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Bill Gates et Steve Jobs s’entretenant du futur de l’informatique. La conversation de Palo Alto

Bill Gates et Steve Jobs s'entretenant du futur de l'informatique - La conversation de Palo Alto. Tableau inspiré du roman La carte et le territoire - 2016“Il le fait, pourtant, dans une de ses oeuvres les plus abouties, « Bill Gates et Steve Jobs s’entretenant du futur de l’informatique », qu’il a choisi de sous-titrer La conversation de Palo Alto.”… extrait du roman “La carte et le territoire” paru en 2010.
En tant qu’informaticien passionné depuis mes 13 ans par Steve Jobs (et ayant une dent depuis toujours contre Bill Gates), j’ai trouvé à l’époque l’idée de ce tableau assez fascinante. Et plus le temps a passé, plus j’ai eu envie de le posséder.
Comme il n’existait pas, et comme je ne suis pas peintre, j’ai cherché un moment avant de trouver l’artiste qui serait en mesure de réaliser une telle commande. Après plusieurs échecs, le projet est enfin devenu réalité grâce à Duytter, peintre dont j’ai tout de suite aimé les oeuvres.

Le tableau “Bill Gates et Steve Jobs s’entretenant du futur de l’informatique. La conversation de Palo Alto” est désormais dans mon salon, dans l’attente d’un encadrement digne de lui.

Prochain portrait, Linus Torvalds ? 🙂
Continue reading “Bill Gates et Steve Jobs s’entretenant du futur de l’informatique. La conversation de Palo Alto”

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Mandrake, Mandriva, Mageia, OpenMandriva… FOSS is FOSS!

Yesterday we learned that Mandriva, the company, was shutting down. I read a lot of sad comments on Twitter about it and realized that few of those guys seemed to be aware that actually Mandriva, the company, wasn’t doing a Linux distribution anymore for several years. The Mandriva Linux distribution, which earlier forked as PCLinuxOS, Mageia and others, is now OpenMandriva.

And as someone tweeted it, “FOSS is FOSS”. True!
That’s the power of FOSS that projects keep alive, and that’s the reason why I think that creating Mandrake Linux 17 years ago was not totally losing my time.

Now, we don’t have to be sad: we have pushed Linux to massive adoption and these have been awesome years! Now the Linux kernel is running millions smartphones worldwide, but the story is only starting! Let’s focus on today’s IT concerns: privacy and the Google hegemony. And a lot more fun stuff actually! Want to be part of it?

Gaël Duval – interested in Open Source, mobile operating systems and data privacy? Follow me on Twitter!

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iPhone 6 preview…

Apple, if the iPhone 6 is looking like that, I think I’ll give you more Euros (after iPhone 1, 3G and 4…). But if you keep on releasing an horrible one like the iPhone 5 that is way TOO LONG (reminds me of some old Nokias…), I’ll give up with Apple and switch to Samsung.

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The very end of the PC era, and why Android/Linux is about to Win

Even as a Linux enthusiast and big Linux promoter for decades, it’s not a mystery that I’ve never been an Android fan. In particular, all the user experience in Android is all but what mom and dad need (they need the iOS UI).

sku_137012_81Nevertheless, in the past few months there have been many, many signs that Android/Linux is going to win massively on personal computing devices, and that it means the end of the PC era.

The last two examples are:
– this mini PC running Android 4.0, that contains just what everyone needs at home as a basic PC. And it costs… $68.20!

– the Nikon Coolpix S800c which is loaded with Android so it can make itself all the job to publish and share pictures on the net, for example.

This is the very end of the traditional PC as we have seen it for years! Android/Linux, which is gaining a better user interface over the time, is going to be everywhere, on every device. And the main user PC will now concentrate on the smartphones and tablets that can possibly plug to more confortable terminals (better keyboard, TV or dedicated screen…).

The reason of the Android success? It’s open and free. On the opposite side, Apple’s iOS is *VERY* closed and expensive.

Apple has been making the money because they have revolutionized the smartphone market since 2007 and has kept for a while an advantage of the innovation side. But they are still doing money because of the cinetic energy of the iPhone and iPad on the market. And they are very unlikely to stay as one of the biggest market cap on the planet, because Android is moving fast and incredibly big.

Linus, you can be proud of this accomplishment!