Strongly agree, actually. I can't ever seem to get fewer than 50 tabs in my browsers, so, must keep alternate browsers installed, to be usable while gaming. However I would say that, most days, Alt-Tab is preferable to things I already know (such as my current workload's constituents) wasting screen space. Everything should be optional in everything, otherwise someone who is right, is going to get screwed.

I'm just saying that if the Start button could optionally make the whole taskbar fade into view without too much shuffle, as an option alongside "Auto Hide" and "Always On Top" that tiny change would virtually obsolesce Metro and Gnome 3. Iterative improvements have barely been tried, instead they just keep hiring an art team for a weekend and calling that "revolutionary UI reimagining."

Question assumes that since we don't want Gnome 3 or Windows 8, we must be opposed to change. {Sarcasm tone=thick}Yup, that's Linux users all day. Totally. {/Sarcasm} No, Gnome 3 and Windows 8 just got it wrong and shoved it down our throats.

I think the only real difference over time, re: your question, is this: once upon a time, it was a race to test the waters with ideas and alternatives, a race to refine a range of UX choices. Most of them imitated something else, a few didn't. Most of those alternatives are still popular. In fact, XFCE is (I believe) still gaining popularity. It's too soon to declare hegemony.

I wonder constantly why "always on top", "auto-hide", and "click to hide" are our three main options for dealing with taskbars. With the possible exception of the clock and recent notifications, everything but the guts of the apps you are currently actively using, are a huge waste of screen space when they aren't being used. Just because Gnome 3 and Win 8 happen to agree with me on that point, doesn't make them any good.

It's also telling that Windows 8 is all but being recalled. Microsoft didn't ask users what they wanted, changed everything, and claimed it was based on what users wanted. Gnome 3 and Windows 8 both did this. Both can burn in obscurity for that single crime alone.

You don't unilaterally change the lives of hundreds of millions of productive people, and expect good results. A nextgen UI paradigm may need to wait for nextgen I/O devices, but it might instead just try iterative feedback instead of testing our gag reflex.

You are the reason for my new sig.

+1 parent informative. IMO.

...all those stories about the death of the PC were not just bullshit, but harmful bullshit.

Step 1: Create the illusion of digital scarcity
Step 2: Market to rich non-geeks who expect a cell phone's obsolescence timeline
Step 3: Pretend "ooOooooh, well now THESE chips are `SPENSIVE."

Software makers will be milking more and more speed out of quad-core CPUs for the next 15+ years anyway. The industry did this to themselves by squabbling over IP and taking a slash-and-burn approach to manufacturing quality. We (well, you, not me) helped by mindlessly repeating "zomg the PC is dead" for the past several years.

And if it's possible that there's a criminal negligence case against your boss, pursue it proactively. Throw the whole company under the bus.

It's either the company, or the users.

...breeds bullshit stories.

Yet another one, Slashdot. Yet another pile of bullshit posing as news to inflame us and get people commenting.

Someone needs to do number crunching on how much grant/tax/loan money is wasted on thumb-up-the-ass research like this every year.

I sincerely want to see anyone whose job is paid for with tax dollars, and who approves/does a report like this, fired and publicly shamed.

The fucking zombies are the people who can't stop thinking about fucking zombies.

...needs a special World Generation Seed in commemoration of this story ;)

"...anachronism of the now defunct 90s PC era, a pre-web program written at a time when NT Server terrorized the data center landscape with the confidence of a T-Rex born to yuppie dinosaur parents who fully bought into the illusion of their son's utter uniqueness because the big-mouthed, tiny-armed monster infant could mimic the gestures of The Itsy-Bitsy Pterodactyl."

Behold, the rantings of a crazy person.

Also, lol, someone at Yahoo thinks they're relevant. It's not cute anymore.

"anachronism of the now defunct 90s PC era" should be Yahoo's new slogan. Projecting much?

As a recovering MMO addict, my answer to this:

> What else would you recommend looking at?

The outdoors, and members of your preferred sex. And maybe that hobby you could have turned into a career if you'd spent any time on it.

Yknow, you guys don't have to post these things as ACs. Show some stomp, put it in your dang sig :)

Entitlement at its finest.

How dare they put hard work, money, legal processes, and their own liability on the line in hopes of PAYMENT?!?

It's as if the whole human race needed food and shelter and charged MONEY for those things!

But hey, it's another chance to point out that I don't know why timothy still has this job.

The good news is, the more they repeat the crime, the worse it looks in court.

Well, we can certainly hope that BP is going to pay for this.