I've been a faithful user of Boxee for the past year, but the Beta convinced me to go back to XBMC.
Problems I had with Boxee: 1) Didn't expose all features of XBMC, such as Synch Display Refresh Rate to Media. I've got a TV that can do 24hz, 50hz,60hz, etc, why should I see pull down artifacts? I also wanted the Skip Direct to Menu option for DVD playback. 2) Boxee hasn't fixed problems from the Alpha - I've got some ISO rips which still fail to playback in Boxee. XBMC and VLC have no problems with them. This was a _huge_ WAF issue. She had gone back to pulling the DVDs out of storage to watch them! 3) The Social Media aspect was pointless. None of my friends were using Boxee, and aren't likely to. It was pure clutter between me and my media. Note: You can't unsubscribe from Avner's feed! 4) Not being able to watch videos, or listen to music until it had finished scanning my collection. I have 4TB of media, don't make me wait. 5) When I upgraded to the Beta, my remote control stopped working.:) The packages overwrote files that I had changed to get everything working. 6) Their releases are a long time apart. 7) Even when I submitted a patch for a bug, it didn't make it into the Beta.
The only thing I seem to be giving up is Hulu support, which if it really annoys me, I can port back into XBMC.
I wish them luck, the Boxee box announced at CES looks pretty cool, and the $200 price point is pretty compelling. It's just not for me.
It seems that Google (Chrome OS) and Apple (Mobile ME) are all heading towards the "no local storage" concept. I would expect this device to do the same. If used to read email (web/imap), surf, play music (local or internet stream), movies (stream again), or read books, local storage isn't required.
It is only when it is used as a general compute device (instead of a modern equivalent of an X11 server), do we have to start to worry about client synching.
If tablet makers do want to worry about client synching, the bits that people do care about synching (address books, media, calendar, email) are pretty solved, with a large number of implementations, such as Funambol (SyncML) and iTunes.
However, you are strictly correct. Synchronisation of arbitrary files without regard to the data contained inside the file is an unsolvable problem. However, synchronisation of databases? That's a lot easier. My phone deals with that every single day.
As I said, I'm not going to buy a tablet to _replace_ my desktop, laptop or server. I'm not going to use it to create anything (like write code, or a document). I'm going to use it to retrieve stuff I've already got, while lying on the couch or in bed. Have you tried to use a laptop lying down? The screen keeps closing! You can't use it lying on your side!
The tablet will be competing for my Harmony/Kindle/iPod Touch budget, not my laptop budget. Of course, that puts an upper limit on how much I'm willing to pay for the device.:)
As we're seeing with the Kindle, and the iPhone, many people can find uses for additional computers in our lives. I can definitely see a use for a tablet device sitting on my coffee table, waiting to be used by anyone walking in as both a media selector (iTunes to an AirPort Express/Apple TV), or as a general device to answer "Who is in that movie?", "What's on tomorrow", "You're talking BS" questions. I already use my iPhone for that, this would just be a general device, whereas the iPhone is "personal".
Add to that the ability to use it as a general book reader, and you've got a winner.
Tablets aren't laptop replacements, they are secondary displays for the living room, secondary devices that enhance your ability to use the compute power you _already_ have in your house.
You're a developer, you have a compiler. IT doesn't realise it, but developers aren't bound by any requirement for "admin rights". If developers want a piece of software, they can just compile it and run it. It's pretty standard security theatre.
I had a friend working at a company where he didn't have admin rights, and he wanted to run a Wiki. The IT team didn't give him approval, so he downloaded Apache, Python, Perl and a Wiki. Compiled them all and had a Wiki running on his locked down machine within 3 hours.
Locked down desktops are easily subverted when someone is given a programming language.
Except, that's not how it is on OS X. As the DPI increases, the size of the object shrinks. My 17" MBP has smaller fonts and icons than my friend's MacBook.
Abstract: We have investigated the magnetic properties of the Ni-MgO system with an Ni concentration of 0.5 at.%. In as-grown crystals, Ni ions occupy substitutional Mg sites. Under these conditions the Ni-MgO system behaves as a perfect paramagnet. By using a controlled annealing treatment in a reducing atmosphere, we were able to induce clustering and form pure Ni precipitates in the nanometer size range. The size distribution of precipitates or nanodots is varied by changing annealing time and temperature. Magnetic properties of specimens ranging from perfect paramagnetic to ferromagnetic characteristics have been studied systematically to establish structure-property correlations. The spontaneous magnetization data for the samples, where Ni was precipitated randomly in MgO host, fits well to Bloch’s T3/2-law and has been explained within the framework of spin wave theory predictions.
Now, my question is, how do you store information in that? If the material is paramagnetic, that implies it isn't stored like a disk (read/write using a magnetic field)? How are they planning on storing information in a clump of nickel atoms? (Note: I know absolutely nothing about this stuff)
Precisely. PulseAudio cost me a week of effort in building my media playing machine. An entire week of trying to figure out why XBMC and Boxee wouldn't talk to the sound card.
As soon as I got rid of PulseAudio? It started working.
When an API is supposedly compatible with something it is replacing, it is the _API's_ fault when an application stops working, not the application. We already had this argument with EXT4.
It's shifting the frequency into a shorter wavelength, without going through a chip.
From the article:
The Cornell team made their time lenses using a silicon waveguide that can channel light. An information-carrying pulse made from a series of
small laser bursts signalling digital 1s and 0s travels through an optical fibre and into the waveguide. As it enters, it is combined with another
laser pulse from an infrared laser. The infrared pulse vibrates the atoms of the waveguide, which in turn shifts the frequencies of the
data-carrying pulse before it exits the waveguide and passes into an optical fibre beyond.
I recommend digging out the paper and reading it. If you read it, you see it isn't the medical costs that cause bankruptcies, it's the loss in income. The paper was extremely poorly written, and considers an instantaneous death where the spouse then goes bankrupt to be a medically related bankruptcy.
So, if you want to enter an area with a backpack, you start walking in with a hump, and make the hump bigger with every entry. Better yet, give out a bunch of free backpacks (in increasing numbers) over a period.
A human operator would go "WTF", a machine would simply recognise it as normal and increase the threshold.
You want to walk back through a door? Start by looking over your shoulder as you walk through it normally.
That fence? Add an automated fence wiggler. If the fence goes off every night, they'll turn the sensitivity down in short order.
If it doesn't need training, how does it define "terroristic activity"? Is it the "I'll know it when I see it" definition?
The article seems to indicate it works like a Bayesian filter on the video - pointing out things that aren't typical for the camera.
Much like any automated system that is supposed to filter out false positives, it is probably pretty easy to train either the operators or the system itself to throttle back the sensitivity to a point where it ignores everything.
Why would it have been guaranteed to "work right the first time?"
The article indicates that it's a design fault. Either in the design of the manufacturing process, or earlier.
Boeing is designing a permanent fix to the wrinkle problem so future versions of the plane won't have to be modified. The existing fuselage wrinkles, she said, will not compromise the flight safety of the 787s.
That tells me it's Boeing's fault that the problem exists, not the Italian manufacturers.
So, in order to attack it, all you do is run a Vuze index server and store all of the key/value pairs that look like keys instead of a block hash. Ready made dictionary attack.
Look at it this way. You and 99 of your friends can now have all-you-can-eat streaming music for US$250/yr + costs, as long as your costs are US$100k (royalties are 25% of costs or revenue, whichever is higher) - running it as a coop means no revenue.
Even better, you can offer it to everyone!
Sounds like a great way to have a large, legal, on-demand music collection.
In the VOD situation, the operator is making a preemptive copy, and then rebroadcasting that copy when the customer requests it. The operator decides what is to be recorded and made available.
In the PVR situation, the end customer decides what is recorded, and what is played back and stored.
The question becomes, since the customer already has the right to make a time-shifted copy of a TV show (Sony v. Universal), the question hinges on whether or not the network operator is able to make a copy for the customer. Is it the customer making the copy, or the operator?
Now, there were some strange bits in the arguments, both sides avoided what would appear to be obvious defences (see the previous slashdot discussion), but that's what it boils down to.
To see how strange it was getting, they were talking about how long the video was stored in buffers in the device - too big a buffer and it becomes the operator creating a copy.
Slashdot Mirror
The Boxee Alpha supports iPlayer, through a plugin. I'm assuming that it is also available in the Beta. I don't know about the others.
I've been a faithful user of Boxee for the past year, but the Beta convinced me to go back to XBMC.
Problems I had with Boxee: :) The packages overwrote files that I had changed to get everything working.
1) Didn't expose all features of XBMC, such as Synch Display Refresh Rate to Media. I've got a TV that can do 24hz, 50hz,60hz, etc, why should I see pull down artifacts? I also wanted the Skip Direct to Menu option for DVD playback.
2) Boxee hasn't fixed problems from the Alpha - I've got some ISO rips which still fail to playback in Boxee. XBMC and VLC have no problems with them. This was a _huge_ WAF issue. She had gone back to pulling the DVDs out of storage to watch them!
3) The Social Media aspect was pointless. None of my friends were using Boxee, and aren't likely to. It was pure clutter between me and my media. Note: You can't unsubscribe from Avner's feed!
4) Not being able to watch videos, or listen to music until it had finished scanning my collection. I have 4TB of media, don't make me wait.
5) When I upgraded to the Beta, my remote control stopped working.
6) Their releases are a long time apart.
7) Even when I submitted a patch for a bug, it didn't make it into the Beta.
The only thing I seem to be giving up is Hulu support, which if it really annoys me, I can port back into XBMC.
I wish them luck, the Boxee box announced at CES looks pretty cool, and the $200 price point is pretty compelling. It's just not for me.
It seems that Google (Chrome OS) and Apple (Mobile ME) are all heading towards the "no local storage" concept. I would expect this device to do the same. If used to read email (web/imap), surf, play music (local or internet stream), movies (stream again), or read books, local storage isn't required.
It is only when it is used as a general compute device (instead of a modern equivalent of an X11 server), do we have to start to worry about client synching.
If tablet makers do want to worry about client synching, the bits that people do care about synching (address books, media, calendar, email) are pretty solved, with a large number of implementations, such as Funambol (SyncML) and iTunes.
However, you are strictly correct. Synchronisation of arbitrary files without regard to the data contained inside the file is an unsolvable problem. However, synchronisation of databases? That's a lot easier. My phone deals with that every single day.
As I said, I'm not going to buy a tablet to _replace_ my desktop, laptop or server. I'm not going to use it to create anything (like write code, or a document). I'm going to use it to retrieve stuff I've already got, while lying on the couch or in bed. Have you tried to use a laptop lying down? The screen keeps closing! You can't use it lying on your side!
The tablet will be competing for my Harmony/Kindle/iPod Touch budget, not my laptop budget. Of course, that puts an upper limit on how much I'm willing to pay for the device. :)
As we're seeing with the Kindle, and the iPhone, many people can find uses for additional computers in our lives. I can definitely see a use for a tablet device sitting on my coffee table, waiting to be used by anyone walking in as both a media selector (iTunes to an AirPort Express/Apple TV), or as a general device to answer "Who is in that movie?", "What's on tomorrow", "You're talking BS" questions. I already use my iPhone for that, this would just be a general device, whereas the iPhone is "personal".
Add to that the ability to use it as a general book reader, and you've got a winner.
Tablets aren't laptop replacements, they are secondary displays for the living room, secondary devices that enhance your ability to use the compute power you _already_ have in your house.
Except, I paid sales tax to purchase the card, I didn't deposit money into the account. Therefore, the card is the product/service, not the call.
You're a developer, you have a compiler. IT doesn't realise it, but developers aren't bound by any requirement for "admin rights". If developers want a piece of software, they can just compile it and run it. It's pretty standard security theatre.
I had a friend working at a company where he didn't have admin rights, and he wanted to run a Wiki. The IT team didn't give him approval, so he downloaded Apache, Python, Perl and a Wiki. Compiled them all and had a Wiki running on his locked down machine within 3 hours.
Locked down desktops are easily subverted when someone is given a programming language.
I run my house off of batteries and charge them using off-peak, cheap power.
Oh wait, my usage pattern indicates I've got some large, expensive batteries!
Back to the drawing board.
Except, that's not how it is on OS X. As the DPI increases, the size of the object shrinks. My 17" MBP has smaller fonts and icons than my friend's MacBook.
The Hulu flash client attempts a direct connection to the RTMP port (port 1935). You need to block that port, and then it should fall back to the HTTP proxy. http://blog.jason.pollock.ca/2009/09/using-amazon-ec2-to-access-hulu.html
Here is the paper's abstract:
Now, my question is, how do you store information in that? If the material is paramagnetic, that implies it isn't stored like a disk (read/write using a magnetic field)? How are they planning on storing information in a clump of nickel atoms? (Note: I know absolutely nothing about this stuff)
Precisely. PulseAudio cost me a week of effort in building my media playing machine. An entire week of trying to figure out why XBMC and Boxee wouldn't talk to the sound card.
As soon as I got rid of PulseAudio? It started working.
When an API is supposedly compatible with something it is replacing, it is the _API's_ fault when an application stops working, not the application. We already had this argument with EXT4.
PulseAudio - not ready for prime time.
You guys didn't have to provide them with interoperability testing and access to developers.
Thanks.
They've been patenting sandwiches for a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealed_crustless_sandwich
I was wondering, "Why are cosmic rays so dangerous, It's just protons and electrons, just like the solar wind".
However, there's a huge energy difference between the two.
The particles in cosmic radiation have 1x10^20eV and the solar wind is 1x10^3eV
So, while it's the same "stuff", the cosmic particles are moving a lot faster relative to us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_radiation
It's shifting the frequency into a shorter wavelength, without going through a chip.
From the article:
The Cornell team made their time lenses using a silicon waveguide that can channel light. An information-carrying pulse made from a series of
small laser bursts signalling digital 1s and 0s travels through an optical fibre and into the waveguide. As it enters, it is combined with another
laser pulse from an infrared laser. The infrared pulse vibrates the atoms of the waveguide, which in turn shifts the frequencies of the
data-carrying pulse before it exits the waveguide and passes into an optical fibre beyond.
Re: Medical Bankruptcies.
I recommend digging out the paper and reading it. If you read it, you see it isn't the medical costs that cause bankruptcies, it's the loss in income. The paper was extremely poorly written, and considers an instantaneous death where the spouse then goes bankrupt to be a medically related bankruptcy.
The trick is to train it to ignore you.
So, if you want to enter an area with a backpack, you start walking in with a hump, and make the hump bigger with every entry. Better yet, give out a bunch of free backpacks (in increasing numbers) over a period.
A human operator would go "WTF", a machine would simply recognise it as normal and increase the threshold.
You want to walk back through a door? Start by looking over your shoulder as you walk through it normally.
That fence? Add an automated fence wiggler. If the fence goes off every night, they'll turn the sensitivity down in short order.
It all depends on how patient the attacker is.
It's a press release pretending to be journalism.
If it doesn't need training, how does it define "terroristic activity"? Is it the "I'll know it when I see it" definition?
The article seems to indicate it works like a Bayesian filter on the video - pointing out things that aren't typical for the camera.
Much like any automated system that is supposed to filter out false positives, it is probably pretty easy to train either the operators or the system itself to throttle back the sensitivity to a point where it ignores everything.
Because the inefficient device is cheaper in it's total cost of ownership than the lower power one.
Since electricity is so cheap, it takes a lot of viewing to make up a US$400+ difference in sticker price.
Just in case you were like me and were interested in how your existing model stacked up:
Year Standby Active Max Power Factor
2006 3w N/A N/A
2011 1w 0.2*area+32 0.9
2013 1w 0.12*area+25 0.9
I _think_ that the area of a 16:9 TV is:
(C is the diagonal, C^2 is the square of the diagonal)
=SQRT(256*C^2/337)*SQRT(81*C^2/337)
So, using 2013 numbers:
42":115.45W
50":153.19W
65":241.64W
I have no idea what "Max Power Factor" means.
Why would it have been guaranteed to "work right the first time?"
The article indicates that it's a design fault. Either in the design of the manufacturing process, or earlier.
That tells me it's Boeing's fault that the problem exists, not the Italian manufacturers.
So, in order to attack it, all you do is run a Vuze index server and store all of the key/value pairs that look like keys instead of a block hash. Ready made dictionary attack.
slashdot ate my less than.
"as long as your costs are _less_than_ US$100k"
So, your cost is US$25k + Transmission and Hosting.
Look at it this way. You and 99 of your friends can now have all-you-can-eat streaming music for US$250/yr + costs, as long as your costs are US$100k (royalties are 25% of costs or revenue, whichever is higher) - running it as a coop means no revenue.
Even better, you can offer it to everyone!
Sounds like a great way to have a large, legal, on-demand music collection.
There is a difference between the two situations.
In the VOD situation, the operator is making a preemptive copy, and then rebroadcasting that copy when the customer requests it. The operator decides what is to be recorded and made available.
In the PVR situation, the end customer decides what is recorded, and what is played back and stored.
The question becomes, since the customer already has the right to make a time-shifted copy of a TV show (Sony v. Universal), the question hinges on whether or not the network operator is able to make a copy for the customer. Is it the customer making the copy, or the operator?
Now, there were some strange bits in the arguments, both sides avoided what would appear to be obvious defences (see the previous slashdot discussion), but that's what it boils down to.
To see how strange it was getting, they were talking about how long the video was stored in buffers in the device - too big a buffer and it becomes the operator creating a copy.