I worked in retail selling batteries for a spell so I took a look at the Apple website at what they had to say about the new battery for the MacBook Pro. I would say Apple doesn't seem to be doing anything new other than making it bigger (in part by eliminating the ability to easily remove it).
The entire notebook industry has been moving to Lithium Polymer for the last several years. Li-Poly is still classified as Lithium Ion technology but with advancements over the previous generation of Li-Ion. One of these advancements is the shape of the cells from the cylindrical form to pretty much any form desirable. So this is hardly innovative unless your comparing it to batteries from five year old notebooks.
Adaptive charging also doesn't seem to be new. Li-Ion batteries have always required special circuitry in the chargers to ensure a safe charge as well as prolong the life of the battery (you're asking for trouble if you try and charge a Li-Ion with a straight trickle charge with no feedback from the battery). Maybe Apple's new adaptive charging has made significant advances over it's competitors, but they certainly didn't invent it like they seem to imply.
There are only a handful of large manufacturers of Li-Ion cells in the world (all in the far east I believe). Apple may be assembling these cells into their own batteries but I'm sure there is nothing special about the cells that any of the other notebook manufacturers couldn't incorporate into their own Notebooks as well. Yet from the Apple's website you'd think they had their own chemists and engineers developing batteries from scratch.
So it seems that they crammed a bigger battery into the new MacBook Pro and therefore it has a longer life over a single charge. Which not being able to easily remove does not bother me as long as it is still serviceable (that is replace the cells like you would RAM or the hard-drive by opening up the case) five years from now when it might make a useful second-hand computer. It doesn't sound like they've come up with anything special that would prolong the overall life of the battery either. Or are they exaggerating this claim as well. Does anyone know the typical recharge cycle ratings on any recent and up-to-date Li-Poly notebook batteries?
Since this is something I know a little about, it seems to me to be another example of how companies get away with deceiving people about how something is supposedly so innovative and better than everyone else's.
By the way I have a two year old MacBook running OSX and Ubuntu so I'm not an Apple hater by a long shot.
Anyone know how I can block these Military type topics from my Slashdot view? It appears under the technology section which I don't want to block as a whole.
If there is no way and someone of power is reading this, do you think the military topics could be moved to their own section. The slashdot of old rarely had such articles whereas they seem to becoming more and more common these days. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is not interested in the US military's latest and greatest tools to maim and kill.
Mod parent down. Distributing software along with hardware, even if you are only licensing or renting the hardware, is still distributing software. Otherwise everyone could get around the GPL--make the source available restriction, by saying: "We're not distributing Linux we're just renting a hard drive to our customers that has Linux on it".
On the other hand, I believe charging a fair price for the distribution media is allowable under the GPL. Is $30 a fair price. I don't believe they would have to make it widely available either, so they can restrict it to those customers who actually have that particular set-top box.
Mod parent up. I was just going to suggest the same. Moving the mouse requires little movement from the index fingers (you can switch between hands) and no movement of the thunbs. I never understood why the trackpoint never took off as universal pointing device for notebooks instead of the crappy scratchy pad thing. I wish all my keyboards had the trackpoint built in.
I thought the poster was correct about not being mozilla friendly until I went into internet extorter and found it doesn't work either. No text on the tabs or left hand side of page. Must be flash related.
Where are people getting the idea that Canadian gun ownership is the same as in the U.S.
In 1998 per capita gun ownership was :
.25 guns per every Canadian (only 1 in 4 Canadians owns a gun)
.82 guns per every American (overwhelming majority of Americans own a gun)
In 1998 per capita homicide rates per 100,000:
4.3 Canadians killed
11.4 Americans killed
This is taken from http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/Cda-US.htm I found through google. Yes it's pro gun control but the references are there if anyone wants to go to the library and check the stats.
This person asked for facts not people's lame opinions backed up hearsay.
Over the years the Mozilla team has tried to differentiate themselves from Netscape. Why don't slashdot editors use something different other than the Mozilla lizard for Netscape/AOL announcements. It might be based on Mozilla, but so are Galeon, K-Meleon, Komodo and others.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked in retail selling batteries for a spell so I took a look at the Apple website at what they had to say about the new battery for the MacBook Pro. I would say Apple doesn't seem to be doing anything new other than making it bigger (in part by eliminating the ability to easily remove it).
The entire notebook industry has been moving to Lithium Polymer for the last several years. Li-Poly is still classified as Lithium Ion technology but with advancements over the previous generation of Li-Ion. One of these advancements is the shape of the cells from the cylindrical form to pretty much any form desirable. So this is hardly innovative unless your comparing it to batteries from five year old notebooks.
Adaptive charging also doesn't seem to be new. Li-Ion batteries have always required special circuitry in the chargers to ensure a safe charge as well as prolong the life of the battery (you're asking for trouble if you try and charge a Li-Ion with a straight trickle charge with no feedback from the battery). Maybe Apple's new adaptive charging has made significant advances over it's competitors, but they certainly didn't invent it like they seem to imply.
There are only a handful of large manufacturers of Li-Ion cells in the world (all in the far east I believe). Apple may be assembling these cells into their own batteries but I'm sure there is nothing special about the cells that any of the other notebook manufacturers couldn't incorporate into their own Notebooks as well. Yet from the Apple's website you'd think they had their own chemists and engineers developing batteries from scratch.
So it seems that they crammed a bigger battery into the new MacBook Pro and therefore it has a longer life over a single charge. Which not being able to easily remove does not bother me as long as it is still serviceable (that is replace the cells like you would RAM or the hard-drive by opening up the case) five years from now when it might make a useful second-hand computer. It doesn't sound like they've come up with anything special that would prolong the overall life of the battery either. Or are they exaggerating this claim as well. Does anyone know the typical recharge cycle ratings on any recent and up-to-date Li-Poly notebook batteries?
Since this is something I know a little about, it seems to me to be another example of how companies get away with deceiving people about how something is supposedly so innovative and better than everyone else's.
By the way I have a two year old MacBook running OSX and Ubuntu so I'm not an Apple hater by a long shot.
Anyone know how I can block these Military type topics from my Slashdot view? It appears under the technology section which I don't want to block as a whole.
If there is no way and someone of power is reading this, do you think the military topics could be moved to their own section. The slashdot of old rarely had such articles whereas they seem to becoming more and more common these days. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is not interested in the US military's latest and greatest tools to maim and kill.
Mod parent down. Distributing software along with hardware, even if you are only licensing or renting the hardware, is still distributing software. Otherwise everyone could get around the GPL--make the source available restriction, by saying: "We're not distributing Linux we're just renting a hard drive to our customers that has Linux on it". On the other hand, I believe charging a fair price for the distribution media is allowable under the GPL. Is $30 a fair price. I don't believe they would have to make it widely available either, so they can restrict it to those customers who actually have that particular set-top box.
Mod parent up. I was just going to suggest the same. Moving the mouse requires little movement from the index fingers (you can switch between hands) and no movement of the thunbs. I never understood why the trackpoint never took off as universal pointing device for notebooks instead of the crappy scratchy pad thing. I wish all my keyboards had the trackpoint built in.
I thought the poster was correct about not being mozilla friendly until I went into internet extorter and found it doesn't work either. No text on the tabs or left hand side of page. Must be flash related.
In 1998 per capita gun ownership was :
.25 guns per every Canadian (only 1 in 4 Canadians owns a gun)
.82 guns per every American (overwhelming majority of Americans own a gun)
In 1998 per capita homicide rates per 100,000:
4.3 Canadians killed
11.4 Americans killed
This is taken from http://www.guncontrol.ca/Content/Cda-US.htm I found through google. Yes it's pro gun control but the references are there if anyone wants to go to the library and check the stats.
This person asked for facts not people's lame opinions backed up hearsay.
Over the years the Mozilla team has tried to differentiate themselves from Netscape. Why don't slashdot editors use something different other than the Mozilla lizard for Netscape/AOL announcements. It might be based on Mozilla, but so are Galeon, K-Meleon, Komodo and others.