Even if Windows 8 is terrible, personally, I think Android will end up losing the tablet war. The reason is that windows 8 will be able to leverage its existing base of "software capital", and bulldoze its way into the tablet market. Android simply does not have certain critical software (e.g. - MS Word) running on it.
Think of it this way. The mass market desktop pc will die. For the vast majority of users, a simple tablet like device, with word processing capabilities, and media/internet capabilities, is all that's needed. Bulky laptops will disappear too, turning into tablets with Asus "transformer" like capabilities. Eventually, a multitude of device will be consolidated into one single tablet device - a single personal computer. People will want to do everything they did with their desktops, on their tablets. This will include word processing.
What answer does Android have to this?
If they don't fix this, and have their software base ready to rival MS-Word etc. I believe the ending will be very unfortunate, and MS can continue unhindered with their nasty monopoly.
The one consolation might be that Android will continue to thrive in the mobile phone segment, since a tablet form factor is too bulky to replace a phone, unless tiny phones become powerful enough to run Windows 8. Then, it might be curtain's for Android's there too. Why bother with several devices, when one single "personal computer" will do?
What Dell seems to be missing is that a stationary PC no longer has a long term future in the mass market, other than in high-end applications. Laptops started stealing the mobility niche first., and tablets will be next. The TV doesn't count. It's all about being able to take your important personal data with you, where ever you go, and using your familiar Operating Environment to access it. Maybe I'm over-estimating the importance of this for the average user (and by average, I meant people who mostly do web surfing, word processing, watching videos and photos), but for me (a software dev), that's what it's all about. Judging by the number of people who buy laptops now instead of regular PCs, I'd say such an opinion is justified.
Why would one need a clunky desktop if a laptop can do the same thing and be portable to boot? I can always hook up my laptop to a large monitor when I need. And following that logic further,, why would I need an ultrabook if my tablet can do the same and be hooked up to a bigger monitor when needed?
Personally, I only need a powerful computer when "my code's compiling". Most other times, all I need is an internet connection, a good word processor, and all my docs and pictures with me. For this kind of application, having an ultra-powerful computer is irrelevant. Tablets will soon be more than powerful enough.
I can't imagine why the large majority of non-technical users would need anything more powerful. That means - the PC mass-market will eventually end up with Windows 8 tablets. Mac users will end up with iOS tablets. Personally, I think Android will end up losing the tablet war, and I suspect this will be because it has no good word processor (Basically - MS Word) running on it. (I think most other apps are easily replaceable for the average user)
The only way highly mobile personal computers won't count, is if everyone starts using the cloud exclusively, in which case, any dumb terminal will do. I think people will always have some level of personal data on their personal computers. I'm not sure a shift to storing everything on the cloud is going to come all that soon - offline access is quite often indispensable. If so, Google's online word processor strategy will not work so well (not least because the product is nowhere near MS-Word in terms of maturity), and Microsoft will win. (more's the pity)
So yeah, I too think Dell's mass market of PC users will evaporate pretty soon.
The fact of J2ME being widely available, is quite distinct from the issue of it being widely targeted.
I can think of several reasons for why J2ME is irrelevant.
1. Feature phones aren't really suitable for sophisticated apps. Most power users have already migrated to the next gen touch phones (Android, IOS) or at the very least, Symbian. Those who stick on with feature phones probably don't use custom apps in the first place.
2. There is no proper marketplace for apps comparable to Android or Apple. This makes it difficult for the average user to obtain new apps, even if he/she were to actually want to use an app on their feature phone (which they probably don't).
3. Ultimately, the J2ME support may be relevant only to the phone manufacturer, in order to provide some bundled apps, like a calculator or something. Without a market place and given the hurdles (lack of user interest, severe incapability of phones) there's little incentive for developers to program for it.
Therefore, why would J2ME's wide availability be relevant?
That's surely a relevant problem, but not one which is insurmountable. We have the same problem with any piece of automated machinery don't we? If an elevator malfunctions and people die, who should be sued? Yet, it doesn't stop us from using one.
It's an issue of overall efficiency and safety for everyone. In the long run, it will save lives, improve quality of life, be more efficient etc. The downside of having to blame a "dumb" machine for a lost life/accident, is possibly more palatable than the alternative of having to blame a human driver, another human being whose life will be ruined by the accident.
Lastly, we already have so many automated things. Self-driving trains, airplanes etc. Is a car really that different?
Your post is full of FUD. A million people die annually because of human drivers. A driverless car killing half that many would still be an improvement.
www.un.org/ar/roadsafety/pdf/roadsafetyreport.pdf
I can't wait for this tech to get into tablets. Just a few of the advantages I'm expecting (and here's hoping there will be no disappointments)
1. I stare at an LCD screen all day, and I really detest the backlight. This is what prevents me from reading on a "tablet". Mirasol will fix that.
2. The Kindle's e-ink display, even though it didn't have colour, was simply amazing. However, the slow refresh rates combined with the lack of colour, made it too special purpose. Mirasol fixes all that, allowing for a general purpose tablet + e-reader and I can't imagine why that wouldn't succeed.
3. The paper like effect (which I assume Mirasol will have), will be so much easier on the eyes - meaning less eye strain. Given a choice between ruining my eye sight and enduring bad colour, I'll choose bad colour anytime.
4. We can go back to the look & feel of paper without the associated wastage (trees cut down etc. etc). One "electronic book" to substitute them all.
5. A battery life comparable in the kindle range instead of the lcd range would be an added bonus, but not a deal breaker.
6. Resolution however is important. I assume that high res screens will be available.
7. Some form of built-in illumination in the absence of ambient light.
The point I was trying to make though, was that the criteria he defined for eating something is invalid. He says that cows don't compose poetry, hence it's ok to eat them. My question was, is it then ok to eat humans who are mentally deficient too? His criterion (intelligence) clearly isn't a sufficient factor.
Suggesting it spreads "disease" would be akin to special pleading (or some such thing). The original criterion of "intelligence" has already failed.
Humankind has indeed proven itself to be a vile species. The great pacific garbage patch for example, was surely not created by those who was overly concerned for their environment?
There are enough precedents to indicate that it is not an excess of concern for our environment that is the fundamental problem. I just don't understand why people see it necessary to vilify the few who are.
I don't disagree that control of piracy is necessary, but my point was, Sony has failed to stay relevant in this game, and is now in the process of committing suicide by angering its customer base. Why did they not have to go to the same draconian lengths for the PS2? Wasn't it because it was a resounding success? What about the other console manufacturers? Sony under-estimated them all, even the tiny Wii, and paid the price.
I forgot about the eye-toy, so I was wrong to say Sony hadn't thought of it. However, the Kinect is something else. It works, and there are enough open-source examples out there that prove it can be made to work extremely well. Games just need to catch up to it. And for the cases it fails, the traditional controllers are there. Still, the point is, the Kinect is revolutionary enough to keep things exciting with the X-Box, whereas Sony doesn't have anything new to offer.
And now, the best thing they can think of is to piss their customers off (tech-savvy customers who popularize technology just like the Kinect is being popularized) when instead, they need to be getting busy keeping themselves relevant?
This seems to be a case of misguided fury where Sony is confusing its failure to to stay relevant, with losses stemming from piracy.
All console manufacturers suffer some losses due to piracy, but not all of them find the need to rage against it.
Sony has had a string of flops, from over-estimating the popularity of the PS3 (are they still selling it at a loss? or has it turned a profit at last?) to failing to so much as imagine something like the Kinect.
My guess is, management has no choice but to scapegoat their failures on something - and who better than the obvious targets, like tinkerers and hackers and that omnipresent threat of piracy?
(Microsoft, oddly enough, is actually profiting by encouraging an eco-system of tinkerers around the Kinect)
Hmm... Interesting indeed. I have to say I've learnt something new and should have a think about things, thank you. I only suggested extra caution in the context that some reports seemed to suggest that some adults would engage in abuse if they could get away with it. I agree that the same could apply to virtually anything though.
I understand that human sexuality has a huge amount of diversity and mal-imprinting, childhood trauma and so many other unique circumstances specific to an individual can shape the outcome and I in no way intend to be judgmental. I'd be interested in hearing your own story and analysis.
Thank you. This was very revealing and I must confess to being completely taken aback by these numbers. My personal understanding was always based on natural psychological tendencies to care for and love children. I'm truly surprised to hear that a fairly significant proportion of males would find children aged 4-10 in any way arousing.
However, as you've noted, such responses do not mandate hyper-sexuality. Nevertheless, perhaps it's time for me to consider extra caution as justified.
This is a good example of a world gone mad. Since when is every individual a suspected pedophile? Pedophiles are an absolute, absolute minority. Most adults actually have a natural instinct to be protective of children, this is known psychology. Somehow, the assumption seems to be that the norm is to abuse children and the exception is to care for them.
I find it even more amusing that there is no worry about the privacy of adults. Isn't their privacy being abused by these full-body scanners? Won't 99.99% of cases be that guards screening this would get a kick out of seeing an adult nude and not give two hoots about naked children? Does anyone have statistics on what percentage of the population are pedophiles? I'm willing to bet that it's a pretty low number.
Yes, but I could find audio pronunciation guides only for "ginormous", which was the first thing I checked also as it's directly linked to by the article.
Most others don't seem to have them. Frankly, even if you learn the pronunciation keys (gibberish is indeed a more appropriate word for it), it's still not comparable to actually hearing the word spoken out loud by a native speaker. (And I'm not a native speaker)
Of course. But Google is my default search engine. And the direct link to the word definition from search results is what I normally use. My point is, google has unlinked answers.com to provide an inferior service themselves. What exactly is the point?
Having taken a fair amount of classes as well as having taught a couple of years myself, I can definitely agree with the parent's post.
Neither chalk, power point nor even 3D animations can magically transform a boring lecturer into a fascinating one, if he/she simply does not perceive how receptive the audience is.
It really isn't that hard to tell. If everything is whooshing over their heads, their confused faces will tell you that you need to change your tack.
If they are yawning, then you're droning.
If they aren't interacting with you, then you haven't made them comfortable or interested enough.
The first step to becoming better is to actually notice that there's a problem.
Sadly, too many teachers seem oblivious to how their students receive them. Worse, they seem to have no intention to improve or to quit, much to the detriment of the hapless individuals who have to endure their classes.
Exactly. This is why I don't use any AV product at all. As long as you're reasonably careful not to download and install unknown programs, there's no way to justify incurring a huge performance hit on a daily basis. For example, I once "fixed" a friend's PC in which she had installed two AV programs - Avira and McAfee - for additional protection and security as I heard. File copying had dropped to something like 150Kb/sec between two hard drives because both anti-viruses were scanning it. Disabling one increased the speed to about 1.5Mb/Sec. Disabling both improved it to about 6Mb/Sec (figures according to rough recollection, to be taken with a pinch of salt). I eventually left one on since she wasn't an experienced user and needed some anti-virus program, "just-in-case".
But experiences like these over the years have convinced me that the wisdom about adjusting your process is far more valid than having an army of products. I haven't had a single virus infection for as long as I can recall and if I did, that was because I'd been careless and run some program off the net without finding out what it was. Also, I don't think AV programs offer any meaningful protection against things like browser flaws. If someone decides to exploit say a buffer overflow vulnerability in your browser and you simultaneously decide to browse to that very site which does so, well, so sad, too bad. Might as well wait for the browser vendor to release a patch which fixes that flaw and use a more secure browser like Chrome to browse dodgy sites, rather than pray an ineffective AV magically detects it with its "heuristics". Most often, all that DLL injection and the like result in an unstable browser, rather than providing any real protection.
Having said all that, I do see the utility in being able to do an occasional on-demand scan on an executable. I also see why AV vendors are going for the nanny philosophy to deal with the armies of inexperienced users who have no idea about the "process" behind security. But for those with a reasonable idea of it, it's probably better to suffer the rare virus infection than endure a crawling system on a daily basis thanks to some overzealous AV product.
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What makes you think Windows 8 will be terrible?
Even if Windows 8 is terrible, personally, I think Android will end up losing the tablet war. The reason is that windows 8 will be able to leverage its existing base of "software capital", and bulldoze its way into the tablet market. Android simply does not have certain critical software (e.g. - MS Word) running on it.
Think of it this way. The mass market desktop pc will die. For the vast majority of users, a simple tablet like device, with word processing capabilities, and media/internet capabilities, is all that's needed. Bulky laptops will disappear too, turning into tablets with Asus "transformer" like capabilities. Eventually, a multitude of device will be consolidated into one single tablet device - a single personal computer. People will want to do everything they did with their desktops, on their tablets. This will include word processing.
What answer does Android have to this?
If they don't fix this, and have their software base ready to rival MS-Word etc. I believe the ending will be very unfortunate, and MS can continue unhindered with their nasty monopoly.
The one consolation might be that Android will continue to thrive in the mobile phone segment, since a tablet form factor is too bulky to replace a phone, unless tiny phones become powerful enough to run Windows 8. Then, it might be curtain's for Android's there too. Why bother with several devices, when one single "personal computer" will do?
What Dell seems to be missing is that a stationary PC no longer has a long term future in the mass market, other than in high-end applications. Laptops started stealing the mobility niche first., and tablets will be next. The TV doesn't count. It's all about being able to take your important personal data with you, where ever you go, and using your familiar Operating Environment to access it. Maybe I'm over-estimating the importance of this for the average user (and by average, I meant people who mostly do web surfing, word processing, watching videos and photos), but for me (a software dev), that's what it's all about. Judging by the number of people who buy laptops now instead of regular PCs, I'd say such an opinion is justified.
Why would one need a clunky desktop if a laptop can do the same thing and be portable to boot? I can always hook up my laptop to a large monitor when I need. And following that logic further,, why would I need an ultrabook if my tablet can do the same and be hooked up to a bigger monitor when needed?
Personally, I only need a powerful computer when "my code's compiling". Most other times, all I need is an internet connection, a good word processor, and all my docs and pictures with me. For this kind of application, having an ultra-powerful computer is irrelevant. Tablets will soon be more than powerful enough.
I can't imagine why the large majority of non-technical users would need anything more powerful. That means - the PC mass-market will eventually end up with Windows 8 tablets. Mac users will end up with iOS tablets. Personally, I think Android will end up losing the tablet war, and I suspect this will be because it has no good word processor (Basically - MS Word) running on it. (I think most other apps are easily replaceable for the average user)
The only way highly mobile personal computers won't count, is if everyone starts using the cloud exclusively, in which case, any dumb terminal will do. I think people will always have some level of personal data on their personal computers. I'm not sure a shift to storing everything on the cloud is going to come all that soon - offline access is quite often indispensable. If so, Google's online word processor strategy will not work so well (not least because the product is nowhere near MS-Word in terms of maturity), and Microsoft will win. (more's the pity)
So yeah, I too think Dell's mass market of PC users will evaporate pretty soon.
The fact of J2ME being widely available, is quite distinct from the issue of it being widely targeted. I can think of several reasons for why J2ME is irrelevant.
1. Feature phones aren't really suitable for sophisticated apps. Most power users have already migrated to the next gen touch phones (Android, IOS) or at the very least, Symbian. Those who stick on with feature phones probably don't use custom apps in the first place.
2. There is no proper marketplace for apps comparable to Android or Apple. This makes it difficult for the average user to obtain new apps, even if he/she were to actually want to use an app on their feature phone (which they probably don't).
3. Ultimately, the J2ME support may be relevant only to the phone manufacturer, in order to provide some bundled apps, like a calculator or something. Without a market place and given the hurdles (lack of user interest, severe incapability of phones) there's little incentive for developers to program for it.
Therefore, why would J2ME's wide availability be relevant?
As of June 30, 2011 over 3 million copies of the game have been sold across all platforms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crysis_2#cite_note-62
That's surely a relevant problem, but not one which is insurmountable. We have the same problem with any piece of automated machinery don't we? If an elevator malfunctions and people die, who should be sued? Yet, it doesn't stop us from using one.
It's an issue of overall efficiency and safety for everyone. In the long run, it will save lives, improve quality of life, be more efficient etc. The downside of having to blame a "dumb" machine for a lost life/accident, is possibly more palatable than the alternative of having to blame a human driver, another human being whose life will be ruined by the accident.
Lastly, we already have so many automated things. Self-driving trains, airplanes etc. Is a car really that different?
Your post is full of FUD. A million people die annually because of human drivers. A driverless car killing half that many would still be an improvement.
www.un.org/ar/roadsafety/pdf/roadsafetyreport.pdf
I can't wait for this tech to get into tablets. Just a few of the advantages I'm expecting (and here's hoping there will be no disappointments)
1. I stare at an LCD screen all day, and I really detest the backlight. This is what prevents me from reading on a "tablet". Mirasol will fix that.
2. The Kindle's e-ink display, even though it didn't have colour, was simply amazing. However, the slow refresh rates combined with the lack of colour, made it too special purpose. Mirasol fixes all that, allowing for a general purpose tablet + e-reader and I can't imagine why that wouldn't succeed.
3. The paper like effect (which I assume Mirasol will have), will be so much easier on the eyes - meaning less eye strain. Given a choice between ruining my eye sight and enduring bad colour, I'll choose bad colour anytime.
4. We can go back to the look & feel of paper without the associated wastage (trees cut down etc. etc). One "electronic book" to substitute them all.
5. A battery life comparable in the kindle range instead of the lcd range would be an added bonus, but not a deal breaker.
6. Resolution however is important. I assume that high res screens will be available.
7. Some form of built-in illumination in the absence of ambient light.
The point I was trying to make though, was that the criteria he defined for eating something is invalid. He says that cows don't compose poetry, hence it's ok to eat them. My question was, is it then ok to eat humans who are mentally deficient too? His criterion (intelligence) clearly isn't a sufficient factor.
Suggesting it spreads "disease" would be akin to special pleading (or some such thing). The original criterion of "intelligence" has already failed.
Would that not mean that mentally deficient humans, could also be considered little more than machines and potentially be kept in a pen and eaten?
Humankind has indeed proven itself to be a vile species. The great pacific garbage patch for example, was surely not created by those who was overly concerned for their environment?
There are enough precedents to indicate that it is not an excess of concern for our environment that is the fundamental problem. I just don't understand why people see it necessary to vilify the few who are.
Some of us will say "soul", and... problem solved.
But why cop out at the level of the "soul" and say problem solved? Why not do so earlier, say "God did it", and there's even less work to do! ;-)
Who is forging heads?
Thank you for that very interesting quote!
What is the alternative though, to democracy?
Hmm... Interesting! Thanks for the reply.
Movement yes, but breathing? Does it use a heat signature or something?
I don't disagree that control of piracy is necessary, but my point was, Sony has failed to stay relevant in this game, and is now in the process of committing suicide by angering its customer base. Why did they not have to go to the same draconian lengths for the PS2? Wasn't it because it was a resounding success? What about the other console manufacturers? Sony under-estimated them all, even the tiny Wii, and paid the price.
I forgot about the eye-toy, so I was wrong to say Sony hadn't thought of it. However, the Kinect is something else. It works, and there are enough open-source examples out there that prove it can be made to work extremely well. Games just need to catch up to it. And for the cases it fails, the traditional controllers are there. Still, the point is, the Kinect is revolutionary enough to keep things exciting with the X-Box, whereas Sony doesn't have anything new to offer.
And now, the best thing they can think of is to piss their customers off (tech-savvy customers who popularize technology just like the Kinect is being popularized) when instead, they need to be getting busy keeping themselves relevant?
This seems to be a case of misguided fury where Sony is confusing its failure to to stay relevant, with losses stemming from piracy.
All console manufacturers suffer some losses due to piracy, but not all of them find the need to rage against it.
Sony has had a string of flops, from over-estimating the popularity of the PS3 (are they still selling it at a loss? or has it turned a profit at last?) to failing to so much as imagine something like the Kinect.
My guess is, management has no choice but to scapegoat their failures on something - and who better than the obvious targets, like tinkerers and hackers and that omnipresent threat of piracy?
(Microsoft, oddly enough, is actually profiting by encouraging an eco-system of tinkerers around the Kinect)
Hmm... Interesting indeed. I have to say I've learnt something new and should have a think about things, thank you. I only suggested extra caution in the context that some reports seemed to suggest that some adults would engage in abuse if they could get away with it. I agree that the same could apply to virtually anything though.
I understand that human sexuality has a huge amount of diversity and mal-imprinting, childhood trauma and so many other unique circumstances specific to an individual can shape the outcome and I in no way intend to be judgmental. I'd be interested in hearing your own story and analysis.
Thank you. This was very revealing and I must confess to being completely taken aback by these numbers. My personal understanding was always based on natural psychological tendencies to care for and love children. I'm truly surprised to hear that a fairly significant proportion of males would find children aged 4-10 in any way arousing.
However, as you've noted, such responses do not mandate hyper-sexuality. Nevertheless, perhaps it's time for me to consider extra caution as justified.
This is a good example of a world gone mad. Since when is every individual a suspected pedophile? Pedophiles are an absolute, absolute minority. Most adults actually have a natural instinct to be protective of children, this is known psychology. Somehow, the assumption seems to be that the norm is to abuse children and the exception is to care for them.
I find it even more amusing that there is no worry about the privacy of adults. Isn't their privacy being abused by these full-body scanners? Won't 99.99% of cases be that guards screening this would get a kick out of seeing an adult nude and not give two hoots about naked children? Does anyone have statistics on what percentage of the population are pedophiles? I'm willing to bet that it's a pretty low number.
Yes, but I could find audio pronunciation guides only for "ginormous", which was the first thing I checked also as it's directly linked to by the article.
Most others don't seem to have them. Frankly, even if you learn the pronunciation keys (gibberish is indeed a more appropriate word for it), it's still not comparable to actually hearing the word spoken out loud by a native speaker. (And I'm not a native speaker)
Of course. But Google is my default search engine. And the direct link to the word definition from search results is what I normally use. My point is, google has unlinked answers.com to provide an inferior service themselves. What exactly is the point?
I for one am very unhappy about answers.com being removed.
For one thing, it had audio pronunciation guides. Google doesn't.
Thesaurus, antonyms etc. are integrated. Google doesn't have any of these.
Seems more of a downgrade really. What does google offer that answers.com doesn't?
Having taken a fair amount of classes as well as having taught a couple of years myself, I can definitely agree with the parent's post.
Neither chalk, power point nor even 3D animations can magically transform a boring lecturer into a fascinating one, if he/she simply does not perceive how receptive the audience is.
It really isn't that hard to tell. If everything is whooshing over their heads, their confused faces will tell you that you need to change your tack.
If they are yawning, then you're droning.
If they aren't interacting with you, then you haven't made them comfortable or interested enough.
The first step to becoming better is to actually notice that there's a problem.
Sadly, too many teachers seem oblivious to how their students receive them. Worse, they seem to have no intention to improve or to quit, much to the detriment of the hapless individuals who have to endure their classes.
Exactly. This is why I don't use any AV product at all. As long as you're reasonably careful not to download and install unknown programs, there's no way to justify incurring a huge performance hit on a daily basis. For example, I once "fixed" a friend's PC in which she had installed two AV programs - Avira and McAfee - for additional protection and security as I heard. File copying had dropped to something like 150Kb/sec between two hard drives because both anti-viruses were scanning it. Disabling one increased the speed to about 1.5Mb/Sec. Disabling both improved it to about 6Mb/Sec (figures according to rough recollection, to be taken with a pinch of salt). I eventually left one on since she wasn't an experienced user and needed some anti-virus program, "just-in-case".
But experiences like these over the years have convinced me that the wisdom about adjusting your process is far more valid than having an army of products. I haven't had a single virus infection for as long as I can recall and if I did, that was because I'd been careless and run some program off the net without finding out what it was. Also, I don't think AV programs offer any meaningful protection against things like browser flaws. If someone decides to exploit say a buffer overflow vulnerability in your browser and you simultaneously decide to browse to that very site which does so, well, so sad, too bad. Might as well wait for the browser vendor to release a patch which fixes that flaw and use a more secure browser like Chrome to browse dodgy sites, rather than pray an ineffective AV magically detects it with its "heuristics". Most often, all that DLL injection and the like result in an unstable browser, rather than providing any real protection.
Having said all that, I do see the utility in being able to do an occasional on-demand scan on an executable. I also see why AV vendors are going for the nanny philosophy to deal with the armies of inexperienced users who have no idea about the "process" behind security. But for those with a reasonable idea of it, it's probably better to suffer the rare virus infection than endure a crawling system on a daily basis thanks to some overzealous AV product.