- Unique user interface (no styluses or thumb keyboards)
- Mobile computing that fits in your pocket
- WiFi and mobile networks enabled
Now, the rest of the industry will respond with cloned technology and drive the $499 entry point price down to what we all can afford. How can it be more perfect?
Someone should put a stop to Novell. SuSE may be the next in a long line of great products (Corel, WordPerfect, etc) that Novell flushes down the toilet. It's really too bad because from my experience with SuSE was better than RedHat and Windows. Hey Novell management, fire yourselves!
So many people are hung up on the latest and greatest ways to ergonomize and design a space to death. I work in a group that went from a collection of 5 or 10 with ancient metal desks holding multiprocessor systems and cutting edge hardware to a group of 50 with underpowered machine on $2000 desks and $1000 chairs. Guess how are productive went...
I think a great CS guy (like Ivan Sutherland or Dave Evans) once said that the most productive development environments were the ones with expensive machinery on cinder block and old doors, and the least productive environments were the fancy, over-architected and clean ones.
The meat of the matter is if the group is good, the conditions melt away. You find fault in an environment when you're not happy with the people around you.
Ideal office mates:
A group of really amazing individuals driven by their passions to create innovative products and services. It's about art and science and the human condition.
-Stryemer
We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of the dream.
The three biggest complaints about the cave are: 1. Too dark 2. Not multiuser 3. Too small of a room
Projector technology right now sucks for the high end. The CAVE uses CRT projectors (much like the ones in the old big screen TV's) instead of a brighter technology such as LCD, DLP, or Digital Light Valve. Unfortunately, the manufacturers of these brighter products have not pushed the refresh rate limit. In order to use the StereoGraphics shutter glasses, you need at least 100 Hz refresh rate out of your projectors. Currently, the only types of projectors that can handle 100 Hz are CRT's.
These CAVE's are not really multiuser. There are some real problems with perspective in these environments. Only one person can have a corrected view frustrum, and everyone else has to put up with a warping and shearing scene. Of course, this is assuming you are trying to visualize something floating in front of you. This is very hard to describe, but if you think about it, imagine projecting an object floating in front of you, while trying to give your user the ability to walk all around it. Anyhow, this is impossible in any multiuser mode.
CAVE are small. 10'^3 may seem like a lot of space, (as most people's dorm rooms are 12'^3), but oftimes people are limited in movement. This also limits the number of people who can share this experience.
I just got one of these babies, and I hope that SGI will get going on the port! Right now there's a website under SGI's domain with info on Linux for their various systems.
I've been reading a book lately on how to protect your intellectual property, and found a few cool things out about software and patents. 1. Ideas are not patentable. Only methods. 2. If you or someone else comes up with a "cool" idea at work, no one owns that idea. It's only when someone creates an implementation on work time does the company own it. 3. (If I read the text correctly) Code is covered under copyrighting, not patenting. So, ripping off someone's code is a lot like plagerism. Now, if hardware is involved, then it's patentable. 4. The US does not have a "first to file" law whereas other countries do. As I read it, if you can prove that you came up with your method before Microsoft or Intel (for example) then it's your idea. (I think some European countries do first to file) 5. Don't develop you cool ideas at work. I know we all work 80+ hours a week, but here's a good excuse to go home. If you develop your ideas at work, work owns your ideas. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't think about your ideas or write them down, just don't steal that pad of paper or use cycles on the local supercomputer. These little gems came out of a book called: Protecting Your Ideas : The Inventor's Guide to Patents Before signing any petition, I recommend that people buy a book on IP. It could prove interesting. -Stryemer;-) P.S. Who's starting that fund to protect the small developers from the giants? I'll contribute! -Stryemer We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.
It seems to me that there's a whole mess of papers submitted at SIGGRAPH 97 (see pages 243-258) and before on the subject of creating panoramic picture anyways. IPIX cannot be "revolutionary" if researchers from Princeton, Apple, and Microsoft Research have been working on this for ages. So obviously IPIX has no precedence on the "algorithms" to create panoramic images...
As for image formats, screw 'em! There's always got to be a better format. Let them make the fatal mistake of a proprietary format, and then us free software mongers shall smite them with an OPEN standard. Thus forcing them to comply! Muhahahaha!
Any takers?
Cheers, Stryemer;-)
My fortune cookie read: "You will recieve faster silicon love in your future." -Stryemer We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.
I've been in and out of college for 8 years. My experience has led me to believe that college is good for most people (including geeks.) After all, you go to college to get a piece of paper that says to people who don't care about you that you are worth the time of day. For better or worse, this is the state of the nation. (Of course, when I run the zoo...;-)
My 64 bits of advise: leave the parental nest and don't be cheap about college. Parents are harmful in undergraduate years, and if you're not paying more than 15K for your education, it's likely that educators aren't properly motivated to get you your degree.
Think of it from a fiscal point of view. Who's going to have the best teachers? The universities who pay for teachers. Who's going to have the worst teachers? The universities that recruit researchers. I know very few professors who can do both very well. (1 professor out of 25 in a certain CS department ranked in the top ten)
Slashdot Mirror
This product seems exciting for three reasons:
- Unique user interface (no styluses or thumb keyboards)
- Mobile computing that fits in your pocket
- WiFi and mobile networks enabled
Now, the rest of the industry will respond with cloned technology and drive the $499 entry point price down to what we all can afford. How can it be more perfect?
Someone should put a stop to Novell. SuSE may be the next in a long line of great products (Corel, WordPerfect, etc) that Novell flushes down the toilet. It's really too bad because from my experience with SuSE was better than RedHat and Windows. Hey Novell management, fire yourselves!
So many people are hung up on the latest and greatest ways to ergonomize and design a space to death. I work in a group that went from a collection of 5 or 10 with ancient metal desks holding multiprocessor systems and cutting edge hardware to a group of 50 with underpowered machine on $2000 desks and $1000 chairs. Guess how are productive went... I think a great CS guy (like Ivan Sutherland or Dave Evans) once said that the most productive development environments were the ones with expensive machinery on cinder block and old doors, and the least productive environments were the fancy, over-architected and clean ones. The meat of the matter is if the group is good, the conditions melt away. You find fault in an environment when you're not happy with the people around you. Ideal office mates: A group of really amazing individuals driven by their passions to create innovative products and services. It's about art and science and the human condition.
-Stryemer
We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of the dream.
1. Too dark
2. Not multiuser
3. Too small of a room
Projector technology right now sucks for the high end. The CAVE uses CRT projectors (much like the ones in the old big screen TV's) instead of a brighter technology such as LCD, DLP, or Digital Light Valve. Unfortunately, the manufacturers of these brighter products have not pushed the refresh rate limit. In order to use the StereoGraphics shutter glasses, you need at least 100 Hz refresh rate out of your projectors. Currently, the only types of projectors that can handle 100 Hz are CRT's.
These CAVE's are not really multiuser. There are some real problems with perspective in these environments. Only one person can have a corrected view frustrum, and everyone else has to put up with a warping and shearing scene. Of course, this is assuming you are trying to visualize something floating in front of you. This is very hard to describe, but if you think about it, imagine projecting an object floating in front of you, while trying to give your user the ability to walk all around it. Anyhow, this is impossible in any multiuser mode.
CAVE are small. 10'^3 may seem like a lot of space, (as most people's dorm rooms are 12'^3), but oftimes people are limited in movement. This also limits the number of people who can share this experience.
The Electronic Visualization Lab at University of Illinois, Argonne National Labs Futures Lab, and NCSA all have major research going on in CAVE technology.
Another simpler version of the CAVE is what they call workbench technologies. See:Caltech
Stanford
Fakespace
-Stryemer
We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of the dream.
I just got one of these babies, and I hope that SGI will get going on the port! Right now there's a website under SGI's domain with info on Linux for their various systems.
http://www.linux.sgi.com/The good news:
It runs (Yea!)
It will display on the flat screen (YES!)
The bad news:
It needs an IDE (no SCSI)
No X acceleration
No OpenGL acceleration
"Very little" PCI card support
I'm loading it when I get my next paycheck and I can pick up an IDE drive! I'll keep you all informed...
-Stryemer
We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of the dream.
I've been reading a book lately on how to protect your intellectual property, and found a few cool things out about software and patents. 1. Ideas are not patentable. Only methods. 2. If you or someone else comes up with a "cool" idea at work, no one owns that idea. It's only when someone creates an implementation on work time does the company own it. 3. (If I read the text correctly) Code is covered under copyrighting, not patenting. So, ripping off someone's code is a lot like plagerism. Now, if hardware is involved, then it's patentable. 4. The US does not have a "first to file" law whereas other countries do. As I read it, if you can prove that you came up with your method before Microsoft or Intel (for example) then it's your idea. (I think some European countries do first to file) 5. Don't develop you cool ideas at work. I know we all work 80+ hours a week, but here's a good excuse to go home. If you develop your ideas at work, work owns your ideas. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't think about your ideas or write them down, just don't steal that pad of paper or use cycles on the local supercomputer. These little gems came out of a book called: Protecting Your Ideas : The Inventor's Guide to Patents Before signing any petition, I recommend that people buy a book on IP. It could prove interesting. -Stryemer ;-) P.S. Who's starting that fund to protect the small developers from the giants? I'll contribute!
-Stryemer
We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of the dream.
I'm kinda unclear on what the deal is...
;-)
It seems to me that there's a whole mess of papers submitted at SIGGRAPH 97 (see pages 243-258) and before on the subject of creating panoramic picture anyways. IPIX cannot be "revolutionary" if researchers from Princeton, Apple, and Microsoft Research have been working on this for ages. So obviously IPIX has no precedence on the "algorithms" to create panoramic images...
As for image formats, screw 'em! There's always got to be a better format. Let them make the fatal mistake of a proprietary format, and then us free software mongers shall smite them with an OPEN standard. Thus forcing them to comply! Muhahahaha!
Any takers?
Cheers,
Stryemer
My fortune cookie read:
"You will recieve faster silicon love in your future."
-Stryemer
We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of the dream.
My 64 bits of advise: leave the parental nest and don't be cheap about college. Parents are harmful in undergraduate years, and if you're not paying more than 15K for your education, it's likely that educators aren't properly motivated to get you your degree.
Think of it from a fiscal point of view. Who's going to have the best teachers? The universities who pay for teachers. Who's going to have the worst teachers? The universities that recruit researchers. I know very few professors who can do both very well. (1 professor out of 25 in a certain CS department ranked in the top ten)
-Stryemer