11–20 of 43 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As much as i'd like to have a universal device sometimes a well-crafted, well-designed, dedicated device is hard to give up once you are used to it. Would you rather use a TI-calc emulator on android or the actual device?
The emulator, hands down. And that's being a long-time TI calculator user.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The emulator, hands down. And that's being a long-time TI calculator user.
I am probably two orders of magnitude faster[1] on a real TI than on an emulator. The muscle memory there is deep, and doesn't translate to my phone at all. [1]no, really
Business-Software patents number are symptoms of protectionism and central planning in the process of innovation(you pay the state, they give you monopolies over ideas).
Business and software patents make the big guys the masters and the rest slaves, when everything is becoming patented, from windows to clicks adding "on web applications" or "in mobile" to the super old idea.
In any case, it will be the quality, not the quantity what matters.
One of the things that really shocked me is how everyone still carries around electronic dictionaries when their cell phones should be able to fulfill that capability. The idea of one-function hardware is still deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche in a way that it hasn't been for years in the West. As an American I always find it preferable to consolidate all my devices into one (which has turned out to be the cel…
The hard line between hardware and software is also fading in my opinion. I mean hardware is mostly also software in a sense. The difference between 'hardware' and 'software' is smaller nowadays than the difference between 'business software' and 'low-level software' I think.
One of the things that really shocked me is how everyone still carries around electronic dictionaries when their cell phones should be able to fulfill that capability. The idea of one-function hardware is still deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche in a way that it hasn't been for years in the West. As an American I always find it preferable to consolidate all my devices into one (which has turned out to be the cel…
As much as i'd like to have a universal device sometimes a well-crafted, well-designed, dedicated device is hard to give up once you are used to it. Would you rather use a TI-calc emulator on android or the actual device?
It is a matlab/octave emulator. It works great, even on my 2.1 android phone.
One of the things that really shocked me is how everyone still carries around electronic dictionaries when their cell phones should be able to fulfill that capability. The idea of one-function hardware is still deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche in a way that it hasn't been for years in the West. As an American I always find it preferable to consolidate all my devices into one (which has turned out to be the cel…
The Japanese phone mfrs have had complete control of the entire platform (network, hardware and software) for too long. More than likely the dictionary mfrs and the phone mfrs were just staying out of each others' verticals. Now software (Apple,Android) is finally disrupting that and changing the market but I wouldn't agree that the Japanese thinking is around single function products. There's just a better solution now that didn't exist in the market before. Even then, I feel like culturally it's ok to use a dictionary in class but not a cell phone...
This article (http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/kenya-hara-on-japanes...) does a good job describing how "less is more" is interpreted differently in Japanese design.
"Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce.com, a large 'cloud computing' firm in Silicon Valley, sees opportunities everywhere in Japan. Over the past year the company paid $212m for Heroku, which develops web services based on Ruby, and acquired stakes in Synergy Marketing, Uhuru and Netyear, three business-software firms."
With a name like Heroku, news that Matz is joining Heroku, and Heroku doing Ruby in the cloud, it is an easy mistake on deadline to conclude that Heroku is a Japanese company. The other three companies mentioned are all actually Japanese companies.
One of the most unforgiving is that users do not understand that their phones are connected to vast networks or that navigation system in their car is powered by a computer with memory, et cetera.
When I first moved to Japan I asked normal people on the street to tell me what they found interesting about their phones -- I was shocked to learn that many Japanese women and men told me that they believed the popular website Mixi was just a screen (画面) that displays when the press buttons! (In Japanese: ミクシーはあたしの携帯に入っている画面だよ！とよく言われた)
One of the other aspects of software vs. hardware is that hardware is relatively easier to debug than most software environments. You will find that easy to debug environments like consoles have many software developers. This is important because the Japanese are very risk-adverse. Making claims on others and keeping everyone/everything in check is a big part of life in Japan.
Finally, programming is considered more of an engineer's profession than a creative profession. Engineering is seen as directly applying nature's laws into practice and as such, the approach is one of: "if you want to say build a bridge then you may choose from these designs that we already know are best"
Programming in Japan follows this cookie-cutter model and although there are very bright, creative engineers and programmers in Japan, the schooling system is very rigid.