Funny how the US was so against the Soviet Union on "Human Rights" grounds only a handfull of years ago...
The objections?:
-requirement for internal travel documents "your papers please"
-"blacklisting" dissidents (no-fly list?)
-secret searches (Brandon Mayfield in Portland?)
-forced medical procedures (or lack of care)
-voting irregularities
-lack of "due process" (Guantanamo Bay, sending suspects to egypt for "questioning")
-"watchers" at libraries, places of public assembly
But these days, it seems the US government is a bigger violator of human rights than the soviets ever were. A noble experiment in democracy destroyed by an arrogant few who have constructed a system to protect themselves and their petty fiefdoms from the citizenry who demand accountability.
Where I used to be a flag-waving patriot when I was a USMC Fighter Pilot, I no longer feel that way. I look at our own government as more dangerous than Saddam Hussein, Osama BinLaden, North Korea, Iran and the rest.
I look at virtually every government project in the same way I look at Saddam's statues of himself...an exercise in self-aggrandisment for those behind the project, that if it benefits even a single citizen, it's by accident, not by intent.
I almost believe the "conspiracy theorists" who claim that the government knew about Oklahoma City and 9-11 ahead of time....because if the terrorists had instead hit Congress, the FBI, the IRS and the Supreme Court, it would be hard to rally people against them. They could have killed 2 birds with one stone.
It really is sad to think this nation has deteriorated so far and that citizens have allowed their rights to be eroded to such an extent that they have all but been rendered incapable of making any meaningful change in government short of violence.
Russia today is stunning proof that the crooks and gangsters are more honest and reliable than the politicians. Maybe we need a dose of their sort of revolution in this country?
If something doesn't happen here, instead of being like 1970s Soviet Union, US citizens will end up being treated by this government like jews in 1940's Germany. Other than the ovens, little separates us from that today.
After all analog is on the way out and HDTV is on the way in.
Virtually all of the Analog tuners work just fine. Not necessarily great, but fine. The only recent issue with analog tuners being whether they are XP-MCE compatible.
HDTV is where the action is. And whole there are various OTA and DBS solutions, the "Holy Grail" of PC HDTV Tuners appears to be QAM tuning so they can work on digital cable.
Several manufacturers are trying and none are succeeding, mainly because they either do not have the correct HDTV Tuner chipsets (mfrs. won't sell to them), or they have the right chipsets but they do not have the right SDKs and have to reverse-engineer them to make the tuners function.
Odd considering that several TV makers have introduced DigitalCableReady HDTVs with CableCARD slots yet the PC Tuner makers can't get basic QAM tuning to work.
HDTV tuners on PCs ought to be the discussion here. Analog has been mature for several years.
Perhaps the public would be better served if the screens were placed on the outside of the buildings, looking inward at what is going on in government.
The magnitude of the fraud, waste and abuse so rampant throughout government pursuing boondoggles like this is endless, and the excuse is always some "Sound Bite Focused" explanation that "It's for the Children", "It's for the fight against terrorism", or some other thinly veiled B.S. intended to take ever more tax money from citizens and waste it on needless government programs.
A smaller example of this was in Portland, OR where the police needed an extra quarter million dollars in order to be able to track "Racial Profiling" in traffic stops. Seems that none of the cops were able to record the vital statistics of who they stopped unless they were given Palm Pilots (and all sorts of other alleged I.T. expenses to support them).
Seems nobody even considered those little paper notebooks and a few boxes of pencils.
Amazing how the public seems entirely ignorant of the paramilitarization of the police and the resulting "Us against Them" rift that continues to widen.
The best thing that can be done in the U.S. (Short of Jeffersonian suggestions of periodic revolutions to toss out abusive and tyrannical politicians) would be to cut all government spending and staffing by 25% immediately, and 50% within 5 years.
CableCARD means "Digital Cable Ready"
on
CableCARDs and HDTV
·
· Score: 3, Informative
This is not just for HDTV.
The CableCARD is shaped just like a PCMCIA card and if you go to BestBuy, Circuit City, or similar right now, you can see Panasonic HDTVs with the slot right on the front. http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/se rvlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11251&catalogId=11005&mo delNo=PT-56TWD63
Only they are not "documented" as CableCARD because the service is not available yet, so the sales folks have no idea what the slot is for.
Nonetheless, it is there on those Panasonic sets. Probably others too.
Basically, what it does is make the TV DIGITAL CABLE READY, just like all TV sets made since the late 1980s are "Cable Ready" and do not need a STB for tuning regular unscrambled channels; "Expanded Basic" service.
However, if you want the premium channels, you needed a STB or descrambler, except for the fact most of the cable providers have moved most, if not all premium channels from Analog to Digital.
Now if you want to read more about CableCARD, there are several nice "White Papers" at www.motorola.com, or www.cablelabs.org.
These sites explain how the card works, and how, unlike Dish/DTV, the receiver should be able to communicate with the cable company via the cable itself, no phoneline connection required.
I went to the local Comcast tech center where I live and did find out that these cards are NOT transportable between areas, due to the fact they are authenticated to the physical street address where they are installed (basically they should work anywhere on that specific cable trunk, but not across town) and possibly to a specific serialized/addressable receiving device (TV, Tivo, PC Card etc.).
This will not be easy to "hack" for those who are already thinking about it, as the CableCARD is not just a PCMCIA memory card, but supposedly has an encryption ASIC on it which compliments the QAM Tuner chip in the receiver, which itself was designed from the start with encryption in mind. Never mind the Broadcast Flag, the whole thing is DRM'd up the butt.
An interesting note for the PC crowd....most SONY DTVs use ATI HDTV tuners, so hopefully we will see Digital Cable Ready cards for PCs.
This is a big deal because all of the current HDTV card providers have no problem with OTA HDTV tuning, but keep trying and failing at QAM tuning. My guess is that are not getting access to the right chipsets for this purpose, and are trying to make do with older/less capable technology...since the PCI Bus is unsecure, all that DRM would go away once the full transport stream exits the tuner onto the bus.
Since these TVs have the right chipsets and can do Digital Cable Ready, it seems like the problem is solved and just needs to be transplanted to the PC HDTV Tuner guys. Or we need to wait for that damn "Trusted Computing" (we big corporations don't trust you hacker/pirate consumers PCs) like the Intel "Sandow" platform.
Last, consider the price plunge we will see when DC Ready + CableCARD is available everywhere and 90% of the HDTVs have no slot in them. That is going to be some pricey inventory to discount when the only products selling have the slot so your new 50" 3" thick plasma will not need a phonebook sized STB sitting next to it.
Also consider how pissed off SciAtlanta and Motorola are about this...it means millions less sales of HDTV STBs to the cable companies...once all the TVs have CableCARD slots, the STB market is dead and only the chipset makers will be making money.
And pity the cable companies that have contracts to BUY STBs to lease to customers for $5-$10 per month...they will be sitting on piles of unused STBs and they will lose that extra revenue from the rental.
In this effort, each of the players has a deep financial interest in what technology goes where and when, and the fact that some companies will necessarily be screwed for "the good of the consumer" makes all of them less interested in making this stuff available rapidly or easily.
We'll see it soon, but not as soon as we should be.
And my bet is that it is not problem free in terms of interoperability, tech support, or performance.
The issue arose when ATI failed to offer support for MS's XP-Media Center Edition (MCE) until more than 2 years after the rest of the tuner vendors did so.
In Oct 2003, ATI announced "support" for MCE in 2 ways: a "hardware encoder" card, the eHomeWonder, and drivers for existing AIW cards, called "Encode", a software MPEG encoder.
A public Beta was started with just 15 members, and the performance of Encode was abyssmal, if it ran at all.
Public discussion ensued at several sites concerning if ATI was even serious about MCE support, or if they were going to intentionally screw with MCE to instead support their own PVR solution; MMC.
The folks at ATI threatened the owners/moderators/webmasters at several sites to CENSOR FORUM COMMENTS that revealed ATIs piss-poor customer support (if you bought a $400 video card that was supposed to work with MCE because the vendor said it would, but then ATI refused to release the drivers, wouldn't you be pissed off when the makers of numerous $60 tuners provide drivers for free?).
ATI still won't release drivers.
Rage3D STILL censors posts that go into any detail about ATI shortcomings whenever ATI calls to complain.
Even the MICROSOFT NEWSGROUPS (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter) are censored upon ATI request when the posts detail how ATI has utterly failed to bring out a MCE solution that works.
ATI's "Encode" solution for AIW cards was used by just one OEM and results are not very good compared to other tuners. their eHW card was not selected by ANY large OEMs and ATI has resorted to selling this "OEM-only" card through the "Grey Market"
ATI's sales success with tuners in the MCE arena is really bad. Even vendors who go to ATI for video cards turn and run away from ATI tuners and buy those that actually work like Hauppague and Avermedia.
And HDTV? The new ATI HDTV Wonder is nothing new. The other manufacturers have offered similar performance for 2 years+. But ATI releases the new card to much fanfare despite the fact they are 2 years behind the times. Again, posts stating this are CENSORED AT ATI DEMAND from numerous enthusiast websites.
And when anybody complains about the function of ATI tuners, the crappy ATI support, links to working Encode drivers, or discusses ATIs strategy in depth, ATI responds by intimidating and CENSORING user forums, gets the webmasters to "Ban" anti-ATI posters, and basically subverts the public discussion intent of open forums.
So while in the Hard OCP case, companies may use crazy lawsuits, in the real world, all most companies need to do (like ATI does) is threaten the website owners that they won't get any more goodies to play with and they will lose advertising, and "POOF!" whatever the vendor doesn't like is gone into the ether of internet revisionist history!
It's great a big manufacturer seems to be getting serious about Digital TV.
In this case, as previous posts have stated, there is little "new" here that other smaller vendors haven't offered for years. In fact, the "core" Nxt2004 chipset is over 2 years old.
ATI has serious credibility problems with end-users, and while the Catalyst guys have made huge improvement, and the hardware is usually good, the Multimedia side is hampered with poor user support, leadership problems and serious internal dissent concerning the future direction of development.
ATI is beyond 2 years late in releasing support for Microsoft's XP-MCE version of Windows. Part of this is a resistance to MCE because such would reduce the prominence and importance of ATIs own MMC.
Do you support MS and become little more than glorified driver writers enslaved to MCE parameters? Or do you stick to your own app (MMC) and try to beat MS, risking becoming the next Netscape or WordPerfect? Or do you try to strike a balance between the two?
Evidence will show that even though some work has been done, ATI has been shirking the MCE support, but trying to make it look like they aren't. Users who read press reports stating MCE is supported have plunked down a lot of money for AIW9600/9800 that don't work with MCE, whether as upgrade to OEM boxes, or as MSDN development machines.
This is a huge issue at MCE Hobbyist sites. Last fall ATI stated they would be supporting MCE on AIW cards. So far, the only "support" is via leaked versions of a modified Dell driver.
ATI has censored websites referencing this driver, threatening webmasters with termination of advertising, legal action and the usual "we ain't gonna talk to you any more"
Other vendors have released a parade of WHQL drivers for MCE publically, even for cards meant for OEM-only, not retail. ATI alone refuses.
At all of the MCE sites, there are numerous threads of irate users castigating ATI and defecting to the likes of Avermedia and Hauppague who DO support the users, no questions asked.
Even their hardware card which is stated as OEM-only, has found only one small integrator as a customer, and examples are leaking out as grey-market retail and on ebay.
I'm not going to challenge the open-source alternatives, or the superb alternatives like Snapstream or Sage, as they are somewhat independent of the following:
ATI seems to be spending a LOT of energy on ATI-only solutions (their MMC app) as opposed to supporting the MASS RETAIL future of HTPCs which is MCE/Symphony.
For instance, there will be MCE Extenders, but ATI is working on their MMC Easyshare which allows an ATI-equipped "server" to stream video th an ATI-equipped client. No other brands interoperate. Pretty limiting.
If most of the features being pursued as MMC components will soon be core components of future Windows, one must wonder why ATI is reinventing the wheel.
ATI seems to easily forget that one pissed-off customer has more impact than 100 satisfied customers, and the legions of pissed-off MCE users have proven that is true. ATI's arrogance has benefitted their competitors with hundreds or even thousands of sales that could have been ATI revenue.
So in summation, unless ATI decides upon a HTPC strategy that is based upon industry standards rather than internal wishes and fairy dust, and unless ATI starts taking better care of their most influential retail customers, they will not succeed in this arena on the basis of sheer marketing dollars alone....buyers are smarter than that.
ATI please insure your HDTV offerings are accompanied by stunning apps and superb support, or step aside and just sell chipsets to vendors who have and will.
This is one of those times where the government violates all constitutional protections to the point that citizens so violated damn near have a DUTY to exercise their second amendment rights.
There is no excuse for the government putting a company out of business if their only requirement is to copy data.
And if the FBI is unable to do so on-site in an orderly manner, it is their failure not the fault of the ISP.
ISPs have long been given the protection of a "Common Carrier" just like the telcos. They are not responsible for monitoring the content of user conversations any more than ATT/MCI/Sprint are to monitor personal phone calls.
Can you imagine the FBI shutting down AT&T and confiscating their equipment because a couple hackers were discussing DDoSing?
It really is getting to the point that US citizens need to start pushing back against an overbearing government.
Quite frankly, take away cable TV and consumer goods and little separates the USA of today and the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 70s as far as freedom and liberty go.
Right now, we have so many types of dosplays to choose from. All have strengths and weaknesses.
But all share one common weakness:
All still require some sort of external box to get digital TV.
Yes, a couple are claiming "Digital Cable Ready" and "CableCard Equipped" but no CATV provider is offering this on any widespread basis. None of the CATV companies even have info on their sites about this future technology.
Imagine how pissed off you will be when you just dropped $4000-$6000 for a Plasma/LCD/DLP wonder TV that requires the use of a Set Top Box only to find it is obsolete once the manufacturers figure out how to deploy DCReady and CCard.
The delay is simply due to the fact there is a huge dollar value of non-DC-ready sets in inventory.
As soon as true DCReady sets are on sale and cable providers offer support for them, the bottom drops out on the value of any set not so equipped.
How do you market a natural evolution of current products when it so decisively obsoletes the current array of offerings?
Maybe it means I will get the chance to buy a non-DCReady 50" plasma for $999? I'd suffer with the STB for that.
Now the theft device will just be a mobile receiver that the thief carries in his pocket.
Just walk close to a person utilizing one of these devices and receive the signal.
Easy use being the key, all I hear is that you just "wave your phone" at the point of purchse to conduct the transaction.
Nothing about entering a PIN or pressing a key to "accept" the transaction....that would reduce the level of ease to the current one where you slide a card and enter a PIN.
So just like card "phishers" quickly took advantage of handheld card readers to swipe credit cards in restaraunts during the time the card was supposedly being taken by the waiter to pay for the meal, portable RFID readers (that's essentially what these things are) will crop up to steal any freely broadcast or "in-response to query" signals these things send.
Sometimes technology makes things more complicated.
Current FCC regulations leave a big loophole for IP-based services.
Taxes that apply to current voice tariffed services do not apply to "data" services the same way.
Since all the carriers are actually carrying most, if not all of their "voice" traffic by the same methods, on the same kind of equipment as "data", there is money to be made carrying voice but calling it data.
Very little infrastructure remains circuit switched and is now packet switched like data. Much of this was driven by the requirements for pumping a bunch of traffic over fiber; WDM, DWDM etc.
Now the efforts are clearly to pave the way for providers to pocket the difference or most of it; this difference being the amounts charged to the customer which are turned over to the government as taxes.
If you pay $100 per month for "voice" services and $30 of that is taxes, and you switch to VOIP for $85 without taxes, you save $15 at the same time the provider makes an additional $15.
And this doesn't even address the investment tax credits and "cost of doing business" deductions the providers enjoy for building up the ability to offer new services.
So what we have is a bunch of people angling for position in the inevitable VOIP fray.
Some are clearly innovators.
Some want to be first just to stake a claim for later work.
Some have deep pockets but nothing else to offer. So they are about to expend massive legal fees and efforts to keep others out of the game.
If you can't innovate; Litigate.
The end result will ultimately be that the average customer spends about the same as they do right now. How the fees are assessed will look different, but the bottom line will be pretty much the same.
The providers will then benefit or fail based upon how successful their legal tactics were in creating, sustaining or closing tax loopholes in order to benefit their bottom line.
Except for the higher resolution (1024x768 on 15" or 800x600 on the 10"), this $1000 device does nothing more than a 6-year-old HP Jornada 820 (640x480) or Jornada 690 (640x240) with a wireless card plugged in.
Both the HPs can use the TS Client, and can connect to ANY TS or RDC server.
The ViewSonic is supported only for single-session RDC, and it does NOT have the client-side configurations available within the actual TS Client.
The 6-year-old Jornadas can even use the CITRIX Client. The NEW ViewSonic has no Citrix capability whatsoever.
Since these are Win CE Devices, following both the HW and SW reference designs, it is amazing that every other aspect of CE capability was removed but for the MIRA Shell.
The only thing keeping these from being "Super PDAs" is the OEM simply choses to leave the necessary components out of the ROM
A Super PDA could sync with your ActiveSync, browse without PC host, exchange files, run local apps like PDAWin, MiniStumbler or any other CE app.
Some people are already hacking these panels to break out of the MIRA Shell, but even then, capabilities are severely limited by what has been omitted from the CE code by the OEMs.
See http://www.aibohack.com/panel/install.htm for the current hack status.
With the premium price, you would be right to expect more. These things are more expensive than some full Tablet PCs capable of running WinXP or Linux, not CE burned into ROM.
The Jornadas (680,690 or 820) are available on eBay for (depending upon model) under $100.
The ViewSonics are $800-$1000 and the comparable Philips DexScape is around $1400.
Both Gateway and Dell are offering full-feature laptops for as low as $599. I can't imagine that the touch screen costs so much more that eliminating HD, CD, Floppy, ports, memory and PC CPU don't offset the cost.
And instant-on? If I choose between this crippled device and a Tablet or Laptop, I'll tolerate 45 seconds to boot for the rest of the capabilities.
Simply put, they ought to be cheaper than laptops.
I remember as a little kid reading my dad's old Popular Mechanics and popular Science magazines about maglev trains and how they were imminent.
But other than test units, none have been deployed.
Why? Because the cost is exponentially higher than simple steel rails. Not just in construction costs, but also in the cost to power the trains.
Once you have maglev, you are restricted to long-distance trips because there is no maglev track feature similar to a "switch" which allows the trains to change tracks without slowing down to a crawl. Either you have just a few trains running the length of the track, meaning it isn't really "mass transit", or you operate like the current bullet trains do right now and stop at every station, losing the advantage of the high-speed capability due to frequent stops.
Remember that in order to stop on a siding, or to allow other trains to pass, you need the aformentioned "switches" which do not exist for maglev, thus they are only practical for long-distance hi-speed trips.
Given the lack of developable land in Japan, where do they expect to put the tracks, since they would have to serve the existing stations which feed regional, metro, and local rail? Would they replace the existing bullet trains?
Seems unlikely because you'd then move 10% of the passengers at 1000% of the cost.
Further, Japan is subject to earthquakes more frequently than most developed nations, often causing tremendous damage.
High-speed rail demands extremely precise rail alignment and a continuous maintenance program.
Fortunately, after an earthquake, existing rail lines can be quickly repaired with little more than sledgehammers, shovels and a welder in the back of a truck. Service is reestablished quickly, and the trains can run again.
Rail trains can even run efficiently at low speeds, as opposed to maglev.
Maglev relies on the aerodynamic flow between train and track to generate a "cushion" on which the train rides. At low speeds, this cushion is inadequate or nonexistant.
At low speeds, the power consumption skyrockets as the same coils remain energized for longer periods of time rather than rapidly cycling to the next zone. Resistance grows with heat and more power is required to do the same thing.
Thus the trains have to run fast to be tenable to operate. But if they run fast, they cannot make the stops necessary to carry the load necesary to sustain operations. Then to service these loads, they would need to build far more tracks, or sacrifice speed for stops, negating the touted speed of the train.
There is also the environmental/health impact of intense, uncontained magnetic fields. When you go for an MRI, you remove all metal from your body. People with metal implants cannot be MRId, else they be thrown about by the magnetic field, or the implant be torn from their flesh. Here, we have staggeringly powerful magnetic fields laid out linearly through the countryside. While cycled, LIMs must energize both in front of, and behind the moving payload, and are thus unshielded.
As I recall from riding the Shin extensively, you are rarely if ever more than 20 minutes between stops. The few "express" trains are curtailed in top speed and times available so they do not run into or get run into by the other trains making more stops.
Summary?
Great rail technology, as usual from Japan, but difficult to see how it will be utilized in their existing infrastructure on basis of facilities sharing, construction cost, maintenance requirements, earthquake survivability, and ability to generate sustaining revenue.
And of course, kids can't put coins on the rails any more!
Nobody ever talks about the MAC Address being a unique serial number for a PC. But if a company uses a management tool like OpenView, Tivoli, Spectrum etc., the MAC is certainly one of the parameters collected and recorded as part of the inventory.
So if this guy installed his own software or OS on a stolen box and then got caught, that leaves precious few other options.
Processor Unique ID?
WindowsXP Phone Home?
Keystorke Logger?
In any case, it certainly appears that some "known" piece of identifying data was present and easily flagged.
I for one would like to know more about the exact method used, because if there is indeed some kind of government back-door that has the potential to circumvent encryption or anonymity, we ought to find out.
Maybe the FBI's "Magic Lantern" is a 2-piece system with 1/2 on the network, and the other half in the OS or the Silicon?
Maybe all the bank employees are being spied upon without their knowledge?
Maybe Patriot Act rears its head in the authorization of certain methods and practices?
Imagine the depth of lies which could be covered up if politicians started using this technology.
Little would you know that while your local senator or rep are being televised bellowing out meaningless torrents of weasel-words on CSPAN, they may well actually be off porking an intern or on a lobbyist-paid junket.
When potentially used on one end of a "live" webcast or other broadcast, the possibility of creating "digital alabais" rears its head.
This is one mode of media where it may be necessary and desirable to use DRM techniques to mark a synthetic broadcast as synthetic.
Heck, maybe use the HDTV Broadcast flag for this purpose instad?
Astounding findings such as this and their long-term implications for theory and eventual application certainly prove the worth of physics research programs.
Too bad the US cancelled the Superconducting Supercollider some years back.
Why? It cost too much.
And how much are we spending in Iraq for benefits denied to our own citizens?
Yes, but the City of Seattle just went ahead with building a 14-mile "light rail" trolley for $2.8 Billion.
That is $2.8 BILLION
Right out of taxpayers pockets.
That is $200 MILLION per mile.
Interstate Highway only costs $10-$20 million per mile.
How many automobile sales are consumed by the forced use of $2.8 Billion of taxpayers money on trains?
This is an instance of public transportation that directly deprives the public of the ability to purchase a car simply by the assault upon their wallets.
Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Nissan all ought to file suit against the MTA in Seattle.
Is it possible that the auto manufacturers could utilize the same basis for calculating lost sales and then sue the public transportation utilities?
Certainly, if every copied MP3 or other media is a 1:1 correlation with a lost album sale, and every "shared" MP3 is responsible for hundreds of lost sales, then one city BUS must then be responsible for the loss of the sale of 40-60 automobiles?
And further, for every car not sold, there is also a loss in license plate fees, gasoline sold. toll road fees and parking fees.
Seems like that would be a perfect test case as the names of cars are copyrighted, as are certain design details, and of course, the purchaser must hold a "license" to operate it on the road.
Oh, wait, some bus riders own cars and some car owners ride the bus!
Maybe there is some truth to the idea that the acquisition of shared downloads has an impact on media sales, but it is obviously not of the magnitude the bastards claim.
Any time an individual does something to get attention, somebody makes fun of them.
In the case of PWSs, obviously there is often vanity or some form of craziness, but equally often people use them to keep geographically distant relatives up to date on the growth of children etc., or on whatever activity might be of common interest.
And even in the craziest of implementations, it could be reasonably said that at least it takes a bit more intelligence to design a web page than it does to plunk down $3000 for fancy wheels and tires for a car.
Of course the guy with the car generally gains some ancillary benefits woefully unavailable to the guy who sits in his room coding HTML.
"Damn, Paris, why do you have to stop doing that to answer your cell phone? Get back to work so I can finish my post on Slashdot!"
It is nice to see this sort of development being publically applauded at a venue like COMDEX.
Visibilty of Open Source products can only be beneficial and certainly this venue adds credibility.
One must wonder though if the impact is wasted on the big exhibitors who are there to hawk their wares.
I mean, do you think Bill Gates is going to stop by, then turn around and say "Ballmer, we need to go open source!"
Nonetheless, I'd applaud a change in the tactics of Open Source that resulted in enough commercialization to do three things:
1. Allow more developers to earn a continuing stream of revenue for all their work as it is recognized as a viable and legitimate alternative to the shrink-wrap boxes in the stores today.
2. Put some downward price pressure on the current Windows software market. WinXP Pro is $200+ to a consumer but $40 to an OEM? And Office at over $400? Come on! Most "shareware" apps go for around $20!
3. Encourage a greater cooperation by MS when developers seek timely and full disclosure of APIs etc. necessary to build Windows apps. And in the absence of this cooperation, create a genuine market for equivalent retail alternatives for OSs other than Windows. Basically, if MS won't play ball, folks have an easy switch to make without having to change hardware.
While this is convenient for the students, and certinly contributes to the battle against the extra-legal oppression of RIAA / DMCA etc., I still wonder what is going on at the colleges.
Perhaps I'd see access to music as a critical component of college attendance if the college attended were Juilliard.
But in general, public colleges obtain 75%+ of their funding from the taxpayer, not from tuition.
So I'd like to see the students dedicating as much time, effort and money to LEARNING as they do to downloading music.
It is simply a matter of priorities, and the priority at college ought to be education.
And for those who would ridicule the above because you happen to also like music, consider the waste of money because the vast majority of college freshman show up requiring courses so rudimentary they ought to be considered "remedial". Basically, what they spend the first year or two doing, they should have learned in Junior High.
This lack of focus on EDUCATION, which is really what college is for, costs everybody money whether you are a student or not.
Doesn't work like that.
It is a very fast pulsed pattern of flashes which you cannot replicate with incandescent lamps no matter how fast your fingers can move the light switch.
And it is sensitive to a different wavelength (IR...that's why you can't see it)
Slashdot Mirror
The objections?:
-requirement for internal travel documents "your papers please"
-"blacklisting" dissidents (no-fly list?)
-secret searches (Brandon Mayfield in Portland?)
-forced medical procedures (or lack of care)
-voting irregularities
-lack of "due process" (Guantanamo Bay, sending suspects to egypt for "questioning")
-"watchers" at libraries, places of public assembly
But these days, it seems the US government is a bigger violator of human rights than the soviets ever were. A noble experiment in democracy destroyed by an arrogant few who have constructed a system to protect themselves and their petty fiefdoms from the citizenry who demand accountability.
Where I used to be a flag-waving patriot when I was a USMC Fighter Pilot, I no longer feel that way. I look at our own government as more dangerous than Saddam Hussein, Osama BinLaden, North Korea, Iran and the rest.
I look at virtually every government project in the same way I look at Saddam's statues of himself...an exercise in self-aggrandisment for those behind the project, that if it benefits even a single citizen, it's by accident, not by intent.
I almost believe the "conspiracy theorists" who claim that the government knew about Oklahoma City and 9-11 ahead of time....because if the terrorists had instead hit Congress, the FBI, the IRS and the Supreme Court, it would be hard to rally people against them. They could have killed 2 birds with one stone.
It really is sad to think this nation has deteriorated so far and that citizens have allowed their rights to be eroded to such an extent that they have all but been rendered incapable of making any meaningful change in government short of violence.
Russia today is stunning proof that the crooks and gangsters are more honest and reliable than the politicians. Maybe we need a dose of their sort of revolution in this country?
If something doesn't happen here, instead of being like 1970s Soviet Union, US citizens will end up being treated by this government like jews in 1940's Germany. Other than the ovens, little separates us from that today.
If you have any questions about BestBuy or its policies, try WWW.BESTBUYSUX.ORG
After all analog is on the way out and HDTV is on the way in.
Virtually all of the Analog tuners work just fine. Not necessarily great, but fine. The only recent issue with analog tuners being whether they are XP-MCE compatible.
HDTV is where the action is. And whole there are various OTA and DBS solutions, the "Holy Grail" of PC HDTV Tuners appears to be QAM tuning so they can work on digital cable.
Several manufacturers are trying and none are succeeding, mainly because they either do not have the correct HDTV Tuner chipsets (mfrs. won't sell to them), or they have the right chipsets but they do not have the right SDKs and have to reverse-engineer them to make the tuners function.
Odd considering that several TV makers have introduced DigitalCableReady HDTVs with CableCARD slots yet the PC Tuner makers can't get basic QAM tuning to work.
HDTV tuners on PCs ought to be the discussion here. Analog has been mature for several years.
The magnitude of the fraud, waste and abuse so rampant throughout government pursuing boondoggles like this is endless, and the excuse is always some "Sound Bite Focused" explanation that "It's for the Children", "It's for the fight against terrorism", or some other thinly veiled B.S. intended to take ever more tax money from citizens and waste it on needless government programs.
A smaller example of this was in Portland, OR where the police needed an extra quarter million dollars in order to be able to track "Racial Profiling" in traffic stops. Seems that none of the cops were able to record the vital statistics of who they stopped unless they were given Palm Pilots (and all sorts of other alleged I.T. expenses to support them).
Seems nobody even considered those little paper notebooks and a few boxes of pencils.
Amazing how the public seems entirely ignorant of the paramilitarization of the police and the resulting "Us against Them" rift that continues to widen.
The best thing that can be done in the U.S. (Short of Jeffersonian suggestions of periodic revolutions to toss out abusive and tyrannical politicians) would be to cut all government spending and staffing by 25% immediately, and 50% within 5 years.
The CableCARD is shaped just like a PCMCIA card and if you go to BestBuy, Circuit City, or similar right now, you can see Panasonic HDTVs with the slot right on the front. http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/se rvlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11251&catalogId=11005&mo delNo=PT-56TWD63
Only they are not "documented" as CableCARD because the service is not available yet, so the sales folks have no idea what the slot is for.
Nonetheless, it is there on those Panasonic sets. Probably others too.
Basically, what it does is make the TV DIGITAL CABLE READY, just like all TV sets made since the late 1980s are "Cable Ready" and do not need a STB for tuning regular unscrambled channels; "Expanded Basic" service.
However, if you want the premium channels, you needed a STB or descrambler, except for the fact most of the cable providers have moved most, if not all premium channels from Analog to Digital.
Now if you want to read more about CableCARD, there are several nice "White Papers" at www.motorola.com, or www.cablelabs.org.
These sites explain how the card works, and how, unlike Dish/DTV, the receiver should be able to communicate with the cable company via the cable itself, no phoneline connection required.
I went to the local Comcast tech center where I live and did find out that these cards are NOT transportable between areas, due to the fact they are authenticated to the physical street address where they are installed (basically they should work anywhere on that specific cable trunk, but not across town) and possibly to a specific serialized/addressable receiving device (TV, Tivo, PC Card etc.).
This will not be easy to "hack" for those who are already thinking about it, as the CableCARD is not just a PCMCIA memory card, but supposedly has an encryption ASIC on it which compliments the QAM Tuner chip in the receiver, which itself was designed from the start with encryption in mind. Never mind the Broadcast Flag, the whole thing is DRM'd up the butt.
An interesting note for the PC crowd....most SONY DTVs use ATI HDTV tuners, so hopefully we will see Digital Cable Ready cards for PCs.
This is a big deal because all of the current HDTV card providers have no problem with OTA HDTV tuning, but keep trying and failing at QAM tuning. My guess is that are not getting access to the right chipsets for this purpose, and are trying to make do with older/less capable technology...since the PCI Bus is unsecure, all that DRM would go away once the full transport stream exits the tuner onto the bus.
Since these TVs have the right chipsets and can do Digital Cable Ready, it seems like the problem is solved and just needs to be transplanted to the PC HDTV Tuner guys. Or we need to wait for that damn "Trusted Computing" (we big corporations don't trust you hacker/pirate consumers PCs) like the Intel "Sandow" platform.
Last, consider the price plunge we will see when DC Ready + CableCARD is available everywhere and 90% of the HDTVs have no slot in them. That is going to be some pricey inventory to discount when the only products selling have the slot so your new 50" 3" thick plasma will not need a phonebook sized STB sitting next to it.
Also consider how pissed off SciAtlanta and Motorola are about this...it means millions less sales of HDTV STBs to the cable companies...once all the TVs have CableCARD slots, the STB market is dead and only the chipset makers will be making money.
And pity the cable companies that have contracts to BUY STBs to lease to customers for $5-$10 per month...they will be sitting on piles of unused STBs and they will lose that extra revenue from the rental.
In this effort, each of the players has a deep financial interest in what technology goes where and when, and the fact that some companies will necessarily be screwed for "the good of the consumer" makes all of them less interested in making this stuff available rapidly or easily.
We'll see it soon, but not as soon as we should be.
And my bet is that it is not problem free in terms of interoperability, tech support, or performance.
But it is still pretty cool.
The issue arose when ATI failed to offer support for MS's XP-Media Center Edition (MCE) until more than 2 years after the rest of the tuner vendors did so.
In Oct 2003, ATI announced "support" for MCE in 2 ways: a "hardware encoder" card, the eHomeWonder, and drivers for existing AIW cards, called "Encode", a software MPEG encoder.
A public Beta was started with just 15 members, and the performance of Encode was abyssmal, if it ran at all.
Public discussion ensued at several sites concerning if ATI was even serious about MCE support, or if they were going to intentionally screw with MCE to instead support their own PVR solution; MMC.
The folks at ATI threatened the owners/moderators/webmasters at several sites to CENSOR FORUM COMMENTS that revealed ATIs piss-poor customer support (if you bought a $400 video card that was supposed to work with MCE because the vendor said it would, but then ATI refused to release the drivers, wouldn't you be pissed off when the makers of numerous $60 tuners provide drivers for free?).
ATI still won't release drivers.
Rage3D STILL censors posts that go into any detail about ATI shortcomings whenever ATI calls to complain.
Even the MICROSOFT NEWSGROUPS (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter) are censored upon ATI request when the posts detail how ATI has utterly failed to bring out a MCE solution that works.
ATI's "Encode" solution for AIW cards was used by just one OEM and results are not very good compared to other tuners. their eHW card was not selected by ANY large OEMs and ATI has resorted to selling this "OEM-only" card through the "Grey Market"
ATI's sales success with tuners in the MCE arena is really bad. Even vendors who go to ATI for video cards turn and run away from ATI tuners and buy those that actually work like Hauppague and Avermedia.
And HDTV? The new ATI HDTV Wonder is nothing new. The other manufacturers have offered similar performance for 2 years+. But ATI releases the new card to much fanfare despite the fact they are 2 years behind the times. Again, posts stating this are CENSORED AT ATI DEMAND from numerous enthusiast websites.
And when anybody complains about the function of ATI tuners, the crappy ATI support, links to working Encode drivers, or discusses ATIs strategy in depth, ATI responds by intimidating and CENSORING user forums, gets the webmasters to "Ban" anti-ATI posters, and basically subverts the public discussion intent of open forums.
So while in the Hard OCP case, companies may use crazy lawsuits, in the real world, all most companies need to do (like ATI does) is threaten the website owners that they won't get any more goodies to play with and they will lose advertising, and "POOF!" whatever the vendor doesn't like is gone into the ether of internet revisionist history!
In this case, as previous posts have stated, there is little "new" here that other smaller vendors haven't offered for years. In fact, the "core" Nxt2004 chipset is over 2 years old.
ATI has serious credibility problems with end-users, and while the Catalyst guys have made huge improvement, and the hardware is usually good, the Multimedia side is hampered with poor user support, leadership problems and serious internal dissent concerning the future direction of development.
ATI is beyond 2 years late in releasing support for Microsoft's XP-MCE version of Windows. Part of this is a resistance to MCE because such would reduce the prominence and importance of ATIs own MMC.
Do you support MS and become little more than glorified driver writers enslaved to MCE parameters? Or do you stick to your own app (MMC) and try to beat MS, risking becoming the next Netscape or WordPerfect? Or do you try to strike a balance between the two?
Evidence will show that even though some work has been done, ATI has been shirking the MCE support, but trying to make it look like they aren't. Users who read press reports stating MCE is supported have plunked down a lot of money for AIW9600/9800 that don't work with MCE, whether as upgrade to OEM boxes, or as MSDN development machines.
This is a huge issue at MCE Hobbyist sites. Last fall ATI stated they would be supporting MCE on AIW cards. So far, the only "support" is via leaked versions of a modified Dell driver.
ATI has censored websites referencing this driver, threatening webmasters with termination of advertising, legal action and the usual "we ain't gonna talk to you any more"
Other vendors have released a parade of WHQL drivers for MCE publically, even for cards meant for OEM-only, not retail. ATI alone refuses.
At all of the MCE sites, there are numerous threads of irate users castigating ATI and defecting to the likes of Avermedia and Hauppague who DO support the users, no questions asked.
Even their hardware card which is stated as OEM-only, has found only one small integrator as a customer, and examples are leaking out as grey-market retail and on ebay.
I'm not going to challenge the open-source alternatives, or the superb alternatives like Snapstream or Sage, as they are somewhat independent of the following:
ATI seems to be spending a LOT of energy on ATI-only solutions (their MMC app) as opposed to supporting the MASS RETAIL future of HTPCs which is MCE/Symphony.
For instance, there will be MCE Extenders, but ATI is working on their MMC Easyshare which allows an ATI-equipped "server" to stream video th an ATI-equipped client. No other brands interoperate. Pretty limiting.
If most of the features being pursued as MMC components will soon be core components of future Windows, one must wonder why ATI is reinventing the wheel.
ATI seems to easily forget that one pissed-off customer has more impact than 100 satisfied customers, and the legions of pissed-off MCE users have proven that is true. ATI's arrogance has benefitted their competitors with hundreds or even thousands of sales that could have been ATI revenue.
So in summation, unless ATI decides upon a HTPC strategy that is based upon industry standards rather than internal wishes and fairy dust, and unless ATI starts taking better care of their most influential retail customers, they will not succeed in this arena on the basis of sheer marketing dollars alone....buyers are smarter than that.
ATI please insure your HDTV offerings are accompanied by stunning apps and superb support, or step aside and just sell chipsets to vendors who have and will.
This is one of those times where the government violates all constitutional protections to the point that citizens so violated damn near have a DUTY to exercise their second amendment rights. There is no excuse for the government putting a company out of business if their only requirement is to copy data. And if the FBI is unable to do so on-site in an orderly manner, it is their failure not the fault of the ISP. ISPs have long been given the protection of a "Common Carrier" just like the telcos. They are not responsible for monitoring the content of user conversations any more than ATT/MCI/Sprint are to monitor personal phone calls. Can you imagine the FBI shutting down AT&T and confiscating their equipment because a couple hackers were discussing DDoSing? It really is getting to the point that US citizens need to start pushing back against an overbearing government. Quite frankly, take away cable TV and consumer goods and little separates the USA of today and the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 70s as far as freedom and liberty go.
But all share one common weakness:
All still require some sort of external box to get digital TV.
Yes, a couple are claiming "Digital Cable Ready" and "CableCard Equipped" but no CATV provider is offering this on any widespread basis. None of the CATV companies even have info on their sites about this future technology.
Imagine how pissed off you will be when you just dropped $4000-$6000 for a Plasma/LCD/DLP wonder TV that requires the use of a Set Top Box only to find it is obsolete once the manufacturers figure out how to deploy DCReady and CCard.
The delay is simply due to the fact there is a huge dollar value of non-DC-ready sets in inventory.
As soon as true DCReady sets are on sale and cable providers offer support for them, the bottom drops out on the value of any set not so equipped.
How do you market a natural evolution of current products when it so decisively obsoletes the current array of offerings?
Maybe it means I will get the chance to buy a non-DCReady 50" plasma for $999? I'd suffer with the STB for that.
Just walk close to a person utilizing one of these devices and receive the signal.
Easy use being the key, all I hear is that you just "wave your phone" at the point of purchse to conduct the transaction.
Nothing about entering a PIN or pressing a key to "accept" the transaction....that would reduce the level of ease to the current one where you slide a card and enter a PIN.
So just like card "phishers" quickly took advantage of handheld card readers to swipe credit cards in restaraunts during the time the card was supposedly being taken by the waiter to pay for the meal, portable RFID readers (that's essentially what these things are) will crop up to steal any freely broadcast or "in-response to query" signals these things send.
Sometimes technology makes things more complicated.
However, the irony would be stunning if something odd were to occur.
Wonder what the monday-morning-quarterbacking will be like when something bad happens?
http://www.bigbruin.com/html/dlinkdvg1120.htm
The tester had a home cable connection where he saw nearly 6000k download rate and almost 1000k upload until he plugged in the gateway.
Simply plugging it in ate up 700k of download speed.
But the real killer came when he actually USED the phone:
Download=75K
Upload=39k
Basically, the use of VOIP ate up 99% of the bandwidth of a very fast connection.
For those with the more typical 1000k-1500k cable connection, the results are not promising.
Taxes that apply to current voice tariffed services do not apply to "data" services the same way.
Since all the carriers are actually carrying most, if not all of their "voice" traffic by the same methods, on the same kind of equipment as "data", there is money to be made carrying voice but calling it data.
Very little infrastructure remains circuit switched and is now packet switched like data. Much of this was driven by the requirements for pumping a bunch of traffic over fiber; WDM, DWDM etc.
Now the efforts are clearly to pave the way for providers to pocket the difference or most of it; this difference being the amounts charged to the customer which are turned over to the government as taxes.
If you pay $100 per month for "voice" services and $30 of that is taxes, and you switch to VOIP for $85 without taxes, you save $15 at the same time the provider makes an additional $15.
And this doesn't even address the investment tax credits and "cost of doing business" deductions the providers enjoy for building up the ability to offer new services.
So what we have is a bunch of people angling for position in the inevitable VOIP fray.
Some are clearly innovators.
Some want to be first just to stake a claim for later work.
Some have deep pockets but nothing else to offer. So they are about to expend massive legal fees and efforts to keep others out of the game.
If you can't innovate; Litigate.
The end result will ultimately be that the average customer spends about the same as they do right now. How the fees are assessed will look different, but the bottom line will be pretty much the same.
The providers will then benefit or fail based upon how successful their legal tactics were in creating, sustaining or closing tax loopholes in order to benefit their bottom line.
There is no altruism in the move to VOIP.
Both the HPs can use the TS Client, and can connect to ANY TS or RDC server.
The ViewSonic is supported only for single-session RDC, and it does NOT have the client-side configurations available within the actual TS Client.
The 6-year-old Jornadas can even use the CITRIX Client. The NEW ViewSonic has no Citrix capability whatsoever.
Since these are Win CE Devices, following both the HW and SW reference designs, it is amazing that every other aspect of CE capability was removed but for the MIRA Shell.
The only thing keeping these from being "Super PDAs" is the OEM simply choses to leave the necessary components out of the ROM
A Super PDA could sync with your ActiveSync, browse without PC host, exchange files, run local apps like PDAWin, MiniStumbler or any other CE app.
Some people are already hacking these panels to break out of the MIRA Shell, but even then, capabilities are severely limited by what has been omitted from the CE code by the OEMs.
See http://www.aibohack.com/panel/install.htm for the current hack status.
With the premium price, you would be right to expect more. These things are more expensive than some full Tablet PCs capable of running WinXP or Linux, not CE burned into ROM.
The Jornadas (680,690 or 820) are available on eBay for (depending upon model) under $100.
The ViewSonics are $800-$1000 and the comparable Philips DexScape is around $1400.
Both Gateway and Dell are offering full-feature laptops for as low as $599. I can't imagine that the touch screen costs so much more that eliminating HD, CD, Floppy, ports, memory and PC CPU don't offset the cost.
And instant-on? If I choose between this crippled device and a Tablet or Laptop, I'll tolerate 45 seconds to boot for the rest of the capabilities.
Simply put, they ought to be cheaper than laptops.
This thing ought to sell for $299-$399.
But other than test units, none have been deployed.
Why? Because the cost is exponentially higher than simple steel rails. Not just in construction costs, but also in the cost to power the trains.
Once you have maglev, you are restricted to long-distance trips because there is no maglev track feature similar to a "switch" which allows the trains to change tracks without slowing down to a crawl. Either you have just a few trains running the length of the track, meaning it isn't really "mass transit", or you operate like the current bullet trains do right now and stop at every station, losing the advantage of the high-speed capability due to frequent stops.
Remember that in order to stop on a siding, or to allow other trains to pass, you need the aformentioned "switches" which do not exist for maglev, thus they are only practical for long-distance hi-speed trips.
Given the lack of developable land in Japan, where do they expect to put the tracks, since they would have to serve the existing stations which feed regional, metro, and local rail? Would they replace the existing bullet trains?
Seems unlikely because you'd then move 10% of the passengers at 1000% of the cost.
Further, Japan is subject to earthquakes more frequently than most developed nations, often causing tremendous damage.
High-speed rail demands extremely precise rail alignment and a continuous maintenance program.
Fortunately, after an earthquake, existing rail lines can be quickly repaired with little more than sledgehammers, shovels and a welder in the back of a truck. Service is reestablished quickly, and the trains can run again.
Rail trains can even run efficiently at low speeds, as opposed to maglev.
Maglev relies on the aerodynamic flow between train and track to generate a "cushion" on which the train rides. At low speeds, this cushion is inadequate or nonexistant.
At low speeds, the power consumption skyrockets as the same coils remain energized for longer periods of time rather than rapidly cycling to the next zone. Resistance grows with heat and more power is required to do the same thing.
Thus the trains have to run fast to be tenable to operate. But if they run fast, they cannot make the stops necessary to carry the load necesary to sustain operations. Then to service these loads, they would need to build far more tracks, or sacrifice speed for stops, negating the touted speed of the train.
There is also the environmental/health impact of intense, uncontained magnetic fields. When you go for an MRI, you remove all metal from your body. People with metal implants cannot be MRId, else they be thrown about by the magnetic field, or the implant be torn from their flesh. Here, we have staggeringly powerful magnetic fields laid out linearly through the countryside. While cycled, LIMs must energize both in front of, and behind the moving payload, and are thus unshielded.
As I recall from riding the Shin extensively, you are rarely if ever more than 20 minutes between stops. The few "express" trains are curtailed in top speed and times available so they do not run into or get run into by the other trains making more stops.
Summary?
Great rail technology, as usual from Japan, but difficult to see how it will be utilized in their existing infrastructure on basis of facilities sharing, construction cost, maintenance requirements, earthquake survivability, and ability to generate sustaining revenue.
And of course, kids can't put coins on the rails any more!
So if this guy installed his own software or OS on a stolen box and then got caught, that leaves precious few other options.
Processor Unique ID?
WindowsXP Phone Home?
Keystorke Logger?
In any case, it certainly appears that some "known" piece of identifying data was present and easily flagged.
I for one would like to know more about the exact method used, because if there is indeed some kind of government back-door that has the potential to circumvent encryption or anonymity, we ought to find out.
Maybe the FBI's "Magic Lantern" is a 2-piece system with 1/2 on the network, and the other half in the OS or the Silicon?
Maybe all the bank employees are being spied upon without their knowledge?
Maybe Patriot Act rears its head in the authorization of certain methods and practices?
Little would you know that while your local senator or rep are being televised bellowing out meaningless torrents of weasel-words on CSPAN, they may well actually be off porking an intern or on a lobbyist-paid junket.
When potentially used on one end of a "live" webcast or other broadcast, the possibility of creating "digital alabais" rears its head.
This is one mode of media where it may be necessary and desirable to use DRM techniques to mark a synthetic broadcast as synthetic.
Heck, maybe use the HDTV Broadcast flag for this purpose instad?
Too bad the US cancelled the Superconducting Supercollider some years back.
Why? It cost too much.
And how much are we spending in Iraq for benefits denied to our own citizens?
Priorities?
That is $2.8 BILLION
Right out of taxpayers pockets.
That is $200 MILLION per mile.
Interstate Highway only costs $10-$20 million per mile.
How many automobile sales are consumed by the forced use of $2.8 Billion of taxpayers money on trains?
This is an instance of public transportation that directly deprives the public of the ability to purchase a car simply by the assault upon their wallets.
Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Nissan all ought to file suit against the MTA in Seattle.
Certainly, if every copied MP3 or other media is a 1:1 correlation with a lost album sale, and every "shared" MP3 is responsible for hundreds of lost sales, then one city BUS must then be responsible for the loss of the sale of 40-60 automobiles?
And further, for every car not sold, there is also a loss in license plate fees, gasoline sold. toll road fees and parking fees.
Seems like that would be a perfect test case as the names of cars are copyrighted, as are certain design details, and of course, the purchaser must hold a "license" to operate it on the road.
Oh, wait, some bus riders own cars and some car owners ride the bus!
Maybe there is some truth to the idea that the acquisition of shared downloads has an impact on media sales, but it is obviously not of the magnitude the bastards claim.
In the case of PWSs, obviously there is often vanity or some form of craziness, but equally often people use them to keep geographically distant relatives up to date on the growth of children etc., or on whatever activity might be of common interest.
And even in the craziest of implementations, it could be reasonably said that at least it takes a bit more intelligence to design a web page than it does to plunk down $3000 for fancy wheels and tires for a car.
Of course the guy with the car generally gains some ancillary benefits woefully unavailable to the guy who sits in his room coding HTML.
"Damn, Paris, why do you have to stop doing that to answer your cell phone? Get back to work so I can finish my post on Slashdot!"
Visibilty of Open Source products can only be beneficial and certainly this venue adds credibility.
One must wonder though if the impact is wasted on the big exhibitors who are there to hawk their wares.
I mean, do you think Bill Gates is going to stop by, then turn around and say "Ballmer, we need to go open source!"
Nonetheless, I'd applaud a change in the tactics of Open Source that resulted in enough commercialization to do three things:
1. Allow more developers to earn a continuing stream of revenue for all their work as it is recognized as a viable and legitimate alternative to the shrink-wrap boxes in the stores today.
2. Put some downward price pressure on the current Windows software market. WinXP Pro is $200+ to a consumer but $40 to an OEM? And Office at over $400? Come on! Most "shareware" apps go for around $20!
3. Encourage a greater cooperation by MS when developers seek timely and full disclosure of APIs etc. necessary to build Windows apps. And in the absence of this cooperation, create a genuine market for equivalent retail alternatives for OSs other than Windows. Basically, if MS won't play ball, folks have an easy switch to make without having to change hardware.
Perhaps I'd see access to music as a critical component of college attendance if the college attended were Juilliard.
But in general, public colleges obtain 75%+ of their funding from the taxpayer, not from tuition.
So I'd like to see the students dedicating as much time, effort and money to LEARNING as they do to downloading music.
It is simply a matter of priorities, and the priority at college ought to be education.
And for those who would ridicule the above because you happen to also like music, consider the waste of money because the vast majority of college freshman show up requiring courses so rudimentary they ought to be considered "remedial". Basically, what they spend the first year or two doing, they should have learned in Junior High.
This lack of focus on EDUCATION, which is really what college is for, costs everybody money whether you are a student or not.
And it is sensitive to a different wavelength (IR...that's why you can't see it)