..ignorant.. but being european, the only parts o the net that I see is the US, Europe, well actually anywhere apart from Asia.
Not quite sure why that is. Sure, I can't go to a *.jp site and understand what it say's - nor can I read the spam mail I get from that side of the world.. But even though Japan etc. is apparently the most technical place in the world.. there is very little exposure (in my eyes) of them on the web..
Well.. no, that's not entirely true. Every now and again I get a random message pop up in ICQ saying "Hi, I am from China, will you be my friend?". I hate those. I'd rather this wasn't the only interraction us westies have with the far east.
... this only really applies to commercial software.
And by "Commercial Software", I mean software you pay for, with hard earned cash.
That means that Open Sauce doesn't count. You can't seriousely expect to be able to sue or whatever anyone that writes a piece of software for free (die opensource). They wrote it - you use it for free - it breaks - tough shit.
However, when you spend oodles of cash with the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, or whoever - sure, if their software is faulty in any way (bugs, holes etc.), then they have an obligation to fix it or to compensate you for the inconvenience. Obviousely, not of the bigwigs are going to voluntary compensate you, so that's when you take them to the cleaners. But the option is still there - how successful you are is another story.
Another argument though, is that how severe can the ruling be - can you really base it on how popular the company is? I mean, you have two software companies, company A only sold 1000 copies of it's software and company B sold 1,000,000 copies. They both have a similar security hole. I don't think it's really fair to give these different rulings or figures because, at the end of the day, it's a single piece of software - the userbase is not in their control.
It's been a while since there was really much media hype about voice recognition technologies. Sure, the whole voice activated menu's "1, 2 etc." has been around for quite a few years, but I suppose there is a huge difference between repeating a few numbers than describing technical problems. I mean, is this literally a flowchart menu with various diagnostic paths or does it actually try and understand a sentance? If it's the former, then that is nothing more advanced than what is currently available and probably in use elsewhere.
I wonder what would be more frustrating, repeating yourself twenty times to a computer to battle through a menu, or sitting for twenty minutes trying to explain your problem to a ex k-mart 1st line support engineer. The choice is yours:)
There should be a higher governing body than the patent office that has half a clue and reason to be able to judge and justify such stupid patents.
It's like British Telecom with their patent 'claim' regarding hyperlinks. Sure. With the billions of webpages out there that contain hyperlinks, how on earth do they contemplate reconciliating licensing costs?
As with this bizarre claim, they may sue people, they most likely won't get anywhere - but even if they do, would they want license fee's?
Sure, I can just imagine it "MS Force Feedback Joystick with Free 1yr subscription to the Force Feedback patent people". Yeah right.
Is there a language available that has all of these features?
Yes. Isn't that what VS.NET is supposed to do? I mean, you can use other languages Class files in C#, ASPx etc. And the.NET framework (based around XML) supports all kinda funky cross-platform technologies such as SOAP and UDDI.
What will stop AmigaOS 'XL' on x86 architecture from suffering the same pain as o/s's like BeOS? They cannot rely on the fact that there are a lot of ex-amigageeks out there willing to run AmigaOS on a PC. The software support isn't available and will end up just like BeOS. I, being an amigageek, would have a play with it - but I think the CD/Box would end up back on the shelf after a day or two of realizing that I just can't do what I want to do with it. It's not the same as it used to be which will put off many amigaholics..
"which shows the oustandingly attractive aqua theme."
Forgive me for being stupid, but why in all reality would anyone be too fussed about 'themes' on a Psion 5mx? The original EPOC GUI looked alright and had good support.
I had an old Psion 3 few years back running some hacked up debian rom and it worked, could establish serial ppp connections, even ran an eggdrop from it, but it was just a bit of fun (Yeah, don't try and compile _anything_ on a Psion unless you want to wait a long time).
I forget who it was now, but I remember a while back some articles about another PDA manufacturer was going to use/was using a Linux based o/s for it.. Not really seen much come of it yet..
There are lots of things to take into account.. like Synchronisation. What exactly would you sync up between a Linux PDA and desktop machine? It's not like you've got Outlook running or anything, and i've not seen any piece of 'groupware' on a Linux platform that even contemplated supporting PDA integration/sync'ing.. (Not that i've looked too hard)..
I think the scope here is much wider than just having a PDA running Linux, it requires just as much or more effort from the 'desktop' developers or these PDA's will be useless..
.. the I/Opener.. Ya know, the little tiny Internet browsing PC that was based on a flash-rom linux kernel.. It was a great toy when they first started playing with it, but that's about the limit. A toy.
I can understand why people want to hack about with proprietry hardware and do cool things with them, but what exactly is Sony's point in producing a Linux distribution? From my point of view, they're doing it to keep (in all reality) the minority of box-hackers happy and maybe to prove a point that the PS/2 really is versatile (maybe a plot to scaremonger Microsoft with it's XBOX and the ability to make it do other stuff).
So, in say 6-12 months time, you're going to have PS2's and XBOX's running Linux. Sure, they're powerful machines (the latter comes with faster bits and more I/O), but is there any serious application? The XBOX is fairly bulky, won't really be very space-saving in a rack, but sure, it's a cheap webserver.
It just seems to me that Sony are going to a lot of effort to prove a point - what that point is i'm not quite sure.
Like Hydrogen fuel cells. Ya know, the ones that take hydrogen in one end (add a bit of oxygen for that lovely catalyst effect) and voila! you get say 1v@1a out the other end.. Not bad..
I'm curious as to how this methanol system works.. One thing that definately puts me off is the smell of meths.. Your laptop will start to smell like an old steam engine.. You know, those little kit ones you had as a kid.. choo-choo.. And it's oily.. do you think laptop manufacturers will modify their warranties to say "In the event of meths spillage, we will replace %%%%".. - unlikely.
It's a nice idea, i'm all for the green solutions, but 'polluting' the clean, crisp environment of todays electronics with something like methanol is just a no-no..
How many other companies do you think the cable companies etc. sell this statistical information to?
I mean, come on, this is not new. You get a ton of questionairres through the post all the time, some people fill them in, some don't. But those who do wouldn't turn around and complain that company X is using their data, which they submitted.
You'll probably find that somewhere in your contract for your cable/satellite TV, it states that the company may use information based on your viewing to form statistics, or for supply to an external statistics company.
I'm sorry, but I don't see Microsoft obtaining this information (in a perfectly legal way) being anything other than 'standardly' competitive, along with several other companies. Do you not think even people like TiVO use this kind of information? The whole media industry relies on statistics such as this. Stop being paranoid.
Talking about banners etc., from other threads. Has anyone heard of CMS perhaps?
Many large sites are keen to track their visitors. They are keen to find trends and to personalize content based on what the user likes. If the user clicks on a banner about 'cars', then maybe that user would like the 'portal' site more if there was more car content on it. I don't see that as snooping. I see that as feature enriching the users experience, which in turn brings in more cash, which in turn improves the experience and the site. What is so wrong in that?
BP Amoco have recently started to introduce "green" petrol (gas) stations around the UK..
In a way to make them "green", they've adopted the idea of installing 50ft high wind powered generators. Sounds great.. but the problem is, (well, at my local branch), they've put three of these huge towers right next to the highway - on a rather sharp bend.
Yes, not the best of ideas.
I think the rate of car crashes has gone up 10 fold since they installed these distractions. I wonder how long it will be before they take them down.
Could this possibly mean that the "green" planning department don't actually have a clue on anything other than how to save power?.. I'm quite sure the insurance companies are going to throw up a stink about the distraction element..;)
Uhm, with BT, there is no ADSL in the UK. They're just started to unbundle the localloop now, if they ceased to exist that would get put into turmoil and it would be a _long_ time before anyone else managed to get it under control;)
Luckily I don't get mine from BT. I couldn't handle that:)
My first console was an Atari VCS (the wooden version of the 2600) - My how things have changed.
Call me nostalgic, but I stil believe the 8-bit days were the best. Get your SEGA Master System or your NES (with funky robot if rich) and you were away!
I currently own a PS2, I use it sometimes, GT3 and GTA3 are pretty good games, lots of fun.. But having observed the progression of games over the last, say, 10 years, I believe they came to a bit of a halt when the Internet got popular.
Games houses all thought "Wow, the Internet, let's make our games support online play, let's build communities!".
Sure, that's a great idea. Brings in money. Uses the Internet. Builds huge user bases (look at Ultima Online, Everquest etc.)
Also, around the same time, more and more games started getting ported to new funky 3D versions - of course Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake were the daddy's - other platforms such as the Amiga failed miserably (With the likes of Alien Breed 3D - the apparent Doom competitor). I've not really seen any _really_ original games in the past 5 years, maybe it's not possible anymore? Maybe people are too narrowminded. I don't want any more 3D conversions of driving games, fighting games, or platform games. What does that leave? Is the games market so huge that we've expired originality and can now only focus on making our GPU's in consoles faster to support prettier textures on the same old 3D models. Who knows.
Why were 3D platform games soooo good? Why did everyone love a parallel scrolling Shoot'em UP? Sit a kid of today down infront of a 8/16-bit console with a 'decent' game from the past. Sure, they'll complain "the graphics are crappy!", but give it 5 minutes of gameplay and they probably wouldn't be able to get off it all day. I doubt they'd be the same with their new GameCube or PS2 or XBOX.
What changed? What happened?
Maybe I just got old and don't get the buzz from gaming I used to, I'm quite partial to a bit of GT3/GTA3 on the PS2 and FlightSim/Quake/UT on the PC - but you just don't get the same flashy lights around the 'gaming' thing anymore.
Be it the XBOX, PS2 or GameCube - they all basically do the same thing. Sure, some have slightly higher specs, some have Internet support, some have big this, big that. Whatever. The key to consoles being successful (as they once were) would be for the games designers. Back in the day, games designers/dev guys would make the most out of the limitations of the machine - look at platforms like the C-64/ZX Sinclair. People used to get excited about the demo's cracking groups etc. used to release basically because it was so unreal of the technology at the time. You don't see that anymore. I'm not actually aware of any 'demo scene' on the PC. Did the PC get too good? Is there nothing worth making a demo about these days?
The flair has gone. Modern games are just conversions of old games, made into pretty 3D and added Internet play.
I remember an episode of Dr. Who back about 15 years ago that featured 'Dark Light'. There was a briefcase type container which housed some 'dark light' and people were trying to steal it because it was so precious.
So we got Dark Matter, and Dark Fibre;) so what's this Dark Light stuff about?
Dr. Who is my reference for all things scientific! It's all true isn't it?
... a bunch of 13yr old kiddies sitting at the back of the bus beeping on and off throughout your journey.
In the UK, SMS is an addiction for kids. Obviousely the immaturity level at this age shows that they don't understand that having an entire conversation over SMS will in fact take them 10 times as long and cost them 10 times as much as just picking up the phone and saying what they have to say in a few seconds. Some^H^H^H^HMost People need to start using this technology for it's proper purpose.. beep beep beep..
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing this locust chat/sms service go;)
Microsoft Exchange Server with the Outlook client is a tried and tested product. It's been around for donkeys years and several other projects have been created and tried to compete, and some have failed and the remainder are just sitting on the back burner really.
Lotus Domino and Novells Groupwise do have a market share, IBM even give Domino/Notes away with servers (well, the used to, not sure if they still do) but do you see them overtaking Exchange & Outlook? No.
So sure, Outlook suffers from the scripting issues which spawn viri, but that hasn't made the world rush to go buy Notes or Groupwise or whatever - so why should this product make any difference?
I've not actually looked at this product as I can't get to their site now (slasheffected).. But what does it really have to offer that could even put Notes etc. in the shade?..
Slashdot Mirror
.. to try this.
Actually, I was going to have a play with it to make a self-running radio transmitter stuck up a tree.
Either way, check out this site http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/hydrogen.htm - they sell hydrogen fuel cells and have some information on them.
..ignorant.. but being european, the only parts o the net that I see is the US, Europe, well actually anywhere apart from Asia.
Not quite sure why that is. Sure, I can't go to a *.jp site and understand what it say's - nor can I read the spam mail I get from that side of the world.. But even though Japan etc. is apparently the most technical place in the world.. there is very little exposure (in my eyes) of them on the web..
Well.. no, that's not entirely true. Every now and again I get a random message pop up in ICQ saying "Hi, I am from China, will you be my friend?". I hate those. I'd rather this wasn't the only interraction us westies have with the far east.
... is a few voluptuous women stuck in a paddling pool with a huge tub of this stuff..
... I'm sure this will definately 'hammer' down Intel..
boom boom.
RIP Spike Milligan
... this only really applies to commercial software.
And by "Commercial Software", I mean software you pay for, with hard earned cash.
That means that Open Sauce doesn't count. You can't seriousely expect to be able to sue or whatever anyone that writes a piece of software for free (die opensource). They wrote it - you use it for free - it breaks - tough shit.
However, when you spend oodles of cash with the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, or whoever - sure, if their software is faulty in any way (bugs, holes etc.), then they have an obligation to fix it or to compensate you for the inconvenience. Obviousely, not of the bigwigs are going to voluntary compensate you, so that's when you take them to the cleaners. But the option is still there - how successful you are is another story.
Another argument though, is that how severe can the ruling be - can you really base it on how popular the company is? I mean, you have two software companies, company A only sold 1000 copies of it's software and company B sold 1,000,000 copies. They both have a similar security hole. I don't think it's really fair to give these different rulings or figures because, at the end of the day, it's a single piece of software - the userbase is not in their control.
..exactly new, is it?
:)
It's been a while since there was really much media hype about voice recognition technologies. Sure, the whole voice activated menu's "1, 2 etc." has been around for quite a few years, but I suppose there is a huge difference between repeating a few numbers than describing technical problems. I mean, is this literally a flowchart menu with various diagnostic paths or does it actually try and understand a sentance? If it's the former, then that is nothing more advanced than what is currently available and probably in use elsewhere.
I wonder what would be more frustrating, repeating yourself twenty times to a computer to battle through a menu, or sitting for twenty minutes trying to explain your problem to a ex k-mart 1st line support engineer. The choice is yours
.. that the Mosix site is running on a Mosix cluster to withstand the slashdot affect
Well then, it's very lucky that noone is claiming the patent to "the computer" or we'd all be stuffed by now.
..silly.
There should be a higher governing body than the patent office that has half a clue and reason to be able to judge and justify such stupid patents.
It's like British Telecom with their patent 'claim' regarding hyperlinks. Sure. With the billions of webpages out there that contain hyperlinks, how on earth do they contemplate reconciliating licensing costs?
As with this bizarre claim, they may sue people, they most likely won't get anywhere - but even if they do, would they want license fee's?
Sure, I can just imagine it "MS Force Feedback Joystick with Free 1yr subscription to the Force Feedback patent people". Yeah right.
It's just another bizarre day in paradise.
Is there a language available that has all of these features?
.NET framework (based around XML) supports all kinda funky cross-platform technologies such as SOAP and UDDI.
:)
Yes. Isn't that what VS.NET is supposed to do? I mean, you can use other languages Class files in C#, ASPx etc. And the
But would anyone ever admit that it was this
What will stop AmigaOS 'XL' on x86 architecture from suffering the same pain as o/s's like BeOS? They cannot rely on the fact that there are a lot of ex-amigageeks out there willing to run AmigaOS on a PC. The software support isn't available and will end up just like BeOS. I, being an amigageek, would have a play with it - but I think the CD/Box would end up back on the shelf after a day or two of realizing that I just can't do what I want to do with it. It's not the same as it used to be which will put off many amigaholics..
"which shows the oustandingly attractive aqua theme."
Forgive me for being stupid, but why in all reality would anyone be too fussed about 'themes' on a Psion 5mx? The original EPOC GUI looked alright and had good support.
I had an old Psion 3 few years back running some hacked up debian rom and it worked, could establish serial ppp connections, even ran an eggdrop from it, but it was just a bit of fun (Yeah, don't try and compile _anything_ on a Psion unless you want to wait a long time).
I forget who it was now, but I remember a while back some articles about another PDA manufacturer was going to use/was using a Linux based o/s for it.. Not really seen much come of it yet..
There are lots of things to take into account.. like Synchronisation. What exactly would you sync up between a Linux PDA and desktop machine? It's not like you've got Outlook running or anything, and i've not seen any piece of 'groupware' on a Linux platform that even contemplated supporting PDA integration/sync'ing.. (Not that i've looked too hard)..
I think the scope here is much wider than just having a PDA running Linux, it requires just as much or more effort from the 'desktop' developers or these PDA's will be useless..
.. the I/Opener.. Ya know, the little tiny Internet browsing PC that was based on a flash-rom linux kernel.. It was a great toy when they first started playing with it, but that's about the limit. A toy.
I can understand why people want to hack about with proprietry hardware and do cool things with them, but what exactly is Sony's point in producing a Linux distribution? From my point of view, they're doing it to keep (in all reality) the minority of box-hackers happy and maybe to prove a point that the PS/2 really is versatile (maybe a plot to scaremonger Microsoft with it's XBOX and the ability to make it do other stuff).
So, in say 6-12 months time, you're going to have PS2's and XBOX's running Linux. Sure, they're powerful machines (the latter comes with faster bits and more I/O), but is there any serious application? The XBOX is fairly bulky, won't really be very space-saving in a rack, but sure, it's a cheap webserver.
It just seems to me that Sony are going to a lot of effort to prove a point - what that point is i'm not quite sure.
Like Hydrogen fuel cells. Ya know, the ones that take hydrogen in one end (add a bit of oxygen for that lovely catalyst effect) and voila! you get say 1v@1a out the other end.. Not bad..
I'm curious as to how this methanol system works.. One thing that definately puts me off is the smell of meths.. Your laptop will start to smell like an old steam engine.. You know, those little kit ones you had as a kid.. choo-choo.. And it's oily.. do you think laptop manufacturers will modify their warranties to say "In the event of meths spillage, we will replace %%%%".. - unlikely.
It's a nice idea, i'm all for the green solutions, but 'polluting' the clean, crisp environment of todays electronics with something like methanol is just a no-no..
... rich by now.
"If I had $1 for every *insert word here* i'd had.. i'd be rich by now.."
How many other companies do you think the cable companies etc. sell this statistical information to?
I mean, come on, this is not new. You get a ton of questionairres through the post all the time, some people fill them in, some don't. But those who do wouldn't turn around and complain that company X is using their data, which they submitted.
You'll probably find that somewhere in your contract for your cable/satellite TV, it states that the company may use information based on your viewing to form statistics, or for supply to an external statistics company.
I'm sorry, but I don't see Microsoft obtaining this information (in a perfectly legal way) being anything other than 'standardly' competitive, along with several other companies. Do you not think even people like TiVO use this kind of information? The whole media industry relies on statistics such as this. Stop being paranoid.
Talking about banners etc., from other threads. Has anyone heard of CMS perhaps?
Many large sites are keen to track their visitors. They are keen to find trends and to personalize content based on what the user likes. If the user clicks on a banner about 'cars', then maybe that user would like the 'portal' site more if there was more car content on it. I don't see that as snooping. I see that as feature enriching the users experience, which in turn brings in more cash, which in turn improves the experience and the site. What is so wrong in that?
Everyone is getting paranoid.
Mildly offtopic.. but
;)
BP Amoco have recently started to introduce "green" petrol (gas) stations around the UK..
In a way to make them "green", they've adopted the idea of installing 50ft high wind powered generators. Sounds great.. but the problem is, (well, at my local branch), they've put three of these huge towers right next to the highway - on a rather sharp bend.
Yes, not the best of ideas.
I think the rate of car crashes has gone up 10 fold since they installed these distractions. I wonder how long it will be before they take them down.
Could this possibly mean that the "green" planning department don't actually have a clue on anything other than how to save power?.. I'm quite sure the insurance companies are going to throw up a stink about the distraction element..
...pay for the replacement lightbulbs..
And I wonder how much it costs to play pong?
This could be largest arcade machine in the world!
Uhm, with BT, there is no ADSL in the UK. They're just started to unbundle the localloop now, if they ceased to exist that would get put into turmoil and it would be a _long_ time before anyone else managed to get it under control
Luckily I don't get mine from BT. I couldn't handle that
My first console was an Atari VCS (the wooden version of the 2600) - My how things have changed.
Call me nostalgic, but I stil believe the 8-bit days were the best. Get your SEGA Master System or your NES (with funky robot if rich) and you were away!
I currently own a PS2, I use it sometimes, GT3 and GTA3 are pretty good games, lots of fun.. But having observed the progression of games over the last, say, 10 years, I believe they came to a bit of a halt when the Internet got popular.
Games houses all thought "Wow, the Internet, let's make our games support online play, let's build communities!".
Sure, that's a great idea. Brings in money. Uses the Internet. Builds huge user bases (look at Ultima Online, Everquest etc.)
Also, around the same time, more and more games started getting ported to new funky 3D versions - of course Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake were the daddy's - other platforms such as the Amiga failed miserably (With the likes of Alien Breed 3D - the apparent Doom competitor). I've not really seen any _really_ original games in the past 5 years, maybe it's not possible anymore? Maybe people are too narrowminded. I don't want any more 3D conversions of driving games, fighting games, or platform games. What does that leave? Is the games market so huge that we've expired originality and can now only focus on making our GPU's in consoles faster to support prettier textures on the same old 3D models. Who knows.
Why were 3D platform games soooo good? Why did everyone love a parallel scrolling Shoot'em UP? Sit a kid of today down infront of a 8/16-bit console with a 'decent' game from the past. Sure, they'll complain "the graphics are crappy!", but give it 5 minutes of gameplay and they probably wouldn't be able to get off it all day. I doubt they'd be the same with their new GameCube or PS2 or XBOX.
What changed? What happened?
Maybe I just got old and don't get the buzz from gaming I used to, I'm quite partial to a bit of GT3/GTA3 on the PS2 and FlightSim/Quake/UT on the PC - but you just don't get the same flashy lights around the 'gaming' thing anymore.
Be it the XBOX, PS2 or GameCube - they all basically do the same thing. Sure, some have slightly higher specs, some have Internet support, some have big this, big that. Whatever. The key to consoles being successful (as they once were) would be for the games designers. Back in the day, games designers/dev guys would make the most out of the limitations of the machine - look at platforms like the C-64/ZX Sinclair. People used to get excited about the demo's cracking groups etc. used to release basically because it was so unreal of the technology at the time. You don't see that anymore. I'm not actually aware of any 'demo scene' on the PC. Did the PC get too good? Is there nothing worth making a demo about these days?
The flair has gone. Modern games are just conversions of old games, made into pretty 3D and added Internet play.
Don't kick him out of the country, stay where you are! Or at least don't come to the UK..
:)
We've only got one backbone ADSl provider and we've not had that very long! Stay away!
Comical.
I remember an episode of Dr. Who back about 15 years ago that featured 'Dark Light'. There was a briefcase type container which housed some 'dark light' and people were trying to steal it because it was so precious.
;) so what's this Dark Light stuff about?
So we got Dark Matter, and Dark Fibre
Dr. Who is my reference for all things scientific! It's all true isn't it?
.. headache for the massive groups of people who encode DiVX movies anyway?
;)
If streaming media became a reality on handheld devices, all of these movies would have to be re-encoded and released for such mediums.
At least the file sizes would be smaller
... a bunch of 13yr old kiddies sitting at the back of the bus beeping on and off throughout your journey.
;)
In the UK, SMS is an addiction for kids. Obviousely the immaturity level at this age shows that they don't understand that having an entire conversation over SMS will in fact take them 10 times as long and cost them 10 times as much as just picking up the phone and saying what they have to say in a few seconds. Some^H^H^H^HMost People need to start using this technology for it's proper purpose.. beep beep beep..
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing this locust chat/sms service go
... making something like this successful.
Microsoft Exchange Server with the Outlook client is a tried and tested product. It's been around for donkeys years and several other projects have been created and tried to compete, and some have failed and the remainder are just sitting on the back burner really.
Lotus Domino and Novells Groupwise do have a market share, IBM even give Domino/Notes away with servers (well, the used to, not sure if they still do) but do you see them overtaking Exchange & Outlook? No.
So sure, Outlook suffers from the scripting issues which spawn viri, but that hasn't made the world rush to go buy Notes or Groupwise or whatever - so why should this product make any difference?
I've not actually looked at this product as I can't get to their site now (slasheffected).. But what does it really have to offer that could even put Notes etc. in the shade?..
It'd have to be some kind of miracle..