I steal trucks made by Ford. I have no qualms about it. They charge obscene prices for low quality trucks, and constantly change the workings of the engines. For example, when I wanted to have a new (1998) engine put into my old '46 Ford, I couldn't. I had to get a new Ford Explorer to have a new fuel injected engine. If they wouldn't pull stunts like this, there'd be much less truck stealing. Well, someone will figure out an easy way to steal trucks, so all hope isn't lost.
I don't understand your irony. Are you implying Ford Explorer is actually powered by Internet Explorer?
C'mon... Microsoft is not totally stupid, regardless of the mentality here on slashdot. I do believe they are smart enough to not require a network connection to activate the operating system!
Software is protected by copyright. This is akin to saying I can use the copyright in any one place.
Yes, any original work is automatically protected by copyright. In addition, most software (other than public domain) has its usage governed by a license. This license is crafted by the author of the software.
Microsoft licenses their software on a per-machine basis. You are paying for the right to install that copy of Windows on one machine. If you don't like the licensing arrangement, you can either choose not to use their software, or break the license agreement. They are simply making it harder to break the agreement, which is their right, just as you have the right not to use their software.
1. Be is focusing on BeIA for one simple reason: Money. If they don't focus on BeIA, they die. And BeOS along with it. If they focus on BeIA and make money, perhaps BeOS will thrive again.
2. BeIA has a 4.0 Opera browser that supports Java, flash, RealMedia, and any other media format supported by Be.
3. You honestly think Be had a better shot in the desktop OS market, going against an established Microsoft, Linux, and Apple market? Or in the IA market, where there is no established monopoly OS provider, and Be's OS fits the bill perfectly (witness the recent announcements).
4. You said "vendors will eventually opt for linux because of the lack of licencing costs." If that were true, and using Linux was so much cheaper to use, why didn't Sony choose them? Or Intel (which owns a stake in some Linux companies)? Or FIC? Or Qubit? Or Compaq?
Be doesn't do a scandisk or fsck. It's a true journaled files system, and always always always boots in 10 seconds or less. It recognizes its hardware on boot time, and even when I take the hard drive from one machine to another with very different hardware, it still boots in under ten seconds.
And I'd be willing to bet it boots faster on these types of devices, where the hardware is always the same and optimizations could be made...
US$20 says they will be slapped with a lawsuit from Apple al a eMachine's eOne attempt. Looks too much like an iMac to let Steve Jobs sleep at night.
I'll take that bet.
1. The evilla looks nothing like the iMac or the eOne, other than it is small. There are plenty more companies releasing similar products (Qubit Atom for example).
2. Going up against Sony is not exactly like going up against eMachines. Slight sarcasm...
However, I must say that Internet Appliances are going to flop. Why? Simply because they are based on the wrong model. Their mantra is that the internet should be fun and easy. Their underlying assumption is that it is not fun and easy and will not be fun and easy based on the cuurrent PC model.
No, their underlying assumption is that it'd be more fun and even easier to use the internet if you're not chained to your desk. How exactly is that wrong?
Their solution to this 'problem' is to create a myriad of devices- separate and limited appliances that do one or two things and do it well.
Yeah, we all know devices that do one or two things, and do it well, are doomed! (DVD players, VCR's, camcorders, TV's, stereo receivers, CD players, microwaves, phones, stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes washers, clothes dryers, game consoles, ad infinitum.)
The point is simply that in the future, the PC will be the appliance. We are already seeing signs of it. Apple, INtel, Compaq and Sony all have computer models with DV options to edit and store digital video. Say goodbye to the VCR.
You do realize the geek market that would replace a VCR with a full blown computer is infinitesimal compared to the 'average person' market, right?
If anything, PC's will be crammed into things like WebPAD's, such as what Microsoft is doing with their WebTablet.
Everything an Internet console does can be duplicated by more feature-rich systems
Can you carry your PC into the bathroom with you, and browse websites? Carry it into bed or out on the porch to read an e-book (and if you don't have the book, buy it online and begin reading it). Interact with television programs, live sporting events with cool stats applets from ESPN, all from a reclined position in your easy chair? Can you carry your PC to the dining room table and read NYTimes.com while you eat breakfast in the morning?
And this is just the start.
Look, I can play DVD's on my computer, but it's more satisfying to use a DVD player, and even my grandma can do it.
I can record video on my computer from my TV, and play it back. But it's easier to use a VCR.
I can send digital audio to my stereo system from my computer, and have it play over the speakers, but it's easier to use a CD player (and would be even easier to use an entertainment appliance, like Be's Aura platform).
The long history of failures that "Internet appliances" have met indicates that there's not much interest in these kind of products.
What internet appliances? All I've seen are wired, network computers. Those have a small niche, but bring on the broadband, wireless connected devices. The REAL internet appliances!
So that big businesses could hire huge, expensive, unstoppable armies of lawyers, knowing that the risk of losing will stop any lawsuit, frivolous or not.
Look at it from the other angle. You're a tiny company, and a huge competitor comes along and decides to bury you in a frivolous lawsuit (patent infringement, trademark infringement, whatever). In a libertarian society, as long as you are RIGHT and win the case, you don't have to be robbed of all the money spent defending you. It is therefore less likely that you will be sued in the first place.
In regards to your view, either you're going to sue a company, or you're not going to sue a company. Whether or not they have a huge team of lawyers that will defeat your lawsuit is beside the point. You will not bring the case to court if you don't want to risk paying the cost of the defendent upon losing the case. Obviously their would need to be reasonable limits to how much the defendent can be reimbursed, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current system, where a huge corporation can bury somebody with no risk whatsoever.
Offtopic: What is with these sad bastards who have nothing better to do than reload slashdot every 10 sec just so they can post an inane message about how they were first to post. To those people, Get a Life!
You do realize it is possible to be the first person to post to an article without constantly reloading the page, right? And at such a time, you do realize it is nearly impossible to deny your primal urge to post a quick, stupid message saying so.
I was faced every day with fellow students who were SO SURE that they were smarter than me, and professors who didn't think that I deserved to be here, assuming that I was only here because of Affirmative Action (I've got that in the workplace as well).
I am all for the completely fair treatment of all humans... thus I am against affirmative action, which promotes one group over another based solely upon unimportant criteria. And here is yet another reason why I'm against it!
This is the price minorities must now pay for promoting affirmative action (the majority of minorities support aa). Yes, you get better access to jobs and schools than before, but you bring this stigma onto yourself that you're perhaps not qualified for the position.
It's a trade-off, and a poor one.
At least before affirmative action, if someone saw a minority in a high-level classroom or job, they knew they had earned it (and then some). Now you have people that naturally hesitate, because of affirmative action.
I don't understand the American legal system when it comes to suing people and companies. It seems like you can sue for any amount of money that you like!
True. We should implement a libertarian system, where people that sue a company or a person, and lose, have to pay the legal fees for the other party.
BAM! A lot less frivolous lawsuits when you have to think real hard about whether you have a legitimate complaint.
On Earth, an inert gas such as carbon dioxide is used to force the brew out of the bottom of the container and up the spout.
I haven't had Chemistry for a while now, but I do believe mixing carbon dioxide with a liquid yields carbonic acid. Not really inert. I know, I know... nit picking.
Is tswinzig polish for "I'm an ass that points out people's minor typos on Slashdot"?
Actually, you're close. Winzig is a town in Poland. But you're off the market otherwise, my comment was obviously a joke, not a beratement of someone's typo.
$500 plus somewhere around $30/month for the service to be able to talk on the PHONE?!!
No, you see, it's $299 for the phone. That's what lets you talk on the phone. I saw plenty of $300 phones out there a year ago, and even some now at the high end. Then you've got $150 to $250 for the Visor, which is much more than a phone.
Now, if you combine them together, the total cost is $500, but as anyone can see, you can do much more than just "talk on the PHONE."
Our archaic time/date system should switch over to metric. 10 months. 10 hours per day. 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute.
I thought about that, too.
Since seconds are the base unit of time here, you're talking about a day that is 8.64 "hours" long, if you keep it the same number of seconds as our 24 hour day. Well that's too strange, so let's round it to 9 "hours" a day. But that doesn't jive with the rest of the metric system, so let's stretch it again to 10 hours in a day.
Now you're talking about a day that is 100,000 seconds long, or 27.78 traditional hours. Amazingly, there is already a plan out there to support "28-hour" days!
Let's merge the two ideas together, right?!
Well no. If you work out the math, I think the problem with this idea is there are two extremes you're dealing with which probably cannot be changed. The length of time of a second, and the length of time of a "year" (or four seasons). You can't possibly change those two things. Therefore I don't think it's possible to divide minutes/hours/days/weeks/months evenly in a metric style system.
You're going to stop watching movies, possibly for the rest of your life, to spite CSS. Not to spite the DVD format, but CSS.
In other words, you are letting CSS control your viewing habits. You are letting the DVD industry take away something from you that you love: watching movies.
The irony here is so thick, I'm practically choking on it. CSS is supposed to control viewing habits, and you are letting it work! If you really want to protest CSS, you will encourage your friends to crack it. You will lobby Congress and the Senate to overturn CSS-friendly legislation. You will make copies of DVD's, encode them as 3ivx, and write them to CDROM's.
But quit watching DVD movies? Let them control my viewing habits? Why? Why take away something I love to do? Why cut my nose to spite my face?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I read up on his wheelchair; it makes me think it'll be an electrical scooter/cart.
I doubt it... why would Bezos wonder if it will be legal to use it? My guess is a personal hovercraft type device...
Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant as the PC, the proposal says.
If Steve Jobs says this, he just might be on to something. But how many things have been trumpeted as "PC replacements" in the past, oh, ten years?
Jobs didn't say it would replace PC's, he said it is "as significant as the PC." Big diff...
I steal trucks made by Ford. I have no qualms about it. They charge obscene prices for low quality trucks, and constantly change the workings of the engines. For example, when I wanted to have a new (1998) engine put into my old '46 Ford, I couldn't. I had to get a new Ford Explorer to have a new fuel injected engine. If they wouldn't pull stunts like this, there'd be much less truck stealing. Well, someone will figure out an easy way to steal trucks, so all hope isn't lost.
I don't understand your irony. Are you implying Ford Explorer is actually powered by Internet Explorer?
C'mon... Microsoft is not totally stupid, regardless of the mentality here on slashdot. I do believe they are smart enough to not require a network connection to activate the operating system!
Typical FUD from the "anti-FUD" crowd...
Software is protected by copyright. This is akin to saying I can use the copyright in any one place.
Yes, any original work is automatically protected by copyright. In addition, most software (other than public domain) has its usage governed by a license. This license is crafted by the author of the software.
Microsoft licenses their software on a per-machine basis. You are paying for the right to install that copy of Windows on one machine. If you don't like the licensing arrangement, you can either choose not to use their software, or break the license agreement. They are simply making it harder to break the agreement, which is their right, just as you have the right not to use their software.
-thomas
Your post makes no sense on multiple fronts.
1. Be is focusing on BeIA for one simple reason: Money. If they don't focus on BeIA, they die. And BeOS along with it. If they focus on BeIA and make money, perhaps BeOS will thrive again.
2. BeIA has a 4.0 Opera browser that supports Java, flash, RealMedia, and any other media format supported by Be.
3. You honestly think Be had a better shot in the desktop OS market, going against an established Microsoft, Linux, and Apple market? Or in the IA market, where there is no established monopoly OS provider, and Be's OS fits the bill perfectly (witness the recent announcements).
4. You said "vendors will eventually opt for linux because of the lack of licencing costs." If that were true, and using Linux was so much cheaper to use, why didn't Sony choose them? Or Intel (which owns a stake in some Linux companies)? Or FIC? Or Qubit? Or Compaq?
Try again... Next please!
Be doesn't do a scandisk or fsck. It's a true journaled files system, and always always always boots in 10 seconds or less. It recognizes its hardware on boot time, and even when I take the hard drive from one machine to another with very different hardware, it still boots in under ten seconds.
And I'd be willing to bet it boots faster on these types of devices, where the hardware is always the same and optimizations could be made...
US$20 says they will be slapped with a lawsuit from Apple al a eMachine's eOne attempt. Looks too much like an iMac to let Steve Jobs sleep at night.
I'll take that bet.
1. The evilla looks nothing like the iMac or the eOne, other than it is small. There are plenty more companies releasing similar products (Qubit Atom for example).
2. Going up against Sony is not exactly like going up against eMachines. Slight sarcasm...
-thomas
However, I must say that Internet Appliances are going to flop. Why? Simply because they are based on the wrong model. Their mantra is that the internet should be fun and easy. Their underlying assumption is that it is not fun and easy and will not be fun and easy based on the cuurrent PC model.
No, their underlying assumption is that it'd be more fun and even easier to use the internet if you're not chained to your desk. How exactly is that wrong?
Their solution to this 'problem' is to create a myriad of devices- separate and limited appliances that do one or two things and do it well.
Yeah, we all know devices that do one or two things, and do it well, are doomed! (DVD players, VCR's, camcorders, TV's, stereo receivers, CD players, microwaves, phones, stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, clothes washers, clothes dryers, game consoles, ad infinitum.)
The point is simply that in the future, the PC will be the appliance. We are already seeing signs of it. Apple, INtel, Compaq and Sony all have computer models with DV options to edit and store digital video. Say goodbye to the VCR.
You do realize the geek market that would replace a VCR with a full blown computer is infinitesimal compared to the 'average person' market, right?
If anything, PC's will be crammed into things like WebPAD's, such as what Microsoft is doing with their WebTablet.
-thomas
Everything an Internet console does can be duplicated by more feature-rich systems
Can you carry your PC into the bathroom with you, and browse websites? Carry it into bed or out on the porch to read an e-book (and if you don't have the book, buy it online and begin reading it). Interact with television programs, live sporting events with cool stats applets from ESPN, all from a reclined position in your easy chair? Can you carry your PC to the dining room table and read NYTimes.com while you eat breakfast in the morning?
And this is just the start.
Look, I can play DVD's on my computer, but it's more satisfying to use a DVD player, and even my grandma can do it.
I can record video on my computer from my TV, and play it back. But it's easier to use a VCR.
I can send digital audio to my stereo system from my computer, and have it play over the speakers, but it's easier to use a CD player (and would be even easier to use an entertainment appliance, like Be's Aura platform).
The long history of failures that "Internet appliances" have met indicates that there's not much interest in these kind of products.
What internet appliances? All I've seen are wired, network computers. Those have a small niche, but bring on the broadband, wireless connected devices. The REAL internet appliances!
Here they come...
-thomas
And you can cut that to about 35% or so, given the amount of water thats covering the surface of the earth.
Oh, so they're going to half-ass this project then, eh?
So that big businesses could hire huge, expensive, unstoppable armies of lawyers, knowing that the risk of losing will stop any lawsuit, frivolous or not.
Look at it from the other angle. You're a tiny company, and a huge competitor comes along and decides to bury you in a frivolous lawsuit (patent infringement, trademark infringement, whatever). In a libertarian society, as long as you are RIGHT and win the case, you don't have to be robbed of all the money spent defending you. It is therefore less likely that you will be sued in the first place.
In regards to your view, either you're going to sue a company, or you're not going to sue a company. Whether or not they have a huge team of lawyers that will defeat your lawsuit is beside the point. You will not bring the case to court if you don't want to risk paying the cost of the defendent upon losing the case. Obviously their would need to be reasonable limits to how much the defendent can be reimbursed, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current system, where a huge corporation can bury somebody with no risk whatsoever.
-thomas
Offtopic: What is with these sad bastards who have nothing better to do than reload slashdot every 10 sec just so they can post an inane message about how they were first to post. To those people, Get a Life!
You do realize it is possible to be the first person to post to an article without constantly reloading the page, right? And at such a time, you do realize it is nearly impossible to deny your primal urge to post a quick, stupid message saying so.
You do know this, right?
I was faced every day with fellow students who were SO SURE that they were smarter than me, and professors who didn't think that I deserved to be here, assuming that I was only here because of Affirmative Action (I've got that in the workplace as well).
I am all for the completely fair treatment of all humans... thus I am against affirmative action, which promotes one group over another based solely upon unimportant criteria. And here is yet another reason why I'm against it!
This is the price minorities must now pay for promoting affirmative action (the majority of minorities support aa). Yes, you get better access to jobs and schools than before, but you bring this stigma onto yourself that you're perhaps not qualified for the position.
It's a trade-off, and a poor one.
At least before affirmative action, if someone saw a minority in a high-level classroom or job, they knew they had earned it (and then some). Now you have people that naturally hesitate, because of affirmative action.
-thomas
(A member of the HUMAN race.)
I don't understand the American legal system when it comes to suing people and companies. It seems like you can sue for any amount of money that you like!
True. We should implement a libertarian system, where people that sue a company or a person, and lose, have to pay the legal fees for the other party.
BAM! A lot less frivolous lawsuits when you have to think real hard about whether you have a legitimate complaint.
A geeky story, and the fish doesn't even run on Linux!
Sacrilege!
How could someone write a news story about this and not include a picture???
I think they might be guilty of libeling Apple, but not slandering them (unless there is a new audio-only version of Slashdot).
"libel - a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression."
"slander - a false and defamatory oral statement about a person."
On Earth, an inert gas such as carbon dioxide is used to force the brew out of the bottom of the container and up the spout.
I haven't had Chemistry for a while now, but I do believe mixing carbon dioxide with a liquid yields carbonic acid. Not really inert. I know, I know... nit picking.
The perfect article to unveil my new .sig!
Is tswinzig polish for "I'm an ass that points out people's minor typos on Slashdot"?
Actually, you're close. Winzig is a town in Poland. But you're off the market otherwise, my comment was obviously a joke, not a beratement of someone's typo.
Now who's the ass?
$500 plus somewhere around $30/month for the service to be able to talk on the PHONE?!!
No, you see, it's $299 for the phone. That's what lets you talk on the phone. I saw plenty of $300 phones out there a year ago, and even some now at the high end. Then you've got $150 to $250 for the Visor, which is much more than a phone.
Now, if you combine them together, the total cost is $500, but as anyone can see, you can do much more than just "talk on the PHONE."
Microsoft has really created a formidable video system, and you don't have to pay ridiculous amounts of money, like with some other companies.
Yeah right. You just have to be running Windows, which means you already have paid ridiculous amounts of money!
Our archaic time/date system should switch over to metric. 10 months. 10 hours per day. 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute.
I thought about that, too.
Since seconds are the base unit of time here, you're talking about a day that is 8.64 "hours" long, if you keep it the same number of seconds as our 24 hour day. Well that's too strange, so let's round it to 9 "hours" a day. But that doesn't jive with the rest of the metric system, so let's stretch it again to 10 hours in a day.
Now you're talking about a day that is 100,000 seconds long, or 27.78 traditional hours. Amazingly, there is already a plan out there to support "28-hour" days!
Let's merge the two ideas together, right?!
Well no. If you work out the math, I think the problem with this idea is there are two extremes you're dealing with which probably cannot be changed. The length of time of a second, and the length of time of a "year" (or four seasons). You can't possibly change those two things. Therefore I don't think it's possible to divide minutes/hours/days/weeks/months evenly in a metric style system.
-thomas
You're going to stop watching movies, possibly for the rest of your life, to spite CSS. Not to spite the DVD format, but CSS.
In other words, you are letting CSS control your viewing habits. You are letting the DVD industry take away something from you that you love: watching movies.
The irony here is so thick, I'm practically choking on it. CSS is supposed to control viewing habits, and you are letting it work! If you really want to protest CSS, you will encourage your friends to crack it. You will lobby Congress and the Senate to overturn CSS-friendly legislation. You will make copies of DVD's, encode them as 3ivx, and write them to CDROM's.
But quit watching DVD movies? Let them control my viewing habits? Why? Why take away something I love to do? Why cut my nose to spite my face?