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Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

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Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#71
post #63

UIs that have worked for people for years should never be replaced.

So we should all be using the windows 3.1 ui?

Close.

I've been using WindowMaker for 10 years. It's pretty perfect. No gimmicks. No unnecessary features. Lots of flexibility. Minimal. User friendly. Fast. Stable. It just works.

If someone has used Windows 95 before, a whole slew of operating systems after will be intuitive and a random user will know how to use it without instruction. They don't need anything more advanced. They just need it not to crash or bloat or change and become confusing. Most people just want shit to work.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#73
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you were 100% correct, hard drives aren't going anywhere. Browser cache is around 1GB and web developers are itching for vast landscapes of local storage systems. And where do you expect the operating system and marvelous web stack where all these things are created to reside? Burned in EEPROM? I think the consumer already can't really differentiate between what is local or over the internet, they don't know…

>But if what you say is right, the pendulum, at the consumer level, will soon swing back the other way the first time that someone can't access the "cloud" on a trip or forgets to pay their "cloud access bill" (phone/internet whatever) and then gets locked out of ... well, everything. One day the idea that you don't have internet access will be just as silly as saying you don't have electricity. Its in the very infan…

Well this is because the word "computer" needs to be dismantled a bit.

Computers as a personal mainstream entertainment device will eventually work much like television. Data retention policies will be at the whim of the content distributor and consumers will select from sets of content dictated by different price packages.

Computers as midrange workstations for engineers, artists, musicians, and scientists aren't going anywhere and will be the same as they always have. Same goes for the NOC and the Datacenter. Devices that collect and analyze data will work much in the same way. The people that will create and maintain the consumption paradise will continue to do things on traditional configurations. The biggest change here is that display and input systems will continue to diversify in form and function. However, the machine will still be a rectangular block, with all the internal components you are used to.

The million dollar question is how will people that do mostly office-productivity work? For instance, the person at the dentists office that makes the phone calls and does appointment and billing management. Most could probably get by with a desktop version of a smartphone, but nobody has produced the right one yet.

But this doesn't mean that say, the traditional computer will exodus from the dentist office. Just the opposite. They are in every room now, hooked up to cameras and xray machines, talking to redundant servers either on or offsite.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#74
post #37
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's been indexing the web and Amazon executing bazillions of legally binding sales without a "major data loss event" for 13 years now. I don't think that's really likely. At that scale, backups aren't really a .serious problem, as you have to have redundancy in the system for reliability reasons anyway. A "major privacy event" seems quite likely though.

> Google's been indexing the web and Amazon executing bazillions of legally binding sales without a "major data loss event" for 13 years now. I don't think that's really likely. At that scale, backups aren't really a .serious problem, as you have to have redundancy in the system for reliability reasons anyway. How do you know that there hasn't been a major data loss event for Google? Would you be able to tell the dif…

It's happened before, at least once very early on:

  Google had taken ill.
  
  The problem was the index storing the contents of the web 
  in Google's servers. For a couple of months in early 2000, 
  it wasn't updating at all. Millions of documents created 
  during that period weren't being being collected. As far as 
  the Google search engine was concerned, they didn't exist.
http://books.google.com/books?id=V1u1f8sv3k8C&pg=PA41&#3...

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#77

The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. N…

Great concept - your timeline is way off. Wireless network connectivity is unlikely to be where it needs to be for at least another 20 years for people who work with larger documents. Hell, I have a tough enough time in our corporate offices in São Paulo, Brazil accessing 100 MB Slide Decks in our Redwood City offices over _wired_ connections - I don't want to think how long before places like Belém get half decent _wireless connectivity_. Until then - I'll still need my Windows/Macintosh Laptop with local Apps/data.

Thick apps aren't going anywhere in the near future. Video Editing, Adobe Photoshop - they'll all be huge-honking local apps for at least another 10-15 years.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#78
post #47

It saddens me that Chrome OS is switching from full-screen windows to a stacking metaphor. The opportunity to move to a tiling (even just two columns like Metro) paradigm was there and would be a natural extension of the tab metaphor. Disappointing, although I'm happy to see progress towards an OS that treats web apps as first-class.

Aura does do 2 column tiling

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#79

The "All-Web" paradigm is coming, folks. And it really doesn't matter how much you love your iPhone, or your Android, or Windows phone. Native apps are toast, in the long run. Your data is moving to the cloud -- your pictures, your music, your movies, and every document you write. It's all going up there, and local hard drives will be history within 3 years. And what that means is ALL software is heading there too. N…

Written like someone who has never experienced 3rd world Internet.

Re: Linus Torvalds on new Chromebook Aura UI

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, encryption and a decently strong password pretty much seals the deal on somebody physically stealing your data. There is no reason to not encrypt your home computer if you are so concerned.

>You know, encryption and a decently strong password pretty much seals the deal on somebody physically stealing your data. Maybe stealing it and using the data. If someone swipes my drive the data is still gone. Even if it is inaccessible.

Backups, offsite too.
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