You're confusing prior art with patent infringement or double-patenting. Prior art is if the "invention" existed before the patent applicant invented it.
As far as software goes, I doubt there's a patent out there without some kind of prior art. Most developers wouldn't consider filing patents for trivial tasks. It's only when Microsoft come along and say "we need 10 patents for every Dollar we put into R&D" that you get stuff like doubleclicks.
You're paying for writable discs, which is where the big difference lies. They are produced by applying a thin dye. You have to write to them individually, which takes time.
Mass produced discs however, are pressed from a master disc, whicj only takes a few milliseconds.
There may be space in the consumer market for this, but it's not directly comparable with HDDVD or BD.
As I understand it, these discs are meant almost exclusively for backup and storage purposes. The thing about HDDVDs and BVDs are that you can press them in a production line for a few cents, while these things are a little more complicated.
Exactly. There is however stopping people from sharing their downloads, making their own archive, as long as they don't include new work like commentaries or translations.
No, the photgraphs are not protected and completely in the public domain. The reason is that they are two-dimensional reproductions of an ancient document. The same goes for old paintings. Nobody gains a copyright from copying public domain material.
I personally find it despicable that they want to charge people for access, and if they have any kind of DRM, I hope they all go to hell.
Sure. They'll just give all their hard work away for free. I mean, what better business model is there than to first give away your product, and then wait for some freindly, voluntary donations?
Apparently the technology is some kind of flash-derived storage. Theoretically it would probably be possible to push it up to 2 GB, but the media itself would be about twice as much as todays games.
Well, technically destinction between 1st, 2nd and 3rd "world" hasn't been used for a while. Nowadays, we prefer "developed", "developing" and "least developed" nations. Of course, there are very large differences in Indian society, but India is certainly isn't "least developed".
Cheaper yes, but that's only an issue if you're dealing with large files. As it is, alot of people using laptops use it for documents, web browsing, and other low-performance tasks.
But as for longterm reliability, I would be more sceptical. I've heard plenty of stories of Hard Drives crapping up. The thing about them is that they fail because of mechanical wear. Flash memory on the other hand has no moving parts, and that's always a big plus. I've never heard of flash memory losing data.
It would be interesting to compare the longterm reliability of HDs and Flash drives, but saying that HDs are invaiably better is a little one-sided.
Well, I'm looking forward to HD movies and $100 seems like an insane deal to me.
You are assuming that you're not paying more than $100 for the drive to watch HD movies (most customers would rather pay nothing because they have no HD set) Now, we can go into a long discussion about the price of drive components and manufacturing, but why don't we just leave it at that?
Production costs of the disc are irrelevant when you look at a single unit but companies can make a lot of extra using cheaper media. I'm doubting that the price was even increased by $100; [...] If a developer plans ahead and puts files that will be accessed together on the same layer everything will work fine, but doing this does make the game more difficult to develop and increases costs.
As I said before, if that were a serious reason given by the company, I would say:
#(&=/ you, "$%& your *@*"#%)/" company, "&%)#$ your media format, you can #/"&%$ shove it up your )"/@$ #+*"%$
Seriously, manufacturing costs are for the manufacturer, not for the customer. Expecting them to pay hundreds extra just to save a company a few cents is just plain stupid.
As for the developers: I thought that the main reason for these new-fangled hard drives in the PS3 was to ease access to data. Even so, it's far fetched to say that making sure a game doesn't pause while loading the other layer would increase development costs.
the PS3 uses a much more innovative CPU design and has over twice the memory bandwidth of the 360.
Ken Kutaragi? Is that you? Besides, I really don't see what this has to do with the necessity for storage capacity on the game discs.
There are only 2 companies(that I know of) currently making consumer Blu-Ray drives and those are both dual-layer Blu-Ray burners. They are still milking early adopters.
Yes, but don't expect to get read-only drives to be a bargain when they do arrive. I might not be an expert, but from what I've read the main reason for the PS3 arriving later than initially expected is blu-ray. And blu-ray is also what is making the system expensive.
I wouldn't doubt that single layer Blu-Ray discs will be cheaper than dual-layer DVDs in 2 years.
That would be very optimistic. But either way, the actual production costs of the disc are negligable. If it was really a reason for Sony to make me pay 100$ more so that they can save $0.10 per disc I would show them where they can shove those siny, sharp discs.
Blu-Ray adds at most $100 to the PS3's initial price.
Then why are they so fucking expensive as computer drives?
If you remember back when DVDs were first introduced, the same arguments were used.
Back then ther were games using four CDs, and 2 were pretty much standard for the rest. Also, DVD technology was a older by that time, and had become cheap.
Some console games still ship on regular CDs, however a lot(most?) of the current console games are bumping against the single layer DVD limit.
That's because they're stuck in the past and can only use single layer DVDs. We can instantly bump the capacity by twice that without changing anything. Not having 2 DVDs might be nice, but 27 GB is way too overkill for games.
So, any engine working against gravity is going to waste some of the force it generates, and since it takes energy for an engine (as opposed to, say, a ladder) to generate force
Wrong. It may be a little confusing, but an engine only needs energy if it exerts a force along a path.
True. My whole argument rests on two assumptions:
1. An engine is a device that outputs force as a function of energy per time inputted into it (F=f(E/t).
And this is where you are wrong. It may be a little confusing, but on an elevator an engine only needs energy to exert a force along a path. What you are saying is only true for a rocket engine escaping the earth.
Consider this: an elevator car is elevated by a tiny motor, with a very low gear ration. The engine consumes little power, but generates a force large enough to lift the car very slowly. Alternatively, you can use a high power engine which will elevate the car much faster.
In this system, the energy the engine needs to lift the car is F*s, s being the way. The small motor uses the same force, but outputs less power. The large motor has the same force, and uses more power. Because the small motor takes longer, the total energy used is still the same.
2. Increasing the force output of an engine demands increasing the energy input (F2 > F1 => E2 > E1).
As I said before, a small motor with a small gear ratio can generate the same force as a large motor with a large gear ratio. Here, the force F=E/s. Because it doesn't matter if s is zero (you want to overcome gravity) F isn't defined and can be infinitely large, no matter what the energy E is.
With rocket engines, it's a different matter. To generate force, you need to accelerate another object in the opposite direction. The impulse equation is m*v=F*t. Solved: F=(m*v)/t. In this case, the mass m of the ejected fuel is constant. Consequently, because E=1/2*m*v^2, v can be considered the deciding factor for the energy.
This means that in this case, there is a direct relation between the force F, and the energy E.
Another way to see it is that in the second case, because of the division by t, energy (represented by m*v) has to be continuously added to keep a constant force.
Also, consider the fuel that is spent and propelled in the opposite direction. That fuel has a high kinetic energy, but all of that is lost because it is unusable, wheras an elevator wouldn't need to accelerate a mass to generate a force.
A simple summary: A rocket engine accelerates mass in the opposite direction to generate a force, even if the potential energy (hight) remains constant.
An elevator can use a stable structure to allow it to convert all of it's energy into potential energy (hight). That is because it does not need energy to keep it's position, and all the energy can be used to lift the car.
If you have a fully supporting ladder, you're kinda getting "infinite" force (or as much as the structure can hold) for free. But it isn't moving upwards, hence there is no way, so the energy (product of force and way) is zero.
With a rocket the only difference is that the only way to keep the object in it's potential state is burning huge amounts of fuel to create an impulse.
Consider an anology: You can hold a carrier bag on an outstretched arm. By doing so, you will natice that you are consuming energy. Your muscles need energy to help your body withstand the gravitational force. But it is essentially all wasted in heat.
You can however place it on a table and rest. The bag is still being suspended in it's hight, and the system isn't using any energy.
It's just a disadvantage of the system.
But what you have to do is differntiate between force and energy. It's a common mistake to want to directly relate them, but you can for example have infinite force without any energy.
You've got the right idea for free-rocket elevation, but your assumption for an elevator is wrong.
If you have a secure suspension in a space, you don't need energy to withstand the effect of gravity. If you hang something on a string from the ceiling, the object doesn't fall, and you're not using any energy to keep it in that state.
The problem with a rocket is that you can't hold onto thin air like if you were climbing a ladder. The lifting force results from the impulse from the burning of fuel.
A space elevator on the other hand is a perfect solution.
Microsoft has said that all games will come on DVD, because there's no nead to use HDDVD the way it is. PC games have had "HD" content for years, and I don't see why consoles should suddenly need 27 GB for their games (I can't even begin to imagine how anybody could make a game to fill that amount of space)
But they did say that they may offer solutions for people who do want to play HDDVD movies. Sony on the other hand, is forcing everyone who wants a PS3 to adopt their next-gen DVD format, even though 95% of them can't even display HDTV, even though there is no need, only making their console even more expensive.
By the way, the PS3 doesn't output analog 1080p (which would probably look crappy anyway, I don't even know of any systems capable of displaying it), only 1080i. If you want progressive, you need the $600 version.
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You're confusing prior art with patent infringement or double-patenting. Prior art is if the "invention" existed before the patent applicant invented it.
As far as software goes, I doubt there's a patent out there without some kind of prior art. Most developers wouldn't consider filing patents for trivial tasks.
It's only when Microsoft come along and say "we need 10 patents for every Dollar we put into R&D" that you get stuff like doubleclicks.
Because it's a complete contradiction?!
Supposing somebody was to claim prior art, how can he if all the office looks at is the filing date?
You're paying for writable discs, which is where the big difference lies.
They are produced by applying a thin dye. You have to write to them individually, which takes time.
Mass produced discs however, are pressed from a master disc, whicj only takes a few milliseconds.
There may be space in the consumer market for this, but it's not directly comparable with HDDVD or BD.
As I understand it, these discs are meant almost exclusively for backup and storage purposes. The thing about HDDVDs and BVDs are that you can press them in a production line for a few cents, while these things are a little more complicated.
How can someone make an article like this and only mention "Nintendo" once, without going into anything about the Wii?
If you only leave Microsoft, well then, yeah, it might be a little stupid to write off Sony. But come on.
Exactly. There is however stopping people from sharing their downloads, making their own archive, as long as they don't include new work like commentaries or translations.
No, the photgraphs are not protected and completely in the public domain. The reason is that they are two-dimensional reproductions of an ancient document. The same goes for old paintings. Nobody gains a copyright from copying public domain material.
I personally find it despicable that they want to charge people for access, and if they have any kind of DRM, I hope they all go to hell.
Sure. They'll just give all their hard work away for free. I mean, what better business model is there than to first give away your product, and then wait for some freindly, voluntary donations?
Apparently the technology is some kind of flash-derived storage. Theoretically it would probably be possible to push it up to 2 GB, but the media itself would be about twice as much as todays games.
Maybe have a look at this
Well, technically destinction between 1st, 2nd and 3rd "world" hasn't been used for a while. Nowadays, we prefer "developed", "developing" and "least developed" nations. Of course, there are very large differences in Indian society, but India is certainly isn't "least developed".
Cheaper yes, but that's only an issue if you're dealing with large files. As it is, alot of people using laptops use it for documents, web browsing, and other low-performance tasks.
But as for longterm reliability, I would be more sceptical. I've heard plenty of stories of Hard Drives crapping up. The thing about them is that they fail because of mechanical wear.
Flash memory on the other hand has no moving parts, and that's always a big plus. I've never heard of flash memory losing data.
It would be interesting to compare the longterm reliability of HDs and Flash drives, but saying that HDs are invaiably better is a little one-sided.
For more information on giant enemy crabs, read this article.
You can also visit the no. 1 GEC music site, or watch a brief documentary on their importance in japanese history.
India? Third world? Where have you been living?
Well, I'm looking forward to HD movies and $100 seems like an insane deal to me.
You are assuming that you're not paying more than $100 for the drive to watch HD movies (most customers would rather pay nothing because they have no HD set)
Now, we can go into a long discussion about the price of drive components and manufacturing, but why don't we just leave it at that?
Production costs of the disc are irrelevant when you look at a single unit but companies can make a lot of extra using cheaper media. I'm doubting that the price was even increased by $100;
[...]
If a developer plans ahead and puts files that will be accessed together on the same layer everything will work fine, but doing this does make the game more difficult to develop and increases costs.
As I said before, if that were a serious reason given by the company, I would say:
#(&=/ you, "$%& your *@*"#%)/" company, "&%)#$ your media format, you can #/"&%$ shove it up your )"/@$ #+*"%$
Seriously, manufacturing costs are for the manufacturer, not for the customer. Expecting them to pay hundreds extra just to save a company a few cents is just plain stupid.
As for the developers: I thought that the main reason for these new-fangled hard drives in the PS3 was to ease access to data.
Even so, it's far fetched to say that making sure a game doesn't pause while loading the other layer would increase development costs.
the PS3 uses a much more innovative CPU design and has over twice the memory bandwidth of the 360.
Ken Kutaragi? Is that you?
Besides, I really don't see what this has to do with the necessity for storage capacity on the game discs.
There are only 2 companies(that I know of) currently making consumer Blu-Ray drives and those are both dual-layer Blu-Ray burners. They are still milking early adopters.
Yes, but don't expect to get read-only drives to be a bargain when they do arrive. I might not be an expert, but from what I've read the main reason for the PS3 arriving later than initially expected is blu-ray. And blu-ray is also what is making the system expensive.
I wouldn't doubt that single layer Blu-Ray discs will be cheaper than dual-layer DVDs in 2 years.
That would be very optimistic. But either way, the actual production costs of the disc are negligable. If it was really a reason for Sony to make me pay 100$ more so that they can save $0.10 per disc I would show them where they can shove those siny, sharp discs.
Blu-Ray adds at most $100 to the PS3's initial price.
Then why are they so fucking expensive as computer drives?
If you remember back when DVDs were first introduced, the same arguments were used.
Back then ther were games using four CDs, and 2 were pretty much standard for the rest. Also, DVD technology was a older by that time, and had become cheap.
Some console games still ship on regular CDs, however a lot(most?) of the current console games are bumping against the single layer DVD limit.
That's because they're stuck in the past and can only use single layer DVDs. We can instantly bump the capacity by twice that without changing anything.
Not having 2 DVDs might be nice, but 27 GB is way too overkill for games.
Wrong. It may be a little confusing, but an engine only needs energy if it exerts a force along a path.
And this is where you are wrong. It may be a little confusing, but on an elevator an engine only needs energy to exert a force along a path.
What you are saying is only true for a rocket engine escaping the earth.
Consider this: an elevator car is elevated by a tiny motor, with a very low gear ration. The engine consumes little power, but generates a force large enough to lift the car very slowly.
Alternatively, you can use a high power engine which will elevate the car much faster.
In this system, the energy the engine needs to lift the car is F*s, s being the way. The small motor uses the same force, but outputs less power. The large motor has the same force, and uses more power. Because the small motor takes longer, the total energy used is still the same.
As I said before, a small motor with a small gear ratio can generate the same force as a large motor with a large gear ratio. Here, the force F=E/s. Because it doesn't matter if s is zero (you want to overcome gravity) F isn't defined and can be infinitely large, no matter what the energy E is.
With rocket engines, it's a different matter. To generate force, you need to accelerate another object in the opposite direction. The impulse equation is m*v=F*t. Solved: F=(m*v)/t. In this case, the mass m of the ejected fuel is constant. Consequently, because E=1/2*m*v^2, v can be considered the deciding factor for the energy.
This means that in this case, there is a direct relation between the force F, and the energy E.
Another way to see it is that in the second case, because of the division by t, energy (represented by m*v) has to be continuously added to keep a constant force.
Also, consider the fuel that is spent and propelled in the opposite direction. That fuel has a high kinetic energy, but all of that is lost because it is unusable, wheras an elevator wouldn't need to accelerate a mass to generate a force.
A simple summary:
A rocket engine accelerates mass in the opposite direction to generate a force, even if the potential energy (hight) remains constant.
An elevator can use a stable structure to allow it to convert all of it's energy into potential energy (hight). That is because it does not need energy to keep it's position, and all the energy can be used to lift the car.
Maybe I wasn't clear with my first comment.
If you have a fully supporting ladder, you're kinda getting "infinite" force (or as much as the structure can hold) for free. But it isn't moving upwards, hence there is no way, so the energy (product of force and way) is zero.
With a rocket the only difference is that the only way to keep the object in it's potential state is burning huge amounts of fuel to create an impulse.
Consider an anology: You can hold a carrier bag on an outstretched arm. By doing so, you will natice that you are consuming energy. Your muscles need energy to help your body withstand the gravitational force. But it is essentially all wasted in heat.
You can however place it on a table and rest. The bag is still being suspended in it's hight, and the system isn't using any energy.
It's just a disadvantage of the system.
But what you have to do is differntiate between force and energy. It's a common mistake to want to directly relate them, but you can for example have infinite force without any energy.
You've got the right idea for free-rocket elevation, but your assumption for an elevator is wrong.
If you have a secure suspension in a space, you don't need energy to withstand the effect of gravity. If you hang something on a string from the ceiling, the object doesn't fall, and you're not using any energy to keep it in that state.
The problem with a rocket is that you can't hold onto thin air like if you were climbing a ladder.
The lifting force results from the impulse from the burning of fuel.
A space elevator on the other hand is a perfect solution.
A small comparison:
lets say your car gets about 25 mpg. You say it's pretty efficient.
In Europe, an "efficient" car is one that does under 3 liters per 100 kilometers, or about 80 mpg.
Here in Germany, gas costs about 6 USD/gallon.
But you're still paying about 1.6 times what somebody would be paying here.
Well, flash would be pretty pointless at 6 KB. But they're basically the same technology, so what the hell.
Microsoft has said that all games will come on DVD, because there's no nead to use HDDVD the way it is.
PC games have had "HD" content for years, and I don't see why consoles should suddenly need 27 GB for their games (I can't even begin to imagine how anybody could make a game to fill that amount of space)
But they did say that they may offer solutions for people who do want to play HDDVD movies.
Sony on the other hand, is forcing everyone who wants a PS3 to adopt their next-gen DVD format, even though 95% of them can't even display HDTV, even though there is no need, only making their console even more expensive.
By the way, the PS3 doesn't output analog 1080p (which would probably look crappy anyway, I don't even know of any systems capable of displaying it), only 1080i. If you want progressive, you need the $600 version.
Depends on the version. DVI is older, and some older sets won't support HDCP. On the other hand, every HDMI set can handle HDCP.
Don't you think it's a bit pointless to point out a good comment if you're only posting anomamously yourself, so that noone will see you?