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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.
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?
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."
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!
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.
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.
I thought about this too and I really think he meant "kick the dog".
It is a really funny ending to the piece though.
It is intended to sum up rather pointless, reaction-getting behaviour. I think.
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.
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.
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
Indeed.
... in fact, I just saw a Dreamcast Web Browser CD in a flea market the other day. Anyone ever use that?
One of the more prized members of my collection is a CompuMate. It's a keyboard that plugs into an Atari 2600, making the machine into a computer with a usable BASIC.
For over 20 years, every damn console has tried to say, "Look, it's also a computer!" And every single time, it's an utter flop. No one will use a console to do what a computer does, because the console invariably is a substandard personal computer.
Seriously, how many times have we seen this? The CompuMate, the Intellivision Computer Adaptor, the Coleco Adam, the FamiCom, the Sega Channel
No gaming console will ever threaten personal computers in any area except gaming (and even that's arguable). I don't know that I've ever seen a single business lesson which has been so forcibly resisted by one generation of companies after another.
The Internet is full. Go away.
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.
'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.
GWA compresses such content, which reduces the size up to 75% It compresses text and HTML by up to 75%. Unfortunately, MP3, GIF, MPEG, and JPEG are already compressed, so it can't compress them at all! Since HTML is already usually pretty small compared to audio and video, I don't really see how GWA helps much, unless you only surf to text-only sites! Yes, prefetching should help -- especially if your latency is large.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I think that might start changing as consoles start supporting HD, as XBox360 does. I can't bear to look at email etc. on my 27" Trinitron, but a 45 inch Sharp Aquos at 1920x1080 might be a different story.
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
Thanks Anonymous Coward, I am glad you reminded me.
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?"
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 $$$.
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!
The hd is removable. The hackers can have one hard drive for their modded xbox, and one hard drive for their LIVE play.
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.
Um, I kind of share your sentiment, but look at Cisco... If you like, we're not surfing the web, but passing through the Cisco cyberway. No problem so far...
I think, therefore I am...I think.