Because the bear is on a network, a parent could also use it to interact with a child remotely -- communicating or even taking snapshots through an embedded camera.
Great, allow parents to get even more detached from their kids. Instead of playing with their kids now a parent can sit at their computer while looking at internet porn and paying their taxes and watching their kid through the creepy bear.
We need products that are going to allow for a more personal connection then we are doing now, not a more remote one. Vidoe conferencing and all that is great but what kids need is real connection, they need to see and play with their parents, not the bear with a camera and potentially a detached voice in it.
A friend of mine who works on the redmond campus we telling me about one of the neatest things that they were showing off which seemed to get less attention from the media and others then the rest of the products. These were more pure concept items, things that were not really going to be marketed any time soon but wanted to show off where microsoft was heading. These were networked enabled appliances. While other companies have showed these off before this was the most comphrensive I had heard of.
Among the products included a microwave, fridge, coffee maker, toaster, dishwater and washer drier. These all tied into a control panel which could be accessed from a household computer which showed the status of each item. So if you had a load of laundry going you could see how much longer it had till it was completed. Or you could set the intensity of your toaster, etc. The neatest was the implimentation of RFID with the fridge. Using RFID tags which they believe will be on all products in the next 5 - 10 years you can look up exactly what products are left and get a full inventory. You can also set up triggers which will text your phone, send you an email, or something of that nature which will tell when something is empty or near empty.
It appears that Redmond is looking at taking over not just your computer some day but your life as well.
I really want to support NASA, i lvoe the space agency, i love space exploration. It is a nessasary compoenent of being a human, of being an adventurer. But come on, give me something to work with. It is getting hard to support NASA, it is getting hard to advocate for them when they keep fucking things up.
How can i possibly advocate for a mars mission when they can't even get this shit right?
CERN did this a couple of months ago
on
Sim Epidemic
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I read an article in Popular Science a few months ago while waiting in the dentist office about a similar program developed by CERN. The main difference was that it was text based instead graphical. The coolest thing I saw about it was that they used it to re-enact the spread of the bubonic plaguge which killed so many people years ago. I think they were developing it for WHO and the associated organizations.
This is the second major victory for Microsoft in two days. Slashdot didn't pick up the story but yesterday M$ won a pretty large appeal in the 9th circuit which dealt with patent and license issues having to do with ActiveX. While we all know ActiveX is terrible and its usuage has created one of the larger security holes known to man the victory is still a bad one because of the message that it sends to the lower courts. That issues involved a plug in developers access to APIs and whether they were allowed to create whatever they want. It is very legal jargon heavy and hard to summeraize the real implications, thats why I think it recieved such little press. The big suprise is that this happend in the 9th circuit where they are normally very friendly to the common man.
The bottom line is that M$ is on a winning streak and we need to cross our fingers in the hopes that some judge is brave enough to step up against them.
why don't they just sue for the ammount of $ they have stolen (i.e. the average cost of a CD) instead of charging these OUTRAGEOUS fees? Any body?
Because they are going after people for distributing. If you share a song to 100 people then you are liable for that song getting out there and all the damage to the company it causes.
I hate these arguments so much. Who cares what they price the music at? It is not your music, you did not make it, you did not go into contract with them and give them rights to it, you did not spend millions of dollars advertising it.
You do not have the right to just distribute or download it without paying, end of story. There is no "well if they only made it cheaper" because that is not your right to say. If you don't want to pay the price they are asking then you make the decision to not get that muisc.
This is just the start of the trends which have become somewhat commonn place in the states making the hop over the Atlantic. I think read on Drudge yesterday that the MPAA is considering a similar manuever in the UK. Insiders say that they plan on going after people who are sharing 10 movies or more. For now they are only planning on targeting those who offer up movies which have yet to be released but I would imagine they will be widening that net before too long.
A lot of people compare this whole issue to television and movies. They say that violent games are no worse then the violence that kids see every day on the news and in the movie theaters. I disagree with this greatly though.
When I watch a movie it is a fairly passive activety. I sit back, enjoy the flick without much involement. When I play a game though, such as grand theft auto or the like, that is a very active thing. I look for pedestrians to run over, I look for police to beat up. Now, I don't think that this nesassarly translates into violence in real life but it is definetly worse then what you see in tv and movies.
As time goes by the studies concerning video games and violence will get better and better. We are finally reaching a point where video games with real detail have been around long enough that major studies can be done on them. Studies that have been done in the past are amazingly accurate because the sample size and length of the study can only be so long.
A new study was released yesterday by Tulane Medical which tracked video game users over a 8 year period testing how much the video games they play affect their tendency toward violence. The study found that among those who played games 8% went on to have some form of violence conviction while only 6% of the non-gamers did.
The head of the project though did say that this is something that need a lot more data before any major conclusions can be drawn.
I work in DC as a lobbyist for the VOIP industry and let me tell you that this is not somethign we are sitting idly by and letting go unnoticed. I have been making a lot of calls today to various senators and congress trying to get their support and it has not been too difficult at all. Many were outraged at the idea and asked what our recomendation was on what to do. At the moment we are drafting a bill and a number of senators (Biden, Lehey, Kennedy) have expressed interest in introducing it.
The bottom line is that the telecoms have a strangle hold and they are not willing to let go but they have over stepped their boundries this time. Expect to see hearings announced soon.
I don't understand the rational for any goverement regulation outside of deceny standards. I suppose its because I am a yannkie but the whole idea to me of the goverement having that much control over the media is appaling. How does parliment justify keeping the BBC under its thumb?
Britian is a strong country, they are good to their people and they have been for the last 60 years a pretty model citizen in the world community. What is there to lose by allowing the BBC to run free. I have never been to Britian but I have heard stories of European broadcasting being much looser on deceny standards then we are in the states. If that is the case I don't understand the rational for any form of control or regulation. What do the people have to gain by having the media affiliated with the goverment?
Similar reform acts to the british media have been coming for a long time now. The first major whole hearted attempt came in the mid-80s. It is interesting because each time they get closer to actually getting it done but fall through in the end.
I say cheers to the thought of an independent British Broadcasting company. I know the goverments regulation over them as been decreasing in recent years but the changes that are in the pipes have been a long time coming.
This isn't the first time that this was attempted. About two years ago a coallition of developers tried to start a BSD movement in Japan and China. This isn't designed to start a BSD vs. Linux fight, I just point this out by way of saying that it didn't really work well there. The asian mindset doesn't really understand the open source concept and would prefer reliable software with a strong manufacture behind it. I don't see this working too well.
The whole idea of google is against portals They are minimalists, they would think that a portal is silly, that google.com is as much of a portal as you need.
A calendar seems pretty clearly not to be in google's long term strategy. Everything they do they do because they can using their searching technology to make the way things are done even better. Be it email with searches, almost all the projects in google labs, etc. Search functions don't really fit all that well into a calendar, at least nothing that is goign to be improved by their algorithms.
Second the whole calendar thing has been kind of done to death already. Outlook does a pretty decent job on the PC and iCal does an amazing job on the mac. When Google moved into email they did so because the current web based emails sucked, there was major room for imporvement. There really ins't much else you can do with the calendar.
A google calendar would be nice but I don't know if this guys predictions amounts to anything more then just hearsay. I run a couple of websites and the stat bump that he is basing a lot of his predictions on is probably just because he got a bump in his overall pagerank or perhapse google did a deeper index. The way they work when they index you is they do a initial surface sweep and then come back a few weeks later and hit you for a lot more.
Everythign is getting so small now, tiny phones, tiny mp3 players, tiny cameras. It is not that difficult to get each device seperate. I hate this trend towards convergence because you end up with a crappy phone and a crappy mp3 player. I bought one of those phone/pda things and it was terrible. It wasn't half as good as my regular PDA or the phone I traded it in for. So instead i get two crappy devices in the size of one.
Focus on making things better, making phone reception clearer, i don't need to listen to music using my phone, thats what my iPod is for.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends, what if they are at work? What if they have a big house?
Because the bear is on a network, a parent could also use it to interact with a child remotely -- communicating or even taking snapshots through an embedded camera.
Great, allow parents to get even more detached from their kids. Instead of playing with their kids now a parent can sit at their computer while looking at internet porn and paying their taxes and watching their kid through the creepy bear.
We need products that are going to allow for a more personal connection then we are doing now, not a more remote one. Vidoe conferencing and all that is great but what kids need is real connection, they need to see and play with their parents, not the bear with a camera and potentially a detached voice in it.
A friend of mine who works on the redmond campus we telling me about one of the neatest things that they were showing off which seemed to get less attention from the media and others then the rest of the products. These were more pure concept items, things that were not really going to be marketed any time soon but wanted to show off where microsoft was heading. These were networked enabled appliances. While other companies have showed these off before this was the most comphrensive I had heard of.
Among the products included a microwave, fridge, coffee maker, toaster, dishwater and washer drier. These all tied into a control panel which could be accessed from a household computer which showed the status of each item. So if you had a load of laundry going you could see how much longer it had till it was completed. Or you could set the intensity of your toaster, etc. The neatest was the implimentation of RFID with the fridge. Using RFID tags which they believe will be on all products in the next 5 - 10 years you can look up exactly what products are left and get a full inventory. You can also set up triggers which will text your phone, send you an email, or something of that nature which will tell when something is empty or near empty.
It appears that Redmond is looking at taking over not just your computer some day but your life as well.
That's not a horse, its just a fat mouse. Maybe a pony at the most...
I really want to support NASA, i lvoe the space agency, i love space exploration. It is a nessasary compoenent of being a human, of being an adventurer. But come on, give me something to work with. It is getting hard to support NASA, it is getting hard to advocate for them when they keep fucking things up.
How can i possibly advocate for a mars mission when they can't even get this shit right?
I read an article in Popular Science a few months ago while waiting in the dentist office about a similar program developed by CERN. The main difference was that it was text based instead graphical. The coolest thing I saw about it was that they used it to re-enact the spread of the bubonic plaguge which killed so many people years ago. I think they were developing it for WHO and the associated organizations.
But did they find the ring?
This is the second major victory for Microsoft in two days. Slashdot didn't pick up the story but yesterday M$ won a pretty large appeal in the 9th circuit which dealt with patent and license issues having to do with ActiveX. While we all know ActiveX is terrible and its usuage has created one of the larger security holes known to man the victory is still a bad one because of the message that it sends to the lower courts. That issues involved a plug in developers access to APIs and whether they were allowed to create whatever they want. It is very legal jargon heavy and hard to summeraize the real implications, thats why I think it recieved such little press. The big suprise is that this happend in the 9th circuit where they are normally very friendly to the common man. The bottom line is that M$ is on a winning streak and we need to cross our fingers in the hopes that some judge is brave enough to step up against them.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/02/21 5205&tid=123&tid=113&tid=155&tid=17
why don't they just sue for the ammount of $ they have stolen (i.e. the average cost of a CD) instead of charging these OUTRAGEOUS fees? Any body?
Because they are going after people for distributing. If you share a song to 100 people then you are liable for that song getting out there and all the damage to the company it causes.
I hate these arguments so much. Who cares what they price the music at? It is not your music, you did not make it, you did not go into contract with them and give them rights to it, you did not spend millions of dollars advertising it.
You do not have the right to just distribute or download it without paying, end of story. There is no "well if they only made it cheaper" because that is not your right to say. If you don't want to pay the price they are asking then you make the decision to not get that muisc.
50,000 pounds for music? Things have sure gone up when I was a kid. Bubble gum used to cost a quarter too!
This is just the start of the trends which have become somewhat commonn place in the states making the hop over the Atlantic. I think read on Drudge yesterday that the MPAA is considering a similar manuever in the UK. Insiders say that they plan on going after people who are sharing 10 movies or more. For now they are only planning on targeting those who offer up movies which have yet to be released but I would imagine they will be widening that net before too long.
A lot of people compare this whole issue to television and movies. They say that violent games are no worse then the violence that kids see every day on the news and in the movie theaters. I disagree with this greatly though.
When I watch a movie it is a fairly passive activety. I sit back, enjoy the flick without much involement. When I play a game though, such as grand theft auto or the like, that is a very active thing. I look for pedestrians to run over, I look for police to beat up. Now, I don't think that this nesassarly translates into violence in real life but it is definetly worse then what you see in tv and movies.
As time goes by the studies concerning video games and violence will get better and better. We are finally reaching a point where video games with real detail have been around long enough that major studies can be done on them. Studies that have been done in the past are amazingly accurate because the sample size and length of the study can only be so long.
A new study was released yesterday by Tulane Medical which tracked video game users over a 8 year period testing how much the video games they play affect their tendency toward violence. The study found that among those who played games 8% went on to have some form of violence conviction while only 6% of the non-gamers did.
The head of the project though did say that this is something that need a lot more data before any major conclusions can be drawn.
I work in DC as a lobbyist for the VOIP industry and let me tell you that this is not somethign we are sitting idly by and letting go unnoticed. I have been making a lot of calls today to various senators and congress trying to get their support and it has not been too difficult at all. Many were outraged at the idea and asked what our recomendation was on what to do. At the moment we are drafting a bill and a number of senators (Biden, Lehey, Kennedy) have expressed interest in introducing it.
The bottom line is that the telecoms have a strangle hold and they are not willing to let go but they have over stepped their boundries this time. Expect to see hearings announced soon.
I don't understand the rational for any goverement regulation outside of deceny standards. I suppose its because I am a yannkie but the whole idea to me of the goverement having that much control over the media is appaling. How does parliment justify keeping the BBC under its thumb?
Britian is a strong country, they are good to their people and they have been for the last 60 years a pretty model citizen in the world community. What is there to lose by allowing the BBC to run free. I have never been to Britian but I have heard stories of European broadcasting being much looser on deceny standards then we are in the states. If that is the case I don't understand the rational for any form of control or regulation. What do the people have to gain by having the media affiliated with the goverment?
Similar reform acts to the british media have been coming for a long time now. The first major whole hearted attempt came in the mid-80s. It is interesting because each time they get closer to actually getting it done but fall through in the end.
I say cheers to the thought of an independent British Broadcasting company. I know the goverments regulation over them as been decreasing in recent years but the changes that are in the pipes have been a long time coming.
This isn't the first time that this was attempted. About two years ago a coallition of developers tried to start a BSD movement in Japan and China. This isn't designed to start a BSD vs. Linux fight, I just point this out by way of saying that it didn't really work well there. The asian mindset doesn't really understand the open source concept and would prefer reliable software with a strong manufacture behind it. I don't see this working too well.
Learn how to do what you want sexually at WikiAfterDark
The whole idea of google is against portals They are minimalists, they would think that a portal is silly, that google.com is as much of a portal as you need.
A calendar seems pretty clearly not to be in google's long term strategy. Everything they do they do because they can using their searching technology to make the way things are done even better. Be it email with searches, almost all the projects in google labs, etc. Search functions don't really fit all that well into a calendar, at least nothing that is goign to be improved by their algorithms.
Second the whole calendar thing has been kind of done to death already. Outlook does a pretty decent job on the PC and iCal does an amazing job on the mac. When Google moved into email they did so because the current web based emails sucked, there was major room for imporvement. There really ins't much else you can do with the calendar.
In the end it really just doesn't make sense.
A google calendar would be nice but I don't know if this guys predictions amounts to anything more then just hearsay. I run a couple of websites and the stat bump that he is basing a lot of his predictions on is probably just because he got a bump in his overall pagerank or perhapse google did a deeper index. The way they work when they index you is they do a initial surface sweep and then come back a few weeks later and hit you for a lot more.
No, competition just means for distractions for the ADD generation.
Everythign is getting so small now, tiny phones, tiny mp3 players, tiny cameras. It is not that difficult to get each device seperate. I hate this trend towards convergence because you end up with a crappy phone and a crappy mp3 player. I bought one of those phone/pda things and it was terrible. It wasn't half as good as my regular PDA or the phone I traded it in for. So instead i get two crappy devices in the size of one.
Focus on making things better, making phone reception clearer, i don't need to listen to music using my phone, thats what my iPod is for.