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Ibrahim Balic is the researcher who in the past claimed to have been responsible for uncovering a flaw that brought down Apple's Dev Center. As it turned out, he uncovered a lesser problem around the time a more significant flaw was exploited. It seems that he is a bit of an attention seeker, so I would take anything that comes from him with a grain of salt.

I can't find the exact links that cover the older story, but here are some related ones:
http://www.cultofmac.com/24151...
http://9to5mac.com/2013/08/20/...
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07...

> Also, just wait till one of these things hits the streets, and it's used against law enforcement agents.

I'm sure that is already happening. The government is encouraging it because IMSI catchers rely on security flaws in the system's design. So the government does not want those flaws fixed, otherwise it would make all of their IMSI catchers useless. But nothing is stopping anyone else from using IMSI catchers too - apparently DC is full of fake towers.

the glass repeatedly cracked during standard drop tests conducted by Apple suppliers.

shouldn't Apple be drop testing these?

i'm sure Apple does it's own testing, but if suppliers regularly have to do stuff like this it really makes me wonder what factors they test for

reminds me of this story about xbox one controller R&D

in the middle of the article, you see the actual R&D testing of the new controller designs, all in grey

now, for anyone who has ever played video games, **especially gamers**...the idea of designing a new controller is **awesome**

it's the kind thing that inspires a kid to go into game design...

now, look at the ***factors*** they are testing...look at what changes they are thinking of making

1mm

that's it

they're testing a difference of 1 millimeter....full testing battery....complex A/B testing with gamers, focus groups, the whole gamut!

for an experimental variable of 1 millimeter difference from the old to new design

a real experiment would test, oh, say a design similar to the N64's controller vs the current design...or a new button layout

my point is, we can see from TFA that "innovative tech R&D" is not very innovative...for many companies

Gas peakers use jet engines for quick starts, the electricity generated cost $0.19 per kWh, quite expensive.

With all of the new electric cars hitting the market lithium-ion batteries have finally dropped in cost Tesla + Panasonic are currently building a mega-factory to build cheap Li-ion batteries, cost is expected to drop below $100 per kwh of storage capacity.

I don't see why compressed air storage couldn't be cheap with sufficient investment. Geothermal can also be used for peak demand, it's another hugely under-used and under-invested in resource.

Electrical energy storage and its place in a low carbon future.

How Tesla's battery 'Gigafactory' could change everything ...

A brute-force program to hack AppleID passwords was recently uploaded to the software-hosting GitHub. The program, appropriately called iBrute, is designed to flood AppleID logons with possible password combinations. The assumption is that the hacker would know the username, often derived from an email address.

Shortly before the stolen images were announced, the owner of iBrute announced the vulnerability — Find My iPhone did not deny access to brute force methods of figuring out a password. Early this morning, the same iBrute owner announced that the vulnerability has been closed, although there has not yet been confirmation from Apple.

iBrute is now reportedly locked out. But there is also speculation that the Find My iPhone hack was not solely to blame for all the apparently stolen files. For instance, someone could trick a celebrity user — or the celebrity’s assistant — into revealing enough information to gain access to iCloud backups. Additionally, it’s possible other online services were involved, since some of the images reportedly show celebrities using Android mobile devices.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/09...

The "find my iphone" bruteforce attack has been known for months. Search for how to get rid of "iCloud lock" and you'll see results.

I think once the iCloud password was found, then the same password was probably used to access other sites. Though I don't know why models/actresses would put dropbox and other cloud services on their phone.

I'm sure tools have been created that trawls the internet for e-mail addresses and tries to guess the password for the iCloud service. If you have the same user/pass combo in iCloud as anywhere else, then your account is probably compromised.

Shortly before the stolen images were announced, the owner of iBrute announced the vulnerability — Find My iPhone did not deny access to brute force methods of figuring out a password. Early this morning, the same iBrute owner announced that the vulnerability has been closed, although there has not yet been confirmation from Apple.

iBrute is now reportedly locked out. But there is also speculation that the Find My iPhone hack was not solely to blame for all the apparently stolen files. For instance, someone could trick a celebrity user — or the celebrity’s assistant — into revealing enough information to gain access to iCloud backups. Additionally, it’s possible other online services were involved, since some of the images reportedly show celebrities using Android mobile devices.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/09...

Supporting gay rights.

Almost everyone does that and it does not cost them a single cent.

They spent money commissioning a video celebrating gay pride.

They spent money on lawyers to petition the Californian government on Prop 8.

They donated $100K to the No to 8 campaign.

Their supplier responsibility reports have been auditing their suppliers for discrimination for years.

It is just public relations.

Again, like the other guy I responded to, you're setting up a no win situation. They don't support gay rights? They are unethical. They do support gay rights? It's just marketing.

Their CEO is widely believed to be gay and I'm sure a hell of a lot of their employees are gay as well. You're asking me to believe they aren't doing this out of principle at all? That's not the most plausible explanation here.

Enforcing worker rights in their contracts abroad.

Again, this is mainly a PR thing. People got upset (for the wrong reasons -- Apple's contract manufacturers may be bad employers by European or even American standards, but people in China appear to be happy to work for them) and Apple had to repair damage.

Nope, they actually started internal audits of their supply chain and generating public reports several years before all that happened. You can go and download them on their website and see for yourself.

Making their products environmentally friendly.

When will they be doing that?

They've been doing that for many years. Here's the info, specifically the products. Even Greenpeace are singing their praises, specifically, saying: Apple has put its money where its mouth is: Greenpeace's report, "Clicking Clean," found that the company's embrace of renewable energy is genuine, and is leading the technology sector.

Their entire product portfolio is based on planned obsolescence. They may be very proud of how much material they are saving by making critical parts as flimsy as possible, but in reality the reduced lifespan hurts the environment more than the minor savings help it.

This is just FUD. Apple hardware lasts a lot longer than the equivalent from their competitors. I've lost count of the number of laptops, PCs, and non-Apple smartphones I've seen people around me churn through while Apple users with the same needs just buy once or twice in the same time period.

Improving the privacy of their users

By storing all their personal data in a country that has effectively declared war on privacy? By secretly tracking their customers? Apple is doing the exact opposite of what you claim.

By forbidding abusive behaviour in the App Store. By removing application access to identifying information several times. By providing an alternative to third party analytics like Google Analytics that isn't driven by a market need to sell that data. By encrypting a whole bunch of things they aren't compelled to.

Getting stronger is subjective. If you analyze their performance, here's what you see: two divisions make up the majority of their revenue and profit. It appears to be Windows and Office. That is the same as 20 years ago.

• Division Gross Margin (% or revenue)
• Devices and Consumer Licensing: 93.8%
• Computing and Gaming Hardware: 1.25%
• Phone Hardware: 2.72%
• Devices and Consumer Other: 23:72%
• Commercial Licensing: 91.75%
• Commercial Other: 30.54%

However when it comes to hardware, MS barely makes any profit.

Your statement that Windows and Office make up the majority of their revenue and profit, same as 20 years ago, is simply wrong. Unless you call Exchange and Sharepoint for "Office" and Server and Tools for "windows". These are the most successful and most revenue and profit generating products/divisions of Microsoft. Last it was reported separately, Server and Tools division was zooming past the Windows division both in revenue and profit.

And guess who ran Server & Tools: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05...

He was tricked into going there.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/05...

More specifically, Intel has a TERRIBLE reputation in 2 areas:
1) Announcing something when it is far from finished.
2) Producing "consumer" items no one wants.

Examples:
2001: Intel closing consumer electronics unit
2011: Intel drops smart TV to focus on smartphones, tablets and thin laptops

Some experiences:

In 2012, I was visiting an Intel web page. A pop-up asked me to take a survey. I said yes. I mentioned several management problems at Intel. I said that the problems at Intel started at the top. For example, the then CEO, Paul Otellini had paid $6 billion for McAfee. I said that, in my opinion, McAfee software was worse than useless, that McAfee had no connection with Intel's business, and that the $6 billion was entirely wasted. (Last week I mentioned McAfee anti-virus software to a programmer acquaintance who works for a bank. He said McAfee anti-malware software is worse than the malware it is supposed to protect against.)

I'm not saying I had any influence, but 3 months later it was announced that Otellini would no longer be CEO of Intel.

This is my understanding from talking with friends and acquaintances who work at Intel: The processor and chipset division is managed quite well. Apparently Intel top management doesn't mess with that, maybe because they don't understand anything about it.

Non-technical people can't manage technological companies! To manage Intel well, it is necessary to have technology in your heart and be fascinated with the details. And, at the same time, it is necessary to have the social ability to manage a large company.

Several years ago I called an Intel support person and showed him a huge mistake in the description of an Intel product. He said something like, "We are re-doing the web site. We will fix that soon." A year later, I talked to the same man. He didn't remember me, but I remembered him, and had written his name. I mentioned the same error. He gave the same excuse again.

Another experience: Several years ago I wanted to buy Intel motherboards. It took 2 hours to become a member of some online Intel group and find the exact model number.

Remember Intel Bunny People dolls? Apparently someone at Intel thought that processor and motherboard buyers would be motivated by a cute doll.

It is my understanding that Intel's incompetence continues. It surprises me, but my own personal opinion is that I would be a far better manager than what Intel has now. One of the biggest problems in the entire world is the rarity of good management.

The basic defense from them is.. how ARE they liable?

Kickstarter's claim is that they're merely providing a platform, that they conditionally charge for the use of that platform, but that what it's actually used for is not really any of their concern. They also carefully word that backers aren't really investing, that they're basically just throwing money at a person at the hopes of getting something - while at the same time saying that getting that something is required, but that they're no party in it and that backers will just have to fall back to plain ol' contract law with the contract being between the backers and the project creators.
( Also keep in mind that recently they actually dropped a bunch of their rules - though that's more from pressure of other crowdfunding sites and all the bad press Kickstarter has gotten lately for actually policing their rules, than that they wanted to. )

I can think of 3 lawsuits that have happened that involved KickStarter in one way or another:

1. Hanfree - a sort of iPad stand, in which a backer who also happened to be an attorney sued on principle because the project creator burnt through the money (on what? no idea), stopped communicating, and then buggered off. I don't think Kickstarter was named as a defendant. If I recall correctly, that lawsuit also went nowhere fast because the project creator defaulted into bankruptcy.
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01...

2. The WA AG's case (complaint handling) against a project creator. That's ongoing, but as far as I know Kickstarter hasn't been named a defendant there either.
http://www.pcworld.com/article...

3. The 3D Systems case. This was a patent case brought against Formlabs, but initially also named Kickstarter as a defendant because Kickstarter took a 5% cut and promoted the project through their site. Kickstarter was later dropped as a defendant, however.
http://www.insidecounsel.com/2...

So I'm afraid your 5-step program probably isn't going to work on account of Kickstarter absolving themselves from any responsibility, and apparently having the law on their side (until proven otherwise).

On the up side, your 5-step program really only needs to be 3 steps.
1. post not entirely obviously crap Kickstarter but just something that's popular.. like wallets, multitools, iThing covers, 3D printers, custom pens, etc. for which you already know there exists an eager audience.
2. make goal (helps setting it to a realistic level)
3. run off with the money aka profit!!!

Or even two steps, if you don't mind setting up a crowdfunding website and going head-to-head with Kickstarter/indiegogo/rockethub/etc.

It's already in the hands of the public, really. Someone used one as part of a demonstration at Defcon in 2010. What I imagine they don't want is to show the public how capable they are of collecting all the information they want without anyone else needing to know, like any business providing any sort of transparency report.

No, developers (the ones who want to earn a living, at least) care about MONEY, and again, iOS still dominates here.

"An average Android app makes 5 times less money per download than an iOS app. Even though Android has by far passed iOS in terms of global market share, the picture is not so clear-cut in terms of revenue. Despite Android's dominant market share, for many app developers, iOS is still the biggest platform."

From
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02...
referencing
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tr...

While the number of apps downloaded is coming from 3rd parties we are still left with Google's financial reports indicating $900M paid to developers compared to Apple's claim of $5,000M paid to developers.

Plus its not just Forbes indicating a huge disparity.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://techland.time.com/2013/...
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ay...

Yeah I mean how intimidating are names like MVP, MC or SlayerSBoxer? http://wiki.teamliquid.net/sta...

Or MEGARACER (aka Kim dotCom): http://venturebeat.com/2012/01...

FWIW one of the game handles I use is Cute Lethal Puppy. Is that intimidating enough?

Fine, it's not a direct quote, but it's basically what he's saying.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/15/why-fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler-isnt-big-on-net-neutrality-rules/

Some quotes from it [which presumably are real Wheeler quotes]:
“It is important not to prohibit or inhibit conduct that is efficiency producing and competition enhancing,” he wrote. “It also is important not to permit conduct that reduces efficiency, competition and utility, including the values that go beyond the material.”
“How we encourage economic growth using these [broadband] networks is crucial. And the key to that is competition, competition, competition,” Wheeler said during an event at CES 2014 last week. “Because competition is so much better than even the best, wisest, well-intentioned policy maker.”

net neutrality was initiated before his watch, but died in court during his watch, since he is in charge of the FCC. Beginning some bullshit public comment, then industry comment, then hearing process is basically a 2-4 year stall to make it seem like they are working on it. He has repeatedly indicated he doesn't want net neutrality, he's just hoping that none of the big boys that put him there do something really stupid, like totally block Netflix from their subscribers, so he won't be forced into it by a huge public outcry.

Which is why the best solution for everyone is for the big boys that put him there do something really stupid, like totally block Netflix from their subscribers, so he'll be forced into Net Neutrality by a huge public outcry. That and a meeting of the RIAA & MPAA happening right when the 'Big One' happens. Sadly, that seems to be the only way to solve the problem.

Fine, it's not a direct quote, but it's basically what he's saying.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/15/why-fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler-isnt-big-on-net-neutrality-rules/

Some quotes from it [which presumably are real Wheeler quotes]:
“It is important not to prohibit or inhibit conduct that is efficiency producing and competition enhancing,” he wrote. “It also is important not to permit conduct that reduces efficiency, competition and utility, including the values that go beyond the material.”
“How we encourage economic growth using these [broadband] networks is crucial. And the key to that is competition, competition, competition,” Wheeler said during an event at CES 2014 last week. “Because competition is so much better than even the best, wisest, well-intentioned policy maker.”

net neutrality was initiated before his watch, but died in court during his watch, since he is in charge of the FCC. Beginning some bullshit public comment, then industry comment, then hearing process is basically a 2-4 year stall to make it seem like they are working on it. He has repeatedly indicated he doesn't want net neutrality, he's just hoping that none of the big boys that put him there do something really stupid, like totally block Netflix from their subscribers, so he won't be forced into it by a huge public outcry.

This summarizes it pretty well:

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/10/mozilla-firefox-ios/

We're talking about desktop OS, not mobile.

FWIW, I have Chrome installed on my 2008 MB running Leopard, and it works just fine. Better than Safari, even.

Try installing Firefox on iOS.

Oh, you can't? Yeah, here's why:

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/10/mozilla-firefox-ios/

This summarizes it pretty well:

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/10/mozilla-firefox-ios/

Do you have any data to back this up?

Lately, people have been dropping facebook in droves, and switching to smaller less public messaging services. Some even reverting to gmail.

Google isn't seeing less email. They blew past hotmail in 2012 to be come the worlds largest email service. 425 million ACTIVE users, and a couple hundred more occasional users.

I pretty much believe Google's rational for doing this, even though I don't agree with it. People are marking too much legitimate email as spam simply because they are no longer interested in that source. That's fine for the individual, but feeds back into the spam catching system, and can make even your actual bank notifications look like spam.

There are companies that will legitimately honor unsubscribe, and there are others that merely put your email up for sale to others upon receiving an unsubscribe, and those buyers will add you to their email arbitrarily..

Google has to be very careful to only offer this unsubscribe capability to those companies that will honor it.
But I suspect they will, as they usually do, simply try a one size fits all solution and they will end up feeding the trolls.

A couple of dollars, per quarter, per user. From advertisting. Sure, there are users giving money to Facebook directly but - NOT ME. And not most people, obviously.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/10...

The money comes from advertisers. Do those advertisers make that money from users? Pretty much no. They might think that, but they aren't. We're not giving advertiser's money, lots more money than we are directly pumping into Facebook by buying in-game currency etc.

Someone else is. Businesses are. Whether they get a return on that is, like Google ad revenue, extremely hard to determine but incredibly unlikely for the majority of them.

And, like I say, if that's how they are using me to make money - I don't click on adverts, don't let ad referrals propagate back to sellers I was using anyway, and if they push too much (no way they are showing the average user enough adverts to justify a dollar from each of them per quarter) they will kill the business flat.

In case you haven't noticed - most places that spend money on advertising just don't see it back in increased revenue at all. Groupon can show you that. And almost every Facebook ad I see is small-fry Google-ad territory, where I doubt they even had enough free money to advertise in the first place, not "Coke" or "Pepsi" or "Microsoft" doing it.

*I'm* not paying for Facebook at all. Stupid advertisers that won't see their money back - ever - are. It doesn't mean that's not how Google are funded either. But the advertisers that have paid to get to me, and the things I do on Facebook, generate no money whatsoever - and certainly not once you count profit instead of revenue (income). Facebook is not free to run. And for sure I'm costing it more than a dollar per quarter.

This reminded me of the claims Steve Perlman made in 2011. He said his technique would overcome Shannon’s Law. He was justifiably ridiculed. At least this mob isn't claiming they can break the laws of physics.

Oh wait, this is Perlman, peddling the same dog and pony show. Only this time he's got an article in IEEE Spectrum to print his claims. I hope that means he no longer says he can beat the laws of physics into submission.

The original claims of the impossible aside, the idea was to monitor the signal of each phone in real time from a central point, do some calculations to figure out the path distance from each antenna the phone, then do some more calculations to split up and phase change outgoing signal so the signals from those antennas so they constructively interfered to produce the wanted signal at the phone. The tracking has to be damned accurate - much better than GPS because a 1Ghz mobile phone signal has a wave length of about a meter, and you need better than 1/4 of the wavelength. And it has to be fast, because if the phone or objects around it move it all goes to put. So if you are walking at comfortable 1 metre per second, in 0.25 seconds it's all gone to pot. In a car that drops to 0.02 seconds. Oh, and since we as talking 1GHz, we have to measure it within a few 100 picoseconds. And since you don't use one antenna to service just one phone, he will have to be doing this for 100's of phone simultaneously. Oh, and that means when he is calculating the phase and amplitude of the signal his antenna is generating, he has to solve 100's linear equations with 100's of variables so he can ensure each signal he sends from each antenna adds up to what each phone needs. And since the collective antenna group is sending at oh, say 100Gb/s and he has to do this for every fucking bit, so he has 10 picoseconds per bit to do it in.

Yeah, right. It will be out by Xmas, I'm sure.

This reminded me of the claims Steve Perlman made in 2011. He said his technique would overcome Shannon’s Law. He was justifiably ridiculed. At least this mob isn't claiming they can break the laws of physics.

Oh wait, this is Perlman, peddling the same dog and pony show. Only this time he's got an article in IEEE Spectrum to print his claims. I hope that means he no longer says he can beat the laws of physics into submission.

The original claims of the impossible aside, the idea was to monitor the signal of each phone in real time from a central point, do some calculations to figure out the path distance from each antenna the phone, then do some more calculations to split up and phase change outgoing signal so the signals from those antennas so they constructively interfered to produce the wanted signal at the phone. The tracking has to be damned accurate - much better than GPS because a 1Ghz mobile phone signal has a wave length of about a meter, and you need better than 1/4 of the wavelength. And it has to be fast, because if the phone or objects around it move it all goes to put. So if you are walking at comfortable 1 metre per second, in 0.25 seconds it's all gone to pot. In a car that drops to 0.02 seconds. Oh, and since we as talking 1GHz, we have to measure it within a few 100 picoseconds. And since you don't use one antenna to service just one phone, he will have to be doing this for 100's of phone simultaneously. Oh, and that means when he is calculating the phase and amplitude of the signal his antenna is generating, he has to solve 100's linear equations with 100's of variables so he can ensure each signal he sends from each antenna adds up to what each phone needs. And since the collective antenna group is sending at oh, say 100Gb/s and he has to do this for every fucking bit, so he has 10 picoseconds per bit to do it in.

Yeah, right. It will be out by Xmas, I'm sure.

Pokemon sells consoles to kids, you're right. Other games work better for other demographics - I know I'm more interested in a new Zelda or Smash Bros. game than Pokemon. However, it doesn't really matter who they sell them to if they're selling out thanks to the franchise's latest release. The 3DS experienced a 135% boost in sales in the month following the release of Pokemon, and it's pretty easy to attribute the majority of those extra sales to Pokemon XY when you consider the historical trend of a spike in system sales just after Pokemon main series game release dates.

HTML5 was touted as the panacea of mobile app development back in 2012 (IIRC). The big news was when companies like Facebook and Linkedin migrated their iOS/Android apps to HTML5. Only problem is that the big name companies have since ditched their HTML5 mobile apps and gone back to using native APIs. They cite performance issues (apps running out of memory and stuttery animation) as the reasons for the switch. This is not just limited to the big companies, and others are leaving the HTML5 mobile app boat.

Google seems a little late to the party.

To quote Magnus Carlsen from a recent interview: "I find playing against computers very depressing. I don’t like losing." http://venturebeat.com/2014/01... Of course, computers profit alot from opening books alot and the books must be tuned to their play. Computers play best against humans if they avoid positions that require highly positional play (basically closed positions). The benefit of endgame tables isn't that clear. It is very costly to hit the database, giving a benefit only in some positions. Till 2013 Nalimov tablebases were pretty much standard, but they have been replaced by Syzygy tablebases, with better compression and better performance. Anyway, I don't think that even a Magnus Carlsen, whose playing style is very, very good against computers would win against a match against monsters like Stockfish, Komodo or Houdini.

Many things you can't find anywhere, but that does not mean they must in high demand! Everything depends on chain of distribution. And in December Microsoft sold more Xbox One consoles than Sony PS4 (908,000). And both firms admitted problems with supplies.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/16/december-2013-npd-xbox-one-outsells-a-supply-constrained-playstation-4/

http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/04/all-hail-the-googlebots-heres-a-look-at-the-7-robot-companies-google-just-acquired/

Full disclosure: I work for NVIDIA on cloud gaming.

I was as skeptical as you about the latency. In this interview. Phil Eisler talks about 200ms of XBox + TV latency that people live with every day. (See page 2) If that's our target, then that's pretty doable, since with strategically located data centers you can get the network latency down to 20-30 ms.

In the work we're doing, we're actually focusing more on hitching in the game than latency, since the latency isn't as big a deal if you're say in the Bay Area where one of our test clouds is. Heck, I played Trine2 from the east coast and it was very playable. I wouldn't play BF4 across the country, of course. :)

There are plenty of other risks with the idea, but I wouldn't put latency at the top of the list.

There was a link missing in my reply.

The security researchers who recently passed a trojan through iOS App Store approval process.

As I say, they used the same basic approach as that guy 2 years ago. Or 18 months, or whatever it was.

One of the companies was apparently Google. I guess we won't trust those idiots again.

Manymoon started out as free, which is probably where the 50k number came from. After being acquired, the plan was to keep giving it away while selling it to people who wanted to buy whatever premium services it added. How ridiculous is 50k companies/users on a free application which stayed near the top of Google Apps and LinkedIn apps lists?

The release announcement, when Manymoon became Do.com is worth a read for anyone who wants to register an informed opinion.

From all accounts, it was a decent way to get stuff done while on the go, even if "on the go" means being physically in the same place as other people, just not talking to them at the moment.

Talk of monetizing the Android, a week after MicroSoft decides to give
it's phone software away; in hope many will select the dual bootable Windows
over Android.

I didn't post this, then today I read "Google shares touch $1,000 for the first time ever"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101093044 a surge in mobile and video advertising that helped drive quarterly revenue up 23 percent.
Google seems to be doing rather nicely, thank you

Google has started doing small things that tick me off, but two request one for each account
to be removed from Google+ was met without the whining that had me on facebook 4 years
after I thought I had quit that POS.

Quoting an Apple fan boy http://venturebeat.com/author/johnkoetsier/ who use a company that
agrees with his agenda http://www.nanigans.com/ is just sad.

Be assured that Gen. Alexander will be paid, for services rendered, by the corporations feeding at the trough of "terrorism."

One of his predecessors ended up at Endgame: http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/13/endgame-funding/

Would you like a Palantir with your Siri, or just plain Narus and Amdocs?

Sure, here.

So, prior to iOS 7's release, 93% of iOS devices were running iOS 6. Apple announced earlier today that over 200M devices are already running iOS 7. And I don't understand why you're suggesting this problem should be starting now, since you're saying that the iPhone line has finally gotten long enough that the problem would manifest just as it did on Android, despite the fact that the iOS product line goes back prior to Android's first device on the market and has gone through more major iterations of the OS as well. As such, we should have expected to see the issue of fragmentation manifest on iOS first, not second.

For reference, the iPhone 4 is the oldest model that runs iOS 7, so that means that any new models since June 2010 can run the latest version of the OS. If the iOS 6 numbers are any indication, only about 7% of iOS users have devices that are older than that, so OS fragmentation should remain low.

I dunno. Can't get faster than instant. Which is why I'm glad I can turn off so much of the useless animations in Android.

Too bad you can't turn off the general lag, e.g. http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/19/apples-iphone-5-touchscreen-is-2-5-times-faster-than-android-devices/

Microsoft is not yet the owner of Nokia mobile phone operation. They cannot decide shit - yet.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/06/nokia-how-about-2-billion-now-microsoft-ok/ Microsoft have already given $2Billion advance. Its happening. Implying Nokia is making decisions without Microsoft's approval, is simply a strange thing to say especially as the man in charge...is going to be the same!

The other part of it being a dick move is them denying refunds based on it not being crowdsourcing when IGP's CEO was saying that it WAS a crowdsourcing profram everywhere someone would listen: http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/30/mechwarrior-online-to-be-a-lot-better-thanks-to-crowdfunding/ "Speaking to Gamasutra, Infinite Game Publishing parent company boss Nick Foster said that MechWarrior Online was traditionally funded at first, but then used crowdfunding to make up any shortfalls. “We’ve raised minimal investment funds to build a viable product for each of our games. We then launch it [in beta] and use that minimum viable product to start generating an income stream,” he said. “We keep a very close partnership with our developers and use that income to reinvest in the game, build out the features that the users want, and head into a period of ongoing development. New content, new features. “The product will be a lot better for players because of the crowdfunding. It’s allowed us to maintain a higher level of ongoing development in the product, than if we were waiting for momentum to build immediately after going live. In the next few months, we’ll be able to release a lot more features.” http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/180401/ MechWarrior Online's long-awaited open beta begins today, partially made possible by a successful crowdfunding initiative that's raised over $5 million, without the help of Kickstarter. http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10/29/mechwarrior-online-the-story-of-how-one-mmo-got-crowd-funded-wi/ "Nick Foster, CEO of Infinite Game Publishing's parent company 7G Entertainment, explained some of the rationale behind this approach to funding. "The product will be a lot better for players because of the crowdfunding. It's allowed us to maintain a higher level of ongoing development in the product than if we were waiting for momentum to build immediately after going live. In the next few months, we'll be able to release a lot more features." http://www.crowdsourcing.org/article/mechwarrior-onlines-unconventional-crowdfunding-pays-off/20390 "The success of the Founder's Program reinforces IGP's vision to help independent developers build exceptional games with the right economic model for the global marketplace," says IGP CEO Nick Foster. http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/29/the-first-of-three-major-titles-from-igp-mechwarrior-online-moves-into-its-open-beta-test/

I actually own a Windows phone, and it sucks that Google's acting like jerks. But really, what goes around, comes around.

Yes, MS has never used it's on secret API's in it's own OS, while leaving less efficient ones for everyone else to use. http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/18/microsoft-secret-api-mobile/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft#Copyright_enforcement

Or like MS isn't suing Google various ways. https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=10e5a3add6d6d99c&q=microsoft+suing+google&safe=off (too many different ones to list)

Or that MS CEO said they would kill google http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5846243.html

So yes, Google are acting like the jerks here. (yes, this is sarcasm)

If you mean that their disinterest in HD in 2006 didn't hurt them, I agree with regard to the first few years of the Wii's life, but its lack of power eventually caught up with them when cross-platform developers left the Wii. Today, the Wii U isn't selling because it doesn't have much first-party software available to showcase the system. Miyamoto acknowledged that this is the result of underestimating the scale of labor required for HD development and subsequently having to delay their software releases (another area where it's behind is in providing competitive online services). The rest of the industry went through this transition this seven years ago, and Nintendo was able to ignore it at the time because of the money they were making.

Aside from some of the more extreme Libertarians in the crowd, most people here are fine with sensible regulations (though the definition of "sensible" would still be debated). For instance, it makes sense to designate different frequencies in the radio spectrum for different purposes and then enforce that through regulation, rather than allowing it to be a Wild West scenario with products stomping over each other's signals. The stuff where we rant about the "evils and perils" of regulation tend to be the regulations that aren't sensible, but are rather short-sighted, backwards, biased, bribed, or otherwise nonsensical.

Mandating that advertisements and stated capabilities are truthful is a reasonable regulation to enforce. We expect to be able to do comparisons between products, so forcing companies offering loans to provide an accurate APY using a standard method of calculating it, or asking that the numbers presented as corresponding to a specific benchmark be a reflection of reality, are perfectly reasonable.

But truth in advertising is something that Samsung has been getting dinged for quite a bit in the last few days, actually, and not just with benchmarks.

Secure boot was a disgrace that should not have been allowed. I am getting increasingly concerned that the old duopoly is Apple and Microsoft has no interest in evolving its Desktop machines, Windows replacing their OS with a tablet interface, and Apple is replacing it with a cylinder...and the choice of expensive external hard drives. All in pursuit of those early adopters money in the tablet (mobile) market ironically a market that has been taken from them by Googles Android(67% Market share) faster than the smartphone market; Apples(28% Market Share) "Sold" suddenly means "Shipped" and Millions of Tablets Disappear in Inventory adjustments(Channel stuffing perhaps?) and the margins are vanishing from it even faster; The Microsoft(5% Market Share) Surface price even massively discounted looks overpriced.

The sad fact is I am convinced there is a great machine in there somewhere. I personally would be happy with surface running GNU/Linux with android compatibility...and the Play store. In my opinion apart from an unnecessary low resolution screen which is indefensible in a Nexus 7 1920 x 1200 with 323 pixels per inch (the return) world. Yet they have made such future impossible with their(not your) hardware. I am now waiting for the next generation of touchscreen chromebooks which will also solve the problem of price as Intel and Microsoft gouging their hostages on 70% gross margin, A major factor when you face competition.

As I said Secure Boot is a disgrace. Ironically Asus CEO and chairman Jonney Shih sees the of Android with a keyboard too (If only Asus would add GNU/Linux to Mix) as the future http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000185493&play=1 (Jon Fortt really really likes Apple and should be sacked) even though Asus are selling significant Android tablets including the incredibly popular Nexus 7 (both generations).

FYI Tablet Market figures from here http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/29/apples-ipad-market-share-chopped-in-half-as-android-takes-over/

Yikes, what did Activision Blizzard ever do to the OP? In breaking from the mega-corporate-ownership chain going from something like GE-???-Vivendi-Activision, Activision is now its own independent megacorporation not owned by a debt ridden parent that was demanding massive dividends to support its drug addiction. http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/25/activision-buys-back-majority-stake-from-vivendi-for-5-83-billion/ This is good news... If all posts were this venomous, all PS3 / XBONE / WiiU posts would sound like an expletive filled angry drunk rant by a person with turrets syndrome.

The sad thing is that there are homebrew versions of PacMan for the 2600 that blow away the original. Granted, some just tweak the more capable Ms PacMan port, but it still demonstrates how awful PacMan was.

Here is the most impressive homebrew.

What's Microsoft market share in phones?

Better than all of desktop Linux put together...
Still single-digit worldwide (though double digit in some markets), but that doesn't mean anything very important. Android was once tiny too.

also, the developer shouldn't be eating, rolling and smoking, blowing his nose, wiping his ass, fanning himself, or wearing development money.

iOS users spending more on apps shows there are significantly fewer free apps on iOS. Canalys shows direct revenue from downloads and in-app purchases, not ad revenue.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/13/app-developers-mopub-report-shows-you-how-to-maximize-ad-revenues/

"iPhone apps command better revenues for publishers than Android apps, although the gap is closing. While in July iOS ad rates were double Androidâ(TM)s, in August and September the gap closed as Android prices increase 26 percent"

"Appleâ(TM)s platforms lead Android, with each of iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad having higher CPMs (cost per thousand) than Android phones or tablets ⦠although Android is growing faster."

Not to mention the Server & Tools Division that sells Windows Server, IIS, SQL Server,Lync Exchange, Visual Studio etc. keeps getting record revenue every quarter.

From http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/20/with-19b-in-revenue-microsofts-server-and-tools-chief-says-hes-just-getting-started-interview/

Meet Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft’s server and tools division, a division that builds and runs the company’s computing platforms, developer tools, and cloud services. Nadella leads a team of over 10,000 employees, and his group alone makes $19 billion in annual revenue – which is more than the combined revenues of Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Zynga, Netflix, and a few others in the Valley.

That doesn't even include Office and Azure recently became a one billion dollar business by itself. Microsoft is pretty well diversified, unlike Apple with it's reliance on iPhone and iPad and Google with 95% of revenue from ads. As usual, Asymco comes with shortsighted analysis that mistakes the trees for the forest.

That's why the people with their own money on the line are buying up MSFT (stock went from $27 to $35 due to the last earnings report) instead of the air-headed armchair analysis that we see on here of 'lol my grandma ditched her PC and got an iPad so that means M$ is dying'.