it wasn't Moore's Law, it was Microsoft financing and marketing kickback programs. Did you notice how Asus, after negotiating putting Windows XP on the EeePC they then changed the hardware such that the Linux versions were more expensive? We all know Linux distros easily run on anything Windows runs on but not the other way around. So Asus beefed up the hardware for the Linux models, beefed up the price, and then would only make 50% Windows based and 50% Linux based and some countries were no longer getting Linux versions at all.
It was monopoly money that changed the netbook market share numbers instead of market demand defining those numbers.
I'm not sure the phone/OS being attached to Google is a big deal or game changer. What we're seeing is not phone vendors selling phones to the public but Telco's still selling phones tied to their networks. Apple controls the iPhone OS much like Microsoft controls the OS for some phones. but, the difference with Android is that vendors are allowed to take Android outside its basic design. For instance, Microsoft, for over a decade would not let vendors change the desktop UI phone users saw on their WindowsCE/PocketPC/Mobile phones. Only late last year after much complaining from one vendor did Microsoft allow the vendor to define what the UI looked like for the customer. Microsoft also dictated the screen resolution. Android give alot of power/control to the device or telco vendor and also provides alot of backend stuff with the application store end of it. Unfortunately, we're finding out that the Telco's are still given ways to block apps so Android is not yet the "user" friendly phone platform. Telco's like a massive amount of control and they are still getting it.
you can do this in Europe because they have an open system and people buy phones and then pick what service they went to enable for this phone. You know, competition on performance of the network. Here in the US, it's all about the lockin and preventing competition. The Telco's sell the phones already customized and tied to their service so you have to buy the phones from them in most cases. You can find unlocked phones but they are usually 2+ year old models already or going out of production. Telco's don't like you doing this.
Actually, Android is having some fits because the US Telco's don't want to give up their lockins so they must find ways to block and lock Android features on their networks. They don't like VOIP for instance.
It also doesn't help that there are a few different networks playing here with little sign of any one winner so the Telco's have the phone radio as another lockin/lockout method.
The CTIA 2009 conference was just a few weeks ago and there was almost no news on Android. Now we are hearing from many vendors who where there but showed and said nothing about these products. I even saw one post where a reporter had to ask about Android to find out they were going to ship an Android phone mid-2009. That same reporter noticed that this vendor was only announcing Windows Mobile 7 stuff at the show and _that_ wasn't even targetted for 2009.
Now that we are starting to see/hear about Android products and phones, it really blows me away that businesses still let Microsoft sucker them into defining their marketing. I would not like to see Google or anyone else have to resort to paying customers to pre-announce and pre-promote their products to stall or diminish the value of the partners other products. But this is classic Microsoft and not any new and improved Microsoft. They've done this in the 80s and 80s so change is not in their blood. But what is up with these companies how let them do this and take their money while allowing them to dictate what their customers want, need, or deserve? Does $$$ really buy everything including the future of your company?
It's good to see someone is finally talking about new product showing up this year. I still wonder what kinds of backroom pressure is being exerted to limit these kinds of things.
one LiveCD image is ~700MB and LiveDVD's are over 1GB. That one download is a pretty big chunk of their lower cap and that is what most home users are going to go with.
I also disagree with that statement that they made a mistake not limiting from the get-go. That is bull because they were competing with dialup and most dialup services where for unlimited bandwidth. The broadband companies got their marketshare by calculating and marketing against the unlimited bandwidth competitor. They are now trying to close the barn door after they trapped the horses inside.
I have a bad feeling about this bandwidth limiting stuff. It could very well spread to VOIP limits and other service/port limitations which will limit who gets to decide what new technology gets into home users hands/computers. Very bad IMO.
ya, it would be a mess with getting new filesystem based memory devices used with old cameras and the like. But 10 years for this patent to expire is a long time and they way Microsoft is playing it now, they are using this patent to force vendors into more than just this one IP license.
I still wonder if TomTom really did slap Microsoft and cause this or did Microsoft play hardball and force TomTom into this fight with a few jabs of their own behind the closed negotiation room doors? Microsoft sees Linux as a threat so their IP claims are considered a defensive and just shipping a commercial product with Linux is a threat and that is what Microsoft wants companies to think. It's the FUD tactic all over again but using patents instead of vaporware.
but there are open filesystems which OEM's can preload on all PCs shipped. Thinking that it is a good idea to let Microsoft dictate what your product is going to support is asking for trouble and limiting. We know they don't want vendors using VFAT or they would easily license it and only it. They won't or don't so it is time to take them to task and deal with what it takes to move to an open filesystem everyone can use.
I'd heard that TomTom sued Microsoft first but that just doesn't sound like the way to do business with them. Could TomTom have been that stupid? I doubt it and figure that there was some backroom discussions going on where Microsoft was trying to beat TomTom up and TomTom was pushed over the edge and bit back. The result is a short term deal where TomTom moves off of the VFAT system and some cross licensing but what the real issue of contention was/is must be part of this.
Like many many other court cases with Microsoft, they don't want to get to court and will go to extremes to stay out of court. Some of the extremes used is what SCO did and that is to drag out the battle and ring up huge bills. Little guys like TomTom can't play that game and they knew it. I'll have to go over to Groklaw and see if they are covering this. They do a better job than the press at explaining what is really going on.
NewWave supported long file names and not just long program names. I think you're right on the OS/2 front since I remember seeing short names in the DOS box but long names elsewhere. But, who cares what it was stored in, it was stored on the disk and there was a mapping scheme. Microsoft did not invent mapping 8.3 names to long names and even if they did, it shouldn't be a valid patent since these kinds of things have been done forever.
If they were given a patent because they stored the mappings in the FAT data structures should that be allowed after they've been convicted of anti-trust violations regarding protecting their operating system monopoly?
Maybe the time is right for vendors to start installing file system drivers and be done with that antiquated FAT system and Microsoft's use of this to force vendors into licensing deals they otherwise would not sign. Have you noticed Microsoft is not signing licenses for VFAT and instead is using extortion to force these companies to sign licenses which cover many other things?
Time to drop VFAT and use modern filesystems on these removable media and leave Microsoft to find another way to pound vendors into being their partner. IMO.
So let Windows put the files on there and let Windows create the mapping TomTom uses on the device so they don't need to look at those special places in the FAT filesystem they got a patent for. What about that AutoRun stuff. Can't TomTom have the users put a TomTom AutoRun util on the memory device so that Windows does all the special remapping using Microsoft's own driver to give out the long and short names? Are there any kinds of drop operations which can trigger this same remapping?
Let's hope TomTom comes up with a really elegant way around this issue and the whole memory stick market moves off of VFAT and onto TFAT or whatever they call it. If this is an example of what Microsoft has for patented software, VFAT, they are skating on thin ice with all these patent/IP extortion games they've been playing. IMO.
if this is really about FAT32 doing long and short filenames, what about that HP NewWave product from the late 80s? And didn't OS/2 provide long & short filenames for DOS programs?
And since the HP product goes back to the late 80s and it is 2009, hasn't that patent expired since its public usage is over 17 years?
I would also think that this could be worked around anyways since it is not like the old DOS days where applications were more of the OS than DOS was. Todays products have a real OS and so can't a different lookup mechanism be implemented around the patent? People have used short words for references to longer ones for hundreds of years, this should not hold up in court and should be challenged.
Glad to see TomTom is planning on working around the issue but on the outside, it looks like a win for MSFT.
those were basically full blown desktop CPU powered and Windows could not keep up with the touch interface. Doesn't that shock anyone considering Apple and others are doing it on much lower end hardware? On top of that, Windows 7 is supposed to be a performance based release, the first ever from Microsoft and it's supposed to scale down to netbooks too.
I wonder how they'll market their way out of this one? Maybe pop open a dialog box asking if they really wanted to do that.
FYI, I had to use Windows XP(fully updated) recently and it blows me away how unresponsive all of Microsoft's dialogs and utilities are. I was constantly when an hourglass and could not operate any other tabs or features until the first task was completed. This was on a dual core 3GHz system with 2.5GB of memory so it was not the CPU or swapping. Holy shit batman, is this what people have been using? IBM got rid of this kind of thing in the 1992 with what is called multi-threading. I guess ignorance is bliss because I could not stand using that system and waiting so much and what is with all the damn reboots after installing an application?
It should be pretty obvious, Microsoft still sucks at creating a usable OS if you progress beyond a beginner level of usage. Or you just like doing things very slowly. IMO
there goes another civilization with a Hadron sized super collider. Just when they thought they were on the edge of something, they collapsed into something much much much much much much smaller.;-0
pay no attention to that drone, I thought it was funny. I'd also heard the Recycle Bin mouse-over caused the cursor icon to change to a chair and it would then wildly swing around the desktop and bat desktop icons around the screen. Anything flying over the Recycle Bin would get smashed/deleted. It was also considered a new 'Sort Icons' menu option.
marketing concept to instill how important right now is and not dwell on how late the product is.;-)
Yes, they've sucked at software development as far back as the early DOS/Windows days. And they've been riding that DOS monopoly IBM handed them so long ago.
It's 2009 and yet the trend of hyping Microsoft Windows betas goes back to 1994, the Chicago years. And so does the 'it doesn't look like the beta' look of the final product.
Is this one of those "Entertainment Tonight" things where worthless crap is pushed to mindless idiots and they keep sucking it up? If so, an improved education system will really mess up the Microsoft hype machine and/or the press.
IBM had an addon or something for the Opera browser which was shipped with the Sharp Zaurus 5600 which took in speech and did recognition against web page stuff. I remember their demo having the ability to take in spoken orders for Pizza and flight reservations right into the browser. It worked pretty good but background noise was an issue from my experience.
It never went anywhere on the Zaurus mostly because the Zaurus didn't take off. Sharp attempted to build an open source software platform but didn't think those developing for the Zaurus would also want to use the Zaurus with their Linux computers.
But it sounds like IBM is digging this stuff back out and with Linux on more and more phones it makes it easier to do. configure --target-platform Android; make multimodal
But thanks for playing "Blame Bush for Everything!" Enjoy the kool-aid...
sorry but it WAS during the Bush years that so much corn was taken off the market to product ethanol that the food prices sky rocketed. And that is what I was originally talking about, not the small percentage of ethanol added to gasoline in the 90s.
So thanks for playing how blind are you to Bush/Cheney screw ups.
I've been wondering where the ARM laptops have been since the OLPC came out using the Geode. For this segment, the ARM chips have the advantage in power/performance/price/cooling
From what I've heard, this year we will see many ARM based devices premier. Have you seen any of the youtube videos showing what the low shipping volume $150 BeagleBoard can do? And for the power, it has a decent 3D video subsystem too.
So this thing is WAY cool in my book. Now when can I get a couple?
I think there are many of us out there who would toss a couple of hundred to TomTom for a device specifically designed and stated where the profits would go to fund the fight to put Microsoft in its place.
If they settle then this is exactly how I and many others said would be the way Microsoft attacks GNU/Linux with their fake patent threats.
but wasn't it Bush/Cheney who pushed for more production of ethanol and pushed the US auto industry to product those "flex" labeled cars/trucks? I don't know the particulars in this but I predicted it a couple of years before it happened when I saw the hydrogen hype starting to wane. I also saw Bush publicly talking about ethanol a number of times.
But, we also have had ethanol in our gasoline for many years already. Recently I was talking about this and someone said that they remember the percentage getting boosted to 15% but outcry from poor fuel efficiencies at that mix cause the powers that be to reduce the percentage to something about 5-10%. I see that ADM is run by a former oil industry person so who knows, maybe it was all their doing without any help from Bush/Cheney but I doubt it. As I said, Bush talked about it way too much and the US auto players are unlikely to have done the ethanol thing without being funded to do it.
I did find an old( 90s ) story of how for every $1 of ADM ethanol, they were subsidized by US taxpayers to the tune of $30. Since Congress was controlled by the Republicans from 1994-2006 it also means it is likely ADM got a lot of friendly legislation. Just like how the oil industry got massive tax cuts during their record breaking profit years with the 00-06 Republican controlled US government.
plant based ethanol is not bad in itself. As you stated though, using plants we use for food or food stock to product ethanol is a problem. IMO, using corn was all a scam by the Bush/Cheney/Oil industry to delay even longer any meaningful reduction in oil usage. Or else they are really really really dumb and did not have a clue that removing corn from the food supply would increase food costs. IMO.
the problem is that some kids have no access to computers outside of school because of their economic situation. I think it is a well known fact that computers are a part of everyday life and all kids should have the ability to learn this tool. The fact that most US schools only teach Microsoft Word and Excel and nothing about basic computer skills is terrible. Top it off with the lack of access to so many other programs because of financial constraints and what we have is the loss of some bright young kids as future geeks and tech wiz's.
So provide the tools, don't restrict access to only the wealthy kids, and let them run with it. But also, as stated, the basics of education must be part of the big education picture.
that is the state of the US educator base, they are what I would consider computer illiterate. And because this _is_ the current state of our educators, providing all the students with complete access to all the software they could dream of via the open source software, those students who _get it_ and become the next generation of educators or admins, will improve the system. As it is today, only those with a large financial backing can even hope to become a computer admin because of all the costs associated with purchasing proprietary software and the hardware to run it.
Think about the OLPC where the idea is that the previous years students help the following years students and on and on. After only a few years, a huge leap in learning and understanding has grown from the student pool. Doesn't anyone believe that one of the freshmen or sophomores could be hired as an admin intern after 3 years of in depth usage of what was available in class and what was available for free in OSS after school?
IMO, this is why the Bill and Melinda Gates Froundation does not let schools and libraries use open source software when they accept money from them. It turns Microsoft into the hasbeen it should have been back in the early 90s.
So here is this cute 4.5 year old girl in the Microsoft ad doing all kinds of amazing things with her computer. The problem, she has no income and must rely on her parents to buy her more software as she gets tired of just posting pictures. In the OSS world, not only does that little girl get access to thousands of free applications, so does everyone with access to a computer and not just those who have working moms and dads. _THAT_ is what open source software brings to K-12. IMO.
Bill Gates is the one who, with Steve Balmer, created a Microsoft where it is more important to win by leveraging Windows than competing on quality. He's also overseen them target one software technology after another which were cross platform and therefore threats and had to be eliminated.
What was once a tiny software company who made a Basic interpreter became a monster threatening anyone and everyone if they did not do things One Microsoft Way. This is Bill Gates' fault as much as it is Steve Balmer. Just look at the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation for more proof. From what I've heard, if any school or library takes funds from them, they are not allowed to use open source software. They just constantly limit choice and that has been Microsoft's business method for over 20 years. IMO
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it wasn't Moore's Law, it was Microsoft financing and marketing kickback programs. Did you notice how Asus, after negotiating putting Windows XP on the EeePC they then changed the hardware such that the Linux versions were more expensive? We all know Linux distros easily run on anything Windows runs on but not the other way around. So Asus beefed up the hardware for the Linux models, beefed up the price, and then would only make 50% Windows based and 50% Linux based and some countries were no longer getting Linux versions at all.
It was monopoly money that changed the netbook market share numbers instead of market demand defining those numbers.
LoB
I'm not sure the phone/OS being attached to Google is a big deal or game changer. What we're seeing is not phone vendors selling phones to the public but Telco's still selling phones tied to their networks. Apple controls the iPhone OS much like Microsoft controls the OS for some phones. but, the difference with Android is that vendors are allowed to take Android outside its basic design. For instance, Microsoft, for over a decade would not let vendors change the desktop UI phone users saw on their WindowsCE/PocketPC/Mobile phones. Only late last year after much complaining from one vendor did Microsoft allow the vendor to define what the UI looked like for the customer. Microsoft also dictated the screen resolution. Android give alot of power/control to the device or telco vendor and also provides alot of backend stuff with the application store end of it. Unfortunately, we're finding out that the Telco's are still given ways to block apps so Android is not yet the "user" friendly phone platform. Telco's like a massive amount of control and they are still getting it.
LoB
you can do this in Europe because they have an open system and people buy phones and then pick what service they went to enable for this phone. You know, competition on performance of the network. Here in the US, it's all about the lockin and preventing competition. The Telco's sell the phones already customized and tied to their service so you have to buy the phones from them in most cases. You can find unlocked phones but they are usually 2+ year old models already or going out of production. Telco's don't like you doing this.
Actually, Android is having some fits because the US Telco's don't want to give up their lockins so they must find ways to block and lock Android features on their networks. They don't like VOIP for instance.
It also doesn't help that there are a few different networks playing here with little sign of any one winner so the Telco's have the phone radio as another lockin/lockout method.
LoB
The CTIA 2009 conference was just a few weeks ago and there was almost no news on Android. Now we are hearing from many vendors who where there but showed and said nothing about these products. I even saw one post where a reporter had to ask about Android to find out they were going to ship an Android phone mid-2009. That same reporter noticed that this vendor was only announcing Windows Mobile 7 stuff at the show and _that_ wasn't even targetted for 2009.
Now that we are starting to see/hear about Android products and phones, it really blows me away that businesses still let Microsoft sucker them into defining their marketing. I would not like to see Google or anyone else have to resort to paying customers to pre-announce and pre-promote their products to stall or diminish the value of the partners other products. But this is classic Microsoft and not any new and improved Microsoft. They've done this in the 80s and 80s so change is not in their blood. But what is up with these companies how let them do this and take their money while allowing them to dictate what their customers want, need, or deserve? Does $$$ really buy everything including the future of your company?
It's good to see someone is finally talking about new product showing up this year. I still wonder what kinds of backroom pressure is being exerted to limit these kinds of things.
LoB
one LiveCD image is ~700MB and LiveDVD's are over 1GB. That one download is a pretty big chunk of their lower cap and that is what most home users are going to go with.
I also disagree with that statement that they made a mistake not limiting from the get-go. That is bull because they were competing with dialup and most dialup services where for unlimited bandwidth. The broadband companies got their marketshare by calculating and marketing against the unlimited bandwidth competitor. They are now trying to close the barn door after they trapped the horses inside.
I have a bad feeling about this bandwidth limiting stuff. It could very well spread to VOIP limits and other service/port limitations which will limit who gets to decide what new technology gets into home users hands/computers. Very bad IMO.
LoB
ya, it would be a mess with getting new filesystem based memory devices used with old cameras and the like. But 10 years for this patent to expire is a long time and they way Microsoft is playing it now, they are using this patent to force vendors into more than just this one IP license.
I still wonder if TomTom really did slap Microsoft and cause this or did Microsoft play hardball and force TomTom into this fight with a few jabs of their own behind the closed negotiation room doors? Microsoft sees Linux as a threat so their IP claims are considered a defensive and just shipping a commercial product with Linux is a threat and that is what Microsoft wants companies to think. It's the FUD tactic all over again but using patents instead of vaporware.
LoB
but there are open filesystems which OEM's can preload on all PCs shipped. Thinking that it is a good idea to let Microsoft dictate what your product is going to support is asking for trouble and limiting. We know they don't want vendors using VFAT or they would easily license it and only it. They won't or don't so it is time to take them to task and deal with what it takes to move to an open filesystem everyone can use.
I'd heard that TomTom sued Microsoft first but that just doesn't sound like the way to do business with them. Could TomTom have been that stupid? I doubt it and figure that there was some backroom discussions going on where Microsoft was trying to beat TomTom up and TomTom was pushed over the edge and bit back. The result is a short term deal where TomTom moves off of the VFAT system and some cross licensing but what the real issue of contention was/is must be part of this.
Like many many other court cases with Microsoft, they don't want to get to court and will go to extremes to stay out of court. Some of the extremes used is what SCO did and that is to drag out the battle and ring up huge bills. Little guys like TomTom can't play that game and they knew it. I'll have to go over to Groklaw and see if they are covering this. They do a better job than the press at explaining what is really going on.
LoB
NewWave supported long file names and not just long program names. I think you're right on the OS/2 front since I remember seeing short names in the DOS box but long names elsewhere. But, who cares what it was stored in, it was stored on the disk and there was a mapping scheme. Microsoft did not invent mapping 8.3 names to long names and even if they did, it shouldn't be a valid patent since these kinds of things have been done forever.
If they were given a patent because they stored the mappings in the FAT data structures should that be allowed after they've been convicted of anti-trust violations regarding protecting their operating system monopoly?
Maybe the time is right for vendors to start installing file system drivers and be done with that antiquated FAT system and Microsoft's use of this to force vendors into licensing deals they otherwise would not sign. Have you noticed Microsoft is not signing licenses for VFAT and instead is using extortion to force these companies to sign licenses which cover many other things?
Time to drop VFAT and use modern filesystems on these removable media and leave Microsoft to find another way to pound vendors into being their partner. IMO.
LoB
So let Windows put the files on there and let Windows create the mapping TomTom uses on the device so they don't need to look at those special places in the FAT filesystem they got a patent for. What about that AutoRun stuff. Can't TomTom have the users put a TomTom AutoRun util on the memory device so that Windows does all the special remapping using Microsoft's own driver to give out the long and short names? Are there any kinds of drop operations which can trigger this same remapping?
Let's hope TomTom comes up with a really elegant way around this issue and the whole memory stick market moves off of VFAT and onto TFAT or whatever they call it. If this is an example of what Microsoft has for patented software, VFAT, they are skating on thin ice with all these patent/IP extortion games they've been playing. IMO.
LoB
if this is really about FAT32 doing long and short filenames, what about that HP NewWave product from the late 80s? And didn't OS/2 provide long & short filenames for DOS programs?
And since the HP product goes back to the late 80s and it is 2009, hasn't that patent expired since its public usage is over 17 years?
I would also think that this could be worked around anyways since it is not like the old DOS days where applications were more of the OS than DOS was. Todays products have a real OS and so can't a different lookup mechanism be implemented around the patent? People have used short words for references to longer ones for hundreds of years, this should not hold up in court and should be challenged.
Glad to see TomTom is planning on working around the issue but on the outside, it looks like a win for MSFT.
LoB
those were basically full blown desktop CPU powered and Windows could not keep up with the touch interface. Doesn't that shock anyone considering Apple and others are doing it on much lower end hardware? On top of that, Windows 7 is supposed to be a performance based release, the first ever from Microsoft and it's supposed to scale down to netbooks too.
I wonder how they'll market their way out of this one? Maybe pop open a dialog box asking if they really wanted to do that.
FYI, I had to use Windows XP(fully updated) recently and it blows me away how unresponsive all of Microsoft's dialogs and utilities are. I was constantly when an hourglass and could not operate any other tabs or features until the first task was completed. This was on a dual core 3GHz system with 2.5GB of memory so it was not the CPU or swapping. Holy shit batman, is this what people have been using? IBM got rid of this kind of thing in the 1992 with what is called multi-threading. I guess ignorance is bliss because I could not stand using that system and waiting so much and what is with all the damn reboots after installing an application?
It should be pretty obvious, Microsoft still sucks at creating a usable OS if you progress beyond a beginner level of usage. Or you just like doing things very slowly. IMO
LoB
LOL! says you, just another ignorant bastard and an AC too.
LoB
there goes another civilization with a Hadron sized super collider. Just when they thought they were on the edge of something, they collapsed into something much much much much much much smaller. ;-0
LoB
pay no attention to that drone, I thought it was funny. I'd also heard the Recycle Bin mouse-over caused the cursor icon to change to a chair and it would then wildly swing around the desktop and bat desktop icons around the screen. Anything flying over the Recycle Bin would get smashed/deleted. It was also considered a new 'Sort Icons' menu option.
LoB
marketing concept to instill how important right now is and not dwell on how late the product is. ;-)
Yes, they've sucked at software development as far back as the early DOS/Windows days. And they've been riding that DOS monopoly IBM handed them so long ago.
LoB
give this one its own thread!
It's 2009 and yet the trend of hyping Microsoft Windows betas goes back to 1994, the Chicago years. And so does the 'it doesn't look like the beta' look of the final product.
Is this one of those "Entertainment Tonight" things where worthless crap is pushed to mindless idiots and they keep sucking it up? If so, an improved education system will really mess up the Microsoft hype machine and/or the press.
LoB
IBM had an addon or something for the Opera browser which was shipped with the Sharp Zaurus 5600 which took in speech and did recognition against web page stuff. I remember their demo having the ability to take in spoken orders for Pizza and flight reservations right into the browser. It worked pretty good but background noise was an issue from my experience.
It never went anywhere on the Zaurus mostly because the Zaurus didn't take off. Sharp attempted to build an open source software platform but didn't think those developing for the Zaurus would also want to use the Zaurus with their Linux computers.
But it sounds like IBM is digging this stuff back out and with Linux on more and more phones it makes it easier to do.
configure --target-platform Android; make multimodal
LoB
But thanks for playing "Blame Bush for Everything!" Enjoy the kool-aid...
sorry but it WAS during the Bush years that so much corn was taken off the market to product ethanol that the food prices sky rocketed. And that is what I was originally talking about, not the small percentage of ethanol added to gasoline in the 90s.
So thanks for playing how blind are you to Bush/Cheney screw ups.
LoB
I've been wondering where the ARM laptops have been since the OLPC came out using the Geode. For this segment, the ARM chips have the advantage in power/performance/price/cooling
From what I've heard, this year we will see many ARM based devices premier. Have you seen any of the youtube videos showing what the low shipping volume $150 BeagleBoard can do? And for the power, it has a decent 3D video subsystem too.
So this thing is WAY cool in my book. Now when can I get a couple?
LoB
I think there are many of us out there who would toss a couple of hundred to TomTom for a device specifically designed and stated where the profits would go to fund the fight to put Microsoft in its place.
If they settle then this is exactly how I and many others said would be the way Microsoft attacks GNU/Linux with their fake patent threats.
LoB
but wasn't it Bush/Cheney who pushed for more production of ethanol and pushed the US auto industry to product those "flex" labeled cars/trucks? I don't know the particulars in this but I predicted it a couple of years before it happened when I saw the hydrogen hype starting to wane. I also saw Bush publicly talking about ethanol a number of times.
But, we also have had ethanol in our gasoline for many years already. Recently I was talking about this and someone said that they remember the percentage getting boosted to 15% but outcry from poor fuel efficiencies at that mix cause the powers that be to reduce the percentage to something about 5-10%. I see that ADM is run by a former oil industry person so who knows, maybe it was all their doing without any help from Bush/Cheney but I doubt it. As I said, Bush talked about it way too much and the US auto players are unlikely to have done the ethanol thing without being funded to do it.
I did find an old( 90s ) story of how for every $1 of ADM ethanol, they were subsidized by US taxpayers to the tune of $30. Since Congress was controlled by the Republicans from 1994-2006 it also means it is likely ADM got a lot of friendly legislation. Just like how the oil industry got massive tax cuts during their record breaking profit years with the 00-06 Republican controlled US government.
LoB
plant based ethanol is not bad in itself. As you stated though, using plants we use for food or food stock to product ethanol is a problem. IMO, using corn was all a scam by the Bush/Cheney/Oil industry to delay even longer any meaningful reduction in oil usage. Or else they are really really really dumb and did not have a clue that removing corn from the food supply would increase food costs. IMO.
LoB
the problem is that some kids have no access to computers outside of school because of their economic situation. I think it is a well known fact that computers are a part of everyday life and all kids should have the ability to learn this tool. The fact that most US schools only teach Microsoft Word and Excel and nothing about basic computer skills is terrible. Top it off with the lack of access to so many other programs because of financial constraints and what we have is the loss of some bright young kids as future geeks and tech wiz's.
So provide the tools, don't restrict access to only the wealthy kids, and let them run with it. But also, as stated, the basics of education must be part of the big education picture.
LoB
that is the state of the US educator base, they are what I would consider computer illiterate. And because this _is_ the current state of our educators, providing all the students with complete access to all the software they could dream of via the open source software, those students who _get it_ and become the next generation of educators or admins, will improve the system. As it is today, only those with a large financial backing can even hope to become a computer admin because of all the costs associated with purchasing proprietary software and the hardware to run it.
Think about the OLPC where the idea is that the previous years students help the following years students and on and on. After only a few years, a huge leap in learning and understanding has grown from the student pool. Doesn't anyone believe that one of the freshmen or sophomores could be hired as an admin intern after 3 years of in depth usage of what was available in class and what was available for free in OSS after school?
IMO, this is why the Bill and Melinda Gates Froundation does not let schools and libraries use open source software when they accept money from them. It turns Microsoft into the hasbeen it should have been back in the early 90s.
So here is this cute 4.5 year old girl in the Microsoft ad doing all kinds of amazing things with her computer. The problem, she has no income and must rely on her parents to buy her more software as she gets tired of just posting pictures. In the OSS world, not only does that little girl get access to thousands of free applications, so does everyone with access to a computer and not just those who have working moms and dads. _THAT_ is what open source software brings to K-12. IMO.
LoB
Bill Gates is the one who, with Steve Balmer, created a Microsoft where it is more important to win by leveraging Windows than competing on quality. He's also overseen them target one software technology after another which were cross platform and therefore threats and had to be eliminated.
What was once a tiny software company who made a Basic interpreter became a monster threatening anyone and everyone if they did not do things One Microsoft Way. This is Bill Gates' fault as much as it is Steve Balmer. Just look at the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation for more proof. From what I've heard, if any school or library takes funds from them, they are not allowed to use open source software. They just constantly limit choice and that has been Microsoft's business method for over 20 years. IMO
LoB