Slashdot Mirror

And people who read slashdot should understand they are using the internet, and it takes less long to search the term NFC than it takes to post the question.

Come on, with an /. number that low, this can't be news to you.

...this classic column by Steve Ciarcia in Byte magazine from the mid-late 70's. http://books.google.com/books?id=DKajtHfqoRkC&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=ciarcia+home+alarm+story&source=bl&ots=-51QR-yF0A&sig=KJ7fYiy-dAL9RnRLBr4thoVLoVg&hl=en&ei=1uwXTL6kMJieMraWmYsL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=true

Captain Sullenburg is the pilot who successfully ditched his Airbus in the Hudson river in 2009. I found a copy of his book, Highest Duty, in a discount book bin a few months ago.

The interesting thing about "Sully" is that he'd spent his entire career studying aviation accidents, and thinking about what he, as a pilot, could have done to make the accident turn out better.

This has been confirmed.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&q=Cera+Fearing

Apple gets most of its money from hardware.

Microsoft gets most of its money from software licenses.

Amazon gets most of its money from people buying books and other stuff online.

Where does Google get most of its money from, to pay the salaries of over 30,000 employees as well as campuses around the world, data centers stocked with hundreds of thousands of servers, etc. It sells ads and search placement, yes, but that's not going to be enough unless it stays on top of the game of knowing how ads and search hits can be targeted to the right consumer at the right time. In other words, it needs to continually find new ways to invade the privacy of people who use its services for free.

Actual location: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.069690,-122.102200

As someone who has physically visited Microsoft's "Nevada Tax Dodge", I can tell you that they have hundreds of people employed across three office buildings, doing real work. Here's a street view: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=microsoft+licensing,+GP&hl=en&ll=39.466978,-119.777091&spn=0.014196,0.027874&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hq=microsoft+licensing,+GP&radius=15000&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=39.465765,-119.778911&panoid=SCavTRVJLjF335ijk_l6-w&cbp=12,0,,0,0 The white buildings to the left and right of the frame are wholly occupied by MS while the brown building in the center has one whole floor occupied by MS employees. Declaring that MS has no right to do business in states where taxes are lower is...well, disgusting.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure where they got that from, unless it's based on popular confusion with the Difference Engine, an earlier design that could not do general-purpose, programmable computation.

Babbage as a forerunner of modern computing isn't a recent acknowledgement either: many of the digital-computing pioneers explicitly referenced him, and compared their work to his, usually viewing his work favorably and chalking up its failures to practical implementation problems, not severe drawbacks in the design. Here's a 1958 article in New Scientist crediting Babbage, which even includes a table comparing the Analytical Engine with EDSAC.

The only serious controversy I know of is whether the design could've been built with technology of the time, not whether the design itself was sound. See e.g. this 1998 journal article, particularly p. 34 (6th page of the PDF), which concludes that it could probably have been built, though it would've been quite expensive and required the top machining abilities of the day.

Not what I meant. Things that have the disclaimer "The FDA has not evaluated...", commercials advertising cosmetic procedures, and probably "energy drink" commercials.

Oh, and maybe those anti-smoking commercials which might mention the business in said commercial. Actually, maybe any anti-smoking commercial because of this.

At least they didn't load their passengers while retreating from the roof of the embassy there, while waving white flags. American surrender-monkeys. https://www.google.com/search?q=vietnam+roof+of+embassy

You're obviously trolling.. but 1 AUD is 1.047 USD
https://www.google.com/finance?q=CURRENCY:AUDUSD

If you click on the 10 year chart, you'll see in 2008, it went from 0.97 cents to 0.6175 cents within 3 months. So it can recover (not saying it will, but it's possible).

"Something made from leftover stuff scraped up off the factory floor from some company that nobody but them has heard of."

Care to take your head out of the sand?

Search: "Ainol Novo 7" About 44,000,000 results (0.47 seconds)
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22ainol+novo+7%22

Customer review:

Wow, no wonder it got the 2nd Place of the Best Tablet Reward on CES
Ainol is a new name to most US consumers, but they are well known in China. I am not very surprised to see they won the best tablet reward 2nd place on CES this year, but I am quite amazed when I finally got a hold of NOVO 7 Aurora.

It's so cool, so nice, just like an Apple product. Actually the shinning white case mimics the Apple style as well. If they print an Apple logo on the back, you will believe it's an Apple 7" iPad.

Yes, it does.

http://www.google.com/

Works for me...

I think it does, because the world *seriously* needs a decent alternative to MS Access and neither OO nor LO have it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MySQL%20OpenOffice%20Base

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MySQL%20LibreOffice%20Base

Have you tried it? It's quite functional.

I think it does, because the world *seriously* needs a decent alternative to MS Access and neither OO nor LO have it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MySQL%20OpenOffice%20Base

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MySQL%20LibreOffice%20Base

Have you tried it? It's quite functional.

The 24 fps frames in film are all Fluid Frames. Games use Still frames since they have no natural motion blur, and when you increase the frame rate you start to improve the blur by overlapping frames. This is the same Audiophile Videophile BS because your eye sees frames at a far lower frame rate, but utilizes the blur in interpret motion. Reducing the blur in the frame by increasing the frame rate will screw with the motion of the image.

Try reading a book on the subject. The entire reason they went to 48fps was to try and reduce eye strain during 3D movies. They seem to have forgotten that a 72 refresh rate with a 24 frame rate will do the same thing. Frame by Frame the 48fps will look better when it's still, however, the 24fps will look more natural to your eye when it's playing.

There are 85,000 apps in the Windows Phone marketplace now, not stellar but nothing to sneer at either.

Really? Let's see if it's nothing to sneer at. Here's a list of the top apps in the entertainment category on the windows phone app store. It is a cesspool of misogynist "boob" apps, sex position apps, rip-off iOS and Android apps and the rest is just pure throw-away junk.

*sneer*

It's not much different in the Android Marketplace... excuse me... Google Play.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/category/ENTERTAINMENT?feature=category-nav

However, I am sure "Pocket Girlfriend' is an app that you'd need.

And we hear the profits are very strong in the Samsung handsets unit, so this is done with a healthy business, won fair and square, not in slashing prices and buying market share. Excellent job Samsung, excellent

I think you will find plenty more evidence that Samsung's profit isn't too bad. Having the dominant position in Mobile phones in terms of numbers also tended to lead to very high long term margins. It will be interesting to see how that plays out when there seem to be two stable positions in the market (Apple and Samsung). Although others seem to think one or the other will dominate, I don't think so. The mobile operator's like this situation with real competition and know that Microsoft is out to kill their business so they will probably end up keeping it.

The MPAA Lawyers have never played this nice..

Indeed, I am quite confused too.

They didn't mind the bad press over suing a 12 year old child OR a 80 year old grandfather for only 'several' movies, so we know it's not the age part that did it.
(source)

They also don't mind sending threatening letters to the military asking them to crack down on their own troops for them, so it isn't the American troops away from home part that did it either.
(source)

They didn't mind suing people for downloading movies for personal use and no profits involved, so we know that isn't what did it either.
(source)

This is a complete reversal of past policy on all counts!

My personal guess is that the lawsuit is already in the works, and they requested the court seal the details so the press doesn't get word of it. Then they release this announcement to try and look like they are being good guys. There can't be any other possibility. The Grinchs heart growing 3 sizes only happens in the movies.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yukka.livewallpaper.wg&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS55dWtrYS5saXZld2FsbHBhcGVyLndnIl0.

Dropbox doesn't have anything to promote, so there is no need for it in their TOS.

Youtube, Picasa and Plus (off the top of my head) all have ways of taking user generated content like videos, photos and posts - which, when the sharing permissions are set to "Public" - can be "promoted" by being put into various lists or displayed on pages.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/ - every video on that page is user content which has been "promoted". BUT, none of this has been done without the express permission of the content owner (via sharing settings).

Same here: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/featured?feat=featured_all

Same with Google Docs templates. Same with Blogger. Same with Apps on Play.

Google saves time and effort by having a single, broad policy, which covers them for pretty much all of their services.

Bet you anything they create a Drive specific policy by the end of the week outlining the specific details for Drive which will lose many of the useless words listed in Drive.

In any case "publicly perform", "publicly display" and "publish" are all essential to Drive (and Docs) - I have a large number of things in my Google Docs which are files listed in Google Docs as "Public" - mainly manuals but also a few spreadsheets with interesting information updated by a select few and viewed by thousands:
Examples:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ann1Le6EQCbEdFN2NXRoY3hKRi1ENEdPWldCU0tZVmc#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yx5-l2JKOw18isYGhke81JMAYN7pvx6sjEk6FA3-rYk
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRS0nOoVsYUuiOYg_OCkpx38s69hQgvetpMpWkGuElg
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apu8Kw8hp4JadGpWMVJFakNTZG1wa3ZmeHZ2TFUzdHc#gid=0

Dropbox doesn't have anything to promote, so there is no need for it in their TOS.

Youtube, Picasa and Plus (off the top of my head) all have ways of taking user generated content like videos, photos and posts - which, when the sharing permissions are set to "Public" - can be "promoted" by being put into various lists or displayed on pages.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/ - every video on that page is user content which has been "promoted". BUT, none of this has been done without the express permission of the content owner (via sharing settings).

Same here: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/featured?feat=featured_all

Same with Google Docs templates. Same with Blogger. Same with Apps on Play.

Google saves time and effort by having a single, broad policy, which covers them for pretty much all of their services.

Bet you anything they create a Drive specific policy by the end of the week outlining the specific details for Drive which will lose many of the useless words listed in Drive.

In any case "publicly perform", "publicly display" and "publish" are all essential to Drive (and Docs) - I have a large number of things in my Google Docs which are files listed in Google Docs as "Public" - mainly manuals but also a few spreadsheets with interesting information updated by a select few and viewed by thousands:
Examples:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ann1Le6EQCbEdFN2NXRoY3hKRi1ENEdPWldCU0tZVmc#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yx5-l2JKOw18isYGhke81JMAYN7pvx6sjEk6FA3-rYk
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRS0nOoVsYUuiOYg_OCkpx38s69hQgvetpMpWkGuElg
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apu8Kw8hp4JadGpWMVJFakNTZG1wa3ZmeHZ2TFUzdHc#gid=0

Dropbox doesn't have anything to promote, so there is no need for it in their TOS.

Youtube, Picasa and Plus (off the top of my head) all have ways of taking user generated content like videos, photos and posts - which, when the sharing permissions are set to "Public" - can be "promoted" by being put into various lists or displayed on pages.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/ - every video on that page is user content which has been "promoted". BUT, none of this has been done without the express permission of the content owner (via sharing settings).

Same here: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/featured?feat=featured_all

Same with Google Docs templates. Same with Blogger. Same with Apps on Play.

Google saves time and effort by having a single, broad policy, which covers them for pretty much all of their services.

Bet you anything they create a Drive specific policy by the end of the week outlining the specific details for Drive which will lose many of the useless words listed in Drive.

In any case "publicly perform", "publicly display" and "publish" are all essential to Drive (and Docs) - I have a large number of things in my Google Docs which are files listed in Google Docs as "Public" - mainly manuals but also a few spreadsheets with interesting information updated by a select few and viewed by thousands:
Examples:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ann1Le6EQCbEdFN2NXRoY3hKRi1ENEdPWldCU0tZVmc#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yx5-l2JKOw18isYGhke81JMAYN7pvx6sjEk6FA3-rYk
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRS0nOoVsYUuiOYg_OCkpx38s69hQgvetpMpWkGuElg
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apu8Kw8hp4JadGpWMVJFakNTZG1wa3ZmeHZ2TFUzdHc#gid=0

Dropbox doesn't have anything to promote, so there is no need for it in their TOS.

Youtube, Picasa and Plus (off the top of my head) all have ways of taking user generated content like videos, photos and posts - which, when the sharing permissions are set to "Public" - can be "promoted" by being put into various lists or displayed on pages.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/ - every video on that page is user content which has been "promoted". BUT, none of this has been done without the express permission of the content owner (via sharing settings).

Same here: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/featured?feat=featured_all

Same with Google Docs templates. Same with Blogger. Same with Apps on Play.

Google saves time and effort by having a single, broad policy, which covers them for pretty much all of their services.

Bet you anything they create a Drive specific policy by the end of the week outlining the specific details for Drive which will lose many of the useless words listed in Drive.

In any case "publicly perform", "publicly display" and "publish" are all essential to Drive (and Docs) - I have a large number of things in my Google Docs which are files listed in Google Docs as "Public" - mainly manuals but also a few spreadsheets with interesting information updated by a select few and viewed by thousands:
Examples:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ann1Le6EQCbEdFN2NXRoY3hKRi1ENEdPWldCU0tZVmc#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yx5-l2JKOw18isYGhke81JMAYN7pvx6sjEk6FA3-rYk
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRS0nOoVsYUuiOYg_OCkpx38s69hQgvetpMpWkGuElg
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apu8Kw8hp4JadGpWMVJFakNTZG1wa3ZmeHZ2TFUzdHc#gid=0

Dropbox doesn't have anything to promote, so there is no need for it in their TOS.

Youtube, Picasa and Plus (off the top of my head) all have ways of taking user generated content like videos, photos and posts - which, when the sharing permissions are set to "Public" - can be "promoted" by being put into various lists or displayed on pages.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/ - every video on that page is user content which has been "promoted". BUT, none of this has been done without the express permission of the content owner (via sharing settings).

Same here: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/featured?feat=featured_all

Same with Google Docs templates. Same with Blogger. Same with Apps on Play.

Google saves time and effort by having a single, broad policy, which covers them for pretty much all of their services.

Bet you anything they create a Drive specific policy by the end of the week outlining the specific details for Drive which will lose many of the useless words listed in Drive.

In any case "publicly perform", "publicly display" and "publish" are all essential to Drive (and Docs) - I have a large number of things in my Google Docs which are files listed in Google Docs as "Public" - mainly manuals but also a few spreadsheets with interesting information updated by a select few and viewed by thousands:
Examples:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ann1Le6EQCbEdFN2NXRoY3hKRi1ENEdPWldCU0tZVmc#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yx5-l2JKOw18isYGhke81JMAYN7pvx6sjEk6FA3-rYk
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRS0nOoVsYUuiOYg_OCkpx38s69hQgvetpMpWkGuElg
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apu8Kw8hp4JadGpWMVJFakNTZG1wa3ZmeHZ2TFUzdHc#gid=0

it's not a German problem, it's everyone's problem. it can happen anywhere.

http://www.thewave.tk/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4689717947890475769

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/

the assumption that it's the Germans who were the problem is no different than blaming the Jews to begin with.
it's just a different tribalism.

Cryptography (Government mandated PGP backdoor, anyone?)

Sources:
PGP:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cSe_0OnZqjAC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352&dq=pgp+government+mandated+backdoor&source=bl&ots=cVtmm3vwYK&sig=fwjn6mfbXVWngTS0pgHIFWFV9bE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5OyZT8_pLsXUgAf3gNX1DQ&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=pgp%20government%20mandated%20backdoor&f=false)

[not in citation given]
Quotation (emphasis mine):

PGP version 3.0 may also contain support for "key escrow". If it does, it won't be the sort of back door, government mandated key escrow that the Clinton administration is supporting. Instead, it will be a voluntary, individually controlled key escrow system

Yeah I'm sure that the public sector arm of IBM has more than a few people with Phd's in urban planning working for them if it's a market they take seriously. Oh, and a quick Google found these two examples of phd's in urban planning working for IBM...

Pure and innocent Scientific Inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge generally hits a pretty thick wall pretty quickly as soon as it steps into the realm of things that already being researched, with the qualification that they are things the military is researching, or has researched within the past decade.

Even now, just to use the results of certain types of this research -- such as very accurate nuclear interaction cross-sections (discovered for the purposes of nuclear weapons, but) used for the purposes of cancer treatment -- puts you under the watchful eye of the FBI.

Yes, not everything falls under this category, and no, nobody needs to be reminded of the benefits of such research like how our microwave ovens defeated the germans, but just think about some of the examples we DO know about:
WWII to Cold war era: Nuclear Science
Cryptography (Government mandated PGP backdoor, anyone?)

Sources:
MCNP:
http://mcnpx.lanl.gov/
PGP:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cSe_0OnZqjAC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352&dq=pgp+government+mandated+backdoor&source=bl&ots=cVtmm3vwYK&sig=fwjn6mfbXVWngTS0pgHIFWFV9bE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5OyZT8_pLsXUgAf3gNX1DQ&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=pgp%20government%20mandated%20backdoor&f=false)

https://www.google.com/search?ix=heb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Did+Hitler+love+anal+sex BTW, your comment was the second result :)

So as written, could they take my videos from Drive - one of their services - and move it onto YouTube - another service?

If you mark them as PUBLIC, yes, they probably could do that.

But again this only applies to things you mark as public in your Drive, just like it was in Picasa, Docs, and any other portion of Google services where the option to PUBLICLY share content exists.

However, they probably would not do this, because its a tracking nightmare. You have the right to cease sharing any item in your drive. If they had copied it out, they would have to track that down and withdraw it. Chances are they would just link it to YouTube if they even bothered to do that on something you shared. That way, when you un-share, the content would disappear from YouTube without them having to take any more action.

But again, READ THE PRIVACY POLICY, and realize this is a tempest in a teapot because it only applies to stuff you EXPLICITLY share.

So, yeah, Article Fail.

Well, Google is pretty clear. about what they can and will do with your data. Reading Google's Privacy policy explains very clearly what you should know or be concerned about.

A lot of people seem to enjoy jumping on the bandwagon saying "see! Google IS doing evil!" But if you actually look at what they are doing, it's much easier to make informed decisions about whether or not to use their services.

Microsoft's terms allow them to change or extend their service however they need to. (Microsoft does, and will, and this is beneficial for their users.) This is not different from if Google were to "come out with a new service".

Ultimately, Google (and Microsoft, Amazon, Dropbox, etc.) all are subject to the laws where they operate, and CAN'T legally do the kind of bad stuff you're suggesting they could. Again, there are things to be concerned about (or at least aware of), such as the privacy policy and what the actual Google service does.

Well, Google is pretty clear. about what they can and will do with your data. Reading Google's Privacy policy explains very clearly what you should know or be concerned about.

A lot of people seem to enjoy jumping on the bandwagon saying "see! Google IS doing evil!" But if you actually look at what they are doing, it's much easier to make informed decisions about whether or not to use their services.

Microsoft's terms allow them to change or extend their service however they need to. (Microsoft does, and will, and this is beneficial for their users.) This is not different from if Google were to "come out with a new service".

Ultimately, Google (and Microsoft, Amazon, Dropbox, etc.) all are subject to the laws where they operate, and CAN'T legally do the kind of bad stuff you're suggesting they could. Again, there are things to be concerned about (or at least aware of), such as the privacy policy and what the actual Google service does.

It doesn't seem that hard to start up something like this, I'm half tempted to buy a few servers and start my own small scale hosting site. The only thing in the privacy policy will just be "This shit is yours. I'm not going to use it in any way"

Here's google's revenue plan: https://www.google.com/settings/storage/?hl=en

Can you do better? No really, I'm wondering what it would really cost to DIY.

There are nearly turnkey plans out there where you can resell Amazon S3 storage as a dropbox or carbonite type service. You basically have to do zero except sign up and then market/administer it, no hardware admin necessary.

If someone has a knack for marketing and graphical design and a sliver of tech knowledge, not a bad idea. Of course, at this point you would have to be VERY good to take away marketshare.

The more reasonable avenue I saw was marketing it to your own customers as a value-add to IT or graphical services, etc.

You forgot this portion:

Information you share

Many of our services let you share information with others. Remember that when you share information publicly, it may be indexable by search engines, including Google. Our services provide you with different options on sharing and removing your content.

IF you mark a document as public, Google will let anyone else see it. (e.g. Publicly display).
But if you mark it private, nobody else sees it, without a warrant.

The other permissions you grant them exist solely to let them provide the service to any machine from which you log in.

Conveniently left out of the summary and TFA is that this only applies to DATA YOU EXPLICITLY MAKE PUBLIC in your Google Drive.
Which is the same policy as Google Docs had, same as Picasa had, etc.
If you mark a document public then it can be searched for and found. (But in my tests, its rarely searchable - probably my stuff is too boring even for Google's spiders).

Foremost in Google's policy it states:

Information we share
We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:
With your consent
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

So if you mark it private, it means its almost as private as it can be while still being in the cloud. Of course Google has to honor subpoenas, but your next great novel will not appear in someone's search results if mark it private.

If you want better privacy for your commercial cloud storage your best bet is SpiderOak which stores everything encrypted with an encryption key that even SpiderOak doesn't know. They use client-side decryption, and therefore couldn't hand over your stuff even at gunpoint.

http://code.google.com/p/sacd-ripper/
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96860

Found within moments of googling for each.

What I find hilarious is that you apparently think people who are too stingy to pay for their media will grudgingly do so anyway when piracy is made slightly more inconvenient...

"Piracy" is not inconvineinced in the least. And you really don't have to take my word for it, anyone in the security part of IT would know. That's the punchline to the whole DRM fiasco. Kind of like the TSA, it really only inconveniences you, the reader, the lowest in the pecking order in this whole clusterfuck.

yet when similar policies were enacted in other public places there was no outcry

Just Google for TSA bus

The TSA grunts are just doing their jobs, they aren't getting any kicks from patting down the kids.

You haven't seen the TSA pedophile arrest reports then?

cite

Think about it: What kind of man signs up to grope other men's genitals all day long? Nobody normal, that's for sure. Most guys would run a mile from that.

Dunno what happened to the link, this is the link I've submitted.

* Google says: “We are unable to issue rewards to individuals who are on sanctions lists, or who are in countries (e.g. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) on sanctions lists.”

* Facebook says: “You must... Reside in a country not under any current U.S. Sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Libya, Cuba, etc.)”

But researchers in those countries needn't worry; the government over there has their own reward program for discovering security bugs.

Does that mean Google is not a search engine because when I search Google for 2 + 3 it computes "2 + 3 = 5" without searching for pages that contain "2 + 3"?

And when I search for San Francisco on Wolfram Alpha, is it computing the population and other data is presents?

Just because Google can do a limited set of parlor tricks doesn't make it the equivalent of Alpha. Alpha may search to find the initial data but that's not it's primary purpose.

population of san francisco as a percentage of california's population

result

Arguing Alpha is a search engine is like arguing a car is an Air conditioner. A car may have an AC unit but that's air conditioning isn't what it's used for.

No it's not. It provides computation engine. When you type

distance to mars in earth radii

Into wolfram alpha, it's not searching for the answer. It's computing the answer.

By contrast a search engine searches for websites based relevant to the words input.

These are totally different things.

Does that mean Google is not a search engine because when I search Google for 2 + 3 it computes "2 + 3 = 5" without searching for pages that contain "2 + 3"?

And when I search for San Francisco on Wolfram Alpha, is it computing the population and other data is presents?

No it's not. It provides computation engine. When you type

distance to mars in earth radii

Into wolfram alpha, it's not searching for the answer. It's computing the answer.

By contrast a search engine searches for websites based relevant to the words input.

These are totally different things.

Does that mean Google is not a search engine because when I search Google for 2 + 3 it computes "2 + 3 = 5" without searching for pages that contain "2 + 3"?

And when I search for San Francisco on Wolfram Alpha, is it computing the population and other data is presents?

Google will never be in the lead because the attitude at Google is that, what they have no is no different than what Siri is.

Take for instance. Google has unit conversion.

1 inch to meters

I get a result.

But if I type

1" to m

I get nothing.

Or if I type

1 inch converted to meters

I also get nothing

Google's philosophy is that the user accommodates to Google. Not Google accommodates the user. That attitude will always leave them catching up.

Google will never be in the lead because the attitude at Google is that, what they have no is no different than what Siri is.

Take for instance. Google has unit conversion.

1 inch to meters

I get a result.

But if I type

1" to m

I get nothing.

Or if I type

1 inch converted to meters

I also get nothing

Google's philosophy is that the user accommodates to Google. Not Google accommodates the user. That attitude will always leave them catching up.

Google will never be in the lead because the attitude at Google is that, what they have no is no different than what Siri is.

Take for instance. Google has unit conversion.

1 inch to meters

I get a result.

But if I type

1" to m

I get nothing.

Or if I type

1 inch converted to meters

I also get nothing

Google's philosophy is that the user accommodates to Google. Not Google accommodates the user. That attitude will always leave them catching up.

...lucky?

ask google "show me the flights over head"

https://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=show+me+the+flights+currently+overhead&oq=show+me+the+flights+currently+overhead&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=igoogle.3...863178.869391.0.869641.42.42.0.28.3.1.191.1176.10j4.14.0.

first result is how to get siri to give you the answer..

ask Siri and you get...
delta airlines flt 2279, 7500 ft, 21 degrees up, mcdonnel douglas, 4.1 miles south-southeast
united airlines flt 1698 25000 ft, 14 degrees up boeing 737 800 20 miles south
virgin america flt 71 19,600 ft, 10 degrees up airbus 320, 21 miles north-northwest
skywest airlines, flt 6410 10000 ft, 6.8 degrees up canadair regional jet, crj-200