In addition to everything else Sony is being sued over I wish they'd add Fraud to the list.
People buy CDs to get the best 44.1Kbs uncompressed audio usually available for purchase. Yet the DRM'd versions are highly compressed audio files (hence things like the illegally included LAME decoder in the XCP package) where true quality is sacraficed in order to achieve compression levels allowing it to be sandwiched onto a standard CD.
Some very fine audio chips and speakers are available for computers these days, and certainly some people use their computers as their primary audio system. Yet were on the packaging, or EULA (an astonishing concept for a music CD in and of itself), does it tell you that you'll receive inferior quality playback when played on your computer. How many people believe that the DRM'd discs are actually playing back the.WAV files, instead of WMA or other crap files? It's fraud to not inform consumers that even after they agree to the DRM that they'll receive degraded audio as a result -- and Sony should have to pay for that as well!
Google is constantly spidering the web for content, and far faster than I can. The service I'd like most from them is a constantly updated list of sites they've found with malware on them that my Google Taskbar can warn me against visiting, should I be about to go there. Something like this would likely protect me against this threat far faster than AV vendors or MS patches.
The proper punishment for Sony out of this must be sufficient that that Sony, and every other record company will absolutely never any use any kind of DRM that changes even one bit on your computer again. Anything less is not enough.
Would be nice if about 1M potential customers called them trying to order AMD based systems with Dell backing, and then gave them heck for only supporting an inferior processor instead.
...the FBI would have raided them and seized all their computers by now -- even if a court case is yet to be filed and any day in court is months to years away, if ever.
"According to Sherman, the problem with Sony BMG's XCP DRM software was simply that "the technology they used contained a security vulnerability of which they were unaware".
And the software only phones home in order to download a service pack to fix the vulnerabilities discovered after release. This is all for your protection, Winslow.
saying "how many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots.
Just what is being sold here? Music, with a 3,000 word EULA -- or software? I think what has been created is an entirely new category of product.
And I, for one, feel this new product is being sold under deceptive marketing practices that have it masquerading as be a product it's not. It pretends to be a regular music CD, with only fine print informing you otherwise. This deserves full investigation by all regulatory authorities with appropriate punishments doled out. In addition. these CDs should be sold in an entirely different section of any store from regular music discs.
Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, stated in reference to Sony BMG's "rootkit" software that "there is nothing unusual about technology being used to protect intellectual property.
I truly, deeply, and sincerely hope all his personal computer systems are rooted by all the DRM flavors out their simultaneously. Then he can live with what he claims is not a problem at all for the rest of us.
So TiVo will let us transfer shows to our iPods. This is the same TiVo that already makes their DVRs will obey the Broadcast Flag despite no federal legislation ever mandating such compliance. Seems to me that Disney, the WB, and every other studio will simply flag all their broadcasts as Do Not Record, blocking such free attempts to provide content to one's iPod and PSP and requiring these shows to be purchased. Therefore this announcement therefore amounts to NOTHING!
the AMDx2 also benefits from having dedicated caches per core
If you're speaking of a dedicated L1 cache per core then I'll likely agree with you. However it is my understanding that unified L2 cache for a dual processor system is better than separate L2 caches for each processor. And that we haven't fully arrived at -- at least with Intel.
Where multiple threads access different parts of memory but are simultaneously processed by the chip's Hyperthreading Technology, the shared cache cannot keep up with their alternate demands and performance falls dramatically,
Software shouldn't be expected to handle hardware quirks. It's up to the hardware to run the software efficiently.
Seems to me a hardware fix would be to partition the cache into two pieces when HT is enabled and running -- use the whole cache for the processor otherwise.
With 2MB caches per processor now becoming available, would this be such a bad thing? IIRC once you're up to 256KB of cache you've already got a hit rate near 90%. That severely limits your possible improvement to less than 10% regardless of how much more cache you add. And yes I am aware that increasing the processor multiplier does make every cache miss worse in proportion, but still having HT run more efficiently in the bargain could make this tradeoff worth it. And that's even before you consider uneven partitioning if the OS can determine that one thread needs more cache than the other.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that HT would cut in half or more the very expensive (in cycles) context switching involved in moving to a new thread or handling an interrupt. This is in addition to giving the processor something to do while the other thread is stalled on latency to main memory. Strange to see it go the other way instead.
Interesting that it's MPEG-2, instead of MPEG-4 or H264. Seems to me that this means that the player will have to demonstrage the ability to read the disc at double the bit rate than otherwise, although the real-time decompression effort may be less -- though still well above standard DVD.
Just leads me to wonder what exactly is being tested here.
Is it really that hard to author a high definition disc in BluRay? So far that's one disc this decade. At this rate DVD-HD shouldn't have anything to worry about...
...except that I've yet to hear that they've authored any discs at all.
I didn't know you can play Legend of Zelda online. That's what I've been keeping the N64 around for. See what I've missed by not going to college lately.
it's about allowing the labels to manipulate public perception of value through pricing
Is this why iPods cost so much. Public perception that paying more has somehow gotten you more? If so, the music industry is only playing Apple's tune.
movies include what you would get on their existing video-on-demand and pay services plus around 100 older movie titles. Once the material is downloaded, users can only view it for up to 24 hours before it expires.
Limited selection.
Pay for it.
Need to contribute my own P2P bandwidth to get it.
Must watch it in 24 hours (obviously badly DRM encumbered.
That's not an appealing package yet to tempt me to your service.
At 300GB it's still a short generation behind the latest harddrives at 500GB. Although with compression it might serve as a convenient backup medium with a 1:1 relationship to the media being backed up -- provided it's cheap, user writiable, and durable. Would be nice.
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People buy CDs to get the best 44.1Kbs uncompressed audio usually available for purchase. Yet the DRM'd versions are highly compressed audio files (hence things like the illegally included LAME decoder in the XCP package) where true quality is sacraficed in order to achieve compression levels allowing it to be sandwiched onto a standard CD.
Some very fine audio chips and speakers are available for computers these days, and certainly some people use their computers as their primary audio system. Yet were on the packaging, or EULA (an astonishing concept for a music CD in and of itself), does it tell you that you'll receive inferior quality playback when played on your computer. How many people believe that the DRM'd discs are actually playing back the .WAV files, instead of WMA or other crap files? It's fraud to not inform consumers that even after they agree to the DRM that they'll receive degraded audio as a result -- and Sony should have to pay for that as well!
Are you listening, Google?
The proper punishment for Sony out of this must be sufficient that that Sony, and every other record company will absolutely never any use any kind of DRM that changes even one bit on your computer again. Anything less is not enough.
The Real Question is: Will Microsoft be compatable with the Microsoft Published Standard?
Would be nice if about 1M potential customers called them trying to order AMD based systems with Dell backing, and then gave them heck for only supporting an inferior processor instead.
Hey, FBI, there's still time.
And the software only phones home in order to download a service pack to fix the vulnerabilities discovered after release. This is all for your protection, Winslow.
What the PC world needs is a CD driver that comes up and says:
Multi-session disc inserted.
2 sessions detected.
Select session to use (cr for newest): __
Just what is being sold here? Music, with a 3,000 word EULA -- or software? I think what has been created is an entirely new category of product.
And I, for one, feel this new product is being sold under deceptive marketing practices that have it masquerading as be a product it's not. It pretends to be a regular music CD, with only fine print informing you otherwise. This deserves full investigation by all regulatory authorities with appropriate punishments doled out. In addition. these CDs should be sold in an entirely different section of any store from regular music discs.
I truly, deeply, and sincerely hope all his personal computer systems are rooted by all the DRM flavors out their simultaneously. Then he can live with what he claims is not a problem at all for the rest of us.
So TiVo will let us transfer shows to our iPods. This is the same TiVo that already makes their DVRs will obey the Broadcast Flag despite no federal legislation ever mandating such compliance. Seems to me that Disney, the WB, and every other studio will simply flag all their broadcasts as Do Not Record, blocking such free attempts to provide content to one's iPod and PSP and requiring these shows to be purchased. Therefore this announcement therefore amounts to NOTHING!
If you're speaking of a dedicated L1 cache per core then I'll likely agree with you. However it is my understanding that unified L2 cache for a dual processor system is better than separate L2 caches for each processor. And that we haven't fully arrived at -- at least with Intel.
Some.
Only when you buy the expensive version of XBox 360 with the hard drive.
Not the one you really want to play on it.
And it seems to me that they spent more of their advertising budget on the fact of that One Mouse Button, than on that one everything else.
Software shouldn't be expected to handle hardware quirks. It's up to the hardware to run the software efficiently.
Seems to me a hardware fix would be to partition the cache into two pieces when HT is enabled and running -- use the whole cache for the processor otherwise.
With 2MB caches per processor now becoming available, would this be such a bad thing? IIRC once you're up to 256KB of cache you've already got a hit rate near 90%. That severely limits your possible improvement to less than 10% regardless of how much more cache you add. And yes I am aware that increasing the processor multiplier does make every cache miss worse in proportion, but still having HT run more efficiently in the bargain could make this tradeoff worth it. And that's even before you consider uneven partitioning if the OS can determine that one thread needs more cache than the other.
You'd think, wouldn't you, that HT would cut in half or more the very expensive (in cycles) context switching involved in moving to a new thread or handling an interrupt. This is in addition to giving the processor something to do while the other thread is stalled on latency to main memory. Strange to see it go the other way instead.
Just leads me to wonder what exactly is being tested here.
I didn't know you can play Legend of Zelda online. That's what I've been keeping the N64 around for. See what I've missed by not going to college lately.
What does this do to P2P user tracking. Are campuses as good at identifying Wi-Fi P2P users to the RIAA as they are dorm room wired users?
Is this why iPods cost so much. Public perception that paying more has somehow gotten you more? If so, the music industry is only playing Apple's tune.
Limited selection.
Pay for it.
Need to contribute my own P2P bandwidth to get it.
Must watch it in 24 hours (obviously badly DRM encumbered.
That's not an appealing package yet to tempt me to your service.
At 300GB it's still a short generation behind the latest harddrives at 500GB. Although with compression it might serve as a convenient backup medium with a 1:1 relationship to the media being backed up -- provided it's cheap, user writiable, and durable. Would be nice.
Yeah, if you stand it on end.
Saying anything bad about Bill Gates on /. is Insightful +1.