> I'm not much of a video guy, but how does a device with 1024x600 resolution display 1080p?
Downscaling. I think "1080p" in this context means it'll accept (display) content in 1080p, downscaling appropriately. One could argue that this is cheating in the specs, but realistically, you won't be able to see the difference on a handheld display, unless the downscaling process introduces visible artifacts.
I'm not so concerned with who sells more units, than the very specific unit I might buy for myself. The Fire isn't interesting *to me* for many of the same arguments made in TFA. The most important being, you aren't always connected to the cloud. You need enough local resources to get your work done (whatever that is) without signal.
The problem is, when the TV is manufactured across the ocean where you don't see the resulting poisoning of the water table and increased illness in the local population, it's easy to convince one's self that the only real issue is proper recycling of the old unit. Especially when there's an Energy Star sticker right on the new model.
I've even heard people argue that we should change out our electronics regularly to take advantage of new advances in power consumption. I personally consider this a way to talk one's self into a new iphone or a bigger TV. Personally, I'm with you. I tend to buy higher quality than I really need, and then I don't replace it until it breaks in a way that I can't fix. For big ticket items the first accessory is the service manual. But to most people, electronics are consumables. Partly because they don't last very well, but mostly because new features are attractive.
Do a google search on "china environmental disaster" and you get millions of hits. Part of that, as said in the article, is fueled by China's push to industrialization at all costs, but another big part of it, (and something we should be personally ashamed of) is the perception in the West that if the manufacturing didn't occur here, then the pollution never happened. It's the "point source" thing all over again. If the great unwashed public doesn't see pollution happening right in front of them, they're more likely to think of the product or process as "green".
...and so really smart geeks will figure out how to root the device and install "real" Android on it. But my wife will not be one of them. Why don't they just the hell put a full distribution of Android, with the market, on it in the first damned place?
> [the kindle fire]'s 8G bytes of storage is not enough to hold media for those situations where the user is not connected to the Internet. "You're not always going to be connected to the cloud," he said.
> What do IT-savvy Slashdotters have to say about moving away from one of the more stable and feature rich VM architectures available?"
Um, how about "over my dead body"?
If you want free stuff like VirtualBox or VirtualPC, more power to you. It helps push the envelope and provides for competition.
For large enterprise installations, there is VMWare. I'm sure that won't always be the case, but for now, you'll have to pry my vCenter from my cold dead hands.
Yes, I was in the Verizon store the other day, buying a new Android phone for my daughter (bionic) and wife (rhyme), and I did spend a few moments with the one (1) Windows Phone 7 on display. The interface reminded me of Vista Gadgets, and I suspect it's not really an interface but a big Gadget running on top of Windows. If you're only interested in doing what the interface provides, you're in luck.
Windows 8 has some visual cues from Phone 7, but the demos I saw, Metro looks like a souped up Media Center, which would go along with their policy of code repurposing.
The technical blurb (see previous slashdot articles) admitted you'd have to drop out of Metro to do anything complicated. I strongly suspect you'll also have to attach a keyboard and a mouse. The Media Center -- type interface is fine for doing prearranged tasks, but it's not a general purpose touch screen GUI.
This doesn't really affect me at all. I have no interest in owning a Windows 7 phone and I will be skipping Windows 8 as I skipped Vista. Oh, Windows 8 will sell, on desktops and laptops, mostly because it'll be preinstalled on most new personal computers. Most people will drop out of Metro and work in the traditional desktop with a traditional keyboard and mouse. Metro will find use in PCs used in media centers, but even that I think is a shrinking market as TVs and receivers pick up the features for which you used to need a PC.
There will be Windows 8 tablets which will have a tiny percentage of the market. Some will become shelfware, some will actually see use, but those will have a keyboard and mouse attached.
Meanwhile, I need maybe two more applications ported to Android and I can leave my Windows laptop at home.
Amazon made a couple of mistakes; no removable storage, and heavy dependence on the cloud, which means you need a signal to get at your stuff. Until that changes, there's room for another platform.
But anyway, there are a pantload of Chinese tablets in the $200 -- $300 range. If they can do it, anyone can, especially since they're all made in China anyway.
My understanding is that Iris is something cobbled together over a weekend after the 4s came out. Of course it's a weak attempt. It's more to illustrate that Siri is not exactly groundbreaking. Siri is "cool" because (a) it's from apple, and (b) the iphone didn't have that feature before. Although smartphones have had it (although imperfectly) since at least the Treo days, before Apple or Google ever thought about producing a phone.
> How narrow-minded of you. It would be a strength for people like my wife, who somehow managed to graduate from a University with a decent GPA yet can't ever remember how to turn her phone on (no matter how many times I show her). She probably wouldn't realize that a phone could actually perform a search like that (much less figure out how) without an assistant to tell/remind her. Siri would be a great help to me because I could tell her to ask the damn phone and leave me in peace.;-)
My wife is a professional, has worked for high tech companies most of her professional life, but is utterly incapable of working a cellular phone, even to taking an incoming call. Daughter and I suspect she can't hear us because she's holding the phone upside down. (You type on the keyboard so you should hear out of it also, dammit.) The issue in these kinds of cases is often that the subject will forever be inept with the technology simply because they don't want to learn it.
In any case, don't you have to activate Siri somehow, like pressing a button? For the vehemently cellphobic, even that might be too much to ask.
Clarke wrote a very early short story, about a space station worker outside when he wasn't supposed to be (on his way to a sexual encounter in an airlock) when his proximity alarm went off. He got a glimpse of an asteroid flashing by that was as large as an airliner, and saw that it was a very old alien spaceship that had collided with something and was dead in space. The conundrum was, here he had made the most vital discovery of the century and because he was not authorized to be where he was, he couldn't tell anyone.
I wasn't thinking of Rama. I found that book kinda boring.
I didn't say anything about being "cheated". I was thinking more in terms of M$ subsidizing devices to achieve market penetration. *Those* are the devices you might want to try flashing Android onto. But only if the price is right. There's no reason to pay more than you have to, especially in this economy.
> After what happened with Xbox, I wouldn't underestimate MS' staying power. They'll keep going until they get it right.
It's possible, but I don't think they'll ever get this right. There is a difference on a basic level: Successful businesses in smartphone and tablet markets created an interface appropriate for the device. Microsoft insists on re-using GUI technology from Windows, which isn't appropriate either for a smartphone or a tablet. So the Windows 7 Mobile and Windows 8 devices will always be the clunky devices that people only use because they're forced to (with a few bizarre fanboi exceptions) whereas iOS and Android devices will be the ones people want to own. Historically, Microsoft tries to "fix" that basic condition through market maneuvering, and not through having technology that people actually want to own. And so they'll never get more than the small market share anyone can get by spending billions promoting an inferior product. Balmer can do all the arrogant posturings and throw all the chairs he wants; it won't change this basic fact.
In order to be successful in these markets, Microsoft has to change the way they do business, and I don't see them ever doing that. Oh, there might be a few people who rise to power internally and produce products that you'd actually want, but the company as a whole is structured to suppress such innovation if it doesn't toe the corporate line, which is Windows, and Only Windows, on Everything. The Xbox, I think, was an interesting exception.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference in aspect ratio is only a couple percentage points so I'd expect the black bars (if any) to be tiny.
> I'm not much of a video guy, but how does a device with 1024x600 resolution display 1080p?
Downscaling. I think "1080p" in this context means it'll accept (display) content in 1080p, downscaling appropriately. One could argue that this is cheating in the specs, but realistically, you won't be able to see the difference on a handheld display, unless the downscaling process introduces visible artifacts.
I'm not so concerned with who sells more units, than the very specific unit I might buy for myself. The Fire isn't interesting *to me* for many of the same arguments made in TFA. The most important being, you aren't always connected to the cloud. You need enough local resources to get your work done (whatever that is) without signal.
The problem is, when the TV is manufactured across the ocean where you don't see the resulting poisoning of the water table and increased illness in the local population, it's easy to convince one's self that the only real issue is proper recycling of the old unit. Especially when there's an Energy Star sticker right on the new model.
I've even heard people argue that we should change out our electronics regularly to take advantage of new advances in power consumption. I personally consider this a way to talk one's self into a new iphone or a bigger TV. Personally, I'm with you. I tend to buy higher quality than I really need, and then I don't replace it until it breaks in a way that I can't fix. For big ticket items the first accessory is the service manual. But to most people, electronics are consumables. Partly because they don't last very well, but mostly because new features are attractive.
Do a google search on "china environmental disaster" and you get millions of hits. Part of that, as said in the article, is fueled by China's push to industrialization at all costs, but another big part of it, (and something we should be personally ashamed of) is the perception in the West that if the manufacturing didn't occur here, then the pollution never happened. It's the "point source" thing all over again. If the great unwashed public doesn't see pollution happening right in front of them, they're more likely to think of the product or process as "green".
From TFA:
> [the kindle fire]'s 8G bytes of storage is not enough to hold media for those situations where the user is not connected to the Internet. "You're not always going to be connected to the cloud," he said.
All together now: Bingo!
Without access to the Android app store, it's not much different than the higher end Chinese clones.
And unlike the Kindle Fire, the Nook Color has an SD card slot.
Much older.
shrug. I don't pay for it, and someone else deals with the licensing.
> What do IT-savvy Slashdotters have to say about moving away from one of the more stable and feature rich VM architectures available?"
Um, how about "over my dead body"?
If you want free stuff like VirtualBox or VirtualPC, more power to you. It helps push the envelope and provides for competition.
For large enterprise installations, there is VMWare. I'm sure that won't always be the case, but for now, you'll have to pry my vCenter from my cold dead hands.
Yes, I was in the Verizon store the other day, buying a new Android phone for my daughter (bionic) and wife (rhyme), and I did spend a few moments with the one (1) Windows Phone 7 on display. The interface reminded me of Vista Gadgets, and I suspect it's not really an interface but a big Gadget running on top of Windows. If you're only interested in doing what the interface provides, you're in luck.
Windows 8 has some visual cues from Phone 7, but the demos I saw, Metro looks like a souped up Media Center, which would go along with their policy of code repurposing.
The technical blurb (see previous slashdot articles) admitted you'd have to drop out of Metro to do anything complicated. I strongly suspect you'll also have to attach a keyboard and a mouse. The Media Center -- type interface is fine for doing prearranged tasks, but it's not a general purpose touch screen GUI.
This doesn't really affect me at all. I have no interest in owning a Windows 7 phone and I will be skipping Windows 8 as I skipped Vista. Oh, Windows 8 will sell, on desktops and laptops, mostly because it'll be preinstalled on most new personal computers. Most people will drop out of Metro and work in the traditional desktop with a traditional keyboard and mouse. Metro will find use in PCs used in media centers, but even that I think is a shrinking market as TVs and receivers pick up the features for which you used to need a PC.
There will be Windows 8 tablets which will have a tiny percentage of the market. Some will become shelfware, some will actually see use, but those will have a keyboard and mouse attached.
Meanwhile, I need maybe two more applications ported to Android and I can leave my Windows laptop at home.
Amazon made a couple of mistakes; no removable storage, and heavy dependence on the cloud, which means you need a signal to get at your stuff. Until that changes, there's room for another platform.
If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
But anyway, there are a pantload of Chinese tablets in the $200 -- $300 range. If they can do it, anyone can, especially since they're all made in China anyway.
HP, there is a market for a well built tablet that's not an iPAD. But not at the prices you were trying to charge.
That's a brilliant insight.
> Iris is a weak attempt.
My understanding is that Iris is something cobbled together over a weekend after the 4s came out. Of course it's a weak attempt. It's more to illustrate that Siri is not exactly groundbreaking. Siri is "cool" because (a) it's from apple, and (b) the iphone didn't have that feature before. Although smartphones have had it (although imperfectly) since at least the Treo days, before Apple or Google ever thought about producing a phone.
> How narrow-minded of you. It would be a strength for people like my wife, who somehow managed to graduate from a University with a decent GPA yet can't ever remember how to turn her phone on (no matter how many times I show her). She probably wouldn't realize that a phone could actually perform a search like that (much less figure out how) without an assistant to tell/remind her. Siri would be a great help to me because I could tell her to ask the damn phone and leave me in peace. ;-)
My wife is a professional, has worked for high tech companies most of her professional life, but is utterly incapable of working a cellular phone, even to taking an incoming call. Daughter and I suspect she can't hear us because she's holding the phone upside down. (You type on the keyboard so you should hear out of it also, dammit.) The issue in these kinds of cases is often that the subject will forever be inept with the technology simply because they don't want to learn it.
In any case, don't you have to activate Siri somehow, like pressing a button? For the vehemently cellphobic, even that might be too much to ask.
> googling "locksmiths near (address)"?
Or *saying* "Locksmiths near me"? Which is well within the capabilities of existing smartphones.
> Think horses, not zebras.
Think horses, but wish for zebras.
Clarke wrote a very early short story, about a space station worker outside when he wasn't supposed to be (on his way to a sexual encounter in an airlock) when his proximity alarm went off. He got a glimpse of an asteroid flashing by that was as large as an airliner, and saw that it was a very old alien spaceship that had collided with something and was dead in space. The conundrum was, here he had made the most vital discovery of the century and because he was not authorized to be where he was, he couldn't tell anyone.
I wasn't thinking of Rama. I found that book kinda boring.
I didn't say anything about being "cheated". I was thinking more in terms of M$ subsidizing devices to achieve market penetration. *Those* are the devices you might want to try flashing Android onto. But only if the price is right. There's no reason to pay more than you have to, especially in this economy.
> After what happened with Xbox, I wouldn't underestimate MS' staying power. They'll keep going until they get it right.
It's possible, but I don't think they'll ever get this right. There is a difference on a basic level: Successful businesses in smartphone and tablet markets created an interface appropriate for the device. Microsoft insists on re-using GUI technology from Windows, which isn't appropriate either for a smartphone or a tablet. So the Windows 7 Mobile and Windows 8 devices will always be the clunky devices that people only use because they're forced to (with a few bizarre fanboi exceptions) whereas iOS and Android devices will be the ones people want to own. Historically, Microsoft tries to "fix" that basic condition through market maneuvering, and not through having technology that people actually want to own. And so they'll never get more than the small market share anyone can get by spending billions promoting an inferior product. Balmer can do all the arrogant posturings and throw all the chairs he wants; it won't change this basic fact.
In order to be successful in these markets, Microsoft has to change the way they do business, and I don't see them ever doing that. Oh, there might be a few people who rise to power internally and produce products that you'd actually want, but the company as a whole is structured to suppress such innovation if it doesn't toe the corporate line, which is Windows, and Only Windows, on Everything. The Xbox, I think, was an interesting exception.