I showed up to the AT&T store at 5:45, had the phone by 6:45. The AT&T staff were friendly, and extremely well organized. As for the phone, it is missing a few features, but ultimately it is the best phone I have ever owned. I would describe myself as "into phone technology", and specifically GSM, and have owned about a dozen different Nokia phones, 5 Motorola phones, and a couple of ericssons and this phone is a win based upon the Address Book, and call handling alone. The ability to make, merge, speaker, hold, get to other phone functions all at once in a rapid and intuitive manner makes this phone worth every penny. If you are one of those people that want a phone that does the basic functions 'correctly', then this is the phone for you. I find it funny that every phone that I have ever looked at has failed miserably on some or all of the basic features, and yet some people want every phone to be the equivalent of an OfficeJet, the worst fax, scanner, copier and printer rolled into one.
Wii doesn't have enough games yet, so it's a novelty that will be reduced to a niche market. To summarize correctly,,, the Wii has a controller that is a novelty. That controller IMHO will keep Nintendo in a niche.
Wii has issues in my opinion. The wii is novelty and if doesn't get some decent games soon it is screwed. I already prefer my Demo of Gran Turismo HD (PS3) to anything I have played on my Wii. Initially I was sucked in by the novel game play but somewhere around the 60th hour of Zelda I was done with it. I only enjoy playing with the weather globe at this point. The key issue with the Wii is that most of the people that come over and play with it want to play Super Mario Brothers. That is not exactly the group of people that buy $60 games by the cart load.
So my feeling is that PS3, and 360 may lose the early rounds this year, but based upon the kind of games on the gamecube, the wii games so far, and my boredom with controller, Nintendo should be moderately successful but never enjoy numeric dominance of the market. PS3 has the best platform, and once it gets some more games under its belt will begin to dominate the game market for yet another generation. 360 will come in second, once again hampered by the kind of dumb design decisions Microsoft makes, and Nintendo will be the console that kids and parents like but never buy enough games to matter. But Nintendo likes its niche, so I can't say that it is a bad thing for them.
I don't think having consoles on the shelves is a meaningful judge of anything. The PS3 costs twice what a Wii does, it has very few games right now, and Sony has gotten itself together on the manufacturing front.
I have the Wii and the PS3. I downloaded the Gran Turismo HD demo and it is amazing. I sometimes get distracted by the spectators. The PS3 has already forced me to buy an HD TV, and about 4 Blu-Ray titles. Blu-ray movies are lovely.
The Wii is a nice console, but frankly I find Zelda monotonous. I hope they come out with a Pikmin game for the Wii. The thing I use the Wii the most for is the weather. The Wiimote is interesting technology but I don't think they will have a monopoly on the design/usage of a pointing wand for very long.
So it is going to be a little hard to tell who is winning at this point. Really we should suspend all discussions of winning and losing for a year. Especially considering Sony's play in the console market is really long-term and given the PS2 was the number one selling console over Christmas, my guess is the game is far from over.
Since when does do anything simply because it makes sense. It is notoriously difficult for business to choose long term 'goods' over short term 'bads'. The environment is an excellent example of this. The government has a role here that pushes business into making the right choice. Without this business will go on doing as little as possible to make as much money as possible. Metric is a win for both consumers, business, and makes a step toward better global integration. I think we should take that metric step.
If Sweden can switch from driving on the left side of the road to the right side of the road overnight I think Americans could deal with a little metric. - Norwegian girlfriend
I must agree, George Bush has a golden opportunity for a solid policy win, and a chance to get something other than Iraq and September 11 in the history books.
Switch to metric. There will be resistance from the populace that is satisfied with the status quo, but metric is more sensible from a design standpoint, it makes greater sense from an industry and economic standpoint, and really it won't be that hard. The best part is he might find some of his former detractors backing him on this one.
The fact is there hasn't been a phone worth $59, let alone $599 in the market. Every phone on the market seems to have a serious flaw. Too big, too hard/annoying, hobbled functionality. There have been numerous calls (pun intended) for simpler phones on the market partly because they can't do basic phone calls right. However, it looks like iPhone is worth the $599 just based upon phone calls alone. If I never use web, or the ipod functionality, I think Visual Voicemail, the IM style SMS, and the phone book look better than anything I have used. Let's face it, most phones on the market don't even have a decent phonebook, and it looks like they might have nailed it. Conference calling on many phones behaves as if you need to switch hook / flash the analog switch.
I think Apple could pull this off because I think they have just fundamentally changed the cellphone market.
Every cell phone is like that. I work for a gov't contractor (submarines) and I cannot have a camera on the premises, like tens of thousands of other engineers in this country. Yet, cameras and extra features seem to define a "high end" cell phone, not good quality or performance. It's what's there, and it's what sells.
I don't have a source for hard numbers but I have read that the "killer" app for cell phones is the built-in camera. Digital cameras revolutionized personal photography, and the cameraphone revolutionized the camera market. So the camera is required if you want to sell a phone.
Can you imagine how annoying someone talking on the cellphone and driving a submarine must be?
Apple is just better at it... they have the lock on the "it" gadget. iPods are fashion statements and status symbols, not just media players.
And do you know why that is? Good design. Pure and simple. With the iPod Apple redefined the market of media players in a time when nobody of consequence had their shit together. That is why they are popular. iPods basically are one of the easiest to use electronics you will encounter, and it looks beautiful. It might even surprise you to know they have won awards for design. I recently walked someone through the use of an iPod in about a minute in the dark while driving the car. Q-"How do you turn the light on?" A-"Push and hold the top of the wheel." You know if you can explain something to a complete newbie without even looking at the device, and they get it that quickly, your product works.
If Apple respected gadget geeks, the iPod wouldn't require iTunes (or any software) to use, it'd have an AM/FM radio built in, and it'd be 2/3 the price.
And in that case we wouldn't be talking about how the iPod holds 62% of the market and that it is the "it" gadget. It would be lost in a field of products that people don't want and don't understand.
AM/FM?! The sooner it dies the better off we will be.
Apple's just leading the latest trend that cell phone companies started... the gadget is the flashy lure, but it's the service contract and pay-per-use that's the moneymaker for the company.
I wish Nokia, or Motorola had done this years ago. The truth is every cell provider out there has released mediocre products that have incomprehensible designs. Why didn't they think of Visual Voicemail? Doesn't that seem obvious? Why is their contact management, and synchronization technologies almost useless? Why is it that predictive typing is such a pain?
The cell phone companies had a free ride in a world of poor design, and lack of innovation. Apple just made every product they produce look like the free phone that you get for signing up. Even if you can't afford it, you know their is an awesome product on the market, and it is called the iPhone.
As for the service contract you will be able to buy it without one, but it will bump up the price. For example the SLVR from Motorola was $300+ without contract.
For under a $100 you can get a word processor (Pages) and slideware application (Keynote) that are in many ways much better than the competitions. There are still a few issues with Pages still but it already is easier to write high quality technical documents in Pages. The only thing really missing at this point is a spreadsheet application which I have heard is in the works.
As one of the lucky few to get a PS3 at the MSRP I must say it is a really nice machine. I watched my first Blu-Ray movie last night and it looked great, maybe I imagined it but it seemed really, really crisp. Now I need to upgrade from 480 to 1080.
I bought it is because I am studying compilers and wanted to run linux on it. However, in my opinion the PlayStation 3 is one of the finest piece of home electronics I have seen. I am not sure who will win the format war, but this machine is certainly a smart play for the Blu-ray high-def camp.
Most importantly it runs linux. Two big penguins and six small ones.
Well zero-day sure sounds cool. I mean, imagine you're a hacker and you tell your friends, "hey check out my cool third day exploit", they would be like, "WTF, get with the times man it is all about second day." So zero day is where it's at.
It is annoying that students are going to be subjected to this. I am glad that none of my professors have required me to use Turn It In, because I would have refused. If professors or teachers feel they are incapable of detecting writing that isn't original, too bad.
I agree not to cheat, but don't ask me to prove it.
IBM makes some cool stuff. We have a "lifeboat" CD that actually installs a redhat derivative over the network, and configures all the applications (notes included) and vpn. It is fairly slick, although it is really geared towards the average employee. At work (IBM) I run Ubuntu, some people run Fedora, and others Gentoo. Some of the highlights of IBM technology include one of the coolest printer config systems ever. It is amazing how easily you configure the printer via Firefox. I guess if I had a single complaint about the company it is our love of RPMs, but with alien all can be made right. The pre-release Notes client for linux is slow but they are working on it, in the meantime running it within Crossover Office is fine by me. I have never been told what to run at the office, I suppose if your manager didn't want you messing with Linux they could forbid it, but really don't mess with you unless you are infected with a virus, or running a switch or hub in your cube without manager approval. I have worked a few places and IBM is by far the most Linux friendly, excited about moving forward place I have been. I can't think of a day someone didn't talk about Linux, or how much they hate ATIs crap support for Linux.
As for Notes being a necessary evil,,, well I feel this is an issue that comes down to groupware vs email. If you are in the give me Pine or give me death camp, Lotus Notes is going to drive you mad. If you are in the Gmail camp Lotus Notes is likely to be your enemy. If you are an employee that lives and dies by a calendar, and meetings, then Notes is a friend. The UI arguments are more of a it could better, but most people will live with it and never know the difference.
I clicked on the link to the ogg file and it started playing (Movie Player) as soon as it downloaded... Lo and behold the magical dapper drake knows what to do with Ogg files without me telling it. Now be honest, are you using Windows?
Seriously though we have a white Macbook and it is a great computer. I have read some of the complaints people report about heat, noise, etc and I just don't have these problems. I feel that Apple attracts overly critical (read fanatical) people to their computers with their excellent designs but let's be real these are still manufactured products and prone to the same problems.
Numerous complaints about heat have come up in the Apple 17" annoucement. To this I say remember the test environment. We the Northen Californians do not run around with shorts and sandals on. We wear slacks, jeans or trousers in general. We also are wearing flame-retardant, three-season North Face jackets. At all times we layer in the Bay Area. Layering for the rest of the cool challenged is the concept of multiple 'layers' of clothing between you and your body. I know for those that live in the midwest it makes sense to jump around in an oversized T-shirt, however those of us more north and west of you consider leaving the house with only one T-shirt on as uncouth.
So therefore, a warm laptop is a good thing, not a bad one. It will provide additional warmth whether you are surfing the web from Mount Tamalpais, or IMing from Golden Gate Park.
And I thought Apple switched to Intel because the only way to get their Mach kernel to run faster after exhausting every computer science trick in the book was to throw CPU cycles at it. And we all know that the G5 was not going to be available for laptops anytime soon. Let's face it Apple had to switch processors because the reality distortion field wasn't going to hold much longer. Check Anand Tech for the Linux vs. Mac OS X on PowerPC article. The Mach kernel is slow.
Just by coincidence Apple knew that Intel had some amazing laptop capable processors in the pipe and decided to jump ship, Boot Camp, and the soon to be release virtualization products are just a sales tool to give a push to those people with misgivings about a Mac. "Don't worry you could always run Windows if you don't like OS X." I know I went through it myself when I bought my first PowerBook.
That is what one of my political science professors said about so called pork and I tend to agree. Getting up in arms over what doesn't directly benefit you, or that you don't understand is fairly normal. For example I am sure the same people that complain about water-free urinal technology were buying grey market toilets when congress mandated low flush technology. Sure there were problems in the beginning, but nothing some hard working engineers can't sort out. Frankly I think not flushing relatively scarce fresh water down the not-so-proberbial toilet is a good idea, but hey I am a tree hugging, dirt worshipper.
Let's be honest, some people complain if you spend money on anything other than what they personally like. Which would be fine if you represented everyone, and were fairly omniscient. Alas, nobody seems to listen to me when I say we should cut the War Department's (AKA Department of Defense) budget in half, and give the money to the national lab's, NASA, and health coverage for all American's
Because to me the pork in the economy is the military.
I would like to add to the above post that Sun equipment has more than just a simple serial cable output. Lights out management (Sun's name for out of band management via RJ-45 serial port and Ethernet) is a must have for anyone that does serious enterprise server administration. Console ports allow you to power on and off the machine, and run diagnostics even if the machine is otherwise dead. Sure you can get it for some PC servers, often via an expensive add-on card, but every Sparc machine has this built-in from the desktops to the servers. Until PC servers break from the legacy BIOS, and add features like this as standard equipment they will just be PCs that happen to be running a server OS.
Now people have manipulated Google so that their sites are favored above others. Everyone knows that when you search for "The worst President Ever" on Google you find George Bush's biography. I've never thought of it as immoral, but silly.
Actually in this case Google was just reporting the facts.
College is the quickest way to acquire the skills necessary to learn any other job. If you knew many 18 year olds, you would know that most of them are clueless, they need specific understanding of core concepts if they plan to go on to a successful career.
An example: Computer Science. Sure you can teach yourself to program, nothing terribly difficult about programming. In fact many of us were doing it as soon as we could reach a keyboard. This however does not teach you other concepts. What a state machine is, why it is useful? What a B-tree is, why is it useful? Programming in a group, and what tools you might use. These are the most basic concepts that you get.
Further most of a job involves communication, writing memos, writing emails, and attending meetings. Things that a liberal education provides.
Further if you finish you have learned all this plus how to plan, accomplish tasks on time, and completed to a your bosses or clients requirements.
Lastly, this is not the end, you should continue learning formal learning. Why? Because reading a book is great, but only a formal environment provides goals, and incentive to get things done.
I just today had my instructor (Ph.D candidate) at University of North Texas tell me that several (read more than 3) Ph.D. candidates were caught outsourcing their work last semester. All of them were expelled, and some were foreigners so they were sent home. Apparently they didn't change the code they turned in very much and had identical variables, and code structure all over the place.
Slashdot Mirror
I showed up to the AT&T store at 5:45, had the phone by 6:45. The AT&T staff were friendly, and extremely well organized. As for the phone, it is missing a few features, but ultimately it is the best phone I have ever owned. I would describe myself as "into phone technology", and specifically GSM, and have owned about a dozen different Nokia phones, 5 Motorola phones, and a couple of ericssons and this phone is a win based upon the Address Book, and call handling alone. The ability to make, merge, speaker, hold, get to other phone functions all at once in a rapid and intuitive manner makes this phone worth every penny. If you are one of those people that want a phone that does the basic functions 'correctly', then this is the phone for you. I find it funny that every phone that I have ever looked at has failed miserably on some or all of the basic features, and yet some people want every phone to be the equivalent of an OfficeJet, the worst fax, scanner, copier and printer rolled into one.
Wii has issues in my opinion. The wii is novelty and if doesn't get some decent games soon it is screwed. I already prefer my Demo of Gran Turismo HD (PS3) to anything I have played on my Wii. Initially I was sucked in by the novel game play but somewhere around the 60th hour of Zelda I was done with it. I only enjoy playing with the weather globe at this point. The key issue with the Wii is that most of the people that come over and play with it want to play Super Mario Brothers. That is not exactly the group of people that buy $60 games by the cart load.
So my feeling is that PS3, and 360 may lose the early rounds this year, but based upon the kind of games on the gamecube, the wii games so far, and my boredom with controller, Nintendo should be moderately successful but never enjoy numeric dominance of the market. PS3 has the best platform, and once it gets some more games under its belt will begin to dominate the game market for yet another generation. 360 will come in second, once again hampered by the kind of dumb design decisions Microsoft makes, and Nintendo will be the console that kids and parents like but never buy enough games to matter. But Nintendo likes its niche, so I can't say that it is a bad thing for them.
I don't think having consoles on the shelves is a meaningful judge of anything. The PS3 costs twice what a Wii does, it has very few games right now, and Sony has gotten itself together on the manufacturing front.
I have the Wii and the PS3. I downloaded the Gran Turismo HD demo and it is amazing. I sometimes get distracted by the spectators. The PS3 has already forced me to buy an HD TV, and about 4 Blu-Ray titles. Blu-ray movies are lovely.
The Wii is a nice console, but frankly I find Zelda monotonous. I hope they come out with a Pikmin game for the Wii. The thing I use the Wii the most for is the weather. The Wiimote is interesting technology but I don't think they will have a monopoly on the design/usage of a pointing wand for very long.
So it is going to be a little hard to tell who is winning at this point. Really we should suspend all discussions of winning and losing for a year. Especially considering Sony's play in the console market is really long-term and given the PS2 was the number one selling console over Christmas, my guess is the game is far from over.
Since when does do anything simply because it makes sense. It is notoriously difficult for business to choose long term 'goods' over short term 'bads'. The environment is an excellent example of this. The government has a role here that pushes business into making the right choice. Without this business will go on doing as little as possible to make as much money as possible. Metric is a win for both consumers, business, and makes a step toward better global integration. I think we should take that metric step.
I must agree, George Bush has a golden opportunity for a solid policy win, and a chance to get something other than Iraq and September 11 in the history books.
Switch to metric. There will be resistance from the populace that is satisfied with the status quo, but metric is more sensible from a design standpoint, it makes greater sense from an industry and economic standpoint, and really it won't be that hard. The best part is he might find some of his former detractors backing him on this one.
The fact is there hasn't been a phone worth $59, let alone $599 in the market. Every phone on the market seems to have a serious flaw. Too big, too hard/annoying, hobbled functionality. There have been numerous calls (pun intended) for simpler phones on the market partly because they can't do basic phone calls right. However, it looks like iPhone is worth the $599 just based upon phone calls alone. If I never use web, or the ipod functionality, I think Visual Voicemail, the IM style SMS, and the phone book look better than anything I have used. Let's face it, most phones on the market don't even have a decent phonebook, and it looks like they might have nailed it. Conference calling on many phones behaves as if you need to switch hook / flash the analog switch.
I think Apple could pull this off because I think they have just fundamentally changed the cellphone market.
I don't have a source for hard numbers but I have read that the "killer" app for cell phones is the built-in camera. Digital cameras revolutionized personal photography, and the cameraphone revolutionized the camera market. So the camera is required if you want to sell a phone.
Can you imagine how annoying someone talking on the cellphone and driving a submarine must be?
Apple is just better at it... they have the lock on the "it" gadget. iPods are fashion statements and status symbols, not just media players.And do you know why that is? Good design. Pure and simple. With the iPod Apple redefined the market of media players in a time when nobody of consequence had their shit together. That is why they are popular. iPods basically are one of the easiest to use electronics you will encounter, and it looks beautiful. It might even surprise you to know they have won awards for design. I recently walked someone through the use of an iPod in about a minute in the dark while driving the car. Q-"How do you turn the light on?" A-"Push and hold the top of the wheel." You know if you can explain something to a complete newbie without even looking at the device, and they get it that quickly, your product works.
If Apple respected gadget geeks, the iPod wouldn't require iTunes (or any software) to use, it'd have an AM/FM radio built in, and it'd be 2/3 the price.And in that case we wouldn't be talking about how the iPod holds 62% of the market and that it is the "it" gadget. It would be lost in a field of products that people don't want and don't understand.
AM/FM?! The sooner it dies the better off we will be.
Apple's just leading the latest trend that cell phone companies started... the gadget is the flashy lure, but it's the service contract and pay-per-use that's the moneymaker for the company.I wish Nokia, or Motorola had done this years ago. The truth is every cell provider out there has released mediocre products that have incomprehensible designs. Why didn't they think of Visual Voicemail? Doesn't that seem obvious? Why is their contact management, and synchronization technologies almost useless? Why is it that predictive typing is such a pain?
The cell phone companies had a free ride in a world of poor design, and lack of innovation. Apple just made every product they produce look like the free phone that you get for signing up. Even if you can't afford it, you know their is an awesome product on the market, and it is called the iPhone.
As for the service contract you will be able to buy it without one, but it will bump up the price. For example the SLVR from Motorola was $300+ without contract.
For under a $100 you can get a word processor (Pages) and slideware application (Keynote) that are in many ways much better than the competitions. There are still a few issues with Pages still but it already is easier to write high quality technical documents in Pages. The only thing really missing at this point is a spreadsheet application which I have heard is in the works.
As one of the lucky few to get a PS3 at the MSRP I must say it is a really nice machine. I watched my first Blu-Ray movie last night and it looked great, maybe I imagined it but it seemed really, really crisp. Now I need to upgrade from 480 to 1080.
I bought it is because I am studying compilers and wanted to run linux on it. However, in my opinion the PlayStation 3 is one of the finest piece of home electronics I have seen. I am not sure who will win the format war, but this machine is certainly a smart play for the Blu-ray high-def camp.
Most importantly it runs linux. Two big penguins and six small ones.
Well zero-day sure sounds cool. I mean, imagine you're a hacker and you tell your friends, "hey check out my cool third day exploit", they would be like, "WTF, get with the times man it is all about second day." So zero day is where it's at.
It is annoying that students are going to be subjected to this. I am glad that none of my professors have required me to use Turn It In, because I would have refused. If professors or teachers feel they are incapable of detecting writing that isn't original, too bad.
I agree not to cheat, but don't ask me to prove it.
I have discovered a major flaw in this version of the product. It offers Comic Sans as a font!!! Please Google, kill Comic Sans, kill.
IBM makes some cool stuff. We have a "lifeboat" CD that actually installs a redhat derivative over the network, and configures all the applications (notes included) and vpn. It is fairly slick, although it is really geared towards the average employee. At work (IBM) I run Ubuntu, some people run Fedora, and others Gentoo. Some of the highlights of IBM technology include one of the coolest printer config systems ever. It is amazing how easily you configure the printer via Firefox. I guess if I had a single complaint about the company it is our love of RPMs, but with alien all can be made right. The pre-release Notes client for linux is slow but they are working on it, in the meantime running it within Crossover Office is fine by me. I have never been told what to run at the office, I suppose if your manager didn't want you messing with Linux they could forbid it, but really don't mess with you unless you are infected with a virus, or running a switch or hub in your cube without manager approval. I have worked a few places and IBM is by far the most Linux friendly, excited about moving forward place I have been. I can't think of a day someone didn't talk about Linux, or how much they hate ATIs crap support for Linux.
As for Notes being a necessary evil,,, well I feel this is an issue that comes down to groupware vs email. If you are in the give me Pine or give me death camp, Lotus Notes is going to drive you mad. If you are in the Gmail camp Lotus Notes is likely to be your enemy. If you are an employee that lives and dies by a calendar, and meetings, then Notes is a friend. The UI arguments are more of a it could better, but most people will live with it and never know the difference.
I clicked on the link to the ogg file and it started playing (Movie Player) as soon as it downloaded... Lo and behold the magical dapper drake knows what to do with Ogg files without me telling it. Now be honest, are you using Windows?
Try your scroll wheel. I screws up the test.
Seriously though we have a white Macbook and it is a great computer. I have read some of the complaints people report about heat, noise, etc and I just don't have these problems. I feel that Apple attracts overly critical (read fanatical) people to their computers with their excellent designs but let's be real these are still manufactured products and prone to the same problems.
Numerous complaints about heat have come up in the Apple 17" annoucement. To this I say remember the test environment. We the Northen Californians do not run around with shorts and sandals on. We wear slacks, jeans or trousers in general. We also are wearing flame-retardant, three-season North Face jackets. At all times we layer in the Bay Area. Layering for the rest of the cool challenged is the concept of multiple 'layers' of clothing between you and your body. I know for those that live in the midwest it makes sense to jump around in an oversized T-shirt, however those of us more north and west of you consider leaving the house with only one T-shirt on as uncouth.
So therefore, a warm laptop is a good thing, not a bad one. It will provide additional warmth whether you are surfing the web from Mount Tamalpais, or IMing from Golden Gate Park.
And I thought Apple switched to Intel because the only way to get their Mach kernel to run faster after exhausting every computer science trick in the book was to throw CPU cycles at it. And we all know that the G5 was not going to be available for laptops anytime soon. Let's face it Apple had to switch processors because the reality distortion field wasn't going to hold much longer. Check Anand Tech for the Linux vs. Mac OS X on PowerPC article. The Mach kernel is slow.
Just by coincidence Apple knew that Intel had some amazing laptop capable processors in the pipe and decided to jump ship, Boot Camp, and the soon to be release virtualization products are just a sales tool to give a push to those people with misgivings about a Mac. "Don't worry you could always run Windows if you don't like OS X." I know I went through it myself when I bought my first PowerBook.
I know it is incredibly common mis-usage at this point but the expression is 'champing at the bit' not chomping. Referece
Let's be honest, some people complain if you spend money on anything other than what they personally like. Which would be fine if you represented everyone, and were fairly omniscient. Alas, nobody seems to listen to me when I say we should cut the War Department's (AKA Department of Defense) budget in half, and give the money to the national lab's, NASA, and health coverage for all American's
Because to me the pork in the economy is the military.
I would like to add to the above post that Sun equipment has more than just a simple serial cable output. Lights out management (Sun's name for out of band management via RJ-45 serial port and Ethernet) is a must have for anyone that does serious enterprise server administration. Console ports allow you to power on and off the machine, and run diagnostics even if the machine is otherwise dead. Sure you can get it for some PC servers, often via an expensive add-on card, but every Sparc machine has this built-in from the desktops to the servers. Until PC servers break from the legacy BIOS, and add features like this as standard equipment they will just be PCs that happen to be running a server OS.
Actually in this case Google was just reporting the facts.
College is the quickest way to acquire the skills necessary to learn any other job. If you knew many 18 year olds, you would know that most of them are clueless, they need specific understanding of core concepts if they plan to go on to a successful career.
An example: Computer Science. Sure you can teach yourself to program, nothing terribly difficult about programming. In fact many of us were doing it as soon as we could reach a keyboard. This however does not teach you other concepts. What a state machine is, why it is useful? What a B-tree is, why is it useful? Programming in a group, and what tools you might use. These are the most basic concepts that you get.
Further most of a job involves communication, writing memos, writing emails, and attending meetings. Things that a liberal education provides.
Further if you finish you have learned all this plus how to plan, accomplish tasks on time, and completed to a your bosses or clients requirements.
Lastly, this is not the end, you should continue learning formal learning. Why? Because reading a book is great, but only a formal environment provides goals, and incentive to get things done.
I just today had my instructor (Ph.D candidate) at University of North Texas tell me that several (read more than 3) Ph.D. candidates were caught outsourcing their work last semester. All of them were expelled, and some were foreigners so they were sent home. Apparently they didn't change the code they turned in very much and had identical variables, and code structure all over the place.