Two reasons will exist for people to migrate to the new kernel:
new hardware support
better performance
I will let others fight over the hardware support. We have seen a lot of memory manager changes, some changes to the IDE code (although a lot was reversed), and, if I'm not mistaken, some zero-copy improvements on the network layer. It's time we found out if there were actual improvements.
Get code that works against, say, 2.4.18 (Mandrake 8.0 and RH7.x if memory serves) and against each of the new kernels. Assuming no major kernel changes go out this time, we just get testers to run the benchmark suite against their current configuration and then against their new configuration until we get the new kernels working positively.
Then the benchmark program(s) dump all relevant data to an XML file and we build a little database whereby people submit their performance statistics. Of course, the XML would need signed to prevent tampering.
Then, all the news junkies can climb over the performance improvements made in the new kernel and we can have issues like which came up in the early 2.4.x series avoided.
After discovering the keyboard decoder was shot on a 486 MB, on-site, I got the following message on reboot:
Keyboard error, press F1 to continue.
Lucky for me I happened to have a MB with me with a only-slightly older revision number on the decoder, which just happened to be the one chip on the board I could replace.
If we got around to having to produce the weapon for yearly licenses, then the casing could be rescanned (to allow for barrel changes with age). Weapons which are initially registered are considered legit. Weapons which fail to get recertified are considered to be in the hands of criminals. Trace back to the original owner. How many weapons are they going to "lose" before somebody figures out they are a runner. As always, keep the cost of doing business very high for the criminals. e.g. everyone who buys guns can lose at most 2 before an investigation is initiated.
If you embedded an RF tag into each registered gun, and then imaged a fired casing, connecting both in a database with the gun buyer (not necessarily owner), I think we could get past the gun-rights issue.
We have the same problem on the net. You cannot prevent people from committing the crime, you just need to make it so there is no doubt as to the origin of the crime tools. Traceability goes a long way toward preventing crime. Traceability would prevent college-based gun buyers.
Of course, if you re-bore your barrel, that might sidestep the issue. How difficult is that maneuver and does it ruin the usefullness/acuracy of the gun?
Has it occurred to anyone that profits from used book sales, like used music sales, don't pay any royalties to the author/artist. Since all sales of ideas should pay royalties to the originator, the Internet is digging into the profit margins of retail book sales. Looks like another part of the Internet shall now be banned.
Anyone who works anywhere near classified
material knows that the government requires
all files being downgraded (e.g. SECRET to
UNCLASSIFIED) must be two-person checked to
ensure no classified information is inadvertantly
left it.
With text, this is easy. CSV files easy.
PPT? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
DOC? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
XLS? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
MDB? Same as Oracle DBF, but you knew there
were going to be old rows still hanging around.
MBX? No way. mbox could be scrubbed, but not
Outlook files.
"Why?" you ask. Because history has shown
deleted sections still remain around even after
being deleted. This includes previous, unseen,
last known images from an old, deleted OLE link to
that spreadsheet chart. You just cannot trust it.
Opening up the file format would finally allow
the government to build programs which truly scour
a PPT file (for example) and allow EVERYTHING to
be two-person checked.
Now is a good time to be thankful that GNUCash was developed using the GTK and GNOME. If Qt/KDE had been used, the project would probably have been called Kwiken and Intuit's lawyers, unbeknownst to Intuit, would be sending a bill for lawyers fees to the developers as we speak.
P.S. Re: the hub-bub about 60+ add-on libraries: add-on libraries could be statically linked in or included in the GNUCash source tree for everything except the service providers (ie CORBA service providers). Example: many image tools include a release of libjpeg and libtiff which are then statically compiled into the executable.
P.S. Excessive use of things like CORBA provide multiple entry points for snooping points by malicious outsiders.
This is a lot like Braille, and yet very few Braille printers are being made these days. And Braille use is on the decline. Everyone who is blind knows that voice synthesizers are on the rise. With e-books becoming more popular, no one will be able to afford the battery power to drive solenoids for braille, or worse these image drawing pins. e-books feed the voice synthesizer module for the blind and they can have equal access to texts. Everyone fill out your ALT tags properly please!
Since you are building the wireframes yourself,
I will work off the following assumptions:
My example will be a wireframe of a sphere, with North pointing in the positive up (Y) direction.
You are storing points along the lines which, when drawn, form a latitude ring (NtoS).
Then, after bisecting the sphere into horizontal slices, you draw longitudinal rings (EtoW).
You already know how to do the world-space to viewport transformation of all your data points. (ie orthoganal correction, etc)
I assume this since that's probably how you get the lines to connect in a meaningful format.
To solve the problem, we will borrow some of the techniques from OpenGL without having to use OpenGL.
Take latitude rings and the longitude rings and associate them into vertices on a square (however NURBed the square may be). In other words, other than have the same point in a latitude ring and a longitude ring, bring the point together, remembering which latitude and longitude rings the point belongs to (so we can draw our lines later).
Each vertex in your object should contain data in a format similar to the following C structure:
struct lat_ring {... };
struct lon_ring {... };
struct vertices {
double x; double y;/* in world space */
lon_ring *lonr;/*pointer to the ring*/
lat_ring *latr;/*pointer to the ring*/
};
Now that you have an array of "vertices", The vertices need associated together to form (your choice) either triangles or rectangles. Hint: triangles are the best and will only be used for computing a normal.
Two approaches can be taken.
One is geared for print, the other is geared for additional rendering techniques. You can either draw the picture from front to back (by drawing the squares at the greatest depth) and do a Z-buffer like technique whereby each square drawn is drawn in two parts: one is a white, filled square which overwrites any previous lines, and the other is the drawing of the outline of the square. I say this only works for print because you assume the page background is white, which it usually is.
Order the vertices in each square/triangle in a consistent fashion such that a normal can be computed. Normals, which are a three-dimensional vector, can be associated with your viewpoint. Normals which point away from the user can either be culled out or drawn in a faded fashion (e.g. a light grey box). If you have a closed object, then you can cull vertices. Otherwise, consider fading out the outline. In either case, the rectangles must still be drawn in depth order, with the farthest away being drawn first.
These techniques, while hinted at by others and only briefly outlined by me all take a lot of work for something so small. If you don't have the time, I hope you have the money. If you have neither, I hope you like your bitmaps.
One little beast which may rear it's ugly head on you is the case of intersecting polygons. In short, the only way to handle this in the vector sense is to bisect the two polygons into extra pieces (usually four, but sometimes three, when rendering with triangles or rectangles). This sounds easy in concept until you realize that every polygon has to be tested against every other polygon for intersection. The check, however simplified is complex and computationally expensive. Try and find a way to avoid having bisected polygons and you can ignore this problem.
Hope this helps. Also, recommend you check out the Computer Graphics Gems book series.
Even as a beginning Oracle DBA, I find myself drawing towards some extremely high hurdles. Some of these have been accomplished with free databases, but Oracle has been given the rough task of making their engine adapt to MANY customer demands.
Examples:
Hot backups (tablespace to read-only while the OS backs up the file on the filesystem. Change log kept the whole time to reapply after mode=RW).
Tuning to the N-th degree. From tablespace use of extents to giving "hints" to the SQL parser. This can also be a disadvantage as some simple tasks under PostgreSQL require advanced knowledge under Oracle.
PL/SQL as a good grammar programming language SUCKS! While I would prefer a cleaner, yet as simple language, they provide C and Java as replacement code during packages or trigger code, so I can't whine too much.
As far as applications go, the Oracle RDBMS is probably the most complex, multi-platform piece of software over written.
Tie-in to tape farm managers (RMAN, which is impossible to understand, but does in fact work).
Very detailed documentation. So detailed, they start to put the DEC manuals to shame. Man pages would be proud.
Database to database connectivity. This is in several forms, each of which is a different problem:
Hot-Standby databases
Load-sharing databases
Backup database (with live data)
Subset databases (one site with a partial list of what is at the master site)
Distributed databases (parts of a single table are stored and queried across the network)
Distributed mostly-disconnected databases (travelling salesman needs to periodically check in sales and to download new corporate data).
Now, do I need one RDBMS that does all that? No. I'm sure one of several DBs could be hacked into doing one of the above specific jobs just fine. As others have said, if you only have one job to do, pick the best tool for the job and hopefully it won't be Oracle (for the cost).
If, as any large IT shop with a diversity of database scenarios will tell you, it's hard to beat Oracle. One DBA, with a fixed background, can administrate the whole deal. Hardware outdated? As long as you don't need a recent version of Oracle, you can get it to work.
BTW, if any Oracle geeks know how to do a COMPLETELY distributed disconnected database, let me know. I have a scenario with a mandatory air gap - no "periodic refresh" as with the travelling salesman. I can sneaker-net ASCII files, but that's it. Thanks.
What about Sun's non-disclosure on all support contracts? Anybody hearing about the large memory problems the Enterprise 10000s are having? Every time a customer has a problem with their hardware, they are not permitted to discuss the problem with outside individuals. Therefore, it has taken a lot of leaks to put together a piece that says Sun has a hardware problem and won't face up to it.
Intel could have gone the same way with RAMBUS (and might have even done so for a while) but they don't control all their customers the way Sun does.
What I'm getting at is this: some hardware has this nasty list non-disclosure wrapped around sharing bugs/exploits, so what is to stop industries like Oracle, Windows SERVERS, MS Certified Network Administrators and the like from being allowed to disclose system problems.
It wouldn't make reporting bugs illegal, but so much of the industry would have voluntarily signed the NDAs that no-one will report on anything but open-source software.
Have you considered picking up a copy of NASA Tech Briefs and look through their ads? Every time I pick one up, there are ads for sensors, many of which are remote transmitting, USB connecting, fibre connection, self contained for dumping the data at a later time, and many other ingenious ways.
In fact, there is a package called LabView which is extensible and many data collectors provide modules to LabView with their sensors. LabView is predominantly a Windows product, but don't let some folk's bias get in the way of work. [Note: I'm not a Windows fan, but will use it when required or if it's the right tool for the job, which it is for things like data collection.]
I cannot attest to cost, but merely to the fact that advertising in TechBriefs has even stuck with someone who has no interest in scientific data collection, like myself.
Cheers.
-----
Want intelligence? Go to Stratfor.com. If it's in the news, it's too late.
One of the big moments for mature software projects is the issue of keeping the software cross-platform. Can you tell us a story about your struggles with keeping NEdit cross-platform? As a starter question: Is there a lessons-learned document around that gives good tips to avoid cross-platform issues, or have you ever though about making one?
Now that you've successfully created a wonderful, stable editor, how many of the following software
engineering techniques were used on the project, or would have been helpful?
Clear, concise statement of work (since NEdit was developed with U.S. Govt funding)
A Requirements Management process (measurable details about end-user goals)
Requirements Traceability Matrix (did all the planned stuff get implimented?)
Design Documents (GUIs plus interactions with black-box libraries or external packages)
Work Breakdown/Size Estimates (what are the pieces of the design that need attacked, what skills are required for each, who is attacking each piece)
Project Tracking (some automated way of allowing outsiders to see how it's going)
Colleges are teaching this. Companies who want government contracts are starting to do this kind of stuff. Would these software engineering techniques help OpenSource biggies stay on track and on time even though there is no financial interest to do so? The upcoming <cough>Linuxkernel<cough> comes to mind.
The pessimist in me sees this pathetic article as something that USA Today might publish. Do only dumb people read newspapers? Surely smart people read papers and can understand technical issues. Oh. Wait. It's just the editors and writers who haven't got a clue.
OLEDs have been mentioned for a while:
1998 by Compaq,
lightly technical discussion from chemsoc, a view that says OLEDs complement rather than replace TFT-LCDs from Electronic Business-Asia (August 2000), January of 1999 shows that Idemitsu Kosan, a Japanese chemical company, has demonstrated(search for "organic") 640x480x16mil with OLEDs.
Some US patents of interest:
US05965901 (Cambridge Display), US05247190 (a 1993 Cambridge Patent), US04539507 (a Kodak claim geared towards reduced power consumption).
And so on.
Two fellas at Eastman Kodak who are real important on this issue are Steven A. VanSlyke and Ching W. Tang, both of whom have were sent in 1995 to give lectures in Japan on OLED technology.
My two cents says, it's about time companies stopped hyping this to the press in underdetailed press releases and actually start showing something for all their R&D efforts. Quit trying to make it the be-all end-all product the first time and get us cheaper, less power-hungry displays. When tube manufacturers realize their goose is cooked, prices will plummet for Digital TV in the US and OLED manufacturers will be handed the display market on a silver platter.
Can the display be reflective instead of emitting? I think a display will be much less power consuming if it doesn't have to generate light. A reflective surface comes with several advantages: near-perfect replication of hardcopy colors, static images are easier to keep (photographs), cool body armor (or tank armor) that just shows the image behind it rather than emitting the scene behind it.
Anyone who's had the pleasure of doing color calibration between their monitor, scanner, and printer will realize the value of being able to view an image as reflective, thereby eliminating the large differences in the RGB gamut and the CMYK gamut.
For those of you who got the CueCat barcode reader
from Radio Shack (free giveaway), you may have noticed mention of a "convergence cable" which hooks from audio out of TV/VCR to audio in on computer. Computer then "listens" for secret information from ads/shows to link you to Web-related info. Note that the cable was not
provided with the Cat, but available separately at RS.
I've been speculating on this for a couple of days. I'm wondering if the Digital Convergence software:CRQ doesn't already do something like the software mentioned in this article. Let's say an ad or show intro is fed into a signature (watermarks???) generator at 11KHz sample rate (to keep CPU usage low) then encode that signature as a CueCat trademarked
barcode (can you trademark a class of barcodes?) and matches it against a list kept on a central server.
If my guess is correct, then the methedology mentioned here has already been done and put to the worst use for a new technology - marketing.
Just a thought. Expand on it if you can. Anyone else with insight into the:CRQ methodology?
I am amazed this hasn't already come up in the discussion: Time Warner requires your Social Security Number for installations of all new services, even though no credit check is performed. This is the policy of the Western Ohio Cable Division. It probably is the policy in your neck of the 'net too. Together with AOL's shady history of selling customer information, this subject deserves some attention.
I have the details here that hilight my experience.
If you painfully remember Microsoft's insertion of your MAC address into all Word documents, you may find this interesting.
Note: This is reality. Upon written, resonable request, I will provide contact information for the guilty parties mentioned in my article.
Most network-savvy folks know that IPv4 was never designed for a hostile environment that the Internet has become.
For the Slashdot community: Is now the time to start pushing IPv6 to the World At Large, since IPv4 now has two large weaknesses (spoofing and small address space)? And what would you say to convince them or unconvice Slashdot readers?
As you respond to this question, could you please reply in a fashion such that on-looking journalists can quote you to the general public?
With recent memory prices skyrocketing (as of 9/29/99, >$300US for 128MB), when Windows 2000 is finally released, will anyone be able to afford the memory requirements? In other words, W2K memory requirements are pretty high. As memory prices will eventually drag prebuilt system prices up, will anyone be able to buy W2K is rumored to take 64MB for @home, and 128MB or 256MB for Workstation/Server configs. For that matter, I don't see Linux's memory requirements exceeding 32MB, or 64MB to be comfortable. Linux continues to be affordable on all hardware. At Microsoft's rate, W2K won't be delivered to stores until the memory price hike have migrated across the entire market making their memory requirements to be unattainable for a low price.
How about getting the 486 machines built as stripped down firewalls running Linux? Offer them to ADSL/Cable Modem owners. Remind them that their neighbors can see their shared Windows drives and printers.
Machines should be set up like the crack.linuxppc with firewall software set up. Then, the homeowners could feel free to do IP masquerading and put as many machines, with any OS, at home.
This is one way that Linux can make it into every home. Of course, it doesn't have to be Linux, it can be FreeBSD just as well, but you get the point. Maximize the hardware. Build a configuration tool for Win95, Macs, and Linux (I say Tcl/Tk for cross-platform).
With regard to the contract mentioned...All commercial packages have phrasing that says "by opening this product, you agree to the following terms...". Without ever trying the product, we are committed to the non-negotiable terms.
Also, the article says the company would be fined. Who receives the fine? How do you quantify the time when a product should have really been released?
The people who suffer the most from buggy software are large companies buying site licenses (or large numbers). If the software is buggy, they lose trackable dollars and time. More often than not, large counts of license are negotiated through contracts that supersede those contained in the wrapper. Hence, those who suffer the most from buggy software already have the problem dealt with: custom contracts. Everybody else is out the $50. Bad products=bad PR. Bad PR=poor business in the future.
(To FS/OS folks: According to this guy's fine calculation equation: fine=$$ lost if the s/w were released when it was ready. therefore.... for FS/OS fine=$0. You get what you paid for. Way to go folk! Beat the system again!!!)
Slashdot Mirror
Two reasons will exist for people to migrate to the new kernel:
I will let others fight over the hardware support. We have seen a lot of memory manager changes, some changes to the IDE code (although a lot was reversed), and, if I'm not mistaken, some zero-copy improvements on the network layer. It's time we found out if there were actual improvements.
Get code that works against, say, 2.4.18 (Mandrake 8.0 and RH7.x if memory serves) and against each of the new kernels. Assuming no major kernel changes go out this time, we just get testers to run the benchmark suite against their current configuration and then against their new configuration until we get the new kernels working positively.
Then the benchmark program(s) dump all relevant data to an XML file and we build a little database whereby people submit their performance statistics. Of course, the XML would need signed to prevent tampering.
Then, all the news junkies can climb over the performance improvements made in the new kernel and we can have issues like which came up in the early 2.4.x series avoided.
After discovering the keyboard decoder was shot on a 486 MB, on-site, I got the following message on reboot:
Keyboard error, press F1 to continue.
Lucky for me I happened to have a MB with me with a only-slightly older revision number on the decoder, which just happened to be the one chip on the board I could replace.
It worked.
If we got around to having to produce the weapon for yearly licenses, then the casing could be rescanned (to allow for barrel changes with age). Weapons which are initially registered are considered legit. Weapons which fail to get recertified are considered to be in the hands of criminals. Trace back to the original owner. How many weapons are they going to "lose" before somebody figures out they are a runner. As always, keep the cost of doing business very high for the criminals. e.g. everyone who buys guns can lose at most 2 before an investigation is initiated.
If you embedded an RF tag into each registered gun, and then imaged a fired casing, connecting both in a database with the gun buyer (not necessarily owner), I think we could get past the gun-rights issue.
We have the same problem on the net. You cannot prevent people from committing the crime, you just need to make it so there is no doubt as to the origin of the crime tools. Traceability goes a long way toward preventing crime. Traceability would prevent college-based gun buyers.
Of course, if you re-bore your barrel, that might sidestep the issue. How difficult is that maneuver and does it ruin the usefullness/acuracy of the gun?
What a marvelous way for amusement parks to make even more money while standing in line for two hours to ride that 45 second ride.
Has it occurred to anyone that profits from used book sales, like used music sales, don't pay any royalties to the author/artist. Since all sales of ideas should pay royalties to the originator, the Internet is digging into the profit margins of retail book sales. Looks like another part of the Internet shall now be banned.
With text, this is easy. CSV files easy.
PPT? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
DOC? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
XLS? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
MDB? Same as Oracle DBF, but you knew there were going to be old rows still hanging around.
MBX? No way. mbox could be scrubbed, but not Outlook files.
"Why?" you ask. Because history has shown deleted sections still remain around even after being deleted. This includes previous, unseen, last known images from an old, deleted OLE link to that spreadsheet chart. You just cannot trust it.
Opening up the file format would finally allow the government to build programs which truly scour a PPT file (for example) and allow EVERYTHING to be two-person checked.
P.S. Re: the hub-bub about 60+ add-on libraries: add-on libraries could be statically linked in or included in the GNUCash source tree for everything except the service providers (ie CORBA service providers). Example: many image tools include a release of libjpeg and libtiff which are then statically compiled into the executable.
P.S. Excessive use of things like CORBA provide multiple entry points for snooping points by malicious outsiders.
This is a lot like Braille, and yet very few Braille printers are being made these days. And Braille use is on the decline. Everyone who is blind knows that voice synthesizers are on the rise. With e-books becoming more popular, no one will be able to afford the battery power to drive solenoids for braille, or worse these image drawing pins. e-books feed the voice synthesizer module for the blind and they can have equal access to texts. Everyone fill out your ALT tags properly please!
- My example will be a wireframe of a sphere, with North pointing in the positive up (Y) direction.
- You are storing points along the lines which, when drawn, form a latitude ring (NtoS).
- Then, after bisecting the sphere into horizontal slices, you draw longitudinal rings (EtoW).
- You already know how to do the world-space to viewport transformation of all your data points. (ie orthoganal correction, etc)
I assume this since that's probably how you get the lines to connect in a meaningful format. To solve the problem, we will borrow some of the techniques from OpenGL without having to use OpenGL.struct lat_ring {
struct lon_ring {
struct vertices {
double x; double y;
lon_ring *lonr;
lat_ring *latr;
};
These techniques, while hinted at by others and only briefly outlined by me all take a lot of work for something so small. If you don't have the time, I hope you have the money. If you have neither, I hope you like your bitmaps.
One little beast which may rear it's ugly head on you is the case of intersecting polygons. In short, the only way to handle this in the vector sense is to bisect the two polygons into extra pieces (usually four, but sometimes three, when rendering with triangles or rectangles). This sounds easy in concept until you realize that every polygon has to be tested against every other polygon for intersection. The check, however simplified is complex and computationally expensive. Try and find a way to avoid having bisected polygons and you can ignore this problem.
Hope this helps. Also, recommend you check out the Computer Graphics Gems book series.
Examples:
Now, do I need one RDBMS that does all that? No. I'm sure one of several DBs could be hacked into doing one of the above specific jobs just fine. As others have said, if you only have one job to do, pick the best tool for the job and hopefully it won't be Oracle (for the cost).
If, as any large IT shop with a diversity of database scenarios will tell you, it's hard to beat Oracle. One DBA, with a fixed background, can administrate the whole deal. Hardware outdated? As long as you don't need a recent version of Oracle, you can get it to work.
BTW, if any Oracle geeks know how to do a COMPLETELY distributed disconnected database, let me know. I have a scenario with a mandatory air gap - no "periodic refresh" as with the travelling salesman. I can sneaker-net ASCII files, but that's it. Thanks.
What about Sun's non-disclosure on all support contracts? Anybody hearing about the large memory problems the Enterprise 10000s are having? Every time a customer has a problem with their hardware, they are not permitted to discuss the problem with outside individuals. Therefore, it has taken a lot of leaks to put together a piece that says Sun has a hardware problem and won't face up to it.
Intel could have gone the same way with RAMBUS (and might have even done so for a while) but they don't control all their customers the way Sun does.
What I'm getting at is this: some hardware has this nasty list non-disclosure wrapped around sharing bugs/exploits, so what is to stop industries like Oracle, Windows SERVERS, MS Certified Network Administrators and the like from being allowed to disclose system problems.
It wouldn't make reporting bugs illegal, but so much of the industry would have voluntarily signed the NDAs that no-one will report on anything but open-source software.
In fact, there is a package called LabView which is extensible and many data collectors provide modules to LabView with their sensors. LabView is predominantly a Windows product, but don't let some folk's bias get in the way of work. [Note: I'm not a Windows fan, but will use it when required or if it's the right tool for the job, which it is for things like data collection.]
I cannot attest to cost, but merely to the fact that advertising in TechBriefs has even stuck with someone who has no interest in scientific data collection, like myself. Cheers. ----- Want intelligence? Go to Stratfor.com. If it's in the news, it's too late.
One of the big moments for mature software projects is the issue of keeping the software cross-platform. Can you tell us a story about your struggles with keeping NEdit cross-platform? As a starter question: Is there a lessons-learned document around that gives good tips to avoid cross-platform issues, or have you ever though about making one?
- Clear, concise statement of work (since NEdit was developed with U.S. Govt funding)
- A Requirements Management process (measurable details about end-user goals)
- Requirements Traceability Matrix (did all the planned stuff get implimented?)
- Design Documents (GUIs plus interactions with black-box libraries or external packages)
- Work Breakdown/Size Estimates (what are the pieces of the design that need attacked, what skills are required for each, who is attacking each piece)
- Project Tracking (some automated way of allowing outsiders to see how it's going)
Colleges are teaching this. Companies who want government contracts are starting to do this kind of stuff. Would these software engineering techniques help OpenSource biggies stay on track and on time even though there is no financial interest to do so? The upcoming <cough>Linuxkernel<cough> comes to mind.OLEDs have been mentioned for a while: 1998 by Compaq, lightly technical discussion from chemsoc, a view that says OLEDs complement rather than replace TFT-LCDs from Electronic Business-Asia (August 2000), January of 1999 shows that Idemitsu Kosan, a Japanese chemical company, has demonstrated(search for "organic") 640x480x16mil with OLEDs.
Some US patents of interest: US05965901 (Cambridge Display), US05247190 (a 1993 Cambridge Patent), US04539507 (a Kodak claim geared towards reduced power consumption).
And so on.
Two fellas at Eastman Kodak who are real important on this issue are Steven A. VanSlyke and Ching W. Tang, both of whom have were sent in 1995 to give lectures in Japan on OLED technology.
My two cents says, it's about time companies stopped hyping this to the press in underdetailed press releases and actually start showing something for all their R&D efforts. Quit trying to make it the be-all end-all product the first time and get us cheaper, less power-hungry displays. When tube manufacturers realize their goose is cooked, prices will plummet for Digital TV in the US and OLED manufacturers will be handed the display market on a silver platter.
Can the display be reflective instead of emitting? I think a display will be much less power consuming if it doesn't have to generate light. A reflective surface comes with several advantages: near-perfect replication of hardcopy colors, static images are easier to keep (photographs), cool body armor (or tank armor) that just shows the image behind it rather than emitting the scene behind it.
Anyone who's had the pleasure of doing color calibration between their monitor, scanner, and printer will realize the value of being able to view an image as reflective, thereby eliminating the large differences in the RGB gamut and the CMYK gamut.
I've been speculating on this for a couple of days. I'm wondering if the Digital Convergence software :CRQ doesn't already do something like the software mentioned in this article. Let's say an ad or show intro is fed into a signature (watermarks???) generator at 11KHz sample rate (to keep CPU usage low) then encode that signature as a CueCat trademarked
barcode (can you trademark a class of barcodes?) and matches it against a list kept on a central server.
If my guess is correct, then the methedology mentioned here has already been done and put to the worst use for a new technology - marketing.
Just a thought. Expand on it if you can. Anyone else with insight into the :CRQ methodology?
I have the details here that hilight my experience.
If you painfully remember Microsoft's insertion of your MAC address into all Word documents, you may find this interesting.
Note: This is reality. Upon written, resonable request, I will provide contact information for the guilty parties mentioned in my article.
Most network-savvy folks know that IPv4 was never designed for a hostile environment that the Internet has become.
For the Slashdot community: Is now the time to start pushing IPv6 to the World At Large, since IPv4 now has two large weaknesses (spoofing and small address space)? And what would you say to convince them or unconvice Slashdot readers?
As you respond to this question, could you please reply in a fashion such that on-looking journalists can quote you to the general public?
With recent memory prices skyrocketing (as of 9/29/99, >$300US for 128MB), when Windows 2000 is finally released, will anyone be able to afford the memory requirements?
In other words, W2K memory requirements are pretty high. As memory prices will eventually drag prebuilt system prices up, will anyone be able to buy W2K is rumored to take 64MB for @home, and 128MB or 256MB for Workstation/Server configs.
For that matter, I don't see Linux's memory requirements exceeding 32MB, or 64MB to be comfortable. Linux continues to be affordable on all hardware.
At Microsoft's rate, W2K won't be delivered to stores until the memory price hike have migrated across the entire market making their memory requirements to be unattainable for a low price.
How about getting the 486 machines built as stripped down firewalls running Linux? Offer them to ADSL/Cable Modem owners. Remind them that their neighbors can see their shared Windows drives and printers.
Machines should be set up like the crack.linuxppc with firewall software set up. Then, the homeowners could feel free to do IP masquerading and put as many machines, with any OS, at home.
This is one way that Linux can make it into every home. Of course, it doesn't have to be Linux, it
can be FreeBSD just as well, but you get the point. Maximize the hardware. Build a configuration tool for Win95, Macs, and Linux (I say Tcl/Tk for cross-platform).
With regard to the contract mentioned...All commercial packages have phrasing that says "by opening this product, you agree to the following terms...". Without ever trying the product, we are committed to the non-negotiable terms.
Also, the article says the company would be fined. Who receives the fine? How do you quantify the time when a product should have really been released?
The people who suffer the most from buggy software are large companies buying site licenses (or large numbers). If the software is buggy, they lose trackable dollars and time. More often than not, large counts of license are negotiated through contracts that supersede those contained in the wrapper. Hence, those who suffer the most from buggy software already have the problem dealt with: custom contracts. Everybody else is out the $50. Bad products=bad PR. Bad PR=poor business in the future.
(To FS/OS folks: According to this guy's fine calculation equation: fine=$$ lost if the s/w were released when it was ready. therefore.... for FS/OS fine=$0. You get what you paid for. Way to go folk! Beat the system again!!!)