Evening tech news:Microsoft is demanding the 'Lindows' open-source software company, be hit with a fine in excess of punishable by up to a year in jail.
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13,000 songs in 20 GB? Just how much compression are they doing there? At least Apple estimates their song capacity using songs of average length and decent bit-rate.
Sony is using the compression used by mini disk.. It is currently able to store a full CD at true cd quality (theoretically better) at just 160MB. And with the tech of MD-LP you can have around 128AAC quality with 5 hours for 160MB.
I think we should be charging MS $100,000 a day for everyday of the antitrust trial.
I experience two potential class-action experiences daily.
Buy WindowsXP from MS directly and you will get the "new", 2002 version, which contains just the service pack 1 and NONE of the multiple updates. Consumers spend countless hours downloading and updating due to Microsoft's negligence and intentional download/update requirements.
Startup up WindowsXP and try to use it immediately after the desktop and all the icons appear on the desktop. NO GO. Try to click on the "start" button and nothing happens. What was that again? WindowsXP boots faster? Not much. Windows lets you see the desktop quicker, that's all.
I just got through setting up a student's presentation. She bags on the Mac all the time. She wasn't able to get her USB 1.1 FlashMemory device to work on Windows98 (driver required; god knows which one), and WinodwsME does not require it. Even after inserted it into WindowsXP, nothing showed up.
In ten seconds, I got it working with a PowerBook (10.3.3) and MS PowerPoint.
Quote from noverflow:
"Sony is using the compression used by mini disk.. It is currently able to store a full CD at true cd quality (theoretically better) at just 160MB. And with the tech of MD-LP you can have around 128AAC quality with 5 hours for 160MB."
Sorry, but that's not really true. ATRAC3plus, which is the compression scheme the newest MDs use, is good, but not anything magical--it's much better than MP3 at low bitrates, but most tests show it at absolute best doing no better than AAC, WM9, or Ogg in the bitrate range most people use (64k - 256k).
Meaning that, even giving it more credit than it deserves, a 1GB MD, using the equivalent of poorly encoded 128kpbs MP3 quality (64kbps ATRAC3plus, that is), can store 34 hours of music. That is NOT, as the poster above claimed, the equivalent of 128AAC--128AAC would blow 64kbps ATRAC3plus out of the water. MAYBE 128MP3, but only if the MP3 wasn't well encoded.
That's where they get their "13,000 songs on a 20GB player" claim, but they're assuming 3-minute songs, and at rather poor quality--nowhere near the 128kbps AAC Apple uses for their own estimates, to be sure.
To get near CD quality sound (still not CD quality, as I'm sure any audiophile will attest), you need to go to 256kpbs ATRAC3plus, which will get you 8.5 hours on a 1GB MiniDisc. To get the same quality with AAC, you'd probably be at around the same 256kbps bitrate.
Contrast that with Apple's new ACTUALLY lossless codec, which is different from just high-bitrate lossy encoding, which operates at effectively around 600kbps, depending on the music.
You're going to fit about 154 hours of lossless audio on the biggest iPod, or around 350 hours at extremely high compression. 700 hours at average AAC quality.
With Sony's players, you apparently have no uncompressed option, and at your best compressed bitrate you get either 173 hours on that 20GB player, or 8.5 on a MD. Around 1/2 of a big iPod, or for the MD player, 1/15 of a small one.
You have to Activate Windows XP.... if you don't do it in 30 days, you get locked up! How do you activate it then? You have to telephone them and go through many hoops. Basically, you have to tell them some 30 something digit sequence, and they give you one back to type in... What a hassle!
I hate Microsoft.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2004
Fines? Hah!
M$ should be fined $1 million a day for infringing on our intelligence.