Since the transfer rate is 640 Gbps which is 40 times faster than SDRAM, it's probably not SDRAM
It has 40x the transfer rate, but they don't talk about latency, so maybe it is "just" SDRAM, but 1280 bits wide not 32 (or 1440 bits with some sort of ECC).
To me, one of the best pieces of technology is Eyeglasses.
Eye glasses do force new habits. Cleaning them for example. Dealing with extra glare. Not being able to get your eye right up to a viewfinder on some cameras or other things (microscopes, telescopes). Oh, and remembering to take them off before you roughhouse. Plus I don't know about you, but the first time I put them on, or when I get a major prescription change I am a little disoriented, things are closer then I expect, my feet slam into the floor because I thought it was an inch or two farther away...
So do contact lenses (the cleaning thing again), remembering not to fall asleep with them in. Bringing stuff to store them in.
That's what good technology should be like; of course most isn't, but it's what we should be striving for. Otherwise we will never achieve tech that is "good", only tech that is "good enough".
Well in general i agree with that. On the other hand if you look at the Newton vs. PalmOS the Newton tried to adapt to your writing, and while it didn't fail as badly as many jokes made it seem, it didn't really work out. PalmOS made you adapt to it, and it worked. People are more flexible then machines, and sometimes it is better to not get it mostly right -- like when "mostly right" means "wrong at random times that are hard to predict".
Compared to the N64 and PSX, the Saturn was far better at 2d graphics and this fact is reflected in its rich library of excellent 2d fighting games and shooters.
I think when it had come out I had just recently left a compony that did 3D CoinOps, so I was focused on 3D...fixated even. Plus as you said most of the "good stuff" never came to the USA, so I didn't know about it.
But Sega has used up most of the goodwill their hardcore fans used to give them,
Yeah, that seemed obvious when the DC came out, lots of people liked it, but lots of people avoided it because it was Sega. It being the first Sega system I bought I didn't understand...
I'm not sad I bought it though, I got my monies worth. In fact I just got finished an hour of SC (player vs. player -- as replayable as it is the computer play just doesn't last 3 years...)
Wouldn't it have been easier/simpler/cheaper to just have the thing find a wall socket and plug in when it was running down?
I may be reading too much into it, but I thought the pharmacy staff would charge a battery pack, and TOBOR would pick up the new pack (dropping off the old) when it came back for more meds to distribute. If it had to wait around for the battery to charge then it is spending a lot of time doing that rather then on it's "real job".
Or maybe they just keep the recharging in the hands of the humans to prevent rebellion:-)
I don't DO autofocus, but I se absolutely no reason why the AF should be slower on a D30 than on any other EOS SLR.
Smaller light path, pretty much the same size as an APS SLR. They used a AF module from their last APS SLR. However their last APS SLR was some time ago, and an intro level AF system, so it is no worse then the AF from an EOS-IX, which was about the same as the EOS Rebel of the same era. However the Rebel has gotten better since then, and $2000 EOS cameras have much better AF then the old IX...except for the $2000 D30/D60...
There IS, however, a distinct shutter release lag compared to a film camera,
Thanks, I guess I never noticed that compaired to my ELAN. It is definitly much faster then the digital P&S cameras by a half second to a full second, so I guess the ~0.1 second delay seems like nothing to someone use to more, and a whole lot to someone who is use to none.
Does your RTS have a pellicle mirror?
and a serious lack of sequence shooting ability.
About the same as the low end film cameras (twice as fast as the Rebel 2000, slightly slower then the ELAN 7). Slower then $2000 film cameras though.
Even the EOS-1D's 8 fps is slower then the EOS RT's 10 fps.
Digital cameras should be able to BEAT that performance by rights, let alone match it.
RAM prices will have to drop a lot before affordable digitals can do that...or FLASH has to get a whole lot faster. The D30 had some odd buffer behaviour -- if you release the shutter it has to drain the buffer before you can take more shots (even if it is say, half empty). The D60 fixed that.
Maybe JPEG2000 will help a bit, smaller images means less I/O...if they can be compressed fast enough.
From reading articles like this you would get the impression that spyware, viruses, intrusive ads and so on are unavoidable whenever computers are used, and the only answer is some kind of regulation to make websites act 'responsibly'.
Or that existing regulation can't be applied. I expect anything that downloads and installs without permission could fall legally under the existing computer trespass laws. Sneaking spyware might be trespass, but is almost definitely fraud.
We have more then enough laws, don't make new ones, use the existing ones.
Canon has done well with the EOS 1D in terms of speed, but I played with a D30 and found it's slow responses really hard to come to terms with.
What part of the D30 seemed slow? I know the focus is slow, but if you prefocus it seems fast to me. They did halve the release response time in the D60, but since I havn't used one I can't say if that is really noticable, so I'm wondering...
(actually yesterday I was taking shots of the distorted reflections from an office building, and a bird flew across and I mashed the shutter, the camera seemed slow to react...but I think at least half of that was my thumb not responding...)
I just think that we're gonna see massive improvements over the next year or two
That's for sure. The AF on low end digital cameras still isn't up to the AF on film cameras (except maybe on the D100). Aside from that we know CPUs tend to get faster, and memory tends to get bigger for the same price, so processing should get better...well as long as we don't keep growing the image size:-)
I'm sure that within 2 years we'll see a camera like the D30 at $750 or less anyway.
I don't think you will be able to get a camera like the D30 in 2 years (you can't get one from Nikon, Fuji, or Canon now...and I don't think the Sigma is really the same, but I would like to see a real review). It would be nice if the low end DSLRs were under $1k though. Not so nice if they stick to the old lame Canon IX AF system though. That just has to go!
Of course, Nikon lenses are far superior to Canon! Shit, they're almost as good as Zeiss!:-]
Heh, say that after you handle the 70-200L f/2.8 IS:-)
(yeah, yeah, they both make great lenses...so does Pentax and Minolta for that matter)
But I still maintain that the D30, D60, EOS 1, D1 and F100 cameras (despite all being really excellent) are definitely transitional products only, as the support lens ranges that simply are not designed to function correctly with them.
All cameras are transitional, some more then most.
What's a standard lens on a D60, 28mm? That can't be right.
If you mean what covers the same field as a 50mm yes a 31.25mm covers it. If you mean what do I carry on it most of the time, well a 50mm. I like long lenses, and using a 50mm f/1.4 is way way less expensive then a 85mm f/1.2, like half the cost of the camera less expensive:-)
I'm not quite as fond of what it does to my 100mm for people pictures, but it gives a little more range for macro shots.
The fact that Canon and Nikon are offering these SLRs at all shows a clear intention to move to larger imaging chips when possible.
It sure looks like Canon is looking to get closer to full frame. They do have the 1.6x of the D30/D60 and the 1.3x of the 1D. Lots of people want full frame. More people just want wide angles. Problem is CCDs (and I guess) CMOS sensors have more light fall off problems then film, so it is possible there is really no way to get full 35mm frame coverage without designing new lenses!
All of Nikon's digitals have used the exact same multiplier. There is some chance they are going to make a new set of lenses designed to cover just that. They can be lighter and cheaper that way, and if they can make some really really wide angles, they might manage to do it. It could work out really well. It is also in line with things they have done in the past (like G lenses). It is also possible they are reaching for full frame like everyone else.
We have both the Sigma/Foveon product and the Contax N1 imminent, and these two might change the situation substantially by themselves.
Sigma's CCD is smaller then Canon's D30/D60 sensor. Contax's N1 is a year late, and they missed two more deadlines in as many months. I think it is a cool product, and would love to see it on the market. The CCD it uses has been out for like 2 or 3 years!
Anyone buying a digital SLR right now is either doing editorial/PJ photography or has more money than sense.
(you forgot to list the porn industry, I would imagine the D30/D60/D100 would work great there; it also works well for finding the right levels for studio lights)
I'm not sure the D30/D60 is up to PJ standards. Not waterproof, not the best AF. I think the Nikon D100 has better AF, but still isn't waterproof. It is also a whole lot easier to learn new technique on.
I'm a bit under a year from saving enough on film and processing to pay for my D30 based on my old usage rate. I'm probably four months from it if you look at my current shooting rates. Since I don't really think I want a D60, I don't see it as dumb since I'll almost definitely save enough to make the D30 free before I no longer want the D30.
Besides, I have more fun with the D30, so from that point of view it's been a better purchase then my last VCR, a lot of recent book buys, some movies I have been too, and some of the cable (er, satellite) channels. I still have a blast when I pick it up.
I wouldn't worry about the D30/60 just yet. Digital SLRs are NOT there yet - that's why the D60 is 4 times the price of a Nikon F60 for LESS capability.
Sure, except it has three signifigant advantages over the F60. It comes with effectavly 1000s of rolls of free film and proccessing (not printing though), the proccessing is instant not "one hour" including a histogram, and lastly they mount Canon lenses:-)
Instant processing and the histogram are really useful tools for learning how to use complex lighting setups.
RAW will be replaced by a proper standard.
Could be, but currently Nikon has NEF, Canon has RAW, Sigma and Fuji have their own formats (both new this year). Since the "raw" format is closely tied to the color filter array layout, and the spacing of the sensors on the CCD/CMOS I'm not sure there will be a standard for it, unless those things stabalise (say, a grid pattern for sensors, and X3-like RGB samples at each pixel...or a Fuji like honeycomb layout).
Apple's PCs will be more expensive but still more attractive and reliable.
I don't think Apple's hardware is more reliable then Wintel hardware. Their software tends to be though.
Photojournalists will STILL use Powerbooks...
Recently Apple has been doing pretty much everything right. If they keep it up PJs will still use PowerBooks. If they have a few major screwups there could easially be no more Apple. I'm hoping they keep doing it all right.
Since about 1987, I have always built my own boxes, but recently I've wavered...
Me too, in fact I bought my first pre-built Intel box (er, unless you count i860 boxes) recently. It was cheaper then I would built it myself. For the most part even decent componants.
They skimped on the case, it is kind of cheasy. They skimped big time on the power supply, it is monster loud. My machines all have PC Power and Cooling supplies, and are all quiet. This new machine has a normal supply, and it reminded me why I buy my own quiet ones. Plus the keyboard and mouse really suck.
I think next time I'll build my own since I can get all the parts I really want, not an ethernet that is decent, but one I like, not drives that are decent, but ones I like, not power supplies that suck, but ones that rule.
For now I just bought a new power supply, keyboard, and mouse to replace the ones it came with.
Re:Patents, Patents and more Patents
on
JPEG2000 Coming Soon
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I remember a similar promise made about LZW compression in the GIF standard by Compuserve. What is to stop these companies from requiring license fees at some arbitrary point in the future once the technology is widely used?
I don't recall Compuserve ever promising that, in fact at the time they made GIF nobody really thought software patents were workable...except the patent office.
Plus if CompuServ tells me I can use Unisys's patented crud, why should I believe them? I only trust what IBM says about IBM's patents. Likewise for JPEG2000, I'll believe I can get a royalty free license only if the patent holders sign for it, not 3rd parties.
If you look at RAMBUS you will see they made a similar promise when they were at the JDEC meetings that eventually produced SDRAM, and while they did sue, when someone finally decided not to settle RAMBUS got spanked. Hard. So while it ain't perfect, there is some reason to believe it will work out Ok.
Changes sometimes need to happen, and given that by the time the change to 6.0 happened there was no plugin that I ever ran into that didn't have an ActiveX version, there's no reason for your ranting
Yes but this change "needed" to happen because MS managed to become the big player, and didn't want people writing plugins that would work with MSIE and Netscape, they wanted them to write a MSIE only ActiveX control, and then decide the extra effort needed to support Netscape wasn't worth it.
It's not like oh, say, dropping a.out because it doesn't support all the debugging symbols you might need, or it is hard to support shared libs with a.out...in that case you are really buying something for your pain. In MSIE's case they are getting something for your pain, and what they are getting is more pain for you.
Not my idea of a good deal, but if you like it, go for it.
JPEG does support a lossless mode, it's just that no one uses it.
Lossless JPEG uses patented IBM stuff (I think the rest of JPEG uses various patents as well, but everyone agreed to freely license them, IBM didn't agree for the lossless stuff). I think that is the big reason pretty much nobody uses it.
Apple announced it was increasing its prices on the iMac $100 each in March, and ended a promotion on its LCDs.
Yeah, but then they started another LCD promo almost the same as the first (and since both LCD promos were "buy a G4 and LCD and we give you stuff" it could be a G4 promo...)
The time for bargains was over a month ago, if you buy today or wait 2 weeks not much is going to change.
Maybe...or maybe you will wait 2 weeks and find the prices have gone up more.
Has any else noticed that the primary buyers of Apple's nowadays are film/photo people? They certianly have a solid market there, but I think it odd that they push themselves so much to compete with PCs when they operate on a seperate level
Well one can be pushed out of a niche. For example it is a big pain to try to use Canon's EOS-D30 or D60 RAW conversion software on a Mac...unless you run OS9. For Windows Canon has decided to support NT2000, WinME and XP, but still no OSX support. That is for a $2000 camera (or if you were lucky $1499 referb for the D30). I doubt that would happen if Canon thought Apple had the same kind of market share (photogs, not "normal people") as Wintel does.
Or look at desktop publishing, in the mid-80s the Mac was it. PCs were good for accountants, but if you wanted page layouts, it was Mac all the way. Now windows does it well enough that nobody cares.
Pushing into niche markets is a good idea for Apple, but that alone isn't enough because they are too hard to defend.
So $1K AMR for a 10Mb piece of software. They could at least put in a few DVD's of Job's famous "never been done before" speaches and
maybe one of his turtleneck shirts or something. And I thought Adobe was nuts for charging $1+ for photoshop and a per page fee for a usable version of Acrobat.
Well to be honest most people don't need this product, so trying to make a profit (or clear the dev costs) is going to need high prices. Heck, most people don't have DV cams, and most of the ones that do can get by with iMovie. Of the ones that can't get by with iMovie, most don't need more then what Final Cut Pro does. The few that do can afford $1000, right? And since there are only 300 or so people that need it, charging $30 won't make the dev costs back at all...
Sure the size of the program has nothing to do with it's value though when you spend a bucket of cash you feel ripped off when you are returned with just a sandwich bag of product.
First we bitch at MS for making a 12G install of MS Office because it's too bloated, and now at Apple for producing a lean mean fighting machine?
And they did exactly what so many gamers were betting they'd do: they abandoned their loyal customers yet again, just like they did with the 32X and the Saturn.
Was the 32X popular? I didn't get the impression the Saturn was which is why I was unsupprised to see it die.
It was because of DCs GREAT sales that Sega lost so much money, Sega didnt expect DC to do as well as it did.
Now that makes zero sense. Selling more consoles lets you spread the NREs over more units and drive production costs down, and buy parts in bigger lots at lower prices. None of that makes things worse for Sega.
You could be right that they totally messed up on costs and they had to sell 10 games per DC to make up for the loss, but I would like to see that information from another source since (no offense intended) you seem a little biased. However even then selling more DCs doesn't make things worse, if they hadn't sold any they would have lost huge on the NRE and lost face by having "another Saturn". If they sold half as many DCs they would have lost more money on each one. In any case selling them at too much of a loss would doom them, not selling too many of them.
The more DCs sold, the more games per DC user would have to be sold,.
How? If each DC is $100 worth of parts loss and it's share of advertising and design costs then selling one DC means it is a billion dollar loss so you need to sell a tenth of a billion games to everyone who bought a DC. If you sell a billion DCs you only need to sell $101 worth of games to each DC owner.
That still ignores all the places where building more of something costs less -- that $100 isn't inflexible. It also won't go to zero though.
Sega can survive by becoming more like EA, and making games, this is Segas only chance for survival,
Well that's sure true. The question is weather or not Sega blundered their way into this position, or if they really did play a good game and lose anyway (or if they even could have made another console but decided this was "safer"). Few people claim NeXT were a bunch of morons who sold the cube at under cost and drove themselves out of the hardware business (or the same for Be), mostly people claim they went into a hard market and didn't make it. (Actually I think NeXT's hardware was an extremely poor choice, mostly the CPU choice, but lots of people disagree with me).
This is why Yuji Naka is releasing Sonic on gamecube instead of something new
Well, we both agree on where they are, just not how they got there.
Right, but google says not to 'redistribute' or whatever, their service, so a self made front end would essentially be theft, if it was used by someone other than self...
No, that is still not theft, it is a contract violation. Not everything bad is theft. Spray painting my house isn't theft, even if it lowers the property value of my house, or is done just before an open house and in fact costs me potential buyers.
Kicking my dog wouldn't be assault either, it would be animal cruelty (and if I catch you kicking my dog, you may get to file an assault charge against me).
Well maybe if Canada and mexico declared that they did not believe that we had the right to exist and claimed that would destroy us, then we might have to train or pilots better.
Naw, but the people who make flags would be happy because they would get to print up a whole ton of 'em with 52 stars...
Thats why Sega failed, IF Sega were Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft or anyone else they would have dominated.
Thing is, from my little view of the world they were dominating. Even past when Sony hyped the PSX2. People were buying new ones. I didn't know anyone who used a PSX that didn't have a Dreamcast (I'm sure there were many such people, but I didn't know any). They threw in the towel before the PSX2 hit the market.
Every DC sold, Sega would lose $100.
Losing money on console hardware isn't uncommon, they get a fee for every game sold (which is the real reason they are closed platforms, not to avoid the Atari 2600 mess). It is common to lose money unless 2 or 3 games are bought (and normally they are, except with the newer generation of consoles that can also serve as DVD players...I heard the PSX2 had a problem with too many people only buying a game and using it as a DVD player mostly).
It was Segas lack of a business plan, the same reason dot coms failed.
Could be, but it seemed to be pretty much the same b-plan other console makers had. Design a system that can be sold for $200, slap fees on games to make up the difference between build cost and store price. Make all the money on the games and add-on controlers and stuff.
and for all 3 systems to boot, so no whining from any particular system's audience.
Oh, sure, now I actually have to figure out which system is better, I can't just automagically buy whichever game system SC2 comes out for... (whine whine whine....)
In the meantime, check out Virtua Fighter 4.
Yeah, I have seen a comercial for it (I may have a TiVo, but sometimes I back up to catch video game comercials). I'm not sure, I didn't really like the previous VF games. Maybe in part because of some bad blood between the CoinOp company I worded for long ago, and the first VF...but more likely, there is just something in it that I don't like that much. Too keep on topic I could accuse it of being too realistic:-)
Also, with the nostalgia, it's not 'man that game was awesome', (even if it was a great game) its more of a "good ole days" sentiment.
Nostalgia also tends to focus on the better video games, not the 300 Space Invaders clones, but Space Invaders and the best few clones. Not every black & white movie, but a handful of the best (or the best few 100 or so).
There were lots of great old games, but there were a lot of pretty lame ones too.
Sega is out of the market because their marketting was full of crap, and their products were sub-par. (I'm sure there are slashdot readers here who would be happy to comment on how many defective units they've seen returned.) I'm not talking about games here; DreamCast, Genesis, Master System, even the Master Gear had some triple-A titles, but think of those systems: Sega has a really, really poor track record with promotion. (These are the people that brought us the Saturn, I mean, geez, look what they did with that.)
Hmmmm, Sega seemed to have a lot of marketing at the launch of the Dreamcast, and for a while after. Mine never had hardware failures (still play Soul Caliber on it, I love that game). The Saturn seemed to have decent ads too, just no games that caught my eye.
I thought Sega lost out because they mis-timed it and brought out the Dreamcast on a half generation step. It was better then the existing machines (the newest game console normally is), but didn't have the money to design a new one in the same time frame the other three players would bring out their boxes, leaving Sega with a box with a bunch of OK games, but a half generation behind everyone.
Still, I haven't bought a new game console because I haven't seen a new kick-fu game I like. I hope there is a sequel to Soul Caliber (which I think is a sequel to Soul Edge on the PlayStation).
Slashdot Mirror
It has 40x the transfer rate, but they don't talk about latency, so maybe it is "just" SDRAM, but 1280 bits wide not 32 (or 1440 bits with some sort of ECC).
Eye glasses do force new habits. Cleaning them for example. Dealing with extra glare. Not being able to get your eye right up to a viewfinder on some cameras or other things (microscopes, telescopes). Oh, and remembering to take them off before you roughhouse. Plus I don't know about you, but the first time I put them on, or when I get a major prescription change I am a little disoriented, things are closer then I expect, my feet slam into the floor because I thought it was an inch or two farther away...
So do contact lenses (the cleaning thing again), remembering not to fall asleep with them in. Bringing stuff to store them in.
Well in general i agree with that. On the other hand if you look at the Newton vs. PalmOS the Newton tried to adapt to your writing, and while it didn't fail as badly as many jokes made it seem, it didn't really work out. PalmOS made you adapt to it, and it worked. People are more flexible then machines, and sometimes it is better to not get it mostly right -- like when "mostly right" means "wrong at random times that are hard to predict".
I think when it had come out I had just recently left a compony that did 3D CoinOps, so I was focused on 3D...fixated even. Plus as you said most of the "good stuff" never came to the USA, so I didn't know about it.
Yeah, that seemed obvious when the DC came out, lots of people liked it, but lots of people avoided it because it was Sega. It being the first Sega system I bought I didn't understand...
I'm not sad I bought it though, I got my monies worth. In fact I just got finished an hour of SC (player vs. player -- as replayable as it is the computer play just doesn't last 3 years...)
I may be reading too much into it, but I thought the pharmacy staff would charge a battery pack, and TOBOR would pick up the new pack (dropping off the old) when it came back for more meds to distribute. If it had to wait around for the battery to charge then it is spending a lot of time doing that rather then on it's "real job".
Or maybe they just keep the recharging in the hands of the humans to prevent rebellion :-)
Smaller light path, pretty much the same size as an APS SLR. They used a AF module from their last APS SLR. However their last APS SLR was some time ago, and an intro level AF system, so it is no worse then the AF from an EOS-IX, which was about the same as the EOS Rebel of the same era. However the Rebel has gotten better since then, and $2000 EOS cameras have much better AF then the old IX...except for the $2000 D30/D60...
Thanks, I guess I never noticed that compaired to my ELAN. It is definitly much faster then the digital P&S cameras by a half second to a full second, so I guess the ~0.1 second delay seems like nothing to someone use to more, and a whole lot to someone who is use to none.
Does your RTS have a pellicle mirror?
About the same as the low end film cameras (twice as fast as the Rebel 2000, slightly slower then the ELAN 7). Slower then $2000 film cameras though.
Even the EOS-1D's 8 fps is slower then the EOS RT's 10 fps.
RAM prices will have to drop a lot before affordable digitals can do that...or FLASH has to get a whole lot faster. The D30 had some odd buffer behaviour -- if you release the shutter it has to drain the buffer before you can take more shots (even if it is say, half empty). The D60 fixed that.
Maybe JPEG2000 will help a bit, smaller images means less I/O...if they can be compressed fast enough.
Or that existing regulation can't be applied. I expect anything that downloads and installs without permission could fall legally under the existing computer trespass laws. Sneaking spyware might be trespass, but is almost definitely fraud.
We have more then enough laws, don't make new ones, use the existing ones.
What part of the D30 seemed slow? I know the focus is slow, but if you prefocus it seems fast to me. They did halve the release response time in the D60, but since I havn't used one I can't say if that is really noticable, so I'm wondering...
(actually yesterday I was taking shots of the distorted reflections from an office building, and a bird flew across and I mashed the shutter, the camera seemed slow to react...but I think at least half of that was my thumb not responding...)
That's for sure. The AF on low end digital cameras still isn't up to the AF on film cameras (except maybe on the D100). Aside from that we know CPUs tend to get faster, and memory tends to get bigger for the same price, so processing should get better...well as long as we don't keep growing the image size :-)
I don't think you will be able to get a camera like the D30 in 2 years (you can't get one from Nikon, Fuji, or Canon now...and I don't think the Sigma is really the same, but I would like to see a real review). It would be nice if the low end DSLRs were under $1k though. Not so nice if they stick to the old lame Canon IX AF system though. That just has to go!
Heh, say that after you handle the 70-200L f/2.8 IS :-)
(yeah, yeah, they both make great lenses...so does Pentax and Minolta for that matter)
All cameras are transitional, some more then most.
If you mean what covers the same field as a 50mm yes a 31.25mm covers it. If you mean what do I carry on it most of the time, well a 50mm. I like long lenses, and using a 50mm f/1.4 is way way less expensive then a 85mm f/1.2, like half the cost of the camera less expensive :-)
I'm not quite as fond of what it does to my 100mm for people pictures, but it gives a little more range for macro shots.
It sure looks like Canon is looking to get closer to full frame. They do have the 1.6x of the D30/D60 and the 1.3x of the 1D. Lots of people want full frame. More people just want wide angles. Problem is CCDs (and I guess) CMOS sensors have more light fall off problems then film, so it is possible there is really no way to get full 35mm frame coverage without designing new lenses!
All of Nikon's digitals have used the exact same multiplier. There is some chance they are going to make a new set of lenses designed to cover just that. They can be lighter and cheaper that way, and if they can make some really really wide angles, they might manage to do it. It could work out really well. It is also in line with things they have done in the past (like G lenses). It is also possible they are reaching for full frame like everyone else.
Sigma's CCD is smaller then Canon's D30/D60 sensor. Contax's N1 is a year late, and they missed two more deadlines in as many months. I think it is a cool product, and would love to see it on the market. The CCD it uses has been out for like 2 or 3 years!
(you forgot to list the porn industry, I would imagine the D30/D60/D100 would work great there; it also works well for finding the right levels for studio lights)
I'm not sure the D30/D60 is up to PJ standards. Not waterproof, not the best AF. I think the Nikon D100 has better AF, but still isn't waterproof. It is also a whole lot easier to learn new technique on.
I'm a bit under a year from saving enough on film and processing to pay for my D30 based on my old usage rate. I'm probably four months from it if you look at my current shooting rates. Since I don't really think I want a D60, I don't see it as dumb since I'll almost definitely save enough to make the D30 free before I no longer want the D30.
Besides, I have more fun with the D30, so from that point of view it's been a better purchase then my last VCR, a lot of recent book buys, some movies I have been too, and some of the cable (er, satellite) channels. I still have a blast when I pick it up.
That may be, but that alone isn't a reason to drop support of the plugins.
Sure, except it has three signifigant advantages over the F60. It comes with effectavly 1000s of rolls of free film and proccessing (not printing though), the proccessing is instant not "one hour" including a histogram, and lastly they mount Canon lenses :-)
Instant processing and the histogram are really useful tools for learning how to use complex lighting setups.
Could be, but currently Nikon has NEF, Canon has RAW, Sigma and Fuji have their own formats (both new this year). Since the "raw" format is closely tied to the color filter array layout, and the spacing of the sensors on the CCD/CMOS I'm not sure there will be a standard for it, unless those things stabalise (say, a grid pattern for sensors, and X3-like RGB samples at each pixel...or a Fuji like honeycomb layout).
I don't think Apple's hardware is more reliable then Wintel hardware. Their software tends to be though.
Recently Apple has been doing pretty much everything right. If they keep it up PJs will still use PowerBooks. If they have a few major screwups there could easially be no more Apple. I'm hoping they keep doing it all right.
Me too, in fact I bought my first pre-built Intel box (er, unless you count i860 boxes) recently. It was cheaper then I would built it myself. For the most part even decent componants.
They skimped on the case, it is kind of cheasy. They skimped big time on the power supply, it is monster loud. My machines all have PC Power and Cooling supplies, and are all quiet. This new machine has a normal supply, and it reminded me why I buy my own quiet ones. Plus the keyboard and mouse really suck.
I think next time I'll build my own since I can get all the parts I really want, not an ethernet that is decent, but one I like, not drives that are decent, but ones I like, not power supplies that suck, but ones that rule.
For now I just bought a new power supply, keyboard, and mouse to replace the ones it came with.
I don't recall Compuserve ever promising that, in fact at the time they made GIF nobody really thought software patents were workable...except the patent office.
Plus if CompuServ tells me I can use Unisys's patented crud, why should I believe them? I only trust what IBM says about IBM's patents. Likewise for JPEG2000, I'll believe I can get a royalty free license only if the patent holders sign for it, not 3rd parties.
If you look at RAMBUS you will see they made a similar promise when they were at the JDEC meetings that eventually produced SDRAM, and while they did sue, when someone finally decided not to settle RAMBUS got spanked. Hard. So while it ain't perfect, there is some reason to believe it will work out Ok.
Yes but this change "needed" to happen because MS managed to become the big player, and didn't want people writing plugins that would work with MSIE and Netscape, they wanted them to write a MSIE only ActiveX control, and then decide the extra effort needed to support Netscape wasn't worth it.
It's not like oh, say, dropping a.out because it doesn't support all the debugging symbols you might need, or it is hard to support shared libs with a.out...in that case you are really buying something for your pain. In MSIE's case they are getting something for your pain, and what they are getting is more pain for you.
Not my idea of a good deal, but if you like it, go for it.
Lossless JPEG uses patented IBM stuff (I think the rest of JPEG uses various patents as well, but everyone agreed to freely license them, IBM didn't agree for the lossless stuff). I think that is the big reason pretty much nobody uses it.
Yeah, but then they started another LCD promo almost the same as the first (and since both LCD promos were "buy a G4 and LCD and we give you stuff" it could be a G4 promo...)
Maybe...or maybe you will wait 2 weeks and find the prices have gone up more.
Well one can be pushed out of a niche. For example it is a big pain to try to use Canon's EOS-D30 or D60 RAW conversion software on a Mac...unless you run OS9. For Windows Canon has decided to support NT2000, WinME and XP, but still no OSX support. That is for a $2000 camera (or if you were lucky $1499 referb for the D30). I doubt that would happen if Canon thought Apple had the same kind of market share (photogs, not "normal people") as Wintel does.
Or look at desktop publishing, in the mid-80s the Mac was it. PCs were good for accountants, but if you wanted page layouts, it was Mac all the way. Now windows does it well enough that nobody cares.
Pushing into niche markets is a good idea for Apple, but that alone isn't enough because they are too hard to defend.
Well to be honest most people don't need this product, so trying to make a profit (or clear the dev costs) is going to need high prices. Heck, most people don't have DV cams, and most of the ones that do can get by with iMovie. Of the ones that can't get by with iMovie, most don't need more then what Final Cut Pro does. The few that do can afford $1000, right? And since there are only 300 or so people that need it, charging $30 won't make the dev costs back at all...
First we bitch at MS for making a 12G install of MS Office because it's too bloated, and now at Apple for producing a lean mean fighting machine?
Was the 32X popular? I didn't get the impression the Saturn was which is why I was unsupprised to see it die.
Now that makes zero sense. Selling more consoles lets you spread the NREs over more units and drive production costs down, and buy parts in bigger lots at lower prices. None of that makes things worse for Sega.
You could be right that they totally messed up on costs and they had to sell 10 games per DC to make up for the loss, but I would like to see that information from another source since (no offense intended) you seem a little biased. However even then selling more DCs doesn't make things worse, if they hadn't sold any they would have lost huge on the NRE and lost face by having "another Saturn". If they sold half as many DCs they would have lost more money on each one. In any case selling them at too much of a loss would doom them, not selling too many of them.
How? If each DC is $100 worth of parts loss and it's share of advertising and design costs then selling one DC means it is a billion dollar loss so you need to sell a tenth of a billion games to everyone who bought a DC. If you sell a billion DCs you only need to sell $101 worth of games to each DC owner.
That still ignores all the places where building more of something costs less -- that $100 isn't inflexible. It also won't go to zero though.
Well that's sure true. The question is weather or not Sega blundered their way into this position, or if they really did play a good game and lose anyway (or if they even could have made another console but decided this was "safer"). Few people claim NeXT were a bunch of morons who sold the cube at under cost and drove themselves out of the hardware business (or the same for Be), mostly people claim they went into a hard market and didn't make it. (Actually I think NeXT's hardware was an extremely poor choice, mostly the CPU choice, but lots of people disagree with me).
Well, we both agree on where they are, just not how they got there.
No, that is still not theft, it is a contract violation. Not everything bad is theft. Spray painting my house isn't theft, even if it lowers the property value of my house, or is done just before an open house and in fact costs me potential buyers.
Kicking my dog wouldn't be assault either, it would be animal cruelty (and if I catch you kicking my dog, you may get to file an assault charge against me).
Naw, but the people who make flags would be happy because they would get to print up a whole ton of 'em with 52 stars...
Thing is, from my little view of the world they were dominating. Even past when Sony hyped the PSX2. People were buying new ones. I didn't know anyone who used a PSX that didn't have a Dreamcast (I'm sure there were many such people, but I didn't know any). They threw in the towel before the PSX2 hit the market.
Losing money on console hardware isn't uncommon, they get a fee for every game sold (which is the real reason they are closed platforms, not to avoid the Atari 2600 mess). It is common to lose money unless 2 or 3 games are bought (and normally they are, except with the newer generation of consoles that can also serve as DVD players...I heard the PSX2 had a problem with too many people only buying a game and using it as a DVD player mostly).
Could be, but it seemed to be pretty much the same b-plan other console makers had. Design a system that can be sold for $200, slap fees on games to make up the difference between build cost and store price. Make all the money on the games and add-on controlers and stuff.
Cool! I may have to find an arcade :-)
Oh, sure, now I actually have to figure out which system is better, I can't just automagically buy whichever game system SC2 comes out for... (whine whine whine....)
Yeah, I have seen a comercial for it (I may have a TiVo, but sometimes I back up to catch video game comercials). I'm not sure, I didn't really like the previous VF games. Maybe in part because of some bad blood between the CoinOp company I worded for long ago, and the first VF...but more likely, there is just something in it that I don't like that much. Too keep on topic I could accuse it of being too realistic :-)
Nostalgia also tends to focus on the better video games, not the 300 Space Invaders clones, but Space Invaders and the best few clones. Not every black & white movie, but a handful of the best (or the best few 100 or so).
There were lots of great old games, but there were a lot of pretty lame ones too.
Hmmmm, Sega seemed to have a lot of marketing at the launch of the Dreamcast, and for a while after. Mine never had hardware failures (still play Soul Caliber on it, I love that game). The Saturn seemed to have decent ads too, just no games that caught my eye.
I thought Sega lost out because they mis-timed it and brought out the Dreamcast on a half generation step. It was better then the existing machines (the newest game console normally is), but didn't have the money to design a new one in the same time frame the other three players would bring out their boxes, leaving Sega with a box with a bunch of OK games, but a half generation behind everyone.
Still, I haven't bought a new game console because I haven't seen a new kick-fu game I like. I hope there is a sequel to Soul Caliber (which I think is a sequel to Soul Edge on the PlayStation).