I'm unsure what your point is. Apple of course wants to monetize the cloud and if they don't have some "lock in" then they can't support a low cost of entry. It's not a new idea. Give away the shavers and sell the blades, as it were.
True enough, and often worth repeating. Because most people who go for the "cheap" shavers (or ink jet printers) end up paying more in the end.
If you have thought it through and know what you're getting into, fine. But my advice for most people would be to avoid that sort of closed ecosystem.
It seems that the Supreme Court took a very literal interpretation of what "limited" means in Eldred. As in "any quantifiable, less than infinite time". Another interpretation would be "limited to a time that makes it worthwhile to create something, but not more than that". Which would take the "limited" more seriously.
Personally, I'm in favor of the latter and I think it would work out to MUCH shorter times. Say, 30 years from date of publication for copyrights. In case of patents, I'm not sure the current system is beneficial at all.
For Windows, user behavior has certainly changed. Back in the 90s, lots of Windows users happily went and got the latest version when it came out. These days, most users seem to be happy to keep whatever came with the computer. With the possible exception of Vista. If you trust the statistics on netmarketshare.com, Windows 7 has gained about 12% of the total installation base within the last year. That is about 1/7 of the 89% Microsoft still has. Likewise, XP has lost about 1/7 of the share it had a year ago. Looks like most people replace their OS along with the computer (and at a rather slow replacement cycle of seven years at that). Only Vista appears to decline faster (in relative terms). Maybe it is still hated enough that people actively move away from it.
On Linux, three things are different: 1) The support time frames are shorter. On Ubuntu for instance, even the "Long Time Support" desktop versions will get only three years of patches. Compared to Windows with its 10 years, this certainly pushes people to switch more often. 2) Upgrading is a lot cheaper, or even free in terms of money, for most distributions. While one license of Windows Home premium costs around 80 Euros. 3) Newbie-friendly GUIs have only recently reached a convenience level that is on par with Windows. So I guess there is still some demand for catching up via new versions. For instance, Ubuntu was one of the the first Linux distributions that could be managed without expert knowledge, but the switch from 8.04 to 10.04 was still a big step ahead.
There is one big difference: With a single source hardware supplier, the flow of parts can stop at any time because the vendor has a technical problem in manufacturing. With software, once the contract is signed and you have your copy (plus proper backups), you can keep distributing. The analogy only works in a scenario where you have to obtain a release code for every single copy. Imagine a PC OEM that has to activate every single Windows PC over the internet. Now the authentication server at Microsoft breaks. That would be a proper analogy for the single-source scenario in hardware, but I doubt such a stupid arrangement exists in the software world.
Either way, Microsoft won't have it easy in the tablet market. If they want to go the exclusive route, they'll compete with Apple who are arguably better at making stylish things. If they do it PC style, they will have to play catch up to Android, which already runs on any number of cheap devices.
I doubt that Firefox plugins for Microsoft Silverlight and ActiveX were needed for Windows Update, because it can always use the Internet Explorer engine. If it needs a browser at all (Wikipedia says otherwise). The whole thing looks more like an attempt to get wider support for Microsoft's internet technologies, by adding them to Firefox via plugin. Without notifying the user. Bad move, which got them a higher place on my shit list (now they are in shouting distance of Apple and Sony again).
While we're on the topic of being vulnerable installing from original CDs, it is a really good idea to install security fixes from an offline patch collection first. I use WSUS Offline Update (http://www.wsusoffline.net/), which will download the patches from Microsoft for you and prepare an ISO for burning (or a directory for USB stick if you prefer). There may be other, similar tools but WSUS is working fine for me. The workflow is as follows: 1) Use WSUS Offline Update on a clean computer to prepare the patch collection. Include Service Packs. Burn to DVD or copy to USB stick. 2) DISCONNECT computer where XP is to be installed from the internet. 3) Install from CD, whatever XP version you have handy. 4) Run WSUS Offline Update from DVD or USB stick. This will handle the upgrade to the latest SP and essential post-SP patches. Don't forget to reboot afterwards. 5) Now your machine is reasonably safe to go online. As a final touch, you may want to use Windows auto-update now to get the very latest patches and the less critical ones, as the maintainer of WSUS Offline Update does limit his selection to the important stuff. Personally, I don't run Windows auto-update anymore since Microsoft started to install unwanted Firefox add-ons that way. Instead, I rely exclusively on WSUS Offline Update, so far with good results.
The numbers for transistor count, theoretical GFlops and so on should at least give you a rough idea if you are looking at a high end, mid range or low end card. The comparison to the last generation can be interesting too. Hint: AMD made relatively little progress between the HD 5xxx and the HD 6xxx. Nvidia, just as little or even less between the 400 and 500 series. In both cases, a bargain offer for a card from the previous generation may beat the latest generation in bang for the buck;-)
The Chinese have some ICBMs too. Not as many as the US, but enough to do some nasty damage to the US. Unless you get all of those with the first strike, they can shoot back and make a more nasty backlash than some economic warfare.
You might have a point there (not being a TV fan, I have not followed that story). But it should be obvious that 1920x1200 is even better: It gives you 120 pixels more in vertical direction, which is nice for editing text. I won't switch my 1600x1200 for a 1920x1080 anytime soon.
Also, the 120 extra pixel could even be useful for movie playback, by putting on-screen controls there that don't obscure part of the movie's image.
The Windows user interface as it is today does not work well with touchscreens. I'm currently working on a project that uses a Windows tablet (time constraints won't allow a port to a different OS) and while our application is doing reasonably well by now, working with Windows itself is a major pain in the ass. Maybe Windows 8 will fix that, but for now I can't recommend using a Windows tablet as general purpose PC. If you need to run only one specific software and the software vendor knows what he is doing, it may be OK though.
Not automatically. But it leaves open a back door to go from open to closed.
So you have to judge the openness on a per-project basis. Right now, Honeycomb lacks released sources and is therefore not open. It may become open again with version 3.1, as some other posters wrote.
We're currently running req's, design and development in parallel, yet still pretending it's a waterfall schedule. sigh.
Sounds familiar to me. I can even tell you how and why this happened on the current project: Step 1) Project started with ambitious (but still doable) time plan. Step 2) Design input is late, because the marketing and customer support guys who should provide it cannot or won't develop detailed specifications without a prototype. At least, they can agree on some basic requirements. Step 3) Developers building a prototype without knowing the exact wishes of marketing and customer support. Step 4) Prototype shown to marketing and customer support. NOW those guys wake up and provide detailed input. Of course, this leads to a bunch of changes. Step 5) Since there is already a prototype, the waterfall schedule devolves into "oh, let's try this...". Sort of agile development, only without the discipline. The waterfall schedule is history;-)
The 30% commission might also play a role in pushing some companies to other environments. For the project I work on right now, management originally wanted an iPad as hardware. But the prospect of being charged 30% of our revenue at some point was a strong reason not to go with Apple.
I guess a well paid lawyer for the copyright holder could get the court to specify a "reasonable time frame". Something like a few weeks, counting from the release of the binary. Because if you can compile a working binary, you obviously have the source code and copying it to a public repository cannot be that hard...
I think you missed a few decimal points in the price. Last time I checked prices for LiFePO4 in Germany, the cheapest offers I found (at litrade.de) were around 400 Euros/kWh for large batteries > 40AH. Assuming those were daylight robbery prices, $200 per kWh may be barely credible if you buy directly from the factory. But not $2 per kWh.
On the other hand, the data sheets gave the energy density of those batteries at 80-100 Wh/kg and allowed charging currents of 1C to 3C (Thundersky). So the technology seems actually a tad better than in your numbers.
For about two years (2004 to 2006), AMD's Athlon 64 clearly beat the aging Pentium4. Especially after the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 was introduced in 2005.
Intel took the lead again with the Core2Duo in 2006, albeit at much higher prices than AMD. Since that time, Intel has usually offered the fastest processors at the high end, while AMD usually offers better performance per dollars in the budget range. Recently, the introduction of Sandy Bridge has put more pressure on AMD, but a new AMD processor generation is approaching release. Lets compare that to Sandy Bridge in another two months.
Finally (and that's why I buy AMD), AMD offers ECC Ram with all except the cheapest CPUs. Intel supports that only in the Xeons for the server market, and those are really expensive.
Your idea works in principle, but I think the numbers are off - most people cannot quite afford to live off half their income. For a small, very well paid percentage of professionals it would work though. Those that make $100k/year or more.
What would work a lot better is early retirement. If people would work 40-80 hours/week for 10 or 20 years while saving for retirement and then leave the workforce, that would solve a lot of the problem. The trouble is that some people are idiots who refuse to save anything, and so we set up systems like social security and unemployment to save those people from starvation if they lose their jobs, but the existence of those systems encourages everyone else not to save anything (and taxes them by the amount of money they might have saved), so then no one can retire until they're eligible for social security and everyone has incentive to work as many hours as they can until then.
Working for 10 or 20 years while saving for retirement is not enough unless you are very well paid. Looking at my own savings after approx. 15 years of work (as average software developer in Germany, and with some unemployment-related breaks), those are not sufficient to retire. After another 15 years (I'd be going on 60 then) I might be able to retire with a modest lifestyle.
Windows 7 is a bit better, but not by much. So if XP was opened and available for free, I guess many people would stick to it. Hardware vendors might bundle it by default, to avoid paying for Windows 7. In short, it would really hurt Microsoft's Windows 7 business.
The companies dont want inventions then, since they give no incentive to invent.
What do they want then? I guess its pure primate domination, camouflaged as productivity.
In my experience, that is at least partly true. While I don't think top management would dislike having some neat innovations to sell, I've seen at least one work environment where a combination of disinterest in employees' ideas and rigid resource planning made it unattractive and difficult to come up with innovations.
Attepts at lying in science and engineering may not always be caught quickly, but they can be proven long after the fact and come back to bite you in the ass. Recent example: The former German Secretary of Defense, Guttenberg. Someone took a closer look at his dissertation and found plenty of plagiarism.
In marketing and management, people often work with more subjective statements where they might be able to get away with claiming a "misunderstatement". I guess the exception among non-scientists are accountants, who have to make numbers match as well (and can be caught if they fudge them imperfectly). Like the guys behind the Enron scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal)
There is something the government could do. They could force GM to release the Ovonics battery patent that they aren't using. This is really the only thing that could make a difference RIGHT NOW.
That one will solve itself in two ways soon:
First, the battery patents in question seem to be from the early 1990s, which means they will run out soon. Quote from Wikipedia: In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacture, including patents controlling the manufacture of large NiMH batteries. Unfortunately, I could not find more detailed information on the quick.
Second, lithium-ion batteries, especially the LiFePO4 variety, are becoming more affordable and offer even better energy density than NiMH batteries. I think it is only a matter of time now until the Ovonics battery patents are worthless either way, because lithium-ion beats NiMH anyway.
If these supposed uber-brilliant capitalists know all the government-funded stuff is bunk---why does it matter? How does it possibly get in the way of the super profitable solution? Why are they so (supposedly) afraid of this miniscule government R&D?
And why shouldn't this super brilliant capitalist milk the government and *then* bring this magic technology to market and make a few billion?
Back in the real world of R&D, there is about 20-25 years of very hard work between the discovery of the basic phenomenon or engineering principle and commercial application. Capitalist investors are quite effective at funding the last two years of this. They go almost nothing beyond this.
Government-funding for stuff that ends up being the property of a single corporation seems just stupid to me. Better pay for research that goes into the public domain, so more than one investor can bring it to market and competition can drive down prices.
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I'm unsure what your point is. Apple of course wants to monetize the cloud and if they don't have some "lock in" then they can't support a low cost of entry. It's not a new idea. Give away the shavers and sell the blades, as it were.
True enough, and often worth repeating. Because most people who go for the "cheap" shavers (or ink jet printers) end up paying more in the end.
If you have thought it through and know what you're getting into, fine. But my advice for most people would be to avoid that sort of closed ecosystem.
It seems that the Supreme Court took a very literal interpretation of what "limited" means in Eldred. As in "any quantifiable, less than infinite time". Another interpretation would be "limited to a time that makes it worthwhile to create something, but not more than that". Which would take the "limited" more seriously.
Personally, I'm in favor of the latter and I think it would work out to MUCH shorter times. Say, 30 years from date of publication for copyrights. In case of patents, I'm not sure the current system is beneficial at all.
For Windows, user behavior has certainly changed. Back in the 90s, lots of Windows users happily went and got the latest version when it came out. These days, most users seem to be happy to keep whatever came with the computer. With the possible exception of Vista.
If you trust the statistics on netmarketshare.com, Windows 7 has gained about 12% of the total installation base within the last year. That is about 1/7 of the 89% Microsoft still has. Likewise, XP has lost about 1/7 of the share it had a year ago. Looks like most people replace their OS along with the computer (and at a rather slow replacement cycle of seven years at that). Only Vista appears to decline faster (in relative terms). Maybe it is still hated enough that people actively move away from it.
On Linux, three things are different:
1) The support time frames are shorter. On Ubuntu for instance, even the "Long Time Support" desktop versions will get only three years of patches. Compared to Windows with its 10 years, this certainly pushes people to switch more often.
2) Upgrading is a lot cheaper, or even free in terms of money, for most distributions. While one license of Windows Home premium costs around 80 Euros.
3) Newbie-friendly GUIs have only recently reached a convenience level that is on par with Windows. So I guess there is still some demand for catching up via new versions. For instance, Ubuntu was one of the the first Linux distributions that could be managed without expert knowledge, but the switch from 8.04 to 10.04 was still a big step ahead.
There is one big difference:
With a single source hardware supplier, the flow of parts can stop at any time because the vendor has a technical problem in manufacturing.
With software, once the contract is signed and you have your copy (plus proper backups), you can keep distributing. The analogy only works in a scenario where you have to obtain a release code for every single copy. Imagine a PC OEM that has to activate every single Windows PC over the internet. Now the authentication server at Microsoft breaks. That would be a proper analogy for the single-source scenario in hardware, but I doubt such a stupid arrangement exists in the software world.
Either way, Microsoft won't have it easy in the tablet market.
If they want to go the exclusive route, they'll compete with Apple who are arguably better at making stylish things.
If they do it PC style, they will have to play catch up to Android, which already runs on any number of cheap devices.
I doubt that Firefox plugins for Microsoft Silverlight and ActiveX were needed for Windows Update, because it can always use the Internet Explorer engine. If it needs a browser at all (Wikipedia says otherwise).
The whole thing looks more like an attempt to get wider support for Microsoft's internet technologies, by adding them to Firefox via plugin. Without notifying the user. Bad move, which got them a higher place on my shit list (now they are in shouting distance of Apple and Sony again).
While we're on the topic of being vulnerable installing from original CDs, it is a really good idea to install security fixes from an offline patch collection first. I use WSUS Offline Update (http://www.wsusoffline.net/), which will download the patches from Microsoft for you and prepare an ISO for burning (or a directory for USB stick if you prefer). There may be other, similar tools but WSUS is working fine for me.
The workflow is as follows:
1) Use WSUS Offline Update on a clean computer to prepare the patch collection. Include Service Packs. Burn to DVD or copy to USB stick.
2) DISCONNECT computer where XP is to be installed from the internet.
3) Install from CD, whatever XP version you have handy.
4) Run WSUS Offline Update from DVD or USB stick. This will handle the upgrade to the latest SP and essential post-SP patches. Don't forget to reboot afterwards.
5) Now your machine is reasonably safe to go online.
As a final touch, you may want to use Windows auto-update now to get the very latest patches and the less critical ones, as the maintainer of WSUS Offline Update does limit his selection to the important stuff.
Personally, I don't run Windows auto-update anymore since Microsoft started to install unwanted Firefox add-ons that way. Instead, I rely exclusively on WSUS Offline Update, so far with good results.
The numbers are confusing indeed, and sometimes a new card is only a re-branded model of yesteryear. For a quick overview, I recommend the comparison tables at Wikipedia.
AMD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_Graphics_Processing_Units
Nvidia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
The numbers for transistor count, theoretical GFlops and so on should at least give you a rough idea if you are looking at a high end, mid range or low end card. The comparison to the last generation can be interesting too. Hint: ;-)
AMD made relatively little progress between the HD 5xxx and the HD 6xxx. Nvidia, just as little or even less between the 400 and 500 series. In both cases, a bargain offer for a card from the previous generation may beat the latest generation in bang for the buck
The Chinese have some ICBMs too. Not as many as the US, but enough to do some nasty damage to the US. Unless you get all of those with the first strike, they can shoot back and make a more nasty backlash than some economic warfare.
You might have a point there (not being a TV fan, I have not followed that story). But it should be obvious that 1920x1200 is even better:
It gives you 120 pixels more in vertical direction, which is nice for editing text. I won't switch my 1600x1200 for a 1920x1080 anytime soon.
Also, the 120 extra pixel could even be useful for movie playback, by putting on-screen controls there that don't obscure part of the movie's image.
The Windows user interface as it is today does not work well with touchscreens.
I'm currently working on a project that uses a Windows tablet (time constraints won't allow a port to a different OS) and while our application is doing reasonably well by now, working with Windows itself is a major pain in the ass.
Maybe Windows 8 will fix that, but for now I can't recommend using a Windows tablet as general purpose PC. If you need to run only one specific software and the software vendor knows what he is doing, it may be OK though.
Not automatically. But it leaves open a back door to go from open to closed.
So you have to judge the openness on a per-project basis. Right now, Honeycomb lacks released sources and is therefore not open. It may become open again with version 3.1, as some other posters wrote.
We're currently running req's, design and development in parallel, yet still pretending it's a waterfall schedule. sigh.
Sounds familiar to me. I can even tell you how and why this happened on the current project: ;-)
Step 1) Project started with ambitious (but still doable) time plan.
Step 2) Design input is late, because the marketing and customer support guys who should provide it cannot or won't develop detailed specifications without a prototype. At least, they can agree on some basic requirements.
Step 3) Developers building a prototype without knowing the exact wishes of marketing and customer support.
Step 4) Prototype shown to marketing and customer support. NOW those guys wake up and provide detailed input. Of course, this leads to a bunch of changes.
Step 5) Since there is already a prototype, the waterfall schedule devolves into "oh, let's try this...". Sort of agile development, only without the discipline. The waterfall schedule is history
The 30% commission might also play a role in pushing some companies to other environments.
For the project I work on right now, management originally wanted an iPad as hardware. But the prospect of being charged 30% of our revenue at some point was a strong reason not to go with Apple.
I guess a well paid lawyer for the copyright holder could get the court to specify a "reasonable time frame". Something like a few weeks, counting from the release of the binary. Because if you can compile a working binary, you obviously have the source code and copying it to a public repository cannot be that hard...
I think you missed a few decimal points in the price. Last time I checked prices for LiFePO4 in Germany, the cheapest offers I found (at litrade.de) were around 400 Euros/kWh for large batteries > 40AH. Assuming those were daylight robbery prices, $200 per kWh may be barely credible if you buy directly from the factory. But not $2 per kWh.
On the other hand, the data sheets gave the energy density of those batteries at 80-100 Wh/kg and allowed charging currents of 1C to 3C (Thundersky). So the technology seems actually a tad better than in your numbers.
For about two years (2004 to 2006), AMD's Athlon 64 clearly beat the aging Pentium4. Especially after the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 was introduced in 2005.
Intel took the lead again with the Core2Duo in 2006, albeit at much higher prices than AMD. Since that time, Intel has usually offered the fastest processors at the high end, while AMD usually offers better performance per dollars in the budget range. Recently, the introduction of Sandy Bridge has put more pressure on AMD, but a new AMD processor generation is approaching release. Lets compare that to Sandy Bridge in another two months.
Finally (and that's why I buy AMD), AMD offers ECC Ram with all except the cheapest CPUs. Intel supports that only in the Xeons for the server market, and those are really expensive.
Your idea works in principle, but I think the numbers are off - most people cannot quite afford to live off half their income.
For a small, very well paid percentage of professionals it would work though. Those that make $100k/year or more.
What would work a lot better is early retirement. If people would work 40-80 hours/week for 10 or 20 years while saving for retirement and then leave the workforce, that would solve a lot of the problem. The trouble is that some people are idiots who refuse to save anything, and so we set up systems like social security and unemployment to save those people from starvation if they lose their jobs, but the existence of those systems encourages everyone else not to save anything (and taxes them by the amount of money they might have saved), so then no one can retire until they're eligible for social security and everyone has incentive to work as many hours as they can until then.
Working for 10 or 20 years while saving for retirement is not enough unless you are very well paid.
Looking at my own savings after approx. 15 years of work (as average software developer in Germany, and with some unemployment-related breaks), those are not sufficient to retire. After another 15 years (I'd be going on 60 then) I might be able to retire with a modest lifestyle.
Windows 7 is a bit better, but not by much. So if XP was opened and available for free, I guess many people would stick to it. Hardware vendors might bundle it by default, to avoid paying for Windows 7. In short, it would really hurt Microsoft's Windows 7 business.
The companies dont want inventions then,
since they give no incentive to invent.
What do they want then?
I guess its pure primate domination, camouflaged as productivity.
In my experience, that is at least partly true. While I don't think top management would dislike having some neat innovations to sell, I've seen at least one work environment where a combination of disinterest in employees' ideas and rigid resource planning made it unattractive and difficult to come up with innovations.
Attepts at lying in science and engineering may not always be caught quickly, but they can be proven long after the fact and come back to bite you in the ass. Recent example:
The former German Secretary of Defense, Guttenberg. Someone took a closer look at his dissertation and found plenty of plagiarism.
In marketing and management, people often work with more subjective statements where they might be able to get away with claiming a "misunderstatement". I guess the exception among non-scientists are accountants, who have to make numbers match as well (and can be caught if they fudge them imperfectly). Like the guys behind the Enron scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal)
There is something the government could do. They could force GM to release the Ovonics battery patent that they aren't using. This is really the only thing that could make a difference RIGHT NOW.
That one will solve itself in two ways soon:
First, the battery patents in question seem to be from the early 1990s, which means they will run out soon. Quote from Wikipedia: In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacture, including patents controlling the manufacture of large NiMH batteries. Unfortunately, I could not find more detailed information on the quick.
Second, lithium-ion batteries, especially the LiFePO4 variety, are becoming more affordable and offer even better energy density than NiMH batteries. I think it is only a matter of time now until the Ovonics battery patents are worthless either way, because lithium-ion beats NiMH anyway.
If these supposed uber-brilliant capitalists know all the government-funded stuff is bunk---why does it matter? How does it possibly get in the way of the super profitable solution? Why are they so (supposedly) afraid of this miniscule government R&D?
And why shouldn't this super brilliant capitalist milk the government and *then* bring this magic technology to market and make a few billion?
Back in the real world of R&D, there is about 20-25 years of very hard work between the discovery of the basic phenomenon or engineering principle and commercial application. Capitalist investors are quite effective at funding the last two years of this. They go almost nothing beyond this.
Government-funding for stuff that ends up being the property of a single corporation seems just stupid to me. Better pay for research that goes into the public domain, so more than one investor can bring it to market and competition can drive down prices.
Oops, the 35 mpg for my Audi are based on imperial gallons. In US gallons, it's only 29 mpg.
Still doable, but not with the same comfortable margin