TVs are a commodity too, but that doesn't mean that there aren't people that heavily research before buying one. Sure, there are people that go into a store and get whatever looks good and is on sale (the vast majority, I'd wager), but most people have been doing that for years with computers too. This is the difference between an enthusiast and a layperson, and the former is not going away anytime soon.
Outlook Express.
Outlook Express has been my favorite mail client for quite awhile (though I've been using Outlook 2010 for awhile and the conversation view is growing on me). In fact, I always found the UI rather simple and straightforward - what are the evil parts of the interface you're referring to?
I hope the phone company has deep pockets, because the phone book is full of first and last names and, last time I checked, it was totally unencrypted!
This happened to me recently with B of A. I live in FL, and someone used my card in NJ. Bank of America shut my card off right after it happened, sent me an email, text message, and gave me a phone call letting me know they'd detected fraud. When I called them back, they gave me the option to turn the card back on (in case I'd jumped on a plane to NJ) or initiate a fraud investigation.
I think the fraud algorithm they use is pretty good, they found it right away. Fortunately it was only a $4.80 "test" charge. But they prevented any more money from coming out, and got the 4.80 back to me within 48 business hours.
Yeah, I use CIBC (Canadian) and they seem to take similar measures. There have been probably half a dozen times over just as many years where they have temporarily disabled my card and immediately called me due to suspicious activity. In each of these case, it was (thankfully) a false positive due to me traveling at the time, but it is somewhat reassuring to know that something is watching, just in case.
Thankfully, you can also call to let them beforehand that you are out of the country so you can hopefully avoid the card being disabled when you try to pay for dinner in that fancy restaurant.
Now all we need is to hook this in to the camera networks that already exist in a lot of cities.
Seriously, it solves the "who watches the watchers" problem and adds heaps of interest. Real time public video feeds.
How does becoming a 'watcher' solve the 'who watches the watchers' problem? The real problem with ubiquitous surveillance is not that they were observing you, but what they are doing with the information they glean from that.
Well, here's a screenshot. I guess it's possible that it's different because I'm Canadian, though it does imply it's not limiting results based on that.
Someone should tell Medhi that it also helps when you don't game the search results to fit your corporate agenda.
From time to time, I try out the following query on Bing: "Why is Windows so expensive?"
The day that the first result returned is NOT a site about Macs being expensive is the day I'll start to take Bing seriously. Until then, I'm sticking with Google, which is at least honest enough to properly index anti-Google queries.
So, today? I just tried that search and the Macs article is number 9 on the first set of results. The first article is basically about what you would expect from this search (http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/98741.html) and the second is a story about what you were just describing (http://www.quickpwn.com/2009/08/why-is-windows-so-expensive.html).
Seriously, though, why would you make claims like this without verifying before posting? Oh yeah - Slashdot.
Company releases an inferior product, much later to the game than competition, makes excuses for failure, water still wet.
Have you ever used it? In my usage, it performs about as well as Google - in some cases, better. Despite this, I still use Google. Why? Like Windows, Google's market share at this point doesn't have that much to do with its quality, it has more to do with being synonymous with what it is used for. However, unlike Windows, I don't see anything on the horizon that is likely to dethrone it anytime soon.
I mostly share your perspective, but I must admit from a business point of view it made perfect business sense for Microsoft to drag their heels for as long as they basically had a monopoly on the web browser market. Why should a company with 90+% share support standards? There's no real advantage to them - all implementing better standards support would do is make it less painful for users to try another browser.
Close, but you're missing the point that, at 90+% market share, you are the standard.
That would depend on whether you are prepared to recognize the sovereignty of totalitiarian dictatorships that torture and murder their own people. Dictators (and their cronies) have no right to say what may happen in their own country, let alone anyone else's. They lose those rights the moment they seize power. All Microsoft is doing is helping the Chinse dictatorship to oppress their own people. For the religious amongst us, think Judas and the money.
Unlike the USA which only tortures and murders the people of other countries (mostly)? I'm sorry, but after engaging in torture itself, the USA has kind of lost it's moral high ground.
Whoever wrote that claim made it way too specific, and easy to work around it.
You mean how all patents are supposed to be very specific?
If a robber points a gun at a child and tells you to hand over all your money, and you refuse, and the child gets shot, you are NOT responsible for the child's death. That would be ridiculous, and would essentially give criminals legal force. The robber alone is responsible.
Pragmatically, this might cause trouble for Hong Kong, but morally, Google's in the right here.
Sure, you might not be legally responsible, but not feeling morally responsible would be inhuman.
Microsoft is not going to run a BES.
It may come as a surprise, but you're actually wrong there http://www.microsoft.com/online/mobility/blackberry.mspx.
Also, I'm surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned that obvious reason for iPhone use in Microsoft. This is a company filled with tech geeks and the iPhone is one of the most iconic gadgets of the past couple of years. I would be surprised if a healthy chunk of employees didn't have one.
Secondly, Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander and C&C/Red Alert. There are RTS games but solely focused on small unit skirmishes and resource management, where development speed is core to winning each game... in which case, why in hell do I want (or even need) to mess around with zooming in and twiddling camera views? Just give me a single isometric view with sprite graphics...
I'm sorry, but if you don't find the zooming in Supreme Commander amazing, you're doing it wrong. That was probably the most amazing feature of that game and makes every other RTS out there frustrating to play.
We warn the reader in advance that the proof presented here depends on a clever but highly unmotivated trick. -- Howard Anton, "Elementary Linear Algebra"
