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Not when Apple patents EVERYTHING. They've even just patented the touchscreen. The fact they were able to pull that off shows just how broken the U.S. patent system really is, but Apple is happy to ride that broken system into more cash.

You're talking about the US, right?

No. The U.S. isn't involved with this discovery, and the U.S. had shut down it's production previously due to environmental problems (which raise costs to address properly) and cheaper imports. (bashing the U.S. isn't insightful, especially when the facts don't back it up)

  "Currently, China supplies around 95 percent of the worldâ(TM)s demand for rare earth minerals. "

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6563619,00.html

"China supplies more than 90 percent of the world's rare earth minerals and Japan is greatly dependent on the neighboring country for supplies of the strategically important resources..."

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/business/news/20110704p2g00m0bu038000c.html

The U.S. has mined rare earths from a remote California location in the past, but production had been stopped largely due to severe environmental issues.
Due to worldwide concerns following China cutting exports, operation is being resumed. When China cut year over year exports to 60% of the previous amount, Japan and others felt economically threatened. Rare earths are in high demand for many specialized applications including L.E.D.s (used for LCD backlighting) and the magnets in generators for wind power and those in motors for electric cars.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/214938/us_rare_earth_mine_resumes_active_mining.html

You are like those full retards that think the moon landing was faked, you realize this right? Where is your proof? CITATION PLEASE or go back to blowing Linus and the gang. Because unless MSFT suddenly moved their HQ to the middle of AR without telling anyone (and since it has been over 100 all week with a heat index of 106+ it sure as fuck ain't WA) then you are once again showing what a pathetic little cunt you are.

Where is your response to the links? To the retailers leaving in droves? To Linus himself? Can you not read, is that it? Is words on a page that say something other than "herp derp deh lunix is teh roxorz LOL!" more than your teeny tiny mind able to comprehend? I've actually written articles on what retailers need to sell your product, where's yours? Where have you contributed ANYTHING but mindless Linus blowing, ehh?

Kill yourself. Make this world a better place. You are alone because nobody wants you, it isn't gonna get any better, tomorrow your life will be just as empty as it is right now....kill yourself. Will your worldly goods (although what they'll want with a cardboard box and a tux blankie is beyond me) to the Linux foundation and walk in front of that train. You know you want to, you know the loneliness is eating you alive...kill yourself.

Me I have to get the beef ready for the BBQ, my sweet little half Cherokee GF has as usual invited every kinfolk she has and good BBQ takes tim to do it right. Of course you wouldn't know of such things, having never know a woman's touch or had anything other than MickeyD's. How sad, such a sad and pitiful little creature. I find that....delightful. Make the world a better place, remove yourself from it.Oh and in case you need the links again so you can cry before you get the rope, and for the elucidation of others (I know its a big word, look it up) I'll be happy to paste the paragraphs that makes you so mad, just as a special gift for the holidays.

Isn't it sad, how like a frightened child afraid to look under the bed, you cower at the truth? if your driver model isn't shit then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? Oh right because Linux shits itself and dies if you use the default repos! Man that is some excellent product you got there! you think I can get better QA than the third largest OEM on the planet? What, you expect me to tell paying customers "Go to the forum, kiss some loser ass, and maybe, just maybe, in a few days someone will have mercy and give you a big pile of bullshit that may or may not make your sound work again"?

Bleeding yet douchey? want some more? nice thing about having the truth on your side, you can keep throwing punches all day! How about how a decade old Windows beat the shit out of Linux on netbooks or how ASUS has given up on your bullshit or how about Walmart running away from linux as fast as it can? You got the crazy koolaid drunk enough to say they ALL are paid shills because they won't do your forum dance or CLI horseshit? Meanwhile your "hero" Torvalds the great says Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans!. Why don't you tell them that at work next week, see how quick you get a pink slip? More? How about you actually have the balls to celebrate getting a whole 1% market share while you are actually lower than JavaME and there is a whole website dedicated To your bullshit and

The Honeycomb tablets currently in the market are expensive, many even more expensive than an iPad and yet less polished.

No..??!! You serious?

Guess I'll have to wait until Samsung and Asus release their new tablets and hope, they actually hit the shelves.

Rumors has that Asus had released theirs. So, you only have to hope now.

This does not surprise me. There is simply not enough actual hardware out there. I mean, more then enough idea's and prototypes. But nothing actually being sold in the stores or even online.

And I'm not talking about the absurdly priced Samsung type tablets, but normally priced GOOD hardware for around $300 through $400 range.

Show me good hardware that will run honeycomb now and one or two future versions for $350 and I'm aboard.

eee pad transformer. Granted, $399, a bit over your $350 bid.

The main factor is that no one has a Xoom, while iPhone and iPad have major markets.

Just FYI (not commenting on your entire post): Xoom is not the only one featuring HoneyComb. See asus eee pad transformer rumors has it to have the same price tag as iPad (or $100 lower if only with 16 GB).

HAY GUYZ, its Alex again, the full retard that even after being given example after example after example of why retailers like me refuse to carry his product, or how even Torvalds the great says Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans! written in nice little words small enough for his little mind to understand all he can do is clutch his Tux blankie and go "Waah! He won't drink the kooliad! Waaah, he won't accept fucked up drivers and give them to his customers! Waahhh he must part of the global conspiracy!

.

But what can you expect from a koolaid drinking freetard, that has completely accepted the "shit sandwich" design, as in "Here is a shit sandwich and since its free you have NO RIGHT to complain about the smell! Or the taste! Errr..or the fact that its a shit sandwich!" This is why there is a whole website dedicated To his bullshit and excuses and those like them. He reminds me of a small child that sticks his fingers in his ears and goes "La la la I can't hear you" as everytime this little Lintard troll shows up following me I post link after link proving my point and ALL he can say is that I must secretly be getting giant checks from MSFT. This is why even Penny Arcade writes cartoons about him and his pals.

Want to know why retailers won't carry your product, even though it is "free" and would save us licensing fees? Feel free to look at the above links, or Lintards like Alex who REALLY doesn't help your case any with their "La la la everything works and ur a shill!" kiddie bullshit. No go compile something sonny the men are trying to talk here

Even after dropping the countersuit in California, Samsung is still suing Apple in eight different courts, six countries, and three continents. [source]

That seems to be 100% right. Samsung is still asserting the same claims, but now in the lawsuit Apple originally launched against them. They've also raised Apple another two patents.

Riiight. Hey douchey, citation please? Someone must have forgotten to tell me where Ballmer parked the money truck. Hell I don't even get discount licensing I buy OEM boxes off Newegg like every other system builder.

Isn't it sad, how like a frightened child afraid to look under the bed, you cower at the truth? if your driver model isn't shit then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? Oh right because Linus shits itself and dies if you use the default repos! Man that is some excellent product you got there! you think I can get better QA than the third largest OEM on the planet? What, you expect me to tell paying customers "Go to the forum, kiss some loser ass, and maybe, just maybe, in a few days someone will have mercy and give you a big pile of bullshit that may or may not make your sound work again"?

Bleeding yet douchey? want some more? nice thing about having the truth on your side, you can keep throwing punches all day! How about how a decade old Windows beat the shit out of Linux on netbooks or how ASUS has given up on your bullshit or how about Walamart running away from linux as fast as it can? You got the crazy koolaid drunk enough to say they ALL are paid shills because they won't do your forum dance or CLI horseshit? Meanwhile your "hero" Torvalds the great says Plans? We don't need no steenkin plans!. Why don't you tell them that at work next week, see how quick you get a pink slip? More? How about you actually have the balls to celebrate getting a whole 1% market share while you are actually lower than JavaME and there is a whole website dedicated To your bullshit and excuses .

You see you whiny little delusional mama's boy, I'm your worst fucking nightmare...a retailer that still believes. I believe that the community doesn't have to take Torvalds shit sandwiches, I believe that things can be made better, I believe Linux can be something for more than douchebags like you that will happily take a cock slapping from linus as long as you can say you are sticking to "teh man". I believe that there can be Linux boxes on actual shelves and penguins on boxes.

So you go hide now mama's boy, you hide with your Tux blankie and keep saying your magical nigger nigger faggot, or should I say shill shill astroturfer, like it is a magical word that will make all the bad go away. But it won't change reality and the reality is your driver model is shit and more than 15 years behind everyone else and that is why retailers like me wouldn't piss on it, not some mythical money truck that sneaks up to my door in the middle of the night. So go compile something and leave the men to talk about the real world, okay little girl?

[Microsoft] should just use Steam and drop consoles.

Two and a half years ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked about three screens in a home: PC, TV, and smartphone. True, modern TVs can display PC video, but there isn't yet enough of a home theater PC user base for Microsoft to drop consoles. I can cite several comments from CronoCloud and others stating that most people have no desire to buy another PC to hook up to the TV.

It most certainly does not work 'out of the box' You have to buy a special USB dongle receiver for $20 to get it to work on PC. And to be fair, Sony has never supported their game pad being on PC, even if it is using bluetooth.

If you have to connect to the net everytime to use the controller thats a driver/software implementation issue imposed by a 3rd party.

IM sure this http://www.pcworld.com/article/204614/microsofts_xbox_360_dpad_update_something_old_something_new.html is the xbox 360 'pro' version in question.

Because iPhone 5 rumors have probably dropped off sales of the iPhone 4, and they don't want the impatient to even consider Android and not wind up perpetuating the cultists.

Ohh, didn't read the news yet? Verizon iPhone Caused Android Market Share Drop and Roughly One in 10 Smartphones on T-Mobile USA Is an iPhone (~1 million)

Apple camp nervous and running amok. Unable to comprehend 12% vs. 50% market share* and how it relates to service calls.

[*] - http://www.pcworld.com/article/226339/android_market_share_growth_accelerating_nielsen_finds.html

No- he was asked by his supervisor to hand over passwords. The only problems were: 1) his supervisor was not authorized to have those passwords. 2) the request was made over the phone (specifically a no-no according to the password handling rules), and 3) it was a Conference call, with god-knows who listening in (discussing passwords where they can be overheard by others is another no-no).

Other charges were exaggerated, like saying he 'wiped' passwords out of routers so they wouldn't boot back up after a power failure. In actuality, it's a common practice to disable password recovery on routers when they cannot be physically secured- otherwise any fool with a laptop and console cable can connect and get the password.

See http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,149159/printable.html for more info.

The really historically funny part is that the first book to be deleted was 1984.

What we need now is the creation of standardized and open handset form factors and open handset hardware which is also to a degree standardized.

The Android platform is a defacto hardware standard. This hardware really isn't that sophisticated -- ARM cores, common chipsets, Android can be made to run on an iPhone after all, there's really no barrier to a manufacturer, as long as they use ARM.

Android handset manufacturers have it a bit better with a common OS, but they still have to churn out a new device practically every few months to remain relevant. [...] Only problem with Apple is that they are only in it for themselves and do not like the idea of giving their users true choice.

"Churning out" a new device every few months is the way manufacturers provide "true choice." You can either buy the 4G phone with a kickstand and an undeleteable Blockbuster app, or a Sprint phone with a hardware keyboard and is locked to Eclair, or a slider with MOTOBLUR. And none of these ever get their software updated without an act of congress, thus justifying the next phone in the churn cycle. Behold consumer choice.

Apple succeeds at remaining relevant, as you say, probably because their product and platform maps to consumer demand very well, and their platform doesn't try to recreate the, uh, "dynamism and competition" of the Wintel PC market, circa 1995 (an era in the history of computing I would consider one big, abominable mistake). Of course Apple is "only in it for themselves," unlike the well-known altruists at Samsung and Google.

Uh oh.

Try making a graphical OS and name it "Windows", and tell the judge the name is evident because it uses windowed views.

That's not an apt analogy. An apt analogy would be making a graphical OS, and naming it "graphical OS", or "OS with Windows".

And that would get you thrown out of the court pretty quick if you tried to enforce it. Heck, since you mention "Windows" - do you remember how the actual lawsuit about that exact thing ended in practice? The courts have repeatedly thrown out all claims about "Windows" not being a generic trademark, and eventually Microsoft settled, effectively paying $20M to Lindows to transfer the trademark to MS.

He did it first. He got the put the evident name to his product.

Just because you're the first to come up with the brilliant idea to name a car you make simply "Car", doesn't entitle you to such a generic trademark. Not unless you have actually invented the car (and the word). This guy didn't.

Where do they admit that they spent 1 billion? I remember them committing to a warranty plan that somebody worked out could end up being a billion, but when did they say they actually reached that level of spending?

How about this and this?

It is *very* difficult to believe that if they truly hit 30%, they wouldn't stop the factories and nip that right away.

Sorry, perhaps it's your favorite console of all time, but that doesn't deny the truth. The first Xbox had to be killed in less than four years, and the second one is a distant 2nd place, with less than 2% bigger worldwide marketshare than the PS3. Spending so much money for a relatively low success rate would be very stupid, but Microsoft has always had a very long term vision and very deep pockets to help realize it.

The Motorola CEO is completely correct. The fact that submitting an application to the fragmented Android Market requires no inspection or vetting by gatekeepers means that very poorly written software will get in. Programming on Android is hard as it is due to the extreme OS versioning and hardware fragmentation and the multiple states that an Android application must cycle through (often leaving dangerously dangling application threads). In addition, Google has made Android closed-source and soundly prohibits common folks from changing the Android 3 source code, which definitely goes against the very nature of FOSS. But I suppose Google thinks this is correct in order to fight against the extreme fragmentation of the Android platform running almost a dozen major OS versions on fragmented hardware. So basically the Android platform is an excessively fragmented, closed-source platform, with thousands of poorly-written applications in a wild open marketplace. But poorly-written applications may just be the least of one's problems (in addition to the fragmentation) because progressively more malware is seeping into the applications there. Fortunately, the malware writers also have to deal with the extreme fragmentation, so thankfully that is keeping them in check. And in the end, an integrated platform (such as iOS) wins because I don't drive my German sports sedan because it's fragmented and mediocre, and I don't think many Amercians do, either.

Any company that can only compete through underhanded backroom tactics instead of delivering a solid product deserves all of the hate it can receive. Microsoft hasn't changed one iota.

Software patents need to be abolished internationally, it's that simple.

and below:

I guess the side effect which will be seen as beneficial to some is that over the coming century as more and more of the "real world" moves into structures in cyberspace all property will essentially be communal property.

I wouldn't count on any of this happening.

The Entropia Universe entered the Guinness World Records Book in both 2004 and 2008 for the most expensive virtual world objects ever sold, and in 2009, a virtual space station, a popular destination, sold for $330,000. This was then eclipsed in November 2010 when a player sold a virtual resort on Planet Calypso for $635,000; this property was sold in chunks, with the largest sold for $335,000

Entropia Universe

There are, I suspect, more people who are comfortable with the imperfections and contractions of the commercial, competitive - secular - world than with any communal ideal of socialist perfection.

More who would choose to carve out some territory in cyberspace that was uniquely their own: Companies Explore Private Virtual Worlds

And here comes the religious dogma I was talking about! Isn't it funny that the argument against having stable functioning drivers always comes down to IDEOLOGY, with the rant most people link to going so far as to call those that refuse to hand over source "leeches" and hope the kernel futzing breaks their drivers?

I mean WTF is it to you if some do and some don't? Is that ANY different than right now? Nope, as you still have companies like Nvidia that makes binary blobs, only now you get to watch them break every six months. Does having open drivers keep Linux from breaking? Nope again as the open drivers break just as often thanks to Linus and his kernel fucking, because if you could look at it logically instead of a faith based perspective you'd see that there are only so many devs, and there are fewer of them than drivers to fix so drivers will ALWAYS be broken when Linus gets a wild hair up his ass, every. single. time!

And allow me to say that if your way "worked" in any kind of reasonable fashion retailers wouldn't avoid your OS like the clap which I can assure you we most certainly do. Not just all the thousands of mom&pop shops, dotting the entire country, but big names like Best Buy, Staples, Walmart, do you think they avoid your OS because of its "quality construction" or a secret conspiracy? NO! It is because they take the box home, run updates when the little icon tells them to and get a broken machine like it is 1993 all over again, and promptly take that broke ass shit back! And since we retailers can't sell used as new that means we take a hit on every return making Linux even MORE expensive!

As a final word allow me to give you proof, undeniable proof like a slap to the face your current way is broke ass shit. Now I'm sure you'll find some excuse, like "Use Distro X" or "You should buy hardware Y" but in the end all you will have is excuses because this proof should make even YOU take note! Now you and your fellow converts think we retailers are just full of it, that it should "just work" right? well when one of the biggest OEMs on the planet has to DISABLE the repos and spend considerable money and man hours keeping a badly out of date "corporate repo" just for their customers because if they don't the drivers WILL break then i'm sure you can see why both little guys like me and big guys like Walmart and OEMs like ASUS have washed their hands of your OS. I mean when fricking netbooks, a class of machine built around Linux strengths and which started out more than 30% Linux ends up completely obliterated by a decade old Windows OS it is high time to ask yourself "What are we doing wrong?" and I'd say basing your OS on religion instead of sound design practices and trusting your customers to make purchases that will benefit them (such as choosing FOSS drivers where possible so they have LTS) is a good example of why Linux is so far behind everyone else, and why even free you are getting hammered by an OS with a $100 barrier to entry.

IBM would tend to differ:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188656/ibm_details_worlds_fastest_graphene_transistor.html

Oops, that should have read reasonable doubt.

Here's an interesting article on the case which sheds more light on why they convicted him.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/195198/terry_childs_juror_explains_why_he_voted_to_convict.html

Among other reasons such as wasted space with the sim-tray hardware, I suspect this has something to do with the sim card unlockers that slide into the sim card tray along with a standard sim card. A smaller sim foot print would make such devices much harder to engineer.

Tell those CCIEs that if they think that it's proper for a single admin to have complete control of passwords with no oversight then they need better training. The CCIE on the jury seemed to think he broke the law.

P.S. Looks like Slashdot has hit a new low when people are scorned for using their devices the way they want and not at the whim of the corporate nanny. Truly a sad day.

I think all users should be able to "root" or "jailbreak" any device they own if they so choose. The point was that he had to root it to do what he did, by your definition the iPhone isn't crippled either because it can be rooted to install unapproved apps or run another OS too.

Windows Vista/7 are already known to be much more secure than MacOS.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15605/hacker_pwn2own_organizer_windows_7_is_safer_than_snow_leopard

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189760/hacking_impresario_windows_safer_than_mac.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html

The 30% is ONLY on purchases made through the app itself. But they cannot offer it at a lower price if you buy directly from their website or wherever else.

And if you are selling the ebooks on your website, you HAVE to offer them through the app, and the price has to be the same regardless of it being on your website or in the iOS app. With the option to purchase right there in the app, it all but ensures purchases where Apple takes all the profit.
I like how you put that ONLY in there, as if it matters. You don't expect me to believe that Joe Schmoe is going to go to the website, set up an account, give out your credit card details, and buy your book there, when there's a glossy button that only requires my password to purchase the book for the same price?

And where do you get that "negotiating lower prices for itself" from by the way? Is this the same kind of whining Border et al directed at the cheaper books at Amazon?

Apple and Amazon are being investigated over anti-trust issues for those "deals" with book publishers. I'd say it's more then "whining".

Yes, but for now the only way to access the service is to have a supported Android device or a Flash-enabled device. It's odd that a web company like Google would deliberately limit its service like that when using pure HTML5 technologies would have provided a much larger potential audience, including mobile devices for which there might not be any apps developed. Amazon's Cloud Player for example does work on iOS devices and that's their largest competitor for now.

Gee... Which hardware authentication are you talking about?

Your question doesn't make any sense. Access credentials have to be sent, regardless of whether your location data is available -- and regardless of who's transmitting it.

Also, I trust myself to keep my data safe far more than any cloud or online database (see Sony online.)

J2android says otherwise. It has mysteriously vanished from the manufacturer's website, but there are videos of it in use and there are still copies floating around the intertubes. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/192044/myriad_tool_converts_java_apps_for_android_phones.html

No, they suffer from wanting to justify something they're not actually able to justify.

This is exactly I was thinking about. Whining about lack of comprehension, amnesia etc. does not make sense.

What IMO makes sense is looking who bribed them, was this bribing legal and are we able to make them liable for corruption.

No, that does not make sense. Most likely no bribing whatsoever was involved. The people working on this are most likely simply "captives" of the system. Not in the sense that they are being blackmailed, but simply that they are so deeply embedded in that world that they honestly cannot imagine how having more and harsher enforcement of any kind of "intellectual property rights" can be bad in the grand scheme of things. Of course, with an ex-IFPI lobbyist now being responsible for ACTA at the European Commission, they definitely are crossing quite a line. That's not a single point you can win on though, no matter how despicable it is.

Anyway, politics generally does not work like in movies of in TV-series. You seldom win by finding some secrets and then exposing them for the world to see. You win by exerting political pressure yourself. Example: Slashdot gets syndicated all over the web, just look at the google results for the (afaik unique) title of this story. Now, an IDG journalist wrote her own take on the blog post (while I can't be certain she picked it up from Slashdot, it certainly can't have hurt). This article again is being posted all over the web because IDG has many publications and those are also being syndicated. And yesterday I wrote another article on this topic for EDRI-gram, a respected European newsletter on digital rights issues that's also read in political circles.

The reason that all this is important, is because the European Parliament (EP) still has to assent to ACTA. And in the EP there are several people who are critical of ACTA. Furthermore, the Commission hasn't been very forthcoming with information about ACTA in the past, which made the EP naturally a bit peeved about this. While such press coverage is unlikely to convince anyone in the Commission, it might (note: might) weaken the position of whoever was responsible for that "rebuttal" (the Commission obviously does not like getting press coverage about how badly they botched something up). It also strengthens the position of members of the EP critical of ACTA, by showing that society cares and that the Commission is putting the EU in bad light with its antics.

And in case you think all that doesn't matter: it does. It's how we won the fight against the software patents directive. That doesn't mean we will win now, but wide press coverage and visibility are a basic requirement for getting results in politics at large. On the other hand, focussing on figuring out who bribed whom when there isn't any need whatsoever to bribe anyone to get such nonsense distributed in the name of a political body "specialised" in trade/ipr/enforcement is only a waste of time.

You can't use gps on Android phone without giving google all your location information.

The truth is, apart from the fact that you can download uncertified app on google android, you can't do anything more that what you can do on competing platform.

Google hasn't released latest Andrioid source code, not that it would help user in any way.

You can't update anything on your Android phone without the permission from carrier/manufacturer/google.

This is false. I can buy an Android device that isn't even tied to any particular service, and without the Google stamp of approval at all.

Yes, and neither is it a requirement to send Google your location. It seems that the anti-Android FUD machine is in full swing tonight. Google keeps certain specific applications away from non-Google-experience devices, but the operating system itself is and will continue to be customized for just about every goddamn device out there (including the iPhone, apparently.)

Google will eventually release Honeycomb source: they want it to spread but I think they want to put some more polish on it first. The early releases of Android really were premature and they probably should have held back for a while. I think they're learning from that. And he's wrong that Android being open source doesn't help the user in any way. Hell, take Cyanogenmod, for example: that project has taken Android well beyond what Google has done, and since all of Cyanogen's improvements are readily available at Github, and because his team has done a lot of good work, some of it tends to end up back in the main source tree at Google. So yes, the end user does directly benefit from the open-source nature of Android.

The truth is, apart from the fact that you can download uncertified app on google android, you can't do anything more that what you can do on competing platform.

Um ... isn't the ability to run code not approved by the carriers or Google exactly what we are talking about here?

Popularity is a measurement of marketing. Nothing more. It's not related to quality, because there are plenty of McDonalds' out there and a lot fewer Capital Grilles for hamburgers.

The money for marketing Desktop Linux compared to Windows or OSX, is near zero, so this would bear out the *reported* desktop statistics.

>Surfing the web from a mobile device can be clumsy and expensive.

What is this. People friggin' do this all the time. They've been doing it for years now. What are you even trying to say here?

>Net Applications

Yeah, Net Applications can be dismissed out of hand.

Nielsen has been counting people since before you were born, bright boy. Plus they're not beholden to Microsoft like Net Applications is.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/226339/android_market_share_growth_accelerating_nielsen_finds.html

Just look at those Android stats.

--
BMO

This should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to AMD. AMD has already bet on x86-64 scaling down to tablet form factors; that is, after all, the entire point of the Bobcat architecture. Later this year when Bobcat transitions to 28 nm we'll see if it pans out; even if it doesn't there's always the 20nm transition in late 2012, and that's sure to lower power requirements enough to make an x86 tablet viable.

At the same time, it's obvious that there really isn't any room in the ARM SoC market for new entrants*. NVIDIA is already selling Tegra 2 SoCs for a cut-rate $25 a chip, and those are going into already too expensive Android tablets. The message is clear: the only way to make a profit with ARM chips is in volume, and there's no way a new entrant like AMD is going to ramp to significant volume to even cover production and R&D costs before their own Bobcat architecture has made the transition to 28-20nm and they're basically competing with themselves.

*- Yes, I know AMD wouldn't be entirely a new entrant, as they had an ARM license as recently as a few years ago, which they subsequently sold off, but by this point they'd essentially be new entrants all over again

This is precisely why I don't give most companies this information -- because I don't trust them with it. Not to keep it safe, not to use it as they say, and not to provide it to someone else.

We are Internet. We know who you are. Resistance is futile.

Thanks to browser fingerprinting, flash cookies, ad network beacons, content beacons, and traffic bugs we put in every web page (digg, stumbleupon, facebook 'like this', twitter), you cannot escape our eye, we know every site you view. We also know your ip address and where you live.

Oh, and we already know your real favorite pet, you sure were naive back when you had that geocities account. Lying at this point is futile.

I'm sure if they talked to the right person at, say, Comodo if they could have an ssl cert for *.google.com, they'd probably just hand it out...

It's already been shown that Dropbox's claims about security are mostly bogus. If Dropbox can Hand Over Your Files to the Feds If Asked then the encryption method they use to store files on their servers is meaningless since they have the private keys anyway.

Even with password protected WiFi, the lock can still be broken.

It should be kept in mind that this review is from an author given to overstated screeds -- so take with a grain (or a saltshaker) of salt. This is an author who knows how to write things that will be reposted.

The XBox has been making a profit since before the start of 2008. They even had $165 million in profit for Q3 of last year.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148982/xbox_delivers_a_profit.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148982/xbox_delivers_a_profit.html

And lets not forget that while Microsofts profits are falling that the XBox and Kinect profits are growing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/28/microsoft-profits-xbox-kinect

You were saying?

The XBox has been making a profit since before the start of 2008. They even had $165 million in profit for Q3 of last year.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148982/xbox_delivers_a_profit.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148982/xbox_delivers_a_profit.html

And lets not forget that while Microsofts profits are falling that the XBox and Kinect profits are growing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/28/microsoft-profits-xbox-kinect

You were saying?

Blu-ray was released globally in June 2006; by December 2010, even with PS3s counted, it had a consumer penetration of 10.7%, according to NPD. This is the slowest adoption of a non-fringe video technology in history.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4554

For scale, DVD was released in Japan in Nov 96, in the US in March 1997 and in Europe in Oct 1998. Even though it took them two years to get to three continents, it passed the 12% penetration mark in under four months (I can't find a number between 8 and 12%, it penetrated so fast.)

According to this, you are mistaken. It took three years for DVD to reach an appreciable footprint, same as Blu-Ray, and the BD chunk is larger than the DVD chunk after the same time. You also have to take into account that BD had direct competition from HD-DVD, whereas original DVD did not.

http://www.screendigest.com/www/reports/2010629b/10_07_evolution_of_home_entertainment_chart.gif

And compared to VHS, DVD looked just as abyssmal.

So. Global release takes almost three and a half years to reach ten percent, whereas Japan-only release passes the 12% mark in under one financial quarter.

Even LaserDisc, the famously failed standard, hit 10% in under two years.

What is your metric for "catching on just fine?" Is it "I own two of them?"

Nice try, but your trolling skills are rusty.

No, it won't, for the same reason that the much more plausible minidisc format failed: it is ridiculously unweildly, slow, expensive-per-byte, fragile and so on. A blu-ray burner starts around $85, and a writable 5-gig disc is in the neighborhood of $3.50 in bulk.

By comparison, the tiny, fast, durable, reliable MicroSD format will give you a reader/writer that pushes ten times the data rate of blu-ray *and* a cartridge five times the maximum size of a blu-ray disc for seven dollars.

<ad-hominem>Are you on crack?!</ad-hominem>

I can get a 50-pack of BD-R DL for $500. That's $10/disc for 50GB of storage, or $0.20/GB. By comparison, the best price I found for 64GB SDXC was about $140, and $60 for 32GB microSD, roughly $2/GB. The BD media price per GB is BETTER by an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.

Oh, and its stability isn't on the order of single digit year counts.

Again, you are sorely mistaken and providing misinformation (with no evidence or proof whatsoever, mind you) to make your snarky comments look intelligent and well-considered. They aren't.

http://www.techmount.com/index.php/20060905/blu-ray-lifespan/

Blu-Ray disks will last 100-150 years. DVD's start at 10 years. Again, as much as an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE better. SD card life expectancy is similar to that of DVD's; even an SD card specifically designed for long-term, write-once archival storage will only last 100 years, making it comparable AT BEST to Blu-Ray: https://www.pcworld.com/article/199672/sandisks_sd_card_can_store_data_for_100_years.html

Why would anyone *ever* turn to blu-ray for storage? It's flash or tape, guy.

It is absolutely amazing to me that you're attempting to justify hardware choices in terms of the hardware being replaced, while ignoring the alternatives available. That's the kind of thinking one expects from a politician, not from someone with a five digit slashdot id.

How are you on an HPC group at LBNL if you think things like blu-ray will succeed as a storage medium? Do you make clusters of 386es?

Q.E.D.

Google tends to treat its customers fairly well.

Yes, they treat advertisers quite well. They treat cellular providers quite well, too; maybe you have to jailbreak Android phones, and maybe they use OHA membership as a kudgel to restrict competition in the handset market, but that's what the customers, the Samsungs, HTCs, and Verizons, want. Protip: Google's free services don't have customers, they have users; it's a critical distinction. Search Google's help documetns and you will never find a Gmail account holder referred to as a "customer."

They aggregate all of your personal information, and think personal privacy is quaint and that people should change their name if they want to prevent people from tracking them on the Internet.

But none of this matters, after all: Gmail loads fast! And my Droid syncs my contacts!

They've earned a fair bit of trust, especially compared with Microsoft and Yahoo.

Power corrupts... I've forgotten what absolute power does.

It's the whole "broken windows" economic fallacy.

The anti-Mueller campaign started on slashdot when he tried to BS a bunch of us on the weekend over TurboHercules, got caught in a bunch of misrepresentations, and tried to weasel out of them. There were more than a dozen of us who jumped in, because what he was saying was a huge distortion of history, as well as misrepresenting the instant situation.

I remember it because before then I didn't know the guy from a hole in the ground - I figured he was just one more idiot spouting nonsense. Then I find out that people think he's some sort of "authority", a lawyer (that I trashed immediately by pointing out that even the stupidest lawyer in the world wouldn't be making some of the statements he made since they had zero basis in law anywhere on THIS planet (I can't speak about Mars, or whatever :-), and if he's really a lawyer he should be disbarred, etc. - sure enough, he wasn't a lawyer, he just encouraged people to think he was, and never corrected the mistake when he had an opportunity.

The only "coincidence" was that he tried to continue elsewhere (as well as to some extent here), but people were now willing to challenge him head-on, and had the links to prove he was just spouting nonsense.

The whole groklaw thing was really pitiful - the guy who was the actual maintainer of the Hercules hardware emulator (istr his name was Jay Maynard) got stuck in the middle, made the mistake of assuming that the claim that IBM was threatening to sue the Hercules project was true (it wasn't), and really, REALLY put his foot into it.

TurboHercules (not the Hercules project) wanted to have IBM customers make unlicensed copies of IBM's mainframe OS to run on other machines, atop the Hercules hardware emulator. When that didn't fly, TurboHercules (again NOT the Hercules project) tried to claim it would be only "transferring" the OS to a second machine, for "recovery purposes."

But even under that scenario (again, not permitted under the license, since you'd still have 2 copies of the OS floating around, even if you weren't using both at the same time, and the OS is licensed to a specific machine because the fee is based on work units), at some point you'd have to have 2 copies running, to transfer updated data back to the mainframe.

TurboHercules then tried to pick a fight with IBM by asking what patents might be infringed by Hercules, and IBM sent them a list. All of a sudden, TurboHercules and Mueller are claiming that IBM is going to to sue the Hercules project for patent infringement, based on IBM's response to their request.

See the problem here? Then ask yourself if it's a coincidence that TurboHercules took money from Microsoft.

Pile on the FUD he pushed over supposed Android violations of the linux kernel, etc., and you have a clear agenda: The guy did what he could to worm his way into FLOSS territory so he could attack from inside, like a wolf in sheeps clothing, and it almost worked.

The problem is, when it comes to trolling on sites like slashdot, he's a rank amateur :-)