I suspect that although Linux (desktop) users outnumber OSX users a
Whoops - the backwards virus obviously got to that sentence. I meant the other way round, of course (but probably a much higher proportion of Linux users are also developers).
But it still got +5 so that's OK (can I mod myself down?)
As I understand the current rules, lots of the products you mention can't be delivered in the App Store because they need to be installed system-wide. E.g. you can get TextWrangler on the AppStore, if you want to install the command-line tools you have to download it from the website. Maybe these will go away with OS 10.7 (since the scuttlebutt is that 10.7 itself will be sold over the app store).
Also - GPL software is effectively barred from the App store.
OTOH, the App Store terms - use on any Mac computer you own - might be a bit generous for the likes of Microsoft and Adobe. Plus, until they get a "corporate App Store" and educational discounts sorted out its not much of a solution (I get Office under the "home use program" via my employer's site license, and I'm sure as hell not buying CS5 with my own cash!)
For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program. Nothing wrong with that, but where are the Free/Libre alternatives?
Well, OS X is still a vastly smaller community than Windows, and I suspect that although Linux (desktop) users outnumber OSX users a disproportionate number of Linux users are also programmers. So its not surprising there's less choice. That also means that the money to be made from true "honesty box" shareware is probably smaller, so developers are more likely to require payment. Also, historically, Mac OS "Classic" developer tools and documentation cost an arm and a leg - of course, since OS X they've been free (or very cheap, for iOS), but the early days may have set community expectation. Finally - I don't think OS X is the easiest platform to develop for (however elegant) and OS X users tend to demand nice GUIs on everything.
However - its not all bad: First, OS X is Unix: Install "fink" or "macports" and you'll get access to a huge number of Free/Libre packages from the Linux/Unix world - albeit most of these are command-line or X11. If you don't want to roll your own, lots of major "free" projects offer OSX versions: (off the top of my head and at random: LibreOffice, Eclipse, InkScape, VirtualBox, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Mozilla) not to mention the stuff that is already present in OS X (Apache, PHP, Ruby, Python, Samba, CUPS...) I hope the latter list doesn't diminish too much as projects move to GPLv3.
There's no need to deflect attention,, this is not about Android, this is about Apple computers having the type of issues for which PCs have always been made fun of.
Except an important aspect of the "type of issues for which PCs have always been made fun of" was the lack of a credible security model in "old" Windows, combined with Windows' huge albatross of "legacy" software. Even after the deficiency was rectified in NT and XP, this leads to users running as "admin" and/or being so bombarded with security warnings that they ignore them.
OSX and Linux use a "sudo" model which is fundamentally more secure than "old" windows or even XP in its typical "all users are superuser" mode. That ought to be becoming less of an issue with Win7.
None of them are immune to "social engineering" that tricks the user into manually installing, authorizing and running malware. The only solution to that, as TFA suggests, is iPad style lock-down. Personally, I can live with that on a phone or tablet, but if Apple try and impose it on "proper" computers, I'm out.
Portable HDDs are supposed to be portable. Part of portability is working on multiple platforms. Until Intel gets their PC release in line it's only going to be used by those who know they'll only ever want their data on a Mac.
The target market for the first batch of TB peripherals is going to be Mac-using video pros, who are gagging for something better than FireWire800 and are frustrated by the removal of the Express card slot from all but the 17" MacBook Pro. So far there are kick-ass RAID arrays, Fibre Channel adapters, Pro video digitisers and extra Ethernet/Firewire ports. There is one "portable" HD (TB only) but it looks pretty high end (2 SSDs in a RAID) and its one of those big aluminium bricks from Lacie, not what I'd choose for a "portable" drive.
Long term, you can already get external drives with multiple interfaces (I have one with USB2, FW800 and eSATA) so there may be TB+USB3 drive in the future.
However, the interesting possibility of TB is that its fast enough to use multi-protocol adaptors without taking a hit: there are already Firewire800 and Ethernet adapters in the pipeline (presumably in demand from Macbook users who've run out of ports) - hopefully things like eSATA and USB3 will follow. In that case, I'd go for an eSATA interface and go for an eSATA + USB external HD or one of those "drop in a bare disk" adapters.
The other potential use for TB is multi-interface "docking stations" or destop hubs - one TB cable and your laptop is connected to a desktop full of hardware including the monitor, hard drive, network etc. Your peripherals might still use "legacy" interfaces but they'll plug into the hub rather than the laptop.
The current (reassuringly expensive) Apple Cinema Display has a USB hub, USB sound card, USB webcam - and consequently needs you to plug in a USB lead as well as Displayport - it will be interesting to see if the next version can do all this (or maybe more) via Thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt's DisplayPort bandwidth is, in its current incarnation, lower than DisplayPort v1.2's 17 Gbit/s peak video throughput when PCI Express is used as well, if only a single Thunderbolt port is used.
Probably why the top-end iMac already has 2 TB ports. I'm sure future MacBook Pros will have 2 as well if TB takes off so they can drop a USB port (or the ExpressCard on the 17") to make room.
Having said that, my HP LP2475w monitor doesn't play nice with my TB MacBook using a mdp-to-DisplayPort cable (not sure whether to blame HP or Apple) but that's my bad luck for ignoring "never buy 1.0 of anything" - using a MDP-to-DVI adaptor works..
I have neither the time nor the inclination to research this, but I'm sure someone said the same thing in the early days of USB
Funny you should say that: USB ports were dead in the water for a while - these funny oblong sockets showed up on PC motherboards but Windows didn't support them, PCs still had RS232 and Centronics ports, scanners still came with SCSI cards and so nobody used USB much.
Then someone bought out a popular all-in-one computer that only had USB, and (by some strange coincidence) USB printers, keyboards, mice etc. started to become available. Who was this brave company? Hint: the first wave of mass-market USB peripherals all tended to have translucent blue plastic cases reminiscent of the original "Bondai Blue" iMac...
Oh no, Windows 8 competitiors will be pretty much Windows 7 (and XP of course).
We're talking about Windows 8 on ARM which, in the short term, is likely to be going into tablets, smartphones, ultra-small-and-long-battery-life netbooks, servers which are more like souped-up NAS devices and probably other embedded systems. Apart from Netbooks, those areas are currently dominated by iOS, Android and Linux, not windows. MS has pwned netbooks - but they're under pressure from tablets (and possibly ChromeBooks in the future) which smoke them on battery life.
Windows 8 on x86 is a different kettle of fish - it will be running on desktops, full-fat laptops and industrial strength servers where it will be mainly competing against Win7 and XP and most definitely will have some form of "emulation" to support legacy (Intel said as much). Maybe ARM will have another try at the desktop/workstation market, but don't expect ARM to be competitive in such systems any time soon.
Leaving the compatibility mode out of Win8/ARM makes perfect sense because (a) its for smaller systems which can do without the bloat (b) the target users are less worried about legacy apps (which don't make any sense on tablets or phones) and (c) XPMode almost certainly uses virtualization technology (i.e. the x86 code still runs on the physical processor) rather than emulation or translation, so it couldn't be ported to ARM. Emulation/translation is something you can only get away with when you're moving to a faster processor (6502 to 68k, 68k to PPC, PPC G3/4 to Core).
Hallelujah! All hail Jobs! A likeness of the Apple logo just miraculously appeared in my lunchbox!
Oh, wait - sorry, false alarm - its just an apple.
P.s. in this modern quantum phrenology, how close is the "religious" region to the "sex" region - and can you distinguish between a Slashdotter's reaction to a neat water-cooled quad SLI graphics rig and a picture of Natalie Portman?
Well, you can be sure that it will run "official" MS Office and"official" Microsoft Exchange clients (...and probably Exchange servers if ARM servers take off). That will be attractive to some people (even though it might not sway the average Slashdotter).
Also, as others have pointed out here, it could potentially run any Windows software developed in.NET, which compiles to bytecode (like Java) rather than native machine code.
That's assuming netbooks and servers - tablets and phones are a different kettle of fish because iOS and Android have shown that having software specifically designed for a touch-driven mobile trumps legacy compatibility.
Even there, though, it will offer the hordes of Windows developers a common API and development environment (much like OS X developers have a head start in iOS, even though they're not directly compatible) - so a developer could work entirely in C# or VB, and with (at least vaguely) familiar API across all platforms, rather than the current situation where Android prefers Java, iOS prefers Objective C and desktop WIndows prefers the.net languages, and all have fundamentally different APIs. Currently, I think the only real common language/API is JavaScript/DOM (which probably has a big future, but some people might not feel is suitable for "heavy lifting").
Of course, the majority view on/. is probably that none of the minor conveniences above are sufficient grounds for touching Windows with a 10' wooden pole.
This just in, x86 and ARM instruction sets are NOT compatible! Everyone panic! Blame MS! No, wait... Sony must have had a hand in this!
File this under no shit, Sherlock.
I think what intel is saying is that MS are:
not planning to include any sort of integrated x86 emulation/translation in Win8/ARM (maybe you'll be able to run QEMU or something*, but it won't be seamless like Rosetta on the Mac)
that Windows 8 is going to drop some of legacy API support available in WIndows 7 - and while Win8 x86 is going to offer a "classic" mode this won't be available on ARM (...I wonder if this is a reference to the existing virtualization-based legacy mode in Win7/Vista?)
Of course, what Microsoft gets and Intel apparently doesn't is that Win8/ARM's main competitors will not be other Windows machines (as was the case when Windows NT briefly supported other processors such as Alpha) but against iOS and Android in the mobile world and Linux in the server world. If Win8/ARM netbooks can run "geniune" MS Office and Win8/ARM servers talk "genuine" Active Directory and Exchange Server, along with lots of "modern" windows software written in.NET, some people will choose them over iOS, Android or Linux. Intel will surely be the solution of choice for corporates wanting to run their 1990-era dBaseII systems - but even that market will eventually fade away.
As for tablets and smartphones - they'll need custom-designed software anyway so legacy is irrelevant.
(* Hell, I was running x86 PC software via an emulator on my ARM3-based desktop back in 1990 - but the ARM3 was a desktop superchip that smoked the 286s of the day... maybe ARM will make a triumphant return to the desktop, but it will need a 64-bit makeover and a FPU).
I can't remember if they get into why ray guns didn't catch on, I think they were incredibly expensive and unreliable.
That's basically it: In the episode Heart of Gold the baddie brags about his state of the art laser weapon - when it comes to the big shoot-up he gets off a few shots, causing some minor unpleasantness, before it starts flashing "battery low" errors.
Of course, in a colonisation situation, you really don't want tools with "no user serviceable parts inside" that rely on irreplaceable spare parts made from exotic materials at the top of a huge "technology pyramid".
"Install" is a verb. "I install Windows on commodity PCs"
The noun for which you are scratching is "installation". "We support 3000 Windows installations".
Do try to keep up.
I sincere apology for not have my slashdots post professional proofread and peer-review. I will writing out the define of verb and noun times a hundred as punish.
Probably wouldn't do you much good - the Domesday system used a new "standard" called LV-ROM which stored analogue video and digital data on the laserdisc. I think that the format was only ever used by Domesday and one or two other educational projects. So even if you've got a lasevision movie player stashed away for whenever you want to see Han shoot first it won't get at the data. LV-ROM players had a SCSI interface - Other laserdisc players just had a RS232 interface for computer-controlled playback.
Also, the way you design software for laserdisc-based "Interactive Video" is very different from "modern" multimedia: your computer has fairly crappy graphics with a genlock/overlay card which superimposes them on the analogue video output from the laserdisc. The laserdisc is recoreded at constant angular velocity, so its basically 1 frame/2 fields per revolution, giving perfect freeze-frame and frame-accurate random access. So, wherever possible you pre-rendered all your graphics and on some expensive specialist video graphics setup and recorded them statically on the disc.
I didn't work on Domesday, but I worked on another educational interactive video project and I can tell you that large sections of the discs would make no sense whatsoever as linear video - and the affordances of the system greatly affected the design of the software. E.g. there was a 3D maze-building game with every possible forward view pre-rendered as a few frames of video... which meant it was cunningly designed so that you could only see the length of the corridor and any branches to your immediate left and right - otherwise rendering [thinks] 2^16+2^12+2^10+... frames for an 8x8 maze might have got tedious. In other parts we were utilizing the ability to step through video perfectly in 1/25 sec steps to get kids to calculate speeds etc.
I guess now it would be possible to simulate the whole system in software with uncompressed or MJPEG video...
Pricewise, these probably aren't being made in huge quantities (which will push the price up) - plus they contain pretty much the same components as a netbook anyway, so why should they be cheaper?
This is the old story with "Network Computers", "Thin Clients", "Dickless Workstations" etc. through the ages: the concept is sound, but they end up costing as much as a full-blooded desktop, and you can't play [video game of the day] on them. They ought to be attractive in business, where the money saved in not having to run around maintaining a fleet of local Windows installs is more significant.
However, the old Network Computer idea was firmly pitched at business and failed to take off (perhaps the people making the buying decisions were swayed by the PHBs who's departments would be 50% redundant if they didn't have to run around fixing Windows installs).
These are never going to take off with slashdotters who like to tinker, and they'll also be held back by the cost/unreliability of mobile internet. However, if sufficient water has gone under the bridge for Google to try and re-sell the (perfectly sound) Network Computer concept they may have a role, and the retail price doesn't necessarily reflect how much hardware/service packages will be offered to businesses for.
I just hope that you don't subscribe to the Many Worlds Interpretation, otherwise, immediately after your quantum wedding, you will be served with quantum divorce papers because:
1. In some possible universe you will have screwed the head bridesmaid on your wedding night
2. In some possible universe you will have won the lottery and become a multi-millionaire, and your soon-to-be-ex-partner wants half!
3. Your beloved really didn't appreciate you continually playing "My Beloved Monster" by Eels at the reception...
The agency model was created by Apple who made it a requirement for any publisher who wished to sell books through Apple’s iBooks app.
This seems to be talking about agents selling books through iBooks. Where does it say that Apple made it a requirement for any developer who wants to sell books in their own iOS app to adopt the same model?
BBC America is *increasing* its science fiction lineup where it already had more content than Syfy did.
Well, BBC UK has recently had several successful SF/Fantasy shows (Dr Who, Being Human, Torchwood, Life on Mars) - which is a pretty unusual state of affairs for them (what I suspect is happening is that the kids who grew up on Dr Who, Blake's 7, Quatermass, Thunderbirds etc. in the 60s and 70s are now old enough to start cropping up in important roles in the BBC). In the UK, 'Who is not just a successful SF show, its a successful mainstream TV show that goes out on a major channel, early evening, on a Saturday, and gets decent ratings against talent & quiz shows on other channels. Torchwood and Being Human have been bumped from the small-beer BBC3 digital-only channel to the more prestigious BBC1 & BBC2 (respectively). So its not surprising that they see SF as a potential market for the US.
The latest series of 'Who is clearly pitched more at the US. The 2-part opener was set in the US and featured that international hero of the American Way - President Nixon - and a distinctly darker, more adult feel plus a "wibbly wobbly timey-wimey" plot (with added memory-wiping and fractured narrative brainfrack). Not sure how that will play long-term in the UK where it's always been a 'family' show (i.e. partly pitched at kids). I had to explain it to my dad:-)
It may be that it has finally dawned on BBC that if Dr Who can be the biggest SF franchise brand in the UK then maybe they ought to be able to persuade a few Americans to watch it.
Of course, UK shows have the advantage of short "seasons" (usually 6-13 episodes) : a better length, IMHO, for story arcs that avoids the BSG syndrome of 2-3 great episodes at the start a good 2-3 episode season climax and 12 episodes of tedious padding in the middle. I also suspect this helps shows find an audience: there's usually a whole series "in the can" before the show starts airing - so a show has to tank bigtime to be cancelled mid-series. Writers/producers even finish shows for creative reasons rather than cancellation - Its amusing to note that the original Life on Mars (a huge success) only runs to the same number of episodes as the US remake (which flopped and was cancelled) - although there was also a successful spinoff.
One fail: I think the original price of £200 is too low. Based on three hours of work and expenses, it should be at least £300.
Which would suggest that each punter can be persuaded to buy, on average, enough extras (prints, frames, albums, makeovers) to make up that £100... and the Groupon customers already think they've saved £170, so why not blow it on a big print, normal price £300, at a special one time only, gone as soon as I walk out the door price of £249.95...
TFA doesn't provide any evidence of a failure - read TFA carefully - its someone who has seen the ad on Groupon presenting their own calculations as to its viability (which may be exaggerated e.g. - £5 each for photo frames in quantities of 300+? Has the guy never heard of China? Even retail, one-off at IKEA you can get them for under £3.)
As several other posters point out, he doesn't include the value of unredeemed coupons.
Nor does he take into account how much extra money the photographer could make by doing a hard sell on extra prints, nicer frames, albums, posters, coffee mugs, mouse mats, or by selling makeover and costume hire services.
Plenty of photo studios offer free or very cheap "glamour photography" sessions where they make their money selling prints and extras (there have been a few whinges on consumer shows from punters who "win" sessions and then discover that they have to pay for prints and that the "makeover" is theatrical slap that has to be washed off before they go out in daylight least they frighten small children).
BitTorrent traffic alone far outweighs Web traffic.
...and many people locate the BitTorrent they want to use by searching on the web.
Then there are more traditional uses like FTP
...and many people locate the file they want to download by FTP by following a link on a web site (assuming they don't download it using HTTP).
and email.
Which many people now access via a webmail application such as Gmail or Outlook Web Access - and while they aren't going to supplant email anytime soon, people are increasingly using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to communicate.
Voice and video teleconferencing are always becoming more prevalent. Then there's also gaming.
...and people don't use the web at all to locate people, find game servers, find out about games or even play them on line?
Don't forget DNS. And there are many other more technical uses that I know you won't be familiar with.
Actually, I've been using the Internet since before the web existed, and I've even written POP and SMTP clients in lovingly hand-crafted C so cut the patronising crap - I do actually know the difference between the web and the Internet. The argument was whether the Web was an important part of the Internet - not whether it was the only use.
Sites that use Flash and/or JavaScript heavily tend to be rather useless. Slashdot has gotten progressively worse to use as more JavaScript has been introduced.
OTOH, sites like Google Maps and Docs use it to great effect. I'd agree that Slashdot is a less than stellar example (and I'm not quite sure why it needs so much scripting to do what it does).
Likewise, Flash doesn't really add anything useful to the table.
Vector graphics and object-based animation that scale nicely without having to be coded from scratch? Its particularly suitable for things like online tests and educational applets. Again, it can be abused by using it for things that could/should be done in plain old HTML - and its use it for animated/interactive ads may be annoying, but that doesn't make it insignificant. Plus, all the people flaming iOS because it doesn't support Flash presumably think its good for something. For my money, it ought to be replaced by HTML5+SVG+DOM+CSS+AJAX+Javascript in the long term, but the development tools aren't there yet.
We could download and play games long before Flash existed.
In a format that would run unmodified on Windows, Mac, Linux on some mobile devices? Well, yes, there is Java - although I've found Flash to be more consistent cross-platform and easier to deliver (the plug-in is a simple download which most people already have, and its trivial to package Flash as stand alone.exe or.app files that run without plugins) and Flash's graphics engine is perfect for simple 2d games. Java may be better for complex stuff Minecraft, but if I wanted to write a poker app I'd choose Flash (until/unless SVG is properly supported across browsers). Plus, Flash is biggest in "on line" games like Farmville, which are tied to web-based social networking.
We could stream videos using RealPlayer and other technologies long before YouTube existed. In fact, those real applications are often much effective to use than the Flash- or JavaScript-based "equivalents".
Sometimes the issue is not just technical. Macromedia/Adobe give away the player plug-in, make their money selling tools to content creators and only bug users when an update to the player is available. RealPlayer were continually trying to push their premium media player software and content on your users. You could tell users to go install Flash player without them coming back and asking if they had to pay (because Real had made the "Free Playe
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I suspect that although Linux (desktop) users outnumber OSX users a
Whoops - the backwards virus obviously got to that sentence. I meant the other way round, of course (but probably a much higher proportion of Linux users are also developers).
But it still got +5 so that's OK (can I mod myself down?)
As I understand the current rules, lots of the products you mention can't be delivered in the App Store because they need to be installed system-wide. E.g. you can get TextWrangler on the AppStore, if you want to install the command-line tools you have to download it from the website. Maybe these will go away with OS 10.7 (since the scuttlebutt is that 10.7 itself will be sold over the app store).
Also - GPL software is effectively barred from the App store.
OTOH, the App Store terms - use on any Mac computer you own - might be a bit generous for the likes of Microsoft and Adobe. Plus, until they get a "corporate App Store" and educational discounts sorted out its not much of a solution (I get Office under the "home use program" via my employer's site license, and I'm sure as hell not buying CS5 with my own cash!)
For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program. Nothing wrong with that, but where are the Free/Libre alternatives?
Well, OS X is still a vastly smaller community than Windows, and I suspect that although Linux (desktop) users outnumber OSX users a disproportionate number of Linux users are also programmers. So its not surprising there's less choice. That also means that the money to be made from true "honesty box" shareware is probably smaller, so developers are more likely to require payment. Also, historically, Mac OS "Classic" developer tools and documentation cost an arm and a leg - of course, since OS X they've been free (or very cheap, for iOS), but the early days may have set community expectation. Finally - I don't think OS X is the easiest platform to develop for (however elegant) and OS X users tend to demand nice GUIs on everything.
However - its not all bad: First, OS X is Unix: Install "fink" or "macports" and you'll get access to a huge number of Free/Libre packages from the Linux/Unix world - albeit most of these are command-line or X11. If you don't want to roll your own, lots of major "free" projects offer OSX versions: (off the top of my head and at random: LibreOffice, Eclipse, InkScape, VirtualBox, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Mozilla) not to mention the stuff that is already present in OS X (Apache, PHP, Ruby, Python, Samba, CUPS...) I hope the latter list doesn't diminish too much as projects move to GPLv3.
There's no need to deflect attention,, this is not about Android, this is about Apple computers having the type of issues for which PCs have always been made fun of.
Except an important aspect of the "type of issues for which PCs have always been made fun of" was the lack of a credible security model in "old" Windows, combined with Windows' huge albatross of "legacy" software. Even after the deficiency was rectified in NT and XP, this leads to users running as "admin" and/or being so bombarded with security warnings that they ignore them.
OSX and Linux use a "sudo" model which is fundamentally more secure than "old" windows or even XP in its typical "all users are superuser" mode. That ought to be becoming less of an issue with Win7.
None of them are immune to "social engineering" that tricks the user into manually installing, authorizing and running malware. The only solution to that, as TFA suggests, is iPad style lock-down. Personally, I can live with that on a phone or tablet, but if Apple try and impose it on "proper" computers, I'm out.
Pull up outside your local evangelical church with the song from Portal blasting out of your car stereo.
i'm doing Science and I'm still alive...
No, they're bidirectional.
See the intel brief (PDF).
Portable HDDs are supposed to be portable. Part of portability is working on multiple platforms. Until Intel gets their PC release in line it's only going to be used by those who know they'll only ever want their data on a Mac.
The target market for the first batch of TB peripherals is going to be Mac-using video pros, who are gagging for something better than FireWire800 and are frustrated by the removal of the Express card slot from all but the 17" MacBook Pro. So far there are kick-ass RAID arrays, Fibre Channel adapters, Pro video digitisers and extra Ethernet/Firewire ports. There is one "portable" HD (TB only) but it looks pretty high end (2 SSDs in a RAID) and its one of those big aluminium bricks from Lacie, not what I'd choose for a "portable" drive.
Long term, you can already get external drives with multiple interfaces (I have one with USB2, FW800 and eSATA) so there may be TB+USB3 drive in the future.
However, the interesting possibility of TB is that its fast enough to use multi-protocol adaptors without taking a hit: there are already Firewire800 and Ethernet adapters in the pipeline (presumably in demand from Macbook users who've run out of ports) - hopefully things like eSATA and USB3 will follow. In that case, I'd go for an eSATA interface and go for an eSATA + USB external HD or one of those "drop in a bare disk" adapters.
The other potential use for TB is multi-interface "docking stations" or destop hubs - one TB cable and your laptop is connected to a desktop full of hardware including the monitor, hard drive, network etc. Your peripherals might still use "legacy" interfaces but they'll plug into the hub rather than the laptop.
The current (reassuringly expensive) Apple Cinema Display has a USB hub, USB sound card, USB webcam - and consequently needs you to plug in a USB lead as well as Displayport - it will be interesting to see if the next version can do all this (or maybe more) via Thunderbolt.
DisplayPort v1.2 is faster.
...faster than one of TB's two 10 Gb/s channels, so you can't have 17 Gb/s monitor and another peripheral.
From Wikipedia:
Thunderbolt's DisplayPort bandwidth is, in its current incarnation, lower than DisplayPort v1.2's 17 Gbit/s peak video throughput when PCI Express is used as well, if only a single Thunderbolt port is used.
Probably why the top-end iMac already has 2 TB ports. I'm sure future MacBook Pros will have 2 as well if TB takes off so they can drop a USB port (or the ExpressCard on the 17") to make room.
Having said that, my HP LP2475w monitor doesn't play nice with my TB MacBook using a mdp-to-DisplayPort cable (not sure whether to blame HP or Apple) but that's my bad luck for ignoring "never buy 1.0 of anything" - using a MDP-to-DVI adaptor works..
I have neither the time nor the inclination to research this, but I'm sure someone said the same thing in the early days of USB
Funny you should say that: USB ports were dead in the water for a while - these funny oblong sockets showed up on PC motherboards but Windows didn't support them, PCs still had RS232 and Centronics ports, scanners still came with SCSI cards and so nobody used USB much.
Then someone bought out a popular all-in-one computer that only had USB, and (by some strange coincidence) USB printers, keyboards, mice etc. started to become available. Who was this brave company? Hint: the first wave of mass-market USB peripherals all tended to have translucent blue plastic cases reminiscent of the original "Bondai Blue" iMac...
Oh no, Windows 8 competitiors will be pretty much Windows 7 (and XP of course).
We're talking about Windows 8 on ARM which, in the short term, is likely to be going into tablets, smartphones, ultra-small-and-long-battery-life netbooks, servers which are more like souped-up NAS devices and probably other embedded systems. Apart from Netbooks, those areas are currently dominated by iOS, Android and Linux, not windows. MS has pwned netbooks - but they're under pressure from tablets (and possibly ChromeBooks in the future) which smoke them on battery life.
Windows 8 on x86 is a different kettle of fish - it will be running on desktops, full-fat laptops and industrial strength servers where it will be mainly competing against Win7 and XP and most definitely will have some form of "emulation" to support legacy (Intel said as much). Maybe ARM will have another try at the desktop/workstation market, but don't expect ARM to be competitive in such systems any time soon.
Leaving the compatibility mode out of Win8/ARM makes perfect sense because (a) its for smaller systems which can do without the bloat (b) the target users are less worried about legacy apps (which don't make any sense on tablets or phones) and (c) XPMode almost certainly uses virtualization technology (i.e. the x86 code still runs on the physical processor) rather than emulation or translation, so it couldn't be ported to ARM. Emulation/translation is something you can only get away with when you're moving to a faster processor (6502 to 68k, 68k to PPC, PPC G3/4 to Core).
Hallelujah! All hail Jobs! A likeness of the Apple logo just miraculously appeared in my lunchbox!
Oh, wait - sorry, false alarm - its just an apple.
P.s. in this modern quantum phrenology, how close is the "religious" region to the "sex" region - and can you distinguish between a Slashdotter's reaction to a neat water-cooled quad SLI graphics rig and a picture of Natalie Portman?
...if it won't run Window's software?.
Well, you can be sure that it will run "official" MS Office and"official" Microsoft Exchange clients (...and probably Exchange servers if ARM servers take off). That will be attractive to some people (even though it might not sway the average Slashdotter).
Also, as others have pointed out here, it could potentially run any Windows software developed in .NET, which compiles to bytecode (like Java) rather than native machine code.
That's assuming netbooks and servers - tablets and phones are a different kettle of fish because iOS and Android have shown that having software specifically designed for a touch-driven mobile trumps legacy compatibility.
Even there, though, it will offer the hordes of Windows developers a common API and development environment (much like OS X developers have a head start in iOS, even though they're not directly compatible) - so a developer could work entirely in C# or VB, and with (at least vaguely) familiar API across all platforms, rather than the current situation where Android prefers Java, iOS prefers Objective C and desktop WIndows prefers the .net languages, and all have fundamentally different APIs. Currently, I think the only real common language/API is JavaScript/DOM (which probably has a big future, but some people might not feel is suitable for "heavy lifting").
Of course, the majority view on /. is probably that none of the minor conveniences above are sufficient grounds for touching Windows with a 10' wooden pole.
This just in, x86 and ARM instruction sets are NOT compatible! Everyone panic! Blame MS! No, wait... Sony must have had a hand in this!
File this under no shit, Sherlock.
I think what intel is saying is that MS are:
that Windows 8 is going to drop some of legacy API support available in WIndows 7 - and while Win8 x86 is going to offer a "classic" mode this won't be available on ARM (...I wonder if this is a reference to the existing virtualization-based legacy mode in Win7/Vista?)
Of course, what Microsoft gets and Intel apparently doesn't is that Win8/ARM's main competitors will not be other Windows machines (as was the case when Windows NT briefly supported other processors such as Alpha) but against iOS and Android in the mobile world and Linux in the server world. If Win8/ARM netbooks can run "geniune" MS Office and Win8/ARM servers talk "genuine" Active Directory and Exchange Server, along with lots of "modern" windows software written in .NET, some people will choose them over iOS, Android or Linux. Intel will surely be the solution of choice for corporates wanting to run their 1990-era dBaseII systems - but even that market will eventually fade away.
As for tablets and smartphones - they'll need custom-designed software anyway so legacy is irrelevant.
(* Hell, I was running x86 PC software via an emulator on my ARM3-based desktop back in 1990 - but the ARM3 was a desktop superchip that smoked the 286s of the day... maybe ARM will make a triumphant return to the desktop, but it will need a 64-bit makeover and a FPU).
I can't remember if they get into why ray guns didn't catch on, I think they were incredibly expensive and unreliable.
That's basically it: In the episode Heart of Gold the baddie brags about his state of the art laser weapon - when it comes to the big shoot-up he gets off a few shots, causing some minor unpleasantness, before it starts flashing "battery low" errors.
Of course, in a colonisation situation, you really don't want tools with "no user serviceable parts inside" that rely on irreplaceable spare parts made from exotic materials at the top of a huge "technology pyramid".
Aldebaran Robotics? So I guess someone has already trademarked "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation"...
> Windows installs
"Install" is a verb. "I install Windows on commodity PCs"
The noun for which you are scratching is "installation". "We support 3000 Windows installations".
Do try to keep up.
I sincere apology for not have my slashdots post professional proofread and peer-review. I will writing out the define of verb and noun times a hundred as punish.
All I want is a copy of the laserdisc etc.
Probably wouldn't do you much good - the Domesday system used a new "standard" called LV-ROM which stored analogue video and digital data on the laserdisc. I think that the format was only ever used by Domesday and one or two other educational projects. So even if you've got a lasevision movie player stashed away for whenever you want to see Han shoot first it won't get at the data. LV-ROM players had a SCSI interface - Other laserdisc players just had a RS232 interface for computer-controlled playback.
Also, the way you design software for laserdisc-based "Interactive Video" is very different from "modern" multimedia: your computer has fairly crappy graphics with a genlock/overlay card which superimposes them on the analogue video output from the laserdisc. The laserdisc is recoreded at constant angular velocity, so its basically 1 frame/2 fields per revolution, giving perfect freeze-frame and frame-accurate random access. So, wherever possible you pre-rendered all your graphics and on some expensive specialist video graphics setup and recorded them statically on the disc.
I didn't work on Domesday, but I worked on another educational interactive video project and I can tell you that large sections of the discs would make no sense whatsoever as linear video - and the affordances of the system greatly affected the design of the software. E.g. there was a 3D maze-building game with every possible forward view pre-rendered as a few frames of video... which meant it was cunningly designed so that you could only see the length of the corridor and any branches to your immediate left and right - otherwise rendering [thinks] 2^16+2^12+2^10+... frames for an 8x8 maze might have got tedious. In other parts we were utilizing the ability to step through video perfectly in 1/25 sec steps to get kids to calculate speeds etc.
I guess now it would be possible to simulate the whole system in software with uncompressed or MJPEG video...
Pricewise, these probably aren't being made in huge quantities (which will push the price up) - plus they contain pretty much the same components as a netbook anyway, so why should they be cheaper?
This is the old story with "Network Computers", "Thin Clients", "Dickless Workstations" etc. through the ages: the concept is sound, but they end up costing as much as a full-blooded desktop, and you can't play [video game of the day] on them. They ought to be attractive in business, where the money saved in not having to run around maintaining a fleet of local Windows installs is more significant.
However, the old Network Computer idea was firmly pitched at business and failed to take off (perhaps the people making the buying decisions were swayed by the PHBs who's departments would be 50% redundant if they didn't have to run around fixing Windows installs).
These are never going to take off with slashdotters who like to tinker, and they'll also be held back by the cost/unreliability of mobile internet. However, if sufficient water has gone under the bridge for Google to try and re-sell the (perfectly sound) Network Computer concept they may have a role, and the retail price doesn't necessarily reflect how much hardware/service packages will be offered to businesses for.
I just hope that you don't subscribe to the Many Worlds Interpretation, otherwise, immediately after your quantum wedding, you will be served with quantum divorce papers because:
1. In some possible universe you will have screwed the head bridesmaid on your wedding night
2. In some possible universe you will have won the lottery and become a multi-millionaire, and your soon-to-be-ex-partner wants half!
3. Your beloved really didn't appreciate you continually playing "My Beloved Monster" by Eels at the reception...
The agency model was created by Apple who made it a requirement for any publisher who wished to sell books through Apple’s iBooks app.
This seems to be talking about agents selling books through iBooks. Where does it say that Apple made it a requirement for any developer who wants to sell books in their own iOS app to adopt the same model?
It's almost like Viewsonic set out to do a technological demonstration on why tablets don't work.
...or as if they got someone who hated tablets to design one which confirmed all their prejudices.
BBC America is *increasing* its science fiction lineup where it already had more content than Syfy did.
Well, BBC UK has recently had several successful SF/Fantasy shows (Dr Who, Being Human, Torchwood, Life on Mars) - which is a pretty unusual state of affairs for them (what I suspect is happening is that the kids who grew up on Dr Who, Blake's 7, Quatermass, Thunderbirds etc. in the 60s and 70s are now old enough to start cropping up in important roles in the BBC). In the UK, 'Who is not just a successful SF show, its a successful mainstream TV show that goes out on a major channel, early evening, on a Saturday, and gets decent ratings against talent & quiz shows on other channels. Torchwood and Being Human have been bumped from the small-beer BBC3 digital-only channel to the more prestigious BBC1 & BBC2 (respectively). So its not surprising that they see SF as a potential market for the US.
The latest series of 'Who is clearly pitched more at the US. The 2-part opener was set in the US and featured that international hero of the American Way - President Nixon - and a distinctly darker, more adult feel plus a "wibbly wobbly timey-wimey" plot (with added memory-wiping and fractured narrative brainfrack). Not sure how that will play long-term in the UK where it's always been a 'family' show (i.e. partly pitched at kids). I had to explain it to my dad :-)
It may be that it has finally dawned on BBC that if Dr Who can be the biggest SF franchise brand in the UK then maybe they ought to be able to persuade a few Americans to watch it.
Of course, UK shows have the advantage of short "seasons" (usually 6-13 episodes) : a better length, IMHO, for story arcs that avoids the BSG syndrome of 2-3 great episodes at the start a good 2-3 episode season climax and 12 episodes of tedious padding in the middle. I also suspect this helps shows find an audience: there's usually a whole series "in the can" before the show starts airing - so a show has to tank bigtime to be cancelled mid-series. Writers/producers even finish shows for creative reasons rather than cancellation - Its amusing to note that the original Life on Mars (a huge success) only runs to the same number of episodes as the US remake (which flopped and was cancelled) - although there was also a successful spinoff.
One fail: I think the original price of £200 is too low. Based on three hours of work and expenses, it should be at least £300.
Which would suggest that each punter can be persuaded to buy, on average, enough extras (prints, frames, albums, makeovers) to make up that £100... and the Groupon customers already think they've saved £170, so why not blow it on a big print, normal price £300, at a special one time only, gone as soon as I walk out the door price of £249.95...
I can't tell who's fail it is.
TFA doesn't provide any evidence of a failure - read TFA carefully - its someone who has seen the ad on Groupon presenting their own calculations as to its viability (which may be exaggerated e.g. - £5 each for photo frames in quantities of 300+? Has the guy never heard of China? Even retail, one-off at IKEA you can get them for under £3.)
As several other posters point out, he doesn't include the value of unredeemed coupons.
Nor does he take into account how much extra money the photographer could make by doing a hard sell on extra prints, nicer frames, albums, posters, coffee mugs, mouse mats, or by selling makeover and costume hire services.
Plenty of photo studios offer free or very cheap "glamour photography" sessions where they make their money selling prints and extras (there have been a few whinges on consumer shows from punters who "win" sessions and then discover that they have to pay for prints and that the "makeover" is theatrical slap that has to be washed off before they go out in daylight least they frighten small children).
BitTorrent traffic alone far outweighs Web traffic.
...and many people locate the BitTorrent they want to use by searching on the web.
Then there are more traditional uses like FTP
...and many people locate the file they want to download by FTP by following a link on a web site (assuming they don't download it using HTTP).
and email.
Which many people now access via a webmail application such as Gmail or Outlook Web Access - and while they aren't going to supplant email anytime soon, people are increasingly using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to communicate.
Voice and video teleconferencing are always becoming more prevalent. Then there's also gaming.
...and people don't use the web at all to locate people, find game servers, find out about games or even play them on line?
Don't forget DNS. And there are many other more technical uses that I know you won't be familiar with.
Actually, I've been using the Internet since before the web existed, and I've even written POP and SMTP clients in lovingly hand-crafted C so cut the patronising crap - I do actually know the difference between the web and the Internet. The argument was whether the Web was an important part of the Internet - not whether it was the only use.
Sites that use Flash and/or JavaScript heavily tend to be rather useless. Slashdot has gotten progressively worse to use as more JavaScript has been introduced.
OTOH, sites like Google Maps and Docs use it to great effect. I'd agree that Slashdot is a less than stellar example (and I'm not quite sure why it needs so much scripting to do what it does).
Likewise, Flash doesn't really add anything useful to the table.
Vector graphics and object-based animation that scale nicely without having to be coded from scratch? Its particularly suitable for things like online tests and educational applets. Again, it can be abused by using it for things that could/should be done in plain old HTML - and its use it for animated/interactive ads may be annoying, but that doesn't make it insignificant. Plus, all the people flaming iOS because it doesn't support Flash presumably think its good for something. For my money, it ought to be replaced by HTML5+SVG+DOM+CSS+AJAX+Javascript in the long term, but the development tools aren't there yet.
We could download and play games long before Flash existed.
In a format that would run unmodified on Windows, Mac, Linux on some mobile devices? Well, yes, there is Java - although I've found Flash to be more consistent cross-platform and easier to deliver (the plug-in is a simple download which most people already have, and its trivial to package Flash as stand alone .exe or .app files that run without plugins) and Flash's graphics engine is perfect for simple 2d games. Java may be better for complex stuff Minecraft, but if I wanted to write a poker app I'd choose Flash (until/unless SVG is properly supported across browsers). Plus, Flash is biggest in "on line" games like Farmville, which are tied to web-based social networking.
We could stream videos using RealPlayer and other technologies long before YouTube existed. In fact, those real applications are often much effective to use than the Flash- or JavaScript-based "equivalents".
Sometimes the issue is not just technical. Macromedia/Adobe give away the player plug-in, make their money selling tools to content creators and only bug users when an update to the player is available. RealPlayer were continually trying to push their premium media player software and content on your users. You could tell users to go install Flash player without them coming back and asking if they had to pay (because Real had made the "Free Playe