Just for the sake of clearing up this oft-repeated fallacy:
Android is all about choice; you can either have no licensing fee, OR you can have "the extensive Android market." Those are mutually exclusive, though. Google charges for access to that market.
In fact, the numbers I've heard indicate that OEMs pay more to Google for each Droid (or similar) than they do to Microsoft for each WP7 phone. It's still only a few dollars each way, but Android is only free if you don't include *any* of Google's services on it.
You're leaving out the big deal that makes handset makers want to go with the official Android build: Google offers a revenue split on all served ads when you do that.
Let me put that in clearer terms: Google pays handset makers and carriers to use their software, and still makes money. Open source at its absolute finest.
It's always amusing to see Debian fans complaining that the end users are always going for Ubuntu instead of "hey, why not choose Debian, it's the original and it's the best!" when Debian keeps making moves like this. It's already bad enough to think that a new Linux user would want a browser called "IceWeasel" or would understand that it's really just Firefox renamed because of some silly branding/icon tiff with the mozilla folks. Now they'll have the additional enjoyment of having a bunch of useful drivers removed, or even enjoying the wonderfulness of a nonstandard kernel!
Listen, it's ok to do stuff like this if you're really into teh sooper 100% free as in freedom rms-approved purity, but don't subsequently go complaining when ordinary end users don't want it because it's unusable to anyone other than a free software hacker.
It wouldn't be difficult for Facebook to automatically reject (or at least warn you about) status updates that contain strings which match either your password or the answers to any of your security questions. At least force the user to think about it.
Microsoft's business model spells certain disaster for any attempt they make in achieving a significant share of the smartphone market. Android has the volume of that market pretty much locked up at this point -- by offering the software stack for free, Google grabs everyone's interest; by offering a revenue split with the carriers on advertising revenue, they also guarantee that most carriers will go with the official build of Android too.
Microsoft's business model depends on a per-unit software licensing fee. That puts them in direct competition with Apple, not Google. And for consumers who are going to spend the big bucks on a high end phone, who's really going to choose a ZunePhone instead of an iPhone? (I mean other than Ballmer's family of course)
Does the new Firefox have its menu bar missing just like Chrome and IE8 do? 'cuz I'm a Firefox user and I really want to have all of the browser's configuration and management features jammed into some weird little button in the corner like my Chrome and IE8 using friends do. It's so awesome when the File, Edit, etc. menus that are present in every other application on your desktop go missing in your browser, and I want Firefox to suck that way too!
BREAKING NEWS: the Obama Administration has noticed that everyone has a Facebook login anyway, so they have decided that Facebook Connect will now be the Official Log In To Everything ID for the United States.
In other news, the Obama Administration has declared Facebook "too big to fail" and nationalized it. Mark Zuckerberg was unavailable for comment.
Most music nowadays is bite size but most of Floyd's stuff you really had to listen to the entire Album to appreciate it. But it's a new world, I suppose, and if people want to listen to just one song from the Wall randomly mixed in with Britney Spears and Lady Gaga then power to the people.
Very true. A lot of Pink Floyd's music, particularly the older stuff, is a completely jarring experience when you try to treat it as singles. Pandora does this, and it's downright disorienting. A couple of weeks ago my Pandora station played "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives." By itself. To hear that track and not have it run straight into "Another Brick In The Wall part II" would incite riots if a DJ tried it.
Oh great, here come the 324503475234 slashbots clamoring for a "Minority Report" style user interface. (It looks cool when you see it in the movies for a minute or two, but try spending all day every day waving your arms around to browse the web and shuffle your spreadsheets. Your tired arms will be reaching for that mouse real quick.)
Ok, so he did a sub pixel font, which is a win for LCD screens, but that creates one big problem: the most popular small-form-factor devices these days have screens that automatically change their orientation when you rotate them. Suddenly those beautiful sub pixel fonts become a bunch of gibberish.
Some may suggest that Windows Update is now Microsoft's "app store" and claim that they are doing what every other operating system vendor is now doing. But you have to remember that the rules are different for Microsoft. Microsoft has been declared a monopoly by a federal court, and therefore must play by different rules.
Microsoft should have been divested when the court had the chance.
So, if you're writing a little GTK widget for managing your MP3 collection, maybe Java isn't for you. But if you are a medium-to-large business chances are you either develop or administer an enterprise-scale Java application.
It's true! People say "Java is the new COBOL" as if that's a bad thing. Java has become the lingua franca of business logic. Kudos to the non-Microsoft world for taking that spot.
(BTW, I can't remember the username but every time I post something like this one of the authors of Citadel comes out of the woodwork and suggests I check that. Terribly sorry, but I have. No offence, but I don't believe you've used a properly administered Exchange installation if you honestly think Citadel's a viable replacement.)
Millions of happy Citadel users and tens of thousands of happy Citadel administrators disagree with you. Alternatives to Exchange only fail when you assume that the feature set of Exchange happens to match every site's needs perfectly. It doesn't. Microsoft has put so much effort into "The Enterprise (tm)" that it's now nearly impossible for smaller sites to have a smooth, easy Exchange rollout.
It's a sad, sad failure to assume that an alternative to Exchange must necessarily be a bad clone of Exchange. If you want Exchange's feature set, run Exchange. I've spent the last decade or so listening to a lot of people who really want something else.
I must say I am quite surprised that they are blaming the PlayStation. I would have bet money that they'd blame the obesity epidemic on George W. Bush.
Android devices outselling iPhones should be expected because the latter is only sold on one carrier in the US and comprises of just 'one' product from one manufacturer.
And this is exactly the reason why Android will run away with the market that Apple once led. Apple should know better -- Microsoft did this to them in the personal computer space. A software stack that runs on lots of different devices from lots of different manufacturers is going to become a hot commodity when compared to a software stack that runs on only one device from one manufacturer.
Except this time, it's happening a lot faster, because Android, unlike Windows 3.1, is actually a very good product.
Quite a lot of software development tools and build scripts also broke when Richard Stallman changed the gcc target "i386-pc-linux" to "i386-pc-linux-gnu". GCC development had long since been taken over by other people but RMS just had to commit his little political agenda to the build, and broke a lot of builds in the process. Same thing here.
Isn't it obvious? The only reason Bill Gates left in the first place was so that he could make a triumphant return just like Steve Jobs did. There isn't anything Microsoft won't steal from Apple.:)
I see it already, the army of Slashdotters saying "no one has the bandwidth for this" and "no one has the video hardware for this" and "YouTube's implementation of this sucks." Well, that's ok. The point is that they're pushing the limits. Remember the first time you saw any video at all on a computer? Chunky, blocky, slow, tiny video coming off a CD-ROM in the early 1990's, perhaps? Yeah, it sucked, but the point was that they were showing something that would, eventually, evolve into something useful. Without the crappy CD-ROM graphics of the early 1990's, there would be no YouTube today. Someone's got to be the first to try it, someone's got to get the technology out there so it can be improved. Wouldn't you like to eventually watch YouTube in HD directly on your television? Today you've got to jump through hoops to do that. Tomorrow it might be as effortless as watching YouTube on your desktop computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Just for the sake of clearing up this oft-repeated fallacy:
Android is all about choice; you can either have no licensing fee, OR you can have "the extensive Android market." Those are mutually exclusive, though. Google charges for access to that market.
In fact, the numbers I've heard indicate that OEMs pay more to Google for each Droid (or similar) than they do to Microsoft for each WP7 phone. It's still only a few dollars each way, but Android is only free if you don't include *any* of Google's services on it.
You're leaving out the big deal that makes handset makers want to go with the official Android build: Google offers a revenue split on all served ads when you do that.
Let me put that in clearer terms: Google pays handset makers and carriers to use their software, and still makes money. Open source at its absolute finest.
It's always amusing to see Debian fans complaining that the end users are always going for Ubuntu instead of "hey, why not choose Debian, it's the original and it's the best!" when Debian keeps making moves like this. It's already bad enough to think that a new Linux user would want a browser called "IceWeasel" or would understand that it's really just Firefox renamed because of some silly branding/icon tiff with the mozilla folks. Now they'll have the additional enjoyment of having a bunch of useful drivers removed, or even enjoying the wonderfulness of a nonstandard kernel!
Listen, it's ok to do stuff like this if you're really into teh sooper 100% free as in freedom rms-approved purity, but don't subsequently go complaining when ordinary end users don't want it because it's unusable to anyone other than a free software hacker.
Rather, people are leaving because Google is getting worse and has lost focus of search simplicity.
Google instant drove me out.
Google should stop worrying about Bing, and look within.
Mr. Ballmer? Is that you?
It wouldn't be difficult for Facebook to automatically reject (or at least warn you about) status updates that contain strings which match either your password or the answers to any of your security questions. At least force the user to think about it.
Microsoft's business model spells certain disaster for any attempt they make in achieving a significant share of the smartphone market. Android has the volume of that market pretty much locked up at this point -- by offering the software stack for free, Google grabs everyone's interest; by offering a revenue split with the carriers on advertising revenue, they also guarantee that most carriers will go with the official build of Android too.
Microsoft's business model depends on a per-unit software licensing fee. That puts them in direct competition with Apple, not Google. And for consumers who are going to spend the big bucks on a high end phone, who's really going to choose a ZunePhone instead of an iPhone? (I mean other than Ballmer's family of course)
Does the new Firefox have its menu bar missing just like Chrome and IE8 do? 'cuz I'm a Firefox user and I really want to have all of the browser's configuration and management features jammed into some weird little button in the corner like my Chrome and IE8 using friends do. It's so awesome when the File, Edit, etc. menus that are present in every other application on your desktop go missing in your browser, and I want Firefox to suck that way too!
BREAKING NEWS: the Obama Administration has noticed that everyone has a Facebook login anyway, so they have decided that Facebook Connect will now be the Official Log In To Everything ID for the United States.
In other news, the Obama Administration has declared Facebook "too big to fail" and nationalized it. Mark Zuckerberg was unavailable for comment.
Most music nowadays is bite size but most of Floyd's stuff you really had to listen to the entire Album to appreciate it. But it's a new world, I suppose, and if people want to listen to just one song from the Wall randomly mixed in with Britney Spears and Lady Gaga then power to the people.
Very true. A lot of Pink Floyd's music, particularly the older stuff, is a completely jarring experience when you try to treat it as singles. Pandora does this, and it's downright disorienting. A couple of weeks ago my Pandora station played "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives." By itself. To hear that track and not have it run straight into "Another Brick In The Wall part II" would incite riots if a DJ tried it.
Oh great, here come the 324503475234 slashbots clamoring for a "Minority Report" style user interface. (It looks cool when you see it in the movies for a minute or two, but try spending all day every day waving your arms around to browse the web and shuffle your spreadsheets. Your tired arms will be reaching for that mouse real quick.)
One might even think about writing a Wayland compositor that speaks RDP, making use of all of the existing clients on every platform.
Ok, so he did a sub pixel font, which is a win for LCD screens, but that creates one big problem: the most popular small-form-factor devices these days have screens that automatically change their orientation when you rotate them. Suddenly those beautiful sub pixel fonts become a bunch of gibberish.
Back in the minicomputer days we referred to this as "dinosaurs mating"
Some may suggest that Windows Update is now Microsoft's "app store" and claim that they are doing what every other operating system vendor is now doing. But you have to remember that the rules are different for Microsoft. Microsoft has been declared a monopoly by a federal court, and therefore must play by different rules.
Microsoft should have been divested when the court had the chance.
If third parties get more than 20% combined, there can be no call for "mandate" from either of the two parties.
And yet, that has not ever stopped either of the two major parties from claiming a mandate where none existed.
It's true! People say "Java is the new COBOL" as if that's a bad thing. Java has become the lingua franca of business logic. Kudos to the non-Microsoft world for taking that spot.
It won't be long before the procedure for rooting the G2 becomes "step 1: attain root access; step 2: block the automatic unroot code"
Cyanogen et al are brilliant people.
Millions of happy Citadel users and tens of thousands of happy Citadel administrators disagree with you. Alternatives to Exchange only fail when you assume that the feature set of Exchange happens to match every site's needs perfectly. It doesn't. Microsoft has put so much effort into "The Enterprise (tm)" that it's now nearly impossible for smaller sites to have a smooth, easy Exchange rollout.
It's a sad, sad failure to assume that an alternative to Exchange must necessarily be a bad clone of Exchange. If you want Exchange's feature set, run Exchange. I've spent the last decade or so listening to a lot of people who really want something else.
I must say I am quite surprised that they are blaming the PlayStation. I would have bet money that they'd blame the obesity epidemic on George W. Bush.
...but does it have support for smooth full-screen Flash video yet?
(It's http://xkcd.com/619/ for those of you who still have question marks over your heads)
And this is exactly the reason why Android will run away with the market that Apple once led. Apple should know better -- Microsoft did this to them in the personal computer space. A software stack that runs on lots of different devices from lots of different manufacturers is going to become a hot commodity when compared to a software stack that runs on only one device from one manufacturer.
Except this time, it's happening a lot faster, because Android, unlike Windows 3.1, is actually a very good product.
Quite a lot of software development tools and build scripts also broke when Richard Stallman changed the gcc target "i386-pc-linux" to "i386-pc-linux-gnu". GCC development had long since been taken over by other people but RMS just had to commit his little political agenda to the build, and broke a lot of builds in the process. Same thing here.
Isn't it obvious? The only reason Bill Gates left in the first place was so that he could make a triumphant return just like Steve Jobs did. There isn't anything Microsoft won't steal from Apple. :)
Ummm ... does this girl not know about 911?
I see it already, the army of Slashdotters saying "no one has the bandwidth for this" and "no one has the video hardware for this" and "YouTube's implementation of this sucks." Well, that's ok. The point is that they're pushing the limits. Remember the first time you saw any video at all on a computer? Chunky, blocky, slow, tiny video coming off a CD-ROM in the early 1990's, perhaps? Yeah, it sucked, but the point was that they were showing something that would, eventually, evolve into something useful. Without the crappy CD-ROM graphics of the early 1990's, there would be no YouTube today. Someone's got to be the first to try it, someone's got to get the technology out there so it can be improved. Wouldn't you like to eventually watch YouTube in HD directly on your television? Today you've got to jump through hoops to do that. Tomorrow it might be as effortless as watching YouTube on your desktop computer.
All of those high voltages in wet areas are dangerous. They should be running power over fiber.