ROFL so true. That's exactly what I though "great another stupid device that needs a remote".
If they want a product in the living room all they need to do is add more to the xbox and drop the whole "windows" built in idea for crying out loud give it network share functionality so it can stream tunes or media from my downstairs server/computer etc... but to make a whole seperate device dependent on some "media center PC" plus your xbox, plus this stupid set top box? this is just crazy heh. Once again Sony will win this living room war with their PS3. (and I'm an XBox user and lover and even I will admit this fact)
making an imac clone is nothing new at all. Gateway did it for a while. emachines did it colors and all and Apple sued them so its nothing new.
I do give them kudos though for making a unique product for wintel although I think an Alienware laptop or ibook is a better solution for a high school or college kid than this thing. (although they may want an external monitor and keyboard anyway to hook to it so they can shut the lid and reduce risk of spilling their mountain dew or bud light on the laptop keyboard).
In answer to the question in the article: "How would Intel react?" That answer is simple: they'd just make a RISC/PPC compatible processor is all.
Wouldn't happen anyway, there's no market for M$ to do it because the only ones interersted would be multimedia pros and they already use PPC/Mac platform.
Now, if Apple went open hardware again (it wouldn't be x86 that would be to them a step backwards in tech) then yes I can see people in droves building MacOS PC's. The reason it didn't succeed when they tried it last time is it was limited to oem's vs. home builder and the OS was behind, was a lousy product. But OSX is indeed an excellent product.
That said though, it wouldn't happen though because part of what makes a Mac "just work" as mac addicts always say is because they make the hardware to match their software.
in the article Shatner assures the town that they won't be made fun of. - There's a promise not worth a plug nickel. When's the last time Hollywood portrayed rural life in a good way? NEVER. It's always farm dad is either a drunk, rapes his daughters at night, or both and the town that all knows it but doesn't do squat because they are just as guilty.
Sorry but I'm sick of Hollywood's stereotypes.
Good post and I concur. It would be very nice if Linux does indeed continue to make inroads and become dominant in all its varieties. The openness of the OS would create a true compatability for all finally and the varients would just fill in different needs or different ways to do things. It's a win win for everyone even commercial development. The most misunderstood thing about us Linux advocates is people think we're against commercial development. That's not true at all, the part we want to remain open is the main OS and tools. Apps we generally don't have a problem with we just happen to know that the key to cross-platform is using standards, something M$ is more and more against especially evidenced now in their latest use of patents to flex their weight.
>>At the end, the total amount of recall I have of specific aspects of the book will be about equivalent to the recall I'd have after seeing a movie, only the movie gives me the information passively and in a fifth the time. Do you really remember significantly more detail about a story from reading a book than from seeing a movie?
YES I remember more from a book than its movie version. One also gets a lot more out of the book like the ability to crawl inside the characters minds. Let's take a typical Stephen King nove/movie. Those who've only seen his movies probably think he's a horror writer.
WRONG. They probably forget that the movie Stand by Me is also based on one of his stories. What King does so great in his books and rarely is portrayed right on screen is his ability to let the reader crawl inside the characters heads and let them know what their thinking. What the room smells like, what the textures on the walls are like, and so on.
Here's another example: the movie Spiderman (1) the tie-in book has a seen at the beginning where spidy stops some punks in a graveyard while he's paying homage to Uncle Ben, and goes into more detail about how he made his costume.
Are these examples necessary to get the gist of the story? No. But they are a few examples of what a book gives you that a movie often doesn't and provides more of a fun factor.
>>Drop softcover prices down to a sane $4 and hardcover to $12 and we'll see an increase in reading again.
Actually I agree with you here, my book purchases is wayyy down compared to when I was younger and they were cheaper. Many times have I added a few books to my amazon cart then looked at the subtotal and said "no way!" and emptied it.
>>Has science fiction reached the point where our expectations of future technology have been enumerated? We've recognized what is realizable and what isn't within any given time span.
I think we've just reached a point in time where people don't know the difference between science fiction and space opera is all. Seriously real sci-fi is hard to find, its mostly space fantasy or space opera.
I use the PalmReader software on my Sony Clie to read palm e-books with. Adobe even has a version for palm finally although it works quite clunky on a palmOS device. They should have totally revamped how it works for PDA's as it stands now it works just like it does on a PC which equals slow and well, clunky is the best way I can describe it.
The only thing I don't like about ebooks is the licence to them. Unlike a regular book its yours for life, no selling it at a garage sale or giving it away etc... this is why the prices for them I believe MUST be kept well below the real "book" equivalent. (and the same goes with all pay e-solutions, digital music etc...)
As far as other text things like Project Gutenberg/non e-book types Plucker is a pain in the rear to install and use so you're right that's no solution. The best thing I can think of is actually taking the document in question from the web and convert it into palm-reader format on your pc first. (here's another thing that lends to M$ monopoly here, they offer conversion to MS Reader format free, in fact its just a plug in to Word whereas for PalmOS devices not only do you have to pay for the PalmReader software (the pro version anyway which you need if you do a lot of ebook reading) but also have to pay for the convertor program. Oh and if you want to read the ebooks on your pc as well its a seperate fee for the PalmReader on your PC as well.
No wonder PalmOS devices have lost a lot of market share (50% I read a couple days ago) to windows ones.
>>Sorry to give you one less reason to hate MS, but they are taking the money as a BOND, not as payment. MS only gets the money if the spammers don't follow their rules. Probably something like "must use real return address and have a unsubscribe link that doesn't add you to more lists."
Who gives a crap how they make the money. Its still a scheme to sell out their user list, which is potentially every windows user in the world. Once again M$ cares about business and not the wishes of their customers.
from the article: "... Microsoft's Hotmail and MSN e-mail services, which together claim 170 million regular users, will require marketers to put money up front if they wish to ensure their messages aren't mistaken for unwanted spam..."
Like everything involving microsoft this is an advertising method in which they will pay microsoft for the ability to bypass their spam filter. This is also why the original slashdot article said:
"Ec|ipse writes "Looks like Microsoft has found another way to make money, this time from spam."
If you think M$ is going to let them do this for free then you really are brainwashed by Gates and Co.
All you'd have to do is add them to your safelist though and then they'd never go to your junk folder again.
What this thing from M$ is doing is taking control AWAY from you the user/customer. It's a money grab and its just one more reason to cease using M$ products.
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ROFL so true. That's exactly what I though "great another stupid device that needs a remote". If they want a product in the living room all they need to do is add more to the xbox and drop the whole "windows" built in idea for crying out loud give it network share functionality so it can stream tunes or media from my downstairs server/computer etc... but to make a whole seperate device dependent on some "media center PC" plus your xbox, plus this stupid set top box? this is just crazy heh. Once again Sony will win this living room war with their PS3. (and I'm an XBox user and lover and even I will admit this fact)
making an imac clone is nothing new at all. Gateway did it for a while. emachines did it colors and all and Apple sued them so its nothing new. I do give them kudos though for making a unique product for wintel although I think an Alienware laptop or ibook is a better solution for a high school or college kid than this thing. (although they may want an external monitor and keyboard anyway to hook to it so they can shut the lid and reduce risk of spilling their mountain dew or bud light on the laptop keyboard).
In answer to the question in the article: "How would Intel react?" That answer is simple: they'd just make a RISC/PPC compatible processor is all.
Wouldn't happen anyway, there's no market for M$ to do it because the only ones interersted would be multimedia pros and they already use PPC/Mac platform.
Now, if Apple went open hardware again (it wouldn't be x86 that would be to them a step backwards in tech) then yes I can see people in droves building MacOS PC's. The reason it didn't succeed when they tried it last time is it was limited to oem's vs. home builder and the OS was behind, was a lousy product. But OSX is indeed an excellent product.
That said though, it wouldn't happen though because part of what makes a Mac "just work" as mac addicts always say is because they make the hardware to match their software.
in the article Shatner assures the town that they won't be made fun of. - There's a promise not worth a plug nickel. When's the last time Hollywood portrayed rural life in a good way? NEVER. It's always farm dad is either a drunk, rapes his daughters at night, or both and the town that all knows it but doesn't do squat because they are just as guilty. Sorry but I'm sick of Hollywood's stereotypes.
Good post and I concur. It would be very nice if Linux does indeed continue to make inroads and become dominant in all its varieties. The openness of the OS would create a true compatability for all finally and the varients would just fill in different needs or different ways to do things. It's a win win for everyone even commercial development. The most misunderstood thing about us Linux advocates is people think we're against commercial development. That's not true at all, the part we want to remain open is the main OS and tools. Apps we generally don't have a problem with we just happen to know that the key to cross-platform is using standards, something M$ is more and more against especially evidenced now in their latest use of patents to flex their weight.
>>At the end, the total amount of recall I have of specific aspects of the book will be about equivalent to the recall I'd have after seeing a movie, only the movie gives me the information passively and in a fifth the time. Do you really remember significantly more detail about a story from reading a book than from seeing a movie? YES I remember more from a book than its movie version. One also gets a lot more out of the book like the ability to crawl inside the characters minds. Let's take a typical Stephen King nove/movie. Those who've only seen his movies probably think he's a horror writer. WRONG. They probably forget that the movie Stand by Me is also based on one of his stories. What King does so great in his books and rarely is portrayed right on screen is his ability to let the reader crawl inside the characters heads and let them know what their thinking. What the room smells like, what the textures on the walls are like, and so on. Here's another example: the movie Spiderman (1) the tie-in book has a seen at the beginning where spidy stops some punks in a graveyard while he's paying homage to Uncle Ben, and goes into more detail about how he made his costume. Are these examples necessary to get the gist of the story? No. But they are a few examples of what a book gives you that a movie often doesn't and provides more of a fun factor.
>>Drop softcover prices down to a sane $4 and hardcover to $12 and we'll see an increase in reading again. Actually I agree with you here, my book purchases is wayyy down compared to when I was younger and they were cheaper. Many times have I added a few books to my amazon cart then looked at the subtotal and said "no way!" and emptied it.
>>Has science fiction reached the point where our expectations of future technology have been enumerated? We've recognized what is realizable and what isn't within any given time span.
I think we've just reached a point in time where people don't know the difference between science fiction and space opera is all. Seriously real sci-fi is hard to find, its mostly space fantasy or space opera.
I use the PalmReader software on my Sony Clie to read palm e-books with. Adobe even has a version for palm finally although it works quite clunky on a palmOS device. They should have totally revamped how it works for PDA's as it stands now it works just like it does on a PC which equals slow and well, clunky is the best way I can describe it. The only thing I don't like about ebooks is the licence to them. Unlike a regular book its yours for life, no selling it at a garage sale or giving it away etc... this is why the prices for them I believe MUST be kept well below the real "book" equivalent. (and the same goes with all pay e-solutions, digital music etc...) As far as other text things like Project Gutenberg /non e-book types Plucker is a pain in the rear to install and use so you're right that's no solution. The best thing I can think of is actually taking the document in question from the web and convert it into palm-reader format on your pc first. (here's another thing that lends to M$ monopoly here, they offer conversion to MS Reader format free, in fact its just a plug in to Word whereas for PalmOS devices not only do you have to pay for the PalmReader software (the pro version anyway which you need if you do a lot of ebook reading) but also have to pay for the convertor program. Oh and if you want to read the ebooks on your pc as well its a seperate fee for the PalmReader on your PC as well.
No wonder PalmOS devices have lost a lot of market share (50% I read a couple days ago) to windows ones.
>>Sorry to give you one less reason to hate MS, but they are taking the money as a BOND, not as payment. MS only gets the money if the spammers don't follow their rules. Probably something like "must use real return address and have a unsubscribe link that doesn't add you to more lists." Who gives a crap how they make the money. Its still a scheme to sell out their user list, which is potentially every windows user in the world. Once again M$ cares about business and not the wishes of their customers.
from the article: "... Microsoft's Hotmail and MSN e-mail services, which together claim 170 million regular users, will require marketers to put money up front if they wish to ensure their messages aren't mistaken for unwanted spam..." Like everything involving microsoft this is an advertising method in which they will pay microsoft for the ability to bypass their spam filter. This is also why the original slashdot article said: "Ec|ipse writes "Looks like Microsoft has found another way to make money, this time from spam." If you think M$ is going to let them do this for free then you really are brainwashed by Gates and Co.
All you'd have to do is add them to your safelist though and then they'd never go to your junk folder again. What this thing from M$ is doing is taking control AWAY from you the user/customer. It's a money grab and its just one more reason to cease using M$ products.