Is there such a thing as a sort of Moore's Law for music and disk space? Maybe I can coin one...
I'm thinking there must be a point at which you can buy a disk big enough to store every song ever produced thus far (let's say in Flac format, for the sake of argument). Indeed, at some point, I presume disks will grow faster than record companies can turn the handle to crank out more tat.
In other words, save your money, wait for the zillion GB drive, because then you'll be able to store every track ever produced, plus all those likely to be produced in the five year warranty period. Imagine that - go a step further and imagine buying a disk that comes pre-loaded with every musical production ever recorded. The *AA may have something to say about it, but that's another story...
Good idea, and completely incompatible with mine;-)
Given that by their nature, terrorist attacks are unpredicatable, and have unpredicatable effects, it would be very difficult for any aeroplane or software designer to write code to react appropriately to bizarre problems. Thus, a well placed bomb (or missle hit), or even just an unfortunate accident (lightening, structural problems etc) could cause the computer to make ill-advised choices. If there's a pilot in the seat, (s)he ought to have the ability to completely stop the computer doing anything, in some hope of rectifying the problem.
Of course, my viewpoint requires that the design of the aircraft assume the computer will usually be right, but the pilot knows better. I'm sure that's a contentious issue, given the statistics of 'pilot error' in accidents. My consipiratorial side wonders if those statistics are somewhat skewed over time for commercial-political reasons. Thus making any decisions based on them similarly skewed.
However, the original points remain: If you have the technology, why not use it (ie. the recall device) and be wary of it (complete override).
Either way, pilots are going to have to become even more skilled for even less work in the future. There's no point them being there unless they really are better than the computer, but seeing as there's a computer, they shouldn't be required to do much very often.
Here in the UK, some mobile operators offer "the internet", which is actually "selected sites". On the face of it, this looks like the ops are trying to control the Internet/make money out of sites wanting to be on their network. However, I suspect at least part of the motivation is to only allow access to sites without popups, flash etc, so that even though you can't visit yourfavouritesite.com, at least what you can get to works okay..mobi would mean such operators could easily open up all access to.mobi in some confidence that it's going to be just fine (no support calls etc.), and I guess they're hoping that people will rush to make their sites.mobi for that audience.
However, as a poster above pointed out, there is convergence going on - that is, the WAP of yesterday is "mini browsers" today, so it's not going to be long before.mobi is pretty pointless. It makes me think it's all part of the mobile operator's constant "keep it fresh" marketing plans, ever since they all paid far too much for 3G.
Avast could do with a "bug me not" option though. It's got some very annoying dialogues, which are particularly annoying if you're not connected online.
For Avast users, you'll be familiar with that blue box that pops up over the clock for about 30 seconds saying "I've installed a new virus database" every time you boot windows. If it fails to connect, the box goes red and doesn't disappear, and doesn't have a 'dismiss' option - you have to then look at the other annoying popup that says why it couldn't connect.
Similarly, if it updates the program online, it's a bit overly happy to tell you every last thing about the process in a window that seems to sit on top of everything else. All that in addition to the annoying balloons XP SP2 keeps giving you.
That said, it's a pretty decent virus scanner, which is of course what it's there for. Personally, I can't be bothered to switch, so it'll stay on my Windows dual boot, but my mum and friends are all getting AVG, for no better reason that it's a lot less 'in your face' (and they don't use IM, etc).
As a Razr V3 touting O2 UK customer, I'll just chip in a bit of the same...
The Razr V3 is probably one of the best bits of phone hardware I've ever seen (and I've seen a few). It's emminently usable, small, has good battery life, and looks good too.
However, the software is awful. Terrible, in fact (even though it's field upgradable, unlike 99% of other phones that need a trip to the shop). Why don't phone companies duplicate Nokia software? Nokia has always had the best software, although tends to trail on the hardware a bit.
Open sourcing phone software could lead to projects like the open source ipod software. It's totally different software, doing much the same job as the original + extras. If someone could write a cut-down version of the V3 software without dog-slow animations and dodgy UI choices that makes calls and texts, I'd use it. Of course, if it could also allow me to send Bluetooth messages to unsuspecting people on the train, then that would be a bonus;-)
Motorola need(ed) to do something about their software. If they work on this like Redhat do with Fedora, then they could be onto something (ie. provide 80-90% of the workforce, but listen to the open source 10-20%). In time of course, the open source contingent would probably grow if it was worth their time.
The unfortunate fact is that by the time some new software is ready for (say) the RAZR V3, I'll be long onto a new contract and a new phone (which probably won't be Motorola).
Sort of reminds me about the story of the NASA space pen. It cost 5 million dollars to produce, over many man hours and represents the pinacle of pen technology.
The Russians just used a pencil.
That story may not be true, but you wonder if all this hassle's really worth it?
This is broadly how BA used to market Concorde - as a time management tool. Flying Concorde would cost you something like three to five times as much as conventional flights. If your time is worth enough, that actually saves you money. Especially as you could go from London to NY and back again without particularly having to contend with jetlag. Given the flights were pretty plush (although a bit cramped inside, you got use of the lounge, bags carried etc) you'd arrive at your destination in pretty good shape, rather than having had the life sucked out of you for 8 hours+ each way.
The same questions remain though: Are there significant numbers of people who's time is worth the premium price? (especially as the premium price is likely to be high unless this thing runs on a teaspoon of fuel). Sonic boom issues will slow flights down, although new technology will enable faster non-supersonic and presumably faster supersonic flight. It's not like the Japanese to bugger up the business angle on things, so maybe they've got something...?
Didn't someone already do this? I'm not sure it was a whole branch, but it was a fake ATM machine. If memory serves (sorry, no references), they ram-raided an ATM out of some place, emptied it and used the shell to make a fake machine somewhere else (which I seem to remember was built into a wall!).
Quite reasonably, people saw a proper bank machine, with no "suspicious devices" attached, and went to get money. Oddly, their card was retained;-)
This scam predates the more widespread "skinning" scams which require a device to be attached over the card slot. Not sure how many people they got, or indeed how long the scam lasted before getting busted, but I'll bet the Police walked past it a few times before they got wise.
This sort of thing isn't just about going after stupid people. They're generally getting smarter, because the rewards are so good. Once yo' mumma stops clicking links in emails, this will be the only phishing that takes place.
I can't be sure about 'Europe' as an entity, but here in the UK (and other member countries), monopolies are accepted for a time, and then regulated into competition.
The way it generally works is that some company springs up and sweeps the market. At some point it is generally considered a monopoly. At that point, someone/something brings some sort of law suit against the monopoly, at which time it's market dominance is assessed.
If it's market control is broad, that's okay, so long as it's not at the expense of competitors or potential competitors. In the case of MS, it's monopoly is at the expense of other players, because they're not allowed to join in unless they get into bed with MS - whilst they're separate companies, they're part of the monopoly.
Someone like Apple is much less likely to be considered a monopoly (although there's definitely room to argue they are). Whilst they lock the iPod to iTunes, there's no restriction on who can get onto iTunes, and the iPod plays other formats. In short, we consumers aren't limited to the iPod/iTunes combo, indeed, it could be argued quite the opposite, because unless you have an iPod, iTunes has a pretty small value proposition.
As for people choosing MS, a large part of this is of course because 'everyone else does'. That causes the $10 (or should I say 10euro) card manufacturers to ignore the minority that don't use MS, thus circularly extenuating the monopoly situation. Even though MS isn't stopping OEMs supporting minorities, the market is at 'critical mass' where it self-enforces the monopoly. The intention of regulation is to provide market/capitalist encouragement to OEMs to support minority vendors, allowing them to compete.
In the case of this documentation request, it's there so that the little guy in his shed can produce MS compatible products and sell them. It's not even that much about big companies doing the same thing, because they could arguably pay the money for the doco. The EU is aiming this at the little guy, because with enough of those, the market will self-regulate, without an over-bearing monopoly (even if IBM, Apple, Novell, Oracle etc all got in, it'd just be a pent-o-poly, so still not really self-regulating). Clearly, if that little guy can't make his products, either because there is no doco, or because he still needs (presumably paid for) help from the monopoly, then the EU doesn't like it because it hasn't achieved the original aims.
The bottom line is that if you're dominant in the market, you can't be actively freezing out other players, nor can you be forcing them to play along with you in order to compete with you. Both situations make you look like a monopoly, and so you'll get regulated.
Ah yes, enter the MPAA and UK equivalent that seem to have more greed than common sense.
Stelios came up with Easy Cinema (http://www.easycinema.com/ where you could watch a film for 50 pence (off peak, not likely a recent release either). Not sure it quite worked out as it maybe was planned, but his basic take was that he could strip out all of the snacks and drinks, replace them with vending machines, and have a skeleton staff running the place. If you want that kindly old dear showing you to your seat with that strange torch thing, you're out of luck.
In short, he was going to cut his costs to the knuckle so that ticket prices could get sensible. As someone who's widely acknowledged as being the catalyst for lowering the cost of air travel, he's got the credentials for doing it in cinema. As I say though, not sure it's quite panned out as broadly as it maybe was planned.
Personally, I think cinema is a bit old-hat. Home cinema is 'good enough' (and getting better/cheaper), so I can't see cinemas having anything you can't do elsewhere. Back in the 50s I'm sure cinema was the coolest thing ever, but not now. Imax may have the technology to give people a reason to leave their own homes, but lacking feature films has slowed them up.
The movie associations have had a good run of making money for old rope. They need to start innovating, or else the herd will just totter off elsewhere. They'll have to drop at least half of their greed to do it, so I can't see it happening any time soon.
"The only way" is the kind of tat the vendors are trotting out.
I'm pretty sure the same could be achieved with a physical key on the machine that prevents BIOS updates and writes to one or more hard disks (or USB keys).
In this scenario, you lock your PC (or your local tech locks it for you). You get to use your computer as you like, everything works as it ought to (and you're still protected, even if you're root/administrator). When you need to do updates, you turn the key, do the updates and turn the key back.
Clearly, an insecure OS is always going to screw this up. Similarly, insecure techs will screw it up. However, a proper corporate environment would be fine with this, as the techs would know the procedure to follow.
Personally, I'd prefer a physical key or switch than a bunch of DRM. At least that way, if my system is screwed it's my fault not some far-remote corporation in another country with it's own agenda.
I realise of course that the concept of personal responsibility is somewhat out of fashion in the country where most of these corporations are based:-(
Personally, I'm planning a boat (probably a 60+ foot traditional style widebeam European barge). That'll give me a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom and a study. Since it's a boat, you have to worry about things like water, gas, diesel, electricity supply, 12v supply, battery health, mains inverters and any number of other things.
I'm thinking a small computer (like a Via based something) should be keeping an eye on all of that lot, via a whole mish-mash of flow meters, volt meters, power meters, and who knows what else. Obviously, every light switch needs to be relay based so that "ship's computer" can control them at will. Obviously, all this is going to need a touch screen to report what the hell's going on with everything. It might be "important" to know that I've been using 10 litres of water for every kw/h of mains power or something;-)
Audio-wise, I've got a couple of Squeeze Boxes, which work nicely from 12V. Of course they'll need some sort of amp, so probably something designed for a car would do well. Seeing as power consumption is an issue, the squeeze box will have to switch the amp on and off too.
Video wise, I'm not a big TV/movie watcher, so I figure that "ship's computer" just needs to be a file server so that I can plumb in some sort of diskless media machine later on. I'll have to flood-wire (pardon the nautical pun) cat5 or something for all that to work nicely.
Since most marinas have Wifi access, and since there are bound to be a few open access points along rivers, I figure the boat needs it's own access point, plus a 'roving' connection snooping out all those other Wifi APs. It'll need a 'preference list' so that it tunes into the right AP when there's a choice (and doesn't tune into the boat's local AP!).
Obviously, I'll have to spend months writing suitable software so that if the pontoon mains power fails (because I haven't paid the bills, or just because...) that the computer turns off lights, mains, and ultimately the domestic 12V so that it doesn't screw the batteries. I'll have to think about some sort of 'critical supply' for the computer and the fridge too.
Similarly, I suspect I'll tinker with the touch-screen UI for far too long too. I haven't really got much idea how it'll all work, but it'll be fun finding out.
I was also thinking along the lines of a couple of cameras. With all this automation, it seems that it's almost obligatory to have a way of seeing who's at the door long before getting off the sofa.
It'd be really cool to have some photovoltaics on the roof too. Not sure about the practicalities of that, given that the roof is a walking surface. Maybe a little windmill somewhere too, just for completeness;-)
There's got to be some fun involved too. There needs to be a 'Barry White Button' somewhere that dims a load of lights, switches on the Squeeze Box (and amp), selects a suitable volume and plays some Barry White.
Okay, back to reality: I'm just about making the rent at the moment, so the prospect of buying such a boat and then doing all the work on it is quite a few years away. Everyone should go buy something from my company so I can get it all underway.
SMS was 'invented' because they could do it for free. In the olden days, the phone would communicate with the base station using a variable length packet, which could be between two sizes. For the most part, only the smallest packet was ever used, leaving 160 bytes spare in the protocol.
As a result, early text messages could only be 160 characters (bytes, as Unicode wasn't possible). Since then, I suspect the protocols have changed a bit (GSM2 and all that). Longer messages are possible by concatenation, etc etc. I would imagine 3G has text data capabilities explicitly, rather than being "something for free".
In short, someone spotted a bit of spare capability and used it for something. The telcos didn't expect it to do much, but figured it was something landlines couldn't do and they could give it away "for free" (meaning "only" 10 pence per message, as opposed to 50 pence a minute talking, or whatever the plan allows).
Of course, since then, the proliferation of text message services makes it a proper business proposition, as opposed to "something that might be fun". I suspect they make as much money from texts as they do from calls these days.
Back on topic: Didn't Virgin used to do TV/poster ads about sore thumbs because their texts were so cheap? This all sounds like Branson-esque promotion to me...
This guy's obviously a bafoon, but he's got half a point (misdirected, but still...). I think we all know the link between mobile phones and cancer (despite what the telcos say). There's also a suspected link between mains electricity (and it's associated fields) and cancer:
So the point being, the frequency is irrelevant, it's all to do with the magnetic and electric fields. When one or both of these are far in excess of ambient, they cause problems.
The new-age movement goes further to infer that all electrical devices give off 'bad vibes' in the form of positive ions (which make you feel tired, depressed etc). Clearly, transmitting devices are designed to propagate a signal, so it follows that they create more of these ions. Again, there's some science behind this, although arguable.
It looks like this guy is a bit misguided, but looking out for such things. For it to be any use at all, he'd have to ban phones, high current cables, and most of the engineering department, oh, not to mention around about every computer on campus.
Actually, when the X-Prize was first announced, various larger courier companies expressed an interest. I believe it was a UPS spokesperson who summed it up nicely:
"We'd be able to say that if you sent a package from Sydney by 9am, we could deliver to Los Angeles by 5pm the day before"
(hopefully properly quoted!)
Pretty exciting stuff. I understand it's possible to get anywhere in the world in around 45 minutes via space. Of course, the journey may not be all that pleasant (high-G, lots of discomfort on re-entry etc), but freight really doesn't mind that sort of thing. Given enough years at it, private enterprise would solve those problems, making space journeys the same as taking a plane now.
In my small business, I have to send my accountant monthly spreadsheets of the bank activity, what invoices I've sent, and what expenses I've claimed. Pretty simple stuff.
Now if I have two people doing that, we can both be adding stuff in, and our accountant gets to see it as it happens.
Granted, this is possible with Excel sharing, or SharePoint, but the point here being that (a) it's simple and (b) is web based and (c) it doesn't require all of us to share a fileserver and (d) it's open (standards|source).
If I could convince my accountant to use something like this, it would save a lot of batting spreadsheets about (since we don't share a file server).
I'm not convinced it's 'revolutionary' (or even that unique), but It's certainly a Good Thing, and no doubt has possibilities I/we haven't thought of (just like Wikis a few years back).
I'll be first in line to get my beta virus protection from Microsoft!
I'm trying to work this out, but keep getting an integer overflow. Let's try and work this out...
10 Make bad product with loads of security problems 20 Watch as the world creates viruses to take advantage of bad product's security problems 30 Create a program to cover over the cracks 40 Before testing it all the way, release to the public 50 Goto 20
I'm sure there should be a "??? Profit!" stage in there somewhere too...
All I seem to end up with is a system that does nothing but cover over it's own problems. HELP!
Imagine you're the owner of a paper factory. You sell paper to the local newspaper, that reports on all local matters in a fair and unbiased way (come on, play along;-). One day, you notice that a rival paper factory in another locality is advertising in your local paper.
To counter, you start advertising in you local paper too. Both you and your competitor enjoy a growth in your respective businesses. Your local paper increases it's circulation (increasing paper demand even further) and of course starts to make some serious money.
You observe your local news paper making lots of money, "all thanks to your paper". Do you have a case to extract a fee from the newspaper? Are they getting a "free lunch" due to your hard work, or is it just business-model envy?
Is there a case for forming a cartel with your rival paper firm, and then 'extract' extra from the newspaper? Or perhaps, if you and your rival stop advertising in your newspaper, maybe they'll see a change of fortune? Or maybe you should just be happy you're selling paper and making a living?
Someone more legally minded than me may shoot me down for this, but I understand that Linus' comments about Redhat are a misunderstanding of the GPL3. From TFA:
Notice how the current GPLv3 draft pretty clearly says that Red Hat would have to distribute their private keys so that anybody sign their own versions of the modules they recompile, in order to re-create their own versions of the signed binaries that Red Hat creates. That's INSANE.
This is not what the GPL3 says at all. It says you must distribute keys IF your code won't work without them. In the Redhat case, that's not true at all - you can download and install unsigned (or third party signed) code all you want. Redhat signs stuff so you can be sure it came from Redhat and not Fred in His Shed - that is ALL.
From TFL: Complete Corresponding Source Code also includes any encryption or authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source code of the work, perhaps modified by you, in the recommended or principal context of use, such that its functioning in all circumstances is identical to that of the work, except as altered by your modifications. It also includes any decryption codes necessary to access or unseal the work's output.
The GPL3 does not try to take code-signing capability away from anyone. It states that you must give away keys if it's impossible to make a working program without them. I'll give an example:
Say there's a crypto program that uses modules, and is not open source. If you write modules, they have to be signed by one of a series of keys before the program will use the module.
If you tried to release a GPL3 module for this product, you would have to also put your keys with it because without the keys, a third party cannot produce a working module.
The GPL3 really says that if you're using DRM, you have to let other people use it too. There's a double-edged sword here: At the moment, you could release your (non-working) module as GPL2. Of course, it's useless, except for anyone else who has the keys. It's unlikely the owner of the crypto program would release keys for anyone to use (and so distribute) as that (as stated by Linus) makes the use of DRM pointless. In short, you're unlikely to be able to use the GPL3 for such situations.
My personal view (as if it matters) is that the GPL3 will fail because (a) people don't understand it and (b) no commercial vendor is likely to use it if they have to give everything away to do it. Using GPL2 + secret keys means you get all the benefits of open source, without giving away your competitive edge.
Of course, GPL3 might gain ground because version 3's got to be better than version 2, right?
I can't say about that, but I'm told it's 'illegal' to take pictures of Ayes Rock in Aus. The problem (so I'm told) is that in order to take any pictures of it, you're on someone's land who doesn't allow photos (but don't mind you travellng over that land or indeed climbing the rock. TFA doesn't say if any private land was involved here (if it was, then the landowner would have had to get the police to act, and would presumably have had to be named, which may suggest no private land was involved?).
I'm a bit vague on details, perhaps someone can confirm?
Doubtless what they're saying is over-stretched hype. However, the application of speech recognition to translation to natural language processing makes for some interesting stuff.
The problems you outline happen in English -> Canadian (and probably American too), let alone more complex translations (try calling a Canadian a 'native' - doesn't tend to go down well, but it's normal fare in the UK).
However, add in "domain knowledge" and you're in some interesting territory. I think this is essentially what Google did - they fed in oodles of texts in the various languages so that the system could statistically match phrases. At a simple level, you could have a lookup table of common colloquialisms (eg. 'he's kicked the bucket'(English/UK) == 'he broke his pipe' (French/FR)).
Of course, the only way to really get this going is with natural language processing. At the moment though, computers can (AFAIK) only understand things they're expecting, as opposed to understanding anything and then reproducing it in another language. A way to go there, but I'm sure IBM are on it already... Natural Language processing has to evolve with the language, so it's always a bit of a moving target, and hard to do, because the kids keep inventing new versions of the language ("naar wot I'm sayin'?).
What are the dangers of seeing this in the wild anytime soon? Very slim, I'd say. Of course, they may release the raw speech-to-text engine as a binary, but the rest of it is experimental at best, and currently has enormous amounts of R&D budget absorbed into it (and NL will probably be on subscription). You may be able to buy it as a service sometime though, I guess...?
...and also one of the shuttles returned home with a cracked windscreen. It was later discovered that it was caused by a paint fleck from a previous mission.
I think (but can't confirm) that this incident caused Nasa (et al.) to genuinely consider space junk (before then, I think it was filed under 'bahh, it's not a problem'). I believe the shuttle now/used to routinely orbit back to front, or in other positions to protect the space-walking crew, or critical systems from space junk.
My last bit of pseudo-wisdom is that apparently small particles (as they will all eventually be, unless they de-orbit) gradually form into rings (hoops, as opposed to saturn style discs). That sort of thing is visible from the ground - it could be the first man-made space thing visible from the ground!
Never mind those crazy Chinese spending years building a wall that took us a couple of thousand years to see from space. We can build something in space we can see from the ground in just 50 odd years!
Remember that unlike Google (and MSN), Yahoo, AOL and others use 'redirect' links, rather than direct links to sites. As a result, Yahoo, AOL etc track far more than the words you type into a search box because they actually know where you went after that.
Thus, any such spider should be 'clicking' those redirect links to inflate the stats somewhat;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Is there such a thing as a sort of Moore's Law for music and disk space? Maybe I can coin one...
I'm thinking there must be a point at which you can buy a disk big enough to store every song ever produced thus far (let's say in Flac format, for the sake of argument). Indeed, at some point, I presume disks will grow faster than record companies can turn the handle to crank out more tat.
In other words, save your money, wait for the zillion GB drive, because then you'll be able to store every track ever produced, plus all those likely to be produced in the five year warranty period. Imagine that - go a step further and imagine buying a disk that comes pre-loaded with every musical production ever recorded. The *AA may have something to say about it, but that's another story...
Good idea, and completely incompatible with mine ;-)
Given that by their nature, terrorist attacks are unpredicatable, and have unpredicatable effects, it would be very difficult for any aeroplane or software designer to write code to react appropriately to bizarre problems. Thus, a well placed bomb (or missle hit), or even just an unfortunate accident (lightening, structural problems etc) could cause the computer to make ill-advised choices. If there's a pilot in the seat, (s)he ought to have the ability to completely stop the computer doing anything, in some hope of rectifying the problem.
Of course, my viewpoint requires that the design of the aircraft assume the computer will usually be right, but the pilot knows better. I'm sure that's a contentious issue, given the statistics of 'pilot error' in accidents. My consipiratorial side wonders if those statistics are somewhat skewed over time for commercial-political reasons. Thus making any decisions based on them similarly skewed.
However, the original points remain: If you have the technology, why not use it (ie. the recall device) and be wary of it (complete override).
Either way, pilots are going to have to become even more skilled for even less work in the future. There's no point them being there unless they really are better than the computer, but seeing as there's a computer, they shouldn't be required to do much very often.
4. Sell devices that can connect to the internet
.mobi would mean such operators could easily open up all access to .mobi in some confidence that it's going to be just fine (no support calls etc.), and I guess they're hoping that people will rush to make their sites .mobi for that audience.
.mobi is pretty pointless. It makes me think it's all part of the mobile operator's constant "keep it fresh" marketing plans, ever since they all paid far too much for 3G.
Here in the UK, some mobile operators offer "the internet", which is actually "selected sites". On the face of it, this looks like the ops are trying to control the Internet/make money out of sites wanting to be on their network. However, I suspect at least part of the motivation is to only allow access to sites without popups, flash etc, so that even though you can't visit yourfavouritesite.com, at least what you can get to works okay.
However, as a poster above pointed out, there is convergence going on - that is, the WAP of yesterday is "mini browsers" today, so it's not going to be long before
Avast could do with a "bug me not" option though. It's got some very annoying dialogues, which are particularly annoying if you're not connected online.
For Avast users, you'll be familiar with that blue box that pops up over the clock for about 30 seconds saying "I've installed a new virus database" every time you boot windows. If it fails to connect, the box goes red and doesn't disappear, and doesn't have a 'dismiss' option - you have to then look at the other annoying popup that says why it couldn't connect.
Similarly, if it updates the program online, it's a bit overly happy to tell you every last thing about the process in a window that seems to sit on top of everything else. All that in addition to the annoying balloons XP SP2 keeps giving you.
That said, it's a pretty decent virus scanner, which is of course what it's there for. Personally, I can't be bothered to switch, so it'll stay on my Windows dual boot, but my mum and friends are all getting AVG, for no better reason that it's a lot less 'in your face' (and they don't use IM, etc).
As a Razr V3 touting O2 UK customer, I'll just chip in a bit of the same...
;-)
The Razr V3 is probably one of the best bits of phone hardware I've ever seen (and I've seen a few). It's emminently usable, small, has good battery life, and looks good too.
However, the software is awful. Terrible, in fact (even though it's field upgradable, unlike 99% of other phones that need a trip to the shop). Why don't phone companies duplicate Nokia software? Nokia has always had the best software, although tends to trail on the hardware a bit.
Open sourcing phone software could lead to projects like the open source ipod software. It's totally different software, doing much the same job as the original + extras. If someone could write a cut-down version of the V3 software without dog-slow animations and dodgy UI choices that makes calls and texts, I'd use it. Of course, if it could also allow me to send Bluetooth messages to unsuspecting people on the train, then that would be a bonus
Motorola need(ed) to do something about their software. If they work on this like Redhat do with Fedora, then they could be onto something (ie. provide 80-90% of the workforce, but listen to the open source 10-20%). In time of course, the open source contingent would probably grow if it was worth their time.
The unfortunate fact is that by the time some new software is ready for (say) the RAZR V3, I'll be long onto a new contract and a new phone (which probably won't be Motorola).
Sort of reminds me about the story of the NASA space pen. It cost 5 million dollars to produce, over many man hours and represents the pinacle of pen technology.
The Russians just used a pencil.
That story may not be true, but you wonder if all this hassle's really worth it?
This is broadly how BA used to market Concorde - as a time management tool. Flying Concorde would cost you something like three to five times as much as conventional flights. If your time is worth enough, that actually saves you money. Especially as you could go from London to NY and back again without particularly having to contend with jetlag. Given the flights were pretty plush (although a bit cramped inside, you got use of the lounge, bags carried etc) you'd arrive at your destination in pretty good shape, rather than having had the life sucked out of you for 8 hours+ each way.
The same questions remain though: Are there significant numbers of people who's time is worth the premium price? (especially as the premium price is likely to be high unless this thing runs on a teaspoon of fuel). Sonic boom issues will slow flights down, although new technology will enable faster non-supersonic and presumably faster supersonic flight. It's not like the Japanese to bugger up the business angle on things, so maybe they've got something...?
Dude, you're the illest!
Didn't someone already do this? I'm not sure it was a whole branch, but it was a fake ATM machine. If memory serves (sorry, no references), they ram-raided an ATM out of some place, emptied it and used the shell to make a fake machine somewhere else (which I seem to remember was built into a wall!).
;-)
Quite reasonably, people saw a proper bank machine, with no "suspicious devices" attached, and went to get money. Oddly, their card was retained
This scam predates the more widespread "skinning" scams which require a device to be attached over the card slot. Not sure how many people they got, or indeed how long the scam lasted before getting busted, but I'll bet the Police walked past it a few times before they got wise.
This sort of thing isn't just about going after stupid people. They're generally getting smarter, because the rewards are so good. Once yo' mumma stops clicking links in emails, this will be the only phishing that takes place.
I can't be sure about 'Europe' as an entity, but here in the UK (and other member countries), monopolies are accepted for a time, and then regulated into competition.
The way it generally works is that some company springs up and sweeps the market. At some point it is generally considered a monopoly. At that point, someone/something brings some sort of law suit against the monopoly, at which time it's market dominance is assessed.
If it's market control is broad, that's okay, so long as it's not at the expense of competitors or potential competitors. In the case of MS, it's monopoly is at the expense of other players, because they're not allowed to join in unless they get into bed with MS - whilst they're separate companies, they're part of the monopoly.
Someone like Apple is much less likely to be considered a monopoly (although there's definitely room to argue they are). Whilst they lock the iPod to iTunes, there's no restriction on who can get onto iTunes, and the iPod plays other formats. In short, we consumers aren't limited to the iPod/iTunes combo, indeed, it could be argued quite the opposite, because unless you have an iPod, iTunes has a pretty small value proposition.
As for people choosing MS, a large part of this is of course because 'everyone else does'. That causes the $10 (or should I say 10euro) card manufacturers to ignore the minority that don't use MS, thus circularly extenuating the monopoly situation. Even though MS isn't stopping OEMs supporting minorities, the market is at 'critical mass' where it self-enforces the monopoly. The intention of regulation is to provide market/capitalist encouragement to OEMs to support minority vendors, allowing them to compete.
In the case of this documentation request, it's there so that the little guy in his shed can produce MS compatible products and sell them. It's not even that much about big companies doing the same thing, because they could arguably pay the money for the doco. The EU is aiming this at the little guy, because with enough of those, the market will self-regulate, without an over-bearing monopoly (even if IBM, Apple, Novell, Oracle etc all got in, it'd just be a pent-o-poly, so still not really self-regulating). Clearly, if that little guy can't make his products, either because there is no doco, or because he still needs (presumably paid for) help from the monopoly, then the EU doesn't like it because it hasn't achieved the original aims.
The bottom line is that if you're dominant in the market, you can't be actively freezing out other players, nor can you be forcing them to play along with you in order to compete with you. Both situations make you look like a monopoly, and so you'll get regulated.
Ah yes, enter the MPAA and UK equivalent that seem to have more greed than common sense.
Stelios came up with Easy Cinema (http://www.easycinema.com/ where you could watch a film for 50 pence (off peak, not likely a recent release either). Not sure it quite worked out as it maybe was planned, but his basic take was that he could strip out all of the snacks and drinks, replace them with vending machines, and have a skeleton staff running the place. If you want that kindly old dear showing you to your seat with that strange torch thing, you're out of luck.
In short, he was going to cut his costs to the knuckle so that ticket prices could get sensible. As someone who's widely acknowledged as being the catalyst for lowering the cost of air travel, he's got the credentials for doing it in cinema. As I say though, not sure it's quite panned out as broadly as it maybe was planned.
Personally, I think cinema is a bit old-hat. Home cinema is 'good enough' (and getting better/cheaper), so I can't see cinemas having anything you can't do elsewhere. Back in the 50s I'm sure cinema was the coolest thing ever, but not now. Imax may have the technology to give people a reason to leave their own homes, but lacking feature films has slowed them up.
The movie associations have had a good run of making money for old rope. They need to start innovating, or else the herd will just totter off elsewhere. They'll have to drop at least half of their greed to do it, so I can't see it happening any time soon.
"The only way" is the kind of tat the vendors are trotting out.
:-(
I'm pretty sure the same could be achieved with a physical key on the machine that prevents BIOS updates and writes to one or more hard disks (or USB keys).
In this scenario, you lock your PC (or your local tech locks it for you). You get to use your computer as you like, everything works as it ought to (and you're still protected, even if you're root/administrator). When you need to do updates, you turn the key, do the updates and turn the key back.
Clearly, an insecure OS is always going to screw this up. Similarly, insecure techs will screw it up. However, a proper corporate environment would be fine with this, as the techs would know the procedure to follow.
Personally, I'd prefer a physical key or switch than a bunch of DRM. At least that way, if my system is screwed it's my fault not some far-remote corporation in another country with it's own agenda.
I realise of course that the concept of personal responsibility is somewhat out of fashion in the country where most of these corporations are based
I'm thinking a small computer (like a Via based something) should be keeping an eye on all of that lot, via a whole mish-mash of flow meters, volt meters, power meters, and who knows what else. Obviously, every light switch needs to be relay based so that "ship's computer" can control them at will. Obviously, all this is going to need a touch screen to report what the hell's going on with everything. It might be "important" to know that I've been using 10 litres of water for every kw/h of mains power or something ;-)
Audio-wise, I've got a couple of Squeeze Boxes, which work nicely from 12V. Of course they'll need some sort of amp, so probably something designed for a car would do well. Seeing as power consumption is an issue, the squeeze box will have to switch the amp on and off too.
Video wise, I'm not a big TV/movie watcher, so I figure that "ship's computer" just needs to be a file server so that I can plumb in some sort of diskless media machine later on. I'll have to flood-wire (pardon the nautical pun) cat5 or something for all that to work nicely.
Since most marinas have Wifi access, and since there are bound to be a few open access points along rivers, I figure the boat needs it's own access point, plus a 'roving' connection snooping out all those other Wifi APs. It'll need a 'preference list' so that it tunes into the right AP when there's a choice (and doesn't tune into the boat's local AP!).
Obviously, I'll have to spend months writing suitable software so that if the pontoon mains power fails (because I haven't paid the bills, or just because...) that the computer turns off lights, mains, and ultimately the domestic 12V so that it doesn't screw the batteries. I'll have to think about some sort of 'critical supply' for the computer and the fridge too.
Similarly, I suspect I'll tinker with the touch-screen UI for far too long too. I haven't really got much idea how it'll all work, but it'll be fun finding out.
I was also thinking along the lines of a couple of cameras. With all this automation, it seems that it's almost obligatory to have a way of seeing who's at the door long before getting off the sofa.
It'd be really cool to have some photovoltaics on the roof too. Not sure about the practicalities of that, given that the roof is a walking surface. Maybe a little windmill somewhere too, just for completeness ;-)
There's got to be some fun involved too. There needs to be a 'Barry White Button' somewhere that dims a load of lights, switches on the Squeeze Box (and amp), selects a suitable volume and plays some Barry White.
Okay, back to reality: I'm just about making the rent at the moment, so the prospect of buying such a boat and then doing all the work on it is quite a few years away. Everyone should go buy something from my company so I can get it all underway.
SMS was 'invented' because they could do it for free. In the olden days, the phone would communicate with the base station using a variable length packet, which could be between two sizes. For the most part, only the smallest packet was ever used, leaving 160 bytes spare in the protocol.
As a result, early text messages could only be 160 characters (bytes, as Unicode wasn't possible). Since then, I suspect the protocols have changed a bit (GSM2 and all that). Longer messages are possible by concatenation, etc etc. I would imagine 3G has text data capabilities explicitly, rather than being "something for free".
In short, someone spotted a bit of spare capability and used it for something. The telcos didn't expect it to do much, but figured it was something landlines couldn't do and they could give it away "for free" (meaning "only" 10 pence per message, as opposed to 50 pence a minute talking, or whatever the plan allows).
Of course, since then, the proliferation of text message services makes it a proper business proposition, as opposed to "something that might be fun". I suspect they make as much money from texts as they do from calls these days.
Back on topic: Didn't Virgin used to do TV/poster ads about sore thumbs because their texts were so cheap? This all sounds like Branson-esque promotion to me...
This guy's obviously a bafoon, but he's got half a point (misdirected, but still...). I think we all know the link between mobile phones and cancer (despite what the telcos say). There's also a suspected link between mains electricity (and it's associated fields) and cancer:
e ws/2002/10/06/nemf06.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/10/06/i xhome.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
So the point being, the frequency is irrelevant, it's all to do with the magnetic and electric fields. When one or both of these are far in excess of ambient, they cause problems.
The new-age movement goes further to infer that all electrical devices give off 'bad vibes' in the form of positive ions (which make you feel tired, depressed etc). Clearly, transmitting devices are designed to propagate a signal, so it follows that they create more of these ions. Again, there's some science behind this, although arguable.
It looks like this guy is a bit misguided, but looking out for such things. For it to be any use at all, he'd have to ban phones, high current cables, and most of the engineering department, oh, not to mention around about every computer on campus.
Actually, when the X-Prize was first announced, various larger courier companies expressed an interest. I believe it was a UPS spokesperson who summed it up nicely:
"We'd be able to say that if you sent a package from Sydney by 9am, we could deliver to Los Angeles by 5pm the day before"
(hopefully properly quoted!)
Pretty exciting stuff. I understand it's possible to get anywhere in the world in around 45 minutes via space. Of course, the journey may not be all that pleasant (high-G, lots of discomfort on re-entry etc), but freight really doesn't mind that sort of thing. Given enough years at it, private enterprise would solve those problems, making space journeys the same as taking a plane now.
I've got another one:
In my small business, I have to send my accountant monthly spreadsheets of the bank activity, what invoices I've sent, and what expenses I've claimed. Pretty simple stuff.
Now if I have two people doing that, we can both be adding stuff in, and our accountant gets to see it as it happens.
Granted, this is possible with Excel sharing, or SharePoint, but the point here being that (a) it's simple and (b) is web based and (c) it doesn't require all of us to share a fileserver and (d) it's open (standards|source).
If I could convince my accountant to use something like this, it would save a lot of batting spreadsheets about (since we don't share a file server).
I'm not convinced it's 'revolutionary' (or even that unique), but It's certainly a Good Thing, and no doubt has possibilities I/we haven't thought of (just like Wikis a few years back).
I'll be first in line to get my beta virus protection from Microsoft!
I'm trying to work this out, but keep getting an integer overflow. Let's try and work this out...
10 Make bad product with loads of security problems
20 Watch as the world creates viruses to take advantage of bad product's security problems
30 Create a program to cover over the cracks
40 Before testing it all the way, release to the public
50 Goto 20
I'm sure there should be a "??? Profit!" stage in there somewhere too...
All I seem to end up with is a system that does nothing but cover over it's own problems. HELP!
Okay, here goes...
;-). One day, you notice that a rival paper factory in another locality is advertising in your local paper.
Imagine you're the owner of a paper factory. You sell paper to the local newspaper, that reports on all local matters in a fair and unbiased way (come on, play along
To counter, you start advertising in you local paper too. Both you and your competitor enjoy a growth in your respective businesses. Your local paper increases it's circulation (increasing paper demand even further) and of course starts to make some serious money.
You observe your local news paper making lots of money, "all thanks to your paper". Do you have a case to extract a fee from the newspaper? Are they getting a "free lunch" due to your hard work, or is it just business-model envy?
Is there a case for forming a cartel with your rival paper firm, and then 'extract' extra from the newspaper? Or perhaps, if you and your rival stop advertising in your newspaper, maybe they'll see a change of fortune? Or maybe you should just be happy you're selling paper and making a living?
Answers on a postcard, please...
No - it's owned by the OSDN (like Slashdot)
Notice how the current GPLv3 draft pretty clearly says that Red Hat would have to distribute their private keys so that anybody sign their own versions of the modules they recompile, in order to re-create their own versions of the signed binaries that Red Hat creates. That's INSANE.
This is not what the GPL3 says at all. It says you must distribute keys IF your code won't work without them. In the Redhat case, that's not true at all - you can download and install unsigned (or third party signed) code all you want. Redhat signs stuff so you can be sure it came from Redhat and not Fred in His Shed - that is ALL.
From TFL:
Complete Corresponding Source Code also includes any encryption or authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source code of the work, perhaps modified by you, in the recommended or principal context of use, such that its functioning in all circumstances is identical to that of the work, except as altered by your modifications. It also includes any decryption codes necessary to access or unseal the work's output.
The GPL3 does not try to take code-signing capability away from anyone. It states that you must give away keys if it's impossible to make a working program without them. I'll give an example:
Say there's a crypto program that uses modules, and is not open source. If you write modules, they have to be signed by one of a series of keys before the program will use the module.
If you tried to release a GPL3 module for this product, you would have to also put your keys with it because without the keys, a third party cannot produce a working module.
The GPL3 really says that if you're using DRM, you have to let other people use it too. There's a double-edged sword here: At the moment, you could release your (non-working) module as GPL2. Of course, it's useless, except for anyone else who has the keys. It's unlikely the owner of the crypto program would release keys for anyone to use (and so distribute) as that (as stated by Linus) makes the use of DRM pointless. In short, you're unlikely to be able to use the GPL3 for such situations.
My personal view (as if it matters) is that the GPL3 will fail because (a) people don't understand it and (b) no commercial vendor is likely to use it if they have to give everything away to do it. Using GPL2 + secret keys means you get all the benefits of open source, without giving away your competitive edge.
Of course, GPL3 might gain ground because version 3's got to be better than version 2, right?
I can't say about that, but I'm told it's 'illegal' to take pictures of Ayes Rock in Aus. The problem (so I'm told) is that in order to take any pictures of it, you're on someone's land who doesn't allow photos (but don't mind you travellng over that land or indeed climbing the rock. TFA doesn't say if any private land was involved here (if it was, then the landowner would have had to get the police to act, and would presumably have had to be named, which may suggest no private land was involved?).
I'm a bit vague on details, perhaps someone can confirm?
Doubtless what they're saying is over-stretched hype. However, the application of speech recognition to translation to natural language processing makes for some interesting stuff.
The problems you outline happen in English -> Canadian (and probably American too), let alone more complex translations (try calling a Canadian a 'native' - doesn't tend to go down well, but it's normal fare in the UK).
However, add in "domain knowledge" and you're in some interesting territory. I think this is essentially what Google did - they fed in oodles of texts in the various languages so that the system could statistically match phrases. At a simple level, you could have a lookup table of common colloquialisms (eg. 'he's kicked the bucket'(English/UK) == 'he broke his pipe' (French/FR)).
Of course, the only way to really get this going is with natural language processing. At the moment though, computers can (AFAIK) only understand things they're expecting, as opposed to understanding anything and then reproducing it in another language. A way to go there, but I'm sure IBM are on it already... Natural Language processing has to evolve with the language, so it's always a bit of a moving target, and hard to do, because the kids keep inventing new versions of the language ("naar wot I'm sayin'?).
What are the dangers of seeing this in the wild anytime soon? Very slim, I'd say. Of course, they may release the raw speech-to-text engine as a binary, but the rest of it is experimental at best, and currently has enormous amounts of R&D budget absorbed into it (and NL will probably be on subscription). You may be able to buy it as a service sometime though, I guess...?
...and also one of the shuttles returned home with a cracked windscreen. It was later discovered that it was caused by a paint fleck from a previous mission.
I think (but can't confirm) that this incident caused Nasa (et al.) to genuinely consider space junk (before then, I think it was filed under 'bahh, it's not a problem'). I believe the shuttle now/used to routinely orbit back to front, or in other positions to protect the space-walking crew, or critical systems from space junk.
My last bit of pseudo-wisdom is that apparently small particles (as they will all eventually be, unless they de-orbit) gradually form into rings (hoops, as opposed to saturn style discs). That sort of thing is visible from the ground - it could be the first man-made space thing visible from the ground!
Never mind those crazy Chinese spending years building a wall that took us a couple of thousand years to see from space. We can build something in space we can see from the ground in just 50 odd years!
Remember that unlike Google (and MSN), Yahoo, AOL and others use 'redirect' links, rather than direct links to sites. As a result, Yahoo, AOL etc track far more than the words you type into a search box because they actually know where you went after that.
;-)
u rveillance
Thus, any such spider should be 'clicking' those redirect links to inflate the stats somewhat
Incidentally, if you want a starting point, have a look at http://www.coofercat.com/wiki/EuropeanElectronicS