text:
Thoughts on the Mac OS X Mountain Lion Developer Previewby Andrew Cunningham & Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/19/2012 7:40 PM EST
- Posted in
- Mac
- macOS
- Mountain Lion
96 Comments
Back to Article
tipoo - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkSafari seems like the last of the major browsers apart from Chrome (which does have it, but buried in the settings) that fails at GPU acceleration, even on mac. Is that any different this time? Reply
Guspaz - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkChrome buries it in the experimental settings because it's still experimental. In my case, it provides a massive performance improvement to Chrome for even simple use like scrolling pages, but causes Chrome to crash far more often...
I really hope they get it done soon, it makes a big difference. Reply
tipoo - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkI can't help but feel Apple is headed towards an App store only distribution model for Macs like it is on iOS. Gatekeeper currently lets you choose where apps can come from and lets you still install any programs if you turn it to the most lenient setting, but what about a few years down the line when developers are all onboard the program and Apple feels comfortable enough to stop external sources? Reply
solipsism - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkIf that were the case then why give us that middle option as it will make it harder to remove in the future? Reply
sbmassey - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkApple still supports Mac Ports, still provides the Terminal application, and still provides the free "Developer Tools" IDE. Given that pretty much all iOS and OSX software development uses some of these tools, I'm pretty sure that Apple is not going to go into full lockdown any time soon. Reply
MobiusStrip - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkNo, they'll just throw an assload of FUD up on the screen and disable the installation of any app that's not from the App Store by default, even if other options are buried somewhere. Reply
chaise2jardin - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - linkYou will have to jailbreak your OSX ! How pathetic.... Reply
TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, February 23, 2012 - linkYes, but in this case Apple has provided the radio button to do it. Reply
Bozzified - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link"This is another example where Apple has to carefully straddle the line between pushing everyone to the Mac App Store and not abandoning the rest of the Mac software ecosystem. I would like to see feature parity regardless of distribution model (perhaps with some restrictions) on OS X going forward, but I'm not sure that will happen."
Not only that this won't happen.. but it is an approach that Apple is using to make sure that developers are forced into the Mac App Store. If your non-Mac app store app doesn't have access APIs reserved only for those who distribute through the App Store than you are at a serious disadvantage thus you need to make a version for the app store.
Doing so you basically scar your customers who buy directly, basically forcing you to give Apple 30% and go through the app store.
So if Apple doesn't directly cut off any software that doesn't come from them (or through them) this is the way they will most definitely force developers to give them money.
It is not matter of whether they will do it, but when. By default, deliberately, they have placed a huge warning sign already telling users that they can't run an app that's not from the App Store.. 80% of the users will never go to Preferences to check off unsigned apps and thus forcing developers to again go through the Mac App Store.
Either way, this is a disgusting Apple tactic, that locks everyone in even further into their platform under the disguise of "security".
But I guess, as time passes by, most people "loving" Apple will realize what kind of evil they have been supporting but it will be too late as it already may be.
This is the beginning of the end of the computing as we knew and grew up with it. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkYeah, even Linux distros are going the wrong way. Rather than making powerful features available through the control panel (like advanced user management), you are only given very simple options through the GUI, and have to resort to the terminal for relatively simple things. I'm referring to Gnome3, and Unity. :( Reply
B3an - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkCompletely agree. I develop apps for other platforms but will never develop for OSX, it's obvious where things are heading here. And jumping through Apples hoops to get your app on iOS is a nightmare, so i've stopped that too.
MS will have an App Store for Win 8 but thats just for Metro, and atleast it's easier to deal with and get your app on there, plus i cant ever see MS doing anything like this to desktop apps. If anything it gives MS even more reason not to, so developers and people have an alternative and a better option. Theres always Linux, but we all know that wont be going anywhere even near to 5% market share any time soon. Reply
ex2bot - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkI think you misunderstand the signed applications option. They don't have to be in the Mac App Store, the developer just needs to pay Apple $100 for an ID.
I love Apple! There awsome!
Who do you love, microsoft? There awsom to! And much less evil than apple.
And, by the way, this really is . . . the end.
Mac Fanbot Reply
GotThumbs - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkLove? You appear to live outside of reality. An OS is a tool for accessing applications for work and entertainment, It's NOT a relationship. Either you prefer one OS over the other. That's your choice. Don't be disillusioned about what Apple and MS are...They are companies in the business to make money....and they are very good at marketing to consumers. Just don't drink the Cool-Aid.
Best wishes Reply
MobiusStrip - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkNot to mention that it's ANOTHER $100, even if you've already paid for your developer membership for iOS. Lame. Reply
ex2bot - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - linkThey send me all that stuff for free. You know, inner circle (shhh!). Reply
ex2bot - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - linkNo, I prefer iced green tea. Slightly sweetened. Yum. Reply
KoolAidMan1 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkThe problem with your post is that developers don't need to sell through the App Store to benefit from Gatekeeper.
Any applications that are from the App Store or signed with a developer certificate (the free one you get for registering with Apple) can be launched without any warning with Gatekeeper's default settings. If you want to launch an app that hasn't been signed then you either get a UAC style warning, or you can just turn Gatekeeper off globally.
The entire point is that Apple wants to be able to blacklist developers who write malware. Mountain Lion does a check of that blacklist once a day. Without this security method, Apple can only blacklist app identifiers, which take 5 seconds to change, and even malware can adapt to work around that (simply hijack safe identifiers). But there is no easy way for malware to hijack other developer's certificates because they are encrypted like any other security certificate is.
In one fell swoop Apple gains control of easily blocking malware, all while making it brain-dead simple for developers since they can be whitelisted without even needing to release their software through the App Store (your concern).
If a developer chooses not to get on the whitelist, they can still release their software and users (the same ones technically savvy enough to turn off Gatekeeper or manually dismiss it per application) can install it themselves. They'd just get a UAC style warning like they do right now if they want to manually dismiss it.
Lots of worry about nothing. Reply
repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"...If your non-Mac app store app doesn't have access APIs reserved only for those who distribute through the App Store than you are at a serious disadvantage thus you need to make a version for the app store.
Doing so you basically scar your customers who buy directly, basically forcing you to give Apple 30% and go through the app store."
The API's that require Mac App Store distribution are the ones that use Apple's servers. I don't think it's a mystery as to why they want a bit of the action in return for this privilege.
As was noted in the article, the developer can just produce a small add-on module for the Mac App Store if they want to leverage the reserved API's. If they make the add-on free, they only have to pay Apple $99 annually. No one gets "scarred" in the process.
Gatekeeper is merely an attempt at protecting users from their own actions. It's not much different than Windows User Account Control—just another way to deal with the age old problem of giving administrative privileges to the accounts that many people use 100% of the time. If Apple came out with an OS that didn't allow the end user to have elevated privileges at all, that would be much more sinister (like iOS). Reply
kmmatney - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkThe App store is good for a majority of people. I have to admit that when I try Linux, I always have trouble installing Apps, and the "App Store", or Software Center is by far the easiest way to get Apps installed. I remember trying to run Linux without centralized application management, and it was a nightmare for me, as least for a Linux noob like me. Reply
MobiusStrip - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkHolding Linux software installation out as any kind of comparison is ludicrous. A much better example would be Windows, which has had excellent installers for many years. It has also had UNINSTALLERS, which OS X inexplicably still lacks after a decade.
Double-clicking to launch an installer is plenty "elegant" and has been understood even by noobs for many years. Ignoring that fact is a weak strawman. Reply
Jaybus - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkWell, I think that if they go that route, then they will find themselves in court, just as Microsoft did. Embedding APIs available only to App Store apps is almost identical to Microsoft embedding Internet Explorer primitives into Windows. It is an unfair trade practice, and the DOJ will be all over it seeking a hefty fine to line the DOJ lawyers pockets. Reply
InsaneScientist - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkAwesome preview as always, guys!
A little niggle that has been bugging me for some time, I've just never gotten around to mentioning it: When you have an article with multiple authors that includes personal opinion (ie. things that are written first person) could you provide some indication of who wrote which sections? I'm pretty sure I've seen it from time to time in the past, but it's not consistent.
I'm just OCD enough that I'm always wondering which person's opinion I'm reading at a particular point in time.
With that out of the way, a random question: Does 10.8 support the ability to pause and resume file copies? I've actually found that I use that feature in the Windows 8 developer preview a LOT more than I would have thought.
I also find it interesting that they seem to be simultaneously trying to make OS X server more consumer friendly (such as the management options for iOS devices) whilst making it so that it can't be the only server on a network by (potentially?) removing DHCP. Any insights into the contradiction? Reply
Malih - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkexactly, I think many readers wonder who is "I" on one particular section of the article. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkUnfortunately, you cannot pause a file transfer in the current developer preview :-( Reply
Mr. S - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link"... Mountain Lion is dropping support for any Mac that is not capable of booting OS X's 32-bit kernel."
I think you mean 64-bit. Reply
Andrew.a.cunningham - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkYup! Fixed. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkMy concern with aggressive OS releases is that of support. While I think iOS does a better job than Android when it comes to mobile unity, Apple has been notorious for dropping "old" desktop models from its support list. These aren't cheap pieces of hardware, nor are they useless as everyday machines on the day Apple drops them. While you can continue to run old versions of OS X on these machines, will security and stability updates continue? Will Apple will find that people are using anywhere from 10.6 to 10.10 in 3 years? Seems like it will get fragmented, which, as MS can tell you, is a nightmare. Sure Apple can just end support of "old" versions of OS X, but that has its risks. Will software developers keep up? What if people choose to stay on a given version because they don't want to upgrade?
Don't get me wrong. I want to like Apple's products. I've owned Macs before back in the PPC days, and I have an iPhone 4 (work-issue). The hardware is top notch, and I like OS X for the most part. It's Apple's business practices that I just can't get on board with. I just wonder how many more people there are that feel this way that elude Apple's sales. Apple reap billions already, so maybe they are just fine with not having people like me as customers. Reply
HunterKlynn - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkWell, for dropping old hardware I kind of understand it, and if anything I think they're trying to reduce fragmentation. Right now, they're basically saying "it's time for 32 bit to just go away forever" which is a mindset I can easily get behind. That and requiring everyone to have OpenCL support which also is a matter of bringing the platform in line.
I would assume an annual release cycle would have a reduced list of dropped hardware since A) things won't have changed quite so much and B) the two major changes in hardware types have been covered by the requirements on Mountain Lion. Reply
name99 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkWhat exactly is your complaint? That's the part I don't understand.
Apple has a very clear policy on security updates; and even when they stop providing them, chances are that your system is secure enough that it's not big deal.
So you are upset that you bought a computer and Apple will stop providing new software for it seven years later?
If you still want to use your slow computer seven years after Apple stopped supporting it, go ahead and do so --- it will still work. I have a PPC laptop I use as server running 10.5, and a 1st gen Intel laptop running 10.6. I don't bitch and whine about how they can't run newer OSs because what's the big freaking deal? They still work every bit as well as they did last year and the year before that. You come across as a guy who buys a car then complains that he has to buy gas every so often.
Maintaining backward compatibility forever is not free --- just ask MS. Forcing backward compatibility introduces bugs and makes it that much more difficult to add new features or improved algorithms. To take an obvious example --- if (when?) Apple introduce a new file system, it's a whole lot easier if they can just assume that it runs only on 64-bit machines and that they can cleanly use 64-bit integers and even 64-bit assembly where-ever they need to. (And don't tell me that compilers can support 64-bit longs transparently on a 32-bit machine --- yes they can, but not atomic operations on 64-bit longs.)
And it's not like Apple have made these decisions randomly. Dropping PPC, then dropping Intel 32-bit support are both obvious decisions that allow the company to concentrate on moving forward rather than constantly being slowed down by the past.
The good news is that, for the most part, it's over now. The obvious future transitions are
- drop ALL 32-bit code support (maybe coming in Mountain Lion even)
- drop Carbon
at which point ideally Apple has the energy to move forward with one OS and one runtime a whole lot faster.
On the other hand, we are going to see, soon enough, the transition to 64-bit iOS. Expect a whole lot of bitching at that point from people who are upset that Apple won't support their iPad2 for the rest of time. Reply
B3an - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkIt's very obvious that this faster release cycle is in response to Windows 8. All the massive changes and improvements in W8 obviously have Apple worried. Especially with all the upcoming W8 tablets that will cut in to iPad sales. And unlike Mountain Lion which wont run on older Apple hardware, W8 will run on most PC's that can run the decade old XP, because as a benefit of all the performance optimisations for tablets i've managed to get Win 8 to run atleast as good as XP on laptops that are over 7 years old and only have 512MB RAM.
And correct me if i'm wrong, but i dont remember seeing any article like this mentioning the new stuff within the Windows 8 Dev Preview when it came out late last year. Win 8 is a FAR bigger change and update than Mountain Lion, yet there was nothing like this article. I know the Dev Preview was missing many features but still disappointing. Reply
solipsism - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkAT has plenty of articles about Win8.
• http://www.anandtech.com/tag/windows-8
Keep in mind that Win8 was leaked, in pieces over a long time so AT had to mostly write blog-length statements about many of the new features as they dropped, while Apple dropped an entire OS update at once with a detailed webpage and reviews by famous journalists and bloggers who got a one-one-one. Reply
ananduser - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkAnand is a mac user nowadays. Of course he tends to give more attention to mac wares and mac software. That doesn't mean he ignores other platforms or is less fair. Reply
solinear - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkHonestly, I couldn't disagree more. There is a huge amount of attention paid to every Apple product here now, almost like it's a "zealot lite" website. I love how they focused on the amazing improvements in the browser, talking about how the tabs worked and scaled now... I'm sorry, but I haven't seen a browser where the tabs didn't scale automatically as you opened more in ages, but Apple is the 'standard' that they compare everything else to?
As a result, I tend to find myself going to the hardware (SSD mostly) reviews and ignoring a lot of the others. I might be largely alone, but I see a very heavy amount of coverage to the Apple products, particularly for their market share. If he's going to review Apple stuff all the time, maybe he should be reviewing various Linux distro GUI changes and so forth, if he wants to be fair. I can only remember one of those and it was a LONG time ago. Reply
repoman27 - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - linkIf you're not interested in reading articles about Apple products, simply ignore them. If you want AnandTech to focus more on topics of interest to you, just ask, they seem pretty receptive to input.
If Apple articles get a significant number of page views and generate decent revenue for the site, why should AnandTech stop posting them? Just because you're not interested in this type of content doesn't mean that other readers aren't. (Apple now has greater than 10% of US marketshare, and their customer base tends to be of a demographic group that is quite desirable to advertisers.) Reply
KPOM - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkI doubt it. If anything, iOS 6 would be more of the response to Windows 8 than Mountain Lion. The Mac is an important part of Apple, but it represents only 25% of its revenue. iOS represents about 50% of its revenue and about 70% of its profits.
Apple always has had a faster release cycle for OS X than Microsoft had for Windows. Plus, they have for quite a while dropped support for older Macs and/or software with each new release. Leopard dropped the Classic mode. Snow Leopard dropped PowerPC. Lion dropped Rosetta and 32-bit Macs. Apple, unlike Microsoft, makes its money on hardware rather than software, and thus does not have an incentive to keep its new operating systems running on ancient hardware the way Microsoft does. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - link"The last thing I wanted to talk about is something we've already touched on, but it bears repeating - Mountain Lion is dropping support for any Mac that is not capable of booting OS X's 32-bit kernel."
Am I understanding that right, or should that read "64-bit kernel"? Reply
jedivulcan - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkFrom what I've been reading and seeing elsewhere on the internet, AirPlay Mirroring does using the latest iOS 5 beta for Apple TV and a Sandy Bridge based Mac. Reply
solipsism - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkI'm not a fan of LaunchPad but it's perfect for those that aren't heavy or proficient computer users. It makes finding and executing an app simple while bringing a familiarity seen on iOS-based iDevices which far outnumber Macs.
PS: Dashboard also gets the Launchpad-like displaying of widgets and it's much better than their previous model of having a single row at the bottom that scrolls off screen. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Sunday, February 19, 2012 - linkAny word on new OpenCL (1.2) or OpenGL (4.x) support?
With no QuickSync instead relying on CPUs, hopefully they at least are implementing extensive SSE4.x and AVX acceleration. Reply
ananduser - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkApple is not really famous for up to date graphical driver support. And in a way I tend to side with them. The most recent OpenGL implementations are only needed for games and not for CAD. Reply
FWCorey - Tuesday, May 01, 2012 - linkAnd what makes games so much less relevant on a platform that has more consumer users than commercial users?
Windows has given them a high priority for ages despite the fact that OS's demographic balance swings in the opposite direction. Reply
marioyohanes - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkThanks for extensive review on the new upcoming OS X Mountain Lion.
Since you guys are the most reliable sources for SSD, I was wondering whether OS X Mountain Lion has better support for SSD or not, specifically with 3rd party SSD?
I have 2 different SSDs, Intel 320 and Vertex 3 installed on both 2011 MBP and 2009 MBP, and it always gets corrupted right after OS X update or Safari update under Mac OS X Lion (never have this problem on SL).
I really hope Mountain Lion could brings better support for 3rd party SSD than it does on Lion. Because why bother buying new hardware if you'll get stuck with 5400 rpm hdd :) Reply
vectorm12 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkConsidering Apple would much rather charge you 500+ USD for a 256GB SSD that's a decent performer at best I'd say we're out of luck on any kind of support on 3:rd party SSDs. In fact I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Apple in fact chose to limit booting from 3:rd party storage in the near future.
Interesting about your Vertex 3 being corrupted after OS X updates. I've been running Lion for the better part of a month on my early '11 13" macbook pro I have for work with a Vertex3 Max IOPS and haven't seen any real issues thus far.
I do however see intermittent slowdown at times which I've thus far figured to be TRIM related. Especially when waking the system from sleep/hibernation. Perhaps I've been to quick to jump to conclusions about those issues?
All in all I see where Apple wants to take OSX and their platforms in general, but I can't help but pray people won't keep accepting all the limitations since it's really bad for all consumers in the long run.
Otherwise we'll be running IOS 8 on mac hardware and being forced to jailbreak new mac pros as well. Reply
KPOM - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkFrom what I have seen on the developer preview, it does not. I'm assuming the hacks still work, but I haven't tried them. My guess is that we'll see the MacBook Pro line either merge with the Air or become less user-upgradable in the future (perhaps RAM will still be upgradable), at least in the 13" and 15" models, so I wouldn't bet on adding TRIM support for third party drives. I've heard that Apple makes as much or more money on NAND as the manufacturers of the NAND themselves. Reply
zdzichu - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkFirst page discussing rapid release cycles fails to mention Linux distributions. Major distributions shifted to half-year release cycle few years ago (pioniereed by Fedora in 2003 and Ubuntu in 2004). This pace works very good for consumer software. Reply
damianrobertjones - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"Microsoft announced a planned shift to a 3-year OS release cadence."
Didn't they previously have this 3 year release thing? Pretty sure that they did Reply
cjs150 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkActually I do not hate apple, it has a philosphy that does not work for me.
Mountain Lion is clearly yet another step towards the walled garden approach that Apple wants. This approach will result in thinks that "just work", like any number of consumer electronic products. This is why many people at my work love Apple.
But this approach has its downside, if all you want is something that "just works" then you do not need to know how it works and you are stuck with Apple's design decisions (eg no true HD on Apple TV). I want to know how things work, I want to be able to fiddle with settings, add programs that genuinely extend or enhance my working experience.
A simple example. I have a young daughter (10) who is starting to ask for a computer in her bedroom. I have said that if she wants one and can explain why, she can have one but on the condition that it will arrive in bits and she will have to build it herself and install all the software. Admittedly this is a good parent trick to ensure the computer issue is deferred by at least 6 months, but assuming it happens it will teach my daughter very quickly how computers work, what bits are in a computer and how to install software and generally ticker with the computer. Apple take all that away - the computer should be simply a higher priced version of a washing machine - plug it in and away you go. Reply
tim851 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkWhat if your daughter wants a laptop?
I've been managing my parents' PC for a while now. I could be a dick like you and tell them they have to do build it themselves, but I realized that not everybody is a nerd or has the time to become one and ultimately a PC is just an appliance like a fridge or a tv. I didn't make my mom assemble her car either.
Next time you go into the supermarket to buy a steak, I hope they hand you a knife and point to a nearby cow. Reply
bji - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkThe obvious difference between your hypotheticals and his real situation is that he is the parent and its his responsiblity to educate his children and guide their development. It is not your responsibility to educate or guide your parents nor is it the responsibility of the supermarket to educate its customers on how cows are turned into steaks. There's no need to call cjs150 a dick just because you couldn't formulate this simple concept yourself. Reply
vectorm12 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkWhile I do agree with you for the most part I see a problem with "our" view of how things are supposed to work.
The big issue is a lot of people want the "washing machine"-experience with computing devices. Heck even at times I do and it's something that is required at this point in my mind simply because most people choose the simplest/easiest way to get things done whenever possible. Most people simply choose rather not to use a function than actually learn how to use it.
However I feel Apple as well as all others should provide a simple switch to disable to "walled garden" and expose the OS to people who choose to do so. In my mind that's the best of both worlds. Dumb it down for the people who couldn't care less, keep the techs happy who actually use and promote the devices. Reply
ananduser - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkYour description fits W8 entirely. Reply
steven75 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkOr... Mountain Lion, since you CAN install apps from the internet willy-nilly or drop down to the terminal if you really want to. Reply
ananduser - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkThe Metro interface that W8 sports is much more dramatic than the effect some features from ios integrated in OSX might have.
The Metro/Classic duality is also much more akin to ying/yang than the OSX interface which is technically a mash-up. Reply
Scannall - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkMy mom is in her 70's. About a year and a half ago I finally talked her into ditching her Windows ME (Yes, the hated ME) computer. Got her a 27 inch iMac, transferred all her photos and other documents for her. And she has just been thrilled. She has since purchased an iPad 2 and an Apple TV box to go with it.
And, since setting it up initially, she hasn't needed ANY tech support from me.
But for the more hard core, and those that like to tinker the Terminal program is still there, with all the command line goodness (Or destruction...).
Also, it's pretty easy to add either Windows and Linux to your iMac. I have both on mine. Most days anymore I just want to get things done, so I boot into OS X. On the days I feel like tinkering more there is Windows and Linux there for me to play with. Reply
bji - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkI had a similar experience with my 65 year old mother. After 10+ years of supporting her on Windows computers, I finally bought her a mac mini after her most recent Windows virus infection. It's been the smoothest 6 months of her computer life so far, and the amount of tech support I've had to provide has been much lower. She even figured out how to resize pictures and email them, on her own, something that for some reason after 10+ years of Windows use she still hand't figured out.
This is just anecdotal evidence of course, and someone else's mother may find the Windows way of doing things comprehensible, but my mom didn't, and given how many similar comments I've read, I have a feeling there is something to Apple's UI design that works well for novice users.
As a software developer, I have no problem with Apple's approach, as long as they leave the door open for third party applications that don't go through their app store, which so far, they are.
I personally have never owned a Macintosh, but have alread set aside the money for a 15 inch Macbook Air, just waiting for them to come out. It will be nice to finally be able to port my software to OS X. Reply
cyabud - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"I feel Apple as well as all others should provide a simple switch to disable to 'walled garden' "
This switch you talk of is called Terminal.app
And I suppose on iOS it's called a jailbreak, but we're talking about OS X here. Reply
solipsism - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkAndrew and Anand describe the Gatekeeper controls in System Preferences and how you can bypass them at anytime by holding down a couple keys.
Apple has no reason to force you to only buy Mac App Store apps otherwise they would not have offered code signing for external apps which make non-App Store apps safer. They also don't get so much profit from apps that it makes sense to limit to the number of potential Mac buyers.
Apple is by far the most profitable PC maker in the business and they plan to stay that way, hence their move to faster OS X updates and trying to make OS X as familiar as their more popular iOS platform without negatively impacting usability. So far they are doing a good job of it. Reply
Conficio - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkTerminal.app is not an open field (as opposed to a walled garden). It's more like the trenches of the [battle of the] somme.
Really, while a terminal window is nice, the functionality it opens up is undocumented, unsupported and mostly hidden from view. and if you start the app from the terminal it still bitches about "being downloaded from ....", scaring the daylight out of "ordinary" users.
Really why I give credit to Apple to break the walled prisons of the cell phone carriers (mostly the US variety) on phones, they only did in order to replace it with their own walled garden. At least they allow different producers of the same kind of apps to compete, as they profit from all of them equally, where cell phone carriers pick and choose. Reply
TEAMSWITCHER - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkJust because you can buy the individual parts for a computer and assemble them doesn't make you an expert - you're more like a mechanic.
Your entire argument is based on a false assumption, that Mac's are simple computers for simple people - a "walled garden". While that is true for those who like it that way, Mac's also include many high knowledge tools that Windows does not. Terminal provides access to these tools that have been a foundation for computers since the early Days of the C programming language and the UNIX operating system. Sorry, the MSDOS box is not even close to comparable.
Windows is more like a "Theme Park", you can ride all the attractions, but remember you are only a park visitor, and cannot go into areas marked "Authorized Personnel Only." They made damn sure of this by not providing the same tools that are included in each and every MAC OS X installation. Reply
cjs150 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkInteresting comments to my post even if one (Tim) is obviously Mr Angry.
I would not ask my 70+ year old mother to build a computer, I would buy her an Ipad because she does not need to understand how is works merely use it.
But my 10 year old needs to understand computers properly and best way is to start by making her build one (OS will probably by Linux). Maybe that makes her a mechanic (Teamswitcher) but it will also give her a better appreciation of how computers work.
Yes W8 worries me, it is supposed to be a more mature OS but looks like it was designed by someone whose only previous experience was an Ipad and kids cartoons.
The problem is that as the computing market matures a lot of assumptions are being made about how people should use the computer. I do not want someone else making assumptions about how I should work, what I want is the software to allow me to work the way I want to.
Please understand my original post was that the Apple philosphy does not work for me not that I hate Apple. Reply
steven75 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"But my 10 year old needs to understand computers properly"
And why, exactly, is that?
Will you require her to build her own car, slaughter her own meat, assemble her own furniture? Reply
bji - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkIs it really possible that so many people can't see the difference in the expected benefit of having deep technical knowledge of computers versus knowing how to build a car, slaughter a cow, or build furniture?
Seriously - are you living in 1912 or 2012? I personally live in 2012 and can readily see the benefit of technical knowledge.
Furthermore, experience with building/programming computers is fairly easy to impart when a) the parent is already interested in and knowledgeable about them, and b) it is an easily accessible, "clean" topic of study. We can easily teach our children about computers, it is much harder for a whole variety of reasons to give them hands-on experience with car manufacturing or cow slaughtering.
I imagine that there are in fact some carpenters for whom the last suggestion - furniture assembly - is a reasonable thing to try to teach their children, but those people are probably underrepresented here. But I would not begrudge them a desire to pass their knowledge onto their children either, although I suspect those of you in the deliberately-obtuse crowd would. Reply
solipsism - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkIs it really possible that so many people can't see the difference in the expected benefit of having deep technical knowledge of computers versus only having a computer if you've built it yourself? Reply
bji - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkAlthough your comment doesn't make any sense as written, I'll assume you meant to point out that you don't have to force someone to build their own computer as the only way to help them to learn about computers.
Nobody said that building your own computer is the *only* way to learn about computers; but the burden of proof would be on you if you are suggesting that it isn't a good way to get some knowledge about how computers work and what they are made of. Reply
cjs150 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkIf all children are taught is to use certain software packages, for example Word, you are not teaching computing but merely a more modern version of a typist course. Children deserve and need to learn more because they will be the next generation of programmers, system designers, graphic designers etc
Yes children should learn about how the meat they eat is farmed, the slaughtering techniques, hygenie issues. Actually slaughtering animals is probably off the agenda in a inner city school though!
I believe that assembling her own furniture would get taught in woodworking (or whatever the course is called now), although that covers a bit more as well. And she did (with help) assemble her own flat pack book case Reply
Conficio - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkAs a father, I'd only remark that you should carefully weigh if your daughter has an interest in building a computer.
Nothing wrong with teaching your kids a subject where you are an expert. Just they have to be motivated.
School teachers these days (not much to their fault) are not experts in anything they teach. In a modern (city or Internet connected) world there are always better writers, critical thinkers, mathematicians, biologists, farmers, woodworkers, typists, etc. in easy reach. It used to be 100 - 150 years ago that a teacher was one of the elite (besides the mayor, priest, doctor and lawyer in town) based on his/her academic training and ability to read/write and have some understanding of the world beyond the village boundaries. The world has changed often you find among the parents alone way more expertise in most subjects taught.
Anyhow in most cases teachers do not and can not stretch the knowledge of their pupils into current expertise in almost any field. So being able to teach some of this yourself is a good thing.
However, you got to see that at the end of the day you are not imposing your own desires and like onto your child. Because that won't help and make the child only feel misunderstood by its parents. Have an eye of the fact that it is not so much about what you learn, but more to what level of effort (and academic abstraction) you learn it. That is what teaches you how to learn any kind of complex subject and that is the skill that sustains you in life (besides social abilities and [self] motivation). Reply
FWCorey - Tuesday, May 01, 2012 - link"As a father, I'd only remark that you should carefully weigh if your daughter has an interest in building a computer.
Nothing wrong with teaching your kids a subject where you are an expert. Just they have to be motivated."
Part of being a parent and helping your child to develop is giving them knowledge of a broad range of subjects. Just because something the have no knowledge of doesn't interest them, doesn't mean that might not change once they've been given a little experience with it. And if it doesn't change, at least they can honestly tell themselves it's an informed choice.
We should all have at least a little knowledge of a wide range of topics anyway, whether they appeal to us or not for the simple practical reason of communication with others who do. You also never know when a tidbit of info from some other topic can help you see something you ARE interested in from another perspective. Reply
suprem1ty - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkTheres nothing wrong with providing some education.
Especially when said education (computing) is so important and fundamental to our current society.
If I had a child I would want to make sure that they were well educated when it came to things I found important; it's not until they're old enough to choose for themselves that I would let them "take their own path" as it were. Reply
cyabud - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"I want to know how things work, I want to be able to fiddle with settings, add programs that genuinely extend or enhance my working experience."
Apple hasn't removed any features from Mountain Lion that prevent you from fiddling with settings or adding programs that genuinely extend or enhance your working experience.
I am a power user running OS X, Windows and Ubuntu on multiple machines/VMs. All three systems offer plenty of configuration options (from a client perspective, as oppose to server) and third party software to do pretty much anything I want from any system I choose.
Sure, AirPlay Mirroring is 720p only for now but don't act like alternatives don't exist... My copy of Lion is running a DLNA server streaming 1080p video to my Samsung blu-ray player without issue. Reply
KPOM - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkWindows 8 ARM will be an even tighter walled garden than Mountain Lion. It will be like iOS, actually. Apps will be available exclusively from the Windows Store.
I think computers have started to arrive where cars have been for the last 20 years or so. They are complex appliances that are turnkey to the end-user. Most of us don't know how to tinker with our cars the way people did back in the early days (or as late as the 1970s and 1980s). Reply
suprem1ty - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkWon't Windows 8 ARM be purely for tablets and such anyway though?
It's pretty clear Microsoft wants to start fresh with their ARM port, by not allowing x86/x86-64 desktop applications to be run or ported to it.
But yeah cars are another area where I think people should have atleast a fundamental/working understand of the internal workings - even if its basic maintenance (changing oil, sparkplugs, air filters and the like) Reply
Bateluer - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkBullspit. Maybe over the entire existence of Apple . . . Reply
repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkFirst of all, "in the wild" does actually refer to anyone still using a Mac that was produced at some time during the course of Apple's existence.
Furthermore, Apple sold 17.8m Macs in the past 4 quarters alone, so that number seems pretty reasonable, no? Reply
GotThumbs - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"Just as was the case on PCs, I've always grabbed and installed software on my Macs from a multitude of sources and I've never really wished there was a centralized, policed repository of Mac applications. That being said, I do understand and accept that I may be a part of a shrinking minority."
I believe that as the general public/consumer becomes better educated and more knowledgeable about what options are available in the market and the web, then they will begin to gravitate towards more individual choice and begin to resent the extreme level of control Apple wields over the newbies still learning.
In the early years of the internet, AOL was the tool for many to wade into the WWW using 'Key Words' to grab their news or information. Now today's WWW users are more and more comfortable using a browser of their choice and surfing the web without training wheels of yesterday. It's just a learning curve...and as people's knowledge grows...they then wish journey beyond the shackles that begin to bind and restrict them. Freedom of choice will always be desired by those who are not followers.
Question regarding this article...can Safari be completely Uninstalled from this OS? Just wondering since MS had to pay big penalties for that kind of situation with IE. Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"Question regarding this article...can Safari be completely Uninstalled from this OS? Just wondering since MS had to pay big penalties for that kind of situation with IE. "
Looking at the market share, I doubt any judge would rule that OS X and Windows are comparable in that regard. :-) Reply
repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link"...can Safari be completely Uninstalled from this OS?"
Typing "sudo rm -rf /Applications/Safari.app" in Terminal would do the trick, although it's not highly recommended due to the potential dependancies of other programs that are still installed.
"Looking at the market share, I doubt any judge would rule that OS X and Windows are comparable in that regard."
How about when you add iOS and mobile Safari to the mix? Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkThen Apple still doesn't have dominating market share. Apple is getting nice profits, but not from outselling the competition. They are just having better margins. :-) Reply
solipsism - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link1) You can remove the Safari.app with a drag-n-drop but not the WebKit framework that is used by many apps. So yes, the app is removable.
2) You don't understand the antitrust case if you think that Apple could be in some violation here. Reply
Conficio - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkNot sure if we haven't come full circle. How many users live their Internet life on facebook these days, including news and videos! Reply
ramuman - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link...actually AirPlay Mirroring does work, but it requires iOS 5.1 on an Apple TV. I'm running the developer build of ML and my Apple TV shows up, but I don't have iOS 5.1 on it so it says "incompatible hardware" Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkI am not an Apple buyer, so I don't use OS X. I've seen it on he MacBook and tried it for 5 minutes and couldn't get anything to work. ^^ I'm sure it works for a lot of people, though.
What I found a bit odd in your conclusion was that there is competition in the OS space. I really don't see that. As long as Apple doesn't open OS X up to non-Apple PCs, OS X is not a competition to Windows. The Mac sales in the US may look quite good, but world wide, OS X doesn't really play a role, as far as I know. I'd like to try OS X again, but I'm not going to cough up the money for an Apple PC to do it. :-) Reply
colonelclaw - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkI take care of a lot of Macs for friends and family. As an unscientific observation, those who have older hardware (some up to 10 years old, but mostly 4+ years old) don't care about not having the latest OS. Those on the newer hardware are always bugging me to 'upgrade' their systems (i.e put on Lion and everything Adobe makes for free).
Consequently I would say not supporting older hardware is not a big deal. There seem to be 2 types of computer user in this world, those who want the latest and greatest of everything, and those who just don't care as long as it works. Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkSince you take care of those, you should make sure that everyone is running the latest software, if only to ensure that everyone is as secure as they can be. Newer OS isn't just for added features, it is also to close bugs, exploits etc. People not wanting newer software because their current one runs good enough are the same people who will get their credit card maxed by thieves. Reply
nortexoid - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkQuibble: there's a section titled "Unsupported Macs" and then a list of Macs just below that. If one doesn't read the paragraph above (and there's no reason to think they *ought* to), one will be confused by the list. Reply
Andrew.a.cunningham - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkThen it's a good thing you read the paragraph above, right? I mean, what are we all here for, if not to exchange information using words? Reply
Andrew.a.cunningham - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkSarcasm aside, though, your point is well-taken, and I tweaked the subhead. :-) Reply
repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkNeither the original article nor any of the user comments I read pointed out an obvious benefit of shifting the distribution of widely adopted apps to "App Store" models—namely a more unified software update interface. I fired up a client's MacBook the other day just to change a few system settings and configure her email client with a new account. Because she had only lightly used the machine in the past few weeks, I was confronted with 5 different auto-update dialogs in the space of 20 minutes. Most Windows machines I see have about a dozen startup processes or services designed to check for software updates automatically on top of Microsoft Update. For many small businesses that don't maintain dedicated update servers, have legacy equipment or less than stellar internet connections, the only option is to disable automatic update checking for virtually everything and then periodically perform manual updates of all the software on each machine.
I kinda like the iOS way, where every now and then when I'm at home and on WiFi, I glance at my home screen, and I can see a little red badge on the App Store icon with a number telling me how many apps have available updates. I can peruse them first, then tap "Update All" and be done with it. It really should be this easy on PC's as well (and even better if you could just as easily roll back an app to a prior installed version if the update breaks something.) Apple providing a very low overhead push notification server that any developer can use to notify their users of updates, and a centralized way of downloading and installing those updates is one step closer to things just working the way they should.
In a previous comment, someone made the analogy to the changes the automotive industry has undergone in the past 30-40 years. I use this analogy all the time. For a while people lamented the perceived loss of ability to maintain their own cars, but the tradeoff is that most people drive vastly more reliable vehicles than they did a few decades ago and don't miss changing a water pump themselves one bit. I for one really hope that personal computers get to the point where they "just work" the way cars do these days. And despite the more proprietary nature of cars nowadays, the tinkerers and those that perform their own repairs are certainly far from extinct—they just had to acquire different tools and skill sets.
As for software developers not wanting to give Apple 30% of the retail take, unless they primarily sell directly and can scale well with demand, they often sacrifice more than that to whatever distribution channels they do use. In most instances (i.e. for the most popular apps), those not buying volume licenses (which aren't yet available for non-Apple apps in the Mac App Store anyway) tend to buy from a discount retailer. Between the discounted price and the fact that the retailer is taking a cut, we can deduce that the publisher has probably wholesaled the license at 70% or less of full retail. Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkConsidering the kind of information my internet-machine has on me versus my car, I don't really see how they stack up. I don't want Apple or Microsoft or Google turning their OS into another Facebook. Reply
repoman27 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkMany cars already have embedded GPS and mobile communication hardware, microphones and cameras and other sensors. Some new models are touting built in Wi-Fi. Once you start browsing pron from you car, there really won't be much difference.
And I don't really see how app stores could turn an OS into Facebook. Apple, Microsoft and Google all provide browsers, Microsoft and Google have search engines, and Apple has iTunes. I'm not sure what they'll learn about you from an OS level app store that they don't already know. Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkSo, you store passwords, private information, handle money transactions through your car? If you don't see how a machine to enter the internet and community with the world is different from a vehicle, you clearly are not living on my plane of existence.
As for the Facebook, you were saying that we should just let the companies run these black boxes and not worry about it. But I see that this would give these companies a chance to gather ever more information from us. Your argument that they already have stuff to gather such information isn't anything contrary to my stance. Reply
macuser2134 - Monday, February 20, 2012 - linkI have an important question about the Text-to-speech synthesizer that is included with OS X. Have they given it an independent volume control?
This is coming from someone who is still on Snow Leopard. Whenever any 3rd party application invokes this feature - its always extremely lound at 100% the maximum volume. So unfortunately it never gets used for anything. But its such a great feature. Reply
chemist1 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - linkMy two principal concerns with the accelerated (yearly) release schedule are:
1) In my experience, it takes nearly a year before each OSX release becomes fully useable -- i.e., it takes nearly a year before all my apps are updated, by the developers, to be *completely* compatible with the new OS (some of these are smaller developers with more limited resources), and likewise nearly a year before most of the bugs in the OS itself are worked out. So with the annual release schedule we lose that "sweet spot" second year when things are basically working well, and the OS and app developers can continue to refine and improve. Instead, all the focus will be redirected towards the new OS.
2) Consider the case of expensive software like Adobe CS. Typically, a given version of Adobe CS is good for the current Mac OS and the next two or so (=> about six years when releases are biannual) before one starts to run into compatibility issues and thus needs to upgrade. With releases coming out annually, might this not cut the longevity of such software in half? Indeed, wouldn't this be a problem for your apps generally? Reply
MobiusStrip - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link"The Mountain Lion Finder, along with Lion additions... are at this point largely identical to their Lion counterparts."
Apple's failure to fix this pathetic piece of garbage they call Finder is just disrespectful to their users at this point. If there is a single foil for all of the breathless fawning over Apple's mythical design "elegance", Finder is it.
When you have a file browser that can't even sort its contents properly (with FOLDERS AT THE TOP), start searches in the selected folder, create subfolders in the selected folder, or present search results that show you WHERE each hit is... you have a failure.
Whatever happened to the much-ballyhooed "rewrite" of Finder for SnowLeopard (or was it Leopard)? Reply
repoman27 - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - linkI recognize that you're just trolling, and you don't appear to be a Mac user, but you do realize that the Finder already can do all of the things you listed? If you haven't been able to figure out how to do these things, the failure would seem to be a personal one and not on the part of the Finder.
You seem very angry at Apple. Has Apple or its fans hurt you personally in some way? Reply
Shinobi_III - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - linkSince forever, Mac OS has looked exactly the same..
And now a new OS version every year, for 100 bucks or whatnot?
These are basically just service packs, why is anyone even getting excited?
BTW, did they add cut/paste yet? lol Reply
snouter - Thursday, February 23, 2012 - linkApple will need to push/encourage 3rd parties to keep up with them.
Adobe is notorious for taking their time with updates to newer Mac OSes.
Canon, only a few weeks ago released EOS Utility for Lion.
My Girlfriend bought some new $100 Samsung laser printer. No Lion drivers. I use dropbox to move files to my Windows computer so I can print them in 2012! There are CUPS hacks and stuff, but, meh.
So with Mountain Lion on the way, will Adobe CS6 be ready? Will I have to go a year waiting for Canon to upgrade EOS Utility? I guess in 2012, I can just forget about printing, lol. Reply


text:
Eight Months of Gamingby Eddie Turner on 5/8/2008 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- Software
58 Comments
Back to Article
DeanimatE - Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - linkwhere the horse pie is Street Fighter IV?
that game is going to be huge! :D Reply
nicknet - Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - linkShips September 16... i'm a little excited about this one too Reply
deeznuts - Monday, May 12, 2008 - linkThe fact you have a couple of movie games in there, ugh, thse have such little chance of becoming good games.
LittleBigPlanet? Man that's going to be huge. Not even an honorable mention? Reply
Omega215D - Monday, May 12, 2008 - linkI guess it is a good thing that Ubisoft Montreal is working on Far Cry 2. Games from this division are usually quite good in comparison to their Shanghai part.
Also I thought that the next Splinter Cell (also from Montreal) is supposed to be out this year. Any news on that? Reply
KeypoX - Sunday, May 11, 2008 - linkSeems pretty surprising. But nearly all of them are xbox and ps3 ports :(. Hope they port nicely. Reply
demiurge3141 - Saturday, May 10, 2008 - linki heard that duke nukem forever will be out in 2008...... Reply
JonnyDough - Saturday, May 10, 2008 - linkCOME TO PC??!!! Don't NEGLECT US!!! "WE" (older generations of really hanus and slightly neat-o nerds) LOVED YOU FIRST GAME PROGRAMMERS!!! Reply
EddieTurner - Monday, May 12, 2008 - linkHaze was originally planned for PC, as well as the 360. That was before Sony sunk their teeth into Free Radical. Now the game is PS3 only. Money talks. Reply
SPARTAN VI - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkC'mon AT! Why isn't this soon to be PC blockbuster on that list? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkA) When has Blizzard ever managed to release two games/updates in one year?
B) No firm data set - just "TBA".
C) Everyone has pretty much already heard about it -- might as well write to tell people the sun rises every morning. ;-)
Those same criteria often apply to many of the other games on the list. I haven't seen a single game in the comments that we didn't at least mention in the email messages going back and forth on this article. Eventually, we decided that we should just post what we had and see the reaction rather than spending another several weeks trying to modify things. I figure no matter how much time we spent, we were going to leave off some major games.
I pushed for including more strategy/RPG/adventure titles personally, but if we had gone for what I was thinking this could have easily been a 10,000 word article. It would have covered more games, but I don't know it would have actually been *better*. Reply
EddieTurner - Sunday, May 11, 2008 - link^ Well said. As the holiday season draws near, I'll be covering more games whose release dates are firm in a holiday preview article. Reply
MrBlastman - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkI don't see it listed, but I must keep the faith it will be released this year. Reply
Wivvix - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkStarcraft II?
Fable II?
How could these fail to even get a mention when games like "heist", "Zeno clash" and "Mass Effect- PC" made the list?
kdog03 - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkreally, you missed anand. Reply
Etern205 - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkThe screen shot for the game "Legendary" reminds me of one of the scenes in Final Fantasy Advent Children. :P
As for Just Cause 2, I haven't got any issue with Just Cause, but on their forums there are quite a few people who has. I hope they fix all of their bugs with this 2nd release.
And I do hope they fix their driving issue!
Driving the cars feels like your skidding on ice. :/ Reply
chynn - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkWotLK update to World of Warcraft.
Not a console game; not a PC game, per se; Wrath of the Lich King is just the latest enhancement to the WoW series.
But it will rock and suck in another 10M accounts ... :) Reply
just4U - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkyeah ... and then there is that little thing called warhammer due out in october. Reply
vacendak - Sunday, May 25, 2008 - linkI'm thinking Warhammer might make a ripple in this pond. With 700,255 beta applications to date…
tonjohn - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkI'm disappointed. Reply
tonjohn - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkTo clarify:
"The biggest news so far is that Left 4 Dead is on track for a November 2008 release worldwide for both PC and Xbox 360." Reply
BladeVenom - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkThis is the list I use. http://www.systemwars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...">http://www.systemwars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...
A DRM warning about Mass Effect and Spore.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid... Reply
DigitalFreak - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkNo way in hell I'll be buying Mass Effect or Spore with that DRM. Reply
mmntech - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkAgreed. I was looking forward to Mass Effect on PC. I feel like I wasted $170 on the HD 3850 I bought to play it. PC gaming is dead and DRM is the box they're burying it in.
There were two huge games missing from the list. The first is LittleBigPlanet which is probably one of the most anticipated PS3 games coming out this year. The Force Unleashed is another big one, even just from a technical standpoint with Euphoria and DMM. 2008 is going to be a good year for consoles. I'm glad I finally caved in and bought one rather than suffering with PC and SecuROM. Reply
Heatlesssun - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkYou're making way to much of the SecureROM thing. I've got a couple of games using it, Call of Juarez and DirT and I'm not having any issues on Vista, both x86 and x64.
Also you're failing to realize that most PC games are available via a download service, which use net authentication schemes. PC gaming is far from dead. With out PC's, there'd be no hardware to go into consoles as consoles are loss leaders. AMD and nVidia wouldn't make it on console sales alone. They need to be able to sell dedicated GPU's to make money and have some for the R&D that ends up in consoles.
Viva la PC Gaming! Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkWas reading about that earlier. Man, what a freakin' killjoy. Somebody whould be shot for making that decision. Reply
Spacecomber - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkI latch onto a handful of PC games a year that I play, and I recognize that there are many other games out there that I'll never get around to playing, especially since I have no plans on a picking up a console any time soon. So, it's nice to have a kind of overview of the electronic gaming universe. I'll never be able to explore it all, but I'm sure some of these new games will find there way onto my hard drive. Reply
PrinceGaz - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkThat sums up my feelings too. I only play a few games but play them a lot. I also have no need or desire to buy a console for the sort of games I like most, and judging from the fact that 12 of the 16 games listed are shown as getting a PC release (and one or two of the other four may well get a PC release later on), PC gaming is far from dead. Reply
Griswold - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkWell said. Reply
Rocket321 - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkI really liked the article, keep them comming! Reply
vexingv - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkThis list makes me hesitant to put a $500 investment into buying a PS3 solely to play MGS4 and GTA4 (which will probably be ported to PC). So many of these games are multiplatform and being released on the PC as well. However, I'm concerned whether the PC ports are even comparable to their console counterparts as the PC is hardly the lead platform anymore and usually winds up as the bastard child. Reply
madgonad - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkYes. The PC version never leads anymore. It took an extra 6 months for Mass Effect to be improved enough to actually benefit from the enhanced graphics and controls offered by the PC environment. Reply
mdudeja - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkHeavy Rain, anyone??? Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkNice to see I'm not the only one whose been follwing that title. But again, there's no indication of a release in the coming months. I am anxious to get more info on it though. Things have been kind of quiet lately. Reply
erwos - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkYou totally missed Ninja Gaiden 2. And Fable 2. Reply
nugundam93 - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkwhat, no duke nukem forever on that list! for shame!
(hahahaha) Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkDNF? Sure, but that one would belong in 8 "Years" of Gaming! I'm prety sure we won't see that one this year.
As far as Ninja Gaiden 2 goes, I'll take the rap for not including it. However, it's definitely a prospect for a full review. Reply
FITCamaro - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkOf course if the game releases in the state it currently is in beta, no ones going to want to play it anyway. I have yet to play for more than 5 minutes at a time since getting through the opening solo area. And I've got a pretty decent system. Reply
Loquejr - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkSoul Calibre, and Left 4 Dead should also be great titles out this year :¬)
new SF might be interesting too... =¬] Reply
DragonFire - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkWhat the hell man, where is my Duke Nukem Forever! Reply
Griswold - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkA provisional release date (year? decade?) for the Duke would steal the thunder of all these upcoming games. So, the best we can hope for is an old fashioned "when it's done". :(
(Yes, I'm still hoping too) Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkHey folks! As Jarred stated, there were a number of games that were equally worthy of rearing their heads in this article, but I chose to stick with the ones that were at least targeted for 2008. So titles labeled TBA 08 took precedent over the lone TBA's. This was a fun article to do and I plan to create a similar one as we get closer to the holiday season. By then, hopefully games like StarCraft II, Left 4 Dead, and Project Origin will have the release dates nailed down. I was, however, glad to include some of the lesser known games that I felt derserved some attention. That said, I wish I could have included 10 screens from Zeno Clash. The game looks like it'll be a riot! Anyway, I hope you enjoy these brief previews. More on the way! Reply
tehgunnerer - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkIts Marvel, not DC. For the love of god, man! Reply
EddieTurner - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkThanks for pointing that out. I had been watching the new trailer for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe during a revision. Honest mistake! Reply
indiekid - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkStarcraft II could happen this year, right? Maybe? Someone? Reply
drebo - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkIt's slated for launch in late November or early December, and I'm a little disappointed it's not on the list.
There are like 7 or 8 FPS games on the list that all look to offer IDENTICAL gameplay...yet only one RTS, despite the fact that the new Supreme Commander game and Starcraft II are due out this year, both of which have completely different gameplay to each other and to Spore. Reply
JonnyDough - Saturday, May 10, 2008 - linkA little?!!! How the hell could it NOT be on the list? Just because it's not a shooter doesn't mean it's not totally rad. Ugh. At LEAST they got it right when they put Fallout 3 on the list. Fallout was a sweet game. I never got bored! Reply
MrDiSante - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkStarcraft II - the only game I'm looking forward to this year (aside from Gears of War II, but TBH I doubt they're gonna ship this year). Reply
cmdrdredd - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkNone of the listed games will go on my PC. There's a few I'm looking at, but on my Consoles.
Pc Gaming is in the pits. Reply
murphyslabrat - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkNo love for Fallout III?
Those two go hand in hand: both are sequels to a title that still sees considerable action, despite recently having their 10th birthday. Reply
Harkonnen - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkNo Half-Life 2: Episode 3 either!
lol Reply
The Arete - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkExactly! Missing some key relatively substantial franchises
Battlefield: Bad company, Fable 2, SW: Force Unleashed, Brothers in Arms: Hell's highway, Prototype, Silent hill, Soul calibur, Resident Evil, End War. I'd say those are established enough that they should at least get worthy mention even if they do get pushed back into 2009.
LemonJoose - Friday, May 09, 2008 - linkPrototype has been delayed until 2009, however, you're right there are a lot of other major titles coming in 2008 that weren't on the list. Reply
Polynikes - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkFor shame! Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkTitles scheduled for 2008. Last I heard, both Clear Sky and HL2 EP3 are 2009 titles (or "When it's done"). There are a lot of interesting games coming out, but many of them are still unknown ETA.
Here are some games I mentioned, but many don't have a set release date and others simply didn't make the list for one reason or another:
STALKER: Clear Sky , Project Origin (Monolith's follow-up to FEAR), FEAR 2, Left 4 Dead, Battlefield Heroes, Darkest of Days, Duke Nukem Forever, HL2 Episode 3, Alan Wake, Project Offset, Age of Conan, Space Siege, Sacred 2, Demigod, Penny Arcade Adventures, and Rise of the Argonauts.
And that's just the "short" list. If reader reaction to this sort of article is positive, we will likely do more in this vein. Reply
Polynikes - Monday, May 12, 2008 - linkhttp://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/38476/S-T-A-L-K-...">http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/38476...K-E-R-Cl...
Looks like this year to me, barring any unforeseen delays. Reply
Marduk - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkActually Stalker: Clear Sky will be released on August 29 (2008) if it's not delayed, of course. Still, it's a nice article. Encore. Reply
Harkonnen - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkAh ok, Makes sense that your not including games without a release date.
I do like the article too. You definitely should do one every of these every once in a while. Reply
tuteja1986 - Thursday, May 08, 2008 - linkERR... you forgot
Ninja Gaiden II
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Resident Evil 5 ( according to campcom its coming this year)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

subset: commoncrawl


text:
American Cocker Spaniel » American Cocker Spaniel Forum
I don't know the fur's name for my cockerThis is a forum for bonding with your fellow Dogsters about the traits, quirks and idiosyncrasies of your favorite breed. Please remember that there are absolutely no animal sales or requests for studding or breeding allowed on our sites. All posts and interactions should be in the spirit of Dogster's Community Guidelines and should be fun, friendly and informational. Enjoy!


text:
Previous Black History Month Features:
2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010
PRINCETON, N.J. -- The Ivy League celebrated Black History Month 2011 with a month-long, video series on IvyLeagueSports.com entitled Celebrating The Dream.
Featuring a new video each week day during the month of February, the series was a collection of video interviews by Ivy League student-athletes, coaches and administrators reflecting on the significance of Black History Month, the impact of individuals on their lives from family members to historic figures and this year's recognition of the 25th anniversary of Martin Luther King Day.
Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in U.S. history. The event grew out of Negro History Week, the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans in 1926. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.
Click on an individual's name below to view the video.
|Tuesday, February 1
|Tommy Amaker, Harvard men's
basketball head coach
|Wednesday, February 2
|Christina Alexander, Dartmouth women's track & field student-athlete
|Thursday, February 3
|Carlin Hartman, Columbia men's basketball associate head coach
|Friday, February 4
|Kyle Casey, Harvard men's basketball student-athlete
|Monday, February 7
|Kali Strother, Penn women's track & field student-athlete
|Wednesday, February 8
|Porter Braswell, Yale men's basketball student-athlete
|Wednesday, February 9
|Mariel Jenkins, Harvard women's lacrosse student-athlete
|Thursday, February 10
|Leah Foster, Dartmouth women's basketball assistant coach
|Friday, February 11
|Adrian Williams, Brown men's basketball student-athlete
|Monday, February 14
|Thanithia Billings, Princeton
women's track & field student-athlete
|Tuesday, February 15
|Traci Green, Harvard women's tennis head coach
|Wednesday, February 16
|Sidra Bonner, Cornell women's
soccer student-athlete
Ronnie Dixon, Dartmouth men's basketball student-athlete
|Thursday, February 17
|Paris Waterman, Brown women's
lacrosse student-athlete
Bradford Blackmon, Penn football student-athlete
|Friday, February 18
|Kyra Caldwell, Columbia
women's track & field student-athlete
Lester Nare, Princeton men's soccer student-athlete
|Monday, February 21
|Emani Fenton, Cornell football
Zenab Keita, Yale women's basketball student-athlete
|Tuesday, February 22
|Jerome Allen, Penn men's basketball head coach
|Wednesday, February 23
|Bill Courtney, Cornell men's basketball head coach
|Thursday, February 24
|Abbott Burrell, Brown football
associate head coach
Queen Smith, Yale women's basketball assistant coach
|Friday, February 25
|Spencer Lane, Cornell women's
basketball student-athlete
Krystal Hill, Princeton women's basketball student-athlete
|Monday, February 28
|Dr. M. Dianne Murphy, Columbia director of athletics and physical education


text:
Small Montreal Canadiens Blanket by Erin Swan
Welcome! You are browsing as a guestWould you like to see projects made from this pattern and much more? create a free account What am I missing?
© DIY with Swansong
Small Montreal Canadiens Blanket
This pattern is available for $3.00 USD
buy it now or visit pattern website
buy it now or visit pattern website
Are you, or someone you love, a Montreal Canadiens fanatic? Why not make this blanket to snuggle up in while watching them play?
You will receive my written pattern for a basic 30" x 30" sc blanket, as well as clear instructions on how to incorporate a chart into the creating process.
For more information, see: http://www.facebook.com/EFSDesigns


text:
NVIDIA Optimus - Truly Seamless Switchable Graphics and ASUS UL50Vfby Jarred Walton on 2/9/2010 9:00 AM EST
49 Comments
Back to Article
jkr06 - Saturday, February 27, 2010 - linkFrom all the articles I read, one thing is still not clear to me. I have a laptop with core i5(which has IGP) and nvidia 330M. So can I utilize the optimus solution with just SW. Or the laptop manufacturers specifically need to add something to truly make it work. Reply
JonnyDough - Friday, February 19, 2010 - linkwas a wasted effort. Seems sort of silly to switch between two GPU's when you can just use one powerful one and shut off parts of it. Reply
iwodo - Thursday, February 18, 2010 - linkFirst, the update, they should definitely set up something like Symantec or Panda Cloud Database, where users input are stored and shared and validated worldwide. The amount of games that needs to be profiled is HUGE. Unless there is a certain simple and damn clever way of catching games. Inputting every single games / needed apps running exe names sounds insane to me. There has to be a much better way to handle this.
I now hope Intel would play nice, and gets a VERY power efficient iGPU inside SandyBridge to work with Optimus, Instead of botching even more transistors for GPU performance. Reply
secretanchitman - Saturday, February 13, 2010 - linkany chance of this going to the macbook pros? im hoping when they get updated (soon i hope), it will have some form of optimus inside. if not, something radeon based. Reply
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 11, 2010 - linkAs I don't need a dGPU, I would like to see a CULV laptop with the Turbo33 feature but without any dGPU in order to save money. Maybe with Arrandale. Reply
jasperjones - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkJarred,
As you imply, graphics drivers are complex beasts. It doesn't make me happy at all that now Optimus makes them even more complex.
Optimus will likely require more software updates (I don't think it matters whether they are called "driver" or "profile" updates).
That puts you even more at the mercy of the vendor. Even prior to Optimus, it bothered me that NVIDIA's driver support for my 3 1/2 year old Quadro NVS 110m is miserable on Win 7. But, with Optimus, it is even more critical to have up-to-date software/driver support for a good user experience! Furthermore, software solutions are prone to be buggy. For example, did you try to see if Optimus works when you run virtual machines?
Also, I don't like wasting time installing updates. Why can't GPUs just work out of the box like CPUs?
Lastly, these developments are completely contrary to what I believe are necessary steps towards more platform independence. Will NVIDIA ever support Optimus on Linux? While I suspect the answer is yes, I imagine it will take a year and a half at the very least. Reply
obiwantoby - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkI think it is important to note, that the demo video, even though it is a .mov, works in Windows 7's Windows Media Player. It works quite well, even with hardware acceleration.
Keep encoding videos in h.264, it works on both platforms in their native players.
No need for Quicktime on Windows, thank goodness. Reply
dubyadubya - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - link"Please note that QuickTime is required" FYI Windows 7 will play the mov file just fine so no need for blowtime. Why the hell would anyone use a codec that will not run on XP or Vista without Blowtime is beyond me. For anyone wanting to play mov files on XP or Vista go get Quicktime alternative. Reply
beginner99 - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkDid I read that right, HD video is always decoded on the dGPU even if the (Intel) IGP could deal with it?
I mean it sounds nice but is there also an option prevent certain apps from using de dGPU?
Or preventing the usage of dGPU completely like when one really needs the longest battery time possible? -> some users like to have control themselves.
intel IGP might offer worse quality with their videao decode feature (but who really sees that on laptop lcd?) but when travelling the whole day and watching movies, I would like to use as little power as possible. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkIt sounds like this is really just a case of the application needing a "real profile". Since I test x264 playback using MPC-HC, I had to create a custom profile, but I think that MPC-HC detected the GMA 4500MHD and decided that was perfectly acceptable. I couldn't find a way to force decoding of an .mkv x264 video within MPC-HC, but other video playback applications may fare better. I'll check to see what happens with WMP11 as well tomorrow (once I install the appropriate VFW codec). Reply
Hrel - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkNow that I've calmed down a little I should add that I'm not buying ANY gpu that doesn't support DX11 EVER again. We've moved past that; DX11 is necessary; no exceptions. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkI'm hoping NVIDIA calls me in for a sooper seekrit meeting some time in the next month or two, but right now they're not talking. They're definitely due for a new architecture, but the real question is going to be what they put together. Will the next gen be DX11? (It really has to be at this point.) Will it be a tweaked version of Fermi (i.e. cut Fermi down to a reasonable number of SPs), or will they tack DX11 functionality onto current designs?
On a different note, I still wish we could get upgradeable notebook graphics, but that's probably a pipe dream. Consider: NVIDIA makes a new mGPU that they can sell to an OEM for $150 or something. OEM can turn that into an MXM module, do some testing and validation on "old laptops", and sell it to a customer for $300 (maybe even more--I swear the markup on mobile GPUs is HUGE!). Or, the OEM could just tell the customer, "Time for an upgrade" and sell them a new $1500 gaming laptop. Do we even need to guess which route they choose? Grrr.... Reply
Hrel - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkIt STILL doesn't have a screen with a resolution of AT LEAST 1600x900!!! Seriously!? What do I need to do? Get up on roof tops and scream from the top of my lungs? Cause I'm almost to that point. GIVE ME USEABLE SCREENS!!!!!!! Reply
MrSpadge - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkNot everyones eyes are as good as yours. When I asked some 40+ people if I got the location right and showed it to them via Google Maps on my HTC Touch Diamond they rfused to even think about it without their glasses. Reply
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 11, 2010 - linkI've never had people complain about using Google Maps on my Diamond. Reading text messages and such yes, and for a lot of people forget about using the internet since they have to zoom the browser so far in, but the maps work fine. Reply
GoodRevrnd - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkAny chance you could add the Macbook / Pro to the LCD quality graphs when you do these comparisons? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkTell Anand to send me a MacBook for testing. :-) (I think he may have the necessary tools now to run the tests, but so far I haven't seen any results from his end.) Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkConsider this: Fermi and following high end chips are going to beasts, but they might accelerate scientific / engineering apps tremendously. But if I put one into my workstation it's going to suck power even when not in use. It's generating noise, it's heating the room and making the air stuffy. This could easily be avoided with Optimus! It's just that someone had to ditch the old concept of "desktops don't need power saving" even more. 20 W for an idle GPU is not OK.
And there's more: if I run GP-GPU the screen refresh often becomes sluggish (see BOINC etc.) or the app doesn't run at full potential. With Optimus I could have a high performance card crunch along, either at work or BOINC or whatever, and still get a responsive desktop from an IGP! Reply
Drizzt321 - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkIs there a way to set this to specifically only use IGP? So turn off the discrete graphics entirely? Like if I'm willing to suffer lower performance but need the extra battery life. I imagine if I could, the UL50Vf could equal the UL80Vt pretty easily in terms of battery life. I'm definitely all for the default being Optimus turned on...but lets say the IGP is more efficient at decoding that 720p or 1080p, yet NVidia's profile says gotta fire up the discrete GPU. There goes quite a bit of battery life! Reply
kpxgq - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkdepending on the scenario... the discrete gpu may use less power than the igp... ie say a discrete gpu working at 10% vs an igp working at 90%...
kind of like using a lower gear at inclines uses less fuel than a higher gear going the same speed since it works less harder... the software should automatically do the math Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkYou can manually set applications to only use the IGP instead of turning on the dGPU, but to my knowledge there's no way to completely turn off the dGPU and keep it off. Of course, when the GPU isn't needed it is totally powered off so you don't lose battery life unless you start running apps that want to run on the GPU. Reply
macroecon - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkWell, I was getting ready to pull the trigger over the weekend to buy a UL30Vt, but I'm glad that I waited. While this is not a revolutionary feature, it does make laptops that lacks it less valuable in my opinion. The video that Jarred posted toward the end of the article really demonstrates the value of on-the-fly GPU switching. I think that I'll wait for bit longer for Optimus, and also DirectX11 nVidia GPU, to hit the market. Thanks for the coverage Jarred! Reply
lopri - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkNot to rain on NV's parade, but I'd much prefer if Optimus is doing its thing in 100% hardware. In an ideal world, software solution can do the same job as hardware solution, but I've seen some caveats on software solutions - on desktops, admittedly. Instead of trying to 'detect' the apps, detecting 'loads' and take care of it in hardware.
Some might know what I'm talking about. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkThe only problem with this is that the software is needed to work between Intel and NVIDIA hardware. There's also a concern about if you want something to NOT run on the dGPU (for testing purposes or to save battery life). With IGP reaching the point where it can handle most video tasks, you wouldn't want to power up the dGPU to do H.264 decoding as power requirements would jump several watts.
Of course, if you could have NVIDIA IGP and dGPU it might be possible to do more on the hardware side, but Arrandale, Pineview, Sandy Bridge, etc. make it very unlikely that we would see another NVIDIA IGP any time soon. Reply
acooke - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkOK, so this is awesome (particularly with Lenovo and CUDA mentioned). But how is the encrupted profile update driver yadda yadda stuff going to work with Linux?
I'm a software developer, I work with CUDA (OpenCL actually), I use Linux. NVidia should worry about people like me because we're the motor behind the take-up of Fermi, which is going to be a significant source of cash for them. Currently I can do very basic OpenCL development while on the road with my laptop using the AMD CPU driver (despite having Intel/Lenovo hardware), but being able to use a GPU woul dbe a huge improvement (it's not that much fun running GPU code on a CPU!). Reply
darckhart - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkyes, i'm curious about this also. Reply
room1oh1 - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkI hope they don't fit any brakes into a laptop! Reply
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkYeah, it's rather unfortunate that they said it should work like a hybrid, and they have the picture of a 2010 Prius in the slide. Just goes to show that car analogies don't work! They could have just drawn the parallel to your laptop battery--when you unplug the laptop, it starts using the battery with no user intervention. Reply
horseeater - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkSwitchable graphics are nice, but I want external gfx cards (or enclosures for desktop gfx cards) for laptops. Just plug it in when you're home, kill precious time playing useless junk, and use the igp when on the road.
That being said, UL80-vt is reportedly awesome, and improvements are surely welcome, if they don't up the price. Reply
synaesthetic - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkI want external GPUs also, but I want one that can use the laptop's LCD display rather than forcing me to plug in an external display. After all, external displays aren't portable, but a ViDock isn't terribly large. Reply
MasterTactician - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - linkBut doesn't this solve the problem of an external graphics solution not being able to use the laptop's display? If the external GPU can pass the rendered frames back to the IGP's buffer via PCI-E than its problem solved, isn't it? So the real question is: Will nVidia capitalize on this? Reply
Pessimism - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkDid Nvidia dip into the clearance bin again for chip packaging materials? Will the laptop survive its warranty period unscathed? What of the day after that? Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkYou char-lie droid ditto-heads are really something.
You live in the past and swallow everything char-lie spews.
Now go back to your church's web site semi-inaccurate and wait for your next gospel from char-lie. Reply
Pessimism - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkSo I suppose the $300+ million dollars in charges Nvidia took were merely a good faith gesture for the tech community with no basis in fact regarding an actual defect. Reply
HighTech4US - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkThe $300+ million was in fact a good faith measure to the vendors who bought the products that had the defect. nVidia backed extended warranties and picked up the total cost of repairs.
The defect has been fixed long ago.
So your char-lie comment as if it still exists deserves to be called what it is. A char-lie. Reply
Pessimism - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkSo you admit that a defect existed. That's more than can be said for several large OEM manufacturers.
Visual - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkDon't get me wrong - I really like the ability to have a long battery life when not doing anything and also have great performance when desired. And if switchable graphics is the way to achieve this, I'm all for it.
But it seems counter-productive in some ways. If the external GPU was properly designed in the first place, able to shut down power to the unused parts of the processor, supporting low-power profiles, then we'd never have needed switching between two distinct GPUs. Why did that never happen?
Now that Intel, and eventually AMD too, are integrating a low-power GPU inside the CPU itself, I guess there is no escaping from switchable graphics any more. But I just fail to see why NVidia or ATI couldn't have done it the proper way before. Reply
AmdInside - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkBecause it's hard to compete with a company that is giving away integrated graphics for free (Intel) in order to move higher priced CPUs. In a way, AMD is doing the same with ATI. Giving us great motherboards with ATI graphics and cheap cheap prices (which in many ways are much better than Intel's much higher priced offerings) in order to get you to buy AMD CPUs. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkDon't forget that no matter how pieces of a GPU go into a deep sleep state (i.e. via power gate transistors), you would still have some extra stuff receiving power. VRAM for example, plus any transistors/resistors. At idle the CULV laptops are down around 8 to 10W; even the WiFi card can suck up .5 to 1W and make a pretty substantial difference in battery life. I'd say the best you're likely to see from a discrete GPU is idle power draw that's around 3W over and above what an IGP might need, so a savings of 3W could be a 30% power use reduction. Reply
maler23 - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkI've been waiting for this article ever since it was hinted in the last CULV roundup. The ASUS laptop is a little disappointing, especially the graphic card situation(the Alienware M11X kind of sucked up a lot of excitement there). Frankly, I'd just take a discounted UL-30VT and deal with manual graphics switching.
Couple of questions:
-Any chance for a review of the aforementioned Alienware M11X soon?
-I've seen a couple of reviews with display quality comparisons including this one. How do to the Macbook and Macbook Pros fit into the rankings?
-J Reply
jfmeister - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkI was anxious to get an mx11 but 2 things were bothering me:
1- No DirectX 11 compatibility
2- No Core i5/i7 platform.
Now there is another reason to wait for the refresh. But with arrendale prices droping, DX11 card available, Optimus, I would expect Alienware to get on the badwagon fast for a new mx11 platform and not wait 6 to 8 months for a refresh. This ultra laptop is intended for gamers and we all know that gamers are on top of their things. Optimus in the mx11 case should be a must.
BTW, what I find funny is Optimus looks like a revolution, but what about 3dfx 10 years ago with their 3D Card addon (Monster 3D 8MB ftw)? Swithcing was used back then... This looks like the same thing except with HD video support! It took that long to come up with that? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkRemember that the switching back in the days of 3dfx was just in software and that the 3D GPU was always powered. There was the dongle cable situation as well. So the big deal here isn't just switching to a different GPU, but doing it on-the-fly and powering the GPU on/off virtually instantly. We think this will eventually make its way into desktops, but obviously it's a lot more important for laptops. Reply
StriderGT - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkMy take on Optimus:
Optimus roots lie with hybrid SLI.
Back then it was advertised as an nvidia only chipset feature (nvidia IGP + nvidia GPU) for both desktop and notebooks.
Currently nvidia is being rapidly phased out of PC x86 chipsets so optimus is the only way to at least put an nvidia GPU on an intel IGP based system, but:
1. Only real benefit is gaming performance without sacrificing autonomy in notebooks.
2. Higher cost (in the form of the discrete GPU), intel has 60%+ of GPUs(=IGPs) because the vast majority do not care or are uninformed about game performance scaling.
3. CUDA/Physx currently and in the foreseeable future irrelevant for mobile applications (gaming is much more relevant in comparison).
4. Video decoding capabilities already present in most current IGPs (except pinetrail netbooks which can acquire it with a cheaper dedicated chip )
5. Netbooks will not benefit from Optimus because they lack the CPU horsepower to feed the discrete GPU and are very cost sensitive... (same reason that ION1/2 is not the primary choice for netbook builders)
6. In the desktop space only some niche small form factor PC applications could benefit from such a technology eg an SFF PC would need lesser cooling/noise during (IGP) normal operation and become louder more powerful while gaming (GPU)
7. Idling/2D power consumption of most modern desktop GPUs is so low making the added complexity of a simultaneously working onboard IGP and the associated software a no benefit approach.
8. Driver/application software problems that might arise from the complexity of profiles and the vastly different workload application scenarios.
So in the end it boils down how can nvidia convince the world that a discrete GPU and its added cost is necessary in every portable (netbook and upwards sized) device out there. As for the desktop side it will be even more difficult to push such a thing with only noise reduction in small form factor PCs being of interest.
BTW At least now the manufacturers won't have anymore excuses for the lack of descent GPU inside some of the cheaper notebook models (500-1000$), because of battery autonomy reasons.
Oh well I'll keep my hopes low after so much time being a niche market since they might find some other excuse along the lines weight and space required for cooling the GPU during A/C operation... :-(
PS Initially posted on yahoo finance forum Reply
Zoomer - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkNot like it was really necessary; the Voodoo 2 used maybe 25W (probably less) and was meant for a desktop use. Reply
jfmeister - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkGood point! I guess I did not take the time to think about it. I was more into the concept than the whole techincal side of that you brought up.
JF Reply
cknobman - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkMan mx11 was biggest disappointment out there. weak sauce last gen processor on a so called premium high end gaming brand? Ill consider it once they get an arrandale culv and optima cause right now looking at notebookreview.com forums it is a manual switching graphics not optima. Reply
crimson117 - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkWhich processor should they have used, in your opinion? Reply
cknobman - Tuesday, February 09, 2010 - linkShould have waited another month to market and used the Core i7 ulv processors. There are already a few vendors using this proc (panasonic is one). Reply
Wolfpup - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - linkOptimus is impressive software, but personally I don't want it, ever. I don't want Intel graphics on my CPU. I don't want Intel graphics in my memory controller. I don't want Intel graphics. I want my real GPU to by my real GPU, not a helper device that renders something that gets copied over to Intel's graphics.
I just do not want this. I don't like having to rely on profiles either-thankfully you can manually add programs, but still. Reply


text:
2014 Jaguar XJ
Sedan 4D L XJR V8 Supercharged
CPO Incentives & DealsPrint
Certified Pre-Owned Incentives and Rebates
|Finance Offers
Purchase - Special FinancingLow APR dealer financing available for qualified buyers. Offer may vary by model and region. See dealer for details.
12 Months 0.90%
24 Months 0.90%
36 Months 2.90%
48 Months 2.90%
60 Months 2.90%
72 Months 3.90%
General Rebate Information
Incentive combinations & availability may be restricted by regional or fleet rules and other factors. Incentive and rebate information provided on this page is reliable but not guaranteed. Finance Offers (APR) are available to qualified buyers subject to credit approval. Not all buyers will qualify. Contact your dealer for any additional program details. Always check with your Authorized Dealer Contact for the most current listing of rebates and incentives available.


text:
Blog Directory
Browse the Blog Directory
Browse blogs from wide range of categorized blogs on our blog directory. Whether you are looking for niche blogs, personal blogs, Guatemala blogs, Home blogs, Cooking blogs you can find them all in our blog directory.
Submit your Blog
Or, Submit your blog and be included on our search engine friendly blog directory.
Guatemala CookingBrowsing Guatemala Blogs » Home Blogs » Cooking Blogs
Search the featured blog sites about cooking and home at BlogsDB. Submit Cooking blogs and promote on our best blog directory on the web.
No blogs are found on this category yet.