Technology News You Can Use

[Sal1950]

What is the role of the OS anyway? Don't we all spend 99% of our time inside browsers and a few apps like email? I remember mentioning this to Steve Ballmer (then CEO of Microsoft). That the OS simply needed to be stable and that was that. That new features were not needed or desired. His answer was, "if what you are saying is true, we are toast!" Toast is what happened.

A position I fought at PCLOS and in the Linux desktop development community for many years.
There the problems are compounded by the fact that there is no central guiding force. Every time a key person on a app dev team thinks he has a better idea, he leaves and forks the app. Everyone is always trying to reinvent the wheel and with their egos in play show the whole world how much of a better idea his is.
But Joe User just needs a simple, easy to use and maintain OS. One he doesn't have to completely re-learn every six months because that wheel got reinvented again. With people out there trying to live real lives, continuity is important. A position devs and coders can't seem to deal with. LOL

 

[Thomas savage]

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.... unless they are ISIS turkey's ...

 

[Sal1950]

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.... unless they are ISIS turkey's ...

Put the beer down for tonight Thomas.

 

[Thomas savage]

Put the beer down for tonight Thomas.

It's the morning here..., not that that makes any difference to me

 

[Brad]

How much effort is there to patch Linux? And once a flaw is discovered, how long does it take to get it patched?

 

[SoundAndMotion]

How much effort is there to patch Linux? And once a flaw is discovered, how long does it take to get it patched?

I’m not sure why you’re asking about the Pi and Linux here. I'm not sure anyone here wants to convince you of anything in that regard. I don't.

If you are a SysAdmin for a nuclear plant, bank, or site with many top secret files, you should be fired immediately.

If you are simply an audio enthusiast, wanting to use a computer for computer audio, but worry about ransomeware or botnets or personal files, Linux on the Pi is a fine choice. But I say that realizing that your computer security has much more to do with you knowing best practices (not clicking on unknown links, not running a trojan by accident, not running any old software you find and not running as root), rather than choice of OS.

To answer your questions about Linux: the answers are very similar to the answers for other OSes. There is a significant effort to find bugs and exploits, and patches are made available as quickly as those who matter prioritize them, i.e. it varies. The last big Linux exploit that I know about, the sudo exploit in SELinux, was patched in 1 day: announced May 30, patched May 31. The big difference is that Windows, MacOS and Android are patched by one big corporation each, whereas Linux is patched by several smaller corporations: Red Hat, Canonical, etc.

 

[The Smokester]

What's the story with the MS Zune Player? (The IPod competitor.) There was a lot of quality there but they just disappeared. Or got buried?

 

[DonH56]

The story seems to line up well with Amir's previous description of how things were "turned around" at Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune

 

[The Smokester]

The story seems to line up well with Amir's previous description of how things were "turned around" at Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune

Thanks. Read it. Seems like it was distinguished without a difference from the the iPods. And just a bit late to the scene. Why, though? Did MS just have too much inertia?

 

[DonH56]

No idea, but suspect the lack of a large music library played a part, and MS has a history of developing decent HW too late then dropping it fairly quickly. IMO the X-Box is one of their few HW success stories. Not sure how Surface is doing (literally, I do not know).

 

[amirm]

What's the story with the MS Zune Player? (The IPod competitor.) There was a lot of quality there but they just disappeared. Or got buried?

I was there when it started. Lots of missteps, mismanagement, even arrogance.

Zune was started as a reaction to success of ipod. Steve Ballmer thought this was a "hardware problem" and as such, gave the mission to Xbox because they knew how to build hardware. Never mind that our team (in Windows) had competed in this area and knew every bit of it. Our answer was that we should give up on competing with iPod and focus on phones. That everyone had a phone and that was the future. This is 2+ years before iPhone came out. Folks didn't want to listen and the mission was given to Xbox team.

They wanted to rush to market so they rebranded a Toshiba music player from Japan. That was a much thicker player than iPod. Microsoft made it worse by putting it in a rubber case and ordering 2 million of them, prepaid! Xbox group at the time had an anti-Windows attitude and proceeded to make the device -- on purpose -- incompatible with Windows/Windows Media Player! You had to have the Zune software (which ironically was reskinned version of Windows Media Player) to do anything with it. Asked why they said their strategy was to get iPod users to switch, not win over Windows users! Can you imagine any iPod user at the time giving up their Apple product for anything from Microsoft? Much less one that was bigger and heavier?

Retail distribution was a disaster too. Apple gave retailers thin margins and competed with them in their own stores. But retailers still wanted them because they would bring customers in and they could then sell them something else to make money on. It is called a "door pull" in retail business. Zune had no such value so retail interest was next to zero.

There were other sins I won't go into to protect the guilty. But they were giant mistakes that had they not taken an anti-rest-of-Microsoft, could have been avoided.

Original Zune did not sell well as a result, causing huge write down for all the pre-purchased version 1 Zune player. That caused a shakeup in management and serious, serious black-eye for the effort.

Zune version 2 was a very good design, much slimmer, nicer hardware and good software. Alas, by then it was too late. iPhone was out. Hundreds of millions of iPods out there, etc. So the plug was pulled.

 

[DonH56]

Always nice to hear The Rest of the Story, thanks Amir!

 

[amirm]

I am shocked that Tesla's Model 3 is on schedule. First shipments in July! Frantz, where is your place in the waiting list?

------
http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/03/technology/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-production-deliveries/index.html

Tesla's first mass market electric car will start rolling off the production line this week.
"Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule," Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Monday. The first one is expected to be finished Friday, he said.

The automaker is aiming to dramatically ramp up output of the eagerly awaited vehicle in the coming months.

After throwing a "handover party" for the first 30 customers in late July, Tesla (TSLA) plans to produce 100 Model 3 cars in August, 1,500 in September and 20,000 in December, according to Musk.

Tesla hasn't updated the pre-order count since last year, but Musk said last month that "there are more and more deposits every week."

Investor hopes for Model 3 sales have helped push up Tesla's stock price in recent months, taking the company's market value above those of traditional automakers such as Ford (F) and General Motors (GM).

Priced at $35,000, the new vehicle will cost far less than previous Tesla models, which could help broaden the brand's appeal.

-- Seth Fiegerman contributed to this report.

---

If you order one now, you won't get it until 2019!

 

[Blumlein 88]

I am shocked that Tesla's Model 3 is on schedule. First shipments in July! Frantz, where is your place in the waiting list?

------
http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/03/technology/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-production-deliveries/index.html

Tesla's first mass market electric car will start rolling off the production line this week.
"Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule," Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Monday. The first one is expected to be finished Friday, he said.

The automaker is aiming to dramatically ramp up output of the eagerly awaited vehicle in the coming months.

After throwing a "handover party" for the first 30 customers in late July, Tesla (TSLA) plans to produce 100 Model 3 cars in August, 1,500 in September and 20,000 in December, according to Musk.

Tesla hasn't updated the pre-order count since last year, but Musk said last month that "there are more and more deposits every week."

Investor hopes for Model 3 sales have helped push up Tesla's stock price in recent months, taking the company's market value above those of traditional automakers such as Ford (F) and General Motors (GM).

Priced at $35,000, the new vehicle will cost far less than previous Tesla models, which could help broaden the brand's appeal.

-- Seth Fiegerman contributed to this report.

---

If you order one now, you won't get it until 2019!

A good friend has a spot on the list. My brother has a spot too. Estimated to be around the end of March 2018. If he decides not to use it, I may use it myself.

 

[amirm]

A friend has Model X and it has had a lot of issues. So it is best to not be first in line.

 

[RayDunzl]

If you order one now, you won't get it until 2019!

Gee, my car will be 24 years old then.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Gee, my car will be 24 years old then.

So will mine. In 2020 I could get a vintage tag for it.

 

[Sal1950]

I'm still just lookin for a way get my Ram pickup in the 500-600 hp range that I can afford.

 

[RayDunzl]

Here's a motocycle chase.

But the reason to post is the technology of the Helicopter Cam...

My first time seeing real-time overlays of street names and even property lines via a mobile camera...


Obviously, Skynet will have no problem picking us off...

 

[tomelex]

I am shocked that Tesla's Model 3 is on schedule. First shipments in July! Frantz, where is your place in the waiting list?

------
http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/03/technology/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-production-deliveries/index.html

Tesla's first mass market electric car will start rolling off the production line this week.
"Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule," Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Monday. The first one is expected to be finished Friday, he said.

The automaker is aiming to dramatically ramp up output of the eagerly awaited vehicle in the coming months.

After throwing a "handover party" for the first 30 customers in late July, Tesla (TSLA) plans to produce 100 Model 3 cars in August, 1,500 in September and 20,000 in December, according to Musk.

Tesla hasn't updated the pre-order count since last year, but Musk said last month that "there are more and more deposits every week."

Investor hopes for Model 3 sales have helped push up Tesla's stock price in recent months, taking the company's market value above those of traditional automakers such as Ford (F) and General Motors (GM).

Priced at $35,000, the new vehicle will cost far less than previous Tesla models, which could help broaden the brand's appeal.

-- Seth Fiegerman contributed to this report.

---

If you order one now, you won't get it until 2019!

Volvo, a company now owned by a Chinese company, will only build hybrid or full electric in a couple of years they announced yesterday.