There seemed to be a bit of "smoke and mirrors" behind some of these demos. He kept "loading some parameters" for each of the demos. Granted, the video was so blurry you couldn't really see the results.
I'll think I'll reserve judgement though until I can see it "for real".
Who were the annoying guys off to the side that loved hearing themselves talk? Really kind of ruined the momentum. This isn't MST3k
I'm not arguing that Jobs "invented" the mouse, or the PC, or the GUI, or the media player, or the tablet. I'm not saying that his business practices weren't dickish, possibly monopolistic and against all the merits of freedom in software we here hold so dear.
But that's kind of like saying Edison didn't invent electricity - he just had the vision to understand how electricity could be brought to the masses and used by everyone to make their lives better. A million people and companies used his ideas and technology, but before him it didn't happen. Henry Ford didn't invent the car - but he brought it to the masses and made it a way-of-life. Not to say that there aren't other and better car companies.
Same thing with Jobs. Someone else invented the Mouse and GUI, and the media player, etc. Jobs saw the vision for the implementation, the packaging, the aesthetic, and how to bring it into the world. This was the important part.
I spent the first 30 years of my life believing that Wozniak was the "real genius" behind it all. After all, he was "the engineer" - "the designer". He "did all the work". But no, there are a million engineers that can execute a plan like that (granted, Woz *IS REALLY GOOD* at the low-level digital stuff). It's just like saying there were workstations with mice and GUIs before Jobs. and MP3 players before Jobs. And music retailers before Jobs. and PDAs and Smartphones before Jobs.
He brought a design, and aesthetic, and a standard to the world. And unless you're reading this message from a text terminal or teletype machine, your working with stuff that was heavily inspired by his vision, whether it has an Apple logo on it or not.
No. Definitely not. That is a user-oriented "service" where you can email the URL to a flash video, and it transcodes it for you.
The Adobe solution is meant for deployment by services who wish to provide (a single) video for Flash and iOS platforms. More of akin to what YouTube does, maybe.
It merely takes the Flash video that an Adobe Flash Media Server would send out via Flash's proprietary RTMP (or HDS) protocols, and does some real-time repackaging of the video, so it can be streamed out via an Apache server which is co-installed on the box. The Apache server streams the content out via HTTP as individual MPEG-TS fragments, compatible with Apple's HTTP Live Streaming.
Since both HDS (Adobe's HTTP Dynamic Streaming) and HLS (Apple's HTTP Live Streaming) use H.264 video - there is no transcoding involved, only a simple dynamic repackaging to convert between formats.
I keep equating it to the story about standing next to a transformer at an electrical substation - or high-power line with a coil, and trying to leach power from it. (I'm botching/simplifying the idea here)
One might argue "I'm not stealing power, because I'm just letting the EM field that the line/substation/coil is already sending through the air - go through my coil).
However, the field's emitter does have to work harder to generate the power which the consumer is using. If this wasn't the case, a power generator on one side of a transformer would be uneffected by (and see no load presented by) a load connected to the other coil on the "load" side of the transformer.
So - I would imagine it working the same here - the transmitter *would* have to "push harder" to accommodate people leaching power from it in this way.
Did I just make any sense?:(
3D - and Resolution Maxed-Out?
on
Beyond HDTV
·
· Score: 2
3D doesn't necessarily require "higher resolution - what it requires is more fields per second. i.e. the ability to send two separate screen images, whereas now only one is sent.
The way 3D TV works now, is they cheat, and squeeze two pictures into one image. That needs to stop.
Apple's "retina" display gets its name, because the pixel size is small enough, that when viewed from arms-distance, has a small enough angle that the human retna can't distinguish individual pixels. Going any smaller won't by you anything.
At what point does does this happen with - let's say a 52 inch TV, in my living room with a 12' viewing distance?
I had a Ubuntu MythTV in my livingroom, hooked up to my big plasma, with a wireless keyboard and mouse.
I had a Windows Media Center PC hooked up the same way.
I had Java apps running on my Tivo box on my living room TV
I had JavaScript and Flash running on my TV on my Wii
None of them were really good for anything. Give me a tablet, iPhone, or laptop - yea, that's what everyone uses.
It would make a good "thin client" maybe - alright, I laughed too when I typed it. We all know how popular those are.
Maybe you could direct-connect it to a monitor? I guess so - if you had a monitor and didn't want to buy a PC for it?
The device is good - I'm just saying if that they key use-case is people hooking up to their TV for some reason - I don't think that's where they're going to find a lot of usage. I see it more as an "embedded" type of device.
But that's my point. The "things that are already designed to do that" aren't as well suited. I don't want to have to install/learn a new development tool/language/environment to use something like Arduino. It also doesn't have all the services and support I need on-board. It may be "designed to" interface to my sprinkler, but does it have a whole LAMP stack in it, that would let average-joe-developer develop a robust web-based application for a sprinkler control system?
I'm sure there are a billion things it could do, I'm more interested in what I'd want to do with it. As for a "desktop" machine - who knows. I don't know a lot of people that have HDMI-capable TV's, but aren't able to spend more than $25 on a desktop system. I personally have a 52" TV in my living room. I bought an HDMI cable for my laptop 3 years ago to hook it to my TV. I've used it maybe once or twice - because it's a pain to use a computer on a living-room TV set, and I didn't have any reason to really ever to that.
Also - we have about 50 or 60 computers in the office. The other day I bought a Boxee box, and needed an HDMI monitor to connect it to. There was not as single monitor in my office which had an HDMI connector, and all the DVI-to-HDMI adapters I tried never worked correctly. So using this with a typical computer monitor, in my sampling, probably won't fare so well.
So - I'm just stating my personal opinion of the device. I could never foresee any desire to connect it to a TV and use it as a desktop. I could see a HUGE opportunity for a tiny, $25, "full" Linux machine (none of this flakey uCLinux crap), in an embedded space.
I don't care what it was "made for" - I'm talking about what I'd want to "use it for".
That's the point. All of these little microcontroller type units are good - but when you start wanting to put some heavy-duty services on them, they fall short. For $25, I'd much rather have a machine that I can run a "real" Linux system on. HTTP, SSL, SSH, Perl, Python - whatever. Much better development environment than the embedded microcontroller-type stuff. Even for things like Robotics, etc, too.
I'd much rather trade the HDMI for some sort of Ethernet, and maybe a few GPIOs or something.
I see something like this as much less of a "game console", and much more of a device I'd glue to my alarm system, and to my sprinkler system, and to my thermostat, and to my garage door opener, etc..etc...etc...
Ah, yes. But my point was - by the time you got down to the end, the mass would approach zero. In theory, in the end you would have to expel all of your energy to hit light speed, at which point you would have no mass left.
"Don't argue with a fool, people might not know the difference";-)
You are correct. But this is due to fact that light has no rest mass, therefore it can move at the "universal speed limit". There is nothing intrinsic to the property of light itself which makes it faster than everything else. Since it has no rest mass, it can move at the universal speed limit. If you had no rest mass, you could too.
The other way of thinking about it - from what I have theorized (but am not smart enough to prove mathematically) - is that if you made a rocket, that was made out of pure rocket fuel, and whose engines were 100% efficient. Kind of like a 100% efficient solid-rocket-booster, whose entire self was made of it's own fuel.
Anyway - if you were to light this thing off, (in some sort of matter/antimatteresque fashion which converted all it's mass to energy in 100% efficiency) it would burn itself, and convert all of it's mass (m) to energy (e) - creating force that would accelerate itself.
You would continue to burn more and more fuel, generating more and more thrust. By the time you accelerated to exactly the speed of light - you would have had to have burned off the very last atom of fuel, and thus, would have no ship left.
Or would that mean that e=mc, not e=mc^2? Like I said, I'm not that smart...
By "Speed of Light" - is a constant (C). The Theory of Relativity doesn't state "light can't move faster than light" - it really states "nothing can move faster than 'C' - including light - which can travel at 'C' (in a vacuum)."
Since light moves as fast as "C", the call "C", "Speed of Light".
Anyway - its not really news. If they found it could move faster, that would be news!
By "Speed of Light" - is a constant (C). The Theory of Relativity doesn't state "light can't move faster than light" - it really states "nothing can move faster than 'C' - including light - which can travel at 'C' (in a vaccum)."
Since light moves as fast as "C", the call "C", "Speed of Light".
Anyway - its not really news. If they found it could move faster, that would be news!
My impression was that a 100kW bulb uses XkW to generate light, and the rest is "wasted" as heat. So, in fact - whereas my furnace wastes some energy turning the blower motor, and some energy running the thermostat (albiet a very little), and some energy from heat which is lost in the chimney duct work in my basement, and even more as the heated exhaust is expelled through the roof - couldn't it be said that a light-bulb expends *all* of it's energy in either heat or light? Where does the "wasted" energy go??
This is aside from the fact that gas/propane/goal heat may be more efficient itself than the delivery, production, transfer and subsequent conversion to electric heat.
My home A/C runs about $250 a month in hot summer months. A pool heater can run a couple hundred, if heavily used in the same timeframe. Shouldn't these two negate each other, rather than add up? These are not minor expenses!
Why limit the conversation to just servers, when this occurs everywhere in common life?
Why does my refrigerator take heat out of the inside, and dump it into my house - requiring my A/C to then take it and again put it outside?
Why does my A/C in a house take all the heat and discharge it outside into the atmosphere, which meanwhile a pool heater is running 5 feet away using energy to generate more heat for the pool?
Why do people call incandescent light bulbs "energy wasters", when then can (in the cooler months) defray the work needed to be done by a household heating unit?
Why does the Pizza place down the street run their heater in the winter yet has these giant metal exhaust ducts running from their pizza ovens, venting heat to the outside world? (Why no fins/blowers on these ducts to disperse heat into the pizza-joint?)
The point is - people think of heating and cooling on a "unit" basis - and not on a systemic basis of an overall building - or even area. HVAC systems in buildings get this - sort of - they are not single machines - but a system of different, interconnected machines which are each interconnected, performing different tasks - sort of like organs in a human body. This approach needs to be thought of everywhere where cooling is required, and/or heat is generated.
I love Borders. I find their prices competitive, their service excellent, and their selection very good. I actually go there a lot for kids' toys - as they have all sorts of interesting stuff there - education in nature, and a welcome change from the garbage like Bratz dolls, and kiddie stripper polls, and Spongebobeque branded crap you find everywhere else.
In the end - I find it often comes down to a simple fact: Americans like crap. Barbie dolls will always outsell Erector Sets. McDonalds and Burger King will always outsell (insert big-chain healthy restaurant).
Also - Where I live (Nashua, NH) - They have a Border's store, about a half-mile from a B&N. The B&N is in a fantastic location - intersection of two main streets, right off the highway. To get to the Border's store, you have to drive past the B&N store, through a very highly congested strip with a lot of traffic and traffic lights to an out-of-the-way strip mall. It's often not worth the trip.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll think I'll reserve judgement though until I can see it "for real".
Who were the annoying guys off to the side that loved hearing themselves talk? Really kind of ruined the momentum. This isn't MST3k
I'm not arguing that Jobs "invented" the mouse, or the PC, or the GUI, or the media player, or the tablet. I'm not saying that his business practices weren't dickish, possibly monopolistic and against all the merits of freedom in software we here hold so dear.
But that's kind of like saying Edison didn't invent electricity - he just had the vision to understand how electricity could be brought to the masses and used by everyone to make their lives better. A million people and companies used his ideas and technology, but before him it didn't happen. Henry Ford didn't invent the car - but he brought it to the masses and made it a way-of-life. Not to say that there aren't other and better car companies.
Same thing with Jobs. Someone else invented the Mouse and GUI, and the media player, etc. Jobs saw the vision for the implementation, the packaging, the aesthetic, and how to bring it into the world. This was the important part.
I spent the first 30 years of my life believing that Wozniak was the "real genius" behind it all. After all, he was "the engineer" - "the designer". He "did all the work". But no, there are a million engineers that can execute a plan like that (granted, Woz *IS REALLY GOOD* at the low-level digital stuff). It's just like saying there were workstations with mice and GUIs before Jobs. and MP3 players before Jobs. And music retailers before Jobs. and PDAs and Smartphones before Jobs.
He brought a design, and aesthetic, and a standard to the world. And unless you're reading this message from a text terminal or teletype machine, your working with stuff that was heavily inspired by his vision, whether it has an Apple logo on it or not.
I believed it was one by a student (elementary?) who submitted it in a contest!
On the downside, it is a little to "NASA-Like". (Though I suppose that was a "plus" in NASA's book).
They still make those?!
The Adobe solution is meant for deployment by services who wish to provide (a single) video for Flash and iOS platforms. More of akin to what YouTube does, maybe.
It merely takes the Flash video that an Adobe Flash Media Server would send out via Flash's proprietary RTMP (or HDS) protocols, and does some real-time repackaging of the video, so it can be streamed out via an Apache server which is co-installed on the box. The Apache server streams the content out via HTTP as individual MPEG-TS fragments, compatible with Apple's HTTP Live Streaming.
Since both HDS (Adobe's HTTP Dynamic Streaming) and HLS (Apple's HTTP Live Streaming) use H.264 video - there is no transcoding involved, only a simple dynamic repackaging to convert between formats.
* With iOS
One might argue "I'm not stealing power, because I'm just letting the EM field that the line/substation/coil is already sending through the air - go through my coil).
However, the field's emitter does have to work harder to generate the power which the consumer is using. If this wasn't the case, a power generator on one side of a transformer would be uneffected by (and see no load presented by) a load connected to the other coil on the "load" side of the transformer.
So - I would imagine it working the same here - the transmitter *would* have to "push harder" to accommodate people leaching power from it in this way.
Did I just make any sense? :(
The way 3D TV works now, is they cheat, and squeeze two pictures into one image. That needs to stop.
Apple's "retina" display gets its name, because the pixel size is small enough, that when viewed from arms-distance, has a small enough angle that the human retna can't distinguish individual pixels. Going any smaller won't by you anything.
At what point does does this happen with - let's say a 52 inch TV, in my living room with a 12' viewing distance?
I had a Ubuntu MythTV in my livingroom, hooked up to my big plasma, with a wireless keyboard and mouse.
I had a Windows Media Center PC hooked up the same way.
I had Java apps running on my Tivo box on my living room TV
I had JavaScript and Flash running on my TV on my Wii
None of them were really good for anything. Give me a tablet, iPhone, or laptop - yea, that's what everyone uses.
It would make a good "thin client" maybe - alright, I laughed too when I typed it. We all know how popular those are.
Maybe you could direct-connect it to a monitor? I guess so - if you had a monitor and didn't want to buy a PC for it?
The device is good - I'm just saying if that they key use-case is people hooking up to their TV for some reason - I don't think that's where they're going to find a lot of usage. I see it more as an "embedded" type of device.
I'm sure there are a billion things it could do, I'm more interested in what I'd want to do with it. As for a "desktop" machine - who knows. I don't know a lot of people that have HDMI-capable TV's, but aren't able to spend more than $25 on a desktop system. I personally have a 52" TV in my living room. I bought an HDMI cable for my laptop 3 years ago to hook it to my TV. I've used it maybe once or twice - because it's a pain to use a computer on a living-room TV set, and I didn't have any reason to really ever to that.
Also - we have about 50 or 60 computers in the office. The other day I bought a Boxee box, and needed an HDMI monitor to connect it to. There was not as single monitor in my office which had an HDMI connector, and all the DVI-to-HDMI adapters I tried never worked correctly. So using this with a typical computer monitor, in my sampling, probably won't fare so well.
So - I'm just stating my personal opinion of the device. I could never foresee any desire to connect it to a TV and use it as a desktop. I could see a HUGE opportunity for a tiny, $25, "full" Linux machine (none of this flakey uCLinux crap), in an embedded space.
That's why I said "maybe a few GPIOs or something".
That's the point. All of these little microcontroller type units are good - but when you start wanting to put some heavy-duty services on them, they fall short. For $25, I'd much rather have a machine that I can run a "real" Linux system on. HTTP, SSL, SSH, Perl, Python - whatever. Much better development environment than the embedded microcontroller-type stuff. Even for things like Robotics, etc, too.
I see something like this as much less of a "game console", and much more of a device I'd glue to my alarm system, and to my sprinkler system, and to my thermostat, and to my garage door opener, etc..etc...etc...
"Don't argue with a fool, people might not know the difference" ;-)
You are correct. But this is due to fact that light has no rest mass, therefore it can move at the "universal speed limit". There is nothing intrinsic to the property of light itself which makes it faster than everything else. Since it has no rest mass, it can move at the universal speed limit. If you had no rest mass, you could too.
The other way of thinking about it - from what I have theorized (but am not smart enough to prove mathematically) - is that if you made a rocket, that was made out of pure rocket fuel, and whose engines were 100% efficient. Kind of like a 100% efficient solid-rocket-booster, whose entire self was made of it's own fuel.
Anyway - if you were to light this thing off, (in some sort of matter/antimatteresque fashion which converted all it's mass to energy in 100% efficiency) it would burn itself, and convert all of it's mass (m) to energy (e) - creating force that would accelerate itself.
You would continue to burn more and more fuel, generating more and more thrust. By the time you accelerated to exactly the speed of light - you would have had to have burned off the very last atom of fuel, and thus, would have no ship left.
Or would that mean that e=mc, not e=mc^2? Like I said, I'm not that smart...
Since light moves as fast as "C", the call "C", "Speed of Light".
Anyway - its not really news. If they found it could move faster, that would be news!
Since light moves as fast as "C", the call "C", "Speed of Light".
Anyway - its not really news. If they found it could move faster, that would be news!
My impression was that a 100kW bulb uses XkW to generate light, and the rest is "wasted" as heat. So, in fact - whereas my furnace wastes some energy turning the blower motor, and some energy running the thermostat (albiet a very little), and some energy from heat which is lost in the chimney duct work in my basement, and even more as the heated exhaust is expelled through the roof - couldn't it be said that a light-bulb expends *all* of it's energy in either heat or light? Where does the "wasted" energy go??
This is aside from the fact that gas/propane/goal heat may be more efficient itself than the delivery, production, transfer and subsequent conversion to electric heat.
My home A/C runs about $250 a month in hot summer months. A pool heater can run a couple hundred, if heavily used in the same timeframe. Shouldn't these two negate each other, rather than add up? These are not minor expenses!
Yes, exactly! I'd thought of this - forgot to mention it in my post!
Why does my refrigerator take heat out of the inside, and dump it into my house - requiring my A/C to then take it and again put it outside?
Why does my A/C in a house take all the heat and discharge it outside into the atmosphere, which meanwhile a pool heater is running 5 feet away using energy to generate more heat for the pool?
Why do people call incandescent light bulbs "energy wasters", when then can (in the cooler months) defray the work needed to be done by a household heating unit?
Why does the Pizza place down the street run their heater in the winter yet has these giant metal exhaust ducts running from their pizza ovens, venting heat to the outside world? (Why no fins/blowers on these ducts to disperse heat into the pizza-joint?)
The point is - people think of heating and cooling on a "unit" basis - and not on a systemic basis of an overall building - or even area. HVAC systems in buildings get this - sort of - they are not single machines - but a system of different, interconnected machines which are each interconnected, performing different tasks - sort of like organs in a human body. This approach needs to be thought of everywhere where cooling is required, and/or heat is generated.
In the end - I find it often comes down to a simple fact: Americans like crap. Barbie dolls will always outsell Erector Sets. McDonalds and Burger King will always outsell (insert big-chain healthy restaurant).
Also - Where I live (Nashua, NH) - They have a Border's store, about a half-mile from a B&N. The B&N is in a fantastic location - intersection of two main streets, right off the highway. To get to the Border's store, you have to drive past the B&N store, through a very highly congested strip with a lot of traffic and traffic lights to an out-of-the-way strip mall. It's often not worth the trip.
The map is only accurate to within about 50 miles!