What I think would work is for one of the large supermarket chains (e.g. Coles or Woolworths in australia or whatever it is in your part of the world) to get into online sales.
You would order online via their website (with the right tech you could even make it possible to swipe a barcode and order that way) and then they would package the order for you.
Given the need for it to be "local" and given the initally small demand, the best way to do this would be to implement it such that you place the order online then someone goes around the local supermarket and gets whatever it is you ordered which could then be picked up or delivered (with people paying extra for this).
I am sure a fair few people would love to be able to have their weekly food shopping home delivered or packaged ready for them to pick up on the way home from work instead of having to take the time to wander around the supermarket (even if it cost a little extra, depending on how much your time is worth the time might be more valuable than the delivery or packaging costs).
The service could also be combined with stores like K-mart, Target or Big W in australia or whatever it is in your part of the world where you could have department store items available through the same service (i.e. you would be able to have department store items available from the same online site and delivered/packaged along with your food).
Essentially you would be paying someone else to go and find/buy the food you want (someone who would know exactly where everything is located and might therefore be able to find what you want faster) and then optionally paying for it to be delivered.
The electricity can come from sources like Hydroelectric Power, Tidal Power, Geothermal Power, Biomass Power, Solar Power, Wind Power and other renewable sources of energy which further reduces the greenhouse gasses emitted in the process.
I believe (I am not certain) that all XBOX games are built using the Microsoft supplied libraries. Therefore, microsoft could release a new compiler and libraries that are source level compatible with the old XBOX XDK libraries. Then, everyone would just recompile all the games to run on the 360 with the resulting exe files being distributed on XBOX 360 Live and downloaded automatically by the XBOX 360. (game data files would be pulled from the original game DVD just like they are now)
Basicly, if this happens, people will either install the "clean" drivers that dont install the OpenGL ICD and get the windows eyecandy but not the good OpenGL support or they will install the OpenGL ICD and get good OpenGL but no eyecandy.
No-one will be installing and having the eyecandy disable itself.
People, this is NOT an attempt to block OpenGL, there are VALID technical reasons for why microsoft is doing this.
Aeroglass is rendered via hardware-accelerated Direct3D. So, its effectivly the same as running a full-screen Direct3D game. Then, running an OpenGL app/game on top of that (e.g. in a window) means that OpenGL and Direct3D are both running at once and both claiming "ownership" of that area of the display.
As long as windows (and windows apps including games that do DirectX) can still run even without all the Aeroglass "eye candy" stuff (which is turned off when you load an OpenGL ICD from the graphics card vendor), there should be no problems.
NVIDIA, ATI, Intel etc will release vista drivers with included OpenGL ICDs. People who dont need good OpenGL will run with the "stock" drivers and get OpenGL-over-Direct3D plus the Aeroglass UI eye candy. People who need good OpenGL will run with the drivers from the manufacturer and get good OpenGL but no Aeroglass eye candy. (I dont know of too many gamers that dont install the "good" drivers from ATI/NVIDIA anyway)
Although if I am mis-understanding what Aeroglass is or what "disabling it completly" actually means/does, please feel free to correct me:)
Actually (at least on windows XP line) thats not 100% correct.
What happens is that windows provides opengl.dll fixed at and containg all the hooks to enable opengl windows to be created, extentions to be enumerated and accessed and so on (the wgl* functions) Then, the graphics card vendor provides an opengl ICD driver that contains the actual OpenGL implementation and talks to the other display driver components (e.g. the miniport) and from there the hardware. The ICD driver can implement any extentions the graphics card maker wants (including functions from versions of OpenGL greater than what microsoft ships, vendor specific functions or whatever else)
Without the hooks in opengl32.dll to talk to the ICD (including all the wgl* functions) the graphics card driver is useless. From the sounds of it, microsoft will implement OpenGL (including opengl32.dll and the wgl functions) on top of Direct3D. (kind of like the reverse of what WINE does by going Direct3D->OpenGL)
The graphics card vendor cant provide their own opengl32.dll because the hooks in other parts of windows that let you create OpenGL windows and such (used by the wgl* functions) do not exist and cant be accessed by the driver.
The "data networks" that are used for airphones, in-flight internet access and other such things are deliberatly kept well seperated from any critical systems.
If (as a result of what the DOJ wanted), an airplane needed to have critical systems exposed in some way, the FAA would have something to say to the DOJ about it.
Adding a "limited play timer" to just about any game would probobly not be a difficult task (especially given that you wouldnt need millisecond precision for it)
Heck, I am sure that if they started doing it for western countries (with a parental lock password to unlock it), many people would be happy.
Yeah, and next thing you know, the chinese government bans WoW in china and blocks all the IPs for the servers in the great firewall, thus loosing blizzard big $$$ in revenue.
What I want to see is a setup where you have 2 areas on the disk. One is the real data. The other is some "dummy" data that is innocuous.
When you type in the regular password, you get to the real data. When you type in the fake password, you get to the dummy data and at the same time, the real data is silently erased.
Is to Open Source (or release under a shared source licence or stick as examples into MSDN or whatever else) some parts of windows.
For example: mshtml.dll (html rendering engine) shdocvw.dll (Internet Explorer controls and functionality) Notepad MS Paint Solitare Minesweeper msvcrt.dll and msvcprt.dll (Visual C++ runtime library) Character Map wininet.dll (Windows Internet Extentions) ole32.dll & other parts of OLE
and other upper level bits and utillities and etc.
SONY should put a disclaimer somewhere saying that it doesnt support the iTunes FairPlay DRM and that songs you bought from iTunes wont work on the PSP
All of the CPUs you mention run (when modern OS's like linux etc are run on them anyway) in a flat memory mode of some kind much like x86 protected mode.
So, what would happen is that on x86, there would be a piece of code to go into protected mode (which would mean the bootloader and most of the firmware could operate in 32bit flat protected mode).
Such "open firmware" would need to contain lots of platform-specific bits anyway to talk to the chipset, Plug & Play BIOS etc etc. Plus, if it really IS something that could be made universal for all those architectures, all of them except x86 (AFAIK) boot into a 32-bit or 64-bit type flat memory space mode ala x86 32-bit flat protected mode anway. So, having extra code to make x86 go from the old segment:offset architecture straight to flat protected mode before doing anything would make x86 look from a C code point of view MORE like PPC etc.
As someone doing a Cisco CCNA (and finding out how to talk to Cisco gear using a terminal cable and a serial port), I can see that there is still use for serial ports.
But the rest of my point about getting rid of cruft is valid, like "move into protected mode directly at boot" and "eliminate all limitations on what and where you can boot from" and "fully customizable bootloader directly into the firmware" and stuff.
One thing I want to see in a BIOS replacement is for the new firmware to go into protected mode directly as one of the first things it does after setting up whatever it has to set up in real mode. Then OS's that run on the new firmware standard would come in with a pre-defined protected mode setup ready to go and not have to mess around with switching into protected mode (OS's like windows and linux will need to be ported anyway)
I am not a systems programmer (I have programmed assembly but only as a userland programmer) so I dont know if doing this is actually possible or not.
Something else I want to see is a complete end to all limitations on what storage devices you can boot from and where on those devices you can boot from. (for example, any limitations on not being able to boot from partitions starting later than on the disk which I seem to remember used to be a problem)
You could even add a complete bootloader into the BIOS that would be able to read the boot sector from any hard disk partition, floppy disk (although in the ideal world, the floppy would disappear from the PC just like it has from the mac), optical media, USB storage device or whatever and boot that directly without the need for programs like GRUB and LILO and others to let you pick what to boot with.
By removing all the other legacy crap no-one really uses anymore (e.g. serial and paralel ports) you could create a new PC system without any legacy stuff. Done right, the only things that should care about the changes are operating systems like linux and windows plus device drivers for certain kinds of hardware.
A commercial network like Clear Channel gets paid to play this music but an internet radio station has to pay through the nose?
Oh thats right, unlike commercial radio, the internet stations play music that is GOOD, not just stuff that is popular or that the RIAA has decided is flavor-of-the-month.
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Actually, initially Betamax had a lower capacity than VHS.
Everyone went with VHS because you could put more video on the one tape.
There was a new version later on that eliminated this but it was too little too late.
hmmm, a technology that was supposed to make it easier for the little guy to get heard and its being used by the biggest fish in the pond.
How surprising (not)
If you had actually heard 90% of what was on FM these days you wouldnt be saying that... (some exceptions do exist though)
It was a serious post.
I was unaware that supermarkets in other countries already do this, I havent seen this in australia yet.
What I think would work is for one of the large supermarket chains (e.g. Coles or Woolworths in australia or whatever it is in your part of the world) to get into online sales.
You would order online via their website (with the right tech you could even make it possible to swipe a barcode and order that way) and then they would package the order for you.
Given the need for it to be "local" and given the initally small demand, the best way to do this would be to implement it such that you place the order online then someone goes around the local supermarket and gets whatever it is you ordered which could then be picked up or delivered (with people paying extra for this).
I am sure a fair few people would love to be able to have their weekly food shopping home delivered or packaged ready for them to pick up on the way home from work instead of having to take the time to wander around the supermarket (even if it cost a little extra, depending on how much your time is worth the time might be more valuable than the delivery or packaging costs).
The service could also be combined with stores like K-mart, Target or Big W in australia or whatever it is in your part of the world where you could have department store items available through the same service (i.e. you would be able to have department store items available from the same online site and delivered/packaged along with your food).
Essentially you would be paying someone else to go and find/buy the food you want (someone who would know exactly where everything is located and might therefore be able to find what you want faster) and then optionally paying for it to be delivered.
The electricity can come from sources like Hydroelectric Power, Tidal Power, Geothermal Power, Biomass Power, Solar Power, Wind Power and other renewable sources of energy which further reduces the greenhouse gasses emitted in the process.
I believe (I am not certain) that all XBOX games are built using the Microsoft supplied libraries.
Therefore, microsoft could release a new compiler and libraries that are source level compatible with the old XBOX XDK libraries.
Then, everyone would just recompile all the games to run on the 360 with the resulting exe files being distributed on XBOX 360 Live and downloaded automatically by the XBOX 360. (game data files would be pulled from the original game DVD just like they are now)
that should have been "No-one will be installing [some random program] and having the eyecandy disable itself.
Basicly, if this happens, people will either install the "clean" drivers that dont install the OpenGL ICD and get the windows eyecandy but not the good OpenGL support or they will install the OpenGL ICD and get good OpenGL but no eyecandy.
No-one will be installing and having the eyecandy disable itself.
People, this is NOT an attempt to block OpenGL, there are VALID technical reasons for why microsoft is doing this.
:)
Aeroglass is rendered via hardware-accelerated Direct3D. So, its effectivly the same as running a full-screen Direct3D game. Then, running an OpenGL app/game on top of that (e.g. in a window) means that OpenGL and Direct3D are both running at once and both claiming "ownership" of that area of the display.
As long as windows (and windows apps including games that do DirectX) can still run even without all the Aeroglass "eye candy" stuff (which is turned off when you load an OpenGL ICD from the graphics card vendor), there should be no problems.
NVIDIA, ATI, Intel etc will release vista drivers with included OpenGL ICDs.
People who dont need good OpenGL will run with the "stock" drivers and get OpenGL-over-Direct3D plus the Aeroglass UI eye candy.
People who need good OpenGL will run with the drivers from the manufacturer and get good OpenGL but no Aeroglass eye candy. (I dont know of too many gamers that dont install the "good" drivers from ATI/NVIDIA anyway)
Although if I am mis-understanding what Aeroglass is or what "disabling it completly" actually means/does, please feel free to correct me
Actually (at least on windows XP line) thats not 100% correct.
What happens is that windows provides opengl.dll fixed at and containg all the hooks to enable opengl windows to be created, extentions to be enumerated and accessed and so on (the wgl* functions)
Then, the graphics card vendor provides an opengl ICD driver that contains the actual OpenGL implementation and talks to the other display driver components (e.g. the miniport) and from there the hardware. The ICD driver can implement any extentions the graphics card maker wants (including functions from versions of OpenGL greater than what microsoft ships, vendor specific functions or whatever else)
Without the hooks in opengl32.dll to talk to the ICD (including all the wgl* functions) the graphics card driver is useless. From the sounds of it, microsoft will implement OpenGL (including opengl32.dll and the wgl functions) on top of Direct3D. (kind of like the reverse of what WINE does by going Direct3D->OpenGL)
The graphics card vendor cant provide their own opengl32.dll because the hooks in other parts of windows that let you create OpenGL windows and such (used by the wgl* functions) do not exist and cant be accessed by the driver.
The "data networks" that are used for airphones, in-flight internet access and other such things are deliberatly kept well seperated from any critical systems.
If (as a result of what the DOJ wanted), an airplane needed to have critical systems exposed in some way, the FAA would have something to say to the DOJ about it.
Adding a "limited play timer" to just about any game would probobly not be a difficult task (especially given that you wouldnt need millisecond precision for it)
Heck, I am sure that if they started doing it for western countries (with a parental lock password to unlock it), many people would be happy.
Yeah, and next thing you know, the chinese government bans WoW in china and blocks all the IPs for the servers in the great firewall, thus loosing blizzard big $$$ in revenue.
What I want to see is a setup where you have 2 areas on the disk.
One is the real data.
The other is some "dummy" data that is innocuous.
When you type in the regular password, you get to the real data.
When you type in the fake password, you get to the dummy data and at the same time, the real data is silently erased.
I wonder if the ReactOS TCPIP.SYS is complete enough to use for this and if it is usable on real windows...
DVD Movies routinely come with 2 disks and they cost significiantly less than XBOX games.
The cost of a second disk compared to the total cost of a 360 game is not significant.
There may well be issues to do with minimizing or eliminating disk swaps though...
Is to Open Source (or release under a shared source licence or stick as examples into MSDN or whatever else) some parts of windows.
For example:
mshtml.dll (html rendering engine)
shdocvw.dll (Internet Explorer controls and functionality)
Notepad
MS Paint
Solitare
Minesweeper
msvcrt.dll and msvcprt.dll (Visual C++ runtime library)
Character Map
wininet.dll (Windows Internet Extentions)
ole32.dll & other parts of OLE
and other upper level bits and utillities and etc.
If microsoft wanted one-way integration, they would make an import (but not export) filter for MS office that could read OO.o files.
SONY should put a disclaimer somewhere saying that it doesnt support the iTunes FairPlay DRM and that songs you bought from iTunes wont work on the PSP
All of the CPUs you mention run (when modern OS's like linux etc are run on them anyway) in a flat memory mode of some kind much like x86 protected mode.
So, what would happen is that on x86, there would be a piece of code to go into protected mode (which would mean the bootloader and most of the firmware could operate in 32bit flat protected mode).
Such "open firmware" would need to contain lots of platform-specific bits anyway to talk to the chipset, Plug & Play BIOS etc etc. Plus, if it really IS something that could be made universal for all those architectures, all of them except x86 (AFAIK) boot into a 32-bit or 64-bit type flat memory space mode ala x86 32-bit flat protected mode anway. So, having extra code to make x86 go from the old segment:offset architecture straight to flat protected mode before doing anything would make x86 look from a C code point of view MORE like PPC etc.
As someone doing a Cisco CCNA (and finding out how to talk to Cisco gear using a terminal cable and a serial port), I can see that there is still use for serial ports.
But the rest of my point about getting rid of cruft is valid, like "move into protected mode directly at boot" and "eliminate all limitations on what and where you can boot from" and "fully customizable bootloader directly into the firmware" and stuff.
I have nothing against wanting to restrict mature video games.
What I have an issue with is when state governments want to invent definitions of "Mature" that go outside of the ESRB.
One thing I want to see in a BIOS replacement is for the new firmware to go into protected mode directly as one of the first things it does after setting up whatever it has to set up in real mode.
Then OS's that run on the new firmware standard would come in with a pre-defined protected mode setup ready to go and not have to mess around with switching into protected mode (OS's like windows and linux will need to be ported anyway)
I am not a systems programmer (I have programmed assembly but only as a userland programmer) so I dont know if doing this is actually possible or not.
Something else I want to see is a complete end to all limitations on what storage devices you can boot from and where on those devices you can boot from. (for example, any limitations on not being able to boot from partitions starting later than on the disk which I seem to remember used to be a problem)
You could even add a complete bootloader into the BIOS that would be able to read the boot sector from any hard disk partition, floppy disk (although in the ideal world, the floppy would disappear from the PC just like it has from the mac), optical media, USB storage device or whatever and boot that directly without the need for programs like GRUB and LILO and others to let you pick what to boot with.
By removing all the other legacy crap no-one really uses anymore (e.g. serial and paralel ports) you could create a new PC system without any legacy stuff. Done right, the only things that should care about the changes are operating systems like linux and windows plus device drivers for certain kinds of hardware.
A commercial network like Clear Channel gets paid to play this music but an internet radio station has to pay through the nose?
Oh thats right, unlike commercial radio, the internet stations play music that is GOOD, not just stuff that is popular or that the RIAA has decided is flavor-of-the-month.