1 Name: CurelessSyn : 2011-08-31 02:58 ID:nxtYFBku [Del]
I just wrote a script (7 minutes long) about the upcoming tech crash. Enjoy.
For the past few years, I have spent roughly an hour or two of every day keeping up to date with the world of technology. It's a very interesting place, of course, but it seems that despite the continuous progressions in this world, people have become blissfully unaware to a lot of things, buying whatever comes up first. It's not always their fault either, sometimes companies pay to have their product sold to them by the marketers at stores. At least, I've come to the conclusion that most people don't know what's happening right now, and I don't blame them. Right now is possibly one of the biggest jumps in technology we'll ever see. I know what I'm talking about, and now I'm here to share my information and knowledge with you.
Now, for the past decade or so, I've noticed that I've lived in a world where Apple keeps mistepping and people seem obliviously blind to that. There's a reason I'm starting this whole script with Apple. They're the main competitors to everyone, and not in a good way. If you want to take a look at the battlefield, it's Apple versus everyone else. Apple now has more money than nearly everyone, yet they play the part of underdog for the markets so most who buy from them think they're supporting this small company. It's a very good marketing scheme, but they're having trouble covering their money.
Apple is famous among any who is tech savvy because they are extremely pathetic in the department of lawsuits. I saw a comment on a YouTube video which read, "So it's only bad when Apple sues? I get it." Well, my response is that, yes, it is only bad when they sue, possibly because they're the only people doing any attempted lawsuits out there. I remember, I saw a video quite a while ago describing how Apple was suing HTC. The reason? Apple claimed that the iPhone, made in 2008, had been copied by HTC to make a phone that was created in 2003. Call me a little strange if you like, but I think it's quite unreasonable trying to sue for something that was already created before Steve Jobs even began his research into multitouch technology.
Apple didn't invent the touchscreen. Apple didn't invent the tablet PC. But incidentally, Apple's lawyers seem to think otherwise. They have been grabbing patents faster than food by a refugee. Also, Microsoft seems to be working with them to bring down their main competitors, the Android crowd. As I mentioned before, I have been watching the technologic world for quite a while. Apple and Microsoft have always been at each other's throats. Now, when they've jumped into the same bed, you have to wonder what's going on.
Yes, I'm still continuing with the same company. Not my fault, Apple have a lot of dirty secrets to admit. Lately, they've been attacking their main competitions, Samsung and HTC. I'll start with HTC, it's a small amount of things. Well, the patents Apple had means they went on strike against HTC. Now, though, HTC has just sued Apple for infringing two patents. Now, excuse me if I'm wrong, but I thought patents were meant to encourage innovation, not prevent it. In fact, speaking of innovation, Apple just patented that word. That's right, the word "Innovation" is now owned by Apple. I didn't think that was possible.
Now onto Samsung. This has been a tough break for them, it seems that Apple doesn't want to leave them alone. It seems strange how despite Samsung being the main supplier for Apple's iPhone resources, Apple will still go against them. You see this, Apple? This is why nearly everyone is sick of you! So far, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1v has been banned from nearly every country, and the Galaxy range is now the target. It's a bit ridiculous when the first way that comes to mind to counterattack an opposing product is to ban it, instead of say, using that large sum of money and actually making the iPhone a worthy competitor.
It's no surprise that Google patented a lot of things and began sharing them with all of the Android crowd to defend against Apple. Only Motorola refused the help from Google and decided that they could go it alone. This is where things get interesting. Google buys a portion of Motorola. It's an interesting move, since Motorola have always made nice devices. Personally, I hate MotoBLUR. But in any case, the hardware has always been very nice. Now, combine about 29,000 workers from Google with 19,000 from Motorola, and you have a pretty incredible set of developers for the technology.
I guess the main reason Google bought into Motorola would be the ownership of patents. Motorola own roughly 12.5 thousand patents, and there are about 7.5 thousand pending for approval. This obviously would give Google quite a jump up in their market, but there's an extremely large downside. If Google controls Android hardware with Motorola, why should any other company stay in the Android market? It's quite obvious that they would never be best because Google will be making the best devices with Motorola. This will drop the market to just Motorola, and those cheap rip-off devices running illegal versions of Android, like the Creative Ziio tablet, despite how it was a good device.
Well, 4 days after Google's aquirement, HP dropped WebOS, the mobile OS that they bought from Palm. It's a wonder how the best and most advanced in the computing range couldn't get this to work. Then again, HP has had little luck with mobile systems before. Nevertheless, they're a special kind of company, so them failing with WebOS proves that it must have been impossible to make successful. However, HP is also making a lot of notions to dropping everything and exiting the market. Does this mean HP knows something is going to happen? It has turned a lot of heads so far in the tech world. Only time will tell.
By the end of this, there will be only 3 standing. They will be Microsoft, Apple, and this Google-Motorola partnership. HTC has the advantage of HTC Sense, and if Google can't fix up MotoBLUR soon, HTC Android devices will still be at the top of the list. If this isn't so, HTC will convert Sense into a full operating system. There are enough followers for a few thousand apps to appear withing the first month. Hopefully, it's more succesful than Bada. Also, Blackberry can say goodbye. The only majorly sucessful device, Blackberry Playbook, is out of stock and due to Blackberry being too busy to keep it in the market.
And where does Nokia fit into here, some may ask? Well, Nokia have been on an endless downhill since 2005. Technically, it's a surprise they still have market, with Symbian being such a pathetic operating system. Well, the fix for that should've been Maemo 5 on the Nokia N900. It failed, because Nokia partnered with Intel and announced MeeGo was just around the corner. Then, two years later, Nokia N9 is announced. The Nokia N9 is actually set to arrive very soon, yet it's doomed. Nokia made this partnership with Microsoft for Windows Phone 7 devices, which means they will probably sell MeeGo, or something along those lines. Also, Symbian has had a big upgrade lately with the announcement of Symbian Belle, which seems to be yet another copy of Android. Nevertheless, Nokia has had a good history, and I hope they make something worthwhile.
And that is all I know about what is happening right now.
2 Name: MKOLLER : 2011-08-31 05:48 ID:c3YdC+G2 [Del]
The thing is, most of your argument deals with the mobile market. And we've seen consistently that regardless of who's oligopolizing, be it M$, Apple, Samsung, Google-Motorola or Nokia, it's going to be downright impossible for any one company to garner a monopoly.
For starters, we saw that Apple introduced the iPhone with a $600 price tag a few years back. Their primary concern at that point was integrating the iPod/iTunes system into a phone, and gave it web access so you could download content from iTunes at any time. The iTouch was just an iPhone without the service contract, down to the hardware itself.
When the app market exploded, they did try to seize control of it, but their primary market has always been music, not particularly telecommunications. And if you look into the music world, there's still AmazonMP3, WalmartMP3, and several other legal music retailers.
As far as mobile devices go, people will go for the option that provides the best service for the least amount of money. That's the reason prepaid phones still have a major market share (Tracfone, Virgin Mobile, StraightTalk, Net10, etc.)
Google could be a powerful force in the App market however. They are what Linux is to Windows, essentially: a bunch of third parties willing to charge significantly less, or hell, to volunteer their services, to create the same things.
So yeah, I'm not as concerned with Apple as I was a few years ago, because I've seen that they're moving away from their niche market and that will be their downfall. Especially since Steve Jobs stepped down last week. They will lose momentum in the next year, of that, I am positive.
Frankly, I am surprised about Nokia being still alive. But that's another thing entirely.
5 Name: Andre !xwhkPqOv6E : 2011-09-02 15:48 ID:n1FoGZjQ [Del]
>>4I still don't get what you're talking about. What is a "ripped" copy of Android? I understand that Google denied access to the market, but I think that is because Google totally owns the market and does not support the device. AFAIK you can do mostly whatever you want with Android, you can look at the licenses they use here: http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html
As you can see, the vast majority of the Android software is released under the Apache license. I'll post the part concerning redistribution of the software:
4. Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of
the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions:
You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and
You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files; and
You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and
(paraphrased) If the Work contains a NOTICE file, you must copy that too.
So basically, as long as they attribute Google as the creators of the software, redistributing it is not illegal. Now the makers of the device might have been mindblowingly stupid and deleted the attribution or license files to purposefully make it illegal, but I don't think that's likely because... yeah. If you find a news story saying the opposite though, I'd love to hear it.
I am still extremely doubtful that Apple patented a word. Are you sure they just didn't trademark it? There are three types of patents (in the US at least): Design, utility, and plant.
It can't be a plant patent for obvious reasons. It can't be a utility patent because the word is just a word, it isn't "a new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof." And it can't be a design patent because a word is not "a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture."
