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odbol_ commented on Microsoft Has Stopped Manufacturing The Kinect   fastcodesign.com/90147868... · Posted by u/tlarkworthy
dalfonso · 8 years ago
One thing that hasn't been mentioned: Kinect was Microsoft's reaction to Wii's success.

I worked at Microsoft when the first Kinect came out. I spoke with a few members of that team (non-engineers). My question was very clear -- are you expecting this to takeover for controller based gaming? I don't recall all the responses, but I think the overall sentiment was along the lines of "No, but it might", whereas my thoughts were along the lines of it absolutely will not, this is such a gimmick. I'm not a gamer at all, but I used to be in college. When I want to game, I plop down on my couch and mash on the controller. If I wanted to jump around and flail my arms, I'd go to the gym or play some pickup basketball.

I think there was (maybe is) a disconnect between Microsoft and hardcore gamers. Kinect and Xbox One's initial non-gaming features were an attempt to take Xbox "mainstream". Stop it. Appeal to the core demographic. To their credit, it seems like they've been doing that now.

odbol_ · 8 years ago
Oddly enough, both Wii and Kinect were very successful outside their official gaming applications, because people were able to hack their protocols and use them in ways the manufacturers never intended.

I remember buying a Wii just for the gesture control capabilities. I wrote a whole VJ performance app based on Wii gestures, so you could crossfade video and scrub through animations (the video equivalent of a DJ scratching records), just by waving your hands around. I toured with that thing for years... it was so essential to my performance that I stashed a few candles in my bag, so I could use them for IR tracking in case the sensor bar stopped working.

I then bought a Kinect and used it in a couple performances, projecting 3d mapped effects on to the band onstage. Even with VR/AR tech now: it starts with games but then gets co-opted into art and music. Open, hackable hardware is so important for society.

odbol_ commented on New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary   m.sfgate.com/business/net... · Posted by u/ssaxena80
le-mark · 8 years ago
Interesting read, thanks. How does one go from "senior engineer" to "architect"? Any tips?
odbol_ · 8 years ago
Well the first step is to design some architectures for large systems. Poof, you're an architect.
odbol_ commented on Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in age bias   facebook.com/notes/kent-b... · Posted by u/KentBeck
odbol_ · 8 years ago
I've been rejected from jobs because I was over-qualified. Then I got accepted to one, which turned out later that I was over-qualified for that one too. I did get bored, I felt like the job wasn't a good match for my skills, and I went looking for a new job.

So the concern is indeed very real and can cause unneeded churn for a company.

odbol_ commented on Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing   dslrbodies.com/newsviews/... · Posted by u/ValentineC
odbol_ · 8 years ago
> camera with Bluetooth

Enjoy your Blueborne security vulnerabilities. Because I'm sure you'll easily get a firmware update from Nikon from your 5 year old camera.

Also, since Apple breaks Bluetooth in pretty much every iOS release, something tells me you're not going to have fun trying to use your iPhone with your camera. Especially since cameras are designed to last decades, not a 2 year max like phones.

odbol_ commented on Giving you more characters   blog.twitter.com/official... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
freyir · 8 years ago
They found out that Japanese Twitter users don’t run up against the character limit, and are less frustrated as a result. The point is to make everybody else less frustrated, not to make the Japanese as frustrated as everybody else.
odbol_ · 8 years ago
Found the UX designer in this sea of clueless engineers
odbol_ commented on Giving you more characters   blog.twitter.com/official... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
odbol_ · 8 years ago
It's weird that their justification is that other languages can fit more words in than you can in English. But then they increase the character count.

Wouldn't it make more sense to switch to a word limit, instead of a character limit?

odbol_ commented on iPhone X   apple.com/iPhone-x... · Posted by u/interconnector
dfcowell · 8 years ago
...and charge it how? If it's in active use recording there's a decent chance it would be nice to charge and record at the same time.
odbol_ · 8 years ago
Ditto. It's imperative to be able to charge while you're playing, since music apps along with the screen being on all the time really eats the battery quickly.
odbol_ commented on iPhone X   apple.com/iPhone-x... · Posted by u/interconnector
ksk · 8 years ago
The iPhone was never a good choice to produce professional music anyway. An OS running garbage collected apps, running on a hardware platform that suffers from thermal throttling is a bad combination to begin with.

>They're gutting a huge market.

How big is this market of people using iphones to produce music?

odbol_ · 8 years ago
Have you ever even used a music app on an iPhone? They do not suffer from performance issues, even with several running at the same time. And Objective-C is not even garbage collected; it's reference counted, so I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

Having attended and played hundreds of rock shows throughout the world, I've seen many musicians use iPads as synthesizers, loopers, effects pedals, and DAW recording studios. I and all of my professional musician friends use it in performances for both audio and visuals. The audio latency and MIDI support of iOS is legendary among musicians, and is why they dominate the musical app market compared to Android with its unusable 20-300ms audio latency.

odbol_ commented on iPhone X   apple.com/iPhone-x... · Posted by u/interconnector
saagarjha · 8 years ago
No, the text stays in the center portion only. The guidelines say that content covers the screen in landscape unless it’s text, in which case it’s inset.
odbol_ · 8 years ago
So those stupid share icons on the side of news sites are going to be completely inaccessible?
odbol_ commented on iPhone X   apple.com/iPhone-x... · Posted by u/interconnector
ksk · 8 years ago
In the abstract, not having wires is clearly better in almost all situations - the only catch being, it doesn't take away features that wired tech have (lower latency, higher reliability/bandwidth, etc). Hopefully Apple's decision will spur some innovation in wireless charging/battery tech for headphones. Sometimes even if the decision is dumb, given the existing state of tech, it forces the industry to change, because of the market pressure that Apple exerts.
odbol_ · 8 years ago
Except for musicians, who need a latency-free audio path that won't degrade depending on distance or saturation of the wireless spectrum. Given the amount of music apps in Apple's ecosystem, I'm pretty surprised they removed the one jack that made their device compatible with literally every musical instrument and mixing board out there. They're gutting a huge market.

u/odbol_

KarmaCake day467October 1, 2015View Original