I don't see why. Both were very similar technologies. Only difference is that Sony required licensing, whereas VHS was an open standard. And VHS had bigger tapes.
Cost and availability of content is what defined the VHS/Betamax war
Content only became available later and merely confirmed consumer preference. It took a while though.
as well as the Blu-ray/HD war.
Definitely no. That "war" wasn't decided by consumers in the first place.
Hardware and carrier costs are not radically different with smart phones when they have comparable features.
I don't know what you're talking about. Looking at the selection of smart-phones available, most are significantly cheaper than the effective price of an iPhone, can be purchased without a contract and have more features than the iPhone. And at least in Europe I have a selection of a variety of different carriers which have more choice than the iPhone plans. That's how competition works.
Apart from the XBOX360, all platforms you mentioned allow users to run executable code. Whether or not you can use the full suite of SDKs or libraries doesn't matter. With iDevices, every piece of software, no matter how small and trivial, has to approved and published by Apple.
Apple is also the market leader in PC sales by that standard. And Sony's beat the crap out of VHS manufacturers, after all they were the only ones who made Betamax recorders.
latent anti-Apple sentiments and successful astroturfing by Adobe.
Sure. I mean, who in the Tech business actually wants competition or - gasp - actually run their own applications. Ludicrous I tell you.
You have tons and tons of people who, a few monts or a year ago, would be complaining loudly about how Flash is a horrible blight on the free Internet, and instead today they're complaining about Apple's evil plot to damage the beautiful and perfect Flash platform by forcing people to use the terrible proprietary H264 format. It's kind of dumb.
- it's about Flash as an application and development platform, not as a web standard - don't confuse it with HTML5 / H264 adoption, that really isn't what this is about.
Incidentally, Adobe's freeware flash player is one of the few examples of a legally licensed H264 decoder on Linux platforms.
But Flash? Apple's doing us a favor. They're not saying, "You can't build an application that does [such and such]."
Um, yes they are. "such and such" being "run on any platform other than hardware puchased from Apple"
They're saying you can't build an application using a crappy tool that crashes constantly and causes everyone various problems.
An we're all to rely on Apple to be the Judge? Can we expect better APIs to be allowed? I think we all know the answer to that Flash is already a good tool that is very useful when used properly. All of the great things people have done in flash aren't undone by your simplistic badmouthing and frustrations.
Personally, I'm astonished that a community that a few years ago was ranting about how evil Microsoft was for creating their own Java extensions, OOXML and requiring activation for certain products will so willingly forfeit their rights to a company which thinks they can decide how and what you should use on your computer
When you think about it, they need to be taken down for this seedy kind of price fixing alone. Why is it that we're accepting such abuse just because it's a digital platform?
Because your comments lack any meaningful elaboration, we're left to interpret your original post as best we can. So maybe you would like to explain why the decimal cutoff of rational numbers is a much bigger problem than irrational numbers and the problems we model with them.
I'm talking about numerical analysis. The problems don't only apply to numbers "that are much smaller than 10e-6", and it isn't about "about delivering answers that are as accurate as they can be". It's about numerical operations delivering vastly different results from what you intended. You imply that computers aren't precise enough for a given task, but that's really missing the point.
1) Seriously? Either you're joking or you truly are a hardcore "fanboi". And even for the phones which couldn't install software, at least they were non-discriminate about it. That's sort of what this "anti-trust" stuff is all about.
3) So what? Apple have proven that they'll screw over anyone who doesn't fit in their scheme. I don't see why we should give them any benefit for "apparently talking with Unity"
4) Anti-trust, or competition law, is to prevent anti-competitive behavior. There's a myth going round here on Slashdot that companies have to be a monopoly before they have to obey the law. But that's just fantasy.
5) The same could be said for any business or government. That still doesn't make their actions right.
6) We're discussing whether Apple has acted illegally, not whether or not it fits in their EULA.
I think you're being a little idealistic here. Sure, there are people who are fascinated by what they're studying, sometime it even has something to do with getting a job. But for the majority of people, getting an education, getting a job, and going to work is about making money to get through life. You may not think it ideal, but unlike some, at least they realize that jobs and opportunities don't just come their way.
But that isn't the issue. Double-float numbers are as precise as you'll likely ever need. Incidentally, when you ever come across 6-digit decimal precision? And how often do you input perfectly rational numbers into a problem you will be using floating-point arithmetic for?
It's not even that our data isn't "precise" enough, it's simply that the various methods we use for machine computation are non-associative. Smart algorithms can deal with typical numerical errors and only need crude precision. Dumb algorithms work much faster, but are prone to errors, despite the ludicrous precision of double-float numbers.
If you take traditional patents as an analogy, then the patents would apply to the tools, i.e. the encoder and decoder software, not the content. So while I might understand the camera company paying a fee for the camera I bought and the developers of my encoder transferring fees for everyone they sell the software to, I really can't see why I should be restricted in how I use the products for which the license has been payed.
If you like car-analogies: it's like Mercedes charging fees not just every time someone makes ABS brakes, but for every time people brake.
Well, the issue was specifically about a "license" in the camera manual. The idea being that even if a creator edited his films and encoded them in a patent-unencumbered format, the MPEG-LA could still sue him for using the camera. The situation is of course unlikely to ever occur, but if it did I still can't see MPEG winning.
Open-source doesn't mean what you think it means. Specifically, it doesn't really apply to a video compression standard. If nobody could read the H.264 documentation, well then it wouldn't even be a standard. H.264 is a standard. It would be "open" if others were allowed to use and expand upon it without having to pay fees.
Wrong. The MPEG-LA is a license pool in which all members agree to license the patents they control. Some are very trivial, some less so. But it's not unlikely that someone holds a patent that can apply to all H264 implementations and who is not a member. They could use this to sue everyone.
The strength of the MPEG patents is due to their weight in the market. They use their strength to demand fees in situations where they would be rather questionable (such as fees for distributors).
You may complain about Flash and Adobe all you want, but in the end the best thing for a market is a competitive environment.
The other issue is that Apple is blatantly lying about their intentions. You seem to missed the point. This isn't about Web standards or flash-sites. Flash has moved away from media-rich websites and it's value today is as an application and gaming platform. This is precisely the aspect Apple is targeting. They want to stop people running any kind of flash application. And it doesn't just affect bad flash implementations, but other tools such as the open-source Titanium. And the bullshit wording could apply to a huge variety of other tools as well.
So yeah, Linux users might complain about how horrible Flash is and how we should avoid it. But any open-source advocate would be horrified at the very idea of restricting development tools and applications based on bullshit clauses, that are enforced arbitrarily to suit Apple's plans.
The problem is that your free-market idealism is detached from the realities of the world today. While on the face of it it may look as if Apple is merely offering services to free and rationally thinking customers, the reality is that their huge influence enables anti-competitive and restrictive behavior in a way that not only harms their direct customers, but also legitimate developers and competitors. Sometimes freedom simply needs to be protected. In the end, we as a society are free to restrict business practices we deem harmful and sort out the bad apples.
I agree. A "programming for beginners" course I saw started off with how to use a compiler to write stuff on screen. Not one word lost on microprocessors or data types, heck they didn't even explain what the compiler was or does.
Over time it has become more and more difficult for kids to get interested in programming because of this abstraction. Back when programming meant writing BASIC and then assembly code for the C64, kids got a much better understanding of the machine rather than relying on abstraction.
It's just that there's a discrepancy between designers and programmers. Some of the most acclaimed designers have never programmed anything. Simulation in particular isn't comparable with game design in that you're trying to model physics rather than, well, making a game. Everyone has to get some foothold in the industry though, and a lot of entry-level jobs are for programmers.
Theoretically, but not in practice. A lot of these kids must have enrolled thinking it will put them on a first-class ticket to making the next GTA. It's just a question of how long it is until they realize otherwise.
What good is freedom of expression if your not willing to back it with responsibility of that expression?
Everything! Anonymity is absolutely necessary for free expression. If we require people's names then we're open to intimidation and pressure. By your standard every brutal dictatorship in history had free expression, you just had to put your head on the line (literally!)If you do something illegally on the Internet then the relevant authorities can trace and punish you.
Well, that's how most reporting and historical documentation works. Nothing new. However, up until now all we had was one unsourced reference in a book which was copied many many times. We didn't even know how credible the claim was, especially considering that senior developer Eiji Aonuma thought differently. Now the author has proven that a guy called Mario Segale was a landlord for Nintendo and Miyamoto has acknowledged someone at NOA coming up with the name. That's definately worth something.
Slashdot Mirror
The VHS strategy was 180-degrees from Betamax.
I don't see why. Both were very similar technologies.
Only difference is that Sony required licensing, whereas VHS was an open standard. And VHS had bigger tapes.
Cost and availability of content is what defined the VHS/Betamax war
Content only became available later and merely confirmed consumer preference. It took a while though.
as well as the Blu-ray/HD war.
Definitely no. That "war" wasn't decided by consumers in the first place.
Hardware and carrier costs are not radically different with smart phones when they have comparable features.
I don't know what you're talking about. Looking at the selection of smart-phones available, most are significantly cheaper than the effective price of an iPhone, can be purchased without a contract and have more features than the iPhone. And at least in Europe I have a selection of a variety of different carriers which have more choice than the iPhone plans. That's how competition works.
Apart from the XBOX360, all platforms you mentioned allow users to run executable code. Whether or not you can use the full suite of SDKs or libraries doesn't matter.
With iDevices, every piece of software, no matter how small and trivial, has to approved and published by Apple.
Apple is also the market leader in PC sales by that standard. And Sony's beat the crap out of VHS manufacturers, after all they were the only ones who made Betamax recorders.
but I don't really see a lot in the way of grounds to disbelieve that those are the main reasons.
Practically all of his reasons were complete fantasy
latent anti-Apple sentiments and successful astroturfing by Adobe.
Sure. I mean, who in the Tech business actually wants competition or - gasp - actually run their own applications. Ludicrous I tell you.
You have tons and tons of people who, a few monts or a year ago, would be complaining loudly about how Flash is a horrible blight on the free Internet, and instead today they're complaining about Apple's evil plot to damage the beautiful and perfect Flash platform by forcing people to use the terrible proprietary H264 format. It's kind of dumb.
- it's about Flash as an application and development platform, not as a web standard
- don't confuse it with HTML5 / H264 adoption, that really isn't what this is about.
Incidentally, Adobe's freeware flash player is one of the few examples of a legally licensed H264 decoder on Linux platforms.
But Flash? Apple's doing us a favor. They're not saying, "You can't build an application that does [such and such]."
Um, yes they are. "such and such" being "run on any platform other than hardware puchased from Apple"
They're saying you can't build an application using a crappy tool that crashes constantly and causes everyone various problems.
An we're all to rely on Apple to be the Judge? Can we expect better APIs to be allowed?
I think we all know the answer to that
Flash is already a good tool that is very useful when used properly. All of the great things people have done in flash aren't undone by your simplistic badmouthing and frustrations.
Personally, I'm astonished that a community that a few years ago was ranting about how evil Microsoft was for creating their own Java extensions, OOXML and requiring activation for certain products will so willingly forfeit their rights to a company which thinks they can decide how and what you should use on your computer
When you think about it, they need to be taken down for this seedy kind of price fixing alone. Why is it that we're accepting such abuse just because it's a digital platform?
Because your comments lack any meaningful elaboration, we're left to interpret your original post as best we can. So maybe you would like to explain why the decimal cutoff of rational numbers is a much bigger problem than irrational numbers and the problems we model with them.
I'm talking about numerical analysis. The problems don't only apply to numbers "that are much smaller than 10e-6", and it isn't about "about delivering answers that are as accurate as they can be". It's about numerical operations delivering vastly different results from what you intended. You imply that computers aren't precise enough for a given task, but that's really missing the point.
1) Seriously? Either you're joking or you truly are a hardcore "fanboi". And even for the phones which couldn't install software, at least they were non-discriminate about it. That's sort of what this "anti-trust" stuff is all about.
3) So what? Apple have proven that they'll screw over anyone who doesn't fit in their scheme. I don't see why we should give them any benefit for "apparently talking with Unity"
4) Anti-trust, or competition law, is to prevent anti-competitive behavior. There's a myth going round here on Slashdot that companies have to be a monopoly before they have to obey the law. But that's just fantasy.
5) The same could be said for any business or government. That still doesn't make their actions right.
6) We're discussing whether Apple has acted illegally, not whether or not it fits in their EULA.
I think you're being a little idealistic here. Sure, there are people who are fascinated by what they're studying, sometime it even has something to do with getting a job. But for the majority of people, getting an education, getting a job, and going to work is about making money to get through life. You may not think it ideal, but unlike some, at least they realize that jobs and opportunities don't just come their way.
But that isn't the issue. Double-float numbers are as precise as you'll likely ever need. Incidentally, when you ever come across 6-digit decimal precision?
And how often do you input perfectly rational numbers into a problem you will be using floating-point arithmetic for?
It's not even that our data isn't "precise" enough, it's simply that the various methods we use for machine computation are non-associative. Smart algorithms can deal with typical numerical errors and only need crude precision. Dumb algorithms work much faster, but are prone to errors, despite the ludicrous precision of double-float numbers.
Well they do. http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/203/n_08-10-14_pr.pdf
If you take traditional patents as an analogy, then the patents would apply to the tools, i.e. the encoder and decoder software, not the content. So while I might understand the camera company paying a fee for the camera I bought and the developers of my encoder transferring fees for everyone they sell the software to, I really can't see why I should be restricted in how I use the products for which the license has been payed.
If you like car-analogies: it's like Mercedes charging fees not just every time someone makes ABS brakes, but for every time people brake.
Well, the issue was specifically about a "license" in the camera manual. The idea being that even if a creator edited his films and encoded them in a patent-unencumbered format, the MPEG-LA could still sue him for using the camera. The situation is of course unlikely to ever occur, but if it did I still can't see MPEG winning.
Nope. That's just a plain ol' standard. If it were secret, well then it wouldn't be much of a standard.
Open-source doesn't mean what you think it means.
Specifically, it doesn't really apply to a video compression standard. If nobody could read the H.264 documentation, well then it wouldn't even be a standard.
H.264 is a standard.
It would be "open" if others were allowed to use and expand upon it without having to pay fees.
Well there are. The MPEG-LA has European patents and goes round suing everyone with them.
Wrong. The MPEG-LA is a license pool in which all members agree to license the patents they control. Some are very trivial, some less so. But it's not unlikely that someone holds a patent that can apply to all H264 implementations and who is not a member. They could use this to sue everyone.
The strength of the MPEG patents is due to their weight in the market. They use their strength to demand fees in situations where they would be rather questionable (such as fees for distributors).
You may complain about Flash and Adobe all you want, but in the end the best thing for a market is a competitive environment.
The other issue is that Apple is blatantly lying about their intentions.
You seem to missed the point. This isn't about Web standards or flash-sites. Flash has moved away from media-rich websites and it's value today is as an application and gaming platform.
This is precisely the aspect Apple is targeting. They want to stop people running any kind of flash application. And it doesn't just affect bad flash implementations, but other tools such as the open-source Titanium. And the bullshit wording could apply to a huge variety of other tools as well.
So yeah, Linux users might complain about how horrible Flash is and how we should avoid it. But any open-source advocate would be horrified at the very idea of restricting development tools and applications based on bullshit clauses, that are enforced arbitrarily to suit Apple's plans.
The problem is that your free-market idealism is detached from the realities of the world today. While on the face of it it may look as if Apple is merely offering services to free and rationally thinking customers, the reality is that their huge influence enables anti-competitive and restrictive behavior in a way that not only harms their direct customers, but also legitimate developers and competitors. Sometimes freedom simply needs to be protected.
In the end, we as a society are free to restrict business practices we deem harmful and sort out the bad apples.
I agree. A "programming for beginners" course I saw started off with how to use a compiler to write stuff on screen. Not one word lost on microprocessors or data types, heck they didn't even explain what the compiler was or does.
Over time it has become more and more difficult for kids to get interested in programming because of this abstraction. Back when programming meant writing BASIC and then assembly code for the C64, kids got a much better understanding of the machine rather than relying on abstraction.
It's just that there's a discrepancy between designers and programmers. Some of the most acclaimed designers have never programmed anything. Simulation in particular isn't comparable with game design in that you're trying to model physics rather than, well, making a game.
Everyone has to get some foothold in the industry though, and a lot of entry-level jobs are for programmers.
Theoretically, but not in practice. A lot of these kids must have enrolled thinking it will put them on a first-class ticket to making the next GTA. It's just a question of how long it is until they realize otherwise.
What good is freedom of expression if your not willing to back it with responsibility of that expression?
Everything! Anonymity is absolutely necessary for free expression. If we require people's names then we're open to intimidation and pressure. By your standard every brutal dictatorship in history had free expression, you just had to put your head on the line (literally!)If you do something illegally on the Internet then the relevant authorities can trace and punish you.
Well, that's how most reporting and historical documentation works. Nothing new.
However, up until now all we had was one unsourced reference in a book which was copied many many times. We didn't even know how credible the claim was, especially considering that senior developer Eiji Aonuma thought differently. Now the author has proven that a guy called Mario Segale was a landlord for Nintendo and Miyamoto has acknowledged someone at NOA coming up with the name. That's definately worth something.