They do not limit your freedom, as you don't have a right to have a laptop in your frickin vehicle while driving to begin with.
You must be new to America; welcome! Just so you know, no mention of fundamental rights was made by myself. Instead, the topic was freedom. Be aware that, in America, you are free to do anything that is not prohibited by law. I'm not sure where it is you come from, but I do hope you make a quick adjustment to what are clearly your newfound freedoms!
Also, while I obviously cannot speak for you, I have noticed that Speed Limits do not seem to apply to ANY people on motorcycles anyway.
Uh, right; as opposed to everyone else who is cruising along at 55mph? What you'll notice about motorcycles is not that they necessarily go a lot faster than everyone else, but that they can accelerate like no compact car or SUV can. So when we're both bottled up by traffic, I can easily shoot into an opening that other vehicles simply can't. That makes things go more smoothly for everyone else, too, since I'm not blocking traffic like every other pokey driver.
Just my own observation, while living in the DC area, I have yet to see ANY motorcycle obey any speed limit wherever I have been driving.
I've lived in areas all over the States, and I have yet to see any vehicle period that obeys traffic laws to the letter. That said, the danger is not speed, but the difference in speed between vehicles on the road. An idiot doing 100 in 70mph traffic is no more of a danger than an idiot doing 40. And, based on the momentum of the vehicles, a 400 pound motorcycle isn't anywhere near as destructive as an 4000 pound SUV. When it comes to safety issues, your concern should not be the motorcycle passing you, it should be the idiot in a minivan that won't get off your ass.
I'll allow you these laws that limit my freedom (however justifiably) if you relax other laws that limit my freedom. To wit, for every communication device that I don't carry in my vehicle, let me go 5mph faster, since I would clearly be less distracted and therefore more able to drive at higher speeds (slower traffic move right, damn it!:-). Given that I have a motorcycle with no possible distraction from radios, cell phones, TVs, computers, massage seats, kids, or anything else to take my attention from the road, I would finally be able to open this baby up! As it stands, I'm expected to putter through traffic at the same speed as a soccer mom on her cell phone with 4 screaming kids in the back watching TV. TANJ!
None appear to have made the list this year (or in previous), but I can't be the only one who can't stand people saying "My bad!" The real kicker is that those same people are usually the ones who belt out "It's all good!" Make up your bloody mind!
The iTunes service was acknowledged as their biggest gainer.
Kinda hard for that not to be the case: they sold an infinitely larger percentage of music this year compared to last.:-)
How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market?
What makes you think they have to? It's like you're saying that BMW needs to compete with Toyota's numbers for "road share". Apple makes a profit and does so while innovating ahead of the curve. With that business plan, they'll be around for a long, long time.
It's one thing to shore up the market you have, but when that market is relatively small, that leaves one to wonder how to expand. What do they intend to do about a limited market share?
Now you're just being moronic. The reality is the exact opposite of what you suggest. Apple is a success with 5% of the market; it has 95% of its potential market untapped. Microsoft has 90% of the market; it has just 10% of a potential market left. If you need to worry about how any company can capture a larger marketshare, worry about MS.
Besides, if they went with an Open Firmware solution, ANYBODY could write one. Which means vendors would go with the cheapest solution. Which, if Phoenix Bios is any indication, would be complete crap.
Yeah, but at least we could brag that our crap system, which we took the trouble to assemble ourselves after hours of research and ordering from dozens of different part sources, cost a few bucks less than a Mac. Keep sight of what's important here!
This story demonstrates the glaring weakness of Linux; games.
It's a shame most moderators have their head's up their (or Linus') ass and modded you down for pointing that out. What you say is absolutely true, but it is true for any non-Windows computer. There is really nothing inherently wrong with other OSes that keeps games off them other than marketshare. What is interesting is how consoles don't suffer from the numbers game nearly as badly.
Is this the achilles heels of open source development? It might be, but very few people will admit it. It seems to be Free Software's dirty little secret. It can't turn out high quality games to compete with the big boys.
Actually, the "dirty secret" is that the big boys have MS Blinders on. Beyond that, they have PC blinders on. I mean, and I've said this before, it is simply a bonehead business move to release a game for the Linux market and not for the Mac market. Both are game-thirsty Unix systems with similar porting needs, with the Mac getting points on having common hardware interfaces/driver support plus a larger market. Further, Linux users are used to software that comes with source and has no cost while the Mac user is used to paying for commercial software. Any manager who would target Linux before OS X should be fired.
Sure, as long as your class looks just like a C# one.
Exactly right. This is a "lowest common denominator" issue, and most interesting problems have interesting solutions that aren't part of the LCD. We don't need a lot of new syntax changes to get the same old semantics. We need better abstraction frameworks in place so that we can more easily develop programs that solve problems that are encountered these days. I think.NET is doomed to fail because it's just another layer over the same-ol-same-ol, not a useful abstraction layer that adds new features.
You could at least have given the EVE link when suggesting it.
There are creative MMOGs out there... go pick up a copy of EVE, they could use the support.
Funny, but they don't support me so I can't support them. Hell, they went with DirectX, too, so there is little hope of seeing it on a non-Windows platform.
That's a copout. Anybody can try to sue anyone for anything they want.
Uh, yeah; that was exactly my point. How you can parrot the words back and still not make the connection is beyond me.
So why purchase music from iTunes at all? Why not just break the law and download MP3 files from IRC, or even go to Best Buy with a large jacket and some running shoes?
Wow. Now I have to believe you're trolling. I make the point that right and wrong are not necessarily connected to the concept of legal and illegal, and somehow extend that to the idea that theft is a keen thing to do. Look, if you think that sort of thing is OK, you go do it. I'm not going to defend you when the sherriff knocks on your door, though, whereas I would if they came over because you were playing your iTunes purchases on your Linux box.
If we were talking about buying alcohol for minors (but it's done in Europe!), I wonder whether you'd so strongly advocate freely breaking the law in the name of moral superiority.
Moral superiority is not the issue; if that is the only perspective from which you can see right and wrong then you are simply not prepared to have this discussion. Yes, I'm totally against laws that keep minors away from dangerous things. If the parent can't raise the child to do that, laws otherwise protecting those stupid kids are a detriment to society as a whole.
However, when asked about something which is vital to the argument made in your original rant you dodge the question, saying that it lacks importance. Of course you ignores the fact that it was your rant making this claim in the first place.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not the one making any claims other than than most posters who are complaining about DRM are doing so out of ignorance. You are doing the same with a whole lot of "if" suppositions and not one quote from a legal document that states AAC files are more restrictive than CDs. All I was asking for was that one example, and you couldn't produce it. Until you do, I have no further interest in any more of your "if" moaning.
Of course, one would normally assume that they have the right to play media which they purchase, but legal battles still ensue.
Look, legal battles "ensue" for absolutely no reason at all in America (and scores of other countries, of course). If some asshole slips and falls in a parking lot, they'll sue you (among other people) if they hit their head on your car. That there is legal action over DeCSS shouldn't surprise you. That there might possibly be legal action over use of iTunes Music Store purchases shouldn't surprise you. That doesn't make the party taking the action right, either in the decision to sue or the outcome of the battle in court. I'm unwilling to stop doing things for the mere supposition that it might break the law. I'm likewise unwilling to hear people complain that the law somehow prevents them from doing something they know to be right. When you hear of actual rights being trampled on, let us all know. Until then, mere curiosity is counter-productive to a realistic discussion of online music distribution.
A little technology rule of thumb
on
A.I. Helicopter?
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· Score: 1
If Not Exists ExoticTechnology For CommonUse
Then Not Exists MoreExoticTechnology for NewUse
This is just like all the companies that say they're going to shove fuel cells in our laptops and cell phones somehow, but don't even have a UPS or other big, generator-type device with the technology in it. If no human is using any such helicopter to do their job currently, no amount of AI you'll claim to give it will make it a product that is a success on the market.
What I suspect is that attempts to create software to play these files would be construed as a circumvention attempt, which is illegal.
Sorry, but what you simply suspect is meaningless. The fact is that AAC files can be copied without needing to circumvent any DRM. The fact is that AAC files decoded and played by their owner are not being used illegally. I have no idea what you imagine the terrible problem is, but your fears are not based on reality and you have what amounts to an unfounded phobia.
I'm asking whether one can legally write and distribute software which allows AAC files to be played (and, more peripherally, purchased from the iTunes site) without Apple's consent, especially in light of the DRM and anti-circumvention laws.
One can, in America, legally do anything that isn't against a law that specifically prohibits it. Unless you can point to a law that seems to limit your rights in this regard, DRM on the content or not, you're making a big stink over nothing. More importantly, if what you are doing is right, then you should have no moral problem in breaking a law that is wrong. If you own the license to an AAC encrypted song, no court should convict you for playing it on an "unsupported" device.
That's actually the core of my question. As far as I am aware, I can legally purchase a CD. I can legally play a CD.
As others have noted, this is becoming less and less a fact as the RIAA has begun testing various schemes for limiting your ability to use CDs. Under those conditions you may well be doing circumvention just to copy what is on the CD. With the AAC, though, you can copy a track without having to bypass anything.
What I am also not sure of is whether it is legal to . . .
I can't claim to have all the answers to the detailed legal issues. In America, you don't even need sound legal grounds to sue somebody, so legal or not your concerns aren't reflecting reality. All I know is that it is not wrong for you to use content you purchase as you have described, and I would be in your corner for any legal battle that would try to paint such usage as criminal.
Can you download and play music from Apple under Linux?
Support or non-support by a particular platform is unrelated to DRM issues. The question would be whether or not it is impossible to play their AAC files on Linux. Since I would expect full Linux system to be at least as capable as an iPod, the files can potentially be played if someone cares enough to support it.
It's not really compression, just a straight bit stream.
Uh, you realize that is reflexively true for all data formats, right, including AAC? My point, which many moderators seemed to get just fine, is that the CD is a sampled format. A CD is lossy when compared to the original signal, it's just done in a way that humans aren't supposed to perceive the loss. Any lossy compression on top of that like AAC or MP3 is also a lossy compression that humans are supposed to be unaware of.
Looking at it another way, what if the industry was sophisticated enough to have done MP3 compression when they first came out with the CD format? Why is everyone getting so upset now just because the distribution format/encoding of music is changing? Hell, there are still people who bitch that CDs don't deliver some arbitrarily high level of fidelity. Regardless, that is all unrelated to the DRM issue.
Encoding a straightforward stream of data in a way that does not artificially limit use is not DRM.
But you don't define what is artificial. Just because hardware can read bits from a CD doesn't mean it can play them as music. The data format/encoding has to have standards for the decoding for playback, and I believe that AAC is as well documented for those purposes as a CD is. The iPod seems to work just fine with that encoding without having to check back with Apple or anyone else.
As far as I am aware, a CD has no features at all which are designed to limit one's ability to access the data etched across its face. I'm interested -- could you justify your statement? How do CDs artificially limit usage?
Like I said, people are simply so used to the tools that are available that they don't see CDs as a DRM media anymore. But that doesn't change the fact that that is the purpose they serve; why else would the industry not adopt dozens of other ways to get you to pay for those same bits? A pressed CD is unique at a level that other digital media often is not, and that is used as a (terrible) shorthand to establish your rights to use the content. If your CD is destroyed in a fire, your rights (which are supposed to be a license independent of the media itself) are essentially gone with the original. With the AAC, though, your rights are actually protected, and you can make new originals to your heart's content since your rights are represented in a way that actually is independent of the media. With a CD, you can certainly make a bit-for-bit copy, but that is not legally the same as the original and does not preserve your rights. Do you see how your usage is thus limited by a CD?
Given the assumption that Apple uses a non-standard format (which is fairly safe, since there doesn't seem to be a standard DRM-enabled format) it stands to reason that only devices or software designed with awareness of Apple's own format would be able to play the media.
I believe that AAC is simply the MPEG4 audio layer encoding/format. Apple isn't doing anything special as far as I know, so your assumption is probably wrong. Like I said, if an iPod can play it just fine without doing a DRM dance then objections on the DRM front are unfounded. Bitch to Linux developers if they simply haven't bothered to implement anything for you.
I know that there are several Free CD ripping tools available. Can Free software developers create and distribute software to play iTunes music?
You tell me. It seems like a lot of your arguments are from positions of ignorance. Instead of taking immediate offense
Do you have to check with apple ever few months to ensure that you can still use your CDs?
You seem to be missing the analogy. The CD you buy is like the AAC you buy. For both, every time you try to use it your rights are verified. For the CD, the player hardware verifies you have your disc. For the AAC, the software player verifies you have your file. If that file gets destroyed, you're just as out of luck as if your CD was damaged. A few more checks can potentially be made on the file since there is a data trail on the purchase, but anyone with an iPod can tell you it doesn't and can't even "phone home" in any manner to check with Apple.
Just as you can rip the CD and write it to another format for use without the original, you can can write iTunes Music Store purchases to another format as well. Hell, Apple gives you the software to do those things! The proper issue, if you really need to get your undies in a bunch, would be the compression and the losses that can be experienced by the various conversions. Whine about that if you must whine; there is no real issue with DRM.
I want the freedom to use it on whatever device I want, with whatever software I choose.
God I hate all the moronic comments along these lines every time this topic comes up. YOU DO HAVE THAT FUCKING FREEDOM! At least as much as you do with a CD. Or are you one of those people who wants the freedom to use a CD on whatever device you want? News flash: a CD is also a form of DRM as well as a type of compression (called digitization). It's just that you're so familiar with it and the methods used to access the music that you don't think twice about that stuff. Apple has, by far, the least restrictive online music distribution scheme and all your bitching isn't producing anything better. I'd thank you to put up or shut up.
I ask a simple question asking for hard DATA rather than emotionally-loaded invective, and this is your response. Does it seem reasonable to you?
More reasonable than your ability to trim a response. Why didn't you respond instead to the parts where I outlined the reasons for the problem? Like I said, I get at least 100 spam for every 1 real message. If that's not HARD enough for you, a simple Google search will turn up things like this and this. If you want to collect some data of your own, feel free to post your email address in a reply.
And the answer to your almost-stated question is, "Because I will not hate any group solely because the majority tells me to."
I don't even come close to asking a question that would answer. It all comes down to the very simple fact that many of us have been around, judging by your id, much longer than you and we've seen what happens over time as your contact info spreads and is harvested by spammers. You ignore at your own risk. I'm not asking you to hate anyone, I simply pointing out that spammers have made it impossible to use email as it was intended. That should be fairly easy to understand, unless you happen to be a spammer trying to justify your behavior.
Any statistics showing that at current rates of growth, by 20XX spam will consume so much bandwidth that the Internet will collapse?
It's not about bandwidth, and it never was. Sure, bandwidth is a concern to those without broadband, but spam is a problem for most people even if the spammer paid for all the bandwidth their spew consumes. The real problem is that email is often the best way for individuals to communicate, but for every 1 message I want to see it is hidden in a haystack of hundreds that try to appear as something I should read, when all they are are ads that obscure the messages I get that are actually worthwhile.
Or that somewhere along the line, the innumerable filters that exist will cease to be of any use, and suddenly everyone really WILL be flooded with more spam than they can ever deal with?
Filtering merely means more resources I have to allocate just to see my actual messages. I also run the risk of false positives, so even with filters I can't completely ignore flagged messages. I actually get even more annoyed when the smaller number of spam come through because it means the spammer is actively working to get around filters to shove their message in my face. Spammers are pricks and why you can't see that, or see why people hate that, is beyond me.
I don't think I would mind having non-encumbered, free redistribution, free modification, full source available shareware. If it can still be called that way:)
You should call it Serviceware, since you're essentially supporting the concept of software development as a service instead of a product. Some companies (plug, plug) already release software like that.
How come the idea of e-stamps is not getting any traction?
Because even you aren't pointing anyone to something they can do about it. On the other hand, I'll be happy to point people to X-Mulct.
The concept is that you are assessed a small charge for sending unwanted mail.
That's generally a bad idea as stated because it requires a micropayment system, which isn't in place for anything, let alone for an extension to email. X-Mulct instead works on a "macropenalty" system, where I can take the virtual dollar you're sending with your message if I don't like getting mail from you.
So tell me, honestly. Why do people have such a hard time with PDFs?
For me, it's not just PDF but anything that isn't HTML. I don't want my flow of browsing interrupted without any immediate visual indication. I don't care if it's some format there's a browser plug-in for, either. When I click a regular link, my expectation is to go to a regular page, not download a movie or Word document or whatever. It's the principle of least surprise being violated that pisses people off.
And I think this is where the fundamental disagreement comes from. I'd like that "ideal" device, too. However, I want a device right now that is cheap enough and useful enough to be successful and pave the way for a market that supports your ideal.
No one is going to tunnel DVI inside of 802.11, even 802.11g.
OK, yes, raw video is too aggressive a target. However, for most purposes transmitting the difference between refreshes with some simple compression wouldn't put too great a burden on the monitor or the network. More fancy things could be done, but at the cost of a more power hungry processor in the monitor and possibly at the cost of a platform-neutral display.
I agree that there is room for a client so thin (not in the physical sense, but that too) that is is only a display unit, and everything is done offboard. I just don't think it's the most practical. I think to not put USB on it would be a big mistake. I don't want a closed platform after all, I want something nicely open.
Like I said, USB ports would be a given. Beyond that, it becomes a lot less thin and a lot more expensive and complicated than the market seems willing to support. You may not think it practical, but I think it's a hell of a lot more practical than the Tablet PC market is. Only time will tell if we see anything like either of us are talking about, but if we do I doubt it will be from the roots of the current Tablet PC line.
A tablet PC is largely expensive because demand is low.
No, a Tablet PC is mostly expensive because it is a full laptop with an unusual form factor. Take away the hefty CPU, the HD, the RAM, the OS/software, and everything else that ties those things together to make a general purpose PC and it's pretty obvious you can make something much cheaper. All a wireless monitor would be is the LCD, the touch/pen screen (treated as a USB input device for most purposes), a wireless card, and some chips to handling the tunneling of DVI and USB over 802.11g. With a battery, that should all be doable for $250 more than an LCD screen alone.
Adding USB means that you don't need to have a TV tuner and all that crap built in; if you want it, you can hang it off the side.
Again, the key difference is not simply having a port, but what you do with it. In your case, you want a lot of work to be done locally to deal with the device and read it if it contains a file system and decode and play any files it find that might have multimedia content. In my case, the local system just tunnels the device back to the desktop, same way it does for the touch screen input. It is mounted on that computer and not dealt with by the monitor at all. It seems like a lot of overhead, but it's a very clean interface that most people can understand and use without trouble.
There's no reason not to use the device to power peripherals (especially low-power ones like USB 1.1 webcams - all USB 1.1 devices which do not use external power are low-power just because the port doesn't provide much juice) if you have that gigantic battery.
Regardless of how you handle peripheral connections, I don't think most people would enjoy the drain on the monitor. Without all the extra parts needed to run a normal laptop or Tablet PC, a wireless monitor should be able to easily run 8 hours and possibly up to 16 without needing a recharge. Any time a user connects a device, it'll cut into that time. It may not be a lot and I would definitely stick a USB port or two on the thing to tunnel extra stuff (especially a keyboard), but I really wouldn't expect extensive usage by a lot of peripherals.
The battery has to be a certain thickness because it has metal plates in it, and they have to take up a certain amount of space.
I'm not the one particularly interested in the battery situation, but even that presents a few different options. Given that device itself is so simple, you could probably put the "base" unit together with about a half inch of thickness. Then the battery could attach to it somehow. You might possibly use a big, flat battery that slaps on the back for an extra quarter inch or so of thickness, or possible you could have a round battery pack that clips to the side which doubles as a handle to help hold the thing. A second one attached to the other side doubles the battery life! Nice and modular, and ripe for replacement by a fuel cell or whatever might be useful in the future.
The device is going to have an operating system of some sort on it.
Why? I mean, sure, some sort of firmware will have to be present to move around input and output, but I see no reason to put a full OS of any kind on it. I'd worry about fancy features that might require a more powerful OS in a future version.
My reasoning for adding those two things is simply that it doesn't add much cost or complexity.
No, the ports themselves don't add a lot of complexity. However, what you want to do with them does.
I want to be able to attach a camera to it, I want to be able to attach a hard drive to it and play music or movies off the hard drive, I want to be able to attach a dvdrom to it and play a movie from that.
So now instead of a simple "wireless monitor" that just tunnels DVI and USB over 802.11g, you're pulling for something that can access file systems and do full video and audio decoding. And no doubt you're looking for the thing to power the devices you plug into it, too. And other people will want it to have a TV tuner. And so on and so on until it becomes bloatware. If you want all that, just get a Tablet PC today. I agree with NtroP that the simple device is better.
You've GOT to have some kind of wired I/O as a backup and for use in places where there isn't any wifi.
It should go without saying that it would have a monitor stand/docking station that would both recharge it and give it a wired connection to the desktop it is attached to. Apple already does this with the iPod, so it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Even slow systems these days have enough power to do just about everything, might as well give them I/O to match.
No! Every processing need you make "local" to the monitor makes it expensive, larger, more complex, and power hungry. That's what a Tablet PC already is and that is what almost nobody wants. From a digital hub perspective, a basic device will be easier to use. Even my mom would have no trouble understanding a touch/pen screen LCD display you can pick up and carry around.
Basically, it would simply be a touch-sensitive dumb terminal for a "central server" or master machine on my desk or in my closet. I'd want to be able to "VNC" to my desktop or open one of several "published" X-window apps with a finger tap.
When this topic has come up before, I've essentially weighed in the same way as you. What I want isn't a Tablet PC, but something more akin to a "wireless monitor". Something I can just pick up off the desktop and take to a meeting (or take into the living room so I can reload Slashdot during commercials:-). I think Apple could go that route and still claim a "no tablet" policy; call it an iDisplay. I'd definitely get one as a second monitor. Bonus points if they do it in a computer/device independent way, so that anything that does DVI output and USB input can use one.
One suggestion which I thought was partictularly interesting involved a bounty system whereby a price would be put on 'hacker's heads', incentivating other hackers to go after them and bring them forward.
That's not interesting at all. As covered here, that's what MS thinks is the way to address the issue. All that's interesting about that situation is that they've set aside 10 times as much money as they have current bounties for; how is expecting 10 times as many security issues in the future considered any sort of a fix for the problem?
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They do not limit your freedom, as you don't have a right to have a laptop in your frickin vehicle while driving to begin with.
You must be new to America; welcome! Just so you know, no mention of fundamental rights was made by myself. Instead, the topic was freedom. Be aware that, in America, you are free to do anything that is not prohibited by law. I'm not sure where it is you come from, but I do hope you make a quick adjustment to what are clearly your newfound freedoms!
Also, while I obviously cannot speak for you, I have noticed that Speed Limits do not seem to apply to ANY people on motorcycles anyway.
Uh, right; as opposed to everyone else who is cruising along at 55mph? What you'll notice about motorcycles is not that they necessarily go a lot faster than everyone else, but that they can accelerate like no compact car or SUV can. So when we're both bottled up by traffic, I can easily shoot into an opening that other vehicles simply can't. That makes things go more smoothly for everyone else, too, since I'm not blocking traffic like every other pokey driver.
Just my own observation, while living in the DC area, I have yet to see ANY motorcycle obey any speed limit wherever I have been driving.
I've lived in areas all over the States, and I have yet to see any vehicle period that obeys traffic laws to the letter. That said, the danger is not speed, but the difference in speed between vehicles on the road. An idiot doing 100 in 70mph traffic is no more of a danger than an idiot doing 40. And, based on the momentum of the vehicles, a 400 pound motorcycle isn't anywhere near as destructive as an 4000 pound SUV. When it comes to safety issues, your concern should not be the motorcycle passing you, it should be the idiot in a minivan that won't get off your ass.
I'll allow you these laws that limit my freedom (however justifiably) if you relax other laws that limit my freedom. To wit, for every communication device that I don't carry in my vehicle, let me go 5mph faster, since I would clearly be less distracted and therefore more able to drive at higher speeds (slower traffic move right, damn it! :-). Given that I have a motorcycle with no possible distraction from radios, cell phones, TVs, computers, massage seats, kids, or anything else to take my attention from the road, I would finally be able to open this baby up! As it stands, I'm expected to putter through traffic at the same speed as a soccer mom on her cell phone with 4 screaming kids in the back watching TV. TANJ!
None appear to have made the list this year (or in previous), but I can't be the only one who can't stand people saying "My bad!" The real kicker is that those same people are usually the ones who belt out "It's all good!" Make up your bloody mind!
The iTunes service was acknowledged as their biggest gainer.
Kinda hard for that not to be the case: they sold an infinitely larger percentage of music this year compared to last. :-)
How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market?
What makes you think they have to? It's like you're saying that BMW needs to compete with Toyota's numbers for "road share". Apple makes a profit and does so while innovating ahead of the curve. With that business plan, they'll be around for a long, long time.
It's one thing to shore up the market you have, but when that market is relatively small, that leaves one to wonder how to expand. What do they intend to do about a limited market share?
Now you're just being moronic. The reality is the exact opposite of what you suggest. Apple is a success with 5% of the market; it has 95% of its potential market untapped. Microsoft has 90% of the market; it has just 10% of a potential market left. If you need to worry about how any company can capture a larger marketshare, worry about MS.
Besides, if they went with an Open Firmware solution, ANYBODY could write one. Which means vendors would go with the cheapest solution. Which, if Phoenix Bios is any indication, would be complete crap.
Yeah, but at least we could brag that our crap system, which we took the trouble to assemble ourselves after hours of research and ordering from dozens of different part sources, cost a few bucks less than a Mac. Keep sight of what's important here!
This story demonstrates the glaring weakness of Linux; games.
It's a shame most moderators have their head's up their (or Linus') ass and modded you down for pointing that out. What you say is absolutely true, but it is true for any non-Windows computer. There is really nothing inherently wrong with other OSes that keeps games off them other than marketshare. What is interesting is how consoles don't suffer from the numbers game nearly as badly.
Is this the achilles heels of open source development? It might be, but very few people will admit it. It seems to be Free Software's dirty little secret. It can't turn out high quality games to compete with the big boys.
Actually, the "dirty secret" is that the big boys have MS Blinders on. Beyond that, they have PC blinders on. I mean, and I've said this before, it is simply a bonehead business move to release a game for the Linux market and not for the Mac market. Both are game-thirsty Unix systems with similar porting needs, with the Mac getting points on having common hardware interfaces/driver support plus a larger market. Further, Linux users are used to software that comes with source and has no cost while the Mac user is used to paying for commercial software. Any manager who would target Linux before OS X should be fired.
Sure, as long as your class looks just like a C# one.
Exactly right. This is a "lowest common denominator" issue, and most interesting problems have interesting solutions that aren't part of the LCD. We don't need a lot of new syntax changes to get the same old semantics. We need better abstraction frameworks in place so that we can more easily develop programs that solve problems that are encountered these days. I think .NET is doomed to fail because it's just another layer over the same-ol-same-ol, not a useful abstraction layer that adds new features.
There's EVE Online...
You could at least have given the EVE link when suggesting it.
There are creative MMOGs out there... go pick up a copy of EVE, they could use the support.
Funny, but they don't support me so I can't support them. Hell, they went with DirectX, too, so there is little hope of seeing it on a non-Windows platform.
That's a copout. Anybody can try to sue anyone for anything they want.
Uh, yeah; that was exactly my point. How you can parrot the words back and still not make the connection is beyond me.
So why purchase music from iTunes at all? Why not just break the law and download MP3 files from IRC, or even go to Best Buy with a large jacket and some running shoes?
Wow. Now I have to believe you're trolling. I make the point that right and wrong are not necessarily connected to the concept of legal and illegal, and somehow extend that to the idea that theft is a keen thing to do. Look, if you think that sort of thing is OK, you go do it. I'm not going to defend you when the sherriff knocks on your door, though, whereas I would if they came over because you were playing your iTunes purchases on your Linux box.
If we were talking about buying alcohol for minors (but it's done in Europe!), I wonder whether you'd so strongly advocate freely breaking the law in the name of moral superiority.
Moral superiority is not the issue; if that is the only perspective from which you can see right and wrong then you are simply not prepared to have this discussion. Yes, I'm totally against laws that keep minors away from dangerous things. If the parent can't raise the child to do that, laws otherwise protecting those stupid kids are a detriment to society as a whole.
However, when asked about something which is vital to the argument made in your original rant you dodge the question, saying that it lacks importance. Of course you ignores the fact that it was your rant making this claim in the first place.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not the one making any claims other than than most posters who are complaining about DRM are doing so out of ignorance. You are doing the same with a whole lot of "if" suppositions and not one quote from a legal document that states AAC files are more restrictive than CDs. All I was asking for was that one example, and you couldn't produce it. Until you do, I have no further interest in any more of your "if" moaning.
Of course, one would normally assume that they have the right to play media which they purchase, but legal battles still ensue.
Look, legal battles "ensue" for absolutely no reason at all in America (and scores of other countries, of course). If some asshole slips and falls in a parking lot, they'll sue you (among other people) if they hit their head on your car. That there is legal action over DeCSS shouldn't surprise you. That there might possibly be legal action over use of iTunes Music Store purchases shouldn't surprise you. That doesn't make the party taking the action right, either in the decision to sue or the outcome of the battle in court. I'm unwilling to stop doing things for the mere supposition that it might break the law. I'm likewise unwilling to hear people complain that the law somehow prevents them from doing something they know to be right. When you hear of actual rights being trampled on, let us all know. Until then, mere curiosity is counter-productive to a realistic discussion of online music distribution.
If Not Exists ExoticTechnology For CommonUse
Then Not Exists MoreExoticTechnology for NewUse
This is just like all the companies that say they're going to shove fuel cells in our laptops and cell phones somehow, but don't even have a UPS or other big, generator-type device with the technology in it. If no human is using any such helicopter to do their job currently, no amount of AI you'll claim to give it will make it a product that is a success on the market.
What I suspect is that attempts to create software to play these files would be construed as a circumvention attempt, which is illegal.
Sorry, but what you simply suspect is meaningless. The fact is that AAC files can be copied without needing to circumvent any DRM. The fact is that AAC files decoded and played by their owner are not being used illegally. I have no idea what you imagine the terrible problem is, but your fears are not based on reality and you have what amounts to an unfounded phobia.
I'm asking whether one can legally write and distribute software which allows AAC files to be played (and, more peripherally, purchased from the iTunes site) without Apple's consent, especially in light of the DRM and anti-circumvention laws.
One can, in America, legally do anything that isn't against a law that specifically prohibits it. Unless you can point to a law that seems to limit your rights in this regard, DRM on the content or not, you're making a big stink over nothing. More importantly, if what you are doing is right, then you should have no moral problem in breaking a law that is wrong. If you own the license to an AAC encrypted song, no court should convict you for playing it on an "unsupported" device.
That's actually the core of my question. As far as I am aware, I can legally purchase a CD. I can legally play a CD.
As others have noted, this is becoming less and less a fact as the RIAA has begun testing various schemes for limiting your ability to use CDs. Under those conditions you may well be doing circumvention just to copy what is on the CD. With the AAC, though, you can copy a track without having to bypass anything.
What I am also not sure of is whether it is legal to . . .
I can't claim to have all the answers to the detailed legal issues. In America, you don't even need sound legal grounds to sue somebody, so legal or not your concerns aren't reflecting reality. All I know is that it is not wrong for you to use content you purchase as you have described, and I would be in your corner for any legal battle that would try to paint such usage as criminal.
Can you download and play music from Apple under Linux?
Support or non-support by a particular platform is unrelated to DRM issues. The question would be whether or not it is impossible to play their AAC files on Linux. Since I would expect full Linux system to be at least as capable as an iPod, the files can potentially be played if someone cares enough to support it.
It's not really compression, just a straight bit stream.
Uh, you realize that is reflexively true for all data formats, right, including AAC? My point, which many moderators seemed to get just fine, is that the CD is a sampled format. A CD is lossy when compared to the original signal, it's just done in a way that humans aren't supposed to perceive the loss. Any lossy compression on top of that like AAC or MP3 is also a lossy compression that humans are supposed to be unaware of.
Looking at it another way, what if the industry was sophisticated enough to have done MP3 compression when they first came out with the CD format? Why is everyone getting so upset now just because the distribution format/encoding of music is changing? Hell, there are still people who bitch that CDs don't deliver some arbitrarily high level of fidelity. Regardless, that is all unrelated to the DRM issue.
Encoding a straightforward stream of data in a way that does not artificially limit use is not DRM.
But you don't define what is artificial. Just because hardware can read bits from a CD doesn't mean it can play them as music. The data format/encoding has to have standards for the decoding for playback, and I believe that AAC is as well documented for those purposes as a CD is. The iPod seems to work just fine with that encoding without having to check back with Apple or anyone else.
As far as I am aware, a CD has no features at all which are designed to limit one's ability to access the data etched across its face. I'm interested -- could you justify your statement? How do CDs artificially limit usage?
Like I said, people are simply so used to the tools that are available that they don't see CDs as a DRM media anymore. But that doesn't change the fact that that is the purpose they serve; why else would the industry not adopt dozens of other ways to get you to pay for those same bits? A pressed CD is unique at a level that other digital media often is not, and that is used as a (terrible) shorthand to establish your rights to use the content. If your CD is destroyed in a fire, your rights (which are supposed to be a license independent of the media itself) are essentially gone with the original. With the AAC, though, your rights are actually protected, and you can make new originals to your heart's content since your rights are represented in a way that actually is independent of the media. With a CD, you can certainly make a bit-for-bit copy, but that is not legally the same as the original and does not preserve your rights. Do you see how your usage is thus limited by a CD?
Given the assumption that Apple uses a non-standard format (which is fairly safe, since there doesn't seem to be a standard DRM-enabled format) it stands to reason that only devices or software designed with awareness of Apple's own format would be able to play the media.
I believe that AAC is simply the MPEG4 audio layer encoding/format. Apple isn't doing anything special as far as I know, so your assumption is probably wrong. Like I said, if an iPod can play it just fine without doing a DRM dance then objections on the DRM front are unfounded. Bitch to Linux developers if they simply haven't bothered to implement anything for you.
I know that there are several Free CD ripping tools available. Can Free software developers create and distribute software to play iTunes music?
You tell me. It seems like a lot of your arguments are from positions of ignorance. Instead of taking immediate offense
Do you have to check with apple ever few months to ensure that you can still use your CDs?
You seem to be missing the analogy. The CD you buy is like the AAC you buy. For both, every time you try to use it your rights are verified. For the CD, the player hardware verifies you have your disc. For the AAC, the software player verifies you have your file. If that file gets destroyed, you're just as out of luck as if your CD was damaged. A few more checks can potentially be made on the file since there is a data trail on the purchase, but anyone with an iPod can tell you it doesn't and can't even "phone home" in any manner to check with Apple.
Just as you can rip the CD and write it to another format for use without the original, you can can write iTunes Music Store purchases to another format as well. Hell, Apple gives you the software to do those things! The proper issue, if you really need to get your undies in a bunch, would be the compression and the losses that can be experienced by the various conversions. Whine about that if you must whine; there is no real issue with DRM.
I want the freedom to use it on whatever device I want, with whatever software I choose.
God I hate all the moronic comments along these lines every time this topic comes up. YOU DO HAVE THAT FUCKING FREEDOM! At least as much as you do with a CD. Or are you one of those people who wants the freedom to use a CD on whatever device you want? News flash: a CD is also a form of DRM as well as a type of compression (called digitization). It's just that you're so familiar with it and the methods used to access the music that you don't think twice about that stuff. Apple has, by far, the least restrictive online music distribution scheme and all your bitching isn't producing anything better. I'd thank you to put up or shut up.
I ask a simple question asking for hard DATA rather than emotionally-loaded invective, and this is your response. Does it seem reasonable to you?
More reasonable than your ability to trim a response. Why didn't you respond instead to the parts where I outlined the reasons for the problem? Like I said, I get at least 100 spam for every 1 real message. If that's not HARD enough for you, a simple Google search will turn up things like this and this. If you want to collect some data of your own, feel free to post your email address in a reply.
And the answer to your almost-stated question is, "Because I will not hate any group solely because the majority tells me to."
I don't even come close to asking a question that would answer. It all comes down to the very simple fact that many of us have been around, judging by your id, much longer than you and we've seen what happens over time as your contact info spreads and is harvested by spammers. You ignore at your own risk. I'm not asking you to hate anyone, I simply pointing out that spammers have made it impossible to use email as it was intended. That should be fairly easy to understand, unless you happen to be a spammer trying to justify your behavior.
Any statistics showing that at current rates of growth, by 20XX spam will consume so much bandwidth that the Internet will collapse?
It's not about bandwidth, and it never was. Sure, bandwidth is a concern to those without broadband, but spam is a problem for most people even if the spammer paid for all the bandwidth their spew consumes. The real problem is that email is often the best way for individuals to communicate, but for every 1 message I want to see it is hidden in a haystack of hundreds that try to appear as something I should read, when all they are are ads that obscure the messages I get that are actually worthwhile.
Or that somewhere along the line, the innumerable filters that exist will cease to be of any use, and suddenly everyone really WILL be flooded with more spam than they can ever deal with?
Filtering merely means more resources I have to allocate just to see my actual messages. I also run the risk of false positives, so even with filters I can't completely ignore flagged messages. I actually get even more annoyed when the smaller number of spam come through because it means the spammer is actively working to get around filters to shove their message in my face. Spammers are pricks and why you can't see that, or see why people hate that, is beyond me.
I don't think I would mind having non-encumbered, free redistribution, free modification, full source available shareware. If it can still be called that way :)
You should call it Serviceware, since you're essentially supporting the concept of software development as a service instead of a product. Some companies (plug, plug) already release software like that.
How come the idea of e-stamps is not getting any traction?
Because even you aren't pointing anyone to something they can do about it. On the other hand, I'll be happy to point people to X-Mulct.
The concept is that you are assessed a small charge for sending unwanted mail.
That's generally a bad idea as stated because it requires a micropayment system, which isn't in place for anything, let alone for an extension to email. X-Mulct instead works on a "macropenalty" system, where I can take the virtual dollar you're sending with your message if I don't like getting mail from you.
So tell me, honestly. Why do people have such a hard time with PDFs?
For me, it's not just PDF but anything that isn't HTML. I don't want my flow of browsing interrupted without any immediate visual indication. I don't care if it's some format there's a browser plug-in for, either. When I click a regular link, my expectation is to go to a regular page, not download a movie or Word document or whatever. It's the principle of least surprise being violated that pisses people off.
To me an ideal device supports all of the above.
And I think this is where the fundamental disagreement comes from. I'd like that "ideal" device, too. However, I want a device right now that is cheap enough and useful enough to be successful and pave the way for a market that supports your ideal.
No one is going to tunnel DVI inside of 802.11, even 802.11g.
OK, yes, raw video is too aggressive a target. However, for most purposes transmitting the difference between refreshes with some simple compression wouldn't put too great a burden on the monitor or the network. More fancy things could be done, but at the cost of a more power hungry processor in the monitor and possibly at the cost of a platform-neutral display.
I agree that there is room for a client so thin (not in the physical sense, but that too) that is is only a display unit, and everything is done offboard. I just don't think it's the most practical. I think to not put USB on it would be a big mistake. I don't want a closed platform after all, I want something nicely open.
Like I said, USB ports would be a given. Beyond that, it becomes a lot less thin and a lot more expensive and complicated than the market seems willing to support. You may not think it practical, but I think it's a hell of a lot more practical than the Tablet PC market is. Only time will tell if we see anything like either of us are talking about, but if we do I doubt it will be from the roots of the current Tablet PC line.
A tablet PC is largely expensive because demand is low.
No, a Tablet PC is mostly expensive because it is a full laptop with an unusual form factor. Take away the hefty CPU, the HD, the RAM, the OS/software, and everything else that ties those things together to make a general purpose PC and it's pretty obvious you can make something much cheaper. All a wireless monitor would be is the LCD, the touch/pen screen (treated as a USB input device for most purposes), a wireless card, and some chips to handling the tunneling of DVI and USB over 802.11g. With a battery, that should all be doable for $250 more than an LCD screen alone.
Adding USB means that you don't need to have a TV tuner and all that crap built in; if you want it, you can hang it off the side.
Again, the key difference is not simply having a port, but what you do with it. In your case, you want a lot of work to be done locally to deal with the device and read it if it contains a file system and decode and play any files it find that might have multimedia content. In my case, the local system just tunnels the device back to the desktop, same way it does for the touch screen input. It is mounted on that computer and not dealt with by the monitor at all. It seems like a lot of overhead, but it's a very clean interface that most people can understand and use without trouble.
There's no reason not to use the device to power peripherals (especially low-power ones like USB 1.1 webcams - all USB 1.1 devices which do not use external power are low-power just because the port doesn't provide much juice) if you have that gigantic battery.
Regardless of how you handle peripheral connections, I don't think most people would enjoy the drain on the monitor. Without all the extra parts needed to run a normal laptop or Tablet PC, a wireless monitor should be able to easily run 8 hours and possibly up to 16 without needing a recharge. Any time a user connects a device, it'll cut into that time. It may not be a lot and I would definitely stick a USB port or two on the thing to tunnel extra stuff (especially a keyboard), but I really wouldn't expect extensive usage by a lot of peripherals.
The battery has to be a certain thickness because it has metal plates in it, and they have to take up a certain amount of space.
I'm not the one particularly interested in the battery situation, but even that presents a few different options. Given that device itself is so simple, you could probably put the "base" unit together with about a half inch of thickness. Then the battery could attach to it somehow. You might possibly use a big, flat battery that slaps on the back for an extra quarter inch or so of thickness, or possible you could have a round battery pack that clips to the side which doubles as a handle to help hold the thing. A second one attached to the other side doubles the battery life! Nice and modular, and ripe for replacement by a fuel cell or whatever might be useful in the future.
The device is going to have an operating system of some sort on it.
Why? I mean, sure, some sort of firmware will have to be present to move around input and output, but I see no reason to put a full OS of any kind on it. I'd worry about fancy features that might require a more powerful OS in a future version.
My reasoning for adding those two things is simply that it doesn't add much cost or complexity.
No, the ports themselves don't add a lot of complexity. However, what you want to do with them does.
I want to be able to attach a camera to it, I want to be able to attach a hard drive to it and play music or movies off the hard drive, I want to be able to attach a dvdrom to it and play a movie from that.
So now instead of a simple "wireless monitor" that just tunnels DVI and USB over 802.11g, you're pulling for something that can access file systems and do full video and audio decoding. And no doubt you're looking for the thing to power the devices you plug into it, too. And other people will want it to have a TV tuner. And so on and so on until it becomes bloatware. If you want all that, just get a Tablet PC today. I agree with NtroP that the simple device is better.
You've GOT to have some kind of wired I/O as a backup and for use in places where there isn't any wifi.
It should go without saying that it would have a monitor stand/docking station that would both recharge it and give it a wired connection to the desktop it is attached to. Apple already does this with the iPod, so it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Even slow systems these days have enough power to do just about everything, might as well give them I/O to match.
No! Every processing need you make "local" to the monitor makes it expensive, larger, more complex, and power hungry. That's what a Tablet PC already is and that is what almost nobody wants. From a digital hub perspective, a basic device will be easier to use. Even my mom would have no trouble understanding a touch/pen screen LCD display you can pick up and carry around.
Basically, it would simply be a touch-sensitive dumb terminal for a "central server" or master machine on my desk or in my closet. I'd want to be able to "VNC" to my desktop or open one of several "published" X-window apps with a finger tap.
When this topic has come up before, I've essentially weighed in the same way as you. What I want isn't a Tablet PC, but something more akin to a "wireless monitor". Something I can just pick up off the desktop and take to a meeting (or take into the living room so I can reload Slashdot during commercials :-). I think Apple could go that route and still claim a "no tablet" policy; call it an iDisplay. I'd definitely get one as a second monitor. Bonus points if they do it in a computer/device independent way, so that anything that does DVI output and USB input can use one.
One suggestion which I thought was partictularly interesting involved a bounty system whereby a price would be put on 'hacker's heads', incentivating other hackers to go after them and bring them forward.
That's not interesting at all. As covered here, that's what MS thinks is the way to address the issue. All that's interesting about that situation is that they've set aside 10 times as much money as they have current bounties for; how is expecting 10 times as many security issues in the future considered any sort of a fix for the problem?