I honestly don't think the media execs don't understand what is happening or that copy-protection is difficult to impossible. It's just they don't want to change. They are fundamentally afraid of change and don't know how to handle the drastic change in the production and distribution of content. More than ever, the power to produce art be it music, video, animation, painting or multimedia is at the hands of the consumer.
Things move in cycles and the execs know it. Now that school dropped classes like music, art and other liberal arts courses, people are creating their own. There's no barrier preventing a gifted artist from distributing their work around the world without a media company making a cent. The modern metropolis created the need for distribution systems, but the internet has decreased the value of those institutions.
The core function of a media company is under attack from all sides. Look at the 405 movie made by a few guys that got world wide attention. Median execs are afraid that will become the norm and not the exception.
I'll second that sentiment. Media companies are getting more lazy every year. Look at the TV shows the last 3 years (few exceptions like west wing)or the movies. There are rare exceptions like American Beauty that really tries to be unique and insightful. As some musicians have said, "it's crap music that hurts the music sale." Rather than attack the problem of "how do we stay profitable" at the root of the problem, companies would rather maximize the profits on a few products to make up for garbage.
The real problem is deeper than just "we need to protect our investments." It's about the constant change in taste. Our society changes it's preferences much faster than say 1960's. Large corporations simply can't move fast enough to take advantage of a new trend. By the time they notice a new trend, it's close to its peak.
Record and movie companies rely on artists to create/notice a trend before it get big to take advantage. Problem is a lot of executives hate artists and artists dislike executives. Record companies know this and are afraid artists will go on their own. My opinion that's what they're really afraid of. By controlling distribution, production and equipment, they force artists to go through their system.
Hock Leow's statement "The encrypted CD will be an absolute nightmare" is on target. It's one to for new technology like DVD's to start out with encryption built in, but if I have to replace my CD players, it ain't gonna happen for 5-10 years. I sure as hell ain't going to replace every piece of audio/video equipment I own, just so they can control how, when, and where I watch/listen to something. That's why I buy DVD's. I want to own a piece of artwork.
Good points on the cycles of product development, but I find it really annoying that rather than build systems with say 512mb of RAM and 1ghz processor as the basic system, manufacturers and reviewers buy into the whole speed BS. Frankly, how many people besides hardcore gamers need a 2ghz cpu? It's not like programmers will benefit a whole lot. How much faster do you need your code to compile?
Humans can't out type a 300mhz P3 with windows let alone a 2ghz system. Sure office runs slower with each new release and requires faster CPU, but more than anything double or triple the ram will make the system more usable. Now that graphic cards manufacturers are increasing the processing power, there's no point in a 2ghz cpu for a gaming system. You're better off getting a video card with 128mb of ram.
I like fast processors as much as the next geek, but it's stupid to push a CPU that is meant for the server market to joe smo. I would rather Intel and AMD focus on lower power consumption (which they do occasionally), heat dissapation and faster bus. Or how about shrinking P3 mobile even further to make laptops lighter and more efficient so that it doesn't need a heat sink.
Or logging companies paying for studies that say cuttings trees in old growth forrests is good, because it lets new growth take it's place. No wonder so many industries have bad reputations, like lawyers:)
Well put. Having friends in law enforcement and the military, the government already has an incredible amount of information on everyone. When two friends joined the military, the recruiter had everything about them in two days. One friend went through a lengthy list of things the army recruiter rattled off. If you use credit cards at all, they know even more.
Anyone thinks the government isn't already abusing their power or that big brother is approaching, is mistaken. Go to your local army recruiter if you really think you have privacy. As soon as the recruiter shows you the file, all illusions of privacy will disappear.
A nationalID isn't really for the government, since the government already has full access to your whole life. It's a deterant to our enemies and a smoke screen. If it was really about preventing terrorists, they wouldn't use a national id. How many investigative reports the last 30 years were about con artists and criminals using a dead person's SS# to get state id's and open bank accounts?
Most people don't need to worry about privacy, nor do they really want to know the depth of the government's monitoring capabilities.
Everyone knows alot of companies do it, but when this type of thing happens repeatedly, does it affect public perception? I mean really. If this was GM trying to win the public over about the safety of truck tires, would the public just roll over?
It's terribly short sighted of tech companies to resort to this type of tactic, because it makes everyone in the industry look bad. Gloating over M$ getting bashed for this kind of behavior doesn't do much for improving public perception of technology companies. A lot of people I know already have a negative view of Information Technology and think it's eletist.
Here's to hoping companies learn to behave more ethically, but I'm not holding my breathe.
Yeah, it does make sense now. My guess in an earlier post wasn't too far off. I'm still skeptical though, they could still mess up and require hacking to get it to do what geeks want.
Calculators are great and all, but for people who have number dyslexia, it doesn't do much. I didn't realize I had it, until college. It's nice that calculators have more features, but I find it is easier to work from theory or in reverse to double check my calcualtions. Using a calculator actually made it worse, since more is hidden and gives a false impression. The calculator isn't going to know I reversed 2/5, and 6/9.
Exactly! If a person wants to run Solaris, for god sake get a low end Sun like netra X1. There are plenty of used hardware around at affordable prices.
Yeah some people don't want to give Sun more money, but if the damn system is going to be useful, put linux on it instead. Atleast you'll have more than the basic utilities. I'm sure there are utilities for Solaris x86, but I personally don't have time to search the net for them. It's fun to play with Solaris on PC until one realizes what a pain it is.
Hmm, interesting idea, though I would want higher bit rate and two channels vs lower bit rate and more channels. My reasoning is that it is better to have higher bit rate to make editing/mixing easier. Having done some recording with 4 and 8 track, we would do all sorts of funky things like over-laying, effect pedals and loop-back.
Creative probably chose two at 24bit purely for marketing reasons, and not technical. I'm guessing they are testing the market with this new device. If it gets a good response, they'll probably come out with different versions. Considering there are already other players in this field, as others have mentioned, they may not be totally commited to entering this nitch.
That's an interesting concept. Some other ideas in quantum computing research is have a qbit that works as both processor and memory in one. From my limited understanding, Quantum computers would need massive amounts of data, so having data stored in some other medium could create huge delays and limit the extreme parallelism quantum computers are supposed to provide.
When I was moving, I made sure the place had broadband. Not everyone can do this of course. But if enough people ask/tell the realtor they will only consider areas with broadband, cities will push the carriers/provider to offer it, even if it means subsidizing the cost. As broadband and internet usage becomes more prevalent, houses/apartments without broadband will be less desireable and economics will force a change. Or atleast it has in the past.
This idea has no factual support, but what happens if Tivo adds cable modem support. This would mean you might be able to record video that is Internet only. Granted there isn't much worth seeing on the internet video wise, but could it be in preperation for the day that happens?
LDAP is a pain, but there are some nice features of LDAP that save time. If the requirement really is just a contact list or something simple with a fixed schema, then LDAP might be a choice. Some LDAP servers have built in matching so that a search for say "john d williams" will also return "john david williams". I don't remember which ones support it, but if the project requires building synonyms and abbreviation matching, LDAP can save time. It all depends on the intended use.
P3P protocol article from last June, but I haven't seen any more publicity about companies launching products with it. It's good the industry is starting to recognize privacy as an important issue, but even third party companies like Truste can't do much when a company goes bankrupt and sells their database.
People need to stay vigilant about privacy and balance it with convienance. Right now few people would cry over the loss of personalization, but that might change in 80 years. There's still a lot of work needed to build a solid privacy framework using a standard protocol. This way we it will be easier for third party trust companies and consumer groups to perform audits.
Of course companies that don't use it will still abuse their position and take advantage of user data.
It might not all be useless data. Amazon seems to have a fair system in place that makes good recommendations. Granted it's not perfect, but their personalization has about a 30% hit rate for things I really want, though the last year most of the things it recommends I already own (bought some place else). Another 30% get me to look at the product and consider buying in the future if I have cash to blow. The last 40% ranges from annoying to "oh I never thought of that".
As annoying as personalization can be, it is also useful when used judiciously.
Sounds interesting, some related info
on
Making It Personal
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· Score: 4, Insightful
There's actually an organization called Personalization.org. They used to have a lot of papers and research available, but lately it's not on their site. Here is a link to a survey by the organization. In 2000 there were attempts to create a privacy protocol for b2b world, to make sure company A only sees information company b wants them to see.
I don't know whether that protocol died or not, maybe some one else who reads/. will know.
You're right, but heck I am a dog:) Some musicians like neal young complain the sampling rate is too low. I can't tell a difference, so I agree you it's over blown. Even with my dog ears.
The article doesn't say much about the technology and appears to have mis-quotes. If there was actually more meat to the article, the discussion would be more insightful.
Reuters is supposed to be a reputable news agency, but they didn't even bother waiting for a response from Steve Smale and verifying his involvement in the company. I don't blame Zeosync for trying to get some attention, but Reuters is supposed perform some basic reporting and research. That was the first thing I learned in journalism class, so why in the world are reuter's reporting getting away with it?
Thanks for the info. I don't rent anymore. I only buy DVD movies and don't see much DVD audio for sale on the internet. Plus, until most music albums are on DVD audio at the highest sampling rate, I don't think there's much incentive to buy DVD audio.
This may be risking the stamp of stupidity, but having read the article, it mentions the device would store everything on the internet on.NET servers.
I don't know about other people's connectivity, but my cable modem connection is a bit flaky at times. Reguardless of how valuable or useful it may be, is Microsoft going to solve the problem bad ISP's? How is the average consumer going to know the cause is the ISP and not the device?
The idea of a mobile computing device that acts as a game, computer and universal remote is pretty cool. High end audio, video, entertainment systems are similar though very expensive.
Are people willing to reboot their DSL/Cable modem to get their universal remote to work, or will they pick up the other remote?
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Things move in cycles and the execs know it. Now that school dropped classes like music, art and other liberal arts courses, people are creating their own. There's no barrier preventing a gifted artist from distributing their work around the world without a media company making a cent. The modern metropolis created the need for distribution systems, but the internet has decreased the value of those institutions.
The core function of a media company is under attack from all sides. Look at the 405 movie made by a few guys that got world wide attention. Median execs are afraid that will become the norm and not the exception.
The real problem is deeper than just "we need to protect our investments." It's about the constant change in taste. Our society changes it's preferences much faster than say 1960's. Large corporations simply can't move fast enough to take advantage of a new trend. By the time they notice a new trend, it's close to its peak.
Record and movie companies rely on artists to create/notice a trend before it get big to take advantage. Problem is a lot of executives hate artists and artists dislike executives. Record companies know this and are afraid artists will go on their own. My opinion that's what they're really afraid of. By controlling distribution, production and equipment, they force artists to go through their system.
Hock Leow's statement "The encrypted CD will be an absolute nightmare" is on target. It's one to for new technology like DVD's to start out with encryption built in, but if I have to replace my CD players, it ain't gonna happen for 5-10 years. I sure as hell ain't going to replace every piece of audio/video equipment I own, just so they can control how, when, and where I watch/listen to something. That's why I buy DVD's. I want to own a piece of artwork.
Humans can't out type a 300mhz P3 with windows let alone a 2ghz system. Sure office runs slower with each new release and requires faster CPU, but more than anything double or triple the ram will make the system more usable. Now that graphic cards manufacturers are increasing the processing power, there's no point in a 2ghz cpu for a gaming system. You're better off getting a video card with 128mb of ram.
I like fast processors as much as the next geek, but it's stupid to push a CPU that is meant for the server market to joe smo. I would rather Intel and AMD focus on lower power consumption (which they do occasionally), heat dissapation and faster bus. Or how about shrinking P3 mobile even further to make laptops lighter and more efficient so that it doesn't need a heat sink.
Or logging companies paying for studies that say cuttings trees in old growth forrests is good, because it lets new growth take it's place. No wonder so many industries have bad reputations, like lawyers :)
that's pretty damn funny. You can add every SUV to that list, except for maybe over-priced range rovers.
Anyone thinks the government isn't already abusing their power or that big brother is approaching, is mistaken. Go to your local army recruiter if you really think you have privacy. As soon as the recruiter shows you the file, all illusions of privacy will disappear.
A nationalID isn't really for the government, since the government already has full access to your whole life. It's a deterant to our enemies and a smoke screen. If it was really about preventing terrorists, they wouldn't use a national id. How many investigative reports the last 30 years were about con artists and criminals using a dead person's SS# to get state id's and open bank accounts?
Most people don't need to worry about privacy, nor do they really want to know the depth of the government's monitoring capabilities.
It's terribly short sighted of tech companies to resort to this type of tactic, because it makes everyone in the industry look bad. Gloating over M$ getting bashed for this kind of behavior doesn't do much for improving public perception of technology companies. A lot of people I know already have a negative view of Information Technology and think it's eletist.
Here's to hoping companies learn to behave more ethically, but I'm not holding my breathe.
Yeah, it does make sense now. My guess in an earlier post wasn't too far off. I'm still skeptical though, they could still mess up and require hacking to get it to do what geeks want.
Yeah some people don't want to give Sun more money, but if the damn system is going to be useful, put linux on it instead. Atleast you'll have more than the basic utilities. I'm sure there are utilities for Solaris x86, but I personally don't have time to search the net for them. It's fun to play with Solaris on PC until one realizes what a pain it is.
Creative probably chose two at 24bit purely for marketing reasons, and not technical. I'm guessing they are testing the market with this new device. If it gets a good response, they'll probably come out with different versions. Considering there are already other players in this field, as others have mentioned, they may not be totally commited to entering this nitch.
When I was moving, I made sure the place had broadband. Not everyone can do this of course. But if enough people ask/tell the realtor they will only consider areas with broadband, cities will push the carriers/provider to offer it, even if it means subsidizing the cost. As broadband and internet usage becomes more prevalent, houses/apartments without broadband will be less desireable and economics will force a change. Or atleast it has in the past.
This idea has no factual support, but what happens if Tivo adds cable modem support. This would mean you might be able to record video that is Internet only. Granted there isn't much worth seeing on the internet video wise, but could it be in preperation for the day that happens?
LDAP is a pain, but there are some nice features of LDAP that save time. If the requirement really is just a contact list or something simple with a fixed schema, then LDAP might be a choice. Some LDAP servers have built in matching so that a search for say "john d williams" will also return "john david williams". I don't remember which ones support it, but if the project requires building synonyms and abbreviation matching, LDAP can save time. It all depends on the intended use.
People need to stay vigilant about privacy and balance it with convienance. Right now few people would cry over the loss of personalization, but that might change in 80 years. There's still a lot of work needed to build a solid privacy framework using a standard protocol. This way we it will be easier for third party trust companies and consumer groups to perform audits.
Of course companies that don't use it will still abuse their position and take advantage of user data.
As annoying as personalization can be, it is also useful when used judiciously.
I don't know whether that protocol died or not, maybe some one else who reads /. will know.
You're right, but heck I am a dog :) Some musicians like neal young complain the sampling rate is too low. I can't tell a difference, so I agree you it's over blown. Even with my dog ears.
As spam described it and poetry is life. Poetry is spam! Maybe it's not "truth is beauty and beauty truth," but "life is spam and spam is life."
Thanks to the Samba group for their hardwork
Reuters is supposed to be a reputable news agency, but they didn't even bother waiting for a response from Steve Smale and verifying his involvement in the company. I don't blame Zeosync for trying to get some attention, but Reuters is supposed perform some basic reporting and research. That was the first thing I learned in journalism class, so why in the world are reuter's reporting getting away with it?
i know I'm offtopic
didn't one of the articles say it would sell for 450.00 to cable providers?
I don't know about other people's connectivity, but my cable modem connection is a bit flaky at times. Reguardless of how valuable or useful it may be, is Microsoft going to solve the problem bad ISP's? How is the average consumer going to know the cause is the ISP and not the device?
The idea of a mobile computing device that acts as a game, computer and universal remote is pretty cool. High end audio, video, entertainment systems are similar though very expensive.
Are people willing to reboot their DSL/Cable modem to get their universal remote to work, or will they pick up the other remote?