PC World's 20 Most Innovative Products of 2006

Craig Sender writes "PC World has put together a list of their choices for the 20 Most Innovative Products of 2006. The List includes Office 2007, Nintendo Wii, Sony Reader, Sony PlayStation 3, the BlackBerry Pearl, and some other interesting choices."

Comments

#21

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot Color Themes

Re:#21

[SpooForBrains]

OMG! Ponies!!11

Print view

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,128176 /printable.html

Ridiculous that the article is stretched across 8 pages.

Re:Print view

[AZScotsman]

Gotta make room for all those ads somehow.... I stopped paying attention to PC World and PC Week over 8 years ago. It's pretty clear that their "reviews" have lapsed into the Puff-Piece Zone, and the rating they give software/hardware is relative to the number of full-page ads the subject has bought over the last twelve issues. Years ago, I wrote for a "subscription-only" print mag that reviewed game software and published hints and walkthrus (Yeah, it was a cushy job, but somebody had to do it...). We didn't take a penny for advertising and the staff was encouraged to "call it like you see it". Unfortunately, the lack of adspace also meant a low income for the company. Long story short - no more magazine.

Re:Print view

[curtisk]

Ridiculous that the article is stretched across 8 pages.

Thanks for the alternate view linkage, it would hurt even more if I had to read that spotty list clicking "next" over and over

Re:Print view

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you feel the need to add 'age' to the word 'link'?

Are you also one of those nutters who asks: "Got any coinage?"

WHAT IS WRONG WITH COINS! WHAT!

Re:Print view

[physicsnick]

Ooh, this also gets rid of the insane amounts of advertisement on either side of the article. Thanks!

Re:Print view

[vought]

Thanks for the alternate view linkage, it would hurt even more if I had to read that spotty list clicking "next" over and over

And on PC World's site, the article's "next" and "back" links are nearly pixel for pixel copies of....Safari's back and forward buttons.

Even PC World's web site is aping the Mac OS now!

Re:Print view

[Russellkhan]

I'm taking this OT thread even further O, but I highly recommend Firefox+Adblock Plus for your ad-free viewing pleasure.

Re:Print view

[russx2]

I think someone needs to chillage

Re:Print view

[Bloke down the pub]

Perhaps he has a grammatitude problem?

Re:Print view

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe curtisk is Pauly Shore's /. account? Or maybe curtisk is just giving us a Pauly Shore impression?

Re:Print view

[NZBeeMan]

that would be:
I think someone needs some chillage

Re:Print view

[memco]

What's wrong with question marks I ask you? What?

Office 2007?

[vp_development]

Good lord, how is this innovation in anything except crapiness? Office 2007 is the opposite of ODF, which is the wave of the future in documents. Fighting against the community for profit is hardly innovative -- MSFT has been doing it for years.

Re:Office 2007?

[rob1980]

It's innovative if you're looking for new and exciting ways to make money. Maybe that's what the article was getting at?

Re:Office 2007?

[jorghis]

Well, if you read the article it seems pretty clear they are considering the interface to be innovative. Personally, I tend to agree with them, its miles better than other productivity software I have used in the past. (imho of course, its subjective)

I dont think that using either ODF or MS Open XML (or whatever its called) is very innovative one way or the other. Claiming they arent/are being innovative by choosing one format over another is kind of silly.

Just because you dont like that they arent supporting ODF doesnt mean they arent innovating in other areas.

Re:Office 2007?

[linguae]

Office 2007's innovation is the ribbon interface, which does away from the traditional toolbar/menu interface. Although I personally don't like the interface (the ribbons are uncustomizable, and some options that used to require only one click on a toolbar now require two or three clicks), the interface does accomplish the task of placing related options together in an easily accessible way to novices of Office, as well as accessing less-commonly used features.

Like the interface or not, the ribbon interface is an innovative way of grouping tasks together, especially in a program such as Microsoft Office that supports hundreds of features. If the ribbon interface contained some concessions for experienced computer users (shortcuts and ribbon customization, for example), then the ribbon interface may be a serious contender to the traditional menu/toolbar paradigm on the Windows platform. This is probably the single most innovative thing I've seen coming from Microsoft yet, even if I personally don't like it ;)

Re:Office 2007?

[jorghis]

Personally I really like the new way they are doing keyboard shortcuts. If you push alt keytips appear on all the different tabs/buttons. I got in the habit of doing this and within a few hours I was faster at doing most tasks in 2007 than I was in 2003 or even emacs (apples and oranges, I know). You should try it, I really liked it, it seemed to have a very low learning curve but was fairly powerful.

Re:Office 2007?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, this ribbon thingy is the innovation that is going to send the technophobes, rigidly used to the conventions of M$ Office since '95 or '97, screaming over to OpenOffice, where, paradoxically, they will feel more at home. Factor in all the retraining, hand holding and slowdown in productivity of large scale offices & OpenOffice starts looking even better. Way to go M$.

Re:Office 2007?

[nacturation]

Good lord, how is this innovation in anything except crapiness? Office 2007 is the opposite of ODF, which is the wave of the future in documents. Fighting against the community for profit is hardly innovative -- MSFT has been doing it for years. Give it a rest. This community of which you speak has been ripping off Microsoft Office for inspiration for years. Check out OpenOffice.org's innovative word processor interface -- everything is ripped off, from the font dropdowns, the indent/unindent icons, to the bold/italic/underline options, the clipboard icons, even the 3.5" floppy disk drive icon representing the save function. And who saves to floppy drives anymore? As far as interfaces go, I'd say it's pretty hard to rip something off better than this community-created word processor has. I'd check out the other apps in its Office-clone suite but I don't think I'd find much different.

Also, a news flash for you: Microsoft probably doesn't really care about ODF because the vast majority of its customers really don't give a damn what the other 1% of people who don't use Microsoft Office are scheming about. The only reason there's a whole push to this ODF format is because people are jealous of Microsoft Office's success and they want to push Microsoft to adopt this format so that they can gain a foothold into Microsoft's market. Why do you care whether or not other software vendors adopt ODF? If it's the wave of the future in documents as you claim, then I guess Microsoft will get left out and will become irrelevant and you'll be raking in the dough sitting at the open source helpdesk answering questions all day. Won't that better further your ideological agenda than having Microsoft become the dominant player and supporter of ODF?

And as far as "fighting against the community... for years" goes, where did you pull that statement from? I'll assume you're referring to the open source community since the business community has been very well served by Microsoft. If you subtract the drama from your statement, I think it would be more accurate to say that Microsoft has been ignoring the open source community for years. It's interesting how people react to a lack of attention. All this just seems to me that a few open source fanboys are throwing a tantrum because they didn't get invited to play in Microsoft's sanbox.

Re:Office 2007?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful?

He is doing that idiotic M$ thing, and he is evading the question of whether the ribbon is innovative or not by turning it into a comparison versus OpenOffice, a fairly typical holy war trope.

He has a point, but, it's totally off topic. Let me try to match it:

Oranges have a higher vitamin C content than apples Comparing apples and oranges was the sort of thing M$ does when it claims advantages over the *nix solution!

I also find this incredibly ironic, given that the main thrust of his argument was in fact praising a totally non-innovative design for being non-innovative -- OpenOffice's interface is a clone of Office's (pre-2007 Office's, anyway).

Disclaimer: I code for OpenOffice, and it's what I use.

Re:Office 2007?

[Giometrix]

"Give it a rest. This community of which you speak has been ripping off Microsoft Office for inspiration for years." I agree with you about the "ripping off" part, but I don't really consider it "ripping off," but rather borrowing and extending. Microsoft is constantly bashed for ripping of Apple. MS fans like to bash Linux/Open Office fans because of the similarity to Windows and Office. But why WOULDN'T you want to emulate the parts that have been proven to work? Microsoft spends millions upon millions researching what people want: from color schemes, to icon size and placement, to sounds. MS gets a lot of the things that most customers don't know about/care about wrong(like security), but the looks, feel and usability of there products is something they don't skimp on, because it is what sells. Not using Microsoft (or Apple) as a guide to the user interface will almost certainly doom your project to be used only by a very small audience. If it FEELS like the software that people know and love, they will be much more likely to use it.

Re:Office 2007?

[Giometrix]

sorry, didn't mean to post in html mode:

"Give it a rest. This community of which you speak has been ripping off Microsoft Office for inspiration for years."

I agree with you about the "ripping off" part, but I don't really consider it "ripping off," but rather borrowing and extending. Microsoft is constantly bashed for ripping of Apple. MS fans like to bash Linux/Open Office fans because of the similarity to Windows and Office. But why WOULDN'T you want to emulate the parts that have been proven to work? Microsoft spends millions upon millions researching what people want: from color schemes, to icon size and placement, to sounds. MS gets a lot of the things that most customers don't know about/care about wrong(like security), but the looks, feel and usability of there products is something they don't skimp on, because it is what sells. Not using Microsoft (or Apple) as a guide to the user interface will almost certainly doom your project to be used only by a very small audience. If it FEELS like the software that people know and love, they will be much more likely to use it.

Re:Office 2007?

[a_ghostwheel]

This was in Lotus Notes for a long time now.

Re:Office 2007?

[jorghis]

Thats true, I was hardly claiming that ms was the first to let you hit a button to have all the little tooltips pop up. But the guy I was responding too seemed unaware of it and it fits in very well with the Office 2007 interface. (cue silly slogans about unleashing productivity) I thought that he/she would find it useful if he/she knew about it.

I didnt mean for it to be part of some "company X did this first!", "No! Company Y did! And company X sucks!" type of debate. Its just a nice feature that works well in that product. : )

Re:Office 2007?

[arose]

In related news: Ton Roosendaal under investigation for illegaly altering the timeline. The director of TBI was terse: "The fact that Blender 3D contains a ribbon type interface predating MS Office 2007 made us suspicious, the fact that PC World named the ribbon interface in MS Office 2007 the top innovation of 2006 confirmed our worst fears."

Re:Office 2007?

[BokLM]

Microsoft probably doesn't really care about ODF because the vast majority of its customers really don't give a damn what the other 1% of people who don't use Microsoft Office are scheming about.

No, you're wrong. The vast majority of MS Office users would care about ODF, but they never heard about it and don't even know what it is. The vast majority of the people using MS Office use it because it supports the file format that everybody else uses. They don't give a damn about the few features MS Office has which OpenOffice.org doesn't. All they want is to use a word processor and spreadshit that support the file format that most people use. If MS Office were to move to ODF, people would be able to choose their office program based on their price and features, not on the file format they support. But Microsoft doesn't want that ...

Re:Office 2007?

[nacturation]

The vast majority of MS Office users would care about ODF, but they never heard about it and don't even know what it is. Thus, they don't care... that's my point. The users aren't interested in choice because they've already chosen and Microsoft Office does the job for the price they pay. Businesses don't care about some ideological pie in the sky idea; they want to know what works and pay a fair price for it.

Re:Office 2007?

[owlnation]

I haven't used Office 2007, so this is a question not a criticism. Is this really so innovative? from the screen shots it looks like nothing more than an in-application version of the OSX dock. (which IS fully customizable unlike the ribbon seemingly) I see that it is taking the concept of Dock to a different level, but is it really innovation?

Re:Office 2007?

[kfg]

. . .the interface does accomplish the task of placing related options together in an easily accessible way to novices of Office

What ever happened to the idea of making things easy for experts and then teaching people expertise?

We are descending into a world of busy boxes where everything is possible and nothing can get done.

No, I am not being elitiist (although I am under other circumstances. When did incompetence become a virtue to be nurtured?), nor a Luddite, but if you wish to know which power tools are toy junk being foisted off on the DIY crowd for a profit and which are of true value to the craftsman;

Ask the craftsman.

KFG

Re:Office 2007?

[weg]

Hmm.. a new file format is hardly an innovation. But you're right, all of the products listed in the article have been there before, in one way or the other. Parallels? C'mon, this is just VMware for the Mac. A hard disk? Uhm.. if the author thinks a hard disk is innovative, where has he been living the last 50 years? Ebooks, desktop PCs and mobile phones? My guess is that they were too lazy to write a new article, took one from the early 90s and just replaced the names of the products..

Re:Office 2007?

[WindBourne]

As somebody else pointed out, this was on blender already. For further proof, check out that they consider the intel innovative with a dual core. Sparcs (and others) have been out with numerous multiple cores for years. All in all, there was little in this review that was innovative. My thinking is that it was simply a set of pay-offs or they used some of the most ignorant people on the planet.

Re:Office 2007?

[TheNetAvenger]

The Ribbon per se isn't a new technology.

What is new in Office 2007 is the way the Ribbon works, which is different than ribbons in blender and notes, etc.

The Office 2007 Ribbon is contextual and offers intelligent options based on what the user is doing, add in realtime formatting options from a ribbon drop down concept, and remove menus completely, and you have what makes the Office 2007 interface innovative.

Also, not only does it push the new paradigm on a Ribbon concept, it also forces users to become familar with it by not offering a Menu System.

I find the interface a love hate. At first you hate it when looking for features, but once it clicks (about 15min of random use), then you appreciate the Ribbons and the way it presents information, things that just can't be done easily with toolbars nor done at all with menus, like the live previews.

Re:Office 2007?

[SnarfQuest]

So, changing the menus on one program is much more innovative than designing a new game console (ps3, wii). I think this looks more like a "who paid the most" advertisement.

Re:Office 2007?

[Deviant Q]

You complain about wanting concessions for experienced users like shortcuts to commonly-used features that you need one-click access to... isn't that what the Quick Access Toolbar is for?

Re:Office 2007?

[nacturation]

The point of my post isn't that copying good ideas is bad, but rather this: it's complete hypocrisy that the open source Office-like suites were designed to copy every single detail of how Microsoft Office operates and then some yahoo comes along and points the finger back at Microsoft, blaming them for a lack of innovation.

Re:Office 2007?

[arifirefox]

the price is that in 5 years, none of their important documents will work

Re:Office 2007?

[nacturation]

the price is that in 5 years, none of their important documents will work Because files just magically stop working, right? I have .doc files from the early '90s which I can still open and use. That's well over 10 years. And, going forward, you'll be able to open your Office documents any way you want because of Office Open XML -- I'm sure OpenOffice.org and the others will implement support for it too. On the other hand, maybe you'll share some of that Kool-aid you're drinking. It seems quite funky.

Re:Office 2007?

[arose]

The Office 2007 Ribbon is contextual and offers intelligent options based on what the user is doing [..]

Blenders interface cetainly is contextual. As for 'intelligent', to me that sounds either like marketing speak for contextual or a clippy-like system second guessing the user.

[..] add in realtime formatting options from a ribbon drop down concept [..]

As opposed to the non-real time drop down formating options of previvous versions?

[..] and remove menus completely [..]

And this is a good idea why? Good menus enable exploring available options through a textual interface (having to browse tooltips is not a good alternative), save screen space (think 16:9 on a laptop) and keep less used options out the way. Bad menus on the other hand have far too many entries, nested menus and hide entries...

Re:Office 2007?

[TheNetAvenger]

Blenders interface cetainly is contextual. As for 'intelligent', to me that sounds either like marketing speak for contextual or a clippy-like system second guessing the user.

Use them BOTH, then you might understand the differences.

And this is a good idea why? Good menus enable exploring available options through a textual interface (having to browse tooltips is not a good alternative), save screen space (think 16:9 on a laptop) and keep less used options out the way

#1 It is hard to show a palette of graphical options in a MENU.

#2 It is obvious you haven't even used Office 2007, but are quick to reply, the Ribbon has an option to completely hide when not being used, which is how a lot of people are running it, so it gives the old clean screen days of Wordperfect. Hence, no wasted screen space.

#3 Menus are an outdated concept, and even if the Ribbon bar isn't the replacement, it is time someone started exploring new concepts in UIs to get past a LIST OF WORDS to operate a graphical interface metaphor. So even if it isn't the final grand UI, it is at least a step ahead of lists of TERMS that Novice Users have NO IDEA WTF they do. And instead replaced by actual pictures of what the functions do with a palette of options demonstrating the feature. Which is much easier for people to learn than train them new TERMS to reference that they have no need to add to their lexicon.

I get tired of geeks that want to hold on to the hold days so hard they end up killing innovative moves by anyone. This is a graphical world, why constrict usage with terminology when there are less abstract ways to allow access to the same concepts. Shall I reference Linguistic studies so you can understand this better?

Re:Office 2007?

[Lotharus]

"...but if you wish to know which power tools are toy junk being foisted off on the DIY crowd for a profit and which are of true value to the craftsman; Ask the craftsman."

No mod points today.. +1 Preach It, Brutha!

Re:Office 2007?

[arose]

Use them BOTH, then you might understand the differences.

So the 'intelligent' behaviour is impossible to explain in plain english, at least somwhat I see. Nonetheless Blenders interface is contextual, as I'm quite sure are many other graphical interfaces.

It is hard to show a palette of graphical options in a MENU.

Not every Office function is a graphical option.

It is obvious you haven't even used Office 2007, but are quick to reply, the Ribbon has an option to completely hide when not being used [..]

I however can read and did indeed know that such an option exists. I however reject the idea of a toolbar replacement (ribbon is a menu/toolbar replacement right?) needs autohide because it's too big. I'd be glad to told that I'm wrong and the ribbon can work vertically as well as horizontaly.

So even if it isn't the final grand UI, it is at least a step ahead of lists of TERMS that Novice Users have NO IDEA WTF they do.

Was I unclear when I specificly stated why well made menus are better for novice users? Handwaving about how text has no place in GUIs is not an argument and showing more icons into the face of novice users isn't a solution for applications that have too many functionsto be placed in menus. The ribbon retains all the far-too-many-functions for daily use and far-too-many-cryptic-pictures features, everyone who is comfortable with their current version of MS Office should adjust without too much trouble. Those of us who would like to see a better, not just different interface will have to look elsewhere.

And instead replaced by actual pictures of what the functions do with a palette of options demonstrating the feature.

Which is a good option for functions that have clear grapical representations and perform actions that can be graphicly summarized in palletes. It isn't incompatible with the WIMP paradigm and is mostly used in graphics software for obvious reasons. However when users start systematicly checking one tooltip after another to find a function they need it is pretty clear that icons aren't magic bullets.

I get tired of geeks that want to hold on to the hold days so hard they end up killing innovative moves by anyone.

Good old days of MS Office interface? I haven't expirienced such a thing. The menus have allways been long and the toolbars too many and too cryptic.

Shall I reference Linguistic studies so you can understand this better?

Human-computer interaction would be more on-topic.

gah

[Red Flayer]

Can this article please be re-labeled as an advertorial?

I'd like to see advertising revenue figures from 2006 for the featured items' companies on PCWorlds financials... I wonder how closely they'd tie in to the rank of the products.

I'm sure it's part of their sales strategy (I work in print publishing... you can bet advertisers get preferential treatment in editorial content).

Re:gah

[jorghis]

In 2005 they ranked firefox and gmail the #1 and #2 best products of the year. Neither of those two advertises with PC World. (to my knowledge, correct me if I am wrong)

Could it be that MS Office (#1 on this list) just isnt popular with the slashdot crowd and that is why the first several posts are denouncing PC World as paid Microsoft shills?

Re:gah

[Red Flayer]

Could it be that MS Office (#1 on this list) just isnt popular with the slashdot crowd and that is why the first several posts are denouncing PC World as paid Microsoft shills?

No, for me it weas the gushing reviews of products (with links to their sales sites) that just didn't seem to be anything more than gloss ads. Nothing at all to do with Microsoft in particular.

Re:gah

[sanyam_y]

Intel/Microsoft != Innovation. Their products might be the most successful in the year, but certainly not innovative.

Re:gah

[masdog]

Seeing as how Office 2007 isn't technically out yet (at least I can't go to Best Buy/Fry's/CompUSA/NewEgg/etc and purchase a copy), it strikes me as astroturfing.

Both Firefox and GMail were hard to ignore. They took the world by storm and forced Microsoft (and in GMail's case, just about every other webmail provider) to improve their product.

Re:gah

[Hawkxor]

I don't see any reason that this should be true. ?

Re:gah

[jorghis]

Its been released to business customers, and it currently has an install base larger than almost every other software software product sold from those stores you mentioned. It is very much "out". I think a good analogy would be movies that open in a couple of theatres and then see nationwide releases a week or so later. The movie is still said to have been released the day it started playing, not the day that it started playing nationwide.

My point with firefox and gmail is not that they werent important (they certainly were) but that PC World clearly doesnt have a problem with giving their top ranks to people who dont give them money. Many posters in this discussion have been implying otherwise.

Re:gah

[jorghis]

I dont see any links to sales sites on there. Am I just missing some obvious bit of text? The only ones I can see go to pictures and reviews. Maybe when you were there you got served an ad that was based on the context of what you were viewing, but that would have happened regardless of whether the blurb was favorable or not.

Its not unusual for top X lists to sound like a little like ads, I mean obviously they liked the product so it seems logical that the little blurb would be favorable. They have listed products that were made by companies that gave them no money. I think your accusations of being them selecting products exclusively based on who advertises in their magazine arent well founded.

Re:gah

[Anonymous Coward]

Any top list that has the words innovation and Microsoft in it can't be anything else than a Microsoft add.

Re:gah

[Red Flayer]

I think your accusations of being them selecting products exclusively based on who advertises in their magazine arent well founded.

Well, nowhere did I say that would be the exclusive selection criteria. But it most definitely is A selection criteria. It would absolutely shock me if it weren't, as every publication I've worked for (closing in on double-digits) has done the same. Major print publications.

Proving once again that PC World has no shame

[loftwyr]

PC World brings you the top 20 most frequent advertisers' current most hyped object!

But wait! There wasn't an iPod! But iPods are the most innovative things evar!

Number 0 must be the iPod Video, now with rubber ducky control built in!

Re:Proving once again that PC World has no shame

[fastgood]

I don't ever read ads. It looks like 10 companies, well-represented at the mall:

Microsoft
Intel
Samsung
Sony
Dell
Seagate
Sony
T-Mobile
Sony
Logitech

Aren't they just guilty of being rich consumer electronics companies?

Re:Proving once again that PC World has no shame

[HappySqurriel]

Well, I went looking for a definition of Innovate and what I got was:

To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time.

What bothers me with this list is that most of the products can not really be classified as inovative; the list might be alright if it was the 10 most important products released in 2006, or the 10 most improved product lines of 2006, but 10 most innovative is a big stretch. Now, I recognize that this is partially my love of the Wii speaking but the Wii is (from my understanding) the only product on that list which really brings anything new; the others may bring a lot of improvement to their product lines, but they don't bring much that is really new.

Re:Proving once again that PC World has no shame

[aerthling]

Disappointingly, it appears you were not using a Microsoft Certified dictionary. PC World is just using the term 'innovative' as defined by the Microsoft Standard American Dictionary.

innovative (in-no-va-tive)
adjective: Bigger, buggier, and more expensive than the last fifteen versions. May incorporate slight cosmetic enhancements and added minor functionality.
Example: Microsoft Office is more innovative than any of its competitors.

Re:Proving once again that PC World has no shame

[stewbacca]

Apple bashing even in the absence of Apple product...now I've seen it all.

Annoying article..

[euxneks]

Is anyone else annoyed at the amount of ads you have to see not just once, but _every_ time you have to view the "next" part of the webpage? This is the internet fer god's sake! Put all the content on one page or you're not getting my possible viewing revenue!

Re:Annoying article..

[cheebie]

As with most articles like this, hitting the 'print' link brings up the article all on one page with less advertising. Except, of course, for the article itself which is 100% product placement.

Re:Annoying article..

[DebateG]

Just click "Print." That takes you to one page views.

Re:Annoying article..

[Anonymous Coward]

firefox + adblock plus + noscript. it's like an ad condom for your browser

Re:Annoying article..

[GiorgosK]

So these pages had no content. Just advertising.

Re:Annoying article..

[Anonymous Coward]

The article IS an ad. I'll bet my lunch against yours that their top five clients, in order are:

Microsoft
Intel
Apple
Sony
Dell

Here's how my read went:
"Hmm, Office 2007. I'm not sure I would call that one of the top 1000 innovative products of '06 but lets look further"
(click)
"Intel, Apple, that's odd...the Wii made the list...I would have expected..."
(click"
"...Sony"
"Umm...what magazine was this again?"
(check URL)
"PC World". (click)(click)(click) "done"
"Maybe I should block the asshole who posted this to Digg and Slashdot as well? Nah...Maybe later when I'm logged in."

Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[jpardey]

I am going to assume there will be a lot of complaining about the PS3 being included. It does two things that are pretty novel: A chip tailored for the application and high performance computing (sorry for the buzzword) when off the shelf components are becoming more and more commonplace. Come on, you want a Cell, don't you? Imagine running a differential equation solver in real time for sound synthesis on one of those, say. Also, I think it is a tool to market Blu-ray, which is a rather interesting strategy. Blu-Ray will probably pay off as games get bigger with the screens, and should generate a lot of revenue for Sony, if it defeats HD-DVD in the home movie market.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[Osty]

A chip tailored for the application and high performance computing (sorry for the buzzword) when off the shelf components are becoming more and more commonplace. Come on, you want a Cell, don't you? Imagine running a differential equation solver in real time for sound synthesis on one of those, say

What?

Also, I think it is a tool to market Blu-ray, which is a rather interesting strategy. Blu-Ray will probably pay off as games get bigger with the screens, and should generate a lot of revenue for Sony, if it defeats HD-DVD in the home movie market.

While games may eventually need the space provided by Blu-Ray discs, I can't see that happening for another 4-5 years at least. In the meantime, proper compression techniques and at worst multi-DVD games will be more than enough. As for beating HD-DVD, I'd say the chips are historically stacked against Sony. They didn't win with Betamax, MiniDisc, Memory Stick, or UMD. I'd be surprised if they win with Blu-Ray. Besides, the price of an Xbox 360 + HD-DVD player is about the same as a PS3, and HD-DVD standalone players are generally cheaper than standalone BD players. To top it off, early HD-DVD transfers have been much better than on BD, giving HD-DVD an early quality lead.

It'll probably be at least another year before there's a clear winner in this format war, but if I was a betting man I'd have to go with HD-DVD for now. It has much more going for it than Blu-Ray. Sony might pull it out of their collective asses with BD, but don't count on it.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[DrEldarion]

I'd be surprised if they win with Blu-Ray.

Ignoring ANY merits of the two formats and pretty much EVERYTHING ELSE that either has going for it, it's pretty easy to predict that blu-ray will win over HD-DVD. Why? Because even if the PS3 is a horrible, horrible failure and only sells 10 million units over the course of its lifetime, that's 10 million more blu-ray players in homes, which HD-DVD likely can't hope to match.

Plus, as everyone seems to forget, it's not only Sony backing blu-ray: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_ supporting_Blu-ray

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[Volante3192]

Plus, as everyone seems to forget, it's not only Sony backing blu-ray:

But also don't forget that it's only Sony gets the royalty check at the end of the day.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[SmlFreshwaterBuffalo]

A chip tailored for the application... You've obviously never heard of an ASIC before.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[physicsnick]

Imagine running a differential equation solver in real time for sound synthesis on one of those, say. Also, I think it is a tool to market Blu-ray, which is a rather interesting strategy.

This is exactly how Sony is shitting on their gamers. I don't want to solve differential equations. I don't want to sponsor a Blu-ray marketing campaign. I want to play games.

The cell processor is optimized for in-order processing. As far as games are concerned, this makes it ideal for pretty reflection and water effects, and practically crippled for gameplay elements like AI (you know, things that make games fun). If they were marketing it as a general purpose processor, it might be innovative. For the PS3, it's anything but.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[Animats]

The PS3 is indeed innovative. The Cell is the first non-shared memory multiprocessor in a mass market product. Whether this is a good idea or a dead end, like the Itanic, remains to be seen.

I personally think that the hassles of a non-shared memory machine outweigh the advantages, especially when the amount of memory per processor is on the low side. The XBox 360 is a 3-CPU shared memory multiprocessor, and presents no new programming problems. Historically, non-shared memory multiprocessors are very hard to program. The Ncube, the BBN Butterfly, and the Transputer all had that problem. However, enough PS3 machines are deployed that the effort is being expended to hammer through that problem.

It may not matter, though. The idea was supposed to be that the Cell processor would result in a cheaper machine than the competition's. That didn't work out.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[crossmr]

No, I don't want a Cell processor, but thanks for asking.

We'll again point to Chris Hecker's take on the cell processor: http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/03/ burn_the_house_.html

in short. It sucks for good games. More innovative would have been a console including a multicore/processor machine that had different types of processors for doing different things on. The PS3s processor is handicapped for AI, and since no one wants one, you won't find anyone online to play with it.

Its like putting rubber boots on Asafa Powell. Sure, he's set for rain, but what happens if he has to run a race?

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[Anonymous Coward]

The cell processor is optimized for in-order processing. As far as games are concerned, this makes it ideal for pretty reflection and water effects, and practically crippled for gameplay elements like AI (you know, things that make games fun)

This gets modded insightful?

Please, for the love of all that is holy, let this bullshit meme die. Do you know anything at all about in-order processing, AI or graphics programming? Your post seems to indicate that you don't... so please shut the fuck up. There's nothing about an in-order processor that makes it inferior for gameplay or artificial intelligence, nor is there anything about it that would make it superior for reflections or water effects.

The choice of in-order versus out-of-order has very little to do with anything from the consumer's perspective. Keep in mind that the Xbox 360's processor is in-order as well... So I guess neither console can support decent AI algorithms? What a crock of shit.

If you're going to pick on something about the cell architecture, try its reliance on vector processing over general scalar processing, or better yet -- stop bitching entirely about things you clearly don't understand.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[jpardey]

Maybe if it was only Microsoft getting HD-DVD royalties, they would have done a good job with the 360 addon.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[jpardey]

I have heard of an ASIC before. I was going a bit over the top, but I wanted to get the post out... pre-emptively. This is no ASIC. That's like calling a 747 a glider. I do not know much of the field, but anyway...

Why I think the Cell is a good idea:
1. Standard PPC core. With the wealth of PPC code out there, compilers shouldn't have a problem with that.
2. Parallel vector processors. How cool is that? Each one like a math coprocessor, only with more awesome included (sorry for the non technical terms there). Perfect for grinding out mathematical operations, that so often pop up in graphics, 3d-2d conversion, and I would imagine AI programs.
So, we have a processor that fits the bill. Anyway, I am tired, and I should get to sleep now. I was going to say something else, but I forgot what.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[physicsnick]

The choice of in-order versus out-of-order has very little to do with anything from the consumer's perspective. Keep in mind that the Xbox 360's processor is in-order as well... So I guess neither console can support decent AI algorithms? What a crock of shit.

Yes. In case you haven't noticed, the Xbox 360 is also designed for graphics rather than gameplay.

You can achieve the same level of AI (for example) on these chips as on a computer; the problem is that it's much harder. The average console game will have much shittier AI because they just can't handle unoptimized code as well as a computer. It's unrealistic to think that every game developer will spend hundreds of man-hours optimizing their code to make up for the failings of an in-order processor; it's just more efficient to spend the time on prettier graphics.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[node 3]

The PS3s processor is handicapped for AI, and since no one wants one, you won't find anyone online to play with it. Are you mad? The PS3 is a hot seller this holiday. *Every* gamer I know, except one, bought a PS3. Only one bought a Wii. None have an Xbox 360. These gamers run the gamut, from hardcore PC gamer, to casual console player. Most of the people in my list did have an original Xbox, slightly more had the PS2, and there was a lot of overlap between the two.

I know it's popular to dump on the PS3, mostly because it's so easy to hate Sony (rootkit CDs), but seriously, the average consumer couldn't care less, and seriously want the PS3 and Blu-ray.

While I expected the PS3 to do well (better than the gamer-geek crowd has been forecasting), it's actually done even better than I expected. Interestingly, every single person was really excited about Blu-ray.

Don't let your hatred of Sony blind you to the truth. The PS3 will have to seriously suck in order to lose this round of the console wars. A bunch of navel-gazing analysis of whether the Cell is optimal for AI is nice and all, but the real metric is going to be whether people buy the system.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[pimpimpim]

What magic does blu-ray that anything else doesn't do? I don't see any reason to get excited about it. Probably the only media that are available on blu-ray are games for the ps3. If they came on HD-DVD or whatever the format is called, would you be less happy?

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[Russellkhan]

Are you mad? The PS3 is a hot seller this holiday. *Every* gamer I know, except one, bought a PS3. Funny, only one gamer I know bought a PS3, and he did it planning to make some cash by eBaying it so he could buy himself a Wii with the profit. To top it off, this hot seller he bought wouldn't sell!

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[ElleyKitten]

Are you mad? The PS3 is a hot seller this holiday. *Every* gamer I know, except one, bought a PS3. Only one bought a Wii. None have an Xbox 360. These gamers run the gamut, from hardcore PC gamer, to casual console player. Most of the people in my list did have an original Xbox, slightly more had the PS2, and there was a lot of overlap between the two.

Surveys of your friends don't apply to everyone else in the world. My friends would take a GP2x over a PS3. They're not representive of the rest of the world, either.

The Wii sold out. The PS3 sold out. The Wii had many more systems made (thus many more systems sold). That's kinda impressive for the underdog.

The PS3 will have to seriously suck in order to lose this round of the console wars.

It depends on your definition of "lose". The Gamecube made more money for Nintendo than the PS2 and XBox made for Sony and Microsoft combined. So if goal is the make the most money, the smart bet is on Nintendo this generation. Sony hasn't been shy about saying they're selling the PS3 at a loss, and while that tactic might work if you sell many more consoles than your competitors (thus selling more games) it probably won't work so well if you don't (they're not Microsoft, they don't get money from almost every computer sold). They might regain their lead, but that's going to be an uphill battle for them (remember, as of now they're last place in console sales). Sony's not in a good position right now, and if you look past what your friends are saying, you'll realize that.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[spectecjr]

2. Parallel vector processors. How cool is that? Each one like a math coprocessor, only with more awesome included (sorry for the non technical terms there). Perfect for grinding out mathematical operations, that so often pop up in graphics, 3d-2d conversion, and I would imagine AI programs.

Game AI is more about branching than vector processing; you might have a point with collision detection, except that you'd have to address the problem in many many phases to get it to work (small batches - not much memory on the cell itself, even with that fast DMA and the ring). What it's really suited for is finite element analysis - you know, stuff like fluid dynamics simulation, radiosity, volumetric effects, etc. Alas, the Cell isn't the graphics output stage - it just feeds data into it.

So basically, it's a bear to program for.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[spectecjr]

Each one like a math coprocessor, only with more awesome included (sorry for the non technical terms there). Perfect for grinding out mathematical operations, that so often pop up in graphics, 3d-2d conversion, and I would imagine AI programs.


Oh, and all that graphics stuff you mention? That's what the PS3's GPU is for.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[jpardey]

To a degree. Can you do collision detection, procedural textures, and everything else on a GPU? A GPU is still fairly specialized. Math operations are still useful outside of it.

Re:Pre-emptive PS3 defence

[jpardey]

No, but so far they aren't. If Microsoft allowed games to be played off of HD-DVD, then maybe the 360 would be as interesting as the PS3.

Playstation 3?

[Lethyos]

Can someone explain to me exactly what is innovative about this? I do not understand how a hardware upgrade is innovative. Can I get on this list since I put a new video card in my machine this year?

Re:Playstation 3?

[interiot]

It has lots of features (like the 3DO had), but it's a great deal? (if you're in the market for a Blu-ray player...) Although the motion control was tacked on in response to the Wii, and the networking support was a not-spectacular attempt at matching the 360's, a few of the subsystems are thought to be better than its peers?

Re:Playstation 3?

[fireboy1919]

It's got a cell processor, and it's a video game system. Do you think that there are a lot of other video game systems with a processor that complicated? For that matter, there aren't a lot of general purpose computers with that kind of power.

While I really hope that it isn't successful (mostly because I want the video game designers driving the video game industry, not the hardware designers), I can't argue that it's a new kind of thing.

Unlike nearly everything else on that list.

Re:Playstation 3?

[traveller.ct]

Clearly the GP is from Australia where they end their sentences in a high pitch sounding like a question?

Re:Playstation 3?

[node 3]

The Cell processor, the Blu-ray drive, the bluetooth controllers are all innovations.

You may not like them, you may hate Sony, but it's absolutely seeping with innovative technologies. It's really a next-gen console, not a last-gen.5.

Xbox 360 has no innovation whatsoever, it's just a faster Xbox with nicer software. The Wii has an innovative controller, and a cool virtual console service. It's certainly not a gaming powerhouse nor an HD superstar.

Re:Playstation 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't the Wii(and maybe the 360) also use bluetooth for the controllers?

Re:Playstation 3?

[Crizp]

There's an American dialect? That sounds even worse? I believe Moby is talking like that, and it's really, you know, annoying?

Re:Playstation 3?

[Crizp]

Using a Blu-Ray drive is not innovation, it was the logical next step in console optical storage that next-gen consoles would use one of the new disc formats; that Sony chose Blu-Ray is no surprise.

The Wii is innovative, in introducing a new way of controlling and playing the games. Without getting into a console flamewar, the PS3 and 360 are, technically and factually just GFX upgrade bonanza. Nintendo changed little about the GameCube design, one can almost say the just added the new controller. That tiny thing makes it the most innovative of the consoles.

Disclaimer: I have none of the consoles but a preference for the Wii. This preference is because of the aforementioned reasons -- the reasons are not because of my preference, so you flamewarring idiot zealots can stay away.

Re:Playstation 3?

[WindBourne]

The cell processor is innovative. The use of it is most likely not (even though it is the first game system with parallelism). And the drive and controllers are simple logical progression.

YouOS

[daigu]

Anything in alpha testing can't really be called a product, much less the most innovative product (or in the top ten) of the year.

Re:YouOS

[SolitaryMan]

Anything in alpha testing can't really be called a product, much less the most innovative product (or in the top ten) of the year.

Have you seen the whole list? I'd say that YouOS has far more rights to be on this list than any other item.

I agree that there is hardly any use for it right now, but this is like a concept car: nobody uses them as they are, but you see many innovative parts of it appear in other new cars in a while.

Re:YouOS

[mdboyd]

Actually, I spent about 5 minutes using YouOS and was disgusted. It seems like a novelty item, not something that you can actually put to use. Besides, Online Operating Systems aren't really anything new. There are several out there.EyeOS seems better than YouOS... no pun intended?

Here are the top 10.

[khasim]

1. Microsoft Office 2007
2. Intel Core 2 Duo
3. Parallels Desktop for Mac
4. Nintendo Wii
5. Samsung 32GB SSD
6. Sony Reader
7. YouOS
8. Dell XPS M2010
9. Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB
0. T-Mobile Dash

Re:Here are the top 10.

[seebs]

Innovative?

Core 2 Duo: How is this anything but an incremental improvement over the Core Duo, which is in turn just improvements on techniques that have been out there for years? The first dual-core chip could have been innovative. The 39th or whatever this is isn't.

MS Office 2007: I see. So, Office 6, Office 97, Office XP, Office 2003, none of those were innovative. But this one, the 10th or so in a series, really is. ...

I just don't see any innovation here. A hard drive bigger than previous hard drives? Unheard of!

Re:Here are the top 10.

[stubear]

Well then you're fucking blind. Office 2007 is innovative because it rethinks the toolbar interface. The ribbon is a great UI concept and exposes hidden functionality in the older versions of Office.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[seebs]

Maybe it's neat. Is it one of the ten most innovative things done in an entire year?

I mean, every time there's a new Office, various MS-fans tell me that it's completely innovative and, unlike the previous one, doesn't suck. Why should I believe it this time?

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Rockgod]

Nobody is forcing you to believe anything on hear-say. Why don't just try it out and add some weight to your Office bashing?

P.S: Please don't tell you're sick of already trying out the all the previous versions and why should this version of Office be better. It just may be.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[seebs]

If you'll buy it for me, I'll try it.

I'm not about to spend $hundreds on the off chance that, for the first time since 1987, I'm going to find that MS Word has suddenly become a good tool for writing with.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[masdog]

The good news is that its free to try for 60 days.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Just means the year really sucked for innovation.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[seebs]

Well, next time I want to wreck every file I touch by running it through a new version of Word, and I'm booted to Windows for some inexplicable reason, I'll totally think about checking it out.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Anonymous Coward]

For someone who hasn't touched Word in 19 years, you sure do claim to know a lot about it.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow another person tha that just wants to bitch and moan. You say you will try it if he buys it. He says good news its free for use right now. Then you try to save face with more MS bashing as to why you cant use the obviously free software rofl. You sir are an idiot. How do so many close minded people consider themselves even remotely intelligent is beyond me.

It is tho a perfect example of why I dont frequent slashdot much anymore

Re:Here are the top 10.

[davester666]

Well then you're fucking blind. Office 2007 is innovative because it rethinks the toolbar interface. The ribbon is a great UI concept and exposes hidden functionality in the older versions of Office.

So, you put out a product for 20 years, loaded up with so many features that even the initial, default UI has dozens of small, cryptic icons, then the same again in menu bar items. And that's just the default UI, which doesn't have all the toolbar and menu items set to display. You become "innovative" if you FINALLY figure out the vast majority of users can't figure out what all the buttons and menu items do and when it's appropriate to use them.

I wish MS [and other developers] spent more time copying the UI idea's of Apple, which generally have fewer of the more arcane options that people rarely if ever change from their default values. Focus on what people WILL use, not what they COULD use.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Anonymous Coward]

So go and edit your .txt file in VI and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[smoker2]

The good news is that its free to try for 60 days.

The good news is that it's free to try and crack for 60 days.

There, fixed that for you !

Re:Here are the top 10.

[RESPAWN]

The ribbon is a great UI concept and exposes hidden functionality in the older versions of Office. And that quote from the article is exactly why I discounted this list. Any new iteration of a piece of software that so thoroughly and completely fucks with the UI so that you have to relearn how to use the software just does not seem innovative. It may expose hidden functionality but in the process it also hides the functions that you actually want to use.

I don't know how many here have tried it, but I've found it to be an absolute bitch to use. I'm a geek and I like to play with new stuff and don't mind learning a new UI interface every once in a while... in a new piece of software. When it comes to Office, I just want it to work -- becuase work is where I will need to use the software. I want to be able to sit down type a document, apply any necessary formatting, and save it. And I don't want to spend 20 damn minutes looking for the header/footer insert function in the process.

Innovative my ass. Microsoft just ran out of ideas for genuine enhancements to Office so they just screwed with the UI and called it "new".

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Monoman]

The real question. How can Office 2007 be an even considered? Can you even buy it yet? Heck, the product even has 2007 in the name!!!

This article just smells of BULLSHIT to me.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[seebs]

I didn't say I haven't touched it in 19 years. I've used it professionally on a regular basis for the last decade.

I was talking about the specific event of it actually not sucking, which has not happened in the last 19 years or so.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[seebs]

I don't think you're understanding the events here. Someone is pitching something, claiming it is massively innovative, but offering no real explanation of exactly how it will improve my life, and wants me to devote a lot of time and effort to learning a commercial product that will cost hundreds of dollars if I actually want to keep using it.

Actually getting a free copy, not just "free for nearly long enough to wrap up a single project including editing", but "actually free" would make it MAYBE worth trying.

But the free trial is irrelevant, and I don't have much interest in trying yet again, after the number of times that someone's gotten me some variant of MS Word, only for me to find out that it doesn't allow me to actually exchange documents with any other version of MS Word as well as StarOffice does.

It may be that they're simply innovating too much, and offering a whole new formatting and document format experience each time. :)

Re:Here are the top 10.

[wootest]

I wish MS [and other developers] spent more time copying the UI idea's of Apple, which generally have fewer of the more arcane options that people rarely if ever change from their default values. Focus on what people WILL use, not what they COULD use.

First: You're right. Fixing the interface is not innovative. But if this was a 20 Best Ideas list or 20 Best Things To Have Happened list, damn straight the Ribbon in Office 2007 would have placed on it, and that's a line I didn't think I'd write about this time last year.

Per the Office team's own research, most of the stuff people were asking to be able to do was already in Office. This means two things: that there's not a lot left to add - except for the way they keep hanging out at Standards station, neglecting the 10:30 to compatibilityville in favor of the semiannual Microsoft MysteryMeat Express (Enterprise Edition) - and that what's there is probably used by a lot of people. It's likely that no piece of actual office software is being used by more people than Word and Excel, and they can't just rip out features.

It's true that you probably don't use more than 20% of the features, but with everyone using a *different* 20% and with so many millions of people using it, you can imagine that there's a fairly good cover on features that are used. You can also imagine the flak they'd take for this. It is insanely hard to remove stuff and save face. I am not saying that "just pile it on" is a good development strategy or makes the best product for me personally (I totally agree with the paragraph I quoted), but what they currently do have is a pile. (Add "of shit" here if it makes you feel better.)

Normally I'd be with you regarding the interface: simpler is better. But the features that are in Office need to stay, and the interface sucks. The Ribbon has proven itself as a very good replacement for the mess that we used to have. It may not be *innovative* as such, but "Microsoft finally does *something* about the Office interface" is a good thing - bullet-on-cardboard-box-worthy, too - that will have a large positive impact, and for that, at least, they are worthy of recognition.

(And for what it's worth, Excel does have some real honest-to-goodness new features. Excel is probably the best, most focused and most interoperable app Microsoft puts out these days. Although I'm nowadays using Apple's bundled Mail app, I am also still a fan of Outlook's general reading interface layout (the look of the email pane), but I'm glad to get rid of most of the rest of that app, including the Options panels (with all those windows and buttons and hidden options it's like one of those Russian dolls), the winmail.dat bullshit or why not the way all those exploits can get in.)

Re:Here are the top 10.

[weg]

Actually getting a free copy, not just "free for nearly long enough to wrap up a single project including editing", but "actually free" would make it MAYBE worth trying.

In fact, Microsoft should pay you for using it, after all, you seem to be an expert.
I find it rather arrogant that they charge for it, while guys like you don't get paid for posting on slashdot. It's a bad world...

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Vanye1]

I just don't see any innovation here. A hard drive bigger than previous hard drives? Unheard of!

The hard drive is an innovation not because of the size, but because of the technology used to create the storage space.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Vanye1]

Here's a link to the wiki on the subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recordi ng

Re:Here are the top 10.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say Grapheety is in the top 10. Probably the most unique idea of any of these.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[SnarfQuest]

Does it also automatically upgrade all your access files to the new version, making them unreadable by anyone not using this lastest version of word?

Free trial, then you are forced to update everyone in your office because of the automatic updates to all your data files.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[masdog]

Honestly, I don't know. The new version of the 1632 Grid in RTF crashed the program multiple times.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[GungaDan]

New in Office super-post-XP-almost-vista-now-with-ribbons: dangling participle prevention. ;-)

I hear that Office "Classic," not yet scheduled for release, will feature anti-pedantry protection.

Re:Here are the top 10.

[0xdeadbeef]

I do and I would. But after being forced to use Office 2007, I feel... No, I seek... retribution.

Google Sketchup?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised this made the "Innovative" list, and not the "Vaporware" list.

Since Google bought them, all they've done to the actual app is stamp "BETA" on it. They brag that it works on Macs, but the last upgrade was over 18 months ago, before Apple announced the Intel transition, and they still have no Universal binary for Macs. The PPC binary works, mostly, if you're willing to put up with workarounds. Oh, and random crashes.

It's a sad state of affairs when "making no forward progress" counts as "innovative" these days.

Re:Google Sketchup?

[ozmanjusri]

I'm surprised this made the "Innovative" list, and not the "Vaporware" list.

Integrating Sketchup with Google Earth has opened up a lot of interesting opportunities. As a stand-alone tool, it was a useful, if quirky, CAD package. Now, it's potential as a way of rapidly (by way of community involvement) building 3D versions of our cities and suburbs goes far beyond its original scope.

That's a lot more innovative than a facelift to an aging set of office tools, which rely more on format lockin than innovation to retain their customer base.

Re:Google Sketchup?

[Anonymous Coward]

A completely new user interface for a popular app is less innovative than adding an "upload" menuitem to an existing app to make it 1 step instead of 2?

What world do you live in?

For a product that claims to run on Macs, it has an awful lot of drawing errors and random crashes on any recent Mac. I just can't seem to call a product both "unusably bad" and "innovative".

A Hard Drive?

[acvh]

wow, a new hard drive that's bigger than last year's model. Innovation is dripping off of this one.

I assume others will speak to the inclusion of Office.

Re:A Hard Drive?

[RealGrouchy]

I assume others will speak to the inclusion of Office.

Not as many as I would expect by now.

My initial thought was also "MS OFFICE?!? INNOVATIVE?!?" (see username...).

Personally, I would define "innovative" in this context as "things customers probably wouldn't have thought of, but once they saw it, they liked," and limit it to those products/changes that were introduced in 2006.

When I actually RTFA, MSO 2k7 is actually fairly innovative, in comparison to most of the rest on the list.

Skimming over the list, the only other "innovative" entry is the Wii. Everything else is either of the "$PRODUCT+CLOCK RADIO" variety, or is just an old product, but bigger, stronger, faster, and/or slightly less distasteful (i.e. the e-book reader), essentially failing the definition. Google Sketchup is a tossup, as someone noted it hasn't changed in 2006, it just became known.

The ribbon feature and the live preview of MSO seem minimally "innovative" (I haven't used them), and if I had to rate these 20 items on their innovativeness, I would probably put the Wii as #1, MSO2K7 as #2, and everything else as tied for #20 (sic).

- RG>

These guys are confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if PC World is too clueless to realise it, there is a difference between "innovative" and "better than the same thing was last year, due to incremental advances". Core 2 Duo: Good? Hell yeah. Innovative? Not exactly.

750GB HDD: A nice upgrade from the 500GB ones? Sure. An innovation? Well, the number is bigger than it was last year.

That logitech control puck thing: Cute? Sure. Innovative? Well, it has a few more buttons than the Griffin PowerMate that has been around for years.

And so on and so forth. There are almost no actual innovations. Mostly just feature bumps and price/performance increases. Now, that is what makes the world go round, most of the time; but don't call it "innovation".

Re:These guys are confused.

[reset_button]

750GB HDD: A nice upgrade from the 500GB ones? Sure. An innovation? Well, the number is bigger than it was last year.

A 750GB hard disk sounds great...I can just see myself staring at the console for weeks waiting for fsck to finish! I'd personally rather see these disks get more reliable than bigger. I'd rather RAID0 some smaller disks for more storage, than RAID5 some larger ones for more reliability - exchanging bad disks is a pain.

Re:These guys are confused.

[__aawdrj2992]

The 750GB hard drive had perpendicular recording. The "upgrade" from the 500GB Seagate drive did require a significant technological innovation.

Re:These guys are confused.

[masdog]

I'm not an engineer, so I don't know what goes into designing a hard drive, especially one that large, but I'm guessing there is something new or interesting that makes people think it is innovative besides just being larger.

Another poster mentioned perpendicular recording...so perhaps that is what makes it innovative.

Re:These guys are confused.

[noidentity]

"50GB HDD: A nice upgrade from the 500GB ones? Sure. An innovation? Well, the number is bigger than it was last year."

Two words: Get perpendicular

Re:These guys are confused.

[CrazyTalk]

What makes those products innovative is not that they are slightly bigger or faster than last years model - its the technology behind it that made the improvement. A 500 GB HD is just a larger 400 GB HD - but the new 750 GB model uses all new technology that made the improvment possible. THATS the innovation.

Could be.

[khasim]

Could it be that MS Office (#1 on this list) just isnt popular with the slashdot crowd and that is why the first several posts are denouncing PC World as paid Microsoft shills?

It could be.

But then ..... look at #8

8. Dell XPS M2010

Sporting a cutting-edge design, the Dell XPS M2010 (starting price $2999) makes a bold and immediate statement. Not quite a desktop and definitely less portable than a standard notebook, this hybrid system neatly balances elements of both. You get a 20.1-inch screen, a slot-loading DVD drive, and a detachable, full-size Bluetooth keyboard, plus an integrated Webcam, eight built-in speakers, and a subwoofer. Powering this entertainment system are ATI graphics, an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, and up to 4GB of RAM. It also folds up into a briefcase-like bundle, complete with a handle--but it weighs a hefty 18-plus pounds.

Now, compare that to this system.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/compaq/

Yes, the "luggable" computer. But, all you have to do to make it "innovative" is to add more speakers (speakers with a portable computer, how ... innovative) and a bigger screen (see previous).

And reviews like that are why PC World is disparaged.

Re:Could be.

[jorghis]

I think there is a fair bit of difference between those two things. The dell looks like a product specifically designed for LAN gamer types in mind and improves a great deal on the ease of lugging it around compared to what existed before. It looks to me more like a desktop designed to be easy to move around than a traditional laptop. The computer you linked to looks more like an ancient precurser to the laptop than a gamers system that is easy to move around.

I guess you can make the case that a luggable computer you could use the way you would a desktop when its unpacked isnt that hard to think of and therefore not that innovative. But if thats true then why wasnt anyone else making computers like this before them?

I will agree with you that the blurb reads like an ad, but that is true of most "Top 10/20/2^32" lists

I dont know a terrible amount about LAN gamers or their systems so if I am way off please dont flame me too hard. Most of my comments on this system are mostly based on speculation. : )

Re:Could be.

[Anonymous Coward]

The number one reason this wouldn't be a LAN gamers system is the big Dell logos on it.

Re:Could be.

[Rakishi]

It's also hardly innovative by any measure, there have been various home made luggable modern computers usually using a suitcase of some sort (with monitors at times). I'm sure some of them came very close to the Dell in idea if with less polish or style. All Dell did was take what those people attempted to do and put actual money into it, and that's marketing not innovation.

You mentioned the ipod in another comment which wasn't, if one considers it as such, innovative because it was an mp3.portable player (those already existed asfaik) but because it was a good portable player. A product need not be original in form or function to be innovative in details but that's up to the public and reviewers to decide. I personally find the Dell essentially worthless but that's just me.

Re:Could be.

[gravesb]

If its for gamers, then why doesn't it have the XPS or Alienware logo? I think its a tweener.

Re:Could be.

[Ken_g6]

Looks better than the luggable-type system my boss got a couple of years ago. We do consulting work around the country, and he and I had to lug this thing on a cross-country airplane flight. Whereas the new computer folds up like a briefcase, that thing had to be carried in two pieces, plus keyboard!

Re:Could be.

[rtechie]

Except the XPC/SFF luggables have the advantage for being actually able to upgrade or change components. Want a Dlue-Ray drive, you're SOL with the Dell. Want a decent video card? SOL again. Want a large, fast hard drive (the Dell uses notebook hard drives)? SOL again. etc.

As another poster mentioned, this system has all of the disadvantages of a laptop (proprietary, not expandable, expensive, etc.) and few of the advantages (battery, high portablity), which is exactly why luggables fell out of favor. Virtually everyone in this segment is MUCH better off with some sort of SFF system.

WOOOOOOO

[Diordna]

A bad upgrade to a ubiquitous software package, a chip, 2 game systems, 2 hard drives, 2 phones... Now I remember why I don't read PC World.

No Xbox live?

[Anonymous Coward]

PS3 what, tacked on some response to the Wii on the controller and put in fast hardware? Oh, and Sony is trying to use it to push their betamax format. Yeah, I'm not seeing the "innovation" there.

Xbox Live is much more innovative than the PS3. They made online console gaming match if not surpass it on the PC in quality, an area that used to be a weak point for them.

eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

i walked into PC WORLD today with £350 in my wallet, stayed long enough to see what inovative goodies they did not have then went to the pub to consume some real inovation

Is it me, or...

[mind21_98]

...do none of those products really strike me as "innovative"? Maybe I'm just missing the old days when innovation meant a complete change from the norm. However, the Wii is pretty neat. :)

Re:Is it me, or...

[crossmr]

The Wii is probably the only innovative thing on there, they could have been more specific though and talked just about the controllers.

Re:Is it me, or...

[Dunbal]

The Wii is probably the only innovative thing on there, they could have been more specific though and talked just about the controllers.

      Yes, they failed completely to talk about the Wii being an innovative way to smash your tv, lamps, tables, your arm, etc... :)

How many laptops did it take?

[atari2600]

So for MS Office 2k7 to make the number one position, i wonder how many LAPTOPS Microsoft had to give away. Just kidding, just kidding - i couldn't resist.

Where's the Zune?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the Zune man? I'm listening to some tunes right now. Oh shit! this is my third play NOOOOOOOOOOOOO *squirt*

Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[gelfling]

Frankly I'm disappointed that the gadgets we already have really don't work so hot. Like Cell Phones. Why can't I get usable USB or Bluetooth drivers and sync software for my Samsung A640, even from Samsung? Oh yeah I forgot, Sprint wants me to pay for a service to email them to myself. Ditto my Sanyo 3100, Samsung A840, Samsung A900 or Sanyo 8400?

Why does my Xbox360 still require bizarre router settings to connect wirelessly to my router? Oh yeah I forgot, Microsoft does not care. Why did I have to return 3 different routers until I found one that worked with all my clients and VPN tunnels? Oh yeah I forgot, they're lazy. Why did the wireless print server I picked up naturally assume that it had to have the same IP address as my router and afforded absolutely no options to switch it? Oh yeah I forgot, the vendor bought the product instead of developing themselves. Plus the quality of their firmware is shit. Why am I still shopping for an affordable NAS that actually does what it's supposed to do without bugs and the feature set is actually what they say it is instead of vague promises and bullshit? Oh yeah I forgot, all the goodness is in the next version of their $700 unit. Sorry.

See I'm not a big fan of best new gadgets because next year either they will be abandoned as the shit they probably are, or, they will be shit anyway and still be around bolstered by hype, consumer indifference and marketing.

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[Mortirer]

the A900 does have mass storage option under tools that turn it into a flash drive. You can view power points, PDF, word files and all sorts of stuff with the file viewer.

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[Osty]

Why does my Xbox360 still require bizarre router settings to connect wirelessly to my router? Oh yeah I forgot, Microsoft does not care.

"Bizarre router settings"? Like what, turning on UPnP? Oh noes, GRC says the interweb will hax0r my b0x0r if I use UPnP! Never mind that routers enable it only on the internal interface ...

What would you prefer Microsoft to do? Tell all of the NAT users out there that they're SOL for playing games if they don't want to forward ports manually? They had a problem, namely allowing NATed users to directly connect to peers, and they solved it with the correct solution, namely using UPnP to dynamically request port forwarding on an as-needed basis. I'm sorry that the routers you bought (which, BTW, probably weren't from the list of routers supported directly by Microsoft, and if they were then why didn't you try calling 1-800-4-MY-XBOX?) suck so much. Next time, do your research. Hell, it's easy enough to get UPnP working flawlessly on a linux server acting as a router. I've been doing it for over two years now (obviously with my original Xbox, since the 360's only been out for just over a year). While I'm running wired now, when I wrote that entry I was using wireless. In fact, I've never had a problem with my Xbox or Xbox 360 recognizing my wireless AP. The only problem I've ever had was with NAT, and that was completely solved with the UPnP daemon.

Until the whole world moves to IPv6, you're going to run into issues like this more and more often. You can take the Nintendo approach and force users to forward ports by hand (seriously, that's what you have to do with the Wii -- it's a good thing there are no multiplayer online games yet), or you can use technology that was designed to solve this problem (among others, of course) -- UPnP.

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[fimbulvetr]

I bought a 360 wireless adapter the other day, for using it on a friends unprotected wireless network. I plugged it in via usb, attached it to the unit and powered it on. I was immediately connected and playing CoD3 before I knew it. Didn't even have to go to the dashboard...

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[gelfling]

uPnP OFF plus two TCP/UDP ports forwarded plus MTU adjustments.

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[aero2600-5]

Wow.. That is one disgruntled motherfucker!

But.. You can't argue with him. He's right.

Aero

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[Osty]

uPnP OFF plus two TCP/UDP ports forwarded plus MTU adjustments.

With UPnP on you wouldn't need to forward any ports. I never had to adjust MTU, but I can see how that could be an issue.

Maybe your router had a bad UPnP implementation?

Re:Please perfect the innovations we already have.

[ceeam]

Because "It does indeed work as advertised" is not on any of product feature checklists. Maybe it should be.

The difference being 22 years.

[khasim]

I think there is a fair bit of difference between those two things.

Yes. About 22 years worth of "difference". Seeing as how I believe that the Compaq luggable was around in 1984.

It looks to me more like a desktop designed to be easy to move around than a traditional laptop.

Yes. Hence the term "luggable".

The computer you linked to looks more like an ancient precurser to the laptop than a gamers system that is easy to move around.

"gamers system"?

I guess you can make the case that a luggable computer you could use the way you would a desktop when its unpacked isnt that hard to think of and therefore not that innovative. But if thats true then why wasnt anyone else making computers like this before them?

Compaq was making them back in 1984.

The reason they fell out of style is because you have all the limitations of a laptop with the weight of a desktop.

Gamers who want to move their EXPANDABLE desktop machines buy something like this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/bags/37dc/

There, the portability of a cinder block with the expandability of a desktop system.

Surprisingly enough, they make great gifts.

Re:The difference being 22 years.

[jorghis]

I am familiar with those types of bags/cases. I think you are making my point for me to some degree by pointing out that what people have used in the past to accomplish that task is different at least to some degree from what dell is offering.

Yes, this is somewhat similar to the system you mentioned. A luggable desktop could have a real audience that would want it now whereas the product you mentioned wasnt that great for the reasons you listed. You could make an argument that just about any product which is considered innovative is similar to a product from the past but it is now more useful/interesting for whatever reason. Lots of people claimed that the ipod was innovative when it came out but it was obviously nothing noone had ever thought of before.

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying this dell is equivalent to inventing the internet or whatever. But I think it is innovative to some small degree, at least enough that it isnt "just" an advertisement.

Parallels?

[WMD_88]

Why is Parallels Desktop on there? I've seen it - it's almost a complete rip-off of the VMware UI. There is nothing new in that program at all...except that it runs on Intel Macs. Oh boy!

think before

[towsonu2003]

accepting a submission. maybe then, you can see that it's full of crap (i.e. it has much more advertisement than quality content).

Re:think before

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget what time of year this is. It's the holiday season, and a lot of staff are on vacation. So these editors and writers that are left to 'hold the fort' have to come up with lists (hey, it's the year ender) of 20 best or 20 worst. It's called lazy journalism. Other rags have 'The Year in Pictures' or 'Technical Achievements in Pictures'. These are the guys that didn't get the laptop and have to think of things like these instead of writing a glorious thumbs up review of the Suite you love to hate.

Re:think before

[pimpimpim]

that feature is reserved for the innovation list in 2007, right after linux-for-the-desktop

(All jokes aside, I'd like to use this point to put some attention on my dismissed submission about the legalized hacking by the german government that has passed voting in one of germany's states.

Instead of having to go through the tedious formalities of requesting access to a suspects house and confiscating any computers there, a law enforcement agency will be able to remotely access and monitor a suspects machine.)

I believe...

[Belial6]

I believe that the 750 gig drives were considered innovative because the 750 gig drive were the first to 'get perpendicular'.

Re:I believe...

[stewbacca]

750 gig hard drives are innovative because they breached a temporary barrier in the manufacturing process. Until some of you big mouths actually go out and try to engineer something using current technologies, then figue out a way to exceed current maximum capacity with NEW manufacturing/engineering technology (such as this hard drive) then your complaints about innovation are irrelevant.

Olympus E-330 like the Panasonic DMC-L1

[kherr]

While the features of the Olympus E-330 are new for a digital SLR (live view and electronic dust cleaner) , Panasonic's DMC-L1 has the same features described as #14 most innovative product. This isn't surprising at all, since Panasonic and Olympus share technology, including the Four Thirds lens mount. In fact, it would have been better to list Four Thirds instead of a specific camera, since it's a cross-platform lens system specifically for digital cameras.

Re:Olympus E-330 like the Panasonic DMC-L1

[masdog]

And the Panasonic/Olympus cameras aren't the only ones with self-cleaning sensors - the Canon Rebel XTi also has it.

Re:Olympus E-330 like the Panasonic DMC-L1

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Pana is much more "professional". Not only thanks to the superior Leica lens (that adds approx $800 to the price tag) but in the usability section as well. It features a shutter speed dial not so common on digital cameras these days - I myself find it very useful but the $800 has kept me away...

Big flash drives

[NineNine]

This is gonna be the next big thing in all kinds of PC's. Flash drives. We'll be able to say bye-bye to the last of the important moving parts in a PC, that happens to be the most defect prone (because of moving parts), and also the most important (assuming your data is worth more than your hardware). I've been wanting these for years for reliability reasons at work. I can't wait until these things get shoved in a vanilla IDE (or is it SATA these days?) format. Hard drives with platters will be completely extinct in 5 years.

Re:Big flash drives

[FishWithAHammer]

Extinct in five years? No, no, no.

When flash storage costs about the same per gigabyte as hard disk space and can go up to similar volumes in similar space, THEN hard drives might go out. 'course, it'd help if flash storage didn't go bad after X number of writes...

Re:Big flash drives

[ms139us]

You haven't read The Innovator's Dilemma. Flash drives only have to get "big enough" and "cheap enough" to take over hard drives. Flash doesn't have to get bigger and cheaper than hard drives.

Once flash is "big enough" and "cheap enough" (which is already true in some applications) winchester spindles are done.

Re:Big flash drives

[ms139us]

Flash in a vanilla IDE interface? You must be thinking of Compactflash, which has used a small (notebook?) IDE connector since day one.

Re:Big flash drives

[MeepMeep]

This is gonna be the next big thing in all kinds of PC's. Flash drives. We'll be able to say bye-bye to the last of the important moving parts in a PC, that happens to be the most defect prone (because of moving parts), and also the most important (assuming your data is worth more than your hardware). I've been wanting these for years for reliability reasons at work. I can't wait until these things get shoved in a vanilla IDE (or is it SATA these days?) format. Hard drives with platters will be completely extinct in 5 years.

Your wait should be over soon, as Samsung has already announced their solid state drives...perhaps you missed this article on Slashot: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/ 25/1324200

Re:Big flash drives

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Even with the set number of writes, we're talking maybe 5 years before your flash drive goes bad, even with moderately heavy usage. That's on par with most hard disks these days.

And unlike hard disks, when the flash drive wears down its cells, it remains in a read-only state, allowing you to copy over your data to a new disk. I've had enough hard disks die on me to really appreciate that particular aspect of flash drives.

As soon as the flash drives come down in price enough (to withing twice the $/MB) , I'm putting a 32GB flash drive and as much RAM as possible in my laptop, disable swapping altogether (because swapping really eats up write cycles) and enjoy not having to worry about hard disk crashes anymore.

Re:Big flash drives

[Mr. No Skills]

Not seeing the "innovation" however. Flash drives are old as dirt - bought my first one in 1988. Used the same interface as the mechanical ones.

Does "innovation" mean "cheaper"?

BTW - the no-moving-parts thing is a nice byproduct, but the real important property is the huge jump in response time.

Re:Big flash drives

[poot_rootbeer]

I can't wait until these things get shoved in a vanilla IDE (or is it SATA these days?) format. Hard drives with platters will be completely extinct in 5 years.

I could cram 40GB of Flash storage into a 3.5" drive bay today. But it's still going to be a lot longer than 5 years before Winchester drives are extinct.

Consider price alone: a new high-capacity hard drive might run you at most $0.50/GB today. Flash memory, on the other hand, I doubt you'll be able to find for very much less than $15/GB.

Flash isn't going to take over the market while there's an established, competing technology that provides the same capacity at 1/30 the cost.

Re:Big flash drives

[FishWithAHammer]

I'll stick with hard drives until I can get a solid 750GB of flash storage in the same volume of space. I do video editing. I *need* that space.

There is no chance of "extinction" for hard drives any time soon.

Re:Big flash drives

[elrous0]

We'll be able to say bye-bye to the last of the important moving parts in a PC, that happens to be the most defect prone (because of moving parts)

I'll tell you one moving part I would be happy to get rid of: Pedro's truck. Every since he got it, he thinks he's some big man or something. I tell him "Pedro, just because you got a fancy truck and I don't, it don't make you a better man." But he won't listen. He just keeps driving around in his big truck like he owns the world and all the women want him! I tell you, I'm going to spit on that fancy truck one of these nights when he's asleep.

Re:Big flash drives

[CopaceticOpus]

Just because smaller flash drives exist, that doesn't mean there isn't some amazing, innovative work taking place to advance them to the point that they can compete with hard drives. This sort of advance may not have the wow factor of something like the first cell phone, but behind the scenes it may still be amazing.

And "cheaper" is an incredible sort of innovation. Making flash drives cheap enough to compete means that they can be accessible by the average person, rather than only existing as a proof of concept in a lab somewhere. Making new things cheaper is how those things are brought into our day to day lives.

Imagine if someone made a food generator that could feed a person for $1 per month. You could say, "So it's just food, but cheaper?" Or, you could say, "Great, you just cured world hunger!"

There is no innovation any more!

[BroncoInCalifornia]

From this article, I conclude the computer and electronic revolution has run it's course. We are not getting much innovation anymore. We are just getting incremental improvements on the innovations from years past.

Innovative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? These things aren't innovative, they're mostly just obvious extensions of existing products that merely incrementally improve on the defects of their predecessors. "Innovation" implies a new idea. For example, the Wii's controller is innovative -- they got that one right. A cellular phone with a less awful interface isn't innovative (although at times it feels it would be a new idea). A larger hard drive isn't innovative. A faster CPU isn't innovative. I had a radio that could record things back in 1985 and a writable optical drive in 1996. Guess what? Each game system is faster and fancier than the previous.

Instead of a list of innovative products, it reads more like a list of products the PC World editors likes the most, or maybe a list of products the manufacturers of which paid the most in advertising.

I want to see a list of products that point in new directions, even if they're not the ones that finally become hits. I want to see the products that redefine how things should work. The Xerox Alto was innovative. Visicalc was innovative. The microwave oven was innovative. Nylon was innovative. The scroll wheel was innovative. the blue LED was innovative. The ball point pen was innovative. The zipper was innovative. The Bessemer process was innovative. The Post It note was innovative. Satellite radio can be counted as innovative. The divided freeway was innovative. The display in the OLPC computer is innovative. And so on...

In personal computing, innovation is largely dead.

PCW has a duality problem?

[Movi]

Well not only it's news to me, it's also news to these guys that apparently work over there:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128265-page,4-c, industrynews/article.html (go to #8).

Also, I'm somewhat reluctant to treat PS3 as "Innovative".. well, maybe except the Massive Crab Damage...

More bad analogies

[wasted]

When I think of innovation, I think of things like the automatic transmission when only the manual transmission existed before. Office 2007 innovations (the ribbon interface) seem to be more like moving the manual transmission's shift lever instead of implementing automatic shifting.

I could be wrong, though, and I am sure others may disagree. I DO accept my nomination for the Bad Analogy award, if one exists, and I am nominated.

Re:More bad analogies

[jorghis]

By your definition an interface can never be innovative then. It would only be the same functionality as before but "moved around".

Re:More bad analogies

[wasted]

By your definition an interface can never be innovative then. It would only be the same functionality as before but "moved around".

Good point, which is why I self-nominated for the bad analogy award. Even so, let me strengthen my case for that award with some explanation.

As far as interfaces go, I think the only real notable innovation was the move from command line to graphics. Anything else (to this point,) is "moving the shift lever." A commercially-viable, dependable, verbal command interface would be an innovation, but I haven't seen one yet.

Others with more info may disagree, and I hope they chime in.

Re:More bad analogies

[Bloke down the pub]

Innovative doesn't necessarily mean good, just novel or different. Square wheels on a car would be innovative, but not really very good (except for parking on hills).

At least you've got some competition for the award now.

Re:More bad analogies

[j_snare]

A lot of people are talking about how most or none of these products should be called "innovative", and that the title is a bad one.

I'm going to disagree. The title is "20 Most Innovative Products of 2006". Couldn't we consider everything to have some degree of innovation, though the *amount* of innovation is so miniscule and small that it's the same as last year?

I'd submit that this may well be a list of the 20 Most Innovative Products, just that the amount of innovation is a pathetic illustration of how little innovation is being done in the large corporations of today's technology world. Everyone wants to play it safe and just do a new iteration, innovation might lose customers.

I felt a distrubance...

[WED Fan]

I felt a disturbance in the Slash, as if a bunch of geeks said, "What the F&*K, Microsoft Office?"

Re:I felt a distrubance...

[Bazman]

Just imagine the disturbance if they'd included IE7 in the list...

which NAS unit are you referring to?

[SuperBanana]

Why am I still shopping for an affordable NAS that actually does what it's supposed to do without bugs and the feature set is actually what they say it is instead of vague promises and bullshit? Oh yeah I forgot, all the goodness is in the next version of their $700 unit.

Which unit are you talking about, out of curiosity? I've been eying the ReadyNAS NV+ and the Thecus N5200.

I've seen benchmarks showing performance is all over the map with the ReadyNAS, and I know that it painfully slow with fsck's (a client bought a unit and put 4 500GB drives in. An fsck after he had loaded it less than a tenth full, takes an HOUR...) However, it seems much more polished than the Thecus- which has a much faster/better processor, dual ethernet, and five bays instead of four. I've also seen a lot of bug reports and complaints about odd behavior in the infrant forums, and apparently Infrant is also systematically purging any discussion of enabling ssh on the ReadyNAS. That's not cool (nor is the fact that they encrypt their firmware, and act like their raid "technology" is really advanced. It isn't. Don't be fooled: it is a SPARC processor, running LINUX, and lvm stuff. "RAIDX" isn't even remotely proprietary or worthy of a patent.)

It's so annoying that I am highly tempted to build my own box; $600-700 comes damn close to buying some damn nice commodity hardware I could run something like FreeNAS on, or maybe Solaris with ZFS. The big problem with ZFS is that it (shockingly) doesn't allow you to migrate at all from one kind of pool to another. For example- if you set up two drives with ZFS (mirrored) and then later add a third and go striped- forget it. No can do. That alone makes ZFS laughably useless. There is a lot of other cool technology under the hood of ZFS, but it lacks in basic practical areas.

I was also slightly less than impressed that Sun has been shipping Solaris with a huge bug that keeps you from activating the installation until you change the locale; the system spins its wheels for several minutes before finally rejecting your Sun Online account. They've known about the issue for months. Have they bothered to fix the one file on the CD image? No. Issued errata? No. Put a warning on the download page? No. I had to go hunting through their support forums to find a 20+ page back-and-forth between Solaris users and a hapless tech where he FINALLY hits on the solution that works...

Re:which NAS unit are you referring to?

[gelfling]

Synology 106j or e units. They all have haphazard feature sets and do some things well and others poorly. Also after you figure out how to get most of the features running you discover that the onboard fan is so poor that you're bound to burn out your brand new SATA drive. You have to go all the way up to the 406 series to find a complete set of features that work plus environmentals that function. Which puts me where you alluded - to just building my own inside a PC. Ergo it's no longer quiet, compact or unobstrusive. And when all is said and done, the real limiting factor is the cheap-o 100mbit ethernet adapter in lieu of a gigabit network.

Re:which NAS unit are you referring to?

[masdog]

You can probably build a FreeNAS box for cheaper if cost is more important than performance.

Intel Core 2 Duo on the list

[mqatrombone]

Honestly, the Intel Core 2 Duo isn't what really should be on the list. The Intel Core Microarchitecture (Core 2 being the desktop brand) should be. The number of improvements that they made to the P6 architecture and the design choices have actually made it into a pretty innovative processor. Granted, its not omg shiny like the cell processor, but it is a significant step forward for an x86 processor.

Hybrid hard drives require Vista?

[physicsnick]

Hybrid hard drives: These drives, coming from companies such as Samsung and Seagate, will combine a flash-memory component with traditional platters to boost performance while keeping costs lower than those of purely flash-based drives. The drives should especially improve startup and resume times. They should also save you some time when it comes to data access, since they can cache more of the data in the flash portion, cutting down on lags due to accessing the disk platters. You'll need Windows Vista to make this work, however.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Linux and BSD will be completely incapable of handling hybrid hard drives.

utter bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I am glad BB Pearl made to the list, its full of utter bullshit:
From TFA : "Caveats: The unit lacks a full QWERTY keyboard, and its trackball navigation and compact keys can be awkward."

The intelligent keyboard and the trackball are the hightlight of this device. Looks like they just had to complete a para with pros and some cons.

PS3?

[DeadboltX]

I fail to see how the PS3 can be considered innovative by any means. All of the technologies that go into the PS3 have all been seen before and it is not at all as impressive or original that they packed it all into 1 box as the article would lead you to believe. How is a PS3 anything but a single purpose computer?
It is no more impressive or innovative than adding an FM tuner to a portable MP3 player.

Re:PS3?

[seebs]

The cell is pretty innovative, I'd say. It's a substantial rethink of a number of assumptions about processor design.

Using an experimental research processor in a mass-market toy? That's innovative. :)

Should be Called

[YetAnotherBob]

Most Advertized new products.

Irony

[hellfire]

Ironic that I have to hit next fifty bazillion times to see the whole article, and each time I hit next an ad for Sony/Dell/Intel/Microsoft. I got the Sony add a lot too, but then again I see forty bazillion sony products on this list, none of which match the definition of innovative. Well, maybe the marketer's definition of innovative, but not in the real world.

Where is the "innovation"?

[Helldesk Hound]

Lets look at this list...

1. Microsoft Office 2007
Nothing innovative here - GUI office productivity suites have been around for decades - MS Word was the innovation on the Apple MacIntosh - but that was before MS released a usable version of MS Windows!

2. Intel Core 2 Duo
Where is the innovation here? The Intel Core 2 Duo is merely two CPUs on a single chip. Duo is neither the first 64bit processor, nor does it share resources between cores, nor does it have an onboard RAM controller. for all the above look to AMD's CPUs.

3. Parallels Desktop for Mac
Running Windows software on the Mac is not a new thing - especially now that the Mac is being sold using Intel hardware. Neither is using virtualisation software to run Windows on other platforms. For years it has been possible to run Windows on Big Blue's mainframes, and on *nix using such applications as VMware.

4. Nintendo Wii
Truly innovative interface - completely new design for use in a completely new way with a completely different range of games.

5. Samsung 32GB SSD
Using Flash EPROM for mobile storage of user data is not new. Neither is the incrementing of the maximum size available. What is new is the replacement of a mechanical permanent storage device with a solid state storage device that may yet prove to be not yet as reliable as a HDD.

6. Sony Reader
Truly innovative device that enables electronic texts to be read as easily and as casually if they were a proper book, and with a very easy UI. Only problem is that it uses a proprietary file format.

7. YouOS
Using a browser for remote desktop access is not a new development.

8. Dell XPS M2010
Portable computers have been around for decades (predating even the Mac). Wireless keyboards are not new, nor is a DVD player, nor is a 20" flat screen. Nothing new there - except the hefty weight.

9. Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB
Yes - innovative method of writing data onto a HDD. But the fact of increased storage capacity is nothing new. HDDs have been increasing storage capacity for many decades.

10. T-Mobile Dash
QWERTY keyboard not new. 1.3 megapixel camera - not new. Wireless - not new.
Additional RAM storage - not new (but close). Amount of built in RAM - definitely not innovative.

11. Pioneer Inno
In one form or another a "Real Live radio receiver" that can also record onto some sort of storage medium has been around since the '70s.

13. Sony BWU-100A Blu-Ray Disc Rewritable Drive
Re-writeable optical discs - nothing new here.

14. Olympus EVolt E-330
Digital camera with LCD display - definitely nothing new here.

15. Google SketchUp
3D software is not new. Free (as in Libre or as in Beer) is also not new. Perhaps the ease of use is what is new.

16. Sony PlayStation 3
Games consoles have been around since the '70s.

17. RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100
Two words... Palm Treo. Enough said.

18. Rhapsody 4.0
One word... Ipod.

19. Logitech NuLooq
Different. Cross between a joystick and a mouse and a rollerball. I wouldn't mind trying it out if I ever came across one in a shop.

20. Shure E500PTH Sound Isolating Earphones
Noice cancelling headsets have been around for years. Nothing new there.

So where is the true innovation? 19, 15, 9, 6, 4. That's only 5 out of 20.

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[chromozone]

"2. Intel Core 2 Duo Where is the innovation here? The Intel Core 2 Duo is merely two CPUs on a single chip. Duo is neither the first 64bit processor, nor does it share resources between cores, nor does it have an onboard RAM controller. for all the above look to AMD's CPUs." Well, the cheap C2D did rout AMD's 4X more expensibve heavyweight by a 3rd on just about every meaningful index. It did so at lower energy consumption. That's a lot of innovation (except to the AMD fans who just can't admit it)

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[Helldesk Hound]

> Well, the cheap C2D did rout AMD's 4X more expensibve
> heavyweight by a 3rd on just about every meaningful
> index. It did so at lower energy consumption.

None of that is "innovation" - merely refinement of a pre-existing product.

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[MWojcik]

14. Olympus EVolt E-330
Digital camera with LCD display - definitely nothing new here.

But this is a Digital SLR camera - with mechanical shutter and autofocus mechanism working on the actual image, not on image captured by the sensor.

E-330 was first (at least for consumer cameras, don't know about professional ones) DSLR with live view of the captured image.

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii is innovative but Office 2k7 is not? I herby crow you a clueless Nintendo fanboy. Go play with your Wii.

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[Dunbal]

That's a lot of innovation (except to the AMD fans who just can't admit it)

      I'm an AMD fan. And I admit it. Kudos to Intel for this round, and the next round of quad cores they are working on, but we'll see when 45nm technology is ready ;)

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[tompaulco]

Even worse, the Wii is inovative, but the PS3 is not. "Game systems have been around since the 70's." Since this statement applies to the PS3, but the GP touts the WII as innovative, the GP is a definite Nintendo fanboy.

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[JFMulder]

20. Shure E500PTH Sound Isolating Earphones
Noice cancelling headsets have been around for years. Nothing new there.

Actually, they are not noise cancelling, but truly noise isolating. I own a pair of Shure (E2g, same thing as E2c, except in black), and they are not like these other kind of noise cancelling headphones. I don't know if any other company provides similar headphones, but Shure's product simply are headphones with foam.

Basically, you insert a foam piece on the little tube that is the Shure headphone and insert it inside your ear exactly like some people do with ear plugs when they go to bed. It's simply blocking out sound from the outside world getting inside your ear. It doesn't work perfectly, since it's still foam and therefore allows a certain amount of sound in, but it's way better than cranking up the sound to hear your music in the subway and allows you to listen to your music to much lower decibel levels. I personally have my Sansa set to the lowest music level and still clearly hear the music at my work place, and set it to about 25% of maximum power while in the subway. I used to set it to much higher decibel levels when I didn't have the Shure headphones.

The only drawback to it is that since your ears are plugged, you can't really hear outside sounds, which means you have to be extra careful when walking on the street because you might not hear cars as well. Also, since your ear is blocked, it means that any internal body sounds (like when your are chewing food) are crystal clear now, making the Shure somewhat annoying when eating.

It's a simple solution to a simple problem. Why have active noise-cancelling headsets when you can simply block the auditory canal from the outside world? Obviously, you are going to run into trouble if you keep listening to your music at the same levels as before and damage your ear drums, but otherwise, it's a perfectly reasonable solution and it works in any environment, while I've heard that active noise-cancellation sometimes doesn't work in certain environments.

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that summary, saves me having to read the shitty article (RTSA).

Re:Where is the "innovation"?

[Askmum]

10. T-Mobile Dash Absolutely agree that this is not innovative. I seem to remeber that the HTC Universal was announced 2 (TWO) years ago. That was something new, but even so, hardly innovative (it's only smaller and has more features than previous devices). And the T-Mobile Dash does not offer anything new and/or innovative over the HTC Universal.

OK, I read the full list, and....

[Anonymous Coward]

...the number one overwhelming feature they all had in common is..if none of them existed, society wouldn't miss a one of them. Not a one. More or less useless junk with blinkenlights. I was expecting some unusual and interesting things, I was honestly interested to see something cool and WTF??? There aren't any on that list really. There isn't a single thing on that list that is even remotely important or vital for society, and only one of them can qualify as half way "new", and that is that unusual I/O device, which at least shows some sort of forward thinking. And only half way at that. The rest are different brands and models and styles of...of shoes, that's all. About as exciting and innovative as new shoes. Ya, shoes are cool and necessary as footware...but nothing to get too excited about either. Wow, a word processor...how quaint, the concept might catch on. Ooh, look, a "game" console or six....how very unsuusal never seen those things before. Aha, a pda with a big screen that you can read text from! uh huh.....a small form factor computer with a flatscreen and a briefcase handle...supposedly for more children's games...how very..important? And look, cellphones! Now with even more impressive prices..so you can talk to the same people you are already talking to....

We need a one year consumer strike, just cease buying new versions of the same old throw away gadget crap. Just based on this list that is my new year's resolution, one year, no consumer gadget crap. I'll hang on to the crap they already faked me out of my money for previously for a spell instead.

(+) view

[Anonymous Coward]

"Years ago, I wrote for a "subscription-only" print mag that reviewed game software and published hints and walkthrus (Yeah, it was a cushy job, but somebody had to do it...). We didn't take a penny for advertising and the staff was encouraged to "call it like you see it". Unfortunately, the lack of adspace also meant a low income for the company. Long story short - no more magazine."

But on the BRIGHT SIDE you didn't have posters in web forums complaining about stories spread out over pages. Now wasn't that worth going out of business?

Re:(+) view

[AZScotsman]

Honesty, no.

perpendicular recording is not really innovation.

[BroncoInCalifornia]

The technology for perpendicular recording has been around for years. This is just yet another way to increase areal data density on a hard drive disk. It has not shown up in production hard drives because there was lower hanging fruit ripe for picking when it came to increasing areal density.

Bravo!

[KwKSilver]

Well said. If I had mod points now, up you'd go.

Re Bleh

[value_added]

The one that impressed me most was seeing a mention of sed TV. I haven't read the article yet (too long), but now I'm all pins and needles.

Just think, right around the corner we might see awk Radio! Or Perl the Movie. Or how about groff the Board Game?

YouOS

[Kranfer]

Personally, I think the best innovation of 2006 was the YouOS. I started using this thing and I think it is probably the best way to share files between computers than anything else I know of besides VNC, terminal services etc... Its definately the most innovative thing I have seen all year.

Off Topic

[blue.earthling]

I am relatively new here on Slashdot but I noticed a strange behaviour that developed in me during my Slashdot experience. Whenever a new entry of low value gets posted such as this "PC World's 20 Cheapest Advertisements of 2006" I get an uncontrollable desire to click "Read More" to read the comments of Slashdotters. I do that in spite of knowing for the most part what the comments will be like and that I won't gain anything from reading them. The problem is that more often I would click on "Read More" of such petty topics than the really inspiring/exacting ones such as "Long-lived Super Heavy Element Created". It makes no sense...

20 Best Commercials

[norteo]

I do not read PC World. But when you hear about an article called "The 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year" and the first place goes for "... Office 2007", your second option is to think they are talking about "Open ...". Then you go to see the article and you read "...Microsoft... introduces several new features that revolutionize how people work with documents (see our review).", you realize what everything is about...

Re:20 Best Commercials

[Dunbal]

Then you go to see the article and you read "...Microsoft...

      All that means is that the writer could use a free laptop ;)

Vista Sideshow

[owlnation]

First I've heard of this. While it probably does have its uses, I would bet it will be cited as evidence in at least one divorce case before long. Use with caution!

Bigger hard drives may not be innovative...

[Hanners1979]

But the use of perpendicular recording to create said drives is.

God knows why I'm standing up for PC World's shoddy article in any way, shape or form, but just thought I'd mention it.

Rhapsody?

[jewahe]

Rhapsody 4.0 is a bug-riddled mess. Since it came out, I've been testing other music subscription services.

Innovative, my ass

[big dumb dog]

Innovative: being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before

Clearly a UI enhancement to the latest version of MS Office fits the definition...

...I guess a title like 20 Products Likely to Advertise just doesn't pull in the readers.

I think Grapheety is probably among the top 20

[Anonymous Coward]

This site is probably among the best. In the "Actually Useful" social networking class.

Not a chance

[tacokill]

"Hard drives with platters will be completely extinct in 5 years"

That will happen as soon as people stop downloading and adding to the ever-increasing amount of data they are storing. In short, it will happen: never.

I do, however, expect to see hybrid drives that have a flash memory portion along with platters. So, when you are storing/loading the OS, it comes from the flash part and when you are storing/loading large data files, those will come from the platters.

The data density of platters is too large for it to be wholly replaced anytime soon. Hybrids are more likely for the next 10 years. If you disagree, consider what it would cost in flash memory, to replace your 750Gig Seagate.

Innovative products?

[SnarfQuest]

Next article: Most innovative grocery store items: Generic beer: tastes, smells, and looks just like Billy Beer, but costs 10 cents less per pallet.

Who really believes that any of these things are "innovative", instead of being incremental changes to existing products. Microsoft has apparently beaten the word "innovative" to death, so it no longer has its original meaning.

My response to the list

[unablepostAC]

1. Microsoft Office 2007 - According to the article it should be the ribbon UI, haven't tested so not sure. 2. Intel Core 2 Duo - This one is not, just a better version of Core Duo 3. Parallels Desktop for Mac - More likely the honor should be given to the guy who first allowed Windows on a Mac. Plus it is just a MAc version of what Wine is for Linux. 4. Nintendo Wii - It should actually be Nintendo Wii gamestyle, the innovation is in the gamestyle, not the console. 5. Samsung 32GB SSD - This one might be one. 6. Sony Reader - Ther have been readers before, if any the innovation is the E-ink technology not the Reader, and I am not that sure of that, 7. YouOS - Don't know about it, so can't say 8. Dell XPS M2010 - THis definitively is a no-no, a hyped pc 9. Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB - Again the inovation is not the product, the inovation is the use of perpendicular technology for HDD storage. 10. T-Mobile Dash - Another no-no, just a hyped phone 11. Pioneer Inno - Never heard of it 12. Farecast - THis one might be, but would need to test for accuracy. 13. Sony BWU-100A Blu-Ray Disc Rewritable Drive - how can it be innovative if they say there was a pionner model before. 14. Olympus EVolt E-330 -Not sure 15. Google SketchUp - One year late 16. Sony PlayStation 3 - The actual innovative products is IBM cell processor, not the PS3 17. RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 - Looks like just a expanded version of the original Blackberry, but can tell for sure. 18. Rhapsody 4.0 - Looks like any other music service, haven't test it, so I give the benefit of doubt. 19. Logitech NuLooq - It just looks like a weird mouse, no innovation. 20. Shure E500PTH Sound Isolating Earphones - If they fully isolate sound it might be innovation, guess need to test them

Innovative? What?

[drinkypoo]

I haven't used the new Microsoft Orifice (I actually just went to using OO.o in place of Office, so far without issues) so it might be innovative. But some of the other items on this list, well, they simply are not.

Core Duo? It's not even the first dual-core. Parallels desktop? I can get the same thing with Linux inside of Windows using X-Win32 (or just Cygwin!) along with vmware (or colinux.) Granted it's not Windows inside Mac, but it's the very same concept. The Wii Remote is pretty innovative, although the rest of the Wii is not.

Samsung 32GB SSD is not innovative - it's just a higher-capacity SSD. Whoopdeeshit. Sony Reader is evolutionary; it's got an e-ink display, but that's not the first monochrome display designed for daylight readability and low power consumption. The display is revolutionary - or it was several years ago when they announced e-ink. YouOS is evolutionary; in fact it's a return to an older way of doing business, but back then it was ASCII on a glass terminal instead of HTML in a web browser.

The Dell XPS machine listed in the article is basically the modern version of an old luggable like the Kaypro 4 I had back in the day. Evolutionary. A 750GB hard disk drive? Evolutionary - it's not even the first drive to use perpendicular recording. And this T-Mobile branded PDA with a Qwerty keyboard? If it looked any more like a crackberry they'd get sued.

This article is pure poop. samzenpus is going to hell. Thank you.

Troll Time

[YetAnotherBob]

Nuff said.

Wrong

[Dion]

Bluray and HDDVD are both going to lose, well, that's what we can hope for, EVD looks much more userfriendly.

If one doesn't lose then I'm predicting that it's going to be the one with the best players and most open access to content.

Bluray is more complicated than HDDVD (B+) so HDDVD players can be simpler and easier to make.

Sanctioned players are worthless (unskippable ads anyone?) so the only good players are going to be the unlicensed ones, just like DVD today, as a HDDVD player is easier to make, the best players are going for HDDVD.

Given a player key we can actually play HDDVD today.

To play bluray we first need to build a player emulator that looks like a real player to the B+ trojan.

Funny how Sony seems to release a lot of user-hostile malware trojans with the content they peddle.