"a mobile telephone that is just that : a telephone. "
Yeah and cars are cars and planes are planes. No place for CD players, clocks, complex error prone computer systems and whatnot.
Telephony is just a feature and I can't see any particular reason why it should deserve a dedicated box.
I don't particularly want to carry a multitude of individual plastic/metal containers for each feature that I may need daily, such as a calculator, clock, camera, calendar etc.
So perhaps these damn thingies, phones, PDAs, laptops etc. should be called something new and neutral. Any ideas?
On a related note, the banks here in Finland started phasing out ATMs some 5 years ago. Slowly, but surely, getting rid of the cash dispensing ones, but keeping the ones used for paying bills and doing other similar account-to-account transactions.
This push started with 'recommending' automated phone services some 15 years ago, by adding a small charge to real-life interactions.
In the last five years (or a bit more) they've been using similar added-charge tactics to move people over to web services, which admittedly have been quite good for almost a decade.
Cash is being used less and less here, and due mainly to 25 years of debit cards and early adoption of online services, Finland has the least cash circulating around in Europe.
With the disappearance of ATMs and ease of debit card handling by even small businesses, cash might soon disappear altogether.
The 1.0 came out in 2001, in Northern Europe at least. We've had one for years and we love it - it's kinda cool to live with a robotic household member.
Most of the software I've tried on 3D screens (like games) is unaware of the screen, which just passively outputs two images at a pre- defined stereobase.
So everything that approaches the viewer and breaks the 1/30 rule + touches edges, ends up breaking up the stereo illusion.
Here's one article that illustrates the phenomenon.
It seems tough to fight this without some interaction with the viewing device, or without switching to a more advanced technology, such as holography.
It's quite advanced. It builds a map, but isn't tied to it. For navigation, it has a sonar which crackles in a wickedly robotic way, when it tries to find the power station.
If you accidentally nudge it, when its loading, it will bleep in a slightly annoyed tone and replace its, umm, hindside on the connectors.
So it actually has a bit of personality and really feels like a semi-sentient robotic pal.
We've had our Trilobite for over a year now (as said elsewhere, it's been out for a few years in Northern Europe) and love it.
It has a set of silly soundeffects it probably generates with a monophonic chip, a bit like old cellphones. The sounds have intentionally been made robot- like, but they also differ from each other so that you learn to distinguish them, and know what they mean.
Also, when it's measuring the room or looking for the charging station, the sonar crackles in a robo-cool way.
So R2-D2 sounds? Yeah, kinda.
It's an interesting little critter. Unlike with some toys, with which you're supposed to interface for entertainment, this thing is going around doing its own business, not craving any human attention (except for when the bag gets full).
This utilitarian nature of it feels spooky in a cool way, it is very much a robot and very much a household member.
I've always been uncomfortable with how the telephone pipes audio into only one ear/brain lobe at a time.
Back when we had landline phones, I once soldered a pair of headphones into one to get sound into both ears and the resulting experience was quite different. The sound of the speaker at the other end immerses you, as the sound seems to originate from within your head. To get the idea, just try listening to music with one ear first, then both.
Of course, current phones won't likely have faked 3D spatialization, or other DSP, but that could be a fun business. I call you up, pay.05 extra for a cathedral ambience and reverb to add some atmosphere to our conversation.
Or I could order up some background Barry White for those Phonecalls of Love.
Or fake being somewhere using a suitable ambience.
Or, whatever:p
J
The sonar based Trilobite is interesting, too.
on
Dissecting the Roomba
·
· Score: 1
Robots.net and Scientifinc American have some discussion on the differences between the Roomba and the Electrolux Trilobite, which has been selling in Europe from since last summer.
Living with a Trilo roaming our household, its sonar crackling now and then, when it looks for a power-up at its dock, is much like having a pet:)
While most of us might prefer surfing naked, snowboarding ups the challenge a bit.
In the keynote, Steve introduced a joint product with Burton Snowboards - a jacket with built- in iPod compatibility. Buttons on sleeve, wiring inside!
IMHO, the hardest part to copy, clone or imitate in Mac OS is the way the OS extends outside the Apple software.
The much appraised Mac 'look & feel' bases itself on all developers sticking to the UI conventions and guidelines, nicely outlined in this guide for porting over Win32 apps.
The longer you use Mac OS, the more you'll appreciate this 'cultural' aspect of the OS.
Having used Windows XP a lot lately, I've been quite happy with the OS and 'Window Manager' itself, but as soon as I actually use an other app, the whole experience breaks down.
Keyboard shortcuts vary, widget placement is random, the tone of dialog varies and in general, application interoperability seems harder.
Funny how so many people lust after the visual aspect of the UI, risking lawsuits from Apple, while the 'feel' part - the real magic of Mac OS - is quite publicly available AND applicable in form of UI guidelines.
It won't hurt your Win/Linux app to apply some/all of these guidelines instead of no guidelines at all.
Interestingly, our local KPNQwest is leaving the mothership and this seems to be happening elsewhere, too.
On the Finnish company's page they state they're ready to re-route traffic and do what it takes. KPNQwest Norway got bought by Catch Communications and this might be the fate of the others, too. Seems Nokia is already on board as a customer.
http://www.kpnqwest.fi/yritys/uutiset/uutinen200 20 607.shtml (in Finnish)
The Emperor's mistake, actually. Jedis, such as Anakin Skywalker could be very irrational and could well have destroyed a planet out of pure arrogance. Or a battle station under construction, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread.
Darth Vader's other skills must have outweighed this risk in the Emperor's eyes. But he should have kept a tighter leash. This tragedy could have been avoided. Damn Jedis.
Slashdot Mirror
Exposé is a very fast and efficient way of switching to a desired browser window, competing with tabs for ultimate poweruserness.
The feature doesn't (yet) expose the individual tabs within an application, so you'd have to have the browser pages open in separate windows.
Separate windows also allow for faster drag&drop between them, another feature which was praised in the article.
J
"a mobile telephone that is just that : a telephone. "
Yeah and cars are cars and planes are planes. No place for CD players, clocks, complex error prone computer systems and whatnot.
Telephony is just a feature and I can't see any particular reason why it should deserve a dedicated box.
I don't particularly want to carry a multitude of individual plastic/metal containers for each feature that I may need daily, such as a calculator, clock, camera, calendar etc.
So perhaps these damn thingies, phones, PDAs, laptops etc. should be called something new and neutral. Any ideas?
J
On a related note, the banks here in Finland started phasing out ATMs some 5 years ago. Slowly, but surely, getting rid of the cash dispensing ones, but keeping the ones used for paying bills and doing other similar account-to-account transactions.
This push started with 'recommending' automated phone services some 15 years ago, by adding a small charge to real-life interactions.
In the last five years (or a bit more) they've been using similar added-charge tactics to move people over to web services, which admittedly have been quite good for almost a decade.
Cash is being used less and less here, and due mainly to 25 years of debit cards and early adoption of online services, Finland has the least cash circulating around in Europe.
With the disappearance of ATMs and ease of debit card handling by even small businesses, cash might soon disappear altogether.
J
... as if spoken by Gov. Schwarzenegger while under facial anaesthesia.
J
Yeah, why wait. Also, when you've reached the optimization phase, the app you've installed should be ready to use.
J
The 1.0 came out in 2001, in Northern Europe at least. We've had one for years and we love it - it's kinda cool to live with a robotic household member.
At this rate, 3.0 might be available in 2007.
J
Well, at least the picture depicting the NeXT cube is as big as the pic of Tim. It's shown on some kind of podium, so perhaps it was awarded, too : )
t m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3357073.s
Please note: This is where you plug all those "Mac OS X / Steve Jobs rocks" posts in this thread.
Yeah, there's always a bright side to things like this.
J
A great feature not mentioned in the review is the ablility to drag any album or song from the Music Store to create a URI shortcut.
It's great if you want to find a particular piece of music again, or send a recommendation to a friend.
J
J
Wow.
/Library/Internet Plugins - folder.
In Mac OS X, you can drag the Flash and QuickTime (which plays Flash, too) plugs out from the
But I admit, the ease-of-use in Windows is catching up with the Mac.
J
Most of the software I've tried on 3D screens (like games) is unaware of the screen, which just passively outputs two images at a pre- defined stereobase.
So everything that approaches the viewer and breaks the 1/30 rule + touches edges, ends up breaking up the stereo illusion.
Here's one article that illustrates the phenomenon.
It seems tough to fight this without some interaction with the viewing device, or without switching to a more advanced technology, such as holography.
So yeah, nice.
J
It's quite advanced. It builds a map, but isn't tied to it. For navigation, it has a sonar which crackles in a wickedly robotic way, when it tries to find the power station.
If you accidentally nudge it, when its loading, it will bleep in a slightly annoyed tone and replace its, umm, hindside on the connectors.
So it actually has a bit of personality and really feels like a semi-sentient robotic pal.
J
I don't wonder within a few years psychologists officially recognize a mental disorder of "Video Game/Reality dissociation" or something...
Duh, when I spill coffee my left hand visibly twitches for Undo.
J
What a coincidence, it seems I'm posting this on a 12" PowerBook, too.
I remember when uploading was as fast as downloading.
Nowadays, the typical network connection is getting faster in an asymmetrical way, with uploads getting relatively slower.
IMHO, this is bad. Its moving us further from the idea of distributed content, towards a traditional scheme of broadcasting.
J
If it humps you, it must be love.
By default, its built in sonar stops the unit before it hits anything.
J
We've had our Trilobite for over a year now (as said elsewhere, it's been out for a few years in Northern Europe) and love it.
It has a set of silly soundeffects it probably generates with a monophonic chip, a bit like old cellphones. The sounds have intentionally been made robot- like, but they also differ from each other so that you learn to distinguish them, and know what they mean.
Also, when it's measuring the room or looking for the charging station, the sonar crackles in a robo-cool way.
So R2-D2 sounds? Yeah, kinda.
It's an interesting little critter. Unlike with some toys, with which you're supposed to interface for entertainment, this thing is going around doing its own business, not craving any human attention (except for when the bag gets full).
This utilitarian nature of it feels spooky in a cool way, it is very much a robot and very much a household member.
J
I've always been uncomfortable with how the telephone pipes audio into only one ear/brain lobe at a time.
Back when we had landline phones, I once soldered a pair of headphones into one to get sound into both ears and the resulting experience was quite different. The sound of the speaker at the other end immerses you, as the sound seems to originate from within your head. To get the idea, just try listening to music with one ear first, then both.
Of course, current phones won't likely have faked 3D spatialization, or other DSP, but that could be a fun business. I call you up, pay
Or I could order up some background Barry White for those Phonecalls of Love.
Or fake being somewhere using a suitable ambience.
Or, whatever
J
Robots.net and Scientifinc American have some discussion on the differences between the Roomba and the Electrolux Trilobite, which has been selling in Europe from since last summer.
:)
Living with a Trilo roaming our household, its sonar crackling now and then, when it looks for a power-up at its dock, is much like having a pet
J
While most of us might prefer surfing naked, snowboarding ups the challenge a bit.
In the keynote, Steve introduced a joint product with Burton Snowboards - a jacket with built- in iPod compatibility. Buttons on sleeve, wiring inside!
I_love_this_company!
http://www.apple.com/ipod/burton/
J
IMHO, the hardest part to copy, clone or imitate in Mac OS is the way the OS extends outside the Apple software.
The much appraised Mac 'look & feel' bases itself on all developers sticking to the UI conventions and guidelines, nicely outlined in this guide for porting over Win32 apps.
The longer you use Mac OS, the more you'll appreciate this 'cultural' aspect of the OS.
Having used Windows XP a lot lately, I've been quite happy with the OS and 'Window Manager' itself, but as soon as I actually use an other app, the whole experience breaks down.
Keyboard shortcuts vary, widget placement is random, the tone of dialog varies and in general, application interoperability seems harder.
Funny how so many people lust after the visual aspect of the UI, risking lawsuits from Apple, while the 'feel' part - the real magic of Mac OS - is quite publicly available AND applicable in form of UI guidelines.
It won't hurt your Win/Linux app to apply some/all of these guidelines instead of no guidelines at all.
J
LOL, misread Norja (Norway) for Nokia. You really read best what you read most.
:P
Then again, might have been accidentally correct, but whatever
J
Interestingly, our local KPNQwest is leaving the mothership and this seems to be happening elsewhere, too.
0 20 607.shtml (in Finnish)
On the Finnish company's page they state they're ready to re-route traffic and do what it takes. KPNQwest Norway got bought by Catch Communications and this might be the fate of the others, too. Seems Nokia is already on board as a customer.
http://www.kpnqwest.fi/yritys/uutiset/uutinen20
Anyone got more on this?
J
Well, blowing up Alderaan was clearly a mistake.
The Emperor's mistake, actually. Jedis, such as Anakin Skywalker could be very irrational and could well have destroyed a planet out of pure arrogance. Or a battle station under construction, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread.
Darth Vader's other skills must have outweighed this risk in the Emperor's eyes. But he should have kept a tighter leash. This tragedy could have been avoided. Damn Jedis.
AC