Some newer types of car no longer require a physical key! You can keep the key (or card that is used instead) in your pocket. When you walk up to the door and touch the handle it unlocks, and when you sit down and push the ignition button you can drive away.
You are right: in the general case this just isn't possible. I have an IP address that is always resolved as "San Diego, California" but actually it is in the Netherlands, Europe. When looking up a cable or DSL address you usually get the address of the ISP head office instead of the particular customer, and this could be very far off in a large country.
However, there are companies that now offer mor exact location service per individual IP address. They keep a database that relates IP address to postal code an telephone number of the owner, and can even verify that a specified bank account number belongs to the customer at that address. This is used for marketing purposes and to facilitate payment systems for webshops.
Of course it is a suspicious development, and with a good ISP you can opt-out of such a system.
Actually there is a separate Dutch layout, in which the main layout is QWERTY but the symbols are arranged different from the US layout.
On such a keyboard it is very difficult to do programming or use a command-line interface, because special characters like \ | ~ { } are very hard to type. Instead, you can easily type á à ij etc.
In the early days of the PC such keyboards were often sold to non-tech PC users. You had to specify "US layout" to avoid getting these. Nowadays, "US layout" is usually the default.
Well, that is not what I spent but the recommended retail price is about that (mostly because the dollar has fallen so much relative to the euro, of course!). Prices of these sets are falling, and I expect that next year you can buy a similar-quality set for maybe 2500 dollars (or just below 2000 euro).
I doubt that any program can do much better than what this TV's scaler does. I have done some first experiments feeding the TV at native resolution from a PC and of course it looks impressive when displaying a desktop. I did not try HDTV source material yet. (being in 50Hz PAL land of course means the situation is better to start with)
With a fixed quality of DVD, why is reading and upscaling it on a PC going to make it look better than sending it to the TV at the recording resolution and then upscaling it on the TV?
To get 1920x1080 at 60fps you will have to scan it from the film at that resolution. And the film does not provide the 60fps anyway...
There will be no terrestrial HDTV here. It will be either cable or satellite. There is some more room on these media, but it is expensive. Given that 1920x1080 is not going to be worthwile below 42" screen, and given that most broadcasters see TV programming only as a way to ensure that viewers don't zap away between the commercials, I doubt the money will be spent on it.
I have a new LCD TV with HDMI input and HDCP support. It also comes with schematics (on CD).
I studied the schematics and was astonished by what I found: the HDMI digital input is terminated at a special purpose chip that deserializes and deframes the data, decrypts the HDCP, and converts the R, G and B to ANALOG!
So on the output of this chip there is a normal RGB (plus sync) signal. This is fed to the switching matrix (where it is combined with all other inputs the TV supports) and then this analog RGB signal is again digitized and fed to the scaler that scales it up or down to drive the LCD panel.
This amazes me for two reasons:
1. I would have expected that the digital DVI or HDMI signal would go directly to the scaler without first being converted to analog and then back to digital. What point is there in using a digital input, this way?
2. It provides an accessible and decrypted version of the HDCP-protected stream. Assuming this special-purpose chip is commercially available, it will be trivial to build a HDCP-circumventing box, just like the anti-Macrovision boxes...
Really, this has been tried many times before. Even in the days when CD-I (CD Interactive) was supposed to be the next hot thing, there was a package for those CD players that came with a modem and a dialup Internet account (plus the software CD of course).
Those that bought it could surf the Internet, send e-mail, post in newsgroups, etc. But of course it was very difficult to get anything readable on the TV and the keyboard was awkward. I regret those that spent money on such a solution, only to quickly find out that it had severe limits when compared to a full PC, and had to spend money again. And even more I regret those that were satisfied but saw the product discontinued (unsupported and after some time not able to connect anymore) even though they had spent money on it.
And this should be a consideration before you buy something like simPC as well. What if the company goes belly-up after half a year and you are left with a useless box instead of the PC you could have had for similar money? Even sadlier, those in the target audience probably don't consider this at all and just lose their money...
When they really want a foolproof PC, the boot-from-CD approach seems to be much more reasonable. At least then you can fallback to more traditional installs when the support quits.
Still the use of the Windows-standard profile directory would solve that problem, because the user's temp dir is inside the profile and only accessible to the user. That Unix has a globally-shared temp dir is a Unix problem, not a Mozilla problem. Windows does not have that problem.
Right. Especially on the Windows platform, Mozilla should be aware of the user profile and store its information there (and the tempfiles in the Local Settings\Temp folder). Then this problem does not arise, and it is also much easier to support roaming profiles on a Windows network. The way it is done now is not Windows-compliant and causes administrator headaches, plus security issues to boot.
The article only touches on aspects like response time and color quality but totally ignores things like geometry, focus, convergence and stability. I don't think it is anything near a fair comparison. I'll call it crap.
I have recently bought a new TV and I find that the average retailer tells such utter bullshit about the products he is selling (and the ones he isn't selling) that you almost feel sorry.
Geometry is always a problem Same for color convergence Same for focus EHT stability is an issue
CRT computer monitors are often of quite good quality, even the not so expensive ones. But even the best CRT TVs of today have serious design flaws in the above categories.
Go visit the HIFI/TV store sometime. You will find that what they sell there today does not live up to your expectations. Bad geometry, bad focus, bad convergence, bad EHT stability all destroy the potentially better color quality of a modern CRT TV.
This is blatantly untrue. They have spent 50 years on cutting cost. CRT TVs of today, even the "high-end" ones, suffer from bad geometry and unstabilized EHT. The picture sides are curved badly and the entire picture zooms in and out when the brightness varies (especially well visible with MTV-style videoclips). Focus and convergence are also substandard on most TVs.
And this is not becaus of technology, as any user of a CRT computer monitor knows. It is just cost cutting.
Radio collectors today want the US made radios from the 50s guess what they often still work. The japanese stuff from then often is just so much trash.
On the other hand, it is mainly a US invention that stuff should not work for too long so that the consumer will have to go back to the store and consume something new. That is then good for the economy, and not so good for the environment. But the economy is more important than the environment. (or so does the president say)
I think you mean to say that the energy consumption will be dependent on picture content, like with a CRT, and unlike an LCD.
But isn't the total consumption dependent on the effectivity of conversion from electrical power into light, comparing the florescent light used in an LCD with the light-emitting-diode?
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Some newer types of car no longer require a physical key!
You can keep the key (or card that is used instead) in your pocket. When you walk up to the door and touch the handle it unlocks, and when you sit down and push the ignition button you can drive away.
You are right: in the general case this just isn't possible. I have an IP address that is always resolved as "San Diego, California" but actually it is in the Netherlands, Europe.
When looking up a cable or DSL address you usually get the address of the ISP head office instead of the particular customer, and this could be very far off in a large country.
However, there are companies that now offer mor exact location service per individual IP address.
They keep a database that relates IP address to postal code an telephone number of the owner, and can even verify that a specified bank account number belongs to the customer at that address.
This is used for marketing purposes and to facilitate payment systems for webshops.
Of course it is a suspicious development, and with a good ISP you can opt-out of such a system.
Actually there is a separate Dutch layout, in which the main layout is QWERTY but the symbols are arranged different from the US layout.
On such a keyboard it is very difficult to do programming or use a command-line interface, because special characters like \ | ~ { } are very hard to type. Instead, you can easily type á à ij etc.
In the early days of the PC such keyboards were often sold to non-tech PC users. You had to specify "US layout" to avoid getting these.
Nowadays, "US layout" is usually the default.
The new guy's first day was also his last.
Of course it should have been your friend's last day...
The Internet was invented by Al Gore, wasn't it?
Well, that is not what I spent but the recommended retail price is about that (mostly because the dollar has fallen so much relative to the euro, of course!).
Prices of these sets are falling, and I expect that next year you can buy a similar-quality set for maybe 2500 dollars (or just below 2000 euro).
I doubt that any program can do much better than what this TV's scaler does. I have done some first experiments feeding the TV at native resolution from a PC and of course it looks impressive when displaying a desktop. I did not try HDTV source material yet.
(being in 50Hz PAL land of course means the situation is better to start with)
With a fixed quality of DVD, why is reading and upscaling it on a PC going to make it look better than sending it to the TV at the recording resolution and then upscaling it on the TV?
To get 1920x1080 at 60fps you will have to scan it from the film at that resolution. And the film does not provide the 60fps anyway...
There will be no terrestrial HDTV here. It will be either cable or satellite. There is some more room on these media, but it is expensive.
Given that 1920x1080 is not going to be worthwile below 42" screen, and given that most broadcasters see TV programming only as a way to ensure that viewers don't zap away between the commercials, I doubt the money will be spent on it.
Will there be any broadcasters that are prepared to spend the bitrate (and thus bandwith) required for 1080P?
Here in Europe the battle seems to go between 1080i and 720P.
I have a new LCD TV with HDMI input and HDCP support.
It also comes with schematics (on CD).
I studied the schematics and was astonished by what I found: the HDMI digital input is terminated at a special purpose chip that deserializes and deframes the data, decrypts the HDCP, and converts the R, G and B to ANALOG!
So on the output of this chip there is a normal RGB (plus sync) signal. This is fed to the switching matrix (where it is combined with all other inputs the TV supports) and then this analog RGB signal is again digitized and fed to the scaler that scales it up or down to drive the LCD panel.
This amazes me for two reasons:
1. I would have expected that the digital DVI or HDMI signal would go directly to the scaler without first being converted to analog and then back to digital. What point is there in using a digital input, this way?
2. It provides an accessible and decrypted version of the HDCP-protected stream. Assuming this special-purpose chip is commercially available, it will be trivial to build a HDCP-circumventing box, just like the anti-Macrovision boxes...
But the i-opener cost more per month.
Really, this has been tried many times before. Even in the days when CD-I (CD Interactive) was supposed to be the next hot thing, there was a package for those CD players that came with a modem and a dialup Internet account (plus the software CD of course).
Those that bought it could surf the Internet, send e-mail, post in newsgroups, etc. But of course it was very difficult to get anything readable on the TV and the keyboard was awkward.
I regret those that spent money on such a solution, only to quickly find out that it had severe limits when compared to a full PC, and had to spend money again.
And even more I regret those that were satisfied but saw the product discontinued (unsupported and after some time not able to connect anymore) even though they had spent money on it.
And this should be a consideration before you buy something like simPC as well. What if the company goes belly-up after half a year and you are left with a useless box instead of the PC you could have had for similar money?
Even sadlier, those in the target audience probably don't consider this at all and just lose their money...
When they really want a foolproof PC, the boot-from-CD approach seems to be much more reasonable. At least then you can fallback to more traditional installs when the support quits.
He did not do that himself. The administrator of the FTP server he used has chosen that name.
Still the use of the Windows-standard profile directory would solve that problem, because the user's temp dir is inside the profile and only accessible to the user.
That Unix has a globally-shared temp dir is a Unix problem, not a Mozilla problem. Windows does not have that problem.
Right.
Especially on the Windows platform, Mozilla should be aware of the user profile and store its information there (and the tempfiles in the Local Settings\Temp folder). Then this problem does not arise, and it is also much easier to support roaming profiles on a Windows network.
The way it is done now is not Windows-compliant and causes administrator headaches, plus security issues to boot.
The article only touches on aspects like response time and color quality but totally ignores things like geometry, focus, convergence and stability.
I don't think it is anything near a fair comparison. I'll call it crap.
I have recently bought a new TV and I find that the average retailer tells such utter bullshit about the products he is selling (and the ones he isn't selling) that you almost feel sorry.
Geometry is always a problem
Same for color convergence
Same for focus
EHT stability is an issue
CRT computer monitors are often of quite good quality, even the not so expensive ones. But even the best CRT TVs of today have serious design flaws in the above categories.
Go visit the HIFI/TV store sometime.
You will find that what they sell there today does not live up to your expectations.
Bad geometry, bad focus, bad convergence, bad EHT stability all destroy the potentially better color quality of a modern CRT TV.
This is only true for a computer LCD monitor and a low-end LCD TV.
A good LCD TV does picture scaling better than you can dream about on a CRT.
This is blatantly untrue. They have spent 50 years on cutting cost.
CRT TVs of today, even the "high-end" ones, suffer from bad geometry and unstabilized EHT. The picture sides are curved badly and the entire picture zooms in and out when the brightness varies (especially well visible with MTV-style videoclips).
Focus and convergence are also substandard on most TVs.
And this is not becaus of technology, as any user of a CRT computer monitor knows. It is just cost cutting.
Nearly all widescreen LCD displays, e.g. those used in widescreen laptops and small LCD TVs, are 15:9
Only large LCDs specially made for TV usage are 16:9.
You don't believe it? 1280x768 is 15:9!
16:9 screens have resolutions like 1366x768.
Does this tell you if it is 16:9 or 15:9?
Radio collectors today want the US made radios from the 50s guess what they often still work. The japanese stuff from then often is just so much trash.
On the other hand, it is mainly a US invention that stuff should not work for too long so that the consumer will have to go back to the store and consume something new. That is then good for the economy, and not so good for the environment. But the economy is more important than the environment. (or so does the president say)
If that were true, why didn't it already happen in LCD and Plasma TV?
There is lots of competition in that arena, but prices are still very high.
I think you mean to say that the energy consumption will be dependent on picture content, like with a CRT, and unlike an LCD.
But isn't the total consumption dependent on the effectivity of conversion from electrical power into light, comparing the florescent light used in an LCD with the light-emitting-diode?