On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, and this way at least they won't have to give $30,000 of their money to Apple.
And on the gripping hand, getting to keep 70% of the retail price while spending nothing on an online store, downloads, credit card processing, etc is pretty amazing compared to previous distribution methods where a developer was lucky to see 10-15%. Apple actually greatly leveled the field for the small developer and provides them far more opportunity than anyone else.
It's so cute you believe that. But awaken from your dreamy state and look at who really publishes games on the App Store. It's the same big publishers so developers are no longer lucky to receive 10-15% of 100% of revenue, they are now lucky to receive 10-15% of 70% of revenue.
Wrong. Prior to digital distribution the small independent developer could not do it themselves. They could not get brick and mortar shelf space so the only option was to publish through an established big publisher. Today with digital distribution the small independent developer is on more equal footing. Indies show up right next to Electronic Arts and Activision on search results.
Not really. All you can say is that I mixed up the nomenclature of "subatomic particles" and "composite particles". My underlying point stands, that protons and quarks are different levels of abstraction, that protons are composed of quarks. If you consider failing to refer to protons as composite particles, despite functionally identifying them as such, as some great ignorance - well than that is an unique interpretation.
The quotation I objected to listed quarks on par with protons, the objection to this also remains standing.
I think the bigger question is, "how would you move this process to a FAB"? I don't think it will happen soon, but it seems to me we would need robotic STMs? Research is continuing... I assume.
Nice generic smaller technology quip, but I think you missed the point of TFA and what the posters you were responding to (hint, they read and understood it). You should actually read it, its more about a change in the understanding of physics than new chips.
I don't think so. The cited and heavily quoted article seems to start with a fundamental misunderstanding of freshman level physics: "the bulk of the universe is made up from just a few dozen elements, and each of these elements is made up of just a few subatomic particles: electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, and so on". Quarks are not subatomic particles, they are the elemental particles that subatomic particles are made from. In other words your proton is made of quarks. That makes phrases like "meddled around with the very fabric of reality" a bit suspicious. Reading the article confirms this suspicion.
If you look at the second citation, the one from real scientists, they are using phrases like "new nanoscale materials with useful electronic properties". So if you only read the fist citation then yes we are on the verge of star fleet manual type science. However if you the second article we are closer to new fabrication technologies.
Yes, very far. You have to manipulate protons, not electrons, to convert an atom from one element into another element. Sorry, humor has to respect science a little bit.:-)
On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, and this way at least they won't have to give $30,000 of their money to Apple.
And on the gripping hand, getting to keep 70% of the retail price while spending nothing on an online store, downloads, credit card processing, etc is pretty amazing compared to previous distribution methods where a developer was lucky to see 10-15%. Apple actually greatly leveled the field for the small developer and provides them far more opportunity than anyone else.
Apparently everything, as it turns out. Atari is nothing but a name, bought and sold like something found at Best Buy, and now brandished by a company with no resemblance or heritage to the company that defined the name.
There seems to be some respect for its heritage. From the summary: "The judges for the contest include Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, who came up with the original idea for Pong."
To be fair, even if never sold companies change over time. Apple run by founder Steve Jobs in 2010 was quite different than Apple in 1980.
Atari is offering up to $100,000 in a contest for a new version of Pong... So, what does a 21st century Pong look like?
You realize that the people with the really good ideas are not going to answer your question given the prize money at stake? You are going to have to wait for the end of the contest to get your answer.
A confusing thing I sometimes see a word in the phone number like 1-800-BEST-BUY. This does not work on a blackberry and is very fiddly on normal phones. I think it was probably easier on old fashioned rotary dial ones. How long ago were they?
Actually the letters work just fine on an iPhone, and I imagine any touch screen based Android phone as well, modern home phones, etc. All these phones have both numbers and letters on the buttons. Its hardly something rotary specific, as a matter of fact it became more popular after buttons replaced rotary.
I think you are focusing on a niche type of phone, those with little chiclet keyboard buttons for dialing. If anything is on its way to obsolescence like rotary phones it is such chiclet keyboards. Touchscreens with big readable buttons are the future.
QR Code containing VCard on the back. Tada, became relevant and useful again.
I prefer to have the QR code on the *front*. Ditch some of the fluffy artwork and put the QR code with vcard info on the front with the traditional text contact info. The resolution of somewhat recent cell phone cameras can handle a 1x1 inch vcard QR code. The 3MP camera in an old iPhone 3GS works just fine with this size. The iPhone 4 has a 5MP and the 4S an 8MP camera. I expect comparable cameras on older and more recent Android devices.
Use the back for other QR codes, for example links to product info or online store purchase pages. I find that a 3/4x3/4 inch QR code can offer a link to the iTunes store that is readable on the old iPhone 3GS. I do so on promotional versions of my business card where I know I will be focusing on a particular product.
Given the wide capabilities of QR codes I'm sure various individuals will find good uses for distinct QR codes on both sides of a card.
Also, the premise of the summary is mistaken. Business cards are not obsolete, they are just used differently. A stack in a shoe box is a waste. However a common modern practice by some is to accept the paper card, scan the QR code at that moment with a phone, and to hand back the paper card while saying thank you. I find doing so is sometimes faster than getting bump to work. Plus you have the extra capability of secondary QR codes.
I apologize if I was not clear but I absolutely agree that the collection of fingerprints is motivated by the arrest and investigation; it is only the retention that is motivated in part by possible future crimes. The DNA legislations seems somewhat milder than the fingerprint case in that collection occurs at conviction, not as a routine part of the arrest.
Like fingerprints, DNA is routinely left behind as a person moves about in general society. Glasses, bottles and cans we drink from; even object that we handle or touch briefly. I did a quick google and found:
"[DNA] Profiles recovered from wallets stolen in a simulated robbery were in the majority mixtures, however the robber was a major component of the mixture or a single source profile in 40% of the profiles." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875176809000742
I get the creepiness factor, DNA is an unimaginably detailed description of a person. However I don't really see any *new* legal issues that have not already been addressed by the courts. I'm sure the collection and retention of fingerprints generated a bunch of lawsuits back in the day. How is the current legislation authorizing the collection and retention of DNA at conviction any different than the old legislation that authorized the collection of fingerprints at the time of arrest and the retention of fingerprints at the time of conviction?
Fingerprints of the convicted, maybe even those of the merely arrested, are retained in order to identify suspects of future crimes. Fingerprints are searched by computer, a search done on all fingerprints on file. Fingerprints don't seem to raise self incrimination issues.
The only new issue that I can think of is that law enforcement databases with DNA information may need to be Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant with respect to securing and restricting access to DNA information. Personally I hope this is a non-issue, that law enforcement databases are already at least as secure as those belonging to those involving health care.
I refuse to believe this is is constitutional. A policing body taking my genetic code and doing god know what with it if I jay walk or look at a cop wrong? Lets see how this silly piece of paper hold up in court.
Criminal convictions are all about reducing your rights, and your anonymity, from that point in time forward. If they can retain info like photos of your face, tattoos, scars and other distinguishing physical features; biological information like height, weight, fingerprints, blood type, medical conditions, etc... then how is retaining info on your DNA something new and unprecedented? I'm a bit fuzzy on what is unconstitutional. Creepy yes, unconstitutional probably not.
DNA testing has been shown to be basically unreliable. Fingerprints are actually *more* reliable. Sounds great, huh.
I think you need a citation from a credible source on that one? Are you perhaps thinking of the fact that there are different types of DNA tests with different levels of specificity? The less accurate tests are used more commonly for a first round of testing, not unlike blood types, to exclude a suspect. When trying to uniquely identify an individual the more accurate, and more expensive, tests are used.
I get your sentiment. I was once just as guilty with respect to making such statements about MBAs. However one of the things that made business school so much fun was to see how ignorant and misinformed I had been. The failures and shortcomings you see amongst executives on the nightly news is not a result of their training, its a result of their personal shortcomings. Like the university educated programmer who writes bug ridden and unmaintainable code, these executives were taught the right way to do things but for whatever reason did things otherwise.
MBAs are add-on degrees, they are an overview of the entire "organization" from formation through growth and into maturity - executive/strategy, marketing, research and development, manufacturing/operations, accounting, human resources/management, legal, finance, entrepreneurship, etc. They are not like other master's degrees where you go deeper into a specific field and perhaps even deeper into a specific topic within that field.
An MBA supplements whatever previous topics you have studied or fields you have worked in. It helps you see how other departments look at things, makes you better equipped to see their perspective and to communicate with them in an effective way. Many MBAs have a technical background. I'd say about 1/3 of my class were card carrying geeks. One common failure of us geeks is a failure to communicate with non-geeks. Geeks with MBAs are quite useful with respect to furthering our opinions and suggestions throughout an organization; and also useful for organizing our own efforts within whatever teams we may work on. With respect to organizing and managing a team too many geeks try to reinvent the wheel so to speak rather than try to leverage the enormous body of knowledge that is out there on management and organization. The short story, psychology and group dynamics are far more important than you may realize.
Google is about search technology and pattern recognition.
No. Google is about targeted advertising. Google search, mail, plus, Android, etc; mechanisms to gather data on you to support targeted advertising and to deliver those ads. You are google's product. Advertisers are google's customers, not you.
If Google cracks driverless cars, it will...
... it will be so that Google can deliver the most appropriate targeted ad to the billboard you and other drivers are passing at a moment in time.
Out of curiosity, did the Mac sales bring in enough revenue to be worth all the costs of doing the porting?
I never saw financials but the publisher continued to support the Mac throughout the PPC era. Now in the x86 era its a little bit easier to do the port and the Mac market is many times larger. I think doing a Mac version of a game today is much less risky.
Apple doesn't play too lose with marketing statistics? You simply are forgetting the late PowerPC times where a water-cooled Apple system was slower than an air cooled Intel PC.
That is a bogus point. Those water cooled G5s were the standard shipping system. Its entire fair to compare a stock Mac against a stock PC.
The real "engineering" of the PPC vs x86 comparison was through the benchmarking utility. IIRC Apple used a very old version of ByteMarks that was compiled/optimized for the 486 even though they were running on a Pentium at the time. When ByteMarks was recompiled to optimize for the Pentium the PPC advantage faded.
Having back-in-the-day written a fair bit of code that ran on both PPC and Intel x86, including a bit of assembly for both, I'd agree that Apple's comparisons were more a work of marketing than engineering but PPC legitimately had its moments. Apple used phrases like "up to twice as fast" and there were certainly cases where this was true, however these tended to be very specialized situations where the underlying algorithm played to the natural strengths of the PPC architecture. Such case do not represent the more general code and common algorithms. In general my recollection of those days is that PPC had about a 25% performance advantage over x86. However this advantage was nullified by Intel's ability to reach much higher clock rates.
Overall, as a Mac game developer, it took a bit of effort to get Mac ports on a par with their PC counterparts. One caveat here, emphasize "port" - that the games tended to have been written with only x86 in mind. Contrary to popular belief it is entirely possibly to write code in high level languages that favor one architecture over the other, CISC or RISC, etc. So the x86 side may have had an advantage in that the code was naturally written to favor that architecture. However a counterpoint would be that we did profile extensively and re-write perfectly working original code where we thought we could leverage the PPC architecture. This included dropping down to assembly when compilers could not leverage the architecture properly. Still, this only achieved parity.
Again, note this was back-in-the-day, games that were not using a GPU. So it was more of a CPU v CPU comparison.
Tablets are more of a complementary product with respect to the PC, not so much a competitor. You will most likely have both a PC (desktop or laptop) and a tablet. Now netbooks, they are in competition with tablets. For people with basic needs, including lightweight word processing and spreadsheet, the tablet will probably win most of the time. Adding a bluetooth keyboard makes the tablet pretty capable for such usage.
"A more practical short term solution may be to use the debit card number for your checking account." That's a fantastically terrible idea. There's a lot of fewer protections if you debit card info gets swiped than for credit cards. You might as well use a prepaid cash card so that the only money you lose is whatever was on the card, and that's assuming you aren't able to revoke it.
I use my checking account debit card like a prepaid cash card. My paycheck goes elsewhere and I transfer to checking/debit as needed.
Once I started using the debit card rather than cash at gas stations, fast food, coffee shops, lunch-time restaurants, convenience stores, etc I stopped dumping the entire paycheck in there. Apologies for not pointing this out earlier. I thought this was a somewhat common idea these days. I think these smaller and less technically sophisticated vendors are a security issue on the same level as an "iWallet" on a phone. I'm not sure iWallet substantially adds to the risk of the debit card, assuming of course you have a PIN on the phone's UI.
OK, there is an issue that has to be overcome, I'll get to that in a moment.
Rather than load a real credit card number into an "iWallet" use a temporary generated by your bank's online banking service. These temporaries, alias for the real card number, often have a user defined limit and expiration date so you can limit the risk as you deem appropriate.
The issue to overcome: these temporary numbers were designed to be used for online purchases. They tend to lock to the first vendor to use the number. Obviously this locking to the first vendor would have to become a user defined option at number generation time.
A more practical short term solution may be to use the debit card number for your checking account. Just be sure to only use iWallet for things you would normally pay for in cash and not for things you want the buyer protection, warranty and dispute options you would normally get with a credit card.
Power generator to drive chain, an electric car converts 69% of the energy to motion.
Hydrogen: just over 30%, the last time I looked.
Apologies for not being clear. I was comparing Hydrogen to Gasoline, only minor modifications to the internal combustion engine are needed and there is a 20%'ish improvement in power output.
Reusing internal combustion technology is irrelevant in this bigger picture.
You phrased that incorrectly. All electric is the long term. But there may be decades before such solutions are practical. In the short term the internal combustion engine using hydrogen, natural gas, etc is a practical solution to get us through the decades of R&D that are ahead of us.
Betting it all on electric essentially forces us to continue to be dependent upon foreign oil for the foreseeable future. We are already past peak oil production. We need something that can be available in years, not decades, and that uses proven technology, not something waiting for technological breakthroughs. Those breakthroughs will eventually occur but they will probably not occur on the timetable that we need.
... after all this decades enemy has sustained life for thousands of years in an environment most of our citizens would die in, in a matter of hours... they do have some tricks "up their sleeve"
Yes, but its not being smarter. I'd say the smarter people relocated to more pleasant and more bountiful areas.
Being less open to change, or perhaps fearful of change, seems a better characterization.
No, which is why I'd go for the stop-and-swap model. With standardization and large scale adoption, you should be able to get to a point where you drive in, engage the mechanism, and drive out again with a new battery, in around the same timeframe it takes to pump a tankfull now.
The Chevy Volt has a battery pack weighing over 400 pounds and it is a hybrid, not an all electric. The 400+ lb battery pack gets you 50 miles.
The all electric Nissan Leaf has a batter pack weighing over 600 pounds and it gets you 73 miles.
This is not self serve, this is get in line for the fork lift stuff.
I don't think it is quite that simple. Hydrogen moves the pollution from many mobile sources, cars, to a very small number of non-mobile sources, power generation stations.
You know what also does that? Electric cars. And without the extra, extremely inefficient electrolysis step.
Again, it is not that simple. You forgot about the batteries. Import lithium from distant lands, manufacture batteries, use batteries, recycle/dispose of batteries in the proper manner, by expensive new batteries,...
Now ad downtime for charging.
All electric is not a panacea. It has its own set of issues and requires some technical advances.
Hydrogen has an advantage in that it reuses existing internal combustion technology. Minor modifications plus greater power output. Its issues are more infrastructure related. Of course all electric will need new infrastructure as well, chargers in parking lots, etc
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On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, and this way at least they won't have to give $30,000 of their money to Apple.
And on the gripping hand, getting to keep 70% of the retail price while spending nothing on an online store, downloads, credit card processing, etc is pretty amazing compared to previous distribution methods where a developer was lucky to see 10-15%. Apple actually greatly leveled the field for the small developer and provides them far more opportunity than anyone else.
It's so cute you believe that. But awaken from your dreamy state and look at who really publishes games on the App Store. It's the same big publishers so developers are no longer lucky to receive 10-15% of 100% of revenue, they are now lucky to receive 10-15% of 70% of revenue.
Wrong. Prior to digital distribution the small independent developer could not do it themselves. They could not get brick and mortar shelf space so the only option was to publish through an established big publisher. Today with digital distribution the small independent developer is on more equal footing. Indies show up right next to Electronic Arts and Activision on search results.
You tried and succeeded in outsmarting yourself into perpetuating your ignorance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subatomic_particles Congratulations.
Not really. All you can say is that I mixed up the nomenclature of "subatomic particles" and "composite particles". My underlying point stands, that protons and quarks are different levels of abstraction, that protons are composed of quarks. If you consider failing to refer to protons as composite particles, despite functionally identifying them as such, as some great ignorance - well than that is an unique interpretation.
The quotation I objected to listed quarks on par with protons, the objection to this also remains standing.
I think the bigger question is, "how would you move this process to a FAB"? I don't think it will happen soon, but it seems to me we would need robotic STMs? Research is continuing... I assume.
Nice generic smaller technology quip, but I think you missed the point of TFA and what the posters you were responding to (hint, they read and understood it). You should actually read it, its more about a change in the understanding of physics than new chips.
I don't think so. The cited and heavily quoted article seems to start with a fundamental misunderstanding of freshman level physics: "the bulk of the universe is made up from just a few dozen elements, and each of these elements is made up of just a few subatomic particles: electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, and so on". Quarks are not subatomic particles, they are the elemental particles that subatomic particles are made from. In other words your proton is made of quarks. That makes phrases like "meddled around with the very fabric of reality" a bit suspicious. Reading the article confirms this suspicion.
If you look at the second citation, the one from real scientists, they are using phrases like "new nanoscale materials with useful electronic properties". So if you only read the fist citation then yes we are on the verge of star fleet manual type science. However if you the second article we are closer to new fabrication technologies.
Aww man! Now can Gold from Lead be far behind?
Yes, very far. You have to manipulate protons, not electrons, to convert an atom from one element into another element. Sorry, humor has to respect science a little bit. :-)
On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, and this way at least they won't have to give $30,000 of their money to Apple.
And on the gripping hand, getting to keep 70% of the retail price while spending nothing on an online store, downloads, credit card processing, etc is pretty amazing compared to previous distribution methods where a developer was lucky to see 10-15%. Apple actually greatly leveled the field for the small developer and provides them far more opportunity than anyone else.
Apparently everything, as it turns out. Atari is nothing but a name, bought and sold like something found at Best Buy, and now brandished by a company with no resemblance or heritage to the company that defined the name.
There seems to be some respect for its heritage. From the summary: "The judges for the contest include Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, who came up with the original idea for Pong."
To be fair, even if never sold companies change over time. Apple run by founder Steve Jobs in 2010 was quite different than Apple in 1980.
Atari is offering up to $100,000 in a contest for a new version of Pong ... So, what does a 21st century Pong look like?
You realize that the people with the really good ideas are not going to answer your question given the prize money at stake? You are going to have to wait for the end of the contest to get your answer.
A confusing thing I sometimes see a word in the phone number like 1-800-BEST-BUY. This does not work on a blackberry and is very fiddly on normal phones. I think it was probably easier on old fashioned rotary dial ones. How long ago were they?
Actually the letters work just fine on an iPhone, and I imagine any touch screen based Android phone as well, modern home phones, etc. All these phones have both numbers and letters on the buttons. Its hardly something rotary specific, as a matter of fact it became more popular after buttons replaced rotary.
I think you are focusing on a niche type of phone, those with little chiclet keyboard buttons for dialing. If anything is on its way to obsolescence like rotary phones it is such chiclet keyboards. Touchscreens with big readable buttons are the future.
QR Code containing VCard on the back. Tada, became relevant and useful again.
I prefer to have the QR code on the *front*. Ditch some of the fluffy artwork and put the QR code with vcard info on the front with the traditional text contact info. The resolution of somewhat recent cell phone cameras can handle a 1x1 inch vcard QR code. The 3MP camera in an old iPhone 3GS works just fine with this size. The iPhone 4 has a 5MP and the 4S an 8MP camera. I expect comparable cameras on older and more recent Android devices.
Use the back for other QR codes, for example links to product info or online store purchase pages. I find that a 3/4x3/4 inch QR code can offer a link to the iTunes store that is readable on the old iPhone 3GS. I do so on promotional versions of my business card where I know I will be focusing on a particular product.
Given the wide capabilities of QR codes I'm sure various individuals will find good uses for distinct QR codes on both sides of a card.
Also, the premise of the summary is mistaken. Business cards are not obsolete, they are just used differently. A stack in a shoe box is a waste. However a common modern practice by some is to accept the paper card, scan the QR code at that moment with a phone, and to hand back the paper card while saying thank you. I find doing so is sometimes faster than getting bump to work. Plus you have the extra capability of secondary QR codes.
I apologize if I was not clear but I absolutely agree that the collection of fingerprints is motivated by the arrest and investigation; it is only the retention that is motivated in part by possible future crimes. The DNA legislations seems somewhat milder than the fingerprint case in that collection occurs at conviction, not as a routine part of the arrest.
Like fingerprints, DNA is routinely left behind as a person moves about in general society. Glasses, bottles and cans we drink from; even object that we handle or touch briefly. I did a quick google and found:
"[DNA] Profiles recovered from wallets stolen in a simulated robbery were in the majority mixtures, however the robber was a major component of the mixture or a single source profile in 40% of the profiles."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875176809000742
I get the creepiness factor, DNA is an unimaginably detailed description of a person. However I don't really see any *new* legal issues that have not already been addressed by the courts. I'm sure the collection and retention of fingerprints generated a bunch of lawsuits back in the day. How is the current legislation authorizing the collection and retention of DNA at conviction any different than the old legislation that authorized the collection of fingerprints at the time of arrest and the retention of fingerprints at the time of conviction?
Fingerprints of the convicted, maybe even those of the merely arrested, are retained in order to identify suspects of future crimes. Fingerprints are searched by computer, a search done on all fingerprints on file. Fingerprints don't seem to raise self incrimination issues.
The only new issue that I can think of is that law enforcement databases with DNA information may need to be Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant with respect to securing and restricting access to DNA information. Personally I hope this is a non-issue, that law enforcement databases are already at least as secure as those belonging to those involving health care.
I refuse to believe this is is constitutional. A policing body taking my genetic code and doing god know what with it if I jay walk or look at a cop wrong? Lets see how this silly piece of paper hold up in court.
Criminal convictions are all about reducing your rights, and your anonymity, from that point in time forward. If they can retain info like photos of your face, tattoos, scars and other distinguishing physical features; biological information like height, weight, fingerprints, blood type, medical conditions, etc ... then how is retaining info on your DNA something new and unprecedented? I'm a bit fuzzy on what is unconstitutional. Creepy yes, unconstitutional probably not.
DNA testing has been shown to be basically unreliable. Fingerprints are actually *more* reliable. Sounds great, huh.
I think you need a citation from a credible source on that one? Are you perhaps thinking of the fact that there are different types of DNA tests with different levels of specificity? The less accurate tests are used more commonly for a first round of testing, not unlike blood types, to exclude a suspect. When trying to uniquely identify an individual the more accurate, and more expensive, tests are used.
I get your sentiment. I was once just as guilty with respect to making such statements about MBAs. However one of the things that made business school so much fun was to see how ignorant and misinformed I had been. The failures and shortcomings you see amongst executives on the nightly news is not a result of their training, its a result of their personal shortcomings. Like the university educated programmer who writes bug ridden and unmaintainable code, these executives were taught the right way to do things but for whatever reason did things otherwise.
MBAs are add-on degrees, they are an overview of the entire "organization" from formation through growth and into maturity - executive/strategy, marketing, research and development, manufacturing/operations, accounting, human resources/management, legal, finance, entrepreneurship, etc. They are not like other master's degrees where you go deeper into a specific field and perhaps even deeper into a specific topic within that field.
An MBA supplements whatever previous topics you have studied or fields you have worked in. It helps you see how other departments look at things, makes you better equipped to see their perspective and to communicate with them in an effective way. Many MBAs have a technical background. I'd say about 1/3 of my class were card carrying geeks. One common failure of us geeks is a failure to communicate with non-geeks. Geeks with MBAs are quite useful with respect to furthering our opinions and suggestions throughout an organization; and also useful for organizing our own efforts within whatever teams we may work on. With respect to organizing and managing a team too many geeks try to reinvent the wheel so to speak rather than try to leverage the enormous body of knowledge that is out there on management and organization. The short story, psychology and group dynamics are far more important than you may realize.
Google is about search technology and pattern recognition.
No. Google is about targeted advertising. Google search, mail, plus, Android, etc; mechanisms to gather data on you to support targeted advertising and to deliver those ads. You are google's product. Advertisers are google's customers, not you.
If Google cracks driverless cars, it will ...
... it will be so that Google can deliver the most appropriate targeted ad to the billboard you and other drivers are passing at a moment in time.
Out of curiosity, did the Mac sales bring in enough revenue to be worth all the costs of doing the porting?
I never saw financials but the publisher continued to support the Mac throughout the PPC era. Now in the x86 era its a little bit easier to do the port and the Mac market is many times larger. I think doing a Mac version of a game today is much less risky.
Apple doesn't play too lose with marketing statistics? You simply are forgetting the late PowerPC times where a water-cooled Apple system was slower than an air cooled Intel PC.
That is a bogus point. Those water cooled G5s were the standard shipping system. Its entire fair to compare a stock Mac against a stock PC.
The real "engineering" of the PPC vs x86 comparison was through the benchmarking utility. IIRC Apple used a very old version of ByteMarks that was compiled/optimized for the 486 even though they were running on a Pentium at the time. When ByteMarks was recompiled to optimize for the Pentium the PPC advantage faded.
Having back-in-the-day written a fair bit of code that ran on both PPC and Intel x86, including a bit of assembly for both, I'd agree that Apple's comparisons were more a work of marketing than engineering but PPC legitimately had its moments. Apple used phrases like "up to twice as fast" and there were certainly cases where this was true, however these tended to be very specialized situations where the underlying algorithm played to the natural strengths of the PPC architecture. Such case do not represent the more general code and common algorithms. In general my recollection of those days is that PPC had about a 25% performance advantage over x86. However this advantage was nullified by Intel's ability to reach much higher clock rates.
Overall, as a Mac game developer, it took a bit of effort to get Mac ports on a par with their PC counterparts. One caveat here, emphasize "port" - that the games tended to have been written with only x86 in mind. Contrary to popular belief it is entirely possibly to write code in high level languages that favor one architecture over the other, CISC or RISC, etc. So the x86 side may have had an advantage in that the code was naturally written to favor that architecture. However a counterpoint would be that we did profile extensively and re-write perfectly working original code where we thought we could leverage the PPC architecture. This included dropping down to assembly when compilers could not leverage the architecture properly. Still, this only achieved parity.
Again, note this was back-in-the-day, games that were not using a GPU. So it was more of a CPU v CPU comparison.
Tablets are more of a complementary product with respect to the PC, not so much a competitor. You will most likely have both a PC (desktop or laptop) and a tablet. Now netbooks, they are in competition with tablets. For people with basic needs, including lightweight word processing and spreadsheet, the tablet will probably win most of the time. Adding a bluetooth keyboard makes the tablet pretty capable for such usage.
"A more practical short term solution may be to use the debit card number for your checking account." That's a fantastically terrible idea. There's a lot of fewer protections if you debit card info gets swiped than for credit cards. You might as well use a prepaid cash card so that the only money you lose is whatever was on the card, and that's assuming you aren't able to revoke it.
I use my checking account debit card like a prepaid cash card. My paycheck goes elsewhere and I transfer to checking/debit as needed.
Once I started using the debit card rather than cash at gas stations, fast food, coffee shops, lunch-time restaurants, convenience stores, etc I stopped dumping the entire paycheck in there. Apologies for not pointing this out earlier. I thought this was a somewhat common idea these days. I think these smaller and less technically sophisticated vendors are a security issue on the same level as an "iWallet" on a phone. I'm not sure iWallet substantially adds to the risk of the debit card, assuming of course you have a PIN on the phone's UI.
OK, there is an issue that has to be overcome, I'll get to that in a moment.
Rather than load a real credit card number into an "iWallet" use a temporary generated by your bank's online banking service. These temporaries, alias for the real card number, often have a user defined limit and expiration date so you can limit the risk as you deem appropriate.
The issue to overcome: these temporary numbers were designed to be used for online purchases. They tend to lock to the first vendor to use the number. Obviously this locking to the first vendor would have to become a user defined option at number generation time.
A more practical short term solution may be to use the debit card number for your checking account. Just be sure to only use iWallet for things you would normally pay for in cash and not for things you want the buyer protection, warranty and dispute options you would normally get with a credit card.
Power generator to drive chain, an electric car converts 69% of the energy to motion. Hydrogen: just over 30%, the last time I looked.
Apologies for not being clear. I was comparing Hydrogen to Gasoline, only minor modifications to the internal combustion engine are needed and there is a 20%'ish improvement in power output.
Reusing internal combustion technology is irrelevant in this bigger picture.
You phrased that incorrectly. All electric is the long term. But there may be decades before such solutions are practical. In the short term the internal combustion engine using hydrogen, natural gas, etc is a practical solution to get us through the decades of R&D that are ahead of us.
Betting it all on electric essentially forces us to continue to be dependent upon foreign oil for the foreseeable future. We are already past peak oil production. We need something that can be available in years, not decades, and that uses proven technology, not something waiting for technological breakthroughs. Those breakthroughs will eventually occur but they will probably not occur on the timetable that we need.
... after all this decades enemy has sustained life for thousands of years in an environment most of our citizens would die in, in a matter of hours... they do have some tricks "up their sleeve"
Yes, but its not being smarter. I'd say the smarter people relocated to more pleasant and more bountiful areas.
Being less open to change, or perhaps fearful of change, seems a better characterization.
No, which is why I'd go for the stop-and-swap model. With standardization and large scale adoption, you should be able to get to a point where you drive in, engage the mechanism, and drive out again with a new battery, in around the same timeframe it takes to pump a tankfull now.
The Chevy Volt has a battery pack weighing over 400 pounds and it is a hybrid, not an all electric. The 400+ lb battery pack gets you 50 miles.
The all electric Nissan Leaf has a batter pack weighing over 600 pounds and it gets you 73 miles.
This is not self serve, this is get in line for the fork lift stuff.
I don't think it is quite that simple. Hydrogen moves the pollution from many mobile sources, cars, to a very small number of non-mobile sources, power generation stations.
You know what also does that? Electric cars. And without the extra, extremely inefficient electrolysis step.
Again, it is not that simple. You forgot about the batteries. Import lithium from distant lands, manufacture batteries, use batteries, recycle/dispose of batteries in the proper manner, by expensive new batteries, ...
Now ad downtime for charging.
All electric is not a panacea. It has its own set of issues and requires some technical advances.
Hydrogen has an advantage in that it reuses existing internal combustion technology. Minor modifications plus greater power output. Its issues are more infrastructure related. Of course all electric will need new infrastructure as well, chargers in parking lots, etc