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Bill Gates Swears Vow Against 'Son of iPod'
Future Linux-Guru writes "The LA Times is running an article on Microsoft's efforts to preempt any single manufacturer from dominating the online video market. Among the scarier revelations is the development of AACS, a new already approved security system designed to prevent piracy on HD DVDs, which subjects users to forced upgrades." From the article: "Whichever way it shakes out, Gates vows not to play the victim in 'Son of iPod.' After learning a hard lesson in the digital music business, 'we're really having to work more closely with partners in the hardware industry and content industry, to really think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better,' Gates said. 'That's where we've done our mea culpa. We are fixing that.'"
So, what's the son of iPod going to be called?
e-Sus?
http://lixlpixel.org/bill_gates_on_macs/
Microsoft's efforts to preempt any single manufacturer from dominating the online video market.
I think he means "any OTHER single manufacturer". I'm sure Microsoft will be just find and dandy if THEY were the single dominating online video provider.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
because everyday it seems the "customer" isnt the person who buys the product
Not parse this sentence does.
I expect that ultimately customers will decide that DRM and related tech will fail. There will always be new companies and new products that can break into a market that is underperforming for people's needs and wants. Particularly in the age of blogging, this type of breakthrough is getting easier: access to publicity is much much lower. The big companies like MSFT etc. all are probably quite afraid of this... and therefore trying to come up with anti-competitive schemes. Some of these schemes are technology based, some feature based, and some legislative. Only the legislative schemes should be feared. All the others can be fairly easily defeated by consumers. As for the legislated schemes of protection, even those can be circumvented by sufficiently interesting innovation. The problem there is keeping ahead of the legislative encroachment. In the software world, open source is a great way to do this. Hardware-wise it's a bit more difficult.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
obviously bill gates doesn't know that "mea culpa" translates to "my fault" and thus the sentence "we did our mea culpa" is wrong. tztztz
See pictures of tits
AACS - R.I.P.
*2005
+2005
Is the son of an iPod an iPea?
Microsoft Taking a stand against monopolys
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Parsons later directed Time Warner to join with Microsoft in buying a combined majority stake in ContentGuard, which holds patents on anti-copying techniques
;-)
I'd love to see 'em take someone to court for copying their anti-copying techniques
"we're really having to work more closely with partners in the hardware industry and content industry, to really think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better"
work more closely -> control
think thorugh the whole experience -> control
make it better -> abuse our vertical dominant position
\u262D = \u5350
Essentially what you have is a collection of the biggest egos in the world trying to collaborate on a single project which will affect the entire movie industry as well as the customers who buy those movies. And the studios in question not only have a history of fighting each other tooth and nail, but of going head-to-head with Microsoft whenever they get the chance.
Conspiracies between megalomaniacs rarely end well.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Well all the current state of DRM on DVD did for the movie industry is allow them to force you to watch a bunch of bullshit trailers for other movies before you can watch the one you purchased. Every time.
The Microtunes store: 30 pieces of silver per track.
What about single company dominating OS market ?
As much as the entertainment industry loves DRM, there is one thing they love a lot more: Name recognition.
Apple's portable music player is tried and true, loved by everyone who can afford it. It's so popular that you need to buy replacement earplugs just so you don't get robbed because of the demand.
Is the industry really willing to risk their future in portable media for DRM when they can have guaranteed success through iPod Movie? I doubt it.
It's paradoxical, actually -- not ironic.
Cute. Hope that works out for you. Guess what system I won't be buying.
What exactly is the problem with all of these supposedly highly-intelligent but obviously completely brain-dead (not to say stupid) CEOs? If you put annoying copy protection stuff on your media or try to force people to do any other sort of crap like that, they will simply take their money to the black market. This is the lesson of online music. You will not have total control over the media, because the people with the money will not accept that. End of story.
The only CEO on the planet who seems to understand this is Steve Jobs. Yes, iTunes has various limits, but they are so wide that 95 per cent of the people don't give a damn because they never encounter them: If I want to share music with my kid sister, I can. So what if I can't share it with 200,000 other people on the Internet? This, not any clever usability stuff, is why iTunes has 80 per cent of the market. Just why is this so hard to understand? Is it something that happens to your perception of reality once you earn more than a million dollars a year?
Oh sorry, I meant a million dollars a month, of course. Though Gates at least gives billions to charity.
Anyway, this looks like another great idea from the people who brought you the talking paperclip and tried to force-feed us push technology. No wonder Apple is selling computers as fast as they can build them.
It will get cracked in the end and the only people left holding the bag will be Microsoft. They don't seem to understand that these challenges are the ones hardware hackers like most--to do what is said to be impossible. Lastly, I agree, market forces put the original DIVX disks at circuit city out of business and these will go the same way.
Why not just come out and say it, Bill?
"No one should make money but me!"
Gates' problem is that he measures success by the stock value of MSFT. I guess that's all he could do, and I don't know him so I don't mean to judge him, but that's where his problem is.
Ask if your customers are happy, not if your shareholders are.
Ask how people want their online media, and see if you can make a dime or two selling them software to help. Don't ask how you can keep someone else from getting people their media.
He seems to get it backwards, every time.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
How's that effort to keep the citizens of China from reading about "freedom", "democracy", and "human rights" going, Bill?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I fully expect Microsoft will take the same sort of route they have always taken, by focusing almost exclusively on selling their vision to content producers, rather than focusing on making a product that appeals to the market (and watching as the content producers hop on board).
Apple have been successful with their music store because of course they have made it easy for novice users to access, purchase and manage content. The Microsoft media player is in stark contrast a hideously confusing application as far as most people are concerned, and is an excellent example of why Microsoft will not succeed unless they radically change their approach (which on past form, I do not expect they will).
Getting buy-in from publishers is essential in the long run, but by pandering to them to the extent Microsoft have done (in an attempt to get them on-board), all semblance of a marketable product has been lost, because the focus has been on building a product they want to produce, rather than on one people actually want to buy.
Even if all the major content production companies vow to get behind a Microsoft devised solution, consumers will just largely ignore it and continue to rely on established ways of getting content (either legal DVD's or illegal P2P downloads) until they are offered something they are actually comfortable using.
You have to wonder what's wrong with Microsoft's corporate structure when, with their vast resources and many talented people, they can't even build a useable media player (let alone content delivery and management system). It's so tragic, it's funny.
actually it is irony ,Socratic irony i would imagine as I'm fairly sure Microsoft has no belief that it is in fact a Microsoft(I wrote Microsoft there whilst meaning monopoly , Freudian slip). It is also a standard comedic irony wherein the event is contrary to what one might expect.
It is also hypocrisy , though i don't believe its a logical paradox .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
...kneel before Zod! Er... Bill!!
Actually it is ironic. If you're going to try to be a language nazi, at least get your shit correct. Note definition 2a below.
irony ('r-n, 'r-) pronunciation
n., pl. -nies.
1.
a. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
b. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
c. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect. See synonyms at wit1.
2.
a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" (Richard Kain).
b. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity. See Usage Note at ironic.
Oh no... it's the future.
is where it will fail. Right now i can pipe most things i watch onto the bedroom mini LCD. I dont imagine that an end to end DRM solution will like this much, never mind the video senders etc ppl use. how does this add up to an improved customer experence if i can only watch on approved hardware?
I have an even greater moral repugnance for the black marketeers who are making a lot of money worldwide in cracked games, movies etc., selling pirated DVDs in markets and so on. Study after study has shown these people to be involved in much more horrific black market criminality than just this seemingly harmless trade, and more people should be aware of it.
In Britain for instance, the same people who are making vast profits from pirate DVDs and games are people smuggling, selling hard drugs, running child prostitution and exploitation networks in war torn places like Bosnia. They take the profits from their pirate business to help out the other parts. If it comes to a straight choice between murderers, drug dealers and paedophiles and big media companies, all jokes aside, I'd rather give my money to the CEO.
People need to be aware where the money is going, before they make the moral argument for piracy of goods.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
I don't think MS will be able to engineer a position where they are the only technology route to this new type of content. Intel are part of the cadre of vendors working on this, and with Apple working so closely with Intel now, any hooks into this new technology will also be available to Apple (subject to the appropriate licensing deal). And you can bet that Jobs isn't going to sit back on his laurels and watch this unfold without getting in on the act. MS will have to share this market with Apple at least. Though where this leaves the Linux distros I don't know.
Micro$oft: Day late, dollar sh..Oh wait a min..
iPodling. See here.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
And that is all I have to say.
There won't be anything we won't say to people to try and convince them that our way is the way to go.
g ates.html h tml
--
In the decade ahead I can predict that we will provide over twice the productivity improvement that we provided in the '90s."
--
Let's face it, the average computer user has the brain of a Spider Monkey.
--
If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.
--
Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes.
The reasons for updates are to present more new features.
(sources)
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/bill_
http://www.antioffline.com/HUM/bill.gates.quotes.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Note to self: don't nitpick, you'r bound to screw up while doing it.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
2.
a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" (Richard Kain).
I don't believe that it fits. Microsoft's behavior IS expected, and it doesn't match your example in quotes. The proper word is not ironic... I think it is HYPOCRISY.
If you are going to battle Nazis, make sure your footing is strong.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Is anyone else nervous of the prospect of being forced to upgrade?
At least with video cards, (usually) you don't HAVE to have the newest DirectX capability. What if all of a sudden WMP decided that anything below 2GHz was too slow to play media and demanded that you upgrade?
Microsoft could pull a lot of bullshit with that, since the own the operating system. They could just choose to disable various video/sound APIs until you upgrade. And it would be completely legal for them to do so, that is, if the EULA applies.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Bill has to get away from the rent/toll view of what the end user wants. DVD sales and itunes seem to point to the end user wanting to pay for what they want - once per generation of format. If they can just get into the hardware and software and production and .......
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So what does this mean to all of us? Why do companies keep coming up with DRM technology that everyone says are doomed to failer? Why does slashdot and other 'tech' sites contiue to retread the same stories about DRM again and again and again?
Well it could mean that there is a need for DRM technology in today's culture no matter how much I and alot of other people hate it.
Companies like Microsoft and others to bring up this technology to fit a niche that everyone is wants. The masses are accepting digitial and downloaded content the way every 'techie' has said they would for years. So companies come up with the easiest solution of DRM. Is DRM good? No, but it's al we have right now.
To many times I here the argument that DRM is doomed for failer because "it will be broken soon anway" or "Big Business is stupid and trying to control our lives"
The open source community has an important mission and critical need at this moment to fix this DRM problem now. The only way we will get away from all this DRM talk to to come up with a different solution to the problem.
DRM is here to stay until there is a better option.
So Gatesy is cosying up to the folks at HD DVD, all the more reason for the Slashdot crowd to get behind Blu-Ray who have chose the Java platform for their interactive content, and built ontop of the MHP standard.
What Gatesy really wants is people to choose HIS standard, rather than electing for something more open that lots of other companies support.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Hey, you've got DRM on your DVD's and MOST people barely notice it.
Except of course when they reach the FBI warning and can't fast forward past it. And as much as my wife bitched about the annoyance of having 8-10 tracks prior to the movie, she's come to accept it because.... EVERY DVD has it.
So down the road, when we're force to buy a new monitor with our new computer, well, we won't think much more about it than we do when we get a new phone with our cell plan.
The only way this is going to fail is if the companies can't hack out a good standard. If it becomes too much of a hassle, THEN it will fail. If my new monitor won't work on a different computer that's also new, or if I'm severely limited by monitor choice, that MIGHT make enough of a difference for me to choose another alternative. But I doubt it.
No one wants to buy into a crippled system and consumers are getting more savvy to these type of things. I hear enough complaints about the regional encoding in DVDs and players and the market found a way aroud that (region 0).
Sadly, while people are too lazy to vote/voice against things like DMCA, they still vote with their dollars.
iTunes is an example of a system that provides assurance to the music industry while being flexible enough for consumers to use - like being able to share music with friends.
Napster on the other hand is a more inflexible model and also seems like a traitor in some respects:
http://p2pnet.net/story/5521
The thing also with HD DVDs is that right now the DVD is an entrenched market that's good enough for most people. Most people don't even own the right TVs to make use of the enhanced resolution. So what is the incentive to move away from DVDs? Hell, VCR's had good enough resolution but the killer was the ability to go anywhere in the movie like a CD (and the smaller size of discs).
If people percieve that HD DVD's or PAIDFOR online downloads are severely restricted, what incentive do they have to move away from DVD?
Resolution they can't take advantage of/notice in most cases? 1 hour wait times until the hour long FBI warning goes away because it stops all those pirates? Compulsory previews?
Bill Gates realizes that he made a bunch of hugely arrogant mistakes that sabotaged his efforts with the content providers, but has humbled himself, turned over a new leaf, and is now ready to make a bunch of hugely arrogant mistakes that will sabotage his efforts with the content buyers.
What's the old saying? Something about it being impossible for a Microsoft product to not suck before version 3.0? It sounds like Gates has a whole new series of lessons to learn before Microsoft gets this right.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
You think Microsoft's taking a stand against monopolies IS expected? I'll have what you're smoking.
I already own a PSP.
Several people have already posted about the irony of Bill Gates complaining about another company's monopoly. But I find it amusing that after years of attempts to sell music online, by companies from all over the spectrum, people seem to have chosen Apple's iTunes for its sheer end-to-end simplicity without introducing annoying DRM that gets in the user's way. Because of that, the market has rewarded them with most of the business. In other words, if they are now a monopoly, it's due to customers choosing their product, unlike Microsoft's monopoly, which was created through exclusive deals with hardware manufacturers and technological lock-in.
rooooar
My name is Inigo iPod.
You killed my father.
Prepare to die.
While Bill Gates is thrashing about in frustration because the online music market didn't bend over and do the usual market submissive act to Microsoft, I'm pretty sure he's going to lose the next market, video, as well. Bill Gates' biggest problem is that he hasn't realised, in 10 years of OS dominance, what ease of use is. Sit Mac OSX and WindowsXP next to one another, and note the difference after a short while. He just doesn't get it.
The same thing with DRMed WMP files and the really bad interface on WMP, where Microsoft thinks it is doing the users a favour by allowing all sorts of skins to be used. Compare that with iTunes' simplicity.
Steve Jobs may be an arrogant prick who deserves a kick in the balls by all the people he's insulted over the years, but he's right on the money when it comes to understanding what the market and above all, the consumer, likes: simplicity.
99% of the world neither cares nor knows what DRM is or how their phone or iPod works. All they really want to do is simply put some songs on the device and press play. They don't care about wireless, bluetooth or whatever. The iPod's simplicity is why it stole the market from Creative, not because of features, and Creative's executive are still moaning about how their devices have more features.
The video device from Apple will be the same, and will fit in just as easily with Apple's online store as the iPod does.
And Microsoft will still be flapping about like a fish out of water, and Bill Gates will still be promising to defeat Apple.
How about an end-to-end experience in which I "buy" a video, I "own" it, it is then "mine" to use as I wish, I can "keep" it as long as I like, I can "play" it over and over again, I can "fast forward" or "rewind" to any portion of it it at any time, I can use any player I like from any manufacturer, and I can "lend" it to a friend... ...you know, just like VHS?
Doesn't seem hard to grasp or difficult to implement.
Unless (gasp!) he's lying about the end-to-end user experience really begin their main concern.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You aren't always FORCED to get a new phone with your cell plan. I'm sure you're right and most people won't notice after the initial break-in period, but I will... and it will PISS ME OFF! ... unless of course said new monitor offers 5x the image quality and all sorts of other fluff. Then, the geek in me will will be too excited to get P-O'ed.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
"They're trying to learn lessons from their failure on the music side, where Apple blew them out of the water."
Remember now, this is the company head that penned a not-so-best seller titled 'The Road Ahead'. Billy missed the mark on all predictions, and there is no reason to see that changing any time soon.
Being run down by Apple shows they're nothing more than a deer in the headlights. Where's Bob? Isn't Clippy impressive? Remember the home video system named Tiger? How do you like being asked where you want to go today, instead of being given interesting options up front?
Gates and company want more out of consumer pockets, that's all. They're business model is finally being seen what it is by the masses, and the masses are moving on down the road...without Bob's help, by the way.
The OP was commenting on the face value of the situation, I don't think he was seriously suggesting that Microsoft is going to take a firm stance against monopolistic business practices. The fact that you understand Microsofts real reasons for taking this position doesn't preclude the situation taken at face value from being ironic.
Oh no... it's the future.
As soon as the pipes get thick enough, the cable companies and the FTTH telcos will just expand their "on-demand" services exponentially and slash prices. No need to update your PC. No need to activate or de-activate movies. Just aim the remote at your set-top box, rent the movie for a buck or two, and watch, and watch it again for as long as you want to keep it in the DVR part of your set-top box. Cheaper and more convenient than Netflix.
The market for watching movies "on the go," be it on a Notebook or PMP, is pretty small, actually. Apple's not interested in it, despite the instant market dominance they'd get from it were they to put a "Video iPod" on the market.
SoupIsGood Food
Network externalities is what made Windows take off. Since everyone else (geeks excluded) was using windows with Office, etc. you also needid it so that you could share your documents, etc. with them. This is why Gates want's his chosen, closed, DRM'd standards to take off, and in a BIG way. The problem is, if his standard doesn't represent a LARGE majority of the "installations", then network externalities won't truely exist. Also, users are getting more savvy with regards to circumventing such methods, thus removing the network externalities. Another thing to watch for is an old trick of Bill's... using his Windows "monopoly" to leverage a monopoly in this area. It got him in trouble with IE, yet the BRILLIANT legal system let him off. What, then, will stop him from doing it again? I'd guess pre-emptive legal action, preferably with enough media coverage to bring this furtive behavior to the public's eyes.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
You can always get more women...
'Better'? For whom? In all likelyhood that's for the benefit of the company and its shareholders, not the actual consumer. O well, what's new...
"Good news, everyone!"
Take DRM, Microsoft isn't probably that interested in it, however the music and film industries are and Microsoft sees the fact that getting them on board will help to ultimately boost it's bottom line.
These music and film companies want to sell content to customers over the internet and to their PC, but they don't want any chance of potential piracy. Microsoft is activily courting their requirement, not because customers want to do less with their content, but because MS can turn to those companies and say "hey, you complained that computers were insecure, but Longhorn means you can sell secure content and we are here to help you achieve that".
Microsoft's biggest advantage is that when Longhorn comes out, it will be pre-loaded onto computers and when Bob gets downloadable video content for his PC, Frank will want some of that too although he'll find that XP just doesn't cut it and he has to upgrade.
Look to the money. There are huge amounts to be made in music and video downloads, however Microsoft has to include functionality (DRM) into their computers to be able to persuade those companies that their content isn't copyable otherwise they'll never dip their toes into that market. When they do (through the assurances of Microsoft that the PC can ensure secure content stays secure) I can only assume that they'll also have to use a MS subscription based service to serve that content and all the associated licence fees for wrapping their content into the MS DRM.
In short, including DRM in Longhorn opens up another market for Microsoft to dominate. They'll force people who want to have downloadable video to upgrade and also gain licencing fees from their DRM solution used by the content providers under the illusion that their content really is secure.
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Since Software is not patentable for all the reasons things are not patentable, and the US court system (not the general public) decided to ignore these things and allow software patents (fraudulent as it is) there is something of a faulty foundation in this matter.
Add to this the incapable mindset of Microsoft to comprehend what it is to play fair and the consumers rights to have full control over their own property... want to change software on my system remotely, without my knowledge or approval? Better be sure you don't break my system or use the hardware I own to do it. And if I'm using a linux box, I don't suppose licensing can be used as a defence for doing it.
Cracks in the foundation will allow acidic sewage of patent fraud to leak up and rot the rest of that foundation.
I believe in giving credit where it belongs, be it royalities to artist for their work, or jail time to criminals.
Has Peter Jackson been fully paid for LOTR, yet?
Apparently what Musicians are now learning, that they can, thanks to the internet and computer technology, produce, sale and distribute their music themselves.... And should they build a large following they then have power to deal with the music industry in a label vs. label (competition) better deal for them (the artist).... The movie industry will learn.
Now that it is apparent that digital resolution is surpassing film resolution....
Whats to become of the studios and related industry old business methodology? Those making movies will still need some financing, some sets built, studio rental, etc... but rather than being at the mercy of the studio "control" of the distribution process...
MS "marketing software" is in the business of making people need them. How different is that to the current music and movie industry?
Apple has proven that (for music at least) large profit isn't to be had.
It hasn't?
Apple quarterly profit surges on iPod
iPod pumps Apple profit
Apple profits, revenue up again
Apple sings on iPod sales
You can say it's an iPod vs iTunes on money. But one is worthless without the other really. The same is true of the new competing DVD formats, either of which would be useless without the content.
Seems to me that MS is pushing the desktop OS into the TV os market with Windows Media Connect and XBox. Oh yeah, video is well within their sphere of domination dreams, even if it's licensing a dominant platform technology to a content provider... and really, that's what Gates is saying here. As for Apple, if you look at total profits at Apple, music just may be more profitable for them than computers in the future.
I8-D
Or he could not say "our mea" culpa, which is saying it was "our my" mistake and just sounds aweful.
"Nostra culpa" (Latin for "our fault") wouldn't help because English speakers analyze "mea culpa" as one unit, meaning "formal apology", and won't know what to do with "nostra culpa".
I really can't see the point on downloading a movie, when I can easly rent a DVD... I can do it by phone, or online, and it will be delivered faster than any download.
Also, I can't immagine how movie downloads can drag people's interest without an easy way to burn them into DVDs, or even VCDs, ITMS way. And I doubt that the movie industry would allow something like this.
Worst, I don't think that there is a demmand for a portable video player. Of course its cool to be able to watch a movie during a long trip, but that's about it... You can't use it while you work, or while joggin, or studying, or driving! Watch a movie requires your attention, its an exclusive activity.
On the other hand you can listen to your iPod wherever you are, whatever you may be doing at the time.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Don't buy into these technologies. If you don;t like them, don't buy them. If an entertainment technology is incovenient or too expensive, I can live without it.
All about me
We control the vertical.
Who knew they were talking about markets?
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
fuckin hippy
Here in the UK the stereotypical opinion of Americans is that they don't understand irony. I never used to believe that, but judging by how often people argue over what's ironic on slashdot, I'm starting to believe there is some truth in it...
Am I close?
Yeah... every time OSS and M$ go head to head in a LEGITIMATE test, M$ loses their billion dollar shirts off their backs.
It would be nice if tomorrow, all of M$ and all of Intel were found missing, no trace of them save one last shipment of shitty DRM hardware platforms running the leftover M$ Windows.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
"...and when Ben Casey meets Kildare, that's a paradox!" - Allan Sherman
PHB have no loyalty, no imagination and no heart.
They want a whole alphabet soup of things that the consumer doesn't give a crap about and specifically they DON'T want their OS to move away from the desk top.
What would 'save' Microsoft and give it some future would also be what slits their throat.
I have seen OS/software companies reduced down to mere shadows and staffs cut to where they can all in a single car. PHBs don't need to spend money on maintenance nor do they want to. In the internet age, the customer base could even be global.
PHBs DON'T want Microsoft to be a success in the home because focus on their TLAs of stuff might get lost. Since they're paying the way, they KNOW they're right.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Next time, please read the *entire* article before reaching your conclusion.
Popular meaning
In the popular vernacular, the expression "mea culpa" has acquired a more direct meaning, in which, by doing or performing a "mea culpa", someone admits to have made a mistake by one's own fault (meaning that it could have been avoided if that person had been more diligent). It may be used even in trivial situations: if a football player, for instance, admits that his team lost a match because he missed a penalty kick, this may be called a "mea culpa", meaning that he admitted his mistake, which he could have avoided (at least in theory), and that resulted in a subsequent evil.
There is no way a "video iPod" is going to be popular. People can listen to music while they do other things: jog, drive, work. But you can't do those things and watch a movie. Besides, who wants to watch a movie on a 2- or 3-inch screen? It's bad enough on a 12-inch laptop screen.
Besides, even if people would buy such a device, why buy from Microsoft when they can get something a lot cooler looking from someone like Apple?
The first thing Microsoft would want to do with a movie player is to "integrate" all sorts of unnecessary features that would open the door for trojans, viruses, and spam (oh, my!).
Sorry, Bill. Bad idea. You're throwing money down a black hole with this one.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Wikipedia seems pretty dismissive of AACS,
though of course Wikipedia is by definition not authoritative.
Thank you for pointing this out. I was wondering if I was the only person in the tech sector who thought the "video iPod" was a mediocre idea at best.
It amazes me when pundits claim that the next step from an audio player is video. I'm convinced the prognosticators are personal injury lawyers by profession. They're just waiting to sue Apple (or Creative, or Microsoft, or a cell phone manufacturer) once somebody hurts themselves by using the Next Logical Step. And the plaintiffs will have hurt themselves with illogical steps, by walking into walls...
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Exactly. And the next "generation" is high-quality digital media files that can (in theory) be transcoded indefinitely to whatever's the trendiest format at the moment.
Part of the problem is that content-producers are finally waking up to the idea that, as far as media formats go, this is the last generation.
They weren't so worried about tape piracy, because CDs came along and forced you to re-purchase all your existing media. They stopped worrying about VHS piracy when DVDs came along, because they knew you'd have to "upgrade" all your existing media.
Now it looks like they're off the "customers paying for what they've already bought" gravy-train, they're shitting bricks and trying to move the entire industry to a rental/pay-per-play-micropayments model, since this is even better (in terms of reliable, regular income) than a once-per-generation splurge of replacement purchases.
If free, open-format computer files become the platform of choice, the industry as it presently stands is screwed - no "medium-upgrade" tax, free copying - the whole thing comes crashing down around their ears. This is why they're betting the bank on DRM, and using it to grab as many rights as they can - if they have the chance to set the ground-rules, they might manage to make DRM entrenched enough that they can effectively dictate the direction that the technology takes in the future.
Of course, this is the very definition of a cartel, but since when has being a convicted monopolist ever hurt anyone in the IT/technology industry?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Sadly, cell phone makers (and more acurately content providers) want you to watch movies at a few bucks a piece on your 1" phone display. These people don't get what video is all about. It's fine for viewing your friend eating a big-mac, but won't work for any production clip.
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
"We're really having to work more closely with partners in the hardware industry and content industry, to really think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better," Gates said.
Of course he means better for Microsoft's bottomline, not the consumer.
I really can't see the point on downloading a movie, when I can easly rent a DVD... I can do it by phone, or online, and it will be delivered faster than any download.
Actually you can download an entire feature length movie (say 600-800 MB in MPEG 4) in less hour with 'bog standard' consumer DSL (i.e. @ 1.5-2 Mbps), and many people have faster than that (especially from cable providers, and in Europe from unbundled telecoms operators offering services like VSDL).
With this sort of technology, you can start playing videos before they have downloaded (not technically streaming, just starting once the first few minutes are down), meaning you can start watching one at home before your average Blockbuster customer has even reached their local store.
In fact, you can do this today with DivX On Demand which also allows you to burn completely downloaded movies to DVD, to play on your DivX equipped set top DVD player. The biggest hurdled to adoption at present is the quality of movies on offer (it's pretty much a list of B-Movies).
Also, I can't immagine how movie downloads can drag people's interest without an easy way to burn them into DVDs, or even VCDs, ITMS way. And I doubt that the movie industry would allow something like this.
Making them easy to burn is trivial (well, it seems hard for a lot of vendors, but it's really easy in practice), getting the movie industry to adopt it is indeed the tricky part.
The DivX On Demand service has *roughly* the right idea, in that they burn DVD which will only play on your player, the lame part is if you have multiple players you need to burn separate discs for each one (which it lets you do, but it's a hassle, and it means you can't just take a disc round to a friends house).
This can be solved either by smarter, network enabled players (which a lot of parties, including companies like AOL, are looking at - and are available to purchase now, though they are by and large pretty flakey at the moment), or by 'closed' wireless video senders (which operated somewhat like the way Apple Airport units do in streaming sound, but in a closed way).
Not only has Microsoft not admitted responsibility for the biggest mistake they made, they haven't recognised it as a mistake, and they fought the Department of Justice to a standstill over their right to keep making it. Now they're trying to push a supposedly-fixed but more elaborate and pervasive version of the same mistake.
I'm talking, of course, about what started as Active Desktop and has now spawned "dot NET". The fundamentally broken design that grants rights to displayed or embedded objects based on an ad-hoc "security zone" model can never work. It doesn't matter what certificates, security applets, or warning dialogs you apply, it should never be possible to launch potentially untrusted code outside a sandbox without an explicit request from an actual human being.
The rot is spreading, too. Thanks to Microsoft's Big Lie becoming Conventional Wisdom, both Safari and Firefox have in very small ways picked up similar bad habits... though at least they haven't made them part of an API that important applications depend on, they're not built into the HTML display component itself, and they can be disabled.
He was saying that Apple doesn't make cash on each download, but on the sales of each iPod.
Yeah, right.
the producer, and he can make some dough directly, you're stuck with what ever they can sell to the advertisers. At least, its not like TV shows where they increase their profits by cutting into the content.
The "third" movie that makes a profit on a iTunes like basis, with not too onerous DRM, will herald in the end of the distribution monopoly/oligopoly.
The day producers realize that they can recoup their expenses, and not have to beg to get a movie made, (and watch as accountants gut it while cringing at every dollar they have to spend on the abomination the accountants themselves have caused,) I expect that that the current mode of production will deflate at a disastrous rate.
More people will be using digital tools to produce more content (actors will be in even more demand,) but we won't be stuck paying for all the distribution salaries and other costs.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Why does the richest man in the world, who has never been good at his core business, feel as though he needs to dominate another business?
If you are going to be pedantic, get it right!
;)
'Mea Culpa' most literally translates as 'I am culpable' or 'I am responsible'.
Note that is not the same as saying 'It is my fault' as you can claim responsibility without accepting there was any fault.
Mea culpa. I am responsible for this post. This post is not my fault because there is nothing wrong with it. (Aside from the spleling errors and the its mind-numbingly pedantic nature!
A monopoly is where a company uses it's dominance in the industry to prevent competition by means other than price and performance, NOT where a compny's product is seen as vastly superior and therefore little interest is shown in competing platforms. There are plenty of other portable music players, but, thankfully, there's no rule that says a certain number of people have to use other products for the sake of market diversity if what they want is an iPod.
A monopoly would be if apple used the iPod's dominance to prevent speaker manufacturers from producing speakers that worked with competing technology.
"The content providers have got it backward. They're not going to find their panacea with a completely-secure, uncrackable DRM scheme."
True, but that is not what they are looking for. Rather, their solution lies in DRM schemes that create significant barriers to copying, either in terms of effort, and / or quality-of-service deterioration.
Their aim is not to shut down Joe-L33t. Rather, they just have to keep Joe-schmoe buying their stuff rather than downloading. It might not be possible to snuff out copying entirely (if it can be viewed / listned to it can be copied, after all...) - instead they will aim to use a mix of DRM and enforcemen.
This means raids on the largest distributors, scare tactics against common copiers "pour encourager les autres", DRM on all content sold, etc. - combined with developing "official" digital distribution channels. In the end, it will probably work pretty well.
Sure, there will probably be cracks, workarounds, etc. available, but Joe-Schmoe isn't going to spend hours trawling obscure websites full of porn popups to find them.
It looks unobstrusive. It run QuickTime in 1080i and iTunes. Its absolutely brilliant.
Option 1.) You can 'Tivo' your TV shows, strip out the ads, burn 'em to DVD and then watch at your leisure.
Option 2.) You can just buy he content on iTunes. And no friggin' lead-in ads either.
Case closed...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050718/ap_on_hi_te/ap ple_ipod
Bill can spin all the fantasies he wants. However MSFT stock has declined so far this decade, while AAPL has increased 350%.
Why do I bother reading anything with Microsoft in the title when I know what the bloody response is going to be?
Here is an exercise, Slashdotters... imagine some random open source group said the same thing as Bill Gates... would you flame them, or no?
If yes, the flame is valid.
If no, why bother? It's fun, sure, but does it do anything? No. Does it make sense? No.
(of course, there will probably be a reply or two to this about support Gates... there is so much irony here... considering most of you folks are Bush bashers, and he uses the same sort of mentality to support his war on terror, heh)
They can all burn CDs and some burn DVDs. :-)
Microsoft is a business desktop operating system. Its sold to companies that way by the Dells of the world.
Watching video indeed it, uh, monopolizes your full attention.
There IS NO WAY IN HELL that the PHBs of the world are going to let that into the company.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'll be avoiding this technology like the plague. Thoughts of various Microsoft service packs blowing up my computers (breaking applications) come to mind.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Thing is, they don't always work out that well for the people caught between the two megalomaniacs, either.
(But go ahead, wave your "Peace in Our Time" paper around if it makes you feel better.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
That is the connotative meaning of monopoly... the actual dictionary definition is different :)
;)
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly
This isn't a rebuff or anything, I'm just being overly technical
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
There is a whole 'nuther generation coming up that has been weened on TV in addition to or INSTEAD OF Music.
They are already used to small screens (in-car DVD players) and watching 320x240 video clips on computer screens that are highly compressed and look like crap.
And they watch the same stuff over and over and over again.
And they don't have to be actively engaged with it to "watch" it. They've seen whatever program or movie so many times, they know it by heart and it is just there for them when they choose to watch it.
My grandkids all come over and bring movies, they pop in a movie, watch a few minutes of it, then run around and play, then they come back for the part "they like" , then they fight or play a game, all the while, the movie is playing. They look at this stuff differently than I do.
If there was a device that had a small screen that could easily be loaded with 1 or 2 of their favorite movies or several TV shows in a compressed form, they would have that thing clipped to their belts and take them everywhere!
I wouldn't use one, but they would and the parents will be the ones to buy the things for them as soon as it becomes about as easy as buying a DVD.
If they can buy a small player and Card that has 4 Spongebob episodes on it, they'll do it. Even if they already have the DVD.
I like microcars
"But the content owners are watching IPTV's progress closely, Gates said. "They'll often say to us, 'Well, how many households, and in what year?,' and at this point nobody knows the exact number. But over the next five years, it will be definitely many tens of millions."
Honestly, is the man even capable of speach that doesnt involve grandiose claims and bloated ego. Sure Bill youre going to go from ~0% deployment of technology that most people dont give a crap about to 'many tens of millions' households in 5 years.
Microsoft just does not get it.
They keep continuing to position themselves in the "content policing" business, while Apple has managed to work out a compromize, that satisfies both the costumers and the content owners, percieved as a fair deal for all participants.
Microsoft is like a blinded giant, blinded by it's own corporate dinosour culture. Eventually they'll miss the track and find themselves at the exit door.
Like Apple would be a different beast than MS. Frankly, Apple's hip offerings don't entice me - as far as looks and ease of usability goes, I'll take Win98SE any day over a recent Mac.
He's talking himself into obsolence anyways. A year ago, I'd have said "fuck gates", but it's not even important anymore.
See, he's just talking big. Whatever scheme he comes up with will most likely suck, and the users, used to simplicity, will just ignore it and use something else. If some DRM scheme gets inbetween them and the music or videos they want, there are plenty of magazines out there telling them exactly how to use emule, bittorrent, or whatever the hype will be in 2012, when Longhorn and it's built-in DRM finally hit the market.
Users are becoming a market force, and if they don't like DRM, it will fall flat. The music industry doesn't control half as much as they like. The mainstream is all theirs, but there's so much music out there, if Britney isn't available, there's 500 others who are just as good.
It's not the same with movies, but there are already a ton of good indy movies, and besides you still have the cinemas where screeners are made to be posted online.
Gates is, once again, clawing at an emerging market he missed, hoping that with strong words and another vaporware announcement, he can stop the world moving for long enough so he can still hop aboard.
It's just that it ain't 1995 anymore, and even grandma down the street isn't so sure that Gates is a visionary anymore. Lots of people still look at him, but few stop for him anymore.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why do people assume the next big thing is video-on-the-move? a.k.a son-of-iPod.
Who wants to watch movies on itty-bitty 5" screens? Whereas you can jog, work, eat & commute (not all at the same time) while listening to music, watching a movie is best done at home on a big screen.
Good luck to Microsoft, if they are in charge, at least the first iteration of any upcoming product will be an excellent lesson on how not to do things, if history is any guide.
Yes, I also find that most people have no idea what words mean.
Coincedence:
The librarian was killed by falling books.
Irony:
The librarian was kill by a stack of books entitled "How to live longer"
Hope this hurts...
How about Microsoft/Bill Gates fix their OS' feature as a spam/virus kit first, before they decide to jump into yet another market segment -- oh, right, fixing spam, virii, and your own bugs doesn't actually generate profits.
Many people don't seem to understand how people can consider Microsoft "evil".
This DRM thing they are pushing is pretty annoying, but that's not the wole reason.
When you think about it for a while, what is far wrose then Microsoft pushing thier own DRM is that with all the money and power they have, they could actually push a DRM-free solution and get awway with it. They could buy a whole studio just to seed the content on such a system.
And that is why some consider Microsoft to be evil. Not just because of what they do - but because they seemingly do nothing altruistic with the power and money they have. When you believe that money could be made just as wasily with no DRM in the picture then it only follows you would believe Microsoft has the social responsibility to do so instead of using the power they have to take rights away from consumers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I find it funny that there is so much focus on the Apple iPod (including people willing to pepper their language with advertisements for it--"podcasting") because it is a relatively crappy portable digital audio player.
The Apple iPod is underdocumented, so you can't run software on it that you might want to, it doesn't support all of the formats other portable digital audio players do (most notably Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Speex, which would let you keep your freedom and even other popular non-free formats), it can't record without additional equipment (at least not if you accept Apple's restrictions), it has no radio nor any features that work with the radio (such as radio song identification), and the software the iPod runs is proprietary so even if you know someone who is skilled in programming you can't get them to work for you to easily add new features. Cory Doctorow has documented how iPod-related software has declined in features if one keeps up with official Apple software updates installed through the normal MacOS X software update functionality.
The Apple iPod strikes me as a triumph of advertising over interesting and useful features which ordinary people could use. If any well-funded competitor can't compete against the iPod, I'd wonder if the real issue at hand is an unwillingness to fund the media campaign which Apple is apparently willing to fund in order to prop up this disappointing device.
Digital Citizen
Can someone please explain to me (I've never worked for a large software developer) why Microsoft, with access to virtually unlimited amounts of software development talent, consistently turns out such crappy software? Surely the brighter folks there must have ideas about how to make some really great stuff, software that would, say, even put Apple to shame. What is it about the culture, the process, the management -- whatever -- that will not allow really good and useful stuff to emerge from Redmond?
I know that this is a concept that we all (especially MicroSofties) find abhorrentt. I applaud Bill for being against dominance.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
Lets face it the problem with Microsoft is it's shyness to produce its own designs and hardware.
It produces the base design and requirements, the software but then lets the OEMs design the hardware. This often means cheap designs give their ideas a bad name.
If they were to produce sexy well designed hardware (they need a really talented designer for this) then they would get somewhere in the media market.
Their problem is always their laziness to produce anything new, it generally has to contain some variant of Windows or is based on commodity PC hardware.
Maybe with the new XBox360 we will finally see what Microsoft is capable of.
As a musician, I take offense at the notion that I must be working in some sort of content factory, extruding music product on an assembly line.
Being referred to in such a way makes me all the less motivated to "produce content."
Microsoft, I fart in your general direction.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I got all excited when the lovely pics of these PMPs started showing up a few years back... but after trying a few I can't see anyone wanting one.
Watching movies on a small screen is no fun. the only possible time it is of use is on very long, uninterrupted train/plane journeys... and often the planes have movies for you anyway.
The only thing i ever managed to watch without getting inturrupted was short 20 minute cartoons.
How is the PSP doing with respect to selling/watchig films? It seems to have the best screen of any around, but even then i can't see anyone PAYING for movies to watch on it. Especially if they already have the DVDs.
At current bandwidth speeds I'm not willing to pay much for "DVD quality" stuff that will take days to download, i won't have space to store and will have usage restrictions. Maybe in 5 years when we are all on ultraband and have 100 terrabyte drives.
What I would (and do) do would be use slightly lower quality video to preview new stuff, watch stuff that isn't broadcast in my area (Battlestar galactica?) and then maybe buy the DVDs if I like them. In this way it works more like broadcast tv than a DVD store. If they price it to compete with a DVD store then it will fail.
If they make the prices nominal (50$ for a 1hr tv show at reasonable quality) or free (with unobtrusive ads) then I might use it.
But even then the main focus won't be my PMP, it will be watching 99% of it at home, but being able to port it to something portable on the odd occasion i have a long trip.
iPod HAS no SON!
I think "The librarian was killed by falling books" is ironic. For a librarian, books are providers and sustainers; they provide his wages and hence his food, shelter and luxuries. For these books to kill him is discongruous, and therefore ironic.
You can't make me buy one.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
All we have to do is look at how Microsoft handled their Palm attack( WinCE ). They first came on the market with a product which didn't support the same screen orientation as the Palm and forced hardware vendors to build Microsofts clame-shell systems. That failed because the market wanted the smaller portrait format. After all but one of the first WinCE vendors closed shop, Microsoft came out with another video layout and renamed the productline as the MS-PalmPC before the courts told them to stop that and the name became MS-PocketPC.
So, they did this 8 years ago and didn't learn anything from this. Or atleast they didn't learn that the VENDORS and OEMs are the ones to INNOVATE around the customers. Bill seems to think that it's all about Microsoft control when it's actually the opposite. For another example, look at the Windows 3.x days when hardware OEMs could load custom software over, or inplace of, the Windows desktop. Compaq came out with a nice rollodex-like manager and HP came out with HP-NewWave for an object oriented folder and data desktop interface. Microsoft LEARNED from that and when they launched Windows95, their licensing forbid any changes to the Desktop.
Bill/Microsoft learns from earlier mistakes alright. To him, the mistakes are letting the market make the choice, letting innovation occur... Same olde Microsoft so there's little to worry about if you're not a Microsoft vendor, OEM, or customer. If you are, well, you'll have to keep living with THAT until they, or you, leave.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
We understand it OK and a lot of our humor revolves around it.
We just don't agree on the terminology. Whether or not that's "right" or "wrong" depends on how prescriptive or proscriptive you're feeling today.
You have to wonder what's wrong with Microsoft's corporate structure when, with their vast resources and many talented people, they can't even build a useable media player (let alone content delivery and management system).
Are they really talented? That may not be true. I have talked to several people who have interviewed for Microsoft programming positions. The day consists of consistant, high pressure grilling about language trivia by a smug cadre whose sadistic zeal is fueled by their resentment of their own treatment during the interview process. Does this environment really get them the hires they need, or just the ones tough enough to withstand the day-to-day madness.
an ill wind that blows no good
Sone of iPod will be something like iPodv or somethinglike that, it will look exactly like a color screen iPod and it will be able to play video. The only visible difference is that it will have a sVideo out and it will have many different attachemnts for sale, from video goggles, iScreen to iProjector or iRay or something like that.
That is my wager.
and that would be cool if they had a cigarette sized diode projector that could project a large tlevision sized picture...
Continuing the DRM happy news, Microsoft wants to end hardware copyright circumvention with Longhorn. This scheme would require new monitors, and entirely different hardware requirements.
Best case scenario: this is great because it will this be a nail in the coffin for widespread Longhorn adoption. Thus companies like Dell may sell computers equipped with Linux to avoid higher hardware fees. I wrote about this while back.
Worst case scenario: this is a brick wall for Linux drivers. Linux will be reduced to working only on specialty or old hardware.
"We're really having to ... think through the whole end-to-end experience and make it better,' Gates said.
If they only had this attitude towards Windows. Amazing what a little competition does.
B.Cost. It's very hard to beat free.
Except that it's not. You started to touch on this idea of cost, but it bears repeating/fleshing-out. Say you make 30 an hour at work, which means your time is worth about that much. Around a buck every 2 minutes. Soooo if it takes you more than 2 minutes to find and procure a high-quality version of a song that costs 99 cents at the iTMS (complete with high-res album art, good tags, etc.), you are actually LOSING, from an economic perspective.
This exact same argument can be levied against Windows vs. OS X. If you buy a much cheaper Windows box (instead of an Apple machine) but it takes you, on average, 20 more hours of babysitting/troubleshooting/virus-crapware removal, Windows reinstalls, etc. over the lifetime of the machine vs. OS X maintenance (and I think most of us who use both would agree this is a veeeery conservative estimate), and your time is worth about 30 an hour, you just blew 600 bucks of "value" over and above the purchase price of your Windows box. Which puts it squarely into (and probably well past) an equivalently-configured (but somewhat more expensive) OS X machine. (Granted, this is an oversimplification as I have not included here things like the opportunity cost of not being able to play all the latest games, etc., because the value of that differs from person to person).
The equivalent of open source hardware is the commodity beige-box hardware that the PC world is known for. Remember when PC hardware prices fell through the floor as the number of producers increased (early/mid 90's, IIRC)? Things like motherboards are already effectively open source in some ways. The chipset manufacturer publishes a reference design which they say the chips should work with. Some motherboards are basically just the reference design put into mass production. Other mobo vendors do more of their own (re)design of course. (Think BSD-style open source here, not GPL.) And re the Xbox -- isn't Microsoft still losing money on each sale? Selling hardware at a loss and making up the difference in software sales doesn't make them a hardware company!
amongst countless other companies fishing for future product ideas.
Keep it up folks. Perhaps one of you can brag that you hinted at the idea for a future multi-billion dollar product, but not being in a position to patent the design or idea once more leave it for the current patent rich giants to get more ideas for FREE*
*Not as in beer either.
Robot Devil: Oh what an appallingly ironic outcome.
Bender: It's not ironic it's just coincidental . Now fork over those lady-fingers cookie!
[The Robot Devil screws a huge white airhorn into Bender's nose slot.]
Bender: Yes! With this built-in stadium airhorn I can really annoy people. And all it cost me was my crotchplate.
Bender: Pretty annoying, huh Leela?
Leela: (shouting) What? Are you talking? Oh God I'm deaf!
Bender: Oops. I'm so so sorry Leela. I just wanted to annoy you.
Leela: (shouting) What? Oh this is horrible. I won't be able to hear Fry's opera.
Robot Devil: Ah how delightfully ironic .
Bender: It's not ironic , it's just mean . Take this!
[He blows the airhorn weakly.]
Robot Devil: Ooh! Out of aerosol? Also ironic !
Bender: Oh yeah? Well bite my shiny metal - [He points at where his crotchplate used to be. No ass left to bite.] (shouting) Oh nooo!
Leela: (singing) Fry, you do not understand.
I should have revealed I've been deafened by Bender,
The shame,
The shaaame,
But I feared you'd stop writing this musical splendour,
Deception's the curse of my whimsical gender,
He gave me mechanical ears,
Effective though just a bit garish,
In return without shedding a tear I agreed that I'd give him my hand...
Robot Devil: (singing) ...In marriage!
Leela: What?
Robot Devil: (singing) You'd give me your hand in marriage.
Leela: ...(singing) That isn't what I meant,
That isn't what I signed.
[The Robot Devil takes the contract out of his chest cabinet.]
Robot Devil: (singing) You should have checked the wording in the fine... [He makes the contract larger.] Print!
Leela: (reading) I'll give you my hand...
Leela and Robot Devil: (singing) ...In marriage.
[In the audience Bender reads from a dictionary.]
Bender: (singing) The use of words expressing something other than their literal intention, Now that is... "irony!"
I'd second his comment. Win98SE CAN run stable and fast if you keep it meticulously trimmed. Being relatively simple and still related to MS-DOS, it's very easy for someone with DOS knowledge to keep it running well. I'd even go so far as to say that things are in logical and intuitive places, though that could just be the years of DOS use speaking...
Admittedly, I only know one Mac user, but he's been using it since about OS 6/7. If you even mention OSX, he'll go into an angry tirade about all the functionality that's been removed (like InputSprockets) and the tremendous speed hit on anything below a G5. As far as he's concerned Apple, like Amiga "Was a great company... too bad they stopped making OSes. At least OS9 still works!"
Personally, I find all versions of MacOS frustrating and counter-intuitive even beyond the crap I had to go through with various Linux distros over the years, so give me Win98SE over MacOS any day!
I have no problems watching just about any movie on my Dell Axim.
The screen size makes it reasonable to watch something in 320x240, even though the Axim x50v (as well as a number of other VGA handhelds) can do so in 640x480 (looks GREAT).
It makes the perfect device to watch films, TV, or anything else for that matter while riding the train/bus. A laptop is too bulky, a cell phone is too small. A PDA is pocket-sized, can have a truly marvelous screen, scalable memory, and play many different formats of video stutter-free.
So far, of the people I have had ask me what I was watching on the train tow ork, the *only* thing that turned people off was the weak storage volume. With iPods coming in at over 40GB, people think that a PDA is somehow ripping them off (even though the price for a PDA is much lower than an iPod, and it can do much more, better, and faster).
Don't write the PDA as an entertainment device off quite yet. If people were more aware that a PDA can be used to watch movies/TV, listen to music, play games (not just a stupid Snake clone), surf the net, and even make phone calls for a price less than that of an iPod, there would be more people carrying them. The only problem I've seen so far revolves around the lack of storage capacity.
Although I guess if you've got bad eyesight you wouldn't be interested in a PDA-as-entertaiment-device. Small details can only be seen by somebody with reasonable vision.
My Babelfish Translated Gates' comments as follows:
Microsoft is going to fix it so that we're the only solution you can use. To lure the distributors into our web, we'll use the FUD of the DRM to cash in on closing the standards into something we control exclusively. We're trying to dominate everything instead of doing things well. We'll be glad to share our technology as long as it runs on Windows.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Revise the monopoly laws, and allow jail sentences for conviction.
Current iPods don't try playing music without headphones; the built-in speaker is far too small and crappy to satisfactorily handle it. Parallel to that, an iPod will never play a movie on its tiny screen; the built-in screen is far too small and crappy to satisfactorily handle it. Just like existing iPods require headphones to play music, a video iPod would require an external display of some sort to play movies. This is not a problem as movies on the go are rather pointless. You can't generally be on the go if you have to stare at a tiny screen. It would be great to just be able to enter a room with a TV and plug an iPod up to it. That is all the iPod needs to do as far as movies go. If you really care to watch a movie "on the go," then a third party screen which clips to your iPod or something should work for you.
Ah, a wet dream of Bill's: Being able to force EVERYONE into upgrading at HIS whim.. An endless supply of profits, regardless of need, or quality..
---- Booth was a patriot ----