Is it time to replace that aging 2 year old PC with something more modern?
The executives of a number of tech industries think so.
A new initiative called "PC Does What?" has been released to help try to convince people to replace their aging hardware with something new, something modern, something Windows 10.
http://recode.net/2015/10/14/intel-microsoft-hp-dell-and-lenovo-unite-for-big-pc-advertising-push/
Does anyone here believe they are now more likely to buy a complete desktop/laptop/or tablet/phone replacement after receiving such words of encouragement to ditch the old and start lease payments on the new?
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A New Marketing Campaign Called "PC Does What?" is Set to Try to Encourage You to Upgrade Your PC
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(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday October 18 2015, @06:55AM
I used to upgrade my PC every 3 years, 4 at the most, because software was placing demands that the old hardware just couldn't meet. It was always a huge relief to get the new system. Both for gaming and for plain, ordinary development work.
Sometime around 10-15 years ago, Moore's law finally pulled ahead of software. Upgrading became more of a luxury than a necessity. Right now, my desktop is around 5 years old. Modern games run just fine, if not at their highest resolutions. For development, the hardest thing is running 2-3 VMs simultaneously, which older hardware can do just fine. Why upgrade?
On the laptop side, I also have an older machine. The newer ones would have a touch screen, but...I'm not seeing the need to be able to use my laptop as a tablet (fingerprints all over the screen; anyway, keyboard/mouse are more efficient). Newer laptops are slightly lighter and sleeker, but that's minor. So...why upgrade?
The "PC does what?" is a brain fart of some marketing agency. The execution of the clips is poor; the capabilities shown either aren't new, or don't actually exist. Just as an example, the laptop playing music in the helicopter: (a) laptops have had decent speakers for a long time; even so (b) no laptop speaker is going to play over the noise of a helicopter engine. As Ars puts it, this campaign is "cringe worthy" [arstechnica.com].
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 18 2015, @07:35AM
"For development, the hardest thing is running 2-3 VMs simultaneously,"
That was precisely the reason for my own latest and greatest upgrade. Twelve cores, 24 gig of memory, full virtualization capabilities - and a pretty decent video card. I don't see any reason to upgrade, any time in the near future.
Of course, I looked at the title, with "PC" and assumed a desktop. The ads are laptops. Yeah, I'd like a laptop with the capabilities of my tower. I've even been shopping for one. 4th gen i7 with 16 gig of memory looks pretty good, but I haven't decided which machine I want it in. Thinkpad has such a good history, but indications are that they've allowed quality to slide, disastrously. It's GOT to run Linux. Windows is alright inside a VM, but I'm not running Windows on hardware. Still shopping . . .
Oh - video was "good enough" for me quite some time ago. The cheap ugly video days are long past, IMHO, today even cheap cards do good enough for my purposes. Any low-to-mid-range gaming card these days is "good enough", no point is spending hundreds of dollars more for state of the art.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @08:07AM
look into system76. my gazelle pro is 4 years old, with 4 core hyperthreading and 16 GB of RAM, with full hd matte screen. the only thing I upgraded was the SSD (went from 60GB to 250 and last year I think to 512). the battery went to hell but I don't actually care.
I assume you won't be happy about the ubuntu that will be on it, but my guess is that better distributions should run just fine on it.
I honestly see no reason to upgrade for the foreseable future (unless I get really excited about a better resolution screen; so far I've resisted the temptation).
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday October 18 2015, @01:15PM
(looks at laptop sizes and prices [system76.com])
The smallest and cheapest model at the moment is the $599 Lemur. So this tells me two things. First, the so-called "Windows tax" has become negative. Second, is there anything like System76 for people who want a laptop with a screen smaller than 14 inches?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Sunday October 18 2015, @03:48PM
The Windows tax has always been negative. Or, in other words, system manufacturers pay the Windows tax and get more that that from third party software companies who pay the system manufacturers to put their crapware on your computer.
If you want a full system with a vanilla OS (MS Windows, Mac OS X, Linux variants, or something more esoteric), you've always had to pay more.
I don't own a System 76 laptop, but I do own one of their desktops (a Wild Dog). Would totally buy another in the future. Both to support Linux system manufactures but also the hardware has been solid so far.
Getting back on topic:
I'm considering their Meerkat -- https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat [system76.com] -- as a replacement desktop for my kids. I need something a little more modern for their Minecraft and web stuff. I'm not sure what their current computer is, but it has a single core Intel processor and 2GB ram. Anything modern is better.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Sunday October 18 2015, @06:16PM
Depending on which single core CPU it is, you could actually upgrade that computer quite a bit.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Sunday October 18 2015, @12:28PM
The newer ones would have a touch screen, but...I'm not seeing the need to be able to use my laptop as a tablet (fingerprints all over the screen; anyway, keyboard/mouse are more efficient). Newer laptops are slightly lighter and sleeker, but that's minor. So...why upgrade?
Simple: so you can dump the mouse and use the touchscreen with Windows 10 and the Metro UI, because MS says it's better. Don't you want to have the new shiny? And who are you to say that keyboard/mouse is more efficient than using a touchscreen? MS and these other vendors say you're wrong, and that a touchscreen is better, and they have UI experts who have designed these great new touch UIs, and they're all ready to sell you a new device for $$$$ with a touchscreen interface. Are you going to tell me they're wrong? What possible reason could they have for not telling the truth??? Don't forget, to get their message out, they've hired professional marketers, who everyone knows are the most honest profession out there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @07:42PM
I already posted it in the Wayne Simmons article above, but once again... TRUTHINESS!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness [wikipedia.org]
It seems like Microsoft and Intel have been playing the cards of Truthiness and Force-fed Upgrades over and over again ever since 2012, in a panicky overreaction to the popularity of the iPad, first released back in April 2010. Now that everyone who wants a tablet of some sort already has one, and everyone who is buying a notebook computer is getting force-fed an Ultrabook whether they want it or not, Microsoft and Intel are somehow playing the same card.
I'm in the middle of building a new PC with SSDs to replace a 2010-era one with hard drives (back then the stories of SSD failures were scary, especially the Intel consumer-line ones that would brick themselves after crossing their write longevity threshold). SSDs are faster since they can handle parallel I/O loads without breaking a sweat. A video card in 2015 is going to outpace a video card from 2010, and the i7 CPUs are still very powerful (even though I didn't go Skylake because Haswell-E is still pretty damn powerful on the X99 chipset). But this system will probably last 5 years, much like its predecessor, and I'm not going to install Windows 10 on it until I can be absolutely certain all of the spyware hooks can be disabled. Until then, it runs Linux or SteamOS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @01:33AM
This....
For all but a few niche markets, this is exactly what has happened to the win-tel alliance. The machine finally became fast enough that most users (as in all those masses of folks who now think 'the internet' means "facebook") no longer had a need to upgrade.
And so, what did they do? Well, they stopped upgrading. And the great money treadmill started to grind slowly to a halt. The profits of both Intel and MS have been driven, for many years, not by 'new entrants' but by the upgrade treadmill. Now that the machine that the 'facebooker' has that is four+ years old is still more than fast enough, the upgrade treadmill is coming undone.
And the result is silly advertisements like this one....
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday October 19 2015, @05:26AM
Same here, but as a PC gamer it was more like replace every other year, with an upgrade in between. But that was then, this is now, and now I just recently replaced my 6 year old Phenom X6 for an FX-8 and the funny thing was? I honestly didn't NEED to, all my games played awesome on the X6, my oldest had his PC die and I just used it as an excuse to give myself a prezzie and hand him my X6.
But as a PC builder and VAR I can tell ya that for Joe and Jane Normal, hell even gamers? There really is no point in getting new systems, once we reached quad cores the systems went from "good enough" to fire breathing funny cars. What modern game can't do at least 30 FPS on a C2Q or Phenom II X4? Hell for that matter what does the non gamers do that doesn't work perfectly well on a C2D or Phenom I X2? I have some customers doing heavy lifting like 3D engineering, graphical art, and running a print shop with all the formatting and resizing...on Phenom I X3s..and ya know what? They are perfectly happy with them, see absolutely no reason to upgrade, and why should they? They do every job they have for them with cycles left over. My customers with older laptops? I'm apparently now known as "the guy that makes your laptop like new!" because unlike the other shops that try to push new product the first thing I do is see if it'll take an SSD and once they have their old 5400 RPM swapped for an SSD they are nothing but happy.
This is why my bread and butter now is HTPCs and service calls, because unlike these companies with their lame sales tactics I saw the writing on the wall. Will PCs ever die? Hell no, people still use them all over the place every single day, its simply the fact they have become appliances, no different than washers and stoves. This is also why I have zero issues being an AMD only shop even though they haven't released a new chip in awhile and instead lowered prices...why should they? The chips they have now are already more powerful than a good 90% of users will ever need, in fact I kept an i5 and FX6100 behind the desk for nearly a year simply because I got tired of local college dudebros and their "cha only Intel can game bro" BS and would simply A/B between the two and tell 'em to tell me which was which, they never could.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @06:58AM
...to a tablet
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Sunday October 18 2015, @07:42AM
With Windows 10, Microsoft had a chance to make amends for the atrocity it inflicted on the world with Windows 8.x.
Instead, they release a version of windows with builtin spyware and now advertising on your desktop.
Windows is going to die a slow, painful death, and I'm afraid after their latest stunt, I can't have much sympathy.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 18 2015, @07:52AM
LOL - should I do it? Do I care about karma hell? I've been downmodded twice already for posting *nix threads. I think it funny as hell that people are bitching about Win10, but stand up like good phanboys to defend Microsoft and badmouth Unix, Linux, Apple, BSD, SysV, and every other Unix lookalike.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 18 2015, @10:29AM
You are a forgiving soul if you're are only now reaching your limit with Microsoft. I would have thought Vista would have been the point where boosters hit the wall.
Well, how much of it matters until CIOs dump the OS in their companies across the board? It's not impossible for bottom-up tech change to cause corporations to hit the tipping point--look at how Blackberry's lost the battle for business. But it takes a lot longer.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday October 18 2015, @12:04PM
This. My only reason to own a PC is gaming. Now that Microsoft wants to spy on me I'd have to run Linux. The games I'd want to play on a PC don't run under Linux.
So, I'll probably never own another PC thanks to Microsoft.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @07:54AM
http://upgradefromwindows.com [upgradefromwindows.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @08:48AM
No, seriously -- this is desperation.
We have bizarreness all through the computer world, because everybody knows "PC" (meaning Windows + x86, aka Wintel) is dying.
Google sees Wintel taking on water, and hopes to catch some of the rats fleeing that ship. So we have the bizarreness that is the Chromebook Pixel -- a netbook OS on a $1000 computer. It exists, not because there's a particularly big market for it, but because if they don't have a prestige machine directly competing with Apple's, refugees from Wintel, despite being able to afford neither Chromebooks Pixel nor Macbooks Air, will see Chromebook's lack of prestige models as a stigma, and go with an iMac instead of a Chromebox.
Of course, MS and friends have this bizarre ad campaign! But also, MS's desperate struggle to postpone the inevitable has brought us such bizarreness as MS selling hardware people actually want, namely the Surface Pro family.
You remember when gaming on Linux meant nethack, quake, and Loki ports? (Not that I have anything against any of those...) Valve, of course, is bringing Steam and a bunch of games to Linux -- enough said.
And Apple... well, they brought out one of those styluses they spent the past few years ridiculing, but that's not really related to the impending Wintelocalypse. It's like that time they brought out a 5.5"-screen phone after mocking the Samsung Note series, or how they brought out "retina" displays after claiming for years that high PPI causes eyestrain, and 100 PPI is "optimal" [archive.org], or ... yeah. So it's not really bizarre, not for Apple.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday October 18 2015, @08:48AM
I have been noting how sluggish my machine is getting on commercial sites. NoScript bought me some time by at least saving me from executing a lot of crap I get sent.
Go view "page source" on some of your slower business sites. You are apt to find absolutely huge pages full of scripts.
Do businesses fear that they may alienate their customer base if they plough last year's earnings into more advanced server technologies that enable them to burden the existing customer's machines so badly that their customers are forced to jump ship and do business with someone else who simply can't afford the latest and greatest ad-spewing and DRM enforcement technologies?
Or are ISP's in on this too as bandwidths which were sufficient last year to stream a video simply are not up to streaming in simultaneous ad-streams. So the customer base needs to be incentivized to purchase new hardware on their end which will accept simultaneous ad and policy enforcement streams without choking the existing customer computing base into a "losing game of Tetris?" ( I refer to Tetris as anyone who has played knows the inevitable lockup on the end when tidbits arrive faster than you can place them. Game over ).
I get the idea that already at some businesses, their web team is called into the office with numerous accounts of people complaining of computer lockups when visiting their business site, and are already noting the Tetris phenomenon. They may be beginning to realize just that one streaming ad they javascripted in could be latching up thousands of lower performing machines and causing their former customers to flee to sites which are not as bandwidth hungry.
A few advertising dollars spent to convince the public to buy newer faster machines which support their ad streams and DRM enforcement protocols is probably in the works.
Otherwise, they are becoming like the fast food restaurant whose drive-thru only serves BMW's or better. While a significant portion of their sales was to people driving chevys and fords. I believe the big businesses that want to serve all those ads are beginning to worry that a smaller business may simply take their customer base by offering a website that allows them to place their order without choking their machine.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday October 18 2015, @10:32AM
The trouble is it is easy to build another website. Source your articles from AP like every other, put in lighter, fewer ads, and Bob's your uncle.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Sunday October 18 2015, @09:07AM
MS Office, the pinnacle of software that a non-technical person uses, used to demand hardware that could draw its menu circa 2000. Now there is almost no reason to upgrade MS Office itself forget about upgrading the hardware. Photoshop already covers most of the common use cases that a novice photographer might demand. Multimedia has moved away from cpu/memory to gpu and new gpus will only be needed for 4K monitors, and those are still too expensive. 8GB memory is almost never short unless you are running VMs which general public doesn't. SSDs were a promise but they are also expensive $/GB wise for most people.
Maybe video editing is the answer? It is still a nascent field on a consumer level and there is a chance to bring something 'cool' that entices general public to upgrade their PC. People are recording large number of videos too using their phone.
Another thing to look out for is Steam Machine [steampowered.com]. If that thing catches up it will boost the sales of PC parts and should also bring new life to upgrade cycles.
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday October 18 2015, @09:27AM
Just like how you must have a Modern, Web 2.0 website, with more white space and mindless graphics, just like Slashdot Beta! Oh, Buck Feta! Do not allow cheesiness to be the driving force of technology. Change for the sake of change is usually change that should not have changed.
My Eleven year-old laptop (one of the first AMD 64s!) was slowing down with Firefox. So guess what? I threw another 1/2 Gig of RAM into it, and it runs everything as fast as a new lappy now!!! Amazing. Of course, it does not, and never did, have to run Windoze.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 18 2015, @10:15AM
No.
First, my ageing PC is not two years old. It's eight years old. If it were only two years old, it would not be ageing. I've never replaced a PC after only 2 years, even back in the time when PCs really did noticeably progress during that time frame.
I did, however, upgrade my PC: I added a modern SSD. Maybe I'll add some more memory. Oh, and I plugged in a new graphics card because the old one failed (otherwise the old one would still have been sufficient for my needs).
And when I update my PC, it certainly won't be something Windows 10. I'm not going to run spyware, thankyouverymuch.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @11:11AM
Want to sell me a new computer? Offer a laptop with a 16:10 screen.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Sunday October 18 2015, @02:33PM
Make sure you tell us when you find that. I've been looking for a modern 1920x1200 screen for years... I've stuck with my 1680x1050 laptop that I bought in 2006, precisely because I DON'T WATCH HD CONTENT AT WORK, I WORK.
Ahem
Maybe a little HD content. But I think I can survive if that content is displayed to me in a window on a higher resolution screen.
It kills me that many tablets have better screens than the laptops that they can't replace.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @05:46PM
question. 1920x1080 gives you more vertical pixels than what you currently have. why is that not better?
(I'm assuming that you use fonts at the minimum size where they look reasonably ok, since this is a laptop we're talking about).
note that I am not in any way saying that 16:9 is better than 16:10. personally, I just found my full HD laptop good enough for work (konsole takes up half the screen, using Terminus, with 117 columns vs 65 lines).
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday October 18 2015, @08:02PM
Oh 1920x1080 is better. I don't deny that.
It's not "better enough" to invest in the upgrade to get that, though... I'd have to recreate everything and futz around a great deal with how the new OS works and find old software licenses and such. Whatever I say I prefer does not mean I've been able to get away with using only products I endorse. I have to use some more finicky products that are very happy to stop working if the licensing check fails.
I might just be whiny, though. If I have to carry it with me through thick and thin, and expect it to be durable and survive accidental drops, I want to make sure that whatever I upgrade to will last a few marketing lifecycles and be worth the expense (of time, effort and money) to upgrade to.
But yes, 1080 is better than 1050. 1920 is better than 1680. It is just a shame that technology didn't improve or even stay the same on laptop screens. Instead, we have disposable toys branded as HD. I don't want a touch screen 1366x768 device that is intended for replacement between six to eighteen months from now, I want a high res 17" laptop that can withstand being dropped!
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday October 18 2015, @06:55PM
I'm going to ask for 1:1, and then I will let them negotiate down to 4:3. 4:3 is what I have now. Under the right conditions, I could even accept 3:2. 3:2 wouldn't be so bad. Landscape photos are usually 3:2.
I will 3D print my own damn case and assemble my own laptop before I will buy 16:9. *barfs*
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday October 19 2015, @02:01AM
Why?
Are you looking for a 16:10 and you're only finding 16:9s, or what? Your post needs more explanation.
I still don't get why we have this whole "16:10 is for monitors; 16:9 is for TV" bullshit, either.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @03:29AM
That happened is that people figured out the TVs work a cheap monitors (guilty).
After a few years they get tired of using a second-hand TV and decide to buy a real monitor.
To their horror, they find that all monitors are now running at TV resolution.
For a while I was using 1024x768, but have recently "upgraded" to 1280x1024. The display hardware is the same, but the video card is newer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Sunday October 18 2015, @01:17PM
My laptop works fine as a laptop. It's an ASUS netbook, maybe 5-6 years old. Its battery still works well enough that I can take it to a coffee shop for an evening without having to plug in. As far as I know, it doesn't have the hardware support for virtualization which would be useful, but hasn't been a reason to turn it. I''ve upgraded it by doubling its RAM and installing a SSD-cached hard drive. I run devuan Linux. I dumped Windows (the one that came preinstalled) when I replaced the hard drive.
If I'm ever desperate, I can put the old hard drive back in and boot Windows XP.
I never have.
What it doesn't do well is work like a tablet -- which is what I want when there isn't a usable table for me to set it down on. One that I'd like to take to the park and draw pictures of the trees and lakes and so forth.
I'd like a tablet that has stylus precision (No, it doesn't have to be as good as Wacom's; it just has to be a lot more precise than a stubby finger and fast enough to track fast sketching movements) and will run my usual GNU/Linux distro (devuan this year; next year, who knows?). No, I don't want to be chained to Ubuntu or Windows or locked out with secure boot.
Anyone have a good, affordable way of getting there? Until I find one, I won't be replacing my computer. There are ways to get hardware that has the oomph it needs; what's hard is getting some that's not locked down.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Sunday October 18 2015, @06:48PM
I would suggest that you get a used EliteBook 2730, 2740, or 2760. They're generally pretty cheap and have Core2, Westmere, and Sandy Bridge CPUs, respectively. Also, they do in fact have Wacoms, but the stylus gets less accurate around the screen's edges.
Disclaimer: I brought one used and have been suitably impressed. The only really big problem with them is that they use a weird, rare form of hard drive connector and form factor. The best course of action is to get an mSATA SSD and an adapter.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday October 18 2015, @03:18PM
Computer says no [youtube.com].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday October 18 2015, @03:19PM
Sure, I'm replacing old hardware. I have had more hard disks fail this year than in the past couple of decades. I ordered a gigabyte motherboard and got a DOA, and the replacement was DOA too. I would hang on to any old hardware as long as I could. Is there a bottom to quality? I'd pay more for a quality component that would last 5+ years.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @03:22PM
My new machine is 4yr quad core 16GB machine w/ 10TB of storage. Running multiple VMs and it only has 2 PCI slots for expatiation.
I do have two Win10s running on 10yr old quad cores 8GB w/ 2TB asnd 6TB of storage. I have K6-2 768MB running my firewall with 17000 blocked sites so no adblock is needed on any machine. 486sx25 12MB and RPi are backups for the firewall, with the RPi paired with my cell phone to hand a down cable network.
Yes, buy a new machine would be nice, but why? What will it give me? My new machine caused $120 on ebay. The two win10 boxes, one costed $400 new via a deal from dell. The other was $100 on ebay, Both are matched models other than internal diisk size.
So, what is the point for new machines?
Same goes for autos... One car is 2001, bought 9 yrs used. The other 2005 bought 4yrs ago. Both are paid for a get right gas milage for their use. Before that had matched pair of cars from 1992.
I buy things looking at the use and long term re-use. Planning is important.
And do not get me worng, I do buy new when it is right. 2 netbooks, for my youngest. They have used them for almost 8yrs now ($200 a piece). 1 just died, a roll over at night, a broke screen. 1 atom micro foot print. Been using for 7 yrs, paid $250 for it. It when to college with oldest and now is used by middle with high school work.
YES, non of them are gaming machines. But they do the right job and been doing them for years.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Squidious on Sunday October 18 2015, @11:51PM
I am like minded. I buy 5+ year old cars, never financed. I buy used computers in small matched lots, that way I have backup machines and parts for everything. If something dies I grab the next one off the shelf and go back to work, and fix the broken one the next time I get bored. Software and data are backed up in triplicate in different corners of the house. The only thing I overspend on is a couple meals a week at restaurants where the food is far better than what I can make for myself.
The terrorists have won, game, set, match. They've scared the people into electing authoritarian regimes.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday October 18 2015, @03:31PM
The whole industry did it to itself. There are unfilled niches where the home user might legitimately need/want more power, but Wintel is too busy kissing ass with the MPAA and RIAA to come out with the sort of unrestricted A/V hardware that might motivate consumers. It's amazing really. The hardware finally gets good enough to record and play back HD video from OTA and cable, but it's just not out there.
Intel could be selling fast multi-core towers that can play games, record the football game, support VoIP, and play music all at once. Everyone's getting DVRs these days because that's all they can get. They might like a recorder where they can decide to keep something forever or loan it to a friend, but that's not on offer.
They could be selling the home server with storage and CPU to spare that supports the tablets and cellphones, but the industry as a whole is too busy trying to sell 'the cloud', including MS.
Perhaps Wintel are just all out of ideas. Perhaps they've been resting on their laurels for so long that they simply don't know how to do anything else even as the rest of the industry has figured out how to do the same thing for a fraction of the cost. They are big enough to succeed if they push products that return power to the consumer rather than me-tooing with more ads and lock-downs.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday October 18 2015, @07:01PM
As a "real" computer user, I appreciate the cheap hardware, but I think commercializing the personal computer was a huge mistake socially.
Very few people actually need a general purpose computer. All they need is a specialized device that can check email and browse the web. If only we gave them that, it would have cut down on gazillions of man-hours wasted on technical support for end users wrestling with general purpose computers.
Of course the market is self-correcting with the move toward tablets and smartphones, with convenient pre-packaged local and web APPliances (like home appliances), but all those wasted man-hours aren't coming back, and the scar left on IT will remain for years to come.
(What is a "real" computer user? Someone who takes advantage of the general computing facilities of a computer. In other words, someone who programs or scripts their computer and would thus do things that would not be convenient to pre-package into "apps". This requires some technical knowledge, much like DIY vs buying furniture at your local IKEA.)
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @11:16PM
All they need is a specialized device that can check email and browse the web.
Email/web is really one thing for most users. The real critical thing is Microsoft Office. And various business/work programs.
But these can all be run extremely fast on simple/old hardware.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @11:01PM
Welcome to the UCCA - the United Corporations and Churches of America
Where the "real product" is the stock
And the "true customer" is the stock-holder.
In god we trust, all others will be tracked.
=======
You can not control a population that is:
- well fed
- healthy
- well funded
- well educated
Remove any 1 of the 4 and you control that population.
* check on IQ levels in Kentucky and others vs. voting knowledge [low information] mostly #4 but 1-3 play a factor here.
* read up on how well Napoleon’s winter military move on Russia was, the first 3 above failed here
* destruction of the middle class...see #3 and #4 also applies
2 concepts explain what Faux Knews will never comprehend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 19 2015, @09:30AM
Corporations don't control people. Corporations are controlled by people; by their employees, by their stockholders, and above all, by their customers. Employees, stockholders and customers don't impose any direct force on each other. Participation by all these people is entirely voluntary. Contrary to what the socialist morons would have you believe, employees aren't slaves. There is a very simple and predictable motive behind every corporation; to make money. Legally, corporations make money by selling products and services that their customers want to willingly hand over their hard earned cash for. Corporations can't force people to buy their wares. This is capitalism at its most basic, and is the one of the most misunderstood concepts portrayed by activists and the media.
Government is the only organizational entity that can legally physically coerce people. This is a useful authority for the only two purposes of government in the market; to enforce contracts and prosecute fraud. When government increases its involvement beyond these basic functions, it creates imbalances. For example, when a government agency awards patents and licenses, industry monopolies are born. In countries with corrupt politicians, anyone can buy influence (corporations included). This is of course wrong. However, that influence must be on sale in the first place. If you take power away from corrupt politicians, they have less influence to sell.
Anyway, libertarianism and Austrian economics rulez! Socialism and Keynesian economics droolz!