Windows 8 may have some influence on diminishing PC sales but I also think the massive uptake of smart phones and tablets are having a massive impact here.
I'm not by any means saying that smart phones and tablets are a general replacement for PCs, but I'd speculate that the vast majority of PC sales have in recent times been to people who use them for email, web browsing, facebook and the like. For these tasks, the smartphone and tablets are perfectly good, reliable, more convenient and cheaper alternatives to PCs.
Oh, it might be all kicks and giggles for those in the banking, finance and mining industries, but it's an absolute drain on the economy and social well being.
I don't have the figures at hand but the banking, finance and mining industries employ very few of our population. It does not work well for the country as a whole.
Our government has successfully kicked the can down the road with its intervention, but the underlying issues that have plagued the world's financial markets are still present in our financial markets.
Look at how lop sided our economy is. Money is only made in banking/finance and mining, it's not a healthy position...
We are in the middle/end of our biggest commodity boom - these are the super good times, yet we struggle to have a surplus. Our housing has become so expensive that many struggle just to pay their mortgage...
Pfft, 70% - they cook their inflation figures using hedonics to suit what ever outcome they want. It's all a load of nonsense, useless figures and feel good fluff to feed our media brainwashed, critical thinking challenged population./rant - It's just possible that I don't think highly of my government, perhaps even given up on the entire concept.. Just maybe..
Why must we consider our input devices to be mutually exclusive? We didn't ditch the keyboard with the introduction of the mouse...
On the desktop I can see a touch screen complimenting my current setup - it won't replace my keyboard and mouse any time soon but I would certainly get some use along side them.
Not that I agree it's a real problem in real world use (not form my experience anyway), but to answer your question - because you don't need to look though the gunk on your keyboard to read your screen.
I don't think many are concerned about the the hygiene of touch screens, it's the discomfort one feels when looking at a dirty screen.
Though looking at my colleague's screens that point is somewhat moot....
I agree that an Android device (or whatever competitor device you prefer) is not a replacement for your dev pc, but I'd wager that the vast majority of people who purchased PC before the explosion of smart phones did not use their PC like you or I. They used it for browsing the web, facebook, email, youtube, etc.
I'll also wager that the smart phones have most certainly replaced the PC for the vast majority of these users. Most PC owners used them to consume not create, and for that the smart phones and tablets are now the standard for these people.
Are they more productive? Probably not. Are they cheaper, easier to administer, better battery life (compared to laptops), more convenient? I'd say so... Not to mention, they are oh so more trendy!
So without being all technical, I'd be happy to claim that Android style devices have in fact already replaced the PC for the common person (who I'm sure are the vast majority of device purchasers).
My guess is, that the effects of the recent economic downturn has yet to be realised - it's been kicked down the road by the creation of trillions of dollars and increased debt to offset its effect - it's been absorbed (hidden) by more debt and inflation.
So I think it's a little too early to be making any judgements or conclusions.
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed
Surely the recent past has shown you what 'ratings' are worth.... These are the same people who stamped all those dubious mortgage backed securities as AAA, remember how that turned out..
These ratings are simply an opinion that is correct until it isn't - it's worth bat shit.
Not really naive - I have a decent understanding the effort required.
1) All of their UI customisations are already done for their Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
2) Their drivers don't need to be updated per se, they only need to be adapted to any changes in the OS API (kernel) which I doubt was much - remember this is not for new hardware, it's just the OS. But again, for the most part this was already done for the Galaxy Tab 2, and for somewhat new hardware (with the little changes there were)
3) All their add on apps were also already done for the version 2.
4) No carriers are involved for their plain Samsung branded tablets and non 3G capable variants.
5) Many other manufacturers managed to release ICS in a timely manner, why is Samsung so different?
The CM guys may have advantages in the QA required but they are at a significant disadvantage to Samsung as they have to reverse engineer, clobber together existing random bits and generally have a lot more head scratching to do to get the same job done. My intention wasn't really to compare Samsung to CM it was more to emphasise Samsung's lack lustre effort on releasing ICS to the existing customers and instead trying to gouge more money out of who ever they can.
Samsung don't need to compete on price alone, they should probably stick to what their core business is - building quality, well built and attractive hardware. I doubt anyone is choosing Samsung over their competitors based on their software offerings - I certainly don't and would rather they did ship with stock Android, but that's just my opinion.
Yes that's why I referred to them 'playing games'.
But it may not work in their favour, instead of me buying a new device from them I'm actually less likely to every buy their devices.
What's more (and supports your assertion) is their current replacement offering (Galaxy Tab 2 10.1) has little to offer over the previous version other than the OS version - so there's no way I'm forking out for a new device just for an OS upgrade. Yes there are other differences, but not enough to warrant another purchase.
Before Samsung? I'd say certainly. I'm still waiting for ICS on my Galaxy Tab 10.1 and JB is already out. I wouldn't be overly surprised if Cyanogenmod supported JB for the Galaxy Tab before Samsung roll out ICS.
I know there are rumours of ICS being released for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 over July/August but I'm not holding my breath until I have it.
But really Samsung why are you playing games with releasing ICS for us? I like your products, but your lack of willingness to provide timely updates makes me question if I will buy from you again./rant
Not really, I'm yet to see a phone what has the performance of our current desktop machines - they may have numbers that sound similar but they certainly do not perform the same.
I want to have a standard (de facto or not) that allows any phone to connect to any desktop dock that will give me the same capability as I have on my desktop now.
I realise that when that day arrives that the desktop performance will have most likely increased at the same rate but I'm hoping that by that point, I won't be needing that extra performance and my fictional phone setup will suffice. I could just be deluded here, I'm sure there have been many points in time where some ideas have been expressed and then we keep needing the extra performance. But hey, I've got to have something to look forward to.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd think the editors would actually read slashdot - even just the titles?
Perhaps if you include the amount paid to virus protection rackets (McAfee et al) it may just reach or exceed that $1 trillion...
According to the linked chat log Linode is storing the lish passwords in plain text!!
I'd suggest you at least change your lish password...
This saddens me a lot, I had much more faith in Linode and make me look like a fool for recently recommending them to others.
I really wish Linode would come forward with the whole facts on this saga, and let us users know what has really been exposed/compromised.
Windows 8 may have some influence on diminishing PC sales but I also think the massive uptake of smart phones and tablets are having a massive impact here.
I'm not by any means saying that smart phones and tablets are a general replacement for PCs, but I'd speculate that the vast majority of PC sales have in recent times been to people who use them for email, web browsing, facebook and the like. For these tasks, the smartphone and tablets are perfectly good, reliable, more convenient and cheaper alternatives to PCs.
Err, ever heard of Android?
The rumour going around is that it's already had some success.
I think they squeezed some Linux in there somewhere.
What is the message here?
Seems like a personal observation of a single household's journey through time...
Is anyone here surprised that devices have become more functional and taken the place of more specific devices?
Perhaps I'm just getting old but this feels like a OMG my rock and stick have been replaced by a hammer scenario...
okay, okay, I'm crawling back under my rock...
Oh, it might be all kicks and giggles for those in the banking, finance and mining industries, but it's an absolute drain on the economy and social well being.
I don't have the figures at hand but the banking, finance and mining industries employ very few of our population. It does not work well for the country as a whole.
I'm not sure we're doing so much better.
Our government has successfully kicked the can down the road with its intervention, but the underlying issues that have plagued the world's financial markets are still present in our financial markets.
Look at how lop sided our economy is. Money is only made in banking/finance and mining, it's not a healthy position...
We are in the middle/end of our biggest commodity boom - these are the super good times, yet we struggle to have a surplus. Our housing has become so expensive that many struggle just to pay their mortgage...
Not feeling too lucky to me.
I don't feel so lucky..
Pfft, 70% - they cook their inflation figures using hedonics to suit what ever outcome they want. It's all a load of nonsense, useless figures and feel good fluff to feed our media brainwashed, critical thinking challenged population. /rant - It's just possible that I don't think highly of my government, perhaps even given up on the entire concept.. Just maybe..
Indeed - that's pretty much exactly how I'd like it.
On the desktop it's more of an input device than a display - the display part just makes it oh so much nicer.
Why must we consider our input devices to be mutually exclusive? We didn't ditch the keyboard with the introduction of the mouse...
On the desktop I can see a touch screen complimenting my current setup - it won't replace my keyboard and mouse any time soon but I would certainly get some use along side them.
Not that I agree it's a real problem in real world use (not form my experience anyway), but to answer your question - because you don't need to look though the gunk on your keyboard to read your screen.
I don't think many are concerned about the the hygiene of touch screens, it's the discomfort one feels when looking at a dirty screen.
Though looking at my colleague's screens that point is somewhat moot....
I agree that an Android device (or whatever competitor device you prefer) is not a replacement for your dev pc, but I'd wager that the vast majority of people who purchased PC before the explosion of smart phones did not use their PC like you or I. They used it for browsing the web, facebook, email, youtube, etc.
I'll also wager that the smart phones have most certainly replaced the PC for the vast majority of these users. Most PC owners used them to consume not create, and for that the smart phones and tablets are now the standard for these people.
Are they more productive? Probably not. Are they cheaper, easier to administer, better battery life (compared to laptops), more convenient? I'd say so... Not to mention, they are oh so more trendy!
So without being all technical, I'd be happy to claim that Android style devices have in fact already replaced the PC for the common person (who I'm sure are the vast majority of device purchasers).
13th Floor - in my opinion, far better then The Matrix.. One of my all time favourite movies.
My guess is, that the effects of the recent economic downturn has yet to be realised - it's been kicked down the road by the creation of trillions of dollars and increased debt to offset its effect - it's been absorbed (hidden) by more debt and inflation.
So I think it's a little too early to be making any judgements or conclusions.
Nick Bostrom has a paper on this, the intro:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed
Much better title - Microsoft patents whacking off..
I dunno, but I think it deserves the name Whack Off...
the underpaid, stepped on, underappreciated staff of the central bank.
Never in my life did I think I'd ever see that string of words put together....
So... things are looking up, sounds great!
Surely the recent past has shown you what 'ratings' are worth.... These are the same people who stamped all those dubious mortgage backed securities as AAA, remember how that turned out..
These ratings are simply an opinion that is correct until it isn't - it's worth bat shit.
Yep. Most states here have decriminalised cannabis laws .... No idea what this has to do with data retention though...
You obviously don't smoke much cannabis if you don't know what that has to do with data retention....
Not really naive - I have a decent understanding the effort required.
1) All of their UI customisations are already done for their Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
2) Their drivers don't need to be updated per se, they only need to be adapted to any changes in the OS API (kernel) which I doubt was much - remember this is not for new hardware, it's just the OS. But again, for the most part this was already done for the Galaxy Tab 2, and for somewhat new hardware (with the little changes there were)
3) All their add on apps were also already done for the version 2.
4) No carriers are involved for their plain Samsung branded tablets and non 3G capable variants.
5) Many other manufacturers managed to release ICS in a timely manner, why is Samsung so different?
The CM guys may have advantages in the QA required but they are at a significant disadvantage to Samsung as they have to reverse engineer, clobber together existing random bits and generally have a lot more head scratching to do to get the same job done. My intention wasn't really to compare Samsung to CM it was more to emphasise Samsung's lack lustre effort on releasing ICS to the existing customers and instead trying to gouge more money out of who ever they can.
Samsung don't need to compete on price alone, they should probably stick to what their core business is - building quality, well built and attractive hardware. I doubt anyone is choosing Samsung over their competitors based on their software offerings - I certainly don't and would rather they did ship with stock Android, but that's just my opinion.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Yes that's why I referred to them 'playing games'.
But it may not work in their favour, instead of me buying a new device from them I'm actually less likely to every buy their devices.
What's more (and supports your assertion) is their current replacement offering (Galaxy Tab 2 10.1) has little to offer over the previous version other than the OS version - so there's no way I'm forking out for a new device just for an OS upgrade. Yes there are other differences, but not enough to warrant another purchase.
Before Samsung? I'd say certainly. I'm still waiting for ICS on my Galaxy Tab 10.1 and JB is already out. I wouldn't be overly surprised if Cyanogenmod supported JB for the Galaxy Tab before Samsung roll out ICS.
I know there are rumours of ICS being released for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 over July/August but I'm not holding my breath until I have it.
But really Samsung why are you playing games with releasing ICS for us? I like your products, but your lack of willingness to provide timely updates makes me question if I will buy from you again. /rant
Not really, I'm yet to see a phone what has the performance of our current desktop machines - they may have numbers that sound similar but they certainly do not perform the same.
I want to have a standard (de facto or not) that allows any phone to connect to any desktop dock that will give me the same capability as I have on my desktop now.
I realise that when that day arrives that the desktop performance will have most likely increased at the same rate but I'm hoping that by that point, I won't be needing that extra performance and my fictional phone setup will suffice. I could just be deluded here, I'm sure there have been many points in time where some ideas have been expressed and then we keep needing the extra performance. But hey, I've got to have something to look forward to.