"so far three friends have called me to tell me to watch this ad"
Perhaps they know you're the type to post on Slashdot and therefore think that you might be interested in Google's first-ever Super Bowl advertisement.
As for your other points, I think most people in this world have an inkling that Google has some kind of search service. In fact, it's the most popular search service in the world. Makes me wonder what the point of the ad is. "Gosh, I think I'm going to use Google to search on the internet from now on, instead of Alta Vista!"
" In fact there are Theora hardware decoders in the market already [xiph.org]."
That link you provided doesn't show that. It says there are players out there which support Theora; however, "there is a hardware decoder implementation being developed." That means there isn't currently a hardware decoder.
Meanwhile, there are numerous h.264 decoders available in hardware from multiple vendors. See Macej Stachowiak from Apple's post here, and search "h.264 asic" on your favorite search engine for more.
It's not the same content. It's got bonus materials that the VHS didn't have. Or should my purchase of Star Trek II on VHS in 199x entitle me to download the new Blu-Ray version, or the Director's Cut DVD?
Apple owns no part of Disney. Jobs does, thanks to his former ownership of Pixar and its purchase by Disney.
Apple will do, no doubt, what's best for Apple. But I don't particularly see how it benefits much from DRM on video, especially in light of the fact that I have no doubt that the existence of DRM (and high prices relative to DVDs and Blu-Ray discs) makes video sales (and thus the use of video on Apple's products) significantly lower than they would be without DRM. A $9.99 online music purchase is a good deal as it includes the same music at potentially a lower price as a CD, and can be played in the same places as a CD. A $9.99 movie purchase is not a good deal, when the equivalently priced DVD has many more features and can be played in many more places.
Not that I travel in such wide circles, but I know many people who purchase music digitally, but very few who purchase video digitally. I have no interest in purchasing a movie on my PS3, which can't play on my computer or iPhone or DVD player; likewise, I have no interest in purchasing a movie on my computer, which can't play on my PS3 or DVD player or TV, as I don't own an Apple TV. I don't think my approaches towards the media are very different. If Apple could sell video without DRM, and at more reasonably prices, I expect sales would jump. And with increased sales comes increased demand for Apple products.
(Of course Apple would still want DRM on rentals, for obvious reasons...)
"the 16 GB of storage on the iPhone is typically filled with music".
Ummmm, do users of other smartphones not play music? Is there something special about the iPhone that requires users to fill up the space with music, or videos? Is it just too darned easy to load your iPhone with music? I really have no idea what this means.
FWIW, I'm currently using 1.57 GB of storage for apps on my iPhone. Of course, I don't think that's *all* due to the apps -- some of it is user file storage, which is handled app-by-app and which I assume is counted in the "app" section of the iPhone capacity meter in iTunes.
The Exchange support for Snow Leopard was built using Exchange Web Services, just like the next version of Microsoft's client, Entourage.
Entourage is the current Mac analogue of Outlook. It will be phased out next year when Office for Mac come with an actual version of Outlook.
Incorrect. The "Outlook for Mac" is just a rebranded Entourage, so you're still getting the same thing.
Outlook for Mac is promised to be a complete rewrite, so it's the "same thing" as Entourage only in that it's the mail/calendar/contact app component of Microsoft Office. The program itself could be quite different.
Except there's no good evidence here to show that the NTSB is in any way being political; the statement isn't political in and of itself, and there's no evidence that there was any political pressure anywhere being applied.
Here's the facts: other organizations investigating the Air France crash have pointed to possible airspeed malfunctions as a contributing cause. Meanwhile, the NTSB has looked into similar matters and has announced it's looking into two completely separate cases in which it appears that the same kind of aircraft may have had airspeed indicator malfunctions. It has nothing directly to do with the Air France case.
And re: MACC's observation below, the NTSB reported that due to a flaw in the Boeing 777's engines there was an urgent need for a component redesign. I don't see how that's shifting blame away from Boeing at all. (And the British AAIB announced that the incident was probably caused by an accumulation of ice in the fuel system and also caused for a system redesign; that's not wildly different from the NTSB's statement.)
Yes, the next three Pixar films will be sequels, if you ignore Newt, which is the next movie after Toy Story 3 and is coming out in 2011. and the Bear and the Bow, which is coming out Christmas 2011. Other than that, the original post is exactly correct.
Every time I see an article about Apple which gets basic facts about the company's policies wrong, I get just a little more annoyed.
Seriously. There is no "90-day" refund policy. Read the iTunes Store terms and conditions -- no mention of a 90-day period. In fact, the only mention of refunds is that you can get a refund if they can't deliver the purchase to you; otherwise, as it clearly states, "no refunds are available."
Moreover, there are thousands of app store applications and developers. Is there a single one who has complained about this refund policy screwing them over?
Methinks overheated rhetoric like the one in this post and tomhudson's below about how developing for the iPhone used to be fun but is now "about money and control and refunds and chargebacks" is farcical.
Most Mac users won't even visit the Safari page, however, since all Mac users get stable Safari updates bundled into Mac OS X updates. So the folks seeking out the Safari webpage to download it are probably looking for the beta version.
The lesson, which any Mac developer with a clue has known for years, is that if you want to work with your own customized perl installation, install your own Perl, don't extent the preinstalled version which Apple might change in a future update. Since installing perl on a Mac involves, basically a) downloading the software; b) typing "sh Configure -de"; c) typing "make"; d) typing "make install." Not too tough, really.
Dick Ebersole, who runs NBC Sports, is on record as saying that it is his goal to get better ratings, no matter what. That's why NBC doesn't post the running score of a football game, because they want you to stay and wait for it.
Have you ever watched an NBC broadcast of a football game? They show the score of a game the entire time.
I watched NBC's broadcast on TV of the opening ceremonies and followed along with the Wikipedia list for a bit (at least, the Wikipedia list as it appeared last night) from Great Britain to the United States, and they matched perfectly. I've still got it on my DVR, and if someone can give an actual example of this reordering besides linking to the NBC olympics website (not even the opening ceremony video), I can check it out, but otherwise this objection is ridiculous. A little specificity would be helpful.
I think the 68k-PowerPC transition is not quite apt. You are correct that the first generation of PPC boxes were not nearly as nice as the second generation boxes, which had much more extensive changes than just the processor. But I think there was a lot more room for improvement in the last 68K boxes versus the PC state of the art at the time than there is in the last PPC boxes versus the PC state of the art. The NuBus expansion card bus versus the PCI bus is just one example. Both the last PPC boxes and the first Intel boxes have the latest and greatest interfaces such as USB2 and PCI Express.
In addition, the first Intel box is not a motherboard that Apple slapped together on its own, like it did for the first PPC boxes. It is a state-of-the-art Intel motherboard with all the latest doodads. Sure, Apple could stick in a fastre graphics card or hard drive, but the motherboard support chips are all modern. I think the next rev of the MacBook Pro will include Firewire 800, which I assume Apple couldn't integrate into the MacBook Pro motherboard in time to meet their ship date, but that's more of an incremental change than was included in the second-generation PPC boxes. (And don't forget the problems with the then-new PCI-bus Macs. Networking was so broken -- remember the Open Transport fiasco? The brand-new networking architecture that wasn't ready at the time the 7200/7500/8500 were released and which those new machines relied on, MacTCP having been deliberately obsoleted? It took several months after the boxes were shipped for *any* PPP dialing software to work at all with the Mac, and it took more than a year after that until most of the more significant networking bugs to be quashed.)
I purchased a video game the other day, and imagine my surprise that it only worked in a Playstation 2, not in my Xbox. Apparently, they are forcing me to play these games on their Playstation 2, and I can't play it anywhere else. That's outrageous! Where can I find a lawyer to help me fight this monopolistic practice?
Just use Sailing Clicker with your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone or Palm:
Don't you hate it when some people hog the CD-player for hours during your parties? Using your computer as a juke-box (with password-protected screen saver on), this is a problem of the past. Salling Clicker lets you pick the songs while taking care of your guests. Not only can you move between and scan within tracks--Salling Clicker lets you search for tracks by name, artist, composer, and album. When used with a Palm, you even have the option of reviewing upcoming tracks or album artwork on your PDA's display!
Good thing the folks at CNET don't read any blogs or other newsy sites or even the AOL site itself, or they would have learned about this two weeks ago, when the service was activated. If they had done any of that, they might now feel foolish.
David Appell has been tracking the story and has reports here. Moreover, the authors of the original study have published a response here. The original story should be updated to reflect these important facts, not just to report the fact that another crank published a similar paper two years ago.
Of course, if you took the time to actually look at the facts instead of spouting off unclever quips, Massachusettes' state tax burden is significantly lower than the U.S. average and is in about the middle of the pack when viewed as percentage of personal income.
If you look at the description of what the "Clean Slate" agrteement accomplishes, it's effectiveness and intent is pretty clear. It says:
Provided that I have in fact deleted from my computer(s) and storage devices (including portable devices) all copyrighted sound recordings illegally downloaded from P2P Networks, and destroyed all copies of those sound recordings in any format, and do not engage in illegal downloading, copying or "sharing" (that is, uploading/distributing) of copyrighted sound recordings on P2P Networks in the future, I understand that
RIAA agrees not to support or assist in any copyright infringement lawsuit against me based on these past activities.
That's all it says. Nowhere does it promise that these affiants won't be sued -- rather, it says the RIAA won't help out those planitffs. Is it an ironclad guarantee that you'll never be sued? No. But it does do exactly what it purports to do, and nothing more
Furthermore, the claim that this affidavit program is an effort to smoke out illegal file sharers is ridiculous. First, the affidavit requires that all songs illegally downloaded be deleted. Kind of hard for the RIAA to make a record of what songs you have after the fact if you've deleted all of them, eh? Or, do you think the record companies are just sitting there with a big list of names, waiting for people to incriminate themselves? Second, it doesn't require the affiant to send in a list of the songs that were "illegally downloaded."
This lawsuit sounds like a cheap and easy way for a law firm to get some publicity,
That's all true -- there is a signficiant imbalance of power. But that's the way our legal system has worked since the beginning. If one party thinks another party is causing some kind of legal injury -- by hitting him, by defrauding him, or by stealing his property -- then the remedy is to file a civil lawsuit.
DirecTV apparently believes that these folks are stealing their service. They have every right to file a lawsuit, so long as they have what they think is good reason to think that these people are stealing their services. And, if they don't have a good reason, the legal system providse procedures for imposing penalties on parties who file frivolous lawsuits, as well as reimbursing the costs of persons who are targets of frivolous lawsuits.
Now, you seem to have a problem with these letters. But, surely DirecTV has every right to simply go ahead and file civil lawsuits, thus requiring the targeted party to file the appropriate responses in court. What about sending the demand letter? if someone is engaging in illegal activity, this is certainly a reasonably time- and cost-efficient way to resolve the matter. If someone is *not* engaging in illegal activity, they can fight it out in court, which would be their option even if the letters never were sent. Therefore, it doesn't seem these letters change anything, except it makes it easier for wrongdoers to resolve their cases. Maybe that's somehow unfair, but I don't see how this qualifies as extortion. Heck, if you're innocent, you can just go ahead and ignore the letters; then it's as if you never received them, and you'll be sued.
If DirecTV honestly believes these people are stealing its service, and you think it's wrong for them to send these letters to people who claim innocence, what do you think they should do?
Sony will introduce - in Japan only - a Linux based video recorder in early November which can store 342 hours of content with 500GB of hard drive space.
Hmmmmm.. a Linux-based DVR by Sony? Where have I heard of that before? Oh yea, here. Available in the US, too.
Slashdot Mirror
"so far three friends have called me to tell me to watch this ad"
Perhaps they know you're the type to post on Slashdot and therefore think that you might be interested in Google's first-ever Super Bowl advertisement.
As for your other points, I think most people in this world have an inkling that Google has some kind of search service. In fact, it's the most popular search service in the world. Makes me wonder what the point of the ad is. "Gosh, I think I'm going to use Google to search on the internet from now on, instead of Alta Vista!"
" In fact there are Theora hardware decoders in the market already [xiph.org]."
That link you provided doesn't show that. It says there are players out there which support Theora; however, "there is a hardware decoder implementation being developed." That means there isn't currently a hardware decoder.
Meanwhile, there are numerous h.264 decoders available in hardware from multiple vendors. See Macej Stachowiak from Apple's post here, and search "h.264 asic" on your favorite search engine for more.
It's not the same content. It's got bonus materials that the VHS didn't have. Or should my purchase of Star Trek II on VHS in 199x entitle me to download the new Blu-Ray version, or the Director's Cut DVD?
Apple owns no part of Disney. Jobs does, thanks to his former ownership of Pixar and its purchase by Disney.
Apple will do, no doubt, what's best for Apple. But I don't particularly see how it benefits much from DRM on video, especially in light of the fact that I have no doubt that the existence of DRM (and high prices relative to DVDs and Blu-Ray discs) makes video sales (and thus the use of video on Apple's products) significantly lower than they would be without DRM. A $9.99 online music purchase is a good deal as it includes the same music at potentially a lower price as a CD, and can be played in the same places as a CD. A $9.99 movie purchase is not a good deal, when the equivalently priced DVD has many more features and can be played in many more places.
Not that I travel in such wide circles, but I know many people who purchase music digitally, but very few who purchase video digitally. I have no interest in purchasing a movie on my PS3, which can't play on my computer or iPhone or DVD player; likewise, I have no interest in purchasing a movie on my computer, which can't play on my PS3 or DVD player or TV, as I don't own an Apple TV. I don't think my approaches towards the media are very different. If Apple could sell video without DRM, and at more reasonably prices, I expect sales would jump. And with increased sales comes increased demand for Apple products.
(Of course Apple would still want DRM on rentals, for obvious reasons...)
"the 16 GB of storage on the iPhone is typically filled with music".
Ummmm, do users of other smartphones not play music? Is there something special about the iPhone that requires users to fill up the space with music, or videos? Is it just too darned easy to load your iPhone with music? I really have no idea what this means.
FWIW, I'm currently using 1.57 GB of storage for apps on my iPhone. Of course, I don't think that's *all* due to the apps -- some of it is user file storage, which is handled app-by-app and which I assume is counted in the "app" section of the iPhone capacity meter in iTunes.
The Exchange support for Snow Leopard was built using Exchange Web Services, just like the next version of Microsoft's client, Entourage.
Entourage is the current Mac analogue of Outlook. It will be phased out next year when Office for Mac come with an actual version of Outlook.
Incorrect. The "Outlook for Mac" is just a rebranded Entourage, so you're still getting the same thing.
Outlook for Mac is promised to be a complete rewrite, so it's the "same thing" as Entourage only in that it's the mail/calendar/contact app component of Microsoft Office. The program itself could be quite different.
XHTML 2 is way cooler anyway. Why does anybody give a damn about HTML 5?
Perhaps because XHTML 2 is now officially dead.
Except there's no good evidence here to show that the NTSB is in any way being political; the statement isn't political in and of itself, and there's no evidence that there was any political pressure anywhere being applied.
Here's the facts: other organizations investigating the Air France crash have pointed to possible airspeed malfunctions as a contributing cause. Meanwhile, the NTSB has looked into similar matters and has announced it's looking into two completely separate cases in which it appears that the same kind of aircraft may have had airspeed indicator malfunctions. It has nothing directly to do with the Air France case.
And re: MACC's observation below, the NTSB reported that due to a flaw in the Boeing 777's engines there was an urgent need for a component redesign. I don't see how that's shifting blame away from Boeing at all. (And the British AAIB announced that the incident was probably caused by an accumulation of ice in the fuel system and also caused for a system redesign; that's not wildly different from the NTSB's statement.)
Yes, the next three Pixar films will be sequels, if you ignore Newt, which is the next movie after Toy Story 3 and is coming out in 2011. and the Bear and the Bow, which is coming out Christmas 2011. Other than that, the original post is exactly correct.
Every time I see an article about Apple which gets basic facts about the company's policies wrong, I get just a little more annoyed.
Seriously. There is no "90-day" refund policy. Read the iTunes Store terms and conditions -- no mention of a 90-day period. In fact, the only mention of refunds is that you can get a refund if they can't deliver the purchase to you; otherwise, as it clearly states, "no refunds are available."
Moreover, there are thousands of app store applications and developers. Is there a single one who has complained about this refund policy screwing them over?
Methinks overheated rhetoric like the one in this post and tomhudson's below about how developing for the iPhone used to be fun but is now "about money and control and refunds and chargebacks" is farcical.
Most Mac users won't even visit the Safari page, however, since all Mac users get stable Safari updates bundled into Mac OS X updates. So the folks seeking out the Safari webpage to download it are probably looking for the beta version.
Apart from if you want to run the most popular scripting language.
The lesson, which any Mac developer with a clue has known for years, is that if you want to work with your own customized perl installation, install your own Perl, don't extent the preinstalled version which Apple might change in a future update. Since installing perl on a Mac involves, basically a) downloading the software; b) typing "sh Configure -de"; c) typing "make"; d) typing "make install." Not too tough, really.
Dick Ebersole, who runs NBC Sports, is on record as saying that it is his goal to get better ratings, no matter what. That's why NBC doesn't post the running score of a football game, because they want you to stay and wait for it.
Have you ever watched an NBC broadcast of a football game? They show the score of a game the entire time.
I watched NBC's broadcast on TV of the opening ceremonies and followed along with the Wikipedia list for a bit (at least, the Wikipedia list as it appeared last night) from Great Britain to the United States, and they matched perfectly. I've still got it on my DVR, and if someone can give an actual example of this reordering besides linking to the NBC olympics website (not even the opening ceremony video), I can check it out, but otherwise this objection is ridiculous. A little specificity would be helpful.
Good point, we can't count on those developers to switch a preference setting to make their applications work on multiple OS versions.
All that's been said about Leopard, for example, is that WWDC attendees will get to see it.
Almost -- Apple has said it will include a final version of Boot Camp.
I think the 68k-PowerPC transition is not quite apt. You are correct that the first generation of PPC boxes were not nearly as nice as the second generation boxes, which had much more extensive changes than just the processor. But I think there was a lot more room for improvement in the last 68K boxes versus the PC state of the art at the time than there is in the last PPC boxes versus the PC state of the art. The NuBus expansion card bus versus the PCI bus is just one example. Both the last PPC boxes and the first Intel boxes have the latest and greatest interfaces such as USB2 and PCI Express.
In addition, the first Intel box is not a motherboard that Apple slapped together on its own, like it did for the first PPC boxes. It is a state-of-the-art Intel motherboard with all the latest doodads. Sure, Apple could stick in a fastre graphics card or hard drive, but the motherboard support chips are all modern. I think the next rev of the MacBook Pro will include Firewire 800, which I assume Apple couldn't integrate into the MacBook Pro motherboard in time to meet their ship date, but that's more of an incremental change than was included in the second-generation PPC boxes. (And don't forget the problems with the then-new PCI-bus Macs. Networking was so broken -- remember the Open Transport fiasco? The brand-new networking architecture that wasn't ready at the time the 7200/7500/8500 were released and which those new machines relied on, MacTCP having been deliberately obsoleted? It took several months after the boxes were shipped for *any* PPP dialing software to work at all with the Mac, and it took more than a year after that until most of the more significant networking bugs to be quashed.)
I purchased a video game the other day, and imagine my surprise that it only worked in a Playstation 2, not in my Xbox. Apparently, they are forcing me to play these games on their Playstation 2, and I can't play it anywhere else. That's outrageous! Where can I find a lawyer to help me fight this monopolistic practice?
Good thing the folks at CNET don't read any blogs or other newsy sites or even the AOL site itself, or they would have learned about this two weeks ago, when the service was activated. If they had done any of that, they might now feel foolish.
David Appell has been tracking the story and has reports here. Moreover, the authors of the original study have published a response here. The original story should be updated to reflect these important facts, not just to report the fact that another crank published a similar paper two years ago.
Of course, if you took the time to actually look at the facts instead of spouting off unclever quips, Massachusettes' state tax burden is significantly lower than the U.S. average and is in about the middle of the pack when viewed as percentage of personal income.
- a defensive Bostonian
If you look at the description of what the "Clean Slate" agrteement accomplishes, it's effectiveness and intent is pretty clear. It says:
That's all it says. Nowhere does it promise that these affiants won't be sued -- rather, it says the RIAA won't help out those planitffs. Is it an ironclad guarantee that you'll never be sued? No. But it does do exactly what it purports to do, and nothing more
Furthermore, the claim that this affidavit program is an effort to smoke out illegal file sharers is ridiculous. First, the affidavit requires that all songs illegally downloaded be deleted. Kind of hard for the RIAA to make a record of what songs you have after the fact if you've deleted all of them, eh? Or, do you think the record companies are just sitting there with a big list of names, waiting for people to incriminate themselves? Second, it doesn't require the affiant to send in a list of the songs that were "illegally downloaded."This lawsuit sounds like a cheap and easy way for a law firm to get some publicity,
That's all true -- there is a signficiant imbalance of power. But that's the way our legal system has worked since the beginning. If one party thinks another party is causing some kind of legal injury -- by hitting him, by defrauding him, or by stealing his property -- then the remedy is to file a civil lawsuit.
DirecTV apparently believes that these folks are stealing their service. They have every right to file a lawsuit, so long as they have what they think is good reason to think that these people are stealing their services. And, if they don't have a good reason, the legal system providse procedures for imposing penalties on parties who file frivolous lawsuits, as well as reimbursing the costs of persons who are targets of frivolous lawsuits.
Now, you seem to have a problem with these letters. But, surely DirecTV has every right to simply go ahead and file civil lawsuits, thus requiring the targeted party to file the appropriate responses in court. What about sending the demand letter? if someone is engaging in illegal activity, this is certainly a reasonably time- and cost-efficient way to resolve the matter. If someone is *not* engaging in illegal activity, they can fight it out in court, which would be their option even if the letters never were sent. Therefore, it doesn't seem these letters change anything, except it makes it easier for wrongdoers to resolve their cases. Maybe that's somehow unfair, but I don't see how this qualifies as extortion. Heck, if you're innocent, you can just go ahead and ignore the letters; then it's as if you never received them, and you'll be sued.
If DirecTV honestly believes these people are stealing its service, and you think it's wrong for them to send these letters to people who claim innocence, what do you think they should do?
Hmmmmm.. a Linux-based DVR by Sony? Where have I heard of that before? Oh yea, here. Available in the US, too.