1. Try and come up with a domain name that isn't ambiguous in how it's said or spelt.
2. Start asking us EU citizens if we'd mind you spending our cash on something that isn't really required
3. get out of the mindset that the internet is somehow defined by geographical borders and edges - just what is an EU search engine? Does it just search the EU? What?
4. How about attacking the problem of low tech-esteem in Europe not by building a government-sponsered programme (which no doubt will require taxpayers money to be thrown at it year on year), but by fostering an environment where private tech companies can flourish (like in the US).
Well, we hunted around for months trying to find one of these for our A3 scanner. Lots of places promised to ship, but nothing ever arrived. You got the distinct impression that somewhere on the other side of the world, they were firing up the factory just to make one for us.
However, we placed a call with Bechtle Direct (European, and nice and cheap for ink and toner btw) and got one in a week. That may sound like a long time, but at least we didn't get the usual 'bend-over to please' BS some suppliers fob you off with - we'd been looking for one of these since October.
All in all a difficult part to find, sourced and delivered with 5 working days. Very, very pleased.
Just out of interest, do you know what kind of criteria is required to become part of the WPD program? While we don't have anywhere near your number of servers, as a media company (UK-based, so it might not be available here yet), we rely heavily on Precision workstations as well as PowerEdge servers, and that kind of service just sounds absolutely phenomenal - just for peace of mind.
I know there's a lot of animosity towards them out there, but if anything's ever gone bang in a Dell server, then I have to admit that - as a manufacturer - their business support is superb. We've had 2 SATA drives and 1 SCSI drive fail over 3 years and all have been replaced within 4 hours without any call center "try this" problems, or any arguments.
To be honest, it's one reason I'd still buy them. I love their decent business service. The engineers they send out know their stuff and I can let them get on with it. I don't have to play telephone tennis, just phone them, quote my service tag, tell them what's wrong and I'm looking at an engineer on the doorstep in 4 hours. I've even had one trun up at 10 p.m. at night - that was impressive.
Having said that, I can't say exactly the same for their home PC helpdesk support. My best advice is to ask them to make a note saying that you're technically competent against your record, that way, if anything goes wrong, you get escalated to a L2 tech guy, and they're normally happy to just do a parts exchange via courier and let you install it.
Isn't this a corruption of Hanlon's Razor which states that:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"
In this case, it could be construed that either the system, or the people making the malicious links are the stupid element - both could come to the racial conclusion by misinterpreting the data. Alternatively, the system might be too smart, working in a logical way such that elements in subject matter for both Planet of the Apes and Martin Luther King both deal with social commentary, alienation and segregation.
Either way, the comments by the spokesperson that the system was malfunctioning and not working as it was supposed to are probably incorrect; it work exactly as it was programmed, but it was either too stupid or too smart for us to comprehend adequately.
Please don't tell me this has a patent attached to it. It's a shelf - a bog-standard shelf that sits on your lap! With a... hinge!
In fact it reminds me of my first computer desk, which was built before mice were invented, so I had to stick the mouse on the shelf under the keyboard.
However that I'd have to say I get by with a wireless keyboard and optical mouse just fine thanks. Optical mice work incredibly well on uneven surfaces, so I don't see the point in sticking what is - in effect - a glorified mouse mat on my lap. Why not just use the sofa next to me?
I'd wager there that the BBC is different, but in a slightly different way than you'd expect.
That difference is the £126.50 TV license that any TV-owning UK household has to pay. Hence this is is the reason why content is locked in via country - it's not really free as such, we're paying for it. However, it's damn good money for 365 days a year of TV and full content from their online service (including iMP).
£126.50? It's a bargain. Do I mind that I pay for it? No, not at all...
I had a quick flick through what's there and it's currently mostly MS Encarta kind of material: those landmark events that put the last 50 years on the map. So in a way it's great as an additional resource for school projects and that kind of thing. However, I can't help but think that the clips are each like islands - there's so much more that the BBC could offer around each clip - a bit like their On This Day section which I absolutely love.
I can't but help think that if history began 50 years ago, the BBC would be the best record of it. Over time, the information the BBC collects and stores will become more relevant and more complete than most archives out there, and the fact that they're opening it up for use is great. My only fear is that they'll stop with the 'big' stuff - the Encarta style stuff we're seeing here.
The other interesting point is: if there are x new organisations in the world collecting, collating and storing y amount of information(*) each on a minute by minute basis, is there a possibility that Google(**) would cease to be able to deal with the capacity? Currently it indexes what it can see, but what about the millions and millions of pages, articles, scripts, reports, audio and video recordings that are not online? People I've met that work at the BBC assure me that they have access to tools that 'put Google to shame' when cross-referencing information (I'd love to know more about this if any Beeb employees would like to reply).
I digress, in any case this is a good thing. Free information is a good thing...
(*) Important to note that Google just indexes what's there, rather than it being an information supplier. (**) Can we coin a Law describing the point in a thread when Google is first mentioned in a Slashdot thread? Goodot's Law?
...that this is illegal in the UK. I still see people on phones when driving and there is no way they can give attention to both the call and the road. If I'm at a pedestrian crossing I'll give drivers a wide berth if they're on the phone - all too often they'll just sail through a red light.
In all honesty, I don't like surveys like this as they seem to justify to some people that they are superhuman and do have the ability to do things that are just plain dangerous. Sure, some people may be able to drive and phone, but it's clear that you're obviously not giving the road 100% attention. It's not like there's a video chip and a sound chip in there and they work independently. People also have the ability to over-estimate their own skills and cause problems for others - drink driving for example. So for the love of God if you're in the UK, don't start using your phone just because you're a gamer...
Also a quick point; to those people who have hands-free headsets. It does not help if you do not wear them, then fumble to put on the sodding thing when a call comes in! That's just as dangerous, especially if - like they guy I saw drive into a tree at 30 mph - you were under the dash getting it out of the glovebox...
Sounds interesting, although I'd love to know what characteristics the ideal zero-G athlete would have. Would it help to be thin and light in a weightless environment, or would an earth-bound athletic build work best?
Assuming zero-G contact sports appear, mass and inertia would suddenly make a huge difference to play, as would the ability to have three dimensional game areas. I'm surprised that space sports haven't really made it into mainstream sci-fi - short of Kirk prancing around arenas and the like. I have a vague feeling Arthur C Clarke touched on it once, but I can't recall the book title.
One question though; if swimming took place in zero-G, would you move through the water, or just scoop it out of the pool?
I'd assume that when you develop "true AI", it tells you it's going to make a press release.
I'd also expect it to be involved in negotiations with bidders. However as this is just a database with "dynamic and static data" based on human scenarios, and it runs on bog standard computers, I don't see exactly how it can be construed as AI - it has no random element nor cognitive ability to think for itself outside of what it's told in its scenarios.
Ah no, I should have made myself more clear. There's no evidence that Google divulged information about his browsing habits, though having said that, there's no evidence that they didn't. What I am saying is that either way, this is a technical possibility, not necessarily a reality.
However, it got me thinking that by being a centralised point of information, Google are increasingly likely to be a first port-of-call for various law enforcement types as they cotton on to the fact that "Google will have something on this".
Eventually, it'll be as common for them to run checks against Google as it will be to run a check against a car. I mean numberplate and MAC address, roads and networks - ultimately, what's the difference? At the end of the day Google - whether they like it or not - runs the risk of becoming a tool of state because information flows through them. In a way it's much more dangerous that Microsoft could ever be. IANAL, but why set up your own big brother system when a company already does it for you and you can just subpoena them?
because of stories like this. The story is of a guy who apparently Googled for the words neck, snap and a couple of others and is accused of breaking his wife's neck. Now initially I thought 'fair enough, they've got his hard drives, they can come to that conclusion by looking at them' except that the information about his Googling habits came to light two years into the investigation. If this was gleaned from his local hard drive, I woudl have expected something like that to be found earlier.
Now I don't particularly have anything to hide, and I don't really mind people knowing what I look for online, but what scares me is someone looking at my profile and coming to the wrong conclusions. If Google becomes a centralised powerhouse for data and information - as they want to, they will also be a great target for attack, and for agencies wanting to get a fix on someone's online activities. All it needs is a couple of active minds to join the dots in the wrong way and hey presto, a story against you emerges from nowhere. You don't even need a police state, just gossip and tabloids can do the same amount of damage.
Looking at my last set of google searches: comet, philips, samsung, ice axe, Aluminium 18swg, Galeras, uk Beal top gun rope, you might be fooled into thinking I'm about to murder someone, whereas in actual fact I'm planning to buy a TV and go winter climbing...
The point is; with Google Base (you ever noticed how much gBase sounds like eBay?), books, maps, and goodness knows whatever else, the capability exists that the more you reply on it, the more they know about you whether you like it or not. And while you may say that the information about searches is anonymous, other services like chat and gmail pin an identifier on you.
And if all thsoe companies are worried about Google, how would you feel if they currently exchanged data about you between them, because that's the effect a giant Google will have... maybe we'll see a backlash towards less 'linked' services?
I see your point, but I also don't think you can lay the blame for gameplay solely at Microsoft's - or any console designer's - feet. They have supplied a platform to create content for. How developers choose to use that is up to them.
But you're right in a couple of ways. I haven't seen anything groundbreaking about even the PS2. Sure it had lots of extra polygons to throw around, but the 'Emotion Engine' hype failed to live up to expectations. Did the PS2 ever do anything any other console couldn't? Nope. However, I do think MS are really pushing the online gaming idea a lot more than anyone else. Sony and Nintendo are a generation behind Live! which - if you've used it - is incredibly intuitive and coherent. From what I've heard the 360 Live! system is even more integrated, allowing you to save preferences across games (such as vertical invert, sensitivity etc.). There's the HD angle too which we sort of expected in the Xbox but now actually appears to be here. However, I am rather baffled about just how amazing this is supposed to be. Playing HL2 on my Dell widescreen monitor theoretically gives a better resolution that HD, so what's all the fuss about, that you can do that on a normal TV?
To be honest, the bits of the 360 that interest me most are the Media Center type functions and the online stuff. It will ultimately be what separates it from the PS3 and Revolution. While I see the Revolution as being different enough that people who own another console will buy one anyway, the PS3 - I fear - will just be another console. MS have always built Xbox around online gaming, and Sony, well their online strategy is lacking coherence so much as to be worrying. Unless they build some kind of PVR capability into the PS3, it's not going to take over the living room, and if they pull another Memorystick/UMD/weirdformat trick with it, they're really going to have problems...
The other thing that I find kinda interesting is that MS have played reasonably fairly in the console arena. While people knock them for business practices in the PC field, you have to give them some credit for how far they've come in 4 years. In 2001 I honestly thought the Xbox would bomb. How wrong I was... this time round, I think Sony will trip and fall, and Nintendo will sell loads not by trying to compete directly with either in the lounge, but by just being an innovative games console...
I get my broadband, TV, phone and movies on demand from these guys through one cable going into my house. That's 4Mb (soon to be 10Mb) broadband, 2 phonelines and 70+ TV channels. Ok, so I don't get music through it, but I can receive radio channels (not digital, I have a DABS radio for that) too.
They've recently started a service called Teleport that essentially gives you TV on demand - not just recent TV shows, but whole series across multiple channels, just in case you missed an episode. Absolutely awesome and I get the whole lot through one bill each month.
But doesn't this hold true for all cutting-edge devices that rely on a single configuration to work? Dell to a degree are lucky because their inventory is built from off the shelf components which can be interchanged at short notice to give working product, but if you look at shortages of devices such as the Sony PSP, you find that there's a trade-off between time-to-market and component availability.
The upshot of this initial position is that over time the component costs come down, meaning a larger profit margin (or in the case of the X-box, a smaller loss), eventually leading to a machine redesign to minimise component count (look at the original Playstation configurations for examples of that), and eventually reducing the physical plastics cost my changing the form factor (PS and PS2).
Microsoft have chosen an interesting path with the 360; a combination of off-the-shelf components that are almost obsolete in retail channels such as the 20GB drive combined with unique items such as the processor and GPU. It's a neat strategy that reminds me of the way the Commodore Amiga was designed; custom chips for the guts of the machine supported by OTS components to keep costs down. It should be an interesting machine to watch, my only hope being that they aren't daft enough to supercede it too quickly.
Because the technology is optical, it shouldn't really be thought of as an equivalent of CD or DVD, but more akin to tape technology for long-term backup. In that respect, its current lab throughput of 27MB/sec is comparable to LTO2 tapes, the projected 160MB/sec for the production version is much higher than most backup technologies today.
While there is a market for big and fast storage, there are ultimately trade-offs between the two. 1TB in a 12cm disk is going to have some physical limitations, firstly the maximum speed of rotation before the disk breaks itself apart and secondly the data density which if it's using holographic methods will be using the volume of the medium, not just the surface. taking those limitations into account, it's clear to see that improvements in access times and transfer speeds lie with the accuracy of the seek and read hardware, which will be improved over time based on past optical technologies.
So I'd see this initially as a volume storage backup solution primarily, not a hard drive replacement, or even a home-user class backup system. The industry that I work in would be a prime user of this kind of storage. for instance, we're shooting a 28 part stop-frame animated series in High Definition, current calculated storage requirements for all those frames is 14TB. Online storage for editing is a bank of three Apple Xraids with around 8TB in each one, but how do we archive it? Currently it's dumped onto HD tapes, but eventually we'll need to keep the raw stop-frame footage, and we'll need to find 14TB of space somewhere. In that event, 14 holographic discs totalling $1400 is much more appealing than archiving to 1555 dual layer DVDs or 70 tapes, regardless of the amount of time taken to access it, which will most likely be to restore it to the Xraid for future editing and reference.
Initial thoughts were that it was negative, but on re-reading, it's just the title that gives the wrong impression, and in this case the impression seems solely weighted on whether the console has any killer games at launch.
Now, whether halo came out at the X-Box launch or 3 months later is a moot point, either way it would still have been a success. The gameboy initially had Tetris, but long after its launch, Pokemon came along midway through the console's life and totally revitalised it.
What I'm saying is that the killer game doesn't need to be there at launch, just in the first half of the console's lifespan. In any case, good software makes a console, not a single title.
I also think he may have missed the point of the online and media capabilities of the 360. He mentions them with a great deal of enthusiasm, yet seems very blasé about them; to me these are some of the most exciting areas of the 360, especially when it's coupled with a Media Center PC and MP3 players to give you a digital entertainment center. The X-Box Live community is already a proven success and if Microsoft expand on this, they really do have some serious clout against Sony who have yet to roll out a coherent first generation online community for the PSX platform.
All in all, I think the 360 will be a big success, and ultimately one where Microsoft has played on equal terms with other contenders, but as I mentioned earlier, it's the good software that has to make the hardware shine, and I suppose I'm almost glad that that's out of Microsoft's hands...
"using a program such as Garage Band or Reason create a near studio quality rendition of their favorite song"
It's probably important to point out that while this holds true for songs that use 'real' instrument sounds - such as piano, strings, brass etc. - that are found in the General MIDI (GM) music set, it can't be said of music that primarily uses synthesized sounds as it's basis. So while you can churn out a reasonably passable rendition of Coldplay's 'Yellow', something like The Prodigy's 'Girls' ends up sounding like jazz-fusion lift music gone wrong.
Regarding the legal aspects of it, people have been sued successfully in the past for both borrowing the sounds (sampling) and the arrangements from songs, so recreating/remixing and distributing it whether MIDI or audio would almost certainly be infringment of somekind if permission wasn't granted.
That said, I have met people in the music industry who have taken classical track elements and slowed them down to use as the basis of songs, and people who have taken well known songs and either reversed or verticaly flipped music passages on the scale to disguise them. As the relationship between notes is mathematical, you still retain the musicality of the passage whilst hearing something new. Likewise, there are artists out there who rather than sampling a portion of record they hear, will attempt to recreate the original sounds, then in effect sample a portion of themselves.
All in all, there are some very creative ways of getting around copyright issues in the music industry, and a lot of them go unnoticed.
I bought a Mac Mini a few months ago with the intention of seeing what the Mac was like to use on a daily basis, then maybe switching to an Intel-powered pro-type box when they became available next year.
However, it didn't turn out that way. It's not that I dislike Macs or anything, but I just couldn't find anything useful to do with it. Initially I started by trying to find comparable programs to what I use on the PC. After a while I started finding that although the interface was more useable, the computer as a whole wasn't as I was pining for features I use on PC software.
The net effect was really very odd - a machine I really liked, but that I reluctantly had to give up as it just didn't hit that sweet spot where everything came together for me. Consequently, I've given my Mac Mini to my parents who think it's wonderful and have delved right into digital video, photos and music to my amazement (they're in their 60's). So while I haven't switched, my folks have been, and I guess I have Apple to thank for eventually making them daily users of email, chat and computers in general - heck they even have iPod Shuffles with Buddy Holly and Leo Sayer on...
4. By giving in to the South Korean demands, MS sets a precedent that other governments start to follow on a per-country basis, fragmenting the features Windows offers worldwide, raising the cost of Windows development/shipment and increasing the likelihood of compatibility problems for applications.
That's not too far fetched really. All you need is individual countries to start asking for the removal or inclusion of features and suddenly your easy to ship, globally compatible product turns into a nightmare to support, both for new releases and any applications that run on it. The EU already had its way with Windows XP (N) editions. Now while that was a compromise, it still allowed XP Home and Pro to be shipped. What we're looking at here is a demand for the removal of features from all versions of Windows shipped in a particular country. That's a whole different ball game.
...that Sony's best selling product - the Walkman - was based on a tape format invented by Philips.
To be honest, I'm a bit fed up with companies posturing over formats. It happened with DVD+R/-R/-RAM, and memory card formats, and goodness knows what else. How do I deal with it at the moment? I have card readers and dual format DVD writers/players coming out of my ears (even one of those weird VHS-C adaptors). The net result is just frustration every once in a while when I discover that device x and media y won't work together.
It never happened with LP records or CDs - maybe these companies need to take a leaf out of the past and stop fragmenting their markets, but I guess it comes down to protecting the brand. Either way, I'm not likely to purchase a Sony laptop just because it uses the same cards as my phone or camera...
I'm wondering whether this problem with scratching is partly down to the Nano's size. I always carried my old iPod 3G and my current 4G around in the Apple belt case and have had no problems, apart from minimal scratching of the chrome side.
Now, the iPod Nano is being sold as something you can stick in your pocket. From a size point of view that makes sense, but anything unprotected in a pocket will be scratched by anything, no matter how small - it's how abrasives work. Stick it in a case and the case will take the damage, but any form of iPod loose in a pocket is going to scratch a lot - even if it's a fleece pocket with crud in the bottom. The Nano is lighter which also won't help much - it'll move about more.
There's also the issue with polycarbonate. Yes it's strong and yes it's tough, but it'll scratch just the same. It's not a scratchproof substance and is tailored more for resisting impacts without deforming - bullets in its ultimate form - rather than linear scratches.
The end result is a product that seems to have been engineered and marketed in very different ways, one where materials and function don't fit well, but equally I'd never put a £180 device in my pocket unprotected, it would be asking for trouble. Would you stick a PSP in your pocket unprotected?
Slashdot Mirror
1. Try and come up with a domain name that isn't ambiguous in how it's said or spelt.
2. Start asking us EU citizens if we'd mind you spending our cash on something that isn't really required
3. get out of the mindset that the internet is somehow defined by geographical borders and edges - just what is an EU search engine? Does it just search the EU? What?
4. How about attacking the problem of low tech-esteem in Europe not by building a government-sponsered programme (which no doubt will require taxpayers money to be thrown at it year on year), but by fostering an environment where private tech companies can flourish (like in the US).
Well, we hunted around for months trying to find one of these for our A3 scanner. Lots of places promised to ship, but nothing ever arrived. You got the distinct impression that somewhere on the other side of the world, they were firing up the factory just to make one for us.
However, we placed a call with Bechtle Direct (European, and nice and cheap for ink and toner btw) and got one in a week. That may sound like a long time, but at least we didn't get the usual 'bend-over to please' BS some suppliers fob you off with - we'd been looking for one of these since October.
All in all a difficult part to find, sourced and delivered with 5 working days. Very, very pleased.
Just out of interest, do you know what kind of criteria is required to become part of the WPD program? While we don't have anywhere near your number of servers, as a media company (UK-based, so it might not be available here yet), we rely heavily on Precision workstations as well as PowerEdge servers, and that kind of service just sounds absolutely phenomenal - just for peace of mind.
I know there's a lot of animosity towards them out there, but if anything's ever gone bang in a Dell server, then I have to admit that - as a manufacturer - their business support is superb. We've had 2 SATA drives and 1 SCSI drive fail over 3 years and all have been replaced within 4 hours without any call center "try this" problems, or any arguments.
To be honest, it's one reason I'd still buy them. I love their decent business service. The engineers they send out know their stuff and I can let them get on with it. I don't have to play telephone tennis, just phone them, quote my service tag, tell them what's wrong and I'm looking at an engineer on the doorstep in 4 hours. I've even had one trun up at 10 p.m. at night - that was impressive.
Having said that, I can't say exactly the same for their home PC helpdesk support. My best advice is to ask them to make a note saying that you're technically competent against your record, that way, if anything goes wrong, you get escalated to a L2 tech guy, and they're normally happy to just do a parts exchange via courier and let you install it.
Isn't this a corruption of Hanlon's Razor which states that:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"
In this case, it could be construed that either the system, or the people making the malicious links are the stupid element - both could come to the racial conclusion by misinterpreting the data. Alternatively, the system might be too smart, working in a logical way such that elements in subject matter for both Planet of the Apes and Martin Luther King both deal with social commentary, alienation and segregation.
Either way, the comments by the spokesperson that the system was malfunctioning and not working as it was supposed to are probably incorrect; it work exactly as it was programmed, but it was either too stupid or too smart for us to comprehend adequately.
Please don't tell me this has a patent attached to it. It's a shelf - a bog-standard shelf that sits on your lap! With a... hinge!
In fact it reminds me of my first computer desk, which was built before mice were invented, so I had to stick the mouse on the shelf under the keyboard.
However that I'd have to say I get by with a wireless keyboard and optical mouse just fine thanks. Optical mice work incredibly well on uneven surfaces, so I don't see the point in sticking what is - in effect - a glorified mouse mat on my lap. Why not just use the sofa next to me?
I'd wager there that the BBC is different, but in a slightly different way than you'd expect.
That difference is the £126.50 TV license that any TV-owning UK household has to pay. Hence this is is the reason why content is locked in via country - it's not really free as such, we're paying for it. However, it's damn good money for 365 days a year of TV and full content from their online service (including iMP).
£126.50? It's a bargain. Do I mind that I pay for it? No, not at all...
I had a quick flick through what's there and it's currently mostly MS Encarta kind of material: those landmark events that put the last 50 years on the map. So in a way it's great as an additional resource for school projects and that kind of thing. However, I can't help but think that the clips are each like islands - there's so much more that the BBC could offer around each clip - a bit like their On This Day section which I absolutely love.
I can't but help think that if history began 50 years ago, the BBC would be the best record of it. Over time, the information the BBC collects and stores will become more relevant and more complete than most archives out there, and the fact that they're opening it up for use is great. My only fear is that they'll stop with the 'big' stuff - the Encarta style stuff we're seeing here.
The other interesting point is: if there are x new organisations in the world collecting, collating and storing y amount of information(*) each on a minute by minute basis, is there a possibility that Google(**) would cease to be able to deal with the capacity? Currently it indexes what it can see, but what about the millions and millions of pages, articles, scripts, reports, audio and video recordings that are not online? People I've met that work at the BBC assure me that they have access to tools that 'put Google to shame' when cross-referencing information (I'd love to know more about this if any Beeb employees would like to reply).
I digress, in any case this is a good thing. Free information is a good thing...
(*) Important to note that Google just indexes what's there, rather than it being an information supplier.
(**) Can we coin a Law describing the point in a thread when Google is first mentioned in a Slashdot thread? Goodot's Law?
Ah, I remember the campaign you're talking about.
This is the brochure version (680K PDF) you mention. There's also an MPEG version that played in UK cinemas.
...that this is illegal in the UK. I still see people on phones when driving and there is no way they can give attention to both the call and the road. If I'm at a pedestrian crossing I'll give drivers a wide berth if they're on the phone - all too often they'll just sail through a red light.
In all honesty, I don't like surveys like this as they seem to justify to some people that they are superhuman and do have the ability to do things that are just plain dangerous. Sure, some people may be able to drive and phone, but it's clear that you're obviously not giving the road 100% attention. It's not like there's a video chip and a sound chip in there and they work independently. People also have the ability to over-estimate their own skills and cause problems for others - drink driving for example. So for the love of God if you're in the UK, don't start using your phone just because you're a gamer...
Also a quick point; to those people who have hands-free headsets. It does not help if you do not wear them, then fumble to put on the sodding thing when a call comes in! That's just as dangerous, especially if - like they guy I saw drive into a tree at 30 mph - you were under the dash getting it out of the glovebox...
Sounds interesting, although I'd love to know what characteristics the ideal zero-G athlete would have. Would it help to be thin and light in a weightless environment, or would an earth-bound athletic build work best?
Assuming zero-G contact sports appear, mass and inertia would suddenly make a huge difference to play, as would the ability to have three dimensional game areas. I'm surprised that space sports haven't really made it into mainstream sci-fi - short of Kirk prancing around arenas and the like. I have a vague feeling Arthur C Clarke touched on it once, but I can't recall the book title.
One question though; if swimming took place in zero-G, would you move through the water, or just scoop it out of the pool?
I'd assume that when you develop "true AI", it tells you it's going to make a press release.
I'd also expect it to be involved in negotiations with bidders. However as this is just a database with "dynamic and static data" based on human scenarios, and it runs on bog standard computers, I don't see exactly how it can be construed as AI - it has no random element nor cognitive ability to think for itself outside of what it's told in its scenarios.
Ah no, I should have made myself more clear. There's no evidence that Google divulged information about his browsing habits, though having said that, there's no evidence that they didn't. What I am saying is that either way, this is a technical possibility, not necessarily a reality.
However, it got me thinking that by being a centralised point of information, Google are increasingly likely to be a first port-of-call for various law enforcement types as they cotton on to the fact that "Google will have something on this".
Eventually, it'll be as common for them to run checks against Google as it will be to run a check against a car. I mean numberplate and MAC address, roads and networks - ultimately, what's the difference? At the end of the day Google - whether they like it or not - runs the risk of becoming a tool of state because information flows through them. In a way it's much more dangerous that Microsoft could ever be. IANAL, but why set up your own big brother system when a company already does it for you and you can just subpoena them?
because of stories like this. The story is of a guy who apparently Googled for the words neck, snap and a couple of others and is accused of breaking his wife's neck. Now initially I thought 'fair enough, they've got his hard drives, they can come to that conclusion by looking at them' except that the information about his Googling habits came to light two years into the investigation. If this was gleaned from his local hard drive, I woudl have expected something like that to be found earlier.
Now I don't particularly have anything to hide, and I don't really mind people knowing what I look for online, but what scares me is someone looking at my profile and coming to the wrong conclusions. If Google becomes a centralised powerhouse for data and information - as they want to, they will also be a great target for attack, and for agencies wanting to get a fix on someone's online activities. All it needs is a couple of active minds to join the dots in the wrong way and hey presto, a story against you emerges from nowhere. You don't even need a police state, just gossip and tabloids can do the same amount of damage.
Looking at my last set of google searches: comet, philips, samsung, ice axe, Aluminium 18swg, Galeras, uk Beal top gun rope, you might be fooled into thinking I'm about to murder someone, whereas in actual fact I'm planning to buy a TV and go winter climbing...
The point is; with Google Base (you ever noticed how much gBase sounds like eBay?), books, maps, and goodness knows whatever else, the capability exists that the more you reply on it, the more they know about you whether you like it or not. And while you may say that the information about searches is anonymous, other services like chat and gmail pin an identifier on you.
And if all thsoe companies are worried about Google, how would you feel if they currently exchanged data about you between them, because that's the effect a giant Google will have... maybe we'll see a backlash towards less 'linked' services?
I have more freedom through 60 million people not having guns than I do by me having one...
I see your point, but I also don't think you can lay the blame for gameplay solely at Microsoft's - or any console designer's - feet. They have supplied a platform to create content for. How developers choose to use that is up to them.
But you're right in a couple of ways. I haven't seen anything groundbreaking about even the PS2. Sure it had lots of extra polygons to throw around, but the 'Emotion Engine' hype failed to live up to expectations. Did the PS2 ever do anything any other console couldn't? Nope. However, I do think MS are really pushing the online gaming idea a lot more than anyone else. Sony and Nintendo are a generation behind Live! which - if you've used it - is incredibly intuitive and coherent. From what I've heard the 360 Live! system is even more integrated, allowing you to save preferences across games (such as vertical invert, sensitivity etc.). There's the HD angle too which we sort of expected in the Xbox but now actually appears to be here. However, I am rather baffled about just how amazing this is supposed to be. Playing HL2 on my Dell widescreen monitor theoretically gives a better resolution that HD, so what's all the fuss about, that you can do that on a normal TV?
To be honest, the bits of the 360 that interest me most are the Media Center type functions and the online stuff. It will ultimately be what separates it from the PS3 and Revolution. While I see the Revolution as being different enough that people who own another console will buy one anyway, the PS3 - I fear - will just be another console. MS have always built Xbox around online gaming, and Sony, well their online strategy is lacking coherence so much as to be worrying. Unless they build some kind of PVR capability into the PS3, it's not going to take over the living room, and if they pull another Memorystick/UMD/weirdformat trick with it, they're really going to have problems...
The other thing that I find kinda interesting is that MS have played reasonably fairly in the console arena. While people knock them for business practices in the PC field, you have to give them some credit for how far they've come in 4 years. In 2001 I honestly thought the Xbox would bomb. How wrong I was... this time round, I think Sony will trip and fall, and Nintendo will sell loads not by trying to compete directly with either in the lounge, but by just being an innovative games console...
Like this?
I get my broadband, TV, phone and movies on demand from these guys through one cable going into my house. That's 4Mb (soon to be 10Mb) broadband, 2 phonelines and 70+ TV channels. Ok, so I don't get music through it, but I can receive radio channels (not digital, I have a DABS radio for that) too.
They've recently started a service called Teleport that essentially gives you TV on demand - not just recent TV shows, but whole series across multiple channels, just in case you missed an episode. Absolutely awesome and I get the whole lot through one bill each month.
But doesn't this hold true for all cutting-edge devices that rely on a single configuration to work? Dell to a degree are lucky because their inventory is built from off the shelf components which can be interchanged at short notice to give working product, but if you look at shortages of devices such as the Sony PSP, you find that there's a trade-off between time-to-market and component availability.
The upshot of this initial position is that over time the component costs come down, meaning a larger profit margin (or in the case of the X-box, a smaller loss), eventually leading to a machine redesign to minimise component count (look at the original Playstation configurations for examples of that), and eventually reducing the physical plastics cost my changing the form factor (PS and PS2).
Microsoft have chosen an interesting path with the 360; a combination of off-the-shelf components that are almost obsolete in retail channels such as the 20GB drive combined with unique items such as the processor and GPU. It's a neat strategy that reminds me of the way the Commodore Amiga was designed; custom chips for the guts of the machine supported by OTS components to keep costs down. It should be an interesting machine to watch, my only hope being that they aren't daft enough to supercede it too quickly.
Because the technology is optical, it shouldn't really be thought of as an equivalent of CD or DVD, but more akin to tape technology for long-term backup. In that respect, its current lab throughput of 27MB/sec is comparable to LTO2 tapes, the projected 160MB/sec for the production version is much higher than most backup technologies today.
While there is a market for big and fast storage, there are ultimately trade-offs between the two. 1TB in a 12cm disk is going to have some physical limitations, firstly the maximum speed of rotation before the disk breaks itself apart and secondly the data density which if it's using holographic methods will be using the volume of the medium, not just the surface. taking those limitations into account, it's clear to see that improvements in access times and transfer speeds lie with the accuracy of the seek and read hardware, which will be improved over time based on past optical technologies.
So I'd see this initially as a volume storage backup solution primarily, not a hard drive replacement, or even a home-user class backup system. The industry that I work in would be a prime user of this kind of storage. for instance, we're shooting a 28 part stop-frame animated series in High Definition, current calculated storage requirements for all those frames is 14TB. Online storage for editing is a bank of three Apple Xraids with around 8TB in each one, but how do we archive it? Currently it's dumped onto HD tapes, but eventually we'll need to keep the raw stop-frame footage, and we'll need to find 14TB of space somewhere. In that event, 14 holographic discs totalling $1400 is much more appealing than archiving to 1555 dual layer DVDs or 70 tapes, regardless of the amount of time taken to access it, which will most likely be to restore it to the Xraid for future editing and reference.
Initial thoughts were that it was negative, but on re-reading, it's just the title that gives the wrong impression, and in this case the impression seems solely weighted on whether the console has any killer games at launch.
Now, whether halo came out at the X-Box launch or 3 months later is a moot point, either way it would still have been a success. The gameboy initially had Tetris, but long after its launch, Pokemon came along midway through the console's life and totally revitalised it.
What I'm saying is that the killer game doesn't need to be there at launch, just in the first half of the console's lifespan. In any case, good software makes a console, not a single title.
I also think he may have missed the point of the online and media capabilities of the 360. He mentions them with a great deal of enthusiasm, yet seems very blasé about them; to me these are some of the most exciting areas of the 360, especially when it's coupled with a Media Center PC and MP3 players to give you a digital entertainment center. The X-Box Live community is already a proven success and if Microsoft expand on this, they really do have some serious clout against Sony who have yet to roll out a coherent first generation online community for the PSX platform.
All in all, I think the 360 will be a big success, and ultimately one where Microsoft has played on equal terms with other contenders, but as I mentioned earlier, it's the good software that has to make the hardware shine, and I suppose I'm almost glad that that's out of Microsoft's hands...
"using a program such as Garage Band or Reason create a near studio quality rendition of their favorite song"
It's probably important to point out that while this holds true for songs that use 'real' instrument sounds - such as piano, strings, brass etc. - that are found in the General MIDI (GM) music set, it can't be said of music that primarily uses synthesized sounds as it's basis. So while you can churn out a reasonably passable rendition of Coldplay's 'Yellow', something like The Prodigy's 'Girls' ends up sounding like jazz-fusion lift music gone wrong.
Regarding the legal aspects of it, people have been sued successfully in the past for both borrowing the sounds (sampling) and the arrangements from songs, so recreating/remixing and distributing it whether MIDI or audio would almost certainly be infringment of somekind if permission wasn't granted.
That said, I have met people in the music industry who have taken classical track elements and slowed them down to use as the basis of songs, and people who have taken well known songs and either reversed or verticaly flipped music passages on the scale to disguise them. As the relationship between notes is mathematical, you still retain the musicality of the passage whilst hearing something new. Likewise, there are artists out there who rather than sampling a portion of record they hear, will attempt to recreate the original sounds, then in effect sample a portion of themselves.
All in all, there are some very creative ways of getting around copyright issues in the music industry, and a lot of them go unnoticed.
I bought a Mac Mini a few months ago with the intention of seeing what the Mac was like to use on a daily basis, then maybe switching to an Intel-powered pro-type box when they became available next year.
However, it didn't turn out that way. It's not that I dislike Macs or anything, but I just couldn't find anything useful to do with it. Initially I started by trying to find comparable programs to what I use on the PC. After a while I started finding that although the interface was more useable, the computer as a whole wasn't as I was pining for features I use on PC software.
The net effect was really very odd - a machine I really liked, but that I reluctantly had to give up as it just didn't hit that sweet spot where everything came together for me. Consequently, I've given my Mac Mini to my parents who think it's wonderful and have delved right into digital video, photos and music to my amazement (they're in their 60's). So while I haven't switched, my folks have been, and I guess I have Apple to thank for eventually making them daily users of email, chat and computers in general - heck they even have iPod Shuffles with Buddy Holly and Leo Sayer on...
Or...
4. By giving in to the South Korean demands, MS sets a precedent that other governments start to follow on a per-country basis, fragmenting the features Windows offers worldwide, raising the cost of Windows development/shipment and increasing the likelihood of compatibility problems for applications.
That's not too far fetched really. All you need is individual countries to start asking for the removal or inclusion of features and suddenly your easy to ship, globally compatible product turns into a nightmare to support, both for new releases and any applications that run on it. The EU already had its way with Windows XP (N) editions. Now while that was a compromise, it still allowed XP Home and Pro to be shipped. What we're looking at here is a demand for the removal of features from all versions of Windows shipped in a particular country. That's a whole different ball game.
...that Sony's best selling product - the Walkman - was based on a tape format invented by Philips.
To be honest, I'm a bit fed up with companies posturing over formats. It happened with DVD+R/-R/-RAM, and memory card formats, and goodness knows what else. How do I deal with it at the moment? I have card readers and dual format DVD writers/players coming out of my ears (even one of those weird VHS-C adaptors). The net result is just frustration every once in a while when I discover that device x and media y won't work together.
It never happened with LP records or CDs - maybe these companies need to take a leaf out of the past and stop fragmenting their markets, but I guess it comes down to protecting the brand. Either way, I'm not likely to purchase a Sony laptop just because it uses the same cards as my phone or camera...
I'm wondering whether this problem with scratching is partly down to the Nano's size. I always carried my old iPod 3G and my current 4G around in the Apple belt case and have had no problems, apart from minimal scratching of the chrome side.
Now, the iPod Nano is being sold as something you can stick in your pocket. From a size point of view that makes sense, but anything unprotected in a pocket will be scratched by anything, no matter how small - it's how abrasives work. Stick it in a case and the case will take the damage, but any form of iPod loose in a pocket is going to scratch a lot - even if it's a fleece pocket with crud in the bottom. The Nano is lighter which also won't help much - it'll move about more.
There's also the issue with polycarbonate. Yes it's strong and yes it's tough, but it'll scratch just the same. It's not a scratchproof substance and is tailored more for resisting impacts without deforming - bullets in its ultimate form - rather than linear scratches.
The end result is a product that seems to have been engineered and marketed in very different ways, one where materials and function don't fit well, but equally I'd never put a £180 device in my pocket unprotected, it would be asking for trouble. Would you stick a PSP in your pocket unprotected?