The thing to be aware is that just because the hardware can decode AVC output doesn't mean every device with the chipset will enable it. It's patented technology and these chipsets often require you preload them with a token to enable certain patented / licenced stuff. No token = no support. On top of that even with support you need to know which APIs to hit which decode in hardware. These APIs may be in the SDK or BSP but it doesn't mean end users will have access to them.
But it has neither the software support nor the peripherals to be a computer, rather than just another media player.
Most media players are just cut down Linux dists running a media player application of some sort. If the box was hackable and you external storage you could enable swap, slap a few more apps on an external path and do pretty much anything you felt like - performance permitting.
Hit submit too soon. The main other factor is just because the hardware does video accelerated decoding doesn't mean its available through software. Most SoCs are loaded with IP tokens which enable / disable certain patented / licenced tech such as h264. It may well be that the Pi does not ship with those tokens. Wait for confirmation I guess.
You can buy media players for under $100 which are basically computers. They have firmware, some ARM / MIPS derived SoC which does accelerated video decoding, flash and some ports. Indeed the Roku 2 (priced from $60) apparently has the same Broadcom BCM2835 as this Raspberry Pi does. I guess therefore the Pi is capable of video decoding too but it really depends on the amount of flash it has and other factors.
The Touchpad is selling well because it's dirt cheap, selling way, way, way below cost. I don't think you can draw any more conclusion from it than that. People bought HD DVD players when they were on sale too. Doesn't mean the tech has a future.
I do think the price of tablet is exhorbitant though. It should be lower and perhaps in the run up to Christmas some manufacturers will pay a visit to Mr Clue and start pricing their devices so they are more affordable.
It's not a case of "if programming was easy...". Programming is already hard enough without a language throwing spanners at your head all the time. Java is a good language but it has some well publicized annoyances, long winded syntax and pitfalls. Anything that reduces bloat & boiler plate and reduces causes of bugs is a good thing. The problem is that Java the language isn't developing fast enough and Sun / Oracle have been loathe in many instances to implement things as best they could, e.g. generics.
Most laptops have a brand name, a major model number and then a sub model number which is a jumble of gobbledegook that describes exactly what processor, memory, colour, hdd and other things it has. So I expect if it came to it the store would have drawn your attention to the sub model data.
Exactly. All tablet manufacturers so far are commanding stupid premiums on their tablets. Apple can get away with it, other manufacturers cannot. There is no point competing with Apple when the products are at or about the same price because people prepared to pay stupid money will buy the Apple device.
When good quality Android tablets start to appear for €300 or less, they are going to sell like hotcakes. I think we are finally on the cusp of that happening. Archos are launching a very well specced Android 3.2 10" tablet in September which I suspect will sell like shit off a shovel. And hopefully it will kick a little reality into the more mainstream brands to lower their prices.
Acer also sell a rebadged Iconia A500 under the Packard Bell label. If you want to save a few quid, then buy the Packard Bell since it's the same thing. That said, all tablets including Acer's are too expensive. If they cut the price they would enjoy a lot more sales & market share.
Or Firefox. Most sites send back the desktop version of the content.
Websites are increasingly testing for smart phone user agent strings and directing requests off to "mobile" versions of sites. Which is fine if you want the mobile version but often these are dumbed down, lacking all the content or otherwise just broken.
G3 and unity suck because of the emphasis on tablets.
No, they suck because they're both relatively new desktops with documented missing functionality and they both have a lot of work to do before they can be considered mature. Unity is designed for Netbooks and a lot of its problems stem from that e.g. the massive icons, the global menu and launcher anchored to the left work really badly large screens. Gnome 3 has piles of missing functionality (e.g. desktop icons which have to be manually reenabled), and the activities launcher is annoying for living offscreen like it does.
Neither is especially useful tablets. I'm not even sure that either even supports touch properly, or implements stuff like onscreen keyboards.
Given the shitstorm KDE 4 got when it was released for similar reasons, one would expect some empathy with their situation even if you still prefer KDE. Neither IMO is ready but given them a point release or two and I think they'll both be fine. Personally I think Unity is a more conventional design and closer to what people expect but GNOME 3 appears better thought through and doesn't suffer from prominent positioning of Ubuntu's stupid online store at every turn.
Generally, that's because Best Buy's models are made specially for them and usually use CHEAPER parts then the main stream model... I would NEVER buy a Best Buy model... that's just asking for problems...
I doubt they use cheaper parts. They're just models specific to their store so they don't have to price match because no other store carries those models. Even if the only difference between their model and someone else's is a single letter.
Date & time is a particular bug bear because I had to write an embedded system which dealt with time dependent data, had to cope with local time zones, daylight savings changes and data which was based off UTC. I think I did a pretty good job in the end but it sure as hell wasn't helped by the system libraries. The trick is to use time in millis from the epoch and never attempt to convert to / from local date at all except to present the data to the user. It's still a pain though. I would have used Joda time but it was too big and bloaty for embedding properly.
Thats quite some assumption you have there. The problem with java IMHO is that it gives the bright young things a lot of fun toys to play with and opportunities to create write only source code.
No, it's not an assumption, it's a requirement. If the requirement says "must scale", then you design and write your app to scale, depending on what that means in the circumstances. In many cases it just means being able to run extra instances of something in a cooperative fashion and externalizing settings for performance tweaking. In others it means using a scaling app server like Gigaspaces. I'm quite sure you can abuse Java in all sorts of perverse ways if you don't know what you're doing, but that isn't the point.
I'm quick enough to rant when I hate something. Eclipse has its faults but performance is perfectly tolerable for me. I'm using it on a fairly crappy dual core box right now on a 30,000 file project and it works fine except when I fire up a couple of instances and physical memory has depleted. It's badly behaved plugins which hog memory or hook into much stuff that hurt performance. If you restrict yourself to the version of Eclipse that meets your needs you should be okay.
I'd add that Eclipse and Netbeans aren't really that different at the low level. Both implement RCPs over modular frameworks. Eclipse uses OSGi, Netbeans has it's own framework with an OSGi bridge.
Even Eclipse is fast unless you weigh it down with plugins. J2SE or J2EE Eclipse with a couple of plugins (e.g. Maven & source control) works perfectly well. IBM's WSAD (Eclipse + a massive amount of crap for websphere / rational / kitchen sink development)... not so much.
Java's UI is perfectly acceptable for a range of trivial and complex applications. The fact that tools like Netbeans use it should demonstrate that it is no impediment. And if you absolutely need faster performance, or a more native appearance (though Swing is close enough) then SWT could provide that too. Eclipse is built in SWT and is probably the most complex application from a UI standpoint that anyone is ever likely to see.
A bigger issue for Java is that it uses layout models extensively to ensure GUIs cope with differences in metrics, fonts etc. from one platform to the next. It can be a huge pain in the arse to program layout models. There are GUI editors (e.g. Window Builder, or Netbeans) and relative / group layouts but these editors never work 100% properly. Android inherits this same problem too but at least it's declarative. Java could really do with a standard declarative way to define layouts.
I mean if that doesn't say it all I don't know what does. Hmm Allocate a resource, Free a resource. I think they still teach that in CS-101, then again maybe not. I alloc() therefor I free() ?".
Maybe they do. Doesn't mean it's not a pain in the arse to get right ESPECIALLY in Java since a close() can throw an IOException and ESPECIALLY if you have more than one resource open, e.g. input & output file and you need to ensure both get closed in all normal and extraordinary circumstances.
Well it is. It has new asynchronous channel functionality and the FS stuff also allows Java to watch directories, walk through them, examine attributes and other stuff. Java is generally a good language but some stuff particularly Date & Time and IO have been pretty mouldy and long over due a revamp.
Are Gothic Cathedrals [thingiverse.com] ugly? How about golden chalices [makerbot.com]?
The first picture doesn't show what I am referring to (because the light cream doesn't reflect the light too well). The second picture amply shows it. It's fugly. Here is another pic which shows the typical surface you can expect from your manufactured objects.
There's no doubt it's cool tech but the results are pretty primitive. I'd see it more useful for replacement parts than producing something you'd want gracing your mantelpiece.
Uhuh, it's the same kind of plastic as legos; anything but fragile. Something makes me think you've got serious sour grapes.
It's not fragile but it looks pretty ugly. Objects are formed by extruding molten plastic from a nozzle and snaking it around to form one slice of the shape. So objects look like a congealed series of coils and loops. Whether that matter or not really depends on what you intend the object for. I think the powder bed replicators produce a much nicer finish (in colour too) and support more complex shapes but then again they cost a lot more.
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The thing to be aware is that just because the hardware can decode AVC output doesn't mean every device with the chipset will enable it. It's patented technology and these chipsets often require you preload them with a token to enable certain patented / licenced stuff. No token = no support. On top of that even with support you need to know which APIs to hit which decode in hardware. These APIs may be in the SDK or BSP but it doesn't mean end users will have access to them.
But it has neither the software support nor the peripherals to be a computer, rather than just another media player.
Most media players are just cut down Linux dists running a media player application of some sort. If the box was hackable and you external storage you could enable swap, slap a few more apps on an external path and do pretty much anything you felt like - performance permitting.
Hit submit too soon. The main other factor is just because the hardware does video accelerated decoding doesn't mean its available through software. Most SoCs are loaded with IP tokens which enable / disable certain patented / licenced tech such as h264. It may well be that the Pi does not ship with those tokens. Wait for confirmation I guess.
You can buy media players for under $100 which are basically computers. They have firmware, some ARM / MIPS derived SoC which does accelerated video decoding, flash and some ports. Indeed the Roku 2 (priced from $60) apparently has the same Broadcom BCM2835 as this Raspberry Pi does. I guess therefore the Pi is capable of video decoding too but it really depends on the amount of flash it has and other factors.
Code that works doesn't need new features.
Code that worked a few years ago is bitrotten now when the rest of the codebase has received numerous other modifications.
I do think the price of tablet is exhorbitant though. It should be lower and perhaps in the run up to Christmas some manufacturers will pay a visit to Mr Clue and start pricing their devices so they are more affordable.
It's not a case of "if programming was easy...". Programming is already hard enough without a language throwing spanners at your head all the time. Java is a good language but it has some well publicized annoyances, long winded syntax and pitfalls. Anything that reduces bloat & boiler plate and reduces causes of bugs is a good thing. The problem is that Java the language isn't developing fast enough and Sun / Oracle have been loathe in many instances to implement things as best they could, e.g. generics.
No social interaction whatsoever, then..
Not if you're an undercover police officer, no. Or a spy. Or basically anybody where privacy is important to your wellbeing.
Most laptops have a brand name, a major model number and then a sub model number which is a jumble of gobbledegook that describes exactly what processor, memory, colour, hdd and other things it has. So I expect if it came to it the store would have drawn your attention to the sub model data.
When good quality Android tablets start to appear for €300 or less, they are going to sell like hotcakes. I think we are finally on the cusp of that happening. Archos are launching a very well specced Android 3.2 10" tablet in September which I suspect will sell like shit off a shovel. And hopefully it will kick a little reality into the more mainstream brands to lower their prices.
Acer also sell a rebadged Iconia A500 under the Packard Bell label. If you want to save a few quid, then buy the Packard Bell since it's the same thing. That said, all tablets including Acer's are too expensive. If they cut the price they would enjoy a lot more sales & market share.
Websites are increasingly testing for smart phone user agent strings and directing requests off to "mobile" versions of sites. Which is fine if you want the mobile version but often these are dumbed down, lacking all the content or otherwise just broken.
G3 and unity suck because of the emphasis on tablets.
No, they suck because they're both relatively new desktops with documented missing functionality and they both have a lot of work to do before they can be considered mature. Unity is designed for Netbooks and a lot of its problems stem from that e.g. the massive icons, the global menu and launcher anchored to the left work really badly large screens. Gnome 3 has piles of missing functionality (e.g. desktop icons which have to be manually reenabled), and the activities launcher is annoying for living offscreen like it does.
Neither is especially useful tablets. I'm not even sure that either even supports touch properly, or implements stuff like onscreen keyboards.
Given the shitstorm KDE 4 got when it was released for similar reasons, one would expect some empathy with their situation even if you still prefer KDE. Neither IMO is ready but given them a point release or two and I think they'll both be fine. Personally I think Unity is a more conventional design and closer to what people expect but GNOME 3 appears better thought through and doesn't suffer from prominent positioning of Ubuntu's stupid online store at every turn.
Generally, that's because Best Buy's models are made specially for them and usually use CHEAPER parts then the main stream model... I would NEVER buy a Best Buy model... that's just asking for problems...
I doubt they use cheaper parts. They're just models specific to their store so they don't have to price match because no other store carries those models. Even if the only difference between their model and someone else's is a single letter.
Date & time is a particular bug bear because I had to write an embedded system which dealt with time dependent data, had to cope with local time zones, daylight savings changes and data which was based off UTC. I think I did a pretty good job in the end but it sure as hell wasn't helped by the system libraries. The trick is to use time in millis from the epoch and never attempt to convert to / from local date at all except to present the data to the user. It's still a pain though. I would have used Joda time but it was too big and bloaty for embedding properly.
Thats quite some assumption you have there. The problem with java IMHO is that it gives the bright young things a lot of fun toys to play with and opportunities to create write only source code.
No, it's not an assumption, it's a requirement. If the requirement says "must scale", then you design and write your app to scale, depending on what that means in the circumstances. In many cases it just means being able to run extra instances of something in a cooperative fashion and externalizing settings for performance tweaking. In others it means using a scaling app server like Gigaspaces. I'm quite sure you can abuse Java in all sorts of perverse ways if you don't know what you're doing, but that isn't the point.
I'd add that Eclipse and Netbeans aren't really that different at the low level. Both implement RCPs over modular frameworks. Eclipse uses OSGi, Netbeans has it's own framework with an OSGi bridge.
Because 10 years ago it was the best tool for the job.
It's still the best tool for the job. And it scales extremely well assuming you bother to write apps correctly to cope with the dataload.
Even Eclipse is fast unless you weigh it down with plugins. J2SE or J2EE Eclipse with a couple of plugins (e.g. Maven & source control) works perfectly well. IBM's WSAD (Eclipse + a massive amount of crap for websphere / rational / kitchen sink development)... not so much.
A bigger issue for Java is that it uses layout models extensively to ensure GUIs cope with differences in metrics, fonts etc. from one platform to the next. It can be a huge pain in the arse to program layout models. There are GUI editors (e.g. Window Builder, or Netbeans) and relative / group layouts but these editors never work 100% properly. Android inherits this same problem too but at least it's declarative. Java could really do with a standard declarative way to define layouts.
I mean if that doesn't say it all I don't know what does. Hmm Allocate a resource, Free a resource. I think they still teach that in CS-101, then again maybe not. I alloc() therefor I free() ?".
Maybe they do. Doesn't mean it's not a pain in the arse to get right ESPECIALLY in Java since a close() can throw an IOException and ESPECIALLY if you have more than one resource open, e.g. input & output file and you need to ensure both get closed in all normal and extraordinary circumstances.
Well it is. It has new asynchronous channel functionality and the FS stuff also allows Java to watch directories, walk through them, examine attributes and other stuff. Java is generally a good language but some stuff particularly Date & Time and IO have been pretty mouldy and long over due a revamp.
Are Gothic Cathedrals [thingiverse.com] ugly? How about golden chalices [makerbot.com]?
The first picture doesn't show what I am referring to (because the light cream doesn't reflect the light too well). The second picture amply shows it. It's fugly. Here is another pic which shows the typical surface you can expect from your manufactured objects.
There's no doubt it's cool tech but the results are pretty primitive. I'd see it more useful for replacement parts than producing something you'd want gracing your mantelpiece.
Uhuh, it's the same kind of plastic as legos; anything but fragile. Something makes me think you've got serious sour grapes.
It's not fragile but it looks pretty ugly. Objects are formed by extruding molten plastic from a nozzle and snaking it around to form one slice of the shape. So objects look like a congealed series of coils and loops. Whether that matter or not really depends on what you intend the object for. I think the powder bed replicators produce a much nicer finish (in colour too) and support more complex shapes but then again they cost a lot more.
How useful would this be for people who are borderline sociopaths and/or don't feel many emotions?
I expect you'll be too busy torturing cats to care.