for instance, if electronic implants become more mainstream, it would be useful for certain applications to power the implanted device via electrocytes rather than a rechargeable battery. rechargeable batteries, like all chemical batteries, wear out over time, and need to be replaced. this may require invasive surgery. if instead the patient were also given a bioimplant of electrocytes around the electronic device, then there would be guaranteed power source for the rest of the patient's life since the electrocytes would be self-replicating.
and the inefficiency of metabolic (or catabolic in this case) processes isn't an issue. most people living in developed nations have an excess of fat stores and energy reserves. and outside of extreme survival situations, most people don't have to ration their food intake or energy expenditure. it's not like having some electrocyte implants will cause a person to eat more food. an average person's food intake has nothing to do with their energy expenditure. most people can probably use burning some extra calories once in a while.
because straw man attacks in completely unrelated discussions are the only time when the global warming deniers can feign a winning argument--since they can't refute actual scientific evidence that supports global warming (like the currently accepted climate model). but i'm sure these armchair climatologists know much better than IPCC researchers and scientists.
or maybe it's because any kind of social/political/environmental activism is unfashionable in the eyes of mainstream culture. it's much cooler to be apathetic and uninformed. and ridiculing those trying to make the world a better place helps ease the guilt of one's inaction.
isn't it customary for the courts to throw out illegally obtained evidence? it's my understanding that this is done so as to discourage prosecutors & law enforcement from doing illegal/warrantless searches.
if the courts routinely allowed illegally obtained evidence/testimony/etc. to be used, then it would encourage law enforcement professionals to encroach on the rights of individuals if they think it will get a conviction. if you don't throw out confessions obtained through torture, then law enforcement will start using torture to gain confessions--it's the same principle.
i know that many people hold personal prejudices against drug users, but a corruption of justice is a corruption of justice, regardless of who it happens to. it just happens to drug users and low income individuals more often because they can't defend themselves, and they have more run ins with the law.
one of my good friends in Chicago was a former heroin addict. he was a really friendly guy and a kind and honest person. however, he started using heroin at a very young age. this inevitably landed him in jail. he's in his late 20's now and has been through the system many times on drug possession charges (never for drug dealing or theft, or anything other than drug possession). and he's recounted to me several occasions where he's been wrongly imprisoned due to clerical error.
one time in particular he'd just finished serving time for a drug offense (i think it was something like a 6 month sentence), and the very weekend he got out he was picked up again and taken back to jail. he hadn't broken any laws, but the patrol vehicle computer showed that he had an outstanding warrant. apparently the warrant was issued while he was doing time for his last sentence. the warrant was for an offense registered in a different county, and so they didn't realize that he was already in prison. he knew that there'd been a mistake, but he couldn't make bail and ended up having to spend another few weeks in jail until it was shown that he'd been falsely imprisoned and the warrant shouldn't have been issued in the first place.
what major retail chain carries used games? i know there are a few popular record stores around here that sell used CDs, DVDs, and vinyls, but even such music stores are few and far between.
not being able to find a used copy of a particular game doesn't really mean anything. that could be the result of the story simply not having a supply of that title because few owners are reselling it. that could also be the result of the game being inherently rare.
granted, i live in an upper-middle class suburb, but i've known a lot of gamers of different socioeconomic backgrounds--from gamers who came from blue collar families to my first college roommate whose dad was a corporate CEO. and i rarely heard of anyone purchasing a used game for their PC or current gen system.
these days most people buy PS & PS2 games used, yes. but that's because those are now legacy systems (i know the PS2 is still officially supported, but it's been out for nearly a decade).
most big video game retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. don't even sell 2nd-hand games. maybe that's just the area that i live in, but unless you're ordering them off of eBay, you have to get your games new around here.
i thought the BD live content was extra content only downloaded once when you first play the disc--things like bonus scenes, soundtracks, ringtones, and other promo material--rather than just video streamed live each time you play it. i mean, that's the impression this kotaku article gives.
so all this is just so that the BD you bought will show you the latest movie advertisements each time it's played? that hardly seems worthwhile. preview trailers are something you skip over, not something you waste bandwidth on.
i wouldn't have thought that Sony or the movie studios would waste money and resources to provide each BD release with an ever-changing online video stream. just keeping the servers up would be expensive enough, but they'd also have to pay people to constantly update the live content for each disc they put out. and for 5 years? how much would it cost to produce or license 5 years worth of live content? that's like running a really unprofitable TV station that people only watch for 15-20 minutes once every few months.
how much live content is there usually? with the huge capacity of dual-layer BDs wouldn't it be more efficient to just put the live content on the disc itself in the first place?
i mean, unless they're having users download more than 4~5 GB of data, it should be possible to squeeze the live content onto the BD by compressing the movie by 1% or stripping out previews. and if they are having users download more than 5 GB of data then that seems really impractical anyway.
the only thing i see live content being good for is perhaps for downloading extra subtitle languages so studios don't have to print localized discs for smaller markets, or perhaps you're a Czech living in the U.S. and want to buy a BD at the local Best Buy but still want Czech subs, etc. and depending on how compressed the audio streams are, they could also do this with alternate language streams.
as long as we rely on private sector funded commercial research to advance medical science/technology, we will run into the issue of potential researcher bias as there's an inherent conflict of interest. this is also true of the pharmaceutical industry.
unless we as a society decide that public research is an important area of government funding, problems of slanted studies and deceptive/false research findings will continue to plague the medical field and other areas of research which depend on corporate funding. certain things need to be placed above profit, such as public good. our commerce-driven culture has huge social costs, including the commodification of health, science, and human knowledge.
if this technology & research were backed by public-funding the issue of objectivity wouldn't be clouded by commercial interests. but as it is right now, we'll just have to place faith in the scientific integrity of the researchers, and if we're lucky other independent researchers will come along to verify the results. but there's only so much publicly-funded research and grant money to go around. this doesn't seem like a popular enough issue to receive attention from public research.
that's a statistically insignificant difference in accuracy. i think the conclusion to be drawn from this is that computer-aided detection is much more effective than an unaided human expert. this has significant implications when doing cost-benefit analysis.
the cost of an extra computer is likely a lot less than another technician or radiologist. so this data will help medical institutions make better use of funds while improving quality of patient care. it doesn't mean they have to lay off their radiologists/technicians and replace them with computers, but perhaps they could add a computer to their radiology lab and allocate new personnel for other tasks that demand human judgment.
what you're saying makes sense, but it's more complicated than that. i mean, resale value is a huge factor when it comes to cars, homes, and other large items that people frequently resale and also put a lot more thought into purchasing (and negotiating the purchase).
with gaming, it's almost an inelastic demand. if you want a particular game, there's only one publisher. you can't substitute a competing product for it. and all mainstream game publishers pretty much have the same general anti-consumer attitude. so it's not the same as buying an Honda/Toyota instead of a Ford/GM because imports have much higher resale values than domestics. that kind of decision-making process doesn't factor into game purchases. there's also less of a market for used games, and this is due to cultural as well as legal factors.
think about diamonds and engagement rings. the De Beers cartel has launched one of the most successful (and insidious) marketing/advertising campaigns in the history of consumerism. not only did they inject their product into our cultural institutions and traditions (diamond engagement rings are a relatively new phenomenon in the history of human marriage), but they have also gone as far as to manipulate our cultural values to suit their business model.
the whole "a diamond is forever" commercial campaign was tied into a much larger marketing campaign aimed at stopping the resale of diamonds. De Beers works very hard to control the global supply of diamonds to create an artificial scarcity which drives prices up, but that would be undermined if the market were flooded with second-hand diamonds. so in order to combat this, they came up with the "a diamond is forever" slogan to discourage people from buying or selling "used" diamonds. so instead of mothers passing their diamonds down to their daughter, or to their son to give to his fiancée, men and women are encouraged to purchase brand new diamonds as a symbol of their "eternal" love for one another.
the result of this marketing campaign is that used or second-hand diamonds have very low resale value. consumers don't want to buy used rings or jewelry. because of the lack of demand for them, De Beers is able to purchase up all of these second-hand diamonds, re-polish and re-set them, and then sell them as brand new diamonds at the artificially inflated prices. so in the end, this intentionally reduction of resale value add huge profits to the cartel's monopoly.
with games, it's not quite so extreme, but there's still a socialized reluctance to purchase used games. i mean, everyone wants the latest and greatest gaming title. no one even wants to buy a 2-year-old unused game from the bargain bin. except for legacy systems and hardcore gamers, there's very little demand for refurbished games. it's just not even a notion gamers are accustomed to. most people aren't in the habit of shopping for used games the way that people shop for used cars. so in the end, the negative impact this one-time bonus policy might have on resale value won't really make much of an impact on market demand.
disincentives don't work either. at least this won't alienate customers if it doesn't work. also, the end of your example demonstrates the problem with the disincentive-based approach, not with the positive incentive-based approach.
i'd much rather developers take this tact than to make it illegal to sell used games/CDs/DVDs. at least this doesn't encroach on fair use rights and doesn't take an anti-consumer attitude.
now that's the direction we should be moving in. instead of ever more bloated software to cancel out any increase in hardware performance, we should start seeing cheaper and lower-end hardware sufficing for casual daily computer usage. as a result, we should see web browsing capabilities cascading down to smaller and smaller portable devices.
the rise in netbooks and the surge of other web-accessible smart appliances should transform the traditional web browsing experience into a transparent function of daily living. but this requires that netbooks and other smart devices provide the same intrinsic web browsing experience as desktop computers and laptops.
the WAP/WMLHTTP/HTML (mobiledesktop) divergence model proved to be a failure. this was because WAP browsers provided a crippled web browsing experience with no resemblance to the useful and convenient web experience users were accustomed to on their computers. people don't want a stripped down version of the web for their mobile devices. the whole point of smart devices is so that you can use the genuine web, in all of its original glory, anytime and anywhere you want.
people don't want to pay exorbitant fees for a cellular data plan just so they can find out that their favorite sites don't have a netbook-optimized version. until the day people are using their browsers to edit videos or do CAD work, there shouldn't be a separate tier of web applications just for sub-laptop devices.
heh, you could always sell me your camera (is it a DSLR?) since i'm in the market for one at the moment. i'm using my dad's Nikon D50 right now, but i really need to get my own as i need to use it for work.
this is my DA profile btw, though i don't have much on there at the moment. i took a figure drawing and a 2d design class last year hoping to learn some basic studio art techniques and get my fundamentals down, but i haven't really touched my art supplies since then. i don't want to let the acrylics i bought go to waste, but the 2d design instructor i ended up with taught us jack all about actual painting technique.
and game programming sounds pretty interesting, especially a 3d racing game. i wouldn't mind porting Racer to the PSP, but in all my years of programming i've yet to learn C++. i know, it's quite sad. in retrospect i wish i hadn't wasted all those years learning VB and had instead just gone with C or C++ from the start. i guess now is as good a time as ever to pick it up. i'll probably start with some simple practice projects on my desktop and then see if i can give homebrew on the PSP a go. and if i can get the hang of programming in C++ by the time Pandora is officially released, i might just pick one up also. but unlike you i still have to learn how to code in C++ before i make that investment.
i know a lot of people complain about certain sites with AJAX interfaces being unbearably slow and resource-intensive, but i just haven't observed this.
i'm running a 4-year old Dell 2.8 GHz with 1 GB of RAM. it was a top of the line desktop when i first got it, but it can't hold a match against today's PCs, and i've rarely had any slowdowns due JavaScript alone. sure, if there's a digg discussion with 900+ comments, it'll take Firefox a few seconds to load it all, but those are extreme circumstances (though a little pagination would easily solve the problem) and not due to inherent complexity of the JavaScript implementation.
even a modestly powered netbook should have no problem with most AJAX interfaces. the YUI framework has some pretty slick JavaScript & AJAX UI implementations that really push the envelop in terms of responsive web interfaces, but even those interface elements aren't that resource intensive. the WYSIWYG editor control is a little heavy, but even a netbook should be able to handle it just fine--assuming they're not using a bloated and naturally resource-consuming browser.
there's a huge difference between not being able to do video editing on a system, and not being able to run web applications on it. but then again, i don't have a netbook. so we'll have to see what netbook owners have to say on this issue. personally though, i don't think web apps have gotten to the point where they require a dual core workstation to run smoothly on. if anything, it's the OSes and browser clients themselves that need slimming down.
well, i guess such e-book readers do make sense for you and people with similar circumstances. but i think it'll continue to be a niche market for a while.
having an e-ink device instead of lugging around 30-40 lbs. of books would be a great improvement. unfortunately, i don't think textbook publishers would risk the potential for piracy by distributing textbooks in digital format. if they did, that would mean further proliferation of the trusted computing platform for DRMed e-books. in that case, students still lose out as they can no longer recoup the cost of their textbooks by reselling them at the end of the semester.
but perhaps the academic publishing sector is long due for sweeping reforms. their business model of shafting schools and students with new editions of $100~200 books each year is increasingly making higher education inaccessible to a large portion of the population. they will either need to find a more equitable (ethical) business model, or alternative institutions, such as MIT OpenCourseWare, will replace them in the age of digital academic publishing.
by before any of this can happen e-book readers would have to support color graphics and faster refresh rates. when that happens then i think dedicated e-book readers will finally gain mainstream adoption.
hrmm... right now i'm using Bookr (i used to run PSPDF, but i think that project is dead). but these are homebrew solutions that void your warranty, which a lot of consumers might be afraid to do. i just think e-book support would be a major selling point for a lot of potential PSP buyers (it's one of my favorite uses for the PSP).
but the HTML method is a good solution too that i'd never even thought of. i might just develop a browser-based e-book library so that i can run the application on a local web server and browse my entire e-book collection via the PSP's browser. thanks for giving me the idea. =]
i already have a lot of text/html formatted e-books from Project Gutenberg, and i know there are several PDF->HTML converters online. i just have to find an open source implementation or perhaps use one of the web-based services somehow.
i agree that the longer battery life is a significant advantage, but i hardly think that the technology being packaged is worth $300~400. if anything, they should be cheaper than portable entertainment devices like the PSP. if they were, i would go out and get one immediately.
personally, i'm not really affected by the eyestrain caused by LCD screens, but maybe that's because i'm used to staring at the computer screen all day long. it's probably not good for me, but i'm more accustomed to reading on an LCD screen than print media, so it doesn't bother me.
frankly, e-ink devices are still too overpriced and underpowered to be viable for anyone other than early adopters. for most people, laptops, PSPs, netbooks, smart phones, and other LCD devices are much better choices, offering more robust feature sets and better value.
i agree that Motorola has a lot of problems (i owned a RAZR, and while it was kinda cool at first, the software was terribly crippled), but i don't think this is a bad move on their part.
by joining the OHA and adopting Adroid (and investing in the platform), they are participating the development of the next major mobile platform. not are they going to have the advantages of interoperability with other handset makers and technologies, but they will also have access to the shared resources of this cross-industry alliance. by participating in industry summits and discussions, they can learn form other companies where they have failed in the past.
and really, you can't put all of the blame on Motorola. handset makers are often restricted by the cellular carriers regarding what they can or can't do with their handsets. that is the problem with proprietary networks and our current telecommunications landscape. a lot of handsets were designed with tons of great features and using open standards, but are then rebranded by the carriers and have their firmware & OS crippled to fit the carrier's business model.
that is why many phones with mp3 playback functionality will not allow you to use mp3 clips as ringtones--because telecoms like T-mobile want to sell ringtones to consumers at extortionate prices. there's not much a handset maker can do about this. and most of the OSes that end users see are heavily modified by their mobile carrier to lock the handset to their network and alter the user experience.
i think Sony should add e-book reader functionality to the PSP. it's not as big as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, but its high-quality screen is very easy to read text on. the only major benefit to the Kindle & Sony Reader are that they use e-ink displays which are viewable under direct sunlight.
but i still prefer the PSP as it doesn't have the slow refresh rate of e-ink displays, can produce vibrant colors for reading magazines and other e-books containing graphics, and has wi-fi and web browsing capabilities.
i already use my PSP to read PDF e-books and listen to audiobooks, but it would be nice if Sony added these features to the official firmware to fully integrate such functionality to the device. the hardware is already perfect for it; they just need to develop the software to take advantage of the hardware. it would be more productive than releasing constant firmware updates just to combat "piracy" (homebrew) that add no value to the system.
it would also be nice to have a wireless standard for ebook readers so that you can take your Kindle/Sony Reader/PSP/iPhone/etc. to the library and then directly check out ebooks from the library via wi-fi. it could also be used to exchange books with other devices, or access your home e-book library over a WLAN. so instead of having to get up and go to the computer to find a particular title in your library, you could just browse through the available selection on the eb-book reader's display.
if such a standard were established, i could see a lot of libraries providing public e-book readers that can be checked out or used within the library. instead of having to get up to search for a book at a computer terminal and then wander the library looking for the right shelf, you could simply type in what you're looking for in the e-book reader and then load it onto the screen.
the LHC contains 150 million sensors collecting 700 MB per second.
the experiment accelerates beams composed of multiple "bunches" of 1.1 x 10^11 protons each.
each of the aforementioned beams contains 2808 "bunches."
when the beams converge they cause 600 million collisions per second.
each collision between two protons produces many smaller subatomic particles.
scientists are tracking the paths in which the resultant subatomic particles travel not just to find detectable post-collision phenomena, but they are also looking to see what is missing from those impact images (what their sensors cannot pick up). this will allow scientists to predict strange and interesting new particles that science has yet to discover. but in order to detect what is missing, they have to make sure to record all that is there (or not missing). and that means tracking perhaps tens of billions of particles and their travel path in 3-dimensions at very high resolutions, and at very high sampling rates.
technically you are right about what licenses are. but what open source licenses all have in common is that they aim to make the software source code the most freely available to others, thus maximizing its utility, with the minimal licensing restrictions to achieve this goal.
Microsoft's use of "open source" not only goes against the spirit of FOSS, but also violates the basic definition of "Open Source" used by the OSI:
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups - The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor - The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product - The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software - The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
in the end, what "open source" means is defined by the community. it is what the community finds acceptable and conducive to the goals of the Open Source movement. if they decide that they are willing to accept Microsoft's definition of "open source" then the Ms-LPL can be called a genuinely open source license. however, that would require changing the current accepted definition of open source. but not only would that require arriving at a new consensus, but it would likely destroy the open source movement by undermining its original aim of fostering open collaboration and combat the increasingly restrictive IP laws and cultural attitudes.
um... i really don't think their membership was motivated by "pure desperation" considering how many major industry players are a part of the Open Handset Alliance:
China Mobile - the world's largest mobile phone operator.
KDDI - formed in 2000 in a 3-way merger and is already Japan's second-largest cellular operator with 20% market share and growing.
NTT DoCoMo - the number one mobile phone operator in Japan.
HTC - a premier Taiwanese ODM who designs a large number of popular handsets which are sold rebranded by major carriers like: Orange, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, O2, Vodafone, AT&T, Alltel, Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility. (the T-Mobile G1 was originally conceived as the HTC Dream.)
Telecom Italia - the largest Italian phone company and cellular operator.
Telefonica - the dominant phone operator in Spain, and the 3rd largest carrier in the world. (behind China Mobile and Vodafone)
Broadcom - one of the top 20 semiconductor/IC suppliers in the world (after companies such as Panasonic, Qualcomm, NEC, etc.)
Qualcomm - another top 20 worldwide semiconductor sales leader. they also developed EV-DO and other CDMA-based wireless transmission standards.
Marvell Technology Group - producer of storage, communications, and semiconductor products. they designed the first Gigabit all-CMOS read channel, the first Gigabit-capable system-on-a-chip (embedded system), and the first SATA interface solution. their wireless devices are used in the OLPC program.
Synaptics - a touchpad OEM provider for most laptop manufacturers, like Asus, Acer, Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, Gateway, IBM, Lenovo, Samsung, Packard Bell, etc.
not to mention the more well-known members, such as: Spring Nextel, T-Mobile, Intel, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Google, eBay, LG, and Samsung. given the purpose of the Open Handset Alliance, it wouldn't make sense for Motorola not to be a member. Microsoft and Apple are pretty much the only industry leaders for it not to make sense for them to join the OHA.
if you want to remain a relevant player in the mobile industry, wouldn't it make sense for you to be a part of the organization that is developing the open standards that are going to be used? unless you have an exclusive contract with Microsoft to only use Windows Mobile, or have your own mobile platform like the iPhone, and thus do not require interoperability with any other technologies.
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true, but there are other advantages.
for instance, if electronic implants become more mainstream, it would be useful for certain applications to power the implanted device via electrocytes rather than a rechargeable battery. rechargeable batteries, like all chemical batteries, wear out over time, and need to be replaced. this may require invasive surgery. if instead the patient were also given a bioimplant of electrocytes around the electronic device, then there would be guaranteed power source for the rest of the patient's life since the electrocytes would be self-replicating.
and the inefficiency of metabolic (or catabolic in this case) processes isn't an issue. most people living in developed nations have an excess of fat stores and energy reserves. and outside of extreme survival situations, most people don't have to ration their food intake or energy expenditure. it's not like having some electrocyte implants will cause a person to eat more food. an average person's food intake has nothing to do with their energy expenditure. most people can probably use burning some extra calories once in a while.
because straw man attacks in completely unrelated discussions are the only time when the global warming deniers can feign a winning argument--since they can't refute actual scientific evidence that supports global warming (like the currently accepted climate model). but i'm sure these armchair climatologists know much better than IPCC researchers and scientists.
or maybe it's because any kind of social/political/environmental activism is unfashionable in the eyes of mainstream culture. it's much cooler to be apathetic and uninformed. and ridiculing those trying to make the world a better place helps ease the guilt of one's inaction.
as opposed to a long winded terse description?
isn't it customary for the courts to throw out illegally obtained evidence? it's my understanding that this is done so as to discourage prosecutors & law enforcement from doing illegal/warrantless searches.
if the courts routinely allowed illegally obtained evidence/testimony/etc. to be used, then it would encourage law enforcement professionals to encroach on the rights of individuals if they think it will get a conviction. if you don't throw out confessions obtained through torture, then law enforcement will start using torture to gain confessions--it's the same principle.
i know that many people hold personal prejudices against drug users, but a corruption of justice is a corruption of justice, regardless of who it happens to. it just happens to drug users and low income individuals more often because they can't defend themselves, and they have more run ins with the law.
one of my good friends in Chicago was a former heroin addict. he was a really friendly guy and a kind and honest person. however, he started using heroin at a very young age. this inevitably landed him in jail. he's in his late 20's now and has been through the system many times on drug possession charges (never for drug dealing or theft, or anything other than drug possession). and he's recounted to me several occasions where he's been wrongly imprisoned due to clerical error.
one time in particular he'd just finished serving time for a drug offense (i think it was something like a 6 month sentence), and the very weekend he got out he was picked up again and taken back to jail. he hadn't broken any laws, but the patrol vehicle computer showed that he had an outstanding warrant. apparently the warrant was issued while he was doing time for his last sentence. the warrant was for an offense registered in a different county, and so they didn't realize that he was already in prison. he knew that there'd been a mistake, but he couldn't make bail and ended up having to spend another few weeks in jail until it was shown that he'd been falsely imprisoned and the warrant shouldn't have been issued in the first place.
"fair use" probably wasn't the right phrase to use there. i mean consumer rights in general.
and anti-consumer isn't the same as anti-consumerism. anti-consumer means placing the interests of businesses/sellers above consumers/buyers.
and while it's currently not illegal to sell used games/CDs/DVDs at the moment, we are headed in that direction.
what major retail chain carries used games? i know there are a few popular record stores around here that sell used CDs, DVDs, and vinyls, but even such music stores are few and far between.
not being able to find a used copy of a particular game doesn't really mean anything. that could be the result of the story simply not having a supply of that title because few owners are reselling it. that could also be the result of the game being inherently rare.
granted, i live in an upper-middle class suburb, but i've known a lot of gamers of different socioeconomic backgrounds--from gamers who came from blue collar families to my first college roommate whose dad was a corporate CEO. and i rarely heard of anyone purchasing a used game for their PC or current gen system.
these days most people buy PS & PS2 games used, yes. but that's because those are now legacy systems (i know the PS2 is still officially supported, but it's been out for nearly a decade).
most big video game retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. don't even sell 2nd-hand games. maybe that's just the area that i live in, but unless you're ordering them off of eBay, you have to get your games new around here.
i thought the BD live content was extra content only downloaded once when you first play the disc--things like bonus scenes, soundtracks, ringtones, and other promo material--rather than just video streamed live each time you play it. i mean, that's the impression this kotaku article gives.
so all this is just so that the BD you bought will show you the latest movie advertisements each time it's played? that hardly seems worthwhile. preview trailers are something you skip over, not something you waste bandwidth on.
i wouldn't have thought that Sony or the movie studios would waste money and resources to provide each BD release with an ever-changing online video stream. just keeping the servers up would be expensive enough, but they'd also have to pay people to constantly update the live content for each disc they put out. and for 5 years? how much would it cost to produce or license 5 years worth of live content? that's like running a really unprofitable TV station that people only watch for 15-20 minutes once every few months.
how much live content is there usually? with the huge capacity of dual-layer BDs wouldn't it be more efficient to just put the live content on the disc itself in the first place?
i mean, unless they're having users download more than 4~5 GB of data, it should be possible to squeeze the live content onto the BD by compressing the movie by 1% or stripping out previews. and if they are having users download more than 5 GB of data then that seems really impractical anyway.
the only thing i see live content being good for is perhaps for downloading extra subtitle languages so studios don't have to print localized discs for smaller markets, or perhaps you're a Czech living in the U.S. and want to buy a BD at the local Best Buy but still want Czech subs, etc. and depending on how compressed the audio streams are, they could also do this with alternate language streams.
as long as we rely on private sector funded commercial research to advance medical science/technology, we will run into the issue of potential researcher bias as there's an inherent conflict of interest. this is also true of the pharmaceutical industry.
unless we as a society decide that public research is an important area of government funding, problems of slanted studies and deceptive/false research findings will continue to plague the medical field and other areas of research which depend on corporate funding. certain things need to be placed above profit, such as public good. our commerce-driven culture has huge social costs, including the commodification of health, science, and human knowledge.
if this technology & research were backed by public-funding the issue of objectivity wouldn't be clouded by commercial interests. but as it is right now, we'll just have to place faith in the scientific integrity of the researchers, and if we're lucky other independent researchers will come along to verify the results. but there's only so much publicly-funded research and grant money to go around. this doesn't seem like a popular enough issue to receive attention from public research.
that's a statistically insignificant difference in accuracy. i think the conclusion to be drawn from this is that computer-aided detection is much more effective than an unaided human expert. this has significant implications when doing cost-benefit analysis.
the cost of an extra computer is likely a lot less than another technician or radiologist. so this data will help medical institutions make better use of funds while improving quality of patient care. it doesn't mean they have to lay off their radiologists/technicians and replace them with computers, but perhaps they could add a computer to their radiology lab and allocate new personnel for other tasks that demand human judgment.
what you're saying makes sense, but it's more complicated than that. i mean, resale value is a huge factor when it comes to cars, homes, and other large items that people frequently resale and also put a lot more thought into purchasing (and negotiating the purchase).
with gaming, it's almost an inelastic demand. if you want a particular game, there's only one publisher. you can't substitute a competing product for it. and all mainstream game publishers pretty much have the same general anti-consumer attitude. so it's not the same as buying an Honda/Toyota instead of a Ford/GM because imports have much higher resale values than domestics. that kind of decision-making process doesn't factor into game purchases. there's also less of a market for used games, and this is due to cultural as well as legal factors.
think about diamonds and engagement rings. the De Beers cartel has launched one of the most successful (and insidious) marketing/advertising campaigns in the history of consumerism. not only did they inject their product into our cultural institutions and traditions (diamond engagement rings are a relatively new phenomenon in the history of human marriage), but they have also gone as far as to manipulate our cultural values to suit their business model.
the whole "a diamond is forever" commercial campaign was tied into a much larger marketing campaign aimed at stopping the resale of diamonds. De Beers works very hard to control the global supply of diamonds to create an artificial scarcity which drives prices up, but that would be undermined if the market were flooded with second-hand diamonds. so in order to combat this, they came up with the "a diamond is forever" slogan to discourage people from buying or selling "used" diamonds. so instead of mothers passing their diamonds down to their daughter, or to their son to give to his fiancée, men and women are encouraged to purchase brand new diamonds as a symbol of their "eternal" love for one another.
the result of this marketing campaign is that used or second-hand diamonds have very low resale value. consumers don't want to buy used rings or jewelry. because of the lack of demand for them, De Beers is able to purchase up all of these second-hand diamonds, re-polish and re-set them, and then sell them as brand new diamonds at the artificially inflated prices. so in the end, this intentionally reduction of resale value add huge profits to the cartel's monopoly.
with games, it's not quite so extreme, but there's still a socialized reluctance to purchase used games. i mean, everyone wants the latest and greatest gaming title. no one even wants to buy a 2-year-old unused game from the bargain bin. except for legacy systems and hardcore gamers, there's very little demand for refurbished games. it's just not even a notion gamers are accustomed to. most people aren't in the habit of shopping for used games the way that people shop for used cars. so in the end, the negative impact this one-time bonus policy might have on resale value won't really make much of an impact on market demand.
disincentives don't work either. at least this won't alienate customers if it doesn't work. also, the end of your example demonstrates the problem with the disincentive-based approach, not with the positive incentive-based approach.
i'd much rather developers take this tact than to make it illegal to sell used games/CDs/DVDs. at least this doesn't encroach on fair use rights and doesn't take an anti-consumer attitude.
now that's the direction we should be moving in. instead of ever more bloated software to cancel out any increase in hardware performance, we should start seeing cheaper and lower-end hardware sufficing for casual daily computer usage. as a result, we should see web browsing capabilities cascading down to smaller and smaller portable devices.
the rise in netbooks and the surge of other web-accessible smart appliances should transform the traditional web browsing experience into a transparent function of daily living. but this requires that netbooks and other smart devices provide the same intrinsic web browsing experience as desktop computers and laptops.
the WAP/WMLHTTP/HTML (mobiledesktop) divergence model proved to be a failure. this was because WAP browsers provided a crippled web browsing experience with no resemblance to the useful and convenient web experience users were accustomed to on their computers. people don't want a stripped down version of the web for their mobile devices. the whole point of smart devices is so that you can use the genuine web, in all of its original glory, anytime and anywhere you want.
people don't want to pay exorbitant fees for a cellular data plan just so they can find out that their favorite sites don't have a netbook-optimized version. until the day people are using their browsers to edit videos or do CAD work, there shouldn't be a separate tier of web applications just for sub-laptop devices.
heh, you could always sell me your camera (is it a DSLR?) since i'm in the market for one at the moment. i'm using my dad's Nikon D50 right now, but i really need to get my own as i need to use it for work.
this is my DA profile btw, though i don't have much on there at the moment. i took a figure drawing and a 2d design class last year hoping to learn some basic studio art techniques and get my fundamentals down, but i haven't really touched my art supplies since then. i don't want to let the acrylics i bought go to waste, but the 2d design instructor i ended up with taught us jack all about actual painting technique.
and game programming sounds pretty interesting, especially a 3d racing game. i wouldn't mind porting Racer to the PSP, but in all my years of programming i've yet to learn C++. i know, it's quite sad. in retrospect i wish i hadn't wasted all those years learning VB and had instead just gone with C or C++ from the start. i guess now is as good a time as ever to pick it up. i'll probably start with some simple practice projects on my desktop and then see if i can give homebrew on the PSP a go. and if i can get the hang of programming in C++ by the time Pandora is officially released, i might just pick one up also. but unlike you i still have to learn how to code in C++ before i make that investment.
i know a lot of people complain about certain sites with AJAX interfaces being unbearably slow and resource-intensive, but i just haven't observed this.
i'm running a 4-year old Dell 2.8 GHz with 1 GB of RAM. it was a top of the line desktop when i first got it, but it can't hold a match against today's PCs, and i've rarely had any slowdowns due JavaScript alone. sure, if there's a digg discussion with 900+ comments, it'll take Firefox a few seconds to load it all, but those are extreme circumstances (though a little pagination would easily solve the problem) and not due to inherent complexity of the JavaScript implementation.
even a modestly powered netbook should have no problem with most AJAX interfaces. the YUI framework has some pretty slick JavaScript & AJAX UI implementations that really push the envelop in terms of responsive web interfaces, but even those interface elements aren't that resource intensive. the WYSIWYG editor control is a little heavy, but even a netbook should be able to handle it just fine--assuming they're not using a bloated and naturally resource-consuming browser.
there's a huge difference between not being able to do video editing on a system, and not being able to run web applications on it. but then again, i don't have a netbook. so we'll have to see what netbook owners have to say on this issue. personally though, i don't think web apps have gotten to the point where they require a dual core workstation to run smoothly on. if anything, it's the OSes and browser clients themselves that need slimming down.
well, i guess such e-book readers do make sense for you and people with similar circumstances. but i think it'll continue to be a niche market for a while.
having an e-ink device instead of lugging around 30-40 lbs. of books would be a great improvement. unfortunately, i don't think textbook publishers would risk the potential for piracy by distributing textbooks in digital format. if they did, that would mean further proliferation of the trusted computing platform for DRMed e-books. in that case, students still lose out as they can no longer recoup the cost of their textbooks by reselling them at the end of the semester.
but perhaps the academic publishing sector is long due for sweeping reforms. their business model of shafting schools and students with new editions of $100~200 books each year is increasingly making higher education inaccessible to a large portion of the population. they will either need to find a more equitable (ethical) business model, or alternative institutions, such as MIT OpenCourseWare, will replace them in the age of digital academic publishing.
by before any of this can happen e-book readers would have to support color graphics and faster refresh rates. when that happens then i think dedicated e-book readers will finally gain mainstream adoption.
hrmm... right now i'm using Bookr (i used to run PSPDF, but i think that project is dead). but these are homebrew solutions that void your warranty, which a lot of consumers might be afraid to do. i just think e-book support would be a major selling point for a lot of potential PSP buyers (it's one of my favorite uses for the PSP).
but the HTML method is a good solution too that i'd never even thought of. i might just develop a browser-based e-book library so that i can run the application on a local web server and browse my entire e-book collection via the PSP's browser. thanks for giving me the idea. =]
i already have a lot of text/html formatted e-books from Project Gutenberg, and i know there are several PDF->HTML converters online. i just have to find an open source implementation or perhaps use one of the web-based services somehow.
i agree that the longer battery life is a significant advantage, but i hardly think that the technology being packaged is worth $300~400. if anything, they should be cheaper than portable entertainment devices like the PSP. if they were, i would go out and get one immediately.
personally, i'm not really affected by the eyestrain caused by LCD screens, but maybe that's because i'm used to staring at the computer screen all day long. it's probably not good for me, but i'm more accustomed to reading on an LCD screen than print media, so it doesn't bother me.
frankly, e-ink devices are still too overpriced and underpowered to be viable for anyone other than early adopters. for most people, laptops, PSPs, netbooks, smart phones, and other LCD devices are much better choices, offering more robust feature sets and better value.
i agree that Motorola has a lot of problems (i owned a RAZR, and while it was kinda cool at first, the software was terribly crippled), but i don't think this is a bad move on their part.
by joining the OHA and adopting Adroid (and investing in the platform), they are participating the development of the next major mobile platform. not are they going to have the advantages of interoperability with other handset makers and technologies, but they will also have access to the shared resources of this cross-industry alliance. by participating in industry summits and discussions, they can learn form other companies where they have failed in the past.
and really, you can't put all of the blame on Motorola. handset makers are often restricted by the cellular carriers regarding what they can or can't do with their handsets. that is the problem with proprietary networks and our current telecommunications landscape. a lot of handsets were designed with tons of great features and using open standards, but are then rebranded by the carriers and have their firmware & OS crippled to fit the carrier's business model.
that is why many phones with mp3 playback functionality will not allow you to use mp3 clips as ringtones--because telecoms like T-mobile want to sell ringtones to consumers at extortionate prices. there's not much a handset maker can do about this. and most of the OSes that end users see are heavily modified by their mobile carrier to lock the handset to their network and alter the user experience.
i think Sony should add e-book reader functionality to the PSP. it's not as big as the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader, but its high-quality screen is very easy to read text on. the only major benefit to the Kindle & Sony Reader are that they use e-ink displays which are viewable under direct sunlight.
but i still prefer the PSP as it doesn't have the slow refresh rate of e-ink displays, can produce vibrant colors for reading magazines and other e-books containing graphics, and has wi-fi and web browsing capabilities.
i already use my PSP to read PDF e-books and listen to audiobooks, but it would be nice if Sony added these features to the official firmware to fully integrate such functionality to the device. the hardware is already perfect for it; they just need to develop the software to take advantage of the hardware. it would be more productive than releasing constant firmware updates just to combat "piracy" (homebrew) that add no value to the system.
it would also be nice to have a wireless standard for ebook readers so that you can take your Kindle/Sony Reader/PSP/iPhone/etc. to the library and then directly check out ebooks from the library via wi-fi. it could also be used to exchange books with other devices, or access your home e-book library over a WLAN. so instead of having to get up and go to the computer to find a particular title in your library, you could just browse through the available selection on the eb-book reader's display.
if such a standard were established, i could see a lot of libraries providing public e-book readers that can be checked out or used within the library. instead of having to get up to search for a book at a computer terminal and then wander the library looking for the right shelf, you could simply type in what you're looking for in the e-book reader and then load it onto the screen.
consider that:
scientists are tracking the paths in which the resultant subatomic particles travel not just to find detectable post-collision phenomena, but they are also looking to see what is missing from those impact images (what their sensors cannot pick up). this will allow scientists to predict strange and interesting new particles that science has yet to discover. but in order to detect what is missing, they have to make sure to record all that is there (or not missing). and that means tracking perhaps tens of billions of particles and their travel path in 3-dimensions at very high resolutions, and at very high sampling rates.
technically you are right about what licenses are. but what open source licenses all have in common is that they aim to make the software source code the most freely available to others, thus maximizing its utility, with the minimal licensing restrictions to achieve this goal.
Microsoft's use of "open source" not only goes against the spirit of FOSS, but also violates the basic definition of "Open Source" used by the OSI:
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups - The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor - The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product - The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software - The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
in the end, what "open source" means is defined by the community. it is what the community finds acceptable and conducive to the goals of the Open Source movement. if they decide that they are willing to accept Microsoft's definition of "open source" then the Ms-LPL can be called a genuinely open source license. however, that would require changing the current accepted definition of open source. but not only would that require arriving at a new consensus, but it would likely destroy the open source movement by undermining its original aim of fostering open collaboration and combat the increasingly restrictive IP laws and cultural attitudes.
um... i really don't think their membership was motivated by "pure desperation" considering how many major industry players are a part of the Open Handset Alliance:
not to mention the more well-known members, such as: Spring Nextel, T-Mobile, Intel, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Google, eBay, LG, and Samsung. given the purpose of the Open Handset Alliance, it wouldn't make sense for Motorola not to be a member. Microsoft and Apple are pretty much the only industry leaders for it not to make sense for them to join the OHA.
if you want to remain a relevant player in the mobile industry, wouldn't it make sense for you to be a part of the organization that is developing the open standards that are going to be used? unless you have an exclusive contract with Microsoft to only use Windows Mobile, or have your own mobile platform like the iPhone, and thus do not require interoperability with any other technologies.
damn foreigners and their backward octals and hexes. twos do not belong in a numeral system!
i hope they get Dr. Noonien "Often Wrong" Soong. he's unquestionably the best Android developer in this quadrant.