GM needs to come out with some crazy stuff like this soon because they're failing in their core products.
I hate to say this, but this sort of trend will only accelerate their decline. Remember this little guy? Where's his American counterpart? Sit in a Prius sometime and tell me what American car has an instrument panel like that. Who has adaptive cruise control? (Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Infiniti, Lexus). How about automated parking? Who's leading in hybrids? To this day, US manufacturers are fighting tooth and nail to remain in the past.
I think you're missing the point. Now McSoccer mom can talk on the phone and beat up her kids without swerving all over the road, because it's on autopilot. Honestly, which do you think will happen first - autopilot for cars, or making everybody a good driver?
Is your Comcast port 80 blocked? I've been running a webserver on mine ever since I first signed up (2000 or 2001, it was @Home then), and it still works.
I don't think you understand the argument at all. Ask yourself these questions:
1) To whom does pasteurization give a strategic advantage? (Answer: nobody, because everybody has it and it's the same everywhere)
2) Is pasteurization a "career"? (Answer: how many "pasteurizers" do you know?)
I don't think the immaturity of VR in the 90s will really delay its adoption once it becomes ready. Unfortunately simulator sickness is still a very big unsolved problem.
Which reminds me, Sony execs must be popping corks and slapping high-fives about now for their decision to build Blu-Ray into the PS3. I still happen to believe putting Blu-Ray into the PS3 was a purely strategic move that hurt PS3 customers by delaying shipment and jacking up the price, but if PS3 sales (though diminished) are what put Blu-Ray over the top, it doesn't really matter, does it? Big bonuses all around for root-kitting, format-pushing, technology-bundling Sony. This victory will make them a stronger company and increase their power to set technology standards, which given their close ties to content producers (they are content producers) is bound to be good for everybody but the customer. I hate it when the bad guys go long and win big.
From your link: "Four days later, a Belarus official confirmed the plane had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade." The proposed system dazzles IR sensors with a laser. It would do nothing against RPG's, which are unguided.
There are always policies governing such things so it's not a free-for-all. They normally include statements such as: "Patents developed by university personnel using university time, material or facilities are the property of the university subject to conditions specified by university policies."
True, in the past there have been many examples of companies spinning off from universities and leaving them with nothing. My sense is that universities are getting wise to this - or just more greedy, depending on which side you take.
Yeah, I mean, what are the chances a backwards nation like India could ever be sophisticated enough to use computers? What are they going to do, compete with programmers in Silicon Valley over the Internet? Ha! They'll never recoup a $100 investment that way!
Your argument only holds weight in dictatorships where taxpayers are "captive."
I'm curious about the legal arrangement that allows her to resign from the OLPC project with ownership if these technologies? Was it a volunteer position or something? Using a nonprofit as an unwitting venture capitalist to do R&D on for-profit technologies is uncool, and I have to wonder if it's even legal. (What's to stop all corporations from spawning nonprofit subsidiaries to do their R&D?)
This is ridiculous. It reminds me of the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" (Roman Catholic list of banned books). The Roman Catholics banned books because they believed that they could be used as a tool against their power, and not simply for the purpose of knowledge
And, sure enough, it wasn't long after affordable printing and widespread literacy that Roman Catholicism headed steeply into its ongoing decline. (No, I'm not saying the enlightenment was a bad thing, just that it's exactly what the Church feared all along).
Only if you could prove that the author of the IDE intended it to be used to commit computer crime. Actually this seems like a rather high barrier, since proving intent is hard. Of course if you tossed out this law and replaced it with a fictional one outlawing the creation of tools that could be used for crime, then it becomes absurd. Which is, I suppose, what the next 500 replies will do.
Finally something that is not wasting 90% of it's energy as heat, not to mention replacing ridiculously expensive bulbs every few hundred hours.
From the article, I get the impression the quality of the projection is probably not competitive with standard projectors. It is referred to as a cheap device you'd take to your friends' house to share iPod videos, which sits only a few feet from the screen, has a low resolution, and runs for several hours from a small battery (implying it's not terribly bright).
I wonder what the refresh rate is? I would think it would have to be very high to work well. Unlike a CRT, it doesn't even have phosphors, which have some persistence to reduce flicker.
I hope I am wrong and it's a revolutionary product.
That they could fail to see the future coming at them and more importantly read the trends (i.e. Napster) and react to them in a positive, money-making fashion, is an indictment of the corporate system
I'm not convinced there's any way to die gracefully when your business becomes outmoded (SCO, too). You make it sound like all they had to do was "adapt," but what does that mean? They had a sweet setup selling CDs in shopping malls with no competition, but once the Internet made all that unnecessary, I think a decrease in their profits was inevitable. Even if they'd decided to switch everything over to something like iTunes in 1999, the selective purchasing of individual tracks and competition from indies and filesharing would still have decreased their profits, perhaps even moreso than the path they did choose.
The fact that anarchistic nations never last (much less rise to greatness) must be very confusing to you. Society runs on trust, it's as simple as that. If nobody is willing to enter into contracts because they can't be enforced, or exchange goods or services for currency because it might lose all value tomorrow, or even come within shooting distance of any other person, then there is only one possible outcome, which closely resembles Quake. Nobody wants to live in that world. Even as a video game, it's not terribly interesting. Virtual worlds won't go anywhere unless there is some semblance of law and order.
Well, Dvorak is part of the "tech industry," so I guess it would be a paradox if his commentary were fantastic:)
That said, I have to agree that the thrill is largely gone. Even slashdot, the stories all seem to be something I've read before, and so do the comments. The late 90's, they were fantastic. But like the hippies after Woodstock, this is not the low point of a cycle -- it's over. Whatever "it" was, it will only return in a different form, and it will revolve around people other than us.
Thankfully, there's a handful asian companies in Korea who are listening to you : Samsung and LG are slowly introducing such dual player. Now we only have to wait until the price drop enough and no-name constructor join the game
The price of the player is not the problem. I noticed in the paper yesterday that high-def movies are still $24. That's crazy! I know they only cost a couple bucks extra to produce. Aside from that, it's simply not worth that much for a DVD, high-def or no.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're missing the point. Now McSoccer mom can talk on the phone and beat up her kids without swerving all over the road, because it's on autopilot. Honestly, which do you think will happen first - autopilot for cars, or making everybody a good driver?
I have posted links to small files on my PC a number of times in slashdot comments with no ill effects.
Is your Comcast port 80 blocked? I've been running a webserver on mine ever since I first signed up (2000 or 2001, it was @Home then), and it still works.
I think that's the question on all our minds.
1) To whom does pasteurization give a strategic advantage? (Answer: nobody, because everybody has it and it's the same everywhere)
2) Is pasteurization a "career"? (Answer: how many "pasteurizers" do you know?)
I don't think the immaturity of VR in the 90s will really delay its adoption once it becomes ready. Unfortunately simulator sickness is still a very big unsolved problem.
Which reminds me, Sony execs must be popping corks and slapping high-fives about now for their decision to build Blu-Ray into the PS3. I still happen to believe putting Blu-Ray into the PS3 was a purely strategic move that hurt PS3 customers by delaying shipment and jacking up the price, but if PS3 sales (though diminished) are what put Blu-Ray over the top, it doesn't really matter, does it? Big bonuses all around for root-kitting, format-pushing, technology-bundling Sony. This victory will make them a stronger company and increase their power to set technology standards, which given their close ties to content producers (they are content producers) is bound to be good for everybody but the customer. I hate it when the bad guys go long and win big.
From your link: "Four days later, a Belarus official confirmed the plane had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade." The proposed system dazzles IR sensors with a laser. It would do nothing against RPG's, which are unguided.
Case in point, Negroponte probably does not see OLPC as a get-rich scheme.
True, in the past there have been many examples of companies spinning off from universities and leaving them with nothing. My sense is that universities are getting wise to this - or just more greedy, depending on which side you take.
Yeah, I mean, what are the chances a backwards nation like India could ever be sophisticated enough to use computers? What are they going to do, compete with programmers in Silicon Valley over the Internet? Ha! They'll never recoup a $100 investment that way!
I'm curious about the legal arrangement that allows her to resign from the OLPC project with ownership if these technologies? Was it a volunteer position or something? Using a nonprofit as an unwitting venture capitalist to do R&D on for-profit technologies is uncool, and I have to wonder if it's even legal. (What's to stop all corporations from spawning nonprofit subsidiaries to do their R&D?)
Nailed it. Microsoft, at least, has the excuse of no content. But why isn't Sony all over this? It just seems so obvious.
Only if you could prove that the author of the IDE intended it to be used to commit computer crime. Actually this seems like a rather high barrier, since proving intent is hard. Of course if you tossed out this law and replaced it with a fictional one outlawing the creation of tools that could be used for crime, then it becomes absurd. Which is, I suppose, what the next 500 replies will do.
From the article, I get the impression the quality of the projection is probably not competitive with standard projectors. It is referred to as a cheap device you'd take to your friends' house to share iPod videos, which sits only a few feet from the screen, has a low resolution, and runs for several hours from a small battery (implying it's not terribly bright).
I wonder what the refresh rate is? I would think it would have to be very high to work well. Unlike a CRT, it doesn't even have phosphors, which have some persistence to reduce flicker.
I hope I am wrong and it's a revolutionary product.
The fact that anarchistic nations never last (much less rise to greatness) must be very confusing to you. Society runs on trust, it's as simple as that. If nobody is willing to enter into contracts because they can't be enforced, or exchange goods or services for currency because it might lose all value tomorrow, or even come within shooting distance of any other person, then there is only one possible outcome, which closely resembles Quake. Nobody wants to live in that world. Even as a video game, it's not terribly interesting. Virtual worlds won't go anywhere unless there is some semblance of law and order.
That said, I have to agree that the thrill is largely gone. Even slashdot, the stories all seem to be something I've read before, and so do the comments. The late 90's, they were fantastic. But like the hippies after Woodstock, this is not the low point of a cycle -- it's over. Whatever "it" was, it will only return in a different form, and it will revolve around people other than us.
Happy 2008!!
What's more central to the economy than transportation, and the auto industry itself?