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You really do have the wrong sized glass.

An 11K program is stored on 22 512 byte blocks. Reducing the block count by 1/22nd reduces the amount of I/O required to load and execute the program by 95%. By reducing the overhead of this example even further to the absolute minimum, you can increase considerably the remaining space which can be used for important code in one block I/O. Byte counts in Ethernet frames are equally important. To give an idea of how significant this is, the Slammer Worm was 376 bytes. For an application that nearly shut down the Internet that's a pretty good example of the possible leverage of code density.

Reducing code size is a critical factor in achieving optimal efficiencies real-world businesses use to compete against each other. It's not the only critical factor, but it is one critical factor. It's important.

Magic. Cause Apple dose not employ alchemists. They have Wizards.

Microsoft has its own axe to grind vs Flash - Silverlight.

Now here's the interesting thing... on one hand, HTML5 is a threat to Silverlight just as much as it is a threat to Flash. But HTML5 is still some time away, and if you look at just Flash vs Silverlight, then the latter is better from a technological point of view. Its main problem right now is 99% Flash market penetration (somewhat ironic how it's a problem similar to what many OSS products have competing to MS products). So everything that topples the "king of the hill" Flash is good for MS. If the market goes 1/3 HTML5, 1/3 Flash, 1/3 Silverlight, then SIlverlight can actually fight Flash on its merits for at least that chunk of the market.

Which is why I'm not at all surprised to hear these kinds of rumors.

...that can be stretched to align properly.... Any graphics whizzes out there that can expand on this?

There's a free program -- autostitch.exe -- that does a superb job of combining images into a panorama. It's a "demo" but is very suitable for your map-scanning application.

To generate a panorama image, the camera (lens, actually) is kept at one position and panned left/right/up/down to create multiple overlapping images that fully cover the scene. I've combined up to 154 JPGs into a single panorama. It's all automatic, given these considerations: (1) all input images are placed in one folder, (2) at least 1/3rd of each image is overlapped with left/right/above/below images, (3) the camera is kept in portrait-only or landscape-only orientation for all shots, and (4) select Edit/Options setting before you open the folder of input images. Re (4), Options: keep the defaults except for Output Size/Percentage and System Memory. Adjust those to suit your requirements.

But you aren't creating a panorama. You want to stitch map images together. In this case, keep the camera exactly perpendicular to the (glass-covered) map, and move the map in relatively equal increments to achieve sufficient overlap. I suggest about 50% overlap in each direction, meaning that every spot should appear in at least two images horizontally and two vertically.

You will be amazed at the complete absence of any stitching artifacts -- you likely won't notice any at all (assuming adequate overlap). Autostitch automatically determines "adjacency" of images. This means that it makes absolutely no difference in what order or sequence the images are shot, or numbered and named in the folder. It also takes care of slight differences in camera rotation, perspective, amount of zoom, color and light levels without generating visible artifacts! As I say, amazing.

Download th zip, which has test images of a mountain scene and run it with the defaults. The output file is named pano.jpg and located in the input folder.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,63928-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html/

where that warranty is not otherwise protected by statute for the purposes of public safety, as in the case of safety features)

In my friends case, the State law is very clear that the condition of the car at the time of the accident is the only thing relevant. If the car had remained in it's race track configuration it would have not qualified for warranty repairs. Since it did meet the all safety requirements at the time of the accident it did qualify. Just to be clear, all parties were aware that the modifications had been done (and undone).

As for the additions/alterations to his car. I am not by any means a car expert. I can say that one of the additions was a nitrous system. I am fairly confident that this would one of the things you claim would always void the warranty. He also tampered with the computer system. After the race (on a race track) the alterations were "undone" for lack of a better term and the car was brought back to street legal requirements.

And again, the warranty was honored. You can argue anything else you want but the simple fact is that all parties involve agreed that the law was clear on this issue and the man was paid.

To go back to the software issue. We have two issues. 1) Who OWNS the phone. 2) What rights does the owner have.

Under 17 U.S.C. 109 it is clear that if you PURCHASE a device you own that device. With the exception of the DMCA you have every right to do anything you want with that device. You can make any modifications you want and use it for any purpose (legal purpose). You can also re-sell that device. However Apple has placed several "security" measures on the iphone that prevent you from adding any software to the device without their permission.

"Well that does not matter you can always jailbreak the phone." Except under DMCA that is prohibited. See section 1201:

http://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html

Apple's view is that it is a Federal crime for you to place software on your phone unless they approve it: http://www.pcworld.com/article/159532/apple_files_opposition_to_dmca_exemption_for_jailbreaking.html

The reason this is all an issue is that currently the only legal way for me to place software I have created on a device I own is to. 1) Purchase a SDK. 2) Agree to a contract that restricts my freedom of speech (NDA). 3) Create the product, however I either have to do this on my own or only accept help from those who have also completed steps 1 and 2. Next if I want to share this application, I must then apply for approval to a third party which can reject my application for any reason.

Apple is not preventing, nor can they legally prevent, developers from developing apps for their own iPhones or other people's iPhones. This is why there are many apps available for so called "jailbroken" iPhones.

Actually they have been trying to do just that. It is Apple's stance that jail-breaking a phone is a violation of the DMCA (which it almost certainly is). According to Apple's view you would be committing a Federal crime by jail-breaking a phone you owned. The scarry part about the DMCA is that you most likely ARE committing a Federal crime when you jail-break your phone.

When the EFF tried to add in an exemption to the DMCA, Apple opposed the motion. You can read more in PC Worlds article. Or simply Google it:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159532/apple_files_opposition_to_dmca_exemption_for_jailbreaking.html

While you really need to read the full text of the DMCA to fully appreciate what is going on. You can find the full text here:

http://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html

Or here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR:

This issue can pretty much be summed up by the first paragraph of section 1201:

`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems `(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES- (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.

The only defense in this situation would be fair use:

`(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.

However you have to do all of the work your self:

`(b) ADDITIONAL VIOLATIONS- (1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

Now these are only excerpts. You really NEED to read the entire statute to understand what is going on. The thing is massive. In my opinion it is written in such a away as to be terrible for the average product owner.

802.11n is compatible with all of the previous specs (a,b and g) even though they didn't all talk to each other. Mixed mode (2.4 and 5GHz to the rescue). Here are a couple links that should help explain (yes I know these are older but these should help get the idea across). http://features.techworld.com/mobile-wireless/2280/how-can-80211n-talk-to-all-worlds/ and http://www.pcworld.com/article/145098/new_80211n_routers_the_best_wifi_yet.html

I love WiFiFoFum. I use it all the time because I don't have a data plan. I think the reason they are removing them is there is recently some news story about how people are using wifi finders to find laptops located in cars and steal them. http://www.pcworld.com/article/190674/wifi_could_lead_thieves_right_to_your_laptop.html

Try the PC World article. FWIW RT Fact is a 3D ray tracing engine. I guess they integrated it into the browser somehow. But saying it does not require a plugin? Eh seems strange to me. I thought RT Fact was written in C++ with x86 assembler intrinsics.

They talked about it in PC world in 2004 here

And Opera 10.50 has just been released too, the first version of Opera with <Video> tag support.

With Chrome, Safari and Firefox all evolving quickly, the future of the web is looking good. I just wish they would all support an open, royalty-free codec.

MS fixed the problem, but not before being called out on it. If it were intentional, that would be expected but probably some serious antitrust concerns would be valid given the default search preferences on IE/windows, which dominates the market, and is branching out into other devices. It's getting better, proving that it can improve even if it doesn't have the huge number of searches to data-mine. Further, is anything stopping MS from looking at Google's search trend pages? Last, there was an article not too long ago about how Google tries to contextualize searches. Publically available, and easily implemented in a way which wouldn't infringe on their patents.

The alternative is even worse - that the biased results were unintentional. Sure it's been fixed, but if your initial launch has results skewed in favor of the owning company and it wasn't on purpose, that's a gigantic pile of fail rolled up in a little humiliation pastry and covered in skank sauce.

gp's point was that MS is complaining about having fewer searches to data-mine, but can't even get the existing search results "fair and balanced". In other words, they need to improve before whining. GGP of course was indicating that Google's method of competition is to produce fair results, while Microsoft's method would be to bias everything towards Windows. Of course we got here by GGGP suggesting that Google's high marketshare will always continue to guarantee high market share because they have more search data for research.

The whole point of all of this is that if Microsoft has good technology and good results, people will be exposed to it through vendor lock-in, one way or another, and eventually discover for themselves that it either sucks or doesn't suck. Microsoft's best strategy is to focus on getting good results with the data they do have, not whine about a better algorithm getting more hits. Of course it will have more market share, Google's ranking algorithm is extremely mature, apparently unbiased, and constantly improving.

Of course, the irony of the king of lock-in complaining about being locked out when they have Bing as default on Windows as well as increasing numbers of phones is delicious like a very expensive dessert. That the initial roll-out of Bing was so fundamentally flawed the GP post still remembers how skewed the results were and feels the need to comment on it should be a clear sign that Bing has an uphill battle, even if they got a live streaming copy of every Google search, legally and with Google's blessing.

Or in other words: Red herring.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/169750/bing_search_reveals_promicrosoft_results.html
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1496589/can-trust-bing

Verizon require Blackberry default search be Bing, and not changeable. You can visit google.com of course, but that requires extra typing.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/verizon-forcing-microsoft-bing-search-blackberry-users-100

Illuminating comments thread
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1252533&cid=28175167

I unfortunately have a Virgin Media connection, it sucks, the downloads are throttled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Media#Bandwidth_throttling a lot, often to 1/4 speed. Uploads are currently going at a paltry 20-30KB/s - That's Over 6 hours to upload a 700MB CD!!!!!!!!!.

Also - See http://techdirt.com/articles/20091130/0316037113.shtml/ Deep Packet Inspection and File Sharing Monitoring http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/26/virgin_media_detica// and Phorm the advertising crap http://badphorm.co.uk/news.php?item.46.4/

And they don't support filesharers like Talk Talk http://www.pcworld.com/article/146785/virgin_music_campaigns_against_illegal_filesharing.html/ and http://torrentfreak.com/isp-will-protect-file-sharers-from-music-industry-disconnection-threat-080404// they will happily hand over your details to all and sundry if accused of copyright infringement - this handing over of personal details is probably Illegal itself under the data-protection act. Also they force you to have a phone line with high call costs or else you are charged an arm and a leg for the internet connection.

Huh? Google has been saying "Flash is coming for Android, 2010" since mid-2009 if not sooner. Adobe just announced AIR and Flash for Android: http://www.pcworld.com/article/189338/adobe_shows_flash_and_air_apps_for_google_android.html

Apple doesn't want Flash, Air, Java, or any other means of loading applications onto an iPhone. They want total control, and as many commercial apps as possible, so they get paid. That's the only reason they're not supporting Flash, Java, or other defacto web standards on the iPhone, despite the fact that's currently making the iPhone a lower-class web client.

Microsoft is the only proponent of Silverlight, a competitor to Flash that's just as proprietary. So it's quite natural they would not be supporting Flash themselves on their WinMo devices... 'scuse me, their "Windows Phone 7" devices... a new name with each revision. Of course, had you read the link you posted carefully, you would know that Microsoft is working with Adobe to allow them to release Flash for "Windows Phone 7". I would estimate, at this point, Microsoft will do everything they can to not screw up their new platform, and "better web experience than iPhone" will be one of the standard targets of, well, everyone but Apple.

And in fact, it is Adobe's job to push Flash. They're doing that, too, even on Linux .. they recently joined the LiMo Foundation, and play to support Flash on Linux phones and other devices: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000072-264.html

Google's YouTube is moving away from Flash, for very good reasons: they're a video site, and Flash is just extra baggage, once you have standard video. That's very different than Google saying "no Flash anywhere". YouTube is an entirely different concern than smart phones and tablets.

There is a big difference between Flash support on Windows Mobile 7 and on the iPad/iPhone. One is announcing that it won't be ready in time for the platform release (but will be released later, according to both MS and Adobe); the other is simply telling its users that they really don't want Flash, and won't assist any effort by Adobe to port it onto their platform- despite the pleas from millions of iphone users that actually want it.

Neither camp is actually "getting away with" not having Flash support. But at least MS isn't being arrogant enough (in this case) to make excuses by telling us what we should want on our devices.

Oh, but people have said plenty about it. I'm not going to link to all of it (you would expect people to Google these things), but here is a link to one article that links to several.

And for sake of clarity, I have and iPhone, own an iMac, spent many years working support on Apple products. I don't call them out just because I'm a "hater" because I like some of their products. But honestly, look at this thing and its specs and try to tell me what there is to get excited about this.

So 25% of the smartphone market, or about half of the Blackberry market share, is world domination?

Yeah, Google is currently the hot topic of the tech week: Nearly every tech-related blog has some negative opinion about Google either taking on the telcos, privacy concerns, anti-publisher/book settlements, or too big to fail...

Considering they're mainly all blogs, I'd say there maybe some strings being pulled, paid for in the form of cash by a certain rival. That because what Google is doing is no different from that rival, nor what MS, Novell, IBM, HP, etc... has done in the past.

Not to mention Google Federal or Google's Fiber plans or you know, Android.

Funny thing though - Apple is *notorious* about controlling your experience with their hardware and software yet their OS updates have no restrictions, no serial numbers, no registration. It's the honor system that you don't share the DVD with all your friends. Plus there isn't multiple versions of the same OS to worry about *AND* it's cheaper than the least expensive Win7 build. I'm not a applefag but seriously - take a hint MS.

It wouldn't be so sure about the whole honor system and Apple. Steve Jobs flat up admitted that iPhone OS has a backdoor (http://news.idealo.co.uk/news/2618/steve-jobs-admits-the-existence-of-the-iphone-back-door.html) and last a remember the iPhone OS is just a modified version of the Mac OS, so if the modified version has a backdoor wouldn't be hard to put it in the full unmodified version. And they have done worse then a simple downgrade when your more or less pirating their OS by just killing it outright in consideration with patches killing various versions of Hackintosh (the one about killing the netbook Hackintosh: http://www.pcworld.com/article/181163/apple_kills_hackintosh_netbooks_with_snow_leopard_update.html)

Apple is built around some pretty interesting ideas and concepts, but the moment they place limits on things, they immediately stop their growth and development. The angry public has to throw burning iPods at Apple's buildings before they get the message.

"Apple Reports Record Sales, Profits for the Holiday Season". Despite how you (and I) view their gear as unsuitably locked down, the "angry" public is falling all over themselves to buy it.

Microsoft is going to support win32 as long as Intel makes chips that are 32-bit only

What makes you think that? I seem to remember that Intel still makes 16-bit chips, yet Microsoft discontinued MS-DOS and Windows 3.x.

I already answered that:

(used in Netbooks)

In other words, they're already selling versions of Windows that the Atom will run. Back in January 2009, to PC World reported "the percent [of netbooks sold with Windows] is over 90% for the last three months (November, December, January)." (Source)

Why would Microsoft drop support for these computers if they have 90% of the market?

Verizon is lying? Wired seems to disagree with you: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/3g-speed-test/

If you don't like the Wired guys for some reason then you can look to PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/article/167391/a_day_in_the_life_of_3g.html

Yes, on spec HSDPA is faster but out in the real world with real deployments the differences between HSDPA and EVDO-REVA seem to be reasonably close.

" I don't think Verizon has anything that even comes close to that."

Except their 4G service that's rolling out to 40 markets in 2010. It's already active in some areas, like Boston, so it's not vaporware either. For all the information you can eat please see www.google.com...unless you're using the ATT, blazing fast but you can only connect from the third floor and be sure to stand on the 2nd window from the left, network.

What now ATT? What now?

There's a lot of things AT&T needs to improve on, but I don't think their coverage or technology is one of them. They just need to deliver what they're capable of more frequently.

Finally a voice of common sense.

It's also true that Verizon has outspent AT&T on investment in its wireless infrastructure over the last few years. AT&T's wireless network's capital expenditures from 2006 through September 2009 totaled $21.6 billion, versus $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Per subscriber: Verizon - $353, AT&T - $308

But despite this, Verizon's 'high speed service' is not real high speed. It's a shame that AT&T has been so stingy in its investment. But had the iPhone come out on Verizon it would have been a disaster with no real high speed anywhere.

When the Chinese hackers decided to go after Google, which machines did they go after, the Linux servers or the Microsoft Windows clients? Answer, despite the fact that the data they were after lives on the servers, they went after the clients because Microsoft "security" is a joke and serious, easy to exploit holes go unpatched for months on end from Redmond. Not to mention the sheer amount of shit they REQUIRE you to be an admin for, the total lack of opacity in their processes etc. If Microsoft disappeared tomorrow, there still would be security exploits, but significantly less than there are now.

Not to mention the numbers speak for themselves, despite having over 90% of the pc market share, Microsoft has less than half that and that share is continuing to decline. Why is that? Because cracking Windows is pretty trivial, and if a company has important data they want to protect, they sure as hell aren't going to go Windows.

Microsoft has never paid anything but lip service to security, and I suspect they never will. Oh well, the sooner the world is rid of Windows Server, the better.

Calls initiated from your cell phone using Google Voice are carried over your wireless carrier's network and are not VoIP calls, according to reports.

However, two advantage for the iphone is immediate apparent to me:
1. SMS.
2. Free call to Canada.

Both Verizon 'unlimited' plans are limited to 5GB.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/181590/verizon_droid_tethering_will_cost_you.html

The tethering 'unlimited' plan just gets you an extra 5GB for a total of 10GB's of 'unlimited' data. If you want to connect to an Exchange Server however, that will cost you an additional $15 dollars on top of the $30 dollars to get that 5GB of 'unlimited' data.

AT&T's plan is really unlimited in the proper sense of the term. There is no data cap.

Do your research, what I'm saying is a matter of public record in court cases.

The only similarity between DDR2 and RDRAM is that the data lines are double pumped, and if you think they "invented" that, you're a fool.

I did not say that Rambus invented DDR or DDR2. If you think I did, you're a fool. I wrote that they used technology patented by Rambus. That's not the same thing. And if you think that is "the only similarity", then why did the courts last week agree with me?

Try this article in PC World which says pretty much the opposite of what you did.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-15BuffaloPR.mspx

http://www.pcworld.com/article/132893/microsoft_linspire_sign_linux_patent_deal.html

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3373

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202400435

"I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time, and it's important, for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

Sorry, this does sound to me like one of those despicable and horribly misguided "if you have nothing to hide, why would you want privacy?" line.
I like Bruce Schneier's answer.

The difference is whatever they want to make of it. The advantage of not promising anything is that no management is necessary.

It seems to me that Mozilla Foundation is badly managed.

Have you seen $200 million worth of development in Firefox? The Mozilla foundation has been getting more than $68,000,000 each year to make Google the default search engine in Firefox. See this article, for example: Google Deal Produces 91% of Mozilla's Revenue.

In return for that enormous amount of money, Firefox is for many the most unstable program they use. Every new version of Firefox includes "stability improvements", but the instability has gotten considerably worse since version 3.5.2. Firefox is so unstable it regularly crashes the Windows XP OS, although not Linux, apparently.

The instability and resultant memory hogging of Firefox has been reported many times by many people for many years, according to discussions online. For just one small example, see the comments tab for this crash report ID: 67f332db-205a-4944-8f88-1bb7a2091220. (Not a crash from one of our computers.) Typical comments from that comment tab:

"I can't believe how often firefox is crashing recently on multiple computers!!!"
"This is ridiculous! It happens everyday!"
"Mozilla crashes on average 10 a day. Can you help?"
"firefox is crashing on me twice a day. any advice please? thanks Graham"
"This new version of Mozilla sucks. It crashes on my multiple times each day."
"I keep going from tab to tab and after a while Mozilla crashes.."
"please fix this crash problem, thanks"

Want to see your own Firefox crashes? Enter about:crashes into the Firefox address window, and press the Enter key. You can substitute the numbers obtained from your crashes in the link above to get more information.

There is more about Mozilla Developer Center Crash Reporting on their web site. (That web site may be overloaded or not loadable from Slashdot.)

The randomness of failures suggests that Firefox writes to a random location memory that is important in some systems and not others. That's crucial in an unstable, poorly designed OS like Windows XP. Linux merely throws Firefox off the system.

Definitely the way events are handled in Firefox has degraded in the last few versions. Firefox often takes a long time to process a mouse event, for example, even when Firefox has been the only program in use for a long time.

Firefox is popular because of its add-ons, apparently. People don't want to watch abusive, flashing ads that assume that the reader is stupid, so they use AdBlock Plus. When the same extensions exist for Google's browser, it seems likely that Firefox will lose popularity.

Firefox experiences a LOT of crashes and memory hogging, and has for years. Apparently Firefox developers don't know how to debug that kind of failure. Apparently the more than $200 million has not been enough.

I found the source. It's from PC World:

That's because they apparently were able to access a system used to help Google comply with search warrants by providing data on Google users, said a source familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press. "Right before Christmas, it was, 'Holy s***, this malware is accessing the internal intercept [systems],'" he said.

Have you seen $200 million worth of development in Firefox? The Mozilla foundation has been getting more than $68,000,000 each year to make Google the default search engine in Firefox. See this article, for example: Google Deal Produces 91% of Mozilla's Revenue.

In return, Firefox is the most unstable program in common use. Every new version includes "stability improvements", but the instability has gotten considerably worse since version 3.5.2. Firefox is so unstable it regularly crashes Windows XP, although not Linux, apparently.

This instability has been reported many times by many people for many years, according to discussions online. For just one small example, see the comments tab for this crash report ID: 67f332db-205a-4944-8f88-1bb7a2091220. (Not a crash from one of our computers.) Typical comments from that comment tab:

"I can't believe how often firefox is crashing recently on multiple computers!!!"
"This is ridiculous! It happens everyday!"
"Mozilla crashes on average 10 a day. Can you help?"
"firefox is crashing on me twice a day. any advice please? thanks Graham"
"This new version of Mozilla sucks. It crashes on my multiple times each day."
"I keep going from tab to tab and after a while Mozilla crashes.."
"please fix this crash problem, thanks"

Firefox is popular because of its add-ons, apparently. People don't want to watch abusive, flashing ads that assume that the reader is stupid, so they use AdBlock Plus. When the same extensions exist for Google's browser, it seems likely that Firefox will lose popularity.

It seems to me that Mozilla Foundation is badly managed.

I'm going to reply to your comments in "".

"I use Linux. Its true that there are some viruses for Linux, its just that I haven't ever had one."

Do you understand the difference between a Virus, and Spyware, Malware, Worms, and Root Kits? This idea you have is a mirage. Linux boxes have multiple serious security flaws, as all our systems do today, The idea peddled by some is that one side is immune, while the other is an open door way. I'd really rather people talked sensibly with a realisation that our current systems and how they are built remains fundamentally flawed.

"When I was in college, the monkey virus (long ago) was the baddie. When I was unfortunate enough to manage windows systems, code red, nimda, I love you and a few others were all the rage. I got real disappointed when they started listing viruses in the ten thousands, then fifty thousands."

Windows has fundamental flaws, and since win95, its architechture and design had some serious problems. In XP, users by default are created as Admins, and the bulk of the Windows world, developers, suppliers and ISVs continued with a lot of flawed security. This 'ease' of use operation, leaves security mired in a serious hole. And its one that Anti Virus companies and Anti Spyware and Malware companies and organisations are still chasing down today, as well as Microsoft. However, for a very very long time now, Microsoft, and others have stated quite clearly one of the steps that should be taken, and often, even today, is still not taken, and that is _do_not_run_as _admin.

"For Linux, its been in the teens. Mostly root exploits, proof-of-concept stuff, and virii that you have to allow in and set to execute yourself (change permissions, etc)."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/113636/linux_groups_servers_hacked.html

The arrogance of your point is noted. However, its badly placed. Linux systems that are actually placed in the real world, live, facing data ports. One of the large advantages this does exist, is the majority of users are created as users, not as the admin account. This alone is a primary basis for its better record. The point however, is that its not immune, and people should be very careful in assuming that it is.

"Its possible, but not probable to kill your system with these viruses. Perhaps it is good fortune, but I've never been infected (under linux). I'm not trying to troll, its just that the virus writers don't ever get tired trying to be destructive (mind you, kids come and kids go), and the anti-virus folk always seem to have some kind of real specific remedy, which keeps people buying. Its a bit like homeland security. In order to have a budget, there has to be a threat level. In order to sell anti-virus software, there have to be viruses. Shutting an airport for 6 hours because a man kissed his wife sounds like an over reaction. Its stupid. Its non-sensical. Its someone sounding the klaxon too loud so that the danger-danger-danger mentality and the budget both are accepted. No terror, no budget (or sales). Its a game. I refuse to play. If there are viruses on some system, I use the other. Terrorists always target planes, I use car, or bus or something else. The virus researchers never seem to offer anything all encompassing. Its always piecemeal, just like the homeland security rules. The terrorists always always target at the last hour, so we worry about just the last hour (very piecemeal). A stupid approach if you are trying to solve a problem like terror or security, but a real boon if you are trying to sell software or get a budget passed. Milk it baby! Milk it hard. But please, count me out. It just looks like a pile of crap to me (both). Thanks."

When I last spent time with a team from Mcafee, they spoke about how their labs a few years ago, were getting 60,000 unique samples of virii and malware code, and how only a couple of years later they were being bombarded with 255,000 a month. No security co

You can expect a press conference in a few days with The Asus board chairman flanked executives from Intel and Microsoft declaring "Non-Windows OS on a non-Intel system? We don't see a future in that." Meanwhile he'll be furtively gesturing pleas for help, but noone will notice.

I don't care about these problems. They'll work it out.

Google is selling this phone because it advances the technology and their phone partners wouldn't sell it. Expect them to sell an Android + Snapdragon slate for the same reasons. The top 5 OEMs have had that for a year and still no products - ASUS even pulled their Snapdragon netbook in the middle of last year's Computex, some say because Microsoft told them to, and now they "see no future in it":

But the company quickly put the project on the back burner, refusing to discuss it days later at a press event that featured Asustek's chairman alongside executives from microprocessor maker Intel and OS giant Microsoft.

All the major vendors have had this platform for a long time and they wouldn't sell it for strategic reasons. Google isn't submarining them - they declined their first refusal options. Dell had 3" and 5" models ready in September, and didn't launch for the pivotal Christmas season - there's a video of a guy with three thumbs playing with it but I can't find it right now.

Dell, HP, and other top-tier OEMs have announced Snapdragon + Android smartbooks, netbooks, phones and slates, but they will never ever come to market branded by a top tier OEM because of the leverage that Intel and Microsoft are applying to prevent it.

If the incumbents won't give us progress, Google will: even if they have to enter new lines of business to do so. I doubt Google can avoid selling enough units to encourage adoption of modern open technologies in phones, considering they've got the best online ad placement there is.

I doubt Google even wants to sell phones - I think they just want to get the new good technologies adopted so that people can get used to Internet everywhere quicker. This serves their bottom line because when most people use the Internet they use Google services, which Google sells ads on. You can't very well sell Internet ads to be viewed by people who aren't close to a browser. I'm in favor of this because open platforms with internet access everywhere always on let me do things I couldn't do before. I'm also in favor because less power burned is good for CO2 emissions. It also lets me afford to put some high tech shiny stuff under the tree to impress the youngsters.

Intel and Microsoft are scared to death of Snapdragon and Android, and they should be - they don't have offerings like this, and the buzz about cheap, go-everywhere always on low-power application rich platforms that don't use their products is evidence that if they won't innovate in the way that we want, they're done. We want progress, and progress isn't about the widget - it's about the people and what they can do with it. If they try and leverage their market position to kill this progress the truth will out and they will be beset with lawsuits and it will do them no good because there are manufacturers and vendors like HTC and Google who are not afraid of them.

Their best bet: surf the wave. Get their products in line with current demand. Or go away.

As a linguist, let me tell you something:

True translation is nigh impossible for a human, and requires comprehensive knowledge of both the source and target cultures. Not just the patterns of sound/text that represent the languages used by those cultures. A computer will not provide human-level-quality translation at any time in the foreseeable future. Maybe before the end of my life, especially if I take a lot of vitamins (if I'm to believe Kurzweil, which I stopped doing years ago--the guy is a hack), but not anytime soon.

I'd love for computers to be able to put me out of a job. But I don't see it happening.

And most scientists in the know thought mapping the Human Genome was a fool's errand due to the computing power requirements. Technology found a way to surprise almost everyone.

While I bow to your superior wisdom in the field, I remain convinced on some level that in 5-10 years we'll both be surprised at the amount of progress in getting computers to read. Will it replace human translation? Probably not... but it might supplement it enough that it'll make it possible for humans that aren't comprehensively knowledgeable in those languages to have a fighting chance.

For example, take Japanese -- Chosen as that is the second language I'm trying to learn. Take a bit of OCR technology -- the ReadIRIS suite of programs already do a great job of Kanji OCR, for example. Now add OCR to an augmented reality app, like something for an iPhone, or a web browser plugin, or what have you -- a simple enough prospect, really, it's just one step up from taking a scanned image and OCRing *that*.

I don't know Japanese. I can read some basic Kanji and the Kana, that's it. But with ReadIRIS and a few hours of time, I can get the gist of a chapter of Translucent or Doraemon. If I didn't have to spend hours cutting the text out of the pages using Photoshop - i.e., if ReadIRIS or other similar programs could pull text forward on their own...

Now, take that technology (on the fly OCR of Japanese characters from any source), and take it to some logical middle steps -- making the computer provide Furigana or SKIP numbers right next to the Kanji in a transparent overlay, for example. Would it translate? No, not technically, but it would certainly make it a lot easier for a Japanese-as-a-second-language student to figure it out -- instead of OCR, then copy, then paste into a machine translator, I'd look it up in a dictionary.

Or for simple translations (signs, menus, etc), you could whip out a cellphone, take a picture of a door or what have you, then look off to the side and see "Open" or "Express Vasectomy Service" -- you know, stuff you might wanna know about. ;) This is stuff that's not too far out there -- we have OCR, it just needs to get better in order to go to this step.

The rest of the functions we already have, in stuff like the Furigana Injector for Firefox, or rikaichan, although they require HTML or Plaintext. Hooking that up to an OCR augmented reality app... well... It's just taking our current gadgets 1 step further, and using some duct tape to put them together.

And actually, apparently Toshiba is working on something similar to what I was gibbering about earlier -- Voice Recognition coupled to Machine Translation and Voice Synth. Hold up your phone and let it translate for you. Kurzweil predicted this would happen in "2009 or 2010" in a November 07 interview, as well as in his 1990 book -- although admittedly he was off by 10 years in the book.

As for more traditional, complete, "humanesque" translations... Well. Lets see what happens in 10 years. To quote Pterry -- I wouldn't take that bet, it looks like it'd go to the judges.

From an interview w/ Google: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/185944/what_the_nexus_one_isnt.html

You do know that an ARM processor consumes less power than an Intel Atom processor, and thus increases battery life. In addition to that, the Pixel Qi LCD technology with an ARM processor can give 15-20 hours or more worth of battery life [1] (Pixel Qi uses 1/2 to 1/4 of the power that standard LCD screens use [2]).

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/154541/jepsen_works_to_raise_laptop_battery_life_to_2040_hours.html
[2] http://www.pixelqi.com/

As others have pointed out, the anti-netbook push is a desperate attempt by manufacturers to prevent the computer industry from migrating to $199 laptops. The EeePC was originally announced as a $199 laptop. Massive efforts have been expended to stop that trend, by both Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft, of course, frantically announced a life extension for Windows XP, with CPU speed and screen size restrictions designed to cripple "netbooks". Intel actually has a screen size restriction for Atom-based netbooks. (For a CPU manufacturer, that's sheer arrogance.) The netbook manufacturers were pressured to move away from Linux. (The first generation of netbooks ware all Linux-based.)

It's been successful. Since 2007, the price point for netbooks has moved up, not down. Try searching on Amazon. (Hint: search "netbook computers -case -cover -sleeve -stickers -skins -adapter -keyboard -screen -charger -drive -speaker -phone -accessory -komputerbay -battery -cable -mouse", then use the "Sort by lowest price" option. Amazon doesn't make it easy to find the cheapest product.) The cheapest is a Visual Land 7" laptop at $149. EeePC units now start at $249. The cheapest new newbook on Google Shopping (which seems to be mostly a rehash of Amazon) is $229. The cheapest netbook at WalMart is $278.

PC World's fastest Windows laptop in 2007 was a MacBook Pro

no complaint was ever launched (and never will be), and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results

Never say never.

Money, politics, law and religion make a volitile mix in any culture. You cannot predict the outcome.

Apple Censors Dalai Lama IPhone Apps in China [Dec 29]

Google's China Blues [Dec 21]

Chrome Netbook Specs Stretch Believability---Interest in Google's Chrome OS is heating up with the emergence of new rumors about specs for an upcoming . The device would supposedly have a 10.1 TFT HD-ready multitouch display; 2GB RAM; and WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G connectivity. As if that wasn't enough, this netbook would also have a 64GB solid-state drive, according to IBTimes (more on that source in a minute). By the sound of it, the Chrome OS netbook sounds like a great device, but there's only one problem: in my view these rumors aren't very believable.

It goes on from there, and I think this "news" is moot. I for one hope the 2010's will have less of this rumor frenzy on the monkeysphere.

"WinXP is end-of-life? You'd best tell that to all the millions of users (including big businesses) out there."

Couldn't agree more. Hopefully I don't have to rehash how horrible Vista was, and Windows 7 came out a few months ago so it's a bit early to proclaim XP is dead when it's hopeful replacement just showed up.

I think 4096-byte sectors are Very Bad News. I have no experience with these drives but XP doesn't like them which is reason enough for me to avoid them. I hope hard drive manufactures come out with a standard naming scheme for these new drives so they're easy to identify online, like IDE, SATA, PATA, etc. Maybe AFD for Advanced Format Drive?

over at PC World. Actually, I like the idea of the XO-3. Sure, it's totally blue-sky, but it's great to have at least one outfit taking a completely clean-slate design approach to mobile computing.

I like the hinged-panel XO-2 and MS Courier better, however. I think it's just more practical to have one part of the screen that can tilt up into the light. That said, the ring thingy of the XO-3 is interesting, too. I hadn't really thought about the mechanics of trying to hold a panel with one hand while touching with the other.

Remember 10/GUI, Clayton Miller's 10-fingered touch screen interface? Imagine a flexible 10/GUI touch pad that could be pulled out from under the XO screen. That might be interesting.

You forgot to keep a copy of the keys yourself? I call that stupid. And in the case of this guy's manager, criminally stupid.

Most people are smart enough to give their caretakers copies of their keys. Your analogy stinks.

And even if it didn't stink in that way, it stinks in another way. You could just shell out to have a professional locksmith break into your house and change the locks. Which is what you would have to have done anyway if the caretaker was kidnapped by the mafia or otherwise disappeared (the analogous situation to Childs dying in his sleep).

Actually, I just reviewed the facts as put out in this article by Venezia and most of the negative stuff has to do with mismanagement on the part of the city, in my eyes. A good manager would have understood that Childs was too attached to his creation, and would have already started to bring in another professional who might have had a chance of giving Childs the impression that he was handing his brainchild over into good hands. OTOH, I'm not sure Childs was psychologically capable of doing that. I wonder what will really happen in this trial.

Possible fraud? Be VERY careful about such statements from anyone connected with the Mozilla Foundation. The foundation has been getting more than $68,000,000 each year to make Google the default search engine in Firefox. See this article, for example: Google Deal Produces 91% of Mozilla's Revenue.

Google has said it will stop paying that money, eventually. Or maybe Microsoft has offered more. Any statements from anyone at Mozilla about search engines must be considered to be possibly about money.

Eric Schmidt's choice of words showed an amazing lack of social awareness. However, remember that he also has a point. The U.S. government has decided it can force executives to give information, and can also force them to keep silent about giving that information. The U.S. government calling the law the "Patriot Act" was an attempt to intimidate by implying that someone who is against the complete loss of privacy in the U.S. is not a patriot. That's not correct, of course.

Maybe the underlying point of Mr. Schmidt's statement was that the U.S. government has been forcing Google to help conduct surveillance, and he feels uncomfortable about that. However, it was a foolish choice of words.

As far as I know, unsanctioned printing of your own currency is counterfeiting. It looks like the Secret Service will have to put its little bit of extra goodness into the printer's firmware now.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Intel,AMD and many other companies design their chips in Bangalore. e.g: Xeon 7400 series by Intel and AMD's competitor to the Xeon, called Opteron were designed in B'lore. Infineon, Cisco, GE and whole lot of other companies have chip designing operations in Bangalore.

I don't think apple cares if the end user makes themselves a hackintosh

Oh Really?