A California man is suing Microsoft, alledging that his Surface tablet did not provide the advertised amount of disk space. The 32G device has 16G of space for users, as the operating system uses the other 16G. The 64G Surface leaves 45G free for users. The case will turn on whether Microsoft has clearly explained to customers how much free space the Surface leaves for their use outside of the OS. How much disk space does your OS consume?
Ubuntu 11.04 32-bit here. Uses under 4 GB installed, now up to 5.4 GB with lots of apps.
I can’t imagine using 19 GB for Win 8 on the bigger Surface.
BBBLLLOOOAAATTTT !!!
And wait until you start installing apps! Where the hell do you put your music?
I’m amazed that people don’t know the good practice of separating your personal data from an OS data. I do it for years and it never let me down. If something is wrong I can safely restore the OS, but the configurations and my stuff [music, docs, etc] are safe and untouched on other mount point …
I won’t even mention creating backups. Most people probobly don’t do backups anyway.
So after you divided the 32Gb disk into 2 partitions and installed all the necessary apps, where do you will put your music?
Well, for the past five years, Windows has had this crazy feature called Libraries, which I think was designed to emulate the behavior of Linux’s home folder. The downside of libraries on Windows RT is that they are the only place you can put things you want to show up in your photo viewer or music player. Anyone with half a wit can add more folders, on different drives or SD cards, to a library, but 90% of users don’t have that, and won’t be able to figure out why. Also, for music downloads from whatever service Microsoft is using, I doubt you’d be able to choose a destination, in Windows RT.
Except Ubuntu is a pile of shit.
Also why do people care these days, when everything is in the “cloud” or you have terabytes of space.
Edited 2012-11-16 08:06 UTC
Until you have a connexion loss…
Kochise
Oh noes.
It been known since the 70s that the network is important.
Seriously this is just stinks of 1st world problems.
Lucas I can only hope you’re being very ironic there.
You know full well that mobile connection costs dwarf local storage costs long term
don’t be silly
Shillus Maximus strongly believes that concerns about $your_needs are outweighed by $product_features.
You’re speaking about 1st world’s connectivity, but what about 3rd world ? Can they use a Surface tablet if they do not benefit from the cloud ?
Kochise
I sat in an airport in the Middle East yesterday watching someone with a surface really struggle with the lack of bandwidth. Yet, I was able to connect my Windows 7 PC plus my Android Tablet and download all my emails, browse web pages etc without problem. We were sitting less than 10ft apart so it wasn’t as if we were in different wifi areas.
Ok, so this was one of the more advanced ME states but they did have free WiFi all over the terminal.
If the surface device is so dependent upon an ‘always on’ connection to the mothership then I forsee a lot of unhappy people returning their devices especially once they start seeing their 3g data bills.
Hope you know what the 1st wirld means. Sweden and Finland is a 3rd world country for example. It is about what side the country was on during the cold war. 1st=NATO and allies 2nd=Warsaw pact countries and allies 3rd world= the rest.. As illustrated by this image. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Cold_War_allianc…
from this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World
Or did you mean in the old sense (pre cold war) first (or old) world being the Eurafroasian contient, the second or new world being the americas and the third world being
oceania and the antarctica continent.
Poor countries and cities with hardly any internet connection, if any.
Kochise
No actually, its much more of a problem in the third world where the networks are that much more of a problem. My company had three different internet providers and still had sustained outages.
Because I care that I have control and possibly more importantly ownership of my data, and very little of my shit is up there on some random server that is not under my control. Anything I do have in the cloud is simply a backup (primarily pictures to be able to access on my phone without having to get a 32GB microSD card), and I have all the originals on my hard drive where they are going to stay. If I delete any copy, no doubt it will be the one stored on server machines far, far away.
Because not everyone has 100Mbps Internet connections?
Did you miss the fact that Microsoft is being sued exactly because of LACK of said space?
Neither do I and I manage fine.
Nope, seriously are people really going to use these devices without another piece of kit that has plenty of space?
What’s the point with a highly-mobile device if you’re going to be lugging all kinds of extras along just to make it useable? I think you’re missing the point.
Seriously at some point you go home and sync don’t you?
Seriously, where do you store all your music and videos on the go? You have make space in some way for it. Even if you are constantly connected to the cloud, imagine how that is going to make your data caps suffer when you are constantly streaming.
I think all my music albums I have come (in flac) to about 1 gig. At 720p I think I can get about a 10 hours of video on the thing depending on the codec being used.
The device probably can’t play more than a few hours of video on a charge.
You only have 3-4 albums in your collection?
Even a short album is still 250Mb-300Mb after FLAC compression.
When I ripped my CD collection to FLAC I pretty much filled a 1Tb hard drive. On my 40Gb player I can only fit a small fraction of my favourites without downsizing them to MP3.
So it’s ok to give customers just half of the advertised space because YOU don’t think it’s necessary to have more space than that?
It has always been lied about.
You have a seriously small music collection. My MP3 collection is over 64 GB (believe it comes out to 17 days worth of music when loaded fully into Clementine). Other have even larger collections.
So, if you load it full of videos, where do you store the music? Or pictures? Or documents?
If you store everything in “the cloud”, then how do you access your data when you’re camping outside of cell range? Or on a train without cell/wi-fi? Or on a plane without cell/wi-fi? Or on a cruise? Or any of the other times/areas without coverage?
I said about 10 gig of music, I typoed the 0.
The point is
The amount of stuff people are trying to fit on there is longer than the device can be used before a recharge.
I suspect most people have wifi networks in their houses these days so either syncing with the cloud or syncing with another computer on the network isn’t going to be hard.
Other file formats take up soo little room compared to videos.
That’s still only around 30 albums in FLAC format, not a particularly massive collection. I’d want a larger selection of music than that on a trip out for the day.
So? That’s like saying it only needs enough space to store a few ebooks, since it’ll run out of power before anyone’s finished reading them.
I want a decent selection of music and video to choose from. The music I want to listen to on the way to a conference might be completely different from the album I feel like hearing on the way home. More storage space means more choice and variety.
It’s still time consuming to shuffle around the contents between different storage and mobile devices.
Even with 40Gb storage in my MP3 player I still find it a bit annoying having to swap around albums. I usually find that the one I really wanted to listen to was one I removed to make space the last time I synced. On a portable computer I’m not just storing music, so to me 16Gb doesn’t seem like much space at all.
To be fair I do think that the SDXC slot mitigates Surface’s internal storage limitations. Hopefully it won’t be too long before 128Gb-256Gb cards drop down in price.
The thing is that the device isn’t really meant for what you want.
Though that’s likely just a “glitch” of memory and/or a sort of confirmation bias.
(kinda like people remember the “incredible coincidences” or “miracles” better than daily routine)
Pretty much everyone I know who owns a laptop uses it in a similar way to a standard desktop machine in that they leave it plugged in all the time. And honestly, if I had a similar machine, I would do the same, because battery power sucks. In that case, the number of hours worth of audio or video means nothing other than the time you spend watching or listening to it.
That’s an astonishingly small music collection… I have about 12Gb (mixed MP3 and Vorbis), and even that’s a small compared to a lot of people I know.
Seriously. How can you afford all that music anyway?
JK.
It is pirated.
Suggestion: Buy a device with the specs you want and need (if available. If not don’t buy it or accept that it’s not all you wanted.)
Edited 2012-11-17 10:35 UTC
But isn’t it these tablet manufactures that keep saying the PC era is over, and a tablet is the only device you really need? In that case, give us terabytes of space of those devices too please!
Maybe, just maybe the reasoning is ?:
the cloud provides that terabytes of space.
But I have to admit, when I put stuff in the cloud. I do that encrypted.
Edited 2012-11-16 13:16 UTC
I will NEVER trust my private and business data in a Cloud service. I have no idea how protected they are, do they scrub my data and sell it off to others etc. No thank you!!
It is in the Terms and Conditions.
Yes, because no one wants to hold a tablet and an external HD at the same time.
That would be a good Apple commercial.
“Hi, I’m an iPad.”
“And I’m Surface.”
“What are you attached to, Surface?”
“That’s my external hard drive. I don’t have enough space to store stuff and have an operating system.”
“That’s too bad. There’s pizza over there.” (iPad walks away.)
“Hey, where are you going? Hold on, wait for me. My hard drive is still plugged in. Could you bring some pizza?”
The lack of space is going to be a hassle for people because it’s supposed to be a laptop replacement, and people are gong to expect it to be able to do everything a laptop can do, which includes storing lots of their junk.
Edited 2012-11-16 14:19 UTC
Hi,
They’re not being sued because of lack of space; they’re being sued for misrepresenting the amount of space. E.g. being sued because they’re (allegedly) giving consumers the impression that there’s X GiB of space when in practice users are only able to use Y GiB of space and X != Y (and not being sued because X < K or because Y < K).
Imagine if you’re buying a car, and the adverts for the car say “space for 8 people!”. You buy the car, but after buying the car you find out that half of that space is used for the engine, fuel tank, etc and there’s only space for 4 people. Did the advert lie?
– Brendan
Pretty retarded to sue them for it. Maybe he should had looked it up before.
On topic: My OS takes about 5/5+ GB I suppose. 16 GB flash USB-drive, 6.5 GB partition with about 500 MB free but then it also holds my $HOME.
OpenSUSE 12.2 with KDE, Razor-Qt, gstreamer and VLC, Firefox, Kate, Clementine, Flash, Dolphin, Krusader, kMail and a little such.
Edited 2012-11-17 08:45 UTC
USB flash drive, seriously?
Because it is my data, and I try to have control to whatever I give to 3rd parties.
Then don’t buy a device that pretty much needs to be connected to the cloud.
I don’t see people making the same argument against ChromeBooks.
That’s because the chromebooks are marketed as pure cloud devices. The Surface however is marketed as a direct competitior to the iPad and Android tablets.
Besides, ChromeOS wants 4 Gb but actually uses only < 1Gb for the OS last time I checked.
Edited 2012-11-16 15:56 UTC
I do. That is why Google is never going to see my money from a ChromeBook.
You and Windows are piles of shit.
Great argument, eh?
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?542736
Everything is a pile of shit, especially Windows.
Edited 2012-11-16 09:15 UTC
Actually Ubuntu has always been a pile of crap. Un-necessary services, pulling in hundreds of dependencies for no reason … I could go on.
Windows is pretty decent these days.
people got more than text files to store
I’m running openSUSE, which has a reputation for being bloated (I even would consider it so), but its root partition is actually only taking ~4.9GB. And that is with a few additional packages installed. So apparently, “bloat” here is more in terms of memory usage than disk space, and I’ve noticed that as being true for almost all of the “heavy” distros.
Meanwhile… I sit here looking at my Windows 8 enterprise edition evaluation partition from afar, and it is taking around 17GB. I haven’t even installed all of the programs I would likely use if I were to use the OS regularly, and I’ve even uninstalled some of the garbage Metro “apps” that serve no purpose other than serving ads for shampoo and laundry detergent (a few hundred megs right there, for “apps” that are about as useful as a paperweight).
It would probably be around 22-25GB if I were to install all of my typical programs, before installing such understandably huge programs as Flight Simulator 2004 and Flight Simulator X, as well as other games, by which point I would no longer have any free space (I only gave Windows 8 about 30GB).
Bloated … it is called features.
Get you little dig in about the fact there is 1 add if you spend five minutes scrolling to the end.
We live in an age where even SSD disks for Desktops/Laptops is about 1/4 of a gig. Who cares?
Last I checked, the version of KDE4 that openSUSE comes with now doesn’t exactly blow away the KDE3 that came in older versions of SuSE. Meanwhile, it does eclipse its predecessor when it comes to sucking up resources (especially memory). And it’s even managed to add some incredibly annoying and downright resource-hogging services in the process. Don’t even get me started with the joke that is GNOME 3 that it comes with.
That said, while I am using KDE (mostly because I haven’t yet decided upon another distro to use and so far most stuff working as I want it), bloat is bloat, and not all of it is just simple, useful features. Some of it is pure garbage. And that goes for certain aspects of many operating systems these days, unfortunately. I’m not convinced that a modern desktop environment or other piece of software *must* be a resource hogging pig in order to do what we have come to expect in years past with far fewer resources.
GNOME 3 is especially hilarious; it’s more feature-free than ever before and probably getting worse by the week, yet Debian is dropping it for Xfce because the damn thing can no longer even fit on a single CD-ROM. What’s ironic is that Metro almost fits perfectly with this description of GNOME 3… yikes.
Five minutes? Those apps are so worthless, I never even spent much more than a minute in them. And the only reason I was even in there that long because I figured, there just has to be *something* worthwhile here. But nope; just an ad at the end of the tunnel.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean. Are you drunk or something? I thought this article and discussion was about a *lack* of free space due to the OS hogging it up (specifically, Windows 8), and you go on about… 256GB drives? What? Can you put one of those things in a Surface? And should we really be expected to throw away even more money on yet another product because the original product itself is inadequate right off the shelf? Sounds like an unnecessary waste to me, and an unnecessary pat on the back to all the bloatware producers of the world.
Edited 2012-11-16 09:08 UTC
Oh yeah because on a portable device I am going to take more than 10 1080p movies (on a 720p screen) and 2million albums and 4 zillion word documents.
It stinks of first world problems.
Edited 2012-11-16 09:07 UTC
2 million albums? Wow, I have a few hundred, and even in Ogg Vorbis at quality level 2 they end up taking a total of around 9-10 gigs.A halfway decent quality (which level 2 is not) would be more like 12-14GB (don’t remember the exacts, it’s been a while since I tested myself). And I personally wouldn’t even put HD videos on a portable device, lower res is fine with me, but with videos the sizes add up fast.
I struggle to keep even my favorite albums on the 2GB microSD card that came with my phone.
Edited 2012-11-16 09:26 UTC
It’s called exaggeration
Exaggeration: to regard or represent as larger or greater, more important or more successful, etc, than is true.
What you’re doing there clearly does not fit that definition. What you’re doing is latching on to a meme without knowing how to use it properly and therefore just making yourself look like an ass — not that that argument of yours didn’t do that already all by itself!
Edited 2012-11-16 09:49 UTC
Sorry, in the rest of the world, we just chalk it up to experience.
I exaggerated on the 2 million albums ..
Edited 2012-11-16 09:58 UTC
Your exaggeration didn’t exactly help to improve your argument on the matter.
Edited 2012-11-16 10:20 UTC
I responded to a troll with a troll and everyone got their nickers in a twist.
While I do have a serious point, that memory sizes have always been mis-represented, basic research before buying would solve the problem.
Btw, this is some lawyer in the US that is trying to game the system probably to get a name for himself.
My sympathy for this individual is less than zero.
Edited 2012-11-16 10:51 UTC
I’d say q2 can be easily called “halfway decent” (I’m using that for portable and/or space-constrained situations; well, aoTuV Vorbis builds to be exact, but it’s not really much of a difference). For higher levels it would be something like “good” or “very good” and so on.
Generally, it’s slightly weird – exactly when psychoacoustic compression nicely improved, can obtain quite respectable quality at very low bitrates …people go more often for higher ones.
Jesus christ are you ever retarded.
FTFY.
I think someone has been reading memes too much and doesn’t anymore know what the meaning of this particular one is.
The point is that someone is making a class action lawsuit on the fact they can’t quite have as many films sitting in their hardrive.
No, the point is that people believe they are paying for ~30GB useable storage but get much less than what they’re paying for. There’s nothing wrong with suing over that.
Sorry, but I am not going to cry a river over it.
Yeah. It’s obvious by now that you’ll just raise a big fuss that it’s stupid to feel cheated when you get much less than what you’re told that you’re paying for, or as someone who has not bought the product think it’s ridiculous for any company to make claims that their product doesn’t fully back their marketing drivel up on. No, no whining there…
TBH.
It is pretty trivial to check. I am sorry it is called being a smart consumer.
Hey, I wouldn’t fall for it either. But it’s still deceiving on the part of the manufacturer/seller. And there are people out there who seriously won’t know any better.
Is that something like “Microsoft Works”? ;P
Agreed. Besides, given that this is a tech forum, I think everything discussed here by definition is going to be a first world problem.
I know you’re being sarcastic, but this is exactly what people do with laptops. You did forget the mountains of cat pics, though.
I think we all know we’re very fortunate that our biggest problems are arguing about computers.
So in essence you are saying the Surface is an OLPC…
Note that if anyone notices that glaring screw-up, yes, I did mean 256MB. I think in the context it was said it should be an obvious mistake, but in case anyone is confused this is the clarification. 256MB really ain’t shit these days, honestly… and for normal use, even a 2GB drive is too small as I pointed out in other replies. Even for acceptable-but-low-quality audio and video files files.
Before speculating, better ask Debian committee themselves:
https://plus.google.com/110356875332222535709/posts/46wiyitnqpJ
Gnome is still the default in Debian and its packages are rebuilt in xz format to fit in CD-ROM.
They had switched to XFCE, and then switched back:
http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=tasksel/tasksel.git;a=commitdif…
Phoronix was right, so it looks like Jeremy Bicha didn’t know what was going on.
Very reassuring.
Unfortunately it is the side effect of hauling around 20 years of backwards compatibility because Steve didn’t want the Office team in on the Surface details. The result? we have a grafted win32 application on Surface rather than a well integrated surface version. With every 5 steps Microsoft take forward they have a habit of taking two steps back.
3 forward still seems OK, and probably better than average…
Agreed; Microsoft is making progress but it is unfortunate that the haters come out of the wood works to bash them when a sacred cow is being offended. Windows Phone IMHO marks a massive improvement over previous versions and they’ve finally got something competitive especially when it comes to the future of portable gaming given the underpinning technology being provided. The parallel I always give for Microsoft is Intel when it released the P4 and caught off guard yet here we are with Intel back in shape. It will take Microsoft a few years to purge the old guard before we start seeing some of the bad ways of things being done replaced – end of the day Microsoft is a huge organisation spanning many markets so it takes time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOh6Nh8w6f8&t=0m17s
Considering nearly device sold in the past at 30 years or so has less than the advertised storage amount, due to things such as file system overhead, OS and other included software, this should be more of a “buyer beware” situation.
It’s shitty that Windows RT needs 12-16GB of space on a 32GB device, but it is easily discoverable either on the internet, or spending a few minutes with the device in a store, which is something you should probably do if you’re going to spend $500+ on it.
My iPod advertised 8GB, but there was 7GB free (Now even less after I updated to the latest iOS available for this model).
Same applies to my Nokia Lumia.
Same applies to my laptop. Or the previous laptop.
People should realize that yes, included software takes up space. It’s not difficult to find out how much.
File system overhead (unless you’re using FAT on something like a 1TB drive) is nothing. The real lie normally comes in the form of being told sizes in decimal units by the hard drive manufacturers to make their drives look bigger than they actually are on those hard drives and computer specs in the store, instead of binary units that virtually all operating systems have used and people expect. In this case, it’s the operating system itself hogging half of the disk.
Except that they state “32GB of Storage Space” a big difference from what everyone else says
There is also some level of expectation, based on competing products…
Android tablets use about 1GB of space for the OS overhead, iOS tablets are fairly similar… The surface uses 16 times more space! You don’t expect such a massive difference between products which target the same market, advertise a similar level of specification and cost roughly the same.
When I buy a computer with, say, a 500GB drive, I fully expect to see something more like 465GB due to GB/GiB shenanigans. On top of that, I know that the Microsoft OS du jour will take anywhere from 15-20GB by itself, and the restore partition (hidden or not) will take up another 10-20GB. At the worst extreme, that leaves me with 415GB when I paid for 500GB. That’s 85GB of “missing” space, which as early as five years ago was a realistic size for an entire system drive.
That said, when you’re dealing with disk sizes around 32GB and the mobile OS has an installed size of 16GB, there is indeed a problem. I think Microsoft should have advertised these devices based on the free space, and used a minimum of 64GB in the base model to avoid confusion and lost sales.
I wouldn’t call windows RT a mobile OS, it’s a full Windows on a different CPU architecture.
I have a Surface RT, I knew how much free space I would have when I got it because I read the damned website before I pressed the button to place my order.
For comparison, my Windows 8 install on my home desktop is using 29.7GB including the program files folders. 21.5GB if I exclude those.
Nonsense, even Microsoft doesn’t claim it’s a full desktop OS. Otherwise Windows 8 proper wouldn’t exist at all and we’d just have RT for x86 and RT for ARM.
Besides, I can put Android x86 on my desktop PC, does that mean it’s a desktop OS? In fact, I ran MeeGo for nearly a year on an x86 netbook, and it was more capable than the XP installation it replaced. It could compile and run full desktop GNU/Linux programs. Yet it is still considered a mobile OS. I think it should be based on how you use it; if it’s on a desktop PC it’s a desktop OS. If it’s on a tablet or phone it’s a mobile OS. If it’s on a laptop it’s entirely debatable.
That was pretty much my point with the 500GB/GiB hard drive example. I think we agree that an informed user will know what they are getting into. The problem is that many people don’t read reviews or packaging, then they get the device home and find that their entire Law and Order 1080p Blu-Ray collection won’t fit. They are the ones Microsoft should have planned ahead for, and either adjusted their packaging and advertisements or bumped up the base model’s storage to compensate.
The free space comment wasn’t meant as an argument against your point, just general commentary following from the article.
But I still think Windows RT is much more a desktop style OS than it is a mobile OS.
As far as I can tell it’s not missing anything that is in Windows 8 so far as content that’s actually on the disk. It’s missing capabilities, sure, but then so is a corporate desktop with a bunch of restrictive policies applied, and that’s how I see Windows RT: a full windows installation with some restrictions applied, and on a CPU architecture that’s new for the platform, which limits application and driver availability
Heh? So Android isn’t a full OS and yet it lets you actually treat the micro-sd card like a drive? Oddly enough Android also has drive encryption while RT does not despite Microsoft fanboys telling us that it is enterprise friendly.
Windows RT is a bad joke, it’s Office and IE on a tablet for $500 and without any of the basic enterprise features that were on Windows 2000. Supposedly Office on RT runs like crap as well.
But I will be buying a few of them to carry in case a surface dance party breaks out in the streets.
I don’t know if you are insinuating that this isn’t the case in Windows RT, but my MicroSD currently has a drive letter and is mounted to an NTFS folder location to make it part of a library. As a user of an Android phone, it’s a less complete OS than windows RT insofar as exposed userland tools for manipulating the device and content on it, especially graphically. But the two platforms are fairly equivalent when it comes to providing a platform to run user-installed applications. Android just has a larger pool of available apps at this point.
I don’t have good definitions for where to draw the line between a traditional desktop OS and a mobile OS, but in using it; Windows RT does not feel like a mobile OS, it feels like Windows.
You’ve been misinformed here… BitLocker is on by default for the built in storage, and while it can’t enable bitlocker on removable devices, it prompts for the password and can read drives that have been encrypted with it. The mail client can connect to certain types of exchange server and cause the device to enact security policies too.
I can’t say I’ve seen Surface RT pushed as an enterprise platform. The message as I received it was that RT was the Home-Edition/iPad-competitor version, while Pro/8 was the version that businesses should consider. Also office doesn’t run like crap, the performance is fine but its touch integration is not very good. Many of the buttons are too small for a finger to work well, so I depend on the trackpad portion of my touch cover (which hasn’t split yet, btw
) – but the pieces I use (word and excel) run fine.
This has happened more than I’d like to admit since getting mine
Is it really a full windows on a different architecture or something else…..seems more like iOS to OSX in practice though technically I suppose it is.
Buyer beware is true enough but in this case it beggars belief MS thought 32Gb storage with all that bloat was a practicality, cloud notwithstanding, and RT should never have been offered without 64Gb minimum.
Wonder how many buyers of RT realised this beforehand?
there is no merit to this. people have wasted a lot of energy over nothing
Non-story. Other computers do the same thing. Sucky, yes, but as old as the night.
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2012/11/lawyer-files-frivolous-lawsuit…
It is a story the same reason that the stupid non-issue with the iphone antenna was a story, or the location tracking fiasco was a story…
Some loon files a lawsuit, and its Microsofts turn to get kicked by the media. It doesn’t matter that this is a tired old issue that goes back decades and affects virtually every computer on earth. It doesn’t matter that the number of people genuinely surprised by the issue could fit in a thimble.
Its Microsoft’s turn – it has to be somebody’s turn and the internet is bored with kicking Apple.
That said, Microsoft could have avoided this easily. They should have just reported free space – i.e. 32BG storage (16GB available to user). They used to do exactly this on Windows CE devices – don’t know why they stopped.
don’t be so stupid please. This case has no merit because the amount of memory is accurately advertised.
The iPhone antenna not working was abnormal and was definitely news. Just like illegally and immorally and unsecurely tracking users without their knowlesge woukd be, if that is what you are referring to
These stories share nothing in common
I didn’t say the case had merit. It has just as much merit as the lawsuit over the iphone 4 antenna or the lawsuit over a stupid bug in location tracking – i.e. none of these case had any merit… They are all the result of stupid, attention seeking, whiny consumers making mountains out of molehills. The media just likes to pile on when the opportunity arises.
You say this is a non-issue, but “antenagate” was somehow a serious problem? Or a innocuous bug in location caching that accidentally kept data longer than it should have – that was worth the amount of coverage it got?
I don’t know what to say. Did someone get hurt or killed? Is losing 24db of signal when you touch a specific point on the corner of the phone going to cause someone bodily injury? Did some guy get caught cheating on his wife because she hacked her husbands iphone backup and found out where he was last night?
Im sorry but ALL of this kind of shit is pointless media masterbation.
Get some perspective…
Well, to put things into another kind of perspective: are things only worth paying attention to if they cause physical injuries, all else be damned?
No. But SOME kind of injury (physical or otherwise) would seem to me to be necessary. What kind of injury did any of these things cause anyone?
Edited 2012-11-17 08:47 UTC
I, personally, do not agree with that view. Not allowing women to vote, for example, never caused any injury to anyone, yet it was still certainly wrong, ie. things may certainly be unjustified and/or unfair without necessarily causing an injury of any kind.
Not allowing a person the same rights as another because of their sex is most certainly injuring them, severely actually. I don’t understand your analogy at all.
On the other hand, having to move your finger 3mm to the left when you talk on your phone (IF you have an already weak signal) certainly doesn’t seem to me to be particularly bothersome… Certainly not worthy of a lawsuit.
did someone say sex?
The word sex is commonly used as a synonym for the word gender in US English…
this subthread happening behind the scenes of my beautiful original post has reminded me more of the other kind of sex, the one with poop getting smeared around
Well I would have happily responded to you instead if you had bothered posting a response instead of just stopping with the drive-by “please dont be stupid” post… I don’t think I was being stupid at all…
Unfortunately, someone else totally derailed the discussion with a completely off topic analogy about women and voting…
And yes, I agree – this has devolved into poop throwing
Actually, sex is used to refer to the physical representation determined by ones chromosomes, whereas gender refers to the appearance. Most people use them interchangeably, but in clinical medicine it’s important to make the distinction.
Actually, sex is used to refer to the physical representation determined by ones chromosomes, whereas gender refers to the appearance. Most people use them interchangeably, but in clinical medicine it’s important to make the distinction. [/q]
The word sex is also commonly used as a synonym for the word gender in US English… Im not a doctor, I wasn’t speaking in clinical terms nor should I expect anyone reading this forum to interpret me that way, and I don’t see how what you just wrote has anything to do with the topic at hand.
You argued that denying a woman the right to vote does not cause injury. I said it most certainly did. If you want to respond to that please do, but critiquing my choice of words or understand of English language is just derailing the discussion.
I didn’t claim it had anything to do with the topic at hand, I just merely provided some insight as to the words “sex” and “gender.”
There’s not much to respond. Inequality does not equal injury, they’re two entirely different concepts.
If you see it that way. I never meant to “derail” anything with it.
Please read number 3 below…
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/injury
or 1b below…
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/injury
or any legal dictionary…
http://definitions.uslegal.com/i/injury/
Uh, did you even read that thing yourself? If the law said women aren’t allowed to vote then there would indeed be no legal redress and it would not be an injury, just as the dictionary link you gave says.
This one says the same thing.
And here, too.
I don’t get your point.
Dont be so dense. The point of the women’s suffrage movement was to establish the laws allowing legal redress. Just because the injury comes before the law doesn’t change anything – denying a woman to vote is causing injury – the proof of that is laws were established to disallow the practice.
Would you say that slavery caused injury only after it was outlawed? Your either just arguing for the sake or arguing are simply don’t understand what you are talking about.
No, I just disagree with you. Slavery in and of itself wasn’t injury either, though it did cause injuries. Slavery — just as not having voting rights — is all about having or not having something, and well, not having something that someone else has just ain’t injury, it’s inequality. Injury, on the other hand, is all about deprivation of something you’d otherwise have by one or another party.
Also, you were the one who linked to the dictionary definitions and now you’re telling me to disregard them.
this secret sexy subthread is getting longer and longer by the day. more erect, if you will. more erotic, even
keep going please
They have to copy files backwards and forwards sometimes.
I’ve been meaning to sue Commodore over my C64. I mean, it has 64K RAM. Why only 38911 bytes free to BASIC??! 20K used by the O/S? Unacceptable!
(By which I mean 20K of ROM which masked 20K of RAM. Detail is an elephant. Or irrelevant. Or whatever)
Using ML you can use up to 60 kB.
For me the 38911 bytes never were a wall I’d hit.
You can also say the OS only uses 20 kB, so it beats Windows RT, iOS and Android in smallness.
You can also say it uses almost 1/3rd of total RAM …what bloat!
For personal computers, you’re right. People expect a Windows to take 5-10% of a 320 GB harddrive. For portable devices, people are accustomed to the advertised storage being available for media (e.g. 10,000 songs on your 32 GB MP3 player).
This trend has changed somewhat with smartphones, as Android might take 512 MB of the 32 GB available, but it’s generally trivial. Phones which don’t advertise the space might use more (e.g. 1.5 GB of 8 GB), but nowhere near 50%. People see “32 GB” and expect to be able to put ~5,000 pictures, ~2,000 MP3s and ~25 movies on the device simultaneously. That’s why they bought a device with many gigabytes of storage — to store media on it.
Errrr, no Thom. No other device advertises storage and then leaves you with half of the advertised storage. It’s a joke.
They were clearly deceiving their clients.
Now, 16 gigs of used OS space is a tragedy. I don’t know what they are holding there, but it’s unbelievably big. It’s even more funny whene you think it’s mostly an OS, and few little Microsoft apps …
My OS [+ all – hundreds – of my installed apps are in it] takes 5.3 GB of hard disk space.
Unfortunately they are all linked dependant on a certain set of libraries and every package must change if any of those libraries change.
This isn’t the case with Windows.
My operating systems occupy 3-4 GB each for Ubuntu 12.10, Fedora 17, Fedora 18 (beta), and Linux Mint 14 RC. Looks like about 30GB for Win7
According to this informative article;
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/surface-disk-space-a-bit-bet…
… Office + OS + pagefiles = 7.86 GB. That’s fat, but not obese.
The problem is a combination of GB vs. GiB and on-disc recovery partitions (why not provide it on a cheap SD card?). Of course, the operating system does have its own problems with bloat; specifically with updates not removing previous versions and installation files.
Edited 2012-11-16 13:19 UTC
Three main OS’:
Linux Mint 14 XFCE: ~3GiB
Windows 7: ~17GiB
OpenPandora Angstrom: ~400MiB
Edit: On of the comments on that article asks whether CCleaner has released a Windows 8 version yet. Looks like this might have just become even more necessary than for XP/Vista/7.
Edited 2012-11-16 13:48 UTC
A California man is really a California Lawyer so this one knows what he’s doing.
Well, I installed Windows 8 on a 10GB VirualBox hard disk drive and there was 1,5GB of space left. Did not uninstall nothing. So, if you give it more it will consume more.
16 gig is fine for a laptop or desktop OS. The problem here is that the cheaper Surface has only 32 gig total, leaving only 16 gig for user data (music, videos, Office files, etc).
Of course, the customer should have read the specs before he bought it. As far as I can tell from reading other articles on this lawsuit, the guy is a lawyer known for consumer rights activities. That’s what his suit is really about… and he’s suing on the basis of product misrepresentation in advertising.
Really? I loaded up this article expecting some actual conversing (insane, right?) and all I get is nested comment after nested comment of people arguing with a known troll.
Please stop. It isn’t hard.
The article itself is a troll.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/why-the-8gb-wii-u-can-only-st…
Nobody has mentioned Nintendo doing exactly the same thing.
Edited 2012-11-17 09:10 UTC
Regardless of who it is it’s still wrong I’m afraid. Advertising storage space and then leaving a user with half of the advertised storage space is plain ridiculous.
Oh, and you’re still a troll who frankly doesn’t know what he’s arguing half the time when he loses arguments. Hint: It’s at that point that you stop typing.
But people are more likely to raeg at Microsoft.
Oh yes, last time if I remember correctly you were doing the old “I am going delibrately mis-interpret simple words like ‘we’ to make my argument work”.
Unlike a lot of people on here, I have don’t hide my real identity.
The very first comment on here was a troll, the article itself is a troll. I obvious troll back to make a point and everyone gets their nickers in a twist.
Edited 2012-11-17 16:31 UTC
Your argument, whatever it was, is still null and void on that basis.
Errr, no. You made assertions you simply couldn’t back up with examples, couldn’t answer the question ‘why’?, were out-argued, got your ass handed to you and you then eventually shut up. People who have that happen to them quite often then claim they were misinterpreted in order to try and salvage some pride.
Good for you. If you want to have your identity public, if I were you, I’d shut up.
Errrr, no. I’m afraid you can’t just say what you like and have it be true – a flaw in your reasoning you haven’t picked up yet. It’s been explained why the article is relevant and why this simply wouldn’t happen with any non-computer product. For some reason if it’s computer related advertisers can get away with whatever they want.
You then trolled with a lot of nonsensical crap about the size of hard drives. You have no line of reasoning or argument. It’s a case of throwing out random crap to have something to say.
No it isn’t
Actually that didn’t happen. I kept on asking the same question and you didn’t answer it and deliberately missed the point.
At no point did I have my arse handed to me.
Unfortunately you don’t get to tell me anything.
The guy is a lawyer trying to make a name for himself. Sorry if you plonking down what is a quarter of my monthly earnings it best to check the fact first that can be found on the website of the supplier of said product.
There is no black and white on this, even if you claim there is to be.
It is called a matter of opinion. I don’t agree with your conclusion. The fact we are having this argument proves that.
Keep on throwing that word around … doesn’t make you right.
Yes it is. See where you’re going here?
You’re replying….. Shut up about your pointless public identity then.
Your opinion, something you don’t back up and cannot argue and where you consistently try and argue that it’s all an anti-Microsoft conspiracy.
That’s clearly just ad-hominem nonsense.
I think you would disagree with me about whether the sky was blue.
Edited 2012-11-19 19:27 UTC
This is the problem I have with OSNews. You get some excellent articles and intelligent conversation, interrupted by a bunch of idiots who ruin it for everyone. Too bad.
You were the one that did the original troll … pot and kettle Kateline.
People are whining about the Surface being short on space and asking where do you store your music and other files. Well, if you run out of space, you add more, just like any normal person does to their computer. The Surface has 2x USB ports and a microSDXC port so no, you do NOT need a harddrive if you don’t want one. Me personally, I would opt for either SDHC->USB or take advantage of that microSDXC port. If I can afford a Surface, I can easily afford another $40 or so for 64GB worth of space. Or $100ish for another 128GB of space. There’s also getting a cheap usb SSD as well, which slides into your pocket with plenty of room to spare for your other crap you carry around.
Btw, what happens when you run out of space on your ipad? You either start deleting, buy another ipad with more space. Of course any device with internet connectivity can use cloud services so……
People are whining about `what if you live in the 3rd world and don’t have a 100Mbit connection?`… Most people period don’t have 100Mbit connections and I doubt you’re seeing many Surface tablets in 3rd world countries. No saying you won’t, but am saying let’s keep things in perspective. Is the Surface a good choice for poor 3rd world people? Probably not so crying about it is a bit disingenuous.
People are whining about the size of the OS install, citing that it’s bloated. But people also complain if they plug something into Windows and a driver isn’t immediately ready, or they don’t have near-full compatibility with whatever they’re doing/using. And of course there’s no escaping the irony that linux gets quickly & terribly bloated if you’ve doing more than a base install. Windows and linux both could go on a diet but considering how much more Windows supports, linux users should tread lightly when throwing criticism around.
So basically people are trying to find any stupid reason to whine about Microsoft by way of the new Surface tablet. New day, new product, same old boring & mostly pointless pissing about.
No, the crux of the matter is that MS is advertising a tablet as having “32” gb of storage space and not specifying, clearly, that ACTUAL usable space is a LOT less.
Unless I am mistaken. No one that is sane is arguing otherwise. Just ignore the trolls.
Apple doesn’t advertise actual usable space for their ipads. Google doesn’t advertise actual usable space for their Nexus 7. Amazon doesn’t advertise actual usable space for their Kindle Fire HD. Nobody says anything about it until Microsoft doesn’t advertise actual usable space for their Surface. Then all of a sudden this is a huge deal and Microsoft is engaged in false advertisement.
People should easily be able to see how ridiculous it is to blow a hole in their shorts over this. The issue was a non-issue until Microsoft did it too. Then all of a sudden people are all up in arms. It’s not because of their “deception” that people readily accept from other tablet makers, ..it’s simply because it’s Microsoft and people love to piss all over the place when it’s Microsoft.
A 32GB iPad has 28GB available while a 32GB Surface has 16GB. Can’t you understand that at some point it becomes false advertising?
In many reviews I’ve read one can read that the Surface is cheaper than the iPad by $100, the 32GB Surface being priced as the 16GB iPad which is seen by many as a clear advantage. Problem is that the 32GB Surface should be compared to the 16GB iPad in which case the price advantage disappear.
If this is fair advertising for you, fine, but many won’t agree.
Edited 2012-11-16 18:12 UTC
Surface comes bundled with Office and more preinstalled apps than an iPad.
On top of that, a Surface has microSd expandability (which the iPad lacks) and 2x USB ports (which iPad lacks) and features a full blown Office suite. (including OneNote MX)
Windows RT also includes 7GB of free SkyDrive storage (25GB if you got grandfathered like me) and unlimited streaming of music over Xbox Music for 6months.
Some people will reply to me, call cloud storage the devil, mention that its THEIR data, bring up some conspiracy theory that Microsoft will one day shut them off from their data, etc
Then someone will reply about FLAC and all their high quality albums (apparently they need to carry 50GB of albums everywhere they go, or something ridiculous like that)
Surface is not for you. There really is no device that will ever suit your needs. Especially not a Microsoft one.
To me and a majority of others, cloud storage is palatable and even desirable. I enjoy having my data automatically sync between all my devices. I enjoy freeing up storage for other things while storing documents and music and videos and photos on the cloud. It is convenient. Maybe it doesn’t fit your philosophical views, but who cares?
But let’s go beyond the bullshit for a minute: You cannot enter a class action lawsuit against Microsoft. You may resolve your disputes in small claims court or using binding arbitration. This entire article is a moot point.
Edited 2012-11-16 18:31 UTC
It doesn’t matter if the ipad has 28GB available or 2.8GB available. Advertising a 32GB Surface as 32GB is exactly the same as advertising a 32GB ipad as 32GB. Does the device come with 32GB? Yes. They are not advertising “32GB of free space available” therefore they are not falsely advertising their product.
I will point out, again, that Apple, Google, and Amazon don’t advertise how much free space is available either. Microsoft is doing nothing more, less, or worse than any of them. Yet when they do it it’s fine but when Microsoft follows their lead, certain people start crying foul. It’s just dumb.
It’s almost sad how quickly people throw common sense out the window just to try taking a cheap (and unjustified) jab at Microsoft.
No, …the 32GB Surface should be compared to other 32GB devices.
Moving the goal posts in an attempt to take away an advantage only means you have no real merit for your case.
Of course it’s fair. There isn’t a single company advertising how much “free space available” their device comes with. At least with the Surface you have a few expansion options — good luck plugging a $40 64GB SDXC card into your ipad.
Errrr, yes it does. Leaving someone with 50% of their advertised storage has become false advertising. It’s not an absolute, as anything is with advertising, but it’s got to the point where it is beyond being reasonable.
I think you need to read the article. Microsoft are marketing this on the basis of storage space and that it’s better than an iPad. They’re charging a premium for these devices, just to make things worse.
You’re on a slippery slope when you make those claims and fall well, well short. No other device comes even close to leaving you with 50% of your storage left.
Doesn’t work that way I’m afraid and you can’t rephrase this as ‘free space available’. If you are advertising 32GB of storage then you need to reasonably have most of that 32GB available. That’s the way it’s happened in other industries with misrepresentation.
If Office is taking up most of that space then you advertise that it has Office and cut down the advertised storage space.
Something has to give here. Splitting hairs and trying to redefine the argument won’t wash.
At the end of the day, Microsoft have said it is a 32GB version with 16gb of free space. It is on their website, it is easily googled and if you ask when buying one I am sure store clerk will tell you (they are obliged to).
I’m afraid legally that’s still false advertising. No one gets away with putting something up publicly and then saying “Oh well if you’d asked us then we would have told you what we really meant by 32GB of storage.”
False advertising precedents. Look them up.
Actually unless you are a lawyer or a judge, you opinion is pretty much irrelevant.
…….No. The device does have 32GB of storage. How that storage is used is something else entirely.
It doesn’t matter what percentage of the storage space is used by other devices. That has nothing to do with anything. Not only that but there is no law stating a 32GB device must be have x% of that 32GB to be advertised as a 32GB device.
Cite the exact law(s) that supports your claim. Cite ANY law that supports your claim. Or concede that you are posting nothing more than your own personal opinion and that nothing you’ve claimed is sourced on actual law.
Microsoft has no obligation to list any bundled software. Common sense says they would want to because coming with Office pre-installed is a plus. Regardless of the presence of Office, the device has a set amount of storage it comes with. How much of that is used by OS, pre-installed software, etc. is completely irrelevant. None of that changes the fact that a 32GB device literally has 32GB of storage.
The only thing that should give is these pathetic attempts to cry Microsoft foul and create a problem where none actually exists. You’re probably so blinded by your desire to badmouth Microsoft that you likely are oblivious to the fact that you have already moved the goal posts in an attempt to support your false claims. You’re the one pulling things like `there needing to be 50% of free space available` out of thin air. You’re trying to split hairs where no hairs exist.
Like I said, it’s all good until Microsoft does it. Once that happens then OH NO THEY DIDN’T, no matter how ridiculous, stupid, and/or non-existant the “problem” is. This case is going nowhere because there is no case. I suspect you’ll still be whining about it even after the case gets thrown out or lost though.
Nope. There is an implication there that is very, very clear and legally it has been proven umpteen times in false advertising cases.
Yes it does, because legally it is going to be decided at what point the free space left to a user versus the advertisement goes beyond what is reasonable. Look up legal precedents for this.
How far do we go here. Advertise 32GB of storage and leave the user with 1GB? That’s clearly not acceptable.
Crap. This is false advertising, plain and simple. Look it up.
Learn about false advertising and precedents in that area or shut your mouth. Having to resort to asking for a specific law prohibiting this means you don’t know what on Earth you are talking about.
You give with one hand and take away with another. I’m afraid that legally speaking this is the view that will be taken and one way or another Microsoft will be forced into doing that.
No I’m afraid it isn’t because there is a clear implication of storage space. A consumer has no control over how much of that 32GB they get. If there is a problem here you don’t advertise any storage space at all. Simple.
ROTFL. What’s really funny are people who have crazy ideas that the computer and technology industries are different from anything else and laws and legality don’t apply to them. They do I’m afraid.
Cry me a river. Boo, hoo, hoo, it’s all an anti-Microsoft conspiracy.
Doesn’t change the fact that this is false advertising, there are precedents for this, you don’t know that and I’m afraid there is very good legal merit here.
Edited 2012-11-18 13:47 UTC
You keep saying this but have yet to provide one single shred of proof. You haven’t cite one single law or one single successful case. Basically you’re just blowing smoke and hoping nobody notices that you’re not providing any actual facts. The buck stops there, that’s why I didn’t bother replying to the rest of your smoke/post.
Because you’ve had your ass carved out and handed to you on a spoon. Why? Because you cannot argue this out, that’s why.
You’re desperately asking for a law that says ‘Consumers must get x amounts of free bytes’ to dig you out of this hole when this is covered under false advertising. For anyone who professes to talk about this subject this is so stupid it isn’t even funny.
You advertise 32GB of storage then you give a user 32GB of storage. Th clear message is that is storage for the user otherwise why advertise it? There might be reasonable circumstances under which consumers wouldn’t get exactly 32GB (tolerances etc.) but giving users under half that will be argued as completely unreasonable – as I have done here. Seagate and Western Digital were successfully sued for using size units to make their hard drives look bigger. The discrepancy? 5%.
The thread ends here because you can’t argue this or respond to anything that’s been presented. However, this is exactly what will happen in a court somewhere here.
No he hasn’t.
Everyone else advertises their devices 16, 32 64 GB devices, Microsoft advertised 32GB of storage space, which means that is what is available to use. Using the words “storage space” changes everything.
No, …it doesn’t. The device DOES have 32GB of storage. Part of it is used by the OS. Just like every other device.
Some people try to find any pathetic excuse to cry about Microsoft, I swear.
I have a law degree and no matter what any shill says, the law does recognize that distinction and will act on it.
Is this another one of you lies?
* Has a law degree
* Moved 200,000 desktops over to Linux.
Which is it?
Your resume is probably reading like a Character from Resident Evil.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/why-the-8gb-wii-u-can-only-st…
Nothing has been said about Nintendo doing exactly the same thing.
You mean that article that was written in 15 Nov 2012?
I don’t get your non-sensical argument I’m afraid. Whether it is Nintendo or anyone else that is still wrong.
I see you’re trying to paint this as an anti-Microsoft thing or something now that you’ve lost all your (nonsensical) arguments.
Lets spell it out for you.
* The “buyer” who is a lawyer, could have easily found out (it is in the small print, which you should really always read), it putting up a class law suit … instead of buying an SD card.
* The user (ahem… lawyer) is trying to make a name for himself. This is about consumer rights, it is blatantly about himself.
* These things have been around since companies have sold PCS.
* Other companies are doing it, and that hasn’t been mentioned or raeged about … mainly because it is Microsoft.
These are the same arguments I made, earlier and will continue to make.
If you asked me if I thought it was a bit shitty, I would agree and why I won’t buy a surface at this time.
If you think it is unfair they don’t advertise it more honestly … maybe. But I am sorry, unless you are a smart consumer you will get ripped off.
All the information is available at your finger tips … sorry there is simply no excuse.
Edited 2012-11-17 18:52 UTC
You’re really, really not getting this, are you? I’m afraid small print does not exclude misleading advertising. That won’t wash legally. Secondly a SD card is irrelevant because this is about the actual storage space of the device.
Your opinion.
Getting half the advertised storage? No, it hasn’t. Seagate and WD actually got sued over that for a 5% discrepancy. Arguing that technology products have always been confusing for consumers is not an argument.
It doesn’t make it right – as has been pointed out to you many times. Whinging that it’s all anti-Microsoft is not a counter argument.
Yes, and they’re the same arguments that have been shown to be nonsense. You repeat them because you don’t have any counter arguments.
You’ve just made a case for misleading advertising there. Congratulations.
They aren’t, and redefining what you advertise in terms and conditions won’t work.
Edited 2012-11-19 13:13 UTC
If you neglect the rest … this is a matter of opinion until there is a verdict. Which is something you are to stupid to understand.
No. If you advertise a box with five cubic metres of space and you actually get two then the law has and can act on that kind of misrepresentation. You cannot argue that you do actually get that advertised storage but the walls of the box take up over 50% of it. It simply doesn’t work like that.
I hate to burst the bubble of the non-sensical arguments you people are making but there have been umpteen legal precedents for this in many, many countries. It’s as old as advertising itself.
Actually you don’t seem to understand the meaning of nonsensical.
Nonsensical means without meaning or ludicrous.
What ilovebeer, you and I have are a difference of opinion. Before throwing phrases around, actually learn what they mean.
Well done.
You believe that advertising laws don’t exist, don’t apply to computing products and anyone who claims that they do must be anti-Microsoft.
I believe that fits my definition of nonsensical. I believe I understand it very well and knew what I meant when I typed it, thank you very much.
Edited 2012-11-18 14:00 UTC
No, that is not what I said. I simply don’t believe they have. Stop being a dick and twisting people’s words.
You are reaching plain and simple.
Lucas, I wasted a few minutes here just to respond to your arguments. Make it simple. And yes I am using my real name.
Use some common sense:
It is tolerable for Android and iOS to come up with an actual 32Gb storage space but with a few % deducted for an Operating System. If Microsoft came up with the same model (deduct a few percentage from an advertised storage capacity), there will be no suing. Else you will win for this specific case.
But here is Microsoft advertising a 32Gb storage, but with an obscure explanation that it deducted 50% of that storage space is no longer acceptable from a consumer’s point of view, that is, from a consumer, NOT FROM YOUR perspective. They(consumer) don’t have to pay EXTRA(BUT YOU LUCAS, you can) for an external storage if you expect something that at least you can save more than 80% of your data out from that 32Gb storage, it is a bit unusual, for this is a MOBILE device, THIS IS NOT A PC WHERE you can have terabytes of storage and yes it is tolerable on a PC, you might have >500Gb of storage, but for a mobile device, this is no longer the case if you use your common sense. But because you set your mind that you can buy extra storage because the device have these extra features that others were lacking caused you to be blinded by the fact that other people can no longer afford to pay that extra cost.
If only Microsoft had used some and not released Surface RT with a not fit for purpose storage option. Indefenseable, though (IANAL) I’ve no idea if the righteous legal redress will actually come to pass, hopefully the damage to it’s brand by the publicity and from the suckers who,unbeknownst/foolishly, end up with one damages them sufficiently to make them think commonsensicaly in future…….pigs might fly, comes to mind
Edited 2012-11-19 09:43 UTC
Considering how Microsoft tends to eventually dominate the fields they decide to focus on (OS, GUI, office suites, consoles – all new areas for MS at some point), common sense seems not lacking in them. In hate groups of MS, OTOH…
I made it simple. I have said it is a grey area on whether they misrepresented the product.
The court will decide (if it ever gets there) who is right in this forum.
Do we ever hear follow-ups to such stories, anyway?
If we do, normally people pretend they didn’t say what they said at the time.
Or they might genuinely make themselves not remember – just how our memory and its biases work.
Either way, there’s always more than enough of some new such stories around… (to which we also likely won’t get a follow-up, of course; what are we doing here, commenting and all, anyway?)
You’re going to have to do a lot better than that to make any kind of point. Not only is the analogy terrible, I have yet to see a single law cited to support theories like yours.
If that is true, it should be absolutely no problem for you to start citing laws and successful lawsuits based on false advertisement of a product because how much actual “free space” was not clearly described in the advertisement.
Now you get the chance to prove there’s any shred of truth to anything you’ve said. I’m going to warn you though, I expect to see citations of laws and/or cases that actually address the very issue you & others are whining about — meaning don’t waste anyones time citing some irrelevant bullshit and trying to force it to fit.
You hate Microsoft, I get it. But, this case is going nowhere and anyone with any common sense knows it.
Christ on a pogo stick, fanboys can be so willfully stupid it hurts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising#Manipulation_of_meas…
Yes, there are definitely laws in the US regulated by the FTC regarding false advertising. Yes, class action lawsuits have already been settled with regards to the above link concerning hard drive space amounts. So yes, in this case, Microsoft is advertising n amount of space and in actuality there is n/50 for available use. This is false advertising. This lawsuit is valid and will proceed based on the prior precedent. And yes, it will likely be settled out of court with a financial amount paid plus precise changes to the wording in the adverts.
Is this now clear enough for you and Lucas to get?
They’re not really fanbois, they’re just plain stupid.
No it isn’t. Apparently the computer industry is completely different and impervious to any advertising laws whatsoever and when it’s pointed out then everyone must be anti-Microsoft.
Thanks for the link by the way. I wasn’t going to play the game of having to trawl Google for advertising law precedents that should be common knowledge so the idiots can drag their nonsense out even further.
Edited 2012-11-18 14:02 UTC
Willful idiocy is all it is. Say something critical of Apple’s business practices, and bam, you are anti-Apple. Say something critical of Microsoft, and bam, you are anti-Microsoft.
You are welcome but seriously, Googling “false advertising laws usa” gives the link I provided as the very first hit. Intellectual laziness is a part of this as well.
You made some excellent rebuttals in this thread. Thank you.
When you two are done circle-jerking each other, go ahead and find just one law or successful case on this very subject. Since you claimed there are several laws & cases in several countries, it should be a piece of cake for your to provide such evidence.
But, we all know neither of you will, because you can’t. You got called on your BS, failed to back any of it up, and everybody saw. If either of you reply, it will likely be more name-calling & nonsense that doesn’t prove anything beyond you being a couple of embarrassed sore losers.
I ask that real laws and/or real successful cases on this very subject be cited as evidence that anything your little buddy has claimed is true….. And the best you can come up with is a wikipedia link about false advertising? I hope to god you don’t expect anyone to take you seriously! If so, that’s really really ..really pathetic.
We all know why you cited a wikipedia definition rather than a real law or case. Because there is no real law or case that proves what you/your pal claim. You two are confused about what’s in your imagination, and what exists in the real world.
I cited Wikipedia because it is something simple for someone with the limited intelligence that you obviously have that clearly and factually shows that your opinions in this thread are not just wrong, but willfully wrong.
First, there are indeed laws on the books in the US that deal with false advertising which is regulated by the FTC. This is fact, not opinion. Therefore this lawyer can make a case against Microsoft.
Second, it specifically cites prior precedents concerning just such a case as this concerning false advertising and perceived versus actual hard drive space. If you had actually read the fucking footnotes, you would have seen this. But you didn’t therefore I will spoon-feed you the information.
http://www.neowin.net/news/western-digital-buckles-on-capacity-laws…
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/06/07/18/western-digital-pays-up-in…
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/11/03/seagate-settles-suit-over-…
This is again fact, not opinion. You want to find more, then fucking research it yourself. Try LexisNexis or this link:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/search/lii/false%20advertising
So you now have two cases from 2006 and 2007. Let’s move forward and spoon-feed you some more since you obviously require it. There is this little thing that we have in America called the Lanham Act. Here is the Wikipedia link on it so you can educate yourself further:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanham_Act
Here is a link to Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act which specifically deals with ‘false advertising’:
http://www.lawpublish.com/false-advertising-lanham-act.html
Section 1 sub paragraphs A & B cover what is being sued for in this particular case with regards to Microsoft’s alleged false advertising of 32GB space provided when in actuality there is about half of that (16GB) for usage.
There is indeed a law, and that is what is being used when the lawyer filed this case. There is precedent given the two cases from 2006 and 2007 with Seagate & Western Digital concerning false advertising (misleading consumers concerning actual versus stated space) so the case will be entertained by a court with all due respect and seriousness. I suspect it will go to litigation and be settled out of court just like the previous two were, but that does not change the fact that you and Lucas are fucking wrong. Not just a little, but totally & completely.
This is not about hating on the Microsoft. You may agree or disagree that it is a frivolous lawsuit, however, it does have merit based on case law and precedent which I have now cited for you because you are too intellectually lazy to research it yourself and correct your own willful stupidity.
You can wiggle and you can waggle all you want that you two are right. You two are simply wrong on this. Please pull your head out of your ass (not that I expect you will do so) and quit while you are ahead. You two are really starting to embarrass yourselves.
That is because they are most likely paid shills, mimicking whatever Microsoft says to them. They can’t grasp the difference between Samsung or other manufacturers saying “32GB” on the box and Microsoft saying “of storage” in addition, completely different legal meaning and interpretation.
Yes, that’s very likely isn’t it — that Microsoft pays people to go around posting whatever they instruct, on little forums around the web. Would you like a tin foil hat with your theory? As members of the Microsoft-Haters fan club, you should already have one but an extra to keep close won’t hurt you.
Now, nobody said there isn’t laws on the books about false advertising but nice deflection attempt. Let’s look at a scenario that actually does have something to do with what we’re talking about.. Now I wonder why of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of computers sold per year and advertised as having xGB worth of space, there hasn’t been a single case brought forward to whine about how yGB of that xGB is being used by pre-installed software (OS included), and that only zGB is actually free. If it’s such a simple case with obvious laws on the books, you would think that at least one single case would have been accepted and successfully prosecuted. But no, that hasn’t happened. Let’s not forget, your little circle-of-clueless are the ones claiming this has happened several times, in several countries. But yet the best you come up with is a story about WD that doesn’t even address, at all, what the supposed problem is. The only way you can connect it at all is by throwing out all of the relevant details. The fact that you don’t understand this, and that you wasted your time typing some long opinion based on it, only shows how much you don’t even understand the very problem you yourself claim exists.
I feel like I’m dealing with a stupid, literally stupid, dog. You tell it to fetch ball and it brings you a rock hoping you don’t notice it’s not a ball. You tell it to go fetch a ball again and this time you brings back clump of dirt….. You get the picture. Either you, the dog, is completely confused about what you’re being asked to fetch, or you simply can’t do it so you bring back other crap hoping that if you look at it from the right angle and in the right light, it looks close enough and nobody will notice you failed. But unfortunately, for you, your failure is blatantly obvious in every reply you’ve wasted your time typing.
I never claimed you were a paid shill. I also never claimed to ‘hate’ Microsoft. In fact, I have been using their products for over 30 years. So it is obvious you really don’t read the thread replies to you carefully. That explains quite a bit actually.
You repeatedly ask for what law in the US there was concerning this case. It was given to you, and now you claim you didn’t ask for it? Don’t be a dick.
You ask for a case that is relevant as precedent. It was given to you, and now you claim it isn’t what it is? Do you even read the links? Do you even pay attention to the details of the articles?
As a result of these discrepancies, a user filed a class-action lawsuit (PDF) against Western Digital last year, claiming false advertising, unfair business practices, breach of contract, and fraud. Rather than fight a potentially long and costly legal battle, the company has decided to settle by paying $500,000 in legal expenses and offering free backup and recovery software to roughly a million of its customers.
Seagate Technology has agreed to reimburse 5% of the purchase price to people who bought Seagate hard drives in the United States between March 22, 2001, and December 31, 2005 plus pay up to $1.79 million in plaintiff’s attorney fees. The move settles a lawsuit, filed in 2005, of false advertising and unfair business practices which accused the world’s largest maker of hard drives of measuring storage without taking into consideration how much can be used and therefore misleading consumers by promising 7% more capacity than the devices are actually able to deliver.
There, I just spoon fed you again the relevant passages on the linked pages you obviously didn’t read that absolutely presents real cases of false advertising concerning storage space that were settled. These are therefore relevant to the current lawsuit filed against Microsoft. Period.
This is what happens when unintelligent people such as yourself pretend to be ‘smart’. You just keep revealing how idiotic you truly are. You aren’t a paid shill. You are too stupid for that job. No, you are just a dumbass who when called on his bullshit bullies others and calls them names.
I know you will retort with further denials, further stupidity, and further bullying. I won’t be replying further to you on this. It is a waste of time.
First, my reply was to both of you, hence why both of you were quoted in it. It’s funny that somehow is above your head. Next, nobody said you claimed anything about a shill. Further, nobody said you claimed to hate Microsoft, but you do act like it.
What the hell are you talking about? First, the stuff you linked is not an example of an actual case regarding this exact “issue”. Second, I haven’t said anything about `not asking for it`, or whatever. Third, you’re making up idiotic nonsense.
You have yet to cite anything that addresses the “issue” you and your e-buddy thinks exists. I told you to fetch a ball and you brought me a rock thinking nobody would notice. Funny, and not in a good way.
You just did a horrible job of describing me but succeeded tremendously in describing yourself. How dumb do you think people are that they don’t notice you point your finger at me for calling people names and in this very post you call me a dick, unintelligent, idiotioc, stupid, dumbass, and bully. Great job kiddo, you did the impossible. You made yourself look like an even bigger ignorant twit than you already did.
You are so predictable it’s almost saddening. You are exactly as I describe a few replies ago. Behaving like nothing more than a wounded animal, lashing out in a last ditch effort to save yourself total humiliation. But, you had already failed in every way before reaching such a state of desperation. You lost the moment you decided to type your first reply because your own self-confusion of the “issue” has prevented you from coming even remotely close to saying anything relevant, interesting, vaguely true, or even worth reading. RIP buddy, better luck next time.
Edited 2012-11-20 04:33 UTC
Not sure about now, but some years ago Microsoft was a customer of the Arbuthnot Entertaiment Group, which hired people to do exactly that.
Shill programs are not a tinfoil hat theory, they are just part of the marketing business.
Edited 2012-11-20 12:28 UTC
They certainly do, that was one issue the judge in the Oracle V Google case demanded, a list of people who was paid by each company to post information online.
No because you are wrong.
http://www.osnews.com/thread?542950
Is that clear enough for you now?
Unfortunately that is about the reported size of the drive. This isn’t the case and the same case law does not apply.
We are arguing that there is no false advertising because the size of the drive is correct, however the amount of space left is less, the available space is in the small print so it is a matter of opinion at the moment whether it can be deemed false advertising.
Unfortunately you and other in this thread have consistently failed to grasp that, while throwing insults around.
You two throw your own share of insults around so you can drop the holier than thou bullshit strawman.
Look, you are dead certain it is not false advertising because of your opinions and support of Microsoft. You are certain that this case is bullshit and that anyone that supports it is anti-Microsoft.
What you two are failing to grasp is that there is precedent based on similar (not the same!) cases which warrants that this is quite possibly a case of false advertising. The OS and installed apps on the Surface takes up more than iOS or Android on the same size of internal flash, and that is not clearly stated. Microsoft still advertises it as a 32GB model when in actuality there is roughly 16GB of space. Their FAQ concerning is not easily accessible.
The case has merit. There are indeed laws concerning this. There are indeed prior similar cases concerning this. These are facts that you simply can not argue and yet you continue even now to do so by stating that it is only a matter of opinion.
Yeah I do, however when someone keeps on failing to see your point of view (not just on this Story), it becomes soo tiresome. So why not?
Nobody has mentioned that nintendo have just done the same as the Wii-U and it will likely never be mentioned ever again.
Again, it is a matter of opinion … it does have a 32gb drive with 16gb free.
How accessible should the FAQ be? Is there an actual number of clicks defined in law …
Sorry the accessibility of the FAQ is an opinion.
And since there isn’t a definitive verdict in this case, it is a matter of opinion whether they are or not. If and when there is a verdict and it disagrees with me, I will concede you are correct.
Then please do not be overly surprised if others who see your point of view, but challenge the reality of it also get frustrated with you and your attacks and frankly fight back.
There are several reasons that this is really a non-sequitur to the current discussion. The Surface was released almost a month ago. The Wii U was literally just released yesterday. However, if it proves to be a case of false advertising on the part of Nintendo, then I will have no problem if a lawsuit goes forward for them either.
But there is merit and precedent for a lawsuit, and it is quite probable that there is some issues with false advertising going on. Previously you and ilovebeer would not even acknowledge that there were laws on the books in the US which covers this nor were there previous cases to offer precedent. You both simply argued repeatedly that it is hatred of Microsoft. If you alone, are now accepting the reality, then fine, let’s wait and see what the verdict is. I am also willing to concede that your ‘opinion’ may be correct if the verdict disagrees with my ‘opinion’.
No we were arguing that we didn’t think that it broke the laws and those that were claiming with utter certainty that it had were mostly Microsoft haters.
Most of the comments on here were not regarding the any laws or precedents … but how little room their Linux installations took up.
http://www.osnews.com/thread?542950
Is that clear enough for you now? [/q]
The post you linked makes it clear that my “stupid dog” analogy is dead on. Read my reply to your linked post for more. Then feel free to respond again like a wounded animal.
An awful lot better than that? What I described is false advertising and you can’t get away with that. If you don’t know that then you really know very, very little – to put it politely.
I’m afraid the precedents are wider than that and they are as I have described. False advertising is false advertising. You don’t get away with it because you are selling people gigabytes.
Just face it sweetheart. This is false advertising. I’m afraid standing in a court of law and telling everyone that they hate Microsoft is not any sort of legal argument.
Correction, what you described was a pathetically weak attempt at an analogy.
I see. So you claim how there are many laws and cases in many countries that address this very “issue”, but you can’t cite a single one. That’s extremely pitiful – to put it politely.
If you’re going to ramble, at least try to make sense. I guess when someone is on the ropes, they’re say anything no matter how dumb it is.
Instead of blabbing and blowing smoke just simply cite all these numerous laws and cases that proves _anything_ you’ve said. You haven’t because you can’t, because all these laws and cases don’t exist. You backed yourself into a corner and now you’re trying to claw and scratch your way out with name-calling and insults. It’s ok. Feel embarrassed — you earned it.
Hm, you’re both kind of right and wrong. There are indeed various laws and regulations governing advertising, including falsified data, misleading claims and hiding of information, and there are plenty of judgments on these things. There was this case about Apple advertising iPad as 4G-capable in Australia, for example, whereas in reality the 4G-functionality worked only if you traveled to the US; since the 4G-feature didn’t work in Australia this was a rather clear case of misleading customers and Apple got slapped for it. That is to say that you need to take the context into account.
However, I cannot find any detailed judgments about the very topic at hand, ie. handling of advertised and used storage in an electronic device. Since there is no precedent set about this the outcome of this lawsuit is still anyone’s guess — it’s not even certain this will go to court at all. The judge will likely look at this with the intentional misleading of end-users in mind, and it’s entirely up to the judge to decide whether this case fulfills the requirements for such or not.
A class action lawsuit was presented against Western Digital some years ago that changed the way the industry advertised drive sizes. However, it is largely irrelevant. Advertising a set amount of storage space, consumers finding out they have nowhere near the amount of said storage space available to them and then finding out that there are caveats listed somewhere deep within a web site as to what they really mean is a pretty open and shut case. It’s clear to me that the way this is advertised needs changing. Whatever a consumer is buying this is clearly unacceptable.
What the idiots on this thread are wanting is a specific law that says ‘Users must get x bytes of free space’ in order to dig themselves out of this hole without the faintest idea how this works legally. It’s something I’m not going to do. I’ve argued why computer products are not a special case (“Oh, everyone does this!” is not a valid argument) and that’s exactly what is going to happen in this case in the article.
Not the same set of circumstances because they were misleading on the size of the drive … not how much was left after the OS installation.
It isn’t the same set of rules and therefore cannot be judged by the same standards.
You’re the one who said several laws & cases are on the books in several countries that tackle this “issue”, yet fail to provide even a single one as proof. You’re got yourself backed into a corner, called on your BS, and ever since have been lashing out like a wounded animal in a last ditch effort to escape the burden of proof of your own fantasy claims.
You’ve already humiliated yourself, why you keep doing it is beyond me. I guess you think if you bark loud enough, nobody will notice you don’t have any bite.
My one gig hard drive won’t allow me to load 1G worth of programs either. Nothing new, just trying to sue.
“Stupid California people” give you large part of the tech & entertainment you use, consume, enjoy…
We’re all computer-literate people who know that an operating system takes up space, and that 32 gigabytes is the maximum capacity of the drive completely empty. (gigabytes, not gibibytes). Once you put a filesystem on it, you’ve lost some space. Put an operating system on it and you’ve lost more space.
People who are not as computer-literate as us will not know. They usually don’t notice because the amount of space lost is so low when expressed as a percentage of the total capacity.
In other words, who notices 16 gigabytes lost on a 1TB hard disk?
Microsoft has released a tablet with an advertised “32 gigabyte” disk/SSD. It would be reasonable to expect maybe 25 gigabytes of usable space after the OS has been installed. However, there’s only 16 gigabytes left after the OS – that’s literally 50% of the advertised capacity lost!
Now, if you bought a computer with a 1TB hard disk, and found Windows taking up 500 gigs of that, you’d be pretty pissed too! You’ve lost half your storage space!
So no, it’s not just Microsoft-hate; advertising twice as much storage space as what is actually usable is drastic misadvertising.
Besides the Microsoft Surface engineers spreading false information about the available disk space, they admit that you cannot install apps to a microSD card:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11kyja/iam_panos_panay_gm_of_…
So install a couple of games (some of which easily reach sizes of a gigabyte and more, on Android I believe MC3 is the record holder) and your storage is full.
Though I agree that a clearer statement as to how much storage the Windows 8 OS uses is needed, I hate, I hate when people sue over such tripe. In Switzerland where I live, the maxium you can win from a law suit is 200,000 CHF. Big reason why Apple has not filed here, no money to be had.
It’s a silly tablet anyway, you get what you pay for.
Did Microsoft Sued Over Surface Tablet’s Disk Space ?
-Sa
It just occurred to me that it we no longer even blink when we talk about an OS occupying 10 gig or so. Does anybody remember the installed footprint of Windows 3.1? How about an Amiga 500 running Workbench 2.1 from floppies? We seem to accept all the fat from modern OS’s as the new “normal”. WTF?!
Innocence is lost to the ages, and boy do I miss the good old days sometimes.
Oh yeah, I remember those old times – and I don’t miss them. You’re looking at the “good old days” through rose-tinted glasses.
Operating systems from 2+ decades ago did comparatively little, were unstable, problematic to set up, insecure by design; and we tended to complain more back then about their hardware requirements – since hw resources were so scarce.
Edited 2012-11-22 10:09 UTC
Samsung has managed to fit a 5.5″ Super-AMOLED screen on the Note II. Preserving the unique S-Pen from the previous iteration, and complementing the old model with an extra gigabyte of RAM, and an upgraded processor, available in 16, 32 and 64 GB capacities, all with micro SD storage, the Note II is the must-have phablet (phone-tablet) of late 2012.
You will notice they say “capacities” and only use “storage” in the context of an SD card. Then they go on to list the features such as 16GB ROM and so on for different sizes.
Microsoft botched it in the way they wrote it up, examples like the one above will be what the Judge sees.