I appreciate the humor. But we know that in reality, it means fewer bits for My Little Pony. The images don't change as quickly and the relatively simple line drawings that it uses make it easier to encode; you can get the same level of quality with a significantly lower bit rate.
Netflix could save even more bits by reencoding with H.265. (My understanding is that they already use H.265 for 4K streams.) But that would have unfortunate effects on older devices that lack hardware H.265 decoding. It would mean choppy playback and/or decreased battery life on older computers and mobile devices, so it should either be opt-in or decided by some sort of automatic detection of client capabilities.
Amoco made a lead-free premium gasoline. But they did not promote it on the basis of environmental safety; their commercials promoted the fact that it meant more miles between engine tuneups (because sparkplugs didn't get fouled with lead) and longer muffler life.
Cree LED bulbs, both the original design and the newer 4Flow, work well on dimmers. I have three chandelier fixtures with dimmers; I did the first two with the earlier Cree bulbs, but the third had to wait for the 4FLow because the thick collars of the older bulbs wouldn't fit into the glass shades.
They don't get as dim as incandescent bulbs but they get dim enough for me. There is no visible flicker when dimmed and multiple bulbs track correctly (that is, they all dim the same amount); both of those things were problems with dimmable CFLs.
The Philips Slimstyle is not a good choice for use with a dimmer; problems with visible flicker have been reported. They're fine for non-dimmer installations where the bulb will be hidden; the odd shape and imperfect light distribution make them less than perfect for installations where the bulb will be visible.
My point was that Microsoft gets to look like a good guy by restoring the 15GB for free, mitigating the negative PR from taking away the unlimited storage. The cost impact of that extra 10GB per customer will be modest because a large percentage of the people affected will never use it; meanwhile, they're getting the savings from dealing with the people who were uploading multiple terabytes of data.
Passwords are the only notable example. Best practice for passwords (which Google follows) is to hash them when initially entered (using a one-way hash, not an encryption scheme that can be decrypted) and to only store the hashed version. Google has no ability to recover your password from the stored information; that's why you have to change your password when you do password recovery rather than having them tell you the old one.
The problem with the low cost subsidized internet service is that it's also low performance. You can only get the subsidy for the lowest tier of service, or in some cases a sub-minimum tier. For example, Comcast offers a 10Mbps (upgraded from the original 1.5Mbps) subsidized service for $10/month, but the slowest non-subsidized service they offer in my area is 25Mbps. It can be combined with Comcast cable TV service, but in some cases bundling TV with one of their regular internet plans will be a better deal.
The thing that Microsoft really needed to cut back on was the abusive use of unlimited storage by a few users who were backing up multiple terabytes of data. Making this move lets Microsoft look like less of a Grinch, while still cutting back where they really needed to cut.
Perhaps another factor is that Nintendo insists on keeping all the games for its systems family-friendly; that means that there are gamers who will never be content with a Nintendo product. (They will not approve ESRB AO games and are very selective about M games, E games are the heart of their lineup.) But it hasn't worked out all that badly for them; they've had a successful niche with their handhelds and the Wii, avoiding going head-on against the XBox and the PlayStation.
There was nothing wrong with the Zune other than some questionable color choices. (Brown, really? I've been waiting all my life for a brown tech gadget, said nobody ever aside from somebody on the Zune team.) If it had debuted into an iPod-less market it probably would have been a hit. But as it was there was no compelling reason to buy one instead of buying an iPod, so hardly anybody did.
She didn't drive Yahoo farther into the ground. It's still in pretty much the same place it was when she took over. She just failed to elevate it, which was a difficult task at best given the market dominance and technical strength of Google. I doubt anybody else would have done better.
Won't always work. There have been cases where the original firmware is seriously flawed, and not just in ways that affect the smart features. In that case it would be necessary to connect the TV long enough to get the firmware update.
These days nearly every TV on the market (except for some very low end sets) has some smart features, so you can't completely avoid them. My advice is to ignore them when buying, and figure you're going to buy a set-top box either immediately or a year down the road.
Very few TVs make nice sound; the built in speakers are mostly terrible. If you care about sound, plan to hook up something better: a surround system if you have the space, or at the very least a soundbar.
Still no need to buy a new TV. I expect a TV to have a service life of at least 10 years, and perhaps 20 or more though some of that will be as a secondary set. In other words, you upgrade the set in the main home theater setup and move that one to a lesser location, continuing that process down the food chain until you run out of places to put additional displays. After that the lowest one on the chain falls off the edge and is discarded after each upgrade.
Once the smart features in the TV become outdated as they inevitably will (they rarely get significant updates), you unplug them from the network, stop using the smart features, and buy a new Roku or Chromecast or Fire TV or Apple TV. A few years after that you buy another one.
I don't think tablets will die. But they will become a niche product, just as desktop computers as we knew them are becoming. None of our current computing devices will be the One Thing any more. People will choose between desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, and wearables depending on need and budget. At some future time we might see a One Thing again - perhaps a voice plus air-keyboard controlled HoloLens or a direct brain interface - or we may continue to have a multi-device ecosystem for the foreseeable future.
Some tablet markets that will continue: tablets embedded as UI (like the Square Stand retail register), tablet-controlled audio and light mixers, digital drawing tools for artists, and cheap tablets that are used as e-readers and movie watching devices.
Amazon's new Fire tablet (the $50 model) is leading the way in the last category, and encouraging it with the six pack deal they offered at launch. The digitally controlled home of the future might have a tablet that lives in each room, which would serve to control the lights and the entertainment hardware as well as being a media device in its own right. You would simply pick up the closest tablet when you want one rather than carrying a device.
Wacom makes the Cintiq Companion, which is portable - it's basically a direct competitor to the Surface Pro. It's thicker and heavier and more expensive but it does have a better pen.
The iPad Pro is indeed limited to software from Apple's App Store. That's less of a limitation than it used to be, and will become even less of one as developers start to specifically target the iPad Pro. But unless Apple relaxes the restrictions that severely limit the usefulness of any iDevice as a software development platform, it will continue to be a non-factor in that market.
Two clauses in the Functionality section of the App Store guidelines (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/) are the problem. They make it impossible to create a language compiler or interpreter for iOS, so the only feasible way to do any kind of software development would be a cloud-based environment. (This is why the versions of Chrome and Firefox for iOS must use Apple's Javascript engine, rather than using their own as they do on all other platforms.) The clauses:
2.7 Apps that download code in any way or form will be rejected
2.8 Apps that install or launch other executable code will be rejected
Most Surface models are full fledged Windows computers that can run any Windows application, though desktop applications will be difficult to use unless you add a keyboard and a pointing device (mouse or trackpad). The only exceptions are the old Windows RT systems, the Surface and Surface 2. The Surface Pro line is competitive with Ultrabooks in performance; it falls short of the performance of desktop systems or performance-oriented laptops but it's fast enough for most users.
Microsoft got a huge boost in October from the launch of the Surface Pro 4. Meanwhile, Apple fans looking for the next new thing had to wait until November for the iPad Pro launch. Expect the November numbers to show a big lead for Apple, even with the Surface 3 getting an assist from the Black Friday sale price, the first time any significant discount was offered on that tablet.
The real question is what things will look like going forward. Will the Surface line be sufficiently popular to take a noticeable bite out of Apple? And on the sheer volume side, will Amazon's $50 tablet (discounted to $35 for Black Friday) run up big sales numbers?
The SoCs used in the Raspberry Pi series are derivatives of SoCs that were developed for markets that don't call for analog I/O. Broadcom mostly sells their SoCs to makers of network routers and switches. In the past they also sold to smartphone makers, but Qualcomm has taken over most of the open market for those. (Apple and Samsung make their own chips, and MediaTek has a presence in chips for low-end phones.)
It is also difficult to include A/D converters on the same silicon as high density CPUs; the chip process requirements are very different. Smaller microcontrollers (like the ones used in the Arduino series) are built with older processes that can accommodate analog.
I'd rather have the skates. I can't afford to own the Ferrari; the taxes and insurance and maintenance would kill my budget. But bring on the Ferrari if I am allowed to sell it.
That advice doesn't work for laptops. Most only have room for one disk drive, either an SSD or a rotating drive. If you go with an SSD it has to be one that is big enough for all your needs. If you really need to carry around a terabyte of data than a terabyte SSD it is, whatever the cost.
Big heavy laptops (ones weighing over 6 pounds) may have space for a second drive. But I consider those to be portable desktops rather than true laptops.
Slashdot Mirror
I appreciate the humor. But we know that in reality, it means fewer bits for My Little Pony. The images don't change as quickly and the relatively simple line drawings that it uses make it easier to encode; you can get the same level of quality with a significantly lower bit rate.
Netflix could save even more bits by reencoding with H.265. (My understanding is that they already use H.265 for 4K streams.) But that would have unfortunate effects on older devices that lack hardware H.265 decoding. It would mean choppy playback and/or decreased battery life on older computers and mobile devices, so it should either be opt-in or decided by some sort of automatic detection of client capabilities.
Amoco made a lead-free premium gasoline. But they did not promote it on the basis of environmental safety; their commercials promoted the fact that it meant more miles between engine tuneups (because sparkplugs didn't get fouled with lead) and longer muffler life.
Cree LED bulbs, both the original design and the newer 4Flow, work well on dimmers. I have three chandelier fixtures with dimmers; I did the first two with the earlier Cree bulbs, but the third had to wait for the 4FLow because the thick collars of the older bulbs wouldn't fit into the glass shades.
They don't get as dim as incandescent bulbs but they get dim enough for me. There is no visible flicker when dimmed and multiple bulbs track correctly (that is, they all dim the same amount); both of those things were problems with dimmable CFLs.
The Philips Slimstyle is not a good choice for use with a dimmer; problems with visible flicker have been reported. They're fine for non-dimmer installations where the bulb will be hidden; the odd shape and imperfect light distribution make them less than perfect for installations where the bulb will be visible.
My point was that Microsoft gets to look like a good guy by restoring the 15GB for free, mitigating the negative PR from taking away the unlimited storage. The cost impact of that extra 10GB per customer will be modest because a large percentage of the people affected will never use it; meanwhile, they're getting the savings from dealing with the people who were uploading multiple terabytes of data.
Passwords are the only notable example. Best practice for passwords (which Google follows) is to hash them when initially entered (using a one-way hash, not an encryption scheme that can be decrypted) and to only store the hashed version. Google has no ability to recover your password from the stored information; that's why you have to change your password when you do password recovery rather than having them tell you the old one.
The problem with the low cost subsidized internet service is that it's also low performance. You can only get the subsidy for the lowest tier of service, or in some cases a sub-minimum tier. For example, Comcast offers a 10Mbps (upgraded from the original 1.5Mbps) subsidized service for $10/month, but the slowest non-subsidized service they offer in my area is 25Mbps. It can be combined with Comcast cable TV service, but in some cases bundling TV with one of their regular internet plans will be a better deal.
Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-Verse. There is no such thing as AT&T FIOS. Frontier FiOS exists, in areas where Verizon divested the service to them.
The city granted a monopoly contract without requiring service to the entire city??
The thing that Microsoft really needed to cut back on was the abusive use of unlimited storage by a few users who were backing up multiple terabytes of data. Making this move lets Microsoft look like less of a Grinch, while still cutting back where they really needed to cut.
Not really. But they contribute additional badness to the world.
Perhaps another factor is that Nintendo insists on keeping all the games for its systems family-friendly; that means that there are gamers who will never be content with a Nintendo product. (They will not approve ESRB AO games and are very selective about M games, E games are the heart of their lineup.) But it hasn't worked out all that badly for them; they've had a successful niche with their handhelds and the Wii, avoiding going head-on against the XBox and the PlayStation.
I prefer Logitech's mice. But if Logitech were wiped off the face of the earth, Microsoft's would be a more than acceptable substitute.
There was nothing wrong with the Zune other than some questionable color choices. (Brown, really? I've been waiting all my life for a brown tech gadget, said nobody ever aside from somebody on the Zune team.) If it had debuted into an iPod-less market it probably would have been a hit. But as it was there was no compelling reason to buy one instead of buying an iPod, so hardly anybody did.
She didn't drive Yahoo farther into the ground. It's still in pretty much the same place it was when she took over. She just failed to elevate it, which was a difficult task at best given the market dominance and technical strength of Google. I doubt anybody else would have done better.
Won't always work. There have been cases where the original firmware is seriously flawed, and not just in ways that affect the smart features. In that case it would be necessary to connect the TV long enough to get the firmware update.
These days nearly every TV on the market (except for some very low end sets) has some smart features, so you can't completely avoid them. My advice is to ignore them when buying, and figure you're going to buy a set-top box either immediately or a year down the road.
Very few TVs make nice sound; the built in speakers are mostly terrible. If you care about sound, plan to hook up something better: a surround system if you have the space, or at the very least a soundbar.
Still no need to buy a new TV. I expect a TV to have a service life of at least 10 years, and perhaps 20 or more though some of that will be as a secondary set. In other words, you upgrade the set in the main home theater setup and move that one to a lesser location, continuing that process down the food chain until you run out of places to put additional displays. After that the lowest one on the chain falls off the edge and is discarded after each upgrade.
Once the smart features in the TV become outdated as they inevitably will (they rarely get significant updates), you unplug them from the network, stop using the smart features, and buy a new Roku or Chromecast or Fire TV or Apple TV. A few years after that you buy another one.
I don't think tablets will die. But they will become a niche product, just as desktop computers as we knew them are becoming. None of our current computing devices will be the One Thing any more. People will choose between desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, and wearables depending on need and budget. At some future time we might see a One Thing again - perhaps a voice plus air-keyboard controlled HoloLens or a direct brain interface - or we may continue to have a multi-device ecosystem for the foreseeable future.
Some tablet markets that will continue: tablets embedded as UI (like the Square Stand retail register), tablet-controlled audio and light mixers, digital drawing tools for artists, and cheap tablets that are used as e-readers and movie watching devices.
Amazon's new Fire tablet (the $50 model) is leading the way in the last category, and encouraging it with the six pack deal they offered at launch. The digitally controlled home of the future might have a tablet that lives in each room, which would serve to control the lights and the entertainment hardware as well as being a media device in its own right. You would simply pick up the closest tablet when you want one rather than carrying a device.
Wacom makes the Cintiq Companion, which is portable - it's basically a direct competitor to the Surface Pro. It's thicker and heavier and more expensive but it does have a better pen.
The iPad Pro is indeed limited to software from Apple's App Store. That's less of a limitation than it used to be, and will become even less of one as developers start to specifically target the iPad Pro. But unless Apple relaxes the restrictions that severely limit the usefulness of any iDevice as a software development platform, it will continue to be a non-factor in that market.
Two clauses in the Functionality section of the App Store guidelines (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/) are the problem. They make it impossible to create a language compiler or interpreter for iOS, so the only feasible way to do any kind of software development would be a cloud-based environment. (This is why the versions of Chrome and Firefox for iOS must use Apple's Javascript engine, rather than using their own as they do on all other platforms.) The clauses:
2.7 Apps that download code in any way or form will be rejected
2.8 Apps that install or launch other executable code will be rejected
Most Surface models are full fledged Windows computers that can run any Windows application, though desktop applications will be difficult to use unless you add a keyboard and a pointing device (mouse or trackpad). The only exceptions are the old Windows RT systems, the Surface and Surface 2. The Surface Pro line is competitive with Ultrabooks in performance; it falls short of the performance of desktop systems or performance-oriented laptops but it's fast enough for most users.
Microsoft got a huge boost in October from the launch of the Surface Pro 4. Meanwhile, Apple fans looking for the next new thing had to wait until November for the iPad Pro launch. Expect the November numbers to show a big lead for Apple, even with the Surface 3 getting an assist from the Black Friday sale price, the first time any significant discount was offered on that tablet.
The real question is what things will look like going forward. Will the Surface line be sufficiently popular to take a noticeable bite out of Apple? And on the sheer volume side, will Amazon's $50 tablet (discounted to $35 for Black Friday) run up big sales numbers?
NOKIA: There's no Here here.
The SoCs used in the Raspberry Pi series are derivatives of SoCs that were developed for markets that don't call for analog I/O. Broadcom mostly sells their SoCs to makers of network routers and switches. In the past they also sold to smartphone makers, but Qualcomm has taken over most of the open market for those. (Apple and Samsung make their own chips, and MediaTek has a presence in chips for low-end phones.)
It is also difficult to include A/D converters on the same silicon as high density CPUs; the chip process requirements are very different. Smaller microcontrollers (like the ones used in the Arduino series) are built with older processes that can accommodate analog.
I'd rather have the skates. I can't afford to own the Ferrari; the taxes and insurance and maintenance would kill my budget. But bring on the Ferrari if I am allowed to sell it.
That advice doesn't work for laptops. Most only have room for one disk drive, either an SSD or a rotating drive. If you go with an SSD it has to be one that is big enough for all your needs. If you really need to carry around a terabyte of data than a terabyte SSD it is, whatever the cost.
Big heavy laptops (ones weighing over 6 pounds) may have space for a second drive. But I consider those to be portable desktops rather than true laptops.