There are already video cameras which use multiple PCMCIA cards for storage. When you're done shooting, just slide the card into your laptop and edit! I think Panasonic is one of the companies that has it, along with Ikegami.
I do that now with my iTrip. Sit on the couch with the iPod, and have the radio tuned to 76.4, and it works great (I used to think it sucked until I figured out the trick about tuning to frequencies outside the North American FM band). I can even adjust the volume.
It should have an AGP slot and PCI slots. It should have PS2 connectors and more than two USB connectors.
...and ISA slots and a drive controller that can handle MFM and RLL drives, and an SDLC connector, and a 25-pin serial port, and a Centronics printer port, and an IEEE-488 connector all sort of legacy shit that no one gives a crap about anymore. THAT's how you court the mass market! Throw a bunch of TLAs at Average Joe and he's lap it up! Maybe Apple could start sicking "G5 Inside" and "Made for OS X" stickers all over it like some bullshit NASCAR-bastardized Dell.
/sarcasm
Now, please go to your wall and flip your calendar from 1998 to 2005.
Re:Why has corporate America avoided Macs?
on
Hacking Mac OS X
·
· Score: 1
(Ask me how many times I've walked someone through rebuilding their desktop.)
OK, I'll ask -- How many times? Or more specifically, how many times in OS X? Is that even something that's been done since OS 9? I've never done it on my boxes, but except for one, they've always run OS X. Are you re-living bad support calls from the last millennium in your dreams at night, or are you just trolling because you don't have any actual support calls to back up your attitude?
There is a way. If you go to the Finder options you can add a widget to the window that shows all of your previous directories. It's quite useful. I only recently found it myself.
i spend some years working, one of these jobs was at the Denmarks biggest TV station during the time they produced Lars von triers "Riget".
I think you just proved the parent's point. Bully for you for working at Denmark's biggest TV station. I don't have anything against Denmark or the Danish, but on a global scale, it just doesn't rate. Sorry to wake you to reality.
I thought the idea behind going with UMDs was movie protection. It's my understanding that the only plant that can currently make UMDs is owned by Sony, and that game makers have to have their stuff burned by Sony. I think it's Sony trying to stop any potential piracy by owning the only burners on the planet. If it works, I would expect Sony to start releasing its movie library in UMD format. If people start making their own UMDs, then I would expect them not to.
I don't mind the Memory Stick Duo sticks. I can use them in other devices I own like my PDA and my digicam. My photography business is half Memory Stick and half Compact Flash/Microdrive right now, and the photographers tend to lean toward the Memory Sticks because of their size and the fact that they don't suck batteries dry like a Microdrive will. A few months ago I was in New York taking pictures for a client in Germany. I was able go over to Starbucks, pop the Memory Stick out of my camera and into my PDA and e-mail the client a couple of samples. Before I finished my tea, I got a response that they liked the pictures so much they wanted me for another assignment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't hate the Memory Sticks because they're different. Every format has its purpose and audience. Not everything will suit every person.
Does it come with a full game? No. It comes with a full UMD version of Spider-Man 2 though. To me, it seems that the bundle would encourage people to see it as more of a multimedia/entertainment device instead of just a gaming device. If it was primarily a game device, wouldn't it come with a full GAME instead?
Sorry, I can't help your rant there. I bought mine in Japan where they do, indeed, come with games instead of movies.
Actually, I think the anti-French thing in the US comes mostly from the second half of the last century, mostly because of Charles de Gaulle.
You are absolutely correct. Alastair Cook(e?) did a whole segment of "Letter From America" on BBC World Service about this exact thing -- he explained how America learned to hate France. It was really fascinating stuff. Now I'm going to have to scour the BBC archive for it because I can't remember the details.
You are very correct about the whole parents/rent thing. Many in Japan are afraid of losing an entire generation because they're not only afraid to leave their parents' home, they're not leaving their rooms. I forget what the term is for these people, but they fulfill the Slashdot stereotype of 30-somethings in their parents' basements never seeing light. Some form of mass agoraphobia. One news article I read put the estimate over a million.
On the other hand, the depressed American economy is nothing compared to the depressed Japanese economy. It's been in the dumper for over a decade and every day the headlines make it seem worse. There are ads everywhere for legitimate big-time banks loaning money to people at zero percent interest, just to get them as customers. It's partially government incentives to get the economy moving, but after ten years it's gong to take more than than.
I heard that the US release only had 10 or 11 titles. That sucks. I can understand the disappointment, especially considering everything I read on IGN and elsewhere said it would be in the 20-24 range. There are probably 40 or 50 games available in Japan, and many are very playable even if you can't read Japanese. There are a few American companies like YesAsia.com (I'm not in any way related to them, not even a customer) that sell Japanese PSP titles in the U.S. From what I've seen the prices are virtually identitcal to the Japanese prices.
As compared to the open format on the DS? Or the GBA? Or the Atari Lynx? I think people expect proprietary formats on game machines, especially portable ones.
They say that timing is everything. I think the PSP might be a good example of this. It should have been released before Christmas when people were ready to spend money, not in the heat of tax season when people are worried about their financial future. Sony probably couldn't make enough units to feed both Japan and the United States, and chose not to take a dump in their own backyard. But it might bite them in the end. I got my PSP in Japan a while back, and I love it. But I can understand why some people are hesitant.
The problem is that it doesn't work that well, if at all. I've tried four or five programs that promise to convert video into a format the PSP can eat. They are all as buggy as alphaware, and all appear to be just front-ends for ffmpeg. I've tried both Windows and OS X versions of these prorams, and not one has managed to make a file the PSP will recognize as anything but "corruped data."
iPSP is the slickest and the one I wish would work most. PSPVideo9 is the one that got closest to producing a useable file. But the file when played on the PSP showed just a black screen, controls and on-screen display worked, but nothing played and the PSP crashed. Still, it did better than the other programs which crash while still on the computer.
A good point about the culture. Also, remember people in Japan pay a lot in rent, but not so much for decorating their homes as Americans since there's less home to decorate and culturally they don't hang as much crap on the walls. I think they're more apt to dispose of their disposable income on gadgets.
That said, in my time in Tokyo I saw exactly ONE Playstation Portable. This was about three weeks ago. A girl was playing Lumines on the subway. I was sucked in just watching it and the next day I plopped down my credit card at Yodobashi Camera.
They seemed to be selling well, though. In the time it took me to decide which games to buy with it, they sold three other units. And this was four months after the initial release. Make of that what you will.
still the concept is nice, until my mobile phone kicks its ass in 2006
Wow. That's going to be one big mobile phone to handle a screen that large. How will you fit it in your pocket? I guess the up side is that the vibrate function could be exponentially stronger.
I'm not sure if Cuba allows people to leave, except in very special circumstances.
Yeah, like in the middle of the night on a cobbled-together raft trying to get to freedom in America. People in so many (mainly European) countries are so far removed from opression, they've forgotten what tyrany is really like, and turn their venom toward countries that offer a form of freedom they don't understand.
Where did you get that idea? Just because the US does it, then, of course, all governments do it?
Greece and Turkey do it. And just about every other country restricts incoming visitors. They restrict you through visas and tourist/student visiting periods. You obviously haven't traveled enough to know what you're talking about.
I was in the Illinois Department of Revenue offices this week getting a little tax thingy straightened out, and noticed that all of the machines there are Windows 95. I could see in the taskbar that there was some sort of anti-virus program running (I'm a Mac guy, so I can't tell which one it was). I came to a similar conclusion -- there is no reason for them to spend my tax dollars upgrading to the latest whiz-bang Wintel box covered with the geek version of NASCAR stickers when what they're using seems to work just right.
Although, it was surprising to see that certain form letters aren't generated by some fancy computer program -- they're done in Wordpad with the clerk simply replacing the name/address area and the appropriate text in a couple of places.
Could it be that the reason the supply of shuffles is so inelastic to demand is that Apple and its OEM are having a cat-fight, and this is a power play by Lux?
Certain Apple stores seemed to get a lot more Shuffles than others. I remember in Chicago they all disappeared off the shelves within hours of being released, and it took weeks for a new supply to come in. At the same time, the Apple store in Tokyo had crates and crates and crates of them. And for good reason. One random weeknight I waited in line with 200 other people to buy one for my wife. Most people bought two or three at a time, plus a full suite of accessories. And this wasn't even immediately after the release -- this was a month later. From what I've seen there's a huge pent-up demand for Apple products in Japan. Yodobashi Camera (think eight floors of Best Buy on crack) is still sold out of 1G models. And I've seen people at the Ginza Apple store buy Mac Minis by the armload. Considering the fact that Apple products cost US$10 to US$30 more in Japan, I can understand why they'd get more product than U.S. stores.
Why not put in a decent cell phone set up into a decent camera. There's enough processing power and battery life,etc.
Mod yourself -1 Clueless.
You really have no idea that this device's purpose is, do you? It's temporary storage for people with high-end digital cameras who don't want to/can't drag around a laptop. After I've taken a picture with my 11 megapixel camera, why do I need a crappy.8 megapixel camera in my photo tank?
Slashdot Mirror
See! Now you're fully immersed in the Wintel experience.
Funny how Macs get faster as new versions of OS X come out, but old Windows boxes get slower with each Windows upgrade.
There are already video cameras which use multiple PCMCIA cards for storage. When you're done shooting, just slide the card into your laptop and edit! I think Panasonic is one of the companies that has it, along with Ikegami.
I do that now with my iTrip. Sit on the couch with the iPod, and have the radio tuned to 76.4, and it works great (I used to think it sucked until I figured out the trick about tuning to frequencies outside the North American FM band). I can even adjust the volume.
It should have an AGP slot and PCI slots. It should have PS2 connectors and more than two USB connectors.
...and ISA slots and a drive controller that can handle MFM and RLL drives, and an SDLC connector, and a 25-pin serial port, and a Centronics printer port, and an IEEE-488 connector all sort of legacy shit that no one gives a crap about anymore. THAT's how you court the mass market! Throw a bunch of TLAs at Average Joe and he's lap it up! Maybe Apple could start sicking "G5 Inside" and "Made for OS X" stickers all over it like some bullshit NASCAR-bastardized Dell.
/sarcasm
Now, please go to your wall and flip your calendar from 1998 to 2005.
(Ask me how many times I've walked someone through rebuilding their desktop.)
OK, I'll ask -- How many times? Or more specifically, how many times in OS X? Is that even something that's been done since OS 9? I've never done it on my boxes, but except for one, they've always run OS X. Are you re-living bad support calls from the last millennium in your dreams at night, or are you just trolling because you don't have any actual support calls to back up your attitude?
There is a way. If you go to the Finder options you can add a widget to the window that shows all of your previous directories. It's quite useful. I only recently found it myself.
i spend some years working, one of these jobs was at the Denmarks biggest TV station during the time they produced Lars von triers "Riget".
I think you just proved the parent's point. Bully for you for working at Denmark's biggest TV station. I don't have anything against Denmark or the Danish, but on a global scale, it just doesn't rate. Sorry to wake you to reality.
Very surreal.
I thought the idea behind going with UMDs was movie protection. It's my understanding that the only plant that can currently make UMDs is owned by Sony, and that game makers have to have their stuff burned by Sony. I think it's Sony trying to stop any potential piracy by owning the only burners on the planet. If it works, I would expect Sony to start releasing its movie library in UMD format. If people start making their own UMDs, then I would expect them not to.
I don't mind the Memory Stick Duo sticks. I can use them in other devices I own like my PDA and my digicam. My photography business is half Memory Stick and half Compact Flash/Microdrive right now, and the photographers tend to lean toward the Memory Sticks because of their size and the fact that they don't suck batteries dry like a Microdrive will. A few months ago I was in New York taking pictures for a client in Germany. I was able go over to Starbucks, pop the Memory Stick out of my camera and into my PDA and e-mail the client a couple of samples. Before I finished my tea, I got a response that they liked the pictures so much they wanted me for another assignment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't hate the Memory Sticks because they're different. Every format has its purpose and audience. Not everything will suit every person.
Does it come with a full game? No. It comes with a full UMD version of Spider-Man 2 though. To me, it seems that the bundle would encourage people to see it as more of a multimedia/entertainment device instead of just a gaming device. If it was primarily a game device, wouldn't it come with a full GAME instead?
Sorry, I can't help your rant there. I bought mine in Japan where they do, indeed, come with games instead of movies.
Actually, I think you missed the point. It's called "dry humor."
Actually, I think the anti-French thing in the US comes mostly from the second half of the last century, mostly because of Charles de Gaulle.
You are absolutely correct. Alastair Cook(e?) did a whole segment of "Letter From America" on BBC World Service about this exact thing -- he explained how America learned to hate France. It was really fascinating stuff. Now I'm going to have to scour the BBC archive for it because I can't remember the details.
You are very correct about the whole parents/rent thing. Many in Japan are afraid of losing an entire generation because they're not only afraid to leave their parents' home, they're not leaving their rooms. I forget what the term is for these people, but they fulfill the Slashdot stereotype of 30-somethings in their parents' basements never seeing light. Some form of mass agoraphobia. One news article I read put the estimate over a million. On the other hand, the depressed American economy is nothing compared to the depressed Japanese economy. It's been in the dumper for over a decade and every day the headlines make it seem worse. There are ads everywhere for legitimate big-time banks loaning money to people at zero percent interest, just to get them as customers. It's partially government incentives to get the economy moving, but after ten years it's gong to take more than than. I heard that the US release only had 10 or 11 titles. That sucks. I can understand the disappointment, especially considering everything I read on IGN and elsewhere said it would be in the 20-24 range. There are probably 40 or 50 games available in Japan, and many are very playable even if you can't read Japanese. There are a few American companies like YesAsia.com (I'm not in any way related to them, not even a customer) that sell Japanese PSP titles in the U.S. From what I've seen the prices are virtually identitcal to the Japanese prices.
As compared to the open format on the DS? Or the GBA? Or the Atari Lynx? I think people expect proprietary formats on game machines, especially portable ones.
They say that timing is everything. I think the PSP might be a good example of this. It should have been released before Christmas when people were ready to spend money, not in the heat of tax season when people are worried about their financial future. Sony probably couldn't make enough units to feed both Japan and the United States, and chose not to take a dump in their own backyard. But it might bite them in the end. I got my PSP in Japan a while back, and I love it. But I can understand why some people are hesitant.
The problem is that it doesn't work that well, if at all. I've tried four or five programs that promise to convert video into a format the PSP can eat. They are all as buggy as alphaware, and all appear to be just front-ends for ffmpeg. I've tried both Windows and OS X versions of these prorams, and not one has managed to make a file the PSP will recognize as anything but "corruped data."
iPSP is the slickest and the one I wish would work most. PSPVideo9 is the one that got closest to producing a useable file. But the file when played on the PSP showed just a black screen, controls and on-screen display worked, but nothing played and the PSP crashed. Still, it did better than the other programs which crash while still on the computer.
A good point about the culture. Also, remember people in Japan pay a lot in rent, but not so much for decorating their homes as Americans since there's less home to decorate and culturally they don't hang as much crap on the walls. I think they're more apt to dispose of their disposable income on gadgets.
That said, in my time in Tokyo I saw exactly ONE Playstation Portable. This was about three weeks ago. A girl was playing Lumines on the subway. I was sucked in just watching it and the next day I plopped down my credit card at Yodobashi Camera.
They seemed to be selling well, though. In the time it took me to decide which games to buy with it, they sold three other units. And this was four months after the initial release. Make of that what you will.
still the concept is nice, until my mobile phone kicks its ass in 2006
Wow. That's going to be one big mobile phone to handle a screen that large. How will you fit it in your pocket? I guess the up side is that the vibrate function could be exponentially stronger.
Who put a trashcan on the desktop?
I think Apple did. Wasn't this part of a lawsuit back in the 80's?
So, how should they obtain the admin password for installing software, praytell?
They could always innovate. The way the Windows drones talk about Microsoft it should be no problem.
I'm not sure if Cuba allows people to leave, except in very special circumstances.
Yeah, like in the middle of the night on a cobbled-together raft trying to get to freedom in America. People in so many (mainly European) countries are so far removed from opression, they've forgotten what tyrany is really like, and turn their venom toward countries that offer a form of freedom they don't understand.
Where did you get that idea? Just because the US does it, then, of course, all governments do it?
Greece and Turkey do it. And just about every other country restricts incoming visitors. They restrict you through visas and tourist/student visiting periods. You obviously haven't traveled enough to know what you're talking about.
I was in the Illinois Department of Revenue offices this week getting a little tax thingy straightened out, and noticed that all of the machines there are Windows 95. I could see in the taskbar that there was some sort of anti-virus program running (I'm a Mac guy, so I can't tell which one it was). I came to a similar conclusion -- there is no reason for them to spend my tax dollars upgrading to the latest whiz-bang Wintel box covered with the geek version of NASCAR stickers when what they're using seems to work just right.
Although, it was surprising to see that certain form letters aren't generated by some fancy computer program -- they're done in Wordpad with the clerk simply replacing the name/address area and the appropriate text in a couple of places.
Could it be that the reason the supply of shuffles is so inelastic to demand is that Apple and its OEM are having a cat-fight, and this is a power play by Lux?
Certain Apple stores seemed to get a lot more Shuffles than others. I remember in Chicago they all disappeared off the shelves within hours of being released, and it took weeks for a new supply to come in. At the same time, the Apple store in Tokyo had crates and crates and crates of them. And for good reason. One random weeknight I waited in line with 200 other people to buy one for my wife. Most people bought two or three at a time, plus a full suite of accessories. And this wasn't even immediately after the release -- this was a month later. From what I've seen there's a huge pent-up demand for Apple products in Japan. Yodobashi Camera (think eight floors of Best Buy on crack) is still sold out of 1G models. And I've seen people at the Ginza Apple store buy Mac Minis by the armload. Considering the fact that Apple products cost US$10 to US$30 more in Japan, I can understand why they'd get more product than U.S. stores.
Why not put in a decent cell phone set up into a decent camera. There's enough processing power and battery life ,etc.
.8 megapixel camera in my photo tank?
Mod yourself -1 Clueless.
You really have no idea that this device's purpose is, do you? It's temporary storage for people with high-end digital cameras who don't want to/can't drag around a laptop. After I've taken a picture with my 11 megapixel camera, why do I need a crappy