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Yesterday's unveiling of the Microsoft Surface devices has prompted copious product commentary, but I think the big story has little to do with speeds and feeds, or competition with Apple. The Surface announcement is the best demonstration of the systemic weakness of the Wintel ecosystem, ever. While multiple sources of pressure have been building to strain this long-standing duopoly, Microsoft's decision to manufacture its own tablet device may well push the water over the edge of the dam. Is this the end of x86 PC vendors as we know them?
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I'll assume you've got a set of strongly-held beliefs about software development. This is a safe bet; anyone who writes code has some personal mantras and peeves. It might just be that too much of this kind of thinking is turning you into an obsessive architect of abstract code, not the builder of things people want. Let the app speak for itself.
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No information and facts in there, just opinions without merit.
Wout
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Mostly stating the obvious.
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At least it was short.
Regardless of what my Coding Philosophies are, without them I'd never get anything done.
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Windows Phone 8 will be built around the same core components as Windows 8. The current Windows Phone 7.5 operating system is built on Microsoft's Windows CE platform, designed for embedded systems with tight memory constraints and slow processors. Windows Phone 8 will instead be built on the Windows NT platform, and in so doing will inherit its much richer feature set: support for multicore processors, robust file systems, extensive device driver support, a capable multimedia framework, and more. How will you use the native code support in WP8?
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Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. As I and others heard earlier this year, Microsoft’s next Windows Phone operating system release, codenamed Apollo, is not going to be made available on any current Windows Phones. Not even second-generation Mango phones. Not on the new Lumia models from Nokia. None. Period. ...but you will get some new features in an upcoming update.
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Let’s just assume for a few minutes that Microsoft’s Surface tablet is as delicious as Microsoft executives made it out to be on Monday night. Does Microsoft then have any hope of competing with the iPad on price? They'll make it up on volume.
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Microsoft says that the new Windows 8 tablets will ship around the same time as Windows 8 but the big question in everyone’s mind is how much will this device cost?
Steve Sinofsky made the following remark (around the 43:30 mark) on pricing:
Microsoft Surface with Windows RT will be available in both 32 GB and 64 GB model and will be priced like comparable tablets that are based on ARM.
Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Professional will come in 64 GB and 128 GB storage models and will have a retail price comparable with competitive Ultrabook class PCs.
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They may sell them at a steep loss to start with like they did with the xbox.
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Windows 8. People tend to either hate it or love it. There are no moderate verdicts being shared. Those who hate it share mostly the same complaints, many of which I think are wrong. That’s why I decided to share my view on those arguments and what I believe is the main thing people don’t understand about Windows 8. The good, the bad and the ad hominem.
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let me summarize what windows8-hater-haters don't understand about windows8-haters:
I'll come into your home and s**t in the middle of your living room. You don't have to like it, you just have walk around it. srsly
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With a function called "Secure Boot", which will be deployed in computers starting 2012, manufacturers of IT hardware and software components are striving to get into a position where they permanently control the IT devices they produce. Hence such devices will be "secure" from the manufacturer's perspective, but not necessarily from the owner's point of view: The owner can be treated as an adversary. I knew you'd escape. They haven't built a circuit that could hold you!
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For a more detailed breakdown of what was discussed in the WP8 announcements today, this[^] blog from a member of the WP team makes for interesting reading.
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The features of the new WP8 phones and OS look to be pretty staggering. Link[^]. You can see the convergence with W8 right there.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: The features of the new WP8 phones and OS look to be pretty staggering
Staggering? Really?
Nice... Yes
Nifty... Yes
Excellent... Maybe
Staggering? No
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I was running out of steam at that point.
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If you have one of the current generation of Windows Phones, it's just been announced that you won't get the Windows Phone 8 update. You will, however, possibly get the Windows Phone 7.8[^] update which is primarily aimed at some of the UI changes making it into WP 8.
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Where is the outrage?! If Apple did this everyone would be screaming bloody murder.
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It's Microsoft. People are resigned to marketing SNAFUs and dropped products now. It's par for the course really.
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The whole Windows compact/mobile/whatever, has been a complete disaster. If Windows did not already have the market sewn up, Windows would be in trouble. If Apple had been more competent, then Windows would not have succeeded. Windows is a success more because of Visual Studio than because of Windows.
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In this nostalgia filled short video, PBS takes a retrospective look at the history and the evolution of early 8-bit video games.
Beginning with early Atari and Nintendo video games, the 8-bit aesthetic has been a part of our culture for over 30 years. As it moved through the generations, 8-bit earned its independence from its video game roots. The idea of 8-bit now stands for a refreshing level of simplicity and minimalism, is capable of sonic and visual beauty, and points to the layer of technology that suffuses our modern lives. No longer just nostalgia art, contemporary 8-bit artists and chiptunes musicians have elevated the form to new levels of creativity and cultural reflection.
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I still bring up the Nintendo emulator from time to time for a little nostalgia. to this day i'm still amazed with what those developers could do with so little resouces, compaired to todays games in the 2gb+ size; and they still have about the same playtime/storyline length as the classics, just the graphics have gotten better over time.
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On Monday, Microsoft shocked the tech world by announcing a pair of Windows 8 tablets, both dubbed Microsoft Surface. But it wasn't just the press event's mysterious nature that made the news so stunning.
For the first time, Microsoft will make its own Windows PCs. The company will be in direct competition with hardware partners such as HP and Dell, and judging from early reactions, Microsoft is in a good position to win. The potential effects of Surface on the PC market can't be understated.
And yet, anyone who's paid attention to the tech industry for the last five years shouldn't be too surprised. Microsoft's approach with Surface--designing the hardware in tandem with the software--is the same approach that Apple has taken for decades. And Apple's method is paying off--just look at the rise of the iPhone and iPad, and the success of the MacBook Air. It took a few years for other companies to catch on, but now it's finally happening.
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