Hm, odd because in browser stats Apple has -nearly half- of browser marketshare for smartphones (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/iphone-continues-to-slam-mobile-web-competition.ars) and the other thing is you have to realize the scale here. Apple has one phone (well, it had 2 previous phones but they are discontinued), is on one network for many countries, and was released in 2007. Nokia has many phones, Symbian has shipped since 2003 and you can get them on just about any network. Samsung again, has lots of Windows Mobile phones, on many networks and many of them were before 2007. RIM has a multitude of phones, on just about every network, and was made, way before 2007. So I'd say the iPhone was a best seller, yeah, Nokia may have a larger marketshare, but not many of those phones are in use. If you have a product that only came out in 2007, and have 50% of the smartphone browser market in Jan. of 2009, I'd say that was pretty impressive for only having 2 phones, one discontinued after the other came out and being on 1 network per country and not even selling phones in some countries.
That's the point - there's nothing special about the Iphone, apart from being one in a long line of high end phones from various companies.
There are few other phones of this decade that have so revolutionized the marketplace. Ok, before the iPhone how many other captive touchscreen phones were there? How many phones with good browsers? With a large amount of apps? With a decent UI? The success of the iPhone kicked Android development into high gear, that in turn influenced major phones on every large network save for AT&T, the success of the iPhone also gave rise to millions of clone devices, or similar devices. About the only phone that I can think of with the same impact was the Motorola Razr (and perhaps that old monochrome Nokia phone with Snake on it and those exchangeable faceplates, but I think that came out before 2000)
But for some reason, even years later, all we hear is Iphone Iphone Iphone, and never about any of the interesting developments from major players like Nokia.
Um, perhaps because there hasn't been -any- interesting developments from Nokia? I mean, aside from the N900, most of Nokia's phones have been relatively uninspired. The other major players have been uninspiring, yeah, the BlackBerry is great if you want E-mail, but it relies on the aging BlackberryOS, still lacks polish, and their last major redesign (Storm) was a failure (yeah, Storm 2 is better, but the original Storm sucked), Windows Mobile is still crap. And Android is moving ahead but still lacks the polish/apps/support of some of the other phones.
If you want a browser, get the iPhone. If you want a phone that has promise, get Android. If you need something super-reliable get a BlackBerry. If you for some odd reason need an obscure Windows Mobile app get Windows Mobile.
Look, the RIAA and their equivalents in other countries do not see losses in profit as "hey, we better do something different", no they say "PIRACY!!!11!1111!1!1" and use that to fuel more crap laws to extend copyright. Boycotts do not work. Even if indie records outsell RIAA records, the big labels would simply buy the smaller labels.
Any human rights documents from any western country (UK, US, Canada, etc) are quickly becoming no more than toilet paper.
The only way we have to stop them is to make it physically impossible for them to trample our rights. Encryption is one way we can stop this abuse of power. Laws only get us so far when "national security" is on the line.
Not just the UI, it was the browser that made it sell well. There wasn't a single phone with a decent browser before the iPhone. Opera Mobile was somewhat decent, but compared so mobile Safari, Safari wins. This is a bit less of a selling point now with Android and others have decent browsers, but at the time if you wanted to surf the web you'd better get an iPhone. Yeah, the iPhone wasn't very innovative, but the fact that it had a complete package (ability to play music decently, videos, YouTube, good browser, later addition of apps, etc) made it a best seller even when tied to an overpriced network.
I guarantee you that by the time the average 20-30 year old/.er reaches retirement age, Google, MS, Apple and most other "hot" companies will have either gone worthless, bankrupt, or otherwise not a good stock to have. Yeah, buying Google, MS and Apple when they went public made lots of people really rich really fast. But they are crap retirement stocks when compared to steadily rising stocks.
You have to realize there are a -lot- of companies that exist mostly on advertising (Google anyone?) and are doing great. The reason why Facebook shouldn't offer public stock is mostly because it can't -do- much. Yeah, it has applications (and this alone will help Facebook make at least enough to break even or make a small profit) but who is going to pay for a crappy web application? A few people might buy some "limited edition" items in Farmville, but who is going to pay for access to Farmville (and that is about the only way that Facebook itself could get a cut of the funds) itself? Facebook has a lot of data, but selling that data would run afoul of some privacy laws and give Facebook lots of bad press. Facebook users have also all united against paying for it, the fact that it is web based means that if they charged for Facebook Mobile a third-party application could arise. Facebook can improve a lot, it is notoriously unreliable, chat only works half the time, and other features randomly break. But as for branching out in multiple areas like Google has done, I don't think Facebook can do that.
For one, you didn't know that it was going to fail. This would be equivalent to me selling a VIA C7 as a Celeron D. Fraud, yes. But a VIA CPU is not more likely to fail than an Intel CPU. Its a cheaper, lower performance CPU, but I wouldn't call it treason to sell to the Navy.
And for the other, who is the "enemy"? It doesn't give aid to the non-existent "enemy", it simply gives you more money. They should be prosecuted for fraud, not treason.
For one it doesn't pass the grandma test because most of the time grandma knows Windows. Tell them one is Windows, and the other is Linux and they will pick Windows because they -know- Windows. They don't want change. They don't know how to even use the computer. Move an icon over to the left rather than the right and you'd think their hard drive was destroyed by how little work they can get done.
And yeah, its going to work great with Google apps but lets say you don't use Google apps. Its useless then. Yeah, if every grandma got Chrome OS it might work, but trying to get it to work with Windows XP, 7 and Vista? That isn't going to be easy.
A) It is closed source. Yeah, its secure, but I'm sure a lot of it is security via obscurity, and the browser is about the main (close to only) easy way to exploit a typical system with a decent user, a firewall and no local attacks.
B) Little to no add-ons.
C) Too much work to get it how I like it. Firefox (along with IE, Konqueror and most others) comes how I want it little to no tweaking required. With Opera I have to move around toolbars, etc.
D) It uses QT, not GTK. I use GNOME on Linux so using QT makes it look out of place and uses more resources.
Ok, I understand the "coolness" factor of radio transmissions to the stars, but in the end are they all wasted money? I mean, chances are another Hubble mixed with other probes can find where there is other life faster, quicker and easier than radio telescopes. We've been trying these for ages and they haven't picked up anything. So why not spend research money doing things that we know are going to work. Plus, its a whole lot more probable that we will find non-intelligent life throughout the universe than intelligent life. Even if we find life outside earth with the technology level of 1700s earth, they won't be picking up these signals and really for all but the last 100 years, humans wouldn't have been able to pick up this signal. So quit messing around with radio signals and find possible planets for life.
Look at Somalia before (socialist dictatorship) and after (near total anarchy) and you will see that Somalia is better off stateless. (look at this paper http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf). Lets see, comparing the last 1985 to 1990 (last 5 years of the Somali government) and 2000-2005 (5 years under near total anarchy), life expectancy has gone up 3 years, over half Somalia's population has access to health care compared to just a bit more than 25% under their government, technology has increased with many more people owning phones, TVs and radios, infant mortality has gone down, and the only two things that have really decreased since anarchy is adult literacy (down 5% points) and school enrollment. This of course is to be expected (even today about 43% of people in Somalia live on less than $1 per day, though it is much better than 60% with their government) with no body to subsidize school and little to no demand for skilled labor.
While Somalia is still a dangerous country, and still a poor country. There have been numerous improvements in their conditions from pre-1990 to post 1990. And while Somalia is an extreme incident, it just shows the explosive growth possible with a truly free economy.
No. Regulation solves -nothing-. Yeah, we can look to the FDA and see "success" but there are -numerous- accounts of bribery, delays, and a lot of safe products either kept out of hands of customers or too far restricted. What needs to happen is knowledge, reviews, etc. That actually solves things.
Well of course nicotine is going to be the hardest drug to kick. Its A) Available, you don't have to go to some shady part of town to buy it, you find it easily enough in every single gas station, grocery store, etc. B) It is socially acceptable C) It is cheap
As a key product in a proprietary OS, why would you want to run nightly builds of IE? With Firefox my browser may be unstable, but at least the rest of my system stays stable, but with IE a lot of Windows components use Trident and that isn't going to be a good thing. Plus, with Firefox if you file a bug they appreciate that and generally fix it right away, even security vulnerabilities aren't promptly fixed on IE, let alone user suggestions....
Lets see here, who (willingly) uses Windows Mobile? You have some Windows fanbois, businessmen who need some strange proprietary syncing with some obscure Windows application, people who want a cheap smartphone (yeah, now Android is becoming pretty cheap, but there still isn't any AT&T Android phone, and a year ago there really weren't many good Android handsets), and people who don't want to upgrade their phones. None of them are in the market for applications. The people who will pay money for the applications are teenagers who want "the latest thing", geeks who want to use their phone in different ways, etc. Most people who have Windows Mobile won't be huge customers of applications, especially now when Android, iPhone OS and even BlackBerry are advancing faster than stagnant, unstable Windows Mobile.
Apple isn't the only computer company selling systems with those features. Backlit keyboards, ambient light sensors, and accelerometers have been found in non-Apple notebooks for years, but often only in the "business" models.
Exactly. Most businessmen rarely push their computers to the limit. If the ambient light sensors or accelerometers go out, most businessmen simply ignore it. Even if the backlit keyboards fail most will just shrug and continue on. On the other hand, people who buy Apple computers usually want their computers to work a certain way and will notice if something is even -slightly- wrong with it (I remember some issues about fan speed that I'm sure most computer users wouldn't even notice). Plus, most Apple users will complain, blog or otherwise report the situation to multiple people whereas most businessmen will just go to their company's IT department and say that something is wrong.
Not really. I live in the midwest and we get severe weather every year. -Everyone- turns on the TV, radio, etc whenever there is a chance of a tornado. As for nuclear, terrorist and other attacks either they are going to be isolated if you aren't directly affected (such as 9/11 where if you weren't in the immediate area you weren't affected hardly, the London bus bombings, etc) or -huge- such as a major nuclear attack (which is in all honesty unlikely in 2009....) which would disrupt enough things to make people notice. And as for biological attacks, who isn't going to be filled with calls, etc. warning them about it (look at Swine Flu) and biological attacks don't disrupt infrastructure.
Mix this with government propaganda (look at the terror alert level, which has perpetually been on "elevated" and only risen) and you have a situation where nothing good can come of it.
Android though had a few advantages that Chrome OS doesn't have. For one, at the time there was one other open-ish phone OS and it was Open Moko and QTopia. It was hard to find a phone that ran either of them and I don't think Open Moko was stable enough to take/make calls. With Chrome on any x86 netbook why wouldn't I go with Windows, Ubuntu or another distro? Yeah, if you have no clue with computers (as in, have never used Linux or Windows in your life, AKA about.001% of Americans) Chrome OS might be a contender, but unless there is some tricky hardware (like as in phones) and Chrome OS is the only thing that has the drivers, why would I buy a Chrome OS netbook?
The thing is though, are the bells and whistles needed when they use up RAM and CPU cycles? Now, on a reasonable system of course they can be used. Ubuntu 9.10 has no problems running on my desktop from 2004 even though it only has a gig of RAM, integrated graphics and a slightly sluggish CPU, there are no visible slowdowns during normal use. But lets say we have a 600 Mhz ARM embedded system with only 16 MB of RAM? Or if we are re-using older computers? Or making a kiosk or other embedded computer? Are the features of GNOME, KDE and XFCE really needed?
But how is this ANY different from Intel locking AMD out of the OEM market for years? After all, it wasn't like Intel had a product that people hated, hell most folks didn't give a crap WHAT CPU was in their machines as long as it ran their software. They had those catchy jingles, pretty stickers, etc.
Because in most cases x86 was patented/had loads of copyrights and basically needed Intel's blessing just to get an x86 CPU. On the other hand, -anyone- can develop an Android OS, license free, and basically use it how they see fit.
Only we geeks and those that watch market news know we could have had a much more competitive landscape if the chips would have been allowed to sink/float on their own merits. Netburst was crap, a total space heater, and was always slower than Athlon, yet Athlon lost. Because Intel could say "Buy Intel(C) chips and enjoy this nice fat check. Buy AMD and....NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
Athlon lost? AMD provides about 50% of the CPUs for most computers in brick-and-mortar stores today. During the Netburst era people went from "We want Intel inside" to "I want the fastest CPU for the $" and in many cases it was AMD. For a while AMD was ahead, and with the advent of their x86-64 CPUs Intel had a lot of catching up to do. However, with the Core architecture Intel sped ahead, released the Atom CPU for netbooks and the Core i line for high-end systems while AMD really had/has much left, especially when compared to the Core i7 or Atom CPUs.
I don't see how this is any different. Google has such a cash reserve they can make sure nobody else can compete NOT by the quality of their product, which lets be honest most haven't tried an OEM Android and have no clue if its good or not, by simply giving out those big fat checks to companies that "Go Google(c)". How is it ANY different?
Lets see here, because of the fact that there are multiple competing OSes? The fact that Android is F/OSS? Lets see here, for a mobile device you can either choose to have it run Android, Windows Mobile, various distros of Linux, customized OSes, etc. If you don't want OEM Android you can always, you know, choose to use Windows Mobile, write your own OS, hack together a Linux distro or compiled Android yourself. You don't have to "license" Android from Google, you are free to do whatever with it.
Really -no- critical system be it power, heating, cooling, etc. should be on the internet. A local network is sufficient with the main computer controlling the other computers not being connected to the internet. How hard is it to understand?
6 decade wait? We have been waiting 60 years for a 64-bit version of Flash?
Modular design can really allow for fewer security holes, along with making everything more maintainable for developers. For example, if the people who make the OGG codecs fix security holes an audio editor doesn't have to rewrite their program to use the new codecs. The problem really lies with bits of incompatibility technology, Flash is a great example of it, while Firefox, Chrome and Safari all have good track records on security, the fact that Flash seems to have a many-month lag between a vulnerability being exploited in the wild and a fix, mixed with how about 95% of people are using an outdated version of Flash leads to many preventable security holes of Flash was open-sourced or released fixes more frequently. But on the whole, modular design has eliminated many security holes, especially for smaller programs lead by one or two people because they can just update the libraries and re-plug them in and have the program work with little to no maintenance by the developers of the small app.
Why would you want to detect counterfeit coins/bills anyways? So long as the next person takes them it doesn't really matter. Yes, if we get trillions of counterfeit notes and coins it might start being a problem, but if I can exchange a fake $100 bill for $100 worth in merchandise, it isn't to my advantage to even care if they are real or not. The problem is if you are conned by an obvious fake that the next person won't take, thus leaving you short how much cash you accepted in counterfeit money.
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That's the point - there's nothing special about the Iphone, apart from being one in a long line of high end phones from various companies.
There are few other phones of this decade that have so revolutionized the marketplace. Ok, before the iPhone how many other captive touchscreen phones were there? How many phones with good browsers? With a large amount of apps? With a decent UI? The success of the iPhone kicked Android development into high gear, that in turn influenced major phones on every large network save for AT&T, the success of the iPhone also gave rise to millions of clone devices, or similar devices. About the only phone that I can think of with the same impact was the Motorola Razr (and perhaps that old monochrome Nokia phone with Snake on it and those exchangeable faceplates, but I think that came out before 2000)
But for some reason, even years later, all we hear is Iphone Iphone Iphone, and never about any of the interesting developments from major players like Nokia.
Um, perhaps because there hasn't been -any- interesting developments from Nokia? I mean, aside from the N900, most of Nokia's phones have been relatively uninspired. The other major players have been uninspiring, yeah, the BlackBerry is great if you want E-mail, but it relies on the aging BlackberryOS, still lacks polish, and their last major redesign (Storm) was a failure (yeah, Storm 2 is better, but the original Storm sucked), Windows Mobile is still crap. And Android is moving ahead but still lacks the polish/apps/support of some of the other phones.
If you want a browser, get the iPhone. If you want a phone that has promise, get Android. If you need something super-reliable get a BlackBerry. If you for some odd reason need an obscure Windows Mobile app get Windows Mobile.
Look, the RIAA and their equivalents in other countries do not see losses in profit as "hey, we better do something different", no they say "PIRACY!!!11!1111!1!1" and use that to fuel more crap laws to extend copyright. Boycotts do not work. Even if indie records outsell RIAA records, the big labels would simply buy the smaller labels.
They aren't allowed to listen to your phone calls, wy the hhell should they be allowed to look at your data
Yeah, and look at how well governments followed that law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy
Any human rights documents from any western country (UK, US, Canada, etc) are quickly becoming no more than toilet paper.
The only way we have to stop them is to make it physically impossible for them to trample our rights. Encryption is one way we can stop this abuse of power. Laws only get us so far when "national security" is on the line.
Not just the UI, it was the browser that made it sell well. There wasn't a single phone with a decent browser before the iPhone. Opera Mobile was somewhat decent, but compared so mobile Safari, Safari wins. This is a bit less of a selling point now with Android and others have decent browsers, but at the time if you wanted to surf the web you'd better get an iPhone. Yeah, the iPhone wasn't very innovative, but the fact that it had a complete package (ability to play music decently, videos, YouTube, good browser, later addition of apps, etc) made it a best seller even when tied to an overpriced network.
I guarantee you that by the time the average 20-30 year old /.er reaches retirement age, Google, MS, Apple and most other "hot" companies will have either gone worthless, bankrupt, or otherwise not a good stock to have. Yeah, buying Google, MS and Apple when they went public made lots of people really rich really fast. But they are crap retirement stocks when compared to steadily rising stocks.
You have to realize there are a -lot- of companies that exist mostly on advertising (Google anyone?) and are doing great. The reason why Facebook shouldn't offer public stock is mostly because it can't -do- much. Yeah, it has applications (and this alone will help Facebook make at least enough to break even or make a small profit) but who is going to pay for a crappy web application? A few people might buy some "limited edition" items in Farmville, but who is going to pay for access to Farmville (and that is about the only way that Facebook itself could get a cut of the funds) itself? Facebook has a lot of data, but selling that data would run afoul of some privacy laws and give Facebook lots of bad press. Facebook users have also all united against paying for it, the fact that it is web based means that if they charged for Facebook Mobile a third-party application could arise. Facebook can improve a lot, it is notoriously unreliable, chat only works half the time, and other features randomly break. But as for branching out in multiple areas like Google has done, I don't think Facebook can do that.
Even better, give police accountability to the public. When their only accountability is to.... another officer, things don't work out.
For one, you didn't know that it was going to fail. This would be equivalent to me selling a VIA C7 as a Celeron D. Fraud, yes. But a VIA CPU is not more likely to fail than an Intel CPU. Its a cheaper, lower performance CPU, but I wouldn't call it treason to sell to the Navy.
And for the other, who is the "enemy"? It doesn't give aid to the non-existent "enemy", it simply gives you more money. They should be prosecuted for fraud, not treason.
For one it doesn't pass the grandma test because most of the time grandma knows Windows. Tell them one is Windows, and the other is Linux and they will pick Windows because they -know- Windows. They don't want change. They don't know how to even use the computer. Move an icon over to the left rather than the right and you'd think their hard drive was destroyed by how little work they can get done.
And yeah, its going to work great with Google apps but lets say you don't use Google apps. Its useless then. Yeah, if every grandma got Chrome OS it might work, but trying to get it to work with Windows XP, 7 and Vista? That isn't going to be easy.
The problems I have with Opera are manyfold.
A) It is closed source. Yeah, its secure, but I'm sure a lot of it is security via obscurity, and the browser is about the main (close to only) easy way to exploit a typical system with a decent user, a firewall and no local attacks.
B) Little to no add-ons.
C) Too much work to get it how I like it. Firefox (along with IE, Konqueror and most others) comes how I want it little to no tweaking required. With Opera I have to move around toolbars, etc.
D) It uses QT, not GTK. I use GNOME on Linux so using QT makes it look out of place and uses more resources.
Ok, I understand the "coolness" factor of radio transmissions to the stars, but in the end are they all wasted money? I mean, chances are another Hubble mixed with other probes can find where there is other life faster, quicker and easier than radio telescopes. We've been trying these for ages and they haven't picked up anything. So why not spend research money doing things that we know are going to work. Plus, its a whole lot more probable that we will find non-intelligent life throughout the universe than intelligent life. Even if we find life outside earth with the technology level of 1700s earth, they won't be picking up these signals and really for all but the last 100 years, humans wouldn't have been able to pick up this signal. So quit messing around with radio signals and find possible planets for life.
Look at Somalia before (socialist dictatorship) and after (near total anarchy) and you will see that Somalia is better off stateless. (look at this paper http://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf). Lets see, comparing the last 1985 to 1990 (last 5 years of the Somali government) and 2000-2005 (5 years under near total anarchy), life expectancy has gone up 3 years, over half Somalia's population has access to health care compared to just a bit more than 25% under their government, technology has increased with many more people owning phones, TVs and radios, infant mortality has gone down, and the only two things that have really decreased since anarchy is adult literacy (down 5% points) and school enrollment. This of course is to be expected (even today about 43% of people in Somalia live on less than $1 per day, though it is much better than 60% with their government) with no body to subsidize school and little to no demand for skilled labor.
Free trade has flourished also, (see http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/SOMALIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:20398872~menuPK:367671~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:367665,00.html) airlines increased dramatically, as have telecoms, media, and many other businesses. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_in_Somalia for an overview)
While Somalia is still a dangerous country, and still a poor country. There have been numerous improvements in their conditions from pre-1990 to post 1990. And while Somalia is an extreme incident, it just shows the explosive growth possible with a truly free economy.
No. Regulation solves -nothing-. Yeah, we can look to the FDA and see "success" but there are -numerous- accounts of bribery, delays, and a lot of safe products either kept out of hands of customers or too far restricted. What needs to happen is knowledge, reviews, etc. That actually solves things.
Regulation has, and will fail epically.
Well of course nicotine is going to be the hardest drug to kick. Its A) Available, you don't have to go to some shady part of town to buy it, you find it easily enough in every single gas station, grocery store, etc. B) It is socially acceptable C) It is cheap
As a key product in a proprietary OS, why would you want to run nightly builds of IE? With Firefox my browser may be unstable, but at least the rest of my system stays stable, but with IE a lot of Windows components use Trident and that isn't going to be a good thing. Plus, with Firefox if you file a bug they appreciate that and generally fix it right away, even security vulnerabilities aren't promptly fixed on IE, let alone user suggestions....
Lets see here, who (willingly) uses Windows Mobile? You have some Windows fanbois, businessmen who need some strange proprietary syncing with some obscure Windows application, people who want a cheap smartphone (yeah, now Android is becoming pretty cheap, but there still isn't any AT&T Android phone, and a year ago there really weren't many good Android handsets), and people who don't want to upgrade their phones. None of them are in the market for applications. The people who will pay money for the applications are teenagers who want "the latest thing", geeks who want to use their phone in different ways, etc. Most people who have Windows Mobile won't be huge customers of applications, especially now when Android, iPhone OS and even BlackBerry are advancing faster than stagnant, unstable Windows Mobile.
Apple isn't the only computer company selling systems with those features. Backlit keyboards, ambient light sensors, and accelerometers have been found in non-Apple notebooks for years, but often only in the "business" models.
Exactly. Most businessmen rarely push their computers to the limit. If the ambient light sensors or accelerometers go out, most businessmen simply ignore it. Even if the backlit keyboards fail most will just shrug and continue on. On the other hand, people who buy Apple computers usually want their computers to work a certain way and will notice if something is even -slightly- wrong with it (I remember some issues about fan speed that I'm sure most computer users wouldn't even notice). Plus, most Apple users will complain, blog or otherwise report the situation to multiple people whereas most businessmen will just go to their company's IT department and say that something is wrong.
Not really. I live in the midwest and we get severe weather every year. -Everyone- turns on the TV, radio, etc whenever there is a chance of a tornado. As for nuclear, terrorist and other attacks either they are going to be isolated if you aren't directly affected (such as 9/11 where if you weren't in the immediate area you weren't affected hardly, the London bus bombings, etc) or -huge- such as a major nuclear attack (which is in all honesty unlikely in 2009....) which would disrupt enough things to make people notice. And as for biological attacks, who isn't going to be filled with calls, etc. warning them about it (look at Swine Flu) and biological attacks don't disrupt infrastructure.
Mix this with government propaganda (look at the terror alert level, which has perpetually been on "elevated" and only risen) and you have a situation where nothing good can come of it.
Android though had a few advantages that Chrome OS doesn't have. For one, at the time there was one other open-ish phone OS and it was Open Moko and QTopia. It was hard to find a phone that ran either of them and I don't think Open Moko was stable enough to take/make calls. With Chrome on any x86 netbook why wouldn't I go with Windows, Ubuntu or another distro? Yeah, if you have no clue with computers (as in, have never used Linux or Windows in your life, AKA about .001% of Americans) Chrome OS might be a contender, but unless there is some tricky hardware (like as in phones) and Chrome OS is the only thing that has the drivers, why would I buy a Chrome OS netbook?
The thing is though, are the bells and whistles needed when they use up RAM and CPU cycles? Now, on a reasonable system of course they can be used. Ubuntu 9.10 has no problems running on my desktop from 2004 even though it only has a gig of RAM, integrated graphics and a slightly sluggish CPU, there are no visible slowdowns during normal use. But lets say we have a 600 Mhz ARM embedded system with only 16 MB of RAM? Or if we are re-using older computers? Or making a kiosk or other embedded computer? Are the features of GNOME, KDE and XFCE really needed?
But how is this ANY different from Intel locking AMD out of the OEM market for years? After all, it wasn't like Intel had a product that people hated, hell most folks didn't give a crap WHAT CPU was in their machines as long as it ran their software. They had those catchy jingles, pretty stickers, etc.
Because in most cases x86 was patented/had loads of copyrights and basically needed Intel's blessing just to get an x86 CPU. On the other hand, -anyone- can develop an Android OS, license free, and basically use it how they see fit.
Only we geeks and those that watch market news know we could have had a much more competitive landscape if the chips would have been allowed to sink/float on their own merits. Netburst was crap, a total space heater, and was always slower than Athlon, yet Athlon lost. Because Intel could say "Buy Intel(C) chips and enjoy this nice fat check. Buy AMD and....NO SOUP FOR YOU!"
Athlon lost? AMD provides about 50% of the CPUs for most computers in brick-and-mortar stores today. During the Netburst era people went from "We want Intel inside" to "I want the fastest CPU for the $" and in many cases it was AMD. For a while AMD was ahead, and with the advent of their x86-64 CPUs Intel had a lot of catching up to do. However, with the Core architecture Intel sped ahead, released the Atom CPU for netbooks and the Core i line for high-end systems while AMD really had/has much left, especially when compared to the Core i7 or Atom CPUs.
I don't see how this is any different. Google has such a cash reserve they can make sure nobody else can compete NOT by the quality of their product, which lets be honest most haven't tried an OEM Android and have no clue if its good or not, by simply giving out those big fat checks to companies that "Go Google(c)". How is it ANY different?
Lets see here, because of the fact that there are multiple competing OSes? The fact that Android is F/OSS? Lets see here, for a mobile device you can either choose to have it run Android, Windows Mobile, various distros of Linux, customized OSes, etc. If you don't want OEM Android you can always, you know, choose to use Windows Mobile, write your own OS, hack together a Linux distro or compiled Android yourself. You don't have to "license" Android from Google, you are free to do whatever with it.
Really -no- critical system be it power, heating, cooling, etc. should be on the internet. A local network is sufficient with the main computer controlling the other computers not being connected to the internet. How hard is it to understand?
So how is it a big deal then? If the fonts are so indistinguishable should they even be copyrighted?
6 decade wait? We have been waiting 60 years for a 64-bit version of Flash?
Modular design can really allow for fewer security holes, along with making everything more maintainable for developers. For example, if the people who make the OGG codecs fix security holes an audio editor doesn't have to rewrite their program to use the new codecs. The problem really lies with bits of incompatibility technology, Flash is a great example of it, while Firefox, Chrome and Safari all have good track records on security, the fact that Flash seems to have a many-month lag between a vulnerability being exploited in the wild and a fix, mixed with how about 95% of people are using an outdated version of Flash leads to many preventable security holes of Flash was open-sourced or released fixes more frequently. But on the whole, modular design has eliminated many security holes, especially for smaller programs lead by one or two people because they can just update the libraries and re-plug them in and have the program work with little to no maintenance by the developers of the small app.
Why would you want to detect counterfeit coins/bills anyways? So long as the next person takes them it doesn't really matter. Yes, if we get trillions of counterfeit notes and coins it might start being a problem, but if I can exchange a fake $100 bill for $100 worth in merchandise, it isn't to my advantage to even care if they are real or not. The problem is if you are conned by an obvious fake that the next person won't take, thus leaving you short how much cash you accepted in counterfeit money.