Consumer Electronics Show 2002 Report

An anonymous reader writes "I've noticed that Target PC posted their report on this year's Consumer Eletronics Show in Las Vegas. Looks like 2002 will be the year of wireless networking and recordable DVD. In the same article they cover Samsung's upcoming portable computer based on the StrongARM 206MHz processor that will be available in 2Q." Many wireless products (including 802.11a), huge LCD displays, and more -- I hope people who were at the show can comment on the things missed in this report, or in The Washington Posts's report.

Comments

Re:Apple at the forefront...

[ocelotbob]

Well, of course, the Wireless solutions in this show are the 802.11a adapters, instead of the slower 802.11b adapters found in the mac. Of course, you've also neglected to realize that Macs live in the niche markets. PCs usually don't get items such as DVD burning until they're reasonably priced - few people were going to buy a DVD burner when blank DVDs were $30 a piece.

Though I must ask you, when's apple going to start putting some real video cards, like the GF3 or the Radeon 8500 in their boxes (or spheres or whatever shape they want to make them this year)?

Thats pretty funny, if just wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, well, the crack... err, Mac addicts are out and about today I see.

Here is an interesting test we did here at State Farm in the Advanced Technology Test Center at corporate south. We test just about EVERYTHING, and do it comprehensively and competitively with real world users. (remeber that we are one of the largest IT buyers of software and hardware in the US, and have a very large IT/IS infrastructure with multiple network types and standards in use as well as desktop solutions).

We set up a Mac running OS X, a PC running XP Pro, and the same type of PC running Linux RedHat. The only apps installed and used were Nutscrap and Star Office (latest builds).

They were connected on a 10/100 network (Bay Networks router) to a NT domain server.

We ran them 5 days a week for 2 months. Test results were, well... enlightening.

The Linux Box locked on average of 1 time a day. Users were confused by the OS but generally picked it up after a week or so. Most locks were related to hardware drivers for the NIC as well as some compile issues in advanced features of Star Office.

The WinXP box crashed twice in 8 weeks. Once for the infamous Infinite Loop BSOD (NVIDIA card), once for a spam site that launched over two dozen "pop ups" which was Nutscraps fault.

The Mac had an up time of less than 3 weeks total. First the HD failed. Replacement HD worked fine, reloaded, but OS crashed in Nutscrap every hour or so. Star Office locked the computer up on average of every 15 minutes in use. Video driver updates and a reload did not help. HD thrashed uncontrollably when on graphics intense websites. Five seperate browser based java applications crashed the machine, once resulting in the need for yet another reload. The mouse had to be replaced, as did eventually the PS fan... thats in 8 measley weeks.

The Mac rep couldn't offer up an explaination. She did disclose that there were some quality issues with the latest cases and PS, but nothing to "worry about". We concluded that the OS was pure crap and that the PS was at fault for quite a few problems as well.

Network monitoring tools on the bridge indicated that the Linux box performed best, followed closely by XP (especially with QoS uninstalled)... the Mac was flat awfull, with trash traffic and dropped packets left and right.

I am so tired of this whole debate... there isn't really anything to debate. Crap OS (any number, they all suck), awful interface, slow hardware that is overly expensive, and a significant lack of functional applications with mainstream functionality and compliance really cripple the MAC. They are still only in existence because small to medium education and print institutions are stuck in the Mac IT cycle and can't afford to break out. It's a PC for those non-conformist hippies... thank god natural selection is slowly eeking you out of the world population, just like MAC is slowly sliding from the IT scene.

I would rather be stuck with a quirky Linux based PC box or a overpriced MS powered box anyday.

Mark Weiser on "Ubiquitous Computing"

[SimHacker]

Here is a link to some messages from 1991-1992 between Mark Weiser and myself, which I posted to slashdot earlier, in the thread about Xerox's patent infringement case against Graffiti.

We were discussing user interface design for handheld computers, handwriting input and pie menus.

It feels great to have finally put pie menus into ConnectedTV on handheld Palm computers, after just talking about it for 10 years.

They're called "Finger Pies", because using the penis not necessary!

-Don