I dunno... maybe, maybe not. I've never tried to "write" code in a VR environment. For that matter, I'm not a programmer, I'm a sysadmin. I can imagine many, many ways in which a VRUI would make my life much simpler as an admin. I'd still want the command line -- we'll never lose it for low-level admin tasks. But there are many things I could imagine being much simpler in VR.
I can say that the last time I wrote a brand new program of an significance was ten years ago using Matrix Layout. You essentially dropped pre-made user interface objects and logical constructs into what amounted to a flowchart of the program. It was amazing, for a non-coder with a background in IT. I wrote some beautiful apps that I could never have otherwise done because I lack the skill. I've never seen an IDE that came close, before or since
Real programmers apparently didn't like it, because the product died shortly after being ported from DOS to Windows. But as a non-programmer, I loved it. I still wish it were here, because there would be a lot of GUI admin tools today written by sysadmins.
My original point stands, however: there is no compelling reason for a user to choose Linux over Vista or OSX. The time is ripe for a new UI, and from the success of the WiiMote (a quasi-VRUI device), I'm certain that the VRUI is the way to go. If a true VRUI is developed on Linux, people will trample each other to install it.
The reason that Linux hasn't hit the desktop in any major way is twofold, and I can explain it by explaining why I (a Linux advocate and user since the days of Caldera 1.0, pre-SCO) don't run it.
It's the user interface.
Now, I'm not talking about Linux's achievements in the UI in recent years. Clearly, major strides have been made and in many ways the UI has moved well past both OSX and WinV.
But it's not enough. There's no compelling reason for the end user to move to Linux, and several compelling reasons not to, such as integration with corporate networking services, availability of mainstream games, and so on.
The real problem is that the conventional GUI -- windows, mice, pointing-and-clicking -- is now thirty years old. It has reached the end of its development lifecycle. From here on out, it's just tweaks, nothing innovative.
If Linux really wants to hit the desktop, it needs to abandon the GUI except for backward compatibility and instead embrace a totally different user interface paradigm.
I am convinced -- and the recent success of the Wii, whose sole differentiating characteristic from other consoles is the WiiMote as an input device backs me up -- that the first OS that makes the leap to the next great interface paridigm will become the "killer OS" -- the one all the others copy.
What's the next OS paradigm? It's simple: virtual reality.
Get rid of the keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Replace them with stereoscopic datashades that have attached headphones and a microphone; multi-axis datagloves; and a HUD keyboard display manipulated by the gloves if necessary.
For that matter, get rid of the computer itself as we know it. High-capacity flash drives are getting cheaper every day while CPUs become more and more microminiaturized. Imagine your computer as something the size and appearance of an 8-port USB hub.
That's just for starters, of course. I'm unclear what a virtual landscape for control of the computer would look like, but I'm guided by the novel Head Crash by Bruce Bethke. In it, Bethke's main character is a software engineer for a near-future multinational corporation. He doesn't write code: instead, he essentially drives a virtual forklift, moving around and connecting virtual objects to create virtual programs for users to interact with.
Imagine system administration in which user security is handled not by error messages, but by the user seeing prison bars around items they don't have rights to. Or perhaps simply a blank wall where administrative users see a door.
Have you noticed the Web and instant messaging as one of the major driving forces in the last ten years? Now marry that to virtual reality interfaces where a chat room is a bar -- only built and maintained by users themselves, where users are completely free to customize their own appearance and interact with their surroundings. Web sites not as semi-interactive pages in a book, but fully-interactive virtual destinations built and maintained by their webmasters.
Read Head Crash. Bethke's got it figured out.
If Linux were to marry the stability of the underlying OS with open-source implementations of a virtual reality user interface (VRUI?), it would absolutely become the killer OS. The processing power is there now on the high end, and with mega-multi-core CPUs and embedded CPU/GPU combinations on the horizon, it won't be too many years before the processing power is commonplace.
It's time to ditch X, Gnome, and KDE except for backward compatibility. The future belongs not to the GUI but the VRUI.
What I can't figure out is why anyone uses WMP other than the fact that it comes with Windows. I explicitly uninstall the thing and then use the K-Lite Codec Pack. It comes with every codec known to man and most importantly Media Player Classic. I've tried others, including WinAmp, but nothing comes close to the sheer speed of MPC.
Admittedly, for ripping MP3s, I do tend to use WinAmp. But that and Internet Radio and Internet TV are the only things I use it for. If I want to listen to MP3s, watch any form of video file, or watch DVDs, the K-Lite Codec Pack and Media Player Classic are the way to go.
I invite you to google "Germain Greer", and look closely at the second page. When we officially ended the "Get Dick's Article To the Top Ten," the entry pointing to the Dick Masterson article in question was number 3.
Actually, if this is actually a computer primarily used by a terrorist, then what it indicates is that terrorists are even less a threat than originally thought.
Consider the expense and specific skills necessary to obtain and handle nuclear material, biological weapons, etc. If the best a terrorist can come up with for computers is a C64 -- not even an Amiga! -- then this indicates an extremely low level of funding.
The sad thing is that a million PCs were infected, and probably 500,000 of them will -stay- infected.
I think your estimate is grossly low. Of the million sluts and whores that frequent MySpace (and their natural counterparts, pedophiles and perverts), at least 900,000 will remain infected if not significantly more.
In my experience, very little (if any) of MySpace's target audience is using any form of anti-ad/spyware software. If they are, it's because their father is in IT and knows to install it.
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno ... maybe, maybe not. I've never tried to "write" code in a VR environment. For that matter, I'm not a programmer, I'm a sysadmin. I can imagine many, many ways in which a VRUI would make my life much simpler as an admin. I'd still want the command line -- we'll never lose it for low-level admin tasks. But there are many things I could imagine being much simpler in VR.
I can say that the last time I wrote a brand new program of an significance was ten years ago using Matrix Layout. You essentially dropped pre-made user interface objects and logical constructs into what amounted to a flowchart of the program. It was amazing, for a non-coder with a background in IT. I wrote some beautiful apps that I could never have otherwise done because I lack the skill. I've never seen an IDE that came close, before or since
Real programmers apparently didn't like it, because the product died shortly after being ported from DOS to Windows. But as a non-programmer, I loved it. I still wish it were here, because there would be a lot of GUI admin tools today written by sysadmins.
My original point stands, however: there is no compelling reason for a user to choose Linux over Vista or OSX. The time is ripe for a new UI, and from the success of the WiiMote (a quasi-VRUI device), I'm certain that the VRUI is the way to go. If a true VRUI is developed on Linux, people will trample each other to install it.
The reason that Linux hasn't hit the desktop in any major way is twofold, and I can explain it by explaining why I (a Linux advocate and user since the days of Caldera 1.0, pre-SCO) don't run it.
It's the user interface.
Now, I'm not talking about Linux's achievements in the UI in recent years. Clearly, major strides have been made and in many ways the UI has moved well past both OSX and WinV.
But it's not enough. There's no compelling reason for the end user to move to Linux, and several compelling reasons not to, such as integration with corporate networking services, availability of mainstream games, and so on.
The real problem is that the conventional GUI -- windows, mice, pointing-and-clicking -- is now thirty years old. It has reached the end of its development lifecycle. From here on out, it's just tweaks, nothing innovative.
If Linux really wants to hit the desktop, it needs to abandon the GUI except for backward compatibility and instead embrace a totally different user interface paradigm.
I am convinced -- and the recent success of the Wii, whose sole differentiating characteristic from other consoles is the WiiMote as an input device backs me up -- that the first OS that makes the leap to the next great interface paridigm will become the "killer OS" -- the one all the others copy.
What's the next OS paradigm? It's simple: virtual reality.
Get rid of the keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Replace them with stereoscopic datashades that have attached headphones and a microphone; multi-axis datagloves; and a HUD keyboard display manipulated by the gloves if necessary.
For that matter, get rid of the computer itself as we know it. High-capacity flash drives are getting cheaper every day while CPUs become more and more microminiaturized. Imagine your computer as something the size and appearance of an 8-port USB hub.
That's just for starters, of course. I'm unclear what a virtual landscape for control of the computer would look like, but I'm guided by the novel Head Crash by Bruce Bethke. In it, Bethke's main character is a software engineer for a near-future multinational corporation. He doesn't write code: instead, he essentially drives a virtual forklift, moving around and connecting virtual objects to create virtual programs for users to interact with.
Imagine system administration in which user security is handled not by error messages, but by the user seeing prison bars around items they don't have rights to. Or perhaps simply a blank wall where administrative users see a door.
Have you noticed the Web and instant messaging as one of the major driving forces in the last ten years? Now marry that to virtual reality interfaces where a chat room is a bar -- only built and maintained by users themselves, where users are completely free to customize their own appearance and interact with their surroundings. Web sites not as semi-interactive pages in a book, but fully-interactive virtual destinations built and maintained by their webmasters.
Read Head Crash. Bethke's got it figured out.
If Linux were to marry the stability of the underlying OS with open-source implementations of a virtual reality user interface (VRUI?), it would absolutely become the killer OS. The processing power is there now on the high end, and with mega-multi-core CPUs and embedded CPU/GPU combinations on the horizon, it won't be too many years before the processing power is commonplace.
It's time to ditch X, Gnome, and KDE except for backward compatibility. The future belongs not to the GUI but the VRUI.
What I can't figure out is why anyone uses WMP other than the fact that it comes with Windows. I explicitly uninstall the thing and then use the K-Lite Codec Pack. It comes with every codec known to man and most importantly Media Player Classic. I've tried others, including WinAmp, but nothing comes close to the sheer speed of MPC. Admittedly, for ripping MP3s, I do tend to use WinAmp. But that and Internet Radio and Internet TV are the only things I use it for. If I want to listen to MP3s, watch any form of video file, or watch DVDs, the K-Lite Codec Pack and Media Player Classic are the way to go.
I invite you to google "Germain Greer", and look closely at the second page. When we officially ended the "Get Dick's Article To the Top Ten," the entry pointing to the Dick Masterson article in question was number 3.
Actually, if this is actually a computer primarily used by a terrorist, then what it indicates is that terrorists are even less a threat than originally thought. Consider the expense and specific skills necessary to obtain and handle nuclear material, biological weapons, etc. If the best a terrorist can come up with for computers is a C64 -- not even an Amiga! -- then this indicates an extremely low level of funding.
The sad thing is that a million PCs were infected, and probably 500,000 of them will -stay- infected.
I think your estimate is grossly low. Of the million sluts and whores that frequent MySpace (and their natural counterparts, pedophiles and perverts), at least 900,000 will remain infected if not significantly more.
In my experience, very little (if any) of MySpace's target audience is using any form of anti-ad/spyware software. If they are, it's because their father is in IT and knows to install it.