Prices are, and have been, whatever the market will bear. Very few prices are driven down globally by competition - retailers like WalMart will jack up prices 2x and more (same good, different prices in stores less than 20 miles apart) when they can get away with it, because of captive markets, or markets that don't comparison shop, etc.
Price competition is real, but it's not nearly as ubiquitous as "free market" champions think it is.
When your goal is to reduce headcount, you should have to pay for it.
People who say this are morons...
If you make it expensive to fire people or lay them off (like they do in parts of Europe), then people are very reluctant to hire in the first place...
Companies will then do anything they can to avoid hiring anyone extra to start with...
Because they're so generous with their hiring today? When corporations are hiring full-time benefit positions with 6 weeks of vacation, maternity leave, and decent healthcare, I'll start believing that they have a good working system... who has these things today, Europe, or the USA?
Clearly, you are paying for your own equipment... your employer's cost per hour of your time is far more expensive than your net salary per hour - when your employer is paying for one of these, it can actually be a "good deal."
Why do these companies keep working on such nonsense? Solar drones, loon balloons, thousands of micro satellites... why not parter with local telecoms and hardwire this shit?
sounds more like improved physical capabilities - maybe they got smarter at the same time, but it doesn't matter how smart your loon is if it can't do anything with that knowledge.
You think you're going to deploy a wind powered pump in the arctic for $5000 apiece, even at scale? Not if you want that pump to last more than a single season.
Many of these technologies may have promise - iff they get sufficient manufacturing infrastructure development to bring their costs into line with competing, established technologies.
When it takes a Billion dollars and ten years on a chance to have a 10% better widget, most investors lose interest.
The real problem is lock-in, it sounds like a good deal when you sign up, but after a few years of working in a sweatshop you still really don't have an option to quit and go home, you're stuck with it.
It's in vogue now to believe that vertical farming will solve the problem of too many people for the usable crop lands.
I'd like to see an almond grove in an enclosed farm structure... can you say: $300 per ounce of almonds produced? Put another way: 4 hours of skilled labor involved in the construction, operation and maintenance of the almond grove structure for every ounce of almonds produced.
The drones could absolutely replace bees, the question is: at what cost?
Or, put another way, how many trillions of dollars is it worth to keep bees healthy and working?
Anybody with a little spare time can read up and start keeping a colony of bees, it will take a team of engineers decades to design the pollinating drone to a point where it could be produced at scale at any cost, and far more people producing the drones, producing the components the drones are made from, maintaining the fleets, recycling "dead" drones, etc.
Ignore a colony of bees and they might naturalize and just take care of themselves. Ignore a colony of pollinating drones and they'll decay into toxic waste.
I should have specified: that 7 to 10 days of battery life was with 1-2 hours a day of talk time, including taking some photos, playing some music, etc. Normal usage. Motorola 810e.
Even Cronkite read some fake, and lots of slanted, news. This is nothing new, yellow journalism launched the Spanish-American war. The golden age of television tried to bring the appearance of integrity to its news, but that was just to make the crowd control more effective when it was deemed necessary.
Now we've got crowdsourced news, and it's totally out of control - the major outlets have more or less abandoned "equal time" and "neutrality" and just feed their audience what they want to hear. People are putting more and more faith in direct person-to-person communication, it's an interesting trend, potentially destabilizing.
The 1000fps is really out there in terms of "will I ever use it" - if it pushes the low light capabilities forward, that will definitely improve the drunk cat photo quality.
Bright light has always been a requirement of high speed photography - so, you can catch an awesome slow-mo of junior sliding into home plate on a sunny day, post it to Facebook to wow your friends what a tech wizard you are, and then never use the feature again because: what a pain in the ass and who really cares?
20 years ago, I needed a high speed camera like this, once, for about 5 minutes in a professional/scientific setting, and that was it. Any other uses for something like this, for me, in the last 20 years personal or professional, would have been merely "because it can" - not because it would have been valuable.
As pointed out above, battery life is about a million times more pertinent to my daily needs, but nobody seems to compete on battery life anymore.
Absolutely this ^^^. I'm all for progress, but WTF people? 20 years ago, this kind of high speed photography was rare, and very expensive, and not terribly necessary to everyday life. 20 years ago, when you picked up a phone to dial it, it just worked - no problems about battery life, no problems about spotty wireless service. Can we please focus just a little bit on retaining what we had, instead of doing things because we can?
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Prices are, and have been, whatever the market will bear. Very few prices are driven down globally by competition - retailers like WalMart will jack up prices 2x and more (same good, different prices in stores less than 20 miles apart) when they can get away with it, because of captive markets, or markets that don't comparison shop, etc.
Price competition is real, but it's not nearly as ubiquitous as "free market" champions think it is.
When your goal is to reduce headcount, you should have to pay for it.
People who say this are morons...
If you make it expensive to fire people or lay them off (like they do in parts of Europe), then people are very reluctant to hire in the first place...
Companies will then do anything they can to avoid hiring anyone extra to start with...
Because they're so generous with their hiring today? When corporations are hiring full-time benefit positions with 6 weeks of vacation, maternity leave, and decent healthcare, I'll start believing that they have a good working system... who has these things today, Europe, or the USA?
I would say he's asking for a corporate profits tax - as robots increase profitability, corporations should pay increased taxes on that profitability.
Now, we just have to shred all the corporate tax loopholes and get them to start paying some taxes in the first place.
Clearly, you are paying for your own equipment... your employer's cost per hour of your time is far more expensive than your net salary per hour - when your employer is paying for one of these, it can actually be a "good deal."
Why do these companies keep working on such nonsense? Solar drones, loon balloons, thousands of micro satellites... why not parter with local telecoms and hardwire this shit?
Clearly you've never dealt with Comcast.
improved altitude control and navigation system
sounds more like improved physical capabilities - maybe they got smarter at the same time, but it doesn't matter how smart your loon is if it can't do anything with that knowledge.
It used to be walking and chewing gum, now it's walking and texting.
It is our manifest destiny to be fruitful and multiply, to reap the bounties of the earth which were provided for us.
You think you're going to deploy a wind powered pump in the arctic for $5000 apiece, even at scale? Not if you want that pump to last more than a single season.
Energy companies, today they are energy companies.
Many of these technologies may have promise - iff they get sufficient manufacturing infrastructure development to bring their costs into line with competing, established technologies.
When it takes a Billion dollars and ten years on a chance to have a 10% better widget, most investors lose interest.
The real problem is lock-in, it sounds like a good deal when you sign up, but after a few years of working in a sweatshop you still really don't have an option to quit and go home, you're stuck with it.
Does TFA imply that these things will be flying outdoors? That would be most entertaining to watch when a stiff breeze comes along.
It's in vogue now to believe that vertical farming will solve the problem of too many people for the usable crop lands.
I'd like to see an almond grove in an enclosed farm structure... can you say: $300 per ounce of almonds produced? Put another way: 4 hours of skilled labor involved in the construction, operation and maintenance of the almond grove structure for every ounce of almonds produced.
Yeah, picturing a 1.6" drone flying in a stiff breeze - not.
The drones could absolutely replace bees, the question is: at what cost?
Or, put another way, how many trillions of dollars is it worth to keep bees healthy and working?
Anybody with a little spare time can read up and start keeping a colony of bees, it will take a team of engineers decades to design the pollinating drone to a point where it could be produced at scale at any cost, and far more people producing the drones, producing the components the drones are made from, maintaining the fleets, recycling "dead" drones, etc.
Ignore a colony of bees and they might naturalize and just take care of themselves. Ignore a colony of pollinating drones and they'll decay into toxic waste.
The more competitive and successful your business, the more you are exploiting the available resources - these days especially human resources.
If the resources being exploited are in agreement that it is a mutual benefit, then we're all good.
>Up to 5 hours of talk time
I should have specified: that 7 to 10 days of battery life was with 1-2 hours a day of talk time, including taking some photos, playing some music, etc. Normal usage. Motorola 810e.
Not 360 hours in "off" position.
Even Cronkite read some fake, and lots of slanted, news. This is nothing new, yellow journalism launched the Spanish-American war. The golden age of television tried to bring the appearance of integrity to its news, but that was just to make the crowd control more effective when it was deemed necessary.
Now we've got crowdsourced news, and it's totally out of control - the major outlets have more or less abandoned "equal time" and "neutrality" and just feed their audience what they want to hear. People are putting more and more faith in direct person-to-person communication, it's an interesting trend, potentially destabilizing.
My phone from 2006 lasted 7-10 days on a charge, even in 2010 the original battery was lasting 5-7 days on a charge.
With an IR-pass filter, just as effectively, yes.
Remember the country of origin, these could actually be sexual references.
The 1000fps is really out there in terms of "will I ever use it" - if it pushes the low light capabilities forward, that will definitely improve the drunk cat photo quality.
Bright light has always been a requirement of high speed photography - so, you can catch an awesome slow-mo of junior sliding into home plate on a sunny day, post it to Facebook to wow your friends what a tech wizard you are, and then never use the feature again because: what a pain in the ass and who really cares?
20 years ago, I needed a high speed camera like this, once, for about 5 minutes in a professional/scientific setting, and that was it. Any other uses for something like this, for me, in the last 20 years personal or professional, would have been merely "because it can" - not because it would have been valuable.
As pointed out above, battery life is about a million times more pertinent to my daily needs, but nobody seems to compete on battery life anymore.
Absolutely this ^^^. I'm all for progress, but WTF people? 20 years ago, this kind of high speed photography was rare, and very expensive, and not terribly necessary to everyday life. 20 years ago, when you picked up a phone to dial it, it just worked - no problems about battery life, no problems about spotty wireless service. Can we please focus just a little bit on retaining what we had, instead of doing things because we can?