Citation needed? Web browsing just works on my bog standard old phone. I'm not aware of it "blowing" on high end phones, and nor has it done for years.
It's something that most people don't do, because most people don't care full stop. It's a fallacy to assume that if more people browse on an Iphone, it must be easier, because you have a bias in your sample selection: people who spend hundreds of pounds on a mobile device are presumably going to make more use of it than people who buy a cheaper phone.
I agree that a lot of it seems to be due to the US being so far behind. But as for the dumb-vs-smart-phone distinction, note that these days, the distinction is blurred - whilst "dumb" phones may not be platforms that allow you to run native code, they still do a lot of things such as web browsing, email, mapping software, and they have done for years. And these are the things that people usually claim the Iphone was first with (see my comment below about Opera Mini doing the things that the person claims is unique to Safari). My phone is a Motorola V980, an old non-smart-phone now that I believe predated the RAZR, but it's still capable of doing these things that the Iphone, years later, gets praised for.
From what I've heard, a bigger problem is that the US networks tended to cripple phones, even if the technology was up to it - for example, limiting or preventing Internet access, and not allowing international calls.
The AC suggests Opera Mobile, and there are others around, so the job now is to show why Safari is so much better.
Also It's not "impossible to explain" âidiot. We can do it in oh so many words.
What, with an ad hominem?
And that was my very point - yes, it's certainly possible to explain, if it really is better. However, it's common to hear the cry of "It's better, it's just not something that can be explained!" from the Iphone fan. I had hoped the usage of quotation marks would make it clear I was not referring to my own point of view.
â Accurate reproduction of a web page, not scaled down shit. â Improved hands-on interaction with the page (touch scroll, zoom, etc). â Vertical and horizontal viewing modes (automatically adjusting).
All of these things are possible with Opera Mini, the free browser that will run on any cheap old bog-standard phone (except the really cheap ones that don't support Java. And the Iphone). The only thing you list that won't work on all these phones is the touchscreen stuff, which obviously requires a touchscreen phone.
Raw Specification penis wavers will NEVER understand that isn't the point.
I'm not the one claiming that the Iphone is better, or that other phones are having to catch up. It's not up to me to prove the claim, with specifications or otherwise.
However in terms of software platform and usability you can't claim that they haven't succeeded, nor that they didn't have the best interface at the time of launch, and up until Android launched (at least) and arguably still the best.
I don't know if that's true - every time I ask for an explanation on how it's better, I never get an answer. I just get evasive claims such saying things like "it doesn't show up on a specification sheet". Well, I'm not asking for specifications, I'm asking for how it's better. I'm not sure that anything that lacks basic fundamental UI features such as copy/paste can ever be a contender for best UI.
And as time goes on, the only thing that is going to be different between the platforms is the software and the features in the software, and how good the platform development tools are.
Perhaps, but as you state yourself, the Iphone differs from a hardware point of view, so this isn't true now. And even if the Iphone did have the best software, there is no reason to assume that manufacturers won't learn from each other on this, so by the time the Iphone catches up with the market on hardware features, there's no reason to think that software differences will be anymore so than hardware differences. I'm also not sure that's true anyway - software can be standardised across all models easily, where as hardware features will be more likely to be the differentiator. Look at computers - the big difference in pricing is all about things like CPU speed, hard disk size, graphics card, or things like support from the manufacturer, or reliability of the make. No one really cares about the OS version (outside of Slashdot).
Indeed, I am in full agreement. The claims of Apple firsts are usually simply that those people haven't seen it in a phone before ("OMG, I can access a website on a phone! I wasn't aware that almost every phone on the market can now do this, because I've lived under a rock for the last five to ten years!") When questioned, they'll retreat to using vague subjective and undefined qualifiers such as "but it does it better, it just does, I can't explain why because it's impossible to explain it". They'll then speak of the phone market in an Iphone-centric manner, such as referring to companies "catching up", or claiming companies copied the Iphone just because the Iphone does a particular feature, or talking as if the only phones on the market are the Iphone and Android phones (presumably to make the Iphone look more popular in comparison).
They might then point to one thing that the Iphone was better at on the day of release, but this ignores that most high end phones on the market are going to be the most advanced phones on the day of release. It only lasts until the next phone is released a few days later. This is just as true for other phones, if not more so - as you note, it lacked many features that were commonplace even on cheap bog-standard phones (video, 3G, Java etc).
Well considering the iPhone is a 2 year old hardware design (with a minor 3G upgrade since) it's not surprising that the hardware is nothing special now. The rest of the market has been catching up massively since the iPhone was pre-announced over two years ago.
3G was years old when the Iphone added it - the rest of the market has not had to "catch up" to the Iphone.
Sure, the Iphone had some nifty features like multitouch when it was first released. Just about all phones are cutting edge when they are first released - that's because products are always getting better! There's nothing special about the Iphone here, and it doesn't mean anyone else is playing "catch up", unless you want to reference everything in terms of the Iphone, which is a common pro-Apple tactic that people try to subtely use.
You might as well brag about a high end PC from any random PC manufacturer as being "best on the market on the day of release" - that doesn't mean it makes sense that the rest of the market is now playing catch-up, because all companies are continually improving. That's how technology worked - and how it worked in the phone industry long before Apple decided to enter the market late.
I'm unclear on your analogy - because Linux has failed to catch on, therefore, any new product that isn't already popular will fail to catch on?
I guess the Iphone's going to be a flop then. It's not the major player either - indeed, on that note, comparing Iphone v. Android seems rather odd to me, and seems typical of the pro-Iphone bias in that it paints a picture where the Iphone is the only phone around, except for a new niche contender. Which is completely unrealistic - the phone market is dominated by major players like Nokia and Motorola, who have sold probably billions of phones. Saying the Iphone will be better than Android is like saying... well, to use your Linux analogy, that OS X is doing well against Linux. Great. And AmigaOS is doing well against BeOS.
The Iphone is playing catch-up to the rest of the phone industry, so the "ready for the desktop" analogy is equally valid for the Iphone.
Now if you really want to put the pirates out of business, you only have to force them to pay their customers, which they will never do.
No, the argument isn't that you force the commercial pirates to change their pricing, rather, you put them out of business by making it available at a lower price, i.e., for free.
Sure, it also follows that the Government could put the usual p2p sites out by paying people to download. I don't see how that's a flaw in the argument. However, there's no need to do this, as p2p sites are not funding terrorism.
I'm with the original OP - next time anyone tries to bring in stupid laws or court cases against p2p, they should be accused of supporting terrorism.
Indeed - by this reasoning, the Government should be promoting, and certainly not opposing, free downloading, as part of its War On Terrorrr. Surely, the threat of terrorism is far more serious than any alleged loss of a few sales? "If it saves just one life" etc:)
That's all very well, but that's got nothing to do with what TFA was about. You'll still be getting the story "delivered" in the form of a TV or film. They're just saying it'll now come via different technology: the Internet, and through a computer.
why would I want a computer attached to such a low resolution display?
Well the OP was talking about watching on his TV, so he was presumably happy with its resolution - I was just pointing out that computers can happily connect to them.
But also, these days HDTVs will display at high resolutions. My computer is hooked up to my TV, and does 1680x1050, which is good enough for me:) (And I'm sure you can get higher resolutions just as with normal monitors - mine's only limited to that because it's a 19".)
Note, the BBC don't (or aren't supposed to) have ads, but I take your point for non-BBC content. But then again, when I used to watch TV on the TV, I'd go to the toilet or read Slashdot and so on during the break.
Re:Piracy?
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Erm... if the £140 didn't sustain the BBC, then how would they stay in business? Because that's the same amount that everyone else is paying - if it's not enough, then that's there own stupid fault for not charging enough.
I'm confused as to your point. I'm not watching anymore than I used to, I'm just getting the same material via the Internet rather than TV. I'm not paying any less than I would if I just watched TV the usual way. How much do you pay per year for TV? I don't think you understand basic economics at all - sure, £140 may not cover a single employee, but each episode can be sold to millions of people.
It would be like moaning for someone who pays £10 for a CD, claiming "Do you think it only cost £10 to produce that CD?" Aside from being illogical, because the variable costs are far less than the fixed costs, it is also clearly false, because £10 is the value that the record companies themselves have set. Similarly here, the figures here are not amounts that I thought were enough, they are the figures set by the BBC and the cable company.
And if being funded by a mandatory tax of £140 per year, that must be paid by TV owners whether they watch the BBC or not, isn't "economically sustainable", then I'm not sure what is!
They have. There are plenty of TVs that can be used as monitors these days - mine accepts SCART, HDMI, VGA and DVI inputs. I believe you can get convertors for DVI to HDMI too.
The main distinction for being a "TV" is not simply the inputs, but that it also accepts either analog aerial, or has a built in digital TV decoder. Interestingly, I noticed that I couldn't find any monitors that had a SCART input, but didn't have the rest of the "TV" functions (since I'm on cable, I only need a SCART input - things like aerials or Freeview are useless to me).
Re:PC monitor and TV set merging
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 1
I see what you mean, although in a way this has come full-circle: in the 80s and early 90s, many home computers could connect to a TV. What changed was that computers became capable of higher resolutions that TVs weren't capable of. Now that HDTV is here, there's a need for higher resolution TVs. So I don't think compatibility necessarily implies convergence, because obviously we didn't have convergence back in the 80s, though it does make it easier. The other important thing is that now, PCs can deliver TV quality video, which they couldn't do back in the 80s.
Re:Same reason blogs lost?
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 1
In what sense did blogs lose? Millions of people use networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal to post, and here we are discussing on Slashdot. Now yes, it's true that "Starting up a blog just to make loads of money through advertising" lost, but that seems a straw man to me. Get Rich Quick schemes were never the main intent of a "blog".
Indeed. I must admit, I'm surprised that so many people have made this "But my TV screen is so much better and I have a comfy chair to sit on" argument. I thought Slashdot was supposed to be a place with geeks who were up to date with new technology - and it's like there are people who still think computers are bulky things that sit in the office, with small screens, and they seem completely unaware of new-fangled things like big flat screens, small media PCs, not to mention laptops that you can use whereever you want.
How is it more convenient to watch video on a computer screen, than in a living room designed specifically around a television set with a large screen? This is why I own a DivX DVD player with a USB port, and why things like MythTV and Media PCs exist - so people can watch video in the optimum environment, which is not a computer or laptop sitting on a desk.
Firstly, most HDTVs these days can accept a computer input. There's no longer any notable difference between computer and TV displays. In fact, my desktop's monitor is also my TV - it's plugged into both my cable box and my computer.
Secondly, since when does a "Media PC" not count as a computer? Sure, it's not a computer sitting on a desk in the office with a small CRT screen, but that's a straw man - the article doesn't claim that people will suddenly be huddled around their office PCs with tiny screens. It says how TV will be replaced with computers and the Internet, and a media PC is a very good example of that.
Re:Exagerrated
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is like saying that verbal storytelling lost to books, or that books lost to radio, or radio lost to movies.
I disagree. There's differences to all of these things. If by "Internet" we meant things like "posting to Slashdot", then sure, it wouldn't replace TV.
But TFA isn't talking about this, it's talking about delivering television shows over the Internet, so you get the same thing that you'd see on the TV but, ultimately, in a more convenient manner.
So even if you just want to sit down and receive and not interact, the point is that you'll still be able to do that with video downloaded over the Internet (admittedly, switching the TV on is easier than downloading over the Internet, but that's an implementation issue). The "one way entertainment" will still be one way when it's over the Internet.
A better analogy would be how VHS lost out to DVD, or tapes lost out to CDs. When you can get the same thing through a better means, few people want to keep the old technology.
Indeed - I also dislike having the choice dictated by the TV or cable company I have access too. I'm in the UK, and a couple of years ago my cable company Virgin Media discontinued Sky channels due to squabbles with Sky, not wanting to pay them 3p per customer per day (but they didn't reduce my bill by 3p per day!) Shows were discontinued halfway through a season. No problem for me - I resorted to downloading 24 instead.
Now that they've finally resolved the problem two years later, and put the Sky channels back on, I still download 24 because it's easier.
This is nothing like the music industry where at least you can pick and choose what CDs to buy. Yes, I could switch TV companies, but that's more of a pain, and even then, I can't pick and mix what I want; the choice is very limited.
Another point is that I'm fed up waiting months for a US show to be aired in the UK. As I say in my earlier comment, I'm still paying the same amount to the TV industry (so they can STFU about downloading causing them to lose money), but it's a lot easier to get the material the way I want it.
Re:I'm not dead yet
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
If the article literally means that we're all going to be crowded around computer screens to watch entertainment instead of sitting comfortably on our couches in the living room, then yeah, it's wrong. My wife and I probably spend way too much time on our computers (we're WoW addicts). But when we want to watch a "TV show" (usually a DVD of a TV show) we go into the living room.
What's stopping you having a computer in the living room hooked up to the TV, or sitting comfortably on your couch with a laptop? Admittedly, I agree we're a way off for this being commonplace for everyone, but we've moved on from the days when "PC" meant a single computer in the household, that wasn't in the living room, hooked up to a small CRT. HDTV means that most TVs will accept a computer input; computers are cheap and commonplace; and laptops are outselling desktops. I agree that for this to be mainstream, it needs to be packaged in something more userfriendly, but I bet it'll basically be a computer with an Internet connection.
This is a good point. The concept of home computers was established way back in the 80s, and whilst their uses were more limited, I don't think they were written off as just being for geeks or gamers. Certainly the Internet helped the dominance of PCs in the home, but this occurred in the mid to late 90s, and as you say, way before Facebook came around.
I'd even argue it was the other way round. Facebook's popularity is now possible because just about everyone has Internet access; it wasn't that Facebook made computers or the Internet more popular.
This article reads like an advert anyway. So some niche computer isn't capable of supporting 1TB like every other computer, and we need to have an advert from some company that's found a hacky way to do it? Right.
Yes, I download. But I pay £140 a year in TV licence fees that goes to the BBC, and about £125 in cable TV fees. The material I download is either produced by the BBC, or material that's showing on the stations that I'm paying for anyway.
Now yes, from a strict legal point of view, I've no doubt that still counts of piracy. But I'm not doing it because it's cheaper - I'm still paying £265 a year to the TV industry, and if I wanted to be unethical, I could stop paying, and just download. I do it because even though I'm happy to pay for it, it's much more convenient to watch TV when I want, and not when the TV company decides to put it on.
Not that I'm disagreeing with the article really - the fact that the TV companies were so inept to adapt to new technology shows why they are losing. They should just be glad that some of us are still willing to pay for them anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Citation needed? Web browsing just works on my bog standard old phone. I'm not aware of it "blowing" on high end phones, and nor has it done for years.
It's something that most people don't do, because most people don't care full stop. It's a fallacy to assume that if more people browse on an Iphone, it must be easier, because you have a bias in your sample selection: people who spend hundreds of pounds on a mobile device are presumably going to make more use of it than people who buy a cheaper phone.
I agree that a lot of it seems to be due to the US being so far behind. But as for the dumb-vs-smart-phone distinction, note that these days, the distinction is blurred - whilst "dumb" phones may not be platforms that allow you to run native code, they still do a lot of things such as web browsing, email, mapping software, and they have done for years. And these are the things that people usually claim the Iphone was first with (see my comment below about Opera Mini doing the things that the person claims is unique to Safari). My phone is a Motorola V980, an old non-smart-phone now that I believe predated the RAZR, but it's still capable of doing these things that the Iphone, years later, gets praised for.
From what I've heard, a bigger problem is that the US networks tended to cripple phones, even if the technology was up to it - for example, limiting or preventing Internet access, and not allowing international calls.
The AC suggests Opera Mobile, and there are others around, so the job now is to show why Safari is so much better.
Also It's not "impossible to explain" âidiot. We can do it in oh so many words.
What, with an ad hominem?
And that was my very point - yes, it's certainly possible to explain, if it really is better. However, it's common to hear the cry of "It's better, it's just not something that can be explained!" from the Iphone fan. I had hoped the usage of quotation marks would make it clear I was not referring to my own point of view.
â Accurate reproduction of a web page, not scaled down shit.
â Improved hands-on interaction with the page (touch scroll, zoom, etc).
â Vertical and horizontal viewing modes (automatically adjusting).
All of these things are possible with Opera Mini, the free browser that will run on any cheap old bog-standard phone (except the really cheap ones that don't support Java. And the Iphone). The only thing you list that won't work on all these phones is the touchscreen stuff, which obviously requires a touchscreen phone.
So, try again?
Raw Specification penis wavers will NEVER understand that isn't the point.
I'm not the one claiming that the Iphone is better, or that other phones are having to catch up. It's not up to me to prove the claim, with specifications or otherwise.
However in terms of software platform and usability you can't claim that they haven't succeeded, nor that they didn't have the best interface at the time of launch, and up until Android launched (at least) and arguably still the best.
I don't know if that's true - every time I ask for an explanation on how it's better, I never get an answer. I just get evasive claims such saying things like "it doesn't show up on a specification sheet". Well, I'm not asking for specifications, I'm asking for how it's better. I'm not sure that anything that lacks basic fundamental UI features such as copy/paste can ever be a contender for best UI.
And as time goes on, the only thing that is going to be different between the platforms is the software and the features in the software, and how good the platform development tools are.
Perhaps, but as you state yourself, the Iphone differs from a hardware point of view, so this isn't true now. And even if the Iphone did have the best software, there is no reason to assume that manufacturers won't learn from each other on this, so by the time the Iphone catches up with the market on hardware features, there's no reason to think that software differences will be anymore so than hardware differences. I'm also not sure that's true anyway - software can be standardised across all models easily, where as hardware features will be more likely to be the differentiator. Look at computers - the big difference in pricing is all about things like CPU speed, hard disk size, graphics card, or things like support from the manufacturer, or reliability of the make. No one really cares about the OS version (outside of Slashdot).
Indeed, I am in full agreement. The claims of Apple firsts are usually simply that those people haven't seen it in a phone before ("OMG, I can access a website on a phone! I wasn't aware that almost every phone on the market can now do this, because I've lived under a rock for the last five to ten years!") When questioned, they'll retreat to using vague subjective and undefined qualifiers such as "but it does it better, it just does, I can't explain why because it's impossible to explain it". They'll then speak of the phone market in an Iphone-centric manner, such as referring to companies "catching up", or claiming companies copied the Iphone just because the Iphone does a particular feature, or talking as if the only phones on the market are the Iphone and Android phones (presumably to make the Iphone look more popular in comparison).
They might then point to one thing that the Iphone was better at on the day of release, but this ignores that most high end phones on the market are going to be the most advanced phones on the day of release. It only lasts until the next phone is released a few days later. This is just as true for other phones, if not more so - as you note, it lacked many features that were commonplace even on cheap bog-standard phones (video, 3G, Java etc).
Well considering the iPhone is a 2 year old hardware design (with a minor 3G upgrade since) it's not surprising that the hardware is nothing special now. The rest of the market has been catching up massively since the iPhone was pre-announced over two years ago.
3G was years old when the Iphone added it - the rest of the market has not had to "catch up" to the Iphone.
Sure, the Iphone had some nifty features like multitouch when it was first released. Just about all phones are cutting edge when they are first released - that's because products are always getting better! There's nothing special about the Iphone here, and it doesn't mean anyone else is playing "catch up", unless you want to reference everything in terms of the Iphone, which is a common pro-Apple tactic that people try to subtely use.
You might as well brag about a high end PC from any random PC manufacturer as being "best on the market on the day of release" - that doesn't mean it makes sense that the rest of the market is now playing catch-up, because all companies are continually improving. That's how technology worked - and how it worked in the phone industry long before Apple decided to enter the market late.
I'm unclear on your analogy - because Linux has failed to catch on, therefore, any new product that isn't already popular will fail to catch on?
I guess the Iphone's going to be a flop then. It's not the major player either - indeed, on that note, comparing Iphone v. Android seems rather odd to me, and seems typical of the pro-Iphone bias in that it paints a picture where the Iphone is the only phone around, except for a new niche contender. Which is completely unrealistic - the phone market is dominated by major players like Nokia and Motorola, who have sold probably billions of phones. Saying the Iphone will be better than Android is like saying ... well, to use your Linux analogy, that OS X is doing well against Linux. Great. And AmigaOS is doing well against BeOS.
The Iphone is playing catch-up to the rest of the phone industry, so the "ready for the desktop" analogy is equally valid for the Iphone.
It's not clear to me what you're saying here.
Now if you really want to put the pirates out of business, you only have to force them to pay their customers, which they will never do.
No, the argument isn't that you force the commercial pirates to change their pricing, rather, you put them out of business by making it available at a lower price, i.e., for free.
Sure, it also follows that the Government could put the usual p2p sites out by paying people to download. I don't see how that's a flaw in the argument. However, there's no need to do this, as p2p sites are not funding terrorism.
I'm with the original OP - next time anyone tries to bring in stupid laws or court cases against p2p, they should be accused of supporting terrorism.
Indeed - by this reasoning, the Government should be promoting, and certainly not opposing, free downloading, as part of its War On Terrorrr. Surely, the threat of terrorism is far more serious than any alleged loss of a few sales? "If it saves just one life" etc :)
That's all very well, but that's got nothing to do with what TFA was about. You'll still be getting the story "delivered" in the form of a TV or film. They're just saying it'll now come via different technology: the Internet, and through a computer.
why would I want a computer attached to such a low resolution display?
Well the OP was talking about watching on his TV, so he was presumably happy with its resolution - I was just pointing out that computers can happily connect to them.
But also, these days HDTVs will display at high resolutions. My computer is hooked up to my TV, and does 1680x1050, which is good enough for me :) (And I'm sure you can get higher resolutions just as with normal monitors - mine's only limited to that because it's a 19".)
Note, the BBC don't (or aren't supposed to) have ads, but I take your point for non-BBC content. But then again, when I used to watch TV on the TV, I'd go to the toilet or read Slashdot and so on during the break.
Erm ... if the £140 didn't sustain the BBC, then how would they stay in business? Because that's the same amount that everyone else is paying - if it's not enough, then that's there own stupid fault for not charging enough.
I'm confused as to your point. I'm not watching anymore than I used to, I'm just getting the same material via the Internet rather than TV. I'm not paying any less than I would if I just watched TV the usual way. How much do you pay per year for TV? I don't think you understand basic economics at all - sure, £140 may not cover a single employee, but each episode can be sold to millions of people.
It would be like moaning for someone who pays £10 for a CD, claiming "Do you think it only cost £10 to produce that CD?" Aside from being illogical, because the variable costs are far less than the fixed costs, it is also clearly false, because £10 is the value that the record companies themselves have set. Similarly here, the figures here are not amounts that I thought were enough, they are the figures set by the BBC and the cable company.
And if being funded by a mandatory tax of £140 per year, that must be paid by TV owners whether they watch the BBC or not, isn't "economically sustainable", then I'm not sure what is!
They have. There are plenty of TVs that can be used as monitors these days - mine accepts SCART, HDMI, VGA and DVI inputs. I believe you can get convertors for DVI to HDMI too.
The main distinction for being a "TV" is not simply the inputs, but that it also accepts either analog aerial, or has a built in digital TV decoder. Interestingly, I noticed that I couldn't find any monitors that had a SCART input, but didn't have the rest of the "TV" functions (since I'm on cable, I only need a SCART input - things like aerials or Freeview are useless to me).
I see what you mean, although in a way this has come full-circle: in the 80s and early 90s, many home computers could connect to a TV. What changed was that computers became capable of higher resolutions that TVs weren't capable of. Now that HDTV is here, there's a need for higher resolution TVs. So I don't think compatibility necessarily implies convergence, because obviously we didn't have convergence back in the 80s, though it does make it easier. The other important thing is that now, PCs can deliver TV quality video, which they couldn't do back in the 80s.
In what sense did blogs lose? Millions of people use networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal to post, and here we are discussing on Slashdot. Now yes, it's true that "Starting up a blog just to make loads of money through advertising" lost, but that seems a straw man to me. Get Rich Quick schemes were never the main intent of a "blog".
Indeed. I must admit, I'm surprised that so many people have made this "But my TV screen is so much better and I have a comfy chair to sit on" argument. I thought Slashdot was supposed to be a place with geeks who were up to date with new technology - and it's like there are people who still think computers are bulky things that sit in the office, with small screens, and they seem completely unaware of new-fangled things like big flat screens, small media PCs, not to mention laptops that you can use whereever you want.
How is it more convenient to watch video on a computer screen, than in a living room designed specifically around a television set with a large screen? This is why I own a DivX DVD player with a USB port, and why things like MythTV and Media PCs exist - so people can watch video in the optimum environment, which is not a computer or laptop sitting on a desk.
Firstly, most HDTVs these days can accept a computer input. There's no longer any notable difference between computer and TV displays. In fact, my desktop's monitor is also my TV - it's plugged into both my cable box and my computer.
Secondly, since when does a "Media PC" not count as a computer? Sure, it's not a computer sitting on a desk in the office with a small CRT screen, but that's a straw man - the article doesn't claim that people will suddenly be huddled around their office PCs with tiny screens. It says how TV will be replaced with computers and the Internet, and a media PC is a very good example of that.
This is like saying that verbal storytelling lost to books, or that books lost to radio, or radio lost to movies.
I disagree. There's differences to all of these things. If by "Internet" we meant things like "posting to Slashdot", then sure, it wouldn't replace TV.
But TFA isn't talking about this, it's talking about delivering television shows over the Internet, so you get the same thing that you'd see on the TV but, ultimately, in a more convenient manner.
So even if you just want to sit down and receive and not interact, the point is that you'll still be able to do that with video downloaded over the Internet (admittedly, switching the TV on is easier than downloading over the Internet, but that's an implementation issue). The "one way entertainment" will still be one way when it's over the Internet.
A better analogy would be how VHS lost out to DVD, or tapes lost out to CDs. When you can get the same thing through a better means, few people want to keep the old technology.
Indeed - I also dislike having the choice dictated by the TV or cable company I have access too. I'm in the UK, and a couple of years ago my cable company Virgin Media discontinued Sky channels due to squabbles with Sky, not wanting to pay them 3p per customer per day (but they didn't reduce my bill by 3p per day!) Shows were discontinued halfway through a season. No problem for me - I resorted to downloading 24 instead.
Now that they've finally resolved the problem two years later, and put the Sky channels back on, I still download 24 because it's easier.
This is nothing like the music industry where at least you can pick and choose what CDs to buy. Yes, I could switch TV companies, but that's more of a pain, and even then, I can't pick and mix what I want; the choice is very limited.
Another point is that I'm fed up waiting months for a US show to be aired in the UK. As I say in my earlier comment, I'm still paying the same amount to the TV industry (so they can STFU about downloading causing them to lose money), but it's a lot easier to get the material the way I want it.
If the article literally means that we're all going to be crowded around computer screens to watch entertainment instead of sitting comfortably on our couches in the living room, then yeah, it's wrong. My wife and I probably spend way too much time on our computers (we're WoW addicts). But when we want to watch a "TV show" (usually a DVD of a TV show) we go into the living room.
What's stopping you having a computer in the living room hooked up to the TV, or sitting comfortably on your couch with a laptop? Admittedly, I agree we're a way off for this being commonplace for everyone, but we've moved on from the days when "PC" meant a single computer in the household, that wasn't in the living room, hooked up to a small CRT. HDTV means that most TVs will accept a computer input; computers are cheap and commonplace; and laptops are outselling desktops. I agree that for this to be mainstream, it needs to be packaged in something more userfriendly, but I bet it'll basically be a computer with an Internet connection.
This is a good point. The concept of home computers was established way back in the 80s, and whilst their uses were more limited, I don't think they were written off as just being for geeks or gamers. Certainly the Internet helped the dominance of PCs in the home, but this occurred in the mid to late 90s, and as you say, way before Facebook came around.
I'd even argue it was the other way round. Facebook's popularity is now possible because just about everyone has Internet access; it wasn't that Facebook made computers or the Internet more popular.
I entirely agree. Get a PC if you want to do something useful - there's no point getting a Mac, and then complaining you can't upgrade.
Indeed - so much for "Just Works"!
This article reads like an advert anyway. So some niche computer isn't capable of supporting 1TB like every other computer, and we need to have an advert from some company that's found a hacky way to do it? Right.
Yes, I download. But I pay £140 a year in TV licence fees that goes to the BBC, and about £125 in cable TV fees. The material I download is either produced by the BBC, or material that's showing on the stations that I'm paying for anyway.
Now yes, from a strict legal point of view, I've no doubt that still counts of piracy. But I'm not doing it because it's cheaper - I'm still paying £265 a year to the TV industry, and if I wanted to be unethical, I could stop paying, and just download. I do it because even though I'm happy to pay for it, it's much more convenient to watch TV when I want, and not when the TV company decides to put it on.
Not that I'm disagreeing with the article really - the fact that the TV companies were so inept to adapt to new technology shows why they are losing. They should just be glad that some of us are still willing to pay for them anyway.