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Money = Free Speech – You have it, or you Don’t

Money = Free Speech – You have it, or you don’t.

That is a pretty simple statement, You get it, or you don’t. It is reality on the ground if we are talking about political fund raising or internet inequality with the lack of “Net Neutrality” rules.

All of the Money Equals Free Speech issues of today are just a new form of a 3/5ths vote.

Please read this Wikipedia of the 3/5ths Vote AKA The Three Fifths Compromise

When when the nation was founded, only a white male property owner could vote. And later even need to pay taxes to vote (poll tax). We have come a long way from that but if you really look between the lines, a trend seems to suggest using new methods, the rich white male may soon have all the power again. Or are we there now? A dangerous trend if it continues.

Here is some voting history.

Perhaps they will institute a new form of a literacy test to keep the poor from voting. It seems they have set the stage by inadequate school funding. I can’t see the voter I.D. law working for them forever. Something new will need to be done to suppress that vote because there are so many new poor folks and you can’t buffalo them forever.

I fear that this trend will continue because people are either unaware or passive about it or both.

A force unopposed will always move forward.

I think the title of this post frames the issue in simple terms anyone can understand. Please feel free to repeat it often.

Money = Free Speech – You have it, or you Don’t

Credit Cards due for upgrade – 5 years late

Yes, we are more than 5 years behind technology when it comes to credit cards security. The magnetic stripe cards we use here are not even used in the third world anymore.

Why now for the U.S.

I guess it is because it can now be more costly to do nothing and have the full faith of your name sent to oblivion than to invest in the current technology.

It’s all been about profits (and less jobs).

It reminds me of how out of control no regulation and De-regulation can be to it’s citizenry. Does anyone have a clue to how many lives have been destroyed by a lack of attention to this problem.

Only thanks to the high cost of fixing themselves after the fact do they react. But it must be said they are not making changes with the consumer in mind. It is obvious that they could care less for the consumer the last 5 years.

It’s a wonder that they could not fix that years ago when they were changing folks 29 – 34% interest rate on balances. Profits up and costs held down and no jobs created.

It will take the industry a good year and a half to do this long awaited upgrade. By then the hackers will be ready for the new tech. Feel any safer ?

There should be minor security upgrades to the system every 3 years. Don’t hold your breath for that to happen.

I do wonder if this kind of thing is going on in the pharmaceuticals industry and if so how many folks must die before action. Same with Food.

Why are we so behind the rest of the world in so many areas?

Cell phone service and carrier choices are the lowest in any industrialized country. Of course I would blame that lower level of service on not having any choices. Same with the fact we pay more for that lower level service than anyone else. I’m just waiting for someone to blame that on the high minimum wage.

FCC takes a new stab at side stepping Net Neutrality

My comments here may be a bit premature but I don’t think so. Watching carefully crafted statements with intention words that are misleading. Hey, I have been watching Congressional committees do it for many years.

So the Wall Street Journal has the early clue of wording that could be dangerous for those that support Net Neutrality:

“FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is expected to reveal the new proposal as early as Monday, the Journal reported. The rules revision is an apparent attempt to quell concern that broadband providers will be allowed to degrade traffic speeds to some sites while allowing other sites to strike deals that assure preferential delivery of their web content to customers.”

The highlighted bold print above is key to how this will be worded.

And no, nobody would “degrade traffic” under any circumstance, it just won’t be upgraded. So this trick set of words could allow ISP’s to keep the same level of service for everyone while improving the speeds of a few that are willing to pay for that speed. Nobody will be DEGRADED. But don’t expect those speeds to increase as fast as those that are paying for it.

So, the change in wording does not change a thing unless you just want to believe that. And if you do, keep in mind how hard it will be to change that to what it should read in the first place.

If I am wrong, then why don’t we just have a Net Neutrality Rule now because the trick writing is sure to destroy any future for such a concept.

Not Your Fathers Virtual Reality

Back in the 90’s, we had a promise of Virtual Reality that had everyone talking…

“It’s going to be so great” and the terms “CYBER everything” were born.

Well it was not so great because nobody ever delivered the goods. And what was delivered was cheesy, expensive and cumbersome and in no way delivered “CYBER anything”.

The key word here for VR is “IMMERSION”. You have it or you don’t. Those devices did not have it. Immersion is something you can not really describe other than to say, you no longer have your senses tuned to what is really around you but what is presented instead. Full immersion is something you must experience once to understand the concept. So most you hear about VR in the media is very hard to understand. You simply can not understand why this immersion is so captivating.

Now:

Meet Palmer Luckey who was not part of the virtual reality craze of the 90’s set on a quest to find out what was keeping this from being delivered to the masses. He bought every piece of VR gear he could get his hands on to find out why it did not work and what parts of it worked and why.

Now you have the chance to make something work from the best of everything else. One problem is the cost of building anything “NEW” would be quite expensive. But technology has come a long way since the early days of VR and many parts could now be found mass produced in the correct size for a VR Headset by the cell phone industry.

They contain a nice wide screen display (turned sideways) that can allow for a stereoscopic image (one for each eye) for the 3D effects. They also contain a compass, gps and accelerometer to know how and where the device is and how it is oriented. This gives you a method for positional control for your Virtual World Display. Very important. Turn your head, the image turns in real time to reflect that. So what you are seeing, appears naturally real to your brain.

This is a story of another garage inventor or hacker/maker in the likes of Apple, HP, Tom Edison and you get the picture in your imagination anyway.

The end result is a Virtual Reality System that WORKS and a cost that could be obtained by the masses !

How Big of a deal is this…

Very Very Big ! More on that Later…

The 20 something Mr. Luckey has been on a fast track to success. Palmer takes the duct taped version of his VR Headset to a trade show and quickly got attention.

This lead to a KickStarter.Com campaign in a effort to raise $250,000 to build some prototypes for the supporters. He quickly raises 3 million dollars in a very short period of time. $30 million shortly thereafter. This shows there is a public demand for such a device and it must be huge as still not many float the KickStarter projects (that has changed now).

Meet John Carmac, The inventor of 3D in the gaming world as we now know it, also has had a quest for VR as it is used in the software that creates the effect. He is best known for several games he created like DOOM and QUAKE that revolutionized gaming forever with it’s 3D perspectives.

Mr. Carmac starts to support the works of Palmer Luckey and eventually becomes his Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He knows that young Mr. Luckey has done it, but still needs some refinements for faster display times.

Meet OCULUS VR !

Palmer Luckey has a passion to do it right. This is perfectly understandable. If you look at it from a point in history that VR disappeared once because of claims that could not be for-filled. So inching ever so cautiously, to not release a consumer version until it is right is a priority for him and the team at Oculus VR.

Meanwhile…

For a great VR Goggle, you need to be able to do things with it.

Oculus VR releases DK-1 (development kit 1) for anyone to start to develop “stuff” for it.

Somewhere close to 70,000 DK-1’s were sold to developers.

Did you think I should have used the term “games” instead of stuff ?

This is the “BIG DEAL” about VR this time around.

Why This is a Big Deal Today…

Since the kickstarter campaign, I have been following Palmer Luckey, John Carmac and Oculus. But more important, I have been following what those development kits have been yielding behind the scenes. And I am sure there are many things folks have done with them that we have yet to hear from. If you have a great idea, you might not want to share it till the device is out and you can sell direct to market at that time.

Everyone from the U.S. and Norwegian military, NASA, Film Makers, 3D Architects, Web Developers, Doctors, Car Manufactures to Web Porn have made effective use of this tech.

And you thought is was all about gaming. It is a new platform for almost all existing media and many kinds of new media.

Outside of really terrific 3D Virtual Gaming, these are some of the things you are going to see pop-up within the first year of release of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift.

I invite you to use your Internet Browser to search these terms to find out more…

1) VR Chatrooms (probably Facebooks “first” interest)

2) VR Films – You can be in the film like never before (IMAX looking into this)

3) VR Sports and Live events

4) Live VR 360 degree spherical webcams in nature or at landmarks

5) VR Virtual Tours for travel guides

6) Virtual Doctor/Surgical assistance from anywhere in the world

7) VR visualization of your new house. See if the architect did a proper job

8) Omni-view of products on the web before purchase

9) Porn addicts dream – I don’t need to say more about that. If you know one, they are likely to disappear for a while after getting a taste of this VR

10) Did I mention it make a great gaming device ?

What else… Who Knows… There are many working on things we have not yet herd of. It goes without saying this VR tech is not going away this time or anytime soon.

The hold-up for the consumer version is said to be the production of new OLED displays they intend to use has not went live yet. Oculus continues to improve the consumer version while they wait for it to go into production.

By the time the Consumer version of the Oculus Rift is released in late 2014 to early 2015, the term VR will be in the news as a daily event as folks are developing pretty fast thanks to the release of the development kits ahead of a consumer release.

I don’t blame the skepticism because most of us that were around for the first wave of VR that never come to be. But those skeptics have never tried one of these VR Goggles. Even with the low res slower early DK-1, I have not seen anyone try one and be a skeptic afterwards. Now imagine the Consumer release and subsequent releases that will be higher res and much faster as video display tech manufactures get on board for better results.

The current plans for the consumer version are to have it compatible with smartphones and the PC. Sony and Microsoft will need to develop their own for their game consoles as they are to far behind with the built-in video tech in their systems for the Oculus Rift. Generating the need for a new console almost immediately or to be left behind in the dust.

It will soon to be a competitive market as Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Vuzix and half a dozen others are improving there existing patents and products to be comparable to the RIFT as the Rift creates a new standard in VR for other to follow or try to beat. There is no doubt that the team at Oculus will lead the way and is no surprise that Facebook had a interest.

As I see it, Oculus VR is Facebook’s most valuable asset. They got it on the cheap. Things come and go in social media but VR is here to stay and the team at OCULUS are genuine innovators we have yet to see their full potential.

Looking to invest in the action…

I am not any kind of financial adviser but I make a good tech adviser…

You need to be ahead of the curve.

Invest in good human sensory technology that works with these kinds of systems. The ultimate goal in VR is to have total positional sensory of the user to create the “HOLODECK” experience. You must have arms and legs in your virtual world for that to happen. So sensing where the users arms and legs are is the first step to providing them to the developers who need them.

M.Mays 5/6/2014

Apple – Back To The Future

-Apple-

Putting An End To Corporate Tax-Dodgers

This is a simple post and gets to the hart of the matter quickly and directly.

Pfizer wants to buy a British Drug maker Astrazeneca and and become a British company to avoid US taxes.

This would not be unlike many that have done the same thing in the last decade for tax reasons as the only motivation.

Want to end the onslaught of more taxes for you by the tax-dodgers ?

Foreign entities should not be able to lobby congress !

– Free Speech (money) Limitations Apply.

They can not be a citizen even under the current Supreme Court weird interpretation of Corporation’s being the same a living breathing human beings that can die in a war for the right of that corporation to exists… but to lobby Congress ? ? ? Not when they denounce that citizenship to avoid taxes.

It did not say “WE THE CORPORATIONS” now did it…

Start with that before you change the tax code !

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