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These days, thatbarely keeps the lights on at a small company.

The average price for a VR game on Steam is around $25, so these games are selling less than 10k units. So the top 30 games have sold maybe 400-500k units total.

Considering well under half-million headsets have have been sold (was 150k back in September, just after supply issues had been resolved) Let's say during the holiday rush they doubled that to 300k Vive units shipped.

That's a pretty pathetic attach rate, which means either (1) the games are terrible, or (2) the hardcore Adrenalin junkies are buying it for their simulation game of choice (cars, space combat, or sports), and nothing else.

If those estimates ae correct, the it looks like the attach rate for paid games on Steam VR is between 2-3. Those are Wii-level numbers! Don't expect any serious effort from anyone besides Valve with sell-through that bda.

Cause really, the hardcore simulation lovers assume the rest of the world loved a hardcore simulation, no matter the discomfort, or cost. These are the type of people who will drop a five hundred easy dollars on custom pedals or controllers for their favorite simulated distraction:

https://arstechnica.com/gadget...
http://www.thrustmaster.com/pr...

The solution is not to add another complicated layer on top.

The proposed solution also presents a single point of failure for the cryptographic resource. If one company manages to get hacked, or infiltrated by one agent, or gets betrayed by one employee, everything will be lost.

Bruce Schneier had the analogy of putting $100 into each of 10 safes, versus putting $1000 into one expensive safe. The $1000 in a single place makes it cost-effective for a burglar to try to break in, while $100 in ten safes does not, even if the 10 safes are individually less secure than the one safe.

We've seen this principle in action recently: losing our clearance info database to the Chinese, and RSA losing its secureid seed database.

If the security of IOT devices is managed by one system, all it takes is someone to offer $500,000 to an employee for the root info (root certificate, or whatever the chain of trust originates from) and everything is lost.

What technology could be saved from Apollo? The idea of the technology could be re-used but in terms of actual physical objects none of the items from Apollo can be used. For example some of the technology of space suits pioneered by Apollo can be used in making new space suits but it will still cost money to make the suits. It will cost money to design the suit from scratch in the first place.

A number of years ago a group of Engineers tore down a Rocketdyne F-1 and built a set of CAD drawings/solidworks models from it. It was a useful exercise to do, as there are few people with the experience of building large RP1/LOX engines. They of course have all the drawings for the engines, but the drawings only show part of the story. They were all hand-built machines and very much works of art, but each one was unique and had its own quirks. Also, because it was a crash program, not everything was documented. The design is there, but not how to put it together, what little tuning tweaks were done on the production line, etc...

Anyhow, at the end of the process, they actually wound up firing the gas generator for the turbopump on the test stand. This small part, on its own, produces more thrust than an F16 in full afterburner, and when coupled with its turbine, 55,000 shaft horsepower. Ars Technica put together a nice write up on the process.

Because if Google's proprietary OSes that are more locked down than Windows ever was (say what you want about Windows but I can grab a windows laptop and inside of 10 minutes be booting into anything from BSD to Zorin OS, just try that on a Chromebook) now counts as "Linux" because it uses the kernel, which even the community acknowledges that "the kernel is not Linux"? Well sheeit, by that metric you could claim Linux "won" half a decade ago since all those cheapo locked down routers used by millions are using the Linux kernel as part of the embedded OS.

It certainly doesn't come anywhere close to being open or supporting the four freedoms so if this is what it takes to "win" I'd say "well what exactly did you "win" other than replacing one corporate master for another?

We are already there:
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

As the IBM article states they are working with Samsung and Global Foundries while the other article is about Intel that is 3 of the major chip fab companies stating they are moving to silicon-germanium hybrid crystal over pure silicon for exactly this reason. Also the fabs on a new process node take time to setup and they need to be ready before circuit design comes in to fab prototype batches so they are usually a couple of years ahead of what is commercially available on the market.

How far in the past? https://arstechnica.com/securi...

What, like these? https://arstechnica.com/securi...

https://arstechnica.com/inform...

Meanwhile, a Spanish court order to block something else has caused Cogent to block ThePirateBay for all its customers globally.

And why would anyone trust them to produce a secure system that is closed source?

So you are therefore suggesting that Apple's operating system's are not secure because they are not open-source?

Of course. They have been proven to be insecure, there have been plenty of security issues with macOS, even one just the other day as well as multiple vulnerabilities that can compromise iOS devices through the browser just by visiting a website, these were often used to break through all security and jailbreak the devices.

Naturally that isn't to say Android or Windows or ChromeOS or Ubuntu etc are any more secure by virtue of being closed or open.

"New Mac malware pinned on same Russian group blamed for election hacks"
https://arstechnica.com/securi...
"spoke Russian" and the classic "worked mostly during Russian business hours" and finally
"pursued targets located in Ukraine, Spain, Russia, Romania, the US, and Canada"
Language, working hours over a few time zones and a list of nations?

Whats in "Russian cyberspies blamed for U.S. election hacks are now targeting Macs"
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
"has been operating for almost a decade." So the private security sector globally knows something about the methods... yet bulk data can still be moved undetected in the wild using the tools understood by private sector experts...
"Security researchers believe that the group is likely tied to the Russian Military Intelligence Service."
Most nations security services would not trust results from tools that have been discovered and are been talked about or tracked by other nations govs and private sector security experts.
Such methods get discovered while in use, the data flow out can be tampered with. Staying in any network with old tools just invites surveillance.
Very few nations with any skills would use old tools that can be detected while in use.

First, there ARE software patents. They describe ideas that can be implemented on a general purpose computer without any specialized hardware.

Second, pretty much NONE of software patents are useful. Most of them are filed for defensive purposes or to show "value" for investors and are never asserted or licensed. During the recent years 20 years or so the cost of patent litigation exceeded the licensing revenue for software patents ( https://arstechnica.com/inform... ).

Third, there ARE useful patents. Pretty much none of them are purely software ones. A novel agent for extinguishers would be a great invention. However, in software patent speech it would be described as: "An agent consisting of chemical matter that utilizes heat-sensitive decomposition reactions to rapidly terminate the free-radical heat-driven chains reactions", - without any actual chemical structure specified in the patent.

Buy two of the same books. Learn how to use a one time pad.
Take a holiday or sabbatical and give one book to the person you want to communicate with.
Teach that person about the use of a one time pad on paper. Don't encode or decode the message on the computer.
Take up landscape photography. Any digital camera will do.
Include a small banner ad like landscape image with every email.
Learn steganography and hide a short one time pad like message in every small landscape image in every normal email.
Set some constrained writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in the text of the message to show that a real message is in the image.
One time pad use should keep the message safe, if not reused or decoded or created on a computer.
Sending an image with every email sets up a pattern that is not new later when really needed.
The constant use of a one time pad message over the years build up a pattern, but if none are real, years of everyday tasks will get tracked by some gov or contractor.

Anonymity would need a numbers station. Years of been watch for no result might induce cost savings that would see more interesting people tracked.
The ability to trust any computer crypto from an OS, as software is low given the help US brands offer with decryption to 5 eye nations and other nations.
"Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages" (Friday 12 July 2013)
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
FISA, NSL, and new laws make all US domestic data part of collect it all.
"NSA to share data with other agencies without “minimizing” American information" (1/13/2017)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

which actually makes sense, if you want to keep selling Macs. The demographics of computer buyers are changing away from power-users to casual users scratching heads over whether a tablet is enough. And with malware slowly but steadily on the rise for MacOS, there is a reason why a lot of people from a high-school kid to your grandmother would be better off with a software depot that is safe and proven and offers automatic updates.

It ain't for me, but more and more even I get twitchy downloading something from softpedia or Sourceforge, wondering if someone's messed with the app I want. Tim Cook is trying to maintain the reputation that Macs "just work", and some sort of safe playroom may be the only way to ensure that for the potential buyers he is seeking to grow the line. I feel this... I spent hundreds, really hundreds, of hours cleaning malware junk off people's PC's back in the XP days ("I just downloaded this new bubble game, so why's my laptop so slow?") so I feel entitled to say I'm completely sick of malware.

I know this is a touchy subject for Slashdotters, and damn I don't want my Mac closed off from "sideloading" any more than on my Windows PC or Linux box. But there are too many stories (google them yourself) about Android apps being fouled, and even one or two evil apps squeak through Apple's app store. It's a hostile world, and Cook would be a fool not to try and do something about it because a malware infested machine, no matter what platform, sucks for everyone. I am confident that Apple needs it's power users enough they will never lock-down macs like in like iOS, but a warning that you're about to run an app from an unknown source, require an admin password, is a price I'm willing to pay. Might lead to a few less infected macs overheating and crashing in weird ways.

which actually makes sense, if you want to keep selling Macs. The demographics of computer buyers are changing away from power-users to casual users scratching heads over whether a tablet is enough. And with malware slowly but steadily on the rise for MacOS, there is a reason why a lot of people from a high-school kid to your grandmother would be better off with a software depot that is safe and proven and offers automatic updates.

It ain't for me, but more and more even I get twitchy downloading something from softpedia or Sourceforge, wondering if someone's messed with the app I want. Tim Cook is trying to maintain the reputation that Macs "just work", and some sort of safe playroom may be the only way to ensure that for the potential buyers he is seeking to grow the line. I feel this... I spent hundreds, really hundreds, of hours cleaning malware junk off people's PC's back in the XP days ("I just downloaded this new bubble game, so why's my laptop so slow?") so I feel entitled to say I'm completely sick of malware.

I know this is a touchy subject for Slashdotters, and damn I don't want my Mac closed off from "sideloading" any more than on my Windows PC or Linux box. But there are too many stories (google them yourself) about Android apps being fouled, and even one or two evil apps squeak through Apple's app store. It's a hostile world, and Cook would be a fool not to try and do something about it because a malware infested machine, no matter what platform, sucks for everyone. I am confident that Apple needs it's power users enough they will never lock-down macs like in like iOS, but a warning that you're about to run an app from an unknown source, require an admin password, is a price I'm willing to pay. Might lead to a few less infected macs overheating and crashing in weird ways.

It's difficult. A manufacturer would have to see so obvious a business case for making a super-speed non-silicon processor that the worries about risk would be swept aside. (And from a paranoid viewpoint, the military might want to keep a super-speed process tightly under its own control.) That said, IBM has been working with SiGe for decades and may have a viable process. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/ibm-unveils-industrys-first-7nm-chip-moving-beyond-silicon/

Be aware that SiGe is mostly used for mixed signal devices, where the ability of Ge to make good bipolar devices is useful. The native oxide of germanium is not a good insulator like SiO2, which makes Ge FETs problematic. There are other challenges with making Ge FETs, discussed here: http://www.adsel.ece.vt.edu/files/journal/74.pdf.

It's going to take time, and when we get there, the processes with new materials or silicon hybrids are going to be more expensive.

Ever look up the epic failure of Harris' software-defined radio contract?

Phew. Good thing https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/apple-scrambles-after-40-malicious-xcodeghost-apps-haunt-app-store/ never happened. Or http://www.cultofmac.com/241463/researchers-sneak-malicious-ios-app-into-the-app-store-undetected/ that. Or even http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-china-malware-idUSKCN0RK0ZB20150921 that (which is a precursor to the first link I posted, so they obviously aren't even very good at fixing the problems when they show up!)

But hey we live in a world of alternative facts, so believe whatever you want I guess. Truth is irrelevant in our brave new world.

Intel has been talking about 10nm for at least 3 years. They "pretended" to show off a 10nm chip recently, but all indications point to maybe 2018... the launch of 10nm has been delayed at least three times (official announcements).

When did intel announce 10nm chips || date range [2015 - 2016]

Feb 23, 2015 - The first chips based on Intel's new 10nm process are expected in late 2016/early ... to avoid the delays that haunted the belabored release of 14nm Broadwell.

Intel forges ahead to 10nm, will move away from silicon at 7nm | Ars ...

The most controversial part of the FCC's decision reclassifies fixed and mobile broadband as a telecommunications service, with providers to be regulated as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act.

Their bigger concern should be the exemptions provided to them under the OCILLA Act. If you argue that you're just a carrier and you can't block illegal content you're fine. But once you prove you CAN block illegal content then why aren't you blocking more of it?

That annoyed me, implying that the fastest wifi speed meant the fastest Internet speed. I hate deceptive advertising crap like that.

What's more annoying is that Verizon stopped their roll-out of FIOS in the North East after they got what they wanted, to encourage Comcast to come to the table and sell the Wireless spectrum that Verizon wanted. Once the deal was done, no more FIOS for you...

In fact, a Boston roll-out announced over the summer appears to be Verizon agreeing to a subsidized plan to expand FiOS to the home. However, investigations in to what exactly they are doing seem to indicate that the majority of the fiber being rolled out is specifically so that they can expand their wireless infrastructure. Their plan is to use 5G to connect homes instead of direct fiber to each house (less cost). The problem is that Wireless, as any WiFi expert can attest, sucks as far as reliability, interference from weather conditions and other sources, etc.

https://arstechnica.com/inform...

Does this mean that Microsoft front patent trolls like Acacia and Intellectual Ventures can still sue you for using third party cloud services.

So what if Apple offers a sane, standardized solution others asked them to offer? How about you just MOD DOWN IDIOTS LIKE STORMWATCH?

FTFY

https://arstechnica.com/apple/...

"Apple’s “new” UAC port wasn’t made by Apple, and it isn’t new"

https://arstechnica.com/apple/...

This is a connector used in some digital cameras, and accessories. They are usually compatible with USB micro cables, but has additional pins for the original cable carrying video or other signals.

Apple is just allowing manufacturers to use this port on one end of their cables. i.e.: it will now be possible to connect your Sony camera to a lightning port directly.

This took all of 15 seconds on Google to find:

Apple’s “new” UAC port wasn’t made by Apple, and it isn’t new

Stop being the typical dipshits that SlashDot is so full of these days and get a fucking clue already.

That goes for you, too, "editors". You don't even deserve the title. Stop wasting our time with bullshit drivel like this and do your fucking jobs.

Geez, Slashdot is now so slow that they're posting rants that are already ancient news.

No, Apple is not putting out a new connector. They've had requests from industry groups to allow Apple-certified cables using this unusual somewhat connector, most likely for attaching professional cameras to IOS-based devices. Apple complied with these groups. End of story.

https://arstechnica.com/apple/...

According to an article on Arstechnica, there is some problem with the current design, which means the recovered boosters are only good for one or two re-launches. They need the next version of Falcon 9, block 5 before they are properly re-usable.

https://arstechnica.com/scienc...

"It now seems likely that SpaceX will fly the landed boosters it currently has, at most, once or twice, before retiring them, instead of multiple times. Although the company hasn't elaborated on the problems with the engines, booster structure or composite materials that has challenged their attempts to re-fly its Falcon 9 first stages, Musk seems confident that changes to the Block 5 version of the rocket will solve the problem. "

The option of keeping a lot of email on a server for a long time due to the acoustically coupled modem limitations needed legal protection.
In 2017 your ISP email account is as legal protected as your home computer with all its files....
Email kept only at home on a computer, email that stayed on an ISP or server for years or just been networked along day or hours later. Email later found on some server when the server was under investigation with valid court paperwork for the server, accounts.
The other aspect is email on the move along the pipes and tubes of a providers network. Can a police charity public/private partnership scan every email and attachment to see if every file, link was under investigation by law enforcement or might be of interest to law enforcement in real time?
If that file was on a server for days or years or just moving from an account to another internet user?
Now all emails are been scanned at the server level anyway by different agencies globally for a lot of different reasons.
Police charity public/private partnerships will still have the server side real time scans of all files.

An easy FISA warrant or NSL will still get in, then allowing for legal, local domestic legal work.
The FISA warrant or NSL won't be used in a domestic court setting but if every US provider is in some way connected to other nations why not collect it all...
With new raw data sharing rules, domestic agencies will get all that raw bulk data, no more minimisation for domestic US users.
So new domestic privacy laws are great but as many other domestic agencies are now getting raw real time data ....???
NSA to share data with other agencies without “minimizing” American information (1/13/2017)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

Conspiracy Theory: Vincent Cerf while employed for Google argues for a 'level playing field' that ultimately helps Google escape the transportation costs of it's massive as-snooping traffic that the NSA considers a benefit to national security. Perhaps less sellable under Trump than Obama post-Snowden. Because despite what the FCC said in 10-201 about the nature of the 'level playing field' I always said to myself that I'd believe it when I saw it. And I've never seen it.

The bottom line- while I may also be able to compete by partnering with
existing cloud infrastructure services companies, am I free to compete on my own, paying the
same published rates for my data traffic on the 'general purpose technology'6 of the internet as
my neighbor?

https://lwn.net/Articles/657561/

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7522219498

http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-draft-k121024.pdf

https://www.wired.com/2013/07/google-neutrality/

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/google-accused-of-betraying-its-net-neutrality-stance/ (some facts wrong in article)

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/google-fiber-now-explicitly-permits-home-servers/

He was formerly one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington for both the cable and wireless industry. Many, including myself, expected him to be a revolving door stooge who would eagerly do the bidding of the telecoms industry.

Proving me wrong, he ultimately did a fine job as head of the FCC. Thanks for proving me wrong, Mr Wheeler.

Tom Wheeler

The US can then open its cities to more open telco network builds

I'm not sure which US you're talking about - the one I live in, led by conservatives, passes laws forbidding cities to compete with telcos. When the FCC tries to stop states from enacting such regulation (though of course, when enacted by Republicans it's not called regulation - rolls eyes), conservative states - specifically North Carolina and Tennessee - sue and win the right to block municipal broadband via regulation (sorry, via "competition enhancing legislation").

What did you expect? When Ajit Pai was named FCC chairman, the former VERIZON counsel who has never voted for any pro consumer FCC action, was certainly NOT going to do anything for the consumer. Fellow FCC commissioner O'Riley doesn't see any reason to provide subsidies for Broadband . They are cutting subsidies to low income consumers . You really didn't believe that the new FCC chair would look out for the consumer, the general public or those who can least afford it. We can look forward of four years of this.

What did you expect? When Ajit Pai was named FCC chairman, the former VERIZON counsel who has never voted for any pro consumer FCC action, was certainly NOT going to do anything for the consumer. Fellow FCC commissioner O'Riley doesn't see any reason to provide subsidies for Broadband . They are cutting subsidies to low income consumers . You really didn't believe that the new FCC chair would look out for the consumer, the general public or those who can least afford it. We can look forward of four years of this.

What did you expect? When Ajit Pai was named FCC chairman, the former VERIZON counsel who has never voted for any pro consumer FCC action, was certainly NOT going to do anything for the consumer. Fellow FCC commissioner O'Riley doesn't see any reason to provide subsidies for Broadband . They are cutting subsidies to low income consumers . You really didn't believe that the new FCC chair would look out for the consumer, the general public or those who can least afford it. We can look forward of four years of this.

Standards when a human is on board are way more stringent than for cargo. They have to meet an overall 1 in 500 probability of failure during ascent

Are you sure? Ars mentions "NASA's mission requirement for a loss-of-crew probability of 1-in-270" -- presumably "mission requirement" covers ascent, orbit and descent.

https://arstechnica.com/scienc...

And worst of all, there is no UI for finding and disabling stealth plug-ins that get installed by other apps.

Or, considering that Chrome's chief of security recently said that antivirus software is "my single biggest impediment to shipping a secure browser," maybe Chrome is going to get rid of the ability for other apps to install stealth plug-ins at all.

Considering they have at least tried to make the presence of such plug-ins more transparent in the past, I'm optimistic that's indeed their plan.

it's here in case you missed it. I recommend comparing it to say, a package of neosporin. Just glance at them. Pick out the outlines. They looks about the same don't they?

Homeopath companies know what they're pushing is junk science. So they dress it up to look like real medicine. I've tried plenty of actual medicines that people swear by but that do nothing for me. I don't keep trying them, but still. There's a lot of OTC stuff out there. Now, as a nerd I'm intensely cynical (comes from the years of bullying). Take somebody who hasn't been shit on their whole life and it's not too hard to see them making the mistake. Especially if they don't frequent /. and read the stories on Homeopathy.

Here's Muhammad Ali with in-car vinyl

The simple pass-through adapter connects between a USB-C cable and a USB-C device, providing real-time data about the power draw, in either direction, ...What the monitor can't do, however, is protect a device if there's a detected problem in the power flow. It's not a surge protector, nor does it have any built-in alarms or warnings because it has no idea what the power requirements are for whatever device you're using it with.

It can't measure the power flow unless it's put in-line with the device you're charging and the charger.
It has no automatic warnings or alarms. You have to sit there and watch it while your device is charging.

Didn't Benson lose some equipment as soon as he plugged it in? If this device can't really test anything on it's own, how is it going to "help me prevent my gadgets from being fried"? Once I've hooked it to my device if something goes wrong it's too late.

The article is crap. Most of it seems like pure editorializing by the author. The premise the author seems to build on is actually contained in the summary:

Microsofts licensing business, which sells Windows to third-party PC makers, was up 5 percent last quarter, confirmed CFO Amy Hood during an earnings call on Thursday. The “non-pro” (consumer) market grew 5 percent, beating the overall decline of the PC industry.

“Our partner ecosystem continued to see growth and share gains in the Windows premium device category,” Hood continued.

If you read this quote, you will notice that nowhere Apple is mentioned. I think the story from Ars Technica about Microsoft earnings is based upon the same source material. If you feel like reading it, funnily enough, you will not be able to find a single mention of the words "Apple" or "Mac" in it.

Off hand I can remember an attack on GStreamer's support for Super NES audio. The interpreter for the Sony SPC700 had some serious bounds checking defects, allowing a program running on the emulated SPC700 to manipulate host memory.

This seems unlikely, considering that the iPhone 7 only has a small 1960mAh battery. Apple don't have any magic super efficient radios or a way to drive headphones that uses less energy than everyone else. Their off-the-shelf flash memory and RAM isn't lower power than the competition.

In fact, we can make some educated guesses here. The last iPod Touch (6th gen) had a 1000mAh battery and Apple claimed up to 40 hours of playback. Let's take their word for it, they are saying 25mAh/h in the best case (screen off, everything in minimum power). So around 200mAh for an 8 hour work day, or 10% of the iPhone 7's battery. But of course the iPhone 7 has other stuff to keep alive, like the cellular/wifi radios (so it can accept incoming calls and notifications/messages), it has the Bluetooth radio to keep on for the headphones. Let's say the rest of the hardware comes out even (e.g. more RAM, but it's lower power), it's still impossible for it to play all work day on your claimed 10-12% battery.

Plus the earpods only get 5 hours battery life anyway so you need two pairs of them, or some other type which you must remember to charge up or keep plugged in.

So, you are calling Apple a liar?

Remember, the A11x SoC has FOUR cores (a first for Apple SoCs), and two of them are special "low power" cores. I would imagine that if you are simply listening to music, that is a prime example to something that can be handled entirely by the low-power cores.

Add to that that Apple is VERY good at power-management, and I would bet that listening to music on the iPhone 7 series is an EXTREMELY power-parsimonious activity.

Anecdotes are not data, of course; but with my iPhone 6 Plus (which does NOT have low-power cores), I can stream Apple Music over WiFi all during the work day, and only eat about 10% or so of my battery. According to Apple, the iPhone 6 Plus will achieve 50 hours of music playback (which I believe Apple defines as "wireless" (streamed) music), with its 2915 mAh battery. So, assuming an 8 hour workday, and extrapolating from a single workday of my experience, this comes out to 1.25% per hour (which seems about right), or, IOW, 66 hours.

Now of course, all things are not exactly equal, although Li-ion batteries have an extraordinarily flat discharge curve; but as you say, every time you wake up the display, etc. you screw with that discharge rate a bit, but considering the fact that the iPhone doesn't charge the battery to much more than 80%, nor allow it to discharge much below 10% of actual total capacity, and we have a good guesstimate that 50 hours is likely a "real" number.

And as I said, my phone doesn't have the advantage of the special low-power cores to help stuff alone a bit. So, I actually believe that 80 hours on an iPhone 7 Plus is a reasonably accurate number.

Remember, it's an embedded SYSTEM, and ALL the pieces-parts, both hardware AND software, can work together to give you an overall power consumption over time that simply looking at datasheets won't reveal.

I'm sorry that Qualcomm's SoC's are such power-hogs (the GN7 had a battery capacity nearly TWICE that of the iPhone 7 Plus, but actually achieved a slightly LESS run-time); but them's the facts.

I'm building a hackintosh tomorrow that will annihilate the Mac Pro for about a quarter of the cost.

Good luck!

Microsoft has already started doing this with Edge. Mind you they are only doing it on the Enterprise version of Windows, but I could definitely see this happening on the consumer versions in the near future. It definitely makes sense considering all the stuff the browser is doing to make sure that it doesn't interfere with the security of the system.

Re God forbid the NSA could pose as thegarbz on Slashdot, oh noes!
The security services got to use quantum insert.
GCHQ Created Spoofed LinkedIn and Slashdot Sites To Serve Malware (November 11, 2013)
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
UK spies continue “quantum insert” attack via LinkedIn, Slashdot page (11/11/2013)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

An approximation of this was done by many publishers with textbooks. The result was importation of the cheaper overseas editions of textbooks into the US. And the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Sale Doctrine covers imported copyrighted works.

A Meitu spokesman actually replied to the ArsTechnica article on this:
http://arstechnica.com/securit...

Since they're a Chinese company, they have to collect their own user data since they don't have access to user data from the Apple / Google stores. So they likely have less info about you than most Western app devs.

I installed Meitu on an Android 7.1 device yesterday. It only asks for device permissions as it needs them. I denied giving it access to my phone functions and the app works fine without that telemetry. But if you're really paranoid, go ahead and play with it in Andyroid or something.

LG to put Wi-Fi in every appliance it introduces in 2017

Apple also only publishes to its own platform, basically pretendin that only theirs exists, so they have at least some excuse. But, I'm curious why Microsoft does this and yet if somebody else wanted to install their services on a Windows lock screen, Microsoft would have none of that.

It's probably a good thing that both consumers and developers are eschewing Microsoft's UWP and mobile platforms to the point that even Microsoft is starting to do the same.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

http://m.windowscentral.com/mi...