Do you have a substantive point - e.g., how does that invalidate the larger points in the article? And, why are his opinions 'nutty'?
I know you want to defend him, but he has a history of making errors in his reporting. This is a notable one, and one that shouldn't have been made.
I see no reason why you object to my pointing it out. He has no excuse.
As to his opinions and comments, quite a few people have pointed out that they serve no purpose in these articles, and are biased. You might like that, but a lot of us don't. It just gives the trolls something to argue about.
''Nothing about the new Retina Display was leaked apart from the fact that the new phone appeared to have a much higher resolution display, something everyone expected anyway. Leaks only assumed the presence of an A4 brain and faster 802.11n WiFi. Additionally, nobody guessed that the aluminum shell would double as an antenna system for WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G. The leak also didn't anticipate any details of Apple's standards-based FaceTime video calling.''
As a Global Moderator your appreciation of accurate semantics clearly lags behind your insatiable thirst for petty and wholly personal dismissal of a credible tech writer and analyst.
A Moderator's innocuous moderator.
He's about 80% credible. It's not petty to point out his foibles.
I'm sure if he had written a negative article, all the people who are concerned about my criticizing him, would have done so already themselves.
Stainless steel is a steel alloy, aluminum is a metal. This is why people get confused. They see 'alloy' and think "aluminum". Whereas all 'alloy' means is that it's a combination of a few metallic elements - sometimes two. I used to work with steel and was confused by this until I looked into it. Alloy means: combination.
If in doubt use a magnet. Some steels are non-magnetic, but stainless isn't one of them. Magnets will stick to the new iPhone 4.
Alloy 4xx SS steel is magnetic. Alloy 3xx either is not, or is only very weakly. There are other alloys that wouldn't be used for this. Outside of Apple, and the manufacturer, we don't know which category Apple's alloy fits under. I would suspect it would be the 3xx series if corrosion is paramount, or 4xx if harden-ability and ultimate strength is required. But either series is much stronger than aluminum.
Nobody here mentionned anything about Apple using the gyroscope as a Super Optical Image Stabilizer, to get jitter-free 720p video and clear photographs.
That's what I'm most excited about for this gyroscope. Being able to use the HD camcorder with professionnal results.
Anyway, I hope they thought about it when creating the camcorder and camera apps!!!
It can't do that by itself. These aren't "real" gyroscopes. That is, they are electronic sensors that detect motion about axes, and report that motion to the computer. They really shouldn't be called gyroscopes. They should be called axial motion detectors.
What would be needed in addition, is a way to have to camera system respond to that information. Two ways are to have an optical element in the lens that moves to correct the camera movement with motors as Canon does, or the simpler one of having a larger imaging sensor that would move around to compensate, as Sony uses.
As this has neither, it won't work.
As these aren't real gyroscopes, in the mechanical sense, they can't control the phone's motion.
Speaking of magnets, them brushless motors Apple uses now in all the internal fans still blows (heh, pun inintended) me away. It's like, we're not too far from Maglev trains to be commonplace in major cities around the world.... right?
What I really like are the small instrument fans that have air bearings. When the fan starts up, air is directed to the bearing, and the fan blade lifts away, and runs on pretty much frictionless air.
Everyone except Nintendo. 3D appearance without glasses (using face tracking I presume), and accelerometer + gyroscope, along with REAL buttons for gaming:
Phonewise, yeah, iPhone is ahead of the curve, especially with the game center app. I am terribly excited for all the games on the 3DS though and want it to come out NOW!
From what I've seen and read about the Nintendo, it's not that kind of 3D.
What happens is that when you hold the device steady, the image looks exactly the same as on a non 3D screen, the way three dimensional objects do now on regular displays. But when you tilt the display up, down, or sideways, it reveals what's behind, or on the side, or whatever we would see by changing our position. So it's as though you are the camera, and by tilting the display, you're changing the camera angle.
yes you could, but most people don't. visit a home with kids/teens, and there will be a bunch of no longer used games stashed in a corner or cabinet of the TV room someplace.
That is a choice, with digital distribution that is forced upon you.
If you purchase a physical item you can sell it (if you do is another matter, but you still have the choice), if you can only purchase digitally downloaded items (ie from the App Store, PSN, X-Box Live, Wii Store etc etc etc) you are forced to keep it for life
If you purchase a physical item you can sell it (if you do is another matter, but you still have the choice), if you can only purchase digitally downloaded items (ie from the App Store, PSN, X-Box Live, Wii Store etc etc etc) you are forced to keep it for life
What I really like are the small instrument fans that have air bearings. When the fan starts up, air is directed to the bearing, and the fan blade lifts away, and runs on pretty much frictionless air.
Is this in the Mac laptops now? Or is this a different kind of "brushless" fan?
You are right, not only does nintendo know how to make games but like Apple they have a very long and loyal following, unlike Sony who is just about dead in handheld gaming.
However while some may think I am nuts for saying this the iPad could capture the xbox 360 and gear games towards that group which is rather large. Playing something like a version of Halo, F.E.A.R or BioShock on the iPad would be awesome.
I don't think it's nuts. We're looking at a space between "mobile" and "casual laptop" gaming and console gaming. Somewhere in between, is an area the iPad can excel in.
Some of us don't have the time even to sit down on a big PC desktop to play FEAR and Bioshock. As much as I liked Mass Effect 2 and playing through almost all of Dirt2, given my time constraints if I could have some console-quality graphics, emotion and storyline, I could chill on the sofa playing it while watching sports on TV at the same time.
It doesn't have to be super-intense action as well. What I liked about Mass Effect 2 was the sprawling storyline, different gaming modes, and what was actually pretty good dialog (albeit very long at times, but I "got" it in the end). I enjoyed it much more than COD: MW2 which was like GO GO GO OMFG RUN SHOOT JUMP RIDE SNOW SKIMOBILE JUMP SHOOT GO OMFG GOOOOO THE END
The biggest secret however might have been the new phone's gyroscope, a feature that beat to market the fancy phones from Nokia's Symbian and Google's Android. Few who bought into Android phones from Verizon and Sprint over the past six months will be ready to pay up to $350 in early termination fees just to grab the next gyro-equipped models one they eventually come out. Microsoft has also admitted that it won't be ready to support gyros or digital compasses in Windows Phone 7 at its end of the year launch.
That makes Apple's gyro introduction, tied to the mega-launch of the new iPhone 4, a big deal in terms of differentiating Apple's platform. Jobs' announcement of the new gyroscope feature generated an enthusiastic, instantaneous whoop from a few developers at the WWDC keynote who understood what it meant.
What's a gyroscope?
On the iPhone and iPod touch (and recent iPod nanos), 3-axis accelerometers enable ... Because they only measure linear motion, they can't sense compass direction or subtle twisting motions or rotation about gravity.
In the iPhone 3GS, Apple added a digital compass (magnetometer), which can additionally sense magnetic direction relative to the Earth's poles. The iPhone 4 gyroscope adds an additional new electronic sensor for detecting 3-axis angular acceleration around the X, Y and Z axes, enabling precise calculation of pitch, yaw and roll.
While conventional accelerometers measure linear acceleration as a change in velocity (speed increasing or decreasing over time) apart a change of direction, a gyro measures angular acceleration: a change in both velocity and direction at the same time. In iPhone 4, the gyro enables the device to sense slight degrees of rotation while rejecting linear movements and hand jitters, while its accelerometer senses those linear movements.
This article is mostly hogwash. Mr. Job?s on-stage presentation is a marketing pitch, and as such, no one should expect that it represents a technically correct explanation of anything. Journalists are supposed to successfully separate fact from fiction, and Mr. Dilger did a terribly bad job at separating fact from fiction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
they [3-axis accelerometers] only measure linear motion, they can't sense compass direction or subtle twisting motions or rotation about gravity.
It is true that three-axis accelerometers do not sense compass direction, but it is decidedly false that they do not sense subtle twisting motions. It is also decidedly false that they do not sense rotation within a gravitational field, and this point is particularly important because, whereas the article represents that this non-sensitivity is a critical limitation of such devices, the reality is much the opposite.
Three-axis accelerometers sense acceleration in three orthogonal axes. If you rotate a three-axis accelerometer in any way, there will be centripetal acceleration, which will be sensed by one or more of the three independent accelerometers. But as Einstein pointed out, there is no way within such a device to distinguish between motional acceleration and gravitational acceleration. Left to their own, they cannot isolate motional acceleration from gravitational acceleration. This is potentially a problem because information about motion, both linear and circular, is derived from the information about acceleration. But in practice this is not a problem as long as the logic associated with the device is smart enough to recognize the signature of being at rest, i.e., uniform acceleration of just the right amount (g) for an extended period, and use that to re-orient and re-calibrate itself. The only real, potential problem is that when this is done automatically, there is always the potential for the logic to mistakenly think that it is at rest when it is actually moving slowly and in a straight line, or vice-versa.
The magnetometer is sensitive to movement relative the earth?s magnetic field only, i.e., is otherwise insensitive to movement. Potentially, by integrating information from the magnetometer with information from the three-axis accelerometer, it would be possible to extract information about motional acceleration only. However, if a magnetometer is moved precisely along the field lines and is not rotated with respect to the field lines, it will not sense anything at all. Magnetometers cannot sense the earth?s magnetic field without motion, because without motion there is no time rate of change in the magnetic field, and thus no associated electric field. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the magnetometer is used only for the electronic compass function, and has nothing to do with motion detection per se.
Another possibility is that an optical ?gyroscope? is used in order to isolate motional acceleration from gravitational acceleration. The essential, meaningful distinction between an optical gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer is not with the orientation of the sensors or with sensitivity to linear vs. rotational motion, but is rather with the fact that spatial displacement is detected directly rather than derived from sensed acceleration. The effect of gravity on light is real and measurable, but the effect on the time required for light to travel from one point to a very near point within a gravitational field is small in relative terms. As such, motion sensors based on the Doppler effect on light are essentially immune to the influence of the earth?s gravity.
All in all, the true understanding of these matters is very much confounded by the notions that the author of this article has expounded. This article is quite simply junk.
Comments
Do you have a substantive point - e.g., how does that invalidate the larger points in the article? And, why are his opinions 'nutty'?
I know you want to defend him, but he has a history of making errors in his reporting. This is a notable one, and one that shouldn't have been made.
I see no reason why you object to my pointing it out. He has no excuse.
As to his opinions and comments, quite a few people have pointed out that they serve no purpose in these articles, and are biased. You might like that, but a lot of us don't. It just gives the trolls something to argue about.
''Nothing about the new Retina Display was leaked apart from the fact that the new phone appeared to have a much higher resolution display, something everyone expected anyway. Leaks only assumed the presence of an A4 brain and faster 802.11n WiFi. Additionally, nobody guessed that the aluminum shell would double as an antenna system for WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G. The leak also didn't anticipate any details of Apple's standards-based FaceTime video calling.''
As a Global Moderator your appreciation of accurate semantics clearly lags behind your insatiable thirst for petty and wholly personal dismissal of a credible tech writer and analyst.
A Moderator's innocuous moderator.
He's about 80% credible. It's not petty to point out his foibles.
I'm sure if he had written a negative article, all the people who are concerned about my criticizing him, would have done so already themselves.
Stainless steel is a steel alloy, aluminum is a metal. This is why people get confused. They see 'alloy' and think "aluminum". Whereas all 'alloy' means is that it's a combination of a few metallic elements - sometimes two. I used to work with steel and was confused by this until I looked into it. Alloy means: combination.
If in doubt use a magnet. Some steels are non-magnetic, but stainless isn't one of them. Magnets will stick to the new iPhone 4.
Alloy 4xx SS steel is magnetic. Alloy 3xx either is not, or is only very weakly. There are other alloys that wouldn't be used for this. Outside of Apple, and the manufacturer, we don't know which category Apple's alloy fits under. I would suspect it would be the 3xx series if corrosion is paramount, or 4xx if harden-ability and ultimate strength is required. But either series is much stronger than aluminum.
Nobody here mentionned anything about Apple using the gyroscope as a Super Optical Image Stabilizer, to get jitter-free 720p video and clear photographs.
That's what I'm most excited about for this gyroscope. Being able to use the HD camcorder with professionnal results.
Anyway, I hope they thought about it when creating the camcorder and camera apps!!!
It can't do that by itself. These aren't "real" gyroscopes. That is, they are electronic sensors that detect motion about axes, and report that motion to the computer. They really shouldn't be called gyroscopes. They should be called axial motion detectors.
What would be needed in addition, is a way to have to camera system respond to that information. Two ways are to have an optical element in the lens that moves to correct the camera movement with motors as Canon does, or the simpler one of having a larger imaging sensor that would move around to compensate, as Sony uses.
As this has neither, it won't work.
As these aren't real gyroscopes, in the mechanical sense, they can't control the phone's motion.
Speaking of magnets, them brushless motors Apple uses now in all the internal fans still blows (heh, pun inintended) me away. It's like, we're not too far from Maglev trains to be commonplace in major cities around the world.... right?
What I really like are the small instrument fans that have air bearings. When the fan starts up, air is directed to the bearing, and the fan blade lifts away, and runs on pretty much frictionless air.
Don't forget to list all the reasons why a RISC processor is better than a CISC processor and why PowerPC is the best processor in the world.
He happens to be correct though.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...-and-hacks.ars
I won't go to those two extremes, but if that's your problem with the guy, you'd be disappointed to know that I share his sentiments!
Yeah, I noticed.
Everyone except Nintendo. 3D appearance without glasses (using face tracking I presume), and accelerometer + gyroscope, along with REAL buttons for gaming:
http://e3src.nintendo.com/3ds/
Phonewise, yeah, iPhone is ahead of the curve, especially with the game center app. I am terribly excited for all the games on the 3DS though and want it to come out NOW!
From what I've seen and read about the Nintendo, it's not that kind of 3D.
What happens is that when you hold the device steady, the image looks exactly the same as on a non 3D screen, the way three dimensional objects do now on regular displays. But when you tilt the display up, down, or sideways, it reveals what's behind, or on the side, or whatever we would see by changing our position. So it's as though you are the camera, and by tilting the display, you're changing the camera angle.
yes you could, but most people don't. visit a home with kids/teens, and there will be a bunch of no longer used games stashed in a corner or cabinet of the TV room someplace.
That is a choice, with digital distribution that is forced upon you.
That is a choice, with digital distribution that is forced upon you.
What do you mean by that?
What do you mean by that?
If you purchase a physical item you can sell it (if you do is another matter, but you still have the choice), if you can only purchase digitally downloaded items (ie from the App Store, PSN, X-Box Live, Wii Store etc etc etc) you are forced to keep it for life
If you purchase a physical item you can sell it (if you do is another matter, but you still have the choice), if you can only purchase digitally downloaded items (ie from the App Store, PSN, X-Box Live, Wii Store etc etc etc) you are forced to keep it for life
Ok, I see.
What I really like are the small instrument fans that have air bearings. When the fan starts up, air is directed to the bearing, and the fan blade lifts away, and runs on pretty much frictionless air.
Is this in the Mac laptops now? Or is this a different kind of "brushless" fan?
You are right, not only does nintendo know how to make games but like Apple they have a very long and loyal following, unlike Sony who is just about dead in handheld gaming.
However while some may think I am nuts for saying this the iPad could capture the xbox 360 and gear games towards that group which is rather large. Playing something like a version of Halo, F.E.A.R or BioShock on the iPad would be awesome.
I don't think it's nuts. We're looking at a space between "mobile" and "casual laptop" gaming and console gaming. Somewhere in between, is an area the iPad can excel in.
Some of us don't have the time even to sit down on a big PC desktop to play FEAR and Bioshock. As much as I liked Mass Effect 2 and playing through almost all of Dirt2, given my time constraints if I could have some console-quality graphics, emotion and storyline, I could chill on the sofa playing it while watching sports on TV at the same time.
It doesn't have to be super-intense action as well. What I liked about Mass Effect 2 was the sprawling storyline, different gaming modes, and what was actually pretty good dialog (albeit very long at times, but I "got" it in the end). I enjoyed it much more than COD: MW2 which was like GO GO GO OMFG RUN SHOOT JUMP RIDE SNOW SKIMOBILE JUMP SHOOT GO OMFG GOOOOO THE END
The biggest secret however might have been the new phone's gyroscope, a feature that beat to market the fancy phones from Nokia's Symbian and Google's Android. Few who bought into Android phones from Verizon and Sprint over the past six months will be ready to pay up to $350 in early termination fees just to grab the next gyro-equipped models one they eventually come out. Microsoft has also admitted that it won't be ready to support gyros or digital compasses in Windows Phone 7 at its end of the year launch.
That makes Apple's gyro introduction, tied to the mega-launch of the new iPhone 4, a big deal in terms of differentiating Apple's platform. Jobs' announcement of the new gyroscope feature generated an enthusiastic, instantaneous whoop from a few developers at the WWDC keynote who understood what it meant.
What's a gyroscope?
On the iPhone and iPod touch (and recent iPod nanos), 3-axis accelerometers enable ... Because they only measure linear motion, they can't sense compass direction or subtle twisting motions or rotation about gravity.
In the iPhone 3GS, Apple added a digital compass (magnetometer), which can additionally sense magnetic direction relative to the Earth's poles. The iPhone 4 gyroscope adds an additional new electronic sensor for detecting 3-axis angular acceleration around the X, Y and Z axes, enabling precise calculation of pitch, yaw and roll.
While conventional accelerometers measure linear acceleration as a change in velocity (speed increasing or decreasing over time) apart a change of direction, a gyro measures angular acceleration: a change in both velocity and direction at the same time. In iPhone 4, the gyro enables the device to sense slight degrees of rotation while rejecting linear movements and hand jitters, while its accelerometer senses those linear movements.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
This article is mostly hogwash. Mr. Job?s on-stage presentation is a marketing pitch, and as such, no one should expect that it represents a technically correct explanation of anything. Journalists are supposed to successfully separate fact from fiction, and Mr. Dilger did a terribly bad job at separating fact from fiction.
they [3-axis accelerometers] only measure linear motion, they can't sense compass direction or subtle twisting motions or rotation about gravity.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
It is true that three-axis accelerometers do not sense compass direction, but it is decidedly false that they do not sense subtle twisting motions. It is also decidedly false that they do not sense rotation within a gravitational field, and this point is particularly important because, whereas the article represents that this non-sensitivity is a critical limitation of such devices, the reality is much the opposite.
Three-axis accelerometers sense acceleration in three orthogonal axes. If you rotate a three-axis accelerometer in any way, there will be centripetal acceleration, which will be sensed by one or more of the three independent accelerometers. But as Einstein pointed out, there is no way within such a device to distinguish between motional acceleration and gravitational acceleration. Left to their own, they cannot isolate motional acceleration from gravitational acceleration. This is potentially a problem because information about motion, both linear and circular, is derived from the information about acceleration. But in practice this is not a problem as long as the logic associated with the device is smart enough to recognize the signature of being at rest, i.e., uniform acceleration of just the right amount (g) for an extended period, and use that to re-orient and re-calibrate itself. The only real, potential problem is that when this is done automatically, there is always the potential for the logic to mistakenly think that it is at rest when it is actually moving slowly and in a straight line, or vice-versa.
The magnetometer is sensitive to movement relative the earth?s magnetic field only, i.e., is otherwise insensitive to movement. Potentially, by integrating information from the magnetometer with information from the three-axis accelerometer, it would be possible to extract information about motional acceleration only. However, if a magnetometer is moved precisely along the field lines and is not rotated with respect to the field lines, it will not sense anything at all. Magnetometers cannot sense the earth?s magnetic field without motion, because without motion there is no time rate of change in the magnetic field, and thus no associated electric field. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the magnetometer is used only for the electronic compass function, and has nothing to do with motion detection per se.
Another possibility is that an optical ?gyroscope? is used in order to isolate motional acceleration from gravitational acceleration. The essential, meaningful distinction between an optical gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer is not with the orientation of the sensors or with sensitivity to linear vs. rotational motion, but is rather with the fact that spatial displacement is detected directly rather than derived from sensed acceleration. The effect of gravity on light is real and measurable, but the effect on the time required for light to travel from one point to a very near point within a gravitational field is small in relative terms. As such, motion sensors based on the Doppler effect on light are essentially immune to the influence of the earth?s gravity.
All in all, the true understanding of these matters is very much confounded by the notions that the author of this article has expounded. This article is quite simply junk.