NASA is also suffering the same issue with its latest rockets, in that everyone who knew anything about the Apollo missions has left, and they actually had to call in some old engineers to help. I really believe, at least for the space side of things we need to develop a Wiki where are space related technology can be documented. We could worry about some of this technology getting into the hand of a 'rogue nation', but from what I can tell these nations already have access to the technology, one way or another. What they don't necessarily have access to are the funds or the people capable of applying the knowledge.
IBM has been attempting to get patents for some of the craziest things lately, and I wonder how many of these were actually accepted. Are they trying an easy way to beef up their patent portfolio, for defensive tactics, to keep up the yearly count or simply to prove how broken the system is? In the meantime, they will ensure they keep getting noticed by Slashdot;)
At the moment android feels like it's coming out of beta - no paid apps yet in the UK for example. Then again look at the iphone around version 1.1, which had no apps at all.. in a year things will be totally different.
Being a year late, when your ahead of the game may not be such a bad thing. In many ways it allowed Apple to understand where it should be taking things, to reduce the number of potential mistakes. Android on the other hand has the advantage of watching what Apple did and try to improve on it. Without sounding too negative, any positives that can be made by Android will still be negated if the hardware doesn't meld well with OS or the user expectations. Vista had much in the way of advertising, but that didn't help it, especially when you consider the "Vista ready" fiasco.
What I am saying in all this, is Google just can't sit idly by and hope the hardware companies do a good job. Microsoft has been there and while having the advantage of being ahead of the game suffered from what feels, in some cases, like clunky hardware, though in this case the OS wasn't helping much either. What I mean by this is that Windows CE / Windows Mobile, didn't feel like it was designed for mobile. Rather it felt like it was designed to bring the convenience of the desktop to a hand held, without necessarily understanding the particular human-interaction issues presented by hand held device.
Who will win the game is less of an issue than what people want to use now. For me, while companies are willing to innovate and stay in the game then we won't see a winner. Any winner is temporary until someone else understands what it takes to take the technology to the next level. Ironically the next level may actually be something that is seemingly superficial.
I picked up a G1 last weekend, but ended up taking it back yesterday. On the software side, it was absolutely beautiful. But the hardware left a lot to be desired...
I want to see Android succeed, for a number of reasons, but like many things it is a good as its weakest component. In this case it is the hardware. What could really hurt android is if the phone companies treat it as a silver bullet, hoping it will solve all their problems, only to fail to create hardware that presents itself as a sleek item that non-techies want to buy. For all its faults this is, IMHO, what the iPhone got right since your non-techie often goes for the feel of the solution, rather than the real technical merits. An example of this is seeing a woman in an electronics store more concerned whether a given camera was available in pink instead of grey.
As techies we are going to judge devices on their technical merits and their unfettered 'hackability'. This is fair enough, but the average consumer is more interested whether it can do the job, while either being affordable or elegant (it is this that makes them willing to spend more). They don't care whether the phone is open source, since what does it mean to them? Electronics companies need to spend as much time on the 'artistic' elements of the device as they do on the technical elements.
I wonder who decided that? Does their name start with 'Micro' and end with 'Soft'?
Chance it is simply a Microsoft Fanboy, who derides anything else. Then again, the site look like it was written in 10 minutes flat, cutting the most corners possible.
"you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review."
Would posting: "We did benchmarks tests and found that VMWare performance sucks - though we can't post them, so we may be lying" be okay;)
At this point in time there is no Direct3D support, but its on its way. I believe the focus is on WineD3D, but I have not been able to use it yet to run GoogleEarth in DIrect 3D - I am using this as a simple capability test.
isn't this already somewhat covered by distrowatch.com?
I must admit I didn't know the existence of that site, and I'll guess that I am not the only one. While people already familiar with Linux might know of that site, I expect most people without much knowledge of Linux will head off to Linux.com or Linux.org first. If both sites could be made to work with each other, then it would be a plus to Linux.
The one-stop, easy-install, multi-distro place for all your linux software needs.
Actually not a bad idea. It could also be handy to list all current distros and be a starting point for stuff for different people wanting to participate in the Linux experience, with starting points for end users, developers and managers.
In a world that's moving fast from native application to web-based applications, I believe their bet in integrating WebKit is an excellent choice.
WebKit certainly has the benefit of having many more people contributing to its development. KHTML was the start, but for better or for worse WebKit is where it is at.
QT is planning on including WebKit as a standard feature at some point (they may already). When that happens, KDE will drop KHTML and use WebKit instead.
They have already started using WebKit for certain portions of KDE. From the 'KDE 4.1 beta' news release:
"Developers have been busy enriching the core KDE libraries and infrastructure too. KHTML gets a speed boost from anticipatory resource loading, while WebKit, its offspring, is added to Plasma to allow OSX Dashboard widgets to be used in KDE. "
I thought 4.2 was meant to start using WebKit across the board, but I can't seem to find any references in that regards.
Karaoke in America came from relative obscurity, one of those quirky things only "Asians" do. Then 2002 American Idol came out, and now EVERYONE wants to be a star. Karaoke venues started popping up everywhere, but hardly any of them are paying for their karaoke. It sucks, but ya, people steal music on the internet, sales drop for the karaoke labels, we get less karaoke.
This is a commercial venue, so here you can use the argument that they should be paying a license. This would not be covered by fair use. These are people making money off someone else's work. This is the sort of place that should be cracked down on, not people at home who maybe wouldn't ever have paid for the content, and are most certainly not making money off the work. Heck, in the non internet days these people would have probably just recorded it off the radio.
If you want Karaoke bars to pay you, then offer something that represents a fair deal, since they are making money off the music. If you make the price too high, then they will default to unofficial copies.
The iPhone needs a lot of improvement before I would consider it.
Certainly, but in its second generation form it is already got many things right. Heck, I would have been surprised if they had managed to create the perfect phone. Even with what it has got wrong, it is offers a better experience than some of the other smart phones in the North American and European markets. Chances are there will be another iPhone come September, given Apple's release schedule and their approach that makes competitors feel like they need to play catch up. Apple is a newcomer to the market, so it is in many ways amazing that they have managed to pull off what they did. Motorola, Nokia et al. can say what they want, but they were meant to be the experts in that market, but they did not play the cards to their advantage, though there is still a chance for them to do so.
The truth is if batteries were better than they are now, then I am sure Apple and many other cell phone companies would being offering different products, since anything you put on a phone is going to have a negative effect on the battery charge. Then again, even with a better battery life companies want to offer a product that appeases half the market, while giving them a reason to buy the next version when they release it down the road.
Anyone who uses VPN knows the pain of accessing network shares.
Well I wonder how much this is Microsoft and how much this is Cisco (if we are talking Cisco VPN)? Only accepting my pin on third attempt, consistently is a royal pain.
Slashdot Mirror
NASA is also suffering the same issue with its latest rockets, in that everyone who knew anything about the Apollo missions has left, and they actually had to call in some old engineers to help. I really believe, at least for the space side of things we need to develop a Wiki where are space related technology can be documented. We could worry about some of this technology getting into the hand of a 'rogue nation', but from what I can tell these nations already have access to the technology, one way or another. What they don't necessarily have access to are the funds or the people capable of applying the knowledge.
english subtitles?
Sorry, no one is seeding them yet ;)
IBM has been attempting to get patents for some of the craziest things lately, and I wonder how many of these were actually accepted. Are they trying an easy way to beef up their patent portfolio, for defensive tactics, to keep up the yearly count or simply to prove how broken the system is? In the meantime, they will ensure they keep getting noticed by Slashdot ;)
At the moment android feels like it's coming out of beta - no paid apps yet in the UK for example. Then again look at the iphone around version 1.1, which had no apps at all.. in a year things will be totally different.
Being a year late, when your ahead of the game may not be such a bad thing. In many ways it allowed Apple to understand where it should be taking things, to reduce the number of potential mistakes. Android on the other hand has the advantage of watching what Apple did and try to improve on it. Without sounding too negative, any positives that can be made by Android will still be negated if the hardware doesn't meld well with OS or the user expectations. Vista had much in the way of advertising, but that didn't help it, especially when you consider the "Vista ready" fiasco.
What I am saying in all this, is Google just can't sit idly by and hope the hardware companies do a good job. Microsoft has been there and while having the advantage of being ahead of the game suffered from what feels, in some cases, like clunky hardware, though in this case the OS wasn't helping much either. What I mean by this is that Windows CE / Windows Mobile, didn't feel like it was designed for mobile. Rather it felt like it was designed to bring the convenience of the desktop to a hand held, without necessarily understanding the particular human-interaction issues presented by hand held device.
Who will win the game is less of an issue than what people want to use now. For me, while companies are willing to innovate and stay in the game then we won't see a winner. Any winner is temporary until someone else understands what it takes to take the technology to the next level. Ironically the next level may actually be something that is seemingly superficial.
I picked up a G1 last weekend, but ended up taking it back yesterday. On the software side, it was absolutely beautiful. But the hardware left a lot to be desired...
I want to see Android succeed, for a number of reasons, but like many things it is a good as its weakest component. In this case it is the hardware. What could really hurt android is if the phone companies treat it as a silver bullet, hoping it will solve all their problems, only to fail to create hardware that presents itself as a sleek item that non-techies want to buy. For all its faults this is, IMHO, what the iPhone got right since your non-techie often goes for the feel of the solution, rather than the real technical merits. An example of this is seeing a woman in an electronics store more concerned whether a given camera was available in pink instead of grey.
As techies we are going to judge devices on their technical merits and their unfettered 'hackability'. This is fair enough, but the average consumer is more interested whether it can do the job, while either being affordable or elegant (it is this that makes them willing to spend more). They don't care whether the phone is open source, since what does it mean to them? Electronics companies need to spend as much time on the 'artistic' elements of the device as they do on the technical elements.
Don't underestimate the superficial.
Pointing out fine legal distinctions - holy crap, he really is a lawyer on slashdot!!!
Okay, so today we won't say anything nasty about lawyers ;) We have to be PC, no?
...and now you've got to sue the interwebz for ruining your business
No, no you have got it wrong. These are tubes ruining your business ;)
I wonder who decided that? Does their name start with 'Micro' and end with 'Soft'?
Chance it is simply a Microsoft Fanboy, who derides anything else. Then again, the site look like it was written in 10 minutes flat, cutting the most corners possible.
I switched from Parallels Desktop to VirtualBox and it has one feature which I really like;
Another thing Virtual Box has going for it is that it doesn't need a network interface driver external to the VM.
"you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review."
Would posting: "We did benchmarks tests and found that VMWare performance sucks - though we can't post them, so we may be lying" be okay ;)
At this point in time there is no Direct3D support, but its on its way. I believe the focus is on WineD3D, but I have not been able to use it yet to run GoogleEarth in DIrect 3D - I am using this as a simple capability test.
Well there is always K-9 ... scratch that, that's probably for a time lord ;)
I we sure these are designed to attract the female of the human species?
isn't this already somewhat covered by distrowatch.com?
I must admit I didn't know the existence of that site, and I'll guess that I am not the only one. While people already familiar with Linux might know of that site, I expect most people without much knowledge of Linux will head off to Linux.com or Linux.org first. If both sites could be made to work with each other, then it would be a plus to Linux.
The one-stop, easy-install, multi-distro place for all your linux software needs.
Actually not a bad idea. It could also be handy to list all current distros and be a starting point for stuff for different people wanting to participate in the Linux experience, with starting points for end users, developers and managers.
In a world that's moving fast from native application to web-based applications, I believe their bet in integrating WebKit is an excellent choice.
WebKit certainly has the benefit of having many more people contributing to its development. KHTML was the start, but for better or for worse WebKit is where it is at.
BTW When will Konquerer make use of WebKit?
QT is planning on including WebKit as a standard feature at some point (they may already). When that happens, KDE will drop KHTML and use WebKit instead.
They have already started using WebKit for certain portions of KDE. From the 'KDE 4.1 beta' news release:
I thought 4.2 was meant to start using WebKit across the board, but I can't seem to find any references in that regards.
kdawson does nothing positive for slashdot. He should be removed. His entries sound like the worst kind of hellraising politics.
The sort of flamefest that it generates helps get more ads in front of the eyeballs.
Those pirates are spending money on flowers instead of our media! Quick, summon the lawyers!
Next they will be accused of money laundering: "Honour, this lady is just going to convert those flowers to cash". ;)
Karaoke in America came from relative obscurity, one of those quirky things only "Asians" do. Then 2002 American Idol came out, and now EVERYONE wants to be a star. Karaoke venues started popping up everywhere, but hardly any of them are paying for their karaoke. It sucks, but ya, people steal music on the internet, sales drop for the karaoke labels, we get less karaoke.
This is a commercial venue, so here you can use the argument that they should be paying a license. This would not be covered by fair use. These are people making money off someone else's work. This is the sort of place that should be cracked down on, not people at home who maybe wouldn't ever have paid for the content, and are most certainly not making money off the work. Heck, in the non internet days these people would have probably just recorded it off the radio.
If you want Karaoke bars to pay you, then offer something that represents a fair deal, since they are making money off the music. If you make the price too high, then they will default to unofficial copies.
And the same uninformed, ignorant user will rail at MS for not having such a basic feature as playing music or movies.
Some people will cry and bitch whatever happens. So, yup I agree with you there.
The iPhone needs a lot of improvement before I would consider it.
Certainly, but in its second generation form it is already got many things right. Heck, I would have been surprised if they had managed to create the perfect phone. Even with what it has got wrong, it is offers a better experience than some of the other smart phones in the North American and European markets. Chances are there will be another iPhone come September, given Apple's release schedule and their approach that makes competitors feel like they need to play catch up. Apple is a newcomer to the market, so it is in many ways amazing that they have managed to pull off what they did. Motorola, Nokia et al. can say what they want, but they were meant to be the experts in that market, but they did not play the cards to their advantage, though there is still a chance for them to do so.
The truth is if batteries were better than they are now, then I am sure Apple and many other cell phone companies would being offering different products, since anything you put on a phone is going to have a negative effect on the battery charge. Then again, even with a better battery life companies want to offer a product that appeases half the market, while giving them a reason to buy the next version when they release it down the road.
For example, Apple's lossless .M4A or .H263 MPEG-4
I can understand Apple lossless not being supported, but H263 MPEG-4?
Actually they forgot 37:
37. Chair resistant ... hmm, maybe not. ;)
Anyone who uses VPN knows the pain of accessing network shares.
Well I wonder how much this is Microsoft and how much this is Cisco (if we are talking Cisco VPN)? Only accepting my pin on third attempt, consistently is a royal pain.