The "problem" is that there is a particular trend at this moment, and Pixel Qi does not fit in that trend. The trend being ultra high DPI, colorful, high-contrast displays. You've got devices like the iPhone and iPad sporting "retina" displays, which being something Apple has touted, is very much in the mind of consumers. Then you've got devices like Samsung's Android phones, with gorgeous colors and insane contrast ratios due to OLED technology. What stole the show at CES? Samsung's ultra thin, bezel-less OLED TVs. Consumers are interested in HD and picture quality, because that is what the industry has brought to everyone's attention (and rightfully so - I'm glad people are taking a little more notice over quality these days. I remember the days when most people couldn't be bothered to adjust the color / hue settings on their tube TVs to something even close to reality.)
Pixel Qi display technology offers more flexibility and versatility, but it is a step backwards in clarity, refresh rate, contrast ratios, etc. So OEMs are probably afraid to include technology that looks substandard under typical day-to-day use, although it is far more useful under other conditions like direct sunlight.
I think one of three things will have to happen for Pixel Qi to find more widespread usage. 1) Increase their visual quality of their display under non-reflective mode to be in the ballpark of your typical modern LCD panels. 2) Wait until the hype dies down over retina displays, OLED, etc, which may take a year or two. 3) Make inroads into non-consumer devices, such as military equipment, industries like the telephone company where field techs use ruggedized laptops and other instruments with displays that need to be viewable under direct sunlight, displays in cars, wristwatches, etc.
Everything is migrating towards mobile devices, or at a minimum, some degree of accessibility from mobile devices. Longer, more complex passwords are even less conducive for use / convenience on mobile devices than computers with full keyboards. So I believe people are going to trend in the exact opposite direction - shorter passwords because they are easier to enter on mobile devices.
And what happens if your biometric signature is discovered? Obviously not from the biological side, but the digital side. After all, it's just a number. Of course it would require a more technical exploit at the software level to utilize, but the big downside is you can't change that signature like you can a password (you've only got so many finger prints, or retinas, or whatever).
Right. Now, how did we manage to get the satellite to point it's solar panels away from the sun?
I thought the theory as to why the spacecraft is in a stable, albeit backwards, orientation was simple: there are enough air molecules in that orbit to apply pressure to the large solar panels, which causes drag and thus rotates the craft so the panels are towards the back. Just like a shuttlecock in badminton.
Drones are controlled from reasonably close by, and I would suspect they're fairly autonomous during flight.
That's not correct. While there are some types of small autonomous aircraft used directly by troops, most of the drones are piloted from locations in the continental US, like Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
These remotely controlled planes can hover in the air 24 hours at a time, collecting intelligence or carrying out a strike in Afghanistan.
But the pilots are thousands of miles away, sitting in front of a bank of computer screens. And that distance, which is the strength of the program, has also created unique challenges.
According to the stats, 3G Modems account for 26 times more data usage than the baseline (iPhone 3G), and nearly 10 times more data usage than the next biggest consumer device (iPhone 4S for downlink). "3G Modems" don't count as phones, at least not in my book. That would either be tethering, running a phone as a wifi hotspot, or a dedicated hotspot device.
So these are probably people that don't have broadband service and use 3G for the home connectivity, or people that constantly travel. My uncle just set something up like this a couple weeks ago - they have no other options for broadband at their home, and even had to use a DSS dish as a signal reflector to be able to get 3G service because they are so remote (the dish was my idea, seemed to work good).
The article doesn't make much sense. It talks about "frictionless photo sharing" and how Kodak has totally missed it in that area, and how camera phones can share photographs via Facebook seamlessly with little effort. But then it shows Flickr stats asserting that Kodak isn't actually competing against camera phones, but other dedicated camera makers like Canon, Nikon, etc. So in what way is Canon and Nikon integrating with FB, or otherwise "getting it", where Kodak isn't? I've owned a couple modern Canon cameras, and they just throw pics onto an SD card like Kodak does, so Canon's success has nothing to do with beating Kodak in the way the article claims Kodak has failed. That's the real question - why did Canon and Nikon trounce Kodak when it comes to digital cameras?
Simply put, the article is talking about two different things, and doesn't correlate the cause and affect between them at all.
Most newspaper puzzles have around 25 clues, with the difficulty of the puzzle decreasing as more clues are given.
That's not necessarily true. The difficulty is really determined by the algorithms required to solve the puzzle. For example, X-Wing, Swordfish, chaining, etc, are all advanced techniques. Those are really only used when they have to be - no simpler methods remain to identify a correct play. It can become very tedious poring over the pencil marks trying to identify which algorithms can be exploited, and therein lies the difficulty. Even if a puzzle has a lot of clues, if the gameplay hinges on the use of a single advanced algorithm along the way then the puzzle would be advanced.
Personally, I like to play at easier levels for pure speed, with a good time being well under 60 seconds.
Good! I have a thing for legislation with pronounceable acronyms. In fact, that's really the only important part. I'm sure many legislators would agree.
Just a casual look at the picture of the bike makes me really wonder about the chain and sprockets on the back. They are totally exposed, and very low to the ground. Seems like they would be damaged on a chunk of ice pretty quickly.
Yeah, because the country is so locked down you can't just hop in a car and pretty much drive wherever you want. Or charter a plane if you want some aerial views. It's much easier just to throw a little money at someone and have them collect information here in the US.
This would also allow the US to monitor uplink communications to the satellite as it crosses over China, which would otherwise be impossible (especially if the Chinese are using very directional ground-based equipment). Note that the satellites only cross paths every so often. It's not like they are sitting side by side in orbit or something.
Microsoft was in the phone business before Apple, albeit only from the software side. Microsoft missed some huge, huge opportunities in that arena. If only they could've ditched the stylus-centric GUI design (ie itty bitty tiny controls and no gestures) they could've held at least some ground with Windows Mobile.
The problem is that the carrier's business model is to sell you a new phone every six months.
Why in the world would they do that? The carrier's primary goal is to get customers is to commit to the most expensive 2 year contract possible. The insane overage rates are really just to prod customers into upgrading to more expensive contracts is all. Smartphones require the most expensive contracts because they consume voice minutes, SMS texts and data more than any other type of phone. Thus carriers subsidize the phones to give customers the equipment to consume those resources. The ideal customer is one with a modern enough smartphone to require an expensive contract, who that keeps that same smartphone as long as possible.
Does your monthly rate decrease after your contract is up? Does it decrease if you buy your own phone straight out? Of course not. Yet the carrier makes even more money off of you because you're still paying a monthly rate that factors in the subsidization cost of the phone.
So to sum it up, there are only two reasons a carrier wants to put new cell phones in their customers' hands. To upgrade customers with regular or premium phones to smartphones that require a more expensive contract, and to keep the more demanding customers from switching to other carriers because they offer more cutting edge hardware.
...and they're getting so much press in the news for doing so that the net result is much more promotion than Chrome would have seen otherwise. GENIUS!
December average of 46.5 percent, a new low for the aged OS
Um, every day since XP peaked in 2006 has been "a new low". Why would market share of XP do anything but decrease? And if you want to get pedantic, there would have been a time period immediately after XP hit the market that it would have been under 46.5 percent until it reached dominance. Sorry, that statement just struck me as silly.
But what amount of integration would the linux libraries have with the Android layer itself (pre-NDK)? Could they even access OpenGL ES? If not then that what could be implemented would be quite limited. In my case, I would have been able to use it for the physics engine and scripting host, which are two of the bigger CPU consuming libraries in my app. However, it still would have been a compromise in several ways.
Android was also similar in this regard - developers could only use Java for development at first until the NDK was created, which allows C/C++ development of native binaries for maximum performance. Really, the platform would have been crippled without it from a gaming / multimedia perspective.
Microsoft is still too dense to make this realization with Windows Phone. They still only allow C#, which although performance issues due to lake of native support probably isn't the extreme issue it was with webOS or even Android, it still is a massive barrier to code portability and getting developers to support the platform with their existing iOS and Android products.
Our local cinema (and it's a newer less than 10 years old, 8 screens, all digital, new release flicks) shows movies around 11 AM on Tuesday and Thursday during the summer time TOTALLY FREE. They are all kids movies that were released within the last year or two. The place is packed out, and they often have to add showings on other screens to handle the overflow. Daycares bring all their kids, and I see school buses from districts 45 minutes away. Of course parents bring kids (and their friends, etc) too. The kids are usually well behaved, especially considering how many kids are in one theater. So the only money the theater makes is off of concessions. They've been doing this for several years in a row now, so it must pay off.
This entails a lot more than just technical aspects:
Managing national and international travel for Prof. Hawking and his care team. Expect to spend around 3 months per year abroad!
Preparation of lecture graphics and public speaking
Dealing with the media and press
Answering inquiries from the public and maintaining the website
Sounds like a lot of direct PR stuff is involved, including scheduling and logistics, and even graphics design, which are probably not skills the typical techie would be strong in. Also, the pay sounds kind of low considering it's a whole lot more than just maintaining his technology.
Yeah, we're fired up too! We sent our totally unmodified, stock game exactly as distributed in Google Marketplace, to Amazon for approval, and it went right through in about a week! Amazing!
On a serious note, the main issue developers would have supporting the Kindle Fire is the lack of the Back and Menu buttons. However, our game was originally developed for iOS, thus we already had that functionality onscreen (the hardware buttons are essentially redundant).
Considering the legos required to build this model cost $2,600, I doubt Lego would be selling too many of these sets. This also gives a good idea of just how overpriced these little chunks of plastic are.
Slashdot Mirror
The "problem" is that there is a particular trend at this moment, and Pixel Qi does not fit in that trend. The trend being ultra high DPI, colorful, high-contrast displays. You've got devices like the iPhone and iPad sporting "retina" displays, which being something Apple has touted, is very much in the mind of consumers. Then you've got devices like Samsung's Android phones, with gorgeous colors and insane contrast ratios due to OLED technology. What stole the show at CES? Samsung's ultra thin, bezel-less OLED TVs. Consumers are interested in HD and picture quality, because that is what the industry has brought to everyone's attention (and rightfully so - I'm glad people are taking a little more notice over quality these days. I remember the days when most people couldn't be bothered to adjust the color / hue settings on their tube TVs to something even close to reality.)
Pixel Qi display technology offers more flexibility and versatility, but it is a step backwards in clarity, refresh rate, contrast ratios, etc. So OEMs are probably afraid to include technology that looks substandard under typical day-to-day use, although it is far more useful under other conditions like direct sunlight.
I think one of three things will have to happen for Pixel Qi to find more widespread usage. 1) Increase their visual quality of their display under non-reflective mode to be in the ballpark of your typical modern LCD panels. 2) Wait until the hype dies down over retina displays, OLED, etc, which may take a year or two. 3) Make inroads into non-consumer devices, such as military equipment, industries like the telephone company where field techs use ruggedized laptops and other instruments with displays that need to be viewable under direct sunlight, displays in cars, wristwatches, etc.
That all describes me, except for the "spectacularly" verbiage.
How about something more contemporary? This is how Afghans treat fellow Afghans corpses that are Taliban. Warning, EXTREMELY graphic.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4cd_1326415154
Everything is migrating towards mobile devices, or at a minimum, some degree of accessibility from mobile devices. Longer, more complex passwords are even less conducive for use / convenience on mobile devices than computers with full keyboards. So I believe people are going to trend in the exact opposite direction - shorter passwords because they are easier to enter on mobile devices.
And what happens if your biometric signature is discovered? Obviously not from the biological side, but the digital side. After all, it's just a number. Of course it would require a more technical exploit at the software level to utilize, but the big downside is you can't change that signature like you can a password (you've only got so many finger prints, or retinas, or whatever).
Right. Now, how did we manage to get the satellite to point it's solar panels away from the sun?
I thought the theory as to why the spacecraft is in a stable, albeit backwards, orientation was simple: there are enough air molecules in that orbit to apply pressure to the large solar panels, which causes drag and thus rotates the craft so the panels are towards the back. Just like a shuttlecock in badminton.
I only like slideshows if they feature random PowerPoint transitions (with sound effects).
Drones are controlled from reasonably close by, and I would suspect they're fairly autonomous during flight.
That's not correct. While there are some types of small autonomous aircraft used directly by troops, most of the drones are piloted from locations in the continental US, like Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
These remotely controlled planes can hover in the air 24 hours at a time, collecting intelligence or carrying out a strike in Afghanistan.
But the pilots are thousands of miles away, sitting in front of a bank of computer screens. And that distance, which is the strength of the program, has also created unique challenges.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142858358/drone-pilots-the-future-of-aerial-warfare
According to the stats, 3G Modems account for 26 times more data usage than the baseline (iPhone 3G), and nearly 10 times more data usage than the next biggest consumer device (iPhone 4S for downlink). "3G Modems" don't count as phones, at least not in my book. That would either be tethering, running a phone as a wifi hotspot, or a dedicated hotspot device.
So these are probably people that don't have broadband service and use 3G for the home connectivity, or people that constantly travel. My uncle just set something up like this a couple weeks ago - they have no other options for broadband at their home, and even had to use a DSS dish as a signal reflector to be able to get 3G service because they are so remote (the dish was my idea, seemed to work good).
The article doesn't make much sense. It talks about "frictionless photo sharing" and how Kodak has totally missed it in that area, and how camera phones can share photographs via Facebook seamlessly with little effort. But then it shows Flickr stats asserting that Kodak isn't actually competing against camera phones, but other dedicated camera makers like Canon, Nikon, etc. So in what way is Canon and Nikon integrating with FB, or otherwise "getting it", where Kodak isn't? I've owned a couple modern Canon cameras, and they just throw pics onto an SD card like Kodak does, so Canon's success has nothing to do with beating Kodak in the way the article claims Kodak has failed. That's the real question - why did Canon and Nikon trounce Kodak when it comes to digital cameras?
Simply put, the article is talking about two different things, and doesn't correlate the cause and affect between them at all.
Most newspaper puzzles have around 25 clues, with the difficulty of the puzzle decreasing as more clues are given.
That's not necessarily true. The difficulty is really determined by the algorithms required to solve the puzzle. For example, X-Wing, Swordfish, chaining, etc, are all advanced techniques. Those are really only used when they have to be - no simpler methods remain to identify a correct play. It can become very tedious poring over the pencil marks trying to identify which algorithms can be exploited, and therein lies the difficulty. Even if a puzzle has a lot of clues, if the gameplay hinges on the use of a single advanced algorithm along the way then the puzzle would be advanced.
Personally, I like to play at easier levels for pure speed, with a good time being well under 60 seconds.
Good! I have a thing for legislation with pronounceable acronyms. In fact, that's really the only important part. I'm sure many legislators would agree.
Just a casual look at the picture of the bike makes me really wonder about the chain and sprockets on the back. They are totally exposed, and very low to the ground. Seems like they would be damaged on a chunk of ice pretty quickly.
Yeah, because the country is so locked down you can't just hop in a car and pretty much drive wherever you want. Or charter a plane if you want some aerial views. It's much easier just to throw a little money at someone and have them collect information here in the US.
This would also allow the US to monitor uplink communications to the satellite as it crosses over China, which would otherwise be impossible (especially if the Chinese are using very directional ground-based equipment). Note that the satellites only cross paths every so often. It's not like they are sitting side by side in orbit or something.
Microsoft was in the phone business before Apple, albeit only from the software side. Microsoft missed some huge, huge opportunities in that arena. If only they could've ditched the stylus-centric GUI design (ie itty bitty tiny controls and no gestures) they could've held at least some ground with Windows Mobile.
The problem is that the carrier's business model is to sell you a new phone every six months.
Why in the world would they do that? The carrier's primary goal is to get customers is to commit to the most expensive 2 year contract possible. The insane overage rates are really just to prod customers into upgrading to more expensive contracts is all. Smartphones require the most expensive contracts because they consume voice minutes, SMS texts and data more than any other type of phone. Thus carriers subsidize the phones to give customers the equipment to consume those resources. The ideal customer is one with a modern enough smartphone to require an expensive contract, who that keeps that same smartphone as long as possible.
Does your monthly rate decrease after your contract is up? Does it decrease if you buy your own phone straight out? Of course not. Yet the carrier makes even more money off of you because you're still paying a monthly rate that factors in the subsidization cost of the phone.
So to sum it up, there are only two reasons a carrier wants to put new cell phones in their customers' hands. To upgrade customers with regular or premium phones to smartphones that require a more expensive contract, and to keep the more demanding customers from switching to other carriers because they offer more cutting edge hardware.
...and they're getting so much press in the news for doing so that the net result is much more promotion than Chrome would have seen otherwise. GENIUS!
December average of 46.5 percent, a new low for the aged OS
Um, every day since XP peaked in 2006 has been "a new low". Why would market share of XP do anything but decrease? And if you want to get pedantic, there would have been a time period immediately after XP hit the market that it would have been under 46.5 percent until it reached dominance. Sorry, that statement just struck me as silly.
But what amount of integration would the linux libraries have with the Android layer itself (pre-NDK)? Could they even access OpenGL ES? If not then that what could be implemented would be quite limited. In my case, I would have been able to use it for the physics engine and scripting host, which are two of the bigger CPU consuming libraries in my app. However, it still would have been a compromise in several ways.
Android was also similar in this regard - developers could only use Java for development at first until the NDK was created, which allows C/C++ development of native binaries for maximum performance. Really, the platform would have been crippled without it from a gaming / multimedia perspective.
Microsoft is still too dense to make this realization with Windows Phone. They still only allow C#, which although performance issues due to lake of native support probably isn't the extreme issue it was with webOS or even Android, it still is a massive barrier to code portability and getting developers to support the platform with their existing iOS and Android products.
Our local cinema (and it's a newer less than 10 years old, 8 screens, all digital, new release flicks) shows movies around 11 AM on Tuesday and Thursday during the summer time TOTALLY FREE. They are all kids movies that were released within the last year or two. The place is packed out, and they often have to add showings on other screens to handle the overflow. Daycares bring all their kids, and I see school buses from districts 45 minutes away. Of course parents bring kids (and their friends, etc) too. The kids are usually well behaved, especially considering how many kids are in one theater. So the only money the theater makes is off of concessions. They've been doing this for several years in a row now, so it must pay off.
This entails a lot more than just technical aspects:
Sounds like a lot of direct PR stuff is involved, including scheduling and logistics, and even graphics design, which are probably not skills the typical techie would be strong in. Also, the pay sounds kind of low considering it's a whole lot more than just maintaining his technology.
Yeah, we're fired up too! We sent our totally unmodified, stock game exactly as distributed in Google Marketplace, to Amazon for approval, and it went right through in about a week! Amazing!
On a serious note, the main issue developers would have supporting the Kindle Fire is the lack of the Back and Menu buttons. However, our game was originally developed for iOS, thus we already had that functionality onscreen (the hardware buttons are essentially redundant).
Considering the legos required to build this model cost $2,600, I doubt Lego would be selling too many of these sets. This also gives a good idea of just how overpriced these little chunks of plastic are.