Seems like a natural for the wearable computing platform.
How does a box the size of an orange fit into anyone's apparel? Even with the emphasis on thinness in the PDA/cellphone market, we have to choose between cargo pants and bulging pockets.
Integrated ethernet port? I guess you can wear the computer as a necklace by using the ethernet cable that you'll also have to carry around. Why in the world wouldn't they build in an 802.11(something) chip?
Integrated audio? I hope but doubt that it's also got integrated speakers.
This is just about the low point in bad tech design. I am crazy about the idea of truly portable computing - schlepp your entire data store and OS on a high-density flash card; pop it into any computing device - handheld, notebook, public-access workstation, kiosk - and get instant and full access to your data, according to your preferred interface style, in a presentation appropriately scaled to the device. But toys like this represent a step back from that movement. They're totally useless for a dozen reasons, and they lead people to believe that buzzwords like "wearable computing" have no non-geek future.
You paranoids really need to get over this deranged fear that RFID will somehow strip away your silly illusion of privacy. Nobody needs RFID to find out everything you do. These new technologies aren't about stripping away your humanity. It's all about making life easier for everyone, so that we can do more with our humanity.
Yeah, but jeez, it makes it a whole lot easier to conduct complete identity theft if every bit of information, public or private, is tied to one ID. Not even social security numbers are that pervasive: cash is virtually untrackable.
Ah! but you have to understand that, according to the law (for example: Louisville R. R. v. Letson -- 1844), a corporation IS a citizen! The railroads lobbied for and got this judgement passed back in the 1800s and corporations have run completely amok since then.
Then I vote that we hold them accountable just as you would citizens.
If you, an individual, steal from people, you are removed from society temporarily - you go to jail. Corporations that steal from their employees, customers, shareholders, or the government should be barred from the marketplace for a set number of years.
If you, an individual, steal a lot and repeatedly, or if you commit really heinous crimes, you will be removed from society permanently - either permanent incarceration or the death penalty. Corporations that prove hideously offensive should be dissolved.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It is nonsensical that if you walk into a Walgreens with a gun and score $5 off the cash register, you can be imprisoned for like 15 years - but if you perpetrate white-collar fraud on a massive scale and steal $5 billion from America, the maximum penalty is like five years. If you don't just get off with a fine, that is.
I happen to be an Ohio intellectual property attorney, and I've met the governer on a few occasions recently. I suspect that the letter I write to Gov. Taft tomorrow condemning the hell out of this insane bill will probably carry some weight.
Yeah, you get the distinct sense that this is the author's "computers I've owned that I thought were k-rad" list. It's a wee bit lacking in objectivity.
Vendors routinely give out free stuff at conferences, and one of the popular ones these days (actually halfway useful!) is a free 32mb USB key. And of course, every such key comes with plug-n-pray drivers so you can plug it in and start writing to it.
They could easily include some network code in the driver that sends every document you write on the key to the company that sold the device. Of course, obscure this process: send only during idle periods; encrypt the document; send the files to some anonymous file dump in Malaysia or something that's only known and accessible by the company...
Since these devices are routinely given freely to corporate representatives, this might net a high percentage of corporate documents, some of which might be valuable.
Your analogies don't really fit the situation. True, if someone said it was hypocritical for the RIAA to benefit from something they are trying to destroy, then your analogies do fit this exact wording.
However, in the examples you use the "benefit" is knowledge on (a) how better to fight the phenomenon, or (b) how to fight off similar phenomenon. There is no net benefit to humans in this example, but rather information on how to reduce the likelihood of bad effects from these phenomena. For example, learning how to better fight viruses has no inherent value other than to fight viruses. We'd much prefer that they just go away, then there'd be no use of such information.
Much of the knowledge we've gleaned from the fight against HIV is not related to eliminating retroviruses. We've learned how better to regulate DNA, for any purpose we wish. And we've learned a lot about viral vectors - we can build a virus to add or alter DNA in carefully-controlled ways. Gene therapy may well prove as important to medicine as the development of antibiotics or anesthetic. Ironic that the affliction of HIV on the human race may lead to the cure for cancer.
I'm hardly an RIAA advocate (quite the opposite - check my posting history), but this doesn't seem hypocritical at all. It seems like a good use of resources by the RIAA.
Why should someone be criticized for taking something good away from a condition that they're fighting? The medical profession has been fighting HIV for two decades - and yet we've learned a ton about viruses in the process. In America's fight against terrorism, we've learned a lot by examining how terrorists target our security processes and filter money. Gleaning valuable information during a struggle against something you perceive as bad is a very valuable skill.
I sincerely wish the RIAA (and the MPAA) would recognize the pointlessness of their struggle against P2P networks. Maybe this is a straw that will help break the back of that sorry business decision. (I'm not holding my breath, of course.)
Isn't it more likely that Google are simply trying to index the general topic of each IRC channel, rather than the specific content?
But IRC channels are pretty ephemeral - IRC channel topics, even more so. Google runs a serious risk of adding a bunch of dead or irrelevant links to their database.
Additionally, what would such a link do? The vast majority of Google visitors do not have an IRC client loaded on their computers - especially not one that plugs into their browser. So most users who get a link to "#slashdot" will click on it and get the standard browser complaint: "Don't know what this is. Do you want to save it, or choose a program to open it?" So even when Google provides a link to a relevant and non-transient IRC channel, most users won't be able to reach it.
I'm not a huge PDA user, or cell phone user, so a combined solution make sense.
You may want to rethink that.
Pop quiz: What's the core functional difference between a phone and a PDA? Answer: One you tap on and write on; the other you jam up against your ear. As a result, each is physically designed with different goals. Phones are getting smaller and more curved to match the contours of your head (e.g., the clamshell design that's arisen in the past five years.) PDA design is centered around maximizing screen size - only the dinkiest PDAs, like Palm M100s, have tiny screens. Larger screens are better for "computer-like" applications - seeing lots of text in Excel, Reader, etc. Indeed, modern screens are still too small for effective web browsing, so expect that trend to continue.
Similarly, look at how each one handles power. My iPaq 5550 PDA, with its bright screen, fast processor, and 802.11/Bluetooth adapters, is a huge power hog - it's always complaining that it wants juice. It's not an issue, though, because when I need to use it, it's only for short periods of time - just long enough to find an email address. My phone, though, must be reliable, since it's a more necessary device - so it serves me better by being more reliable, as a low-power, long-battery-life device. (Unless battery technology works itself out of this rut of stagnant improvement, the only alternative is a higher-capacity battery, which is heavier... and no one wants that.)
So the current type of evolution is divergent, not convergent. That makes sense, because PDAs are becoming less like organizers and more computer-like in computing power and end-user functionality.
Three follow-up points:
1) I'm all for eliminating redundant devices, because it reduces cargo, data sprawl (having your data spread over multiple devices), and batter charging.
(Case in point: If any portable electronics market is on the verge of extinction, it's the MP3 player market - once portable media reaches 20gb capacities, your whole MP3 collection will fit on one (or a few) small card usable in any small device, and a dedicated device for that storage will be pointless.)
2) If you really want to eliminate a device, then instead of a phone that provides portable computing on a tiny, unusable screen, how about a traditional PDA that provides phone functionality over a headset attachment? Unfortunately, PDA manufacturers don't offer this yet, but I suspect (OK, hope) that it's in the pipe.
3) Long-term, this entire debate is moot. In a decade, we probably won't use either device. We'll carry around one relatively dumb device that serves as a communications portal.
Think of it this way. Wireless providers will eventually wise up and realize that people actually do want high-speed Internet connections in portable devices. This will become especially true as Internet telephony/voice-chatting gains ground, because then wireless Internet will be a superset of traditional cellphone service: it does everything cellphones do, and more. No more "phone me at 215-427-8931"; instead, "phone me at joesmith.com".
Anyway, consider what happens when wireless Internet access becomes fast, affordable, widespread, always-on, and reliable. Now, you have the potential to have your PDA connect to your home server at all times. At that point, you've gotta ask: Why do you need a mobile processor? Would you rather use a dinky 50MHz processor on your PDA that burns a bunch of battery power and requires a separate data store - or, just let your home-based 50-gigahertz Pentium-7 send you a broadband video and audio stream?
So your PDA is now just an input/output portal to your home computer, providing access to all the same data as if you were sitting at home. Hell, the uber-powerful 3D video card on your home PC could even render gorgeous graphics and send them to your PDA! (Counterstrike 2012 on your PDA, w00t!) And since the only functions your PDA provides are input and output, you can d
I'm not a huge PDA user, or cell phone user, so a combined solution make sense.
You may want to rethink that.
Pop quiz: What's the core functional difference between a phone and a PDA? Answer: One you tap on and write on; the other you jam up against your ear. As a result, each is physically designed with different goals. Phones are getting smaller and more curved to match the contours of your head (e.g., the clamshell design that's arisen in the past five years.) PDA design is centered around maximizing screen size - only the dinkiest PDAs, like Palm M100s, have tiny screens. Larger screens are better for "computer-like" applications - seeing lots of text in Excel, Reader, etc. Indeed, modern screens are still too small for effective web browsing, so expect that trend to continue.
Similarly, look at how each one handles power. My iPaq 5550 PDA, with its bright screen, fast processor, and 802.11/Bluetooth adapters, is a huge power hog - it's always complaining that it wants juice. It's not an issue, though, because when I need to use it, it's only for short periods of time - just long enough to find an email address. My phone, though, must be reliable, since it's a more necessary device - so it serves me better by being more reliable, as a low-power, long-battery-life device. (Unless battery technology works itself out of this rut of stagnant improvement, the only alternative is a higher-capacity battery, which is heavier... and no one wants that.)
So the current type of evolution is divergent, not convergent. That makes sense, because PDAs are becoming less like organizers and more computer-like in computing power and end-user functionality.
Three follow-up points:
1) I'm all for eliminating redundant devices, because it reduces cargo, data sprawl (having your data spread over multiple devices), and batter charging.
(Case in point: If any portable electronics market is on the verge of extinction, it's the MP3 player market - once portable media reaches 20gb capacities, your whole MP3 collection will fit on one (or a few) small card usable in any small device, and a dedicated device for that storage will be pointless.)
2) If you really want to eliminate a device, then instead of a phone that provides portable computing on a tiny, unusable screen, how about a traditional PDA that provides phone functionality over a headset attachment? Unfortunately, PDA manufacturers don't offer this yet, but I suspect (OK, hope) that it's in the pipe.
3) Long-term, this entire debate is moot. In a decade, we probably won't use either device. We'll probably carry around one relatively dumb device that serves as a communications portal.
Think of it this way. Wireless providers will eventually wise up and realize that people actually do want high-speed Internet connections in portable devices. This will become especially true as Internet telephony/voice-chatting gains ground, because then wireless Internet will be a superset of traditional cellphone service: it does everything cellphones do, and more. No more "phone me at 215-427-8931"; instead, "phone me at joesmith.com".
Anyway, consider what happens when wireless Internet becomes fast, affordable, widespread, always-on, and reliable. Now, you have the potential to have your PDA connect to your home server at all times. At that point, you've gotta ask: Why do you need a mobile processor? Would you rather use a dinky 50MHz processor on your PDA that burns a bunch of battery power and requires a separate data store? Or would you rather just let your home-based 50-gigahertz Pentium-7 send you a broadband video and audio stream?
So your PDA is now just an input/output portal to your home computer, providing access to all the same data as if you were sitting at home. Hell, the uber-powerful 3D video card on your home PC could even render gorgeous graphics and send them to your PDA! (Counterstrike 2012 on your PDA, w00t!) And since the only functions your PDA provides are input and output, you can ditch the
Actually the OS interacts with the programs; the programs interact then with people. People never interact with the OS.
From a CS perspective, you're correct - the OS is designed to manage resources and send program requests down to the microkernel/ISA level.
But from the contemporary perspective, the OS is a much richer bundle. Technically, using the Start Menu, manipulating files and folders on your desktop, and navigating folders in Explorer = interactions with a "program"; so are printer daemons/print queues, network interfaces, and the Control Panel. Even cutting-and-pasting is technically interacting with the clipboard "program". But these programs are so tightly bound to the OS that it's difficult to imagine a workable modern OS without them. Ask any user on the street, even sophisticated ones, what "program" they're using in these cases, and they'll all say "Windows" (or OS/X, or whatever OS they're running.)
If by "popular" you mean prolific, as does the author, then sure, ITRON and other embedded OS's are clear winners. But if by "popular" you mean user-recognizable - even software to which users may have developed an affinity - then I think Windows is still the OS of choice worldwide.
(Note: I'm clearly not a Microsoft shill - a search on my username will reveal posts/responses uniformly bashing Microsoft for a dozen justified reasons.)
You're right, and that's the fatal flaw with the posted article.
When people interact with a computer, they're interacting with the OS. In fact, it's the single most distinguishing feature to most users.
When people interact with a microwave or iPod, they're interacting with the device. They don't care about its software; they just wanna nuke their burrito and play Britney Spears. They don't much care about the embedded software - if you swapped out the OS and added another, they'd might notice that something was different, but it would end there.
It's real simple my friend...don't answer the phone when it rings. Even better, let your answering machine answer it for you.
Would you really want the onus of filtering out unwanted messages sent into private spaces to be on the listener, rather than the speaker?
That's like arguing that if someone drives down your residential street shouting advertisements over a bullhorn, it's your responsibility to soundproof your house.
Fortunately for all of us, free speech doesn't work that way.
Dr. Todd A. Kuiken and the Doctors of the Rehabilitation Institue of Chicago have successfully used the nerve endings from an amputee's lost arm to drive a bionic replacement.
The patient, who for privacy reasons only provided his first name of Anakin...
Umm, there _is_ no debate. People should not be allowed to download music for listening purposes.
Congratulations. You've adopted the (overreaching, oversimplified) black-and-white view espoused by content owners worldwide. The RIAA welcomes you.
You're also legally incorrect, by the way. Yes, legally, that statement is false. Look up "fair use" in Black's Law Dictionary for a list of uses of copyrighted content that are completely legal, even if the copyright owner doesn't like it and doesn't make any money from it.
Ah... how I wish consumers acted as rationally as this.
Do you know what consumers see? They see "Britney Spears CD, $12" and they buy it. They see nothing of the underlying struggle of fair-use rights vs. corporate gluttony, of technology vs. copyright. They will eagerly support a monopoly without care if it keeps feeding them their boy-band fix. Their collective attention span is pitifully short and easily distracted. Just try getting the masses to boycott. The public, in short, is all talk.
Your mother doesn't want to know what copyright is all about; she just wants that new Yanni CD. Your little brother doesn't care that he's feeding a monopoly by buying that 50 Cent CD, and your sister doesn't give a damn that buying the new Justin Timberlake disc is feeding the RIAA's legal-enforcement hit squad. They don't care. They just want their music.
We understand the issues in this struggle, but we are a small minority. You must come to grips with this regrettable fact.
That is why Star Wars is still not on DVD, despite our petition. And that is why the RIAAs don't see the world as we do, and act as we think would be in their best interests. Indeed, if they stopped selling CDs tomorrow and shifted to an online-downloading-per-subscription scheme - even one that's eminently fair and consumer-friendly - you know what the biggest public statement would be? "I don't want to use that Internet thing for music! Where are my CDs?"
(Amazingly, even economists are now coming to grips with the fact that they've overestimated consumer rationalism. The models that they built on such assumptions don't seem to reflect reality... and the hot new trend in economics research is consumer irrationalism. This is not a troll comment - it's an observation by my stepfather, who is a macroeconomist at a local university. This, by the way is good news: I'm hoping that it's the start of a revolution in economic thinking - that consumers can't protect themselves from market consolidation and monopoly abuse... which is why America now has. like, two competitors in every profitable market.)
That's probably not their goal - well, not their primary goal. Consider this:
I'm increasingly annoyed about the amount of attention that this whole issue is garnering. Notice how little (OK, none) of the public debate is substantive: whether people should be allowed to download music for listening purposes; whether the interests of media providers outweigh the privacy interests of citizens; whether it's fair to allow the RIAA to charge people $15,000 - or even imprison them, or destroy their computers - in defense of fifty-year-old music tracks. It's just assumed that the RIAA has the right to lash out in order to protect its license to Johnny B. Goode.
Even incidents like this are to the RIAA's benefit, because it keeps the issue in the public consciousness. The longer it stays there, the stronger the public presumption that they're fundamentally in their rights, that it's OK for the RIAA to take drastic measures. Hell, just look at the typical responses: "What she did was illegal, but..."
It would be one thing if the RIAA were to settle, such that $2,000 were donated to a charity. Even that would be a pretty low blow. But actually adding the cash from this girl and her mother to their corporate coffers?
Repeat after me, everyone: I will never buy another CD from the RIAA again. (Since I normally buy about 50 a year, this should even the score on this despicable incident by 2008.)
Once-invulnerable Microsoft has now had to settle a number of actions such as this. Yeah, but here's the problem: a one-time fee penalty can't really remedy never really compensate for the permanent elimination of a market competitor. By eliminating Netscape, Microsoft secured a permanent (and quite effective) internet browser monopoly.
Look at it a different way: Microsoft can continue to own that market and cannot get sued over this incident again. So instead of thinking about the fee as a legal penalty, you can think of it as Microsoft buying a (very expensive) license to monopolize the market. It works out the same way.
Eventually, the legal system will have to come to grips with the fact that its current M.O. of penalizing corporations isn't deterring anyone. They smile, pay it, and move on to bigger and better market exploits.
What they really didn't want was a full-dress jury trial where all of what Microsoft did to them would have been fleshed out for all to see.
Eh? Why would they care? They've had several incidents of antitrust very publicly resolved against them. (Netscape; Lotus 1-2-3; that DoubleSpace case... and a hundred small cases of patent theft or breaches of contracts with small companies that were decimated in the struggle.) The public knows they're monopolists - it's been a consistent business method for much of their existence. What's one more suit?
Nah, the real reason is that it's just the cheapest way of resolving this claim. They have no hope of winning or swaying public opinion; they don't even care any more. Just cut bait at bottom dollar and move on.
Slashdot Mirror
How does a box the size of an orange fit into anyone's apparel? Even with the emphasis on thinness in the PDA/cellphone market, we have to choose between cargo pants and bulging pockets.
Integrated ethernet port? I guess you can wear the computer as a necklace by using the ethernet cable that you'll also have to carry around. Why in the world wouldn't they build in an 802.11(something) chip?
Integrated audio? I hope but doubt that it's also got integrated speakers.
This is just about the low point in bad tech design. I am crazy about the idea of truly portable computing - schlepp your entire data store and OS on a high-density flash card; pop it into any computing device - handheld, notebook, public-access workstation, kiosk - and get instant and full access to your data, according to your preferred interface style, in a presentation appropriately scaled to the device. But toys like this represent a step back from that movement. They're totally useless for a dozen reasons, and they lead people to believe that buzzwords like "wearable computing" have no non-geek future.
- David Stein
Yeah, but jeez, it makes it a whole lot easier to conduct complete identity theft if every bit of information, public or private, is tied to one ID. Not even social security numbers are that pervasive: cash is virtually untrackable.
- David Stein
Then I vote that we hold them accountable just as you would citizens.
If you, an individual, steal from people, you are removed from society temporarily - you go to jail. Corporations that steal from their employees, customers, shareholders, or the government should be barred from the marketplace for a set number of years.
If you, an individual, steal a lot and repeatedly, or if you commit really heinous crimes, you will be removed from society permanently - either permanent incarceration or the death penalty. Corporations that prove hideously offensive should be dissolved.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It is nonsensical that if you walk into a Walgreens with a gun and score $5 off the cash register, you can be imprisoned for like 15 years - but if you perpetrate white-collar fraud on a massive scale and steal $5 billion from America, the maximum penalty is like five years. If you don't just get off with a fine, that is.
- David Stein
- David Stein
Yeah, you get the distinct sense that this is the author's "computers I've owned that I thought were k-rad" list. It's a wee bit lacking in objectivity.
- David Stein
Vendors routinely give out free stuff at conferences, and one of the popular ones these days (actually halfway useful!) is a free 32mb USB key. And of course, every such key comes with plug-n-pray drivers so you can plug it in and start writing to it.
They could easily include some network code in the driver that sends every document you write on the key to the company that sold the device. Of course, obscure this process: send only during idle periods; encrypt the document; send the files to some anonymous file dump in Malaysia or something that's only known and accessible by the company...
Since these devices are routinely given freely to corporate representatives, this might net a high percentage of corporate documents, some of which might be valuable.
- David Stein
However, in the examples you use the "benefit" is knowledge on (a) how better to fight the phenomenon, or (b) how to fight off similar phenomenon. There is no net benefit to humans in this example, but rather information on how to reduce the likelihood of bad effects from these phenomena. For example, learning how to better fight viruses has no inherent value other than to fight viruses. We'd much prefer that they just go away, then there'd be no use of such information.
Much of the knowledge we've gleaned from the fight against HIV is not related to eliminating retroviruses. We've learned how better to regulate DNA, for any purpose we wish. And we've learned a lot about viral vectors - we can build a virus to add or alter DNA in carefully-controlled ways. Gene therapy may well prove as important to medicine as the development of antibiotics or anesthetic. Ironic that the affliction of HIV on the human race may lead to the cure for cancer.
- David Stein
Why should someone be criticized for taking something good away from a condition that they're fighting? The medical profession has been fighting HIV for two decades - and yet we've learned a ton about viruses in the process. In America's fight against terrorism, we've learned a lot by examining how terrorists target our security processes and filter money. Gleaning valuable information during a struggle against something you perceive as bad is a very valuable skill.
I sincerely wish the RIAA (and the MPAA) would recognize the pointlessness of their struggle against P2P networks. Maybe this is a straw that will help break the back of that sorry business decision. (I'm not holding my breath, of course.)
- David Stein
But IRC channels are pretty ephemeral - IRC channel topics, even more so. Google runs a serious risk of adding a bunch of dead or irrelevant links to their database.
Additionally, what would such a link do? The vast majority of Google visitors do not have an IRC client loaded on their computers - especially not one that plugs into their browser. So most users who get a link to "#slashdot" will click on it and get the standard browser complaint: "Don't know what this is. Do you want to save it, or choose a program to open it?" So even when Google provides a link to a relevant and non-transient IRC channel, most users won't be able to reach it.
- David Stein
Right below the line that says, "Contract with SCO, a newly-acquired subsidiary of Microsoft, Inc."
- David Stein
Sing along with me, everyone:
It's the end of the 'Net as we know it
It's the end of the 'Net as we know it
It's the end of the 'Net as we know it
And I feel fiiiiiiiine....
- David Stein
3000km of fiber is gonna give those deep-sea researchers some awful CounterStrike lag. - David Stein
Crap. Mod parent down, please. Finely-crafted response killed by selecting the wrong text-formatting option. Sometimes, I'm an idiot. Thanks.
- David Stein
You may want to rethink that.
Pop quiz: What's the core functional difference between a phone and a PDA? Answer: One you tap on and write on; the other you jam up against your ear. As a result, each is physically designed with different goals. Phones are getting smaller and more curved to match the contours of your head (e.g., the clamshell design that's arisen in the past five years.) PDA design is centered around maximizing screen size - only the dinkiest PDAs, like Palm M100s, have tiny screens. Larger screens are better for "computer-like" applications - seeing lots of text in Excel, Reader, etc. Indeed, modern screens are still too small for effective web browsing, so expect that trend to continue.
Similarly, look at how each one handles power. My iPaq 5550 PDA, with its bright screen, fast processor, and 802.11/Bluetooth adapters, is a huge power hog - it's always complaining that it wants juice. It's not an issue, though, because when I need to use it, it's only for short periods of time - just long enough to find an email address. My phone, though, must be reliable, since it's a more necessary device - so it serves me better by being more reliable, as a low-power, long-battery-life device. (Unless battery technology works itself out of this rut of stagnant improvement, the only alternative is a higher-capacity battery, which is heavier... and no one wants that.)
So the current type of evolution is divergent, not convergent. That makes sense, because PDAs are becoming less like organizers and more computer-like in computing power and end-user functionality.
Three follow-up points:
1) I'm all for eliminating redundant devices, because it reduces cargo, data sprawl (having your data spread over multiple devices), and batter charging.
(Case in point: If any portable electronics market is on the verge of extinction, it's the MP3 player market - once portable media reaches 20gb capacities, your whole MP3 collection will fit on one (or a few) small card usable in any small device, and a dedicated device for that storage will be pointless.)
2) If you really want to eliminate a device, then instead of a phone that provides portable computing on a tiny, unusable screen, how about a traditional PDA that provides phone functionality over a headset attachment? Unfortunately, PDA manufacturers don't offer this yet, but I suspect (OK, hope) that it's in the pipe.
3) Long-term, this entire debate is moot. In a decade, we probably won't use either device. We'll carry around one relatively dumb device that serves as a communications portal.
Think of it this way. Wireless providers will eventually wise up and realize that people actually do want high-speed Internet connections in portable devices. This will become especially true as Internet telephony/voice-chatting gains ground, because then wireless Internet will be a superset of traditional cellphone service: it does everything cellphones do, and more. No more "phone me at 215-427-8931"; instead, "phone me at joesmith.com".
Anyway, consider what happens when wireless Internet access becomes fast, affordable, widespread, always-on, and reliable. Now, you have the potential to have your PDA connect to your home server at all times. At that point, you've gotta ask: Why do you need a mobile processor? Would you rather use a dinky 50MHz processor on your PDA that burns a bunch of battery power and requires a separate data store - or, just let your home-based 50-gigahertz Pentium-7 send you a broadband video and audio stream?
So your PDA is now just an input/output portal to your home computer, providing access to all the same data as if you were sitting at home. Hell, the uber-powerful 3D video card on your home PC could even render gorgeous graphics and send them to your PDA! (Counterstrike 2012 on your PDA, w00t!) And since the only functions your PDA provides are input and output, you can d
I'm not a huge PDA user, or cell phone user, so a combined solution make sense. You may want to rethink that. Pop quiz: What's the core functional difference between a phone and a PDA? Answer: One you tap on and write on; the other you jam up against your ear. As a result, each is physically designed with different goals. Phones are getting smaller and more curved to match the contours of your head (e.g., the clamshell design that's arisen in the past five years.) PDA design is centered around maximizing screen size - only the dinkiest PDAs, like Palm M100s, have tiny screens. Larger screens are better for "computer-like" applications - seeing lots of text in Excel, Reader, etc. Indeed, modern screens are still too small for effective web browsing, so expect that trend to continue. Similarly, look at how each one handles power. My iPaq 5550 PDA, with its bright screen, fast processor, and 802.11/Bluetooth adapters, is a huge power hog - it's always complaining that it wants juice. It's not an issue, though, because when I need to use it, it's only for short periods of time - just long enough to find an email address. My phone, though, must be reliable, since it's a more necessary device - so it serves me better by being more reliable, as a low-power, long-battery-life device. (Unless battery technology works itself out of this rut of stagnant improvement, the only alternative is a higher-capacity battery, which is heavier... and no one wants that.) So the current type of evolution is divergent, not convergent. That makes sense, because PDAs are becoming less like organizers and more computer-like in computing power and end-user functionality. Three follow-up points: 1) I'm all for eliminating redundant devices, because it reduces cargo, data sprawl (having your data spread over multiple devices), and batter charging. (Case in point: If any portable electronics market is on the verge of extinction, it's the MP3 player market - once portable media reaches 20gb capacities, your whole MP3 collection will fit on one (or a few) small card usable in any small device, and a dedicated device for that storage will be pointless.) 2) If you really want to eliminate a device, then instead of a phone that provides portable computing on a tiny, unusable screen, how about a traditional PDA that provides phone functionality over a headset attachment? Unfortunately, PDA manufacturers don't offer this yet, but I suspect (OK, hope) that it's in the pipe. 3) Long-term, this entire debate is moot. In a decade, we probably won't use either device. We'll probably carry around one relatively dumb device that serves as a communications portal. Think of it this way. Wireless providers will eventually wise up and realize that people actually do want high-speed Internet connections in portable devices. This will become especially true as Internet telephony/voice-chatting gains ground, because then wireless Internet will be a superset of traditional cellphone service: it does everything cellphones do, and more. No more "phone me at 215-427-8931"; instead, "phone me at joesmith.com". Anyway, consider what happens when wireless Internet becomes fast, affordable, widespread, always-on, and reliable. Now, you have the potential to have your PDA connect to your home server at all times. At that point, you've gotta ask: Why do you need a mobile processor? Would you rather use a dinky 50MHz processor on your PDA that burns a bunch of battery power and requires a separate data store? Or would you rather just let your home-based 50-gigahertz Pentium-7 send you a broadband video and audio stream? So your PDA is now just an input/output portal to your home computer, providing access to all the same data as if you were sitting at home. Hell, the uber-powerful 3D video card on your home PC could even render gorgeous graphics and send them to your PDA! (Counterstrike 2012 on your PDA, w00t!) And since the only functions your PDA provides are input and output, you can ditch the
Actually the OS interacts with the programs; the programs interact then with people. People never interact with the OS.
From a CS perspective, you're correct - the OS is designed to manage resources and send program requests down to the microkernel/ISA level.
But from the contemporary perspective, the OS is a much richer bundle. Technically, using the Start Menu, manipulating files and folders on your desktop, and navigating folders in Explorer = interactions with a "program"; so are printer daemons/print queues, network interfaces, and the Control Panel. Even cutting-and-pasting is technically interacting with the clipboard "program". But these programs are so tightly bound to the OS that it's difficult to imagine a workable modern OS without them. Ask any user on the street, even sophisticated ones, what "program" they're using in these cases, and they'll all say "Windows" (or OS/X, or whatever OS they're running.)
If by "popular" you mean prolific, as does the author, then sure, ITRON and other embedded OS's are clear winners. But if by "popular" you mean user-recognizable - even software to which users may have developed an affinity - then I think Windows is still the OS of choice worldwide.
(Note: I'm clearly not a Microsoft shill - a search on my username will reveal posts/responses uniformly bashing Microsoft for a dozen justified reasons.)
- David Stein
You're right, and that's the fatal flaw with the posted article.
When people interact with a computer, they're interacting with the OS. In fact, it's the single most distinguishing feature to most users.
When people interact with a microwave or iPod, they're interacting with the device. They don't care about its software; they just wanna nuke their burrito and play Britney Spears. They don't much care about the embedded software - if you swapped out the OS and added another, they'd might notice that something was different, but it would end there.
- David Stein
It's real simple my friend...don't answer the phone when it rings. Even better, let your answering machine answer it for you.
Would you really want the onus of filtering out unwanted messages sent into private spaces to be on the listener, rather than the speaker?
That's like arguing that if someone drives down your residential street shouting advertisements over a bullhorn, it's your responsibility to soundproof your house.
Fortunately for all of us, free speech doesn't work that way.
- David Stein
Dr. Todd A. Kuiken and the Doctors of the Rehabilitation Institue of Chicago have successfully used the nerve endings from an amputee's lost arm to drive a bionic replacement.
The patient, who for privacy reasons only provided his first name of Anakin...
- David Stein
Umm, there _is_ no debate. People should not be allowed to download music for listening purposes.
Congratulations. You've adopted the (overreaching, oversimplified) black-and-white view espoused by content owners worldwide. The RIAA welcomes you.
You're also legally incorrect, by the way. Yes, legally, that statement is false. Look up "fair use" in Black's Law Dictionary for a list of uses of copyrighted content that are completely legal, even if the copyright owner doesn't like it and doesn't make any money from it.
- David Stein
Ah... how I wish consumers acted as rationally as this.
Do you know what consumers see? They see "Britney Spears CD, $12" and they buy it. They see nothing of the underlying struggle of fair-use rights vs. corporate gluttony, of technology vs. copyright. They will eagerly support a monopoly without care if it keeps feeding them their boy-band fix. Their collective attention span is pitifully short and easily distracted. Just try getting the masses to boycott. The public, in short, is all talk.
Your mother doesn't want to know what copyright is all about; she just wants that new Yanni CD. Your little brother doesn't care that he's feeding a monopoly by buying that 50 Cent CD, and your sister doesn't give a damn that buying the new Justin Timberlake disc is feeding the RIAA's legal-enforcement hit squad. They don't care. They just want their music.
We understand the issues in this struggle, but we are a small minority. You must come to grips with this regrettable fact.
That is why Star Wars is still not on DVD, despite our petition. And that is why the RIAAs don't see the world as we do, and act as we think would be in their best interests. Indeed, if they stopped selling CDs tomorrow and shifted to an online-downloading-per-subscription scheme - even one that's eminently fair and consumer-friendly - you know what the biggest public statement would be? "I don't want to use that Internet thing for music! Where are my CDs?"
(Amazingly, even economists are now coming to grips with the fact that they've overestimated consumer rationalism. The models that they built on such assumptions don't seem to reflect reality... and the hot new trend in economics research is consumer irrationalism. This is not a troll comment - it's an observation by my stepfather, who is a macroeconomist at a local university. This, by the way is good news: I'm hoping that it's the start of a revolution in economic thinking - that consumers can't protect themselves from market consolidation and monopoly abuse... which is why America now has. like, two competitors in every profitable market.)
- David Stein
Yeah, but you'll never win that battle. I mean, they only make MP3 players with, what, 60gb max? :)
- David Stein
They're trying to scare us.
That's probably not their goal - well, not their primary goal. Consider this:
I'm increasingly annoyed about the amount of attention that this whole issue is garnering. Notice how little (OK, none) of the public debate is substantive: whether people should be allowed to download music for listening purposes; whether the interests of media providers outweigh the privacy interests of citizens; whether it's fair to allow the RIAA to charge people $15,000 - or even imprison them, or destroy their computers - in defense of fifty-year-old music tracks. It's just assumed that the RIAA has the right to lash out in order to protect its license to Johnny B. Goode.
Even incidents like this are to the RIAA's benefit, because it keeps the issue in the public consciousness. The longer it stays there, the stronger the public presumption that they're fundamentally in their rights, that it's OK for the RIAA to take drastic measures. Hell, just look at the typical responses: "What she did was illegal, but..."
- David Stein
Disgusting. Totally and completely disgusting.
It would be one thing if the RIAA were to settle, such that $2,000 were donated to a charity. Even that would be a pretty low blow. But actually adding the cash from this girl and her mother to their corporate coffers?
Repeat after me, everyone: I will never buy another CD from the RIAA again. (Since I normally buy about 50 a year, this should even the score on this despicable incident by 2008.)
David Stein, Esq.
Once-invulnerable Microsoft has now had to settle a number of actions such as this.
Yeah, but here's the problem: a one-time fee penalty can't really remedy never really compensate for the permanent elimination of a market competitor. By eliminating Netscape, Microsoft secured a permanent (and quite effective) internet browser monopoly.
Look at it a different way: Microsoft can continue to own that market and cannot get sued over this incident again. So instead of thinking about the fee as a legal penalty, you can think of it as Microsoft buying a (very expensive) license to monopolize the market. It works out the same way.
Eventually, the legal system will have to come to grips with the fact that its current M.O. of penalizing corporations isn't deterring anyone. They smile, pay it, and move on to bigger and better market exploits.
What they really didn't want was a full-dress jury trial where all of what Microsoft did to them would have been fleshed out for all to see.
Eh? Why would they care? They've had several incidents of antitrust very publicly resolved against them. (Netscape; Lotus 1-2-3; that DoubleSpace case... and a hundred small cases of patent theft or breaches of contracts with small companies that were decimated in the struggle.) The public knows they're monopolists - it's been a consistent business method for much of their existence. What's one more suit?
Nah, the real reason is that it's just the cheapest way of resolving this claim. They have no hope of winning or swaying public opinion; they don't even care any more. Just cut bait at bottom dollar and move on.
- David Stein