Is Intel Selling Bay Trail Chips Below Cost?

edxwelch writes "An analyst at Bernstein Research has found that Intel is selling their tablet Bay Trail chips to OEMs below cost, concluding that after end rebates, Intel's tablet revenues are likely to be "close to zero," while profits will be negative. Intel has responded that the 'special costs' Intel is incurring are not pushing down gross margin. Intel needs to offer the subsidies to OEMs building $199-$299 devices to bring the bill of materials down and make them competive with cheaper chips from the likes of MediaTek and Rockchip."

Comments

Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[east coast]

So what's the real difference here? The difference is that Intel is selling something of real world value. Dice is destroying something of real world value.

Re:Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[TheKidWho]

slashdot has been dead for a while.

Re:Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[2phar]

The actual press release is clear "Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero."

Re:Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[nebulus4]

That's how Dice (t)roll.

Re:Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[TechyImmigrant]

Dice will come back with their quad core, out of order execution beta.

Re:Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[dmomo]

More posts like this. Protest beta with on-topic posts. (bonus points if title is on topic too).

Re:Dice is selling out Slashdot with the Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

Phuck da beta!!

SLASHBETA SUCKS DICK

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is not the slashdot I grew up with the last 15 years. Slashdot is pulling a Slate... a Digg... a Google News.. a Google plus... a Google reader.

I DONT KNOW THIS WORLD ANYMORE. FUCK SLASHBETA

Re:SLASHBETA SUCKS DICK

[TWiTfan]

Oh man, Digg. Remember how *fast* Kevin Rose went from former TV host to the most cocky motherfucker on the planet? Must have been a hard fall for a guy who had forgotten than his shit stinks.

Re:SLASHBETA SUCKS DICK

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall reading an article he was prett low when it all collapsed on itself. Funny to think Google almost bought for 250 mil, then it eventually sold for 500k. I'd find a link but i'm too busy posting slashbeta hate

FUCK SLASHBETA

-1 ontopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Beta is the only thing to say today.

Re:-1 ontopic

[DaTrueDave]

I will be joining in the Slashcott from Feb 10-Feb 17. No on-topic replies today!

Re:-1 ontopic

[dmbasso]

Actually it is not as off-topic as you think, the story is about Intel performing dumping... otoh, someone at Slashdot took a dump and TADA!!! Slashdot Beta was born.

Re:-1 ontopic

[MightyMartian]

"Former US president (and everyone's favorite funny man) Richard M. Nixon announced his approval of the Slashdot Beta site.

"I was just telling Pat this morning as I made sweet Nixon love to her that what the web needed was a whitespace-riddled atrocity. Slashdot Beta is the Tet Offensive of discussion sites, so screw you, you stupid hippies."

Henry Kissinger was said to have been very pleased as well. Dr. Kissinger was quoted as saying "In Soviet Russia, Slashdot betas you!""

Re: -1 ontopic

[AvitarX]

I'll probably leave before then, the beta is so bad it's destroyed the ability to read the site now because of all the complaints.

The beta is pretty bad too, but I can adapt.

Re:-1 ontopic

[geminidomino]

You are NOT a paying customer

Nope. As people are so fond of pointing out, we're the product. Since our displeasure with the new UX-infested abortion obviously, as you so correctly put it, "means squat to Dice," maybe having a bunch of "products" walking off the shelves and out of the store will get their attention.

Can't speak for the others, but whether or not I walk back onto the shelves on the 18th depends on whether or not they manage to complete the cranio-rectal extraction or not.

Re:-1 ontopic

[Anonymous Coward]

nobeta=1 This beta site is total shite!! Boycott this BS!!

Re:-1 ontopic

[geminidomino]

Their chief revenue is from ads that are viewed by slashdotters

It's not just google et al selling our data that makes us "the product." The "customer" is the one who gives them money (the advertisers). What they're getting in exchange is exposure; our "eyeballs", in scumbag speak. Complaints and feedback go ignored, so clearly they don't care whether we like it or not: the theory to be tested by the "Valentine's Day Massacre" is whether they care if we don't like it enough to drop their ad impressions and, subsequently, their revenue.

Without users, they have nothing to sell.

Re:-1 ontopic

[icebike]

Nope. As people are so fond of pointing out, we're the product. Since our displeasure with the new UX-infested abortion obviously, as you so correctly put it, "means squat to Dice," maybe having a bunch of "products" walking off the shelves and out of the store will get their attention.

With "ads off" button checked, (not to mention adblock and safescript running, I fail to see how I am a product.

It is hard to see what their game plan is here, at this stage, but judging by the layout you can expect an ever increasing amount of floating ads. They have hacked out huge percentages of real estate on each page, the entire right column is currently wasted. I predict this won't last as it will be full of ads (all designed to beat adblock) for the entire page height.

This is the camel's nose under the tent. If you swallow beta, you'll be swallowing forever.

I'm still on classic, but I'm not commenting on any articles (other than to speak out against beta) until this nonsense goes away or at least is entirely optional. (Its not like I haven't tried to use it.).

Re:-1 ontopic

[geminidomino]

With "ads off" button checked, (not to mention adblock and safescript running, I fail to see how I am a product.

Simple, because ad blockers are apparently a minority, even on slashdot, where the draw isn't the five-day-old articles. It's the community. Even if you're not looking at ads, you're commenting and taking part in the discussions that are what keep us coming back here (the same discussions which are marginalized and crippled in the horrible new design). "We", as individuals, aren't the product; "We," as a community, are.

Re:-1 ontopic

[Joce640k]

With "ads off" button checked, (not to mention adblock and safescript running,

Only people who post in the discussions get the magic "ads off" button.

What is slashdot without the posters? You think people come here to read the crappy summaries?

Re:-1 ontopic

[ShanghaiBill]

With "ads off" button checked, (not to mention adblock and safescript running, I fail to see how I am a product.

You are a frequent poster with excellent karma. People don't come to Slashdot to read the news articles that they could have read a week earlier somewhere else. They come to read the comments, and gain insights and learn "the story behind the story" from nerds in the know. People like you write the comments that create that value.

Re:-1 ontopic

[LinuxIsGarbage]

What is slashdot without the posters? You think people come here to read the crappy summaries?

You must be new here. People don't read the crappy summaries or the linked articles.

Re:-1 ontopic

[DaTrueDave]

While I might not be the customer in their new business model, I am indeed a paying customer. Does an asterisk not appear next to my UID for you?

I think that Dice would be incredibly stupid to move forward with their beta after today's protests. Since this is an almost entirely user-driven site, the users are the only reason people come here. Start driving the users away and what will they have left?

YUP

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Slashdot is officially being actively destroyed because it doesn't make enough advertising revenue anymore

From the report:

Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.

Re:YUP

[ModernGeek]

One of us needs to buy it from dice and keep it running right. I'm younger than most of you, so I'm not a millionaire yet.

If I've learned anything from the community here, it's that everyone has their shit figured out and runs their own small business which has at least a million dollars of liquid assets.

So a few of slashdot's smart asses need to get said asses in gear and preserve this place for the greater good; maybe even make it profitable.

Re: YUP

[Kotoku]

What kind of company couldn't make money off Slashdot? It requires very low effort to post 7 stories a day and run a text based site. Only difference is if you count SlashBi and the occasional video (all things we ACTUAL users hate).

Re: YUP

[imidan]

It's even easier to post 7 stories a day when 2 of them are dupes!

I kid.

Fuck Beta, though.

Re:YUP

[blindbat]

Just wait until after the beta goes permanent live. Slashdot will be available for pennies on the dollar.

Re:YUP

[afidel]

No need to be a millionaire, you should be able to buy it for a couple bucks since they already wrote down the value to zero.

Re:YUP

[Anonymous Coward]

I kept hearing these complaints about beta... so I loaded the beta sight... I became instantly nauseous... It was horrible and I definitely won't be visiting /. in the future if this is where they plan on taking the site design...

Re:YUP

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site

Do they have a copy of that report in English?

BUCK FETA!

Re:YUP

[Nivag064]

Well the beta of Slashdot is a sure way to drive the value down further.

As it looks like I, and many others, will not be visiting Slashdot after it changes to the new layout.

Re:YUP

[dmbrun]

>> Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.

And Slashdot Beta reduces the goodwill left in Slashdot Media to below zero, a phenomenon last seen with Stephen Elop and Nokia.

Re:YUP

[Algae_94]

Designs are always changing. The new beta design is definitely a shock, but par for the course with many sites anymore. It's the new commenting system that makes me insane. Does anyone actually read /. for the stories? They aren't exactly getting the scoop on anybody. Without the commenting community the site is weak.

Re:YUP

[unitron]

...

If I've learned anything from the community here, it's that everyone has their shit figured out and runs their own small business which has at least a million dollars of liquid assets. ...

Such excellent snark, I had to friend you.

Editors are scared

[TWiTfan]

Looks like they're using their unlimited mod points to try to downmod everyone who posts on the beta.

Re:Editors are scared

[TWiTfan]

Look at the Amazon double-helix comments. Mass downmods everywhere.

Re:Editors are scared

[simonbp]

Because all the editors that cared left long ago.

The fucked-up beta is the latest fuck-up in a long decline. OMG Ponies was more usable than beta.

Re:Editors are scared

[aardvarkjoe]

It's funny; if this happened on any other site the Slashdot editors would be all over posting stories about "censorship."

Whichever editor is doing this: how about you at least have the balls to admit it? Just put up a notification on the front page that you're downmodding all complaints about the beta site.

And yes, since you probably think you can do it without people realizing -- it's pretty damn obvious that it's an editor doing it, not normal users. Huge numbers of posts are getting hit with "offtopic" mods, all at the same time.

Re:Editors are scared

[TWiTfan]

Yeah, keep modding down timothy. Shutting the door after the horses have already gotten out. Might be better off spending that time updating your resume.

Re:Editors are scared

[Antipater]

OMG Ponies also lasted a day. If Beta is a February Fools Joke, I don't think many people are amused.

Re:Editors are scared

[TWiTfan]

It's fucking timothy. Look at who's been posting all the stories today.

Re:Editors are scared

[dmbasso]

Yep, I noticed that. In a technology oriented site they could at least try to hide the blatantly obvious statistical anomaly. A small script with some randomness and delays would be enough.

Re:Editors are scared

[Nethemas the Great]

OMG Ponies would be preferable to the beta.

Re:Editors are scared

[dmomo]

That's OK. What made slashdot great is the people who love it, leaving insightful comments. Since they are currently only leaving comments related to beta... if you mod those down, there won't be much of a discussion left.

If they do manage to suppress the beta "noise", just bring it to their facebook page.

Re:Editors are scared

[Anne_Nonymous]

I'd stay if they transitioned to OMG!!! Ponies!!!

Re:Editors are scared

[MachineShedFred]

Good, then it means they are at least SEEING the feedback. Doesn't mean they'll act on it though...

Intel's profit methods

[grommit]

Intel has been doing this for a long time. They know how to make money off of it. Dice Holdings on the other hand only seems to know how to ignore their readers and create a "BETA" website that is flat out painful to read.

Much like Dice should sell Slashdot before they dr

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK BETA!! You are changing a formula for success that you obviously don't understand. Change can be good, but change is not good for the sake of change. Software and websites developed by people who do not understand their users will always be a catastrophe.

We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[cervesaebraciator]

Very well. I won't post on the beta. If they don't want to hear about it, that's okay. It's their site, not the users'. But I might mention how fascinating comments on interesting topics like [this article's topic] will one day be discussed on this website.

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to go for a short name, maybe a nice bit of regex pun: .* indicating 0 or more of anything, or alternately a period followed by an open-ended wildcard in OS terminology (both have useful meanings, and you can get flame wars about which one it means).

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[east coast]

I hope this works out for you. When there is an alternative hopefully the users will move on and start anew. It's time anyway.

Thank you for your efforts.

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[JustinOpinion]

The nascent "AltSlashdot.org" effort hasn't settled on a name yet. The name will be changed, and will avoid all trademark issues. The plan is to have a community vote on the new name; several punctuation related puns have already been suggested.

The hardest part, of course, is building up enough momentum fast enough for such a large community to transition. It may or may not work...

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[meta-monkey]

I like http://httpcolonslash.org/

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[cervesaebraciator]

Many thanks, but it's not my idea (though I've offered to do what I can to help). The original post may be found here. It is time indeed.

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[CdBee]

Bookmarked, thanks. I'm in. 10 years on this site and they stab us in the front, I'm off.

Re:We'll go aggressively passive-aggressive then

[unitron]

Interestingly enough, a colon slash is pretty much what using the beta version feels like.

Or at least some kind of royal pain in the a....

Is Dice selling slashdot below cost?

[Kurast]

Only beta will reveal.

FTC issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't this constitute yet another violation of fair trade law by Intel. How long until the company gets shut down like they deserve?

Re:FTC issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

SLASHBETA - A violation of human dignity.

DOWN WITH BETA

Desperation ...

[gstoddart]

Let's face it. Intel is desperate for their chips to still be used in things.

As people are moving to different forms of computers and different kinds of chips, Intel is getting squeezed -- the sales of desktops are down, and increasingly it's stuff like ARM processors which are running things.

I'm betting Intel is doing this to try to ensure they still have a market share, otherwise things are going to start looking pretty bleak for them in the consumer market.

Of course, I worry this is just going to have the effect of trying to foist power-hungry desktop/x86 CPUs onto people who want lower-power stuff for mobile devices.

What we don't want is just a transplanted x86 which hasn't been updated to try to account for lower power devices and getting away from a platform with almost 40 years of baggage.

Re: Desperation ...

[kenh]

The chips in question, quad-core Atoms (AKA Bay Trail), are actually quite good - I have a Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet with that CPU and it runs Windows 8.1 quite well, with very useful battery life (IMHO)...

I think their strategy is to get the products in user's hands to overcome negative impressions from earlier Netbook/mobile offerings from Intel.

Re: Desperation ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Intel is scared to allow satisfying the just-enough-compute market with these products. Many of the "desktop" boards coming are not equipped with a decent graphics card slot (PCIe x8) and the server boards are too expensive to be used in such a role. Meanwhile, AMD's Jaguar is almost nowhere to be seen in the DIY market.

Re: Desperation ...

[Anonymous Coward]

the strategy is called dumping and it's illegal

Dice has written off Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

The editors are getting involved by modding down the "fuck beta stuff", but only this comment went from +5 to -1: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760775&cid=46174399

I think we have hit on what is really going on. Slashdot is being killed so that the brand can be re-purposed.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

This is insane. Fuck the Slashcott, I'm done here. If there was ever any doubt about how little they cared for their userbase, Timothy mod-bombing everyone who actually cares about the direction this site is going should clear that right up.

Fuck the Beta, and up yours, Timothy.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[JWW]

Repurposed as what, worthless crap?

The people who care about the brand are revolting against changes to this site.

People who have frequented this site for over a DECADE are talking about walking away.

Sure they could try to forge a new brand â¦. for the pittance of users they'd have left.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

So the plan is to drive away all the real users, because we use adblockers.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[Belial6]

Sounds like the opportunity for a huge win for Commander Taco.

1) Make Slashdot a popular site.
2) Sell Slashdot for lots of money
3) Wait for new owners to kill Slashdot
4) Make new Slashdot site with different name
5) Wait for everyone to switch to new site
6) Sell new site for lots of money
7) Profit!!!

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sdredesign

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[denis-The-menace]

This is what happened to DIGG.

History repeats itself in the name of greed.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[hairyfeet]

Simple they want to make "the brand" into another Gawker and if they have to run of everybody who has been here before? So be it. Look at how few of the sub 7 digit UIDs are left, look at how they let the Anon Cowards spam and troll with zero moderation, they don't give a fuck because they plan to turn the brand into something else and they know that means burning the users they have now.

So put me down for the Slashcott and I'll be happy to contribute to any AltDot that somebody wants to fork the code and set up. If I wanted Gawker I'd go to fucking Gawker so they can take beta and shove it.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[unitron]

The editors are getting involved by modding down the "fuck beta stuff", but only this comment went from +5 to -1: http://games.slashdot.org/comm...

I think we have hit on what is really going on. Slashdot is being killed so that the brand can be re-purposed.

Well, right now it's back up to +4, so apparently some beta hata's are still getting mod points.

Re:Dice has written off Slashdot

[unitron]

So the plan is to drive away all the real users, because we use adblockers.

I've been here since the October Papers back in October of '98, and regularly get entrusted with 15 Mod points at a time, so I guess I'm a real user, but although I run Flashblock in Firefox so that videos only play when I want them to, I've deliberately never touched the disable advertising checkbox (because I know they need to pay the bills somehow and have considered it more than a fair trade), and don't run anything else that would block legit ads, so I don't know why they want to run me off.

Calling attention to the beta fuckup

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone writing to the advertisers to let them know what a massive fuckup is Slashdot beta? Perhaps that's the better way to communicate this idea to Dice

Goodwill

[Anonymous Coward]

....$6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero.

Accounting speak for "we paid too fucking much."

Timothy is mass downmodding!

[TWiTfan]

Timothy is mass downmodding everyone who posts on the beta. Look at the comment sections in the Amazon story.

Boycott

[chebucto]

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.

On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: altslashdot.org

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

ive used all my mod points today in this effort thus the AC here. I think maybe we should all copy and paste this as replies to everything. Lets ratchet up the signal to noise a bit eh?

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

The beta looks like some shitty comments section that many websites tacked (like from disqus) on when they realised they could get more traffic if they let users throw in their own comments, however Dice fail to realise that this site is all about the comments, heck any story on any topic could be posted and you're guaranteed to have some intelligent discussion posts appearing.

The beta is a stinking pile of shite.

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you know, just go to a different website. There are hundreds of others. Are you currently paying slashdot money to provide you with services tailored just the way you want? Hmmmm...

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of complaining to try and get things to not change, we should all just find somewhere else?

Somehow I don't think you have an IQ above room temperature, measured in celcius.

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd also recommend adding a signature to the bottom of your post in protest

Sent from my Slashdot Classic

Re:Boycott

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you can complain all you want about change. The thing about change...it's pretty hard to stop! I'm not saying change is always progress; I'm saying change will never go away.

PS. I'm pretty sure you never got over the big change from horse-drawn carriages to cars or the change from b&w TV to colour. Is that why you are so angry? Insulting me won't stop change but you probably think it makes you sound smarter. It doesn't.

fuckbeta in your favorite language.

[Anonymous Coward]

#include <stdio.h>;

int main(void)
{
for (;;) printf("Fuck Beta\n");
return 0; //unreachable, but compiler might want it
}

Re:fuckbeta in your favorite language.

[sunderland56]

#include <stdio.h>;

Error 17: random ';' outside of a function: programmer should be shot

Re:fuckbeta in your favorite language.

[dmbasso]

def slashdot_beta():
      base = urlopen("goatse.cx").read()
      return uglify_even_more(base)

Re:fuckbeta in your favorite language.

[MachineShedFred]

use strict;
my $slashdot = shift;

while($slashdot =~ /[Bb]eta/ ) {
          print "Fuck Beta\n";
}

Stinky shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I solved that problem when I went Vegan - no really, your shit stops stinking. It smells like a freshly mowed lawn now.

That's why we Vegans are so sanctimonious and obnoxious: our shit doesn't stink and we can prove it!

So, Slashdot should redirect beta.slashdot.org and solve their problems.

Peace man.

As goes Slashdot goes Intel

[Nightbrood]

It is a sad day that Intel's big news is having to slash prices to compete with the likes of MediaTek. I'm surprised no one has complained to the ITC yet if they are effectively "dumping" these chip. While I recognize mobile's importance, the nerd in me yearns for the good ol' days when AMD and Intel were fighting it out in the x86 space. Kinda like Slashdot...

fuckbeta

Re:As goes Slashdot goes Intel

[spire3661]

Intel and AMD were never fighting. Intel allows AMD to exist, flat out. Intel isn't just Goliath to AMDs David, its 10 Goliaths on steroids. Intel DWARFS AMD.

Re:As goes Slashdot goes Intel

[Nightbrood]

I still remember when the original Athlon came out. That was the first time in quite awhile that AMD gave Intel a serious challenge. It is just too bad that they rested on their laurels for too long and let Intel power on ahead. The day Intel gave prerelease samples of Core 2 to be benchmarked by the tech sites was the day I knew AMD was pretty much never again going to seriously contend in the x86 CPU space.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of this Fischer Price looking Beta. It is sux and is unusable.

Slashbeta is miserable a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Dice holding, you are looking at this revolt and I hope you all feel like a bunch of dicks.

FUCK SLASHBETA

time to start a nasty rumor...

[neo-mkrey]

/. comments section to be replaced by disqus.

Fuck Beta

[sexconker]

The day I lose access to the classic version of Slashdot is the day I block slashdot.org at the border.
Your move, Dice.

Re:Fuck Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly the same here, Dice you lousy soulless human beings.

I don't always comment, but when I do...

[coastal984]

I say, Fuck Beta! Holy hell this is terrible.

Regarding the fucking beta

[gman003]

I'm not a guy who blindly follows what he's used to. When I got Windows 8, I gave Metro a try. It has some good parts, and I don't even dislike the look of it. I could have adapted to the inconsistencies, and the weird tabletness of it all. But after trying dozens of apps, I found that none of them worked as well as the desktop applications.

I like to think I'm a guy who does what works. Metro didn't work, so I no longer use it. I got a program that gives me a start menu back, and it lets me configure it to be even better-fitted to my needs than the stock W7 menu.

I gave Slashdot Beta a try, because I thought it deserved a chance. Perhaps all the hate for it was just small-minded traditionalists clinging on to the familiar. But no. Slashdot Beta breaks all the important functionality, and it makes it look worse. If it goes live as it currently is, not only am I quitting Slashdot for good, but I'll be throwing a proposal to my bosses about making a competitor, because the market for an audience-focused tech site will be wide open (I'm currently contemplating "Alpha" as a name).

Slashdot Classic has problems, certainly. Unicode is broken, HTML comments are stupid, the design isn't that great, and since the thing is still running on Perl I'm sure there's some hindrances to continued development. Slashdot needs a rewrite, a clean new technical foundation powering a new front-end design.

But Beta isn't it. With all the problems Classic has, Beta is a million times worse. I can't think of even one way in which Beta is superior - it is a step down on all fronts, obviously designed by people who never used Slashdot and only copied from other news sites and comment forums.

Re:Regarding the fucking beta

[afidel]

Agreed, I went to beta on day one after being a mobile beta participant and what I saw horrified me. I wrote a very detailed writeup about what was wrong with the design and even gave them the tweaks I had made to their CSS using Tampermonkey to make the site less annoying, and yet absolutely nothing of substance changed between when I wrote them and when they foisted it on the larger population. Why the hell am I being asked to give feedback if you're not going to take any of it seriously?

Re:Regarding the fucking beta

[sribe]

I gave Slashdot Beta a try, because I thought it deserved a chance. Perhaps all the hate for it was just small-minded traditionalists clinging on to the familiar.

Yeah, same here. I figured it was just some brittle whiners exaggerating things they didn't like. Then I tried it. Holy fuck, what a pile of shit!

Re:Regarding the fucking beta

[MTEK]

I'll be throwing a proposal to my bosses about making a competitor, because the market for an audience-focused tech site will be wide open

Good news everyone, the domain seecolonbackslash.org is available!

Re:Regarding the fucking beta

[eulernet]

Slashdot needs a rewrite, a clean new technical foundation powering a new front-end design.

Let's rewrite it in Ruby On Rails, yay !

Re:Regarding the fucking beta

[Anonymous Coward]

> since the thing is still running on Perl

Huuhhuuuu I'm pretty sure it was rewritten in C in the early 2000's. I remember the vast increase in speed when they switched.

Fuck Slashdot Beta Fuck Dice

[rodrigoandrade]

Fuck Slashdot Beta Fuck Dice

Fuck Slashdot Beta Fuck Dice

Fuck Slashdot Beta Fuck Dice

What if Dice sold a Slashvert and nobody viewed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider than because that is the road that Beta is leading us down.

Re: Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[Anonymous Coward]

can't tell. I've blocked all adds since moving to beta.
whoops, i man betasux.

Predatory pricing

[TheloniousToady]

I'm surprised no one has complained to the ITC yet if they are effectively "dumping" these chip.

I thought about that too, but I don't think it applies in this case. I think it's allowable to sell things below cost if you're not a dominant player. In fact, temporarily losing money on a product when entering a market is a common tactic to gain market share. This is distinct from predatory pricing, which is intended to force competitors out of the market. You would need to be a dominant player to do that, which Intel clearly isn't in the mobile space.

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[overshoot]

We certainly don't take it very well when foreign manufacturers do this...

Yes, but Intel is an American corporation which only manufactures outside of the USA. Well, that and design. And test. And packaging. But aside from design, manufacturing, test, and packaging the only things that Intel does outside of the USA is sales and marketing. So it's OK.

As for the implied complaint regarding predatory pricing, the good news there is that (per Judge Posner, in particular) there is no such thing. Anything to bring down consumer prices is by definition good.

Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe it's not horsecock!

For the first time

[LookIntoTheFuture]

in Slashdot history, comments about the story are the ones that are offtopic. They may not be modded that way, but I find myself skipping them. Is it really that difficult to keep classic in addition to beta? You have a lot of loyal, intelligent people here. Why give them the finger?

Re:For the first time

[hairyfeet]

Look up "Dice Holding Slashdot writedown" and you'll find your answer. Dice thought they could load the place with Slashvertisements, make money off the articles AND the ads, and instead put the site into a nosedive so bad its now totally unprofitable, so much so they took a massive writedown on it.

So what does that have to do with the beta fucking? Simple Dice Holdings believes that Slashdot as a NAME could be worth something but not as a site so they are just gonna take a Gawker style layout (hell they might as well even have "powered by Disqus" at the top of the comment section, its such a ripoff) and simply bolt on the Slashdot name, simple as that.

Will the Slashcott work? No, even though I will be participating on GP the fact is they don't want the USERS, they want the BRAND. Like most retarded corps they don't know what has value, they think that just having the name Slashdot is the value when in reality nobody gave a shit what it was called, they came for all the insider comments and those will all be going to Alt (or whatever they call it) but again this doesn't matter to Dice as they think they can make another Fark with the Slashdot name.

Will it work? Possibly, they can get in the 20 somethings that vaguely remember the /. name and actually like the "ZOMFG look at my Vlog bro!" layout but I seriously doubt it'll get them what they originally wanted, which was a way to get paid for Slashvertisements while getting paid for ads too. most likely it will linger and falter before finally going the way of geocities, just another place from "back in the day" that was bought and trashed by a corp that didn't know WTF made the place what it was.

NO to Beta

[mccotter]

Do not make beta mandatory. Keep classic. I've been looking for an excuse to stop spending time on this site.... and beta is it.

The future of Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

As I snort cocaine from Natalie Portman's butt crack, I stop to consider the future of Slashdot. Then I raise my head and roar:

DICE SUCKS! BETA SUCKS! FUCK BETA!

Check out AltSlashdot for a possible future for our community!

Stay smart! Stay informed! Don't ignore the situation! Organize around viable alternatives!

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you post Anon you lose the BETA SLASHDOT feature...!

http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1

[unixisc]

Just set that for your page, and stick to the topic of whether Intel underpricing Bay Trail is good for the market, and whether it creates new opportunities for laptop or all-in-one vendors as well.

Re:http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1

[idontgno]

You forgot to Fuck Beta.

No, it's not optional.

This was posted over an hour ago!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are there no comments?

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did Canada annex Oregon? Because Intel sure spends a lot of money on development fabs that, according to you, don't have anything to do with design, test, or manufacture of their products.

No Beta!

[byronivs]

Better listen Dice.

Message from friendly neighbourhood ACs

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Beta! ACs ftw! altslashdot.org ftw!

Please leave us alone Dice, please.

Protest Beta

[LoRdTAW]

Dice, I am protesting the beta site. I will not follow any links from a beta redirect and I will not participate in any meaningful discussion.

Your new Slashdot design is hideous. The comment layout is an abomination which has always been /.'s strong point. The comments are why we come here. This isn't twitter, Digg or Facebook, we come here to get away from that. You will lose more members than you will ever hope to attract with your new and unimproved design. Please abandon your attempts to cash in on /.

Fellow /.'ers, join me in this protest. Do not post a comment related to an article or click any links. Instead, post a comment in protest of the beta design. Mods (who wish to participate in the protest): Mod up protest comments comments only. Do not mod down on-topic comments as it isn't fair to the poster.

NO BETA NO TIME

[Anonymous Coward]

NO BETA NO TIME

Slashdot beta sucks hot grits in my pants

[larry bagina]

i shoved a greased up yoda doll in my slashdot beta. Is it good or is it whack?

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[afidel]

Yes, but Intel is an American corporation which only manufactures outside of the USA

Pure B.S.

FUCK BETA

[vivek7006]

FUCK BETA. I want my classic back. And one more thing, FUCK BETA!

First Time for Bad Karma; Expect More

[cervesaebraciator]

I've been posting here for years. I always try to be polite, even in disagreement. Accordingly, I have never been downmodded, except in a few cases of clear disagreement (i.e. a controversial topic gets "overrated", etc) and in most of those I generally get moved back to my starting score of 2 by others. I'm always at karma cap. Again, I ascribe this to the fact that the comments of someone who tries to be polite are generally not rejected by the community.

All this is to say that today is a first. I corrected a link to a comment by an AC here making it easier for folks to follow his intended direction to this project. When I did this, my comment was downmodded OT into oblivion.

I don't claim to know who's doing this OT downmodding, but if even my little comment (which was on topic for its GP) was downmodded then we should expect it to continue. Your comments may no longer be welcome on Slashdot.

Re:First Time for Bad Karma; Expect More

[Jane Q. Public]

"Again, I ascribe this to the fact that the comments of someone who tries to be polite are generally not rejected by the community. "

Depends on the subject. Certain positions on certain topics have historically received downmods on Slashdot, regardless of how sincere and polite the poster is.

I try to be respectful and polite, until someone else is not. When someone else has already been disrespectul, I no longer have any motivation to respect them in return.

But having said that, I am not a very "politically correct" person, and the vast majority of the downmods I have received have been due to my positions on certain controversial subject matter, not my "politeness". I nearly always start out being polite. And if others stay polite with me, I stay polite. But that hasn't stopped my polite (but "politically incorrect") comments from receiving downmods.

My first slashdot post in 15 years reading it

[Anonymous Coward]

YEAH FUCK BETA !!

I see the script kiddies

[stevez67]

are behaving like kiddies.

Re:I see the script kiddies

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo, check the user Eye-Dee-Numbaz, homie! Old Skool. O.G. Now go on back to you mamma's basement wid dat >2mil crap.

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[jeffb (2.718)]

Oh, come on, moderators. Yes, I deserve punishment for being on-topic during this time of trouble. But can't you unite behind the Overrated flag enough to award me the coveted Score: -1, Insightful?

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[Jane Q. Public]

And that doesn't include the Intel/Micron partnership plants in the Salt Lake City area.

it's a clone AFAIK

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, that's the first thing I thought. Slashdot might as well actually use disqus; why write a clone?

Can you see this on the beta site? If not I am sad

[oRCAD Monkey]

HI. I posted this to see what it would look like on the beta website.. If they call it beta isn't it supposed to be working? maybe they will fix Slashdot Beta and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder. It seems to work on the old site but the beta site is not very good and is making me sad. sad sad sad. I am not very happy when Slashdot makes me very sad. What will happen to me when classic is GONE!!! I will try posting this on YouTube PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! A little history of Slashdot courtesy of Wikipedia. What it was before It was destroyed by Beta. I tried posting this before but could not see it with beta. What am I doing wrong? I guess I will have to keep on trying until I can read it. Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Tell me if you can read this. I am really upset that I can not see my own posts Maybe that is why they call it beta. I am sure they will fix everything and everyone will be happy again. Can you see this? I can't. What is wrong? Is this why they call it beta? I hope someone will be able to fix this because I am not happy it is not working. Maybe after the beta test is over it will work. It sure doesn't work now. I am getting even sadder.PLEASE HELP ME!!!!! The origins of the site now known as Slashdot date back to July 1997 when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called Chips & Dips, which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became Slashdot in September 1997 under the slogan "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks.[4] The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".[5] By June 1998 the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day and advertisers began to take notice.[4] By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet".[6][7] Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000,[8] which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.[9] Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000,[10] and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online.[11] During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, politics.slashdot.org, created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004.[12] Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and Fahrenheit 9

huh?

[SuperDre]

Why is it that some companies sell their hardware way below costs and it isn't a problem (like gaming consoles) but when Intel does it, it is a big problem...

BETA DOESN'T WORK RIGHT ON LYNX

[MoronGames]

I browse ./ on Lynx pretty often at work. Beta breaks the comment viewing functionality in Lynx. Don't serve beta to browsers that don't support JS!

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[overshoot]

You can read "only manufactures outside the USA" as either "the only place its manufacturing occurs is outside the USA" or as "manufacturing is the only thing that it does outside of the USA." Which makes sense in the context of the following three sentences?

Hint: I live in the Phoenix area and used to work in Chandler. You don't need to tell me that Intel has fabs (and design, etc.) in the USA.

You Anti-Beta Assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually come here to read the relevant story comments. Flood their inbox, their facebook page, twitter, etc. Tired of reading about all of this beta shit.

Re:You Anti-Beta Assholes

[allsorts46]

There won't be any relevant story comments in future if Slashdot doesn't start listening to its users.

Re:Can you see this on the beta site? If not I am

[Anonymous Coward]

i like your text editor better than I like beta

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[whoever57]

You can read "only manufactures outside the USA" as either "the only place its manufacturing occurs is outside the USA" or as "manufacturing is the only thing that it does outside of the USA."

And neither of those interpretations would be correct.

I live in the Phoenix area and used to work in Chandler.

So you know about the US fabs. Presumably you also know about the design offices outside the US.

Bad Attitude

[Lord_Jeremy]

Please, there's way more to say today.

The "fuck beta" obsession is actually making reading slashdot far more unpleasant for me than the Beta layout. A lot of people here are saying that the site leadership is totally ignoring the opinions of the community. Did any of you actually use the beta and the mobile site back in October when they initially solicited feedback? They were practically unusable, and Beta has definitely become much more pleasant to use by this point. That means that someone is listening and taking feedback into account.

Note that "fuck beta" is entirely useless feedback. The layout is going to change, there's no preventing it. Slashdot has invested a great deal of developer man-hours (aka: money) into updating the site. So lets provide useful feedback and constructive criticism. I for one am much happier with the performance of Slashdot on mobile platforms. The layout is actually responsive now, and it's much easier to browse through stories on a 3.5" screen. There are still some styles issues, notably the story titles typeface is awkward and the comments sections get unreadably squashed at times. As a matter of personal taste I dislike seeing so much empty off-white space everywhere, but a lot of UI design in general has gone in that direction for some reason.

The bottom line is this: A goddamn visual redesign of the site does not constitute an effort to kill the community. A lot of the anti-Beta noise is borderline paranoid about that. The submission system isn't changing. The commenting and moderation system isn't changing. The mechanics of being part of the slashdot community isn't changing. Hell there's pretty much exactly the same ad space on the new site as the old one. Let's all try to be reasonable and constructive. Less of the "fuck beta" more of the "I want it to do X instead"

Fuck Beta. I'm for helping rebuild elsewhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

See you all in the IRC channel.

Another pointless blog from barrons

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is actually known but everything is speculated. The news industry (no journalism in blogging) is stating something to generate clicks with no actual data available. Again.

Intel has always made chips cheaper than the news hounds think they can. Often, significantly cheaper.

Re:Another pointless blog from barrons

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is actually known but everything is speculated.

This is known. Intel have been clear about their "contra-revenue" scheme that involves subsidising chips and paying customers to modify designs to use them, reducing the overall Intel margin by 1.5% this year. Doing the sums this involves a subsidy of $20-$50 per chip.

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can read "only manufactures outside the USA" as either "the only place its manufacturing occurs is outside the USA" ...

Technically that would be "manufactures only outside the USA", so I'm sure you would have said that if it is what you meant.

Re:Didn't this get them in trouble before?

[overshoot]

Exactly. At which point all I can do is point to my signature:

FUCK BETA

[thexile]

FUCK BETA. FUCK DICE.