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CNET is reporting that Lexus has created a working Hoverboard.
The Japanese car maker released a short promotional video of what it's calling a "real, rideable hoverboard" to its YouTube channel on Tuesday, ever so briefly showing off the prototype to the world.
The clip begins with several seconds of a skateboarder riding along who then stops and slowly walks over to a Lexus-branded hoverboard that would make Marty McFly jealous. Of course, the clip ends right as the rider's about to step onto the hoverboard, so we don't actually see the craft in action, but it's a promising first step from an unexpected source.
...
We'll learn more about the company's plans for the prototype on October 21, the day Marty McFly, Jennifer Parker and Doc Brown went back to the future in the second installment of the film. Maybe Lexus will have some drone dog-walkers to show off as well.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @03:54PM
This is what a simple web page with a video looks like today:
[...]
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="../../common/images/favicon.ico">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../common/css/common.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../common/css/common-sp.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../common/css/reset.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../common/css/base.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../common/css/basicstyle.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="common/css/slide.css">
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/modernizr-2.6.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/jquery-1.9.0.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/jquery.easing.1.3.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/geoPosition.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/s_webbeacon.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/sc_click.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/card.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/ua.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/plugins.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/const.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/analyzer.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/swfobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/Command.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/media-sp.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../../common/js/responsive.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../common/js/sharer.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="./common/js/youTubeVideoPlayer.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="./common/js/mobileYouTubePlayer.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="./common/js/sequencePlayer.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../common/js/respond.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../common/js/jquery.hoverIntent.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../common/js/mediaelement.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../common/js/circular-progress.min.js"></script>
[...]
And that's just in the head of the page. More than 30 requests to the server before the body starts. The complete page also loads from more than ten external servers.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday June 26 2015, @04:01PM
It's a good argument but don't link CSS like it's a bad thing : ) I'd rather have these resources as external and cache-able than all inline. Maybe you like all your C++ in one file rather than spread out into different classes and files?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @04:25PM
The 30 some requests for CSS and script files are just the start. There are images to load, of course. The page makes 132 requests to its home server before it even gets to the external servers. Anyway, I don't really know what to say to someone who doesn't have an immediate shock reaction to that list of scripts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tibman on Friday June 26 2015, @05:06PM
Probably because i understand the reason for putting separate functionality in separate files. I would agree that excessively heavy javascript sites suck ass though.
What that site could do to appease you is "compile" the js. That would remove all comments, whitespace, and rename functions and variables to be smaller. Then concatenate all the files together into one giant file. Then the html needs to only make one request for js. The downside of doing such a thing is debugging the live site becomes practically impossible to follow.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:31PM
No, not at all. What the site would have to do is get rid of most of these files. It's a page with one video for its main content. You don't need thousands of lines of Javascript code to do that. Actually you can do that with no scripts at all. Web sites are documents, not programs. The hundreds of requests for a single page are merely a side effect, as is the fact that the authors of that page didn't bother to properly compress their PNG files, etc., which can be made completely automatic. It's just carelessness: "Oh, we need this thing to do something when the mouse is near it. Load JQuery."
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday June 26 2015, @06:17PM
I promise you there are thousands of lines somewhere to render that video. Whether in your browser, a browser plugin, your OS, or javascript.. it is there. But i do agree that people get stupid with making websites interactive using js. Instead of using the title attribute for tooltips they use JS to create a stylized tooltip. Most extra javascript is for style : /
I think we/they will find fewer reasons to use libraries like jquery in the coming years.
I do disagree that websites are only supposed to be documents though. Even static HTML is like a program. The source code is a document. The rendered page is like a program. The page resizes and modifies itself depending on screen size and available features. It may change the font size smaller for headers and remove some images completely for devices with very small screens (phones). Clicking a link brings you to another page but for a user you are actively interacting with the same site. Javascript is moving some server side functions onto the client side to make a better client experience. You don't have to post a form back to the server and refresh the entire page to just find out you forgot to put in your password. That is a very good thing. However it should also degrade gracefully enough that someone without JS could still post the entire page to discover they forgot to enter their password : )
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @07:01PM
Of course is there code to render that video, but you don't need Javascript in a web page to show a video. Even when Flash was the primary way of embedding video in a web site, you didn't technically need Javascript to do it. I know that there is a need to work around browser bugs and find the methods available to show video, so Javascript is useful, but the Javascript that is used doesn't participate in rendering the video at all. In the end its primary job is to create a VIDEO element and let the browser do the rest. Would you be shocked to know that the video file which plays on that web page is only about twice as big as the Javascript code dedicated to making the browser play it? That's almost a megabyte of minified Javascript doing the job of a simple VIDEO element.
I don't want to go into a discussion about the declarative nature of web pages, because I think you missed the point. Even if a web page uses Javascript to "improve the client experience", web authors shouldn't think of it as a program. It is first and foremost an interactive page, not a program user interface. There are web sites which are the latter, but a page that shows you a video isn't a program.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday June 26 2015, @07:12PM
I agree with you : )
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