RobertB-DC's Journal: Ghost Article: Ogg Vorbis Gaining Industry Support

Ghosts of Slashdot: 02/06/2007
[Wow, it's been a ghost-free new year up until now. Kinda dead, you know. (groan) But here's one, though it may come back from the dead -- I suspect it got pushed from the front page in favor of the news of the DNS Root Server attack. The DNS story is also posted by "kdawson" who, oddly, doesn't have a link for his/her name -- perhaps it's this one? :) ]

Ogg Vorbis Gaining Industry Support
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the chicken-or-the-ogg dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"While Ogg Vorbis format has not gained much adoption in music sales and portable players, it is not an unsupported format in the industry. Toy manufacturers (e.g. speaking dolls), voice warning systems, and reactive audio devices exploit Ogg Vorbis for its good quality at small bit-rates. As a sign of this, VLSI Solution Oy has just announced VS1000, the first 16 bits DSP device for playing Ogg Vorbis on low-power and high-volume products. Earlier Ogg Vorbis chips use 32 bits for decoding, which consumes more energy than a 16-bit device does. See the Xiph wiki page for a list of Ogg Vorbis chips."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

One for two

[kdawson]

> I suspect it got pushed from the front page in favor of the news of the
> DNS Root Server attack

Correct -- but the ghost was merely scheduled for later, not banished beyond the pale.

> who, oddly, doesn't have a link for his/her name -- perhaps it's this one?

Nope, not me.

Re:

[RobertB-DC]

Thanks for the reply! The coolest thing about being a subscriber is getting to peek behind the curtain and see what's going on behind the scenes. Complaining about dupes and NYT links is the fashionable thing to do, but I think the reality is much more interesting.

Of course, it wouldn't be Slashdot without the obligatory "expert" opinion, given by someone (like me) with no knowledge in the field. Just today, in response to someone on a Dallas architecture [dallasmetropolis.com] message board calling the transit agency engineer