That doesn't stop the licensing authorities collecting fees and suing left right and center. Almost the entire industrialized world upholds codec patents and indeed many of the patent holders are European companies.
FireFox can't license it because the GPL explicitly forbids it. The legality of GPL'd software using propreitary codecs is ambiguous, a situation which Mozilla wishes to avoid.
I wish Youtube would support Theora, but OTOH I realize that most people just want to give the codec a boost. If Youtube want to use a patent-encumbered viideo format, that's their right to do so. The move away from flash certainly makes the platform more open and less dependent on proprietary technology. But they must also realize that this means an inferior solution for the worlds most popular browser to support HTML5.
The real scandal is Apple's attempt to sabotage Theora.
Firewire required extortionate royalties. Displayport is free. I also like the way it's compatible to HDMI, making it easier for the connector to find it's way on consumer equipment.
This is just the same logical fallacy that Microsoft keep repeating. Regardless of hypothetical attacks on alternative browsers and regardless of what their long-term browser interests are, there is a major vulnerability in IE explorer which could possibly affect newer versions. While this vulnerability exists, it is downright negligent to recommend people not to switch and imply greater risk if they do. I really hope some major institution is attacked running IE7 before a patch is released, just to expose these liars.
They conquered the market by dumping their product and abusing their OS monopoly. They never made the best browser, and Netscape was generally the better option. Only years later, when the OSS community had created a browser which was substantially better than Internet Explorer, did a competitor slowly start to crawl upwards.
Google want Android to be a platform people can recognize by name and expect a certain service. The way it is now, you go to a network operator and choose from names such as "HTC Dream" "Samsung i7500" and the best anyone has yet come up with is "Droid". Somewhere in the description you might find that it runs Android, but most people won't have a clue what that means. Compare this to the iPhone, where there's one device everyone recognizes. There's only one place to go for it and you don't have to compare, because there's almost never a choice anyway. Things are so much simpler.
Well $499 certainly isn't "cheap junk". And I bet you it's roughly on par with the brands Lexicon intends to compete with. Apart from that there seems to be the perception that the THX certification isn't particularly useful anyway, especially with high-end gear.
This is standard practice in the electronics industry and anybody acting surprised at this article just hasn't been paying attention to consumer electronics in recent years. Particularly with TVs, there are only really a handful of factories making the components. There's hardly ever much difference between products from "premium" brands and others. They're all made with economics and logistics in mind, which most of the time means outsourcing to chinese manufacturers and using ready-made designs. They all use the same chipsets and the same components. That's why you'll often find that "good enough" is as good as it gets. Unless you understand what you're paying for, don't pay a premium.
You both are mistaken. Electrical cables almost all carry signals at about two thirds c, whether coaxial or twisted pair doesn't make much difference.
Anyway, the thing is that the IS2 protocol apparently has a maximum clock speed of 3.125 MHz. So the signal length is about 63 meters, which is much much larger than the length of their entire cable.
Cars aren't what they used to be. Most furniture these days is made from plastic mixtures and particle board.
Because it's cheaper, environmentally friendlier, fulfills the same function, and often results in higher quality products or even increased functionality. Rich people still buy expensive furniture, and poor people have always bought cheaper, shoddier stuff and resorted to DIY.
Even books are being served up as disposable digital bits instead of printed pages.
Last I checked most people buy still only buy printed books. People buy ebooks to read on an ebook reader, not because they're cheaper.
All these changes comes in the name of being able to provide a broader spectrum of the population with goods and services that they haven't traditionally been able to enjoy, and it can be attributed to lowering quality to cut costs (i.e. by using cheaper (more abundantly available) materials).
People can still buy "high-quality" products
To return to the point... businesses don't exist to make "great products". They exist to make "products people want to buy".
No, not every business. But many entrepreneurs engineers and designers do want to make good products people enjoy. And this also includes making products more affordable. The two goals aren't incompatible.
If there are businesses who can find their niche just making the same things then that seems fine. But people claiming it's somehow wrong to seek other things than bare-profit and stock price are missing the point of running a business.
I was talking about the next generation. Obviously Nintendo isn't going to make major changes to the Wii system now to make games run directly off SD cards, and I believe the size limit is still about 50 MB for games anyway.
Believe it or not, there are companies who try to keep a culture of innovation and earn reputation even if it does mean being less profitable. A company with diverse expertise and talented developers is going to have the power to influence trends and create new markets. I find it extremely questionable how so many people have this fundamentalist belief that companies should devote everything chasing numbers on paper, which are extremely artificial and arbitrary BTW (notice how this guy laments about them "destroying" 11 billion in stock value), instead of encouraging people to be creative and simply make great products.
Maintaining talent and independence also ensures that the company is more robust to trends and can expand new markets. Nintendo was the dominant games company before the Playstation, but lost out in the following decade. Instead of doing what would arguably have been a sound choice of becoming a profitable software developer on other platforms, they made sure they kept doing their own thing and invested in making hardware. It payed off when they came out with the Wii which has since become the dominant platform.
Hard drives are history. I don't think any of the next generation consoles, presumably 2012, will come with one. They're too expensive for the functionality they'll provide. Flash drives make much more sense. Even now you can buy a 16 GB SD card for the Wii which will hold more games than you could afford to download.
I agree that it would be a great idea, but not because of any picture quality. The advantage would be being able to use it with computer monitors which don't have SD component inputs. Even the GameCube had some kind of obscure digital output for japanese TVs, even on the american and european models. Surely a HDMI port can't be that challenging.
1.5 inch doesn't really sound too good at all. That equates to about 15-20 units for an underarm motion, which isn't much at all, and hand movements are basically impossible. While I like to be optimistic, it seems more like you'll be playing this by swinging your arms and legs than moving naturally.
You're mixing physics with the concept of continuity. But the laws of physics and the math we use to describe them can deal perfectly well with irrational numbers and continuity. Newtonian physics is a complete theory.
Precision only comes into play when you are not happy with your representation but want a solution in a less natural form (say as a decimal number).
We can however show that certain theories do not describe the observed world, even in their exact and precise form.
But let me ask you: do you draw a line *anywhere*?
I don't think there is any clear-cut "line" to draw. It all depends on the circumstances. If I'm working for a top-security project I would be okay with having to strip down naked. If I have to have a health check I have no problem with a doctor checking my anus or inspecting my genitals.
On the other hand if I'm asked for my name at a store or a bar, I might very well tell them to go f**k themselves because that's none of their business. And I find it despicable that in my country of residence I am required to carry an ID with me wherever I go and can be fined for failing to do so.
Basic human rights can only exist if at some point if time you speak up and say: until here and no further.
You're confusing the concept of Human rights. Violations generally aren't progressive. There is no "Lite" version of inhumanity.
Why extend this to *everyone* without question ?
Because it's the most effective way to close loopholes and stops us wasting time with outdated and ineffective security methods.
Basic human rights are the last line of reasonable defense against abuse of power and they define the limits with which we can enjoy our earned freedoms.
Again you're confusing what Human rights are. They aren't a "last line" and they don't have much to do with people abusing their power. They're to protect life and justice.
By saying "we have nothing to hide" or "this is not a violation of human rights, but a luxury problem", you are saying that just because we live in the "free west" we have no rights whatsoever, or you say that those rights are marginally defined by positive comparison to 'lesser' countries. If we continue down that path, these 'lesser' countries start to become more free by our standards as they *do not* virtually strip search people without grounds of suspicion!
Have you ever been to any of these "lesser" countries? For that matter, have you ever crossed any pre-schengen boarders in the EU or traveled to anywhere with non-reciprocal visa policy. The amount of scrutiny overzealous customs authorities would apply to harass you was mindboggling.
We have the highest security for air travel because it's a huge jet-aircraft flying in the sky with hundreds of passengers and can target anything. That's why I don't think it's too much to ask to step in a scanner before take-off.
While musician is still top of the list of dream jobs, graphic artist is most likely second. Places in design courses are highly competitive, the same as for music courses. Millions of people spend years at the desk on their own for a chance as an artist. So don't tell me it's any different. Most of them dream of being an art director in a big-budget game or movie with hordes of subordinates at their dispense. Yes it's disillusioned, but then most kids wanting to be rockstars don't imagine scraping together a few hours a week in a friends basement and playing at bars on the weekend as part of the lifestyle.
Slashdot Mirror
Click within Firefox.
The MPL contains similar restrictions BTW.
[1]
[2](English translation)
That doesn't stop the licensing authorities collecting fees and suing left right and center. Almost the entire industrialized world upholds codec patents and indeed many of the patent holders are European companies.
FireFox can't license it because the GPL explicitly forbids it. The legality of GPL'd software using propreitary codecs is ambiguous, a situation which Mozilla wishes to avoid.
I wish Youtube would support Theora, but OTOH I realize that most people just want to give the codec a boost. If Youtube want to use a patent-encumbered viideo format, that's their right to do so. The move away from flash certainly makes the platform more open and less dependent on proprietary technology. But they must also realize that this means an inferior solution for the worlds most popular browser to support HTML5.
The real scandal is Apple's attempt to sabotage Theora.
No one huh?
Firewire required extortionate royalties. Displayport is free.
I also like the way it's compatible to HDMI, making it easier for the connector to find it's way on consumer equipment.
What, the U.S. violating agreements and acting unilaterally? You don't say!
I'm not into robotics, but I still want to play with one. I bet he can beat the shit out of ROB.
This is just the same logical fallacy that Microsoft keep repeating. Regardless of hypothetical attacks on alternative browsers and regardless of what their long-term browser interests are, there is a major vulnerability in IE explorer which could possibly affect newer versions. While this vulnerability exists, it is downright negligent to recommend people not to switch and imply greater risk if they do. I really hope some major institution is attacked running IE7 before a patch is released, just to expose these liars.
They conquered the market by dumping their product and abusing their OS monopoly. They never made the best browser, and Netscape was generally the better option. Only years later, when the OSS community had created a browser which was substantially better than Internet Explorer, did a competitor slowly start to crawl upwards.
Google want Android to be a platform people can recognize by name and expect a certain service. The way it is now, you go to a network operator and choose from names such as "HTC Dream" "Samsung i7500" and the best anyone has yet come up with is "Droid". Somewhere in the description you might find that it runs Android, but most people won't have a clue what that means.
Compare this to the iPhone, where there's one device everyone recognizes. There's only one place to go for it and you don't have to compare, because there's almost never a choice anyway. Things are so much simpler.
Well $499 certainly isn't "cheap junk". And I bet you it's roughly on par with the brands Lexicon intends to compete with.
Apart from that there seems to be the perception that the THX certification isn't particularly useful anyway, especially with high-end gear.
This is standard practice in the electronics industry and anybody acting surprised at this article just hasn't been paying attention to consumer electronics in recent years.
Particularly with TVs, there are only really a handful of factories making the components.
There's hardly ever much difference between products from "premium" brands and others. They're all made with economics and logistics in mind, which most of the time means outsourcing to chinese manufacturers and using ready-made designs. They all use the same chipsets and the same components.
That's why you'll often find that "good enough" is as good as it gets. Unless you understand what you're paying for, don't pay a premium.
You both are mistaken. Electrical cables almost all carry signals at about two thirds c, whether coaxial or twisted pair doesn't make much difference.
Anyway, the thing is that the IS2 protocol apparently has a maximum clock speed of 3.125 MHz. So the signal length is about 63 meters, which is much much larger than the length of their entire cable.
Cars aren't what they used to be. Most furniture these days is made from plastic mixtures and particle board.
Because it's cheaper, environmentally friendlier, fulfills the same function, and often results in higher quality products or even increased functionality.
Rich people still buy expensive furniture, and poor people have always bought cheaper, shoddier stuff and resorted to DIY.
Even books are being served up as disposable digital bits instead of printed pages.
Last I checked most people buy still only buy printed books.
People buy ebooks to read on an ebook reader, not because they're cheaper.
All these changes comes in the name of being able to provide a broader spectrum of the population with goods and services that they haven't traditionally been able to enjoy, and it can be attributed to lowering quality to cut costs (i.e. by using cheaper (more abundantly available) materials).
People can still buy "high-quality" products
To return to the point... businesses don't exist to make "great products". They exist to make "products people want to buy".
No, not every business. But many entrepreneurs engineers and designers do want to make good products people enjoy. And this also includes making products more affordable. The two goals aren't incompatible.
If there are businesses who can find their niche just making the same things then that seems fine. But people claiming it's somehow wrong to seek other things than bare-profit and stock price are missing the point of running a business.
I was talking about the next generation. Obviously Nintendo isn't going to make major changes to the Wii system now to make games run directly off SD cards, and I believe the size limit is still about 50 MB for games anyway.
Believe it or not, there are companies who try to keep a culture of innovation and earn reputation even if it does mean being less profitable. A company with diverse expertise and talented developers is going to have the power to influence trends and create new markets.
I find it extremely questionable how so many people have this fundamentalist belief that companies should devote everything chasing numbers on paper, which are extremely artificial and arbitrary BTW (notice how this guy laments about them "destroying" 11 billion in stock value), instead of encouraging people to be creative and simply make great products.
Maintaining talent and independence also ensures that the company is more robust to trends and can expand new markets.
Nintendo was the dominant games company before the Playstation, but lost out in the following decade. Instead of doing what would arguably have been a sound choice of becoming a profitable software developer on other platforms, they made sure they kept doing their own thing and invested in making hardware. It payed off when they came out with the Wii which has since become the dominant platform.
Hard drives are history. I don't think any of the next generation consoles, presumably 2012, will come with one. They're too expensive for the functionality they'll provide. Flash drives make much more sense. Even now you can buy a 16 GB SD card for the Wii which will hold more games than you could afford to download.
I agree that it would be a great idea, but not because of any picture quality. The advantage would be being able to use it with computer monitors which don't have SD component inputs.
Even the GameCube had some kind of obscure digital output for japanese TVs, even on the american and european models. Surely a HDMI port can't be that challenging.
1.5 inch doesn't really sound too good at all. That equates to about 15-20 units for an underarm motion, which isn't much at all, and hand movements are basically impossible. While I like to be optimistic, it seems more like you'll be playing this by swinging your arms and legs than moving naturally.
Some people wrote off the mouse too
Uhmm... did they?
Yeah, such as this guy
The answer to the format war? Free Theora Porn!
You're mixing physics with the concept of continuity. But the laws of physics and the math we use to describe them can deal perfectly well with irrational numbers and continuity. Newtonian physics is a complete theory.
Precision only comes into play when you are not happy with your representation but want a solution in a less natural form (say as a decimal number).
We can however show that certain theories do not describe the observed world, even in their exact and precise form.
But let me ask you: do you draw a line *anywhere*?
I don't think there is any clear-cut "line" to draw. It all depends on the circumstances. If I'm working for a top-security project I would be okay with having to strip down naked. If I have to have a health check I have no problem with a doctor checking my anus or inspecting my genitals.
On the other hand if I'm asked for my name at a store or a bar, I might very well tell them to go f**k themselves because that's none of their business.
And I find it despicable that in my country of residence I am required to carry an ID with me wherever I go and can be fined for failing to do so.
Basic human rights can only exist if at some point if time you speak up and say: until here and no further.
You're confusing the concept of Human rights. Violations generally aren't progressive. There is no "Lite" version of inhumanity.
Why extend this to *everyone* without question ?
Because it's the most effective way to close loopholes and stops us wasting time with outdated and ineffective security methods.
Basic human rights are the last line of reasonable defense against abuse of power and they define the limits with which we can enjoy our earned freedoms.
Again you're confusing what Human rights are. They aren't a "last line" and they don't have much to do with people abusing their power. They're to protect life and justice.
By saying "we have nothing to hide" or "this is not a violation of human rights, but a luxury problem", you are saying that just because we live in the "free west" we have no rights whatsoever, or you say that those rights are marginally defined by positive comparison to 'lesser' countries.
If we continue down that path, these 'lesser' countries start to become more free by our standards as they *do not* virtually strip search people without grounds of suspicion!
Have you ever been to any of these "lesser" countries? For that matter, have you ever crossed any pre-schengen boarders in the EU or traveled to anywhere with non-reciprocal visa policy. The amount of scrutiny overzealous customs authorities would apply to harass you was mindboggling.
We have the highest security for air travel because it's a huge jet-aircraft flying in the sky with hundreds of passengers and can target anything.
That's why I don't think it's too much to ask to step in a scanner before take-off.
While musician is still top of the list of dream jobs, graphic artist is most likely second.
Places in design courses are highly competitive, the same as for music courses. Millions of people spend years at the desk on their own for a chance as an artist. So don't tell me it's any different. Most of them dream of being an art director in a big-budget game or movie with hordes of subordinates at their dispense. Yes it's disillusioned, but then most kids wanting to be rockstars don't imagine scraping together a few hours a week in a friends basement and playing at bars on the weekend as part of the lifestyle.