Since the big Windows news last week was the announcement that the next version of Windows will run on ARM, this one kind of slipped in under the radar. It's a rumour, but confirmed by different people: there will be a new application model in Windows 8, currently named Jupiter, while thee will also be a tile-based interface for tablets. It seems like the pieces of the puzzle are all falling into place: Windows NT everywhere, Silverlight/.Net everywhere.
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Member since:2009-05-06
"Partially done" is the key as far as MS are concerned.
.NET on anything other then Windows is a repeat of Win32 and WISE (A Unix Win32 layer).
"the WIN32 layer to be fairly mediocre in performance and feature coverage. We want it to be just good/cheap/timely enough to get a lot of people to use it,"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/07/18/analysis_how_ms_used/
MS are smart, and know that controlling the API is key. Controlling the language as well is even better. Maybe fine for their platform, but it is always their platform and never cross platform.
Perhaps one day we will have regulations about companies that make OS and software for that OS, you know, such as one side has to be open for fair competition, or a single company can't do both.
Member since:2005-07-06
Defending their platforms is top priority but the problem is that cannot last forever and it only works as long as your platform is market leader.
Which is the case for PCs but not the case for mobile and consoles, while on the server side they're growing but not yet a monopoly like on PCs.
The problem is PCs market is basically a 1billion items market (more or less) while mobile market is about 5 billions items market. You'd want to be a monopoly on mobile rather than on PCs in 2-3 years plus they once had Windows as a gaming machine while now they also have Xbox.
There's a turning point where defending your platform by making it available everywhere is more effective than having a single way to channel it. I think MS is close to that turning point.
The goal would always be to defend their platform but it would happen by letting developers code for it anyway and let users choose what's the best machine to run it.
Member since:2005-07-06
There is a rumour that there is going to be a move away from PowerPC for the XBox, I'm not too sure how reliable the rumour is but I wouldn't be surprised if it means that they can place a super strip down embedded version of Windows NT sitting at the core with DirectX 11 and a minimal set of API's for games developers. Having an operating system that scales from super computers down to games machines not only makes sense for third party developers but for Microsoft it will lower costs, simplify maintenance and less duplication of numerous operating systems developing and re-inventing the wheel at the same time.
"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:
2005-07-06
Simply put, Microsoft has many ManY MANY options in its arsenal.
Evolution drafted here is the wisest thing to do and I think that unifying platforms (thanks to mobile CPUs becoming faster and faster and thus being able to work with more complex systems) was already the goal of MS since long time.
Now the transition would be :
* force all Windows/XBox/Phone/Web developers to use .NET only;
* make Silverlight/.NET available for all their platforms (already done!);
* make Silverlight/.NET available for other platforms like MacOS, Linux and so on (partially done). Courts proved that excluding such frameworks from other systems would be unlawful and possibly subject to anti-trust regulations (see Flash on iPhone) so this is perfectly viable;
* unify programming model for all developers and sell Windows as the BEST Silverlight/.NET implementation.
Microsoft would gain tons of developers and tons of applications and would make using Silverlight/.NET the best framework to target the widest number of devices. And they don't even need to open-source Windows... ;-)