"Well, a "whole new product concept that was completely incubated by Microsoft Research" would be expected to be a revolution or something, not just a copy of 20 or 30-year-old technology with a watchband on it. I'm also not particularly impressed that it uses FM. Should I be?"
It depends on if you're willing to use your imagination or not. If you sit here in 'I can live without it' mode, then no, you cannot be impressed with it. Frankly, you can oversimplify anything to make it sound bad.
"Techno music is nothing but a bunch of computer noises!"
"Humans are nothing more than talking monkeys!"
"I don't need a cell phone, there are payphones all over!"
Etc. These comments are not insightful nor interesting. They are, at best, ignorant. Choosing to ignore the value of something does not make you any wiser.
I'll tell you why this caught my eye though. Right now I have a Bluetooth enabled cell phone. It syncs up with Outlook on my laptop. If I set an alarm/appointment in Outlook, it'll appear on my phone. I carry my phone with me nearly all the time, but I don't carry my laptop or PocketPC around. I can check my email while I was on the other side of the country on a business trip with it. When I save a phone # on my phone, it gets stored on my laptop so I have a backup. Etc.
Long story short, my phone acts more like a PDA now than my PDA does. This is damn cool and surprisingly useful. The only thing I ache for now is for my watch to reflect some of this data. I'm not sure if that's exactly what MS has in mind with this watch, but I wish my phone could transmit a message to the watch to display. So when my appointment alarm goes off, I can look at my watch instead of pulling my phone out of my pocket. Chances are this is (or will be) possible.
I don't really care if this is new or innovative or not. I do care that it's useful.
Re:Oh there's that world class Microsoft innovatio
on
Assorted CES Gizmos
·
· Score: 2
"And it probably runs XP, needs 512M of RAM and a P4 processor, burns your arm, keeps shitty time, locks up, is riddled with security holes, and will end up the target of some crazy project to hack in and boot linux on it."
Could be worse, it could be a Linux watch. The time would be undecipherable, you'll have to flash the ROM when somebody writes the am/pm upgrade, and to set the watch you have to edit an obscure.conf file. It'll burn your arm anyway since Linux users prefer AMD processors. It'll also be completely security hole-free since it has no features to exploit.
"For a PS1, don't you also have to be able to write one of those funky black CDROMs?"
Not sure if I totally understand your question, but I may have an interesting answer for you anyway. The black CD's on the Playstation are a way of telling if the game is pirated or not. If you got a silver PS game, then you had a burned game.
I'm curious if Sony had any real success here or not.
Nope. That'll be the business. First, there'll be people who design patterns to.. uh.. for lack of a better term... replicate. Then, they sell the materials to print the object.
This could make for an interesting business model. It probably won't be cheaper than going and buying the pieces assembled. However, they can charge a premium if somebody has to have a piece right now right away. Example: You run a factory. A machine breaks and needs a part replaced. You can't take it down for a week to wait for a piece to be manufactured and delivered. With one of these, you can print the more expensive piece as a placeholer until the real one is done. This has been done before.
I can't wait until these become consumer (or at least small business) level.
Re:Yeah, we need this for lightbulbs...
on
More 3D Printer News
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"because we all know how expensive it is to mass-produce lightbulbs."
Way to miss the point.:P
Am I correct in understanding that lightbulbs contain a vacuum or at least a different air pressure? If so, can I take that comment to mean that they can create a vacuum inside the printed lightbulb, or is that a seperate process?
Not really that big of deal, but that's damn cool if they can.
Pop round and eat some apple pie, I know how much you like it, because you always used to buy it, and hell it's the only food in the world. But first you have to give me a pint of your blood. Fair deal, or don't you care about the rights of the pie maker?
Sorry, your post is a little too obscure. Care to give me an english version?
I'm confused about why you're responding twice to my post.
"Anyway, those are my own dislikes about it. I hope that gives you some insight into the general feeling on/."
Not really. Thing is, you've used it. It's obvious you've used it, and you have legitimate complaints about it. I don't normally see that here when I see anti-MS sentiment here. It's usually "MS is completely incompetant, it's a totaly mystery to me why they're so used so much. Everybody must be stupid"
Believe me, I wouldn't be complaining if I heard more comments like yours instead of the FUD crap I normally hear.
Whoah, I'm glad you showed up! My opinion of VB has completely changed now that you've tuned me in to that little fact. I didn't fully realize the scope of the problem until I realized that my ass would be sucked!
"Since my favorite language is VB ( watch the flames poor in on that statement )..."
I don't really understand Slashdot's attitude about VB. I don't consider myself a programmer, but I've been able to use it to automate some stuff in Windows. I think it's great, especially when it comes to creating GUIs.
Every language has its strengths. Making of of VB because it doesn't do something another language does is like making fun of cars because they can't fly. Nobody's going to use a 747 to take a trip to 7-11.
Yeah you're right. You're also right about their motivation. They needed to have a reason why a.) The bridge that was on the top of the ship and b.) why bridges of various ships look so drastically different. They needed them to be different for the audience to know what they're watching.
In Star Trek 2, the Reliant was originaly going to be a Constitution class ship like the Enterprise. That would have been hard for the audience to watch, though, so they designed the Reliant without an engineering hull and a rollbar. Originally, though, the nacelles were going to point upwards like on the Enterprise, but when the design was handed in it was read upside-down. They liked the difference that it made having the nacelles hang from the ship. So they did one more re-design with those features in mind. Clever, eh?
That really waasn't the point of my joke, though. I wasn't commenting on the vehicle itself, just the wording in the article. It has 'SmarTruck', 'the', 'next', and 'generation' in the same line.:)
"No there not, content companies are confused at the moment, 'technology' companies are tring to lure them in, this will only work so long as the content companies don't see a problem."
I'm sorry, but I just plain disagree with you here. The *AA has had PLENTY of time and technology to make content work on PCs. The problem, as they see it (and they've said so themselves) is that they think that as soon as content touches a computer, it'll get traded around the net and never be paid for. That's exactly why they tried to pass the SSSCA. They wanted to make sure that any copyrighted content could be identified and have capabilities refused by the computer. They feel that only after that technology is in place that they can safely release content over the web etc.
Even today there is a service where you can 'rent' a movie to download. They have it set up so that it times out a day or two after it's played. After that, the file becomes worthless. They're not even trying to give you a version you can keep (or trade) forever. As long as there are DVD players, PCs aren't that important to their plans.
"Why do porn sites always have a few different formats and usually work find under Linux? Probably because the Porn industry has more experiance of delivering Video to the masses than anyone else, they know if they charge for content and you can't access it then you'll be screaming 'blue' murder."
Yeah, the *AA should be watching the porn industry. They know what they're doing. They're not trying to lock up 'oh so valuable' content to the point that it's unwatchable. I totally agree with you here.
Yeah I see what you're saying. Here in USA the security around a gas pump is very lax. There are places that don't even have security cameras. Sometimes you have to pay before you pump, that's about the extent of it.
I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me to think about what it's like around the world. I didn't pay much attention gas stations while I was overseas.
"It should be for the content providers to reach their audience, not for the consumers to 'fit into' whatever niche the content providers want."
It should be, but it's not. >90% of the home PCs out there are Windows based, and even Windows 98 came with all that was needed to make digital content widely available. The problem is they think nobody'll pay for it unless it's under lock and key.
"If Linux gets say 5% of the desktop then that's quite a big market, especially if that market is in developing economies."
Not relevant. If the content's not restricted (or protected, as they call it) then it won't matter how much Linux is adopted. They will not make it available.
"The content should come to us, we shouldn't come to the content."
I agree. It sucks. Content companies are stupid. Wanna hear what Eisner said once? He was trying to defend the SSSCA (or something along those lines, been a while since I read it...) and he argued "Would anybody think less of the Oil companies for locking up their gas because somebody got a key to the tank?" (Note: I'm not sure I quoted that verbatim, but the idea is basically in tact. I'm going from memory here.)
The amusing thing about his analogy is that gasoline is very easy to steal. Drive-offs happen all the time. Did the oil/gasoline industry fight that off by placing spikes in the roads? Do they have guard arms that come down only to raise when you've paid? No. They realize that shit happens. They don't feel they need to treat their customers like their inmates over it.
That is the mindset you're battling with. They're not going to change their mind about it. If they lose money over it, they'll blame piracy. You're better off letting the babies have their bottle. They'll learn soon enough (when they get millions of complaints from people trying to play what they paid for) that their concerns are frivolous.
"On the other, it furthers Microsoft's reach with thier DRM technologies."
Your blame's in the wrong spot. It's the content companies (MPAA/RIAA/KMAA) that are trying to get DRM pushed through. They think that without DRM their world will come crashing down. MS is obliging because it'll (hopefully) mean more legitimate content will come down the pipeline to PC.
If you want to direct your anger at somebody over DRM, go look at the *AA. MS isn't the one that benefits from DRM. At best it's a liability.
You're not boycotting anything, you're just making sure that Windows can do more stuff than Linux.
Face facts: The interesting content will only come down when it's 'protected' (I prefer the term restricted). By saying "no", you're saying "We don't care about the interests of content makers". Whether or not their claims that they need formats like that are valid, it's what they believe today.
Slashdot Mirror
... then how come I feel like I can't trust it to do what I want?
"Well, a "whole new product concept that was completely incubated by Microsoft Research" would be expected to be a revolution or something, not just a copy of 20 or 30-year-old technology with a watchband on it. I'm also not particularly impressed that it uses FM. Should I be?"
It depends on if you're willing to use your imagination or not. If you sit here in 'I can live without it' mode, then no, you cannot be impressed with it. Frankly, you can oversimplify anything to make it sound bad.
"Techno music is nothing but a bunch of computer noises!"
"Humans are nothing more than talking monkeys!"
"I don't need a cell phone, there are payphones all over!"
Etc. These comments are not insightful nor interesting. They are, at best, ignorant. Choosing to ignore the value of something does not make you any wiser.
I'll tell you why this caught my eye though. Right now I have a Bluetooth enabled cell phone. It syncs up with Outlook on my laptop. If I set an alarm/appointment in Outlook, it'll appear on my phone. I carry my phone with me nearly all the time, but I don't carry my laptop or PocketPC around. I can check my email while I was on the other side of the country on a business trip with it. When I save a phone # on my phone, it gets stored on my laptop so I have a backup. Etc.
Long story short, my phone acts more like a PDA now than my PDA does. This is damn cool and surprisingly useful. The only thing I ache for now is for my watch to reflect some of this data. I'm not sure if that's exactly what MS has in mind with this watch, but I wish my phone could transmit a message to the watch to display. So when my appointment alarm goes off, I can look at my watch instead of pulling my phone out of my pocket. Chances are this is (or will be) possible.
I don't really care if this is new or innovative or not. I do care that it's useful.
"And it probably runs XP, needs 512M of RAM and a P4 processor, burns your arm, keeps shitty time, locks up, is riddled with security holes, and will end up the target of some crazy project to hack in and boot linux on it."
.conf file. It'll burn your arm anyway since Linux users prefer AMD processors. It'll also be completely security hole-free since it has no features to exploit.
Could be worse, it could be a Linux watch. The time would be undecipherable, you'll have to flash the ROM when somebody writes the am/pm upgrade, and to set the watch you have to edit an obscure
(It's a joke, laugh.)
"For a PS1, don't you also have to be able to write one of those funky black CDROMs?"
Not sure if I totally understand your question, but I may have an interesting answer for you anyway. The black CD's on the Playstation are a way of telling if the game is pirated or not. If you got a silver PS game, then you had a burned game.
I'm curious if Sony had any real success here or not.
"All I want for Christmas is 1% of slashdotters to read the stories before they post!"
If only Google cached 1% of the articles Slashdot links to.
"too bad these things would have to cost like, a couple million dollars. why not make something like, print your own cheeseburger?"
Heh I suppose getting married is out of the question?
(This joke is costing me roses. I better get modded up.)
"Or better still.... print a more sophisticated printer on my existing printer. Repeat."
Until it's Barbie Doll House sized?
"As opposed to what? "A liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea?"
Imagine... at one time you could have tea and no tea.
"Anyone want to bet against me?"
.. uh.. for lack of a better term... replicate. Then, they sell the materials to print the object.
Nope. That'll be the business. First, there'll be people who design patterns to
This could make for an interesting business model. It probably won't be cheaper than going and buying the pieces assembled. However, they can charge a premium if somebody has to have a piece right now right away. Example: You run a factory. A machine breaks and needs a part replaced. You can't take it down for a week to wait for a piece to be manufactured and delivered. With one of these, you can print the more expensive piece as a placeholer until the real one is done. This has been done before.
I can't wait until these become consumer (or at least small business) level.
"because we all know how expensive it is to mass-produce lightbulbs."
:P
Way to miss the point.
Am I correct in understanding that lightbulbs contain a vacuum or at least a different air pressure? If so, can I take that comment to mean that they can create a vacuum inside the printed lightbulb, or is that a seperate process?
Not really that big of deal, but that's damn cool if they can.
Sorry, your post is a little too obscure. Care to give me an english version?
I'm confused about why you're responding twice to my post.
"Chico, California: Detonating a nuclear device within the city limits results in a $500 fine."
That law was probably written after watching Ghostbusters.
"Anyway, those are my own dislikes about it. I hope that gives you some insight into the general feeling on /."
Not really. Thing is, you've used it. It's obvious you've used it, and you have legitimate complaints about it. I don't normally see that here when I see anti-MS sentiment here. It's usually "MS is completely incompetant, it's a totaly mystery to me why they're so used so much. Everybody must be stupid"
Believe me, I wouldn't be complaining if I heard more comments like yours instead of the FUD crap I normally hear.
"The attitude is easy to explain: VB sucks ass."
Whoah, I'm glad you showed up! My opinion of VB has completely changed now that you've tuned me in to that little fact. I didn't fully realize the scope of the problem until I realized that my ass would be sucked!
"What is the cause of most plane crashes?"
"What a dumb question. It's gravity!"
"Since my favorite language is VB ( watch the flames poor in on that statement )..."
I don't really understand Slashdot's attitude about VB. I don't consider myself a programmer, but I've been able to use it to automate some stuff in Windows. I think it's great, especially when it comes to creating GUIs.
Every language has its strengths. Making of of VB because it doesn't do something another language does is like making fun of cars because they can't fly. Nobody's going to use a 747 to take a trip to 7-11.
... about Debugging Tools. He felt that engineers should just learn to write software without bugs in it.
Yeah you're right. You're also right about their motivation. They needed to have a reason why a.) The bridge that was on the top of the ship and b.) why bridges of various ships look so drastically different. They needed them to be different for the audience to know what they're watching.
:)
In Star Trek 2, the Reliant was originaly going to be a Constitution class ship like the Enterprise. That would have been hard for the audience to watch, though, so they designed the Reliant without an engineering hull and a rollbar. Originally, though, the nacelles were going to point upwards like on the Enterprise, but when the design was handed in it was read upside-down. They liked the difference that it made having the nacelles hang from the ship. So they did one more re-design with those features in mind. Clever, eh?
That really waasn't the point of my joke, though. I wasn't commenting on the vehicle itself, just the wording in the article. It has 'SmarTruck', 'the', 'next', and 'generation' in the same line.
"No there not, content companies are confused at the moment, 'technology' companies are tring to lure them in, this will only work so long as the content companies don't see a problem."
I'm sorry, but I just plain disagree with you here. The *AA has had PLENTY of time and technology to make content work on PCs. The problem, as they see it (and they've said so themselves) is that they think that as soon as content touches a computer, it'll get traded around the net and never be paid for. That's exactly why they tried to pass the SSSCA. They wanted to make sure that any copyrighted content could be identified and have capabilities refused by the computer. They feel that only after that technology is in place that they can safely release content over the web etc.
Even today there is a service where you can 'rent' a movie to download. They have it set up so that it times out a day or two after it's played. After that, the file becomes worthless. They're not even trying to give you a version you can keep (or trade) forever. As long as there are DVD players, PCs aren't that important to their plans.
"Why do porn sites always have a few different formats and usually work find under Linux?
Probably because the Porn industry has more experiance of delivering Video to the masses than anyone else, they know if they charge for content and you can't access it then you'll be screaming 'blue' murder."
Yeah, the *AA should be watching the porn industry. They know what they're doing. They're not trying to lock up 'oh so valuable' content to the point that it's unwatchable. I totally agree with you here.
Yeah I see what you're saying. Here in USA the security around a gas pump is very lax. There are places that don't even have security cameras. Sometimes you have to pay before you pump, that's about the extent of it.
I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me to think about what it's like around the world. I didn't pay much attention gas stations while I was overseas.
"fuck you, dumbass...stupid ass shit, mod this down please"
Show me your joke that was funnier. Bet you can't.
"It should be for the content providers to reach their audience, not for the consumers to 'fit into' whatever niche the content providers want."
It should be, but it's not. >90% of the home PCs out there are Windows based, and even Windows 98 came with all that was needed to make digital content widely available. The problem is they think nobody'll pay for it unless it's under lock and key.
"If Linux gets say 5% of the desktop then that's quite a big market, especially if that market is in developing economies."
Not relevant. If the content's not restricted (or protected, as they call it) then it won't matter how much Linux is adopted. They will not make it available.
"The content should come to us, we shouldn't come to the content."
I agree. It sucks. Content companies are stupid. Wanna hear what Eisner said once? He was trying to defend the SSSCA (or something along those lines, been a while since I read it...) and he argued "Would anybody think less of the Oil companies for locking up their gas because somebody got a key to the tank?" (Note: I'm not sure I quoted that verbatim, but the idea is basically in tact. I'm going from memory here.)
The amusing thing about his analogy is that gasoline is very easy to steal. Drive-offs happen all the time. Did the oil/gasoline industry fight that off by placing spikes in the roads? Do they have guard arms that come down only to raise when you've paid? No. They realize that shit happens. They don't feel they need to treat their customers like their inmates over it.
That is the mindset you're battling with. They're not going to change their mind about it. If they lose money over it, they'll blame piracy. You're better off letting the babies have their bottle. They'll learn soon enough (when they get millions of complaints from people trying to play what they paid for) that their concerns are frivolous.
"That's the battle I'm fighting, what's yours."
What movie did you rip that corny line out of?
"The Army's next generation SmarTruck is on display in Detroit..."
Thought we had a Star Trek parody here.
"Mr Data, when I said 'Fire at Will', I didn't mean for you to be so literal."
"On the other, it furthers Microsoft's reach with thier DRM technologies."
Your blame's in the wrong spot. It's the content companies (MPAA/RIAA/KMAA) that are trying to get DRM pushed through. They think that without DRM their world will come crashing down. MS is obliging because it'll (hopefully) mean more legitimate content will come down the pipeline to PC.
If you want to direct your anger at somebody over DRM, go look at the *AA. MS isn't the one that benefits from DRM. At best it's a liability.
"No DRM Enabled player makes boycotting easy."
You're not boycotting anything, you're just making sure that Windows can do more stuff than Linux.
Face facts: The interesting content will only come down when it's 'protected' (I prefer the term restricted). By saying "no", you're saying "We don't care about the interests of content makers". Whether or not their claims that they need formats like that are valid, it's what they believe today.
You are fighting the wrong battle.