And the weeks just keep on coming, don’t they? Another one has passed, so it’s time for a Week in Review. This week wasn’t particularly eventful, and was mostly dominated by various newsbits about Apple, but none of them were particularly earth shattering. The usual suspects like netbooks and Windows 7 also showed their faces. My Take is about yet another icy sport.
Week in Review
Let’s start with all the Apple news. OSNews kicked the week off with an editorial on what, exactly, is at stake in the Apple vs. Psystar case, as well as a more philosophical look at the whole situation. The article was relatively popular, and while many people agreed with the sentiments put forth in the article, there was a vocal minority who didn’t.
Some other interesting Apple tidbits also came up this week, such as news that the QuickTime player shipped with Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard operating system will sport a new interface that’s sure to raise some eyebrows: no window frame, and a titlebar that only appears on mouseover. Apple announced that it will reveal details on its upcoming iPhone OS 3.0, and we at OSNews discussed the possibility of an Apple netbook.
Speaking of netbooks, Microsoft is still vague on the whole issue of a possible Windows 7 SKU specifically for netbooks. ARM’s foray into the netbook market leaves analysts divided, with some of them stating that ARM is going to conquer more than half of the market, while another thinks that the lack of Windows is going to hinder ARM adoption.
Speaking of Windows and ARM, the OLPC team has announced a switch to the ARM architecture for its upcoming OLPC laptop, and has asked Microsoft to port Windows over to ARM. The OLPC team is convinced Microsoft will comply, but others aren’t as confident.
This week we also learned that Google and Opera are not satisfied with the IE8 “power switch” in Windows 7, and that Linux Foudnation’s Jim Zemlin thinks OEMs are approaching Linux on netbooks in the wrong way. And to end this week on a funny note, El Reg published a flowchart that can help you in finding out what kind of laptop you actually have.
My Take: Curling!
This week’s My Take is more a sort of public service announcement. Last week, we discussed speed skating and how it is such an awesome sport that everyone should watch. This week, we focus on another icy sport, this one even less popular: curling, probably the world’s most ridiculed past time.
Curling is a very old tactical sport, in which it is the goal to throw as many stones closer to the center of the circle than your opponent’s closest stone. An incredible amount of skill and tactical thinking is involved, and even though it may look boring at first sight, as soon as you know the rules of the game the penny drops. You start seeing the tactics behind the throws, the importance of guard stones, how important it is to put the hammer to its best use, the difference the brooming can make, and so on.
Coming Saturday, the World Women’s Curling Championships will begin, and they will last for a week. You can try and see if any of your sports channels covers the event (Eurosport covers it in Europe), because trust me, once you’re in, you’re hooked. The Canadian team is the one to beat (as always), and I’m personally rooting for Scotland.
…the style and content of this site has opened up a bit, but shouldn’t commentaries on sports be restricted to a personal blog?
And, yes, I understand the week in review is an editorial privilege, but sports on the front page of OS (that reads Operating System) News is a little weird.
I like these little departures. And Thom has refrained from analyzing Steve Wozniak’s performance on “Dancing With the Stars” 🙂
Thom, here is the USA, Bonnie Blair is my all-time favorite speed skater – she is all heart – just as you mentioned about the sport itself.
Also, of course the Canadiens are rabid about curling but, didn’t it come from Scotland originally? Thom, is that why you’re rooting for them?
As for IE, at this point I don’t see what the point is of being concerned about whether or not it’s included with Windows or not. Several years ago the situation was different. But now…it’s just another browser – and not a very good one at that.
because we want to FORCE choice upon the unsuspecting users and protect themselves from the evilness that is MSs built in browser!!11111oneoneone!!1
RAAAARRR *foams at mouth*
I think they have a cream for that.
Choice should be a fundamental right in all things not just computers, that is the point of things like democracy and consumerism. Lock in doesn’t help anyone.
Winter sports will never catch on for me, i’m not going through a northern winter again if i can avoid it.
I don’t believe in lock-in either – I just don’t think it matters much anymore
but at the point where the consumer says “i want it with windows” he made his choice already (which includes ie)
if you go to your car-dealer and say “i want a vw golf” your choice already boiled down to half a dozen models
and there is no pickup in this produktline, no matter how much you scream and bite…
I’ll take it a step further. Not only should IE be only one of the options available to people running Windows when they first boot up the computer, companies (Dell, HP, etc.) should have to give you an option of not only Windows but also Linux AND any other software OS company that is willing to work with those companies to make sure that there are good drivers for their hardware. Meaning the OS company has to pay the hardware company a set price (same as Microsoft or any other company) for creating those drivers.
People should then be able to go on the web and also into stores and be able to buy a computer and then go home and be able to choose, not just right away but also for as long as they are willing to use the disk space to hold them, other operating systems. They would be able to choose at startup which OS they want to run. And no OS should have the ability to make other OSs not run on the hardware. If they do, they would be stopped from being able to include the OS on ANY hardware.
Note that I do not use Windows or Linux but use a Mac.
I know you are now going to say that you should then be able to use whatever OS you want to on Apple computers. For the most part the answer is that you can but like with Dell, HP, etc., you still have to buy the OS that is currently default.
My answer to that is, if Microsoft wants to make a computer (basically they are with XBox) they can and they can choose to not let any other OS be installed on it by default. I’m sure it will come to that if Dell and HP, etc., start shipping other OSs on their computers. I’m positive that Microsoft is using that against them.
Based on this, since Microsoft is currently a Monopoly Microsoft shouldn’t be allowed to make their own computer with only Windows on it. Until Windows has no more than 65% of the OS market they should also have to install Linux, etc., on it if they build their own computer. This is to punish them for past behavior which made them into a monopoly.
I have played both Take-out Weight Curling 1 & 2 and came from it with a better appreciation of the sport. Quite fascinating the tactics behind it.
As a note, The Tim Horton’s Briar just finished up today (March 15) with Alberta (Kevin Martin), as expected winning the tournament with an 12-0 record and something like a 29-30 game undefeated streak for the past year.
I prefer hockey all the way, even though Sweden has had some great success in curling during the last decades. But the finals in the swedish hockey league is raging on as we speak and hockey is the number one sport up here.
I check OSNews everyday for updates, but I have never registered nor posted a comment before.
Little did I realize that I would visit the site today and get a curling update? Hey, I am Canadian and love watching curling, I watched most of the Brier this week. I have never heard of a “curling-friendly” tech. site before, but I am all for it. Keep up the good work!
Actually, the OS in OSNews stands for Outdoor Sports. Not a lot of people know that.
fretinator: pity curling is nowadays played almost entirely indoors, then
thom: jennifer jones had a string of very close games to win the Canadian championships, as it happens – I thought BC’s rink (Marla Mallett) played better all week, but they just got pipped to it in the end. Jones is definitely strong, though. Should be a good tournament…