The next time you are on the phone, stop for a second and recognize that there are actually several conversations going on at the same time. The one conversation that is obvious is the vocal one, because everyone within 60 feet of you can hear it. The less obvious are the conversations you are having with yourself during the vocal conversation. You are thinking about what the person on the phone is really trying to say, you are thinking about how to cut the conversation short, you are thinking about what to have for lunch, you are thinking about the fact that you are in heavy rush-hour traffic and you are wondering why your foot hurts. The cacophony of noise that goes on inside your head at any given time is only managable by the massive power of the human brain to keep it all straight. So, and I will now get to my point, how will this little device decide what portions of which thought streams actually belong to what would be the vocal conversation? What is going to prevent it from telling your boss, during your conversation about your performance review, that you think his new hair piece looks like chewed rope?
Microsoft these days is primarily a sustaining engineering organization, which is causing untold grief internally. Some internal numbers peg the amount of engineering resources devoted to sustaining engineering and backwards-compatability support at 70% of their total engineering resources. This is the reason innovation has crawled to a halt at the mighty software factory. In forcing users to lurch ahead and get off of older platforms, the theory is that they can reduce the burden of support on the organization and devote more to new technology. Fat chance, I say. There was a situation a year or so ago that required about 60 lines of code to be modified. The test effort was estimated at 200 man-years. And you wonder why they are forcing everyone to a single platform???
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid... This is a classic example of technology for technology sake. If you have ever tried to use voice activated ANYTHING, you know that it is the WORST UI possible. We just don't talk the way these devices want to be talked to, and it is just not natural. Microsoft has a pilot program internally using technology from the research group that allows every employee to register themselves in a voice-activated phone directory system. I cannot tell you the number of times I have seem people in conference rooms hitting the button and carefully stating 'Fred Ziffelwitz', and having the system come back with 'Are you trying to reach Bob Zuffenheimer?' It was NEVER right. I have tried the voice interfaces to Office, and just end up drooling all over myself trying to speak the way the damn thing wants to hear. It is just not natural. On top of all that, what is wrong with the current TV controllers that voice solves? You press up, the station changes. You press down, it goes the other way. So now, you say 'up' and the station changes, you say 'lower' and the thing turns your TV off. I hate this technology crawl. We simply DO NOT NEED VOICE ACTIVATED CRAP. If I ever see one, the first thing I am going to do is turn it on and set it in front of the TV speaker, just to see if it will ever become self-aware and take control of the house. When it can do that, I will become a believer. Until then, IT IS JUST A TECHNO-CRAP SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM TO SOLVE.
Actually this seems to say that 95% of IT shops deliver some of their projects late. Huh? This is a very unclear statement and an example of what you can do with statistics. So, do 5% of IT shops ALWAYS deliver on time? I doubt it. What number of IT shops are ALWAYS late? Can't really say. To get into the 95%, it sounds like an IT shop can have a perfect record and be a day late on one project to qualify. I hate statistics.
The only reason I would vite for Hillary for President would be the idea of Bill prowling around the White House for four yearsw with nothing to do. Now THAT would make a great video game!
Microsoft Research is working on technologies that can recognize parts of a photograph and find others that contain that same element in a 'fuzzy' way. In other words, I want to find, out of my 10,000+ raw images, all sunsets, or all photos with a boat in them. I want to be able to circle the face of a person in a photo and have the software find all other pictures that contain that same face.
With digital photography exploding, the reasoning is that the typical photographer will have thousands of pictures stored, and more serious photographers may have 100,000+ photos stored. Sorting and categorizing them is now growing beyond human ability. The Photoshop CS keyword capability is OK, but just doesn't scale for lazy (me) professional photographers.
The next upgrade should/must start applying serious AI capabilities to allow me to maintain and use the thousands and thousands of photographs that I will stored. I agree with others here, the editing capabilities for digital photographs in CS are already well beyond the weekend photographer. I work with CS 4+ hours a day with digital photographs and I find that I use a pretty specific set of functions and 3rd party filters. The rest is noise, or of use on extremely limited situations.
What I want is for the computer/software to step up and perform more of the mundane work in the workflow. They have to start with organizing my work.
This is a space where Photoshop/Adobe may be vulnerable to Microsoft.
There are some parallels in other fields that make what they are doing seem rational. The oil industry comes to mind. When the price of oil climbs past a certain point, it becomes viable to pull oil out of shale, which is a horrific, inefficent and painful process (I am the charter member of PETS, People for the Ethical Treatment of Shale). When it climbs a little more, suddenly refining dirty crude makes sense. The parallel is this: if Microsoft sees that it is harder to sell additional copies of Windows and Office in order to grow 10-15% a year, at some point it is easier to go after incremental recvenue in other ways. Going after pirates is the shale oil of the software industry. It does make me wonder what the dirty crude equivalent will be though.
Don't forget the 36 languages every product is translated into. Now you begin to see why the test matrix is so huge, and why they can't seem to actually release anything.
Microsoft lost, according to them, over 10 BILLION dollars in revenue due to piracy last year alone. They would be a full 30% bigger if they could somehow eliminate piracy. They have huge charts on the walls inside some of the buildings showing exactly where the piracy is taking place, and the the loss to Microsoft because of it. They track it that well. They have somewhere upwards of 200 people dedicated to thinking about piracy and ways to solve it. You can expect more trial-and-error attempts like XP: Starter Edition because the incentive to fixing the problem is huge. They fully expect to solve it, as with all else they attempt. It is just a matter of time. I am not sure I agree on this one, the forces they are fighting against are also well motivated and extremely hard to track. The only difference between these people (the pirates, not Microsoft, although the point could be argued) and the terrorist organizations is that they don't tend to explode in crowded places. I would think that if Microsoft pushes to hard on this one, it could become violent, given the dollars at stake to both parties.
In all seriousness, is it possible that, in the spirit of science, these guys actually create something that the entire solar system falls into? No, I am not a paranoid shiver-bunny (all rights reserved)but I am curious, as we get 'smarter' about physics and all the other stuff that StevenH would say if he could actually talk, that we just don't know what the fuck we are fucking with and it all gets sucked into the new hole Bob just created? And why not? Where did the other black holes we seem to be able to detect come from? They came from somewhere, because they do exist, which means they CAN be created.
After you call the ACLU and join, consider this: You are opting in by using their site, that is what free will is all about. You don't like it, don't use their site or service. You liberal wack-jobs are all alike.
This does not surtprise me, the typical IRS employee has probably only had a computer for 6 months. And it is probably a crippled 386. The IRS has NEVER been at the forefront of technology. In fact, it is a well kept secret that their use of technology is very limited. In addition, the caliber of people that will actually work for the IRS is not exactly the highest in the world. It is mostly Civil Service work. Now, before you jump up my ass with flames about not being fair, I am being fair. I didn't say Civil Service was bad, it just doesn't attract the finest we have to offer. Try training them.
Amazon has always impressed me with their recommendations based on my prior purchases, as well as their 'Others who bought this also bought these' suggestions. I have always felt like it was like having a store clerk along with you that would actually shut up and go away if I tired of them. I personally like this touch, as I sometimes am just impulse shopping and looking for something to read. NetFlix does the same thing, suggestions based on prior viewings and ratings. WHY IS THIS BAD? Answer: it isn't, except to those wacko aholes that seem to object to anything that might somehow 'infringe' on their personal space. I say bullshit. If you don't like it, don't use it, or even better, don't use the site that offends you. Then go get a membership to the ACLU so you can object to EVERYTHING all of the time. If technology is working to make my life easier, I like it. As long as there is an opt-out method somewhere, I find it hard that anyone can object to this sort of stuff. Hell, execs pay big money for personal shoppers that remind them about upcoming events that might require a gift. They love it. Email coming in that says 'HEY STOOPID, IT'S YOUR SISTERS BIRTHDAY! She likes the following stuff... You want it gift wrapped?' This is all good in my opinion.
You obviously don't get it. This is WAY better than TCP/IP. For one thing, IT'S WAY BIGGER. For another thing, IT'S WAY MORE COMPLEX. Third, IT BELONGS TO MICROSOFT. Fourth, IT'S NOT STANDARD Fifth, YOU HAVE TO USE WINDOWS FOR IT TO WORK. Sixth, well, you get the point... Just like TCP/IP... What were you thinking???
This will end the hiring of new employees at Microsoft. Just the fact that it moves AT ALL, much less 3.6 MPH will render the entire program management, middle management and test groups obsolete.
I disagree. Microsoft doesn't look at the world that way. A zero-sum game is not in their best interest. They do not have any interest in testing that would serve to level the playing field in any way, which is all this would.
It won't happen.
Microsoft has absolutely no incentive to participate in any kind of 'standards' testing for IE. Why should they? They own 85%+ of the browser market and the type of testing being proposed is the same as the plight of the typical IT manager: "The best you can ever be is not a bum". If they pass the standards test they are no better off than they were before. Nobody believes that the IE haters in the universe are going to change their minds because Microsoft passes this test. On the other hand, if they fail the test, they are harmed. It will never happen.
(idioticblather)This reminds me of those old ads for dehydrated water. You know, just add water... If they weigh so much, just what exactly have you saved over an inflatable building? How did the dehydrated version get to where it is supposed to go? And how much water does it really need? I do like the idea of dropping the capsules into a lake somewhere just to see what happens. Kind of like dropping new tampons into the toilet just to watch them explode.(/idioticblather)
It will be amazing to me if they can actually deliver a new release. Microsoft has a tougher and tougher time with every release of their existing software due to the bloat of features, the test matrix which grows exponentially with every line of code, and the overall mess that the internal development organizations find themselves in.
They will, of course, finally give birth, but it's gonna be sloppy and wet with lots of crying and fainting, followed by a faint cry from the newborn IE7.
And, my prediction... it will be HUGE! The mighty beast no long has the ability to deliver slim efficient code. Mark my words.
The current phone system (POTS) is analog based and thus does not lend it self to being manipulated by digital techniques for things like call screening and the like. Phone sysems and intelligent voice mail have made some inroads, but only after the call is actually answered.
VOIP is digital data, and thus can be manipulated and sniffed by digital techniques. Meaning? Software will be created to thwart VOIP spammers. Why? Because it is possible to do, and we have proven that if it is possible to do, and there is a need, it will get done.
Maybe I am looking at this through the proverbial rose-colored glasses, but this seems like a solvable problem.
I have read the WiMax spec, and it scares the hell out of me that anyone is buying it. It is promising both bandwidth AND range in a set of spectrums that will have a hard time delivering on one, let alone both. The range claims are nothing more than Intel smoke, or Intel smoking as the case may be, and the bandwidth claims are a fraud.
There may be a reason you don't see much of it out there. Don't believe everything you read, Intel is running very scared right now because of the hype their marketing engine put out there. The bar may be set so high that it isn't technically feasable without changing the laws of physics.
When the noise in your neighborhood gets to be too much for you with everyone having an access point, do the following:
1. Take the door off of your microwave oven.
2. Place in backyard.
3. Turn on for 20 seconds.
4. Remeasure
You should find that you have the neighborhood to yourself (except for those annoying 802.11a people)
Slashdot Mirror
The next time you are on the phone, stop for a second and recognize that there are actually several conversations going on at the same time. The one conversation that is obvious is the vocal one, because everyone within 60 feet of you can hear it. The less obvious are the conversations you are having with yourself during the vocal conversation. You are thinking about what the person on the phone is really trying to say, you are thinking about how to cut the conversation short, you are thinking about what to have for lunch, you are thinking about the fact that you are in heavy rush-hour traffic and you are wondering why your foot hurts. The cacophony of noise that goes on inside your head at any given time is only managable by the massive power of the human brain to keep it all straight. So, and I will now get to my point, how will this little device decide what portions of which thought streams actually belong to what would be the vocal conversation? What is going to prevent it from telling your boss, during your conversation about your performance review, that you think his new hair piece looks like chewed rope?
Microsoft these days is primarily a sustaining engineering organization, which is causing untold grief internally. Some internal numbers peg the amount of engineering resources devoted to sustaining engineering and backwards-compatability support at 70% of their total engineering resources. This is the reason innovation has crawled to a halt at the mighty software factory. In forcing users to lurch ahead and get off of older platforms, the theory is that they can reduce the burden of support on the organization and devote more to new technology. Fat chance, I say. There was a situation a year or so ago that required about 60 lines of code to be modified. The test effort was estimated at 200 man-years. And you wonder why they are forcing everyone to a single platform???
Nope, you have to push the STFU button.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid... This is a classic example of technology for technology sake. If you have ever tried to use voice activated ANYTHING, you know that it is the WORST UI possible. We just don't talk the way these devices want to be talked to, and it is just not natural. Microsoft has a pilot program internally using technology from the research group that allows every employee to register themselves in a voice-activated phone directory system. I cannot tell you the number of times I have seem people in conference rooms hitting the button and carefully stating 'Fred Ziffelwitz', and having the system come back with 'Are you trying to reach Bob Zuffenheimer?' It was NEVER right. I have tried the voice interfaces to Office, and just end up drooling all over myself trying to speak the way the damn thing wants to hear. It is just not natural. On top of all that, what is wrong with the current TV controllers that voice solves? You press up, the station changes. You press down, it goes the other way. So now, you say 'up' and the station changes, you say 'lower' and the thing turns your TV off. I hate this technology crawl. We simply DO NOT NEED VOICE ACTIVATED CRAP. If I ever see one, the first thing I am going to do is turn it on and set it in front of the TV speaker, just to see if it will ever become self-aware and take control of the house. When it can do that, I will become a believer. Until then, IT IS JUST A TECHNO-CRAP SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM TO SOLVE.
Actually this seems to say that 95% of IT shops deliver some of their projects late. Huh? This is a very unclear statement and an example of what you can do with statistics. So, do 5% of IT shops ALWAYS deliver on time? I doubt it. What number of IT shops are ALWAYS late? Can't really say. To get into the 95%, it sounds like an IT shop can have a perfect record and be a day late on one project to qualify. I hate statistics.
The only reason I would vite for Hillary for President would be the idea of Bill prowling around the White House for four yearsw with nothing to do. Now THAT would make a great video game!
Microsoft Research is working on technologies that can recognize parts of a photograph and find others that contain that same element in a 'fuzzy' way. In other words, I want to find, out of my 10,000+ raw images, all sunsets, or all photos with a boat in them. I want to be able to circle the face of a person in a photo and have the software find all other pictures that contain that same face. With digital photography exploding, the reasoning is that the typical photographer will have thousands of pictures stored, and more serious photographers may have 100,000+ photos stored. Sorting and categorizing them is now growing beyond human ability. The Photoshop CS keyword capability is OK, but just doesn't scale for lazy (me) professional photographers. The next upgrade should/must start applying serious AI capabilities to allow me to maintain and use the thousands and thousands of photographs that I will stored. I agree with others here, the editing capabilities for digital photographs in CS are already well beyond the weekend photographer. I work with CS 4+ hours a day with digital photographs and I find that I use a pretty specific set of functions and 3rd party filters. The rest is noise, or of use on extremely limited situations. What I want is for the computer/software to step up and perform more of the mundane work in the workflow. They have to start with organizing my work. This is a space where Photoshop/Adobe may be vulnerable to Microsoft.
There are some parallels in other fields that make what they are doing seem rational. The oil industry comes to mind. When the price of oil climbs past a certain point, it becomes viable to pull oil out of shale, which is a horrific, inefficent and painful process (I am the charter member of PETS, People for the Ethical Treatment of Shale). When it climbs a little more, suddenly refining dirty crude makes sense. The parallel is this: if Microsoft sees that it is harder to sell additional copies of Windows and Office in order to grow 10-15% a year, at some point it is easier to go after incremental recvenue in other ways. Going after pirates is the shale oil of the software industry. It does make me wonder what the dirty crude equivalent will be though.
Don't forget the 36 languages every product is translated into. Now you begin to see why the test matrix is so huge, and why they can't seem to actually release anything.
Microsoft lost, according to them, over 10 BILLION dollars in revenue due to piracy last year alone. They would be a full 30% bigger if they could somehow eliminate piracy. They have huge charts on the walls inside some of the buildings showing exactly where the piracy is taking place, and the the loss to Microsoft because of it. They track it that well. They have somewhere upwards of 200 people dedicated to thinking about piracy and ways to solve it. You can expect more trial-and-error attempts like XP: Starter Edition because the incentive to fixing the problem is huge. They fully expect to solve it, as with all else they attempt. It is just a matter of time. I am not sure I agree on this one, the forces they are fighting against are also well motivated and extremely hard to track. The only difference between these people (the pirates, not Microsoft, although the point could be argued) and the terrorist organizations is that they don't tend to explode in crowded places. I would think that if Microsoft pushes to hard on this one, it could become violent, given the dollars at stake to both parties.
In all seriousness, is it possible that, in the spirit of science, these guys actually create something that the entire solar system falls into? No, I am not a paranoid shiver-bunny (all rights reserved)but I am curious, as we get 'smarter' about physics and all the other stuff that StevenH would say if he could actually talk, that we just don't know what the fuck we are fucking with and it all gets sucked into the new hole Bob just created? And why not? Where did the other black holes we seem to be able to detect come from? They came from somewhere, because they do exist, which means they CAN be created.
After you call the ACLU and join, consider this: You are opting in by using their site, that is what free will is all about. You don't like it, don't use their site or service. You liberal wack-jobs are all alike.
www.aclu.com Just in case you lost it...
This does not surtprise me, the typical IRS employee has probably only had a computer for 6 months. And it is probably a crippled 386. The IRS has NEVER been at the forefront of technology. In fact, it is a well kept secret that their use of technology is very limited. In addition, the caliber of people that will actually work for the IRS is not exactly the highest in the world. It is mostly Civil Service work. Now, before you jump up my ass with flames about not being fair, I am being fair. I didn't say Civil Service was bad, it just doesn't attract the finest we have to offer. Try training them.
Amazon has always impressed me with their recommendations based on my prior purchases, as well as their 'Others who bought this also bought these' suggestions. I have always felt like it was like having a store clerk along with you that would actually shut up and go away if I tired of them. I personally like this touch, as I sometimes am just impulse shopping and looking for something to read. NetFlix does the same thing, suggestions based on prior viewings and ratings. WHY IS THIS BAD? Answer: it isn't, except to those wacko aholes that seem to object to anything that might somehow 'infringe' on their personal space. I say bullshit. If you don't like it, don't use it, or even better, don't use the site that offends you. Then go get a membership to the ACLU so you can object to EVERYTHING all of the time. If technology is working to make my life easier, I like it. As long as there is an opt-out method somewhere, I find it hard that anyone can object to this sort of stuff. Hell, execs pay big money for personal shoppers that remind them about upcoming events that might require a gift. They love it. Email coming in that says 'HEY STOOPID, IT'S YOUR SISTERS BIRTHDAY! She likes the following stuff... You want it gift wrapped?' This is all good in my opinion.
You obviously don't get it. This is WAY better than TCP/IP. For one thing, IT'S WAY BIGGER. For another thing, IT'S WAY MORE COMPLEX. Third, IT BELONGS TO MICROSOFT. Fourth, IT'S NOT STANDARD Fifth, YOU HAVE TO USE WINDOWS FOR IT TO WORK. Sixth, well, you get the point... Just like TCP/IP... What were you thinking???
This will end the hiring of new employees at Microsoft. Just the fact that it moves AT ALL, much less 3.6 MPH will render the entire program management, middle management and test groups obsolete.
I disagree. Microsoft doesn't look at the world that way. A zero-sum game is not in their best interest. They do not have any interest in testing that would serve to level the playing field in any way, which is all this would. It won't happen.
Microsoft has absolutely no incentive to participate in any kind of 'standards' testing for IE. Why should they? They own 85%+ of the browser market and the type of testing being proposed is the same as the plight of the typical IT manager: "The best you can ever be is not a bum". If they pass the standards test they are no better off than they were before. Nobody believes that the IE haters in the universe are going to change their minds because Microsoft passes this test. On the other hand, if they fail the test, they are harmed. It will never happen.
(idioticblather)This reminds me of those old ads for dehydrated water. You know, just add water... If they weigh so much, just what exactly have you saved over an inflatable building? How did the dehydrated version get to where it is supposed to go? And how much water does it really need? I do like the idea of dropping the capsules into a lake somewhere just to see what happens. Kind of like dropping new tampons into the toilet just to watch them explode.(/idioticblather)
It will be amazing to me if they can actually deliver a new release. Microsoft has a tougher and tougher time with every release of their existing software due to the bloat of features, the test matrix which grows exponentially with every line of code, and the overall mess that the internal development organizations find themselves in. They will, of course, finally give birth, but it's gonna be sloppy and wet with lots of crying and fainting, followed by a faint cry from the newborn IE7. And, my prediction... it will be HUGE! The mighty beast no long has the ability to deliver slim efficient code. Mark my words.
Good thing Picasso never had one of these...
The current phone system (POTS) is analog based and thus does not lend it self to being manipulated by digital techniques for things like call screening and the like. Phone sysems and intelligent voice mail have made some inroads, but only after the call is actually answered. VOIP is digital data, and thus can be manipulated and sniffed by digital techniques. Meaning? Software will be created to thwart VOIP spammers. Why? Because it is possible to do, and we have proven that if it is possible to do, and there is a need, it will get done. Maybe I am looking at this through the proverbial rose-colored glasses, but this seems like a solvable problem.
I have read the WiMax spec, and it scares the hell out of me that anyone is buying it. It is promising both bandwidth AND range in a set of spectrums that will have a hard time delivering on one, let alone both. The range claims are nothing more than Intel smoke, or Intel smoking as the case may be, and the bandwidth claims are a fraud. There may be a reason you don't see much of it out there. Don't believe everything you read, Intel is running very scared right now because of the hype their marketing engine put out there. The bar may be set so high that it isn't technically feasable without changing the laws of physics.
When the noise in your neighborhood gets to be too much for you with everyone having an access point, do the following: 1. Take the door off of your microwave oven. 2. Place in backyard. 3. Turn on for 20 seconds. 4. Remeasure You should find that you have the neighborhood to yourself (except for those annoying 802.11a people)