Of course, the International Digital Publishing Forum -- the group behind EPUB -- is also working on that problem, in the open, without distributing closed standards to selected parties.
Apple's not trying to fix problems with EPUB; now that they've used the fact that EPUB was a widely accepted to standard with existing tools and support to build iBooks, they are trying to use their current market power to create a breach between their platform and the standard, so that its more expensive for publishers to support both iBooks and compliant EPUB platforms, hoping that their current market power will lead publishers to choose iBooks rather than standard EPUB.
Apple doesn't publish music or books, so in the case of iTunes LP, or the latest iBooks features, they need to work them out fully first. They do this by working with a few big companies, giving them access to rough beta copies of tools and tech specs.
Making rough beta copies of tools and tech specs available on an equal basis to all publishers would work at least as well (Google tends to do this). And if support burden and focus was the concern, even better would be working with a small set of smaller publisher specialized in the areas most applicable to the new features. Choosing specifically to limit it to provide early access to large publishers is clearly designed to snub the small guys.
So what are you proposing as an alternative? That the banks wait until each check has totally cleared(taking weeks or longer in some cases) to totally clear?
Yes, banks -- which routinely delay availability of funds until checks have "cleared" -- should not say that checks have "cleared" and make funds available if the check has not, in fact, cleared.
If banks wish to provide additional service to their customers and make funds available when checks have not cleared but some preliminary and potentially inconclusive checks have passed, they should clearly distinguish to customers when this is the case rather than a check having actually cleared, particularly when the customer explicitly inquires as to the status of the check so that they do not take action based on a mistaken impression of the validity of the check.
Presumably this feature will be found in most if not all future Intel chips. How many people encrypt their harddrives?
Per TFS, the feature only provides the option for the user to configure the chip to a mode that allows a remote kill. I suspect that the proportion of users that will do that will be fairly similar to those that use whole-disk encryption.
So it's a good education that is important? Need I remind you that GWBush attended Harvard and Yale.
Both as a legacy admission -- preferential treatment for the children of alumni of those schools.
And Harvard Business only after being rejected from University of Texas Law School, where he didn't have the legacy advantage, and so couldn'y get admitted on his Yale record of "gentleman's C's".
How about we start with lower hanging fruit like weapons platforms that the military doesn't even want or need first?
Why would a propaganda tool designed to increase public buy-in to the Republican Party's policy priorities start with an attack on one of the Republican Party's policy priorities.
For this reason MySQL is the only option for a shared host.
This can be empirically shown to be false as there are shared hosts that provide PostgreSQL (as well as other non-MySQL databases), proving that MySQL is not the "only option for a shared host."
As if he would be happier if I never set foot in his store.
He might be. Retail chains quite frequently (though this is monumentally stupid) do all kinds of narrow incentives which amount to self-destructive microoptimization. Typically, these include incentives not based on overall profit, but based on things like the percentage of tickets on which you are able to sell particular high-value add-ons.
Shortly before CompUSA's final death spiral, I had the manager of the store berate me at the register for not wanting the extended warranty on a laptop I was purchasing with a number of other accessories -- about $1500 total in things I wanted to buy -- even after I asked him if he'd prefer if I just took my business elsewhere. Resulting in my credit card staying in my pocket, as I walked out the door -- the last time I walked into a CompUSA. No doubt, the manager had incentives or performance measures based on the percentage of sales of particular items on which the pure-profit extended warranty was sold.
Retailers soon to petition FCC to allow cell-blocking technology in private businesses.
I'm more likely to not shop in a store because they are blocking my ability to text or call my wife to confirm a detail of the product we need, or to access my cloud-hosted shopping list, or to -- as I suddenly remember that I forgot to add the ingredients for a certain recipe to my list -- to check the online recipe for the ingredient list, than I am to use my phone to comparison shop and reject the store for that reason.
I think your making the assumption that the majority of users should be locked in due to their knowledge of technology.
I think you need to reread GP, including the quote from GGP included in it that makes clear what it is responding to. I'm not arguing anything about users being locked in, I'm making an argument about why there is value to the average user to having devices with Chrome OS preinstalled, in response to a suggestion that having Chrome OS available to install onto devices that don't come with that OS is enough.
Which will probably be the only one of its kind, since Google expects 3rd parties to pick this up and release hardware with it and -they- will probably go through the motions to lock the device down, then suggest doing so was for "security."
Its quite likely that the norm for 3rd-party, consumer focussed devices (as it has been for, e.g., Android) sold with Chrome OS will be to be locked down. Just as is the case for Android.
OTOH, Google has a strong incentive to make sure that, in addition to Chromium OS being available as an open source project that can be run on commodity hardware, that hardware designed for Chrome OS that is unlocked is available on the market -- just as they have done with Android.
I think Chrome OS needs to be focused on something that would make it unique and useful... not trying to replace the desktop. Chrome OS would make an awesome instant-on boot loader replacing GRUB, LILO, or Windows Boot Loader.
I think that the number of people for whom that would qualify as either "interesting" or "useful" is much smaller than the number for which Chrome OS with its current focus would meet those descriptions -- but Chromium OS is open source, so feel free to fork it as a bootloader and make your own splash in the market.
If they're unsubsidized, why bother buying a ChromeOS device? Just install ChromeOS on a netbook/notebook that you already have.
Aside from the Chrome OS (branded OS available only with hardware) vs. Chromium OS distinction -- and while this concept may be foreign to some people who use slashdot -- most computer users aren't interesting in installing an operating system other than the one that comes with their computer.
I totally agree with your posting except for the assumption that the *easiest* solution requires Ubuntu. There are other full Linux distros just as easy (or more) to use/install and just as powerful (or more).
Yah, sure, "Ubuntu" in GP really stands for "the most appropriate Linux distribution for the things you need outside of Chrome".
Google's Chrome OS makes Web surfing an incredibly pleasant and secure experience, but most of the knocks against it relate to what it can't do — namely, nearly everything traditional desktop operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux can. The easiest solution might be dual-booting, allowing users to choose either Chrome OS or a Linux distro at startup.
The easiest solution for people who need the power of a full traditional OS but want to be able to have the Chrome experience would be to just boot Ubuntu with the Chrome browser. If you take one desktop and maximize Chrome on it, you can easily toggle back and forth between the regular Ubuntu experience and Chrome.
Since Chrome OS is essentially Linux stripped down to what is necessary to support the Chrome browser + the Chrome browser, dual-booting Chrome OS and a full Linux distro, while it might be useful in a very small set of circumstances, seems to mostly be the hard way to achieve, well, almost anything you might want to achieve by doing that.
Seriously, if you're going to be springing for a low end notebook anyway, there's not much of a cost advantage to buying a ChromeOS machine and one that can run a full-featured OS.
Sure. So if running a "full-featured" OS is something that is an advantage for you, ChromeOS might not be much of an advantage.
OTOH, if simplicity is more important than running a "full-featured" OS, that's the selling point, and the small cost advantage is just icing.
As a striped down Linux distro, it isn't bad, but the lack of a mechanism for loading 3rd party software negates even that benefit.
ChromeOS has a mechanism for loading third-party ssoftware, its just that the third-party software to be installed has to be a Chrome packaged app.
The "cloud" (aka "the Internet") will be used for the same old things--email, picture-hosting, social profiles, and other things that have been around for over a decade now.
Yeah, its hardly as if web applications have become more capable, and web-based applications filling roles that people used to use desktop apps for have gained popularity.
(Incidentally, the same argument used to be made about web-based email clients -- email didn't used to be one of the things people used the web for.)
There's not going to be some magical transformation where everybody carries around a dumb terminal and connects to some nameless server to run their apps.
There's nothing "magical" about the evolution of web technologies which has, over time, increased the range of applications which are hosted on the web rather than executed locally.
The needed one right away that would serve their basic interests in the OS space, and they needed one that would serve their longer-term interests in the OS space more completely. Android is the Polaris A1, and Chrome OS is the Polaris A2. (If you don't understand the reference, read Implementing Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.)
Please explain why you would want an ARM net/notebook running ChromeOS over an ARM net/notebook running Android and able to do everything ChromeOS can do and then some.
AFAIK, the Android browser is like Chrome in that it is WebKit based and uses V8 for JavaScript, but it doesn't support a number of Chrome (and, hence, ChromeOS) features, including NaCl. Consequently, Android can't do everything that ChromeOS can do, while at the same time you can do some things with it that you can't do with ChromeOS.
Even if it were a problem, it's a problem they've solved on all the other OSes, because you can access the same Google apps on those. Investing in a ChromeOS machine provides you a set of advantages that are all present on lots of other machines, with none of those machines' other benefits. It'll have to sell on simplicity itself and a low device cost if it's to really work as a product.
Yeah, that's pretty much the value proposition of ChromeOS. Simplicity (the advantage over, e.g., other Linux versions) + Low cost (both because of low hardware demands and low OS cost).
For many slashdotters and other highly technical users, the simplicity aspect is probably a downside rather than a bonus, because lots of features they want are sacrificed to achieve the simplicity. But for lots of non-technical users, the simplicity is an additional selling point.
The most important thing to note is that people are getting fed up with the so-called "cloud".
Well, except in the real world where cloud-based solutions continue to increase in penetration.
That approach has been hyped for a few years now, and while many of us realized it's a bad approach from the very start, the rest are finding this out the hard way. After so much failure and hardship, people want nothing to do with it.
The continued march of organizations that are adopting cloud-based solutions, such as the ones that have "Gone Google", suggest that this is true only for an unreasonably restrictive definition of "people".
It's basically the same situation that happened with Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
There is a similarity in that initial hype spiked and faded, while actual use continues to grow.
People want to use real, locally-running applications that help get work done, where their data can be kept local and safe.
People generally want to use applications that help get work done, and want data to be kept safe, to be sure.
The "locally-run" and "local" parts, though, seem to be far from universal preferences. There are tradeoffs between local (both for code and date) and remote hosting that effect decisions there, and from all evidence, though, the perceived balance is, over time, becoming more favorable for remote hosting.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the International Digital Publishing Forum -- the group behind EPUB -- is also working on that problem, in the open, without distributing closed standards to selected parties.
Apple's not trying to fix problems with EPUB; now that they've used the fact that EPUB was a widely accepted to standard with existing tools and support to build iBooks, they are trying to use their current market power to create a breach between their platform and the standard, so that its more expensive for publishers to support both iBooks and compliant EPUB platforms, hoping that their current market power will lead publishers to choose iBooks rather than standard EPUB.
Making rough beta copies of tools and tech specs available on an equal basis to all publishers would work at least as well (Google tends to do this). And if support burden and focus was the concern, even better would be working with a small set of smaller publisher specialized in the areas most applicable to the new features. Choosing specifically to limit it to provide early access to large publishers is clearly designed to snub the small guys.
So what are you proposing as an alternative? That the banks wait until each check has totally cleared(taking weeks or longer in some cases) to totally clear?
Yes, banks -- which routinely delay availability of funds until checks have "cleared" -- should not say that checks have "cleared" and make funds available if the check has not, in fact, cleared.
If banks wish to provide additional service to their customers and make funds available when checks have not cleared but some preliminary and potentially inconclusive checks have passed, they should clearly distinguish to customers when this is the case rather than a check having actually cleared, particularly when the customer explicitly inquires as to the status of the check so that they do not take action based on a mistaken impression of the validity of the check.
Presumably this feature will be found in most if not all future Intel chips. How many people encrypt their harddrives?
Per TFS, the feature only provides the option for the user to configure the chip to a mode that allows a remote kill. I suspect that the proportion of users that will do that will be fairly similar to those that use whole-disk encryption.
So it's a good education that is important? Need I remind you that GWBush attended Harvard and Yale.
Both as a legacy admission -- preferential treatment for the children of alumni of those schools.
And Harvard Business only after being rejected from University of Texas Law School, where he didn't have the legacy advantage, and so couldn'y get admitted on his Yale record of "gentleman's C's".
How about we start with lower hanging fruit like weapons platforms that the military doesn't even want or need first?
Why would a propaganda tool designed to increase public buy-in to the Republican Party's policy priorities start with an attack on one of the Republican Party's policy priorities.
For this reason MySQL is the only option for a shared host.
This can be empirically shown to be false as there are shared hosts that provide PostgreSQL (as well as other non-MySQL databases), proving that MySQL is not the "only option for a shared host."
He might be. Retail chains quite frequently (though this is monumentally stupid) do all kinds of narrow incentives which amount to self-destructive microoptimization. Typically, these include incentives not based on overall profit, but based on things like the percentage of tickets on which you are able to sell particular high-value add-ons.
Shortly before CompUSA's final death spiral, I had the manager of the store berate me at the register for not wanting the extended warranty on a laptop I was purchasing with a number of other accessories -- about $1500 total in things I wanted to buy -- even after I asked him if he'd prefer if I just took my business elsewhere. Resulting in my credit card staying in my pocket, as I walked out the door -- the last time I walked into a CompUSA. No doubt, the manager had incentives or performance measures based on the percentage of sales of particular items on which the pure-profit extended warranty was sold.
I'm more likely to not shop in a store because they are blocking my ability to text or call my wife to confirm a detail of the product we need, or to access my cloud-hosted shopping list, or to -- as I suddenly remember that I forgot to add the ingredients for a certain recipe to my list -- to check the online recipe for the ingredient list, than I am to use my phone to comparison shop and reject the store for that reason.
Which local phone company do you have?
AT&T.
I think your making the assumption that the majority of users should be locked in due to their knowledge of technology.
I think you need to reread GP, including the quote from GGP included in it that makes clear what it is responding to. I'm not arguing anything about users being locked in, I'm making an argument about why there is value to the average user to having devices with Chrome OS preinstalled, in response to a suggestion that having Chrome OS available to install onto devices that don't come with that OS is enough.
Which will probably be the only one of its kind, since Google expects 3rd parties to pick this up and release hardware with it and -they- will probably go through the motions to lock the device down, then suggest doing so was for "security."
Its quite likely that the norm for 3rd-party, consumer focussed devices (as it has been for, e.g., Android) sold with Chrome OS will be to be locked down. Just as is the case for Android.
OTOH, Google has a strong incentive to make sure that, in addition to Chromium OS being available as an open source project that can be run on commodity hardware, that hardware designed for Chrome OS that is unlocked is available on the market -- just as they have done with Android.
I think GGP was being not only pedantic, but pedantic and wrong in saying that GGGP had used "layman" incorrectly, which called out for a correction.
YMMV.
This is a cheap ass stunt that violates the spirit of the program the signed up for.
AFAIK, the agreement for the test program is:
1. To use the Cr-48 as your primary computer, and
2. To provide feedback to Google.
At least, that's what they ask you to do in the application.
I don't think there is anything about "not installing another OS on the Cr-48 so you can dual boot it."
I think Chrome OS needs to be focused on something that would make it unique and useful... not trying to replace the desktop.
Chrome OS would make an awesome instant-on boot loader replacing GRUB, LILO, or Windows Boot Loader.
I think that the number of people for whom that would qualify as either "interesting" or "useful" is much smaller than the number for which Chrome OS with its current focus would meet those descriptions -- but Chromium OS is open source, so feel free to fork it as a bootloader and make your own splash in the market.
If they're unsubsidized, why bother buying a ChromeOS device? Just install ChromeOS on a netbook/notebook that you already have.
Aside from the Chrome OS (branded OS available only with hardware) vs. Chromium OS distinction -- and while this concept may be foreign to some people who use slashdot -- most computer users aren't interesting in installing an operating system other than the one that comes with their computer.
Yah, sure, "Ubuntu" in GP really stands for "the most appropriate Linux distribution for the things you need outside of Chrome".
Actually useful (for you) does not imply actually profitable (for Yahoo!)
The easiest solution for people who need the power of a full traditional OS but want to be able to have the Chrome experience would be to just boot Ubuntu with the Chrome browser. If you take one desktop and maximize Chrome on it, you can easily toggle back and forth between the regular Ubuntu experience and Chrome.
Since Chrome OS is essentially Linux stripped down to what is necessary to support the Chrome browser + the Chrome browser, dual-booting Chrome OS and a full Linux distro, while it might be useful in a very small set of circumstances, seems to mostly be the hard way to achieve, well, almost anything you might want to achieve by doing that.
Sure. So if running a "full-featured" OS is something that is an advantage for you, ChromeOS might not be much of an advantage.
OTOH, if simplicity is more important than running a "full-featured" OS, that's the selling point, and the small cost advantage is just icing.
ChromeOS has a mechanism for loading third-party ssoftware, its just that the third-party software to be installed has to be a Chrome packaged app.
Yeah, its hardly as if web applications have become more capable, and web-based applications filling roles that people used to use desktop apps for have gained popularity.
(Incidentally, the same argument used to be made about web-based email clients -- email didn't used to be one of the things people used the web for.)
There's nothing "magical" about the evolution of web technologies which has, over time, increased the range of applications which are hosted on the web rather than executed locally.
They don't.
The needed one right away that would serve their basic interests in the OS space, and they needed one that would serve their longer-term interests in the OS space more completely. Android is the Polaris A1, and Chrome OS is the Polaris A2. (If you don't understand the reference, read Implementing Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.)
AFAIK, the Android browser is like Chrome in that it is WebKit based and uses V8 for JavaScript, but it doesn't support a number of Chrome (and, hence, ChromeOS) features, including NaCl. Consequently, Android can't do everything that ChromeOS can do, while at the same time you can do some things with it that you can't do with ChromeOS.
Yeah, that's pretty much the value proposition of ChromeOS. Simplicity (the advantage over, e.g., other Linux versions) + Low cost (both because of low hardware demands and low OS cost).
For many slashdotters and other highly technical users, the simplicity aspect is probably a downside rather than a bonus, because lots of features they want are sacrificed to achieve the simplicity. But for lots of non-technical users, the simplicity is an additional selling point.
Well, except in the real world where cloud-based solutions continue to increase in penetration.
The continued march of organizations that are adopting cloud-based solutions, such as the ones that have "Gone Google", suggest that this is true only for an unreasonably restrictive definition of "people".
There is a similarity in that initial hype spiked and faded, while actual use continues to grow.
People generally want to use applications that help get work done, and want data to be kept safe, to be sure.
The "locally-run" and "local" parts, though, seem to be far from universal preferences. There are tradeoffs between local (both for code and date) and remote hosting that effect decisions there, and from all evidence, though, the perceived balance is, over time, becoming more favorable for remote hosting.