B-L-A-C-K-B-E-R-R-Y... not the DROID. Google search is still front and center on the DROID, though you could pretty easily write up a widget to give you a different search engine up front. Well, I could.
In theory anyway, Verizon couldn't do this on the DROID if they wanted to, since the DROID is a "Google Experience" phone, which means the carrier keeps their hands off. They could try something like this on the DROID Eris, which is not, but it would be pretty easy to circumvent. I kind of wonder why you couldn't do similarly on the Blackberry, but I suppose they have things locked down pretty tight on that OS or something.
But like others said, pretty much until the DROID hit the market, you didn't choose Verizon because of their smartphones, but in spite of their smartphones, simply because they have the best network, by far. Not the fastest, but the most consistently fast (every cell site does 3G). Rarely dropped calls, rarely overloaded cells, and great coverage (in part, because they have one of the two 850MHz slots in just about every market in the USA... AT&T has most of the others, but many were doing D-AMPS until recently, with GSM on 1900 only). At my house, Sprint doesn't make it to the driveway, T-Mobile works along the driveway, rarely on the back deck, AT&T is solid on the back deck but sketchy indoors, while Verizon works in the cellar.
10. Wears rose colored glasses, with the phrase "Engineered by Apple in California" on the stems. 9. Lives in California, uses computers, wears polo shirts. 8. Gets really defensive when someone says "cult", even if discussion is about Scientology, or the Moonies. 7. Index finger is longer than middle finger. Or was that rabid IBMers? 6. Slighty faded "Power PC Forever" tattoo on left bicep. 5. Love doll with Steve Jobs face overlay seen in his bedroom at last party. 4. Waits in line at new Apple store openings, even if he has nothing to buy that day. 3. Always speaks of "vast Microsoftian Conspiracy" in hushed tones. 2. Considers "Arrogance" to be the most Virtuous of the Virtues.
and the number one way I can tell he's a die hard Mac fan:
Well, the latest numbers (estimates, and it's definitely not Apple releasing the numbers) claim that about 9.5% of iPhones are jail-broken. Not a non-trivial number.
But that's kind of avoiding the point entirely... if the point of this is to put on apps that get around the iTunes store, requiring Firefox on the iPhone is putting the cart before the horse... once you can run Firefox, you can run any binaries, iTunes approved or not.
The real point here should be that iPhone programmers are ALREADY using Javascript, HTML5, and CSS to get around the iTunes store's restrictions. Sure, there are a limited set of apps, but the latest Safari on the 3GS ran Javascript about 30% faster than my DROID, which was pretty fast itself. So really, the iPhone doesn't need Firefox for this.
And then there's the Palm Pre... same basic CPU (600Mhz-ish Cortex A8) as the DROID and the iPhone 3Gwhiz, and hey, it's main applications API is... wait for it.... Javascript, HTLM5, and CSS. And it seems to work ok.
It's relevant in that Apple quotes numbers of "iPhone OS" device shipments (actually, up to about 54 million, as of their last released figures), about 40% of which are iPods Touch. They don't break down the iPhone vs. iPod numbers, though independent industry watchers do.
One billion phones per year is interesting if you're a phone vendor, but only interesting in the smart phone context as a larger percentage of that total becomes smart phones. They are currently a premium, of course, and that's shown in the numbers: 20 million iPhones a year, 21 million Blackberries, 75 million Nokia's, etc. Just over 10% of all phones shipped. If I were a smart phone vendor, I'd be far more interested in selling smart phones to the next 100 million potential phone buyers, than worrying about taking some percentage of Apple's share.
As a developer, you can go wide or go deep... plenty of developers just do iPhone apps, and haven't looked at Web-based, WebOS, Android, or J2ME at all. Others do fewer apps and try to run them everywhere. The main challenge in the latter case is obvious: you're rewriting the same program over and over. Not 100% effort per port, but you better believe the effort is worthwhile to add that third, fourth, or fifth-place platform. In the former case, you just hope you backed the right horse... which I don't personally believe is Apple. They have never been one to lower prices based on outside competition... perhaps internal competition (eg, now that have the 32GB iPhone, we make the 8GB iPhone cheaper, or cancel it entirely). They're not the guys to get these next 100 million folks using application phones. Not RIM either. Nokia hasn't cracked the US market, despite their global dominance.
Android maybe... they're #2 on apps already, and they support hardware specs both below and above that of the iPhone, already. And given the open platform, hardware vendors are likely to want Android on as many phones as possible, thus removing the need to do custom OS implementations -- they can always customize the GUI, make the phone seem "less smart" if that's what you need to sell into the FREE to $50 (subsidized) market. There's still going to be resistance.. folks happy with dumb phones might like the promise of a smarter phone, but they'll reject the $30 per month extra cost.
This was actually being discussed independently of Firefox. Specifically, toward unseating (or at least, knocking down by a notch or two) the Apple iTunes store.
In fact, that has nothing to do with Firefox. You'll never get Fenec/Firefox in the iTunes store. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, sure, but then, you're already not dependent on the iTunes store.
But this is already a potential with the current iPhone Safari browser. You have a fast JavaScript engine there already. With HTML5 features like local data and local app storage, and the hooks are pretty much in place. And there have been claims that app developers are already using this as a means to bypass the app store.
Certainly it's not for every application, but there are a ton of things done on smart phones that are really just information aggregators and other app classes that don't need anywhere near the realtime performance you might for a videogame.
Another datapoint... applications on Palm's new WebOS pretty much are, already, HTML5, Javascript, and CSS. And yet, it's faster than most iPhones. And at least when introduced, the Palm Pre ran Javascript about 1/3 the speed of the iPhone 3GS (I'm sure they have improved that performance since).
The odd thing about all of this is really how fast Javascript already is on the iPhone... it ran SunSpider about 30% faster than I got on my DROID phone, again, about 3x the speed of the original WebOS browser. Apple has gone to fairly crazy lengths to otherwise prevent any sort of alternate applications distribution mechanism from hitting the iPhone. The won't support Flash, ever, because that would allow games and applications written in flash, not through the iTunes store. They don't allow Java for the same reason... both of these things cripple the iPhone, making it a second-class citizen of the web (well, in ways other than just having a 480x320 pixel screen, anyway), but that's considered ok, so long as the iTunes channel remains the only feeding tube. They even outlawed a Commodore 64 emulator... apparently, 8-bit 6502 and BASIC code of the early 80s also represents an dangerous alternate applications channel. And yet, here's this Javascript engine, fast, and essentially the same API available on most other smart phones, and the core API for WebOS. They seem to have screwed up here.
I think it needs to be stated, too, that just having these facilities does not a complete solution make. The OS itself must allow web applications to be launched from one's normal application launcher, or it starts to make these rather second class. There needs to be management of the applications cache... how do I uninstall the app I'm done with. And for users who are less savvy than the typical/. reader, the lack of integration may get confusing... I have to go HERE to delete some apps, and THERE to delete these others?
No, you probably could not build "the Cutty Sark" today. Well, even that's not certain... motivation is a big factor here, too.
"Why" is probably larger than "can". If you're doing it for historical interest, sure. There have been guys working out how to build a pyramid using BCE-Egyptian technology (eg, lots of slaves, not much actual technology). That's about the only reason one would even make the attempt. There may not be experts at this any longer, doesn't mean you can't learn.
More than likely, if you really wanted to make a new square-rigged clipper (again, there's "why"), it's more likely one would create a fully modern version, using CAD, all of the many, many improvements in hull design since 1869, etc.
Also, they actually kind of did [re]build the Cutty Sark today. Ok, not from scratch, but major work, and done in the original ways. In dry dock back in 2007 for what was apparently a major but scheduled restoration, it was seriously damaged by a fire. Total cost of restoration, expected to complete in 2011, is about £35 million. Of course, the ship was only designed with an expected service life of 30 years. The overhaul was designed to last 50 additional years before any major new overhaul would be necessary. See here: http://www.cuttysark.org.uk/
Um, that would be over 30 of the last 40. Remember those first five years of the Bush II Presidency, when the Republicans controlled Congress, too. And Bush didn't issue a single veto... the whole machine was just rubber stamping anything the Repubes wanted. That's were about half the deficit came from. The other largely started with Mr. Reagan. Before that, there was a little bit left over from WWII. A tiny drop in the bucket, by today's standards.
Also, Clinton did produce a balanced budget. It took some years of doing to get there, but he did. It was, of course, immediately trashed by the Bush Administration.
.. as soon as all of Europe has switched to drinking Blue, eating backbacon, wearing BC Dinner Jackets, Kodiaks, and a toque (particularly the French), and playing Hockey (a real sport) rather than "football", maybe the Canadians would once again take up the issue of copyright law:-) Oh yeah, no more speaking French (outside of Quebec), they must pronounce the work "out" as "oooot", and they have to get some Timmy's opened. And Universal Healthcare... oh wait, it the USA that still needs that. And Timmy's...
But the costs don't have to be artificial. They aren't in the real world, either.
So, why not a world in which everyone COULD wear plate mail. It doesn't mean that everyone would, just like, in actual history, not everyone did. It's expensive, it's too heavy for many characters, it would impact certain fighting styles, it would impact stealth, etc. There are very natural advantages and disadvantages associated with any piece of gear. Why in the world is there any need to lock these into some artificial character "class".
And the big advantage of not having classes is that you're not entirely sure of just what any opponent can do... just as in real life. In most RPGs, you see some dude who's identifiable as a magic user, you just know all the stuff that goes on with that... advantages, disadvantages, stuff that's locked into the character class. Without class designations, you might run into a magician who's also accomplished with a sword, a bow, or some other physical weapon... potentially at a higher level than your fighter dude. Makes things much more interesting.
Ok, so back in college, I didn't play D&D, I played Runequest. In that system, there was no such thing as a character "class", discrete experience levels, experience points, etc. The game mechanics were vastly superior to those of D&D, but sadly, much of the D&D influence carried into electronic dungeons, I guess because the programmers had learned on D&D and just didn't know any better.
Of course, just like in real life, characters could specialize. You might be naturally better at magic or swordplay, but every fighter knows some basic battle magic, every magician is trained to use some kind of weapon. And one cool aspect.. you could train up in many different things: different tactics, stealth, climbing, etc. beyond your character's "natural" abilities in any of these things. You also gained experience by doing under stress... if you're successful in battle, you gradually get better at... you don't all of a sudden take a drastic jump in your abilities.
In the event of the detection of a death asteroid, I rather expect it immediately becomes a top military secret. It may be the USA, Russia, Europe, China, whomever working together or apart to stop the thing, but I don't imagine for a second this is going to be spending years of debate in Congress. And in fact, it would be in the public interest to not start shouting about the end of life as we know it on earth in ten years BEFORE the problem is actively being addressed.
It's technically possible to support it as unlocked GSM, but then you have to support 850MHz, 900MHz, 1700MHz, 1800MHz, 1900MHz, and 2100MHz in a single phone for universal GSM... that's not usually done. Then you have to sell it with configuration information for the 3G stuff, since the networks are under no obligation to configure your phone for you, just because you connected with voice in a legal way (and have a paid corresponding data plan). This is far from automatic, at least here in the US.
CDMA isn't locked in the conventional sense, anyway. It's simply that each carrier knows the ID codes assigned to them, and they reject the addition of other phones. So unless Google (or the FCC, or Congress) can somehow convince Verizon or Sprint to start accepting non-native ID, or the CMDA vendors move to use the R-UID card standard here, this isn't going to work. They are required to unlock phones on GSM, but the CDMA guys were clever here... they're not locking the phone, they're locking the network, and far as I know, that's still legal.
Fortunately, it's not going to matter all that much longer. Everyone but Sprint is going to LTE for 4G, mostly at 700MHz here in the USA, and it's already law that this has to be open access. Verizon is supposedly going to turn LTE on in something like 30 cities next year, all at once. AT&T's testing next year and rolling out LTE coverage in 2011.
Actually, any "Google Experience" phone, like the DROID, is running "stock Android" these days.. that's at least one way to tell for certain. If this really is running HTC's home shell, then it's far more like an HTC phone than any of the other Google-branded phones so far ("Google" on the back, versus presumably "Google" on the front, if this is really to be sold under the Google brand name).
The home shell doesn't matter all that much... the apps are the same. That's where the loyalty is established. As long as the API doesn't change on a per vendor basis, this is safe. And possibly one reason most of the phone vendors are flocking to Android... they have always wanted some way to customize and "brand" their smart phones.
If the only down-side for this is a little necessary customer re-education if they change to a different home shell, it's no big deal.
And as far as hardware differences go, I'm happy to see this bullet being taken now. Android's running well on phones with keyboards, without, small screens, big screens, etc. If the iPhone or the Palm platforms are going to evolve, they're going to run across that issue soon enough, or be left behind. How many iPhone apps are hard-coded to 480x320?
Yeah, I would keep working if I suddenly became independently wealthy. Would I remain at my current gig? That's a larger question, but not an immediate "no"... part of the hazard of working at a startup company is the work is often lots of "me" and "us", not much "them".
I can understand the quandry here, too, since I went through this myself. At a previous startup, I was "Vice President of Technology" at a point when we had four people: General Manager, CFO, VP of Tech, VP of Software. What this really meant was debugging PowerPC hardware in my garage, in the cold, all winter. But by the time we had 250+ employees, I had ceased to be working on tech every day, but was often traveling along with the chief sales guy to sales meetings, or to new divisions to work out what they were going to do, tech-wise.
But hey, there's always hope... when that all came crashing down (some others in management got that particular kind of "Successful Startup Disease" that has them spending all kinds of money on things not directly relevant to the actual PRODUCT we're developing... you know, that thing that pays our bills once all of that stock-sale money vanishes), I was back doing the tech thing, full time, for lower and sometimes irregular pay.
There is no guarantee your LP is mixed any better than your CD... unless you're buying special audiophile pressings, chances are, they get the same base mix. Of course, the truth about quality has never been high on the audiophoole to-do list. If something seems more pretentious, they tend to go for it.
And sure, there are plenty of LP pressings for audiophiles. But there are plenty of CD/SACD releases as well, done just as well. Even these stupid SHM-CDs... they can't make them sound any better (on decent gear, for certain) by changing the plastic to be more transparent, which is the claim. But they certainly can make them sound better by using a better master. If this ever really catches on as an audiophile format (they're pretty much all Japanese imports right now), it could deliver the correct effect for all the wrong reasons.
You also don't find heinous compression outside of mainstream popular music, on any format. The main point for the crazy compression is to make the tracks sound loud on the radio... not an issue if you're not getting mainstream pop/rock airplay.
My PC records at 96kHz... my portable field recorder does 24-bit at 48kHz (ok, there are a few marketing bits in there, but still, way more dynamic range than CD). Studios these days likely use 192kHz, mastering engineers more like 400-600kHz. I don't particularly know WHY mastering engineers use such gear, but they do... and it's not as if it makes things worse. There's more black magic in mastering than just about anything (RF engineering comes close, but not quite).
Nope... that IS the problem. And the Kindle can't read the nook version of ePub (well, any version of ePub... but any reader can in theory read ePub files for free, or ePub with the Adobe DRM for a price).
This is why I claim the situation is like the MP3 player market was... think of Amazon as Apple, only a slightly worse one. They have perhaps the most popular device, and it can read un-DRMed formats (but, limited to just some of the standards), but they sell in a format that's locked only to their device.
And the nook's not much better. B&N could have used the Adobe DRM as-is, which is pretty much the ePub standard for DRM.. Sony supports this, so do most of the little guys. But at least the early reports claim they're probably supporting Adobe DRM on the device (eg, they can read those), their format is a propretary tweak of the Adobe DRM/ePub. So they're going to be selling ebook that only play on nook and a few other licensed players.
I have no huge problem with DRM on an eBook as long as it's not overly draconic... I should be able to transfer my license to another user, at the least. Sony's system apparently goes at least a little ways... they don't allow borrowing, not sure about selling, but they do let you load any eBook on up to five devices. The devices have to be registered on your PC (Sony isn't doing the direct-to-reader downloads yet).
The question was how to see through an invisibility cloak based on the current research... essentially, bending various wavelengths of light/RF/EM around itself in some way. The "perfect" cloak would be the one to bend all such forms around itself.
So I'd use sonar... I'mn not using any electromagetic energy, but physical waves, not included in the "perfection" of the cloak. And we already know how to build ultrasonic imagers, so it doesn't even take new technology.
Of course vinyl wears out... every time you play an LP, it takes on wear.
It's also true that the specific materials have much to do with how long they last. Back in the 1970s, when LPs were a thing every consumer used, they were fairly cheap and prone to wear. I still have a few hundred from those days, and there's not an album there that doesn't show significant signs of wear. If you had a good ear, you could pick out the sound of a new disc versus one that's been played a few dozen times, every time.
Newer materials and an audiophile-only market has improved this somewhat. But physics is still physics. And if you think the LP's not wearing at all, here's a question: does your stylus ever wear out? You know, that thing made of diamond, the hardest natural material known to man? Sure it does. So either you think vinyl is harder than diamond, or you have to imagine the other half of that wear story.
Yes, it's also true that an LP correctly stored will outlast a tape that's just as correctly stored. LPs are fine when you're not playing them...
Depends on the scratch. A scratch on the polycarbonate bottom can often be fixed with polish and filler. A scratch on the top is bad news.. the lacquer covering on the top of most CDs is softer than the polycarbonate, and yet, it's the only thing protecting the reflection layer. Lose your reflector and you lose that bit of the CD.
Of course, I ultimately agree... if you're putting original CDs in harm's way, you're an idiot. It costs about $0.10 to make a backup, if you need to put that CD in a car or some other place it's likely to take damage. I have hundreds of CDs and have not lost one yet to physical damage. Yeah, bit-rot is concern for any medium (ok, it's tape rot for tape, and warpage for LP)... I've had two DVDs fail that way.
"Analog synth gear" would be part of the recording process... it's identical for any output medium, up to the actual mastering process. You record it... usually on hard drive these days, regardless of the source. There's a tiny bit of fairly exotic actual "analog synth" gear around, and of course, whatever old stuff you can find. But the vast majority of this today is "virtual analog"... it's a digital signal processor, complete with all sorts of analog knobs and dials and sliders and whatever else you want, that's digitally processed to re-create the analog algorithms. Why? Because a real analog synth takes a few hours to tune up correctly, and will go out of tune as soon as the room temperatures change. They were insanely difficult to use well, which is why only a relatively few musicians actually used real analog synths in their days.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with the mastering process. So you record that synth, some vocals, whatever. That can go on analog tape or digital hard drive, it doesn't matter. Once you have all of that down, band mates, engineers, who's even doing it works up the final mix... the version of the recording that well be send to a mastering engineer. These days, this is likely to be on a hard drive, in 24-bit or 32-bit, and probably at 192kHz sampling.
That final mix goes to a mastering engineer, who's likely to do some final audio mastering on a modern mastering console, which may have sampling rates as high as 600kHz. Technically, he should be doing this separately for CD, LP, SACD, cassette, etc... but that's expensive. So what probably happens is that there's an audio master made, which is the same for all formats, and that's what's used to create the format masters. Then you get a little different stuff done for each one: RIAA companding added to the LP master, appropriate dithering and noise shaping on those intended for digital formats, etc. Now, sure, some of the specialty LP companies use special vinyl and do their own LP-specific master. But don't expect this from run-of-the-mill LP releases.
Finally, if you're counting on various defects in the LP mechanism as things that "color the audio"... you're an idiot. First of all, masters are cut slowly, there is no added distortion to the music during the cutting process. Maybe on playback, but if so, you can reduce this by spending insane amounts of money to reduce the "color" added by your turntable. And I have some $15,000 per 10ft speaker cables I'd like to sell you. They're purple, and everyone knows electrons flow best through purple wires.
Digital is pretty much digital. As long as you're using an external DAC, a $200 SACD player is going to deliver the same output as a $2000 SACD player. Back in the early, early days of CD, there were issues with tracking quality, but that's long been a non-issue. And the problems you get with cheap electronics: poor DACs, clock jitter, and cheap analog filters only kick in when you're using on-board analog outs anyway.
You don't have that option with a "record player", as you're analog from the get-go. You have to spend big money on quiet motors, super high mass turntables, super low capacitance and low mass pickups, etc. or you're demonstrably worse than a $20 CD player from Wal-Mart hooked in via TOSlink to a high quality DAC. Many LP enthusiasts would laugh and all you a poser if you're only spending $1000 on that turntable. Not I... I'm happy as can be with SACD, DVDA, and BD audio, all traveling digitally to my amplifier.
The big problem with Audiophiles is that there are at least a number of them who will believe absolutely ANYTHING that someone cooks up. So there are certainly audiophiles (and even people like me, who are generally anti-audiophile, but share a real goal of better audio, just that I want things that are really better, not the snake oil parts) who know about SACD and DVDA... and even Blu-Ray profile 3, which promises to replace both of these.
But then you get nonsense like SHM-CD, which usually sell for more than the SACD/DVDA, and yet claim various bits of magic (special plastic) which, apparently, delivers better quality bits to your CD player than the same material on a conventional CD would be capable of doing. Not more bits, of course, you need a new format for that. Just better bits.
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B-L-A-C-K-B-E-R-R-Y... not the DROID. Google search is still front and center on the DROID, though you could pretty easily write up a widget to give you a different search engine up front. Well, I could.
In theory anyway, Verizon couldn't do this on the DROID if they wanted to, since the DROID is a "Google Experience" phone, which means the carrier keeps their hands off. They could try something like this on the DROID Eris, which is not, but it would be pretty easy to circumvent. I kind of wonder why you couldn't do similarly on the Blackberry, but I suppose they have things locked down pretty tight on that OS or something.
But like others said, pretty much until the DROID hit the market, you didn't choose Verizon because of their smartphones, but in spite of their smartphones, simply because they have the best network, by far. Not the fastest, but the most consistently fast (every cell site does 3G). Rarely dropped calls, rarely overloaded cells, and great coverage (in part, because they have one of the two 850MHz slots in just about every market in the USA... AT&T has most of the others, but many were doing D-AMPS until recently, with GSM on 1900 only). At my house, Sprint doesn't make it to the driveway, T-Mobile works along the driveway, rarely on the back deck, AT&T is solid on the back deck but sketchy indoors, while Verizon works in the cellar.
10. Wears rose colored glasses, with the phrase "Engineered by Apple in California" on the stems.
9. Lives in California, uses computers, wears polo shirts.
8. Gets really defensive when someone says "cult", even if discussion is about Scientology, or the Moonies.
7. Index finger is longer than middle finger. Or was that rabid IBMers?
6. Slighty faded "Power PC Forever" tattoo on left bicep.
5. Love doll with Steve Jobs face overlay seen in his bedroom at last party.
4. Waits in line at new Apple store openings, even if he has nothing to buy that day.
3. Always speaks of "vast Microsoftian Conspiracy" in hushed tones.
2. Considers "Arrogance" to be the most Virtuous of the Virtues.
and the number one way I can tell he's a die hard Mac fan:
1. Kids are named "Steven Mac" and "Laurene Lisa"
Well, the latest numbers (estimates, and it's definitely not Apple releasing the numbers) claim that about 9.5% of iPhones are jail-broken. Not a non-trivial number.
But that's kind of avoiding the point entirely... if the point of this is to put on apps that get around the iTunes store, requiring Firefox on the iPhone is putting the cart before the horse... once you can run Firefox, you can run any binaries, iTunes approved or not.
The real point here should be that iPhone programmers are ALREADY using Javascript, HTML5, and CSS to get around the iTunes store's restrictions. Sure, there are a limited set of apps, but the latest Safari on the 3GS ran Javascript about 30% faster than my DROID, which was pretty fast itself. So really, the iPhone doesn't need Firefox for this.
And then there's the Palm Pre... same basic CPU (600Mhz-ish Cortex A8) as the DROID and the iPhone 3Gwhiz, and hey, it's main applications API is ... wait for it.... Javascript, HTLM5, and CSS. And it seems to work ok.
It's relevant in that Apple quotes numbers of "iPhone OS" device shipments (actually, up to about 54 million, as of their last released figures), about 40% of which are iPods Touch. They don't break down the iPhone vs. iPod numbers, though independent industry watchers do.
One billion phones per year is interesting if you're a phone vendor, but only interesting in the smart phone context as a larger percentage of that total becomes smart phones. They are currently a premium, of course, and that's shown in the numbers: 20 million iPhones a year, 21 million Blackberries, 75 million Nokia's, etc. Just over 10% of all phones shipped. If I were a smart phone vendor, I'd be far more interested in selling smart phones to the next 100 million potential phone buyers, than worrying about taking some percentage of Apple's share.
As a developer, you can go wide or go deep... plenty of developers just do iPhone apps, and haven't looked at Web-based, WebOS, Android, or J2ME at all. Others do fewer apps and try to run them everywhere. The main challenge in the latter case is obvious: you're rewriting the same program over and over. Not 100% effort per port, but you better believe the effort is worthwhile to add that third, fourth, or fifth-place platform. In the former case, you just hope you backed the right horse... which I don't personally believe is Apple. They have never been one to lower prices based on outside competition... perhaps internal competition (eg, now that have the 32GB iPhone, we make the 8GB iPhone cheaper, or cancel it entirely). They're not the guys to get these next 100 million folks using application phones. Not RIM either. Nokia hasn't cracked the US market, despite their global dominance.
Android maybe... they're #2 on apps already, and they support hardware specs both below and above that of the iPhone, already. And given the open platform, hardware vendors are likely to want Android on as many phones as possible, thus removing the need to do custom OS implementations -- they can always customize the GUI, make the phone seem "less smart" if that's what you need to sell into the FREE to $50 (subsidized) market. There's still going to be resistance .. folks happy with dumb phones might like the promise of a smarter phone, but they'll reject the $30 per month extra cost.
This was actually being discussed independently of Firefox. Specifically, toward unseating (or at least, knocking down by a notch or two) the Apple iTunes store.
In fact, that has nothing to do with Firefox. You'll never get Fenec/Firefox in the iTunes store. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, sure, but then, you're already not dependent on the iTunes store.
But this is already a potential with the current iPhone Safari browser. You have a fast JavaScript engine there already. With HTML5 features like local data and local app storage, and the hooks are pretty much in place. And there have been claims that app developers are already using this as a means to bypass the app store.
Certainly it's not for every application, but there are a ton of things done on smart phones that are really just information aggregators and other app classes that don't need anywhere near the realtime performance you might for a videogame.
Another datapoint... applications on Palm's new WebOS pretty much are, already, HTML5, Javascript, and CSS. And yet, it's faster than most iPhones. And at least when introduced, the Palm Pre ran Javascript about 1/3 the speed of the iPhone 3GS (I'm sure they have improved that performance since).
The odd thing about all of this is really how fast Javascript already is on the iPhone... it ran SunSpider about 30% faster than I got on my DROID phone, again, about 3x the speed of the original WebOS browser. Apple has gone to fairly crazy lengths to otherwise prevent any sort of alternate applications distribution mechanism from hitting the iPhone. The won't support Flash, ever, because that would allow games and applications written in flash, not through the iTunes store. They don't allow Java for the same reason... both of these things cripple the iPhone, making it a second-class citizen of the web (well, in ways other than just having a 480x320 pixel screen, anyway), but that's considered ok, so long as the iTunes channel remains the only feeding tube. They even outlawed a Commodore 64 emulator... apparently, 8-bit 6502 and BASIC code of the early 80s also represents an dangerous alternate applications channel. And yet, here's this Javascript engine, fast, and essentially the same API available on most other smart phones, and the core API for WebOS. They seem to have screwed up here.
I think it needs to be stated, too, that just having these facilities does not a complete solution make. The OS itself must allow web applications to be launched from one's normal application launcher, or it starts to make these rather second class. There needs to be management of the applications cache... how do I uninstall the app I'm done with. And for users who are less savvy than the typical /. reader, the lack of integration may get confusing... I have to go HERE to delete some apps, and THERE to delete these others?
No, you probably could not build "the Cutty Sark" today. Well, even that's not certain... motivation is a big factor here, too.
"Why" is probably larger than "can". If you're doing it for historical interest, sure. There have been guys working out how to build a pyramid using BCE-Egyptian technology (eg, lots of slaves, not much actual technology). That's about the only reason one would even make the attempt. There may not be experts at this any longer, doesn't mean you can't learn.
More than likely, if you really wanted to make a new square-rigged clipper (again, there's "why"), it's more likely one would create a fully modern version, using CAD, all of the many, many improvements in hull design since 1869, etc.
Also, they actually kind of did [re]build the Cutty Sark today. Ok, not from scratch, but major work, and done in the original ways. In dry dock back in 2007 for what was apparently a major but scheduled restoration, it was seriously damaged by a fire. Total cost of restoration, expected to complete in 2011, is about £35 million. Of course, the ship was only designed with an expected service life of 30 years. The overhaul was designed to last 50 additional years before any major new overhaul would be necessary. See here: http://www.cuttysark.org.uk/
Um, that would be over 30 of the last 40. Remember those first five years of the Bush II Presidency, when the Republicans controlled Congress, too. And Bush didn't issue a single veto... the whole machine was just rubber stamping anything the Repubes wanted. That's were about half the deficit came from. The other largely started with Mr. Reagan. Before that, there was a little bit left over from WWII. A tiny drop in the bucket, by today's standards.
Also, Clinton did produce a balanced budget. It took some years of doing to get there, but he did. It was, of course, immediately trashed by the Bush Administration.
.. as soon as all of Europe has switched to drinking Blue, eating backbacon, wearing BC Dinner Jackets, Kodiaks, and a toque (particularly the French), and playing Hockey (a real sport) rather than "football", maybe the Canadians would once again take up the issue of copyright law :-) Oh yeah, no more speaking French (outside of Quebec), they must pronounce the work "out" as "oooot", and they have to get some Timmy's opened. And Universal Healthcare... oh wait, it the USA that still needs that. And Timmy's...
But the costs don't have to be artificial. They aren't in the real world, either.
So, why not a world in which everyone COULD wear plate mail. It doesn't mean that everyone would, just like, in actual history, not everyone did. It's expensive, it's too heavy for many characters, it would impact certain fighting styles, it would impact stealth, etc. There are very natural advantages and disadvantages associated with any piece of gear. Why in the world is there any need to lock these into some artificial character "class".
And the big advantage of not having classes is that you're not entirely sure of just what any opponent can do... just as in real life. In most RPGs, you see some dude who's identifiable as a magic user, you just know all the stuff that goes on with that... advantages, disadvantages, stuff that's locked into the character class. Without class designations, you might run into a magician who's also accomplished with a sword, a bow, or some other physical weapon... potentially at a higher level than your fighter dude. Makes things much more interesting.
Ok, so back in college, I didn't play D&D, I played Runequest. In that system, there was no such thing as a character "class", discrete experience levels, experience points, etc. The game mechanics were vastly superior to those of D&D, but sadly, much of the D&D influence carried into electronic dungeons, I guess because the programmers had learned on D&D and just didn't know any better.
Of course, just like in real life, characters could specialize. You might be naturally better at magic or swordplay, but every fighter knows some basic battle magic, every magician is trained to use some kind of weapon. And one cool aspect.. you could train up in many different things: different tactics, stealth, climbing, etc. beyond your character's "natural" abilities in any of these things. You also gained experience by doing under stress... if you're successful in battle, you gradually get better at... you don't all of a sudden take a drastic jump in your abilities.
In the event of the detection of a death asteroid, I rather expect it immediately becomes a top military secret. It may be the USA, Russia, Europe, China, whomever working together or apart to stop the thing, but I don't imagine for a second this is going to be spending years of debate in Congress. And in fact, it would be in the public interest to not start shouting about the end of life as we know it on earth in ten years BEFORE the problem is actively being addressed.
It's technically possible to support it as unlocked GSM, but then you have to support 850MHz, 900MHz, 1700MHz, 1800MHz, 1900MHz, and 2100MHz in a single phone for universal GSM... that's not usually done. Then you have to sell it with configuration information for the 3G stuff, since the networks are under no obligation to configure your phone for you, just because you connected with voice in a legal way (and have a paid corresponding data plan). This is far from automatic, at least here in the US.
CDMA isn't locked in the conventional sense, anyway. It's simply that each carrier knows the ID codes assigned to them, and they reject the addition of other phones. So unless Google (or the FCC, or Congress) can somehow convince Verizon or Sprint to start accepting non-native ID, or the CMDA vendors move to use the R-UID card standard here, this isn't going to work. They are required to unlock phones on GSM, but the CDMA guys were clever here... they're not locking the phone, they're locking the network, and far as I know, that's still legal.
Fortunately, it's not going to matter all that much longer. Everyone but Sprint is going to LTE for 4G, mostly at 700MHz here in the USA, and it's already law that this has to be open access. Verizon is supposedly going to turn LTE on in something like 30 cities next year, all at once. AT&T's testing next year and rolling out LTE coverage in 2011.
Actually, any "Google Experience" phone, like the DROID, is running "stock Android" these days.. that's at least one way to tell for certain. If this really is running HTC's home shell, then it's far more like an HTC phone than any of the other Google-branded phones so far ("Google" on the back, versus presumably "Google" on the front, if this is really to be sold under the Google brand name).
The home shell doesn't matter all that much... the apps are the same. That's where the loyalty is established. As long as the API doesn't change on a per vendor basis, this is safe. And possibly one reason most of the phone vendors are flocking to Android... they have always wanted some way to customize and "brand" their smart phones.
If the only down-side for this is a little necessary customer re-education if they change to a different home shell, it's no big deal.
And as far as hardware differences go, I'm happy to see this bullet being taken now. Android's running well on phones with keyboards, without, small screens, big screens, etc. If the iPhone or the Palm platforms are going to evolve, they're going to run across that issue soon enough, or be left behind. How many iPhone apps are hard-coded to 480x320?
It's only a hobby if it doesn't produce income.
Yeah, I would keep working if I suddenly became independently wealthy. Would I remain at my current gig? That's a larger question, but not an immediate "no"... part of the hazard of working at a startup company is the work is often lots of "me" and "us", not much "them".
I can understand the quandry here, too, since I went through this myself. At a previous startup, I was "Vice President of Technology" at a point when we had four people: General Manager, CFO, VP of Tech, VP of Software. What this really meant was debugging PowerPC hardware in my garage, in the cold, all winter. But by the time we had 250+ employees, I had ceased to be working on tech every day, but was often traveling along with the chief sales guy to sales meetings, or to new divisions to work out what they were going to do, tech-wise.
But hey, there's always hope... when that all came crashing down (some others in management got that particular kind of "Successful Startup Disease" that has them spending all kinds of money on things not directly relevant to the actual PRODUCT we're developing... you know, that thing that pays our bills once all of that stock-sale money vanishes), I was back doing the tech thing, full time, for lower and sometimes irregular pay.
There is no guarantee your LP is mixed any better than your CD... unless you're buying special audiophile pressings, chances are, they get the same base mix. Of course, the truth about quality has never been high on the audiophoole to-do list. If something seems more pretentious, they tend to go for it.
And sure, there are plenty of LP pressings for audiophiles. But there are plenty of CD/SACD releases as well, done just as well. Even these stupid SHM-CDs... they can't make them sound any better (on decent gear, for certain) by changing the plastic to be more transparent, which is the claim. But they certainly can make them sound better by using a better master. If this ever really catches on as an audiophile format (they're pretty much all Japanese imports right now), it could deliver the correct effect for all the wrong reasons.
You also don't find heinous compression outside of mainstream popular music, on any format. The main point for the crazy compression is to make the tracks sound loud on the radio... not an issue if you're not getting mainstream pop/rock airplay.
My PC records at 96kHz... my portable field recorder does 24-bit at 48kHz (ok, there are a few marketing bits in there, but still, way more dynamic range than CD). Studios these days likely use 192kHz, mastering engineers more like 400-600kHz. I don't particularly know WHY mastering engineers use such gear, but they do... and it's not as if it makes things worse. There's more black magic in mastering than just about anything (RF engineering comes close, but not quite).
Nope... that IS the problem. And the Kindle can't read the nook version of ePub (well, any version of ePub... but any reader can in theory read ePub files for free, or ePub with the Adobe DRM for a price).
This is why I claim the situation is like the MP3 player market was... think of Amazon as Apple, only a slightly worse one. They have perhaps the most popular device, and it can read un-DRMed formats (but, limited to just some of the standards), but they sell in a format that's locked only to their device.
And the nook's not much better. B&N could have used the Adobe DRM as-is, which is pretty much the ePub standard for DRM.. Sony supports this, so do most of the little guys. But at least the early reports claim they're probably supporting Adobe DRM on the device (eg, they can read those), their format is a propretary tweak of the Adobe DRM/ePub. So they're going to be selling ebook that only play on nook and a few other licensed players.
I have no huge problem with DRM on an eBook as long as it's not overly draconic... I should be able to transfer my license to another user, at the least. Sony's system apparently goes at least a little ways... they don't allow borrowing, not sure about selling, but they do let you load any eBook on up to five devices. The devices have to be registered on your PC (Sony isn't doing the direct-to-reader downloads yet).
It is impossible to watch too many reruns of "Kung Fu".
The question was how to see through an invisibility cloak based on the current research... essentially, bending various wavelengths of light/RF/EM around itself in some way. The "perfect" cloak would be the one to bend all such forms around itself.
So I'd use sonar... I'mn not using any electromagetic energy, but physical waves, not included in the "perfection" of the cloak. And we already know how to build ultrasonic imagers, so it doesn't even take new technology.
Of course vinyl wears out... every time you play an LP, it takes on wear.
It's also true that the specific materials have much to do with how long they last. Back in the 1970s, when LPs were a thing every consumer used, they were fairly cheap and prone to wear. I still have a few hundred from those days, and there's not an album there that doesn't show significant signs of wear. If you had a good ear, you could pick out the sound of a new disc versus one that's been played a few dozen times, every time.
Newer materials and an audiophile-only market has improved this somewhat. But physics is still physics. And if you think the LP's not wearing at all, here's a question: does your stylus ever wear out? You know, that thing made of diamond, the hardest natural material known to man? Sure it does. So either you think vinyl is harder than diamond, or you have to imagine the other half of that wear story.
Yes, it's also true that an LP correctly stored will outlast a tape that's just as correctly stored. LPs are fine when you're not playing them...
Depends on the scratch. A scratch on the polycarbonate bottom can often be fixed with polish and filler. A scratch on the top is bad news.. the lacquer covering on the top of most CDs is softer than the polycarbonate, and yet, it's the only thing protecting the reflection layer. Lose your reflector and you lose that bit of the CD.
Of course, I ultimately agree... if you're putting original CDs in harm's way, you're an idiot. It costs about $0.10 to make a backup, if you need to put that CD in a car or some other place it's likely to take damage. I have hundreds of CDs and have not lost one yet to physical damage. Yeah, bit-rot is concern for any medium (ok, it's tape rot for tape, and warpage for LP)... I've had two DVDs fail that way.
You're getting confused here.
"Analog synth gear" would be part of the recording process... it's identical for any output medium, up to the actual mastering process. You record it... usually on hard drive these days, regardless of the source. There's a tiny bit of fairly exotic actual "analog synth" gear around, and of course, whatever old stuff you can find. But the vast majority of this today is "virtual analog"... it's a digital signal processor, complete with all sorts of analog knobs and dials and sliders and whatever else you want, that's digitally processed to re-create the analog algorithms. Why? Because a real analog synth takes a few hours to tune up correctly, and will go out of tune as soon as the room temperatures change. They were insanely difficult to use well, which is why only a relatively few musicians actually used real analog synths in their days.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with the mastering process. So you record that synth, some vocals, whatever. That can go on analog tape or digital hard drive, it doesn't matter. Once you have all of that down, band mates, engineers, who's even doing it works up the final mix... the version of the recording that well be send to a mastering engineer. These days, this is likely to be on a hard drive, in 24-bit or 32-bit, and probably at 192kHz sampling.
That final mix goes to a mastering engineer, who's likely to do some final audio mastering on a modern mastering console, which may have sampling rates as high as 600kHz. Technically, he should be doing this separately for CD, LP, SACD, cassette, etc... but that's expensive. So what probably happens is that there's an audio master made, which is the same for all formats, and that's what's used to create the format masters. Then you get a little different stuff done for each one: RIAA companding added to the LP master, appropriate dithering and noise shaping on those intended for digital formats, etc. Now, sure, some of the specialty LP companies use special vinyl and do their own LP-specific master. But don't expect this from run-of-the-mill LP releases.
Finally, if you're counting on various defects in the LP mechanism as things that "color the audio"... you're an idiot. First of all, masters are cut slowly, there is no added distortion to the music during the cutting process. Maybe on playback, but if so, you can reduce this by spending insane amounts of money to reduce the "color" added by your turntable. And I have some $15,000 per 10ft speaker cables I'd like to sell you. They're purple, and everyone knows electrons flow best through purple wires.
Digital is pretty much digital. As long as you're using an external DAC, a $200 SACD player is going to deliver the same output as a $2000 SACD player. Back in the early, early days of CD, there were issues with tracking quality, but that's long been a non-issue. And the problems you get with cheap electronics: poor DACs, clock jitter, and cheap analog filters only kick in when you're using on-board analog outs anyway.
You don't have that option with a "record player", as you're analog from the get-go. You have to spend big money on quiet motors, super high mass turntables, super low capacitance and low mass pickups, etc. or you're demonstrably worse than a $20 CD player from Wal-Mart hooked in via TOSlink to a high quality DAC. Many LP enthusiasts would laugh and all you a poser if you're only spending $1000 on that turntable. Not I... I'm happy as can be with SACD, DVDA, and BD audio, all traveling digitally to my amplifier.
The big problem with Audiophiles is that there are at least a number of them who will believe absolutely ANYTHING that someone cooks up. So there are certainly audiophiles (and even people like me, who are generally anti-audiophile, but share a real goal of better audio, just that I want things that are really better, not the snake oil parts) who know about SACD and DVDA... and even Blu-Ray profile 3, which promises to replace both of these.
But then you get nonsense like SHM-CD, which usually sell for more than the SACD/DVDA, and yet claim various bits of magic (special plastic) which, apparently, delivers better quality bits to your CD player than the same material on a conventional CD would be capable of doing. Not more bits, of course, you need a new format for that. Just better bits.
Actually, I think you need the 24-volume boxed set to get a whole Linux distro on vinyl. But yeah... the quality is just outstanding!