I think this is an interesting first step in trying to establish a legal precedent against DRM - in that you make the case that if one firm grows to have a significant market share, and you can show that the reason for that is that the DRM related to the product makes it too hard to look at other options out there, then they have formed not just a monopoly (which by itself is not illegal), but an illegal monopoly.
Of course, the same argument can be made about other devices and standards. But I don't think you see any other market currently with this much market share in a single company's "control".
But can you do it for $200 - $300? That's one of the strongest arguments for a TiVO - that with rebate you can get one for about $100 that will work about as well with equally good (if not a little better) software than a MythTV system.
Hopefully as equipment gets cheaper and video capture and playback becomes more common of a feature, there won't be such a cost difference in the future.
Oh, and it should be pointed out the TiVO runs Linux as well...:-)
Considering you're looking at doing this for charity, have you considered contacting the folks at NTN who do this all the time and see if they'd be willing to set you up for a special occasion?
Jonathon Delacour covers this a little better than I do, but probably one of the more interesting answers to this question was given by Roger Schank.
The key quote here is:
"I do not believe that people are capable of rational thought when it comes to making decisions in their own lives. People believe they are behaving rationally and have thought things out, of course, but when major decisions are made... people's minds simply cannot cope with the complexity. When they try to rationally analyze potential options, their unconscious, emotional thoughts take over and make the choice for them."
IOW, that most of us even when we think we are making rational choices based on the best information possible are actually making choices based on how we feel about what information is in front of us.
I certainly agree that there is a need for an "easy entry" development environment both for truly new users, and for folks who are new to Linux but have some programming experience. And this tool appears to be a decent answer to that.
However, I don't see the "upgrade" path. One of the strong points of Visual Studio is that you can move from Basic to C to C++ to C# within a familiar IDE and with the same supporting toolset. I don't see a plugin or other strategy for dealing with that here.
As for Eclipse (which I saw mentioned earlier in this discussion), I think it supports the upgrade path, but has serious issues with integration - some way of keeping incompatible plugins from being plugged in would be nice - and the IDE is still rough at best.
Perhaps there's an opportunity for the teams to work together on this?
Is it too much to hope someone might build a strong tool for doing this that will run on Linux? Having Copernic rated #1 is wonderful for folks still running Windows, and Google is wonderful for folks still running Windows, and...
I wonder how the reviewer can make such a glowing recommendation on the book if, as he himself admits, he didn't actually try to build any of the items in the book.
Maybe this subject is the exception, but I know I've been "fooled' more than once into thinking a book was giving me full instructions only to find out, once I tried to actually follow them, that there were critical items that had been left out - "oh yeah, on some TiVOs the bracket is designed to only hold one drive and you will need to get a special bracket as well as a Y power cord adapter" as just one example.
I'm wondering if there's anyone out there who has actually tried to build the project who could comment?
Veterans Administration is a leader in this area
on
Robots in Medicine
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· Score: 1
For those of you in the US, you might be pleased to know that the Veterans Administration is a leader in this area. Virtually all of the VA Medical Centers use robot automation for filling pill bottles and preparing Bar Codes - and then use those same Bar Codes on the meds and Bar Codes printed on the patients' wrist band (for inpatient delivery) to make sure that the critical 5 Rights are validated:
Right patient
Right medication
Right route
Right time
and Right dose
The facility in Houston, TX also uses robots designed to ferry prescriptions to the various floors of the medical center. Which is being studied for possible use at other facilities.
Many of the VA centers also work with national Mail Order centers that use "extreme" automation to fill tens of thousands of prescriptions daily when a Veteran or other eligible person needs a refill.
Just another case study to consider if you're looking at the use of robotics and electronic records to improve health care and patient safety.
Let's see all the ways you can get around this without worrying about cracking the encryption:
1) Video recording off a flat-screen TV. Right refresh rate and proper camera setup make this one darn near impossible to defeat as long as the camera is going to work in any reasonable setting.
2) Grab it off the RCA leads that are likely to be attached to the player to allow it to still talk to the large number of TVs and other A/V equipment that is out there.
3) Develop a player that doesn't "honor" the blocking flag (when moving from the source to a mobile player) and rip directly.
How is it that the industry still doesn't "get" it? Copy protection is at best a road bump, and in most cases only prevents the users who are least likely to share from doing so.
Are we still going to be having this debate in 20 years? I certainly hope not...
This sounds like the oft discussed "Security via Obscurity", and I suspect it would be equally effective. Once word gets around that folks are carrying valuable items in Pizza boxes, even Pizzas won't be safe...
Now, as a Geek Gift I think this has real potential - but in that "case" they really should have gotten this out before Christmas.
Note that the readership has shot up by 58% not up to 58%. Otherwise you'll get confused later in the article where it states that 62% of Internet Users aren't sure what a blog is.
Although part of that is due to the fact that some blogs don't appear to be blogs. You can use blog software to create sites that handle news and multiple users more easily without proclaiming themselves to be blogs.
Oh, and if you want to see what my blog looks like, just check here.
The question I have about this is where you're going to get the video from in the first place? It doesn't look like any of these are designed to have PVR features that will let them capture material off a Cable or VCR.
If you have to rip a DVD first, then you're looking at a fair bit of time at a desktop first, and then a portable DVD player starts to make more sense because you won't get that many ripped DVDs with reasonable quality on these units.
I would like to see one of these that can be docked in a device like a TiVO where this item is the removable storage that can play on the road, but does normal PVR duty when at home.
If it's anything like Mall of America...
on
Indoor Tropical Island
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Was living in Minnesota when the Mall of America first opened, and the press coverage seems rather familiar:-)
I suspect this is a case where it's going to take some time to work out the kinks, and hope the owners took that into account when doing their business plan.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this become successful - eventually. I also wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen until the debt had been restructured, and possibly through transfer to new ownership.
I travel a fair bit for work, and I would LOVE a Camera or Binoculars that could tell me what I'm looking at. IOW, if I pull up the Binoculars from my window seat on the plane (yes, I'm amused easily), it would be great to tell what city or natural feature I'm currently speeding past.
For the camera, it would be nice if it told me in a little overlay, and if it stored the info in the EXIF header to make it easier to categorize pictures.
Since the TivoToGo service is based on the same protocol, with some extensions, that was used for the Home Media Option to show hosted photos and music, I'm hopeful that the folks at JavaHMO will be able to add support for transferring videos to and from the TiVO for us Linux users.
In fact, since the current version of the TiVO software won't let you do the transfer back, this would be GREAT added functionality.
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More on this and other opinions of mine can be found here:-)
Not sure it matters which is stable
on
Debian 3.0r4 Released
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I personally run a Debian install from a Knoppix 3.6 HD Install at home on a couple boxes. It defaults to testing, and is quite happy to let me upgrade packages from "unstable" as well. I think there's something to be said for giving the user a few different branches of choice, and let them decide the level of risk they're comfortable with.
Some packages, such as MPlayer, I know are tested enough by the development team that I'll take the newest version as soon as it comes out. Others I'd prefer to know someone else has taken some pain with it:-)
I'm a little surprised that EA was considered the number 1 "bad thing" for the 2004 market. Yes, they treat their employees poorly - though I don't think they have a lock on that market.
And yes, they have a lock on the NFL, but there are other types of football and a lot of other sports.
Personally I think that long term some of the legislative efforts are going to be much worse for the industry than the few poor judgements made by EA.
Not bad, but also consider...
on
Grokking Knoppix
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· Score: 4, Interesting
This is a nice cover of the basics for Knoppix, and some of the reasons someone new to Linux might want to use it.
However, if you're looking for something that gives you more detail on how to use Knoppix and extend it, you might want to check out the O'Reilly title Knoppix Hacks
Personally, the two enhancements I'm looking forward to are:
1) Augmented memory. No more forgetting names or passwords. Though it does add some real interesting issues for DRM (can you force me to forget a movie after remembering it X times)
2) Direct connect to the net - the ability to check GPS to figure out what I might be looking at, or the apocryphal doing google searches when asked a question would be very useful.
When will IPV6 support become important rather than just interesting? I think the CNet article partly addresses this - when the Asian markets make it a requirement.
On the other hand, it's still pretty easy to tunnel IPV4 through IPV6, so where is the incentive to upgrade going to be?
At least running Linux at home, that's one conversion worry I don't have:-)
One of the things I'm curious about, is why they haven't taken this to the next step of making the field hospital "removable" from the ambulance so you can be treated remotely in your home? For many calls, the patient could be stabilized and monitored with less risk all around if they didn't have to actually travel to the hospital.
Obviously that wouldn't work in the case of a car wreck or a fire, but if you're having a heart attack or stroke and you are just going to be stabilized and medicated anyway...
Slashdot Mirror
Or is this the new career? Would explain why we never see you anywhere without the Sidekick I guess...
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You think this is something? Click here
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Guess I should add "Bids" as well as comments here ;-)
Of course, the same argument can be made about other devices and standards. But I don't think you see any other market currently with this much market share in a single company's "control".
IANAL and all that...
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And reading my blog will prove IANAL ;-)
Hopefully as equipment gets cheaper and video capture and playback becomes more common of a feature, there won't be such a cost difference in the future.
Oh, and it should be pointed out the TiVO runs Linux as well... :-)
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I talk about this stuff here too. Go figure... ;-)
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Yeah, I do it for the attention ;-)
Just a thought...
The key quote here is:
"I do not believe that people are capable of rational thought when it comes to making decisions in their own lives. People believe they are behaving rationally and have thought things out, of course, but when major decisions are made... people's minds simply cannot cope with the complexity. When they try to rationally analyze potential options, their unconscious, emotional thoughts take over and make the choice for them."
IOW, that most of us even when we think we are making rational choices based on the best information possible are actually making choices based on how we feel about what information is in front of us.
At least, that's what I believe :-)
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More like this here ;-)
However, I don't see the "upgrade" path. One of the strong points of Visual Studio is that you can move from Basic to C to C++ to C# within a familiar IDE and with the same supporting toolset. I don't see a plugin or other strategy for dealing with that here.
As for Eclipse (which I saw mentioned earlier in this discussion), I think it supports the upgrade path, but has serious issues with integration - some way of keeping incompatible plugins from being plugged in would be nice - and the IDE is still rough at best.
Perhaps there's an opportunity for the teams to work together on this?
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Blah, Blah, Blog ;-)
I assume you get the picture :-)
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Yeah, I'm like this on my blog too ;-)
Maybe this subject is the exception, but I know I've been "fooled' more than once into thinking a book was giving me full instructions only to find out, once I tried to actually follow them, that there were critical items that had been left out - "oh yeah, on some TiVOs the bracket is designed to only hold one drive and you will need to get a special bracket as well as a Y power cord adapter" as just one example.
I'm wondering if there's anyone out there who has actually tried to build the project who could comment?
Right patient
Right medication
Right route
Right time
and Right dose
The facility in Houston, TX also uses robots designed to ferry prescriptions to the various floors of the medical center. Which is being studied for possible use at other facilities.
Many of the VA centers also work with national Mail Order centers that use "extreme" automation to fill tens of thousands of prescriptions daily when a Veteran or other eligible person needs a refill.
Just another case study to consider if you're looking at the use of robotics and electronic records to improve health care and patient safety.
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More of my personal stuff here
1) Video recording off a flat-screen TV. Right refresh rate and proper camera setup make this one darn near impossible to defeat as long as the camera is going to work in any reasonable setting.
2) Grab it off the RCA leads that are likely to be attached to the player to allow it to still talk to the large number of TVs and other A/V equipment that is out there.
3) Develop a player that doesn't "honor" the blocking flag (when moving from the source to a mobile player) and rip directly.
How is it that the industry still doesn't "get" it? Copy protection is at best a road bump, and in most cases only prevents the users who are least likely to share from doing so.
Are we still going to be having this debate in 20 years? I certainly hope not...
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Home Media Manifesto
Now, as a Geek Gift I think this has real potential - but in that "case" they really should have gotten this out before Christmas.
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Yeah, I do crazy stuff like that here too ;-)
Although part of that is due to the fact that some blogs don't appear to be blogs. You can use blog software to create sites that handle news and multiple users more easily without proclaiming themselves to be blogs.
Oh, and if you want to see what my blog looks like, just check here.
My .02 worth...
If you have to rip a DVD first, then you're looking at a fair bit of time at a desktop first, and then a portable DVD player starts to make more sense because you won't get that many ripped DVDs with reasonable quality on these units.
I would like to see one of these that can be docked in a device like a TiVO where this item is the removable storage that can play on the road, but does normal PVR duty when at home.
Just my .02 worth...
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Check here for the other .98 :-)
I suspect this is a case where it's going to take some time to work out the kinks, and hope the owners took that into account when doing their business plan.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this become successful - eventually. I also wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen until the debt had been restructured, and possibly through transfer to new ownership.
Just my .02 worth...
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For my other .98, check here :-)
For the camera, it would be nice if it told me in a little overlay, and if it stored the info in the EXIF header to make it easier to categorize pictures.
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Other wierd ideas like this on my blog :-)
In fact, since the current version of the TiVO software won't let you do the transfer back, this would be GREAT added functionality.
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More on this and other opinions of mine can be found here :-)
Some packages, such as MPlayer, I know are tested enough by the development team that I'll take the newest version as soon as it comes out. Others I'd prefer to know someone else has taken some pain with it :-)
Just my .02 worth
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For more of my ramblings, look here
And yes, they have a lock on the NFL, but there are other types of football and a lot of other sports.
Personally I think that long term some of the legislative efforts are going to be much worse for the industry than the few poor judgements made by EA.
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Opinions here too. Read at your own risk :-)
However, if you're looking for something that gives you more detail on how to use Knoppix and extend it, you might want to check out the O'Reilly title Knoppix Hacks
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Blogs celebrate the New Year too :-)
1) Augmented memory. No more forgetting names or passwords. Though it does add some real interesting issues for DRM (can you force me to forget a movie after remembering it X times)
2) Direct connect to the net - the ability to check GPS to figure out what I might be looking at, or the apocryphal doing google searches when asked a question would be very useful.
Just my .02 worth...
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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a blog
On the other hand, it's still pretty easy to tunnel IPV4 through IPV6, so where is the incentive to upgrade going to be?
At least running Linux at home, that's one conversion worry I don't have :-)
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My blog or yours?
Obviously that wouldn't work in the case of a car wreck or a fire, but if you're having a heart attack or stroke and you are just going to be stabilized and medicated anyway...
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Yes, I have a blog. Just deal with it :-)
Have any of you noticed how much of the Vioxx related ones are now for ambulance chasing lawyers? Or am I the only one so "fortunate"?
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Yes I have a blog - deal with it :-)