>>Thats why we see sex #D games on the iPhone

That's supposed to read 'sexy 3D games on the iPhone'.

RIM pisses me off as a software developer because the run-time interpreted Java makes the Blackberry about 100x times slower then code you can write for Win Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, old Palm OS, etc. OF course that 100x number isn't scientific at all - it totally depends on what you are doing. But generally speaking it is super-ass slow compared to the other guy even when using the same class of CPU. Thats why we see sex #D games on the iPhone (and there is some equally cool shit out there for other platforms) along with real emulators for came systems, etc BUT you never see this for Blackberry (the few attempts at 3D gaming on the Blackberry are a joke)

So how does RIM get around this performance limitation to do thing that need performance (like the upcoming OpenGL ES and Flash)? They cheat: they don't write their code using the same java API as you and me. They've had a long history of not only accessing internal APIs for their own software - but of playing favorites with brands so that multi-billion dollar companies get a special access (i'm not talking about their various Alliance program stuff - none of that gives access to internal APIs). Thats why (for example) the Facebook app was able to put icons on the homescreen when that feature was not available through the public APIs.

In this case it will be worse: OpenGL and flash wont just use internal Java APIs: they will need to compiled to native code, something that Blackberry doesn't allow others to do. If I want to roll my own h264 decoder on say - the old Palm OS) - i can do that and compile it to native code and the performance is quite reasonable (see TCPMP for an example of somebody doing just that). And that on 5 year old hardware. On the latest greatest Blackberry, i can only play video because of the hardware and firmware support - i could NEVER write my own decoder because performance would be beyond laughable using there Java API. But if my name was Adobe, then apparently i could.

great to see this stuff coming to RIM - but its all a 'work-around'; this magic comes only through backdoor access and if you want to try to do something innovative that require the same level of performance, you are shit out of luck.

Fuck you RIM.

(BTW: I use a Blackberry Bold as my daily device and my company still write software for Blackberries)

@Richard

if america more improve education, then their young people don't had to suffer lack of english speak all days

You just think she looks 15 because just hasn't put on another 75+ pounds yet like a typical American woman. She's probably 25...

In defense of the PSPgo: its smaller and it got rid of the moving parts (UMD) - those are good things in a portable unit (always thought the idea of an optical disc drive in a pocket size device just doesn't seem right in terms of durability or battery suckage).
I don't think its failure is caused by the lack of UMD as the article suggests. The problem is that this thing should have been CHEAPER than the PSP 3000 - not $50 MORE expensive. Bring it out at $169 and I think people would have had a lot less to complain about. Still has its shortcomings - but at that price they are easier to justify and it becomes a better option than the PSP3000 for a lot more people.

Thankfully smartphones dodged Moores law years ago. 5 and 6 year-old PDAs and smartphones did 400MHz and that number has crept up very slowly since then.

The iPhone and iPhone 3G have a 620MHz processor that is underclocked to 412MHz.
The iPhone 3GS (and everybody raves about it being speedy) is 833MHz underclocked to 600MHz. That right - Apple's super fast premium iPhone is chugging a long at a 'mere' 600MHz.

C'mon Engadget - 1GHz in a phone at the expense of batterylife is just stupid. As if you guys have a clue about what sort of difference it would make....

If I can run Duke Nukem 3D at a great framerate on my 6 year old Palm Tungten T3 (pushing the same 320 x 480 pixels as the iPhone does today btw) without any graphics hardware (GPU) support, I think 768MHz is just fuckin fine on a phone with some level of onboard GPU capabilities (I assume they have something dedicated there). As for the overhead of a more modern OS, I see a lot of sophisticated 3D games running just fine on thoise pokey 412MHz iPhone 3Gs, and similarly spec'd Win Mob and Android devices.

And lets face it - 3D gaming is probably the most taxing applications for phones. There is the general responives nees of the UI itself - but if THATS a problem @ 768 MHz than there is a much bigger issue at work than the CPU clocking.

Jesus - that was MUCH bigger post than I intended. Sorry!

Here's my problem with this from the perspective of long-term marketshare for companies like SE:
I think this looks awesome - but to me it adds to the ongoing clutter of competing UIs / OSs / brands and in the end, the overall lack of focus brought to the table by the Android ecosystem makes it very difficult for any of these manufacturers to compete with the likes of Apple. Will the average consumer think of this as anything but an exotic but complex beast that - like all of the similar complicated devices / UIs / OSs offered by other manufactures (not just Android but Win Mobile, etc) - isn't easily understandable in terms of how to use it as a phone AND media device the same way that the iPhone can be understood? Say what you will about Apple and the iPhone (I'm not personally a fan) but it is super easy to get. Its a simple slab that looks nice, easy to use (everybody in the world with a TV has seen that grid of icons on the phones screen) and knows that it works with iTunes (which they also get because they have used it for years now). All of that is wrapped up in that clean little Apple logo.
Android is awesomeness and these devices will certainly appeal to the geek crowd. But all of these manufacturers are probably not just looking to slice that small pie (the geek market) into 50 tiny, tiny slices - they are hoping to compete for a share of the mainstream consumer market and they wont keep at it if they are only getting a marginal piece of it.

Its SO obvious that I cant believe that these companies don't at least understand that - in addition to competing with each other - they need to pull together with a unified Android branding / marketing campaign and spend at least as much money as Apple on a clear, ongoing, VERY expensive TV / print / web based advertising blitz to match Apple. A marketing blitz with a CLEAR message. Anything else guarantees failure or at least total marginalization for these companies.

All of this is just the tip of the problem: its worse when you throw in Windows Mobile (amazingly bad at competing with Apple in this space themselves - their marketing people should be fired, period, for making Win Mob nothing more than a murky complex entity in the eyes of the public - the public that even knows what Windows Mobile is), various Linux up-and-comers offering interesting products that don't stand a chance, Nokia OS experiments in tablet / smartphones, webOS (which at least has the right idea in terms of marketing and device focus - unfortunately they don't have the cash to really come out swinging too hard and for too long with both R&D and marketing - we'll see though). And there are hundreds of other 'cool' fringe device / mobile environments that don't stand a snowballs chance in hell of making it beyond the next 2 years (amazing that they bother given absolutely NO understanding of the required marketing). Add all of these together and its no wonder that Steve Jobs always wears that annoyingly smug smile on his face. He's probably thinking 'fantastic SE! bring more, MORE devices running something new to the table. Everybody please: more OSs, more devices with only a trickle of marketing!' and laughs himself to sleep.

I know that Google obviously has deep pockets and that Android will keep going and growing because of this - so buying one of these phones is a safe bet from a user point-of-view - no worry there. But I cant help scratch my head wondering why companies like SE, Motorola, etc don't understand what they have to do to compete with Apple. No surprise though - Sony let Apple walk right in and take the portable media playback market right out of its hands (i know we're talking SE here not Sony - but same thing in terms of their mistake). So what do they do? Keep on with the same old strategy that has failed them before: bring 100 completely different overlapping devices to market every year and expect consumers to go out of their way to get what they are about, with a murky half-hearted marketing effort behind each product. I mean, just look at all of these god damned phones in their current line-up: http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones?cc=us&lc=en . Not one of my relatives could name a single model if their life was on the line.

Dumb.

@hexydes
"The infrastructure isn't there? You can get any, ANY, movie in HD from the piracy community."

Yes and - news flash! - you could get movies in 1996 over your dial-up connection, but it took forever and thus DVDs didn't become obsolete. As you said - movies download in 12 hours up to 30 minutes (30 minutes being the extremely rare case) over average broadband. What about when I want to watch a movie NOW and I can walk around the corner rent a BluRay disc and start watching within 10 minutes?
Nobody here is suggesting that downloading HD movies over a period of hours (realistically they average at least several hours) is possible competition for BluRay - the only argument is whether STREAMING can compete (since most consumers aren't going to check-in every ten minutes to see where the download progress bar is).
Right now the market of people streaming HD content is very, very small - and the infrastructure WILL kack if half as many people tried to stream HD content as currently view content via DVD or BD. The QOS simply cannot be provided to all the media providers - isn't enough bandwidth to go around. Hell, 80% of the time I attempt to stream 'HD' content like trailers, etc (and that's not real HD - most of its supposed to be < 1MBs) over my supposed 6MBs connection it buffers for 40 seconds , then plays for 30 seconds, then buffers, etc. Don't believe me? Why do you think the service providers already shape traffic in North America to limit bandwidth to your torrent downloads? Because they are greedy - sure. And all the torrent downloading is small potato geek usage compared to the bandwidth needed for everybody (including your grandmother) to stream solid HD videos whenever they feel like it. Now when fiber rolls out to everybody (or to most) that will change things. In the meantime - enjoy your torrent downloads (I do the same...) but don't be surprised if Sony and others aren't worried about BluRay sales evaporating for at least the next 3 years - it will actually continue to grow in that time.

People - listen up
A number of posts here say that there is prior art. But many here seem to be missing that this is about syncing playback state (among other things...yes). So if I pause the video on my phone, then when i get to my PC I start to watch the video and it automatically remembers where I left off on my phone and starts from that point in the video.

Now that seems like a shit patent to me because there is nothing to it beyond that obvious. Just a basic concept that combines existing concepts and it would have been done by a thousand other companies anyways (if it hasn't already been done). But such is the sorry, sorry, state of the patent system that they may very well have a lock on this for centuries to come (or whatever the damned limit is)

Question: can somebody post explicit examples of prior art for this concept? not just syncing media file (distributing or managing cross device DRM or blah blah) but synchronizing playback state across devices. Be explicit.

Just trying to get a coherent understanding on this point....