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true: Apple, directly or indirectly, uses child and slave labor to make consumer electronics.

true: So does everyone else.

true: You don't care.

If you want to cause change: Either mass-protest ALL of these companies and their products (good luck!), or do a startup if you have a better idea.

Otherwise: Stop pretending and continue loving your "precious" at all costs while screwing underage Chinese girls, you disgusting pedophiles.

Most profitable company
Record iPad sales.
Record iPhone sales.

Apple takes 52% of all smartphone profits
Apple takes 66% of all smartphone profits
Apple takes 75% of all smartphone profits

How long before they are at 100%?

LG Posts net loss
Motorola Mobility net loss
Sony Ericsson net loss

What do you think will happen to android market share when every company stops making them because they went out of business?

Seriously, why not link the source instead of some spammy blog?

Because if we don't link to the spammy blog, the spammy blog doesn't get a boost in search engine rankings.

Seriously, why not link the source instead of some spammy blog?

plasma pong...except atari had the creater take it down because of property rights

This one? http://download.cnet.com/Plasma-Pong/3000-2099_4-10511143.html

Download the "Direct Dowanload Link" only - setup.exe is a MZP file but
won't uncompress so I didn't mess with it.

won't uncompress = exceeded the time I'm going to screw around with a file limit.

Shedding Light, Casting Light, or Bringing to Light -- but Throwing Light on something? Is this a thing? I mean, you can Throw a Switch, but Light?

That said, unless you're encrypting the datastore

However, the risk is quite low even without considering the issue of short (six or fewer characters, including letters, numbers, and punctuation) or solely numeric passwords. For starters, access to the app’s data store is required — either via an iTunes backup or an iOS device containing the app and its data — and any iOS security controls must be bypassed first. The flaws that Elcomsoft has identified cannot be exploited (as far as is currently known) over the Internet, which further limits exposure.

I wouldn't be too concerned if this were desktop PCs, but these are devices you carry around with you and may leave laying somewhere while you go to the bathroom, or have stolen. You shouldn't keep all your important passwords as plain-text in your wallet or purse... A weak password store is not much better than this.

There's a much higher chance of physical access to a portable device, especially one you carry with you everywhere in public, than there is to the desktop PC. This is why physical access is less of a concern for PCs than having it remotely exploited: You don't drag it around in public.

Physical access to the device means game over unless the data-store is strongly encrypted. Data Extraction Devices Exist, and police have been using them without a warrant. To my knowledge these devices don't work on iPhones, yet, but anything in plain-text or enciphered weakly would still be a concern if physical access to the device is gained.

Having a password store with a weak password is a bit alarming. If you're going to have a central point of failure in your pocket, out on your desk, in your hand on a cab, then the security of that single point of failure is very important. I know an unscrupulous cab driver who gets $50 for handing your forgotten phones over to street thugs. They pay $75 if the device hasn't been locked. The thugs actually use Faraday cages to prevent remote wipes. The point is: They're already interested in your data. It's only a matter of time until they have tools to brute force your password stores, they may have them already. With a weak password that can be brute-forced in one or two days, this is an issue that would cause me concern. That is: I'd want a stronger password and a manager that requires re-auth after standby mode is entered -- Laymen, like my brother, actually think 4-6 character pass-code is adequate to protect their bank credentials.

IMHO, the fact that they allow such weak passwords for such an important single point of failure is a serious design flaw. If a weak password is used there should be some minimal end user education, perhaps via big splash screen saying: "Your Password is Very Weak -- Do Not Store Important Passwords in this Password Store"

Even a few larger ones. Ernie Ball is one of (if not the) largest guitar string manufacturers in the world. They switched to Open Source after a BSA lawsuit.

In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.

Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."

Ball's IT crew settled on a potpourri of open-source software--Red Hat's version of Linux, the OpenOffice office suite, Mozilla's Web browser--plus a few proprietary applications that couldn't be duplicated by open source. Ball, whose father, Ernie, founded the company, says the transition was a breeze, and since then he's been happy to extol the virtues of open-source software to anyone who asks.

The Ernie Ball Story was my motivation to switch. Slowly the last reasons to dual boot are vanishing. One of the most recent changes is in regards to using a netbook as a DMX 512 remote for adjusting the stage lights while on a lift instead of taking a console or needing a partner and radio to turn on various lights. Drivers and software for Linux was scarce and difficult to set up until recently. QLC on Ubuntu makes the process plug and play.

Even though the Ernie Ball story is almost a decade old, many still hear about it and find the BSA has not changed their ways.
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

Ernie Ball (The guitar people) left Microsoft years ago because of these tactics. http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

This case happened a while ago; any comparable non-tech companies that have a similar story to tell?

Huh? "Years later nothing has changed?" Are you aware that solar prices have been falling at an incredible rate recently? See this article, for example, which points out ,"From 2009 to 2010, the price of a residential solar electric system fell 17 percent," and, "The trend will continue this year as the average cost of systems has already fallen 70 cents per watt, or 11 percent in the first half of 2011." Or as Wikipedia points out, "As of 2011, the cost of PV has fallen well below that of nuclear power," and, "In some locations, PV has reached grid parity, the cost at which it is competitive with coal or gas-fired generation."

We've been hearing stories for years about improvements that would reduce the cost of solar power. And it's precisely because of those improvements that solar power has, in fact, been getting steadily cheaper.

The not surprising result has been a huge increase in the use of solar power. From the same Wikipedia page, the total worldwide solar capacity has grown from 5.4 GW in 2005 to 67.4 GW in 2011: an increase of 1148% in just six years.

In 2011, Google spent $5.2 billion on research

Just to put that in perspective, the entire DARPA research budget for 2011 was 3.28 billion. This is the organization that develops a lot of the "Gee whiz" technology oft discussed right here on Slashdot. For a single company to devote more money to R&D than DARPA is just mind-blowing.

DARPA has of course done amazing things in its history, and if Google can even approach the same magnitude of results it will change the technology world. Whether it can achieve something that impressive is an open question.

Interestingly, the current DARPA director, Regina Dugan, has announced she is leaving the Pentagon to work for Google. So perhaps I am not the only one to notice the parallels ... Dr. Dugan is one of a very small handful of people with experience managing multi-billion-dollar research budgets.

All of the major carriers have coverage maps that are more or less accurate.

Verizon: www.verizonwireless.com/wireless-coverage-area-map.shtml

AT&T: http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/#?type=data

Sprint: http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp?

T-Mobile: http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/pcc.aspx

Other Sites that may be useful:
http://www.cellreception.com/coverage/
http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phone-coverage-map/

Behold, the power of Google.

Remember, they did try once to update the look and feel of the site and make it more attractive, particularly to women. Unfortunately, that design was unbearably awful to just about everyone else. Thank god it was just done on April 1.

I certainly agree that their current rate of growth isn't sustainable (an article a few weeks back pointed out that if they do sustain it, they'll pass the GDP of France and Spain in a few years), but to suggest that a bust is imminent in the near future seems foolish, though a plateauing seems likely.

Depending on which analyst you choose to believe and how you categorize devices, they have somewhere between 55% and 75% market share in the tablet market, which is quickly shaping up to displace a large portion of the PC market (last quarter Apple sold more iPads than the PCs sold by each of the major manufacturers). Their lead there, while it's sure to take a few hits in the coming years, will be strong enough to sustain them for quite some time to come, especially as that market grows and Apple's sales grow to match the market. Android has yet to prove itself credible competition in that space (the two leading Android tablets, the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire, are both still being sold at a loss), but Windows 8 might be able to disrupt things.

Smartphones are an area where there's much better competition, but they have a healthy market share there, and their profit share is over 75% for the entire cell phone industry (Source). Again, they seem to have set up a winning business model that will keep them running for years. Likely not at this growth rate, but at least at the current level of operation.

Even the Mac has been seeing growth. Apple has been the only major manufacturer posting sales growth in the PC market consistently for the last five years. Apple posted sales growth of over 20.7% for their Mac line last year, compared with a sales decline of 5.9% for the industry as a whole. If you pull Apple's growth from that -5.9% for the industry as a whole, the other manufacturers were collectively down 8.5%. (Source)

And really, while this might seem like a lot of new jobs, it's not atypical for Apple. In 2002 they had roughly 12,000 employees. By 2011 they had over 63,000, and they saw their revenue go from $5.7B to $108.2B in that time. Adding another 3600 is in line with what they've been doing, and it wouldn't make sense to consider it to be a case of over-hiring any more than it would make sense to consider their addition of roughly 5,000 employees a year over the last ten years that way. Clearly the stategy has been working for them so far. (Source)

Again, I don't doubt that their growth will slow in the coming years, but I think it's a bit early to say that a bust is coming. If anything, they're likely to stall out as they reach their full potential.

>What Microsoft has done with Windows 8 is it has taken a UI that works and put a big curtain in front of it (Metro) so that every time you want to use the OS the way you're accustomed to doing, you have to push the curtain aside. And as soon as you push the wrong button (the Windows key) or you want to launch a new application, the curtain drops down again.

Unpin all the Metro tiles and keep only desktop apps pinned, and the tiles become nothing more than a revamped Start screen and you can use shortcuts for other tasks.
>Keyboard shortcuts do not make an "OS."

What? Did you fail reading comprehension? Whoever said that? I only meant that before you discount it, learn it, try it and then do that. Do not expect it to work like Windows 7 on day 1 and do not expect everything to run like the old OSes starting from day one.

> It's not logical to get rid of the more efficient way of doing things for the sake of something that looks cool.

My point was that they did NOT get rid of the more efficient way, it's a just a different way now and all your desktop apps work exactly the same and some even better.

  As I said, it's funny how on all the Post PC articles, the PC and MS are dying anyway, but now the PC is alive and well and MS should just release service packs for Windows 7 till the demand dries up. So which is it, is the PC industry dying or is it going to grow and thrive?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57393848-37/apple-reaches-for-singularity-in-the-post-pc-world/

If I leave my MP3 collection on an unsecure FTP site - can I be sued for that?

Good question. Although it's not so much breaking the law as violating their exclusive legal rights. Only the copyright holder may distribute copies

It seems that merely making available isn't infringement (unless there have been other court decisions to contradict that). So the copyright holder would need to prove that something was downloaded. This is a civil suit, so the standards of proof are lower than a criminal prosecution, but I suspect this would still be hard for them.

They'd probably also need to prove that you did this deliberately. If they had repeatedly contacted you to inform you of the unsecured FTP server, they could argue this was deliberate.

Since it's not deliberate, the person they should sue is the person who did act deliberately. I don't think there's any precedent for negligently allowing copyright infringement.

What if I leave my car door unlocked so someone can steal my CDs?

This is one of those cases where it's important to distinguish between copyright and theft. The record company has no title to those CDs, so has no grounds to sue. No copy was made. Your rights (ownership) have been violated. While this is typically dealt with by the police and criminal law system, I believe you could sue the thief.

When they were interviewed on Buzz Out Loud this past week they talked about that very issue:
http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-57388873-10/buzz-out-loud-1583-let-whurley-the-evil-genius-blow-your-mind-podcast/ :D

When the Chaotic Moon guys were on Buzz Out Loud they went through that.
They are working on a store directory system for the carts but it is a bit of a challenge as the location of goods change a lot more frequently than most think.

Another feature they were working on was a way to say scan a piece of food, and be able to query for say gluten free alternatives etc.

The full interview can be found here: http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-57388873-10/buzz-out-loud-1583-let-whurley-the-evil-genius-blow-your-mind-podcast/ :D

Preferable to you and me, obviously. Ask the shareholders though.

I'm sure the shareholders are happy to keep both the web services and the ads -- it seems to be working out pretty well for them. But the fact remains that they would be a highly profitable company with services but not ads, whereas they would be nobody with ads but no services.

I also think it's worth pointing out why I'm bothering to argue with you. I don't work for Google. I don't own any stock. Nobody is paying me to do this. But I find this to be a profoundly dishonorable, despicable way for Microsoft to do business. So I'm going to do everything I damn well can to make sure it isn't an effective way to do business. This is not something we should allow Microsoft to get away with.

from cnet.com, an alternate link:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20072906-17/lulzsec-suspect-arrested%20-in-u.k-reports-say

LulzSec suspect arrested in U.K., reports say

by Don Reisinger June 21, 2011 6:28 AM PDT

A 19-year-old U.K. man has been arrested on suspicion of hacking and online attacks, the U.K.'s Metropolitan Police announced this morning.

Last night's arrest was part of "a pre-planned intelligence-led operation" that also involved cooperation with the FBI, according to the Metropolitan Police. Following the arrest, the man was brought to a London police station where he is currently in custody for questioning.

Sky News reported early on that the teenager is the mastermind behind LulzSec, a prominent hacking group that has wreaked havoc on several companies and government organizations of late. However, the Metropolitan Police's e-Crime Unit stopped short of saying whether the man in custody might be connected to LulzSec.

"The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group," the Metropolitan Police said. "The teenager was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act, and Fraud Act offences."

For its part, LulzSec seemed bemused by the arrest, with a cheeky post to its Twitter account that it's still in operation.

"Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested," the group wrote on its Twitter account. "It all over now. Wait, we're all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?"

25,000 downloads a day is utterly trivial in comparison to the hundreds of millions of downloads of file sharing software from CNET alone, let alone other sites:

http://download.cnet.com/windows/p2p-file-sharing-software/?tag=mncol%3Bsort&rpp=10&sort=downloadCount+asc

The amusing part of the CNET downloads, is that CNET is owned by CBS, a major media company. So any attempt by CBS to sue file sharers can be countered by the fact that they encouraged it by distributing the software on a massive scale. The same story, on not as massive scale, is true for Fileplanet, owned by IGN, which is a division of News Corp, owners of Fox:

http://www.fileplanet.com/73/0/1/2/1/section/File_Sharing

The sky tree seems to have problems with ice build up on its steel beams during cold winter days (Mentioned in this article here: CNet). Although after a quick google search this seems to be general problem of tall structures with open truss structures (for example here is video of a ice falling from a TV tower Youtube).
I guess usually that is not such a big problem as TV towers are build in parks or large open spaces but the Tokyo sky tree is build in the center of the city surrounded by a lot buildings. Apparently they had to install electric heaters on the Sky tree to prevent ice forming.

It was 49.7 days: http://news.cnet.com/Windows-may-crash-after-49.7-days/2100-1040_3-222391.html

And still inexcusable.

I remember that one - it wasn't a crash in the usual sense, where something stops working completely. It was far more insidious than that. Everything still looked as if it was working; the cursor moved when you moved the mouse, icons would highlight if single-clicked, but double-click would refuse to play...

IIRC, the 49.7 days is 2^16 seconds

The issue you're describing already did happen with the older PS3 models, but in 2010: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10461881-1.html

maybe we should just continue this discussion when you've figured out how to eliminate greed and conflict of interest

impossible because its human nature

Then we're in the realm of good enough solutions.

I'll just point out that regulation and the rule of law is a good enough solution

haven't you heard of the golden rule? it is of course "he who has the gold, makes the rules". regulation and laws only govern you and me. corporations can afford more expensive lawyers than governments, and multinational corporations can simply work around them (tax havens are a simple example)

And yet, it works. Reality trumps a catchy saying.

we're getting a little off-topic here, but civilization exacerbates negative aspects of human nature because of increased interaction which is enabled by urbanization and communication (amongst others). ok maybe rape isn't civilization-specific, but all the rest are (including war, religious extremism, and political corruption). if you're going to be picky, substitute rape with genocide, which is also civilization-specific.

I'll just point out that it doesn't.

Commercial space activities already happen.

ok, but I thought we were talking about manned activities. SpaceX isn't commercial yet. it is a long way from breaking even let alone making a profit.

SpaceX is for profit. Makes it commercial no matter who its customers are. And there's an interesting claim from its CEO:

Since 2007, SpaceX has been profitable every year "despite dramatic employee growth and major infrastructure and operations investments. We have over 40 flights on manifest representing over $3 billion in revenues."

As to manned versus unmanned commercial space activities, those are just a line in the sand and there's no obstruction keeping that line from being crossed. Currently, it's just Russia's tourists to the ISS and the test pilots from SpaceShipOne. When the market develops, then there will be more such activities, just as there are for unmanned activities.

You're in the untenable position of saying "They haven't done this yet". When they do it, then you'll have to redraw the line. That's not healthy, intellectually. Times change and the trend is towards overcoming these hurdles.

unfortunately it already does. an example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketplane_Kistler and i think SpaceX will follow suit soon enough

Every space launch business failure gets blamed by the people who do the failing on government bureaucracy. The last legitimate one I know of, is E'Prime Aerospace in the 90s which was planning to reuse Peacekeeper missiles for space launch. They lost out when US Congress decided that the missiles couldn't be used for commercial purposes.

the development of technology for TSTO was paid for by NASA, USAF, etc. do you really think they got any return on their investment before companies ripped off the technology? if governments pay for development of SSTO, it might happen, but private companies and corporations will never be able to justify the risk. its the same as for any innovation; patents etc aren't worth the paper they're written on if you don't get any return on your investment to fight legal battles with companies that rip off your ideas.

Yes, the US government got a lot of value out of them, including the launch of most of its space probes, a number of early manned missions, and many thousands of working ICBMs. And once you consider that the companies accused of "ripping" off the TSTO designs are the companies that actually designed the TSTO designs, there isn't any IP theft going on.

It was 49.7 days: http://news.cnet.com/Windows-may-crash-after-49.7-days/2100-1040_3-222391.html

And still inexcusable.

Last time a Microsoft cloud product went down, users sustained real data loss. Of course, Microsoft claimed it couldn't happen with Azure.

Most games are only now adding support for two cores. The gaming world is a joke, even more so than the application development world.

You are old and live in a cave on a desert island.

Citation needed.

I can't remember the last game I played which didn't make use of multiple cores. Of course, I'm disregarding any games which have no need to make use of multiple cores due to low processing requirements. I'm genuinely interested to hear what the most recent game lacking multicore support was.

Me as well... a list I found, compiled by another of minimum CPU recommendations:

BF3 -2 core
Skyrim - 2 core
Rage - 2 core
Deus Ex - 4 core
Duke Nukem - 3 core
Witcher 2 - 4+ core
Crysis 2 Ultra settings - 3 fast cores
Bulletstrorm - 3 core

Here's a better/longer list from early 2010:
http://www.grandtheftpc.com/2010/03/list-of-quad-core-optimized-games.html

A Cnet article from 2007:
http://news.cnet.com/Game-developers-adapt-to-multicore-world/2100-1006_3-6175051.html

Sooooo... if by "only now", you mean 5 years ago... yeah.

Citation needed. Or didja forget what year it is, dear ol Rip.

-AI

Yes, but against this are some European court decisions which have clearly indicated that websites have no duty to monitor whether their users post infringing content. If the process of indexing is automated, then I would suggest there is no "deliberately" involved.

Why not?

I think MS would be dumb to release Office for IOS as now people have no real reason to use WindowsCE and Windows Mobile anymore.

Apple will be thrilled. Many executives who are still using Windows mobile 6.5 phones because of pocket office or blackberries can not leave these platforms and buy Ipads and Iphones.

MS is just porting the crappy pocket versions of Office which are basically just office viewer applications which allow light editing. Not idea as a full blown Office solution but they are great on the go if you need to view a file and comment and make a few editing corrections or something dumb like that.

I do not know if AppleScript is supported on IOS, but MS could just port vbscript or VBA lite over if people want to run a few macros. It is not the full blown suite ported as that is on MacOSX only.

I remember reading about this a few months ago. The article is here.

Basically it is a very dumbed down version designed just to read office files on the go similiar to the pocket Office versions for WindowsCE of the past. They do not want adoption of IOS, but the pocket versions do encourage Windows and Office on desktop computer and kills smaller companies or Apple from getting a foothold in the market which would then threaten Windows.

MS has to be careful and walk a very fine line here. This would negate the reason to buy a Windows smart phone as the only reason people bothered with WindowsCE organizors over palm was the ability to read work documents. Now this gives a great reason for these executives and directors to buy an Iphone. Great now I can work on them too!

Office file formats are not going anyway. I got modded down here a few times saying I can't leave Office because I can not guarantee that my resume will look the same on someone elses computer running Office if I make it under LibraOffice. For that reason it will stay forever in business and MS Office is not going anyway as suppliers and customers will think you are incompentent if you send a document that looks funny on their computer.

So if I worked at MS I would only release Office for Windows 8 and Windows mobile and not care what Google and Apple do as I would have the ball no matter what.

You mean except for the A5 (or A6?) with a huge embedded hunk o' silicon that does fancy noise reduction http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57371624-264/why-apples-a5-is-so-big-and-iphone-4-wont-get-siri/ ?

A cloud made of those would probably run very, very slowly.

'Not a whim'

Courier was much more than a clever vision. The team, which had more than 130 Microsoft employees contributing to it, had created several prototypes that gave a clear sense about the type of experience users would get. There were still tough hardware and software issues to resolve when Microsoft pulled the plug. But an employee who worked on Courier said the project was far enough along that the remaining work could have been completed in months if the company had added more people to the team. Microsoft's Shaw disputes that.

"There was extensive work done on the business, the technology and the experience," said a member of the Courier team. "It was very complete, not a whim."

According to this chart there are nearly 400 million mobile subscribers in China today. C-Net seems to think that number is way too low. They pegged it at over a half million 4 years ago, with 200k new subscribers daily .

So it is very likely that the number of smart phone users in China will exceed the entire population of the united states in very short order. When you've got a billion more people than the United States has, these kind of numbers are not all that surprising. The US is a pretty big country. So big that more than a half-million people die from heart attacks each year. This is more than the entire population of nearly 100 countries. China is so populous that they have more than 120 cities with populations exceeding 1 million. They currently have around 700 million people living in cities. That is close to the total population of europe and double the population of the USA. That's a lot of opportunities for selling cell phones.

Just read another article today about the subject. The author suggests something I hadn't seen elsewhere:
(source link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57378764-94/lightsquared-blew-it-and-heres-why/)

"But it's the GPS equipment that bleeds into LightSquared's proposed network, and not the other way around. LightSquared paid for this spectrum and had a legal right to use it, but were stopped by these interference concerns. The GPS industry actually had years to patch up its equipment to avoid these issues, but largely chose to ignore it."

This byte ignores the original intent of how the spectrum was to be used (satellite based vs terrestrial) but it is the first claim I've read that GPS equipment is what's jumping spectrums here.

1. Obviously it'd have a decent screen.
2. It would have audio decoding built in, so all that's needed is to hook it up to an amplifier for 5.1 audio, irrespective of the input (HDMI, SPDIF, whatever.)
3. The complicated stuff wouldn't be on the remote. If you're fiddling with the TV trying to set up the picture, the chances are you're right there anyway. Why add set up menus to the remote when you're not going to use them when sitting down?
4. The remote would be as basic as possible. Volume. Channel up/down. Menu
5. "Menu" brings up an interface that you literally point at, Wii style. You'd use that to browse listings, watch on-demand content, etc. It'd probably look a little Rokuish.

Actually, most of these are available now. There are TVs that can output audio via SPDIF or ARC (audio return channel on HDMI) - not via 6 channel analog, of course, which I guess is what you want... people just don't care about separate 5 channel HT amps these days, too niche (that being said, I have one ;)

As for the remote, the higher end LG TVs have it now, and they are introducing it to more in the lower end models this year.

The TV would sit on your network. It would accept the usual inputs too. Unencrypted compressed content could be stored on any network storage device (it's all digital now anyway) and you'd be able to set up schedules giving you the most important part of DVR functionality.

Unfortunately it'd never work. Why? Because the effing cable and satellite companies would never work with it. So 75%+ of the population would end up with a clumsy UI and connection experience anyway. Urgh.

A networked Cablecard DVR (like Tivo Premiere or Moxi) solves much of this. If they added a few HDMI inputs it could act as a video preamp as well and you'd be 90% of the way there.

And that's what I was talking about originally... give me a high quality, large size 1080p display (OLED!) that I can feel confident about paying thousands of dollars on and may replace once a decade, and leave the whims of compatibility, performance, and new features to a cheaper set-top box...

Poor? operating system - I don't know many people with a Windows phone, but I haven't heard a single positive review (Not counting net articles, where anyone can find a small army supporting their argument).

So what did you hear from the people who do have them?
And it's not about a supported argument, it's about objective reporting and detailing the features in comparison to other platforms:
Just read through these. Certainly it's not without fault, but it doesn't appear worse than any of its competitors and does do things a bit differently and offer a different perspective on smartphone usage, just as Android differs from iOS. It's down to personal preference, and obviously some people are going to be quite overzealous about their smartphone operating system choice regardless of which platform they choose.

Personally i found it to be very good, it has its strengths and weaknesses just as Android and iOS do. I'd attribute much of its lack of success in the market to its association with the Windows brand - maybe they should have tied it more to XBox - since the OS is really surprisingly good.

Naturally take that as anecdotal evidence but i urge you to at least try it - if you don't like it that's fine but it's certainly worth giving a go :)

Apple in the '90s got Steve Jobs and a boatload of cash from Microsoft & Monkey Boy.

FTFY

    My mistake on the salary.

    According to this article, the average salary was raised to $293/mo. (293*12)/2080 = $1.69/hr @ 40 hr/wk.

    But that's not an accurate reflection of the pay rate. The employees work 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week. So their week will be 72 to 112 hours. That makes their effective hourly wage (293*12)/(72*52) = 3516/3744 = $0.93/hr (293*12)/(112*52) = 3516/5824 = $0.60/hr

    That's not a pay rate. That's payment to fit into a loophole so slavery is legal. If you think it's fair, I'll happily employ you with the above average pay of $1.00/hr.

    The US minimum wage isn't $25/hr. The US federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. ($15,080/yr) That is based on what a fair living wage is, but still puts a family of 2 under the poverty line. With 25% of workers in the US (adjusted U-6 number) unemployed, it can easily be assumed an "average" family of 4 (2 working age adults, 2 children), would living under the poverty line ($23,050 w/ 4 family members).

    Unions in the US came about because employees were working too many hours (70+ hrs/wk), and paid too little to thrive (under the poverty line). I'm not a fan of some of the methodologies that unions used, but they did help resolve problems in the past. They shouldn't even be needed any more, but they lobby to keep pay rates fair, so people can survive and thrive.

    There are current proposals on the table to remove US minimum wage laws. Yup, then we could compete with the foreign manufacturing plants. We'd also be increasing our working poor population.

    Now, if you don't mind, try to use facts, rather than regurgitating Fox News "reporting". It only makes you look like an idiot.

And for the record: Unlike the classic Monster cable products, Beats by Dre products are actually better quality than the cheapest generic competing product you can find.

Great. Now I feel dirty.

Maybe Ernie Ball is hiring.

And guys like him: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57373735-281/meet-richard-mack-republican-challenger-to-sopas-author

In particular, any computer needs to be built in the west, with chips from the west, to be trusted.

The A5 that powers the iPad2 is made in Texas.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/16/us-apple-samsung-idUSTRE7BF0D420111216

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/tech/mobile/apple-a5-chip-texas/index.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57344151-17/iphone-ipad-processor-made-by-samsung-in-texas-report-says/

When I originally read of this woman's story here, it got me wondering:

If you are arrested for some material crime, is it common practice for the prosecution to force you to explain every key on your keychain, and to unlock the lock it to which it belongs?

What if you have a drawer literally full of old keys? Is the burden of proof on you to prove that the prosecutor's evidence isn't being secured somewhere and hidden by you, facilitated by one of those keys?

I think there's likely a simpler explanation for why this woman is being coerced - there is other hard evidence that she used that laptop and used encryption to secure the evidence that the court seeks. Perhaps a phone conversation, email or confession to that effect?

Still, it does beg the question as to whom is doing the prosecution's job.

[Citation Required]

Took all of a 5 seconds to find the article on C|net's own site to find this which shows Siri on a 3GS and 4:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-57320077-233/developer-ports-siri-to-iphone-3gs/

But I'm sure you've heard of Google too. Derp.

I think that open source won long ago.

I wish that were true, but it isn't. Try buying a computer with an open source OS, or even no OS at all so you can install your choice. Of three phone OSes, two are closed source.

Every computer in almost every office is using MS Office on Windows. Almost every home PC is running Windows. How can you possibly think we've won?

And independent testing proves they're mostly pretty useless.

As with all things, only install apps from trusted sources, don't click accept on every pop-up box, and check the permissions requested are consistent with the functionality of the app. The same as with any other application on any other OS.

Here, let me help you understand:

Right, that because the discount clothing industry is the first one that comes to mind when I think of "serious about security".

Maybe you should search for articles about T.J. Maxx here on Slashdot.