What do you mean "finally"?
Ebay, Amazon etc have a plethora of ARM-based mini-PCs with 4GB under $99. Well under.
Typically sold with Android as set-top boxes, they can be used for web browsing, office PCs, etc.
Some will work with Linux, but remember there is no Linux/ARM version of full Chrome.
I am one of the first owners of the of Jetson TK1 board. The benefits of this board are a) it runs Ubuntu out of the box, b) it has more powerful GPU, and c) it is supported and well documented by Nvidia.
There is a native build of Chrome on ARM - see the Acer Chromebook 13, which also uses the TK1 SoC - and it runs quite well. However, I never did get that build for my Jetson as Google limited its distribution. There may be a way around that these days. I did however get Chromium to work like Chrome through some additional software.
The browser ran well on top of Ubuntu with 2GB of RAM. It would however run out of memory and crash if one loaded multiple tabs with heavy content. Double the memory should some that issue.
Given that 54% of all computing devices worldwide ship with Android as their OS, I'd argue that Google is the bigger Unix proponent. Linux also powers the majority of data center computing by the likes of Google, Amazon, and Apple. Even Azure has a large percentage of Linux servers. If Window's didn't have exclusive server applications, that number would probably fall to where it should be, like 0%. How many CAL's would that cost? I must consult my MSFT-certified licensing specialist. Where's Bill Sr. when you need him?
On the Mac you do not even have to do that step. Or, for that matter, know about the existence of VLC. That is the entire point.
Also, QT is better than VLC, and the Mac also comes with a video EDITOR.
Pick your poison. I'd rather sudo apt-get install VLC then have to fuck around with the Apple land-mine-ridden quasi-linux-dev environment.
How about nVidia's Jetson TK1 board? It has a great 192-core Kepler GPU, a nice quad-core ARM CPU, on-board gigabit ethernet, all the ports you're likely to need and comes pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux.
I have one, and it is a great little Linux box for the most part. The x86 compatibility issue pops-up every once in a while, and 2GB RAM is a little tight, but after that it's all roses. Thanks to Raspberry Pie, ARM support for Linux is surprisingly complete, and the Tegra K1 graphics vastly outperformed the GPU on any Intel CPU that cost less than the entire JetsonTK1 board. Video cam, Google Hangouts, LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape, Java, Webstorm, etc. all work very nicely. My son uses it for his development computer, and it is attached to a 240GB SSD and a 32" 1920x1200 monitor. Libreoffice launches in 2s cold.
The license agreement that come on screen when you first boot up says you can decline the agreement and receive a refund - or at least it used to. But for years that was a lie because people couldn't get a refund from Dell or HP or Lenovo or MS.
Seems to me the judge is saying that this fraud must stop. Seems reasonable to me.
Remember how I said the future might make a fool of you? Seems Google thinks that desktop quaility gaming has come to mobile. And the demo certainly looks impressive. Probably not on QC chips in the near future, but certainly on the Nvidia K1 and Erista. Remember, both of these are (or will be) >= Intel HD4400 Graphics. That is more power than most people on Steam have.
The potential answers to your question are "yes" "of course" and "how stupid are you to even have to ask?"
There was no call for such a nasty response. I provided a nice post that I thought you might find useful, and you belittled my points like some arrogant prick. Does that brighten your day? Unfortunately, the future might just make a fool of you.
One would have to be pretty stupid to miss that ARM and x86 markets are converging. Servers are going ARM. x86 is going mobile.
One would have to be pretty stupid not to see that ISA does not dictate audience or sales strategies. Any current association is correlation, not causation. The montetization strategy is driven by the the target market. If ARM and x86 are converging to compete in the same markets... well, I'll let your figure it out from there. Let me know if you need help.
One would have to be pretty stupid not to see that Porting to ARM, while sometimes tedious, is not nearly as arduous as one might think:
* Portal, Half-life 2, Brochard, and many other desktop-quality games are already on ARM.
* NVidia and Valve have ported Source to ARM. URE, Unity, and Uningine are already there, as is SDL.
* I have compiled numerous "x86" games to my Jetson TK1 (like Xonotic) with little trouble and performance is better than the AMD AM1 chips, including the 5350. The only major problem I've seen so far is hand-coded optimizations like SSE.
One would have to be pretty stupid not to see that porting to Nvidia ARM with great hardware and excellent driversmight be less trouble than trying to get shitty AMD drivers to work with SteamOS. I wouldn't be surprised if folks over at Valve had the same thought, judging by their impression of AMD's drivers. (hint: they are Vendor "B"). Adding weight to this, I have it on good source that a "consumer" variant of the Jetson TK1 board should come to market "soon". Sounds awfully steambox-ish.
Fact is however, that when it comes to bang for a buck or just plain bang in one chip, there really are no alternatives for AMD. That's why console manufacturers went with it.
Depends on if they require x86. The Tegras are full SoCs, with the K1 beating i3 parts on a number of compute benchmarks. It also performs similar to HD4400 graphics, with OGL4.4 support and a power draw <10W (<3W for most uses, ~0.6W idle) @ 2.3GHz. It looks to compete well against the Mullins chip.
This of course would require more Steam games ported to ARM, which I admit is probably a serious PITA.
I suspect it will be one of the more powerful AMD APUs under the hood. It's about the only way today to have a significant graphical power without having a discrete card.
I think that is wishful thinking for someone who really is rooting for the Red team
At present, the consensus is that AMD GL drivers are severely deficient in performance, capability, and stability (see posting about GL vendors provided by Valve engineering manager). Now this company could work with AMD to greatly improve their GL drivers. Or they could simply use a Tegra K1 (or the subsequent Erista chip) and get everything they need with top-notch driver and Valve support. Given that Shield already runs Portal and Half-life 2, and that Valve and Nvidia have collaborated on the Steam Box, and that NVidia GL drivers are consistently better... well, you see where I'm going. The Tegra chips seem to make a lot more sense.
I didn't say that Mac didn't have multi-monitor support. I said it does not have "proper" multi-monitor support. I have been using multi-monitor support with X for years.
How do I know this? Because I used a Macbook this year and found how incredibly, embarrassingly poor the mult-monitor support was, effectively disabling one monitor when putting an app into full-screen mode. What year is this?
So yes, it is sometimes good to step outside the wall of blind pro-Apple-ism and realize other people know what they are talking about.
I wrote: "Webkit probably remains OSS only because the KHTML foundation requires it."
You wrote: "That is bullshit and you know it."
No, I don't know that it is bullshit. Is it speculation? Of course, that is why I wrote the word probably.
Of course, if Apple had closed Webkit, they wouldn't have benefited from the enormous investment of Google to its development. So in the end, I guess they are thankful for the LGPL license.
You wrote: "If you don't support the right to fork [...] you don't support open source."
Yes Webkit was always a fork. But the KHTML devs were led to believe that there would be collaboration - and apparently there was up until Apple got what they wanted...
You wrote: [...] and why they open source most Apple-originated projects.
How in the world do you come by that metric? Everywhere I look in Apple I see proprietary hardware, software, and services that are designed specifically for lock-in.
This is a formatted version of my previous comment.
Summary
Webkit is an excellent example of how Apple takes and does not give. Apple is within the law to behave as it does. Consumers can decide not to like it and refuse to buy their products. It's our call.
Background
I remember when KHTML was selected by Apple for the basis of Safari. KHTML had gotten so good that by 2005 I was Konqueror as my primary browser, with Firefox on standby for more troublesome sites. It's speed and integration to the desktop was compelling. The KDE folks were ecstatic about Apple's choice. "Yeah!, we can work with Apple to make KHTML even better" seemed to be the sentiment. The Apple engineering manager wrote a nice letter to the KDE folks to tell them what a bang-up job they did developing the code, and how it saved them perhaps two years of development time.
Shortly thereafter it became apparent that Apple had no interest in helping to improve KHTML - quite the contrary. They just converted KHTML to Webkit and never looked back. Patches to KHTML were received in nearly indecipherable tarballs. Communication became hostile and then non-existent. Webkit probably remains OSS only because the KHTML foundation requires it.
Apple seems to consistently like to take from a project and not give back to the fullest extent of the law. Their mantra seems to be "Great artist steal, then use the massive time savings to add and patent silly "non-essential" features, and then sue everyone on the planet for using something resembling said features." Example: With the estimated two years they saved using KHTML, the were able to get to market faster and add and patent "non-essential" features like bounce-back scrolling[1]. And then they sued other smart phone suppliers for use of that feature in their browser (Nokia, Sammy, etc). Bravo Apple!
OSS and proprietary software both have a place. OSS is successful for many products because companies have realized that for core services, it is less expensive and better for them to collaborate on standards-based solutions. Luckily, consumers also benefit. This is similar to how automotive manufacturers have standardized on placing the gas and brake pedals. Apple doesn't seem to like that game, instead preferring the oft-mentioned walled garden[2] approach. But they are happy to steal the benches from the city park to put on their garden path.
Footnotes
1. Isn't ironic that patents that really are innovative (like those from Motorola) cannot be monetized to the same extent as silly bounce-back animations because they are considered "FRAND"?
2. Did you notice how with Apple *finally* supporting real dual-screen support in Mavericks, some Apple fanbois were again proclaiming it was like the second coming of Jesus? Yet Windows and Linux has enjoyed good-to-great multiple monitor support for at least 8 years. Ah, the cost of blind faith. Sometimes its a good idea to step outside the walls and see what you are missing.
Summary
=======
Webkit is an excellent example of how Apple takes and does not give. Apple is within the law to behave as it does. We can decide not to like it and not to buy their products. It's our call.
Background
==========
I remember when KHTML was selected by Apple for the basis of Safari. KHTML had gotten so good that by 2005 I was Konqueror as my primary browser, with Firefox on standby for more troublesome sites. It's speed and integration to the desktop was compelling.
So the KDE folks were ecstatic. "Yeah!, we can work with Apple to make KHTML even better" seemed to be the sentiment. The Apple engineering manager wrote a nice letter to the KDE folks to tell them what a bang-up job they did developing the code, and how much time this had saved them.
IIRC, it became almost immediately apparent that Apple had no interest in helping to improve KHTML - quite the contrary. They just converted KHTML to Webkit and never looked back. Patches to KHTML were received in nearly indecipherable tarballs. Communication, if I understand it, became hostile and then non-existent. Webkit probably remains OSS only because the KHTML foundation requires it.
Apple seems to consistently like to take from a project and not give back to the fullest extent of the law. Apple's mantra seems to be "Great artist steal, then use the massive time savings to add and patent silly "non-essential" features, and then sue everyone on the planet for using something resembling said features." Example: the Safari managing engineer estimated that KHTML saved them at least two years of development time IIRC. With that time they were able to get to market faster and add and patent "non-essential" features like bounce-back scrolling[1]. And then they sued other smart phone suppliers for use of that feature in their browser. Bravo Apple!
OSS and proprietary software both have a place. OSS is successful for many products because companies have realized that for core services, it is less expensive and better for them to collaborate on standards-based solutions. Luckily, consumers also benefit. This is similar to how automotive manufacturers have standardized on placing the gas and brake pedals. Apple doesn't seem to like that game, instead preferring the oft-mentioned walled garden[2] approach. But they are happy to steal the benches from the city park to put on their garden path.
Footnotes
========
[1] Isn't ironic that patents that really are innovative (like those from Motorola) cannot be monetized to the same extent as silly bounce-back animations because they are considered "FRAND"?
[2] Did you notice how with Apple *finally* supporting real dual-screen support in Mavericks, some Apple fanbois were again proclaiming it was like the second coming of Jesus? Yet Windows and Linux had enjoyed good-to-great multiple monitor support for at least 8 years. Ah, the cost of blind faith. Sometimes its a good idea to step outside the walls and see what you are missing.
The Linux drvers are far better than anthing else. Look at the system76 hardware or any other preconfigured systems. All of them use nVidia as far as I can see. I have yet to find anyone using AMD. The reason is the nVidia Linux systems outperform AMD and are much less troublesome (e.g. expensive) to support. In Linux, nVidia > Intel > AMD > everything else in my experience.
This is a copy from my post on Engadget, Modesto updated. The tablet has many compelling USPs, and is a great successor to the Kai platform developed by nVidia and used in the OG nexus 7. If the nexus 7 is news on Slashdot (as it often is) then why wouldn't this be?
========
I have one and am stylus-swype typing on it right now. As a mobile web developer, I use a half dozen different tablets regularly, and this is my favorite. Key points:
1. Stylus is awesome. Get the fine tip for impressive accuracy. Use it to type or select small web elements, or sketch, or circle screen grabs to share. Pressure sensitivity is impressive, and document editing is so much easier.
2. The silk screen on mine is vastly more muted than the photo, so you can barely see the markings. So it actually looks pretty good. I like the grippy bow tie. And impressive build quality.
3. SD card slot. Drop in a 64gb ultra speed card and you get an 80gb tablet. And yes, the "move to SD" feature works great. Just adding 48gb to an apple tablet cost what these days, $200?
4. HDMI out. Both nexus and apple refuse to provide this or the sd card.
5. Font facing stereo *loud* speakers. What a revelation! With a resonance port, they even have some bass. Vastly better than most tablets where you have to cup your hand around the back to hear anything.
6. Very, very fast. Faster than a Samsung Note 3 for 1/3 the price! In many applications, frame rates are 2-3x the 2013 nexus 7.
7. AO HDR is very useful in difficult lighting situation. Many times I can capture much better images than with my nexus 4.
In all it is a great media player, game player, and small productity tablet at a great price. Just do get the screen protector.
Who didn't see this coming? Remember Rick Belluzzo? He destroyed SGI by decimating its products, migrating huge chunks of IP to Microsoft (remember "FireGL?" It's now called "DirectX"), and sewing FUD in his own SGI customer base. Job well done, he took his golden parachute and softly landed back at MSN.
Elop is Belluzzo reincarnate. He didn't care if he destroyed the lives of thousands to improve his career. If he gets the MS CEO position after wiping out 90% of Nokia's market value because of his sophomoric blunders, it will confirm how dysfunctional corporate governance has truly become.
Why is it that we allow morons who don't understand disproportionate effects post on these forums? Don't they teach simple logic in high school any more? I assure you, my experience in vehicle design and as the founder of a Tier 1 engineering and design firm for automotive OEMs almost certainly makes me much less an idiot and much more an expert than you.
And why can't these morons do their own research instead of pouring out ad hominem attacks because the facts presented don't fit the world view instilled on them by their well-meaning but ill-informed educators?
"And motorcycle manufacturers only have to ensure that their vehicles of 179 cc and above meet governmental emissions criteria for the first 18,600 miles of a bike's life, compared with 150,000 miles for cars." [source: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-hy-throttle11-2008jun11,0,6054455.story%5D The bottom line? Cars Catalytic converters get replaced. Bikes - if the even have them - don't. Once the catalytic converter is gone, the NOX emissions explode.
The evidence is compelling that of the motorocycles on the road today have a significantly disproportionate effect on the greenhouse effect, and are far-worse for the environment on a per-unit basis compared to automobiles.
If you want to dispute that, dear non-expert idiot, please present facts instead of ad hominem attacks.
"Oddly enough something that weighs very little and burns very little fuel does have low emissions - who would have thought?"
Simple thinking like this is the reason why our energy policy is a mess. Compare for example how a leafblower has vastly worse emissions than a 6-passenger crew-cab pickup truck: http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/emissions-test-car-vs-truck-vs-leaf-blower.html
I am not trolling, just an observation: I very much care what browser my customers use, and they do too.
I care because I am a professional web application developer, and am sick to death of writing two sets of code: One for standard compliant browsers, and one for IE. We have to do this because until recently the leaders at MS have clung hopelessly to the belief that they set the standards regardless of the written specs.
The only reason IE is getting better is because they are getting pummeled in the market. We all saw what happened when IE6 was the defacto standard - 10 years of stagnation before the first significantly standard compliant browser from MS (IE9) was released. For example, their much touted 'native SVG support' came only 10 years after KHTML (which became WebKit) and 6 years after Firefox (v1.5). If it weren't for the can of whoop-ass opened on them, I highly doubt this or other features would have seen the light of day, since their proprietary Sliverlight was supposed to be the future of the web.
My customers care because we develop for webkit and firefox first. This is not religion, just good business sense - these execution environments represents the broadest swath of desktop and mobile users. We degrade our applications the best we can for IE. In the worst cases, I have asked my customers "could you please just install Chrome? It's free, fast, and it works."
Hopefully the competitive pressure will mean that future IE users will no longer have to be second class netizens.
Slashdot Mirror
What do you mean "finally"? Ebay, Amazon etc have a plethora of ARM-based mini-PCs with 4GB under $99. Well under. Typically sold with Android as set-top boxes, they can be used for web browsing, office PCs, etc. Some will work with Linux, but remember there is no Linux/ARM version of full Chrome.
I am one of the first owners of the of Jetson TK1 board. The benefits of this board are a) it runs Ubuntu out of the box, b) it has more powerful GPU, and c) it is supported and well documented by Nvidia. There is a native build of Chrome on ARM - see the Acer Chromebook 13, which also uses the TK1 SoC - and it runs quite well. However, I never did get that build for my Jetson as Google limited its distribution. There may be a way around that these days. I did however get Chromium to work like Chrome through some additional software. The browser ran well on top of Ubuntu with 2GB of RAM. It would however run out of memory and crash if one loaded multiple tabs with heavy content. Double the memory should some that issue.
Given that 54% of all computing devices worldwide ship with Android as their OS, I'd argue that Google is the bigger Unix proponent. Linux also powers the majority of data center computing by the likes of Google, Amazon, and Apple. Even Azure has a large percentage of Linux servers. If Window's didn't have exclusive server applications, that number would probably fall to where it should be, like 0%. How many CAL's would that cost? I must consult my MSFT-certified licensing specialist. Where's Bill Sr. when you need him?
On the Mac you do not even have to do that step. Or, for that matter, know about the existence of VLC. That is the entire point. Also, QT is better than VLC, and the Mac also comes with a video EDITOR.
Pick your poison. I'd rather sudo apt-get install VLC then have to fuck around with the Apple land-mine-ridden quasi-linux-dev environment.
How about nVidia's Jetson TK1 board? It has a great 192-core Kepler GPU, a nice quad-core ARM CPU, on-board gigabit ethernet, all the ports you're likely to need and comes pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux.
I have one, and it is a great little Linux box for the most part. The x86 compatibility issue pops-up every once in a while, and 2GB RAM is a little tight, but after that it's all roses. Thanks to Raspberry Pie, ARM support for Linux is surprisingly complete, and the Tegra K1 graphics vastly outperformed the GPU on any Intel CPU that cost less than the entire JetsonTK1 board. Video cam, Google Hangouts, LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape, Java, Webstorm, etc. all work very nicely. My son uses it for his development computer, and it is attached to a 240GB SSD and a 32" 1920x1200 monitor. Libreoffice launches in 2s cold.
Same with Nvidia. But with 4x the performance.
Um, "What's your sign?". Best used in Discos.
The license agreement that come on screen when you first boot up says you can decline the agreement and receive a refund - or at least it used to. But for years that was a lie because people couldn't get a refund from Dell or HP or Lenovo or MS. Seems to me the judge is saying that this fraud must stop. Seems reasonable to me.
Remember how I said the future might make a fool of you? Seems Google thinks that desktop quaility gaming has come to mobile. And the demo certainly looks impressive. Probably not on QC chips in the near future, but certainly on the Nvidia K1 and Erista. Remember, both of these are (or will be) >= Intel HD4400 Graphics. That is more power than most people on Steam have.
There was no call for such a nasty response. I provided a nice post that I thought you might find useful, and you belittled my points like some arrogant prick. Does that brighten your day? Unfortunately, the future might just make a fool of you.
One would have to be pretty stupid to miss that ARM and x86 markets are converging. Servers are going ARM. x86 is going mobile.
One would have to be pretty stupid not to see that ISA does not dictate audience or sales strategies. Any current association is correlation, not causation. The montetization strategy is driven by the the target market. If ARM and x86 are converging to compete in the same markets ... well, I'll let your figure it out from there. Let me know if you need help.
One would have to be pretty stupid not to see that Porting to ARM, while sometimes tedious, is not nearly as arduous as one might think:
One would have to be pretty stupid not to see that porting to Nvidia ARM with great hardware and excellent drivers might be less trouble than trying to get shitty AMD drivers to work with SteamOS. I wouldn't be surprised if folks over at Valve had the same thought, judging by their impression of AMD's drivers. (hint: they are Vendor "B"). Adding weight to this, I have it on good source that a "consumer" variant of the Jetson TK1 board should come to market "soon". Sounds awfully steambox-ish.
Let's not be stupid, ok? You might want to drop $192 and get up to speed on ARM yourself.
Depends on if they require x86. The Tegras are full SoCs, with the K1 beating i3 parts on a number of compute benchmarks. It also performs similar to HD4400 graphics, with OGL4.4 support and a power draw <10W (<3W for most uses, ~0.6W idle) @ 2.3GHz. It looks to compete well against the Mullins chip.
This of course would require more Steam games ported to ARM, which I admit is probably a serious PITA.
I think that is wishful thinking for someone who really is rooting for the Red team
At present, the consensus is that AMD GL drivers are severely deficient in performance, capability, and stability (see posting about GL vendors provided by Valve engineering manager). Now this company could work with AMD to greatly improve their GL drivers. Or they could simply use a Tegra K1 (or the subsequent Erista chip) and get everything they need with top-notch driver and Valve support. Given that Shield already runs Portal and Half-life 2, and that Valve and Nvidia have collaborated on the Steam Box, and that NVidia GL drivers are consistently better ... well, you see where I'm going. The Tegra chips seem to make a lot more sense.
I didn't say that Mac didn't have multi-monitor support. I said it does not have "proper" multi-monitor support. I have been using multi-monitor support with X for years. How do I know this? Because I used a Macbook this year and found how incredibly, embarrassingly poor the mult-monitor support was, effectively disabling one monitor when putting an app into full-screen mode. What year is this? So yes, it is sometimes good to step outside the wall of blind pro-Apple-ism and realize other people know what they are talking about.
I wrote: "Webkit probably remains OSS only because the KHTML foundation requires it."
You wrote: "That is bullshit and you know it."
No, I don't know that it is bullshit. Is it speculation? Of course, that is why I wrote the word probably.
Of course, if Apple had closed Webkit, they wouldn't have benefited from the enormous investment of Google to its development. So in the end, I guess they are thankful for the LGPL license.
You wrote: "If you don't support the right to fork [...] you don't support open source."
Yes Webkit was always a fork. But the KHTML devs were led to believe that there would be collaboration - and apparently there was up until Apple got what they wanted ...
You wrote: [...] and why they open source most Apple-originated projects.
How in the world do you come by that metric? Everywhere I look in Apple I see proprietary hardware, software, and services that are designed specifically for lock-in.
This is a formatted version of my previous comment.
Summary
Webkit is an excellent example of how Apple takes and does not give. Apple is within the law to behave as it does. Consumers can decide not to like it and refuse to buy their products. It's our call.
Background
I remember when KHTML was selected by Apple for the basis of Safari. KHTML had gotten so good that by 2005 I was Konqueror as my primary browser, with Firefox on standby for more troublesome sites. It's speed and integration to the desktop was compelling. The KDE folks were ecstatic about Apple's choice. "Yeah!, we can work with Apple to make KHTML even better" seemed to be the sentiment. The Apple engineering manager wrote a nice letter to the KDE folks to tell them what a bang-up job they did developing the code, and how it saved them perhaps two years of development time.
Shortly thereafter it became apparent that Apple had no interest in helping to improve KHTML - quite the contrary. They just converted KHTML to Webkit and never looked back. Patches to KHTML were received in nearly indecipherable tarballs. Communication became hostile and then non-existent. Webkit probably remains OSS only because the KHTML foundation requires it.
Apple seems to consistently like to take from a project and not give back to the fullest extent of the law. Their mantra seems to be "Great artist steal, then use the massive time savings to add and patent silly "non-essential" features, and then sue everyone on the planet for using something resembling said features." Example: With the estimated two years they saved using KHTML, the were able to get to market faster and add and patent "non-essential" features like bounce-back scrolling[1]. And then they sued other smart phone suppliers for use of that feature in their browser (Nokia, Sammy, etc). Bravo Apple!
OSS and proprietary software both have a place. OSS is successful for many products because companies have realized that for core services, it is less expensive and better for them to collaborate on standards-based solutions. Luckily, consumers also benefit. This is similar to how automotive manufacturers have standardized on placing the gas and brake pedals. Apple doesn't seem to like that game, instead preferring the oft-mentioned walled garden[2] approach. But they are happy to steal the benches from the city park to put on their garden path.
Footnotes
Summary ======= Webkit is an excellent example of how Apple takes and does not give. Apple is within the law to behave as it does. We can decide not to like it and not to buy their products. It's our call. Background ========== I remember when KHTML was selected by Apple for the basis of Safari. KHTML had gotten so good that by 2005 I was Konqueror as my primary browser, with Firefox on standby for more troublesome sites. It's speed and integration to the desktop was compelling. So the KDE folks were ecstatic. "Yeah!, we can work with Apple to make KHTML even better" seemed to be the sentiment. The Apple engineering manager wrote a nice letter to the KDE folks to tell them what a bang-up job they did developing the code, and how much time this had saved them. IIRC, it became almost immediately apparent that Apple had no interest in helping to improve KHTML - quite the contrary. They just converted KHTML to Webkit and never looked back. Patches to KHTML were received in nearly indecipherable tarballs. Communication, if I understand it, became hostile and then non-existent. Webkit probably remains OSS only because the KHTML foundation requires it. Apple seems to consistently like to take from a project and not give back to the fullest extent of the law. Apple's mantra seems to be "Great artist steal, then use the massive time savings to add and patent silly "non-essential" features, and then sue everyone on the planet for using something resembling said features." Example: the Safari managing engineer estimated that KHTML saved them at least two years of development time IIRC. With that time they were able to get to market faster and add and patent "non-essential" features like bounce-back scrolling[1]. And then they sued other smart phone suppliers for use of that feature in their browser. Bravo Apple! OSS and proprietary software both have a place. OSS is successful for many products because companies have realized that for core services, it is less expensive and better for them to collaborate on standards-based solutions. Luckily, consumers also benefit. This is similar to how automotive manufacturers have standardized on placing the gas and brake pedals. Apple doesn't seem to like that game, instead preferring the oft-mentioned walled garden[2] approach. But they are happy to steal the benches from the city park to put on their garden path. Footnotes ======== [1] Isn't ironic that patents that really are innovative (like those from Motorola) cannot be monetized to the same extent as silly bounce-back animations because they are considered "FRAND"? [2] Did you notice how with Apple *finally* supporting real dual-screen support in Mavericks, some Apple fanbois were again proclaiming it was like the second coming of Jesus? Yet Windows and Linux had enjoyed good-to-great multiple monitor support for at least 8 years. Ah, the cost of blind faith. Sometimes its a good idea to step outside the walls and see what you are missing.
Do they have sort -u in Canada? Just a joke, I love Canada. I lived 2 years in Scarborough.
The Linux drvers are far better than anthing else. Look at the system76 hardware or any other preconfigured systems. All of them use nVidia as far as I can see. I have yet to find anyone using AMD. The reason is the nVidia Linux systems outperform AMD and are much less troublesome (e.g. expensive) to support. In Linux, nVidia > Intel > AMD > everything else in my experience.
This is a copy from my post on Engadget, Modesto updated. The tablet has many compelling USPs, and is a great successor to the Kai platform developed by nVidia and used in the OG nexus 7. If the nexus 7 is news on Slashdot (as it often is) then why wouldn't this be? ======== I have one and am stylus-swype typing on it right now. As a mobile web developer, I use a half dozen different tablets regularly, and this is my favorite. Key points: 1. Stylus is awesome. Get the fine tip for impressive accuracy. Use it to type or select small web elements, or sketch, or circle screen grabs to share. Pressure sensitivity is impressive, and document editing is so much easier. 2. The silk screen on mine is vastly more muted than the photo, so you can barely see the markings. So it actually looks pretty good. I like the grippy bow tie. And impressive build quality. 3. SD card slot. Drop in a 64gb ultra speed card and you get an 80gb tablet. And yes, the "move to SD" feature works great. Just adding 48gb to an apple tablet cost what these days, $200? 4. HDMI out. Both nexus and apple refuse to provide this or the sd card. 5. Font facing stereo *loud* speakers. What a revelation! With a resonance port, they even have some bass. Vastly better than most tablets where you have to cup your hand around the back to hear anything. 6. Very, very fast. Faster than a Samsung Note 3 for 1/3 the price! In many applications, frame rates are 2-3x the 2013 nexus 7. 7. AO HDR is very useful in difficult lighting situation. Many times I can capture much better images than with my nexus 4. In all it is a great media player, game player, and small productity tablet at a great price. Just do get the screen protector.
Who didn't see this coming? Remember Rick Belluzzo? He destroyed SGI by decimating its products, migrating huge chunks of IP to Microsoft (remember "FireGL?" It's now called "DirectX"), and sewing FUD in his own SGI customer base. Job well done, he took his golden parachute and softly landed back at MSN.
Elop is Belluzzo reincarnate. He didn't care if he destroyed the lives of thousands to improve his career. If he gets the MS CEO position after wiping out 90% of Nokia's market value because of his sophomoric blunders, it will confirm how dysfunctional corporate governance has truly become.
Why is it that we allow morons who don't understand disproportionate effects post on these forums? Don't they teach simple logic in high school any more? I assure you, my experience in vehicle design and as the founder of a Tier 1 engineering and design firm for automotive OEMs almost certainly makes me much less an idiot and much more an expert than you.
And why can't these morons do their own research instead of pouring out ad hominem attacks because the facts presented don't fit the world view instilled on them by their well-meaning but ill-informed educators?
"[N]itrous oxide ... [has] 310 [times the greenhouse effect of CO2] the and it has an atmospheric lifetime of 120 years—10 times longer than that of methane." [source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2007/11/the_other_greenhouse_gases.html%5D
And:
"And motorcycle manufacturers only have to ensure that their vehicles of 179 cc and above meet governmental emissions criteria for the first 18,600 miles of a bike's life, compared with 150,000 miles for cars." [source: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-hy-throttle11-2008jun11,0,6054455.story%5D The bottom line? Cars Catalytic converters get replaced. Bikes - if the even have them - don't. Once the catalytic converter is gone, the NOX emissions explode.
The evidence is compelling that of the motorocycles on the road today have a significantly disproportionate effect on the greenhouse effect, and are far-worse for the environment on a per-unit basis compared to automobiles.
If you want to dispute that, dear non-expert idiot, please present facts instead of ad hominem attacks.
"Oddly enough something that weighs very little and burns very little fuel does have low emissions - who would have thought?" Simple thinking like this is the reason why our energy policy is a mess. Compare for example how a leafblower has vastly worse emissions than a 6-passenger crew-cab pickup truck: http://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/emissions-test-car-vs-truck-vs-leaf-blower.html
I am not trolling, just an observation: I very much care what browser my customers use, and they do too.
I care because I am a professional web application developer, and am sick to death of writing two sets of code: One for standard compliant browsers, and one for IE. We have to do this because until recently the leaders at MS have clung hopelessly to the belief that they set the standards regardless of the written specs.
The only reason IE is getting better is because they are getting pummeled in the market. We all saw what happened when IE6 was the defacto standard - 10 years of stagnation before the first significantly standard compliant browser from MS (IE9) was released. For example, their much touted 'native SVG support' came only 10 years after KHTML (which became WebKit) and 6 years after Firefox (v1.5). If it weren't for the can of whoop-ass opened on them, I highly doubt this or other features would have seen the light of day, since their proprietary Sliverlight was supposed to be the future of the web.
My customers care because we develop for webkit and firefox first. This is not religion, just good business sense - these execution environments represents the broadest swath of desktop and mobile users. We degrade our applications the best we can for IE. In the worst cases, I have asked my customers "could you please just install Chrome? It's free, fast, and it works." Hopefully the competitive pressure will mean that future IE users will no longer have to be second class netizens.