$36 XP Easy On The Wallet, Hard On The Eyes?

from the artificial-barriers dept

theodp writes "Reading on-screen is hard on the eyes, wrote Bill Gates, stressing the need for higher screen resolution to prevent irritating and distracting computer users. But Gates' concerns apparently don't extend to those who are only able to cough up $36 for the Hindi version of Windows XP Starter Edition, which features crippled display resolution, limits the number of open windows or running programs to three, and provides a Taj Mahal screensaver in lieu of home networking and multi-account capabilities." Not sure that's really true... At a lower resolution, everything should appear larger, meaning it may be easier on the eyes. Of course, this might, in part, be a response to some of the geographical goofs Microsoft has made in the past, including angering many in India over its world map, to the point that some versions of Microsoft software were banned.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    theodp, 29 Sep 2004 @ 9:52pm

    800x600 Resolution problems

    As this Gates speech notes, Microsoft has been targeting at least 1024x768 resolution for YEARS, and Microsoft warns that their own web pages will look bad (e.g., clipping of content) when displayed with the maximum 800x600 resolution of 'XP-Lite.'

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    dorpus, 29 Sep 2004 @ 11:58pm

    Compromise World

    In poor countries, people tend to spend a pound to save a penny. Offering a degraded windows is a compromise for the millions of fake windows machines with no security patches, which allows computer viruses to wreak havoc throughout Asia and waste so much productivity. For every Indian that is doing "well" with an outsourced US job, there are 10 more Indians still living in abject poverty. In the IT world we may only hear about the prowess of elite Indians, but if you go into the public health professions, India/Asia is still an epic tragedy.


    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2004 @ 7:56am

    No Subject Given

    Arabic script fonts look terrible at low spatial resolutions. They look like doctor's prescriptions: a line of scribble with the occasional vertical or diacritical.

    Chinese/Japanese/Korean ideograms look terrible at low spatial resolutions. They look like an endless row of # signs.

    It's not the size of the letters, it's the size of the pixels. The same amount of script on a higher resolution display is MUCH more readable for non-Latin characters.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Chuck, 30 Sep 2004 @ 9:01am

    submission text


    Reading this submission made me realize how hard it is to read the italicized text. ;-)

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.