True enough.

PPI is a meaningless stat. An inch 11' feet away (my TV) is not the same as an inch 3' away (my PC monitors), is not the same as an inch 12" away (rougly where I usually hold my phone.)

pixels per degree (of field of view) is what matters. This is why a phone needs hundreds of PPI while a movier theatre 40 feet away needs a fraction of that to look just as good. The human eye only has so many receptors after all.

There is some debate on just how many pixels per degree the human eye can discern, and there are things like moire patterns and aliasing show that humans can detect "artifacts" in motion even when the actual resolution is sufficient for a still image. But whatever we come to agree the maximums of human eyesight are, it will be the case that we will need more PPI in a phone than a monitor, and in a monitor than a TV.

Like I said, I think long term 8k and beyond is going to happen and desireable. But today, the price premium and performance hit to driving that many pixels just isn't justifiable.

Rather defeating the point of the investment.

Thanks, although that's a use case for something that needs extremely high resolution its not a use case for that high of a resolution on an imac screen. Unless I sit 1.5 inches from it.

I agree, and I misused the term.

That said, 2k *is* a real thing. Its a cinema / projector standard (usually around 2048x1536)

And cinema 4k is 4096 x 2160; whereas monitor resolution 4k is 3840x2160 -- which comes up a bit short. Cinema 4k refers to horizontal reslution being 4k (4096) vs it being 4x as many pixels as 1080p (1920x1080).

So yeah... I definitely abused the nomenclature; and I'll avoid calling 2560x1440 "2k" going forward as you are right... But its not like I started it. Nomenclature for resoultion standards is a godawful MESS.

Agreed. I ended up getting 2k monitors this time around; (2560x1440) because good 4k screens tended to be slower (refresh rate), much more expensive, and put more demand on the video card).

Admittedly technology doesn't stand still, and I might have bought a 4k screen if I were shopping TODAY. Prices have come down, refresh rates over 30Hz aren't hard to find on affordable units, etc.

Or maybe not...they still push the video card a lot harder, and I'm happy with my 2k screens. They are great for programming, and working with PDFs, etc. 4k honestly doesn't look better to me; there is virtually no 4k content at all, games don't benefit from it... the consoles barely drive 1080p; and I need a pretty solid card to run my 2k screens in games. And shrinking the text down and getting 4x as much on the screen wouldn't be readable to me anyway so that's not a plus. So even 4k, as the parent said, is overkill for most things.

8k ... what's the point? Do I want one? Sure I do. And a pair of GTX titans to drive it too. But need one? Or have any use case that even sort of validates having one? Nope. I don't. And I'm curious what one would even look like.

I guess at the end of the day, I'm glad it exists because it'll continue to push the hardware advance, and prices will come down.. and maybe one day I'll be able to buy a 100" 4k TV for cheap because the 150" 8k 3D TVs will be "the premium" model.

Belief in a goal and the ability to realize that goal are two completely different things. Apple has the power to influence Indiana. Apple does not have the power to influence other countries without risking financial destruction in that country, as Google had unfortunately demonstrated in China.

The statement is obviously bullshit, but the question then is, "What is the real reason?"

Possibilities include:
1. Everyone is buying Windows Kinect because it's fun to hack around with, but very little of that is translating into stuff they can make money from. Kinda like the way Sony removed Linux support from the PS3 because people were buying PS3s, putting Linux on them, and then not buying games.
2. Some Microsoft exec saw how Apple is outshining everyone else, and people are continuing to buy Apple stuff despite them restricting all their products, and thought that Microsoft needs to get in on that action.
3. The different products are actually virtually equivalent except for the adapter, so it doesn't make sense to have two different lines. But if that was true, why wouldn't they just come out and say that? (Note, this isn't mutually exclusive from #2)
4. Some other reason I can't think of?

You'd be surprised by how stingy people can be over stuff, and the lengths they will go to combat a percieved threat.

Hell, the whole War on Pot was started by the cotton industry because of the threat that hemp imposed.

Heh; my favorite is probably:

https://www.lingscars.com/

Take in the pure awesome of that website design... and then view the source code. :)

Its pretty much impossible to sign up for, or do anything online at all online without an email address.

You could live without an email address, but you'd pretty much be giving up doing anything more than passively viewing the internet to do it.

Tell them you never saw the need. That your close friends and family don't use it much so you never bothered.... Although your sister has one and all does is plays are silly games and gossips all day and you really don't have any time or interest in that.

Then deflect the idea that you are somehow superior to people who do have facebook accounts by just discussing something you ARE active in.

The key is to appear "normal but without a facebook account" rather than "secretive or condescending".

Once you've leapt over that hurdle, you can talk about privacy harvesting, the study showing that facebook corresponds with lower levels of happiness, the estimated $30 billion in the US alone in lost productivity due to time wasted on facebook, the risks of oversharing and that anything on the internet is public and forevor, and then joke about the absurdity of voluntarily "joining an advertising company".

By the end of most conversations I have with people about facebook they don't think I'm suspicious or condescending or weird. I haven't sold them them on closing their account and I always concede that facebook has its uses and agree that its great for keeping in touch with friends and family abroad... although I already use X,Y,Z for that myself (steam, skype, facetime... whatever...).

I can't tell if these people are just blustering and trying to save face, or if they are actually really so stupid and morally bankrupt that they don't see fraud as bad.

So... Basically the plot of the Big Lebowski ?

If I were running /. I'd have the editorial integrity not to.

OS/2 failed because:

It was more expensive.
It had higher hardware requirements.
It wasn't as compatible with existing software especially with DOS games.
It wasn't as compatible with 3rd party hardware.

I don't think the advertising had much to do with it at all.

"Apple does the same thing with their products they are trying to push."

um... maybe sometimes... but many signature apple commercials and ads do not show the product:

You might remember a few years of these?
https://www.youtube.com/result...

Or maybe these ipod commercials? from 2004 to 2008
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Oh that's all ancient history. You meant something recent right?

Like 2015. Look at how easy it is to use, and all the new features:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I'd say reality doesn't really sync up with your argument here.