You just underscored the problem... it's the off-tv stuff that is the killer feature. But the gamepad looks like the Fisher Price version of the iPad... priced like a console... so it's more like a DS upgrade... sorta... or an expensive something or other...
It's certainly a huge waste of taxpayer dollars and makes you wonder why airport fees are so high when these agencies seem to be committing to the wrong technology over and over.
The TSA has to remove the Rapiscan machines because they couldn't patch the software to remove customer-specific imagery? Why use them in the first place?
I wonder how much money was flushed down the drain on those babies... I wonder how long the new machines will last before they get replaced... and now small airports are back to full body cavity searches which is why these machines existed in the first place...
I disagree. Kids and Teenagers drive console sales.. especially Nintendo console sales. Parents don't generally go to a store and let the sales drones tell them what console their kids want. Other kids do. The Wii just happened to be fun for parents and turned them into kids for a little bit. Sales drones have nothing to do with it.
I think the problem is that the original Wii kids have grown up now. Happens to Nintendo every couple generations. Wii isn't cool anymore.
The WiiU looks like a bulky Fisher Price iPad and the original Wii fans who were kids 6 years ago are older now... they want something a little more grown up. Happened to Nintendo before when the original Sony Playstation came out and all the Nintendo fans had grown up... good news is nostalgia will bring them back eventually...
1. The Name: WiiU is not different enough from Wii. It's hard for the market to understand want kind of upgrade they are dealing with. Is it like a DS to DS Lite? Or is it like a GameCube to Wii? We all know it's an upgrade (U) but since we all have a Wii is it worth the upgrade to get the U? The naming convention does not help in the decision and does not feel like something really "new".
2. The Game Pad: The box photos are confusing. Is it a consol or a tablet? It's not easy to make the connection that it's both. It looks more like you are buying a bulky iPad... I like Sony's "possible" approach here by saying you might be able to use your iPad or iPhone as an accessory with the PS4 to expand the game. Unfortunately that will make the WiiU Game Pad even more confusing. The Wii Remote was easy to understand... a magic wand. The new Game Pad is hard to understand because it seems like that is what you are buying.
3. The Console Itself: In the context of the product photos it looks like an old CD Drive and not worth mentioning. Pictured beside the Game Pad no idea what it is. They should have put a High Definition Television behind all the photos to remind people that the WiiU is a full-fledged console and not a bigger DS or iPad wannabe.
4. DS... WiiU... for some reason the WiiU looks more like an upgrade to the DS line... instead of an upgrade to the Wii Line
5. Hardware specs. Nintendo got beaten up bad about how inferior the hardware specs were on the Wii. They fought back with awesome gameplay. This time around though they should have ensured the specs would be a non issue so the media is not focused on the same problems that plagued the Wii initially. This will hurt them this time around now that everyone else has caught up.
6. Price of Games... considering the console is so expensive Nintendo should have done something to reduce the price of games. That would have been a revolutionary idea for consoles if they could pull it off. IPad and Android will keep chipping away at their market otherwise because of $1 games that are decent.
The forward and back buttons at the top right dont really work as expected. They look like the browser forward back buttons but go to articles I have never been to. Or most times when I click them there is a huge lag and nothing happens.
The articles are all cut off on the homepage so you have to tap everything which is really annoying!!!!
Scrolling is really choppy (iPhone 5 here)
The formatting of the comments does not look good. Hard to read threads and easy to get lost.
The site doesn't look like Slashdot because we all LOVE the green bars and they are gone.:-(
If the mobile site still LOOKED like Slashdot I think people would be more open to it.
But it looks like any Generic news site...
I remember when they redesigned Slashdot 5 years ago... and the new design retained the "feel" of the old design. The mobile site does not retain the Slashdot feel. Even hardcore old school Emacs guys have a certain affinity towards the way things look and feel here. So don't mess with that.
I third that. I don't understand why we need a dumbed down version of the site when my phone can display the full site just fine? I'v enever had a problem browsing the full site and prefer it.
I'd say they have high piracy because after you purchase your first upgrade you realize Adobe's ripping you off... and you don't want to keep giving them money for new version which basically amount to bug fixes.
- I remember Photoshop CS... mostly how buggy it was... - Then getting excited about upgrading to CS2... - After upgrading to CS2 realizing it did not offer anything new really... smart objects but not much else compared to CS... - Mucho money spent over multiple version with only minor incremental upgrades and mostly bug fixes each time.
Photoshop CS3 was a worthy upgrade but only for speed and stability (again not many new features). So even with CS3 you were basically paying for bug fixes. Anyhow CS3 was the last good version of Photoshop as far as I am concerned. Everything since then has been MEH.
Agreed. I've recommended Google Apps to countless users. Some of them even eventually upgraded to paying. Most now use Chrome and all the other Google ecosystem stuff.
Now that you have to pay up front I will no longer recommend Google Apps. Because it's so expensive comparatively speaking it's not an easy sell. You have 10 email accounts and now have to pay $250+ / year.
Should be a bundle plan... 10 users for $50 / year. I'd consider continuing to recommend that.
As a web designer I have always recommended customers use Google Apps for their Email instead of the web host, CPanel or whatever.
Lots of benefits. - Apps interface way better than whatever most typical hosts offer. - If the host goes offline your email still works. - Great mobile support. - List goes on.
However most small businesses spend maybe $10-$15 / month on web hosting (Dreamhost, GoDaddy, most Cpanel hosts etc..). And they might have 5-10 email accounts which you can always setup free at the host.
So $50/year per email account on Google Apps is suddenly WAY OUT OF THE BALLPARK. A small busness with 10 email accounts would be paying Google $500 / year for Email.. and only $120 / year for Web Hosting which always includes Email (albeit not as good).
It should be ~ $50 / year for a Google Apps account that supports 10 users... that is market bearable for a small business who's pricing expectations are set by the shared hosting company.
Well... it's a bit of a stretch... but quoted from Scientific American and BBC news...
In the current issue of the South African Journal of Science, Francis Thackeray of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria and his colleagues document the presence of cocaine and myristic acid (a plant-derived hallucinogen) in clay-pipe fragments retrieved from the beloved bard's Stratford-Upon-Avon home. Their analysis also hints at the presence of marijuana residues.
Though the pipe cannot be definitively linked to Shakespeare himself, it is certain that it dates to the 17th century. This fact came as a surprise to the scientists; previously, the earliest known record of cocaine in Europe dated to only 200 years ago.
Most concussed people know something wrong. Some choose to ignore it.
Most "sober non-drug using people" would agree that some of the best literary, artistic and musical material ever produced was created "under the influence" (see top selling music sales figures, read alice in wonderland etc.). Popular culture has always been "inspired" in some way shape or form by the influence of mind altering substances. Caffeine is a good example.
As you mention - it probably is a bad idea and I'm sure many injured their brains, livers and lives in the process. No argument there.
That's not the point though. The point is whether or not the drug helped their creative process in such a way that they wouldn't have been able to do without. And whether it could give Programmers a brain boost in a similar fashion.
With respect to his drug use, Steve Jobs explained that he used LSD from 1972 through 1974.
"Throughout that period of time I used the LSD approximately ten to fifteen times," Jobs said. "I would ingest the LSD on a sugar cube or in a hard form of gelatin. I would usually take the LSD when I was by myself. I have no words to explain the effect the LSD had on me, although, I can say it was a positive life changing experience for me and I am glad I went through that experience.”
But LSD wasn't the only drug that Jobs had an affinity for way back when - it was the 70's after all.
Specifically, Jobs was also no stranger to smoking both marijuana and hashish, explaining that he used to smoke it with friends and even used to eat pot brownies. During the course of his DoD interview, Jobs said that the last time he got high was in 1977. Explaining the impetus behind his marijuana usage, Jobs said that it helped him relax and made him more creative.
Same experience here. 2-3 days of mild withdrawal symptoms whenever I temporarily quit caffeine! Of course I never really quit because I end up drinking it again at some point.
Why would you use a hosted Office solution in a business environment when you give up ownership of the content you create using such systems because the content is saved onto the cloud?
Lets say I use a hosted office solution to write a book. It saves by book onto the cloud. Who owns it?
Creative programming and creative problem solving.
Musicians and artists for example do benefit from recreational marijuana use. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was quoted in Rolling Stone magazine as saying that marijuana helped him write Pet Sounds. Shakespeare, Carl Sagan, Paul McCartney.. the list goes on and on.. have all said that the use of cannabis had a profound positive experience on their creative process.
So it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that cannabis could also provide a mental "boost" to a programmers mindset as well. In terms of problem solving or inspiring creativity.
I am a huge fan that has been left underwhelmed recently. Here's what you need to do to turn things around:
1. You need to offer more selection of "new" iPhones. I want to be able to choose from different new models, new colours, and new price points. You let me do this with iPods... even iPads now... so why is there only ever "one" new iPhone???
2. iOS6. When I got my iPhone 5 I upgraded from iOS3. And to my surprise not much has changed. Many things got worse somehow - feeling clunky with lots of bloat. Siri is useless, Maps took a wrong turn, the Interface hasn't changed at all and the Settings Menu is really unorganized compared to OSX System Prefs for instance.
3. The screen size. You should have made it proportionally larger. So do that next time. Otherwise most Apps run smaller, Videos look smaller, Photos look smaller. Everything actually looks smaller on the bigger screen. (to everyone saying then it wouldn't fit in your hand - take a look at the iPad Mini photos which is massive compared to the iPhone and still fits in one hand).
4. Laptop pricing. I used to be able to get a 13" MacBook for about $1000.
Now the only laptop under $1000 is 11" (way too small for everyday business use) and everything else is overpriced. I don't mind paying more for Apple products because I do believe the experience is better - however your laptop pricing is ridiculous these days. I am in teh market for a new laptop and I don't understand why they are so much more expensive now?
5. OSX... I love it. But it's starting to feel like you are losing focus on that too. Launchpad is umm... blah. F12 widgets whatever that is I never use (what's with all these hidden secondary desktops??). The App Store on OSX feels half-baked. Moving the Software Update into the App store makes things harder to use. Overall a bit of a fail the past few releases.
6. iPad Mini, should have been retina. iPod is retina, iPhone is retina, new iPad is retina, MacBooks are moving to Retina... wtf?
Anyhow get more iPhone selection, fix the laptop pricing, and refocus your OS's... and things will be good again.
No it won't CRUSH in Q4 which is why we keep hearing about how Foxxcon is having trouble making the iPhone5 and they are having trouble meeting demand... so Apple will say that they didn't meet sales expectations because they couldn't get enough into the supply chain at the right time.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't most Slashdotters who have to deal with Windows actually like Windows 7?
Does it still have the broken document button that many home users accidentally enable ... making it identify itself and render in IE7 bugs mode?
To me that was / is the most backwards thing about IE ... that users might actually be running in IE7 mode without realizing it.
Is this really news for nerds or stuff that matters?
Sure we all read books but why is this interesting?
You just underscored the problem ... it's the off-tv stuff that is the killer feature. But the gamepad looks like the Fisher Price version of the iPad ... priced like a console ... so it's more like a DS upgrade ... sorta ... or an expensive something or other ...
It's certainly a huge waste of taxpayer dollars and makes you wonder why airport fees are so high when these agencies seem to be committing to the wrong technology over and over.
The TSA has to remove the Rapiscan machines because they couldn't patch the software to remove customer-specific imagery? Why use them in the first place?
I wonder how much money was flushed down the drain on those babies ... I wonder how long the new machines will last before they get replaced ... and now small airports are back to full body cavity searches which is why these machines existed in the first place ...
I disagree. Kids and Teenagers drive console sales .. especially Nintendo console sales. Parents don't generally go to a store and let the sales drones tell them what console their kids want. Other kids do. The Wii just happened to be fun for parents and turned them into kids for a little bit. Sales drones have nothing to do with it.
I think the problem is that the original Wii kids have grown up now. Happens to Nintendo every couple generations. Wii isn't cool anymore.
The WiiU looks like a bulky Fisher Price iPad and the original Wii fans who were kids 6 years ago are older now ... they want something a little more grown up. Happened to Nintendo before when the original Sony Playstation came out and all the Nintendo fans had grown up ... good news is nostalgia will bring them back eventually ...
Agreed .. gotta be the cheapest .. or it's dead.
Other points:
1. The Name: WiiU is not different enough from Wii. It's hard for the market to understand want kind of upgrade they are dealing with. Is it like a DS to DS Lite? Or is it like a GameCube to Wii? We all know it's an upgrade (U) but since we all have a Wii is it worth the upgrade to get the U? The naming convention does not help in the decision and does not feel like something really "new".
2. The Game Pad: The box photos are confusing. Is it a consol or a tablet? It's not easy to make the connection that it's both. It looks more like you are buying a bulky iPad ... I like Sony's "possible" approach here by saying you might be able to use your iPad or iPhone as an accessory with the PS4 to expand the game. Unfortunately that will make the WiiU Game Pad even more confusing. The Wii Remote was easy to understand ... a magic wand. The new Game Pad is hard to understand because it seems like that is what you are buying.
3. The Console Itself: In the context of the product photos it looks like an old CD Drive and not worth mentioning. Pictured beside the Game Pad no idea what it is. They should have put a High Definition Television behind all the photos to remind people that the WiiU is a full-fledged console and not a bigger DS or iPad wannabe.
4. DS ... WiiU ... for some reason the WiiU looks more like an upgrade to the DS line ... instead of an upgrade to the Wii Line
5. Hardware specs. Nintendo got beaten up bad about how inferior the hardware specs were on the Wii. They fought back with awesome gameplay. This time around though they should have ensured the specs would be a non issue so the media is not focused on the same problems that plagued the Wii initially. This will hurt them this time around now that everyone else has caught up.
6. Price of Games ... considering the console is so expensive Nintendo should have done something to reduce the price of games. That would have been a revolutionary idea for consoles if they could pull it off. IPad and Android will keep chipping away at their market otherwise because of $1 games that are decent.
I want the current Full Site that is subtly tweaked for Mobile ...
Best new feature of Mobile Site:
The link at the bottom right corner that says: Full Site.
The forward and back buttons at the top right dont really work as expected.
They look like the browser forward back buttons but go to articles I have never been to.
Or most times when I click them there is a huge lag and nothing happens.
The articles are all cut off on the homepage so you have to tap everything which is really annoying!!!!
Scrolling is really choppy (iPhone 5 here)
The formatting of the comments does not look good. Hard to read threads and easy to get lost.
The site doesn't look like Slashdot because we all LOVE the green bars and they are gone. :-(
YES
If the mobile site still LOOKED like Slashdot I think people would be more open to it.
But it looks like any Generic news site ...
I remember when they redesigned Slashdot 5 years ago ... and the new design retained the "feel" of the old design. The mobile site does not retain the Slashdot feel. Even hardcore old school Emacs guys have a certain affinity towards the way things look and feel here. So don't mess with that.
Why not create your own site then? Sounds like you've got some great ideas there!!
I third that. I don't understand why we need a dumbed down version of the site when my phone can display the full site just fine? I'v enever had a problem browsing the full site and prefer it.
I'd say they have high piracy because after you purchase your first upgrade you realize Adobe's ripping you off ... and you don't want to keep giving them money for new version which basically amount to bug fixes.
- I remember Photoshop CS ... mostly how buggy it was ... ... ... smart objects but not much else compared to CS ...
- Then getting excited about upgrading to CS2
- After upgrading to CS2 realizing it did not offer anything new really
- Mucho money spent over multiple version with only minor incremental upgrades and mostly bug fixes each time.
Photoshop CS3 was a worthy upgrade but only for speed and stability (again not many new features). So even with CS3 you were basically paying for bug fixes.
Anyhow CS3 was the last good version of Photoshop as far as I am concerned. Everything since then has been MEH.
Agreed.
I've recommended Google Apps to countless users. Some of them even eventually upgraded to paying. Most now use Chrome and all the other Google ecosystem stuff.
Now that you have to pay up front I will no longer recommend Google Apps. Because it's so expensive comparatively speaking it's not an easy sell.
You have 10 email accounts and now have to pay $250+ / year.
Should be a bundle plan ... 10 users for $50 / year. I'd consider continuing to recommend that.
As a web designer I have always recommended customers use Google Apps for their Email instead of the web host, CPanel or whatever.
Lots of benefits.
- Apps interface way better than whatever most typical hosts offer.
- If the host goes offline your email still works.
- Great mobile support.
- List goes on.
However most small businesses spend maybe $10-$15 / month on web hosting (Dreamhost, GoDaddy, most Cpanel hosts etc..).
And they might have 5-10 email accounts which you can always setup free at the host.
So $50/year per email account on Google Apps is suddenly WAY OUT OF THE BALLPARK. A small busness with 10 email accounts would be paying Google $500 / year for Email .. and only $120 / year for Web Hosting which always includes Email (albeit not as good).
It should be ~ $50 / year for a Google Apps account that supports 10 users ... that is market bearable for a small business who's pricing expectations are set by the shared hosting company.
Well ... it's a bit of a stretch ... but quoted from Scientific American and BBC news ...
In the current issue of the South African Journal of Science, Francis Thackeray of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria and his colleagues document the presence of cocaine and myristic acid (a plant-derived hallucinogen) in clay-pipe fragments retrieved from the beloved bard's Stratford-Upon-Avon home. Their analysis also hints at the presence of marijuana residues.
Though the pipe cannot be definitively linked to Shakespeare himself, it is certain that it dates to the 17th century. This fact came as a surprise to the scientists; previously, the earliest known record of cocaine in Europe dated to only 200 years ago.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shakespeare-on-drugs
Most concussed people know something wrong. Some choose to ignore it.
Most "sober non-drug using people" would agree that some of the best literary, artistic and musical material ever produced was created "under the influence" (see top selling music sales figures, read alice in wonderland etc.). Popular culture has always been "inspired" in some way shape or form by the influence of mind altering substances. Caffeine is a good example.
As you mention - it probably is a bad idea and I'm sure many injured their brains, livers and lives in the process. No argument there.
That's not the point though. The point is whether or not the drug helped their creative process in such a way that they wouldn't have been able to do without. And whether it could give Programmers a brain boost in a similar fashion.
With respect to his drug use, Steve Jobs explained that he used LSD from 1972 through 1974.
"Throughout that period of time I used the LSD approximately ten to fifteen times," Jobs said. "I would ingest the LSD on a sugar cube or in a hard form of gelatin. I would usually take the LSD when I was by myself. I have no words to explain the effect the LSD had on me, although, I can say it was a positive life changing experience for me and I am glad I went through that experience.”
But LSD wasn't the only drug that Jobs had an affinity for way back when - it was the 70's after all.
Specifically, Jobs was also no stranger to smoking both marijuana and hashish, explaining that he used to smoke it with friends and even used to eat pot brownies. During the course of his DoD interview, Jobs said that the last time he got high was in 1977. Explaining the impetus behind his marijuana usage, Jobs said that it helped him relax and made him more creative.
Source
Same experience here. 2-3 days of mild withdrawal symptoms whenever I temporarily quit caffeine! Of course I never really quit because I end up drinking it again at some point.
Why would you use a hosted Office solution in a business environment when you give up ownership of the content you create using such systems because the content is saved onto the cloud?
Lets say I use a hosted office solution to write a book. It saves by book onto the cloud. Who owns it?
Studies are being done. They seem to indicate that cannabis does have a positive influence on the subject's creative performance.
Creative programming and creative problem solving.
Musicians and artists for example do benefit from recreational marijuana use. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was quoted in Rolling Stone magazine as saying that marijuana helped him write Pet Sounds. Shakespeare, Carl Sagan, Paul McCartney .. the list goes on and on .. have all said that the use of cannabis had a profound positive experience on their creative process.
So it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that cannabis could also provide a mental "boost" to a programmers mindset as well. In terms of problem solving or inspiring creativity.
Dear Apple,
I am a huge fan that has been left underwhelmed recently. Here's what you need to do to turn things around:
1. You need to offer more selection of "new" iPhones. I want to be able to choose from different new models, new colours, and new price points. You let me do this with iPods ... even iPads now ... so why is there only ever "one" new iPhone???
2. iOS6. When I got my iPhone 5 I upgraded from iOS3. And to my surprise not much has changed. Many things got worse somehow - feeling clunky with lots of bloat. Siri is useless, Maps took a wrong turn, the Interface hasn't changed at all and the Settings Menu is really unorganized compared to OSX System Prefs for instance.
3. The screen size. You should have made it proportionally larger. So do that next time. Otherwise most Apps run smaller, Videos look smaller, Photos look smaller. Everything actually looks smaller on the bigger screen.
(to everyone saying then it wouldn't fit in your hand - take a look at the iPad Mini photos which is massive compared to the iPhone and still fits in one hand).
4. Laptop pricing. I used to be able to get a 13" MacBook for about $1000.
Now the only laptop under $1000 is 11" (way too small for everyday business use) and everything else is overpriced. I don't mind paying more for Apple products because I do believe the experience is better - however your laptop pricing is ridiculous these days. I am in teh market for a new laptop and I don't understand why they are so much more expensive now?
5. OSX ... I love it. But it's starting to feel like you are losing focus on that too. Launchpad is umm... blah. F12 widgets whatever that is I never use (what's with all these hidden secondary desktops??). The App Store on OSX feels half-baked. Moving the Software Update into the App store makes things harder to use. Overall a bit of a fail the past few releases.
6. iPad Mini, should have been retina. iPod is retina, iPhone is retina, new iPad is retina, MacBooks are moving to Retina ... wtf?
Anyhow get more iPhone selection, fix the laptop pricing, and refocus your OS's ... and things will be good again.
Thanks!
No it won't CRUSH in Q4 which is why we keep hearing about how Foxxcon is having trouble making the iPhone5 and they are having trouble meeting demand ... so Apple will say that they didn't meet sales expectations because they couldn't get enough into the supply chain at the right time.
Do terminally ill witches get to die with dignity too now or do they still get hanged?