Anyway, sorry about that. I just really, really, really want my own Itsy.
We should port this to it: CVoiceControl ...
on
Agenda VR3 Review
·
· Score: 2
... and do away with the bloated GUI in the thing, for good... that way you can walk around with a portable speech-recognition device that can be set up to control X10 stuff over iRDA, etc.
More details on CVoiceControl here:
http://www.kiecza.de/daniel/linux/cvoicecontrol/ in dex-3.html
I'd imagine it'd be a pretty easy port...
Okay, so its a sows ear. Where do we start?
on
Agenda VR3 Review
·
· Score: 2
Given that it was released too soon, and that the company has not put enought into it as a product, where does that leave us?
Personally, I like the looks of it as a hardware platform - certainly if it's open enough for me to hack with it using regular Linux-style tools, I'd consider getting one if just for the sake that it's a hackers tool.
So, what do we get? Do we get details on the hardware? Do we get the cross compiler? Is there a FAQ/Howto from Kessler on how to build apps for it?
Do the bundled apps come with source? What's the environment *on the thing* like? Just how much potential does it represent to me, as a hacker, interested in building my own environment in a handheld architecture, using tools I'm familiar with?
If I get good answers to any of these questions, regardless of the fact that it's a sows ear right now: I'd buy a VR3, sight unseen.
I think *THAT* is the point of this whole article. Lord knows we don't need to crap on these people - let's instead discuss the *POTENTIAL* this platform gives us hackers from a fun/candy perspective... because obviously it's not a CONSUMER-ready product.
But we are not all Consumers. Some of us are hackers... and I think Agenda deserve at least a *little* respect for having the balls to recognize that...
Also, where do we buy these things form? Anyone got a URL?
The answer to this question is pretty simple to find: Have a look at the existing games that use it on multiple platforms, check them out, try them, test them, watch their performance.
Your game will probably encounter the same set of parameters in its lifecycle as some of the games on this list:
http://www.libsdl.org/games_db/games.php3">>LibS DL Games
So, use them as a good yardstick for your own works...
In the context of secure banking, I can see where a copyright-control mechanism could actually be considered a *GOOD* thing : it could result in decentralized banking systems. Admittedly, initially on a very small scale, but later over time, it'd be quite unique.
A non-copyable file is pretty much the same as a lump of gold in a vault. Given enough crypto tech applied, you could have your savings account figure of $54,000 encoded in a non-copyable file, which you can store on your own Secure PC.
Nobody can access it, nobody can steal it (presumably), and nobody can copy it. It's a resource (a 'currency' file) that sits there, on your own system, ad infinitum.
And thus, you can establish means of trade into and out of this 'currency' file, bypassing prohibitively large and expensive banking systems.
From a banking perspective, this SecurePC/FreeAOLTerminal concept is a way of Beowulf'ing things out to the people... it'll be interesting to see if things pan out, either way.
From Intels site, a list of supported media formats:
Most web pages in html format
Virtually all web pages using Java** and Javascript 1.5
Websites and presentations that use Macromedia Flash*
Streaming audio and video in RealPlayer* format
Streaming audio in M3U and PLS formats
Audio in MP3, WAV, MIDI, AU, RAM, RA, and RMP formats
Video in MP1 (MPE, MPG, MPEG), MP2, and AVI formats (there is also limited support for MOV)
Graphics Images in GIF, JPG, JPEG, JPE, TIFF, BMP, PNG, PPM, and XPM formats
Text and other documents in PDF, ASCII, and HTML formats
Notice some things missing?
1. MS Word.DOC file format.
2. MS streaming media.
3. Apple Quicktime (.MOV/.QT).
To say nothing of the countless codecs that are only available under MS/Apple realms...
So, AOL/Intel is now going up against MS/Apple. There is no way in hell MS is going to give MS streaming to any other platform, and the same goes for Apple (though that may change in their case).
Admittedly, MS Word.DOC files are a piece of cake under Linux, but that could change at a drop of a version from MS...
Wow, seriously dangerous waters you guys at/. are venturing into.
It could be argued, pretty easily, that this article is a competitive swipe against EFront, who seem to have a relatively similar business strategy to another "Buy-And-Milk" company, your very own Andover Networks.
I hope this doesn't cause more fuss than it should. Be stupid to see/. get embroiled in the very things it purports to be rallying the community against...
NSA's Linux distro is just a result of some enterprising hackers on the periphery of the organization who are bored and happen to have some free time on their hands.
It's a joke, more than anything else, for people of their ilk - I mean come on... why the fuck are they even *WORKING* at the NSA?
A continuation of the altering theme:
There are far *worse* ways for them to know what's going on in your head than by monitoring electronics in the form of computers.
What would be quicker - spend a few hundred kabillion dollars modify an entire planets weather system, and wait a thousand or so years for it to green out, or spend a few billions of dollars on genetic research engineering and just make bodies better suited to that atmosphere and climate?
I mean, for as long as we're being sci-fi about all this, don't forget that the hothouse project isn't the only proposal on the table...
(Well, there is one thing they can do -- pay you your salary for the length of the agreement, so you can sit on your ass and do nothing...)
I've never really understood this - is this the concept behind severance pay? If so, then I understand it a whole lot better... basically, you're being paid to not go off and do stuff that'd damage your former employer, competition-wise.
Freaky.
Makes sense in the context in which I've seen it, which is marketing/exec types who have a lot of insight into how a particular business runs, etc. They've been given 'severance' packages that run on for years, just so they won't use their talents to ruin the company...
How does this tie with gambling laws, any/.-lawyers know?
Also, this concept of gaming-for-something is similar to what is generally perceived as "The Next Big Thing" in the gaming industry - free forms of economic reward/punishment among multiplayer gamers. A lot of online RPG's followed this formula - it makes sense that FPS's are following suit (FPS's generally take RPG concepts, and 3d-ize them... the former follows the latter)
Trade, if you will, for a newly formed society. The "Everquest" effect...
Good conclusion, though I have to wonder about the wisdom of this - it's a pretty easy pattern to locate, and would make a fairly simple target for pattern-recognition based systems, such as those deployed in 70's-era spy satellites...
It's not that easy to track if it's going really, really, really fast... and approximates the same flight characteristics as, say, your average meteorite. And since literally hundreds of those land on the planet every day...
And yeah, ABM's come into play in the story. But so does the judicious use of meteorites. The space treaties only deal with *manufactured* weapons, not sticks and stones.
... all it takes is someone willing to devote the time to add mLAN support.
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/tech/1394mLAN/mlan.html
Can't do much better than that, honestly. And mLAN hardware is out there right now, there's no reason enterprising developers can't get started as of today.
I'd do it, but I'm working on stuff that sits on top of mLAN first on Mac/PC... once this works, I'll consider doing mLAN driver work for Linux.
"This seems like an expensive and inefficient solution for the problem you describe. PCs are actually pretty bad at doing signal processing; there's a whole class of chips (DSPs) that are optimized for it. There are almost certainly DSP-based hardware boards/widgets that will handle a lot of these effects for you, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there was a general-purpose programmable DSP card on the market too. Researching this before you spend money on a cluster would be a Good Idea."
Slashdot Mirror
... this should be written up as a HOWTO-killspam somewhere, and included with all Linux distro's as standard fare in the docset tarballs ...
...
Start it small. Write it up and talk about it a lot. Snowball it. Just like we did with Linux and countless other technologies
You are beautiful.
I'm so tired of getting really worked up about the Itsy here on /. only to discover that they're STILL NOT MAKING IT AVAILABLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC!
p _p ract/cp3.htm
CRAP!
The picture at the bottom of this page is PURE SEX!! How come us mortals aren't allowed to have any of that?!!! FUKC~!!
http://computer.org/computer/homepage/april/com
Anyway, sorry about that. I just really, really, really want my own Itsy.
... and do away with the bloated GUI in the thing, for good ... that way you can walk around with a portable speech-recognition device that can be set up to control X10 stuff over iRDA, etc.
/ in dex-3.html
...
More details on CVoiceControl here:
http://www.kiecza.de/daniel/linux/cvoicecontrol
I'd imagine it'd be a pretty easy port
Given that it was released too soon, and that the company has not put enought into it as a product, where does that leave us?
... and I think Agenda deserve at least a *little* respect for having the balls to recognize that...
Personally, I like the looks of it as a hardware platform - certainly if it's open enough for me to hack with it using regular Linux-style tools, I'd consider getting one if just for the sake that it's a hackers tool.
So, what do we get? Do we get details on the hardware? Do we get the cross compiler? Is there a FAQ/Howto from Kessler on how to build apps for it?
Do the bundled apps come with source? What's the environment *on the thing* like? Just how much potential does it represent to me, as a hacker, interested in building my own environment in a handheld architecture, using tools I'm familiar with?
If I get good answers to any of these questions, regardless of the fact that it's a sows ear right now: I'd buy a VR3, sight unseen.
I think *THAT* is the point of this whole article. Lord knows we don't need to crap on these people - let's instead discuss the *POTENTIAL* this platform gives us hackers from a fun/candy perspective... because obviously it's not a CONSUMER-ready product.
But we are not all Consumers. Some of us are hackers
Also, where do we buy these things form? Anyone got a URL?
The answer to this question is pretty simple to find: Have a look at the existing games that use it on multiple platforms, check them out, try them, test them, watch their performance.
S DL Games
Your game will probably encounter the same set of parameters in its lifecycle as some of the games on this list:
http://www.libsdl.org/games_db/games.php3">>Lib
So, use them as a good yardstick for your own works...
j.
In the context of secure banking, I can see where a copyright-control mechanism could actually be considered a *GOOD* thing : it could result in decentralized banking systems. Admittedly, initially on a very small scale, but later over time, it'd be quite unique.
... it'll be interesting to see if things pan out, either way.
A non-copyable file is pretty much the same as a lump of gold in a vault. Given enough crypto tech applied, you could have your savings account figure of $54,000 encoded in a non-copyable file, which you can store on your own Secure PC.
Nobody can access it, nobody can steal it (presumably), and nobody can copy it. It's a resource (a 'currency' file) that sits there, on your own system, ad infinitum.
And thus, you can establish means of trade into and out of this 'currency' file, bypassing prohibitively large and expensive banking systems.
From a banking perspective, this SecurePC/FreeAOLTerminal concept is a way of Beowulf'ing things out to the people
From Intels site, a list of supported media formats:
.DOC file format.
...
.DOC files are a piece of cake under Linux, but that could change at a drop of a version from MS ...
Most web pages in html format
Virtually all web pages using Java** and Javascript 1.5
Websites and presentations that use Macromedia Flash*
Streaming audio and video in RealPlayer* format
Streaming audio in M3U and PLS formats
Audio in MP3, WAV, MIDI, AU, RAM, RA, and RMP formats
Video in MP1 (MPE, MPG, MPEG), MP2, and AVI formats (there is also limited support for MOV)
Graphics Images in GIF, JPG, JPEG, JPE, TIFF, BMP, PNG, PPM, and XPM formats
Text and other documents in PDF, ASCII, and HTML formats
Notice some things missing?
1. MS Word
2. MS streaming media.
3. Apple Quicktime (.MOV/.QT).
To say nothing of the countless codecs that are only available under MS/Apple realms
So, AOL/Intel is now going up against MS/Apple. There is no way in hell MS is going to give MS streaming to any other platform, and the same goes for Apple (though that may change in their case).
Admittedly, MS Word
Wow, seriously dangerous waters you guys at /. are venturing into.
/. get embroiled in the very things it purports to be rallying the community against ...
It could be argued, pretty easily, that this article is a competitive swipe against EFront, who seem to have a relatively similar business strategy to another "Buy-And-Milk" company, your very own Andover Networks.
I hope this doesn't cause more fuss than it should. Be stupid to see
An alternative view:
... why the fuck are they even *WORKING* at the NSA?
The NSA don't give a crap.
NSA's Linux distro is just a result of some enterprising hackers on the periphery of the organization who are bored and happen to have some free time on their hands.
It's a joke, more than anything else, for people of their ilk - I mean come on
A continuation of the altering theme:
There are far *worse* ways for them to know what's going on in your head than by monitoring electronics in the form of computers.
(Views are infinite.)
In this case, it was a real app designed for the studio and adjusted accordingly.
What's the big deal, anyway? There are better ideas for screensavers out there - why copy the Matrix?
Do you *really* wanna be Keanu Reaves?
"Samsung, with digital technology, re-created the world. It was no accident but the result of great effort and technology."
I sure as hell hope that's not true. I *KNEW* I shoulda eaten the blue pill...
What would be quicker - spend a few hundred kabillion dollars modify an entire planets weather system, and wait a thousand or so years for it to green out, or spend a few billions of dollars on genetic research engineering and just make bodies better suited to that atmosphere and climate?
...
I mean, for as long as we're being sci-fi about all this, don't forget that the hothouse project isn't the only proposal on the table
You have evidence of this 'press release' coming from Microsoft?
(Well, there is one thing they can do -- pay you your salary for the length of the agreement, so you can sit on your ass and do nothing...)
...
I've never really understood this - is this the concept behind severance pay? If so, then I understand it a whole lot better... basically, you're being paid to not go off and do stuff that'd damage your former employer, competition-wise.
Freaky.
Makes sense in the context in which I've seen it, which is marketing/exec types who have a lot of insight into how a particular business runs, etc. They've been given 'severance' packages that run on for years, just so they won't use their talents to ruin the company
GlobalRankings has a good safeguard mechanism in place to avoid cheating of stats-dependent games:
http://www.globalrankings.com
How does this tie with gambling laws, any /.-lawyers know?
Also, this concept of gaming-for-something is similar to what is generally perceived as "The Next Big Thing" in the gaming industry - free forms of economic reward/punishment among multiplayer gamers. A lot of online RPG's followed this formula - it makes sense that FPS's are following suit (FPS's generally take RPG concepts, and 3d-ize them... the former follows the latter)
Trade, if you will, for a newly formed society. The "Everquest" effect...
... they do with all the other distributions (Mandrake, Debian, RedHat, etc).
Thus, M$Linux won't make any money for Microsoft... So there's no motivation to do it.
Good conclusion, though I have to wonder about the wisdom of this - it's a pretty easy pattern to locate, and would make a fairly simple target for pattern-recognition based systems, such as those deployed in 70's-era spy satellites...
It's not that easy to track if it's going really, really, really fast ... and approximates the same flight characteristics as, say, your average meteorite. And since literally hundreds of those land on the planet every day ...
And yeah, ABM's come into play in the story. But so does the judicious use of meteorites. The space treaties only deal with *manufactured* weapons, not sticks and stones.
j.
Speaking of lighting a fire under the ass of the space industry, I'm writing a novel right now that is based on the single premise:
"In space, you can grow whatever you want, and deliver it pretty darn easily to anywhere on the planet"
Heh.
... he did it in Mir.
... all it takes is someone willing to devote the time to add mLAN support.
... once this works, I'll consider doing mLAN driver work for Linux.
http://www.yamaha.co.jp/tech/1394mLAN/mlan.html
Can't do much better than that, honestly. And mLAN hardware is out there right now, there's no reason enterprising developers can't get started as of today.
I'd do it, but I'm working on stuff that sits on top of mLAN first on Mac/PC
Yeah? Well, you use "420" in your domain name, so I guess you must be a stoner.
Stupid assumptions, made liberally.
"This seems like an expensive and inefficient solution for the problem you describe. PCs are actually pretty bad at doing signal processing; there's a whole class of chips (DSPs) that are optimized for it. There are almost certainly DSP-based hardware boards/widgets that will handle a lot of these effects for you, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there was a general-purpose programmable DSP card on the market too. Researching this before you spend money on a cluster would be a Good Idea."
y mbolic_Sound/PR/Kyma5.html
Yup. Here's some links:
Symbolic Sounds Kyma system, a DSP-based programmable hardware solution for audio.
Details on the Kyma system (drool!):
http://namm.harmony-central.com/SNAMM00/Content/S
Hardware DSP hacking tools:
Analog Devices EZ-SHARC/EZ-KIT DSP experimentation board (which screams for Linux support, incidentally)