The Windows Phone 7 Feature Availability Matrix, A.K.A. The Confusing Mess

The Windows Phone 7 Feature Availability Matrix, A.K.A. The Confusing Mess: "

http://andrewtechhelp.com/andrews-t...lability-matrix

'Windows Phone 7 is available in many different countries across the world, but where you live depends on how much of the experience you are able to get. The 3 major features on the Windows Phone revolve around availability of online services and they are the Zune Marketplace, Xbox Live and Bing Local search. Microsoft has not made each of these 3 services available in every country that they are launching Windows Phone in and therefore have created a mess of what services are available on the phone in each country (with some countries even having partial access to some services).'

Although I'm enjoying using Windows Phone 7 for the most part, I start to get an angry twitch whenever I stop to think about how fractured the product experience is for people outside the USA. This isn't anything new - I've ranted about this on Zune Thoughts for years - but the core problem is still the same. If someone wants to buy a Windows Phone in Canada, they can't buy music from the Zune Marketplace. What kind of sense does that make then for them to use the Zune desktop software to manage their phone and media collection, but not be able to buy new music - and that's not even the Zune Pass, that's any music at all from Zune. I've heard for years how hard it is to negotiate rights in every country, etc., but at the end of the day it has to happen or the product isn't going to succeed. And the consumer doesn't care about what's hard or what's easy; they want a product that works for them. If Microsoft can't provide that, they'll go with someone that will.

Windows Phone 7 devices sending massive "chunks of data" over 3G for no apparent reason

Windows Phone 7 devices sending massive "chunks of data" over 3G for no apparent reason: "Count this one in the strange category and WP7 bug backlog. It appears that there may be a little bug in Windows Phone 7 that is sending out random "chunks of data" over AT&T 3G even when the device was...

Kindle app finally makes its way to Windows Phone 7 devices

Kindle app finally makes its way to Windows Phone 7 devices: "It's almost as if your device isn't real until you get a Kindle application on it. And if you believe that, then it looks like today Windows Phone 7 devices just became real as the MarketPlace now sports the Kindle...

Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case closed.

I received a letter that ends, as far as I am concerned, the discussion about 3D. It doesn't work with our brains and it never will.

The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous. The case is closed.

This letter is from Walter Murch, seen at left, the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema. As a editor, he must be intimately expert with how an image interacts with the audience's eyes. He won an Academy Award in 1979 for his work on 'Apocalypse Now,' whose sound was a crucial aspect of its effect.

Wikipedia writes: 'Murch is widely acknowledged as the person who coined the term Sound Designer, and along with colleagues developed the current standard film sound format, the 5.1 channel array, helping to elevate the art and impact of film sound to a new level. 'Apocalypse Now' was the first multi-channel film to be mixed using a computerized mixing board.' He won two more Oscars for the editing and sound mixing of 'The English Patient.'

'He is perhaps the only film editor in history,' the Wikipedia entry observes, 'to have received Academy nominations for films edited on four different systems:

• 'Julia' (1977) using upright Moviola

• 'Apocalypse Now' (1979), 'Ghost' (1990), and 'The Godfather, Part III' (1990) using KEM flatbed

• 'The English Patient' (1996) using Avid.

• 'Cold Mountain' (2003) using Final Cut Pro on an off-the shelf PowerMac G4.

Now read what Walter Murch says about 3D:

Hello Roger,

I read your review of 'Green Hornet' and though I haven't seen the film, I agree with your comments about 3D.

The 3D image is dark, as you mentioned (about a camera stop darker) and small. Somehow the glasses 'gather in' the image -- even on a huge Imax screen -- and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.

I edited one 3D film back in the 1980's -- 'Captain Eo' -- and also noticed that horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.

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The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the 'convergence/focus' issue. A couple of the other issues -- darkness and 'smallness' -- are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point.

If we look at the salt shaker on the table, close to us, we focus at six feet and our eyeballs converge (tilt in) at six feet. Imagine the base of a triangle between your eyes and the apex of the triangle resting on the thing you are looking at. But then look out the window and you focus at sixty feet and converge also at sixty feet. That imaginary triangle has now 'opened up' so that your lines of sight are almost -- almost -- parallel to each other.

We can do this. 3D films would not work if we couldn't. But it is like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult. So the 'CPU' of our perceptual brain has to work extra hard, which is why after 20 minutes or so many people get headaches. They are doing something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for. This is a deep problem, which no amount of technical tweaking can fix. Nothing will fix it short of producing true 'holographic' images.

Consequently, the editing of 3D films cannot be as rapid as for 2D films, because of this shifting of convergence: it takes a number of milliseconds for the brain/eye to 'get' what the space of each shot is and adjust.

And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain 'perspective' relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are 'in' the picture in a kind of dreamlike 'spaceless' space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.

So: dark, small, stroby, headache inducing, alienating. And expensive. The question is: how long will it take people to realize and get fed up?

All best wishes,

Walter Murch

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Salt shaker and landscape Photoshops by Marie Haws.

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Amazon.com Widgets

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Does Used Tinnit Ever Work?

Does Used Tinnit Ever Work?: "

The board being too long for my Pyrex dish and the overlap in the middle notwithstanding, this dull, mottled finish is typical of what I get every time I use TInnit other than the day I mix it.

The precipitate never re-dissolves; and I’m guessing that the salts sitting directly on the board are what cause the mottling.

I find this curious, as I mixed this batch only two weeks ago, when it worked noticeably better than this … although now that I mention it, I think even then it produced duller results than it has in the past. Perhaps I exceeded the shelf life of the unopened package, so perhaps I’m being unduly hard on the Tinnit; but I’ve had the same problem before.

I’ve been having good luck lately with scouring pads to shine up the boards; but tonight I had to resort to wet-sanding. Turned out fairly well.

No, that’s not how I typically lay out circuit boards.

Yes, I’ll be posting a lot more about what I’ve been doing for the last month as soon as Steve and I get his sculpture delivered to the gallery before 17:00 tomorrow.

"

Disney Dream Sails into Port Canaveral

The Disney Dream arrived at Port Canaveral early in the morning today, January 4, 2011. The arrival of the Disney Dream in Florida marks the end of the ship's nearly two-year construction journey and the start of an exciting new era for Disney Cruise Line guests. On Thursday, the Disney Wonder will depart for West Coast-based itineraries including the Mexican Riviera and Disney's first-ever cruises to Alaska. This summer, the Disney Magic will return to Europe for visits to ports in Italy, France and Spain, plus stops in Tunis in northern Africa and the island nation of Malta. Be sure to check out the photos that AllEars.Net Readers have shared of the Dream's arrival.

DOCman 1.5.10 and 1.4.2 released

We are happy to announce the immediate availability of DOCman 1.5.10 and DOCman 1.4.2!

During the recent holidays, a medium level vulnerability was discovered in DOCman. We found a query that wasn’t being properly escaped and could lead to an SQL Injection. There is no known exploit for this vulnerability and it would be very difficult to create one because there are other security measures in place.

At Joomlatools we are fanatic about security and even if DOCman 1.5.9 has recently been released, we recommend upgrading to 1.5.10 just to be on the safe side.

This vulnerability affects all versions of DOCman prior to 1.5.10. So if you’re using 1.5.9 or older, please upgrade to 1.5.10. If you’re using 1.4.1 or older, please upgrade to 1.4.2.

How to upgrade if you’re using 1.5.9 or older

If you have purchased DOCman 1.5.x in our Joomlatools Store, you are automatically entitled to all 1.5.x updates. These are sent to you by email.

If you haven’t received your copy yet:

• Check your spam filter


• Allow our email queue a few more hours to send out all emails


• Contact our support at support@joomlatools.eu

We recently had an issue with our email notifications which are being run through Fetchapp. Some of our customers have received numerous emails notifying them about the 1.5.10 upgrade. We sincerely apologize for that!

The process that sends out our 1.5.10 release notification emails was timing out and being restarted automatically. Resulting in recurring emails being send to our customers. Thanks to the help of the support staff of Fetchapp the issue has been identified and is being fixed.

How to upgrade if you’re using 1.4.1 or older

DOCman 1.4.x will always be free of charge, and is still receiving security updates. However, it is no longer officially supported, and will not receive bug fix updates. There are two options:

1. Update to DOCman 1.4.2 for free


2. Upgrade to DOCman 1.5.10 for the price of lunch and a coffee. Upgrading is painless and preserves your data. You will get updates to all 1.5.x releases, including technical support by our professional support engineers. And of course you are supporting a quality GPL-licensed Joomla extension!

Please see the README for upgrade instructions to DOCman 1.5.10.