... or perhaps (as I reread your post) you meant just using the iPad as simply a dumb monitor, in which case I misinterpreted originally.
In that case, I would simply offer an emphatic "why?" Why limit yourself to a 9.7" display area (regardless of the marketing uberjuice of pixel density!)? I see no real functional benefit to a 9.7" screen @ 2048x1536 over a 13" screen @ 1440x900, and with the 13" notebook the aforementioned requirements are met - the screen is just a screen and all the important bits are inside the keyboard. Hey, for convenience, they're even hinged together for easy carrying!
there must be some way to cobble something together with say, an iPad. iPad runs an app that just turns it into a screen (2048x1536), while the keyboard part has the standard PC bits.
I'm not sold on the idea that 2048x1536 on a 9.7" screen is going to solve any real world lack-of-screen-real-estate-for-developing problems, unless you have magic eyesight, though.
Resolution is great, but there's a limit to where it is useful.
You make a good point, but unfortunately your ideals and reality just don't converge.
I have an Android phone, an Acura with it's "infotainment audio/GPS/voice command/bullshit" system, and I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro. I also use lots of Windows and Linux variants on different systems at work at home. Do you care? No, but my point is that I'm not a fanboy and I use them all, and they all have their pros and cons. I can tell you this -- I would vote for Apple in my car. Why? Because Apple is awesome at user interfaces, and that is what sucks so hard in most vehicle systems these days.
AndroidCar or LinuxCar -- really, you seriously want that? I don't. I don't want to have to spend hours upon hours upon hours tweaking, tuning, building, and otherwise manipulating my car's GUI just to make it usable. The reason Linux hasn't taken over the desktop? Because there's too god damn many knobs to turn. Yes, choice is great, but too much choice just ends up in a ridiculously fragmented experience. Show me 2 Linux systems owned by 2 nerds, and they'll neither look nor flow ANYTHING alike. That's awesome for nerd-land, that's terrible for a vehicle. We need SIMPLE, (dare I say) elegant systems in our cars. We need fewer distractions, and dicking around with knobs, buttons, and wondering how to get through the menu system in a car is a perpetually BAD idea. Apple EXCELS at streamlining this very process.
I think Microsoft / Ford SYNC was a step in the right direction. I also think that while it was a reasonably good idea, it wasn't particularly well-executed.
Does Apple suck when it comes to proprietary lock-in, etc.? Hell yes they do. Do they rock the house on user interfaces? Far and away. Are they expensive? Yup, no doubt. But, have you seen the prices of what the NAV systems go for in cars? It cost me $2,000 to get the stupid NAV upgrade on my car just so that I could get some OTHER features that I wanted that were only available if you also had NAV. I think for the exorbitant prices that vehicle manufacturers charge for infotainment systems, they could easily do a lot better. Maybe if there was something of a competitive market out there for these systems prices would be more reasonable. I don't really understand why auto companies hire tech companies to keep reinventing proprietary systems for each vehicle line. It's absurd, a waste of money, and that expense just gets passed on to the consumer. The lock-in from the auto manufacturers is 10X worse than Apple, IMO.
My perfect world? One where I can have a somewhat standardized interface and plug in the infotainment system of my choice and have it work. A set of open standard APIs could be developed and utilized. As it is, with modern vehicles, you can't even realistically put in aftermarket audio systems. The head units are not only physically unique to each dashboard, requiring ass-ugly filler plates and adapters to fit an aftermarket unit in the dash, but pretty much all of the useful functionality of the factory system goes right out the window, too. Steering wheel controls? Forget about ever using those again. Voice command? Maybe, but it'll be tied to the audio system and won't work with the vehicle's climate control, NAV, etc. Furthermore, if you take the audio head unit out of many vehicles today, your NAV flat out stops working. In many vehicles, if you take out the audio head unit, your CLIMATE CONTROL stops working. Awesome, thanks big auto. Talk about vendor lock-in!!!! Want a better audio system? BUY A NEW CAR!!! I realize my perfect world scenario here will never happen, because the auto manufacturers will never work together on an open standard, and they would never do anything that would potentially undercut the stupid profits of forcing people who like to have tech gadgets in their vehicles to buy new cars when they want new features. I'd also be content if I had a system that could be upgraded. Again, a frightening idea for the auto manufacturers. Really, though... what a pain in
Nor should they. All they have to do is hire the designers of European (Mercedes especially) or Japanese cars and they'd be set. Instead, they seem to have hired designers who have no taste.
(Emphasis mine)...
Japanese cars... really? Have you SEEN the front end of an Acura or Honda lately? My 2008 MDX has an ugly-ass grille, and they only got worse in the 3 years since. Huge faux-chrome plastic shields on a car that goes for over 50k, 60k with options? Toyotas are only marginally less ugly. I would say by comparison American carmakers are turning out same damn fine looking rides. The 2011 Explorer (since we're talking about Ford) is actually rather nice looking, I think. The Ford Edge is quite well-designed, and the Lincoln version (the MKX) is sleek and sexy. The GMC Acadia is also fairly attractive for an SUV / CUV. The new Mustangs are downright handsome. The Corvette is about is sexy as they come, and the Camaro actually pulled off the retro-meets-modern style. Cadillac has a few questionable design choices, but they have a tighter focus and they really hit the mark for the target market. I'm not a fan of the Dodge designs, but that's just my taste, plenty of people like their designs.
Ford is also leading with technology. The Sync system (yeah yeah, let's hear the Microsoft haters...) was/is almost universally regarded as the best in-car infotainment system on the market, and they're on their second iteration of it now in a lot of 2011 models. The MyFord / MyLincoln Touch is stellar, and I haven't seen anything in any other brand of car (and I've been shopping...) that even comes close. Acura's new models feel dated by comparison. Audi, VW, Mercedes, BMW... they all have good NAV/audio/climate systems, but none of them are in the same league, and they all cost quite a bit more.
Hate on Ford all you want... but it really can't be denied that they're not the same company they were 10, or even 5 years ago. I'm actually seriously considering buying my first Ford ever (2011 Explorer).
That first CD-ROM drive was simply marked "CD-ROM." It wasn't until they introduced faster drives (2x, etc.) that they started making the distinction on the slower 1x drives.
I wish I had kept that stuff... I still have my old USR Courier modem, tank that it was. My old computers would have made a great nostalgic mini-museum.
I remember hooking up my first 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum card (with SCSI) and my original CD-ROM drive. That's 1X for you spoiled brats. I had a CD-ROM drive before they started marking them with speed multipliers!
My 386 was the envy of all the kids in my neighborhood... especially after I maxed it out with 6MB of RAM. They marveled at the speed that Windows 3.1 loaded, and were astonished at the cutting-edge video with AUDIO when Wing Commander III came out.
Extreme Networks has had a fully modular, Linux-based OS for years, called XOS. Individual processes can be cycled without taking down the box, the OS supports scripting (TCL-based), and they provide an API for extending the functionality of the OS though add-on modules.
Juniper does similar things (though I'm not sure to what extent) with JunOS, and Force10 has a *nix (BSD?) -based modular OS in the works as well. It may even be available now.
Good for Cisco. It's about time they stop playing the "We're Cisco, we don't HAVE to be competitive!" card.
Seems like ALL the manufacturers get stuck in such cycles.
I remember when WD sucked, then they were awesome, then they sucked again, then they were awesome again, etc. Seagate sucked, then they were awesome, then they sucked again. Maxtor was awesome, then they sucked... IBM deskstar were the shit until they turned into shit... quiet little Samsung always made a reasonably quiet and decently-performing drive, odd they didn't get more publicity. Notice a pattern?
I have 4 Maxtor drives that are about 3 years old and still running like champs. Not a single issue. I have a couple Samsungs in another box - no issues. And my current WD drive is rock-solid. However, for a couple years there, I was getting more free drives from Western Digital than any one person should be allowed.:)
This might be a stupid question... but where does one get the source feeds for 11 tuners?
Granted, I haven't used digital cable in years, but last time I had cable they told me they couldn't support more than 4 tuners in my home due to bandwidth issues.
I currently have DirecTV (DirecTiVo) and I would need 3 dishes to feed 11 tuners.
>I mean, no grandma will get her grandkids a movie that they may not be able to play.
Most grandma's aren't savvy enough to even know the difference. They see movie that's on kids' list, they buy movie and give to kid. I can't recall ever seeing a grandma standing there staring at a DVD saying "gee, I wonder if this will play on Bobby's DIVX-enabled DVD player"...
There are a lot of factors when deciding on a solution. How big is the network? What are the throughput requirements? How much money do you have?
We just picked up a couple Juniper Netscreen ISG2000 boxes with IDP blades in them. 2Gb/sec throughput with full IDP implemented in hardware. Granted, those bad boys will set ya back almost as much as a house.
>It's obvious they're going the IE route with it and just barely keeping in alive with Terry Schaivo class developers hooked to tubes of Mountain Dew to keep them twitching for the execs.
Slashdot Mirror
and when I do it's usually coding a special widget in our library for other devs to use.
So that they can... drag and drop it into their projects? What if they want to customize it? I would imagine they're better off coding it themselves.
... or perhaps (as I reread your post) you meant just using the iPad as simply a dumb monitor, in which case I misinterpreted originally.
In that case, I would simply offer an emphatic "why?" Why limit yourself to a 9.7" display area (regardless of the marketing uberjuice of pixel density!)? I see no real functional benefit to a 9.7" screen @ 2048x1536 over a 13" screen @ 1440x900, and with the 13" notebook the aforementioned requirements are met - the screen is just a screen and all the important bits are inside the keyboard. Hey, for convenience, they're even hinged together for easy carrying!
there must be some way to cobble something together with say, an iPad. iPad runs an app that just turns it into a screen (2048x1536), while the keyboard part has the standard PC bits.
Something like this?
I'm not sold on the idea that 2048x1536 on a 9.7" screen is going to solve any real world lack-of-screen-real-estate-for-developing problems, unless you have magic eyesight, though.
Resolution is great, but there's a limit to where it is useful.
You make a good point, but unfortunately your ideals and reality just don't converge.
I have an Android phone, an Acura with it's "infotainment audio/GPS/voice command/bullshit" system, and I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro. I also use lots of Windows and Linux variants on different systems at work at home. Do you care? No, but my point is that I'm not a fanboy and I use them all, and they all have their pros and cons. I can tell you this -- I would vote for Apple in my car. Why? Because Apple is awesome at user interfaces, and that is what sucks so hard in most vehicle systems these days.
AndroidCar or LinuxCar -- really, you seriously want that? I don't. I don't want to have to spend hours upon hours upon hours tweaking, tuning, building, and otherwise manipulating my car's GUI just to make it usable. The reason Linux hasn't taken over the desktop? Because there's too god damn many knobs to turn. Yes, choice is great, but too much choice just ends up in a ridiculously fragmented experience. Show me 2 Linux systems owned by 2 nerds, and they'll neither look nor flow ANYTHING alike. That's awesome for nerd-land, that's terrible for a vehicle. We need SIMPLE, (dare I say) elegant systems in our cars. We need fewer distractions, and dicking around with knobs, buttons, and wondering how to get through the menu system in a car is a perpetually BAD idea. Apple EXCELS at streamlining this very process.
I think Microsoft / Ford SYNC was a step in the right direction. I also think that while it was a reasonably good idea, it wasn't particularly well-executed.
Does Apple suck when it comes to proprietary lock-in, etc.? Hell yes they do. Do they rock the house on user interfaces? Far and away. Are they expensive? Yup, no doubt. But, have you seen the prices of what the NAV systems go for in cars? It cost me $2,000 to get the stupid NAV upgrade on my car just so that I could get some OTHER features that I wanted that were only available if you also had NAV. I think for the exorbitant prices that vehicle manufacturers charge for infotainment systems, they could easily do a lot better. Maybe if there was something of a competitive market out there for these systems prices would be more reasonable. I don't really understand why auto companies hire tech companies to keep reinventing proprietary systems for each vehicle line. It's absurd, a waste of money, and that expense just gets passed on to the consumer. The lock-in from the auto manufacturers is 10X worse than Apple, IMO.
My perfect world? One where I can have a somewhat standardized interface and plug in the infotainment system of my choice and have it work. A set of open standard APIs could be developed and utilized. As it is, with modern vehicles, you can't even realistically put in aftermarket audio systems. The head units are not only physically unique to each dashboard, requiring ass-ugly filler plates and adapters to fit an aftermarket unit in the dash, but pretty much all of the useful functionality of the factory system goes right out the window, too. Steering wheel controls? Forget about ever using those again. Voice command? Maybe, but it'll be tied to the audio system and won't work with the vehicle's climate control, NAV, etc. Furthermore, if you take the audio head unit out of many vehicles today, your NAV flat out stops working. In many vehicles, if you take out the audio head unit, your CLIMATE CONTROL stops working. Awesome, thanks big auto. Talk about vendor lock-in!!!! Want a better audio system? BUY A NEW CAR!!! I realize my perfect world scenario here will never happen, because the auto manufacturers will never work together on an open standard, and they would never do anything that would potentially undercut the stupid profits of forcing people who like to have tech gadgets in their vehicles to buy new cars when they want new features. I'd also be content if I had a system that could be upgraded. Again, a frightening idea for the auto manufacturers. Really, though... what a pain in
There is a much better programming methodology...
Kevin Bacon did it 11 years ago. To a gorilla. And then himself.
Oh if only I had mod points.
+50 -- Effin awesome.
Nor should they. All they have to do is hire the designers of European (Mercedes especially) or Japanese cars and they'd be set. Instead, they seem to have hired designers who have no taste.
(Emphasis mine)...
Japanese cars... really? Have you SEEN the front end of an Acura or Honda lately? My 2008 MDX has an ugly-ass grille, and they only got worse in the 3 years since. Huge faux-chrome plastic shields on a car that goes for over 50k, 60k with options? Toyotas are only marginally less ugly. I would say by comparison American carmakers are turning out same damn fine looking rides. The 2011 Explorer (since we're talking about Ford) is actually rather nice looking, I think. The Ford Edge is quite well-designed, and the Lincoln version (the MKX) is sleek and sexy. The GMC Acadia is also fairly attractive for an SUV / CUV. The new Mustangs are downright handsome. The Corvette is about is sexy as they come, and the Camaro actually pulled off the retro-meets-modern style. Cadillac has a few questionable design choices, but they have a tighter focus and they really hit the mark for the target market. I'm not a fan of the Dodge designs, but that's just my taste, plenty of people like their designs.
Ford is also leading with technology. The Sync system (yeah yeah, let's hear the Microsoft haters...) was/is almost universally regarded as the best in-car infotainment system on the market, and they're on their second iteration of it now in a lot of 2011 models. The MyFord / MyLincoln Touch is stellar, and I haven't seen anything in any other brand of car (and I've been shopping...) that even comes close. Acura's new models feel dated by comparison. Audi, VW, Mercedes, BMW... they all have good NAV/audio/climate systems, but none of them are in the same league, and they all cost quite a bit more.
Hate on Ford all you want... but it really can't be denied that they're not the same company they were 10, or even 5 years ago. I'm actually seriously considering buying my first Ford ever (2011 Explorer).
I wasn't being sarcastic at all.
That first CD-ROM drive was simply marked "CD-ROM." It wasn't until they introduced faster drives (2x, etc.) that they started making the distinction on the slower 1x drives.
I wish I had kept that stuff... I still have my old USR Courier modem, tank that it was. My old computers would have made a great nostalgic mini-museum.
You kids and your newfangled toys! Be grateful!
I remember hooking up my first 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum card (with SCSI) and my original CD-ROM drive. That's 1X for you spoiled brats. I had a CD-ROM drive before they started marking them with speed multipliers!
My 386 was the envy of all the kids in my neighborhood... especially after I maxed it out with 6MB of RAM. They marveled at the speed that Windows 3.1 loaded, and were astonished at the cutting-edge video with AUDIO when Wing Commander III came out.
Good times, they were...
Or you could... set a password?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=19+kpl+in+mpg
Not necessarily... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System
You seriously ask 5-10 people to /chip in/ for a $3.50 DVD rental?
How much do you charge per kernel of popcorn?
Extreme Networks has had a fully modular, Linux-based OS for years, called XOS. Individual processes can be cycled without taking down the box, the OS supports scripting (TCL-based), and they provide an API for extending the functionality of the OS though add-on modules.
Juniper does similar things (though I'm not sure to what extent) with JunOS, and Force10 has a *nix (BSD?) -based modular OS in the works as well. It may even be available now.
Good for Cisco. It's about time they stop playing the "We're Cisco, we don't HAVE to be competitive!" card.
Women can jump in here any time...
You must be new here...
Seems like ALL the manufacturers get stuck in such cycles.
:)
I remember when WD sucked, then they were awesome, then they sucked again, then they were awesome again, etc. Seagate sucked, then they were awesome, then they sucked again. Maxtor was awesome, then they sucked... IBM deskstar were the shit until they turned into shit... quiet little Samsung always made a reasonably quiet and decently-performing drive, odd they didn't get more publicity. Notice a pattern?
I have 4 Maxtor drives that are about 3 years old and still running like champs. Not a single issue. I have a couple Samsungs in another box - no issues. And my current WD drive is rock-solid. However, for a couple years there, I was getting more free drives from Western Digital than any one person should be allowed.
Just like "supposively" and "nucular", right?
Yeah, THAT'S what we want to encourage...
I would be more inclined to think they meant "identifiable."
This might be a stupid question... but where does one get the source feeds for 11 tuners?
Granted, I haven't used digital cable in years, but last time I had cable they told me they couldn't support more than 4 tuners in my home due to bandwidth issues.
I currently have DirecTV (DirecTiVo) and I would need 3 dishes to feed 11 tuners.
>I mean, no grandma will get her grandkids a movie that they may not be able to play.
Most grandma's aren't savvy enough to even know the difference. They see movie that's on kids' list, they buy movie and give to kid. I can't recall ever seeing a grandma standing there staring at a DVD saying "gee, I wonder if this will play on Bobby's DIVX-enabled DVD player"...
There are a lot of factors when deciding on a solution. How big is the network? What are the throughput requirements? How much money do you have?
We just picked up a couple Juniper Netscreen ISG2000 boxes with IDP blades in them. 2Gb/sec throughput with full IDP implemented in hardware. Granted, those bad boys will set ya back almost as much as a house.
A use for all those free songs I had saved up from Mountain Dew bottles!
>It's obvious they're going the IE route with it and just barely keeping in alive with Terry Schaivo class developers hooked to tubes of Mountain Dew to keep them twitching for the execs.
Well... that was classy.
Someone mod me -1 Troll.
Check your mail, I just sent you an invite.
Happy Gmailing.