Oh come ON! Is the point of what I said that obscure? In the parent post I was trying to find info about Tesla, and above is an excerpt from a web page that I found!! It's because of information like that that I wanted to find objective information.
I did NOT post that to wind anybody up or to ruin Tesla's name, I posted it to show people the type of info I was *not* hunting for.
Troll. *hrumph* "MS rules and Linux sux". -- there, now you can mod me down as a troll.
Here's an excerpt of a supposedly true story about Tesla, now you know why I'm looking for objective data:
"After his death in 1943, his TeslaScope interplanetary communication device was turned on at the home of a friend in Canada, and the assembled group heard the Commander of an Alien vessel, explain the true hidden facts behind Tesla's fantastic 87 year life. Tesla apparently didn't discover until fairly late in his life, that he himself was an Alien, who had been left on Earth as a baby to help the people of the Earth evolve through the use of his inventive genius. From early childhood it was clear that he was quite different and odd compared to more "normal" Earth humans. The Commander mentioned that they had attended Tesla's funeral, and they had simply blurred all the photographs so that there would be no record of their attendance."
It'd be nice to read an objective account of Telsa. My initial searches of Tesla revealed a lot of people are far more concerned with 'conspiracy theories' than actual facts of what happened.
From what I can tell, Tesla did a TON of work involving electricity and fields etc, but Edison seems far more well rounded.
Can anybody help me out? Where can I find more objective information?
Wasn't it low-res/high capacity crap? Not that I'm claiming to be fully versed on VHS vs Beta, but I do remember somebody saying that Beta tapes could only record like an hours worth but VHS could do up to 6.
In any case, the demand for MP3 is being fueled by the sheer numbers of songs for it. If Ogg is so much better, then what is inhibiting is content for it.
The point of my comment is to expose the serious hole in the CPBTPA (sp?). Yes, technically you'd owe the copyright owner royalties. The point I was making is that increasing demand for music by decreasing the abililty to play it would spawn some creative solutions.
It is up to the copyright owner to defend his copyright. If people are abusing it, he has a TON of legal recourses to take, including the overly-broad DMCA.
If laws are passed to prevent computers from being able to do anything misuse copyright, then I want a law passed to prevent my coworkers from calling me sissy. It hurts!
1.) Both the RIAA and the MPAA make products that are easy to replicate. The simple fact of the matter is that anybody can make a TV show, anybody can make a song, and anybody can publish it on the net. It wasn't like that 20 years ago, but it is like that today. The RIAA and the MPAA's business model simply hasn't changed to the new market that opened up. PC's took the place of the typewriter. The the Government step in and pass regulations that required that PC's cannot do word processing because it would destroy the typewriter market?
Music is inherantly easy to copy. This has *always* been the case. There has never been a time where music couldn't by copied in some way or another. The RIAA had every expectation that one day it'd be so easy to copy their songs that it'd grow beyond their ability to control it. This was not an overnight event. They should have R&D teams working on the next phase of products they could sell that wouldn't be so easy to duplicate. The Music Video, for example is an application they could have tapped. If part of the value of a song was the video accompanying it, then it'd greatly increase the size requirements of a song from 3 megabytes to 50 or more.
If I were a company that sold shoestrings, I wouldn't ask the government to block sales of velcro.
2.) Despite the obvious demand for compressed audio and video delivered on the web, neither the RIAA or the MPAA has made any appreciable attempts to fill this demand. For example, the RIAA has never provided me with a way to pay for an MP3 after I have downloaded it. Instead of filling the demand I have for more portable media, they tried to sue it out of existence. By supporting this style of business, you are not promoting a good economy. "It is our way, or jail for you." Does the government really want to defend the type of business practice that doesn't fill demand?
3.) When I go on vacation, I want to have movies to watch on my flight. The best way to do this is to rip the DVD to my laptop and leave the DV disk at home. I don't want to risk my $25 investment to baggage handlers at the airport. Yet the MPAA considers protecting my investment in them a violation of their license.
By giving these guys a legal means to force the hardware to reject the media I bought, you're giving them the right to extort money from me. If my disk gets damaged, I can't call them up and get a replacement media. Nope, they'll expect me to buy a new copy. Any step I take to back it up is illegal.
4.) They already have laws protecting them. They already have their innovation-stifling DMCA, why do they need to phsyically stifle innovation as well?
By physically removing my ability to rip an MP3, for example, you are essentially taking my rights away the same way that sending me to jail would. In other words, I am being pre-punished for a crime I hadn't commited yet. Worse, all crimes are JUDGED before punishment is dished out. Basically, this legislation is removing my right to a fair trial. There are plenty of legal uses for MP3's and DVD ripping technology, that has been established over and over again. Yet the RIAA and the MPAA both think that every single application of ripping is illegal. They are not judges and they cannot legally reach that conclusion.
5.) What good would it really do? Okay, so now the industry has control over what I can or cannot do with the content I bought from them. Either this will make me lose interest in all content (i.e. I wouldn't bother adding music to my entertainment budget), or what I would buy wouldn't really do me any good. The people paying for the content are being punished, but the people who are actually commiting crime will simply find new means to make it available for free. Worse, they'll be a virtual celebrity if they manage to provide it. In other words, the people doing the right thing get punished, the people commiting the crimes get a greater reward. This is not going to save either of these industries. Telling the customers they can't have what they want won't let them go very far either.
6.) Both the MPAA and the RIAA have made their content appear to be free. Turn on the radio, you hear music. Open your TV Guide and you'll find they're airing movies released a couple of years ago. Nobody has to pay for this. They just turn it on and there it is. When a consumer goes to buy a CD, they don't think he's buying a license to have a copy of the song, they think they're buying the convenience of hearing it any time they want as opposed to waiting for it to appear on the radio. Consider for a moment the ramifications of what I am saying: How can the RIAA expect people to pay $18 for a collection of songs on a CD when it's the song on the radio they really want to hear over and over again? How can the average consumer have any idea what a song costs to own? At least at the movie theater, you have to pay $8 to go see it. That isn't the case with TV or with Radio. If somebody runs across the ability to download a TV show off the net, how can they be expected to not think it's free?
It seems to me that what these industries had two good options available to them:
a.) Make their content available for free on the web with ad revenue, just like TV. This technology has been around since 1998. The bandwidth needed to do that has been around since 2000.
b.) Make the shows available to purchase on-line. I'd happily pay $25 for a season of That 70's show in.WMV format, particularly if it'd come down at 150KB/s.
At the very least, they should inform people. VHS tapes have an FBI warning that come up, why doesn't TV if it's such a big deal not to distribute it?
7.) Wouldn't this stifle flow of information? What if I can't watch a news story that happened in Florida? (Hint: I'm not in Florida.) Some TV Stations may stream their content over the web if the technology prevents people from re-distributing it. The moment that inhibits me from watching a news story, it's censoring information from me.
Anyway, these are my reasons. Feel free to alter them however you see fit. Anything to help prevent this stupid legislation from getting through.
"We don't want a new format now, especially if it's more restrictive in how we can play it."
This was suggested as a solution for the RIAA, not the consumer. I would MUCH RATHER they use a more restrictive medium than try to make PC's restricted. At least when they sink, they won't take my animation job with them.
"How is this an improvement on simulated translucency with a normal LCD screen? I'm not trying to be negative -- just trying to understand. Maybe I need more caffeine today."
The screen I saw (just a point: I'm not sure if it's the same one in the article or not...) had about an inch or so distance between the foreground and background layer. This was enough distance that your eyes could focus in on one layer and focus out the other. That's the uniqueness of the monitor that cannot be simulated on one screen.
The foreground layer could be opaque or transparent. In the demo I saw, you could see through parts of Calculator.exe, but text on it WANST transparent. In other words, it was more like having an alpha channel for the foreground window as opposed to simply making it transparent.
It wasnt entirely clear how the transparency color was chosen, but I can tell you that the demo wasn't confusing. I wish I had a clearer memory of it from when I was at Siggraph so I could describe it in more detail. I was very impressed, though.
"Your analogy makes it sound like the recording industry's interest is in blocking fair use situations--the recording industry could care less about fair use situations"
Not exactly. Here's what I said:
"It'd be like Coca Cola making their drinks evaporate moments after they leave the can, that way nobody could pour the coke into a cup and sell it to somebody else."
The RIAA says you have to listen to the CD, you cannot listen to it off of anything but that. THAT was the point of my analogy.
You're right, they don't care about fair use. They're counting what people do with fair use as lost revenue. That's what's wrong.
The funny thing is, I don't think they care about anybody having 15 gigs of MP3s. I think they're concerned about not being able to sell their $18 garbage disks anymore because people want individual songs. They're just using 'piracy' as a way to get the government involved. Frankly, I think the Gov't has no business trying to pass laws to 'save' a business that creates works that are so easy to recreate. All of the copy protection in the world can't stop a garage band from re-singing and recording the song.
If the RIAA has any concern about people paying for what they have downloaded, they'd provide us with a means to pay for what we have. I don't think anybody would buy an $18 CD just because they downloaded a song they heard on the radio.
"I wasn't trying to be rude, nor am I trying to prove myself intelligent, but can't you take some valid criticism?"
I think I read your response in the wrong tone. I apologize. I get a large amount of flack here because I don't hate MS as much as everybody else. Heh.
"The original poster said that he has 15GB of music, of which less than one-fifth was actually bought and paid for. That's just being dishonest."
And how exactly is he supposed to pay for it? If I download Wil Smith singing the 'Men In Black' song, how am I supposed to pay for that? Buy the CD? Uh, no. That is *one* song. The soundtrack to Men in Black is a collection of songs.
If somebody doesnt pay for their MP3 collection, it's because the RIAA isn't providing a means to pay for it. If the RIAA would say 'here is what each song is worth', and provided that each song is fairly priced (I.e. the sum of all the songs on the CD shall not exceed the cost of the CD.), then I'd be happy to send a list of what I have to the RIAA and recieve a bill.
What customers want is to buy the songs individually. At least that's what I want. I don't know anybody that downloads 'albums', just songs.
Technically, if you're downloading individual songs, then the Record Industry isn't losing anything. Since all they sell are the whole albums, then technically they aren't hurt until somebody downloads an entire CD. I bet that doesn't happen NEAR as often in the illegal sense. (i.e. somebody replacing an album of a CD that was destroyed...)
I definitely wouldn't recommend one for my dad, but the one my boss has is pretty cool. I'm envious of him!
He has a wireless card hooked up to it and browsing around the internet works exactly like you'd expect. Unlike PocketPc, which is sllooooowwwww.
The weight and the dimensions of the device are fine. It may be big compared to a Palm, but it is easily smaller and lighter than any PocketPC.
I do have one concern about putting it in my pocket, though. The lower section of it slides out to reveal the keyboard. Im concerned that too much movement in my pocket (uh.. heh heh) would 'derail' it so that it doesn't slide easily anymore. I had an olympus digital camera that was similar, and that's what happened to it.
"The RIAA is in the same position the book-producing monks were in after Gutenberg's press was invented..."
You bring up an interesting point, what about books? One thing that I really like about the book industry (is that an industry, heh) is that they have embraced technology and have released 'e-versions' of some books, and they're cheap!
They didn't fall due to horrific piracy. You'd think the RIAA would have noticed that.
(yeah yeah, I know it's not quite the same. I think the average consumer is honest and will pay for what he acquires in most cases.)
"I've seen the monitor before. The effect isn't impressive. It basically looks like what you'd expect - one lcd layer on top of another, will little illusion of depth."
The two layers isn't to produce a stereoscopic effect, they're an interface feature. The demo I saw was a guy using Windows with this device. The screen was touch sensitive and he could drag windows around with his finger and then push it into the background layer. You could get a lot more things on the screen with this device because the added layer gave you something to focus on.
They weren't marketing it as a 'watch tv in 3D!' gadget like everybody else, they were marketing it as a practical interface to Windows. (I think I remember the rep saying it'd work on any os, the demo was Windows though.)
Unfortunately, the article that Slashdot posted was misleading by calling it '3D'. It would be better to describe it as 'dual monitors with the form factor of only one monitor.'
Just to make a point, don't pass judgement on this device until you actually see it in practice. I was skeptical of it too until I saw the demonstration. Compared to the '3D Tvs' they had around the show, this thing was by far the clearest. The 'stereoscopic' monitors they had around the show floor were headache inducing. The slightest movement and everything would warble a bit. At least this particular monitor stayed clear.
The effect is surprisingly good. I saw one of these at Siggraph (or a variant of it), and not only was the depth effect pretty nice, but it had a nice interface too.
The one I used was touch sensitive and you could drag windows into the background layer. I remember thinking from the demo I had that I'd have no trouble making use of both layers.
I got to see other '3D' displays at Siggraph, and they were PATHETIC. Either the 3D effect required a little bit of imagination (i.e. it was distorted), or it required glasses. The two layer approach, though its only 2 layers, was very clean and didn't cause a headache.
I'd easily take it over the other '3D' displays they had, with the plus side that it is touch sensitive too.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh come ON! Is the point of what I said that obscure? In the parent post I was trying to find info about Tesla, and above is an excerpt from a web page that I found!! It's because of information like that that I wanted to find objective information.
I did NOT post that to wind anybody up or to ruin Tesla's name, I posted it to show people the type of info I was *not* hunting for.
Troll. *hrumph* "MS rules and Linux sux". -- there, now you can mod me down as a troll.
Here's an excerpt of a supposedly true story about Tesla, now you know why I'm looking for objective data:
"After his death in 1943, his TeslaScope interplanetary communication device was turned on at the home of a friend in Canada, and the assembled group heard the Commander of an Alien vessel, explain the true hidden facts behind Tesla's fantastic 87 year life. Tesla apparently didn't discover until fairly late in his life, that he himself was an Alien, who had been left on Earth as a baby to help the people of the Earth evolve through the use of his inventive genius. From early childhood it was clear that he was quite different and odd compared to more "normal" Earth humans. The Commander mentioned that they had attended Tesla's funeral, and they had simply blurred all the photographs so that there would be no record of their attendance."
It'd be nice to read an objective account of Telsa. My initial searches of Tesla revealed a lot of people are far more concerned with 'conspiracy theories' than actual facts of what happened.
From what I can tell, Tesla did a TON of work involving electricity and fields etc, but Edison seems far more well rounded.
Can anybody help me out? Where can I find more objective information?
Err wouldn't the password thing have happened with ANY OS? Sounds more like you should be mad at Dell than at Microsoft.
I bet Edison's response to this would be along the lines of "If you're not solving the right problem, you're not solving anything."
Did I skip over a paragraph or something in the article that said Edison was the only guy to ever invent stuff?
You must be a total idiot if you can't even install Windows.
heh I thought this was amusing. Offtopic maybe.
Obviously you're not an AMD owner...
Wasn't it low-res/high capacity crap? Not that I'm claiming to be fully versed on VHS vs Beta, but I do remember somebody saying that Beta tapes could only record like an hours worth but VHS could do up to 6.
In any case, the demand for MP3 is being fueled by the sheer numbers of songs for it. If Ogg is so much better, then what is inhibiting is content for it.
The point of my comment is to expose the serious hole in the CPBTPA (sp?). Yes, technically you'd owe the copyright owner royalties. The point I was making is that increasing demand for music by decreasing the abililty to play it would spawn some creative solutions.
It is up to the copyright owner to defend his copyright. If people are abusing it, he has a TON of legal recourses to take, including the overly-broad DMCA.
If laws are passed to prevent computers from being able to do anything misuse copyright, then I want a law passed to prevent my coworkers from calling me sissy. It hurts!
I have a few arguments to make.
.WMV format, particularly if it'd come down at 150KB/s.
1.) Both the RIAA and the MPAA make products that are easy to replicate. The simple fact of the matter is that anybody can make a TV show, anybody can make a song, and anybody can publish it on the net. It wasn't like that 20 years ago, but it is like that today. The RIAA and the MPAA's business model simply hasn't changed to the new market that opened up. PC's took the place of the typewriter. The the Government step in and pass regulations that required that PC's cannot do word processing because it would destroy the typewriter market?
Music is inherantly easy to copy. This has *always* been the case. There has never been a time where music couldn't by copied in some way or another. The RIAA had every expectation that one day it'd be so easy to copy their songs that it'd grow beyond their ability to control it. This was not an overnight event. They should have R&D teams working on the next phase of products they could sell that wouldn't be so easy to duplicate. The Music Video, for example is an application they could have tapped. If part of the value of a song was the video accompanying it, then it'd greatly increase the size requirements of a song from 3 megabytes to 50 or more.
If I were a company that sold shoestrings, I wouldn't ask the government to block sales of velcro.
2.) Despite the obvious demand for compressed audio and video delivered on the web, neither the RIAA or the MPAA has made any appreciable attempts to fill this demand. For example, the RIAA has never provided me with a way to pay for an MP3 after I have downloaded it. Instead of filling the demand I have for more portable media, they tried to sue it out of existence. By supporting this style of business, you are not promoting a good economy. "It is our way, or jail for you." Does the government really want to defend the type of business practice that doesn't fill demand?
3.) When I go on vacation, I want to have movies to watch on my flight. The best way to do this is to rip the DVD to my laptop and leave the DV disk at home. I don't want to risk my $25 investment to baggage handlers at the airport. Yet the MPAA considers protecting my investment in them a violation of their license.
By giving these guys a legal means to force the hardware to reject the media I bought, you're giving them the right to extort money from me. If my disk gets damaged, I can't call them up and get a replacement media. Nope, they'll expect me to buy a new copy. Any step I take to back it up is illegal.
4.) They already have laws protecting them. They already have their innovation-stifling DMCA, why do they need to phsyically stifle innovation as well?
By physically removing my ability to rip an MP3, for example, you are essentially taking my rights away the same way that sending me to jail would. In other words, I am being pre-punished for a crime I hadn't commited yet. Worse, all crimes are JUDGED before punishment is dished out. Basically, this legislation is removing my right to a fair trial. There are plenty of legal uses for MP3's and DVD ripping technology, that has been established over and over again. Yet the RIAA and the MPAA both think that every single application of ripping is illegal. They are not judges and they cannot legally reach that conclusion.
5.) What good would it really do? Okay, so now the industry has control over what I can or cannot do with the content I bought from them. Either this will make me lose interest in all content (i.e. I wouldn't bother adding music to my entertainment budget), or what I would buy wouldn't really do me any good. The people paying for the content are being punished, but the people who are actually commiting crime will simply find new means to make it available for free. Worse, they'll be a virtual celebrity if they manage to provide it. In other words, the people doing the right thing get punished, the people commiting the crimes get a greater reward. This is not going to save either of these industries. Telling the customers they can't have what they want won't let them go very far either.
6.) Both the MPAA and the RIAA have made their content appear to be free. Turn on the radio, you hear music. Open your TV Guide and you'll find they're airing movies released a couple of years ago. Nobody has to pay for this. They just turn it on and there it is. When a consumer goes to buy a CD, they don't think he's buying a license to have a copy of the song, they think they're buying the convenience of hearing it any time they want as opposed to waiting for it to appear on the radio. Consider for a moment the ramifications of what I am saying: How can the RIAA expect people to pay $18 for a collection of songs on a CD when it's the song on the radio they really want to hear over and over again? How can the average consumer have any idea what a song costs to own? At least at the movie theater, you have to pay $8 to go see it. That isn't the case with TV or with Radio. If somebody runs across the ability to download a TV show off the net, how can they be expected to not think it's free?
It seems to me that what these industries had two good options available to them:
a.) Make their content available for free on the web with ad revenue, just like TV. This technology has been around since 1998. The bandwidth needed to do that has been around since 2000.
b.) Make the shows available to purchase on-line. I'd happily pay $25 for a season of That 70's show in
At the very least, they should inform people. VHS tapes have an FBI warning that come up, why doesn't TV if it's such a big deal not to distribute it?
7.) Wouldn't this stifle flow of information? What if I can't watch a news story that happened in Florida? (Hint: I'm not in Florida.) Some TV Stations may stream their content over the web if the technology prevents people from re-distributing it. The moment that inhibits me from watching a news story, it's censoring information from me.
Anyway, these are my reasons. Feel free to alter them however you see fit. Anything to help prevent this stupid legislation from getting through.
"We don't want a new format now, especially if it's more restrictive in how we can play it."
This was suggested as a solution for the RIAA, not the consumer. I would MUCH RATHER they use a more restrictive medium than try to make PC's restricted. At least when they sink, they won't take my animation job with them.
"How is this an improvement on simulated translucency with a normal LCD screen? I'm not trying to be negative -- just trying to understand. Maybe I need more caffeine today."
The screen I saw (just a point: I'm not sure if it's the same one in the article or not...) had about an inch or so distance between the foreground and background layer. This was enough distance that your eyes could focus in on one layer and focus out the other. That's the uniqueness of the monitor that cannot be simulated on one screen.
The foreground layer could be opaque or transparent. In the demo I saw, you could see through parts of Calculator.exe, but text on it WANST transparent. In other words, it was more like having an alpha channel for the foreground window as opposed to simply making it transparent.
It wasnt entirely clear how the transparency color was chosen, but I can tell you that the demo wasn't confusing. I wish I had a clearer memory of it from when I was at Siggraph so I could describe it in more detail. I was very impressed, though.
" Anyway, no offense meant. Nice sparring with you."
:) G'day!
Same.
BTW, you should listen to Weird Al sometime.
Did you read the part where I said this:
"Garage bands could easily do a nice rendition of the song that'd be worth listening to."
I never ever said they could duplicate it exactly. I said they could do a new rendition of the same song.
"Your analogy makes it sound like the recording industry's interest is in blocking fair use situations--the recording industry could care less about fair use situations"
Not exactly. Here's what I said:
"It'd be like Coca Cola making their drinks evaporate moments after they leave the can, that way nobody could pour the coke into a cup and sell it to somebody else."
The RIAA says you have to listen to the CD, you cannot listen to it off of anything but that. THAT was the point of my analogy.
You're right, they don't care about fair use. They're counting what people do with fair use as lost revenue. That's what's wrong.
The funny thing is, I don't think they care about anybody having 15 gigs of MP3s. I think they're concerned about not being able to sell their $18 garbage disks anymore because people want individual songs. They're just using 'piracy' as a way to get the government involved. Frankly, I think the Gov't has no business trying to pass laws to 'save' a business that creates works that are so easy to recreate. All of the copy protection in the world can't stop a garage band from re-singing and recording the song.
If the RIAA has any concern about people paying for what they have downloaded, they'd provide us with a means to pay for what we have. I don't think anybody would buy an $18 CD just because they downloaded a song they heard on the radio.
"I wasn't trying to be rude, nor am I trying to prove myself intelligent, but can't you take some valid criticism?"
I think I read your response in the wrong tone. I apologize. I get a large amount of flack here because I don't hate MS as much as everybody else. Heh.
"The original poster said that he has 15GB of music, of which less than one-fifth was actually bought and paid for. That's just being dishonest."
And how exactly is he supposed to pay for it? If I download Wil Smith singing the 'Men In Black' song, how am I supposed to pay for that? Buy the CD? Uh, no. That is *one* song. The soundtrack to Men in Black is a collection of songs.
If somebody doesnt pay for their MP3 collection, it's because the RIAA isn't providing a means to pay for it. If the RIAA would say 'here is what each song is worth', and provided that each song is fairly priced (I.e. the sum of all the songs on the CD shall not exceed the cost of the CD.), then I'd be happy to send a list of what I have to the RIAA and recieve a bill.
What customers want is to buy the songs individually. At least that's what I want. I don't know anybody that downloads 'albums', just songs.
Technically, if you're downloading individual songs, then the Record Industry isn't losing anything. Since all they sell are the whole albums, then technically they aren't hurt until somebody downloads an entire CD. I bet that doesn't happen NEAR as often in the illegal sense. (i.e. somebody replacing an album of a CD that was destroyed...)
I definitely wouldn't recommend one for my dad, but the one my boss has is pretty cool. I'm envious of him!
He has a wireless card hooked up to it and browsing around the internet works exactly like you'd expect. Unlike PocketPc, which is sllooooowwwww.
The weight and the dimensions of the device are fine. It may be big compared to a Palm, but it is easily smaller and lighter than any PocketPC.
I do have one concern about putting it in my pocket, though. The lower section of it slides out to reveal the keyboard. Im concerned that too much movement in my pocket (uh.. heh heh) would 'derail' it so that it doesn't slide easily anymore. I had an olympus digital camera that was similar, and that's what happened to it.
"Will it have an animated piece of fecal matter called "captain's log"?"
You're surprisingly close. I found a cartoon called 'Tripping the Rift' on Kazaa, heh it was very funny. You should hunt that down and watch it!
One little concern tho, the cartoon was a little too adult oriented, they'd have to soften it a bit for TV.
"The RIAA is in the same position the book-producing monks were in after Gutenberg's press was invented..."
You bring up an interesting point, what about books? One thing that I really like about the book industry (is that an industry, heh) is that they have embraced technology and have released 'e-versions' of some books, and they're cheap!
They didn't fall due to horrific piracy. You'd think the RIAA would have noticed that.
(yeah yeah, I know it's not quite the same. I think the average consumer is honest and will pay for what he acquires in most cases.)
"I've seen the monitor before. The effect isn't impressive. It basically looks like what you'd expect - one lcd layer on top of another, will little illusion of depth."
The two layers isn't to produce a stereoscopic effect, they're an interface feature. The demo I saw was a guy using Windows with this device. The screen was touch sensitive and he could drag windows around with his finger and then push it into the background layer. You could get a lot more things on the screen with this device because the added layer gave you something to focus on.
They weren't marketing it as a 'watch tv in 3D!' gadget like everybody else, they were marketing it as a practical interface to Windows. (I think I remember the rep saying it'd work on any os, the demo was Windows though.)
Unfortunately, the article that Slashdot posted was misleading by calling it '3D'. It would be better to describe it as 'dual monitors with the form factor of only one monitor.'
Just to make a point, don't pass judgement on this device until you actually see it in practice. I was skeptical of it too until I saw the demonstration. Compared to the '3D Tvs' they had around the show, this thing was by far the clearest. The 'stereoscopic' monitors they had around the show floor were headache inducing. The slightest movement and everything would warble a bit. At least this particular monitor stayed clear.
The effect is surprisingly good. I saw one of these at Siggraph (or a variant of it), and not only was the depth effect pretty nice, but it had a nice interface too.
The one I used was touch sensitive and you could drag windows into the background layer. I remember thinking from the demo I had that I'd have no trouble making use of both layers.
I got to see other '3D' displays at Siggraph, and they were PATHETIC. Either the 3D effect required a little bit of imagination (i.e. it was distorted), or it required glasses. The two layer approach, though its only 2 layers, was very clean and didn't cause a headache.
I'd easily take it over the other '3D' displays they had, with the plus side that it is touch sensitive too.