If I paid for a PS2, and I paid for a game, I should be able to play that game, right? WHERE on the globe I happened to be standing at the time should not matter. I have a number of friends who pay a premium to have games shipped from Japan to the United States because in their infinite wisdom, Sony and the software companies have decided not to import that game.
This practice and DVD region coding is the kind of draconian practice one expects to find a George Orwell book.
Has anyone thought about the NON military applications of this yet? For the record, I know what I am about suggest is years and millions of dollars of research away from fruition but the impetus of idea, inovation, or invention is a flight of fancy so bear with me for the moment.
Medical: If you can combine exoskeleton technology with some of the recent robotics coming out of Japan(ie. that man shaped robot that can go up stairs, and down manholes, but I can't remember the name) and you have something interesting. Put a formerly crippled person in the suit and they can get around ALMOST normally. Even in cases were the limbs are functional, there are times when the person may lack the strength or balance to move about freely. Imagine taking a person so atrophied by disease that they can't move and giving them a suit that takes their feeble limbs and gives them freedom again.
Industry: Someone already mentioned replacing forklifts and such. It seemed to work well in Aliens so I won't dwell on that point.
SAR: Picture this; you're trapped in a burning car. The paramedics run up and asses the situation. Instead of calling for special tools to cut you free, one of them just opens the car like a soda can.
Imagine being in a burning building. The heat alone is stifling, the roar deafining, the smoke choking you. Now think about the firefighters you charge into those buildings just to pull you out. Now think about that same firefigther, wrapped in in an exoskeleton, with the inhuman strength to move anything in his way, and the only thing on his mind is to come and get you out.
Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for the military. They also tend to have really nice equipment(toys) But I think that we have ignored other possible uses for this technology.
I was waiting for someone to make the car analogy. No interface between human and hardware is truely intuitive... Interfaces become intuitive when we have experience and context. I mean how many of us actually read the number the dial is pointing to on or speedometers? I know I just glance at it and I know roughly what my speed is just by the direction of the needle. It screws me up when I drive Dad's car because his tach is where my speedometer is.
Who remembers the first time they saw a the buttons on a VCR? What does this triangle pointing right mean? What about that square? Once you knew what they were play and stop you were in good shape. Now fast forward to your first DVD player. You take your DVD in one hand, and with the other you push the button with the "eject" symbol just like the one on your VCR, you insert the disk, close the tray, just like your CD player, now hit play, just like your CD or VCR. Because you have a frame of reference, your DVD player is intutive.
Now lets talk for a moment about symbols, and I'll use my panel bar as an example(BTW I'm running Gnome on RH 7.1). From left to right, I have a foot, a little yellow cartoon man, a red star, a monitor with a foot, and a little picture of a dresser drawer. I mean what kind of card-carrying-rubber-room-renting psycho picked these icons? A foot? Once I got over my shock, and started learning(by random clicking, and an experienced friend looking over my shoulder) I was in good shape. Now I know that the foot is the panel menu, the cartoon man is GAIM, the star is Mozilla, the monitor is a terminal, and the drawer is a drawer that created.
The point is I have associated meanings with the symbols. Now if I see a slightly different symbol I can say, "maybe that's a new icon for Mozilla."
Although I may be getting slightly off topic, but bear with me a moment: Some people argue that the hard drive icon should go because we don't need it any more. Others argue that we still need the abstraction. Those that argue to get rid of it obviously have their own methods. Why don't they just delete the icon from their desktops(if your OS allows) and do it their way while leaving this so-called crutch for those that might still need it? And if you don't like the desktop metaphor, don't run X.
Just for the record, I use both GUI and command line file management in equal measures.
BTW: stick shift is way more fun than automatic.
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If I paid for a PS2, and I paid for a game, I should be able to play that game, right? WHERE on the globe I happened to be standing at the time should not matter. I have a number of friends who pay a premium to have games shipped from Japan to the United States because in their infinite wisdom, Sony and the software companies have decided not to import that game. This practice and DVD region coding is the kind of draconian practice one expects to find a George Orwell book.
Has anyone thought about the NON military applications of this yet? For the record, I know what I am about suggest is years and millions of dollars of research away from fruition but the impetus of idea, inovation, or invention is a flight of fancy so bear with me for the moment. Medical: If you can combine exoskeleton technology with some of the recent robotics coming out of Japan(ie. that man shaped robot that can go up stairs, and down manholes, but I can't remember the name) and you have something interesting. Put a formerly crippled person in the suit and they can get around ALMOST normally. Even in cases were the limbs are functional, there are times when the person may lack the strength or balance to move about freely. Imagine taking a person so atrophied by disease that they can't move and giving them a suit that takes their feeble limbs and gives them freedom again. Industry: Someone already mentioned replacing forklifts and such. It seemed to work well in Aliens so I won't dwell on that point. SAR: Picture this; you're trapped in a burning car. The paramedics run up and asses the situation. Instead of calling for special tools to cut you free, one of them just opens the car like a soda can. Imagine being in a burning building. The heat alone is stifling, the roar deafining, the smoke choking you. Now think about the firefighters you charge into those buildings just to pull you out. Now think about that same firefigther, wrapped in in an exoskeleton, with the inhuman strength to move anything in his way, and the only thing on his mind is to come and get you out. Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for the military. They also tend to have really nice equipment(toys) But I think that we have ignored other possible uses for this technology.
I was waiting for someone to make the car analogy. No interface between human and hardware is truely intuitive... Interfaces become intuitive when we have experience and context. I mean how many of us actually read the number the dial is pointing to on or speedometers? I know I just glance at it and I know roughly what my speed is just by the direction of the needle. It screws me up when I drive Dad's car because his tach is where my speedometer is. Who remembers the first time they saw a the buttons on a VCR? What does this triangle pointing right mean? What about that square? Once you knew what they were play and stop you were in good shape. Now fast forward to your first DVD player. You take your DVD in one hand, and with the other you push the button with the "eject" symbol just like the one on your VCR, you insert the disk, close the tray, just like your CD player, now hit play, just like your CD or VCR. Because you have a frame of reference, your DVD player is intutive. Now lets talk for a moment about symbols, and I'll use my panel bar as an example(BTW I'm running Gnome on RH 7.1). From left to right, I have a foot, a little yellow cartoon man, a red star, a monitor with a foot, and a little picture of a dresser drawer. I mean what kind of card-carrying-rubber-room-renting psycho picked these icons? A foot? Once I got over my shock, and started learning(by random clicking, and an experienced friend looking over my shoulder) I was in good shape. Now I know that the foot is the panel menu, the cartoon man is GAIM, the star is Mozilla, the monitor is a terminal, and the drawer is a drawer that created. The point is I have associated meanings with the symbols. Now if I see a slightly different symbol I can say, "maybe that's a new icon for Mozilla." Although I may be getting slightly off topic, but bear with me a moment: Some people argue that the hard drive icon should go because we don't need it any more. Others argue that we still need the abstraction. Those that argue to get rid of it obviously have their own methods. Why don't they just delete the icon from their desktops(if your OS allows) and do it their way while leaving this so-called crutch for those that might still need it? And if you don't like the desktop metaphor, don't run X. Just for the record, I use both GUI and command line file management in equal measures. BTW: stick shift is way more fun than automatic.