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Comment Re:$1.3 BILLION product sales = failure for Apple? (Score 4, Interesting) 57

Experience only matters if you make a new version. Otherwise the experience has no value. The patents are only useful if enforcable, and if they provide defensive value against companies they don't already have defense against, orif the category becomes big enough to leverage against others who do succeed. Seeing as they shut down production, it's unlikely they will create a new version anytime soon. There's not enough demand. They have an extensive patent portfolio, so the defensive value is questionable. The offensive value is also negligible, as they're unlikely to get much out of it given the lack of success in the category. So no, not a good return.

Comment Re:Woah (Score 4, Insightful) 57

Its useless. It doesn't do anything anyone needs or wants. Which is why VR headsets have failed in the market repeatedly, and at much cheaper pricepoints. That's why it's not a fantastic value- it's no better than existing tech, it doesn't solve a problem, nobody wants the category, and it's priced at nearly 10x the competition. On every front it's the exact opposite of value.

Comment Re:$1.3 BILLION product sales = failure for Apple? (Score 4, Insightful) 57

WHat were there expectations? If they were much higher, then it's a disappointment. If it was inline, then it isn't. How much did they spend in R&D on the device? Again, if it was a net loss, it's a disappointment. If it was a profit, it might not be. (A loss might also be ok if it launches a category that becomes successful, but this doesn't seem to be the case here).

Given that they shut down manufacturing, it seems very likely they sold way under expectation and overbuilt capacity. It also seems likely in that case they lost money. Which would make this a disappointment.

Comment Re: They'll get 0 in the end (Score 2) 24

They probably can't. There's limitations on the ability to sell pre-IPO options. Both legal limitations with SEC regs, and limitations by the terms of the agreement that gives them the options. Not being allowed to sell them at all pre-IPO unless given explicit permission by the company is pretty much universal. The company doesn't want to risk a hostile takeover via random entities buying stock options.

Comment They'll get 0 in the end (Score 3, Insightful) 24

They can't sell those stock options on the open market. It's unlikely they are allowed to sell them at all right now. Even if they go IPO, they will likely be locked in for a significant period. And given the rate the company is burning money, it's highly unlikely to fetch anything near it's last valuation when it does go public. It's likely to fetch a fraction of that (and just going bankrupt is a distinct possibility). So yeah, when you're paying monopoly money you can give really high numbers. In the end, they will likely have made more working at any non-startup big tech company.

Comment Re:what is meant by serious? (Score 1) 80

Fortran has some optimizations involving pointers that are invalid in other languages like C. So it can be the absolute fastest outside of hand optimized assembly (which is very difficult to do better than a compiler these days). It also has advanced math libraries which are highly tested and optimized. So its niche is highly performant math and scientific programming.

Comment Absolutely pointless (Score 4, Insightful) 36

There's only 2 reasons to have a new piece of hardware rather than make this an app on your phone:

1)It adds new sensors that your phone doesn't have (yet) that will enable new functionality. This won't be the case, as there's no usecase for it
2)It adds a new IO methods that aren't possible on the phone. AR goggles might do this. An AI assistant doesn't, it's all audio and voice.

This is basically just going to be replacable with a bluetooth microphone paired to an app on your phone. Which means nobody is going to buy it- even if they can actually find a usecase people want AI for (doubtful).

Comment Re:WhatsApp? (Score 1) 84

Those exist, but divide the view count by number of comments. It will show for the most part thousands of views per comment. That means most people aren't using the social part. I've yet to ever write a youtube comment, but I use it daily. So if you asked me if I use YouTube you'd get a yes, but it's not social media for me. If you limit it to those who read/write comments it would be fair, but I'm not sure they did that.

Comment Re:WhatsApp? (Score 4, Interesting) 84

I'd say the same for YouTube. It's used to watch videos. The number of people who comment on them is minimal compared to the userbase. I'd be very curious to the exact definition of "social media" they use is. I don't think it's what most people consider to be social media.

Comment Re:Good use. (Score 1) 74

Not anything. Especially when dealing with nuclear. There are some parts that once degraded cannot be safely replaced. For example, the containment unit. And others where making a new one makes more economic sense than replacing even when technically possible. What state this plant is in I have no idea, and am not qualified to have an opinion on. I just hope experts are making the decision based on economics and power requirements and not politics.

Comment Re:Good use. (Score 4, Interesting) 74

The main question is if the plant is still safe. It hasn't been used in years. Is it still in good maintenance? Was the design meant to be idled for years? What are the risks of restarting that particular design of reactor after all those years? Is the land there safe for workers of the plant after reactor 2's accident all those years ago? And what plans are in place to prevent what happened at reactor 2 from happening at reactor 1?

I actually don't know the answer to any of those questions. But I hope experts are actively asking those.

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