Read the article! He was fined, not sued. Fines aren't dischargable in bankruptcy.
When they're made numbers, who cares??
Nobody is going to ever earn a billion dollars in their lifetime. They'll never be able to collect. They might be able to pinch a little out of his paycheque, but they need to leave him enough to eat and survive -- they can't just leave him indigent.
I'm not sure what they can do -- but you're never gonna collect $1 Billion from anyone.
I'm not saying this in an attempt to invalidate your opinion; I'm just pointing out that, among the wider population, the majority of people don't seem to want a computer-like interface to their tablets. We probably could have deduced that even without that survey, though, given the tepid sales previous Windows tablets have seen.
Exactly, the appeal of the iPad (or any tablet) is a smaller, simplified interface that is well suited to the form factor, with a user interface that is suited to the device.
All of the complaining that people won't be able to use it as a "real" computer is tech geeks thinking the rest of the world wants the same kind of machine they do.
Taking a desktop OS and putting it on a tablet and not actually changing much isn't really much in the way of progress -- it's repackaging 20 year old tech in a new box and not really taking advantage of it. If Microsoft just wraps up their existing OS, then it doesn't stand a chance of competing with the iPad.
As has been pointed out, Microsoft has been on tablets for a long time, and haven't really captivated people with it.
While the Xbox may seem to somewhat fit the 'throw money at it until it's relevant' idea you provide, Xbox Live on the other hand is innovative in many ways.
I guess as a non-gamer, I don't track these things. So they don't register for me. I don't doubt that they are pioneering the on-line parts of gaming, I'm just oblivious to them.
It was innovative to include an ethernet plug on the original Xbox
*laugh* Depends on your perspective -- I view it about as innovative as eventually adding TCP/IP to Windows. It seems like it was more inevitable than revolutionary.:-P
But, maybe I'm just old and cynical about these things.;-)
Wow, so Ballmer did not promise a Microsoft tablet by Christmas?
Point two says "soon" -- so, for sufficiently small values of soon, absolutely -- or possible sufficiently large values of soon, depending on your immediacy.
But, yes, it would appear he is confirming the existence of something which already exists:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has confirmed that there will be tablets running Microsoft’s Windows operating system available by Christmas.
I'm not sure what to say about that -- he obviously won't get caught in a lie.:-P
Ah, you're missing the aspects of the XNA creator's club that I think are innovative. It has nothing to do with the toolkit, language, or APIs. It has to do with the SDLC, review process, and delivery mechanism.
Interesting... having given up on gaming consoles years ago, this is the first I'm hearing of this. Interesting model, hopefully it works well and helps to create new things -- of course, they'll let the community innovate and then steal the best ideas. I'm sure there's even some IP indemnity allowing them to do so.
Don't assume, check. That's what the Sony controller looks like to me, but not the Kinect. It uses multiple video cameras to build a stereo image of the playing space, identifies actors in it, and does skeletal mapping of their whole bodies. It does facial recognition. It does voice recognition. Watch some of the demo footage
Again, it sounds like it is an improvement over the existing stuff. But, they've thrown a lot of resources at it, several years after Nintendo came out with a motion-based control system and Sony came out with that eEye or whatever it was.
I don't doubt it has gotten good, but it still seems like an evolution of existing tech. Not saying that's a bad thing either, just that they're later to market, and wait until someone shows them what will be successful before they come to the table.
Tech does (and should) get better with iterations. I'm just still not convinced that Microsoft "invents" new technology that people decide they need -- at least, not until after someone else has invented it and had some success with it.
So in some ways, microsoft does innovate a great deal, but they're often slow to get practical products to market.
Fair point. But sometimes it seems like more evolutionary changes... a 3D window manager is more of a function of eye candy and more graphics performance. It doesn't fundamentally change anything. (Truthfully, I don't ever see the 3D thing on my Vista box since I don't have a Windows keyboard, so it's not like it adds value to my life.)
And, as you say, if it's 8 years or so before we see it, it is easy to forget that they might have showed off a demo of it first. Sometimes its more why you need to upgrade your hardware than any feature you can't live without.
It's like a 40-year-old wearing a backwards hat and baggy britches.
*laugh* And, sadly, the 40-year old still thinks (nay, knows) he's not that old and out of touch.
While he knows he can't wear the latest fresh gear, he's been around pop culture long enough to actually remember more of it than these snot nosed kids who think they're the first people to bleach their hair or get something pierced.
My generation grew up with tats and piercings and punk rock and all sorts of cool stuff. I can still want a long board, can't I?
Quite sad and humourous at the same time.
That's what my wife tells me.
Now, get off my damned lawn you punk kids. I need to mow it.:-P
The "XNA Creator's Club" on the XBox 360 feels like innovation to me.
But the XBox is exactly what I am talking about when I mention throwing resources at it until it is relevant. The XBox cost them loads of money until it became profitable. Nobody else could afford to be "successful" the way Microsoft is since it takes billions of dollars to prop it up until it is viable.
Now, you may think the whole concept of "curated" platforms is bogus.
Actually, I don't. I completely get why it is easier to deliver a good user experience by putting up guard rails and foam padding.
A big downside is that innovation gets stifled
I'm not so sure... I have seen more innovation and change in user interfaces from iPad apps than I have seen in the industry in 20+ years. It is the first time someone has fundamentally changed the way I interact with a computer.
and Microsoft's innovation here is a way to mitigate exactly that downside.
How? I assume by making sure that the dev kit forall of their platforms is consistent? Is doing things the same way you've always done them "innovating"? Don't get me wrong, it's probably a good thing that people can use the existing APIs -- but that isn't exactly going to drive new ways of doing things.
If Kinect actually works, that could feel like innovation too. I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet, though. And then there's Surface, I guess.
I assume Kinect is trying to build on what Nintendo built for the Wii? Again, not pioneering anything. It's taking an idea that is now several years old, and putting a little more horsepower behind it.
And, it seems like Surface has been vaporware for a whole lot of years -- I rank it right up with that Microsoft Home of the Future or whatever it's called. It's a bunch of experimental tech that hasn't been ready for the consumer, and doesn't really seem to go anywhere. It's intriguing, but it doesn't seem to be tangible yet.
OK, so what is this article about? And don't go pestering me to RTFA. It ain't gonna happen. LOL
Tablets are good.
We're innovating, and will soon have something our competitors are already shipping and selling in vast quantities.
New technology can be disruptive and drive innovation as people adopt it.
We envision both the public and private cloud, and therefore more revenues from server licenses because we can still really only envision business needs with a server model we stole from Sun in the 90's.
I don't anyone who administers Sharepoint will ever claim that MS "got it right.";)
No, but it has gone from being a technology demo that nobody knew what to do with to something that companies invest time and infrastructure dollars on.
Windows has been on tablets for a decade, and they aren't at all bad.
And, yet, they have utterly failed to make a tablet computer something "mainstream" that Joe User wants, or even knows exists. I'm sure it fits into a niche market, but so far, tablets have been relegated to just that -- a niche market.
I'm curious to see what they build, but by Christmas I think the other competitors will have a big head start and Microsoft will be playing catch up. Then it becomes a matter of watching them grind away until they get enough market share to be relevant, or realize they haven't made something people want.
It tickles me how Microsoft turned into a "me too" company.
I seems like Microsoft has always been a "me too" company.
Where do you think "embrace, extend (and extinguish)" came from? Microsoft has always been late to the market with technology, and that technology usually takes a couple of iterations to become really usable. In some cases, the technology is becomes pretty good, in other cases it gets deprecated and thrown out because even they can't make it work.
Now, some of their stuff has gotten mature and fairly usable, but some rots on the vine and is mostly an expensive transitional technology that people buy and get burned with.
But, except for Clippy, I am hard pressed to think of many situations where Microsoft felt like it was innovating. Granted, some of that might have been behind the scenes in APIs the the like (eg.NET), but as an end-user, Microsoft has been rolling out features that Mac, UNIX (and now Linux) have all incorporated for a long time.
I don't hate Microsoft in quite the knee-jerk way I used to, and I honestly find most of their modern products to be pretty damned god and stable... but it's hard to really think they've ever led the way in consumer technology that makes me say "ooooh, I gotta get me some of that".
For the last bunch of years, they mostly seem to be watching what others do, come late to the game and then throw resources at it until they get it right (Sharepoint) or throw it away (Zune).
You are already not the customer, so they really don't give a rat shit about you.
And, the converse is true -- I don't give a shit about the advertisers since I don't have a contract with them.
You are paid to have commercial played. You are given entertainment in exchange for them playing commercials.
No, I paid for the entertainment, but that was accepted to include passive commercials. I can walk away from them, or fast forward them -- what Google is proposing is far more mandatory and interactive. Under that model, I would be required to watch/interact with commercials.
No, multi channel cable never promised no commercials.
Never said it did, or even should. Merely that just because the cable company charges me, and also charges the advertising company that doesn't mean I have any obligations wrt the advertisers. The advertisers simply do not get a guarantee that I will watch.
The fact that they have a business model with more than one source of revenue isn't my problem. If I don't watch the ads, the people who paid for them suffer no loss -- they paid for the hypothetical opportunity to advertise to me. Not for a guarantee that I would care or comply.
Saying that I owe them something or that it is OK to force me to watch commercials is kind of akin to everybody just tithing to the record/movie companies so they can have all of the money they feel they are entitled to. The fact that your business model is outmoded isn't my fscking problem.
Trying to force me to watch even more of their advertising is beyond what I've agreed to. They don't have any expectation that I will play their game. In fact, they might lose the revenue for the cable subscription altogether.
Do you have any glare warning labels written in braille?
They're "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'" as I understand.
I dunno, a internet-enabled, programmable crotch oven sounds more enjoyable than waving a knife around down there. But thats just me
I trust that the doctor is going to be a little more precise than "waving a knife around down there", and is actually going to know what he's looking for.
I'm betting the results of the vasectomy are a lot more repeatable and precise than the "crotch oven". I'm betting that has fairly inconsistent results and some more side effects than you'd really like -- but, hey, feel free to choose. They're your parts afterall.:-P
Argk! I only read Albizanian! See you in court too!
Sorry, the EULA for the warning label says you agree that all labels are written only in English and that it is your responsibility to find a suitable translation of one is required.
I think it's important to note that the $2 figure doesn't seem to be set in stone, it's more an example of how a broadcaster who demands $2 in advertising revenue per viewer could recoup or mitigate those costs.
It is also important to note that nobody has ever had a guarantee that their advertising would reach people or be watched. It represents a potential audience, but has never been a guarantee -- it certainly doesn't confer an obligation to me.
The day that commercials become an obligation is the day I will stop watching TV. Right now, I can skip 'em on my PVR. If I was contractually obligated to watch because Google had sold that to a third party, then I would expect compensation, or a reduction in my costs -- and I can guarantee that won't happen since every greedy bastard along that chain is going to "insist" that I watch his commercial. What next, I'm required to actually buy the product?
I'm already paying for my TV subscription. Anybody who thinks they're going to get a guaranteed ad impression from me is sorely mistaken.
That about sums it up. Who have they been hiring lately?
I can only hope they're trying to patent this so no one else can do it, then they just sit on it never using it.
Yeah, no kidding. Fill out a survey before I can watch TV? Pay them for the privilege to not watch commercials? Generate a certain amount of ad revenue?
My PVR already allows me to do this for free. I can guarantee that as soon as my TV watching will enforce that I watch commercials or pay to skip them, I will simply cancel my TV subscription and stop watching it altogether. I will occasionally rewind to see a commercial which catches my eye, but I'm not generally interested in being advertised to.
Google is in the middle of the worst possible scenario of monetization of my viewing time. None of these "features" would do anything other than drive me away. I don't give a tinkers damn about their advertising revenue, and if they make advertising more intrusive than it already is, I will deny them any more. Give me what I want without making the experience suck more, and maybe.
Everything described in this patent removes value from TV, and makes cost of watching TV (both monetary and time) not worth it.
Tell you what, pay me to watch commercials instead of forcing me to watch them or paying to skip them -- I refuse to be obligated by your advertising contracts. Until then, your business model is between you and your advertiser. My TV watching is between me and my remote, and ends at the point where I say to hell with it, and turn off the TV.
Isn't a census where you count every member of a population? Given that you can't really do that for every sea creature aren't they using the term as kind of a misnomer?
I think they know that, but here's their "about" page.
It's as complete as it has even been, and they've been working on it for a decade. I'm sure they know it's not 100% coverage, but they probably need to be able to explain it to lay-people.
Slashdot Mirror
When they're made numbers, who cares??
Nobody is going to ever earn a billion dollars in their lifetime. They'll never be able to collect. They might be able to pinch a little out of his paycheque, but they need to leave him enough to eat and survive -- they can't just leave him indigent.
I'm not sure what they can do -- but you're never gonna collect $1 Billion from anyone.
Exactly, the appeal of the iPad (or any tablet) is a smaller, simplified interface that is well suited to the form factor, with a user interface that is suited to the device.
All of the complaining that people won't be able to use it as a "real" computer is tech geeks thinking the rest of the world wants the same kind of machine they do.
Taking a desktop OS and putting it on a tablet and not actually changing much isn't really much in the way of progress -- it's repackaging 20 year old tech in a new box and not really taking advantage of it. If Microsoft just wraps up their existing OS, then it doesn't stand a chance of competing with the iPad.
As has been pointed out, Microsoft has been on tablets for a long time, and haven't really captivated people with it.
"Ensign authorization code Nine-Five-Wictor-Wictor-Two."
"Authorization not recognized."
That's no moon!
I guess as a non-gamer, I don't track these things. So they don't register for me. I don't doubt that they are pioneering the on-line parts of gaming, I'm just oblivious to them.
*laugh* Depends on your perspective -- I view it about as innovative as eventually adding TCP/IP to Windows. It seems like it was more inevitable than revolutionary. :-P
But, maybe I'm just old and cynical about these things. ;-)
Point two says "soon" -- so, for sufficiently small values of soon, absolutely -- or possible sufficiently large values of soon, depending on your immediacy.
But, yes, it would appear he is confirming the existence of something which already exists:
I'm not sure what to say about that -- he obviously won't get caught in a lie. :-P
Interesting ... having given up on gaming consoles years ago, this is the first I'm hearing of this. Interesting model, hopefully it works well and helps to create new things -- of course, they'll let the community innovate and then steal the best ideas. I'm sure there's even some IP indemnity allowing them to do so.
Again, it sounds like it is an improvement over the existing stuff. But, they've thrown a lot of resources at it, several years after Nintendo came out with a motion-based control system and Sony came out with that eEye or whatever it was.
I don't doubt it has gotten good, but it still seems like an evolution of existing tech. Not saying that's a bad thing either, just that they're later to market, and wait until someone shows them what will be successful before they come to the table.
Tech does (and should) get better with iterations. I'm just still not convinced that Microsoft "invents" new technology that people decide they need -- at least, not until after someone else has invented it and had some success with it.
Fair point. But sometimes it seems like more evolutionary changes ... a 3D window manager is more of a function of eye candy and more graphics performance. It doesn't fundamentally change anything. (Truthfully, I don't ever see the 3D thing on my Vista box since I don't have a Windows keyboard, so it's not like it adds value to my life.)
And, as you say, if it's 8 years or so before we see it, it is easy to forget that they might have showed off a demo of it first. Sometimes its more why you need to upgrade your hardware than any feature you can't live without.
*laugh* And, sadly, the 40-year old still thinks (nay, knows) he's not that old and out of touch.
While he knows he can't wear the latest fresh gear, he's been around pop culture long enough to actually remember more of it than these snot nosed kids who think they're the first people to bleach their hair or get something pierced.
My generation grew up with tats and piercings and punk rock and all sorts of cool stuff. I can still want a long board, can't I?
That's what my wife tells me.
Now, get off my damned lawn you punk kids. I need to mow it. :-P
But the XBox is exactly what I am talking about when I mention throwing resources at it until it is relevant. The XBox cost them loads of money until it became profitable. Nobody else could afford to be "successful" the way Microsoft is since it takes billions of dollars to prop it up until it is viable.
Actually, I don't. I completely get why it is easier to deliver a good user experience by putting up guard rails and foam padding.
I'm not so sure ... I have seen more innovation and change in user interfaces from iPad apps than I have seen in the industry in 20+ years. It is the first time someone has fundamentally changed the way I interact with a computer.
How? I assume by making sure that the dev kit forall of their platforms is consistent? Is doing things the same way you've always done them "innovating"? Don't get me wrong, it's probably a good thing that people can use the existing APIs -- but that isn't exactly going to drive new ways of doing things.
I assume Kinect is trying to build on what Nintendo built for the Wii? Again, not pioneering anything. It's taking an idea that is now several years old, and putting a little more horsepower behind it.
And, it seems like Surface has been vaporware for a whole lot of years -- I rank it right up with that Microsoft Home of the Future or whatever it's called. It's a bunch of experimental tech that hasn't been ready for the consumer, and doesn't really seem to go anywhere. It's intriguing, but it doesn't seem to be tangible yet.
No, but it has gone from being a technology demo that nobody knew what to do with to something that companies invest time and infrastructure dollars on.
But, yes, you raise an excellent point. :-P
And, yet, they have utterly failed to make a tablet computer something "mainstream" that Joe User wants, or even knows exists. I'm sure it fits into a niche market, but so far, tablets have been relegated to just that -- a niche market.
I'm curious to see what they build, but by Christmas I think the other competitors will have a big head start and Microsoft will be playing catch up. Then it becomes a matter of watching them grind away until they get enough market share to be relevant, or realize they haven't made something people want.
I seems like Microsoft has always been a "me too" company.
Where do you think "embrace, extend (and extinguish)" came from? Microsoft has always been late to the market with technology, and that technology usually takes a couple of iterations to become really usable. In some cases, the technology is becomes pretty good, in other cases it gets deprecated and thrown out because even they can't make it work.
Now, some of their stuff has gotten mature and fairly usable, but some rots on the vine and is mostly an expensive transitional technology that people buy and get burned with.
But, except for Clippy, I am hard pressed to think of many situations where Microsoft felt like it was innovating. Granted, some of that might have been behind the scenes in APIs the the like (eg .NET), but as an end-user, Microsoft has been rolling out features that Mac, UNIX (and now Linux) have all incorporated for a long time.
I don't hate Microsoft in quite the knee-jerk way I used to, and I honestly find most of their modern products to be pretty damned god and stable ... but it's hard to really think they've ever led the way in consumer technology that makes me say "ooooh, I gotta get me some of that".
For the last bunch of years, they mostly seem to be watching what others do, come late to the game and then throw resources at it until they get it right (Sharepoint) or throw it away (Zune).
And, the converse is true -- I don't give a shit about the advertisers since I don't have a contract with them.
No, I paid for the entertainment, but that was accepted to include passive commercials. I can walk away from them, or fast forward them -- what Google is proposing is far more mandatory and interactive. Under that model, I would be required to watch/interact with commercials.
Never said it did, or even should. Merely that just because the cable company charges me, and also charges the advertising company that doesn't mean I have any obligations wrt the advertisers. The advertisers simply do not get a guarantee that I will watch.
The fact that they have a business model with more than one source of revenue isn't my problem. If I don't watch the ads, the people who paid for them suffer no loss -- they paid for the hypothetical opportunity to advertise to me. Not for a guarantee that I would care or comply.
Saying that I owe them something or that it is OK to force me to watch commercials is kind of akin to everybody just tithing to the record/movie companies so they can have all of the money they feel they are entitled to. The fact that your business model is outmoded isn't my fscking problem.
Trying to force me to watch even more of their advertising is beyond what I've agreed to. They don't have any expectation that I will play their game. In fact, they might lose the revenue for the cable subscription altogether.
They're "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'" as I understand.
Down the hall, to your left. Mind the steps.
I trust that the doctor is going to be a little more precise than "waving a knife around down there", and is actually going to know what he's looking for.
I'm betting the results of the vasectomy are a lot more repeatable and precise than the "crotch oven". I'm betting that has fairly inconsistent results and some more side effects than you'd really like -- but, hey, feel free to choose. They're your parts afterall. :-P
Sorry, the EULA for the warning label says you agree that all labels are written only in English and that it is your responsibility to find a suitable translation of one is required.
By looking at the warning label, you agreed. ;-)
How else can we give you excellent service today?
It is also important to note that nobody has ever had a guarantee that their advertising would reach people or be watched. It represents a potential audience, but has never been a guarantee -- it certainly doesn't confer an obligation to me.
The day that commercials become an obligation is the day I will stop watching TV. Right now, I can skip 'em on my PVR. If I was contractually obligated to watch because Google had sold that to a third party, then I would expect compensation, or a reduction in my costs -- and I can guarantee that won't happen since every greedy bastard along that chain is going to "insist" that I watch his commercial. What next, I'm required to actually buy the product?
I'm already paying for my TV subscription. Anybody who thinks they're going to get a guaranteed ad impression from me is sorely mistaken.
Google should tread very carefully here.
Yeah, no kidding. Fill out a survey before I can watch TV? Pay them for the privilege to not watch commercials? Generate a certain amount of ad revenue?
My PVR already allows me to do this for free. I can guarantee that as soon as my TV watching will enforce that I watch commercials or pay to skip them, I will simply cancel my TV subscription and stop watching it altogether. I will occasionally rewind to see a commercial which catches my eye, but I'm not generally interested in being advertised to.
Google is in the middle of the worst possible scenario of monetization of my viewing time. None of these "features" would do anything other than drive me away. I don't give a tinkers damn about their advertising revenue, and if they make advertising more intrusive than it already is, I will deny them any more. Give me what I want without making the experience suck more, and maybe.
Everything described in this patent removes value from TV, and makes cost of watching TV (both monetary and time) not worth it.
Tell you what, pay me to watch commercials instead of forcing me to watch them or paying to skip them -- I refuse to be obligated by your advertising contracts. Until then, your business model is between you and your advertiser. My TV watching is between me and my remote, and ends at the point where I say to hell with it, and turn off the TV.
Oh, sorry. The warning label has fine print that says do not look at label in direct sunlight. You're on your own.
And, remember ... do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
I think I'd rather get a vasectomy than slowly bake/burn/scorch my parts, thank you.
But, I admire your enthusiasm. :-P
Well, there's always the Turing Test, but that could make signing into web sites a real nuisance. :-P
Except, the F doesn't stand for File, it stands for Format.
So, it most assuredly is a PDF file. It's not like saying "PIN Number", which is what you are implying.
I think they know that, but here's their "about" page.
It's as complete as it has even been, and they've been working on it for a decade. I'm sure they know it's not 100% coverage, but they probably need to be able to explain it to lay-people.