We are in violent agreement; if you were into killing mass quantities of people as efficiently and as cheaply as possible, then all those examples you cited would indeed be "diabolically clever". With this phrase we are not judging the *morality* of the cleverness, but instead merely saying that when paired with the word "clever", "diabolically" gains a appreciatively positive context.
I think the main misstep Apple has made so far is limiting the video resolution of the purchased video to 320x240. According to Jobs, we're supposed to be in "The Year of HD", but 320x240 is lower resolution than DVD, lower than most MPEG-4 on bittorrent, lower than TiVo, even lower than conventional television signals; H.264 is a truly wonderful video compression codec, but that resolution is simply an unacceptable level of quality.
What Apple got right from the beginning of the iTunes Music Store was hitting "the sweet spot" with regards to ACC audio; to 98% of the people out there, 128kps ACC encoding sounded as good as the CDs and mp3s they were used to, no nothing substantial was "lost" by purchasing online via iTunes -- and the convenience is sometimes worth it.
However, no one can honestly say nothing substantial is lost if you're watching 700 mps H.264 320x240 video on anything other than an iPod; it's qualitatively simply not as good as the competition. It looks blocky when enlarged on your computer and when piped to a TV, and it most certainly will look embassingly bad if outputted to HDTV.
I understand that is resolution is currently a technical limitation of the iPod's video capabilities, but I think it's short sighted to assume that "320x240 should be enough for everyone"; I'd be much more into the idea if Apple had also announced "HD downloads" for $2.99 or $3.99. Online distribution should be all about increasing the quality, not decreasing it.
...this very well could be an "anti-rumor"; Apple's been bit hard in the past by the rumor mill raising expectations for their products to such a level that when the actual product comes out, there's palpable customer disappointment.
It would be pretty clever if the folks at Apple are now seeding the rumor sites with unwhelming data points, so that when the actual product comes out, there's more excitement over the feature set as a result.
Or maybe that's crazy talk; I agree, 100 songs would be teh suck.
Now Hear This Mighty Mouse even sounds as good as it feels. The audio feedback built into Mighty Mouse provides an aural sensation that responds to your movements. A tiny speaker inside Mighty Mouse produces button-clicking and Scroll Ball-rolling sound effects.
...although unlikely, I hope there's some way to get sound into it; it would be really nifty if the sounds were customizable.
That is annoying. And let me also add that, conversely, Dashboard would be far more efficient and useful if it updated itself before I press the damn Dashboard hotkey. As it is, the way Dashboard works now:
1) Hit the Dashboard hotkey. 2) Wait for all the various pieces of info to come in via the network. Keep waiting. Isn't this convenient? 3) See the info you want(ed), in roughly the same time it would have taken you to open up Safari and click a bookmark.
But the way Dashboard should work, in my opinion:
1) Dashboard gets that info for you in the background. (Dashboard occasionally updates that info, too). 2) Hitting the Dashboard hotkey shows the info you want, so you can read it in a split-second, and get on with your life.
Agreed. That is a great book, and anyone interested in security of any sort should give it a read. There's a fascinating interview with Schneier here as well.
I kid, I kid, but I agree with you, in spirit, at least. However, I know a lot of people who can't get cable or DSL in their rural MA area that would probably argue that it might be worth the trade.
We're veering off topic here, but speaking of ham radio, This speech by Steve Wozniak at Gnomedex 4.0 talks a bit about his love of ham radio. It's a pleasantly unfocused and fuzzy speech.
Oh well, it will be a major nail in the coffin that was the great and wonderful world of Ham radio. 100 years down the drain....and I'm not even going to get into what it's gonna do to the buggy whip industry.
I think, technically speaking, it's as good an implementation as you're likely to see for a while.
The only missed opportunity from my perspective is the lack of some peer-to-peer method of distribution of the podcasts. That would be awfully nice. As it is, if your podcast gets popular, you're going to have to contend with a hefty bandwidth fee, which leaves at least a vestige of the old-media power structure in place; those who have the bucks control the means of distribution. With a stripped-down BitTorrent or even a Gnutella-style "swarm" distribution model, your listeners could actually distribute your podcasts for you; truly listener-supported public radio.
Otherwise, good stuff. More nice work by the iTunes team.
from episode 2F11 (Bart's Comet): Speaker: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of -- Congressman: Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts. Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill? [everyone boos] Speaker: Bill defeated. [bangs gavel] Kent: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.
This is probably as good a time as any to put in a plug for El Gato's products. They make some really excellent hardware and software that can do TiVo-style recording via Mac OS X. It works and works well, with no DRM whatsoever.
Slashdot Mirror
We are in violent agreement; if you were into killing mass quantities of people as efficiently and as cheaply as possible, then all those examples you cited would indeed be "diabolically clever". With this phrase we are not judging the *morality* of the cleverness, but instead merely saying that when paired with the word "clever", "diabolically" gains a appreciatively positive context.
~jeff
Diabolical is not a compliment.
However, when paired with the phrase "clever", it actually is. Context is really very important.
~jeff
I think the main misstep Apple has made so far is limiting the video resolution of the purchased video to 320x240. According to Jobs, we're supposed to be in "The Year of HD", but 320x240 is lower resolution than DVD, lower than most MPEG-4 on bittorrent, lower than TiVo, even lower than conventional television signals; H.264 is a truly wonderful video compression codec, but that resolution is simply an unacceptable level of quality.
What Apple got right from the beginning of the iTunes Music Store was hitting "the sweet spot" with regards to ACC audio; to 98% of the people out there, 128kps ACC encoding sounded as good as the CDs and mp3s they were used to, no nothing substantial was "lost" by purchasing online via iTunes -- and the convenience is sometimes worth it.
However, no one can honestly say nothing substantial is lost if you're watching 700 mps H.264 320x240 video on anything other than an iPod; it's qualitatively simply not as good as the competition. It looks blocky when enlarged on your computer and when piped to a TV, and it most certainly will look embassingly bad if outputted to HDTV.
I understand that is resolution is currently a technical limitation of the iPod's video capabilities, but I think it's short sighted to assume that "320x240 should be enough for everyone"; I'd be much more into the idea if Apple had also announced "HD downloads" for $2.99 or $3.99. Online distribution should be all about increasing the quality, not decreasing it.
~jeff
...mmmm. Batter life.
Install the Nightly Tester Tools extension and it will work just fine.
~jeff
Oh yeah? I was able to hear John Cage's 4'33 crystal-clear and in its entirety just by staring at a picture of the nano.
~jeff
~jeff
It would be pretty clever if the folks at Apple are now seeding the rumor sites with unwhelming data points, so that when the actual product comes out, there's more excitement over the feature set as a result.
Or maybe that's crazy talk; I agree, 100 songs would be teh suck.
~jeff
"640 years should be enough for anyone."
~jeff
from http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/design.html:
~jeff
That's a truly beautiful and inspiring story. Thanks for taking the time to share it.
~jeff
Amen to this:
doesn't let you finish typing before it searches.
That is annoying. And let me also add that, conversely, Dashboard would be far more efficient and useful if it updated itself before I press the damn Dashboard hotkey. As it is, the way Dashboard works now:
1) Hit the Dashboard hotkey.
2) Wait for all the various pieces of info to come in via the network. Keep waiting. Isn't this convenient?
3) See the info you want(ed), in roughly the same time it would have taken you to open up Safari and click a bookmark.
But the way Dashboard should work, in my opinion:
1) Dashboard gets that info for you in the background. (Dashboard occasionally updates that info, too).
2) Hitting the Dashboard hotkey shows the info you want, so you can read it in a split-second, and get on with your life.
~jeff
Agreed. That is a great book, and anyone interested in security of any sort should give it a read. There's a fascinating interview with Schneier here as well.
~jeff
I kid, I kid, but I agree with you, in spirit, at least. However, I know a lot of people who can't get cable or DSL in their rural MA area that would probably argue that it might be worth the trade.
We're veering off topic here, but speaking of ham radio, This speech by Steve Wozniak at Gnomedex 4.0 talks a bit about his love of ham radio. It's a pleasantly unfocused and fuzzy speech.
~jeff
Oh well, it will be a major nail in the coffin that was the great and wonderful world of Ham radio. 100 years down the drain.
~jeff
Cheap swarm robots? Hopefully they can find the room to post this somewhere in their workspace.
~jeff
I think, technically speaking, it's as good an implementation as you're likely to see for a while.
The only missed opportunity from my perspective is the lack of some peer-to-peer method of distribution of the podcasts. That would be awfully nice. As it is, if your podcast gets popular, you're going to have to contend with a hefty bandwidth fee, which leaves at least a vestige of the old-media power structure in place; those who have the bucks control the means of distribution. With a stripped-down BitTorrent or even a Gnutella-style "swarm" distribution model, your listeners could actually distribute your podcasts for you; truly listener-supported public radio.
Otherwise, good stuff. More nice work by the iTunes team.
~jeff
A: Steve.
~jeff
from episode 2F11 (Bart's Comet):
Speaker: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of --
Congressman: Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill?
[everyone boos]
Speaker: Bill defeated. [bangs gavel]
Kent: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.
"It is not necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paper work, and the other is nostalgia."
--Frank Zappa
This is probably as good a time as any to put in a plug for El Gato's products. They make some really excellent hardware and software that can do TiVo-style recording via Mac OS X. It works and works well, with no DRM whatsoever.
~jeff
I'm sure Jack Bauer's weekly "video diary" will be just as popular as everyone else's.
~jeff
You're right, digital signatures and encryption have never been cracked.
~jeff
On my PSP, there seems to be an option for running "Games" off the memory card. It's certainly possible.
~jeff
It occurs to me that with both 802.11b and an awesome screen, the PSP would be an really great platform for the Minimo project.
Maybe it's time for the Minimo developers to go down to Best Buy and dip into that Mozilla Foundation money (no extended service contracts though).
~jeff