Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 21:19 UTC
Last week, HP killed its webOS devices unit. Over the weekend, the company slashed the prices on the TouchPad. The result? The TouchPad sold out completely in a matter of hours. This confirms what I've been hearing from friends and family: "I'd love a tablet, but I'm not paying laptop money for one."
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RE: Bummed to see this now
by fretinator on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 21:30
in reply to "Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2005-07-06
RE[2]: Bummed to see this now
by spiderman on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 06:18
in reply to "RE: Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2008-10-23
RE: Bummed to see this now
by Thom_Holwerda on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 21:47
in reply to "Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2005-06-29
This news would've been great had you guys posted it a couple of days ago when they dropped the price, instead of today, when they're already sold out everywhere.
Yeah I know but I've pretty much just emerged from a masters thesis-induced coma. Back in the real world now. Done with university. FOREVAR.
RE[2]: Bummed to see this now
by clasqm on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 22:48
in reply to "RE: Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2010-09-23
RE[2]: Bummed to see this now
by vitae on Mon 22nd Aug 2011 23:25
in reply to "RE: Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2006-02-20
RE[2]: Bummed to see this now
by WorknMan on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 01:13
in reply to "RE: Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2005-11-13
Yeah I know but I've pretty much just emerged from a masters thesis-induced coma. Back in the real world now. Done with university. FOREVAR.
Hey that's alright, Thom. Now that you're out of school, I bet we can look forward to an assload of more patent-related articles
PS: Why can't you guys use the f**king 'quote' tag like every other bulletin board system instead of 'q', or at least make both work.
Edited 2011-08-23 01:24 UTC
RE[2]: Bummed to see this now
by kristianhk on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 09:20
in reply to "RE: Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2009-06-08
Member since:2005-07-06
If phones running these kinds of specs cost $500-$600, I'm not sure why you think somebody can make a tablet (with an even bigger screen) and sell it for $200 less, and have it not suck.
In other words, a matter of a year or so, tops. And who knows what Amazon might unveil soon... (especially since they won't be afraid to make up the cost on media they will sell)
Check out, say, ZTE Blade; what can be had, since the beginning of this year, in a phone factor for half of the price you quote. And while tablet factor makes for more materials, more expensive screen and battery ...some thing are probably easier, cheaper (no need for such extreme miniaturisation)
But overall, it would be still to much duplication for my taste; too close to smartphones. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if we'll eventually settle on "small tablets" or "large smartphones" (without their presently silly premiums), just one device (which would also finally give real purpose to Bluetooth headsets
)
RE: Bummed to see this now
by bnolsen on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 00:26
in reply to "Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2006-01-06
The cheap chinese knockoffs right now have super crap resolutions (800x480) and resistive screens. Cheap soc's however are getting better, the newer ones put the performance in the ipad1 range.
The 16GB version of the Touchpad is estimated $296 in quality materials. Totally different class of machine.
I think right now the LCD and touch screen dominate the costs, which of course is where the chinese tablets fail in providing the price.
RE: Bummed to see this now
by unclefester on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 05:55
in reply to "Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2007-01-13
If phones running these kinds of specs cost $500-$600, I'm not sure why you think somebody can make a tablet (with an even bigger screen) and sell it for $200 less, and have it not suck. Possibly the only company that could do it is Apple, since nobody else makes money off of app sales, but Apple sure as hell won't do it, so long as people are always lined up to purchase an iPad.
You obviously know nothing about economics.
Most products retail for at least 10-20 times the manufacturing cost.
Those $500 phones almost certainly have a unit manufacturing cost of <<$50 each.
RE[2]: Bummed to see this now
by kristoph on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 06:01
in reply to "RE: Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2006-01-01
You obviously know nothing about economics.
Most products retail for at least 10-20 times the manufacturing cost.
Those $500 phones almost certainly have a unit manufacturing cost of
Most products retail for at least 10-20 times the manufacturing cost.
Those $500 phones almost certainly have a unit manufacturing cost of
You do understand that the reason why HP is getting out of the TouchPad and the desktop PC business (which they currently dominate) is because the margins are like minuscule (5% at best).
Sure, premium clothing and accessories might sell for 10-20 their manufacturing cost but consumer electronics never had these type of margins.
RE: Bummed to see this now
by Yoko_T on Tue 23rd Aug 2011 22:42
in reply to "Bummed to see this now"
Member since:2011-08-18
This news would've been great had you guys posted it a couple of days ago when they dropped the price, instead of today, when they're already sold out everywhere.
As for laptop vs tablet, I already have a desktop, so I'd much rather have a tablet more than a laptop for the few times I do travel. As for high demand for cheap tablets, how come nobody picked up those cheap $100-$200 iPad knockoffs that came out before Honeycomb was released? Oh yeah, that's right... because they were all pieces of shit, with the possible exception of the Nook Color, which wasn't exactly a tablet to begin with.
If phones running these kinds of specs cost $500-$600, I'm not sure why you think somebody can make a tablet (with an even bigger screen) and sell it for $200 less, and have it not suck. Possibly the only company that could do it is Apple, since nobody else makes money off of app sales, but Apple sure as hell won't do it, so long as people are always lined up to purchase an iPad.
As for laptop vs tablet, I already have a desktop, so I'd much rather have a tablet more than a laptop for the few times I do travel. As for high demand for cheap tablets, how come nobody picked up those cheap $100-$200 iPad knockoffs that came out before Honeycomb was released? Oh yeah, that's right... because they were all pieces of shit, with the possible exception of the Nook Color, which wasn't exactly a tablet to begin with.
If phones running these kinds of specs cost $500-$600, I'm not sure why you think somebody can make a tablet (with an even bigger screen) and sell it for $200 less, and have it not suck. Possibly the only company that could do it is Apple, since nobody else makes money off of app sales, but Apple sure as hell won't do it, so long as people are always lined up to purchase an iPad.
You're wrong because nobody in their right mind is going to buy something off the internet from an outfit they've never heard of before, especially it's hyped by people they know absolutely nothing about.
Can you say Ebay Scam? Most Likely.
News
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."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2005-11-13
This news would've been great had you guys posted it a couple of days ago when they dropped the price, instead of today, when they're already sold out everywhere.
As for laptop vs tablet, I already have a desktop, so I'd much rather have a tablet more than a laptop for the few times I do travel. As for high demand for cheap tablets, how come nobody picked up those cheap $100-$200 iPad knockoffs that came out before Honeycomb was released? Oh yeah, that's right... because they were all pieces of shit, with the possible exception of the Nook Color, which wasn't exactly a tablet to begin with.
If phones running these kinds of specs cost $500-$600, I'm not sure why you think somebody can make a tablet (with an even bigger screen) and sell it for $200 less, and have it not suck. Possibly the only company that could do it is Apple, since nobody else makes money off of app sales, but Apple sure as hell won't do it, so long as people are always lined up to purchase an iPad.
Edited 2011-08-22 21:37 UTC