If you have one of the models with a rotating disk rather than an SSD, the C720 is nearly identical to Windows systems that Acer sells. (Only the bootloader and the Google keyboard are different.) Even the SSD is bog-standard hardware, though Acer doesn't offer a Windows version of that particular platform with it. So it's not surprising that there would be no driver issues. The other Intel-based Chromebooks don't have exact Windows counterparts but also are unlikely to have driver issues.
ARM-based Chromebooks are another story. Since there are no ARM systems for full Windows, hardware support for that platform is more limited. Though I know that boot of a full Linux distribution has been done on the cheap Samsung ARM Chromebook, so it's not impossible.
There have been many many reports of fusion power breakthroughs over the years. This is promising because it comes from a company with a track record, but I'm only giving it guarded enthusiasm until I see a real product.
The US stopped printing bills larger than $100 many years ago but the larger bills were not withdrawn from circulation. A substantial number of $1,000 bills are still in the wild; they don't turn over often so they don't wear out quickly. (In contrast, $1 bills turn over frequently and have an average lifespan of 18 months.)
High efficiency power supplies are already doing this. You might have one in your new PC. Instead of using rectifying diodes, they are using power FETs and switching them on and off at the power line frequency because power losses are lower.
If Netflix is going to do this, they need to make one title available to regular Netflix subscribers so they can test whether 4K streaming will work for them. If people pay and then discover that their network connections aren't up to the challenge they are going to be unhappy. Doesn't have to be a feature film; a short or a TV episode will do.
The Model M was always too stiff and too noisy for my taste. But if you like them, have at it.
I do have a special clueless award for the company (some anonymous small manufacturer in Taiwan) that produced a LAPTOP with clicky keys. I ran into that one in the late 80s when I was working for a computer dealer; one of my jobs was testing new products that we were thinking of selling. I gave that a "don't even think about it" rating.
They also gain efficiency from having only one provider. Telecommunications is a natural monopoly business, at least the part that actually involves pulling cables; having multiple sets of them, as we do in the US, drives up costs. Nearly everywhere has at least two, the company that originally provided telephone service and a cable company, though internet service is not always available on the telephone wires in remote locations. Some places have a second cable company and/or somebody who has pulled fiber to the home (which may or may not be the original telephone company).
The problem with monopolies, natural or otherwise, is that the holder of the monopoly tends to abuse it. On average corporate monopolies are abused more seriously than government monopolies, though there are counterexamples.
The competitive market in England is actually multiple consumer providers using the same monopoly infrastructure - lines owned by British Telecom. We had that model for a little while in the US, with CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) using lines provided by the local telephone company. But then the FCC rescinded the rule that required the phone company to lease those lines at reasonable rates and the CLECs died. Cable TV and fiber companies have never been required to lease their services to third party providers, so the days of the CLEC would have ended in any case as people moved to faster connections.
It is sometimes possible to win discrimination cases for wrongful termination; the employer will try to claim that you were fired for other reasons but they don't always convince the judge. The ones that are really impossible is proving that you were never hired in the first place because of discrimination.
No, they don't. Windows Update is speed limited, but downloading ISOs from Microsoft developer sites does not appear to be, at least not at levels that are relevant to typical internet connections. I have seen those downloads approach 100Mbps, which is the limit of my connection - so I usually have mercy on my housemates and download them over the WiFi connection rather than hardwired because that only gets to 20Mbps or so (limitations of my router).
The lesson here: queue up those big downloads at the end of the business day, not when other people are trying to get work done.
The problem with Hulu is that they have a limited ad inventory; only a few large companies are choosing to advertise that way. You're getting those TJ Maxx ads because that's what they have available that day. If they don't have any Amazon ads or Tesla car ads or ads for whatever you might actually want to buy, you won't see those ads even if Hulu knows you would love them.
The problem with offering the buyout is that not all users have equal value to Facebook. The people with the highest value - ones who use Facebook a lot and are demographically desirable - would take the $1/month buyout and those people are probably worth more than $1/month to Facebook.
All of the original Big Three car makers and many other car makers offer their own lease programs. In that case the car IS reverting to the manufacturer, or at least to its financial branch.
This time I think there is some chance that the public opinion will matter, because there is big money weighing in on both sides so the public opinion could tip the balance between the two.
There are two big money arguments in the net neutrality fight, one on each side. In favor of neutrality you have internet companies like Google and Microsoft, who argue that allowing ISPs to charge fees to service providers (beyond the normal cost of their access) would stifle innovation in network services. Against neutrality you have ISPs like Comcast and Verizon, who argue that forcing them to carry unlimited data for everybody without being able to recover their costs would stifle investment in network infrastructure. The FCC has to decide which of these arguments is the more convincing one.
The situation in past battles, such as the one about consolidation of media companies, was a very different one. In those fights almost all the money was on one side; it was a battle with big corporations on one side and consumers on the other, and money tends to win those. Net neutrality has big companies and big money on both sides.
Qubo is a broadcast network; it's on the air as a digital sub-channel anywhere there is an ION network station. (Though there are some major cities with no ION station, and some cable systems, notably Comcast, don't carry their sub-channels.) But that's a bit too non-mainstream for Gizmodo to have paid attention to, and in any case the programs are forgettable.
The storage picture on the latest crop of tablets is a lot better. Windows 8.1 can boot directly from the recovery partition, eliminating the need for a second (and larger) uncompressed copy of it in the file system. There are now Windows 8.1 tablets with a measly 16GB flash and you still have some space available to use.
Current Atoms (Bay Trail) are 64 bit capable. Many of the laptops using them run the 64 bit version of Windows, because they have to in order to use their full 4GB of RAM. Bay Trail tablets are mostly running the 32 bit version because they only have 1 or 2GB RAM; they could use 64 bit Windows but the memory and disk space requirements for the 32 bit version are a bit lower so they use that.
OS/2 also failed because of the inflated pricing of RAM at the time. There was a period in the early 1990s when RAM prices failed to decline in the usual manner of computer components. (There was a second period of that circa 2000 that eventually led to a price fixing lawsuit and settlement.) Sadly for the fate of OS/2, this period of high RAM prices coincided with the introduction of the OS, and those high prices made the adoption of OS/2 unappealing.
OS/2 did a number of things that Windows did not at the time: full 32 bit code, preemptive multitasking, a virtualized DOS compatibility box that was protected from crashing the entire system, and a technically superior file system. Windows didn't catch up until the release of Windows NT, and the initial releases of NT had problems running many existing Windows programs, while OS/2 could run them properly; that wasn't addressed until Windows 2000, and then XP finally got it completely right. Doing all that extra stuff meant that the OS needed more memory.
I really liked Ami Pro. But Samna/Lotus never came out with a proper 32 bit version of it, instead giving us the atrocity that is Word Pro. Word Pro tried to be an imitation of Microsoft Word, abandoning the things that Ami Pro did well (especially its use of style sheets), and it was horribly slow.
Multiplan was also available for the Mac for a short time. But it was just a spreadsheet that ran under the GUI, rather than one that took advantage of the GUI as Excel did. Excel added things like full GUI styling of text and dragging of column widths and row heights, capabilities that Multiplan didn't have, plus it had much better graphing features.
For many things, yes. But the 8088 had a built in way to address more than 64KB of RAM (the CPU's limit was 1MB, but the IBM PC used some of the address space for I/O so the RAM limit on that platform was 640K), which gave it an edge for spreadsheets. Yes, it was convoluted; the segmented memory model was a pain. But it was better than nothing, or than a variety of inconsistent ad-hoc methods that 8 bit microcomputers acquired before they became obsolete.
I don't miss Reveal Codes. The need for it showed that the character decoration model of WordPerfect was fundamentally broken. A word processor that got the model right, like the late lamented Ami Pro (the model there was essentially like Cascading Style Sheets on the web, but long before those came along), had no need for Reveal Codes because you always got what you expected.
But most people were editing smaller images back then. We didn't have 24MP and 36MP digital cameras yet, nor did we have cameras with more than 8 bit color depth. A 24MP image takes up 72 megabytes in standard 24 bit color and 144MB if it has high dynamic range color; a computer with a total of 64MB is not going to be able to edit that image efficiently.
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If you have one of the models with a rotating disk rather than an SSD, the C720 is nearly identical to Windows systems that Acer sells. (Only the bootloader and the Google keyboard are different.) Even the SSD is bog-standard hardware, though Acer doesn't offer a Windows version of that particular platform with it. So it's not surprising that there would be no driver issues. The other Intel-based Chromebooks don't have exact Windows counterparts but also are unlikely to have driver issues.
ARM-based Chromebooks are another story. Since there are no ARM systems for full Windows, hardware support for that platform is more limited. Though I know that boot of a full Linux distribution has been done on the cheap Samsung ARM Chromebook, so it's not impossible.
The Lenovo deal is not officially approved yet. But nobody seems to be making any real objections to it, so it's pretty much certain to happen.
There have been many many reports of fusion power breakthroughs over the years. This is promising because it comes from a company with a track record, but I'm only giving it guarded enthusiasm until I see a real product.
The US stopped printing bills larger than $100 many years ago but the larger bills were not withdrawn from circulation. A substantial number of $1,000 bills are still in the wild; they don't turn over often so they don't wear out quickly. (In contrast, $1 bills turn over frequently and have an average lifespan of 18 months.)
High efficiency power supplies are already doing this. You might have one in your new PC. Instead of using rectifying diodes, they are using power FETs and switching them on and off at the power line frequency because power losses are lower.
If you choose not to go through the scanner they give you a pat-down check. That can be uncomfortably like being groped.
If Netflix is going to do this, they need to make one title available to regular Netflix subscribers so they can test whether 4K streaming will work for them. If people pay and then discover that their network connections aren't up to the challenge they are going to be unhappy. Doesn't have to be a feature film; a short or a TV episode will do.
The Model M was always too stiff and too noisy for my taste. But if you like them, have at it.
I do have a special clueless award for the company (some anonymous small manufacturer in Taiwan) that produced a LAPTOP with clicky keys. I ran into that one in the late 80s when I was working for a computer dealer; one of my jobs was testing new products that we were thinking of selling. I gave that a "don't even think about it" rating.
They also gain efficiency from having only one provider. Telecommunications is a natural monopoly business, at least the part that actually involves pulling cables; having multiple sets of them, as we do in the US, drives up costs. Nearly everywhere has at least two, the company that originally provided telephone service and a cable company, though internet service is not always available on the telephone wires in remote locations. Some places have a second cable company and/or somebody who has pulled fiber to the home (which may or may not be the original telephone company).
The problem with monopolies, natural or otherwise, is that the holder of the monopoly tends to abuse it. On average corporate monopolies are abused more seriously than government monopolies, though there are counterexamples.
The competitive market in England is actually multiple consumer providers using the same monopoly infrastructure - lines owned by British Telecom. We had that model for a little while in the US, with CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) using lines provided by the local telephone company. But then the FCC rescinded the rule that required the phone company to lease those lines at reasonable rates and the CLECs died. Cable TV and fiber companies have never been required to lease their services to third party providers, so the days of the CLEC would have ended in any case as people moved to faster connections.
It is sometimes possible to win discrimination cases for wrongful termination; the employer will try to claim that you were fired for other reasons but they don't always convince the judge. The ones that are really impossible is proving that you were never hired in the first place because of discrimination.
No, they don't. Windows Update is speed limited, but downloading ISOs from Microsoft developer sites does not appear to be, at least not at levels that are relevant to typical internet connections. I have seen those downloads approach 100Mbps, which is the limit of my connection - so I usually have mercy on my housemates and download them over the WiFi connection rather than hardwired because that only gets to 20Mbps or so (limitations of my router).
The lesson here: queue up those big downloads at the end of the business day, not when other people are trying to get work done.
The problem with Hulu is that they have a limited ad inventory; only a few large companies are choosing to advertise that way. You're getting those TJ Maxx ads because that's what they have available that day. If they don't have any Amazon ads or Tesla car ads or ads for whatever you might actually want to buy, you won't see those ads even if Hulu knows you would love them.
The problem with offering the buyout is that not all users have equal value to Facebook. The people with the highest value - ones who use Facebook a lot and are demographically desirable - would take the $1/month buyout and those people are probably worth more than $1/month to Facebook.
All of the original Big Three car makers and many other car makers offer their own lease programs. In that case the car IS reverting to the manufacturer, or at least to its financial branch.
This time I think there is some chance that the public opinion will matter, because there is big money weighing in on both sides so the public opinion could tip the balance between the two.
There are two big money arguments in the net neutrality fight, one on each side. In favor of neutrality you have internet companies like Google and Microsoft, who argue that allowing ISPs to charge fees to service providers (beyond the normal cost of their access) would stifle innovation in network services. Against neutrality you have ISPs like Comcast and Verizon, who argue that forcing them to carry unlimited data for everybody without being able to recover their costs would stifle investment in network infrastructure. The FCC has to decide which of these arguments is the more convincing one.
The situation in past battles, such as the one about consolidation of media companies, was a very different one. In those fights almost all the money was on one side; it was a battle with big corporations on one side and consumers on the other, and money tends to win those. Net neutrality has big companies and big money on both sides.
Qubo is a broadcast network; it's on the air as a digital sub-channel anywhere there is an ION network station. (Though there are some major cities with no ION station, and some cable systems, notably Comcast, don't carry their sub-channels.) But that's a bit too non-mainstream for Gizmodo to have paid attention to, and in any case the programs are forgettable.
The storage picture on the latest crop of tablets is a lot better. Windows 8.1 can boot directly from the recovery partition, eliminating the need for a second (and larger) uncompressed copy of it in the file system. There are now Windows 8.1 tablets with a measly 16GB flash and you still have some space available to use.
Current Atoms (Bay Trail) are 64 bit capable. Many of the laptops using them run the 64 bit version of Windows, because they have to in order to use their full 4GB of RAM. Bay Trail tablets are mostly running the 32 bit version because they only have 1 or 2GB RAM; they could use 64 bit Windows but the memory and disk space requirements for the 32 bit version are a bit lower so they use that.
OS/2 also failed because of the inflated pricing of RAM at the time. There was a period in the early 1990s when RAM prices failed to decline in the usual manner of computer components. (There was a second period of that circa 2000 that eventually led to a price fixing lawsuit and settlement.) Sadly for the fate of OS/2, this period of high RAM prices coincided with the introduction of the OS, and those high prices made the adoption of OS/2 unappealing.
OS/2 did a number of things that Windows did not at the time: full 32 bit code, preemptive multitasking, a virtualized DOS compatibility box that was protected from crashing the entire system, and a technically superior file system. Windows didn't catch up until the release of Windows NT, and the initial releases of NT had problems running many existing Windows programs, while OS/2 could run them properly; that wasn't addressed until Windows 2000, and then XP finally got it completely right. Doing all that extra stuff meant that the OS needed more memory.
I really liked Ami Pro. But Samna/Lotus never came out with a proper 32 bit version of it, instead giving us the atrocity that is Word Pro. Word Pro tried to be an imitation of Microsoft Word, abandoning the things that Ami Pro did well (especially its use of style sheets), and it was horribly slow.
Multiplan was also available for the Mac for a short time. But it was just a spreadsheet that ran under the GUI, rather than one that took advantage of the GUI as Excel did. Excel added things like full GUI styling of text and dragging of column widths and row heights, capabilities that Multiplan didn't have, plus it had much better graphing features.
For many things, yes. But the 8088 had a built in way to address more than 64KB of RAM (the CPU's limit was 1MB, but the IBM PC used some of the address space for I/O so the RAM limit on that platform was 640K), which gave it an edge for spreadsheets. Yes, it was convoluted; the segmented memory model was a pain. But it was better than nothing, or than a variety of inconsistent ad-hoc methods that 8 bit microcomputers acquired before they became obsolete.
I don't miss Reveal Codes. The need for it showed that the character decoration model of WordPerfect was fundamentally broken. A word processor that got the model right, like the late lamented Ami Pro (the model there was essentially like Cascading Style Sheets on the web, but long before those came along), had no need for Reveal Codes because you always got what you expected.
Another misstep for 1-2-3 was that Lotus was focused on OS/2 development, not Windows.
But most people were editing smaller images back then. We didn't have 24MP and 36MP digital cameras yet, nor did we have cameras with more than 8 bit color depth. A 24MP image takes up 72 megabytes in standard 24 bit color and 144MB if it has high dynamic range color; a computer with a total of 64MB is not going to be able to edit that image efficiently.