This doesn't apply as much to NTT DoCoMo, but in general more features are not what cell phones need (though they're all fine and good).
The real thing cell phones need is interface designers for their software. I have to click at least half a dozen buttons and wait for my phone to connect to the internet to get anywhere near sending an email.
With my Japanese phone (from AU by KDDI) one button got me into my email menu, instantly. If I didn't want to type in an address I could select someone from my address book incredibly easily, or I could find them in my address book first (also just one click from anywhere!) and then click to email them.
Compare that to my Sprint PCS phone--Menu, Web (wait 10 seconds to connect) Messaging (wait to load) Email (wait) PCS Mail (wait) New Message (wait) before I can even start typing anything in. Terrible!
Not to even mention the disgustingly old phones they're pawning off on us here in the US. I was looking at a new Sony Ericsson thinking "gee, this isn't bad, it's about the same phone I got for free with my service in Japan" (this was about 8 months earlier. only $30 cancellation fee, btw, so you can't say that they pay for the expensive phones by locking you in to the service). Then I realized it was being sold for FOUR HUNDRED US DOLLARS. It's absurd!
This isn't a phone feature, or doesn't need to be, as described--just go to a web page, enter in some info, download a barcode to be displayed on the screeen.
Anyway, phones as tickets isn't really new (in countries with decent cell phones, that is, NOT the good old US of A).
The Tiger Direct vs. Apple Computer lawsuit is an almost completely baseless suit designed for one purpose: advertising. Tiger Direct is attempting to catch a ride on the back of Apple's Tiger marketing campaign. They don't have any intention to stop Apple from using the Tiger name.
Also, Tiger Direct is complaining about search rankings, but a quick google for "tiger" shows Apple at a distant 4th to Tiger Direct's 2nd place ranking (behind a page on, surprise, actual tigers).
I just wanted to say that's amazing--I've been learning Japanese for 3 years, and lived in Japan for 6 months, and I still don't know near enough kanji to read your average newspaper or magazine, not without a dictionary. I can stumble through manga without one, and I'm pretty conversational, but more complicated reading is simply laborious.
That said (and I don't want to sound too critical, but...) I would say that fluency is more about composition and speaking than reading comprehension. If you are in a position to, converse with a lot of actual Japanese people! If you don't live in an area where that's possible, go online and find a Japanese penpal or chatroom.
Japanese salaries are generally higher than American salaries, though due to a much higher cost of living in Japan it tends to be worth less in the end.
I don't see where anything I presented implies that. I am simply saying that a $250~$600 iPod(|mini|photo) does not target the commodity market, but rather is a luxury item. Their price points are on the high end of their market (though, IMHO, well worth it). People who buy such things (myself included) are more likely to buy pretty little fashion accessories to go along with them (though I have none).
The mac mini, on the other hand, is targeted towards the lower end of the market--people who don't want to shell out the money for a $1000+ middle-to-high-end computer. I'm simply wondering if the average person who buys a $500 mac mini would actually spend $35+ on a block of plastic to make it look cool(er)?
The HDD recommendation doesn't seem to make much sense. The article talks about cost-per-gigabyte, but obviously it is much cheaper to use CDRs or DVDRs. This is video preservation, after all, not storing indefinitely for video/editing/, which would require a more malleable storage medium.
And before someone points out that there are studies showing that the longevity of CDR/DVDR discs is questionable, surely proper storage of discs (and not buying the Best Buy free-after-rebate special) would be sufficient. HDD, after all, is susceptible to head crashes, and being a magnetic medium can be more easily overwritten.
A bunch of plastic cases and monitor stands? Surely there must be something better than this out there. I was expecting mini-footpring accessories to be more than a block of clear plastic. Why would someone waste their money on something like this for a $500 computer? The iPod is a luxury item, and people who buy it can usually afford $30 iPod socks and the like.
Can these kinds of fashion accessories really sell for the mac mini like they do for the iPod, given their totally different price points relative to their respective markets?
So, I didn't RTFA either, but I did see it on the news (in Japan) a couple days ago.
Anyway, what I saw was the traditional dance being performed in concert by both robots and traditionally-dressed Japanese women. Neither I, nor any of my American friends, nor any of my Japanese friends, found this at all "sick". Why do you?
Why should technology be devoid of culture? If we choose to reflect our culture in our technology, as is very much the norm in Japan in my experience, does this not simply add to the worth of technology rather than subtracting from the inherent value of culture?
Maybe you should think a little bit about why you believe there is a hard line between technology and culture--there is nothing inherent to "technology", however you define it, that makes it unable to have cultural value.
Import one--the same DS is sold in Japan and the US, just with a different default language. You can choose English, Italian, Spanish, German, French or Japanese from the system menu for the system language. Plus, th DS, like all Nintendo handhelds, is entirely region free.
How is this news? The movie's been out for over a month, and I saw it myself 3.5 weeks ago. Miyazaki (though I love him) did pervert the original quite thoroughly in order to make a political commentary on war...
I remember where the most-used features are and how many clicks it takes to get there. Of course, I almost always listen to just one shuffled playlist (which is just my library minus a few non-music and specific-holiday tracks), so I don't really have that problem. I'm not saying, of course, that it's a wonderful solution if you're blind, but it is probably the best interface available for anyone at all at the moment.
I just don't understand this tactile feedback bit--not only would it make it impossible to operate through my clothes (a killer feature IMO) but it serves no purpose--you can no more gauge movement on a mechanical wheel than you can on a touch wheel, possible less since your finger touches the same spot the entire time with a mechnical scroll wheel. I can make adjustments just by rolling my thumb slightly over my pocket. And adjusting volume is the easiest thing in the world on an iPod!
Anyway, my point is just that for most common functions you can operate an iPod without looking at it at all, if you spend 5 minutes to look at how the click wheel and software work. While you may have to look at it to search through your library for one specific song among a few thousand, (or one specific artist among hundreds, or one specific genre or playlist among dozens), all of that could be solved with a simple screen reader, which no mp3 player has.
Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not the best out there.
Also, I would say that your "meta-mode" bookmark/breadcrumb facility would be a nice/feature/, but is hardly "essential" for operation, visual or otherwise.
Ah, the TI-99/4a Texas Instruments Home Computer. That was my first computer! I was always frustrated by the fact that I could never get program it to speak myself, even though the Programmer's Manual claimed it could. What a great machine! It really did have quite impressive speech synthesis, with a physical module connected to the side of the keyboard (which, in this case, was the entire computer itself) adding the capability. It's a shame it took me such a long time to get seriously into computer programming, considering that I was writing simple programs in TI Extended BASIC and saving them on cassette tape when I was only a few years old...
I would have to disagree--I use my (4th-gen) iPod almost exclusively while it resides in my pocket--changing songs, adjusting volume, rating songs (well, if they're worth all 5 stars), seeking in songs, etc, all without seeing anything at all, or even directly touching it (the new click wheel lets you control every bit of your iPod even through clothing) . The new touch wheel may not have tacticle feedback per se, but other than liking the "feel" of it, there's no real advantage to a physically-moving scroll wheel. The primary feedback should be aural anyway, not tactile (unless someone comes up with a way to have your iPod screen "display" touchable braille). If it's powerful enough, Apple could probably make the iPod much more accessible by updating the firmware to include an iPod screen reader.
I know at least a couple libertarians who say the most important thing in an election is gun rights, and that they (in a two-way race) would vote for Bush over Kerry. Thankfully, they're voting libertarian. If a candidate ran on a platform openly deriding freedom of speech, but supported less restrictions on firearms, I know at least one person who would vote for them (if only so they would be free to buy a gun to shoot them with).
And yes, I (and they) have heard all about Kerry's record on gun control, etc.
I agree entirely--I'm in Japan right now, where EVERYONE has a keitai (mobile phones to you Europeans).
Then again, I can just go to google.com (or google.co.jp) on my phone's web browser, so I guess it doesn't matter that much. Might be a bit more expensive though, email, messaging, web, GPS navigation, and other services are charged by the packet (at least for AU customers). You can get unlimited plans, but the service, plus the (more expensive) phone to support it, cost a LOT of money.
I don't know, my phone has GPS navigation built in, same as (from what I can tell) most phones here in Japan.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to go to places I haven't been before, mostly because I can't read enough of the Japanese instructions. But I can set GPS markers at places and then I can easily get back to them.
What would really be cool is if you could find your friend's cell phone! Perhaps if you and your friend mutually agreed (with a passcode or some kind of buddy-list style database) your phone would be able to locate their phone, and guide you to them.
You know, all the replies to this are correct--and I'm wrong! I feel sort of silly for not reading more carefully, I was posting from work and had to leave.
There actually were 17 blue moons total with both definitions of a blue moon: about the same number of each kind (probably 8 of one and 9 of another).
The "13 lunar cycles in a year" was just a common (and, in my defense, approximately correct) approximation. But that.6 makes a big difference. I stand corrected.
I don't know where this google calculator gets its numbers from, but blue moons are actually twice as common as it implies.
There are approximately 13 lunar cycles in a year, and 12 months. Simple math should be able to tell you that there must be a blue moon on average at least once a year--rarely two, and rarely none. In fact, over the next 20 years, 17 will have blue moons.
I know I probably shouldn't respond defensively, but, well, that's me.
I was thinking more about little diversity in terms of gender, sexuality, race... now, admittedly my school (Ohio University) isn't exactly known for its diversity (95% white), but it's my impression that overwhelming majority of people in CS programs are white guys. I know I can count the number of females I've seen in my CS classes on my hands. One hand, come to think of it, and I'm hardly polydactic.
That said, I also never implied that my fellow CS majors were boring people, or that they were weren't diverse enough for me, just that it can be hard to feel like the only in your program of study. Having one of those people who are seemingly in every CS book ever be part of that same group (like Grace Hopper or Ada King for female figures) can be a huge deal.
Oh, and no diversity in clothes, hairstyle and choice of fiction? I don't know where you go to school (if you are a college student) but in those areas at least my fellow CS majors are hardly homogeneous!
I don't know how it is in more diverse places, but it often seems like I'm the only gay man majoring in Computer Science, and I remember years ago it was such a relief to find that arguably the most recognized name in the field was gay.
Although the nature of his persecution and suicide are unfortunate, I'm somewhat glad of the fact that it's often talked about--things like this and worse are still happening in many parts of the world.
That said, I prefer not to dwell on it. I am merely grateful that I and others have such a man to look up to in a field that so often seems at present to have so little diversity.
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This doesn't apply as much to NTT DoCoMo, but in general more features are not what cell phones need (though they're all fine and good).
The real thing cell phones need is interface designers for their software. I have to click at least half a dozen buttons and wait for my phone to connect to the internet to get anywhere near sending an email.
With my Japanese phone (from AU by KDDI) one button got me into my email menu, instantly. If I didn't want to type in an address I could select someone from my address book incredibly easily, or I could find them in my address book first (also just one click from anywhere!) and then click to email them.
Compare that to my Sprint PCS phone--Menu, Web (wait 10 seconds to connect) Messaging (wait to load) Email (wait) PCS Mail (wait) New Message (wait) before I can even start typing anything in. Terrible!
Not to even mention the disgustingly old phones they're pawning off on us here in the US. I was looking at a new Sony Ericsson thinking "gee, this isn't bad, it's about the same phone I got for free with my service in Japan" (this was about 8 months earlier. only $30 cancellation fee, btw, so you can't say that they pay for the expensive phones by locking you in to the service). Then I realized it was being sold for FOUR HUNDRED US DOLLARS. It's absurd!
This isn't a phone feature, or doesn't need to be, as described--just go to a web page, enter in some info, download a barcode to be displayed on the screeen.
Anyway, phones as tickets isn't really new (in countries with decent cell phones, that is, NOT the good old US of A).
The Tiger Direct vs. Apple Computer lawsuit is an almost completely baseless suit designed for one purpose: advertising. Tiger Direct is attempting to catch a ride on the back of Apple's Tiger marketing campaign. They don't have any intention to stop Apple from using the Tiger name.
If Apple were renaming all of their Apple Stores to Tiger Stores, they might have some grounds. As it is, Tiger Direct is a computer hardware reseller, and Mac OSX 10.4 Tiger is an operating system. It's only slightly more related than the US Census Bureau's registered trademark on TIGER for its GIS data.
Also, Tiger Direct is complaining about search rankings, but a quick google for "tiger" shows Apple at a distant 4th to Tiger Direct's 2nd place ranking (behind a page on, surprise, actual tigers).
I just wanted to say that's amazing--I've been learning Japanese for 3 years, and lived in Japan for 6 months, and I still don't know near enough kanji to read your average newspaper or magazine, not without a dictionary. I can stumble through manga without one, and I'm pretty conversational, but more complicated reading is simply laborious.
That said (and I don't want to sound too critical, but...) I would say that fluency is more about composition and speaking than reading comprehension. If you are in a position to, converse with a lot of actual Japanese people! If you don't live in an area where that's possible, go online and find a Japanese penpal or chatroom.
Ganbatte!
With a little bit of Logic and Reason, you could make your own music.
Then, you can offer apple $100,000.00 and see if they'll add you to their magic artist array!
Of course, you might have to pay out to the other artists on it, too, since you'd be decreasing their play frequency by 2/3 of a percent...
Japanese salaries are generally higher than American salaries, though due to a much higher cost of living in Japan it tends to be worth less in the end.
I don't see where anything I presented implies that. I am simply saying that a $250~$600 iPod(|mini|photo) does not target the commodity market, but rather is a luxury item. Their price points are on the high end of their market (though, IMHO, well worth it). People who buy such things (myself included) are more likely to buy pretty little fashion accessories to go along with them (though I have none).
The mac mini, on the other hand, is targeted towards the lower end of the market--people who don't want to shell out the money for a $1000+ middle-to-high-end computer. I'm simply wondering if the average person who buys a $500 mac mini would actually spend $35+ on a block of plastic to make it look cool(er)?
I'd still prefer my archived data to not be affected by strong EM fields.
I mean, really... for purposes of archival, optical (or possible magneto-optical) storage methods are far more secure than purely magnetic ones.
No, they mean Hard Disk Drive. RTFA.
The HDD recommendation doesn't seem to make much sense. The article talks about cost-per-gigabyte, but obviously it is much cheaper to use CDRs or DVDRs. This is video preservation, after all, not storing indefinitely for video /editing/, which would require a more malleable storage medium.
And before someone points out that there are studies showing that the longevity of CDR/DVDR discs is questionable, surely proper storage of discs (and not buying the Best Buy free-after-rebate special) would be sufficient. HDD, after all, is susceptible to head crashes, and being a magnetic medium can be more easily overwritten.
A bunch of plastic cases and monitor stands? Surely there must be something better than this out there. I was expecting mini-footpring accessories to be more than a block of clear plastic. Why would someone waste their money on something like this for a $500 computer? The iPod is a luxury item, and people who buy it can usually afford $30 iPod socks and the like.
Can these kinds of fashion accessories really sell for the mac mini like they do for the iPod, given their totally different price points relative to their respective markets?
I'm abroad right now living next to a prudish and narrow-minded American--I can assure you that they, too, study overseas. ;)
So, I didn't RTFA either, but I did see it on the news (in Japan) a couple days ago.
Anyway, what I saw was the traditional dance being performed in concert by both robots and traditionally-dressed Japanese women. Neither I, nor any of my American friends, nor any of my Japanese friends, found this at all "sick". Why do you?
Why should technology be devoid of culture? If we choose to reflect our culture in our technology, as is very much the norm in Japan in my experience, does this not simply add to the worth of technology rather than subtracting from the inherent value of culture?
Maybe you should think a little bit about why you believe there is a hard line between technology and culture--there is nothing inherent to "technology", however you define it, that makes it unable to have cultural value.
Import one--the same DS is sold in Japan and the US, just with a different default language. You can choose English, Italian, Spanish, German, French or Japanese from the system menu for the system language. Plus, th DS, like all Nintendo handhelds, is entirely region free.
How is this news? The movie's been out for over a month, and I saw it myself 3.5 weeks ago. Miyazaki (though I love him) did pervert the original quite thoroughly in order to make a political commentary on war...
I remember where the most-used features are and how many clicks it takes to get there. Of course, I almost always listen to just one shuffled playlist (which is just my library minus a few non-music and specific-holiday tracks), so I don't really have that problem. I'm not saying, of course, that it's a wonderful solution if you're blind, but it is probably the best interface available for anyone at all at the moment.
/feature/, but is hardly "essential" for operation, visual or otherwise.
I just don't understand this tactile feedback bit--not only would it make it impossible to operate through my clothes (a killer feature IMO) but it serves no purpose--you can no more gauge movement on a mechanical wheel than you can on a touch wheel, possible less since your finger touches the same spot the entire time with a mechnical scroll wheel. I can make adjustments just by rolling my thumb slightly over my pocket. And adjusting volume is the easiest thing in the world on an iPod!
Anyway, my point is just that for most common functions you can operate an iPod without looking at it at all, if you spend 5 minutes to look at how the click wheel and software work. While you may have to look at it to search through your library for one specific song among a few thousand, (or one specific artist among hundreds, or one specific genre or playlist among dozens), all of that could be solved with a simple screen reader, which no mp3 player has.
Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not the best out there.
Also, I would say that your "meta-mode" bookmark/breadcrumb facility would be a nice
Ah, the TI-99/4a Texas Instruments Home Computer. That was my first computer! I was always frustrated by the fact that I could never get program it to speak myself, even though the Programmer's Manual claimed it could. What a great machine! It really did have quite impressive speech synthesis, with a physical module connected to the side of the keyboard (which, in this case, was the entire computer itself) adding the capability. It's a shame it took me such a long time to get seriously into computer programming, considering that I was writing simple programs in TI Extended BASIC and saving them on cassette tape when I was only a few years old...
I would have to disagree--I use my (4th-gen) iPod almost exclusively while it resides in my pocket--changing songs, adjusting volume, rating songs (well, if they're worth all 5 stars), seeking in songs, etc, all without seeing anything at all, or even directly touching it (the new click wheel lets you control every bit of your iPod even through clothing) . The new touch wheel may not have tacticle feedback per se, but other than liking the "feel" of it, there's no real advantage to a physically-moving scroll wheel. The primary feedback should be aural anyway, not tactile (unless someone comes up with a way to have your iPod screen "display" touchable braille). If it's powerful enough, Apple could probably make the iPod much more accessible by updating the firmware to include an iPod screen reader.
I know at least a couple libertarians who say the most important thing in an election is gun rights, and that they (in a two-way race) would vote for Bush over Kerry. Thankfully, they're voting libertarian. If a candidate ran on a platform openly deriding freedom of speech, but supported less restrictions on firearms, I know at least one person who would vote for them (if only so they would be free to buy a gun to shoot them with).
And yes, I (and they) have heard all about Kerry's record on gun control, etc.
I agree entirely--I'm in Japan right now, where EVERYONE has a keitai (mobile phones to you Europeans).
Then again, I can just go to google.com (or google.co.jp) on my phone's web browser, so I guess it doesn't matter that much. Might be a bit more expensive though, email, messaging, web, GPS navigation, and other services are charged by the packet (at least for AU customers). You can get unlimited plans, but the service, plus the (more expensive) phone to support it, cost a LOT of money.
I don't know, my phone has GPS navigation built in, same as (from what I can tell) most phones here in Japan. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to go to places I haven't been before, mostly because I can't read enough of the Japanese instructions. But I can set GPS markers at places and then I can easily get back to them. What would really be cool is if you could find your friend's cell phone! Perhaps if you and your friend mutually agreed (with a passcode or some kind of buddy-list style database) your phone would be able to locate their phone, and guide you to them.
You know, all the replies to this are correct--and I'm wrong! I feel sort of silly for not reading more carefully, I was posting from work and had to leave.
.6 makes a big difference. I stand corrected.
There actually were 17 blue moons total with both definitions of a blue moon: about the same number of each kind (probably 8 of one and 9 of another).
The "13 lunar cycles in a year" was just a common (and, in my defense, approximately correct) approximation. But that
Still, I wouldn't call it rare.
I don't know where this google calculator gets its numbers from, but blue moons are actually twice as common as it implies.
There are approximately 13 lunar cycles in a year, and 12 months. Simple math should be able to tell you that there must be a blue moon on average at least once a year--rarely two, and rarely none. In fact, over the next 20 years, 17 will have blue moons.
That's about every 1.2 years.
I know I probably shouldn't respond defensively, but, well, that's me.
I was thinking more about little diversity in terms of gender, sexuality, race... now, admittedly my school (Ohio University) isn't exactly known for its diversity (95% white), but it's my impression that overwhelming majority of people in CS programs are white guys. I know I can count the number of females I've seen in my CS classes on my hands. One hand, come to think of it, and I'm hardly polydactic.
That said, I also never implied that my fellow CS majors were boring people, or that they were weren't diverse enough for me, just that it can be hard to feel like the only in your program of study. Having one of those people who are seemingly in every CS book ever be part of that same group (like Grace Hopper or Ada King for female figures) can be a huge deal.
Oh, and no diversity in clothes, hairstyle and choice of fiction? I don't know where you go to school (if you are a college student) but in those areas at least my fellow CS majors are hardly homogeneous!
I don't know how it is in more diverse places, but it often seems like I'm the only gay man majoring in Computer Science, and I remember years ago it was such a relief to find that arguably the most recognized name in the field was gay.
Although the nature of his persecution and suicide are unfortunate, I'm somewhat glad of the fact that it's often talked about--things like this and worse are still happening in many parts of the world.
That said, I prefer not to dwell on it. I am merely grateful that I and others have such a man to look up to in a field that so often seems at present to have so little diversity.
Here's to Alan Turing, a Great Man.