Aten Design Group, a design firm in Colorado has hosted a “funeral” today for the aged web browser Internet Explorer 6, which is quickly being thrown out in favor of faster, safer browsers, including its descendants IE7 and IE8.
The service will have a coffin with a dummy inside with an IE6 logo for its head. Anyone who attends is welcome to eulogize the browser with memories, good or bad.
Some users already posted their thoughts, on the invitation page.
“I feel terrible admitting this, but … I never really liked him,” writes “Eddie Escher,” via CNN. “He had so many hang-ups, and he looked awful — especially in his later years. But… he was always there when you needed him. You have to give him that.”
The real nail in the coffin (pun intended) is coming next week when Google pulls all IE6 support from its Google family of sites, including Docs and Gmail. YouTube will drop support within a month.
All I will say on the matter is I hope IE6 dies fast, there is absolutely no reason anyone should be using it, ever.
Result for: nail in the coffin
The world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has ended the production of its only WiMax device. It’s another nail in the coffin for WiMax in the battle against the more widely adopted Long-Term Evolution (LTE).
“We have ramped down the N810 WiMax Edition tablet. It has reached the end of its lifecycle,” said a Nokia spokesperson. It is unusual for a product to have a lifecycle as short as N810 Wimax had. Even the trendiest of models tend to be on the market at least a year.
Canadian Nortel Networks Corp has estimated that approximately 80 percent of the mobile phone providers will shift towards LTE and the rest will go for WiMax.
According to Reuters Nokia has not ruled out future WiMax models. “We will continue to follow the technology and its evolution,” the Nokia representative said.
Result for: nail in the coffin
It seems that over the course of the last month, HD DVD has been taking loss after loss, but it seems the giant retailer Wal-Mart has finally put the final nail in the coffin.
The company announced this morning that it has chosen sides in the next-gen format war and that by June it will only be stocking Blu-ray Disc players, completely dropping HD DVD in the process.
Susan Chronister, of Wal-Mart’s video division wrote in her blog earlier this morning that the company made its decision following Best Buy’s and Netflix’s recent decision to snuff HD DVD.
“By June, Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines and, of course, standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players,” Chronister said. She then added, “if you bought the HD DVD player like me, I’d retire it to the bedroom, kid’s playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard-def movies, and make space for a (Blu-Ray Disc) player.”
That may be a good decision as well considering that HD DVD players are, on average, excellent up converting players for Standard Definition movies and are still much, much cheaper than its counterpart Blu-ray players.
As much as this latest blow hurts consumer choice, I hate to admit that this is the end for HD DVD. Lets see if Blu-ray fairs any better against digital downloads.
