Does every new product have to be a revolution that ushers in a whole new paradigm and way of life, or is a company allowed to just make a neat gizmo?
Btw, I don't see any pagers using broadcast FM.
Re:Are you sure it's legal to wrap OGG?
on
Real DRM
·
· Score: 3, Informative
OGG is a BSD-like license, IIRC, so I'd say no - you'd be free to not only modify the code any way you see fit, but surely the output of the program.
But say it was GPL, do the terms of the GPL apply to the output of a program?! That's ludicrous. Would a graphic artist who uses Gimp have to give has work away for free? Does your tax return belong to Intuit because you used TurboTax?
I don't think anything you do to an applications output has anything to do with the applications license.
Heck, they already do VoIP for a large part. Your voice travels up the copper wire, where it's digitized, and packet switched through the same routers that make the internet go, then decoded at the other end.
It's odd how they justify long distance costs - the internet shows that you can communicate from NA to Japan (eg) without a per minute surcharge.
I work writing/maintaining software for public service, including CAD (computer aided dispatching) systems. So I pretty much set up 911 systems from the police's end, and pretty much everywhere it's run at a municipal level. No 3-letter gov't agency need be involved, the 911 service is contracted between the city/county and the provider.
So there's really nothing stopping a city from contracting an emergency service from a company like Vontage - all that needs happen is someone like me codes the interface to it.
It is, however, unlikely. Agencies loathe change. They don't want to upgrade. Right now they're all pitching a fit because HP is phasing out the 3000 line over the next 10 years - they dont plan on buying new hardware before then. So I doubt we'd see any citys/counties signing a contract with a 'new kid on the block'.com company.
Heck, my company is only 20 years old and it takes a lot of shmoozing (and vaporware promises from marketing that I have to keep - grr) to get in the door. They'd rather shell out the big dollars to a company like Motorola for vastly inferior software and support, because they know Motorola will be there in 30 years when they decide to upgrade the system.
They're a decidedly technophobic bunch. You'd be surprised to see how many agencies in sizable cities still do their dispatching via cue cards and a bulletin board.
Sure, and next time your inbox fills with spam, realize you shouldnt have one, or invent your own non-pop3/smtp protocol that doesn't allow unauthorized email.
Because, as long as your using our protocol, you have to play by our rules.
Just because somethings possible doesn't make it right to do it.
Well, you can shut off that box, and I have applications crash in linux all the time, it's not a Microsoft phenomena. My point is, since the overwhelming majority of apps and games are written for windows, it follows that that's where the majority of bugs are going to be.
Microsoft just logs the problems, that's all. I mean how is Microsoft going to fix a bug in NHL 2003?
The box doesn't replace BSOD. What replaces BSOD is an automatic reboot (the idea being that if your server crashes on you it'll reboot without user intervention).
It's infinately more frustrating to troubleshoot (but again can be turned off), and the only time I've seen it was a hardware failure (bad stick of RAM). I haven't seen a driver conflict, stack overflow, invalid pointer, etc, bring my system down yet.
Couldnt the phone just have a 'recorder' function, so people can dictate the infuriatingly boring minutia of their everyday lives, and then post it when they get home?
I mean, does the world really need to know about the "bagel you had for breakfast that might have been a bit stale" right then and there?
I haven't had any problems whatsoever with NHL 2003, actually only problem I had was with NOLF2 (which of course was their fault, not the OS's).
If linux became 'the desktop' platform tomorrow, all the publishers would be writing the same code, just for a different platform, and they'd crash just as often. I'd say at least 99% of all the bugs/crashes/problems I encounter are the fault of an application, or my own.
And the prompt box does mean it's more stable - it tells me that the OS detected and cleanly removed a rogue app, and recovered the resources it had in use.
All I'm really asking for is a theme/mode/setting for regular Windows installs to be workable on a Lo-res device (Not just TV, but open it up to cheap LCD displays for 'embedded' systems and whatnot).
Even if I bought a high-end HDTV, it still wouldn't be a usable desktop if I'm sitting in the couch on the other side of the room.
I just want to run windows on anything other than a PC monitor.
>> The fact that you seem unable to grasp the basic notion that M$ servers have a reputation for needing constant reboots is sad (for you).
I grasp the 'notion of a reputation', but I also know that it doesn't relate to the real world.
Linux also has a reputation for poor hardware support and second rate performance when it comes to the video/gui arena.
Acclaim earned a reputation for making really shitty games back in the NES days. So what?
Comparing the latest linux build to NT 3.51 is getting really old.
My 7 year old analogy applies perfectly. She uses a TV as her primary display, and watches DVDs and a small library of cartoons in divx off my fileserver (which runs linux, btw, because that's what I find linux appropriate for) I find this much closer to the function of these machines than an ecommerce server.
And people pointing to Tux Racer as if it validates linux as an entertainment/gaming platform *is* a joke.
Your typical PVR doesnt play DivX, DVD, Mp3, Ogg, etc, etc.
It doesn't surf the web.
It doesn't do miscellaneous user-defined stuff - ie; like connect my xbox to xbconnect so I can play Halo online.
It surely doesn't play games.
So it's really apples and oranges. If all you want is a PVR, by all means - get a PVR. If you want DVD playback, just get a DVD player.
The whole point, IMO, is to remove the mess of devices and wires. The mythical convergence beast. One machine sitting there to do it all.
I'm still trying to put together a good GUI for my own tweaked 'media' PC (still just an old emachine with a Radeon card with video out - more proof of concept), but it's pretty close to what I want. I wouldn't pay the price for one of these newer commercial units, but what I have is well worth the ~200 bucks I've sunk into it.
Frankly its MUCH easier to use than the Apex DVD player I have. Have you seen the remote controls on those things?
Why cant I buy this OS retail? It's the first new OS product from MSFT that I'm interested in.
I've been playing with hooking my PCs to TV's as the primary display for awhile now, since I first got the original All-in-wonder card, and as far as running windows on the desktop, the problem is always the same - the display is just too lo-res.
You can set it to 640x480, set the fonts to extra-large, but it still doesn't affect a truly system wide change, and setting non-standard widget sizes in the appearance tab makes for awkward glitchy windows.
Besides, it's more than font size - the desktop is basically just monitor-only.
I want a version of windows that has a 'lo-res' mode tailored for TV output. Big scrolling/rotating start menus, big icons with big fonts.
I don't want linux, because aside from watching movies, gaming is a must-have on the big screen (and more of the motivation).
Now they have something I want, but I cant 'roll my own', I have to overpay 3000$ for a proprietary machine like I was a mac user or something.
Does anyone know of a good desktop replacement for 2k/XP that might do what I want?
I know you! You're the jackass two offices over who can't give me a moment in peace to work on my own projects!
Every damn 5 minutes, I swear.. "Hey, come and look at this.", "Hey, what's wrong with this SQL statement?", "Hey, why won't this compile".
And the answer is always so damn retarded. "You need to put single quotes in the SQL statement, not doubles", "You need an end if statement"
Gahhhhh.. Once, I swear, he spends 5 hours - more than half a day - debugging some report, and finally calls me. "This should be saying 3, but it says 8". So I tell him "use the zoom tool, it is a 3, it just looks like an 8 because for some stupid reason you have your monitor set to 640x480".
He hasnt even registered some of the 3rd party controls we use, so I have to compile all of his code for him, else it will build with nag-screens.
AAAAAAHHHHH The only damn debugging feature I need is a Louisville slugger.
Damn fool.
Asking for help is great, but when it crosses the line into 'do it for me', you end up on a a coworkers hitlist.
I edit and continue all the time, if I'm stepping through something and see an obvious typo.
The problem isn't the VB programmers from the "edit and continue" school, it's the ones from absolutely no schooling at all when it comes to program design and implementation.
I use it every day, and take it for granted sometimes. I miss it when I'm using another language and lacks its features.
The call stack is at your fingertips, I add/remove conditional watches with a couple keystrokes, stepping into, out of, and over functions, and the immediate pane makes a great scratchpad/interface to the internals of the program. You can break on all errors, unhandled errors, or arbitrarily.
It wouldnt be nearly as easily to quickly put together apps in VB without it's debugger. It truly turns a half-assed language into a really good tool for rapid prototyping.
>> Since they nicely pattented their idea shut, we will have to patiently wait for this single company to provide the world with this technology
HOW DARE THEY!
This guy came up with a new technology that hadn't been done before, develops it himself, and PATENTS IT?
Patents are for things like clicking a mouse button or tying your shoes or math problems or other stuff that's been around forever. And you don't patent something so you can develop and market it - you patent things so you can sue infringers.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't have to be useful, it's just a gizmo.
The people who want this are the same ones that wore the completely impractical and unusable calculator-watches in high school.
I still fondly remember double-checking my trig homework with one of those, while I held it's owners head in the toilet.
If they start broadcasting FM data signals with weather/stock quotes/whatever, can anyone legally pick them up, decode and use?
Or would you be violating some sort of law if you created your own device to 'hijack' the signals?
And if the latter, is it even legal to 'encrypt' a transmission in the FM range? I thought it was licensed by the FCC solely for public broadcasting?
What's the legal status of FM/AM/VHF/UHF? I thought it was a 'you can use this frequency but anyone can hear your broadcasts' range?
>> Is this revolutionary?
No, and I don't think anyone's said that it is.
Does every new product have to be a revolution that ushers in a whole new paradigm and way of life, or is a company allowed to just make a neat gizmo?
Btw, I don't see any pagers using broadcast FM.
OGG is a BSD-like license, IIRC, so I'd say no - you'd be free to not only modify the code any way you see fit, but surely the output of the program.
But say it was GPL, do the terms of the GPL apply to the output of a program?! That's ludicrous. Would a graphic artist who uses Gimp have to give has work away for free? Does your tax return belong to Intuit because you used TurboTax?
I don't think anything you do to an applications output has anything to do with the applications license.
Heck, they already do VoIP for a large part. Your voice travels up the copper wire, where it's digitized, and packet switched through the same routers that make the internet go, then decoded at the other end.
It's odd how they justify long distance costs - the internet shows that you can communicate from NA to Japan (eg) without a per minute surcharge.
I work writing/maintaining software for public service, including CAD (computer aided dispatching) systems. So I pretty much set up 911 systems from the police's end, and pretty much everywhere it's run at a municipal level. No 3-letter gov't agency need be involved, the 911 service is contracted between the city/county and the provider.
.com company.
So there's really nothing stopping a city from contracting an emergency service from a company like Vontage - all that needs happen is someone like me codes the interface to it.
It is, however, unlikely. Agencies loathe change. They don't want to upgrade. Right now they're all pitching a fit because HP is phasing out the 3000 line over the next 10 years - they dont plan on buying new hardware before then. So I doubt we'd see any citys/counties signing a contract with a 'new kid on the block'
Heck, my company is only 20 years old and it takes a lot of shmoozing (and vaporware promises from marketing that I have to keep - grr) to get in the door. They'd rather shell out the big dollars to a company like Motorola for vastly inferior software and support, because they know Motorola will be there in 30 years when they decide to upgrade the system.
They're a decidedly technophobic bunch. You'd be surprised to see how many agencies in sizable cities still do their dispatching via cue cards and a bulletin board.
Sure, and next time your inbox fills with spam, realize you shouldnt have one, or invent your own non-pop3/smtp protocol that doesn't allow unauthorized email.
Because, as long as your using our protocol, you have to play by our rules.
Just because somethings possible doesn't make it right to do it.
Well, you can shut off that box, and I have applications crash in linux all the time, it's not a Microsoft phenomena. My point is, since the overwhelming majority of apps and games are written for windows, it follows that that's where the majority of bugs are going to be.
Microsoft just logs the problems, that's all. I mean how is Microsoft going to fix a bug in NHL 2003?
The box doesn't replace BSOD. What replaces BSOD is an automatic reboot (the idea being that if your server crashes on you it'll reboot without user intervention).
It's infinately more frustrating to troubleshoot (but again can be turned off), and the only time I've seen it was a hardware failure (bad stick of RAM). I haven't seen a driver conflict, stack overflow, invalid pointer, etc, bring my system down yet.
Couldnt the phone just have a 'recorder' function, so people can dictate the infuriatingly boring minutia of their everyday lives, and then post it when they get home?
I mean, does the world really need to know about the "bagel you had for breakfast that might have been a bit stale" right then and there?
I haven't had any problems whatsoever with NHL 2003, actually only problem I had was with NOLF2 (which of course was their fault, not the OS's).
If linux became 'the desktop' platform tomorrow, all the publishers would be writing the same code, just for a different platform, and they'd crash just as often. I'd say at least 99% of all the bugs/crashes/problems I encounter are the fault of an application, or my own.
And the prompt box does mean it's more stable - it tells me that the OS detected and cleanly removed a rogue app, and recovered the resources it had in use.
I understand the 'why' behind it as well.
All I'm really asking for is a theme/mode/setting for regular Windows installs to be workable on a Lo-res device (Not just TV, but open it up to cheap LCD displays for 'embedded' systems and whatnot).
Even if I bought a high-end HDTV, it still wouldn't be a usable desktop if I'm sitting in the couch on the other side of the room.
I just want to run windows on anything other than a PC monitor.
>> The fact that you seem unable to grasp the basic notion that M$ servers have a reputation for needing constant reboots is sad (for you).
I grasp the 'notion of a reputation', but I also know that it doesn't relate to the real world.
Linux also has a reputation for poor hardware support and second rate performance when it comes to the video/gui arena.
Acclaim earned a reputation for making really shitty games back in the NES days. So what?
Comparing the latest linux build to NT 3.51 is getting really old.
My 7 year old analogy applies perfectly. She uses a TV as her primary display, and watches DVDs and a small library of cartoons in divx off my fileserver (which runs linux, btw, because that's what I find linux appropriate for) I find this much closer to the function of these machines than an ecommerce server.
And people pointing to Tux Racer as if it validates linux as an entertainment/gaming platform *is* a joke.
I wanna be a Dell intern.
...* ...* ...*
*... taking notes
*... taking notes
*... taking notes
Dude, how do you spell 'PC'?
But,
Your typical PVR doesnt play DivX, DVD, Mp3, Ogg, etc, etc.
It doesn't surf the web.
It doesn't do miscellaneous user-defined stuff - ie; like connect my xbox to xbconnect so I can play Halo online.
It surely doesn't play games.
So it's really apples and oranges. If all you want is a PVR, by all means - get a PVR. If you want DVD playback, just get a DVD player.
The whole point, IMO, is to remove the mess of devices and wires. The mythical convergence beast. One machine sitting there to do it all.
I'm still trying to put together a good GUI for my own tweaked 'media' PC (still just an old emachine with a Radeon card with video out - more proof of concept), but it's pretty close to what I want. I wouldn't pay the price for one of these newer commercial units, but what I have is well worth the ~200 bucks I've sunk into it.
Frankly its MUCH easier to use than the Apex DVD player I have. Have you seen the remote controls on those things?
The "dude" guy is gone.
Now its the interns who listen to the Dell employees say "We build a custom PC just for you" and they stand there TAKING NOTES!
So MS liscensed you as an OEM? If not, how exactly did you home-build a MCE box, seeing as how it's not available as a standalone product?
Of course it's displayed in an incredibly huge font for readability on a TV screen.
It's the same 2-3 page "VGA-sized" liscense we all know and love.
I built my 7 year old a PC, it sits in her room and runs Windows XP home.
I checked it the other day when I brought her some new games, it has about 2 months uptime, and she plays with it all the time.
Now, if my 7 year old can run Windows without having to reboot, why can't you?
Because your a linux troll, maybe?
Frankly I'd want the MS OS for the ability to play games on the big screen. And tux racer is not a game, it's a joke.
This just stinks.
Why cant I buy this OS retail? It's the first new OS product from MSFT that I'm interested in.
I've been playing with hooking my PCs to TV's as the primary display for awhile now, since I first got the original All-in-wonder card, and as far as running windows on the desktop, the problem is always the same - the display is just too lo-res.
You can set it to 640x480, set the fonts to extra-large, but it still doesn't affect a truly system wide change, and setting non-standard widget sizes in the appearance tab makes for awkward glitchy windows.
Besides, it's more than font size - the desktop is basically just monitor-only.
I want a version of windows that has a 'lo-res' mode tailored for TV output. Big scrolling/rotating start menus, big icons with big fonts.
I don't want linux, because aside from watching movies, gaming is a must-have on the big screen (and more of the motivation).
Now they have something I want, but I cant 'roll my own', I have to overpay 3000$ for a proprietary machine like I was a mac user or something.
Does anyone know of a good desktop replacement for 2k/XP that might do what I want?
Gah!
I know you! You're the jackass two offices over who can't give me a moment in peace to work on my own projects!
Every damn 5 minutes, I swear.. "Hey, come and look at this.", "Hey, what's wrong with this SQL statement?", "Hey, why won't this compile".
And the answer is always so damn retarded. "You need to put single quotes in the SQL statement, not doubles", "You need an end if statement"
Gahhhhh.. Once, I swear, he spends 5 hours - more than half a day - debugging some report, and finally calls me. "This should be saying 3, but it says 8". So I tell him "use the zoom tool, it is a 3, it just looks like an 8 because for some stupid reason you have your monitor set to 640x480".
He hasnt even registered some of the 3rd party controls we use, so I have to compile all of his code for him, else it will build with nag-screens.
AAAAAAHHHHH The only damn debugging feature I need is a Louisville slugger.
Damn fool.
Asking for help is great, but when it crosses the line into 'do it for me', you end up on a a coworkers hitlist.
It's a tool - it all depends how you use it.
I edit and continue all the time, if I'm stepping through something and see an obvious typo.
The problem isn't the VB programmers from the "edit and continue" school, it's the ones from absolutely no schooling at all when it comes to program design and implementation.
I use it every day, and take it for granted sometimes. I miss it when I'm using another language and lacks its features.
The call stack is at your fingertips, I add/remove conditional watches with a couple keystrokes, stepping into, out of, and over functions, and the immediate pane makes a great scratchpad/interface to the internals of the program. You can break on all errors, unhandled errors, or arbitrarily.
It wouldnt be nearly as easily to quickly put together apps in VB without it's debugger. It truly turns a half-assed language into a really good tool for rapid prototyping.
Dont debug.
Eventually someone else will find the bugs and fix them for you at their own expense.
This is how the Open Source programming model works.
>> Since they nicely pattented their idea shut, we will have to patiently wait for this single company to provide the world with this technology
HOW DARE THEY!
This guy came up with a new technology that hadn't been done before, develops it himself, and PATENTS IT?
Patents are for things like clicking a mouse button or tying your shoes or math problems or other stuff that's been around forever. And you don't patent something so you can develop and market it - you patent things so you can sue infringers.
Many if not most companies will let you take personal time for whatever reason you want.
They wont pay you for it, though.