I'd mod you up if I could. The individual and collective rewards for gene editing are far too great to ignore. Someone (or likely many someones) will do it, even with the risks.
Anyone who voluntarily follows this moratorium is, by definition, going to fall behind on the genetic arms race. And falling behind means that your society will eventually become the genetically inferior one.
I'm not surprised that Java 9 and later is seeing limited traction, especially since you still have to jump through hoops to download the JRE for Java 9 or later.
As another launch Vita owner, I want to chime in with my thoughts as well.
While I wouldn't necessarily gush over the Vita quite as much as the Parent, it was a solid portable console. Sony made a lot of good technical decisions in building it: a reasonably performant SoC with a DX9-class GPU, Wide I/O memory to feed the damn thing (you won't see Wide I/O memory very often), a surprisingly good D-pad, twin sticks(!), and a fairly hefty battery, all in a good form factor a bit over 5 inches.
Sony's poorer technical decision was to use proprietary memory cards. I do get the security argument - and unlike the PSP, it really did take a while to break into the Vita to pirate Vita games - but even ignoring for the moment the impact on costs, Vita memory cards were always just weirdly slow. Meanwhile the inclusion of the rear touchpad will be the console's "one weird feature" that gets ignored, though the front and rear cameras are a close second. I'm also not sold on the OLED display, as it had mura issues and it looks like Sony got screwed over a bit on power consumption.
If we're just talking about hardware, it's definitely superior to the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo bet on 3D, and while that bet didn't necessarily flop, it didn't help move the handheld; the strong sales of the 2DS are a testament to that. The problem with 3D being that it was a decent chunk of the 3DS's BoM, which meant Nintendo had to cut back elsewhere. Particularly, their PICA200 GPU was essentially DX7-class (no pixel shaders) at a time when even phones were starting to get DX9-class GPUs. And at the risk of going on a wild tangent here, pixel shaders dramatically alter how game development works, so the 3DS was distinctly behind the times and games developed for it had to follow a workflow that overlapped very little with modern games on any other console. The Vita, on the other hand, was for most practical purposes a smaller, portable version of a then-modern gaming consoles.
At any rate, Sony's real folly was on the software side of matters. The company drank a bit too much of their own kool-aid, and as a result took the portable PS3 thing a bit too literally. New games developed for the console were a mixed bag, both from a technical and gameplay perspective. The mixed bag from a technical perspective was because Sony would have devs focus on image quality over performance, which lead to boneheaded moves like publishing a Wipeout game (very fast futuristic racer) that only ran at 30fps. And then the company also ported over some older games to fill out the game library, which is a reasonable thing to do, but they again wanted to emphasize portable PS3 by porting actual PS3 games, which the console simply didn't have the performance to run. The single worst offender here was the God of War Collection: rather than porting over the original PS2 games, Sony ported over the PS3 remasters, thereby ensuring that the poor Vita couldn't even properly play what was at its core a PS2 game.
Meanwhile from a creative perspective, too many of Sony's first-party games were big, console-style games. The Uncharteds and Killzones where you'll sit down and knock out a chapter or two in a couple of hours. This is neat in theory because these kinds of big games couldn't be done on the DS/PSP. But it doesn't work very well with the pick-up-and-go nature of a portable console. Basically Sony underinvested in more traditional portable games; so they had great big games, but the Vita was the wrong device to play them on. And at that point, you may as well own a PS3 if you want to play those games.
Unsurprisingly, the highest rated games on Metacritic tend to come from 3rd party developers. Persona 4 Golden, Rayman Origins, Velocity, Hotline Miami, etc. Sony's only real "win" here was LittleBigPlanet, which is also one of the only real AAA portable-style games that Sony backed. And all of these are great games, but none of them was going to be attractive enough to move the system. Sony never found its Pokemon, and the overall w
If this is going to be based on the Model 3, then is it actually going to be an SUV, or a CUV? Even the "SUV" Model X had rather unimpressive ride height and ground clearance. It was much closer to a CUV than a proper SUV in that respect.
The best way to describe it is extreme shock content, except intentionally aimed at audiences too young to understand parody and satire. The sheer weirdness of the worst content defies all logical explanation.
So long as you can't then immediately use that item as currency to make a new bet, yeah, there's a legitimately good chance that would pass legal muster right now.
Why are the executive branch and congress still receiving full pay and benefits?
Because as part of checks and balances between the branches, it ensures that no branch can withhold another branch's pay in order to starve them out. Imagine the President purposely withholding bills solely to sink Congress's pay, thereby forcing them to pass bad legislation in order to remain personally solvent. Or Congress doing the same to the President.
K'Breel retired after many glorious years of service. His gelsacs were ground into a fine tartare, which was enjoyed by all on the Council.
(Tackhead has since retied from Slashdot. The good news is that the Council of Elders has many speakers. Even K'Breel needed a rotation off now and then)
Earlier this afternoon the The Council of Elders announced in triumph that they have once again detected and deflected the efforts of the blue world to land upon our soil.
K'Nord, Speaker for the Council of Elders, told reporters in a lengthy and jovial press conference
Fellow Citizens, the rumors are true: the insidious inhabitants of the blue world have once again attempted to land another one of their metal monstrosities upon our glorious red planet.
However I am extremely proud to report that our defense forces, ever vigilant and ever ready, have once again managed to put a stop to the hostilities of the blueworlders.
Less than an hour ago, our high-altitude defensive system intercepted a blue world metal vessel. Our attack was so rapid and so fierce that the vessel did not have time to respond. As a result of our attack, the device has come crashing down to the soil, rendering it unable to move.
This spectacular failure of the blueworlders is yet another victory for the Martian Defense Force, and indeed our people. For try as they might over the last 40 years, the third planetâ(TM)s efforts to encroach upon our native soil always have and always will fail. Rejoice, podmates! For we are once again victorious!
Shortly thereafter, a junior analyst in the room was overheard suggesting that the vessel was in fact designed to be stationary, and that it furthermore contained a drilling device designed to penetrate deeply into the planetary soil. Quickly reiterating the victory at hand, K'nord then had the analyst's gelsacs extracted and pulpified, to be used as a cleaning solution for the Council members' glasses.
My personal trust ratings are: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, FB.
Right. And that makes a lot more sense. This is basically an inverse ordering of how much of each business is based on collecting and selling personal information.
Facebook wants to know who your friends and political affiliations are, Amazon wants to know when you'll buy your next roll of paper towels, and Apple is happiest just knowing your credit card number.
I expect that some of the previous-generation factories are in the process of being retooled for 10nm?
Intel's fab upgrade strategy is n-2. That is, for a new process node (n), they upgrade fabs 2 generations old. n-1 fabs (the current mode) are left alone as Intel needs that capacity in the present time.
So Intel is currently in the process of converting some 22nm capacity to 10nm. 14nm tabs are not being converted (Oregon dev space aside).
As much as I want to champion Google's efforts here, I feel like TFA is just trying to find a way to spin a failure as a success. Which is understandable, as that's a very human thing to do.
None the less, Google Fiber was absolutely a failure. Google threw down a ton of money on infrastructure they either never completed (Portland), or they completed systems and will probably never make back their initial investment (Kansas City). With Google's massive bank account it wasn't quite a boondoggle, but it none the less cost the company a lot of money.
And the reason it failed is because the company in turn failed to take into account where the wireless market would be 5 years down the line after they started. Starting in 2012 the big 4 wireless carriers hit the ground running on LTE, and hard. The end result is that while LTE offers a fraction of the performance of a good coaxial cable or fiber system, it covers something like 98% of the US population. It's everywhere, and in most places it's even kind of, sort of okay. And with everyone owning a cell phone anyhow, we're now seeing some cord cutters cut the hardline entirely and work entirely off of wireless. All of which has obliterated the critical mass of consumers required to fund a major new infrastructure build-out.
I admire Google's intentions, and I really wish I had some fiber myself. But they started building a fiber network right when consumers started switching to wireless. So it was just a good old fashioned failure: they built something that not enough people wanted.
I think we're sort of missing the point of the article though. It's not an article about how the music industry is doomed, it's a study on what's currently the most popular way to pirate music.
Each of those methods was the most widely used method at one point. Cassette dubbing, MP3 sharing, and now ripping the audio track of a YouTube video. And each remained the most popular method until something better came along. MP3s offered perfect digital duplication, and now you can do the same thing by ripping YouTube, but without having to track down a reliable source.
Which yeah, probably doesn't have the RIAA sleeping all that soundly. Each iteration has made the process easier. At this point pretty much any moron can do it.
It doesn't have to end up like malware on Windows. OSX and Linux don't have the same problem, despite being open platforms.
Unfortunately it pretty much does. Android is the Windows in this analogy; it's the OS running most of the world's smartphones.
Linux and Mac OS X are both niche operating systems in comparison. Linux is all techies (whom generally know what they're doing), and while OS X has some real traction, Apple also keeps it locked down. By default you can't even install external applications, never mind unsigned external applications. Android, on the other hand, has that ideal combination of ubiquity, deployment scale, and relatively soft security (since unsigned sideloading is allowed, unlike iOS).
The concerning thing here is that this has all the makings of a perfect storm for malware. On the one side you have the world's most popular mobile OS, frequently running on out-of-date devices with known security vulnerabilities. And on the other side you have one of the world's most popular games for kids and teenagers, who are by their very nature impulsive, and none of whom would have been around for the darkest days of Windows malware. This is exactly the kind of crowd that struggled with malware before, so they're the worst crowd to be leading out of the walled garden.
I completely get why Epic wants to do this: 30% adds up to a lot of money for a game that pulls in hundreds of millions a month. But for the broader Android user base this is a terrible idea.
Having the ability to install external APKs and actually enticing non-technical users to do it are two different things. The average smartphone user isn't prepared to use external sources, and if they do, it's going to end up like malware on Windows. Which is to say there's going to be trojan APKs left and right pretending to be Fortnite, or Fortnite with hacks, etc.
Fortnite's original game mode - Save The World - was a zombie survival game. If users have to install APKs from unknown sources, we're going to be surviving a whole new kind of zombie outbreak...
Oh no doubt. LTE isn't good enough to replace a landline for more than a small segment of the population. However it's just good enough to undermine the kind of critical mass required for major infrastructure projects. Which is exactly why Google has given up on fiber and is focusing on wireless instead. Everyone has a cell phone, even if they already have a landline.
Yet these areas are probably rural or have some barrier that makes it more expensive to maintain/upgrade than they can pull in with reasonable monthly rates.
The kicker here is that while this is happening, a not-insignificant number of customers are cutting the cord and moving entirely to cellular LTE. It's not everyone or even a majority, but enough that it significantly erodes the profitability of a landline operation.
Sure, it makes sense to invest in laying new cables and upgrading when you can count on 95% of all households subscribing. But what about 90%? 80%? 70%? Because so much of the infrastructure cost is shared, even though the last mile itself isn't cheap, at some point you lose the critical mass required to make a landline service profitable.
And this is why we're not going to see any more large fiber deployments. LTE is already "good enough" for a small number of people, and 5G mmWave is going to make cellular "good enough" for a larger group. Fiber is still superior, but the driving factors are economic, not technical.
(As an aside, this is why government intervention is a tricky thing. Should governments be investing in fiber when wireless would seem to be the future?)
Primary link is to a website that only has an auto-playing video.
Eh? The primary link is to the San Jose Mercury News, which has a well-written (if somewhat short) article on the subject. It's one of secondary links within the TFA itself - to KPIX 5 - that has the video. Unsurprisingly, a TV news station will have a video.
Note that if you try to cancel, they'll just instead give you a credit equal to the increase to balance things out. AT&T's end of the contract is only void if they actually charge you more and you object to it, so that negates the "charge you more" part.
This is a very common tactic in these situations on the carrier's part. They have no intention of breaking the contract and letting you leave with a phone that has yet to be fully paid off. But they also know that most people aren't going to haggle over $12/year, so it's a calculated risk that you'll simply go with the flow and pay the extra money.
Because if Intel didn't try to push the envelope, no one would.
PC OEMs (outside of Apple) have long had a case of tunnel vision. They're stuck in the next-quarter mindset, so they'll double-down on whatever is selling well at this instant, and rarely put serious money into developing new concepts. They're the 21st century equivalent of Henry Ford believing that all Model Ts should be black.
As a result, it's fallen to Intel to do a lot of the development and marketing of new PC concepts. At various times they've spurred on both highly successful devices like Ultrabooks, and flops like Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).
Intel's interest in it is that if they don't do this, someone else will develop the next generation of computing and the x86 PC market will miss the boat. And given what's happened with mobile devices - where Intel did miss the boat by investing in MIDs instead - they're right to be concerned.
At the end, you seem to be arguing that it is more dehumanizing to be relayed orders by a machine that emulates flapping meat sounds in meat-English as opposed to receiving those orders by reading off a computer screen or on a slip of paper. Perhaps you are right (after all, this is subjective) but it seems that the crux of your claim is that voice is different, not that you are 'ordered around by a machine'.
Eh, a little bit of both. You are of course right that people already receive orders through machines; but they aren't orders from machines. I'm not interacting with a machine as if it's a person; I know from the start that it's a machine. Which also means I'm prepared to deal with said machine (or just give up on it entirely) when things go wrong.
Voice does (or at least used to) imply that you're working with a human. An adaptable, intelligent being. It means we extend certain curtsies to them and in turn there are certain expectations about how they are to behave (and they'll get shunned if they fail those). A machine, on the other hand, doesn't care about social norms or cues. Which means they are inherently jackasses, and we're wasting time and energy making these social gestures to a machine that could just be telling us what it wants upfront.
The legacy of computerized voice systems is phone trees that never work and roboscammers who harass us all day and night. And now we want to have even more systems calling us? Consider how stupid Google Assistant already is, and then realize that Duplex will be even dumber since the user on the other end won't know they're dealing with it. The person placing the request will never have to deal with the frustrations that come with Duplex going wrong; for the poor sods working service jobs on the other hand, this is going to be a new robocaller hell.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd mod you up if I could. The individual and collective rewards for gene editing are far too great to ignore. Someone (or likely many someones) will do it, even with the risks.
Anyone who voluntarily follows this moratorium is, by definition, going to fall behind on the genetic arms race. And falling behind means that your society will eventually become the genetically inferior one.
I'm not surprised that Java 9 and later is seeing limited traction, especially since you still have to jump through hoops to download the JRE for Java 9 or later.
If you actually go to Oracle's Java.com runtime download site, they suggest the latest version of Java 8.
As another launch Vita owner, I want to chime in with my thoughts as well.
While I wouldn't necessarily gush over the Vita quite as much as the Parent, it was a solid portable console. Sony made a lot of good technical decisions in building it: a reasonably performant SoC with a DX9-class GPU, Wide I/O memory to feed the damn thing (you won't see Wide I/O memory very often), a surprisingly good D-pad, twin sticks(!), and a fairly hefty battery, all in a good form factor a bit over 5 inches.
Sony's poorer technical decision was to use proprietary memory cards. I do get the security argument - and unlike the PSP, it really did take a while to break into the Vita to pirate Vita games - but even ignoring for the moment the impact on costs, Vita memory cards were always just weirdly slow. Meanwhile the inclusion of the rear touchpad will be the console's "one weird feature" that gets ignored, though the front and rear cameras are a close second. I'm also not sold on the OLED display, as it had mura issues and it looks like Sony got screwed over a bit on power consumption.
If we're just talking about hardware, it's definitely superior to the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo bet on 3D, and while that bet didn't necessarily flop, it didn't help move the handheld; the strong sales of the 2DS are a testament to that. The problem with 3D being that it was a decent chunk of the 3DS's BoM, which meant Nintendo had to cut back elsewhere. Particularly, their PICA200 GPU was essentially DX7-class (no pixel shaders) at a time when even phones were starting to get DX9-class GPUs. And at the risk of going on a wild tangent here, pixel shaders dramatically alter how game development works, so the 3DS was distinctly behind the times and games developed for it had to follow a workflow that overlapped very little with modern games on any other console. The Vita, on the other hand, was for most practical purposes a smaller, portable version of a then-modern gaming consoles.
At any rate, Sony's real folly was on the software side of matters. The company drank a bit too much of their own kool-aid, and as a result took the portable PS3 thing a bit too literally. New games developed for the console were a mixed bag, both from a technical and gameplay perspective. The mixed bag from a technical perspective was because Sony would have devs focus on image quality over performance, which lead to boneheaded moves like publishing a Wipeout game (very fast futuristic racer) that only ran at 30fps. And then the company also ported over some older games to fill out the game library, which is a reasonable thing to do, but they again wanted to emphasize portable PS3 by porting actual PS3 games, which the console simply didn't have the performance to run. The single worst offender here was the God of War Collection: rather than porting over the original PS2 games, Sony ported over the PS3 remasters, thereby ensuring that the poor Vita couldn't even properly play what was at its core a PS2 game.
Meanwhile from a creative perspective, too many of Sony's first-party games were big, console-style games. The Uncharteds and Killzones where you'll sit down and knock out a chapter or two in a couple of hours. This is neat in theory because these kinds of big games couldn't be done on the DS/PSP. But it doesn't work very well with the pick-up-and-go nature of a portable console. Basically Sony underinvested in more traditional portable games; so they had great big games, but the Vita was the wrong device to play them on. And at that point, you may as well own a PS3 if you want to play those games.
Unsurprisingly, the highest rated games on Metacritic tend to come from 3rd party developers. Persona 4 Golden, Rayman Origins, Velocity, Hotline Miami, etc. Sony's only real "win" here was LittleBigPlanet, which is also one of the only real AAA portable-style games that Sony backed. And all of these are great games, but none of them was going to be attractive enough to move the system. Sony never found its Pokemon, and the overall w
If this is going to be based on the Model 3, then is it actually going to be an SUV, or a CUV? Even the "SUV" Model X had rather unimpressive ride height and ground clearance. It was much closer to a CUV than a proper SUV in that respect.
I'm glad to see even the Martians are decent enough to offer their respects.
And welcome back, Tackhead!
I'm assuming the GP is making a reference to Elsagate. (Infographic)
The best way to describe it is extreme shock content, except intentionally aimed at audiences too young to understand parody and satire. The sheer weirdness of the worst content defies all logical explanation.
So long as you can't then immediately use that item as currency to make a new bet, yeah, there's a legitimately good chance that would pass legal muster right now.
Because as part of checks and balances between the branches, it ensures that no branch can withhold another branch's pay in order to starve them out. Imagine the President purposely withholding bills solely to sink Congress's pay, thereby forcing them to pass bad legislation in order to remain personally solvent. Or Congress doing the same to the President.
K'Breel retired after many glorious years of service. His gelsacs were ground into a fine tartare, which was enjoyed by all on the Council.
(Tackhead has since retied from Slashdot. The good news is that the Council of Elders has many speakers. Even K'Breel needed a rotation off now and then)
Earlier this afternoon the The Council of Elders announced in triumph that they have once again detected and deflected the efforts of the blue world to land upon our soil.
K'Nord, Speaker for the Council of Elders, told reporters in a lengthy and jovial press conference
Shortly thereafter, a junior analyst in the room was overheard suggesting that the vessel was in fact designed to be stationary, and that it furthermore contained a drilling device designed to penetrate deeply into the planetary soil. Quickly reiterating the victory at hand, K'nord then had the analyst's gelsacs extracted and pulpified, to be used as a cleaning solution for the Council members' glasses.
Right. And that makes a lot more sense. This is basically an inverse ordering of how much of each business is based on collecting and selling personal information.
Facebook wants to know who your friends and political affiliations are, Amazon wants to know when you'll buy your next roll of paper towels, and Apple is happiest just knowing your credit card number.
Which they're already doing. Switch production has already been adjusted to eliminate the flaw using the iPatch system.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming...
Intel's fab upgrade strategy is n-2. That is, for a new process node (n), they upgrade fabs 2 generations old. n-1 fabs (the current mode) are left alone as Intel needs that capacity in the present time.
So Intel is currently in the process of converting some 22nm capacity to 10nm. 14nm tabs are not being converted (Oregon dev space aside).
As much as I want to champion Google's efforts here, I feel like TFA is just trying to find a way to spin a failure as a success. Which is understandable, as that's a very human thing to do.
None the less, Google Fiber was absolutely a failure. Google threw down a ton of money on infrastructure they either never completed (Portland), or they completed systems and will probably never make back their initial investment (Kansas City). With Google's massive bank account it wasn't quite a boondoggle, but it none the less cost the company a lot of money.
And the reason it failed is because the company in turn failed to take into account where the wireless market would be 5 years down the line after they started. Starting in 2012 the big 4 wireless carriers hit the ground running on LTE, and hard. The end result is that while LTE offers a fraction of the performance of a good coaxial cable or fiber system, it covers something like 98% of the US population. It's everywhere, and in most places it's even kind of, sort of okay. And with everyone owning a cell phone anyhow, we're now seeing some cord cutters cut the hardline entirely and work entirely off of wireless. All of which has obliterated the critical mass of consumers required to fund a major new infrastructure build-out.
I admire Google's intentions, and I really wish I had some fiber myself. But they started building a fiber network right when consumers started switching to wireless. So it was just a good old fashioned failure: they built something that not enough people wanted.
"Be Sure To Drink Your Ovaltine"
Dammit. Got me again!
I think we're sort of missing the point of the article though. It's not an article about how the music industry is doomed, it's a study on what's currently the most popular way to pirate music.
Each of those methods was the most widely used method at one point. Cassette dubbing, MP3 sharing, and now ripping the audio track of a YouTube video. And each remained the most popular method until something better came along. MP3s offered perfect digital duplication, and now you can do the same thing by ripping YouTube, but without having to track down a reliable source.
Which yeah, probably doesn't have the RIAA sleeping all that soundly. Each iteration has made the process easier. At this point pretty much any moron can do it.
Unfortunately it pretty much does. Android is the Windows in this analogy; it's the OS running most of the world's smartphones.
Linux and Mac OS X are both niche operating systems in comparison. Linux is all techies (whom generally know what they're doing), and while OS X has some real traction, Apple also keeps it locked down. By default you can't even install external applications, never mind unsigned external applications. Android, on the other hand, has that ideal combination of ubiquity, deployment scale, and relatively soft security (since unsigned sideloading is allowed, unlike iOS).
The concerning thing here is that this has all the makings of a perfect storm for malware. On the one side you have the world's most popular mobile OS, frequently running on out-of-date devices with known security vulnerabilities. And on the other side you have one of the world's most popular games for kids and teenagers, who are by their very nature impulsive, and none of whom would have been around for the darkest days of Windows malware. This is exactly the kind of crowd that struggled with malware before, so they're the worst crowd to be leading out of the walled garden.
I completely get why Epic wants to do this: 30% adds up to a lot of money for a game that pulls in hundreds of millions a month. But for the broader Android user base this is a terrible idea.
Having the ability to install external APKs and actually enticing non-technical users to do it are two different things. The average smartphone user isn't prepared to use external sources, and if they do, it's going to end up like malware on Windows. Which is to say there's going to be trojan APKs left and right pretending to be Fortnite, or Fortnite with hacks, etc.
Fortnite's original game mode - Save The World - was a zombie survival game. If users have to install APKs from unknown sources, we're going to be surviving a whole new kind of zombie outbreak...
Oh no doubt. LTE isn't good enough to replace a landline for more than a small segment of the population. However it's just good enough to undermine the kind of critical mass required for major infrastructure projects. Which is exactly why Google has given up on fiber and is focusing on wireless instead. Everyone has a cell phone, even if they already have a landline.
The kicker here is that while this is happening, a not-insignificant number of customers are cutting the cord and moving entirely to cellular LTE. It's not everyone or even a majority, but enough that it significantly erodes the profitability of a landline operation.
Sure, it makes sense to invest in laying new cables and upgrading when you can count on 95% of all households subscribing. But what about 90%? 80%? 70%? Because so much of the infrastructure cost is shared, even though the last mile itself isn't cheap, at some point you lose the critical mass required to make a landline service profitable.
And this is why we're not going to see any more large fiber deployments. LTE is already "good enough" for a small number of people, and 5G mmWave is going to make cellular "good enough" for a larger group. Fiber is still superior, but the driving factors are economic, not technical.
(As an aside, this is why government intervention is a tricky thing. Should governments be investing in fiber when wireless would seem to be the future?)
Eh? The primary link is to the San Jose Mercury News, which has a well-written (if somewhat short) article on the subject. It's one of secondary links within the TFA itself - to KPIX 5 - that has the video. Unsurprisingly, a TV news station will have a video.
Note that if you try to cancel, they'll just instead give you a credit equal to the increase to balance things out. AT&T's end of the contract is only void if they actually charge you more and you object to it, so that negates the "charge you more" part.
This is a very common tactic in these situations on the carrier's part. They have no intention of breaking the contract and letting you leave with a phone that has yet to be fully paid off. But they also know that most people aren't going to haggle over $12/year, so it's a calculated risk that you'll simply go with the flow and pay the extra money.
Correction: she did not hold up Navi.
It was the 7nm Vega chip that she held up, which is what comes before Navi.
Because if Intel didn't try to push the envelope, no one would.
PC OEMs (outside of Apple) have long had a case of tunnel vision. They're stuck in the next-quarter mindset, so they'll double-down on whatever is selling well at this instant, and rarely put serious money into developing new concepts. They're the 21st century equivalent of Henry Ford believing that all Model Ts should be black.
As a result, it's fallen to Intel to do a lot of the development and marketing of new PC concepts. At various times they've spurred on both highly successful devices like Ultrabooks, and flops like Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).
Intel's interest in it is that if they don't do this, someone else will develop the next generation of computing and the x86 PC market will miss the boat. And given what's happened with mobile devices - where Intel did miss the boat by investing in MIDs instead - they're right to be concerned.
Eh, a little bit of both. You are of course right that people already receive orders through machines; but they aren't orders from machines. I'm not interacting with a machine as if it's a person; I know from the start that it's a machine. Which also means I'm prepared to deal with said machine (or just give up on it entirely) when things go wrong.
Voice does (or at least used to) imply that you're working with a human. An adaptable, intelligent being. It means we extend certain curtsies to them and in turn there are certain expectations about how they are to behave (and they'll get shunned if they fail those). A machine, on the other hand, doesn't care about social norms or cues. Which means they are inherently jackasses, and we're wasting time and energy making these social gestures to a machine that could just be telling us what it wants upfront.
The legacy of computerized voice systems is phone trees that never work and roboscammers who harass us all day and night. And now we want to have even more systems calling us? Consider how stupid Google Assistant already is, and then realize that Duplex will be even dumber since the user on the other end won't know they're dealing with it. The person placing the request will never have to deal with the frustrations that come with Duplex going wrong; for the poor sods working service jobs on the other hand, this is going to be a new robocaller hell.