I have a PhD in cognitive experimental psychology (University of California, 2005) with a specialization in cognitive neurophysiology and visual perception.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GQB
As an aside, if dithering produces the impression of 'millions of colors', then as far as I'm concerned, it IS millions of colors. Has no one heard of Seurat? The colors are in your brain, not on the screen.
This claim is absolutely correct. The relevant issue here is what the perception of the color on the screen is, not the actual color the screen displays. The method of how you go about reproducing the image in print media from what you have on the display is completely and totally irrelevant to the point here.
The simple fact of the matter is that in the world itself, there is no such thing as "color". Color is a percept created by the functioning of the cone receptors in the retina and the resulting information processing of the neural signal created by the transduction of photons into neurological activity through the deformation of the rhodopsin pigments in the short, medium, and long wavelength receptors. Indeed, the visual system itself uses "dithering" to create the range of "color" that we perceive; each cone has a different spectral peak to which it is sensitive. It is differentials in the activations of those three receptors that are the basis of the percept of any given color. So the basis of all color perception is based only on the responses of only three types of receptors in the retina.
These responses are then interpolated further by the structures in the visual cortex which, to continue to use the computer parlance, is more ?dithering?. Research on color perception and visual neurophysiology has shown that when only a handful of pure wavelengths are displayed, such that there is no continuous frequencies of light contained between them, the visual system will fill in the gaps by activating correlated neurons in the visual cortex that are responsible for creating the perception of those missing colors.
It has also been shown that the greater the number of frequencies in light, the greater the perception of saturation of the color of the light. However, this doesn?t mean that we?re perceiving more colors, we are not. The perception is still based on the responses of three and only three visual receptors, and no amount of increase in the frequencies of light displayed can change that fact. The visual neurons still work the same way, the only difference is how much they respond because of the greater range of frequencies. They still ?dither? the light the receive into the many different colors we perceive.
Once a display displays a range of frequencies that surpasses the ability of the eye to detect differences in the number of frequencies, or the differences in wavelength between them, the issue of how many ?colors? the display produces becomes irrelevant. CRT displays have been able to do that for decades.
People like Clive need to pull their heads out of their arses and get over themselves thinking that the point is how many ?colors? the display actually produces. The idea that anything in the world itself has ?color? is naive and ignorant, as is relying on Wikipedia as an authoritative source to base an argument on. (That also commits the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority.) Actually Clive, you should probably sue God, maybe the Pope while you're at it for their false advertising about how our perception of color in the world is blatant intentional and deceptional false advertising by God and nature...
Also, any ?professional? photographer who takes pride in the fact that they?re a ?professional? would know these simple facts about how humans perceive color, and their concern would be more with the process of how to accurately reproduce in printed media the image they?re concerned with. Once you get above a certain level of display quality, the display itself is a non-issue. Again, a large body of psychophysical research on color perception has been done that proves this point, although I?m sure that again, people like Clive will simply choose not to believe this so they can go on with their hating.
This lawsuit was nothing more than greed and publicity for the people who filed it. It has no basis in empirical fact about how color is perceived by the human visual system. I?m amazed that Apple caved on it, and didn?t simply do some reading in scientific journals such as Journal of Experimental Psychology; Human Perception and Performance, or the journal Perception and Psychophysics, or Vision Research.
This lawsuit was nothing more than greed and publicity for the people who filed it. It has no basis in empirical fact about how color is perceived by the human visual system. I?m amazed that Apple caved on it, and didn?t simply do some reading in scientific journals such as Journal of Experimental Psychology; Human Perception and Performance, or the journal Perception and Psychophysics, or Vision Research.
I don't think Apple caved. Since the lawsuit never achieved class action status, I'm sure it was purely a financial decision...we can pay these guys $10,000 to go away, or we can pay our lawyers $250,000 to explain to a jury how the human perception of vision works. If it had achieved class action status and risked awards in the millions, Apple could have chosen to let it go to court.
You've got their names, professions and that they live in California, why don't you go around and hoe into them with a baseball bat?
A jihad on the disbelievers who insult Apple, may its name be forever blessed!
That's hysterical!!!
Here is a very interesting article that goes to the heart of yours and many others here who been attacked personally, grammatically, threatened, etc, etc if ever anything contrary against Apple is ever expressed.
Good for them. I think this is one case Apple deserved to lose. Especially in the MacBook Pro, I would expect better quality displays. It almost seems like this should have been cause for class action since they deceived everyone who bought one.
Why, name me just one monitor ever made that displayed more than four colors (red, grean, blue, and black) and when you factor in there brightness 190 for 16bit and 769 for 8bit.?
One hundred and ninety. Black, and 63 reds, 63 greens, 63 blues.
Via the use of spatial placement of these colours, they can show 260,000 colours.
It's not 63+63+63, the colors combine together, they don't have to have the same values at the same time. At no point does that make 190 colors, or 190 patterns.
Also, there are 64 combination possible in 6-bit. 0 to 63 inclusive.
The total number of colors is 64*64*64 = 262144 for each cluster of 3 elements, which is what you are describing eventually. but there aren't 190 colors under any measure.
And because everybody lies Apple should get away with it, too?
This is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be done to keep manufacturers honest.
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
The issue is not about the monitor but about what Apple said and what was proven against their claim. These two guys proved that Apple made a false claim. What a monitor produces does not matter. Their case was against Apple and what Apple said.
These arguments defending Apple by the zealots, blind, Kool Aid drinkers, etc.... simply play up the fanboy image.
This argument seems to be getting close to the same argument as to whether multitasking systems truly multitask. Much of it depends on how you define it. In the case of this display argument I would guess if taken all the way through Apple would have won but at what cost? PR means alot for Apple especially right now with the economy tanking. It's smarter for them to settle than risk the possible negative publicity. In other words Apple is more interested in sales than proving these guys right or wrong. That doesn't mean they'll keep doing whatever it was they were accused of as typically many settlements have stipulations with them. We will probably never know the details of it all. For now though if someone thinks Apple is still guilty and getting away with lying to the general public, take them to court over it.
Lastly before anyone judges these guys they can only be considered to have won if you believe that their goal was to just get money. Just like Apple they have to decide whether they think it's worth fighting over and if they at that point really thought they had a chance to win. Accepting the settlement does not mean they won and it also doesn't mean that they felt they would lose. This is why those on each side settle. Sometimes it can be to avoid embarrassment later or it could be it's not worth it but whatever the reason it keeps it all quiet so that others cannot use it for themselves or against either of the two.
All in all rather than make silly assumptions and get into arguments over something that we really don't know the details of, how about we all get along?
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
The issue is not about the monitor but about what Apple said and what was proven against their claim. These two guys proved that Apple made a false claim. What a monitor produces does not matter. Their case was against Apple and what Apple said.
These arguments defending Apple by the zealots, blind, Kool Aid drinkers, etc.... simply play up the fanboy image.
That is incorrect. Nothing was proved. They settled. In a settlement both sides call the dogs off and it all goes quiet. Legally no one won or lost.
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
Can I please have a link where Dell lies stating the same thing? I can't find it.
I have a PhD in cognitive experimental psychology (University of California, 2005) with a specialization in cognitive neurophysiology and visual perception.
This claim is absolutely correct. The relevant issue here is what the perception of the color on the screen is, not the actual color the screen displays. The method of how you go about reproducing the image in print media from what you have on the display is completely and totally irrelevant to the point here...
Also, any ?professional? photographer who takes pride in the fact that they?re a ?professional? would know these simple facts about how humans perceive color, and their concern would be more with the process of how to accurately reproduce in printed media the image they?re concerned with. Once you get above a certain level of display quality, the display itself is a non-issue. Again, a large body of psychophysical research on color perception has been done that proves this point...
What I find interesting is that technology acceptance has gotten to a point where two self-proclaimed "professional photographers" launched this case on the basis that their livelihood and employment capabilities rely on their ability to use a consumer model (forget about the Pro name for a minute) laptop LCD digital display to attempt to reproduce continuous tone gradations in an image, despite the inherent weaknesses of this methodology.
If the end result of their work was that critical to earning potential, why don't they shoot film and deliver actual continuous-tone "photographs" produced via a darkroom process, not multi-color dithered "images" produced from an ink jet printer. You don't need an LCD-anything to get a real photo from film and chemistry. Anything less than film results in a compromise in ultimate quality.
Perhaps their clients should sue them for advertising themselves as "photographers" when in fact they were "image acquisition specialists" who use a camera with digital sensors instead of film to deliver "matrixed color images" as an end result. (Photography by definition requires a camera to expose a light-sensitive material capable of later producing an image as a result of chemical reaction.)
By calling themselves Photographers and then using a digital image-editing or enhancement process, these two gentlemen appear to be no less guilty of false advertising than Apple, and remarkably, for the same reason: in the photographer business, the "industry standard" has been reduced to what acceptably fools the eye as a final result (especially if it's faster and easier than being really good with film and creative exposure and development techniques).
If we've reached the point where computer companies should all be sued because of their somewhat liberal interpretation of specification accuracy, why are we not all suing car manufacturers for ads telling us how many miles per gallon their cars will achieve, when in actuality that's a number relevant only to a stationary laboratory test at a fixed speed?
That is incorrect. Nothing was proved. They settled. In a settlement both sides call the dogs off and it all goes quiet. Legally no one won or lost.
Fair enough. Yes they settled. If Apple had a case, you know they would not have bothered and would have trumpeted this case as Apple being picked on but won. Settling simply one side had the other over a barrel but the stronger side could drag this losing case out forever. So, yes the dogs were called off but it does not mean that Apple did not misrepresent their product.
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
Well: (i) They were probably Apple users; (ii) Apple generates more publicity; (iii) Apple does make this claim all over the map (I have not noticed it with other manufacturers; I am not saying they don't make the same claim, just that I haven't noticed it as being so ubiquitous).
I have a PhD in cognitive experimental psychology (University of California, 2005) with a specialization in cognitive neurophysiology and visual perception.
This claim is absolutely correct. The relevant issue here is what the perception of the color on the screen is, not the actual color the screen displays. The method of how you go about reproducing the image in print media from what you have on the display is completely and totally irrelevant to the point here..... etc
Brilliant post (if true, of course; no offense, but in this medium, you can never tell! )
Not dis-similar to how the human ear processes sounds -- after all, our ears adjusted to the equal-tempered scale as "normal" over time; similarly, the entire digital music industry is built on the physical principle that our human ear + brain can't process sounds beyond certain levels of fineness......
Fair enough. Yes they settled. If Apple had a case, you know they would not have bothered and would have trumpeted this case as Apple being picked on but won. Settling simply one side had the other over a barrel but the stronger side could drag this losing case out forever. So, yes the dogs were called off but it does not mean that Apple did not misrepresent their product.
That is absolutely an untrue statement. Settling in no way implies that anyone was "over a barrel". It simply means that it was cheaper for Apple to pay them to go away than to pay their attorneys to defend the case. Even when Apple won, the attorney and court fees could have easily added up to more than paying them a small amount of money. For all we know, Apple just refunded the cost of the laptops and some small "I'm sorry for the confusion" fee.
Companies do this all the time. Even if you know you have an ironclad case you could win, if it's going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so makes no sense when all the other side was asking for was something less.
Comments
As an aside, if dithering produces the impression of 'millions of colors', then as far as I'm concerned, it IS millions of colors. Has no one heard of Seurat? The colors are in your brain, not on the screen.
This claim is absolutely correct. The relevant issue here is what the perception of the color on the screen is, not the actual color the screen displays. The method of how you go about reproducing the image in print media from what you have on the display is completely and totally irrelevant to the point here.
The simple fact of the matter is that in the world itself, there is no such thing as "color". Color is a percept created by the functioning of the cone receptors in the retina and the resulting information processing of the neural signal created by the transduction of photons into neurological activity through the deformation of the rhodopsin pigments in the short, medium, and long wavelength receptors. Indeed, the visual system itself uses "dithering" to create the range of "color" that we perceive; each cone has a different spectral peak to which it is sensitive. It is differentials in the activations of those three receptors that are the basis of the percept of any given color. So the basis of all color perception is based only on the responses of only three types of receptors in the retina.
These responses are then interpolated further by the structures in the visual cortex which, to continue to use the computer parlance, is more ?dithering?. Research on color perception and visual neurophysiology has shown that when only a handful of pure wavelengths are displayed, such that there is no continuous frequencies of light contained between them, the visual system will fill in the gaps by activating correlated neurons in the visual cortex that are responsible for creating the perception of those missing colors.
It has also been shown that the greater the number of frequencies in light, the greater the perception of saturation of the color of the light. However, this doesn?t mean that we?re perceiving more colors, we are not. The perception is still based on the responses of three and only three visual receptors, and no amount of increase in the frequencies of light displayed can change that fact. The visual neurons still work the same way, the only difference is how much they respond because of the greater range of frequencies. They still ?dither? the light the receive into the many different colors we perceive.
Once a display displays a range of frequencies that surpasses the ability of the eye to detect differences in the number of frequencies, or the differences in wavelength between them, the issue of how many ?colors? the display produces becomes irrelevant. CRT displays have been able to do that for decades.
People like Clive need to pull their heads out of their arses and get over themselves thinking that the point is how many ?colors? the display actually produces. The idea that anything in the world itself has ?color? is naive and ignorant, as is relying on Wikipedia as an authoritative source to base an argument on. (That also commits the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority.) Actually Clive, you should probably sue God, maybe the Pope while you're at it for their false advertising about how our perception of color in the world is blatant intentional and deceptional false advertising by God and nature...
Also, any ?professional? photographer who takes pride in the fact that they?re a ?professional? would know these simple facts about how humans perceive color, and their concern would be more with the process of how to accurately reproduce in printed media the image they?re concerned with. Once you get above a certain level of display quality, the display itself is a non-issue. Again, a large body of psychophysical research on color perception has been done that proves this point, although I?m sure that again, people like Clive will simply choose not to believe this so they can go on with their hating.
This lawsuit was nothing more than greed and publicity for the people who filed it. It has no basis in empirical fact about how color is perceived by the human visual system. I?m amazed that Apple caved on it, and didn?t simply do some reading in scientific journals such as Journal of Experimental Psychology; Human Perception and Performance, or the journal Perception and Psychophysics, or Vision Research.
...
This lawsuit was nothing more than greed and publicity for the people who filed it. It has no basis in empirical fact about how color is perceived by the human visual system. I?m amazed that Apple caved on it, and didn?t simply do some reading in scientific journals such as Journal of Experimental Psychology; Human Perception and Performance, or the journal Perception and Psychophysics, or Vision Research.
I don't think Apple caved. Since the lawsuit never achieved class action status, I'm sure it was purely a financial decision...we can pay these guys $10,000 to go away, or we can pay our lawyers $250,000 to explain to a jury how the human perception of vision works. If it had achieved class action status and risked awards in the millions, Apple could have chosen to let it go to court.
Maybe these two pricks should have researched things a bit better.
They are "professionals".
You've got their names, professions and that they live in California, why don't you go around and hoe into them with a baseball bat?
A jihad on the disbelievers who insult Apple, may its name be forever blessed!
You've got their names, professions and that they live in California, why don't you go around and hoe into them with a baseball bat?
A jihad on the disbelievers who insult Apple, may its name be forever blessed!
That's hysterical!!!
Here is a very interesting article that goes to the heart of yours and many others here who been attacked personally, grammatically, threatened, etc, etc if ever anything contrary against Apple is ever expressed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/bu...=1&oref=slogin
Good for them. I think this is one case Apple deserved to lose. Especially in the MacBook Pro, I would expect better quality displays. It almost seems like this should have been cause for class action since they deceived everyone who bought one.
Why, name me just one monitor ever made that displayed more than four colors (red, grean, blue, and black) and when you factor in there brightness 190 for 16bit and 769 for 8bit.?
A 6-bit TN panel can show a total of 190 colours.
One hundred and ninety. Black, and 63 reds, 63 greens, 63 blues.
Via the use of spatial placement of these colours, they can show 260,000 colours.
It's not 63+63+63, the colors combine together, they don't have to have the same values at the same time. At no point does that make 190 colors, or 190 patterns.
Also, there are 64 combination possible in 6-bit. 0 to 63 inclusive.
The total number of colors is 64*64*64 = 262144 for each cluster of 3 elements, which is what you are describing eventually. but there aren't 190 colors under any measure.
And because everybody lies Apple should get away with it, too?
This is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be done to keep manufacturers honest.
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
These arguments defending Apple by the zealots, blind, Kool Aid drinkers, etc.... simply play up the fanboy image.
Lastly before anyone judges these guys they can only be considered to have won if you believe that their goal was to just get money. Just like Apple they have to decide whether they think it's worth fighting over and if they at that point really thought they had a chance to win. Accepting the settlement does not mean they won and it also doesn't mean that they felt they would lose. This is why those on each side settle. Sometimes it can be to avoid embarrassment later or it could be it's not worth it but whatever the reason it keeps it all quiet so that others cannot use it for themselves or against either of the two.
All in all rather than make silly assumptions and get into arguments over something that we really don't know the details of, how about we all get along?
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
Could it be that they are using Apple computers?
Your argument sounds whiny.
The issue is not about the monitor but about what Apple said and what was proven against their claim. These two guys proved that Apple made a false claim. What a monitor produces does not matter. Their case was against Apple and what Apple said.
These arguments defending Apple by the zealots, blind, Kool Aid drinkers, etc.... simply play up the fanboy image.
That is incorrect. Nothing was proved. They settled. In a settlement both sides call the dogs off and it all goes quiet. Legally no one won or lost.
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
Can I please have a link where Dell lies stating the same thing? I can't find it.
I have a PhD in cognitive experimental psychology (University of California, 2005) with a specialization in cognitive neurophysiology and visual perception.
This claim is absolutely correct. The relevant issue here is what the perception of the color on the screen is, not the actual color the screen displays. The method of how you go about reproducing the image in print media from what you have on the display is completely and totally irrelevant to the point here...
Also, any ?professional? photographer who takes pride in the fact that they?re a ?professional? would know these simple facts about how humans perceive color, and their concern would be more with the process of how to accurately reproduce in printed media the image they?re concerned with. Once you get above a certain level of display quality, the display itself is a non-issue. Again, a large body of psychophysical research on color perception has been done that proves this point...
What I find interesting is that technology acceptance has gotten to a point where two self-proclaimed "professional photographers" launched this case on the basis that their livelihood and employment capabilities rely on their ability to use a consumer model (forget about the Pro name for a minute) laptop LCD digital display to attempt to reproduce continuous tone gradations in an image, despite the inherent weaknesses of this methodology.
If the end result of their work was that critical to earning potential, why don't they shoot film and deliver actual continuous-tone "photographs" produced via a darkroom process, not multi-color dithered "images" produced from an ink jet printer. You don't need an LCD-anything to get a real photo from film and chemistry. Anything less than film results in a compromise in ultimate quality.
Perhaps their clients should sue them for advertising themselves as "photographers" when in fact they were "image acquisition specialists" who use a camera with digital sensors instead of film to deliver "matrixed color images" as an end result. (Photography by definition requires a camera to expose a light-sensitive material capable of later producing an image as a result of chemical reaction.)
By calling themselves Photographers and then using a digital image-editing or enhancement process, these two gentlemen appear to be no less guilty of false advertising than Apple, and remarkably, for the same reason: in the photographer business, the "industry standard" has been reduced to what acceptably fools the eye as a final result (especially if it's faster and easier than being really good with film and creative exposure and development techniques).
If we've reached the point where computer companies should all be sued because of their somewhat liberal interpretation of specification accuracy, why are we not all suing car manufacturers for ads telling us how many miles per gallon their cars will achieve, when in actuality that's a number relevant only to a stationary laboratory test at a fixed speed?
That is incorrect. Nothing was proved. They settled. In a settlement both sides call the dogs off and it all goes quiet. Legally no one won or lost.
Fair enough. Yes they settled. If Apple had a case, you know they would not have bothered and would have trumpeted this case as Apple being picked on but won. Settling simply one side had the other over a barrel but the stronger side could drag this losing case out forever. So, yes the dogs were called off but it does not mean that Apple did not misrepresent their product.
No, but they only went after Apple. Why did they not go after all the other manufacturers who are lying? They all state millions of colors. Why was Apple the only one dragged into court? Please explain.
Well: (i) They were probably Apple users; (ii) Apple generates more publicity; (iii) Apple does make this claim all over the map (I have not noticed it with other manufacturers; I am not saying they don't make the same claim, just that I haven't noticed it as being so ubiquitous).
I have a PhD in cognitive experimental psychology (University of California, 2005) with a specialization in cognitive neurophysiology and visual perception.
This claim is absolutely correct. The relevant issue here is what the perception of the color on the screen is, not the actual color the screen displays. The method of how you go about reproducing the image in print media from what you have on the display is completely and totally irrelevant to the point here..... etc
Brilliant post (if true, of course; no offense, but in this medium, you can never tell!
Not dis-similar to how the human ear processes sounds -- after all, our ears adjusted to the equal-tempered scale as "normal" over time; similarly, the entire digital music industry is built on the physical principle that our human ear + brain can't process sounds beyond certain levels of fineness......
Fair enough. Yes they settled. If Apple had a case, you know they would not have bothered and would have trumpeted this case as Apple being picked on but won. Settling simply one side had the other over a barrel but the stronger side could drag this losing case out forever. So, yes the dogs were called off but it does not mean that Apple did not misrepresent their product.
That is absolutely an untrue statement. Settling in no way implies that anyone was "over a barrel". It simply means that it was cheaper for Apple to pay them to go away than to pay their attorneys to defend the case. Even when Apple won, the attorney and court fees could have easily added up to more than paying them a small amount of money. For all we know, Apple just refunded the cost of the laptops and some small "I'm sorry for the confusion" fee.
Companies do this all the time. Even if you know you have an ironclad case you could win, if it's going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so makes no sense when all the other side was asking for was something less.
All references to "millions of colors" on the iMac page at Apple.com are gone.
Nice find!