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Looking Beyond Vista To Fiji and Vienna
Vinit wrote in with an article that describes Microsoft's strategy for future versions of Windows. It begins: "As we all know that Microsoft Vista was originally scheduled to be released in 2003, after two years of Windows XP, but it got delayed by over five years due to various reasons. Definitely, Vista is very very improved OS over the previous versions, but the delayed in the launch has cost Microsoft, billions of dollars. Now the question at the moment is, what exactly after Vista? Microsoft can't afford to wait another five years for an operating system. People are becoming more aware of the choices they have, and Linux is no longer a hobbyist OS, and that day isn't far away when it becomes simple enough to be a viable alternative to Windows. The competition is fierce. That is why, to stay at the top, Microsoft has planned a 'Vista R2', codenamed 'Fiji' which will be released some time in 2008. And after Fiji, there will be Windows 'Vienna'. Windows Fiji, will not be a totally different OS from Vista; but it will be an add-on. Whereas Vienna will be totally different from Vista."
Apple are progressively upgrading the OS having smaller releases. This is closer to the Linux way of working.
Once you get your basic design right you can gradually improve and alter things. This is where Microsoft failed, their security model was flawed, so with Vista they've fixed it (or so they say).
Maybe I missed something, but I thought there was indication from Microsoft that this would be the *last* version of Windows?
How do they figure five years? 2003 to 2007, that's four years at best, not "over five years." If you include all of 2003 AND 2007, that gets you right up to five years (but that's not how it worked anyway).
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Lest go for truth in advertising and call it "Windows Vapourware"
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Windows Fiji will feature a more powerful sidebar, Monaco, a music authoring tool similar to Apple's Garageband, default playback of HD-DVD, more advanced Speech Recognition, and new themes, icons, wallpapers, games, and minor tweaks to almost everything.
:)
While in Windows Vienna the current interface will be completely stripped, no more explorer shells, and taskbars. No start menu. Probably no toolbars, or menus and Speech Recognition will become a major input device. One thing is for certain, Vienna won't be just an operating system, but a new generation in computing.
So Fiji is going to rip off all the cool features of Leopard and incorporate into Vista while Vienna aims to be the next generation of computing. Why does this sound so familiar... oh wait....
And didn't we just recently have an article on stupid movie uses of computers that blasted the "talking computer" from Star Trek as being a completely useless interface? So why is this a good thing?
But it's also Microsoft. "2003" was codespeak for 2007, so "2008" means 2015 or something... and all the cool new features will be dropped for reasons of infeasibility anyway.
Exactly what is the basis for spouting this load of crap? How about this list of why Vista is inferior to previous versions of windows:
.doc
No Support for IPX, Appletalk, WebDav, or NetDDE
Even less capable backup built in than XP, which itself had inferior backup to previous versions
High cost
Bloat #1 - takes over 10GB of hard disk
Bloat #2 - 2GB of RAM needed
Crippled wordpad can't read
Obtuse menuing requiring going in half a dozen or more levels in for basic controls
Stupid ReadyBoost trying to do what would be better done by simple swap/page to usb device, except RB is MUCH slower
Hardware vendors not in hurry to support Vista
in short, you'll gain nothing and lose functionality by going to Vista. save your money, just say NO.
Until the day Vista ships, MS is getting huge amounts of cash from Windows XP licenses on almost every new PC sold. Most people don't run out and buy a new OS for existing PCs, they usually stick with whatever came with it. How exactly will Vista increase MS's revenue to the tune of billions? Had they released something sooner, what new cash flow would that have provided and would it have justified the expense for development?
I'm sortof dancing around my real point here: I think the *real* reason so much time has gone buy since XP is that Microsoft really hasn't had much incentive to release a new OS.
Have you ever thought about how huge of a leap it would be for Windows to support multi-language speach recognition as a primary interface? Over 90% of the world's computer users use Windows. Think about how much money it requires to go through the painful learning process that's needed to develop a speach recognition engine that can handle the scope of languages Windows requires. And ease of use? For it to be able to handle not only hundreds of languages but hundreds of dialects and accents for each language really boggles the mind. If MS pulls this off with a success I'll be amazed.
As for "file locations" being managed by applications - mmm, no thanks, I rather group files by projects which can involve many applications. What I'd really love is a return to the functionality present in Word for DOS, where the application would look in the current working directory for project specific configuration files.
Anybody who follows Gates knows that he has been serious about speach (sic) recognition for a long time.
It's hard for anyone who does not "follow" the cult of Gates to take anything he says seriously. He's been promising the moon and stars for decades but has yet to deliver anything but mild UI modifications. Generally, his company writes down a wish list of competitor's features and promises to deliver them bigger and better in his "next" release. As the years roll by he drops all of the features until he's left with something like Vista, which offerst the user little beyond DRM madness and a UI upgrade, which he then invariably promotes as "revolutionary".
Despite all of that, I thought he liked to talk about handwriting recognition. You know, the tablet PC, that' he's promissed the world since the Apple Newton. Palm, OpenZarus and Xstroke all beat him to the punch and his tablet PC has yet to catch on.
He might as well claim his next OS will have AI and do "seemless" speech recognition. He won't loose much credibility that way. At this point, he's got so little to use, I'd sooner believe penis pill spam.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
"There are lies, damned lies, and Microsoft promises."
We've heard it all before. Seriously. And it happens just like that: "Yeah, we know XP isn't that much of an upgrade to MS-Windows 2k, but you should see Longhorn! Oh, it's gonna be great! It'll milk your cows, skim the cream, and make fresh ice cream! It'll put your kids through college! Oh, and it'll, uh, make your complexion clear up, and get rid of your herpes!"
Every time Microsoft releases a less-than-stellar product (which is invariably), they start bragging about how great things will be in the *next* release, on which they haven't even started working. That's the Microsoft modus operandi: promise more than the competition currently has, and deliver less. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Moreover, it's blog spam, and not just some excited reader. The author submitted it (which I don't have a problem with necessarily) but the article in question is more of a speed bump to the real content. Which is, funny enough another blog. Not just any blog, but a blog with a single post by one "James Kyton" who doesn't appear to have any profile on the internet (pseudonym).
While I have no reason to doubt either the blogger, or the uhm... other blogger. My bullshit detector is hovering at about '9'. It wouldn't be the first time someone sourced themselves in the pursuit of adsense dollars. Or just to lend themselves some credibility for that matter.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
IPX and AppleTalk are dead. Vint said it best... IP Everywhere.
That's a pretty bold statement.
A couple I do some work for bought a brand new machine; it happened to be 64bit. They noticed lots of problems that their "old" machine didn't have.
For example, programs they relied on (quickbooks was the major one) didn't play nice with 64-bit. In fact, most of their store-bought programs didn't work with 64bit.
Their choice was to buy new versions of this software (though some of this software didn't have a version compatible with 64-bit machines yet...) and spend more than $1000, or return the 64bit machine and get their old one back (gift to their daughter).
Operating systems and platforms simply cannot advance as quickly as they want, and leave software behind.
BS. It's from his blog site, which is entirely in English. If he's foreign and going to use English exclusively, he should at least learn to use it properly or forewarn people that English is not his native language (like most will do when they don't know English very well). He did neither.
Done. Using Apple's approach, you can go to Preferences > Speech, select the Listening tab and choose the Listening Key (default: [Esc] ) which is user-configurable. You can have the computer listen when the key is pressed or have it toggle the on/off mode. Alternatively, you can make the computer only respond to your command when the computer 'name' is spoken (or not).
For example, you can say: "Pickard, what day is it?" and Mac will respond: "It is Saturday".
Speech recognition is 'nice' - but that's it. I cannot imagine an office full of people all gabbling at their PCs without going nuts.
Few things I'd like to see are:
1) Tight integration to client devices. I stuck MCE onto my PC and it really was a pleasure to see my TV stuff picked up by their lovely BDA drivers and all that Tivo stuff appear. Whilst that was nice, it was nowhere near the f'in quantum leap when I pointed my 360 at my big PC over the wifi and got all those features suddenly appearing on my 40" screen.
Wifi implementation is very cheap and MS are normally good at allowing 3rd parties to access their tech (unlike Apple), yet have not quite managed to sell it very well. I'd like a clock radio that played my podcasts etc - I think I just like the idea of having a big central PC that can do all the heavy lifting and a number of thin clients that can all access it (and not all have to have their own bespoke software running on the back end).
2) Haptic stuff. Look at the Wii. Could be basic stuff like a laptop just turning off the screen if there's nobody sitting infront of it or mouse gestures like strokeit integrated into the GUI.
3) Telephony. I've no idea why I have an IP deskphone and laptop sitting on my desk. They have messenger which provides perfectly good person to person calls, they have outlook that provides a centralized mail and calendar resource - can't they just bolt on telephony? Point my deskphone number to my laptop wherever it is, divert to mobile if my PC is off, hold calls if I'm in a meeting etc?
4) Have some balls when it comes to hardware manufacturers. Apple is able to say 'right, we're using the new bios thingie' and make the hardware. MS tentatively seems to make steps towards it, but continuously supports old stuff. Now I know they have to support the old stuff and I know many people appreciate it - but they need to clearly define what hardware they want people to use to optimize 'the experience' and tell Dell. They have started to do this with the Vista certification - I've no idea why people bitch abotu this, but if you want flashy graphics, you need a decent PC and you need people to be able to buy that decent PC with confidence. The quasi-flash drives supported under Vista are a good thing - but I WANT MORE.
5) Better implementation of Bluetooth (and whatever comes along next). I'd love to be able to have my PC boot up (maybe into hibernation) when my phone walks in through the door. Popup on my phone screen with a summary (at least) when I get an email.
Just reading through my points, it seems I want integration. I may be in a minority as most people here seem to get their knickers in a twist when MS bundle a browser with XP - but I want all my stuff to just work together nicely and out of the box. I can't expect MS to support every device, but maybe if they just published some open standards (or formally adopted the perfectly good open ones we already have) hardware manufacturers WOULD comply (as I would buy).
So, at this time, one job was the person who listened to a recording and transcribed the recording into written text, oftimes reformatting it in a prescribed fashion. Though the shuttle is piloted largely by three redundant computers, we still have people transcribing letters. To be sure, some of this has to do with the amount that is costs for a human to do each of these tasks, and the accuracy, but a lot has to do with the difficulty of automating creative tasks like cooking and cleaning and transcribing. Add to this that in many cases people wish these tasks to be done how they like at the moment, and not in an absolute prescribed form and the result is a huge engineering problem.
So, if we begin to live in the 21st century, and leave the bigoted preconceptions behind, then we see that speech recognition is a specific solution that efficiently utilizes a specific resource, the human brain. And, if like in flight, we do not try to emulate the flapping of the wings but the result of the flapping of the wings, then we might see that the keyboard based solution is in fact an efficient solution that utilizes the strengths of the current resource, the electronic computer.
This does not mean that speech recognition does not have its place. Apple uses it to allow the launching of applications and the like, which is useful for certain people. More advanced speech recognition is available for those who want it. However, spending time on this instead of say, a pseudo self organizing file system, seems quite pointless.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Everytime one of these articles pops up, every geek I know start spouting LINUX! Linux is fine, if you're a geek or a large corperation looking to save money; but the fact is that for the normal user; Linux isn't going to replace Windows. Linux has a Stigmata that's been associated with it since the very beginning; it's a pain to configure properly. Now before every one starts shouting "BLASPHEMY!" and linking to 8000 different distro's that auto configure; let me explain. No amount of new distro's will solve this problem, and in fact; with every new distro that comes out, the world of Linux gets more and more confusing. To the average user; this is a nightmare. Which distro do I pick? What advantages does this distro have over this other one? The field of Linux is just too broad for the average user to even understand. You say Linux at a mainstream user; and they're likely to get scared off by just the name. THIS is the stigmata of Linux; and it's major detriment. Now amount of changing Linux will solve this problem, because it will still be Linux; and still carry the same stigmata. It is for these reasons that I NEVER foresee Linux becoming a major force in the mainstream market. If something is going to come out and topple Windows(market acceptance wise); it's going to have to be something COMPLETELY new without the stigmata. Of all the OS's out there now, the only one I see having a chance is OSX; and that's only if Apply can coax developers over to their side again (Not talking about the minority of companies that dev. apple stuff now). Don't get me wrong; I'd like to see a move away from Windows, I just don't see it happening with Linux. I think Linux needs to ride off into the sunset, and make room for something new.
Has any ever noticed the following pattern.
1) new windows is announced
2) it is delivered 1 to 3 years later than promised
3) oddly, it turns out a new windows actually arrives in stores every 5 years like clockwork.
Hmmmm.... I'd say it was an MO. MS is always ontime. The early announcment is just a bluff to keep people from buying the competition. Hey don't switch to linux cause vista is gonna be so good and it's comming out soon.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.