So, for somebody like me, 500 charges lasts nearly a decade (assuming the battery doesn't crap out before that due to old age.)
But that's just it - they do die of old age/ Lithion Ion batteries are essentially good for two years, no matter what.
Charging, no charging, heavy/light use, no use, doesn't matter. They die in two years. The chemical reaction is constant and degrades over time.
I'm in agreement with the others in thinking that Apple should just include a damn detachable battery in the next iPod rev. That's really the solution.
I'd be willing to bet the non-removable battery has more to do with Jonathan Ives' pen-chance for 'seamless design' rather than a good technical reason.
There is a white colored rca (2 plug for use in all home audio) to iPod (aka 3.5 mm stereo plug) for sale... only $69.99 (Canadian, but still)...
Apple doesn't sell Apple-branded mini-to-RCA cords.
Not sure where you saw that but it wasn't an Apple cable. Yes they are totally guilty of absurd mark-ups (they took a page from Sony's book), but not to that extent.
Europe did it first to Spain for it's SUPPORT of the Iraq war....Not that's I'd expect Slashdot (or the BBC) to get the whole story. As much as I like Slashdot this place is definitely ultra liberal and has an agenda to go with that...
So can we agree that its incredibly stupid to discriminate based on politics, no matter what government you are?
Oh, by the way, Slashdot does not have 'an agenda'. The only pople who say things like that are.. people with an agenda, frankly. If by ultra-liberal, you mean 'very free in its thinking', then yes I would agree.
Personally, my preferred choice would be Canada, somewhere on the Canadian Shield.
Well we dropped out of the chance to have it (our Liberal Party - uh, translation for Yanks, that's more or less 'centrist' in Canada - decided that).
However I might point out that we opposed the War in Iraq as well. So it would likely be blocked, the same as France, if that is indeed what is happening.
(We sent troops and ships to Afghanistan which are still there but I bet that doesn't count.)
Besides, you set up a fusion reactor in Canada, you know what'll happen? C'mon, you must have heard about.. you know, how we are up here. Think an international consortium is going to let us peacenik dope-smoking legally-married-lesbians who-are-also-legally-topless run that thing?
Putting aside the merits of locating the project in Japan. I would love to know how not rewarding financially and ally that caused us considerable trouble is childish ?
I don't think 'childish' is the right word, it it is pretty poor politics. Your choice of the word 'reward' is interesting. Even more interesting is 'an ally that caused us considerable trouble'... so, France caused trouble for the US? Do you know how backwards that sounds to a non-American? The US exceeds the Security Council (accoring to Kofi Annan anyways) and France is 'causing trouble'?
I mean, whether you agree with the war or not, one must admit that other countries do have a valid point from time to time, eh? Or no? Maybe not.
If you think that France and Germany were operating on a purely moral plain, your'e missing the fact that they had the largest financial stakes in Saddams Iraq. Holding them accountable for their choices is just good sense.
I disagree with this statement. While I agree that France and Germany are owed the most money (with Russia owed quite a bit as well)... and I agree with the moral turpitude that those countries sometimes display... the USA definitely, positively has the 'largest financial stakes' in Iraq. They need the oil more than anybody.
Excuse me but what statistics have you read? The war was probably about a 50/50 split in the US. Where did this slim minority BS come from?
Ok, so where are your stats.
Yes the many other Islamic countries were against the war. Islam has taken over 100 countries in the world now. If they feel threatened by anyone dealing with another Islamic country, then that's life.
There are a few interesting things I'd like to point out here. First, your use of 'taken over' in reference to Islam. How many countries has Christianity 'taken over'? Why do you think the country has been captured by a religion? And which hundred countries do you suppose this has happened to? I bet you can't name a dozen.
As far as France, Russia and Germany, yes they also didn't want the war. They were supplying Saddam and were owed billions. They still are. People forget that France was making the planes that Iraq used to gas its own people. That is why there was so much pressure against it. Those countries stood to lose money they were owed if the US invaded. You people are so easily swayed by propaganda instead of looking at facts that you really piss me off.
Ah, yes. It pisses me off too, which is why I'm replying to your bad information.
France, Russia, China, the USA, and Germany have all provided military equipment to Iraq. The USA has additionally outfitted Iran and several neighbours. The Russians, Germans, and French are owed money largely for infrastructure, electrical generators, sanitation equipment, and the like. But get this straight - no one is innocent in this, and the USA is certainly, far and away, the worst offender.
The helicopters - not planes - that Saddam used to gas the Kurds were from Bell Helicopter Textron and Hughes, which are both US companies. Any planes Saddam had have been grounded (and indeed, literally buried) since the No-Fly Zone was established after Gulf War 1.
So go check out that link and educate yourself, before the next time you go spouting off about things you know nothing about.
Fuck France
Oh, you don't want to get into that. France has much more effective curses to hurl back at you.
No, if this guy REALLY wanted to impress me, he would have the 55 OS's running nested inside each other, in an emulator.
That would be impressive. It's probably been mentioned already... but this is not a bad technique. i knew a guy who ran a University web server like this, few years ago... not quite 55 OS's, but it went like this:
Old PowerMac running BeOS with SheepShaver - > which emulated Mac OS, running Virtual PC - > which emulated Windows, which ran IIS.
"Ha! Let's see it crash through three Operating Systems!"
That was the idea anyways. It was damn slow but nice thing was that when the Windows image crashed it only took 6 seconds to recover to its saved 'state'.
iPod, iTunes, SD cards, Texas Instruments graphing calculators, game consoles, and so forth all have DRM. The items that don't forcefully use DRM are the ones that sell.
That's true, but finish the thought:.. because those items don't get in my face.
I have a few of those - iPod, PS2, SD cards... and if they have DRM, I sure don't know about it. They do not seem to infringe upon my usage. I copy MP3s, JPEGs with impunity. The PS2.. well, I would like to be able to back up my games, I actually do worry about that.. but the law only says I can* back up the software, not that I must be allowed to do so.
I would submit that DRM as a concept is not the issue. All learned geeks know that a system or concept is rarely at fault but rather the implementations available. DRM is a new acronym for an old idea. This recent anti-piracy attention ou witness around you is cyclical. It comes and goes in waves. Not that its any less irritating, mind you. But my point is, the products you mention do not seriously curtail my usage in the same way as, say, Windows Media Player can.
I had to actually look up what the 'Magic Gate' logo on the front of the PS2 meant, and damned if I have ever run into the thing.
*DMCA probably negates this in practical terms.
How long will it be before someone finds a "critically critical" uber-flaw.
What I want to know is, just how badly does the regular computer-using public need to get battered, by security holes and other exploits in IE, before they finally just ditch the damn thing?
I installed Firebird for a co-worker the other day. While I was doing this I explained that they should turn on the pop-up blocker. They were astounded that this feature existed at all. I find this is a very common reaction (which, in turn, astounds me... lot of astounding going on).
I'm sure this sentiment has been posted 56739285679 times before but really.. with the next version of IE coming out with Longhorn, god knows when, are people really going to put up with several security advisories every single month for the indefinite future?
(I'm sure if I showed that same co-worker Safari or Konqueror they'd lose their shit completely. I'm not that cruel - they're stuck on Windows.)
A 3D desktop is not going to be a feasible reality until we have a feasible 3D display to draw it on. Only if/when hologram or 3D-projection displays become a reality will there be a useful case for a desktop to match; in the meantime, this just adds unnecessary complexity to the 2D desktop.
You are right, although I would submit that there are a few shades of gray between here and there, so to speak...
It is reasonable to assume that we will see the development of 'deep' displays before true 3D holographic (or whatever) display is possible and accessible to the masses. We can see some of these 2.5D displays appearing now, with the two-paned LCD trick, and a few other approaches.
While I definitely agree that the 2D display of information, combined with the 2D interaction of the mouse (X, Y) cannot break out of its inherent limitations... I do think that there is a little leeway for providing some extra information to the user, by harnessing that wetware we have for finding prey, and further extending the 3D 'trickery'.
That is contingent on having some new input hardware. This is the bit people seem to miss. Along with our now-popular 2D 'Desktop Metaphor', with the icons and menus and all that, came the mouse. The mouse enables all of this. It's logical to think we need some kind of 3D mouse (or equivalent input device) to navigate a 3D space with any dexterity whatsoever.
I do like the Panoramic Desktop idea. Were I implementing such a thing, I would actually be tempted to use two mice, one for each hand. The left mouse would pan the 'desktop camera' around a fixed 360 uber-desktop, while the right did normal pointing duty. I don't know if this would make you more productive but I can certainly see using something like that to extend my desktop beyond the normal limits.
The Looking Glass demo was sort of interesting but I had the same reaction as most: it doesn't really look that useful; it just looks slick. Sun needs to actually impart some useful info with that 3D representation. One thing that occured to me - when he flipped the window sideways, i can see that they've given the window some depth in the Z-axis... it would be cool to pick up a window and see how 'thick' the data was contained therein, or see little bars and graphics on the side telling you more about it.
Otherwise what they've got is basically Super Expose... and I very much doubt Apple is going to sit still with that one (Expose already has some very minor 2.5D cues in it... try this trick on OS X Panther... activate Expose then do a few CMD-tabs... you can see the windows 'pop' through each other.)
I would have LOVED to see him tackle a 'text message adventure' along the lines of the old infocom classics.
He did - a game called Starship Titanic was written by Adams, in conjunction with a game developer (Simon & Schuster? can't remember...)
It combined a text adventure interface with some nice 3D graphics that would move around above the text box, in a Mystian sort of way. The game itself was very funny, had some beautiful designs and ideas, and was almost totally impossible. In other words it was par for the course for ol' Douglas.
This is so true. I now have an extra 80 gig hard drive nearly filled with MP3 music that I freely share with my co-workers.
Do you really have nearly 80 gigs of music? Not that I doubt it, but... I do find it hard to believe, in context of my own collection...
Sorry to bug you with this. I'm just constantly amazed by the slashdotters claiming to have 40-80 gigs of MP3s. I have a very modest collection by comparison - and I consider myself a real audio freak. But my collection is not quite 10 gigs, and I always thought that was a lot of music.
Mind you, I have very few 'complete' albums.. I am a real quality nazi and delete everything that isn't spectacular by my standards (that is the point of an iPod, after all)...
Anyways... just wanted to express my ongoing surprise at the data size quoted for people's music libraries. Tell me, do you rip whole albums regularly? Or do you have music that is just a lark, for laughs? I have a hard time believing anyone has 80 gigs of sorted music that they truly love every bit of. I mean, thats something like 50 days of continuous music.
Just think for a minute in all the ways that you could use a Tablet PC (one that is cheaper, better designed...
Well, I did.. based on your examples... not trying to troll but here's what I thought:
Companies that need to do inventory but do not have the funds or know-how to invest in barcode wireless scanners...
Palm PDA.
Hospitals can use the Tablet PC to look at patient's medical records.
Wireless Palm, all the way; there's already a sizeable software market for medical on Palm's platform.
At my college's admission office, we make phone calls to perspective students..... How much faster would it be with a couple tablets?
A lot faster but that is hardly a market segment.
Now, I do believe that there can be devices that do not necessarily fill an existing 'need', but are still successful through pure execution - like the iPod. But Tablet PCs do not seem to offer any tangible benefit to a sizeable number of people to be a really popular and sell by the truckload. I am always gonna be able to type faster than I write, and I can sketch/do handwriting capture with a little $99 Wacom USB tablet.
So, maybe cool for doctors and art directors (who bought a Cintiq last year), but not many more, without some kind of killer app.
BTW, for what its worth, I think Cringely is off his rocker - there is no way Apple is going to add a third wireless standard to their roster, just for shunting video. (Would that be.. uh, wireless-FireWire?... or just 'Fire'?)
... the point stands that the iPod could use a detachable battery.
I don't think these guys had all the info, or were possibly led astray by the Apple rep. But really, as big an issue as this has become, Apple would do well to offer a 4G iPod with an external battery pack. I mean, c'mon, Ives and crew are more than up to it. If the design was more or less exactly like the PowerBook design is, it would make no difference at all to daily use (i.e. battery flush with the body, like a cell phone).
In fact one of the unexpected bonuses to this kind of design I've observed, on my T68i, is that if I drop it the phone has tended to land on one of the bottom corners, or scrape the back - which is the battery itself. I can remove the cosmetic damage to the phone by changing that battery.
.. with most of your points. (Although I was about to tell you how to play that DRM'd file backwards, but someone beat me to it, I see.)
Keep in mind that the specifics of FairPlay (Apple's DRM scheme) are actually integrated into QuickTime, not iTunes. You can play a protected AAC file on any Mac, in any QuickTime-enabled audio playing application. Which means any practically any audio-playing Mac app. Most Mac apps just call QuickTime to handle the decoding as it is the Rosetta stone of formats anyways.
So this protection is not really noticeable. I know any DRM is a pain in the ass, but if you used this scheme (have you?), you really gotta stick your neck out and do some gymnastics with the file before you'd notice anything was different at all.
In the end the scheme has two goals, one major and one minor. The major goal is to prevent iTunes AACs from spreading all over Kazaa and rendering Apple's store moot. So you have the '3 concurrent machines' limitation. The minor one is to prevent you from mass-producing physical CDs of one album, like you would for real (saleable) piracy. So there's a limit of 10 burns per playlist; after which you must change the playlist order, even if its only one song. Then you get another 10.
And of course you can copy the files to your heart's content, and burn them to CD.
DRM is bad, no doubts there. But this is like DRM Lite, or Diet DRM. A low fence at best, and they want it that way. Similar to transferring songs from the iPod to a Mac.. they're just in an invisible folder.
--- FBI SURVEILLANCE TRANSCRIPT
--- NOV.20/2003, 8:19PM
--- AGENT SMITH ON DUTY
SUBJECT'S CAR (MAKE AMC PACER, EQUIPPED WITH BUGGED ATX ASSISTANCE SYSTEM) WAS BOARDED AT 8:19PM BY PRIMARY SUSPECT; PROCEEDED TO DRIVE TO FIFTH & MAIN, WHEREUPON SUSPECT STOPPED AND SEEMED TO TAKE ON PASSENGERS.
8:19 -RUSTLING SOUNDS-
8:21 -DRIVING SOUNDS... CAR STOPS, DOOR OPENS-
8:32 SUSPECT #1
Hey, what's up... Ah fuck.. where is it...
8:33 SUSPECT #2
I got it. This is hot shit. Check this out.
AT THIS POINT SUSPECT #1 SEEMS TO BECOME AGITATED. HE BEGINS SCREAMING LOUDLY.
8:33 SUSPECT #1
YOU CAN'T BE ME I'M A ROCK STAR I'M RHYMING ON THE TOP OF A COP CAR I'M A REBEL AND MY.44 POPS FAR
-AGENT NOTES SUSPECT IS ARMED WITH A PISTOL AND POSSIBLY LONG-DISTANCE WEAPONRY. ALSO NOTES SUSPECT #2 SEEMS TO HAVE AN ELECTRIC GUITAR.
Some Windows fanboy is feeling threatened by OS X and this is news? Cripes.
Anyone else get the feeling the editors are trying to 'correct' a little for the strong pro-Apple articles lately? Like that 'Apple broke my old iPod then told me to fuck off and die' article? Very FUDdy around here today.
We see THATGUY, sitting in front of his POWERBOOK. On screen, an ICON is hopping up and down like an overcaffeinated Chihuahua. THATGUY signs heavily.
THATGUY
Oh no... it's here. 10.3.1.
(drums fingers on desk rapidly)
THATGUY
This probably fixes FileVault, and that FireWire bug.
(drums fingers)
THATGUY
And other stuff. Fuck.
In the BG, we hear audio of a CHORUS OF VOICES shouting negatives like NO DON'T DO IT, and ARE YOU INSANE and HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED YOUR LESSON? A single voice becomes louder in the din.
THATGUY
Must... update....
His FINGER reaches for the pulsating UPDATE NOW button.
ALL-POWERFUL SLASHDOT VOICE
Are you seriously going to do that? Really?
THATGUY
But I must! It'll be better... Apple is almost always bet-
APSV (BOOMING)
YOU FOOL. DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE ITUNES BUG? THE 10.2.8 DEBACLE? THE VERY BUGS WE JUST ENCOUNTERED IN PANTHER?? You have got to be the STUPIDEST L0SER EVAR!!11!!1
THATGUY
but... the Panther, she is beautiful, and I must help fix the-
APSV
IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT IF YOU LOOSE YOUR DATA
THATGUY
I have backups!
APSV (BOOMING again)
THOSE CD-RS ONLY HAVE A SHELF LIFE OF 6 YEARS YOU KNOW, SURELY YOU HAVE A WEBDAV-
As the voice is booming, THATGUY reaches and quickly clicks the UPDATE button. A stunned silence. He looks sheepish.
APSV .....FOOL! YOUR IGNORANCE IS YOUR UNDOING. DON'T ASK ME FOR HELP WHEN YOUR DRIVE IS FSCK'D.
THATGUY
Well, you wouldn't help me before, now, would you?
No we don't need to pick either because while Bush is a complete retard, his handlers (Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc) are criminally evil. Bush just stands up there and repeats what's being fed into his ear. I don't even think Bush himself is so much malicious as he is just a plain old asshole.
William Rivers Pitt of truthout had a great quote about that particular subject... I'm paraphrasing...
"Blaming George Bush for this administration's missteps is like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney does something evil. He's just not in charge."
On another note, truthout.org is one of the best sites on the net for political commentary of the non-Fox variety. Check it out.
I've seen Win XP do either one at different times. Someimes it needs a restart, sometimes it doesn't. Depends on the hardware or something. Maybe when you run the Wizard it resets a lot of important stuff so a restart is needed but manually changing small things doesn't...
No matter which way you call it, it's just as, if not more sloppy than OS X's update restart thing. If I know what the security update is changing, I sometimes force quite the app that's telling me to restart and then reload ssh (or whatever component has changed) from the command line. If the uber-geeks at Slashdot would stop projecting or (if they're not blatantly trolling) start looking at problems objectively, they might gain some valuable skills.
That's fine and good, and I see your point (assuming the XP machine was patching itself)... but at the end of the day...
He plugged in the XP laptop and it didn't want to work right away. The Mac laptop did. Now, if you are an 'average user', do you care about what's going on there? Or do you just want the damn thing to work?
Slashdot Mirror
But that's just it - they do die of old age/ Lithion Ion batteries are essentially good for two years, no matter what.
Charging, no charging, heavy/light use, no use, doesn't matter. They die in two years. The chemical reaction is constant and degrades over time.
I'm in agreement with the others in thinking that Apple should just include a damn detachable battery in the next iPod rev. That's really the solution.
I'd be willing to bet the non-removable battery has more to do with Jonathan Ives' pen-chance for 'seamless design' rather than a good technical reason.
Apple doesn't sell Apple-branded mini-to-RCA cords.
Not sure where you saw that but it wasn't an Apple cable. Yes they are totally guilty of absurd mark-ups (they took a page from Sony's book), but not to that extent.
They do sell a Monster cable on the AppleStore that is mini-to-RCA. $46 CDN.
So can we agree that its incredibly stupid to discriminate based on politics, no matter what government you are?
Oh, by the way, Slashdot does not have 'an agenda'. The only pople who say things like that are.. people with an agenda, frankly. If by ultra-liberal, you mean 'very free in its thinking', then yes I would agree.
Well we dropped out of the chance to have it (our Liberal Party - uh, translation for Yanks, that's more or less 'centrist' in Canada - decided that).
However I might point out that we opposed the War in Iraq as well. So it would likely be blocked, the same as France, if that is indeed what is happening.
(We sent troops and ships to Afghanistan which are still there but I bet that doesn't count.)
Besides, you set up a fusion reactor in Canada, you know what'll happen? C'mon, you must have heard about.. you know, how we are up here. Think an international consortium is going to let us peacenik dope-smoking legally-married-lesbians who-are-also-legally-topless run that thing?
I don't think 'childish' is the right word, it it is pretty poor politics. Your choice of the word 'reward' is interesting. Even more interesting is 'an ally that caused us considerable trouble'... so, France caused trouble for the US? Do you know how backwards that sounds to a non-American? The US exceeds the Security Council (accoring to Kofi Annan anyways) and France is 'causing trouble'?
I mean, whether you agree with the war or not, one must admit that other countries do have a valid point from time to time, eh? Or no? Maybe not.
If you think that France and Germany were operating on a purely moral plain, your'e missing the fact that they had the largest financial stakes in Saddams Iraq. Holding them accountable for their choices is just good sense.
I disagree with this statement. While I agree that France and Germany are owed the most money (with Russia owed quite a bit as well)... and I agree with the moral turpitude that those countries sometimes display... the USA definitely, positively has the 'largest financial stakes' in Iraq. They need the oil more than anybody.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Excuse me but what statistics have you read? The war was probably about a 50/50 split in the US. Where did this slim minority BS come from?
Ok, so where are your stats.
Yes the many other Islamic countries were against the war. Islam has taken over 100 countries in the world now. If they feel threatened by anyone dealing with another Islamic country, then that's life.
There are a few interesting things I'd like to point out here. First, your use of 'taken over' in reference to Islam. How many countries has Christianity 'taken over'? Why do you think the country has been captured by a religion? And which hundred countries do you suppose this has happened to? I bet you can't name a dozen.
As far as France, Russia and Germany, yes they also didn't want the war. They were supplying Saddam and were owed billions. They still are. People forget that France was making the planes that Iraq used to gas its own people. That is why there was so much pressure against it. Those countries stood to lose money they were owed if the US invaded. You people are so easily swayed by propaganda instead of looking at facts that you really piss me off.
Ah, yes. It pisses me off too, which is why I'm replying to your bad information.
France, Russia, China, the USA, and Germany have all provided military equipment to Iraq. The USA has additionally outfitted Iran and several neighbours. The Russians, Germans, and French are owed money largely for infrastructure, electrical generators, sanitation equipment, and the like. But get this straight - no one is innocent in this, and the USA is certainly, far and away, the worst offender.
The helicopters - not planes - that Saddam used to gas the Kurds were from Bell Helicopter Textron and Hughes, which are both US companies. Any planes Saddam had have been grounded (and indeed, literally buried) since the No-Fly Zone was established after Gulf War 1.
So go check out that link and educate yourself, before the next time you go spouting off about things you know nothing about.
Fuck France
Oh, you don't want to get into that. France has much more effective curses to hurl back at you.
Wish I could mod this through the roof.
I don't think DuckMan was saying that the x86 based OS's should be running natively.
DuckMan:
I was expecting him to have all those operating systems installed natively.
Did I miss something?
That would be impressive. It's probably been mentioned already... but this is not a bad technique. i knew a guy who ran a University web server like this, few years ago... not quite 55 OS's, but it went like this:
Old PowerMac running BeOS with SheepShaver - > which emulated Mac OS, running Virtual PC - > which emulated Windows, which ran IIS.
"Ha! Let's see it crash through three Operating Systems!"
That was the idea anyways. It was damn slow but nice thing was that when the Windows image crashed it only took 6 seconds to recover to its saved 'state'.
That's true, but finish the thought: .. because those items don't get in my face.
I have a few of those - iPod, PS2, SD cards... and if they have DRM, I sure don't know about it. They do not seem to infringe upon my usage. I copy MP3s, JPEGs with impunity. The PS2.. well, I would like to be able to back up my games, I actually do worry about that.. but the law only says I can* back up the software, not that I must be allowed to do so.
I would submit that DRM as a concept is not the issue. All learned geeks know that a system or concept is rarely at fault but rather the implementations available. DRM is a new acronym for an old idea. This recent anti-piracy attention ou witness around you is cyclical. It comes and goes in waves. Not that its any less irritating, mind you. But my point is, the products you mention do not seriously curtail my usage in the same way as, say, Windows Media Player can.
I had to actually look up what the 'Magic Gate' logo on the front of the PS2 meant, and damned if I have ever run into the thing.
*DMCA probably negates this in practical terms.
Good post.
What I want to know is, just how badly does the regular computer-using public need to get battered, by security holes and other exploits in IE, before they finally just ditch the damn thing?
I installed Firebird for a co-worker the other day. While I was doing this I explained that they should turn on the pop-up blocker. They were astounded that this feature existed at all. I find this is a very common reaction (which, in turn, astounds me... lot of astounding going on).
I'm sure this sentiment has been posted 56739285679 times before but really.. with the next version of IE coming out with Longhorn, god knows when, are people really going to put up with several security advisories every single month for the indefinite future?
(I'm sure if I showed that same co-worker Safari or Konqueror they'd lose their shit completely. I'm not that cruel - they're stuck on Windows.)
You are right, although I would submit that there are a few shades of gray between here and there, so to speak...
It is reasonable to assume that we will see the development of 'deep' displays before true 3D holographic (or whatever) display is possible and accessible to the masses. We can see some of these 2.5D displays appearing now, with the two-paned LCD trick, and a few other approaches.
While I definitely agree that the 2D display of information, combined with the 2D interaction of the mouse (X, Y) cannot break out of its inherent limitations... I do think that there is a little leeway for providing some extra information to the user, by harnessing that wetware we have for finding prey, and further extending the 3D 'trickery'.
That is contingent on having some new input hardware. This is the bit people seem to miss. Along with our now-popular 2D 'Desktop Metaphor', with the icons and menus and all that, came the mouse. The mouse enables all of this. It's logical to think we need some kind of 3D mouse (or equivalent input device) to navigate a 3D space with any dexterity whatsoever.
I do like the Panoramic Desktop idea. Were I implementing such a thing, I would actually be tempted to use two mice, one for each hand. The left mouse would pan the 'desktop camera' around a fixed 360 uber-desktop, while the right did normal pointing duty. I don't know if this would make you more productive but I can certainly see using something like that to extend my desktop beyond the normal limits. The Looking Glass demo was sort of interesting but I had the same reaction as most: it doesn't really look that useful; it just looks slick. Sun needs to actually impart some useful info with that 3D representation. One thing that occured to me - when he flipped the window sideways, i can see that they've given the window some depth in the Z-axis... it would be cool to pick up a window and see how 'thick' the data was contained therein, or see little bars and graphics on the side telling you more about it.
Otherwise what they've got is basically Super Expose... and I very much doubt Apple is going to sit still with that one (Expose already has some very minor 2.5D cues in it... try this trick on OS X Panther... activate Expose then do a few CMD-tabs... you can see the windows 'pop' through each other.)
He did - a game called Starship Titanic was written by Adams, in conjunction with a game developer (Simon & Schuster? can't remember...)
It combined a text adventure interface with some nice 3D graphics that would move around above the text box, in a Mystian sort of way. The game itself was very funny, had some beautiful designs and ideas, and was almost totally impossible. In other words it was par for the course for ol' Douglas.
Do you really have nearly 80 gigs of music? Not that I doubt it, but... I do find it hard to believe, in context of my own collection...
Sorry to bug you with this. I'm just constantly amazed by the slashdotters claiming to have 40-80 gigs of MP3s. I have a very modest collection by comparison - and I consider myself a real audio freak. But my collection is not quite 10 gigs, and I always thought that was a lot of music.
Mind you, I have very few 'complete' albums.. I am a real quality nazi and delete everything that isn't spectacular by my standards (that is the point of an iPod, after all)...
Anyways... just wanted to express my ongoing surprise at the data size quoted for people's music libraries. Tell me, do you rip whole albums regularly? Or do you have music that is just a lark, for laughs? I have a hard time believing anyone has 80 gigs of sorted music that they truly love every bit of. I mean, thats something like 50 days of continuous music.
Well, I did.. based on your examples... not trying to troll but here's what I thought:
Companies that need to do inventory but do not have the funds or know-how to invest in barcode wireless scanners...
Palm PDA.
Hospitals can use the Tablet PC to look at patient's medical records.
Wireless Palm, all the way; there's already a sizeable software market for medical on Palm's platform.
At my college's admission office, we make phone calls to perspective students..... How much faster would it be with a couple tablets?
A lot faster but that is hardly a market segment.
Now, I do believe that there can be devices that do not necessarily fill an existing 'need', but are still successful through pure execution - like the iPod. But Tablet PCs do not seem to offer any tangible benefit to a sizeable number of people to be a really popular and sell by the truckload. I am always gonna be able to type faster than I write, and I can sketch/do handwriting capture with a little $99 Wacom USB tablet.
So, maybe cool for doctors and art directors (who bought a Cintiq last year), but not many more, without some kind of killer app.
BTW, for what its worth, I think Cringely is off his rocker - there is no way Apple is going to add a third wireless standard to their roster, just for shunting video. (Would that be.. uh, wireless-FireWire?... or just 'Fire'?)
I don't think these guys had all the info, or were possibly led astray by the Apple rep. But really, as big an issue as this has become, Apple would do well to offer a 4G iPod with an external battery pack. I mean, c'mon, Ives and crew are more than up to it. If the design was more or less exactly like the PowerBook design is, it would make no difference at all to daily use (i.e. battery flush with the body, like a cell phone).
In fact one of the unexpected bonuses to this kind of design I've observed, on my T68i, is that if I drop it the phone has tended to land on one of the bottom corners, or scrape the back - which is the battery itself. I can remove the cosmetic damage to the phone by changing that battery.
Keep in mind that the specifics of FairPlay (Apple's DRM scheme) are actually integrated into QuickTime, not iTunes. You can play a protected AAC file on any Mac, in any QuickTime-enabled audio playing application. Which means any practically any audio-playing Mac app. Most Mac apps just call QuickTime to handle the decoding as it is the Rosetta stone of formats anyways.
So this protection is not really noticeable. I know any DRM is a pain in the ass, but if you used this scheme (have you?), you really gotta stick your neck out and do some gymnastics with the file before you'd notice anything was different at all.
In the end the scheme has two goals, one major and one minor. The major goal is to prevent iTunes AACs from spreading all over Kazaa and rendering Apple's store moot. So you have the '3 concurrent machines' limitation. The minor one is to prevent you from mass-producing physical CDs of one album, like you would for real (saleable) piracy. So there's a limit of 10 burns per playlist; after which you must change the playlist order, even if its only one song. Then you get another 10.
And of course you can copy the files to your heart's content, and burn them to CD.
DRM is bad, no doubts there. But this is like DRM Lite, or Diet DRM. A low fence at best, and they want it that way. Similar to transferring songs from the iPod to a Mac.. they're just in an invisible folder.
--- NOV.20/2003, 8:19PM
--- AGENT SMITH ON DUTY
SUBJECT'S CAR (MAKE AMC PACER, EQUIPPED WITH BUGGED ATX ASSISTANCE SYSTEM) WAS BOARDED AT 8:19PM BY PRIMARY SUSPECT; PROCEEDED TO DRIVE TO FIFTH & MAIN, WHEREUPON SUSPECT STOPPED AND SEEMED TO TAKE ON PASSENGERS.
8:19 -RUSTLING SOUNDS-
8:21 -DRIVING SOUNDS... CAR STOPS, DOOR OPENS-
8:32 SUSPECT #1
Hey, what's up... Ah fuck.. where is it...
8:33 SUSPECT #2
I got it. This is hot shit. Check this out.
AT THIS POINT SUSPECT #1 SEEMS TO BECOME AGITATED. HE BEGINS SCREAMING LOUDLY.
8:33 SUSPECT #1 .44 POPS FAR
YOU CAN'T BE ME I'M A ROCK STAR I'M RHYMING ON THE TOP OF A COP CAR I'M A REBEL AND MY
-AGENT NOTES SUSPECT IS ARMED WITH A PISTOL AND POSSIBLY LONG-DISTANCE WEAPONRY. ALSO NOTES SUSPECT #2 SEEMS TO HAVE AN ELECTRIC GUITAR.
8:34 SUSPECT #2
uh huh.. yeah... uhhH!... yeah yeah
8:34 SUSPECT #1
IT'S ALMOST OVER NOW IT'S ALMOST OVER NOW...
Some Windows fanboy is feeling threatened by OS X and this is news? Cripes.
Anyone else get the feeling the editors are trying to 'correct' a little for the strong pro-Apple articles lately? Like that 'Apple broke my old iPod then told me to fuck off and die' article? Very FUDdy around here today.
Good post, well said. +5 Super Insightful.
We see THATGUY, sitting in front of his POWERBOOK. On screen, an ICON is hopping up and down like an overcaffeinated Chihuahua. THATGUY signs heavily.
THATGUY
Oh no... it's here. 10.3.1.
(drums fingers on desk rapidly)
THATGUY
This probably fixes FileVault, and that FireWire bug.
(drums fingers)
THATGUY
And other stuff. Fuck.
In the BG, we hear audio of a CHORUS OF VOICES shouting negatives like NO DON'T DO IT, and ARE YOU INSANE and HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED YOUR LESSON? A single voice becomes louder in the din.
THATGUY
Must... update....
His FINGER reaches for the pulsating UPDATE NOW button.
ALL-POWERFUL SLASHDOT VOICE
Are you seriously going to do that? Really?
THATGUY
But I must! It'll be better... Apple is almost always bet-
APSV (BOOMING)
YOU FOOL. DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE ITUNES BUG? THE 10.2.8 DEBACLE? THE VERY BUGS WE JUST ENCOUNTERED IN PANTHER?? You have got to be the STUPIDEST L0SER EVAR!!11!!1
THATGUY
but... the Panther, she is beautiful, and I must help fix the-
APSV
IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT IF YOU LOOSE YOUR DATA
THATGUY
I have backups!
APSV (BOOMING again)
THOSE CD-RS ONLY HAVE A SHELF LIFE OF 6 YEARS YOU KNOW, SURELY YOU HAVE A WEBDAV-
As the voice is booming, THATGUY reaches and quickly clicks the UPDATE button. A stunned silence. He looks sheepish.
APSV
.....FOOL! YOUR IGNORANCE IS YOUR UNDOING. DON'T ASK ME FOR HELP WHEN YOUR DRIVE IS FSCK'D.
THATGUY Well, you wouldn't help me before, now, would you?
APSV
True. FADE OUT
William Rivers Pitt of truthout had a great quote about that particular subject... I'm paraphrasing...
"Blaming George Bush for this administration's missteps is like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney does something evil. He's just not in charge."
On another note, truthout.org is one of the best sites on the net for political commentary of the non-Fox variety. Check it out.
That's fine and good, and I see your point (assuming the XP machine was patching itself)... but at the end of the day...
He plugged in the XP laptop and it didn't want to work right away. The Mac laptop did. Now, if you are an 'average user', do you care about what's going on there? Or do you just want the damn thing to work?