But what you're forgetting is that company A, instead of developing the distribution, also copies the stable bits from another distribution that the open source community developed in the first place (Fedora).
This is a very interesting point.. but the flaw in this theory is.. that it is focussed on the players.
The format war will be won by what disks users buy in near future, not the players that they might buy much later. Users will have a compelling reason to buy HD-DVDs because they know that this way they'll be able to watch the movies on their existing players. And whatever format wins, they'll still be able to watch the movies. Then when their collection gets big enough, they'll have a very compelling reason to buy an HD-DVD player and enjoy the higher resolution of the movies in their collection.
The twist to the war that Toshiba brought is.. that the users can buy the HD-DVDs *NOW*, even if they don't have a high-def player.
.. when I started my hunt for a HDTV. But TVs in my budget had a huge difference in PQ between LCDs and Plasmas (With Plasmas being the clear winners). So I ended up buying a plasma. I think that for now (And for near future), plasmas are still going to have the best PQ. And don't forget the status symbol that plasmas are. If Joe has heard about HDTVs, he'd want to buy a plasma because (a) For a lot of people, an HDTV means plasma (Others are look-alikes), and (b) PQ in a plasma makes him see the difference between SDTV and HDTV even from up-close. Not so much with LCDs and DLPs, and (c) He knows that if he buys a 'Plasma', he'll get a 'Whoaaaa !!!' from his friends. But just an 'Eh!' if he bought anything else.
Eventually, LCDs will evolve to plasma quality and will get cheaper. At the same time LCDs will have lesser issues, better resolution, less power consumption, longer life and lighter weight. So people will start moving for them. But looking at the slow pace of evolution in this field, I don't see that happening very soon (At least a couple of years).
DLPs and its sisters are just stop-gaps. These technologies are not going to stay for long. LCDs will eat every other technology for lunch as soon as it becomes affordable.
If school admins try to block sites that kids just HAVE to get to, then the kids will find a way to do so (Hint for Kids: Read about SSH / VPN). And once they know that they've found a way to bypass the school security, their curious minds would want them to check if they can now access porn this way too.
The point that I am trying to make here is that the more freedom you try to take away, the more you're encouraging them to break the rules.
I, for one, am happy that this will make at least a certain percentage of the kids aware of proxies, private networks etc. It's time that those nerds get to have some 'coolness' factor about them.
If people just list down what they do on their computers, most of them are going to find that a Linux box would do them just fine (If they don't want to pay the Apple premium). Getting rid of the vicious circle of the Virus scanners / Privacy tools / spyware blockers, their updates / fake warnings and worthless Microsoft security updates should be a very compelling reason, IMHO.
ATI doesn't build it's cards.. Sapphire does. ATI just pastes the 'ATI' name on the cards.
eVGA and XFX build very stable nVidia cards. In fact both of them have life-time warranty on the cards and both (Specially eVGA) are considered the Google of graphics card manufacturers (i.e. Do no evil). Do some search on eVGA and you'll be surprised to know how wrong your opinion was.
ps. Sapphire is good, but their build quality and warranty is nowhere as good as eVGAs.
So is this revolutionary install concept an exact copy of what we see in Ubuntu?
Code optimization != specialized blades
on
The Future of Computing
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Pardon my ignorance, but all the blades are going to have a lot of extra software running too (OS / App manager / network communication etc). So isn't there a chance of the micro-blades end up eating even more power (Specially if the software is still bloated)? Splitting the code in different blades is definitely not really code optimization anyway.
why should i pay HP/Compaq for preloading my laptop with linux when i can just throw in suse 10.1 and everything but the broadcom wireless card works?
Two reasons:
1. So that you don't pay HP to preload Windows (Assuming HP won't sell you an OS less laptop because that may add a new cycle in their QA process)
2. Because then HP will ensure that our wireless cards, suspend, media buttons etc work everytime.
Companies like Alienware have their name in the world of gamers who aren't competent enough (or motivated enough) to build their own machines... and in case of laptops, those who aren't aware that Alienware does nothing but badge Clevo machines as theirs and charges a premium. So I don't really think that Alienware is going to be the first big-brand to sell Linux based laptops (Keeping in mind that thier biggest selling point is PC Gaming). Lack of PC Gaming on Linux is the reason why I don't buy the argument that "People who are willing to shell out thousands for an SLI notebook are likely to be interested in Linux". SLI is absolutely useless for those people in Linux (Now someone will respond with some uses of SLI on Linux.. but come on, how many people are going to setup SLI and then use Linux?).
However a company like HP should have enough reasons to start selling a linux laptop which just works and has all the bells and whistles out of the box. Being considered a linux friendly company is going to be very helpful for them as they'll win a soft corner in the hearts of IT folks (Even those who influence the purchase of machines at their work-places). However since no big company sells a linux laptop (or personal desktop yet), I would have to imagine that they must be saving a huge bundle from Microsoft by staying only Windows. Obviously this must have a 'no dual boot' clause too.
What about a company like Novell? Can they be bothered to at least start badging Clevo machines as Novell laptops?
Why don't the no-name revolutionary linux laptop makers understand that unless they sell their laptop for lesser than a similarly spec'd Dell Inspiron, people are going to buy the Inspiron and install Ubuntu instead.
Yes, I know it's easier to have a pre-setup laptop and not have to worry about searching for ndiswrapper etc for wireless, but the community that the linux laptop makers are targetting actually loves such challenges.
Okay, now I'll get back to trying to figure out how the heck this BCM4318 is going to work:-(
They are not Japan-loyal either (Think iPods). They just have different tastes than us in North America. And obviously companies that are based in Japan are going to cater to those tastes better than American or European companies. You might be buying mostly american games, but not because the games were made in America now, do you?
I don't think it makes sense for Sony to lose a lot of PR and so, a huge potential market in long run just to be able to squeeze out $100 more out of the first 100,000 consoles (When the hype can get them more money). Keep in mind that companies like Sony and Microsoft are willing to lose money on their consoles so that they can get a market for their games. As a lot of people mentioned before, a sony console is just $100 more than a 360 (I don't count the cheaper version of 360).. and considering the blueray player, cell processor etc, I think it's nothing more than a minimum price point that they could come up with. So I don't think the price of a PS3 will drop as soon as some people are (wishfully) thinking.
You also need to remember that early adopters will feel cheated if the prices are significantly dropped after the holiday season.
I am going to have the 'wait and watch' approach too. I waited and saw what the deals were with different types of HDTVs (Plasma, LCD, Projection). Then when Plasmas were cheap enough for me, were past the 1.0 version, and were the best deals in terms of PQ and weight / dimensions, I bought one. I did the same thing for PSP vs DS Lite. When I knew that everybody was loving the DS Lite, new games were getting good reviews, Lite started getting games that play through WiFi over the internet (Cart DS, for example), and Toys R Us started selling good package deals, I bought one.
I don't even know what console I am going to buy. Maybe a Wii for its innovative Wiimote, if people find it interesting after the initial hangover. Maybe I'll buy a PS3 if the BlueRay kicks off / if the Linux on the console is really useful etc. I might even skip all of them and continue with my PC gaming. One thing that I know is the Microsoft needs to do something really cool with their 360 games collection for me to get past my anti-Microsoft obsession.
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Because geeks can't play a lot of those PC games on their Linux desk/laptops
But what you're forgetting is that company A, instead of developing the distribution, also copies the stable bits from another distribution that the open source community developed in the first place (Fedora).
This is a very interesting point .. but the flaw in this theory is .. that it is focussed on the players.
.. that the users can buy the HD-DVDs *NOW*, even if they don't have a high-def player.
The format war will be won by what disks users buy in near future, not the players that they might buy much later. Users will have a compelling reason to buy HD-DVDs because they know that this way they'll be able to watch the movies on their existing players. And whatever format wins, they'll still be able to watch the movies. Then when their collection gets big enough, they'll have a very compelling reason to buy an HD-DVD player and enjoy the higher resolution of the movies in their collection.
The twist to the war that Toshiba brought is
.. when I started my hunt for a HDTV. But TVs in my budget had a huge difference in PQ between LCDs and Plasmas (With Plasmas being the clear winners). So I ended up buying a plasma. I think that for now (And for near future), plasmas are still going to have the best PQ. And don't forget the status symbol that plasmas are. If Joe has heard about HDTVs, he'd want to buy a plasma because (a) For a lot of people, an HDTV means plasma (Others are look-alikes), and (b) PQ in a plasma makes him see the difference between SDTV and HDTV even from up-close. Not so much with LCDs and DLPs, and (c) He knows that if he buys a 'Plasma', he'll get a 'Whoaaaa !!!' from his friends. But just an 'Eh!' if he bought anything else. Eventually, LCDs will evolve to plasma quality and will get cheaper. At the same time LCDs will have lesser issues, better resolution, less power consumption, longer life and lighter weight. So people will start moving for them. But looking at the slow pace of evolution in this field, I don't see that happening very soon (At least a couple of years). DLPs and its sisters are just stop-gaps. These technologies are not going to stay for long. LCDs will eat every other technology for lunch as soon as it becomes affordable.
If school admins try to block sites that kids just HAVE to get to, then the kids will find a way to do so (Hint for Kids: Read about SSH / VPN). And once they know that they've found a way to bypass the school security, their curious minds would want them to check if they can now access porn this way too. The point that I am trying to make here is that the more freedom you try to take away, the more you're encouraging them to break the rules. I, for one, am happy that this will make at least a certain percentage of the kids aware of proxies, private networks etc. It's time that those nerds get to have some 'coolness' factor about them.
If people just list down what they do on their computers, most of them are going to find that a Linux box would do them just fine (If they don't want to pay the Apple premium). Getting rid of the vicious circle of the Virus scanners / Privacy tools / spyware blockers, their updates / fake warnings and worthless Microsoft security updates should be a very compelling reason, IMHO.
ATI doesn't build it's cards .. Sapphire does. ATI just pastes the 'ATI' name on the cards.
eVGA and XFX build very stable nVidia cards. In fact both of them have life-time warranty on the cards and both (Specially eVGA) are considered the Google of graphics card manufacturers (i.e. Do no evil). Do some search on eVGA and you'll be surprised to know how wrong your opinion was.
ps. Sapphire is good, but their build quality and warranty is nowhere as good as eVGAs.
So is this revolutionary install concept an exact copy of what we see in Ubuntu?
Pardon my ignorance, but all the blades are going to have a lot of extra software running too (OS / App manager / network communication etc). So isn't there a chance of the micro-blades end up eating even more power (Specially if the software is still bloated)? Splitting the code in different blades is definitely not really code optimization anyway.
why should i pay HP/Compaq for preloading my laptop with linux when i can just throw in suse 10.1 and everything but the broadcom wireless card works?
Two reasons:
1. So that you don't pay HP to preload Windows (Assuming HP won't sell you an OS less laptop because that may add a new cycle in their QA process)
2. Because then HP will ensure that our wireless cards, suspend, media buttons etc work everytime.
Companies like Alienware have their name in the world of gamers who aren't competent enough (or motivated enough) to build their own machines ... and in case of laptops, those who aren't aware that Alienware does nothing but badge Clevo machines as theirs and charges a premium. So I don't really think that Alienware is going to be the first big-brand to sell Linux based laptops (Keeping in mind that thier biggest selling point is PC Gaming). Lack of PC Gaming on Linux is the reason why I don't buy the argument that "People who are willing to shell out thousands for an SLI notebook are likely to be interested in Linux". SLI is absolutely useless for those people in Linux (Now someone will respond with some uses of SLI on Linux .. but come on, how many people are going to setup SLI and then use Linux?).
However a company like HP should have enough reasons to start selling a linux laptop which just works and has all the bells and whistles out of the box. Being considered a linux friendly company is going to be very helpful for them as they'll win a soft corner in the hearts of IT folks (Even those who influence the purchase of machines at their work-places). However since no big company sells a linux laptop (or personal desktop yet), I would have to imagine that they must be saving a huge bundle from Microsoft by staying only Windows. Obviously this must have a 'no dual boot' clause too.
What about a company like Novell? Can they be bothered to at least start badging Clevo machines as Novell laptops?
Why don't the no-name revolutionary linux laptop makers understand that unless they sell their laptop for lesser than a similarly spec'd Dell Inspiron, people are going to buy the Inspiron and install Ubuntu instead.
:-(
Yes, I know it's easier to have a pre-setup laptop and not have to worry about searching for ndiswrapper etc for wireless, but the community that the linux laptop makers are targetting actually loves such challenges.
Okay, now I'll get back to trying to figure out how the heck this BCM4318 is going to work
Well for that matter, most people buy pre-built machines (Read Dell), so the whole Intel vs AMD doesn't apply to them anyway
They are not Japan-loyal either (Think iPods). They just have different tastes than us in North America. And obviously companies that are based in Japan are going to cater to those tastes better than American or European companies. You might be buying mostly american games, but not because the games were made in America now, do you?
I don't think it makes sense for Sony to lose a lot of PR and so, a huge potential market in long run just to be able to squeeze out $100 more out of the first 100,000 consoles (When the hype can get them more money). Keep in mind that companies like Sony and Microsoft are willing to lose money on their consoles so that they can get a market for their games. As a lot of people mentioned before, a sony console is just $100 more than a 360 (I don't count the cheaper version of 360) .. and considering the blueray player, cell processor etc, I think it's nothing more than a minimum price point that they could come up with. So I don't think the price of a PS3 will drop as soon as some people are (wishfully) thinking.
You also need to remember that early adopters will feel cheated if the prices are significantly dropped after the holiday season.
They did show and talk about the regular controller in E3, didn't they?
I am going to have the 'wait and watch' approach too. I waited and saw what the deals were with different types of HDTVs (Plasma, LCD, Projection). Then when Plasmas were cheap enough for me, were past the 1.0 version, and were the best deals in terms of PQ and weight / dimensions, I bought one. I did the same thing for PSP vs DS Lite. When I knew that everybody was loving the DS Lite, new games were getting good reviews, Lite started getting games that play through WiFi over the internet (Cart DS, for example), and Toys R Us started selling good package deals, I bought one.
I don't even know what console I am going to buy. Maybe a Wii for its innovative Wiimote, if people find it interesting after the initial hangover. Maybe I'll buy a PS3 if the BlueRay kicks off / if the Linux on the console is really useful etc. I might even skip all of them and continue with my PC gaming. One thing that I know is the Microsoft needs to do something really cool with their 360 games collection for me to get past my anti-Microsoft obsession.