Except Siri doesn't do translation, it does voice command recognition. This is a fail by the editors, picking a submission that deliberately creates an "Apple vs Google" headline to stir up page loads. It's like comparing Google Reader to Apple Mail, it's nonsensical.
I was a personal acquaintance of his and coworker for about a year and kept in touch for years. I miss our monthly Chinese buffet lunches. Last I heard he was working at IBM as a consultant but that was years ago. I also know that he has two kids in the mid to high single digits. He's working, making plenty of money for his family, and taking care of his responsibilities. It's sad not to see more on his blog lately. However his primary money maker was not his blog or his books.
I too have a blog but it was neither as popular or as entertaining, but the same thing happened to me. I've gotten married, assumed more family responsibilities, and I just don't have time to update it. Right now I'm sure his priorities are elsewhere. It's not infosuicide so much as we all want more and he's simply not giving it to us. I'm sorry to say you'll just have to move on. That's the beauty of the internet.
Mark if you are out there, drop me a line sometime.
I don't disagree with you. I guess I should have clarified that this is WHY HP is doing this, and on some level it makes sense, but HP may not be as successful as an IBM on this switch. However I don't think HP's move is born of nero-watching-rome-burn-like insanity.
Eventually you'll be correct about your farmer story, but considering large businesses the world over are flush with cash, there's demand for consulting services. Currently it's a growth industry.
Does HP really want to give up that long-term cash flow to go chase its dreams?
In a word, yes. In three words, oh hell yes.
PC hardware is a commodity market and it's a mess. The upside that anyone can build a PC these days is a double edged sword, because just about anyone can build a PC these days, and the ones that do it the cheapest are the ones who win out. Margins are razor thin. High end desktops are a rare purchase. Mid-range desktops are only sold mostly to businesses when they don't need a laptop. Laptops are losing out to iPads and Macbooks now, which are solid alternatives at comparable prices, AND have better quality on average. HP is not making gobs and gobs of profit on hardware, only Apple, Samsung and HTC seem to be able to do that at the moment. Sure they might bring in $100 million in revenue but it cost like $99 million to make that. The numbers are exaggerated of course but the point is that HP sees that their hardware business is not making as much profit as you think, and it's the profit that's important.
Look, IBM created the PC and it was their cash cow for years. They then established a business consulting branch to encourage people to buy their machines. Then Compaq came along and ate their lunch, and suddenly their cash cow went away. One day, someone realized "holy shit! Our consultants make more money than our hardware does. All we do is contract out the manufacturing work to some other bozo anyway, let's sell hardware and make consulting our new cash cow, and simply tell them to buy whatever hardware we feel like."
What's funny is when IBM did this, similar things happened economically then that are happening now. 2001, the dotcom bubble bursts, 3 years later IBM sells it's hardware to work business to business. 2008, housing market crashes and 3 years later, HP gets out of hardware. In both situations, the average household consumer is hit hard and hurting, median middle class wages are practically stagnant and not keeping up with inflation, but corporate profits continue to rise in both instances.
Follow the money, the money is in businesses paying businesses for business consulting to run their business more. Huge international companies selling to average consumers is folly compared to selling to business these days especially when all the money is in corporations and rich people's pockets (that's not some political slogan, that's just the truth). Sure HP could keep it's hardware, it's probably still profitable over all, but why work so hard at making a little money when you could work half as hard and still make a killing in business consulting?
Did he just claim that every tablet in the world, his own included, is "a rip-off product", to quote the quote?
Yes he did. In the same way a fake Luis Vuitton is trying to copy on the success of a Luis Vuitton design, which is currently perfectly legal as long as it doesn't have Luis' name on it, the rest of the tablet market is trying to copy the success of the iPad by building something similar, which is itself also totally legal.
Has Apple so completely won the mind-share fight that every tablet product, no matter how technically distinctive, is an iPad clone?
At the moment, yes it has. I'm not saying the iPad is a superior product, merely that tech writers continue to use the word "tablet" but the average person thinks "iPad" because that's what overwhelmingly dominates the "tablet" market.
The RDF is strong with this one.
It's only strong with you, my fellow/.er, if you continue to deny the reality of the situation.
Okay, self lacing shoes are stupid by definition. Laces are cheap, relatively easy, and far more reliable than an electronic version. The shoes in BTTF are power and electronic driven. I could go around buying batteries and replacement shoes every time they break down, or I could just buy a pair of regular sneakers and be happy. Laces tying in most cultures is a child's rite of passage and everyone knows how to do it these days.
In order to be interesting, first I believe you have to have a mechanical method, by where someone twists or pulls on something to tighten the sneakers, not electric based. But more importantly any solution has to be as reliable/as cheap/as easy as laces, and be better than sneakers on at least one of those points. Even the style people who buy $150 shoes just because they have some sports player's name on them are not going to be too impressed. Laces are like $.05 to make these days and a $150 shoe with laces vs $150 with a snazzy new lacing system is going to eventually get killed by Nike because it's not cost effective.
It's a good thing if teachers have a Facebook account that deals with class related issues, allows students to communicate about homework, ask questions, expand the subject, etc.
It's a bad thing if teachers have a Facebook account they use to buddy with their students simply to share pictures, schmooze, gossip and otherwise engage in behavior that is unbecoming a teacher.
The law is entirely unnecessary as this is a matter of professional conduct to be handled on the teacher level and administration level, not a state government level. Banning Facebook in this manner is like banning teachers from using email, telephones, Skype or any other technology to communicate appropriately with students. So you want teachers to remain teaching with nothing but in person voice, chalk and blackboard for the next 300 years?
1) Cable companies would prefer to not provide cable to all people in a state, only providing cable to those who will buy premium services and in highest concentration areas so it's most profitable, but states general have laws stating "no, cable for everyone or you ain't in business." So the USPS should not provide mail service to absolutely everyone in the US?
2) One stamp for 44 cents seems insane, but it adds up over time. Small businesses have had to mail as well. Only recently with the maturity of free mail services and bulk email programs does this no longer make sense for letters but for larger parcels it still creates economies of scale for shipping businesses.
3) A few minor businesses like, oh I dunno, Amazon, benefit from ubiquitous and cheap shipping provided by the USPS so the subsidation of cheap mail rates and others can be argued stimulates online commerce. It was never a complaint by Sears back in the day.
4) The USPS actually is a government-mandated service that delivers flat-rate mail to every corner of the country six days a week, and there's no reason to create a false dichotomy that it absolutely has to be subsidized. The USPS worked just like this for decades, because the internet did not exist. The internet is a disruptive technology. On one hand, millions of people still need snail mail. On the other, the USPS needs major changes to continue to exist.
The main reason for the massive news upheaval is simply because it's going to be a political third rail. Simply put, drastic changes need to be allowed, but to do so would put every congresscritter, Democrat and Republican, in hot water because it probably means raising rates, cutting jobs and pensions, or both. The political will, like on so many other issues, is nowhere near there yet. It affects too many re-election bids.
Unfortunately, changes need to be made and they are going to hurt someone. But one thing is clear, the mandates by the US government are there for the benefit of the American people by keeping them connected and keeping commerce and goods moving throughout the country for cheap and easy rates. And because there are no subsidies, you don't suffer from "sane business decisions" to cut costs simply for the sake of making more profits and cutting costs. The mandate of the USPS is broader than simply a company that makes money.
But this is where content consumption is eventually going. Someone is simply going to invent a set of eyeglasses that connect to your cell phone that provide a complete visual interface including augmented reality. Maybe Steve will be able to complete that cloning technology in the next few years and his clone will return as CEO and invent the iGlass. Then suddenly, as if almost overnight, four-eyes will change be a compliment on your style and taste.
Until then, we can laugh at people who wear these impractical and goofy looking things. But at least it's not a TV Hat
Word is famous for being able to do 1000 things to a document, but the interface makes it faster to only do 3-4 of those tasks, and make it frustratingly agonizing to find some little known feature, which pisses me off, ruins my experience, and blows all the efficiency I just gained on complaining and hunting for what I needed.
A Ribbon would be great if word only did about 50 things, but then that's the problem, word is bloated and crazy. They've put the right interface onto the wrong product.
Then again, a Ribbon on Explorer might not be bad, because it really only does 50 things.
I like Gruber's information and his podcast, but he takes way too many shots at Google and not enough at other companies. But it is true that there is hypocrisy in Google's statements. If what Microsoft is saying is true, Google was offered to go in with Apple, Microsoft, et al. to buy the patents and said no. Then Google bid themselves bid on those parents. They were outbid by the group that they were offered to join! Had they done so originally, they would have ownership of these patents and there would be no argument or story.
If you believe Google wouldn't turn around and use these patents offensively as well, I have a bridge to sell you. Why would Google not jump into the patent group to defend themselves from this most likely scenario? Perhaps they were going to turn around and attack with the same patents? I believe that to be a highly likely scenario, and as such it's hypocritical and Google comes off like a "whiny bitch" because instead of playing the safe bet in the game and then working to dismantle the game, they played the game aggressively, lost, and then acts like the victim when they just screwed themselves.
I have enough problems keeping the kids fingers off the window. They smudge and smear and make it look like shit, now you are giving them a reason to mess up my damn windows!
Okay this is just bullshit. First, this is not news for nerds, this is news for:
1) Apple Fanbois to thump their chest on 2) Android Fanbois to fires of their hatred of anything Apple 3) Business Marketroids, who are most definitely not nerds
Obviously I have to start voting with my eyeballs and look to some other site for quality news. There's nothing of substance in an article like this, it's just flamebait for all the Apple-Android flame wars.
But just to answer all three groups and point out my utter annoyance with all of them:
1) Just because you are popular doesn't mean you have the best product. Doesn't mean you don't, but "everyone else is buying it" is a top fallacy that everyone needs to stop using as a badge of honor. 2) I love how you point out 35% of people are [stupid/easy to fool/lambs to the slaughter/insert overdone cliche] and then out of the other side of your mouth point out how Android phones are more popular in volume than Apple phones. To those of you who do, see #1 and stop thinking you are somehow better than Apple fanbois because you are not, you are 100% just like them. 3) You are not nerds, get off this site so the nerds can mod these stories into oblivion./rant
Slashdot Mirror
Unless of course the email delays cost you $200+ in business.
Except Siri doesn't do translation, it does voice command recognition. This is a fail by the editors, picking a submission that deliberately creates an "Apple vs Google" headline to stir up page loads. It's like comparing Google Reader to Apple Mail, it's nonsensical.
I think you captured the state of Apple's relationship with the media and general public perfectly. Bravo! I hope you get 1 million mod points.
I was a personal acquaintance of his and coworker for about a year and kept in touch for years. I miss our monthly Chinese buffet lunches. Last I heard he was working at IBM as a consultant but that was years ago. I also know that he has two kids in the mid to high single digits. He's working, making plenty of money for his family, and taking care of his responsibilities. It's sad not to see more on his blog lately. However his primary money maker was not his blog or his books.
I too have a blog but it was neither as popular or as entertaining, but the same thing happened to me. I've gotten married, assumed more family responsibilities, and I just don't have time to update it. Right now I'm sure his priorities are elsewhere. It's not infosuicide so much as we all want more and he's simply not giving it to us. I'm sorry to say you'll just have to move on. That's the beauty of the internet.
Mark if you are out there, drop me a line sometime.
This is why everyone gets my Google Voice number now. Robocalling? Right into the blocked callers group you go!
Tevatron will be resurrected as... GALVATRON!
I don't disagree with you. I guess I should have clarified that this is WHY HP is doing this, and on some level it makes sense, but HP may not be as successful as an IBM on this switch. However I don't think HP's move is born of nero-watching-rome-burn-like insanity.
Eventually you'll be correct about your farmer story, but considering large businesses the world over are flush with cash, there's demand for consulting services. Currently it's a growth industry.
Does HP really want to give up that long-term cash flow to go chase its dreams?
In a word, yes. In three words, oh hell yes.
PC hardware is a commodity market and it's a mess. The upside that anyone can build a PC these days is a double edged sword, because just about anyone can build a PC these days, and the ones that do it the cheapest are the ones who win out. Margins are razor thin. High end desktops are a rare purchase. Mid-range desktops are only sold mostly to businesses when they don't need a laptop. Laptops are losing out to iPads and Macbooks now, which are solid alternatives at comparable prices, AND have better quality on average. HP is not making gobs and gobs of profit on hardware, only Apple, Samsung and HTC seem to be able to do that at the moment. Sure they might bring in $100 million in revenue but it cost like $99 million to make that. The numbers are exaggerated of course but the point is that HP sees that their hardware business is not making as much profit as you think, and it's the profit that's important.
Look, IBM created the PC and it was their cash cow for years. They then established a business consulting branch to encourage people to buy their machines. Then Compaq came along and ate their lunch, and suddenly their cash cow went away. One day, someone realized "holy shit! Our consultants make more money than our hardware does. All we do is contract out the manufacturing work to some other bozo anyway, let's sell hardware and make consulting our new cash cow, and simply tell them to buy whatever hardware we feel like."
What's funny is when IBM did this, similar things happened economically then that are happening now. 2001, the dotcom bubble bursts, 3 years later IBM sells it's hardware to work business to business. 2008, housing market crashes and 3 years later, HP gets out of hardware. In both situations, the average household consumer is hit hard and hurting, median middle class wages are practically stagnant and not keeping up with inflation, but corporate profits continue to rise in both instances.
Follow the money, the money is in businesses paying businesses for business consulting to run their business more. Huge international companies selling to average consumers is folly compared to selling to business these days especially when all the money is in corporations and rich people's pockets (that's not some political slogan, that's just the truth). Sure HP could keep it's hardware, it's probably still profitable over all, but why work so hard at making a little money when you could work half as hard and still make a killing in business consulting?
They both suck! Babylon 5 pwnz j00r future!
*scurries back under the bridge*
Did he just claim that every tablet in the world, his own included, is "a rip-off product", to quote the quote?
Yes he did. In the same way a fake Luis Vuitton is trying to copy on the success of a Luis Vuitton design, which is currently perfectly legal as long as it doesn't have Luis' name on it, the rest of the tablet market is trying to copy the success of the iPad by building something similar, which is itself also totally legal.
Has Apple so completely won the mind-share fight that every tablet product, no matter how technically distinctive, is an iPad clone?
At the moment, yes it has. I'm not saying the iPad is a superior product, merely that tech writers continue to use the word "tablet" but the average person thinks "iPad" because that's what overwhelmingly dominates the "tablet" market.
The RDF is strong with this one.
It's only strong with you, my fellow /.er, if you continue to deny the reality of the situation.
Okay, self lacing shoes are stupid by definition. Laces are cheap, relatively easy, and far more reliable than an electronic version. The shoes in BTTF are power and electronic driven. I could go around buying batteries and replacement shoes every time they break down, or I could just buy a pair of regular sneakers and be happy. Laces tying in most cultures is a child's rite of passage and everyone knows how to do it these days.
In order to be interesting, first I believe you have to have a mechanical method, by where someone twists or pulls on something to tighten the sneakers, not electric based. But more importantly any solution has to be as reliable/as cheap/as easy as laces, and be better than sneakers on at least one of those points. Even the style people who buy $150 shoes just because they have some sports player's name on them are not going to be too impressed. Laces are like $.05 to make these days and a $150 shoe with laces vs $150 with a snazzy new lacing system is going to eventually get killed by Nike because it's not cost effective.
Now kindly get your hoverboard off my lawn.
Sheng Long, like Zagat, is just a hoax.
It's a good thing if teachers have a Facebook account that deals with class related issues, allows students to communicate about homework, ask questions, expand the subject, etc.
It's a bad thing if teachers have a Facebook account they use to buddy with their students simply to share pictures, schmooze, gossip and otherwise engage in behavior that is unbecoming a teacher.
The law is entirely unnecessary as this is a matter of professional conduct to be handled on the teacher level and administration level, not a state government level. Banning Facebook in this manner is like banning teachers from using email, telephones, Skype or any other technology to communicate appropriately with students. So you want teachers to remain teaching with nothing but in person voice, chalk and blackboard for the next 300 years?
No popcorn for me :(
1) Cable companies would prefer to not provide cable to all people in a state, only providing cable to those who will buy premium services and in highest concentration areas so it's most profitable, but states general have laws stating "no, cable for everyone or you ain't in business." So the USPS should not provide mail service to absolutely everyone in the US?
2) One stamp for 44 cents seems insane, but it adds up over time. Small businesses have had to mail as well. Only recently with the maturity of free mail services and bulk email programs does this no longer make sense for letters but for larger parcels it still creates economies of scale for shipping businesses.
3) A few minor businesses like, oh I dunno, Amazon, benefit from ubiquitous and cheap shipping provided by the USPS so the subsidation of cheap mail rates and others can be argued stimulates online commerce. It was never a complaint by Sears back in the day.
4) The USPS actually is a government-mandated service that delivers flat-rate mail to every corner of the country six days a week, and there's no reason to create a false dichotomy that it absolutely has to be subsidized. The USPS worked just like this for decades, because the internet did not exist. The internet is a disruptive technology. On one hand, millions of people still need snail mail. On the other, the USPS needs major changes to continue to exist.
The main reason for the massive news upheaval is simply because it's going to be a political third rail. Simply put, drastic changes need to be allowed, but to do so would put every congresscritter, Democrat and Republican, in hot water because it probably means raising rates, cutting jobs and pensions, or both. The political will, like on so many other issues, is nowhere near there yet. It affects too many re-election bids.
Unfortunately, changes need to be made and they are going to hurt someone. But one thing is clear, the mandates by the US government are there for the benefit of the American people by keeping them connected and keeping commerce and goods moving throughout the country for cheap and easy rates. And because there are no subsidies, you don't suffer from "sane business decisions" to cut costs simply for the sake of making more profits and cutting costs. The mandate of the USPS is broader than simply a company that makes money.
But this is where content consumption is eventually going. Someone is simply going to invent a set of eyeglasses that connect to your cell phone that provide a complete visual interface including augmented reality. Maybe Steve will be able to complete that cloning technology in the next few years and his clone will return as CEO and invent the iGlass. Then suddenly, as if almost overnight, four-eyes will change be a compliment on your style and taste.
Until then, we can laugh at people who wear these impractical and goofy looking things. But at least it's not a TV Hat
Word is famous for being able to do 1000 things to a document, but the interface makes it faster to only do 3-4 of those tasks, and make it frustratingly agonizing to find some little known feature, which pisses me off, ruins my experience, and blows all the efficiency I just gained on complaining and hunting for what I needed.
A Ribbon would be great if word only did about 50 things, but then that's the problem, word is bloated and crazy. They've put the right interface onto the wrong product.
Then again, a Ribbon on Explorer might not be bad, because it really only does 50 things.
If we get Taco a Beowulf cluster, will he come back?
Nope, this time it's Slave One.
I like Gruber's information and his podcast, but he takes way too many shots at Google and not enough at other companies. But it is true that there is hypocrisy in Google's statements. If what Microsoft is saying is true, Google was offered to go in with Apple, Microsoft, et al. to buy the patents and said no. Then Google bid themselves bid on those parents. They were outbid by the group that they were offered to join! Had they done so originally, they would have ownership of these patents and there would be no argument or story.
If you believe Google wouldn't turn around and use these patents offensively as well, I have a bridge to sell you. Why would Google not jump into the patent group to defend themselves from this most likely scenario? Perhaps they were going to turn around and attack with the same patents? I believe that to be a highly likely scenario, and as such it's hypocritical and Google comes off like a "whiny bitch" because instead of playing the safe bet in the game and then working to dismantle the game, they played the game aggressively, lost, and then acts like the victim when they just screwed themselves.
I was going to say your post was unoriginal... OMG Ponies!!!
I have enough problems keeping the kids fingers off the window. They smudge and smear and make it look like shit, now you are giving them a reason to mess up my damn windows!
Now get off my lawn!
No what we need is simple, effective, efficient public transportation.
Okay this is just bullshit. First, this is not news for nerds, this is news for:
1) Apple Fanbois to thump their chest on
2) Android Fanbois to fires of their hatred of anything Apple
3) Business Marketroids, who are most definitely not nerds
Obviously I have to start voting with my eyeballs and look to some other site for quality news. There's nothing of substance in an article like this, it's just flamebait for all the Apple-Android flame wars.
But just to answer all three groups and point out my utter annoyance with all of them:
1) Just because you are popular doesn't mean you have the best product. Doesn't mean you don't, but "everyone else is buying it" is a top fallacy that everyone needs to stop using as a badge of honor. /rant
2) I love how you point out 35% of people are [stupid/easy to fool/lambs to the slaughter/insert overdone cliche] and then out of the other side of your mouth point out how Android phones are more popular in volume than Apple phones. To those of you who do, see #1 and stop thinking you are somehow better than Apple fanbois because you are not, you are 100% just like them.
3) You are not nerds, get off this site so the nerds can mod these stories into oblivion.