Aha, indeed those PPCs are NOT 64-bit... I had not been paying close-enough attention to the chip models... However, even with 32-bit addressing, you can still hit 1GB/CPU (indeed, you can hit 4GB (- overhead) in each individual address space)...
Clearly 4+ CPUs on a single, fast backplane are faster and justified in being more expensive than a cluster... that is why it is interesting to see *how much* less the cluster remains... The "base price" for 8CPUs is about equal to that of a 4CPU Xeon system... that's still interesting...
We've currently got a diskless workstation cluster of 15 Celeron-based systems that cost us $600/ea (in 1unit rackmount cases), and could put something similar together using P3's w/256MB/CPU for around $17k (before any discounts) - but the PPCs should be faster, in theory... though it will require testing and tuning to see they do for our app...
I am going to look into buying one, and see what these folks say in response to my inquiry...
However, the limitation of 256MB/512MB RAM/node is a bit off-putting (one part of the site says the cap is 256, the other, 512)... The system starts at $14,900 they say... It will be interesting to see where it goes from there. A Quad Xeon with 1GB from SWT costs $20400 (less if you buy in quantity), and the PPC-based IBM RS-6000 4CPU/4GB is $56,000... so theoretically this rack could be pretty competitively priced for a Linux server...
For my company, the RAM limitation could be a limiting factor (and I don't see why it needs to be limited to 512MB/CPU, the PPC is, after all, a 64bit architecture - the "low end" RS-6000s can take up to 1GB/CPU, more on the big iron)... hopefully versions will come out that at least get 1GB/CPU...
Also, since there is no apparent option for SCSI disks, this may not be your ideal file or image server... but there are obviously some good uses for - though I'd like to know more on pricing of the G4 version and RAM upgrades...
By the way, 8 video ports is pretty amusing... They don't mention the resolution, I wonder if you could make an 8 person QuakeStation out of it;->
Provides an open-source O2k-like client for Linux and Solaris, giving integrated mail, contact management, and calendar a'la O2k
Also allows Web interfacing (over SHTTP), providing calendar, contact, and mail management via an HTML interface
Provides user and group calendars, multiple group membership for users, and administration ability assignable to users, groups, and all (so that assistants and secretaries can manage calendars for their employers and their groups)
Allows selection of which calendars to view, so that the user can see only their individual calendar, or their individual calendar and that of one or more groups they belong to
Automatic creation of group calendar entries based on project plans from M$ project and a similar program on Linux and Solaris (previously existing, or created by the project)
Tags deadlines as "modified" but doesn't delete them when changed using the project mgt software (can select to view modified only, or modified and previous dates in the calendar view)
Allow calendar entries to have dependencies (entered via Project-like software, but also in the calendaring system by clicking on another entry), and the ability to tag each calendar entry as success (in which case dependent entries remain the same) or push them back (in which case dependent entries all move back by same # of days)
Alert users and admins of conflicts between ALL calendars (group and individual) a user is subscribed to, when scheduling new events
Automatic notification of events when they are scheduled, and selectable reminder e-mail params (periodic or one time)
Periodic events
E-mail calendar notifications a'la O2k
Integration of contacts and calendar a'la O2k
Notification of accept / decline of attendees by e-mail a'la O2k; allow attendees to suggest alternate times and meeting scheduler to accept an alternate time and send a new meeting notice
Though client is integrated, back-end system should allow for separate mail and calendar servers (contacts could be stored in the calendar server, or, also separately... using LDAP)
I can think of more... I'd be happy to join this project as a system architect if the URL were actually working...
Well, Mobile Linux will only be useful if it is done right... so that it is actually stable, usable, and as "idiot-proof"/easy to use as WinCE and PalmOS... Palmtops are a user-driven market, and most of the users are not engineers... While Linux gives access to cheaper, more familiar development environments (Gnu compilers, etc.) for OpenSource engineers, there needs to be more than just that...
Some more Linux Handheld links, including the actual specs of Pengachu, which reveal that 900mhz is the RF band (in case you thought it was the clockspeed), etc...
However, Hacking the Furby does give you a relatively inexpensive talking robot with IR input, etc. and ought to be fun... While not the most well constructed system, it does give you some decent features (detects light & sound levels, tilt/inversion of the furby, Infrared and RS232 comms (when upgraded), and some touch sensors on the back, front, and mouth) - especially nice if you get one used, cheap...
It is nice that the reprogrammability kits are being made available, particularly for parents of autistic children (since children can relate to a Furby better than a "regular" hobbyist-grade robot)...
Is this building upon the resounding success of land-line and Internet videophones and hoping to lure all those people accustomed to this kind of communication over to the wireless world...?
When I worked at Lucent I worked in a Bell Labs group that did R&D into Internet video (among other things), and we also had a partnership with PictureTel. Not only was there little luck selling the PictureTels and Lucent innovations thereupon, but even less success in getting people to use them, even within Lucent. Why? The video sucked because bandwidth was still too slow and even the top-of-the-line video encoders gave us too-small pictures and bad resolution (even on a point-to-point connection; even over our ATM network... depending on which system)
Now, maybe wireless videophone systems are more apt to be used than land-based ones owing simply to the personalities of the "road warrior" type and how they communicate, but this product info doesn't mention whether or not they address serious issues regarding the usability of videophones...
Without eye-tracking for frame centering and other feedback, the image feels too unnatural, and people have a difficult time communicating with it because they get none of the visual cues they'd like to have in addition to speech - so rather than enhancing the comms it becomes distracting and (in some studies) upsetting and off-putting (especially when network or codec related jitters cause desynchronization of audio and video).
Currently, wireless networks are even slower than the best land-line networks, and small handheld devices still can pack-in less DSP and CPU power than big systems (in fact, that will always be true...) Their system does not mention anything about image resolution or bandwidth (and resultant FPS using their codec - and how this effects sound quality), and the total screen size is 4" including the person you're talking to and (oddly) feedback of yourself talking (something I don't particularly want to see when I'm talking to someone else)...
So it looks "groovy," but there's little in their info to indicate whether or not it's also usable...
This seems to fall into the category of gadgets that are cool and sci-fi, but where the practicalities and human-interface issues seem to come second to "gee whiz" value...
I am involved with some software patents at my company - even though I am relatively opposed to them based on the grounds that they can cut-off one's right to use one's own ideas by preventing the application of same ideas even if you've never read/heard about the other's.
Some small companies, like ours, use patents defensively to prevent larger companies from suing us for using our own ideas - that is, we'll patent whatever we can afford (that our engineers say is crucial to our technology, and that our GC feels will hold-up) and use these patents as part of a defense against others if they try to restrict our R&D. A portfolio also helps boost our valuation.
Now, interestingly, our lawyer and I happen to agree on two points of software patents:
1) The fact that patents bar you from using your own ideas is ridiculous - and indeed this very idiocy is why the patent system can self-perpetuate through defensive patents
2) Software patents, indeed any patent in an area where a lot of incremental design and rapid innovation is occuring, are pretty easy to get around because you can patent things that are "improvements" to other patents relatively easily (we're filing patents that will look a lot like those of our competitors, to defend ourselves against their patents by saying we were aware of their work and have improved upon it)
The theory is that patents are supposed to advance the pace of development, and thus the economy, by giving a limited monopoly to innovators in return for making their ideas known and thus spurring on improvements (which is part of the reason why you can patent improvements)
The system is supposed to encourage industry to fund R&D in return for a guarantee of some protection of the innovation gained by this investment.
It is an interesting theory, but one which seems to have outlived its utility (indeed, if it ever had any). Large corporate R&D groups at places like IBM, Xerox, M$, and Bell Labs have been publishing innovative papers for a while, as have university R&D groups. While I was at Bell Labs, Lucent still patented everything they could, but they did so defensively... they had begun to understand that you get back most of your R&D investment by quickly getting into the market and using first-mover / innovator advantage to capture a greater market share, no longer was protectionism sufficient to beat competitors (unfortunately for Lucent, they have some other problems...)
So, really, the argument that companies have spent millions or billions on R&D and deserve patents does hold some weight - but the benefit they get no longer seems to necessarily outweigh the negatives of the system...
And the system is so screwy, anyway, that most companies keep many innovations as trade secrets until they're in the market, anyway (except defensive portfolio builders and long-term strategists like IBM and Bell Labs), and then file a patent within the year (in the US) granted to do so once you start selling your innovation...
It seems like, at least in the software market, that market forces and trade secrets are more actively used to protect companies from competitors, and getting the ideas out in the open happens primarily through journals, conferences, and other voluntary efforts once the innovations are already integrated into products (or if the company decides for some other reason to publish)... and nobody but lawyers even seemst to bother to read most patents...
However, as long as the game is played, companies will have to play it to protect their rights to use their own ideas, and open source / free software folks and individuals will have to keep finding ways around these patents either through their own innovations, fighting specific stupid patents, the good graces of companies that aren't idiotic about what their patents mean, and, of course, fighting the system...
And another on engineers. I will thus own all patents, and all engineers who might invent something patentable. Thus, I will have a monopoly (for which I am filing one of those neat new "business methodology" patents...) on all things (for which I will, by extension, have a patent)
Actually, walking, per-se is no big deal in the weightlessness of space, but 4 mobile appendages can be pretty useful.
Walking robots can be used for both EVA and internal activities in a space station with gravity... As well as for exploration of the surface of planets with (though, of course, wheeled robots currently are better at this...)
The NASA design is specifically for EVAs, and, you are correct, is better in this regard...
Humanoid robots, though, as they are made more like humans, will be easier for US to work with in tandem (given the familiarity) and can be used to perform human-like tasks in new envrionments to test certain aspects of the suitability of the environment.
Having discussed extensively design possibilities with the big walker operator and worked a bit on a Walking robot repairs with him while with SRL (www.srl.org), I can attest that the Honda robot is definately an impressive achievement. Stable walking is difficult enough on tripedal and quadropedal robots, and the hacking done at SRL only succeeded in 2 and 3 legged robots, with not much hill-climbing ability, and only moderate speeds. The feedback circuitry and balancing techniques needed for a biped like the Honda robot is, sadly, not yet within reach of even the sophisticated hackers without a ton of money.
The Honda robot qualifies as an "impressive start"... its 2.0km/h speed of the Honda robot is not impressive for a lightweight tri or quad walker, but it is for a bipedal robot of human size.
The fact that it can climb stairs is especially cool, given the extensive rebalancing done every moment in a step, and the feedback sensors needed to read these motions properly.
Certainly there are lifting robots which can hoist many tons, so the 5.0kg/hand weight limit seems skimpy - but not when considering that this machine can allegedly walk and perform complex arm manipulations while holding this weight. Sadly, its continuous runtime before recharge is only 30 minutes, but I suspect later versions will take advantage of increasing innovation in charge/weight ratios in batteries, and perhaps solar panels for space use (an obvious application of these robots would be EVAs for the ISS or other craft).
Cool, in terms of integration with other systems, is the use of wireless ethernet as the comm standard, rather than some proprietary system. This means this robot could be controlled by base-station systems of arbitrary complexity - including a Beowulf cluster running a complex AI system like Webmind. This means that while technology is not quite there yet to put any advanced computational intelligence inside a biped robot, it can be controlled by advanced systems running at fixed-position stations through LAN technology - a good compromise in terms of merging the state-of-the-art in Robotics with AI to try to build towards a better convergence.
Regarding the robustness, it appears that the 25 minutes of runtime is the primary limitation in terms of continuous operation - there is no data I was able to find on failure rates or the fault tolerance of the sensors or computational systems on-board.
As for hacks vs. new general purpose algorithsm... They obviously do not reveal tremendous amounts of details, but suffice it to say that the engineering done to build 3 successive models of bipedal robots that can walk and climb (stairs, hills) represents fundamental work in robot dynamics engineering which, while parameter tweaked for this robot's operations, is certainly applicable (with some tweaks or modifications, as with all engineering techniques) to other bipedal robot applications.
The wireless lan comm technology, improved user interface (over the previous version), and sensor systems are all also certainly reusable in similar robots (indeed, likely also in multi-legged robots).
However, as it is a commercial product AND I do not read Japanese, I was not able to find any papers on specific algorithms to give a more detailed analysis...
While I love the Bay Area (let take a moment to point out that San Francisco, not Silicon Valley, is the cultural and intellectual center of the region - the digerati of the Valley mostly live and almost all party in SF), and am in the eyes of many qualified to be a technocrat myself, I must say that this cheerleading and propagandizing for the leaders of the "technoculture" really does underline how irrational and cultish this supposedly rationalist society really is.
This includes not only blindly uncritical social science theses (a bizarre reversal of the "noble savage" trend in favor of techno libertarianism as the guiding ideal of (unattainable) utopian perfection)... my irritation also extends to the followers of the cults of personality which have sprung up around people like Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates. For such a supposedly libertarian community, there certainly is an awful lot of idol worship in the Open Source and Internet worlds.
By painting our culture with these mythological overtones we can conveniently cast issues, and ourselves, in unrealistic, broad strokes and self-congratulatory rants about our positions in the fights between good and evil - which are entertaining for/. postings but do little to achieve real dialogue.
For the most part is irrational, and it is not wise for technologists to get into the habit of not rationally questioning their work. Cultish, unquestioning devotion to ideas (or technologies, or products) stifles creativity and innovation, and can promote lousy, even dangerous, ideas and technologies over reasonable and better alternatives. (Feel free to Microsoftie-bash here, but this is far from the only case...) It also promotes a culture in which those who do not uphold some status-quo are marginalized, and this can be seen increasingly in the "religious wars" about OSes, programming languages, browsers, even games...
Rather than patting ourselves on the back about a new, irrational system of devotion, we should be wondering why we can't advance past these archaic notions of fundamentalism and how we can expect to trust ourselves with powerful new technologies when we can't shake old patterns of irrational behavior.
Even the notion of promoting the techno "way of life" over all else is divisive, and promotes an attitude where all technology is unquestioningly considered "better" than whatever was before and anyone who dares question this is a "neo luddite"
It is part of a familiar, and insidious, pattern of behavior which keeps the powerful entrenched, builds a separate status for a priesthood which can choose between doing the bidding of the leadership or being cast to the confused and "left behind" polity as sorcerers of evil intent... in short, it is no good for anyone, except maybe the very powerful and the very mercenary...
There are lots of good things about the "techno revolution" but religious devotion to technobaubles, technocratic ideology, and various new party lines are not them... If you want to read a serious and interesting discussion of the subersive nature of the techno revolution and how it can be seen philosophically as a means to oppose entrenched power structures, I highly recommend the works of Andrew Feenberg
It sounds, at this point, like the system will be somewhat fragile with so many heads and the notion of a third meaningful dimension in R/W. While at this point it seems too fragile for home use, clever shock-proofing and very good quality control in parts manufacturing could result in a reliable drive. In general, though, it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, the productization of this technology seems at least 5 years off, which means I'll have to stick with a pile of IBM 75GB drives for my (personal, sorry) MP3 server.
On a related note, has anyone else noticed that the claims of IBM's death were a bit premature? They seem to really have re-emerged as a major leader in R&D, and are piling up market leadership points in hard drives and Java tech while making inroads into monitors, back into PCs, and regaining ground lost to Sun, Intel, SGI, and DEC in the big-iron and supercomputing markets. Does anyone know of any really good insights into this in the form of articles, books, etc?
Absolutely... This legislation is an insult to consumers, to the US Constitution, and to the intelligence of those of us in the IT/IS industry who make software purchases (and unfair to consumers who are just coming to grasps with such issues)...
It is a clear case of interstate commerce that should be regulated by Federal law, in the case where the purchasing occurs accross state borders. If you buy it in a store in California, you should be bound by California laws regarding trade, but the vendor who sold it to you would be bound by Federal law (which doesn't yet exist here) unless the software manufacturer was also in California. Applying the laws of a state in which none of the transaction participants resides is ridiculous, and likely unconstitutional.
But let's look at some of the other stupidity involved...
Reveal contract terms AFTER the sale? That certainly sounds like at least failure to disclose terms, if not bait-and-switch (if partial disclosure is used to misleading ends). It violates various consumer protection laws.
Forbid publication of critical reviews? This sounds like it violates more laws than I could possibly personally know, not to mention at least one constitutional amendment... Forget combatting this through "viral reviews" on the internet, folks, this is a basic civil liberty under attack for the purposes of market manipulation and trade collusion. This kind of supression of freedom of speech, of the press, of public figures (and products) to be freely criticized and lampooned is the most foul of affronts against the the Bill of Rights...
Avoid fixing software bugs? This sounds like it would violate various consumer protection laws, and probably lead to the passage of "lemon laws" for sofware...
Forbid resale of used software? Under "license to use" terms this could be done, but it is questionable and certainly runs counter to the current custom of transferrable licenses. It also can be gotten around if licenses can be transferred by free if you give away the license and charge a service fee (something I learned from tech companies themselves...;-)
How to combat this?
1) Write your state legislatures and tell them "no way this will happen here"
2) Form a class action lawsuit among all the powerful interests opposed to the legislation and take Maryland and any companies tryint to hide behind their laws to the supreme court on constitutional grounds regarding their attempts to usurp interstate commerce and supress the freedom of the press
3) Reject all sales based on application of UCITA, particularly in states you do not reside in
4) Join ongoing efforts against it (see below)
5) Write software makers threatening to stop buying their software if they do not withdraw their support for this
6) Stop buying their software, anyway, and use more free software...
To find out more about this odious sack of legislative feces, check out:
http://www.cpsr.org/program/UCITA/ucita-fact.htm l
http://www.ieeeusa.org/grassroots/ucita/
http://www.cptech.org/ecom/ucita/
http://www.consumerlaw.org/ucita/
http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/ulc_frame.htm
Absolutely... It is legitimate for the French to have their own laws about what freedom of speech covers in their country, and while I may not agree with it, I understand and respect it. (My family was slaughtered in WWII, so let's not say here that I agree with Nazis... I just feel it is less dangerous to let them air their views openly and in-front of equally legal public criticism
than to encourage them to hide in back rooms in self-righetous indignation...)
However, it certainly should be up to French sites to block such auctions. It was correct of them to remove the items from www.yahoo.fr in order to meet local standards and continue business in France, but Yahoo! should not be obligated to pay to protect the French from access to their US site. However...
Jurisdiction issues ecome blurry on the Internet. Unless Yahoo! blocks all French sites from www.yahoo.com, then it really is NOT just a US site... So maybe they SHOULD block the French sites, and it gets more complicated if you figure in that French people could get access through non-French sites... You begin to see why governments fear the Internet as a potential threat to their soverignty...
What would be prudent of Yahoo!, though, would be to put a tag in those auctions that the French sites could read and block. At least, then, they can be seen as cooperative and giving the French the opportunity to enforce their national laws.
And as for the French government, they should subsidize the standardization of an XML DTD that allows sites to be marked with... tags so that no Frenchman will ever accidentally see anything about Nazis... If that's their desire...
However, expect issues like this to increase as governments figure out how to enforce their national laws overlaid with a truly international communications medium...
Re:Britain's history of amateur games development
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Playstation 2 Basic?
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The US has a similar history... so do some other countries, but it is the tax break Sony is shooting for. However, if a community grows up around this (which is what did it for the computers you speak of, back in the good ol' days) then perhaps a simple programming language in a simple envrionment will inspire more kids to learn to program.
One problem with current computing envrionments is that they are too complicated for many kids. My first programming language was BASIC on a Commodore PET, and after BASIC it was Assembler, then Pascal, then C... All in fairly simple environments (I was a fairly advanced programmer by the time DOS completely succumbed to Windows)... Could you imagine Visual Studio as your first programming envrionment? Many professional programmers consider it too "busy" to work with... A friend of mine who teaches kids to program uses QBasic because it's easy, then moves the kids up to more sophisticated environments, so they can concentrate first on concepts and algorithms - then on IDEs and foundation classes and so on...
A simple environment in which to create games could be a great boon to teaching kids to program, it's too bad that Sony is not interested in promoting this system worldwide for this, and is just trying to dodge taxes (and thus will probably include lousy documentation and no support to discourage its use...)
A compromise between P2P and overlapping heirarchies is possible using automatic assignment of nodes to (multiple) regions based on tasks (as in our Webworld system)... Thus P2P is used for certain things (node discovery accross the Net without resorting to an Net-wide broadcast, anonymous filesharing a'la Freenet, etc.) and heirarchies for other things (processes which need to have an average messaging time node-to-node to do resource allocation between processing and messaging)
Efficiency is not the only issue in P2P... anonymity is one, and another is to inject a type of fault-tolerance into a heirarchal system by allowing for more dynamic assignemnt of heirarchal roles where appropriate...
Also, since many P2P schemes are built on top of TCP/IP, the option to build a dynamic, hybrid system is much easier, since a heirarchal system lies beneath at the addressing and transport level... You can leverage the messaging efficiency of the heiarchy once you've done discovery through pure P2P, and can also overlay anonymous P2P over the heirarchy for things like Freenet style file sharing...
P2P and Heirarchy both have their strengths and weakenesses, and particularly clever developers can pool strengths without amplifying weakenesses and get some pretty neat systems...
...there aren't that many well-reasoned responses here that are actually opposed to this nonsense.
Several people have pointed out that this has been predicted in "Free For All" and elsewhere, which is nice, but what to do about it? Some pointed out that taxation of real estate is based on perceived valuation if the property were sold -however, real estate is the only property treated this way in most places I know of.
Certainly Microsoft and other commercial software companies will put pressure on governments to do this sort of thing, as it will hurt the popularity of free software, and yes perhaps charging $0.01 for the license is one way around this... And, yes, it's Poland's own business but frankly the world is getting smaller and we owe it to ourselves and our friends in Poland to - as the first international political force with easy real-time communications among us - band together and oppose all governmental and big-business activities that threaten the society we wish to have on the Internet.
So, some issues seem to be getting ignored here.
One problem is that this poses a huge threat to the free exchange of ideas, especially if applied to the university setting (though students and universities are often given tax breaks)... MANY in the R&D community thrive on free software, and much of it has been written by researchers and hackers for community use based on a barter-like notion of roughly equal contribution from the community (in the form of patches, suggestions, bug reports, publicity, etc.) in return for use. It may thus be necessary to codify this into licenses: anyone who contributes to the software in any ways listed by the author are considered to be "creators" of the software and can not be taxed for using their own creation. Contributions could include applying the system to novel uses and reporting this back, promoting the system for use by others, etc. which would cover some end-users, too.
The government (in Poland in this case) is denying software creators the ability to set the valuation of their own software. If the government gets involved in price-fixing for taxation purposes, the competitive nature of the market that is allegedly a crucial part of the caplitalist system is undermined. If Microsoft and others can't provide value that makes their software worth more than $0 software, that's their problem. To get around this argument a government would need a complex system of taxation based on value to the enterprise using some pre and post installation performance metrics of the task being performed with the program and its value to the organization. Basing the tax on the price of "competing" products is government-assisted price collusion. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that there are reasons why commercial software costs money that do not apply to free software: centralized support, guarantees and warranties and some coherent - and monied - organization to sue if needed, etc. The value of the products is likely not actually the same if anything but a naive economic view (or a purely technical view of the operations of the software) is taken.
This kind of taxation is a kind of protectionism for large software corporations, and threatens to undermine the quality of software and stifle competition as people will come to expect governments to enforce the prices of software, and even commercial companies with competitive pricing can be hurt in such a scenario. Basically, everyone will be expected to charge the same price for their software or otherwise turn-over a larger portion of their profits to the government. Commercial organizations and free software developers alike would cringe at the thought of the government making more money than they do off their work - basically it seeks to undermine the community spirit that built the movement and force commercialization (and a fixed pricing regieme) in the industry, as well as to limit price competitiveness. It actually *encourages* price collusion and other anti-capitalist measures.
The Polish government is taking an outdated view of taxation which will be hard for governments to shake: that goods are the cornerstone of taxation. The US is already a service-based economy, so the US is quite happy to tax support services, installation services, etc. which can come with free software.
It is taxing a form of free speech, which I suspect the Polish constitution has provisions for because (having read part of it) it seems somewhat modeled on the US constitution... Basically, software, like books or music, is a form of creative expression. If I write a book and give it to you for free, if the government decides it's as entertaining as a $30 Steven King novel, should they be able to go and tax you for a $30 purchase you never made? It both forces you to consume, and stifles the ability of authors to freely distribute their ideas.
Finally, it undermines the licensing contract and thus any claims Poland could have to upholding such contract law. Basically, it gives the government the power to rewrite commercial contracts at will to suit its "needs"...
Well, while there are certainly military applications of this technology, there are also genuine humanitarian ones - such as the claimed fire disaster area survey. Each year many firefighters lose their lives, particularly trying to combat forest fires and trying to rescue people - or whole towns - from such areas.
Some people have suggested other flight platforms, particularly from Moller, but while the Aerobot looks nice it is somewhat expensive, and the Skycar looks unsuited to perform an tasks for which the system was intended. What is really important, though is the control electronics, vision system, etc.
The German system seems to do a nice job with this (note also that Germans, at Mercedes-Benz, are the farthest along - at least in public - on autonomous robot land vehicles). What would be an interesting next challenge would be to try to scale-up from small helicopters to, say, a full-blown bell with stretcher pods and have the system be able to perform rescues of humans whom can be determined to still be mobile enough to get themselves onto the craft.
Regarding detecting the difference between dead humans, unconscious humans, and alive but not breathing humans - first of all, those are distinctions that are hard for humans to make from a helicopter, so it's an awkward comparison. Furthermore, using infrared technology, the system would be better at detecting humans who died long enough ago that they were starting to get cold from others - something a human can not do while airborne.
If you want to distinguish the unconscious, dead, and almost-dead you need to send in a land-based robot with some medical technology for making the distinction (but how do you TEST that system?)
Right now, I think humans will be used for this.
Also interesting would be to test the system for ability to deliver payloads (yeah, it could be bombs, but it would be interesting to test its accuracy in dropping medical supplies to those in a disaster area who are still mobile enough to use them...)
What will set Dimensional Media, and a company in Norway which I know the founder of that is working on a similar but improved project, apart is whether or not they can make these things robust, stable, cheap, and popular enough for them to take off. Integration with an IR grid for detection of objects (like fingers) entering the area for 3D UI's is, however, a pretty nice addition...
Other companies have tried mirror-and-lens based holographic projectors before - I've even played a video game console, in an arcade, which used a similar system - though it only supported 180 degrees of viewpoint (the article says the DM system supports "full look around" which I will consider a claim that it does 360 degree views)
Their plans to use this with NMR data and, particularly medical, volumetric rendering data is a good plan. I want to be able to go to a doctor's and watch my brain fully modeled in 3D, with real-time display of neural activity... can I bring popcorn?;-)
It's not that unbelievable, but if the resolution is as good as they claim, and it finally takes off commercially, then there are a lot of cool medical, 3D user interface, gaming, and, of course, military applications (hey, have the autonomous helicopter robot mentioned today send back 3D projections of the disaster / battle site to its home base...)
Things like this go to show that you need humans to mediate human interactions. The semantics of signing that Bruce talks about are a human issue, and only a true AI might become acceptable as a suitable substitute for a human in many subjective (and legality, value, trust - all are subjective) issues.
The reason we trust the notary public to countersign a document is that we are willing to believe what a human has seen and done because we can relate to it. The way you can lie as a notary public is pretty well known to humans - but forgery of digital signatures or hijacking a legitimate one is pretty new area for humans.
Tamper-proof computers would be needed for any digital system to be truly trustworthy, but that is probably raising the bar too high - higher than we keep it for our usual activities. What is required are procedures and oversight that humans can feel comfortable allows such a statistically low chance of error - through malice or accident - as to be worth trusting.
It is only partially attacks by other humans, thus, which we fear in digital signatures and similar mechanisms (like electronic voting). It is also machine error. We wants humans to recount votes and attest to signatures. Until more people are comfortable with the machines this will continue.
Finally, I will tip my hat to the open source community: by opening up the black boxes, people will start to feel more comfortable with machines - even if they remain ignorant. Few people actually fix their own cars, but over time they became confident that the standards and knowledge were such that they could trust those who do, and that the information was available for them to at least perform some rudimentary oversight if needed (indeed, as more car parts become black boxes, people are LOSING their trust in cars...)
So, what we need is comfort levels for humans, through open systems, and acceptable standards and procedures which maintain the highest feasible levels of security, privacy, reliability, and trustworthiness in the subjective view of people... There are NO tamper-proof systems, electronic or physical, but we still have a society functions without total paralysis from fear of a total trust breakdown.
Digital signatures will come into their own with improved security and oversight (monitoring and reporting) on PCs...
This gets back to the issue of Linux not being easy enough for your usual desktop productivity suite users to work with. Here is where the "get around to using some day" folks come in... If they have it, but aren't using it - and I know this is common - there is a problem.
One problem is that Linux is difficult and unfamiliar, even with nice installers, etc. like RedHat's it still takes a while to *configure* (especially since many of the graphical configuration tools are so unstable and slow - I generally do everything at the command line because of this, despite not being a command-line-only snob...)
Another is that while StarOffice, Corel, and Applixware are all fine and well, M$ Office is still actually better. Linux developers find it sexy to work on the kernel, but where are all the Linux application developers making better apps for Linux? A handful of games, word processors, dbs and spreadsheets do not a useful desktop OS make... People, the ones who buy stuff and make the computer market a market, have come to expect a wide selection of software. Linux doesn't have it. UNIX is really great for developers, but somehow this hasn't translated into developers developing things on it that make it really great for everyone else. Almost everything on *nix seems to be required to have a dated look, feel half-finished (or BE half-finshed), and require strange (by desktop user standards) behaviors to make things work - I guess professional grade software other than kernels isn't "cool" enough for *nix developers to work on it...
Also, don't forget, Corel's suite has competition from Applixware and Sun's free StarOffice... That is also probably part of their problem. While all three are sub-standard compared to Office, and Corel is the best of the three, Corel also has put more money into making themselves the best and many Linux people would rather have a mediocre program for free than a good piece of software they have to pay for.
It's not suprising they're looking to sell their Linux business - I wonder who will buy? Maybe RedHat could take over the office suite, add a nice Outlook-like mail tool and a decent Web browser and go to town... Or maybe that's too much work for a Linux company...
Not much choice will depend on things more than just speed. I'd just as soon stick with P3 Xeons at 700mhz than a 1.4ghz chip with a small cache, poor or no (n>2)-way SMP support, and based on boards that haven't been shown to be stable. There is more to life than clock-speed. There's even more to life than reliability and stability (there are reliable and stable solutions other than Intel, and at least so-far on uni systems AMD is actually one of them...)
What is the pipelining architecture going to be like on these AMD duals? Will the SMP routing backplane be fast enough? Cache size?
How do the two instruction sets compare? Can they both do the same things in-chip? Can one do them in fewer instructions than the other - and if so, how does this wind up modifying the clock speed / real performance gain ratios?
There is also compatibility. Our first foray into using several AMD machines as single-proc servers was aborted because we had more problems with hardware and OS compatibilty than with P3's or even Celerons. We didn't give up on AMD completely, we just put the machines on corporate user desktops and vowed to try new AMD machines out one-at-a-time from now on and see if the problems get fixed...
The actual comparisons will require some research, the information for which I can't find at this time - so what's the point of making judgements one way or the other regarding the tech?
Regarding the marketplace - Intel is certainly responding to AMD in the home market making big gains with high clock-speed chips. That's fine for the home market, they can compete for clock-speed afficianados and maybe AMD's dual 1.2s will come out before Intel's dual 1.4s and there will be more competition and more scrambling by Intel to recapture home/gamer/office geek market share...
But in the server room, and in the IT Depts run by people who know their stuff, the verdict isn't in yet regarding whether or not AMD can give Intel a run for their money...
Indeed. The idea of a truly democratic company is noble, idealistic... and unrealistic...
Successful projects are driven by strong leadership, even "cults of personality." FDR was the closest thing the US has had to a king, and one of its most successful builders. Microsoft is the Bill Gates (or Bill Gates / Steve Ballmer) cult. Sun's vision comes from Scott McNealy and Bill Joy. Let me point out that even non-commercial open-software groups follow this trait. When you think of Linux, does a particular person come to mind? GNU? Perl?
The developers involved in these projects choose what to work on, but they choose it from among the things that the managers (volunteer or paid) put into the engineering plan, and they tend to conform to the vision of the leading visionary/ies of the project.
Companies also need strong leadership - they are dictatorships, though the best ones are "enlightened dictatorships" which give some of the dictatorial powers to different people in the organization through meritocratic appointments. The bland, ruthless bureaucracy promoted by this poster is also inefficient for reasons of low worker morale and high turnover.
Look at "poster boy" companies like Saturn or SAP: workers get some say in their work through merit gaining them say, pay is equitable but not equal, people are treated well, creativity is encouraged - but at the end of the day there are managers who manage, and a single vision handed down by the leaders which everyone is expected to work towards.
Letting developers vote on their projects also won't lead to a market-driven product that will sell (though not only developers make those mistakes:-) Market surveys are not democracy, they are an attempt to judge the trends and moods of the buying public so that the leaders of the corporation can figure out how to manipulate it in best accordance with their vision. Do not confuse being asked your opinion with having a say in the outcome.
An enlightened dictatorship is the best way to run a company. People need leadership, markets value stability (electing a new corporate president every 4 years would spook investors), and a collective rarely - if ever - has the vision to inspire innovation (though having a lot of smart, creative people around to translate that vision into a reality is a necessity for a truly exceptional business).
Being a member of the executive committee of a company, I can assure you that consensus decision making is inefficient, indeed prone to deadlock, and that given the necessity of a business to move quickly, respond to markets, present a coherent image to clients, and other things that a non-commercial entity may not need to do... even in committees what generally winds up happening is that the most powerful executive prevails and thus "it" is done...
True democracy is rare in government, even rarer in business... not everyone can, or wants to, be the boss. Decisions aren't easy.
I wish true democracy did work for running a business, it is a great ideal. However, if you want to actually get anything done, someone still needs to have executive power, veto power over any committee, and the vision to make a coherent group working towards a common goal out of a collection of individuals.
This proof of concept seems designed to prove that it is a pretty lame concept... These particular TLDs are quite lame. Of course, that probably won't stop people from buying them, for no good reason.
Now, as for the TLDs *I* think should be registered, in true "I know more than they do"/. fashion. THESE TLDs would prove the concept AND maintain the spirit of the Internet:
.cum - Then people who work at sex sites could casually mention that they work at "one of those.cums" and people would merely think they have a funny accent...
.borg - For anyone who has been assimilated... you know, Microsoft ISVs, OEMs, developers, etc...
.nut - For sites featuring rants, conspiracy theories, pictures of people's pets with captions drawn in using Microsoft Paint, etc.
.kil - For Quake servers and towns named after Dutch rivers...
.guv - For people who want to run their own countries but can't find one that will let them...
also can be used by stereotyped British butlers...
Also, since we know Aliens are among us, shouldn't we have planetary/stellar codes in addition to country codes?
Slashdot Mirror
Aha, indeed those PPCs are NOT 64-bit... I had not been paying close-enough attention to the chip models... However, even with 32-bit addressing, you can still hit 1GB/CPU (indeed, you can hit 4GB (- overhead) in each individual address space)...
Clearly 4+ CPUs on a single, fast backplane are faster and justified in being more expensive than a cluster... that is why it is interesting to see *how much* less the cluster remains... The "base price" for 8CPUs is about equal to that of a 4CPU Xeon system... that's still interesting...
We've currently got a diskless workstation cluster of 15 Celeron-based systems that cost us $600/ea (in 1unit rackmount cases), and could put something similar together using P3's w/256MB/CPU for around $17k (before any discounts) - but the PPCs should be faster, in theory... though it will require testing and tuning to see they do for our app...
Anyway, must sleep now...
I am going to look into buying one, and see what these folks say in response to my inquiry...
;->
However, the limitation of 256MB/512MB RAM/node is a bit off-putting (one part of the site says the cap is 256, the other, 512)... The system starts at $14,900 they say... It will be interesting to see where it goes from there. A Quad Xeon with 1GB from SWT costs $20400 (less if you buy in quantity), and the PPC-based IBM RS-6000 4CPU/4GB is $56,000... so theoretically this rack could be pretty competitively priced for a Linux server...
For my company, the RAM limitation could be a limiting factor (and I don't see why it needs to be limited to 512MB/CPU, the PPC is, after all, a 64bit architecture - the "low end" RS-6000s can take up to 1GB/CPU, more on the big iron)... hopefully versions will come out that at least get 1GB/CPU...
Also, since there is no apparent option for SCSI disks, this may not be your ideal file or image server... but there are obviously some good uses for - though I'd like to know more on pricing of the G4 version and RAM upgrades...
By the way, 8 video ports is pretty amusing... They don't mention the resolution, I wonder if you could make an 8 person QuakeStation out of it
...in random order, really...
... using LDAP)
Accepts Outlook 2000 as a client on Windows
Provides an open-source O2k-like client for Linux and Solaris, giving integrated mail, contact management, and calendar a'la O2k
Also allows Web interfacing (over SHTTP), providing calendar, contact, and mail management via an HTML interface
Provides user and group calendars, multiple group membership for users, and administration ability assignable to users, groups, and all (so that assistants and secretaries can manage calendars for their employers and their groups)
Allows selection of which calendars to view, so that the user can see only their individual calendar, or their individual calendar and that of one or more groups they belong to
Automatic creation of group calendar entries based on project plans from M$ project and a similar program on Linux and Solaris (previously existing, or created by the project)
Tags deadlines as "modified" but doesn't delete them when changed using the project mgt software (can select to view modified only, or modified and previous dates in the calendar view)
Allow calendar entries to have dependencies (entered via Project-like software, but also in the calendaring system by clicking on another entry), and the ability to tag each calendar entry as success (in which case dependent entries remain the same) or push them back (in which case dependent entries all move back by same # of days)
Alert users and admins of conflicts between ALL calendars (group and individual) a user is subscribed to, when scheduling new events
Automatic notification of events when they are scheduled, and selectable reminder e-mail params (periodic or one time)
Periodic events
E-mail calendar notifications a'la O2k
Integration of contacts and calendar a'la O2k
Notification of accept / decline of attendees by e-mail a'la O2k; allow attendees to suggest alternate times and meeting scheduler to accept an alternate time and send a new meeting notice
Though client is integrated, back-end system should allow for separate mail and calendar servers (contacts could be stored in the calendar server, or, also separately
I can think of more... I'd be happy to join this project as a system architect if the URL were actually working...
Well, Mobile Linux will only be useful if it is done right... so that it is actually stable, usable, and as "idiot-proof"/easy to use as WinCE and PalmOS... Palmtops are a user-driven market, and most of the users are not engineers... While Linux gives access to cheaper, more familiar development environments (Gnu compilers, etc.) for OpenSource engineers, there needs to be more than just that...
Some more Linux Handheld links, including the actual specs of Pengachu, which reveal that 900mhz is the RF band (in case you thought it was the clockspeed), etc...
The Project Pengachu home page (specs, etc.)
MobiliX has various Mobile linux links / resources.
Gmate, the Korean company producing a (somewhat expensive) Linux PDA that looks rather a lot like the one from Samsung
Compaq Itsy
At least one person who did a Furby Autopsy was not very impressed with the construction of the system.
Some possibly nicer robot kits are available in a number of places, including the Robot Store, Probotics, and Arrick... Of course, there are also the cool Mindstorms, the relatively expensive Aibo (Some hacking info on it can be dug up from the Aibo Site), and the companies listed in this part of the robotics faq
However, Hacking the Furby does give you a relatively inexpensive talking robot with IR input, etc. and ought to be fun... While not the most well constructed system, it does give you some decent features (detects light & sound levels, tilt/inversion of the furby, Infrared and RS232 comms (when upgraded), and some touch sensors on the back, front, and mouth) - especially nice if you get one used, cheap...
It is nice that the reprogrammability kits are being made available, particularly for parents of autistic children (since children can relate to a Furby better than a "regular" hobbyist-grade robot)...
Also, check out the open-source Rossum Project
Is this building upon the resounding success of land-line and Internet videophones and hoping to lure all those people accustomed to this kind of communication over to the wireless world...?
When I worked at Lucent I worked in a Bell Labs group that did R&D into Internet video (among other things), and we also had a partnership with PictureTel. Not only was there little luck selling the PictureTels and Lucent innovations thereupon, but even less success in getting people to use them, even within Lucent. Why? The video sucked because bandwidth was still too slow and even the top-of-the-line video encoders gave us too-small pictures and bad resolution (even on a point-to-point connection; even over our ATM network... depending on which system)
Now, maybe wireless videophone systems are more apt to be used than land-based ones owing simply to the personalities of the "road warrior" type and how they communicate, but this product info doesn't mention whether or not they address serious issues regarding the usability of videophones...
Without eye-tracking for frame centering and other feedback, the image feels too unnatural, and people have a difficult time communicating with it because they get none of the visual cues they'd like to have in addition to speech - so rather than enhancing the comms it becomes distracting and (in some studies) upsetting and off-putting (especially when network or codec related jitters cause desynchronization of audio and video).
Currently, wireless networks are even slower than the best land-line networks, and small handheld devices still can pack-in less DSP and CPU power than big systems (in fact, that will always be true...) Their system does not mention anything about image resolution or bandwidth (and resultant FPS using their codec - and how this effects sound quality), and the total screen size is 4" including the person you're talking to and (oddly) feedback of yourself talking (something I don't particularly want to see when I'm talking to someone else)...
So it looks "groovy," but there's little in their info to indicate whether or not it's also usable...
This seems to fall into the category of gadgets that are cool and sci-fi, but where the practicalities and human-interface issues seem to come second to "gee whiz" value...
I am involved with some software patents at my company - even though I am relatively opposed to them based on the grounds that they can cut-off one's right to use one's own ideas by preventing the application of same ideas even if you've never read/heard about the other's.
Some small companies, like ours, use patents defensively to prevent larger companies from suing us for using our own ideas - that is, we'll patent whatever we can afford (that our engineers say is crucial to our technology, and that our GC feels will hold-up) and use these patents as part of a defense against others if they try to restrict our R&D. A portfolio also helps boost our valuation.
Now, interestingly, our lawyer and I happen to agree on two points of software patents:
1) The fact that patents bar you from using your own ideas is ridiculous - and indeed this very idiocy is why the patent system can self-perpetuate through defensive patents
2) Software patents, indeed any patent in an area where a lot of incremental design and rapid innovation is occuring, are pretty easy to get around because you can patent things that are "improvements" to other patents relatively easily (we're filing patents that will look a lot like those of our competitors, to defend ourselves against their patents by saying we were aware of their work and have improved upon it)
The theory is that patents are supposed to advance the pace of development, and thus the economy, by giving a limited monopoly to innovators in return for making their ideas known and thus spurring on improvements (which is part of the reason why you can patent improvements)
The system is supposed to encourage industry to fund R&D in return for a guarantee of some protection of the innovation gained by this investment.
It is an interesting theory, but one which seems to have outlived its utility (indeed, if it ever had any). Large corporate R&D groups at places like IBM, Xerox, M$, and Bell Labs have been publishing innovative papers for a while, as have university R&D groups. While I was at Bell Labs, Lucent still patented everything they could, but they did so defensively... they had begun to understand that you get back most of your R&D investment by quickly getting into the market and using first-mover / innovator advantage to capture a greater market share, no longer was protectionism sufficient to beat competitors (unfortunately for Lucent, they have some other problems...)
So, really, the argument that companies have spent millions or billions on R&D and deserve patents does hold some weight - but the benefit they get no longer seems to necessarily outweigh the negatives of the system...
And the system is so screwy, anyway, that most companies keep many innovations as trade secrets until they're in the market, anyway (except defensive portfolio builders and long-term strategists like IBM and Bell Labs), and then file a patent within the year (in the US) granted to do so once you start selling your innovation...
It seems like, at least in the software market, that market forces and trade secrets are more actively used to protect companies from competitors, and getting the ideas out in the open happens primarily through journals, conferences, and other voluntary efforts once the innovations are already integrated into products (or if the company decides for some other reason to publish)... and nobody but lawyers even seemst to bother to read most patents...
However, as long as the game is played, companies will have to play it to protect their rights to use their own ideas, and open source / free software folks and individuals will have to keep finding ways around these patents either through their own innovations, fighting specific stupid patents, the good graces of companies that aren't idiotic about what their patents mean, and, of course, fighting the system...
And another on engineers. I will thus own all patents, and all engineers who might invent something patentable. Thus, I will have a monopoly (for which I am filing one of those neat new "business methodology" patents...) on all things (for which I will, by extension, have a patent)
Actually, walking, per-se is no big deal in the weightlessness of space, but 4 mobile appendages can be pretty useful.
;->
Walking robots can be used for both EVA and internal activities in a space station with gravity... As well as for exploration of the surface of planets with (though, of course, wheeled robots currently are better at this...)
The NASA design is specifically for EVAs, and, you are correct, is better in this regard...
Humanoid robots, though, as they are made more like humans, will be easier for US to work with in tandem (given the familiarity) and can be used to perform human-like tasks in new envrionments to test certain aspects of the suitability of the environment.
Besides, it's just cool...
Having discussed extensively design possibilities with the big walker operator and worked a bit on a Walking robot repairs with him while with SRL (www.srl.org), I can attest that the Honda robot is definately an impressive achievement. Stable walking is difficult enough on tripedal and quadropedal robots, and the hacking done at SRL only succeeded in 2 and 3 legged robots, with not much hill-climbing ability, and only moderate speeds. The feedback circuitry and balancing techniques needed for a biped like the Honda robot is, sadly, not yet within reach of even the sophisticated hackers without a ton of money.
The Honda robot qualifies as an "impressive start"... its 2.0km/h speed of the Honda robot is not impressive for a lightweight tri or quad walker, but it is for a bipedal robot of human size.
The fact that it can climb stairs is especially cool, given the extensive rebalancing done every moment in a step, and the feedback sensors needed to read these motions properly.
Certainly there are lifting robots which can hoist many tons, so the 5.0kg/hand weight limit seems skimpy - but not when considering that this machine can allegedly walk and perform complex arm manipulations while holding this weight. Sadly, its continuous runtime before recharge is only 30 minutes, but I suspect later versions will take advantage of increasing innovation in charge/weight ratios in batteries, and perhaps solar panels for space use (an obvious application of these robots would be EVAs for the ISS or other craft).
Cool, in terms of integration with other systems, is the use of wireless ethernet as the comm standard, rather than some proprietary system. This means this robot could be controlled by base-station systems of arbitrary complexity - including a Beowulf cluster running a complex AI system like Webmind. This means that while technology is not quite there yet to put any advanced computational intelligence inside a biped robot, it can be controlled by advanced systems running at fixed-position stations through LAN technology - a good compromise in terms of merging the state-of-the-art in Robotics with AI to try to build towards a better convergence.
Regarding the robustness, it appears that the 25 minutes of runtime is the primary limitation in terms of continuous operation - there is no data I was able to find on failure rates or the fault tolerance of the sensors or computational systems on-board.
As for hacks vs. new general purpose algorithsm... They obviously do not reveal tremendous amounts of details, but suffice it to say that the engineering done to build 3 successive models of bipedal robots that can walk and climb (stairs, hills) represents fundamental work in robot dynamics engineering which, while parameter tweaked for this robot's operations, is certainly applicable (with some tweaks or modifications, as with all engineering techniques) to other bipedal robot applications.
The wireless lan comm technology, improved user interface (over the previous version), and sensor systems are all also certainly reusable in similar robots (indeed, likely also in multi-legged robots).
However, as it is a commercial product AND I do not read Japanese, I was not able to find any papers on specific algorithms to give a more detailed analysis...
Here are some useful resources I did find:
The official site in English
An article about the robot's walking functions
Images of the robot at UIUC
Biped Robots in General
Robodex Robotics Conference
Sorry for the cut and paste error on the URL:
Feenberg's Books
Also check out the SPT (Which has a decent links section, too)
While I love the Bay Area (let take a moment to point out that San Francisco, not Silicon Valley, is the cultural and intellectual center of the region - the digerati of the Valley mostly live and almost all party in SF), and am in the eyes of many qualified to be a technocrat myself, I must say that this cheerleading and propagandizing for the leaders of the "technoculture" really does underline how irrational and cultish this supposedly rationalist society really is.
/. postings but do little to achieve real dialogue.
This includes not only blindly uncritical social science theses (a bizarre reversal of the "noble savage" trend in favor of techno libertarianism as the guiding ideal of (unattainable) utopian perfection)... my irritation also extends to the followers of the cults of personality which have sprung up around people like Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates. For such a supposedly libertarian community, there certainly is an awful lot of idol worship in the Open Source and Internet worlds.
By painting our culture with these mythological overtones we can conveniently cast issues, and ourselves, in unrealistic, broad strokes and self-congratulatory rants about our positions in the fights between good and evil - which are entertaining for
For the most part is irrational, and it is not wise for technologists to get into the habit of not rationally questioning their work. Cultish, unquestioning devotion to ideas (or technologies, or products) stifles creativity and innovation, and can promote lousy, even dangerous, ideas and technologies over reasonable and better alternatives. (Feel free to Microsoftie-bash here, but this is far from the only case...) It also promotes a culture in which those who do not uphold some status-quo are marginalized, and this can be seen increasingly in the "religious wars" about OSes, programming languages, browsers, even games...
Rather than patting ourselves on the back about a new, irrational system of devotion, we should be wondering why we can't advance past these archaic notions of fundamentalism and how we can expect to trust ourselves with powerful new technologies when we can't shake old patterns of irrational behavior.
Even the notion of promoting the techno "way of life" over all else is divisive, and promotes an attitude where all technology is unquestioningly considered "better" than whatever was before and anyone who dares question this is a "neo luddite"
It is part of a familiar, and insidious, pattern of behavior which keeps the powerful entrenched, builds a separate status for a priesthood which can choose between doing the bidding of the leadership or being cast to the confused and "left behind" polity as sorcerers of evil intent... in short, it is no good for anyone, except maybe the very powerful and the very mercenary...
There are lots of good things about the "techno revolution" but religious devotion to technobaubles, technocratic ideology, and various new party lines are not them... If you want to read a serious and interesting discussion of the subersive nature of the techno revolution and how it can be seen philosophically as a means to oppose entrenched power structures, I highly recommend the works of Andrew Feenberg
It sounds, at this point, like the system will be somewhat fragile with so many heads and the notion of a third meaningful dimension in R/W. While at this point it seems too fragile for home use, clever shock-proofing and very good quality control in parts manufacturing could result in a reliable drive. In general, though, it's pretty cool. Unfortunately, the productization of this technology seems at least 5 years off, which means I'll have to stick with a pile of IBM 75GB drives for my (personal, sorry) MP3 server.
On a related note, has anyone else noticed that the claims of IBM's death were a bit premature? They seem to really have re-emerged as a major leader in R&D, and are piling up market leadership points in hard drives and Java tech while making inroads into monitors, back into PCs, and regaining ground lost to Sun, Intel, SGI, and DEC in the big-iron and supercomputing markets. Does anyone know of any really good insights into this in the form of articles, books, etc?
Absolutely... This legislation is an insult to consumers, to the US Constitution, and to the intelligence of those of us in the IT/IS industry who make software purchases (and unfair to consumers who are just coming to grasps with such issues)...
;-)
m l
It is a clear case of interstate commerce that should be regulated by Federal law, in the case where the purchasing occurs accross state borders. If you buy it in a store in California, you should be bound by California laws regarding trade, but the vendor who sold it to you would be bound by Federal law (which doesn't yet exist here) unless the software manufacturer was also in California. Applying the laws of a state in which none of the transaction participants resides is ridiculous, and likely unconstitutional.
But let's look at some of the other stupidity involved...
Reveal contract terms AFTER the sale? That certainly sounds like at least failure to disclose terms, if not bait-and-switch (if partial disclosure is used to misleading ends). It violates various consumer protection laws.
Forbid publication of critical reviews? This sounds like it violates more laws than I could possibly personally know, not to mention at least one constitutional amendment... Forget combatting this through "viral reviews" on the internet, folks, this is a basic civil liberty under attack for the purposes of market manipulation and trade collusion. This kind of supression of freedom of speech, of the press, of public figures (and products) to be freely criticized and lampooned is the most foul of affronts against the the Bill of Rights...
Avoid fixing software bugs? This sounds like it would violate various consumer protection laws, and probably lead to the passage of "lemon laws" for sofware...
Forbid resale of used software? Under "license to use" terms this could be done, but it is questionable and certainly runs counter to the current custom of transferrable licenses. It also can be gotten around if licenses can be transferred by free if you give away the license and charge a service fee (something I learned from tech companies themselves...
How to combat this?
1) Write your state legislatures and tell them "no way this will happen here"
2) Form a class action lawsuit among all the powerful interests opposed to the legislation and take Maryland and any companies tryint to hide behind their laws to the supreme court on constitutional grounds regarding their attempts to usurp interstate commerce and supress the freedom of the press
3) Reject all sales based on application of UCITA, particularly in states you do not reside in
4) Join ongoing efforts against it (see below)
5) Write software makers threatening to stop buying their software if they do not withdraw their support for this
6) Stop buying their software, anyway, and use more free software...
To find out more about this odious sack of legislative feces, check out:
http://www.cpsr.org/program/UCITA/ucita-fact.ht
http://www.ieeeusa.org/grassroots/ucita/
http://www.cptech.org/ecom/ucita/
http://www.consumerlaw.org/ucita/
http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/ulc_frame.htm
Absolutely... It is legitimate for the French to have their own laws about what freedom of speech covers in their country, and while I may not agree with it, I understand and respect it. (My family was slaughtered in WWII, so let's not say here that I agree with Nazis... I just feel it is less dangerous to let them air their views openly and in-front of equally legal public criticism
... tags so that no Frenchman will ever accidentally see anything about Nazis... If that's their desire...
than to encourage them to hide in back rooms in self-righetous indignation...)
However, it certainly should be up to French sites to block such auctions. It was correct of them to remove the items from www.yahoo.fr in order to meet local standards and continue business in France, but Yahoo! should not be obligated to pay to protect the French from access to their US site. However...
Jurisdiction issues ecome blurry on the Internet. Unless Yahoo! blocks all French sites from www.yahoo.com, then it really is NOT just a US site... So maybe they SHOULD block the French sites, and it gets more complicated if you figure in that French people could get access through non-French sites... You begin to see why governments fear the Internet as a potential threat to their soverignty...
What would be prudent of Yahoo!, though, would be to put a tag in those auctions that the French sites could read and block. At least, then, they can be seen as cooperative and giving the French the opportunity to enforce their national laws.
And as for the French government, they should subsidize the standardization of an XML DTD that allows sites to be marked with
However, expect issues like this to increase as governments figure out how to enforce their national laws overlaid with a truly international communications medium...
The US has a similar history... so do some other countries, but it is the tax break Sony is shooting for. However, if a community grows up around this (which is what did it for the computers you speak of, back in the good ol' days) then perhaps a simple programming language in a simple envrionment will inspire more kids to learn to program.
One problem with current computing envrionments is that they are too complicated for many kids. My first programming language was BASIC on a Commodore PET, and after BASIC it was Assembler, then Pascal, then C... All in fairly simple environments (I was a fairly advanced programmer by the time DOS completely succumbed to Windows)... Could you imagine Visual Studio as your first programming envrionment? Many professional programmers consider it too "busy" to work with... A friend of mine who teaches kids to program uses QBasic because it's easy, then moves the kids up to more sophisticated environments, so they can concentrate first on concepts and algorithms - then on IDEs and foundation classes and so on...
A simple environment in which to create games could be a great boon to teaching kids to program, it's too bad that Sony is not interested in promoting this system worldwide for this, and is just trying to dodge taxes (and thus will probably include lousy documentation and no support to discourage its use...)
A compromise between P2P and overlapping heirarchies is possible using automatic assignment of nodes to (multiple) regions based on tasks (as in our Webworld system)... Thus P2P is used for certain things (node discovery accross the Net without resorting to an Net-wide broadcast, anonymous filesharing a'la Freenet, etc.) and heirarchies for other things (processes which need to have an average messaging time node-to-node to do resource allocation between processing and messaging)
Efficiency is not the only issue in P2P... anonymity is one, and another is to inject a type of fault-tolerance into a heirarchal system by allowing for more dynamic assignemnt of heirarchal roles where appropriate...
Also, since many P2P schemes are built on top of TCP/IP, the option to build a dynamic, hybrid system is much easier, since a heirarchal system lies beneath at the addressing and transport level... You can leverage the messaging efficiency of the heiarchy once you've done discovery through pure P2P, and can also overlay anonymous P2P over the heirarchy for things like Freenet style file sharing...
P2P and Heirarchy both have their strengths and weakenesses, and particularly clever developers can pool strengths without amplifying weakenesses and get some pretty neat systems...
...there aren't that many well-reasoned responses here that are actually opposed to this nonsense.
Several people have pointed out that this has been predicted in "Free For All" and elsewhere, which is nice, but what to do about it? Some pointed out that taxation of real estate is based on perceived valuation if the property were sold -however, real estate is the only property treated this way in most places I know of.
Certainly Microsoft and other commercial software companies will put pressure on governments to do this sort of thing, as it will hurt the popularity of free software, and yes perhaps charging $0.01 for the license is one way around this... And, yes, it's Poland's own business but frankly the world is getting smaller and we owe it to ourselves and our friends in Poland to - as the first international political force with easy real-time communications among us - band together and oppose all governmental and big-business activities that threaten the society we wish to have on the Internet.
So, some issues seem to be getting ignored here.
One problem is that this poses a huge threat to the free exchange of ideas, especially if applied to the university setting (though students and universities are often given tax breaks)... MANY in the R&D community thrive on free software, and much of it has been written by researchers and hackers for community use based on a barter-like notion of roughly equal contribution from the community (in the form of patches, suggestions, bug reports, publicity, etc.) in return for use. It may thus be necessary to codify this into licenses: anyone who contributes to the software in any ways listed by the author are considered to be "creators" of the software and can not be taxed for using their own creation. Contributions could include applying the system to novel uses and reporting this back, promoting the system for use by others, etc. which would cover some end-users, too.
The government (in Poland in this case) is denying software creators the ability to set the valuation of their own software. If the government gets involved in price-fixing for taxation purposes, the competitive nature of the market that is allegedly a crucial part of the caplitalist system is undermined. If Microsoft and others can't provide value that makes their software worth more than $0 software, that's their problem. To get around this argument a government would need a complex system of taxation based on value to the enterprise using some pre and post installation performance metrics of the task being performed with the program and its value to the organization. Basing the tax on the price of "competing" products is government-assisted price collusion. Furthermore, it ignores the fact that there are reasons why commercial software costs money that do not apply to free software: centralized support, guarantees and warranties and some coherent - and monied - organization to sue if needed, etc. The value of the products is likely not actually the same if anything but a naive economic view (or a purely technical view of the operations of the software) is taken.
This kind of taxation is a kind of protectionism for large software corporations, and threatens to undermine the quality of software and stifle competition as people will come to expect governments to enforce the prices of software, and even commercial companies with competitive pricing can be hurt in such a scenario. Basically, everyone will be expected to charge the same price for their software or otherwise turn-over a larger portion of their profits to the government. Commercial organizations and free software developers alike would cringe at the thought of the government making more money than they do off their work - basically it seeks to undermine the community spirit that built the movement and force commercialization (and a fixed pricing regieme) in the industry, as well as to limit price competitiveness. It actually *encourages* price collusion and other anti-capitalist measures.
The Polish government is taking an outdated view of taxation which will be hard for governments to shake: that goods are the cornerstone of taxation. The US is already a service-based economy, so the US is quite happy to tax support services, installation services, etc. which can come with free software.
It is taxing a form of free speech, which I suspect the Polish constitution has provisions for because (having read part of it) it seems somewhat modeled on the US constitution... Basically, software, like books or music, is a form of creative expression. If I write a book and give it to you for free, if the government decides it's as entertaining as a $30 Steven King novel, should they be able to go and tax you for a $30 purchase you never made? It both forces you to consume, and stifles the ability of authors to freely distribute their ideas.
Finally, it undermines the licensing contract and thus any claims Poland could have to upholding such contract law. Basically, it gives the government the power to rewrite commercial contracts at will to suit its "needs"...
Well, while there are certainly military applications of this technology, there are also genuine humanitarian ones - such as the claimed fire disaster area survey. Each year many firefighters lose their lives, particularly trying to combat forest fires and trying to rescue people - or whole towns - from such areas.
Some people have suggested other flight platforms, particularly from Moller, but while the Aerobot looks nice it is somewhat expensive, and the Skycar looks unsuited to perform an tasks for which the system was intended. What is really important, though is the control electronics, vision system, etc.
The German system seems to do a nice job with this (note also that Germans, at Mercedes-Benz, are the farthest along - at least in public - on autonomous robot land vehicles). What would be an interesting next challenge would be to try to scale-up from small helicopters to, say, a full-blown bell with stretcher pods and have the system be able to perform rescues of humans whom can be determined to still be mobile enough to get themselves onto the craft.
Regarding detecting the difference between dead humans, unconscious humans, and alive but not breathing humans - first of all, those are distinctions that are hard for humans to make from a helicopter, so it's an awkward comparison. Furthermore, using infrared technology, the system would be better at detecting humans who died long enough ago that they were starting to get cold from others - something a human can not do while airborne.
If you want to distinguish the unconscious, dead, and almost-dead you need to send in a land-based robot with some medical technology for making the distinction (but how do you TEST that system?)
Right now, I think humans will be used for this.
Also interesting would be to test the system for ability to deliver payloads (yeah, it could be bombs, but it would be interesting to test its accuracy in dropping medical supplies to those in a disaster area who are still mobile enough to use them...)
What will set Dimensional Media, and a company in Norway which I know the founder of that is working on a similar but improved project, apart is whether or not they can make these things robust, stable, cheap, and popular enough for them to take off. Integration with an IR grid for detection of objects (like fingers) entering the area for 3D UI's is, however, a pretty nice addition...
;-)
Other companies have tried mirror-and-lens based holographic projectors before - I've even played a video game console, in an arcade, which used a similar system - though it only supported 180 degrees of viewpoint (the article says the DM system supports "full look around" which I will consider a claim that it does 360 degree views)
Their plans to use this with NMR data and, particularly medical, volumetric rendering data is a good plan. I want to be able to go to a doctor's and watch my brain fully modeled in 3D, with real-time display of neural activity... can I bring popcorn?
It's not that unbelievable, but if the resolution is as good as they claim, and it finally takes off commercially, then there are a lot of cool medical, 3D user interface, gaming, and, of course, military applications (hey, have the autonomous helicopter robot mentioned today send back 3D projections of the disaster / battle site to its home base...)
Things like this go to show that you need humans to mediate human interactions. The semantics of signing that Bruce talks about are a human issue, and only a true AI might become acceptable as a suitable substitute for a human in many subjective (and legality, value, trust - all are subjective) issues.
The reason we trust the notary public to countersign a document is that we are willing to believe what a human has seen and done because we can relate to it. The way you can lie as a notary public is pretty well known to humans - but forgery of digital signatures or hijacking a legitimate one is pretty new area for humans.
Tamper-proof computers would be needed for any digital system to be truly trustworthy, but that is probably raising the bar too high - higher than we keep it for our usual activities. What is required are procedures and oversight that humans can feel comfortable allows such a statistically low chance of error - through malice or accident - as to be worth trusting.
It is only partially attacks by other humans, thus, which we fear in digital signatures and similar mechanisms (like electronic voting). It is also machine error. We wants humans to recount votes and attest to signatures. Until more people are comfortable with the machines this will continue.
Finally, I will tip my hat to the open source community: by opening up the black boxes, people will start to feel more comfortable with machines - even if they remain ignorant. Few people actually fix their own cars, but over time they became confident that the standards and knowledge were such that they could trust those who do, and that the information was available for them to at least perform some rudimentary oversight if needed (indeed, as more car parts become black boxes, people are LOSING their trust in cars...)
So, what we need is comfort levels for humans, through open systems, and acceptable standards and procedures which maintain the highest feasible levels of security, privacy, reliability, and trustworthiness in the subjective view of people... There are NO tamper-proof systems, electronic or physical, but we still have a society functions without total paralysis from fear of a total trust breakdown.
Digital signatures will come into their own with improved security and oversight (monitoring and reporting) on PCs...
This gets back to the issue of Linux not being easy enough for your usual desktop productivity suite users to work with. Here is where the "get around to using some day" folks come in... If they have it, but aren't using it - and I know this is common - there is a problem.
One problem is that Linux is difficult and unfamiliar, even with nice installers, etc. like RedHat's it still takes a while to *configure* (especially since many of the graphical configuration tools are so unstable and slow - I generally do everything at the command line because of this, despite not being a command-line-only snob...)
Another is that while StarOffice, Corel, and Applixware are all fine and well, M$ Office is still actually better. Linux developers find it sexy to work on the kernel, but where are all the Linux application developers making better apps for Linux? A handful of games, word processors, dbs and spreadsheets do not a useful desktop OS make... People, the ones who buy stuff and make the computer market a market, have come to expect a wide selection of software. Linux doesn't have it. UNIX is really great for developers, but somehow this hasn't translated into developers developing things on it that make it really great for everyone else. Almost everything on *nix seems to be required to have a dated look, feel half-finished (or BE half-finshed), and require strange (by desktop user standards) behaviors to make things work - I guess professional grade software other than kernels isn't "cool" enough for *nix developers to work on it...
Also, don't forget, Corel's suite has competition from Applixware and Sun's free StarOffice... That is also probably part of their problem. While all three are sub-standard compared to Office, and Corel is the best of the three, Corel also has put more money into making themselves the best and many Linux people would rather have a mediocre program for free than a good piece of software they have to pay for.
It's not suprising they're looking to sell their Linux business - I wonder who will buy? Maybe RedHat could take over the office suite, add a nice Outlook-like mail tool and a decent Web browser and go to town... Or maybe that's too much work for a Linux company...
Not much choice will depend on things more than just speed. I'd just as soon stick with P3 Xeons at 700mhz than a 1.4ghz chip with a small cache, poor or no (n>2)-way SMP support, and based on boards that haven't been shown to be stable. There is more to life than clock-speed. There's even more to life than reliability and stability (there are reliable and stable solutions other than Intel, and at least so-far on uni systems AMD is actually one of them...)
What is the pipelining architecture going to be like on these AMD duals? Will the SMP routing backplane be fast enough? Cache size?
How do the two instruction sets compare? Can they both do the same things in-chip? Can one do them in fewer instructions than the other - and if so, how does this wind up modifying the clock speed / real performance gain ratios?
There is also compatibility. Our first foray into using several AMD machines as single-proc servers was aborted because we had more problems with hardware and OS compatibilty than with P3's or even Celerons. We didn't give up on AMD completely, we just put the machines on corporate user desktops and vowed to try new AMD machines out one-at-a-time from now on and see if the problems get fixed...
The actual comparisons will require some research, the information for which I can't find at this time - so what's the point of making judgements one way or the other regarding the tech?
Regarding the marketplace - Intel is certainly responding to AMD in the home market making big gains with high clock-speed chips. That's fine for the home market, they can compete for clock-speed afficianados and maybe AMD's dual 1.2s will come out before Intel's dual 1.4s and there will be more competition and more scrambling by Intel to recapture home/gamer/office geek market share...
But in the server room, and in the IT Depts run by people who know their stuff, the verdict isn't in yet regarding whether or not AMD can give Intel a run for their money...
Indeed. The idea of a truly democratic company is noble, idealistic... and unrealistic...
:-) Market surveys are not democracy, they are an attempt to judge the trends and moods of the buying public so that the leaders of the corporation can figure out how to manipulate it in best accordance with their vision. Do not confuse being asked your opinion with having a say in the outcome.
Successful projects are driven by strong leadership, even "cults of personality." FDR was the closest thing the US has had to a king, and one of its most successful builders. Microsoft is the Bill Gates (or Bill Gates / Steve Ballmer) cult. Sun's vision comes from Scott McNealy and Bill Joy. Let me point out that even non-commercial open-software groups follow this trait. When you think of Linux, does a particular person come to mind? GNU? Perl?
The developers involved in these projects choose what to work on, but they choose it from among the things that the managers (volunteer or paid) put into the engineering plan, and they tend to conform to the vision of the leading visionary/ies of the project.
Companies also need strong leadership - they are dictatorships, though the best ones are "enlightened dictatorships" which give some of the dictatorial powers to different people in the organization through meritocratic appointments. The bland, ruthless bureaucracy promoted by this poster is also inefficient for reasons of low worker morale and high turnover.
Look at "poster boy" companies like Saturn or SAP: workers get some say in their work through merit gaining them say, pay is equitable but not equal, people are treated well, creativity is encouraged - but at the end of the day there are managers who manage, and a single vision handed down by the leaders which everyone is expected to work towards.
Letting developers vote on their projects also won't lead to a market-driven product that will sell (though not only developers make those mistakes
An enlightened dictatorship is the best way to run a company. People need leadership, markets value stability (electing a new corporate president every 4 years would spook investors), and a collective rarely - if ever - has the vision to inspire innovation (though having a lot of smart, creative people around to translate that vision into a reality is a necessity for a truly exceptional business).
Being a member of the executive committee of a company, I can assure you that consensus decision making is inefficient, indeed prone to deadlock, and that given the necessity of a business to move quickly, respond to markets, present a coherent image to clients, and other things that a non-commercial entity may not need to do... even in committees what generally winds up happening is that the most powerful executive prevails and thus "it" is done...
True democracy is rare in government, even rarer in business... not everyone can, or wants to, be the boss. Decisions aren't easy.
I wish true democracy did work for running a business, it is a great ideal. However, if you want to actually get anything done, someone still needs to have executive power, veto power over any committee, and the vision to make a coherent group working towards a common goal out of a collection of individuals.
This proof of concept seems designed to prove that it is a pretty lame concept... These particular TLDs are quite lame. Of course, that probably won't stop people from buying them, for no good reason.
/. fashion. THESE TLDs would prove the concept AND maintain the spirit of the Internet:
.cums" and people would merely think they have a funny accent...
Now, as for the TLDs *I* think should be registered, in true "I know more than they do"
.cum - Then people who work at sex sites could casually mention that they work at "one of those
.borg - For anyone who has been assimilated... you know, Microsoft ISVs, OEMs, developers, etc...
.nut - For sites featuring rants, conspiracy theories, pictures of people's pets with captions drawn in using Microsoft Paint, etc.
.kil - For Quake servers and towns named after Dutch rivers...
.guv - For people who want to run their own countries but can't find one that will let them...
also can be used by stereotyped British butlers...
Also, since we know Aliens are among us, shouldn't we have planetary/stellar codes in addition to country codes?
For more info go to: www.wecomeinpeace.mars