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The Future Of Microsoft; or What Apple Did 3+ Years Ago |
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 Seeing as there's not a whole lot going on early this week, other than a vague rumor about an upcoming G5 iMac, let's look back at last week for something newsworthy.
Most of you probably didn't care or tried to ignore it, but Microsoft held their annual WinHEC conference last week. WinHEC (or Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) is Microsoft's developer's conference, but like everything else they do, they like to make names of things really long and obscure-sounding so that the average person has no clue what in the heck they're talking about.
Bill Gates delivered the conference's keynote speech, and while most of it is really bland, it does have some good stuff. Basically, Bill talks about what's in store for Microsoft's future, and mainly explores the theme of "the world of the TV brought together with the PC", or as Gates like to call it the "Media Center" (*Mimicking quotes with fingers*).
Where it gets interesting is when he says that because of advancements in storage devices (i.e. cheapie USB flash drives), "I think this is the first time I can say that the floppy disk is dead". That's right, Gates hath declared the floppy disk to be dead. It's only taken them 6 years to catch up to Apple here (the iMac debuted without a floppy drive in 1988 (Ed. typo - it was 1998) and shortly thereafter removed it from all product lines) so I guess we should cut Bill a break here. Besides, until recently Windows users needed floppies for things like software drivers (network-crippling viruses also sometimes cause a return to good old 'sneaker-net', but USB sticks work quite nicely for that).
Anyway, after copying Apple many times in his career, Bill has gotten quite good at this sort of thing. So good, in fact, that he can now do it multiple times in one keynote speech. Case in point, Gates says that Microsoft is now thinking about "High resolution displays, the size of the display, the ability to use multiple displays", and that "We think every desktop will have at least a 20-inch display".
Sound at all like a certain company with a fruit-shaped logo?*
It gets better though, as Gates deigns to offer us his insight that it would be just great if computers could have a built-in camera for videoconferencing, a built-in microphone, and speech recognition software included with the operating system.
Umm...Bill, all of those are things that Apple has included for eons, with the exception of the video camera. Of course, if you want one of those, Apple will sell you one. It's called the iSight, and Apple sells it seperately because (1) many people don't have a use for it and (2) it's a pricey feature to add to a computer.
But enough about Bill taking ideas from Apple. I mean, ideas were meant to be borrowed anyway, right?
Anyway, Bill winds down his riveting speech by going into an example of the Windows Home Computing Concept, which is actually a joint venture between Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. It seems they've taken Steve Jobs' vision of the digital hub a bit further, and believe it or not, they actually have some good ideas here: you'd have a Tablet PC that would wirelessly control your TV and DVD player, play music on your stereo, handle incoming VOIP (Voice over IP) phone calls, change the lighting and temperature in the room, all without getting off your duff. Neat stuff.
Of course, we know that when it comes to Microsoft, somewhere between the idea and planning of a project and the actual finished project, they manage to screw so many things up that the end-user experience is something less than ideal. In this case, possible problems would be that your TV would be susceptible to blue screens of death, Microsoft will have sold your VOIP address to tele-VOIP-marketers, the room temperature would be stuck on 97 degrees, and your stereo would be continually repeating Close to You by The Carpenters as loud as possible.
If Microsoft has it's way, we all just might be privy to such luxuries!
* For those not keeping score at home, Steve Jobs pushed CRT's out of Apple's products lines - although it returned with the eMac - in an effort to get better displays in front of people. With the 17" PowerBook, 17" and 20" iMacs, and the 23+" Cinema Displays, Apple has also led the way with bigger displays. Apple has also long had dual-displays as on option on pro-level hardware, and video mirroring on the consumer models. |
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May 10 2004, 7:00 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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5/10/04, 8:48 PM EDT |
Heh ... that's M$ at it's best :P
Anyways ... i'll be going to the Amiga Os 4.0 release party/presentation next weekend. If you guys are interested i could bring back some info. I think after all the amiga is related to macs in many ways (Their new computers run on G4 processors)
If you're interested, just let me know.
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| Jack Armstrong |
5/10/04, 9:14 PM EDT |
Hm.... i never realized they had an iMac in 1988, that had no floppy drive no less... :P
(might want to change that ;) )
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| nhmacusr |
5/10/04, 9:35 PM EDT |
Well, you did need those floppies for BOOT disks ya know! How else would you recover from those fatal disk errors.
A tablet PC is a hell of a remote. It reminds me of another Microsoft project.......(wavey dream lines)
http://www.hotandfruity.com/xpod/the_xpod.shtml
Wait a minute...........
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| cAtraXx |
5/10/04, 10:22 PM EDT |
In Star trek they always use the tablets to show stuff to somebody ... somehow i think that'll be their major use in the real world aswell. "Oh looky here at the new piccy i made." *yawn*
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| rlhamon |
5/11/04, 12:18 AM EDT |
I want to carry around a book to change my channel and to dimm the lights. Ohh I will look so cool with a tablet PC. I tell you tablet PC are so fashionable they are selling like hot cakes in fact I see people walking around with them all of the time.
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| nhmacusr |
5/11/04, 8:49 AM EDT |
Interesting followup on the subject.
http://apple-x.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article& sid=923&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0
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| iKen |
5/11/04, 9:19 AM EDT |
nhmacusr, that xpod this is hilarious!
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| HTML Samurai |
5/11/04, 10:09 AM EDT |
But to plug in my USB Flash stick, I will have to unplug my USB Floppy drive... :(
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| Jonahan |
5/11/04, 2:29 PM EDT |
Hmmm...after much reseach it looks like the iMac didn't come out until 1998, not 1988. We really need some fact-checkers up in here.
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| Jonahan |
5/11/04, 2:35 PM EDT |
cAtraXx, any word on the Amiga stuff would be cool. I haven't heard anything about that in forever. =)
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| cAtraXx |
5/11/04, 11:36 PM EDT |
As i said they'll have big release party, where everybody can check out their new computers and Os. About everybody important that was involved in the development of AmiOs 4.0 will be there.
I'll try to catch some screenshots and infos for you.
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| Der seinen Namen ständig ändert |
5/12/04, 7:41 AM EDT |
Hi cAtraXx!
Also mich würde das schon interessieren. Neue Amigas laufen echt mit 'nem G4-Prozzi? Für was werden die eigentlich hauptsächlich benutzt. Hab mal im Fernsehen gesehen, dass Amigas für Videoschnitt in Bollywood eingesetzt werden....
Viel Spaß auf der Party!
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| Jonahan |
5/12/04, 11:34 AM EDT |
Hey whoa ... what the hell was that? How many times do we have to tell you - no German at the dinner table!
You might freak out the Americans who think english is the only language. ;)
Using Sherlock's handy-dandy translation feature, here's what that's translates to:
Thus that would already interest me. New Amigas runs genuinly with '
nem G4-Prozzi? For which those become mainly actually used. Times on
the television saw that Amigas are used for video cut in
Bollywood....
Much fun on the party!
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| rlhamon |
5/12/04, 3:55 PM EDT |
Yea how dare people not use the superior American language. For example say fo'shizzle in German ... ah can't do it can you see how intelligent and superior our American language is.
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| cAtraXx |
5/12/04, 10:49 PM EDT |
Der seinen Namen ständig ändert: Well yeah, they have G4's inside :) Check out http://www.vesalia.de/ for more info, they sell the stuff nowadays.
I really hopethey'll make it back into the computer world, because not so long ago they were building hellish cool computers :)
And for the rest of ya: Ya right, i'll be talkin da americano. :)
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| George W. Bush |
5/12/04, 11:42 PM EDT |
Of course, the German language was the reason the Nazis lost World War II.
You see, they couldn't ...
Huh? What's that you say, Rummy?
Oh.
[Pregnant pause]
I'll get back to you on that one.
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| cAtraXx |
5/13/04, 12:24 AM EDT |
Bush is the american comedian that makes fun out of politicans if i remember right. We have a guy like him here, too. He's called Schröder and he's brilliant, i wonder where guys like that get their ideas from, because i always fall over laughing when i hear their newest gags. A good thing is also that they always show them in the news, i think that makes watching them a whole lot more comfortable. :)
But honestly: Be glad that you have some german mac users here, too. Our marketshare is quite low here, although i notice that the interest in macs is growing a little.
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| guy changing his name constantly |
5/13/04, 6:13 AM EDT |
Ok, you got me by my balls.
I will never ever talking/writing in german.
(Hm, what will my boss/teacher/family think about that...)
Now you're damned to read comments in a raped form of your language.
I hope George W. don't takes this to personally. I don't want be in a situation where I have to throw pants and fishsticks to defend me and my Mac. Hm, probably Sauerkraut would be much more effective... Brezels are also from germany and they seems to work. Do you remember?
But what to do if Schröder is helping him...
This is what happens when i try to form some thoughts in english. Maybe the next time i try it like that:
Ésa es toda la gente
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| Jonahan |
5/13/04, 9:18 AM EDT |
Hey, we welcome all races/creeds/demoniations/flavors/pants sizes/etc. and we're happy to have you aboard!
Allow me to welcome you with a stab at some german:
Um.... kleine hundt? ein, zwei, dei, vehr, funf, secht, seiben, ocht, nein, zein?
Ok, that's the extent of what I remember from 3rd grade german class ;)
Here's some spanish: Yo tengo un gato en mi pantalones.
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| guy changing his name constantly |
5/13/04, 11:17 AM EDT |
To Jonahan:
I hope you're happy to have that kitten where it is...
If not: I've seen a lot of strange people in Amsterdam who would probably like to have one.
Maybe you like to sell it to them. But don't hope to get a new Mac for it.
However, i'm glad to have found this website. Have never had so much fun on a website before (ok, besides the articles on "rawilson.com/main.shtml"). I'm not sure if you were involved in this, but the idea to make a Dell-Website out of it was awesome. You are all doing a great job. Thanx!
Smell you later, or whatever you guys use to say "adios".
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| Goldmember |
5/21/04, 7:11 PM EDT |
I'm from Holland! Isn't that weird?
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