engadget.com — We kind of never thought we'd see the day where Mac and PC voluntarily shared the stage on neutral ground, but that day is today. Very soon Bill Gates and Steve Jobs -- both pioneering execs that need absolutely no introduction -- will sit up in front of the audience here at D and discuss god knows what. Don't miss this people.
May 31, 2007 View in Crawl 4
darktenMay 31, 2007
Actually...You're upside down here...especially if ya' know me :) And I'm a Wii guy too...so I so totally am lost by how you missed my meaning.And see...you said "Google"...the new darling, heheh. I have opinions on what Google makes (or...doesn't) but we'll leave them for another time.The web doesn't let you "create" much of anything; its an aggregation of the creations themselves...its not the Model, its the View. It is its primary function.You can type into "the web" like this, but it isn't really rich...unless you "write good" :) YouTube doesn't create video, google doesn't create the information you are looking for...hell digg doesn't either.The cloud isn't an enabler of creation, as much as it allows semi transparent access to what is created. You follow me?You can't make a movie with the web, or a song or a beatiful picture; tho you can assemble creations in rudimentary ways. Understand? As someone in the software business, I've always looked at every new "thing" (and still do) that comes down the pipe, but at the end of the day, if you have vision, you see it for not just what it could be, but what it can be within its envelope, and hopefully, you try to do something that can help ordinary people make use of this technology and make a part of it their own.The web as an application platform is really one very large data pool; to make it compelling on an individual level, you have to be able to put into it and extract from it. Things like digg and google are great examples of that, of using and developing its strengths. But there is a ceiling...its a view and delivery system. At its core, it doesn't have the ability to allow one to create from nothing. OSs, or Specialized gadgetry do that. OSs rule this roost because they are fairly general purpose, and are a point of entry for myriad specialized devices, be they physical or software, into the web/internet/cloud itself.
darktenMay 31, 2007
Web apps have been around for *quite a long time* in the grand scheme of things; they simply keep "rebooting"...AJAX, RSS, Streaming Video, all of these things have a precedent from more than 10 years ago. I was working on things very much like them then.The problem is, again, the bolt-on concept; some things are good at what they are good at. The trick is making them seamless. Your YouTube example is *perfect* in this regard; what you can upload is limited by the *hardware* and in case you weren't aware, YouTube in making moves behind the scenes to UP the quality so that the experience is richer on devices like tvs and computers, not LOWER it for the web :)Who creates and consumes is of little relevance here, what is important is that the service cannot create its own rich content out of thin air, the device cannot add a richness that is required to make it compelling and truly stand out. Look around you, the industry is moving away from convergence (again, that voting with wallets thing) because this is a dream of *technologists*...not consumers. Real people don't spend most of their leisure time on their computers; for them its a tool for GTD, of mixing, storing, sorting and enhancing their media and personal information...the web is how they share it and "devices" in the form of software and hardware is how they make it.Google has one breakout successful product; it runs off of what you put into it, not what they put into it. Same with YouTube.Ask Yahoo about trying to bridge that gap...if they weren't bothering then google wouldn't have been able to sneak up on them :) Ask AT&T about how "You Will..."We haven't, they didn't and we probably won't for quite awhile, because what technologists want nearly almost always has nothing to do with what Joe Average wants...and only the companies that ASK HIM ever get this right :)
Closed AccountMay 31, 2007
Why can't that interviewer bitch STFU and let the other guy speak to the end of his sentences?
themurdocvoltaMay 31, 2007
Jobs: So Bill... do any spread sheets lately...?Gates: No Steve, Ive Just been reading about how well the Apple TV has been doing.Jobs: About as well as the Zune...Gates: ... Touché
siglesiasMay 31, 2007
There's definitely a huge phallus right between their portraits. Coincidence?
carboneclecticMay 31, 2007
would somebody please get that woman off-stage! She is sofa king we todd ed!