Re:What standards would those be?
on
Google Fixes IE Bug
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
And Microsoft counts on this. That's why they dominate - they have everybody "addicted" to their software.
Addiction? Not nearly as much as it's a sunken cost. Consumers (Your parents, non-techie siblings, the guy that lives next door) aren't given many options when they buy an off-the-shelf PC, and when Options are out there, they're not nearly as exposed as anyone would like. Combine this with the fact that almost everyone wants a specific file format that they've sunken they're teeth into (think resume + MS Word, most places won't take ANY other format), and it not addiction, the user frustration is out there in spades. It's how our marketplace works. It's all about mass marketing and availability. Ever go to the grocery store? next time you do, go to the soup isle. Chances are almost 100% that campbells will have their soup at adult eye-level, and kids-friendly soups on the lower shelfs. to get anything but Campbells, you have to look between those shelves, and higher up. Out of sight, out of mind. Microsoft also relies on this. Go to Dell or Gateway or any other "OEM" consumer product store and find a PC that ships with linux. Not a server, a desktop PC on the front page that has linux as it's primary OS. Didn't find one? That's not addiction, it's market placement.
$0.02
The problem isn't with DRM, it's in the poor implementation (Sony + rootkit = makes everyone on the label look bad), as well as artists believing in a little something called "Fair Use". People who get these CDs can't use them in their iPod, and are required to use a "licensed" player. The discs are questioned on Macs (Finnish government wants to make it illegal to listen to copy-protected materials on Mac, since they don't acknowledge the copy protection), and people are questioning whether they "want" a rootkit on their Windows box (I don't have one, but my Grandmother does), and corporate IT dosen't want the rootkits on their networks, so listening to audio at work became a major pain if you choose to do it the Sony way. Personally, I support the artists, I go to their shows, I buy their CDs (as long as it's not on a "Sony/BMG" label. Some people just don't have that option.
Let's face it, we all love technology. We surround ourselves with the latest and greatest and consume nothing but the best of the best when it comes to gadgetry and technological extravagances, yet in the past few years the only thing to advance in an incredible degree would be video cards and CPUs. Why has there been such a sudden lack in innovation as of late? Are we in a technological drought? I like to stick to my own diagnosis of the industry as being too concerned with keeping a steady cash flow over social experimentation with new products but then again that's just an opinion from a little guy.
Well, I know what I want to see happen in the next years and I'm there are at least 1 million blogs about this very subject but I have a very convincing statement which should make you read and backup my list and It's quite simple really: I'm right and all 1 million blogs are wrong. There. I said it. I'm sure that after reading the list that you'll also come to this conclusion, at least that's what I'm banking on.
1) Better Designed fans -- RAWR! That's the sound of my system all 24 hours of the day. Although I have fairly new Thermaltake fans for both my CPU and system, the thing sounds as if it had wings and wheels that it would take off into the sky. Now, I'm sure many of you will say "Oh stop whining, there's liquid cooling and fan-less solutions, yackity smackity" but I say nay onto those because 1.) Liquid cooling is more expensive than a fan based setup and 2.) Have you seen an AMD 64 being ran with a fan-less solution? They melt like marshmallows on a campfire.
Seeing how there are is a nearly frictionless lubricant in Japan, I'm sure that some engineers from these fan manufacturers can conjure up the nerve to walk into the sex shops selling the stuff and just buy a few bottles (in the name of advancement and science of course). I mean, haven't they heard of Teflon!? Why not even use a little Wesson on the things, I'm sure they'd sound a lot quieter then apposed to the sand and glass I suspect they use currently for lubrication.
2) Cases with more functionality -- Haven't you even dreamt of having your case double as a food/drink dispenser as well? Of course you have! Wouldn't it just be oh-so cool to have a bottle opener or a soda dispenser built into the case without having to do tedious and sometimes ridiculous amounts of modifications? I mean, the possibilities are quite endless really when it comes to being a dispenser and it wouldn't necessarily be all that hard.
It doesn't have to stop at food either, I mean how many of you have or use the phone near your computer? Well, why not combine the two!? Wouldn't it just be so cool to have a fully functional phone right there on your case? There would be no need to get up ever again except for bathroom breaks but they have bags and jugs for that anyways, right?
3) Wireless everything -- That's right baby, no more wire hang- err, wires. I want to be able to buy something, set it on my desk and it automatically work. This rule applies for everything from mice and keyboards to monitors and various displays. We are in a world where being connected is required but I don't necessarily see why we need to be connected with a huge cable or dare I say dozens of cables! It isn't as if it would be hard, it would just take a standardization of a short range communications standard and some willingness from a few manufacturers.
If it's once thing that amazes people still in this day and age, its things that can send and receive data wirelessly. Even people with a complete understanding of the technology stare in bewilderment at their cutesy, wireless mouse. Come on industry, cut the cords and go truly wireless already!
Sounds like the antenna unfurling code was written by Microsoft. I can't believe that NASA of all people believed that Beta code should be put in a production environment. I strongly doubt they'll be using the Dot NOT framework for some time to come.
Crashproof cars. Sounds like a good idea doesn't it? I remember a demo back in the 90's that went like this:
Gates: And the system prevents itself from crashing
Windows: BSOD X^(
I'd love to see the EULA on that.
I am sure the monopolies and civic utilities can coexist, offering different levels of service for different needs. Imagine this, no more having to pound hundreds of lines of code to ensure that someone on a POTS system can view the content on your site as well as have a segregated site to use all of your cool features available for people with a thicker pipe to the internet. When Broadband is available as a utility, there can be a much better consistency to the presentation layer of many applications, as well as much more rich content to the masses. For those that say companies have to make money as well, they can and will, because I am sure that municipal Broadband will not be able to compete with T3 Frame Relays and won't have uptime that is crucial for businesses. Innovation for the masses breeds more innovation, and can only cause the commodity that is the internet to thrive in a way we could have never imagined. It will also empower consumers and give them a choice they just don't have with monolithic monopolies that believe that 1 standard of service is enough for all consumers.
Now we all get to suffer the bandwidth consequences of the paranoid's video conferencing. The packets screaming over UUNet's backbone will be prohibitive if only a handful (per capita) of streaming video apps used this technology. I guess it would push providers to put OC48's in our neighborhoods though.
More broken pages! I love it when browser nazis decide what browser works best for our needs. Evidently more and more people have less and less to say. I remember when http was hyper TEXT transfer protocal.
Looks like the next peice of malware to infect the web. Next thing you know they'll be following with slogan theft, and perhaps even claim that it "Just Works" like Windows longhorn
With as much issue as is being made over blogging and cams today, imagine what they will be trying to govern behaviorally at 600 Meg? At ISDN speed there was "warez awareness". 1 Meg, The RIAA and DMCA jumps on us. Now people are having work and legal issues over cameras and blogs. Add Trusted Computing into the situation and pow! no more data safety at all. Of course at that speed everything can run at full length totally encrypted, but could you imagine the buss speed required to compute at that level?
Backups are for girls and End (L)users. John Cleese is a blast, though he much better at holding together a flying circus or being a (Lord) Farquad. 'Nuff said
So does it "Just work" like IE "Conforms to CSS Spec"? Perhaps Lie will come out with a Acid3 test that shoves the cream pie into Billg's face like the earlier time it happened.
For me, Quality of software is important, but perhaps more important is the ability (as per the terms of the license) to fix the parts that are not doing what I want/need them to do, and to allow others to enjoy the same changes if they want to. With Closed Source ware, I often find myself with quality issues, and issues with getting the software to behave in a manner that I feel is important to the task at hand, without having to wait on some monolithic corporate firm to send me a binary patch I could have hacked out myself hours after finding the issue 5 years later. It's the ability to innovate existing packages that produces quality, and some giants have it right, but as impatient as I am I'd prefer to be able to have the quality now instead of never.
I personally run KDE's filemanager/browser Konqueror. Some of these ads that display as floating divs are written to display correctly only in IE, as evident in their usage of IE specific DOM functions to remove the intrusive ad in question. Combine this with it hovering over content, and an inability to "close" then by rendering then non-visible, and it's less of a social contract, and more of a censorship of users not participating in the let's make Bill Gates more rich fund. I don't mind ads, even the annoying animated banners (as long as they don't use that whole blue/red flash that induces seizures) and flash ads, but by removing access to content with advertisements for people that don't use IE it's a breach of social contract by those that use the ads.
-- Kurt
Slashdot Mirror
The problem isn't with DRM, it's in the poor implementation (Sony + rootkit = makes everyone on the label look bad), as well as artists believing in a little something called "Fair Use". People who get these CDs can't use them in their iPod, and are required to use a "licensed" player. The discs are questioned on Macs (Finnish government wants to make it illegal to listen to copy-protected materials on Mac, since they don't acknowledge the copy protection), and people are questioning whether they "want" a rootkit on their Windows box (I don't have one, but my Grandmother does), and corporate IT dosen't want the rootkits on their networks, so listening to audio at work became a major pain if you choose to do it the Sony way. Personally, I support the artists, I go to their shows, I buy their CDs (as long as it's not on a "Sony/BMG" label. Some people just don't have that option.
$0.02
Let's face it, we all love technology. We surround ourselves with the latest and greatest and consume nothing but the best of the best when it comes to gadgetry and technological extravagances, yet in the past few years the only thing to advance in an incredible degree would be video cards and CPUs. Why has there been such a sudden lack in innovation as of late? Are we in a technological drought? I like to stick to my own diagnosis of the industry as being too concerned with keeping a steady cash flow over social experimentation with new products but then again that's just an opinion from a little guy. Well, I know what I want to see happen in the next years and I'm there are at least 1 million blogs about this very subject but I have a very convincing statement which should make you read and backup my list and It's quite simple really: I'm right and all 1 million blogs are wrong. There. I said it. I'm sure that after reading the list that you'll also come to this conclusion, at least that's what I'm banking on. 1) Better Designed fans -- RAWR! That's the sound of my system all 24 hours of the day. Although I have fairly new Thermaltake fans for both my CPU and system, the thing sounds as if it had wings and wheels that it would take off into the sky. Now, I'm sure many of you will say "Oh stop whining, there's liquid cooling and fan-less solutions, yackity smackity" but I say nay onto those because 1.) Liquid cooling is more expensive than a fan based setup and 2.) Have you seen an AMD 64 being ran with a fan-less solution? They melt like marshmallows on a campfire. Seeing how there are is a nearly frictionless lubricant in Japan, I'm sure that some engineers from these fan manufacturers can conjure up the nerve to walk into the sex shops selling the stuff and just buy a few bottles (in the name of advancement and science of course). I mean, haven't they heard of Teflon!? Why not even use a little Wesson on the things, I'm sure they'd sound a lot quieter then apposed to the sand and glass I suspect they use currently for lubrication. 2) Cases with more functionality -- Haven't you even dreamt of having your case double as a food/drink dispenser as well? Of course you have! Wouldn't it just be oh-so cool to have a bottle opener or a soda dispenser built into the case without having to do tedious and sometimes ridiculous amounts of modifications? I mean, the possibilities are quite endless really when it comes to being a dispenser and it wouldn't necessarily be all that hard. It doesn't have to stop at food either, I mean how many of you have or use the phone near your computer? Well, why not combine the two!? Wouldn't it just be so cool to have a fully functional phone right there on your case? There would be no need to get up ever again except for bathroom breaks but they have bags and jugs for that anyways, right? 3) Wireless everything -- That's right baby, no more wire hang- err, wires. I want to be able to buy something, set it on my desk and it automatically work. This rule applies for everything from mice and keyboards to monitors and various displays. We are in a world where being connected is required but I don't necessarily see why we need to be connected with a huge cable or dare I say dozens of cables! It isn't as if it would be hard, it would just take a standardization of a short range communications standard and some willingness from a few manufacturers. If it's once thing that amazes people still in this day and age, its things that can send and receive data wirelessly. Even people with a complete understanding of the technology stare in bewilderment at their cutesy, wireless mouse. Come on industry, cut the cords and go truly wireless already!
Sounds like the antenna unfurling code was written by Microsoft. I can't believe that NASA of all people believed that Beta code should be put in a production environment. I strongly doubt they'll be using the Dot NOT framework for some time to come.
Crashproof cars. Sounds like a good idea doesn't it? I remember a demo back in the 90's that went like this: Gates: And the system prevents itself from crashing Windows: BSOD X^( I'd love to see the EULA on that.
I am sure the monopolies and civic utilities can coexist, offering different levels of service for different needs. Imagine this, no more having to pound hundreds of lines of code to ensure that someone on a POTS system can view the content on your site as well as have a segregated site to use all of your cool features available for people with a thicker pipe to the internet. When Broadband is available as a utility, there can be a much better consistency to the presentation layer of many applications, as well as much more rich content to the masses. For those that say companies have to make money as well, they can and will, because I am sure that municipal Broadband will not be able to compete with T3 Frame Relays and won't have uptime that is crucial for businesses. Innovation for the masses breeds more innovation, and can only cause the commodity that is the internet to thrive in a way we could have never imagined. It will also empower consumers and give them a choice they just don't have with monolithic monopolies that believe that 1 standard of service is enough for all consumers.
= a rush for OO 2.1 plus pirate add-ins. This will put the Irate in Pirate if anything will. Let's just hope that stable means stable this time.
Now we all get to suffer the bandwidth consequences of the paranoid's video conferencing. The packets screaming over UUNet's backbone will be prohibitive if only a handful (per capita) of streaming video apps used this technology. I guess it would push providers to put OC48's in our neighborhoods though.
It requires software that was engineered in the first place to reverse-engineer it.
More broken pages! I love it when browser nazis decide what browser works best for our needs. Evidently more and more people have less and less to say. I remember when http was hyper TEXT transfer protocal.
Now network database programming from new converts will consist of an Access DB file on a samba share. Next stop, Data corruption city.
Looks like the next peice of malware to infect the web. Next thing you know they'll be following with slogan theft, and perhaps even claim that it "Just Works" like Windows longhorn
With as much issue as is being made over blogging and cams today, imagine what they will be trying to govern behaviorally at 600 Meg? At ISDN speed there was "warez awareness". 1 Meg, The RIAA and DMCA jumps on us. Now people are having work and legal issues over cameras and blogs. Add Trusted Computing into the situation and pow! no more data safety at all. Of course at that speed everything can run at full length totally encrypted, but could you imagine the buss speed required to compute at that level?
I stand corrected. Saw Shrek 2 recently, and forgot the voices of the King of Far Far away and of Farquad were different. Thanks
Do they expect someone to be inside trying to see something? Seriously gross man.
He'll need a bit of hot air to keep him afloat after the first few hours
Backups are for girls and End (L)users. John Cleese is a blast, though he much better at holding together a flying circus or being a (Lord) Farquad. 'Nuff said
Stupid Drivers
Most of us were weaned on the machines, so howmuch dumbness have we collected as a whole?
So does it "Just work" like IE "Conforms to CSS Spec"? Perhaps Lie will come out with a Acid3 test that shoves the cream pie into Billg's face like the earlier time it happened.
You're welcome. Hi Ho Hi Ho - it's back to work I go.... with hand grenades and razor blades, Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho....
For me, Quality of software is important, but perhaps more important is the ability (as per the terms of the license) to fix the parts that are not doing what I want/need them to do, and to allow others to enjoy the same changes if they want to. With Closed Source ware, I often find myself with quality issues, and issues with getting the software to behave in a manner that I feel is important to the task at hand, without having to wait on some monolithic corporate firm to send me a binary patch I could have hacked out myself hours after finding the issue 5 years later. It's the ability to innovate existing packages that produces quality, and some giants have it right, but as impatient as I am I'd prefer to be able to have the quality now instead of never.
I personally run KDE's filemanager/browser Konqueror. Some of these ads that display as floating divs are written to display correctly only in IE, as evident in their usage of IE specific DOM functions to remove the intrusive ad in question. Combine this with it hovering over content, and an inability to "close" then by rendering then non-visible, and it's less of a social contract, and more of a censorship of users not participating in the let's make Bill Gates more rich fund. I don't mind ads, even the annoying animated banners (as long as they don't use that whole blue/red flash that induces seizures) and flash ads, but by removing access to content with advertisements for people that don't use IE it's a breach of social contract by those that use the ads. -- Kurt