True, but ARM devices that aren't locked down are vanishingly rare. On the one hand you have every idevice, almost every Android device, set-top boxes, etc. On the other? A handful of Android devices with officially unlocked bootloaders, the RaspberryPi, and some ARM-based microcontroller-a-likes.
It's a Dick Move, but a Dick Move in line with the Dick Moves of every other portable-ARM-device manufacturer.
The better question to ask is "who the hell does MS think it is?" They don't and cannot control the HW manufacturers.
The irony is, MS specifically require manufacturers to allow you (the end user) to modify the Secure Boot keys, or they don't get Win8 certification. They're enforcing the exact opposite of what you think they are.
The tricky part about an ICB is hitting the target i.e. your ring-laser gyros, PIGA accelerometers, and the algorithms to turn that into a useful inertially tracked position and velocity. The actual Big Grunty Rocket part is trivial in comparison, especially if you're not a commercial entity and cost effectiveness is not a particular concern. Inertial guidance isn't really something that goes into commercial launch vehicles, as you're expected to have good ground tracking station coverage.
Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) are pretty common, your bog standard motherboard sound chip (intel HD, not AC87) can probably do them if you install the drivers. Add a pair of IEMs/'canalphones' (so you're not sending sound through your algorithmic pinnae followed by your physical pinnae) and you have positional stereo sound.
Kickstarter units are being shipped before pre-orders from the website. I'm not sure where the 12/12/12 date came from either: as of this posting, Palmer has yet to announce anything new on the MTBS forums (where the Rift development emerged from), though Dycus (another member of the Oculus team) has said an announcement is coming 'before Wednesday'.
Hard to tell without access to the raw figures, but if the number of T-bone crashes has reduced, replaced by more rear-end incidents, is it possible that the injury rate, or at least number of serous injuries or fatalities, has decreased? Even if the net cost in car damage increases, that would still be a win in my books.
It's a requirement as part of the Windows 8 hardware certification (applies not just to laptops and desktops, but to anything that the manufacturer wants to put the 'works with Windows 8' logo on, e.g. motherboards) that:
a) You be able to disable secure boot
b) You be able to enter your own keys into secure boot (either through adding them to the existing keychain, or wiping the keychain and adding keys)
Here's the relevant legalese from MS:
Mandatory. On non-ARM systems, the platform MUST implement the ability for a physically present user to select between two Secure Boot modes in firmware setup: "Custom" and "Standard". Custom Mode allows for more flexibility as specified in the following:
It shall be possible for a physically present user to use the Custom Mode firmware setup option to modify the contents of the Secure Boot signature databases and the PK. This may be implemented by simply providing the option to clear all Secure Boot databases (PK, KEK, db, dbx), which puts the system into setup mode.
Being someone who wasn't around when.gifs were new (and barely around when Unisys threw a hissy fit), I too have never seen.gif being verb-ed. Not on reddit, not on 4chan, not on Tumblr, and if you've seen a.gif nowadays it's probably originated from one of those three.
If they tried this by locking Secure Boot, they'd get an angry letter from Microsoft. It's a requirement for Windows 8 certification that the end user can add their own keys to Secure Boot.
Using pure mathematical volumes, rather than surfaces or voxels, they are developing a new generation of 3D modelling tools specifically aimed at high resolution 3D printing
So, identical to existing CAD packages such as Solidworlds, Pro/Engineer, Catia, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD etc? Yeah, that's a totally new generation right there, nobody has marketed products for solid modelling physical objects with the intention of producing them with some sort of additive/subtractive machining process before, no siree.
What Logitech device do you have? My MX revolution happily works offline with no problems, as did my last keyboard (Logitech Illuninated). Not even a sign-in page in sight.
Don't forget that a good chunk of Japan (and importantly, the chunk that ran on the same power grid system as Fukushima No.1) wad just been close to levelled by a tsunami. While the storm surge and rain flooding from a hurricane is nothing to sneeze at, the infrastructure destruction is nowhere close. Getting backup generators and lines into place for any plant whose internal backups fails is going to much easier on the American east coast than it was on the east coast of Japan (where most heavy lift equipment was busy freeing itself, or on immediate lifesaving duties).
I can order a set of custom-moulded earplugs for my headphones for £100, which includes the price of a casting of my ear canal at a ophthalmologist. An EQ is basic enough that you can buy commodity ICs to do so, and the EQ need only be performed occasionally during a checkup, and not even necessarily with the same device.
Rifles, yes (you need to be a member of a shooting club). Pistols even more so (pretty much restricted to security companies). But shotguns? £50 plus a "valid reason" (for which "because I'd like to own a shotgun" is acceptable), along with a suitable place to store it, is all that is needed for a shotgun certificate.
Think of the start screen as a start menu that happens to use the full display rather than just the left hand 1/5 of it. Have you ever, even once, needed to be able to see whatever is in the remaining 4/5 of the screen while selecting something from the start menu? It's a massive waste of space.
but if you need to dig into the OS to do any serious work you will end up fighting the UI.
For any 'serious work' (which I assume you to mean 'anything not running in Metro), the interface is the same as 7 and before. And you 'dig into the OS' by clicking an tile (aka a slightly larger desktop icon icon), either for the desktop itself or for a desktop application.
Plus there are TONS of DIY and open source laser cutters. They were around before the RepRap/Makerbot/Fab@Home/etc DIY FDM scene arrived. Hardly something that's in need of a 'DIY overhaul'.
I wouldn't call this system "micropayment". It's more "adwall that you have to interact with to pass". You've swapped out watching a video for filling a survey, whoopee.
I'm also sceptical about the degree to which climate change is anthropogenic (I'm currently in the "we're certainly not helping the matter, but the global temperatures would be trending this way anyway, albeit at a slower rate, and we still need to do something bout the problem"). However, that some global level climate change is occurring is pretty clear, and having a method to actively control our environment on a global scale just seems like A Good Idea for the long-term survival of humanity. The only non-financial drawbacks of this I can see are that is is pretty much viable using current technology, so will likely spur little tangential innovation. Solar shielding, for example, would branch off innumerable advances in spaceflight and materials technology (though has the problem of being far too expensive to be viable without said advances).
As long as they've finally done away with bloody interlacing I'll be happy. It was a neat trick in the 1930s, but should have been abandoned decades ago.
Pumped into the atmosphere rather than being sealed in hilariously strong casks to eventually be buried in a geologically stable area, or reprocessed in a fast-neutron reactor to inter isotopes?
I have both a Kindle and an iPad 3 (purchased solely because of the high-resolution screen). No matter what conversion tricks I try (with Calibre or otherwise), there is no way currently to comfortably read any sort of book with images, diagrams, charts, or equations on the Kindle's 800x600 display. It's just not going to work acceptably. For reading just-text books, the Kindle is miles ahead; it fits in a pocket, 'boots' in a fraction of a second to where you left it every time, and is just plain nice to read. The iPad is pretty rubbish as an e-reader, but perfect for textbooks, journal and technical papers, magazines and other PDFs, even better than a paper copy (zooming vector graphs is [b]wonderful[/b]).
Until a high-resolution, preferably colour, electrophoretic (or Mirasol) display is available, you're going to be stuck with two devices that do one function well, rather than a jack-of-all-trades reader.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a Dick Move, but a Dick Move in line with the Dick Moves of every other portable-ARM-device manufacturer.
If you could generate a self-signed key for free
Not only is this EXACTLY what you can do, the Win8 certification requires OEMs to allow you to do this.
The better question to ask is "who the hell does MS think it is?" They don't and cannot control the HW manufacturers.
The irony is, MS specifically require manufacturers to allow you (the end user) to modify the Secure Boot keys, or they don't get Win8 certification. They're enforcing the exact opposite of what you think they are.
The tricky part about an ICB is hitting the target i.e. your ring-laser gyros, PIGA accelerometers, and the algorithms to turn that into a useful inertially tracked position and velocity. The actual Big Grunty Rocket part is trivial in comparison, especially if you're not a commercial entity and cost effectiveness is not a particular concern. Inertial guidance isn't really something that goes into commercial launch vehicles, as you're expected to have good ground tracking station coverage.
Binaural yaddah yaddah
Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) are pretty common, your bog standard motherboard sound chip (intel HD, not AC87) can probably do them if you install the drivers. Add a pair of IEMs/'canalphones' (so you're not sending sound through your algorithmic pinnae followed by your physical pinnae) and you have positional stereo sound.
Kickstarter units are being shipped before pre-orders from the website. I'm not sure where the 12/12/12 date came from either: as of this posting, Palmer has yet to announce anything new on the MTBS forums (where the Rift development emerged from), though Dycus (another member of the Oculus team) has said an announcement is coming 'before Wednesday'.
Hard to tell without access to the raw figures, but if the number of T-bone crashes has reduced, replaced by more rear-end incidents, is it possible that the injury rate, or at least number of serous injuries or fatalities, has decreased? Even if the net cost in car damage increases, that would still be a win in my books.
It's a requirement as part of the Windows 8 hardware certification (applies not just to laptops and desktops, but to anything that the manufacturer wants to put the 'works with Windows 8' logo on, e.g. motherboards) that:
a) You be able to disable secure boot
b) You be able to enter your own keys into secure boot (either through adding them to the existing keychain, or wiping the keychain and adding keys)
Here's the relevant legalese from MS:
Mandatory. On non-ARM systems, the platform MUST implement the ability for a physically present user to select between two Secure Boot modes in firmware setup: "Custom" and "Standard". Custom Mode allows for more flexibility as specified in the following: It shall be possible for a physically present user to use the Custom Mode firmware setup option to modify the contents of the Secure Boot signature databases and the PK. This may be implemented by simply providing the option to clear all Secure Boot databases (PK, KEK, db, dbx), which puts the system into setup mode.
Being someone who wasn't around when .gifs were new (and barely around when Unisys threw a hissy fit), I too have never seen .gif being verb-ed. Not on reddit, not on 4chan, not on Tumblr, and if you've seen a .gif nowadays it's probably originated from one of those three.
If they tried this by locking Secure Boot, they'd get an angry letter from Microsoft. It's a requirement for Windows 8 certification that the end user can add their own keys to Secure Boot.
Using pure mathematical volumes, rather than surfaces or voxels, they are developing a new generation of 3D modelling tools specifically aimed at high resolution 3D printing
So, identical to existing CAD packages such as Solidworlds, Pro/Engineer, Catia, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD etc? Yeah, that's a totally new generation right there, nobody has marketed products for solid modelling physical objects with the intention of producing them with some sort of additive/subtractive machining process before, no siree.
If you don't have the warp first, the fabric, space and time are simply chaos.
Unless, of course, the Universe is crocheted.
What Logitech device do you have? My MX revolution happily works offline with no problems, as did my last keyboard (Logitech Illuninated). Not even a sign-in page in sight.
Defibrillators do not 'jump-start' the heart, they defibrillate (i.e. stop fibrillation). This is often rolled into the function of a pacemaker.
Don't forget that a good chunk of Japan (and importantly, the chunk that ran on the same power grid system as Fukushima No.1) wad just been close to levelled by a tsunami. While the storm surge and rain flooding from a hurricane is nothing to sneeze at, the infrastructure destruction is nowhere close. Getting backup generators and lines into place for any plant whose internal backups fails is going to much easier on the American east coast than it was on the east coast of Japan (where most heavy lift equipment was busy freeing itself, or on immediate lifesaving duties).
custom-fitted to the user's ear
I can order a set of custom-moulded earplugs for my headphones for £100, which includes the price of a casting of my ear canal at a ophthalmologist. An EQ is basic enough that you can buy commodity ICs to do so, and the EQ need only be performed occasionally during a checkup, and not even necessarily with the same device.
Rifles, yes (you need to be a member of a shooting club). Pistols even more so (pretty much restricted to security companies). But shotguns? £50 plus a "valid reason" (for which "because I'd like to own a shotgun" is acceptable), along with a suitable place to store it, is all that is needed for a shotgun certificate.
On top of it regular desktop programs WILL NOT WORK FROM THE METRO INTERFACE.
You have obviously not actually used Windows 8, because what you have said is totally false. You start regular desktop programs from the start screen in exactly the same way as you start regular desktop programs from the start menu: by clicking on them. Just for you, I went and set up my old Win8 preview VM and took a screenshot of the start screen with some desktop programs on it. You can also do the same press-windows-key-type-first-few-letters-of-program/file-hit-enter method you can in 7 and Vista.
Think of the start screen as a start menu that happens to use the full display rather than just the left hand 1/5 of it. Have you ever, even once, needed to be able to see whatever is in the remaining 4/5 of the screen while selecting something from the start menu? It's a massive waste of space.
but if you need to dig into the OS to do any serious work you will end up fighting the UI.
For any 'serious work' (which I assume you to mean 'anything not running in Metro), the interface is the same as 7 and before. And you 'dig into the OS' by clicking an tile (aka a slightly larger desktop icon icon), either for the desktop itself or for a desktop application.
Plus there are TONS of DIY and open source laser cutters. They were around before the RepRap/Makerbot/Fab@Home/etc DIY FDM scene arrived. Hardly something that's in need of a 'DIY overhaul'.
I wouldn't call this system "micropayment". It's more "adwall that you have to interact with to pass". You've swapped out watching a video for filling a survey, whoopee.
I'm also sceptical about the degree to which climate change is anthropogenic (I'm currently in the "we're certainly not helping the matter, but the global temperatures would be trending this way anyway, albeit at a slower rate, and we still need to do something bout the problem"). However, that some global level climate change is occurring is pretty clear, and having a method to actively control our environment on a global scale just seems like A Good Idea for the long-term survival of humanity. The only non-financial drawbacks of this I can see are that is is pretty much viable using current technology, so will likely spur little tangential innovation. Solar shielding, for example, would branch off innumerable advances in spaceflight and materials technology (though has the problem of being far too expensive to be viable without said advances).
As long as they've finally done away with bloody interlacing I'll be happy. It was a neat trick in the 1930s, but should have been abandoned decades ago.
Pumped into the atmosphere rather than being sealed in hilariously strong casks to eventually be buried in a geologically stable area, or reprocessed in a fast-neutron reactor to inter isotopes?
I have both a Kindle and an iPad 3 (purchased solely because of the high-resolution screen). No matter what conversion tricks I try (with Calibre or otherwise), there is no way currently to comfortably read any sort of book with images, diagrams, charts, or equations on the Kindle's 800x600 display. It's just not going to work acceptably. For reading just-text books, the Kindle is miles ahead; it fits in a pocket, 'boots' in a fraction of a second to where you left it every time, and is just plain nice to read. The iPad is pretty rubbish as an e-reader, but perfect for textbooks, journal and technical papers, magazines and other PDFs, even better than a paper copy (zooming vector graphs is [b]wonderful[/b]).
Until a high-resolution, preferably colour, electrophoretic (or Mirasol) display is available, you're going to be stuck with two devices that do one function well, rather than a jack-of-all-trades reader.