Yes, it's a trade off. I have an iPod Nano. There's no waay you could have any kind of standard user replacable battery in that thing without making it bigger.
I don't see why not. Most wristwatches manage to have a very small form factor and a battery that can be replaced with relative ease. What would it take? A hatch and a few screws is all.
The same probably holds true for this laptop.
Possibly, but then again, Apple is supposed to a master of design, so why not amaze people with an elegant solution, e.g. maybe the keyboard could lift up and reveal the battery compartment or similar. I assume they'll be charging squillions for a replacement service, so realistically how much more difficult would it be to make it user accessible rather than requiring special tools?
The point I was making and you conveniently ignored is the Eee PC is completely suitable for travel and connectivity. There is no reason anymore to buy an expensive laptop to buy a PC in a small form factor. Many of the reasons that someone might have for buying a subnotebook including the Air device fly out the window when you can buy something for a fifth that has it covered.
I have a Nokia 6300. It is exactly the same thickness as an iPhone. But I can remove the back and replace the battery. There is absolutely no excuse that Apple products cannot do likewise.
The reason that they seal the battery has nothing to do with form factor and a lot to do with built-in shelf life. Once the battery goes many people will buy a new iPod rather than replace the battery in their otherwise functioning existing one. It is not surprising when the Apple battery replacement service costs a lot of money and doesn't even say you get your original iPod back.
If this economic model has extended to the new laptop then buyer beware. It sucks enough that they do it in a $200 device, it is outrageous if they do it with one costing $1800.
The comparison with the Eee PC is interesting. $1800 is a stupid amount of money if you just want a laptop for on the go. Sure the Air is a mac, sure it's probably faster, sure it's got more storage. But if you're just after something for some browsing or connectivity and don't want to haul around some large thief magnet then it's perfectly useful. And if by chance you drop your Eee PC or do have it stolen then it sucks, but not nearly as much as when it happens to a laptop costing five times as much.
I have to wonder if the days of conventional subnotes is disappearing fast. I certainly see no reason that any casual user wanting mobile computing should drop $1800 for this Mac.
Apple will just be one of many providers of rental content. I don't see anything compelling in what they're offering and most likely other providers will offer rentals at exactly the same price.
Please tell me I'm misinterpreting that phrase. Want to buy one now, but that's a deal breaker. Argh!!!
Wouldn't surprise me if true. Apple have discovered that if they seal the battery in, make it incredibly expensive and inconvenient to replace it, that people throw away an otherwise functional device and buy a new one. Sad but true.
I watched the Richard Hammond fronted Timewatch episode and the effect wasn't that impressive. It's impressive that they managed it on such a shoestring but it still looked very fake. Still, it has a lot of potential and had a little more impact than the usual 10 guy re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo recreations that the history docs are so often filled with.
What it suggests is that they were heavily focused on pushing Blu-Ray.
And since there is no "open" standard for high definition discs, I fail to see what your point is. If you mean the standard with the largest industry support by a mile then Blu Ray is that standard.
And the PS3 is an incredibly open and standards compliant device, especially considering it is a games console. Want to upgrade your HDD? Just whack in a 2.5" SATA drive with no bullshit 2x markup for drive in a special case. Networking? 802.11b/g wireless with full WEP/WPA support and gigaethernet are there to support you. Want to use a keyboard / mouse / storage device? USB is there to do it? Want to use a wireless mouse / keyboard / headset? It has blue tooth support? Want to save / restore files? Use CF, SD, MS, USB to do it. Want to talk wirelessly in-game? Want to play CDs, DVDs? Yes it does that, and rips CDs to MP3 or AAC too. Want to play MP3, AAC, JPG, PNG, MPEG2, H263 ASP (divx), H264 AVC files locally or streamed over a network? No problem. Want to stream? No problem it implements DNLA, an open standard. Want to run Linux? It supports that too. Or browse the web? No problem.
The PS3 is an amazingly open device and you bitch that Sony dare push their own (widely supported) standard for just one aspect? You don't have to buy the device you know.
There is a reason that tagging devices such as ankle bracelets have anti-tamper measures. What's to stop these criminals just digging these RFIDs out, deactivating them, or otherwise messing with their proper function?
Even if the box handles bad signals, the default behaviour might be to drop the connection, reset, show a blue "no signal" screen, display a scary error message, or many other things. I think the result of sabotage would be pretty disastrous especially if you're trying to demonstrate something like wireless streaming. And as always, demos are often performed on pre-production software that may still have a few months of work still left in it, so yes maybe it would crash.
But there is absolutely no way you can justify some arsehole in the audience deliberately disrupting a demonstration on the basis that he is somehow doing you as a customer a favour.
There is nothing remotely funny when you're presenting a device that shuts down (or does any of the other things that could potentially be done remotely) when there could be millions of dollars in contracts at stake.
Just had a look at some slides on SpursEngine. Sounds like a fairly sound idea, although persuading companies to include the chip will be the sticking point. I could see it sitting alongside IGP chips, providing functionality that is expensive to do on the CPU.
Imagine you're a company presenting your new lineup of TVs and some dickhead in the audience decides to shut them down during your presentation. How do you even begin to calculate the damage that might have caused to prospective customers or partners?
The guy should be banned for life. At least with IR remotes you can stick a bit of tape over the receive to stop it. I imagine that wireless technologies could be extremely vulnerable to similar pranks (and sabotage). Imagine the trouble someone could cause just by blocking signals, or sending spurious malformed messages designed to kill a device.
In my opinion, a good programmer is one who can elucidate, writes clear maintainable code, programs defensively, has a broad level of experience, can decompose a problem into logical parts, shares knowledge, anticipates issues, is pragmatic, a team player, speaks up when necessary, takes an interest in new technologies, and knows what are acceptable risks and what are not.
The kinds of programmers I dislike are the clueless, the know-it-alls, the horders of knowledge, the spaghetti coders and the perfectionists. The real world is imperfect and governed by deadlines, budgets and system limitations. I don't care if someone is an amazing coder if they don't explain or allow anyone else to understand their code. I don't care that if 10 layers of abstraction makes the system perfect if it adds 3 months onto the deadline. I don't care if the code works for release 1 but is so unreadable that it is impossible to maintain. A good programmer makes sure everyone else on the team can understand their code and the rationale behind their design. Anything less and you're not a good programmer.
The Cell is a PowerPC architecture chip. I'm sure in principle the same idea could be implemented with an x86 acting as the ringmaster (so to speak) for the SPUs, but IBM might have an issue with that.
Toshiba make the cell processors for Sony. They probably do test the processors to see which have 7 or 8 working SPUs and send them off to Sony. The rest could be used for other tasks that require a general purpose chip with DSP-like functionality but require less SPUs.
BTW it's the ultimate irony that Toshiba make the processor for the machine that was / is killing HD DVD. But I expect the Japanese electronics industry is full of incestuous, contradictory partnerships like this.
I see no reason to disbelieve this. If I were going to rig Ron Pauls votes , I would move them from 31 down to 20 or so. Then nobody can be sure its been done short of an audit. What I wouldn't do is move to them to zero since each of those 31 voters would know there is a fault. Why the hell would anyone rig one of the no-hope candidates anyway?
The only reasonable explanation is human error. I know this will not compute with some of the conspiracy theory basket cases who support Ron Paul but there it is.
While I'm sure it's the most expedient solution, I don't understand why a virtual bank should be required to get government certification or whatever in order to operate. It's not like, say, an American bank is required to be regulated by the Chinese government in order to deal in yuan.
Probably because Linden Dollars can be exchanged for real dollars and vice versa. The bank might be "virtual" but the collateral you stick into them isn't whether its called Linden dollars, love teddies or anything else with an intrinsic real world value. I expect virtually all of the banks in SL are ponzis, pyramid schemes or some other similar scam. So SL have decided to regulate by clamping down on the entire industry.
It makes sense and it's surprising they didn't do it sooner. Its even possible that they might even attract a REAL bank in now. Personally I think this is just the opening salvo. The scammers will try to skirt these restrictions in other ways. For example, by replacing cash machines with vending machines, machines that buy back whatever they vend and so forth. Or they'll become more inventive and won't call themselves banks anymore and will pretend to be investment clubs, gifting circles and so forth.
Linden is going to have a major headache stopping the scammers. The easiest way would be to stop letting people exchange in-game money for real-world money. I don't see that happening though.
The thing that I have trouble conceiving of is how people could trust these virtual banks/investment schemes in the first place, especially since there's real money involved.
There's a simple answer to that. People are stupid. They think that money grows on trees and all they have to do is give it to some virtual "bank" and they'll enjoy some staggering rate of return. In truth it is the idiots who follow on behind who are paying the interest for the ones in front.
I expect SL has become very popular with con men for this reason. Wouldn't surprise me at all if all sorts of ponzi schemes, pyramid scams, matrix scams, and just plain old fashioned fraud happen every day on SL because there is so little regulation and a lot of gullible people within easy reach.
It certainly is. Though hopefully if / when Blu Ray wins out, there will be absolutely zero reason for any studio to bother with it. H264 is the industry standard, not VC-1. In theory it VC-1 doesn't even need to be used on HD DVD but it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft / Toshiba leaned on studios in some way to support their codec.
In this instance, the Financial Times reported the story, and Bloomberg sought comment from Paramount. If the FT is reporting something you'd better believe they had a good source behind that info.
Oh I doubt that. If they were rock solid in their support for HD DVD their execs would come out and say it. Hiding away with terse and still ambiguous comments makes it look seriously like they're not sure themselves if they want to continue. Which was my original point.
They denied it in a weak and ambiguous manner. If Paramount were supporters of HD DVD all the way, why didn't they say as much? Why issue such a limp wristed statement which is open to interpretation. As I said, their statement doesn't preclude going neutral which may as well as be the same as killing support for HD DVD entirely.
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I don't see why not. Most wristwatches manage to have a very small form factor and a battery that can be replaced with relative ease. What would it take? A hatch and a few screws is all.
The same probably holds true for this laptop.
Possibly, but then again, Apple is supposed to a master of design, so why not amaze people with an elegant solution, e.g. maybe the keyboard could lift up and reveal the battery compartment or similar. I assume they'll be charging squillions for a replacement service, so realistically how much more difficult would it be to make it user accessible rather than requiring special tools?
The point I was making and you conveniently ignored is the Eee PC is completely suitable for travel and connectivity. There is no reason anymore to buy an expensive laptop to buy a PC in a small form factor. Many of the reasons that someone might have for buying a subnotebook including the Air device fly out the window when you can buy something for a fifth that has it covered.
The reason that they seal the battery has nothing to do with form factor and a lot to do with built-in shelf life. Once the battery goes many people will buy a new iPod rather than replace the battery in their otherwise functioning existing one. It is not surprising when the Apple battery replacement service costs a lot of money and doesn't even say you get your original iPod back.
If this economic model has extended to the new laptop then buyer beware. It sucks enough that they do it in a $200 device, it is outrageous if they do it with one costing $1800.
I have to wonder if the days of conventional subnotes is disappearing fast. I certainly see no reason that any casual user wanting mobile computing should drop $1800 for this Mac.
Apple will just be one of many providers of rental content. I don't see anything compelling in what they're offering and most likely other providers will offer rentals at exactly the same price.
Wouldn't surprise me if true. Apple have discovered that if they seal the battery in, make it incredibly expensive and inconvenient to replace it, that people throw away an otherwise functional device and buy a new one. Sad but true.
I watched the Richard Hammond fronted Timewatch episode and the effect wasn't that impressive. It's impressive that they managed it on such a shoestring but it still looked very fake. Still, it has a lot of potential and had a little more impact than the usual 10 guy re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo recreations that the history docs are so often filled with.
I think you have as much chance of being president as he does.
And since there is no "open" standard for high definition discs, I fail to see what your point is. If you mean the standard with the largest industry support by a mile then Blu Ray is that standard.
And the PS3 is an incredibly open and standards compliant device, especially considering it is a games console. Want to upgrade your HDD? Just whack in a 2.5" SATA drive with no bullshit 2x markup for drive in a special case. Networking? 802.11b/g wireless with full WEP/WPA support and gigaethernet are there to support you. Want to use a keyboard / mouse / storage device? USB is there to do it? Want to use a wireless mouse / keyboard / headset? It has blue tooth support? Want to save / restore files? Use CF, SD, MS, USB to do it. Want to talk wirelessly in-game? Want to play CDs, DVDs? Yes it does that, and rips CDs to MP3 or AAC too. Want to play MP3, AAC, JPG, PNG, MPEG2, H263 ASP (divx), H264 AVC files locally or streamed over a network? No problem. Want to stream? No problem it implements DNLA, an open standard. Want to run Linux? It supports that too. Or browse the web? No problem.
The PS3 is an amazingly open device and you bitch that Sony dare push their own (widely supported) standard for just one aspect? You don't have to buy the device you know.
There is a reason that tagging devices such as ankle bracelets have anti-tamper measures. What's to stop these criminals just digging these RFIDs out, deactivating them, or otherwise messing with their proper function?
But there is absolutely no way you can justify some arsehole in the audience deliberately disrupting a demonstration on the basis that he is somehow doing you as a customer a favour.
There is nothing remotely funny when you're presenting a device that shuts down (or does any of the other things that could potentially be done remotely) when there could be millions of dollars in contracts at stake.
Just had a look at some slides on SpursEngine. Sounds like a fairly sound idea, although persuading companies to include the chip will be the sticking point. I could see it sitting alongside IGP chips, providing functionality that is expensive to do on the CPU.
The guy should be banned for life. At least with IR remotes you can stick a bit of tape over the receive to stop it. I imagine that wireless technologies could be extremely vulnerable to similar pranks (and sabotage). Imagine the trouble someone could cause just by blocking signals, or sending spurious malformed messages designed to kill a device.
The kinds of programmers I dislike are the clueless, the know-it-alls, the horders of knowledge, the spaghetti coders and the perfectionists. The real world is imperfect and governed by deadlines, budgets and system limitations. I don't care if someone is an amazing coder if they don't explain or allow anyone else to understand their code. I don't care that if 10 layers of abstraction makes the system perfect if it adds 3 months onto the deadline. I don't care if the code works for release 1 but is so unreadable that it is impossible to maintain. A good programmer makes sure everyone else on the team can understand their code and the rationale behind their design. Anything less and you're not a good programmer.
The Cell is a PowerPC architecture chip. I'm sure in principle the same idea could be implemented with an x86 acting as the ringmaster (so to speak) for the SPUs, but IBM might have an issue with that.
BTW it's the ultimate irony that Toshiba make the processor for the machine that was / is killing HD DVD. But I expect the Japanese electronics industry is full of incestuous, contradictory partnerships like this.
The only reasonable explanation is human error. I know this will not compute with some of the conspiracy theory basket cases who support Ron Paul but there it is.
Probably because Linden Dollars can be exchanged for real dollars and vice versa. The bank might be "virtual" but the collateral you stick into them isn't whether its called Linden dollars, love teddies or anything else with an intrinsic real world value. I expect virtually all of the banks in SL are ponzis, pyramid schemes or some other similar scam. So SL have decided to regulate by clamping down on the entire industry.
It makes sense and it's surprising they didn't do it sooner. Its even possible that they might even attract a REAL bank in now. Personally I think this is just the opening salvo. The scammers will try to skirt these restrictions in other ways. For example, by replacing cash machines with vending machines, machines that buy back whatever they vend and so forth. Or they'll become more inventive and won't call themselves banks anymore and will pretend to be investment clubs, gifting circles and so forth.
Linden is going to have a major headache stopping the scammers. The easiest way would be to stop letting people exchange in-game money for real-world money. I don't see that happening though.
There's a simple answer to that. People are stupid. They think that money grows on trees and all they have to do is give it to some virtual "bank" and they'll enjoy some staggering rate of return. In truth it is the idiots who follow on behind who are paying the interest for the ones in front.
I expect SL has become very popular with con men for this reason. Wouldn't surprise me at all if all sorts of ponzi schemes, pyramid scams, matrix scams, and just plain old fashioned fraud happen every day on SL because there is so little regulation and a lot of gullible people within easy reach.
Simply blow up one plane in-flight per week. Completely at random. Airport lines will be cleared in no time. Do I get $500,000?
It certainly is. Though hopefully if / when Blu Ray wins out, there will be absolutely zero reason for any studio to bother with it. H264 is the industry standard, not VC-1. In theory it VC-1 doesn't even need to be used on HD DVD but it wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft / Toshiba leaned on studios in some way to support their codec.
In this instance, the Financial Times reported the story, and Bloomberg sought comment from Paramount. If the FT is reporting something you'd better believe they had a good source behind that info.
Oh I doubt that. If they were rock solid in their support for HD DVD their execs would come out and say it. Hiding away with terse and still ambiguous comments makes it look seriously like they're not sure themselves if they want to continue. Which was my original point.
They denied it in a weak and ambiguous manner. If Paramount were supporters of HD DVD all the way, why didn't they say as much? Why issue such a limp wristed statement which is open to interpretation. As I said, their statement doesn't preclude going neutral which may as well as be the same as killing support for HD DVD entirely.