Apple switched to Intel to cut costs, heat and power issues, make laptops based on high end processors, and ensure there are no supply problems.
Absolutely. Mostly the bit about laptops based on high end processors.
Anyone building the worlds fastest clusters, in need of high powered scientific workstations, or basically anything that requires brute force with numbers will still be using IBMs Power line of processsors
Absolutley. And they'll be running Linux or something similar on them, unless Apple sees a need ( and profit ) in continuing to support PPC in the high end server/desktop market ( they could, but why bother? ). More likely, you'll see PPC 'supercomputer' clusters used, and when the result data set is available, you'll download it onto your laptop and throw it into Mathematica or somesuch for analysis. For that last step, these Intel processors will be more than fast enough...
Modded funny, but this roadmap, including the fact that
Woodcrest, Conroe and Merom. All of these CPUs will be built on a 65nm process and will be 64-bit enabled.
compared with what IBM and FreeScale were doing with the PPC ( not a heck of a lot ), show us exactly why Apple decided to move towards Intel. The whole Intel-provides-entire-chipsets-complete-with-DRM thing is just icing on the cake for Apple. 64-bit high-performance low-power chips with real, ongoing R&D and a guarantee of performance parity with the rest of the PC world... it's pretty clear how Apple's two-year switch to Intel corresponds to the release schedule Intel has committed to:
The new processors will be available in the 2H of 2006
The postal service controls and regulates bulk mail. The business and sending address are almost always known- if they're sending true bulk-rate mail, the sending business and address is known with certainty. If they send stuff and you ask them not to, but they keep sending it, they can be taken to court, have to pay your court costs, fines, damages, etc. Even the 'evil' direct marketing association runs a service to keep you off of their lists, which, though voluntary, supposedly does help keep the volume down - partly because bulk mailing costs enough that they don't want to send mail to people who will just toss it without opening it, really.
The mail is heavily regulated, and costs a fair amount to use. Sure, I get lots of junk mail. But it's nothing compared to the volume of spam, and if I want to stop the junk mail, it can, in fact, be done to a very large extent, with the post office and marketers themselves often helping assist you. Asking spammers to stop sending you spam, on the other hand, just gets you more spam...
I started this thinking there'd be just one reason junk mail is so different from spam, but it turns out there are a lot of reasons, important reasons, especially when combined with the very very very low cost of sending spam and the high cost of trying to filter it out. Honestly, if all spam was just marked "BULK" or something in the subject, I wouldn't mind quite so much, although it'd still be a 'receiver-pays' system...
to the ability of anyone to care about these companies selling music online. They're about to make as much money as Napster.
I'm no iTMS user, but it's pretty obvious that if these companies had any clue whatsoever, they'd have been selling tons of song online for years in Japan, building a solid user base and market dominance without competition. Suddenly, now that they have Apple to compete with, they're finally 'working' on it? Given the overwhelming popularity of the iPod in Japan, why not save their investor's money and focus on something that won't be a complete waste of money ?
Make that someone in your field of expertise and I'll agree. Between disciplines, jargon often confuses things, and isn't really called for as there are often other ( usually longer, more descriptive ) words and phrases which can be used in place of jargon. In the context of marketing, jargon is used to confuse/dazzle purposefully, which is where I find it's ( over ) use most offensive.
it means 17% of them wanted to see what the new ColdPlay album teaser/advert was, or were curious about this new form of spam.
Yea, I'm shocked that so many people were interested in ColdPlay, too/duck
In order to be detected, every single one of those 87k phones had their bluetooth enabled. 14k is the number who answered "Ok, send me the clip", I assume... a pretty high number. This has marketing dweebs wetting themselves, I'm sure.
I think the people that won't buy it because of restrictions should refrain from simply downloading, copying or watching such otherwise protected media.
I'm not sure you picked up the point that I'd have to buy new hardware to view this content legally.
Here's my thing: if they paid for the hardware, I'd be much much more likely to aquire the content legally. I rent ( and buy ) DVDs all the time without copying them or using them illegally. However, they're going to just piss me off by downsampling content that really should display just fine on my current hardware, even though I've paid for it, just because they don't trust me not to copy it?
I've already been told I'm not trusted. What incentive, other than avoiding prosecution, do I have to act as though I should be trusted?
I agree, in a world where nobody violates copyright, there'd be no hypocrisy. But a company abusing GPL actually was able to use the GPL code; if I *bought* an HD-DVD, I'd like to be able to *view* it's HD contents, thanks... without buying a new monitor, if mine is hi-res enough. I'll either work out how to make it viewable, or not buy the HD content... and since I've been put in this situation by the media companies, I might just be tempted to copy some already-DRM-free HD content if I come across it, just to avoid the hassle involved in purchasing it legitimately. I wasn't the one who made it harder to do the right thing...
I'm not saying you don't have a good and valid point; you do, we should all respect copyright, but... I have limits. Copyright should be reasonable. This whole "you must have HDCP monitors" thing goes well beyond my idea of what is reasonable. A consumer backlash is predictable and in my way of thinking very justified.
The end result is that when Windows Vista ships (and Apple's next OS), most people won't be able to watch protected HD content on their computers.
That's OK, I was planning on boycotting and/or stealing and/or disabling the DRM on any such protected content anyway. If they don't want me to see it, I'll avoid buying it, thanks anyway. I'd download or create ripped DRM-less versions if forced too.
Spending a lot of time and effort downloading or ripping content will still be a lot cheaper than buying a multi-thousand-dollar monitor. Besides, most NTSC content is acceptable anyway...
He then says that ajax isn't anything new, which is the same thing your saying to refute him!?!?
I'm replying to the parent post, not trying to refute the article. The article does, however, fully embrace the buzzword-compliant web-dev-speak which the parent post found confusing, and that's the complaint I have. It's just a matter of opinion, though; plenty of folks love the use of jargon because it does tend to demonstrate specific knowledge areas. I have a problem with jargon because I don't think it reliably demonstrates specific knowledge.
Is it just me or is this guy speaking English? I'm not a web programmer but geez...that article seems like a steaming pile of drivel.
I'm increasingly finding that web programers ( and their managers ) can be like that. Meaning that they're increasingly trying to find ways to make "HTML-server based application with some client interaction" sound new and exciting.
Not that using advanced Javascript||.NET||Java||C||Objective-C||Python||wh atever on the client to communicate to a server running Perl||C||Python||Java||.NET||Ruby||Objective-C||wh atever using XML( or whatever ) isn't interesting or useful, it's just... like calling a personal log-format web page a 'weblog'; it's not really something new in the abstract, it's a new way of doing something that's been done before. In other words, it's marketing hype to make you think you're seeing something truly new. At least in general, the implementations are new, not the ideas.
I've always thought of "blogs" being a overhyped concept that the PHBs (recall "corporate blogs") and Joe Sixpack are discovering as a kewl thing you can do with teh Intarweb.
Blogs ( personal, anyone-does-it web pages in log form or of any kind ) are and always were generally cool things ( even if they're not all good ). Tools that make HTML easy to author are and always were generally cool things ( even if they're not all good ).
So it's not Blogs per se that I dislike; it's this new, over-hyped word for something that's been around for a long, long time. Now, 'easy-to-use web log creation software', that's something that's relatively new, and I think that's a great thing, even if I detest the market-speak of the terms "blog" and "podcast". Yea, disliking the term is silly, it's language... but I find it over-hyped and not necessary, and I'm a cold, over-analytical bastard that way. Probably, I'm just jealous that I didn't make up a name for log-format personal web pages first. But really, why not just call it a page? Do you need another word?
Microsoft went after him for civil damages because they had to deal with his bullshit by way of Hotmail.com. If you want a some blood from Snotty Scotty, sue him for what he did to your mail server.
I think you may have missed my point that this is clearly about making a profit for Microsoft, not about fighting spammers. If it was about fighting spammers, they'd be happy for the guy to go bankrupt, they'd seek a conviction, and they'd send a clear message to spammers that Microsoft can't just be bought off.
The message here is that Microsoft gets a cut of the action, not that Microsoft will put you out of business if you're a spammer. There's a big difference. I understand the business aspects, and I'm all to happy to see a spammer get any sort of hurt they have coming to them, but I'm not about to pat Microsoft on the back for settling out of court with this guy, thus allowing him to claim he did no wrong and keep his shady business with nothing more than a promise to 'fly right' and a payoff to Microsoft.
I haven't tried it, but a quick search reveals Netflix Freak which is your OS X version of the same app... of course, it's not free, just free-to-try, whatever that means... frankly, I don't find the web form that hard to use, but I also pretty well let my wife manage the thing. Which is OK, usually, because when she gets crap I don't want to watch, it means more time to play Vice City...
There's also this spiffy-looking Dashflix dashboard thingy, which is only a viewer not an editor, but still neat... and free...
Why does Microsoft get the dough? Why is he not convicted? Why did it have to be Microsoft going after this guy, rather than the government or some class action lawyers?
Do you see my point here? Microsoft has effectively found a(nother) way to make money off of spam - to sue spammers... although I'm very happy for anyone to make sending spam look like a poor business to get into, it's somehow hard for me to see this as anything other than Microsoft getting a cut of the take. Where's my share, I get spam all the time...
You're getting some jokes on this one, but seriously, by age two my son was an expert when it came to mouse use, point-and-click... for your youngster, though I recommend the Apple one-button mouse. Seriously- even if you're insane enough to turn your kids loose on something other than an OS X locked-down account. With those little hands, kids tend to grab the mouse from the back, and the whole 'press this button/that button' thing is less than intuitive. The all-button mouse makes the whole process a lot easier; they can pick up the multi-button thing later.
There are pros and cons to the whole thing; you definitely want to limit the time they spend, and be there to help, but I do credit the computer with helping my son to learn letters, reading, matching, patterns, and a few other basic concepts. It's spooky, the kid's not yet four and is reading words like "crescent". If you have a high-speed connection, check out the flash games ( particularly the "Play with me sesame" and "Maisy" games ) on Noggin.com. Until he's ready for those, he can play peek-a-boo with Zoe and Elmo's Keyboard-o-rama. At two, our kid knew a slew of spanish words from playing some of those Sesame Street games featuring Rosita... but do make sure the kid gets some play time with other kids his age, too. Socialization at a fairly young age turns out to be really, really important.
Am I the only one who has had it with the stupid trendy names?
I put up a personal web page that I update somewhat regularly. In 1993, I just had a web page. Now, ooooh, look at me, I'm "Blogging". In 1998, I put an MP3 link on my web page. Today, I do the same thing, and I'm oh-so-hip "Podcasting". It's so much lame marketing hype.
Not that marketing hype doesn't have it's value, and at least _real_ podcasting involves using RSS ( which it seems this doesn't ) but all the same: Bloggers, you have a web page. Podcasters, you have an MP3 served up by RSS. Get over yourselves, you are not doing something new, you're part of a trend that's so common it needed a marketing label.
I'd be a lot happier about this story if it just said there was a recording made by a shuttle astronaut available on NASA's web site. What would be wrong with that? That's plenty cool by itself. Why does it have to be 'Podcasting' ?
The point is, a kid who flips out because of a three button mouse is a kid who probably shouldn't be left in a room alone with a hamster and a bell-peen hammer.
Points for funny, but I don't think I've met the kid who should be left alone in a room with a hamster, period. Forget the hammer... your taking your chances at "left in a room". Kids require supervision.
It's not like he couldn't operate the mouse, he just found it frustrating... because it was simply not as easy to use. There was just this one tiny area he had to press to get anything useful done, where before he'd just press. It was a big difference. He managed, but it wasn't worth putting him through it on a permanent basis.
This thing is just the horrible membrane keyboard idea applied to a mouse.
It doesn't work like membrane keys at all, actually, if you look at the description. It appears that it still has a single hard-shell that 'clicks', just like the current mouse. Then it has two areas of "capacitive conductance" sensors under the shell. If it's in multi-button mode, it figures out which area your finger is pressed against harder. If it's not in multi-button mode, it doesn't care. So it works like my three-year-old wants when in single-button-mode; he shouldn't need to press only the top part of the mouse. Your 'any click of any button configured as a left click' is a good one, and actually possible right now, but it doesn't solve the 'any area' of the mouse issue. Now that my kid is a little older, he might be able to handle a switch to a logitech or something, but I might just get this Apple mouse ( hmmm or wait for a wireless version ) since I like the roll-ball idea.
Yea, go figure, who knew people only use their mp3 players on "shuffle" anyway? Now that I mention it, though, that's all I ever do, and I don't even own an Apple mp3 player...
Maybe your three year old should be interacting with other kids instead of learning a mouse. Time for that later, when they aren't crapping themselves.
Dude, if your three-year-old is still crapping themselves, you've got some serious catching up to do. That shit needs to be dealt with earlier, like around two to two and a half, when they're not yet at the stage of trying to determine boundaries and exerting their own control over the world. Putting it off until later can make it much, much harder. The "terrible twos" get a bad rap, children are much more argumentative at age three.
Yea, I make sure my three-year-old goes to preschool to get plenty of interaction with other kids. But there's nothing inherently wrong with the fact that, by age two-and-a-half, this kid knew his ABCs, all of his colors, and could count to 20, partly due to mucking about on the computer. Yea, too much time spent in front of a screen, sitting still, doing any one thing is bad, but I'm not going to listen to someone who's suggesting it's somehow bad for young children to learn how to use a mouse and recognize ( and even read ) words at a young age, and trust me, we're not letting this kid get away plugging himself into any video device for hours at a time. He has too many damn little toys and too much to play with outside to do that.
Most of the kids in preschool know what Noggin.com is... some of them have their own ( internet-connected ) computers. This is not ( IMHO ) generally a bad thing.
I really don't think a two-year old could figure out all of these features hidden behind the facade of a solid plastic shell. Honestly you wouldn't even realize it acts like a single button mouse until somebody tells you you have to push down on the front end.
What? Isn't the point of this mouse that you can configure it to act like a single-button mouse ? Which "button" you've clicked is determined by "capacitive sensors" ( check under "The button that wasn't" ), which sounds to me like the whole shell still 'clicks', and the capacitive sensor part is used to select which button you mean, so... it one-button-mode, it should still work like the current one-button mouse, right?
I think this is the entire idea; the two-year-old doesn't figure out any hidden feature. I set it up as a one-button-mouse for them, and aside from the scroll-ball, they don't know the difference. When I switch to my own account, however, oooh the multi-button-y goodness is revealed. That's gee-wiz factor, but it sounds like user-friendly, useful gee-wiz factor, if it works like it sounds like it works. If you're right, on the other hand, and no click is recorded in single-button mode unless the front is pressed, that sounds bad. After reading the specs, though, I don't think that's how it works- the 'capacitive sensors' are used to determine which button was pressed, not that a button was pressed.
I don't think I have ever seen a discussion where someone claims the one-button mouse superior.
You're right in a sense; nobody would claim a single-button mouse is best for experienced power-users. I have the personal experience, however, of trying to get both my mother-in-law and three-year-old son to switch from single-button mice to multi-button mice. All I did in the process was piss them off. After a little more than a week, I realized they either wouldn't use the right button, or ( in the case of my son ), couldn't actually use it's extra features, so I put the single-button mice back on.
Of course, I use a multi-button mouse where I can. If I get this one, I'll be able to use it at home on the computer my son uses ( pretty clever, I guess I'm the real target market for this thing ).
But my point remains- for some users, the one-button mouse actually is better. So there's your one discussion, with the "for some users" caveat, of course.
I'm afraid that, despite being an OS X programmer and a bit of an expert on things Apple, I'm not sure I fit the 'zealot' label... nobody can defend the 'puck' mouse, and I didn't touch an Apple between 1995 and 2001. Maybe there's a real zealot out there who can argue that the one-button mouse is better for everyone. That's not me... but I do have the concrete experience of trying to switch my mother-in-law and son to multi-button, and that forever changed my criticism of the one-button mouse.
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Just a wild guess, but what is most of the Darwin codebase ? Oh...
When this your idea of a workshop, how do you keep the chicks off of you long enough to work on your lego models??
Of course, I only say that because I'm jealous...
Absolutely. Mostly the bit about laptops based on high end processors.
Anyone building the worlds fastest clusters, in need of high powered scientific workstations, or basically anything that requires brute force with numbers will still be using IBMs Power line of processsors
Absolutley. And they'll be running Linux or something similar on them, unless Apple sees a need ( and profit ) in continuing to support PPC in the high end server/desktop market ( they could, but why bother? ). More likely, you'll see PPC 'supercomputer' clusters used, and when the result data set is available, you'll download it onto your laptop and throw it into Mathematica or somesuch for analysis. For that last step, these Intel processors will be more than fast enough...
Modded funny, but this roadmap, including the fact that
compared with what IBM and FreeScale were doing with the PPC ( not a heck of a lot ), show us exactly why Apple decided to move towards Intel. The whole Intel-provides-entire-chipsets-complete-with-DRM thing is just icing on the cake for Apple. 64-bit high-performance low-power chips with real, ongoing R&D and a guarantee of performance parity with the rest of the PC world... it's pretty clear how Apple's two-year switch to Intel corresponds to the release schedule Intel has committed to:Because in most cases, I can stop a marketer from sending me junk mail.
The postal service controls and regulates bulk mail. The business and sending address are almost always known- if they're sending true bulk-rate mail, the sending business and address is known with certainty. If they send stuff and you ask them not to, but they keep sending it, they can be taken to court, have to pay your court costs, fines, damages, etc. Even the 'evil' direct marketing association runs a service to keep you off of their lists, which, though voluntary, supposedly does help keep the volume down - partly because bulk mailing costs enough that they don't want to send mail to people who will just toss it without opening it, really.
The mail is heavily regulated, and costs a fair amount to use. Sure, I get lots of junk mail. But it's nothing compared to the volume of spam, and if I want to stop the junk mail, it can, in fact, be done to a very large extent, with the post office and marketers themselves often helping assist you. Asking spammers to stop sending you spam, on the other hand, just gets you more spam...
I started this thinking there'd be just one reason junk mail is so different from spam, but it turns out there are a lot of reasons, important reasons, especially when combined with the very very very low cost of sending spam and the high cost of trying to filter it out. Honestly, if all spam was just marked "BULK" or something in the subject, I wouldn't mind quite so much, although it'd still be a 'receiver-pays' system...
I'm no iTMS user, but it's pretty obvious that if these companies had any clue whatsoever, they'd have been selling tons of song online for years in Japan, building a solid user base and market dominance without competition. Suddenly, now that they have Apple to compete with, they're finally 'working' on it? Given the overwhelming popularity of the iPod in Japan, why not save their investor's money and focus on something that won't be a complete waste of money ?
Make that someone in your field of expertise and I'll agree. Between disciplines, jargon often confuses things, and isn't really called for as there are often other ( usually longer, more descriptive ) words and phrases which can be used in place of jargon. In the context of marketing, jargon is used to confuse/dazzle purposefully, which is where I find it's ( over ) use most offensive.
Yea, I'm shocked that so many people were interested in ColdPlay, too /duck
In order to be detected, every single one of those 87k phones had their bluetooth enabled. 14k is the number who answered "Ok, send me the clip", I assume... a pretty high number. This has marketing dweebs wetting themselves, I'm sure.
Are you sure it hasn't actually "made the problem worse" by giving spam an air of legitimacy?
I'm not sure you picked up the point that I'd have to buy new hardware to view this content legally.
Here's my thing: if they paid for the hardware, I'd be much much more likely to aquire the content legally. I rent ( and buy ) DVDs all the time without copying them or using them illegally. However, they're going to just piss me off by downsampling content that really should display just fine on my current hardware, even though I've paid for it, just because they don't trust me not to copy it?
I've already been told I'm not trusted. What incentive, other than avoiding prosecution, do I have to act as though I should be trusted?
I agree, in a world where nobody violates copyright, there'd be no hypocrisy. But a company abusing GPL actually was able to use the GPL code; if I *bought* an HD-DVD, I'd like to be able to *view* it's HD contents, thanks... without buying a new monitor, if mine is hi-res enough. I'll either work out how to make it viewable, or not buy the HD content... and since I've been put in this situation by the media companies, I might just be tempted to copy some already-DRM-free HD content if I come across it, just to avoid the hassle involved in purchasing it legitimately. I wasn't the one who made it harder to do the right thing...
I'm not saying you don't have a good and valid point; you do, we should all respect copyright, but... I have limits. Copyright should be reasonable. This whole "you must have HDCP monitors" thing goes well beyond my idea of what is reasonable. A consumer backlash is predictable and in my way of thinking very justified.
That's OK, I was planning on boycotting and/or stealing and/or disabling the DRM on any such protected content anyway. If they don't want me to see it, I'll avoid buying it, thanks anyway. I'd download or create ripped DRM-less versions if forced too.
Spending a lot of time and effort downloading or ripping content will still be a lot cheaper than buying a multi-thousand-dollar monitor. Besides, most NTSC content is acceptable anyway...
I'm replying to the parent post, not trying to refute the article. The article does, however, fully embrace the buzzword-compliant web-dev-speak which the parent post found confusing, and that's the complaint I have. It's just a matter of opinion, though; plenty of folks love the use of jargon because it does tend to demonstrate specific knowledge areas. I have a problem with jargon because I don't think it reliably demonstrates specific knowledge.
I'm increasingly finding that web programers ( and their managers ) can be like that. Meaning that they're increasingly trying to find ways to make "HTML-server based application with some client interaction" sound new and exciting.
Not that using advanced Javascript||.NET||Java||C||Objective-C||Python||wh atever on the client to communicate to a server running Perl||C||Python||Java||.NET||Ruby||Objective-C||wh atever using XML( or whatever ) isn't interesting or useful, it's just... like calling a personal log-format web page a 'weblog'; it's not really something new in the abstract, it's a new way of doing something that's been done before. In other words, it's marketing hype to make you think you're seeing something truly new. At least in general, the implementations are new, not the ideas.
Why is it that I'm a tad disappointed the page loaded quickly?
Blogs ( personal, anyone-does-it web pages in log form or of any kind ) are and always were generally cool things ( even if they're not all good ). Tools that make HTML easy to author are and always were generally cool things ( even if they're not all good ).
So it's not Blogs per se that I dislike; it's this new, over-hyped word for something that's been around for a long, long time. Now, 'easy-to-use web log creation software', that's something that's relatively new, and I think that's a great thing, even if I detest the market-speak of the terms "blog" and "podcast". Yea, disliking the term is silly, it's language... but I find it over-hyped and not necessary, and I'm a cold, over-analytical bastard that way. Probably, I'm just jealous that I didn't make up a name for log-format personal web pages first. But really, why not just call it a page? Do you need another word?
I think you may have missed my point that this is clearly about making a profit for Microsoft, not about fighting spammers. If it was about fighting spammers, they'd be happy for the guy to go bankrupt, they'd seek a conviction, and they'd send a clear message to spammers that Microsoft can't just be bought off.
The message here is that Microsoft gets a cut of the action, not that Microsoft will put you out of business if you're a spammer. There's a big difference. I understand the business aspects, and I'm all to happy to see a spammer get any sort of hurt they have coming to them, but I'm not about to pat Microsoft on the back for settling out of court with this guy, thus allowing him to claim he did no wrong and keep his shady business with nothing more than a promise to 'fly right' and a payoff to Microsoft.
There's also this spiffy-looking Dashflix dashboard thingy, which is only a viewer not an editor, but still neat... and free...
Do you see my point here? Microsoft has effectively found a(nother) way to make money off of spam - to sue spammers... although I'm very happy for anyone to make sending spam look like a poor business to get into, it's somehow hard for me to see this as anything other than Microsoft getting a cut of the take. Where's my share, I get spam all the time...
There are pros and cons to the whole thing; you definitely want to limit the time they spend, and be there to help, but I do credit the computer with helping my son to learn letters, reading, matching, patterns, and a few other basic concepts. It's spooky, the kid's not yet four and is reading words like "crescent". If you have a high-speed connection, check out the flash games ( particularly the "Play with me sesame" and "Maisy" games ) on Noggin.com. Until he's ready for those, he can play peek-a-boo with Zoe and Elmo's Keyboard-o-rama. At two, our kid knew a slew of spanish words from playing some of those Sesame Street games featuring Rosita... but do make sure the kid gets some play time with other kids his age, too. Socialization at a fairly young age turns out to be really, really important.
I put up a personal web page that I update somewhat regularly. In 1993, I just had a web page. Now, ooooh, look at me, I'm "Blogging". In 1998, I put an MP3 link on my web page. Today, I do the same thing, and I'm oh-so-hip "Podcasting". It's so much lame marketing hype.
Not that marketing hype doesn't have it's value, and at least _real_ podcasting involves using RSS ( which it seems this doesn't ) but all the same: Bloggers, you have a web page. Podcasters, you have an MP3 served up by RSS. Get over yourselves, you are not doing something new, you're part of a trend that's so common it needed a marketing label.
I'd be a lot happier about this story if it just said there was a recording made by a shuttle astronaut available on NASA's web site. What would be wrong with that? That's plenty cool by itself. Why does it have to be 'Podcasting' ?
Points for funny, but I don't think I've met the kid who should be left alone in a room with a hamster, period. Forget the hammer... your taking your chances at "left in a room". Kids require supervision.
It's not like he couldn't operate the mouse, he just found it frustrating... because it was simply not as easy to use. There was just this one tiny area he had to press to get anything useful done, where before he'd just press. It was a big difference. He managed, but it wasn't worth putting him through it on a permanent basis.
It doesn't work like membrane keys at all, actually, if you look at the description. It appears that it still has a single hard-shell that 'clicks', just like the current mouse. Then it has two areas of "capacitive conductance" sensors under the shell. If it's in multi-button mode, it figures out which area your finger is pressed against harder. If it's not in multi-button mode, it doesn't care. So it works like my three-year-old wants when in single-button-mode; he shouldn't need to press only the top part of the mouse. Your 'any click of any button configured as a left click' is a good one, and actually possible right now, but it doesn't solve the 'any area' of the mouse issue. Now that my kid is a little older, he might be able to handle a switch to a logitech or something, but I might just get this Apple mouse ( hmmm or wait for a wireless version ) since I like the roll-ball idea.
Yea, go figure, who knew people only use their mp3 players on "shuffle" anyway? Now that I mention it, though, that's all I ever do, and I don't even own an Apple mp3 player...
Dude, if your three-year-old is still crapping themselves, you've got some serious catching up to do. That shit needs to be dealt with earlier, like around two to two and a half, when they're not yet at the stage of trying to determine boundaries and exerting their own control over the world. Putting it off until later can make it much, much harder. The "terrible twos" get a bad rap, children are much more argumentative at age three.
Yea, I make sure my three-year-old goes to preschool to get plenty of interaction with other kids. But there's nothing inherently wrong with the fact that, by age two-and-a-half, this kid knew his ABCs, all of his colors, and could count to 20, partly due to mucking about on the computer. Yea, too much time spent in front of a screen, sitting still, doing any one thing is bad, but I'm not going to listen to someone who's suggesting it's somehow bad for young children to learn how to use a mouse and recognize ( and even read ) words at a young age, and trust me, we're not letting this kid get away plugging himself into any video device for hours at a time. He has too many damn little toys and too much to play with outside to do that.
Most of the kids in preschool know what Noggin.com is... some of them have their own ( internet-connected ) computers. This is not ( IMHO ) generally a bad thing.
What? Isn't the point of this mouse that you can configure it to act like a single-button mouse ? Which "button" you've clicked is determined by "capacitive sensors" ( check under "The button that wasn't" ), which sounds to me like the whole shell still 'clicks', and the capacitive sensor part is used to select which button you mean, so... it one-button-mode, it should still work like the current one-button mouse, right?
I think this is the entire idea; the two-year-old doesn't figure out any hidden feature. I set it up as a one-button-mouse for them, and aside from the scroll-ball, they don't know the difference. When I switch to my own account, however, oooh the multi-button-y goodness is revealed. That's gee-wiz factor, but it sounds like user-friendly, useful gee-wiz factor, if it works like it sounds like it works. If you're right, on the other hand, and no click is recorded in single-button mode unless the front is pressed, that sounds bad. After reading the specs, though, I don't think that's how it works- the 'capacitive sensors' are used to determine which button was pressed, not that a button was pressed.
You're right in a sense; nobody would claim a single-button mouse is best for experienced power-users. I have the personal experience, however, of trying to get both my mother-in-law and three-year-old son to switch from single-button mice to multi-button mice. All I did in the process was piss them off. After a little more than a week, I realized they either wouldn't use the right button, or ( in the case of my son ), couldn't actually use it's extra features, so I put the single-button mice back on.
Of course, I use a multi-button mouse where I can. If I get this one, I'll be able to use it at home on the computer my son uses ( pretty clever, I guess I'm the real target market for this thing ).
But my point remains- for some users, the one-button mouse actually is better. So there's your one discussion, with the "for some users" caveat, of course.
I'm afraid that, despite being an OS X programmer and a bit of an expert on things Apple, I'm not sure I fit the 'zealot' label... nobody can defend the 'puck' mouse, and I didn't touch an Apple between 1995 and 2001. Maybe there's a real zealot out there who can argue that the one-button mouse is better for everyone. That's not me... but I do have the concrete experience of trying to switch my mother-in-law and son to multi-button, and that forever changed my criticism of the one-button mouse.