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Storage is far from solved, let's look at that with your proposed theoretical limit of 1 exabyte and see how that works out. The bottom line is can you buy something like that and use it, it's a little more complicated than buying a bunch of hard drives and sticking them in a several cases and pushing the power button. You've also got to have a lot more drive overhead available to compress all this data to begin with, so you'll need more than an exabyte of working drive space.

Let's start with a company that is well know for making storage arrays. To put this in perspective Drobo in aggregate has sold n Exabyte of storage to /all/ of it's customers. How about backing up this enormous amount of data that you propose is being captured? StorageTek announced the worlds first Exabyte capable Tape drive backup only two years ago.

Now let's look at something from are pie in the sky friends over at DARPA and see what they are doing. It seems they recently announced that they will build a 4 Exabyte system in the for military surveillance. Now let's really go out there and look at marketing for a company claiming to meet the governments theoretical future demand for a really, really large array to be used for data mining and you will find contemplating a 10 exabyte capacity of storage and inquiring what it would costmodel that could meet that demand in the future.

To put some perspective on the logistics of actually doing this look at Cleversafe, they are creating a 10 exabyte array that will be housed in 8 different data centers in 8 different states and use 4.5 million disks.

I see the future of BYOD being running another OS instance for the work apps, or possibly a separate easily switched profile with encrypted storage.

So...BlackBerry Balance then

"Nobody in the US opposes having the "best and the brightest" come here, but the vast majority are simply of average ability and recruited to reduce pay of people in the US."

I think you're referring to this study.

H1-B workers are not the "best and brightest" at all. They often did not compare well to native U.S. workers. Companies just wanted them because they were cheap.

I guess it really depends on what business you are in though. Take for instance a large company like Fordxxxxx GM (picked because they aren't a computer/technology/web based, but large company). Their expertise has nothing to do with computers. Now, the question becomes, would it be cheaper for an organization of this size to host their own email? Most likely it would. But the real question is, do they want to devote any corporate time to even dealing with this kind of thing. Basically they would have to have a whole new division added on to their company to handle IT management, and they'd have all the fun stuff that goes along with it.

http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/interviews/general-motors-will-slash-outsourcing-in/240002892

Sorry, I just couldn't resist!

So the idea of "cloud computing" is that out there somewhere, a company has a helluva lot of computing resources (processing, disk, network). There's an abstraction layer between the physical hardware and the user, that lets you spin up virtual machines that consume fractions of this capacity. Because the cloud provider operates at such a large scale, it can guarantee that when you want to spin up a new virtual machine, there's the physical capacity there to back it.

But that depends on scale. Ok, so an individual company buys a bunch of hardware, runs some abstraction stuff on top, and starts spinning up virtual machines. How is this different from the what they were doing pre-cloud - that is, running their own cluster of physical machines? Oh sure, you can probably make your physical machines a little bit more flexible by running arbitrary virtual machines on them, but the main benefit of the cloud is that you can utilise the provider's scale to quickly ramp up if needed. The only way you could do that in a private cloud is if you massively over-invest in the physical machines your cloud's running on. What company's going to do that? Why run a "private cloud" over a cluster?

Also, the "zombie machine" argument is pretty hilarious. I'm sure we've all heard of the infamous drywalled server - and that's just an extreme example of a common issue. How many places have you worked were there's random machines running that people are too afraid to turn off because nobody knows what they do anymore? Zombie machines hardly seem to be a cloud-specific issue. At least cloud providers give you an itemized list of every server you're paying for, and you can decomission them with the click of a mouse.

Lots of Windows developers warned you Windows 8 was going to be a big mistake. You ignored us and stumbled on like an angry dunk. I used Windows 8 in the shops. It sucked and was clear customers wouldn't warm to it. With the writing on the wall developers took the plunge to Tablet development. People still wanted their PCs, but instead of re-inventing the desktop and instead you laid another Zune and forgot to flush. You have squandered the biggest computing monopoly ever, but this time people are leaving so I don't think there is a come back. Bye Bye Balmer.

Windows 8 App Developer Says Process Stinks
http://www.informationweek.com/security/application-security/windows-8-app-developer-says-process-sti/240010598
More Game Developers Unhappy With Windows 8
http://linuxgamenews.com/post/29001456897/more-game-developers-unhappy-with-windows-8
Why Microsoft has made developers horrified about coding for Windows 8 # warning signs as far back as 2011!
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/06/html5-centric-windows-8-leaves-microsoft-developers-horrified/
Don’t Blame Us for Windows 8s Slow Sales, PC Makers Say
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/oem-windows-8/

...is that the Federal Government allowed Microsoft to hand over source code for the NT kernel not so long ago...

http://www.informationweek.com/software/operating-systems/china-gets-a-peek-at-microsoft-source-co/225400063

...and look what happened!

http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-china--microsoft-source-hack-google-2010-12

Oh dear.

Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/12/facebook-admits-hiring-pr-firm-to-smear-google/

Apple's war against Google
http://www.informationweek.com/development/mobility/apples-war-against-google-time-for-new-t/240002054

Microsoft Wage War on Google
http://www.idfmarketing.com/blog/microsoft-wage-war-on-google/

Microsoft spending 7 figures to revive Gmail smear campaign
http://9to5google.com/2013/02/07/microsoft-spending-7-figures-to-revive-gmail-smear-campaign/

...It's technology that Google has had a hand in funding. The Project Glass connection is because the researchers used Project Glass as an example in their paper. Google may be able to use the technology, but it has not been included in the Glass software.

Google Funds Fashion Recognition Research
http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/google-funds-fashion-recognition-researc/240150399

Which I don't see happening with desktops anytime soon if ever.

It's happening now.

Azure has won cloud performance comparisons in the past, including a major 11-months test concluding two years ago. (via)

--libman

"My previous company had a lot of H1-B employees. And we had a really difficult time hiring people that weren't, because there just aren't any that are worth anything. Trust me, I've done dozens of interviews where the people are just pathetic. "

I won't work for company that hires lots of H-1B's. It's just bad karma, knowing the employer cheated the system and a large number of US citizen's will be underemployed as a result.

For the most part, companies like Micro$oft have dysfunctional business models, expecting all their tech employees to move to their defacto company town is throw back to the early 1900's. They suck up all the local talent, abuse them, and then complain to congress when nobody but 3rd world indentured servants will relocate and work for them.

The H-1B program has allowed the abusive employers to continue on like nothing is wrong. The moment a US corp makes the top-100 in the H-1B visa rankings, I avoid recommending, purchasing, or installing any of their products. The logic is simple, abusive employers produce inferior, low quality products.

Meh. Once upon a time I would have agreed with you, but now I actually run Windows 7 on a PC that is less powerful than my phone, and it doesn't seem too bad, so I think the idea of resource constraints stopping you from running a desktop OS on a mobile device is something that will soon be consigned to history.

Now try it with Windows 8. When the OS and bundled software on your tablet is so big that it wouldn't even fit on the largest iPhone 4, and would fill nearly 3/4ths of the capacity of the largest iPhone 5, you have a very serious problem.

===
The hardware (SSDs) will be large enough and cheap enough so that operating size will not be a real constraint. -- Except if you have to download and rebuild the system

But how can anything that Microsoft says about malware be trusted when Microsoft's own Security Essentials software has problems detecting malware?

Meh. Once upon a time I would have agreed with you, but now I actually run Windows 7 on a PC that is less powerful than my phone, and it doesn't seem too bad, so I think the idea of resource constraints stopping you from running a desktop OS on a mobile device is something that will soon be consigned to history.

Now try it with Windows 8. When the OS and bundled software on your tablet is so big that it wouldn't even fit on the largest iPhone 4, and would fill nearly 3/4ths of the capacity of the largest iPhone 5, you have a very serious problem.

How did a poster who didn't read the article get "Insightful"?

Go read the article. You'll see screenshots of iOS 6.1 displaying weirdness, and a link to a Google Nexus 7 with issues too.

So no, this is not just some Windows 8 whiner. Here's the link again. Click it this time!

http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/25-years-from-today-a-time-for-bugs/240146640

"Google Health has been discontinued"

2012 was the Year of the Cloud Going Away. Several major service vendors bailed completely. GoDaddy dropped their cloud service last October, Dell discontinued their Quest Cloud Automation Platform and Harris dropped theirs last February.

On the consumer side, where the contracts are heavily biased towards the vendor, it's worse. Apple dropped MobileMe, and Google dropped a long list of products. Windows Live Mesh shuts down February 13, 2013.

When cloud services die, they tend to die fast. A business which relied on a "cloud" service can be in big trouble. The best case is a frantic effort to get the data off and move to some alternative. Worst case is the data gets lost.

"JSTOR's mission is to foster widespread access to the world's body of scholarly knowledge".

These are not songs pirated for someone's amusement and profit, taking cocaine away from needy media executives. The very purpose of writing them in the first place is to put them in "the pool of human knowledge" that others may learn what they have, test them, and build upon them - that progress might advance for all mankind. Not in "forever less a day" when the copyright expires, but immediately upon publication. This nonprofit organization purports to want them disseminated, not to serve as the gatekeeper that holds them reserved for a privileged and wealthy few.

So. No wonder they didn't want Aaron prosecuted. His proposal was to actually help them fulfill their own mission. In death he has laid their hypocrisy bare.

http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/handheld/ces-2013-5-dumbest-ideas/240146154

Different people are involved. HP inherited a services contract with GM when it purchased EDS who had the contract initially. With GM deciding to pull all IT support and services in house, that services contract is being terminated. Because of the size of GM, there is a large number of people in HP's services business dedicated to the GM account. That is where the 3000 number originates. Those 3000 folks are basically the world-wide support team for the GM contract (they support to a lesser degree others, but GM is the primary) and GM reached out to HP to bring the people over when the contract terminated. That allows GM to have people experienced with their systems and allows HP to not have 3000 support folks who do not have an assignment.

The other 18 people are a group of folks in Texas who had some connection to Randy Mott from before his going to HP. They had worked in different companies with him. Those folks were not necessarily connected to the GM contract, but they decided they wanted to continue working for Randy. As has been discussed in many reports, HP is continuing to restructure and refocus with more layoffs (via attrition, employee early retirement or just reductions in workforce) announced, so people are looking around for other opportunities. Can't blame them.

I really don't see the point of jailbreaking this device. There is no native Windows software that will run on it because that's all x86 code. You could run .NET code (at least some, we don't know if the full .NET is in there). And while it's possible to write native Windows programs for ARM, who's really going to do that for the few systems that are jailbroken? BTW, there is no simple jailbreak procedure to invoke this. It's complicated.

On battery life, the Atoms that were promised for Christmas are delayed until summer for driver issues related to sleep states.

No, they have been delayed until next month. At least as far as HP and Dell go.

The mainstream Intel processor versions don't have the battery life you speak of, nor the sexy slimline form factors, nor the low weights of competing tablets.

Actually, the W700 does. It clocks in at 7 hour with a mainstream core i3. It's available now. They may not be as slim and light as other tablets, but 2 lbs and half an inch thick isn't exactly a brick. And again, this is in comparison to the previous generation tablets which were 3-4 pounds and an inch+ thick.

On price, you can get a 7" Android tablet now for $90, or 10" for $130 - and they work fine.

You're seriously bringing $99 rite aid tablets into this discussion? These things are the lowest, most terrible pieces of computing tech out there. Terrible screens, little to no memory, tiny on board flash storage, no name brand with no name support. The *only* thing they have going for them is price. If that's all consumers cared about, you would have a point.

Ability to run legacy apps is a trap. They're deprecating legacy apps. Eventually they want to break app compat with legacy apps because the situation has become unmaintainable.

Where do you get this idea? The desktop is there for a reason, and these apps aren't going away anytime soon for corporations. If there's one thing Microsoft actually understands, it's the importance of legacy support. Windows RT is a different matter, but this is Windows 8 we're talking about.

A Windows tablet is something you sell to somebody you never want to darken your doorstep again. It's a "farewell product". As IT staff it's the last joke you play on the customers who tormented you before you retire. This is not going to go well for Microsoft.

I actually worked for a company whose business was specifically to sell the old generation tablets to businesses. It was very niche, but for the applications at the time there was nothing better. We mostly sold to medical professionals, contractors, and government. The medical people used tablets like the motion computing c5 as a sort of digital chart and had specialty software for it. The contractors and government customers used them mostly for the signature capabilities and the ability to mark up drawings on the job. Our customers like the solutions we provided, and the new crop of devices are better in every single way.

Tablets like the Dell Latitude 10 shipping next month are .4" thick and weigh 1.3 lbs. This is the same size as iPad, runs just as long, runs legacy software, comes with built in USB, HDMI, SD ports, removable battery, and to boot costs less. There's really nothing not to like about tablets like this.

for access to the said documents that allowed interoperabliity. After Microsoft was forced by the EU to release the docs.

http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/smart-phones/android-clear-leader-in-smartphone-race/240143823

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23818212#.UL6UqoPAcrV

Actually there was a bit of a fire sale on the Kin.

The Kin ONE went from $50 to $30 after a month. The Kin TWO went from $100 to $50 at the same time. The devices where then discontinued shortly after.

Verizon then sent the remaining unsold units back to Microsoft. After a year, that same inventory of unsold devices emerged with a firmware update that turned them into feature phones, named the Kin ONEm and the Kin TWOm.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Microsoft says it has sold more than 40 million Windows 8 licenses, but the information is worthless in absence of key data the company won't divulge.

We don't know because Microsoft isn't saying. We don't know how many of the 40 million licenses come from low-cost upgrades, from volume licensing sales that kick in automatically, or from direct sales to consumers. And we don't know how many of the 40 million licenses are sitting on systems that have yet to find a buyer.

So why won't Microsoft provide a breakdown? What is it hiding? Its silence speaks volumes or, perhaps more accurately, low volumes.
 

http://www.informationweek.com/software/windows8/microsofts-windows-8-numbers-meaningless/240142865?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

Yeah. When it doesn't need to be "false flag".

Collateral damage to your own industrial infrastructure is enough to make the risk of escalating "cyber warfare" a lose-lose proposition.

Cyber Weapon Friendly Fire: Chevron Stuxnet Fallout

In the end, this will be used as the basis to kill your free Internet, that with all its warts and pitfalls, is far more valuable than the heavily-policed alternatives.

That sub-genius Richard Clarke has been squawking this kind of lame bullshit since Clinton was not having-sex-with-that-woman. :-)

Why does Google get so low that they need to have proxy patent wars with Microsoft? Why can't they leave MS alone or at least sue them themselves?

Hmm maybe because Microsoft is doing the SAME THING except suing manufacturers of android handsets rather than Google its-self. Then after the lawsuits were done they are charging a license fee to companies selling android. I'm guessing this suit is really intended to either offset that cost or get MS to agree to a cross license agreement.
Here you go, since you seem to have a selective memory: https://www.informationweek.com/windows/microsoft-news/microsoft-gets-android-phone-makers-to-p/231901481

That would be great if everything you posted weren't counterfactual.

Android is Linux the way iOS is BSD. Related, not identical. Android's problems are not at the kernel level. Apples to apples, here.

Nice windows security howto. Notice how it doesn't include anything about Group Policy? Notice how group policy doesn't exist in the home versions of Windows? The role-based security in Linux is not scripts, but SELinux. You know, that thing the NSA designed?

Speaking of the NSA, I'm sure you know they publish security guidelines on how to secure OSes. So we could all give a fuck about the one you wrote, but keep sucking your own dick on that one. Would you be surprised to learn that none of the public-facing servers for the NSA, CIA, or FBI run Windows? Clearly they're all asking to get hacked. Again, who gives a fuck about some half-assed Certificate Authority? Verisign and Thawte both run linux, maybe you should let them know how fucked they are.

Qubes uses a hypervisor and the linux kernel. It could not be accomplished with Windows. You can do fuck-all with the NT kernel, in fact. Does it have bugs? Assuredly. Can you find out what they are? Nope!

Yes, crackers can see your source code. Why don't we have linux botnets again? The nice thing about hacking windows, their users have to wait for M$ to get off their ass to patch something. If the users are lucky it will only take months. Also, the black-hats have the Windows source code too. Microsoft will hand it out to practically anybody.

UAC virtualization is *not* chroot. It is also disabled for x64 processes. You don't even have a clue.

You have this idea that how much you post and how often are actually good measures of what your posts are worth. You're right, of course, but it's an inverse relationship. Testimonials are, of course, the least credible things you could post.

But I have to sympathize: it can't be easy living in a world that proves you wrong by its very existence. Linux beats Windows 2-1 in the server space, practically nothing else runs on supercomputers, and Windows phones aren't even a rounding error in Android sales -- to say nothing of the embedded space. Probably because you don't understand what "embedded" means. I hear that IIS has some great new features available to the 15% of sites that are actually using it though!

Nobody's buying what you're selling. Keep trying, maybe some day we'll all wake up and say, "APK was right all along!"

Sorry; I meant to link to either this article or this article which would have made it clear what the measure was. It's personal computers in the strict sense of computers which designed for use by one person as opposed to "PCs" as in IBM PC clones.

So I guess we can dismiss apple's "post-pc era" bullshit then?

and a mac is not a pc, a pc is not a pc, but ipads is a pc?

Sorry; I meant to link to either this article or this article which would have made it clear what the measure was. It's personal computers in the strict sense of computers which designed for use by one person as opposed to "PCs" as in IBM PC clones.

Check out this link: http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/tablets/why-the-ipad-3-regressed-in-battery-life/232602960

To achieve the mind-boggling quad-XGA resolution of 2048 by 1536 pixels using the display technology available today, Apple had to more than double the power draw of the LED backlight that lights up the iPad screen. According to DisplayMate, Apple had to bump up the backlight power draw from 2.7 watts on the iPad 2 to 7 watts on the new iPad.

As DisplayMate explains it, that huge bump in power consumption in the LED backlight was caused by the use of amorphous silicon type LCD panels whose transistors block out more light when pixel density increases. The iPhone 4 in contrast has even higher pixel density--but its use of low temperature polysilicon (LTPS) technology makes the iPhone 4 more than twice as energy efficient per square inch to achieve the same brightness as the new iPad. The problem is that LTPS technology is expensive and would not have been practical for a screen as big as the new iPad's. A new display technology called indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) has the benefit of better energy efficiency at a competitive price, but IGZO isn't ready for mass production.

This means we are both correct. The majority of power use is just to light the display, and with a Retina, more power is needed.

But technology is on the horizon that should someday permit a Retina display that doesn't need as much brightness and thus saves power.

Here's the printer friendly page. The whole article on one page; http://www.informationweek.com/security/attacks/exclusive-anatomy-of-a-brokerage-it-melt/240008569?printer_friendly=this-page

Let's rephrase then - it's funny how little effort they spent *inventing* the ideas they then patented. They stole *everything* from others, put it together in a highly breakable piece of garbage wrapper, stuck a huge price-tag on it, then hyped it until it was the hippie thing to do.

You are talking about Samsung, aren't you? The "highly breakable piece of garbage wrapper" gave it away http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/smart-phones/iphone-5-crushes-samsung-galaxy-s3-in-cr/240008197

A few years back, I remember reading glowing stories on HP's former CIO in InformationWeek. Mott was leading a multi-year project to slash the number of in-house applications, the number of data centers, and IT employees, and to migrate to the corporate data warehouses to use HP's new technology NeoView.

Mott didn't survive the rapid turnover in HP CEO's office. He is now the CIO at GM.

I was wondering the same thing all yesterday when this popped up on the wire. In fact, I had a similar concern back a few years ago on the ATT-T-Mobile linkup. After all, although ATT and T-Mobile both use GSM, they use different frequencies to do so. T-Mobile phones will work on an ATT network and vice-versa for regular calls, texts, and slow data -- but not at 3G speeds. (For the record, that is now changing: T-Mobile is now doing some 3G on the 1900MHz band that is compatible with most phones, namely the iPhone. It used to do 3G on 1700MHz, which only phones sold by T-Mobile are configured to use. But that was not happening at the time. See this article).

Moving on: PC Mag reported on a presentation the two companies released indicating that the MetroPCS CDMA network will be largely turned-off and dismantled with all customers transitioned by 2015. The brief seems to claim that customers replace MetroPCS devices so quickly as it is, there won't be a difficult public relations situation:

This means that all existing MetroPCS users will need to get new phones by then, but that's likely to happen anyway, the companies noted. "Rapid handset turnover (60-65 percent per year) facilitates MetroPCS customer migration," the slides said. "MetroPCS customers [are] anticipated to be completely migrated by 2H 2015."

From what I have read about MetroPCS, most of its customers use cheap feature phones. The idea then is that they'll tire or break their cheap phones and T-Metro will be able to take advantage of that trend to shift them over to equally cheap GSM phones to run on the legacy T-Mobile network. There are certainly a share of customers that use more expensive phones that they expected when they purchased them to be more durable and last longer than 2015 -- I would suggest that that number is small given the focus of MetroPCS on those that want what is now considered to be bare minimum for cell phone service. (talk/text/30MB BREW/WAP web).

All of this said, I will note that when AT&T/Cingular acquired Alltel, Alltel also used CDMA. I don't know how AT&T was able to make that acquisition work, but they did manage to do so -- T-Metro looks to be pursuing this transaction with a page out of that playbook.

see the many, many stories on /. regarding employers demanding Facebook credentials.

Those days are over... at least in Cali:
"California Passes Tough Social Media Privacy Laws"
"Employers and colleges in the state now forbidden from demanding social media logins and related material from applicants."
http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/california-passes-tough-social-media-pri/240008206

"JPL developed AEGIS on Linux-based systems, then tested the software on research rovers" .. link

Saying that Android won't gain much market share is not only foolish, it's entirely false.

The latest numbers disagree with your assessment: Apple is gaining faster than Android is. And let's not forget profit per unit, where Apple is kicking the crap out of Android. But what about growth of the market itself? Well, that isn't looking too hot either. In fact, the latest numbers suggest that Android's biggest problem isn't Apple at all, but Microsoft.

If Google can step their game up and fix some the glaring issues such as inconsistent updates from manufacturers, they'll be well on their way to take the dominant position.

They obtained the dominant position some time ago, in terms of per unit sales. It's highly unlikely they'll ever achieve parity with per unit profit compared to other offerings. It's arguable that the only thing keeping Android alive is the Google brand identity; The support is shit and the platform is fragmenting. By most business metrics, the Android platform's golden age is drawing to an end. Google hasn't "stepped up their game" at any point, and they can't... because the entire Android model is a free for all. They have no control over what apps get loaded, they can't possibly test all possible combinations of hardware and software, and in fact most vendors have to work rather closely with Google to get a shipping product. Oh, and it's not cheap maintaining 20 different hardware platforms for the vendor... which is why so few stand behind their product for any length of time.

No, I don't think they're on their way to a dominant position: I think they're on their way to the shit can if they can't sort out some very real structural (read: management) problems in the overall Android platform.

... the really funny part is it also eclipses the over-one-year-old Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) as well.

Running web browsers in a well-written sandbox with only very careful access to "the outside machine" will help keep browser bugs from turning into system-wide vulnerabilities.

Sure, someone may take over your browser and turn it into DNS-generation-engine, but once you quit your browser, anything left over will require a social-engineering attack ("download catpics.exe and after you quit your browser, run it!") to continue living.

While no sandbox is perfect, there is (hopefully) a smaller and better-engineered code base to maintain.

Plus, there are some low-level security features which can't hurt. The iPhone 4S and newer use a better salting technique preventing the passcode hash from being copied off [1] (although a four digit PIN copied off will be cracked quickly no matter what [2].)

[1]:http://www.informationweek.com/security/encryption/security-fail-apple-ios-password-manager/232602738 is the source for that.

[2]: If you set a password (not a PIN) and use all numbers, when the iPhone asks for the code, it will pull up a numeric keypad, not the complete keyboard. Yes, it might lower security as an attacker knows the PIN is only numbers, but it is a lot easier to enter in the code that way.

IANAL nor have I read the actual indictment. However this article http://www.informationweek.com/security/management/second-lulzsec-sony-hacker-suspect-arres/240006432 states that the charges include conspiracy. It also indicates that they caught him "after VPN service provider HideMyAss.com was served with a court order seeking information related to several LulzSec exploits, including attacks against Sony, the U.K.'s Serious Organized Crime Agency, as well as NATO."

Plus, the 15 years are possible and give the prosecutors something to plea bargin with and/or the FBI leverage to get the suspected person to cooperate.

My guess is we're seeing the fruits of the hash-verification bug from this past June in MySQL/MariaDB.

http://www.informationweek.com/security/storage/mysql-database-flaw-leaves-passwords-vul/240001921

But doesn't ChaosMonkey concentrate on trying to break content delivery rather than security breaches?

After all Netflix record isn't exactly stellar on privacy issues.

Its already happening unfortunately. This time with software-patents and Microsft is doing it directly now rather than using a proxy like SCO they are quietly going around to companies and telling them if you use Linux then you need to pay up or face litigation. They are not sending letters they are sending layers and everything is done under NDA so you cannot talk about it in the press. Its very shady but they are already doing this. The goal is to stain/destroy Linux in the marketplace

Wow that's a thoughtful, complex post. Let's deal with these issues one at a time.

Para 1: Bill is gone. Bill Gates remains the chairman of the board at Microsoft, and hand-picked all the other board members - who pick the CEO and evaluate his performance, give him goals and guidance, set his pay, bonuses and options, and set policy. Bill is still very much responsible for what goes on there, and weighs in on every big decision.

Para 2: Steve Ballmer. You neglected to mention the sea of red ink that is Microsoft's Online Services Division. I happen to like the direction Steve Ballmer is taking Microsoft. Clearly this is a man with vision and purpose who is ready and able to take the company where I want it to go. It takes Marvel Comics level superpowers to get rid of this much cash flow, to destroy a 42 percent success in mobile market share from 2007 given their advantages and high hopes, to so capably destroy the morale and productivity of the world's best developers, to put a company with this much income in $55B of debt. So let's lay off of Steve-o, mmkay? I like him where he is, sweaty shirt and all.

Para 3: No more Big, Bad MS. With the OOXML debacle that nearly ruined ISO, their recent rape of Nokia, their current ongoing rape of OEMs, retail vendors of both their products and Windows PCs, their planned rape of software distributor partners, developers and competing independent software vendors and much much more they prove every day that they have not changed. Last week they confirmed they're going to murder the advertisers they bought relationships with in an acquisition by making "Do Not Track" the default in IE. Just yesterday it came out that the new replacement for Hotmail, Outlook.com is incompatible with Android. The "new kinder, gentler Microsoft" is a myth. They have now declared war on absolutely everybody on Earth, including the people who pay for their products and excepting only the Women's Temperance Union and media executives. Naturally this means I expect them to announce an embedded bittorent feature for IE that involves a drinking game next.

Para 4. Ballmer outbound. Steve Ballmer is not retiring for another seven years at least, when his last kid goes off to college.

Para 5. Immortal desktop victory. It's not enough to take ground. Once you take ground, you have to hold it. MS won mobile with 40% share too [link above], once upon a time. And now they'r

Citation needed. Meanwhile, the App Store has given out over 25 Billion downloads, more than Android. I think you mean a lot of the download statistics in the Android store are skewed by piracy and freeware.

I thought the latest proceedings were regarding the tab 7.7 so would this be relevant in that case? Or are there still suits pending on the 10" tab? I guess I can't keep up any more.

Or maybe not so brilliant.

We've recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.

A Letter From Bob Mansfield

The mistake was in ignoring the needs and values of institutional, enterprise, and governmental markets where Apple had been finally making some headway.

Organizations which have policies to require EPEAT compliance include Ford Motor Co., KPMG and Kaiser Permanente, in the private sector, as well as several universities and federal, state and municipal agencies. The U.S. government requires that 95% of the electronics purchased by its agencies be certified by EPEAT.

According to the DOE, environmental benefits of EPEAT purchasing in FY11 included an energy savings of 50 million kilowatt hours and a projected cost savings of $4.8 million.

[David Daoud, research director, PCs and Green IT, at IDC] said Apple is bound to find some resistance from buyers who aren't happy about the decision, but believes it needs only to have "a PR discussion" as to "why they're not being environmental. If you're Apple you have to look at the implications of certifying every single product. As much as I'd love to say it's a bad move, the financial guys are looking at it differently."

EPEAT Customers React to Apple's Withdrawal

PR was not enough.