I hope that's the case, though it's a bit weird to me that Jobs wouldn't just say somethng along the lines of, 'we'll eventually release an SDK when we have all these other things sorted out'. Instead at first he wavered on whether an SDK would be released or not due to security reasons, then claimed that creating web apps was an SDK. What's even stranger to me, is he had to know that developers were not going to be happy with the web app solution (I think?). I mean, this was announced at WWDC -- to the people specifically who want an SDK, and not the more general Mac convention..
So my current theories are:
(1) SDKs do take and and effort, and if he can avoid the headache, web apps are much easier. (2) There's some secret weapon related to the SDK, which he doesn't want to give away (photocopiers and all). Therefore, in order not to give away any details of the secret weapon, he won't even talk about the SDK. (3) Jobs is being himself, and just doesn't want to release *any* information he doesn't have to, but with Leopard will come XCode 3.0 which will support the iPhone (4) There is a lot of profit to be made from licensing fees for companies that want to make games for the iPhone, so there's no plans to ever release an SDK, and he's being vague about it avoid the angry developers (5) There really are security concerns, though many other phones allow you to develop apps, so I'm not sure I understand this (does anyone know if AT&T phones allow indie developers?)
Of course, there might be an option of hacking the iPhone to run your 3rd party apps anyways. People have managed to with iPods (well, at least as far as putting linux on), as well as the Apple TV. Apple in general has never tried to completely lock down their platforms, but rather just put up a speed-bump to disallow the general folk from doing so. So, I'll add:
(6) Jobs assumes people will hack the iPhone, and watch if stability issues arise. If anyone complains about their iPhone crashing too often, it's because they hacked it. If the hacks don't cause any major issues, then they might release an SDK.
While (6) seems a bit odd to me, it isn't so far off as to what happened with Bootcamp. It wasn't until other people came up with a running solution that Apple released their own version.
That's interesting. I think the hard part to these comparisons are the relative importance each of these features are. Personally, I don't need need a 5 MP camera, and actually would be fine if they left the 2 MP off the iPhone (in fact I would be *much* happier if they replaced it with a GPS unit). Also, adding the 4 GB adds about $40 on to the pricetag, making it roughly $240 more expensive than the 4 GB iPhone (at least according to CNET's prices). I can also justify the price of the iPhone somewhat by the fact that I need a new iPod. I don't love the fact that playing music could drain the batteries so no calls can come in, but they already sell battery packs for the iPod, so I think carrying around an extra battery for emergencies will be easy enough.
Personally, I'm most intrigued by the mulitouch screen of the iPhone. If Apple ever does release an SDK, there is a huge realm of possibilities that you could do with it (e.g. think Nintendo DS on crack, not to mention plenty of non-gaming purposes). Also, since it's running OS X, getting things like Python to work should be easy enough (if/when they open it up).
The 3G and integrated GPS definitely have an advantage over the iPhone, but I just checked the price, and on average it is around $700. But how big is the HD? What browser does it use? How does the interface compare? The CNet review I looked at also mentions poor performance of battery lfie for the the phone.
Of course, since the iPhone isn't out, some of these comparisons are difficult. Being able to write c++ code for it, would be really nice, but we still have to wait and see what Apple does. Steve Jobs did not say that there wouldn't be an SDK, only that Web + AJAX allowed a secure way to develop apps for the phone. He has also been known to contradict himself later in time. I suspect that Apple would prefer to wait and see how necessary it is to produce an SDK (or maybe more simply, isn't ready to release one just yet).
Geting C++ and Python on the iPhone would be really awesome.. I really don't think that AJAX is going to cover all the needs writing apps..
I don't do nearly as much Linux coding as I used to (I'm a switcher). I certainly got by with Emacs, editing makefiles, and I've never been big on debuggers or profilers (std::cerr). Not to say this is either right or wrong -- much of it is personal preference. But that's what sounds good about the book, is that it gives a good amount of background of where to find the information. That's something that takes a while to learn. It's also nice to see books which are (potentially) more than just a regurgitation of the information. I own several O'Reilly books which are the same info you get in the docs. It seems to be a trend, as the Ogre3D book I recently got gave very little information which wasn't already online. Convenient to have in paper, perhaps.. worth $40, probably not. Would it hurt to try a little, and give examples that *aren't* already written? Maybe give some background that wouldn't be found elsewhere? Maybe an interview with the author? Is it really that hard to try?
On a slight tangent, I was never a big fan of the Visual Studios. While XCode is definitely not perfect, it works very well. Sometimes I still miss how Emacs did things, but not having to put together a Makefile, but still have a fairly complex build process is really nice. Having a real graphics UI that works well, also really nice.
For Linux there is the KDevelop program which is an attempt to copy Visual Studios using the KDE toolkit. Because of my general dislike of VS, I always preferred Emacs over it, but others might like it. I should probably also give a shout-out to code::blocks, which runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. However, the last official update is quite old, so you'll probably have to use a nightly build, and the nightly builds are still fairly buggy. I finally gave up on using it, as it was causing more pain then actually helping me do anything. Again, it mostly copies VS, and so I'm not the biggest fan.
Yes, that is something that most people seem to miss. IF the AJAX app runs locally, AND the use of Safari can be made transparent (e.g. essentially how Widgets work) then you can make some types of apps which will work okay. As Jobs pointed out, it will use Cocoa widgets, and be able to access features of the IPhone.
But, here are my complaints as a programmer: (1) I hate Javascript. This isn't a language flame war. I've met very few people who like javascript. It takes a lot of effort to put together something that resembles a real-world app. Yes, google purchased several office tools that manage, but it doesn't mean its easy, and it doesn't mean its the right way to go about things. Also, those tools (as many have point out) still don't work properly under Safari.
(2) If you do have to go through Safari, you don't get to write a First Class app. You still have to work around the interface elements of Safari. It will always look something like a web page running under Safari, even if the widgets look decent. Morever, if the app isn't stored locally (it could be, so this might all be irrelevant for the discussion), if you lose a connection, you are in trouble.
Also, if I remember correctly, you can only 'browse the web' when you aren't talking on the phone. Will these apps suddenly become unavaiable because you receive a phone call?
(3) There are a ton of apps you cannot do properly with AJAX. Things that require an interface + database can work fine. But, what if I want to write a game for the iPhone (I can imagine motion sensitive controls + dual touch screen can given room for some exciting possibilities)? As others pointed out, Jobs made a big deal that Google Maps was a real-app, and not from the web. Obviously he thinks there is an advantage. What if I want to make a scribble-pad for making drawn notes for myself? Personally, I would love a Python terminal. I can imagine a useful calculator program you could acheive with Python + matplotlib (actually, this you might be able to write with AJAX, though I think think it would be very pretty). Or howabout ssh? If it doesn't come with GPS, can we hope for anyone to write software that would allow a bluetooth GPS device? The ability to take pictures with GPS data, and mark up google maps would be great.
It seems to me if Apple really wanted to control security on the IPhone, they would create a tiered layer for what interface an app is allowed to use. This way they could even allow TCP/IP, but throttle the I/O so that your device couldn't take down any networks.
If I remember the keynote properly, Jobs didn't say there would be no SDK. Only that there would be no need. But, again, as others have pointed out, we knew about AJAX already. He's talking to *developers* at the WWDC. He has to know that most of the people there would know that AJAX was possible. So what was he really saying? (1) that the webkit was available, and (2) that you could access components of the IPhone using javascript.
I suspect third-party developers will be allowed at least to make games. They have a few select games for the iPod, so it's not a wild conjecture. It's strange that Jobs would stress how the iPhone has OS X running underneath it, if it doesn't actually matter to the end user.
Most people I know people who have palms have third-party apps for them, and in many ways I think its something that kept the Palm ecosystem going. Palm knew its income came from selling hardware, rather than licenses. If you look at the success of the Newton, it was largely that you *could* write apps for it. Phone companies have the opposite motive, where they may lose money the hardware, but make it back by charging for everything else.
It seems that Apple is set to make their money selling hardware, so if anything, they should encourage third-party apps. Perhaps AT&T is planning on selling software/services for the IPhone, but somehow that seems unlikely for me.
Which leads me to several different conclusions: (1) either Apple really
As was pointed out, this is a dupe, though the original posting was a bit more balanced on its accounts. It included a link (http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2007/05/31 /visual-studio-express-and-testdriven-net.aspx) to the other side of the account. I really have no clue who is in the right here -- the M$ side claims that they asked him very nicely several times to not release his product for Visual Studios Express. I haven't read the policies regarding developing for Express, but I can understand that M$ wishes to keep a product differentiation. It seems to be a big problem internally at M$, as the sales people don't like giving the product away free, while the developers would like a free version to exist. So as a compromise, they release the Express version which has limitations. One of those limitations is that plug-ins can't run for it.
So even if he isn't breaking any policies, maybe he should play nice?
Personally I have a strong feeling that compilers in general should be free. I don't mean to get all Mac-Fanboi here (I come from a Linux background), but that's one thing Apple does very nicely. XCode is a very nice development suite that is entirely free (beer, of course).
The reasons for my belief? Well, when I was growing up I didn't have money to buy expensive (or any, for that matter) compilers. I had no choice but to steal a copy of BC++ 3.1 (and TP 6.0). It's true that the DJGPP compiler did exist, but using it and getting a decent editor at that age was difficult (and I had no interweb connection then). I'd probably still not know how to program if I hadn't stolen the compilers.
Which is to say, I think it's important for the ecosystem to have free compilers. It's good that M$ finally agrees with this. It's stupid that they want to put stupid restrictions on it. But given that, I guess it's their product, and they get to decide. And nowadays it's not like there aren't other systems/compilers out there. If M$ wants to ruin their ecosystem, then let them.
For at least Ogre and Irrlicht, there is no such requirement. If you go to Ogre's web page, you can see a bunch of games made with, and a good number are not FPSes.
With that said, it is probably what the engine get used for most of the time.
After going through all the choices and possibilties, I ended up with Ogre. It's true, it's 'just' a graphics engine. But it's made that way. The designers have many times over said they don't wish it to be anything more than that. But that doesn't mean you can't use it in conjunction with other packages out there. Projects like Yake are attempting to do so.
It in some part depends on specifically you want to do with the engine. For example, physics stuff can be handled with ODE, Newton, Novadex, or others. There are even Ogre bindings to use these (Gangsta wrapper abstracts this process, though there does exist OgreODE and OgreNewt as well). You'll also find, basically all open source projects end up using OPCODE for collision detection, though you might not want to use it directly (there is also a wrapper for Ogre and OPCODE).
I ended up writing my own code for interfacing with ODE, since I desired collision detection, but not physics. Since the code you can find is open sourced (a good amount is free use without any restrictions -- I believe this is true for anything posted or related to Ogre).
Not having an editor is somewhat problematic, though there does exist world/terrain editors out there -- both free and for pay (some are reasonably priced). For basic 3d modeling there is of course Blender, which can also do scenes, though it does have a fairly large learning curve. If you search around Ogre's web page, it actually provides a ton of links to the other resources out there.
For input management, the new version of Ogre comes with OIS (open input system), which is cross-platform. And you can use OpenAL for sound. So all the components are there, but you do have to assemble them. I like this strategy, as each component has its own dedicated group of people who worry about it, and try to make it the best possible.
However, if you like things prepackaged, you might also want to look at the Irrlicht engine. They've taken the opposite approach to Ogre, and provide a self-contained engine. I haven't used it myself, but I am of the understanding it is much faster to learn and use than Ogre, though I don't know how the performance compares..
One last thing I would add about Ogre, and what convinced me to use it was that there are a bunch of profressional games out there that use it. Again, if you go to the Ogre web page, you can peruse the comercial games made.
I'm glad you have that much faith in your ability to communicate.
Just for the record, I usually just say 'Linux'. Sometimes I'll go overboard, and say 'Ubuntu Linux'. I don't actually ever say GNU/Linux. That was not actually the point of my post. Which if you made it past the first sentence you might see.
My original point was not that we should always refer to Linux as GNU/Linux, but rather for this discussion it is a useful distinction. Just as I go on to talk about how we also need to distinguish XWindow as not actually being Linux. I suppose you could read the statement in imperfective sense, which I did not mean, though (and I don't know why I would think this on/.) I would hope you might be capable of reflecting for a period that there could be more than one interpretation.
I'm also not sure why you say its a misnomer. A misnomer would mean the designation is wrong or inaccurate. How is that either wrong or inaccurate? Try running Linux without any GNU software installed. Go ahead, I'll wait. You can run Linux without XWindows, KDE, GNOME, or a bunch of other stuff, but unless you are interacting directly with the kernal, you're probably using GNU software.
Again, I'm not saying you should always say GNU/Linux, but I do agree with them, and that credit should be given where it is due. More importantly, and apropos to this subject, if we're talking about who is breaking patents. If it's Mozilla's Thunderbird mail client, not only does it have nothing to do with Linux or GNU (or GNU/Linux, if you don't mind my short hand), but it's just as equally fair to say Windows is then breaking M$ patents.
For the full-fledged/. experience, you forgot to compare me against Hilter. I expect better of you next time.
I know I'm feeding the trolls, but here goes anyways..
Please explain to me what my agenda is? If I have one, I'm unaware of it. The whole point to the separation of GNU and Linux was that they are two different things. The fact that GNU tools can run under Windows, indeed even parts of GNOME, means that it is not necessarily a Linux thing.
Just for clarity's sake, it is probably about the time to start using the GNU/Linux nomenclature, not to mention actually differentiating between Linux as an operating system, and X Window running on top of it, with its various window managers.
I doubt M$ can claim that GNU is breaking any patents. As Linus as stated, its hard to imagine what internals of Linux that could intruding on a M$ technology, except maybe the Fat32 and NTFS compatability layers.
I remember reading one of the previous reports on this issue, and one of the claims was that user interface designs for things like the web browser and email clients were guilty. I was under the impression, when M$ stole from Apple (or when Apple stole from Xerox) all of this got settled.. It certainly strikes me funny M$ suing another company for stealing the UI. Besides the fact that the original IE looks a lot like Netscape's browser, and I'm pretty sure there were email clients before Outlook. Or the fact that Word looks pretty simlar to that of Wordperfect.
M$ might be right about the infringement.. they might actually have those patents. Whether they are enforcable may be a different matter. Especially considering the plethora of prior art. Except for Clippy and Bob, I'm not sure what they've done that is original.
Yes GLADE uses XML to store the widgets, but just because they're both markup languages, doesn't mean they're the same thing. In fact, there was a project (I think it might have been called Renaissance) for storing Cocoa/NextStep interfaces as XML. But how the interface is stored is a much different matter than the control itself.
The biggest issue is the underlying logic that controls the interface. For example, Cocoa allows for observers, which can be updated when state changes. Both Gtk+ and KDE do this as well (though they use the signal/slot terminology). Last time I remember looking at the Windows API, it instead used a callback method.
You can actually write some of these concepts into Javascript, and obviously you can make interfaces, otherwise Google Office couldn't exist, but it doesn't make it good and it doesn't make it easy.
Javascript is a hacked together language that started its life under the name Livescript. It doesn't really have the larger concepts of interface built in (besides the few HTML controls that exist). It doesn't provide a good method for control over building larger libraries, and definitely doesn't have the speed.
There is also the issue of having to have a server. I wouldn't call this a deal breaker, as this is true with XWindow.
My main point is this: creating an interface in HTML is not an ideal medium. It doesn't provide many native elements, and creating large libraries to compensate this is hard. It is actually quite easy to imagine someone creating a platform that isn't done in an HTML page -- especially since Java already exists.
In fact, I think such a thing should be done. Maybe it's Mono (though I've never used c#), or perhaps it will be based on another language. Maybe even Objective-C (that would be truly neat). But having a cross-platform platform is something that would benefit many many people.
With that said, cross-platform apps will most likely always suffer one major problem. I doubt they will ever quite fit in with the rest of the native apps. Each OS has its own style of doing things, and a different interface is really needed. One method of attacking this might be to have a default interface, and then create a new interface per OS you wish to customize.
I wouldn't call any of my issues with Eclipse as being actual problems. It does some things very well. I like the fact that it can automatically find the bugs for you, and suggests fixes. I like the fact it mostly does the right thing.
My big beef, and this is a personal opinion, is that the interface isn't always the easiest to use. It's not always obvious to me how to set the classpath correctly. Importing things can be a pain (at least, until you realize you can just copy stuff into the directory, and refresh).
It definitely does not give me the same nice cozy feeling I get when using XCode. Or for that matter, the complete-in-control feeling I get when using Emacs.
AJAX has given web-pages a new breath of life. Things like google-maps, netflix, etc. have definitely done things I wouldn't have thought possible before. And packages like RoR have managed to find ways to automatically generate most of the AJAX you need.
I don't claim to be an AJAX expert, but it seems really good for the simple things you need to do. You can find 10 libraries now that give you collapsable boxes, drag-n-drop, etc. But it gets much more complicated if you want to do something not covered with these libraries.
The big problem being that put very simply: HTML was not designed for full-fledged interfaces. Compare against a beautiful library like Cocoa, and it falls very very short. Which is fine. It's great for what it does.
Java is many ways was supposed to fix this problem. A method to create interfaces that can be spread through web pages. But issues besides just speed have been a problem with Java. AWT was not great for making interfaces, and Swing isn't (IMHO) much better. I haven't tried SWT, but even Eclipse, its flagship, suffers from all types of interface issues (compare it against an IDE like XCode).
I'm trying very hard not to be an Apple fanboi. I've used PCs for most of my life, and Linux for a good enough time (> 10 years). But I've seen enough interface libraries now (GTK+, KDE, Windows API, Javascript hacks, various ones using SDL, etc.) that I've seen both highlights and major downfalls from the different design paradigms used.
One of the largest design issues I've seen comes from at the end of the day from the language itself. Part of A large part of Cocoa's beauty derives from Objective-C. It does things that c++ wouldn't dream of doing for speed reasons. Both Gtk+ and KDE try to replicate features already in Objective-C, but because they are non-native, they don't/can't do it as well. Which is not to say Objective-C is the end-all be-all language -- it's just great for interfaces.
It's also something that from my personal experience Java can't do. So it's hard for me to imagine how using Java to make an interface for web pages will be a great advancement (again, I'm leaving speed issues alone -- this is a purely design argument). And maybe it will be better than AJAX, but that's not a great advancement.. a small increment without actually fixing any of the big issues.
I'm going to have to disagree with the issues you brought up. If those were the only real issues, this would be a major scientific breakthrough. The fact its only half a mouse brain isn't too important -- think hemispheres. For example, in cases of severe epilepsy, they used to take out the majority of one hemisphere (not done as much nowadays..).
The speed isn't that big of a deal. So you have a slow mouse. And for the time, a huge amount happens in 10 seconds, so it would be great data if it meant something.
I'm not sure what it means to simulate a brain structure. Everything in the brain is either blood vessel, glial cell, or neuron. The brain structures are changes in the consistency of the brain due to things like difference in gray/white matter (white matter are axons wrapped in mylen sheaths, which in turn are a type of glial cell). Though, it is true, it doesn't look like they bothered with the fact that different parts of the brain have different types of connections. The brain, against all wishes of the physcists and mathematicians, is not a homogenous blob of points.
The real problems are what models they use for cells. I'm going to assume that they used leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) cells, which are fine for some people, but very unrealistic to others. As you crank up the realism for each model cell, the size of the brain you can simulate in 10 seconds very very quickly dimishes.
Some researchers (Traub for instance) can devote a whole bunch of computation to just a single cell. One big question that is still unresolved in the field is whether the properties of single cells matter, or if the fact that there's so much noise, so much input to a single cell, and such strong signals from the outside, that their functional properties are no longer an important factor.
I agree that it remains to be seen about any leap.. I haven't looked over the material very thoroughly, and I could only watch 15 minutes of a talk he gave at Google, but from what I saw it didn't look especially new. There was a lot of grandiose claims, which always sets off alarms for me. If you have a new idea, state it simply. Don't tell me it's a major breakthrough, how it will change the world, etc.
Even more alarms go off whenever I see someone try to 'model the neocortex'. I'm in the camp that we know close to nothing about how it works, so to model it seems problematic. However, given that, there might be some evidence to some generalities between cortical areas. For example, if you look at the primary visual cortex (V1) and primary auditory cortex (A1) there appears to be certain trends. For example, you can find orientation columns in V1, where you get pinwheels of cells that perfer lines of specific orientations. In S1 you will find some sort of tone-map.
Additionally, some people (Sur et al 199?) took afferent connections from V1, and rerouted them to S1, and found that similiar columns would form in S1 similar to those seen in V1. This indicates that at least to some extent structure of the brain follows function (i.e. activity will cause actual changes to the structures you see). While this wasn't a new concept, to what extent this can happen is still unclear.
Finally, the word 'cortex' comes from the latin word 'bark' due to its layered structure. The canonical Neocortical structure (there are in fact other bark-line, and thus cortical, structures in the brain) has 6 layers. While this isn't exactly true -- S1 has fewer layers than that, and V1 has an addition sub-division in one of its layers. Different cortical areas appear to have similar connections between these layers, and more often than not, similar cell types.
So while no one really knows how the neocortex operates (or really anything else besides the retina -- and even that has a bunch of unknowns), it is not unfeasible that it has general computational properties. Even though V1 and S1 might be accomplishing different tasks (vision and hearing), general types of transformations of that information might be similar. If only we knew what those transformations were, and what they were for...
My understanding was that the IPTV isn't due to come out until the holiday season for the XBox. But I have been keeping my eye on it. I'm more a nintendo Fanboi, but if the xbox can double as my TV viewer, then I'm willing to go to the dark side. Maybe it will provide impetus to the other companies to play catch up.
What will be interesting to see is what it ends up looking like. Will it get all the major channels, or a watered down selection like it appears Joost will have? Will it be reasonably priced? Will it force you to watch ads?
I get the fact that it's supposed to be the iPod, but for you living room. It makes sense for Apple's perspective. They have content (in this case TV shows and movies) that they want you to buy and watch. What's a primary factor keeping from people watching? They want to use their TVs.
Now in theory you can take the signal from your computer, and send it to the TV. Of course, you might have to buy some of your own cables/get hardware. Thus Apple's solution. Provide a simple box that takes care of all of that for you. It's a small box that just magically streams all your content (across your various computers) to a single point, which can be hooked up to a TV.
BUT, as a consumer this doesn't make sense. I like the idea of picking what shows I want to watch, but I actually don't want to own most of them. If the Apple TV allowed me 'rent' a show, I would buy one in a second. Or if I could pay a monthly fee (say: 10 shows subscription), again, I'd totally bite. But paying premium to own something I plan on only watching once has absolutely no appeal to me. It's too expensive. It's still cheaper in the long run to just get cable if you go above 4-5 shows (daily show, colbert report, myth busters, robot chicken.. there already).
I don't see Apple doing this anytime soon, as it seems to go against their current business model. So instead they seem to get some strange compromise. Something almost useful.. but only if you enjoy spending a lot of extra . It doesn't give unique functionality like an iPod (or any other MP3 player), where portability is essential. It just makes things a little easier.
Maybe Apple has something up their sleeves. I keep waiting, but it isn't looking too likely...
Yup, typo on my part. Though, I will admit, that had me confused for quite some time, as Giant squids weren't generally available to do experiments on.
For the curious, the axon is 'giant' because it needs to conduct signal from one end of the squid to the other. Due to speed constraints, and leakage, this means the diameter of the axon needs to fairly big (no mylen sheath). Because of this, the axon was big enough to insert electrodes by hand.
(1) Hodgkin and Huxley (1952) postulated the existence of transmembrane proteins that allowed conductance of ions in and out of the cell. They showed, using a giant squid axon, that action potentials are composed of a sodium current and a potassium current. While they had no way to directly observe the channels that allowed these currents to flow, using curve fitting, they worked out the general dynamics of these channels.
(2)
Sakmann and Neher (1976) showed the existence of these channels by developing the whole-cell patch clamp technique. Single channels have been observed and characterized using this method (and employed by many labs).
(3) The term 'tranmission' is sometimes used in a confusing manner in neuroscience. In this case, as pointed out by the parent, transmission is down the axon of a single cell. Mylen sheaths can form around the axons of cells in order to speed up transmission. This can also occur by making the axon diameter wider. One interesting difference between vertebrates and invertebrates is that appearance of the mylen sheath with the advent of the backbone. This allows for cells to take up less space (so more can be packed into a given volume).
Another form of transmission of signal is between cells. This is usually done by chemical synapses. Chemical synapses work by the presynaptic cell releasing chemical into the synapse, the chemical ligand binding to receptors on the postsynaptic cell, and causing either an ionic flux (ionotopic channels) or a chemical cascade (metatrobic channels).
Somewhat recently there has also been discovered electrical synapses in the mammalian brain. These seem to be between inhibitory cells of the same type.
Again, not knowing anything about patent law, I'm likely just spewing incoherent arguments, but it seems like there is to some degree a gradation in defendable patents. I suspect some patents are completely undefendable in court. This can be because of prior art, or simply because the judge is smart enough to see it's a stupid patent. I suppose the problem is that many judges aren't, so it's always a gamble.
It might still be worth going through and finding the really big patent issues. For example, I seem to remember that FAT32 had some patent issues. Regardless of the question of whether software *should* be patentable, given the current laws, is it possible to look for things that are unreasonably trespassing on someone else's technology?
I think this might be different from SCO in that it's talking about patent infringements versus ownership of code. While the idea behind showusthecode seems like a good idea, it also seems to me likely that linux does infringe on other patents. However, only because software patent law allows anyone to patent anything. If M$ patented the for-loop, and the case came in front of a technophobe of a judge, perhaps they could be found guilty. M$, has many many patents, like most other big companies.
Of course, couldn't some knowledgeable in patent laws go through M$'s patents to find anything likely? I supose it would take a good amount of knowledge in both law and code, but it might be a worthwhile task to sponsor for these companies. While it *is* M$ making the claims, and perhaps it should be up to them, IANAL, but it would protect against any fears of getting sued.
Redhat is also providing protection against lawsuits too, if I remember correctly.
I think this is a great idea. Except for the fact that I almost only print things out so I can write on them. If I didn't need to write on the paper, I probably would just read it from the screen. Occasionally I'll print out a map or a list to take with me, but then it gets put in my pocket and ultimately ends up torn, scrunched, and not so reusable.
So while I'm sure the Earth applauds this invention, I'm not quite sure for whom or understand what circumstances its useful. I also wonder how resusability is there. They claim 50 reprints, but I wonder if the image quality is as good by the 20th time as the first. Also, it apparently fades within a day.
It's not that I think the technology is useless, just limited.
I'm not a fan of pay-per-view either, but if it's reasonably priced, I'd probably cave in. For most movies and TV shows, I actually don't have much desire to own them. The ones that I do, I'll probably buy the DVD set. Especially considering that HDs are limited in size, I'm going to start deleting files for the shows I don't care to watch again anyways.
I would be a much more willing to pay a subscription fee to 'rent' an unlimited number of videos, somewhat like the Napster model. I should note, I think this is a *stupid* model for music, and do want to own and control all the music in my collection. But I think there is a clear divide between music and videos. At least for me.
It's also different from renting software. There is the similarity that many companies realize how much more money they can rake in if someone has to pay a monthly fee. But like music, I expect my music to always work wherever and whenever. Again, that model exists for movies. For about $10 you can own just about any movie, and use to your heart's content. It's just most TV and movies don't have a high reusability value.
Let me start of by saying, I don't mind paying for watching programs. If they're reasonably short, I don't even mind the occasional ad. But I also don't have unlimited resources. Buying content from iTunes still seems too expensive to me. I'd like to get The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Battlestar Gallatica, Mythbusters, and possibly Psych. That very quickly comes close to just getting cable TV. Which I don't want for several reasons (one of them, is I'm unable to do a 1 year contract).
So I've been waiting for IPTV. Technically, I don't understand why it would be so difficult to do. I mean, Comedy Central's Motherload already does it. Only crappily. You can't actualy get the full show, and the picture is *really* *really* small. But I guess there are other reasons that I may never fully understand. Though, in my naivate, I'm going to suggest greed as being on the top of the list.
And as the article pointed out, Youtube and Joost serve two different purposes. I mean, I guess it would be nice to get anything I wanted on Youtube, but the clips I've seen are never the full show, and once again, that is what I'd like. Watching short clips of a funny show just aggrevate me.
And so I'm actually excited about Joost. I mean, I still am not exactly sure how it will work, since the details seem to be a bit skimpy, but at least it has the potential. Then I skim over some of the shows that Viacom is releasing, and it all looks like crap. Especially since I don't see the Daily Show on their list. It's a 'will include' list, but that usually means what they don't list are only crappier crap.
Perhaps it's something as simple as them testing the market, and not wanting to release their 'prized possessions', but that seems stupid to me. The shows they have listed, I, nor do I suspect most people, care to see. So they'll run it for a while, claim low viewership, and end the program. And then they'll cite the stats as to why they'll never do anything with the interweb again. Assholes.
It's not that I think all their claims are invalid.. their sales model is based on the fact that with old-style TV, you have to watch the crap they want you to watch. You have to watch the ads, you have to watch a specific time, and if it's crap, you'll watch anyways.
It's not that it's impossible to come up with a new sales-model. They just have no interest in doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope that's the case, though it's a bit weird to me that Jobs wouldn't just say somethng along the lines of, 'we'll eventually release an SDK when we have all these other things sorted out'. Instead at first he wavered on whether an SDK would be released or not due to security reasons, then claimed that creating web apps was an SDK. What's even stranger to me, is he had to know that developers were not going to be happy with the web app solution (I think?). I mean, this was announced at WWDC -- to the people specifically who want an SDK, and not the more general Mac convention..
So my current theories are:
(1) SDKs do take and and effort, and if he can avoid the headache, web apps are much easier.
(2) There's some secret weapon related to the SDK, which he doesn't want to give away (photocopiers and all). Therefore, in order not to give away any details of the secret weapon, he won't even talk about the SDK.
(3) Jobs is being himself, and just doesn't want to release *any* information he doesn't have to, but with Leopard will come XCode 3.0 which will support the iPhone
(4) There is a lot of profit to be made from licensing fees for companies that want to make games for the iPhone, so there's no plans to ever release an SDK, and he's being vague about it avoid the angry developers
(5) There really are security concerns, though many other phones allow you to develop apps, so I'm not sure I understand this (does anyone know if AT&T phones allow indie developers?)
Of course, there might be an option of hacking the iPhone to run your 3rd party apps anyways. People have managed to with iPods (well, at least as far as putting linux on), as well as the Apple TV. Apple in general has never tried to completely lock down their platforms, but rather just put up a speed-bump to disallow the general folk from doing so. So, I'll add:
(6) Jobs assumes people will hack the iPhone, and watch if stability issues arise. If anyone complains about their iPhone crashing too often, it's because they hacked it. If the hacks don't cause any major issues, then they might release an SDK.
While (6) seems a bit odd to me, it isn't so far off as to what happened with Bootcamp. It wasn't until other people came up with a running solution that
Apple released their own version.
That's interesting. I think the hard part to these comparisons are the relative importance each of these features are. Personally, I don't need need a 5 MP camera, and actually would be fine if they left the 2 MP off the iPhone (in fact I would be *much* happier if they replaced it with a GPS unit). Also, adding the 4 GB adds about $40 on to the pricetag, making it roughly $240 more expensive than the 4 GB iPhone (at least according to CNET's prices). I can also justify the price of the iPhone somewhat by the fact that I need a new iPod. I don't love the fact that playing music could drain the batteries so no calls can come in, but they already sell battery packs for the iPod, so I think carrying around an extra battery for emergencies will be easy enough.
Personally, I'm most intrigued by the mulitouch screen of the iPhone. If Apple ever does release an SDK, there is a huge realm of possibilities that you could do with it (e.g. think Nintendo DS on crack, not to mention plenty of non-gaming purposes). Also, since it's running OS X, getting things like Python to work should be easy enough (if/when they open it up).
The 3G and integrated GPS definitely have an advantage over the iPhone, but I just checked the price, and on average it is around $700. But how big is the HD? What browser does it use? How does the interface compare? The CNet review I looked at also mentions poor performance of battery lfie for the the phone.
Of course, since the iPhone isn't out, some of these comparisons are difficult. Being able to write c++ code for it, would be really nice, but we still have to wait and see what Apple does. Steve Jobs did not say that there wouldn't be an SDK, only that Web + AJAX allowed a secure way to develop apps for the phone. He has also been known to contradict himself later in time. I suspect that Apple would prefer to wait and see how necessary it is to produce an SDK (or maybe more simply, isn't ready to release one just yet).
Geting C++ and Python on the iPhone would be really awesome.. I really don't think that AJAX is going to cover all the needs writing apps..
I don't do nearly as much Linux coding as I used to (I'm a switcher). I certainly got by with Emacs, editing makefiles, and I've never been big on debuggers or profilers (std::cerr). Not to say this is either right or wrong -- much of it is personal preference. But that's what sounds good about the book, is that it gives a good amount of background of where to find the information. That's something that takes a while to learn. It's also nice to see books which are (potentially) more than just a regurgitation of the information. I own several O'Reilly books which are the same info you get in the docs. It seems to be a trend, as the Ogre3D book I recently got gave very little information which wasn't already online. Convenient to have in paper, perhaps .. worth $40, probably not. Would it hurt to try a little, and give examples that *aren't* already written? Maybe give some background that wouldn't be found elsewhere? Maybe an interview with the author? Is it really that hard to try?
On a slight tangent, I was never a big fan of the Visual Studios. While XCode is definitely not perfect, it works very well. Sometimes I still miss how Emacs did things, but not having to put together a Makefile, but still have a fairly complex build process is really nice. Having a real graphics UI that works well, also really nice.
For Linux there is the KDevelop program which is an attempt to copy Visual Studios using the KDE toolkit. Because of my general dislike of VS, I always preferred Emacs over it, but others might like it. I should probably also give a shout-out to code::blocks, which runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. However, the last official update is quite old, so you'll probably have to use a nightly build, and the nightly builds are still fairly buggy. I finally gave up on using it, as it was causing more pain then actually helping me do anything. Again, it mostly copies VS, and so I'm not the biggest fan.
Yes, that is something that most people seem to miss. IF the AJAX app runs locally, AND the use of Safari can be made transparent (e.g. essentially how Widgets work) then you can make some types of apps which will work okay. As Jobs pointed out, it will use Cocoa widgets, and be able to access features of the IPhone.
But, here are my complaints as a programmer:
(1) I hate Javascript. This isn't a language flame war. I've met very few people who like javascript. It takes a lot of effort to put together something that resembles a real-world app. Yes, google purchased several office tools that manage, but it doesn't mean its easy, and it doesn't mean its the right way to go about things. Also, those tools (as many have point out) still don't work properly under Safari.
(2) If you do have to go through Safari, you don't get to write a First Class app. You still have to work around the interface elements of Safari. It will always look something like a web page running under Safari, even if the widgets look decent. Morever, if the app isn't stored locally (it could be, so this might all be irrelevant for the discussion), if you lose a connection, you are in trouble.
Also, if I remember correctly, you can only 'browse the web' when you aren't talking on the phone. Will these apps suddenly become unavaiable because you receive a phone call?
(3) There are a ton of apps you cannot do properly with AJAX. Things that require an interface + database can work fine. But, what if I want to write a game for the iPhone (I can imagine motion sensitive controls + dual touch screen can given room for some exciting possibilities)? As others pointed out, Jobs made a big deal that Google Maps was a real-app, and not from the web. Obviously he thinks there is an advantage. What if I want to make a scribble-pad for making drawn notes for myself? Personally, I would love a Python terminal. I can imagine a useful calculator program you could acheive with Python + matplotlib (actually, this you might be able to write with AJAX, though I think think it would be very pretty). Or howabout ssh? If it doesn't come with GPS, can we hope for anyone to write software that would allow a bluetooth GPS device? The ability to take pictures with GPS data, and mark up google maps would be great.
It seems to me if Apple really wanted to control security on the IPhone, they would create a tiered layer for what interface an app is allowed to use. This way they could even allow TCP/IP, but throttle the I/O so that your device couldn't take down any networks.
If I remember the keynote properly, Jobs didn't say there would be no SDK. Only that there would be no need. But, again, as others have pointed out, we knew about AJAX already. He's talking to *developers* at the WWDC. He has to know that most of the people there would know that AJAX was possible. So what was he really saying? (1) that the webkit was available, and (2) that you could access components of the IPhone using javascript.
I suspect third-party developers will be allowed at least to make games. They have a few select games for the iPod, so it's not a wild conjecture. It's strange that Jobs would stress how the iPhone has OS X running underneath it, if it doesn't actually matter to the end user.
Most people I know people who have palms have third-party apps for them, and in many ways I think its something that kept the Palm ecosystem going. Palm knew its income came from selling hardware, rather than licenses. If you look at the success of the Newton, it was largely that you *could* write apps for it. Phone companies have the opposite motive, where they may lose money the hardware, but make it back by charging for everything else.
It seems that Apple is set to make their money selling hardware, so if anything, they should encourage third-party apps. Perhaps AT&T is planning on selling software/services for the IPhone, but somehow that seems unlikely for me.
Which leads me to several different conclusions: (1) either Apple really
As was pointed out, this is a dupe, though the original posting was a bit more balanced on its accounts. It included a link (http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2007/05/31 /visual-studio-express-and-testdriven-net.aspx) to the other side of the account. I really have no clue who is in the right here -- the M$ side claims that they asked him very nicely several times to not release his product for Visual Studios Express. I haven't read the policies regarding developing for Express, but I can understand that M$ wishes to keep a product differentiation. It seems to be a big problem internally at M$, as the sales people don't like giving the product away free, while the developers would like a free version to exist. So as a compromise, they release the Express version which has limitations. One of those limitations is that plug-ins can't run for it.
So even if he isn't breaking any policies, maybe he should play nice?
Personally I have a strong feeling that compilers in general should be free. I don't mean to get all Mac-Fanboi here (I come from a Linux background), but that's one thing Apple does very nicely. XCode is a very nice development suite that is entirely free (beer, of course).
The reasons for my belief? Well, when I was growing up I didn't have money to buy expensive (or any, for that matter) compilers. I had no choice but to steal a copy of BC++ 3.1 (and TP 6.0). It's true that the DJGPP compiler did exist, but using it and getting a decent editor at that age was difficult (and I had no interweb connection then). I'd probably still not know how to program if I hadn't stolen the compilers.
Which is to say, I think it's important for the ecosystem to have free compilers. It's good that M$ finally agrees with this. It's stupid that they want to put stupid restrictions on it. But given that, I guess it's their product, and they get to decide. And nowadays it's not like there aren't other systems/compilers out there. If M$ wants to ruin their ecosystem, then let them.
For at least Ogre and Irrlicht, there is no such requirement. If you go to Ogre's web page, you can see a bunch of games made with, and a good number are not FPSes.
With that said, it is probably what the engine get used for most of the time.
After going through all the choices and possibilties, I ended up with Ogre. It's true, it's 'just' a graphics engine. But it's made that way. The designers have many times over said they don't wish it to be anything more than that. But that doesn't mean you can't use it in conjunction with other packages out there. Projects like Yake are attempting to do so.
It in some part depends on specifically you want to do with the engine. For example, physics stuff can be handled with ODE, Newton, Novadex, or others. There are even Ogre bindings to use these (Gangsta wrapper abstracts this process, though there does exist OgreODE and OgreNewt as well). You'll also find, basically all open source projects end up using OPCODE for collision detection, though you might not want to use it directly (there is also a wrapper for Ogre and OPCODE).
I ended up writing my own code for interfacing with ODE, since I desired collision detection, but not physics. Since the code you can find is open sourced (a good amount is free use without any restrictions -- I believe this is true for anything posted or related to Ogre).
Not having an editor is somewhat problematic, though there does exist world/terrain editors out there -- both free and for pay (some are reasonably priced). For basic 3d modeling there is of course Blender, which can also do scenes, though it does have a fairly large learning curve. If you search around Ogre's web page, it actually provides a ton of links to the other resources out there.
For input management, the new version of Ogre comes with OIS (open input system), which is cross-platform. And you can use OpenAL for sound. So all the components are there, but you do have to assemble them. I like this strategy, as each component has its own dedicated group of people who worry about it, and try to make it the best possible.
However, if you like things prepackaged, you might also want to look at the Irrlicht engine. They've taken the opposite approach to Ogre, and provide a self-contained engine. I haven't used it myself, but I am of the understanding it is much faster to learn and use than Ogre, though I don't know how the performance compares..
One last thing I would add about Ogre, and what convinced me to use it was that there are a bunch of profressional games out there that use it. Again, if you go to the Ogre web page, you can peruse the comercial games made.
I'm glad you have that much faith in your ability to communicate.
/.) I would hope you might be capable of reflecting for a period that there could be more than one interpretation.
Just for the record, I usually just say 'Linux'. Sometimes I'll go overboard, and say 'Ubuntu Linux'. I don't actually ever say GNU/Linux. That was not actually the point of my post. Which if you made it past the first sentence you might see.
My original point was not that we should always refer to Linux as GNU/Linux, but rather for this discussion it is a useful distinction. Just as I go on to talk about how we also need to distinguish XWindow as not actually being Linux. I suppose you could read the statement in imperfective sense, which I did not mean, though (and I don't know why I would think this on
I'm also not sure why you say its a misnomer. A misnomer would mean the designation is wrong or inaccurate. How is that either wrong or inaccurate? Try running Linux without any GNU software installed. Go ahead, I'll wait. You can run Linux without XWindows, KDE, GNOME, or a bunch of other stuff, but unless you are interacting directly with the kernal, you're probably using GNU software.
Again, I'm not saying you should always say GNU/Linux, but I do agree with them, and that credit should be given where it is due. More importantly, and apropos to this subject, if we're talking about who is breaking patents. If it's Mozilla's Thunderbird mail client, not only does it have nothing to do with Linux or GNU (or GNU/Linux, if you don't mind my short hand), but it's just as equally fair to say Windows is then breaking M$ patents.
For the full-fledged /. experience, you forgot to compare me against Hilter. I expect better of you next time.
I know I'm feeding the trolls, but here goes anyways..
Please explain to me what my agenda is? If I have one, I'm unaware of it. The whole point to the separation of GNU and Linux was that they are two different things. The fact that GNU tools can run under Windows, indeed even parts of GNOME, means that it is not necessarily a Linux thing.
Just for clarity's sake, it is probably about the time to start using the GNU/Linux nomenclature, not to mention actually differentiating between Linux as an operating system, and X Window running on top of it, with its various window managers.
.. they might actually have those patents. Whether they are enforcable may be a different matter. Especially considering the plethora of prior art. Except for Clippy and Bob, I'm not sure what they've done that is original.
I doubt M$ can claim that GNU is breaking any patents. As Linus as stated, its hard to imagine what internals of Linux that could intruding on a M$ technology, except maybe the Fat32 and NTFS compatability layers.
I remember reading one of the previous reports on this issue, and one of the claims was that user interface designs for things like the web browser and email clients were guilty. I was under the impression, when M$ stole from Apple (or when Apple stole from Xerox) all of this got settled.. It certainly strikes me funny M$ suing another company for stealing the UI. Besides the fact that the original IE looks a lot like Netscape's browser, and I'm pretty sure there were email clients before Outlook. Or the fact that Word looks pretty simlar to that of Wordperfect.
M$ might be right about the infringement
Yes GLADE uses XML to store the widgets, but just because they're both markup languages, doesn't mean they're the same thing. In fact, there was a project (I think it might have been called Renaissance) for storing Cocoa/NextStep interfaces as XML. But how the interface is stored is a much different matter than the control itself.
The biggest issue is the underlying logic that controls the interface. For example, Cocoa allows for observers, which can be updated when state changes. Both Gtk+ and KDE do this as well (though they use the signal/slot terminology). Last time I remember looking at the Windows API, it instead used a callback method.
You can actually write some of these concepts into Javascript, and obviously you can make interfaces, otherwise Google Office couldn't exist, but it doesn't make it good and it doesn't make it easy.
Javascript is a hacked together language that started its life under the name Livescript. It doesn't really have the larger concepts of interface built in (besides the few HTML controls that exist). It doesn't provide a good method for control over building larger libraries, and definitely doesn't have the speed.
There is also the issue of having to have a server. I wouldn't call this a deal breaker, as this is true with XWindow.
My main point is this: creating an interface in HTML is not an ideal medium. It doesn't provide many native elements, and creating large libraries to compensate this is hard. It is actually quite easy to imagine someone creating a platform that isn't done in an HTML page -- especially since Java already exists.
In fact, I think such a thing should be done. Maybe it's Mono (though I've never used c#), or perhaps it will be based on another language. Maybe even Objective-C (that would be truly neat). But having a cross-platform platform is something that would benefit many many people.
With that said, cross-platform apps will most likely always suffer one major problem. I doubt they will ever quite fit in with the rest of the native apps. Each OS has its own style of doing things, and a different interface is really needed. One method of attacking this might be to have a default interface, and then create a new interface per OS you wish to customize.
I wouldn't call any of my issues with Eclipse as being actual problems. It does some things very well. I like the fact that it can automatically find the bugs for you, and suggests fixes. I like the fact it mostly does the right thing.
My big beef, and this is a personal opinion, is that the interface isn't always the easiest to use. It's not always obvious to me how to set the classpath correctly. Importing things can be a pain (at least, until you realize you can just copy stuff into the directory, and refresh).
It definitely does not give me the same nice cozy feeling I get when using XCode. Or for that matter, the complete-in-control feeling I get when using Emacs.
AJAX has given web-pages a new breath of life. Things like google-maps, netflix, etc. have definitely done things I wouldn't have thought possible before. And packages like RoR have managed to find ways to automatically generate most of the AJAX you need.
.. a small increment without actually fixing any of the big issues.
I don't claim to be an AJAX expert, but it seems really good for the simple things you need to do. You can find 10 libraries now that give you collapsable boxes, drag-n-drop, etc. But it gets much more complicated if you want to do something not covered with these libraries.
The big problem being that put very simply: HTML was not designed for full-fledged interfaces. Compare against a beautiful library like Cocoa, and it falls very very short. Which is fine. It's great for what it does.
Java is many ways was supposed to fix this problem. A method to create interfaces that can be spread through web pages. But issues besides just speed have been a problem with Java. AWT was not great for making interfaces, and Swing isn't (IMHO) much better. I haven't tried SWT, but even Eclipse, its flagship, suffers from all types of interface issues (compare it against an IDE like XCode).
I'm trying very hard not to be an Apple fanboi. I've used PCs for most of my life, and Linux for a good enough time (> 10 years). But I've seen enough interface libraries now (GTK+, KDE, Windows API, Javascript hacks, various ones using SDL, etc.) that I've seen both highlights and major downfalls from the different design paradigms used.
One of the largest design issues I've seen comes from at the end of the day from the language itself. Part of A large part of Cocoa's beauty derives from Objective-C. It does things that c++ wouldn't dream of doing for speed reasons. Both Gtk+ and KDE try to replicate features already in Objective-C, but because they are non-native, they don't/can't do it as well. Which is not to say Objective-C is the end-all be-all language -- it's just great for interfaces.
It's also something that from my personal experience Java can't do. So it's hard for me to imagine how using Java to make an interface for web pages will be a great advancement (again, I'm leaving speed issues alone -- this is a purely design argument). And maybe it will be better than AJAX, but that's not a great advancement
I'm going to have to disagree with the issues you brought up. If those were the only real issues, this would be a major scientific breakthrough. The fact its only half a mouse brain isn't too important -- think hemispheres. For example, in cases of severe epilepsy, they used to take out the majority of one hemisphere (not done as much nowadays..).
The speed isn't that big of a deal. So you have a slow mouse. And for the time, a huge amount happens in 10 seconds, so it would be great data if it meant something.
I'm not sure what it means to simulate a brain structure. Everything in the brain is either blood vessel, glial cell, or neuron. The brain structures are changes in the consistency of the brain due to things like difference in gray/white matter (white matter are axons wrapped in mylen sheaths, which in turn are a type of glial cell). Though, it is true, it doesn't look like they bothered with the fact that different parts of the brain have different types of connections. The brain, against all wishes of the physcists and mathematicians, is not a homogenous blob of points.
The real problems are what models they use for cells. I'm going to assume that they used leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) cells, which are fine for some people, but very unrealistic to others. As you crank up the realism for each model cell, the size of the brain you can simulate in 10 seconds very very quickly dimishes.
Some researchers (Traub for instance) can devote a whole bunch of computation to just a single cell. One big question that is still unresolved in the field is whether the properties of single cells matter, or if the fact that there's so much noise, so much input to a single cell, and such strong signals from the outside, that their functional properties are no longer an important factor.
I agree that it remains to be seen about any leap .. I haven't looked over the material very thoroughly, and I could only watch 15 minutes of a talk he gave at Google, but from what I saw it didn't look especially new. There was a lot of grandiose claims, which always sets off alarms for me. If you have a new idea, state it simply. Don't tell me it's a major breakthrough, how it will change the world, etc.
Even more alarms go off whenever I see someone try to 'model the neocortex'. I'm in the camp that we know close to nothing about how it works, so to model it seems problematic. However, given that, there might be some evidence to some generalities between cortical areas. For example, if you look at the primary visual cortex (V1) and primary auditory cortex (A1) there appears to be certain trends. For example, you can find orientation columns in V1, where you get pinwheels of cells that perfer lines of specific orientations. In S1 you will find some sort of tone-map.
Additionally, some people (Sur et al 199?) took afferent connections from V1, and rerouted them to S1, and found that similiar columns would form in S1 similar to those seen in V1. This indicates that at least to some extent structure of the brain follows function (i.e. activity will cause actual changes to the structures you see). While this wasn't a new concept, to what extent this can happen is still unclear.
Finally, the word 'cortex' comes from the latin word 'bark' due to its layered structure. The canonical Neocortical structure (there are in fact other bark-line, and thus cortical, structures in the brain) has 6 layers. While this isn't exactly true -- S1 has fewer layers than that, and V1 has an addition sub-division in one of its layers. Different cortical areas appear to have similar connections between these layers, and more often than not, similar cell types.
So while no one really knows how the neocortex operates (or really anything else besides the retina -- and even that has a bunch of unknowns), it is not unfeasible that it has general computational properties. Even though V1 and S1 might be accomplishing different tasks (vision and hearing), general types of transformations of that information might be similar. If only we knew what those transformations were, and what they were for...
My understanding was that the IPTV isn't due to come out until the holiday season for the XBox. But I have been keeping my eye on it. I'm more a nintendo Fanboi, but if the xbox can double as my TV viewer, then I'm willing to go to the dark side. Maybe it will provide impetus to the other companies to play catch up.
What will be interesting to see is what it ends up looking like. Will it get all the major channels, or a watered down selection like it appears Joost will have? Will it be reasonably priced? Will it force you to watch ads?
I get the fact that it's supposed to be the iPod, but for you living room. It makes sense for Apple's perspective. They have content (in this case TV shows and movies) that they want you to buy and watch. What's a primary factor keeping from people watching? They want to use their TVs.
.. there already).
.. but only if you enjoy spending a lot of extra . It doesn't give unique functionality like an iPod (or any other MP3 player), where portability is essential. It just makes things a little easier.
Now in theory you can take the signal from your computer, and send it to the TV. Of course, you might have to buy some of your own cables/get hardware. Thus Apple's solution. Provide a simple box that takes care of all of that for you. It's a small box that just magically streams all your content (across your various computers) to a single point, which can be hooked up to a TV.
BUT, as a consumer this doesn't make sense. I like the idea of picking what shows I want to watch, but I actually don't want to own most of them. If the Apple TV allowed me 'rent' a show, I would buy one in a second. Or if I could pay a monthly fee (say: 10 shows subscription), again, I'd totally bite. But paying premium to own something I plan on only watching once has absolutely no appeal to me. It's too expensive. It's still cheaper in the long run to just get cable if you go above 4-5 shows (daily show, colbert report, myth busters, robot chicken
I don't see Apple doing this anytime soon, as it seems to go against their current business model. So instead they seem to get some strange compromise. Something almost useful
Maybe Apple has something up their sleeves. I keep waiting, but it isn't looking too likely...
Yup, typo on my part. Though, I will admit, that had me confused for quite some time, as Giant squids weren't generally available to do experiments on.
For the curious, the axon is 'giant' because it needs to conduct signal from one end of the squid to the other. Due to speed constraints, and leakage, this means the diameter of the axon needs to fairly big (no mylen sheath). Because of this, the axon was big enough to insert electrodes by hand.
(1) Hodgkin and Huxley (1952) postulated the existence of transmembrane proteins that allowed conductance of ions in and out of the cell. They showed, using a giant squid axon, that action potentials are composed of a sodium current and a potassium current. While they had no way to directly observe the channels that allowed these currents to flow, using curve fitting, they worked out the general dynamics of these channels.
(2) Sakmann and Neher (1976) showed the existence of these channels by developing the whole-cell patch clamp technique. Single channels have been observed and characterized using this method (and employed by many labs).
(3) The term 'tranmission' is sometimes used in a confusing manner in neuroscience. In this case, as pointed out by the parent, transmission is down the axon of a single cell. Mylen sheaths can form around the axons of cells in order to speed up transmission. This can also occur by making the axon diameter wider. One interesting difference between vertebrates and invertebrates is that appearance of the mylen sheath with the advent of the backbone. This allows for cells to take up less space (so more can be packed into a given volume).
Another form of transmission of signal is between cells. This is usually done by chemical synapses. Chemical synapses work by the presynaptic cell releasing chemical into the synapse, the chemical ligand binding to receptors on the postsynaptic cell, and causing either an ionic flux (ionotopic channels) or a chemical cascade (metatrobic channels).
Somewhat recently there has also been discovered electrical synapses in the mammalian brain. These seem to be between inhibitory cells of the same type.
Again, not knowing anything about patent law, I'm likely just spewing incoherent arguments, but it seems like there is to some degree a gradation in defendable patents. I suspect some patents are completely undefendable in court. This can be because of prior art, or simply because the judge is smart enough to see it's a stupid patent. I suppose the problem is that many judges aren't, so it's always a gamble.
It might still be worth going through and finding the really big patent issues. For example, I seem to remember that FAT32 had some patent issues. Regardless of the question of whether software *should* be patentable, given the current laws, is it possible to look for things that are unreasonably trespassing on someone else's technology?
I think this might be different from SCO in that it's talking about patent infringements versus ownership of code. While the idea behind showusthecode seems like a good idea, it also seems to me likely that linux does infringe on other patents. However, only because software patent law allows anyone to patent anything. If M$ patented the for-loop, and the case came in front of a technophobe of a judge, perhaps they could be found guilty. M$, has many many patents, like most other big companies.
Of course, couldn't some knowledgeable in patent laws go through M$'s patents to find anything likely? I supose it would take a good amount of knowledge in both law and code, but it might be a worthwhile task to sponsor for these companies. While it *is* M$ making the claims, and perhaps it should be up to them, IANAL, but it would protect against any fears of getting sued.
Redhat is also providing protection against lawsuits too, if I remember correctly.
I think this is a great idea. Except for the fact that I almost only print things out so I can write on them. If I didn't need to write on the paper, I probably would just read it from the screen. Occasionally I'll print out a map or a list to take with me, but then it gets put in my pocket and ultimately ends up torn, scrunched, and not so reusable.
So while I'm sure the Earth applauds this invention, I'm not quite sure for whom or understand what circumstances its useful. I also wonder how resusability is there. They claim 50 reprints, but I wonder if the image quality is as good by the 20th time as the first. Also, it apparently fades within a day.
It's not that I think the technology is useless, just limited.
I'm not a fan of pay-per-view either, but if it's reasonably priced, I'd probably cave in. For most movies and TV shows, I actually don't have much desire to own them. The ones that I do, I'll probably buy the DVD set. Especially considering that HDs are limited in size, I'm going to start deleting files for the shows I don't care to watch again anyways.
I would be a much more willing to pay a subscription fee to 'rent' an unlimited number of videos, somewhat like the Napster model. I should note, I think this is a *stupid* model for music, and do want to own and control all the music in my collection. But I think there is a clear divide between music and videos. At least for me.
It's also different from renting software. There is the similarity that many companies realize how much more money they can rake in if someone has to pay a monthly fee. But like music, I expect my music to always work wherever and whenever. Again, that model exists for movies. For about $10 you can own just about any movie, and use to your heart's content. It's just most TV and movies don't have a high reusability value.
Let me start of by saying, I don't mind paying for watching programs. If they're reasonably short, I don't even mind the occasional ad. But I also don't have unlimited resources. Buying content from iTunes still seems too expensive to me. I'd like to get The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Battlestar Gallatica, Mythbusters, and possibly Psych. That very quickly comes close to just getting cable TV. Which I don't want for several reasons (one of them, is I'm unable to do a 1 year contract).
.. their sales model is based on the fact that with old-style TV, you have to watch the crap they want you to watch. You have to watch the ads, you have to watch a specific time, and if it's crap, you'll watch anyways.
So I've been waiting for IPTV. Technically, I don't understand why it would be so difficult to do. I mean, Comedy Central's Motherload already does it. Only crappily. You can't actualy get the full show, and the picture is *really* *really* small. But I guess there are other reasons that I may never fully understand. Though, in my naivate, I'm going to suggest greed as being on the top of the list.
And as the article pointed out, Youtube and Joost serve two different purposes. I mean, I guess it would be nice to get anything I wanted on Youtube, but the clips I've seen are never the full show, and once again, that is what I'd like. Watching short clips of a funny show just aggrevate me.
And so I'm actually excited about Joost. I mean, I still am not exactly sure how it will work, since the details seem to be a bit skimpy, but at least it has the potential. Then I skim over some of the shows that Viacom is releasing, and it all looks like crap. Especially since I don't see the Daily Show on their list. It's a 'will include' list, but that usually means what they don't list are only crappier crap.
Perhaps it's something as simple as them testing the market, and not wanting to release their 'prized possessions', but that seems stupid to me. The shows they have listed, I, nor do I suspect most people, care to see. So they'll run it for a while, claim low viewership, and end the program. And then they'll cite the stats as to why they'll never do anything with the interweb again. Assholes.
It's not that I think all their claims are invalid
It's not that it's impossible to come up with a new sales-model. They just have no interest in doing so.