In 2009 ARM showed off prototype netbooks "capable of driving HD content, can surf the web for 8 hours, and will cost round and about 250 USD". Yet still, none have made it to the market. Why do you think this is so? Because ARM signed a deal with Adobe in 2008 to bring Flash and AIR to the ARM architecture, a promise they will finally deliver later this year. And you wonder why Apple won't have Flash on the iPhone when it can hold back an entire product category for two years.
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Member since:2009-05-06
Exactly how small is this niche? I can't see it's more than a few hundred at most. A better solution to help them would be a effort on Rox and RpcEmu. It's not good to be tied to any chip type, even ARM. That's if it's worth getting new machine for them, not like there is new RiscOS software... But honestly, moving OS isn't that big a deal, even if the machine is dead, Linux can actually mount ADFS. For many old Acorn app, bet there is something to convert the files. Like Draw to Inkscape sort of thing. A better business is help emigrate these old RiscOS users left behind to the new lands we all enjoy. Let RiscOS lie in peace.
Member since:2009-02-19
The problem is... you know the kind of users that use Windows 98 and a Celeron 333 from 1998, today, because it works for them, although they might want something faster, but can't figure out that newfangled Windows XP?
That's probably half of the active RISC OS users. And I'm not joking. We're talking about users that are so inflexible to learning new things, that they are completely unable to use anything that isn't RISC OS.
And, the PC-based solutions, right now, are booting a full Windows, and then booting RISC OS. If something goes tits up on the Windows side, they're completely lost.
The other half of the users are doing it for fun or for profit (and get into terrible flamewars with each other quite often, because the ones doing it for profit are ruining the platform,) and are your typical retrocomputing community, that completely failed to learn from the Amiga community.
Member since:2006-05-30
That is PURE fantasy. It's a little like the response often heard when the 17th century Cornish man was questioned in English - "Me na vadna cowz a Sowznack". Which, at the time, was thought to translate as "I can't speak English", but actually meant "I _will not_ speak English".
Anyone still using RISCOS as a primary OS is doing so because they want to, not because they have to.
Member since:2009-02-19
I was very careful to NOT say that all they could use was RISC OS, although I see I did say that there's a demographic that can't figure out XP. (Although, there are a couple users here and there on the comp.sys.acorn newsgroups that stick with RISC OS because of certain programs that they like, that are unavailable on other platforms.)
I'm well aware that they COULD use other platforms, and just don't want to. That's my point, that they don't want to. RISC OS works for them, so why switch?
"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."The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run."There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
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!"
Member since:
2009-02-19
There's also a niche market of elderly people that don't know anything other than RISC OS, and are using either circa-1997 233 MHz StrongARM RiscPCs, circa-2000 233 or 300 MHz Kinetic (RAM local to the CPU card) StrongARM RiscPCs, circa-2002 600 MHz XScale-based Iyonixes, and circa-2004 400 MHz ARM9-based A9homes with a beta OS.
Those users, that's all they know how to use, and that's all they'll use until they die. They'll buy new hardware if it's cheap enough, but only if it can run RISC OS. For that matter, a couple companies have sold x86 PCs running Virtual RiscPC, which... isn't very good, and has nasty, buggy DRM.