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A third reason is that he had a plane crash in 1981 which caused him to take a leave of absence. From what I read, it left some lasting, bad damage including memory loss. Between all that and being set for life, economically, he didn't have to go back.

That explains why he thinks he invented the PC: http://www.amazon.com/iWoz-Computer-Invented-Personal-Co-Founded/dp/0393061434

Even better, use WiDi with an enabled TV on the wall. A USB or WiFi webcam on a WiDi laptop can be placed in the next room out of sight. or out on a shelf out of reach.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2357919,00.asp

But...but...they're non-profit! User-driven! Innovative! Exclamation marks! I mean...that's what they told me just now...so they can't really be influenced by any tech giants with mobile phone and tablet interests or anything.

A third reason is that he had a plane crash in 1981 which caused him to take a leave of absence. From what I read, it left some lasting, bad damage including memory loss. Between all that and being set for life, economically, he didn't have to go back.

Why doesn't Mozilla stop complaining and write their own operating system?

You mean like the Boot to Gecko project? Here's an article about a demo last February.

Every once and a while someone shows up in our shop with a 'puter still running it on XP with ancient virus and malware troubles, talk about scary fossils!

Funny, I've got 3 boxes running XP and I don't have any trouble finding up-to-date virus and anti-malware software. And I visit some pretty disreputable sites, too. No, get your mind out of the gutter, not those, but warez/crack sites. Besides some study just showed that religious sites have more malware than porn sites (which figures, I always thought that if I was running a porn site, I wouldn't want to piss customers off, at least not with malware).

The world is changing again.

It moved fast in the 1990s and stalled when Microsoft won browser wars 1.0. Today we have not just desktop browsers, but tablets, phones, and other devices with Webkit potentially become the next IE 6 of this decade.

Browsers get updated every 6 weeks and even IE is going to get an annual update. True, many corporations will stick with IE 8 and XP if not IE 6 until 2014, but the web will leave them behind as soon as IE 8 and earlier get less than 5% marketshare. According to g.statcounter.com IE 8 is already around 14% on the weekends since MS automatically upgrades IE.

The standards groups need to move on before we have another nightmare of proprietary standards again. Apple and Google would love to have the web only work in their browsers and have a vested interest in a slow process unfortunately.

Web page hits =/= bandwidth consumed. Surfing the web does consume bandwidth, but compared to other types of applications that can consume bandwidth, it's consumes a relatively small amount.

When compared to things like streaming radio, skype, netflix, video conferencing, etc, web surfing doesn't consume that much bandwidth.

It's entirely possible that android users typically tend to have high-usage of those high-bandwidth applications.

Also, here is an article that I found that also says that android users use more bandwidth: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374032,00.asp It is 2 years old, so it may not be as relevant.

Actually the way I understand it all that it actually does is play each frame 5 times to reach the 120Hz, no tweening or anything of the sort.

Either you understand wrong, or you're missing something. For the vast majority of commercial 120/240Hz televisions playing the vast majority of commercial 30/60Hz content, there is an option to analyze the frames coming in and try to come up with some frames to stick in between. A source:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379206,00.asp

I'm sure you can find others with your search engine of choice. This is a feature which often be disabled. When disabled, the television can very well just stop updating more often than the source. It can just hold the same picture for twice/four times/whatever as long. If done properly, this should be 100% indistinguishable from a 60hz television. There literally isn't anything different about it beyond the fact the television has additional, unused capabilities.

I have seen video shot and played back on proper equipment at 48fps and it has basically the same exact look.

I have no experience with 48fps equipment. While you don't seem to be the only one to feel this way about it, I cannot think of a technical reason for it. Your comparision with 120/240hz televisions, though, is likely unfounded.

I believe it has to do with the fact that lighting and set design as well as the panning speeds, etc. all are holdovers from traditional 24/30fps and things are more noticeably "fake" because of it when you see it in full detail and the higher fps. That is just a guess based on my experience, I could be wrong and there could be a technical answer for it but it without a doubt feels and looks "wrong" especially in scenes without even motion just talking the speech is most certainly not the way it looks/sounds in real life.

I don't follow why that would be the case, but I have no experience such as lighting or set design - that could very well be the reason behind the Hobbit movie's issue.

I think people try to justify this as some leap forward or needed improvement but I'm as techy as it gets and I don't see it like that.

Higher-framerate media is certainly a needed improvement for a certain demographic. You may not fit into it, but I can tell you with quite a bit of certainty that I would benefit from it I don't want to come off bragging, but I am sufficiently sensitive to framerate that 60Hz media is to slow for me. It still looks like a bunch of discrete steps that are all going really really fast, as opposed to a single smooth reality. Perhaps as I get older I'll lose this capability, but for the time being, it's jarring. I was in awe when I saw my first 120Hz monitor - dragging windows around actually looked smooth! In fact, it wasn't just me and my high-sensitivity that noticed the difference - everyone I showed it to were impressed. Here, the 120Hz display was being fed 120Hz content - just a standard Windows desktop, but still, 120Hz content, unlike the televisions with 30/60Hz content you've likely experienced. Sadly the colors, viewing angle, etc all had issues... I've been waiting for years for a good 120Hz monitor, but the market isn't providing. However, even if I did own such a monitor, it wouldn't be any better than 60Hz monitors if I don't have sufficient high-framerate media.

If you hit me with some high fps video that looks natural and enhances my experience I'm 100% for it but that is not what I've seen so far and it does not seem like this has achieved that either from the responses.

Agreed. Providing me with high-framerate media, but doing it wrong - whatever is causing issues with the Hobbit movie - isn't helping anyone. But that "wrongness" isn't because somewhere between 24hz and 1/planktime video looks wrong to humans. It's just various crappy implementation issues. Whatever the issue with the Hobbit movie is, for technical reasons, isn't the same issue your having with 120Hz/240Hz televisions.

I'd guess that has more to do with the fact that the Xbox 360 is approaching 7 years old and the market is saturated. Didn't all the major players post a reduction in sales last quarter, even Nintendo?

Once the new Xbox comes out, provided they don't fuck it up with some anti-used game bullshit (among other things), I'm sure they'll be raking in the dough again. In all honesty, I thought that Xbox Live, with it's (imho) high fees, was going to be annihilated by Playstation Network, but Sony completely shit the bed in so many ways there (What good is a free service if it fucking sucks?), and Nintendo really doesn't seem to give a shit about building a real online community, so I'm sure that XBL will be making them a pretty penny and will for a long time.

Depends on what you ask. But that's a good point.

Siri "circumvents" Google search for certain things. "Find me a seafood restaurant" will go to Yelp, which has reviews and such. "How many grams in an ounce" will go to Wolfram-Alpha. Otherwise, it sticks it in a query and ships it off to Google.

Needless to say, Google isn't sitting still. "Find me a seafood restaurant" in Google will also provide me a list of local restaurants with reviews, much like Yelp does. Arguably, Google's ratings may be better because they are collected from a broad spectrum of sources (user reviews from various review sites, individual bloggers, professional reviews) versus whoever Apple decided to sign a deal with. Speaking of which, you have to consider what kind of deals are being done in the background. Woz recently pointed out something I found a bit disturbing:

“I used to ask Siri, ‘What are the five biggest lakes in California?’ and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings. I used to ask, ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate.”

So where Siri used to give answers, Siri now gives advertising.

You trust google not to access your files? Really? http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369188,00.asp

A roundup of reviews from the usual major sites as well as others not mentioned in the summary above: Overclockers Review, Anandtech Review, Anandtech Undervolting/Overclocking, HardwareSecrets, Bit-tech, PCPer, Tweaktown, Hard OCP, The Inquirer, Techspot, Computer Shopper, Tom's Hardware, ExtremeTech, PC Mag, Overclockers Club, and Guru 3d

Define better, are you referring to happiness and contentedness in life? Are you referring to job prospects, rights, medical care or some other metric? Look at historical data for things like job satisfaction and you will see that many things are far from better than they have ever been. Things like mass censorship aren't supposed to be possible, yet people as notable as Sergey Brin have recently talked about how it is actually getting worse.

Certainly in many ways things are better than they have ever been. Take the example of slavery, now outlawed in every country on earth, yet it still roars it's ugly head by the tens of millions all over the world. Things like cars have been improved dramatically, when I was younger a car with a 100,000 miles on it was considered high risk and ready for the junk yard. Nowadays a car with a 100,000 miles on it can still be worth quite a bit of money. However in that same period of time we've gone from having cars like a honda crx, ford festiva and chevy sprint that got 40-50 mpg to cars that are breaking 40+ mpg and they are touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread. We traded safety for fuel economy, who am I to judge which is the better?

The car example could be used to show that we are safer, yet we've had more wars since the end of the cold war than during the entire cold way combined. Do you define safety by the body count on the freeway or field?

Understand I believe that there is a future in science, this has always been the case. A society that emphasizes technology tends to benefit and become stronger. I don't argue the merits of the benefits of science and technology. I argue the logistical practicalities of going into a field when your society has chosen that the field does not have value. I work at one of the largest universities in the world, our masters and phd programs are full of students - from places like China. These students will go home, be valued and turn China into the next powerhouse. They will do so because our society would simply outsource them at first opportunity to gain a short term profit instead of a long term gain.

Or, if you assume people are reading your emails, then you can write your email in such as way as might enlighten the human (or AI) readers so they could become part of a post-scarcity society that is emerging from the very technologies being used for eavesdropping, storing, indexing, and sensemaking... That's one reason my standard email sig says: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity. "

Or as I wrote here: :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously. :-)
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends. :-)
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves. :-)
Let's hope those advantages all hold true for a long time. :-) "

Or, also from there: "As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM [punched card technology] in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete."

So, we must continue to make the most of our advantages of a lack of credibility, a lack of resources, and our being under constant surveillance to help achieve the goal of a happier, healthier, abundant, and intrinsically&mutually secure society for all. :-) When you look at it that way, keeping the world from blowing itself up, or plaguing itself down, or roboticizing or bureaucratizing itself to death is not entirely impossible with the resources at hand. :-)

Or at least, maybe we can at least keep things going until the asteroid mining starts to pay off and we get self-replicating space habitats going? :-)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403362,00.asp

Maybe it's going to be a slow process, but there have quite a number of news stories recently saying that both Visa and Mastercard are going to introduce them quite soon, e.g. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399772,00.asp For those of us with credit cards issued in other parts of the world, where we have put up with the infernal system for some time, at least it might mean the end of being faced with gas stations insisting that we enter our Zip Code (which we don't have) before we can get gas.

Google is turning into the new IE of this decade.

HTML 5 is ok, but many hacks are needed for Javascript compared to other browsers and its getting quirky. Not to mention pepper, SPDY, and its own Dart screams that it wants to rewrite standards for their own. In Chromes credit it is not crappy as IE 6 was but starting with IE 4 and then IE 5 MS included innovations with things like AJAX but started to get buggy. Chrome seems to be Google's version of it.

If Google had the market pull like MS did in 2001 by including it with every PC you bet it would quickly turn into a seperate development and be just as bad as IE 6. Google is no different. Netscape was turning crappy too and would be just as bad and is worse to develop CSS for than IE 6 believe it or not if you talk to old timers.

MS today is at least trying to do good as they are scared shitless they are no longer in charge of the world wide web and software development and is making IE 10 a great browser surprisngly. Just comes to show no one company should have that much power. Facebook has too much in the social space and a competitor would clean them up.

If facts count at all in this disagreement, then the Aussies are correct.

Anytime you have a long network hop to your data, it is at greater risk for downtime and inaccessibility. This is a fact, not a political thought.

I live in the USA and work in IT. I would not host my data in Australia unless I wanted to have times when it was inaccessible and was willing to put up with clogged networking.

Heck, I'd like to host my data outside the USA too .... just to prevent the US government from feeling they deserve access to it, which they do not.

More and more countries need to only store data in the USA for end customers who are actually located inside the USA. I'd try to keep my infrastructure outside the US too based on FBI server-grabs. The FBI has grabbed entire racks of servers because they were too lazy to figure out which specific server was believed to hold the "offending" data. The other 3000 websites were gone and I read that after a year, the servers were still not returned. Too bad if your company data is "close" to some supposed "bad guys" - they take and figure out the issue later.
* http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/22/0217200/fbi-seizes-servers-in-virginia
* http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387447,00.asp
* http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6830514157
* http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10220786-240.html
and the recent megaupload seizures
* http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

A Canadian service provider was caught up in a raid like th
is and immediately contacted the US-FBI special agent to be told they were too busy to work with them.

The US government is arrogant based on these actions and others.

If I were in Australia, there's no way that I'd host data in the USA for non-USA-based users.

Except that even this one installed itself and worked without the password:

As PCMag's Security Watch noted yesterday, Mac users did not have to download or even interact with the malware to become infected. Websites exploited a Java flaw that let Flashback.K download itself onto Macs without warning. It then asked users to supply an administrative password, but even without that password, the malware was already installed.

www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402641,00.asp

The password was icing on the cake. Fundamentally, this was a virus with a trojan addon to get the admin password; however, it was not necessary to the functioning of the virus.

Also:

As PCMag's Security Watch noted yesterday, Mac users did not have to download or even interact with the malware to become infected. Websites exploited a Java flaw that let Flashback.K download itself onto Macs without warning. It then asked users to supply an administrative password, but even without that password, the malware was already installed.

From here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402641,00.asp

So - yes, it required a trojan-esque password entry to fully activate, but it installed and was active even without it. Which means that it was probably ready and waiting for the next legitimate use of a password entry.

Your walled garden has been breached, and instead of putting your head in the sand, perhaps you'd better wake up to the fact that yes, security really is, at the end of the day, the user/owner's responsibility.

You can buy Apple stuff from Brazil - that's manufactured locally.

I love the Apple marketing on this one. "A Mac isn’t susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers. That’s thanks to built-in defenses in Mac OS X that keep you safe, without any work on your part." No, it's susceptible to Java and Office trojans. It's not our fault!

I recently attend an iOS for business event where the Senior Apple engineer declared that "even if you want to write a virus for iOS you can't" and "there is zero malware in the app store". That sounded like a challenge to the hacktivist community. Seriously, denial is the first step, and Apple needs to get their fanboys lining up to learn about the vulnerability and threats to the Apple community in addition to plopping $800 down for the latest iWhatever.

Visa and Mastercard are migrating to "Chip and PIN" cards within the next year.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399772,00.asp

But even then, that's not a perfect solution, nor will it ever be. It will always be an arms race between the credit card companies and the thieves.

Riighterr!!!! Knew so - how's Android (a Linux) doing, security-wise for years now? Torn up!

Actually, no. More of a beat up.

Despite Microsoft attempting to buy scare stories with free phones, malware on Android is rare and generally easily removed.

"Microsoft is offering five Android malware victims a free Windows Phone 7 phone. The catch? You need to share your rage against Android with the Twitterverse."

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/none/291668-microsoft-offers-free-windows-phones-to-android-malware-victims

"Advanced users are already wary of alarmist declarations from security vendors, and though the malware threat for Android is growing, many consider it overblown, especially when compared to Windows and other desktop operating systems".

http://androidcommunity.com/symantec-backs-off-of-android-malware-claims-after-researchers-cry-foul-20120201/

security firms that warn of Android malware 'charlatans and scammers'

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/are-security-firms-that-warn-of-android-malware-charlatans-and-scammers/16412

On the other hand, assuming programmers are grouped in with IT, it could be a bad thing. You'd want them to know what they're competing with, and to understand why a rival's product is so popular.

Given that Apple products still occupy less than 10% of the market share (excluding educational markets where Apple is grossly over-represented), the whole "product is so popular" argument falls kinda flat.

Now if you're talking smartphones you've got a point. Unless you work for Google, that is, since Android garnered 52% of the worldwide smartphone market last November.

The only place Apple is unchallenged is with tablets.

Most profitable company
Record iPad sales.
Record iPhone sales.

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

How long before they are at 100%?

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

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

The best offering between San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles would be Sprint. Coverage for the region is excellent and the cost is acceptable with no data cap on their mifi unit. I recently read a review of one that PCMag Recently did and I'd say this is probably your best bet though I have no idea how it would work for you.

Look at the die layout for Sandy Bridge, there's no Ivy Bridge layout yet but it's probably the same. You see that huge chunk called "graphics"? Me neither, it's somewhere in those small "misc io" bits. That's the only little thing of your CPU you aren't using with a dGPU.

I guess that's simply a chip without an integrated GPU. Here's a picture of a Sandy Bridge Core i7 with GPU.

Report: Apple Has Opened a New iPad Factory in Brazil http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392962,00.asp

Probably one of the embedded systems vendors that make low-power GPU's:

dual-core GPU for iPAD2

That's my nr 1 request, just give me the old (pre-Lion) scrollbars back. Although looking at the screenshots they've at least improved the bastard things by providing dedicated areas for them again instead of popping them over content like in Lion. It is seriously annoying.

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

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

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

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

I could probably go back and forth all day, point by point, but in the end I think the numbers speak for themselves. XP and Win 7 trade first place back and forth on test after test and the ones that XP wins is frankly by a VERY small amount, which when you consider that honestly WinXP doesn't really DO much of anything when compared to Win 7, which has performance measuring and superfetch and a new GPU accelerated subsystem all going on at the same time that they were able to make them switch back and forth like that is pretty impressive.

As for Linux honestly i wouldn't even bring it up in discussion because if anything its like WinXP Mini or one of those other hacked all to bits OSes. Sure they have gotten pretty good on initial install but frankly do an in place upgrade or two (which you HAVE to do, because its length of support even on LTS is frankly like a bad joke) and then the thing quickly falls apart. To use a /. car analogy Linux is like that 74 Dart you have setting in the back yard. if you are willing to invest the time in learning ALL its quirks, learning to do everything the way IT wants it done, setting there with a book on 70s Dodges to learn all the things you'll be required to do to keep her going? Well then you can frankly build a nice hot rod out of it. but 99.99% of us simply don't have the time to mess with the fiddly suckers and would just prefer to just go buy something that actually runs without having to spend weeks learning the thing.

BTW just FYI but you want to know what I found the fastest OS on a Netburst Celeron, at least on a 3.06GHz Prescott Celeron that I had in the family and decided to try different things, just for shits and giggles? "Win 7 Tiny edition" which is a stripped down hacked Gamer Edition of Win 7 by the guy that has made tiny versions going back to Tiny 2K. Now TinyXP was faster to boot but once she was up and running the Tiny 7 really ran...well I can't say great as frankly NOTHING not even Linux is gonna make a Netburst Celeron a great chip, but I'd say it handled about as well as one of the newer single core Atom chips which is a hell of a lot better than it handled under default XP OR 7. Frankly I don't know who the "Tiny guy" is but MSFT should bust their asses to find him and HIRE HIM NOW because honestly I've tried every version of Windows, even WinFLP and WinEmbedded and the tiny versions royally stomped the crap out of their supposedly minimal embedded OS while having a lot better support for programs than either embedded or FLP. Whomever the guy is he really knows how to slim down a Windows OS while making it compatible with just about every app out there.

SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour) visited Foxconn and said that the biggest gripe from employees was money, and they also grumbled that overtime was sometimes forced upon them. Other concerns included exposure to dust at a construction site. Employees are allowed bathroom breaks each day, though managers did encourage them to work through their breaks. You make it sound like some torture dungeon, and it's just not. It's a typical grueling Chinese factory, but it's one of the least bad.

Android users who are able to run Chrome Beta (that is, who are running ICS) are literally the 1%, according to Google's platform pie charts:

"Google's Android Update Alliance Is Already Dead". Doesn't look like that 1% segment is going to expand all that fast either.

I'd been thinking about buy a Sprint Marquee, but LG's being quite squirrelly about whether it will ever get an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich.

No, the statement from Apple with the list "suggestions" for not infringing their design patents was in California. The statement makes the argument, further, that elements such as thinness and rounded corners in a portable device are not "functional" and hence patentable.

Apple also tried to ban the 10.1N, so they clearly thought that was not enough.

Turns out the malware was more like adware. http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/none/293699-symantec-retracts-android-malware-claims-to-align-with-lookout

Completely and utterly false. The battery in an 'iDevice' will last a good 5 years, easily.

Complete and utter bullshit. I know people with iDevices (mostly family members), they may still "work" after two years, but their battery life is measured in minutes, not hours. I suppose an iPod that plays for 20 minutes after a complete charge is still "working" but give me a fucking break.

(Yes, it will be holding a lesser charge, but that's equally true of *any* rechargeable battery.)

True. Which is why most devices with rechargeable batteries are user-replaceable. Because they wear out.

but it's not uncommon to see an 8 year-old iPod still running just fine on it's original battery.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The best I've ever seen an iPod last was maybe four years, and even then, it was down to less than an hour of battery life. If you've got an eight year old iPod that still works, either your definition of "works" means "but only when plugged in" or you're counting "might hold a charge long enough to play a single song" as "working."

It's also *easily* user replaceable, you simply unscrew the bottom of the case, and disconnect a single cable.

You're lying. They explicitly changed the screws so that you can't replace the battery. They use a custom, patented screw design that no one else uses.

I believe that Apple knew full well what it was getting in to and the new plant in Brazil is an effort to distance themselves from Foxconn, but that's not enough.

The plant in Brazil *is* a Foxcon plant, so no, they are not distancing themselves from Foxcon. Foxcon is just building a new plant where they can source cheap labor and benefit from government tax subsidies. From PC World, "The Junai, Brazil factory was made possible through a partnership between China-based Apple manufacturer Foxconn and the Brazilian government." http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392962,00.asp

Re-read what I wrote. I am not talking about reliability or problems with downloads. Sprint is consistently rated the slowest 3g cellular network.

http://www.pcmag.com/Fastest-Mobile-Networks-2011

next time, don't be so quick to get your panties in a bunch. I personally don't care what cellular god you pray. They all suck in one way or another.

Howsabout I just quote you from your original post again.

Who cares if it's unlimited when your download speed is below 1k/sec!

Look at your link again. Notice that the chart displays a download speed for Sprint 3G well in excess of your claimed 1k/sec (as in .59 mbit/sec (or roughly 590k/sec).

Oh yes, and that piece of quote was your ENTIRE post. You said fuck-all reliability or it's rating compared to other providers. You made a single claim about speed which was pure and utter bullshit.

Rule #1: If you want to be taken seriously at all, don't make shit up and portray it as fact.

Rule #2: When bitch-smacked over making shit up, don't try to move the goalposts and say that you were really posting about something ELSE.

Re-read what I wrote. I am not talking about reliability or problems with downloads. Sprint is consistently rated the slowest 3g cellular network.

http://www.pcmag.com/Fastest-Mobile-Networks-2011

next time, don't be so quick to get your panties in a bunch. I personally don't care what cellular god you pray. They all suck in one way or another.

Better stories are available here and elsewhere.

Here and elsewhere? Let's just try a little fix...

Better stories are available at PC Magazine and Engadget.

Better stories are available here and elsewhere.

Here and elsewhere? Let's just try a little fix...

Better stories are available at PC Magazine and Engadget.

How about "EFF working to keep jailbreaking legal" as a headline? The OP (who has also linked to the article on his own retarded ad-filled site) is just sensationalising this shit to attract traffic / improve his pagerank. Better stories are available here and elsewhere.

I think he meant "sysdir," not Sydir, and was trying to shut these script kiddies down by enticing them to carry out a preemptive strike on their own "SysDir."

SysDir
(SYStem DIRectory) A folder or subfolder that contains the operating system. In Windows, it typically refers to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

It also enables you to buy a completely vanilla phone from Google

Well how generous!!

Meanwhile EVERY iPhone sold is vanilla without carrier crap that annoys people pre-loaded.

or load up an open source ROM on your handset.

Which I can also do on an iPhone (or the equivalent, since Cydia is largely about system customization).

Of course there is less reason to even do so since as mentioned every phone is vanilla to start with and you don't HAVE to install a custom ROM to get to a clean (or at least unfettered) state.

The reason Android is losing market share to Apple is its open and flexible nature

Fixed that for you.

The decline of Android to some lower point than it stands at currerntly is inevitable, being bought between Apple on one end and WP7 on the other (which is going to make strong inroads this year).

And Google can do nothing to stop that exactly because it is so "open and flexible", properties which most consumers (remember consumers? The people who SPEND MONEY?) place exactly zero value on.

If they had been a bit less accepting of modifications and more stringent in hardware demands to start with then they probably could have kept a better hold on the market.

then why did they ever give them a piece of the pie to begin with? android can't be called anything other than a massive success for google. everyone is making $.

Apple makes 66% of all mobile phone profit....
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2389518,00.asp

66% of Google searches on mobile devices come from Apple devices....

http://www.gadgetvenue.com/google-mobile-searches-made-up-of-66-ios-09223009/

And Google just spent the equivelent of two years of its net income on money losing Motorola Mobility.

For you anyone following this thread, I happened upon this article today through Digg: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398527,00.asp

I mean, the trackpad is not a single piece, the keyboard looks nothing like a macbooks, the colors are all wrong, the plastic casing is all wrong, etc.

Huh? It certainly looks like a MacBook Pro 13. For the most part the MacBook Pro hasn't changed much since 2009 Other than the Samsung trackpad having buttons and the Apple trackpad not having buttons, I don't see how you can can say they look nothing alike.

I've often wondered why people put so much confidence in online product reviews. I don't personally known anyone who regularly reviews things that they buy online and personally the only time I review is if I had a notably poor experience. I would have to imagine that the majority of the good reviews on anything would likely be a combination of paid astroturfers and people who review for a perks. Likewise I would imagine that the majority of the bad reviews were only posted because the reviewer had a notably bad experience (and either wanted revenge on the product or felt a need to caution others). Thus it is my habit to totally ignore positive reviews and look at bad reviews for widespread issues.