Microsoft has reiterated its commitment to the desktop. Building on its co-founder Bill Gates' vision of a PC on every desk in every home, Microsoft will continue to focus on delivering desktop products. And in this context, nothing will change when it comes down to the development of the company's main cash cows. Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System will be followed by Windows Seven and Office 14. Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, present at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in Denver on July 10 emphasized the fact that Windows
Vista will neither be the last of its kind, nor the last big operating system release from the Redmond company. The same strategy is valid for the Office 2007 System.
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Member since:2006-04-21
Or they just made the home desktop cheap and accessable to non-geeks.
Er, no. Apple did that. MS only got into Windows to stop the brain-drain away from DOS.
Funny, without that first step to put computers into homes, there would be no open source movement.
Wrong again. UNIX software was regularly distributed as source.
Member since:2005-07-06
Wrong again. UNIX software was regularly distributed as source.
While most came either as source or with source, they where generally not Open Source in any way that the phrase is currently understood. Having access to the source code is only one small part of what Open Source is generally about.
Member since:2005-08-11
Member since:2005-07-06
Excuse me, but is it necessary to continue to push that blatent lie over and over again?
Before "Microsoft" and "the PC" people were happily using Amstrads, Atari's and Amiga's. Heck, I would be confident to go so far to say that back in the good old days, the Amiga did a lot better at meeting the end users requirements than the crap we see today.
I remember the variety of languages, REXX, AmigaBASIC, and AMOS - massive amounts of documentation when you bought a computer, if you wanted to be a programmer, you had all the documentation there. Heck, when I had an Amiga 500, there was sufficient documentation to not only help you how to use Kindwords, but also how to write your own applications.
You could play games; plonk in a disk, and it would load up and voila, no directx, no opengl jihads, everything just worked as it should be. Same goes for applications - it all worked as it should. Anyone from that era can't honestly look at back and consider what was accomplished with such limited system specifications wasn't remarkable.
Member since:2006-01-10
Precisely! Actually with the LiveCD it literally can be more like the 'good ol' days.' Pop in a disk, let your computer boot up to whatever game / application you wanted.
I still loved having the majority of your OS in a rom. It booted fast, and never depended on a hard drive or other media to boot up. The only problem was that the operating system was as easily upgraded. Loved the Amiga and Atari ST. I still have my Atari STs.
Member since:2006-04-21
Before "Microsoft" and "the PC" people were happily using Amstrads, Atari's and Amiga's. Heck, I would be confident to go so far to say that back in the good old days, the Amiga did a lot better at meeting the end users requirements than the crap we see today.
Well, hurrah. I can finally agree with you on something wholeheartedly.
I remember the variety of languages, REXX, AmigaBASIC, and AMOS - massive amounts of documentation when you bought a computer, if you wanted to be a programmer, you had all the documentation there. Heck, when I had an Amiga 500, there was sufficient documentation to not only help you how to use Kindwords, but also how to write your own applications. OTOH I wish I could agree with you there. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that mine didn't come with that. OTOH these days you can download perl, python, c, several lisps...all of them for free and several of them for both Linux and Windows.
But again, yes, even Linux does some things wrong, or allows you to do in a million different ways in the hope that it will please somebody, that Amiga/Commodore (miraculously, it seems, given the latter's repuation) got right first time.
You could play games; plonk in a disk, and it would load up and voila, no directx, no opengl jihads, everything just worked as it should be. Same goes for applications - it all worked as it should. Anyone from that era can't honestly look at back and consider what was accomplished with such limited system specifications wasn't remarkable.
Agreed.
Member since:2005-07-24
My Apple ][+ came with a complete logic diagram for the hardware, too.
Come to think of it, large scale OSS would have thrived in that heterogeneous environment. Multiplatform being our middle name and all.
Of course, the essential spark that was missing was ubiquitous access to the Internet or something like it.
Certainly fertile ground for an alternate history novel. :-)
"In the first episode of Microsoft's new film series 'On the Whiteboard', Editor Pamela Woon chats with two-time Oscar winner Randy Thom about the (often underestimated) importance of sound in human-technology interactions. Thom, the lead sound designer at Skywalker Ranch who worked on films such as The Incredibles, Castaway and Forrest Gump, says that people rarely consider the significance of those signature sounds that come from their trusty devices, whether it be a cell phone, a computer or a tablet."
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move."A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Member since:
2006-08-04
Or they just made the home desktop cheap and accessable to non-geeks. Funny, without that first step to put computers into homes, there would be no open source movement.
Oh, and all the complaining about the yin/yang symbol reminded me of that "coexist" bumper sticker...