Windows Vista and the Future of Hardware

NSIM writes to mention an article on ExtremeTech looking at the impact that Windows Vista will have on the future of computer hardware. In addition to obvious elements like CPUs, GPUs, and display interfaces, the article also touches on things like DRM (which Vista heavily supports) and audio formats. From the article: "Currently, only a few shipping products actually support the crypto-ROM needed to ensure compliance with Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and CableCard. It's looking like next-generation cards will all implement the needed firmware. Continued... The impact on future displays is a bit more subtle, but we're starting to see the impact already. Widescreen displays offering very high resolutions, such as the Dell 2407WFP are starting to become more affordable. But a 1920x1200 resolution often creates legibility problems for some users resulting from the tiny size of the default Windows font."

Comments

at what point

[yagu]

At what point does the advancement of technology become either irrelevant, unnecessary to the casual user, too expensive, too complex, or some combination thereof? This has already happened in audio -- how many people out there really are vested in SACD? How many people do you know who even know what SACD is?

How many people are using 7.1, or THX sound? Or, if they have it, have it set up correctly? Or, if they have it, have any reasonable collection of media to make use of it?

And now there is evidence of death on the vine with new and improved video formats -- HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray. Other than mostly a slashdot type crowd, who really cares about the arguably incremental improvements for hefty investments?

At what point do consumers shrug their collective shoulders at any news around HDTV (hint, they're already starting to)? And when do all of the complexities of the combinitorials to lace all of this technology together push new consumers away?

It's possible Vista may be entering that twilight zone of indifferent consumerism. I'm totally technology driven, and have most of my life been a bleeding edge investor, but lately it's become less interesting. I can tell the difference between 1600x1200 resolution and WVGA, but I have to explain it to everyone else. They don't care, and they're not willing to spend any extra dollars to get the extra resolution kick.

All I'm seeing around Vista is toned-down expectations from their original promise, and ramped up requirements for hardware. That hardly lights a fire for me, and is a frigging wet towel for the lay-people considering new computers.

I don't know many in the technology world knocked out of their socks by the announced features (especially after all of the un-announced, and I don't know anyone outside of the technology elite circles who are interested, or care, and have any inklings of plans to move to Vista -- and if new rollouts of computers are significantly more expensive at all because of Vista, I know lots of people who are proactively not buying.

Maybe the world is reaching a point where people really don't need mini-Crays to read e-mail, manage photos, and surf the internet. And maybe the fork in the computing world can finally focus on useful applications and customer service rather than eye-candy translucent windowing graphics.

Re:at what point

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Other than mostly a slashdot type crowd, who really cares about the arguably incremental improvements for hefty investments?

Gamers.

Re:at what point

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I agree with much of what you say, but being able to use much better screens, such as the large Dell TFT mentioned in the submission, is definitely a plus as far as I'm concerned.

This is partly because of the productivity benefits of getting more on-screen: try editing a book or magazine in a DTP program when you can actually see two real-size pages side-by-side at a useful resolution, and suddenly the idea of zooming in to part of one page on a 19" CRT to make out the details seems quaint and old-fashioned.

Equally important, newer TFTs tend to be a lot easier on the eyes than the older TFTs and mid-range CRTs that fill offices around the world. As someone whose eyes are degrading because of unfortunate genetics anyway, I want to make sure I do as much as possible to help them, and since I sit in front of a computer screen for a large proportion of my waking hours...

I think the problem alluded to in the submission, where large, hi-res screens become effectively unusable under Windows due to poor UI scaling, is a very real one. So, if a new version of Windows will support proper scaling for things like fonts, icons and UI widgets, and thus make bigger and better screens more usable, that is a clear benefit for me.

Re:at what point

[Data Link Layer]

I was in line at midnight for windows 98. I have no idea why I was so excited for a new windows release, it's unimaginable.

Re:at what point

[DeeDob]

"It's possible Vista may be entering that twilight zone of indifferent consumerism"

XP entered that "twilight zone".

Almost no one bought XP when it came out (compared to the other OS microsoft sold). People gradually switched to XP when they replaced their old computers with newer ones that came pre-installed with XP.

Even now, people don't upgrade their PC every two years like in the mid-90s. People now wait for 4 or 5 years, some even more.

Re:at what point

[Bert64]

A heavy weight OS such as vista is not good for gaming, all the extra memory, cpu and gpu time consumed by the OS is no longer available for the game.

Re:at what point

[SpryGuy]

I loved the new Dell Wide-screen 24" display. It rocked.

And then I discovered ClearType. Why ClearType isn't on in Windows XP by default (or even installed by default) I don't know. I had to go to a microsoft website to turn it on and download a control panel applet to let me tweak and configure it. But it made a great display even better... to much so that it was like getting glasses! I even use it on my CRT display at work, and it's better there too. It just seems odd to me that it's not the norm...

Re:at what point

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Probably because Windows 3.1 and 95 were such junk you absoultely required another option. No matter how bad Microsoft software is today, it's been worse. One might actually consider the former difficulty of use a protection from malware.... Back when everyone really knew what they were doing, they'd notice a virus as soon as it showed up. Now? Yeah, a few weeks later I hear a computer's running a little slow from a family member, and then I spend three or four hours cleaning it up.

Re:at what point

[vertinox]

And maybe the fork in the computing world can finally focus on useful applications and customer service rather than eye-candy translucent windowing graphics.

The truth is that eye-candy sells.

Otherwise if it was all about utility, we'd all be using Redhat Linux 5 today with Gnome desktop. ;)

The truth of the matter is PHB's and Joe Sixpack are easily impressed by computers that look as futuristic as possible. At least as much so as those fake OS's they see in movies ("Zoom the image to the right hand side and enhance by 50%!")

Although when you combine utility and asthetics like OS X, then you have a pretty good balance.

Re:at what point

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Even now, people don't upgrade their PC every two years like in the mid-90s. People now wait for 4 or 5 years, some even more.

I don't think home users ever really upgraded that often, other than the geeks.

What's changed, IME, is that businesses are breaking the three-year upgrade cycle that used to be accepted without question, and instead asking what measurable benefits will come from splashing out another few thousand on faster desktops for Susie Secretary and Ollie Officeworker. That, combined with major software firms having much longer release cycles for big name products and then not offering much real improvement anyway when they finally turn up, means the bean counters are finally starting to notice that a lot of computer hardware and software is vastly overpriced for the benefits it brings, and they're challenging the expense.

Re:at what point

[PitaBred]

True. I've heard of people still using Win98 up until recently because it performed better than 2000 or XP for gaming.

Re:at what point

[DanQuixote]

Come on advertisers, make me WANT STUFF!!

How about... Come on DEVELOPERS, make me want stuff!

Re:at what point

[joh]

Although when you combine utility and asthetics like OS X, then you have a pretty good balance.

I was about to write a hefty comment on your posting 'till I read that sentence. Yes. The trouble with eye candy is that it is candy, if it is used wise or not and can be tasty and rotten your teeth or just rotten your teeth. I'm using OS X for about one year and a half now for desktop stuff (Linux and FreeBSD still rule for server tasks) and whenever I have to use Gnome or KDE or XP I miss some of that very useful eyecandy. Expose is a simple and beautiful thing and I desperately miss it on XP (and from what I've seen from Vista I don't doubt it will be looking great, but I doubt it will be useful). Not because it is pretty but because it solves the task at hand (showing me the desktop or all open windows) in a very natural, fluid way that is easily embedded in muscle memory and easy on the eyes and mind. And that's just an example. Don't get me started on Gnome or even KDE (Gnome has heard the shot at least, but they're still lacking the resources to get the truth nailed to the forehead of every developer out there).

Not that OS X is perfect (all OS's suck), but it just sucks so much less that I would moderate your post up just for that sentence if I had any moderator points available now.

Yes, being able to balance asthetics and eye candy and features in a way that makes the OS and the apps behave naturally and don't get in the way, that's the big problem. Highres screens and powerful graphics can help, but not by being highres and powerful but by being used in a wise manner. Vista doesn't look like that, sorry.

Re:at what point

[Lorkki]

I'm still relatively early in that age segment and I can't help thinking that Vista is set to bring a plethora of completely unnecessary hardware "advancements" to desktop users.

Gaming and high-end work are areas in themselves, but even the "low-end" of today is ridiculously overpowered for basic desktop work. The grandma of a few years into the future will perhaps have the privilege of buying a multi-core workstation with several gigabytes of memory and a versatile programmable GPU - in order to read her e-mail and write a few letters.

Not that hardware vendors will complain, mind you.

Opportunity for Linux

[ecorona]

I see this as a great opportunity for Linux. As MS Windows restricts what can and can't be done on their OS, Linux should get their crap together and work on hardware support and on making an user friendly distribution to get the average joe on board (it was painful and took MANY tries for me to learn linux from scratch and this was just a year ago). We generally won't get the older Mom and Pops to install Linux but the average Joe is all we need.

Re:The ever vanishing pixel

[LWATCDR]

This high resolution == legibility problems is one of my pet peeves.
High resolution improves the legibility of text. Just you a bigger font! Your average printed page is 5100x6600. Do you find that hard to read?
Pick the right font and you will not have a problem.
images are a different matter but even those can be re-sized.

os

[agentdunken]

Why does a OS need to take all your hardware? Its called a OS for reason. Its not a video game, its a Operating System,something that allows you to give your computer commands for it can do your functions. A OS should never, EVER, take so much high system requirements.

Re:DRM?

[nizo]

Lets see, if a Microsoft license is required to play brand-spank-me-new-drm DVDs on your brand-spank-me-new-drm DVD player in your pc, this would put a big dent in the desktop market for any other OS that can't make them play wouldn't it? So I can see exactly why Microsoft is gung-ho on the DRM issue. They can claim to be "doing the right thing" when in fact all they are really doing is increasing their stranglehold on the desktop.

Cracked Foundation

[Doc Ruby]

I can't wait to see all the millions of cheap PCs, most made in China, which carry cracked "crypto ROMs". When those PCs are untrustworthy to either user or publisher, will the entire "snitch PC" system collapse under its own weight?

Is this the road to the glue factory?

[Keith Russell]

(sigh) Zonk, what are we gonna do with you?

...the article also touches on things like DRM (which Vista heavily supports)...

DRM is imposed on operating system vendors by Big Media. OS vendors' choices are limited to compliance, getting sued for lack of compliance, or lack of support altogether. So Microsoft complied with Big Media's demands for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray in Vista. Why do people keep acting like it's some stunning revelation, when Microsoft's stance has not changed between XP and Vista? Yes, that's rhetorical. Kinda like asking why Buffalo Sabres fans hate Brett Hull.

And yes, I know I'm beating a dead horse. But every time I turn a corner, there's a carcass and a convienently-placed blunt object...

Re:So how long?

[mrchaotica]

"Fixed with" layouts are very popular with web designers, who like the amount of control it gives them.

And by "web designers," I'm sure you mean "control-freak relics from print publishing who don't know how the fuck to use the new medium properly," right?

If you're going to do fixed width, it should probably be no more than 1024x768, and 800x600 isn't a bad measure.

If you're going to do fixed width, you're already doing something wrong. How wide the page should be is the user's decision, not yours!

Re:The ever vanishing pixel

[AJWM]

Vista's Avalon addresses the resolution issue in an elegant way [...]
display resolution and font size are NOT related. [...] in fact most sizes are defined as they will appear on the screen (e.g. cm, inches) and not as they are stored (pixels).

About time. This is hardly rocket science -- some of us have been doing that with apps since the late 1980s (sometime around the X10 to X11 transition). Yeah, the software needs to know how big a screen pixel is (the old DEC and Sun graphic monitors were about 0.35mm -- huge by today's standards) but that's easy enough. From there it's simple arithmetic to convert a font or feature size in screen inches (or cm) to pixels.

You could also do stuff like choosing to rescale or not when you zoom in or out, handy for maps. (The apps mentioned above were GIS and mapping software). And yes, we interpolated raster images too so you could specify the image display size without worrying about its stored pixel dimensions -- although obviously a 20x20 pixel image is going to be pretty blurry blown up to 10cm x 10cm.

Display Postscript could probably do this too, that's been around for about as long.

Re:Having exprienced the Vista BETA...

[mrchaotica]

I've already moved out of the patch cycle for my home workstation, WGA did it for me (and I'm running a legit copy). I'd rather deal with more aggresively scanning for malware than deal with the patch cycle and WGA.

Windows activation did it for me, five years ago. I'd rather deal with imperfect interoperability than deal with either WGA or malware.

Re:Assuming Vista is Widely Adopted

[Lord Kano]

I see no indication that people will switch to vista, other than new hardware vendors preloading it. It really seems that no one is excited, or even INTERESTED in the features.

That, my friend is the devil in the details. Although I don't know anyone who is excited about getting Vista, Dell and Gateway are going to preload it onto all of their new machines. App vendors are going to start developing for Vista's features and XP support is going to fade away and the rest of us are going to be forced to upgrade.

LK