I think most people would say that a 40 inch OLED TV qualifies as 'new stuff'. And clearly, the world's best GSM cellphone of 2005 must have had something new to it.
Furthermore, having over 14000 patents is also usually a sign of being innovative.
2001: SAMSUNG Electronics develops and produces world's largest 40 inch TFT-LCD.
2001: SAMSUNG SDI develops world largest 15.1" full color Active Matrix Organic Electro Luminescece Display
Also they have won several design awards. It would be unfair to say that they are not innovative. Apple even invested $100 million (link above) in Samsung in 2000. Samsung is certainly not your ordinary low-cost copycat manufacturer - they spend huge amounts on R&D.
Actually, this drive is a 5 platter design (see here and here), as they are using 100 GB platters. Seagate has announced a 500 GB drive coming in Q3 with 4 platters, which will use (at least) 133 GB platters. (133 GB platters has been used by Seagate for its 7200.8 series of drives. Their 250 GB drive just has two platters!)
Reducing the number of platters have a number of advantages -- including, as you say, reduced heat, reduced power consumption due to a smaller motor, enabling a low-profile instead of a usual 1 inch form factor, and reducing the cramming of platters and heads inside the drive. A disadvantage is naturally that data will be more crammed on to the platters, but all disks with 133 GB platters have worked well for me. Thus, I think I'll wait for the next Seagate drives instead of buying this one.
It's absolutely true that Norway is not a big country (population about 4.5 million), but note that
it has lots of money, and
the Government controls much more than it does in the U.S. -- for example, private schools, universities/colleges and hospitals are nearly nonexistant. Heck, even the largest ISP in Norway is largely owned by the Government!
Now, for years, the Government has been spitting out money to Microsoft to purchase licenses for Windows and Office in all schools, universities, departments, hospitals and the like. Each and every high school in Norway has Windows and Office readily available for its students, many of whom have Microsoft Word and Excel as a part of their compulsory curriculum. A middle-sized high school in Norway spends up to 15,000 USD on Microsoft licenses alone.
So Microsoft has done very well in Norway. In fact, Microsoft's Norwegian division did such a good job at dragging money out of the Government, that its CEO got promoted[link in Norwegian] to be the CEO of Microsoft Russia!
Fortunately, certain groups and politicians have realized that the money spent on Microsoft could be spent on more important things, and have objected to pouring out money to Microsoft, and Linux has been tried out in several schools throughout the country, with largely positive experiences.
The Government has therefore finally realized that the continuous flow of money going to Microsoft is better spent elsewhere, and that there are cheaper and better alternatives. And with this statement from the Minister, Norway is one step further on its way to stop this terrible waste of money.
"Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run."
If Linux just "happens to run", how come it knocks out OpenBSD when it comes to performance? I very much doubt that Linux would win tests like these if "many parts" of its code were low quality and badly designed.
Granted, the test linked to above is soon two years old, and De Raadt refers to style of coding or general code quality rather than raw performance -- which other prominent people also have commented (in a perhaps more balanced way), but the fact that Linux runs is not merely a coincidence, as De Raadt seems to insinuate.
What's even worse is that they have a Linux driver for at least some of their WiFi chipsets, but they don't release them to the public. Broadcom uses Linux for their wireless router boards, and you can (or should be able to) get the source code for the firmware from vendors using their boards in their products.
The firmware source which you can download, unfortunately, either comes without the wireless drivers or with binary wireless drives compiled only for the embedded processor which sits in the boards. Which leads us back to square one.
Thus, since Broadcom obviously already have working Linux drivers, it would be a simple matter for them to release them. However, being a company with a bad (but recently improved) history of cooperating with the OSS community, our only option is to support and buy products from those who do it well.
Chipset makers VIA (which also does some low-end CPUs) or SiS are not members of TCG... (That, of course, does not imply that they won't follow if put under pressure from TCG).
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I think most people would say that a 40 inch OLED TV qualifies as 'new stuff'. And clearly, the world's best GSM cellphone of 2005 must have had something new to it. Furthermore, having over 14000 patents is also usually a sign of being innovative.
Well..
2001: SAMSUNG Electronics develops and produces world's largest 40 inch TFT-LCD.
2001: SAMSUNG SDI develops world largest 15.1" full color Active Matrix Organic Electro Luminescece Display
There's two - and the list goes on.
Also they have won several design awards. It would be unfair to say that they are not innovative. Apple even invested $100 million (link above) in Samsung in 2000. Samsung is certainly not your ordinary low-cost copycat manufacturer - they spend huge amounts on R&D.
Actually, this drive is a 5 platter design (see here and here), as they are using 100 GB platters. Seagate has announced a 500 GB drive coming in Q3 with 4 platters, which will use (at least) 133 GB platters. (133 GB platters has been used by Seagate for its 7200.8 series of drives. Their 250 GB drive just has two platters!)
Reducing the number of platters have a number of advantages -- including, as you say, reduced heat, reduced power consumption due to a smaller motor, enabling a low-profile instead of a usual 1 inch form factor, and reducing the cramming of platters and heads inside the drive. A disadvantage is naturally that data will be more crammed on to the platters, but all disks with 133 GB platters have worked well for me. Thus, I think I'll wait for the next Seagate drives instead of buying this one.
- it has lots of money, and
- the Government controls much more than it does in the U.S. -- for example, private schools, universities/colleges and hospitals are nearly nonexistant. Heck, even the largest ISP in Norway is largely owned by the Government!
Now, for years, the Government has been spitting out money to Microsoft to purchase licenses for Windows and Office in all schools, universities, departments, hospitals and the like. Each and every high school in Norway has Windows and Office readily available for its students, many of whom have Microsoft Word and Excel as a part of their compulsory curriculum. A middle-sized high school in Norway spends up to 15,000 USD on Microsoft licenses alone.So Microsoft has done very well in Norway. In fact, Microsoft's Norwegian division did such a good job at dragging money out of the Government, that its CEO got promoted[link in Norwegian] to be the CEO of Microsoft Russia!
Fortunately, certain groups and politicians have realized that the money spent on Microsoft could be spent on more important things, and have objected to pouring out money to Microsoft, and Linux has been tried out in several schools throughout the country, with largely positive experiences.
The Government has therefore finally realized that the continuous flow of money going to Microsoft is better spent elsewhere, and that there are cheaper and better alternatives. And with this statement from the Minister, Norway is one step further on its way to stop this terrible waste of money.
If Linux just "happens to run", how come it knocks out OpenBSD when it comes to performance? I very much doubt that Linux would win tests like these if "many parts" of its code were low quality and badly designed.
Granted, the test linked to above is soon two years old, and De Raadt refers to style of coding or general code quality rather than raw performance -- which other prominent people also have commented (in a perhaps more balanced way), but the fact that Linux runs is not merely a coincidence, as De Raadt seems to insinuate.
The firmware source which you can download, unfortunately, either comes without the wireless drivers or with binary wireless drives compiled only for the embedded processor which sits in the boards. Which leads us back to square one.
Thus, since Broadcom obviously already have working Linux drivers, it would be a simple matter for them to release them. However, being a company with a bad (but recently improved) history of cooperating with the OSS community, our only option is to support and buy products from those who do it well.
Chipset makers VIA (which also does some low-end CPUs) or SiS are not members of TCG... (That, of course, does not imply that they won't follow if put under pressure from TCG).