So what you are saying is that they have a process which faithfully mimics the MPEG they recorded.
Fine.
The uncanny valley isn't then involved. If they had taken the mask created, and had the CGI Emily do something that the real Emily hadn't, then we'd be getting somewhere.
The whole point of motion capture is about getting over the uncanny valley, and they've been doing that for years with CGI.
What's new about this, is that Emily didn't have to sit in front of a blue screen with hundreds of reflective dots stuck to her face, and that in itself is no small feat.
No it's not - the technique uses image processing to capture motion, not for generating photo-realistic images.
The video shows Emily (a real person) talking, only at the end of the video do they show the results of their capture software by overlaying the generated images over Emily's face.
This is Motion Capture not CGI.
Please lets get the terminology correct - the perp's image was distorted with a swirl tool, not blurred. The distinction is that distorting moves the image data to different locations based on a mathematical formula, usually with little change to the data, run that formula in reverse regains the original image.
Blurring spreads the data from a single pixel over an undetermined number of other pixels. Depending on how the blur is applied gives varying degrees of difficulty in reversing the blur. Applying a Gaussian blur to the whole image or section usually means that the Gaussian is used once on each pixel so the new pixel's value is a known sum of the pixels around it. However, most image packages have a blur tool that blurs what's under the cursor, so the movement of the cursor determines what the contribution is to the final pixels.
It's great that the prep obviously had no understanding of the difference, as with any luck he'll be caught.
Not necessarily true - and LCD must apply a voltage to a pixel to cause a rotation in the liquid crystal, so if your default (zero voltage) is transparent, then a white background would save energy, if opaque, then black would save energy.
However, I assume that CRTs still out-number LCDs so overall black would win in the energy saving contest. And in addition CRTs use significantly more energy than an LCD.
What I want to know is if the iPhone's dock socket is plug compatible with existing iPod docking stations? Can I use my existing iPod players (iHome, HK Drive + Play, etc.) with the iPhone? I've searched for information, but can't find anything and it's impossible to tell from the images on the iPhone website.
After reading the article, I don't see how this order can stand (IANAL). She ruled that RAM is an electronic document as as such Torrent Spy must turn on logging - but that would be two separate issues. If the RAM is an electronic document, then she might be able to tell TS to create a file containing every change to the RAM as that would represent the "contents of the document". Her telling them to turn on logging is asking them to create a *NEW* document as part of discovery, which I'm fairly certain is not allowed.
Can a judge make you create a new document based on existing, if fleeting, data? I had assumed that you could only be ordered to hand over the data itself. For example, if you have a database, you can be ordered to hand over the data files and not a new report based off the data. Maybe one of you lawyerly types out there can answer this.
So what tools are available to check for bot activity on your network? From what I've read, it seems to be to monitor port 6667 (IRC) for non-human readable text.
How so? How would Apple only delivering DRM free music give any leverage to record companies to make other online stores sell more restricted music?
All the other DRM out there won't play on iPods, so iPod owners won't buy from anyone apart from iTMS or stores that also sell DRM free music. The best that record companies could hope for is that iPod users would buy CDs instead.
Apple closing down shop on DRM music will be viewed as an admission that permissive or no DRM can't work. It can't in the long run. As an encryption method it's bust. The best you can hope for is that it doesn't get to much in the way of users, and in that respect FairPlay is the least evil. People buy DVDs because they will play in practically all players (ignoring region codes). Imagine how small the market for DVDs would be if they only played in the player you bought it for. Sure people would still buy them, but nowhere in the numbers that they do, and the rental market would disappear. And that is exactly the situation we have with music. Just look at the Zune - Plays for sure, sure doesn't!
Apple is in a very powerful place right now. Their market share in players means that they can now start playing hard ball with the record companies. By their own admission only 3% of music on iPods was bought at iTMS and that represents 2 billion downloads. Just doubling iTMS sales represents a lot of money for the record companies, and I think the sales would be even higher.
Alternately, if Apple stopped selling DRMed music, iPod users are just going to turn to other sources from that 3% - must probably turn to the P2P networks. And that represents a fair old bit of change the record companies aren't going to see. And I imagine the artists ain't going to keep quiet about it either.
Then maybe Jobs should stop selling DRMed music - period.
As Apple doesn't license FairPlay, the record companies would have to come onboard or see their online sales tank. Of course, they could open their own online stores selling DRM free music to iPod owners, which would be fine.
So let Jobs and Goldberg put their money where their mouths are - lets have a week (or longer?) where they will only sell non-DRMed. Any record company not willing to go without DRM won't have any sales for that period.
I for one would be interested to see what the sales numbers would be.
Personally, I would be willing to pay for non-DRMed tracks (and I do from http://bleep.com/)
Tortora explained that a 30GB of HDD-based iPod is sufficient for around 40 hours of video content, but only has about 3.5 hours of battery life for video playback. He added that replacing the hard drive with flash memory would allow for an increase of about 60 percent in battery life to 5.5 hours of video playback.
Based on these numbers, 5.5 hours only needs about 4GB of flash, so if you really want this, combine both flash and HDD in the device - then simply move the video file to flash before playback.
There are several problems with earth orbits - one, while it might be cheap to get there, you have to keep going there as you have no resources, at least with the moon there is potential for making it self-sustained. Two, in orbit, you are completely at the mercy of solar radiation. On the moon, you can always bury the living quarters under tonnes of rock.
If a moon base is premature, it's more to do with solving problems here on earth first - let's spend money fixing earth before we start trashing other planets/moons.
I guess the question is not about whether science is political or not - as you rightly point out, when any uncertainty exists there is room for political or other emotionally charged ideas to creep in and color the discussion.
No, the question is whether the teaching of science should be political. And I would come down firmly on the side of NO. Both politics and religion have no place in a science classroom. I'm probably being very idealistic, but it's a sad fact that all too often that people (politicians) with little science understanding or idealogical axes to grind dedicate what is taught in our schools. Just look at the hoopla over creationism/intelligent design...
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to browse on a TV if that is your preference - my preference is to browse music on the device that plays it, I don't want to turn on my TV or go to my computer to find the track I want to listen to. I've built a media PC with an LCD screen that allows me to do this. My point is that since Apple want's to get into the AV business, provide a device that looks and acts like other AV components on the market.
iTV is a great idea (or a great implementation of an existing idea), but I have one major problem with it; it needs to look the same as other AV equipment. This seems to be a recurring problem with all the tech companies that try to create an AV device. They create these designs that while looking great, just don't fit in with the rest of the components. Please lets have a version that is 19" wide that comes with either brushed aluminum or black, and give it a LCD display so that you don't have to have the damn TV on to browse your music collection.
I hate to do it, but it sounds like a mis-reading of the press release, or at least bad PR writing. I imagine that the Zune software will add M$ DRM to any un-protected files you IMPORT into the software, and this is why Play4Sure is missing from the list - you don't need to import it, just copy it to you Zune.
I hope that I'm wrong about this, as it would be too funny if the Zune couldn't play DRMed music.
From what I understand, Copyright law is to protect the holder of the copyright from other parties making a copy of that work. These people are being sued for enabling others to make a copy - not for making copies themselves - only the copyright holder can say who can legitamately make a copy.
This is why Grokster was found liable - they enabled others to make copies.
You shared folder is no different than iTunes, with the exception that iTunes has a licence to make copies from the rights holders.
While what can be done with Ajax is pretty amazing, the unfortunate truth is that the developer generally has to jump through hoops to get everything working. Simply the lack of stateful information is a major problem. What's needed is another protocol (Application Transfer Protocol?) that would provide state information to the server, true client-server event handling, etc.
I personally don't believe that your rights should be left up to market forces - there is a reason why certain rights where codified in the US constitution (yes, I know this is about Canada, but do you honestly think that Bush wouldn't like to do the same here?).
IANAL, but it seems to me that this doesn't get them off the hook with the NSA taps. First, I would assume that they can only give to the government what they themselves collect (so NSA tapping the lines means that the NSA is collecting the data and not AT&T). Second, the request for data still has to be legal, and that question is still open for the courts.
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Fine.
The uncanny valley isn't then involved. If they had taken the mask created, and had the CGI Emily do something that the real Emily hadn't, then we'd be getting somewhere.
The whole point of motion capture is about getting over the uncanny valley, and they've been doing that for years with CGI.
What's new about this, is that Emily didn't have to sit in front of a blue screen with hundreds of reflective dots stuck to her face, and that in itself is no small feat.
No it's not - the technique uses image processing to capture motion, not for generating photo-realistic images. The video shows Emily (a real person) talking, only at the end of the video do they show the results of their capture software by overlaying the generated images over Emily's face. This is Motion Capture not CGI.
Why not use something from these people?
Please lets get the terminology correct - the perp's image was distorted with a swirl tool, not blurred. The distinction is that distorting moves the image data to different locations based on a mathematical formula, usually with little change to the data, run that formula in reverse regains the original image.
Blurring spreads the data from a single pixel over an undetermined number of other pixels. Depending on how the blur is applied gives varying degrees of difficulty in reversing the blur. Applying a Gaussian blur to the whole image or section usually means that the Gaussian is used once on each pixel so the new pixel's value is a known sum of the pixels around it. However, most image packages have a blur tool that blurs what's under the cursor, so the movement of the cursor determines what the contribution is to the final pixels.
It's great that the prep obviously had no understanding of the difference, as with any luck he'll be caught.
However, I assume that CRTs still out-number LCDs so overall black would win in the energy saving contest. And in addition CRTs use significantly more energy than an LCD.
What I want to know is if the iPhone's dock socket is plug compatible with existing iPod docking stations? Can I use my existing iPod players (iHome, HK Drive + Play, etc.) with the iPhone? I've searched for information, but can't find anything and it's impossible to tell from the images on the iPhone website.
Can a judge make you create a new document based on existing, if fleeting, data? I had assumed that you could only be ordered to hand over the data itself. For example, if you have a database, you can be ordered to hand over the data files and not a new report based off the data. Maybe one of you lawyerly types out there can answer this.
So what tools are available to check for bot activity on your network? From what I've read, it seems to be to monitor port 6667 (IRC) for non-human readable text.
How so? How would Apple only delivering DRM free music give any leverage to record companies to make other online stores sell more restricted music?
All the other DRM out there won't play on iPods, so iPod owners won't buy from anyone apart from iTMS or stores that also sell DRM free music. The best that record companies could hope for is that iPod users would buy CDs instead.
Apple closing down shop on DRM music will be viewed as an admission that permissive or no DRM can't work. It can't in the long run. As an encryption method it's bust. The best you can hope for is that it doesn't get to much in the way of users, and in that respect FairPlay is the least evil. People buy DVDs because they will play in practically all players (ignoring region codes). Imagine how small the market for DVDs would be if they only played in the player you bought it for. Sure people would still buy them, but nowhere in the numbers that they do, and the rental market would disappear. And that is exactly the situation we have with music. Just look at the Zune - Plays for sure, sure doesn't!Apple is in a very powerful place right now. Their market share in players means that they can now start playing hard ball with the record companies. By their own admission only 3% of music on iPods was bought at iTMS and that represents 2 billion downloads. Just doubling iTMS sales represents a lot of money for the record companies, and I think the sales would be even higher.
Alternately, if Apple stopped selling DRMed music, iPod users are just going to turn to other sources from that 3% - must probably turn to the P2P networks. And that represents a fair old bit of change the record companies aren't going to see. And I imagine the artists ain't going to keep quiet about it either.
Then maybe Jobs should stop selling DRMed music - period.
As Apple doesn't license FairPlay, the record companies would have to come onboard or see their online sales tank. Of course, they could open their own online stores selling DRM free music to iPod owners, which would be fine.
So let Jobs and Goldberg put their money where their mouths are - lets have a week (or longer?) where they will only sell non-DRMed. Any record company not willing to go without DRM won't have any sales for that period. I for one would be interested to see what the sales numbers would be.
Personally, I would be willing to pay for non-DRMed tracks (and I do from http://bleep.com/)
I just meant that a 30GB flash iPod makes no sense, especially considering the cost verses a HDD.
If a moon base is premature, it's more to do with solving problems here on earth first - let's spend money fixing earth before we start trashing other planets/moons.
No, the question is whether the teaching of science should be political. And I would come down firmly on the side of NO. Both politics and religion have no place in a science classroom. I'm probably being very idealistic, but it's a sad fact that all too often that people (politicians) with little science understanding or idealogical axes to grind dedicate what is taught in our schools. Just look at the hoopla over creationism/intelligent design...
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to browse on a TV if that is your preference - my preference is to browse music on the device that plays it, I don't want to turn on my TV or go to my computer to find the track I want to listen to. I've built a media PC with an LCD screen that allows me to do this. My point is that since Apple want's to get into the AV business, provide a device that looks and acts like other AV components on the market.
iTV is a great idea (or a great implementation of an existing idea), but I have one major problem with it; it needs to look the same as other AV equipment. This seems to be a recurring problem with all the tech companies that try to create an AV device. They create these designs that while looking great, just don't fit in with the rest of the components. Please lets have a version that is 19" wide that comes with either brushed aluminum or black, and give it a LCD display so that you don't have to have the damn TV on to browse your music collection.
I hope that I'm wrong about this, as it would be too funny if the Zune couldn't play DRMed music.
This is why Grokster was found liable - they enabled others to make copies.
You shared folder is no different than iTunes, with the exception that iTunes has a licence to make copies from the rights holders.
While what can be done with Ajax is pretty amazing, the unfortunate truth is that the developer generally has to jump through hoops to get everything working. Simply the lack of stateful information is a major problem. What's needed is another protocol (Application Transfer Protocol?) that would provide state information to the server, true client-server event handling, etc.
I personally don't believe that your rights should be left up to market forces - there is a reason why certain rights where codified in the US constitution (yes, I know this is about Canada, but do you honestly think that Bush wouldn't like to do the same here?).
IANAL, but it seems to me that this doesn't get them off the hook with the NSA taps. First, I would assume that they can only give to the government what they themselves collect (so NSA tapping the lines means that the NSA is collecting the data and not AT&T). Second, the request for data still has to be legal, and that question is still open for the courts.
If you want to see a real step in the right direction, check out http://bleep.com/, download MP3s for a reasonable price. None of this DRM BS.
From an almost-chicken egg