"Enough pouring all the money into NASA. How about putting some to use here on earth, either to help the victims of Katrina, clean up the sewage/toxic waste pumping out of New Orleans, or simply reducing the deficit?"
Technology developed for the space program filters into common daily living back here on Earth proper. Your argument is short-sighted.
Giving more money to "the poor" will not advanced humanity one bit. Spending it on science helps all eventually.
"We still have the tech. It's come and gone as many different engines, including DUMBO, Timberwind, the Space Shuttle upper stage engines, and (most recently) TRITON."
Yep, those would be the ones. I just find the idea that we have the technology but won't implement it due to budget issues is as short sighted and detrimental just as the Romans having had the capacity to create the steam engine (and thus start the industrial revolution long before it finally happened) but failed to do so because of cultural limitations (ie. no need for labor saving techniques due to abundant slavery).
"While it's good to see NASA seriously looking into returning to the Moon, I think the money would be better spend in focusing on sending robotic missions. Not only would it be more cost effective, but it could have just as great a scientific return, and would spur the development of a technology that would have huge spin off benefits here on earth."
I disagree. Culturally and psychologically speaking, it would be far more powerful and beneficial to humanity in general to see man (yes, man) walking on the Moon again (or for the first time) and Mars than it would to spend monies on robots to do the job. Given the choice of seeing a man on Mars or a better performing Sony Aibo thanks to spin-off technology, I'll choose seeing a human on another planet.
Besides, as any astute scifi viewer knows, there's no rush on robotic advancement. Personal robotics does not reach its creative height until the 51st Century when Professor Marius creates *K-9*, who becomes the trusted companion of an eccentric Time Lord who calls himself "The Doctor".
"We can land men on the moon, and prepare for $100 billion plans to go back there. But we cannot send help to US disaster victims, on US soil, within 2 weeks."
Are you proposing instead that our nation bestow a block grant of $100 billion given to Louisiana for K-12 education so maybe by the time there's another natural disaster there, there might be a chance that they'll have a competent governor and mayor?
And when you mention "life threatening situations," you should probably think about the consequences of keeping mankind stuck to a single planetary existence. The term is "species extinction". So yeah, for the benefit of mankind in general, I'd prefer the Feds to spend $100 billion ($336 out of my pocket) on space exploration.
"What you may be thinking about is that the JIMO mission was cut in favor of testing the Prometheus technologies prior to assigning the device to an expensive scientific mission."
What bugs me was the sight of the rockets designed for travel to Mars back in the 1970s sitting out in the desert. Saw it on a special program televised by the Discovery Science channel last year. If it was possible, we should've went to Mars then.
"We're slowly becoming a race of cowards when it comes to exploring new frontiers."
Sounds like the same argument a former ABC late night talk-shop host made when comparing suicide plane hijackers to the Air Force's use of the Predator drones and cruise missiles.
"Bush's administration has done a reasonable job of making sure that we are on a viable track to returning to the moon and reaching Mars. My hope is that the next President who shows up doesn't dive in and try to change everything."
Or completely cancel it like what the fresh-at-the-time Clinton Administration did to Project Prometheus, which the current Bush Administration thankfully restarted.
"The Xbox/MS Games team was the only part of MS that "got it"... now it seems like the business practices plaguing the rest of the company are slowly infecting the last bastion of customer appreciation."
Well, in all fairness, the Macintosh Business Unit and the Hardware division are also worthy parts of Microsoft that do not deserve the scorn the rest of that company deserves. I like my Xbox, and I wouldn't mind an Xbox360, but I think the PS3 will crush it.
Just as the Sony PSP is the Atari Lynx of 2005, the Xbox360 is the Sega Dreamcast of 2005.
"He's even part of XO Communications and tried to takeover the ailing Marvel Comics. There's a book about it called Comic Wars."
That book will really make you h8 Icahn. Almost as much as Ron Pearleman of Revlon and wonder how it is possible for such business dealings to be considered legal.
B&N has the hardcover on closeout for something like $8 in their stores. I picked it up a couple of months ago. Great read.
"Probably a nice investment for MS if they can combine their msn messenger users with AOL's instant messenger users."
Its probably a pre-emptive strike against Sony if you think about it. There was talk back in the day of AIM working on the Sony PS2, and this would ensure that AIM will not make it to the PS3. MSN+AIM could be integrated with XboxLive for the Xbox360.
Or, it gives Microsoft a leg up against Apple in terms of the iChat partnership AOL and Apple have.
We could also see iTunes support via AOL Music dropped.
There's a lot not to like about this "partnership" and the Feds are probably asleep at the wheel.
"Just about every 'little' project that AOL purchased has already been shutdown as a financial failure. Really, everything AOL touches turns to shit--- As a result, none of their 'little' divisions actually exists anymore."
You mean "everything Time Warner touches turns to shit." Steve Case at least grasped the importance of all of those acquisitions he made. Its the Time Warner board who does not know/does not understand/does not care about whether those properties live or die.
Its fitting to see that Time Warner is planning on ditching its stake in AOL (just as its turning around) to a *former competitor* in order to boost share price and fend off a corporate raider like Carl Icahn today. 21 odd years ago, Warner Communications, facing a declining stock price and facing a corporate raider named Rupert Murdoch, sold off a 75% stake in Atari Inc. (the home computer/videogame division - later to be known as Atari Corp.) to *former competitor* Jack Tramiel (founder of Commodore) for $350 million in promissory notes in order to take off immediate pressure on Warner's stock. Murdoch eventually bought a controlling stake in 20th Century Fox instead since one of its big time shareholders fled the country on tax evasion. And it was evident even then that Atari was ready for a turnaround with the Atari 7800 ready for the market, hot 8 bit computers in heavy demand (the 1400XL and the 1450XLD) nearing release, a locked agreement to market the Amiga computer, and an almost completed agreement for non-Japanese worldwide rights to the Nintendo Famicom (which became the NES).
Great track record, Time Warner! That's twice in a generation that you've botched the "synergy" payoff from having control of premiere tech companies with mass market appeal. First Atari, and then AOL.
And let's recap the failures of Time Warner with AOL. Time Warner corporate failed to get Time Warner Cable to carry AOL as its premiere ISP, which was the #1 reason why AOL pursued the merger in the first place. Time Warner corporate failed to take any initiative to getting Time Warner Cable to make a deal with TiVo for set-top DVRs even though through AOL, Time Warner held a large stake in TiVo. Time Warner failed to leverage AOL's WinAmp property combined with the Warner Music Group interests...not to mention failing to envision an actual online music store like iTunes and instead relied upon nobody's favorite company Real to make MusicNet a success that it never became. I could list much more, but I'll end it with settling with Microsoft for less than $1 billion the antitrust case that AOL easily would've won the $10 billion they were demanding (and had that figure trebbled) had they committed to fight for the eventual ruling and a good 5 years of appeals.
At this point, I'm all for Time Warner splitting up. Steve Ross must be spinning in his grave and it'll probably take Ted Turner to his well ahead of schedule.
"AIM is more popular in America. Not the rest of the world. No one in Europe or Asia uses AIM. It's either MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger."
Funny. I've known quite a few British chicas over the years who used AIM. But then, most people only consider Britain geographically part of *Europe* anyway.
"These days DVD burners support both recordable DVD types but DVD-R is still the better choice if you want to make DVD-Video discs to play in consumer players."
And that's precisely the reason why Apple did not throw in support for DVD+R until combo drives became the norm of the industry. Why hype iMovie and iDVD if the home movie you create probably won't play on your relative's DVD player? Me thinks the previous poster just had their formats mixed up.
And as for the DVD Forum's lack of endorsement, the DVD Forum has backed HD-DVD over Blu Ray even though Blu Ray appears to be superior in just about every category except disc manufacturing cost.
"It is the other way around - Apple only supports DVD+R/RW."
Nope. That was Microsoft and HP that threw their weight behind DVD+R. Apple supported DVD-R. Although, like every other computer manufacturer, Apple now supports DVD+/-R/RW and is finally rolling out dual layer drives.
"Gates on open source:"There are some zealots that think there should be no software jobs, that we should all, like, cut hair during the day and write code at night." Either he just doesn't get it, or he's refusing to acknowledge what open source software (and the GPL) really is. That OSS developers cut hair for a living to support their "habit" is ridiculous. Would you let a slashdot member cut *your* hair?"
Funny how I thought he [Gates] had mixed up a cheap reference to Stallman. Something along the lines of Stallman refusing to cut anything but "GNUhair"...or how Stallman apparently doesn't have his hair cut...
I'm trying to picture the lovely lady at the local Supercuts coding software after hours. Maybe in a motion-picture, but certainly not in the real world...
"I'm fairly certain Paige would thoroughly pound Gates into the floor; but Ballmer is really freakin' scary. That one I'm not so sure of. I'm picturing Ballmer being able to take out both Paige and Brin at the same time."
I'd rather see a fight between Gates and Larry Ellison, or Baller and Ellison. Considering Ellison thinks of himself as a samurai and also owns a MiG-29, me thinks he's a couple of stone throws away from donning a bat suit and fighting crime in his spare time. And thus Ellison would wipe the floor with both Gates and Ballmer. Talk about wanting to pay to see something on tv or the net...:)
"Kerry's got more guts than that incompetent you backed and he's a better man. And, for the record, you can take your points and stick 'em right up your godless, corrupt Republican ass."
My point is that McCain is a *real* war hero. So if you want to cite that (war hero) as a great quality for a candidate, then you should be lamenting that McCain failed to receive the nomination for the 2000 campaign.
Kerry went into that "war" so that he could make a name for himself and run against it. Kinda like how he voted against the Kyoto Treaty when it was in the Senate and then later criticized Bush for not supporting that very same treaty. Yep, that makes him quite a man now doesn't it?
And continuing, I don't think it was Bush who married a billionnaire to get access to easy campaign money to further his political career. But I might be wrong. Oh wait, he (Bush) married a school teacher. My bad.
Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source
on
Bill Gates Speaks Out
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"And despite what a lot of people will think on the surface (whoa look at how cool Microsoft has made Office 12), it is really Apple, Linux and the Open Source competition that has made Microsoft get its ass in gear."
Not to mention AOL (which consistently beat MSN throughout the dial-up era)*, Palm (held off Microsoft for several years in the PDA market), Nokia (fending off Smartphone via Symbian), TiVo (mopped the floor with UltimateTV - leading to Windows Media Center improved annually), Adobe's PDF format, Sun's Java, and Sony (Playstation2). And Google thrashing Microsoft in search.
While Apple's Mac OS X is forcing improvements with Windows, its in the other media areas that Apple is thrashing Microsoft interests consistently. The cablecos and satellite companies have settled on Apple supported H.264 as the HD codec of choice over Windows Media. The Windows Media codec may be eliminated from the Blu-Ray format before its market debut, and as it stands, H.264 is also supported with the HD-DVD format. The Microsoft supported DVD+R spec did not trump the Apple backed DVD-R format and now combo drives are the norm. And Apple's iPod/iTunes support of Dolby's AAC audio codec has seriously frakked up Microsoft's WMA format dominating the MP3 player market.
If Corporate America ever is successfully persuaded to switch to Linux or OS X and open source application suite software, Microsoft will be toast...and I don't mean that application by Roxio either.
*Forgot to mention how AOL's AIM (and AIM supporters like iChat) is still more popular than MSN Messenger.
"By owning a ReplayTV instead of a Tivo, I feel like I'm living in that crawlspace, away from all the media attention that a company like Tivo gets."
And thus you have a product whose parent company has an even more dire future than TiVo does.
"My 5060 (w/ the requisite hard drive upgrade, of course) still automatically skips commercials. They aren't taking away features I bought, and I appreciate it."
You can enable the "commercial skip/30 second advance" on TiVo units. ReplayTV just stuck an actual button on their remote and triggered a giant lawsuit from the Broadcasters Association that brought down the Company. Despite having spent millions on legal bills, the attorneys Replay (SonicBlue) had on the payroll apparently weren't smart enough to make the case that several VCR manufacturers were putting 30 second "commercial skip" buttons on their remote controls and those were name brand machines being sold at CostCo at the time. TiVo survived and Replay's second owner did not. Judge who was the foolish party.
It should also be stated that TiVo is entertaining the thought of adding a commercial skip button to its standard remote control. Its an option of new feature requests on their webpage found here:
"There's no pop-up advertisements like Tivo has. There just isn't the money in doing stuff like that because the user base is so small (but the development effort doesn't get cheaper as a result)."
The pop-up ads aren't intrusive. If it eventually makes TiVo profitable enough to cancel subscriptions, I'm all for it. Plus, I like having the option of receiving materials from Range Rover and other advertisers if I request it. That's a feature that is changing television advertising for the better. The omission of such a feature and revenue generator on the Replay platform just illustrates the ineptitute that has plagued the product since 1999...a failure to understand the industry.
"The Macintosh has, lately, demonstrated less enthusiasm about adopting the various DRM flavor of the month technologies that the Windows PC has. This is in part because there isn't the same level of scrutiny, and also because the development effort of adding that stuff doesn't amortize across the user base as well."
No, its because Steve Jobs has vision when compared to Steve "the Chair Master" Ballmer. Apple also has a dedicated user base (and a sustainable one at that) willing to devote $$$ to Apple products. TiVo has a similar fanatical user base passionate about the product and is mainly disgusted with the Company for not going far enough. Replay does not have any of that, except for "me too" users who always feel compelled to post on websites about ReplayTV whenever a story breaks about TiVo.
I should also mention that TiVo has from the start had the intention of eventually killing off the Nielsen ratings thanks to its aggregate data collection. ReplayTV never had such an intention. That was one of the major reasons why I went with TiVo originally over Replay. I don't care if my TiVo reports what I watch because I want the Nielsens taken down for the sham that I believe they are. I'm not worried about the government coming to arrest me if the TiVo records *Skinamax* or anything else on television because anything too controversial and/or critical of the government will never hit the airwaves to begin with, and any tin-foil hat wearer worthy of their aluminum foil knows that.
Slashdot Mirror
"Enough pouring all the money into NASA. How about putting some to use here on earth, either to help the victims of Katrina, clean up the sewage/toxic waste pumping out of New Orleans, or simply reducing the deficit?"
Technology developed for the space program filters into common daily living back here on Earth proper. Your argument is short-sighted.
Giving more money to "the poor" will not advanced humanity one bit. Spending it on science helps all eventually.
"We still have the tech. It's come and gone as many different engines, including DUMBO, Timberwind, the Space Shuttle upper stage engines, and (most recently) TRITON."
Yep, those would be the ones. I just find the idea that we have the technology but won't implement it due to budget issues is as short sighted and detrimental just as the Romans having had the capacity to create the steam engine (and thus start the industrial revolution long before it finally happened) but failed to do so because of cultural limitations (ie. no need for labor saving techniques due to abundant slavery).
"While it's good to see NASA seriously looking into returning to the Moon, I think the money would be better spend in focusing on sending robotic missions. Not only would it be more cost effective, but it could have just as great a scientific return, and would spur the development of a technology that would have huge spin off benefits here on earth."
I disagree. Culturally and psychologically speaking, it would be far more powerful and beneficial to humanity in general to see man (yes, man) walking on the Moon again (or for the first time) and Mars than it would to spend monies on robots to do the job. Given the choice of seeing a man on Mars or a better performing Sony Aibo thanks to spin-off technology, I'll choose seeing a human on another planet.
Besides, as any astute scifi viewer knows, there's no rush on robotic advancement. Personal robotics does not reach its creative height until the 51st Century when Professor Marius creates *K-9*, who becomes the trusted companion of an eccentric Time Lord who calls himself "The Doctor".
"We can land men on the moon, and prepare for $100 billion plans to go back there. But we cannot send help to US disaster victims, on US soil, within 2 weeks."
Are you proposing instead that our nation bestow a block grant of $100 billion given to Louisiana for K-12 education so maybe by the time there's another natural disaster there, there might be a chance that they'll have a competent governor and mayor?
And when you mention "life threatening situations," you should probably think about the consequences of keeping mankind stuck to a single planetary existence. The term is "species extinction". So yeah, for the benefit of mankind in general, I'd prefer the Feds to spend $100 billion ($336 out of my pocket) on space exploration.
"What you may be thinking about is that the JIMO mission was cut in favor of testing the Prometheus technologies prior to assigning the device to an expensive scientific mission."
What bugs me was the sight of the rockets designed for travel to Mars back in the 1970s sitting out in the desert. Saw it on a special program televised by the Discovery Science channel last year. If it was possible, we should've went to Mars then.
"We're slowly becoming a race of cowards when it comes to exploring new frontiers."
Sounds like the same argument a former ABC late night talk-shop host made when comparing suicide plane hijackers to the Air Force's use of the Predator drones and cruise missiles.
"Bush's administration has done a reasonable job of making sure that we are on a viable track to returning to the moon and reaching Mars. My hope is that the next President who shows up doesn't dive in and try to change everything."
Or completely cancel it like what the fresh-at-the-time Clinton Administration did to Project Prometheus, which the current Bush Administration thankfully restarted.
"The Xbox/MS Games team was the only part of MS that "got it"... now it seems like the business practices plaguing the rest of the company are slowly infecting the last bastion of customer appreciation."
Well, in all fairness, the Macintosh Business Unit and the Hardware division are also worthy parts of Microsoft that do not deserve the scorn the rest of that company deserves. I like my Xbox, and I wouldn't mind an Xbox360, but I think the PS3 will crush it.
Just as the Sony PSP is the Atari Lynx of 2005, the Xbox360 is the Sega Dreamcast of 2005.
"Holy cow. Europe's getting a major console release before Japan. That's got to be a first."
:)
I'm pretty sure Europe got Philips' CDi, Commodore's CD32, and Atari's Jaguar before Japan did... Oh wait...
"Could someone moderate down the parent post? MSN is a wildly successful, second most popular web site on the web."
You forgot the BBC. Maybe you were angling for a moderator to mark your posting as "funny".
"He's even part of XO Communications and tried to takeover the ailing Marvel Comics. There's a book about it called Comic Wars."
That book will really make you h8 Icahn. Almost as much as Ron Pearleman of Revlon and wonder how it is possible for such business dealings to be considered legal.
B&N has the hardcover on closeout for something like $8 in their stores. I picked it up a couple of months ago. Great read.
"Probably a nice investment for MS if they can combine their msn messenger users with AOL's instant messenger users."
Its probably a pre-emptive strike against Sony if you think about it. There was talk back in the day of AIM working on the Sony PS2, and this would ensure that AIM will not make it to the PS3. MSN+AIM could be integrated with XboxLive for the Xbox360.
Or, it gives Microsoft a leg up against Apple in terms of the iChat partnership AOL and Apple have.
We could also see iTunes support via AOL Music dropped.
There's a lot not to like about this "partnership" and the Feds are probably asleep at the wheel.
"Just about every 'little' project that AOL purchased has already been shutdown as a financial failure. Really, everything AOL touches turns to shit--- As a result, none of their 'little' divisions actually exists anymore."
You mean "everything Time Warner touches turns to shit." Steve Case at least grasped the importance of all of those acquisitions he made. Its the Time Warner board who does not know/does not understand/does not care about whether those properties live or die.
Its fitting to see that Time Warner is planning on ditching its stake in AOL (just as its turning around) to a *former competitor* in order to boost share price and fend off a corporate raider like Carl Icahn today. 21 odd years ago, Warner Communications, facing a declining stock price and facing a corporate raider named Rupert Murdoch, sold off a 75% stake in Atari Inc. (the home computer/videogame division - later to be known as Atari Corp.) to *former competitor* Jack Tramiel (founder of Commodore) for $350 million in promissory notes in order to take off immediate pressure on Warner's stock. Murdoch eventually bought a controlling stake in 20th Century Fox instead since one of its big time shareholders fled the country on tax evasion. And it was evident even then that Atari was ready for a turnaround with the Atari 7800 ready for the market, hot 8 bit computers in heavy demand (the 1400XL and the 1450XLD) nearing release, a locked agreement to market the Amiga computer, and an almost completed agreement for non-Japanese worldwide rights to the Nintendo Famicom (which became the NES).
Great track record, Time Warner! That's twice in a generation that you've botched the "synergy" payoff from having control of premiere tech companies with mass market appeal. First Atari, and then AOL.
And let's recap the failures of Time Warner with AOL. Time Warner corporate failed to get Time Warner Cable to carry AOL as its premiere ISP, which was the #1 reason why AOL pursued the merger in the first place. Time Warner corporate failed to take any initiative to getting Time Warner Cable to make a deal with TiVo for set-top DVRs even though through AOL, Time Warner held a large stake in TiVo. Time Warner failed to leverage AOL's WinAmp property combined with the Warner Music Group interests...not to mention failing to envision an actual online music store like iTunes and instead relied upon nobody's favorite company Real to make MusicNet a success that it never became. I could list much more, but I'll end it with settling with Microsoft for less than $1 billion the antitrust case that AOL easily would've won the $10 billion they were demanding (and had that figure trebbled) had they committed to fight for the eventual ruling and a good 5 years of appeals.
At this point, I'm all for Time Warner splitting up. Steve Ross must be spinning in his grave and it'll probably take Ted Turner to his well ahead of schedule.
"Everyone *I* know in Basque country uses ICQ."
:)
So if everyone in Basque country uses ICQ, does that make it the official IM client program of Atlantis?
"AIM is more popular in America. Not the rest of the world. No one in Europe or Asia uses AIM. It's either MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger."
Funny. I've known quite a few British chicas over the years who used AIM. But then, most people only consider Britain geographically part of *Europe* anyway.
"These days DVD burners support both recordable DVD types but DVD-R is still the better choice if you want to make DVD-Video discs to play in consumer players."
And that's precisely the reason why Apple did not throw in support for DVD+R until combo drives became the norm of the industry. Why hype iMovie and iDVD if the home movie you create probably won't play on your relative's DVD player? Me thinks the previous poster just had their formats mixed up.
And as for the DVD Forum's lack of endorsement, the DVD Forum has backed HD-DVD over Blu Ray even though Blu Ray appears to be superior in just about every category except disc manufacturing cost.
"It is the other way around - Apple only supports DVD+R/RW."
Nope. That was Microsoft and HP that threw their weight behind DVD+R. Apple supported DVD-R. Although, like every other computer manufacturer, Apple now supports DVD+/-R/RW and is finally rolling out dual layer drives.
"be lawful evil."
:)
Is that a reference to Wolfram & Hart? They do represent News Corp. and Weyland-Yutani, after all...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_%26_Hart
"Gates on open source:"There are some zealots that think there should be no software jobs, that we should all, like, cut hair during the day and write code at night." Either he just doesn't get it, or he's refusing to acknowledge what open source software (and the GPL) really is. That OSS developers cut hair for a living to support their "habit" is ridiculous. Would you let a slashdot member cut *your* hair?"
Funny how I thought he [Gates] had mixed up a cheap reference to Stallman. Something along the lines of Stallman refusing to cut anything but "GNUhair"...or how Stallman apparently doesn't have his hair cut...
I'm trying to picture the lovely lady at the local Supercuts coding software after hours. Maybe in a motion-picture, but certainly not in the real world...
"I'm fairly certain Paige would thoroughly pound Gates into the floor; but Ballmer is really freakin' scary. That one I'm not so sure of. I'm picturing Ballmer being able to take out both Paige and Brin at the same time."
:)
I'd rather see a fight between Gates and Larry Ellison, or Baller and Ellison. Considering Ellison thinks of himself as a samurai and also owns a MiG-29, me thinks he's a couple of stone throws away from donning a bat suit and fighting crime in his spare time. And thus Ellison would wipe the floor with both Gates and Ballmer. Talk about wanting to pay to see something on tv or the net...
"Kerry's got more guts than that incompetent you backed and he's a better man. And, for the record, you can take your points and stick 'em right up your godless, corrupt Republican ass."
My point is that McCain is a *real* war hero. So if you want to cite that (war hero) as a great quality for a candidate, then you should be lamenting that McCain failed to receive the nomination for the 2000 campaign.
Kerry went into that "war" so that he could make a name for himself and run against it. Kinda like how he voted against the Kyoto Treaty when it was in the Senate and then later criticized Bush for not supporting that very same treaty. Yep, that makes him quite a man now doesn't it?
And continuing, I don't think it was Bush who married a billionnaire to get access to easy campaign money to further his political career. But I might be wrong. Oh wait, he (Bush) married a school teacher. My bad.
"Billy Gates (SAT score: 1400 - Verbal: 600, Nonverbal: 800), Sgt. Doom (SAT score: 1550, Verbal: 750, Nonverbal: 800)"
Bill(y) Gates ($40 billion plus worth).
Sgt. Doom (not $40 billion plus worth).
"And despite what a lot of people will think on the surface (whoa look at how cool Microsoft has made Office 12), it is really Apple, Linux and the Open Source competition that has made Microsoft get its ass in gear."
Not to mention AOL (which consistently beat MSN throughout the dial-up era)*, Palm (held off Microsoft for several years in the PDA market), Nokia (fending off Smartphone via Symbian), TiVo (mopped the floor with UltimateTV - leading to Windows Media Center improved annually), Adobe's PDF format, Sun's Java, and Sony (Playstation2). And Google thrashing Microsoft in search.
While Apple's Mac OS X is forcing improvements with Windows, its in the other media areas that Apple is thrashing Microsoft interests consistently. The cablecos and satellite companies have settled on Apple supported H.264 as the HD codec of choice over Windows Media. The Windows Media codec may be eliminated from the Blu-Ray format before its market debut, and as it stands, H.264 is also supported with the HD-DVD format. The Microsoft supported DVD+R spec did not trump the Apple backed DVD-R format and now combo drives are the norm. And Apple's iPod/iTunes support of Dolby's AAC audio codec has seriously frakked up Microsoft's WMA format dominating the MP3 player market.
If Corporate America ever is successfully persuaded to switch to Linux or OS X and open source application suite software, Microsoft will be toast...and I don't mean that application by Roxio either.
*Forgot to mention how AOL's AIM (and AIM supporters like iChat) is still more popular than MSN Messenger.
"By owning a ReplayTV instead of a Tivo, I feel like I'm living in that crawlspace, away from all the media attention that a company like Tivo gets."
And thus you have a product whose parent company has an even more dire future than TiVo does.
"My 5060 (w/ the requisite hard drive upgrade, of course) still automatically skips commercials. They aren't taking away features I bought, and I appreciate it."
You can enable the "commercial skip/30 second advance" on TiVo units. ReplayTV just stuck an actual button on their remote and triggered a giant lawsuit from the Broadcasters Association that brought down the Company. Despite having spent millions on legal bills, the attorneys Replay (SonicBlue) had on the payroll apparently weren't smart enough to make the case that several VCR manufacturers were putting 30 second "commercial skip" buttons on their remote controls and those were name brand machines being sold at CostCo at the time. TiVo survived and Replay's second owner did not. Judge who was the foolish party.
It should also be stated that TiVo is entertaining the thought of adding a commercial skip button to its standard remote control. Its an option of new feature requests on their webpage found here:
http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/2web519.htm
"There's no pop-up advertisements like Tivo has. There just isn't the money in doing stuff like that because the user base is so small (but the development effort doesn't get cheaper as a result)."
The pop-up ads aren't intrusive. If it eventually makes TiVo profitable enough to cancel subscriptions, I'm all for it. Plus, I like having the option of receiving materials from Range Rover and other advertisers if I request it. That's a feature that is changing television advertising for the better. The omission of such a feature and revenue generator on the Replay platform just illustrates the ineptitute that has plagued the product since 1999...a failure to understand the industry.
"The Macintosh has, lately, demonstrated less enthusiasm about adopting the various DRM flavor of the month technologies that the Windows PC has. This is in part because there isn't the same level of scrutiny, and also because the development effort of adding that stuff doesn't amortize across the user base as well."
No, its because Steve Jobs has vision when compared to Steve "the Chair Master" Ballmer. Apple also has a dedicated user base (and a sustainable one at that) willing to devote $$$ to Apple products. TiVo has a similar fanatical user base passionate about the product and is mainly disgusted with the Company for not going far enough. Replay does not have any of that, except for "me too" users who always feel compelled to post on websites about ReplayTV whenever a story breaks about TiVo.
I should also mention that TiVo has from the start had the intention of eventually killing off the Nielsen ratings thanks to its aggregate data collection. ReplayTV never had such an intention. That was one of the major reasons why I went with TiVo originally over Replay. I don't care if my TiVo reports what I watch because I want the Nielsens taken down for the sham that I believe they are. I'm not worried about the government coming to arrest me if the TiVo records *Skinamax* or anything else on television because anything too controversial and/or critical of the government will never hit the airwaves to begin with, and any tin-foil hat wearer worthy of their aluminum foil knows that.