I present an exerpt from my ISP's AUP: (I've renamed the name so as to not incriminate the ISP:-] )
A) ISP ISP is designed for personal and family use within a single household. Customer agrees that only the Customer and co-residents living in the same household will use the Service. The term 'single household' means the Customer's home and includes an apartment, condominium, flat or other residential unit that may be used as a residence in any multiple dwelling unit. Customer may not resell or distribute the Service outside Customer's household. The Service is being provided solely for use in Customer's household and any unauthorized access by a third party to e-mail, Internet access, or any other function of the Service relieves Charter of any affirmative obligations it may have, and is in violation of this Policy.
Customer may set up one (1) web page per primary e-mail account for personal use using the Service, but Customer may not establish a web page using a server located at Customer's home. Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, Customer's home computer as a web server, FTP server, file server or game server or to run any other server applications. Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, the Service to operate any type of business or commercial enterprise. Customer will not advertise that the Service is available for use by third parties or unauthorized users.
ISP reserves the right to disconnect or reclassify the Service to a higher grade for failure to comply with any portion of this provision or this Policy. Any violation of these policies may lead to prosecution under state and/or federal law and/or termination of Customer's service.
3. NO COPYRIGHT OR TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT
Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, the Service to send or receive any information which infringes the patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets or proprietary rights of any other person or entity. This includes, but is not limited to, digitization of music, movies, photographs or other copyrighted materials or software.
ISP is registered under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). Under the DMCA, copyright owners have the right to notify ISP if they believe that an ISP customer has infringed the copyright owner's work(s). If ISP receives a notice from a copyright owner alleging any Customer has committed copyright infringement, ISP will notify the Customer of the alleged infringement. If ISP receives more than one notice alleging copyright infringement on Customer's part, Customer may be deemed a "repeat copyright infringer." ISP reserves the right to terminate the accounts of repeat copyright infringers.
Does this mean the RIAA and MPAA are trying to gain even more power than is already allowed under current law? Or is this merely a restating of current law, so as to more actively enforce it?
Essentially what this "Super DMCA" is geared at is allowing copyright holders access to ISP private information (including but not limited to, IP address, street address, phone number, etc) of "copyright infringers" in the hopes of halting online music/movie piracy. It would basically outlaw any network address translation device (e.g. routers, gateways, firewalls) that could coneal the IP address of a suspected infringer.
Once 64 bit procsesing becomes mainstream, and price per gigabyte of memory better (say, 16 gigs DDR 3200), store the OS on a small (~5 gig) hard drive partition, and transfer the entire thing to a 5 gig ramdrive on startup. Using serial ATA that shouldn't take too long, and the OS will run at dramatically increased speeds, especially if the swap is housed in the ramdrive as well. On shutdown, transfer the contents of the ramdrive back to the hard drive. With the massive RAM support 64 bit processing promises, I'll wager some incredible things are possible for those willing to experiment with technologies like this. Perhaps that's where the technology in this article is heading, although far less volatile/risky as my approach.
I agree about the market- most CDs are purchased by kids with little money. I myself (am 19 years old) buy CDs on a listen at home basis. I'll hear a song on the radio, then go home and download the MP3. If I like the song, I'll go out and buy the CD. If I don't like the song, I delete the file, and all is well. I don't have one MP3 on my computer at the present time who's CD I didn't purchase after download. To quote Princess Leia from Star Wars, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers."
The more the record companies try to recover sales, the more sales they will loose by prosecuting their customers.
Seems the record companies are complaining of lack of revenue in CD sales... yet they have no qualms about spending millions in legal fees to piss off consumers. Makes you wonder if they are so poor as to invoke legal protection to increase revenue, where does all the money to lobby legislature and hire lawyers come from? I think the US needs to seriously investigate it's priorities as per legal disputes... should it be aiding multi billion dollar industries by granting almost dictatorial powers, or helping the average American consumer live a free and happy life? Seems it's current stance is based more on financial gains than consumer protection.
There will always be market pressure, to some extent. With this particular legislation, if SBC decides it wants complete domination of it's customers via dial up internet, they can consider use of their telephone service in your home to dial up to AOL illegal. Solution: AOL becomes it's own telco provider.
That aside, there will always be competition between cable and DSL... both offer strengths and weaknesses, and unless both forms of media decide to join forces to milk the consumer dry, they will compete if not amongst their respective service providers, with each opposite service provider. I don't see DSL prices (for the consumer) going up to $100 a month, so long as cable internet can be offered for $40 a month. Basically, if there is no market pressure from within one industry, there will always be some coming from a competing industry, e.g. cable vs. dsl.
Far less intrusive, better service/support, much higher quality, yes.
Can they last against monster corporations? Probably not...
A number of years ago there was a local dial up provider known as WTCO (Woodbury Telephone Company). They offered dial-up service, with no busy signals, consistant connection speeds, and overall great support.
Along comes SNET's deep pockets. WTCO soon becomes SNET, eaten by the beast.
SNET exists for a while, offering moderate support, and decent service, until SBC's deep pockets come around.
SBC is here now, imposing outlandishly resource intensive and obtrusive/instrusive dial-up software, which many of it's clients have trouble with... who answers the support calls? Certainly not SBC... they bring their computer to a local repair place (like the one I work in) and say "My internet won't work, and SNET [SBC] won't help us, please fix it."
I'm not sure how many of you/.'ers out there are familiar with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), but within the organization, there is a concept known as Gracious Professionalism. Essentially, it means respecting competitors. Record companies and the movie industry need to learn respect for their market, and realize they shouldn't treat consumers as competitors. (Reading the article, it seems to me this entire proposal is based primarily on MPAA views, and little on actual communication company needs.) Passing fruitless laws will only anger their market, and further increase the decline in movie and record sales. Furthermore, why would they invoke laws to increase the political/legal strength of communications companies at all? What would happen to the family who shares a single cable line to all rooms of their house through a splitter, or internet through a router? Will they be tried as criminals for making use of a service they lawfully pay for? Reading up on certain laws and AUP's, it seems routers are already technically illegal, yet DSL and Cable companies offer to bundle them with their service. What is the world coming to when a market must abuse it's clients "to do the right thing." Gracious professionalism.
Is that not essentially what this unit is? A fully integrated PC with a specialized OS designed for video capture and burning? The PC Industry is trying to capitolize on those demands by issuing "Media Center" PCs designed for that exact purpose, integrating PVR functionality while maintaining a complete PC environment. That's exactly the reasoning behind Windows XP Media Center Edition. Aside from which, a bundled Media Center PC from any major brand will run roughly half the price of this new stand alone unit. Granted, my PC is a bit more than that, but the out-of-box units put out by big brands could easily serve an equally functional product to the general public.
Here are the system specs pasted from the translated page:
Video recording system / sound recording system
MPEG-2 (resolution: D1, 1/2d1 and SIF) /
Dolby digital AC3
HDD capacity 80GB
HDD maximum video recording time / title number HQ: Approximately 15 hour
SP: Approximately 30 hour
EP: Approximately 60 hour
SLP: Approximately 90 hours / maximum of 200 titles
Record possible media DVD-RW (Video: Ver1.1), DVD-R (Ver: 2.0)
Reproducible media DVD-RW (VR / Video), DVD-R, DVD video,
CD and CD-R/RW (CD-DA)
Tuner
Ground wave ×1, analog BS×1
Reception channel VHF: 1 - 12CH and UHF: 13 - 62CH,
CATV: C13 - C38,
BS: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, 15CH *4
Internet browser 0
Letter input method: Software keyboard
Also interesting how it's using DVD-R/RW rather than the + Sony has supported in the past...
Run the page through babelfish.altavista.com. Not a perfect translation but enough to get the jist. Looks like it's only capable of 90 hours on it's lowest quality setting. The highest results in 15 hours. Gee.. wonder what type of compression it's using... could it be MPEG-2? Must be if it's designed to burn DVD. How much more could it fit if divx were used? It is kind of nice though, with an 80 gig hard drive, it must keep the price relatively low... Aside from the dvd burner, all other features are standard on most PVRs. The variable bit rate encoding is rather nice, but again, what can this do that my computer (with a dvd burner and all in wonder 9700) can't?
Apple + Competition = ?
If he can succeed (legally)... would this open the door to others following suite? Could it mean legal loopholes which will allow Apple to be cloned? Might benefit the Apple market in general, spurr competition, lower prices, get more publicity. If Apple licensed clones, would they be as popular as PCs are today? Given the nature of OS X, (both asthetically, and hey, it's BSD,) I'd say yes.
I work for a retail sales/service center, and we have that same Viewsonic monitor for $679. We also have a beautiful CTX 17" PV720 for $399. I actually use the CTX at home, and it has a gorgeous picture, virtually no ghosting (and I play a lot of UT 2003, Jedi Knight II, and Warcraft III), and incredible color depth.
As for the prices of Laptop LCDs to Desktop LCDs, it's understandable as well. In any form of computer component, there are two distributions: OEM and Retail. OEM products are generally less money, barring the packaging and warranty. Retail boxes are just that- packaged and ready for consumer level sales. Laptop manufacturers get screens at bulk AND OEM rates, so they end up dirt cheap for them. LCD monitors, however, can not be obtained OEM, and only huge companies have the buying power to obtain bulk rates. Beneath the increased cost of manufacturing from the framing, electronics, conversion hardware, and packaging/warranty, it is essentially the same technology and same screens powering laptops and TVs. The above are all reasons for increased cost of standalone monitors. Add in the cost of integrating a TV tuner on LCD TVs. Sure, you could buy a laptop LCD for cheap. Add in the manufacturing costs of making it a standalone monitor, and it's pretty good reason for a price increase. In all actuality, it's amazing they are as cheap as they are now, and stlil dropping in price. A replacement 15" LCD panel for a Dell laptop would go for about $499 direct from dell. A 17" LCD Monitor goe sfor 399. Need I say more?
"Secondly, it seems this weapon could very well be used against humans if used at similar frequencies to microwave ovens"
In actuality, microwave electromagnetic waves are essentially harmless to humans. There is much hype about the dangers of microwaves, and people developing cancer- but nothing is caused by microwave rays. On the electromagnetic spectrum, microwave frequencies are actually between radio and infra-red- both of which are harmless, unless you feel you're developing cancer by listening to the radio or using a remote control. The dangers come to humans when approaching ultra-violete and X-rays, but those are above the visible spectrum- microwaves are below.
Goldeneye minus the satellite, Russians, and nuclear relativity.
Other than that- great idea to avoid civilian casualties while delivering crippling blows to technologically advanced targets.
Slashdot Mirror
I present an exerpt from my ISP's AUP: :-] )
(I've renamed the name so as to not incriminate the ISP
A) ISP
ISP is designed for personal and family use within a single household. Customer agrees that only the Customer and co-residents living in the same household will use the Service. The term 'single household' means the Customer's home and includes an apartment, condominium, flat or other residential unit that may be used as a residence in any multiple dwelling unit. Customer may not resell or distribute the Service outside Customer's household. The Service is being provided solely for use in Customer's household and any unauthorized access by a third party to e-mail, Internet access, or any other function of the Service relieves Charter of any affirmative obligations it may have, and is in violation of this Policy.
Customer may set up one (1) web page per primary e-mail account for personal use using the Service, but Customer may not establish a web page using a server located at Customer's home. Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, Customer's home computer as a web server, FTP server, file server or game server or to run any other server applications. Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, the Service to operate any type of business or commercial enterprise. Customer will not advertise that the Service is available for use by third parties or unauthorized users.
ISP reserves the right to disconnect or reclassify the Service to a higher grade for failure to comply with any portion of this provision or this Policy. Any violation of these policies may lead to prosecution under state and/or federal law and/or termination of Customer's service.
3. NO COPYRIGHT OR TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT
Customer will not use, nor allow others to use, the Service to send or receive any information which infringes the patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets or proprietary rights of any other person or entity. This includes, but is not limited to, digitization of music, movies, photographs or other copyrighted materials or software.
ISP is registered under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). Under the DMCA, copyright owners have the right to notify ISP if they believe that an ISP customer has infringed the copyright owner's work(s). If ISP receives a notice from a copyright owner alleging any Customer has committed copyright infringement, ISP will notify the Customer of the alleged infringement. If ISP receives more than one notice alleging copyright infringement on Customer's part, Customer may be deemed a "repeat copyright infringer." ISP reserves the right to terminate the accounts of repeat copyright infringers.
Does this mean the RIAA and MPAA are trying to gain even more power than is already allowed under current law? Or is this merely a restating of current law, so as to more actively enforce it?
Essentially what this "Super DMCA" is geared at is allowing copyright holders access to ISP private information (including but not limited to, IP address, street address, phone number, etc) of "copyright infringers" in the hopes of halting online music/movie piracy. It would basically outlaw any network address translation device (e.g. routers, gateways, firewalls) that could coneal the IP address of a suspected infringer.
My plan-
Once 64 bit procsesing becomes mainstream, and price per gigabyte of memory better (say, 16 gigs DDR 3200), store the OS on a small (~5 gig) hard drive partition, and transfer the entire thing to a 5 gig ramdrive on startup. Using serial ATA that shouldn't take too long, and the OS will run at dramatically increased speeds, especially if the swap is housed in the ramdrive as well. On shutdown, transfer the contents of the ramdrive back to the hard drive. With the massive RAM support 64 bit processing promises, I'll wager some incredible things are possible for those willing to experiment with technologies like this. Perhaps that's where the technology in this article is heading, although far less volatile/risky as my approach.
I agree about the market- most CDs are purchased by kids with little money. I myself (am 19 years old) buy CDs on a listen at home basis. I'll hear a song on the radio, then go home and download the MP3. If I like the song, I'll go out and buy the CD. If I don't like the song, I delete the file, and all is well. I don't have one MP3 on my computer at the present time who's CD I didn't purchase after download. To quote Princess Leia from Star Wars, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers."
The more the record companies try to recover sales, the more sales they will loose by prosecuting their customers.
Seems the record companies are complaining of lack of revenue in CD sales... yet they have no qualms about spending millions in legal fees to piss off consumers. Makes you wonder if they are so poor as to invoke legal protection to increase revenue, where does all the money to lobby legislature and hire lawyers come from? I think the US needs to seriously investigate it's priorities as per legal disputes... should it be aiding multi billion dollar industries by granting almost dictatorial powers, or helping the average American consumer live a free and happy life? Seems it's current stance is based more on financial gains than consumer protection.
There will always be market pressure, to some extent. With this particular legislation, if SBC decides it wants complete domination of it's customers via dial up internet, they can consider use of their telephone service in your home to dial up to AOL illegal. Solution: AOL becomes it's own telco provider.
That aside, there will always be competition between cable and DSL... both offer strengths and weaknesses, and unless both forms of media decide to join forces to milk the consumer dry, they will compete if not amongst their respective service providers, with each opposite service provider. I don't see DSL prices (for the consumer) going up to $100 a month, so long as cable internet can be offered for $40 a month. Basically, if there is no market pressure from within one industry, there will always be some coming from a competing industry, e.g. cable vs. dsl.
Far less intrusive, better service/support, much higher quality, yes.
Can they last against monster corporations? Probably not...
A number of years ago there was a local dial up provider known as WTCO (Woodbury Telephone Company). They offered dial-up service, with no busy signals, consistant connection speeds, and overall great support.
Along comes SNET's deep pockets. WTCO soon becomes SNET, eaten by the beast.
SNET exists for a while, offering moderate support, and decent service, until SBC's deep pockets come around.
SBC is here now, imposing outlandishly resource intensive and obtrusive/instrusive dial-up software, which many of it's clients have trouble with... who answers the support calls? Certainly not SBC... they bring their computer to a local repair place (like the one I work in) and say "My internet won't work, and SNET [SBC] won't help us, please fix it."
I'm not sure how many of you /.'ers out there are familiar with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), but within the organization, there is a concept known as Gracious Professionalism. Essentially, it means respecting competitors. Record companies and the movie industry need to learn respect for their market, and realize they shouldn't treat consumers as competitors. (Reading the article, it seems to me this entire proposal is based primarily on MPAA views, and little on actual communication company needs.) Passing fruitless laws will only anger their market, and further increase the decline in movie and record sales. Furthermore, why would they invoke laws to increase the political/legal strength of communications companies at all? What would happen to the family who shares a single cable line to all rooms of their house through a splitter, or internet through a router? Will they be tried as criminals for making use of a service they lawfully pay for? Reading up on certain laws and AUP's, it seems routers are already technically illegal, yet DSL and Cable companies offer to bundle them with their service. What is the world coming to when a market must abuse it's clients "to do the right thing." Gracious professionalism.
*wanders back to his east coast cave*
Is that not essentially what this unit is? A fully integrated PC with a specialized OS designed for video capture and burning? The PC Industry is trying to capitolize on those demands by issuing "Media Center" PCs designed for that exact purpose, integrating PVR functionality while maintaining a complete PC environment. That's exactly the reasoning behind Windows XP Media Center Edition. Aside from which, a bundled Media Center PC from any major brand will run roughly half the price of this new stand alone unit. Granted, my PC is a bit more than that, but the out-of-box units put out by big brands could easily serve an equally functional product to the general public.
Here are the system specs pasted from the translated page: Video recording system / sound recording system MPEG-2 (resolution: D1, 1/2d1 and SIF) / Dolby digital AC3 HDD capacity 80GB HDD maximum video recording time / title number HQ: Approximately 15 hour SP: Approximately 30 hour EP: Approximately 60 hour SLP: Approximately 90 hours / maximum of 200 titles Record possible media DVD-RW (Video: Ver1.1), DVD-R (Ver: 2.0) Reproducible media DVD-RW (VR / Video), DVD-R, DVD video, CD and CD-R/RW (CD-DA) Tuner Ground wave ×1, analog BS×1 Reception channel VHF: 1 - 12CH and UHF: 13 - 62CH, CATV: C13 - C38, BS: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, 15CH *4 Internet browser 0 Letter input method: Software keyboard Also interesting how it's using DVD-R/RW rather than the + Sony has supported in the past...
Run the page through babelfish.altavista.com. Not a perfect translation but enough to get the jist. Looks like it's only capable of 90 hours on it's lowest quality setting. The highest results in 15 hours. Gee.. wonder what type of compression it's using... could it be MPEG-2? Must be if it's designed to burn DVD. How much more could it fit if divx were used? It is kind of nice though, with an 80 gig hard drive, it must keep the price relatively low... Aside from the dvd burner, all other features are standard on most PVRs. The variable bit rate encoding is rather nice, but again, what can this do that my computer (with a dvd burner and all in wonder 9700) can't?
...and one step closer to getting me off this rock.
Apple + Competition = ? If he can succeed (legally)... would this open the door to others following suite? Could it mean legal loopholes which will allow Apple to be cloned? Might benefit the Apple market in general, spurr competition, lower prices, get more publicity. If Apple licensed clones, would they be as popular as PCs are today? Given the nature of OS X, (both asthetically, and hey, it's BSD,) I'd say yes.
More animated violence for protestors and parents of 8 year olds to rally against... Funny how age ratings rarely affect playable audience.
I work for a retail sales/service center, and we have that same Viewsonic monitor for $679. We also have a beautiful CTX 17" PV720 for $399. I actually use the CTX at home, and it has a gorgeous picture, virtually no ghosting (and I play a lot of UT 2003, Jedi Knight II, and Warcraft III), and incredible color depth.
As for the prices of Laptop LCDs to Desktop LCDs, it's understandable as well. In any form of computer component, there are two distributions: OEM and Retail. OEM products are generally less money, barring the packaging and warranty. Retail boxes are just that- packaged and ready for consumer level sales. Laptop manufacturers get screens at bulk AND OEM rates, so they end up dirt cheap for them. LCD monitors, however, can not be obtained OEM, and only huge companies have the buying power to obtain bulk rates. Beneath the increased cost of manufacturing from the framing, electronics, conversion hardware, and packaging/warranty, it is essentially the same technology and same screens powering laptops and TVs. The above are all reasons for increased cost of standalone monitors. Add in the cost of integrating a TV tuner on LCD TVs. Sure, you could buy a laptop LCD for cheap. Add in the manufacturing costs of making it a standalone monitor, and it's pretty good reason for a price increase. In all actuality, it's amazing they are as cheap as they are now, and stlil dropping in price. A replacement 15" LCD panel for a Dell laptop would go for about $499 direct from dell. A 17" LCD Monitor goe sfor 399. Need I say more?
"Secondly, it seems this weapon could very well be used against humans if used at similar frequencies to microwave ovens" In actuality, microwave electromagnetic waves are essentially harmless to humans. There is much hype about the dangers of microwaves, and people developing cancer- but nothing is caused by microwave rays. On the electromagnetic spectrum, microwave frequencies are actually between radio and infra-red- both of which are harmless, unless you feel you're developing cancer by listening to the radio or using a remote control. The dangers come to humans when approaching ultra-violete and X-rays, but those are above the visible spectrum- microwaves are below.
Goldeneye minus the satellite, Russians, and nuclear relativity. Other than that- great idea to avoid civilian casualties while delivering crippling blows to technologically advanced targets.