Hard News: Do Want?
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And for Giovanni who wondered about the difficulties of going to sleep after reading on a screen - apparently there's a reason it's hard:
“Nowadays there are lots of environmental issues that play a role in altering people’s sleep patterns, and the most obvious would be the computer,” said Dr. Nancy Collop, medical director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. “It emits a blue light, which is one of the most stimulating lights to the little receptors we all have in the back of our eyeballs, which send messages to the brain to say whether it’s day or night and whether we should be awake or go to sleep.”
So I won't be sending Mr 8 up to bed with an e-book any time soon, even though he is the sort of child who gets nervous if he does not have one book in his hands and the next two books in the series under his armpits. The sort of child who keeps the book exchange in business and whom the librarians know by name. Made for e-books, he is, but that doesn't mean they are made for him.
It'll be interesting to see how far down the youth demographic these things penetrate and how quickly... and what the eventual physical effects are. It may turn out to be very (ahem) shortsighted of us to jump on the e-reading bandwagon. (I can't be the only pragmatic myopic pessimist whose first thoughts, given any apocalyptic scenario, are of looting an optometrist's to lay in a lifetime supply? By any means necessary, oh yes, and you can take my disposable toric lenses from my cold dead hands).
Again, written and read by the serene blue glow of my shimmering MacBook, from my cell in the Matrix... let me know when The Machine Stops.
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(Jolisa - as someone who has an intraocular implant (aka known as cataract removal/lens replacement) may I say this makes a HUGE difference to us high myopes? So much so that I'm in no hurry to have my subservient eye 'done'?)
There are virtues - practical abilities - in shortsightedness, and if it comes that i have $$ for a second cataract op, I'll opt to have my right eye - shortsighted.
And this is of moment, apropos machines that are designed for perfectlysighted folk-)
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About this multitasking thing: I have had several marvellous devices (Newton and Palm) that did not truly multitask at an OS level, but which were perfectly suited to multitasking at a human level. The reason is that if you were using app A, and you then switched to app B, although A would cease executing, its state would be perfectly saved, so that when you came back to it, it would be just as you left it.
I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the case here. It makes sense when there's no removable media (WHY do you have save things anyway? Haven't you ever wondered why your program can't just keep track of your bloody document anyway? Well it can, it's just a fossil from the old days that everyone is used to. In a properly designed world, everything up to the last moment would be saved, including your undo stack and maybe some backup versions, and you wouldn't ever press ctrl-s again. But I digress). From a UI point of view it's simple and easy. From an OS point of view it's simpler to implement, and it requires less grunt from the CPU, so it can seem zippier to the user.
We'll see. But I doubt it's as dire a problem as people think.
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That sucks to me.
People need to print stuff and now Apple© can pull the plug on the likes of HP, Brother, Canon...
Russ, can't you see the problem?.Steve, the licence:
CUPSTM is provided under the GNU General Public License ("GPL") and GNU Library General Public License ("LGPL"), Version 2, with exceptions for Apple operating systems and the OpenSSL toolkit. A copy of the exceptions and licenses follow this introduction.
The exceptions mean the source code of Apple's proprietary OS components doesn't have to be released, but otherwise it's open source software. The worst that could happen is that Apple stops paying Michael Sweet to lead its development.
Here's Sweet's brief 2007 announcement and a discussion.
Apple had been using CUPs for five years by that point. It has certainly improved printing and scanning on the Mac -- the printer manufacturers' software for Mac OS was truly bloody awful -- but it's good for you Linux guys too.
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I nominate the iSay, although I don't know yet what it would actually do or look like.
iFry surely.
“It emits a blue light, which is one of the most stimulating lights to the little receptors we all have in the back of our eyeballs, which send messages to the brain to say whether it’s day or night and whether we should be awake or go to sleep.”
I read in black and white personally. Although there is most likely some blue in that white. And it's totally soporific, particularly if you turn out the lights. I speculate that looking at a light surrounded by darkness is like sitting around a campfire, and the message to the brain is 'sleeeeeep'.
Naturally, when it's time to sleep, I read different things - I don't try reading cerebral stuff (when I converted Gio's thesis (I sought permission only slightly after the fact) I had a crap night's sleep, brain churning with postmodernism for hours. A very troubled imaginary, perhaps ;-)). I go for stuff that's simple and evocative. Arabian Nights gave me dozens of excellent sleeps when I was a bit insomniac once. But I could see the iPad might be good for things that are a bit longer that you do need to use your brain for.
I don't feel bitter at Apple the way some here do. They do tend to make good things, they're just a bit pricey for someone whose geek budget is limited to either tax-deductibles or things for the family. So the iPhone stayed on the iWish list, pipped at the post by a hugely revamped entertainment unit. Maybe this year.
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Naturally, when it's time to sleep, I read different things - I don't try reading cerebral stuff (when I converted Gio's thesis (I sought permission only slightly after the fact) I had a crap night's sleep, brain churning with postmodernism for hours. A very troubled imaginary, perhaps ;-))
Seriously, man, if that didn't send you to sleep, then it's official, the blue light theory has many legs.
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For a while now all the rumours around iPhone OS4.0 have been that it will multitask. And this thing runs the iPhone OS. So my money would be on the next OS release making this thing run multitask. I suspect it was waiting for that OS actually (this fancy chip etc seems well and truly ready for it) but perhaps the pressure to release it and some delays in the iPhone OS team meant they went a little early.
And it really doesn't need USB and HDMI etc. It's meant to be a second computer - specifically for the "I got a netbook to sit on the couch" crowd. A lounging computer as I called it elsewhere. It doesn't even really need 3G in that model although I now accept being able to take it out with you could be quite useful at times. But it's not really ideal as a mobile computer and I don't think they want it to be.
I don't want one atm because my Macbook Pro fills both the main computer and lounging computer niche in one. And it needs to either come with Click2Flash or similar and absolutely should wifi sync to fulfill that second computer focus properly. But hey, go and look up an image of the first gen iPod.
But if I could have an iMac in the study, Airport Express hooked into the lounge stereo, and an iPad running that iTunes Remote application then that would be a better home computing setup for GarethAverage than much else I can think of. -
I've just tuned in this morning and don't have time to read the entire thread, so please ignore me if the comment's irrelevant...
I'm the anti-gadget kid, no ipod; the kids watch dvds on an ancient laptop; no mysky (our TV makes the laptop look swish), but I love the concept of the iPad. For some reason its look and functions appeal so much more than smaller devices and it would be fantastic for travel.
I'm going to count out the old pennies I've been saving in the jar by the gramophone and get me one.
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choose the tool suited to the task at hand, not because of what it looks like or how it makes you feel.
Actually no.
This and this are both devices for smoothing wood. They are different in many ways and there are times when perhaps the electric version is more efficient.
But there are no times when the joy of using a Lee-Nielsen can be ignored. How it makes you feel when you use it is tremendously important.
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You should obviously shop more... Nice new handbag perhaps?
Yeah, no. I think I can safely say that one thing I don't need to do is shop more. And I have a practically endless number of handbags. :)
the difficulties of going to sleep after reading on a screen
I've often fallen asleep *while* reading a screen in bed. Am I just lucky?
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For the most part, the iPad sounds like a device I want for purely functional reasons; since being tossed from the NBR I've spent plenty of time on the sofa watching the TV, and reading commentary such as televisionwithoutpity.com or Wikipedia's episode guides isn't easy on an iPhone or even a clumsy, fold-up notebook.
But there are some bits that need clarification for me -- will this thing tether to my iPhone? If so, I won't need the 3G version. If it tethers, will that include feeding GPS data?
Making a USB slot and an SD card reader optional extras strikes me as being pretty cheeky. Leaving out a front-facing camera suggests that Apple wants the information flow to be predominantly in, rather than out. Or perhaps it's another remnant of Steve Jobs' desire to differentiate Apple products by including or excluding features -- if you want people to see you when you Skype you'll have to buy a MacBook.
I may wait until next years' model comes out.
And what's this about the iBooks app not being available down here? That really dismays me.
Back in the 1980s I turned out three kids' books, for which, because I had a co-author, I was paid half of the industry standard 10% royalty based on the retail price, which meant each book made me somewhat less than a week of my day job. I was looking forward to the 70% royalty apple pays content creators such as app developers; it might be enough to motivate me to write more.
If it turns out that some grouping of the New Zealand publishing industry has anything to do with stopping Apple from including iBook on the iPad I'd be angry but not at all surprised. This weeks' Listener has an extract from Kate De Goldi's excellent introduction to the new edition of my Dad's "great, unread New Zealand novel,' Sydney Bridge Upside Down, which is being republished by some Australians who know the marvelous when they see it. When he was alive, though, being a great novelist never made much money for my Dad; luckily he was a great journalist as well. The book trade in New Zealand is long overdue its enema.
I mention all this in part because of Steve Jobs' remarks about Apple always trying to be "at the intersection of technology and liberal arts". Wilson, Hopeful, Barnes and others -- has it occurred to you that such considerations are more valuable to many of us than your emotional investment in hardware and software systems that are irrelevant to our needs? Say what you like about Apple, but its products address issues that apparently are simply not on your maps.
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This weeks' Listener has an extract from Kate De Goldi's excellent introduction to the new edition of my Dad's "great, unread New Zealand novel,' Sydney Bridge Upside Down, which is being republished by some Australians who know the marvelous when they see it.
Damn but I am so excited about this. I haven't read it but it sounds like the New Zealand book I Do Want. Sorry, but stuff saving my pennies for the iPad when I can spend them on this.
The book trade in New Zealand is long overdue its enema.
Made me lols.
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has it occurred to you that such considerations are more valuable to many of us than your emotional investment in hardware and software systems
Woah, OUR emotional investment?
We build and tear down our machines and use them for whatever and whenever, we don't cuddle up to them and whisper sweet nothings into their built in microphones. Does the iPoop even have a microphone?. -
Making a USB slot and an SD card reader optional extras strikes me as being pretty cheeky.
They could certainly have been clearer about it. But the specs page says it ships with a USB cable that plugs into the Dock connector. So perhaps not as good as as a USB port on the tablet itself, but Apple clearly does want to keep the edges smooth.
And by the look of the keyboard dock, it's a standard Apple keyboard with USB ports on either side (I can't see the ports in their gallery shot, so I'm guessing). So it looks like there ain't a big problem, unless Apple starts disabling generic USB devices, and I don't think they will do that.
That said, I don't think I'll be buying the first-gen product. Rev 2 will be the one.
Wilson, Hopeful, Barnes and others -- has it occurred to you that such considerations are more valuable to many of us than your emotional investment in hardware and software systems that are irrelevant to our needs.
Burn!
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Apple can't pull the plug on HP any more than they can make you uninstall the software you've already got from the system you own. Which they can't (unless you're using an iPhone).
They also can't stop someone else forking the code and running with it, which is the point. There are a few issues with their buying up the code like that, but this isn't really one of them.
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Does the iPoop even have a microphone?.
Yes.
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and wouldn't write on because I like keyboards
Ah, we did establish that (a) it has an optional keyboard-and-dock, and (b) it's compatible with any Bluetooth keyboard.
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"Not designed for business"
This is an interesting point. It argues that business is a driver in and of itself and that it is, in some cases, the most important driver.
But "Business" doesn't exist. It isn't a thing itself. Companies operate to do something, usually to make money. They don't operate to maintain "business". If a tool doesn't work for "business" that doesn't mean the tool doesn't work for the company. The tool may well make the company more efficient or better able to sell at the cost of disrupting "business".
It is really really easy to assume that what is good for the processes and bureaucracy that we call business will also be good for the company. Sometimes that just isn't true.
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The 'people' are the 'business', so if the 'people' choose to use different tools to get the 'job' done, then more power to the 'people'.
I'd like to challenge the 'companies operate [usually] to make money' bit, but lets not go down that road, or the godless communist in me will rear it's ugly two-headedness. iZaphod.
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Paws fur thought...
Lest we forget...
teh Catz has Pads!
they are the original Ipads
"I pad, therefore I am"
- Cool for Cats then...it's the prowling and
eviscerating that worries... -
Thus spaketh the paderfamilias.
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Have you heard the old saying - "Research is used as a drunk uses a lamp post; more for support than illumination".
Have you heard the other old saying - "Catchy saying don't actually prove points"?
When others want to view my availability, they have to at least buy me a couple of drinks first.
Heh. Jack Hopeful said "syncing".
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If there were no market advantage in buying CUPs Apple would not have bought it.
AND you are all welcome to worship the Golden Calf
Burn and get Burned? -
I don't know what Apple have been doing with CUPS behind the scenes, but at least they've sprinkled some UI magic on the old puke-green web admin page.
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Hitler has received news of the iPad and, as usual, he's not very happy ...
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