You do know that Sony does endorse Open Source to an extent. They do offer a distribution of Linux for their PS2 console, so you can't really say such a thing.
Actually, of course it would be unfair for a competitor to be forced to hold your product, but this is really not all the case in this matter. Microsoft has went great lengths to discredit Java, and mutilate it so that it would not work very well on some M$ platforms (they all start with Wi, end with a 2 character alphanumeric sequence)
Yeah, what is WITH the Windows key... it's almost useless. Even when I was using Windows, I never used it once. As a matter of fact, I don't even know what it's actually for besides M$ spreading subliminal messages on keyboards.
I try to stay as far away from Windows and M$ as I can, but it's still ironic how my keyboard has 2 windows symbols on it, and my mouse has 'Microsoft' printed on it below the left button.
I remember back a few years ago, when all internet services required you, as the end user, to pay for their services. I remember when AOL required users to pay for each hour that they used their services. This was back in the early/mid 90's, when advertisements were limited to the realm the media and television. At this time, advertisments on the internet were simply absurd. There were hardly any "free" services at this time, and the very concept of advertisement on the internet was almost absurd.
Starting in the late 90's, this all started to change. Pretty soon, the number of "free" services skyrocketed. How many of you use Yahoo, or Hotmail? The former survives almost entirely on advertisements in the form of banners on their site while the latter supports itself partially from ads as well. The number of totally free services has exploded due to the high amount of advertisements there are. Many e-businesses survived solely off of ads. This practice is very faulty, as quickly, the number of buyers who responded to the ads declined, and many firms went belly-up due to the lack of ad-buyers. Spam was also "introduced" at this time, as more and more people got e-mail accounts to the extent where everyone who had an internet connection or access to one could get an account.
The so called free services we use today are funded entirely by ads(even Slashdot), and spam is just another prong on the pitchfork of internet advertisement. Would it be better to just get annoyed by spam and advertisements, or would it be better to shell out cash from your own pocket? For me, I would rather get annoyed by spam, because I remember back when I was a kid, when I had no money at all. The internet was a closed realm for those who had no credit card until the introduction of ads and spam. In a way, these are now fundemental aspects that keep the internet going. After all, how many of you even considered to use the subscribe option in Slashdot to buy ad-free pages?
Have you people ever seen Project Dolphin? It's basically a system that counts the keystrokes of certain voluenteer users who download a special client that's only avaliable for Windowz computers. Although it dosen't use as much processing power, they technically are taking pride in pressing the most keys, and some people even use macros to screw up their key count so that they press several million a day. I think that the entire project serves no purpose at all except waste time and expose the computers of its users to trojan keyloggers. Moreover, I just fail to see what the point of this is. They claim that it's for "scientific purposes" but how does a number that's probably way off due to macro usage help any research at all?
Compared to this, I honestly believe that there is some point to distributed computing in cracking codes and doing useful things, like the Optimal Golumb Ruler finding, even when RC5 is a dead issue. There IS more to Distrubed.net than just cracking RC5
It still makes me wonder why people throw away perfectly good pieces of electronics. Individuals can keep their old machines. I actually still use most of my old machines, even an old 286 that I have still is in service, and when I decide to retire it, I can always solder off its integrated circuits and use them elsewhere.
The concept of a conpost pile is just as valid when it comes to computer parts. Food waste can be converted into usable soil, and computers can be subdivided into useful parts as well. The electrolytic capiciators inside the power supply are worth quite a bit, I can sell good ones for over fifty cents a piece, and the processor, although useless in computers, can be used in projects and robotics, since older processors are simpler to use, which is exactly why the Intel 8086 XT processors are still in relatively high demand. Heck, I once even sold an old VGA monitor for 30 dollars... that's right, I EARNED 30 dollars, not lost.
As for copmanies seeking to lessen their computer stock or get rid of old ones, they should draw them out by lottery and give them to their employees. Where I'm employed, there are usually more people who want computers than there are actually older machines to give out.
If everyone simply keeps their old computer parts, I'm sure that we can hold this process until we can find a better solution, such as REAL recycling.
In the business world, Microsoft's behavior would be considered business smarts, but in the real world, which is filled with morals and people with feelings, Microsoft is being a jerk, being hostile to people.
This is just an example of how Microsoft is ignoring all morals and what is right just to earn some money. Although this is an isolated case, their "Office XP for students" is a much more broad case of how M$ manages to ignore morals to earn money. Sure, it's cheaper than regular Office, but that's not saying much, as regular Office is already ludicrously expensive. The student edition costs well over 100 US dollars. Let me get this straight - something THIS expensive was intended for students? And this is considered amnesty? I find it disgusting.
Sure, there are other packages out there for students that cost a lot, like Mathematica, which has a student edition that costs the same as Office for students, but the regular edition is well over several thousand dollars. Consider that in a ratio. Moreover, while the essential features of Office have been claimed by other word processors, Mathematica is unparalleled in functionality by any other calculation package in existance.
In conclusion, this is predictable old Microsoft behavior - overlooking almost all morals, disguising it as an act of charity, while earning massive amounts of profit.
A couple of months ago, I got cable installed, and the installer person seemed to be more trained in installing cabler service for televisions, and not really at installing broadband for computers. Therefore, after he installed the cables, he gave me a software package, and merely offered to install it, but instead, I just stopped all network services, then started DHCP... got an IP address, and it started to work.
Since I use Linux, he couden't install the software anyway, so, it really depends on what ISP you use. I use Time Warner, and their contract only provides that the service personnel provide a working connection... there is no clause for installing their particular software package.
As of right now, most North American railways are used to transport cargo, and the very fact remains that speed isn't really a problem right now, as even though trains are very slow, a speed increase would probably not be necessary, as it would only cost more on shiping. On the other hand, these new technologies could be more useful in other places, such as the Far East, where rail transport is still the primary way to transport both passengers and cargo.
I just honestly can't find out what is so great about BeOS(besides the speed, but what good is speed when there is nothing to do WITH that speed?). Linux and BSD are all based on the time proven UNIX system foundation, but BeOS totally came out of left field, as it isn't open source, nor is it compatible, nor is it good for server platform (we all know that M$ dominated the desktop platform) moreover, it has terriable hardware support and software support, even worse than BSD or Linux. BeOS, with the presence of Microsoft, was never going to succeed, for it was aiming for the desktop platform using a commercial approach, exactly what Microsoft was doing. What chance did they have? None.
Of course I can agree that BeOS isn't dead, as there is a still an avid userbase. But besides that, the development on that is slowing down to a crawl. I just hope that OpenBeOS will have much success, as it would restore the OS as an open source project, giving it a chance to actually see daylight, and possibly taking a chunk out of the large M$ market share.
Yes, I agree that the law enforcement around the far east are doing a horrid job. Apparently, last time I went to China, there were literally entire floors of a mall covered with retailers of pirated CD's. Most of them were selling the exact same thing, hinting at a similar souce. Some of the packages were printed well, and had a good design to them, and most of the CDs were of poor quality, but were pressed, and not burned. There were also CD's that came in packages that looked like it came out of an inkjet printer, and the CD itself was a CD-R.
Apparently, these operations can never really be stopped because while I was there, I literally saw police go and buy some copies of some VCD's (not seized, bought). These people just don't realize that their personal gain in purchasing and selling cheap software may be good for them in the short run, but disasterous to their nation in the long run.
Once again, remember to not mistake the people with the government. The people have been around ever since the dawn of civilization. The communists have only been around for the past 52 years.
I agree that what they are doing in Tibet is wrong, but it's the government to blame. Not all Chinese people are terriable as most people think of them to be.
The pronounciation for "Microsoft" in the Mandarin dialect is 'Wei Ran' Wei means very tiny, as in Micro, and Ran means soft, as in software. (ran jian)
You don't always have to follow all the version numbers to skip to the next major version. Most software vendors don't even do that at all, it goes from like 1.1 to 2.0 in one revision.
Heck, Netscape even skips MAJOR version numbers (they skipped 5.0)
If you been to China and seen the prices for the computers, they are outrageous by Chinese standards. In the US, we enjoy the luxery of earning an average of 2,500 dollars a month, and a modest computer only costs about 800-1200 dollars. That's very afforadable, since US dollars can buy a lot of things.
The Chinese RMB, on the other hand, is worth a lot less. It's worth 1/8 of a dollar, and average people earn only about 1,000 RMB a month, if they even have a job. A halfway decent, probably barely usable computer costs well over 8,000 RMB, making it out of reach for most workers because they spend most of that money on food and housing anyway.
One reason for the high prices is because of the fact that much of the parts are imported, and only assembled in China under the brands Legend, iBuddie, etc... If this archetecture of chip gets popular in China, more of it will be produced within the nation, making it less expensive, then soon after will come cheaper motherboards, the cases are already made in China anyway... This would mean lower prices, making personal computers within the reach of a lot more Chinese. So, this chip, I say, is a Good Thing(TM), and a step in the right direction.
The answer is simple: take over Taiwan. The mainland has been wanting to do that ever since Communist China was concieved. It would be really interesting if the two sides started fighting for nothing more than chip manufacturing facilities.
On the other hand, the Chinese government does a lotta stuff under the table, and a lotta stuff is kept clandestine, for example, the plans for the lauch of the Shenzhou-1 rocket were unannounced until it was already done. Who knows what those people have up their sleeves...
One of the very minor reasons why I switched to Linux some time back was because I didn't like the look of M$ Windows. It was ugly, blocky, and generally gave me hardly any options to customise the widget and window decoration, which is what I like about KDE. It allows me to do that, plus a lot more stuff which Windows dosen't even hint at. Purely at a desktop OS stance, I feel that they made a bad choice going for the Win9x look, as it looks repulsive and just gives a bad feel to the distro, as it appears to be a cheap ripoff. Many people have labeled KDE a Windows Desktop clone, which I do not believe, as it is FAR superior to the Windows desktop. It supports applets in the panel, and the panel looks much better when it's in normal mode, and not small mode (like in the screenshots). This distro only heightens their claim. A good solution is not to try and clone the Windows desktop, but rather to make something better than it.
Well, don't forget that Sony is a major conglomerate corperation with its hands in the pockets of the gaming industry, the consumer electronics industry, the music industry, the movie making industry, the solid state storage industry, need I go on? They are sure to have huge cash reserves to keep their PS line up and on the go against Xbox while all M$ makes is cruddy software and overpriced computer perhiperals.
I think the encoding for Chinese in Babelfish is GB (Guo Biao), a system used in Mainland China for simplified chinese. Traditional chinese, on the other hand, is used by Taiwan, and the encoding for that is in BIG5. Perhaps you may want to find a converter that can translate between the two?
This 'ruby text' you talk of, I really don't think that it's present in Chinese. Either you're talking about 'pinyin' which is a system (usually not included with the characters) that shows the pronounciation of a certain character (a lot of characters have the same pronounciation, and a lot of characters have more than one pronounciation, making it useful only for learning). Or, you're talking about 'bu' or 'pang', the small portions of the characters that are like 'modifiers'.
And you are right about the font issue and the encoding. There is Traditional Chinese (complex and ugly, but traditional) and Simplified Chinese ( simpel and pretty, but overly 'communist'). When a simplified document is put under a traditional encoding (BIG5, for example) it just dosen't make sense.
The author claims that he sent a message to Microsoft, and Microsoft responded that it is not really a threat because, well, it can only be done locally, and I can see that a lot of people who pasted comments stated that it was clearly stupid of them to do such a thing, however, Microsoft, in this case, has a point.
Mac OS X, the operating system that we have all ignored, as a lot of us think that it is secure, is very insecure locally. While booting your Maciontosh computer with OS X installed on it, hold down ApplCtrl (the key with the symbok) + s it would boot in single user mode. And guess what? The system starts out with you as root, without asking for a single password.
Clearly, most local exploits are not extremely devastating to security, and although I agree that this is a very silly system of window management, people shouldn't be so suprised, as if something like this didn't present itself before.
Well, of course that it is JUST a research lab, but all research has some sort of purpose, like biotech firms try to develop new cures and such. This research lab's purpose is to develop new technologies to compensate for M$'s inability to innovate (most of M$'s technologies are copied or licensed from others), and the purpose of M$ is to take over the world with their shitty software.
Therefore, this research lab essentially is part of M$, and they help with putting put out "crappy, buggy software" and help them "take over the world." Their ideas are not open to all, and they strive for competetive ends which do not benefit all of mankind, only M$ and it's loyal ass-kissers.
This format certainly is not unprecedented. The Digital 8 and Mini-DV formats commonly used on digital camcorders use a system that is similar to this, I would think. The underlying principles of digital magnetic tape storage is simple. Instead of recording an analog signal to the tape, we simply replace that with a preordered binary signal, like when you play a tape from an old Spectrum or Commodore, it sounds like static, bleeps and bloops.
Moreover, the time has passed for this form of storage. Certainly, you can strore a lot of information in this manner, as magnetic tape backup devices can use special tapes and backup over 10 gigabytes of data. The unfornuate thing is that they are only practically used as backup devices, as they are too slow-seeking and reading to be used as a conventional mass-storage device like a hard disk.
This form of video will obviously offer no advantages over DVD. It's more expensive to make where a plastic casette with tape spools inside and mechanical features must be made to accomidate a single casette, while a DVD is nothing more than a platter of pressed reflected film. Moreover, tape storage systems are linear, so, yup, you gotta rewind and fast forward to find stuff whereas DVD can seek almost instantaniously.
The copy protection mechanism they claim the tape offers can be easily circumvented. The CSS encryption on DVDs has already been cracked, so has Macrovision and other encryption formats. And IF this 'copy protection' feature is hard or impractical to circumvent, well, you gotta be able to see the video, so you can simply tape the video from your TV screen if all else fails (which it probably won't).
If this was introduced a few years ago with a lesser price tag, then it would be a novel invention. However, at this time, it is laughable. It has already been replaced by DVD even before its birth. Now, with great DVD players below the 100 dollar mark, this player that costs over $2k will be bought by not many people because it is expensive, offers no features above DVD, and will likely have a very small amount of videos made for it.
The thing is, someone will have to invent a novel new way to input data using the Chiense language if this is the case. Clearly, inputting with PinYin (phonetics) is not fast, and making a keyboard filled with characters is not practical. English has a major advantage for computers because it is a western language - every word is made up of a limited amount of letters, and they can all be planted onto a keyboard. In Chinese, this is different. It is more adopted to be written, as almost all of you probably know, it is a character lanugage, and each character IS made up of a limited pattern of BiHua (pen strokes), but the placement of them is also critical to making up a single character.
Inputting Chinese into a computer is NOT fast, and it is much easier to real-time chat in English, as I find it much faster.
The DragonPen, a system of a pen and pad that recognizes your writing is a good place to start, but even the fastest writers I know don't write as fast as I can type in English.
Therefore, unless something NEW is invented, there is no way that Chinese will ever replace English, or any Western languages in that matter, simply because it is less efficent and not practical. It's easier to make Chinese people learn English (A great deal of Chinese youth can speak some English)
Go look at RedHat, SuSE and Mandrake. Sun Microsystems is devoted to Open Source, but not as much as some other firms. Their Solaris OE is free, but not free free, as in open. This can be contributed to their downfall. Moreover, their adoption of Open Source only occured a few months back, and on a minimal scale, so it is not realiable to use Sun as an example. Moreover, it's open SOURCE software. So, either your analysists are very poor in their diction, or you are (hence your name, Stock Quote Troll), or you're attempting to produce a pun, but I don't find that funny or even tasteful.
"ALL YOU PEOPLE AGAINST OPEN SOURCE ARE AGAINST FREEDOM! YOU FREAKISH TERRORISTS!"
Slashdot Mirror
You do know that Sony does endorse Open Source to an extent. They do offer a distribution of Linux for their PS2 console, so you can't really say such a thing.
Actually, of course it would be unfair for a competitor to be forced to hold your product, but this is really not all the case in this matter. Microsoft has went great lengths to discredit Java, and mutilate it so that it would not work very well on some M$ platforms (they all start with Wi, end with a 2 character alphanumeric sequence)
I try to stay as far away from Windows and M$ as I can, but it's still ironic how my keyboard has 2 windows symbols on it, and my mouse has 'Microsoft' printed on it below the left button.
Starting in the late 90's, this all started to change. Pretty soon, the number of "free" services skyrocketed. How many of you use Yahoo, or Hotmail? The former survives almost entirely on advertisements in the form of banners on their site while the latter supports itself partially from ads as well. The number of totally free services has exploded due to the high amount of advertisements there are. Many e-businesses survived solely off of ads. This practice is very faulty, as quickly, the number of buyers who responded to the ads declined, and many firms went belly-up due to the lack of ad-buyers. Spam was also "introduced" at this time, as more and more people got e-mail accounts to the extent where everyone who had an internet connection or access to one could get an account.
The so called free services we use today are funded entirely by ads(even Slashdot), and spam is just another prong on the pitchfork of internet advertisement. Would it be better to just get annoyed by spam and advertisements, or would it be better to shell out cash from your own pocket? For me, I would rather get annoyed by spam, because I remember back when I was a kid, when I had no money at all. The internet was a closed realm for those who had no credit card until the introduction of ads and spam. In a way, these are now fundemental aspects that keep the internet going. After all, how many of you even considered to use the subscribe option in Slashdot to buy ad-free pages?
Compared to this, I honestly believe that there is some point to distributed computing in cracking codes and doing useful things, like the Optimal Golumb Ruler finding, even when RC5 is a dead issue. There IS more to Distrubed.net than just cracking RC5
The concept of a conpost pile is just as valid when it comes to computer parts. Food waste can be converted into usable soil, and computers can be subdivided into useful parts as well. The electrolytic capiciators inside the power supply are worth quite a bit, I can sell good ones for over fifty cents a piece, and the processor, although useless in computers, can be used in projects and robotics, since older processors are simpler to use, which is exactly why the Intel 8086 XT processors are still in relatively high demand. Heck, I once even sold an old VGA monitor for 30 dollars... that's right, I EARNED 30 dollars, not lost.
As for copmanies seeking to lessen their computer stock or get rid of old ones, they should draw them out by lottery and give them to their employees. Where I'm employed, there are usually more people who want computers than there are actually older machines to give out.
If everyone simply keeps their old computer parts, I'm sure that we can hold this process until we can find a better solution, such as REAL recycling.
This is just an example of how Microsoft is ignoring all morals and what is right just to earn some money. Although this is an isolated case, their "Office XP for students" is a much more broad case of how M$ manages to ignore morals to earn money. Sure, it's cheaper than regular Office, but that's not saying much, as regular Office is already ludicrously expensive. The student edition costs well over 100 US dollars. Let me get this straight - something THIS expensive was intended for students? And this is considered amnesty? I find it disgusting.
Sure, there are other packages out there for students that cost a lot, like Mathematica, which has a student edition that costs the same as Office for students, but the regular edition is well over several thousand dollars. Consider that in a ratio. Moreover, while the essential features of Office have been claimed by other word processors, Mathematica is unparalleled in functionality by any other calculation package in existance.
In conclusion, this is predictable old Microsoft behavior - overlooking almost all morals, disguising it as an act of charity, while earning massive amounts of profit.
Since I use Linux, he couden't install the software anyway, so, it really depends on what ISP you use. I use Time Warner, and their contract only provides that the service personnel provide a working connection... there is no clause for installing their particular software package.
As of right now, most North American railways are used to transport cargo, and the very fact remains that speed isn't really a problem right now, as even though trains are very slow, a speed increase would probably not be necessary, as it would only cost more on shiping. On the other hand, these new technologies could be more useful in other places, such as the Far East, where rail transport is still the primary way to transport both passengers and cargo.
Of course I can agree that BeOS isn't dead, as there is a still an avid userbase. But besides that, the development on that is slowing down to a crawl. I just hope that OpenBeOS will have much success, as it would restore the OS as an open source project, giving it a chance to actually see daylight, and possibly taking a chunk out of the large M$ market share.
Apparently, these operations can never really be stopped because while I was there, I literally saw police go and buy some copies of some VCD's (not seized, bought). These people just don't realize that their personal gain in purchasing and selling cheap software may be good for them in the short run, but disasterous to their nation in the long run.
Once again, remember to not mistake the people with the government. The people have been around ever since the dawn of civilization. The communists have only been around for the past 52 years.
I agree that what they are doing in Tibet is wrong, but it's the government to blame. Not all Chinese people are terriable as most people think of them to be.
The pronounciation for "Microsoft" in the Mandarin dialect is 'Wei Ran' Wei means very tiny, as in Micro, and Ran means soft, as in software. (ran jian)
You don't always have to follow all the version numbers to skip to the next major version. Most software vendors don't even do that at all, it goes from like 1.1 to 2.0 in one revision.
Heck, Netscape even skips MAJOR version numbers (they skipped 5.0)
The Chinese RMB, on the other hand, is worth a lot less. It's worth 1/8 of a dollar, and average people earn only about 1,000 RMB a month, if they even have a job. A halfway decent, probably barely usable computer costs well over 8,000 RMB, making it out of reach for most workers because they spend most of that money on food and housing anyway.
One reason for the high prices is because of the fact that much of the parts are imported, and only assembled in China under the brands Legend, iBuddie, etc... If this archetecture of chip gets popular in China, more of it will be produced within the nation, making it less expensive, then soon after will come cheaper motherboards, the cases are already made in China anyway... This would mean lower prices, making personal computers within the reach of a lot more Chinese. So, this chip, I say, is a Good Thing(TM), and a step in the right direction.
On the other hand, the Chinese government does a lotta stuff under the table, and a lotta stuff is kept clandestine, for example, the plans for the lauch of the Shenzhou-1 rocket were unannounced until it was already done. Who knows what those people have up their sleeves...
One of the very minor reasons why I switched to Linux some time back was because I didn't like the look of M$ Windows. It was ugly, blocky, and generally gave me hardly any options to customise the widget and window decoration, which is what I like about KDE. It allows me to do that, plus a lot more stuff which Windows dosen't even hint at. Purely at a desktop OS stance, I feel that they made a bad choice going for the Win9x look, as it looks repulsive and just gives a bad feel to the distro, as it appears to be a cheap ripoff. Many people have labeled KDE a Windows Desktop clone, which I do not believe, as it is FAR superior to the Windows desktop. It supports applets in the panel, and the panel looks much better when it's in normal mode, and not small mode (like in the screenshots). This distro only heightens their claim. A good solution is not to try and clone the Windows desktop, but rather to make something better than it.
Well, don't forget that Sony is a major conglomerate corperation with its hands in the pockets of the gaming industry, the consumer electronics industry, the music industry, the movie making industry, the solid state storage industry, need I go on? They are sure to have huge cash reserves to keep their PS line up and on the go against Xbox while all M$ makes is cruddy software and overpriced computer perhiperals.
I think the encoding for Chinese in Babelfish is GB (Guo Biao), a system used in Mainland China for simplified chinese. Traditional chinese, on the other hand, is used by Taiwan, and the encoding for that is in BIG5. Perhaps you may want to find a converter that can translate between the two?
This 'ruby text' you talk of, I really don't think that it's present in Chinese. Either you're talking about 'pinyin' which is a system (usually not included with the characters) that shows the pronounciation of a certain character (a lot of characters have the same pronounciation, and a lot of characters have more than one pronounciation, making it useful only for learning). Or, you're talking about 'bu' or 'pang', the small portions of the characters that are like 'modifiers'.
And you are right about the font issue and the encoding. There is Traditional Chinese (complex and ugly, but traditional) and Simplified Chinese ( simpel and pretty, but overly 'communist'). When a simplified document is put under a traditional encoding (BIG5, for example) it just dosen't make sense.
The author claims that he sent a message to Microsoft, and Microsoft responded that it is not really a threat because, well, it can only be done locally, and I can see that a lot of people who pasted comments stated that it was clearly stupid of them to do such a thing, however, Microsoft, in this case, has a point.
Mac OS X, the operating system that we have all ignored, as a lot of us think that it is secure, is very insecure locally. While booting your Maciontosh computer with OS X installed on it, hold down ApplCtrl (the key with the symbok) + s it would boot in single user mode. And guess what? The system starts out with you as root, without asking for a single password.
Clearly, most local exploits are not extremely devastating to security, and although I agree that this is a very silly system of window management, people shouldn't be so suprised, as if something like this didn't present itself before.
"It's just a research lab."
Well, of course that it is JUST a research lab, but all research has some sort of purpose, like biotech firms try to develop new cures and such. This research lab's purpose is to develop new technologies to compensate for M$'s inability to innovate (most of M$'s technologies are copied or licensed from others), and the purpose of M$ is to take over the world with their shitty software.
Therefore, this research lab essentially is part of M$, and they help with putting put out "crappy, buggy software" and help them "take over the world." Their ideas are not open to all, and they strive for competetive ends which do not benefit all of mankind, only M$ and it's loyal ass-kissers.
This format certainly is not unprecedented. The Digital 8 and Mini-DV formats commonly used on digital camcorders use a system that is similar to this, I would think. The underlying principles of digital magnetic tape storage is simple. Instead of recording an analog signal to the tape, we simply replace that with a preordered binary signal, like when you play a tape from an old Spectrum or Commodore, it sounds like static, bleeps and bloops.
Moreover, the time has passed for this form of storage. Certainly, you can strore a lot of information in this manner, as magnetic tape backup devices can use special tapes and backup over 10 gigabytes of data. The unfornuate thing is that they are only practically used as backup devices, as they are too slow-seeking and reading to be used as a conventional mass-storage device like a hard disk.
This form of video will obviously offer no advantages over DVD. It's more expensive to make where a plastic casette with tape spools inside and mechanical features must be made to accomidate a single casette, while a DVD is nothing more than a platter of pressed reflected film. Moreover, tape storage systems are linear, so, yup, you gotta rewind and fast forward to find stuff whereas DVD can seek almost instantaniously.
The copy protection mechanism they claim the tape offers can be easily circumvented. The CSS encryption on DVDs has already been cracked, so has Macrovision and other encryption formats. And IF this 'copy protection' feature is hard or impractical to circumvent, well, you gotta be able to see the video, so you can simply tape the video from your TV screen if all else fails (which it probably won't).
If this was introduced a few years ago with a lesser price tag, then it would be a novel invention. However, at this time, it is laughable. It has already been replaced by DVD even before its birth. Now, with great DVD players below the 100 dollar mark, this player that costs over $2k will be bought by not many people because it is expensive, offers no features above DVD, and will likely have a very small amount of videos made for it.
The thing is, someone will have to invent a novel new way to input data using the Chiense language if this is the case. Clearly, inputting with PinYin (phonetics) is not fast, and making a keyboard filled with characters is not practical. English has a major advantage for computers because it is a western language - every word is made up of a limited amount of letters, and they can all be planted onto a keyboard. In Chinese, this is different. It is more adopted to be written, as almost all of you probably know, it is a character lanugage, and each character IS made up of a limited pattern of BiHua (pen strokes), but the placement of them is also critical to making up a single character.
Inputting Chinese into a computer is NOT fast, and it is much easier to real-time chat in English, as I find it much faster.
The DragonPen, a system of a pen and pad that recognizes your writing is a good place to start, but even the fastest writers I know don't write as fast as I can type in English.
Therefore, unless something NEW is invented, there is no way that Chinese will ever replace English, or any Western languages in that matter, simply because it is less efficent and not practical. It's easier to make Chinese people learn English (A great deal of Chinese youth can speak some English)
Go look at RedHat, SuSE and Mandrake. Sun Microsystems is devoted to Open Source, but not as much as some other firms. Their Solaris OE is free, but not free free, as in open. This can be contributed to their downfall. Moreover, their adoption of Open Source only occured a few months back, and on a minimal scale, so it is not realiable to use Sun as an example. Moreover, it's open SOURCE software. So, either your analysists are very poor in their diction, or you are (hence your name, Stock Quote Troll), or you're attempting to produce a pun, but I don't find that funny or even tasteful.
"ALL YOU PEOPLE AGAINST OPEN SOURCE ARE AGAINST FREEDOM! YOU FREAKISH TERRORISTS!"