I wonder if the real "innovation" we are going to see with the Revolution has to do with the business side, namely that this box will be better focused in its purpose than Xbox360 or PS3. Perhaps in addition to being small, it will be significantly cheaper than the other boxes. I think if you look at where alot of game systems go (with the exception of Slashdot users and gadget freaks), they are not hooked up to the main TV in a house but to some secondary TV in a kids playroom, den, etc. Some of the media hub features discussed for these boxes are really overkill and not worth paying for if you just want a really good game system. I'll let my DVR evolve into a media hub and let the game system do what it does best, play games.
These articles only partially get it right. Alot of what MS makes their big $ off of is becoming a commodity. It doesn't really even matter if Firefox and OOo are "better". This part of the computer industry will become less and less the sweet spot for growth and innovation.
If MS concentrates on these markets but fails in the growths area (connected non-PC devices, web services etc.) then they will die. If they climb to the high ground and are successful, I think one day we will be saying "Remember when MS used to make Office?".
As much as I like the open source movement, Apple and Google are MS's real problems. Linux, Firefox, OOo are just commoditizing the trailing edge where MS will lose if they try and key fighting on this front. I mean how much more can you improve office, at some point OOo will catch up.
As much as I like the idea of OpenOffice giving MS a black eye and some competition, the whole idea of office suites makes me sick. I've always felt that the need for office suites (esp. in MS case) is saying the that the underlying OS is so poorly designed for working with multiple data formats that we've had to develop this virtual OS on top to make the apps work together more seamlessly. I would really like to see a GUI based OS that can allow applications to interact as well as command line apps work in Unix. Do I really have to buy my spreadsheet app from the same company as my word processor in order to make them work together?
Office apps always remind me of how low we aim in the software world to build easy to use system. I always wonder what would have happened if OpenDOC had been managed properly.
Why do I get the feeling that we are about to be flooded with a bunch of Hitchhiker's Guide movie reviews that are written in a style that seeks to emulate Douglas Adams?
I've noticed that iTunes must generate a "random" sequence once per startup of iTunes. If after listening for a while you go back and explicitly listen to one of the songs you already heard and then let it continue randomly then it replays the same song order as before. They must seed the random generator once at startup instead of using the clock to seed each time they go to select the next song. So while the playlist is generated randomly, its the same randomness every time until a restart:)
US consumers are trained to evaluate on price first, features second.
This is certainly true in consumer electronics and computers. Not so much so with items like cars. Is this because of the rapid improvement at a reduced cost in consumer electronics (mostly computer related) from generation to generation? People seem to be willing to spend extra money for cars with alot of frosting as opposed to just a mundane people mover.
I think putting an MP3 player into digital devices is going to be this decades equivalent to sticking a crappy digital clock onto everything.
People are afraid of new things. You should have just taken an existing
product and put a clock on it or something.
-- Homer, on the baby translator, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?"
To me not having my Yahoo! bookmarks available in Firefox almost made me bypass firefox. I think this feature is a MUST. I can access the same bookmarks from any computer without doing any manual synching. I've been suprised that no one else (to my knowledge) has created a feature like this (MSN, AOL, etc.).
Ummm, have you actually read the Economist? If anything it has an Eisenhower Republican slant. I would say they tend to be liberal or tolerant on social issues, but very pro-Business, pro-free markets on business issues. They are "liberal" in the classic sense of open markets and economies, not in the very narrow way that the U.S. has co-opted this term. It would be no suprise that many Democrats would not like the Economist.
If you have read the Economist and don't realize how important free markets and trade are to them, then there is no hammer big enough to hit you over the head with.
I always think it is a shame that this county (US) doesn't have a party that thinks like the Economist. Bush might like to claim this philosphy, but his strain of Republicanism is to concerned about what you do in the bedroom to fit this model.
I switched to Thunderbird from Outlook because of the mail threading feature. I know you can do this in Outlook, but I hate the way it looks, and it wastes lots of space.
I'm never quite sure what the motivation for buying an all-in-one box has over purchasing a laptop. Granted the performance specs are a bit better on this new machine and the screen a touch bigger, but I don't see this as the machine someone will buy for power computing anyway.
I love being able to sit anywhere in my house and work on my laptop.
One of the big reasons I ended up buying my kids a Gamecube is that these console systems are very easy to use. I toyed with the idea of getting the kids to use a pc for games, but that meant me spending lots of time installing games, teaching them how to start them, changing screen resolutions, etc. Game compatibility was also a big issue.
With the Gamecube (other consoles are them same), all they need to know is power, eject and reset (heck they don't even need the last one). All the gamecube games we buy will work immediately, even if Dad is there.
If this device was also a web browser, toaster, etc. I would have one more machine to be sys admin for.
Like using any tool, proper technique helps get the best results. Proper typing technique should be taught in the first week of a computer class. Then just practicing the technique while programming will be sufficient.
Everything about typing technique is taught the first week of class, the rest of typing class was always about how to format various letters, envelopes etc. We have Clippy to help us with that now:)
I would kill for this. I imagine that there are many users like myself who use PC hardware/Windows because it's what they make their livelyhood on. Imagine a first wave of buyers dual booting their PCs with OSX. As you spend more and more of your time in OSX and others see how well it works in a heterogenous, the Mac stigma starts to wain and we have real OS competition.
I would also add a "hidden" feature, better integration. If you have digital cable and TiVo you are going to have two set top boxes and more remotes, etc. The TiVo box is your DTV box. This may sound like a small issue to the slashdot crowd, but made a huge difference in getting my Mother-in-law set up and comfortable with this idea.
This is the second article I've read espousing this model that companies that do their own basic research fail and that any research should be purely market driven. They always point to "failures" like Bell Labs and Xerox. What I want to know is where we would be without these (formerly) far-sighted creative companies? The inventions of these companies where "seed" innovations that created whole industries. It doesn't take much heavy lifting to research the idea of e-commerce or to make a cheap printer, but invent the transistor, the laser, oop, etc. takes some serious resources and long term prospects.
We are still reaping the rewards of a golden age in fundamental research driven by very large companies, regulated monopolies (Bell Labs) and cold war research. I can't imagine that Microsoft, the only company that seems to being doing any real basic research has the foresight to give away ideas that will spawn new industries.
I'd rather not see a web browser be too tied down to any platform specific features. If the content can't be run on the trifecta of PCs (Linux, Win32, Mac) than it really shouldn't be embraced. I would prefer to go as far as saying browsers should only support open standards, but then I exclude Flash and Java, but at least these make an effort to work everwhere.
There is no way MS will get away with creating a system that is not backward compatible/interoperable with server architectures. There are too many companies installing linux for their back end systems and lots of time between now and Longhorn to increase those numbers and they aren't going to replace those just to upgrade. So MS will make sure they are backward compatible, however, non MS clients won't work with Windows servers. This will bolster Linux on the server side and Windows on the desktop. But they will both lose out on the other side.
Microsoft Drives me batty with their absolute flaunting of supporting open formats. Take for instance Avalon which they describe as "Microsoft® Windows® Vector Graphics (WVG) . . . and it is familiar to users of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)"
Everytime I read a MS programming book, I feel like they have branded everything that should be considered a basic fundamental Computer Science (Use your Microsoft® Windows® mouse® to type in a Microsoft® Windows® int®). I know this is so they can prevent competition, but I just can't get over how accepting computer users are to this as a whole.
I've found that C# on the.NET platform has been a nice language to work with. What I cannot stand is the IDE and build system. I feel it really gets in the way half the time. Microsoft has spent too much effort trying to make Visual Studio work like an Office app, but for real develoers I find this limiting. Intellisense is awesome, but the lack of include files (you have to reference compiled assemblies) drives me crazy (I know you can build assemblies with intefaces only, but this is a lot of work just to share some types). There have been many times where we have spent days figuring out how to do something that I could implement with Makefiles in minutes. I know there are other IDEs, but developing MS apps without VS always shows all the architecture flaws and heavy lifting that are worked aroud with the IDE (look at COM, trying writing a serous COM app without VS, way to much typing).
I agree with your comments about security with the standards I mentioned. The point I was trying to get across (not clearly), was that platform neutral standards are a GOOD THING. While the current internet standards have their flaws, I don't think we can deny that they are the biggest reason for the economic/cultural success of the internet and not any specific OS or application. Meaning the web browser is important, not IE or Mozilla, etc.
When you consider that email and scripted web pages seem to be the most common source of virus entry, we probably don't need thousands of OS, but proabably a handful and a bunch or application choices. Basically what we have now but with a more even level of competition.
As a first step, I would suggest that everyone using MS operating systems stop using Outlook and IE.
As far as integration goes, I think HTML and HTTP, TCP/IP show how easy this can be if we can some up with standards for data formats and transmission protocols.
This is a typical elitist opinion of what people tastes are, when in fact the real problem is that traditional TV uses a lowest common denominator model which results in the crap on TV that nobody really likes, but tolerates. When broadcasters have better data on different smaller groups tastes they can successfully narowcast their content. This is why the networks are dying and cable stations are thriving.
In general, I do not have a problem with outsourcing of jobs to cheaper locales, but there are some pieces of information and bad stereotypes being thrown about here in general that need to commented on.
Bad US Education - Read this Economist Article on education. Big study shows that of top 50 Universities, all but 15 are US. Also talks about how broad US education system is for all levels.
Stop assuming that what you see on TV is mainstream US culture. Do you assume that India is going to hell based on what you see in Bollywood movies. The US is an amazingly diverse country beyond the boob tube.
It's one thing to offshore jobs, but I haven't seen too many countries with a system that encourages innovation like the US. With the exception of Europe and Japan (who are still pretty far behind) I have yet to see many truly new ideas and companies spring up. Most are just filling in the details or internationalizing what's already been done. Though frankly, I look forward to the rest of the world starting to contribute a little more.
Hey, think like real Americans, don't just try and distribute a fixed pie amongst everyone, make the pie a whole lot bigger through innovation and scientific discovery. I've yet to see a system that fosters new ideas like that of the United States.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the real "innovation" we are going to see with the Revolution has to do with the business side, namely that this box will be better focused in its purpose than Xbox360 or PS3. Perhaps in addition to being small, it will be significantly cheaper than the other boxes. I think if you look at where alot of game systems go (with the exception of Slashdot users and gadget freaks), they are not hooked up to the main TV in a house but to some secondary TV in a kids playroom, den, etc. Some of the media hub features discussed for these boxes are really overkill and not worth paying for if you just want a really good game system. I'll let my DVR evolve into a media hub and let the game system do what it does best, play games.
These articles only partially get it right. Alot of what MS makes their big $ off of is becoming a commodity. It doesn't really even matter if Firefox and OOo are "better". This part of the computer industry will become less and less the sweet spot for growth and innovation. If MS concentrates on these markets but fails in the growths area (connected non-PC devices, web services etc.) then they will die. If they climb to the high ground and are successful, I think one day we will be saying "Remember when MS used to make Office?". As much as I like the open source movement, Apple and Google are MS's real problems. Linux, Firefox, OOo are just commoditizing the trailing edge where MS will lose if they try and key fighting on this front. I mean how much more can you improve office, at some point OOo will catch up.
As much as I like the idea of OpenOffice giving MS a black eye and some competition, the whole idea of office suites makes me sick. I've always felt that the need for office suites (esp. in MS case) is saying the that the underlying OS is so poorly designed for working with multiple data formats that we've had to develop this virtual OS on top to make the apps work together more seamlessly. I would really like to see a GUI based OS that can allow applications to interact as well as command line apps work in Unix. Do I really have to buy my spreadsheet app from the same company as my word processor in order to make them work together?
Office apps always remind me of how low we aim in the software world to build easy to use system. I always wonder what would have happened if OpenDOC had been managed properly.
Why do I get the feeling that we are about to be flooded with a bunch of Hitchhiker's Guide movie reviews that are written in a style that seeks to emulate Douglas Adams?
I've noticed that iTunes must generate a "random" sequence once per startup of iTunes. If after listening for a while you go back and explicitly listen to one of the songs you already heard and then let it continue randomly then it replays the same song order as before. They must seed the random generator once at startup instead of using the clock to seed each time they go to select the next song. So while the playlist is generated randomly, its the same randomness every time until a restart :)
This is certainly true in consumer electronics and computers. Not so much so with items like cars. Is this because of the rapid improvement at a reduced cost in consumer electronics (mostly computer related) from generation to generation? People seem to be willing to spend extra money for cars with alot of frosting as opposed to just a mundane people mover.
People are afraid of new things. You should have just taken an existing product and put a clock on it or something. -- Homer, on the baby translator, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?"
To me not having my Yahoo! bookmarks available in Firefox almost made me bypass firefox. I think this feature is a MUST. I can access the same bookmarks from any computer without doing any manual synching. I've been suprised that no one else (to my knowledge) has created a feature like this (MSN, AOL, etc.).
If you have read the Economist and don't realize how important free markets and trade are to them, then there is no hammer big enough to hit you over the head with.
I always think it is a shame that this county (US) doesn't have a party that thinks like the Economist. Bush might like to claim this philosphy, but his strain of Republicanism is to concerned about what you do in the bedroom to fit this model.
I switched to Thunderbird from Outlook because of the mail threading feature. I know you can do this in Outlook, but I hate the way it looks, and it wastes lots of space.
Voldemort? I didn't realize he was running
I'm never quite sure what the motivation for buying an all-in-one box has over purchasing a laptop. Granted the performance specs are a bit better on this new machine and the screen a touch bigger, but I don't see this as the machine someone will buy for power computing anyway. I love being able to sit anywhere in my house and work on my laptop.
One of the big reasons I ended up buying my kids a Gamecube is that these console systems are very easy to use. I toyed with the idea of getting the kids to use a pc for games, but that meant me spending lots of time installing games, teaching them how to start them, changing screen resolutions, etc. Game compatibility was also a big issue. With the Gamecube (other consoles are them same), all they need to know is power, eject and reset (heck they don't even need the last one). All the gamecube games we buy will work immediately, even if Dad is there. If this device was also a web browser, toaster, etc. I would have one more machine to be sys admin for.
Like using any tool, proper technique helps get the best results. Proper typing technique should be taught in the first week of a computer class. Then just practicing the technique while programming will be sufficient. Everything about typing technique is taught the first week of class, the rest of typing class was always about how to format various letters, envelopes etc. We have Clippy to help us with that now :)
I would kill for this. I imagine that there are many users like myself who use PC hardware/Windows because it's what they make their livelyhood on. Imagine a first wave of buyers dual booting their PCs with OSX. As you spend more and more of your time in OSX and others see how well it works in a heterogenous, the Mac stigma starts to wain and we have real OS competition.
I would also add a "hidden" feature, better integration. If you have digital cable and TiVo you are going to have two set top boxes and more remotes, etc. The TiVo box is your DTV box. This may sound like a small issue to the slashdot crowd, but made a huge difference in getting my Mother-in-law set up and comfortable with this idea.
This is the second article I've read espousing this model that companies that do their own basic research fail and that any research should be purely market driven. They always point to "failures" like Bell Labs and Xerox. What I want to know is where we would be without these (formerly) far-sighted creative companies? The inventions of these companies where "seed" innovations that created whole industries. It doesn't take much heavy lifting to research the idea of e-commerce or to make a cheap printer, but invent the transistor, the laser, oop, etc. takes some serious resources and long term prospects. We are still reaping the rewards of a golden age in fundamental research driven by very large companies, regulated monopolies (Bell Labs) and cold war research. I can't imagine that Microsoft, the only company that seems to being doing any real basic research has the foresight to give away ideas that will spawn new industries.
I'd rather not see a web browser be too tied down to any platform specific features. If the content can't be run on the trifecta of PCs (Linux, Win32, Mac) than it really shouldn't be embraced. I would prefer to go as far as saying browsers should only support open standards, but then I exclude Flash and Java, but at least these make an effort to work everwhere.
There is no way MS will get away with creating a system that is not backward compatible/interoperable with server architectures. There are too many companies installing linux for their back end systems and lots of time between now and Longhorn to increase those numbers and they aren't going to replace those just to upgrade. So MS will make sure they are backward compatible, however, non MS clients won't work with Windows servers. This will bolster Linux on the server side and Windows on the desktop. But they will both lose out on the other side.
Microsoft Drives me batty with their absolute flaunting of supporting open formats. Take for instance Avalon which they describe as "Microsoft® Windows® Vector Graphics (WVG) . . . and it is familiar to users of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)" Everytime I read a MS programming book, I feel like they have branded everything that should be considered a basic fundamental Computer Science (Use your Microsoft® Windows® mouse® to type in a Microsoft® Windows® int®). I know this is so they can prevent competition, but I just can't get over how accepting computer users are to this as a whole.
I've found that C# on the .NET platform has been a nice language to work with. What I cannot stand is the IDE and build system. I feel it really gets in the way half the time. Microsoft has spent too much effort trying to make Visual Studio work like an Office app, but for real develoers I find this limiting. Intellisense is awesome, but the lack of include files (you have to reference compiled assemblies) drives me crazy (I know you can build assemblies with intefaces only, but this is a lot of work just to share some types). There have been many times where we have spent days figuring out how to do something that I could implement with Makefiles in minutes. I know there are other IDEs, but developing MS apps without VS always shows all the architecture flaws and heavy lifting that are worked aroud with the IDE (look at COM, trying writing a serous COM app without VS, way to much typing).
I agree with your comments about security with the standards I mentioned. The point I was trying to get across (not clearly), was that platform neutral standards are a GOOD THING. While the current internet standards have their flaws, I don't think we can deny that they are the biggest reason for the economic/cultural success of the internet and not any specific OS or application. Meaning the web browser is important, not IE or Mozilla, etc.
When you consider that email and scripted web pages seem to be the most common source of virus entry, we probably don't need thousands of OS, but proabably a handful and a bunch or application choices. Basically what we have now but with a more even level of competition.
As a first step, I would suggest that everyone using MS operating systems stop using Outlook and IE.
As far as integration goes, I think HTML and HTTP, TCP/IP show how easy this can be if we can some up with standards for data formats and transmission protocols.
This is a typical elitist opinion of what people tastes are, when in fact the real problem is that traditional TV uses a lowest common denominator model which results in the crap on TV that nobody really likes, but tolerates. When broadcasters have better data on different smaller groups tastes they can successfully narowcast their content. This is why the networks are dying and cable stations are thriving.
In general, I do not have a problem with outsourcing of jobs to cheaper locales, but there are some pieces of information and bad stereotypes being thrown about here in general that need to commented on.
Hey, think like real Americans, don't just try and distribute a fixed pie amongst everyone, make the pie a whole lot bigger through innovation and scientific discovery. I've yet to see a system that fosters new ideas like that of the United States.