The fact that the machine looks like an iMac may make it sell better, i.e. not that it looks good on its own, but that it looks like something people already know and think is good / pretty.
Exactly. Plus it doesn't hurt that this look-alike is also intended to also target a "it's easy because it's not Microsoft" market.
Of course, this also has its downside, as other posters have pointed out...
Yep, partly that some people have seen the CRT iMac and don't like it, and partly that Apple now has the new LCD iMac as the "cutting edge". (personally I think the old iMac looked nicer, but having seen the new one in person it's actually plesent to use)
I think you are underestimating the relevance of marketing.
Not at all, it doesn't matter what made people think the original iMac looked nice, just that they do. So this similar looking object can cash in on some of that, wether it is because the original struck a chord in people, or because a massive marketing machine has beat it into people.
I don't think that means this thing can succeed only on it's looks, just that $799 for a computer that makes it's looks a strong selling point, and everything else comes in second has been done before, and it worked.
I wonder how much Apple paid to be able to slap that formerly good brand name (Harmon-Kardon) on the iMac?
Have you listened to the things? My in-laws have one, and it really does sound decent, which is quite a big deal for speakers that small.
What other speakers that small sound decent? I expect there are some, but not all that many. I think it is pretty fair for Apple to say in effect "look these iMac speakers are small, but oddly enough not crap", if pushing the H-K does it, well, Ok.
No, I don't think the H-K sound sticks or iSub are all that special sounding. I mean they sound decent for the price range, but not really better then other brands in that price range. They do look pretty striking though. They don't fit in with the rest of my computer room though, plus my PC speakers have two inputs, so no real reason to buy them...
people are not going to spend $800 for something that just looks nice
Hmmm, so what about the 3M people who bought the CRT iMac -- did they buy it on anything other then looks? (and yes, it's normally priced $799 to $1200, it only goes below $799 on clearance, which I think is about twice a year as Apple brings out a new high end model, or a few new models).
Yeah, I know the iMac isn't an unknown nor is Apple, and it didn't have a lot of the other problems, but the fact remains may people were attracted to it merely for the looks (and lack o cables and the like).
Well, aside from clearance sales Apple never priced the iMac lower then $799, and they did sell 3 million of them. Not to many people on slashdot though:-)
LAPTOP...Offer that a $300-400
You don't pick easy targets do you? I think someone did try to sell a GEOS laptop for not much over $500, it sounded a lot like the specs on yours otherwise. It flopped big time. I don't think cutting the price $200 would help a lot, but who knows.
OK, not to be subversive here, but isn't kicking someone out of the dorms for 'netting too much kind of like kicking someone out of college for drinking too much?
You know they do kick people out for that too. Again normally after some warnings, and mostly if it interferes with others (all that vomiting...).
Light up all the dark fiber in the US, problem solved...
Problem is the dark fiber for the most part doesn't go where you want. It is mostly cross country, not to the Uni's doorstep (or most businesses, or my house). It's the last mile problem again, but on a bigger scale. Sure there are a ton of unlit fiber bundles going from VA to CA, but none are close to GMU or UCB.
(and no the fiber bundles don't really go from VA to CA, but you can get interstate routes in most cases, at least for the more populated states)
There's no way to stop filesharing except at the endpoints of communication. Unless the users stop wanting to use filesharing, there will always be workarounds for all the filtering and blocking you can think of.
The point isn't to stop it, but to treat it like a second class citizen. So if there is no shortage of bandwidth you can do all the filesharing you want, if the "legit" traffic uses 75% of the available bandwidth then there is 25% left for filesharing. The only blocking would happen if the "ligit" traffic manages to use all the bandwidth.
From a technology point this is a pretty easy thing to do, the first paper I read about it was in, um, '94 I think, and was oddly enough about a UK to USA pipe that was jointly owned by a research university and a business, they carved it up to 1/3rd of the traffic to the business, 1/3rd for faculty, and 1/3rd for other uni uses (students mostly). Any of the 1/3rd were unused the other two could split the slack.
This scheme is much better then outright blocking for a lot of reasons. First is fairness, it is fair to let the filesharing go on when there is spare bandwidth. Second is practical use, if you block a port people will quickly use another port, if a port is "just slow" it will take way longer for anyone to realize they should try to work around it. In fact as long as the reasoning is explained many people won't even try to work around it.
What can be done is this: Restrict bandwidth or volume of data. That however will limit certain promising aspects of network development like freenet and other decentralized protocols
Depends on the limit. In this case "whatever is left over" seems pretty reasonable. It would work out to far more "network time" then most astronomers get "telescope time", right?
Well, when was the last time this piece of legal mumbo-jumbo *actually* effected you, or anyone you know, or anyone you've even heard about? Have you seen any news lately about the "Borland Gestapo" breaking down someone's door?
When was the last time I ever effected you or anyone you know? Have you seen any news lately about me breaking down doors?
I didn't think so. Now will you sign this document saying I can break down your door, take your dog, TV, and CD collection. It's perfectly harmless to do so, I mean you just admitted that I haven't done it to anyone you know, nor has the news told you I've done it to anyone else.
It's not a stupid principal. If you don't want anyone taking your dog, don't sign paper saying they can. If you don't want anyone to shave your head and paint "I'm a sucker" on it, don't sign paper saying they can.
After all just because Borland (or I!) have not yet asserted our rights under those contract doesn't mean we won't. It may just be we are both waiting until there is something worth blowing our cover for (A valuable Klyx program, somebody with a lot of good CDs, or a really cool dog). Maybe future Borland management will be less kind, or Borland will get sold to somebody less kind (Microsoft...or me!).
I'll have to add a new clause to w3juke giving me the right to shave user's heads. I mean someday I might run into someone dumb enough to have agreed, and they might piss me off a little...or maybe they are trying to hit on my wife...maybe i should put the dog thing in too, I could use some more pre-trained dogs...
Long distance - are we talking about your calls, or the provider? I don't know of a provider on the planet that charges $50
Last time I got a local line they let me pick a LD provider, or they would pick one at random. It is very possible for a LD company to survive on being in the random list passing service through to one of the "real" LD firms, and billing $50 plus twice what the other LD firm bills them. Scummy, but doable.
This may have changed in the last five or so years, or vary state to state though.
Cable TV... wait... you said local? If You want local channels only (which defeats the primary purpose of cable television), I'd suggest you use an antenna. And that comes down to a cost of $0 per month.
You frequently get a better picture, and more "distant locals" by buying lifeline cable service. Some people also live places where they are prohibited from putting up a decent antenna. This kind of service can be worth $14/month for some people. Others would rather eat lunch out two more times a week, or make 7+ bag lunches.
I would NEVER commit to paying $230 per month for all that trash. I don't need half of it, and I sure would not want it from them.
I don't think I would want to pay $230 for it either. I surely won't pay extra just so I can get "only one bill".
I doubt that any "movies on demand" system is going to be a Blockbuster killer, since with a rental system you get to have the movie over a period of days, and the opportunity to watch it multiple times or episodically. (And the episodic capability is really nice if you've got little kids.
If they replace the existing dumb cable box with a TiVo-like (and TiVo is a leading contender since they seem to want to license to everyone) box, they can stash the PPV on the TiVo after you order it and you can watch it over the next few days like a normal rental (or months depending on how they set it up, and how much else you want to stash on the box).
The advantage over NetFlix is it could take a lot less time for the movie to get to your set top (depending on how frequently they transmit the movie you picked), the disadvantage would most likely be a much smaller selection. Plus it's likely not to have all the extras like a good DVD does.
I don't think I pay over $150 on all my phone/TV/connectivity stuff. I don't care if it goes to one place, or to five like it does now, so long as the service I get is of the quality I want, and I continue to have a choice of providers so I can vote with me feet if one pisses me off (for me this is hardest with my IP access - I can't find anyone affordable except the local cableco, and my TiVo - not only would I have to buy another PVR, but the others don't seem to fit my needs as well).
There are more serious technological challenges in ADSL.
That's fine, but is there an ISP that lets you get that far? My cable co doesn't let me offer any services at all. My DSL provider use to, but they went bankrupt, feel off a cliff, rolled into the swamp, and vanished from view. Neither of the other DLS providers that claim to serve my area will serve my house....
As far as the original poster goes, you can try SpeakEasy, I think they let you have fixed IP addresses and do what you wanted with them, and were cheap (if you don't care about cheap UUNET sells a number of unrestricted services -- as do many other ISPs). MegaPath use to, if you can find them again. Pretty much all the "business class" DSL services let you have a handful of fixed IP addresses and do more or less what you want. They also cost $100 to $200 a month.
If I could get a $15 a month hockey-only subscription....
FYI, DISH lets you buy they channels one at a time, no limits except what the content owners (i.e. Viacomm) demand. You could try and see if whatever you watch hockey on is available that way.
Sure, the packages can be labelled. We all know how delivery services take careful note of labels on packages
What? You mean we are only trying to defend against criminals "smart" enough to get anthrax, but dumb enough not to stamp "FLASH Card, do not Zap" on the envelope?
This isn't going to work if we let some of the packages escape (unless we let them go at random, then we still may eliminate the anthrax threat, but we will then destroy film/flash/medical samples/stuff).
The infamous Amazon "one-click" patent on the other hand, is the worst of both worlds. They're only using it to try to harm Barnes & Noble. Patents have largely devolved from a way to protect innovation to a way to stifle it.
Not true, they not only attempt to harm B&N with it, but extort money from Apple and others who license it...
if the various CD logos are governed by trademark law, shouldn't they have (TM) or ® somewhere near them?
I don't know all that much about trademarks (as in I had a high school class in the 1985ish that went into it some, and have forgotten most of it). Copyrights on the other hand do not have to be marked to be enforced, but if they are not marked you can only recover actual damages, not punitive damages.
In other words if Microsoft uses some code I don't have marked as copyrighted, I can sue them for infringement, and force them to stop, and recover the money I can prove they cost me (if any). If I mark it as copyright I can also sue for extra money to punish them and reduce the chance that they do it again.
Same thing if someone takes one of my photos and puts it on their web page. (not a photo of me, but one I made -- photos of me would be a different matter, and are normally legal for non-profit use and for editorial use, but most other commercial use requires a waver of some sort)
IIRC, use of the logos is governed by a license agreement between Philips and the user (you sign on the dotted line and fax it to them to get the password to the encrypted zipfile you download from their website). IANAL, but this would appear to fall under contract law. That said, there's no expiration on a contract unless one is written into it.
Yes, but the contract allows one to use the mark...if something else also allows use of the mark then the contract is less important.
Think of it this way, if we execute a contract that says for $50/week you can use my car every Friday night. Then later you buy my car, you don't need to pay me $50 on Friday nights since your ownership of the car now allows you a different path to use.
Record labels that produce intentionally incompatible CDs and stick the CD-DA logo on them would be in breach of contract. If Philips wanted, it could go after the labels on these grounds. (Other posts in this thread indicate that while Philips knows it has this option, it's chosen for the time being to take a different course.)
Sure, so long as Philips has any enforcement rights over the mark at all. If it loses those rights (somehow) then it no longer has a way of keeping people from using the mark on anything they like, contract or no.
Yes, that's exactly what I said, except you expanded the "in theory". In theory (USA) copyrights are for a limited time, and the pre WWII ones expired (they lasted like 18 years past the creators death back then, I think). In practice currently copyrights last for a very long time after death (70+ years? 98 years?), but that seems to be just a pretext as the "limited time" keeps getting extended. I think the big deal is Disney wants to keep Mickey mouse under their thumb.
Personally I would be Ok if there was a way to keep activaly produced items in copyright, and let the others fall out. It would be far better then the current scheme of having nothing ever go out of copyright. Maybe a modest additonal fee, and a requirement that the item must be available on the open market for a reasonable price. The fee to cover a filing cost, and the avilable requirment to keep people from just sitting on stuff if the fee is too low (i.e. I don't really want a publisher to pay just to keep a book rights, I want the thing published so I can buy it, or to fall into the public domain so I can download it).
I would also be Ok if stuff would actually fall out of copyright (and yes, I do have comercially valuable works protected by copyright, but as long as my wife doesn't outlive the copyright that won't be a problem, plus I have savings and life insurance...)
According to the article, Philips is not going to try to get offending companies to remove the logo since the patents are running out in 2003/2004.
The logo is a trademark, and they unlike patents and (in theory) copyright do not run out. The Bass Ale logo is the oldest trademark, I think it was granted in 1777, and still enforceable.
I donno, saying "I hope it is right" has a lot more credibility then just reading off the teleprompter and sitting above the logo. Real news agencies get stuff wrong too, in fact they almost always get technical stories wrong, but they almost never warn you ahead of time that they are a bunch of cluebags...
Re:Use the correct tool for Copy Protection...
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New iMac Announced
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You're correct, there is more control over the encoding rate in DVD Studio Pro, but it is not VBR. It is a straight bitrate that you set
Wow, I would have assumed it supported assisted VBR (where you can basically tell it which parts need more bandwidth, which could get by with less). That's a big part of the post production on DVD releases. I think they re-train colorists to do it...
Just a little point- all of the iApps are free to Mac users. You just need to download them. Obviously, you have never used these apps, 'cause I've never heard anyone who _has_ used them complain that they are "cumbersome" or "limited" in functionality
I have never heard anyone claim they are cumbersome, but I have heard lots of people claim they are limited. People didn't like that iTunes can't change speed/pitch of music (and before iTunes2 they didn't like the lack of graphic EQ, or MP3 CD burning). Lots of stuff is missing from imovie (see After Effects for "more stuff"). I'll go on record right here and now and complain that iPhoto doesn't have "curves and levels" to let me adjust the brightness of my photos, nor does it have any touch up features (yes, PhotoShop has that stuff, but I only need about 3% of PhotoShop). In fact iPhoto's editing is almost non-existant (crop, red eye, and B&W). Plus iPhoto has no support for "off line" collections of photos. I can and have done 300+M of images in a day, I would kind of like that ability...
So yeah the i-apps are quite limited. I do think that they are (excluding iPhoto for now) a well chosen set of features that can serve casual users, and let someone know if they should go spend $600 on the pro package, or if they really are not that into making movies (or whatever).
I do hope iPhoto gets some more work and next year's iPhoto2 at least has off-line support (and color correction and the like would be nice...but I already have PhotoShop LE and GraphicConverter so I don't personally need it in iPhoto...).
Yes it only answers the question "how many people who read a TiVo BBS use both tuners", but that is better then answering the question "I wonder what number I can make up"...
I was thinking about that, too. They should be able to discover each other on the (100Mb please!) network and integrate their saved shows into one large collection. One of them should be designated the master unit, that's the one you connect to the TV and control with the remote, the others simply act as auxiliary tuners and extra storage to the master.
Well, I was kind of assuming you could continue to play back shows on any of them, so if you had a TV in the bedroom and one in the family room, you could play any recorded show on either of the TV sets. Of corse I only have one TV, so I won't be too upset if that never happens:-)
They could even implement some kind of scheduling mechanism where the master unit automatically finds a free unit to record a particular show.
I don't think they could avoid this since a big feature of the TiVo is you tell it what shows you want, and it goes about the process of finding them (you also get to tell it which are more important so it can handle conflicts "right").
I guess the programmer in us is running away with this, fat chance of seeing something like this anytime soon
Probbably not, but they did just finally get to the point where a TiVo doesn't cost more then the selling price. Maybe now they will be happier with a scheme that encurages multipe buys for a single house...
But if that's my only option, I'd rather not upgrade. It reeks too much of "'free' Microsoft browser," and we all know where that's gotten us.
Well the other option was to not buy the lifetime subscription in anticipation of a better future unit coming out in less then 2 years (life time fee of $200 vs. yearly of $100; or monthly fee for 20 months...7/8ths of a year at least).
I wish it was still illegal to give away the razor and charge double for the blades
Well in this case you bought the razor and a discount on a lifetime supply of blades, and are now upset that the new razor takes a different kind of blade, and your old razor still works. I don't see how making everyone buy the razor and lifetime supply of blades would help.
P.S. I may sound smug here because I didn't get a lifetime sub, but I think I missed the perfect timing by a tad since my yearly plan would have been renewed last month. To do it right I would have switched to monthly in december and saved money. As it is, I get to pay the old lifetime cost, and not have service on the "backup" TiVo past the end of the year. I would have been ahead paying the $200 for the lifetime. Of corse I'm happy enough with the product that they could double my service fee and I would keep the thing. Don't you dare tell TiVo that though.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Plus it doesn't hurt that this look-alike is also intended to also target a "it's easy because it's not Microsoft" market.
Yep, partly that some people have seen the CRT iMac and don't like it, and partly that Apple now has the new LCD iMac as the "cutting edge". (personally I think the old iMac looked nicer, but having seen the new one in person it's actually plesent to use)
Not at all, it doesn't matter what made people think the original iMac looked nice, just that they do. So this similar looking object can cash in on some of that, wether it is because the original struck a chord in people, or because a massive marketing machine has beat it into people.
I don't think that means this thing can succeed only on it's looks, just that $799 for a computer that makes it's looks a strong selling point, and everything else comes in second has been done before, and it worked.
Have you listened to the things? My in-laws have one, and it really does sound decent, which is quite a big deal for speakers that small.
What other speakers that small sound decent? I expect there are some, but not all that many. I think it is pretty fair for Apple to say in effect "look these iMac speakers are small, but oddly enough not crap", if pushing the H-K does it, well, Ok.
No, I don't think the H-K sound sticks or iSub are all that special sounding. I mean they sound decent for the price range, but not really better then other brands in that price range. They do look pretty striking though. They don't fit in with the rest of my computer room though, plus my PC speakers have two inputs, so no real reason to buy them...
Hmmm, so what about the 3M people who bought the CRT iMac -- did they buy it on anything other then looks? (and yes, it's normally priced $799 to $1200, it only goes below $799 on clearance, which I think is about twice a year as Apple brings out a new high end model, or a few new models).
Yeah, I know the iMac isn't an unknown nor is Apple, and it didn't have a lot of the other problems, but the fact remains may people were attracted to it merely for the looks (and lack o cables and the like).
Well, aside from clearance sales Apple never priced the iMac lower then $799, and they did sell 3 million of them. Not to many people on slashdot though :-)
You don't pick easy targets do you? I think someone did try to sell a GEOS laptop for not much over $500, it sounded a lot like the specs on yours otherwise. It flopped big time. I don't think cutting the price $200 would help a lot, but who knows.
You know they do kick people out for that too. Again normally after some warnings, and mostly if it interferes with others (all that vomiting...).
Problem is the dark fiber for the most part doesn't go where you want. It is mostly cross country, not to the Uni's doorstep (or most businesses, or my house). It's the last mile problem again, but on a bigger scale. Sure there are a ton of unlit fiber bundles going from VA to CA, but none are close to GMU or UCB.
(and no the fiber bundles don't really go from VA to CA, but you can get interstate routes in most cases, at least for the more populated states)
The point isn't to stop it, but to treat it like a second class citizen. So if there is no shortage of bandwidth you can do all the filesharing you want, if the "legit" traffic uses 75% of the available bandwidth then there is 25% left for filesharing. The only blocking would happen if the "ligit" traffic manages to use all the bandwidth.
From a technology point this is a pretty easy thing to do, the first paper I read about it was in, um, '94 I think, and was oddly enough about a UK to USA pipe that was jointly owned by a research university and a business, they carved it up to 1/3rd of the traffic to the business, 1/3rd for faculty, and 1/3rd for other uni uses (students mostly). Any of the 1/3rd were unused the other two could split the slack.
This scheme is much better then outright blocking for a lot of reasons. First is fairness, it is fair to let the filesharing go on when there is spare bandwidth. Second is practical use, if you block a port people will quickly use another port, if a port is "just slow" it will take way longer for anyone to realize they should try to work around it. In fact as long as the reasoning is explained many people won't even try to work around it.
Depends on the limit. In this case "whatever is left over" seems pretty reasonable. It would work out to far more "network time" then most astronomers get "telescope time", right?
When was the last time I ever effected you or anyone you know? Have you seen any news lately about me breaking down doors?
I didn't think so. Now will you sign this document saying I can break down your door, take your dog, TV, and CD collection. It's perfectly harmless to do so, I mean you just admitted that I haven't done it to anyone you know, nor has the news told you I've done it to anyone else.
It's not a stupid principal. If you don't want anyone taking your dog, don't sign paper saying they can. If you don't want anyone to shave your head and paint "I'm a sucker" on it, don't sign paper saying they can.
After all just because Borland (or I!) have not yet asserted our rights under those contract doesn't mean we won't. It may just be we are both waiting until there is something worth blowing our cover for (A valuable Klyx program, somebody with a lot of good CDs, or a really cool dog). Maybe future Borland management will be less kind, or Borland will get sold to somebody less kind (Microsoft...or me!).
I'll have to add a new clause to w3juke giving me the right to shave user's heads. I mean someday I might run into someone dumb enough to have agreed, and they might piss me off a little...or maybe they are trying to hit on my wife...maybe i should put the dog thing in too, I could use some more pre-trained dogs...
Last time I got a local line they let me pick a LD provider, or they would pick one at random. It is very possible for a LD company to survive on being in the random list passing service through to one of the "real" LD firms, and billing $50 plus twice what the other LD firm bills them. Scummy, but doable.
This may have changed in the last five or so years, or vary state to state though.
You frequently get a better picture, and more "distant locals" by buying lifeline cable service. Some people also live places where they are prohibited from putting up a decent antenna. This kind of service can be worth $14/month for some people. Others would rather eat lunch out two more times a week, or make 7+ bag lunches.
I don't think I would want to pay $230 for it either. I surely won't pay extra just so I can get "only one bill".
If they replace the existing dumb cable box with a TiVo-like (and TiVo is a leading contender since they seem to want to license to everyone) box, they can stash the PPV on the TiVo after you order it and you can watch it over the next few days like a normal rental (or months depending on how they set it up, and how much else you want to stash on the box).
The advantage over NetFlix is it could take a lot less time for the movie to get to your set top (depending on how frequently they transmit the movie you picked), the disadvantage would most likely be a much smaller selection. Plus it's likely not to have all the extras like a good DVD does.
I don't think I pay over $150 on all my phone/TV/connectivity stuff. I don't care if it goes to one place, or to five like it does now, so long as the service I get is of the quality I want, and I continue to have a choice of providers so I can vote with me feet if one pisses me off (for me this is hardest with my IP access - I can't find anyone affordable except the local cableco, and my TiVo - not only would I have to buy another PVR, but the others don't seem to fit my needs as well).
That's fine, but is there an ISP that lets you get that far? My cable co doesn't let me offer any services at all. My DSL provider use to, but they went bankrupt, feel off a cliff, rolled into the swamp, and vanished from view. Neither of the other DLS providers that claim to serve my area will serve my house....
As far as the original poster goes, you can try SpeakEasy, I think they let you have fixed IP addresses and do what you wanted with them, and were cheap (if you don't care about cheap UUNET sells a number of unrestricted services -- as do many other ISPs). MegaPath use to, if you can find them again. Pretty much all the "business class" DSL services let you have a handful of fixed IP addresses and do more or less what you want. They also cost $100 to $200 a month.
FYI, DISH lets you buy they channels one at a time, no limits except what the content owners (i.e. Viacomm) demand. You could try and see if whatever you watch hockey on is available that way.
What? You mean we are only trying to defend against criminals "smart" enough to get anthrax, but dumb enough not to stamp "FLASH Card, do not Zap" on the envelope?
This isn't going to work if we let some of the packages escape (unless we let them go at random, then we still may eliminate the anthrax threat, but we will then destroy film/flash/medical samples/stuff).
Not true, they not only attempt to harm B&N with it, but extort money from Apple and others who license it...
I don't know all that much about trademarks (as in I had a high school class in the 1985ish that went into it some, and have forgotten most of it). Copyrights on the other hand do not have to be marked to be enforced, but if they are not marked you can only recover actual damages, not punitive damages.
In other words if Microsoft uses some code I don't have marked as copyrighted, I can sue them for infringement, and force them to stop, and recover the money I can prove they cost me (if any). If I mark it as copyright I can also sue for extra money to punish them and reduce the chance that they do it again.
Same thing if someone takes one of my photos and puts it on their web page. (not a photo of me, but one I made -- photos of me would be a different matter, and are normally legal for non-profit use and for editorial use, but most other commercial use requires a waver of some sort)
Yes, but the contract allows one to use the mark...if something else also allows use of the mark then the contract is less important.
Think of it this way, if we execute a contract that says for $50/week you can use my car every Friday night. Then later you buy my car, you don't need to pay me $50 on Friday nights since your ownership of the car now allows you a different path to use.
Sure, so long as Philips has any enforcement rights over the mark at all. If it loses those rights (somehow) then it no longer has a way of keeping people from using the mark on anything they like, contract or no.
Yes, that's exactly what I said, except you expanded the "in theory". In theory (USA) copyrights are for a limited time, and the pre WWII ones expired (they lasted like 18 years past the creators death back then, I think). In practice currently copyrights last for a very long time after death (70+ years? 98 years?), but that seems to be just a pretext as the "limited time" keeps getting extended. I think the big deal is Disney wants to keep Mickey mouse under their thumb.
Personally I would be Ok if there was a way to keep activaly produced items in copyright, and let the others fall out. It would be far better then the current scheme of having nothing ever go out of copyright. Maybe a modest additonal fee, and a requirement that the item must be available on the open market for a reasonable price. The fee to cover a filing cost, and the avilable requirment to keep people from just sitting on stuff if the fee is too low (i.e. I don't really want a publisher to pay just to keep a book rights, I want the thing published so I can buy it, or to fall into the public domain so I can download it).
I would also be Ok if stuff would actually fall out of copyright (and yes, I do have comercially valuable works protected by copyright, but as long as my wife doesn't outlive the copyright that won't be a problem, plus I have savings and life insurance...)
The logo is a trademark, and they unlike patents and (in theory) copyright do not run out. The Bass Ale logo is the oldest trademark, I think it was granted in 1777, and still enforceable.
Why? If the people who bought the "development" systems had developed apps I doubt Samsung would have canned it...
I donno, saying "I hope it is right" has a lot more credibility then just reading off the teleprompter and sitting above the logo. Real news agencies get stuff wrong too, in fact they almost always get technical stories wrong, but they almost never warn you ahead of time that they are a bunch of cluebags...
Wow, I would have assumed it supported assisted VBR (where you can basically tell it which parts need more bandwidth, which could get by with less). That's a big part of the post production on DVD releases. I think they re-train colorists to do it...
I have never heard anyone claim they are cumbersome, but I have heard lots of people claim they are limited. People didn't like that iTunes can't change speed/pitch of music (and before iTunes2 they didn't like the lack of graphic EQ, or MP3 CD burning). Lots of stuff is missing from imovie (see After Effects for "more stuff"). I'll go on record right here and now and complain that iPhoto doesn't have "curves and levels" to let me adjust the brightness of my photos, nor does it have any touch up features (yes, PhotoShop has that stuff, but I only need about 3% of PhotoShop). In fact iPhoto's editing is almost non-existant (crop, red eye, and B&W). Plus iPhoto has no support for "off line" collections of photos. I can and have done 300+M of images in a day, I would kind of like that ability...
So yeah the i-apps are quite limited. I do think that they are (excluding iPhoto for now) a well chosen set of features that can serve casual users, and let someone know if they should go spend $600 on the pro package, or if they really are not that into making movies (or whatever).
I do hope iPhoto gets some more work and next year's iPhoto2 at least has off-line support (and color correction and the like would be nice...but I already have PhotoShop LE and GraphicConverter so I don't personally need it in iPhoto...).
Yes it only answers the question "how many people who read a TiVo BBS use both tuners", but that is better then answering the question "I wonder what number I can make up"...
Well, I was kind of assuming you could continue to play back shows on any of them, so if you had a TV in the bedroom and one in the family room, you could play any recorded show on either of the TV sets. Of corse I only have one TV, so I won't be too upset if that never happens :-)
I don't think they could avoid this since a big feature of the TiVo is you tell it what shows you want, and it goes about the process of finding them (you also get to tell it which are more important so it can handle conflicts "right").
Probbably not, but they did just finally get to the point where a TiVo doesn't cost more then the selling price. Maybe now they will be happier with a scheme that encurages multipe buys for a single house...
Well the other option was to not buy the lifetime subscription in anticipation of a better future unit coming out in less then 2 years (life time fee of $200 vs. yearly of $100; or monthly fee for 20 months...7/8ths of a year at least).
Well in this case you bought the razor and a discount on a lifetime supply of blades, and are now upset that the new razor takes a different kind of blade, and your old razor still works. I don't see how making everyone buy the razor and lifetime supply of blades would help.
P.S. I may sound smug here because I didn't get a lifetime sub, but I think I missed the perfect timing by a tad since my yearly plan would have been renewed last month. To do it right I would have switched to monthly in december and saved money. As it is, I get to pay the old lifetime cost, and not have service on the "backup" TiVo past the end of the year. I would have been ahead paying the $200 for the lifetime. Of corse I'm happy enough with the product that they could double my service fee and I would keep the thing. Don't you dare tell TiVo that though.