And then, the chutzpah of the DA's to call out the Gizmodo editors (who may or may not have deserved it) after conducting an illegal search...
Illegal according to who? The guy that wrote the article? Jason Chen had stolen property and the police are perfectly within their rights to search for that property, the reason some people are calling it "illegal" is because they believe journalist are above the law:"it violated California Penal Code section 1524(g)'s prohibition against the issuance of warrants for "unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public.""
EFF is interpreting the law incorrectly, I'm pretty sure having a press pass doesn't mean I get to steal your stuff and laugh at the police when they come looking for it.
A small trend I've noticed is that Google seems to struggle in the areas of music and TV a lot more than say... Apple. Why is that?
Because Apple has a successful 10 year history in music starting with the iPod and iTunes in 2001. The iPod sold well, and two years later in 2003 the iTunes Store was born. The music industry had watched mp3 players grow in popularity since the Rio 300 in 1998 and were eager to find any way to finally make some money from digital music rather than watch it be stolen and shared with software like Napster so they were more than happy to put their content on iTunes. Recording industry really didn't have a choice, the iPod was what people were using to "steal" their music, so when the manufacture of the iPod came to them and said "would you like people to buy the music instead of steal it?" of course they said "YES!!"
So even though google is Google, when someone with no mp3 player and no history comes along and says "we'd like to sell your music and videos" the music and movie industry isn't really all that interested.
If all you value is ease of use, Apple makes fine products.
If you are a hacker, want power, or are smart, Apple makes mediocre products.
(What do I mean? The command line, emacs, etc.)
My iPhone is a phone, yes I want ease of use in my phone. The iPhone is a very good phone first, and a very good smartphone second. I think that's where they really won. Before the iPhone smartphones didn't really do anything right. They weren't good at being phones and they weren't really all that "smart", and the market was fragmented. I remember having a Motorola Q smartphone running Windows Mobile 5. Nice phone for email and such (similar to blackberries) but it wasn't a touchscreen and unfortunately at the time there was no "market" for apps, you'd have to search for them online, and 9 times out of 10 the app would be for Windows Mobile 5 but it wouldn't say whether it required touchscreen or not. So I spent a lot of time downloading apps that required a touchscreen and would not work on the Motorola Q for that reason. I mostly gave up as most WM5 apps were designed for a touchscreen since there were almost no WM5 devices that didn't have a touchscreen
iPhone came along and fixed all that. Now you have a app store and every app on that store will work on your phone.
We could do this today. They have enough HD cameras watching the game and can play anything back in slow motion to make sure every call is 100% accurate. Part of the game IS umpires making bad calls. Sorry but that's true, otherwise they would have been replaced with cameras years ago.
I don't think there was a single unanticipated thing in the announcement beyond the odd "mail a postcard" feature and the existence of a "Where are my Friends?" app.
Rumors are just that, rumors. Nothing was "leaked", reporters just threw cards up in the air and predicted some would land face up... and they were right!
Nah. The fastest way to create artificial demand is to restrict the supply in your initial production run. In turn you're creating an artificial demand, and causing people to think that it's a very desirable product. This is marketing and economics 101 stuff.
that would be true if a new iPhone didn't come out every year, so some people will hear "OH it sold out? Ok, I'll just wait a few months until the next iPhone"
iPhones usually come out in July, so we're only 9 months away from the iPhone 5.
I love DC's response: we're disappointed but we don't care. Were B&N not selling enough DC comics for them to care? Have to wonder why DC would completely cut ties with B&N to go with a new format like the kindle fire.
just my opinion but I do not like comics on a screen. Ebooks are fine, it's just words so i don't care how they're transmitted but comics are artistic, it's like having a painting vs a digital photo of a painting, they're not the same thing.
It might not be too late, there's stories on here all the time about people patenting the obvious many years after it's already become a universal standard. Didn't someone just patent wifi?
The guy has a model engine and is trying to raise money in Silicon Valley. What isn't mentioned is that Detroit engineers have worked with pretty much every type of engine over the years, including this type. Maybe this guy's engineers have made a breakthrough but he'll have to prove it first.
And he's been trying since the 70s which means his idea doesn't work in passenger vehicles.
So anyone saying "Oh I have this amazing engine technology that uses 50 less fuel but no one wants it" is either a liar or crazy.
I think GM said it best: “There are 50 opposed piston engine companies out there, and they all haven’t gotten to the point where they’ve figured out what their Achilles’ heel is,... there is always a ‘but,’ and most of these companies haven’t gotten to the ‘but’ yet.” says Byron Shaw, general manager at GM’s Advanced Technology division in Palo Alto.
Didn't sell because seller thought it was worth $1,800 (LOL), but seller does have reasonable feedback and has been a member since 2002, it would be foolish to sell a fake Android running Touchpad on eBay and risk losing their account, but people do dumb things for $1800 so who knows, but I would trust a eBay auction from a long time seller with good feedback far more than I would a random Youtube video.
So where's the ROM? Who's the selfish @#$%& sitting there with Android for the Touchpad but refuses to upload it so the rest of us can enjoy it? If you're too stupid to know how to rip a image then get on a developers forum for instructions or post on craigslist, I'm sure someone within 50 miles would know how to copy the image off the device and torrent it, it would save the porting team a lot of time rather than re-invent what already exists.
It's also worthless: "Aoyagi said a square meter of the material can generate about 5 volts at 7 watts under peak conditions"
7 watts per square meter? 1 kwh (1000 watts a hour) costs roughly 10 cents. It'd take 142 hours for this thing to make 1000 watts, almost 18 days assuming 8 hours per day are "peak conditions" (unlikely). Unless these panels are under $1 per square meter it'd be better just to keep paying the electric company since it'd take 6 months just to save $1 on your electric bill.
Also what is "5 volts at 7 watts?" That doesn't even make sense, that's like saying "The new Prius can travel 50 miles at 50mpg". It's volts x amps = watts, tell me the watts and you've told me all I need to know.
An average person could go to the store, buy some of this, and then bring it home and install it themselves
Only if the average person happens to also be an electrician, or at least someone knowledgeable enough to plug a small power plant into their house's electrical system without ending up a "Dumbass Killed Tonight In Apparent Electrical Fire" headline on their local news.
then they'll also have to sell a idiot-proof-plug-into-house-electrical-system kit.
Steve Jobs is pretty much solely responsible for Pixar. He was the first real investor, before Steve came along Pixar was just a bunch of very talented but under appreciated animators at Lucasfilm with a huge dream but no money. He bought what was later to be known as Pixar for $10 million dollars in 1986, and bankrolled it until their first big budget movie Toy Story.
He also made smartphones what they are today. Before the 2007 iPhone very few smartphones used a finger-sensitive (capacitive) touchscreen. Now it's very difficult to find a phone that doesn't use a capacitive touchscreen. This allowed removing buttons so the entire face of the device can now act as a screen which improved usability immensely.
Few other people could claim to have such a huge impact on modern society as Steve Jobs.
Here's the specs:
--7-inch resistive touch screen = stylus, not fingers
--Android 2.2 "Froyo"
--800-x-480-pixel resolution
--366mhz cpu
--256mb ram
--2gb internal storage
--microSD
--two USB ports
--3.5mm headphone jack
--2100mAh battery that can last up to 3 hours
--does NOT have access to Android Market
It's not impressive by any means but then again it's not suppose to impress those of us with an iPhone or latest Droid in our pocket, it's designed for the 1+ billion Indians who have never even been on the internet and for first time internet usage I think it'll be fine at that.
It's likely they shoved out a hobbled $80 model with the expectation that most people will buy the next one up but they can still claim the lower price point.
$79 is also a great price point for Christmas gifts. The average US adult spends $658 on gifts and $79 allows them to buy one for everyone on their list rather than only a few $199 Kindle Fires.
Yeah because poor people are well known for a) their disposable income to spend on electronics other than cell phones and b) their desire to read books often enough to have a dedicated device for it. I mean, when you hear that ghetto street slang you think "wow, he must be a well-read sort of fellow".
Do only poor people clip coupons? Do only poor people visit sites like FatWallet to save $$$? Do only poor people wait in line overnight for Black Friday sales?
No, we're not talking about "poor" people, these people have the money to spend they're just looking for a bargain and they didn't see spending $200-$400 to read an ebook when they already have a smartphone with Kindle ebooks. But now that they can buy a Kindle for $79 Amazon is hoping that's the magic price-point to encourage them to finally buy a Kindle and hopefully spend more $$$ on books.
In the field of pixel-addressable e-ink screened devices, $80 is very aggressive pricing. It would appear that they have chosen to go with the "make it cheaper" option, (which advances in technology generally provide as an alternative to "make it better"), for this particular kindle.
It's a Amazon ebook reader to purchase and read Amazon ebooks and little else. Honestly I was surprised they allowed people to surf the web at all on them, but I suppose Amazon realized few people would spend $399 on only an ebook reader so they packed it full of features to make it worth $399.
Now they have the bargain basement $79 Kindle and like a cheap car or cheap laptop, it can't do everything it's more expensive sibling can do. No surprise there, I don't think Amazon wants people to "upgrade" from a $399 Kindle to a $79 Kindle, the cheap Kindle is for people who really wanted a Kindle but didn't want to spend $399
In the 1980s, PCs were sold to balance the books, store recipes, write letters, tutor schoolchildren, and play games. Today, PCs are sold to watch porn, watch porn, watch porn, watch porn and play games.
No! PCs are sold to watch porn, update facebook, check email, watch cat videos, and watch porn
Slashdot Mirror
And then, the chutzpah of the DA's to call out the Gizmodo editors (who may or may not have deserved it) after conducting an illegal search...
Illegal according to who? The guy that wrote the article? Jason Chen had stolen property and the police are perfectly within their rights to search for that property, the reason some people are calling it "illegal" is because they believe journalist are above the law: "it violated California Penal Code section 1524(g)'s prohibition against the issuance of warrants for "unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public.""
EFF is interpreting the law incorrectly, I'm pretty sure having a press pass doesn't mean I get to steal your stuff and laugh at the police when they come looking for it.
At the time it had been once and it was assumed to be an accident. Now that it has happened again you have to wonder...
A small trend I've noticed is that Google seems to struggle in the areas of music and TV a lot more than say... Apple. Why is that?
Because Apple has a successful 10 year history in music starting with the iPod and iTunes in 2001. The iPod sold well, and two years later in 2003 the iTunes Store was born. The music industry had watched mp3 players grow in popularity since the Rio 300 in 1998 and were eager to find any way to finally make some money from digital music rather than watch it be stolen and shared with software like Napster so they were more than happy to put their content on iTunes. Recording industry really didn't have a choice, the iPod was what people were using to "steal" their music, so when the manufacture of the iPod came to them and said "would you like people to buy the music instead of steal it?" of course they said "YES!!"
Apple has become more powerful since then because people actually buy music through them, iTunes accounts for 26% of all US Music sales in 2010, more than Walmart and Best Buy combine.
So even though google is Google, when someone with no mp3 player and no history comes along and says "we'd like to sell your music and videos" the music and movie industry isn't really all that interested.
And doesn't Apple already have some exclusive deals? iTunes accounted for 28% of all US Music sales May 2010, more than Walmart, and that number is likely higher now.
Walmart use to weld significant influence over the music industry, telling them to lower prices and even forcing artists to change lyrics that Walmart found "objectionable" and that was when Walmart sold only 20% of the nation's music. With iTunes at 28% they have even more power, and I imagine if Apple said "do not put your music on Google's music store" how can you say no to the company responsible for 28% of your income? If Apple was smart they would have put in their TOS long ago something that says if you sell your music on iTunes you can not sell it by any other digital distribution method.
Oh boy, some people never learn. Android voice functions is literary the same things that has been in the archaic nokia phones from back in the day.
Voice Actions for Android is almost identical to Siri (another example). The iPhone actually had Siri before Voice Actions came out for Android, only difference is now Siri is built into the 4S and Apple bought Siri and removed it from the App Store and made it only for the 4S :( That's a pretty jerk thing for apple to do
If all you value is ease of use, Apple makes fine products.
If you are a hacker, want power, or are smart, Apple makes mediocre products.
(What do I mean? The command line, emacs, etc.)
My iPhone is a phone, yes I want ease of use in my phone. The iPhone is a very good phone first, and a very good smartphone second. I think that's where they really won. Before the iPhone smartphones didn't really do anything right. They weren't good at being phones and they weren't really all that "smart", and the market was fragmented. I remember having a Motorola Q smartphone running Windows Mobile 5. Nice phone for email and such (similar to blackberries) but it wasn't a touchscreen and unfortunately at the time there was no "market" for apps, you'd have to search for them online, and 9 times out of 10 the app would be for Windows Mobile 5 but it wouldn't say whether it required touchscreen or not. So I spent a lot of time downloading apps that required a touchscreen and would not work on the Motorola Q for that reason. I mostly gave up as most WM5 apps were designed for a touchscreen since there were almost no WM5 devices that didn't have a touchscreen
iPhone came along and fixed all that. Now you have a app store and every app on that store will work on your phone.
Oh no! My kid printed out a photo of Superman the other day, should I expect a lawsuit from DC? /swoosh
We could do this today. They have enough HD cameras watching the game and can play anything back in slow motion to make sure every call is 100% accurate. Part of the game IS umpires making bad calls. Sorry but that's true, otherwise they would have been replaced with cameras years ago.
you misspelled amber lamps
I don't think there was a single unanticipated thing in the announcement beyond the odd "mail a postcard" feature and the existence of a "Where are my Friends?" app.
I love how you say "leaked" as if they knew. Many "leaked" larger screens and 4G and that didn't happen. Many said "no home button" and no 64gb since everything is "in the cloud" but we still have the home button and a 64gb model. (more no 64gb rumors)
Rumors are just that, rumors. Nothing was "leaked", reporters just threw cards up in the air and predicted some would land face up... and they were right!
Nah. The fastest way to create artificial demand is to restrict the supply in your initial production run. In turn you're creating an artificial demand, and causing people to think that it's a very desirable product. This is marketing and economics 101 stuff.
that would be true if a new iPhone didn't come out every year, so some people will hear "OH it sold out? Ok, I'll just wait a few months until the next iPhone"
iPhones usually come out in July, so we're only 9 months away from the iPhone 5.
I love DC's response: we're disappointed but we don't care. Were B&N not selling enough DC comics for them to care? Have to wonder why DC would completely cut ties with B&N to go with a new format like the kindle fire.
just my opinion but I do not like comics on a screen. Ebooks are fine, it's just words so i don't care how they're transmitted but comics are artistic, it's like having a painting vs a digital photo of a painting, they're not the same thing.
It might not be too late, there's stories on here all the time about people patenting the obvious many years after it's already become a universal standard. Didn't someone just patent wifi?
The guy has a model engine and is trying to raise money in Silicon Valley. What isn't mentioned is that Detroit engineers have worked with pretty much every type of engine over the years, including this type. Maybe this guy's engineers have made a breakthrough but he'll have to prove it first.
And he's been trying since the 70s which means his idea doesn't work in passenger vehicles.
Detroit is begging for any innovation that will put them ahead of the hybrid invasion. They've even gone plug-in hybrid before any other manufacture with the Chevy Volt and GM pioneered the electric car in the 90s which was poor timing since gas was still only about $1 a gallon. If there were some magic engine technology that allowed 50% better fuel economy in cars while maintaining reasonable reliability Detroit would be all over it.
Remember Detroit must average 35mpg by 2016 and 54mpg by 2025.
So anyone saying "Oh I have this amazing engine technology that uses 50 less fuel but no one wants it" is either a liar or crazy.
I think GM said it best:
“There are 50 opposed piston engine companies out there, and they all haven’t gotten to the point where they’ve figured out what their Achilles’ heel is,... there is always a ‘but,’ and most of these companies haven’t gotten to the ‘but’ yet.” says Byron Shaw, general manager at GM’s Advanced Technology division in Palo Alto.
Here's one on eBay from August 28th with link to video.
Didn't sell because seller thought it was worth $1,800 (LOL), but seller does have reasonable feedback and has been a member since 2002, it would be foolish to sell a fake Android running Touchpad on eBay and risk losing their account, but people do dumb things for $1800 so who knows, but I would trust a eBay auction from a long time seller with good feedback far more than I would a random Youtube video.
They didn't ship with Android. They likely shipped with WebOS and had Android installed later.
No it's real, here's a video from August 25th, only days after the $99 sale and long before anyone was working on bringing Android to the Touchpad. Here's a different video of Android on Touchpad uploaded August 22nd and a third video.
So where's the ROM? Who's the selfish @#$%& sitting there with Android for the Touchpad but refuses to upload it so the rest of us can enjoy it? If you're too stupid to know how to rip a image then get on a developers forum for instructions or post on craigslist, I'm sure someone within 50 miles would know how to copy the image off the device and torrent it, it would save the porting team a lot of time rather than re-invent what already exists.
It's also worthless:
"Aoyagi said a square meter of the material can generate about 5 volts at 7 watts under peak conditions"
7 watts per square meter? 1 kwh (1000 watts a hour) costs roughly 10 cents. It'd take 142 hours for this thing to make 1000 watts, almost 18 days assuming 8 hours per day are "peak conditions" (unlikely). Unless these panels are under $1 per square meter it'd be better just to keep paying the electric company since it'd take 6 months just to save $1 on your electric bill.
Also what is "5 volts at 7 watts?" That doesn't even make sense, that's like saying "The new Prius can travel 50 miles at 50mpg". It's volts x amps = watts, tell me the watts and you've told me all I need to know.
An average person could go to the store, buy some of this, and then bring it home and install it themselves
Only if the average person happens to also be an electrician, or at least someone knowledgeable enough to plug a small power plant into their house's electrical system without ending up a "Dumbass Killed Tonight In Apparent Electrical Fire" headline on their local news.
then they'll also have to sell a idiot-proof-plug-into-house-electrical-system kit.
Steve Jobs is pretty much solely responsible for Pixar. He was the first real investor, before Steve came along Pixar was just a bunch of very talented but under appreciated animators at Lucasfilm with a huge dream but no money. He bought what was later to be known as Pixar for $10 million dollars in 1986, and bankrolled it until their first big budget movie Toy Story.
He also made smartphones what they are today. Before the 2007 iPhone very few smartphones used a finger-sensitive (capacitive) touchscreen. Now it's very difficult to find a phone that doesn't use a capacitive touchscreen. This allowed removing buttons so the entire face of the device can now act as a screen which improved usability immensely.
Few other people could claim to have such a huge impact on modern society as Steve Jobs.
Here's the specs:
--7-inch resistive touch screen = stylus, not fingers
--Android 2.2 "Froyo"
--800-x-480-pixel resolution
--366mhz cpu
--256mb ram
--2gb internal storage
--microSD
--two USB ports
--3.5mm headphone jack
--2100mAh battery that can last up to 3 hours
--does NOT have access to Android Market
Here's a dozen detailed photos of the device
It's not impressive by any means but then again it's not suppose to impress those of us with an iPhone or latest Droid in our pocket, it's designed for the 1+ billion Indians who have never even been on the internet and for first time internet usage I think it'll be fine at that.
It's likely they shoved out a hobbled $80 model with the expectation that most people will buy the next one up but they can still claim the lower price point.
No.
$199 Kindle Fire = Upgrade to $399 Kindle
$79 Kindle = for people who never owned a Kindle before or used the free Kindle smartphone app.
$79 is also a great price point for Christmas gifts. The average US adult spends $658 on gifts and $79 allows them to buy one for everyone on their list rather than only a few $199 Kindle Fires.
Yeah because poor people are well known for a) their disposable income to spend on electronics other than cell phones and b) their desire to read books often enough to have a dedicated device for it. I mean, when you hear that ghetto street slang you think "wow, he must be a well-read sort of fellow".
Do only poor people clip coupons? Do only poor people visit sites like FatWallet to save $$$? Do only poor people wait in line overnight for Black Friday sales?
No, we're not talking about "poor" people, these people have the money to spend they're just looking for a bargain and they didn't see spending $200-$400 to read an ebook when they already have a smartphone with Kindle ebooks. But now that they can buy a Kindle for $79 Amazon is hoping that's the magic price-point to encourage them to finally buy a Kindle and hopefully spend more $$$ on books.
Smart move by Amazon.
In the field of pixel-addressable e-ink screened devices, $80 is very aggressive pricing. It would appear that they have chosen to go with the "make it cheaper" option, (which advances in technology generally provide as an alternative to "make it better"), for this particular kindle.
It's a Amazon ebook reader to purchase and read Amazon ebooks and little else. Honestly I was surprised they allowed people to surf the web at all on them, but I suppose Amazon realized few people would spend $399 on only an ebook reader so they packed it full of features to make it worth $399.
Now they have the bargain basement $79 Kindle and like a cheap car or cheap laptop, it can't do everything it's more expensive sibling can do. No surprise there, I don't think Amazon wants people to "upgrade" from a $399 Kindle to a $79 Kindle, the cheap Kindle is for people who really wanted a Kindle but didn't want to spend $399
If you haven't noticed, the people having kids these days grew up on Nintendo and Windows.
Nintendo didn't have an admin password (still doesn't), and Windows 95/98/ME crashed before it could get to login
In the 1980s, PCs were sold to balance the books, store recipes, write letters, tutor schoolchildren, and play games. Today, PCs are sold to watch porn, watch porn, watch porn, watch porn and play games.
No! PCs are sold to watch porn, update facebook, check email, watch cat videos, and watch porn