...and for those that are away from their Toto toilet and "don't want to
do without", you can get THIS
wonderful gadget that will ensure you get that stream of "refreshing
water", "Perfect for that person on the go!", "You just
won't want to do without!!!"
OMG, thank you Toto for reminding how low my sense of humor can be late at
night... I'm still laughing at the "Leave it to Beaver" music playing
throughout the video (Windows,
QuickTime,
Real)
One interesting thing to note here is SomaFM *IS* paying to use the music, under ASCAP and BMI. They paying as a noncommercial station, about $1000 a year (college radio stations pay under the same deal). Under the CARP ruling, they would have to pay around $1000 a *DAY*.
The thing I find really disturbing about all this is the court system seems to be buying into equating Napster-like copying with legit internet-based radio stations. Yeah, I know, you can record off of a internet radio station... as you can do off a college FM station. And the quality difference isn't much off from FM (and I've rarely had my local noncommercial station lag out and get disconnects during peek time). Just because it's a noncommercial on the internet doesn't mean it should be treated any different that one that's not.
This ruling only serves to kill off the small guy, penalize the public, and let a handful of companies monopolize the radio internet radio industry.
One thing that makes the life time service non-viable for me is the whole "tied to the machine" thing. If you buy life time service, you buy it FOR THAT MACHINE. If you sell it, it goes with the machine. If you, like most people, will be upgrading the machine to a new one at some point, you are SOL. You either go back to monthly or buy a new lifetime.
I had thought about buying the lifetime service, but when I read this, quickly changed my mind....
They've released the dev stuff.
on
What is .NET?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but they actually released the dev
stuff for.NET. Article here
As someone who generally buys all his music, this is VERY annoying. I've pretty much changed how I listen to music these days, and I wish companies like this wouldn't muck with it. I normally:
1. Buy the CD
2. Rip the CD
3. Throw the CD away (well, OK, store it just in case... but I rarely see it again).
4. Play the music on my machines (Either directly or via the shoutcast server I run locally, and only locally, on my network).
5. Sometimes re-burn to CD so I can listen to it on my car.
This is all legal, from what I can see. If they're preventing me from doing any of the above, then I've got a problem with it. They need to come up with something else, something that doesn't interfere with my fair use of the music.
I wish they had more details in the article. I can't honestly tell if they're going to muck with any of the above, but I've got to guess at step #2, I'll be out of luck.
Every wearable computer to date that I've seen won't fly... because it's waaay to visible (See: All the Dork comments). Saying that, from the specs and (small) number of pictures of this one, it might actually be useable. If you can really put that thing in your pocket, and just have the pointer and HUD when you need it... well, maybe. It'd sure be a lot better then lugging around a lap top (at 11 oz and 5x3x1).
I'd like to see people actually wearing it. Is it fairly invisible? Does it look like you should have a helicopter hat on? Something in-between?
Nice for Cell phones, but it sure seems like this has some massive applications for any portable type of computer. With the size of laptops coming down each year, I would imagine being able to, in effect, get rid of the display could REALLY reduce them. Imagine having a 1 ghz machine, large about of storage (IBM micro-drives come to mind), and a tiny display you can "peek" into, that would fit in your pocket. Or having a notebook size display on a Pilot. Very cool...
"The dilemma is, the technology is turning the business model upside down"
That last line says it all. Much like the music industry, the business model is CHANGING. Instead of trying to compete head on to this change, the existing monopolies are reacting by suing their new competition out of existence. It's unfortunate that our legal system is helping them do that. It'd be nice to see free competition, instead of who ever is the biggest (old) company that's bought the most politicians wins.:(
PVR's have changed the way I watch TV. I'm actually watching MORE, because there's always something *I* like on. I find it very frustrating that the big monopolies are going to end up crushing this new way of watching TV (For now.. I"m sure they'll come up with their own after all the competition has been killed off by the lawyers).
Well, I'm kind mixed about
this whole thing... but I find it interesting that uterine replicator
that's central to many of Lois
McMaster Bujold's books MIGHT actually become a reality
I realize, considering the amount of money sucked up by Amazon, 5 million isn't a LOT... but for someone of this size, actually demonstrating that they can make money off of the internet is GREAT. They, along with many others, funneled that money into starting a whole new industry. That takes time and a lots and lots of money, before getting a return. For their business model, maybe this is a sign that they are past that initial point of "figuring it out". They may actually have a business model that works, one that can make money. The infrastructure is in place, the R&D is done (at least the big chucks of it). Give 'em a year and see what happens, who knows, we may look back on this as the start of profitable e-commerce retailers
One strength I've seen with OO isn't in the pure programming realm, but more in the business realm. You build objects based on the domain you are working in, whether that's banking, accounting, games, whatever. The terms you use, and how the high level objects fit together and interact can be more closely aligned to the domain you are working with, compared to procedural languages. This allows a developer to more easily verify that what they are developing is actually what is needed (easier to check against the domain), and also allows non-techies to look at the object model and be able to understand what's going on (again, because it's modeled directly to the domain, in the terminology of that domain).
There's lots of other good things about OO (which others have already pointed out), but this one strength is something I've seen work on several projects. Many of these other strengths are in more of the pure technical realm, but the business-oriented strength is one that can be overlooked, but is still important
While its VERY rough (lord, I hope that sounds isn't the unit *grin*), this seems to be a very cool idea.
I DO have to wonder about how it's detecting movement. It appears to have some kind of touch-sensing pad on the bottom sheet. Looks uncomfortable, and might be easy to move around. Still, I'll be interested to see how this progresses (sure looks like a prototype right now)
Slashdot Mirror
OMG, thank you Toto for reminding how low my sense of humor can be late at night... I'm still laughing at the "Leave it to Beaver" music playing throughout the video (Windows, QuickTime, Real)
One interesting thing to note here is SomaFM *IS* paying to use the music, under ASCAP and BMI. They paying as a noncommercial station, about $1000 a year (college radio stations pay under the same deal). Under the CARP ruling, they would have to pay around $1000 a *DAY*.
The thing I find really disturbing about all this is the court system seems to be buying into equating Napster-like copying with legit internet-based radio stations. Yeah, I know, you can record off of a internet radio station... as you can do off a college FM station. And the quality difference isn't much off from FM (and I've rarely had my local noncommercial station lag out and get disconnects during peek time). Just because it's a noncommercial on the internet doesn't mean it should be treated any different that one that's not.
This ruling only serves to kill off the small guy, penalize the public, and let a handful of companies monopolize the radio internet radio industry.
I started to count, but, as the list is over 685K.... :P
The stars would also do it (look around, someone posted a link to that).
-Greg
One thing that makes the life time service non-viable for me is the whole "tied to the machine" thing. If you buy life time service, you buy it FOR THAT MACHINE. If you sell it, it goes with the machine. If you, like most people, will be upgrading the machine to a new one at some point, you are SOL. You either go back to monthly or buy a new lifetime.
I had thought about buying the lifetime service, but when I read this, quickly changed my mind....
I haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but they actually released the dev stuff for .NET. Article here
As someone who generally buys all his music, this is VERY annoying. I've pretty much changed how I listen to music these days, and I wish companies like this wouldn't muck with it. I normally:
1. Buy the CD
2. Rip the CD
3. Throw the CD away (well, OK, store it just in case... but I rarely see it again).
4. Play the music on my machines (Either directly or via the shoutcast server I run locally, and only locally, on my network).
5. Sometimes re-burn to CD so I can listen to it on my car.
This is all legal, from what I can see. If they're preventing me from doing any of the above, then I've got a problem with it. They need to come up with something else, something that doesn't interfere with my fair use of the music.
I wish they had more details in the article. I can't honestly tell if they're going to muck with any of the above, but I've got to guess at step #2, I'll be out of luck.
Every wearable computer to date that I've seen won't fly... because it's waaay to visible (See: All the Dork comments). Saying that, from the specs and (small) number of pictures of this one, it might actually be useable. If you can really put that thing in your pocket, and just have the pointer and HUD when you need it... well, maybe. It'd sure be a lot better then lugging around a lap top (at 11 oz and 5x3x1).
I'd like to see people actually wearing it. Is it fairly invisible? Does it look like you should have a helicopter hat on? Something in-between?
-Greg
Nice for Cell phones, but it sure seems like this has some massive applications for any portable type of computer. With the size of laptops coming down each year, I would imagine being able to, in effect, get rid of the display could REALLY reduce them. Imagine having a 1 ghz machine, large about of storage (IBM micro-drives come to mind), and a tiny display you can "peek" into, that would fit in your pocket. Or having a notebook size display on a Pilot. Very cool...
"The dilemma is, the technology is turning the business model upside down"
:(
That last line says it all. Much like the music industry, the business model is CHANGING. Instead of trying to compete head on to this change, the existing monopolies are reacting by suing their new competition out of existence. It's unfortunate that our legal system is helping them do that. It'd be nice to see free competition, instead of who ever is the biggest (old) company that's bought the most politicians wins.
PVR's have changed the way I watch TV. I'm actually watching MORE, because there's always something *I* like on. I find it very frustrating that the big monopolies are going to end up crushing this new way of watching TV (For now.. I"m sure they'll come up with their own after all the competition has been killed off by the lawyers).
Well, I'm kind mixed about this whole thing... but I find it interesting that uterine replicator that's central to many of Lois McMaster Bujold's books MIGHT actually become a reality
Wow, people actually watch commercials still? Don't they know about TIVO???
:)
I realize, considering the amount of money sucked up by Amazon, 5 million isn't a LOT... but for someone of this size, actually demonstrating that they can make money off of the internet is GREAT. They, along with many others, funneled that money into starting a whole new industry. That takes time and a lots and lots of money, before getting a return. For their business model, maybe this is a sign that they are past that initial point of "figuring it out". They may actually have a business model that works, one that can make money. The infrastructure is in place, the R&D is done (at least the big chucks of it). Give 'em a year and see what happens, who knows, we may look back on this as the start of profitable e-commerce retailers
One strength I've seen with OO isn't in the pure programming realm, but more in the business realm. You build objects based on the domain you are working in, whether that's banking, accounting, games, whatever. The terms you use, and how the high level objects fit together and interact can be more closely aligned to the domain you are working with, compared to procedural languages. This allows a developer to more easily verify that what they are developing is actually what is needed (easier to check against the domain), and also allows non-techies to look at the object model and be able to understand what's going on (again, because it's modeled directly to the domain, in the terminology of that domain).
There's lots of other good things about OO (which others have already pointed out), but this one strength is something I've seen work on several projects. Many of these other strengths are in more of the pure technical realm, but the business-oriented strength is one that can be overlooked, but is still important
While its VERY rough (lord, I hope that sounds isn't the unit *grin*), this seems to be a very cool idea.
I DO have to wonder about how it's detecting movement. It appears to have some kind of touch-sensing pad on the bottom sheet. Looks uncomfortable, and might be easy to move around. Still, I'll be interested to see how this progresses (sure looks like a prototype right now)
A rough video of this can be found here