Emergent emotions?
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I had a thought a while back that the more complex my computer got, the moodier it got. It seemed that some computers I had were very enthusiastic, and some just hated their jobs and performed sluggishly.
Some could attribute this to hardware configuration problems, and that would likely be true. But it was interesting to me that Windows itself changes as it grows. Every change in my computer makes it a little different, and I'm starting to notice. I can even tell the difference between two installs of Windows on the same machine, even though they look virtually the same.
What I think is happening is that each component changes the complexity of the overall system. If that component has an issue (i.e. bad driver or maybe misconfigured), then it adds a little spark of personality to the computer. When enough of these little quirks add up, my computer feels different than other people's computers.
This yields an interesting question. If computers get more complex, will a rudementary set of 'emotions' evolve? They may not be emotions in the sense that they cry if you switch to a Mac, but maybe emotions in the sense that the computers have moods? What if your computer's performance was tied to bandwidth on the internet, and a congested network bogs the computer? What if you're running a laptop off a battery, and the computer gets 'tired' as it wears down? What if you're running a screensaver that makes it 'daydream.'?
Again, these aren't the same type of emotions or moods that people feel, but it is interesting that the more complex a computer gets, the more we can personify it.
"Sorry but a pda doesn't need to play mpeg video, display in 32 bit color, and have 3d accelerated OpenGl support."
The company I work for wants these features. They're using PocketPC's as an interface for a bigger device, and to be able to send down MPEG data to play back would be incredibly useful.
So yes, for us a PDA does need to have all the features you just described. It also needs to have wireless connectivity and long battery life. Our application is unusual and wouldn't be applied to consumers. (Today) But the point i'm making is that it is useful if you have the application for it.
The reason that it's all just 'a gimmick' is because for the consumer, the need isn't there, YET. I'm looking forward to the day where my PocketPC can wirelessly connect to the internet and watch Video on Demand. The foundation blocks are already starting! Recently there was an article talking about 802.11 at airports. When that happens, I'll be able to use my PDA to get CNN video updates while I'm waiting for my plane.
That's just one idea. Down the road as more components go into place, I can see the PDA becoming an awesome entertainment device.
The good news for you, though, is that the competition in the market is providing you the alternative you want. The cheap, does what ya need it to PDA. I don't think those will ever disappear. There's nothing wrong, though, with releasing a product with a lot of features. It's not Microsoft's fault that there isn't a lot of content being taken advantage of on the PocketPC yet.
Megahertz on a SH-4 are different than the MHZ on a Pentium class chip. Now I'll tell you right now that I know jack about processors, but it is my understanding that the SH4 is more optimized than a general purpose PC.
I could easily be wrong about this, but I have a feeling that I'm at least partially right.
Heh it'd be interesting if they found a way to use the geometry processor on the graphics chip to help it out.
I phrased that badly. The thought in my mind was that commercials would be inserted in by an ad server, so watching a 2 year old ep of Enterprise would still give you current commercials. The thinking was that if somebody becomes a fan of the show in the middle of it's run, then they can go back and watch the original eps and see new ads. This was my answer to the syndiation question that came up.
Not easily. Both Real and Microsoft do a pretty good job of sending only the data needed and flushing the rest. It may be possible eventually to hack a tool that'll capture it, but to the best of my knowledge it cannot be done today.
They both made substantial engineering investments in making it really difficult to do that.
Even if the tool did exist, they make it more trouble than it's worth for the average person to do something about it. There's still the matter of editing the commercials out, too. If somebody wants to sit down, watch the whole thing, make note of when the commercials are, convert the format into something they can edit, perform the edit, recompress/rebuild into a file they can use, and then make it publically available, then they can have at it. I'm willing to bet that the # of people willing to do this won't be that high when most people can just click and play.
That's the whole point of the demographic profiling that I mentioned in my original post. If I put in my zip code, then they know exactly where I live and can give me localized ads.
AT&T Broadband, for example, is my provider. If they were to host one of these servers and get content for me to watch, they'd definitely send me down local ads just like they do with my cable.
I don't think this is a problem in terms of implementation, but I do agree that the chicken and the egg theory applies, like you said.
I agree that the studios have over-valued their content. You've got to wonder, though, what Lucas got when they aired Episode 1 on Fox not too long ago. A similar deal could be made with the website too. Instead of having one grande website, you have a bunch scattered around the country. Maybe they have a scifi-server that's in your area that shows a bunch of your favorite shows. They show you fewer ads, but they're targeted to scifi stuff in general. They pay the studio for use of the shows to drive their ad model, just like TV studios do now.
In essence, it'd be using the web to transmit content instead of using the airwaves/cable/satellite, the main advantage being video on demand, and highly focused demographics.
Makes you wonder why TV Stations aren't trying this now. As it is, I find being able to get the news streamable from around the country is very useful. Now entertain me with it!
"The main problem there is that you kill most of your syndication potential then, and from what I've read, most shows don't make a profit when they first run, they actually loose money, but syndication more than makes up for it later."
This is an interesting point. I think syndication would work too. I'll use Babylon 5 as an example. Here's a show that is an ongoing story. If you come in on the middle of it, you're likely to get lost. If people insist it's a good show then, then you might be interested in watching the first few episodes. The website would have all these episodes ready to stream, so you could click through the first couple and make a decision. The whole time, you're still getting fresh ads served down to you.
If anything, this improves syndication because people watching reruns from it can pick their own starting point, something that's hard to do nowadays. I had to wait nearly 3 months for Quantum Leap to start over again. I would have sat through any commercials they wanted me to watch in order to see a particular episode.
"Of course, if someone can download shows to his hard drive, edit out the commercials, and post them to the net, then this business model breaks down - just like all other business models do, in the face of free digital copying. How do you make money selling content (or giving it away with commercials in it), when anyone can get it for free (or with the commercials edited out)?"
I said streaming, not downloading. If the site stays up for long enough, then most people won't worry about finding a no commercials version. (If they do, it means the ads are too intrusive, and that's something the broadcast company can control.)
If I can just go to a site, click on a link, and it immediately starts coming down to watch, then it's already much better than using a file sharing program where you have to download the entire file from sometimes flakey connections.
If the networks do this right, there won't be a need for downloading it to keep. A few people might do it just for the heck of it, but I betcha most people wouldn't. Personally, I'd rather watch the ads version if I can get it to start right away, then wait for a file to come down. In the days of instant gratification, I think the majority of the people would understand that view.
"Very bad idea! What if the advert contains a time limited offer? A product that is no longer available? A product that has since been proven to cause cancer in chipmunks?"
"Then, what they do, is when the server streams down the show, it inserts in ads targeted to my demographic at the same time that the original broadcast aird commercials" -- what I said was that it inserts the ads, meaning it happens when you go view it from their site.
I'm not talking about downloading the video file, I'm talking about STREAMING it. They can insert whatever ads they want, whenever they want.
Until you start using IE, it doesn't create a vulnerability. You could immediately go get Netscape or Opera and boom, no more need for IE. Even if it is part of the OS, until you go to the internet with it, it's not much of a vulnerability.
Should it be better out of the box? Certainly!! But I consider that a bug of IE rather than a bug in the OS, even if the OS is dependent on it.
Television networks have a way to fight it...
on
The Napsterization of TV
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The main damage the television networks suffer from the 'Napsterization of TV' is the commercial time. Most of the TV shows you find on programs like Morpheus have the commercials edited out. I can only speculate on the reasoning, but my guess is that they are edited out to make the download time shorter.
How could Television networks fight this? It's simple: Provide streaming content from their website. Let's say that UPN provided a streaming version of Enterprise, for example. They could release it 24 hours after the show is initially aired. (This way, the original broadcast still has commercial/timeslot value) The requirement is that I have to fill out information about myself so they can target ads to me. Then, what they do, is when the server streams down the show, it inserts in ads targeted to my demographic at the same time that the original broadcast aird commercials.
This provides an interesting new twist to the Ad model. Not only is the demographic more far reaching, but it's no longer tied to a time-slot. If somebody discovers Enterprise 2 years into the show's run, they'll likely go back and watch the first episodes to get up to speed. This means that those commercials get aired again.
Current streaming technologies require several seconds of buffering, so it isn't worth trying to skip past them. And since I can start watching immediately, I have no need or desire to get them on a file sharing program.
With this model, not only could the networks minimize 'damage' done by these programs, but they'd also provide a potentially profitable service that works even better.
Heck, if they wanted to make even more money off it, they could charge a $2 fee to see an even higher quality stream of the video, or something like that. I wouldn't care about that for the Drew Carrey show, but I'd likely pay that to see a higher quality version of Enterprise since the sets and effects are so much more interesting to look at.
Heh I said Dreamcast, not PS2. If I were to buy a PS2 for that purpose, by the time it gets cheap enough I'll have a DVD burner. My understanding is that it won't be long before I can get a DVD burner that makes DVD's playable on a DVD player. I'll probably want to use DivX at that point since I can stuff a lot more onto a DVD than I could with MPEG2.
It's hard to predict what other uses I'll find for it, though. I like the idea of playing MAME on my Dreamcast. It'll likely run better on the PS2, though.
Once Linux is sucessfully ported to PS2 and easy to burn discs for, then the life of the PS2 is extended for me. When they start bombing them out for $50 - $100, then I'll be able to do something with it after the games get old.
Yah I'm concerned about that too. Frankly, I'll be happy if it does 320 by 240 at 30fps decently. One of these days I'd like to set up a computer to act as a PVR, and I think I can encode to DivX with it.
My plan is to get 4 hours on a CD, so 320 by 240 is probably the candidate. It's not quite VHS quality, but it's certainly watchable.
I like the idea of porting Linux to my Dreamcast because it gives it new life. For example, I want to be able to burn CD's of DIVX-compressed movies and play them back on my Dreamcast, so I can watch them on my TV w/o need of having a computer attached.
If first they port Linux to the DC (which I think has been done...), then they port DivX to the DC, then those are the building blocks I need to do this. Then, they can port Linux to the PS2, and then this code at some point will be able to run on it. Suddenly my extinct game machine has a new purpose.
If anything, it's a fun project. Practicality comes later.
"What point would there be to making it smaller other than to make it handheld or otherwise wearable? And why would you want to make a medium that requires a user's full attention wearable? Movies aren't like CD audio, which a fellow can listen to while walking down the street."
For a few reasons:
1.) I want it to fit in my pocket. I need a really big pocket to fit a CD player, but halve the size and now you're talking.
2.) I can carry a bunch of disks with me as well as the drive. Again, this has to fit in my pocket. Why? Because I want to take this with me when I travel.
3.) Less likely to skip during a bumpy trip. This, of course, is theoretical, but I'm pretty sure that since the disks are a lot smaller, they are less likely to wobble around when it gets bumpy. This is another must-have when travelling.
I never said anything about wearable, I just want more portability. I have RSI so my wrists hurt when carrying something like a heavy book around, so I want my devices to be pocket sized so I don't have to hold them. Today I can buy a portable DVD player, but it doesn't fit in my pocket.
"The box for a DOL disc is the same size as the box for a DVD. (DOL discs are the Nintendo GameCube's optical medium.) This shows that DVDs are already "portable enough" in that you can easily move them from one DVD player to another."
I honestly don't follow this comment at all. If you are talking about the box that the disc comes in, aka the box that is sold on the shelf, then that has nothing to do with the discs being 'portable enough.' It has to do consumers recognizing that Game Cube games are just as good as PS2 or XBOX games. Nintendo could very easily fit a GCN game into a Game Boy Advance box, but that'd likely confuse people into thinking that they're getting a GBA game instead.
If you mean the CD case for these discs, that's not very conclusive either. I want these things to fit in my pocket without concern of breaking them. That is not an unreasonable desire. Nobody has ever complained about technology making things smaller as long as the interface is good.
I'm pretty confident that the album business model will collapse in the next few years. The main problem is that the MPAA and the RIAA aren't flexible enough to provide formats that we, the consumers, want.
For example, I want to buy lower quality versions of movies on a DVD format like that used on the Game Cube. It'd require using a lossier format like DivX, but it means the discs are more portable. Less bulkier, and the quality loss would be acceptable for this portability.
Too bad they're not more open to these ideas. They'd rather sue me for implementing this myself.
These tapes store enough to the entire run of most TV shows on one tape. If the MPAA was smart, they'd make it so I could buy an entire series on one tape for like $150 -- $200.
I know they'll never do this, but if they did, it'd negate the need to use Morpheus/Kazaa/Clone. I think the main reason that people do download TV shows from it is that they cannot be acquired otherwise. If they made the whole series avaialable, well then I'd understand their case to prevent Morphues from being used legally.
Spam affects me because it uses my resources and can potentially make me miss an important mesasge. If I can block it, then it's no longer affecting me.
I cant stop people from sending spam, but I can discourage their using it. If everybody in the world adopted a solution along the lines of 'you need to authenticate before I even open the email', then the value of spam goes way down.
For me, this is an 'out of sight, out of mind' experience.
1.) Traffic. Email traffic would skyrocket if every first-time communication required several back-and-forth messages.
Would there be a burst in traffic? Possibly. It wouldn't be sudden, though. It's not like everybody around the world would suddenly download and install the client heh. As I said, this would be an email client. The light list of people that I'd want to hear from would generate a very small amount of email traffic. As a matter of fact, I don't think the ISP would even notice it.
2.) Arms race. Do you really think spammers wouldn't be able to crack this? It's no more difficult a problem than OCR, and that's pretty good already.
Not necessarily. This is really simple, actually. The email could be as simple as a question:
'How many smiley faces are flipping you off in this image?' And the image is less than a kilobyte large. Hell, they could do it with ASCII for all I care. The question could be determined by the client program. A user could easily set up his own new question if he wants. He could point to a picture of his family and ask what color his grandmother's hair is. As long as everybody has the ability to change what their question is, then there's no possible way for spammers to write hack programs to answer the questions automatically. If they don't answer the question properly, they can't request authorization. If they can't request authorization, then they can't get email to you. It'll just get deleted. The pic doesnt have to be sent as an attachment either, it could just be a hyperlink to an image on a webserver. In that case, you're paying for your own bandwidth.
As for bandwidth, the only abusers of the bandwidth would be the spammers. If their bandwidth usage suddenly goes way up (i.e. nearly every email they send out gets an email back ), then suddenly the ISP's have incentive to shut these guys down. False return addresses mean they may not get those messages, but if they don't fill out the authorization form, they don't get to you anyway.
If you were to get so much spam that you'd be sending out 100 authentication messages a day, then there could be steps taken there too. Filters could be applied to get rid of most of these messages. At this point, it's in your ISP's interest to help you here. That's an extreme scenario though. If I ever sent out so much email that my provider got shitty with me, I'd probably go hunting for a new address.
3.) Power. If you sent a different JPG every time, you'd need to generate it somehow, or keep a store of them. This means either more CPU alloted to your mail processing, or more storage space. Certainly more bandwidth.
You don't necessarily have to send a different.JPG every time, you could just cycle through them once a week. (This idea is still evolving in my head, btw.) Even if it did, so what? My computer can easily handle rendering a small image (150 by 15) and JPEG/GIF encoding it. My cheapy Compaq 300mhz laptop could handle that, let alone my Athlon desktop.
None of your arguments successfully prove that my idea wouldn't work. Adding an authentication system to my email client would not be difficult. As a matter of fact the ground tools are already there:
1.) Auto responder (remember those out-of-office messages?)
2.) Contact list (remembers people who are authenticated.)
3.) Some sort of filtering system. (rules wizard in Outlook.)
Hmm... I wonder if Outlook 2000 has VB App support. I might be able to implement something like this for people to play with.
I don't rely on e-mail much anymore, just at work. I have Trillian to keep in touch with my friends. I like it because people have to get my authorization to see me on-line. Why can't email act like this? Heck, it'd only require a client really. It works like this:
Somebody sends an email, it sits on the mailserver. The new mail client checks the from field of the address and attempts to match it up to its address book. If it finds it, the mail goes through. If not, then a mail is sent back saying "You are not authorized to send this mail. Would you like to acquire authorization? Then please send a message back with exacctly this in the Subject 'INSERT PASSWORD HERE'." (that part is an image like a.JPG file or a.GIF file, preventing spammers from writing a script to automatically seek authorization.) Then, once it's sent, I get a message on my mail client saying "So and so has requested authorization", alot like ICQ. If I authorize it, they're good to go. If I deny it, then I dont recieve any more messages from them.
I'd get this client installed today if it were available. Right now I manually add filters to put people I really want to hear from in a different folder. Everything else sits out in the inbox until I do a cleansing. I'm starting to see patterns in what I'm getting too. I think I'm going to filter the words diploma, enlarge, and celebrity.
Why else would they be suing for such a frivolous reason? Do they honestly think that I'm going to confuse Goldfinger with Goldmember? Austin Powers is undoubtedly a very popular character, but today he still doesn't hold a candle to the popularity of James Bond. Though he may be closer in people's minds today (more recent really), in the long term it's likely that James Bond will survive the test of time. It has already, really. They could both make out like bandits in a strategy like that, and not get into all this legal B.S..
I guess another option is that MGM is thinking "Hmm... these guys are going to have a hit on their hands. I bet we can make really good money off this movie if we get a settlement out of them...". That's just plain evil. This type of legal crap is silly. It'd be far better if the next James Bond film took a poke at Austin Powers instead. Imagine if it was a ritual for an Austin Power movie to come out after every James Bond movie, and each on is slinging mud at each other. Now that would be far funnier. Now an Austin Powers fan would watch James Bond, and the other way around. (It probably happens anyway, but I think it's a fun idea.)
So either MGM thinks I'm a total moron who can't distinguish an over the top parody from James Bond, or MGM is illegitimately suing for the title. I tell you what, it's enough for me to boycott any more James Bond films.
Slashdot Mirror
I had a thought a while back that the more complex my computer got, the moodier it got. It seemed that some computers I had were very enthusiastic, and some just hated their jobs and performed sluggishly.
Some could attribute this to hardware configuration problems, and that would likely be true. But it was interesting to me that Windows itself changes as it grows. Every change in my computer makes it a little different, and I'm starting to notice. I can even tell the difference between two installs of Windows on the same machine, even though they look virtually the same.
What I think is happening is that each component changes the complexity of the overall system. If that component has an issue (i.e. bad driver or maybe misconfigured), then it adds a little spark of personality to the computer. When enough of these little quirks add up, my computer feels different than other people's computers.
This yields an interesting question. If computers get more complex, will a rudementary set of 'emotions' evolve? They may not be emotions in the sense that they cry if you switch to a Mac, but maybe emotions in the sense that the computers have moods? What if your computer's performance was tied to bandwidth on the internet, and a congested network bogs the computer? What if you're running a laptop off a battery, and the computer gets 'tired' as it wears down? What if you're running a screensaver that makes it 'daydream.'?
Again, these aren't the same type of emotions or moods that people feel, but it is interesting that the more complex a computer gets, the more we can personify it.
"Sorry but a pda doesn't need to play mpeg video, display in 32 bit color, and have 3d accelerated OpenGl support."
The company I work for wants these features. They're using PocketPC's as an interface for a bigger device, and to be able to send down MPEG data to play back would be incredibly useful.
So yes, for us a PDA does need to have all the features you just described. It also needs to have wireless connectivity and long battery life. Our application is unusual and wouldn't be applied to consumers. (Today) But the point i'm making is that it is useful if you have the application for it.
The reason that it's all just 'a gimmick' is because for the consumer, the need isn't there, YET. I'm looking forward to the day where my PocketPC can wirelessly connect to the internet and watch Video on Demand. The foundation blocks are already starting! Recently there was an article talking about 802.11 at airports. When that happens, I'll be able to use my PDA to get CNN video updates while I'm waiting for my plane.
That's just one idea. Down the road as more components go into place, I can see the PDA becoming an awesome entertainment device.
The good news for you, though, is that the competition in the market is providing you the alternative you want. The cheap, does what ya need it to PDA. I don't think those will ever disappear. There's nothing wrong, though, with releasing a product with a lot of features. It's not Microsoft's fault that there isn't a lot of content being taken advantage of on the PocketPC yet.
Megahertz on a SH-4 are different than the MHZ on a Pentium class chip. Now I'll tell you right now that I know jack about processors, but it is my understanding that the SH4 is more optimized than a general purpose PC.
I could easily be wrong about this, but I have a feeling that I'm at least partially right.
Heh it'd be interesting if they found a way to use the geometry processor on the graphics chip to help it out.
I phrased that badly. The thought in my mind was that commercials would be inserted in by an ad server, so watching a 2 year old ep of Enterprise would still give you current commercials. The thinking was that if somebody becomes a fan of the show in the middle of it's run, then they can go back and watch the original eps and see new ads. This was my answer to the syndiation question that came up.
Can somebody explain to me how this got modded down due to flaimbait? What did I say that was so inflammatory? *totally dumbfounded*
Not easily. Both Real and Microsoft do a pretty good job of sending only the data needed and flushing the rest. It may be possible eventually to hack a tool that'll capture it, but to the best of my knowledge it cannot be done today.
They both made substantial engineering investments in making it really difficult to do that.
Even if the tool did exist, they make it more trouble than it's worth for the average person to do something about it. There's still the matter of editing the commercials out, too. If somebody wants to sit down, watch the whole thing, make note of when the commercials are, convert the format into something they can edit, perform the edit, recompress/rebuild into a file they can use, and then make it publically available, then they can have at it. I'm willing to bet that the # of people willing to do this won't be that high when most people can just click and play.
I go to www.intertainer.tv and watch stuff pretty frequently. Never had a prob. I think it's just your connection. :)
That's the whole point of the demographic profiling that I mentioned in my original post. If I put in my zip code, then they know exactly where I live and can give me localized ads.
AT&T Broadband, for example, is my provider. If they were to host one of these servers and get content for me to watch, they'd definitely send me down local ads just like they do with my cable.
I don't think this is a problem in terms of implementation, but I do agree that the chicken and the egg theory applies, like you said.
I agree that the studios have over-valued their content. You've got to wonder, though, what Lucas got when they aired Episode 1 on Fox not too long ago. A similar deal could be made with the website too. Instead of having one grande website, you have a bunch scattered around the country. Maybe they have a scifi-server that's in your area that shows a bunch of your favorite shows. They show you fewer ads, but they're targeted to scifi stuff in general. They pay the studio for use of the shows to drive their ad model, just like TV studios do now.
In essence, it'd be using the web to transmit content instead of using the airwaves/cable/satellite, the main advantage being video on demand, and highly focused demographics.
Makes you wonder why TV Stations aren't trying this now. As it is, I find being able to get the news streamable from around the country is very useful. Now entertain me with it!
"The main problem there is that you kill most of your syndication potential then, and from what I've read, most shows don't make a profit when they first run, they actually loose money, but syndication more than makes up for it later."
This is an interesting point. I think syndication would work too. I'll use Babylon 5 as an example. Here's a show that is an ongoing story. If you come in on the middle of it, you're likely to get lost. If people insist it's a good show then, then you might be interested in watching the first few episodes. The website would have all these episodes ready to stream, so you could click through the first couple and make a decision. The whole time, you're still getting fresh ads served down to you.
If anything, this improves syndication because people watching reruns from it can pick their own starting point, something that's hard to do nowadays. I had to wait nearly 3 months for Quantum Leap to start over again. I would have sat through any commercials they wanted me to watch in order to see a particular episode.
"Of course, if someone can download shows to his hard drive, edit out the commercials, and post them to the net, then this business model breaks down - just like all other business models do, in the face of free digital copying. How do you make money selling content (or giving it away with commercials in it), when anyone can get it for free (or with the commercials edited out)?"
I said streaming, not downloading. If the site stays up for long enough, then most people won't worry about finding a no commercials version. (If they do, it means the ads are too intrusive, and that's something the broadcast company can control.)
If I can just go to a site, click on a link, and it immediately starts coming down to watch, then it's already much better than using a file sharing program where you have to download the entire file from sometimes flakey connections.
If the networks do this right, there won't be a need for downloading it to keep. A few people might do it just for the heck of it, but I betcha most people wouldn't. Personally, I'd rather watch the ads version if I can get it to start right away, then wait for a file to come down. In the days of instant gratification, I think the majority of the people would understand that view.
"Very bad idea! What if the advert contains a time limited offer? A product that is no longer available? A product that has since been proven to cause cancer in chipmunks?"
"Then, what they do, is when the server streams down the show, it inserts in ads targeted to my demographic at the same time that the original broadcast aird commercials" -- what I said was that it inserts the ads, meaning it happens when you go view it from their site.
I'm not talking about downloading the video file, I'm talking about STREAMING it. They can insert whatever ads they want, whenever they want.
Heh wasn't there a Slashdot posting saying that ad placement doesn't work? *G*
Until you start using IE, it doesn't create a vulnerability. You could immediately go get Netscape or Opera and boom, no more need for IE. Even if it is part of the OS, until you go to the internet with it, it's not much of a vulnerability.
Should it be better out of the box? Certainly!! But I consider that a bug of IE rather than a bug in the OS, even if the OS is dependent on it.
The main damage the television networks suffer from the 'Napsterization of TV' is the commercial time. Most of the TV shows you find on programs like Morpheus have the commercials edited out. I can only speculate on the reasoning, but my guess is that they are edited out to make the download time shorter.
How could Television networks fight this? It's simple: Provide streaming content from their website. Let's say that UPN provided a streaming version of Enterprise, for example. They could release it 24 hours after the show is initially aired. (This way, the original broadcast still has commercial/timeslot value) The requirement is that I have to fill out information about myself so they can target ads to me. Then, what they do, is when the server streams down the show, it inserts in ads targeted to my demographic at the same time that the original broadcast aird commercials.
This provides an interesting new twist to the Ad model. Not only is the demographic more far reaching, but it's no longer tied to a time-slot. If somebody discovers Enterprise 2 years into the show's run, they'll likely go back and watch the first episodes to get up to speed. This means that those commercials get aired again.
Current streaming technologies require several seconds of buffering, so it isn't worth trying to skip past them. And since I can start watching immediately, I have no need or desire to get them on a file sharing program.
With this model, not only could the networks minimize 'damage' done by these programs, but they'd also provide a potentially profitable service that works even better.
Heck, if they wanted to make even more money off it, they could charge a $2 fee to see an even higher quality stream of the video, or something like that. I wouldn't care about that for the Drew Carrey show, but I'd likely pay that to see a higher quality version of Enterprise since the sets and effects are so much more interesting to look at.
Heh I said Dreamcast, not PS2. If I were to buy a PS2 for that purpose, by the time it gets cheap enough I'll have a DVD burner. My understanding is that it won't be long before I can get a DVD burner that makes DVD's playable on a DVD player. I'll probably want to use DivX at that point since I can stuff a lot more onto a DVD than I could with MPEG2.
It's hard to predict what other uses I'll find for it, though. I like the idea of playing MAME on my Dreamcast. It'll likely run better on the PS2, though.
Once Linux is sucessfully ported to PS2 and easy to burn discs for, then the life of the PS2 is extended for me. When they start bombing them out for $50 - $100, then I'll be able to do something with it after the games get old.
Yah I'm concerned about that too. Frankly, I'll be happy if it does 320 by 240 at 30fps decently. One of these days I'd like to set up a computer to act as a PVR, and I think I can encode to DivX with it.
My plan is to get 4 hours on a CD, so 320 by 240 is probably the candidate. It's not quite VHS quality, but it's certainly watchable.
I like the idea of porting Linux to my Dreamcast because it gives it new life. For example, I want to be able to burn CD's of DIVX-compressed movies and play them back on my Dreamcast, so I can watch them on my TV w/o need of having a computer attached.
If first they port Linux to the DC (which I think has been done...), then they port DivX to the DC, then those are the building blocks I need to do this. Then, they can port Linux to the PS2, and then this code at some point will be able to run on it. Suddenly my extinct game machine has a new purpose.
If anything, it's a fun project. Practicality comes later.
"What point would there be to making it smaller other than to make it handheld or otherwise wearable? And why would you want to make a medium that requires a user's full attention wearable? Movies aren't like CD audio, which a fellow can listen to while walking down the street."
For a few reasons:
1.) I want it to fit in my pocket. I need a really big pocket to fit a CD player, but halve the size and now you're talking.
2.) I can carry a bunch of disks with me as well as the drive. Again, this has to fit in my pocket. Why? Because I want to take this with me when I travel.
3.) Less likely to skip during a bumpy trip. This, of course, is theoretical, but I'm pretty sure that since the disks are a lot smaller, they are less likely to wobble around when it gets bumpy. This is another must-have when travelling.
I never said anything about wearable, I just want more portability. I have RSI so my wrists hurt when carrying something like a heavy book around, so I want my devices to be pocket sized so I don't have to hold them. Today I can buy a portable DVD player, but it doesn't fit in my pocket.
"The box for a DOL disc is the same size as the box for a DVD. (DOL discs are the Nintendo GameCube's optical medium.) This shows that DVDs are already "portable enough" in that you can easily move them from one DVD player to another."
I honestly don't follow this comment at all. If you are talking about the box that the disc comes in, aka the box that is sold on the shelf, then that has nothing to do with the discs being 'portable enough.' It has to do consumers recognizing that Game Cube games are just as good as PS2 or XBOX games. Nintendo could very easily fit a GCN game into a Game Boy Advance box, but that'd likely confuse people into thinking that they're getting a GBA game instead.
If you mean the CD case for these discs, that's not very conclusive either. I want these things to fit in my pocket without concern of breaking them. That is not an unreasonable desire. Nobody has ever complained about technology making things smaller as long as the interface is good.
I'm pretty confident that the album business model will collapse in the next few years. The main problem is that the MPAA and the RIAA aren't flexible enough to provide formats that we, the consumers, want.
For example, I want to buy lower quality versions of movies on a DVD format like that used on the Game Cube. It'd require using a lossier format like DivX, but it means the discs are more portable. Less bulkier, and the quality loss would be acceptable for this portability.
Too bad they're not more open to these ideas. They'd rather sue me for implementing this myself.
These tapes store enough to the entire run of most TV shows on one tape. If the MPAA was smart, they'd make it so I could buy an entire series on one tape for like $150 -- $200.
I know they'll never do this, but if they did, it'd negate the need to use Morpheus/Kazaa/Clone. I think the main reason that people do download TV shows from it is that they cannot be acquired otherwise. If they made the whole series avaialable, well then I'd understand their case to prevent Morphues from being used legally.
Spam affects me because it uses my resources and can potentially make me miss an important mesasge. If I can block it, then it's no longer affecting me.
I cant stop people from sending spam, but I can discourage their using it. If everybody in the world adopted a solution along the lines of 'you need to authenticate before I even open the email', then the value of spam goes way down.
For me, this is an 'out of sight, out of mind' experience.
1.) Traffic. Email traffic would skyrocket if every first-time communication required several back-and-forth messages.
.JPG every time, you could just cycle through them once a week. (This idea is still evolving in my head, btw.) Even if it did, so what? My computer can easily handle rendering a small image (150 by 15) and JPEG/GIF encoding it. My cheapy Compaq 300mhz laptop could handle that, let alone my Athlon desktop.
Would there be a burst in traffic? Possibly. It wouldn't be sudden, though. It's not like everybody around the world would suddenly download and install the client heh. As I said, this would be an email client. The light list of people that I'd want to hear from would generate a very small amount of email traffic. As a matter of fact, I don't think the ISP would even notice it.
2.) Arms race. Do you really think spammers wouldn't be able to crack this? It's no more difficult a problem than OCR, and that's pretty good already.
Not necessarily. This is really simple, actually. The email could be as simple as a question:
'How many smiley faces are flipping you off in this image?' And the image is less than a kilobyte large. Hell, they could do it with ASCII for all I care. The question could be determined by the client program. A user could easily set up his own new question if he wants. He could point to a picture of his family and ask what color his grandmother's hair is. As long as everybody has the ability to change what their question is, then there's no possible way for spammers to write hack programs to answer the questions automatically. If they don't answer the question properly, they can't request authorization. If they can't request authorization, then they can't get email to you. It'll just get deleted. The pic doesnt have to be sent as an attachment either, it could just be a hyperlink to an image on a webserver. In that case, you're paying for your own bandwidth.
As for bandwidth, the only abusers of the bandwidth would be the spammers. If their bandwidth usage suddenly goes way up (i.e. nearly every email they send out gets an email back ), then suddenly the ISP's have incentive to shut these guys down. False return addresses mean they may not get those messages, but if they don't fill out the authorization form, they don't get to you anyway.
If you were to get so much spam that you'd be sending out 100 authentication messages a day, then there could be steps taken there too. Filters could be applied to get rid of most of these messages. At this point, it's in your ISP's interest to help you here. That's an extreme scenario though. If I ever sent out so much email that my provider got shitty with me, I'd probably go hunting for a new address.
3.) Power. If you sent a different JPG every time, you'd need to generate it somehow, or keep a store of them. This means either more CPU alloted to your mail processing, or more storage space. Certainly more bandwidth.
You don't necessarily have to send a different
None of your arguments successfully prove that my idea wouldn't work. Adding an authentication system to my email client would not be difficult. As a matter of fact the ground tools are already there:
1.) Auto responder (remember those out-of-office messages?)
2.) Contact list (remembers people who are authenticated.)
3.) Some sort of filtering system. (rules wizard in Outlook.)
Hmm... I wonder if Outlook 2000 has VB App support. I might be able to implement something like this for people to play with.
I don't rely on e-mail much anymore, just at work. I have Trillian to keep in touch with my friends. I like it because people have to get my authorization to see me on-line. Why can't email act like this? Heck, it'd only require a client really. It works like this:
.JPG file or a .GIF file, preventing spammers from writing a script to automatically seek authorization.) Then, once it's sent, I get a message on my mail client saying "So and so has requested authorization", alot like ICQ. If I authorize it, they're good to go. If I deny it, then I dont recieve any more messages from them.
Somebody sends an email, it sits on the mailserver. The new mail client checks the from field of the address and attempts to match it up to its address book. If it finds it, the mail goes through. If not, then a mail is sent back saying "You are not authorized to send this mail. Would you like to acquire authorization? Then please send a message back with exacctly this in the Subject 'INSERT PASSWORD HERE'." (that part is an image like a
I'd get this client installed today if it were available. Right now I manually add filters to put people I really want to hear from in a different folder. Everything else sits out in the inbox until I do a cleansing. I'm starting to see patterns in what I'm getting too. I think I'm going to filter the words diploma, enlarge, and celebrity.
Why else would they be suing for such a frivolous reason? Do they honestly think that I'm going to confuse Goldfinger with Goldmember? Austin Powers is undoubtedly a very popular character, but today he still doesn't hold a candle to the popularity of James Bond. Though he may be closer in people's minds today (more recent really), in the long term it's likely that James Bond will survive the test of time. It has already, really. They could both make out like bandits in a strategy like that, and not get into all this legal B.S..
I guess another option is that MGM is thinking "Hmm... these guys are going to have a hit on their hands. I bet we can make really good money off this movie if we get a settlement out of them...". That's just plain evil. This type of legal crap is silly. It'd be far better if the next James Bond film took a poke at Austin Powers instead. Imagine if it was a ritual for an Austin Power movie to come out after every James Bond movie, and each on is slinging mud at each other. Now that would be far funnier. Now an Austin Powers fan would watch James Bond, and the other way around. (It probably happens anyway, but I think it's a fun idea.)
So either MGM thinks I'm a total moron who can't distinguish an over the top parody from James Bond, or MGM is illegitimately suing for the title. I tell you what, it's enough for me to boycott any more James Bond films.