Er - who cares? Sorry, aside from you having no evidence for your speculations (where on earth do you pull stats like 47% from?), why is this a relevant or useful statistic?
It's important because usage varies and markets can segregate. As far as this discussion is concerned, we're only interested in Symbian's value as a Smartphone/Computer OS. If only a small minority are interested in it's more advanced capabilities then that severely affects it's "market leadership". It's like counting the amount of embedded devices running on Linux when we're talking Windows vs. Ubuntu.
Ah I see - I love how you twist the fact that other phones are offered free on contract, whilst the Iphone costs money, to be an advantage to the latter.
I get the impression he was referring to the fact that they didn't choose a software platform but were merely interested in the device's functionality as a telephone.
This only really applies to incandescent bulbs that run directly off mains power. All other forms of lighting require different voltage and a constant current. What you have in CFLs and LED bulbs are small PSUs to deliver the electricity needed. The 60 Hz flicker only occurs on older, usually large "office-type" Fluorescent tubes, because of the older and inferior transformers and electronics. Newer CFLs use switched-mode power supplies which operate at far higher frequencies and don't produce flicker.
It isn't actually possible to run fluorescent lamps or LEDs directly off mains electricity, at least if you don't want it to blow within a second.
Incandescent lights with an Energy rating of C or better are still okay. This applies to most halogen bulbs. It's just the plain tungsten ones which are an issue.
1. People don't live in calorimeters. The heat given off by light bulbs is quickly dissipated through walls and light fittings, whereas central heating is designed with effectiveness in mind.
2. Electricity is produced in thermal power plants which have a maximum of 40% efficiency. Additionally, a lot of energy is lost in power lines to get it to your house. A boiler connected to gas piping on the other hand is highly effective.
Freesat is simply a set of standards badge that ensure makes satellite boxes simpler to install and use in a particular market.
BBC propaganda bullshit. Freesat is essentially an EPG platform which lists only channels which pay the licenses. Receivers have to meet certain criteria. These agreements are of course not openly published, but it would appear that they prohibit functionality such as DiSEqC switches, which is very basic functionality for a DVB-S receiver. The choice of licensed receivers is also extremely limited.
They could just stick to the perfectly good ETSI standards for EPG information like the EBU recommends. All services and functionality is covered by these standards. There is no reason to throw money at making their own obscure system.
If anything the market for DVB-S devices has increased through the initiative, as they are friendly enough to be sold through high street chains.
A freesat box is not a typical standards-compliant DVB-S receiver but a crippled BBC-centric device. As only a handful of brands have freesat boxes, most DVB-S receivers cannot offer a full EPG and will not sell on the UK market.
I watch TV through a generic satellite box (pre-Freesat), bought from a specialist supplier, and it was hard work to set up.
Every receiver I have has had a pre-set channel list. All you have to do is plug it in and switch the channel. The most you'd ever have to conceivably do is a channel search. Like with normal TV. Certainly no problem for someone who can align a satellite antenna.
As you use a non-freesat receiver, I can also imagine you're pretty peeved that the BBC doesn't send a 7-day schedule compliant with the DVB-S standards like every other European broadcaster. I know I am. Without a TV guide PVR sucks.
Actually his guess is quite accurate. TV manufacturers haven't historically bothered much about the entire European market, and we were getting inferior implementation of American-focused standards rather than devices optimized for European Television signals.
While many new TVs support DVB-T signals, you can bet your life that they're not running after support for every quirk that national European broadcasters implement. Very few carry the freeview license.
It may be insignificant and trivial to work around, but they are essentially trying to control the receiver market through their truly Orwellian named "freeview". Manufacturers will have to agree to all conditions set by the BBC if they want a TV guide on their machine. As this is most important to the majority of consumers, they will have a monopoly with their freeview set-top boxes.
This is exactly what has happened with their satellite broadcast, where their "freesat" program guide has basically destroyed the market for conventional DVB-S receivers. They lock out channels and prohibit useful features on licensed boxes, and rake in money for every channel that want listing on their stupid platform.
And don't believe any of the "BBC doesn't want DRM" bullcrap. The BBC has been at the forefront of it, right back to the early days when they required you to install the crappy realplayer to listen to their ultra-low quality radio streams.
I had a full time job at the time (I still do yet with another company), a family that I spent time with and study at the same time. Yet I found the time to do what I like. Some watch TV others collect stamps, some play wow and others whine about time management.
It's up to everyone to schedule their time themselves. If you can make it fit your schedule that's great. But when I tried WoW, I didn't have the time to keep to the schedules for much of a multiplayer experience, at least not without neglecting other things that I wanted to do. I wasn't prepared to use that amount of time for an online computer game. Bear in mind I was 16 years old at the time. I quit after a few months.
The Problem is that while I liked the game, the rewards were so centered on massive time-investment that the game wasn't too much fun if you had little to spare. That and the high subscription fees.
While I don't want to have the assertive undertone of the other poster, the fact that a "few hours a day" isn't yet considered "hardcore" is quite astonishing. I tried the game for a few months when it came out, but never got past level 40. It just wasn't worth the money (I ended up paying over $100 for the game and subscriptions so that makes it my most expensive game ever) for someone who "only" plays less than 7 hours a week.
The Shuttle is very reusable by space-engineering standards. Even with the ridiculous maintenance costs, the craft you see launching all the time are the same ones you see landing again, down to almost every bolt and circuit. Every now and then they have an overhaul, but not before many missions have passed.
The main problem is that while a spaceplane is something you would want to reuse, a spaceplane is a bad idea in the first place.
Yes people can OCR direct to a file and upload that but the quality is not much better than a google translation in many cases.
Huh? OCR is a direct conversion of printed letters and has nothing to do with translation. And having done some OCR myself I can confidently say that printed texts are absolutely no challenge whatsoever, even with the bundled software that came with my scanner over 10 years ago.
Go to a mainstream bookstore and pick up a copy of one of Mark Twain's books and look at the copyright notice.
Irrelevant. A publisher can print whatever they want. Whether their claim is valid is another matter.
Windows users aren't particularly thrilled about DRM these days.
Apart from a minority of people who oppose it for ideological reasons, most paying customers are comfortably with it, as long as it's done well.
And while you may not like it, developers pretty much unanimously agree that DRM is vital. If you think that they're going to abandon copy-protection like they did with music downloads, I'm sorry, but it ain't gonna happen.
They are indeed. I will admit though that you have a point. It may well make sense to lower prices. But what you have to remember is that they are the ones to decide what the prices are. If their prices is what it takes to do business, then that's what they'll charge.
but, as another poster has mentioned, Frictional and Introversion seem to get by ok without DRM with more reasonable prices.
You have totally missed it. Linux Game Publishin publishes games. The companies you name are developers who happen to make the majority of their money on all platformas other than Linux. Maybe you should listen to what the developers actually think.
It's LGP's own damned fault if they can't price their products appropriately for their market.
If they can't then they will go bankrupt. But if they believe that DRM will help them, it's their right to use it.
Does a hotel let people stay for free if I decide to leave early? Do I get to let someone in if I leave early from a music festival? There is no reason why people should be able to use up other's parking time. I don't see how it makes it any more fair if one guy pays, and the other leeches. It's simply people over-reacting and acting offended at something that's beside the point. If parking is too expensive tell the city to make it cheaper. If you think the first ten minutes should be free, suggest that. But don't start kicking and screaming just because they're replacing a piece of junk on the side-walk.
What price they charge doesn't really matter. They have a business model which relies on people faithfully paying their price to fund their development. If you don't like the fact that niche markets are less profitable then you can stick to Windows, a platform which is more profitable.
One major thing that the university I go to does: you have to OPT IN to file sharing access. No big deal, you just say I need it for whatever legal reason and they activate it.
In other words, they're not net-neutral. They can get away with it because they're not selling full internet connections. It's also different for a university campus which has a couple of thousand connections with cat-5 cable with a central infrastructue, versus an ISP which has an extensive network of customers mit thousands of network nodes and terrible line-quality. I'm certainly not one to defend ISPs, but it's not a very fair comparison either.
Whether or not they have the capacity to fulfill all of their commitmants in a worst-case scenario isn't relevant. Just look at the business model of insurance companies. What matters is that they can deliver what they advertise under normal circumstances without causing damages to their customers. Overbooking planes makes a lot of sense for airlines. And for many residential ISPs, overselling bandwidth is their business model. They buy bandwidth from telco companies and sell it to home consumers. Slap up a website and an email server and that's their business. You can buy fixed bandwidth, but that's much more expensive.
The difference is how airlines and ISPs handle the "exceptions". Airlines will upgrade people to first class or offer discounts. ISPs OTOH are often reluctant to invest in network infrastructure. So it's often more effective to block the minority of customers who actually use what they advertised. Wheras most airline customers come off equal or better, ISP customers who have their bandwidth capped will still be locked in a contract and are unlikely to get a reduction.
Well, they weren't intended to allow for "free time" in the first place. It's just that sixty years ago, they didn't have much choice. Using a central ticket machine is such a no-brainer. Cheaper, less maintanance and proper change is given. Here in Europe they must have done away with them at least 20 years ago If your city has shitty parking policies, that hasn't got anything to do with the type of meter used.
While play time is a factor, It's largely down to design choices, quality and specifically poiwer consumtion. I've never come across a Nintendo system whcih doesn't work, even the GameCube with it's mechanical drive was astonishingly robust, and only crashed a handfull of times on me. Sony systems have been less successful. Just as you'll find it hard to find an N64 which doesn't still work perfectly, you'll have a hard job finding an original Playstation that does. It's largely due to the optical drive. It would sometimes take minutes to load a screen, The PS2 was definately an improvement. Microsoft has been most notorious, with both the XBOX and the 360 suffering high failure rates.
The differnces are quite clear. While Sony and Microsoft have put a lot of emphasis on hardware specs, Nintendo's consoles have had far more thought put into clever design. With this generation they opted to stay low on the power consumption, wheras Sony and Microsoft had to seriously increase it to improve their technical performance.
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All phone camera's I've ever seen are tiny plastic lens, cmos sensors. Are there any exceptions to this? I am intrigued.
Er - who cares? Sorry, aside from you having no evidence for your speculations (where on earth do you pull stats like 47% from?), why is this a relevant or useful statistic?
It's important because usage varies and markets can segregate. As far as this discussion is concerned, we're only interested in Symbian's value as a Smartphone/Computer OS. If only a small minority are interested in it's more advanced capabilities then that severely affects it's "market leadership".
It's like counting the amount of embedded devices running on Linux when we're talking Windows vs. Ubuntu.
And as for 47%, he was referring to Symbians market share in a 2008 poll: http://www.canalys.com/pr/2008/r2008112.htm
Ah I see - I love how you twist the fact that other phones are offered free on contract, whilst the Iphone costs money, to be an advantage to the latter.
I get the impression he was referring to the fact that they didn't choose a software platform but were merely interested in the device's functionality as a telephone.
Yeah, they make those. Both with CFL and LEDs, although LEDs are usually far too dim.
I'm guessing this is what you're after: http://ebulbshop.com/acatalog/Megaman_Dors_Dimming_GU10_.html
They make CFLs as well as LED lamps in those sizes, although most LED solutions are far too dim.
I'm guessing this is the sort of thing you're after: http://ebulbshop.com/acatalog/Megaman_Dors_Dimming_GU10_.html
This only really applies to incandescent bulbs that run directly off mains power.
All other forms of lighting require different voltage and a constant current. What you have in CFLs and LED bulbs are small PSUs to deliver the electricity needed.
The 60 Hz flicker only occurs on older, usually large "office-type" Fluorescent tubes, because of the older and inferior transformers and electronics. Newer CFLs use switched-mode power supplies which operate at far higher frequencies and don't produce flicker.
It isn't actually possible to run fluorescent lamps or LEDs directly off mains electricity, at least if you don't want it to blow within a second.
One thing the EU specifications on light bulbs mandates are better start-up times. Or you could just not buy better products now.
Incandescent lights with an Energy rating of C or better are still okay. This applies to most halogen bulbs. It's just the plain tungsten ones which are an issue.
1. People don't live in calorimeters. The heat given off by light bulbs is quickly dissipated through walls and light fittings, whereas central heating is designed with effectiveness in mind.
2. Electricity is produced in thermal power plants which have a maximum of 40% efficiency. Additionally, a lot of energy is lost in power lines to get it to your house. A boiler connected to gas piping on the other hand is highly effective.
Freesat is simply a set of standards badge that ensure makes satellite boxes simpler to install and use in a particular market.
BBC propaganda bullshit. Freesat is essentially an EPG platform which lists only channels which pay the licenses. Receivers have to meet certain criteria.
These agreements are of course not openly published, but it would appear that they prohibit functionality such as DiSEqC switches, which is very basic functionality for a DVB-S receiver.
The choice of licensed receivers is also extremely limited.
They could just stick to the perfectly good ETSI standards for EPG information like the EBU recommends.
All services and functionality is covered by these standards.
There is no reason to throw money at making their own obscure system.
If anything the market for DVB-S devices has increased through the initiative, as they are friendly enough to be sold through high street chains.
A freesat box is not a typical standards-compliant DVB-S receiver but a crippled BBC-centric device.
As only a handful of brands have freesat boxes, most DVB-S receivers cannot offer a full EPG and will not sell on the UK market.
I watch TV through a generic satellite box (pre-Freesat), bought from a specialist supplier, and it was hard work to set up.
Every receiver I have has had a pre-set channel list. All you have to do is plug it in and switch the channel.
The most you'd ever have to conceivably do is a channel search. Like with normal TV.
Certainly no problem for someone who can align a satellite antenna.
As you use a non-freesat receiver, I can also imagine you're pretty peeved that the BBC doesn't send a 7-day schedule compliant with the DVB-S standards like every other European broadcaster. I know I am. Without a TV guide PVR sucks.
BBC-HD is unencrypted and can be freely received. If you're paying Sky for the privilege you're doing something wrong.
Actually his guess is quite accurate. TV manufacturers haven't historically bothered much about the entire European market, and we were getting inferior implementation of American-focused standards rather than devices optimized for European Television signals.
While many new TVs support DVB-T signals, you can bet your life that they're not running after support for every quirk that national European broadcasters implement. Very few carry the freeview license.
It may be insignificant and trivial to work around, but they are essentially trying to control the receiver market through their truly Orwellian named "freeview".
Manufacturers will have to agree to all conditions set by the BBC if they want a TV guide on their machine. As this is most important to the majority of consumers, they will have a monopoly with their freeview set-top boxes.
This is exactly what has happened with their satellite broadcast, where their "freesat" program guide has basically destroyed the market for conventional DVB-S receivers. They lock out channels and prohibit useful features on licensed boxes, and rake in money for every channel that want listing on their stupid platform.
And don't believe any of the "BBC doesn't want DRM" bullcrap. The BBC has been at the forefront of it, right back to the early days when they required you to install the crappy realplayer to listen to their ultra-low quality radio streams.
I had a full time job at the time (I still do yet with another company), a family that I spent time with and study at the same time. Yet I found the time to do what I like. Some watch TV others collect stamps, some play wow and others whine about time management.
It's up to everyone to schedule their time themselves. If you can make it fit your schedule that's great. But when I tried WoW, I didn't have the time to keep to the schedules for much of a multiplayer experience, at least not without neglecting other things that I wanted to do. I wasn't prepared to use that amount of time for an online computer game. Bear in mind I was 16 years old at the time. I quit after a few months.
The Problem is that while I liked the game, the rewards were so centered on massive time-investment that the game wasn't too much fun if you had little to spare. That and the high subscription fees.
While I don't want to have the assertive undertone of the other poster, the fact that a "few hours a day" isn't yet considered "hardcore" is quite astonishing.
I tried the game for a few months when it came out, but never got past level 40. It just wasn't worth the money (I ended up paying over $100 for the game and subscriptions so that makes it my most expensive game ever) for someone who "only" plays less than 7 hours a week.
The Shuttle is very reusable by space-engineering standards. Even with the ridiculous maintenance costs, the craft you see launching all the time are the same ones you see landing again, down to almost every bolt and circuit. Every now and then they have an overhaul, but not before many missions have passed.
The main problem is that while a spaceplane is something you would want to reuse, a spaceplane is a bad idea in the first place.
Yes people can OCR direct to a file and upload that but the quality is not much better than a google translation in many cases.
Huh? OCR is a direct conversion of printed letters and has nothing to do with translation. And having done some OCR myself I can confidently say that printed texts are absolutely no challenge whatsoever, even with the bundled software that came with my scanner over 10 years ago.
Go to a mainstream bookstore and pick up a copy of one of Mark Twain's books and look at the copyright notice.
Irrelevant. A publisher can print whatever they want. Whether their claim is valid is another matter.
Windows users aren't particularly thrilled about DRM these days.
Apart from a minority of people who oppose it for ideological reasons, most paying customers are comfortably with it, as long as it's done well.
And while you may not like it, developers pretty much unanimously agree that DRM is vital. If you think that they're going to abandon copy-protection like they did with music downloads, I'm sorry, but it ain't gonna happen.
Clearly you have no grasp of economics.
What an excellent way to start a debate.
Obviously my numbers are fabricated,
They are indeed. I will admit though that you have a point. It may well make sense to lower prices.
But what you have to remember is that they are the ones to decide what the prices are. If their prices is what it takes to do business, then that's what they'll charge.
but, as another poster has mentioned, Frictional and Introversion seem to get by ok without DRM with more reasonable prices.
You have totally missed it. Linux Game Publishin publishes games. The companies you name are developers who happen to make the majority of their money on all platformas other than Linux.
Maybe you should listen to what the developers actually think.
It's LGP's own damned fault if they can't price their products appropriately for their market.
If they can't then they will go bankrupt. But if they believe that DRM will help them, it's their right to use it.
Does a hotel let people stay for free if I decide to leave early? Do I get to let someone in if I leave early from a music festival?
There is no reason why people should be able to use up other's parking time. I don't see how it makes it any more fair if one guy pays, and the other leeches.
It's simply people over-reacting and acting offended at something that's beside the point. If parking is too expensive tell the city to make it cheaper. If you think the first ten minutes should be free, suggest that. But don't start kicking and screaming just because they're replacing a piece of junk on the side-walk.
What price they charge doesn't really matter. They have a business model which relies on people faithfully paying their price to fund their development. If you don't like the fact that niche markets are less profitable then you can stick to Windows, a platform which is more profitable.
One major thing that the university I go to does: you have to OPT IN to file sharing access. No big deal, you just say I need it for whatever legal reason and they activate it.
In other words, they're not net-neutral. They can get away with it because they're not selling full internet connections.
It's also different for a university campus which has a couple of thousand connections with cat-5 cable with a central infrastructue, versus an ISP which has an extensive network of customers mit thousands of network nodes and terrible line-quality. I'm certainly not one to defend ISPs, but it's not a very fair comparison either.
Whether or not they have the capacity to fulfill all of their commitmants in a worst-case scenario isn't relevant. Just look at the business model of insurance companies.
What matters is that they can deliver what they advertise under normal circumstances without causing damages to their customers.
Overbooking planes makes a lot of sense for airlines. And for many residential ISPs, overselling bandwidth is their business model. They buy bandwidth from telco companies and sell it to home consumers. Slap up a website and an email server and that's their business. You can buy fixed bandwidth, but that's much more expensive.
The difference is how airlines and ISPs handle the "exceptions". Airlines will upgrade people to first class or offer discounts.
ISPs OTOH are often reluctant to invest in network infrastructure. So it's often more effective to block the minority of customers who actually use what they advertised. Wheras most airline customers come off equal or better, ISP customers who have their bandwidth capped will still be locked in a contract and are unlikely to get a reduction.
Well, they weren't intended to allow for "free time" in the first place. It's just that sixty years ago, they didn't have much choice.
Using a central ticket machine is such a no-brainer. Cheaper, less maintanance and proper change is given. Here in Europe they must have done away with them at least 20 years ago
If your city has shitty parking policies, that hasn't got anything to do with the type of meter used.
While play time is a factor, It's largely down to design choices, quality and specifically poiwer consumtion. I've never come across a Nintendo system whcih doesn't work, even the GameCube with it's mechanical drive was astonishingly robust, and only crashed a handfull of times on me.
Sony systems have been less successful. Just as you'll find it hard to find an N64 which doesn't still work perfectly, you'll have a hard job finding an original Playstation that does. It's largely due to the optical drive. It would sometimes take minutes to load a screen,
The PS2 was definately an improvement.
Microsoft has been most notorious, with both the XBOX and the 360 suffering high failure rates.
The differnces are quite clear. While Sony and Microsoft have put a lot of emphasis on hardware specs, Nintendo's consoles have had far more thought put into clever design. With this generation they opted to stay low on the power consumption, wheras Sony and Microsoft had to seriously increase it to improve their technical performance.
Conservation of angular momentum.