Sure, the physical media my data are on will go obsolete. That's the whole point: if DRM locks me down, I can't copy it over. Investing in a music collection only playable on one brand of equipment is a huge mistake. If it were anyone but Apple, it would be obvious to everybody.
No, the mp3 and ogg formats will not become obsolete in our lifetimes. Unlike 8 tracks and tapes, digital formats can store whatever your ears can hear and don't degrade when played or copied. The problem of representing sound is solved.
So what "version" was the web when Java applets became popular? What about frames? What about annoying midi background music? What about inline images?
It would actually be pretty easy (and objective) to determine when these features were first implemented in browsers. The Web really isn't an abstract thing, it's just a set of software applications and data. I think the idea of versioning is somewhat correct, in that the vast majority of the Web today is not what Tim Barners-Lee invented in 1992. HTTP (1.0) is one of the many, many things in todays Web. To implement a browser that the mainstream would consider using today, probably 2% of the code would go to support technologies that existed 12 years ago. Even the basic transactional protocol is giving way now, with the rapid emergence of video.
Selectively releasing private corresondence that is flattering to you, after editing out anything you'd prefer stayed secret (RTA), doesn't really qualify as "transparency" in my book.
If Microsoft is such a fan of transparency, maybe the EU should release all the correspondence in full, including the Microsoft "business secrets."
(But of course, then Microsoft would throw a legal hissy fit.)
It's not, for them, they aren't 100% in charge of how much Apple charges for the music.
I think you're fooling yourself. Most of the money iTunes collects goes straight into the coffers of RIAA members, at 0 effort to themselves. The fact that they still want more doesn't mean they're suffering, only that they want even more free money.
I don't think it's fair to dismiss the decline in worker productivity as being solely attributal to a lack of prioritization.
What decline in worker productivity? All this story said is that people feel less productive and less successful. Objective measurements show that worker productivity is rising.
I think this quote from the article hits it on the head:
Even if productivity increases, it's constantly outpaced by those expectations, said Don Grimme of GHR Training Solutions, a workplace training company in Coral Springs, Fla.
So I don't think the article has any real statement to make about productivity. However, the fact that people feel less successful and more rushed is an important thing in itself. To me it says that the increase at productivity has come at the cost of some measures of quality of life. When will we wake up and realize that there's more to life than per capita GDP?
In this day and age of super fast personal computers, what is to differentiate a server from a PC?
The Niagra is about the most specialized server chip around: it can't run a single thread especially fast, but it can run 32 of them concurrently! That makes it a server chip if ever there was one.
If I was a supposed industry leader in the cell phone market, I would announce that my phones would NEVER have more then a few megs of storage in them. Here is why! Cell phones are ALL ABOUT SUBSCRIPTION and PAY PER USE services.
And as a customer in the cell phone market (no hypotheticals required), I get sick of paying bills, and will buy a cellphone with some storage space so I can just copy over my music once and for all.
I have they money, you (as a hypothetical player in the cell phone market) want it. If you won't make what I want, some other company will.
True, seniority doesn't always trump skill. But here's another way of looking at the problem: most people think they're above average. It's entirely common to think you're the best and should be promoted over everybody else, and that your time is more valuable than others' because you're sooooo effective. So the fact is, this perception of injustice has as much to do with inflated egos as it does reality.
Besides being completely unworkable, remote desktopping everything also won't magically cure the licensing issues. You can't let 10000 people share one license just by only installing it on one server. The lawyers thought of that already::)
I don't even know what "check out a route" is supposed to mean. Of course you rely on the technology, whether computer or paper-based. (And guess what, the paper maps come from computer maps anyways.)
Anyways, I use a GPSMap 60CS with the car kit, and it is a invaluable, especially when driving around a new city in the dark.
But like anything, you must learn to use it. The GPS tracking itself is extremely accurate, but the maps are somewhat less so. You cannot drive safely or effectively if you watch the GPS too closely, and try to literally trace out your path on the map. Insteaad, you should glance at the GPS and see "OK, I need to get on I-15 going south," and then follow the road signs to do it. You use the GPS to give you knowledge of your next turn, but then you use your eyeballs through the windows to apply it.
Finally, you must not get a new GPS and set out on unfamiliar roads immediately. You need a little practice in your own neighborhood to instantly understand the displays and work the interface. I wonder if the subjects of this study were novice users of the devices? If so, that's a big limitation of the results.
This is good because now the money will go to the people who make the contenet, instead of some middleman like advertisers. I'd rather pay a musician $4 for an album than pay $16 to a label. Or there is ad support, but under the old system, you have to watch a lot of ads to support content, because watching ads isn't very productive. Under the new direct system, the cost of programming will be much lower, if your time is worth anything.
I do think the market will drive the price lower than $7/mo though.
They could even make the end of April (Golden Week in Japan; the biggest holiday/vacation week in the country) if the AACS spec is finalized shortly, and I have no doubt that's their goal, as it always is for "spring" console launches there.
For what it's worth, the article doesn't agree with you (quote below). It will be very interesting to see whether Sony truly "launches" in the (real) Spring, or trickles out a few units a couple months late and declares "Mission Accomplished." If that happens, the real USA launch (as in, most of us slashdotters can actually buy one if we so choose) may barely be in time for Christmas.
It's also hard to say what exactly Sony defines as "spring", however. It's certainly not the traditional definition of the season, which covers the months of March, April and May. That would probably mean that the company has to meet its goal by E3 in May - a near-impossibility, given that no price point has been announced and no pre-sale activity has taken place at retail.
It's possible, however, that Sony will be ready for a launch by June or July, at least in some limited sense - not enough to make serious headway in terms of sales, perhaps, but enough for the firm to be able to argue that it met its own deadline and certainly enough to create a media furore that would give consumers another option to consider before purchasing an Xbox 360.
However, lots of people use services like gMail and Hotmail, which come with increasingly more accurate spam filters.
Exactly... spam is forcing the decline of traditional email. I doubt if an email sent from one gmail user to another even uses SMTP at all. When we think of software as a subscription-based service, with no locally installed special-purpose software, we should look to email as the model for a smooth transition.
It also won't cost Sony $900 to manufacture one when it goes to market. Congrats on knowing what a loss leader is, but there's no way Sony would give away that much.
I feel sorry for the guys parents and wonder what they did wrong.
0x80 himself explains his rationalization:
"All those people in my botnet, right, if I don't use them, they're just gonna eventually get caught up in someone else's net, so it might as well be mine," 0x80 says.
I couldn't help but notice, this is precisely the argument google uses to justify censoring their web searches in China: "if we don't do it, we'll just lose the market to somebody who will. So we might as well make some money."
Those are pretty interesting numbers, especially since PC prices (especially in real dollars) have fallen so much over the same period. $399 is really bumping up against PC prices these days. Whether consoles are direct competitors to PCs is up for debate, but they certainly do use a lot of the same technology. I have to wonder if consoles will hit a point where more people choose to reap technology advances through price cuts instead of higher performance, as with PCs over the last 5 years or so.
It's not new, correct, but the original question was "is it right to force people to use something?" and there is also the old cliche of "two wrongs don't make a right"
I don't think we're talking about privately owned computers here at all.
The "forced" argument is misplaced. If government can decide to use Windows, they can also change their minds and decide to use Linux. Switching govt. owned PCs from Windows to Linux is in no way some new act of coercion.
I disagree; things have changed. Linux did exist 10 years ago, but what about the applications? It's OpenOffice and Firefox that matter, not the kernel.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the mp3 and ogg formats will not become obsolete in our lifetimes. Unlike 8 tracks and tapes, digital formats can store whatever your ears can hear and don't degrade when played or copied. The problem of representing sound is solved.
Seriously, I'm sure whatever it is, there will be plenty of time to figure out how it's not an iPod killer.
If Microsoft is such a fan of transparency, maybe the EU should release all the correspondence in full, including the Microsoft "business secrets." (But of course, then Microsoft would throw a legal hissy fit.)
But you can't say there's a resale market for tracks purchased on iTunes. Whatever they are or aren't doing with their DRM, they've accomplished that.
If it ships to North America and Europe over a full year after the XBox360, is it really in the same "generation"?
I think this quote from the article hits it on the head:
So I don't think the article has any real statement to make about productivity. However, the fact that people feel less successful and more rushed is an important thing in itself. To me it says that the increase at productivity has come at the cost of some measures of quality of life. When will we wake up and realize that there's more to life than per capita GDP?I have they money, you (as a hypothetical player in the cell phone market) want it. If you won't make what I want, some other company will.
True, seniority doesn't always trump skill. But here's another way of looking at the problem: most people think they're above average. It's entirely common to think you're the best and should be promoted over everybody else, and that your time is more valuable than others' because you're sooooo effective. So the fact is, this perception of injustice has as much to do with inflated egos as it does reality.
Besides being completely unworkable, remote desktopping everything also won't magically cure the licensing issues. You can't let 10000 people share one license just by only installing it on one server. The lawyers thought of that already: :)
Anyways, I use a GPSMap 60CS with the car kit, and it is a invaluable, especially when driving around a new city in the dark.
But like anything, you must learn to use it. The GPS tracking itself is extremely accurate, but the maps are somewhat less so. You cannot drive safely or effectively if you watch the GPS too closely, and try to literally trace out your path on the map. Insteaad, you should glance at the GPS and see "OK, I need to get on I-15 going south," and then follow the road signs to do it. You use the GPS to give you knowledge of your next turn, but then you use your eyeballs through the windows to apply it.
Finally, you must not get a new GPS and set out on unfamiliar roads immediately. You need a little practice in your own neighborhood to instantly understand the displays and work the interface. I wonder if the subjects of this study were novice users of the devices? If so, that's a big limitation of the results.
I do think the market will drive the price lower than $7/mo though.
It also won't cost Sony $900 to manufacture one when it goes to market. Congrats on knowing what a loss leader is, but there's no way Sony would give away that much.
Those are pretty interesting numbers, especially since PC prices (especially in real dollars) have fallen so much over the same period. $399 is really bumping up against PC prices these days. Whether consoles are direct competitors to PCs is up for debate, but they certainly do use a lot of the same technology. I have to wonder if consoles will hit a point where more people choose to reap technology advances through price cuts instead of higher performance, as with PCs over the last 5 years or so.
Getting your sound card to work under Linux
The "forced" argument is misplaced. If government can decide to use Windows, they can also change their minds and decide to use Linux. Switching govt. owned PCs from Windows to Linux is in no way some new act of coercion.
I disagree; things have changed. Linux did exist 10 years ago, but what about the applications? It's OpenOffice and Firefox that matter, not the kernel.