MS research have an incredible number of cool projects. Unfortunatly, MS research are not so narcissistic as Google lab, so they are almost unknown to the average Joe out there. Some of the cool projects they are working on are:
* Singularity OS
* Socio-Digital systems
* Digital geographics
* Natural Language Processing...
Two areas of "monopoly" which do concern commentators and commercial organisations are only indirectly commercial. In one sense, although it is a search engine, Google has some of the powers of a major newspaper or periodical. It does and can exercise editorial control and influence.
Secondly, the power and use of on-line purchase is growing. Google, and other search engines for that matter, have more power to influence the selection, availability and immediacy of purchases in the way it sets the so-called algorithms for prioritising and selection of websites, bringing distinct commercial advantage to some and disadvantage to others.
Much of that will invariably be determined by the commercial power of advertising revenues. This could trigger investigation by Competition Authorities.
The people at the top of America's money pyramid have so prospered in recent years that they have pulled far ahead of the rest of the population, an analysis of tax records and other government (data by The New York Times). They have even left behind people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Call them the hyper-rich.
While most economists recognize that the richest are pulling away, they disagree on what this means. Those who contend that the extraordinary accumulation of wealth is a good thing say that while the rich are indeed getting richer, so are most people who work hard and save. They say that the tax cuts encourage the investment and the innovation that will make everyone better off.
Back in the cold war times, secret services agencies had hundred of peoples reading ad analyzing every number of the must important publications in the world, searching for clues and disguised information. I guess the same can be applied now for the web, with the advantage that it's a lot easier to search the web and classify information using database filters than it was back then.
Lots of climate change myths or confusions still crop up in the media and in conversation. As a result, it is sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction and attitudes can prove difficult to change.
Climate is an always-changing parameter, and it's difficult to say if the actual climate is abnormal or if it just is between the normal parameters, seeing it in a long period of thousands of years. This is because we have so little *rigurous* information about how the exact temperatures, etc were 400 years ago in some point of the map.
That said, it's imposible for us to know if the earth experimented the same changes than today many years ago.
On the other hand, there is no doubd about the destructive action of the human hand in the climate, so where is the truth? Of course, the media will always prefer the apocalyptical view, because it sells best.
In my maybe subjective opinion, if there is one company I would fear in the patent and legal feald, this is not MS, nor Sun nor IBM , but Apple. Apple's legal hounds are legendary by their actions going after even individual users for such small things like "making a MacOS theme for Windows XP", or such things. What could they do for such things like a billion dollar patent... I'm scared.
The problem with those "standards" is that today this may be enough for all, but maybe tomorrow there will arise tasks for which the standards will not be good enough, or you will need to use many hacks to try to fit to the standards. Or you may need to way for the ENORMOUS burocraty that rules those standard and hope that they will break the inertial resistance to the change soon enough. Propietary solutions are much more dynamic and flexible.... But hey, I'm not politically correct..so...
Yes, this has been going on for some months now. You don't see too much talking about this because:
1) This is a project in MS lab that has been kind of limited
2) People don't like to talk about MS making things better
3) Soon yuu will see Google adding this feature as well. THEN, you will read about this and average Joe will tell you how Google innovates and MS catchs up [bg]
They are not "pushing". It's just an advertisement. I have seen worse, for example all those Firefox evangelistic campaigns like: "Make history with Firefox", "Rediscovery the web with Firefox", "Add a Firefox button to your web", "Firefox in your email signature", "Firefox site prefeared" . Hell I've even seen a "Screw IE" button once on some "respected" site
Nothing different from this "Firefox protects you" official Google site: http://www.google.com/firefox
Fair enough. Nothing to see here, folks [bg]
The system hasn't been out a mounth. There is an initial inertia to any change. Give it some time. Or yoyu thing any company using Linux have already updated to 2.6.19 ? Or should we say that companies 'BLAH' about it as well.
I work at a large university in sweden.In february we will upgrade about 3000 machines to Vista. It's a question aout budget and timing, between many reasons.
Well, if you add Spotlight and Dashboard to your list and consider it a worth upgrade then I consider the following to be worth an upgrade too:
*Windows Aero
* Shell stacks
* Breadcrumbs view
* Per-user UI language
* Desktop Search
* Sidebar
* New driver model (including DX10)
* Protected-Mode IE
* BitLocker Drive Encryption
* Smart cards to store Encrypting File System
etc.
Actually, to be honest, there is no **REAL** reason to upgrade to the new Linuz kernel either, or to get the new OS X Felis Domesticus for some houndred bucks whatever the bloat they decide to add, and so on. people will upgrade if
* They just get a new computer
* They just (like me) are willing to upgrade (I'll get Vista the day it gets out)
* They will have the need to upgrade to run new specific stuff
Well, how is that news? Many people think that it is a myth that MS products "are more buggy" because they are the most used. Well, that's NOT a myth. For starters,
1)being the most used OS ibn the world gives you the bonus of the publicity. If you do something bad or have some pretty terrble bugs, half the planet will know about it. If apple have terrible bugs their 3 and a half users will know about it. And that's all.
2) The bonus of the (in)simpathy. being the most used (and missused) OS in the worls affects the simpathy the user have for that products. Using MacOS or Linux makes you "cool" and "underground" so Windows will get that extra bashing.
3)An OS is a TERRIBLY complex thing, and you ***will*** have bugs. There is only a matter of time.
4)Everybody and their cats program (pr missprogram) for Windows. When a 6 years old boy begins programming, do you think they will program for Huniacs mainfrains or for Windows? Thus there will be more "hackers", "crackers", etc for the main OS.
If you want to maliciausly explote an OS to make Major damage/profit, do you want to target millions of Windows users or the 3 and a half Mac users?
How is it different from the "real life"? You are what you dress. You are what you consume. You are what you friends are. Unfortunatly in these days for many people you exist only in the eyes of the others. When other people stop looking and "admiring" you, you don't exist anymore.
So you are buying a new car today yop say? Do you **really** need it?
Unfortunatly, better tagging is not a guarantee that things will go better with baggage. Growing passenger numbers and improved security procedures are the main factors fuelling estimated annual losses of one billion US dollars for the world's airlines in missing and mishandled baggage.
In almost all cases, baggage IS correcty tagged, but it's as always the human factor which fails to function correctly. Because all security restrictions, the baggage is now in many cases manually examined and the volume of the baggage traffic and personal stress are still the main causes for missing or damaged baggage.
I would say that criminal hackers (those that make A LOT of profit using their talents for the dark)are (and always were) a minory. Most of the so called "hackers" are just people of all ages like you and me, that are just having the internet as a playground.
The last game movie I saw was Doom and the only similarity was the name, I guess. The greatness of a game is that you can be the hero, you can interact, make good or bad moves, die, cheat... In a movie.. all that is GONE. You are just seeing somebody else play for you. Boring.
A simulation will always be a simulation. It seldom comes close to the original. You need just to choose how close you can/want come.
In games, this difference between reality and simulation is often dictated by the fun factor. I mean how fun it will be drving a car simulator and if you crash you will need to repair the car yourself after staying 3 weeks in hospital. Not fun at all, so you simulate a crash and... start again with a new one.
Making a project Free and/or Open Source doesn't automatically makes it better no matter what some zealots may say. In this case, a MMORPG project may or may not be suitable to such a change. The advantage of MMORPGs in the form that we all know is that one or several servers are run by an entity/company by its rules and the server rules are stricytly controlled by them.
Open Source almost always equalös division and we will see millions of variations of modifications that will be incompatible with each other and that will bring down the quality of the game.
Slashdot Mirror
* Singularity OS
* Socio-Digital systems
* Digital geographics
* Natural Language Processing
The good: Good controller design. Has a major nostalgia appeal. Compatible with all (?) GameCube games
The bad: Controller eats batteries. Lacks the advanced HD graphics and surround sound found on the Xbox 360 and the PS3
The uggly: It's lights years behind 360 and PS3 in multimedia features and graphics.
Secondly, the power and use of on-line purchase is growing. Google, and other search engines for that matter, have more power to influence the selection, availability and immediacy of purchases in the way it sets the so-called algorithms for prioritising and selection of websites, bringing distinct commercial advantage to some and disadvantage to others. Much of that will invariably be determined by the commercial power of advertising revenues. This could trigger investigation by Competition Authorities.
Call them the hyper-rich.
While most economists recognize that the richest are pulling away, they disagree on what this means. Those who contend that the extraordinary accumulation of wealth is a good thing say that while the rich are indeed getting richer, so are most people who work hard and save. They say that the tax cuts encourage the investment and the innovation that will make everyone better off.
Back in the cold war times, secret services agencies had hundred of peoples reading ad analyzing every number of the must important publications in the world, searching for clues and disguised information. I guess the same can be applied now for the web, with the advantage that it's a lot easier to search the web and classify information using database filters than it was back then.
This must be the most informative /. post. Ever.
Climate is an always-changing parameter, and it's difficult to say if the actual climate is abnormal or if it just is between the normal parameters, seeing it in a long period of thousands of years. This is because we have so little *rigurous* information about how the exact temperatures, etc were 400 years ago in some point of the map.
That said, it's imposible for us to know if the earth experimented the same changes than today many years ago. On the other hand, there is no doubd about the destructive action of the human hand in the climate, so where is the truth? Of course, the media will always prefer the apocalyptical view, because it sells best.
In my maybe subjective opinion, if there is one company I would fear in the patent and legal feald, this is not MS, nor Sun nor IBM , but Apple. Apple's legal hounds are legendary by their actions going after even individual users for such small things like "making a MacOS theme for Windows XP", or such things. What could they do for such things like a billion dollar patent... I'm scared.
The problem with those "standards" is that today this may be enough for all, but maybe tomorrow there will arise tasks for which the standards will not be good enough, or you will need to use many hacks to try to fit to the standards. Or you may need to way for the ENORMOUS burocraty that rules those standard and hope that they will break the inertial resistance to the change soon enough. Propietary solutions are much more dynamic and flexible.... But hey, I'm not politically correct..so...
You mean like Discovery? Or Challenger?
1) This is a project in MS lab that has been kind of limited
2) People don't like to talk about MS making things better
3) Soon yuu will see Google adding this feature as well. THEN, you will read about this and average Joe will tell you how Google innovates and MS catchs up [bg]
They are not "pushing". It's just an advertisement. I have seen worse, for example all those Firefox evangelistic campaigns like: "Make history with Firefox", "Rediscovery the web with Firefox", "Add a Firefox button to your web", "Firefox in your email signature", "Firefox site prefeared" . Hell I've even seen a "Screw IE" button once on some "respected" site
Nothing different from this "Firefox protects you" official Google site: http://www.google.com/firefox
Fair enough. Nothing to see here, folks [bg]
The system hasn't been out a mounth. There is an initial inertia to any change. Give it some time. Or yoyu thing any company using Linux have already updated to 2.6.19 ? Or should we say that companies 'BLAH' about it as well.
I work at a large university in sweden.In february we will upgrade about 3000 machines to Vista. It's a question aout budget and timing, between many reasons.
Well, if you add Spotlight and Dashboard to your list and consider it a worth upgrade then I consider the following to be worth an upgrade too:
*Windows Aero
* Shell stacks
* Breadcrumbs view
* Per-user UI language
* Desktop Search
* Sidebar
* New driver model (including DX10)
* Protected-Mode IE
* BitLocker Drive Encryption
* Smart cards to store Encrypting File System etc.
* They just get a new computer
* They just (like me) are willing to upgrade (I'll get Vista the day it gets out)
* They will have the need to upgrade to run new specific stuff
* Or just because.
98 % of the slashdotters answered in some poll that they won't buy it. So the question is: who's buying then?
1)being the most used OS ibn the world gives you the bonus of the publicity. If you do something bad or have some pretty terrble bugs, half the planet will know about it. If apple have terrible bugs their 3 and a half users will know about it. And that's all.
2) The bonus of the (in)simpathy. being the most used (and missused) OS in the worls affects the simpathy the user have for that products. Using MacOS or Linux makes you "cool" and "underground" so Windows will get that extra bashing.
3)An OS is a TERRIBLY complex thing, and you ***will*** have bugs. There is only a matter of time.
4)Everybody and their cats program (pr missprogram) for Windows. When a 6 years old boy begins programming, do you think they will program for Huniacs mainfrains or for Windows? Thus there will be more "hackers", "crackers", etc for the main OS.
If you want to maliciausly explote an OS to make Major damage/profit, do you want to target millions of Windows users or the 3 and a half Mac users?
How is it different from the "real life"? You are what you dress. You are what you consume. You are what you friends are. Unfortunatly in these days for many people you exist only in the eyes of the others. When other people stop looking and "admiring" you, you don't exist anymore.
So you are buying a new car today yop say? Do you **really** need it?
Unfortunatly, better tagging is not a guarantee that things will go better with baggage. Growing passenger numbers and improved security procedures are the main factors fuelling estimated annual losses of one billion US dollars for the world's airlines in missing and mishandled baggage.
In almost all cases, baggage IS correcty tagged, but it's as always the human factor which fails to function correctly. Because all security restrictions, the baggage is now in many cases manually examined and the volume of the baggage traffic and personal stress are still the main causes for missing or damaged baggage.
I would say that criminal hackers (those that make A LOT of profit using their talents for the dark)are (and always were) a minory. Most of the so called "hackers" are just people of all ages like you and me, that are just having the internet as a playground.
The last game movie I saw was Doom and the only similarity was the name, I guess. The greatness of a game is that you can be the hero, you can interact, make good or bad moves, die, cheat... In a movie.. all that is GONE. You are just seeing somebody else play for you. Boring.
A simulation will always be a simulation. It seldom comes close to the original. You need just to choose how close you can/want come.
In games, this difference between reality and simulation is often dictated by the fun factor. I mean how fun it will be drving a car simulator and if you crash you will need to repair the car yourself after staying 3 weeks in hospital. Not fun at all, so you simulate a crash and... start again with a new one.
And why did you expect it to be the other way? Because the two letters prefix? Biased.
Making a project Free and/or Open Source doesn't automatically makes it better no matter what some zealots may say. In this case, a MMORPG project may or may not be suitable to such a change. The advantage of MMORPGs in the form that we all know is that one or several servers are run by an entity/company by its rules and the server rules are stricytly controlled by them.
Open Source almost always equalös division and we will see millions of variations of modifications that will be incompatible with each other and that will bring down the quality of the game.