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I, Cringely On A Momentous Week
rocketjam writes "Robert X. Cringley offers his take on three recent high-tech occurrences, saying they add up to an 'inflection point' that will change the landscape of the personal computer, video game, and electronic entertainment businesses forever. He briefly points out that Bill Gates' revelation that the next-gen XBox will offer music and movie playing capabilities as well as web-surfing will put MS into direct competition with its hardware OEM customers. He also touches on Yahoo's new music service and Apple's rumored movie download service. The meat of the article though is his take on the significance of Google's Web Accelerator. He says, 'If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it', the upshot of which is that AOL, MSN and Earthlink lose their relevancy. From this point more speculation on the implications of Google's success in this endeavor ensues."
The computer world is changing? OMFG!!
Cringely is somewhat more reliable than Dvorak...
but we still need the "pundit deduction" in force here.
I do wonder about the xBox 360 though... can you say, "PC?"
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I work at Microsoft as do several of my friends. A couple work on the XBOX 360 and told me something over beer that really struck me as great marketting. Microsoft has purposely designed this box to be easy to break and mod-chip. The reason? Sales. They can go to game design houses and say "We sold X million units. You should design for us." and they will. Very much as in how they don't care much about the home pirate as they know it gives them mindshare.
I'm not breaking an NDA here as I'm not actually on the dev team.
Too bad google's product is so poor, otherwise ... no... wait...
Poor product... will render AOL meaningless...
Google On Line?
*runs for the hills*
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
will put MS into direct competition with its hardware OEM customers.
And, once Microsoft begins to gradually dominate that market, their positions might become similar to that of a Wal-Mart supplier. Their business models will change as they begin to provide manufacturing services for Microsoft.
Do you like German cars?
Can we please stop this crap cliche phrasing?! I know it works for the computer-not-so-literate, but stop this "We will blow your mind for $2.50" and just advertise real-life broadband connections.
But I guess I am just a fool.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
...so you compare a Xbox360 directly to an Apple computer? Sure, they have the PowerPC CPU in common...
'If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it',
And if Google gave away free money, of course nearly everyone will go for it. But Google aren't giving away free money, and they have no hope of simply doubling the speed of surfing just with software.
the upshot of which is that AOL, MSN and Earthlink lose their relevancy.
Or they could... what's that word? Oh yeah, compete.
ASOTV, it's been a good ride, but all good things must come to an end. Cringley used you as his source of insider info in this article. This would normally mean that you are in trouble, but you have been so blithe about revealing company strategy (and philosophy, and personal opinion of SJ, etc) that you are clearly not worried about job security. I wonder why? Who at Apple is not worried about job security? I do not think you are Steve Jobs. In any case, some big eyes are now turned in your direction, and you should probably be more tight-lipped. But thanks for some great posts!
" I would say this is really just MORE proof that Apple has been ripping people off for years by putting out underpowered computers to save a few bucks and then jacking up the price."
Erm. Couple of things:
1.) Microsoft is almost definitely losing money on these units. That would be a dumb business move for Apple.
2.) It's not clear, today, whether or not those processors could do the general computing jobs they'd need to on desktop machines. I'm going to be honest, I don't know much about this. I just remember reading in another thread about how the XBOX 360 processors likely have several things trimmed out of them. (Note: If anybody can correct me, it'd be mucho appreciated.)
I'm not a huge fan of Apple's prices, but I really don't think you can draw those conclusions based on the data you have.
"Derp de derp."
We all know that their software is already commensurate with Wal-Mart's quality, but I dread the day when their hardware is as well.
"Welcome to Micro-Mart, the only computer and gaming store you need."
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Yeah, and we all know that, just like the XBox 360, Apple's profit strategy also relies pretty much entirely on licensed software sales, 20 million identical units, decreased mass production costs over a 5-year product cycle, and... oh, wait.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
I swear, each time he comes out with a new article about a given toy that does "XYZ" or can be hacked in some way I am compelled to go out and buy one and tinker with the damn thing.
Stop Robert! Stop for the sake of my pocketbook and my sanity!!!
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
XBOX != PC
XBOX == Crappy PC.
got your goat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
the computer landscape is changing. get with the program.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Just remember there are many PowerPC processors and cores that IBM makes. This is a "custom" fabbed chip for Microsoft with a (3) VMX unit(s) attached. This is not a Power4, Power5, or 970/FX/GX or like chips. Also, has pricing for XBox live has not been announced, but $300USD seems right.
But it sure would be nice to have >3GHz G5's or dual cores....or dual/dual...or ...
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
He only got one thing wrong.. it's not "Microsoft kicks the dog", it's "Microsoft kicks the bucket" (or am I guilty of wishful thinking?)
People buy from us because they DON'T want to have to deal with companies like Dell, HP, Compaq and the like. They also have a love hate relationship with Microsoft. They hate the company, but they also love having a computer. They already know the shoddy software microsoft puts out.
Personally, this just reinforces my opinions of late of the complete end of sales with Microsoft products. If a "partner" decides to go into direct competition, then they cease to be a valid partner. Linux is gaining mindshare and market share. Windows has become the product every wants to get rid of but is afraid they can't.
Hence forth a new business model for any OEM is to offer Linux training and products. Free of charge or very low cost. Let's show MS that they can't piss on the army of people who help put them where they are by even supporting their crap. If it wasn't for places like mine all over the US, how would MS get their stuff repaired? You know full well they won't work with someone over the phone to resolve issues. That will just take more value away from their products. And of course the huge OEMs answer is always "use the restore CD" and fail to mention that data will be lost.
"xBox 360 will perform many functions that currently require a home computer. Not only will xBox 360 play video games, it will play music and movies, surf the web and probably even offer a non-PC platform for voice-over-IP."
So what? Apart from the last point, I have been doing all that on my XBox 1 for about 2 years now. And it's not locked down by M$
The new Xbox definitely looks awesome, and I am sure that it will greatly increase Microsoft's competitiveness in that field.
Yes, google's Web accelerator surely will decrease the bonus to Earthlink, MSN, and AOL - but as reported before - it still has it's problems. I'm hopeful they'll fix any problems and get it more widespread attention!
In theory, by caching web sites on their servers, it could also alleviate the slashdot effect! (If we all used it)
"Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write it should be hard to understand."
On top of GWA having MASSIVE security/privacy issues.. .. Mr. Cringely has been "slapped".. for the Register reports the end (for good?) of GWA downloads..
and no, it's not because they have reached their control limit for beta testing.. before you assholes rip me an asshole for not pointing that out..
Regards..
Actually they have more in common than that. Xbox 360 software currently runs on Power Mac G5s.
Well, it is already clear that they are NOT PowerPC cores. The hardware specifications state that they are BASED on PowerPC, so you can't assume identical clock-for-clock performance. Most likely the hardware in the XBOX360 will be much more powerful than anything below high-end Macs (that will be 2x2.7 at that time, if I'm correct) Somehow it doesn't really matter, because Apple buyers generally aren't going to care if their computer takes 5" more to convert an MP3. Playing games is another area (not a strong Apple point, traditionally)
Also, do note that this thing has the cooling capacity to match: vacuum sealed water cooling (not sure of the exact details, though).
P.
``What message does this send to Microsoft's hardware OEM customers that make home computers? What is Microsoft saying to Dell, HP, Gateway, and others?''
The same thing they've been saying to the rest of us for years. It rhymes with "duck foo".
MS has always done this in the software space. They work with other vendors to do the stuff they don't, woo them, make all sorts of promises, then one day announce their own version and let those vendors try to survive on eating their product they can't sell. Just ask WordPerfect, Lotus, or the folk making TCP/IP stacks for DOS and Windows in the early to mid 1990s.
Why would it be any different in hardware?
This guy is talking nonsense, even if you don't include the "turning point" BS.
If you haven't read the article he suggests that Microsoft is trying to enter the Personal Computer buesiness. Obviously, this guy doesn't get it.
Although it might not last for long, there is still a distinction between the PC market and the console market. Microsoft probably wants in the long run that consoles will become PCs (That would explain the XBOX's HD). Ofcourse as soon as those consoles become PCs they will be running Windows, and that's Microsoft's reason for getting to the console market. If they just let other company's (i.e Sony) lead the console market, Microsof's vision of Windows-running consoles might not happen.
Microsoft does not want to compete in PC manufacturing, a market it has no experience and no leverage in, just for the heck of it, especialy when they have zero chance of dominating it.
First, using a "web accelerator" will NOT speed up your computer and turn it into a Thin Client. It will make things get to your computer faster, but if you don't have the juice to render it, it's still a no go.
Second, it is technically impossible for Google to pre-render Flash and pass it on to you. Flash isn't "server-side" -- it's done by your computer, which needs to be fat enough to run it.
Third, Yahoo's music service is priced well, but they're still misleading. They say "1 million songs" for $6.99/month, but that's to have them streamed to you, not downloaded. You can only download a handfull of tracks per month. Booo!
Fourth, why didn't Cringley (or anyone for that matter) ask if/when Google will try to buy Yahoo?
Lastly, no mention of Flickr? I think Google messed up when they let that puppy slip through their fingers and be purchased by Yahoo. Picasa? Puh-lease-a.
geeks are cats who dig a certain kind of cool
It's an expression made popular in Silicon Valley years ago by Andy Grove of Intel: "inflection point." It's that abrupt elbow in a graph of growth or decline when the new technology or paradigm truly kicks in, and suddenly there is no going back.
Man, I really wish that Cringely, as a supposed pundit to the geek masses, would not contribute to distorting into sensationalist manager-ese technobabble a phrase that already has a precise mathematical meaning.
First, it's a multi-core 3.2GHz PowerPC based cell controller not a PowerPC CPU in the classical sense. Sony also has abandoned the CPU design in favor of multi-cell design for PS3. Second, the later something is designed, the newer it's components can be. Third, it's may not be up to Apple. Apple has always been at the mercy of its suppliers. Motorola could not provide enough G4 chips for the PowerMac a few years ago. Hence, they dumped Motorola when they decided to develop the G5. When IBM comes out with a 3GHz PowerPC CPU that Apple can use and Apple doesn't use it, then you might have a point.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
At that point, you'll buy your PC from Google, use Google as your ISP, surf an Internet that is really the Google cache,
(A) Right about here the DOJ decides to take action...
be fed ads and sold content from Google servers. Its a GoogleWorld that requires no AOL, no Microsoft, no Intel, no HP or Dell -- only Google, cable companies, telephone companies, users, and of course advertisers and web page producers.
Doubtful because of (A).
It's surprising to me that he didn't mention the comment of the week; that from Gates about mobile phone making iPods obsolete. It was an important observation, since it is already happening. My phone serves as an MP3 player already. While it doesn't have the capacity of the iPod (yet), who cares... It has an antenna, has considerably more functionality, and I Always-Have-It-With-Me(TM)
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
The new Xbox has several processors, 512MB RAM, a good graphics card, a hard drive, HD video quality, network connectivity, and is supposedly easily moddable. Eventually someone is going to get Windows or Linux to run on this and run WELL. When that happens, you'll be able to buy a highly capable PC for $300. An interesting side effect of this, is that Microsoft has to sell these things at a loss, in order to remain competitive to Sony and Nintendo. Therefore, this might be bad for their profits.
I vote for Week of Fluff.
But then, I never was good at Calculus, and it looks like Cringely isn't either.
xBox360 - boring, waiting for PS3 or GameCube2.
Google cache - no real effect if you live on Gigabit Internet like all the colleges and universities do. IN fact, it's SLOWER.
We'll look back on today and ask "Wow, who would have ever thought the EU nominee for the WTO would have done that!", not "Google and Gates and Gumdrops, oh my!".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Apple uses G5s. The XBox PPC cores are PPEs which are much simpler and not terribly appropriate for general computing use
So...you could say you sent him a confirmation e-male? *rim shot*
Seeing as it doesn't have an x86 CPU in it, it won't natively run any Windows x86 PC software. They may implement some lame emulator. So at best it would be a thin client which has some merit as a replacement for a PC, as long as all you want is games, web browsing and email.
So.
Cringely is impressed that Google is offering a web accelerator service, something AOL has done for years; that the XBox will play music and video, something the playstations 1 and 2 did, respectively; that Yahoo is unveiling a service almost identical to the Napster service that appeared in the wake of the iTunes Music Store; and that Apple may, at some unspecified point in the future be releasing a product.
Well, that's all well and good. But I think the really important thing for the tech market is, will Gore or Bush win the election? Because Cringely doesn't weigh in on that at all.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Well, thanks for that pointless reply.
The xbox 360 processor is most definitely a PPC chip, it just isn't as fast a 970. With a comparable video card, a dual 2.7ghz PowerMac will destroy the 360.
The 360 is using stripped down PPC cores. The nightmare for developers is having to hand tune code to make up for all the missing out of order execution logic found in normal desktop chips like the 970 series. I pity the developers who are working on xbox360 projects.
By the time the 360 hits the shelves later this year PowerMac will put it to shame. And forget about being competitive with the PS3 and Revolution early next year.
Apple wouldn't use the chip in the Xbox 360 if IBM was giving them away for free.
Microsoft isn't using these chips because they want to. They are stuck with the hot and un-competitive x86 chips and not having the technology and expertise to create something competitive with Cell.
So it looks like they just took whatever IBM had sitting around for cheap...MS management isn't exactly pleased with the 3.5 billion they wasted last time.
To be honest, even with "just" a 512Kbps ADSL link, I'm not entirely sure I'd notice if you *halved* the speed of my surfing...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Here, he seems to have missed the fact that Google Accelerator has already failed and is being withdrawn. The world is not going to redesign their web pages so that GETs have no side effect.
A couple of weeks ago, he waved his hands and explained that airline scheduling is just like network scheduling and you can speed up the net by eliminating the hubs and running traffic directly from one host to another. Then he waved his hands again and said that hubs are servers.
Last December after the tsunami, he told us how to build a warning system that could be deployed by putting a networked PC "on every populated beach a month from now." Never mind that third-world populated beaches usually don't have electricity, much less an internet connection.
Last July he designed a scheme to compress video for broadcast by encoding only what the retina was focusing on. But it would work only if every person receiving the broadcast always pointed their retinas to the same place as everyone else.
Cringely is at his best when describing a funky experiment that he's actually done, like when he was one of the first to put a WiFi antenna in a Pringles can. But his blue-sky predictions just don't fly anymore.
Now that the internet appliance TeeVee in the form of XBOX is 'real' I notice a huge gap in programming. Where doth da gap be you puzzle under microcephalic like, belt be too tight possum lving in your ass needs a bath, proletariat shrunken head mind glue?
Why it's the living art, unobtrusive but being there electronic hearth, good feelng warm images oF the one and true real TeeVee.
Face it doodzettes and doodees. Half the homes you enter have more TeeVees living in them than peeps and at least one of these TeeVees is always ON.
Rather than the bane blather of broadcast, the cookbooked product placed heartstring plucking doctor saves the one blue eye, one socket sporting a ball bearing, androgynous, smooth all over, wearing ladies shoes, choked to death on a piece of cheese at the Swiss picnic, if it weren't for saide doctor, baby down the well, buy this $hit FOOL, of cable, the pablum like world history and science targeted at precocious five years olds, why;s that teletubby got a 19" gun and is that a possun peaking out of his ass while he rides the wright flyer to the center of the earth, 'educational TeevEE'. yOU COULD PROseeD to ProDeuce something mindcalming becauz in the endo that'a all TeeVee used foranyway, opium for the souless monkey brains soup worls of middle managemant empty suits wife won't fuck, kids won't stop, bring me another PBR robo-dog, fucking volvo's on the blink again since that damn whettedback yardman got caught in the fanbelt while trying to cook the pussycat and munch a raw onion at the same time, welll lgot caught in the fanbelt and jammed the propellor.
No.
People do not want entertAINment from TeeVee. The want calm, a warm place ot congeal and congregate sans holy water and stale bickies.
Real TeeVee will bring them that. 1000 channels of the outsidew world thay loathe to experience out of fear and prejudice, yet endelessly disect for blame and recourse with their likemnded progressive for all be me for I'm a manager, arts and letters, french literature degree and che can;'t order a fucking cold beer without the real frogs swallowig their galoise and shitting their britcvhes, not that you;d notice the odor...
Set up 1000 camera's all over the world. Put one n a tijuana whore house, one in the popes loo, one at the greyhound stattion in Jersey city, one overlooking the drunken abbos sleeping it off in Darwin city center park, one looking out a sheeps arse, one aimed at a new york times paper box to display the front page and via a mirror the faces of all grabbing a paper.
Deliverthis $hit by way of IP to the XBX and it's teated 77inch FPD and people will PAY. It;s cheaper to produce than any of the crap on TeeVee nowexcept maybe the crashing waves splashing waterfall stuff on the bible thumping sations that fill in while preacher jo grabs a blow. But, it's much more diverse and interesting.
LIke the ipod gumstick suffle, randomly switch between these cameras with some weithing toward or away from those with motion action(subscriber selectable).
Hell, folks would pay $50/month for this stuff. Hell what's $50 when you can afford an xbx and a 77'FPDTV.
Anyone widhing to discuss the details of this idea...I have a producer with 10 years experience lined up. He's already run tthe ROI numbers. We just need some partnerz with some fucking JACK to get this show on the road.
Imagine, 24 hours of turds and condoms floating down down the river, LIVE! On YOUR TeeVEE
Which is it?
'If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it', the upshot of which is that AOL, MSN and Earthlink lose their relevancy.
Er, maybe not. For a start, the GWA doesn't "double" surfing speed. Second, with current bandwidth, I doubt most people would notice or care much about "double" text-loading speeds (GWA doesn't get that sort of compression on images, MP3s, etc, obviously). Third, it's not complex technology. People have been developing (and using) this crap for ages. It's not as if Google have cracked cheap, in-your-house nuclear fusion.
Load Time for 2668 Pages
Without Google Web Accelerator: 1.9 hrs
With Google Web Accelerator: 1.5 hrs
that is for a european user with a pIV 2.4 and 1 gig ram on a 3mbit dsl line.
i case you're asking yourself "how are the numbers calculated": Performance statistics are estimated by testing a percentage of requested pages.
IAAL
Not to mention that these things don't actually exist yet.
I have discussed some of the conclusions in Cringley's article on my blog (http://tech.rufy.com/entry/51) to surprising results. I never knew there were so many people reading my blog that were pro-microsoft.
and move to power pc 1)Viral load makes windows support a nightmare eventually no one wants to pickup the tab for this. Moving to ppc will render all current virii inviable. Xbox n will also have low mareket share so this also helps with viral epidemiology 2)The clones might move to linux therefore it is a game of chicken 3) Dell Hp etc make a huge amount of money out of MS with out MS, Dell etc would still be tinkering in there garages. MS never lets anyone get money they could be getting 4) Soon there may only be dell left in the PC business. This would put MS in a very uncomfortable area especially if then dell abandons the PC business and goes into printers or tv's. We could easily see a situation where no one makes money out of wintel hardware any more and therefore no wants to sell it. 5) Apple has demonstrated the benefits of makeing the whole box in terms of speed and flexibility of design. MS needs to communicate with too many people before making changes this slows it down 6)Too much legacy crap it needs a new slate In summary windows is dying, long horn may never come. The beast needs to be feed and there is a big market segment that MS needs to be into. That is consumer applicances
It's a proxy server with server-side compression. Plain and simple. That's all it does. One of my former ISP's was doing this years ago, and it wasn't that great.
i cs2
http://webaccelerator.google.com/support.html#bas
Revolutionary, it is not.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
If Google adds power to its part of the Accelerator, you don't have to add power to your end, meaning your old PC can last longer. Part of that has to come from Google assuming a larger role over time, taking responsibility for rendering Flash, for example. And they'll do it.
wtf is this guy talking about? How is google going to render my flash? what a dumbass.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Though if I were the "MS" AC, I'd want that order in writing.
Tech Public Policy stuff
comes from the broadcast mindset. "We are in control, you will consume."
...
You want a revolution the likes of which will blow away the $ figures of the early dot bomb era?
Increase the frigging upload speeds.
With 5mbit up, 'distributed distribution' becomes practical. Everyone will be able to relay multiple channels and a cornucopia of virtual of virtual networks will evolve.
You want your friggin inflection Cringer? It's the congruence of cheap, quality, direct to video recording coupled with inexpensive editing tools. It's TV by and for the masses.
Right now there's a smattering of porn and music swapping going on but the friggin upstream bandwidth limitations have a stranglehold on the emergence of distributed video networks. Imagine when you can make a 'film' of something that interests you, distribute it for FREE(well for $50/month) to those who would are interested. It's the WWW all over again but in video!
I am working on an novel approach to making the offerings easy to find, in the transition, but in the end, when bidirectional high speed access is available, the TIVO model will work best. A sort of AI that looks for stuff that's liek what you like.
No, everyone won't become an author, director, or producer, but the stuff will have a route to viewers.
MPAA and those who control distribution are fear this day like the fucking plague. That's why we are seeing consolidation of IP traffic control with those who wish to control distribution, Namely the cable companies and the telcos. They are of the broadcast mindset. An acto of congress would change the whole paradigm of video distribution but it would not put these A$$holes out of business. They just don't see it. Hell, the slick, LCD based, vdeo will always hold the largest audience. But, it will have to be a hell of a lot better than it is now, to compete with what could be...
Don;t tell me it's a technological problem, I KNOW how DOCSIS 2 works and the costs involved. The problem is FEAR of losing control on behalf of
Well I already said that.
Googles cache? Well if they can handle the bandwidth, they are on the right track, and I agree with Mr Cringle. Otherwise, it's just so much fluff and IMO there is no way they can generate the return to pay for it in a few to many network.
1. Cringley reads Slashdot for industry inside-information. It's the end of an era.
2. Microsoft is finally playing someone else's game. The surprise is that it's Apple, like always. Colour me astonished.
3. Google accelerator. So noone is bothered by privacy concerns about an Internet-sized cache? Never saw that coming.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
Cringley touches on some good points. However his analysis of Google accelerator is seriously lacking in imgaination.
There is a really, really, really, really good reason for Google to go through this "Heroic" effort. In fact, it is almost sickeningly self serving. Googles accelerator will allow them to capture the click stream of every participating user. That is, google will know where you are going, what you are reading, and how long you are reading it for. That is, they will have an entire stream of data to more accurately return search results and target ads. This will also help their page rank system be more "accurate".
This isn't a technology play as Cringely supposes - IBM's not doing this becuase umm, wait they don't do that sort of thing - MS isn't doing it becuase they don't really have a need for the data. Google is "catching" up to companies like double click and poindexter at the moment. Their plan will ultimately give them way more data than any other ad server out there. Online advertising is about data, the more data you have about a user, the larger a profile they can build about you. In google's case they can make their targeted ad offerings far more relevent which will equal $$$.
If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it
Bandwidth providers often offer "unlimited" bandwidth, but the price they charge is based on the average bandwidth used by everyone. If many people start using software which prefetches pages, the average bandwidth usage will increase and so will the amount charged.
It's the same deal with SPAM: sure, you only get a few extra messages, but multiply this by everyone and it does add something to the cost of your service.
How about real web pages which consist of non-bloated HTML and a few graphics where necessary?
Its interesting to note that google has disabled more people from using their new service. They state on their site http://webaccelerator.google.com/ that they have reached maximum capacity.
My UID is prime is yours?
One problem that any search engine has is getting URLs.
How do you index URLs? Simple: you start someplace and spider out from there.
What if people are going directly to unlinked, or unindexable pages?
Well heck, you stick something in the way so you see everyplace they go.
Simple. GWA is just a way for Google to get a lead on the "dark web," just like the google toolbar. From your point of view, it speeds stuff up somewhat. That's it!
Don't know why anyone would be surprised. This move was forseen when the original Xbox was in the works.
that's inside information, and the boilerplate phrase everybody uses is that it all stays inside.
but that's OK, we have two competing channels here, and let the best one win.
that will be the one with iTunes and links to Pixar trailers and 32-inch screens that you can drown in....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"We have a point of infraction!" I don't think this week will turn out to be all that important. The game/music/movie console has existed for quite a while: it's called my PC. And Google releases something that looks really, really important/cool about every two weeks; most just slide into obscurity within a couple of days. The Web Accelerator may last a little longer than others, but I doubt it'll make as big of a difference as, say, Gmail did.
I hate the one hundred and twenty character limit for signatures with an all-enveloping, all-destroying, incredible pass
I am, in fact, male
He said he was too
So we have that in common
Good Haiku. You are gifted, but I still don't understand - he "was", you "are". So could you elaborate on that thing you guys still have in common?
"the significance of Google's Web Accelerator"
now take some time to think about it:
* you look for things on google
* you have a virtual HD on gmail
* you have encyclopedics amounts of info with wikipedia/google
* and now you surf via google with web accelerator
your hole online life depends on google. there's no web out there anymore, just google's take on it...
this kinda begins to smell...
I don't feel like it...
The hd is removable. The hackers can have one hard drive for their modded xbox, and one hard drive for their LIVE play.
Good question. For the love of God, everyone, it is Cringely. The continued misspelling of the guy's name (props for the correct headline, editors) is a bizarre phenomenon in the tech-writing world.
Your friends like to pull your leg a lot. According to my sources, which are probably closer than yours to the truth, expect the Xbox 360 to be much, much harder to break. Or to run some other OS on.
And your "reasons" are just full of it. No developer or publishers wants to develop a title that will be highly pirated. Installed base yes. Cracked base, no. And yes, they care a lot.
Has Cringely even read the released information about the XBox 360? It will stream video and audio FROM A PC! How exactly is this competing with PC manufacturers? To get the most out of the system you will need a PC running ... wait for it ... Windows Media Center! What MS seems to be saying is that the future of the home PC (as far as they are concerned) is tied up with Media Center. The XBox 360 is an extension of a PC system, not a replacement.
"MORE proof that Apple has been ripping people off for years"
And second, I think Apple probably spends out a random dollar or two on a slick little thing called an OPERATING SYSTEM? You know the one called OS X that comes bundled in the box with every G4/G5 - preinstalled even!
Like ASOTV said - "it just works". That doesn't come dirt cheap anywhere, in any kind of product.
Yeah, they've jacked up the price alright, to match WinXP on Dell. Whoopee!
One of the interesting things though is that xbox 360 has PowerPC chips in it. The thing will also have a home multimedia center future. So probably there will be a Windows Mediacenter Edition for PowerPC/Xbox.
Is Microsoft going to do what Apple has never wanted because it will destroy the Mac-Market? Maybe there will be PowerPC(Mac)-clones popping up in the next few years, which will run MS-Windows. Small step to have it also run on original Macs and destroy Apple's market share.
Maybe a x86 OSX wasn't such a stupid idea as Apple always thought.
>3.2GHz PowerPC based cell controller
You have no clue, don't you?
Ok, YOU try writing a column each and every week. Sometimes you may have very little hard info to draw from. Sometimes your speculation may be a bit off kilter. Give the poor guy a break.
http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/myblogs/archives/05-0 1-2005_05-31-2005.html#6321 on my blog.... never mind cringely...
-- ted russ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/mydynes/ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/myblogs/
5-7-5, not 5-5-7. Ahem.
(And should refer to nature, otherwise it's just a senryu.)
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
...pissed on Dvorak with a greased yoda doll up his ass. Fuck them, they're both goddamn irrelevent blowhards.
Shame on me - of course it should be 5-7-5. But it is definitely related to man's natural world. Let's fix the obvious part a little:
I am, in fact, male
So we have that in common -
He said he was too
I think it's even better now.
What is it with people using "inflection point" when they mean "turning point?"
The inflection point in a growth curve is where the growth goes flat and starts to slow down.