The problem is the encryption and the single tuner boxes. You can't watch one digital station and record another, unless you're using a cable company DVR. If you have a TiVo and a box with and S-Video output, the TiVo can change the station as needed for unattended recording. But there's no rule the cable co has to provide an S-Video output and they can disable the port via software patch if they choose. Which means if you want to record at all you have to leave the digital box running on the station you want to record while you're gone (hope all your shows are on one channel).
There's some progress being made with Cable Cards, but they remain an item you have to buy from your provider and can only be used in flat panels right now. With analog cable none of these issues exist because VCR's can tune whatever they need independantly of the TV's/boxes. If the stations weren't encryted VCR/DVD recorder manufactures could put digital tuners in their equipment.
As it stands right now to get digital cable a consumer has to give away some of their rights to fair use they gained in the Betamax case, something they shouldn't have to do.
What happens when people don't read the fine print on service agreements and that all important clause which says TiVo can change the terms of usage at any time without prior notice.
And this is supposed to be so much better than taping? The time shifting abilities of PRV's are great when watching live shows, but really the only people for whom the PVR experience is "revolutionary" are folks too stupid to program their VCR's to begin with.
This and digital cable continue to be examples of consumers choosing wiz-bang technology simply because it's new and not because it's better. Few users have the TV's or proper audio equipment to enjoy "the digital difference" but they all lap it up because of all the stations they can't get otherwise, few of them seem to think about how much more difficult exercising fair use rights becomes because of the converter boxes needed for digital cable.
The Bose's direct/reflecting system made them sound unfocused: close your eyes and you've no idea where the sound comes from.
Not argueing that Bose's speakers are great here, but that effect of the direct/reflecting system is actually desirable in some cases (think: background music at a business). With the sound seemingly "all around" and the speakers so small, everyone can hear and nobody complains about loudness because they're sitting too close to a speaker.
Apple's hardware business is already in jeopardy -- PC margins are extremely low and getting lower.
When you hear analysts saying this (which is where you're obviously getting it from) they aren't talking about Personal Computer makers, they mean PC makers, as in the Windows and Linux variety. Why are margins so thin? Well, look at their prices! Except for the Mac mini, Apple isn't even trying to compete with them on the only metric they really use - price and performance "figures".
There's a reason Apple and Dell have continued to pull in healthy profits over the tech bust. Dell has volume to make up for it's cut-throat pricing, and Apple has the fact they actually price their products with decent profit margins and aren't having to battle directly with the cheap PC makers (the question of what operating system a machine runs means both have markets they don't have to worry about the other horning in on).
I think Apple's move to Intel really is not predicated on performance or watts (Macs sell just fine without them), but survival in a profit-free hardware market.
I think a lot of it is brand recognition. By moving to the chips "everybody else is using" it makes marketing the machine a lot easier speedwise. Consumers know the Intel brand and while they know IBM, they don't know IBM as a microprocessor maker, but as the PC company that (no longer exists and) made the Aptiva a little over a decade ago. Nobody will ask "Well how does this compare to that Pentium 4 3Ghz?" like they did with the PowerPC chips when they're looking at a Macintel.
When HP and a few other vendors crater...
HP wont crater because of poor profits from not being able to limbo as low as Dell. They're going down for the same reason lots of great companies go down. They stopped being a company and started being a corporation. Which meant bean counters were given too much power and a line of great products started having corners cut on them. The company profits off it's old reputation as a maker of quality printers and PC's for awhile and one day people start waking up and realizing the printer they bought is really just a... (how did that poster in the scanner recommendation story put it? oh yes) a flimsy ink cartridge holder.
Jobs will come out of this with millions of OS X/.Mac/iTunes subscriptions and looking like a genius.
1) Apple doesn't make much of anything off iTunes, and I don't see them adopting a subscription model given their current formula is working so well.
2) I don't see.Mac lasting a lot longer without a major overhaul and more services, and I say that as a.Mac member. Many of the users seem to be old iTools users who want to keep their email address and are holding out on the idea things will get beefed up or the sub price will drop eventually. Many Apple Stores are having trouble meeting addon sales goals (which makes me feel sorry for the sales reps this is effecting) of.Mac boxes for Mac purchases.
3) There wont be much market for OSX subscriptions if piracy of it isn't curbed. Apple can't claim that it wants to make sure OSX86 runs on Macs only and never take steps to break piracy/hacking down. Apple's changing of the Intel developer build OSX in this latest version is simply their action speaking louder than their words, which is why it's garnering such attention.
That's an interesting counterpoint to what I was thinking actually. While I fully support the whole "It's their OS, they don't have a monopoly, it's still beta, they can do what they like" idea, I was under the impression that Intel piracy could actually be good for them (something I want, since I, like you, want to continue using Apple's products). For now I'll ignore the debate of whether they could maintain their quality of software over a wider range of hardware or not.
It's true that Apple could benefit from some piracy on the generic vanilla PC side, but this would do little for the long run. There are many people who would love to run OSX and could care less what the PC it's running on looked like or the build quality. If Apple lets the situation get out of control it will put it's hardware business (which is Apple's real business, despite what people keep trying to claim about the iTMS and OSX upgrades) in jeopardy.
Also, Apple has an image as a serious company to maintain for their shareholders. They may want a little piracy to get word-of-mouth, first-hit-free publicity in the Wintel world. But if they stand idley by and become complacent about the piracy/hacking of OSX86 their shareholders are going to wonder how much Apple is working to protect it's core hardware business and their stock investments. Apple may be making a mint off iPod sales, but Macintosh sales are still the company's bread and butter. Apple has to show it's commited to a business plan in it's switch to Intel and not being blaise with the company I.P.
Wow. I'd certainly pay $12 for 256K. I pay $14.95/mo right now for dialup, and would love to be able to keep an always-on connection and leave my phone line free, even without the speed increase.
It's rather annoying as I do tech support for a cable internet company in another state that offers 256K down for as low as $19.95/mo in some of their markets (rural CO/WY) while my provider (eastern KS) only offer 3M down as the lowest speed (and charges $29.95, a little more than I want to pay)
Yahoo! is a publicly-traded company. Its shareholders want one thing: more money.
The wishes of a corporation's shareholders does not give the corp a license to do whatever it wants. Also, even if the shareholders want money, that wish is not necessarily preclude them from having morals of their own.
Would Nike's shareholders agree to a plan to build a slave labor shoe manufacturing plant knowing it would translate into large devidends? Or to assassinate the entire board of Reebok?
?Today is LABOR DAY. A day to reflect on the HARD WORK that goes into the greatness of this nation. A day which is dedicated to the WORKER.
And yet, the WORKER is the person least likely to get the day off. For people in upper management, having __________ holiday off is pretty much a given, but the rank and file many times have to ask on a holiday by holiday basis if they have to work and what hours.
Do you read every single EULA and other agreements? They could have written there that I should give them my firstborn child, if I click the button.
It's not a EULA gotcha, it's common sense.
If I buy a piece of software commonly known to be available for platforms X or Y and then decide later to switch to platform Z, I don't whine that the developer ripped me off because my X/Y software doesn't run on the Z it was never created to run on to begin with.
You started using the iTMS knowing full well you need iTunes to play these files and iTunes is only available for Windows and Mac. You had Windows, it was YOUR choice to switch to Linux. I'm sure there was other Windows software you couldn't use when you switched to Linux. Unfortunatly, without iTunes your purchases don't play. How exactly is Apple responsible for your choices?
But who's going to sneak into google on a flying scooter?
It will be Steve Jobs! But he wont be on a flying scooter, it will be the prototype, jet powered, Segway II! He'll confund them with his Reality Distortion Field while saving all the doomed information from oblivion by copying it to his iPod.
I might be nitpiking a small part of your reply but:
Homosexuals sue to get married, which is an act under GOD and not man.
That's right, and it's the MAN who's telling these people they cannot get married, even if the couple's GOD has no issue with it. Because the MAN's GOD doesn't approve of it, and the Man thinks everyone should follow what his God says, even if their own doesn't agree.:-)
However, I fail to see how this would create problems for law enforcement.
Maybe their forensic tools can extract the browser history from the file and the software isn't aware a bookmarks file doesn't have to be named "favorites".
At least I hope that's the issue.
Tip for Kiddie Porn addicts: Keep your vids in someplace besides the "My Videos" folder. The authorities will never be able to find them if they're "hidden" in some other folder.
It's funny the summaries title mentions King Kong. I've had a copy (VHS) on order with Amazon for a couple months now. I want to get it for my father, the problem is it doesn't seem to be in stock. I can get bilked by the "used" sellers or eBay. But I want a new copy from Amazon (so I can add a few dollars and get free shipping). They even lowered the price of the item while it's been out of stock, but I have yet to find out when more will be in.
Does the MPAA have anyone to blame but themselves when people pirate movies they can't, in fact, buy in stores?
Disney is always doing the "this is the last time it will be available for awhile" marketting stunt to create a buying frenzy with their classic films, then try to figure out how to create sales the rest of the year, when they could just let things be steady year long.
I want to get Sin City on DVD, but the one they released has way too small a list of extras. I fully expect a "deluxe" edition to appear (like with Pulp Fiction). Result? I'm not buying anything.
As much as I love Google as a search engine, I do have to say that this one is just a little bit scary. Can they really create their own internet, and still do no evil?
So what if they do. Just because Googlenet shows up doesn't mean the old internet ceases to function. If it becomes a draconian mess, no one will use it, and it will slip into irrelevance like Gopher.
I don't think they will chose a hard password. Heck, they can make the passowrd their dog's name for all I care. Having some sort of password on the access point will lessen wardriving, even if the password is the owner's first name. At least then you would at least have to know who lives at a house to sip off their internet connection.
The Nintendo DS is gimmicky. Double screens is helpful in some games, but for most people it's as awkward as the three pronged controller on N64.
And Sony's comments are arrogant. It's the games that ultimately decide which platform is better, and having a bigger screen is no good if you have nothing special to show on it. Of course, I expect nothing less than this sort of statement from Sony. They still seem to think the Walkman glory is with them and continue to display Not-Invented-Here syndrome.
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So tell me, how do you watch one recorded show while your VCR is recording another one?
Uh, why would I do that. If I have time to sit down and watch TV I would watch the show that's playing at that time and watch the recorded one later.
The problem is the encryption and the single tuner boxes. You can't watch one digital station and record another, unless you're using a cable company DVR. If you have a TiVo and a box with and S-Video output, the TiVo can change the station as needed for unattended recording. But there's no rule the cable co has to provide an S-Video output and they can disable the port via software patch if they choose. Which means if you want to record at all you have to leave the digital box running on the station you want to record while you're gone (hope all your shows are on one channel).
There's some progress being made with Cable Cards, but they remain an item you have to buy from your provider and can only be used in flat panels right now. With analog cable none of these issues exist because VCR's can tune whatever they need independantly of the TV's/boxes. If the stations weren't encryted VCR/DVD recorder manufactures could put digital tuners in their equipment.
As it stands right now to get digital cable a consumer has to give away some of their rights to fair use they gained in the Betamax case, something they shouldn't have to do.
What happens when people don't read the fine print on service agreements and that all important clause which says TiVo can change the terms of usage at any time without prior notice.
And this is supposed to be so much better than taping? The time shifting abilities of PRV's are great when watching live shows, but really the only people for whom the PVR experience is "revolutionary" are folks too stupid to program their VCR's to begin with.
This and digital cable continue to be examples of consumers choosing wiz-bang technology simply because it's new and not because it's better. Few users have the TV's or proper audio equipment to enjoy "the digital difference" but they all lap it up because of all the stations they can't get otherwise, few of them seem to think about how much more difficult exercising fair use rights becomes because of the converter boxes needed for digital cable.
The Bose's direct/reflecting system made them sound unfocused: close your eyes and you've no idea where the sound comes from.
Not argueing that Bose's speakers are great here, but that effect of the direct/reflecting system is actually desirable in some cases (think: background music at a business). With the sound seemingly "all around" and the speakers so small, everyone can hear and nobody complains about loudness because they're sitting too close to a speaker.
Apple's hardware business is already in jeopardy -- PC margins are extremely low and getting lower.
.Mac lasting a lot longer without a major overhaul and more services, and I say that as a .Mac member. Many of the users seem to be old iTools users who want to keep their email address and are holding out on the idea things will get beefed up or the sub price will drop eventually. Many Apple Stores are having trouble meeting addon sales goals (which makes me feel sorry for the sales reps this is effecting) of .Mac boxes for Mac purchases.
When you hear analysts saying this (which is where you're obviously getting it from) they aren't talking about Personal Computer makers, they mean PC makers, as in the Windows and Linux variety. Why are margins so thin? Well, look at their prices! Except for the Mac mini, Apple isn't even trying to compete with them on the only metric they really use - price and performance "figures".
There's a reason Apple and Dell have continued to pull in healthy profits over the tech bust. Dell has volume to make up for it's cut-throat pricing, and Apple has the fact they actually price their products with decent profit margins and aren't having to battle directly with the cheap PC makers (the question of what operating system a machine runs means both have markets they don't have to worry about the other horning in on).
I think Apple's move to Intel really is not predicated on performance or watts (Macs sell just fine without them), but survival in a profit-free hardware market.
I think a lot of it is brand recognition. By moving to the chips "everybody else is using" it makes marketing the machine a lot easier speedwise. Consumers know the Intel brand and while they know IBM, they don't know IBM as a microprocessor maker, but as the PC company that (no longer exists and) made the Aptiva a little over a decade ago. Nobody will ask "Well how does this compare to that Pentium 4 3Ghz?" like they did with the PowerPC chips when they're looking at a Macintel.
When HP and a few other vendors crater...
HP wont crater because of poor profits from not being able to limbo as low as Dell. They're going down for the same reason lots of great companies go down. They stopped being a company and started being a corporation. Which meant bean counters were given too much power and a line of great products started having corners cut on them. The company profits off it's old reputation as a maker of quality printers and PC's for awhile and one day people start waking up and realizing the printer they bought is really just a... (how did that poster in the scanner recommendation story put it? oh yes) a flimsy ink cartridge holder.
Jobs will come out of this with millions of OS X/.Mac/iTunes subscriptions and looking like a genius.
1) Apple doesn't make much of anything off iTunes, and I don't see them adopting a subscription model given their current formula is working so well.
2) I don't see
3) There wont be much market for OSX subscriptions if piracy of it isn't curbed. Apple can't claim that it wants to make sure OSX86 runs on Macs only and never take steps to break piracy/hacking down. Apple's changing of the Intel developer build OSX in this latest version is simply their action speaking louder than their words, which is why it's garnering such attention.
That's an interesting counterpoint to what I was thinking actually. While I fully support the whole "It's their OS, they don't have a monopoly, it's still beta, they can do what they like" idea, I was under the impression that Intel piracy could actually be good for them (something I want, since I, like you, want to continue using Apple's products). For now I'll ignore the debate of whether they could maintain their quality of software over a wider range of hardware or not.
It's true that Apple could benefit from some piracy on the generic vanilla PC side, but this would do little for the long run. There are many people who would love to run OSX and could care less what the PC it's running on looked like or the build quality. If Apple lets the situation get out of control it will put it's hardware business (which is Apple's real business, despite what people keep trying to claim about the iTMS and OSX upgrades) in jeopardy.
Also, Apple has an image as a serious company to maintain for their shareholders. They may want a little piracy to get word-of-mouth, first-hit-free publicity in the Wintel world. But if they stand idley by and become complacent about the piracy/hacking of OSX86 their shareholders are going to wonder how much Apple is working to protect it's core hardware business and their stock investments. Apple may be making a mint off iPod sales, but Macintosh sales are still the company's bread and butter. Apple has to show it's commited to a business plan in it's switch to Intel and not being blaise with the company I.P.
Wow. I'd certainly pay $12 for 256K. I pay $14.95/mo right now for dialup, and would love to be able to keep an always-on connection and leave my phone line free, even without the speed increase.
It's rather annoying as I do tech support for a cable internet company in another state that offers 256K down for as low as $19.95/mo in some of their markets (rural CO/WY) while my provider (eastern KS) only offer 3M down as the lowest speed (and charges $29.95, a little more than I want to pay)
Step 2: put fingernailsized flash memorychip on place of fingernail
Now just a way to power them up and use them. Any ideas?
Hmmmmmmm...
The new version of iTunes can also get that data from Outlook and Outlook Express in Windows now.
Now if only they'd add support for Mozilla Thunderbird and Sunbird.
Cons:
Applying sticky substance to shiny new iPod.
Everyone will point and laugh.
You forgot:
Phone will not automatically pause music when call comes in.
Not that the pros don't still far outweigh the cons.
Yahoo! is a publicly-traded company. Its shareholders want one thing: more money.
The wishes of a corporation's shareholders does not give the corp a license to do whatever it wants. Also, even if the shareholders want money, that wish is not necessarily preclude them from having morals of their own.
Would Nike's shareholders agree to a plan to build a slave labor shoe manufacturing plant knowing it would translate into large devidends? Or to assassinate the entire board of Reebok?
?Today is LABOR DAY. A day to reflect on the HARD WORK that goes into the greatness of this nation. A day which is dedicated to the WORKER.
And yet, the WORKER is the person least likely to get the day off. For people in upper management, having __________ holiday off is pretty much a given, but the rank and file many times have to ask on a holiday by holiday basis if they have to work and what hours.
I would type up a nice letter to the court about this ruling.
But I seem to have just ran out of ink...
Do you read every single EULA and other agreements? They could have written there that I should give them my firstborn child, if I click the button.
It's not a EULA gotcha, it's common sense.
If I buy a piece of software commonly known to be available for platforms X or Y and then decide later to switch to platform Z, I don't whine that the developer ripped me off because my X/Y software doesn't run on the Z it was never created to run on to begin with.
You started using the iTMS knowing full well you need iTunes to play these files and iTunes is only available for Windows and Mac. You had Windows, it was YOUR choice to switch to Linux. I'm sure there was other Windows software you couldn't use when you switched to Linux. Unfortunatly, without iTunes your purchases don't play. How exactly is Apple responsible for your choices?
Why do I have to install windows or buy an Apple computer to play the music that I bought?
Uh, because that's what you agreed to when you first started using the iTMS?
But who's going to sneak into google on a flying scooter?
It will be Steve Jobs! But he wont be on a flying scooter, it will be the prototype, jet powered, Segway II! He'll confund them with his Reality Distortion Field while saving all the doomed information from oblivion by copying it to his iPod.
I might be nitpiking a small part of your reply but:
:-)
Homosexuals sue to get married, which is an act under GOD and not man.
That's right, and it's the MAN who's telling these people they cannot get married, even if the couple's GOD has no issue with it. Because the MAN's GOD doesn't approve of it, and the Man thinks everyone should follow what his God says, even if their own doesn't agree.
However, I fail to see how this would create problems for law enforcement.
Maybe their forensic tools can extract the browser history from the file and the software isn't aware a bookmarks file doesn't have to be named "favorites".
At least I hope that's the issue.
Tip for Kiddie Porn addicts: Keep your vids in someplace besides the "My Videos" folder. The authorities will never be able to find them if they're "hidden" in some other folder.
The browsers maintain user privacy too well!
We've been wrong all along, and Microsoft was right. We need less secure computers to be more secure.
It's funny the summaries title mentions King Kong. I've had a copy (VHS) on order with Amazon for a couple months now. I want to get it for my father, the problem is it doesn't seem to be in stock. I can get bilked by the "used" sellers or eBay. But I want a new copy from Amazon (so I can add a few dollars and get free shipping). They even lowered the price of the item while it's been out of stock, but I have yet to find out when more will be in.
Does the MPAA have anyone to blame but themselves when people pirate movies they can't, in fact, buy in stores?
Disney is always doing the "this is the last time it will be available for awhile" marketting stunt to create a buying frenzy with their classic films, then try to figure out how to create sales the rest of the year, when they could just let things be steady year long.
I want to get Sin City on DVD, but the one they released has way too small a list of extras. I fully expect a "deluxe" edition to appear (like with Pulp Fiction). Result? I'm not buying anything.
I can't help but find it a bit ironic that people might be downloading movies which were in fact box office flops.
Obvious answer: The movies are worth the price of the download (free) but not $9.00 at Lowe's, as you pointed out.
Answer to consider: When you level all the mountains, the molehill left standing looks that much taller.
As much as I love Google as a search engine, I do have to say that this one is just a little bit scary. Can they really create their own internet, and still do no evil?
So what if they do. Just because Googlenet shows up doesn't mean the old internet ceases to function. If it becomes a draconian mess, no one will use it, and it will slip into irrelevance like Gopher.
Hell, didn't the old Game & Watches even precede that?
:-)
That's not a "handheld" it's a "wrist-carried".
I don't think they will chose a hard password. Heck, they can make the passowrd their dog's name for all I care. Having some sort of password on the access point will lessen wardriving, even if the password is the owner's first name. At least then you would at least have to know who lives at a house to sip off their internet connection.
The Nintendo DS is gimmicky. Double screens is helpful in some games, but for most people it's as awkward as the three pronged controller on N64.
And Sony's comments are arrogant. It's the games that ultimately decide which platform is better, and having a bigger screen is no good if you have nothing special to show on it. Of course, I expect nothing less than this sort of statement from Sony. They still seem to think the Walkman glory is with them and continue to display Not-Invented-Here syndrome.