Why should the phone be more expensive? They couldn't keep it at the same price point and not make such a high percentage of profit?
My first thought is that most teardowns put the cost of materials somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the phone. Lets assume 1/6 of the cost is R&D - it really doesn't take that much development to use the same shape, same processor, up the RAM, remove and replace some hardware. That's still half profit on *every* phone. Greedy bastards.
Or Comcast/NBC/Universal. Or Cox/Time Warner. Or Microsoft/Motorola. Or any other of the number of buyouts that happened to make an already wealthy company wealthier and expand their grip on the American Consumers dollar.
The whole point of our economy is to make money and promote competition. Right now there's so much focus on the former that the latter is all but gone - any new great idea is quickly bought before it can compete. We need that government intervention to make it easier for the little guy to step up to the big guys.
A 128 GB machine will be ideal for a developer who has it for his/her daily driver, and who has to show that their code works on some test VM bases via Vagrant. This gets rid of the "it works on my machine, but not in production" type of bugs.
Even if the RAM is not needed, it works as a cache, making I/O faster.
I might agree to pay them per GB at a fair rate if they can agree to give me the broadband speed I paid for. When I pay for X Mb/s, I expect X Mb/s more often than not, instead most days with Comcast you can expect half or less.
Not sure much has changed - most people are passive consumers of low-effort content.
That explains "Reality TV" and twitch streaming. Sure the players put in effort to win, but it's not a lot of effort to point a camera at themselves while they do it.
Safety is. Cars aren't....The car industry is FIGHTING the government's capriciousness.
Cars are subject to a lot of regulations - Emissions standards, Mileage requirements, safety, dimensions (there are maximum widths and lengths), Lights (brightness, signals, colors, etc...). The current fight is the mileage requirements, but industry will always fight change.
Do you honestly think government regulations are why a 60" 4K TV is $500 now? Really?
Nope, that's a result of mass production and decreasing materials cost. Television broadcast is regulated for things like language/content, as well as the frequencies that those signals are broadcast. The gov doesn't really do a hell of a lot here that I'm aware of.
When hooked up to government supplies. Sure there are some safety standards for wells & septic tanks, but not like what you're suggesting. Government run utilities should have government regulation. But if that is so great, why can't people in CA shower and wash clothes at the same time? Or citizens drink tap water in Detroit? Or Puerto Rico have power? I'll not point out the common political party that has been in power for decades.
No, not when attached to Government supplies. Utility prices are managed by local governments, which is why city counsels are involved whenever there is a rate change. There are municipal approvals and zoning requirements for pipe laying, connectivity and access. The quality of the water supply isn't a directly partisan issue - it's likely due to a failure of oversight or established regulations.
Wait a sec... You mean people could actually have to pay for what they use? Whaaaa? Why that's crazy talk.
This isn't about Comcast's idea of paying per-byte - though they would love to see that. Currently ISP's charge for an up-to download rate with some combining that with a "bytes per month". This has NOTHING to do with Net Neutrality.
What people want is competition. Net neutrality isn't competition.
Net neutrality IS about competition for content over-the-wire. It is anti-competitive when a consumer is bound to only that ISP's media offerings and must pay extra just to see a competitors content. Without net neutrality, Comcast can throttle or block EVERYTHING.
The closest analogue I can think of is Apples refusal to use standard connectors and charging extra for assorted adapters - if Apple was able to remotely limit the speed and control your use of said adapters and could charge extra with each use.
Can you name one industry where the government has not needed to intervene to ensure companies act in the best interest of the public?
I sure as hell can't. Cars keep getting more power, faster, new materials, new bells and whistles - and they are kept accountable by a Gov agency. Televisions got more popular to the point where each home often has more than one, all content via radio/satellite/cable is regulated by the Gov. Electricity? Gov regulated (though often local monopolies). Gas/Water? Also Gov regulated. What happens when a Corporation isn't held accountable? You get another Ma Bell, exactly what we are seeing with Comcast, Google, Time Warner, and others.
I don't believe for a second that ANY corporation won't screw people over given the opportunity. Without net neutrality we *could* end up paying for "Social Media" internet packages to speed up access to FaceBook, or "Streaming" packages to get faster access to Netflix or Hulu. I'd rather pay my ISP for a one-size-fits-all x mbps, NOT a-la-carte based on my browsing habits.
I think it's both competition and image protection. We're talking about something as subjective as audio quality after all.
Just like Apple doesn't want their image tarnished by having their logo stamped on some half-baked $50 phones, Dolby doesn't want their logo stamped on a cheap DVD player or Receiver that is incapable of producing audio to their quality. When it comes to sound (or video) presentation, you're really only as good as your weakest link. Dolby's only real way to control their image is to make sure the weakest link is under their control.
It is a crappy business move to shove out competitors in a "Dolby-certified" setup. But there are other sound standards out there, like Audyssey (which Onkyo, Denon and a few other receivers support), a quick google search shows Dolby considers some others too. Dolby just wants their own sandbox - the are hanging on that name. The market will handle the rest.
Writing anything beyond a 20 character script to update a Raspberry Pi from my phone is an exercise in frustration. I refuse to write even Hello World on my phone. I have a Desktop or Laptop for that.
I estimate: Another 2-3 days before some other inane Apple news 1 for Microsoft 4 for Tesla Tomorrow will have another Trump tale, within another few months there will be another Kardashian in the White House. Likely with a reality show, "Keeping up with Celebrity Apprentice, YOU'RE FIRED Edition"
it's gonna be another 2 weeks before another mass shooting (at current 2018 rate)
The problem is Congress won't regain sanity. They are the ones that get lobbied to make the laws then retire into C-level positions at those same companies. Unless by some miracle we start voting in people that actually listen to the public, expect no change.
It's Microsoft's way of keeping the income rolling. The days of getting a new computer with another $90 Windows license every 2-3 years are gone. Clock speeds just haven't changed much and the market is pretty saturated, there's no incentive to upgrade a computer as often.
Now whether people will jump on this versus, say , $50 for an OS version upgrade every couple years with routine free updates (e.g. Apple), we'll just have to see.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should the phone be more expensive? They couldn't keep it at the same price point and not make such a high percentage of profit?
My first thought is that most teardowns put the cost of materials somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the phone. Lets assume 1/6 of the cost is R&D - it really doesn't take that much development to use the same shape, same processor, up the RAM, remove and replace some hardware. That's still half profit on *every* phone. Greedy bastards.
Or Comcast/NBC/Universal. Or Cox/Time Warner. Or Microsoft/Motorola. Or any other of the number of buyouts that happened to make an already wealthy company wealthier and expand their grip on the American Consumers dollar.
The whole point of our economy is to make money and promote competition. Right now there's so much focus on the former that the latter is all but gone - any new great idea is quickly bought before it can compete. We need that government intervention to make it easier for the little guy to step up to the big guys.
You're thinking a different kind of "throttled"
Lots:
Vagrant.
Virtualbox.
Developer tools.
Photo/video editing.
Sound editing.
A 128 GB machine will be ideal for a developer who has it for his/her daily driver, and who has to show that their code works on some test VM bases via Vagrant. This gets rid of the "it works on my machine, but not in production" type of bugs.
Even if the RAM is not needed, it works as a cache, making I/O faster.
You forgot Crysis and Firefox.
I might agree to pay them per GB at a fair rate if they can agree to give me the broadband speed I paid for. When I pay for X Mb/s, I expect X Mb/s more often than not, instead most days with Comcast you can expect half or less.
Maybe changing the icon set in the KDE settings window is just too hard?
Not sure much has changed - most people are passive consumers of low-effort content.
That explains "Reality TV" and twitch streaming. Sure the players put in effort to win, but it's not a lot of effort to point a camera at themselves while they do it.
Mac OS is based on one of the BSD's... it should just be POSIX-compliant. That's WHY we have standards.
Safety is. Cars aren't. ...The car industry is FIGHTING the government's capriciousness.
Cars are subject to a lot of regulations - Emissions standards, Mileage requirements, safety, dimensions (there are maximum widths and lengths), Lights (brightness, signals, colors, etc...). The current fight is the mileage requirements, but industry will always fight change.
Do you honestly think government regulations are why a 60" 4K TV is $500 now? Really?
Nope, that's a result of mass production and decreasing materials cost. Television broadcast is regulated for things like language/content, as well as the frequencies that those signals are broadcast. The gov doesn't really do a hell of a lot here that I'm aware of.
When hooked up to government supplies. Sure there are some safety standards for wells & septic tanks, but not like what you're suggesting. Government run utilities should have government regulation. But if that is so great, why can't people in CA shower and wash clothes at the same time? Or citizens drink tap water in Detroit? Or Puerto Rico have power? I'll not point out the common political party that has been in power for decades.
No, not when attached to Government supplies. Utility prices are managed by local governments, which is why city counsels are involved whenever there is a rate change. There are municipal approvals and zoning requirements for pipe laying, connectivity and access. The quality of the water supply isn't a directly partisan issue - it's likely due to a failure of oversight or established regulations.
Wait a sec... You mean people could actually have to pay for what they use? Whaaaa? Why that's crazy talk.
This isn't about Comcast's idea of paying per-byte - though they would love to see that. Currently ISP's charge for an up-to download rate with some combining that with a "bytes per month". This has NOTHING to do with Net Neutrality.
What people want is competition. Net neutrality isn't competition.
Net neutrality IS about competition for content over-the-wire. It is anti-competitive when a consumer is bound to only that ISP's media offerings and must pay extra just to see a competitors content. Without net neutrality, Comcast can throttle or block EVERYTHING.
The closest analogue I can think of is Apples refusal to use standard connectors and charging extra for assorted adapters - if Apple was able to remotely limit the speed and control your use of said adapters and could charge extra with each use.
Can you name one industry where the government has not needed to intervene to ensure companies act in the best interest of the public?
I sure as hell can't. Cars keep getting more power, faster, new materials, new bells and whistles - and they are kept accountable by a Gov agency. Televisions got more popular to the point where each home often has more than one, all content via radio/satellite/cable is regulated by the Gov. Electricity? Gov regulated (though often local monopolies). Gas/Water? Also Gov regulated. What happens when a Corporation isn't held accountable? You get another Ma Bell, exactly what we are seeing with Comcast, Google, Time Warner, and others.
I don't believe for a second that ANY corporation won't screw people over given the opportunity. Without net neutrality we *could* end up paying for "Social Media" internet packages to speed up access to FaceBook, or "Streaming" packages to get faster access to Netflix or Hulu. I'd rather pay my ISP for a one-size-fits-all x mbps, NOT a-la-carte based on my browsing habits.
I play counter strike and BF4(non-steam) with my 15yo. niece and I've seen his game library,
I'm more curious about how his niece is a dude. Not judging, just having met many people that identify as both.
privacy laws*
Running a personal data-mining business in a region of the world with strict policy laws? What could possibly go wrong?
This cloud brought to you by Coca-Cola.
As long as I can put the display through a filter, like HQ/2X, we'll be fine.
If there's an NES filter, even better. Then landing the plane wouldn't be any harder than Top Gun
Extended - Cross-platform Terabyte-enabled Filesystem, version 4.
Or Ext4-FS, for short.
On one hand "LETS SUE THE PANTS OFF OF GOOGLE BECAUSE JAVA!", and on the other they're pushing Java into the hands of the community.
I wanna develop something used by billions of devices, not care about it, and sue anybody that tries to copy the idea I don't give a rats ass about.
The ones that used Apple Maps ended up lost and/or dead.
I think it's both competition and image protection. We're talking about something as subjective as audio quality after all.
Just like Apple doesn't want their image tarnished by having their logo stamped on some half-baked $50 phones, Dolby doesn't want their logo stamped on a cheap DVD player or Receiver that is incapable of producing audio to their quality. When it comes to sound (or video) presentation, you're really only as good as your weakest link. Dolby's only real way to control their image is to make sure the weakest link is under their control.
It is a crappy business move to shove out competitors in a "Dolby-certified" setup. But there are other sound standards out there, like Audyssey (which Onkyo, Denon and a few other receivers support), a quick google search shows Dolby considers some others too. Dolby just wants their own sandbox - the are hanging on that name. The market will handle the rest.
Writing anything beyond a 20 character script to update a Raspberry Pi from my phone is an exercise in frustration. I refuse to write even Hello World on my phone. I have a Desktop or Laptop for that.
Holy crap! They're gonna predict the future!
I estimate:
Another 2-3 days before some other inane Apple news
1 for Microsoft
4 for Tesla
Tomorrow will have another Trump tale, within another few months there will be another Kardashian in the White House. Likely with a reality show, "Keeping up with Celebrity Apprentice, YOU'RE FIRED Edition"
it's gonna be another 2 weeks before another mass shooting (at current 2018 rate)
Someone is gonna get Snes9X running on there, and use car controls to run Mario Kart. Autopilot, go!
The problem is Congress won't regain sanity. They are the ones that get lobbied to make the laws then retire into C-level positions at those same companies. Unless by some miracle we start voting in people that actually listen to the public, expect no change.
I don't understand barnyard references. Can you use a car analogy?
It's Microsoft's way of keeping the income rolling. The days of getting a new computer with another $90 Windows license every 2-3 years are gone. Clock speeds just haven't changed much and the market is pretty saturated, there's no incentive to upgrade a computer as often.
Now whether people will jump on this versus, say , $50 for an OS version upgrade every couple years with routine free updates (e.g. Apple), we'll just have to see.