"The Surface is a nice tablet. The design and aesthetic are pleasing, the feel in the hands, particularly of the kickstand and magnetic cover connection is excellent. But is it worth buying on the day of release?" After these three reviews, I still want a Surface RT. As much as I think Metro - and especially its applications - has a long way to go, I feel like I should reward the fact that Microsoft dares to be different. Too bad Microsoft doesn't want me to buy one.
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Member since:2005-11-29
I believe Acer has a Windows 8 tablet for $499 (same price as Surface) which can run traditional x86 applications and where the garden door is left open.
And I am almost certain some enterprising hacker will make it so Windows RT tablets can run ARM compiled programs.
At least, that's my hope.
Member since:2011-01-28
Nelson,
"I believe Acer has a Windows 8 tablet for $499 (same price as Surface) which can run traditional x86 applications and where the garden door is left open."
That's only the case for desktop apps, but people are obviously buying a tablet in the first place because they want to use it as a *tablet*. Otherwise they would just get a laptop. Being able to do both with one device is a nice value-added feature, but it doesn't excuse the walled garden on tablet applications.
And to be honest, I kind of want an ARM device anyways to be able to dual boot android and have one device running both, but we know MS is banning that as well.
"And I am almost certain some enterprising hacker will make it so Windows RT tablets can run ARM compiled programs.
At least, that's my hope."
We've heard plenty of excuses for walled gardens coming from the other big camp, due we really need to have apologists repeating these for microsoft? Today maybe one's iphone can be rooted, but that's only because apple bugs exist in the various models. An unintentional privilege escalation vulnerability permits the owner to compromise the device's security on demand to gain root access, thereby overriding apple's mandatory app policies.
Is this really the model of open computing that we want to stand behind? Do we really want to applaud these closed devices because they have security vulnerabilities? Microsoft's walled garden security may be stronger than apple's, probably in part because they learned from apple's mistakes. This is old news now, but microsoft made sure the UEFI firmware's secure boot feature was designed to enable them to lockout owners from the chain of trust. Microsoft even requires manufacturers to disable any override capability on ARM devices carrying windows. Even if a temporary root exploit is found, it won't be able to modify the system to remain rooted for long. I don't want to loose access to my unapproved sideload apps because I lost root when I rebooted my tablet on vacation, but with secure boot that's a very real possibility.
I predicted this whole shenanigan, that secure boot was just a disguised way of protecting walled gardens from owner tampering rather than simply protecting owners from malware tampering. I wish I were wrong about it.
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2011-01-28
SJ87,
+1
I wouldn't mind having one myself to use metro as it was meant to be used, on a *real* tablet. But in the end I know I'd be frustrated by the restrictions imposed on my device and not being able to run the software I wrote and being able to distribute it to friends & colleagues without microsoft's approval. I really hate that a walled garden overshadows the platform, since otherwise I'd be able to get behind it as an alternative to the apple walled garden. They can paint it any color they want, but it's always going to stink.