From the settlement,
"Apple can get back some of the $100 million payment if Creative is able to secure licensing deals with other MP3 player manufacturers"
So, if Creative licenses its IP to other manufacturers, Apple gets a slice of the pie. If Creative sues manufacturers who refuse to license, it's got the Apple precedent to tilt things in its favour. Maybe a slice of that pie is part of the unannounced terms, too.
If I were Creative, I'd be miffed that, having joined the Microsoft Playforsure camp, Microsoft then went on to develop its own PMP. In fact, I'd be tempted to piddle in Microsoft's pot by getting MS to pay a hefty licensing fee or suing it, as needs dictated.
MS will be more likely to license (i.e. "pay money to make the problem go away") knowing that the market leader has stumped up.
In your two-post rebuttal you state "No Xeons on the official list - are you an Intel Marketing Stooge trying to take the limelight?" and "No Xeons - MDGrape-3 chips. We have developed the MDGRAPE-3 chip."
OK, since your use of "we" suggests you are somehow involved (which I doubt), I checked the Riken site (http://www.rikenresearch.riken.jp/roundup/31/) which states
"MDGRAPE-3 is a large system that consists of 201 units of 24 MDGRAPE-3 chips, 64 parallel servers each containing 256 of Intel's newest Xeon 5000-series processors (codename Dempsey), and 37 parallel servers each having 74 Intel Xeon 3.2GHz processors with 2MB L2 caches. Developed by RIKEN, the MDGRAPE-3 chip is the world's fastest LSI chip for simulation of molecular dynamics."
Looks like there are Xeons in there, whether you like it or not.
The original article seems to be unreachable, so I can't read it, but the precis has the wrong chip count: It does have 4808 LSI chips, but it also has 19,122 Xeon processors.
I have a couple of the Buffalo Terastation Pros (name depends on market). They seem to be a no-brainer at their pricing point if one doesn't get the largest-capacity model. Reason for two: one can do encrypted backups to the second, so my stuff is reasonably backed up and maybe secure. The things are almost silent in use, which is a way bigger factor then I ever thought it would be.
Downside is the units don't support NFS out of the box, so they're just a tad too slow to stream video from. (Unless the problem is the Tvix5000U, a Korean product which is a great hardware design totally stuffed by abysmal software.)((As was it predecessor))(((And its portable equivalent)))((((Bugger, I spot a purchasing trend here I should have fixed))))
BitComet allows the incoming video to be viewed. I guess the download speed has to be above the viewing speed (duh), and I also guess it prioritizes the packets ahead of the viewing point. No doubt this is in the BitComet documentation somewhere.
Asahi Brewery (http://www.asahibeer.co.jp/) gave away beer-pouring robots to 5000 people who collected 36 stickers from promotional beer cans. The robot includes a cooler.
I've been drinking self-heating cans of sake on winter hikes for years. The walls are some kind of cardboard to provide a little protection for the fingers. Push the button on the bottom and wait around 5 minutes. So this can't be a new technology. There is a plastic cover over the metal base, which has vents presumably to let air in or something else out. Rats, I now realise I haven't investigated the can enough and the season's over:-(
I also have MRE heaters in my earthquake kit. The heaters also work well but are messy. On the other hand, they give off hydrogen so one can heat an MRE and have fun popping the gas.
Reading the article, it seems he wants to pop an ex-Polish SAM down a scale missile silo, so he can sit there at night watching the lid open and the rocket rise in some kind of son et lumiere armageddonette.
I figure CHP pulling his volkswagon over will pale in comparison to the visitors he'll get about 10 minutes after the first satellite pass over his little display.
If I remember (and I may be wrong in detail), when the silo outside Green Valley was decommissioned and turned into a tourist attraction, the decommissioned missile was hauled out, laid on its side and had a big chunk cut out to demonstrate to passing satellites that it was clearly non-flyable. Then it was popped back down the hole, the lid half-opened and huge concrete buffers placed across the rails to prevent the lid from opening fully.
1) Write laws that will catch everyone sometime.
2) Trawl for lawbreakers at your leisure.
3) Pick 'em up when it's suitable.
Someone needs a whack with a cluestick. It's not the way to run a (decent) country.
I'll bear that in mind as the flare passes us en route, with 4900 times the intensity it will have when it reaches Xena. "I bet RLiegh's having a chuckle right now", I'll think to myself.
My problem is with the consistently mediocre reporting, when just a little bit more effort would get to primary sources, rather than this persistent blog banality culture.
Not only does the original thread (http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic11631.html) have more information, as you say, but the originator later makes the telling comment "Got the story off of a news channel 5 website....So they can make things out to be a little more dramatic than it actually is...."
On the one hand the house "burnt down", on the other hand the owner could wander around it rescuing his computer, etc.
Fujitsu is also behind Tokyo Stock Exchange's recent woes, with TSE having to limit operating hours when transactions near the system's limit. Fujitsu also took TSE down for a day in November 2005 after applying a software patch.
The chronometers were individually hand-crafted masterpieces. One of Babbage's assistants for a time was Whitworth, who went on to formulate specifications for screw threads, and helped define the whole concept of repeatable manufacturing quality, where accuracy could be measured, and components became interchangeable. That led to factories where the money someone was paid was based on the time it took, rather than the skill of the operator or the complexity of the product. The Difference Engine/Babbage helped create the Industrial Revolution, and benefitted from it.
The World RPS Society at www.worldrps.com should be able to help you with this. To quote, "RPS enthusiasts will also learn advanced strategies, crucial for those playing above the level of the recreation player, which throws are illegal and (because RPS is very dull when played alone)..."
And, of course, "Think twice before using RPS for life-threatening decisions."
Canon (for one) has never introduced a feature like autofocus that has completely transformed the market
Well it completely transformed Minolta too, didn't it? Honeywell sued the pants off them for patent infingement, which took all Minolta's money for R&D, so there was a sudden pause in product development while the other players marched on. After that, Minolta was in gentle financial decline until Konica stepped in.
When one visits Nintendo, it's like visiting a relatively small company that does stuff like collect cloisonne plates for the walls, and everyone seems to know everyone else. Microsoft is like visiting a big business. Sony is like visiting a big business at war with itself. Somehow, the Nintendo consoles and games seem to reflect this difference. I don't know how it spills over to the games, since they're made by third parties, but the general environment seems to work quite well for them. The games seem to work at any scale.
Capacity is nice, but recharge speed is nicer
on
Mobile Fuel Cells Soon?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I'd like to think that one benefit of a fuel cell is that it can be recharged more rapidly. Given the choice between an 8-hour traditional battery that needs me to be tethered while it's charged, and a fuel cell with a 2-hour life that can be recharged in 2 minutes from a bottle, I'll go for the fuel cell. For most people, it's not battery life that's the problem, it's recharge time.
They're slow, have low capacity, and so are desperately overcrowded. The Odaiba monorail is a complete joke at weekends. Compare with the Rinkai Line, which is a standard subway line to the same area. Each train moves, what, 8 times as many people at 3 times the speed?
And before eulogising about "mass" transit around Aichi, we're talking about an expo that had people queuing up to 8 hours to get in, 2-5 hours at exhibits and stations. Mass transit is exactly that: move a lot of people quickly and transparently. Mass transit isn't supposed to be a destination in and of itself, it's supposed to be a tool. Right now, big stupid engineering still does a way better job most of the time. Tonka-toy engineering is cute, but it's a vanity.
There are some whopping assumptions here, so bear with the broad brushstrokes. Yes, internet on phones works in Japan. But Japan is way different to the US.
1) Most people aren't at home most of the time (this is the worst generalization, but it works). So most people are not sat in front of their computer, most of the time.
2) Most people have long commutes.
3) Most people don't commute by car, so have time to play with the phone.
4) PDAs don't do well in Japan. Most phones have PDA-like features, which means there is no need for PDAs but actually this is wrong because most phones don't synch with computers in any meaningful manner (and I'm looking at you, Sharp. In fact, while I'm looking at you, Sharp, I'd like to ask how it's possible for you to engineer such ill-conceived user interfaces into your phones time after time after time. Maybe you need to think on this when Vodafone finally gets a clue and asks Toshiba to lead with new-generation phones. Not that Vodafone will be around in Japan much longer unless it stops the ex-pat/in-pat/Japanese in-fighting and gets to grips with the way its phone providers make better phones for the competition than for Vodafone. Hello NEC).
5) Cellphone charges are pretty low, in the great scheme of things, so people can use them as recreational devices.
6) For several of the above reasons, phones are used to coordinate meeting up after school/work, are used on trains where voice is banned, and use to access content to pass the time commuting. They combine elements of recreation and communication tools.
In terms of business models, i-mode is more business model than technology, and the i-mode approach works well where it has been introduced outside Japan. Compare that with Vodafone's idiot Live! service, which is painful in comparison.
Well, not enough infoi there to sway anybody, but I'm in the industry and cellphones can be personal computing devices, but only in some or the majority of cultures. I don't think the US is one of those cultures right now: phones are utility devices, rather than fashion statements and recreational devices. Nothing wrong with that. But I think in Japan, gadgets are likely to be in the pocket, whereas in the US they're more likely to be on the desk.
It's not as though the factory making the computers has changed, or am I wrong? Some Thinkpads have been coming out of Legend/Lenovo factories since 2003. IBM started working with Legend on other stuff in 2001.
Slashdot Mirror
So, if Creative licenses its IP to other manufacturers, Apple gets a slice of the pie. If Creative sues manufacturers who refuse to license, it's got the Apple precedent to tilt things in its favour. Maybe a slice of that pie is part of the unannounced terms, too.
If I were Creative, I'd be miffed that, having joined the Microsoft Playforsure camp, Microsoft then went on to develop its own PMP. In fact, I'd be tempted to piddle in Microsoft's pot by getting MS to pay a hefty licensing fee or suing it, as needs dictated.
MS will be more likely to license (i.e. "pay money to make the problem go away") knowing that the market leader has stumped up.
I've used this service a few times already. Each image of the original page is supplied with a translation so one can make sense of it.
OK, since your use of "we" suggests you are somehow involved (which I doubt), I checked the Riken site (http://www.rikenresearch.riken.jp/roundup/31/) which states
"MDGRAPE-3 is a large system that consists of 201 units of 24 MDGRAPE-3 chips, 64 parallel servers each containing 256 of Intel's newest Xeon 5000-series processors (codename Dempsey), and 37 parallel servers each having 74 Intel Xeon 3.2GHz processors with 2MB L2 caches. Developed by RIKEN, the MDGRAPE-3 chip is the world's fastest LSI chip for simulation of molecular dynamics."
Looks like there are Xeons in there, whether you like it or not.
The original article seems to be unreachable, so I can't read it, but the precis has the wrong chip count: It does have 4808 LSI chips, but it also has 19,122 Xeon processors.
I have a couple of the Buffalo Terastation Pros (name depends on market). They seem to be a no-brainer at their pricing point if one doesn't get the largest-capacity model. Reason for two: one can do encrypted backups to the second, so my stuff is reasonably backed up and maybe secure. The things are almost silent in use, which is a way bigger factor then I ever thought it would be. Downside is the units don't support NFS out of the box, so they're just a tad too slow to stream video from. (Unless the problem is the Tvix5000U, a Korean product which is a great hardware design totally stuffed by abysmal software.)((As was it predecessor))(((And its portable equivalent)))((((Bugger, I spot a purchasing trend here I should have fixed))))
BitComet allows the incoming video to be viewed. I guess the download speed has to be above the viewing speed (duh), and I also guess it prioritizes the packets ahead of the viewing point. No doubt this is in the BitComet documentation somewhere.
Asahi Brewery (http://www.asahibeer.co.jp/) gave away beer-pouring robots to 5000 people who collected 36 stickers from promotional beer cans. The robot includes a cooler.
r ing-robots/
English: http://www.ohgizmo.com/2006/01/26/asahis-beer-pou
I've been drinking self-heating cans of sake on winter hikes for years. The walls are some kind of cardboard to provide a little protection for the fingers. Push the button on the bottom and wait around 5 minutes. So this can't be a new technology. There is a plastic cover over the metal base, which has vents presumably to let air in or something else out. Rats, I now realise I haven't investigated the can enough and the season's over :-(
I also have MRE heaters in my earthquake kit. The heaters also work well but are messy. On the other hand, they give off hydrogen so one can heat an MRE and have fun popping the gas.
Reading the article, it seems he wants to pop an ex-Polish SAM down a scale missile silo, so he can sit there at night watching the lid open and the rocket rise in some kind of son et lumiere armageddonette.
I figure CHP pulling his volkswagon over will pale in comparison to the visitors he'll get about 10 minutes after the first satellite pass over his little display.
If I remember (and I may be wrong in detail), when the silo outside Green Valley was decommissioned and turned into a tourist attraction, the decommissioned missile was hauled out, laid on its side and had a big chunk cut out to demonstrate to passing satellites that it was clearly non-flyable. Then it was popped back down the hole, the lid half-opened and huge concrete buffers placed across the rails to prevent the lid from opening fully.
1) Write laws that will catch everyone sometime.
2) Trawl for lawbreakers at your leisure.
3) Pick 'em up when it's suitable.
Someone needs a whack with a cluestick. It's not the way to run a (decent) country.
I'll bear that in mind as the flare passes us en route, with 4900 times the intensity it will have when it reaches Xena. "I bet RLiegh's having a chuckle right now", I'll think to myself.
(4900 assumes Xena is at an average 70 au)
Intel: http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/client/ vistasolutions/index.htm
AMD: http://www.amd.com/windowsvista
VIA: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/vista/cpu.jsp
My problem is with the consistently mediocre reporting, when just a little bit more effort would get to primary sources, rather than this persistent blog banality culture.
Minimum system requirements will not be known until summer 2006 at the earliest. However, these guidelines provide useful estimates:
" 512 megabytes (MB) or more of RAM
A dedicated graphics card with DirectX® 9.0 support
A modern, Intel Pentium- or AMD Athlon-based PC."
On the one hand the house "burnt down", on the other hand the owner could wander around it rescuing his computer, etc.
Fujitsu is also behind Tokyo Stock Exchange's recent woes, with TSE having to limit operating hours when transactions near the system's limit. Fujitsu also took TSE down for a day in November 2005 after applying a software patch.
The chronometers were individually hand-crafted masterpieces. One of Babbage's assistants for a time was Whitworth, who went on to formulate specifications for screw threads, and helped define the whole concept of repeatable manufacturing quality, where accuracy could be measured, and components became interchangeable. That led to factories where the money someone was paid was based on the time it took, rather than the skill of the operator or the complexity of the product. The Difference Engine/Babbage helped create the Industrial Revolution, and benefitted from it.
And, of course, "Think twice before using RPS for life-threatening decisions."
The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier: American Military Power in Britain
Duncan Cambell, Paladin 1986 - ISBN 0586086269
Well it completely transformed Minolta too, didn't it? Honeywell sued the pants off them for patent infingement, which took all Minolta's money for R&D, so there was a sudden pause in product development while the other players marched on. After that, Minolta was in gentle financial decline until Konica stepped in.
When one visits Nintendo, it's like visiting a relatively small company that does stuff like collect cloisonne plates for the walls, and everyone seems to know everyone else. Microsoft is like visiting a big business. Sony is like visiting a big business at war with itself. Somehow, the Nintendo consoles and games seem to reflect this difference. I don't know how it spills over to the games, since they're made by third parties, but the general environment seems to work quite well for them. The games seem to work at any scale.
I'd like to think that one benefit of a fuel cell is that it can be recharged more rapidly. Given the choice between an 8-hour traditional battery that needs me to be tethered while it's charged, and a fuel cell with a 2-hour life that can be recharged in 2 minutes from a bottle, I'll go for the fuel cell. For most people, it's not battery life that's the problem, it's recharge time.
Elephants with credit cards, of course.
And before eulogising about "mass" transit around Aichi, we're talking about an expo that had people queuing up to 8 hours to get in, 2-5 hours at exhibits and stations. Mass transit is exactly that: move a lot of people quickly and transparently. Mass transit isn't supposed to be a destination in and of itself, it's supposed to be a tool. Right now, big stupid engineering still does a way better job most of the time. Tonka-toy engineering is cute, but it's a vanity.
1) Most people aren't at home most of the time (this is the worst generalization, but it works). So most people are not sat in front of their computer, most of the time.
2) Most people have long commutes.
3) Most people don't commute by car, so have time to play with the phone.
4) PDAs don't do well in Japan. Most phones have PDA-like features, which means there is no need for PDAs but actually this is wrong because most phones don't synch with computers in any meaningful manner (and I'm looking at you, Sharp. In fact, while I'm looking at you, Sharp, I'd like to ask how it's possible for you to engineer such ill-conceived user interfaces into your phones time after time after time. Maybe you need to think on this when Vodafone finally gets a clue and asks Toshiba to lead with new-generation phones. Not that Vodafone will be around in Japan much longer unless it stops the ex-pat/in-pat/Japanese in-fighting and gets to grips with the way its phone providers make better phones for the competition than for Vodafone. Hello NEC).
5) Cellphone charges are pretty low, in the great scheme of things, so people can use them as recreational devices.
6) For several of the above reasons, phones are used to coordinate meeting up after school/work, are used on trains where voice is banned, and use to access content to pass the time commuting. They combine elements of recreation and communication tools.
In terms of business models, i-mode is more business model than technology, and the i-mode approach works well where it has been introduced outside Japan. Compare that with Vodafone's idiot Live! service, which is painful in comparison.
Well, not enough infoi there to sway anybody, but I'm in the industry and cellphones can be personal computing devices, but only in some or the majority of cultures. I don't think the US is one of those cultures right now: phones are utility devices, rather than fashion statements and recreational devices. Nothing wrong with that. But I think in Japan, gadgets are likely to be in the pocket, whereas in the US they're more likely to be on the desk.
It's not as though the factory making the computers has changed, or am I wrong? Some Thinkpads have been coming out of Legend/Lenovo factories since 2003. IBM started working with Legend on other stuff in 2001.