...more recent posts
Stumped Siri's new song recognition with a Fripp album that has only been released on vinyl.
The Windows XP/8.1 debacle calls to mind the Wordstar/Wordstar 2000 debacle of the mid-eighties.
Unfamiliar with Wordstar? Exactly my point.
Wordstar ruled the word processor market in the early personal computer market. They weren't just the leader, they were everywhere. The UI was stupid and clunky, but people got used to it. When people in a business setting got a new personal computer, the package they got was: IBM PC (or equivalent); DOS (from IBM, Microsoft or Digital Research), Lotus 1-2-3, a Herculese graphics card, an Epson printer, and Wordstar. Interesting list. How many of those companies are still relevant in the personal computer market?
Wordstar decided to dump their product and move on to new technology: Wordstar 2000. This was not an evolution. New UI. New, incompatible file formats. And get this -- it's really better if you just get a whole new, more powerful computer to run this software.
Microsoft, unlike Wordstar, will survive, but they have thoroughly fucked themselves. Windows 8.1 is the Wordstar 2000 of the twenty-teens.
Adding: "Well, if I got to switch to something unfamiliar and incompatible anyway, what are the other alternatives?" That's the essense of the self-destruction of this sort of move.
Google dumps Motorola phone unit for about $3B. They previously dumped the Cable TV unit for $2.35B. They paid $13B. So they got a stack of patents for almost $8B. I still remember talking to a key guy involved in Mot's ill-fated tablet. "Oh, video really isn't important." I can't say I'm shocked that Google wanted out.
iPad, iPhone trix
Spotify is free for all mobile devices now. Rock (or jazz) -on. Was just listening to Latin bird. Charlie Parker and machido. HOT!
Time Warner has a very bad quarter
Happy Birthday Internet! You don't look a day older than 13.
Tesla snags apple vp
Worried about being tracked by your electronic toll pass? Well worry no more. They don't need that shite.
Choosy mothers choose gif.
Looks like a replay of the WM9 vs. H.264 battle is shaping up with a battle of VP9 vs. H.265.
Ultra HD -- Don't know if this will happen. We may have reached the pinnacle of consumer video with HD and BluRay. That's not to say that improvements can't be made. For example, There will probably never be a mass market audio format better than the ancient CD, even though niche formats exist.
I have an EVDO device built in to one of my laptops. It's from circa 2007. I've been trying to do stuff with the EVDO service lately, and it sucks very badly. Unreliable 150 kbps, if you can believe. So I want to upgrade to the modern era, and get a wifi data gizmo. Verizon won't upgrade me unless I also change the plan on my phone. Even if I pay full retail for the wifi gizmo. The phone has unlimited data. I like that. Although I don't use much data, I like the idea of having the plan. In heavy usage, I'm in the tens of megabytes per day, hundreds of megabytes per month. The cheapest plans are 1 GB per month. Also the overages are sensible now. $15/GB from Verizon. AT&T is at $10/GB. The data plan on my EVDO device has a 10 GB allowance, but the cost explodes on overages. (Yes, I've gone over 10 GB, during a period of heavy downloading, and back when I could get 2-4 Mbps on EVDO.)
So, do I bite the bullet and wipe out my unlimited data on the phone? Or do I cancel the EVDO device (assuming I can do so without screwing up the phone's plan), and get a wifi device from AT&T. (With Verizon, even if I try to add a new device to my account, it wants to revisit the contract on ALL devices on my account.) (Also, anyone other than Verizon and AT&T does not have adequate coverage.)