The news I've seen coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show this year isn't particularly breathtaking or awe-inspiring. Phones, tablets, faster, thinner, yes, yes, we've all been here before. There is one piece of news, however, that stands out from the crowd. The best-selling TV maker in the US, Vizio, is entering the PC market. Stunning designs for both laptop and all-in-one - and buried deep within the press release lies the creamy nougaty centre that makes me want to buy one even more: a Windows 7 install optimised by Microsoft, free of crapware.
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Member since:2005-10-12
Member since:2010-03-08
As said above, try to take a look at what Asus are doing. In my view of aesthetics, they make some of the prettiest computers out there, yet do not blindly follow Apple's designs. They try a lot of new things, which one may like or not, and they attempt to satisfy a much larger user base than Apple.
Ironically, I believe they also used to manufacture Apple's laptops at some point.
Edited 2012-01-10 08:37 UTC
Member since:2009-08-18
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26979.html
It constantly surprises me how many people don't really know what minimalism is. If some people on here would like read some design blogs or books ...
Member since:2006-01-11
You could have copied the citation directly, I was expecting a link to a website about design:
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
French writer (1900 - 1944)
For me, that's unrelated.
I don't care about pointless complexity and "tuning" gadgets.
I made a musical analogy because musical instruments are really optimised for their purpose.
- A triangle has a good shape for a single note, reproducible, pure.
- There is almost nothing useless in a violin, the weird shape serves difficult requirements : Interesting sound covering evenly several octaves, harmonics for rich chords...
When I see a Macbook Air or that stuff, I'm not impressed by the "perfection" obtained by removing itches.
I see that they had a problem integrating connectors, replacable batteries, ... and, instead of finding clever solutions, they preferred to avoid the problem by removing features, for the sake of a silly quest for ultimate slimness. They crippled their product to respect absurd constraints.
Instead of finding a way to cover many octaves, they gave a shiny triangle.
As always, everyone has his/her tastes, ...
Antoine de Saint exupery also wrote, at the beginning of "The Little Prince", about the way adults never understood his drawings, seeing a hat instead of a boa eating an elephant.
I want to be able to see elephants playing violin.
Member since:2006-09-21
I think that people understand minimalist design fairly well, it is just that they are doing so in an aesthetic context rather than a functional context. Apple's "buttonless" mouse was aethetically minimalist, in part, because it did away with the visual representation of the button. These computers can be considered visually minimalist because they reduce the number of hard edges (i.e. there are fewer sharp corners to poke your eyes out).
Functional minimalism is something different, but that would be reducing a computer to an appliance. A lot of people don't want that.
"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:
2006-09-21
The thing is, minimalism sells. I'm guessing that it sells because it is the least likely to offend the taste of consumers, even if it is also the least likely to be aestheically pleasing to most consumers. Think of it this way: there are people who thought that Barbie computers were cute and there are people who craft wooden cases for their computers. While both demographics would probably buy something with a minimalist design, the Barbie girl is unlikely to want the craftsman's delight (and vica versa).
If you want it, then buy a machine that fits those criteria. This computer is definitely meant for someone else. It is likely meant for someone who wants something that they can buy without fretting over details, and will plug their camera or iPod into the computer every few weeks. It isn't meant for people like you or me. They probably don't want what we want either. As long as the market can address the needs of different people, there is nothing wrong with that.