Slashdot Mirror
Dyson Invests £5 Million To Create 'Intelligent Domestic Robots'
DavidGilbert99 writes "James Dyson only releases products he is 100% happy with, which is why, despite nearly a decade of research in the area, his company has yet to release a robotic vacuum cleaner. To help drive research forward, he will invest £5 million in a joint research lab at Imperial College London which will focus on 'vision systems,' which Dyson hopes will help create the next generation of 'intelligent domestic robots.'" Last week Dyson proposed that the UK government offer monetary incentives to students with an interest and aptitude in science.
User here on both desktop and Android tablet. Will write about the tablet experience, as that is the medium through which I browse Slashdot more often lately.
My stock 1st gen JB Nexus 7 and CM11 HTC Sensation choke when browsing the beta. I'm absolutely baffled by reports that the beta (and the current modern, non-classic site) run smoothly on moderately aged hardware. The experience is in no way seamless; it is utterly painful.
First, there is a delay between my trying to scroll down/up and the scroll actually occurring (said delay is completely nonexistent on the classic site on both devices).
Second, with the dynamic photo loading (why the hell are there photos now?) I hate having my webpage constantly bouncing around up and down when I'm trying to navigate (especially painful when I'm trying to click a link, only for the device to "catch up" and finish fully rendering the page after I have already made the move for my finger to click on the link but before the finger actually touches the screen, causing me to click a different link than intended). This, compounded with the first issue above, take Slashdot well outside the realm of usability. I don't know for sure, but from reading around, this second issue seems to be due to the Javascript, which seemingly almost as many users complaining about are claiming is NOT a problem. What???
My beta experience is characterized by my having to wait an entire 3 seconds (sometimes 4) inbetween EVERY INDIVIDUAL SWIPE to navigate (okay, I don't have to wait quite that long on my N7). Before, I could swipe as fast as my ninja fingers pleased; now, the site REGISTERS MY SWIPES AS CLICKS if I don't wait out the dynamic loading. Sure, the incremental render finishes a lot sooner than that, but then I'm just gambling on whether or not I'm going to run into the usability issues I've just mentioned above if I don't wait out those 3 seconds.
Lastly,
This is a goddamn beaut.
http://imgur.com/HF7H42v
I however understand that maybe in somebody's bizarro world, this would be acceptable (although that person would be absolutely nuts), but how the fuck does a development TEAM allow this to happen?
http://imgur.com/cXt2BQr
I was at an absolute loss for words thinking about this for a few minutes, until what many people here have been droning on about and parroting had finally clicked for me after having to sit through people bitching about the same thing for months. All this time I thought people had been beating a dead horse over a relatively insignificant complaint compared to everything else that was wrong.
It is NOT that they (devs & suits) think the comment system is a less-important, lower-priority aspect of Slashdot; it is that they are UTTERLY IGNORING it. A perception of its inconsequence by the developers sounds plausible, but it looks glaringly more likely that the comment system probably isn't even crossing their minds in the first place. Thus, they are hopelessly blind to the essence of Slashdot. I never realized this, because I couldn't even make it past tolerating the site navigation issues outlined in the first half of my post on my many attempts to test drive the beta until I decided now to actually try to force myself to use it amidst all this "overblown" Slashcott fuss. Maybe my experiences had something to do with this? But then again, people HAVE been bitching about the comments since day one. Skeptically and with a genuine dose of doubt, I had asked myself "it couldn't be THAT bad, much less UNUSABLE, could it?"
bUCKfETA.