An Android developer. I also know of some video player appliances that use Android. Not much point otherwise for now. I believe that Chrome OS and Android will eventually unify, at which point there might be more reason to run the combined OS on a laptop or desktop.
There will always be some situations where a reboot is required after patching. If it's the kernel that gets updated there is no way around it that I know of. A weakness of Windows is that it often requires a reboot for updates that DON'T involve the kernel such as updates to Windows services; on other OSes, including anything Unix-based like OS X or Linux, you can just restart the service.
Kodi is still available on Google Play. Amazon pulling it from their app store only really matters if you have an Amazon tablet or a Fire Phone; anything else that has access to the Amazon Appstore should also be able to access the Google Play store.
I'm curious - what audio hardware do you use when you're trying to do a mix with, say, 16 or 32 inputs? There aren't many computer interfaces that have that many and you would still need a way to connect the interface to your Surface Pro. One of those new Behringer mixers with the Windows desktop application would work but I haven't had the opportunity to check one out yet - the release was delayed multiple times and they are still scarce.
According to seatguru.com (link: http://www.seatguru.com/airlin...), some of Delta's 737-800 fleet has USB power at every seat. The older version does not, but the airline is in the process of converting their 737-800 fleet to the newer configuration. First class and economy comfort seats have AC outlets; economy seats do not.
Again according to seatguru.com, Delta's 737-900ER fleet (link: http://www.seatguru.com/airlin...) does not have USB power anywhere, but has AC power outlets at every seat. Your experience suggests that their information is inaccurate.
The price of the Surface Pro 3 means that few people will buy it just to run the fairly small number of Windows applications that are designed for tablets or are touch friendly. If you just want to do those things there are less expensive options, and buying an iOS or Android tablet will give you a much larger selection of touch friendly apps. The less expensive Surface 3 might appeal to some users who just want it for touchscreen use.
There are some use cases that are exceptions. Music mixing, mentioned in an earlier post, is one. Photoshop, despite your doubts, is another; although it won't work well with just a fingertip because of the size of the controls, it works quite well with the Surface Pen, and that's an accessory (and it's included with the Surface Pro 3 so you don't even have to buy it separately; if you buy the Surface 3 the pen will cost you another $50) that somebody who is using the tablet mostly for Photoshop and/or Illustrator will want.
The reason that ARM didn't work out for Windows (just as the versions of Windows NT for PowerPC and Alpha failed) is that Microsoft has been unable to convince the developers of Windows applications to make them available for multiple architectures. Unless they can make that happen, Windows for ARM is a non-starter on the desktop. (Microsoft plans to continue to support ARM for phones.)
Back in the NT era, Microsoft might have been able to force the issue by making multiple architecture support a condition for getting Designed for Windows certification. (Older applications were being obsoleted by the transition to a true 32 bit OS anyway, so most users had to update.) But they didn't do it, and now there are far too many existing applications that people will want to run on their new computers, so it would be impossible for Microsoft to switch desktop Windows to another architecture. It could be done with a binary translation layer, but there are performance and power consumption compromises to that. And there is a fundamental difference between Windows and Mac users; Windows users tend to have a much larger number of applications installed (though not so much in the number that they use on a daily basis), and many Windows users stick with old versions of applications rather than upgrading.
Tablet-controlled mixers aren't for everyone; getting used to the touchscreen controls can be challenging for people who are accustomed to knobs and sliders, and you can't see the entire setup at once. But they are a wonderful solution for some use cases. You can control the mix from the listening point without the need to run a snake, and you can have multiple people controlling different parts of the mix (for example, have a second person set up the monitor mix or even let the performers adjust it themselves). Mackie was first to market but there are a number of choices now; QSC has one, PreSonus has a mixer that has conventional sliders but also offers iPad control, and Behringer has a series of mixers that have Windows and Android control apps in addition to one for the iPad.
The Surface Pro 3 and Surface 3 are normally sold without the keyboard; it's a $130 extra. The Surface Pro includes a pen; it's a $50 extra for the Surface 3.
Microsoft has offered Surface bundles that gave you a discount if you bought a Surface or Surface Pro and a cover. No bundles with just those items are currently available, but there are bundles that offer a discount if you buy a Surface or Surface Pro 3, a Type Cover, a sleeve, and an extended warranty. The Surface Pro bundle also requires you to buy an Office 365 subscription; the Surface 3 base price currently includes one.
Microsoft's marketing line for the Surface line is "the tablet that can replace your laptop". (They originally used that for the Surface Pro series but are now also using it for the Surface 3.) Sounds to me like they are marketing it as a tablet.
If I am calling for a specific individual, I accept the fact that the person won't always be available. But if I call customer service in general, there should always be somebody there to talk to me now or after a wait of no more than a couple of minutes. I don't EVER want to have to leave my number for somebody to call back.. I'm the customer so it's your job to be available when I want you to serve me, it's not my job to be available for you.
Yes, I know about your web site. You don't have to remind me of it incessantly in your hold message. Unless you are my ISP and I am calling to report a service outage, I already tried it. The only reason I'm calling you is because I need to do something that your web site can't handle, or because I already tried it and you didn't help me within a reasonable amount of time.
Finally, I know that some of you won't let me cancel your services on your web site, and instead insist that I talk to a human so they can try to talk me out of canceling. Don't do that. If you make the experience of canceling pleasant, I will come back if my needs or finances change again and I once again want your services. If you make the exit experience unpleasant I will NEVER return, and I will tell all my friends to avoid you.
So they technically work the deal the other way. On the books AMD buys Xilinx or they do it as a merger of equals, even if Xilinx is the buyer in reality.
First, there is the question of whether non-free software should be in the Ubuntu Software Center at all. The purist camp of free software, personified by Richard Stallman, believe that it should not. Shuttleworth's vision of Ubuntu includes availability of non-free software, so trying to argue that point will not change Ubuntu. People who want a completely free software distribution are free to create one, and many are already available.
The second question is about disclosure. Some of feel that the USC should be more clear about the licensing of software; that it should be clear when you are downloading whether you are getting something with a free software license, something with available source but a restrictive license, or something that is available only in binary form with no source code availability. (Programs that you have to pay for are already easy to tell apart.) I believe that improved license disclosure can be consistent with the mission of Ubuntu, and that the community should urge Canonical to make that happen.
If the quality of the software is otherwise equal, free software is better; I think that's the point that Teun was making. You can build it for any computer you like, and there is less worry about it being abandoned because new people can get the source and run with it. But no, it's not the case that the free software application for purpose X is always higher in quality than the non-free application for X.
Windows 10 will be free for small tablets (8" and smaller screen) and for IoT. It is not free for desktops, laptops, hybrids, and larger tablets. Microsoft already has a reduced cost Windows 8.1 with Bing, so this announcement just means that they are extending the program into the Windows 10 era. I expect this version to show up on most retail systems rather than the standard Windows 10 because it will reduce the price. All in all this could be a plus for consumers because it will reduce the amount of bloatware that gets pre-installed, since non-Microsoft replacements for the Microsoft apps can't be set up as defaults. It's possible that some computer makers won't switch because they are making enough money on bloatware product placements to make up the difference. Business systems with Windows 10 Pro will be unaffected.
For the user it's not a big deal. You're stuck with some possibly annoying Bing branding. You can still change your default applications if you like, though it's a bit more work than on previous Windows versions (based on my experience with the preview) because programs can no longer change the defaults for you. Applications that try that now give you a Windows popup that reminds you that you have to do it yourself in the Settings app. (Control Panel also works for now.)
It's another solution where your recordings are trapped inside the box and you can't easily add more storage or back them up. No thank you.
Windows Media Center could have been the set-top box killer, functioning as your TV guide, tuner, and recorder, and also letting you watch streaming video and play games. I'd rather have all that in an expandable system, not a locked down one like the XBox.
Why shouldn't they want you to have media PCs that just run WMC? That doesn't mean that you don't also have computers that run Windows for some other purpose. The WMC computers are typically being used as fancy set-top boxes and located near the household's TV sets, not in a location where you would normally use them for computing other than perhaps a bit of web browsing while you are watching TV.
The problem on Windows 8 was not the codec fee. I think Windows Media Center users would have happily paid the $10. The real problem was that Microsoft also forced you to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro before you could buy it, which made the effective price of WMC on Windows 8 $110 for most potential users, not $10. (Most of them were home users who would have no other reason to buy a copy of Pro, nor would the computers they were shopping for come with it.) That's a difference of an order of magnitude, and it was a deal killer for a lot of people.
TiVo is NOT cheap. For starters, there is the monthly fee. Then there is the fact that you cannot easily and inexpensively add more storage. Some of us have multiple terabytes of disk space on our WMC or Kodi systems.
Another disadvantage to TiVo is that your recordings are trapped in the TiVo. If you use Kodi or WMC they are ordinary files that can be backed up, edited, and so forth.
Depends on the complexity of your speaker setup. The reason that theater sound systems use so many channels (the latest one, Dolby Atmos, uses 64, though it can assign them to the actual speakers in various blends because few real world setup have that many speakers) is not to give you higher quality surround placement; it's to expand the listening sweet spot. With more speakers you can get the sounds coming from the right direction for a larger number of listeners.
Good luck if your DP adapter goes missing when you have a midnight panel or movie showing to do. You probably can't just pop down to a local store and buy one, but you can get HDMI cables anywhere. Around here you can buy them 24/7 because they have them at CVS, and I'm sure Wally World also sells them. That's why I'd rather have both ports on my system, and if I have to have just one I'd rather have HDMI.
Why is AMD on the verge of bankruptcy? The lower performance of their chips means they have to sell them at lower price points to get any business at all. The fabrication technology they have access to is a couple of generations behind Intel's, so those lower performance chips are probably actually costing them more to make than Intel's faster chips but they can't get nearly as much money for them.
For many years, AMD owned its chip fabs. They didn't have the money to make the necessary investments to keep them at the cutting edge so they were always playing catch up. Then they spun off the fab business as GlobalFoundries, with the hope being that the new company could attract enough outside business (as well as AMD's own) to put it in a financial situation to catch up with the big players. That has not happened; GlobalFoundries has not caught up, and AMD can't get enough fab capacity at better equipped TSMC to make its CPUs there.
To really get back in the game, AMD needs a new CPU architecture that is more competitive with Intel so they can start making some higher margin chips again. They are known to be working on one that will be ready in 2016 or 2017; we will see whether it is good enough to compete. In addition, they need access to better fabrication technology to manufacture that new design. If they can make both of those things happen, AMD might finally claw its way back to health.
Both HDMI and DisplayPort are worth having. HDMI is what TV sets have; if you want to attach an affordable big UHD screen to your computer, HDMI 2.0 (the new version that supports 4K) is what you need. (You can use a adapter but a native HDMI port is more convenient.) Computers displays have a variety of things: DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, HDMI, and DVI-D (plus those legacy displays with analog VGA connections), so you're going to need adapters or adapter cables as often as not.
In the future all the computer stuff is likely to move to the just-announced Thunderbolt 3, the one port to rule them all. It uses the new USB-C connector and is backward-compatible with both Thunderbolt 1 and 2, with DisplayPort, and with USB 3.1 and earlier versions. Most of those will need adapter cables.
That's true if you're using your own computer. But if you are on somebody else's computer (perhaps because you are a traveling computer technician) and you need SSH access to something (like, say, the customer's router) this could be a significant time saver.
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An Android developer. I also know of some video player appliances that use Android. Not much point otherwise for now. I believe that Chrome OS and Android will eventually unify, at which point there might be more reason to run the combined OS on a laptop or desktop.
There will always be some situations where a reboot is required after patching. If it's the kernel that gets updated there is no way around it that I know of. A weakness of Windows is that it often requires a reboot for updates that DON'T involve the kernel such as updates to Windows services; on other OSes, including anything Unix-based like OS X or Linux, you can just restart the service.
Kodi is still available on Google Play. Amazon pulling it from their app store only really matters if you have an Amazon tablet or a Fire Phone; anything else that has access to the Amazon Appstore should also be able to access the Google Play store.
I'm curious - what audio hardware do you use when you're trying to do a mix with, say, 16 or 32 inputs? There aren't many computer interfaces that have that many and you would still need a way to connect the interface to your Surface Pro. One of those new Behringer mixers with the Windows desktop application would work but I haven't had the opportunity to check one out yet - the release was delayed multiple times and they are still scarce.
According to seatguru.com (link: http://www.seatguru.com/airlin...), some of Delta's 737-800 fleet has USB power at every seat. The older version does not, but the airline is in the process of converting their 737-800 fleet to the newer configuration. First class and economy comfort seats have AC outlets; economy seats do not.
Again according to seatguru.com, Delta's 737-900ER fleet (link: http://www.seatguru.com/airlin...) does not have USB power anywhere, but has AC power outlets at every seat. Your experience suggests that their information is inaccurate.
The price of the Surface Pro 3 means that few people will buy it just to run the fairly small number of Windows applications that are designed for tablets or are touch friendly. If you just want to do those things there are less expensive options, and buying an iOS or Android tablet will give you a much larger selection of touch friendly apps. The less expensive Surface 3 might appeal to some users who just want it for touchscreen use.
There are some use cases that are exceptions. Music mixing, mentioned in an earlier post, is one. Photoshop, despite your doubts, is another; although it won't work well with just a fingertip because of the size of the controls, it works quite well with the Surface Pen, and that's an accessory (and it's included with the Surface Pro 3 so you don't even have to buy it separately; if you buy the Surface 3 the pen will cost you another $50) that somebody who is using the tablet mostly for Photoshop and/or Illustrator will want.
The reason that ARM didn't work out for Windows (just as the versions of Windows NT for PowerPC and Alpha failed) is that Microsoft has been unable to convince the developers of Windows applications to make them available for multiple architectures. Unless they can make that happen, Windows for ARM is a non-starter on the desktop. (Microsoft plans to continue to support ARM for phones.)
Back in the NT era, Microsoft might have been able to force the issue by making multiple architecture support a condition for getting Designed for Windows certification. (Older applications were being obsoleted by the transition to a true 32 bit OS anyway, so most users had to update.) But they didn't do it, and now there are far too many existing applications that people will want to run on their new computers, so it would be impossible for Microsoft to switch desktop Windows to another architecture. It could be done with a binary translation layer, but there are performance and power consumption compromises to that. And there is a fundamental difference between Windows and Mac users; Windows users tend to have a much larger number of applications installed (though not so much in the number that they use on a daily basis), and many Windows users stick with old versions of applications rather than upgrading.
Tablet-controlled mixers aren't for everyone; getting used to the touchscreen controls can be challenging for people who are accustomed to knobs and sliders, and you can't see the entire setup at once. But they are a wonderful solution for some use cases. You can control the mix from the listening point without the need to run a snake, and you can have multiple people controlling different parts of the mix (for example, have a second person set up the monitor mix or even let the performers adjust it themselves). Mackie was first to market but there are a number of choices now; QSC has one, PreSonus has a mixer that has conventional sliders but also offers iPad control, and Behringer has a series of mixers that have Windows and Android control apps in addition to one for the iPad.
The Surface Pro 3 and Surface 3 are normally sold without the keyboard; it's a $130 extra. The Surface Pro includes a pen; it's a $50 extra for the Surface 3.
Microsoft has offered Surface bundles that gave you a discount if you bought a Surface or Surface Pro and a cover. No bundles with just those items are currently available, but there are bundles that offer a discount if you buy a Surface or Surface Pro 3, a Type Cover, a sleeve, and an extended warranty. The Surface Pro bundle also requires you to buy an Office 365 subscription; the Surface 3 base price currently includes one.
Microsoft's marketing line for the Surface line is "the tablet that can replace your laptop". (They originally used that for the Surface Pro series but are now also using it for the Surface 3.) Sounds to me like they are marketing it as a tablet.
If I am calling for a specific individual, I accept the fact that the person won't always be available. But if I call customer service in general, there should always be somebody there to talk to me now or after a wait of no more than a couple of minutes. I don't EVER want to have to leave my number for somebody to call back.. I'm the customer so it's your job to be available when I want you to serve me, it's not my job to be available for you.
Yes, I know about your web site. You don't have to remind me of it incessantly in your hold message. Unless you are my ISP and I am calling to report a service outage, I already tried it. The only reason I'm calling you is because I need to do something that your web site can't handle, or because I already tried it and you didn't help me within a reasonable amount of time.
Finally, I know that some of you won't let me cancel your services on your web site, and instead insist that I talk to a human so they can try to talk me out of canceling. Don't do that. If you make the experience of canceling pleasant, I will come back if my needs or finances change again and I once again want your services. If you make the exit experience unpleasant I will NEVER return, and I will tell all my friends to avoid you.
So they technically work the deal the other way. On the books AMD buys Xilinx or they do it as a merger of equals, even if Xilinx is the buyer in reality.
First, there is the question of whether non-free software should be in the Ubuntu Software Center at all. The purist camp of free software, personified by Richard Stallman, believe that it should not. Shuttleworth's vision of Ubuntu includes availability of non-free software, so trying to argue that point will not change Ubuntu. People who want a completely free software distribution are free to create one, and many are already available.
The second question is about disclosure. Some of feel that the USC should be more clear about the licensing of software; that it should be clear when you are downloading whether you are getting something with a free software license, something with available source but a restrictive license, or something that is available only in binary form with no source code availability. (Programs that you have to pay for are already easy to tell apart.) I believe that improved license disclosure can be consistent with the mission of Ubuntu, and that the community should urge Canonical to make that happen.
If the quality of the software is otherwise equal, free software is better; I think that's the point that Teun was making. You can build it for any computer you like, and there is less worry about it being abandoned because new people can get the source and run with it. But no, it's not the case that the free software application for purpose X is always higher in quality than the non-free application for X.
Windows 10 will be free for small tablets (8" and smaller screen) and for IoT. It is not free for desktops, laptops, hybrids, and larger tablets. Microsoft already has a reduced cost Windows 8.1 with Bing, so this announcement just means that they are extending the program into the Windows 10 era. I expect this version to show up on most retail systems rather than the standard Windows 10 because it will reduce the price. All in all this could be a plus for consumers because it will reduce the amount of bloatware that gets pre-installed, since non-Microsoft replacements for the Microsoft apps can't be set up as defaults. It's possible that some computer makers won't switch because they are making enough money on bloatware product placements to make up the difference. Business systems with Windows 10 Pro will be unaffected.
For the user it's not a big deal. You're stuck with some possibly annoying Bing branding. You can still change your default applications if you like, though it's a bit more work than on previous Windows versions (based on my experience with the preview) because programs can no longer change the defaults for you. Applications that try that now give you a Windows popup that reminds you that you have to do it yourself in the Settings app. (Control Panel also works for now.)
It's another solution where your recordings are trapped inside the box and you can't easily add more storage or back them up. No thank you.
Windows Media Center could have been the set-top box killer, functioning as your TV guide, tuner, and recorder, and also letting you watch streaming video and play games. I'd rather have all that in an expandable system, not a locked down one like the XBox.
Why shouldn't they want you to have media PCs that just run WMC? That doesn't mean that you don't also have computers that run Windows for some other purpose. The WMC computers are typically being used as fancy set-top boxes and located near the household's TV sets, not in a location where you would normally use them for computing other than perhaps a bit of web browsing while you are watching TV.
The problem on Windows 8 was not the codec fee. I think Windows Media Center users would have happily paid the $10. The real problem was that Microsoft also forced you to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro before you could buy it, which made the effective price of WMC on Windows 8 $110 for most potential users, not $10. (Most of them were home users who would have no other reason to buy a copy of Pro, nor would the computers they were shopping for come with it.) That's a difference of an order of magnitude, and it was a deal killer for a lot of people.
TiVo is NOT cheap. For starters, there is the monthly fee. Then there is the fact that you cannot easily and inexpensively add more storage. Some of us have multiple terabytes of disk space on our WMC or Kodi systems.
Another disadvantage to TiVo is that your recordings are trapped in the TiVo. If you use Kodi or WMC they are ordinary files that can be backed up, edited, and so forth.
Depends on the complexity of your speaker setup. The reason that theater sound systems use so many channels (the latest one, Dolby Atmos, uses 64, though it can assign them to the actual speakers in various blends because few real world setup have that many speakers) is not to give you higher quality surround placement; it's to expand the listening sweet spot. With more speakers you can get the sounds coming from the right direction for a larger number of listeners.
Good luck if your DP adapter goes missing when you have a midnight panel or movie showing to do. You probably can't just pop down to a local store and buy one, but you can get HDMI cables anywhere. Around here you can buy them 24/7 because they have them at CVS, and I'm sure Wally World also sells them. That's why I'd rather have both ports on my system, and if I have to have just one I'd rather have HDMI.
Here is a link with info about AMD's planned next generation: http://www.anandtech.com/show/...
Why is AMD on the verge of bankruptcy? The lower performance of their chips means they have to sell them at lower price points to get any business at all. The fabrication technology they have access to is a couple of generations behind Intel's, so those lower performance chips are probably actually costing them more to make than Intel's faster chips but they can't get nearly as much money for them.
For many years, AMD owned its chip fabs. They didn't have the money to make the necessary investments to keep them at the cutting edge so they were always playing catch up. Then they spun off the fab business as GlobalFoundries, with the hope being that the new company could attract enough outside business (as well as AMD's own) to put it in a financial situation to catch up with the big players. That has not happened; GlobalFoundries has not caught up, and AMD can't get enough fab capacity at better equipped TSMC to make its CPUs there.
To really get back in the game, AMD needs a new CPU architecture that is more competitive with Intel so they can start making some higher margin chips again. They are known to be working on one that will be ready in 2016 or 2017; we will see whether it is good enough to compete. In addition, they need access to better fabrication technology to manufacture that new design. If they can make both of those things happen, AMD might finally claw its way back to health.
Both HDMI and DisplayPort are worth having. HDMI is what TV sets have; if you want to attach an affordable big UHD screen to your computer, HDMI 2.0 (the new version that supports 4K) is what you need. (You can use a adapter but a native HDMI port is more convenient.) Computers displays have a variety of things: DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, HDMI, and DVI-D (plus those legacy displays with analog VGA connections), so you're going to need adapters or adapter cables as often as not.
In the future all the computer stuff is likely to move to the just-announced Thunderbolt 3, the one port to rule them all. It uses the new USB-C connector and is backward-compatible with both Thunderbolt 1 and 2, with DisplayPort, and with USB 3.1 and earlier versions. Most of those will need adapter cables.
That's true if you're using your own computer. But if you are on somebody else's computer (perhaps because you are a traveling computer technician) and you need SSH access to something (like, say, the customer's router) this could be a significant time saver.