides Paypal? All it has to handle is credit card payments where sellers may not individually qualify for merchant accounts, but lets almost anyone accept credit card payments for infrequent non-store transactions...
It probably is. In stereo mode, the resolution is 400x240 (x2), so when you're generating the scene, there's no point using high-res textures and high-res models because the extra detail will be lost. This is different in 2D mode, where you'll have to push 800x240 pixels and could use the extra definition.
The iPhone 4 and iPad have to push 640x960 or 768x1024 screens, and those screens demand higher res models and textures just to look nice. This makes the GPU have to work harder since it's pushing higher res models and textures to a larger screen. If we go with the 320x480 resolution of the iPhone pre-4, it still requires a higher res texture and model to look good (despite having less pixels than the 3DS screen).
Sure, each scene in the 3DS has to be rendered twice, but when you're starting with low-res models and textures to begin with, it's a lot easier than rendering a screen with twice the pixels that requires higher res models and textures. The 3DS "wins" by simply having less detailed models and textures to begin with which consume the most GPU resources.
I think it was because Fox decided to show pretty much the worst episode as the opener (sorry, not a fan of westerns, and throwing a spaceship into a western isn't sci-fi). It was such a yawner that I really ended up not caring much for Firefly. I only started getting back into it in the later episodes (it was one of those "it's on next and there's nothing else on" shows). When I got the DVD set and watched it in the proper order, it was much better and more enjoyable. I also skipped over what Fox said was the pilot (it was a boring episode, IMHO).
They're all like that. At least Microsoft hasn't really done much (other than updates fouling Xbox360-Linux efforts), mostly because their piracy requires hardware mods to perform.
Sony's removed features as time goes on (launch unit PS3s still command a small premium because of it), neverminding the fact that Sony's also removed advertised feaures (Linux was heavily advertised, even at E3 to combat Microsoft). Nintendo's really only tried to sabotage homebrew, but that's about all their updates ever do.
And Apple, really, only screwed developers, probably the lightest touch of the bunch. (Yeah, Apple's got a stance against jailbreaking, but the same stance is shared by Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo as well). Hell, I think the Apple screwage is far less severe than Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo require for game developers.
Hrm. Did I just praise Apple and Microsoft? *shudder*
Would be interesting to see what happens first - complaints about how UK/EU always "overpays" for stuff or how big the price changes are.
Unlike most of North America, UK/EU prices build in all the sales taxes, so what you see is what you pay. Now, with the VAT going up, what will that do to prices? After all, I'm assuming retailers love doing the 199.99 thing - are they going to eat the extra 5-ish pounds, or will they rise to 204.99? Or 209.99? (After all, a 199.99 price is much "nicer" to humans than slightly oddball amounts like 204.99 or 209.99).
Of course, it also means that in North America, sales taxes increasing means consumers see it directly...
Problem is, Windows 7 is just the OS. Apps are the biggest problem and having to right/middle click is a royal PITA with a touchscreen. Either you have to use an active touchscreen (no finger pointing - special stylus needed), or a passitve one with various gesturing to achieve a right-click (tap-and-hold being a common one).
And then there's the idiot app developers who hide all functionality inside a right-click menu, without making an accessible way of getting them without right-clicking.
(It's partly why Macs have one-button mice but support multibutton mice just fine - Mac users get really pissed off if a developer tries something like this - right-clicking is an accellerator (right-click -> action, versus select -> menu -> action), not a place to hide features. Ironically, it also makes MacOS more touch-friendly since right-clicking is optional)
That's supposedly the reason behind the push to get the FCC to approve "Selective Output Control" - basically kill the analog outputs so the movie studios can release movies earlier. (The FCC did, but restricted its use - from the moment it's made available and uses it, until 90 days later or when the movie is for retail sale - whichever is earlier). Of course we all see it as the MPAA and the like taking control of our cableboxes and obsoleting equipment, but they claim it's because there's a market for those who want to see a movie at home earlier than the usual 3-4 months between theatrical and home video release (via Video on Demand type cablebox service).
Only time will tell if this is the case or it's horribly abused.
And then you'd have to add iOS as "open source" as well, because well, it runs on top of the Darwin-ARM kernel which is open-source BSD. The proprietary bits are on top and on the side yes, but it's not like the situation is any different with Android or WebOS. Especially since a number of Android devices are effecitvely un-rootable (even rootable ones can have their firmware made unrootable, see Rogers forced G1 update, Archos Internet Tablet, etc.).
Though, at least with Apple/Microsoft/Symbian I know what I'm getting (it may be open, or not, but it's locked down). It seems of all the Android devices out there, 95% can be rooted, the other 5% can be locked down hard enough that rooting isn't an option. And then there's the few where the carriers decide you shouldn't be rooting at all and lock down rootable models. Guess it means the only phone is the Nexus One.
With a little empirical testing, it should be possible. Bankrupts are at known positions on the wheel, and you know the starting location. If you can model the physics of the wheel well enough, you can easily avoid them. (Unless the wheel has external influences - e.g., a brake and a motor that randomly apply and remove energy from the wheel making it less predictable).
Million dollar wedge is a bit more difficult, but given such wedges are covered up by something else, it may be possible to detect them looking at the high-def (and high-def 3D stream). Maybe during a few spins it may be possible to detect what's underneath it and detect the coloring.
What advance in physics is needed? Gravity works by the attraction of objects to each other, so all you need is a really, really, really massive object at the base of mirror. Such objects could easily range from a planet to a small black hole.
Problem solved.
Except, Apple's got a microarchitecture license. They haven't really used it much, aince the A4 is a modified Cortex A8, but the other licensees are Marvell (who got it from Intel, who got it from Compaq, who got it from DEC...), and Qualcomm (for the Snapdragon).
Next, Apple acquires Intrinsity, who up to then had been working with Samsung (who used to provide the processors for Apple) to modify the Cortex A8 core to be faster or more power efficient.
Apple's bought a lot of VLSI talent. They have PA Semi, who are well known at making very low power PowerPC chips, and Intrinsity, who are great at modifying existing designs. PA Semi may be working on a brand new ARM-compatible chip, while Intrinsity works on improving the A8/A9/etc, so Apple has a range of options for processors. Intrinsity gets them a processor "now" (since it's modified A8 plus peripherals), while PA Semi works on a future processor.
The A4 isn't interesting at all. The next gen chips, though, are. And Apple is poised to be a gadget provider that makes their own processors. If PA Semi + Intrinsity comes up with a super high speed design or super lower power design, it's all Apple's IP and technology, and Apple doesn't have to share wirh anyone else.
Anyone get one of those surveys asking about the utility of /.? They use your /. account details and email (from a comment posted, I guess), and how they're doing research for some university in China? (Hong Kong, actually, but China is accurate).
I never answered mine - there was a little nagging feeling at the back of my mind saying "scam!!!" which is enough to avoid it.
Yeah, the demos are good. However, unlike say IMAX 3D, the FOV of a screen is much smaller, so when an object "in front of" the screen reaches the edge, it gets abruptly chopped off. Almost makes you want to pause and look to the side to see "inside" the object.
It may become the way to keep viewers from getting sick is to have the objects be in 3D but appear behind the screen so the screen is more like a window and reaching the edge doesn't result in an object suddenly vaporizing at the edges. Or an object appearing from the sides doesn't suddenly have half of it pop up in front of you with the other half not there.
Neverminding the general shape of the Move controller itself, am I the only one that thinks the glowy ball looks goofy? It's like a color-changing lightbulb someone stuck out of a phallic lamp. Surely Sony could've integrated the glowing part into the controller itself? Perhaps like a lighted end cap or something? Sony's got the design skills to make it look all high-tech and cool, but the best they can do to an ergonomic controller is to stick a ball onto it?
As for Portal 2 - is it going to be as gimped as the PS3 version of Orange Box was? (Orange Box for PS3 basically sucked - low framerates, stuttering, and all around unplayable...).
Because people aren't going to theatres anymore. Whether by piracy or the rise of the home theatre, the movie studios need something to justify people going out to watch a movie rather than waiting for it on Blu-Ray and DVD. IMAX has 3D for what, at least a decade and a half now, but IMAX screens are few and far between (due to technical requirements that are quite onerous and limit seating capacity). But a regular theatre can be cheaply outfitted for 3D (and since they had to renovate anyhow for digital movie projection, it's a 2-for-1 shot).
The reason the tech is filtering down to home equipment is the same - people see it in theatres and (a few) want it in their homes as well. That, and there's no real new tech in TVs these days - you have your 240Hz refresh LCDs that get bigger and bigger every year and cheaper, but it's pretty much nothing new or innovative in TVs. Sure you have quad-1080p coming out, but with no programming in that format, it's not terribly useful at the moment. But people have 3D content available (somewhat), and they'll hopefully be wanting more.
Now, I see it as a gimmick as long as you need glasses for them because well, those glasses suck if you multitask. If you sit in front of the TV and watch it, they're fine, but if you read a book with a TV on, or do other things, it really sucks. And the proportion of people who don't multitask is getting smaller. But 3D movies, and 3D gaming is likely to take off since in both cases the user tends to put their full attention on the screen. Casual TV viewing, probably not.
Yeah, I did this for my first year, then the second year I started hunting for deals. Third and fourth year, my friends and I (a group of about 8 or so people) would buy one copy, march down to the local copyshop not too far off campus, grab a counter and sit there photocopying. We could do about a book an afternoon, and the counter meant when it was all said and done we paid for the entire run in one go, rather than break out the change and plugging the machines away.
Ended up being around $10-30 each, and the original would be returned, so the complete cost was an afternoon per book. We wisely did it by having one person do one copy and taking that and making second-gen copies out of that using the ADF (seriously speeds things up, though you get a degradation). Over the course of a week, we could be seriously productive and have a complete set of textbooks done for all our courses.
Still had to buy a book or two for the courses we didn't have in common, but yowch, that saved a lot of cash.
Publishers need to realize that college kids are short on cash, but do have tons of time available. These days it's even easier when you torrent the texts.