The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Overlapping windows in a GUI, and QuickDraw regions which was the underlying technology that enabled overlapping windows.

Region patent

Overlapping windows were a feature of the Xerox Star 8010, which a) predates that patent by several years, and b) is the source of the various WIMP/WYSIWYG/GUI products. On the matter of patents see ==>> Xerox_Star — 5 Legacy



BR

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Overlapping windows were a feature of the Xerox Star 8010, which a) predates that patent by several years, and b) is the source of the various WIMP/WYSIWYG/GUI products. On the matter of patents see ==>> Xerox_Star — 5 Legacy

Attachment 214060

BR

I did, of course, know about the Xerox Star. But I was under the mistaken impression that it could not overlap windows.

Instead, I beleive the limitation was that windows could only be re-drawn in full, even if overlapped.

Whereas on the Lisa/Mac, overlapped windows could be redrawn, thanks to regions.

Fascinating blog with photos from early Lisa interface development: https://www.folklore.org/Busy_Being_Born.html

[Quoth]

USPTO has been "broken" since 19th C. Edison had loads of "invalid" patents. I think I read the government had to invalidate his moving pictures patent. He did invent a better way to make a carbon filament for electric lights, but didn't invent electric lights.
RCA should not have had patents on Superhet or FM radio, for various reasons.

There should only be copyright on software, and only on the code implementation.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I did, of course, know about the Xerox Star. But I was under the mistaken impression that it could not overlap windows.

Instead, I beleive the limitation was that windows could only be re-drawn in full, even if overlapped.

Whereas on the Lisa/Mac, overlapped windows could be redrawn, thanks to regions.

Fascinating blog with photos from early Lisa interface development: https://www.folklore.org/Busy_Being_Born.html

It's also not all about "invention", per se - all advances are made building on previous work.

People can quibble that Apple didn't "invent" the smartphone, didn't "invent" the iPod, iPad etc., but they most certainly did the work to convert those ideas into a useable product. That's actually a much harder thing to do.

[Quoth]

iPhone 2007: Smartphone 1998 and capacitive touch in 1980s. Wasn't used on phones & PDA so that higher resolution (resistive) could be used for signatures, annotation, handwriting recognition. The "innovation" for success was a the all in one big data allowance with one operator per country for consumers vs people paying per second connect time or per Mbyte used for business users. They bought in Samsung CPU (that innovated flash and RAM piggy backed in the package & screen and Fingerworks GUI.

iPod: Again late to party. The "innovation" was deal for 99c per track with studios. Upset musicians of concept albums. Makes an entire album more expensive than CD.

iPad: Really very late. Tablet computing maybe from 1994?

Apple's Newton was innovative and first ARM handheld, but over hyped and killed when Jobs came back.

Android was a year later than iOS, and bought in by Google. Microsoft had badly done Pen version of Win 3.x because someone brought out a pen/Tablet OS. There was also a poor tablet edition of XP, that wasn't great. XP also had voice recognition and TTS.

Computing was held back by IBM adoption of 8088 and DOS, which was based on CP/M.

So it's not quibble. Apple developed Apple II, Lisa, Mac, GUI, brought in the OS X based on NextStep (Job's failed Company) based on BSD to replace OS9 and earlier not very good OS under the GUI.
Apple developed an all in one PC (iMac), an idea from late 1970s. They developed the iPod, the iPhone based on marketing clevers on an established market. Similarly the iPad and Apple Watch.
The Apple Silicon was developed by a bought in ARM cpu design company.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

LFR is 24FPS and high frame rate is 48 or 60FPS.

I don't like the "soap-opera" effect of higher fps movies. It looks so unnatural to me.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

My pet peeve is so many people complaining that HFR movies do not look good when they actually look better. I hope that we get more and more movies being made n HFR so it eventually becomes the norm and that TV shows also get made in HFR.

Did you ever stop to consider that your preferences are not objective facts, nor are they universally shared?

30 (technically 29.97) and 60 frames per second video trips uncanny valley reactions in many people: they're "too fast" for TV and cinema, yet too slow comapred to natural vision. For people like this, people like me, HFR video does look worse than traditional 24 frames per second film.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Karellen

I don't like the "soap-opera" effect of higher fps movies. It looks so unnatural to me.

I don't know if this is what your describing, but I was in an Electronics Store and saw a HD TV that was running scenes from the movie "Sleepy Hollow." What I was struck by was that it looked like it was a video tape from the 1970s, like something out of "All In The Family." The video didn't look very impressive to me. However, it could be the result of the TV settings used.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Karellen

It is both.
MusicBrainz is the IMDB of Music... https://musicbrainz.org/
MusicBrainz Picard is the software used to tag your music collection... https://picard.musicbrainz.org/

Can be a bit of a learning curve initially, but it becomes easier after a few CD's under your belt. Look up a few of your releases and see if the info is comprehensive enough.

Here is a tagging wiki page for Kodi. There are a few pointers for using the software and what to be careful of... https://kodi.wiki/view/Music_tagging

I checked MusicBrainz. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain the one piece of information that I want but is difficult to locate if it is not in the Liner Notes: The Composer(s).

[ownedbycats]

TagScanner uses multiple sources, so you may have more luck with it.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Quoth

iPhone 2007: Smartphone 1998 and capacitive touch in 1980s. Wasn't used on phones & PDA so that higher resolution (resistive) could be used for signatures, annotation, handwriting recognition. The "innovation" for success was a the all in one big data allowance with one operator per country for consumers vs people paying per second connect time or per Mbyte used for business users. They bought in Samsung CPU (that innovated flash and RAM piggy backed in the package & screen and Fingerworks GUI.

The iPhone was a huge leap ahead of its predecessors terms of usability. Agreed, there were smartphones before then, but Apple did the work to produce a game-changing product.

iPod: Again late to party. The "innovation" was deal for 99c per track with studios. Upset musicians of concept albums. Makes an entire album more expensive than CD.

Again, a leap ahead in usability. The click wheel interface in the first generation was a great innovation.

iPad: Really very late. Tablet computing maybe from 1994?

Again, Apple came up with a product that was streets ahead of its predecessors.

So it's not quibble. Apple developed Apple II, Lisa, Mac, GUI, brought in the OS X based on NextStep (Job's failed Company)

Apple acquired NeXT in 1997.

Apple developed an all in one PC (iMac), an idea from late 1970s. They developed the iPod, the iPhone based on marketing clevers on an established market. Similarly the iPad and Apple Watch.

You seem to be using developed as a somewhat disparaging description, which is unfair. I'd say Apple deserves credit for taking raw ideas and making compelling products - there's a huge amount of work in that. All innovation is based on work that's gone before - that doesn't reduce its impressiveness.

The Apple Silicon was developed by a bought in ARM cpu design company.

Apple Silicon was designed in-house (and uses ARM technology, but that's not exactly uncommon). Yes, they recruited people, and acquired teams to do it, but that's totally normal. When you branch into a new area of technology, you need to recruit the expertise. Pretty much every high tech company of any size is a mass of acquisitions - that doesn't mean you can dismiss the work those people do after the acquisition as not really being the work of the acquiring company.

[Quoth]

My point is they didn't innovate or invent. I worked in SW & Electronics R&D and even had a patent. They bought in stuff, or copied stuff already existing and incrementally developed it. The D part of R& D. They didn't hire a team for ARM. They bought an entire company with an ARM licence. ARM licences designs that have I/O or features added by others.

Apple has taken no "raw" ideas, but developed their own version of already established products. The credit due is for brilliant marketing. Not ideas, inventions or research.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I was able to contact support by signing out. So hopefully.

I hope it goes well.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by jbjb

The iPhone was a huge leap ahead of its predecessors terms of usability. Agreed, there were smartphones before then, but Apple did the work to produce a game-changing product.

Myth. It was the cheap/easy access to internet via innovative phone contracts. It didn't have copy / paste and in Europe no 3G. The tile finger interface was bought in and already done by others. We were testing a 4G VOIP PDA prototype with a bought in similar interface just befor iPhone release. We had a 2nd prototype using the same Samsung layered ARM cpu (RAM and Flash and CPU in one package to reduce PCB complexity and area).

Apple are x2 to x4 overpriced the last 20 years and over hyped.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Quoth

My point is they didn't innovate or invent. I worked in SW & Electronics R&D and even had a patent.

You're not alone there (I have several patents), but that's largely irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

They bought in stuff, or copied stuff already existing and incrementally developed it. The D part of R& D.

I think you're undervaluing the D part.

They didn't hire a team for ARM. They bought an entire company with an ARM licence.

Pretty standard way for tech companies to build a team. Acquisitions are happening all over the place in the tech sector.

ARM licences designs that have I/O or features added by others.

Apple has an architectural license for ARM, which means they can design their own implementation of the ARM ISA, which they did, in house, from the ground up. This is different from a design licence, where you drop in ARM's own design and add your own IO and/or peripherals.

Apple has taken no "raw" ideas, but developed their own version of already established products. The credit due is for brilliant marketing. Not ideas, inventions or research.

I disagree. For example, what "established" smartphones were there that the iPhone built incrementally on? The user experience of the iPhone was very different to (and streets ahead of, IMHO) anything that came before.

If you're going to say "LG Prada", then think again - it was only announced a month before the iPhone (certainly not enough time for Apple to have copied it), and its capabilities and Flash-based interface were very limited in comparison.