Google Earth was not cross-platform from the start. It was Windows-only, then Mac and Linux support came later.
Back when the program was Keyhole (and it has changed very little since Google acquired them, except perhaps gotten faster and cheaper), it was also Windows-only, though they had a Mac version "in the works".
But that just lends extra plausability to the idea that they may release versions for other platforms in the future.
The recent extra protocol documentation is entirely due to antitrust cases, and I don't see any evidence that their patenting is slowing down. I don't think this report implies otherwise.
IBM have a number of successes, but are far from the model of software success. They also weren't typically using software patents to enforce software monopolies (and when they could, did).
For the most part, Microsoft isn't obtaining patents to extract licensing costs - it's to ensure that there is little competition. They don't want pocket change. They want to make sure they're the only game in town.
I agree, it does seem like they're trying to imply that there's only a 1 out of 5 chance that anything related to the Samba technical detail licensing is patented.
The announcement has a lot of ambiguities (and IANAL), but it appears hey agreed that:
1) Samba Team members would receive access to protocol documentation. This information would only be available to Samba Team members, and available only under NDA 2) Access to information would not restrict CODE that could be produced using this information 3) It does not provide any patent coverage. 4) However, Microsoft would provide a list of patents covering the protocols used by Samba, and keep the list updated. This provides Samba folks a way to understand exactly what methods to avoid - which infringe patents. 5) Microsoft agreed that any patents not detailed in this list and found to be infringed cannot be "asserted" by Microsoft.
Presumably, there are items that MS will provide for #4, so there are patents that relate to Samba.
True, though not terribly feasible if other changes have dependencies on the code you don't want. Especially when the changes themselves aren't easily compartmentalized, and the changes themselves are changed over time. You can't just say "I want to build a kernel that excludes these 1000 changes". You'll end up with something that won't compile, and won't be trivial to make work.
If you want to create (and possibly maintain) a forked version of kernel without the offending changes, fine, but that may be an unfeasibly large amount of work, especially considering the number of changes they make.
Because you need more than 130Kbps (up to 1Mbps) for Last.FM?
Big problem with EDGE and even the 3G transports is latency. Latency isn't really an issue for streaming applications, like net radio. It's a big problem for anything that needs to be interactive, or that performs lots of small, mostly synchronous I/Os.
I've never understood why latency is so high with GPRS and other systems, though. It must be something in signal processing, since distance definitely isn't the issue. Any experts on this around?
Very strange. I wonder what the difference is. I know I'm not the only person seeing no difference in some cases, and weird that it's consistent for me across browsers and platforms.
I'm not THAT interested in this quirk, just a little bit. =)
But I tried a few different things, viewing the video WITHOUT the &fmt=6 first:
- FF3 on XP - Same with/without the &fmt=6 - FF2 on XP - Same with/without the &fmt=6 - IE6 on XP - Same - FF3 on Mac 10.4 - Same with/without - Safari 3 on Mac - DIFFERENT with/without the &fmt=6 - Opera on Mac 10.4 - DIFFERENT with/without - Opera on XP - DIFFERENT with/without...So it looks to me like Firefox and IE users get the high-quality video by default, whereas Safari and Opera (and maybe other browsers) get the low-quality one? That's weird.
There's a comment like this in the blog as well, responded to by the author. I'm pretty sure I see no the difference. I wonder if there's any chance that it's browser-related, or something is getting cached? On my system (running FF3 Beta 3 with no particular cookie blockers or special extensions) the two videos (with and without the &fmt=6) are the same. Maybe since I viewed the "high-quality" one first, I'm getting served up the same video with and without the &fmt=6 at this point. Or maybe FF3 gets higher res for some reason?
But I believe you guys when you say there's a definite difference for you. I just wonder if some of us ALWAYS see the higher-quality videos =)
I've watched the linked-to video several times both with and without the fmt=6 parameter, and they both look identical to me. Same in terms of blurriness, artifacting, and resolution. I've been watching in full-screen and looked at a couple of same-frame examples. In fact, neither one looks as blurry as the "low-quality" example in the guy's blog. At least in this case, is there actually any difference??
Under a Killing Moon was the sequel to Memorandum, not the other way around. And there were 5 entries in the series total. Under a Killing Moon was a 4-CD game and used a LOT of motion video (1994 game) with semi-big name actors (Brian Keith, voice of James Earl Jones, Margot Kidder), though I'm not sure if it did the PC speaker sound (I don't think it did).
Mean Streets was the prequel to MM, first game in the series, and also used Real Sound. That game was loosely remade into Overseer, the fifth game in the series. That's probably the one you're thinking of.
No, it's brilliant. I'd pay real money for a Blade Runner Ultra-Super-Final Edition with Elmer Fudd as the chinese guy (and maybe some of the guys from Dragon Ball Z as the replicants, etc)
It's not so much a "how it influenced video gameS", but "how it influenced A video game", but Blade Runner definitely influenced a game called Martian Memorandum. In fact, it pretty blatently ripped off elements of a number of differend Philip K. Dick-related properties, including plot elements of Blade Runner and Total Recall, and most directly, the visuals of Blade Runner (right down to Tyrell's giant Pyramid office and windows).
Martian Memorandum is one of those weird games that no one ever discusses and there's virtually no information about on the 'net, despite the fact that it was part of a 5-game series spanning 10 years. It was fairly leading-edge game at the time (1990). It was a Sierra Adventure-type game with mouse/keyboard interface, but it had a much grittier look and storyline than anything Sierra or Lucasfilm were putting out (Virgin would start to come close with "Beneath a Steel Sky" 4 years later, though Memorandum was more cyberpunk-noir with less goofy humor). It was visually well done, taking full advantage of VGA (still a rarity at the time). It even had a little full motion video and one of the only games to do speech - even through the *PC speaker*. But it had a good storyline and was a pretty good game overall.
I don't know why it's turned out to be one of those largely forgotten games. I suppose some of the sequels, like "Under a Killing Moon" and "The Pandora Directive" got some mainstream attention, but Memorandum is worth checking out.
I hate to go off-topic, I just hate it more when I see people make wildly untrue claims. People start to believe them (like the person who modded this up).
"If./ readers haven't noticed, Googles gross revenue is getting mightily close to M$FT. In fact, if you extrapolate the growth, 2008 will likely be the year Google surpasses M$FT in gross revenue."
As much as I'd like this to be true and to see Microsoft's relative power in the industry reduced (not eliminated, just reduced significantly to help encourage competition), this isn't true at all.
Goog's gross revenue in the last 4 quarters was 14.9B (roughly equivalent to Microsoft's fiscal 2007). 2006 annual revenue was 10.6B, 2005 was 6.1B. I'm not sure what "Extrapolating the growth" means, but if they grow at their 2007 rate (not Goog's fiscal 2007, for which they're on target to hit about 16.8B), they should do about 23B in 2008. I'm not sure what Doubleclick revenues are (I expect it's some fraction of the 3B that Goog paid for them), but I don't expect it to tack on more than a few B onto that number.
Microsoft did 51.1B for their fiscal 2007, and if they grow at the same rate as they did in fiscal 2007, they'll hit about $59B. So with current growth rates you wouldn't see Google surpass MS. In fact, even if Goog grew at 60% next year (including Doubleclick revenues), they wouldn't surpass MS unless the software giant HALVED their revenues.
I'll avoid making comments about how likely Linux would be to make a real dent in MS' desktop share in 2008...Even if Google placed links to download "GooLinux" right on their homepage and distributed it through every Adsense partner or, heck, paid to have a free DVD with every PC sale.
I remember shopping at CompUSA back when it was Soft Warehouse. In my area, for computer stuff, it was virtually the only game in town except a handful of mom and pop shops. Oh, and the bargain bin. I picked up Microsoft UFO (pre-Flight Sim) and 5 null modem cables for $1 each. Didn't know what I was going to do with 5 null modem cables, but who can pass up that kind of deal???
In the end, there was virtually no reason to shop there versus any of their numerous competitors, including Microcenter, Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's(!), and, well, the Internet. They kept flirting with trying to do consumer electronics, and I had to wonder why they were intentionally trying to eliminate differentiators from, say, Best Buy. MP3 players and cameras were one thing, but when they started displacing computer stock with flat screen TVs (in their relatively tiny stores), I just couldn't understand the business plan. They were at a point where their only differentiating factor from the other (all larger) shops was as a niche "computer only" store. So why try to become yet another generic electronics shop, already an overly-congested market?
Okay, fine, then use OpenGL for the 3d rendering, and platform-specific stuff for the rest. It's still MUCH easier to port, and breaks you out of the Vista lockin (unless the audio and interface handling APIs in DirectX 10 really ARE that much better/required).
However, I cringe when I hear this argument for the same reason that I cringe every time I see someone correct someone saying "Linux" with "GNU/Linux". Yes, you may be technically more correct, but you KNOW what they meant, and in 99% of cases the pedantism doesn't change the point of their argument one bit. (Please, let's not get off on this tangent)
There is nothing in the current info that provides and insight on "how it will be done yet". They could have easily released this info earlier, except left off the estimated timeframe (if that's the part that they're more clear on now)
Slashdot Mirror
Wait...Wait a minute. Don't you want this doorknocker?
Google Earth was not cross-platform from the start. It was Windows-only, then Mac and Linux support came later.
Back when the program was Keyhole (and it has changed very little since Google acquired them, except perhaps gotten faster and cheaper), it was also Windows-only, though they had a Mac version "in the works".
But that just lends extra plausability to the idea that they may release versions for other platforms in the future.
Man. Mod that parent up.
Also, is it 500,000 web *sites* identified so far, or 510,000 web *pages*?
eh?
The recent extra protocol documentation is entirely due to antitrust cases, and I don't see any evidence that their patenting is slowing down. I don't think this report implies otherwise.
IBM have a number of successes, but are far from the model of software success. They also weren't typically using software patents to enforce software monopolies (and when they could, did).
For the most part, Microsoft isn't obtaining patents to extract licensing costs - it's to ensure that there is little competition. They don't want pocket change. They want to make sure they're the only game in town.
I agree, it does seem like they're trying to imply that there's only a 1 out of 5 chance that anything related to the Samba technical detail licensing is patented.
Here is a relevant link:
http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/ - The Samba licensing announcement.
The announcement has a lot of ambiguities (and IANAL), but it appears hey agreed that:
1) Samba Team members would receive access to protocol documentation. This information would only be available to Samba Team members, and available only under NDA
2) Access to information would not restrict CODE that could be produced using this information
3) It does not provide any patent coverage.
4) However, Microsoft would provide a list of patents covering the protocols used by Samba, and keep the list updated. This provides Samba folks a way to understand exactly what methods to avoid - which infringe patents.
5) Microsoft agreed that any patents not detailed in this list and found to be infringed cannot be "asserted" by Microsoft.
Presumably, there are items that MS will provide for #4, so there are patents that relate to Samba.
True, though not terribly feasible if other changes have dependencies on the code you don't want. Especially when the changes themselves aren't easily compartmentalized, and the changes themselves are changed over time. You can't just say "I want to build a kernel that excludes these 1000 changes". You'll end up with something that won't compile, and won't be trivial to make work.
If you want to create (and possibly maintain) a forked version of kernel without the offending changes, fine, but that may be an unfeasibly large amount of work, especially considering the number of changes they make.
Sorry - 237Kbps up to 473Kbps, not 130-1Mbps
Because you need more than 130Kbps (up to 1Mbps) for Last.FM?
Big problem with EDGE and even the 3G transports is latency. Latency isn't really an issue for streaming applications, like net radio. It's a big problem for anything that needs to be interactive, or that performs lots of small, mostly synchronous I/Os.
I've never understood why latency is so high with GPRS and other systems, though. It must be something in signal processing, since distance definitely isn't the issue. Any experts on this around?
Very strange. I wonder what the difference is. I know I'm not the only person seeing no difference in some cases, and weird that it's consistent for me across browsers and platforms.
I'm not THAT interested in this quirk, just a little bit. =)
...So it looks to me like Firefox and IE users get the high-quality video by default, whereas Safari and Opera (and maybe other browsers) get the low-quality one? That's weird.
But I tried a few different things, viewing the video WITHOUT the &fmt=6 first:
- FF3 on XP - Same with/without the &fmt=6
- FF2 on XP - Same with/without the &fmt=6
- IE6 on XP - Same
- FF3 on Mac 10.4 - Same with/without
- Safari 3 on Mac - DIFFERENT with/without the &fmt=6
- Opera on Mac 10.4 - DIFFERENT with/without
- Opera on XP - DIFFERENT with/without
There's a comment like this in the blog as well, responded to by the author. I'm pretty sure I see no the difference. I wonder if there's any chance that it's browser-related, or something is getting cached? On my system (running FF3 Beta 3 with no particular cookie blockers or special extensions) the two videos (with and without the &fmt=6) are the same. Maybe since I viewed the "high-quality" one first, I'm getting served up the same video with and without the &fmt=6 at this point. Or maybe FF3 gets higher res for some reason?
But I believe you guys when you say there's a definite difference for you. I just wonder if some of us ALWAYS see the higher-quality videos =)
I've watched the linked-to video several times both with and without the fmt=6 parameter, and they both look identical to me. Same in terms of blurriness, artifacting, and resolution. I've been watching in full-screen and looked at a couple of same-frame examples. In fact, neither one looks as blurry as the "low-quality" example in the guy's blog. At least in this case, is there actually any difference??
The product itself is video. The video isn't a sales pitch about the product - the video IS the product.
Under a Killing Moon was the sequel to Memorandum, not the other way around. And there were 5 entries in the series total. Under a Killing Moon was a 4-CD game and used a LOT of motion video (1994 game) with semi-big name actors (Brian Keith, voice of James Earl Jones, Margot Kidder), though I'm not sure if it did the PC speaker sound (I don't think it did).
Mean Streets was the prequel to MM, first game in the series, and also used Real Sound. That game was loosely remade into Overseer, the fifth game in the series. That's probably the one you're thinking of.
No, it's brilliant. I'd pay real money for a Blade Runner Ultra-Super-Final Edition with Elmer Fudd as the chinese guy (and maybe some of the guys from Dragon Ball Z as the replicants, etc)
It's not so much a "how it influenced video gameS", but "how it influenced A video game", but Blade Runner definitely influenced a game called Martian Memorandum. In fact, it pretty blatently ripped off elements of a number of differend Philip K. Dick-related properties, including plot elements of Blade Runner and Total Recall, and most directly, the visuals of Blade Runner (right down to Tyrell's giant Pyramid office and windows).
Martian Memorandum is one of those weird games that no one ever discusses and there's virtually no information about on the 'net, despite the fact that it was part of a 5-game series spanning 10 years. It was fairly leading-edge game at the time (1990). It was a Sierra Adventure-type game with mouse/keyboard interface, but it had a much grittier look and storyline than anything Sierra or Lucasfilm were putting out (Virgin would start to come close with "Beneath a Steel Sky" 4 years later, though Memorandum was more cyberpunk-noir with less goofy humor). It was visually well done, taking full advantage of VGA (still a rarity at the time). It even had a little full motion video and one of the only games to do speech - even through the *PC speaker*. But it had a good storyline and was a pretty good game overall.
I don't know why it's turned out to be one of those largely forgotten games. I suppose some of the sequels, like "Under a Killing Moon" and "The Pandora Directive" got some mainstream attention, but Memorandum is worth checking out.
Wait, are you playing "What if Elmer Fudd played the old chinese guy in Blade Runner"?
I hate to go off-topic, I just hate it more when I see people make wildly untrue claims. People start to believe them (like the person who modded this up).
./ readers haven't noticed, Googles gross revenue is getting mightily close to M$FT. In fact, if you extrapolate the growth, 2008 will likely be the year Google surpasses M$FT in gross revenue."
"If
As much as I'd like this to be true and to see Microsoft's relative power in the industry reduced (not eliminated, just reduced significantly to help encourage competition), this isn't true at all.
Goog's gross revenue in the last 4 quarters was 14.9B (roughly equivalent to Microsoft's fiscal 2007). 2006 annual revenue was 10.6B, 2005 was 6.1B. I'm not sure what "Extrapolating the growth" means, but if they grow at their 2007 rate (not Goog's fiscal 2007, for which they're on target to hit about 16.8B), they should do about 23B in 2008. I'm not sure what Doubleclick revenues are (I expect it's some fraction of the 3B that Goog paid for them), but I don't expect it to tack on more than a few B onto that number.
Microsoft did 51.1B for their fiscal 2007, and if they grow at the same rate as they did in fiscal 2007, they'll hit about $59B. So with current growth rates you wouldn't see Google surpass MS. In fact, even if Goog grew at 60% next year (including Doubleclick revenues), they wouldn't surpass MS unless the software giant HALVED their revenues.
I'll avoid making comments about how likely Linux would be to make a real dent in MS' desktop share in 2008...Even if Google placed links to download "GooLinux" right on their homepage and distributed it through every Adsense partner or, heck, paid to have a free DVD with every PC sale.
They will refuse to do it which is further PROOF that Google is becoming evil.
Molecular Techniques? Is that like back in the 50s, when suddenly everything became associated with "the atom"?
"New, Fallout Man. With Kung Fu grip and the Power Of the Atom! (Note: Contains REAL ATOMS!!!)"
I remember shopping at CompUSA back when it was Soft Warehouse. In my area, for computer stuff, it was virtually the only game in town except a handful of mom and pop shops. Oh, and the bargain bin. I picked up Microsoft UFO (pre-Flight Sim) and 5 null modem cables for $1 each. Didn't know what I was going to do with 5 null modem cables, but who can pass up that kind of deal???
In the end, there was virtually no reason to shop there versus any of their numerous competitors, including Microcenter, Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's(!), and, well, the Internet. They kept flirting with trying to do consumer electronics, and I had to wonder why they were intentionally trying to eliminate differentiators from, say, Best Buy. MP3 players and cameras were one thing, but when they started displacing computer stock with flat screen TVs (in their relatively tiny stores), I just couldn't understand the business plan. They were at a point where their only differentiating factor from the other (all larger) shops was as a niche "computer only" store. So why try to become yet another generic electronics shop, already an overly-congested market?
Okay, fine, then use OpenGL for the 3d rendering, and platform-specific stuff for the rest. It's still MUCH easier to port, and breaks you out of the Vista lockin (unless the audio and interface handling APIs in DirectX 10 really ARE that much better/required).
However, I cringe when I hear this argument for the same reason that I cringe every time I see someone correct someone saying "Linux" with "GNU/Linux". Yes, you may be technically more correct, but you KNOW what they meant, and in 99% of cases the pedantism doesn't change the point of their argument one bit. (Please, let's not get off on this tangent)
There is nothing in the current info that provides and insight on "how it will be done yet". They could have easily released this info earlier, except left off the estimated timeframe (if that's the part that they're more clear on now)