The original iBook was hardly "next wave": its generally curvy lines and clamshell broadly resembled the Wallstreet and Lombard PowerBooks that preceded it; the colour schemes resembled the iMac, which also preceded it. The icebook suits your point much better. Not only did it herald "white is for consumer," it provided the template for the 12" PowerBook.
When you authorize a computer, it send information about that computer to Apple's server, then checks against it when you want to play a protected song.
Sort of. When you authorize a computer, Apple's server creates a key associated with your account and computer. The key is sent back to your computer. If the key is present, you can play your purchased music -- no need to be on the internet. That's also why you don't have to authorize iPods, but you do need to transfer purchased music from an authorized computer. No key, no transfer.
Presumably that's also why you can't play the files on an authorized machine that's had its hard drive reformatted: the Apple server still lists it as authorized, but the local key has been erased.
That's what deauthorizing is for. It's recommended (required) before selling a computer, changing hard drives, other major service, etc.
The risk is that there would be no possibility of doing a new authorization if the store is ever shuttered...but presumably there'd be a hack of some kind if that ever happened.
The idea is that you can copy/backup the files freely, but you need an authorized device to actually play them: up to five computers (requires "phoning home" once to obtain keys), unlimited iPods (no call to mothership required -- keys are transferred from computer to iPod). In all cases, keys are tied to a particular music store account.
The lack of limits on iPods sounds like a "ha, ha, of course they're happy if you buy ten iPods" deal, but it actually can facilitate sharing among friends: you could hook up your iPod to your friend's computer and drag over whatever you please (within iTunes, not through the filesystem). The one hitch is that the files can't be copied from a non-authorized computer to an iPod, since the computer doesn't have the keys for those files.
That's possible, but I'm not convinced. Savvy reporters and savvy sources know how far they can go without crossing the line, and a good reporter can take innocuous bits from multiple sources and piece them together.
In any case, I actually believe the true answer is "the leak came from the highest levels of Apple and/or Intel." The SEC wouldn't like that, so we'll probably never know for sure.
Where's the evidence that Cnet, the WSJ and/or the NYT solicited/induced anyone to break their NDA? (Which is the alleged activity that has Think Secret et al in hot water.)
Maybe the source(s) came forward voluntarily.
Maybe the source(s) kept their leaks vague enough to keep everyone's sweet ass well-covered.
Maybe it's a little early for news of a lawsuit to be out.
OK, I see your point, but it renders the Bible (per se) irrelevant to the process. (Which is probably for the best, because stirring up the ire of fanatics by messing with sacred texts is not such a great idea.)
I think the critical point is that the corpus has to be fed with translations that are known and accepted to be accurate ( having gone through some kind of QA process). If you feed it willy-nilly with controversial or sloppy translations, the chances of getting garbage out rise dramatically.
In the case of the Bible you have different interpretations that have led to wars and schisms: the very same passages of original text translated in a variety of different ways with different meanings, not just styllistically different turns of phrase.
Please explain how the "magic" of statistics can discern which of them, if any, is an accurate reflection of the orignal, and then use that result as a guide to translating between languages. You certainly can't "average" them.
I'm not saying that problems such as this will never be solved, and I do believe that statistical brute force is the surest path to useful MT, but on the other hand I don't think these problems are trivial and subject to simple solutions.
It's one thing to use formulaic bureaucratic prose to train a statistical engine to translate still more formulaic bureaucratic prose, quite another to expect easy success with richly idiomatic literary works.
Can you back that up? AFAIK, the French are just as obsessed as the English when it comes to producing "true" translations from the original texts. There is no French-language Bible that I know of that's a translation of an English translation.
In any case, the core issue isn't whether a translation is modern. While I think most would agree that it would be best to use a modern version based directly on the original languages, there is still the problem that no two translations agree fully on exactly how to read and interpret the originals, especially the Hebrew and Aramaic parts. And there are numerous competing translations made based on the original languages, at least in English.
This still doesn't get around the problem that there are competing translations of the Bible that each interpret things quite differently. (This is the case in English and French, and no doubt other languages.) Modern vs. archaic is a trivial problem compared to setting debates over the precise true meaning of the older texts (the ones in Hebrew and Aramaic). This is less of a problem for the Greek bits (i.e. the New Testament), since there is broader consensus on how to read Ancient Greek.
If they use UN documents as a guide, the Google MT engine will be excellent at translating bureaucratese between languages. I'm not sure if that's a good thing!
Exactly. And the UN surely has fairly rigorous QA processes for its translations. Now try expanding the corpus with more translated copy.
In addition to feeding the system with translations that haven't been through formal QA (in many but not all cases), you also are now feeding it copy that has not had all the style deliberately squeezed out of it for easy translatability. (Which is the way they write in bi- and multilingual bureaucracies.)
If and when MT can handle that situation, I'll be impressed. But a "bureaucratese" translator seems like a much smaller challenge to me, relatively speaking.
The Bible raises a further interesting difficulty: in English alone there are many competing translations which all interpret the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin differently -- sometimes very differently.
On a smaller scale, the same issue arises with other literary works. For purposes of building a corpus, which translation of the Bible, or Balzac, or Tolstoy, do you select?
If humans can't agree on what is "good" or "faithful" in a translation, how do you trust a computer?
In a country that has the dictator with the longest time in office in the whole world, how much of a "legal framework" is needed, anyhow?
Easy: a carefully constructed legal framework is one of the things, possibly the single most important thing, that keeps Castro in power.
Re:Econmies of Scale -or- How an ISV Makes Money.
on
Mac mini's New Friend
·
· Score: 1
All of this is a long way to say the same damn thing I said hours ago: This device is overpriced and is therefore not news.
I agree with your points on pricing and features, but what you're missing, I think, is that this is the first peripheral to adopt the Mac mini form factor. Surely there will be many more, with different features (line in? ports on the front?) and probably different purposes and functionality entirely. But this is the first (isn't it?), mediocre though it may be.
So: it's the first example of a class of peripherals many Mac users have been waiting for...and besides, how often does "first" equal "best" and "reasonably priced"? Rarely, as far as I can remember.
Surely that's newsworthy in some small way. Note that it wasn't on the front page, either. Small news, discreet placement. Big deal.
Yes, I know they're not either/or. My point is simply that if we can get whatver we want from the net then cable, satellite, or specialty-channel subscriptions will suffer in the aggregate. In my case, unlimited DSL net access definitely does make cable TV a low priority. (Not that I would necessarily get ExpressVu if I decided I needed 500 channels of crap after all.)
And that is simply not in the TV providers' interest, including Bell's.
And Sympatico is a sister company to ExpressVu, so if a Sympatico customer downloads TV shows instead of installing a dish, they're directly chipping away at Bell's bottom line. And Bell Globemedia has content interests more generally, though granted they're not as extensive as Videotron's.
And yet Sympatico is apparently not on the same side of the fence as Videotron in this whole affair...not yet, anyway.
"The exemption in section 80 applies only when a copy is made for the private use of the person making it. This expressly excludes selling, renting out, exposing for trade or rental, distributing, communicating to the public by telecommunication, or performing in public the copy made. This means that making a copy of a CD of the latest release by the hottest star to give to one's friend is still an infringing action, as it is not a copy for personal use. In the same vein, distributing this same copy to friends online is prohibited." (page 23)
The same ruling mentions that permitted private copies don't actually need to be made onto levied media. (DVD-R, BTW, is not a levied medium.)
"Section 80" is section 80 of the Copyright Act, which says:
80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of
(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or
(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied
onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.
Limitation
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):
[...]
(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;
Another tidbit that may or may not be relevant: Private Copying under Canada's Copyright Act specifically applies to sound recordings. Nothing is said about video. (We just assume that time-shifting and the like is OK, so we do it.)
Also, there's no such thing as "Fair Use" in Canada. We have "Fair Dealing", which is similar, only different. Most of what's spelled out regarding fair dealing pertains to educational institutions, libraries, and researchers, not individuals. Though "private study" may be mentioned.
I completely agree that you're "pretty safe," but you remain mistaken if you think uploading your files is legal. Here's the relevant bit of the Copyright Act itself, Section 80:
80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of
(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or
(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied
onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.
Limitation
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):
[...]
(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;
[...]
Source: the Copyright Act. (You'll have to scroll down a fair way to get to the quoted bit.)
Explain to me how uploading (using default Bittorrent settings, for example) does not constitute "distributing." As far as I can tell, that's exactly what it is. And a simple Google search turns up numerous articles on this subject suggesting that downloading is legal and uploading is not.
Even the Copyright Board ruling you cited supports my argument: "The exemption in section 80 applies only when a copy is made for the private use of the person making it. This expressly excludes selling, renting out, exposing for trade or rental, distributing, communicating to the public by telecommunication, or performing in public the copy made. This means that making a copy of a CD of the latest release by the hottest star to give to one's friend is still an infringing action, as it is not a copy for personal use. In the same vein, distributing this same copy to friends online is prohibited." (page 23)
BTW, I too have used Bittorrent in this way (though only for probably 1% of my collection), so I'm definitely not chastising you for doing what you're doing; I don't personally have a problem with it. But unless you're setting your client not to upload, you are infringing under the law as it stands, if that matters to you. It seemed that it did, which is the only reason I mentioned it.
And if you're uploading at all (as others have said) or not burning your downloads to media on which you've paid the levy, you're technically a copyright infringer. (Assuming you're downloading material that's not meant to be freely available.)
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it seems you think you're in the clear when you probably aren't.
Slashdot Mirror
No wireless. Fewer buttons than a Logitech. Lame.
Not only stale, but the kind of rumor that's so bloody obvious that it must eventually come true.
The original iBook was hardly "next wave": its generally curvy lines and clamshell broadly resembled the Wallstreet and Lombard PowerBooks that preceded it; the colour schemes resembled the iMac, which also preceded it. The icebook suits your point much better. Not only did it herald "white is for consumer," it provided the template for the 12" PowerBook.
When you authorize a computer, it send information about that computer to Apple's server, then checks against it when you want to play a protected song.
Sort of. When you authorize a computer, Apple's server creates a key associated with your account and computer. The key is sent back to your computer. If the key is present, you can play your purchased music -- no need to be on the internet. That's also why you don't have to authorize iPods, but you do need to transfer purchased music from an authorized computer. No key, no transfer.
Presumably that's also why you can't play the files on an authorized machine that's had its hard drive reformatted: the Apple server still lists it as authorized, but the local key has been erased.
That's what deauthorizing is for. It's recommended (required) before selling a computer, changing hard drives, other major service, etc.
The risk is that there would be no possibility of doing a new authorization if the store is ever shuttered...but presumably there'd be a hack of some kind if that ever happened.
The idea is that you can copy/backup the files freely, but you need an authorized device to actually play them: up to five computers (requires "phoning home" once to obtain keys), unlimited iPods (no call to mothership required -- keys are transferred from computer to iPod). In all cases, keys are tied to a particular music store account.
The lack of limits on iPods sounds like a "ha, ha, of course they're happy if you buy ten iPods" deal, but it actually can facilitate sharing among friends: you could hook up your iPod to your friend's computer and drag over whatever you please (within iTunes, not through the filesystem). The one hitch is that the files can't be copied from a non-authorized computer to an iPod, since the computer doesn't have the keys for those files.
No, the DRM doesn't stop you from copying and burning the actual files as data.
How on earth does that count as "informative"? It's a purely speculative price comparison with hardware that doesn't exist yet.
So, eyeye, where did you get the "information" that Apple will charge a 50%+ premium for the same CPU, smaller HD, less RAM?
That's possible, but I'm not convinced. Savvy reporters and savvy sources know how far they can go without crossing the line, and a good reporter can take innocuous bits from multiple sources and piece them together.
In any case, I actually believe the true answer is "the leak came from the highest levels of Apple and/or Intel." The SEC wouldn't like that, so we'll probably never know for sure.
Where's the evidence that Cnet, the WSJ and/or the NYT solicited/induced anyone to break their NDA? (Which is the alleged activity that has Think Secret et al in hot water.)
Maybe the source(s) came forward voluntarily.
Maybe the source(s) kept their leaks vague enough to keep everyone's sweet ass well-covered.
Maybe it's a little early for news of a lawsuit to be out.
OK, I see your point, but it renders the Bible (per se) irrelevant to the process. (Which is probably for the best, because stirring up the ire of fanatics by messing with sacred texts is not such a great idea.)
I think the critical point is that the corpus has to be fed with translations that are known and accepted to be accurate ( having gone through some kind of QA process). If you feed it willy-nilly with controversial or sloppy translations, the chances of getting garbage out rise dramatically.
In the case of the Bible you have different interpretations that have led to wars and schisms: the very same passages of original text translated in a variety of different ways with different meanings, not just styllistically different turns of phrase.
Please explain how the "magic" of statistics can discern which of them, if any, is an accurate reflection of the orignal, and then use that result as a guide to translating between languages. You certainly can't "average" them.
I'm not saying that problems such as this will never be solved, and I do believe that statistical brute force is the surest path to useful MT, but on the other hand I don't think these problems are trivial and subject to simple solutions.
It's one thing to use formulaic bureaucratic prose to train a statistical engine to translate still more formulaic bureaucratic prose, quite another to expect easy success with richly idiomatic literary works.
Can you back that up? AFAIK, the French are just as obsessed as the English when it comes to producing "true" translations from the original texts. There is no French-language Bible that I know of that's a translation of an English translation.
In any case, the core issue isn't whether a translation is modern. While I think most would agree that it would be best to use a modern version based directly on the original languages, there is still the problem that no two translations agree fully on exactly how to read and interpret the originals, especially the Hebrew and Aramaic parts. And there are numerous competing translations made based on the original languages, at least in English.
This still doesn't get around the problem that there are competing translations of the Bible that each interpret things quite differently. (This is the case in English and French, and no doubt other languages.) Modern vs. archaic is a trivial problem compared to setting debates over the precise true meaning of the older texts (the ones in Hebrew and Aramaic). This is less of a problem for the Greek bits (i.e. the New Testament), since there is broader consensus on how to read Ancient Greek.
If they use UN documents as a guide, the Google MT engine will be excellent at translating bureaucratese between languages. I'm not sure if that's a good thing!
Exactly. And the UN surely has fairly rigorous QA processes for its translations. Now try expanding the corpus with more translated copy.
In addition to feeding the system with translations that haven't been through formal QA (in many but not all cases), you also are now feeding it copy that has not had all the style deliberately squeezed out of it for easy translatability. (Which is the way they write in bi- and multilingual bureaucracies.)
If and when MT can handle that situation, I'll be impressed. But a "bureaucratese" translator seems like a much smaller challenge to me, relatively speaking.
The Bible raises a further interesting difficulty: in English alone there are many competing translations which all interpret the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin differently -- sometimes very differently.
On a smaller scale, the same issue arises with other literary works. For purposes of building a corpus, which translation of the Bible, or Balzac, or Tolstoy, do you select?
If humans can't agree on what is "good" or "faithful" in a translation, how do you trust a computer?
Easy: a carefully constructed legal framework is one of the things, possibly the single most important thing, that keeps Castro in power.
All of this is a long way to say the same damn thing I said hours ago: This device is overpriced and is therefore not news.
I agree with your points on pricing and features, but what you're missing, I think, is that this is the first peripheral to adopt the Mac mini form factor. Surely there will be many more, with different features (line in? ports on the front?) and probably different purposes and functionality entirely. But this is the first (isn't it?), mediocre though it may be.
So: it's the first example of a class of peripherals many Mac users have been waiting for...and besides, how often does "first" equal "best" and "reasonably priced"? Rarely, as far as I can remember.
Surely that's newsworthy in some small way. Note that it wasn't on the front page, either. Small news, discreet placement. Big deal.
Yes, I know they're not either/or. My point is simply that if we can get whatver we want from the net then cable, satellite, or specialty-channel subscriptions will suffer in the aggregate. In my case, unlimited DSL net access definitely does make cable TV a low priority. (Not that I would necessarily get ExpressVu if I decided I needed 500 channels of crap after all.)
And that is simply not in the TV providers' interest, including Bell's.
Actually, I'd say they're very much for downloading music on the web...as long as it's from Archambault.
And Sympatico is a sister company to ExpressVu, so if a Sympatico customer downloads TV shows instead of installing a dish, they're directly chipping away at Bell's bottom line. And Bell Globemedia has content interests more generally, though granted they're not as extensive as Videotron's.
And yet Sympatico is apparently not on the same side of the fence as Videotron in this whole affair...not yet, anyway.
The same ruling mentions that permitted private copies don't actually need to be made onto levied media. (DVD-R, BTW, is not a levied medium.)
"Section 80" is section 80 of the Copyright Act, which says:
(Link to Copyright Act, Section 80)
Another tidbit that may or may not be relevant: Private Copying under Canada's Copyright Act specifically applies to sound recordings. Nothing is said about video. (We just assume that time-shifting and the like is OK, so we do it.)
Also, there's no such thing as "Fair Use" in Canada. We have "Fair Dealing", which is similar, only different. Most of what's spelled out regarding fair dealing pertains to educational institutions, libraries, and researchers, not individuals. Though "private study" may be mentioned.
IANAL.
BTW, it seems I was (thankfully) fla-out wrong that private copies must be onto a levied medium. So forget that bit.
Source: the Copyright Act. (You'll have to scroll down a fair way to get to the quoted bit.)
Explain to me how uploading (using default Bittorrent settings, for example) does not constitute "distributing." As far as I can tell, that's exactly what it is. And a simple Google search turns up numerous articles on this subject suggesting that downloading is legal and uploading is not.
Even the Copyright Board ruling you cited supports my argument: "The exemption in section 80 applies only when a copy is made for the private use of the person making it. This expressly excludes selling, renting out, exposing for trade or rental, distributing, communicating to the public by telecommunication, or performing in public the copy made. This means that making a copy of a CD of the latest release by the hottest star to give to one's friend is still an infringing action, as it is not a copy for personal use. In the same vein, distributing this same copy to friends online is prohibited." (page 23)
BTW, I too have used Bittorrent in this way (though only for probably 1% of my collection), so I'm definitely not chastising you for doing what you're doing; I don't personally have a problem with it. But unless you're setting your client not to upload, you are infringing under the law as it stands, if that matters to you. It seemed that it did, which is the only reason I mentioned it.
And if you're uploading at all (as others have said) or not burning your downloads to media on which you've paid the levy, you're technically a copyright infringer. (Assuming you're downloading material that's not meant to be freely available.)
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it seems you think you're in the clear when you probably aren't.