By the time you have 50% marketshare you have such an sway over the market that it's effectively monopolisation. TRUE, you don't have all of the share, but you can start to employ tactics that are anti-competitive (for example drop your prices massively in the short term, boot your competitors out of the market entirely, then raise prices again.. look at Microsoft. They cut prices massively with the XBox, but because they have POWERFUL opposition, their tactics are a lot less effective).
I'm not joking, no UK business can actually have more than 25% share in any one market. In practice mergers that go over this are illegal, and continued aggressive growth in a market despite warnings is also illegal (to my understanding). This is why we have no Wal-marts and so forth in our country, there's always healthy competition.
Our equivilent, Tesco (wikipedia it for a bit of info, it's a major supermarket chain) is the nearest we have to a gigantic monopolising corporation. Because of the afformentioned legislation, they've had to spread into other markets, now they sell car insurance, internet access, loans, etc etc.. and they can't wrestle their way into those markets as effectively as they'd be able to wrestle further into the supermarket.. market.
A little bit offtopic, but it should give insights into how you can be a monopoly, without even owning all of the market.
I did read the article yes, I was just trying to address some of the advantages of OLEDs (albeit going off track a bit, the display technology is just as exciting as the lighting technology to be honest, I'd have thought slashdotters would have been interested).
The thing you have to remember about the article is that it's incredibly dumbed down, but that's the wonder of BBC - I could show this to my mum and she'd understand it all. If you want complex answers like how much it'll cost, it's not really covered anywhere on the web, although PLEDs are usually touted as being incredibly cheap screens, I'm not entirely sure as to whether it'll be cheaper than lighting. The main advantage is their incredible efficiency, and also the easy integration with inkjet technology, and that should drive down costs quite considerably, but as cheap as that? I think we'll have to see some figures first released from the companies (and you'll be lucky if you can see that any time soon. OLEDs available at the moment are SM-OLEDs, and the ones with the massive manufacturing advantages are still in research for all I know).
To be honest, you're probably right. Although I think you're taking blackbody radiation a bit too far when you say "a hot dark object". It's pretty obvious the sun ain't dark!
The Guardian used to be called the Manchester Guardian, then it moved to London where it was called simply The Guardian. There's no such thing as this 'london guardian' you're talking about.
First of all, PLEDs (that's POLYMER based light emitting diodes) are a liquid, so they can actually be printed using existing inkjet technology - it's incredibly cheap to manufacture because you don't need special equipment, just modify existing plants. Instead now of printing paper, you're printing lightbulbs/screens.
Secondly, each of these is minutely small. The emissive layer is LIQUID. The resolution is absolutely fantastic, just as good as liquid crystal.
Thirdly, LCD screens are dependant upon polarisation. You have a really strong backlight, you pass currents through the liquid crystal layer and it blocks out certain frequencies of light. No matter what you show on screen, whether it be completely black or completely white, it's consuming the same electricity, it's just that in one, the liquid crystal is letting you see it, in another it's not. Have you ever wondered why the screen gets its darkest ONLY when you turn it off? That's because the backlight gets turned off. OLEDs naturally produce the light from the off, and only use the energy required to make the frequency you need. Not only does this mean you get a more natural colour, you get REALLY good contrast because you can render black properly.
Forthly (I should really stop this list): because you can tailor make a film of OLED to produce a particular frequency of light, it WILL look natural. If you're asking why, think back to some basic physics - you remember that when an electron descends an energy level, it emits a particular frequency of light? The sun has a pattern of frequencies produced this way, but it's with hydrogen, which is quite hard to replicate, with say, neon and flourescant bulbs. With OLEDs it's easy to tailor make molecules that'll replicate the same frequency spectrum.
I had to do a presentation about OLEDs a few months ago mate: I know my salt.
A WMD that's marketed specifically for evil geniuses that are on a tight budget. The days of cheap minion labour are behind us, guys, gotta look after the pennies.
Every single Slashdotter who thinks they're hilarious will inevitably make their way down the comments, groan that they weren't the first to the joke, and then attempt to make one anyway..... the thought clearly never crossed my mind! Ahem.
A lot of people I know, most notably conservative supporters, seem to be afraid of Europe. I know a few people who are rabidly against it, even though they seem to understand relatively little about the economic situation between Britain and mainland Europe, which is the key issue really, the idea of national pride is complete nonsense - the afformentioned Euroskeptics appear to be deadly afraid of losing the £ for instance! It's only been around for like THIRTY YEARS in its current form, how is it tradition? (not to mention you have to be pretty shallow to consider a currency 'national identity')
To answer the whole "why is the UK seemingly seperate from mainland Europe".. we are actually quite culturally seperate from the rest of Europe to be fair. For a start we owned a good third of the world at one point, so we've been indirectly influenced by a lot of that, plus our language is distinctly different (most powerful mainland European countries are related, french/spanish/italian are very latin derived and quite similar).. then of course there's the fact that English is used by the US, which means England has a particularly American streak in its culture, the stuff just transfers straight over. Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, Britney Spears, Starbucks, hell, even Krispy Kreme. And, as previously mentioned, there's the fact that we don't feel connected geographically to mainland Europe either. The effect is a bit like having a big fence between you and them. The dividing line. This is where Europe stops and where the British Isles begin. Just how the Atlantic shows where Africa and Europe stops, and where the Americas begin.
I for one welcome our vegetable oil consuming, self replicating computer overlords, and wish to remind them how valuable I can be rounding up slaves for their vast recycling of old computer parts.
Yeah yeah, it had to be done, mod me down already.
They've already been invented, they're called dongles.
For the lazy who can't be bothered to read the link, basically it's a bit like a USB key, unless you physically enter the key into the computer, the software (OS, mayhaps?) refuses to run.
Darwinist is an entirely incorrect phrase to use anyway, as evolution has evolv... developed since Charles Darwin first proposed the theory. It's not like Newtonian mechanics where most of it was actually developed, to this day, by Newton himself.
I'm sure we probably can use millidegrees in terms of angles, but historically speaking, minutes and seconds are the correct terminology. It's like talking about megayards instead of miles, yeah? Standard SI prefixes are generally used on SI units only. We do use minutes/seconds in modern physics too - I'm taking you've heard of arcseconds? True, it's a measure of distance, but it is based on a second of an arc.
Go and read my comment again, I was talking about the other type of degree, as in to do with angles. To make it worse, you can't have a degree of temperature, either, you say degrees CELSIUS or degrees FAHRENHEIT. I think we can both agree they're different temperature scales, non?
(note: Kelvin is always on its own, and to be fair I'd imagine they'd use that in cryogenics, being easily converted into energy, but this is only a guess after doing some basic thermo)
Yeah, that notation only works if you're using standard SI units, which years clearly aren't (for example there's no such thing as a millidegree.. you have 60 minutes in a degree, and then 60 seconds in a minute). The m doesn't stand for mega OR milli, it stands for million.
Pedantic humour is best when you're actually correct.
Slashdot Mirror
By the time you have 50% marketshare you have such an sway over the market that it's effectively monopolisation. TRUE, you don't have all of the share, but you can start to employ tactics that are anti-competitive (for example drop your prices massively in the short term, boot your competitors out of the market entirely, then raise prices again.. look at Microsoft. They cut prices massively with the XBox, but because they have POWERFUL opposition, their tactics are a lot less effective).
I'm not joking, no UK business can actually have more than 25% share in any one market. In practice mergers that go over this are illegal, and continued aggressive growth in a market despite warnings is also illegal (to my understanding). This is why we have no Wal-marts and so forth in our country, there's always healthy competition.
Our equivilent, Tesco (wikipedia it for a bit of info, it's a major supermarket chain) is the nearest we have to a gigantic monopolising corporation. Because of the afformentioned legislation, they've had to spread into other markets, now they sell car insurance, internet access, loans, etc etc.. and they can't wrestle their way into those markets as effectively as they'd be able to wrestle further into the supermarket.. market.
A little bit offtopic, but it should give insights into how you can be a monopoly, without even owning all of the market.
You actually shed skin all the time anyway, you know.
I think it's something like 90% of dust is human skin.
I did read the article yes, I was just trying to address some of the advantages of OLEDs (albeit going off track a bit, the display technology is just as exciting as the lighting technology to be honest, I'd have thought slashdotters would have been interested).
The thing you have to remember about the article is that it's incredibly dumbed down, but that's the wonder of BBC - I could show this to my mum and she'd understand it all. If you want complex answers like how much it'll cost, it's not really covered anywhere on the web, although PLEDs are usually touted as being incredibly cheap screens, I'm not entirely sure as to whether it'll be cheaper than lighting. The main advantage is their incredible efficiency, and also the easy integration with inkjet technology, and that should drive down costs quite considerably, but as cheap as that? I think we'll have to see some figures first released from the companies (and you'll be lucky if you can see that any time soon. OLEDs available at the moment are SM-OLEDs, and the ones with the massive manufacturing advantages are still in research for all I know).
To be honest, you're probably right. Although I think you're taking blackbody radiation a bit too far when you say "a hot dark object". It's pretty obvious the sun ain't dark!
Y'see, I'm not too hot on the sun.. get it?
Oh, forget it.
But what on Earth is the "london guardian"?
The Guardian used to be called the Manchester Guardian, then it moved to London where it was called simply The Guardian. There's no such thing as this 'london guardian' you're talking about.
No no no.
First of all, PLEDs (that's POLYMER based light emitting diodes) are a liquid, so they can actually be printed using existing inkjet technology - it's incredibly cheap to manufacture because you don't need special equipment, just modify existing plants. Instead now of printing paper, you're printing lightbulbs/screens.
Secondly, each of these is minutely small. The emissive layer is LIQUID. The resolution is absolutely fantastic, just as good as liquid crystal.
Thirdly, LCD screens are dependant upon polarisation. You have a really strong backlight, you pass currents through the liquid crystal layer and it blocks out certain frequencies of light. No matter what you show on screen, whether it be completely black or completely white, it's consuming the same electricity, it's just that in one, the liquid crystal is letting you see it, in another it's not. Have you ever wondered why the screen gets its darkest ONLY when you turn it off? That's because the backlight gets turned off. OLEDs naturally produce the light from the off, and only use the energy required to make the frequency you need. Not only does this mean you get a more natural colour, you get REALLY good contrast because you can render black properly.
Forthly (I should really stop this list): because you can tailor make a film of OLED to produce a particular frequency of light, it WILL look natural. If you're asking why, think back to some basic physics - you remember that when an electron descends an energy level, it emits a particular frequency of light? The sun has a pattern of frequencies produced this way, but it's with hydrogen, which is quite hard to replicate, with say, neon and flourescant bulbs. With OLEDs it's easy to tailor make molecules that'll replicate the same frequency spectrum.
I had to do a presentation about OLEDs a few months ago mate: I know my salt.
Equals pipe dream.
Look at the previous Bond titles by EA. Do they look bothered about making a GOOD game any time soon?
Ha, only on slashdot could that get moderated informative.
A WMD that's marketed specifically for evil geniuses that are on a tight budget. The days of cheap minion labour are behind us, guys, gotta look after the pennies.
"phantom"?
Heh heh.
Don't they have problem enough with overpopulation as it is in China?
Three words: Mario is Missing.
Every single Slashdotter who thinks they're hilarious will inevitably make their way down the comments, groan that they weren't the first to the joke, and then attempt to make one anyway.. ... the thought clearly never crossed my mind! Ahem.
A lot of people I know, most notably conservative supporters, seem to be afraid of Europe. I know a few people who are rabidly against it, even though they seem to understand relatively little about the economic situation between Britain and mainland Europe, which is the key issue really, the idea of national pride is complete nonsense - the afformentioned Euroskeptics appear to be deadly afraid of losing the £ for instance! It's only been around for like THIRTY YEARS in its current form, how is it tradition? (not to mention you have to be pretty shallow to consider a currency 'national identity')
To answer the whole "why is the UK seemingly seperate from mainland Europe".. we are actually quite culturally seperate from the rest of Europe to be fair. For a start we owned a good third of the world at one point, so we've been indirectly influenced by a lot of that, plus our language is distinctly different (most powerful mainland European countries are related, french/spanish/italian are very latin derived and quite similar).. then of course there's the fact that English is used by the US, which means England has a particularly American streak in its culture, the stuff just transfers straight over. Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, Britney Spears, Starbucks, hell, even Krispy Kreme. And, as previously mentioned, there's the fact that we don't feel connected geographically to mainland Europe either. The effect is a bit like having a big fence between you and them. The dividing line. This is where Europe stops and where the British Isles begin. Just how the Atlantic shows where Africa and Europe stops, and where the Americas begin.
I for one welcome our vegetable oil consuming, self replicating computer overlords, and wish to remind them how valuable I can be rounding up slaves for their vast recycling of old computer parts.
Yeah yeah, it had to be done, mod me down already.
They've already been invented, they're called dongles. For the lazy who can't be bothered to read the link, basically it's a bit like a USB key, unless you physically enter the key into the computer, the software (OS, mayhaps?) refuses to run.
Darwinist is an entirely incorrect phrase to use anyway, as evolution has evolv... developed since Charles Darwin first proposed the theory. It's not like Newtonian mechanics where most of it was actually developed, to this day, by Newton himself.
that's what they say now!
I'm sure we probably can use millidegrees in terms of angles, but historically speaking, minutes and seconds are the correct terminology. It's like talking about megayards instead of miles, yeah? Standard SI prefixes are generally used on SI units only. We do use minutes/seconds in modern physics too - I'm taking you've heard of arcseconds? True, it's a measure of distance, but it is based on a second of an arc.
EA didn't get Lionhead? Phew! At least Lionhead isn't in the clutches of an evil, ruthlessly monopolising corporation, eh? .. eh?
Three times the monitor space, three times the blue screen goodness!
I wonder what he does when Windows fails.
Go and read my comment again, I was talking about the other type of degree, as in to do with angles. To make it worse, you can't have a degree of temperature, either, you say degrees CELSIUS or degrees FAHRENHEIT. I think we can both agree they're different temperature scales, non?
(note: Kelvin is always on its own, and to be fair I'd imagine they'd use that in cryogenics, being easily converted into energy, but this is only a guess after doing some basic thermo)
Yeah, that notation only works if you're using standard SI units, which years clearly aren't (for example there's no such thing as a millidegree.. you have 60 minutes in a degree, and then 60 seconds in a minute). The m doesn't stand for mega OR milli, it stands for million.
Pedantic humour is best when you're actually correct.
... no. But I can just see people getting sweaty palms as they discover who got daddy's moderator points on slashdot..
Or was the title of the 'report' about franchises, not ONLINE GAMES, as he appears to be talking about for an entire two pages?
Interesting but for the most part, entirely irrelevant. If he was publishing a report that was 20 pages long this might have been appropriate.