The article in EEtimes had remarkably little information about how they would deal with issues like power supplies, memory, and the like. To me, this indicates that we're looking at a product that is still a few years off. Is there any more information floating around about when these disposable displays should be available? or on the details of how they work?
The thing that bothers me most about this article of MS's is that they're actually _using_ those flawed data from the MindCraft benchmarks to make a point! Come on, MS, even MindCraft admits it was an unfair comparison!
Anyways, they seem to be semi powerful when you think about it...Firewire and DVD would make one worth buying, if some good OS supported them...but a lack of DVD Support in Linux (only other PPC OS that I can think of) sucks 1) BeOs supports DVD (I'm almost certain)
2) It can't be long before there's DVD suport in LinuxPPC. Come on, it's Linux! Things happen fast in Linux. Give it a month or two, then buy your DVD-equipped iMac and run Linux to your heart's content.
At risk of getting moderated as flamebait, I'm going to strongly disagree with this one. Here goes...
Oh boy! More fruity goodness from the same people that brought you AppleTalk! *grumble*
Good Lord! We know AppleTalk sucked, but that's a many-year-old technology. You would have done better to say "Oh Boy! More fruity goodness from the same people that brought you FireWire!"
Fact is, Apple's been producing lots of exciting new technologies that go way beyond the "sexy look," as you so aptly put it. The sexy look is just Apple's way of catching your attention so you'll take a closer look and (hopefully) say "hey! this looks like a really good deal! I want one!"
As for something better than a "translucent port-a-potty," why don't you have a look at the new G4's? In addition to a really cool industrial design, the G4 Macs are really fast and (finally!) competitively priced! The Programming Board at Dartmouth* has one or two of these, and they're just incredible. Now, if I can just get them to install LinuxPPC...
The point is, Apple's come a long way, and they have a lot more to offer than bright colors. I can't wait for the 1Ghz copper G4's!
*As always, my opinions are my own, and not necessarily those of Dartmouth College or any affiliated organization.
In my opinion, the fundamental difference is that Cyber attacks are utterly unlike any other form of attack because they do not involve the delivery of large amounts of energy to the enemy...
Chem/Biological weapons also don't involve large amounts of energy delivered to the target.
What, then, is the fundamental difference between cyber attacks and other attacks using "weapons of mass destruction?" The obvious answer is that CBRN attacks are aimed at a) creating terror and b) killing large numbers of people (this is usually a secondary goal), whereas cyber attacks are aimed at either destroying or rendering useless the communications infrastructure. In the case of either CBRN or cyber attacks, the goal is to make the military's job much more difficult. The end is the same, only the means are different. CBRN attacks work by clogging or destroying physical infrastructure, e.g. by filling hospitals with patients and highways with people rushing to flee affected areas. Cyber attacks, on the other hand, disrupt the communications infrastructure either by spoofing or DoS attacks. The real danger would come from coupled cyber and CBRN attacks. For example, with the major communications lines jammed from a cyber attack, the military would have no chance of effectively organizing to control spread of disease, etc. after a biological attack.
So how can we prevent cyber-attacks? Obviously, documented security holes must be patched immediately, and if I recall correctly, our military hasn't always been great at getting on the ball to do so. Beyond that, standard security measures (start by denying everything, then let in the things you know you want) could go a long way to preventing an effective cyber attack on the USA.
Is it the testers? no, they do what they can to get bugs fixed - they can't control when the program goes to market.
is it the management who rushes the software out the door? Maybe. But what's their motivation to rush incomplete projects? The almighty stock price. Companies set targets for when software will be available, and then get slammed for inevitable delays. And I'm not talking about vaporware, like NT 5. I'm talking about real projects that are getting delayed for legitimate reasons. However, the big stockholders put tremendous pressure on the company to get products out there fast, because otherwise their shares go down. The board of directors, whose interests are those of the stockholders, put pressure on management to rush products out the door. "What? Windows 98 is exactly the same as Win95? Ship it anyway - 98 is a bigger number than 95, so it must be better!" And from this we get the bug-infested software that we see so much of these days.
So what's the solution? The public needs to realize that the software industry is very dynamic, and delays are inevitable in most cases. If the stockholders don't push projects out the door when they're not ready to go, the projects end up being better. And _that_ is good for the company, and for the end users.
the only problem i see is if someone shot a nuke, blowing it up here or wherever is not a good idea, unless we could knock it off before it got about 10 miles away! The whole point is to demolish the warhead, making it unable to detonate. Plus, this is an _exoatmospheric_ vehicle - meaning it is supposed to hit the weapon in outer space. Even if the warhead did detonate - which is unlikely at best - all the people underneath would get would be a big EMP. Still not great news, but better than instant vaporization, no?
there's no indication that the missile killer would be as successful in wartime conditions. The people operating the missile killer knew when and where the missile would be - hardly realisti. I'd like to se this thing tested with only a few minutes' warning. Then we'll see how good it _really_ is.
I don't think it really matters that AOL will soon be linked to the cable modem people. After all, AOL and Netscape are hooked up, and I believe AOL still distributes Internet Exlporer on their mass-mailed CD's. Sure, cable modem people will probably be offered the option of recieving AOL content, but I would be shocked if it were shoved down subscribers' throats. I think AOL knows that a significant portion of the cable-modem market is not newbies, and that they would be extremely put out, were they forced to recieve AOL content. Remember, xDSL is still an option in most cable-modem areas, and AOL's not going to want to scare away subscribers.
About the OS question: I guarantee someone will port Linux to this PC. I imagine that the standard OS will be some permutation of Windoze. I also definitely agree that this is not for everyone with a laptop. I'm not sure I'd want to walk around in public wearing one of these, you know? a little too geek for me. What they need ot do is borrow Oakley's industrial design, with one eye a monitor and the other eye sunglasses. THAT would be cool.:) The other absolute necessity is wireless Internet. And not that thing the Palm VII has, where you pay an insane amount per K. Let's see some decent bandwidth (56K would be very acceptable) The technology is there, let's use it!
Why in the world is eBay trying to cut down on licking to their products for sale? I would be encouraging people to display eBay items for sale, because with greater exposure, eBay will get many more bids. Why, then, is eBay trying to stop people from seeing its site? It's almost like a department store complaining that all the people who came from the mom-n-pop store across the street to browse the larger selection are clogging its aisles! Get over it and make the sales, eBay!
So, we have from IBM a chip that is supposed to make transactions "secure". My best guess is that it uses some proprietary encryption algorithm to do this. The problem here is that word "proprietary." Attempting to keep the crypto algorithms secret only ensures that there will be bugs and weaknesses, because the algorithm was not subject to a massive review in the way that PGP was. Can't IBM learn from Microsoft's mistakes in the field of encryption? I would be much more impressed if IBM made these computers with chips designed to quickly do PGP or some other public-key algorithm known to be secure. I don't trust proprietary encryption, and neither should you. If you really want more info, check out the RSA Labs Crypto FAQ. It's an excellnt source of information on all aspects of crypto and security.
I hate to have to keep pointing this out to you people, but the target market for iMacs (mainly home users who want to get on the Internet) could care less about the availability of Linux for their machines. Some of you just don't seem to realize that a LOT of computer folk want an OS that is easy to use, even if that means sacrificing speed and stability. My point is that the vast majority of iMac buyers don't want to touch Linux, and the ones that do can either go for a blue and white G3 (or G4, soon) or run LinuxPPC. That's right, children: MkLinux doesn't work on iMacs, but LinuxPPC (i'm reasonably certain) does. So, in short:
I bet the whole school district is being forced to switch to Sun equipment.
Actually, I would be rather surprised if that were the case. Apple, for many years, gave computers to schools essentially free so that students would get used to using MacOS. The idea was that when the students were buying their own computers, they would pick macs. I don't know how effective this was, but it worked for me: i'm writing this from a Mac (ok, i have LinuxPPC installed for all you zealots out there) which I would not have chosen if I had not been exposed to Macs in school 7 years ago.
Now, I harbor no illusions that Sun is trying to sell its workstations to schoolchildren...yet. However, with the advent of really, really fast home Internet connections (cable modems, xDSL, etc), an NC at home isn't so farfetched. Maybe Sun is looking at the possibility of selling NC's for home use? Seems reasonable to me.
at least in the WotC case, they used a white border for the reprints to distinguish them from the originals (black border). If Nintendo were to just reprint exact copies of the rare Pokemon cards, there would be quite an uproar.
Yes, the cards could drop in value if the company started printing rare cards en masse. But if this happened, people would be suing the company left and right on the pretext that the company knew that they would be devaluing the cards. In fact, wasn't a lawsuit threatened when the Postal Service dicided to start reprinting certain rare commemorative stamps? Not that this is a good ground for a lawsuit, but then, neither is the idea that these kids are "addicted" to pokemon cards. That makes $0.04 on this topic
I definitely agree with theGnome on this one: the idea that these kids were "forced" to spend thousands of dollars on these cards is absurd. How, exactly, does a nine-year-old force his parents to do ANYTHING? I once tried threatening to run away, and my parents helped me pack until I caved in. Nine-year-olds, in general are not capable of manipulating their parents to that extent. It seems to me that the parents are more at fault than Nintendo, because the parents are providing their nine-year-old children with huge amounts of money with which to buy these cards. I remember being obsessed with Magic: The Gathering when I was in 7th grade, but my parents didn't give me thousands of dollars in hopes that I would buy a pack of cards containing a black lotus, or another similarly rare card. The point, my friends, is that Nintendo can hardly be held resopnsible for the bad parenting practices of these parents. Just my $0.02
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Same reason we didn't get rid of the metric system a long tome ago, probably...
The article in EEtimes had remarkably little information about how they would deal with issues like power supplies, memory, and the like. To me, this indicates that we're looking at a product that is still a few years off. Is there any more information floating around about when these disposable displays should be available? or on the details of how they work?
The thing that bothers me most about this article of MS's is that they're actually _using_ those flawed data from the MindCraft benchmarks to make a point! Come on, MS, even MindCraft admits it was an unfair comparison!
Actually, I'm _almost_ certain that FireWire was, in fact, created by Apple. I'm not _entirely_ certain, but almost.
2) It can't be long before there's DVD suport in LinuxPPC. Come on, it's Linux! Things happen fast in Linux. Give it a month or two, then buy your DVD-equipped iMac and run Linux to your heart's content.
Oh boy! More fruity goodness from the same people that brought you AppleTalk! *grumble*
Good Lord! We know AppleTalk sucked, but that's a many-year-old technology. You would have done better to say "Oh Boy! More fruity goodness from the same people that brought you FireWire!"
Fact is, Apple's been producing lots of exciting new technologies that go way beyond the "sexy look," as you so aptly put it. The sexy look is just Apple's way of catching your attention so you'll take a closer look and (hopefully) say "hey! this looks like a really good deal! I want one!"
As for something better than a "translucent port-a-potty," why don't you have a look at the new G4's? In addition to a really cool industrial design, the G4 Macs are really fast and (finally!) competitively priced! The Programming Board at Dartmouth* has one or two of these, and they're just incredible. Now, if I can just get them to install LinuxPPC...
The point is, Apple's come a long way, and they have a lot more to offer than bright colors. I can't wait for the 1Ghz copper G4's!
*As always, my opinions are my own, and not necessarily those of Dartmouth College or any affiliated organization.
Chem/Biological weapons also don't involve large amounts of energy delivered to the target.
What, then, is the fundamental difference between cyber attacks and other attacks using "weapons of mass destruction?" The obvious answer is that CBRN attacks are aimed at a) creating terror and b) killing large numbers of people (this is usually a secondary goal), whereas cyber attacks are aimed at either destroying or rendering useless the communications infrastructure. In the case of either CBRN or cyber attacks, the goal is to make the military's job much more difficult. The end is the same, only the means are different. CBRN attacks work by clogging or destroying physical infrastructure, e.g. by filling hospitals with patients and highways with people rushing to flee affected areas. Cyber attacks, on the other hand, disrupt the communications infrastructure either by spoofing or DoS attacks. The real danger would come from coupled cyber and CBRN attacks. For example, with the major communications lines jammed from a cyber attack, the military would have no chance of effectively organizing to control spread of disease, etc. after a biological attack.
So how can we prevent cyber-attacks? Obviously, documented security holes must be patched immediately, and if I recall correctly, our military hasn't always been great at getting on the ball to do so. Beyond that, standard security measures (start by denying everything, then let in the things you know you want) could go a long way to preventing an effective cyber attack on the USA.
As always, my opinions are my own.
Is it the testers? no, they do what they can to get bugs fixed - they can't control when the program goes to market.
is it the management who rushes the software out the door? Maybe. But what's their motivation to rush incomplete projects? The almighty stock price. Companies set targets for when software will be available, and then get slammed for inevitable delays. And I'm not talking about vaporware, like NT 5. I'm talking about real projects that are getting delayed for legitimate reasons. However, the big stockholders put tremendous pressure on the company to get products out there fast, because otherwise their shares go down. The board of directors, whose interests are those of the stockholders, put pressure on management to rush products out the door. "What? Windows 98 is exactly the same as Win95? Ship it anyway - 98 is a bigger number than 95, so it must be better!" And from this we get the bug-infested software that we see so much of these days.
So what's the solution? The public needs to realize that the software industry is very dynamic, and delays are inevitable in most cases. If the stockholders don't push projects out the door when they're not ready to go, the projects end up being better. And _that_ is good for the company, and for the end users.
Just my $0.02
the only problem i see is if someone shot a nuke, blowing it up here or wherever is not a good idea, unless we could knock it off before it got about 10 miles away! The whole point is to demolish the warhead, making it unable to detonate. Plus, this is an _exoatmospheric_ vehicle - meaning it is supposed to hit the weapon in outer space. Even if the warhead did detonate - which is unlikely at best - all the people underneath would get would be a big EMP. Still not great news, but better than instant vaporization, no?
there's no indication that the missile killer would be as successful in wartime conditions. The people operating the missile killer knew when and where the missile would be - hardly realisti. I'd like to se this thing tested with only a few minutes' warning. Then we'll see how good it _really_ is.
Wow, a first post with some content!
Just my $0.02
About the OS question: I guarantee someone will port Linux to this PC. I imagine that the standard OS will be some permutation of Windoze. I also definitely agree that this is not for everyone with a laptop. I'm not sure I'd want to walk around in public wearing one of these, you know? a little too geek for me. What they need ot do is borrow Oakley's industrial design, with one eye a monitor and the other eye sunglasses. THAT would be cool.:) The other absolute necessity is wireless Internet. And not that thing the Palm VII has, where you pay an insane amount per K. Let's see some decent bandwidth (56K would be very acceptable) The technology is there, let's use it!
just my 20 lira (approx. $0.02 US)
unless, of course, someone comes up with a way to factor primes in polynomial time (you never can be too paranoid)
So, we have from IBM a chip that is supposed to make transactions "secure". My best guess is that it uses some proprietary encryption algorithm to do this. The problem here is that word "proprietary." Attempting to keep the crypto algorithms secret only ensures that there will be bugs and weaknesses, because the algorithm was not subject to a massive review in the way that PGP was. Can't IBM learn from Microsoft's mistakes in the field of encryption? I would be much more impressed if IBM made these computers with chips designed to quickly do PGP or some other public-key algorithm known to be secure. I don't trust proprietary encryption, and neither should you. If you really want more info, check out the RSA Labs Crypto FAQ. It's an excellnt source of information on all aspects of crypto and security.
1)most iMac buyers don't want Linux
2)those that do can use LinuxPPC
Just my $0.02
Actually, I would be rather surprised if that were the case. Apple, for many years, gave computers to schools essentially free so that students would get used to using MacOS. The idea was that when the students were buying their own computers, they would pick macs. I don't know how effective this was, but it worked for me: i'm writing this from a Mac (ok, i have LinuxPPC installed for all you zealots out there) which I would not have chosen if I had not been exposed to Macs in school 7 years ago.
Now, I harbor no illusions that Sun is trying to sell its workstations to schoolchildren...yet. However, with the advent of really, really fast home Internet connections (cable modems, xDSL, etc), an NC at home isn't so farfetched. Maybe Sun is looking at the possibility of selling NC's for home use? Seems reasonable to me.
Just my $0.02
there are, in fact, 2.4 GHz phones on the market.
at least in the WotC case, they used a white border for the reprints to distinguish them from the originals (black border). If Nintendo were to just reprint exact copies of the rare Pokemon cards, there would be quite an uproar.
Yes, the cards could drop in value if the company started printing rare cards en masse. But if this happened, people would be suing the company left and right on the pretext that the company knew that they would be devaluing the cards. In fact, wasn't a lawsuit threatened when the Postal Service dicided to start reprinting certain rare commemorative stamps? Not that this is a good ground for a lawsuit, but then, neither is the idea that these kids are "addicted" to pokemon cards. That makes $0.04 on this topic
I definitely agree with theGnome on this one: the idea that these kids were "forced" to spend thousands of dollars on these cards is absurd. How, exactly, does a nine-year-old force his parents to do ANYTHING? I once tried threatening to run away, and my parents helped me pack until I caved in. Nine-year-olds, in general are not capable of manipulating their parents to that extent. It seems to me that the parents are more at fault than Nintendo, because the parents are providing their nine-year-old children with huge amounts of money with which to buy these cards. I remember being obsessed with Magic: The Gathering when I was in 7th grade, but my parents didn't give me thousands of dollars in hopes that I would buy a pack of cards containing a black lotus, or another similarly rare card. The point, my friends, is that Nintendo can hardly be held resopnsible for the bad parenting practices of these parents. Just my $0.02