How about you first find a better process for making monochrome e-ink displays so the devices that use them aren't ridiculously priced?
Why? Mono is probably a dead end technology. It may be better to get to color as quickly as possible and then concentrate on process improvements. A color Kindle would be a much better commercial product. It is difficult to imagine textbooks moving to electronic media without color. Regarding the possibility of reduced eye strain with mono, perhaps a reader app on a color device could choose to only show black and white for pure text content.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading.
E Ink certainly has less to fear from Apple since E Ink could sell their screens to Apple just like they sell to Amazon, Sony, etc. If the eye strain issue becomes a concern Apple could simply offer an iPad version, or a new product derived from iPad that is more focused as an eReader and not a gaming/multimedia platform, with an E Ink screen. I think it is premature to say that Amazon and Sony has nothing to fear.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
These guys have taken a large risk, and to make that risk worth it, they want to earn many times that when they have the IPO.
Like it or not, venture capitalists fund innovation. They are not selling manufactured financial instruments that add no value (a generous description of recent history), they are paying the payroll and paying for the equipment at new companies with new ideas. They may expect a 10x or greater return but they know that historically nine out of ten of the ventures they finance will fail. In short, one experiment has to return 10x to pay for itself and the nine failed experiments.
As an engineer my emotions say it is wrong that the VCs get so much of the payoff compared to engineers and other workers but when I force myself to think rationally I realize that my paycheck was secure during years of development and that paycheck came from the VCs' pockets. Same for all the cool equipment I got to geek out over. I took no risk. This was true for the companies that I worked for that were part of the 1/10th that succeeded and the 9/10ths that did not. When I think about it rationally there is some fairness to the system. Is it the ultimate system, probably not, but I can't think of another realistic system(*) that will be somewhat efficient and tolerant of risk. The current system is after all the "winner" of a darwinian process going back millennia.
(*) OK being a parasite and basing your company on industrial espionage is probably far more efficient than anything else but parasites have to be quite benign (small in this case?) or far less common than hosts.
I know that Obama is more tech-savvy than any President prior...
Why would you think that? Do you consider every lawyer or politician in love with their blackberry to be tech savvy? Every politician on twitter to be tech savvy? Obama is extremely intelligent but his training and experience is as a lawyer. We have had past presidents who were honest-to-god engineers. Carter was one of the first naval officers trained to operate nuclear power plants. Hoover was a mining engineer that developed various processes to improve yields. He wrote a popular university textbook for engineering and translated a classic medieval mining text. He was also an advocate and user of the new tech of his day, radio and aviation. I'm sure there were other presidents who were pretty tech savvy in their day but this is all I can think of offhand.
I wonder if it had any kind of watchdog controlled system to inflate a flotation device or anything? (If it did, it apparently didn't work) You'd think it would be a sensible feature to have on such an expensive and unique piece of equipment.
A heavy device needs a lot of lift and that translates into a large physical volume of gas at depth. Keep in mind that every 33 feet of depth is one additional atmosphere of pressure. 66 feet down you need three times as much gas to inflate a lift bag as you would on the surface. At great depths it may be impractical to carry enough gas.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
You needed a debugger?;-) We programmed various commercial games and education programs without a debugger of any kind on the C64. Matter of fact the C64 assembler and other tools were so bad we actually did our development on the Apple II and downloaded the resulting binaries to the C64 for execution. Debugging consisted of printing our own hex digits on the screen or maybe some color coded pixels.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
He was not a luddite. But he had a safety background that told him these electonic systems were hard as hell to validate and hard as hell to make truly independent from each other.
Failure to embrace the latest tech does not mean one is a luddite, especially when we are talking life-and-death. SCUBA diving is a hobby of mine. When submersible dive computers came on the scene I noticed the early adopter were generally non-technical people: doctors, lawyers, business types, etc. The electrical engineers and computer programmers were usually sticking to mechanical analog depth and pressure gauges and plastic cards with depth/time limit tables. Over time the dive computers left the "1.0 stage" and proved themselves and tech types began to transition.
Fly-by-wire has a somewhat comparable history. Fly-by-wire was adopted, debugged and eventually proven in military aircraft. In this case it was a greater risk tolerance that allowed the military to be an early adopter. Today it is far more reasonable to use fly-by-wire in civilian aircraft.
Fly-by-wire software in aircraft or cars should never be considered 100% reliable. However older tech is not 100% reliable either and one also has to consider the increased safety offered by newer tech. For example the software in anti-lock brakes may save more lives in that vast majority of cases where it works properly than the number of lives that are lost in extremely rare situations where it fails. There is a point where an imperfect solutions can save lives. Should a manufacturer ship such an imperfect solution when it passes this point? That is a very complicated question.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Why does a USB-powered charger need software at all?... But how does Energizer feel now, with egg on their faces?
To be honest, they just need to get used to it and others need to be prepared for it. Imagine the opportunities for counterfeiters, they now have the potential for a new revenue stream. Regardless of whether a legitimate product comes with software or not, I expect some counterfeit goods will start coming with software. Legit or counterfeit, the company will take heat from consumers. They just need to get ready for it.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
The reason it has not taken off is that I can get a spare key made cheaply in any town.... It will only take off if it is really open standard so that consumers can get cheap locks and keys.
Maybe not, look at modern cars. Many, if not most, have electronic keys that can only be duplicated at a dealership and are expensive.
Then again a lot of people seem happy to buy music in AAC format, assuming they realise if they ever switch to another company's portable music player they won't be able to listen to it.
AAC has always been an open format, the problem was really the DRM that Apple initially used. The iTunes Store now offers DRM-free AAC files that play on non-Apple devices.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
I'm sure cross platform (as in computer/console/handheld) can work well for some games but for many games I expect it will not be awesome. There is an inherent imbalance between the platforms, for example input devices. In games where precise control offers an advantage, say a shooter, a player with a mouse may have an advantage overs someone with a controller. Can the game be designed to level the playing field by introducing automatic assistance in aiming , yes, but that limits a players ability to prevail with better skills. Balancing some cross platform games may require too many compromises to make it fair across platforms.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Silly me... I thought the point of a memorial was for it to be placed in the trust of (or outright given to) the public... That being the case, how does this decision affect other images of public art?
The public display of art is not in question here, it is the commercial use of this art.
How could this situation have developed? Quite simply the artist may have offered his/her services at a discount if he/she could retain the commercial rights to the art. Congress gets their public memorial but leaves things like the manufacture and sale of miniatures to the artist. This could be a reasonable cost savings tradeoff.
Think of some software licenses, an application may be free for non-commercial purposes but require a paid license for commercial use. Like software developers, artists are free to negotiate whatever contract/license they can.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Gaps between those that are self-taught and those who are university educated are primarily due to their study materials. Those going down the university path have an advantage due to broader and more in-depth coverage (particularly with the underlying theory and math). I've found solutions to problems coming from topics I never expected to be relevant and topics I may have never studied on my own. However I have a friend who is primarily self-taught and who is blessed with the intelligence and motivation to read a broad collection of university textbook level materials on his own. For such an individual there is really no gap.
So if you want to be a video game programmer do not go to your local shopping mall's Barnes and Noble bookstore and buy books on C++ and OpenGL. Go to your local college/university bookstore and buy *textbooks* on Data Structures and Algorithms, Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics, Databases, Networking,... Doing so will vastly improve your odds of making it.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Having worked with great programmers who were university educated or self-taught I agree that advanced data structures and algorithms is an obvious gap. However I think there are some more general gaps:
1. Underlying theory. The more general case of your point I suppose.
2. A common vocabulary. For example I can say thats NP and a university grad is more likely to understand.
3. The ability to complete a long, boring and bureaucratic process. Seriously this is an asset, it demonstrates that one has the potential to stay with a project until completion. Some people coming from the self-taught camp bailed out of the more traditional university path because of the time and bureaucracy. That is a liability for some projects. How many open source projects founder because there are plenty of volunteers for the fun parts but few or none for the boring parts?
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
It's also a demonstration on Blizzard's part that they no longer care about their own roots. Starcraft was so popular largely because of its LAN-friendly multiplayer games. I don't like it when companies abandon their roots.
You seem to be confusing the user experience with the technology that delivered the experience. Starcraft was popular because of multiplayer, LAN was just a technology of 1998 that often delivered multiplayer. Technology has changed a bit in the last 12 years. Like modem (telephone not cable) and direct serial connection, a LAN without access to the internet is pretty much a relic of the past.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Outvoted, give me LAN support and forget about 4% of the market of which only a tiny percentage would be gamers. Forget Mac support, anyone who buys one for gaming is certifiably mad.
(1) Macs are around 8-10% these days.
(2) Despite the fact that Macs tend to be purchased for non-gaming reasons, once purchased the users may want to play games as well. Computers are flexible and fulfill multiple roles.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
The MBA's just can not conceive that people will pay for quality and innovation.
I'm a recent MBA. I've also had a long software development career. I've done a bit of assembly language (6502, 68K, x86, PPC,...) and 68K was my all-time favorite. I used to have the typical arrogant engineer's disdain of anything business related. I loved business school in part because I loved learning how wrong I was. I used more advanced math in marketing classes than in BS and MS computer science. Most of my marketing professors have undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. I was also far from alone in my class as having an engineering background. Furthermore, business school classmates with non-technical backgrounds such as finance and accounting seem inclined to contact classmates with technical backgrounds to get a second opinion or perspective on technical issues, just as those of us with technical backgrounds contact them for their perspectives and opinions on finance, accounting and other non-technical issues. MBAs are about as accurately portrayed in the media and in popular culture as hackers. I believe situations like mine are far more common than modern mythology suggests.
At a telco company I wrote firmware and a kernel for a custom x86-based board. The lead engineer and the VP of engineering personally preferred the 68K over the x86. I asked why they chose the x86, the answer was that they didn't expect to find someone like me who was comfortable with both 68K and x86 assembly language. They thought it might also help the application programmers using PCs to develop and prototype code before moving it to the embedded environment, making debugging information a little more familiar. Cost was not a big issue since we were using fairly high end x86 CPUs. While I'm sure there are places where the 68K/x86 decision was a pure cost decision, I expect that things are far more complicated than suggested and other factors often came into play.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
The iPad is larger than many chess travel sets I've seen. Plus it can incorporate timers, single player, tutorials,... I think its a little premature to rule it out for board game like use, especially when considering being on the move. Not only compared to travel sets but consider that you can effectively be carrying around multiple board games all the time.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
So Apple is basically saying that we should stop buying MacBooks and iPhones?
I'm going with: Apple is basically saying that they do not need to introduce a netbook, that a pad is a better fit for this market.
I'm not 100% sold on that idea but with iPhone apps supplemented by desktop apps like the iWorks apps that Apple demo'd I'd say the idea is plausible for many users. Anyone else carry around an iPhone/iPod at home to check email and do lightweight browsing, too lazy to visit the computer?:-)
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Perhaps Newton would be a better comparable product?
For those unfamiliar with the Newton it was Apple's handheld computer from about a decade or so ago. It did not catch on but it was a pretty interesting device, had third party apps, too large for most pockets...
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
In the US private companies are able to fill in your data electronically. Your employer, banks, etc can download their data (essentially the forms the IRS has them mail to you) directly into your tax preparation software. It is only the gov't that finds such things infeasible.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Only one of those over stressed people would need to report that to the DOJ. The laws on over time pay are laid out pretty clear, and this if true is not at all legal.
A few years ago there was such a lawsuit against a game developer. It prompted various game developers, affected and unaffected by the lawsuit, to switch from salary with no overtime to hourly with overtime. Since it is in California and high profile with deep pockets I'm very surprised that R* did not.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
And no this is not necessarily standard behavior. Historically at least one other very large and very successful developer/publisher compensated for its cunch time hours with appropriate sales based bonuses. Nearly all workers and wives believe they are treated fairly. In more recent times industry lawsuits led this developer/publisher to move to hourly compensation that includes overtime. It is amazing R* did not also make such a move.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Apple produces great hardware to run Microsoft software, even their OS, on.
Apple's switch to Intel CPUs was a good thing in and of itself, it erased the performance gap. However the single thing that did the most to improve Apple's market share may have been Apple's support of Microsoft Windows on their hardware. For decades having to choose PC or Mac blocked sales, some folks were interested in Mac but needed a PC for compatibility with work or gaming. With Boot Camp the PC or Mac choice was no longer a barrier, you could have both on the same system.
To a lesser degree the switch to Intel performed a similar role. Emulation of Windows became practical since the CPU instruction set no longer had to be entirely emulated.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
As the old saying goes...Adversity makes strange bed fellows.
Both IBM and Intel were once portrayed as "enemies" by Apple, and both were lampooned in the Apple ads of the day. Partnering with IBM or Intel was once considered inconceivable by Apple's more "enthusiastic" fans. Yet it happened. It would be more difficult in the Microsoft case, but with Apple anything is possible.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Second, there is no recognition of the fact that curiosity is not the same thing as a lost sale in the digital realm.
Your argument is diminished by the fact that many of these apps are $0.99 USD, we're not talking about $50 - $60 PC games. I've observed many individuals who are willing to experiment with a $0.99 product, few with a $60 product.
Personally, in a University bookstore/computer store environment, I've witnessed piracy occurring merely because it was possible. When a vendor producing software accompanying a textbook added copy protection their sales became comparable to textbook sales. Previously sales were a very small fraction of textbook sales.
-- Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Slashdot Mirror
How about you first find a better process for making monochrome e-ink displays so the devices that use them aren't ridiculously priced?
Why? Mono is probably a dead end technology. It may be better to get to color as quickly as possible and then concentrate on process improvements. A color Kindle would be a much better commercial product. It is difficult to imagine textbooks moving to electronic media without color. Regarding the possibility of reduced eye strain with mono, perhaps a reader app on a color device could choose to only show black and white for pure text content.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading.
E Ink certainly has less to fear from Apple since E Ink could sell their screens to Apple just like they sell to Amazon, Sony, etc. If the eye strain issue becomes a concern Apple could simply offer an iPad version, or a new product derived from iPad that is more focused as an eReader and not a gaming/multimedia platform, with an E Ink screen. I think it is premature to say that Amazon and Sony has nothing to fear.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
These guys have taken a large risk, and to make that risk worth it, they want to earn many times that when they have the IPO.
Like it or not, venture capitalists fund innovation. They are not selling manufactured financial instruments that add no value (a generous description of recent history), they are paying the payroll and paying for the equipment at new companies with new ideas. They may expect a 10x or greater return but they know that historically nine out of ten of the ventures they finance will fail. In short, one experiment has to return 10x to pay for itself and the nine failed experiments.
As an engineer my emotions say it is wrong that the VCs get so much of the payoff compared to engineers and other workers but when I force myself to think rationally I realize that my paycheck was secure during years of development and that paycheck came from the VCs' pockets. Same for all the cool equipment I got to geek out over. I took no risk. This was true for the companies that I worked for that were part of the 1/10th that succeeded and the 9/10ths that did not. When I think about it rationally there is some fairness to the system. Is it the ultimate system, probably not, but I can't think of another realistic system(*) that will be somewhat efficient and tolerant of risk. The current system is after all the "winner" of a darwinian process going back millennia.
(*) OK being a parasite and basing your company on industrial espionage is probably far more efficient than anything else but parasites have to be quite benign (small in this case?) or far less common than hosts.
I know that Obama is more tech-savvy than any President prior ...
Why would you think that? Do you consider every lawyer or politician in love with their blackberry to be tech savvy? Every politician on twitter to be tech savvy? Obama is extremely intelligent but his training and experience is as a lawyer. We have had past presidents who were honest-to-god engineers. Carter was one of the first naval officers trained to operate nuclear power plants. Hoover was a mining engineer that developed various processes to improve yields. He wrote a popular university textbook for engineering and translated a classic medieval mining text. He was also an advocate and user of the new tech of his day, radio and aviation. I'm sure there were other presidents who were pretty tech savvy in their day but this is all I can think of offhand.
A heavy device needs a lot of lift and that translates into a large physical volume of gas at depth. Keep in mind that every 33 feet of depth is one additional atmosphere of pressure. 66 feet down you need three times as much gas to inflate a lift bag as you would on the surface. At great depths it may be impractical to carry enough gas.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
You needed a debugger? ;-) We programmed various commercial games and education programs without a debugger of any kind on the C64. Matter of fact the C64 assembler and other tools were so bad we actually did our development on the Apple II and downloaded the resulting binaries to the C64 for execution. Debugging consisted of printing our own hex digits on the screen or maybe some color coded pixels.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Failure to embrace the latest tech does not mean one is a luddite, especially when we are talking life-and-death. SCUBA diving is a hobby of mine. When submersible dive computers came on the scene I noticed the early adopter were generally non-technical people: doctors, lawyers, business types, etc. The electrical engineers and computer programmers were usually sticking to mechanical analog depth and pressure gauges and plastic cards with depth/time limit tables. Over time the dive computers left the "1.0 stage" and proved themselves and tech types began to transition.
Fly-by-wire has a somewhat comparable history. Fly-by-wire was adopted, debugged and eventually proven in military aircraft. In this case it was a greater risk tolerance that allowed the military to be an early adopter. Today it is far more reasonable to use fly-by-wire in civilian aircraft.
Fly-by-wire software in aircraft or cars should never be considered 100% reliable. However older tech is not 100% reliable either and one also has to consider the increased safety offered by newer tech. For example the software in anti-lock brakes may save more lives in that vast majority of cases where it works properly than the number of lives that are lost in extremely rare situations where it fails. There is a point where an imperfect solutions can save lives. Should a manufacturer ship such an imperfect solution when it passes this point? That is a very complicated question.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
To be honest, they just need to get used to it and others need to be prepared for it. Imagine the opportunities for counterfeiters, they now have the potential for a new revenue stream. Regardless of whether a legitimate product comes with software or not, I expect some counterfeit goods will start coming with software. Legit or counterfeit, the company will take heat from consumers. They just need to get ready for it.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Maybe not, look at modern cars. Many, if not most, have electronic keys that can only be duplicated at a dealership and are expensive.
AAC has always been an open format, the problem was really the DRM that Apple initially used. The iTunes Store now offers DRM-free AAC files that play on non-Apple devices.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
I'm sure cross platform (as in computer/console/handheld) can work well for some games but for many games I expect it will not be awesome. There is an inherent imbalance between the platforms, for example input devices. In games where precise control offers an advantage, say a shooter, a player with a mouse may have an advantage overs someone with a controller. Can the game be designed to level the playing field by introducing automatic assistance in aiming , yes, but that limits a players ability to prevail with better skills. Balancing some cross platform games may require too many compromises to make it fair across platforms.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
The public display of art is not in question here, it is the commercial use of this art.
How could this situation have developed? Quite simply the artist may have offered his/her services at a discount if he/she could retain the commercial rights to the art. Congress gets their public memorial but leaves things like the manufacture and sale of miniatures to the artist. This could be a reasonable cost savings tradeoff.
Think of some software licenses, an application may be free for non-commercial purposes but require a paid license for commercial use. Like software developers, artists are free to negotiate whatever contract/license they can.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Gaps between those that are self-taught and those who are university educated are primarily due to their study materials. Those going down the university path have an advantage due to broader and more in-depth coverage (particularly with the underlying theory and math). I've found solutions to problems coming from topics I never expected to be relevant and topics I may have never studied on my own. However I have a friend who is primarily self-taught and who is blessed with the intelligence and motivation to read a broad collection of university textbook level materials on his own. For such an individual there is really no gap.
... Doing so will vastly improve your odds of making it.
So if you want to be a video game programmer do not go to your local shopping mall's Barnes and Noble bookstore and buy books on C++ and OpenGL. Go to your local college/university bookstore and buy *textbooks* on Data Structures and Algorithms, Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics, Databases, Networking,
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Having worked with great programmers who were university educated or self-taught I agree that advanced data structures and algorithms is an obvious gap. However I think there are some more general gaps:
1. Underlying theory. The more general case of your point I suppose.
2. A common vocabulary. For example I can say thats NP and a university grad is more likely to understand.
3. The ability to complete a long, boring and bureaucratic process. Seriously this is an asset, it demonstrates that one has the potential to stay with a project until completion. Some people coming from the self-taught camp bailed out of the more traditional university path because of the time and bureaucracy. That is a liability for some projects. How many open source projects founder because there are plenty of volunteers for the fun parts but few or none for the boring parts?
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
You seem to be confusing the user experience with the technology that delivered the experience. Starcraft was popular because of multiplayer, LAN was just a technology of 1998 that often delivered multiplayer. Technology has changed a bit in the last 12 years. Like modem (telephone not cable) and direct serial connection, a LAN without access to the internet is pretty much a relic of the past.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
(1) Macs are around 8-10% these days.
(2) Despite the fact that Macs tend to be purchased for non-gaming reasons, once purchased the users may want to play games as well. Computers are flexible and fulfill multiple roles.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
I'm a recent MBA. I've also had a long software development career. I've done a bit of assembly language (6502, 68K, x86, PPC, ...) and 68K was my all-time favorite. I used to have the typical arrogant engineer's disdain of anything business related. I loved business school in part because I loved learning how wrong I was. I used more advanced math in marketing classes than in BS and MS computer science. Most of my marketing professors have undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. I was also far from alone in my class as having an engineering background. Furthermore, business school classmates with non-technical backgrounds such as finance and accounting seem inclined to contact classmates with technical backgrounds to get a second opinion or perspective on technical issues, just as those of us with technical backgrounds contact them for their perspectives and opinions on finance, accounting and other non-technical issues. MBAs are about as accurately portrayed in the media and in popular culture as hackers. I believe situations like mine are far more common than modern mythology suggests.
At a telco company I wrote firmware and a kernel for a custom x86-based board. The lead engineer and the VP of engineering personally preferred the 68K over the x86. I asked why they chose the x86, the answer was that they didn't expect to find someone like me who was comfortable with both 68K and x86 assembly language. They thought it might also help the application programmers using PCs to develop and prototype code before moving it to the embedded environment, making debugging information a little more familiar. Cost was not a big issue since we were using fairly high end x86 CPUs. While I'm sure there are places where the 68K/x86 decision was a pure cost decision, I expect that things are far more complicated than suggested and other factors often came into play.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
The iPad is larger than many chess travel sets I've seen. Plus it can incorporate timers, single player, tutorials, ... I think its a little premature to rule it out for board game like use, especially when considering being on the move. Not only compared to travel sets but consider that you can effectively be carrying around multiple board games all the time.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
I'm going with: Apple is basically saying that they do not need to introduce a netbook, that a pad is a better fit for this market.
:-)
I'm not 100% sold on that idea but with iPhone apps supplemented by desktop apps like the iWorks apps that Apple demo'd I'd say the idea is plausible for many users. Anyone else carry around an iPhone/iPod at home to check email and do lightweight browsing, too lazy to visit the computer?
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Perhaps Newton would be a better comparable product?
...
For those unfamiliar with the Newton it was Apple's handheld computer from about a decade or so ago. It did not catch on but it was a pretty interesting device, had third party apps, too large for most pockets
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
In the US private companies are able to fill in your data electronically. Your employer, banks, etc can download their data (essentially the forms the IRS has them mail to you) directly into your tax preparation software. It is only the gov't that finds such things infeasible.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
A few years ago there was such a lawsuit against a game developer. It prompted various game developers, affected and unaffected by the lawsuit, to switch from salary with no overtime to hourly with overtime. Since it is in California and high profile with deep pockets I'm very surprised that R* did not.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
And no this is not necessarily standard behavior. Historically at least one other very large and very successful developer/publisher compensated for its cunch time hours with appropriate sales based bonuses. Nearly all workers and wives believe they are treated fairly. In more recent times industry lawsuits led this developer/publisher to move to hourly compensation that includes overtime. It is amazing R* did not also make such a move.
--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Apple produces great hardware to run Microsoft software, even their OS, on.
Apple's switch to Intel CPUs was a good thing in and of itself, it erased the performance gap. However the single thing that did the most to improve Apple's market share may have been Apple's support of Microsoft Windows on their hardware. For decades having to choose PC or Mac blocked sales, some folks were interested in Mac but needed a PC for compatibility with work or gaming. With Boot Camp the PC or Mac choice was no longer a barrier, you could have both on the same system.
To a lesser degree the switch to Intel performed a similar role. Emulation of Windows became practical since the CPU instruction set no longer had to be entirely emulated.
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Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
As the old saying goes...Adversity makes strange bed fellows.
Both IBM and Intel were once portrayed as "enemies" by Apple, and both were lampooned in the Apple ads of the day. Partnering with IBM or Intel was once considered inconceivable by Apple's more "enthusiastic" fans. Yet it happened. It would be more difficult in the Microsoft case, but with Apple anything is possible.
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Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN
Your argument is diminished by the fact that many of these apps are $0.99 USD, we're not talking about $50 - $60 PC games. I've observed many individuals who are willing to experiment with a $0.99 product, few with a $60 product.
Personally, in a University bookstore/computer store environment, I've witnessed piracy occurring merely because it was possible. When a vendor producing software accompanying a textbook added copy protection their sales became comparable to textbook sales. Previously sales were a very small fraction of textbook sales.
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Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN