When I look at things like the Samsung Series 7 Slate, I don't think tablets are a fad. It's a laptop with a portable screen, or a tablet with a dock and a keyboard. It's running a full OS, with real hardware backing it. How many times have I wished I didn't have to undock my laptop and lug the bulky thing over to a coworkers desk to show them something when all I needed was the screen?
Laws which retroactively criminalise behaviour are expressly forbidden under Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights [1] but merely ex post facto law (which may presumably make something legal retroactively) is merely "frowned upon" in the UK [2], because the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty (i.e. parliament can do what it likes) takes precedence.
I'm not ready to cry for poor Nest just yet. The company has substantial funding, experienced backers/advisors, and is clearly aware of the patent environment they operate in. Heck, their About page touts how the founder Tony Fadell has authored more than 100 patents. They knew they were entering a well-covered market. If their patent work left them confident that there were OK, then the courts will see if they're right. If they chose to take a chance... this is what can happen.
Like another commenter mentioned, these are the rules of the game in the US. Complain about them and try to get them changed... I'm all for that because I think the rules are hurting innovation. But Nest is no victim here, and Honeywell isn't the devil. I'm more sympathetic to the garage shops that get hammered by big companies, but Nest is far from a garage shop. They knew what they were getting into.
Take this case for example. Honeywell would simply throw together a crappy product and sell a couple of hundred of them just so they could put Nest out of business. There needs to be greater reform IMO.
I think Hollywood is way to resistant to change. People (consumers) are quick to pick up new technologies to fit their needs. Big corporations can either comply and cater to those needs or force their own model on their customers.
The latter is NEVER the correct decision. Companies exist solely to please customers (which in turn amasses profit and satisfies investors).
It doesn't really matter since most document formats already use compression. No matter what encoding you use, the amount of entropy is the same. So UTF-8 usually compresses better than 2-byte encodings for CJK languages. This nearly compensates for the increased size.
Example: The Korean text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [1] is 8.1KB in EUC-KR and 11.2KB in UTF-8. When compressed with bzip2, it's only 3.1KB and 3.2KB, respectively. I assume Japanese would behave similarly.
The fact that infix notation removes the need to think about that is a bad thing, because infix notation is inherently ambiguous unless you litter the expression with parentheses or explicitly think about operator precedence and associativity. Infix notation just appears to be easier on the mind, because we're first taught arithmetic using it.
"The perception is high risk because you are going against the status quo, but in reality you are in a low risk senario because you are doing what you love and you see an undervalued asset."
No, it is high-risk. The risk is that the undervalued asset you see may not really be one.
But staying with the status quo is high-risk as well.
Risk is a red herring; people optimize for regret-minimization. There's less regret if you go with the crowd because there's other people to blame -- and regrets are less apparent because everyone suffers together. But if you go against the status quo and your life sucks, you have nobody else to blame, no fellow sufferers.
This isn't a rational thought process. But you have to see the enemy clearly before it can be defeated.
It's obvious the author of the article hasn't learned anything from the digital revolution either, which is strange since they allude to it.
3D printers are in their infancy as others in this thread have stated, but they are starting with an open source ecosystem which only appeared later in programming and digital media. Now anybody can produce music, video and code with free tools using free samples and resources and share their products with the world however they see fit. Likewise people with 3D printers will only be limited by the current state of the open tech and the materials they can afford.
Just like with open source software and creative commons media the established players wont be able to stop the hackers from making. The only question which remains is how important these "hobbyist" trends become to the mainstream.
I'm curious what you find so interesting about it. I've had an Ecobee thermostat (http://www.ecobee.com/solutions/home/smart/) for years and have even done silly hacks with it like integrating it with my wireless access point to detect when I'm home (http://jcs.org/ecobee) and making a SiriProxy plugin to be able control it with an iPhone (http://flic.kr/p/aNuGaF).
But even before the Ecobee, programmable and even WiFi-enabled thermostats have been around for many years and they have not gained any significant traction. My dad owns an HVAC company and they've only sold 1 or 2 Ecobee units in the years they've stocked them, with most people just opting for a schedule-based programmable thermostat.
What makes the Nest so much different? Is it just that it's pretty? Right now, their website says it costs $250. For the average person, that's probably at least a few years of energy savings needed to justify that cost.
Bikini pictures are way, way more nude (and prurient) than any breastfeeding picture I've seen, yet that's okay. As long as the subject is attractive, apparently.
Sometimes it really does seem like the alleged cabal of male chauvinists presumed in feminist literature is setting the unconscious standards for our culture. "I can't fap to this - there's a baby on it! That's obscene!"
This is also another boring HN meme akin to "how I learned to program". Normally I wouldn't call out a post like this but I think it's necessary for the health of the community that we don't promote thin content. A simple "Show HN:" would've been better.
Even in best case scenario, I'm not sure GPS would be accurate enough, as it's only accurate down to few centimeters, you'd probably need more if you'd like to perform that kind of acrobatics as shown in the video. And what about the height? You could of course use GPS, but apparently (http://users.erols.com/dlwilson/gpsvert.htm), average consumer devices have error of few meters. Maybe we could use laser range finders pointed at the ground, but what if the quadcopter tilts? Or what if another quadcopter flies underneath it? Of course it's not unsolvable, but it'd probably require more computing power in the quadcopter.
I wonder if this is going to bring us back to the days where you need to run a server version of the OS if you want an environment suitable for doing technical work. I can't imagine running this on my dual 30'' setup.
I was thinking the same thing. I've tried the Magic Mouse, Logitech Anywhere, and Logitech Marathon all to no avail. I returned them all eventually and now I'm back to the trackpad.
Just from anecdotal evidence from someone who can detect the lag with 3 different mice, it's not there with the trackpad.
I remember watching a documentary a while back on how Hollywood screened and rated TV/film productions. It angered me to see that focus groups consisting mostly of soccer moms controlled our movie rating system & what we see on TV. This is exactly what's wrong with Hollywood and the music industry in America.
Seriously, it amazes me how an industrial complex like Hollywood can collectively make so many dumb mistakes, that would otherwise cripple/kill other industries, and still rake in billions.
Canonical seem to be playing the long game and tossing things out as they become available. It's like a waiter bringing you your meal as each piece gets done cooking. First he brings the sauce, then he brings the chicken, then he brings your beer, then he brings the beans. It might be a fantastic meal when put together properly, but piecemeal it's just an unappetizing mess.
I have no doubt that Ubuntu 16.04 (or whenever they finish) will be amazing, but in the meantime I really wish they would just wait until they have everything ready.
Exactly! Like so many other things that shouldn't be considered wrong, so many people will say that it's okay if you do it "in the privacy of your own home". And like so many of those other cases, it's a natural reaction to attempt to truly legitimize it if you're one of the people being exiled to the privacy of your own home.
What's also missing from the discussion is what people expect mothers to do in these situations when they're far from home. The alternative might be just a public restroom or a cleaning supplies closet. That's both disgusting and unsafe.
