When Unity was first rolled out, there was a lot of complaining about it's poor multi-monitor support. Has this been fixed?
I have a hard time getting too worked up about UI changes these days. I use only a handful of programs all day and Windows 7, XP, Mac, Unity, KDE, and others are similar enough that one environment is pretty much the same as any other. It seems really odd to me that people have such strong opinions when it comes to their operating system.
Frankly, I'm more interested in 12.04 supposed improvements in power management and battery life.
I can't help but wonder about Linux's failure to unseat Microsoft. It's now pretty clear just how weak Microsoft's dominance was. They had (and still have) a strong corporate presence, but their consumer side was only strong because of inertia. How did they maintain their market share though the Vista fiasco? Or was that the beginning of the end for them as far as consumer electronics goes?
Other than XBox (which may have been a reaction to Sony and Nintendo dominating the living room), what are they doing right? When Java took off, they responded with the.Net CLR. Internet Explorer was a response to Netscape. When they felt threatened by Google, they created Bing. When iPhone rocked the industry, they responded (eventually) with WP7. The iPad starts to destroy the low end of the PC market and they focus Windows 8 on tablets. They then name their tablet OS which is the first Microsoft operating system in decades to not use a window metaphor, Windows RT. WTF?
I really don't understand why the shareholders aren't in revolt. This is definitely a company in need of new leadership and perhaps of being split up. Microsoft as a brand is as interesting these days to most people as Oracle or Cisco.
Flash is a poorly written battery hog. One of the reasons Apple banned Flash is because it makes the device look bad. In the end, I think Apple was right about Flash and they are probably mostly responsible for Flash's death.
Normally though, I agree that the user should be the one to decide. For example, the DVR I bought from DirecTV is perfectly capably of playing Netflix streams, yet it doesn't include that capability, nor can I install it. My PS3 is also locked down.
Apple are still small players in the global market. They are just getting started and they sell products with a 2-year lifespan and have no serious competition (I say this as the owner of a Nexus S running ICS). Android generates little revenue, Microsoft isn't even trying, and RIM still thinks it's 2002. I don't think it could get much better for Apple right now.
Would you also say that BMW and Mercedes will be unable to command higher margins long term?
Apple doesn't just sell hardware. They are selling devices + software + services and as gatekeepers to the ecosystem, they are taking a healthy cut of all the revenue that their devices generate. Even if their hardware margins slip, the ecosystem is large and healthy enough that their profits should continue to astound.
The Dell's and HP's of the world know they are screwed in the consumer space because they can't match the Apple experience because they only control a small part of the product. Microsoft is trying hard to copy, but they just don't have the talent, vision, or reputation. I think Amazon could challenge Apple or maybe even Facebook. It really is shocking how quickly Microsoft is losing the consumer market and how unresponsive they have been.
They have made other moves that support my claim that they are becoming more consumer focused. They stripped out lots of pro-level features from Final Cut Pro, making it more like iMovie. Their big developer conference (WWDC) used to be somewhat evenly divided between consumer tracks and tracks for IT people. A couple of years ago, they dropped the IT stuff. They've also dumped their line of servers a year or two ago.
Apple's success in corporations has been in spite of their indifference toward the enterprise market. They are consumer focused and getting more so all the time.
The big surprise for me is how badly RIM has done in this sector.
I miss the days when there were a bunch of word processors / office suites competing. I switched through various versions of Ami Pro, WordPerfect, Word Star, and a couple others I can't remember right now. Then in the mid 90's Word started to dominate and has become a defacto standard. Competitors are judged by how well their Word filters work. Bummer.
The other issue is that most Americans are highly dependent on their job for health insurance.
I think this is the single biggest problem with the US system as it currently stands. It makes absolutely no sense for health insurance to be provided through an employer. I'd like to see the practice banned.
You're being as hyperbolic as the GP is. The reality is somewhere in the middle. Most American's get pretty good health care and they pay a lot of money for it.
IMHO, the biggest problem with the system is the number of uninsured people. I think that kids especially should be guaranteed access to health care. I would enthusiastically support any politician that proposed a single-payer health care similar to but better than Canada's.
You can be fired here for no stated reason at all.
In fact, at lots of places the standard policy is to give no reason for the firing. If you don't give a reason, then that reason can't be used against you in court.
If you are going to pick an OS that they are likely to encounter in the real world, perhaps the next generation should run iOS (yeah, I know that will never happen).
I think the problem is that you end up talking to a PR person. When you approach a company, ask for an engineer. I bet there's some interesting or unexpected tech behind even mundane things like headsets. In my experience, if you go deep enough into the details, just about anything can get very interesting.
I'd like to add that just because one has taken the time to shoot and edit the video, use some editorial judgement. If the video sucks, don't post it!
I'd like you to be honest with ads. I don't particularly have a problem with ads, but I think you could be more transparent when a story has been paid for. I really don't see any good reason to try to pretend that a story is organic when it isn't.
I've seen a bunch of comments here about the costs of putting out a AAA title and I'm not sure how that's relevant. From my experience, budget size isn't a very good indicator for how much fun a game will be and I think you can make a pretty good comparison with movies. The AAA game would be equivalent to the big summer blockbusters. They cost a lot to make but are rarely among the best movie or game of the year. If the market disappeared for $20 million games, I'm not sure anything of value would be lost.
People working at advertising agencies that get a chunk of the $100 million that is spent on marketing COD (for example) might be sad I guess.
No they can't. That's why retail's future is bleak and digital delivery is so big. New consoles are going to require an always-on internet connection to support new business models like in-game purchases and advertising. Stupid little games like the pictionary game Zinga just bought generates $100,000 of sales per day. There's no reason a major AAA title couldn't potentially do 10x that. If they figure it out, that title may be free.
If the console makers were smart, they would take a look at what Apple is doing and do a better job. Apple makes it relatively easy and cheap to develop for their platform while console makers do everything they can to prevent it. Apple has a decent web browser while the consoles either don't have one or the one they do have is terrible. Apple revs their platform annually and console makers sit on their hardware for too long, and sometimes go backwards with console capabilities. Frankly, I'm surprised they are doing as well as they are.
The point is that there are more people willing to buy games at $10 than $50. Last year, I spent way more on cheap games for my PC and phone than I did for my PS3. I can't see that trend changing for me any time soon, especially since most of the PS3 games I've bought have sucked (with the notable exception of Little Big Planet and maybe Katamari).
Slashdot Mirror
When Unity was first rolled out, there was a lot of complaining about it's poor multi-monitor support. Has this been fixed?
I have a hard time getting too worked up about UI changes these days. I use only a handful of programs all day and Windows 7, XP, Mac, Unity, KDE, and others are similar enough that one environment is pretty much the same as any other. It seems really odd to me that people have such strong opinions when it comes to their operating system.
Frankly, I'm more interested in 12.04 supposed improvements in power management and battery life.
What are you going to get? There's so much to read and so little time, I'd appreciate some suggestions and opinions from my fellow slashdotters.
I can't help but wonder about Linux's failure to unseat Microsoft. It's now pretty clear just how weak Microsoft's dominance was. They had (and still have) a strong corporate presence, but their consumer side was only strong because of inertia. How did they maintain their market share though the Vista fiasco? Or was that the beginning of the end for them as far as consumer electronics goes?
Other than XBox (which may have been a reaction to Sony and Nintendo dominating the living room), what are they doing right? When Java took off, they responded with the .Net CLR. Internet Explorer was a response to Netscape. When they felt threatened by Google, they created Bing. When iPhone rocked the industry, they responded (eventually) with WP7. The iPad starts to destroy the low end of the PC market and they focus Windows 8 on tablets. They then name their tablet OS which is the first Microsoft operating system in decades to not use a window metaphor, Windows RT. WTF?
I really don't understand why the shareholders aren't in revolt. This is definitely a company in need of new leadership and perhaps of being split up. Microsoft as a brand is as interesting these days to most people as Oracle or Cisco.
Flash is a poorly written battery hog. One of the reasons Apple banned Flash is because it makes the device look bad. In the end, I think Apple was right about Flash and they are probably mostly responsible for Flash's death.
Normally though, I agree that the user should be the one to decide. For example, the DVR I bought from DirecTV is perfectly capably of playing Netflix streams, yet it doesn't include that capability, nor can I install it. My PS3 is also locked down.
Apple are still small players in the global market. They are just getting started and they sell products with a 2-year lifespan and have no serious competition (I say this as the owner of a Nexus S running ICS). Android generates little revenue, Microsoft isn't even trying, and RIM still thinks it's 2002. I don't think it could get much better for Apple right now.
Would you also say that BMW and Mercedes will be unable to command higher margins long term?
Apple doesn't just sell hardware. They are selling devices + software + services and as gatekeepers to the ecosystem, they are taking a healthy cut of all the revenue that their devices generate. Even if their hardware margins slip, the ecosystem is large and healthy enough that their profits should continue to astound.
The Dell's and HP's of the world know they are screwed in the consumer space because they can't match the Apple experience because they only control a small part of the product. Microsoft is trying hard to copy, but they just don't have the talent, vision, or reputation. I think Amazon could challenge Apple or maybe even Facebook. It really is shocking how quickly Microsoft is losing the consumer market and how unresponsive they have been.
The surprise for me was that they could even consider releasing their tablet computer as it was. I believe that hurt them a lot.
They have made other moves that support my claim that they are becoming more consumer focused. They stripped out lots of pro-level features from Final Cut Pro, making it more like iMovie. Their big developer conference (WWDC) used to be somewhat evenly divided between consumer tracks and tracks for IT people. A couple of years ago, they dropped the IT stuff. They've also dumped their line of servers a year or two ago.
Apple is more consumer-focused than ever.
Apple's success in corporations has been in spite of their indifference toward the enterprise market. They are consumer focused and getting more so all the time.
The big surprise for me is how badly RIM has done in this sector.
There's always the Dana AlphaSmart. It's sold as a computer for children, but it is a lot like the Model 100.
Horribly inflated? By what measure?
It seems to me that gold is sitting at the intersection of the supply and demand curves.
I miss the days when there were a bunch of word processors / office suites competing. I switched through various versions of Ami Pro, WordPerfect, Word Star, and a couple others I can't remember right now. Then in the mid 90's Word started to dominate and has become a defacto standard. Competitors are judged by how well their Word filters work. Bummer.
I think this is the single biggest problem with the US system as it currently stands. It makes absolutely no sense for health insurance to be provided through an employer. I'd like to see the practice banned.
You're being as hyperbolic as the GP is. The reality is somewhere in the middle. Most American's get pretty good health care and they pay a lot of money for it.
IMHO, the biggest problem with the system is the number of uninsured people. I think that kids especially should be guaranteed access to health care. I would enthusiastically support any politician that proposed a single-payer health care similar to but better than Canada's.
In fact, at lots of places the standard policy is to give no reason for the firing. If you don't give a reason, then that reason can't be used against you in court.
If you are going to pick an OS that they are likely to encounter in the real world, perhaps the next generation should run iOS (yeah, I know that will never happen).
I think the problem is that you end up talking to a PR person. When you approach a company, ask for an engineer. I bet there's some interesting or unexpected tech behind even mundane things like headsets. In my experience, if you go deep enough into the details, just about anything can get very interesting.
I'd like to add that just because one has taken the time to shoot and edit the video, use some editorial judgement. If the video sucks, don't post it!
Paying for a channel is still too coarse. I would like to be able to purchase packages of specific shows.
I'd like you to be honest with ads. I don't particularly have a problem with ads, but I think you could be more transparent when a story has been paid for. I really don't see any good reason to try to pretend that a story is organic when it isn't.
I've seen a bunch of comments here about the costs of putting out a AAA title and I'm not sure how that's relevant. From my experience, budget size isn't a very good indicator for how much fun a game will be and I think you can make a pretty good comparison with movies. The AAA game would be equivalent to the big summer blockbusters. They cost a lot to make but are rarely among the best movie or game of the year. If the market disappeared for $20 million games, I'm not sure anything of value would be lost.
People working at advertising agencies that get a chunk of the $100 million that is spent on marketing COD (for example) might be sad I guess.
FYI, here's a page describing what it takes to become a WiiWare developer. It isn't even close to as easy as it is for iOS devices.
It is far, far easier to get a game into the iOS App store than onto the Wii or PS3. I have no idea about XBox Live.
No they can't. That's why retail's future is bleak and digital delivery is so big. New consoles are going to require an always-on internet connection to support new business models like in-game purchases and advertising. Stupid little games like the pictionary game Zinga just bought generates $100,000 of sales per day. There's no reason a major AAA title couldn't potentially do 10x that. If they figure it out, that title may be free.
If the console makers were smart, they would take a look at what Apple is doing and do a better job. Apple makes it relatively easy and cheap to develop for their platform while console makers do everything they can to prevent it. Apple has a decent web browser while the consoles either don't have one or the one they do have is terrible. Apple revs their platform annually and console makers sit on their hardware for too long, and sometimes go backwards with console capabilities. Frankly, I'm surprised they are doing as well as they are.
The point is that there are more people willing to buy games at $10 than $50. Last year, I spent way more on cheap games for my PC and phone than I did for my PS3. I can't see that trend changing for me any time soon, especially since most of the PS3 games I've bought have sucked (with the notable exception of Little Big Planet and maybe Katamari).
We got our kid an iPod touch. It cost more than a DS, but it does lots more, the games are dirt cheap, and there are no tiny cartridges to lose.