Firefox will get 10% market share, and then Microsoft will release Internet Explorer 7 and promptly send it back to the single digits again.
Firefox is great for Linux users, but between Safari (on Mac)s, Internet Explorer (on Windows), and Opera (everywhere else), you should forget about it ever being a player on the consumer desktop.
...for the masses, because it doesn't come pre-installed on PC's. It doesn't come pre-installed on Mac's either, for that matter.
The bottom line is that most customers don't care what OS it's running. It matters about as much to them as what type of gas they use in their car or what brand of toilet paper (or silk) they use to wipe their asses with.
You hired a person to do an answering machine's job. It's your fault, Mr. Pointy Haired Boss, not hers. Her fault was not quitting and finding a better job.
It looks better than Windows XP, but Mac OS X blows it away. It isn't innovative though. It pretty much looks like a rehashed Windows XP with some eye candy so far.
Weren't they working on some 3D user interfaces though? Perhaps the usability tests on their first attempts at a 3D UI revealed that 2D was still better. Back to the drawing boards... or is it the modeling spaces?
I agree with your general sentiment that we underestimate animals and overvalue ourselves, but let's not get hasty with our conclusions. Animals don't have complex emotions and aren't capable of the "same types of understanding" as humans. It's more that we overvalue ourselves than that we underestimate animals; we're not nearly as evolved as we would like to think.
IBM and ORACLE are not innovative. They are big unninnovative businesses just like Microsoft. They thrive on the continuation of their existence, not the creation of something new.
As for open source not being innovative, it hasn't been lately, but it used to be. I suspect that open source's obsession with standards and standardization has something to do with its lack of innovation these days, because, folks, innovation by its very nature is not standards-based.
It is premature to say Ray is right, considering nothing he predicted has come to fruition yet.
Futurists don't have to "nail" it; the whole point of the exercise is to provoke thought and ideas, not to be correct or mainstream.
Ugly, boring, and unspired are useless descriptions for software, because it isn't software's role to be pretty, interesting, or inspiring. The purpose of software is to deliver and enable you to author content that is not ugly, boring, or uninspiring.
To put it another way, a bikini is not interesting to look at when it's sitting on a boutique rack; it looks a lot better on a beautiful woman.
Does this strike anybody else with historical perspective as ironic? Isn't IBM the company that tried to put every other mainframe computer company out of business in their heyday with their business practices? In a parallel universe, all the Linux fanboys would be vilifying IBM and OS/2 (or perhaps Apple and MacOS), not Microsoft and Windows.
What is more interesting is not whatever lame-ass design this old fart has for a "new" Internet but the reasons why he thinks the Internet as it is today sucks.
Microsoft is playing the same game in Washington that every other big business does. This doesn't surprise anybody except naive/. article contributors. On the bright side, maybe this will open up some eyes and get people less fanatically obsessed with moronic "Linux > Microsoft" dogma and more involved in addressing problems that actually make a difference in people's lives.
The corporate user can call help desk and have professionally trained IT people take care of PC needs that require administrator-level privileges. The home user does not have the luxury unless they know someone who is willing to serve them in this role.
The corporate user does not have to be an administrator to use their computer. The home user has to be one or, at least, has to run software occasionally with administrator privileges to do things like install device drivers for hardware, install new systems-level software (patches), etc.
LUA is important, but sometimes LUA for the average home user *is* administrator, because home users are called upon to perform tasks that corporate users would never have to do themselves.
The important thing is not that Internet Explorer 7.0 will support RSS but that Microsoft is resuming Internet Explorer development. That has more significant implications for Web users and developers than RSS. Internet Explorer's RSS support is just Microsoft's latest attempt at providing the Web syndication functionality that they tried to introduce and failed to popularize in Internet Explorer 4.0 a decade ago.
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Please stop the madness, Linux fanboys.
He sounds like an truly amazing human. The world will be a lesser place without him in it.
Firefox will get 10% market share, and then Microsoft will release Internet Explorer 7 and promptly send it back to the single digits again. Firefox is great for Linux users, but between Safari (on Mac)s, Internet Explorer (on Windows), and Opera (everywhere else), you should forget about it ever being a player on the consumer desktop.
Kids these days are bright. I am glad she got the opportunity to learn, Windows or not.
In that case, Linux users should be safe since the only person they have sex with is themselves.
...for the masses, because it doesn't come pre-installed on PC's. It doesn't come pre-installed on Mac's either, for that matter. The bottom line is that most customers don't care what OS it's running. It matters about as much to them as what type of gas they use in their car or what brand of toilet paper (or silk) they use to wipe their asses with.
You hired a person to do an answering machine's job. It's your fault, Mr. Pointy Haired Boss, not hers. Her fault was not quitting and finding a better job.
If the release of a Dungeon Master's Guide II is "news for nerds," then maybe "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." is an oxymoron.
It looks better than Windows XP, but Mac OS X blows it away. It isn't innovative though. It pretty much looks like a rehashed Windows XP with some eye candy so far. Weren't they working on some 3D user interfaces though? Perhaps the usability tests on their first attempts at a 3D UI revealed that 2D was still better. Back to the drawing boards... or is it the modeling spaces?
To paraphrase Dave Chappelle, Alt-F4 stills works, bitch.
I agree with your general sentiment that we underestimate animals and overvalue ourselves, but let's not get hasty with our conclusions. Animals don't have complex emotions and aren't capable of the "same types of understanding" as humans. It's more that we overvalue ourselves than that we underestimate animals; we're not nearly as evolved as we would like to think.
Amarok looks a lot like iTunes to me. Qalculate looks interesting enough if you're a math geek, I guess. Firefox is over-rated.
IBM and ORACLE are not innovative. They are big unninnovative businesses just like Microsoft. They thrive on the continuation of their existence, not the creation of something new. As for open source not being innovative, it hasn't been lately, but it used to be. I suspect that open source's obsession with standards and standardization has something to do with its lack of innovation these days, because, folks, innovation by its very nature is not standards-based.
It is premature to say Ray is right, considering nothing he predicted has come to fruition yet. Futurists don't have to "nail" it; the whole point of the exercise is to provoke thought and ideas, not to be correct or mainstream.
Ugly, boring, and unspired are useless descriptions for software, because it isn't software's role to be pretty, interesting, or inspiring. The purpose of software is to deliver and enable you to author content that is not ugly, boring, or uninspiring. To put it another way, a bikini is not interesting to look at when it's sitting on a boutique rack; it looks a lot better on a beautiful woman.
Does this strike anybody else with historical perspective as ironic? Isn't IBM the company that tried to put every other mainframe computer company out of business in their heyday with their business practices? In a parallel universe, all the Linux fanboys would be vilifying IBM and OS/2 (or perhaps Apple and MacOS), not Microsoft and Windows.
What is more interesting is not whatever lame-ass design this old fart has for a "new" Internet but the reasons why he thinks the Internet as it is today sucks.
Microsoft is playing the same game in Washington that every other big business does. This doesn't surprise anybody except naive /. article contributors. On the bright side, maybe this will open up some eyes and get people less fanatically obsessed with moronic "Linux > Microsoft" dogma and more involved in addressing problems that actually make a difference in people's lives.
The corporate user can call help desk and have professionally trained IT people take care of PC needs that require administrator-level privileges. The home user does not have the luxury unless they know someone who is willing to serve them in this role. The corporate user does not have to be an administrator to use their computer. The home user has to be one or, at least, has to run software occasionally with administrator privileges to do things like install device drivers for hardware, install new systems-level software (patches), etc. LUA is important, but sometimes LUA for the average home user *is* administrator, because home users are called upon to perform tasks that corporate users would never have to do themselves.
The important thing is not that Internet Explorer 7.0 will support RSS but that Microsoft is resuming Internet Explorer development. That has more significant implications for Web users and developers than RSS. Internet Explorer's RSS support is just Microsoft's latest attempt at providing the Web syndication functionality that they tried to introduce and failed to popularize in Internet Explorer 4.0 a decade ago.
And, more importantly, why should I care?