Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 11th Nov 2009 20:40 UTC
Okay, so this is new. When it comes to graphical user interfaces, everyone is copying everyone, but you'll always find supporters of platform Abc claiming platform Xyz is stealing from them - and vice versa. Mac supporters have often stated that Vista and Windows 7 were copying from Apple, and according to Microsoft's partner group manager, Simon Aldous, this is true. Wait, what?
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RE[9]: It's not like everyone didn't already know
by kragil on Wed 11th Nov 2009 23:08
in reply to "RE[8]: It's not like everyone didn't already know"
Member since:2006-01-04
RE[10]: It's not like everyone didn't already know
by Chicken Blood on Wed 11th Nov 2009 23:23
in reply to "RE[9]: It's not like everyone didn't already know"
Member since:2005-12-21
And Apple "stole" most of it from Xerox
This myth is too often repeated over-and-over. It has already been stated in this thread that Apple reimbursed Xerox for their GUI desktop metaphor ideas. Furthermore there is a large difference between the concepts they observed at Xerox and those that finally shipped on the Lisa.
RE[9]: It's not like everyone didn't already know
by helf on Thu 12th Nov 2009 14:22
in reply to "RE[8]: It's not like everyone didn't already know"
Member since:2005-07-06
Don't bring NeXT into this 
And, no, they didn't invent that stuff. And neither did Intel that someone mentioned below.
SMP - Burroughs B5500 first implemented it in 1961.
Preemptive Multitasking - Can't pin it down, but it was around in the 60s at least. Unix had it from the get-go.
Protected Memory - Again, this was around by at least the 60s if not slightly earlier. I can't find a source at the moment, I'd have to dig out my history books later.
Do you people bother to look up ANYTHING, or do you just spout off shit you have heard or thought you have heard? Entities besides Intel, IBM, Apple, Microsoft, 'Linux', and Google have existed - and still do - for a LONG time that invent and create a LOT of things.
The entire world is built upon people improving on the work of others or out right copying it and possibly just doing it better.
Get. Over. It.
It is amazing the amount of energy wasted by people arguing over who did something first.
RE[9]: It's not like everyone - and the other DE?
by jabbotts on Thu 12th Nov 2009 16:57
in reply to "RE[8]: It's not like everyone didn't already know"
Member since:2007-09-06
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."More News »
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Member since:
2009-08-18
"ah, so we're back in the '80s."
The point was whether Microsoft had a history of copying interfaces. You had implied they didn't.
"I can name a few things Apple copied from Microsoft, then: protected memory, pre-emptive multitasking, SMP support."
First of all, these aren't interfaces, second, Microsoft simply released these technologies before Apple. They didn't create them. Apple didn't copy them. Apple was held back by an outdated OS. With that said, NeXT was first to incorporate those technologies anyways. Considering that OS X *IS* NeXT, your watered down attempt to illustrate copying on Apple's part is even more mitigated.
"Uhm, the article even clearly mentions that: in the grand scheme of things, Windows, Mac OS X, and GNOME are pretty much the exact same thing. If you can use Windows, you can use the others too without any problems, and vice versa."
So, you're saying that because everyone has held Mac OS as the standard to attain that somehow that makes subsequent efforts to copy Apple's work a non issue?
"However, within the boundaries set by these UIs themselves, the differences between Windows and Mac OS X are quite blatant in almost every way"
I never said that there aren't differences.
"I'll rehash the list again: Aero doesn't look anything like Aqua, application management on Windows is different, file management is different, and most importantly, the approach to document vs. application is decidedly different."
Yet they did aspire to be Mac-like as was the whole point of the story to which my point was that this is simply something they have always done yet Microsoft apologists always denied.
Edited 2009-11-11 22:25 UTC