I was under the impression that a SteamBox is nothing but a PC built with certain minimum requirements? Go looking at PC's from those same SteamBox vendors and I'm sure you'll find some that look great, but that are pretty darned expensive, too.
We've already seen some of the incredible Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency droids that have come out of that shop, and one can only imagine what designs might be classified and unknown to the public.
There's the humanoid robot, Atlas. The RC car with a secret, the SandFlea. There's the robot that runs faster than any man, Cheetah. The packmule that can't be tipped over, Big Dog. And the frightening combination of tech, the robot that runs fast on ANY terrain, WildCat.
It will be interesting to see what Google does with their droids. Their robot shop is being headed by the guy that made Android the most popular smartphone OS, Andy Rubin. He tweeted a link to the New York Times story yesterday, along with the comment, "The future is looking awesome!" Rubin was a robotics engineer for Apple, and the lens company, Carl Zeiss, before starting with Google.
Regardless of your feelings about droids, I think we're going to see huge advances in robotics now that Google is jumping in with both feet.
"One of the riskiest parts of the project was turning the huge 70-inch piece of glass into a mirror by applying the silvering himself."
vs.
"Clements bought the 900-pound mirror — which was originally destined to go into space as part of a spy satellite until the edge of it was chipped during its manufacture — after it was auctioned off."
Not many here will remember this, but there was a time when car radios were thought to be a horrible idea. Experts just knew that nobody would be able to drive while subject to the distraction of music. Car radios were what rebellious teenagers had, not responsible drivers.
Turns out that while radios do offer opportunities to be distracted, the vast majority of drivers are able to safely operate an automobile while listening to music. While there are limits, we ARE able to multitask safely. Let's not give in to an uninformed opinion without exploring the idea of making it work.
This is exactly what I have seen over the last couple of decades. Your comments seem to be directed at contracted projects, but I see ongoing federal contracts that hire minimum wage employees to replace skilled federal employees. The costs are more than the costs to hire federal employees and the corporation pockets a nice profit, but the services are substandard. Contractors are supposedly an overall cost savings because if the need for the work moves or disappears, there are no federal employees to move or RIF. The problem is that some of these contracts have been ongoing for decades, and are coming close to the length of a federal employee's entire career!
Federal contracts do NOT save money, but they do profit the corporations that donate to politicians' political campaigns.
I think we all know who makes up the elected portion of the US Government. Or are you implying that someone other than the known US government is addressing the risk represented by the people on the no-fly list?
Facial recognition isn't efficient or accurate enough to work well for general law enforcement, but it wouldn't require a warrant.
License plate recognition is the hot new law enforcement tool that is very efficient and accurate, and also does not require a warrant. Nearly every new patrol car is being outfitted with license plate recognition technology in the US. Some are manually activated, but most of them constantly record the location of every license plate that it "sees", and logs that data in a national database. It's very effective.
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I thought we were talking about Steam, not XBMC.
Does XBMC have a massive library of games that I can play in my living room?
I'm already running a Windows nettop box with Plex Home Theater running on it. I want Plex Home Theater running from inside Steam.
As it is, I leave Plex running 24/7. I don't even use a mouse or keyboard anymore. Everything is controlled with my remote.
I was under the impression that a SteamBox is nothing but a PC built with certain minimum requirements? Go looking at PC's from those same SteamBox vendors and I'm sure you'll find some that look great, but that are pretty darned expensive, too.
No, I want a Steam app that is integrated. I'm already running a Plex server on unRaid. I want living room convenience, not command line hell.
Isn't keeping the PC game industry healthy by putting SteamBoxes in the living room the same thing as a console-killer?
The more open platforms available, the better.
I just need Steam to create a Plex app on Steam and I'm all in.
No mod points, but I don't understand how you're not already at +5 Funny...
But there were five of them...
Stack of pennies reduced to molten nickel by fresnal lens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcL7s9aX494
Does this count? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_hydride_ion
Do we categorize Argon as a non-noble gas, or do we redefine what a noble gas actually is?
Wait, I guess noble doesn't mean what I thought it meant, or there were already plenty of exceptions, as I just read this wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas_compounds
We've already seen some of the incredible Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency droids that have come out of that shop, and one can only imagine what designs might be classified and unknown to the public.
There's the humanoid robot, Atlas.
The RC car with a secret, the SandFlea.
There's the robot that runs faster than any man, Cheetah.
The packmule that can't be tipped over, Big Dog.
And the frightening combination of tech, the robot that runs fast on ANY terrain, WildCat.
It will be interesting to see what Google does with their droids. Their robot shop is being headed by the guy that made Android the most popular smartphone OS, Andy Rubin. He tweeted a link to the New York Times story yesterday, along with the comment, "The future is looking awesome!" Rubin was a robotics engineer for Apple, and the lens company, Carl Zeiss, before starting with Google.
Regardless of your feelings about droids, I think we're going to see huge advances in robotics now that Google is jumping in with both feet.
You could always just use iTunes, if you want something like iTunes.
Or you could switch to something that works, like MediaMonkey: http://www.mediamonkey.com/
How are you going to probe the power line inside the USB connection without tearing a spare USB cable apart?
So, is Valve planning on introducing a product that competes with Oculus Rift? Or are they working cooperatively?
That's not a photograph, that's a computer-generated photo manipulation at best, but more likely it's closer to being pure CGI.
Are you sure about that? http://www.google.com/racing/
I was wondering the same thing. Thought it might be a stability issue since the rig has no gears and it's moved by hand?
This is unclear to me:
"One of the riskiest parts of the project was turning the huge 70-inch piece of glass into a mirror by applying the silvering himself."
vs.
"Clements bought the 900-pound mirror — which was originally destined to go into space as part of a spy satellite until the edge of it was chipped during its manufacture — after it was auctioned off."
Not many here will remember this, but there was a time when car radios were thought to be a horrible idea. Experts just knew that nobody would be able to drive while subject to the distraction of music. Car radios were what rebellious teenagers had, not responsible drivers.
Turns out that while radios do offer opportunities to be distracted, the vast majority of drivers are able to safely operate an automobile while listening to music. While there are limits, we ARE able to multitask safely. Let's not give in to an uninformed opinion without exploring the idea of making it work.
From your citation: "horizontal field of view is as high as 270"
Why are his summaries so despised for being inaccurate?
This is exactly what I have seen over the last couple of decades. Your comments seem to be directed at contracted projects, but I see ongoing federal contracts that hire minimum wage employees to replace skilled federal employees. The costs are more than the costs to hire federal employees and the corporation pockets a nice profit, but the services are substandard. Contractors are supposedly an overall cost savings because if the need for the work moves or disappears, there are no federal employees to move or RIF. The problem is that some of these contracts have been ongoing for decades, and are coming close to the length of a federal employee's entire career!
Federal contracts do NOT save money, but they do profit the corporations that donate to politicians' political campaigns.
I think we all know who makes up the elected portion of the US Government. Or are you implying that someone other than the known US government is addressing the risk represented by the people on the no-fly list?
Jack Bauer was a fictional character, btw...
Facial recognition isn't efficient or accurate enough to work well for general law enforcement, but it wouldn't require a warrant.
License plate recognition is the hot new law enforcement tool that is very efficient and accurate, and also does not require a warrant. Nearly every new patrol car is being outfitted with license plate recognition technology in the US. Some are manually activated, but most of them constantly record the location of every license plate that it "sees", and logs that data in a national database. It's very effective.