Earlier today, OSNews ran a story on a presentation held by Microsoft's Eric Traut, the man responsible for the 200 or so kernel and virtualisation engineers working at the company. Eric Traut is also the man who wrote the binary translation engine for in the earlier PowerPC versions of VirtualPC (interestingly, this engine is now used to run XBox 1 [x86] games on the XBox 360 [PowerPC]) - in other words, he knows what he is talking about when it comes to kernel engineering and virtualisation. His presentation was a very interesting thing to watch, and it offered a little bit more insight into Windows 7, the codename for the successor to Windows Vista, planned for 2010.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Windows Vista is Microsoft's OS9. It's done, it's used used up, there's no more stretch in the elastics, as we Dutch say. It's time to move on, and make a viable plan for the future - and I don't see how Microsoft can maintain its relevancy by building atop Vista.
Edited 2007-10-22 14:42 UTC
Member since:2005-11-10
I thought Vista was more like OSX.0. Slow, incompatible, horribly inadequate and it'll be five revisions later before it's up to scratch.
The problem with Vista is that if MS move to a new OS and virtualise Vista, Vista will end up being heavier than the new OS, what a drag that will be. It would have been far, far better if MS had virtualised XP inside of Vista and dropped all backcompat in the name of a cleaner, leaner stack on top of the Kernel.
Vista was mismanaged. I don't doubt the programmers themselves because Microsoft produce good, solid products on every front except for consumer Windows releases!
Member since:2006-03-18
"Windows Vista is Microsoft's OS9. It's done, it's used used up, there's no more stretch in the elastics, as we Dutch say. It's time to move on, and make a viable plan for the future - and I don't see how Microsoft can maintain its relevancy by building atop Vista."
Yes, exactly like OS9 - a 64-bit, preemptive multitasking, hardware graphics accelerated OS9 with virtual memory.
Member since:2005-07-08
It truly feels like the end of an era. Not just for software systems, but for a whole corporate American mindset on how to manage large projects of great economic and social import. You can almost feel the "whoosh" of the deflating ideology as its symbolic champions knowingly head for the exits and their dutiful sidekicks blindly rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Meanwhile, the era of centralized control and explicit agreement is gradually giving way to decentralized empowerment and implicit tolerance. The transition will be sticky and bumpy, with winners and losers of all shapes and sizes. The key for stalling giants like Microsoft is to reinvent itself with an eye toward sustainability. Computing is no longer a revolutionary frontier, it's an evolving reality, and Microsoft has to reexamine its priorities with this in mind.
Where did all the frontiers go? We chewed through them all like caterpillars through leaves. Now it is time to contemplate our borderless reality and emerge as butterflies, elegantly endowed with a common vision for a sustainable future. Hopefully our cocoons won't become our graves.
Member since:2006-06-03
Member since:2005-07-06
"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.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.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?
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?
"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.
"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."
"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."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."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.
"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.
Member since:
2005-04-01
So, can we admit then, finally, truthfully, and in an unbiased form, that Windows itself is done?
Windows - at we know it today - is in its downswing. Yes, it's everywhere, and it's the basis for virtually every corporate environment. But the word is out. Any major shop who isn't evaluating alternatives is woefully delinquent. If Microsoft has any chance of surviving in this arena for more than the next decade or so, they need a dramatic change.
What Thom is proposing here, essentially, is scrapping Windows as a whole. Save only the kernel - nay, a subset of a fraction of the kernel - and rebuild a new OS atop.
I welcome this move. Windows is fundamentally used-up. The licensing is draconian. The software is a constant battle for most users. I should know, I support hundreds of them. They don't work on Windows - they work in spite of it.
So I agree that a move like this would be a great strategic move for Microsoft if they want to stay relevant in the long run in this corner of the market.