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I, Cringely On A Momentous Week

Posted by Zonk on from the warping-space-and-time dept.

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."

6 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Gasp! by Meagermanx · · Score: 5, Funny

    The computer world is changing? OMFG!!

  2. Re:ooOO by Stanistani · · Score: 4, Funny

    so...
    That makes the Xbox 360 a girly-box?
    Me confused.

    --
    You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
  3. Re:As Seen On TV is in trouble.... by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 4, Funny

    In fact, Bob and I exchanged e-mails briefly just a few hours ago. I was happy to confirm for him that I am, in fact, male.

    He said he was too.

    So we have that in common.

  4. Re:More on XBOX 360. by Rorschach1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, the 'install modchip here' silkscreen on the motherboard was a dead giveaway.

  5. His powers of prognostication astound by mcc · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

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    Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
  6. Re:As Seen On TV is in trouble.... by Hawthorne01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now we have a Slashdot article about a tech writer who referenced a Slashdot post who wrote to the writer and mentioned it in the comments in the comments of the Slashdot article about a tech writer who referenced a Slashdot poster who...

    --CTRL - BREAK --

    Phew. Got out of that one... :-)

    --
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."