"Desktop search was supposed to be part of WinFS, which MS announced about a year ago. You can't call apple the innovator here, just the fastest-to-market."
Man, man, man. I can't believe you fall for this.
Time-to-market is the thing. If you believe that MS or any other company that preannounces anything is the one that will bring it to market first or is the real innovator, you amaze me. For instance, MS has used this tactic over and over, before any developer has written any single line of code they "announce" products "coming out soon". This has the effect of holding buyer's purses and stiffling competition (think XBox, etc.).
Lemme announce to the world: "I am working on a Linux kernel patch that will allow any existing unmodified apps to cluster seamlessy across net nodes, across CPU's, transcompile on the fly between processor architectures and be fault tolerant. Performance gains will be enormous and unmodified apps will gain 90% efficiency per node immediately".
There I have "preannounced" it, but that does not turn me into one of the greatest computer scientists, innovators and kernel hackers of all time. Time-to-market and ability-to-market is key. Maybe I'd give a try in writing the patch, but it would take me decades to write (if ever completed) and most possibly other more capable people will release less ambitious distributed computing patches much earlier. The would be the innovators, not me.
"I also think I will eventually get a 3rd one to turn it into a media center if I can find a USB device that can record tv and everything.. this will be a lot of fun!"
(1) add a RAM stick BTO - cheapo (2) add bluetooth BTO - cheapo (3) add Wifi card BTO - cheapo (4) sit unobtrusively to my way-cool existing TV and hook up A/V - nothin' (5) hook to already existing wifi ADSL-powered network - nothin' (6) bring in my already existing Sony-Ericsson Z600 - nothin' (7)...? (8) Profit!
Lemme see what I get from this:
(A) iTunes playback (B) VLC playback (C) DVD playback (D) UNIX development (E) Surf web (F) Check mail (7) Photo slideshow (8) Remote control via Z600 (see 2,6,A,B,C,E) All in the living room sitting comfortably on the sofa (see D)! Yay!
I'll only do it with the first one, buy you get the idea:
Vendor Lock in: When you switch to MS for an IT strategy you will be stuck with it. And switching to an other platform is expensive. Sure right now MS is making good quality products but down the line some other platform may exceed the quality in a large scale. Much like Windows of the Early to Mid 90s where the Win3.1 while once was top of the line started to be come antiquated, and just couldn't adapt to today needs wheel. You buy MS most likely you will be using Office (Yea Yea you can use OpenOffice but there is a lot of stuff not proven to work on OO), so in the future when MS sucks again you will be faced with a daunting upgrade task. This is the reason why Microsoft is so big, and the reason why Office is so strong. With Windows and Office you can buy whatever hardware and still keep the same software, reducing the risk of needing a major upgrade. With MS you are stuck with MS.
"direct transfer of video from digital video recorders to portable players without the need to transcode through a PC"
Cool, what Firewire has been designed to do for, like, years?
From the IEEE1394 horse's mouth:
"
What does peer-to-peer mean?
1394 is a peer-to-peer interface. This allows dubbing from one camcorder to another without the need for a computer. It also allows multiple computers to share a given peripheral without any special support in the peripheral or the computers. It's another important reason why 1394 is the digital interface of choice and why its acceptance is growing.
Yeah, there is the issue of HW playback at the portable player level (which is not new at all, either), but PC-less "direct transfer" as the submitter remarks is something Firewire has been designed to do from its inception years ago. In comparison, USB is limited to PC-controlled operation and I don't think 2.0 has changed that.
The iTunes Music Player and the iPod have the *full ability* to encode and play music from non-DRM'd audio files or CDs to fully-standards-based file formats (unprotected AAC or MP3).
In the case of MS Word it would be like having Word import and export to/from a.doc document to a fully-functional fully-documented fully-compatible XML file format. Not gonna happen in Redmond any time soon, to me this is a big difference.
I have several multimedia CD-ROMs under development in Director. I have done at least a dozen of them and they are usually fairly well-paid projects (v.s. low-pay and hassle-full interactive websites).
Flash is all the rage lately, specially on the "rich" front-end app Web environment. Funny thing, MM in their greedy upgrade-cycle frenzy is making exactly the same mistakes that plagued Director in its time. Namely: feature bloat, general inconsistency, dramatic scripting syntax and model changes, legacy burdens, NIH syndrome, feature creep, etc.
Sad, the Flash community is swallowing it all in their enthusiasm.
I looked up the price in the supplied link, I looked for confirmation but couldn't find any other price figures. You mention a price of $20M, please include link(s).
Regarding the visibility, if VT managed to get lower prices in exchange of publicity, I say it is a smart move on their part. Everybody is entitled to do this and can do it, so it's a level field. MareNostrum's builders should do it as well. Component maintainers and suppliers have to value what they can win by giving discounts to important clients.
Hey, they do it at my local gym, by working at a big corporation I am given a good discount, that in exchange of the good publicity they expect me to give about them at work.
By efficient I meant in price/returns terms. VT is much cheaper and quite powerful even if the $20M figure were taken into account. Yeah, I know about the law of diminishing returns, but the VT-MN disparity is too big IMHO.
It's hard to know the real price on anything. Take for example potable water, quite cheap at malls but it can be argued that it's real economic and enviromental costs are quite higher. For the sake of comparison we can only stick to published costs. I am sure that at the UPC they'll leech work time from undergraduates and PhD students as well, just like everybody else, again level field.
Yeah, but as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center Site states: "the Spanish Government, the Catalan Government and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) signed an agreement to create a new supercomputer center that will host the MareNostrum supercomputer". (Emphasis mine)
I mean, though I would not like to demean UPC's involvement and fantastic job, from the BSC, IBM and the Top500 sites it is inferred that IBM built it, not the UPC, and not by all means a bunch of pizza-fed students and some enterprising professors (like VT). I also remember that it is IBM who built it from the press releases and TV "infomercials" at the time.
Have you looked at the cost figures!?! $6M (VT) v.s. $86M (MN)! Ridiculous! Yeah, MN is more powerful but a swindle, IMHO. If we had just grabbed the money and gone for VT-clones we would have 5 or 6 top 15 supercomputers and have several million left to keep the beasts running for years. It's my taxpayer money too.
Apart from very non-embarrassingly-parallel problems, the 5-6 XServe-cluster super-cluster would be much more efficient. In fact, the efficiency ratio figures hint that MN is a colossal waste of money. For 8 more in R-max we have spent $80M more!
I'm not an expert in supercomputing, but I am also versed in CS and this MN looks too an expensive toy compared to a whole bunch of VT-clones. I have yet to hear any compelling arguments to the contrary (except that we get a shiny #4), in fact we could be like #4 at $10M or so if gone the VT route.
Sorry to bitch in... I also posted a developer oriented story regarding this and providing the new developer link you mention. Still pending. Story should be updated with the juicy link.
Hear this? Its just one more proverbial turd hitting the fan in Redmond. One little annoying piece of software that is kinda like being used all the time, called iTunes, just got one more compelling reason to be used instead of Windows Media Whatever(TM). Bummer.
On the other hand, even though iPod Photo is considered too limited by the slashdot crowd, we have been proven wrong before (I also disliked the iPod and now own one).
AND... for each iPod Photo sold there is one less Windows Portable Media Brick sold. Hear that again? ^_^ It's not a proverbial turd this time, but the sound of the Halo Effect(TM).
" With a wheel mouse i suppose turning the knobs is easy, but apple has only one button from the factory."
Oh, come on!
You mean you are an experienced audio pro, making solid cash and cannot spend like $50 on a multibutton scroll wheel mouse?
Moreover, since when are you using factory-supplied mice on a PC? They are crap! First thing anyone should do is trash them!
On the other hand, when telling my mum over the phone to mail me some stuff, one-button mice would be a blessing.
Of course, I have a trusty Logitech gizmo-enabled mouse to bring up all my favorite Eclipse contextual menus *and* bring up Expose with the central scroll-wheel click.
Slashdot Mirror
Man, man, man. I can't believe you fall for this.
Time-to-market is the thing. If you believe that MS or any other company that preannounces anything is the one that will bring it to market first or is the real innovator, you amaze me. For instance, MS has used this tactic over and over, before any developer has written any single line of code they "announce" products "coming out soon". This has the effect of holding buyer's purses and stiffling competition (think XBox, etc.).
Lemme announce to the world: "I am working on a Linux kernel patch that will allow any existing unmodified apps to cluster seamlessy across net nodes, across CPU's, transcompile on the fly between processor architectures and be fault tolerant. Performance gains will be enormous and unmodified apps will gain 90% efficiency per node immediately".
There I have "preannounced" it, but that does not turn me into one of the greatest computer scientists, innovators and kernel hackers of all time. Time-to-market and ability-to-market is key. Maybe I'd give a try in writing the patch, but it would take me decades to write (if ever completed) and most possibly other more capable people will release less ambitious distributed computing patches much earlier. The would be the innovators, not me.
Best, DaNi++
Just for the record, my Samsung TV has DVI-in, so non-issue for me.
Well, seriously, I don't have 5.1 yet. But whenever I buy one in the future I can shell out $120 for the USB surround device and be a happy camper.
And sometime in the future pick up an ElGato firewire tuner to build a TiVO-like system and enjoy++.
Apple is avoiding what it has been critized in the past, starting small, I can pick and chose extensions on the way.
Pun!
Check it here to understand... ^_^
You mean, like, this? (Firewire)
Remember they are using worldwide network proxy Akamai, that gives a lot of muscle, not enough, it seems. ^_^
(1) add a RAM stick BTO - cheapo ...?
(2) add bluetooth BTO - cheapo
(3) add Wifi card BTO - cheapo
(4) sit unobtrusively to my way-cool existing TV and hook up A/V - nothin'
(5) hook to already existing wifi ADSL-powered network - nothin'
(6) bring in my already existing Sony-Ericsson Z600 - nothin'
(7)
(8) Profit!
Lemme see what I get from this:
(A) iTunes playback
(B) VLC playback
(C) DVD playback
(D) UNIX development
(E) Surf web
(F) Check mail
(7) Photo slideshow
(8) Remote control via Z600 (see 2,6,A,B,C,E)
All in the living room sitting comfortably on the sofa (see D)! Yay!
Akamai does support live streaming very well.
Cool, what Firewire has been designed to do for, like, years?
From the IEEE1394 horse's mouth: " What does peer-to-peer mean? 1394 is a peer-to-peer interface. This allows dubbing from one camcorder to another without the need for a computer. It also allows multiple computers to share a given peripheral without any special support in the peripheral or the computers. It's another important reason why 1394 is the digital interface of choice and why its acceptance is growing.
Yeah, there is the issue of HW playback at the portable player level (which is not new at all, either), but PC-less "direct transfer" as the submitter remarks is something Firewire has been designed to do from its inception years ago. In comparison, USB is limited to PC-controlled operation and I don't think 2.0 has changed that.
But using MacOSX here. Seems MS Office is still a keeper for us.
Yeah... BUT.
.doc document to a fully-functional fully-documented fully-compatible XML file format. Not gonna happen in Redmond any time soon, to me this is a big difference.
The iTunes Music Player and the iPod have the *full ability* to encode and play music from non-DRM'd audio files or CDs to fully-standards-based file formats (unprotected AAC or MP3).
In the case of MS Word it would be like having Word import and export to/from a
WOW! Somehow Apple must be in error, there is a $999 iBook G4 on Apple's website! Quick! Email them to correct this outrageous inaccuracy!
I have several multimedia CD-ROMs under development in Director. I have done at least a dozen of them and they are usually fairly well-paid projects (v.s. low-pay and hassle-full interactive websites).
Flash is all the rage lately, specially on the "rich" front-end app Web environment. Funny thing, MM in their greedy upgrade-cycle frenzy is making exactly the same mistakes that plagued Director in its time. Namely: feature bloat, general inconsistency, dramatic scripting syntax and model changes, legacy burdens, NIH syndrome, feature creep, etc.
Sad, the Flash community is swallowing it all in their enthusiasm.
Flawed analogy, Apple didn't dominate the PC market as it does in HD-based players today. It had good marketshare, but not overwhelming.
Regarding the visibility, if VT managed to get lower prices in exchange of publicity, I say it is a smart move on their part. Everybody is entitled to do this and can do it, so it's a level field. MareNostrum's builders should do it as well. Component maintainers and suppliers have to value what they can win by giving discounts to important clients.
Hey, they do it at my local gym, by working at a big corporation I am given a good discount, that in exchange of the good publicity they expect me to give about them at work.
By efficient I meant in price/returns terms. VT is much cheaper and quite powerful even if the $20M figure were taken into account. Yeah, I know about the law of diminishing returns, but the VT-MN disparity is too big IMHO.
It's hard to know the real price on anything. Take for example potable water, quite cheap at malls but it can be argued that it's real economic and enviromental costs are quite higher. For the sake of comparison we can only stick to published costs. I am sure that at the UPC they'll leech work time from undergraduates and PhD students as well, just like everybody else, again level field.
I mean, though I would not like to demean UPC's involvement and fantastic job, from the BSC, IBM and the Top500 sites it is inferred that IBM built it, not the UPC, and not by all means a bunch of pizza-fed students and some enterprising professors (like VT). I also remember that it is IBM who built it from the press releases and TV "infomercials" at the time.
Have you looked at the cost figures!?! $6M (VT) v.s. $86M (MN)! Ridiculous! Yeah, MN is more powerful but a swindle, IMHO. If we had just grabbed the money and gone for VT-clones we would have 5 or 6 top 15 supercomputers and have several million left to keep the beasts running for years. It's my taxpayer money too.
Apart from very non-embarrassingly-parallel problems, the 5-6 XServe-cluster super-cluster would be much more efficient. In fact, the efficiency ratio figures hint that MN is a colossal waste of money. For 8 more in R-max we have spent $80M more!
I'm not an expert in supercomputing, but I am also versed in CS and this MN looks too an expensive toy compared to a whole bunch of VT-clones. I have yet to hear any compelling arguments to the contrary (except that we get a shiny #4), in fact we could be like #4 at $10M or so if gone the VT route.
Sorry to bitch in... I also posted a developer oriented story regarding this and providing the new developer link you mention. Still pending. Story should be updated with the juicy link.
Hear this? Its just one more proverbial turd hitting the fan in Redmond. One little annoying piece of software that is kinda like being used all the time, called iTunes, just got one more compelling reason to be used instead of Windows Media Whatever(TM). Bummer.
On the other hand, even though iPod Photo is considered too limited by the slashdot crowd, we have been proven wrong before (I also disliked the iPod and now own one).
AND... for each iPod Photo sold there is one less Windows Portable Media Brick sold. Hear that again? ^_^ It's not a proverbial turd this time, but the sound of the Halo Effect(TM).
Mmmm... maybe this will appease somewhat the Adobe overlords on the other side of the platform fence. Just a little.
" With a wheel mouse i suppose turning the knobs is easy, but apple has only one button from the factory."
Oh, come on!
You mean you are an experienced audio pro, making solid cash and cannot spend like $50 on a multibutton scroll wheel mouse?
Moreover, since when are you using factory-supplied mice on a PC? They are crap! First thing anyone should do is trash them!
On the other hand, when telling my mum over the phone to mail me some stuff, one-button mice would be a blessing.
Of course, I have a trusty Logitech gizmo-enabled mouse to bring up all my favorite Eclipse contextual menus *and* bring up Expose with the central scroll-wheel click.
Mmmmm... the interview is interesting and I'll try Camino for a while to test the waters.
Any obvious advantages from day to day use? I see from their website it has some OSX-specific features that look cool enough, any highlights?
[Swimming in the calm waters of alternative browsers, Safari and Firefox when on Win]
Usually because it's better to tell most people 'Reboot' than 'just issue a $ ps xa|grep foo|grep -v grep| xargs| kill -HUP 2>&1' or whatever
Remember what happened to Netscape logos on the desktop, MS pressured OEMs to remove them or be "removed" from Windows licensing...
AMAZING, you're the first person I meet (even electronically) that actually reads EULA's!!!
Come on, the unwashed zillions will simply push 'accept'.