MS is trying to gain market share by selling hardware below cost. The trouble is that that strategy won't work against a dominant force like Sony. So while MS takes a $177mill loss on the XBox, but touts its US market share, Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank with strong software sales for the GCN and dominance of the handheld market with the GBA (even MS produces games for it).
Although I used to program as a hobby, my eyes bugged out when I saw this article. It's actually quite interesting; I finally realize why the hell people program in lower level languages.
One point that I think could be addressed is backward compatibilty. I really know nothing about this, but don't the versions of the abstractions have to be fairly compatible with each other, especially on a large, distributed system? This extra abstraction of an abstraction has to be orders of magnitude more leaky. The best example I can think of is Windows.
"Consumers will embrace appliance-based computing as it becomes available."
Spaf apparently believes that consumers aren't capable of dealing with real computers; he thinks dedicated apps and devices are the future.
This reminds me of the NC vs. PC debate. PCs were supposedly too clunky, hard to use, and powerful for the average user; NCs were going to replace them. Eventually, PCs ate NCs.
I believe that looking at this issue from a security point of view is somewhat misleading. As Spaf himself seems to realize, most domestic consumers are misinformed and apathetic about security. The average person will see a refrigerator, that for no good reason, can go online, rather than a secure online service. PCs will still be more versatile than appliances, and will continue to provide more value. Remember how the next big thing 10 years ago was the iCoffeeMaker?
Domestic consumers won't use them. Corporate consumers won't use them. Who will adopt appliances?
"While American power companies continue to chase vanishing oil reserves, the Japanese are once again a step ahead in innovation. "
I know Slashdot users have their political leanings, but those sentiments belong in the comments, not in the story. Shouldn't news be reported more bojectively?
Granted, new technology is cool and good in the long run, but what we need to do now is to make space transport (and travel, such as it is) cheaper. We could learn a couple things from the Russians' effective 'big dumb booster' approach.
And SciAm just ran an editorial lamenting the demise of DIY. I guess that these innovations need a higher profile if we are to encourage science and technology as interests for youth.
Tools like this can help shake MS's Windows monopoly. When people can move to different OSs easily, and work with people of different OSs, differences in quality will finally start to drive decisions.
So it's not like some "new and better data" suddenly made everyone realize there was something wrong with the current theories of physics
The theories themselves may have had nothing to do with experimental evidence, but the verification of those theories did. Without more powerful technology, those theories would have been mere conjectures, since they don't significantly differ from classical physics in 'normal' situations. To continue the SR/GR example: I knew that Einstein developed his theory without knowing about Michelson-Morely. The important thing, as I see it, is that the Michelson-Morely experiment provided an experimental validation of one of the postulates of his theory.
PR, but what's the use? Detailed pics of Saturn and rings, yay, but nothing we don't have. Although, the huygens probe actually looks useful, I think NASA should be more ambitious.
A video wall seems extremely cool but uniquely useless, especially for a school in Pakistan. Can anyone tell me why this wall was built? The only use I can think of is to play Super Smash Bros: Melee. Oh, and the cropping needs work.
Sorry I was incoherent. What I meant was, could this new data resolve some of the inconsistencies in physics? More (and better) data at the turn of the century helped scientists discover the inadequacy of Newtonian mechanics, the constancy of the speed of light, wave-particle duality, and the structure of the atom.
Would this help unify quantum gravity and GR? Could it give evidence to bolster string theory? The results of this experiment should be very interesting.
On the ither hand, it could be affected by the whole varying-alpha thing. If something that fundamental is wrong, I think their data will be much less useful.
Will these students be exposed to computing in enough depth to understand the finer details? To the layperson, patenting software is always OK, but to me, in some cases, it seems like patenting a theorem in math. Another example is the RIAA's legal maneuvers. If people didn't swap mp3s, they'd probably swallow the RIAA propaganda about stealin from artists by downloading songs.
I think a course solely devoted to the changing nature of copyright and patents today (esp. IT and biotech) could create more awareness of today's issues.
Wow, the tablet PC actually looks cool. I thought it was just some more hype, but the underlying concept looks good. On a related note, couldn't this be the perfect direction for the Simputer? It looks easy to use and powerful enough for most needs, and certainly better than a pda. All that needs to be taken care of is the cost.
An issue that's been raised here is the uselessness of the Simputer to an illiterate population. Couldn't the Simputer use its text/speech capabilities to teach people to read? This would eliminate two huge problems with one stroke.
I hope we'll see a wave of indignation as corps realized they've been spyed on.
We'll probably see a meek apology, new restrictions on employee internet use, and a settlement. This makes me sick. Why do the people who can afford lawyers let the RIAA push them around?
What we need are congressional terms limits and less seneiority priviliges. Once representatives realize that gorverning should be a short detour from their normal lives, and not an occupation, our government should improve.
While this move could be welcomed by consumers, especially businessmen, I think there are numerous security issues to be addressed.
Electronic devices can be modified to create interference. Terrorists could use such devices to interfere with navigation. Today, if someone uses a cellphone on a plane, they are easilty identified and stopped. What would happen if there were 30-40 users, and the plane's systems experienced interference from one of them?
Another reason may seem a little stupid, but it could be easy to hide weapons in electronics. With increased use, again, detection becomes more difficult and cumbersome.
Finally, terrorists could concievably use the technology to execute strikes more efficiently. I realize that potential use by terrorists is the worst way to justify blocking a technology, but this new idea seems to have no tangible benefits.
Precisely. The problem with the system isn't privitazation, it's the absurd (in some cases) lowest-bidder way of choosing contractors.
Consider roads. American road constuctors don't have any incentive to lay quality roads. This is one of the reasons potholes are so common.
Oh, and in general, public schools in America suck . The schools themselves may be good, but the average student lags behind his counterpart in other nations. Private schools could compete and raise the quality of education. Vouchers would solve the cost problem. We're already seeing a similar model for universities (without vouchers, but with many scholarships). Most Ivys cost around than $35k a year, but the whole system turns out many high quality graduates. I think competition is one of the reasons why the American university system is one of the best in the world.
The role of the government is primarily to establish a level playing field. The private sector, in the long term, is far more efficient than government services.
For example, the wave of privitization in the early 90's in India. Consumers benefitted tremendoulsy from the competition.
Slashdot Mirror
MS is trying to gain market share by selling hardware below cost. The trouble is that that strategy won't work against a dominant force like Sony. So while MS takes a $177mill loss on the XBox, but touts its US market share, Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank with strong software sales for the GCN and dominance of the handheld market with the GBA (even MS produces games for it).
Although I used to program as a hobby, my eyes bugged out when I saw this article. It's actually quite interesting; I finally realize why the hell people program in lower level languages.
One point that I think could be addressed is backward compatibilty. I really know nothing about this, but don't the versions of the abstractions have to be fairly compatible with each other, especially on a large, distributed system? This extra abstraction of an abstraction has to be orders of magnitude more leaky. The best example I can think of is Windows.
"Consumers will embrace appliance-based computing as it becomes available."
Spaf apparently believes that consumers aren't capable of dealing with real computers; he thinks dedicated apps and devices are the future.
This reminds me of the NC vs. PC debate. PCs were supposedly too clunky, hard to use, and powerful for the average user; NCs were going to replace them. Eventually, PCs ate NCs.
I believe that looking at this issue from a security point of view is somewhat misleading. As Spaf himself seems to realize, most domestic consumers are misinformed and apathetic about security. The average person will see a refrigerator, that for no good reason, can go online, rather than a secure online service. PCs will still be more versatile than appliances, and will continue to provide more value. Remember how the next big thing 10 years ago was the iCoffeeMaker?
Domestic consumers won't use them. Corporate consumers won't use them. Who will adopt appliances?
I know Slashdot users have their political leanings, but those sentiments belong in the comments, not in the story. Shouldn't news be reported more bojectively?
Granted, new technology is cool and good in the long run, but what we need to do now is to make space transport (and travel, such as it is) cheaper. We could learn a couple things from the Russians' effective 'big dumb booster' approach.
And SciAm just ran an editorial lamenting the demise of DIY. I guess that these innovations need a higher profile if we are to encourage science and technology as interests for youth.
Tools like this can help shake MS's Windows monopoly. When people can move to different OSs easily, and work with people of different OSs, differences in quality will finally start to drive decisions.
I think NASA shows admirable foresight in not wanting to contaminate Europa.
No, because the interface doesn't really matter (after a point) in any OS. Functionality, not color schemes and corners, changes, has to be refined.
The interface looks nice, but it may be somewhat inefficent. This news isn't very important.
precisely. and that varying alpha thing.
The theories themselves may have had nothing to do with experimental evidence, but the verification of those theories did. Without more powerful technology, those theories would have been mere conjectures, since they don't significantly differ from classical physics in 'normal' situations. To continue the SR/GR example: I knew that Einstein developed his theory without knowing about Michelson-Morely. The important thing, as I see it, is that the Michelson-Morely experiment provided an experimental validation of one of the postulates of his theory.
PR, but what's the use? Detailed pics of Saturn and rings, yay, but nothing we don't have. Although, the huygens probe actually looks useful, I think NASA should be more ambitious.
Well, it's Pakistan. Nightclubs? You've got to be kidding.
A video wall seems extremely cool but uniquely useless, especially for a school in Pakistan. Can anyone tell me why this wall was built? The only use I can think of is to play Super Smash Bros: Melee. Oh, and the cropping needs work.
Sorry I was incoherent. What I meant was, could this new data resolve some of the inconsistencies in physics? More (and better) data at the turn of the century helped scientists discover the inadequacy of Newtonian mechanics, the constancy of the speed of light, wave-particle duality, and the structure of the atom.
Would this help unify quantum gravity and GR? Could it give evidence to bolster string theory? The results of this experiment should be very interesting.
On the ither hand, it could be affected by the whole varying-alpha thing. If something that fundamental is wrong, I think their data will be much less useful.
Will these students be exposed to computing in enough depth to understand the finer details? To the layperson, patenting software is always OK, but to me, in some cases, it seems like patenting a theorem in math. Another example is the RIAA's legal maneuvers. If people didn't swap mp3s, they'd probably swallow the RIAA propaganda about stealin from artists by downloading songs.
I think a course solely devoted to the changing nature of copyright and patents today (esp. IT and biotech) could create more awareness of today's issues.
Wow, the tablet PC actually looks cool. I thought it was just some more hype, but the underlying concept looks good.
On a related note, couldn't this be the perfect direction for the Simputer? It looks easy to use and powerful enough for most needs, and certainly better than a pda. All that needs to be taken care of is the cost.
An issue that's been raised here is the uselessness of the Simputer to an illiterate population. Couldn't the Simputer use its text/speech capabilities to teach people to read? This would eliminate two huge problems with one stroke.
I hope we'll see a wave of indignation as corps realized they've been spyed on.
We'll probably see a meek apology, new restrictions on employee internet use, and a settlement. This makes me sick. Why do the people who can afford lawyers let the RIAA push them around?
What we need are congressional terms limits and less seneiority priviliges. Once representatives realize that gorverning should be a short detour from their normal lives, and not an occupation, our government should improve.
While this move could be welcomed by consumers, especially businessmen, I think there are numerous security issues to be addressed.
Electronic devices can be modified to create interference. Terrorists could use such devices to interfere with navigation. Today, if someone uses a cellphone on a plane, they are easilty identified and stopped. What would happen if there were 30-40 users, and the plane's systems experienced interference from one of them?
Another reason may seem a little stupid, but it could be easy to hide weapons in electronics. With increased use, again, detection becomes more difficult and cumbersome.
Finally, terrorists could concievably use the technology to execute strikes more efficiently. I realize that potential use by terrorists is the worst way to justify blocking a technology, but this new idea seems to have no tangible benefits.
Precisely. The problem with the system isn't privitazation, it's the absurd (in some cases) lowest-bidder way of choosing contractors.
Consider roads. American road constuctors don't have any incentive to lay quality roads. This is one of the reasons potholes are so common.
Oh, and in general, public schools in America suck . The schools themselves may be good, but the average student lags behind his counterpart in other nations. Private schools could compete and raise the quality of education. Vouchers would solve the cost problem. We're already seeing a similar model for universities (without vouchers, but with many scholarships). Most Ivys cost around than $35k a year, but the whole system turns out many high quality graduates. I think competition is one of the reasons why the American university system is one of the best in the world.
The role of the government is primarily to establish a level playing field. The private sector, in the long term, is far more efficient than government services.
For example, the wave of privitization in the early 90's in India. Consumers benefitted tremendoulsy from the competition.