Except that what they stand by that statement because you're misinterpreting their ambiguous quote:
Kinect was not actually hacked. Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside the Xbox and was able to actually use them, which hasn't happened, or it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened. That's what we call hacking, and that's what we put a ton of work and effort in to make sure doesn't actually occur. What has happened is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection -- which we didn't protect, by design -- and reads the inputs from the sensor. The sensor has eyes and ears, and that's a whole lot of noise that someone needs to take and turn into signal.
I think it was one of the Bungie lead designers who most accurately distilled game development: "You can only design about 45 seconds worth of fun. After that you're just mixing and matching those moments into a longer experience."
In Halo that would be throwing a grenade, shooting down his shield and then clopping him on the head with the butt of your rifle.
After about 2 hours of single player gaming the only thing I'm often still engaged in is the story. I want to find out what happens next. The game largely becomes this annoying obstacle to see the next 'page' of the story. And that's usually when I quit games with poorly written stories. "Who cares how it ends?" I can sit through any 2-3 hour movie no matter how terrible due to curiosity to see the ending--18 hours? Not a chance.
If you want challenging game-play you want to play the mutiplayer. The only thing single player offers is a more scripted cinematic experience.
The other thing that often kills RPGs for me is stupid stupid achievements. I know I'm an achievement whore. I can't resist the completionist mentality. And Bioware creates some atrocious achievements "drive a grid pattern across every planet for 10 hours!" Why would you create an achievement which forces the player to do something incredibly boring!? Same with Bethesda and Fallout 3 "Collect 100 well hidden bottles!" You start trying to do "everything" the game designers consider part of the experience and then you get burned out surveying meaningless CG wastelands for 5 hours get bored with the "game" and quit.
So far I've gotten 4 drunk drivers off the road, reported 2 extremely dangerous incidencts where debris fell onto a freeway (railroad tie and blown into traffic sign on its side pointed forward so as to be on edge to a driver)... and had 0 related phone related accidents.
You're just talking about the gimmick though of "Single Take".
Hitchcock's "Rope" for instance hides the cuts inside of transitions and natural wipes. It was shot long before any digital or video equipment was employed in film production.
Indeed. I'm an eager Windows Phone 7 customer and have been since before it existed. "Why can't I have a ZuneHD that makes phone calls?" So I can't wait to drop cash on a new phone. Problem is only 1 phone available on my carrier as of today and it's not the one I want and it's sold out anyway. So I have to wait a couple weeks before I can probably get my hands on a Venue Pro.
I worked on the G1 launch's commercials and T-Mobile was touting the G1 from TV, Radio, Print, Blimps... WP7? Nothing. Lots of people are "aware" that Microsoft is launching a new phone, but I doubt many people know it's available to be purchased.
The other challenge is that iPhone got a lot of people onto Smartphone plans--so now we have to wait for their contracts to be up before they even consider changing. Android has been seeing this as well. It's the slow burn of people coming up on their 2-year upgrade date.
The bus analogy is perfect in my opinion for file sharing.
I prefer the parking ticket analogy myself but the principle is the same.
Fine should = Cost of enforcement of freeloaders + cost of freeloaders missed by enforcement.
So if you only catch 25% of people who don't pay for parking then the fine is 4x parking + cost of enforcement/tickets dealt.
Usually parking tickets amount to about 5x-10x the rate of actually parking. So pirating a CD @ $10 would cost $75. That actually sounds about right to me. About $5 fine per song. Unfortunately enforcement online isn't missing about 25-50% it's missing about 99.9% of violations and enforcement costs considerably more than even a meter maid. So the standard fine calculations to properly incentivize compliance are all out of whack.
Essentially what we have is a lottery. You either get free music or you get bankruptcy. That's the wrong attitude the RIAA has coerced. If you get charged the fines are so outrageously huge you know you aren't going to actually ever pay them. The chances of getting caught are so low you don't really worry.
If the RIAA had always treated piracy like a parking ticket (or even fucking shoplifting) and backed it up with extremely wide lawsuits (every IP address on a torrent for instance) then people wouldn't find it worth their time to even fight the lawsuit.
"Dear Joe Smith @ 192.168.0.1,
We detected you downloaded U2 last night at 8PM.
The fine for illegally pirating that music is $50. Please send check to:
Music License Compliance PO Box 391 Nowhere Town, NoConsumerProtectionState, USA "
That's the sort of thing I would be afraid of getting. Because if I got 1 every 4 albums or so I would be losing money over just buying it. And if they had done this we all would have kind of shrugged and gone "Oooookkkkk you got me, Well played sir." Instead of "WHAT THE FUCK, $18m!??!? I CAN'T PAY THAT! THAT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL!".
They would as a result have gotten a little bit of sympathy from customers and probably extracted far more draconian powers of investigation to increase the effectiveness of their compliance checks.
Most of the people I've met with this attitude aren't even that noble. Most of them are just stubborn idiots.
You ask them specifics like what they're unhappy about and they complain about government being in the pocket of Big Business. Then you ask what they think of tighter regulation in XYZ industry and they say they oppose all regulation because it's bad for the economy.
They want:
Smaller Government. More Government services. Less government oversight of business practices but more consumer protections.
Essentially they want a strong non-existent government that charges them no taxes.
It's worse than waiting for the perfect politician they offer diametrically opposite truths to exist simultaneously. They'll accuse you of fascism for suggesting businesses should be required to certify the safety of their products and then complain that businesses are killing people. What they want is for the world to *not need government* and then blames government for not facilitating a world in which we don't need laws or police.
No real sympathy to the contractors. They're all the kings of "letter of the law" vs "spirit of the law" in all of their dealings. It's just Karma coming back to screw them as well.
I would argue we should teach more math--but I think the distinction you made is important we need to teach "understanding" of math.
We need to teach math with a calculator and Google. Because let's be honest you aren't ever going to be locked in prison cell on a deserted island and need to engineer the next airliner.
On the other hand you need to be able to discern smell tests. So if we do have any math classes without calculators and Google it needs to be rapid fire, "about right" questions.
21x42 = 882 vs 20x40 = 8,820 or 88.
True/False type questions where the person would notice something that's "probably wrong" and double check. That's how the real world works. I can't remember the volume of a sphere or a cylinder. I can't even remember how to find the reflected vector of an incoming ray--and I'm a VFX artist doing computer rendering all day. I look that crap up when I need it. And I definitely don't do long hand division anymore but I can vague figure out about what a tip should be.
I'm confused are we talking about the 3.5" floppies that everybody had but Apple killed first. Or USB hardware that was running in oposition to Apple's preferred standard: Firewire?
It wouldn't be an "exodus from California" it would be an exodus "from the industry" altogether according to the lawyer.
Moving to Nevada wouldn't change anything. And if no longer being able to sell M rated games to minors "stifles developer creativity" then I can only imagine what living in Nevada would do to them.
Really? synchronizing email, calendars and contacts? Doesn't the iphone do that? Why is MS not suing Apple?
Because Apple has a cross licensing deal with MS and recognizes the patents.
Also you can patent specific implementations and methodologies. It's entirely possible and likely that other email synchronization systems can be employed that don't run afoul of Microsoft's patents.
As to Palm I'm sure they had their own treasure trove of patents which they both defended and cross licensed with Microsoft.
Just because Open Source has no licensing fees doesn't mean it doesn't have to respect the law that closed source software abides by.
In regards to *which* patents are being contested we can probably look at the Motorola Lawsuit to see just what Asus is being expected to pay for:
Microsoft says Motorola is violating nine patents "that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power."
So they aren't being sued for "linux" they're being sued for the software prebundled along with the kernel and cell phone related patents.
Kind of unfair though. Our sensors are about 6cm^2. These were shot on 350cm^2 films. That's considerably larger. Take a modern 21megapixel camera and scale it up and you would have a 1.2 Gigapixel camera.
Also the shots were extremely long exposure (and black and white). If you built a panoramic head for this 1.2Gigapixel camera and shot a panoramic series of shots over 3-4 seconds you could probably get at least 5 shots in. I would bet that 5.2Gigapixels is more resolution than any of these photos and with considerably more dynamic range.
Slashdot Mirror
You can buy things on Debit without any credit.
Except that what they stand by that statement because you're misinterpreting their ambiguous quote:
Kinect was not actually hacked. Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside the Xbox and was able to actually use them, which hasn't happened, or it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened. That's what we call hacking, and that's what we put a ton of work and effort in to make sure doesn't actually occur. What has happened is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection -- which we didn't protect, by design -- and reads the inputs from the sensor. The sensor has eyes and ears, and that's a whole lot of noise that someone needs to take and turn into signal.
I think it was one of the Bungie lead designers who most accurately distilled game development:
"You can only design about 45 seconds worth of fun. After that you're just mixing and matching those moments into a longer experience."
In Halo that would be throwing a grenade, shooting down his shield and then clopping him on the head with the butt of your rifle.
After about 2 hours of single player gaming the only thing I'm often still engaged in is the story. I want to find out what happens next. The game largely becomes this annoying obstacle to see the next 'page' of the story. And that's usually when I quit games with poorly written stories. "Who cares how it ends?" I can sit through any 2-3 hour movie no matter how terrible due to curiosity to see the ending--18 hours? Not a chance.
If you want challenging game-play you want to play the mutiplayer. The only thing single player offers is a more scripted cinematic experience.
The other thing that often kills RPGs for me is stupid stupid achievements. I know I'm an achievement whore. I can't resist the completionist mentality. And Bioware creates some atrocious achievements "drive a grid pattern across every planet for 10 hours!" Why would you create an achievement which forces the player to do something incredibly boring!? Same with Bethesda and Fallout 3 "Collect 100 well hidden bottles!" You start trying to do "everything" the game designers consider part of the experience and then you get burned out surveying meaningless CG wastelands for 5 hours get bored with the "game" and quit.
So far I've gotten 4 drunk drivers off the road, reported 2 extremely dangerous incidencts where debris fell onto a freeway (railroad tie and blown into traffic sign on its side pointed forward so as to be on edge to a driver)... and had 0 related phone related accidents.
You're just talking about the gimmick though of "Single Take".
Hitchcock's "Rope" for instance hides the cuts inside of transitions and natural wipes. It was shot long before any digital or video equipment was employed in film production.
Indeed. I'm an eager Windows Phone 7 customer and have been since before it existed. "Why can't I have a ZuneHD that makes phone calls?" So I can't wait to drop cash on a new phone. Problem is only 1 phone available on my carrier as of today and it's not the one I want and it's sold out anyway. So I have to wait a couple weeks before I can probably get my hands on a Venue Pro.
I worked on the G1 launch's commercials and T-Mobile was touting the G1 from TV, Radio, Print, Blimps... WP7? Nothing. Lots of people are "aware" that Microsoft is launching a new phone, but I doubt many people know it's available to be purchased.
The other challenge is that iPhone got a lot of people onto Smartphone plans--so now we have to wait for their contracts to be up before they even consider changing. Android has been seeing this as well. It's the slow burn of people coming up on their 2-year upgrade date.
Uhhhhhh no. That is completely backwards.
Depth sensors are relatively easy to create. Full body motion capture from a 3D shape is very difficult to do.
They bought the camera from overseas but it's not the really innovative part of kinect. That involved a lot of R&D in house.
Theoretically feasible but extremely difficult according to an MIT physicist who did the math.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQRW1yuYLnc
The bus analogy is perfect in my opinion for file sharing.
I prefer the parking ticket analogy myself but the principle is the same.
Fine should = Cost of enforcement of freeloaders + cost of freeloaders missed by enforcement.
So if you only catch 25% of people who don't pay for parking then the fine is 4x parking + cost of enforcement/tickets dealt.
Usually parking tickets amount to about 5x-10x the rate of actually parking. So pirating a CD @ $10 would cost $75. That actually sounds about right to me. About $5 fine per song. Unfortunately enforcement online isn't missing about 25-50% it's missing about 99.9% of violations and enforcement costs considerably more than even a meter maid. So the standard fine calculations to properly incentivize compliance are all out of whack.
Essentially what we have is a lottery. You either get free music or you get bankruptcy. That's the wrong attitude the RIAA has coerced. If you get charged the fines are so outrageously huge you know you aren't going to actually ever pay them. The chances of getting caught are so low you don't really worry.
If the RIAA had always treated piracy like a parking ticket (or even fucking shoplifting) and backed it up with extremely wide lawsuits (every IP address on a torrent for instance) then people wouldn't find it worth their time to even fight the lawsuit.
"Dear Joe Smith @ 192.168.0.1,
We detected you downloaded U2 last night at 8PM.
The fine for illegally pirating that music is $50. Please send check to:
Music License Compliance
PO Box 391
Nowhere Town, NoConsumerProtectionState, USA
"
That's the sort of thing I would be afraid of getting. Because if I got 1 every 4 albums or so I would be losing money over just buying it. And if they had done this we all would have kind of shrugged and gone "Oooookkkkk you got me, Well played sir." Instead of "WHAT THE FUCK, $18m!??!? I CAN'T PAY THAT! THAT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL!".
They would as a result have gotten a little bit of sympathy from customers and probably extracted far more draconian powers of investigation to increase the effectiveness of their compliance checks.
What we really need are digital meter maids.
Or at least tie it to something that isn't arbitrary. For instance call 10mbs 10M, 100mbs 100M etc...
It didn't take this long. There was already a proof of concept windows binary that decoded it. It's just now been done in Python--messier.
Which is why patent and copyright law is so important. They are the only things that give the little guy any claim to profit from their labors.
If there was no copyright the RIAA would just be paying their musicians even less (aka nothing).
Except that you'll probably find almost immediately that viewed through the lens of an opposing campaign suddenly you are "corrupt".
Most of the people I've met with this attitude aren't even that noble. Most of them are just stubborn idiots.
You ask them specifics like what they're unhappy about and they complain about government being in the pocket of Big Business. Then you ask what they think of tighter regulation in XYZ industry and they say they oppose all regulation because it's bad for the economy.
They want:
Smaller Government. More Government services. Less government oversight of business practices but more consumer protections.
Essentially they want a strong non-existent government that charges them no taxes.
It's worse than waiting for the perfect politician they offer diametrically opposite truths to exist simultaneously. They'll accuse you of fascism for suggesting businesses should be required to certify the safety of their products and then complain that businesses are killing people. What they want is for the world to *not need government* and then blames government for not facilitating a world in which we don't need laws or police.
No real sympathy to the contractors. They're all the kings of "letter of the law" vs "spirit of the law" in all of their dealings. It's just Karma coming back to screw them as well.
I would argue we should teach more math--but I think the distinction you made is important we need to teach "understanding" of math.
We need to teach math with a calculator and Google. Because let's be honest you aren't ever going to be locked in prison cell on a deserted island and need to engineer the next airliner.
On the other hand you need to be able to discern smell tests. So if we do have any math classes without calculators and Google it needs to be rapid fire, "about right" questions.
21x42 = 882
vs
20x40 = 8,820 or 88.
True/False type questions where the person would notice something that's "probably wrong" and double check. That's how the real world works. I can't remember the volume of a sphere or a cylinder. I can't even remember how to find the reflected vector of an incoming ray--and I'm a VFX artist doing computer rendering all day. I look that crap up when I need it. And I definitely don't do long hand division anymore but I can vague figure out about what a tip should be.
I'm confused are we talking about the 3.5" floppies that everybody had but Apple killed first. Or USB hardware that was running in oposition to Apple's preferred standard: Firewire?
Obviously the exodus of talent would be to the porn industry.
It wouldn't be an "exodus from California" it would be an exodus "from the industry" altogether according to the lawyer.
Moving to Nevada wouldn't change anything. And if no longer being able to sell M rated games to minors "stifles developer creativity" then I can only imagine what living in Nevada would do to them.
"You must be over 18 to buy an M rated game."
Really? synchronizing email, calendars and contacts? Doesn't the iphone do that? Why is MS not suing Apple?
Because Apple has a cross licensing deal with MS and recognizes the patents.
Also you can patent specific implementations and methodologies. It's entirely possible and likely that other email synchronization systems can be employed that don't run afoul of Microsoft's patents.
As to Palm I'm sure they had their own treasure trove of patents which they both defended and cross licensed with Microsoft.
Just because Open Source has no licensing fees doesn't mean it doesn't have to respect the law that closed source software abides by.
In regards to *which* patents are being contested we can probably look at the Motorola Lawsuit to see just what Asus is being expected to pay for:
Microsoft says Motorola is violating nine patents "that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power."
So they aren't being sued for "linux" they're being sued for the software prebundled along with the kernel and cell phone related patents.
Kind of unfair though. Our sensors are about 6cm^2. These were shot on 350cm^2 films. That's considerably larger. Take a modern 21megapixel camera and scale it up and you would have a 1.2 Gigapixel camera.
Also the shots were extremely long exposure (and black and white). If you built a panoramic head for this 1.2Gigapixel camera and shot a panoramic series of shots over 3-4 seconds you could probably get at least 5 shots in. I would bet that 5.2Gigapixels is more resolution than any of these photos and with considerably more dynamic range.