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Apple

iWatch Prototypes Could Be Ready, Apple Hires Fitness Physiologists For Tests 100

Posted by samzenpus from the here-it-comes dept.
SmartAboutThings writes "Recently, Apple has been on a hiring spree, allegedly adding to its 100+ team of members of the iWatch team a sleep expert, a former expert in pulse oximetry and many others. Now, according to a recent job listing on Apple's own website, it seems that Cupertino is looking for physiologists for fitness and energy tests. In my opinion, this can only mean that the iWatch is nearing its final stage and that experts are required to assess how it fares."
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iWatch Prototypes Could Be Ready, Apple Hires Fitness Physiologists For Tests More

iWatch Prototypes Could Be Ready, Apple Hires Fitness Physiologists For Tests

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  • first post (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    F' beta.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      F' beta.

      Why in Odin's name would a company buy a site whose user base was historically so anti M$ and expect that they could make money from it by changing it to a M$/advertising oriented site. It reeks of affluenza enhanced megalomania. Someone's gonna buy this site for pennies in a few months.

      And have you noticed the polls? 1 out of 4 has something to do your employment status or conditions. Can you spell market research? I'll bet your resumes' IP, writing style and any other identifying data is being matched to

      • Re:first post (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 06, 2014 @11:03PM (#46182213)

        Why in Odin's name would a company buy a site whose user base was historically so anti M$ and expect that they could make money from it by changing it to a M$/advertising oriented site. It reeks of affluenza enhanced megalomania.

        Because sites like Slashdot were VERY influential in communicating public opinion on just how bad Vista was.

        Microsoft recognized that, and engaged Waggener Edstrom and Burson-Marsteller to manage Social Media Marketing (SMM) for Windows 7 onwards. They used huge numbers of sock-puppet teams to quash any suggestion that Microsoft products were not stable or optimum in their roles. As well as promoting Microsoft, they heavily attacked competitors like Firefox, Google, Linux, Libre Office, Android etc. Any posting of FOSS or alternative products attracted a storm of FUD talking points that made it impossible to have a rational discussion.

        Because the discussions became so polluted with marketers, most of Slashdot's readership left the site in the years between the Windows 7 release and now. The marketers have stayed though, and still post and moderate to present as rosy a view of their sponsors proprietary products as possible, while spewing FUD about Open Source. If you look at Slashdot's current demographic, most visitors are from call-centers in Mumbai and Pune in IndiaMumbai and Pune in India [alexa.com]. They rarely contribute directly to discussions, but copy/paste/post the SMM talking points at every opportunity and moderate their partners into visibility and competitors to oblivion.

        Dice gets most of their income from companies like Microsoft, Apple etc who pay for their products to receive favorable and frequent attention.

        • "Dice gets most of their income from companies like Microsoft, Apple etc who pay for their products to receive favorable and frequent attention."

          Do not forget Google (How many GoogleGlass Articles this week?).

          US5722418
          +
          US5644363
          +
          GoogleGlass
          +
          Acceptance
          =
          ????

          If history is any sort of an indicator, any rights we sell today, our children must buy back with blood tomorrow

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          While this is certainly cool, is there a list where I can cite specific accounts of who are paid marketers rather than unaffiliated customers? Is this theory simply somebody's fantasy?

      • That's why I make it a point to post utter bullshit to all those polls...

      • A better question would be why do ACs keep posting this shit against the beta, when in a separate article, the powers that be said they were backing down and re-evaluating?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by clubby ( 1144121 )
          Because they said they're slowing down, not backing down. We say "scrap the whole thing, it can't be saved" and they say "we won't force it down your throat until we think we can get away with it." Until they give a little more ground than that, we'll have to keep pointing out that what they're saying and doing are unacceptable.

        • because for a number of use the response to
          WHAT DO YOU WANT

          ends with a wave and "Can you and your associates arrange that Mr SoulSkill??

          Okay heres the deal when the US elects a President that actually does what s|he promised when s|he was on the campaign trail then you can shut down Classic Slashdot.

    • Apple iWatch can't load Beta (Score:4, Funny)

      by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Thursday February 06, 2014 @10:00PM (#46181685) Homepage Journal

      they tried to load Slashdot Beta on the iWatch and it exploded, taking out several hipster Apple testers.

    • Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nitage ( 1010087 ) on Thursday February 06, 2014 @10:12PM (#46181799)

      WE HEAR YOU We did tell you we wanted feedback. Here's our response.

      Your response shows that you didn't hear. The beta is an experiment that has failed. Accept that and move on.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Blimbo ( 528076 )

      F' beta.

      Yep, i don't often comment, but that thing called /.BETA is hard to look at..No way i want that in my casual browsing future...

    • I'd love a nice watch that I could browse classic Slashdot on. Fuck Beta.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MouseR ( 3264 )

      I need a few hundred moderator points to troll-flag posts.

      So you dont like the beta. Stop polluting every frickin news story. Some of us would like to read and comment.

  • We Are Not Your Audience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Osgeld ( 1900440 ) on Thursday February 06, 2014 @09:20PM (#46181303)

    Considering the news is days to weeks old the only value here is the COMMUNITY. We do not clap for your poorly worded couple paragraph news scrapes like a bunch of mindless buffoons, we are here to debate, and find a common ground on topics that we find interesting.

    There is plenty of things to fix on slashdot, beta does not address a single one of them and makes the site pointless to visit. Your move...

  • Are you not entertained! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nightbrood ( 6060 ) on Thursday February 06, 2014 @09:26PM (#46181373)

    Try us Slashdot.... if you want to proceed with Beta then let's do the following test:

    1.) Disable comments for a day
    2.) Post stories that are "more accessible" for your "wider audience" to consume
    3.) Watch your stats (we know you are obsessing over them.)
    4.) Tell us how you like your numbers

    Don't screw this up DICE... I've enjoyed Slashdot as a community for 16 years but I am not afraid to move and it sounds like much of the community feels the same way.

    #IamSlashdot

    • I've enjoyed Slashdot as a community for 16 years but I am not afraid to move and it sounds like much of the community feels the same way.

      I'm not afraid to move, it's just that I don't think anything else will be as good. reddit is good if you turn off the default subreddits and subscribe to AskHistory and such, but the commenting system comes no where near to Slashdot's (there's just so much shit on there). I guess that's why I'm commenting on this so much: I care. I want to stay here.

      I will leave though.

      • If there is one thing I know about this community it is that, unlike the vast majority of other communities out there, we have a huge concentration people with the knowledge, skillset, and passion to create and preserve our community without need for a corporate minder. Perhaps Slashdot beta was the kick in the pants we needed to find out how much we truly valued it. I am already looking into how I can assist in creating a new home for our community if Dice decides that they are not going to listen the comm

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by clonehappy ( 655530 )

          I agree. However, while it wouldn't be hard to replicate the system and start over anew, we would lose the years of discussions that slashdot has archived. Don't overlook the value of over a decade and a half of the discussions that have made this site what it is lo these many years.

          And the value, for what it's worth, of someone with a 3-4 digit ID coming into the discussion to smack someone with his/her cane. We know what that low UID means, not that the person is speaking the gospel, but mayb

          • I agree. You are correct about this and it would be regrettable to lose it. Hopefully DICE is sensible and starts treating the community with more respect and comes up with a solution that makes everyone happy.

            The biggest challenge here is being willing to lose that historical treasure trove. If you are not willing to lose it then you have no power over the changes others are making that affect you. I would have been quite happy to stay lurking as I normally do. However, the unanimity of the response from o

            • I think it would be wise to start a new site already. The worst that can happen is the new site will fail and Slashdot will bounce back and return to its roots.

      • Hell, might as well use the opportunity to shill my own stuff (seems like that's what /. is for these days, anyway)...

        I was one of the first 5,000 /. users, and like most of you, I too am fed up with all the shenanigans since Dice took over.

        That said, I'd like to personally invite the whole, babbling mess of you to come on over to The Register at www.theregister.co.uk.

        We're different. We're a little weird. We like to write headlines that pass people off. A lot of the site is pitched from a UK perspective,

  • Not an idle threat (Score:3)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Thursday February 06, 2014 @09:26PM (#46181381) Journal

    If you think this contributor won't pack up and leave when things get sucky, just hop on over to my Flickr [flickr.com] page and note the date of my last picture.

    Lotsa luck getting that ad revenue without contributors. News aggs plastered with ads are a dime a dozen. You're Digg4ing your grave.

  • Cool (Score:1)

    by koan ( 80826 )

    Now instead of wondering if you're a douche I'll know you are.

  • Don't forget that Apple has been offering fitness accessories with Nike since 2006.

  • Boycott Slashdot (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dear Timothy:

    We don't want this crap you call a beta. We will leave! You will be out of a job! Your wife will leave you.

    Beware the ides of March! This beta will be the death of Slashdot. Beware the ides of March!

    Boycott Slashdot

  • So.. Timothy has said:

    Right now, we're directing 25 percent of non-logged-in users to the beta

    I hardly saw any real words of action in his post. I would rather have heard something along the lines of.. "We have mistakenly pushed beta on 25 percent of our users prematurely. We will be directing those users back to the classic site while we action your feedback regarding, fully functional commenting, over spaced generic design and fixing reported bugs. We do not intend on directing users to the beta site ag

  • O Dice-O-CAre
  • iWatch Beta disenfranchising the /. community.
  • So, I was logged in and didn't get to see the beta so I just checked it out. I have to ask something. Why oh why has light grey on lighter-grey become the new trendy style for UI? Do people no longer wish to be able to read the shit that is on a page and just mindlessly stare at a whitewashed screen? You do realize that some contrast is OK right? There is a reason that people use black type on paper. The Kindle isn't coming out with a light grey on white version to make it cooler. Fuck! It was bad enoug

    • Yeah, I noticed the gray on gray too, and gave them feedback.

      So, I just checked the current site. Background is okay at ff/ff/ff but the text is 31/37/39. I don't get it, that's just plain nuts.

  • I'd love to have an onboard pulse oximeter . . . being young (ish) and in good health, on the rare times that I've had it measured it was 98-99% However, I'm very curious about what happens during: * Intense exercise * Illness I've even considered buying one just to find out. . .

  • Maybe those experts Apple hired were not to oversee the development of iWatch but to diagnose a mass disorder that had hit its employees hard.

    Hey, think differently, after all.

  • A modest proposal (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps instead of spamming "fuck beta" in the comments of every article, instead we could just comment as usual except with an extra phrase at the end or in the sig. The phrase in question is "Ceterum censeo Beta esse pedicandum," which basically translates as, "By the way, I think the Beta must be fucked." (Anyone who actually knows Latin should feel free to improve the phrase's grammar if necessary.) I think this would be a good way to protest now that Dice is starting to get the point. Keep doing th

  • For all the lurker types out there, fuck beta
  • An iWatch??? Oooooh shiny! I wish that I had an iWatch prototype so that I knew exactly when 2359 hrs rolls around on Feb. 8, and I can leave this inglorious Beta disaster once the week-long "slashcot" begins. There might not be much point in waiting for the trainwreck to begin; it's already in progress, and we're all starring in it. Dunno if I can masochistically "tough out" this entirely needless murder of my favorite discussion forum. I very rarely post, but I read a great deal of it and am always entert

    • look forward to some other new site/wiki/blog/Fuhrerbunker/casino where I can digitally rub shoulders with y'all in the VERY near future. There are already several posts in other current threads about a possible Altslashdot.org; who knows what other new purpose-built destinations might come to be? But I truly have very little further hope for this fascinating & enlightening place that I've been visiting since before 9/11. It's a place that I miss already, if you know what I mean.

      Whenever it's ready! I'll subscribe too.

  • The design process - iwatch vs Beta (Score:4)

    by spasm ( 79260 ) on Thursday February 06, 2014 @10:56PM (#46182137) Homepage

    "this can only mean that the iWatch is nearing its final stage and that experts are required to assess how it fares"

    Or alternately, they're getting physiologists in at the early design stage so it's actually designed around user needs not marketroid fantasies.

    Somewhat unlike the process that led to Beta.

  • The beta interface is terrible! (Score:3)

    by denominateur ( 194939 ) on Friday February 07, 2014 @01:53AM (#46183261) Homepage

    I've been a slashdot reader for a good 15 years now and I really hope that the new beta design changes substantially before being pushed to production.

    1) FAR too much white space, only two or three stories fit on my screen! This is not Windows 8 and most of us don't have the attention span of a goldfish....
    2) Titles have the same background as the story text. This makes it much more difficult to quickly skim the site. Look at this, I made three paragraphs and there's about an INCH of space between them!
    3) The comment system has been thoroughly broken.

    Launch a poll for the new design and see what happens...

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