Will we get a price break for this? From the example of cable tv I'd say no.
Just like you don't get "not-charged" for the 90% of the cable TV channels that show nothing but "infomercials" after 2AM. I have 146 channels on Brighthouse, and often there have been less than 10 channels that are showing ANYTHING but "Paid Program", night after night.
So, why can't we get a rebate for this ridiculous behavior?
Back on-topic: This latest reviling example is proof-positive that Microsoft has nothing but contempt for individuals, and is nothing more than the government and "big business' " bitch. Not that that is a big surprise around here, but it needs to be said again and again, until everyone gets it.
We can only hope that Windows 8 severely teaches them a valuable lesson that they can't just shove any old thing down everyone's throat. Boy do they need a lesson in corporate humility...
It is perfectly legal. Business lobbies have purchased congress to affirm in law that these stipulations are allowable.
Really? I must have missed the repeal of the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which guarantees not only a right to sue, but in fact guarantees a JURY TRIAL in any controversy in excess of TWENTY dollars), AND the vacating of 250 years of case law that stands for the proposition that the waiver of a constitutional right must be express, informed and knowing.
A "click contract" doesn't meet any of those criteria, regardless of what South Park would lead you to believe.
No, iOS has DRM that is designed to prevent its user from running software that Apple does not approve of. You can read more than the first sentence, you know...
Oh! You are referring to the App Store...
Well, tell me how that "non-curated" App system is working for you, fAndroid. Nevermind, I'll tell YOU.
What you have failed to realize is that the "App Store Lock-In", and even the "iOS Development Licensing" are actually there to benefit USERS (by keeping Malware OUT, OUT, OUT). Sony's Rootkit and Playstation DRM battles are there to benefit SONY.
.
Can you not see the difference; or are you just being a Contrarian for Contrarian's sake?
That was the best you could do? iOS has DRM because it isn't Open Source, and only runs on iOS devices? Against Sony's Rootkit and Playstation history, that's a really weak counter-argument.
I have a strange, maybe backwards, idea, but it just might work: Produce what your customer wants, but, you know, with the actual intent to give him what he wants, not just the bait-and-switch strategy of showing him what he wants, waiting 'til he buys and then yanking it from his grasp to leave him with what YOU want.
It just might make people actually, you know, WANT to buy your products. I have a hunch it might work a lot better than trying to force people to buy your crap.
Apple's market cap and stock price stands as ample evidence that "your" idea, works...
I think the only music players that are currently closed are those made by Apple... the rest are pretty open, or at least use standard connectors and software.
Just because Apple has a multifunction connector on the iPod and iPad (which is absolutely a necessity, considering the number of signals it carries), and just because they make it easy to use iTunes to sync those devices, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives. There are several third-party iPod syncing apps, and countless cables and devices that mate with Apple's "dock" connector. So many, that the dock connector is effectively a "standard" connector itself.
They've stopped doing that years ago. The PS3 uses blu-ray, usb, bluetooth, has a plain user-removable sata hard drive, reads and writes data from whatever kind of media you can plug into it, will work with off-the-shelf usb and bluetooth controllers, keyboards, mice and webcams. Compare to Microsoft (hyper-expensive proprietary drives, proprietary controllers, limited media playback) or Apple (proprietary connectors, proprietary software required to sync).
Show me one proprietary connector on a modern Apple product (patented MagSafe power conn. excluded). And if you Google for five seconds, you will several third-party apps that can be used to "sync" to Apple's mobile devices.
Isn't that kinda how these big businesses work in general these days? Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Oracle, Intel, Dell, etc? I guess I'm just saying if someone has an issue with Sony they probably have an issue with the whole industry & it's practices, not/just/ Sony...
Apple removed DRM from iTunes music. Sony installed Rootkits.
Apple has no DRM on its OS. Sony has aggressively fought against Playstation hacking.
Apple has a Cloud service which mirrors your music to all your devices, regardless of where it came from. Sony?
Apple had a marketing slogan "Rip. Mix. Burn.". Sony created Blu-Ray as an unsuccessful defense against DeCSS.
Apple builds AirPlay into OS X and iOS. Sony creates SACD's DSD format as an (unsuccessful) attempt to stop CD copying (betcha didn't know that one!).
Apple actively and significantly contributes to the F/OSS Community. Sony, OTOH has been caught USING F/OSS code without attribution and in violation of those project's licensing (libarc) in its game, ICO, and parts of LAME (id3lib and more) in an OCX control.
Yep. no way whatsoever to tell those two companies apart by their respective actions.
Also-ran CEO of a non-competiting carrier wants successful carriers to stop doing the things that have contributed to their market position. Also: "nyah nyah," and "I want a nap."
That's exactly what I was going to say.
I read his whole rant as "We can't get as good a deal on phones as the other guys."
Google is trying to become like Apple margin-wise. But with all the fragmentation and lack of normalization of their platforms, you can expect a lot more decisions like this one.
You DO realize, of course, that Google and Apple both take the same 30% from Devs, right?
All the market is waiting for right now is a company to come along with something better than Android (which isn't hard), and they will sweep up the "open" phone segment.
No. You can use the openness and still use non-open components. You can use cyanogenmod and still use Android Market. You can use other appstores and use Market. You can install apps directly from a file.
On a similar note, Linux is open even though you can install closed, Binary Blob drivers.
So, by that analysis, OS X was "open" so long as Apple published the Source to Darwin. (Which only stopped after the move to Intel).
Boy, do a LOT of Slashdotters have about 7 years worth of Apple Hater posts to take back...
What's stopping you from selling your Ipad and buying a real computer that is designed to do real work? Does your Ipad have dual 30" screens? Does your Ipad have a 40 TB RAID array? Or how about 64 Gigs of RAM? Does your Ipad have the processing power of triple AMD HD7970s not just in terms of graphics, but also in terms of GPGPU work? Can your Ipad compete with the processing power of the latest Intel hexacore or octocore CPU?
You do realize, don't you, that not one computer user (of any sort) in 10,000 needs that level of a system? And 1 in 10,000 is probably significantly conservative.
Your insanely overblown example actually makes you a geek laughingstock; not a geek hero.
The system you describe may be suitable for cutting movies in 4k resolution; but it certainly doesn't PROPERLY or EFFICIENTLY fit the needs of 99.999999999999999999% of computer users.
There are two problems for MS. First, they are not as structurally big as IBM was when IBM had their problems in the 80s. Second, MS is putting all (or most) of their eggs in the Windows 8 basket. I just cannot see Windows 8 getting much adoption in the corporate world. It does not appear to be a good environment for being productive. It seems to me to be an environment for consuming entertainment media.
Not to mention the fact that it is actually, no kidding, nauseatingly UGLY. I mean really, really, bad. It's like a South Park UI, with its big, real-estate-wasting pieces of chartreuse and pink construction-paper pasted like so many post-it notes all over your screen. HUGE squandering of screen space, plus no shading, no sense of depth. Nothing. It looks like something from the early 1990s.
I understand that "eye-candy" isn't important to the operation of an OS, and that it can be overdone (look at how much OS X has toned-down their "Lickable" look over the years), but there is simply no excuse for the tasteless, butt-ugly, space-wasting abomination that is the Metro UI.
And yet, SOMEBODY at Microsoft had to approve that mess... Wonder who it was? Really, I do.
Who at Microsoft looked at Metro and said "Yeah, people are gonna LOVE this!"???
And as far as a "Business" look? Are you farking KIDDING me???
Hey dumbfuck, go back to wikipedia and look a few sentences up where they calculate the carnot efficiency of that automobile engine to be 73% Guess what? 35% is about 50% of 73% dipshit.
And nice job completely changing the subject with your 1mpg non sequitur. I can tell you right now it's not going to affect oil usage by more than a few percent, so suck my dick.
Wow, do you kiss your Mother with that mouth?
Wikipedia does say 35%, not 73% The 73% figure is THEORETICAL; but, as Wikipedia goes on to say "Due to the other causes detailed below, practical engines have efficiencies far below the Carnot limit; for example the average automobile engine is less than 35% efficient.
So, are you psychotic, or just illiterate?
'Nuff said.
And I don't think that non sequitur means what you think it does.
2) The second law of thermodynamics does not claim that all engines are equally efficient. It only says that when you use an inefficient engine, the energy goes somewhere; up in smoke, converted to vibrations/sound, extra heat that didn't move the piston with any extra force, etc, etc. You seem to understand this in the context of waste heat, but in the context of a hybrid car you get all wacky.
I didn't mean to imply that Hybrids don't get a LITTLE more gas mileage; but it sure seems to be a piddling difference over simply exploding a fuel/air mixture in cylinders, and having that move the car, rather than all these arcane (and efficiency-ROBBING) energy conversions, like in a "hybrid".
I wasn't saying that the 2nd Law said anything about "equal efficiency"; where'd you get THAT one?!? I just said that he 2nd Law applies to EVERY "heat" system, both limiting the theoretical efficiency, and showing that, (factoring-out all the energy conversions/requirements that have to happen before the fuel is actually IN the tank) if you convert heat (combustion) to mechanical (turn alternator) to electrical (alternator output) to chemical (batteries) to electrical (battery output) to mechanical (electric motor output) you will have a fundamentally less efficient system than the internal combustion engine's more direct route of heat -> mechanical method. And don't try to substitute the gas tank for the batteries, because that is external to this cycle, and besides, "hybrid" vehicles go to the gas pump, too (and pretty damned often). Oh, and this is ALL on top of the same 30% Carnot Efficiency (theoretical maximum!) of the internal combustion engine, whether it is powering a gen-set, or a crankshaft.
BTW, the above long-strange-trip from gen-set to wheel stated above doesn't even consider the alternator and "wheel motors" "I-Squared-R" losses, which are pretty damned significant, especially as an electric motor heats up, that occur in BOTH the Alternator AND the electric motors used for the motive force, NOR does it discuss the Ohmic losses in all the wiring from the alternator to the batteries, from the batteries to the motor drive circutry (oh, yeah, we need one of those, too, unless you want to drive full-speed everywhere!), in the H-Bridge PWM motor drive circuitry itself (what do you think the heat sinks are for?) (I designed DC motor speed controls in a former life), and then back down the output wires to the motors.
PLEASE don't think I'm trying to make a case for the likes of the Crown Victoria (!!!). In fact, I very MUCH look forward to the day when I can drive a TRUE "fuel-cell" vehicle on the road (hope I live that long!), but even THAT will still have to have some sort of efficiency-robbing energy storage (super flywheel, pneumatic accumulators, or (ewww!) chemical batteries, etc), to deal with short-term energy requirements, and so will still have to do efficiency-robbing "form of energy" conversions into and out of that storage system (and will still have all the Ohmic and IIR losses of today's "hybrids"), but at least we'll be consuming the most abundant element in the Universe (Hydrogen) more or less directly, instead of waiting a few million years for it to be trapped in oil first, and will be contributing to the Krebs hydrologic cycle (from water-vapor exhaust), instead of whatever-the-fuck we've been "contributing" to with internal combustion engine exhaust...
I stand corrected. Actually, I care very little for games, and (obviously) know nothing about how Steam works. So, it's nothing more than an "App Store"? Phhhhht!!! Here I was thinking Steam was something cool; but it turns out to be nothing but marketing...
Slashdot Mirror
Will we get a price break for this? From the example of cable tv I'd say no.
Just like you don't get "not-charged" for the 90% of the cable TV channels that show nothing but "infomercials" after 2AM. I have 146 channels on Brighthouse, and often there have been less than 10 channels that are showing ANYTHING but "Paid Program", night after night.
So, why can't we get a rebate for this ridiculous behavior?
Back on-topic: This latest reviling example is proof-positive that Microsoft has nothing but contempt for individuals, and is nothing more than the government and "big business' " bitch. Not that that is a big surprise around here, but it needs to be said again and again, until everyone gets it.
We can only hope that Windows 8 severely teaches them a valuable lesson that they can't just shove any old thing down everyone's throat. Boy do they need a lesson in corporate humility...
It is perfectly legal. Business lobbies have purchased congress to affirm in law that these stipulations are allowable.
Really? I must have missed the repeal of the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which guarantees not only a right to sue, but in fact guarantees a JURY TRIAL in any controversy in excess of TWENTY dollars), AND the vacating of 250 years of case law that stands for the proposition that the waiver of a constitutional right must be express, informed and knowing.
A "click contract" doesn't meet any of those criteria, regardless of what South Park would lead you to believe.
No, iOS has DRM that is designed to prevent its user from running software that Apple does not approve of. You can read more than the first sentence, you know...
Oh! You are referring to the App Store...
Well, tell me how that "non-curated" App system is working for you, fAndroid. Nevermind, I'll tell YOU.
What you have failed to realize is that the "App Store Lock-In", and even the "iOS Development Licensing" are actually there to benefit USERS (by keeping Malware OUT, OUT, OUT). Sony's Rootkit and Playstation DRM battles are there to benefit SONY.
. Can you not see the difference; or are you just being a Contrarian for Contrarian's sake?
Apple has no DRM on its OS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS#Digital_rights_management Otherwise I agree, Apple is less evil than Sony. Not that that is saying much.
That was the best you could do? iOS has DRM because it isn't Open Source, and only runs on iOS devices? Against Sony's Rootkit and Playstation history, that's a really weak counter-argument.
I have a strange, maybe backwards, idea, but it just might work: Produce what your customer wants, but, you know, with the actual intent to give him what he wants, not just the bait-and-switch strategy of showing him what he wants, waiting 'til he buys and then yanking it from his grasp to leave him with what YOU want.
It just might make people actually, you know, WANT to buy your products. I have a hunch it might work a lot better than trying to force people to buy your crap.
Apple's market cap and stock price stands as ample evidence that "your" idea, works...
I think the only music players that are currently closed are those made by Apple ... the rest are pretty open, or at least use standard connectors and software.
Just because Apple has a multifunction connector on the iPod and iPad (which is absolutely a necessity, considering the number of signals it carries), and just because they make it easy to use iTunes to sync those devices, doesn't mean there aren't alternatives. There are several third-party iPod syncing apps, and countless cables and devices that mate with Apple's "dock" connector. So many, that the dock connector is effectively a "standard" connector itself.
They've stopped doing that years ago. The PS3 uses blu-ray, usb, bluetooth, has a plain user-removable sata hard drive, reads and writes data from whatever kind of media you can plug into it, will work with off-the-shelf usb and bluetooth controllers, keyboards, mice and webcams. Compare to Microsoft (hyper-expensive proprietary drives, proprietary controllers, limited media playback) or Apple (proprietary connectors, proprietary software required to sync).
Show me one proprietary connector on a modern Apple product (patented MagSafe power conn. excluded). And if you Google for five seconds, you will several third-party apps that can be used to "sync" to Apple's mobile devices.
Isn't that kinda how these big businesses work in general these days? Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Oracle, Intel, Dell, etc? I guess I'm just saying if someone has an issue with Sony they probably have an issue with the whole industry & it's practices, not /just/ Sony...
Apple removed DRM from iTunes music. Sony installed Rootkits.
Apple has no DRM on its OS. Sony has aggressively fought against Playstation hacking.
Apple has a Cloud service which mirrors your music to all your devices, regardless of where it came from. Sony?
Apple had a marketing slogan "Rip. Mix. Burn.". Sony created Blu-Ray as an unsuccessful defense against DeCSS.
Apple builds AirPlay into OS X and iOS. Sony creates SACD's DSD format as an (unsuccessful) attempt to stop CD copying (betcha didn't know that one!).
Apple actively and significantly contributes to the F/OSS Community. Sony, OTOH has been caught USING F/OSS code without attribution and in violation of those project's licensing (libarc) in its game, ICO, and parts of LAME (id3lib and more) in an OCX control.
Yep. no way whatsoever to tell those two companies apart by their respective actions.
Damn! Beat me to it!
Also-ran CEO of a non-competiting carrier wants successful carriers to stop doing the things that have contributed to their market position. Also: "nyah nyah," and "I want a nap."
That's exactly what I was going to say.
I read his whole rant as "We can't get as good a deal on phones as the other guys."
Like our politicians with the Constitution, they wiped their asses with it when the scent of money wafted through.
Obligatory Robert Schmeigel Constitution Gone Mad Reference.
This sounds like it would violate antitrust tying laws.
Since you Fandroids are always pointing out that no one HAS to use the Google Marketplace/Play, I think that neatly defeats your "tying" argument.
Idiot.
Google is trying to become like Apple margin-wise. But with all the fragmentation and lack of normalization of their platforms, you can expect a lot more decisions like this one.
You DO realize, of course, that Google and Apple both take the same 30% from Devs, right?
Insightful
All the market is waiting for right now is a company to come along with something better than Android (which isn't hard), and they will sweep up the "open" phone segment.
Wait no more! It's called iOS.
Instead of gay, use the correct term: faggot.
Or, the more modern form: "Harley Rider"
I fail to see how this is any different to Apples payment system? Surely they also charge devs a percentage for distributing an app on the market?
Because Apple doesn't have a Payment System that makes an ADDITIONAL percentage off the Devs.
1. Google charges Devs. 30% (same as Apple)
2. Google charges Devs. "Transaction Fees" for Google Wallet "handling". Now we're different from Apple.
I'm guessing that neither math nor economics is your strong suit.
No. You can use the openness and still use non-open components. You can use cyanogenmod and still use Android Market. You can use other appstores and use Market. You can install apps directly from a file. On a similar note, Linux is open even though you can install closed, Binary Blob drivers.
So, by that analysis, OS X was "open" so long as Apple published the Source to Darwin. (Which only stopped after the move to Intel).
Boy, do a LOT of Slashdotters have about 7 years worth of Apple Hater posts to take back...
CAPTCHA: Dispu
What's stopping you from selling your Ipad and buying a real computer that is designed to do real work? Does your Ipad have dual 30" screens? Does your Ipad have a 40 TB RAID array? Or how about 64 Gigs of RAM? Does your Ipad have the processing power of triple AMD HD7970s not just in terms of graphics, but also in terms of GPGPU work? Can your Ipad compete with the processing power of the latest Intel hexacore or octocore CPU?
You do realize, don't you, that not one computer user (of any sort) in 10,000 needs that level of a system? And 1 in 10,000 is probably significantly conservative.
Your insanely overblown example actually makes you a geek laughingstock; not a geek hero.
The system you describe may be suitable for cutting movies in 4k resolution; but it certainly doesn't PROPERLY or EFFICIENTLY fit the needs of 99.999999999999999999% of computer users.
Isn't "neo-luddism" kind of an oxymoron?
There are two problems for MS. First, they are not as structurally big as IBM was when IBM had their problems in the 80s. Second, MS is putting all (or most) of their eggs in the Windows 8 basket. I just cannot see Windows 8 getting much adoption in the corporate world. It does not appear to be a good environment for being productive. It seems to me to be an environment for consuming entertainment media.
Not to mention the fact that it is actually, no kidding, nauseatingly UGLY. I mean really, really, bad. It's like a South Park UI, with its big, real-estate-wasting pieces of chartreuse and pink construction-paper pasted like so many post-it notes all over your screen. HUGE squandering of screen space, plus no shading, no sense of depth. Nothing. It looks like something from the early 1990s.
I understand that "eye-candy" isn't important to the operation of an OS, and that it can be overdone (look at how much OS X has toned-down their "Lickable" look over the years), but there is simply no excuse for the tasteless, butt-ugly, space-wasting abomination that is the Metro UI.
And yet, SOMEBODY at Microsoft had to approve that mess... Wonder who it was? Really, I do.
Who at Microsoft looked at Metro and said "Yeah, people are gonna LOVE this!"???
And as far as a "Business" look? Are you farking KIDDING me???
General purpose home computers will likely revert to a hobbyist thing before too many more years, and of course Linux will dominate at that point.
Hahahaha! First you say that "This is the year of the Linux desktop" is a running joke, and then you come back with THAT knee-slapper?!?
Sorry, it appears to be the year of the OS X desktop. It will never be the year of the Linux anything (except, perhaps, the webserver).
Non-hobby home PCs are fading fast.,
At least for Apple, not so much.
;-)
Oh, and you might want to crawl out of your Mom's basement sometime and shave that neckbeard...
Linux will dominate... Boy, what a card! Thanks, I needed a good laugh!
Hey dumbfuck, go back to wikipedia and look a few sentences up where they calculate the carnot efficiency of that automobile engine to be 73% Guess what? 35% is about 50% of 73% dipshit. And nice job completely changing the subject with your 1mpg non sequitur. I can tell you right now it's not going to affect oil usage by more than a few percent, so suck my dick.
Wow, do you kiss your Mother with that mouth?
Wikipedia does say 35%, not 73% The 73% figure is THEORETICAL; but, as Wikipedia goes on to say "Due to the other causes detailed below, practical engines have efficiencies far below the Carnot limit; for example the average automobile engine is less than 35% efficient.
So, are you psychotic, or just illiterate?
'Nuff said.
And I don't think that non sequitur means what you think it does.
nope he doesnt deserve any credit (Gates)
I agree. Now how do you mod an entire article as Flamebait?
1) Hybrids do get better gas mileage.
2) The second law of thermodynamics does not claim that all engines are equally efficient. It only says that when you use an inefficient engine, the energy goes somewhere; up in smoke, converted to vibrations/sound, extra heat that didn't move the piston with any extra force, etc, etc. You seem to understand this in the context of waste heat, but in the context of a hybrid car you get all wacky.
I didn't mean to imply that Hybrids don't get a LITTLE more gas mileage; but it sure seems to be a piddling difference over simply exploding a fuel/air mixture in cylinders, and having that move the car, rather than all these arcane (and efficiency-ROBBING) energy conversions, like in a "hybrid".
I wasn't saying that the 2nd Law said anything about "equal efficiency"; where'd you get THAT one?!? I just said that he 2nd Law applies to EVERY "heat" system, both limiting the theoretical efficiency, and showing that, (factoring-out all the energy conversions/requirements that have to happen before the fuel is actually IN the tank) if you convert heat (combustion) to mechanical (turn alternator) to electrical (alternator output) to chemical (batteries) to electrical (battery output) to mechanical (electric motor output) you will have a fundamentally less efficient system than the internal combustion engine's more direct route of heat -> mechanical method. And don't try to substitute the gas tank for the batteries, because that is external to this cycle, and besides, "hybrid" vehicles go to the gas pump, too (and pretty damned often). Oh, and this is ALL on top of the same 30% Carnot Efficiency (theoretical maximum!) of the internal combustion engine, whether it is powering a gen-set, or a crankshaft.
BTW, the above long-strange-trip from gen-set to wheel stated above doesn't even consider the alternator and "wheel motors" "I-Squared-R" losses, which are pretty damned significant, especially as an electric motor heats up, that occur in BOTH the Alternator AND the electric motors used for the motive force, NOR does it discuss the Ohmic losses in all the wiring from the alternator to the batteries, from the batteries to the motor drive circutry (oh, yeah, we need one of those, too, unless you want to drive full-speed everywhere!), in the H-Bridge PWM motor drive circuitry itself (what do you think the heat sinks are for?) (I designed DC motor speed controls in a former life), and then back down the output wires to the motors.
PLEASE don't think I'm trying to make a case for the likes of the Crown Victoria (!!!). In fact, I very MUCH look forward to the day when I can drive a TRUE "fuel-cell" vehicle on the road (hope I live that long!), but even THAT will still have to have some sort of efficiency-robbing energy storage (super flywheel, pneumatic accumulators, or (ewww!) chemical batteries, etc), to deal with short-term energy requirements, and so will still have to do efficiency-robbing "form of energy" conversions into and out of that storage system (and will still have all the Ohmic and IIR losses of today's "hybrids"), but at least we'll be consuming the most abundant element in the Universe (Hydrogen) more or less directly, instead of waiting a few million years for it to be trapped in oil first, and will be contributing to the Krebs hydrologic cycle (from water-vapor exhaust), instead of whatever-the-fuck we've been "contributing" to with internal combustion engine exhaust...
I stand corrected. Actually, I care very little for games, and (obviously) know nothing about how Steam works. So, it's nothing more than an "App Store"? Phhhhht!!! Here I was thinking Steam was something cool; but it turns out to be nothing but marketing...