Linked by Universal Mind on Fri 6th Aug 2010 16:16 UTC
The "Macs are too expensive" argument is one of the most tiresome and long-lived flamewars in internet history. Obviously, Apple makes a premium product and charges premium prices, and you can always find a computer from another vendor that seems to match or exceed specs that costs less. But if you look at Apple's Mac Pro line, and compare it not so much to other vendors, but to the past lineup of Mac Pros, you discover some very unpleasant truths that help explain why Apple is enjoying record earnings for their Mac line, but doing so to the detriment of some its most loyal and valuable customers.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/25/13 0:45 UTC
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 23:59 UTC
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 22:33 UTC
Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Linked by Howard Fosdick on 05/24/13 21:41 UTC
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 14:44 UTC
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 23:22 UTC
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:04 UTC
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:01 UTC
"In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 17:52 UTC
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.More News »
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So I went to Apple's site, clicked all over the place trying to find this new expensive MacPro. Then it was, the great White Whale,
"Quad Core starting at $2499"
"8-core starting at $3499"
"12-core starting at $4999"
The machines are not yet available to be configured or priced. In fact on the macro main page it states, "Coming August".
So being a fan of being fair and balanced. I searched high and lo for machines that used the new Intel Xeon 5620 "Westmere" processor. Not HP, not Dell, but was able to track down a Lenovo ThinkStation. Tried my damnedest to match it specs to those listed on (http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html), but I found this:
(Here's pic proof, http://tinyurl.com/3yegnrm)
ThinkStation D20 Windows with SAS Hard Drive
System components
*Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64
*Tower 7x9 Mechanical with Intel 5520 Motherboard
*8GB ECC DDR3 PC3-8500 SDRAM (1GBx8 UDIMMS)
*ATI Fire Pro V7750 (1GB, DP+DP+DVI)
*Integrated Audio
*Internal RAID - Not Enabled
*300GB SAS 3.5" Hard Drive - 15000 rpm
*Lenovo 16x DVD +/- RW Dual Layer (Windows 7)
*Dual Integrated Broadcom Ethernet 10/100/1000
*IEEE 1394 Adapter
*Lenovo Preferred Pro USB Full Size Keyboard - US English
*Lenovo Optical Wheel Mouse - USB Primax 400 DPI
*Line Cord - US - U, F, D, S, T, L, A Models
Cost $5008 - $285= $4723
Per Apple's page:
*Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 “Westmere” processors
*ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory, PCI Express 2.0, two Mini DisplayPort outputs, and one dual-link DVI port
*Four FireWire 800 ports (two on front panel, two on back panel), Five USB 2.0 ports (two on front panel, three on back panel), Two USB 2.0 ports on included keyboard
Front-panel headphone minijack and internal speaker, Optical digital audio input and output TOSLINK ports, Analog stereo line-level input and output minijacks, Multichannel audio through Mini DisplayPort
*1TB or 2TB hard drives, Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 32MB cache, 512GB solid-state drive, Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
*Keyboard/Mouse included
And again, looking like it's gonna start around $3500, we don't know because Apple hasn't posted the config for the new machines yet. On that approximation alone, the author is basically FOS.