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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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More OT news :w00t: :

Tokyo Court Rules For Samsung, Says It Didn't Violate Apple Patent

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20120831D3ZJF815.htm

Anyone :unsure: catching here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19425051

What was the crucial bit of evidence that made you give a verdict that was so decisive in Apple's favour rather than Samsung's?

As I have told others that have interviewed me, for me one of the most decisive pieces of evidence was reading the minutes for myself of a meeting that was held at a very high level between Google executives and Samsung executives, where it was for a tablet and Google was concerned that for the sake of their operating system that the look and feel and the methodology that they [samsung] were using to create their tablet was getting too close to what Apple was doing.

And in the memo themselves - remember this was minutes - they stated that Google demanded that they back away from that design. And later there was a follow-up memo among themselves, these executives, and in black and white it says: we elect to not pass this information down to the divisions that were actually involved in the design.

So, from the sake of the engineers they went merrily along continuing their design not given any orders to back away. They knew nothing of that meeting. To me that kind of raised a lightbulb in my head that when I got in the jury room I wanted to read the minutes of that meeting myself.

the irony that ultimately the ones that first said that Samsung was copying Apple were the good Google guys (and that this is one of the key point of the jurors decision)? :whistle:

jaclaz

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Tokyo Court Rules For Samsung, Says It Didn't Violate Apple Patent

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20120831D3ZJF815.htm

I think that jury decision (the California case) is looking pretty shaky overall. It is a prime candidate for overturning because of both the Judge and the Jury. The Judge is seen as an Apple puppet, and now the Jury is coming under scrutiny.

Apple v. Samsung juror: we "wanted to send a message" ( Ars Technica 2012-08-26 )

It is interesting to read through the many comments there. I think the love affair with Apple is nearing its end (Microsoft, take note).

So much of Apple's business is based upon temporary captive markets, walled-off as the result of lawsuits or the threats of them. The problem for this business model is that like everything, it is inevitable that the tide will turn and they will receive a string of losing court decisions, and hopefully Japan is a bellweather. Never underestimate the power of ill-will. They may be racking up a few victories but they are also accumulating a lot of resentment. They are not seen the same way today that they were just a couple of years ago. This global patent war, not just by Apple, is waking up lots of people I think to the realization that modern Patent or Intellectual Property litigation is now about freezing a market into one vendor without competition for an arbitrary period of time. Patents and IP have evolved into the exact opposite of competition, Apple (among others) has capitalized on this.

This is what bugs me the most about Microsoft moving in the direction of Apple. If history is a guide they will arrive late to this party and be on the receiving end of the backlash that Apple ironically cultivated. Microsoft is always late to any new market or model, and then they make huge errors playing catch-up, often failing spectacularly . There is a pretty good chance that by the time they evolve Windows into a walled-garden with a childish interface, the world will already have had its fill of it and reject them yet again. It would serve them right for their ridiculous Apple-envy.

EDIT: minor point clarification, and grammar!

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Further discussion about the Samsung StartMenu'esque 'S Launcher' with a bit of pro-Microsoft spin ...

Samsung Start menu app shows why Microsoft is going its own way with Surface ( Ars Technica 2012-08-28 )

"As such, S Launcher is just delaying the inevitable. It might seem familiar to users, but it will in practice stand in the way of their ability to learn and use the new operating system. And even that familiarity seems superficial; a number of third-party Start menu applications are available, and they do a much more authentic job of replicating the Start menu than S Launcher does.

This kind of application is exactly why Microsoft is producing its own line of Windows 8 tablets. The company wants the Windows 8 user experience to be just so. Microsoft is working to ensure that it's right—to ensure that it's appealing, and works well without unnecessary impediments."

Bigtime comment war is still underway.

The author, Peter (not so) Bright is real late to the party apparently having only read the Mashable article without realizing all the other great, creative work under way from Tihiy's Win7 transplant to Start8 to ClassicShell, not to mention long running mods like RainMeter among others. Perhaps he should ask himself why we feel the need to modify every single Windows release (with increasing necessity) from its standard, official, OOBE look and feel. Lots of the fanboys actually do wonder about this phenomenon but for all the wrong reasons. IMHO it is because they are left scratching their heads wondering why they themselves feel satisfied with the default Microsoft-designed but Apple-esque captive structure, and they feel a bit left out like someone that didn't get invited to an important function and then go on a campaign to convince everyone else that they shouldn't go either.

EDIT: just wanted to add a hat tip to a great comment there from fung0, which I completely agree with. He says it much better than I have been able to, zeroing in on the real problem IMHO ...

"... The parallel here is with Apple, when John Scully took over. Steve Ballmer knows nothing about computing, and cares even less. This shows in the decisions he's making. Win8 represents a total abandonment of all the core philosophies that made Microsoft dominant in the computing world. Gates played business hardball, to be sure, but he knew technology, and how best to exploit it. Ballmer knows dollars and cents, and nothing more. If his vision meets with even moderate success, he'll continue to turn Microsoft into a company that acts more and more like Apple, but lacks Apple's technical and design expertise. That's the worst of all worlds.

Furthermore, having cross-licensed everything with Apple, Microsoft can sit back while Apple sues all competition off the playing field, potentially leaving us with a duopoly of tightly-closed platforms. This is not a future I want to live in. So my resistance to Win8 is based only partly on the fact that it's needlessly ugly and awkward, and mainly on the fact that it's a signpost to a place I'd rather not go. A place that even Win8 supporters, if they thought about it at all, would probably prefer not to end up."

I would only add one thing to that quoted comment, and that is that their status of near absolute monopoly on existing desktops and many laptops, plus their power to make deals with OEM's for new systems brings the antitrust issue to light when Microsoft even considers leveraging their unique position, the issues of trust, ethics and responsibility. There are many, many problems with this 'new' OS, not one single issue. Some are about usability for novices, some are about cost to the corporate environment, but one of the biggest is the direction towards a closed market and IMHO this must be fought at all costs. We cannot let them become Apple. I would have thought that this would be simple enough for even the anti-Apple pro-Microsoft fanboys to understand.

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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That is horrible!

But I bet that monkey (or is it ape, I call them all monkey?) can do better than me!

BTW, I was using Windows 8 quite a bit this week. Rather than figure out "how to get there" I just used the Run commands... Control, devmgmt.msc, etc.

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@ Fredledingue :thumbup

Here (scoop! :w00t: ) is a screenshot of the new MS advanced training program (Lesson #2: identifying objects by their shape and colour and recognize simple English words)

Screen+Shot+2011-09-25+at+20.14.42.png

and the effects of the first Windows 8 Virus :ph34r:

_2588453_orig.jpg

since there is no "Print Screen" key on the "non-keyboard" :whistle: , the user had to knit :w00t: the screenshot with some wool he had handy ;)

jaclaz

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Here is one that I haven't seen mentioned yet. See if you can figure out the author!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - Start: The Windows 8 Era Begins

"Windows 8 is a mess, but it’s a glorious, wonderful mess. It’s the technology equivalent of a gooey ice cream cone on a humid summer day, where half of it just drips down over your hand, and you couldn’t care less because the whole experience is so wonderful. For all the whining, hand-wringing, and ivory tower opining over Microsoft’s decision to wed an awesome new mobile platform with its superior desktop OS, few of these critics ever paused for a moment to consider an awesome possibility: This time, more really is more."

He uses the following picture as the top image at the article. It really sums up every possible nightmare imaginable crammed on a single screen. Everything from the wallpaper, to the colors, to the spacing and size of the tiles, but especially the icons. I've long said that this is a cluttered mess that makes the competitors look good. If you have this on a WP right next to an Android and iPhone, undecided impartial people are not going to choose it ...

sZd5lQF.jpg

( original )

He certainly has fulfilled his role as Head Fanboy in Charge. He goes on and on about the "genius" of mixing Metro and the Desktp into the same release, stating it is such a brilliant move because it would fail on its own ...

"But this strategy would have failed, just as Zune failed in the MP3 market despite its many advantages over the iPod and iTunes. By melding Metro to the desktop, Microsoft ensured that hundreds of millions of people—not thousands, not millions, but several hundreds of millions of people—would be using this system within the year."

... naturally passing right over the ethics and antitrust issue of leveraging their monopoly position in such a dramatic fashion. He carefully avoids our worries of the closed Apple-model as well even though other high profile people are speaking up about it. Such thoughts can not even enter a Fanboy's mind, and it will likely be their undoing eventually. What he is essentially doing is putting a smiley face on the whole thing. He is well past 'Fanboy' to be sure, he is actually an enabler. He should just write: 'We wanna be like Apple too! Go Microsoft!'.

There is much more to read there (these are small excerpts), needless to say he in positively enthralled. In fact he is so giddy (or high) that it has gone straight to his head allowing him to say the following, and it's a doozy ...

"And if Metro does take off, Windows will surely be better for it. This is a hard pill for some people to swallow, and I know that what you’re about to read will not be popular in certain circles, but please take this with the understanding that I’ve written it as a diehard, confirmed desktop PC user. The desktop must die. And it must take all of the bad stuff that comes along with the good—the malware and viruses, sure, but also the complexities, reliability issues, and so on—with it. These types of technology changes are difficult, and often time consuming. But with each new generation change, some old, out of date technology is lopped off too. And the move to Metro/Windows RT will be the biggest exorcism of technological deadwood yet."

Uh, huh. Deadwood ya say? That so-called deadwood of independent software is what brought Microsoft here in the first place. So did the open architecture and the fact that anyone could become a programmer without Microsoft's blessing and approval. Move from multitasking in multiple layered Aero Glass effected windows to Retro 8-bit color Playskool dual-tasking child interface? For real? Not a chance.

I think this is important: Having earlier admitted that this move would fail in a standalone release so it is good to force it on the existing user base (through OEM pressure for new machines) , and finishes with 'the desktop must die', leaving Microsoft with their walled garden and expanded monopoly from desktops to everything else (a bigger monopoly), with 3rd party authors subservient to Redmond. ... Just put it all together: ... He has stated exactly what many of us have said - to which we get called tinfoil conspiracy theorists. This is war now.

If you haven't guessed yet, here is the author, drum roll please ....

cUsLUqI.jpgLiP68Qw.jpg

Who else! For all his talk earlier of mistakes in Windows 8, when push comes to shove (and Microsoft calls all hands on deck) you gotta salute. The rest of us are expected to take one for the team here because it is urgent that Microsoft breaks into the Tablet and Phone market!

"The desktop must die" - Paul Thurrott ( 2012-08-15 ) ( original images: 1, 2 )

Microsoft Windows 8 : Generating Publicity ( One Fanboy at a Time )

EDIT: typo, updated image URLs, and again

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Wow... if Paul Thurrott had the ability to read this a decade... even just five years ago, I bet he'd have quit being a paid shill for Microsoft and all pretensions of being a 'Tech Journalist' or thrown himself off a bridge...

Yuck...

:blink:

Edited by hoak
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I JUST CANNOT TOLERATE THAT PARROT! HE IS JUST UNBEARABLE. THIS SAME PARROT WAS CRITICIZING VISTA MORE, WHEN IT WAS QUITE SPECTACULAR IF YOU COMPARE IT TO WINDOWS 8. HE'S WORSE THAN A SHILL, HE'S REALLY HEAD FANBOY IN CHARGE. ALL THE OTHER AT FANBOY CENTRAL FOLLOW HIM. :angry:

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This is the sort of thing that can happen when your vendor controls, from its central servers, the things that you may do with the hardware that you paid good money for: they can take away features and capabilities at will, and your preferences count for nothing.

Thurrott doesn't seem to have put 2 + 2 together. Zune is the kind of "walled garden" approach that MS is pushing on everyone with Windows 8. Does he really wish for PC users -- himself included -- to be at the mercy of The Powers That Be??

A disappointing turn for Paul. He was a Win8 booster at first, then he seemed to show the ability to actually think about its implications, but now he's gone back to full-fledged fanboyhood.

--JorgeA

P.S. A relevant observation in the comments section for the article linked above:

Good luck selling anything in the future if you are going to dump it in a couple years and leave your customers no alternative for their exisitng investment. Windows Mobile 6.5---I have one of those phones which is now only about 2 years old. Windows Phone 7--have one of these soon-to-be orphaned phones, too. Zune HD---soon to be paperweight. I'm looking into Spotify.
Edited by JorgeA
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As I see it this part is senseless not because it is in anyway "wrong" :w00t: , but because it is essentially an "act of faith" (without having any real world signs that what would be a good move actually is one):

The desktop must die. And it must take all of the bad stuff that comes along with the good—the malware and viruses, sure, but also the complexities, reliability issues, and so on—with it. These types of technology changes are difficult, and often time consuming. But with each new generation change, some old, out of date technology is lopped off too. And the move to Metro/Windows RT will be the biggest exorcism of technological deadwood yet."

Let's see in detail:

The desktop must die.

this is a wish, and a good one IMHO, in the sense that when and if someoine will provide us with something that is actually better than the desktop, I am pretty sure everyone will embrace the new technology.

But untill the thing that should replace it is a monkey training toy, or Metro NCI, this is unlikely to happen.

The logic fallacy is evident, the syllogism "new=better" has been proved right many times, but as many times it has been proved wrong.

The further implied "if you don't embrace this new technology then you are senselessly conservative" is of course m00t, the actual senceful sentence being "if you don't embrace this new technology, that is evidently and proven to be far superior to the preceding one, then you are senselessly conservative" may have of course it's merits, but the actual evidence of the pretended superiority is far from being clear and surely not proved.

Next sentence is even worse, another good wish:

And it must take all of the bad stuff that comes along with the good—the malware and viruses, sure, but also the complexities, reliability issues, and so on—with it."

It is more along the lines of "I have a dream....", there are AFAIK not any particualr improvements regarding malware or viruses (and even if there are they will be worked around in no time) nor in anything that by sheer magic will make complexities vanish or make the thingy in any way "more reliable".

Now if the proposal was to throw away what essentially is a NT system with a design going back to the early 90's with an entirely new archtecture/codebase, let's say a Real TIme OS like (example) QNX:

http://www.qnx.com/

and/or tools like (other example) ERLANG:

http://www.erlang.org/

that would be something we could actually talk about, but applying a (crappy) interface to (actually forcing it onto) a substantially "traditional" OS and call it "new" (I mean from the point of security/complexity/reliability) it's evidently a false statement or, in the best case an idealistic wish.

This is instead (while still being a "wish") pure "bull§h**":

These types of technology changes are difficult, and often time consuming. But with each new generation change, some old, out of date technology is lopped off too. And the move to Metro/Windows RT will be the biggest exorcism of technological deadwood yet."

Noone (here or elsewhere) is afraid of changes, but of course if the change is "for the better".

Our own lives were revolutionized by the Facsimile, by the PC, by Internet, by the Mobile Phones, and we glided across these large technology shifts without a hitch (just like our grandfathers or grand-grandfathers glided across the changes connected to inventions like the Telegraph, then Radio, Cars, Telephone, Airplanes, Television and what not), adapting and learning new ways.

It won't be difficult at all for us to learn how to use a "designed for 5 years old" interface, we learned from thin air how to deal with BASIC, and then with DOS and UNIX, do you really think that this change will be a problem for us? :unsure:

There is nothing "revolutionary":

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revolutionary

in Windows 8, nor in it's new crappy interface, no "technology change" at all.

It reminds me of motorbikes (mopeds), a modern 50 cc engine can have without an issue 8 HP's or more (please read - for politically correctness - 5.968 kW or more ;)) and a bike made with it can easily have a max speed of 60 or 70 km/h, but in order to be registered as "moped" (in Italy) and thus allowed to be driven by 14 year old kids, they must:

  • have at max 4 kW
  • have a max speed of 45 km/h

what the industry does is simply to "dumb down" (usually by "capping" the intake) a bike (by itself capable of much better performances) in order to comply with the Laws and fulfill the requests of this market.

Now, it makes a lot of sense for a moped you give to a kid, the fact that the "original" bike was designed for higher speeds means indirectly that it will have better brakes and handling and thus it will be safer at lower speeds when compared to a "strictly designed as moped" competitor, and it is senceful that the kids will have some time learning to drive at a "forced" lower speed.

But usually, you don't look at mopeds as the source for innovation....:whistle: and I have seen very few people getting one of these ;):

SBK-1199Panigale-S_2012_Studio_Tricolore_B01_1920x1280.mediagallery_output_image_[750x423].png

and have it "capped" because it goes too d@mn fast.... :angel (or have an automatic gearbox fitted to it because it thus becomes easier to drive)

jaclaz

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