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Root is no longer required: http://gizmodo.com/5883913/google-wallet-has-been-hacked-again-now-you-should-panic

Oh, and I should also have said: Still more secure than plastic. Especially if you use the lock screen.

Root is no longer required: http://gizmodo.com/5883913/google-wallet-has-been-hacked-again-now-you-should-panic

Ah... I didn't realize that had been published. I really wasn't trying to hide it, but as a Google employee I have to be circumspect about things that aren't yet public.

As the Gizmodo article mentions, Google is working on a fix for this which address this issue. In case it's not clear from the article this only affect Google Prepaid card balances. If you've put your Citibank MasterCard in Google Wallet an attacker can't gain access to it. Adding a "real" card requires typing in the card number. It's just for the Prepaid card there's this kind of behind-the-scenes credit card number which is tied to the phone.

However, I did just get off the phone with Money Network (the company that manages the Google Prepaid card on Google Wallet. After speaking with them and doing a little reading, I discovered that the phone owner is not liable for fraudulent charges. You must notify them as soon as possible though (855-492-5538, toll free).

Right. Just like any other credit card, except that Money Network explicitly agrees to lower your liability to $0 from the legally-allowed $50.

In practice, what this means is that if someone gets your phone, clears the Wallet app data, then uses Wallet to spend your pre-paid balance, Money Network will give you back the money they spent, transferring it to your new phone.

Root is no longer required: http://gizmodo.com/5883913/google-wallet-has-been-hacked-again-now-you-should-panic

However, I did just get off the phone with Money Network (the company that manages the Google Prepaid card on Google Wallet. After speaking with them and doing a little reading, I discovered that the phone owner is not liable for fraudulent charges. You must notify them as soon as possible though (855-492-5538, toll free).

$300 power cord containing $15 worth of parts:
http://gizmodo.com/371536/300-audiophile-grade-power-cable-is-really-worth-15

$1000 power cord on sale for a mere $750:
http://www.essentialsound.com/essence-power-cord/index.htm

$2000 power cord:
http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/inc/sdetail/125/24045

$695 cable for digital signals... that's right, a $700 S/PDIF cord:
http://www.lessloss.com/digital-cables-c-70.html?zenid=l5tu6jq73toh5mk09a315pkid0

Machina Dynamica. Oh man. I really wonder if the guy running this site even believes in his own products, or if he is gleefully exploiting the gullible. Products include "The Clever Little Clock" which seems to be an ordinary travel alarm clock with magical powers, "The Super Intelligent Chip" which not only improves the sound of your CDs, but does so permanently (by altering the structure of the CD in some hand-waving "quantum" fashion), his new product, "The Quantum Temple Bell", a decorated bell you walk around your house ringing and your audio sounds better, and my favorite "The Teleportation Tweak" where he calls you and plays magical tones through your phone, and your audio sounds better afterward.
http://www.machinadynamica.com/

steveha

What do the words 'Wack Dell" mean to you? Its gangster talk for killing. M$ threatened to kill Dell if Dell tried to offer Linux (or sell boxes without their Mickesoft product pre-installed).

what do the words "Ubuntu Linux Comes to the Dell Inspiron 1525" mean to you? Its gangster talk for 'your bullshit just got wacked!'
nice try though.

No, it's actually far far far more fragmented than that. It's not anywhere near the GSM market crying and picking up CDMA. Read up, it'll help you. Here's a good start, and you can extend your knowledge into more technical realms once you get the basics down: http://gizmodo.com/5637136/giz-explains-gsm-vs-cdma

Actually, a large part of the problem is that "CDMA" is used as a term to describe two different things:

• the Code Division Multiple Access multiplexing technology, which is used in a number of places including GPS, Qualcomm's cdmaONE and CDMA2000, and the 3GPP's UMTS;
• the Qualcomm cdmaONE and CDMA2000 mobile phone standards.

When people talk about "CDMA" phones, they usually mean it in the second sense, so they don't consider UMTS phones "CDMA" phones, the fact that, when running on a UMTS network, they use Code Division Multiple Access, in the form of W-CDMA, nonwithstanding.

The article you point to uses it in both senses; for example, it says

GSM and CDMA both serve as shorthand for different mobile phone technologies. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications; it's the world's most prolific mobile standard (a standard being a set of rules and suggestions about how a mobile network should work). CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access—in the context of cellphones and mobile networks, people tend to use it interchangeably to refer to two different mobile standards: CDMAOne or CDMA 2000.

where the last sentence uses it in the latter sense, and also says

What's the core difference? It all has to do with the way your data is converted into the radio waves that your cellphone broadcasts and receives. To keep from lulling you to sleep with the deep dive, I'll just scratch the surface and say that GSM divides the frequency bands into multiple channels so that more than one user can place a call through a tower at the same time; CDMA networks layer digitized calls over one another, and unpack them on the back end with sequence codes.

which uses it in the former sense. They barely mention UMTS, and don't bother mentioning that UMTS also "[layers] digitized calls over one another, and unpack them on the back end with sequence codes".

So, no, the GSM market didn't "pick up CDMA" in the sense of dumping all the GSM protocols in favor of the cdmaONE/CDMA2000 protocols. It did, however, "pick up CDMA" in the sense that the UMTS follow-on to GSM uses Code Division Multiple Access.

No, it's actually far far far more fragmented than that. It's not anywhere near the GSM market crying and picking up CDMA.
Read up, it'll help you. Here's a good start, and you can extend your knowledge into more technical realms once you get the basics down: http://gizmodo.com/5637136/giz-explains-gsm-vs-cdma

For all intents and purposes, the whole "fanboy" lure is very cliche. Do stop, it's unbecoming.

but the most popular phone leading up to iphone was the RAZR (2004). initial price in the states was $600 bucks.

http://gizmodo.com/270353/the-razr-taught-us-that-the-iphone-is-priced-juuust-right
It was 2004 when the RAZR launched in the US as a high-end design clamshell. It was $600, with a $100 dollar rebate from Cingular. yes, soon after launch the price dropped precipitously much like smart phones now. today you can get an android or ios phone (NEW) for just about every price point from free to 800 bucks.

oh, and don't forget the venerable StarTAC. 1996 - ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_StarTAC).. a primary selling point of which was support for OMG.. wait for it.. SMS. ...a free iphone 3GS is as capable as a laptop of the StarTAC era. Apple didn't set the bar, Motorola did - TWICE. Together the StarTAC and RAZR sold over 100M units.

so poett, you either forgot or are too young to have ever known ;)

The spin on the story in some areas of the media is also a nice illustration of the way cowardly people will back the police state by blaming the victim.

For example, see the Gizmodo article "US Detains and Deports Two Morons Over Dumb "Destroy America" Tweets":

I'm totally okay with refusing entry to the US based on idiotic Twitter parlance.

It's not the one I read (I think I read either New york times or Forbes), but content is 90% similar:

http://www.catholic.org/technology/story.php?id=44500

There are several others
http://open.salon.com/blog/steve_klingaman/2012/01/25/lets_not_kid_ourselves_about_manufacturing_jobs
http://gizmodo.com/5878209/why-apple-doesnt-make-the-iphone-in-america

--Coder

I didn't know what you were referring to and searched:

http://gizmodo.com/5872925/asus-relents-on-locked-transformer-prime-bootloader

"Asus says the bootloader had to be locked to provide you with certain content services. And it's true that if you choose to employ the (release-date-TBD) Transformer Prime unlock tool you'll be frozen out of Google video rental through the Android market. Oh, and you'll void your warranty. "

Why does it need to freeze you out? Let's say something similar like netflix. Works on windows and last I checked my bootloader wasn't locked. why does it need to be locked simply cause it's a mobile device?

About it's a start. Linux has had a hard time getting any significant desktop market share, but this was fertile territory and someone should have taken this path years ago. If say someone like Mark Shuttleworth saw this potential and realized that this is somewhere a linux based os could shine, maybe we'd already have a true open source mobile OS that had significant market share.

And who defines what is the level of that 'nice' .......... a lot of the videos i checked around up till this point, were removed due to dmca claims. so, they were removing a lot of videos.

They just shut down it due to its size. period. ah, and he sponsored a few songs in usa about how piracy is not so bad compared to what the content industry was doing - probably that causes the attack on him and his assets - its ok when content industry brainwashes everyone, but if someone opposing them does the SAME thing, its a crime !

It's only good - criminals are taken to court and jail so companies can again produce goods and software and they don't have to see the widespread piracy that is going on

excuse me guy, but that stupid thinking is why we are having all of this shit in the first place - the REAL pirates have persecuted someone challenging their rule and you are clapping for it :

how music labels avoid paying artists : http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/13/1737224/riaa-accounting-how-labels-avoid-paying-musicians how music labels screw aspiring artists and bands to neverending debt : http://www.negativland.com/albini.html how labels avoid paying royalties to artists even if they earned the right to it : http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads

ANY cent you pay to buy music so not to 'steal' from a big label, goes NOT to the artist - but to the pocket of an intermediary called the label and pocketed to an extent of 95%. you pay 15 bucks to an album, your artist gets a few cents, and the label gets almost entirety of 15 bucks. then they force the artist to go on concerts worldwide, to make money. it is taxing, and most artists and bands break down, and resort to drugs or excess to relieve stress. radiohead released one of their albums for FREE without a label, told people to pay however much they want, even take it for free. 80% of people who got it, did not pay. however, the rest 20% caused radiohead to make MORE money in just 4 hours than they would make in a whole year of touring if they gave the album to a record label. and that album, is still selling over the internet since a year or so now. so go figure................ in short, ANYone who supports this scheme that sucks artists dry, and screws customers up, is either a very very dumb, ignorant person, or a hapless idiot. there is no way to explain someone supporting a scheme that screws him/her over, otherwise.

Honestly, if someone could find a way to patent the wheel, they'd do it.

Our patent system is such at this point that there is no advancement possible without asking permission and paying royalties to someone else. Every fundamental idea and concept is owned. As anything that has any sort of visual representation and interface.

Of course, all this is incredibly ironic, given that back in the day, Microsoft and Apple both flagrantly ripped off what are considered to be absolute fundamentals of a GUI from Xerox.

Of the top of my head, I hate that Microsoft killed The Courier tablet and didn't see the potential it had. It was the first tablet that really got me excited, and in my opinion it was bad decision not to go further with it.

So you regret that their amazing genius was not applied to tablets? The only thing wrong with the Courier is that it didn't happen?

Do you believe there are any weaknesses in existing products that I could go purchase today?

Of the top of my head, I hate that Microsoft killed The Courier tablet and didn't see the potential it had. It was the first tablet that really got me excited, and in my opinion it was bad decision not to go further with it.

record labels are making a LIVING based on how well THEIR art is received, you say ?

are you a fucking moron ? excuse me, but really, are you a fucking idiot ?

record labels do NOTHING other than keeping bands perpetually in debt to them, and give just cents over dozens of dollars of album sales, forcing them to go on tours worldwide not to make money, but to be able to pay the 'loans' they got from the record label in the initial contracts.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/07/13/1737224

THEY DONT EVEN PAY ARTISTS !

http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads

http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

you dont know shit about this, yet you are making grandstand statements like 'When you're making a living based on how well your art is received, then let's talk'.

LETS talk then. lets talk about how record labels are not paying musicians, keeping them in perpetual debt, dodging taxes and royalties, and gulping 90% of the revenue generated by content sales.

or alternatively, you can just shut the fuck up, and educate yourself before you make another grandstanding statement for next time. i think that's the better option.

I didn't just say corporations. I listed a number of culprits. Corporations, lawyers, lazy cops...I've got a list.

As to your question though - nobody likes doing business in dangerous surroundings. It's bad for business. That's why we have to have these draconian anti-terrorist measures that trample our rights.

Here, check this out.

Notice the dip down to 7200 right after 9/11? That's why big business wants the government to trample your rights. Spending is based on consumer confidence. That's where the money comes from. When confidence is low, people don't spend and the stocks tank. Business benefits if the government can prevent another 9/11. That means Carnivore, warrantless wiretaps, GPS tracking people who are Arabic. You know, crap like this.

I found this interesting so went off to investigate. Found this Gizmodo article with a direct link to a LEGAL Windows 7 ISO download at Digital River:

http://gizmodo.com/5391268/microsoft-fixes-windows-7-student-edition-upgrade-problems

Useless without a key/crack of course, but then we've all got legal keys haven't we? ;) [1]

-Jar

[1] I'm a Technet subscriber so this link is worthless to me as I can download ALL MS OSs with multiple activation keys - if you can afford Technet, it's truly worth it.

Actually it sounds facetious since it is already a thing but the "next big thing" is user generated content, and that is 2D.

Already we geeks and some definitively non geeks have hooked our TVs to the net but that's still not a reality for the vast majority of people. Most people still watch regular TV, either via cable or air waves. Even Netflix is in many ways "Old Media".

But as HTPC become the norm more and more people will start watching user generated content predominantly. It is already the case that I can be entertained for weeks just by watching and reading stuff that's not only completely free but desperate to get any attention at all. And as technology improves, the quality of content will only improve. And the content that doesn't improve in production quality will improve in other ways. As wifi access becomes more ubiquos and SSD become cheaper more people will start making recording on the spot, Meaning that there won't be a public event small enough to not be filmed.

And on top of that there is the rise of public domain content. Yes there is a market for old movies, and old movies are getting newer each year, and it's not only old movies, public domain content includes government funded productions too, including educational and artistic stuff that doesn't sell well but is popular enough when free.

Big Media will always exist but their market-share can only shrink. I see the insistence on 3D as an attempt at making themselves seem irreplaceable. If they convince people that content must be 3D, then they are the only ones making content. But I don't see that happening.

Bonus point: Last year scientist made a humble first step into reconstructing images from the visual cortex activity (link) , a previously though impossible feat. If that technology only doubles each year we might be watching dream movies in less than a decade.

MOCK YE NOT, ANDROID SUFFERED A WORSE PROBLEM:

http://gizmodo.com/5080688/android-bug-reboots-phone-every-time-you-type-reboot

yes thats right, in one of the original android versions it REBOOTED EVERY TIME YOU TYPED REBOOT!

NASA went from the first manned spaceflight to walking on the moon in around seven years. China first flew a manned spaceflight eight years ago; what major breakthroughs have they made in comparison?

Made an iPhone clone.
Invited WalMart to China.
Relaunched a 1980's Ukranian Aircraft Carrier.
Filed more crappy patents than anyone else.

They sure are scary little folk...

Run of the mill consumer laptops are atrocious - Dell Inspiron, Acer, ASUS, Lenovo Ideapads and pseudo-Thinkpads (EDGE and so on) and the like... it's only when you start getting into high end business devices that you'll see build quality that feels on par with a MacBookPro.

How you feel about a high-priced piece of hardware is not the same as data.

Run of the mill consumer laptops are atrocious - Dell Inspiron, Acer, ASUS, Lenovo Ideapads and pseudo-Thinkpads (EDGE and so on) and the like... it's only when you start getting into high end business devices that you'll see build quality that feels on par with a MacBookPro.

How you feel about a high-priced piece of hardware is not the same as data.

GoDaddy didn't reverse their position at all. They are still in support of SOPA. Here is the CEO refusing to come out against the bill:
http://gizmodo.com/5870920/brave-godaddy-ceo-says-hes-neither-for-nor-against-sopa

No user changeable battery. I push my phone quite hard and although battery life is better than what my friend's iPhone seems to get eventually that battery will wear out, and I want to be able to change it.

Are you talking about phones or tablets? Because the Asus Transformer (your pick) does not have a user replaceable battery. If you have AppleCare, you get free battery replacement for two years from Apple for the iPad, and after that it costs $99.

No SD card, and I need iTunes just to access the damn thing. The amount Apple charges for an extra 16GB is outrageous, more than I can get a 64GB SD card for.

Agreed. This is annoying, and apparently a trend for many products. You can't browse a Canon DSLR with Finder either. However, it appears linux has a solution. Not sure how long it will take for this to make its way to Windows, but it should eventually.

Lack of multitasking. I often want to copy/paste from the browser to Colornote or an email but on iOS you have to close each app before going to the other one. There are no background apps either, for instance I use a GPS logger while I am taking photos on my DSLR so I can geotag them later and it does it quietly while I can look at maps etc. without closing it.

Complete bullshit. I multitask all the time on the iPad. Skype runs in the background, happily draining the crap out the battery, and receives calls/chats while I'm doing something else. So does Vtok, which I use for gmail.

Poor screen. The iPad 2 screen is only 1024x768, too small for web browsing IMHO. I upgraded my old Thinkpad laptop because the screen was only 1024 pixels wide and would never want to go back to anything under 1280 now. My 12.5" Let's Note is 1400 pixels which seems to be about the right DPI.

The screen isn't poor. Far from it, actually, because it is an IPS display. It's better than a typical laptop screen. But yes, the resolution is low. I have mixed feelings about it. It does make things a bit crowded for web browsing and such, but I think a higher resolution would make the text much harder to read on a small screen. Your 12.5" screen comparison is almost 3" larger than the iPad. 1024 pixels is perfectly sufficient for movies and looking at pictures, though.

Expensive accessories and peripherals. Apple charges silly money and seem to be keeping official 3rd party prices high too.

So don't buy them. Seriously, why do you need them? I don't use any peripherals for the iPad. It works fine. The only thing I have considered is a keyboard, but any bluetooth keyboard should suffice. You don't need to buy that from Apple.

Page display in the browser. Android has reformatted pages since day one to make them readable on a phone screen, but iOS doesn't seem to do it.

No idea what you are talking about. Websites need to have a mobile stylesheet. If they do, Safari works just as well whatever Android has (Chrome?). If you mean that Android intentionally reformats pages that don't have a mobile layout, that is indeed a novel feature.

Cheezburger network CEO Ben Huh may pull over 1000 domains from GoDaddy in protest of GoDaddy's support for SOPA. Gizmodo has a list of companies supporting SOPA. Jeff Epstein has instructions for bulk transfers away from GoDaddy.

Adam Savage has also warned that SOPA could destroy the internet as we know it. Reddit concurs that SOPA could destroy them.

Two congressional staffers, Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnack, who helped write SOPA/PIPA become entertainment industry lobbyists

Cheezburger network CEO Ben Huh may pull over 1000 domains from GoDaddy in protest of GoDaddy's support for SOPA. Gizmodo has a list of companies supporting SOPA. Jeff Epstein has instructions for bulk transfers away from GoDaddy.

Adam Savage has also warned that SOPA could destroy the internet as we know it. Reddit concurs that SOPA could destroy them.

Two congressional staffers, Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnack, who helped write SOPA/PIPA become entertainment industry lobbyists

Microsoft (Dec. 21, 2011): As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories â" from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores â" it feels like the right time to make this transition.

Apple (Dec. 16, 2008): Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple's Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

your point is? does your phone read it back to you? does your flip phone have a way to read back movie reviews to you? ***Voice Actions**** - Call someone - Text someone - Search something (on the web) - Lookup for a contact Gizmodo has a nice little review on it: http://gizmodo.com/5851896/iris-for-android-kind-of-like-siri-but-for-android

Apple did NOT invent the MP3 plaer.

In fact they didn't invent the iPod's two main "innovations", the scroll wheel (Synaptics) and the 1.8" HDD (Toshiba).

Apple dit NOT invent the smartphone.

Nor did they invent Siri or the A4/A5 CPUs, they just bought the companies that made them.

Design of iAnything?

Braun should sue.

Apple doesn't innovate technologically very much, they just buy ideas and figure out how to market them as lifestyle accessories.

iPad killed the netbook market.

The iPad was the final nail in the coffin. The netbook (inspired by the original OLPC), of which the original EEE PC was an exemplar, ran Linux, cost $300, had a small cheap (but fast enough) SSD and made a great email, web and IM terminal... this scared the shit out of both Intel and Microsoft... who consequently conspired to kill or cripple it [1] [2]. So Intel flooded the low-end market with the gfx-gimped Atom and Microsoft twisted the arms of companies like Asus, Acer and the like to drop Linux. Then they pushed 160GB HDs (sounds a lot better value than a 16GB SSD, right?), and saddled it down with Vista/Win7 Starter.

This was around 2008/2009, long before the iPad arrived. When iPad did hit the market, it fully capitalized on this strategy of "lets keep netbooks crappy" by offering their take: lighter, app-store, and dead sexy.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/5270094/the-netbook-conspiracy-intel-and-microsoft-collude-to-keep-netbooks-crappy
[2] http://samj.net/2009/02/conspiracy-theories-about-intels-role.html

Yep. The Great Google Hard Disk Study revealed that no brand was "more reliable" than any other.

Every single manufacturer had troublesome batches and/or models. No brand was immune to this.

FWIW the single biggest factor they found which correlated to failure was heat. If your drive runs hot then expect trouble.

Wow you read that study backwards.

Google found that heat did not play a big as you might assume, and some brands were more reliable but they would not release that information.

http://gizmodo.com/237980/google-teaches-us-five-things-about-hard-drive-death

If you look at real data, like Total phones, far far far more dumb phones are sold.

That's interesting. Do you have links on this? I got the impression everyone except me spends their time fingering their fondleslabs these days. Also, your claim contradicts the data I can find, e.g. http://gizmodo.com/5817082/everbodys-getting-smartphones

I think you missed the definition of "Feature Phones" are what everyone else calls a "Dumb Phone". Data comes from NPD, can also be had from Gartner and additionally from others as well. Exact percentages vary but they all agree that Dumb/Feature phones still outsell their bigger cousin the Smartphone, though that gap is rapidly closing.

If you look at real data, like Total phones, far far far more dumb phones are sold.

That's interesting. Do you have links on this? I got the impression everyone except me spends their time fingering their fondleslabs these days. Also, your claim contradicts the data I can find, e.g. http://gizmodo.com/5817082/everbodys-getting-smartphones

Link to the referenced story:
http://gizmodo.com/5658661/fbi-gets-caught-tracking-mans-car-wants-its-gps-device-back

Go have read about what Design Patents are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent .

The design patents are not "technology" patents and "logical progressive steps" are completely irrelevant. Design Patents stop some Korean or Chinese company producing a car that looks exactly the same as a Corvette and selling under their own brand in the USA. The purpose is to stop customer confusion and "knock off" products. For christ sake in the Australian Samsung V Apple Lawsuit the Judge held up an iPad and a Samsung Galaxy Tab in each hand and asked Samsung's head lawyer which was his clients product. Guess what he couldn't tell them apart from 10 feet away.

This is NOT a Andriod/Open Source Vs iOS/Walled Garden issue. It's about Samsung intentially making their products as close as possible as Apples to trick customers (the dumb ones who are idiots, not the Slashdot hacker) into buying it thinking it's an Apple or exactly the same as an Apple product. Out of all the Andriod phone and Tablet makers how come Samsung's look almost identical to Apple products right down to the 30 pin USB connector and white shipping box identical to Apples. http://gizmodo.com/5845036/samsung-has-like-totally-never-copied-apples-designs/gallery/1 . HTC, Motorola, Blackberry and everybody else can come up with unique designs, but Samsung can't??? Time to get real here please.

...I'm still not dumb enough to confuse a Galaxy with an iPad.

Looks like you've got Samsung's lawyers beat, then: Even Samsung’s Lawyers Can’t Tell the Difference Between Its Tablet and an iPad

From the linked article:
"Can any of Samsung's lawyers tell me which one is Samsung and which one is Apple?" Koh asked. A moment later, one of the lawyers supplied the right answer.

I mean come on, you really can't tell the difference between the device on the left and the one on the right in the heading image of that article?

Looks like you've got Samsung's lawyers beat, then: Even Samsungâ(TM)s Lawyers Can't Tell the Difference Between Its Tablet and an iPad

You act like that's Samsung's problem.

I wonder if they (or Apple's lawyers) could tell this apart from the front of the Galaxy Tab... because if not, Apple has a serious problem, because that's a Samsung Digital Photo Frame from 2006, predating the iPad by 4 years.

Now, the back looks nothing like a Galaxy Tab, but that's not likely to be the part the court was showing when asking the question.

Here's a tip: If you rip off someone's design, don't sue the person you ripped off for ripping off said design in a different product.

...I'm still not dumb enough to confuse a Galaxy with an iPad.

Looks like you've got Samsung's lawyers beat, then: Even Samsung’s Lawyers Can’t Tell the Difference Between Its Tablet and an iPad

I suspect that isn't the only overwrought element here. In my, admittedly limited, search I have yet to find reputable sources confirming any but the barest of details in this story; let alone "Kill Half Humanity" (Wikipedia's already infected, care of rt.com.)

The Canadian Press, which brings us the Winnipeg Free Press article, fails to provide anything real to back up its statements. I can't really follow it any more than looking up the organizations provided and looking for related news postings (of which I found none.) Subsequent searching leads me to a Gizmodo article (links provided for those who wish to follow my searches.) Of it, there are two meaningful citations (that is, not links to the about pages of the source in question.) Science Insider and a pdf announcement detailing the schedule of the September influenza conference in Malta, in which this announcement is quoted as having been made.

The first thing I noticed within the pdf (aside from the garish design) is the absence of any announcement on GM influenza, (or Ron Fouchier, or his organization.) Admittedly, this hardly means this didn't occur; merely that this (what is essentially a flier) is not a meaningful source of information.

As for the Science Insider, it provides few additional details, mostly regarding vaguely related discussions on the classification/pre-approval of these sorts of studies. The closest thing it provides to something interesting is a (Dutch language) greenlight for what is supposed to be Ron's project.

Indeed, the Dutch link does concern GM influenza, and is an answer to a question on procedure for studying this sort of thing (of which they already apparently had a license to do.) It does not corroborate any of the stand out details of this article (how could it, considering it's from 2007.) Of minor note, there is no mention of ferrets; only standard embryonated [sic. Google Translation] chicken eggs.

Color me skeptical, to say the least.

http://gizmodo.com/5830907/every-single-gadget-should-be-waterproof-like-the-motorola-defy%252B-android-phone

Look for comments by and in reply to "prometeum"

I see plenty of comments on how reasonable or unreasonable the price is, and they are interesting. I generally agree it doesn't seem that out of whack price wise for a working application supported for some time period.

What I find more interesting is this story is being posted all over the web all of the sudden:

• IT World
• Free Republic
• Human Events
• Business Insider
• Gizmodo
• Big Government
• TPM

And of course here on /.

Hitting that range of sites (and more) with this sort of non-story story trying to push a narrative of the government is wasting your money? Someone behind the scenes is pushing this narrative, I suspect. Not news for nerds, but manufactured political outrage.

BlueQ or a modificated version of WakeMate may be the answer to this need. http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/wakemate-review/ http://gizmodo.com/261758/hands+on-with-blueq-bluetooth-wristbands-verdict-they-work-as-advertised Cool, right?

They were never evil. They're not MS/Apple. Do you have a short term memory loss? Honeycomb was withheld, and they told people why.

They said basically honeycomb was a bad implementation, they didn't want people to move forward with it, they do want people to move forward on ICS. It's not like a "honeycomb is a goddamn secret!" This has been announced like 500x. It's like a design for a car that they say "this design causes engines to explode" so they don't release the design. Is this a surprise that they then release ICS source? Did you hear them say "ICS is a bad implementation"? No.

That's not a lack of transparency either, they announced this repeatedly.

[Andy] Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience. We have no idea if it will even work on phones." "Android is an open-source project," he adds. "We have not changed our strategy."

Ok, I'll narrow my focus. People willingly pay big money for bottled water that comes from the exact same municipal source as flows free from their faucet. Seriously, many of the bottled waters sold in the US are from "Municipal Sources" - that means you might be drinking NYC water in Virginia, possibly complete with the copepods that live in it.

From this article, emphasis mine:

Often images on the label show mountains, snow or other bodies of water. For example, the label design on Aquafina (from Pepsi) gives me the feeling of mountains and snow; implying that Aquafina may be from a mountain spring, rather than bottled at Pepsi plants using processed municipal water. Coke’s Dasani, also one of the leading bottled water brands is processed municipal water with added minerals. Many gallon jug waters are also from municipal sources.

Definitely. Nokia definitely cares about construction and build quality. They subject their phones to rigorous abuse. There's a youtube video somewhere of their quality testing. squished on a press repeatedly, dropped repeatedly.

I searched for the official Nokia Labs one from a year ago but couldn't find it.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HicdXV_47V8

  Giz (sorry!) also has a story about it. http://gizmodo.com/5094602/a-look-at-the-nokia-damage-test-labs

An n950 is already the pocket equivalent of a Panasonic ToughBook. They may not be running quadcores and have the most beautiful screens ( or whatever the spec nerd are going crazy for this week) but a Nokia is guaranteed to be built like a tank.

Contrast that to a flimsy samsung/motorola android or an iphone that is absolutely destroyed when it gets dropped onto some rocks. It should be no question if you're looking only at durability in a mass produced consumer smartphone.

None of that matters though. The decision on what the military uses will always be decided on what state the money will go to, or what lobby payed the most for someone's campaign. So, it will probably be something from AT&T. probably an iphone with a frickin' bumper.

Yes, it would be good to have something better than the best, but I doubt that's what you had in mind.

"Mind share" is "even your grandmother knows about the iPad".

Even your grandmother knows about the Kindle Fire. Game on.

Space flight is limited by fuel, not energy. Except if we build a space elevator/giant railgun wich may or may not be possible.

I'm pretty sure that what he meant was that it would be easier to bring compact power sources into space and potentially refuel them if they were being used on a planetary body or elsewhere that might have a supply of hydrogen and nickel. Right now the only options we have are solar and nuclear for providing power in space, the former requires a lot of mass for small gain and the latter has become a bit of a hairy political issue. Also, using a railgun is not as far fetched as you think [1] [2], the limitations are mainly related to the amount of power that can be supplied.

Food and water can't be produced by energy. Human population can't grow exponentially much longer.

Tell that to a third-world farmer hauling water and planting crops by hand. Before cheap, available internal combustion engines food production was drastically lower than it is today simply because it was so labor intesive. The arrival of motor driven farm equipment and the advances in irrigation and fertilizer production made possible by new energy sources are the reason that the world population has hit 7 billion this quickly. [3] Human reproduction also tends to level out as standard of living increases. [4]

You are assuming we find a way around the second law of thermodynamics.

I don't see anywhere that he implied we would violate conservation of energy. It looks like all he is saying is that 1) the study of particle physics may lead to new ways of producing fission or fusion economically 2) sustainable fusion would be more efficient at releasing energy than current methods e.g. fossil fuels, solar, wind, etc. 3) E=mc^2 does in fact hold the promise that we will someday be able to readily convert mass to usable energy.

add in the classic cracking/yellow plastic on prior models, the crappy 15-bit TN screens they've used in the past (fixed under performance guarantees, IIRC, after legal action), too much thermal paste causing massive overheating, nVidia gfx chips cracking and falling off, exploding batteries, cooling ports blocked by plastic film and numerous HW failures-by-design - well, it's no wonder he's looking for a heavy duty warranty.

Apple's biggest design flaw is that they use the same name ("Macbook") for all of their laptops, year after year. So a Google for "macbook battery" or "macbook screen" returns every rant anyone has ever posted about every Apple laptop ever sold.

All the other manufacturers keep changing names so you can't keep track. HP has added "Envy" and "ProBook" to the "Presario" and "Pavillion" and "EliteBook", plus they add random model numbers like "dv5000." Makes it a lot harder to keep track. Dell does the same thing: What the hell is a Vostro? Is it like an Inspiron or a Latitude? It's certainly not an XPS, right, because that's the line they built to compete with Alienware, except now they own Alienware, and use that name, too.

Changing names often helps to encourage the short memories of consumers. I don't know anyone that's had a problem with a Vostro or an Envy...because I've never known anyone whose owned anything other than an Inspiron or a Pavillion.