Which means that if you have an idea for a new rotating tool, you can't just ship it as a drill attachment and expect a wide audience.
You can ship it as a drill attachment. But of course it won't be as successful as a dedicated power tool with it's own motor would be. What's the problem there?
each of which is better than the general purpose computer for a subset of tasks.
Say you were to ship video games as individual computing devices that each have their own screen, controller, and battery.
Which part of "subset of tasks" did you not understand? The games console is an excellent (and early) example of exactly this trend. It's a specialized computing device that takes on a subset of tasks from the general purpose computer.
There are still some games that the general purpose PC is better at. But that doesn't stop the console being widely successful, with apparently most families in the developed world having at least one.
Another good example is the smartphone. And before that the MP3 player.
You have to be dumb if you can't see that the tablet is just another example of more specialised computing device, that makes the PC incrementally less important, but doesn't replace it.
I, too, am willing to accept that man-made climate change is actually happening. That doesn't mean I won't remain a skeptic when it comes to government or private industries with agendas telling me I need to pay more money for their "solutions" to the problem.
The Republican 9 step plan to Global Warming Denial.
1) There's no such thing as global warming. 2) There's global warming, but the scientists are exaggerating. It's not significant. 3) There's significant global warming, but man doesn't cause it. 4) Man does cause it, but it's not a net negative. 5) It is a net negative, but it's not economically possible to tackle it. 6) We need to tackle global warming, so make the poor pay for it. 7) Global warming is bad for business. Why did the Democrats not tackle it earlier? 8) ???? 9) Profit.
I welcome the progression of at least accepting anthropogenic global warming is real.
They tried the direct approach, lying through people like Al Gore, and then got caught cooking the evidence. Now it's time to end the direct propaganda war
but I sincerely doubt that activists are going to blaze that trail...
Activists not only want that, it's happening. There are many tax incentives for green tech. But it's hard won as the old entrenched corporate powers that use lobbying to oppose it.
e.g. the Koch brothers funding the organisation that recently removed the incentive for solar electricity generation in one state.
There was a book on this topic called "The Invisible Computer", by Donald Norman.
It used the analogy of the electric motor for the computer. It points out that at one time you used to buy a general purpose electric motor, and then use it for all sorts of uses. It has historic photos of such motors being attached to washing machines for when the washing needed doing, and then to sewing machines for when the sewing needed doing and so on. Those images didn't mean much to me being from the wrong era and country.
But I remember well in the 1970s that every man had his electric drill, and a series of attachments. That drill wouldn't just be used for drilling, but with a disk for sanding or polishing the car, and with other attachments for circular saw or jig-saw, pumping water, or trimming the hedge.
But now there is no need for that. You can buy dedicated tools for all those things, at cheap prices. All thanks to Chinese manufacturing.
You can certainly can and do still buy a drill, and a few of those attachments are probably still available. But now you buy lots of more specialised devices that all have their own dedicated motor built in, rather than trying to resuse one device for all power tool jobs.
And that's the trajectory for computers. Starting as a general purpose computing device for all tasks. Then broadening out into many computing devices, each of which is better than the general purpose computer for a subset of tasks.
You gave one example of a task the tablet is good for. There are many more. It won't replace the general purpose PC, but it is taking some tasks that would previously have been done on PCs, and adding other tasks that previously wouldn't have been done at all, or at least not with the help of a computer.
Battery lifespan is quoted as when the batteries still have 80% capacity. And the iPad battery will be there after 1000 charge cycles. So perhaps 3 years if you use it heavily.
That doesn't mean you need to change the battery at 3 years.
You're also exaggerating the replacement cost. Apple's own replacement is $99 + $6.95 shipping. And there are of course cheaper options if you go elsewhere.
Thus there's no "do-everything console" unless you count set-top Android devices such as OUYA or set-top PCs such as the forthcoming Steam Machines.
OUYA failed big time. In fact we've had consoles for nearly 40 years, and no open console has ever succeeded. So maybe, just maybe, that's not what people want. There's no big demand for an open console.
And lest anyone says that open phones have been successful. (Leaving aside the dubious claim to Android openness.) Android phones have been successful by being the cheap option. Not by being the open option. The mass market isn't like the niche that populates Slashdot. They neither know nor care about this concept of "openness" in software.
I saw one yesterday. I had a guy in his 60s come over to me in the pub. Working class, non-geek. He saw I was using the internet on my laptop and asked how he could get his iPad on the WiFi. So I told him the AP and how to create an free account. It didn't work, I think because he pressed the wrong button on the web sign-up page. And then he wondered if it was because his old iPad was already registered.
Just because you're posting about EVs doesn't mean you have to channel Jeremy Clarkson's fantasy analogies. That is way beyond the sadness of the usual TopGear fan.
"Each solar power system is designed to generate more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger. This results in a slight net positive transfer of sunlight generated power back to the electricity grid." http://www.teslamotors.com/abo...
Edge case, which I already admitted would be the case.
Not nearly as edge case as using a gun for defense.
Not only that, but you pretty much should never be rushing someone to the hospital in your own car -- that should be handled by an ambulance driver who is trained and has the siren and lights to do so with some degree of safety.
That really depends on what the response time for an ambulance is in your area. And what the medical emergency is. For possible neck or back injury you certainly don't want to move the patient. But for many other things such as heart attack, stroke or childbirth problems, time is far more important than mode of transport.
And of course don't forget that emergency driving is also done by the emergency services. Doctors and cops also drive cars.
How many iPhones have been released with alternate/paid search providers? How many Windows phones have been released with an alternate paid search provider?
None. But then neither is anywhere close to a monopoly. Android is.
Android is very much the Windows of the mobile world. In many respects.
The way Microsoft had to do it on Windows (for their browser monopoly) was to provide a selection of browsers, in random order, with no default selected. Such a thing could also be provided for search engines. Either during the first set up of the phone. Or at the time of the first search. With the option in the settings to change at any time. So it's not a technical issue.
Also, the fact that it gives a different set of results to everyone based on what information they've spied about you is a big problem. No longer can you give a search term to someone else with the knowledge that if they do the search they will get pretty much the same results.
Still, it's nice that you know the name of the account under which Google is storing all the information it's spied from your searches, browsing and physical movements.
iOS was never a monopoly. Neither was iTunes store.
For sure you can only get apps for iOS on the iTunes store. But a monopoly is within a market, and a company's own platform does not constitute a market. For example there is no problem with HP enforcing use of their own ink cartridges, or Nintendo only allowing console games that have been published through them.
Was it Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, or one of the device manufactures operating the hidden hand behind the two people who filed the lawsuit?
The fact that the law company is based in Seattle should be grist for conspiracy theorists. On the other hand, as a law firm they do specialise in class actions suits against large corporations on a national basis, and most of them aren't Microsoft (or Apple or Yahoo) competitors, so maybe not.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but you can see a long way.
Which means that if you have an idea for a new rotating tool, you can't just ship it as a drill attachment and expect a wide audience.
You can ship it as a drill attachment. But of course it won't be as successful as a dedicated power tool with it's own motor would be. What's the problem there?
Say you were to ship video games as individual computing devices that each have their own screen, controller, and battery.
Which part of "subset of tasks" did you not understand? The games console is an excellent (and early) example of exactly this trend. It's a specialized computing device that takes on a subset of tasks from the general purpose computer.
There are still some games that the general purpose PC is better at. But that doesn't stop the console being widely successful, with apparently most families in the developed world having at least one.
Another good example is the smartphone. And before that the MP3 player.
You have to be dumb if you can't see that the tablet is just another example of more specialised computing device, that makes the PC incrementally less important, but doesn't replace it.
I'm enjoying the fact it went over the rednecks heads.
I, too, am willing to accept that man-made climate change is actually happening. That doesn't mean I won't remain a skeptic when it comes to government or private industries with agendas telling me I need to pay more money for their "solutions" to the problem.
The Republican 9 step plan to Global Warming Denial.
1) There's no such thing as global warming.
2) There's global warming, but the scientists are exaggerating. It's not significant.
3) There's significant global warming, but man doesn't cause it.
4) Man does cause it, but it's not a net negative.
5) It is a net negative, but it's not economically possible to tackle it.
6) We need to tackle global warming, so make the poor pay for it.
7) Global warming is bad for business. Why did the Democrats not tackle it earlier?
8) ????
9) Profit.
I welcome the progression of at least accepting anthropogenic global warming is real.
They tried the direct approach, lying through people like Al Gore, and then got caught cooking the evidence. Now it's time to end the direct propaganda war
Ahem. You're the one engaged in a propaganda war.
but I sincerely doubt that activists are going to blaze that trail...
Activists not only want that, it's happening. There are many tax incentives for green tech. But it's hard won as the old entrenched corporate powers that use lobbying to oppose it.
e.g. the Koch brothers funding the organisation that recently removed the incentive for solar electricity generation in one state.
Hippies always start with education. But it never takes long for them to turn to laws and court cases to force their point of view on the rest of us.
Rednecks are hard to educate.
There was a book on this topic called "The Invisible Computer", by Donald Norman.
It used the analogy of the electric motor for the computer. It points out that at one time you used to buy a general purpose electric motor, and then use it for all sorts of uses. It has historic photos of such motors being attached to washing machines for when the washing needed doing, and then to sewing machines for when the sewing needed doing and so on. Those images didn't mean much to me being from the wrong era and country.
But I remember well in the 1970s that every man had his electric drill, and a series of attachments. That drill wouldn't just be used for drilling, but with a disk for sanding or polishing the car, and with other attachments for circular saw or jig-saw, pumping water, or trimming the hedge.
But now there is no need for that. You can buy dedicated tools for all those things, at cheap prices. All thanks to Chinese manufacturing.
You can certainly can and do still buy a drill, and a few of those attachments are probably still available. But now you buy lots of more specialised devices that all have their own dedicated motor built in, rather than trying to resuse one device for all power tool jobs.
And that's the trajectory for computers. Starting as a general purpose computing device for all tasks. Then broadening out into many computing devices, each of which is better than the general purpose computer for a subset of tasks.
You gave one example of a task the tablet is good for. There are many more. It won't replace the general purpose PC, but it is taking some tasks that would previously have been done on PCs, and adding other tasks that previously wouldn't have been done at all, or at least not with the help of a computer.
Battery lifespan is quoted as when the batteries still have 80% capacity. And the iPad battery will be there after 1000 charge cycles. So perhaps 3 years if you use it heavily.
That doesn't mean you need to change the battery at 3 years.
You're also exaggerating the replacement cost. Apple's own replacement is $99 + $6.95 shipping.
And there are of course cheaper options if you go elsewhere.
And I gave one part of the answer. But not all.
And it's a useful answer. You only need to have one search engine better than Google.
Thus there's no "do-everything console" unless you count set-top Android devices such as OUYA or set-top PCs such as the forthcoming Steam Machines.
OUYA failed big time. In fact we've had consoles for nearly 40 years, and no open console has ever succeeded. So maybe, just maybe, that's not what people want. There's no big demand for an open console.
And lest anyone says that open phones have been successful. (Leaving aside the dubious claim to Android openness.) Android phones have been successful by being the cheap option. Not by being the open option. The mass market isn't like the niche that populates Slashdot. They neither know nor care about this concept of "openness" in software.
I saw one yesterday. I had a guy in his 60s come over to me in the pub. Working class, non-geek. He saw I was using the internet on my laptop and asked how he could get his iPad on the WiFi. So I told him the AP and how to create an free account. It didn't work, I think because he pressed the wrong button on the web sign-up page. And then he wondered if it was because his old iPad was already registered.
These iPads are mass market.
A tablet doesn't need a "full desktop experience" to run an SSH server or a proper copy of CUPS.
Guess what? In terms of sales, the ability to run SSH or CUPS is somewhat less important than the ability to run knitting pattern apps.
So you claim. Prove them wrong. Otherwise I'll believe the people who actually know, The people who built them.
Kristin Scott Thomas?
Just because you're posting about EVs doesn't mean you have to channel Jeremy Clarkson's fantasy analogies. That is way beyond the sadness of the usual TopGear fan.
"Each solar power system is designed to generate more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger. This results in a slight net positive transfer of sunlight generated power back to the electricity grid."
http://www.teslamotors.com/abo...
I think you're confusing him with his father Ron Paul. They're both wacko libertarians. But the son is rather less intelligent than the father.
Edge case, which I already admitted would be the case.
Not nearly as edge case as using a gun for defense.
Not only that, but you pretty much should never be rushing someone to the hospital in your own car -- that should be handled by an ambulance driver who is trained and has the siren and lights to do so with some degree of safety.
That really depends on what the response time for an ambulance is in your area. And what the medical emergency is. For possible neck or back injury you certainly don't want to move the patient. But for many other things such as heart attack, stroke or childbirth problems, time is far more important than mode of transport.
And of course don't forget that emergency driving is also done by the emergency services. Doctors and cops also drive cars.
I don't know about Bing. But duckduckgo is very anonymous.
https://duckduckgo.com/
If you follow the links on the right side of the screen, they'll show you the many ways in which Google breach your privacy and they don't.
How many iPhones have been released with alternate/paid search providers? How many Windows phones have been released with an alternate paid search provider?
None. But then neither is anywhere close to a monopoly. Android is.
Android is very much the Windows of the mobile world. In many respects.
The way Microsoft had to do it on Windows (for their browser monopoly) was to provide a selection of browsers, in random order, with no default selected. Such a thing could also be provided for search engines. Either during the first set up of the phone. Or at the time of the first search. With the option in the settings to change at any time. So it's not a technical issue.
Also, the fact that it gives a different set of results to everyone based on what information they've spied about you is a big problem. No longer can you give a search term to someone else with the knowledge that if they do the search they will get pretty much the same results.
Duck Duck Go is useful for that reason too.
Still, it's nice that you know the name of the account under which Google is storing all the information it's spied from your searches, browsing and physical movements.
iOS was never a monopoly. Neither was iTunes store.
For sure you can only get apps for iOS on the iTunes store. But a monopoly is within a market, and a company's own platform does not constitute a market. For example there is no problem with HP enforcing use of their own ink cartridges, or Nintendo only allowing console games that have been published through them.
Was it Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, or one of the device manufactures operating the hidden hand behind the two people who filed the lawsuit?
The fact that the law company is based in Seattle should be grist for conspiracy theorists. On the other hand, as a law firm they do specialise in class actions suits against large corporations on a national basis, and most of them aren't Microsoft (or Apple or Yahoo) competitors, so maybe not.