Actually, there really isn't that much difference between the various Tegra II 10" Honeycomb tablets. Mostly the same screen res, same processor, same speed, same memory, similar storage, etc.
Motorola did have slow updates at first, but that was also BECAUSE they were first (with Honeycomb). I am not trying to make excuses for them, but they did have a huge challenge trying to get Honeycomb working properly (and so did other early adopters). Things seem much more normal now- over the last few months, I have had three Xoom updates...
I think you are working off old data. Motorola already indicated they have sold 400,000 Xooms in just the second quarter and estimates sales around 1.5 million units for 2011. Of course, this is much lower than they would like, but it is not dismal, afterall. Plus they are working on a Xoom 2.
They had a rocky start with disappointing sales in the first part of the year. But as the bugs were shaken out and the price dropped, sales started picking up steadily. They also lost momentum with not having the WiFi model available right at the start. Initial pricing was their biggest problem- they simply could not ask for the same price as the iPad and get stellar sales.
On the non-Xoom scene, the Asus Transformer is being sold at something like 400,000 units PER MONTH. Samsung is doing OK too. If you add up all the Android tablet sales, it is not a horrible number of sales at all. I suspect, but I am not sure, that this stuff will take off big time for Christmas and keep going up in 2012. Guess we wait and see.
But HTC just slashed the price of their Flyer 7". Motorola dropped the Xoom price by $100. Other strong players are following too that are not exiting the tablet market and not giving up.
My point was that the manufacturers took notice how quickly and insanely people went after tablets when the price dropped enough. They will probably shift into a smaller profit margin with a larger volume type sales model now. Consumers will win. This is generally a good thing.
I waited patiently for the Xoom WiFi before buying a tablet. I am glad I did. A lot of pre-Xoom products looked interesting, but lacked one or more of the following: solid OS, large name manufacturer, real (capacitive) touch screen, good compute power, decent amount of memory and storage.
It was too expensive... but so was and is the iPad. I didn't want an iPad, and now the Xoom is $100 less and LOTS of Tegra II, 10" honeycomb tablets are available. Perhaps too many! And Amazon's recent product intro and the success of the Touchpad firesale has FINALLY shaken up the market and prices are starting to drop rapidly.
Aren't you just so witty! Obviously you don't know what I am talking about, nor are you worthy of a further explanation. So just keep on having fun trolling.
You are the "dumbass" not me. Think before you post. And try to act like a human. I guess that is what happens when rude idiots hide behind anonymity.
How much sense does it make to go into a file manager that CAN NOT present pictures properly, then select a directory, then pull up another app that doesn't know what you were doing before and then you are trapped in a new pseudo top level?
Yes, I tried QickPic. It was the best of them all. And it FAILED directory trees exactly the same way Gallery does. I sent the developer Email several months ago asking for the option and he said he would look into it but that it would be "hard". I am still hoping he will get to it.
File managers are not decent photo display applications. I know, I tried them. They usually don't understand how to zoom, how to full screen, how to maxpect, how to create a thumblist, etc, etc.
I don't want to look "at the filesystem", I simply want a photo gallery application that doesn't assume the user is completely stupid. Many of us really do have a clue, and put the photos in specific nested directories for a very good reason.
I don't think it is too much to ask for Gallery (for example) to have the option of not trying to "hide" the directory structure.
>"The only native app that allows you to navigate movies is the Gallery app, which is great for photos"
No, it is NOT great for photos because it doesn't understand what a directory structure is. So it flattens out all my subdirectories into just two levels, making it impossible to find anything. Sure, it might work fine for someone just using the camera and with a few directories of stuff. But for someone who wants to load their card with thousands of pictures so they can use their tablet as a nice display system- it is a mess.
Unfortunately, not a SINGLE photo display app I have tested can properly display nested subdirectories with more than 1 nest. And Gallery does the same crappy thing for videos too, it is just that I don't have tons of them, so it isn't an issue.
That would be very unsafe and uncomfortable. Not to mention it has almost no ability to lean, so I won't be able to corner hardly at all. The driver in the video is improperly dressed (no boots, no gloves, no jacket). It is also illegal just about everywhere in the USA to have a private vehicle with ANY type of blue lights on it.
Let me correct my above posting.... I went back and told it I wanted it for MS-Windows and it also said 10.3. So perhaps it "introduced" but not available for download on ANY platform yet.
I apologize (I do wish it were possible to correct or delete postings, oh well, my bad)
Why is there no HARDWARE BASED OVERRIDE to turn off this behavior? No software or root kit could EVER change a jumper or DIP switch on the motherboard. So wouldn't it be reasonable to have some [not terribly easy] hardware based way to disable or reset the locking when a customer doesn't want it or needs to be able to install something else?
Plus- how are people going to feel when their brand new computer right now can't upgrade to MS-Windows 8, simply because it doesn't have the lockdown feature?
Too bad that cash will eventually be outlawed. Or if not outlawed, marginalized so badly as to be just as bad. (Serial numbers will be scanned at every point and traced back to a bank withdrawal and combined with mandatory ID checks).
Yeah, because it is sooooo much more difficult to take out a card and swipe it than it is to take my phone out of its case, unlock it, find and launch the app, and then "tap" it on some reader thing.
Just what I want to do after giving Google access to my contacts, my phone calls, my applications, my location, and all my searching.... give them access to my purchasing and purchasing records.
No thanks.
And no, I don't have a Google checkout account (one reason I use Amazon App Market) and don't use Gmail (I have a Gmail account ONLY because it is mandated for Android, I don't actually use it), and don't use Google talk or chat or Picasa or Plus. For all of these, I intentionally use different services/carriers.
I am amazed that most people see no danger in turning over more and more and more and more personal information to a single, giant company. Especially one that makes all its money not on we as "customers" but from other companies. And one that doesn't even have a way to contact a human when something goes horribly wrong.
I was wondering the same thing. Based on what others are saying, it probably was close to 4:3:(
However... There might be some "overscan" that we never saw. It was (is?) common to zoom in on the picture a bit so that it was guaranteed to fill the whole screen.
What I would love to see is if they could zoom in a bit, like they originally did, then crop the top/bottom as before, but try to capture and use the overscan.. possibly even stretch it just a TINY bit. They could never get 16:9, but they might be able to end up with something between 4:3 and 16:9.
Since it is bluray, it would be better if they could offer this enhanced, wider-version as an OPTION and the original 4:3, both on the same disc.
If they are really remastering this sucker properly, it will be a LOT of work. Scanning is nothing. But all the touchups- that will be a lot of labor. Without proper fixing, it might look horrible on HD. The sets and effects were all done with crappy, analog SD in mind. HD could reveal all kinds of problems. Although the live shots were on film that probably had a much higher potential resolution, the computer generated effects we generated digitally, and shot at a low resolution.
Plus they have to work on the sound, especially if you want to try and properly simulate 5.1 surround.
Yes, it is possible. Of course, anything could happen. But for now it is just slowed growth.
I do think that with better lighting options, better insulation, better efficiency with appliances, higher energy costs, it only makes sense that eventually the average consumption will go down.
Not sure about TOTAL consumption, though. Unfortunately, population continues to increase, which will mean more people having more appliances, more houses, more cars, more of everything. Especially true when you look at total world population. Seems pretty grim.
>"From 2000 to 2010, the growth rate slowed to 2 percent. Over the next 10 years, demand is expected to decline by about 0.5 percent a year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit group funded by the utility industry."
That means the rate that GROWTH is increasing will slow down. That does not mean absolute power usage is going down. That won't happen until total growth is NEGATIVE.
I am quite sure many people are misreading this to mean it is a reduction in energy use, which it is not. We are a loooooong way away from that happening. Still, a reduction in growth of energy usage is a good sign.
I don't know about the "average person", but while I am in the bathroom shaving, washing, showering, bathing, trimming, using the toilet, etc, I have neither the time nor inclination to somehow stare at (or maybe interact with) text and graphics on a mirror over the vanity...
We used to use Grammatik that was a stand-alone Unix package and then later integrated into Unix WordPerfect. It was a bit annoying at times (PASSIVE VOICE! PASSIVE VOICE!) but helpful.
Since our move to OpenOffice for Linux, many years ago, it is something we sorely miss. So I can understand your frustration. The grammar addon for OpenOffice is incomplete and slow. I don't have any recommendations, unfortunately.
What is needed just as much as a spell checker is a grammar checker. Seems like younger people today simply can't figure out the difference between: Their, There, and They're.
And what happens when the government decides later to no longer support your browser of choice, or your operating system? Or they use some proprietary plugin or software package that is incompatible with what you have?
Are they going to pay for you to have a new computer, new software licensing, training?
People can complain about snail-mail, but at least it has ZERO compatibility problems and has an extremely easy user interface...
>"Are you perhaps exagerating the extra time added because of the 2.5 minute bootup time? "
No. I timed it twice with a stopwatch! Once I get to the "beep", loading Linux seems instant in comparison.
In the cases where I am rebooting, I can't really do anything else, either. I am not remote, and it is not enough time to leave to do anything else, especially if I want to EVER seen the progress messages.
What really floors me is the 40 or so seconds that there is a completely black screen before ANYTHING appears!
While I generally agree with you, more than half the 2.5 minutes there isn't even anything on the screen at all.... zero signal. Plus, there are no options in the BIOS to do anything to speed up the booting.
Allowing it to go through god-knows how many tests EVERY time with no option to turn anything off or down is just crazy when you have to do tons of initial rebooting.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, there really isn't that much difference between the various Tegra II 10" Honeycomb tablets. Mostly the same screen res, same processor, same speed, same memory, similar storage, etc.
Motorola did have slow updates at first, but that was also BECAUSE they were first (with Honeycomb). I am not trying to make excuses for them, but they did have a huge challenge trying to get Honeycomb working properly (and so did other early adopters). Things seem much more normal now- over the last few months, I have had three Xoom updates...
I think you are working off old data. Motorola already indicated they have sold 400,000 Xooms in just the second quarter and estimates sales around 1.5 million units for 2011. Of course, this is much lower than they would like, but it is not dismal, afterall. Plus they are working on a Xoom 2.
They had a rocky start with disappointing sales in the first part of the year. But as the bugs were shaken out and the price dropped, sales started picking up steadily. They also lost momentum with not having the WiFi model available right at the start. Initial pricing was their biggest problem- they simply could not ask for the same price as the iPad and get stellar sales.
On the non-Xoom scene, the Asus Transformer is being sold at something like 400,000 units PER MONTH. Samsung is doing OK too. If you add up all the Android tablet sales, it is not a horrible number of sales at all. I suspect, but I am not sure, that this stuff will take off big time for Christmas and keep going up in 2012. Guess we wait and see.
http://www.androidguys.com/2011/07/29/motorola-expects-15-million-xoom-sales-2011/
But HTC just slashed the price of their Flyer 7". Motorola dropped the Xoom price by $100. Other strong players are following too that are not exiting the tablet market and not giving up.
My point was that the manufacturers took notice how quickly and insanely people went after tablets when the price dropped enough. They will probably shift into a smaller profit margin with a larger volume type sales model now. Consumers will win. This is generally a good thing.
I waited patiently for the Xoom WiFi before buying a tablet. I am glad I did. A lot of pre-Xoom products looked interesting, but lacked one or more of the following: solid OS, large name manufacturer, real (capacitive) touch screen, good compute power, decent amount of memory and storage.
It was too expensive... but so was and is the iPad. I didn't want an iPad, and now the Xoom is $100 less and LOTS of Tegra II, 10" honeycomb tablets are available. Perhaps too many! And Amazon's recent product intro and the success of the Touchpad firesale has FINALLY shaken up the market and prices are starting to drop rapidly.
Aren't you just so witty! Obviously you don't know what I am talking about, nor are you worthy of a further explanation. So just keep on having fun trolling.
You are the "dumbass" not me. Think before you post. And try to act like a human. I guess that is what happens when rude idiots hide behind anonymity.
How much sense does it make to go into a file manager that CAN NOT present pictures properly, then select a directory, then pull up another app that doesn't know what you were doing before and then you are trapped in a new pseudo top level?
Far from ideal.
Yes, I tried QickPic. It was the best of them all. And it FAILED directory trees exactly the same way Gallery does. I sent the developer Email several months ago asking for the option and he said he would look into it but that it would be "hard". I am still hoping he will get to it.
File managers are not decent photo display applications. I know, I tried them. They usually don't understand how to zoom, how to full screen, how to maxpect, how to create a thumblist, etc, etc.
I don't want to look "at the filesystem", I simply want a photo gallery application that doesn't assume the user is completely stupid. Many of us really do have a clue, and put the photos in specific nested directories for a very good reason.
I don't think it is too much to ask for Gallery (for example) to have the option of not trying to "hide" the directory structure.
>"The only native app that allows you to navigate movies is the Gallery app, which is great for photos"
No, it is NOT great for photos because it doesn't understand what a directory structure is. So it flattens out all my subdirectories into just two levels, making it impossible to find anything. Sure, it might work fine for someone just using the camera and with a few directories of stuff. But for someone who wants to load their card with thousands of pictures so they can use their tablet as a nice display system- it is a mess.
Unfortunately, not a SINGLE photo display app I have tested can properly display nested subdirectories with more than 1 nest. And Gallery does the same crappy thing for videos too, it is just that I don't have tons of them, so it isn't an issue.
That would be very unsafe and uncomfortable. Not to mention it has almost no ability to lean, so I won't be able to corner hardly at all. The driver in the video is improperly dressed (no boots, no gloves, no jacket). It is also illegal just about everywhere in the USA to have a private vehicle with ANY type of blue lights on it.
Aside from all that, it is wicked kewl :)
Let me correct my above posting.... I went back and told it I wanted it for MS-Windows and it also said 10.3. So perhaps it "introduced" but not available for download on ANY platform yet.
I apologize (I do wish it were possible to correct or delete postings, oh well, my bad)
Why is there no HARDWARE BASED OVERRIDE to turn off this behavior? No software or root kit could EVER change a jumper or DIP switch on the motherboard. So wouldn't it be reasonable to have some [not terribly easy] hardware based way to disable or reset the locking when a customer doesn't want it or needs to be able to install something else?
Plus- how are people going to feel when their brand new computer right now can't upgrade to MS-Windows 8, simply because it doesn't have the lockdown feature?
>"Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11"
Correction:
"Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11 but only for MS-Windows."
Download Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player version 10.3.183.10
Your system: Linux, Firefox
Download Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player version 10.3
Your system: MacOS 10.4-10.7
+1
Too bad that cash will eventually be outlawed. Or if not outlawed, marginalized so badly as to be just as bad. (Serial numbers will be scanned at every point and traced back to a bank withdrawal and combined with mandatory ID checks).
It will be done in the name of "safety".
Yeah, because it is sooooo much more difficult to take out a card and swipe it than it is to take my phone out of its case, unlock it, find and launch the app, and then "tap" it on some reader thing.
Just what I want to do after giving Google access to my contacts, my phone calls, my applications, my location, and all my searching.... give them access to my purchasing and purchasing records.
No thanks.
And no, I don't have a Google checkout account (one reason I use Amazon App Market) and don't use Gmail (I have a Gmail account ONLY because it is mandated for Android, I don't actually use it), and don't use Google talk or chat or Picasa or Plus. For all of these, I intentionally use different services/carriers.
I am amazed that most people see no danger in turning over more and more and more and more personal information to a single, giant company. Especially one that makes all its money not on we as "customers" but from other companies. And one that doesn't even have a way to contact a human when something goes horribly wrong.
I was wondering the same thing. Based on what others are saying, it probably was close to 4:3 :(
However... There might be some "overscan" that we never saw. It was (is?) common to zoom in on the picture a bit so that it was guaranteed to fill the whole screen.
What I would love to see is if they could zoom in a bit, like they originally did, then crop the top/bottom as before, but try to capture and use the overscan.. possibly even stretch it just a TINY bit. They could never get 16:9, but they might be able to end up with something between 4:3 and 16:9.
Since it is bluray, it would be better if they could offer this enhanced, wider-version as an OPTION and the original 4:3, both on the same disc.
If they are really remastering this sucker properly, it will be a LOT of work. Scanning is nothing. But all the touchups- that will be a lot of labor. Without proper fixing, it might look horrible on HD. The sets and effects were all done with crappy, analog SD in mind. HD could reveal all kinds of problems. Although the live shots were on film that probably had a much higher potential resolution, the computer generated effects we generated digitally, and shot at a low resolution.
Plus they have to work on the sound, especially if you want to try and properly simulate 5.1 surround.
Yes, it is possible. Of course, anything could happen. But for now it is just slowed growth.
I do think that with better lighting options, better insulation, better efficiency with appliances, higher energy costs, it only makes sense that eventually the average consumption will go down.
Not sure about TOTAL consumption, though. Unfortunately, population continues to increase, which will mean more people having more appliances, more houses, more cars, more of everything. Especially true when you look at total world population. Seems pretty grim.
>"From 2000 to 2010, the growth rate slowed to 2 percent. Over the next 10 years, demand is expected to decline by about 0.5 percent a year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit group funded by the utility industry."
That means the rate that GROWTH is increasing will slow down. That does not mean absolute power usage is going down. That won't happen until total growth is NEGATIVE.
I am quite sure many people are misreading this to mean it is a reduction in energy use, which it is not. We are a loooooong way away from that happening. Still, a reduction in growth of energy usage is a good sign.
I don't know about the "average person", but while I am in the bathroom shaving, washing, showering, bathing, trimming, using the toilet, etc, I have neither the time nor inclination to somehow stare at (or maybe interact with) text and graphics on a mirror over the vanity...
Perhaps I am just not geeky enough?
Listening to music would be OK, I suppose :)
We used to use Grammatik that was a stand-alone Unix package and then later integrated into Unix WordPerfect. It was a bit annoying at times (PASSIVE VOICE! PASSIVE VOICE!) but helpful.
Since our move to OpenOffice for Linux, many years ago, it is something we sorely miss. So I can understand your frustration. The grammar addon for OpenOffice is incomplete and slow. I don't have any recommendations, unfortunately.
What is needed just as much as a spell checker is a grammar checker. Seems like younger people today simply can't figure out the difference between: Their, There, and They're.
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-There,-Their-and-They're
And what happens when the government decides later to no longer support your browser of choice, or your operating system? Or they use some proprietary plugin or software package that is incompatible with what you have?
Are they going to pay for you to have a new computer, new software licensing, training?
People can complain about snail-mail, but at least it has ZERO compatibility problems and has an extremely easy user interface...
>"Are you perhaps exagerating the extra time added because of the 2.5 minute bootup time? "
No. I timed it twice with a stopwatch! Once I get to the "beep", loading Linux seems instant in comparison.
In the cases where I am rebooting, I can't really do anything else, either. I am not remote, and it is not enough time to leave to do anything else, especially if I want to EVER seen the progress messages.
What really floors me is the 40 or so seconds that there is a completely black screen before ANYTHING appears!
Well, you are insulting my intelligence. Of course I have tried that and there are no such options.
I don't want to insult YOUR intelligence, but did you read my previous replies where I explained that already?
While I generally agree with you, more than half the 2.5 minutes there isn't even anything on the screen at all.... zero signal. Plus, there are no options in the BIOS to do anything to speed up the booting.
Allowing it to go through god-knows how many tests EVERY time with no option to turn anything off or down is just crazy when you have to do tons of initial rebooting.