exactly how can peer-to-peer networks come into our lives so easily. I mean how do you trust totally unknown people to transfer your data/food/whatever between any two points? As a matter of fact, who would trust their credit card number to travel through a peer-to-peer network to get to the company he/she's ordering from? And this is just money... how about food as mentioned in the article?
Finally an article on something different from GNOME/KDE/any other GUI. The only way to learn truly about an operating system is by doing things manually and this is done through CLIs. It seems that as more and more people turn to Linux and the GUIs become better and better, people tend to forget how to use the console, henceforth, the incresing number of totally lame questions that could easily be answered with rtfm.
"man" was meant to be started from a console:)
Cellphone Games Take a Big Leap Forward Into 3-D By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: June 17, 2004
S game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired. Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
Companies are working to introduce more sophisticated games to mobile handsets, which will have powerful graphics chips to make the realistic images possible.
The switch from stubby cartoon figures to graceful golfers and lifelike superheroes is likely to be swift, said Neil Trevett, the president of the Khronos Group, an industry association that works on 3-D standards for cellphones. "The same thing that happened in the mid-90's to bring 3-D graphics to PC's is happening now with cellphones," he said, "only it's all happening about three or four times faster. We call it cellphone time."
The rapid move to 3-D graphics will also get a boost from increased screen quality and faster computing capabilities, he said.
The new graphics processing units on the handsets do all the computations necessary to render the highly realistic drawings, adjusting for constant changes in shading and shape. The chips also can handle video.
Many of the units have been engineered by the Nvidia Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., which already provides graphics processing for many 3-D games in notebooks, PC's, arcade units and game consoles.
"The graphics processing unit does all the computations to create a three-dimensional model you can put up on a screen," said Philip J. Carmack, vice president and general manager for hand-held products at Nvidia. That removes the burden of calculation from the central processing unit.
Taking the graphics core from the PC and adapting it to the smaller package of a cellphone was a challenge, Mr. Carmack said. To preserve battery life, all of the complicated graphics operations needed to create smooth, realistic motion had to be accomplished using as little power as possible.
"We wanted to use less than a tenth of a watt for the power," he said. A game console might use 10 to 20 watts for the same computationally intensive game, he said.
Power demands were reduced in part by new technology developed by Nvidia that enables circuits to operate more efficiently, he said. The small size of phone screens helped, too. "The screen has a lot fewer pixels than a laptop or PC monitor, so you don't have to drive as many pixels," he said.
Most games available on phones in the United States use simple 2-D graphics, although Nokia, for example, has included some software-based three-dimensional graphics in games for its N-Gage model, a combination phone and game device. Steven Knuff, a spokesman for Nokia, said a game based on the recent "Spider-Man'' sequel, to be introduced on June 29 for the N-Gage, would have some 3-D aspects. "Spider-Man swings from building to building in full 3-D," Mr. Knuff said. "You can fight thugs and enemies at the two-dimensional level."
Estimates vary on when the 3-D hardware-driven games will arrive on phones in the United States. They are already used on phones in Korea and Japan, said John Metcalfe of Imagination Technologies, a chip-designing company based in London. The company has licensed its designs for 3-D-capable chips to a number of semiconductor companies, including Intel and Samsung.
"Starting this summer, you'll see higher-end phones in Japan leading the way," he said. "European markets will be next, and the U.S. a little way behind, probably by the beginning of next year."
At first the phones will have a separate graphics chip, Mr. Carmack of Nvidia said, and manufacturers will gradually incorporate that capability into their main chip.
Allen Leibovitch, manager of wireless semiconductor research at IDC, a research company in Mountain V
Yes, it does
Use either the graphical (console based) pkgtool, or try using removepkg from a console.
If you want to use a software for automatic updates look at swaret...
That's what's good about slackware - it doesn't force you to use any packaging system, but you could still use pkgtool.
Slashdot Mirror
exactly how can peer-to-peer networks come into our lives so easily. I mean how do you trust totally unknown people to transfer your data/food/whatever between any two points?
As a matter of fact, who would trust their credit card number to travel through a peer-to-peer network to get to the company he/she's ordering from? And this is just money... how about food as mentioned in the article?
Finally an article on something different from GNOME/KDE/any other GUI. The only way to learn truly about an operating system is by doing things manually and this is done through CLIs. It seems that as more and more people turn to Linux and the GUIs become better and better, people tend to forget how to use the console, henceforth, the incresing number of totally lame questions that could easily be answered with rtfm. "man" was meant to be started from a console :)
Cellphone Games Take a Big Leap Forward Into 3-D
By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: June 17, 2004
S game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired. Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
Companies are working to introduce more sophisticated games to mobile handsets, which will have powerful graphics chips to make the realistic images possible.
The switch from stubby cartoon figures to graceful golfers and lifelike superheroes is likely to be swift, said Neil Trevett, the president of the Khronos Group, an industry association that works on 3-D standards for cellphones. "The same thing that happened in the mid-90's to bring 3-D graphics to PC's is happening now with cellphones," he said, "only it's all happening about three or four times faster. We call it cellphone time."
The rapid move to 3-D graphics will also get a boost from increased screen quality and faster computing capabilities, he said.
The new graphics processing units on the handsets do all the computations necessary to render the highly realistic drawings, adjusting for constant changes in shading and shape. The chips also can handle video.
Many of the units have been engineered by the Nvidia Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., which already provides graphics processing for many 3-D games in notebooks, PC's, arcade units and game consoles.
"The graphics processing unit does all the computations to create a three-dimensional model you can put up on a screen," said Philip J. Carmack, vice president and general manager for hand-held products at Nvidia. That removes the burden of calculation from the central processing unit.
Taking the graphics core from the PC and adapting it to the smaller package of a cellphone was a challenge, Mr. Carmack said. To preserve battery life, all of the complicated graphics operations needed to create smooth, realistic motion had to be accomplished using as little power as possible.
"We wanted to use less than a tenth of a watt for the power," he said. A game console might use 10 to 20 watts for the same computationally intensive game, he said.
Power demands were reduced in part by new technology developed by Nvidia that enables circuits to operate more efficiently, he said. The small size of phone screens helped, too. "The screen has a lot fewer pixels than a laptop or PC monitor, so you don't have to drive as many pixels," he said.
Most games available on phones in the United States use simple 2-D graphics, although Nokia, for example, has included some software-based three-dimensional graphics in games for its N-Gage model, a combination phone and game device. Steven Knuff, a spokesman for Nokia, said a game based on the recent "Spider-Man'' sequel, to be introduced on June 29 for the N-Gage, would have some 3-D aspects. "Spider-Man swings from building to building in full 3-D," Mr. Knuff said. "You can fight thugs and enemies at the two-dimensional level."
Estimates vary on when the 3-D hardware-driven games will arrive on phones in the United States. They are already used on phones in Korea and Japan, said John Metcalfe of Imagination Technologies, a chip-designing company based in London. The company has licensed its designs for 3-D-capable chips to a number of semiconductor companies, including Intel and Samsung.
"Starting this summer, you'll see higher-end phones in Japan leading the way," he said. "European markets will be next, and the U.S. a little way behind, probably by the beginning of next year."
At first the phones will have a separate graphics chip, Mr. Carmack of Nvidia said, and manufacturers will gradually incorporate that capability into their main chip.
Allen Leibovitch, manager of wireless semiconductor research at IDC, a research company in Mountain V
Yes, it does Use either the graphical (console based) pkgtool, or try using removepkg from a console. If you want to use a software for automatic updates look at swaret... That's what's good about slackware - it doesn't force you to use any packaging system, but you could still use pkgtool.
First Post for nigritude ultramarine!!!