Scansoft has been made by an American Entrepeneur who bought the US branch (Dragon Speech and err...Scansoft) from the "liquidation" (sorry I can't translate this term correctly). It didn't buy L&H. He took the property on some of their technologies. L&H has a such big debt that there was no point to buy the company in istelf.
The most notorious one was a completly new TTS engine. I think it was called the realspeech TTS or something.
Well I used to work in that industry around 2000. L&H kept buying companies after companies, in fact nothing serious has been really developped internally. Except probably the realspeech engine.
They turnover was fake, they were playing with different branches (mainly in Korea) to generate a fake turnover.
A wall street reporter found the trick and L&H disapeared.
Here in Belgium a lot of people lost all their economies with L&H. The sector was heavily dammaged by the affair (I had to find another work even if the competitor I used to work for, wasn't part of the affair).
Sometimes I cannot get the title on the radio . they didn't say it or I wasn't paying attention or I couldn't understand it (English isn't my native tongue).
I guess they will loose a big fraction of my sales too.
Simply think about all these teenagers fans. Englishspeaking and non-englishspeaking looking for the lyrics of their favorite song. Instead of forbidding it, they should consider it as part of their marketing.
Sharing lyrics is as old as the humanity. I'm sure historians will call this period the dark age of music.
They joined the Internet train too late. They can't accept the new world and its rules. There are millions of source of information on the Internet, they aren't that special anymore.
I can get an objective view on an event With a single click. I'm not dependant anymore of the "so called" objectivity of a reporter. I can get millions of point of views and build my own one. If you can't accept that. I prefer you leave it.
they faced huge competitions from "free newspapers" on the street. They lost marketshares after marketshares because they are unable to change their business model.
Instead of complaining all the time why don't they unite and try to make a new innovative service. Why can't they compete with Google instead of crying like a poor baby?
Because they have strictly no imagination. Most of them are 100 years old ladies, with a board of directors mainly composed by 70+ year old guys. Changing their format takes decades, changing their layout takes years. The world is moving too fast for them.
What are they going to do? Ask google to avoid their web site? Suddently a drop of 80% of hits.
Oh wait...They still have a weapon, like all dying industries they will ask politicians to invent a new rule that will dammage the whole European Internet industry...They will survive maybe 5 or 6 years without having to change their business model. But Europe will lose decades in the economic world battle.
As usual all European entrepeneurs will suffer from the desperate actions of dying companies which will try "once again" to change the world instead of adapting their strategy to it.
They believe that internet publishing would harm the exchange of knowledge between researchers.
I think somebody should give them a book over the history of Internet and why it has been made public for the university decades ago.
This is the most absurd comment I've ever seen concerning Internet.
They have to choose: Do they want to publish studies? Then you have to take the most appropriate media to distribute them. IE Internet is by far the better choice. I don't know a single lab without a internet connection nearby.
Do they want to be somekind of a reward for hard working scientists (like c'mom I have been published in...)? So they are merely a third class noble prize.
Do they want to fund research? It simply means that they have to find another way to fund some researches of their own.
Just like anybody else on earth, it is not because you are the older that you aren't under the law of evolution (evolve or die).
You mean every single French citizens(60 millions inhabitants) are rude including a 4 years old boy, a 2 year girl or a 78 years old grandma?
All these bullshits about French beeing that, German beeing this and Americans beeing something else, all these endless overgeneralizations make you look like an idiot.
You are insulting the French because it is trendy. Hey see I hate the French! I'm one of yours! Exactly what the French idiot is doing with the USA.
Look at a young French/American boy and tell him: you are arrogant and a coward because of your nationality: I hate you.
You are right, this isn't racism. It is called xenophoby and hardly a proof of intelligence.
They should attack contracts between Microsoft and manufacturors. All these contracts binding the PC maker to Microsoft OS should be banned.
Then let the market decides which is the best OS. If it is still windows so be it. It simply means that the competitors aren't smarter than the competition from the 80's. When you have a competitive platform crippled with some many security flaws and PC maker free from any exclusivity, it must do the trick otherwise they are simply really bad at business.
Nobody knows how the PC market will involve technically in the upcoming years. But I guess that all OS should have a decent suite of multimedia softwares so clearly it is Microsoft's right to propose one.
For the little story: I know that the EU commission has an open source plan internally (force subcontractors to code only under an open source license, etc.). It has been discussed for years (first time I've seen it, it was in 2000). It hasn't been implemented yet and worst it isn't part of their call of tenders requirements for web based applications on their Intranet/extranet.
A lot of time you try to figure out what the variable is supposed to deal with:
For example; int d=0;
means nothing but:
int gross_sales_cents=0;
can help you to understand its purpose and avoid any useless comment.
Use heavily javadoc and the like.
Object should have common method's name too. For example, when you have to stop a runnable object, I've seen to many stupid stuff like object.stop_whatever() instead of a simple object.stop(). So you don't have to think about the correct method you have to use.
We all hear people complaining that they don't "control" the internet. I'm not American. But well Internet works, it is free and I trust more an American administration than a Chinese one at the moment.
So the basic question is: Who force them to stay "inside" the Internet? They have routers, they have servers, uplinks, they can setup their own ICANN server within a day.
If they feel so threatenned by the American institution, why don't they leave it and setup their own?
Do you often surf on their web sites? Personnaly all I receive from China is SPAM.
Let's call it the "Politically correct" Internet. It will under the control of China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Tunisia and all these fantastic countries we hear complaining. And for the rest of us we keep things as they are.
I don't want to surf all the day on a network partly monitored by non democratic countries. The UN is full of them, I don't want them to control any part of my life, not a single nanosecond, not a single bit.
Arianespace has signed a deal with Russia to include their soyuz rocket into their products range. I'm not an expert but it makes sense to use it for such mission, Ariane5 is mainly dedicated to commercial satellites.
I'm maybe wrong but I think soon Soyuz rockets will be launched from French guinea.
This is a small part of a European/Russian biggest plan to develop more and more solutions together.
Another factor was their "MSN network like mistake". They tried to force people to use their own format and they failed.
We had a project based on a web service few years ago. Wap was soon forgotten (plain text screen: ugly and slow). Only Palm and Windows CE (compaq Ipaq) were on the table.
We try both solutions and it ends up with Windows CE (500 licences)+ bluetooth enabled mobile phone (Nokia GSM phone, if I remind well...Used a modem).
Because of Palm required its own Hybrid HTML tags. Windows CE had Internet Explorer 4.x.
For those involved in the mobile world.
We had to quit the MIDP 2.0 market due to the severe limitations imposed by the myriad of constructors APIs. And even under the constructor umbrella you have to face different series with their own spec.
J2ME is a doomed environment. They needed years to come with a basic standard like MIDP 2.0 . And Bluetooth and other mobile features aren't even part of it.
It looks exactly like the micro computer market in the early 80's. And guess what...Who has the most "easy" environment for developers. Yes you name it. M***
Well thx There are still Blackberry for Java coders like me.
Well I guess even Microsoft fears for its future. I mean could you predict exactly how the computer world will look like in 10 or 15 years? Does the OS will be so important or will it be just like another commodity.
Or their cash cow...Ms Office...Will it be still that profitable in 10 years? Will open office become the de facto standard?
Some says for years (hello Sun) that your computer will soon be just like a plain old terminal (well I still doesn't believe it but if I was a running a big company like Ms, I would certainly leave that door open)
Even Microsoft must move forward. AOL is a huge database of customers. their value is purely commercial. This database will serve Microsoft for upcoming services.
Such as: video on demand, music and so on.
I don't like Microsoft nor do I hate it. But they move looks quite logical to me...The problem for other companies is that they are damned good at business logic.
I'm still using my old IBM thinkpad (3 years old). And I'm very happy with it.
at the office a PC desktop with a linux distro and Apache2. It has raid HDs. (I didn't installed Linux on my laptop...I know I can but the last time i did it, Linux badly managed my battery and I had to change it twice). And I've got a very old (+5 years) desktop PC running Linux as backup.
I write my code with emacs through a SSH connection. To me it is the ideal solution. I still have the power of Linux, a remote server always available and the simplicity of Windows XP. I really don't need anything more. I can work in the client office when needed, get feedback without having to move anything from my office. I can also take some hollidays but still beeing able to work or to do some follow-ups.
I would spend the money you have on books and not on hardware. Knowledge is far more important. You are paid because of your skills not because you have a "big" computer.
We laugh when we see our women running to catch the last fashion...But Frankly don't we look as stupid when we talk about computers?
Movies sucked this summer that's why i didn't go the theatre.
Give another tolkien trilogy and i will come back. Try to fool me with another boring "fit to all" scenario and you will never see me again.
I don't need a love scene right in the middle a galactic battle to please the 13 years old girl audience nor do they need an assassin X86aZ droid hidden in a love scene to please me.
I guess the right question for a filmwriter should be:
What do I want to see? Instead of What do they want to see.
I'm sure the result will be completly different.
People aren't completly dumb. They don't need the eternal :
A guy loves a girl and there is vilain.
Happy ending.
All these clichés repeated ad nauseum since the 30's.
Olivier
Re:Jonathan Zdziarski is out of his mind.
on
Ending Spam
·
· Score: 1
It is a book about spam. Programmers are human beeings too. they are irrational.
I mean...If this tool is so weak (javascript exploit, activeX plugin control, WINE emulation and the list goes on) what's the point?
Most people won't be able to bypass this very basic security measure until a script has been done. But it is a matter of time.
I still cannot understand why they have released such a stuff.
They didn't have much time. The marketing department was pressing them. They had to release something.
Microsoft knows that Pirated OSes help its popularity. They didn't want to destroy it. They simply wanted to increase the market share of "paid" OS.
WGA for windows XP and win2K is simply a "proof of concept". The real WGA will be implemented into the longhorn upcoming version.
Microsoft engineers are the worst engineers ever seen on the globe. They should be banned from the IT world and they should spend the rest of their life in the real world (...Scary).
I'm running my own company (3 employees).
When you work for a commercial company, the goal is to have customers. You can't have revenues without customers. They are the most important thing in your business. You work all the day for customers, you have meeting, you negociate with people you don't like because you want more customers. With these customers your company is able to pay your salary, hire new peoples and be positive to the country.
You don't bother customers with Web compliant browsers. You adapt you web site to their softwares. Sure you can advise them to change because it is not secured. But you still have to let them used whatever they want to.
We spend more than 50 Euro (+/- 60 US$) for each new client in advertisements. Others colleagues have worked months or even year on marketing campaigns to get this surfer on your web site. Months of negociations have been needed to be able to propose this interesting product at a fair price on the web site.
If one these potential clients cannot access the web site because a smart ass wants to put an automatic redirect script to mozilla.org, the dammage isn't even measurable, you will never know what this potential customers would have order. Competitors are few clicks away, it takes only 3 seconds to look at another web site.
Money that your company can't invest in new hardwares, or to reward a dynamic collaborator, to explore new markets, etc.
This is the real world others were talking about.
This is the big picture you have to keep in mind when you want to change the strategy of a private company.
I think we should start a petition. We should ask Apple to fire the manager working on their mouse since 1984.
He simply doesn't get it.
I work on both PC and Apple. I "hate" Apple's mouses. The worst so far was the first i-mac mouse. Before beeing a design master piece, it has to be used on a daily basis.
Two buttons and a wheel, that's all we are asking. damn it!
I'm also working for a very small company. We are making application for mobile devices.
Our marketing strategy is purely based on internet.
We used to make our site by yourselves. We are computer engineers not webdesigner.
There a two kind of buyers. Those who study the product before ordering it and those who wants to be seduced before ordering it. Most people are those who need to be seduced.
We gave the lay-out job to a webdesigner and the content to a communication agency.
it meaned a lot of money but in the end we have a bigger turnover and the investment was cleared within three months.
I suggest you to do the same things.
Slashdot Mirror
L&H went bankrupt. Directors went to jail.
Scansoft has been made by an American Entrepeneur who bought the US branch (Dragon Speech and err...Scansoft) from the "liquidation" (sorry I can't translate this term correctly). It didn't buy L&H. He took the property on some of their technologies. L&H has a such big debt that there was no point to buy the company in istelf.
The most notorious one was a completly new TTS engine. I think it was called the realspeech TTS or something.
Well I used to work in that industry around 2000. L&H kept buying companies after companies, in fact nothing serious has been really developped internally. Except probably the realspeech engine.
They turnover was fake, they were playing with different branches (mainly in Korea) to generate a fake turnover.
A wall street reporter found the trick and L&H disapeared.
Here in Belgium a lot of people lost all their economies with L&H. The sector was heavily dammaged by the affair (I had to find another work even if the competitor I used to work for, wasn't part of the affair).
I do exactly what you do.
Sometimes I cannot get the title on the radio . they didn't say it or I wasn't paying attention or I couldn't understand it (English isn't my native tongue).
I guess they will loose a big fraction of my sales too.
Simply think about all these teenagers fans. Englishspeaking and non-englishspeaking looking for the lyrics of their favorite song. Instead of forbidding it, they should consider it as part of their marketing.
Sharing lyrics is as old as the humanity. I'm sure historians will call this period the dark age of music.
Olivier
That's an old editorial for European publishers.
They joined the Internet train too late. They can't accept the new world and its rules. There are millions of source of information on the Internet, they aren't that special anymore.
I can get an objective view on an event With a single click. I'm not dependant anymore of the "so called" objectivity of a reporter. I can get millions of point of views and build my own one. If you can't accept that. I prefer you leave it.
they faced huge competitions from "free newspapers" on the street. They lost marketshares after marketshares because they are unable to change their business model.
Instead of complaining all the time why don't they unite and try to make a new innovative service. Why can't they compete with Google instead of crying like a poor baby?
Because they have strictly no imagination. Most of them are 100 years old ladies, with a board of directors mainly composed by 70+ year old guys. Changing their format takes decades, changing their layout takes years. The world is moving too fast for them.
What are they going to do? Ask google to avoid their web site? Suddently a drop of 80% of hits.
Oh wait...They still have a weapon, like all dying industries they will ask politicians to invent a new rule that will dammage the whole European Internet industry...They will survive maybe 5 or 6 years without having to change their business model. But Europe will lose decades in the economic world battle.
As usual all European entrepeneurs will suffer from the desperate actions of dying companies which will try "once again" to change the world instead of adapting their strategy to it.
Olivier
it seems that there is a new simple factor to know if
the legal system works or not.
It doesn't work when:
The victim screams "I"m going to be billionaire!" in front of his defect machine.
They believe that internet publishing would harm the exchange of knowledge between researchers.
I think somebody should give them a book over the history of Internet and why it has been made public for the university decades ago.
This is the most absurd comment I've ever seen concerning Internet.
They have to choose: Do they want to publish studies? Then you have to take the most appropriate media to distribute them. IE Internet is by far the better choice. I don't know a single lab without a internet connection nearby.
Do they want to be somekind of a reward for hard working scientists (like c'mom I have been published in...)? So they are merely a third class noble prize.
Do they want to fund research? It simply means that they have to find another way to fund some researches of their own.
Just like anybody else on earth, it is not because you are the older that you aren't under the law of evolution (evolve or die).
You mean every single French citizens(60 millions inhabitants) are rude including a 4 years old boy, a 2 year girl or a 78 years old grandma? All these bullshits about French beeing that, German beeing this and Americans beeing something else, all these endless overgeneralizations make you look like an idiot. You are insulting the French because it is trendy. Hey see I hate the French! I'm one of yours! Exactly what the French idiot is doing with the USA. Look at a young French/American boy and tell him: you are arrogant and a coward because of your nationality: I hate you. You are right, this isn't racism. It is called xenophoby and hardly a proof of intelligence.
They should attack contracts between Microsoft and manufacturors. All these contracts binding the PC maker to Microsoft OS should be banned.
Then let the market decides which is the best OS. If it is still windows so be it. It simply means that the competitors aren't smarter than the competition from the 80's. When you have a competitive platform crippled with some many security flaws and PC maker free from any exclusivity, it must do the trick otherwise they are simply really bad at business.
Nobody knows how the PC market will involve technically in the upcoming years. But I guess that all OS should have a decent suite of multimedia softwares so clearly it is Microsoft's right to propose one.
For the little story:
I know that the EU commission has an open source plan internally (force subcontractors to code only under an open source license, etc.). It has been discussed for years (first time I've seen it, it was in 2000). It hasn't been implemented yet and worst it isn't part of their call of tenders requirements for web based applications on their Intranet/extranet.
Olivier
A lot of time you try to figure out what the variable is supposed to deal with:
For example;
int d=0;
means nothing but:
int gross_sales_cents=0;
can help you to understand its purpose and avoid any useless comment.
Use heavily javadoc and the like.
Object should have common method's name too.
For example, when you have to stop a runnable object, I've seen to many stupid stuff like object.stop_whatever() instead of a simple object.stop(). So you don't have to think about the correct method you have to use.
Olivier
We all hear people complaining that they don't "control" the internet.
I'm not American. But well Internet works, it is free and I trust more an American administration than a Chinese one at the moment.
So the basic question is: Who force them to stay "inside" the Internet? They have routers, they have servers, uplinks, they can setup their own ICANN server within a day.
If they feel so threatenned by the American institution, why don't they leave it and setup their own?
Do you often surf on their web sites? Personnaly all I receive from China is SPAM.
Let's call it the "Politically correct" Internet. It will under the control of China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Tunisia and all these fantastic countries we hear complaining. And for the rest of us we keep things as they are.
I don't want to surf all the day on a network partly monitored by non democratic countries. The UN is full of them, I don't want them to control any part of my life, not a single nanosecond, not a single bit.
Olivier
Arianespace has signed a deal with Russia to include their soyuz rocket into their products range. I'm not an expert but it makes sense to use it for such mission, Ariane5 is mainly dedicated to commercial satellites.
I'm maybe wrong but I think soon Soyuz rockets will be launched from French guinea.
This is a small part of a European/Russian biggest plan to develop more and more solutions together.
Another factor was their "MSN network like mistake". They tried to force people to use their own format and they failed.
We had a project based on a web service few years ago.
Wap was soon forgotten (plain text screen: ugly and slow). Only Palm and Windows CE (compaq Ipaq) were on the table.
We try both solutions and it ends up with Windows CE (500 licences)+ bluetooth enabled mobile phone (Nokia GSM phone, if I remind well...Used a modem).
Because of Palm required its own Hybrid HTML tags. Windows CE had Internet Explorer 4.x.
For those involved in the mobile world. We had to quit the MIDP 2.0 market due to the severe limitations imposed by the myriad of constructors APIs. And even under the constructor umbrella you have to face different series with their own spec.
J2ME is a doomed environment. They needed years to come with a basic standard like MIDP 2.0 . And Bluetooth and other mobile features aren't even part of it.
It looks exactly like the micro computer market in the early 80's. And guess what...Who has the most "easy" environment for developers. Yes you name it. M***
Well thx There are still Blackberry for Java coders like me.
Well I guess even Microsoft fears for its future. I mean could you predict exactly how the computer world will look like in 10 or 15 years? Does the OS will be so important or will it be just like another commodity.
Or their cash cow...Ms Office...Will it be still that profitable in 10 years? Will open office become the de facto standard?
Some says for years (hello Sun) that your computer will soon be just like a plain old terminal (well I still doesn't believe it but if I was a running a big company like Ms, I would certainly leave that door open)
Even Microsoft must move forward. AOL is a huge database of customers. their value is purely commercial. This database will serve Microsoft for upcoming services. Such as: video on demand, music and so on.
I don't like Microsoft nor do I hate it. But they move looks quite logical to me...The problem for other companies is that they are damned good at business logic.
Olivier
if you are freelance like me this is a must.
I'm still using my old IBM thinkpad (3 years old). And I'm very happy with it.
at the office a PC desktop with a linux distro and Apache2. It has raid HDs. (I didn't installed Linux on my laptop...I know I can but the last time i did it, Linux badly managed my battery and I had to change it twice). And I've got a very old (+5 years) desktop PC running Linux as backup.
I write my code with emacs through a SSH connection. To me it is the ideal solution. I still have the power of Linux, a remote server always available and the simplicity of Windows XP. I really don't need anything more. I can work in the client office when needed, get feedback without having to move anything from my office. I can also take some hollidays but still beeing able to work or to do some follow-ups.
I would spend the money you have on books and not on hardware. Knowledge is far more important. You are paid because of your skills not because you have a "big" computer.
We laugh when we see our women running to catch the last fashion...But Frankly don't we look as stupid when we talk about computers?
Poetry
Romantism
Psychology
they will be as dumb as their geek fathers.
Well I don't know where you are, but here in Europe we have our load of advertisements too.
The problem of the US is that they want to make a movie for everyone.
The problem of the European countries is that they usually make a movie for nobody.
Olivier
I don't know for the US, but on the continent (Brussels) this is exactly the same.
Give another tolkien trilogy and i will come back. Try to fool me with another boring "fit to all" scenario and you will never see me again.
I don't need a love scene right in the middle a galactic battle to please the 13 years old girl audience nor do they need an assassin X86aZ droid hidden in a love scene to please me.
I guess the right question for a filmwriter should be: What do I want to see? Instead of What do they want to see.
I'm sure the result will be completly different.
People aren't completly dumb. They don't need the eternal :
- A guy loves a girl and there is vilain.
- Happy ending.
- All these clichés repeated ad nauseum since the 30's.
OlivierIt is a book about spam. Programmers are human beeings too. they are irrational.
Richter is everything but an idiot...Let me remind you that he has made millions out of SPAM.
Any advertisement is good. You know his name, you know where to go if you want "bulk emailing".
I guess the only thing is lacking of are self esteem and respect for others.
Most people won't be able to bypass this very basic security measure until a script has been done. But it is a matter of time.
I still cannot understand why they have released such a stuff.
I'm running my own company (3 employees).
When you work for a commercial company, the goal is to have customers. You can't have revenues without customers. They are the most important thing in your business. You work all the day for customers, you have meeting, you negociate with people you don't like because you want more customers. With these customers your company is able to pay your salary, hire new peoples and be positive to the country.
You don't bother customers with Web compliant browsers. You adapt you web site to their softwares. Sure you can advise them to change because it is not secured. But you still have to let them used whatever they want to.
We spend more than 50 Euro (+/- 60 US$) for each new client in advertisements. Others colleagues have worked months or even year on marketing campaigns to get this surfer on your web site. Months of negociations have been needed to be able to propose this interesting product at a fair price on the web site.
If one these potential clients cannot access the web site because a smart ass wants to put an automatic redirect script to mozilla.org, the dammage isn't even measurable, you will never know what this potential customers would have order. Competitors are few clicks away, it takes only 3 seconds to look at another web site.
Money that your company can't invest in new hardwares, or to reward a dynamic collaborator, to explore new markets, etc.
This is the real world others were talking about.
This is the big picture you have to keep in mind when you want to change the strategy of a private company.
Olivier
I think we should start a petition. We should ask Apple to fire the manager working on their mouse since 1984.
He simply doesn't get it.
I work on both PC and Apple. I "hate" Apple's mouses. The worst so far was the first i-mac mouse. Before beeing a design master piece, it has to be used on a daily basis.
Two buttons and a wheel, that's all we are asking. damn it!
Quite impressive, especially the polygon rendering. How did you do that?
I'm also working for a very small company. We are making application for mobile devices. Our marketing strategy is purely based on internet. We used to make our site by yourselves. We are computer engineers not webdesigner. There a two kind of buyers. Those who study the product before ordering it and those who wants to be seduced before ordering it. Most people are those who need to be seduced. We gave the lay-out job to a webdesigner and the content to a communication agency. it meaned a lot of money but in the end we have a bigger turnover and the investment was cleared within three months. I suggest you to do the same things.