2001 and Blade Runner are both beautifully executed masterpieces. Their form is beautiful, both in their story and their presentation, to a level of perfection that few other films have EVER achieved. Beyond this, their existence is the impetus for a continued informed dialogue on humanity. All great art shares this. Form and beauty first, with the power to inspire secondary thoughts, creation and revelation.
It amazes me when people start oohing and ahhing over the LOTR special effects. Have you not seen Blade Runner? The composites, the props, the seamlessness... I don't think there's been a movie before or since (except 2001 perhaps) that has so concretely rendered a make believe future. Computer generated effects are just toys in comparison that bring more attention to the style than addition to the actual movie. It's like boys playing a man's game. Blade Runner has style and substance that is still being unravelled 20 years later.
Out of the 650,000 geek elite, I'd think that about 649,000 would be able to whip up a basic spell check utility... for free... there's no shame in asking for help Mr. Neal.
There might have been a small consortium that started these formats but the reality was that there were other formats competing for the same dollar from the consumer. ONE COMPANY'S standard eventually won out and THEN it was licensed to others. It's not like you could play a Betamax tape on a VHS machine, why should you be able to play a Real file on an Apple machine? Apple has already "licensed" iTunes so you can play their tracks on ANY personal computer. It's obvious that once they sew up their format and DRM as the market standard they will license it to other portables as well. The reality is that there is still enough risk in the marketplace (re: Microsoft) that they can't just freely license things now otherwise they'd lose their revenue streams.
It wouldn't be hard to have a wireless display with no internal storage and minimal processor power that just mirrored what your desktop monitor. You could interact via a stylus but everything would actually be happening on the "base" computer. It could be thin and focus on a good quality screen and get much better battery life than a laptop.
If you count the educational discount as a true discount you're correct, but they did just go to the Apple online store and order 1100 of them at the same price any other education customer would get:
There wasn't any "extra" discount. Since most supercomputers are built by education, government or the military, the standard discount Apple happens to give is more like the actual price. I imagine all companies offer the same level of reduced price so it's a moot point. They paid going rate for them.
The AAC codec in iTunes is now excellent and really takes on all comers. The one biggest feature for me is the ability to transcode from WAV-->AIFF-->AAC-->MP3 with just the click of a button. It makes keeping a reference copy of your collection in uncompressed form very easy and desireable because you can easily automate the process to rip for portable use and smaller sizes. Smart Playlists make this even easier.
If Sony would just make a standalone ATRAC encoder then we could create files as easily as MP3/AAC. By copying the ATRAC files to the MiniDisc drive you could essentially "burn" a CD. Hell, if they would make the hardware play AIF or WAV that would be even better.
It just acted like a native drive when connected to a computer. The medium itself is amazingly efficient and the new 1GB discs are a far better portable solution than anything else including CD. Even the size is about as small as an iPod and it doesn't scratch or easily deteriorate in harsh conditions. We all know the ways they screwed it up via DRM and cumbersome interfaces, but as to it's physical operation, if it was just like a ZIP disc, it would have been a huge success and given CD a big run for its money.
Microsoft or Real would both go after anyone who opened up their device to a third party format, Apple is no different. Look at Sony and the Playstation and all the other legal action against any company that tries to get some unintented format or functionality to run on a competitor's device.
The real problem for Apple is that it has a history of having to compete against ALL other companies who actively gang up to take it down. When Real licences Harmony to Microsoft and Microsoft throws 10 bazillon dollars into selling WMA songs that play on the iPod, what chance does Apple have to stem the tide? Real is just playing a card as a middleman, a tick on the side of a cow that forces it to swing it's tail, hopefully killing the other ticks it doesn't like. We all know that Real is not going to win the download or the portable music player game. They're just pre-emptively selling out to Microsoft.
Seriously, a few hundred million to the world's driving schools, or better yet a Toyota driving school would nicely eliminate the need for a car that shows emotions to other drivers. What a waste of money.
They have said that they make a "small" profit off the iTMS and with 70% of a very small but fast growing market, they will want to protect that lead as much as possible by restricting access. When the market is 10 times the size they WILL be making money off the iTMS. Until their market share drops below 50% they won't even think of opening the iPod. What company in their right mind would sacrifice a market advantage of over 20%? They will sue REAL with everything they've got.
That would be stupid, but it brings up an interesting juxtaposition now that the entry iPod has so much more capacity than the Mini. Perhaps Apple made the iPod such good value to spread demand around because the Mini supply is still so restrained. Especially with the Mini now being sold worldwide, it's actually a smart move for them to maximize revenue by offering die-hard mini customers a really big incentive to "compromise" with the regular iPod. This also has the effect of keeping the Mini, which is the "cool" device, more exclusive at a relatively high price, which they can safely drop when they have much more supply.
Choice is well and good but a lot of the time I'd rather be presented with one option that is great. It saves a ton of time (which is valuable). I'm not saying I have low standards, but for argument sake, sometimes a lot of competitive choice ruins the market and makes people upset whereas if one company does it right the first time it gets a high level of acceptance. There have been tons of products like this, mostly of the "essential" variety. Music might not directly qualify but if Apple goes to lossless compression and reduces the DRM and keeps the price the same, many people would not only say it's a fair system but that it is a completely acceptable system.
It's completely preposterous that some guy can make this amazingly refined mini G5 and have it universally acclaimed and Apple (in its infinite wisdom) sticks to an all in one consumer machine.
As one of the people waiting for some kind of inexpensive G5 from Apple this is amazing news. Now, if they can just ensure the screen isn't connected to the CPU I'm sure they'll sell a boatload.
Why isn't there a program that graphically represents possibilities? Every one of us has to make complex decisions, each of which has a set of factors and pros and cons. Why can't the computer take this set of factors and "map" them, allow us to attach probabilities at each level, and then graphically highlight trouble areas and predict desirable outcomes.
Things like deciding whether to carry X or Y product would be more tactile and visual, and probably more accurate than a flat spreadsheet. Hell, anything could be modelled with a standard set of conditionals, from what to wear to whether to support the death penalty. That's one of the creative things a computer would be great at - unravelling a complex knot of a problem.
While I'm probably in the minority, I won't be buying any 128kbps AAC files because of the quality. However, if they were Apple Lossless format and didn't have DRM I would buy a number of tracks regularly even at double the price. The convenience and control would be worth the money to me. I'm not sure how much of a market people like me represent but it seems purely additive. Just make a "Pro" option available. The extra cost would probably pay for the server space and bandwidth.
I'm not sure what the Linux or Windows world is like but on Mac OS X we have this great thing called Software Update. It runs every so often and gives you a list of things that can be updated on your computer. It really only shows the basic things your computer needs like security updates, networking functionality and Apple brand app updates. The dialog box is nice, it doesn't disrupt your work and it can even download the updates in the background so they're ready to go when you hit OK.
Simply, this system works great. I bet most OS X users have very up to date systems and probably the majority are running the most current version of everything. Users aren't lazy if you just give them a simple straightforward reason to click upgrade. On OS X it's such an easy mental exercise. It boils down to "why wouldn't I want the newest version of my OS?" I guess it also helps that Apple writes comparatively good updates that don't break much of anything, but Linux and Windows should be striving for the same kind of confidence level.
Maybe you should have highlighted this part of your post so I will for you:
"the big stumbling block is this: you gotta know what transfer function you want to emulate first."
Currently, the biggest difference between transistors and tubes is in the "texture" of the sound. Tubes tend to be more "immediate" sounding in the midrange. This isn't a frequency thing, it's not easy to place exactly what it is. The DSP guys have already figured out the distortion and frequency aspects of tubes but they haven't even begun to touch the tactile qualities of them. When someone figures out why tubes act this way, or even a way to reliably describe the effect then maybe we can get those great DSPs to emulate it. As for now, it's about as simple as tubes have it, transistors don't.
It's an interesting comparison between Japanese innovation and quality control in motorcycles and open source in software but aren't you missing one huge disconnect? The Japanese approached innovation with a single-minded, extremely rigourous and well thought out approach to making quality affordable. Linux currently has no focus, no rigour and isn't well thought out. Where the Japanese found the set of qualities that made their products universally accepted, Linux is busy finding the qualities that make it accepted for infinite variety. The two examples might end up with the same market results but it won't be through the same process. In fact, the first Linux company that acts like the Japanese will likely have more success than all the other OS developers together.
Unfortunately with a 6 month product cycle, more an more I'm finding that good products are being replaced by bad products. Take cars, cameras, stereos, shoes, food items for example. A model that I've just discovered is 4 or 5 months old and looks great but when I go to try to find it, it's already discontinued by something newer that doesn't seem to fit my needs as well. To make matters worse, the "old" product is usually out of stock to make way for the new one. Quality seems to the be thing that suffers the most.
What happened to products that were made to last for 20 years+ and could easily be sold for that long too. The profits may be incrementally higher in creating artificial demand through turnover, but are we talking 10%, 1%, 0.1%? Surely there must be diminishing returns as companies steal their own market away from themselves.
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2001 and Blade Runner are both beautifully executed masterpieces. Their form is beautiful, both in their story and their presentation, to a level of perfection that few other films have EVER achieved. Beyond this, their existence is the impetus for a continued informed dialogue on humanity. All great art shares this. Form and beauty first, with the power to inspire secondary thoughts, creation and revelation.
It amazes me when people start oohing and ahhing over the LOTR special effects. Have you not seen Blade Runner? The composites, the props, the seamlessness... I don't think there's been a movie before or since (except 2001 perhaps) that has so concretely rendered a make believe future. Computer generated effects are just toys in comparison that bring more attention to the style than addition to the actual movie. It's like boys playing a man's game. Blade Runner has style and substance that is still being unravelled 20 years later.
Out of the 650,000 geek elite, I'd think that about 649,000 would be able to whip up a basic spell check utility... for free... there's no shame in asking for help Mr. Neal.
There might have been a small consortium that started these formats but the reality was that there were other formats competing for the same dollar from the consumer. ONE COMPANY'S standard eventually won out and THEN it was licensed to others. It's not like you could play a Betamax tape on a VHS machine, why should you be able to play a Real file on an Apple machine? Apple has already "licensed" iTunes so you can play their tracks on ANY personal computer. It's obvious that once they sew up their format and DRM as the market standard they will license it to other portables as well. The reality is that there is still enough risk in the marketplace (re: Microsoft) that they can't just freely license things now otherwise they'd lose their revenue streams.
It wouldn't be hard to have a wireless display with no internal storage and minimal processor power that just mirrored what your desktop monitor. You could interact via a stylus but everything would actually be happening on the "base" computer. It could be thin and focus on a good quality screen and get much better battery life than a laptop.
If you count the educational discount as a true discount you're correct, but they did just go to the Apple online store and order 1100 of them at the same price any other education customer would get:
Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan talks about VT's G5 supercomputer
There wasn't any "extra" discount. Since most supercomputers are built by education, government or the military, the standard discount Apple happens to give is more like the actual price. I imagine all companies offer the same level of reduced price so it's a moot point. They paid going rate for them.
Apple didn't give VT any computers, they paid for them because they were the cheapest solution.
The AAC codec in iTunes is now excellent and really takes on all comers. The one biggest feature for me is the ability to transcode from WAV-->AIFF-->AAC-->MP3 with just the click of a button. It makes keeping a reference copy of your collection in uncompressed form very easy and desireable because you can easily automate the process to rip for portable use and smaller sizes. Smart Playlists make this even easier.
If Sony would just make a standalone ATRAC encoder then we could create files as easily as MP3/AAC. By copying the ATRAC files to the MiniDisc drive you could essentially "burn" a CD. Hell, if they would make the hardware play AIF or WAV that would be even better.
It just acted like a native drive when connected to a computer. The medium itself is amazingly efficient and the new 1GB discs are a far better portable solution than anything else including CD. Even the size is about as small as an iPod and it doesn't scratch or easily deteriorate in harsh conditions. We all know the ways they screwed it up via DRM and cumbersome interfaces, but as to it's physical operation, if it was just like a ZIP disc, it would have been a huge success and given CD a big run for its money.
Microsoft or Real would both go after anyone who opened up their device to a third party format, Apple is no different. Look at Sony and the Playstation and all the other legal action against any company that tries to get some unintented format or functionality to run on a competitor's device.
The real problem for Apple is that it has a history of having to compete against ALL other companies who actively gang up to take it down. When Real licences Harmony to Microsoft and Microsoft throws 10 bazillon dollars into selling WMA songs that play on the iPod, what chance does Apple have to stem the tide? Real is just playing a card as a middleman, a tick on the side of a cow that forces it to swing it's tail, hopefully killing the other ticks it doesn't like. We all know that Real is not going to win the download or the portable music player game. They're just pre-emptively selling out to Microsoft.
Seriously, a few hundred million to the world's driving schools, or better yet a Toyota driving school would nicely eliminate the need for a car that shows emotions to other drivers. What a waste of money.
They have said that they make a "small" profit off the iTMS and with 70% of a very small but fast growing market, they will want to protect that lead as much as possible by restricting access. When the market is 10 times the size they WILL be making money off the iTMS. Until their market share drops below 50% they won't even think of opening the iPod. What company in their right mind would sacrifice a market advantage of over 20%? They will sue REAL with everything they've got.
I'd hate to have to pay to play all those CDs I'm trying to sell on the record company's behalf...
That would be stupid, but it brings up an interesting juxtaposition now that the entry iPod has so much more capacity than the Mini. Perhaps Apple made the iPod such good value to spread demand around because the Mini supply is still so restrained. Especially with the Mini now being sold worldwide, it's actually a smart move for them to maximize revenue by offering die-hard mini customers a really big incentive to "compromise" with the regular iPod. This also has the effect of keeping the Mini, which is the "cool" device, more exclusive at a relatively high price, which they can safely drop when they have much more supply.
Choice is well and good but a lot of the time I'd rather be presented with one option that is great. It saves a ton of time (which is valuable). I'm not saying I have low standards, but for argument sake, sometimes a lot of competitive choice ruins the market and makes people upset whereas if one company does it right the first time it gets a high level of acceptance. There have been tons of products like this, mostly of the "essential" variety. Music might not directly qualify but if Apple goes to lossless compression and reduces the DRM and keeps the price the same, many people would not only say it's a fair system but that it is a completely acceptable system.
It's completely preposterous that some guy can make this amazingly refined mini G5 and have it universally acclaimed and Apple (in its infinite wisdom) sticks to an all in one consumer machine.
As one of the people waiting for some kind of inexpensive G5 from Apple this is amazing news. Now, if they can just ensure the screen isn't connected to the CPU I'm sure they'll sell a boatload.
Why isn't there a program that graphically represents possibilities? Every one of us has to make complex decisions, each of which has a set of factors and pros and cons. Why can't the computer take this set of factors and "map" them, allow us to attach probabilities at each level, and then graphically highlight trouble areas and predict desirable outcomes.
Things like deciding whether to carry X or Y product would be more tactile and visual, and probably more accurate than a flat spreadsheet. Hell, anything could be modelled with a standard set of conditionals, from what to wear to whether to support the death penalty. That's one of the creative things a computer would be great at - unravelling a complex knot of a problem.
Aren't we over our bugs-o-the-day limit?
While I'm probably in the minority, I won't be buying any 128kbps AAC files because of the quality. However, if they were Apple Lossless format and didn't have DRM I would buy a number of tracks regularly even at double the price. The convenience and control would be worth the money to me. I'm not sure how much of a market people like me represent but it seems purely additive. Just make a "Pro" option available. The extra cost would probably pay for the server space and bandwidth.
I'm not sure what the Linux or Windows world is like but on Mac OS X we have this great thing called Software Update. It runs every so often and gives you a list of things that can be updated on your computer. It really only shows the basic things your computer needs like security updates, networking functionality and Apple brand app updates. The dialog box is nice, it doesn't disrupt your work and it can even download the updates in the background so they're ready to go when you hit OK.
Simply, this system works great. I bet most OS X users have very up to date systems and probably the majority are running the most current version of everything. Users aren't lazy if you just give them a simple straightforward reason to click upgrade. On OS X it's such an easy mental exercise. It boils down to "why wouldn't I want the newest version of my OS?" I guess it also helps that Apple writes comparatively good updates that don't break much of anything, but Linux and Windows should be striving for the same kind of confidence level.
Maybe you should have highlighted this part of your post so I will for you: "the big stumbling block is this: you gotta know what transfer function you want to emulate first." Currently, the biggest difference between transistors and tubes is in the "texture" of the sound. Tubes tend to be more "immediate" sounding in the midrange. This isn't a frequency thing, it's not easy to place exactly what it is. The DSP guys have already figured out the distortion and frequency aspects of tubes but they haven't even begun to touch the tactile qualities of them. When someone figures out why tubes act this way, or even a way to reliably describe the effect then maybe we can get those great DSPs to emulate it. As for now, it's about as simple as tubes have it, transistors don't.
It's an interesting comparison between Japanese innovation and quality control in motorcycles and open source in software but aren't you missing one huge disconnect? The Japanese approached innovation with a single-minded, extremely rigourous and well thought out approach to making quality affordable. Linux currently has no focus, no rigour and isn't well thought out. Where the Japanese found the set of qualities that made their products universally accepted, Linux is busy finding the qualities that make it accepted for infinite variety. The two examples might end up with the same market results but it won't be through the same process. In fact, the first Linux company that acts like the Japanese will likely have more success than all the other OS developers together.
Unfortunately with a 6 month product cycle, more an more I'm finding that good products are being replaced by bad products. Take cars, cameras, stereos, shoes, food items for example. A model that I've just discovered is 4 or 5 months old and looks great but when I go to try to find it, it's already discontinued by something newer that doesn't seem to fit my needs as well. To make matters worse, the "old" product is usually out of stock to make way for the new one. Quality seems to the be thing that suffers the most.
What happened to products that were made to last for 20 years+ and could easily be sold for that long too. The profits may be incrementally higher in creating artificial demand through turnover, but are we talking 10%, 1%, 0.1%? Surely there must be diminishing returns as companies steal their own market away from themselves.