"Maybe someone can come out with something better 3 years down the line. Fast, flexible, easy to use, relatively bug free - think Firefox, but an OS this time."
Now the real question is whether this HDD will be the missing link in allowing the XBox's successor to be backwards compatible.
The article didn't mention this, but instead explored the rumours about an 'xPod' and the Xenon's marketing name.
With MSFT acquiring hardware virtualization software not too long ago, there have been plenty of rumours about backwards compatibility in this console, but few facts.
It can be argued, of course, that fansubs exists for a good reason, namely that those lucky enough to live in Japan can watch those shows on TV, without necessarily having to buy the DVD, whereas poor suckers like the rest of us are expected to wait for those series to be released in our respective countries.
If TV broadcasts weren't limited to a single country (in most cases), and only a single language was spoken in the entire world, then those companies would have a point. At the moment it are (mostly) just fans wanting to see the anime series which are currently being broadcast without having to wait a year or (much) longer and pay _extra_ for the DVD (on top of the costs for cable TV).
I can understand Japanese, I like anime, but I don't want to buy the DVD(s) of every single series I watch. I'm, however, prepared to pay a couple of euros extra per month for the priviledge to receive the major Japanese TV-channels on my TV here in Europe. Which includes the latest (anime) series.
"Current large screen OLED devices consume far more power than LCDs [..]"
So it appears that OLED seems to have a problem with power efficiency in addition to the longevity of its pixels. Definitely not a good sign. The article I quoted from also specifies 2008 as the date when OLED might enter mass-production. Still a long way off, in other words.
As for SED, take a look at this article: Toshiba's SED TV at CES. First (big) TVs released this year, with production ramping up next year.
Also, I disagree with what you say about OLED being superior to SED and FED because it doesn't have the dead-pixel problem. SEDs and FEDs can have multiple electron emitters per pixel, and phosphors have a tendency to last a very long time (just look at CRTs)
So SED is available this very year, uses less power than comparable displays (one-third of a plasma display) and won't wear out within 5 years. FED might be released in a few months or years and will exhibit pretty much the same benefits as SED. OLED will be released in 2008. If we're lucky.
The problem with OLED is that it's a technology which is basically being developed from scratch. Variants on OLED are even being developed, to circumvent (among other things) the longevity issues with especially the blue component of OLED (10,000 to 20,000 hours so far).
The thing is that SED and FED are pretty much evolved versions of the venerable CRT: they've got 'electron guns', a vacuum, and a layer build up out of phosphors. Only big differences are the number of electron guns (tens of thousands instead of three) and the distance between the electron guns and the phosphor layer (millimeters instead of tens of centimeters).
SED in particular stands a good chance, as it uses existing manufacturing techniques for the electron gun-layer and further basically replicates a CRT. FED tries to do things a bit fancier, which requires more R&D, and thus more time to bring it to the market.
So in summary, OLED and FED are still (partially) in a research stadium, while SED is ready to be marketed: the first SED displays (TVs) will apppear in 2005, with computer displays appearing in 2006. That's according to Toshiba's PR-department, at least:p
Valid link to the thread about the Snow wavelet-based codec: Snow
For those too lazy to click the above link, here's the content of the first post:
"I think a new thread is a more fitting place to discuss about the Snow codec.:) If someone wouldn't know what is it, it's an experimental wavelet codec made by the ffmpeg developers, which borrows a lot of tools from h.264, and while it's still early in the development, it's already giving very good results, far surpasses other wavelet codecs (rududu, dirac) and imho Xvid too, quality-wise. Unfortunately it's only usable with mplayer/mencoder right now, but i think the next ffdshow will include it, so the testing will be more easier. [Update: The latest ffdshow build provided by Celtic_druid have Snow support]
I've played with the settings, and so far this command-line gives the best result:
This gives ~600-800 kbps, depending on the source, and the quality is excellent imo.
vqscale is the quantizer, if it's not included it in the command line, Snow will compress losslessly.
So far my opinion about the different settings:
qpel always increases the quality - recommended
v4mv - i would only recommended it at lower quantizers (max 4-5), above that the stronger artifacts it causes like ringing can hurt the quality
xxxcmp=1 (using SSE comparison method instead of SAD) slows down the encoding, but prevents the color mismatches, which can occur otherwise (anyone who tried rududu codec can remember to that).
using pred=1 or 2 (different wavelet functions instead of the default) can increase the quality, but these make the encoding (and pred=2 the decoding too) much slower."
Wavelet-based encoding definitely sounds like a great idea. It's only too bad that it isn't universally usable (it can't compress certain images well, either), and requires a fast CPU. At least it gives that Athlon 64 3500+ you just got something to do:)
Of course, creationism has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution.
Evolution has been proven to be very real over and over again in the past century, to the point that it's pretty much a scientific fact.
Biogenesis, however, is still a battleground, with many scientific theories competing. Currently it appears that vulcanic vents on the bottom of oceans were the original birthplace for life on earth, a theory which is supported by, among other things, the fact that the life which currently exists around such vulcanic vents appears to be older than anywhere else on this planet.
Creationism can be discarded for the simple reason that it's not based on any evidence or observations, hence failing the scientific process.
The same is true for intelligent design, unless we are willing to entertain the thought that the designers in this theory were in fact extra-terrestial lifeforms. In which case it's a perfect subject for a philosophical debate.
Being a Russian design, it's likely that the Energia is far cheaper per launch (and per kg) than the Saturn V, so the former is probably the best choice.
"If Cumbre Vieja volcano erupts, it may send a rock slab the size of a small island crashing into the sea, creating a huge tidal wave, or tsunami."
Aside from it being a huge undertaking to move so many tons of rock, there's always the risk that removing sections of this slab will destabilize it, causing it to slide into the water below.
It's just too risky unless someone comes up with a more foolproof method.
"While it is increasingly common to place AD after a date, by analogy to the use of BC, formal English usage adheres to the traditional practice of placing the abbreviation before the year, as in Latin (e.g., 5 BC, but AD 3)." (Source: Wikipedia)
There's a reason why the Oxford Dictionary calls itself "the foremost authority on current English":)
No idea why the formal usage of AD wasn't included, though.
"AD - abbrev. - Anno Domini (placed after a date, indicating that it comes the specified number of years after the traditional date of Christ's birth).
ORIGIN L. 'in the year of the Lord'." (source: Oxford Dictionary, Tenth Edition; emphasis added)
"But they can patent the process for manipulating that gene a certain way, or conducting tests on that gene that might produce a certain response [..]"
So, has the use a hammer to drive a nail into a piece of wood already been patented?
Can one patent a way of solving a mathematical equation? Or any other operation in mathematics?
Then how in the world can things like algorithms (gif, mp3, and many others), let alone tools (macro- or microscopic) and ways to use them be patented?
Having played this game, I must say that I didn't consider the dungeons to be especially boring, although it might be that my expectations were just really low:p
Anyway, whereas Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES) is definitely one of the best RPGs, the mind-numbing music (not like any GB games ever had 'good' music), among other factors, of this GBC-sequel eventually turned me off.
So, in retrospect, I don't disagree with calling Lufia: TLR a 'boring' game, although I would like to blame this partially on the platform it was made for, and the limitations this imposed.
Something like the PSX version (Lufia III, cancelled) might (should) have kicked much ass.
"LED technology has the advantage of longer life than fluorescent. With the increase in efficiency from reflectors, they could cut power costs below fluorescent and become the TCO winners."
Also something to keep in mind is that LEDs are far more robust than fluorescent and incandescent lights. Incandescent lights can't take shocks very well, and the huge temperature delta between an on/off state reduces its lifespan significantly. Fluorescent lights are also relative fragile (ever tried replacing fifty or so of those tubes without shattering at least one of them?), and the ballast used to generate the required high voltage (most types of ballast) create quite a lot of EMI, which is bad for sensitive equipment and cables like Cat-5 etc.
LEDs generate very little heat, require only a very small current (tens of mA!) at equally low voltages, produce no EMI, are unaffected by all but the most severe shocks and last virtually forever (100,000 hours for red, green, etc. with ease).
If LEDs are made brighter, even if this makes them more expensive than other technologies, there are always some (less friendly) places where they would work very well and would be cheaper in the long term.
"I believe that there may be some very promising biologically mediated approaches......."
I certainly won't deny that. Many bionic implants (will) also involve certain biological components. These implants have to function inside a living body for quite some years, after all.
However, I consider the idea of a purely biological approach to be impractical, unless it offers any substantial advantages over a hybrid approach. Looking at the human body, for example, we see that there's a severe lack of redundancy. Using a biological approach would either mean using the same non-redundant design (just replacing the parts which have failed), or extending the design by using a dual configuration, which would add redudancy, but would run into space limitions (unless we can make organs far more efficient).
Anyway, to return to artificial vision, the main issues appear the general lack of understanding regarding the functioning of the neural 'circuitry' starting with the retina and including the visual cortex. While it's easy to just stick a pin grid array into the visual cortex, and wire it up to a camera and image processing equipment, this doesn't change the fact that we still don't know what is going on at a fundamental level while we're doing this.
I think that this fundamental research is going to play a very important role in the coming decades.
"Yes, the Discovery documentary team actually used some of my data in that show, but got it all wrong and presented the data along with Mark Humayan's talk which demonstrated exactly the opposite of what Dr. Humayan was talking about."
Could you please elaborate on this? Which parts of the documentary in particular are you referring to?
At any rate, I somewhat agree with you in that pin grid arrays and artificial retinas may be the way to go. We also have to consider stem cell research and other novel biological approaches may move things forward."
Well, stem cell research and other biological approaches are certain worth looking into, but for the short term (which really isn't that short, unfortunately), pin grid arrays, artificial retinas and other purely non-biological components are our only option, until we finally understand enough of the biochemical processes involved in cell-growth, -communication, and related. We're just at the point were we can grow a liver from stem cells. Something as complicated as an eye will definitely take a couple of decades unless something really changes. And besides, why would we want to replicate the imperfect human eye? While we're at it, we might just as well do things right this time:)
On a sidenote, I would like to see artificial retinas which can function independently from any external power source, instead using the body's own energy sources.
Slashdot Mirror
"Maybe someone can come out with something better 3 years down the line. Fast, flexible, easy to use, relatively bug free - think Firefox, but an OS this time."
:)
You mean something like ReactOS?
You won't even have to leave behind all of those beautifully plentiful Windows applications and drivers
Now the real question is whether this HDD will be the missing link in allowing the XBox's successor to be backwards compatible.
The article didn't mention this, but instead explored the rumours about an 'xPod' and the Xenon's marketing name.
With MSFT acquiring hardware virtualization software not too long ago, there have been plenty of rumours about backwards compatibility in this console, but few facts.
It can be argued, of course, that fansubs exists for a good reason, namely that those lucky enough to live in Japan can watch those shows on TV, without necessarily having to buy the DVD, whereas poor suckers like the rest of us are expected to wait for those series to be released in our respective countries.
If TV broadcasts weren't limited to a single country (in most cases), and only a single language was spoken in the entire world, then those companies would have a point. At the moment it are (mostly) just fans wanting to see the anime series which are currently being broadcast without having to wait a year or (much) longer and pay _extra_ for the DVD (on top of the costs for cable TV).
I can understand Japanese, I like anime, but I don't want to buy the DVD(s) of every single series I watch. I'm, however, prepared to pay a couple of euros extra per month for the priviledge to receive the major Japanese TV-channels on my TV here in Europe. Which includes the latest (anime) series.
Try this article for a good overview of the different types of LCD panels (TN, MVA, PVA & IPS):
X-bit's Guide: Contemporary LCD Monitor Parameters and Characteristics
It weighs in at 27 pages, but if you really want to know what you're talking about when discussing LCDs, it's required reading.
I quote from this page:
"Current large screen OLED devices consume far more power than LCDs [..]"
So it appears that OLED seems to have a problem with power efficiency in addition to the longevity of its pixels. Definitely not a good sign. The article I quoted from also specifies 2008 as the date when OLED might enter mass-production. Still a long way off, in other words.
As for SED, take a look at this article: Toshiba's SED TV at CES. First (big) TVs released this year, with production ramping up next year.
Also, I disagree with what you say about OLED being superior to SED and FED because it doesn't have the dead-pixel problem. SEDs and FEDs can have multiple electron emitters per pixel, and phosphors have a tendency to last a very long time (just look at CRTs)
So SED is available this very year, uses less power than comparable displays (one-third of a plasma display) and won't wear out within 5 years. FED might be released in a few months or years and will exhibit pretty much the same benefits as SED. OLED will be released in 2008. If we're lucky.
The problem with OLED is that it's a technology which is basically being developed from scratch. Variants on OLED are even being developed, to circumvent (among other things) the longevity issues with especially the blue component of OLED (10,000 to 20,000 hours so far).
The thing is that SED and FED are pretty much evolved versions of the venerable CRT: they've got 'electron guns', a vacuum, and a layer build up out of phosphors. Only big differences are the number of electron guns (tens of thousands instead of three) and the distance between the electron guns and the phosphor layer (millimeters instead of tens of centimeters).
SED in particular stands a good chance, as it uses existing manufacturing techniques for the electron gun-layer and further basically replicates a CRT. FED tries to do things a bit fancier, which requires more R&D, and thus more time to bring it to the market.
So in summary, OLED and FED are still (partially) in a research stadium, while SED is ready to be marketed: the first SED displays (TVs) will apppear in 2005, with computer displays appearing in 2006. That's according to Toshiba's PR-department, at least :p
Link to general information on SED: SED
For those too lazy to click the above link, here's the content of the first post:
"I think a new thread is a more fitting place to discuss about the Snow codec. :) If someone wouldn't know what is it, it's an experimental wavelet codec made by the ffmpeg developers, which borrows a lot of tools from h.264, and while it's still early in the development, it's already giving very good results, far surpasses other wavelet codecs (rududu, dirac) and imho Xvid too, quality-wise. Unfortunately it's only usable with mplayer/mencoder right now, but i think the next ffdshow will include it, so the testing will be more easier. [Update: The latest ffdshow build provided by Celtic_druid have Snow support]
I've played with the settings, and so far this command-line gives the best result:
code:mencoder in.avi -o out.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=snow:vstrict=-1:vqscale=3:qpel:v4mv:cmp=1:s ubcmp=1:mbcmp=1:pred=1
This gives ~600-800 kbps, depending on the source, and the quality is excellent imo.
vqscale is the quantizer, if it's not included it in the command line, Snow will compress losslessly.
So far my opinion about the different settings: qpel always increases the quality - recommended v4mv - i would only recommended it at lower quantizers (max 4-5), above that the stronger artifacts it causes like ringing can hurt the quality xxxcmp=1 (using SSE comparison method instead of SAD) slows down the encoding, but prevents the color mismatches, which can occur otherwise (anyone who tried rududu codec can remember to that). using pred=1 or 2 (different wavelet functions instead of the default) can increase the quality, but these make the encoding (and pred=2 the decoding too) much slower."
Wavelet-based encoding definitely sounds like a great idea. It's only too bad that it isn't universally usable (it can't compress certain images well, either), and requires a fast CPU. At least it gives that Athlon 64 3500+ you just got something to do :)
Biogenesis -> evolution -> intelligent life -> space-travelling civilization -> biology experiment on a planetary scale -> intelligent design.
Biogenesis appears to be the key when talking about life.
Wrong. There exists sufficient evidence which proves that species can evolve from other species. Like the birds Darwin studied on his voyage.
Besides, there's no other theory which is able to directly compete with the theory of (macro)evolution.
Can one even answer a question which contains an undefined term?
No you shouldn't. Biogenesis and evolution are completely unrelated as well, except that the former is required for the latter.
Of course, creationism has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution.
Evolution has been proven to be very real over and over again in the past century, to the point that it's pretty much a scientific fact.
Biogenesis, however, is still a battleground, with many scientific theories competing. Currently it appears that vulcanic vents on the bottom of oceans were the original birthplace for life on earth, a theory which is supported by, among other things, the fact that the life which currently exists around such vulcanic vents appears to be older than anywhere else on this planet.
Creationism can be discarded for the simple reason that it's not based on any evidence or observations, hence failing the scientific process.
The same is true for intelligent design, unless we are willing to entertain the thought that the designers in this theory were in fact extra-terrestial lifeforms. In which case it's a perfect subject for a philosophical debate.
The random quote at the bottom of the page for this article was:
"Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, sooner or later the product will speak for itself." - Hajime Karatsu
Didn't you get the memo?
The US is at war right now. The US has always been at war.
Saturn V: 118,000 kg
Energia: 100,000 kg
Being a Russian design, it's likely that the Energia is far cheaper per launch (and per kg) than the Saturn V, so the former is probably the best choice.
rout, pronounced 'ra ut': cut a groove in a surface.
router, pronounced 'ra u ta': a power tool with a shaped cutter, used in carpentry.
router, pronounced 'ruu ta': computing a device which forwards data packets to the appropriate parts of a network.
Is the Australian version of English really that different?
No, it won't. It will make it a lot bigger, though.
From the article:
"If Cumbre Vieja volcano erupts, it may send a rock slab the size of a small island crashing into the sea, creating a huge tidal wave, or tsunami."
Aside from it being a huge undertaking to move so many tons of rock, there's always the risk that removing sections of this slab will destabilize it, causing it to slide into the water below.
It's just too risky unless someone comes up with a more foolproof method.
"While it is increasingly common to place AD after a date, by analogy to the use of BC, formal English usage adheres to the traditional practice of placing the abbreviation before the year, as in Latin (e.g., 5 BC, but AD 3)."
:)
(Source: Wikipedia)
There's a reason why the Oxford Dictionary calls itself "the foremost authority on current English"
No idea why the formal usage of AD wasn't included, though.
I quote:
"AD - abbrev. - Anno Domini (placed after a date, indicating that it comes the specified number of years after the traditional date of Christ's birth).
ORIGIN L. 'in the year of the Lord'."
(source: Oxford Dictionary, Tenth Edition; emphasis added)
BC is also placed after a date.
"But they can patent the process for manipulating that gene a certain way, or conducting tests on that gene that might produce a certain response [..]"
So, has the use a hammer to drive a nail into a piece of wood already been patented?
Can one patent a way of solving a mathematical equation? Or any other operation in mathematics?
Then how in the world can things like algorithms (gif, mp3, and many others), let alone tools (macro- or microscopic) and ways to use them be patented?
Having played this game, I must say that I didn't consider the dungeons to be especially boring, although it might be that my expectations were just really low :p
Anyway, whereas Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES) is definitely one of the best RPGs, the mind-numbing music (not like any GB games ever had 'good' music), among other factors, of this GBC-sequel eventually turned me off.
So, in retrospect, I don't disagree with calling Lufia: TLR a 'boring' game, although I would like to blame this partially on the platform it was made for, and the limitations this imposed.
Something like the PSX version (Lufia III, cancelled) might (should) have kicked much ass.
"LED technology has the advantage of longer life than fluorescent. With the increase in efficiency from reflectors, they could cut power costs below fluorescent and become the TCO winners."
Also something to keep in mind is that LEDs are far more robust than fluorescent and incandescent lights. Incandescent lights can't take shocks very well, and the huge temperature delta between an on/off state reduces its lifespan significantly. Fluorescent lights are also relative fragile (ever tried replacing fifty or so of those tubes without shattering at least one of them?), and the ballast used to generate the required high voltage (most types of ballast) create quite a lot of EMI, which is bad for sensitive equipment and cables like Cat-5 etc.
LEDs generate very little heat, require only a very small current (tens of mA!) at equally low voltages, produce no EMI, are unaffected by all but the most severe shocks and last virtually forever (100,000 hours for red, green, etc. with ease).
If LEDs are made brighter, even if this makes them more expensive than other technologies, there are always some (less friendly) places where they would work very well and would be cheaper in the long term.
"I believe that there may be some very promising biologically mediated approaches......."
I certainly won't deny that. Many bionic implants (will) also involve certain biological components. These implants have to function inside a living body for quite some years, after all.
However, I consider the idea of a purely biological approach to be impractical, unless it offers any substantial advantages over a hybrid approach. Looking at the human body, for example, we see that there's a severe lack of redundancy. Using a biological approach would either mean using the same non-redundant design (just replacing the parts which have failed), or extending the design by using a dual configuration, which would add redudancy, but would run into space limitions (unless we can make organs far more efficient).
Anyway, to return to artificial vision, the main issues appear the general lack of understanding regarding the functioning of the neural 'circuitry' starting with the retina and including the visual cortex. While it's easy to just stick a pin grid array into the visual cortex, and wire it up to a camera and image processing equipment, this doesn't change the fact that we still don't know what is going on at a fundamental level while we're doing this.
I think that this fundamental research is going to play a very important role in the coming decades.
"Yes, the Discovery documentary team actually used some of my data in that show, but got it all wrong and presented the data along with Mark Humayan's talk which demonstrated exactly the opposite of what Dr. Humayan was talking about."
:)
Could you please elaborate on this? Which parts of the documentary in particular are you referring to?
At any rate, I somewhat agree with you in that pin grid arrays and artificial retinas may be the way to go. We also have to consider stem cell research and other novel biological approaches may move things forward."
Well, stem cell research and other biological approaches are certain worth looking into, but for the short term (which really isn't that short, unfortunately), pin grid arrays, artificial retinas and other purely non-biological components are our only option, until we finally understand enough of the biochemical processes involved in cell-growth, -communication, and related. We're just at the point were we can grow a liver from stem cells. Something as complicated as an eye will definitely take a couple of decades unless something really changes. And besides, why would we want to replicate the imperfect human eye? While we're at it, we might just as well do things right this time
On a sidenote, I would like to see artificial retinas which can function independently from any external power source, instead using the body's own energy sources.