Comment: Re:"a number of user interface designers" (Score 1) 484
I know you said you tried right clicking but you obviously didn't. If you actually had you would've seen the "Move to trash" option.
Comment: Re:Apple is the white looter (Score 1) 257
The reality is that Apple wasn't "inspired" by Sony designs. They'd already started down that design path months before Sony:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/30/apple_strikes_back_at_samsung_with_2005_iphone_prototype_design.html
Comment: Re:Popular? (Score 2) 414
No, he's not out of touch. Defining popular as something that's "liked by people that like it" now that's out of touch (but it's probably the only way most /. readers made it through high school).
Comment: Re:Experiment then refinement... (Score 2) 363
Who cares if Windows 8 is a dog. Vista was a dog and it led directly to 7. Give some credit to a company that could sit on it's old style of business like IBM in the late 70's, but instead challenges itself with products which can fail and are interesting and different.
Microsoft cares if Windows 8 is a dog. They're betting the farm on this release. They desperately need this to work as a gateway to the mobile space, an area they're hopelessly behind in, and they don't have another couple of years to get it right.
Apple's actually made a number of very significant improvements to OS X over the last 10 years but they also recognized the UI paradigm is fundamentally sound for the desktop space so there's no reason to make radical changes. Of course they also realize that an OS is not a one-size-fits-all product.
Comment: Re:Windows 8 and OSx Lion both suck... (Score 1) 630
I'm curious how Lion is similar to a phone/tablet interface (or Windows 8 for that matter)? Sure there's elements that may borrow from or have roots in iOS (the App store, full screen mode, some gestures) but they're all optional. Don't want to use Launchpad? Then don't. Don't like to run apps full screen? Then don't. Have a Mighty Mouse but aren't into gestures? Then turn them off. And if you really want to get as far away from iOS as possible just use the terminal. Better yet run it in full screen mode so all you have is text on the screen. Oh the irony.
Comment: Unless you believe this "growing body of evidence" (Score 2) 277
Amazing how, in the space of three days, two studies were released with essentially opposite conclusions:
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2012/02/sleep_research_alzheimers.php
Not speaking to the veracity of either "body of evidence" just making an observation.
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2012/02/sleep_research_alzheimers.php
Not speaking to the veracity of either "body of evidence" just making an observation.
+ - 10 Tech Products Which Came Too Late
Submitted
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adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes "There's fashionably late, and then there's tragically late. Plenty of perfectly good technology has perished merely because it was late to the party and ended up coming off as a copycat product. PCMag rounds up ten tech products from Digital Compact Cassette to Netbooks which just didn’t survive the market because of their poor timing. Beware, this is a slideshow."
Comment: You mean like that... (Score 2) 98
...computer/GPS/music library/reality augmenter/camera (stills and video)/video player/game machine/ebook reader/web browser/storage device that allows me to communicate with virtually anyone anywhere at anytime and fits in the palm of my hand? Or is this cooler because you can wear it?
Comment: Re:content (Score 1) 535
I keep hearing this argument whenever the failures of the current 3D wave are discussed. The reality is that 3D has been touted as the next big thing for the last 60 years and it's never amounted to more then a passing fad. Our entertainment overlords have had 6 decades to figure out how to make 3D compelling and more then a gimmick and they've always failed. Unlike color which the studios embraced once they discovered it actually added to the telling of a story, 3D has never amounted to much more then a way to separate the uninitiated from their hard earned cash. Maybe (and this is a big maybe) when it gets to the point where glasses aren't required and there's no additional production costs or viewing premiums it'll catch on but until then I predict once a generation it'll pop up and quickly fade into the background like...well, like a bad 3D effect.
Comment: Re:here are the numbers (Score 1) 367
Two things. First, the article you cite is 4 years old. I'm not saying I have better numbers but I'm sure newer numbers are out there and they may tell a different story. Second, I work for a good sized scientific and engineering society which has a number of Apple employees as both authors and conference organizers so your assertion that their "... research output ... is non-existent" is a bit of stretch.
Comment: Re:Penny Arcade called it (Score 1) 587
2. The message is oddly mixed regarding Microsoft itself. The idea is that there's some new stuff on the horizon that will solve all the problems the current stuff has. Why pay to advertise that your current stuff has problems?
Maybe you should ask the John McCain
+ - Report: NBC wanted a cut of iPod revenue->
Submitted
by
mytrip
mytrip writes "I will say this: NBC's Jeff Zucker has got serious stones.
According to a report in the venerable entertainment industry trade rag Variety, Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue as part of the failed negotiations between the two companies over a contract extension for the right to sell NBC's shows on iTunes. (Thanks, Valleywag.) If that's true, wow.
A source familiar with NBC Universal's negotiations confirmed that the company asked for a slice of iPod revenue but only after Apple refused to budge on variable pricing.
"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," Zucker reportedly told The New Yorker's Ken Auletta during a benefit for former football powerhouse Syracuse University. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.""
Link to Original Source
According to a report in the venerable entertainment industry trade rag Variety, Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue as part of the failed negotiations between the two companies over a contract extension for the right to sell NBC's shows on iTunes. (Thanks, Valleywag.) If that's true, wow.
A source familiar with NBC Universal's negotiations confirmed that the company asked for a slice of iPod revenue but only after Apple refused to budge on variable pricing.
"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," Zucker reportedly told The New Yorker's Ken Auletta during a benefit for former football powerhouse Syracuse University. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.""
Link to Original Source
+ - NBC Chief, "Apple 'destroyed' music pricing-> 1
Submitted
by
Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "With the most colorful description yet, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Sunday urged colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don't take control, they'll do the same thing on the video side,""
Link to Original Source
"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don't take control, they'll do the same thing on the video side,""
Link to Original Source
+ - OS X Leopard firewall flawed 1
Submitted
by
cycoj
cycoj writes "German IT magazine Heise takes a look at the new OS X Leopard firewall. They find it flawed. When setting access to specific services and programs for example to only allow SSH access, they found that a manually started service was still accessible. From the article:
"So the first step after starting Leopard should be to activate the firewall. The obvious choice to do so is the option to "Set access to specific services and programs", which promises more control over network traffic. Mac OS X automatically enters all shared resources set up by the user, such as "Remote login" for SSH servers, into the list of accessable resources.
However, initial functional testing quickly dispels any feeling of improved security. A service started for testing purposes was able to be addressed from outside without any difficulty. The firewall records this occurrence."
Even with the firewall set to "Block all incoming connections" ports to netbios, ntp and other services were still open.
"Specifically these results mean that users can't rely on the firewall. Even if users select "Block all incoming connections," potential attackers can continue to communicate with system services such as the time server and possibly with the NetBIOS name server.""
"So the first step after starting Leopard should be to activate the firewall. The obvious choice to do so is the option to "Set access to specific services and programs", which promises more control over network traffic. Mac OS X automatically enters all shared resources set up by the user, such as "Remote login" for SSH servers, into the list of accessable resources.
However, initial functional testing quickly dispels any feeling of improved security. A service started for testing purposes was able to be addressed from outside without any difficulty. The firewall records this occurrence."
Even with the firewall set to "Block all incoming connections" ports to netbios, ntp and other services were still open.
"Specifically these results mean that users can't rely on the firewall. Even if users select "Block all incoming connections," potential attackers can continue to communicate with system services such as the time server and possibly with the NetBIOS name server.""
+ - Ars Technica's Review of Mac OS X Leopard->
Submitted
by
LKM
LKM writes "This is it. The one you've been waiting for. The definitive Review of Mac OS X Leopard. John Gruber writes about the review: "Six major releases of Mac OS X. Six times, the same guy has written the best review." The guy's name is John Siracusa, and the review can be found over at Ars Technica. Quote from the part about improvements to the Mac OS X file system:
Link to Original Source
"With the addition of a public API for asynchronous file system notifications, Mac OS X has finally achieved feature parity with BeOS in all major areas of file system technology. There were compromises along the way, but also many advances. BeOS never had a persistent log of file system events, nor did it provide metadata indexing on non-BFS volumes. Leopard provides that and more (Spotlight can actually search across servers now too), all with a collection of extremely conventional userspace libraries and daemons running on top of only the barest few kernel hooks.
It's often seemed as if Apple has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future of file system technology, but at least it has finally come around. Yes, there have been bumps in the road, and things surely have not turned out exactly the way I expected them to. But in the end, it's the results that count."
If you're only going to R one FA this year, make it this one."It's often seemed as if Apple has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future of file system technology, but at least it has finally come around. Yes, there have been bumps in the road, and things surely have not turned out exactly the way I expected them to. But in the end, it's the results that count."
Link to Original Source