Actually, the 1.3:1 ratio doesn't take harvesting into account. The fuel used per hectare is not really that relevant compared to the energy created. We're talking small percentages. What's more of a concern is energy per acre per year...
That said, corn is FAR from an ideal source for how we make ethanol today (think moonshine, the process is very similar). Corn is difficult to harvest (special equipment, lots of time, susceptible to disease and insects and drought and flood, requires massive amounts of fertilizer, can't be planted year after year in the same field without even more fertilizers, and you only get 1 crop per year.
Sugar Beets are close to the best thing we can make ethanol (using traditional methods) out of. It's practically a weed that grows like potatoes. It's easy to harvest, has significant higher energy yield per crop, is practically immune to most bugs (because it grown under the soil), requires little fertilization, and is much heartier. Besides, 90% of the plant can be used for ethanol, as opposed to Corn's approx 20%. In many places, 2 crops per year can be grown, yielding between 4 and 8 times the ethanol per acre. On top of that, it's a plant and forget crop, unlike corn which requires significant routine effort. Sugar beets also do not leech soil provided a simple and common fertilizer is used. The sugar beets convert to ethanol at about 2:1 compared to corn's 1.3:1.
Going cellulostic is a completely different way to make ethanol, not a different material. This is an enzymatic process that converts plant material directly into ethanol, without the heating and brewing processes (or the eminent potential for dangerous explosions if not managed properly). It has an extremely high energy output, but unfortunately the current methods for making it are expensive. Science can drastically improve this over time.
The fact that they've chosen WOOD as the media to convert simply shows (again) how industry and the government control this process. Wood is a BAD choice for this process. It's packed with energy, sure, but the process is slower and more difficult than other materials, not to mention WOOD GROWS SLOWLY, COSTS A LOT, AND IS IN SHORT SUPPLY!!! Want to know a perfect material for this process? Think Kudzu! Most weeds make a good medium for cellulostic crops. Wood takes 20-30 years per crop to mature and require expensive and dangerous harvesting methods. Without wiping out almost every acre of natural forest, we also can't make enough wood. We can get the same cellulostic mass from existing, unused cropland (like all those acres being paid not to plant tobacco) in 10 years or less using equipment every farmer already owns. Why go against that? Money, not science is surely a factor.
I would submit that when special effects are so good they are not noticed, when the suspension of disbelief is reached, and the audience is fully engrossed in the movie, noticeable special effects can ruin the movie, but a lack of them can do the same. In movies like Lord of the Rings trilogy, there were HUNDREDS of special effect scenes. Few of these scenes broke the realism of the movie for me due to exceptional care in detail and lighting. Most of the special effects were camera tricks or green screen sets improving the realism of the world and scale of the characters. Transformers presented special effects in a completely different way. Fortunately, the level of detail, and attention to small details like the weight and momentum of the robots, and the impact they have on their environment was exceptional. The brain was able to believe the robots were filmed, not rendered.
Any movie can have this level of quality in their special effects. The question is, can the story attract enough audience to make it worth while? Lets face it, many stories don't translate well to film in the first place. Putting a bad script on a screen and adding effects where they're distracting is even worse. On the other hand, many bad scripts have become great movies due to well done special effects.
The danger we run with effects is in films like F4:RoSS, where the movie was treated more like a comic than a real world, and the effects reflected that mood. Even with a $130m budget, they grossly missed their mark and many of the effects, especially any involving the air car, took me out of the movie and disappointed me. Part of this is the director's fault, and part was the production time line set by the producers. The effects team, given a few more weeks or months, could have cleaned up the effects, made this much more believable, and without even re-shooting scenes or changing the plot could have made this a successful movie instead of a flop. Sure, worldwide it made money, and might even break even in the US when the dice stop rolling, but any attempt at a 3rd movie is not going to get the same attention. Another $10m in effects budget and a 2 month delay on release would have gotten them another $50m on this movie and $100m on the next.
This said, I don't think its fair to say "good stories don't need special effects" or "special effects should not be the star of the movie, or its draw effect." There are movies that simply could never be made without them (any comic book, any alien world, any magical fantasy setting, etc). I think it's better to say "any successful movie has special effects that don't distract the mind from the suspension of belief or flow of the story" Effects for the glory of having effects are pointless, but effects that support the world created by the author can be breathtaking.
Yes, even if unwanted, you are paying for Windows to be installed. As part of that installation, bundled software packages are added to the machine which Dell and others are paid to add. You're paying for a copy of Windows, but you are indirectly being paid to take other software you intend to delete. It's not a complete wash of course, but even if the windows license cost Dell $25 for XP home or Vista home basic versions, I bet there's $15-20 in bloatware subtracted from the system price. Dells price of $10 for windows might well be reasonable.
Further, producing and marketing a separate design option for a machine, research to define compatible hardware and test OS installations, plus stocking them for availability is a big cost. A machine with any option that makes mass assembly difficult costs more. If Dell sells 1 Linux box for every 100 Windows machines, that labor cost adds up dramatically for the Linux model, even in distribution runs of 10s of thousands. You're very lucky the machine doesn't cost more.
What makes more sense is to update the OEM Windows activation process to allow internet settings to be entered, and fields for capturing personal information, and then when refusing to activate Windows, it can send a notification to Microsoft (or the vendor) and a disbursement credit can be issued for the OEM cost of the OS, minus associated bundled discounts. You can then install the OS of your choice. Dell could simply partner with Linux companies (like my company does) to acquire new hardware platforms or spec sheets before they are made public and the Linux or other OS companies can certify their OS for that platform. Dell could sell PCs with standard (non-proprietary) components, have 1 single install configuration, saving money. If you don't want Windows, there will be electronic proof of your choice in that matter, and it will not only self delete, but also notify Microsoft to mark your activation code as void so you can't use it on another machine.
With Blockbuster's latest move against HD DVD, the dam is broken. Virtually every title shot in High Def will be ported to HD DVD regardless of contracts or agreements. In a year or two, every new release will be on HD DVD. Over time, all the old VHS and DVD titles will be moved over. Most we will upscaled to at least 720P if not higher, if the quality of the original film is good enough.
As far as only buying it because it can be cracked, this is not a decision the manufacturer's even give a crap about. At this point, as was with DVD initially, the cost of a blank disk far exceeds the cost of an original work. In 2002, several years after the release of DVD writers, the cost of pirating disks for the fist time reached a break-even point, and to get to that point meant copying a minimum of 300 disks, costing almost $4500 (not including failed writes) and that required compression technologies limiting video quality and the disks would not play in most living rooms.
OK, in today's market, factor in an unlimited movie rental service fee, cost of a writer for dual layer DVDs, and blanks, and you only have to copy about 15 disks to break even. It will be 5 years at least before blue ray or HD DVD can do the same, even if it's cracked. Plus, have you seen a HD DVD blank yet? Can you even put one in a player and use it? Without cracking the player's firmware, or adding a mod chip, can we even guarantee a cracked disk can be played?
Sure, maybe you can crack the original video, compress and save it to your Hard drive in another format, and store the movie for playback via media center, even squeeze it onto a dual layer DVD, but at what cost? at anywhere between 10 and 50GB per movie storing them is going to be EXPENSIVE! (not to mention 2-6 hours, based on HD file sizes, to copy and convert the file as opposed to about 1 hour per DVD). At $750, a TB hard dive might store 50-100 movies, not to mention backing the cost of backing it up (and since these are illegal copies, think of the time involved to pirate them all over again if you crash!)
Anyone getting into Blu-ray or HD DVD at this point is interested in one of 2 things: great video and audio quality, similar to what they get from TV (DVD is worse than TV quality now...), and bonus and special features exclusive to the format used to draw people to buy it.
Keep in mind, single layer HD DVDs are only 15GB per disk, and at $12-15 per disk (which I can't even FIND in a store, online or otherwise, inside the USA) your going to have to software compress most content to get it on a disk. I imaging DL HD HVD blanks to start at $20 or higher. Blue-ray blanks have 25GB, so only 1080P 7.1 surround vidoes with loads of special features might have trouble fitting on a disk, but it's still $12 for a blank, and $700 for a writer. Do you know how many movies, at $14.99 you can own LEGALLY for that? $4 savings per disk created (illegally) it would 175 copies to break even!!!! (175 disks @ $11 plus $700 player = cost of 175 $15 movies). I find movies I want regularly at $10 and $12, and older movies for $6-8. Factoring in a budget for movie purchases over a 4 year span, buying 1 movie every tuesday, and assuming appropriate discounts over that time of media and player costs, I give it at least 2 years until illegally copying movies becomes cost effective for for even an avid home pirateer. How many of you actually spend over $700 a year on movies you want??? I buy a movie once a month if I'm lucky. To fit in my budget, that means to get more movies for the same money over a 3 year period means the average price of a pirated movie, INCLUDING the cost of the writer, needs to come down to below $10 per copy. Currently, the cost of the media alone exceeds this (by two fold if you plan on using HD DVD).
According to studies, the most common traffic on the internet is torrent style P2P network traffic, and movie downloads. Soon we'll also be looking at IPTV as a massive bandwidth source. IPTV absolutely CANNOT be a second tier application or it will never succeed. IPTV being the centerpiece of most large ISP's future are going to have to make sure that traffic is uninterrupted, providing clear and perfect TV viewing (if there's download pauses, buffering, or any other quality issues it will be a billion dollar failure), is their goal. It will get one of the top tiers. Since the second 2 highest uses behind that will be illegal or at least questionable activity, how does ATT propose to limit that without impacting IPTV? Surely a smart hacker will VERY quickly figure out hot to make their traffic look like tier 1 packets, and recompose them client side.
By installing a tiered internet, all ATT will be doing will be to improve the speed of illegal services vs legal, and put everyone else doing business, atm, mail, sms, and other critical time sensitive in one of the worst speed catagories.
Because innovation rules the net, and any packet could be made to look like any content we want, the only way to tier the net is on an IP to IP bases, not packet to packet, and this would amount to a kind of internet segregation where those who want to/can afford to pay more, go faster. A network structured that way will either be ordered dismantled by the courts, or simply have few subscribers where there are other competitive offers.
If it's cheaper to add bandwidth than it is to segregate packets anyway (and adding bandwidth is still a necessity either way), combined with the packet latency issues that would be inherent to a tiered structure (the additional time in ms necessary to analyze a packet before assigning priority), I'm guessing net neutrality will win even if the courts don't stand on our side.
As an employee of a product hardware and software vendor who's product supports more than 20 operating systems (Windows, , mac, novel, sco, solaris, BSD, linux, as400, aix, hp/ux, and on, and on, and on...) on our own product documentation we list only the specific systems and versions that are supported. For all the 64bit OS we do support (which still excludes Windows) we list the OS once as it's proper name, and a second time with the name appended with the manufacturer's trademark name indicating the 64bit version. We do not wist any OS with 64 bit support under a general heading.
Regularly we have customers buy our product and expect that simply becasue we say "Windows 2003 Server Standard" and "Windows 2003 Server Enterprise" that we also support the 64 bit versions, or in some cases the SBS or Web Edition of these servers. They are not itemized as supported, and as far as Microsoft's licensing is concerned, are completely independent products and their licenses are not interchangeable.
Even Microsoft's own KB articles list specifically anytime 64bit is included, and when it's not listed, it means it's not included or supported by that article.
Besides, what DOES work with 64bit edition??? For just about ANYTHING I buy for my 2003 64bit server as well as my XP x64 edition system I have to do extensive research to determine driver compatibility. I regularly call manufacturers and have to ask if it's supported as their documentation is sometimes unclear or incomplete. Also, why were you not already aware that iTunes itself does not support 64bit edition. That fact has been clearly documented in many articles wight here on./.
Well, you're right, it's not the only source. However, it is the only source likely to come with complete file tags, album art, and 256bit high definition encoding. There's not a lot of stuff out there dubbed from high def studio masters. Also, if they're traded an AAC format instead of MP3, the iPod gets better battery life playing them back. Sure, you can encode in AAC to start with, but guess what, then your personal info is in those files ANYWAY.
Oh yea, btw, any file you personally create on a Windows machine gets your personal info inserted into the file anyway. Check the properties on any file, select the summary tab, and click advanced. Any information you entered when installing or activating windows, including your name or user name and your company name (Most people put their full name or family name in the company field and their first name is their login). The headers of most files, including PDFs you create and most Microsoft documents also include this identification.
Now, who really cares if this information is in a file? Well, if you get hacked or infected with a virus, they already have this information. They don't need to strip it from a AAC file. In fact, log into any web server and it can ask Windows for this information and more, including your e-mail, software versions, browser type, IP, and much more sensitive information than a name and apple account e-mail address. The only people who care at all about the existence of this information are people who will give these files to other people, which is against the law. Where the law is concerned, once you break it, anonymity no longer exists.
It's not illegal, or even immoral for apple to tag these files. They're not tracking them or reporting when they're used on other non-authorized computers. They're only giving the RIAA and government organizations a fingerprint to track you by. Get this outlawed and next you'll have courts saying that organizations can't use your fingerprint or other biometric as an access code. Worse, we've got people trying to outlaw DNA tracking by the federal government. You can't have both a free safe society and complete anonymity at the same time. These things are mutually exclusive.
though I agree that the Sci Atlanta boxes are inferior to Tivo or other name brand retail systems, it's a lot better than $14/mo and there's no advertising, promotional crap, or other bothers associated with the unit. I've had 4 different Sci Atlanta models, currently have 2 HD ones. I have not had any issues with any of them, other than I had a HDD failure in one 3 years ago. that has WD's fault, not Time Warner (bad drive). That can happen to any unit.
With another cable company I had a non-HD Motorola box. Those boxes were recalled due to an issue where the 12 volt AC current running the CPU fan could back feed through the RCA out jacks and fry HT systems. It fried mine, but the cable company promptly bought me a hole new rack unit after they confirmed their hardware damaged mine.
The original Tivos and some other set top boxes distribted by other vendors had some pretty hairy issues too. The current boxes distributed by Time warner and CableVision seem to be very stable, easy to use, and have a ton of storage space.
As far as reliability in general, the only issue is the hard disk. These are all cheap, low voltage drives, regardless of whose system you buy. They're all about as equally likely to fail. Some of the cable boxes get re-used a few times, and that can lead to issues, but I always insist on a new box when they give me one.
As far as having a lot of unwatched TV on my box when I exchange them, I usually do this at mid-season breaks when I have little recorded. There are 2-3 times a year I'll find I have nothing to watch in my list.
First, I like your enthusiasm. At first, it may seem like you have found a hole in my logic. Hoping to impose no negative feelings, not attract flame, let me further enlighten you.
It could easily be argued in many circles that in fact being drunk is a state of preparedness for the challenge of the accident. Also, those who see it coming, and do not have proper mental preparation to avoid tensing up, are therefore unprepared to receive the trauma. Person's who crash cars professionally take these steps of mental and physical preparation (though usually not getting drunk) and come out of accidents with less physical trauma than those who have not steeled themselves by understanding the nature of the physics behind the crash and preparing by going limp prior to the impact.
There is no single incident, no matter how random in nature or probability, that one cannot on some level prepare for and thus be more victorious than another who has not taken those steps. Sure, walking around in a bio contained suit all day and night to prepare for a biological strike would seem completely ridiculous, and can actually hinder preparedness for hundreds of other challenges, but if a WMD did land there, the moron in the suit would win that challenge.
If you're some kind of nut who only has the will to access broadcast TV, and have no interest for even basic cable services or basic dish services which can be had for as little as $14.99/mo depending on provider, then you're missing most of the worthwhile programs to record in the first place. If all you watch are the most promoted broadcast TV shows, skip the DVR entirely and just get your programs from iTunes or something similar. Of course, if you're so far gone that a $14.99 subscription to get interference free TV with 20-50 channels is too much money, and are satisfied with the 6 channels your rabbit ears pick up on a good day, then your likely to not have DSL anyway so this really isn't an option, is it?
If you're so strongly against paying any subscriptions, then you are a cheap ass (no offense) and why should ANY manufacturer expect that you would buy a $200+, bottom of the line, profitless device from them, let alone provide it subscription free? You're such a small market nich, and a so entirely unprofitable one at that, what would compel them to bother?
Fact is, bundling a DVR with even the cheapest subscription TV service available won't be more than $24.99 per month, with $10 of that being the monthly fee for the set top box. For another $20 a month, you get over a hundred channels instead of 20. Assuming you're not a nut, and actually have some pay-for TV service already, then the $10 a month it costs to get a DVR from your provider will cost less over 2 years than the cost to buy a simple DVR that might do without a subscription, and 3-5 years of TV vs building your own HTPC with Myth TV. With Time Warner Cable like I have, the HD DVR is the same monthly price as the regular DVR and you get all the broadcast TV channels and Discovery in HD, just not ESPN and the other premium HD networks.
Here are a few other things to consider when getting a unit from your cable provider on lease instead of buying a Tivo or some other unit: 1) no up front expense, 2) Unit is under warranty, and is replaced free, in your home, 3) you can swap the unit out for a newer or better model at will by stopping by the cable office. If you have satellite, you actually "buy" the unit from them when you sign up (it's usually free on new accounts), but as long as you have a subscription to their service, the hardware is covered by warranty. People that already have satellite service, and are being told they have to buy their additional hardware are missing the fine print: Cancel your subscription, then have your wife sign up as a new subscriber and get all the equipment for free.
The one major disadvantage of getting a provided DVR is that you can't export video easily to DVD. Most units employ copy protection measures. If you have a steroe system with video in-out options, you can connect the DVD recorder to your stereo instead of the cable box directly and 9/10 eliminate that issue. If not, add an inline filter you can pick up at BestBuy for $40.
Going the Myth TV route requires several hundred dollars in PC hardware, if not over $1000 (if you're talking multiple tuners), intimate PC knowledge, constant maintenance, no real warranty or service options, and all this just so you can record to DVD? Shit, just spend $2 per episode (or save money and buy season sets). Of course, you're violating your service provider's contract terms (and possibly the law) by time shifting programs to a system capable of DVD recording and playback anyway, so if you're already violating the law, some of you might consider getting the programming through illegal download services anyway.
Ask yourself, is it really worth the cost? The PC needs replacement every few years, or at least expensive upgrades. At an average of $500 per year in hardware and software (normalized) you could buy a new Tivo with the yearly subscription built in every year, and include the cost of a DVD writer and a few hundred DVDs.
It's not a bad idea, but I can't image real time voice wave translation coming at any cheap cost in CPU power. Maybe with a low end ($45) daughter board to offload the CPU cycles this could work.
Of course how good of a mood are you going to be in when most of your teammates sound exactly the same? Figuring out who's talking could be handled by on-screen indicators like D&D online does, but it would get irritating after a while. An option to turn it on or off would be nice.
Of course, with a little practice, it's not hard to tell the difference between an adult male and a female or young boy even with voice modulation. The only real solution to guarantee complete anonymity is to allow speech to text Or some encoded system), and then text to speech on the other end. Now everyone could be indistinguishable. Offering a series of 8-10 variable modulations on the voice output could generate literally hundreds of voice possibilities. Again, the power necessary to do this would be high (if not higher), and in the end, it's an aesthetic. Also, anyone with a strong accent would not be able to use the system reliably without training the engine.
I think you're right. We already know GPS will be an add on. We can also figure on iChat being added. I don't see them putting a camera on the front of the unit, but perhaps one that swivels. The swiveling mechanism could even be used as part of the stand to hold the phone up when chatting. More memory, likely increasing from 4/8 to 6/12 in the next release, and then 10/20 in a following model, is also predicted.
Making a cheaper model is going to be a challenge. The iPod has cheaper models, but only because major features can be removed. Taking out the hard disk, big battery, and big display in favor of flash based technology means less cost and lower warranty service (solid state is less likely to have issues than hard disk electronics). What features of the iPhone can you see people willing to give up for a cheaper model?
The storage of the iPhone is already too small to make smaller (maybe 2GB model would be $50 less) The screen is the selling point. Take that away and you loose too much (the internet, photo viewing, video, and more) so that's not an option. Might be able to take wireless out and replace it with an add-on port, but that's a $25 option tops. Make it wide screen only (eliminate complicated motion sensors) and you could save another $10-20. The camera could also be removed completely (many people never use theirs) and businesses might be more likely to adopt the phone without it (due to legal concerns over data or business secret theft). That might lower it more as well by another $30-50. I could see a phone exactly like the current model, but less RAM, no camera, no GPS option, and wirelass only by an add-on adapter, and drop up to $150 off the price.
The big price drops are simply going to come in the form of incentives from the phone company. That data plan is worth so much to them that they can absorb $300 of the phone price and still make more money in a 2 year period than selling a $50 phone with no data plan. Now the $600 model is $300 retail with a new contract. $300 is not that hard to choke down for the latest, greatest phone tech. The lesser model at $200 and a chepped down model like I described above would be $100.
Of course, with Apples track record, expect gen 2 to be exactly the same price, with a few new bells and whistles (including native iTV support via wireless, and GPS being the two big ones, possibly native keynote support as well with an adapter cable or even a wireless/bluetooth add-on, oh and more RAM).
Gen 3 will likely split models and finally offer a budget iPhone, but I still don't see this being more than $150 under the lower model.
Well, the PS3 really isn't that cool by itself, especially to people who already own a PS2 since many of the PS3 games also exist for the PS2.
Next, consoles are not something 100% of people want. More importantly, it's not just a $600 console, but an $1100 package if you want to really use it with a few games, accessories, controllers, cables, memory cards, etc, and oh yea, it only really works if you have a high def TV... Everyone needs a mobile phone.
Next, it had direct competition with other products that do basically the same thing for lower prices. The iPhone has no competitor. Initial sales of the PS3 were also delayed, and understocked, which gave it a disadvantage to it's competitor.
Next, the iPhone natively integrates with things people already have (iTunes, iPods, docking stations, headsets, etc) Other than the phone and a plan, you don't need much else. Most people already have a plan and only need to add a data plan or increase their minute plan.
Next, phones have a 1-2 year life span. PS2 has been around for a very long time, and is still a currently marketed product. I've got 2 of them, and ones almost 4 years old. I was not even an early adopter. I replace my phone every 2 years like clockwork.
Most importantly, Apple is not interested in cornering the market. Their market research anylists are allways dead on with product sales, selling out very quickly on new items, and maintaining just enough product in the market to meet the demand they predict. 10 million phones is a tiny, tiny chunk of the cell market, and a VERY easy goal to attain.
Each AT&T store is getting at most a few dozen phones on day 1. There will be 50 people waiting in line to get one, and a tone will be pre-ordered at stores. I'm predicting 1 million units in the first 30 days. As prices drop and lower models come out, the numbers will increase. Apple predicted a modest iPod sales run with the gen 1 model. They sold many times more than their prediction in the first 12 months. The iPhone will do the same.
Comparing the PS3 to the iPhone is simply a bad analogy. Also, keep in mind, this device not only competes with devices in the phone market, but also micro computing devices that fit into this price range. We also know the iPhone can connect to a digital display using an adapter cable. Don't be surprised to see it being used as a presentation system for keynote addresses soon.
Hybrids, especially plug in variants, do several things for us:
- They devote massive spending for battery research (Toshiba has already announced batteries that could charge to 90% in 90 seconds) - They devote massive spending for electric motor efficiency (These are getting more powerful and more energy efficient at a faster rate than engines are) - They promote the use of CVT transmission systems (which should be mandated by federal law for ALL cars, hybrid or not by now!) - They are in the news, and thus promote green awareness (helping all green efforts worldwide) - They ALSO benefit just as much from engine research. Sure, engines have bad efficiency, but many of the ways of making them more efficient can only be done by taking them off the direct drive train (engines run very poorly at low RPM, and if they can be run at peak efficiency to make electricity, and turned off when not needed, we can nearly double fuel economy with that alone) Currently, spending money on hybrids will yield quicker green results than the same dollars spent on engines alone. Later, we'll replace ICEs with Recyclic turbines and solve a lot of other efficiency problems.
Here's a real massive benefit: plug-in hybrids will help move us forward towards installing a super conducting power grid and make the total US energy system more efficient. Imagine Power from wind near the great lakes helping to light Florida in the heat of summer, and solar energy from Nevada helping heat Minnesota in the winter. Our current electric grid can not do this. Power is made within a few hundred miles, maybe a thousand miles, of any location. We can make enough wind energy in the north central plains to power almost 50% of America alone. We can make enough solar energy in the south west to do the same. Some parts of the country can generate Massive amount of energy, but they're so remote that without a super conducting grid, the energy is useless. If we add the electric requirements of cars to our grid, they'll have to upgrade it. Imagine Solar power in California generated local time at 4:00PM lighting up New York City's most heavily used hour 7PM.
Oh, and before you go nuts on solar... sure, we can only make energy during the day. Have you heard of the idea of stored kenetic energy? We make 50% more power than we need during the day time. We use that extra power to pump water from low areas to higher areas. That water can then flow back down hill at night through generators and give us that power back. Yes, there's wasted efficiency, but who cares if we're wasting free energy?
One other cool benefit of hybrid plug-ins. In a major storm or power disaster, the car has a large cache of power inside of it, and it's connected to your in-home power grid. 40 miles (90 minutes?) of car moving electricity is a lot of power. You could power your fridge and some small appliances and your computer and phone/internet (assuming those services are also not down) for at least 2-3 hours, maybe longer. If you really had to, you've got 6 hours of fuel in the car and it can become an instant home generator. Got 2-3 cars? You could run for a few days after a hurricane or earthquake. Adding the power inverter to the car and your fuse box would only cost a few hundred bucks.
There are a dozen more reasons we'd like to work more on hybrid technology than on ICE.
In the traditional sense SciFi has presented to us for Colonization, no, we can't do it. Sending a small ship across the galaxy at warp speed with small collections of researchers to find habitable planets aka Star Trek style just isn't possible. Our only hope of getting to another world is finding a rock circling another compatible sun at the appropriate distance and phase to support life. Likely there's some life there (basic biologicals) but in all likelihood, we'll find a barren waste we'll have to terraform that hopefully will have liquid or frozen water readily available. We can find that planet from here. There's no need to travel to find it.
To get to these rocks will take a earth wide effort of hundreds of years to build an interstellar craft that can house upwards of 10 thousand people, replenish able food for decades (on board farming, protein supplement, and live herds), and enough space to make all this work. We also need a near infinite power system (Solar will only last so long, even ram scoops won't work in the dead of space. The power source needs to operate for possibly hundreds of years at sub light speeds and power all forms of on board manufacturing, research, computers, entertainment, lights, everything.
Once we get to another planet, it will likely have been several generations. The populous of the craft will have been under limited gravity (assuming a centripetally rotating craft or some other limited artificial gravity) and we'll have to park in orbit around the new planet and spin up to a realistic gravity slowly over what could be months or years to allow the people to adjust without drastic health risk. This isn't an issue really since it will be 10-20 years before enough orbit to surface trips can be made using a hangar full of small crafts (that would have been built en-route) to create a stable domed (or underground) facility to start to move people down to. The entire on board environment will take decades to relocate to the surface and terraforming can't really begin until then.
Now, onto terraforming: Assuming the planet has some form of nitrogen based atmosphere we have a few things to worry about. 1) is their any toxic chemical in the atmosphere that either a) can be removed or b) we can be genetically altered to survive exposure to. 2) are there any hazardous biologicals in the atmosphere (alien disease, bacteria, etc). To actually colonize, we need perfect medicines, or we need to raze the entire planet of all forms of life before going down to it (which could delay our arrival by a further 10-100 years). Then, finally, we can start customizing the atmosphere.
Other than these major hurdles, it's not likely this craft can actually be built here at Earth. The raw material availability of this planet is not likely sufficient. Of course, realistically, we'll be mining other nearby planets (Mars likely, maybe others) for materials just for the Earth alone a few hundred years from now.
Give us 1000 years and we can be on our way across the galaxy. Now, this is not a relocation effort, simply a colonization effort. There's no way in the 7 hells we could ever "leave" this planet completely. Moving a few billion people just isn't going to happen.
Any communication between worlds would be equally impossible (50 year delay?). We'll have 2 cultures with completely different science levels, different social expectations (believe me, living on a boat for 5 generations will completely change humanity), and possibly completely unique (and incompatible) genetic structure depending on what we need to change to be able to live on another world. More importantly, anything gained by having this colony would be useless to those back here on Earth. There's not going to be interstellar trade or anything like it at that distance. If the point is to seed another world in the interest of letting "humanity" survive should there be a disaster on earth, but in doing so, we destroy what we know as humanity, why bother? We've got a good million years to evolve on this world yet. T
I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but... You're watching video on your computer. Is it too hard to suggest that instead of regulating the video feeds and producers, and mandating software changes that effect literally thousands of products and tens of thousands of programmers, that we simply get a government agency to create a grant to develop a better software application that can convert speech to text from any audio feed in near real time?
Sure, for professionally published works it's easy to add CC, and most of the have to do that already. However, asking Apple (or anyone else) to reload their entire library of TV and movies so CC is supported in all the available video would take months. QuickTime already supports CC, but how much of the content does? Much more importantly however is, can we rightly ask all the small time and armature artists out there to pop for professional tools to add CC to their work, and ask them take hours to do so, under threat of punishment?
Computers are very powerful. They can pass the audio feed through another application, decode the voice layers, and present text on screen easy enough. Sure voice recognition is still a relatively inaccurate technology, especially when there's lots of background noise or heavy accents, but have you watched sports or live news (not the nightly news which is scripted, but real live event news) in CC lately? It's almost unreadable there too.
Please stop suggesting mass spending acts that cost billions of dollars that only provide benefit to 5% or less of the populous when there are other methods that cost far less, require less invasive effort, and can remain globally compatible without worrying about other regional legislation...
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having CC on just about every form of media. Even I use it from time to time. How would one ever be able to watch the game at Happy Hour in your neighborhood bar without it?
Apple and AT&T are not concerned at this point with price, contract requirements, etc. It's simple business. So many people want this thing right now they could charge $140 per month and $1000 for the phone and still not meet production demand.
Give it a few months (6 tops) until the other vendors are allowed to join the game, and until other supported data system networks are added and the price will drop as fast as that for the RAZR. Remember, the RAZR was a $300 phone when it came out, and it's just a phone...
I expect iPhones with limited use contracts (instead of unlimited) and only 1 year sign on requirements to be available for $399 or less within 6 months and $249 in a year.
I currently pay over $75 a month for cable TV (which goes up to $105 2 months from now when my promotion wears off), including a series of pay channels and an HD DVR (though I don't pay for the HD tier). I've been considering turning off cable completely and downloading all my content. If only I could get HD quality downloads of ALL the programs I watch, it would actually be cheaper than paying for cable, considering i already own all the equipment for room-to-room broadcast from a media center (not MSFT Media Center).
I watch little TV regularly. A few shows on SciFI, Heroes, House, and few crime shows. I've been using my premium TV channels to record movies with the intent of watching them later, but I delete more than I watch to make room for other recordings. I'm thinking NetFlix is a better way to get these movies, at a lower cost.
If I bought season passes on iTunes (or some competing service) for my favorite programs, I could maintain about 30 - 40 programs a year. Going through iTunes current inventory, there's 16 shows I identified that I would buy the seasons of, 4 more I might buy if I felt I had time to watch them, and 5 more shows I would have bought whole seasons of, but the shows were canceled after only a few episodes each, adding up to about 1 more full season cost (and although the Black Donneleys was canceled after 4 episodes, I can get all 13 on iTunes so I included that as one of the 16 I would have bought). That's only 21 shows total, and that includes some of the crap my wife watches that I don't. There were also 8 more shows I would buy (mostly reality crap for my wife, but also Rescue Me from FX network and ER from NBC), but iTunes does not host them for some reason, so if I could find them elsewhere, that brings my total to 28 shows. This does include all the Law & order and CSI clones, of which I really only watch 1 or 2 episodes a month of each, so I'd probably buy them on the spot instead of complete seasons saving a bit more money. Add the cost of Netflix ($5) and I could basically have my own cable network.
Cons: Don't get local news Don't get sports (ie football) Can't channel surf for new stuff, have to buy and try Don't get any commercials (sometimes a good thing, especially for local event advertising, but this can be replaced with a newspaper subscription and a TV Guide) No storm warnings or other EBS alerts less predictable monthly fees (as each season starts, could be a lot of new shows to buy, then months with no purchases) video quality is not yet HDTV No TV movies, marathons, or reruns of previous seasons (becomes less important over time as you build a collection) Many shows do not get hosted on download services unless they are best sellers. Some only appear after DVD box sets become available, months or years after broadcast dates
Pros: costs less assuming one already has room to room video transfer (which I do, including HD to one room) I own what I've watched, and can re-watch it any time Friends may do the same and we can trade programs, saving even more Networks that make good shows get money, others I could give to shits about don't no commercials
In the end, I see IPTV and ala carte cable services getting my money. Since there are a few programs I can't yet get downloaded, and the initial investment (signing up for all those series now) would cost a lot, , plus I'd have to give up watching football and hockey, so I don't see myself switching over to download services yet. Cable is better than satellite for now (features like Start Over and on-demand watching are just too cool, and the quality is the same either way)
I work for a backup company that makes D2D backup appliances supporting more than 20 operating systems.
First, no one really understands best practices for backup, and a lot of systems that are backed up "successfully" can't be restored anyway (in fact, most commonly this is Microsoft Exchange, the most important system in most companies!). Second, Tape sucks! You MUST have Disk-to-disk backups to have any true recoverability in today's world. Third, check you logs EVERY day, there's no excuse! Fixing a failing backup should be the number 1 priority second only to an actual failed server you are recovering. Next, nobody spends enough on IT disaster recovery, and no one documents the recovery process properly. Your IT spending on DR should be approximately 25% or more of your total IT budget for server systems. At least 1 day per month should be used to practice system recovery or update the documentation covering it. Next, nothing should ever be considered backed up until the server has been test recovered, completely from scratch, at least once. At least some data should be recovered from backup media every day just to be certain it can be done when needed. The test recovery should be of a random critical data folder, or database, not the same stuff each time.
Off-site DR is also important. Making sure that your entire data set for all critical systems is moved off site every 24 hours is a must. Included in this should be any media required to process a restore (not just the backups, but the install CDs, BareMetal recovery disks, licenses keys for all servers and applications, the DR documentation itself, network architecture information, hardware and software configuration of each server, and all information regarding your ISP contract, and system warranties from each manufacturer. If you don't have all this stuff, contract someone who knows what they are doing to make it for you.
For each unique mission critical system you have (Mail, critical database server that allow the business to operate, point application server, Citrix box, etc) you should have a complete spare system meeting the system requirements so that system can be restored immediately in the event of a system outage. Your system recovery tests should be performed regularly to that hardware. Best practice is also to keep those test boxes off-site when possible, but nearby enough to get in a jiffy. If you don't have spare lab equipment, and don't have enough budget to have it, you can't afford to have those critical systems in house, and should consider outsourcing a data center who does have those resources. Clustering is complicated and expensive, but spare chassis and a few spare drives don't amount to a huge IT burden. You don't have to have 1 for each server, just one that can handle the job of each unique mission critical system (if you have 5 SQL servers, 1 exchange, 1 citrix, and 4 file servers, you only need 4 total spare system).
The average business that goes through a critical system disaster that interrupts business for more than 48 hours requires 1 month of revenue to overcome the loss of each day of downtime. 40% of businesses that have a site disaster lasting more than 3 days go bankrupt within 90 days of the event. How much money will your business loose if you have to roll your purchase database back 2 days and loose all records of those transactions? How will your business survive if e-mail is out for 3 days? How much will you loose if your online store is gone for several days? How many customers will you loose if your support department is off-line for 2 days? How much will you be sued for if you miss a contractual deadline due to data loss? Can you afford to NOT spend the money to make sure this doesn't happen!?!?!
Well, as a user of other dongle based time security objects, it's not a real big deal. The code only changes every 15 minutes or so (some less than that). It would also be easy enough to add a sync time system to the card swipe systems, allowing the card to sync time automatically any time it's used in say a WalMart.
My problem: this system still does NO GOOD if someone actually STEALS the card...
It also does no good for preventing purchases from 1) companies that do not yet support the new technology, as many places still don't support the 3 digit code on the back of the cards now including my pizza guy, 2) paper receipt processing (Renaissance fairs, flea market vendors, etc usually don't have phones to call VeriSign and can't do electronic receipts, so they still use paper), or 3) doesn't prevent the cashier/operator from re-using your card info immediately after you provide it.
A completely new system, that is truly secure, would require a card that not only refuses to work without a one-time code, but also one that stores all purchase information IN the card. To use at home, a cable would be required to connect the card to the PC. To purchase over the phone would be a pain, but is still possible via a pay-pal equivalent system so the buyer can pay online, and the seller verify online, both at the same time. The one-time number should be on a separate dongle (so they have to steal both your card AND your keys, making reporting a card theft 100 times more obvious and likely to be reported immediately). The dongle should several buttons that have to be pushed in a certain order to get the code (at least 6 buttons and 6 presses).
If the system was well built, a single dongle could be used by all your cards since a thief would need your dongle, your dongle unlock code, and your card in order to pull off a theft, and he'd have to do it damn quick because if you've just been held at gunpoint so he could steal the code from your mind (and assuming you gave him the right one) you're likely to report it damn quick, unless of course your dead... It would also be nice if the dongle could give a false code (like home alarms have a false code that makes it look like the alarm is off, but still calls the police anyway) so if a thief used that, it would automatically notify the clerk the card was stolen.
If the card itself keeps logs of every time it;s used, than any purcheses that show up on your bill that are not on your card would also be easy to spot. The card could also very easily tell you what your balance was, when you bill was due, etc.
First, the pad only "uses" electricity when there is a device inside of it's field of effect. There's no "sleep mode" it just doesn't use any mower when nothing is near it. The magnetic field generated can easily sense the presence or lack of a device and power on only when necessary.
Second, if you understood the technology, you would know there will never be a 1000 watt version. Magnetic field science works on a multiple of squares system. To generate 80 watts instead of 40 takes a field 4 times larger. to go to 160 watts requires 16 times as much field density. To produce induction coils capable of generating a field large enough to charge large devices, or a field strong enough to charge high voltage devices is prohibitively expensive.
Third, this is a trickle charge technology, taking most of the night to recharge your device instead of an hour. When batteries are rapidly charged, they get hot. This heat is not only energy wasted, but inhibits charge efficiency. Charging times for electric cars are the primary reason they don't exist yet. Trickling the energy into the battery keeps the resistance low, prolongs battery life, and actually makes each charge last longer (rapid charging only gets batteries to about 85% capacity, trickling get it to 100%).
The power efficiency of induction pads is actually quite amazing. 2% on average power loss. In fact, the pad will usually be much MORE efficient that a wall charger since the charger in the wall is 1) always using some power when plugged in, 2) still has 1-2% or more power loss when charging, 3) completes its charge in 1-2 hours, but typically remains plugged in and wasting energy (although not much) for 8-10 hours.
Smart induction only applies power to devices who's antennae resonate on specific frequencies. If you have multiple devices charging at once, the pads can resonate on multiple frequencies at the same time, charging several devices. When one completes its charge, the pad can stop "broadcasting" on that frequency and thus stop wasting that power.
the idea of the pad is not to charge a single device like a phone, but you put a large pad on your desk, and your laptop, cell, iPod, headset, etc all can charge at the same time, and only use 1 wire to do it.
Power cords are easy enough when you only have 1, but I have 7 I can use (iPod, work phone, personal phone, personal notebook, work notebook, bluetooth headset, house phone,... My wife has another 4 devices of her own. I need 3 whole power strips just for charging cables for the portable stuff, and all that crap uses block based power adapters so I'm only using every other outlet...
It would be an absolute blessing to not have to use cables. Besides the fact that I've had to replace 2 cell phones and 1 notebook motherboard because either I dropped something after plugging it in, or a cat got on the desk and knocked something off, destroying the power jack.
Now, if manufacturers would offer their device WITH the batteries that support this (even for a slight up charge) at time of purchase instead of making me buy expensive REPLACEMENT batteries (or sell it without a battery and let me pick one I like), I'd already have this technology at home. I'd also get one to recharge the wireless game controllers I have. I know they sell adapters that plug into the charge adapter, but that adds significant bulk and potential damage if I snag the dongle cable on something.
It's not about the PRICE or QUALITY of the bulb. It's about COLOR TEMPERATURE. Most CFs sold in stores have a color temp of 2700K. This is a dull color, off-white almost blue in hue. A 4100K bulb is what you would call a traditional "soft white" You can get 5100K bulbs which are bright white. Go to bulbs.com and you can get them for $3.99 each regularly, sometimes less. Currently, they have 20watt 5000K CF bulbs (1000 lumen, or about the equivalent of 100 watt incandescents) for 2.49 each, or as little as 2.09 in bulk.
I have found a few manufacturers will now label their bulbs for their color temp. Of all the packages sold at WalMart, only 2 or 3 are doing this so far. I only buy a bulb when I can tell the color temp from the packaging, so if we get everyone doing this, then hopefully the other manufacturers will catch on. Many of the really cheap CFs I find on discount are actually 2100K which really suck.
They also have DIMMABLE CFs now, for about $15 each. They're only 2800K, but you actually want your dimmed bulbs in that range (it's the warm color of candle light). "bright white" and "dim" don't go together.
First and most important: The case of a landfill in the US depositing dangerous leachate into a water supply has NEVER HAPPENED. NOT ONCE. Landfills that did not comply with regulations for environmental safety have all been closed. They're still tested regularly, as are local water supplies. We consolidated more than 8000 landfills in the US down to just over 1000 in the late 80s(and at the same time increased landfill capacity). The current landfill sites are secured with flexible, tough, multi layered basin liners and basically can't leak, even after a severe earthquake.
We're far more worried about the mercury that escapes land fills in gas form. However, even IF 100% of the mercury in an incandescent bulb actually could convert into methylated mercury gas (which only some reasonably can) then the mercury leaked from CF bulbs would still be less than 20% of that entering the atmosphere due to the manufacture of incandescent bulbs plus the coal power used to light them vs the lifetime of any one CF. btw: CF bulbs have at most 5 grams of Mercury now. Some are available with as little as 1.33 grams. Though most are made outside the US where there are not strict regulations, US laws (as well as those of other countries) prevent them from being sold if they're mercury content is too high.
A single button cell battery, like those in LED key chain lights, laser pointers, and every computer board made contains many times the amount of mercury in a CF. It is illegal to throw out batteries, and most people do know to recycle the disposable AA, C, D, etc battery types (these no longer contain mercury, but contain other chemicals that in some cases are even more dangerous, especially when burned). Most people however readily throw away pocket devices, computers, laser pointers, holiday decoration, those annoying blinking lapel pins, and other things containing mercury filled batteries not realizing those batteries pose much more of a threat. Button battery use in household devices has more than tripled in the last 3 years, thanks mostly to LED and Laser Diode technology. My wife and I recycled more than 60 button cell batteries last year. We only replaced 3 of our more than 25 CF bulbs around the house. Had we thrown away those batteries instead of recycling we would have caused more damage than breaking every CF bulb we or any of our friends own combined.
The mercury in a CF bulb is in SOLID form, not even liquid or gas, and is cake to clean up, and it is less dangerous to handle than the glass itself in terms of health risk. Yes, people need to understand the risk, and be careful with the bulbs. WalMart already has a recycling program in place for dead CF bulbs. If we made it the LAW to recycle them, like it is for batteries, and strictly enforced that law (say a $500 fine per bulb improperly disposed of) and made WalMart put up BIG signs indicating the recycling is both free and mandatory, then there would be no real big issue.
LED might be a nice alternative for 20 watt and less needs (dim hall lights, walkways, under cabinet lights, etc), but they're EXTREMELY expensive (more than $20 per bulb for night light equivalents, up to $120 for a simple under cabinet light). Sure, they use 1-3 watts instead of 8 for a CF or 20 for an incandescent, but there are no 40+ watt equivalents yet, so reading lamps and lighting for environments that require bright light still requires CF to be environmentally sound.
My money is on OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) films and polymers. Imagine glowing wallpaper that produces as much light as a 100 watt bulb, has a 20 year lifespan, can be dimmed to almost any value, and uses 10 watts or less. Sure, it will cost a few hundred to outfit a room with it, but just think: there's no light fixture... No bulbs to change, and more. Sony is releasing a monitor backlit by OLED later this year. Most of the cell phones new on the market, including the popular Moto Razr already use this technology. It's not a pipe dream.
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Actually, the 1.3:1 ratio doesn't take harvesting into account. The fuel used per hectare is not really that relevant compared to the energy created. We're talking small percentages. What's more of a concern is energy per acre per year...
That said, corn is FAR from an ideal source for how we make ethanol today (think moonshine, the process is very similar). Corn is difficult to harvest (special equipment, lots of time, susceptible to disease and insects and drought and flood, requires massive amounts of fertilizer, can't be planted year after year in the same field without even more fertilizers, and you only get 1 crop per year.
Sugar Beets are close to the best thing we can make ethanol (using traditional methods) out of. It's practically a weed that grows like potatoes. It's easy to harvest, has significant higher energy yield per crop, is practically immune to most bugs (because it grown under the soil), requires little fertilization, and is much heartier. Besides, 90% of the plant can be used for ethanol, as opposed to Corn's approx 20%. In many places, 2 crops per year can be grown, yielding between 4 and 8 times the ethanol per acre. On top of that, it's a plant and forget crop, unlike corn which requires significant routine effort. Sugar beets also do not leech soil provided a simple and common fertilizer is used. The sugar beets convert to ethanol at about 2:1 compared to corn's 1.3:1.
Going cellulostic is a completely different way to make ethanol, not a different material. This is an enzymatic process that converts plant material directly into ethanol, without the heating and brewing processes (or the eminent potential for dangerous explosions if not managed properly). It has an extremely high energy output, but unfortunately the current methods for making it are expensive. Science can drastically improve this over time.
The fact that they've chosen WOOD as the media to convert simply shows (again) how industry and the government control this process. Wood is a BAD choice for this process. It's packed with energy, sure, but the process is slower and more difficult than other materials, not to mention WOOD GROWS SLOWLY, COSTS A LOT, AND IS IN SHORT SUPPLY!!! Want to know a perfect material for this process? Think Kudzu! Most weeds make a good medium for cellulostic crops. Wood takes 20-30 years per crop to mature and require expensive and dangerous harvesting methods. Without wiping out almost every acre of natural forest, we also can't make enough wood. We can get the same cellulostic mass from existing, unused cropland (like all those acres being paid not to plant tobacco) in 10 years or less using equipment every farmer already owns. Why go against that? Money, not science is surely a factor.
I would submit that when special effects are so good they are not noticed, when the suspension of disbelief is reached, and the audience is fully engrossed in the movie, noticeable special effects can ruin the movie, but a lack of them can do the same. In movies like Lord of the Rings trilogy, there were HUNDREDS of special effect scenes. Few of these scenes broke the realism of the movie for me due to exceptional care in detail and lighting. Most of the special effects were camera tricks or green screen sets improving the realism of the world and scale of the characters. Transformers presented special effects in a completely different way. Fortunately, the level of detail, and attention to small details like the weight and momentum of the robots, and the impact they have on their environment was exceptional. The brain was able to believe the robots were filmed, not rendered.
Any movie can have this level of quality in their special effects. The question is, can the story attract enough audience to make it worth while? Lets face it, many stories don't translate well to film in the first place. Putting a bad script on a screen and adding effects where they're distracting is even worse. On the other hand, many bad scripts have become great movies due to well done special effects.
The danger we run with effects is in films like F4:RoSS, where the movie was treated more like a comic than a real world, and the effects reflected that mood. Even with a $130m budget, they grossly missed their mark and many of the effects, especially any involving the air car, took me out of the movie and disappointed me. Part of this is the director's fault, and part was the production time line set by the producers. The effects team, given a few more weeks or months, could have cleaned up the effects, made this much more believable, and without even re-shooting scenes or changing the plot could have made this a successful movie instead of a flop. Sure, worldwide it made money, and might even break even in the US when the dice stop rolling, but any attempt at a 3rd movie is not going to get the same attention. Another $10m in effects budget and a 2 month delay on release would have gotten them another $50m on this movie and $100m on the next.
This said, I don't think its fair to say "good stories don't need special effects" or "special effects should not be the star of the movie, or its draw effect." There are movies that simply could never be made without them (any comic book, any alien world, any magical fantasy setting, etc). I think it's better to say "any successful movie has special effects that don't distract the mind from the suspension of belief or flow of the story" Effects for the glory of having effects are pointless, but effects that support the world created by the author can be breathtaking.
Yes, even if unwanted, you are paying for Windows to be installed. As part of that installation, bundled software packages are added to the machine which Dell and others are paid to add. You're paying for a copy of Windows, but you are indirectly being paid to take other software you intend to delete. It's not a complete wash of course, but even if the windows license cost Dell $25 for XP home or Vista home basic versions, I bet there's $15-20 in bloatware subtracted from the system price. Dells price of $10 for windows might well be reasonable. Further, producing and marketing a separate design option for a machine, research to define compatible hardware and test OS installations, plus stocking them for availability is a big cost. A machine with any option that makes mass assembly difficult costs more. If Dell sells 1 Linux box for every 100 Windows machines, that labor cost adds up dramatically for the Linux model, even in distribution runs of 10s of thousands. You're very lucky the machine doesn't cost more. What makes more sense is to update the OEM Windows activation process to allow internet settings to be entered, and fields for capturing personal information, and then when refusing to activate Windows, it can send a notification to Microsoft (or the vendor) and a disbursement credit can be issued for the OEM cost of the OS, minus associated bundled discounts. You can then install the OS of your choice. Dell could simply partner with Linux companies (like my company does) to acquire new hardware platforms or spec sheets before they are made public and the Linux or other OS companies can certify their OS for that platform. Dell could sell PCs with standard (non-proprietary) components, have 1 single install configuration, saving money. If you don't want Windows, there will be electronic proof of your choice in that matter, and it will not only self delete, but also notify Microsoft to mark your activation code as void so you can't use it on another machine.
With Blockbuster's latest move against HD DVD, the dam is broken. Virtually every title shot in High Def will be ported to HD DVD regardless of contracts or agreements. In a year or two, every new release will be on HD DVD. Over time, all the old VHS and DVD titles will be moved over. Most we will upscaled to at least 720P if not higher, if the quality of the original film is good enough.
As far as only buying it because it can be cracked, this is not a decision the manufacturer's even give a crap about. At this point, as was with DVD initially, the cost of a blank disk far exceeds the cost of an original work. In 2002, several years after the release of DVD writers, the cost of pirating disks for the fist time reached a break-even point, and to get to that point meant copying a minimum of 300 disks, costing almost $4500 (not including failed writes) and that required compression technologies limiting video quality and the disks would not play in most living rooms.
OK, in today's market, factor in an unlimited movie rental service fee, cost of a writer for dual layer DVDs, and blanks, and you only have to copy about 15 disks to break even. It will be 5 years at least before blue ray or HD DVD can do the same, even if it's cracked. Plus, have you seen a HD DVD blank yet? Can you even put one in a player and use it? Without cracking the player's firmware, or adding a mod chip, can we even guarantee a cracked disk can be played?
Sure, maybe you can crack the original video, compress and save it to your Hard drive in another format, and store the movie for playback via media center, even squeeze it onto a dual layer DVD, but at what cost? at anywhere between 10 and 50GB per movie storing them is going to be EXPENSIVE! (not to mention 2-6 hours, based on HD file sizes, to copy and convert the file as opposed to about 1 hour per DVD). At $750, a TB hard dive might store 50-100 movies, not to mention backing the cost of backing it up (and since these are illegal copies, think of the time involved to pirate them all over again if you crash!)
Anyone getting into Blu-ray or HD DVD at this point is interested in one of 2 things: great video and audio quality, similar to what they get from TV (DVD is worse than TV quality now...), and bonus and special features exclusive to the format used to draw people to buy it.
Keep in mind, single layer HD DVDs are only 15GB per disk, and at $12-15 per disk (which I can't even FIND in a store, online or otherwise, inside the USA) your going to have to software compress most content to get it on a disk. I imaging DL HD HVD blanks to start at $20 or higher. Blue-ray blanks have 25GB, so only 1080P 7.1 surround vidoes with loads of special features might have trouble fitting on a disk, but it's still $12 for a blank, and $700 for a writer. Do you know how many movies, at $14.99 you can own LEGALLY for that? $4 savings per disk created (illegally) it would 175 copies to break even!!!! (175 disks @ $11 plus $700 player = cost of 175 $15 movies). I find movies I want regularly at $10 and $12, and older movies for $6-8. Factoring in a budget for movie purchases over a 4 year span, buying 1 movie every tuesday, and assuming appropriate discounts over that time of media and player costs, I give it at least 2 years until illegally copying movies becomes cost effective for for even an avid home pirateer. How many of you actually spend over $700 a year on movies you want??? I buy a movie once a month if I'm lucky. To fit in my budget, that means to get more movies for the same money over a 3 year period means the average price of a pirated movie, INCLUDING the cost of the writer, needs to come down to below $10 per copy. Currently, the cost of the media alone exceeds this (by two fold if you plan on using HD DVD).
According to studies, the most common traffic on the internet is torrent style P2P network traffic, and movie downloads. Soon we'll also be looking at IPTV as a massive bandwidth source. IPTV absolutely CANNOT be a second tier application or it will never succeed. IPTV being the centerpiece of most large ISP's future are going to have to make sure that traffic is uninterrupted, providing clear and perfect TV viewing (if there's download pauses, buffering, or any other quality issues it will be a billion dollar failure), is their goal. It will get one of the top tiers. Since the second 2 highest uses behind that will be illegal or at least questionable activity, how does ATT propose to limit that without impacting IPTV? Surely a smart hacker will VERY quickly figure out hot to make their traffic look like tier 1 packets, and recompose them client side.
By installing a tiered internet, all ATT will be doing will be to improve the speed of illegal services vs legal, and put everyone else doing business, atm, mail, sms, and other critical time sensitive in one of the worst speed catagories.
Because innovation rules the net, and any packet could be made to look like any content we want, the only way to tier the net is on an IP to IP bases, not packet to packet, and this would amount to a kind of internet segregation where those who want to/can afford to pay more, go faster. A network structured that way will either be ordered dismantled by the courts, or simply have few subscribers where there are other competitive offers.
If it's cheaper to add bandwidth than it is to segregate packets anyway (and adding bandwidth is still a necessity either way), combined with the packet latency issues that would be inherent to a tiered structure (the additional time in ms necessary to analyze a packet before assigning priority), I'm guessing net neutrality will win even if the courts don't stand on our side.
As an employee of a product hardware and software vendor who's product supports more than 20 operating systems (Windows, , mac, novel, sco, solaris, BSD, linux, as400, aix, hp/ux, and on, and on, and on...) on our own product documentation we list only the specific systems and versions that are supported. For all the 64bit OS we do support (which still excludes Windows) we list the OS once as it's proper name, and a second time with the name appended with the manufacturer's trademark name indicating the 64bit version. We do not wist any OS with 64 bit support under a general heading.
./.
Regularly we have customers buy our product and expect that simply becasue we say "Windows 2003 Server Standard" and "Windows 2003 Server Enterprise" that we also support the 64 bit versions, or in some cases the SBS or Web Edition of these servers. They are not itemized as supported, and as far as Microsoft's licensing is concerned, are completely independent products and their licenses are not interchangeable.
Even Microsoft's own KB articles list specifically anytime 64bit is included, and when it's not listed, it means it's not included or supported by that article.
Besides, what DOES work with 64bit edition??? For just about ANYTHING I buy for my 2003 64bit server as well as my XP x64 edition system I have to do extensive research to determine driver compatibility. I regularly call manufacturers and have to ask if it's supported as their documentation is sometimes unclear or incomplete. Also, why were you not already aware that iTunes itself does not support 64bit edition. That fact has been clearly documented in many articles wight here on
The current Intel MacBook Pros DO have multitouch. The touchpad responds to both single and 2 finger guestures, including zoom and scroll.
Well, you're right, it's not the only source. However, it is the only source likely to come with complete file tags, album art, and 256bit high definition encoding. There's not a lot of stuff out there dubbed from high def studio masters. Also, if they're traded an AAC format instead of MP3, the iPod gets better battery life playing them back. Sure, you can encode in AAC to start with, but guess what, then your personal info is in those files ANYWAY.
Oh yea, btw, any file you personally create on a Windows machine gets your personal info inserted into the file anyway. Check the properties on any file, select the summary tab, and click advanced. Any information you entered when installing or activating windows, including your name or user name and your company name (Most people put their full name or family name in the company field and their first name is their login). The headers of most files, including PDFs you create and most Microsoft documents also include this identification.
Now, who really cares if this information is in a file? Well, if you get hacked or infected with a virus, they already have this information. They don't need to strip it from a AAC file. In fact, log into any web server and it can ask Windows for this information and more, including your e-mail, software versions, browser type, IP, and much more sensitive information than a name and apple account e-mail address. The only people who care at all about the existence of this information are people who will give these files to other people, which is against the law. Where the law is concerned, once you break it, anonymity no longer exists.
It's not illegal, or even immoral for apple to tag these files. They're not tracking them or reporting when they're used on other non-authorized computers. They're only giving the RIAA and government organizations a fingerprint to track you by. Get this outlawed and next you'll have courts saying that organizations can't use your fingerprint or other biometric as an access code. Worse, we've got people trying to outlaw DNA tracking by the federal government. You can't have both a free safe society and complete anonymity at the same time. These things are mutually exclusive.
though I agree that the Sci Atlanta boxes are inferior to Tivo or other name brand retail systems, it's a lot better than $14/mo and there's no advertising, promotional crap, or other bothers associated with the unit. I've had 4 different Sci Atlanta models, currently have 2 HD ones. I have not had any issues with any of them, other than I had a HDD failure in one 3 years ago. that has WD's fault, not Time Warner (bad drive). That can happen to any unit.
With another cable company I had a non-HD Motorola box. Those boxes were recalled due to an issue where the 12 volt AC current running the CPU fan could back feed through the RCA out jacks and fry HT systems. It fried mine, but the cable company promptly bought me a hole new rack unit after they confirmed their hardware damaged mine.
The original Tivos and some other set top boxes distribted by other vendors had some pretty hairy issues too. The current boxes distributed by Time warner and CableVision seem to be very stable, easy to use, and have a ton of storage space.
As far as reliability in general, the only issue is the hard disk. These are all cheap, low voltage drives, regardless of whose system you buy. They're all about as equally likely to fail. Some of the cable boxes get re-used a few times, and that can lead to issues, but I always insist on a new box when they give me one.
As far as having a lot of unwatched TV on my box when I exchange them, I usually do this at mid-season breaks when I have little recorded. There are 2-3 times a year I'll find I have nothing to watch in my list.
First, I like your enthusiasm. At first, it may seem like you have found a hole in my logic. Hoping to impose no negative feelings, not attract flame, let me further enlighten you.
It could easily be argued in many circles that in fact being drunk is a state of preparedness for the challenge of the accident. Also, those who see it coming, and do not have proper mental preparation to avoid tensing up, are therefore unprepared to receive the trauma. Person's who crash cars professionally take these steps of mental and physical preparation (though usually not getting drunk) and come out of accidents with less physical trauma than those who have not steeled themselves by understanding the nature of the physics behind the crash and preparing by going limp prior to the impact.
There is no single incident, no matter how random in nature or probability, that one cannot on some level prepare for and thus be more victorious than another who has not taken those steps. Sure, walking around in a bio contained suit all day and night to prepare for a biological strike would seem completely ridiculous, and can actually hinder preparedness for hundreds of other challenges, but if a WMD did land there, the moron in the suit would win that challenge.
If you're some kind of nut who only has the will to access broadcast TV, and have no interest for even basic cable services or basic dish services which can be had for as little as $14.99/mo depending on provider, then you're missing most of the worthwhile programs to record in the first place. If all you watch are the most promoted broadcast TV shows, skip the DVR entirely and just get your programs from iTunes or something similar. Of course, if you're so far gone that a $14.99 subscription to get interference free TV with 20-50 channels is too much money, and are satisfied with the 6 channels your rabbit ears pick up on a good day, then your likely to not have DSL anyway so this really isn't an option, is it?
If you're so strongly against paying any subscriptions, then you are a cheap ass (no offense) and why should ANY manufacturer expect that you would buy a $200+, bottom of the line, profitless device from them, let alone provide it subscription free? You're such a small market nich, and a so entirely unprofitable one at that, what would compel them to bother?
Fact is, bundling a DVR with even the cheapest subscription TV service available won't be more than $24.99 per month, with $10 of that being the monthly fee for the set top box. For another $20 a month, you get over a hundred channels instead of 20. Assuming you're not a nut, and actually have some pay-for TV service already, then the $10 a month it costs to get a DVR from your provider will cost less over 2 years than the cost to buy a simple DVR that might do without a subscription, and 3-5 years of TV vs building your own HTPC with Myth TV. With Time Warner Cable like I have, the HD DVR is the same monthly price as the regular DVR and you get all the broadcast TV channels and Discovery in HD, just not ESPN and the other premium HD networks.
Here are a few other things to consider when getting a unit from your cable provider on lease instead of buying a Tivo or some other unit: 1) no up front expense, 2) Unit is under warranty, and is replaced free, in your home, 3) you can swap the unit out for a newer or better model at will by stopping by the cable office. If you have satellite, you actually "buy" the unit from them when you sign up (it's usually free on new accounts), but as long as you have a subscription to their service, the hardware is covered by warranty. People that already have satellite service, and are being told they have to buy their additional hardware are missing the fine print: Cancel your subscription, then have your wife sign up as a new subscriber and get all the equipment for free.
The one major disadvantage of getting a provided DVR is that you can't export video easily to DVD. Most units employ copy protection measures. If you have a steroe system with video in-out options, you can connect the DVD recorder to your stereo instead of the cable box directly and 9/10 eliminate that issue. If not, add an inline filter you can pick up at BestBuy for $40.
Going the Myth TV route requires several hundred dollars in PC hardware, if not over $1000 (if you're talking multiple tuners), intimate PC knowledge, constant maintenance, no real warranty or service options, and all this just so you can record to DVD? Shit, just spend $2 per episode (or save money and buy season sets). Of course, you're violating your service provider's contract terms (and possibly the law) by time shifting programs to a system capable of DVD recording and playback anyway, so if you're already violating the law, some of you might consider getting the programming through illegal download services anyway.
Ask yourself, is it really worth the cost? The PC needs replacement every few years, or at least expensive upgrades. At an average of $500 per year in hardware and software (normalized) you could buy a new Tivo with the yearly subscription built in every year, and include the cost of a DVD writer and a few hundred DVDs.
It's not a bad idea, but I can't image real time voice wave translation coming at any cheap cost in CPU power. Maybe with a low end ($45) daughter board to offload the CPU cycles this could work.
Of course how good of a mood are you going to be in when most of your teammates sound exactly the same? Figuring out who's talking could be handled by on-screen indicators like D&D online does, but it would get irritating after a while. An option to turn it on or off would be nice.
Of course, with a little practice, it's not hard to tell the difference between an adult male and a female or young boy even with voice modulation. The only real solution to guarantee complete anonymity is to allow speech to text Or some encoded system), and then text to speech on the other end. Now everyone could be indistinguishable. Offering a series of 8-10 variable modulations on the voice output could generate literally hundreds of voice possibilities. Again, the power necessary to do this would be high (if not higher), and in the end, it's an aesthetic. Also, anyone with a strong accent would not be able to use the system reliably without training the engine.
I think you're right. We already know GPS will be an add on. We can also figure on iChat being added. I don't see them putting a camera on the front of the unit, but perhaps one that swivels. The swiveling mechanism could even be used as part of the stand to hold the phone up when chatting. More memory, likely increasing from 4/8 to 6/12 in the next release, and then 10/20 in a following model, is also predicted.
Making a cheaper model is going to be a challenge. The iPod has cheaper models, but only because major features can be removed. Taking out the hard disk, big battery, and big display in favor of flash based technology means less cost and lower warranty service (solid state is less likely to have issues than hard disk electronics). What features of the iPhone can you see people willing to give up for a cheaper model?
The storage of the iPhone is already too small to make smaller (maybe 2GB model would be $50 less) The screen is the selling point. Take that away and you loose too much (the internet, photo viewing, video, and more) so that's not an option. Might be able to take wireless out and replace it with an add-on port, but that's a $25 option tops. Make it wide screen only (eliminate complicated motion sensors) and you could save another $10-20. The camera could also be removed completely (many people never use theirs) and businesses might be more likely to adopt the phone without it (due to legal concerns over data or business secret theft). That might lower it more as well by another $30-50. I could see a phone exactly like the current model, but less RAM, no camera, no GPS option, and wirelass only by an add-on adapter, and drop up to $150 off the price.
The big price drops are simply going to come in the form of incentives from the phone company. That data plan is worth so much to them that they can absorb $300 of the phone price and still make more money in a 2 year period than selling a $50 phone with no data plan. Now the $600 model is $300 retail with a new contract. $300 is not that hard to choke down for the latest, greatest phone tech. The lesser model at $200 and a chepped down model like I described above would be $100.
Of course, with Apples track record, expect gen 2 to be exactly the same price, with a few new bells and whistles (including native iTV support via wireless, and GPS being the two big ones, possibly native keynote support as well with an adapter cable or even a wireless/bluetooth add-on, oh and more RAM).
Gen 3 will likely split models and finally offer a budget iPhone, but I still don't see this being more than $150 under the lower model.
Well, the PS3 really isn't that cool by itself, especially to people who already own a PS2 since many of the PS3 games also exist for the PS2. Next, consoles are not something 100% of people want. More importantly, it's not just a $600 console, but an $1100 package if you want to really use it with a few games, accessories, controllers, cables, memory cards, etc, and oh yea, it only really works if you have a high def TV... Everyone needs a mobile phone. Next, it had direct competition with other products that do basically the same thing for lower prices. The iPhone has no competitor. Initial sales of the PS3 were also delayed, and understocked, which gave it a disadvantage to it's competitor. Next, the iPhone natively integrates with things people already have (iTunes, iPods, docking stations, headsets, etc) Other than the phone and a plan, you don't need much else. Most people already have a plan and only need to add a data plan or increase their minute plan. Next, phones have a 1-2 year life span. PS2 has been around for a very long time, and is still a currently marketed product. I've got 2 of them, and ones almost 4 years old. I was not even an early adopter. I replace my phone every 2 years like clockwork. Most importantly, Apple is not interested in cornering the market. Their market research anylists are allways dead on with product sales, selling out very quickly on new items, and maintaining just enough product in the market to meet the demand they predict. 10 million phones is a tiny, tiny chunk of the cell market, and a VERY easy goal to attain. Each AT&T store is getting at most a few dozen phones on day 1. There will be 50 people waiting in line to get one, and a tone will be pre-ordered at stores. I'm predicting 1 million units in the first 30 days. As prices drop and lower models come out, the numbers will increase. Apple predicted a modest iPod sales run with the gen 1 model. They sold many times more than their prediction in the first 12 months. The iPhone will do the same. Comparing the PS3 to the iPhone is simply a bad analogy. Also, keep in mind, this device not only competes with devices in the phone market, but also micro computing devices that fit into this price range. We also know the iPhone can connect to a digital display using an adapter cable. Don't be surprised to see it being used as a presentation system for keynote addresses soon.
Hybrids, especially plug in variants, do several things for us:
- They devote massive spending for battery research (Toshiba has already announced batteries that could charge to 90% in 90 seconds)
- They devote massive spending for electric motor efficiency (These are getting more powerful and more energy efficient at a faster rate than engines are)
- They promote the use of CVT transmission systems (which should be mandated by federal law for ALL cars, hybrid or not by now!)
- They are in the news, and thus promote green awareness (helping all green efforts worldwide)
- They ALSO benefit just as much from engine research. Sure, engines have bad efficiency, but many of the ways of making them more efficient can only be done by taking them off the direct drive train (engines run very poorly at low RPM, and if they can be run at peak efficiency to make electricity, and turned off when not needed, we can nearly double fuel economy with that alone) Currently, spending money on hybrids will yield quicker green results than the same dollars spent on engines alone. Later, we'll replace ICEs with Recyclic turbines and solve a lot of other efficiency problems.
Here's a real massive benefit: plug-in hybrids will help move us forward towards installing a super conducting power grid and make the total US energy system more efficient. Imagine Power from wind near the great lakes helping to light Florida in the heat of summer, and solar energy from Nevada helping heat Minnesota in the winter. Our current electric grid can not do this. Power is made within a few hundred miles, maybe a thousand miles, of any location. We can make enough wind energy in the north central plains to power almost 50% of America alone. We can make enough solar energy in the south west to do the same. Some parts of the country can generate Massive amount of energy, but they're so remote that without a super conducting grid, the energy is useless. If we add the electric requirements of cars to our grid, they'll have to upgrade it. Imagine Solar power in California generated local time at 4:00PM lighting up New York City's most heavily used hour 7PM.
Oh, and before you go nuts on solar... sure, we can only make energy during the day. Have you heard of the idea of stored kenetic energy? We make 50% more power than we need during the day time. We use that extra power to pump water from low areas to higher areas. That water can then flow back down hill at night through generators and give us that power back. Yes, there's wasted efficiency, but who cares if we're wasting free energy?
One other cool benefit of hybrid plug-ins. In a major storm or power disaster, the car has a large cache of power inside of it, and it's connected to your in-home power grid. 40 miles (90 minutes?) of car moving electricity is a lot of power. You could power your fridge and some small appliances and your computer and phone/internet (assuming those services are also not down) for at least 2-3 hours, maybe longer. If you really had to, you've got 6 hours of fuel in the car and it can become an instant home generator. Got 2-3 cars? You could run for a few days after a hurricane or earthquake. Adding the power inverter to the car and your fuse box would only cost a few hundred bucks.
There are a dozen more reasons we'd like to work more on hybrid technology than on ICE.
In the traditional sense SciFi has presented to us for Colonization, no, we can't do it. Sending a small ship across the galaxy at warp speed with small collections of researchers to find habitable planets aka Star Trek style just isn't possible. Our only hope of getting to another world is finding a rock circling another compatible sun at the appropriate distance and phase to support life. Likely there's some life there (basic biologicals) but in all likelihood, we'll find a barren waste we'll have to terraform that hopefully will have liquid or frozen water readily available. We can find that planet from here. There's no need to travel to find it. To get to these rocks will take a earth wide effort of hundreds of years to build an interstellar craft that can house upwards of 10 thousand people, replenish able food for decades (on board farming, protein supplement, and live herds), and enough space to make all this work. We also need a near infinite power system (Solar will only last so long, even ram scoops won't work in the dead of space. The power source needs to operate for possibly hundreds of years at sub light speeds and power all forms of on board manufacturing, research, computers, entertainment, lights, everything. Once we get to another planet, it will likely have been several generations. The populous of the craft will have been under limited gravity (assuming a centripetally rotating craft or some other limited artificial gravity) and we'll have to park in orbit around the new planet and spin up to a realistic gravity slowly over what could be months or years to allow the people to adjust without drastic health risk. This isn't an issue really since it will be 10-20 years before enough orbit to surface trips can be made using a hangar full of small crafts (that would have been built en-route) to create a stable domed (or underground) facility to start to move people down to. The entire on board environment will take decades to relocate to the surface and terraforming can't really begin until then. Now, onto terraforming: Assuming the planet has some form of nitrogen based atmosphere we have a few things to worry about. 1) is their any toxic chemical in the atmosphere that either a) can be removed or b) we can be genetically altered to survive exposure to. 2) are there any hazardous biologicals in the atmosphere (alien disease, bacteria, etc). To actually colonize, we need perfect medicines, or we need to raze the entire planet of all forms of life before going down to it (which could delay our arrival by a further 10-100 years). Then, finally, we can start customizing the atmosphere. Other than these major hurdles, it's not likely this craft can actually be built here at Earth. The raw material availability of this planet is not likely sufficient. Of course, realistically, we'll be mining other nearby planets (Mars likely, maybe others) for materials just for the Earth alone a few hundred years from now. Give us 1000 years and we can be on our way across the galaxy. Now, this is not a relocation effort, simply a colonization effort. There's no way in the 7 hells we could ever "leave" this planet completely. Moving a few billion people just isn't going to happen. Any communication between worlds would be equally impossible (50 year delay?). We'll have 2 cultures with completely different science levels, different social expectations (believe me, living on a boat for 5 generations will completely change humanity), and possibly completely unique (and incompatible) genetic structure depending on what we need to change to be able to live on another world. More importantly, anything gained by having this colony would be useless to those back here on Earth. There's not going to be interstellar trade or anything like it at that distance. If the point is to seed another world in the interest of letting "humanity" survive should there be a disaster on earth, but in doing so, we destroy what we know as humanity, why bother? We've got a good million years to evolve on this world yet. T
I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but... You're watching video on your computer. Is it too hard to suggest that instead of regulating the video feeds and producers, and mandating software changes that effect literally thousands of products and tens of thousands of programmers, that we simply get a government agency to create a grant to develop a better software application that can convert speech to text from any audio feed in near real time?
Sure, for professionally published works it's easy to add CC, and most of the have to do that already. However, asking Apple (or anyone else) to reload their entire library of TV and movies so CC is supported in all the available video would take months. QuickTime already supports CC, but how much of the content does? Much more importantly however is, can we rightly ask all the small time and armature artists out there to pop for professional tools to add CC to their work, and ask them take hours to do so, under threat of punishment?
Computers are very powerful. They can pass the audio feed through another application, decode the voice layers, and present text on screen easy enough. Sure voice recognition is still a relatively inaccurate technology, especially when there's lots of background noise or heavy accents, but have you watched sports or live news (not the nightly news which is scripted, but real live event news) in CC lately? It's almost unreadable there too.
Please stop suggesting mass spending acts that cost billions of dollars that only provide benefit to 5% or less of the populous when there are other methods that cost far less, require less invasive effort, and can remain globally compatible without worrying about other regional legislation...
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having CC on just about every form of media. Even I use it from time to time. How would one ever be able to watch the game at Happy Hour in your neighborhood bar without it?
Apple and AT&T are not concerned at this point with price, contract requirements, etc. It's simple business. So many people want this thing right now they could charge $140 per month and $1000 for the phone and still not meet production demand. Give it a few months (6 tops) until the other vendors are allowed to join the game, and until other supported data system networks are added and the price will drop as fast as that for the RAZR. Remember, the RAZR was a $300 phone when it came out, and it's just a phone... I expect iPhones with limited use contracts (instead of unlimited) and only 1 year sign on requirements to be available for $399 or less within 6 months and $249 in a year.
I currently pay over $75 a month for cable TV (which goes up to $105 2 months from now when my promotion wears off), including a series of pay channels and an HD DVR (though I don't pay for the HD tier). I've been considering turning off cable completely and downloading all my content. If only I could get HD quality downloads of ALL the programs I watch, it would actually be cheaper than paying for cable, considering i already own all the equipment for room-to-room broadcast from a media center (not MSFT Media Center).
I watch little TV regularly. A few shows on SciFI, Heroes, House, and few crime shows. I've been using my premium TV channels to record movies with the intent of watching them later, but I delete more than I watch to make room for other recordings. I'm thinking NetFlix is a better way to get these movies, at a lower cost.
If I bought season passes on iTunes (or some competing service) for my favorite programs, I could maintain about 30 - 40 programs a year. Going through iTunes current inventory, there's 16 shows I identified that I would buy the seasons of, 4 more I might buy if I felt I had time to watch them, and 5 more shows I would have bought whole seasons of, but the shows were canceled after only a few episodes each, adding up to about 1 more full season cost (and although the Black Donneleys was canceled after 4 episodes, I can get all 13 on iTunes so I included that as one of the 16 I would have bought). That's only 21 shows total, and that includes some of the crap my wife watches that I don't. There were also 8 more shows I would buy (mostly reality crap for my wife, but also Rescue Me from FX network and ER from NBC), but iTunes does not host them for some reason, so if I could find them elsewhere, that brings my total to 28 shows. This does include all the Law & order and CSI clones, of which I really only watch 1 or 2 episodes a month of each, so I'd probably buy them on the spot instead of complete seasons saving a bit more money. Add the cost of Netflix ($5) and I could basically have my own cable network.
Cons:
Don't get local news
Don't get sports (ie football)
Can't channel surf for new stuff, have to buy and try
Don't get any commercials (sometimes a good thing, especially for local event advertising, but this can be replaced with a newspaper subscription and a TV Guide)
No storm warnings or other EBS alerts
less predictable monthly fees (as each season starts, could be a lot of new shows to buy, then months with no purchases)
video quality is not yet HDTV
No TV movies, marathons, or reruns of previous seasons (becomes less important over time as you build a collection)
Many shows do not get hosted on download services unless they are best sellers. Some only appear after DVD box sets become available, months or years after broadcast dates
Pros:
costs less assuming one already has room to room video transfer (which I do, including HD to one room)
I own what I've watched, and can re-watch it any time
Friends may do the same and we can trade programs, saving even more
Networks that make good shows get money, others I could give to shits about don't
no commercials
In the end, I see IPTV and ala carte cable services getting my money. Since there are a few programs I can't yet get downloaded, and the initial investment (signing up for all those series now) would cost a lot, , plus I'd have to give up watching football and hockey, so I don't see myself switching over to download services yet. Cable is better than satellite for now (features like Start Over and on-demand watching are just too cool, and the quality is the same either way)
I work for a backup company that makes D2D backup appliances supporting more than 20 operating systems.
First, no one really understands best practices for backup, and a lot of systems that are backed up "successfully" can't be restored anyway (in fact, most commonly this is Microsoft Exchange, the most important system in most companies!). Second, Tape sucks! You MUST have Disk-to-disk backups to have any true recoverability in today's world. Third, check you logs EVERY day, there's no excuse! Fixing a failing backup should be the number 1 priority second only to an actual failed server you are recovering. Next, nobody spends enough on IT disaster recovery, and no one documents the recovery process properly. Your IT spending on DR should be approximately 25% or more of your total IT budget for server systems. At least 1 day per month should be used to practice system recovery or update the documentation covering it. Next, nothing should ever be considered backed up until the server has been test recovered, completely from scratch, at least once. At least some data should be recovered from backup media every day just to be certain it can be done when needed. The test recovery should be of a random critical data folder, or database, not the same stuff each time.
Off-site DR is also important. Making sure that your entire data set for all critical systems is moved off site every 24 hours is a must. Included in this should be any media required to process a restore (not just the backups, but the install CDs, BareMetal recovery disks, licenses keys for all servers and applications, the DR documentation itself, network architecture information, hardware and software configuration of each server, and all information regarding your ISP contract, and system warranties from each manufacturer. If you don't have all this stuff, contract someone who knows what they are doing to make it for you.
For each unique mission critical system you have (Mail, critical database server that allow the business to operate, point application server, Citrix box, etc) you should have a complete spare system meeting the system requirements so that system can be restored immediately in the event of a system outage. Your system recovery tests should be performed regularly to that hardware. Best practice is also to keep those test boxes off-site when possible, but nearby enough to get in a jiffy. If you don't have spare lab equipment, and don't have enough budget to have it, you can't afford to have those critical systems in house, and should consider outsourcing a data center who does have those resources. Clustering is complicated and expensive, but spare chassis and a few spare drives don't amount to a huge IT burden. You don't have to have 1 for each server, just one that can handle the job of each unique mission critical system (if you have 5 SQL servers, 1 exchange, 1 citrix, and 4 file servers, you only need 4 total spare system).
The average business that goes through a critical system disaster that interrupts business for more than 48 hours requires 1 month of revenue to overcome the loss of each day of downtime. 40% of businesses that have a site disaster lasting more than 3 days go bankrupt within 90 days of the event. How much money will your business loose if you have to roll your purchase database back 2 days and loose all records of those transactions? How will your business survive if e-mail is out for 3 days? How much will you loose if your online store is gone for several days? How many customers will you loose if your support department is off-line for 2 days? How much will you be sued for if you miss a contractual deadline due to data loss? Can you afford to NOT spend the money to make sure this doesn't happen!?!?!
Well, as a user of other dongle based time security objects, it's not a real big deal. The code only changes every 15 minutes or so (some less than that). It would also be easy enough to add a sync time system to the card swipe systems, allowing the card to sync time automatically any time it's used in say a WalMart.
My problem: this system still does NO GOOD if someone actually STEALS the card...
It also does no good for preventing purchases from 1) companies that do not yet support the new technology, as many places still don't support the 3 digit code on the back of the cards now including my pizza guy, 2) paper receipt processing (Renaissance fairs, flea market vendors, etc usually don't have phones to call VeriSign and can't do electronic receipts, so they still use paper), or 3) doesn't prevent the cashier/operator from re-using your card info immediately after you provide it.
A completely new system, that is truly secure, would require a card that not only refuses to work without a one-time code, but also one that stores all purchase information IN the card. To use at home, a cable would be required to connect the card to the PC. To purchase over the phone would be a pain, but is still possible via a pay-pal equivalent system so the buyer can pay online, and the seller verify online, both at the same time. The one-time number should be on a separate dongle (so they have to steal both your card AND your keys, making reporting a card theft 100 times more obvious and likely to be reported immediately). The dongle should several buttons that have to be pushed in a certain order to get the code (at least 6 buttons and 6 presses).
If the system was well built, a single dongle could be used by all your cards since a thief would need your dongle, your dongle unlock code, and your card in order to pull off a theft, and he'd have to do it damn quick because if you've just been held at gunpoint so he could steal the code from your mind (and assuming you gave him the right one) you're likely to report it damn quick, unless of course your dead... It would also be nice if the dongle could give a false code (like home alarms have a false code that makes it look like the alarm is off, but still calls the police anyway) so if a thief used that, it would automatically notify the clerk the card was stolen.
If the card itself keeps logs of every time it;s used, than any purcheses that show up on your bill that are not on your card would also be easy to spot. The card could also very easily tell you what your balance was, when you bill was due, etc.
First, the pad only "uses" electricity when there is a device inside of it's field of effect. There's no "sleep mode" it just doesn't use any mower when nothing is near it. The magnetic field generated can easily sense the presence or lack of a device and power on only when necessary.
Second, if you understood the technology, you would know there will never be a 1000 watt version. Magnetic field science works on a multiple of squares system. To generate 80 watts instead of 40 takes a field 4 times larger. to go to 160 watts requires 16 times as much field density. To produce induction coils capable of generating a field large enough to charge large devices, or a field strong enough to charge high voltage devices is prohibitively expensive.
Third, this is a trickle charge technology, taking most of the night to recharge your device instead of an hour. When batteries are rapidly charged, they get hot. This heat is not only energy wasted, but inhibits charge efficiency. Charging times for electric cars are the primary reason they don't exist yet. Trickling the energy into the battery keeps the resistance low, prolongs battery life, and actually makes each charge last longer (rapid charging only gets batteries to about 85% capacity, trickling get it to 100%).
The power efficiency of induction pads is actually quite amazing. 2% on average power loss. In fact, the pad will usually be much MORE efficient that a wall charger since the charger in the wall is 1) always using some power when plugged in, 2) still has 1-2% or more power loss when charging, 3) completes its charge in 1-2 hours, but typically remains plugged in and wasting energy (although not much) for 8-10 hours.
Smart induction only applies power to devices who's antennae resonate on specific frequencies. If you have multiple devices charging at once, the pads can resonate on multiple frequencies at the same time, charging several devices. When one completes its charge, the pad can stop "broadcasting" on that frequency and thus stop wasting that power.
the idea of the pad is not to charge a single device like a phone, but you put a large pad on your desk, and your laptop, cell, iPod, headset, etc all can charge at the same time, and only use 1 wire to do it. Power cords are easy enough when you only have 1, but I have 7 I can use (iPod, work phone, personal phone, personal notebook, work notebook, bluetooth headset, house phone, ... My wife has another 4 devices of her own. I need 3 whole power strips just for charging cables for the portable stuff, and all that crap uses block based power adapters so I'm only using every other outlet...
It would be an absolute blessing to not have to use cables. Besides the fact that I've had to replace 2 cell phones and 1 notebook motherboard because either I dropped something after plugging it in, or a cat got on the desk and knocked something off, destroying the power jack.
Now, if manufacturers would offer their device WITH the batteries that support this (even for a slight up charge) at time of purchase instead of making me buy expensive REPLACEMENT batteries (or sell it without a battery and let me pick one I like), I'd already have this technology at home. I'd also get one to recharge the wireless game controllers I have. I know they sell adapters that plug into the charge adapter, but that adds significant bulk and potential damage if I snag the dongle cable on something.
It's not about the PRICE or QUALITY of the bulb. It's about COLOR TEMPERATURE. Most CFs sold in stores have a color temp of 2700K. This is a dull color, off-white almost blue in hue. A 4100K bulb is what you would call a traditional "soft white" You can get 5100K bulbs which are bright white. Go to bulbs.com and you can get them for $3.99 each regularly, sometimes less. Currently, they have 20watt 5000K CF bulbs (1000 lumen, or about the equivalent of 100 watt incandescents) for 2.49 each, or as little as 2.09 in bulk.
I have found a few manufacturers will now label their bulbs for their color temp. Of all the packages sold at WalMart, only 2 or 3 are doing this so far. I only buy a bulb when I can tell the color temp from the packaging, so if we get everyone doing this, then hopefully the other manufacturers will catch on. Many of the really cheap CFs I find on discount are actually 2100K which really suck.
They also have DIMMABLE CFs now, for about $15 each. They're only 2800K, but you actually want your dimmed bulbs in that range (it's the warm color of candle light). "bright white" and "dim" don't go together.
First and most important: The case of a landfill in the US depositing dangerous leachate into a water supply has NEVER HAPPENED. NOT ONCE. Landfills that did not comply with regulations for environmental safety have all been closed. They're still tested regularly, as are local water supplies. We consolidated more than 8000 landfills in the US down to just over 1000 in the late 80s(and at the same time increased landfill capacity). The current landfill sites are secured with flexible, tough, multi layered basin liners and basically can't leak, even after a severe earthquake. We're far more worried about the mercury that escapes land fills in gas form. However, even IF 100% of the mercury in an incandescent bulb actually could convert into methylated mercury gas (which only some reasonably can) then the mercury leaked from CF bulbs would still be less than 20% of that entering the atmosphere due to the manufacture of incandescent bulbs plus the coal power used to light them vs the lifetime of any one CF. btw: CF bulbs have at most 5 grams of Mercury now. Some are available with as little as 1.33 grams. Though most are made outside the US where there are not strict regulations, US laws (as well as those of other countries) prevent them from being sold if they're mercury content is too high. A single button cell battery, like those in LED key chain lights, laser pointers, and every computer board made contains many times the amount of mercury in a CF. It is illegal to throw out batteries, and most people do know to recycle the disposable AA, C, D, etc battery types (these no longer contain mercury, but contain other chemicals that in some cases are even more dangerous, especially when burned). Most people however readily throw away pocket devices, computers, laser pointers, holiday decoration, those annoying blinking lapel pins, and other things containing mercury filled batteries not realizing those batteries pose much more of a threat. Button battery use in household devices has more than tripled in the last 3 years, thanks mostly to LED and Laser Diode technology. My wife and I recycled more than 60 button cell batteries last year. We only replaced 3 of our more than 25 CF bulbs around the house. Had we thrown away those batteries instead of recycling we would have caused more damage than breaking every CF bulb we or any of our friends own combined. The mercury in a CF bulb is in SOLID form, not even liquid or gas, and is cake to clean up, and it is less dangerous to handle than the glass itself in terms of health risk. Yes, people need to understand the risk, and be careful with the bulbs. WalMart already has a recycling program in place for dead CF bulbs. If we made it the LAW to recycle them, like it is for batteries, and strictly enforced that law (say a $500 fine per bulb improperly disposed of) and made WalMart put up BIG signs indicating the recycling is both free and mandatory, then there would be no real big issue. LED might be a nice alternative for 20 watt and less needs (dim hall lights, walkways, under cabinet lights, etc), but they're EXTREMELY expensive (more than $20 per bulb for night light equivalents, up to $120 for a simple under cabinet light). Sure, they use 1-3 watts instead of 8 for a CF or 20 for an incandescent, but there are no 40+ watt equivalents yet, so reading lamps and lighting for environments that require bright light still requires CF to be environmentally sound. My money is on OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) films and polymers. Imagine glowing wallpaper that produces as much light as a 100 watt bulb, has a 20 year lifespan, can be dimmed to almost any value, and uses 10 watts or less. Sure, it will cost a few hundred to outfit a room with it, but just think: there's no light fixture... No bulbs to change, and more. Sony is releasing a monitor backlit by OLED later this year. Most of the cell phones new on the market, including the popular Moto Razr already use this technology. It's not a pipe dream.