the days are gone when air passengers would sit back and be content to let a terrorist hijack them are gone. i think i speak for everyone when i say i'd rather go down swinging than slam into a building at 350mph.
it would be really, very hard to kill someone with a razor blade (unless they are sitting passively). it would be *impossible* to kill 30 angry air passengers with a razor blade. so, to any would-be razor-blade-carrying terrorists i say bring it on. they'll be hard pressed to find any parts of your body over an inch long when we land.
so TSA, forget razor blades. forget finger nail clippers, bottles of water, makeup, and so on. heck, don't even bother with knives unless they are over 6". focus on bombs (that are large enough to do any damage). focus on firearms.
i thought that too until i discovered that i couldn't print from it (the free version). and they even thought to prevent me from copying / pasting the text into another editor and printing from there. brilliant!
for android phones it does, because it's the only differentiator. if people have a choice between a phone with a front facing camera and one without, which are they going to buy? you are being a tech snob if you think the average person can't grasp that sort of thing. you need only look at the android device market over the past 1.5 years for empirical evidence. it's a race between the manufacturers / service providers to pack the best / most features into each phone.
for apple, it's probably less the case that their features sell phones. there's a large % of the apple user (fan) base that buys apple because of the image, or because they have 23 other apple devices and they want them to all play together nicely, they want them to match, etc. they do need to remain *close* in features though at least.
If Google doesn't start forcing carriers/vendors to upgrade their handsets...
that'd be a trick. if google tried to force carriers / vendors to do anything, they are likely to say screw you and start pushing iphones and webos devices. at least one reason why android has been successful is because google has bent over backwards to kisss the butt of the carriers and vendors.
what's cheap about android devices? the galaxy tab is at least as much as an ipad (more by some accounts). late model android phones aren't any cheaper than iphones when purchased with a contract (which how 99.9% of them are purchased).
but maybe you meant cheap quality. apple hardware isn't better than anything else, that's for sure. however, they have a great warranty program that makes customer satisfaction go through the roof despite that. my old 17" PPC macbook went in 4x for repairs. 3x optical drive, 1x logic board. in the end they gave me a brand new system because that one was such a lemon. very poor quality, but great customer service.
free would mean something if the manufacturers were giving discounts for an OS-less system. they don't of course. you pay for it whether you use it or not. even when you can find a linux-based new laptop, the discount is either negligible or non-existent.
moreover, for most people, free doesn't mean anything. their time is more valuable then the $100 the might spend on an operating system that works for them.
i try linux every couple of years. i want to run linux, i really do. the reality for me is that there are always a host of nagging issues. some where i can find solutions (given enough time), some where i can't (but i spend endless hours looking for them and trying things anyway).
i'm at a point in my life where spending my evening scouring forums trying to figure out why my volume keys aren't recognized in unbunu zappy zebra isn't fun anymore.
Between them, they sold 40,000 units whereas the iphone sold 270,000 [socialmediaseo.net] for the same period, almost SEVEN times as many and just from Apple and AT&T stores/on-line.
that's the number for the iphone launch, which was really a first of it's kind product. WP7 is releasing into a market saturated with various iphone and android models.
also, apple is the king when it comes to building hype to cash in on bored people with money burning holes in their pockets. WP7 is certainly available, but it hasn't been hyped to the degree of any apple product.
I also can't agree with the pirates desire for unlimited free copies for everyone
no one is asking for that. how about simply matching what i can i can legally do with a physical copy?
1. lend to one person at a time.
2. while lent, the ebook is not available on lender's device.
3. when the act of lending occurs, associate it with a time period. when the time is up, the copy is removed from the lendee's device, and returned to the lender's device
4. once copy is back on lender's device, it can be can re-lent to same person, or others an unlimited number of times (considering rules 1-3 of course).
5. lendee can't lend a borrowed copy.
this can all happen through amazon's (or whoever's) servers, so it can be tamper proof. in other words, nothing is ever transferred device to device. the rules above actually enhance the lending process (items 3 and 5), which in general is what technology should be doing for us... enhancing our lives, not adding restrictions.
you don't need a "computer" to use netflix, itunes, or amazon VOD. the interfaces for them aren't any more complicated than your cable box.
of course that depends on your definition of a computer. is apple TV a computer? is your cable box a computer? your TV? is a modern TV's interface less complicated than apple TV? is your TV just a monitor + TV tuner + computer?
on many android devices the space for apps is limited. even 17mb is significant. considering the built-in browser works just fine, it's hard to justify using 17mb of space for a slightly different browser.
I would imagine that browsers will be smart enough not to run HTML5 animations on pages that aren't visible to the user... I'd also imagine that with engineers at multiple companies fighting to make their browser the best, further refinements would be discovered and implemented.
it's meaningless to compare something that doesn't exist with something that does. software that doesn't exist will always perform and act better than real software. after all, it doesn't exist so it can potentially do everything right.
you can *imagine" how great the world will be with HTML5 all you want. i'd suggest you hold off posting until some of your premonitions hold true.
yes, on all platforms other than mac. and surprise, it performs as well as h.264 on those other platforms as well. in other words, it's hardware acceleration that makes the difference, not h.264 vs. flash.
"Overall, it's inaccurate to conclude that Flash is inherently inefficient. Rather, Flash is efficient on platforms where it can access hardware acceleration and less efficient where it can't."
yes, h.264 is significantly more efficient than flash, BUT ONLY ON MAC SAFARAI, where the browser uses hardware acceleration for h.264 and denies hardware acceleration to flash.
big surprise. OSX cripples flash, and guess what? it performs poorly.
1. as you mentioned, a $130 cable bill vs. an $8.99 netflix bill. even if they tripled the price it'd still be a bargain compared to cable. my cable bill was $95 for no premium channels, HD, and two cable cards (which they nicely RENTED to me for $2.50 / month each).
2. i can watch netflix anywhere: work, my phone, my computer, my mom's computer, and so on. you can do that w/ cable but you need a slingbox or some other equivalent hardware.
3. netflix is truly on demand and i don't need yet another computer (aka DVR) in my house to get it.
4. netflix's content catalog is not great, but they are signing new deals all the time. regardless, you can get *any* DVD movie in the mail if you can't get it streaming. that's not streaming, but it's not any worse than waiting for the scheduled broadcast on cable.
5. netflix has no ads. cable is double dipping on you, charging you for the pipe and then forcing ads on you as well.
that being said, i think if you watch a lot of "TV" you will run out of content on netflix. there's always something on cable. netflix isn't good for channel surfing. it's more of a planned viewing experience.
destroy ? arent we fucking PAYING for the bandwidth we are using ? so, in short, arent we using MORE of the product the isps are delivering, and they are making more money ?
unless you live in bizarro world your ISP doesn't make more $ if you download more. you pay a flat fee. of course they'd rather you download less because that means they need less infrastructure to support you, it's cheaper for them, and their profits are higher.
ISPs depend on the fact that most people consume much, much less than they could. if everyone streamed netflix (or whatever) 12 hours a day, your rates would go up as they'd need to add capacity to handle that.
just watched the video. even if i memorized every gesture (quite a feat mind you) how could making a gesture be faster than one single press, which is what i have today?
the only possibly advantage is success rate. for an on screen keyboard my success rate varies between 80-60%. depending on how tired i am and how much attention i'm paying. could this do better? it seems possible since you only need to move your finger from the center to 2 of the four large sections... that are much larger than a key on an on screen keyboard. that's not taking into account simply making the incorrect gesture however. visually, it's quick to see the "G" on a keyboard than it is to look at this contraption and find the quadrant containing the "G" then seeing that it's the Nth character from the center.
the other thing is that smooth continuous gestures depend on external factors like the amount of gunk on my screen, my fingers, and the humidity of my hand. a simple tap always works.
anyway, kudos to them for the invention. seems like it should have been more of an r&d project than a product.
you (conveniently) came to the conclusion that spending 1,200 euros on a new gaming PC every 3 months makes you look smarter than the average farmville player? surprise, to most people that sounds just as crazy. me included. the fact that you slipped in that you can afford it doesn't make it sound any smarter either.
you're making a value judgement that your activity and purchases are inherently more worthwhile than farmwville. here's the kicker for you: they aren't. any sort of gaming is just a waste of time that will do nothing to affect your standing in the real life.
I can afford to piss away 1500 euro or so a month, it is pocket money, everything else is payed for plus plenty of savings. But I am not playing Farmville. The people who play are, well those who are not smart enough to have a sense of worth. I sell my old gaming rigs when I buy a new one, getting a fairly decent return on my money.
sounds like someone has a superiority complex.
the worth of *anything* you do in life is subjective. so you buy expensive gaming rigs. i assume you spend time playing games. some people would think you are silly for playing games at all.
when you are on your death bed, are you going to feel better saying "i spent 269 hours playing COD 18: the search for spock", or "i spent 269 hours playing farmville". IMHO, seems hard to decide which added more "worth" to your life.
to be fair, sun was just as up-in-arms about google + java as is oracle (gosling's words). the difference? sun had shallower pockets, fewer lawyers, and some concern about how such a suit would be viewed by outsiders.
Give me an open-standards, DRM-Free based text that I can read on any device (Linux, MS-Windows, MacOS, Kindle, Sony reader, Android, iPad, etc), and can install on more than one device at a time, then it might work.
well, if it was available for kindle, you read read it on all of those platforms except sony, as a kindle reader exists for all those platforms. you can also have your books synced to all those platforms and switch between them.
i think amazon has the right infrastructure for these things : copious clients, solid reader, and DRM to make the publishers happy. publishers will never go for a DRM-free solution. personally i don't mind DRM if it's done right.
Slashdot Mirror
the days are gone when air passengers would sit back and be content to let a terrorist hijack them are gone. i think i speak for everyone when i say i'd rather go down swinging than slam into a building at 350mph.
it would be really, very hard to kill someone with a razor blade (unless they are sitting passively). it would be *impossible* to kill 30 angry air passengers with a razor blade. so, to any would-be razor-blade-carrying terrorists i say bring it on. they'll be hard pressed to find any parts of your body over an inch long when we land.
so TSA, forget razor blades. forget finger nail clippers, bottles of water, makeup, and so on. heck, don't even bother with knives unless they are over 6". focus on bombs (that are large enough to do any damage). focus on firearms.
Just get Foxit and be done with it
i thought that too until i discovered that i couldn't print from it (the free version). and they even thought to prevent me from copying / pasting the text into another editor and printing from there. brilliant!
but maybe it only jams when you are over 5mph (or whatever). like how some GPS systems disable user input when moving.
Features don't sell the phones
for android phones it does, because it's the only differentiator. if people have a choice between a phone with a front facing camera and one without, which are they going to buy? you are being a tech snob if you think the average person can't grasp that sort of thing. you need only look at the android device market over the past 1.5 years for empirical evidence. it's a race between the manufacturers / service providers to pack the best / most features into each phone.
for apple, it's probably less the case that their features sell phones. there's a large % of the apple user (fan) base that buys apple because of the image, or because they have 23 other apple devices and they want them to all play together nicely, they want them to match, etc. they do need to remain *close* in features though at least.
If Google doesn't start forcing carriers/vendors to upgrade their handsets ...
that'd be a trick. if google tried to force carriers / vendors to do anything, they are likely to say screw you and start pushing iphones and webos devices. at least one reason why android has been successful is because google has bent over backwards to kisss the butt of the carriers and vendors.
what's cheap about android devices? the galaxy tab is at least as much as an ipad (more by some accounts). late model android phones aren't any cheaper than iphones when purchased with a contract (which how 99.9% of them are purchased).
but maybe you meant cheap quality. apple hardware isn't better than anything else, that's for sure. however, they have a great warranty program that makes customer satisfaction go through the roof despite that. my old 17" PPC macbook went in 4x for repairs. 3x optical drive, 1x logic board. in the end they gave me a brand new system because that one was such a lemon. very poor quality, but great customer service.
which is FREE for life?
free would mean something if the manufacturers were giving discounts for an OS-less system. they don't of course. you pay for it whether you use it or not. even when you can find a linux-based new laptop, the discount is either negligible or non-existent.
moreover, for most people, free doesn't mean anything. their time is more valuable then the $100 the might spend on an operating system that works for them.
i try linux every couple of years. i want to run linux, i really do. the reality for me is that there are always a host of nagging issues. some where i can find solutions (given enough time), some where i can't (but i spend endless hours looking for them and trying things anyway).
i'm at a point in my life where spending my evening scouring forums trying to figure out why my volume keys aren't recognized in unbunu zappy zebra isn't fun anymore.
Between them, they sold 40,000 units whereas the iphone sold 270,000 [socialmediaseo.net] for the same period, almost SEVEN times as many and just from Apple and AT&T stores/on-line.
that's the number for the iphone launch, which was really a first of it's kind product. WP7 is releasing into a market saturated with various iphone and android models.
also, apple is the king when it comes to building hype to cash in on bored people with money burning holes in their pockets. WP7 is certainly available, but it hasn't been hyped to the degree of any apple product.
I also can't agree with the pirates desire for unlimited free copies for everyone
no one is asking for that. how about simply matching what i can i can legally do with a physical copy?
1. lend to one person at a time.
2. while lent, the ebook is not available on lender's device.
3. when the act of lending occurs, associate it with a time period. when the time is up, the copy is removed from the lendee's device, and returned to the lender's device
4. once copy is back on lender's device, it can be can re-lent to same person, or others an unlimited number of times (considering rules 1-3 of course).
5. lendee can't lend a borrowed copy.
this can all happen through amazon's (or whoever's) servers, so it can be tamper proof. in other words, nothing is ever transferred device to device. the rules above actually enhance the lending process (items 3 and 5), which in general is what technology should be doing for us ... enhancing our lives, not adding restrictions.
you don't need a "computer" to use netflix, itunes, or amazon VOD. the interfaces for them aren't any more complicated than your cable box.
of course that depends on your definition of a computer. is apple TV a computer? is your cable box a computer? your TV? is a modern TV's interface less complicated than apple TV? is your TV just a monitor + TV tuner + computer?
youtube has at most clips.
besides being illegal, torrents are not as convenient as going to a page and pressing "play".
If anyone's learned a lesson from the move to cable TV it's the networks learning that people will do both.
they'll do both when there 's no other option. with netflix and itunes and amazon VOD there are other options.
on many android devices the space for apps is limited. even 17mb is significant. considering the built-in browser works just fine, it's hard to justify using 17mb of space for a slightly different browser.
I would imagine that browsers will be smart enough not to run HTML5 animations on pages that aren't visible to the user ... I'd also imagine that with engineers at multiple companies fighting to make their browser the best, further refinements would be discovered and implemented.
it's meaningless to compare something that doesn't exist with something that does. software that doesn't exist will always perform and act better than real software. after all, it doesn't exist so it can potentially do everything right.
you can *imagine" how great the world will be with HTML5 all you want. i'd suggest you hold off posting until some of your premonitions hold true.
does Flash utilize a GPU/FPU
yes, on all platforms other than mac. and surprise, it performs as well as h.264 on those other platforms as well. in other words, it's hardware acceleration that makes the difference, not h.264 vs. flash.
that makes sense. blame windows for itunes' terrible performance. it's amazing how so much other software manages to get around this windows bug.
http://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/articles/flash-player-cpu-hog-or-hot-tamale-it-depends-.html
"Overall, it's inaccurate to conclude that Flash is inherently inefficient. Rather, Flash is efficient on platforms where it can access hardware acceleration and less efficient where it can't."
yes, h.264 is significantly more efficient than flash, BUT ONLY ON MAC SAFARAI, where the browser uses hardware acceleration for h.264 and denies hardware acceleration to flash.
big surprise. OSX cripples flash, and guess what? it performs poorly.
i don't understand the entire streaming fad.
1. as you mentioned, a $130 cable bill vs. an $8.99 netflix bill. even if they tripled the price it'd still be a bargain compared to cable. my cable bill was $95 for no premium channels, HD, and two cable cards (which they nicely RENTED to me for $2.50 / month each).
2. i can watch netflix anywhere: work, my phone, my computer, my mom's computer, and so on. you can do that w/ cable but you need a slingbox or some other equivalent hardware.
3. netflix is truly on demand and i don't need yet another computer (aka DVR) in my house to get it.
4. netflix's content catalog is not great, but they are signing new deals all the time. regardless, you can get *any* DVD movie in the mail if you can't get it streaming. that's not streaming, but it's not any worse than waiting for the scheduled broadcast on cable.
5. netflix has no ads. cable is double dipping on you, charging you for the pipe and then forcing ads on you as well.
that being said, i think if you watch a lot of "TV" you will run out of content on netflix. there's always something on cable. netflix isn't good for channel surfing. it's more of a planned viewing experience.
destroy ? arent we fucking PAYING for the bandwidth we are using ? so, in short, arent we using MORE of the product the isps are delivering, and they are making more money ?
unless you live in bizarro world your ISP doesn't make more $ if you download more. you pay a flat fee. of course they'd rather you download less because that means they need less infrastructure to support you, it's cheaper for them, and their profits are higher.
ISPs depend on the fact that most people consume much, much less than they could. if everyone streamed netflix (or whatever) 12 hours a day, your rates would go up as they'd need to add capacity to handle that.
just watched the video. even if i memorized every gesture (quite a feat mind you) how could making a gesture be faster than one single press, which is what i have today?
the only possibly advantage is success rate. for an on screen keyboard my success rate varies between 80-60%. depending on how tired i am and how much attention i'm paying. could this do better? it seems possible since you only need to move your finger from the center to 2 of the four large sections ... that are much larger than a key on an on screen keyboard. that's not taking into account simply making the incorrect gesture however. visually, it's quick to see the "G" on a keyboard than it is to look at this contraption and find the quadrant containing the "G" then seeing that it's the Nth character from the center.
the other thing is that smooth continuous gestures depend on external factors like the amount of gunk on my screen, my fingers, and the humidity of my hand. a simple tap always works.
anyway, kudos to them for the invention. seems like it should have been more of an r&d project than a product.
you (conveniently) came to the conclusion that spending 1,200 euros on a new gaming PC every 3 months makes you look smarter than the average farmville player? surprise, to most people that sounds just as crazy. me included. the fact that you slipped in that you can afford it doesn't make it sound any smarter either.
you're making a value judgement that your activity and purchases are inherently more worthwhile than farmwville. here's the kicker for you: they aren't. any sort of gaming is just a waste of time that will do nothing to affect your standing in the real life.
I can afford to piss away 1500 euro or so a month, it is pocket money, everything else is payed for plus plenty of savings. But I am not playing Farmville. The people who play are, well those who are not smart enough to have a sense of worth. I sell my old gaming rigs when I buy a new one, getting a fairly decent return on my money.
sounds like someone has a superiority complex.
the worth of *anything* you do in life is subjective. so you buy expensive gaming rigs. i assume you spend time playing games. some people would think you are silly for playing games at all.
when you are on your death bed, are you going to feel better saying "i spent 269 hours playing COD 18: the search for spock", or "i spent 269 hours playing farmville". IMHO, seems hard to decide which added more "worth" to your life.
to be fair, sun was just as up-in-arms about google + java as is oracle (gosling's words). the difference? sun had shallower pockets, fewer lawyers, and some concern about how such a suit would be viewed by outsiders.
During a recession, the beatings will continue until morale (or the job market) improves
tech companies will never let wages inflate as they did in the past. they have discovered the magic of importing employees and outsourcing.
Give me an open-standards, DRM-Free based text that I can read on any device (Linux, MS-Windows, MacOS, Kindle, Sony reader, Android, iPad, etc), and can install on more than one device at a time, then it might work.
well, if it was available for kindle, you read read it on all of those platforms except sony, as a kindle reader exists for all those platforms. you can also have your books synced to all those platforms and switch between them.
i think amazon has the right infrastructure for these things : copious clients, solid reader, and DRM to make the publishers happy. publishers will never go for a DRM-free solution. personally i don't mind DRM if it's done right.