"[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service â" including no crossing of municipal boundaries â" meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."
Regulations ultimately act to benefit the regulated; not the public. The raise barriers to entry and protect incumbents. A Nobel Prize laureate in Economics pointed that out years ago.
In general, regulated industries can sustain higher prices and have less competition than unregulated ones. That's not o say regulation does not have a place; but to think it results in lower prices to consumers is wrong.
But at the end of the day a GAME does not need realism any more than Clue or Monopoly need the realism of a hexagonal wargame. It just needs to be fun. That's an aspect of video games that modern gaming is having to rediscover.
True - and I believe the really good games; no matter the era, will stand the test of time and remain popular. Fun games capture the player and make them want to play; and are not necessarily complex or graphic intensive. Tetris springs to mind, as does an ancient ASCII based DOS air traffic control game I used to play on an ancient Compaq sewing machine portable with a tiny green CRT (6 or 8" I can't recall).
The challenge for computer games, unlike the more traditional board or non-computer based games is that you need the computer and OS to run the game. You can't pick it off a shelf, dust it off, read the rules and start playing, unlike a 20 year old Scrabble game.
As a result, unless companies commit to emulation and continue to make code available many great games will die as systems they work on disappear. Copyright complicates matters since the Scrabble game I mentioned is still playable by the owner or can be shared since it is a tangible item; unlike a computer game whose code disappears when a company goes bankrupt. I realize there is a vast collection of old games; but few companies have chosen to make their old code free (unlike say, Beagle Bros) so even if you have the code it is not possible to build a viable business out of it to make it available without risk of lawsuits.
Now, if companies realized not only the economic but cultural values of old software then maybe we'd at least see some historical archiving and plans to make them at least playable in the future.
My father has worked for AMS for the past 20+ years on a number of government contracts. The one thing he always comes back saying is how screwed up and redundant a lot of the setups are--it's layer upon layer of hackjobs just to get the various systems to talk to one another. Rossotti is well aware of the current state of technology affairs within the government.
Money is at the crux of this issue, in two ways:
1) The government often is unwilling or unable to invest in the type of infrastructure they really need.
2) Unless the CTO *really* controls all the various agencies IT budget the CTO will be powerless. Agencies will listen nicely and nod their collective heads; then do whatever the want to because it's their money, not the CTO's.
1 can be fixed with a well thought out plan and budget; 2 will take real change and radically alter the power structure. I doubt that will happen. Trying to do so will accomplish one of the hardest things in DC - getting agency's to put aside their turf fights and unite to defeat a common enemy; in this case the CTO.
Back in the days when i was in school, warm-ups were there to avoid injuries, not to increase your performance.
By making your muscles weaker, the chance to get an injury decreases as well. People have proved over time (and quite many times) that you are able to hurt yourself with the strength of your muscles alone (ever seen those 100m sprinters falling like bricks on half way ?).
From the article:
THE RIGHT WARM-UP should do two things: loosen muscles and tendons to increase the range of motion of various joints, and literally warm up the body. When youâ(TM)re at rest, thereâ(TM)s less blood flow to muscles and tendons, and they stiffen. âoeYou need to make tissues and tendons compliant before beginning exercise,â Knudson says.
Here you have a commercial product that costs money, has no support nor warranty. However, you have a lot of people with the basic skills needed to provide the same product for free; either individually or as part of a community.
Fixing bugs will be a challenge but medicine is up to the task.
Why has no one thought of that before; oh yea - the sixties. I vaguely remember them. Never mind.
I would think that the system would require widespread adoption in a particular area before it would even start to be useful
Not really. Initially, I would bet it is only extrapolating based on location and speed. I know somewhere like seattle (and I would be surprised if SF is much different) will have i high enough concentration of geeks w/ toys to bring back data on the major routes. If you have 1 data point on the I5 going at 15 MPH, you can guess that traffic sux. Given the volume of the people, a fairly low adoption rate will give data.
More data points will always make the system better, of course.
One of the big advantages to any of these traffic knowledge programs is that they benefit both people tapped in to the program and those not. For example, super tech guy A checks this program and sees that Road N is slammed today. He, or hopefully his software, will plan a new optimum route based on the traffic data. This removes tech guy A from the problematic traffic pattern. Luddite guy B, doesn't know any of this but his traffic pattern is eased b/c the group of people like tech guy A have avoided exacerbating the problem. As a side benefit, you have utilized your road infrastructure more completely. (recent research about limiting paths being more efficient notwithstanding)
It would be interesting to see what sort of equilibrium is reached - if enough people use it and move off main roads; side roads start to slow while main roads improve. This could result in people returning to the main roads; resulting in the opposite and a move to side roads.
It could result in some steady state level of use or a blinking Life equilibrium between two patterns.
The algorithm would be interesting - they could through out the outliers before averaging to eliminate the stopped by the side of the road and cutting in and out drivers; or just report the mode for any length of road.
Except that by not being able to spread out the cost of the phone over 12 or 24 months many people would not buy a phone.
They could just buy a cheap phone. The last phone I bought cost the equivalent of about $45. I have seen cheaper pay as you go phones (about half the price) advertised, but they may be locked to a network.
It's not so much the cost but the initial outlay. People want fancy phones but balk at paying for them; as a result the providers roll the cost in the plan in order to make a sale.
It's no so much a financial as psychological ploy to increase sales. If they had to pay upfront for the phone you'd not see the take-up rate that we have and prices would not have dropped on service like they have.
You need to be pretty badly off to need to spread that over two years.
It's not so much that they can't afford the phone as they can't see the value on a $300 device; but make it "free" and they do. After all, most phones probably only add $5 - 10 to a plan anyway; so it's unlikely phone companies would drop rates if phones were paid up front; given they don't cut your rate if you already have a phone of after the 24 months are up.
It's simply a sales gimmick rather than a financial one since someone who can't afford a $200 phone probably can't swing $30+ a month anyway.
It's not necessarily a windows tax. MS put some (non-public) limitations on netbooks running XP. For example it's pretty obvious that only 160GB and 1 GB RAM are allowed. For that reason the EeeBox running XP ships in most of Europe with half the RAM as the Linux version. The price of an additional GB does not match the cost of an OEM license.
When netbooks get better specs this will become even more obvious. I guess that people will start buying the Linux version and put XP on it. Or MS will change the terms again - originally the HDD had to be smaller than 80GB, so they already doubled this limit.
My guess is MS will rebrand XP as Vista Netbook or Win7Netbook and simply sell it as a netbook OS. There is no reason they can't sell a stripper version for nb's; along with OfficeNetBook, especially since they probably represent incremental sales rather than lost desktop / notebook sales.
Once the market takes off, they are once again in the driver's set with the OS.
Ah, I see what you're getting at now. But I think you are completely wrong about what 99% of people expect from a lens. Normal people don't give a toss about resolution as long as their photos are sharp enough. Unless you're in the habit of making poster-sized prints the image from a 1.6x crop camera with a 200mm lens is indistinguishable from the image from a full-frame camera with a 320mm lens. Resolving power matters to me when I'm doing astrophotography, but when I'm not lens selection is all about how big I can make stuff in the frame. I studied optics at university and could bore you to death about the PSF of my telescopes, so I do understand what a smaller sensor really means, but when I'm in photographer mode I still think my ef-s 55-250mm on my 20d is equivalent to an 88-400mm. Because in every way it matters for taking nice photos, it is.
I think we are in agreement - in the end what matters is will it take the picture you want.
Today's sensor technology is to the point where you can crop and enlarge and still get good results; for me digital means I've rediscovered photography; although I do miss being able to swap out the sensor whenever I want.
What has happened, IMHO, is the reference point has changed for what is a wide or tele; however, with 35mm lens fitting FF and APS-C bodies people have a hard time changing their frame of reference. This is unlike going from medium format to 35mm where the two systems are separate in people's minds; since you generally do not use gear from one format in the other.
The lack of a clean break between the two sensor sizes has resulted in confusion, made worse by P&S cameras being labeled in "equivalent" focal lengths.
Picking a photographic lens is about the composition it allows you to achieve, not how well it can split double stars. I suspect even normal people think bigger is better, rather than sharper is better.
I agree 100% - you match the tool to the need. As you rightly point out, a give FL results in a standard FOV (based on 35mm sensor size), the quality of the image depends on the len's optical quality. That's why I love my 70-200 2.8L. Right range, great optics for my use.
My issue is with sales people who use "crop factor" to try to convince people the camera has the same resolving power with a shorter lens as a full frame does with a longer lens; rather than actually explain composition and the effects of a smaller sensor.
They use the "bigger is better" fallacy to sell a camera to someone who really doesn't understand the effects on image; though in fairness to many salespeople they probably don't either.
A netbook is only really a laptop replacement, when the laptop is in the portable range and not spending most of it's life on a desk ala the 17" screen desknotes. What is happening is smart phones are being bound back to more portable size, the PDA sized phone and even the PDA itself are going to lose ground to the netbook. So compact smartphone, netbook and, desknote/desktop become the standard connected persons digital line up.
While I am in general agreement with your statements, I see more tighter integration of the 3 compact smartphone, netbook and, desknote/desktop occuring. You'll be able to auto sync the netbook, via wifi or bluetooth with your desktop machine so your files stay up to date. A PDA phone provides email and contact/calendering information in an easy to use form factor much faster than firing up a netbook, so it becomes the primary device for maintaining your schedule away from the desktop, ad off course syncs as well. Much of this is doable today.
On a longer term, a PDA phone will function as a controller for a broader digital space - allowing you to manipulate your DVR, order items online, view videos taht would auto transfer to your netbook/desktop for later viewing as well, retrieve files for viewing on the phone, etc. Much of this also exists today but not yet in a truly easy, seamless fashion. With wireless providers spectrum and move into TV provider you may find the Apple store of the future is at ATT&T.
Likely the netbook will end up the most populus device in the western market, as it will end up on every school desktop and as the portable adjunct to the desktop device be it a notebook or a desktop. The netbook is going to end up being pretty abused, so durability (spills and drops), low cost (frequent replacement) and battery life are going to be the big drivers and, performance will take a back seat.
Again, while I agree with you I think performance will not take a back seat - you'll see faster machines as netbooks take off; what will be limiting is size. Great for on the road or basic uses, but a real screen will be needed for heavier work.
With hardware performance being limited to achieve the other goals that means the software must be really efficient, no bloat and fast, and lets forget silly stuff like it can run what ever bloated operating system, what counts is how well the applications on top of the operating system run, so the big comparisson will be Openoffice on Linux vs M$office2007 on Vista and which is more fit for purpose or even capable of running in an acceptable fashion.
Which is why I think MS will create a netbook version of Windows/Office.
Personally, I think Apple is best positioned currently for this market because they:
1) Have a unified vision of where they are going 2) They control the hardware and software so they can make it work unlike Linux/MS who have a large variety of setups to contend with 3) They already are in the convergence business with the iPhone, AppleTV, and Mac lineup
In this market, performance will take a back seat to cost, ease of use and marketing will drive adoption of specific technologies.
I don't really see the distinction you're trying to make. A thing which would appear 1" high in a 5x7 print from a 35mm camera with a 320mm lens will appear 1" high in a 5x7 print from a 1.6x crop DSLR with a 200m lens. That's the definition of magnification which matters when you're taking photos, isn't it? It's about how far away something can be and still fill the frame.
That is because you've enlarged the image - it's no different than cropping and enlarging a FF image; assuming both sensors have the same pixel density. To use your analogy a finer grain film would turn the 200 into say a 300 as well; yet no one use the term "film factor" since it FOV that is what lens measurement refers to.
Consider a frosted glass plate at the focal point of the lens - while the FOV changes depending on what portion of the image you select the resolution of the image is the same. All that you change is how much you enlarge it to get the same final print size. You have not changed the optic properties of the lens; and it does not suddenly get the ability to distinguish (resolve) features at a distance that a 320 lens would (i.e. the 320 might reveal that the 1" object is two sticks where there 200 would only resolve 1 wide object).
Or, too look at it from another perspective, if you shrink the sensor to 100th of a FF you do not get a 20000mm lens.
The problem, of course, is that many people do not properly think of FOV but rather "reach" and hence the confusion on their part; and the assume the 320mm equivalent means they'll be able to take better pictures of distant objects.
I don't find you suck even if some sales people are somewhat clueless (like the ones that keep insisting a less than full frame dSLR somehow magically turns a 200mm lens into the equivalent reach of a 320mm)at least most are helpful.
Erm, that thing about the lenses is true. If you have a 1.6x sensor (like Canon consumer DSLRs) a 200mm lens will give you the same FOV ("zoom") as a 320mm lens does in a full-frame DSLR. It's not magic, it's basic geometry.
FOV, yes. But salesclerks present it as magnification, not FOV.
Most of the contracts that people sign include wildly unpredictable costs in the event of an overage.
However, a little planing and watching minutes can pretty much alleviate overages.
We don't need to agree, but I really don't think that the cell phone market in the U.S. contains particularly savvy buyers (i.e., they don't have any idea what the providers actual costs are, they don't know how much usage they actually need, they don't look at how much that usage costs under different pricing models, etc).
On that we agree - most people buy shiny when it comes to phones.
As I said, it all makes sense within the historical context. One thing I want to add: the EU is nothing like the US. If anything in Europe is comparable to the US, it is... Germany! The Bunderländer are equivalent to your States. So, while indeed geographically, Europe is similar to the US, politically it is not. As such, in practice every country has its own operators. Sure, they are owned by one multi-national company, but the subsidiaries have to observe local laws (taxes, etc...) This simply is not true in the US, making things way simpler.
Well, given the wide array of local taxes and regulations the US market has many local issues as well.
As for similarities; I doubt each Bundeslander has it's own army or air force.
I don't think it's because the markets. I'm pretty sure that the US could function perfectly fine with the caller pays structure. To me this is entirely historical, so I don't buy your arguments.
But there is no reason to do so - the current system works fine and changing the billing structure would simply confuse people. As I said, with our minute structures incoming calls are really not an issue for most users.
After all, the EU could function perfectly fine with no roaming charges, flat rate pricing and caller / receiver pays as well.
Oh, and just that you know... The fact that it is politically very different does bring us to the EU which is going to regulate roaming charges. That's the nice part about living in a customer-protected environment;-) That said, they overdid it a bit. I live in a tiny country and over 30% of the revenue of providers comes from roaming. They are very pissed at these political decisions. However, from a consumer point of view, I say: bring it on baby!;-))
I'm not sure the EU is as consumer friendly as some would believe, given it's pricing structures and rules. But that's a different issue.
You've hit on the real reason for roaming - providers make a ton of money off of it.
Being from the U.S. myself I don't see any reason to defend charging for incoming calls. My landline doesn't get charge for incoming calls. Neither should my cell phone. I don't mind if they charge enough for outgoing to make up the cost (I would guess they already do this anyway).
Unless you have a very limited plan incoming calls have little to no effect on your charges - unless for some reason you receive a lot of prime time calls from people not with your provider.
As for the cost, the marginal cost for the call is essentially zero ; so other than truncation fees (if they still exist) it really doesn't cost anything for the provider to connect you.
The worst offender of all is having to pay for incoming texts. I have never sent a text in my life, and I only receive a few a month, and those that I receive are generally accidents, or are from someone at work who doesn't realize that dialing my number and calling is cheaper, easier and less time-intensive than dialing my number and typing in a text message.
Block all text. Issue fixed.
Unlike you I am not hopeful for the election to change anything. I have not heard anything from either candidate about this issue, nor would I want the government to get involved. I simply want consumers to stop laying down and taking it, which is probably a shallow hope since they are so addicted to text messaging.
My experiences in the EU is that phones don't let you roam for free across most borders
True. Yet, the logic behind this is equal to the logic that originated the "pay-for-reception" in the US. (Read my other comment) A caller, calling a cellphone has no way to know where the other person is. If I call my brother right now, he might be in Germany for all I know. Who gets to pay? Not me, since I didn't know and it would be unfair to me. So he gets to pay. That's the basic idea behind roaming.
/If/ your carriers would be state-based instead of country-based you would have exactly the same problem that we have in Europe.
If you do a lot of peak calling you can get an unlimited plan for around $100 and need not worry about minutes at all.
This brings us back to "backwards".... In my country an unlimited plan like that is 30€/month. Sure, roaming isn't included in that, which limits it to my country but the same is true for the US... After all it still is one country and the networks in different states are owned by one and the same company.
While the US is one country in size and scope it matches the EU - we essentially get unlimited roaming across the same area and no extra cost for long distance.
Since our market is different our cell phone plans are different. That's the crux - our plans better fit our needs than yours would, so we have a large calling area for one price.
From another perspective - isn't the EU one Europe (I say somewhat TIC) so why can't there be one cell plan?
Contract plans only make sense because the majority of people sign them for a cheap phone. If less people signed contracts, there is a good chance phone companies would work harder on customer retention, rather than acquisition, and prices would drop for non contract and pay as you go (and they are getting better anyway, Virgin Mobile offers unlimited voice for $80 a month with no contract, which is somewhat competitive/comparable with the $100 unlimited plans from the big carriers, except for data/messaging, which aren't all that expensive).
Contract plans only make sense because the majority of people sign them for a cheap phone. If less people signed contracts, there is a good chance phone companies would work harder on customer retention, rather than acquisition, and prices would drop for non contract and pay as you go (and they are getting better anyway, Virgin Mobile offers unlimited voice for $80 a month with no contract, which is somewhat competitive/comparable with the $100 unlimited plans from the big carriers, except for data/messaging, which aren't all that expensive).
Except that by not being able to spread out the cost of the phone over 12 or 24 months many people would not buy a phone. If there truly was interest in pay as you go you'd see a lot more uptake on those plans.
However, consumers find contracts a better value and so chose them. There are plenty non-contract alternatives at a wide range of prices. Overall, however they are not as popular as contract plans because consumers find more value in a contract with a subsidized phone. While VM offers a good deal at $90/month (voice and text) there phone selection is a bit limited.
In addition, the ability to add on additional lines on contracts and share minutes is a selling point for many users as well. Four phones on a family plan is cheaper than four monthly non-contract pay as you go plans.
"Free" and "easy to get" is relative - try traveling around the US on a frequent basis and it becomes neither free nor easy to get.
Lets see... last time I checked there were about 5 unsecured wireless routers in range, and there were a lot more last time I went into a major city.... Its both free and easy to get.
Yes, and you have no idea whose router that is or what they are doing with your data stream; nor how long they will be up. Besides the security issue, if you are moving or inside a building may unsecured routers go away.
Not to mention "major city" leaves out a lot of the US.
I work in computers at Best Buy(I know, i know we suck) and we have been pushing the mobile broadband with the eeePCs for a while. They have been a big hit with those who want full computing capabilities(ex. truck drivers) as oppose to something just like an iPhone. This will be a great partnership if it works out. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.
First of all, BB fits a nice niche - I don't find you suck even if some sales people are somewhat clueless (like the ones that keep insisting a less than full frame dSLR somehow magically turns a 200mm lens into the equivalent reach of a 320mm)at least most are helpful.
That convergence is the next area of growth - once screens become decent enough to do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations for an extended period I think they will become mobile devices of choice for may road warriors. By usability, I mean the ability to create presentations and spreadsheets without having to squint or zoom in / scroll around the page; couple dwith a reasonably high res display..
PowerPoint, with a 10" page view and small small menubar or some sort of contextual right click pop up menu (or both) could fit the bill. The current variants, while tempting, waste too much screen space and would be frustrating for extended use.
My guess is MS will come out with slimmed down (in terms of screen space use) versions of Office apps to target that market.
It's also an opportunity for OSS to find a sweet spot - usable versions of Office replacements with full MS Office file compatibility; along with MS Exchange support in an Outlook clone at a low enough price point would have an opportunity to establish market share before MS exerts its market force. Most road warriors do not need games but need rock solid Office support and usability and probably would welcome a lighter, smaller device with built in internet access.
Or is this some US-specific backwardness, like paying for recieving calls? (no offense intended, but the US market really does seem to be 10 years behind the rest of the developed world, at least judging from slashdot-articles:-))
The problem with/. 's discussions of cell phone markets is they fail to look at the market in an objective fashion. The conclusion is often "X is bad / behind the times / worse than mine because it is different.
Yes we "pay" for receiving calls; but given we don't if they are from the same carrier (I would wager a lot of calls are within a household who probably has only 1 carrier) of occur in the evening or on weekends most people never see any impact on their bill. If you do a lot of peak calling you can get an unlimited plan for around $100 and need not worry about minutes at all. For most practical purposes we really don't pay for incoming calls.
OTOH, we probably have one off the largest no-cost roaming and long distance setups around. I can call anywhere from within the US I can get a signal for no additional cost. My experiences in the EU is that phones don't let you roam for free across most borders; i.e. my UK phone in Portugal no longer considers incoming calls free and I do not pay UK rates for calls. If I go from say ATL to NYC as an example I incur no additional charges for a call.
We don't get as many cool phones, however.
Our markets evolved differently and our user needs are different. I's not uncommon for many users to make calls to and or from multiple states on a monthly basis; so our plans evolved into favoring wide areas of coverage for one base price; different, not better or worse.
We are backward in a number of other ways; I am hopeful 4NOV08 will start that to change as well.
BInding a single device to a 2-year contract is nuts. Especially a device as limited as a cell phone or netbook.
The iphone, for example, is very cool, but I'm just not interested at $70/month. Yet I pay more than that for my tv/phone/internet connection at home. I'm OK with that because at home I have flexibility -- I can attach as many phones and computers as I want.
I'm sticking with my pay-as-you-go, featureless cell phone until there's an expensive contract that gives me a lot more flexibility.
Value depends on needs - my home phone is rarely used (and primarily a legacy line) Cell phones are the primary devices we use for personal and work calls; and pay as you go would be orders of magnitude more expensive and the monthly cost is very variable and unpredictable. Most don't offer data plans (well, ATT does but it's a bit convoluted to get it).
So, a contract is a good way to lock in a price and that's less expensive and more predictable. It's essentially a 2 year hedge on costs.
It all depends on usage patterns - pay as you go, month to month or contract all make sense for differing needs.
It would be better just to buy it outright. With free wireless broadband being so easy to get, and the cost of these netbooks dropping, you are probably just better off buying it outright, and not being tied into a provider.
"Free" and "easy to get" is relative - try traveling around the US on a frequent basis and it becomes neither free nor easy to get.
If ATT could come up with a cheap way to get email and do light surfing / downloading then it becomes a worthwhile gadget for traveling; especially if the device is good enough to do Word and PowerPoint on the road.
Ummm...considering that Asus has done announced they will have a EEE priced at $200 next year,why on earth would anyone get screwed with such a long term contract to save $100? Personally I'll wait and see what the $200 Asus looks like.
At $200 retail it becomes free with contract - which will no doubt be a selling point.
If it is a decent device (for me, that's a 10" screen, plenty of memory, 16GB SSD or fast HDD, bluetooth) and data service is reasonably priced I'd get one as a laptop replacement.
Slashdot Mirror
"[The transportation board has] established a bunch of draconian rules that any user in Ontario must follow if it uses the service â" including no crossing of municipal boundaries â" meaning the service is only good within any particular city's limits. It's better than being shut down completely, and the service can still operate elsewhere around the world, but this is yet another case where we see regulations, that are supposedly put in place to improve things for consumers, do the exact opposite."
Regulations ultimately act to benefit the regulated; not the public. The raise barriers to entry and protect incumbents. A Nobel Prize laureate in Economics pointed that out years ago.
In general, regulated industries can sustain higher prices and have less competition than unregulated ones. That's not o say regulation does not have a place; but to think it results in lower prices to consumers is wrong.
But at the end of the day a GAME does not need realism any more than Clue or Monopoly need the realism of a hexagonal wargame. It just needs to be fun. That's an aspect of video games that modern gaming is having to rediscover.
True - and I believe the really good games; no matter the era, will stand the test of time and remain popular. Fun games capture the player and make them want to play; and are not necessarily complex or graphic intensive. Tetris springs to mind, as does an ancient ASCII based DOS air traffic control game I used to play on an ancient Compaq sewing machine portable with a tiny green CRT (6 or 8" I can't recall).
The challenge for computer games, unlike the more traditional board or non-computer based games is that you need the computer and OS to run the game. You can't pick it off a shelf, dust it off, read the rules and start playing, unlike a 20 year old Scrabble game.
As a result, unless companies commit to emulation and continue to make code available many great games will die as systems they work on disappear. Copyright complicates matters since the Scrabble game I mentioned is still playable by the owner or can be shared since it is a tangible item; unlike a computer game whose code disappears when a company goes bankrupt. I realize there is a vast collection of old games; but few companies have chosen to make their old code free (unlike say, Beagle Bros) so even if you have the code it is not possible to build a viable business out of it to make it available without risk of lawsuits.
Now, if companies realized not only the economic but cultural values of old software then maybe we'd at least see some historical archiving and plans to make them at least playable in the future.
My father has worked for AMS for the past 20+ years on a number of government contracts. The one thing he always comes back saying is how screwed up and redundant a lot of the setups are--it's layer upon layer of hackjobs just to get the various systems to talk to one another. Rossotti is well aware of the current state of technology affairs within the government.
Money is at the crux of this issue, in two ways:
1) The government often is unwilling or unable to invest in the type of infrastructure they really need.
2) Unless the CTO *really* controls all the various agencies IT budget the CTO will be powerless. Agencies will listen nicely and nod their collective heads; then do whatever the want to because it's their money, not the CTO's.
1 can be fixed with a well thought out plan and budget; 2 will take real change and radically alter the power structure. I doubt that will happen. Trying to do so will accomplish one of the hardest things in DC - getting agency's to put aside their turf fights and unite to defeat a common enemy; in this case the CTO.
Back in the days when i was in school, warm-ups were there to avoid injuries, not to increase your performance.
By making your muscles weaker, the chance to get an injury decreases as well. People have proved over time (and quite many times) that you are able to hurt yourself with the strength of your muscles alone (ever seen those 100m sprinters falling like bricks on half way ?).
From the article:
THE RIGHT WARM-UP should do two things: loosen muscles and tendons to increase the range of motion of various joints, and literally warm up the body. When youâ(TM)re at rest, thereâ(TM)s less blood flow to muscles and tendons, and they stiffen. âoeYou need to make tissues and tendons compliant before beginning exercise,â Knudson says.
Here you have a commercial product that costs money, has no support nor warranty. However, you have a lot of people with the basic skills needed to provide the same product for free; either individually or as part of a community.
Fixing bugs will be a challenge but medicine is up to the task.
Why has no one thought of that before; oh yea - the sixties. I vaguely remember them. Never mind.
I would think that the system would require widespread adoption in a particular area before it would even start to be useful
Not really. Initially, I would bet it is only extrapolating based on location and speed. I know somewhere like seattle (and I would be surprised if SF is much different) will have i high enough concentration of geeks w/ toys to bring back data on the major routes. If you have 1 data point on the I5 going at 15 MPH, you can guess that traffic sux. Given the volume of the people, a fairly low adoption rate will give data.
More data points will always make the system better, of course.
One of the big advantages to any of these traffic knowledge programs is that they benefit both people tapped in to the program and those not. For example, super tech guy A checks this program and sees that Road N is slammed today. He, or hopefully his software, will plan a new optimum route based on the traffic data. This removes tech guy A from the problematic traffic pattern. Luddite guy B, doesn't know any of this but his traffic pattern is eased b/c the group of people like tech guy A have avoided exacerbating the problem. As a side benefit, you have utilized your road infrastructure more completely. (recent research about limiting paths being more efficient notwithstanding)
It would be interesting to see what sort of equilibrium is reached - if enough people use it and move off main roads; side roads start to slow while main roads improve. This could result in people returning to the main roads; resulting in the opposite and a move to side roads.
It could result in some steady state level of use or a blinking Life equilibrium between two patterns.
The algorithm would be interesting - they could through out the outliers before averaging to eliminate the stopped by the side of the road and cutting in and out drivers; or just report the mode for any length of road.
Except that by not being able to spread out the cost of the phone over 12 or 24 months many people would not buy a phone.
They could just buy a cheap phone. The last phone I bought cost the equivalent of about $45. I have seen cheaper pay as you go phones (about half the price) advertised, but they may be locked to a network.
It's not so much the cost but the initial outlay. People want fancy phones but balk at paying for them; as a result the providers roll the cost in the plan in order to make a sale.
It's no so much a financial as psychological ploy to increase sales. If they had to pay upfront for the phone you'd not see the take-up rate that we have and prices would not have dropped on service like they have.
You need to be pretty badly off to need to spread that over two years.
It's not so much that they can't afford the phone as they can't see the value on a $300 device; but make it "free" and they do. After all, most phones probably only add $5 - 10 to a plan anyway; so it's unlikely phone companies would drop rates if phones were paid up front; given they don't cut your rate if you already have a phone of after the 24 months are up.
It's simply a sales gimmick rather than a financial one since someone who can't afford a $200 phone probably can't swing $30+ a month anyway.
It's not necessarily a windows tax. MS put some (non-public) limitations on netbooks running XP. For example it's pretty obvious that only 160GB and 1 GB RAM are allowed. For that reason the EeeBox running XP ships in most of Europe with half the RAM as the Linux version. The price of an additional GB does not match the cost of an OEM license.
When netbooks get better specs this will become even more obvious. I guess that people will start buying the Linux version and put XP on it. Or MS will change the terms again - originally the HDD had to be smaller than 80GB, so they already doubled this limit.
My guess is MS will rebrand XP as Vista Netbook or Win7Netbook and simply sell it as a netbook OS. There is no reason they can't sell a stripper version for nb's; along with OfficeNetBook, especially since they probably represent incremental sales rather than lost desktop / notebook sales.
Once the market takes off, they are once again in the driver's set with the OS.
At $200 retail it becomes free with contract - which will no doubt be a selling point.
bla bla bla free bla bla bla
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Stewart's law: It always costs more to get something "free" than to just buy it.
In the mind of the buyer it's "free" - even though all they are do is financing it over time.
All that counts is the buyer's perception, not reality.
Ah, I see what you're getting at now. But I think you are completely wrong about what 99% of people expect from a lens. Normal people don't give a toss about resolution as long as their photos are sharp enough. Unless you're in the habit of making poster-sized prints the image from a 1.6x crop camera with a 200mm lens is indistinguishable from the image from a full-frame camera with a 320mm lens. Resolving power matters to me when I'm doing astrophotography, but when I'm not lens selection is all about how big I can make stuff in the frame. I studied optics at university and could bore you to death about the PSF of my telescopes, so I do understand what a smaller sensor really means, but when I'm in photographer mode I still think my ef-s 55-250mm on my 20d is equivalent to an 88-400mm. Because in every way it matters for taking nice photos, it is.
I think we are in agreement - in the end what matters is will it take the picture you want.
Today's sensor technology is to the point where you can crop and enlarge and still get good results; for me digital means I've rediscovered photography; although I do miss being able to swap out the sensor whenever I want.
What has happened, IMHO, is the reference point has changed for what is a wide or tele; however, with 35mm lens fitting FF and APS-C bodies people have a hard time changing their frame of reference. This is unlike going from medium format to 35mm where the two systems are separate in people's minds; since you generally do not use gear from one format in the other.
The lack of a clean break between the two sensor sizes has resulted in confusion, made worse by P&S cameras being labeled in "equivalent" focal lengths.
Picking a photographic lens is about the composition it allows you to achieve, not how well it can split double stars. I suspect even normal people think bigger is better, rather than sharper is better.
I agree 100% - you match the tool to the need. As you rightly point out, a give FL results in a standard FOV (based on 35mm sensor size), the quality of the image depends on the len's optical quality. That's why I love my 70-200 2.8L. Right range, great optics for my use.
My issue is with sales people who use "crop factor" to try to convince people the camera has the same resolving power with a shorter lens as a full frame does with a longer lens; rather than actually explain composition and the effects of a smaller sensor.
They use the "bigger is better" fallacy to sell a camera to someone who really doesn't understand the effects on image; though in fairness to many salespeople they probably don't either.
A netbook is only really a laptop replacement, when the laptop is in the portable range and not spending most of it's life on a desk ala the 17" screen desknotes. What is happening is smart phones are being bound back to more portable size, the PDA sized phone and even the PDA itself are going to lose ground to the netbook. So compact smartphone, netbook and, desknote/desktop become the standard connected persons digital line up.
While I am in general agreement with your statements, I see more tighter integration of the 3 compact smartphone, netbook and, desknote/desktop occuring. You'll be able to auto sync the netbook, via wifi or bluetooth with your desktop machine so your files stay up to date. A PDA phone provides email and contact/calendering information in an easy to use form factor much faster than firing up a netbook, so it becomes the primary device for maintaining your schedule away from the desktop, ad off course syncs as well. Much of this is doable today.
On a longer term, a PDA phone will function as a controller for a broader digital space - allowing you to manipulate your DVR, order items online, view videos taht would auto transfer to your netbook/desktop for later viewing as well, retrieve files for viewing on the phone, etc. Much of this also exists today but not yet in a truly easy, seamless fashion. With wireless providers spectrum and move into TV provider you may find the Apple store of the future is at ATT&T.
Likely the netbook will end up the most populus device in the western market, as it will end up on every school desktop and as the portable adjunct to the desktop device be it a notebook or a desktop. The netbook is going to end up being pretty abused, so durability (spills and drops), low cost (frequent replacement) and battery life are going to be the big drivers and, performance will take a back seat.
Again, while I agree with you I think performance will not take a back seat - you'll see faster machines as netbooks take off; what will be limiting is size. Great for on the road or basic uses, but a real screen will be needed for heavier work.
With hardware performance being limited to achieve the other goals that means the software must be really efficient, no bloat and fast, and lets forget silly stuff like it can run what ever bloated operating system, what counts is how well the applications on top of the operating system run, so the big comparisson will be Openoffice on Linux vs M$office2007 on Vista and which is more fit for purpose or even capable of running in an acceptable fashion.
Which is why I think MS will create a netbook version of Windows/Office.
Personally, I think Apple is best positioned currently for this market because they:
1) Have a unified vision of where they are going
2) They control the hardware and software so they can make it work unlike Linux/MS who have a large variety of setups to contend with
3) They already are in the convergence business with the iPhone, AppleTV, and Mac lineup
In this market, performance will take a back seat to cost, ease of use and marketing will drive adoption of specific technologies.
I don't really see the distinction you're trying to make. A thing which would appear 1" high in a 5x7 print from a 35mm camera with a 320mm lens will appear 1" high in a 5x7 print from a 1.6x crop DSLR with a 200m lens. That's the definition of magnification which matters when you're taking photos, isn't it? It's about how far away something can be and still fill the frame.
That is because you've enlarged the image - it's no different than cropping and enlarging a FF image; assuming both sensors have the same pixel density. To use your analogy a finer grain film would turn the 200 into say a 300 as well; yet no one use the term "film factor" since it FOV that is what lens measurement refers to.
Consider a frosted glass plate at the focal point of the lens - while the FOV changes depending on what portion of the image you select the resolution of the image is the same. All that you change is how much you enlarge it to get the same final print size. You have not changed the optic properties of the lens; and it does not suddenly get the ability to distinguish (resolve) features at a distance that a 320 lens would (i.e. the 320 might reveal that the 1" object is two sticks where there 200 would only resolve 1 wide object).
Or, too look at it from another perspective, if you shrink the sensor to 100th of a FF you do not get a 20000mm lens.
The problem, of course, is that many people do not properly think of FOV but rather "reach" and hence the confusion on their part; and the assume the 320mm equivalent means they'll be able to take better pictures of distant objects.
Erm, that thing about the lenses is true. If you have a 1.6x sensor (like Canon consumer DSLRs) a 200mm lens will give you the same FOV ("zoom") as a 320mm lens does in a full-frame DSLR. It's not magic, it's basic geometry.
FOV, yes. But salesclerks present it as magnification, not FOV.
Most of the contracts that people sign include wildly unpredictable costs in the event of an overage.
However, a little planing and watching minutes can pretty much alleviate overages.
We don't need to agree, but I really don't think that the cell phone market in the U.S. contains particularly savvy buyers (i.e., they don't have any idea what the providers actual costs are, they don't know how much usage they actually need, they don't look at how much that usage costs under different pricing models, etc).
On that we agree - most people buy shiny when it comes to phones.
As I said, it all makes sense within the historical context. One thing I want to add: the EU is nothing like the US. If anything in Europe is comparable to the US, it is... Germany! The Bunderländer are equivalent to your States. So, while indeed geographically, Europe is similar to the US, politically it is not. As such, in practice every country has its own operators. Sure, they are owned by one multi-national company, but the subsidiaries have to observe local laws (taxes, etc...) This simply is not true in the US, making things way simpler.
Well, given the wide array of local taxes and regulations the US market has many local issues as well.
As for similarities; I doubt each Bundeslander has it's own army or air force.
I don't think it's because the markets. I'm pretty sure that the US could function perfectly fine with the caller pays structure. To me this is entirely historical, so I don't buy your arguments.
But there is no reason to do so - the current system works fine and changing the billing structure would simply confuse people. As I said, with our minute structures incoming calls are really not an issue for most users.
After all, the EU could function perfectly fine with no roaming charges, flat rate pricing and caller / receiver pays as well.
Oh, and just that you know... The fact that it is politically very different does bring us to the EU which is going to regulate roaming charges. That's the nice part about living in a customer-protected environment ;-) That said, they overdid it a bit. I live in a tiny country and over 30% of the revenue of providers comes from roaming. They are very pissed at these political decisions. However, from a consumer point of view, I say: bring it on baby! ;-))
I'm not sure the EU is as consumer friendly as some would believe, given it's pricing structures and rules. But that's a different issue.
You've hit on the real reason for roaming - providers make a ton of money off of it.
I sort of think people prefer contracts because they are bad at thinking. But that is just me.
I think you think wrong. Predictable costs have value.
Being from the U.S. myself I don't see any reason to defend charging for incoming calls. My landline doesn't get charge for incoming calls. Neither should my cell phone. I don't mind if they charge enough for outgoing to make up the cost (I would guess they already do this anyway).
Unless you have a very limited plan incoming calls have little to no effect on your charges - unless for some reason you receive a lot of prime time calls from people not with your provider.
As for the cost, the marginal cost for the call is essentially zero ; so other than truncation fees (if they still exist) it really doesn't cost anything for the provider to connect you.
The worst offender of all is having to pay for incoming texts. I have never sent a text in my life, and I only receive a few a month, and those that I receive are generally accidents, or are from someone at work who doesn't realize that dialing my number and calling is cheaper, easier and less time-intensive than dialing my number and typing in a text message.
Block all text. Issue fixed.
Unlike you I am not hopeful for the election to change anything. I have not heard anything from either candidate about this issue, nor would I want the government to get involved. I simply want consumers to stop laying down and taking it, which is probably a shallow hope since they are so addicted to text messaging.
You missed the tag
True. Yet, the logic behind this is equal to the logic that originated the "pay-for-reception" in the US. (Read my other comment) A caller, calling a cellphone has no way to know where the other person is. If I call my brother right now, he might be in Germany for all I know. Who gets to pay? Not me, since I didn't know and it would be unfair to me. So he gets to pay. That's the basic idea behind roaming.
/If/ your carriers would be state-based instead of country-based you would have exactly the same problem that we have in Europe.
This brings us back to "backwards".... In my country an unlimited plan like that is 30€/month. Sure, roaming isn't included in that, which limits it to my country but the same is true for the US... After all it still is one country and the networks in different states are owned by one and the same company.
While the US is one country in size and scope it matches the EU - we essentially get unlimited roaming across the same area and no extra cost for long distance.
Since our market is different our cell phone plans are different. That's the crux - our plans better fit our needs than yours would, so we have a large calling area for one price.
From another perspective - isn't the EU one Europe (I say somewhat TIC) so why can't there be one cell plan?
Contract plans only make sense because the majority of people sign them for a cheap phone. If less people signed contracts, there is a good chance phone companies would work harder on customer retention, rather than acquisition, and prices would drop for non contract and pay as you go (and they are getting better anyway, Virgin Mobile offers unlimited voice for $80 a month with no contract, which is somewhat competitive/comparable with the $100 unlimited plans from the big carriers, except for data/messaging, which aren't all that expensive).
Contract plans only make sense because the majority of people sign them for a cheap phone. If less people signed contracts, there is a good chance phone companies would work harder on customer retention, rather than acquisition, and prices would drop for non contract and pay as you go (and they are getting better anyway, Virgin Mobile offers unlimited voice for $80 a month with no contract, which is somewhat competitive/comparable with the $100 unlimited plans from the big carriers, except for data/messaging, which aren't all that expensive).
Except that by not being able to spread out the cost of the phone over 12 or 24 months many people would not buy a phone. If there truly was interest in pay as you go you'd see a lot more uptake on those plans.
However, consumers find contracts a better value and so chose them. There are plenty non-contract alternatives at a wide range of prices. Overall, however they are not as popular as contract plans because consumers find more value in a contract with a subsidized phone. While VM offers a good deal at $90/month (voice and text) there phone selection is a bit limited.
In addition, the ability to add on additional lines on contracts and share minutes is a selling point for many users as well. Four phones on a family plan is cheaper than four monthly non-contract pay as you go plans.
"Free" and "easy to get" is relative - try traveling around the US on a frequent basis and it becomes neither free nor easy to get.
Lets see... last time I checked there were about 5 unsecured wireless routers in range, and there were a lot more last time I went into a major city.... Its both free and easy to get.
Yes, and you have no idea whose router that is or what they are doing with your data stream; nor how long they will be up. Besides the security issue, if you are moving or inside a building may unsecured routers go away.
Not to mention "major city" leaves out a lot of the US.
Finally, leaching bandwidth is not free.
I work in computers at Best Buy(I know, i know we suck) and we have been pushing the mobile broadband with the eeePCs for a while. They have been a big hit with those who want full computing capabilities(ex. truck drivers) as oppose to something just like an iPhone. This will be a great partnership if it works out. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.
First of all, BB fits a nice niche - I don't find you suck even if some sales people are somewhat clueless (like the ones that keep insisting a less than full frame dSLR somehow magically turns a 200mm lens into the equivalent reach of a 320mm)at least most are helpful.
That convergence is the next area of growth - once screens become decent enough to do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations for an extended period I think they will become mobile devices of choice for may road warriors. By usability, I mean the ability to create presentations and spreadsheets without having to squint or zoom in / scroll around the page; couple dwith a reasonably high res display..
PowerPoint, with a 10" page view and small small menubar or some sort of contextual right click pop up menu (or both) could fit the bill. The current variants, while tempting, waste too much screen space and would be frustrating for extended use.
My guess is MS will come out with slimmed down (in terms of screen space use) versions of Office apps to target that market.
It's also an opportunity for OSS to find a sweet spot - usable versions of Office replacements with full MS Office file compatibility; along with MS Exchange support in an Outlook clone at a low enough price point would have an opportunity to establish market share before MS exerts its market force. Most road warriors do not need games but need rock solid Office support and usability and probably would welcome a lighter, smaller device with built in internet access.
Or is this some US-specific backwardness, like paying for recieving calls? (no offense intended, but the US market really does seem to be 10 years behind the rest of the developed world, at least judging from slashdot-articles :-))
The problem with /. 's discussions of cell phone markets is they fail to look at the market in an objective fashion. The conclusion is often "X is bad / behind the times / worse than mine because it is different.
Yes we "pay" for receiving calls; but given we don't if they are from the same carrier (I would wager a lot of calls are within a household who probably has only 1 carrier) of occur in the evening or on weekends most people never see any impact on their bill. If you do a lot of peak calling you can get an unlimited plan for around $100 and need not worry about minutes at all. For most practical purposes we really don't pay for incoming calls.
OTOH, we probably have one off the largest no-cost roaming and long distance setups around. I can call anywhere from within the US I can get a signal for no additional cost. My experiences in the EU is that phones don't let you roam for free across most borders; i.e. my UK phone in Portugal no longer considers incoming calls free and I do not pay UK rates for calls. If I go from say ATL to NYC as an example I incur no additional charges for a call.
We don't get as many cool phones, however.
Our markets evolved differently and our user needs are different. I's not uncommon for many users to make calls to and or from multiple states on a monthly basis; so our plans evolved into favoring wide areas of coverage for one base price; different, not better or worse.
We are backward in a number of other ways; I am hopeful 4NOV08 will start that to change as well.
BInding a single device to a 2-year contract is nuts. Especially a device as limited as a cell phone or netbook.
The iphone, for example, is very cool, but I'm just not interested at $70/month. Yet I pay more than that for my tv/phone/internet connection at home. I'm OK with that because at home I have flexibility -- I can attach as many phones and computers as I want.
I'm sticking with my pay-as-you-go, featureless cell phone until there's an expensive contract that gives me a lot more flexibility.
Value depends on needs - my home phone is rarely used (and primarily a legacy line) Cell phones are the primary devices we use for personal and work calls; and pay as you go would be orders of magnitude more expensive and the monthly cost is very variable and unpredictable. Most don't offer data plans (well, ATT does but it's a bit convoluted to get it).
So, a contract is a good way to lock in a price and that's less expensive and more predictable. It's essentially a 2 year hedge on costs.
It all depends on usage patterns - pay as you go, month to month or contract all make sense for differing needs.
It would be better just to buy it outright. With free wireless broadband being so easy to get, and the cost of these netbooks dropping, you are probably just better off buying it outright, and not being tied into a provider.
"Free" and "easy to get" is relative - try traveling around the US on a frequent basis and it becomes neither free nor easy to get.
If ATT could come up with a cheap way to get email and do light surfing / downloading then it becomes a worthwhile gadget for traveling; especially if the device is good enough to do Word and PowerPoint on the road.
Ummm...considering that Asus has done announced they will have a EEE priced at $200 next year,why on earth would anyone get screwed with such a long term contract to save $100? Personally I'll wait and see what the $200 Asus looks like.
At $200 retail it becomes free with contract - which will no doubt be a selling point.
If it is a decent device (for me, that's a 10" screen, plenty of memory, 16GB SSD or fast HDD, bluetooth) and data service is reasonably priced I'd get one as a laptop replacement.