I'm on the one at a time plan but I have kept it because there's still so much stuff not on streaming.
On top of that there's also the fact that if you care about picture quality, no streaming service that I'm aware of can match blurays right now, and even DVDs still often have better shadow quality in the shadows and other areas.
Privacy is good, but I also remember the first time I saw how Google was using that information it gathers to benefit me when I loaded up the Google Assistant app thingy a few years back and it just barfed out all kinds of convenient details about what I had going on. Travel times, package delivery statuses, etc. Obviously there's plenty of bad things that could happen with that information but IF it's anonymized well enough and I get a cheaper product and/or more intelligent service, it's worth it.
Every time I compare Siri and what Apple offers via our iPad to what Google offers through Android, I'm struck by how much more accurate, useful, or contextually insightful Google's responses are. That takes data, and by not collecting and using more of that data, Apple can't keep up.
Are those benefits worth the potential risks? That's up to each individual to decide, but it's not like they're really offering the same services.
I've got a lifetime Pro license from their original Pro sale and it's been worth it IMHO.
When Google Reader shut down I was ready to panic but Feedly has grown to address lost feature and improved in other ways. I've even had the opportunity to get on one-on-one meetings with their developers to test and give feedback to features so it's been a good experience overall.
I can't imagine getting news just through something like Facebook or Twitter, too much clutter, too much other stuff, no way to know where some things are really coming from... RSS gives me a lot more control and I can't imagine using the internet without it.
I still buy CDs of music/bands I really like and want to support, I also still buy DVDs/BluRays for movies or shows under similar circumstances.
Occasionally I will also buy vinyl, but mostly used, as I do have a decent turntable.
All that being said, I use my Google Music/YouTube Red subscription to listen to certain things I don't care enough to own, or if I want to discover new music or have some background sound. Otherwise, I do listen to a fair bit of terrestrial radio and some internet radio stations (like WFMU or Radio Paradise usually).
The situation TheTurtleMoves described is one of the biggest issues with PayPal I hear about fairly regularly. They don't like something, they get a complaint, they'll yank money out of a linked account without even a pause to investigate, question it, contact you, etc. Everyone I've talked to in that situation then faces an uphill battle in which they try to convince PayPal to look again and handle the situation responsibly and fairly. Apparently contacting Paypal and getting a useful response is a miracle in and of itself.
There are plenty of people who will definitely be glad to move on from PCs but I honestly don't know any who are willing to make that jump currently. Whether the technology isn't there or the form factor is the cause of them sticking to PC habits, I know many technophobic/casual technology users who do not see their phone or their tablets as a replacement for their computer. Based on everything I've seen so far, those who do really replace a real desktop or laptop with one of these newer devices are in the minority.
It's hard to fully say where things will lead. Smartphones and tablets will advance and only increase in popularity and people won't be as driven to upgrade their laptops or desktops as often either, most likely. Is the number of PC users really shrinking significantly or are people migrating to a much slower upgrade path? Most of the reports on statistics making an argument one way or another that I've seen leave out too many important details that result in unanswered questions.
As best as I can tell, this whole post-PC era we're supposedly in is nonsense. Tablets, phones and other cute consumption devices are neat, and I wouldn't mind a tablet myself when they eventually mature, but there's no replacement for my home workstation. I've built my last few desktops myself and my current desktop is hitting around the 3 year mark and I'm starting to look at my upgrade path. I just got a new GPU, the CPU, RAM, mobo and PSU are my next upgrades and will likely occur as one single big hardware swap. An SSD would be nice too!
Back to the topic at hand: I don't see many people I know using their tablets to completely replace their 'real' computers. For some people laptops have started to replace desktops because they have lower demands and realistically laptop hardware seems to be much more on par than it was five years ago. As that continues to improve more people will probably ditch the desktop for a laptop, but that's still a 'PC' and there are still upgrade options like RAM and drives. I still wouldn't ditch a desktop for a laptop but in either scenario Newegg can continue to be successful. They sell laptops, they sell replacement parts.
Even if the Post-PC era weren't just marketing hype and news headline making nonsense, they still have plenty they can offer. NewEgg sells tablets too, they also sell software, home entertainment gear (I just got a new receiver from them) and all sorts of other things. I believe they have the ability to adjust themselves to changes in demand as needed, but I don't really think the PC business is in any danger of crumbling beneath them any time soon. New uses will emerge for computers, new games will come out demanding the latest technology and the best price/performance and the best choice for expansion continues to be the "desktop."
While the MacPro may currently be cheaper (I wonder if that will last) it really isn't relevant in a sense. Sure apple fans will throw their money at it, but it's vastly more computer than 99% of the people buying need. Most people don't need to spend more than $1000 on their computer, nevermind $2300+ for the Mac Pro. This is the same reason most people aren't buying Precision workstations, if they want a dell desktop they get the Dimension.
I don't really see this having a big impact on most people. Do they want to spend $2300 on a Mac Pro which is currently a better deal than a comparable Precision, or $1300 on a Dimension which is plenty of machine for their needs?
Apple is giving a good deal on those, there's no doubt. The only way I could come close in cost/performance building it myself appears to be if I went with the slowest chip Apple offers since they aren't too astronomical online. However Apple is buying in "bulk" and prices will gradually drop (new chips are always inflated) and Dell is likely to fight back.
I suppose it's a good thing I don't watch ABC anyway.
Seriously though, if something like this goes through then other channels will likely follow suit. I'd still pay to have my DVR since my schedule makes it impossible to be there to watch the few shows I like when they are on but I would expect to pay less since I would no longer be able to skip commercials.
Ultimately I don't think this adds anything, I can still see the commercials zipping past and have stopped from time to time for the interesting looking ones. Even that is relatively meaningless because I can't think of a single time that a TV commercial has influenced my buying. I shop for groceries that I need and if something looks good at the store I buy it, I've never seen an ad and thought "gee I better go buy that" and I never write anything I've seen on TV down to go look in to later. I research electronics I buy and often wind up finding that an obscure, rarely (or never) advertised item is better for me.
I'm sure it works on some people though, but I really wonder to what degree. Most ads suck, are too long and repeated too much. If they have to do anything to screw it up, why not make it optional for the companies advertising? If they don't want their ads to be skipped let them pay more for that feature. Granted for me that would backfire because then I could pinpoint which companies are ruining what little television experience I enjoy.
It's telling of the new slashdot community when droll like this is listed as insightful.
Owning and using both daily, I have no idea what you're on about but I'm fairly certain I'd need to be uninformed and possibly mentally handicapped to arrive at the same opinions as you.
I hate to agree, but things like that and the articles (and quality of the subjects) have declined since several years ago when I stopped visiting frequently.
Not only is this a waste of bandwidth, but Google became so popular because of their clear, textual interface. And that included their ads which were usually easily visible and not obnoxious to look at. I will actually click on relevant text links, but I don't click on banner ads or video ads, ever.
Hopefully this won't turn out as bad as it sounds.
I don't think that restricting sites like myspace from being accessible at school will help much, but perhaps it can't hurt much either. Bills like that won't get my vote because they're too heavyhanded unfortuantely. They take something which at the core might be a good idea and spread it too far and apply it too much. Banning this site, or other forums? If anything there could be cases where that's counterproductive where sites like this can often have educational and informative materials within the discussions. Discussions aren't inherently bad, but it seems like the bill is broad enough to imply that they are.
I remember seeing an article about them (and others) selling movies for download about a month ago on a home theater forum (AVSforum I believe). The idea is sound, I'm sure a lot of people would like to download movies. But after you see the pricing and read the restrictions you have to wonder what use there is.
The RIAA has complained repeatedly about money lost due to piracy, but how much have they lost due to poor planning and product development? Now the same situation is repeating in the MPAA. Same ****, different horse. If they never learn they're not going to successfully compete with "free" downloading.
The article I saw stated that you couldn't necessarily burn them to a DVD and play them on just any TV, but that you'd essentially have to watch them on your computer or on a TV hooked up to a computer. That's not going to appeal to the masses and at the same time the tech savvy will probably find that too restrictive.
I couldn't agree more. Americans often underestimate how seriously overworked and stressed out they are as a culture or group compared to many many other industrialized nations. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of if not the single biggest factors.
In fact the whole issue of being overworked as been attributed to the fast food epidemic where people are seeing an easy, fast and low stress way to get a meal out of the way so they can get back to work faster. No doubt other symptoms of the "American condition" can be attributed to that as well.
yeah. i'm tired of it. The iPod is the market leader. Other products have killed it long before in every manner except market success... pretty much only a result of the steamrolling iPod. It's dead techincally, but it's a spirited seller.
players like the Creative or iRiver are much better options for people once they decide what they need. iPod hardly excels in any area.
I know they can put the steel cage in it and tell everyone that and make them feel better, but realistically one of the strongest cars ever built did not have a steel cage. The company my father works for is a plastics engineering company and they worked with Chrysler back in the 80s with a prototype polymer and produced a car that was made with two halves split lengthwise down the car of injected plastic (using their material). It didn't have crumple zones but they know how you can build those in fairly easily. It turned out to be extremely strong, but was dropped because you couldn't market a plastic car at the time. You probably still couldn't now. They use some variations of this concept in Europe.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm on the one at a time plan but I have kept it because there's still so much stuff not on streaming.
On top of that there's also the fact that if you care about picture quality, no streaming service that I'm aware of can match blurays right now, and even DVDs still often have better shadow quality in the shadows and other areas.
Their thinness is partly a sham anyway. Camera bumps could easily be eliminated by making the whole phone just a tiny bit thicker.
Privacy is good, but I also remember the first time I saw how Google was using that information it gathers to benefit me when I loaded up the Google Assistant app thingy a few years back and it just barfed out all kinds of convenient details about what I had going on. Travel times, package delivery statuses, etc. Obviously there's plenty of bad things that could happen with that information but IF it's anonymized well enough and I get a cheaper product and/or more intelligent service, it's worth it.
Every time I compare Siri and what Apple offers via our iPad to what Google offers through Android, I'm struck by how much more accurate, useful, or contextually insightful Google's responses are. That takes data, and by not collecting and using more of that data, Apple can't keep up.
Are those benefits worth the potential risks? That's up to each individual to decide, but it's not like they're really offering the same services.
No wonder you posted as Anonymous Coward. This is a load of guff.
Ditto, 150+ in my Feedly.
I've got a lifetime Pro license from their original Pro sale and it's been worth it IMHO.
When Google Reader shut down I was ready to panic but Feedly has grown to address lost feature and improved in other ways. I've even had the opportunity to get on one-on-one meetings with their developers to test and give feedback to features so it's been a good experience overall.
I can't imagine getting news just through something like Facebook or Twitter, too much clutter, too much other stuff, no way to know where some things are really coming from... RSS gives me a lot more control and I can't imagine using the internet without it.
I still buy CDs of music/bands I really like and want to support, I also still buy DVDs/BluRays for movies or shows under similar circumstances.
Occasionally I will also buy vinyl, but mostly used, as I do have a decent turntable.
All that being said, I use my Google Music/YouTube Red subscription to listen to certain things I don't care enough to own, or if I want to discover new music or have some background sound. Otherwise, I do listen to a fair bit of terrestrial radio and some internet radio stations (like WFMU or Radio Paradise usually).
Except For Millennials, Most Americans Don't Understand Snowden
I'm fairly certain something about stone houses and throwing glass fits perfectly here.
The situation TheTurtleMoves described is one of the biggest issues with PayPal I hear about fairly regularly. They don't like something, they get a complaint, they'll yank money out of a linked account without even a pause to investigate, question it, contact you, etc. Everyone I've talked to in that situation then faces an uphill battle in which they try to convince PayPal to look again and handle the situation responsibly and fairly. Apparently contacting Paypal and getting a useful response is a miracle in and of itself.
There are plenty of people who will definitely be glad to move on from PCs but I honestly don't know any who are willing to make that jump currently. Whether the technology isn't there or the form factor is the cause of them sticking to PC habits, I know many technophobic/casual technology users who do not see their phone or their tablets as a replacement for their computer. Based on everything I've seen so far, those who do really replace a real desktop or laptop with one of these newer devices are in the minority.
It's hard to fully say where things will lead. Smartphones and tablets will advance and only increase in popularity and people won't be as driven to upgrade their laptops or desktops as often either, most likely. Is the number of PC users really shrinking significantly or are people migrating to a much slower upgrade path? Most of the reports on statistics making an argument one way or another that I've seen leave out too many important details that result in unanswered questions.
As best as I can tell, this whole post-PC era we're supposedly in is nonsense. Tablets, phones and other cute consumption devices are neat, and I wouldn't mind a tablet myself when they eventually mature, but there's no replacement for my home workstation. I've built my last few desktops myself and my current desktop is hitting around the 3 year mark and I'm starting to look at my upgrade path. I just got a new GPU, the CPU, RAM, mobo and PSU are my next upgrades and will likely occur as one single big hardware swap. An SSD would be nice too!
Back to the topic at hand: I don't see many people I know using their tablets to completely replace their 'real' computers. For some people laptops have started to replace desktops because they have lower demands and realistically laptop hardware seems to be much more on par than it was five years ago. As that continues to improve more people will probably ditch the desktop for a laptop, but that's still a 'PC' and there are still upgrade options like RAM and drives. I still wouldn't ditch a desktop for a laptop but in either scenario Newegg can continue to be successful. They sell laptops, they sell replacement parts.
Even if the Post-PC era weren't just marketing hype and news headline making nonsense, they still have plenty they can offer. NewEgg sells tablets too, they also sell software, home entertainment gear (I just got a new receiver from them) and all sorts of other things. I believe they have the ability to adjust themselves to changes in demand as needed, but I don't really think the PC business is in any danger of crumbling beneath them any time soon. New uses will emerge for computers, new games will come out demanding the latest technology and the best price/performance and the best choice for expansion continues to be the "desktop."
While the MacPro may currently be cheaper (I wonder if that will last) it really isn't relevant in a sense. Sure apple fans will throw their money at it, but it's vastly more computer than 99% of the people buying need. Most people don't need to spend more than $1000 on their computer, nevermind $2300+ for the Mac Pro. This is the same reason most people aren't buying Precision workstations, if they want a dell desktop they get the Dimension.
I don't really see this having a big impact on most people. Do they want to spend $2300 on a Mac Pro which is currently a better deal than a comparable Precision, or $1300 on a Dimension which is plenty of machine for their needs?
Apple is giving a good deal on those, there's no doubt. The only way I could come close in cost/performance building it myself appears to be if I went with the slowest chip Apple offers since they aren't too astronomical online. However Apple is buying in "bulk" and prices will gradually drop (new chips are always inflated) and Dell is likely to fight back.
I suppose it's a good thing I don't watch ABC anyway.
Seriously though, if something like this goes through then other channels will likely follow suit. I'd still pay to have my DVR since my schedule makes it impossible to be there to watch the few shows I like when they are on but I would expect to pay less since I would no longer be able to skip commercials.
Ultimately I don't think this adds anything, I can still see the commercials zipping past and have stopped from time to time for the interesting looking ones. Even that is relatively meaningless because I can't think of a single time that a TV commercial has influenced my buying. I shop for groceries that I need and if something looks good at the store I buy it, I've never seen an ad and thought "gee I better go buy that" and I never write anything I've seen on TV down to go look in to later. I research electronics I buy and often wind up finding that an obscure, rarely (or never) advertised item is better for me.
I'm sure it works on some people though, but I really wonder to what degree. Most ads suck, are too long and repeated too much. If they have to do anything to screw it up, why not make it optional for the companies advertising? If they don't want their ads to be skipped let them pay more for that feature. Granted for me that would backfire because then I could pinpoint which companies are ruining what little television experience I enjoy.
It's telling of the new slashdot community when droll like this is listed as insightful.
Owning and using both daily, I have no idea what you're on about but I'm fairly certain I'd need to be uninformed and possibly mentally handicapped to arrive at the same opinions as you.
I hate to agree, but things like that and the articles (and quality of the subjects) have declined since several years ago when I stopped visiting frequently.
that would be an interesting approach.
Agreed, but the worst part about the Blu-ray player on the PS3 is that it is slower than the DVD drive on the XB360.
Not only is this a waste of bandwidth, but Google became so popular because of their clear, textual interface. And that included their ads which were usually easily visible and not obnoxious to look at. I will actually click on relevant text links, but I don't click on banner ads or video ads, ever.
Hopefully this won't turn out as bad as it sounds.
I don't think that restricting sites like myspace from being accessible at school will help much, but perhaps it can't hurt much either. Bills like that won't get my vote because they're too heavyhanded unfortuantely. They take something which at the core might be a good idea and spread it too far and apply it too much. Banning this site, or other forums? If anything there could be cases where that's counterproductive where sites like this can often have educational and informative materials within the discussions. Discussions aren't inherently bad, but it seems like the bill is broad enough to imply that they are.
I remember seeing an article about them (and others) selling movies for download about a month ago on a home theater forum (AVSforum I believe). The idea is sound, I'm sure a lot of people would like to download movies. But after you see the pricing and read the restrictions you have to wonder what use there is.
The RIAA has complained repeatedly about money lost due to piracy, but how much have they lost due to poor planning and product development? Now the same situation is repeating in the MPAA. Same ****, different horse. If they never learn they're not going to successfully compete with "free" downloading.
The article I saw stated that you couldn't necessarily burn them to a DVD and play them on just any TV, but that you'd essentially have to watch them on your computer or on a TV hooked up to a computer. That's not going to appeal to the masses and at the same time the tech savvy will probably find that too restrictive.
I couldn't agree more. Americans often underestimate how seriously overworked and stressed out they are as a culture or group compared to many many other industrialized nations. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of if not the single biggest factors.
In fact the whole issue of being overworked as been attributed to the fast food epidemic where people are seeing an easy, fast and low stress way to get a meal out of the way so they can get back to work faster. No doubt other symptoms of the "American condition" can be attributed to that as well.
yeah. i'm tired of it. The iPod is the market leader. Other products have killed it long before in every manner except market success... pretty much only a result of the steamrolling iPod. It's dead techincally, but it's a spirited seller.
players like the Creative or iRiver are much better options for people once they decide what they need. iPod hardly excels in any area.
I agree, partly because in every factor except popularity it's been killed over and over again.
I know they can put the steel cage in it and tell everyone that and make them feel better, but realistically one of the strongest cars ever built did not have a steel cage. The company my father works for is a plastics engineering company and they worked with Chrysler back in the 80s with a prototype polymer and produced a car that was made with two halves split lengthwise down the car of injected plastic (using their material). It didn't have crumple zones but they know how you can build those in fairly easily. It turned out to be extremely strong, but was dropped because you couldn't market a plastic car at the time. You probably still couldn't now. They use some variations of this concept in Europe.
your weener, if you've got one