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You mean like the Xperia X10?

As sad as it is, recent tech does do something like this. Just check out this chair (I think it was discussed on slashdot, too).
http://gizmodo.com/5211135/man-builds-chair-that-tweets-his-farts-single+handedly-justifies-twitters-existence

Indeed...for example, the Dell Mini 9 has been notoriously easy to make into a Hackintosh for quite a while. Hell, even Gizmodo posted a walkthrough in early 2009.

And yet, that's old technology (Apple released their 30" monitor in 2004 ... that's the same one they still sell today. Even earlier than that, IBM sold a 200dpi greyscale monitor back near 1999/2000 that was 2560x2048, intended for doctors viewing x-rays.

Before the HD standards were finalized, you could get higher resolution TVs, because there was no limit set.

Samsung and a few others had "Quad HD" monitors (3840 x 2160) on the market for a while, but I believe they've all been discontinued. (and it also cost something like US$25k)

Come on, that's outright dishonest. They have outright threatened to cripple devices that were unlocked in the past (see, for example, here), AND they have refused to replace or service obviously broken hardware simply because the software was jailbroken or the phone unlocked and running on an unapproved carrier. Go to some of the iPhone forums, you'll read plenty of threads of users restoring their software to stock state so that they can bring a broken piece of hardware to the store to get serviced without being thrown out the door.

Admittedly, not all Apple employees are like this, and enforcement has been highly inconsistent. Plenty of reports out there of people who've had broken hardware replaced regardless of jailbreak or unlock status. But you can't deny the generally user-hostile attitude of Apple toward anybody who wants to modify, customize or change in any way their iPhone device they shelled out cold hard cash for.

But the general attitude completely unacceptable. I have walked away from iPhone as a platform after being an iPhone 2G and 3G owner, and would never touch it again. I am so much happier with my Nexus One, a phone that lets me do what I want and doesn't treat me like a criminal.

Companies that treat their users like criminals or slaves under the pretense of "sustainable business practices" (i.e. driving absurd amounts of profit - I don't think Apple has to worry about sustaining their business at this point) won't be getting my business. And their OCD insistence on uniformity of everything and insistence that their way is always the right way drives me nuts (remember how long they insisted that nobody needed a real API for applications on the iPhone? And how now apps are the primary draw of the platform? Idiots.).

What about this? http://gizmodo.com/5592521/how-a-guy-tricked-apple-with-a-disguised-iphone-tethering-app

If tethering can make it past the Apple gates, why won't other 'features'?

Aren't the aircraft broadcasting their positions so other planes can avoid them? I don't think we want every single plane operating in stealth mode, just look how well that works with submarines. If there is "increased risk" of being targeted by missiles, then so be it, you're way more likely to run into another plane than get targeted by a missile. And if you're in enemy airspace you should already have that shit turned off.

funny, yesterday it was an obscure bible reference that supposedly proved Israeli mischief
http://gizmodo.com/5652032/the-secret-code-inside-the-supervirus-attacking-iran-nuclear-power

Sounds like someone has found someone to blame, and are desperately searching for "evidence" to back it up

Amazon has been at war with book publishers over who sets book prices. With Amazon's policy of a $9.99 e-Book price for a new title, publishers face erosion of their print book prices and volumes.

So...will app developers be their next target of price control?

[citation needed]

Fair enough. Here you go. It's a bit outdated (being from March and all), but I doubt the situation changed significatively in the last 6 months.

I asked for a citation because I felt it was inaccurate. A quick google search proved your point, but with some reservations...

On 17 March 2009, there were about 2,300 applications available for download from the Android Market, according to T-Mobile chief technical officer Cole Brodman.
By December 2009, there were over 20,000 applications available for download in the Android Market.
By August 2010, there are over 80,000 applications available for download in the Android Market, with over 1 billion application downloads
. Recent months (in 2010) have shown an ever increasing growth rate, recently (in May 2010) surpassing 10,000 additional applications per month.

copypasta from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market

In addition, that's just the "official" "app store". There are links to 3 "alternative stores" on that same wiki page. I would post a link to Apple's alternative stores, but there don't seem to be any that are available without jailbreaking your device. Apple appears to have failed at quelling the android uprising.

As of September 1, 2010, there are at least 250,000 third-party applications officially available on the App Store, with over 6.5 billion total downloads.

copypasta from the similar article for apple's "marketplace".

This data appears to contradict me, and reinforce your position. There are, apparently, more apps for iOS than for android. However, it would appear that Apple's momentum is slowing, whereas android's momentum appears to be increasing. Development of new iPhone apps appears to have dropped below 10,000 new apps per month, whereas android is now above that line, and continuing to increase.

I suppose the argument could go either way, if we want to get picky, but it still stands to reason that android is still picking up steam, and iOS is slumping - probably largely due to the bad press the iPhone and iPad have received as of late, whereas no one seems to have anything bad to say about 'droid.

And a parting shot:
If the number of available apps is your only beef with android, what will you do when the developers stop developing for iOS, due to the myriad restrictions placed upon the apps that even make it into the store?

[citation needed]

Fair enough. Here you go. It's a bit outdated (being from March and all), but I doubt the situation changed significatively in the last 6 months.

Naysayers of the iPad miss the point? Huh, here I thought that all the hype about desktop, laptops and netbooks being killed off by iPads was created by Apple fans.

A small sample:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9175600/The_iPad_is_the_future_for_home_computing
http://gizmodo.com/5506692/ipad-is-the-future
http://www.macworld.com/article/146038/2010/01/ipad_future_shock.html
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/ipad-future/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/27/ipad/

They are just using Blu-Ray as a front for that, as it's the biggest consumer disc currently.

Is it? Even the biggest, most spectacular, high def Blu-ray sold less than half of its DVD equivalent.

It's super easy to have 97% installation base when the IT guys behind MOST of the Fortune 500 bundle them in their Windows desktop builds and some of the most highly-visited web sites out there (YouTube, a few news sites, a couple of amazing porn sites, etc) still require Flash. Same goes for Silverlight (though Microsoft bundled that in Windows Update, so its numbers should be higher).

HTML5 video isn't there yet. For starters, Firefox doesn't support H.264, which is the de facto video streaming codec at the moment. Even if it wasn't, Theora doesn't hold a candle to it and seems to be in the middle of growing pains. VP8 is coming, but it isn't here yet. HTML5 YouTube doesn't work all the way yet. Worse still, differences in CPU performance with HTML5 when compared to Flash have been shown to be negligible. (In fact, some of the stats on that page show that Flash 10.1 is more efficient with its CPU utilization.) Worst, and most importantly, of all, tons upon tons of people are still on IE6, which doesn't support HTML5.

I think we all agree that, on paper, HTML5 is a great idea and will do more to unite a powerful web experience with the convenience of mobile computing. In practice, however, it's still very nascent and will take a while before it supplants Flash, et. al. And I guarantee you that Adobe will be on top of that (unless they're stupid and become a numb bystander to their own death).

Perhaps they field tested theirs while clad in a disguise?

Microsoft took a TCP/IP stack from BSD. Apple took an entire OS from BSD.

Have a look for yourself at which company does more R&D.

Try harder next time. It's not really that difficult to comprehend.

There is a lot more to it than you know.

None is overstating it, but MS does put a lot more into R&D:

http://gizmodo.com/5486798/research-and-development-apple-vs-microsoft-vs-sony

I have mixed feelings, having repaired laptops for a day job and battering plenty of my own.

The idea looks good at first glance, because tablets use something known cutely as The Achilles Hinge. The dell mechanism that swivels the screen does not depend on friction, but probably a latch.

But, there are a good number of hinge-related problems, namely cracked cases around the hinge supports. In this case the top clamshell dosen't have the weight and the sturdiness of a fully integrated LCD and, even with a latch, we may be left with a flimsy outer "picture frame" that may be prone to bending and even breaking. You know what I'm talking about if you've ever opened (carefully) a laptop clamshell without the LCD attached. Any hinges which depend on friction will render your gadget useless if they go limp.

It's all Apple's fault, of course. They had the change to make something more than a glorified, overpriced, locked-down "phone-without-the-phone."

...our resident expert made the following statement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qKcJF4fOPs

http://gizmodo.com/5637203/drunk-email-to-obama-gets-british-teen-banned-from-america-for-life

This story reported by the Sun is not true and we apologize for having published it.
The FBI doesn't call the local police of a 1,729-people village in Bedfordshire, England, to tell someone is banned from entering the United States.

According to Homeland Security rules, if you are banned from entering the United States, they don't ever tell foreign nationals about it.
They just deny you entry at the border because it shows up in your file.--JD

The whole thing is fake you twat. http://gizmodo.com/5637203/drunk-email-to-obama-gets-british-teen-banned-from-america-for-life.

and i call you a twat cause its my freedom of speech and because you should check your facts before spewing

Um, the original article is from the UK Sun, which is pretty much equivalent to the Weekly World News or any other made up tabloid. Gizmodo linked to it and has since retracted their reporting because the article is false. http://gizmodo.com/5637203/drunk-email-to-obama-gets-british-teen-banned-from-america-for-life Way to believe everything you read on the internet.

You can make WiFi unusable, however.

Technically possible but not practical for economic reasons.

From what I remember of a recent Steve Jobs announcement, all you have to do is have a room full of reporters using laptops.

So, when you LEASE a copy of software, should you even be charged "sales tax" on it? The interesting thing is that most of those Shrink/Click-wrap licenses ALSO make it illegal to rent-out or lease-out the software. You may not (as this shakes out) even have the right to USE, or even POSSESS that "software you just bought", because of this complicated snarl.

Would you put a company advertisement in a publication (e.g. newspaper or magazine) for which the consumer had no rights to take that ad with 'em on the way to your store? Would you "buy" a book you can only (one time, and one person) read in one location, next to one lamp -- Hardbound? -- Paperback? -- How about an e-Book?

How does this "decision" affect your right to extract-for-comment?

I feel the same way about Sony....especially with those last Marcus "big boy games" PSP hawking kid ads....its similar to how they did the "graffiti" crap http://gizmodo.com/140940/sonys-psp-graffiti-is-pissing-people-off

What's your diagnosis for Microsoft and Sony? Just giant companies, used to stomping about and destroying the competition without any real concern, who then suddenly realise they're in last place, and all out of ideas?

I grew up with both companies being leaders, now I see them like the USA car companies, somehow staying afloat by spreading BS about the competition, calling on patriotism, fond memories, while begging for bail outs.

This is the actual statement by Apple.

Also, I've read some rumors about the next iLife '11 having a new program for creating iOS apps in a similar way to the Android's AppInventor. This new statement seems a like a pointer in that direction, otherwise they would have a hard time arguing about antitrust issues on the App Store...

"if those android game devs were deveoping on apple's platform they'd be SOL."

Um, Gameloft does make iPHone games, a lot of iPhone games, making $25 million from iPhone apps in 2009.

"I've certainly heard enough horror stories about the review process to turn me off from ever trying to sell anything on the iphone."

Sure there's a review process, but judging from how many apps make it obviously it's not bad, and with 200,000+ apps I'd be shocked if there wasn't somebody complaining about the process.

I'm sure you won't be missed, plenty of developers are becoming millionaires off iPhone apps, you don't have to be one of them. How many Android millionaires are there? After 2 years not one Android developer has made a million dollars from apps. In fact Android developers celebrate making "up to" 100k a year

Besides Android has it's own major problems, like a 24 hour return on apps: according to one Android developer, you can return any Android app for a full refund within 24 hours. Talk about fail, no wonder Android developers are broke when users can instantly download apps, use them, and then return it for a full refund and repeat the process anytime they want.

Sorry but Android is a joke, Google does not make money from Android while the iPhone is Apple's cash cow. If the iPhone vanished tomorrow Apple would be in serious pain, but if Android vanished tomorrow Google wouldn't even notice, so Apple will fight tooth-and-nail to make sure the iPhone maintains it's Jesusphone status while Google will continue to ignore Android.

Wikileaks have a new bunker in Sweeden. And it looks cool.

http://gizmodo.com/241957/trekkie-recreates-awesome-set-of-star-trek-voyager-in-a-studio-apartment

Er, iTunes music is not drm'd. If you have old tracks that are drm'd, you can upgrade them to DRM free versions.

http://gizmodo.com/5124588/itunes-gets-drm-free-new-prices-purchase-over-3g

So why should they build, test and support new roms for every different Android device out there? They've got enough on their plate developing the reference OS itself. You should be asking Verizon, or at least HTC.

With Ubuntu, a lot of people chipped in to write and make available many different device drivers so that a huge range of hardware could be supported. Phones too require different device drivers - but on phones, many of those drivers are still proprietary. Cyanogen (among others) is the best recourse we've got.

But for actual solutions - well, you could insist on buying only phones with minimal vendor changes from vanilla Android, thus reducing the amount of work needed for porting the latest OS. Vendors could devote more effort to supporting older hardware, since it's clear it's a big issue with customers. From Google's pov, they've said they're working on separating as much as possible from the base OS, so that the cooler stuff can be updated independently.

Only other "solution" I can think of is for Google to hold off releasing new versions until major vendors complete porting it to their older hardware. But all that would do is disadvantage Google's own customers to no purpose, just so that other vendors' customers don't know what they're missing, not to mention reducing the valuable feedback Google needs to work on the next version. Might as well go to an annual cycle and change their name to Apple 2.0.

Gleaming white pyramid, need we see (23) more? ;-)
And that's just days after having been implicated in the destruction of Alderaan...

And everything old is new again. http://gizmodo.com/5064483/how-to-hack-the-esquire-e+ink-cover-to-make-a-clock

This was already noted by Nissan a while back when they decided to make their next electric cars sound like Blade Runner. Its a safety feature to make sure people like the blind can hear them so they don't walk right into a quiet electric car just as it's turning a corner at the lights.

Reading this it becomes instantly apparent that "unauthorized use" is referring to users of stolen devices.

Yeah and it ties in nicely with the stories that turn up from time to time of people getting their stolen laptop back because they snapped a picture of the thief and did an ip lookup, or people getting iPhones back using the already existing GPS lookup called, appropriately enough "Find My iPhone". Here's just one example ("Stolen MacBook Victim Uses Screen Sharing and iSight to Bust Thieves") and there's already a product which does this for macs called Undercover.
Guess Apple likes the idea and wants it on the iPhone.

The list, by cause does not mention virus, trojan, hacking or any thing similar as a cause for an airline crash, although it reads like a contributing factor in the article, rather than a primary cause.

(Damn pilot error.... how long till the AI's can fly planes? oh wait, they can).

To have context you not only have to RTFA you have to RTFA that the FA is referencing. Then you need to RTFA that is referenced by the FA that the FA is referencing. Kurzweil is almost certainly saying that the information needed to create a real brain can be compressed to a given size, so it is not unreasonable to think that a simulation of a brain can be compressed to similar size.

He might be wrong, but PZ Myers's argument isn't proof of that. It's a tangent. Like any good(bad) argument, it attacks Kurzweil's major by by talking about something completely different.

To have context you not only have to RTFA you have to RTFA that the FA is referencing. Then you need to RTFA that is referenced by the FA that the FA is referencing. Kurzweil is almost certainly saying that the information needed to create a real brain can be compressed to a given size, so it is not unreasonable to think that a simulation of a brain can be compressed to similar size.

He might be wrong, but PZ Myers's argument isn't proof of that. It's a tangent. Like any good(bad) argument, it attacks Kurzweil's major by by talking about something completely different.

DNA is more than just bits. DNA also contains data from physics and chemistry. Any code must also have those inputs. The proteins encoded by genes are more than just a pile of different amino acids in some sequence, they also contain data from physics and chemistry. Despite decades of trying and thousands of protein structures, we can't take a protein sequence and tell you what the three-dimensional structure looks like. That is a problem many, many orders of magnitude easier than what Kurzweil wants to do. Kurzweil wants to distill brains down to DNA and throw out physics and chemistry, and with them larger-scale properties of biochemistry and molecular biology like protein:protein and protein:DNA interaction, intra- and inter-cellular signalling, plus basic cell structure and basic anatomy of the brain, and how all those things develop, among many other things that aren't simply encoded in DNA but instead are emergent properties that require data from chemistry and physics. Biochemistry isn't a tangent. It's a critical part of how a brain functions that Kurzweil blithely ignores in his fabrication of a farcical "upper bound" that is estimated by throwing out most of what makes a brain a brain. This isn't to say we can't model some features of a brain. We can do that now, and we'll tackle bigger and more challenging aspects of brain function as we learn more biology and get better at making computers and clever code. But there's a hell of a difference between mere modeling or aping of something found in nature, and reverse engineering an ape. Kurzweil's statements suggest he doesn't grasp this, but without knowing the man and also knowing something about the horrid state of journalism it could just be the journalist and their editor mauling his true views.

His actual comments

Read it. Other than the solid date he predicts, it's pretty plausable.

1. Technology is growing exponentially
2. The brain isn't some magical soul-endowed jesus box. It's a function of physics

Here's how that math works, Kurzweil explains: The design of the brain is in the genome. The human genome has three billion base pairs or six billion bits, which is about 800 million bytes before compression, he says. Eliminating redundancies and applying loss-less compression, that information can be compressed into about 50 million bytes, according to Kurzweil.

About half of that is the brain, which comes down to 25 million bytes, or a million lines of code.

What's so crazy about that?

Keeping your complaints as vague as possible... PROBLEM. In your post you claim same old problems. What are those? I haven't seen problems beyond the DVD playback issue which is easily fixed. You've just pretty much went "I had a problem, but it's a secret so it can stay a problem." Thats pretty much trolling, trying to keep your answers as vague as possible so they can't be called is what people typically do when are BSing. So, what DIDN'T work on Ubuntu? You claim hardware then give a list of hardware but refuse to say what part of the hardware didn't work. As I mentioned in one of my others posts, I have a franken-desktop that has many new parts and you know what? Ubuntu recognized them without issue even though they were new. As for proof, how do you propose I do that? Buy a bunch of new equipment and video it for you? Your demands of proof are just as turnable as your "proof" is to us. Show us your proof that you couldn't get Ubuntu to run on 4 different systems. As for your Dell issue, that sounds like a Dell problem that you want to force upon Ubuntu even though THEY DIDN'T CAUSE THE PROBLEM. Thats like my car dealer altering my engine until it doesn't work and I bitch at Ford. Ford didn't cause the problem, the dealer did.

And please, which post demanded you "embrace the power of CLI" like its the fucking force. Because you sound like your trying to stir up crap while refusing to show proof. Again, this is trolling behavior.

As for Ubuntu not having nationwide support, its the forums, which there is a link in Firefox to it on the bar by default. Not like you can call up Microsoft or Apple for answers for free anytime you want. And as for the help desks in their personal stores, great if you live by them. Useless when you don't. Also, as for Ubuntus forums, those questions get answered, typically within a few hours and unlike some other companies official forums, you don't need to worry about your posts being deleted.

And complaining that people are just trying to hide the problems when they want some clarity of the vague "problems"... that is a PROBLEM.

That's because the market has chosen to give a care only about these instruction sets. Can you name a computing product sold this month that 1. runs a web browser, 2. isn't marketed primarily as a video game console, and 3. uses something other than ARM or x86 as its primary CPU?

Toshiba's REGZA 55X1 TV uses a Cell processor and has an Opera based browser.

Here's AT&T's handset approval and certification process as an example, and here is Verizon's. Nearly all carriers around the globe have them - some are very rigorous and demanding, while others are not much more than checking your CTIA and [your country's version of the FCC] radio performance certifications.

Regarding your specific example of T-Mobile USA - their certification process is known to be really easy, which makes things less onerous for handset developers but also doesn't catch sometimes serious bugs and issues like the Nexus One 3G problems. AT&T and Verizon have much more rigorous device certification processes (more of a PITA but better QA), and Sprint is somewhere in between.

Apple's multitouch patent is well documented.

There's plenty of examples, I'm not sure why you're so blind to them. I actually quoted Apple's press release which was also quoted in the article so if its misleading or sensationalistic then it is Apple behaving that way. Feel free to discount what you don't agree with even though you're arguing with recent history.

I agree with much of what you said, just 2 little points:

As GP said, it depends on the phone. Some phones, like the original Droid, are very easy to root. Download the official motorola program to flash it, download the .sbf file, run said program with said file. Then install superuser. As for the Droid X, how bout A One-Click Root?

I was talking about replacing or patching the bootloader not rooting there. The DroidX comes with some pretty heavy measures to prevent it, just like the iPhone does. The point was that the hardware is already locked down as tight as the iPhone, the software less so probably because the carriers aren't as specialized in hacking the OS.

So far it seems the problem is not Android, the problem is the manufacturers using it (Moto locking the bootloader, Moto and HTC loading crapware onto the phones, the carriers preventing the crapware from being deletable, etc.)

You can't separate the 2 though, there's no platonic ideal Android floating around only Android as it is used out in the real world. That's why I would have preferred Google kept making their own handsets (even if I wouldn't have bought one), at least they were more open in every sense.

Even Google's own Nexus One needs to be rooted

It doesn't "need" to be rooted. You "can" root it. The deal is the fact that you can root to enable extra functionality that most people wouldn't care about. Such as replacing the kernel, overclocking, using a terminal to directly access the OS internals. Most reasons to jailbreak an iPhone can be done on an Android phone without ever having to root it.

Replacing the bootloader similarly isn't easy to begin with and not getting any easier either : "DroidX bootloader locked tight [droiddog.com]." And it will only get worse now Google itself is out of the handset game.

As GP said, it depends on the phone. Some phones, like the original Droid, are very easy to root. Download the official motorola program to flash it, download the .sbf file, run said program with said file. Then install superuser. As for the Droid X, how bout A One-Click Root?

The most popular Android phones come with undeletable crapware

This is unfortunate and sucks horribly. Only root would allow you to delete the crapware, which is making me clambor to hope that a better, non-screwed, android phone will emerge before it is time for me to upgrade.

As far as half-truths, the same could be said of the iPhone, and nearly every electronic device. Many people will speak highly using half-truths to make something sounds great, others will do the opposite, lying through their teeth to make something sound horrible. Research and figure out for yourself, go with what works for you. So far it seems the problem is not Android, the problem is the manufacturers using it (Moto locking the bootloader, Moto and HTC loading crapware onto the phones, the carriers preventing the crapware from being deletable, etc.)

But you won't be protected from people coming up with confusing uses for volume buttons! http://gizmodo.com/5610183/camera%252B-app-hides-hardware-shutter-from-apple

My PC is as far away as possible in the corner under my table. I have a USB DVD player on my desk and a USB connection for all my other things I want to connect to it (Camera, ...)

But if I had to select something, I would go for this: http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/beer_pc.jpg

obscure?

Definitely obscure. "Ecological" cars and airplanes? Carbon-powered? Obscure motivations? Trains are 100% electric, infinitely safer, more spacious, smaller footprint than roads, etc. On short routes, they can be faster than flying, after factoring taxis and airport waits. And, there are bar-cars. -- http://gizmodo.com/5434582/the-fastest-train-in-the-world

In my opinion Microsoft should move forward with the Courier and not just blow it off like another invention that will fail. I think this would rake in a lot of money and be a huge competetor to Apples IPad. I for one would wait in long lines to recieve one of these.

http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet

So it would be a success like like the Zune or the KIn? Listen, I'll let you in on a little secret. What hardcore gadget/windows enthusiasts think will sell well usually does not sell well at all. A few examples of this would be: Windows Tablet PCs, Zune, JooJoo, Archos, IRiver, Kin, Open Moko, and the Courier.

In order for a product to be successful, it needs to appeal the general buying public and if there is third party software to me made then developers (geeks) need to buy into the platform. It does not need to appeal to nerds (enthusiasts) which would include a lot of slashdot regulars and tech bloggers. CNET journalists believed that the Zune would be successful and that HDDVD would win the format war so that should give you an indication of how out of touch tech blogger are with the masses.