This begs the question, if Google already had an app out, who did it first?
Obviously the patent process takes years.
It's not as if broadcasting your location is something new or innovative coming from Google. For example, Helio had Buddy Beacon back in 2006, which allowed you to find your friends.
Or does Unite provide a way to find the content that other people have put up? I don't understand what market Opera is trying to target here. Anyone with the where-with-all to setup their own web server and the associated DNS host records and the like has probably already done so. The OP bashes on Facebook, but Facebook (and Myspace and whatever the other sites are) offers the person an ability to tell someone else, "Look me up on Facebook. My name is..." Does Unite offer the equivalent capability?
I think the idea is more to host your own stuff, such as your pictures or some other small app like the Fridge notes without having to muck around with DNS and servers and pasting the link to your friends over IM. That way you can tell your friends to leave you at note at an URL like http://macbook-win7.jfim.operaunite.com/fridge/ instead of having to sign up for yet another service for only one simple app.
It seems to me that the large majority of what people want to share online isn't their own content, but content that they come across. Facebook is the perfect example. It seems to be filled with links to YouTube, links to other webpages, and blogs and whatever else any particular person finds interesting and wants to share with their friends. Very rarely do the large majority of people want to share content that is uniquely theirs. The one big exception that I can think of is music. Myspace seems to have the lion's share of that market. And on the subject of music, who wants to eat the bandwidth costs of serving up music from their own computer when a site like Myspace, or YouTube or listentomymusicyo.com will do it for you, for free?
I don't think the purpose is to replace any serious hosting proposal, it's more of a share with a handful of friends thing.
So what I'm basically saying is that *I* should be the one controlling my content, not some other site or cloud service. Unite makes that easy for people.
On the other hand, it means that content on Unite is ephemeral and subject to the vagaries of hosting everything on one's computer(such as the information only being available while the PC is powered on and Opera is running, not 24x7). Also, does the app data stored on a computer running Unite survive a reinstall, which tends to happen often on Windows machines?
.. at the moment the difference in sales is due to market segmentation based on who is buying each type of phone?
If you are a trendy game player you are buying the iPhone and games for it, but if you are an Android user you care less for games and more about being "free" ??
Actually, there are two big differences between the Android market and the iPhone app store, business wise: there are less Android phones out there than iPhones and iPod Touches and the Android Market does not have paid apps available in every country, including Canada, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, South Korea, China, Brazil, India and Russia.
For violent criminals I have none and would prefer that they all be locked in solitary and dosed heavily with Prozac for the duration of their stay. Allowing them to form ANY sort of social group or interact with their buddies outside is the reason we have gangs, gang culture and all the crap that goes with it. If we can't decide to kill them, we should at least neutralize them.
I'm sure they'll be very well adjusted to interact normally with society when they come out of prison too! Or perhaps we should treat them as human beings and try to help them become more productive members of society.
A TV is a stationary device.
But cellphones, laptops, PDAs and vibrators aren't. They just demo'ed it with a TV because while the others have batteries but TVs typically don't.
The difference between doctors and lawyers vs coders is portability. Computer code is not strongly tied to geography (duh
While it is true that computer code isn't tied to a particular geographical area, outsourcing comes with its share of problems which usually don't make it a very interesting proposition, at least for short term projects. For example, this article on CIO illustrates some of the costs which are frequently overlooked when outsourcing.
I do believe, however, that the perception that "it's cheaper to do it overseas" does put a downwards pressure on wages.
POS as in Piece Of Shit?
Point of Sale, also known as a cash register.
If they start adding Google-specific stuff to their Javascript engine (say, a fast and easy API to access Google Apps implemented directly in the engine) and encouraging people to use it, then I'll start to be suspicious. Because that's sneaking into the "Extend" part, and the next phase would be to drop support in other browsers for their plugin and only offer the "special sauce 2.0" in Chrome.
But, at the moment, they are making a standards-compliant Javascript engine and offering versions of it for various web browsers, yes?
Crucially, they don't have a development toolkit that builds Javascript that can ONLY be run on "Frame", right? If you see that, then it's the First Sign. Then, and only then, would it be time to start stockpiling food and ammo to survive the potential upcoming Javascript Apocalypse.
You mean like Gears?
microsoft not only has dominance on the desktop & laptops, they also have damn near 100% market share in the EVIL department too.
Big tobacco, the oil industry, the RIAA and SCO would like to see your statistics and buy more of where they come from.
"Help Mr. Wizard!" -- Tennessee Tuxedo
