its hard to imagine what those people were thinking when they said (in various ways) that the MS - Novell arrangement is a good thing, or will be good for Linux. Obviously, the political machinations of MS are still working overtime to defeat anything, group, or person that will stand in the way of MS domination of computing.
Well, it wasn't that long ago when people wanted to know what you would do with a pc in your house? or why you would need 6Mbits of bandwidth at home. Now, Google and other search engines are household words, and nearly everyone knows that you can find just about any information that you want, when you want, where ever you want using the Internet. Video/Audio is simply another form of information or information storage. Imagine you are sitting in a social setting (bar for some of us) and the conversation comes up to an argument about who a certain actor was that played some part in a movie: viola! you pull out your iPod or whatever device, type a few keywords and then watch that scene in the movie... argument settled.
While that may not be a truly universally useful example, there are many other such instances. Imagine missing a lecture in college and being able to pull it up on your iPod or other device; checking the latest from CNN; pulling down a video from the Library of Congress on global warming.... the list goes on.
To accomplish truly ubiquitous video usage, it will take both bandwidth, networks, and device storage. It will happen, sooner or later, as predicted on Star Trek IRRC. Think speaking computers and tri-corders?
It seems to me that all big business is incapable of being apolitical. It is politicians that make the laws that help or hinder the processes of big business, so therefore, big business necessarily must be political.
While it is offensive that big oil is trying to shape the minds and hearts of children in school, it is hardly surprising. Did everyone miss the evil masterminds in the James Bond films? Its not like big business is terribly different. Okay, not as destructive, but they are still trying to make more money than anyone of us normal folk can imagine, and to do that it takes some immoral actions.
Having this situation pointed out to everyone should be the call for 'honest' politicians to 'look into the matter' as a part of their responsibility to their constituents... if enough of them care to ask... that is how politics (at least in the US) is supposed to work. If anyone can make an election year issue of it, something might actually get done.../cynical despair
Everyone here knows what happens to people/companies that do a deal with MS... they very quickly become deceased or owned. This simply means the final end of Suse and Novell. MS will do this one distribution at a time... or have we not learned anything from their past behavior?
Surely, it is not just me that sees this as the first step in MS owning Linux? I KNOW how paranoid that sounds, but lets get real and deal with past history, real fact, actual behaviors...
I really don't care how this gets modded, it must be said that a tiger doesn't change it's stripes, so why is MS doing this? out of kindness, or out of a desire to own Linux? While that may be paranoid at this point, look at what they stand to gain if one distribution owns up to IP issues? It will tie up all the other distributions in litigation...
I have to say, personally, I find all this 'love fest' rather dangerous indeed
Learn to count for fuck sake ! Dark Age of Camelot Rating: 8.2 Ryzom Rating: 8.2
Looks like number 5 to me
LOL. Looks like it is tied for number four to me! LOL!
EVE Online Rating: 8.3 Guild Wars Rating: 8.3 EverQuest II Rating: 8.3 Dark Age of Camelot Rating: 8.2 Ryzom Rating: 8.2
If its tied, it would be tied for 2nd place.... as the first three in the list are then tied for 1st place....
The term cell phone probably caught on because 'Cellular One' was one of the biggest cell phone companies way back when they were still the size of a brick.
of a name being more than just a name, like Kleenex facial tissues. 'Give me a Kleenex' or in England, they 'Hoover' the carpets. Cell phone will be around in the English language for a very long time... that is just how language works. They tried to give two-way pagers names other than pager. It didn't work because people just didn't understand what it was till you called it a pager.
The cellular network configuration is still in use, so the name is still appropriate. When all that changes, maybe there will be another name, but the common usage of cell phone will stick around still.
end up being the mess we all see it as, but others will too, and then decide that the patent, IP, and copyright laws in the USA are not exactly working and need to be fixed.
and other times simply in the way of other good ideas, even better ideas. I often use the dual head display so that I can see something temporarily... a place where re-usable paper technology might be useful. Many of the printed reports I've seen in meetings would be well placed on this type of paper technology... as most of the copies end up in the trash anyway.
There are a few places that such technology would be good, check books are not one of them. I think that once technology such as e-books and the like is an accepted thing by society in general, then this type of thing will take off. The Palm Pilot and tablet pc systems were a good idea too... though not too many people want the restrictions that come with them.
When we have a PC that really does work as simply as writing on a piece of real paper, then the technology will take off. Hats off to Xerox though for working to stay relevant and profitable. Any paper replacement technology will have to be more functional though. Imagine taking your e-book or roll-up tablet pc to the news stand and downloading a copy of the day's paper? Or downloading a copy of the presentation while actually sitting in the meeting.
Then again, what good is all that technology if you can simply use a tablet PC? The technology that replaces paper has to be very cost effective since paper is a throw away product. I don't think that 10 uses is really enough to make this worth while.
Besides, if you are using some new, ultra thin tablet pc, you can save the documents to your hard drive on your desktop if needed/desired. People print things to read them later, or read them where having a pc is just not practical. That usually requires that the ink last for more than a day. If you are printing stuff to look at for a few minutes or perhaps hours, its possible that you shouldn't be printing it in the first place, but that sort of thinking is not what will make Xerox more wealthy... they need to sell paper and paper handling equipment. The digital camera has all but killed off the film camera industry. I don't think that its the paper that needs to change, but the way that we handle data that is normally printed.
When Xerox comes up with a tablet pc that works like having a paper notebook and pen, then they will sell tons. Imagine it being like the size of a notepad, functions like pen and paper, and downloads or uploads using bluetooth or other WPAN. That would kill much of the market for this paper technology... maybe, if you could convince people to use it.
If your pc is infected with a trojan, or other malicious software, its feasible to capture the screen with each keystroke while connecting to a bank website and forward that data to a server somewhere at a later time... key logging doesn't have to be only key logging, it could be logging keystrokes and relevant screen data at the same time.
The ONLY way to outsmart software that wants your data is to not load that software on your machine. I find that I feel much safer booting a life CD (DSL or Puppy or pick your flavor) and running to the banking website with a freshly installed OS... no chances for virii or malware etc.
That is certainly easier than actually going to the bank... and I know that its safe.
I think the parent poster is not far off. From the experience that I have had, shoving a live CD in the tray and booting is an impressive thing for people with some old hardware and requirements for not much more than web browsing and writing emails. The fact that its free, does what they want, doesn't take long to get used to, and can be virtually virii free with a reboot (depending on whether files are stored on the hard drive, if it is even used) is a big bonus for neophytes... or at least those I have had dealings with. Remember, I did say their requirements were in the low to nil levels, they are not gamers or graphics artists. There is a huge, yet relatively unnoticed population that fits this bill.
If Google puts out a live CD like AOL disks, and adds cheap dial-up and/or free access to applications via Google.net or similar, its will be an EASY SELL to a LOT of people who have low requirements for working on the Internet. I'd guess this userbase would easily hit the millions here in North America, and who knows how many globally. It wouldn't be a one size fits all answer, but it would batter the hell out of the AOL customer base!
While you are generally correct about the USPTO, I have to give them (or someone credit for starting a pilot program for patent reviews:
PatPending writes "American companies General Electric, IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have joined with the New York Law School and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to inaugarate a new system of peer review for software patents. The four companies, plus Red Hat, the world's biggest listed open source software business, are the lead sponsors behind the Community Patent Review project --- http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/03/00 23220
In any battle where goliath is predicted to fall, there has to be a point where the goliath tries to fight harder, and dirtier than before. MS has nothing to lose by 'seeming' to be more open and more F/OSS friendly, and they have everything to gain, including hearts and minds.
The problem is that when it comes to patents, everyone, including the USPTO is looking at them more skeptically. Look at what the final outcome of this could or should be; MS looks better than before the situation, or MS gains credit with people who pay real money for MS products. MS currently doesn't have too many worries about home users switching to Linux. Its businesses and governments and educational institutions that MS has to keep on board the MS wagon. By acting open, or F/OSS friendly, they get to keep customers that were wavering... that can be billions of dollars per year. By actually pulling this off, they do more than keep money, they harm their competition in terms of market share. Every battle is not won simply on brute force, but often on preventing such force from being brought to bear against you.
The trouble here is that nobody on/. or any blog has a clue what was really said in the boardrooms, on guessing based on historically valid impressions. The end value of any of this posturing is that one side or the other will seem more valid, more honest, more useful for doing business with...
This also keeps things simple, and won't require application upgrades etc. Additionally, once you have stored the photos in a directory structure, you will never forget where they are or have to call your favorite tech guy to help you find them on your hard drive. This is a common thing I am asked to do... find files for neophytes. I teach them how to use the directory structure for all their data, not just photos... it is a sound way to do things.
I don't like to make decisions on such videos without seeing the whole incident from beginning to end, but since more or less the beginning of time, if authority figures (police or otherwise) are standing over you ordering you to do something, and you lay on the floor yelling that you won't leave and other assorted obscenities and slights on their position or authority, well, that is so blindingly stupid that you are lucky if tased is all you get.
Surely everyone has seen an episode of Bad Boys and what happens when you resist arrest. Whether the authorities should have tased the guy 5 times (or more) is questionable, but the guy that got tased was asking for more of the same by refusing to cooperate with the authorities. These are the same authorities, by the way, that he and other disapproving students will count on any other time to protect them from nasty people. Rules are rules, and if you glaringly flout them, bad things happen sometimes. I think the guy should be grateful that he wasn't drug down stairs feet first, or given the King treatment.
Yes, they could have carried him out, but then again, his mouth was running too much to get any kind of compassion from the cops... that is life most times. Ever seen anyone get unruly in a bar? When that happens, bouncers are about as gentle as these cops were... or can be.
Arguing with cops or resisting arrest is worse for your health than smoking or eating sugar soaked breakfast cereal, let that be a lesson to those that think that 'believing you are right means you will always win'.
I can't tell you exactly what will replace current Internet UI technology, but I can say this, HTML, W3C, XML, CSS XHTML and on and on are simply the evolution to what will replace all that has gone before. Web 2.0 is simply an effort (no comment on value of the effort) to consolidate the things that make the Internet's UI more useful and exciting. Web 3.0 (and I hate the buzzwords because it always makes it seem like some person or group has more info or style than others when the buzzwords are used) and what lays beyond it are simply the morphing of what works, has worked, or seems like it will work into a common Internet UI experience.
There is no silver or magic bullet that will usurp web browsers, and its just silly to think that there will be, or could be. As an example, if the fully automatic hover car (think Jetsons) was to be invented tomorrow, it would not usurp the venerable internal combustion powered manually operated common day vehicle for a whole slew of reasons, not the least of which is cost, or cost of upgrading.
To ask such a question smacks of ploy or troll... though I find it not unreasonable to think there are those that ponder such questions as a matter of vocation.
The simple translation for all this rhetoric is as follows:
MS: uhm, er, oh yes, there are IP issues to be cleared up, but we have _agreements_ to provide protections for our customer bases.
Novel: There are no IP issues, we simply wish to be paid fairly for surrendering to the borg^H^H^H^H constant unrelenting pressures of Redmond, and in an attempt to bail out our stock holders, we have to pretend that this pig's ear is a silk purse.... er, we have worked out a reasonable agreement with Redmond to protect our customers.
than the previous ages where all information was kept on paper or in spoken words? The problem isn't so much how to invent something that will always be readable, but some way to always have the applications to read it. If it were not for the Rosetta Stone, much of what we know about the ancient world might still be a mystery.
because IANAL and other such notices, and either way, if IRCC, Kazaa was sued successfully because they encouraged the illegal downloading and sharing of copyrighted works through the use of their software, rather than being responsible for everyone's use of their software, they were found guilty of encouraging people to use their software for illicit purposes, sort of like a pipe manufacturer encouraging people to get high, rather than simply selling pipes. Its a fine line, but I think this guy might have the same chance of pleading innocence as those who became hooked on cigarettes... IF... nothing else is given as evidence against him. It is a very thin edge he is on... as far as I can see.
They may be complicit, but I think the judge will still see this guy as having guilt regarding the 'crime' in question.
But when, if ever, will anyone shut down the MS machine? Never is when. MS is far to invested into large corporations and government institutions to ever have anyone, never mind MS, say, all windows products must be updated or dumped. Its just not going to happen. If you owe the bank $1000 dollars, you are in trouble if you're late on the payments, if you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 dollars and you're late, the bank is in trouble.
Right now, the later is more the case. If MS had to upgrade or recall all XP products, it would cause a large harm to the economy, not just MS's bottom line. Think of what would have to be spent on the upgrades or change outs?
Too many people have invested in MS products to just shut it down, and just like England won't wake up one morning and start driving on the right side of the road, MS products will remain in service. (I'm not trying to imply that the left side is the incorrect one, just illustrating the size of the problem)
Reports like this do seem to show MS in a very bad light, but how it gets fixed will be even more interesting. When government types want to show they are doing something about spam, will they do anything to make MS responsible, or make MS fix it? Probably not, so the real answer to spam, or answers, is to implement measures that do not rely on the end user, or the end user's OS to fix it.
IMO, This means that ISP's are going to have to sandbox segments of their networks to throttle spam, and that cost will be passed on to consumers, or possibly will be borne by the ISP for bragging rights about having less spam than any other ISP, in much the same way that the Bell companies used to do advertising about what they are spending to improve services for consumers.
This also leaves me with a suspicion about the marketing team for Vista? How better to fix XP SP2 than to upgrade to Vista?
While it may be difficult to figure out where the money will come from, or how the DRM will work, the average joe bloggs and jane bloggs is already using digital on demand products, some via cable, some via the Internet (youtube etc.) and they are getting used to it. This is a critical factor in how visual data will be and is being used. Remember VHS vs. Betamax? The fact that GooTube is soon to be up and running will ensure that _EVERYONE_ knows about video via the Internet. The next logical step to take, even for naive grandparents, is "how do I watch all my favorite episodes of program x on the Internet?" or how do I get television on my computer?
By the time they start asking those questions, all the arguing will be nearly done. When there is a proven market for a product or service, every large corp. worth anything will trip all over themselves to sell it to the public, and will do so no matter what DRM hurdles are in the way.
In the same way that YouTube and MySpace made headlines and garnered public attention, digital on-line on-demand video services will do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
its hard to imagine what those people were thinking when they said (in various ways) that the MS - Novell arrangement is a good thing, or will be good for Linux. Obviously, the political machinations of MS are still working overtime to defeat anything, group, or person that will stand in the way of MS domination of computing.
Can anyone explain how this makes MS look good?
oh, and if you have tried to trademark 'Good Thing' don't worry, I won't sue....
Its good to see the EFF winning anytime... everyone should support them
Well, it wasn't that long ago when people wanted to know what you would do with a pc in your house? or why you would need 6Mbits of bandwidth at home. Now, Google and other search engines are household words, and nearly everyone knows that you can find just about any information that you want, when you want, where ever you want using the Internet. Video/Audio is simply another form of information or information storage. Imagine you are sitting in a social setting (bar for some of us) and the conversation comes up to an argument about who a certain actor was that played some part in a movie: viola! you pull out your iPod or whatever device, type a few keywords and then watch that scene in the movie... argument settled.
While that may not be a truly universally useful example, there are many other such instances. Imagine missing a lecture in college and being able to pull it up on your iPod or other device; checking the latest from CNN; pulling down a video from the Library of Congress on global warming.... the list goes on.
To accomplish truly ubiquitous video usage, it will take both bandwidth, networks, and device storage. It will happen, sooner or later, as predicted on Star Trek IRRC. Think speaking computers and tri-corders?
It seems to me that all big business is incapable of being apolitical. It is politicians that make the laws that help or hinder the processes of big business, so therefore, big business necessarily must be political.
/cynical despair
While it is offensive that big oil is trying to shape the minds and hearts of children in school, it is hardly surprising. Did everyone miss the evil masterminds in the James Bond films? Its not like big business is terribly different. Okay, not as destructive, but they are still trying to make more money than anyone of us normal folk can imagine, and to do that it takes some immoral actions.
Having this situation pointed out to everyone should be the call for 'honest' politicians to 'look into the matter' as a part of their responsibility to their constituents... if enough of them care to ask... that is how politics (at least in the US) is supposed to work. If anyone can make an election year issue of it, something might actually get done...
Everyone here knows what happens to people/companies that do a deal with MS... they very quickly become deceased or owned. This simply means the final end of Suse and Novell. MS will do this one distribution at a time... or have we not learned anything from their past behavior?
Surely, it is not just me that sees this as the first step in MS owning Linux? I KNOW how paranoid that sounds, but lets get real and deal with past history, real fact, actual behaviors...
I really don't care how this gets modded, it must be said that a tiger doesn't change it's stripes, so why is MS doing this? out of kindness, or out of a desire to own Linux? While that may be paranoid at this point, look at what they stand to gain if one distribution owns up to IP issues? It will tie up all the other distributions in litigation...
I have to say, personally, I find all this 'love fest' rather dangerous indeed
My flatscreen has a pc input...
Just a different source for video feeds...
current content providers will adapt...
News at 11
Learn to count for fuck sake !
Dark Age of Camelot Rating: 8.2
Ryzom Rating: 8.2
Looks like number 5 to me
LOL. Looks like it is tied for number four to me! LOL!
EVE Online Rating: 8.3
Guild Wars Rating: 8.3
EverQuest II Rating: 8.3
Dark Age of Camelot Rating: 8.2
Ryzom Rating: 8.2
If its tied, it would be tied for 2nd place.... as the first three in the list are then tied for 1st place....
The term cell phone probably caught on because 'Cellular One' was one of the biggest cell phone companies way back when they were still the size of a brick.
of a name being more than just a name, like Kleenex facial tissues. 'Give me a Kleenex' or in England, they 'Hoover' the carpets. Cell phone will be around in the English language for a very long time... that is just how language works. They tried to give two-way pagers names other than pager. It didn't work because people just didn't understand what it was till you called it a pager.
The cellular network configuration is still in use, so the name is still appropriate. When all that changes, maybe there will be another name, but the common usage of cell phone will stick around still.
end up being the mess we all see it as, but others will too, and then decide that the patent, IP, and copyright laws in the USA are not exactly working and need to be fixed.
and other times simply in the way of other good ideas, even better ideas.
I often use the dual head display so that I can see something temporarily... a place where re-usable paper technology might be useful. Many of the printed reports I've seen in meetings would be well placed on this type of paper technology... as most of the copies end up in the trash anyway.
There are a few places that such technology would be good, check books are not one of them. I think that once technology such as e-books and the like is an accepted thing by society in general, then this type of thing will take off. The Palm Pilot and tablet pc systems were a good idea too... though not too many people want the restrictions that come with them.
When we have a PC that really does work as simply as writing on a piece of real paper, then the technology will take off. Hats off to Xerox though for working to stay relevant and profitable. Any paper replacement technology will have to be more functional though. Imagine taking your e-book or roll-up tablet pc to the news stand and downloading a copy of the day's paper? Or downloading a copy of the presentation while actually sitting in the meeting.
Then again, what good is all that technology if you can simply use a tablet PC? The technology that replaces paper has to be very cost effective since paper is a throw away product. I don't think that 10 uses is really enough to make this worth while.
Besides, if you are using some new, ultra thin tablet pc, you can save the documents to your hard drive on your desktop if needed/desired. People print things to read them later, or read them where having a pc is just not practical. That usually requires that the ink last for more than a day. If you are printing stuff to look at for a few minutes or perhaps hours, its possible that you shouldn't be printing it in the first place, but that sort of thinking is not what will make Xerox more wealthy... they need to sell paper and paper handling equipment. The digital camera has all but killed off the film camera industry. I don't think that its the paper that needs to change, but the way that we handle data that is normally printed.
When Xerox comes up with a tablet pc that works like having a paper notebook and pen, then they will sell tons. Imagine it being like the size of a notepad, functions like pen and paper, and downloads or uploads using bluetooth or other WPAN. That would kill much of the market for this paper technology... maybe, if you could convince people to use it.
Yeah, I know it is supposed to be LIVE CD. Spell checking doesn't always help...
If your pc is infected with a trojan, or other malicious software, its feasible to capture the screen with each keystroke while connecting to a bank website and forward that data to a server somewhere at a later time... key logging doesn't have to be only key logging, it could be logging keystrokes and relevant screen data at the same time.
The ONLY way to outsmart software that wants your data is to not load that software on your machine. I find that I feel much safer booting a life CD (DSL or Puppy or pick your flavor) and running to the banking website with a freshly installed OS... no chances for virii or malware etc.
That is certainly easier than actually going to the bank... and I know that its safe.
It at least makes me feel a bit safer.
I think the parent poster is not far off. From the experience that I have had, shoving a live CD in the tray and booting is an impressive thing for people with some old hardware and requirements for not much more than web browsing and writing emails. The fact that its free, does what they want, doesn't take long to get used to, and can be virtually virii free with a reboot (depending on whether files are stored on the hard drive, if it is even used) is a big bonus for neophytes... or at least those I have had dealings with. Remember, I did say their requirements were in the low to nil levels, they are not gamers or graphics artists. There is a huge, yet relatively unnoticed population that fits this bill.
If Google puts out a live CD like AOL disks, and adds cheap dial-up and/or free access to applications via Google.net or similar, its will be an EASY SELL to a LOT of people who have low requirements for working on the Internet. I'd guess this userbase would easily hit the millions here in North America, and who knows how many globally. It wouldn't be a one size fits all answer, but it would batter the hell out of the AOL customer base!
While you are generally correct about the USPTO, I have to give them (or someone credit for starting a pilot program for patent reviews:
0 23220
PatPending writes
"American companies General Electric, IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have joined with the New York Law School and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to inaugarate a new system of peer review for software patents. The four companies, plus Red Hat, the world's biggest listed open source software business, are the lead sponsors behind the Community Patent Review project --- http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/03/0
In any battle where goliath is predicted to fall, there has to be a point where the goliath tries to fight harder, and dirtier than before. MS has nothing to lose by 'seeming' to be more open and more F/OSS friendly, and they have everything to gain, including hearts and minds.
/. or any blog has a clue what was really said in the boardrooms, on guessing based on historically valid impressions. The end value of any of this posturing is that one side or the other will seem more valid, more honest, more useful for doing business with...
The problem is that when it comes to patents, everyone, including the USPTO is looking at them more skeptically. Look at what the final outcome of this could or should be; MS looks better than before the situation, or MS gains credit with people who pay real money for MS products. MS currently doesn't have too many worries about home users switching to Linux. Its businesses and governments and educational institutions that MS has to keep on board the MS wagon. By acting open, or F/OSS friendly, they get to keep customers that were wavering... that can be billions of dollars per year. By actually pulling this off, they do more than keep money, they harm their competition in terms of market share. Every battle is not won simply on brute force, but often on preventing such force from being brought to bear against you.
The trouble here is that nobody on
Of course its that much cheaper... license fees alone are more than half of maintaining a reasonable Oracle installation... this is news? how?
This also keeps things simple, and won't require application upgrades etc. Additionally, once you have stored the photos in a directory structure, you will never forget where they are or have to call your favorite tech guy to help you find them on your hard drive. This is a common thing I am asked to do... find files for neophytes. I teach them how to use the directory structure for all their data, not just photos... it is a sound way to do things.
I don't like to make decisions on such videos without seeing the whole incident from beginning to end, but since more or less the beginning of time, if authority figures (police or otherwise) are standing over you ordering you to do something, and you lay on the floor yelling that you won't leave and other assorted obscenities and slights on their position or authority, well, that is so blindingly stupid that you are lucky if tased is all you get.
Surely everyone has seen an episode of Bad Boys and what happens when you resist arrest. Whether the authorities should have tased the guy 5 times (or more) is questionable, but the guy that got tased was asking for more of the same by refusing to cooperate with the authorities. These are the same authorities, by the way, that he and other disapproving students will count on any other time to protect them from nasty people. Rules are rules, and if you glaringly flout them, bad things happen sometimes. I think the guy should be grateful that he wasn't drug down stairs feet first, or given the King treatment.
Yes, they could have carried him out, but then again, his mouth was running too much to get any kind of compassion from the cops... that is life most times. Ever seen anyone get unruly in a bar? When that happens, bouncers are about as gentle as these cops were... or can be.
Arguing with cops or resisting arrest is worse for your health than smoking or eating sugar soaked breakfast cereal, let that be a lesson to those that think that 'believing you are right means you will always win'.
I can't tell you exactly what will replace current Internet UI technology, but I can say this, HTML, W3C, XML, CSS XHTML and on and on are simply the evolution to what will replace all that has gone before. Web 2.0 is simply an effort (no comment on value of the effort) to consolidate the things that make the Internet's UI more useful and exciting. Web 3.0 (and I hate the buzzwords because it always makes it seem like some person or group has more info or style than others when the buzzwords are used) and what lays beyond it are simply the morphing of what works, has worked, or seems like it will work into a common Internet UI experience.
There is no silver or magic bullet that will usurp web browsers, and its just silly to think that there will be, or could be. As an example, if the fully automatic hover car (think Jetsons) was to be invented tomorrow, it would not usurp the venerable internal combustion powered manually operated common day vehicle for a whole slew of reasons, not the least of which is cost, or cost of upgrading.
To ask such a question smacks of ploy or troll... though I find it not unreasonable to think there are those that ponder such questions as a matter of vocation.
The simple translation for all this rhetoric is as follows:
MS: uhm, er, oh yes, there are IP issues to be cleared up, but we have _agreements_ to provide protections for our customer bases.
Novel: There are no IP issues, we simply wish to be paid fairly for surrendering to the borg^H^H^H^H constant unrelenting pressures of Redmond, and in an attempt to bail out our stock holders, we have to pretend that this pig's ear is a silk purse.... er, we have worked out a reasonable agreement with Redmond to protect our customers.
than the previous ages where all information was kept on paper or in spoken words? The problem isn't so much how to invent something that will always be readable, but some way to always have the applications to read it. If it were not for the Rosetta Stone, much of what we know about the ancient world might still be a mystery.
because IANAL and other such notices, and either way, if IRCC, Kazaa was sued successfully because they encouraged the illegal downloading and sharing of copyrighted works through the use of their software, rather than being responsible for everyone's use of their software, they were found guilty of encouraging people to use their software for illicit purposes, sort of like a pipe manufacturer encouraging people to get high, rather than simply selling pipes. Its a fine line, but I think this guy might have the same chance of pleading innocence as those who became hooked on cigarettes... IF ... nothing else is given as evidence against him. It is a very thin edge he is on... as far as I can see.
They may be complicit, but I think the judge will still see this guy as having guilt regarding the 'crime' in question.
But when, if ever, will anyone shut down the MS machine? Never is when. MS is far to invested into large corporations and government institutions to ever have anyone, never mind MS, say, all windows products must be updated or dumped. Its just not going to happen. If you owe the bank $1000 dollars, you are in trouble if you're late on the payments, if you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 dollars and you're late, the bank is in trouble.
Right now, the later is more the case. If MS had to upgrade or recall all XP products, it would cause a large harm to the economy, not just MS's bottom line. Think of what would have to be spent on the upgrades or change outs?
Too many people have invested in MS products to just shut it down, and just like England won't wake up one morning and start driving on the right side of the road, MS products will remain in service. (I'm not trying to imply that the left side is the incorrect one, just illustrating the size of the problem)
Reports like this do seem to show MS in a very bad light, but how it gets fixed will be even more interesting. When government types want to show they are doing something about spam, will they do anything to make MS responsible, or make MS fix it? Probably not, so the real answer to spam, or answers, is to implement measures that do not rely on the end user, or the end user's OS to fix it.
IMO, This means that ISP's are going to have to sandbox segments of their networks to throttle spam, and that cost will be passed on to consumers, or possibly will be borne by the ISP for bragging rights about having less spam than any other ISP, in much the same way that the Bell companies used to do advertising about what they are spending to improve services for consumers.
This also leaves me with a suspicion about the marketing team for Vista? How better to fix XP SP2 than to upgrade to Vista?
While it may be difficult to figure out where the money will come from, or how the DRM will work, the average joe bloggs and jane bloggs is already using digital on demand products, some via cable, some via the Internet (youtube etc.) and they are getting used to it. This is a critical factor in how visual data will be and is being used. Remember VHS vs. Betamax? The fact that GooTube is soon to be up and running will ensure that _EVERYONE_ knows about video via the Internet. The next logical step to take, even for naive grandparents, is "how do I watch all my favorite episodes of program x on the Internet?" or how do I get television on my computer?
By the time they start asking those questions, all the arguing will be nearly done. When there is a proven market for a product or service, every large corp. worth anything will trip all over themselves to sell it to the public, and will do so no matter what DRM hurdles are in the way.
In the same way that YouTube and MySpace made headlines and garnered public attention, digital on-line on-demand video services will do the same.