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What is going to happen in 2015

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Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#71

Post by dgallagher »

Morphling wrote: post #38
rjurney wrote: post #14

Having tried an Oculus Rift generation 3, where the tracking is PERFECT and the resolution is adequate, I think VR will do better in 2015 than he suggests.

At first Oculus seemed like a cool idea, but you can really only play "simulator" games with it, games where you sit in a vehicle otherwise it ruins the VR feel and you might as well just play on a monitor. Only other thing I've seen was some sort of sculpting thing, but I'd imagine the novelty would wear out there pretty fast. More I think about whole VR thing the less I think it will actually be a thing. I'm sure w…

http://www.twitch.tv/gyratory/b/601749359

That's an early VR demo of TxK, being ported from PS Vita, which is a Tempest remake (fast paced twitch shooter). I haven't played it myself, but those who have say great things about it. An example of a non-simulator game. What's remarkable is Jeff (one of the dev's) doesn't have the ability to see stereoscopic vision.

Most of TxK is played facing towards a web without lots of head turning. Certain games like this will benefit simply by being in 3D, along with VR's total-immersion effect.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#72

Post by seanmcdirmid »

npalli wrote: post #9
andyl wrote: post #3

Fred predicts Chinese companies will make a big entrance to the US market in 2015. At the same time, China restricts US companies in their markets (Gmail blocking being the latest example) Why do we (in America) allow this asymmetry? Is it a mistake to give Chinese companies an open door?

General Motors makes 58% of its entire profit in the Chinese Car market. Ford makes 18% of its profit from China. So clearly, US gains by trade in cars. This is clearly one example. The broader point is that a whole lot of US companies make money in China. http://www.wsj.com/articles/detroits-road-through-china-narr...

But don't that have to split those with their JVs, or is that their actual non divided take? (Forgive me, WSJ is blocked by the GFW)

The US has a decent case against China if they want to go to the WTO, but I guess they've decided for now at least, it's not worth it.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#73

Post by chipsy »

Spearchucker wrote: post #39
_up wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Blockchain is a distributed consensus system or some think of it as a decentralized asset managing system. That also can do currencies like Bitcoin. So this is more about new ideas that also use the Blockchain. For Example: Crowdfunding, DNS or TLS/SSL Certificates alternatives could be implemented and managed over the Blockchain.

" ...could be implemented and managed... " That they could. Anything could. The question I don't have a convincing answer to is why would they use the Blockchain?

There's a very simplistic "in principle" reason to consider the blockchain. It can store information symmetrically - i.e. once you have access to it you have complete ability to search it and reuse the data, and it can't be "lost" like data you've stored on a server or a hard drive - it only goes down if the whole network does. This maximizes information availability and reduces the middleman problem to "who provides hardware and bandwidth" and "what ui is available for accessing the blockchain."

Although bitcoin makes the blockchain look capitalist, its underlying tendencies are like that of the internet at large - self organizing infrastructure for information.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#74

Post by natrius »

Spearchucker wrote: post #39
_up wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Blockchain is a distributed consensus system or some think of it as a decentralized asset managing system. That also can do currencies like Bitcoin. So this is more about new ideas that also use the Blockchain. For Example: Crowdfunding, DNS or TLS/SSL Certificates alternatives could be implemented and managed over the Blockchain.

" ...could be implemented and managed... " That they could. Anything could. The question I don't have a convincing answer to is why would they use the Blockchain?

Blockchains allow people to enter into agreements that don't require enforcement. They're enforced by the programs that generate and validate the blockchain. Eliminating the need to enforce agreements will make them easier to enter into. Blockchains make it easier for people to work together.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#75

Post by williamcotton »

Spearchucker wrote: post #68
_up wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the general idea is, why should we put trust in one entity/person, when we could distribute the "trust" to all users.

I think we can agree that distributed is better for the consumer than centralized (privacy and availability), but given that the Blockchain is not the only way to achieve a distributed architecture, I'm interested in why I would use the Blockchain when I can achieve similar results with an arguably simpler solution.

It's the only decentralized system that can guarantee availability. Data stored in Freenet, BitTorrent and the rest is ephemeral.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#76

Post by bbcbasic »

jorgecastillo wrote: post #24

I more or less agree with everything except this points: >2/ Xiaomi will spend some of the $1.1bn they just raised coming to the US. This will bring a strong player in the non-google android sector into the US market and legitimize a “third mobile OS” in the western world. The good news for developers is developing for non-google android is not much different than developing for google android. The "third mobile OS"…

Firstly Bitcoin is a fantastic experiment.

It has created a new way to send money across the world with very small fees. This may not be such a big deal for Americans, but in some countries being able to send money to/from abroad when they can't access a bank account or Paypal account is a big big thing.

It does have it's weaknesses though. The first is that you need a good knowledge of security to successfully manage your own bitcoin stored offline. For example how intuitive is it that spending from the same address twice is a potential security hole? Or that your RNG isn't good enough.

Otherwise you store it online, but that has a lot of risk as we have seen with so many successful attacks in myriad different ways.

The other problem is no one really trades in units of Bitcoin. The value of something is in a fiat currency e.g. USD which then needs to be converted to Bitcoin, and so when your Bitcoin crashes to 50% of what it was worth yesterday, it becomes high risk just to hold it. It has no intrinsic worth.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#77

Post by rmason »

jorgecastillo wrote: post #24

I more or less agree with everything except this points: >2/ Xiaomi will spend some of the $1.1bn they just raised coming to the US. This will bring a strong player in the non-google android sector into the US market and legitimize a “third mobile OS” in the western world. The good news for developers is developing for non-google android is not much different than developing for google android. The "third mobile OS"…

What I want to see is Xiaomi's Macbook AIR clone with 16 gb RAM and a 15 inch screen for $480. It's rumored to run Linux and though the pictures leaked last week are fakes company sources say its still in the works for 2015

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#79

Post by ghaff »

gaius wrote: post #61
ghaff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, if people won't look after their own data, I'm unlikely to be too sad when they lose it. I'm going to disagree with you on that. This piece that John Gruber wrote after the celebrity iCloud account hack is spot on IMO: http://daringfireball.net/2014/09/security_tradeoffs "Over the years I’ve received numerous emails from past and former Genius Bar support staff, telling similar stories of heartbreak. Custom…

I like a deal where you pay a fee and get a service. The "free" stuff can vanish on a whim.

While paying for a service gives one more confidence and, if it's a large company, I'd be surprised if they just shut things down overnight, you don't really have meaningful recourse if they just go belly up or just make a really bad IT mistake. Ideally, use multiple storage locations--private and hosted.

With respect to the parent comment about Kodak, they actually transferred things to Shutterfly and photos supposedly did not just go away: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/05/business/la-fi-tech-... This also wasn't really a "free" service as it was supposedly a feature you got with the camera.

Re: What is going to happen in 2015

#80

Post by ghaff »

gaius wrote: post #16
api wrote: post #6

The "death of the file" is a really mixed bag. The replacement is walled gardens with no privacy, control and perhaps even ownership of your data, questionable security, and the potential that your data could vanish if one is acquires or goes under.

I have a friend who had a Kodak camera that, you plugged it into your PC and it uploaded straight to Kodak's photo hosting (this was before we called such things "cloud storage"). If you wanted your own copies of your own photos you would need to go onto said site and right-click download them one at a time. One day Kodak decided they weren't going to run this site anymore, and just deleted the whole lot. She was hea…

BTW, supposedly all Kodak Gallery photos are now on Shutterfly although this transfer happened quite a while ago: http://www.shutterfly.com/kodakgallery/
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