Slashdot Mirror

Yup - starting with Australia and then on to Europe,

These are complete core2duo computers for $100. I'm sorry but p4 and Pentium D are ancient and not suitable for modern gaming.

..."why waste your juice on something you need for calls, when there are those ultra cheap emulator portables"

Yet another device to carry around. Thanks but I'll stick with my iPhone, and yes it does have Final Fantasy specifically designed for the touchscreen, or what many call WoW for iPhone (I've played it, it really is WoW)

"Maybe its just me, but I'd rather save my phone for making calls."

Shhh, otherwise we'll have to pull your geek card because you sound like my baby-boomer parents.

"Amazon wants to continue to have an associate program ..."
Do they?

but find me an Android review which doesn't mention the lag, choppy, hesistancy of thebasic operations at least on occassion

I got my first Android phone a few days ago. A Google Nexus S, I really don't know what you're talking about with regards to lag, choppy, hesistancy of the basic operations, I really don't. I get pissed off when things freeze/lock up, but I haven't seen any of that - Being the tech I am, I am additionally running with full disk encryption, so wouldn't it be more likely I'd run into problems considering the extra resources given away?

You ask us to find some review of the iPhone lagging, well here are a few user reviews of their own devices for you:

http://www.sinfuliphone.com/showthread.php?t=33715

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=385147

What I found interesting in my quick Google search though is this:

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/08/20/steve-jobs-software-fix-coming-for-slow-ios-4-performance-on-iphone-3g/

I don't think you searched hard.

clueless.

You might want to read links that you google more carefully. That story was posted on the 21st of this money which is 3 days ago from today or 2 day from the date you posted the link. The implication is that support was coming. What that means is that while the new build may support additional languages, there is no way of knowing if existing WP7 applications will be localized. Since MSFT did not have localization built in from the start, developers will probably have to rewrite their applications now to support other markets whereas I have applications from Japanese and German developer on my iPhone and iPad which work in english out of the box and it is easy enough to localize in any language supported by iOS if you have the resource files translated into that language. iOS had localization support from the very beginning. For all we know, MSFT might have an "ASIAN" edition with different layouts with or without hubs.

Another problem I just thought of with the hub strategy and specifically with their Xbox centric strategy is that it might not function in some countries at all.

clueless.

The upgrade frenzy caused by Apple is really, really concerning. Just the labor practice alone[1][2] is appalling enough, not to mention the the amount of energy[3] it takes to produce a new device every 6 months. Can't people live with the same gadget for at least a couple/few years without going ape every time something new comes out?

[1] - http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/02/27/apple-child-labor-china-history-sketchy-manufacturing/
[2] - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/apple-may-be-poisoning-chinese-workers-and-doesnt-seem-to-care-should-we/9908
[3] - http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1119.html

It's not an Apple or MS thing, everyone is suing everyone else in mobile. Because this is where the money is and this is sadly the way business is conducted these days. To pick on Apple for their ridiculous patent suits and not the other companies just shows the bias (or ignorance) of the journalist.

Hold crap! What are we going to do now? Without open Symbian, whatever will we do! Will Nokia's strangle hold on smart phones never end! Oh, the humanity!

http://thenextweb.com/location/2011/02/08/symbian%E2%80%99s-huge-market-share-looks-to-be-in-play/

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4d5c75d8cadcbbc41b160000/steve-jobs-sick.jpg

There's also a sensationalist headline over here:

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/02/17/steve-jobs-may-have-just-six-weeks-to-live-receiving-treatment/

The Daily Mail spoke to Dr Jerome Spunberg, a certified Oncologist, who said: âoeMr Jobs is most likely getting outpatient chemotherapy at Stanford because the cancer has recurred.â

Another consultant, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, a physician with over fourty years experience, said: âoeHe is terminal. What you are seeing is extreme muscle wasting from calorie depravation, most likely caused by cancer. He has no muscle left in his buttocks, which is the last place to go. He definitely appears to be in the terminal stages of his life from these photos. I would be surprised if he weighed more than 130lb.â

The National Enquirer, who initially reported the news today (to be published tomorrow), talked to critical-care physician Dr. Samuel Jacobson, who said, âoeJudging from the photos, he is close to terminal. I would say he has six weeks.â That said, given the reliability of The National Enquirer, waiting for further news before jumping to conclusions is advised.

Weâ(TM)ve done a little digging into Dr. Samuel Jacobson. Jacobson appears to be a Florida based pulmonologist (breathing doctor) â" not Oncologist. Which would naturally make you wonder just how qualified he is to diagnose someone via a photo, especially outside of his speciality.

Hmmm, that's going to be harder for them to maintain, since both Barnes and Noble and Amazon have self publishing portals, (follow the links for how those work) and they account for a huge percentage of sales of both Print and ebooks in the US.

Sooner or later someone is bound to release something via those electronic self publish routes which rockets to the top of sales. Will they just pretend it didn't happen?

Or is it that ebook sales WITHOUT dead tree books would never amount to a best seller?
(TFA wanders around that particular point, as without numbers, it is impossible to tell whether ebooks simply follow print books in popularity.).

As good authors (Like Steven King) start releasing in ebook format first, using free-lance editor services, the print houses might not have their lock on the attention of the NYT.

Steven Kink kind of popularity will be hard to ignore even if it were self published.

http://thenextweb.com/apple/files/2010/09/mac01.jpg

Repost from above, but I wanted to draw your attention to it.

http://thenextweb.com/apple/files/2010/09/mac01.jpg

Between enormously inflated prices for absolute cut rate hardware and their forced upgrade treadmill they're doing great.

you are free to say whatever you'd like about them. but do you really expect them to keep you if they find out?

if i worked for you and was going on and on about how you are a shitty person, the company you run is terrible and i hate my co-workers, do I really expect you to keep me around?

basically, this: http://thenextweb.com/2009/08/09/note-friend-boss-fb-bitch-job/

If I remember correctly, the EU had put in a law to prevent this.

http://thenextweb.com/eu/2010/03/01/news-eu-law-place-prevent-shock-mobile-internet-phone-bills/

No idea whether it passed though.

Jolicloud, a competitor to Google OS, has an app at the Chrome Web Store. Jollicloud decided to integrate its platform inside the Chrome browser. You can use Jolicloud services instead for Google's. Though definitely restrictive, Google is not locking you into its services.

Whether Silverlight

"The world was abuzz with HTML5 and Silverlight innuendo after the SL platform was all but ignored at PDC10. Silverlight developers were furious over what they deemed to be something of a betrayal by Microsoft, nullifying endless hard work."

I have to say, if you're still a developer for not-Windows Microsoft stuff, I'd think you'd have gotten used to direct betrayl and abandonment by Microsoft by now and learned to ignore it. I mean, after PlaysForSure, the Kin, WM7 destroying anything pre-WM7, and now Silverlight, you'd think you'd have found a pattern by now. And if you haven't, I'm not sure I'd want to hire you as a developer.

Whether Silverlight

"The world was abuzz with HTML5 and Silverlight innuendo after the SL platform was all but ignored at PDC10. Silverlight developers were furious over what they deemed to be something of a betrayal by Microsoft, nullifying endless hard work."

The only Disney movies I watch are supplied via Bittorrent. All stupid ads and other crud have kindly been removed by the uploader heroes. I have not hired or bought a DVD for more than 2 years and laugh at all the Disney victims that complain about the crap they have to go through before being allowed to watch the movie they paid for. See the following URL for details... http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2010/02/19/experience-dvd-pirate-vs-paying-customer/

This is not FUD.

As hair-pulling frustrating it is, there are some institutions and corporations which have a company policy to only use IE .X "for security & stability purposes" because it was what all their legacy apps & inventory systems were built for and those legacy systems could/would break in different browsers, and this is a big big headache.

I recall that there's a policy akin to this in Korean government.

I wish it weren't so, and anyone who can download a plugin can easily install a better standards-compliant browser, right?

IE should just die for the betterment of humanity.

It's been holding back the web for over a decade now and is the cause of majority of cross-browser compatibility problems.

As for HTML5, even Google has given a sane and rational explanation why HTML5 is not ready yet and does not suit their needs as compared to Flash. Read it here.

Yes, HTML5 is the future, but it goes hand and hand with Flash. The two synergize and don't compete with each other. Good Flash developers know when *NOT* to use Flash.

On non-cross-browser compatible HTML5 Demos, these does not run in the latest version of Opera (which has always been the most standards-compliant browser during the history of its existence):
*Google Images Gift Box - CSS 3D example
*The Smallest 3D Maker -> points appear not where you click
*Archery app -> ditto

and many others...

Before you argue any further, please read my article at TheNextWeb as I've tried to make a fair and balanced assessment on the HTML5/Flash issue. (you'll have to pardon the grammatical errors, wrote it w/ little sleep and a lot of typos got past proofreading)

Thanks.

Yeah... one simple tip though - try not to include your boss when complaining about them, people.

Right. Because that's worked so well. Keep in mind that these refer to apps that made it through the vetting process.

Actually, your examples do in fact prove how well the process is working.

Not one of the apps you describe scammed people out of money or information. They are all examples of developers using other methods to get their apps to the top of the store list to get more people to buy them.

If that's the best you can come up with, then I think that speaks volumes to how good a job Apple is actually doing.

The problem here, and it is a logner term on Apple and many of supporters run into, is that the iPhone isn't remotely secure from this in any shape form or fashion.

So, you go tell someone who had this or this or this and see how far your credibility goes.

These phones are now general purpose computers that happen to have devices that make them capable of making phone calls. If you think that your general purpose computing device is immune to these types of things then you will most likely one day get a nice big shock. Apple is relly good about thier reality distortion field making people think they are somehow can't have this type of thing happen, mostly people who should really know better, but reality is that it doesn't.

Apple gets more apps submitted than their entire staff could filter to that level of security, indeed they would need to be one of the largest employers in the world to do so. Apple can't protect you, all they can do is make you feel good about having lousy security. It is not their fault it is lousy either, they simply can't provide non-lousy security for millions of devices and many many thousands of applications one may download. Personally the Android market place's significant difference in freedom more than outweighs the slight benefit in security and what little difference there is can be more than mitigated if you just read what the app accesses.

Well, part of the news here is the comparison to Apple's heavily-controlled store model. Would this have happened on the iPhone? Would the app have even been approved?

Yes. Yes it would have.

Those are examples of a developer "hacking" into people's itunes accounts to buy his crappy apps, not the app itself stealing data from the phone and sending it to a server. Still sucks, but it's a different issue. I think the itunes username and passwords were harvested via good old-fashioned viruses, trojans and phishing. Maybe some brute force attacks.

Right. Because that approval process has worked without any flaws.

Well, part of the news here is the comparison to Apple's heavily-controlled store model. Would this have happened on the iPhone? Would the app have even been approved?

Yes. Yes it would have.

Right. Because that's worked so well. Keep in mind that these refer to apps that made it through the vetting process.

That's not easy to do on a large scale. A persistent connection has to be in place between publisher and subscriber. Twitter would have to have a huge number of low-traffic connections open. (Hopefully only one per subscriber, not one per publisher/subscriber combination.) Then, on the server side, they'd have to have a routing system to track who's following what, invert that information, and blast out a message to all followers whenever there was an update.

They are doing precisely that, in fact:

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/07/06/twitter-user-streams-on-the-way-better-application-updates-soon-to-follow/

I can't believe how many people I know that are actually PROUD that their machine is running with dozens of viruses/crap.

I really wish that we didn't call them viruses. It is not an immune system, you don't make it health by giving it practice! (And who are these people?!?!)

You may have seen it many times, but the joke is still funny...the first computer bug: http://thenextweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/first-computer-bug.jpg

See for yourself.

A good start would be the free release of postal code and mapping data by governments. After all this is information collected with public money, so it should be available to all citizens. The UK has or will release mapping and postcode data. But most countries still only allow the data to be sold for hefty prices. The most ridiculous part is that in some countries the postal code date is the property of privatized former monopolies.

As a PPUK PPC, I'm more than happy to answer any questions Slashdotters have about PPUK, our policies or how much The Digital Economy Bill sucks...

Here's a bit about me:
http://thenextweb.com/uk/2010/04/08/pirate-party-uk/
http://www.tdobson.net/node/409

Australia is "under surveillance” due to increasingly rigorous control over Internet information flows. So what information flows between countries is not known until tested: see http://thenextweb.com/au/2010/03/12/international-org-puts-australia-onestep-internet-enemy/

If this rumor is true: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/03/04/internet-explorer-9-html5-compatible-microsoft-joining-antiflash-movement/ and IE9 passes (!) Acid 3, it needs SVG-compatibility, or am I misinterpreting Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_3 As for the png-part, MSIE 8 has not so many problems with png, but a few minor probs: http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE8Bugs/ So *if* MSIE 9 would be HTML 5 compliaqnt and if it would pass acid 3, it would be a good thing. Mind you, I only use Firefox unless I visit Windows update or a page that insists on MSIE crap (happened once in two years, not visiting again), but MSIE > 9 would force standards down the throat of all companies that are forced to upgrade to Windows 9 10 11 or whatever version MSIE 9 would be shipped with...

You jest, but according to rumours, that's exactly what it is!

I'm an optimist, so I'd like to think it would look something like this.

Ubuntu Release Party