Microsoft is now a braver, more innovative company than Apple - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2016/10/27/microsoft-better-apple/#gGEqKo9ceqqw <comment><USER4> Microsoft is innovative because you can now purchase a dedicated hardware peripheral for some software feature the touchscreen was designed to replace.

Let's completely forget that Microsoft 'upgrades' your OS without your permission, spies on you, embeds ads into the Start Menu, and their OEMs like Lenovo will listen in on everything you do at the hardware level. In my opinion, these are actual reasons a company should completely fail and dissolve.

I'll stick with Apple who, though not without faults, works hard to:

\- build quality machines that seemingly never wanes in performance while provide enduring support that make them last so much longer than their competitors that it shifts the arithmetic when comparing the YoY cost of their wares to their competition

\- secure the integrity of my machine and my privacy

\- deliver industry-leading user experience

Apple isn't perfect. The 1st-gen Magic Mouse (I haven't tried the 2nd gen) is utter garbage. Some iOS 10 UX are inconsistent and flawed. They probably should have included a USB-C - Lightning cable in with their new iPhones.

But let's all calm down. Apple is still a cut above. USB-C connected peripherals will likely storm into the marketplace. You'll probably get the new MBP. If you really can't handle the dongles, get the 2nd to latest version. It'll last you more than 4 years easily. If you're the type to get a new model every year: either you work very closely with the MBP hardware itself or you need to re-examine your life.

<comment><USER5> I bought the first 13" Macbook Pro with the Thunderbolt port, expecting the whole world to switch to Thunderbolt in a couple of years. It was predicted that there would be Macbooks in the future with only Thunderbolt ports, as it could connect to everything.

Guess what, that didn't happen. It became a high-end niche market. Not saying that that's where USB-C will be going but I have a bad feeling about this.

<comment><USER6> No, USB-C will be standard. What happened to Thunderbolt is what will happen to Lightning. USB-C is here to stay, and they should've put it in iPhone 7 as well.

<comment><USER7> Why should they have put it on the iPhone? People keep saying that, but nobody's actually given a good reason. It's not like you're going to be plugging any of your Mac peripherals into your iPhone. The only actual reason anyone seems to have is "so you can plug your iPhone into an Android charger", but that doesn't seem very compelling to me (do I even want to trust an Android charger?).

<comment><USER8> USB-C is supplanting microUSB ports just about everywhere, just like microUSB supplanted miniUSB. I don't understand why the iPhone isn't using it other than to allow people to use their iPhone 6 peripherals.

<comment><USER7> Lightning was first, there is a vibrant ecosystem in place around Made For iPhone accessories that use Lightning that a lot of existing iPhone users already own, the Lightning port and connector are smaller than USB-C which is probably useful in a few places (I saw someone suggest somewhere that the Apple Pencil wouldn't even be able to fit a USB-C connector), someone else also said that Lightning was designed to support the weight of the iPhone in a dock configuration but USB-C probably wasn't, etc. And there's not really any benefit to switching to USB-C besides being able to re-use Android chargers, which isn't something that Apple or most of their customers particularly cares about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's no real underdog now. Microsoft has a pretty consistent track record of looking at other companies making money, and making a microsoft version of that. Bing, xbox, azure, and zune are pretty obvious examples. Surface doesn't seem to fit that mold at all. They're giving every indication of doing something new.

I can't think of a real underdog right now. Apple had this sort of desperation to do something good, right now, or die. Microsoft can throw a lot of money at something and still be ok. The surface looks very good, and it's a unique vision.

I wish someone would found the equivalent of BeOS, and sell BeBoxes for it. A linux laptop with flawless hardware support. A slot for a stepper driver card would be pretty cool. Maybe a geek port, or maybe a clever way to integrate a breadboard or FPGA, or both.

Things feel really stable right now. Google will keep selling ads, Apple will keep cranking out consumer electronics, Microsoft will keep selling its windows/office pair to the universe, Amazon will keep getting better at logistics, and Facebook will keep growing the social graph. None of them are going to bet the farm on anything. And, really, they're all big clunky slow organizations they rebelled against.

I hope there will be a big wave of innovation, I don't think it's going to come from the big 5. But i'd agree, yes microsoft is some percentage more innovative than apple. Big, radical, disruptive, change the world ideas? No, none of the big 5 are capable anymore.

<comment><USER10> I've been reading all these Mac-related posts lately because I'm very seriously considering getting one. Why, you ask? Precisely because this:

> A linux laptop with flawless hardware support.

is hardly cutting it for me anymore, and I've used Linux for a very long time (basically, since Be Inc. was still around and BeOS was still being sold, since we're dabbling in nostalgia).

You can get a Linux laptop with flawless hardware support right now, really. In fact, I haven't looked over HCLs when buying a Linux laptop for more than five years now. Hardware support is realistically not a problem with Linux anymore.

What _is_ a problem is the fact that, once again, we're going through one of those Let's Rewrite Everything phases and nothing works, for any serious, productive, professional definition of "works", not in Gnome land, not in KDE land, and thanks to the ever-encroaching XDG & friends land, not in fuck- it-i've-done-this-throughout-my-teenage-years-so-blackbox-and-a-bunch-of- xterms-it-is land.

It's great, it's the system that gives you the most control over your system, it's the one that doesn't spy on you and doesn't force you to buy overpriced hardware (look, I'm all for good design and thinness and whatnot but Powerbook G4s were a good bang for the buck, despite the funky hinges, not today's MacBook Pros), and I've grown so accustomed to it and so fond of it on a personal level that the thought of leaving it behind is unpleasant, and compensated only by the fact that I'll still be using it at work.

But I'm sick of nursing my system back to health after every other dnf update. Gnome 3 looks good and it's great to use, but it's a maintenance nightmare, since virtually everything breaks from one _minor_ version to another. Plasma 5 is a step forward from KDE 4 but it still crashes and Kmail2 is still a nightmare. Mind-boggling bugs pop into existence with each new release.

Whenever I show the latest and greatest to someone (this week it was my screen going blank when switching virtual consoles, and if your next question is "why would you switch virtual consoles in 2016", the reason is that gdm was freezing and I wanted to restart it), they shrug and swear they've never seen it before on _their_ system. Unfortunately, this type of thinking is so ingrained in our community (by "our community" I mean "Linux programmers") that I doubt we'll ever devise anything that will stay usable for more than six months.

This was all very fun many, many years ago, when I was in high school and I had a lot of free evenings and when, if something suddenly stopped working after an update or crashed or whatnot, my reaction was "whoa, cool, what's causing this" rather than "well, I'll think about how to fix this while I'm making dinner so that I can still have an hour of two to hack on something". This is not only no longer fun, it's not _understandable_. Fifteen years is a long time.

I've been messing around with Windows on an old laptop I have around. Windows 10 is pretty slick (maybe it doesn't seem so impressive to you, but please realize that the last time I used Windows routinely, it was Windows 2000) but the *nix-style usage is too ingrained in my brain by now. However, I'm not really looking forward to having to wrestle with my OS for privacy, nor do I trust Microsoft with my computer-related well-being on a ten-year period -- and, being a programmer, I guess it's understandable that "computer-related well-being" is a pretty big deal to me.

<comment><USER9> So, if you're willing to drop 2k on an experiment, i'd say go for it. I'm leery of the new models because i use vim, and my fingers get cold and sweaty. Touch devices don't respond perfectly and i have fear about `esc` working reliably.

I've gone through my own versions of your frustrations, but i'll spare you the war stories.

my 2 cents. macos is bsd, hacked up in odd ways. if you want to edit something in /etc, you're doing something wrong. It's a little off putting figuring out where stuff is. /Library/Frameworks is common. There's no C compiler, without installing (part of) xcode.

You've got 2 choices for package management. macports is a shared nothing approach, everything is compiled against libraries compiled to /opt/local/. Or homebrew. brew tries to share everything with the built in libraries. Just be consistent, i lost some time to libiconv, postgress and haskell the other day. If i'd been consistent i'd have avoided the problem entirely. I've never used brew seriously, but lots of people like it. I swear fealty to macports.

The biggest loss for me was no tiling window manager (although i think some hacks exist to get the same effect).

osx is different. it will trip you up from time to time. a whole bunch of stuff is reliable in ways that were not reliable for me in linux. (take that with some salt, i haven't used linux as my desktop in quite a few years, and i think things have come a long, long way).

If it sucks, you can always go back to linux. That touchbar support might take a while to work right though, and no esc key till it does. ctrl-] will probably be your friend.

You're looking at a different set of tradeoffs. you're a programmer, odds are very good everything you want is there. You can always run a VM if you get stuck. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. I do think rainbow free days are a little less frequent than either windows or linux, so it has generally been a win for me.

<comment><USER10> I had (well, I still have it) a Mac Mini and used it between 2007 and 2009. I was pretty dissatisfied with its performance (then again, that was around the time when Tiger got obsolete and the Leopard moved in, and the Mini was already slow and old by that time) but, overall, I think it's the most productive platform I used, short of my old WindowMaker setup which has aged too much to be useful by now.

So I know what to expect _right now_. Frankly, what I'm afraid of is that I don't know what to expect _next year_. 2K for an experiment is ok if I could run it for three or four years. Right now, it looks like _if_ Apple has a document called "Roadmap for Mac Computers, 2016-2020", there's a good chance that it's a four-page summary of another document called "How to convince all our customers to just get an iPad already for fun and profit".

<comment><USER9> The hardware is solid. I have zero complaints about build quality. You are not obligated to upgrade to the latest OS (but you probably should...). I feel really comfortable saying you can get 4 years out of a mbp. If you really need the out, just in case you need to install windows or linux, wait 2-3 months, just to make sure other people have done it reliably.

There is always risk it's not the "optimal" choice, but it's certainly not the "wrong" choice. MacOS is fine. If you hate it just install something else. (but the brand new stuff might be flakey under windows/linux for a while)

<comment><USER10> Thanks! It's reassuring to hear this sort of things in the middle of the current zomg MPB bad rage.

<comment><USER11> Just read this thread and I'm also comfortable recommending the hardware for three or four years easily. Also, the top level comment describes a small amount of what I went through about 10 years ago that made me switch back to Apple, though I built a hackintosh instead of a laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lot of people in this thread crapping on Microsoft. I don't know that Microsoft is more brave or more innovative than Apple yet, but I know one thing, they are more brave and innovative than Microsoft five years ago. That's all that matters.

While I'm sure the grand plan is to eat Apple's lunch, they seem more focused on being better than themselves. I think they are onto something with the Surface line, they just need to keep iterating it. They also need to introduce a Surface product that the average consumer can afford--even Apple has done this with the Air line and the non-Pro line.

I have a MacBook now, but I'd love to go to a Surface Studio. If they can work to get up-to-date hardware in all of their offerings, and provide a $1k Macbook Air equivalent, along with a sub $2k iMac equivalent, they'll win.

Microsoft also has one other major hurdle. They lost a ton of ground they were gaining because they chose to force upgrades to Windows 10. I can actually get why they did this from a corporate perspective (Less OSes to support, therefore more money freed up to do other things), but as a user it sucks. They have to build an update to 10 that wins over the people they lost. They have to come out and say "Yes, we want your telemetry data, but we aren't going to force you to give it to us, so from now on, it's opt-in".

As far as Apple goes, I think they know they aren't innovating at the same pace. I think the headphone jack, the escape key, and touch bar are them trying to figure out how to innovate without Steve Jobs. I think Jony Ive is capable, but he needs room to fail to learn. Steve Jobs talked a lot about how as a company, you produce a lot of failures for each success. Steve Jobs was just much better at having many of those failures never see the light of day.

Either way, I don't care who the most innovate company is. I'd rather see them all trying to innovate, because the good stuff they come up with can only benefit the consumer.

<comment><USER13> > I have a MacBook now, but I'd love to go to a Surface Studio. If they can > work to get up-to-date hardware in all of their offerings ...

The problem isn't so much the hardware but the OS. I have awful memories of Windows. I suppose it has gotten better, but I wonder if it's a realistic replacement to Mac OS X? Essentially, I want something that just works and where I can use common unix tools. Maybe the new Unix subsystem + an X server will do it.

Concerning the new MBP, I don't mind the touch bar or the specs but they are really expensive (esp. in Europe). If they don't get cheaper, I may try a windows machine.

<comment><USER14> One big issue is still the 260-character path-name limitation. Deep source directories choke on that, especially if you copy them around for backup, etc.

You end up abbreviating class names in the file names and mess up searchability.

You end up using single letter directories like 'C:\b\' instead of 'C:\backup\', etc. as workarounds. It all feels very MS DOS.

<comment><USER15> It looks like that's one of the things that they've finally, finally fixed (but only if you turn it on): [https://mspoweruser.com/ntfs-260-character- windows-10/](https://mspoweruser.com/ntfs-260-character-windows-10/)

<comment><USER16> yeah, and break all apps that use the old 255 char win32 api's.

another thing to note is that it requires the windows insider preview, which in my experience required auto reboots every few days. very frustrating so I had to revert....

Switching off of Insider Preview is a TERRIBLE experience of it's own: You can't actually revert back. you either have to restore from backup (which isn't mentioned when you switch to insider preview mode) or wait for the next mainline release, which may be 6+ months away, and you have to MANUALLY TRACK when insider syncs with main and then switch to main during the window in which they are matched.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Microsoft has almost always been a more innovative company.

Microsoft Research alone is enough for this to be true.

Surface is a very very very old brand/moniker that goes back almost a decade at this point - originally a tech demo of a table that you could interact with in various ways. They explored touch, VR and all sorts of alternative interfaces before anyone else. They took a stab at PDAs around the same time as Palm (which was also an insanely innovative company). Their developer tooling is really innovative, the CLR itself, their IDE integration.

Hell the NT kernel was/is a really innovative piece of technology - it's driver model still completely stomps what is available in Linux/Mach.

Apple was never more innovative than Microsoft, they just executed way better. Jobs might not have been a technical or even design genius (though plenty of both worked for him), but he definitely was a business genius that really understood the value of crisp execution and marketing.

I say all of this as an Apple user, that also happens to be a fan of the technical and innovative achievements of Microsoft and as someone that contributes to and relies on the OSS/Linux/GNU stack. I have a horse in every race but at the end of the day you can't dispute that Microsoft is the clear innovation powerhouse remaining with IBM/HP/Bell Labs mostly winding down in comparison.

<comment><USER18> Is Microsoft more innovative, or is Microsoft simply more _publicly_ innovative? Apple (and tons of other companies, for that matter) simply don't make hay out of their R&D efforts until they have something sellable to announce.

<comment><USER17> I don't think so.

If one is to assume R&D spending it roughly equatable with "non-public" innovation than historically Microsoft is more innovative than even Google, let alone Apple. This assumption may be weak but I think it would at least be somewhat correlated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The central premise is that Apple isn't innovative anymore. Let's look at the technologies Apple has materially advanced over the last few years.

* Custom screen technology leap-frogging 4K displays directly to 5K, at a full-system price below that of a 4K screen alone from competitors at the time.

* wide colour gamut screen tech putting them several years ahead of the competition.

* Brand new screen digitiser technology in the iPad Pros that also puts them several years ahead of any of their competitors.

* 3D Touch technology nobody else even appears to have a path to implementing because it requires such close design integration with the hardware and software.

* mobile processor designs putting them years ahead of any of their competitors in yet another technology category.

* A new variant of iOS (Watch OS) that's now powering two completely different product categories.

I venture to suggest that the death of innovation at Apple is being declared somewhat prematurely.

<comment><USER20> > Brand new screen digitiser technology in the iPad Pros that also puts them > several years ahead of any of their competitors.

What technology are you talking about?

> mobile processor designs putting them years ahead of any of their > competitors in yet another technology category.

Are you talking about the A10 Fusion? It's the fastest single-core processor, but according to [https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Mobile/Apple- iPhone-7-and-7-Pl...](https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Mobile/Apple- iPhone-7-and-7-Plus-Review/A10-Fusion-SoC) the Snapdragon 820 has a faster GPU and the Kirin 950 a better mutli-core score in Geekbench. So I wouldn't say that their mobile processor design is years ahead (it's more that iOS doesn't need more than two cores and therefore they can really optimize single-core performance).

> A new variant of iOS (Watch OS) that's now powering two completely different > product categories.

How is this any different than Android Wear?

<comment><USER19> >What technology are you talking about?

The way the pen and screen work together, and the screen sandwich layering that significantly reduces parallax between the pencil tip and image.

Regarding processor tech I was mainly thinking of the move to 64bit and secure enclave which completely out-manoeuvred the competition.

I'm not saying Apple is the only company innovating, Android Wear is a credible and innovative alternative that's holding its own in the market.

<comment><USER20> > Regarding processor tech I was mainly thinking of the move to 64bit and > secure enclave which completely out-manoeuvred the competition.

Why is the move to 64 bit so important, but the move to 4 cores isn't? I don't really see why 64 bit makes sense for < 4 GB RAM devices and I also bet that no one can really tell the difference performance wise.

This is also the first time I hear about Secure Enclave. TouchID isn't that secure anyway ([https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple- touchid](https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2013/ccc-breaks-apple-touchid)), so I really don't care how the fingerprint is stored.

<comment><USER19> Pass codes aren't perfectly secure either. Someone can see you type it in, or infer it from finger smudges. If your criterion for accepting a technology is perfection in all circumstances you're not going to find many technologies that satisfy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They're working themselves there, it still feels like parts of Microsoft haven't caught up. Windows 10 comes to mind, and other areas that still seem painfully behind the times. It would be nice if Microsoft made some Windows Components that are open sourced out of the box, like full disk encryption software. I've personally moved to Linux for over a year now because it meets all my needs without getting in my way. Linux has come a long way, but Windows 10 feels like it's pushing me away. There should be a minimalist / developer centric version of Windows that has no ridiculous services on or even installed on the OS, has sane update installation (once a month or so is fine, unless critical). Maybe even turn the old dated Windows Update into the same style as a Linux package manager if that's possible enough for Windows. There's also two different Windows Update screens and they each fight each other.

<comment><USER22> I'm curious, what leads you to believe there's two different Windows Update screens?

<comment><USER23> In Windows 8 at least, you had a "desktop" Windows Update accessible from the control panel and a "modern" Windows Update accessible from the Start Screen.

From memory they beefed up the "modern" one then ditched the "desktop" one in Windows 10 sometime around the Anniversary Update.

<comment><USER22> I've used Windows 10 since just after RTM and it's only ever had one Windows Update tool. Could well be it was present in the beta releases?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how much propaganda do we read every day ? Tip: A lot.

I think that almost every piece of information which is not pure art or mathematical formulas - is some sort of propaganda..

Meaning someone somewhere is pushing his own agenda, directly or indirectly.

It is strategically wise for Apple competitors to put out all kinds of negative articles right now.

Apple does something unpopular - use that as a lever to swing the opinion - that's when some customers fall into your own nets.

After all, competition is not messiah - they desperately want to push their own products and inflict as much damage as possible to the top dog, which happens to be Apple right now..

I don't know about this particular article, but I'm just saying - I've seen so much negativity and wining about the MacBook Pros - that the "pro" people are left behind, there's no ESC key and so on - I'm really curious to actually try it for myself..

What if I like it ? Is that a strategy too ?

I find it harder and harder to believe anything on the Internet now, because it's all twisted and bended and distorted.. It's a war out there and the battlefield is our minds.

<comment><USER25> I agree with you that we are constantly bombarded with propaganda, but a lot of the backlash is coming from long-time Apple users such as myself, who feel that Apple is no longer making computers for us. And you know what? That's perfectly fine, they're a business and are catering to the high end where the margins are best.

The proof is littered all over HN and Reddit where blog posts all begin with the same defense, "I"ve been using Macs since... and have bought Apple since this, this and this."

Personally, I wish there were a company selling a generic looking, uni-body notebook, similar in aesthetic and price to the new Xiaomi laptop. If some company could optimize hardware like that specifically for Linux, from the ground up, then maybe I could ditch this aging mid-2011 Macbook Air running Linux.

<comment><USER26> > ...but a lot of the backlash is coming from long-time Apple users such as > myself, who feel that Apple is no longer making computers for us. And you > know what? That's perfectly fine, they're a business and are catering to the > high end where the margins are best.

I don't even think Apple is catering to the high end here. If they were, the new MBP would be shipping with a lot more horsepower. It seems like they are catering to the casual user who is happy to pay a premium to have a slick- looking Apple product but doesn't actually have demanding computing needs. Many college students would fall in this category.

The high-end buyers that would pay a premium to have a powerful Macbook to do serious development or multimedia computing have been left out in the cold.

Maybe there are enough of the casual buyers that Apple thought it made more sense to cater to them than the professionals. But Apple easily could've made a machine that catered to both markets if they had better vision.

<comment><USER25> I should have probably clarified that 'high end' was referencing the luxury goods crowd, not high end professionals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBma82g3Uag) Young Steve warned us about the risk of having "toner heads" running tech monopolies. So weird that it was Jobs himself who picked this guy to be his successor just as they were becoming the biggest corporation in the world.

<comment><USER28> IMHO, Apple removing headphone jack and legacy ports is exactly the kind of things that opposite of having "toner heads" running the company. If "toner heads" are really running Apple they will be scared taking the risk and moving forward because they know it will hurt sales. If "toner heads" are really running Apple they will not take the risks of creating a new interaction model with unproven reception among customers.

I love Apple for this and I am buying the new Macbook Pro tomorrow. :)

<comment><USER29> The headphone jack is not a legacy port. It is the single most impressive industrial design for a port in history. That's the reason it lasted so long and also the reason it will outlive any wireless nonsense apple brings out to increase their landfill impact.

<comment><USER30> Speaking for myself, I hate headphone cables. They always get knotted up when stored away, and they're always getting caught on things while I'm wearing the headphones.

I'm looking forwards to when wireless headphones are more ubiquitous and cheaper.

<comment><USER6> Sure, headphone cables are a mess. So use wireless ones instead. For me; not having to ever charge my headphones far outweigh that hassle. As well as any issues with pairing and sound quality.

> I'm looking forwards to when wireless headphones are more ubiquitous and > cheaper.

So wait for that before you remove the port. Otherwise we're just trading 3.5mm cable hassles for Lightning adapter/cable hassles.

<comment><USER30> >>> I'm looking forwards to when wireless headphones are more ubiquitous and cheaper.

> So wait for that before you remove the port.

Err, I was stating my personal opinion on wireless headphones. I'm not Apple.

Obviously people have different preferences on removing the port. I'm glad that it will help push the availability of wireless headphones, and speed up their marketplace penetration.

> Otherwise we're just trading 3.5mm cable hassles for Lightning adapter/cable > hassles.

Again, for my own situation, I wouldn't have any Lightning adapter/cable hassles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The word "brave" still feels laughable in the corporate context. At most, a company has calculated it wants to take a larger risk.

"Brave" probably makes sense in the context where a company is ready to literally bet it all on something they believe in when they're in a sustainable position.

</comment><comment><USER32> Apple has for a very long time been a marketing and branding innovator. Jobs recognized something important: branding and marketing matters more than technology, but the technology has to be good enough to support the branding and marketing efforts. So he took the company in a direction that was quite clever: wait until the tech was good enough to wrap in a marketable package, then blitz the market with it suggesting they'd been the technology driver the entire time.

It has worked fabulously. Just look at the number of people who think Apple innovated computing at any level: from portable music to smart phones to displays and on and on. These days you're a "tech geek" if you have a couple of Apple devices in your kit. This phenomenon has almost nothing to do with innovation in technology but quite a lot with their marketing efforts to present themselves as fashionable technology innovators.

In the last 20 years or so there aren't very many technologies Apple has actually innovated on that didn't already exist in some form or another, just without the Apple Marketing Magic behind it.

</comment><comment><USER33> No doubt really. I would have left my MBP and bought a Surface Book 2 had their OS not spied on me or the hardware had perfect Linux support.

<comment><USER34> Curiously, one of the things I'm rather liking about Windows 10 is that it now has an Ubuntu module in it... Back at the end of my PhD I switched from a combination of Windows and a Linux server, to a Mac, largely because of bash on Mac. It sort of feels like Windows has started to one-up them there too. (Though it's still prettier on a Mac)

Some of the cool stuff from HCI labs in the early 2000s seems to be arriving in products on Windows faster than on Macs too (tangibles, large touch displays, etc).

It seems to me that Apple is somehow now missing the "obvious plays". They put a bunch of effort into Siri, but were late putting it on the Mac. They put a bunch of effort into multi-touch; but Macs are now just about the only notebooks without a multi-touch screen. They put a bunch of effort into the Pencil to make it low-latency for artists; but you can't use it on a Mac. Another obvious play was to make it so you can plug in the ipad and use it as a secondary display with pencil support, but it took Duet Display to do that for them so they've never been able to promote that you can do that.

Perhaps they bet single-mindedly on the tablet replacing the computer, and were caught out when the tablet market saturated and started getting eaten by phablets? Either way, it seems to me they've found themselves left with an anaemic laptop product pipeline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Not so fast. Let the respective products come to market. Armchair visionary technologists have already spelled death of Apple and Resurrection of Microsoft. Not so fast.

<comment><USER36> To be fair, Apple's last 3-4 Quarters have been huge consecutive disappointments, and this line up was their last chance to turn that around I believe. And they've clearly failed. Who will pay $1,500 on a laptop that has second-grade components, a rather standard keyboard, etc. etc.

Heck, Asus' Zenbook 3 line costs around $1500 and it has the best possible components, better screen, better keyboard, better everything.

<comment><USER37> I have spent twice the money you stated for a new MacBook Pro 13". I'd say, the primary point is "it just works". I know, once it's been delivered, I'll install a couple of tools, transfer some files and it will work. It won't get slower, it won't crash, the hardware won't break. And I don't have to waste time keeping that thing alive.

Maybe I was just lucky with my previous Macs but that's the experience I've had in the last years.

<comment><USER38> The latest iPhone literally cannot plug into the latest MBPs. The MBP also lacks the chip the AirPods need to work smoothly. I think it is safe to say "just works" is officially dead at Apple.

<comment><USER39> You can retire the AirPods argument.

The W1 chip is in the AirPods, the device that it connects to doesn't need to have a W1, the only requirement is OS support, that includes Macs running Sierra.

Under system requirements: "Mac models with macOS Sierra or later"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Yeah I don't know. I mean it's great that Microsoft is starting to actually being able to bring innovative products to market rather than staying at the concept stage. Panos seems to infuse that part of Microsoft with some great leadership and design ethos. They are are on an upwards trajectory while Apple can be seen as being on the down slope.

But Apple has and still is doing some great things when it comes to innovation. The taptic engine is a great addition, so was touch 3D, Touch ID, and a few of the other things they've introduced. The problem with Apple is more that they now seem to lack some judgement and vision together with a putting the bottom line before everything else.

That could be perceived as "braver" than Microsoft if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft isn't exactly throwing money at problems either any more, but seems to keeps things more focused and picking its battles. Overall though the competition is great and will lead to better products.

</comment><comment><USER41> "Apple used to be focused on making their devices better, now they're just focused on making them even thinner" \- Some guy on Reddit

I don't claim to know a whole lot about the design of Windows, but what would be the possibility of seeing them become POSIX compatible at some point?

<comment><USER42> You can even pipe between Windows and Unix commands on Windows these days [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/10/19/windows- and-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/10/19/windows-and-ubuntu- interoperability/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm sceptical about Microsoft innovations, especially adding touch screen to laptops and AI/VR, but at least they're still interested in desktops, unlike Apple and Google that are thinking that everyone need only Instagram and Clash of kings.

</comment><comment><USER44> I thought this was going to be about OSS, Linux on Windows, S2016 docker containers, etc. That's where MS has been moving in an innovative direction. Instead it's making gross over-predictions based on the release of a very large tablet.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think it would be fair to say that Apple is not that great anymore and Microsoft sucks less. However Apple is still a better choice for many pro consumers. For example Microsoft/Windows doesn't have avb support.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is it bravery when you have no other choice? Microsoft is trying to "make the PC great again" because everything else they tried has failed. If the "Windows workstation" (oxymoron alert, I know, but it is the best way to think about PC vs smart devices) goes down, Microsoft goes down.

Compared to this amount of existential dependency, Apple continuing the Mac line is more like when Microsoft was still continuing their Flight Simulator despite already chasing much bigger prey in computer entertainment with the Xbox division.

<comment><USER47> > Is it bravery when you have no other choice?

If you're a student of - particularly - the last 50 years of tech industry history, then you understand there is always another choice: established tech companies have frequently chosen to stubbornly die off tightly clinging to their own past, rather than attempt something else. Microsoft was previously well on its way to that land of eroded or dead tech giants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This Microsoft media push is becoming tiring. Surface Studio is an expensive touchscreen on a stand and for some reason it seems to be worthy of 20 articles a day, and dozens of articles 'spontaneously' wondering whether some mantle of genius has passed from Apple to Microsoft. Neither Apple nor Microsoft are particularly innovative companies. Microsoft is gradually moving from the general purpose computer OS business to the locked down appliance business that Apple pioneered, aiming for an unprotected flank _(did graphics people really need Apple laptops? Nope - they 'd probably like a drafting table with a tablet surface better)_, furiously press releasing its ass off, and unleashing the shills.

edit:

"Apple just handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom"

[https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-microsoft-macbook-pro- surfac...](https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-microsoft-macbook-pro-surface- studio-creative-professionals/)

How dumb do they think Mac users are? Pretty fucking dumb. I'm not sure they're wrong, but it's going to take a lot more than a touchscreen on a stand and a flood of credulous articles to make Microsoft cool.

</comment><comment><USER49> So far at least; Candy Crush Saga has not repeatedly downloaded onto my Mac without my permission and installed itself into my Dock; as 'a suggestion'. In this respect at least; I will take the less innovative Apple every time. Microsoft have embraced and extended the Apple App store concept into something profoundly irritating; intrusive and annoying.

<comment><USER42> Right click on the "suggestion" and select "turn off all suggestions" from the menu provided

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> When has it not been? Apple for the most part, doesn't innovate. They take ideas and polish them to a mirror shine. MS actually does: they have a really strong research department, and did a lot of things that were unheard of when they did them.

Face it, Thinking Different has always been MS's ball. Them and the Unixes.

</comment><comment><USER51> I feel like there aren't many professional artists on HN, but from that point of view, Apple have been criminally negligent of the industry that made them and MS have blown their doors clean off. It's a great time for artists, maybe not so much for anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER29> Apple's ace is osx or macos as it's now called. Without this they would be struggling in the professional computing market. They are already starting to drop the ball on the hardware front. Luckily for them it will take far longer to destroy osx.

<comment><USER52> Will it take far longer? I don't know... if they continue this push of implementing mobile features on macOS, trying to make it more and more like iOS. This seems like it could be a very effective way of alienating even more pro users. To an extent it has already happened.

Seems like Apple has become unwilling to spend resources on features pro users want.

<comment><USER53> What, in your opinion, has Apple done to macOS to make it more like iOS that alienates pro users? Has any iOS-like feature of macOS actually prevented you from using macOS functionality?

I'm using Sierra and honestly haven't even noticed much difference from the previous OS except for the siri icon on my toolbar.

<comment><USER52> No, you're right, it is not about a single iOS-like feature hampering "pro user functionality". It is the amalgam effect of Apple's efforts of catering to the iPhone user, or the average Mac user, that alienates pro users. If you look at headline features for Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra, there is not a single "pro user" feature there, but plenty for your average Joe.

In short: the pro user segment is alienated by Apple's seemingly indifferent attitude towards them, and the increased integration, or synergy, of iOS with macOS does not help in any way. Generally, pro and power users want flexibility, options, customizability.

Apple seems hell bent on removing choice. Pro users were alienated when they removed firewire connectivity, you need adapters and dongles for just about everything now, and it's not like this will be remedied with the 2016 MBP is it? Then there is the sad thing that is Mac Pro... That is how Apple actually forced a lot of pro users onto hackintosh systems, as unbelievable as that sounds, but you can run a hackintosh and have a better, more flexible, more performant, macOS experience, than with the real Mac Pro...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Well, okay, I admit. That they finally decided to build own hardware IS brave (it's very expensive) and I think they will have success if they find consumers who need it. The Surface line still lacks streamlined designs, the products feel disconnected from each other. The only thing that connects them is Windows 10 and that's also their weakness at the same time. So much Microsoft wants me to love it, I just don't. Now that Microsoft build their own hardware, they should start re-thinking their software business. Office? Ugh.

<comment><USER55> I think Microsoft needs built it's own hardware. Windows isn't exactly a delight to use, but it's only made worse by the crappy hardware most people are running it on.

Currently my work laptop is an HP ProBook, and just as much to blame for my poor Windows experience as Windows it self is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is a bizarre comparison. The Surface Studio is not in competition with the MacBook Pro. It's closest analogue is something like the iPad Pro with a stand I guess. Apple will not be making a direct competitor to the Surface Studio because they aren't going to make a touch screen MacOS (the right decision IMO).

I mean the Studio looks nice if you're an illustrator but there's no obligation to compete with every niche product out there.

There are legitimate gripes with the new MacBook Pros (price mainly) but this article's premise seems confused.

<comment><USER57> As a happy Surface Book user, I don't see how the Surface Studio is niche? I don't use the touchscreen that often, but it's great to have it - why would you ever not want touch to work? And there are some things that are a _lot_ better on a touchscreen. In 5 or 10 years every desktop computer will look like the Surface Studio. At the moment it's a premium product (but so is everything Apple makes).

<comment><USER58> > In 5 or 10 years every desktop computer will look like the Surface Studio.

Disagree. Maybe a lot of 'home' desktops will, but there will still be a need for alternative form factors. In fact, I think desktop computers will look a lot more diverse than maybe they ever have in 10 years time. I think we'll have a bunch that look more or less like the Surface studio, for use by illustrators, graphic designers, etc. But we'll also have computers that are optimised for writers, developers, etc. These will have great keyboards. They'll probably have a smaller, non-touch screen (I certainly don't want a touch interface on my desktop, and I hope that option remains). I hope they'll all have really, really good screens that are as 'flexible' as the studio (or the old iMac G4).

<comment><USER57> But what illustrator/designer would choose to use a bad keyboard? And if we're already assuming a desk, I don't think any writer or developer would choose a small screen (and indeed today's "small" desktop screens are the same size as the "artist/designer-only large" screens of a decade ago). Nor do I think anyone would deliberately choose non-touch, since other things being equal touch sensitivity is purely an upgrade (and the surface book shows touch doesn't have to mean compromises on other aspects of the screen). At its current price point the Surface Studio only makes sense for those who really need its capabilities, but as a writer/developer I would absolutely use one if it were cheap enough.

<comment><USER58> I have many non-technical acquaintances who don't want 'the biggest screen possible' \- at a certain size, screens just get too big for most people. In fact, 24" is probably about my personal limit - bigger than that, and I'm just going to be moving my head too much for comfort.

I definitely wouldn't want a touchscreen on a desktop monitor. Unless it was literally no more expensive or the only option - which, of course, may well be the case one day. Don't get me wrong, I _do_ see the advantage of touch - <USER2> original iPad is probably one of the most usable devices I've ever owned - <USER3> it would be utterly wasted on a desktop for me. Again, maybe a family computer, but not one that I wish to work on.

I would also love a Surface Studio, as a toy. I'm sure it's still a great machine besides that, but I know I definitely wouldn't make good enough use of it - I'm just not that good an artist.

<comment><USER57> I don't make "good enough use of" most of my computer's features - I'm not really enough of a hardcore gamer for the graphics card, I rarely if ever need as much memory/CPU/etc. as the machine. I don't think I've ever used the SD card slot. Just like I don't think I've ever run my oven at maximum temperature, or driven a car at top speed. Once a tool reaches the point where it's cheap enough it's worth having a version that's a bit overbuilt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Not being a designer who can justify a giant touchscreen, I don't know much about that aspect of these new products.

But I do know Microsoft seems to be escaping the "BinG" (Ballmer is not Gates) era. They no longer assume their customers are all either fleecable home users or large orgs with deep pockets. Under Nadella, they've made life much easier for independent and small developers.

It's good to applaud innovation. The mac vs. pc argument has been entirely boring for an entire generation now.

</comment><comment><USER60> Someone give the people at Microsoft PR a raise: they are taking great advantage of Apple's (hopefully) momentary weakness. Bravo!

</comment><comment><USER61> Neither Microsoft nor Apple are "brave". Both have tons of cash and recognition. Neither are taking a company-threatening risk to release their weird attempts at paradigm shifts in technology. Stop calling it "brave" dammit or that word is going to become as meaningless as "pivot".

</comment><comment><USER62> Windows as a software developer is not a fun experience. Until Windows improves my ability to build shit in something other than .net, C#, etc(video game dev not withstanding) and improves the command prompt to function more like a console, I have no interest in going back what so ever.

<comment><USER63> As a heavy bash user I have to agree. Even the new Linux subsystem for Windows terminals use the horrible command prompt. I wish they would port Ubuntu's terminal app with tabs and much better usability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Two things. "Brave" = risk and cost/benefited to death decisions that a bunch of people don't understand

Generally speaking... Apple sells iPhones, Microsoft sells software

The overlap of their profit centers is minimal. Comparing perceived corporate personalities is your click-bait for the day.

</comment><comment><USER65> Are you that easily impressed by old wine (pun intended) in new bottles?

What happens when you have that fancy desktop tabletoid thing configured as an easel and you use some non-touch, legacy application? On real touch devices, you never have to change out of touch mode.

</comment><comment><USER66> Microsoft's efforts in Z3 and Lean to make IDEs interactive theorem provers is going to change how we code. I'm curious which will be the first to adopt FPGAs and Micron Automata style processors in memory.

</comment><comment><USER67> Well it is not that hard to admit, actually it is quite obvious.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm surprised to see an article on Mashable with negative opinion about Apple. Mashable and the likes are usually big Apple supporters.

</comment><comment><USER69> As opposed to writers at Mashable, who recognize a clear case of "pile on for page views" when they see one.

</comment><comment><USER70> Office 365 does not support opening CSV files and we're supposed to call them innovative?

<comment><USER71> Well, they do appear to be first to market with this "feature".

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Nothing like being motivated by necessity...

</comment><comment><USER73> Fuck apple. Fuck Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER74> One of my favorite things is when people who would have been in tech but for the lack of ability then write articles using fuzzy emotional metrics to start arguments about things they wish they understood.

</comment><comment><USER75> how's the microsoft phone going?

MS always had concepts flying around, remember the fully automated house, the courier, etc etc etc.

they always stumble on the last mile though - but now they release into production anyway.

we had customers try to deploy surfacebooks and encounter failure rates of more than 40%. turns out MS couldn't get the Intel Drivers straight. oh shucks. innovation.

</comment><comment><USER76> Can we not post obvious clickbait horse shit like this on HN?

</comment><comment><USER77> Sure, just don't forget how that came to pass.</comment>


Holography without Lasers: Hand Drawn Holograms (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://www.amasci.com/amateur/holo1.html

<comment><USER2> > fiddled

So did lots. Three people managed to automate, one even non-trivial. Also, it's mass produced from metal master: on a vinyl album release of Jack White 'Lazaretto' (with rotating angel by Tristan Duke of MIT Media Lab)

Here's a long youtube playlist of scratch-holo: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1)

Still nobody has found one etched on pre-Columbian pottery glaze. Or Egyptian scrying mirrors! :)

<comment><USER3> One guy even managed to render opaque surfaces: [http://blog.robindeits.com/2012/02/20/more-scratch- holograms...](http://blog.robindeits.com/2012/02/20/more-scratch-holograms/)

<comment><USER2> Like mine here? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUy8lELWhJg&t=50s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUy8lELWhJg&t=50s)

When people at work angrily insisted that these were not true holograms because you can't make opaque objects, I sat down and drew opaque objects. This was around ?1996? Instructions from published paper: sect. 3.3.1 [http://amasci.com/amateur/hand1.html#331](http://amasci.com/amateur/hand1.html#331)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ha, strange, I submitted this yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047015)

It's a form of arbitrage, I suppose, if not coincidence.

</comment><comment><USER5> Gunshot at 0:57 [http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=57s](http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=57s)

<comment><USER2> > Gunshot at 0:57

Lol, editing cut.

[http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=34s](http://youtu.be/XUy8lELWhJg?t=34s)

The really anomalous thing is the big 60/120Hz pulse at 0:37, click above. I was shooting out front of the house, and I reviewed the whole video while standing there, and found the 120Hz. WTF!? It had to be EM, there'd been no audio like that while filming. Was I painted by a uWave beam?

I'm right near airports, also a couple miles north of a Boeing mil black project building. But radar is clicks, not 120Hz. And it sounds like changing PWM during the pulse.

<comment><USER6> To me it just sounds like a car or motorbike driving by.

<comment><USER2> That was my first thought ...while standing out there checking the video a few seconds after shooting. But it was confusing me, because there was no motorbike. I'd been trying to shoot without car noise, so I was facing the road, and (mostly) waiting for any vehicles to pass. When cars pass you can hear the loud wind/wheels hiss in this vid. I noticed that weird hum even in my tiny camera speaker. Later I checked for it indoors, and still there.

I suppose I should check the frequency. If not right at 60/120Hz, and has doppler of moving vehicle, then it's much more likely to be a bike(etc.) that I'd not noticed down the road, and then my brain had edited out while I was talking. Finally, there's a power line about 20ft up on the other side of the street. Huge current surge? The usual b-field from that thing is so strong that any small pickup coil in my house will detect it, and for sensitive work I have to go to the back of the kitchen, over 100ft distant.

<comment><USER7> Also, I've found that modern smart-phone microphones are better than than my ears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These holograms are essentially a set of overlaid Fresnel lenses, and they work by the same principle?

<comment><USER2> Same principle as Benton white-light holograms, see 2003 SPIE paper linked on the site, also "Not true holograms?" The scratches are line-scatterers, not flat-bottomed as Fresnel, so no focal length.

Basically it's an enlarged Zoneplate rather than a fresnel lens. Arrays of curved line-scatterers can reconstruct single pixels with programmable depth. The fringes of Rainbow holograms do this, and their 3D image-reconstruction requires no interference nor monochromatic illuminators. Insight: change the spacing of the fringes of a rainbow hologram, or even randomize the spacing, and the 3D reconstruction still works fine. The 3D image doesn't depend on optical interference. A very weird effect! So, can we draw a Rainbow hologram by hand with a needle, by scratching the fringes with random spacing? Yep. We get 3D images, but they're white in color with no rainbow artifact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amazing. Just tried it with scissors and a CD case. Got a proof-of-concept working :).

</comment><comment><USER10> I fiddled with this myself a few years ago.

<comment><USER2> So did lots.

Three people managed to automate, one even non-trivial. Also, it's mass produced from metal master: on a vinyl album release of Jack White 'Lazaretto' (with rotating angel by Tristan Duke of MIT Media Lab)

Here's a long youtube scratch-holo playlist: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60100E8F3572CEB1) Still nobody has found one etched on pre-Columbian pottery glaze. Or Egyptian scrying mirrors! :)</comment></comment>


Digital Chargeback Frauds - <AUTHOR> Recently, there have been many emerging cases where the users deny having consented to have their information used for the purpose of availing any services from the providers.
Generally, asking for consent entails clicking a checkbox or hitting the 'I Agree' button written after a statement consisting of all the points for which consent is required.
There have been users claiming that they were not the ones who gave consent for their data use and processing. However, they were, indeed, the ones to avail the service.
In numerous other cases, it was also reported that the actual users neither consented to the use of their information nor were they the ones to use the service offered by the business providers.
With this argument in place, there were a huge number of requests for their money back, incurring financial losses to businesses and time consumption for companies and banks alike.
In fact, the hike in chargeback frauds can be seen from this article as well: https://shuftipro.com/blogs/fraud-protection-for-online-retail-businesses/
What are your thoughts about this issue? <comment><AUTHOR> How can we prevent the chargeback frauds?</comment>


ShowHN:  ScaleSimple - An Open Source CDN platform - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dberg.org/2014/01/scalesimple-open-source-cdn.html

<comment><USER2> This marketplace idea is really cool. I'd imagine that since this doesn't really touch the application at all, once the cost of trying something basically drops to zero this would create lots of freedom to experiment with potentially impactful things that one wouldn't otherwise mess with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, there are tons of ideas around this. Things like rate limiting, templates for all kinds of CMS, plenty of VMOD ideas, etc. Hopefully we get there :)

<comment><USER3> (Now I see why you liked vagent2 so much. Nice work!)

I have to agree on this point.

The Varnish Ecosystem is quite large and the software has been used for many years to solve lots of different problems in many different environments, with many frameworks and stacks.

The closest to a multiple solution VCL library is this: * [https://github.com/mattiasgeniar/varnish-3.0-configuration-t...](https://github.com/mattiasgeniar/varnish-3.0-configuration- templates)

There is already a lot to play with. This and other solutions and Varnish Cache extensions are listed on the VMODs and Utilities directories: * [http://varnish.org/vmods](http://varnish.org/vmods) * [http://varnish.org/utilities](http://varnish.org/utilities)

Make sure to add SimpleScale to the list (an publish screenshots if you have any). If it gains traction, it can be a valuable tool for many users.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha thanks Ruben. I just published it to the utilities page, cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you have something here - the gap certainly exists - I am certainly going to look at implementing... the big CDNs are a nightmare to deal with

</comment><comment><USER5> am looking forward to trying it out... we have a custom internal CDN implemented alreayd - which requires alot of work to add new applications... will keep u posted...

</comment><comment><USER6> great idea! Can't wait to have a look at the code, thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> no prob! Things are still a little rough, but hopefully being open will accelerate the state of the platform. Any feedback is welcome.</comment></comment>


Building Infrastructure in Space: The Lunar Mass Driver - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@abarisser/ice-catapults-on-the-moon-the-biggest-feasible-win-cd11107e3ca6 <comment><USER2> Good article.

A sling might be massively cheaper to build than a linear accelerator. It's also more flexible since the launch can be done in to any direction.</comment>


My Quest for a Logo - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikegranados.com/refreshed-pt1-new-logo.html

<comment><USER2> Virtually every time there is some logo-related story here on Hacker News I click through, read the story, look at the resulting logo and think 'well, that kinda sucks'.

Not this time! That's a nice one.</comment>


Barnes & Noble pummels Microsoft patents with prior art - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/225615/barnes-noble-pummels-microsoft-patents-prior-art

<comment><USER3> I truly admire B&N's approach, but they may have to take a lesson from Sun in its early fight with IBM on patents [1]. It's not about these particular patents. MS has thousands of patents and can keep playing this game indefinitely. That's the shame of this system - it isn't about patents or innovation, it's just a shakedown pure and simple.

[1] <http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html>

<comment><USER4> I don't know about indefinitely. At some point it may change. A good lawyer may argue successfully against continued use of court precedents presuming validity of granted patents. Presumption of validity is arguably out of place given today's patent system.

<comment><USER5> > Presumption of validity is arguably out of place given today's patent > system.

It comes from the statute though, so a court isn't really free to just ignore it. Changing this presumption would take congressional action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's kind of amazing that the company that is finally standing up against insane, stupid patents is ... a bookstore. But perhaps it's because B&N doesn't have any mobile patents of its own to defend?

<comment><USER7> I was thinking the same thing, but I think it might have more to do with the fact that B&N would have no other relationship with Microsoft as an OEM in other markets.

Samsung, HTC, Dell, etc... all have other cross cutting businesses that could influence whether they play ball with MS on issues like mobile patents, B&N has no such constraints.

EDIT: In addition the Nook is probably the lone shining star in the B&N business, they can't surrender a single point of margin if they don't have to. If the Nook becomes untenable as a business B&N could become untenable as a business and sooner or later they'll go the way of Borders Books.

<comment><USER8> I keep hearing the idea that the Nook is B&N's last great hope, but I don't buy it.

Every time I go in to a B&N physical store, it's packed. They're one of the few stores I'll go to just for the experience of going in there. They're relaxing. They're pleasant places to be.

Certainly, book sales face stiff online competition, but I find it hard to believe that a company with 705 physical locations that people want to be in, (plus 636 college book stores), can't find a way to make a profit even if the Nook should fail.

<comment><USER9> B&N sure is acting like the Nook is their last great hope.

My local store is renovating about 1/4 of their floor space to be occupied by Nook products. When you walk in to the store, your are greeted by a salesperson who asks if you are buying a Nook.

<comment><USER10> I'd imagine the margins on e-books are compelling enough to drive them to really push them as the future of their business. The marginal production cost on an ebook is the price of a few kb of bandwidth - practically free. I think you'd have to be insane to not try to shift as much of your customerbase towards electronic delivery as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the linked article:

> What's interesting to me, as a clear layman observer, is why Microsoft > didn't know that it would be so easy to find so much evidence of prior art > against these five asserted patents.

Obvious answer, based on experience of large organisations: Legal and engineering are in different silos and don't talk to each other, except through senior management with limited bandwidth and legal/engineering understanding.

<comment><USER12> I think it's more likely Microsoft knew and didn't care. These "obvious" patents have been profitable for quite some time and once you are awarded the patent the burden of proof (and legal costs) falls to the alleged infringer.

Also, take this with a grain of salt, but I vaguely recall reading somewhere that using prior art in court to invalidate a patent is much more difficult than we assume.

<comment><USER13> _I think it's more likely Microsoft knew and didn't care._

The parent to your comment - by mhw - is pretty darned close. At Microsoft, legal and engineering are in different silos and don't talk to each other, except through senior management with limited bandwidth and legal/engineering understanding and also - in my experience, and to some extent - <USER2> managers.

Developers (at least) are told not to look at patents or patent applications. I'd be surprised if PMs were told differently.

Does MS Legal have engineers on staff to determine if something is worthy of a patent and to look for prior art? That's a possibility. But your "more likely" (granted - it's your opinion) doesn't seem incredibly likely (in my opinion.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Invalidating patents with prior art isn't as easy as you might think. There are two ways to do this: you can invalidate on novelty grounds (that is, the invention was anticipated by a single piece of prior art) or non-obviousness grounds (a combination of prior art essentially undermines the idea that the patentee took an 'inventive step'). Only the claims in the patent are considered when assessing novelty and non-obviousness. In the case of novelty, a single piece of prior art must embody everything claimed in the patent, whereas non-obviousness loosens this restriction. Non-obviousness claims are typically far more difficult to prevail upon, which is why companies won't do it more often.

For what it's worth, the relatively recent KSR v. Teleflex case gives us the current opinion of the Supreme Court in non-obviousness battles. In that case, they slid the scale back to favor the Graham[1] test for non-obviousness, rather than the controversial teaching-suggesting-motivation test, which tries to determine whether something in the prior art suggests the desirability of combining the claimed subject matter, and thus its obviousness. Now, the Graham test (which was a 1966 decision) allows for empirical evidence of non- obviousness, to wit: commercial success, long-felt but unsolved needs, and failure of others to invent the patented subject matter.

All of these are issues that need to be litigated in federal court, an exceptionally expensive endeavor that no corporation will take without a very strong incentive.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_et_al._v._John_Deere_Co....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_et_al._v._John_Deere_Co._of_Kansas_City_et_al).

</comment><comment><USER15> Barnes & Noble see moving into the tech industry as the next move for the company, but because, as a company rooted in the business of physical books, they lack a patent "moat" to protect themselves against other big tech companies. It will be difficult for B&N to produce anything but low margin commodity devices. Any differentiation from other devices will eventually drag B&N into a patent battle. Their (possibly) declining physical book business would make it hard to purchase a portfolio from a dying tech company.

One day, here comes Microsoft demanding from B&N a license fee per device for some obvious patents. Since B&N is building a platform that sell high margin products (e-books), the license fee is likely to be affordable....at least until Amazon comes along with patents for a "online bookstore"... Yet... What a perfect opportunity to rack up a storm, raising awareness of the ridiculous patents owned by existing companies!

It is in B&N's interest to devalue existing patent portfolios of their current and future competitors in the tech industry, and they are trying to do exactly that. Even if the plan fails and politicians are unmoved, future tech companies may think twice before threatening B&N with a patent lawsuit... B&N is actually going to bother to find all the pieces of prior art!

We shouldn't be surprised a _bookstore_ is fighting against software patents, because we know an existing technology company, with software patents valued at billions, are definitely not going to do it. It had to be a large company that could afford such a fight but the large company had to not have invested heavily into a technology business. Companies with no stake in a technology business would have no interest in demolishing software patents... unless it is _moving_ into it. What companies making such a move? A company that is facing a fast declining market for its products.[1]

Such a company can only be a bookstore. [2]

[1] If it wasn't fast declining, they wouldn't be doing anything. Imagine putting a frog in a slow cooker, compared to putting a frog in boiling water.

[2] It could have been a company in the music industry... but I think it might be too late for those guys. All they can do is try to hang on to what they've got.

</comment><comment><USER16> Somewhat off topic, but why are the licensing fees that MS is demanding redacted from the cited documents? Are these not public records?

<comment><USER17> I think but IANAL that those are considered trade secrets.</comment></comment>


NASA appears no longer to be shooting for the stars - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nasa-future-20100718,0,7365444.story?track=rss

<comment><USER2> I like the fact that we don't have money for $9 million a day to go to the moon, but we have about $800 million a day to screw up Afghanistan even more than it already is, and $1.9 billion to soak into the sands of Iraq, also for nothing obvious.

Fiscal scolds drive me crazy when they overlook mere elephants in the room - this is like a whole pod of blue whales.

(Note: figures from <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html>)

<comment><USER2> Downvote or not, the article is about how America can't afford a space program, and my comment is about how that really pisses me off given our clear priorities.

But yeah, in retrospect, it's flamewar material and I probably should keep my big mouth shut. It's just ...

I'm in Europe for the summer. And I know Europe has its own problems, but they're actually doing some stuff here that makes the place a better place to live, instead of taking huge piles of money and burning it. The roads are better, the cities prettier, the public services more helpful, the health system more efficient - it just kills me.

I live in Indiana, largely because the real estate market has crashed and it's so cheap (and yeah, I'm from there, but that's why I went back). Indiana really can't afford squat now, because all the money is being sucked out and spent on wars to profit the rich, or just plain being gift-wrapped for them because they're too big to fail.

And now we can't even go to the moon.

<comment><USER3> > And I know Europe has its own problems, but they're actually doing some > stuff here that makes the place a better place to live,

Unfortunately Europe has its own problems. The arms industry in Europe is even more corrupt than in the USA (the french company Thales/Thompson resorted to changing its name every 5 years to shake off the bad name).

The European Union is an extremely expensive and failed project and the public finances in many European countries is a huge mess (e.g. Portugal, Spain, Greece). They have big immigration problems and social problems (e.g. large and growing Muslim minorities in most countries). The birth rate has all but collapsed and they will have serious economic problems in the long term.

<comment><USER2> Heh. I don't know whether you're American, and so you don't know how damn cool Europe is, or European, and so you don't know what a shambles America is, or you're from somewhere else entirely and just don't know anything at all, but either way, you're so incredibly wrong.

Without loss of generality, I will assume below that you are European.

The arms industry in Europe can be as corrupt as it wants - it still doesn't consume the incredible proportion of GDP ours does, and it still doesn't own your government outright. That corruption is utterly, utterly insignificant in terms of how European society is run and where the money actually goes. I'll grant you that arms corruption is a Bad Thing, and making money off killing people is even worse, but Europe ain't got _nothing_ on America in that regard. (Note: right now. Clearly, in the past, this was not the case, but we're discussing current affairs.)

Public finances in many European countries are a mess, yeah. I give you Indiana. Or even better - I give you California, which has started selling its historical monuments and state parks in order to stave off bankruptcy.

Europe has nothing like immigration or social problems. They _think_ they do. But they really, really don't. Large and growing Muslim minorities are, and let me make this perfectly clear, _not a problem_. They are a good thing.

The birth rate collapsing is a good thing. I don't care about retirement problems because they don't exist; the fact that they are actually planning for retirement at all is what makes Europe superior. And I'll draw your attention to the fact that those large, growing Muslim minorities are in fact paying into the retirement system. Just because it's not white, Christian money doesn't mean the system isn't working. And more importantly, Europe doesn't have (as many) thieves and brigands in power trying to get that social services lockbox open so their friends can buy more yachts - _and_ the European media springs on that shit like rapid weasels when they _do_ try it, because in Europe, they still report actual news, and the people, clearly remembering times when the government was demonstrably and openly against them, watch the government like a million hawks, and oddly enough, journalists there are OK with that.

And I'd like to state, just for the record, that if you think _Europe_ is facing serious economic problems in the long term, I'd like to draw your attention back to America. The difference between Europe and America is that some people in Europe are at least planning management strategies; the corresponding people in America are mostly trying to figure out which part of Peru they're going to retreat to when things finally collapse.

But the point in your post that I really feel the most urgent need to address is this flabbergasting notion that the European Union is a failed project.

The European Union has been expensive, yeah. It's not even a tenth as expensive as the Iraq War, and here's the key: it isn't a failed project. There is no, no, no _fucking_ way you can say the European Union has failed until you see an actual renewal of the centuries of warfare that ravaged this continent until the advent of the European Union.

I am, right now, sitting in Budapest, which joined the Union in 2005. To get here, I drove through Switzerland (part of the Union in all but name), Italy, and Slovenia, and then I drove back through Austria and Germany to return our rental car before flying back to Vienna (long story; one-way rentals are Not Cheap here). I've lived in Europe, and come to Europe, a lot over the last twenty years; my wife is Hungarian. So I know a lot about what I'm saying here. The advances I've seen this summer (it's been five years since I could afford to come) have blown my mind. Just the thought of driving across Slovenia in a single evening on their _freaking new freeway system_ alone...

What I'm saying here, and above, is that Europe is prosperous. Oh, everybody's complaining about the Union right now - ever since Germans realized that a run on Greek banks affects them through the Euro zone. But the Union was inevitable, and the expansion of markets and lowering of trade barriers has been very profitable to Germany indeed. They're just really panicky about spreading inflation (something about that explosive inflation in the 30's really scarred the public psyche there).

But failed? No. The European Union is the greatest thing humanity has ever achieved - don't get me wrong, I love the American Constitution, and I'm all for ranking it right up there at the top of greatest innovations ever. But the history of Europe is one of blood and bombs, for the last couple of millennia, and now they're at each other's throats only at the rhetorical level.

The Union is a success.

If you've never been here, I encourage you to visit. If you've never left, I encourage you to examine some other parts of the world before thinking Europe is a failure.

(tl;dr: nyah, nyah, you're wrong, Europe rocks)

<comment><USER3> > I will assume below that you are European.

Neither.

> The arms industry in Europe can be as corrupt as it wants - it still doesn't > consume the incredible proportion of GDP ours does, and it still doesn't own > your government outright.

That may be true. But the European arms industry is extremely corrupt in other countries (with official sanction). The politicians are usually their bitches (e.g. BAE & Blair).

This is not just true for the arms industry – but for all major European companies. The best example of this is Siemens. Its whole business model is based on paying bribes in third world countries to get contracts. Without that, it is simply not competitive. The bribes that Siemens paid over the years ran into the billions (<http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,462954,00.html>).

The same goes for the French arms company Thompson CSF/Thales, that had an extremely large central slush fund to pay bribes with.

While it is true that it is better if the corruption is exported, the point that I wanted to make is that without bribery firms such as Siemens is simply not competitive.

> Europe has nothing like immigration or social problems. They think they do. > But they really, really don't. Large and growing Muslim minorities are, and > let me make this perfectly clear, not a problem. They are a good thing.

Large amount of crimes are committed by immigrants and it threatens European culture. There have been huge riots in countries such as France and Belgium. This is a serious and growing problem.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Brussels_riots>

I agree with you that the USA also have serious problems (e.g. Mexican immigration). Yet it seems that European countries (such as Denmark) are more prepared to do something to solve the problem.

> The birth rate collapsing is a good thing.

No. It is extremely bad (and it is a naïve thing to say). How exactly will a country function if there are more retirees than people working? Or if non- integrating minority populations grow faster than the indigenous populations?

> growing Muslim minorities are in fact paying into the retirement system. > Just because it's not white, Christian money doesn't mean the system isn't > working.

You ignore the fact that a large percentage of immigrants do not finish school. In germany it is just for highschool (14% among immigrant populations).

> The difference between Europe and America is that some people in Europe are > at least planning management strategies; the corresponding people in America > are mostly trying to figure out which part of Peru they're going to retreat > to when things finally collapse.

Many countries in the EU are a lot closer to collapse (e.g. Greece) than the USA.

> has failed until you see an actual renewal of the centuries of warfare that > ravaged this continent until the advent of the European Union.

To claim that the main aim of the EU is the prevention of warfare is wrong. There are good reasons why there hasn't been another world war (some of it to do with the fact that there was an external enemy and that, with nuclear weapons, no one wants to wage war).

Just because there hasn't been war doesn't mean that the EU is a success. And using such a yardstick is actually a big insult to the original aspirations of the EU. And just because the EU is cheaper than a big war, doesn't mean that it is a bargain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recommend these videos by Dr. Robert Zubrin and Jeff Greason for some context: [http://www.youtube.com/user/spacevidcast#p/search/7/d9J7Hgnx...](http://www.youtube.com/user/spacevidcast#p/search/7/d9J7HgnxK10) <http://www.xcor.com/video/isdc.html>

Essentially, NASA has lacked any concrete direction since the 70s, and projects like Constellation are stupid because they waste a lot of NASA money on developing NASA's own launch capacity. When NASA should just buy (or pay to upgrade) existing capacity such as the Delta IV Heavy or Falcon 9 to fit its needs.

Most importantly, with development of launch capacity moved out of NASA, NASA will have to specify the ends, not the means. Being the party that sets the budget, makes the design, and implements the design is a very bad position to be in.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Space program may be best served by moving to the private sector. I believe the private sector will be able to do it faster, cheaper, and just as safe as Nasa. The only thing that worries me is once control is conceded from Nasa to the private sector, the government will regulate the new industry harshly.

It is sad to see the American Dream squashed because of politics but I think a new chapter is around the corner written by the citizens and not bureaucrats.

<comment><USER6> >The only thing that worries me is once control is conceded from Nasa to the private sector, the government will regulate the new industry harshly.

Thinking like that is what led the EPA to allow BP to neglect to install an acoustic trigger that could have prevented this whole debacle in the gulf. Harsh regulation is essential if you want safety.

The problem, and it's one that won't go away by the magic of capitalism, is that no one wants to put real money into space just for the sake of spaceflight.

<comment><USER7> _The problem, and it's one that won't go away by the magic of capitalism, is that no one wants to put real money into space just for the sake of spaceflight._

There's only a few things that people are willing to pay $1000 a pound to send into space. One of them is communications relays. Another is cameras. The third is themselves.

I'm hopeful that space tourism will be the killer app for human spaceflight, because the current model of "let's fucken just send people up to see what happens" has pretty much reached its endpoint: we know what happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What NASA (and society as a whole) needs is _less_ focus on safety. Go do some wild things & if volunteers die in the process, accept that risk.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone comment on what role the obsessive safety culture mentioned in the article may have played in NASA's current declining trajectory?

It's interesting to see that they have ramped up _testing_ ; IIRC, all the problems they've had were tied to manufacturing mistakes, not design flaws. This makes me think safety would be best served by more rigorous Q&A to prevent flaws, rather than testing runs to find them.

<comment><USER10> So, I have a BS in Aero/Astro Engineering. This doesn't exactly qualify me, because when you graduate you're not an engineer, merely ready to become an engineer.

That said, it seems to me that the safety culture is a symptom, not an underlying cause, of the troubles that NASA is facing. Fundamentally, the political nature of NASA planning and acquisition drive NASA-designed systems toward complexity and high-performance. It is the complexity and performance of (especially) launch vehicles, combined with their stringent requirements and catastrophic failure modes that drives the safety culture. If they didn't obsess over safety, these monstrosities would fail _every_ time.

Take a typical aerospace quality part that has $700 worth of material and labor in it. Because it is engineered with a factor of safety of, 1.05-1.2, for example, there is a $25-30,000 paper trail that documents the mine where the ore was extracted, who did the refining, what the heat treatment process was, where it was performed, and so on and so on ad infinitum ad nauseam.

Take the (awful) STS, for example. Congress was promised "airline-style" operations for this "space pickup truck." Well, an airliner has 0 mission- critical parts. A wing spar can fail and the skin should hold the wing together. The STS has over 700 mission-critical parts. For example, if an O-ring fails on a booster, everybody dies. If some foam hits the leading edge of the wing, everybody dies. _High-perf mission-critical parts seem to be a result of the political need for the appearance of technology leadership._

I can almost guarantee you that the O-rings and leading edge pieces were manufactured in different states. _High part-count is an artifact of the procurement process._

Elon Musk has talked about what makes SpaceX's pricing possible. (Note that they're offering launch services at 1/5 the cost of the shuttle.) He has a vertically integrated rocket factory. In one state. _NASA could not build the Falcon 9 if it wanted to simply because they could not vertically integrate in one state. Every state would get a piece of the pie._

Algorithmically, because that's the crowd, here, you pay an exponential administrative cost for each of the factors: performance, lateral integration, and complexity. We've done all three.

NASA treats the fact that the Space Shuttle is the most complex machine ever built as a point of pride, for political reasons. It's actually our national shame and folly, and has set space access back 30 years.

<comment><USER9> To clarify, you are arguing that the problems are just because we want the Space Shuttle to look complex and sound dangerous so that it seems like we are on the cutting edge. That NASA, even after the tragedies, feels a cutting edge appearance is more important than preventing the negative PR from the accidents.

Do I understand you right?

Do you have any sources? I am not an aerospace engineer, and I hate to pull that card after your long and thoughtful comment, but that seems like a pretty sensationalist claim, it'd be nice to have a little supporting evidence. Among other things, you'd figure if a spacecraft could be made as simple as a plane, it'd already have been done.

Also, does an airplane really have no single point of failure? I could swear everything does have at least one. I can't imagine how you could solve all of the single points of failure even on something as simple as a bicycle or a motorcycle. And with the problem with the O-ring failing- wasn't that the failsafe O-ring? I seem to remember hearing something about how there were two seals, and the first one was never supposed to go, but there was a second seal just in case. The first seal did go, but the operators just said 'hey, it's ok, we have a second seal'.

<comment><USER10> Not exactly right. A part of my point was more that the complexity and finickiness of the STS seem to be largely, though not completely, due to the procurement process and some peculiarities of the U.S. political structure. Parts for the STS are made everywhere by subcontractors, in order that politicians can bring jobs to their constituents, and then integrated. I think that's to what you were referring but misunderstood.

As to _mission-critical_ parts, there is some leeway in the definition of the term that may explain the confusion. "Mission-critical" means, necessary for the survival of the crew and passengers. The "mission" is, get to the desired location if you can, but abort safely if you can't. For passenger planes, this means that if one engine goes out, the plan can land on the other one (or two or three). If the ailerons go out, the pilot can achieve roll control with rudder and throttle. If the INS goes out, the GPS can get you to a visual on a landing strip. In each of these cases, there is a single failure and _nobody dies_. Hence, these systems are not "mission-critical" where the "mission" is transporting crew and passengers without loss of life. That the plane goes somewhere specific is a fringe benefit, so to speak.

IIRC, the O-ring disaster had to do with the poor design and decision-making regarding temperature limits of the inadequate O-rings. Once hot combustion products get past an O-ring, there will be a failure. On a system where those hot gases can impinge on a fuel tank, there will be a catastrophic failure. On the STS, that makes those O-rings mission-critical.

Interestingly, some have said that the choice of Thiokol is the ultimate cause of that disaster, for precisely the reasons I talked about in my original comment. The SRBs reportedly had to be able to be shipped over the road from Thiokol's plant. In order to do so (instead of building a plant near the launch site), the boosters had to be segmented. Segments -> O-rings. That's pure rumor, afaik.</comment></comment></comment></comment>