From a no name company, but this number that just got posted on Engadget seems incredible. Android, and apparently an open OS that runs ordinary Android apps.
Same concept, but seems like more of a generalist device (and also much uglier). Can read not only ebooks, but can surf the web on the little LCD on the bottom, and then when a button is pressed, mirrors the content on the eye friendly e-ink display.
Well...that would be the advantage of hacking this thing to add unwanted functionality. You don't pay any monthly fee, since all of the 3G service cost is already built into the cost of the device. Just the cost of a year's service would be more than the cost of this device.
Presumably, B&N would not be thrilled with you if you did this though.
Incidentally, that's why a "strict constructionist" judicial philosophy is really at odds with western values - we don't have sacred texts, we value constantly and continuing expanding personal freedoms.
Not necessarily. You can be strict constructionalist (and strongly support the rule of law, which is really a big part of what that's about), and support constantly rewriting the laws or Constitution to grant expanding personal freedoms. In many ways, it's pretty unfair to hide the laws within the text of legal cases that no one in the ordinary population reads, rather than applying the laws as written, and then changing them when they become outdated.
If a regular $40 book gives $18 to the publisher, with the rest being eaten up by distributors, an ebook for $23.99 doesn't sound incredibly out of line. $6 for the infrastructure and customer support functions. Just because it's electronic doesn't mean that it's free and you'll never have to hire someone to deal with complaining customers.
Okay, so could someone who is familiar with who these guys are explain what they have to offer? From a quick look, my impression is that as a consumer who doesn't necessarily need 5 9's of reliability, there isn't much reason for me to use them over Gmail.
Yes, I expect them to obey the law like everyone else is expected. Rewarding anyone who breaks the law with something that those who do not break the law do not receive is a quick recipe for undermining the rule of law.
I'm curious, what's the source of this near constant leak of unreleased versions of WinMo? Is it straight from Microsoft in a quasi-official fashion, i.e. are they supporting the ROM customization scene?
No, but they were in charge of this market between the time they killed Palm and when the iPhone came out. Now they are incredibly far behind, because they were sitting around twiddling their thumbs for years while there were no viable competitors.
Windows Mobile hacking is pretty much exactly like this case with Android. You download a custom OS image, and the custom OS images are generally based on leaked versions of the next version WinMo OS. Furthermore, they often include additional things like MS Office Mobile.
Okay, strike the word innovation, which actually wasn't what I was looking for anyway and insert improvement.
Regarding your point though, I do strongly disagree, unless you define innovation in terms of only large ground-breaking break-throughs and not small-scale advancement.
Their R&D labs produce a large amount of interesting research.
In terms of the small-scale, Surface is definitely neat, the Office ribbon bar is (regardless of your opinions on its merits, as it does have its fans including myself) as far as I know a wholly new UI approach. They've been advancing the state of tablets and hand-writing recognition continually over the years. Their Bluetrack mice seem to be a solid improvement over the status quo. I could go on, but they've made a huge number of fairly innovative developments, both large and small, over the years.
Yes, it basically is in an inferior platform. It's got great underlyings relative to the competition, such as multitasking and an easy development environment, but the interface is unstable, sluggish and outdated, which makes the whole thing painfully unhip. Consumers don't want anything to do with it, so modern developers aren't bothering to target it.
I think you're joking, but Ballmer's original insight actually holds up pretty well here in the mobile arena. Having played around with the different mobile platforms, the biggest problem with Windows Mobile 6.5.1 is the lack of modern developers.
All of the software on the iPhone is modern, and finger-friendly.
On Windows Mobile, most of the the software applications still look like Palm applications from circa 2001 with tiny drop down menus and radio buttons. It's not impossible to design good applications, but most of the best developers are no longer developing on Windows Mobile. The number of apps may be somewhat similar on the iPhone and WinMo but the quality is leagues apart, even taking into account the 1,000 fart apps on the iPhone.
While maybe not as much so as on a desktop, for a mobile OS, the apps are still a large part of the success of the OS, and Windows Mobile despite its openness to development is basically terrible when it comes to attracting the developers to make them.
Unless you're an internal tester, you do not have a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't even out yet. The first phones with it are slated to ship in late October.
There are people out there with hacked ROMs running leaked builds of 6.5, but you can hardly judge the final OS based on hacked ROMs running leaked builds.
That said, yes, WinMo 6 is totally crappy. Based on my playing around with the leaked builds, WinMo 6.5 is still rather crappy. WinMo 6.5.1 is getting decent, and its UI doesn't look like it was from 2001, but it still has those general WinMo unexplained slowdowns and could use a lot of improvements.
Overall, Windows Mobile is clearly suffering from that Microsoft problem that once they think they are in charge of a market, all innovation completely stops. It's so total of a stop, it really looks intentional, but it's a little hard to believe even Microsoft execs could be so short-sighted as to purposefully derail development. Still, Internet Explorer and Windows Mobile sure look like two examples of that.
Default Opera browser on my HTC Diamond, which is actually already a generation out of date, is pretty good. In fact, I'd say it's the best-designed mobile browser I've ever used, better even than the vaunted iPhone Safari.
It initially loads a whole page with absolutely tiny fonts so you can get an overview. Scroll wheel zooms in or out so you can get detail where you need it. Double tap does a quick zoom in with reflow, so that on pages with long lines of text you can read it all in one column. This dual mechanism is ingenious, giving you the best of both worlds of preserving formatting and having a mobile version of real webpages that is usable.
Unfortunately, while I think the design is fantastic, the whole thing is let down by the cruddiness of Windows Mobile and the slow CPUs that always seem to be paired with it. Zooming with the scroll wheel sometimes takes a few seconds to register, which doesn't sound like much, but is enough to make using the scroll wheel irritating, and leaving the browser with basically only the reflow zoom mode, which it really a shame.
What's even more funny is that Microsoft, a company hardly synonymous with openness, has long tolerated ROM modders doing the exact same thing on Windows Mobile. Heck, it's far more extreme, as ROM modders on Windows Mobile have been building ROMs off of unreleased versions of WinMo 6.5.1 and including things like Microsoft Office for WinMo in its entirety, and Microsoft hasn't complained.
Meanwhile, the self-annointed Do-No-Evil Google with its open Android system is releasing the lawyers.
When both Apple and Microsoft are more open than you are, even only about a certain aspect of your product, that's not a good sign. It's sad, but Windows Mobile is really the most open mainstream mobile OS out there these days.
I dunno, my flip phone seems to be holding up fine after many years, and my laptop opens and closes many times a day, since I like to close the top whenever I leave it, and it seems to be doing fine as well. I'm not sure this thing would be opened up more than a flip phone.
I see a number of significant advantages to a two-page style design: -Twice the screen size in the same form factor. That's a pretty big deal. -Built in screen protection -Last I checked, paperbacks can be held one handed if they're not too thick such that the binding closes itself. -Familiar and attractive design.
To me this thing is in a completely different category from eBook readers.
What you're really paying for on eBook readers and the real benefit is an e-ink display, which this most certainly does not have unless Microsoft has made some technological breakthroughs they're not sharing. If you get an eBook reader that uses regular LCDs you're right back in the realm of trying to read a book that's printed on top of a lightbulb that's switched on, with the accompanying battery requirements of powering said lightbulb.
The best MAD scenario would logically be for everyone to have MAD capability, but those that already have it would be deeply loath to let any of the countries they've been beating up on into the game.
That's only logical assuming that all decisionmakers are rational actors. In fact, there seems to be a great deal of evidence that some people, even decisionmakers, are just plain loony.
Furthermore, and worse yet, that's only logical assuming that everyone is trying to stay alive as one of their principle goals. There are a number of belief systems around the world that promise an even better life after death. For them MAD poses little or no deterrent, and it would be wise for other players to prevent them from getting their hands on MAD weapons.
Logic != Morality or Correctness.
For most definitions of correct, I think it's actually Logic == Correctness != Morality != Niceness.
Blizzard revising Starcraft 2 is not really like most traditional sequels. The original has become so popular that it is like a sport in many ways, and sports fans and players don't generally want to see a wholesale revision of the game, at most they want small gradual improvements. Basketball might be really awesome with trampolines scattered around the floor, but that's not basketball anymore.
If Blizzard were to do something extreme like this, it would best to make it its own series, perhaps as a spinoff.
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From a no name company, but this number that just got posted on Engadget seems incredible. Android, and apparently an open OS that runs ordinary Android apps.
Same concept, but seems like more of a generalist device (and also much uglier). Can read not only ebooks, but can surf the web on the little LCD on the bottom, and then when a button is pressed, mirrors the content on the eye friendly e-ink display.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/20/watch-spring-design-alex-push-the-web-to-e-reader-format-video/
Well...that would be the advantage of hacking this thing to add unwanted functionality. You don't pay any monthly fee, since all of the 3G service cost is already built into the cost of the device. Just the cost of a year's service would be more than the cost of this device.
Presumably, B&N would not be thrilled with you if you did this though.
It would be incredible to unlock the device and have a browser running on an e-ink screen with wifi and unlimited 3G service.
The e-ink and unlimited 3G service would appear to be key advantages over netbooks if possible.
Incidentally, that's why a "strict constructionist" judicial philosophy is really at odds with western values - we don't have sacred texts, we value constantly and continuing expanding personal freedoms.
Not necessarily. You can be strict constructionalist (and strongly support the rule of law, which is really a big part of what that's about), and support constantly rewriting the laws or Constitution to grant expanding personal freedoms. In many ways, it's pretty unfair to hide the laws within the text of legal cases that no one in the ordinary population reads, rather than applying the laws as written, and then changing them when they become outdated.
If a regular $40 book gives $18 to the publisher, with the rest being eaten up by distributors, an ebook for $23.99 doesn't sound incredibly out of line. $6 for the infrastructure and customer support functions. Just because it's electronic doesn't mean that it's free and you'll never have to hire someone to deal with complaining customers.
Okay, so could someone who is familiar with who these guys are explain what they have to offer? From a quick look, my impression is that as a consumer who doesn't necessarily need 5 9's of reliability, there isn't much reason for me to use them over Gmail.
Yes, I expect them to obey the law like everyone else is expected. Rewarding anyone who breaks the law with something that those who do not break the law do not receive is a quick recipe for undermining the rule of law.
I'm curious, what's the source of this near constant leak of unreleased versions of WinMo? Is it straight from Microsoft in a quasi-official fashion, i.e. are they supporting the ROM customization scene?
No, but they were in charge of this market between the time they killed Palm and when the iPhone came out. Now they are incredibly far behind, because they were sitting around twiddling their thumbs for years while there were no viable competitors.
Windows Mobile hacking is pretty much exactly like this case with Android. You download a custom OS image, and the custom OS images are generally based on leaked versions of the next version WinMo OS. Furthermore, they often include additional things like MS Office Mobile.
Actually, I'm mistaken, you can multitask on a Blackberry. Still no full multitasking support in the iPhone though.
The two big players in the market, Apple and RIM both have no ability to multitask on their devices.
Really? Which one is it? I've been using OneDialer, but it's really incredibly slow and awkward.
Okay, strike the word innovation, which actually wasn't what I was looking for anyway and insert improvement.
Regarding your point though, I do strongly disagree, unless you define innovation in terms of only large ground-breaking break-throughs and not small-scale advancement.
Their R&D labs produce a large amount of interesting research.
In terms of the small-scale, Surface is definitely neat, the Office ribbon bar is (regardless of your opinions on its merits, as it does have its fans including myself) as far as I know a wholly new UI approach. They've been advancing the state of tablets and hand-writing recognition continually over the years. Their Bluetrack mice seem to be a solid improvement over the status quo. I could go on, but they've made a huge number of fairly innovative developments, both large and small, over the years.
Yes, it basically is in an inferior platform. It's got great underlyings relative to the competition, such as multitasking and an easy development environment, but the interface is unstable, sluggish and outdated, which makes the whole thing painfully unhip. Consumers don't want anything to do with it, so modern developers aren't bothering to target it.
I think you're joking, but Ballmer's original insight actually holds up pretty well here in the mobile arena. Having played around with the different mobile platforms, the biggest problem with Windows Mobile 6.5.1 is the lack of modern developers.
All of the software on the iPhone is modern, and finger-friendly.
On Windows Mobile, most of the the software applications still look like Palm applications from circa 2001 with tiny drop down menus and radio buttons. It's not impossible to design good applications, but most of the best developers are no longer developing on Windows Mobile. The number of apps may be somewhat similar on the iPhone and WinMo but the quality is leagues apart, even taking into account the 1,000 fart apps on the iPhone.
While maybe not as much so as on a desktop, for a mobile OS, the apps are still a large part of the success of the OS, and Windows Mobile despite its openness to development is basically terrible when it comes to attracting the developers to make them.
Unless you're an internal tester, you do not have a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. Windows Mobile 6.5 isn't even out yet. The first phones with it are slated to ship in late October.
There are people out there with hacked ROMs running leaked builds of 6.5, but you can hardly judge the final OS based on hacked ROMs running leaked builds.
That said, yes, WinMo 6 is totally crappy. Based on my playing around with the leaked builds, WinMo 6.5 is still rather crappy. WinMo 6.5.1 is getting decent, and its UI doesn't look like it was from 2001, but it still has those general WinMo unexplained slowdowns and could use a lot of improvements.
Overall, Windows Mobile is clearly suffering from that Microsoft problem that once they think they are in charge of a market, all innovation completely stops. It's so total of a stop, it really looks intentional, but it's a little hard to believe even Microsoft execs could be so short-sighted as to purposefully derail development. Still, Internet Explorer and Windows Mobile sure look like two examples of that.
Default Opera browser on my HTC Diamond, which is actually already a generation out of date, is pretty good. In fact, I'd say it's the best-designed mobile browser I've ever used, better even than the vaunted iPhone Safari.
It initially loads a whole page with absolutely tiny fonts so you can get an overview. Scroll wheel zooms in or out so you can get detail where you need it. Double tap does a quick zoom in with reflow, so that on pages with long lines of text you can read it all in one column. This dual mechanism is ingenious, giving you the best of both worlds of preserving formatting and having a mobile version of real webpages that is usable.
Unfortunately, while I think the design is fantastic, the whole thing is let down by the cruddiness of Windows Mobile and the slow CPUs that always seem to be paired with it. Zooming with the scroll wheel sometimes takes a few seconds to register, which doesn't sound like much, but is enough to make using the scroll wheel irritating, and leaving the browser with basically only the reflow zoom mode, which it really a shame.
What's even more funny is that Microsoft, a company hardly synonymous with openness, has long tolerated ROM modders doing the exact same thing on Windows Mobile. Heck, it's far more extreme, as ROM modders on Windows Mobile have been building ROMs off of unreleased versions of WinMo 6.5.1 and including things like Microsoft Office for WinMo in its entirety, and Microsoft hasn't complained.
Meanwhile, the self-annointed Do-No-Evil Google with its open Android system is releasing the lawyers.
When both Apple and Microsoft are more open than you are, even only about a certain aspect of your product, that's not a good sign. It's sad, but Windows Mobile is really the most open mainstream mobile OS out there these days.
I dunno, my flip phone seems to be holding up fine after many years, and my laptop opens and closes many times a day, since I like to close the top whenever I leave it, and it seems to be doing fine as well. I'm not sure this thing would be opened up more than a flip phone.
They are, however, a very open platform to develop for, and the clearest analogy.
I see a number of significant advantages to a two-page style design:
-Twice the screen size in the same form factor. That's a pretty big deal.
-Built in screen protection
-Last I checked, paperbacks can be held one handed if they're not too thick such that the binding closes itself.
-Familiar and attractive design.
To me this thing is in a completely different category from eBook readers.
What you're really paying for on eBook readers and the real benefit is an e-ink display, which this most certainly does not have unless Microsoft has made some technological breakthroughs they're not sharing. If you get an eBook reader that uses regular LCDs you're right back in the realm of trying to read a book that's printed on top of a lightbulb that's switched on, with the accompanying battery requirements of powering said lightbulb.
The best MAD scenario would logically be for everyone to have MAD capability, but those that already have it would be deeply loath to let any of the countries they've been beating up on into the game.
That's only logical assuming that all decisionmakers are rational actors. In fact, there seems to be a great deal of evidence that some people, even decisionmakers, are just plain loony.
Furthermore, and worse yet, that's only logical assuming that everyone is trying to stay alive as one of their principle goals. There are a number of belief systems around the world that promise an even better life after death. For them MAD poses little or no deterrent, and it would be wise for other players to prevent them from getting their hands on MAD weapons.
Logic != Morality or Correctness.
For most definitions of correct, I think it's actually Logic == Correctness != Morality != Niceness.
Blizzard revising Starcraft 2 is not really like most traditional sequels. The original has become so popular that it is like a sport in many ways, and sports fans and players don't generally want to see a wholesale revision of the game, at most they want small gradual improvements. Basketball might be really awesome with trampolines scattered around the floor, but that's not basketball anymore.
If Blizzard were to do something extreme like this, it would best to make it its own series, perhaps as a spinoff.