In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.
Apple has the same option in the US. I know: I only use unlocked phones on US networks because I don't like the default phone choices.
The real problem with offering unlocked iPhones is that, unlike other smart phones, the iPhone is not fully programmable and that it is dependent on server support.
Get a Symbian or Linux phone, a phone with MIDP support, or even (holds nose) a Windows Mobile phone; they may not be as pretty as the iPhone, but unlike the iPhone, they make sense unlocked.
Regarding linux and C++ backwards incompatibility, please read these to get an idea why what you are suggesting is a bad idea:
Those people don't know what they're doing. You'll always get some of those. There are lots of statically linked C++ binaries being shipped without problems. Yes, there are a few things you need to watch out for, so what? There are a few things you need to watch out for even when shipping supposedly cross-platform Java code.
In any case, you're comparing apples and oranges anyway: Solaris is the equivalent of one Linux distribution. Is making software releases for Ubuntu any harder than for Solaris? No, it's not, it's actually easier because Ubuntu release and package management is far better.
Please point me to a kernel trace toolkit that can replace the level of functionality found in DTrace. I'm skeptical.
There are several general purpose tracing toolkits for Linux, and a number of special purpose tools. Whether they "can replace the level of functionality found in DTrace" is irrelevant; Linux also doesn't have Pacman built into the kernel, but that wouldn't mean that it were all of a sudden deficient if Solaris included a Pacman kernel module.
What's in the Linux kernel is what users actually need and use, not what some overpaid Sun engineer dreamed up because he needed to justify his existence in the next annual performance review or because he wanted to make a name for himself at the next USENIX. As far as I'm concerned, "too much useless crap" is one big problem with Solaris.
It's basic geometry and physics: in low light, there are only a small number of photons originating at each surface point and going into any particular direction. How many of those enter the camera depends on the total opening of the lens(es) you use. Detection efficiency of a good CCD itself is about 50-90%, and even normal CCDs are not that far below and already better than the human eye.
There are some tricks you can play with sensor arrangements, slightly better lens designs, and heuristic image processing, but don't expect more than 1-2 f-stops over the Fuji F11 (probably the lowest noise compact right now).
I write these filters for a living. Please don't try to tell me how they work.
I'm curious: you talking about the RAW conversion software in Blackbeltsystem's package or something else?
In any case, whatever you write for a living, your descriptions contain several mistakes.
Here's a simple summary of the key steps for converting raw images to RGB images (http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1262917):
There are a number of conventional demosaicing methods to convert a raw data image into a color image. Three main common categories of demosaicing methods include interpolation-based methods, feature-based methods, and Bayesian methods. The interpolation-based demosaicing methods use simple interpolation formulas to interpolate the color planes separately. The interpolation-based demosaicing methods include bi-linear methods, band-limited interpolation methods using sinc() functions, spline interpolation methods, and the like. The feature-based demosaicing methods examine local features of a given image at the pixel level, and then interpolate the image accordingly. The basic idea of the feature-based methods is to avoid interpolating across edges of features. The Bayesian methods attempt to find the most probable color image, given the data, by assuming some prior knowledge of the image structure.
Note that interpolation or prediction are crucial steps; you cannot do reasonable demosaicing with only "fractional scaling" and "summing".
Your description of human color vision is also bogus:
From the human perception angle, your ability to perceive brightness is separate from your ability to perceive color (due to rods and cones.) Because the sensing mechanisms are separate, it is reasonable to say that any particular color also has an independent luminosity.
There are several things wrong with that:
"Rods and cones" aren't used for color vision, only cones are.
There is no "separate" sensing mechanism for "brightness"; anything your eye determines about "brightness" in a scene is derived from the signals coming from the rods (night vision) or cones (day vision). In fact, the human eye/brain solves a problem very much like raw conversion.
Human vision is not based on absolute "brightness" or "color" at all, but on brightness and color differences.
A light source of any particular "color" has a corresponding "luminosity", but the "luminosity" measured by a single R, G, or B pixel does not let you predict the correct gray level value at that point.
Luma, luminance, luminosity, and brightness are distinct, well-defined concepts, yet you keep using them almost interchangeably. For example, "luma" is a weighted sum of gamma corrected components (a useless concept in the context of this discussion), while "luminance" is a weighted sum of linear components.
The potential loss in color resolution is a pretty steep price for two stops worth of sensitivity
First, there is likely no significant "loss in color resolution"; the resolution you're getting in the color channels right now is already only based on heuristics.
Second, even if there were a loss of resolution in the color channels, you wouldn't notice it: you can't see high frequencies in the color channels.
Cameras aren't "good enough" until I can shoot fast action at high magnification in near dark with a compact camera. Then I will be happy.
Then you will never be happy because it's intrinsically impossible to capture low noise images "in near dark" with a small area sensor because of photon noise.
The color image that results can be converted into a luma version by a simple fractional scaling factor applied to each channel, then summed
That is not how raw conversion works; if it did, your 8M pixel camera would only give 2M pixel images. Actual raw conversion essentially uses heuristics to reconstruct the actual luminance at each sensor site, even though that information cannot be reconstructed in general from the measurements.
'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
The people "politicizing" science are people like Klaus. I mean, come on, "scientific consensus is never achieved by a silent majority"? What bullshit is that?
In fact, whether the majority is silent or not doesn't make any difference for scientific consensus: when people say that "scientific consensus is...", they are talking about national academies, metastudies, and panels, where "loudness" doesn't make a difference.
I don't even really care much about climate change at this point: it's going to happen and we're going to have to live with it. What I do care about is that people like Klaus are pulling science through the mud in the process for self-serving petty political points.
The 8 Mpixel color image that comes out of your camera is already a complicated guesswork; in terms of real color information, it's more like 2-3 Mpixel, since there really are only 2 million complete RGBG cells.
Making one of the RGBG cells into a "white" cell doesn't really change much of anything in terms of resolution: color resolution is still half what grayscale resolution is. And it does actually help with color accuracy, since having four different receptors lets cameras deal a lot better with fluorescent lights.
This will also increase dynamic range slightly, since the "white" receptors are more sensitive than the RGB receptors.
This looks like a very good thing overall, really.
we had a brief refresher on the process of sublimation before we waded into the polar ice caps.
Maybe you need a refresher on the phase diagram: the average surface pressure on Mars is just about the triple point (0.006 atm), which means that you get liquid water when frost (= pure water) warms up in the valleys. Furthermore, even at lower pressures, ice that sits on a surface and warms up will develop a layer of liquid underneath it, even if the surface sublimates.
Forgive me for being skeptical, but I don't think any reputable source for such a statement exists.
Forgive me for being blunt, but any source that says that liquid water cannot exist anywhere on the surface of Mars is full of shit If you take ice, put it under 0.007 atm and raise the temperature to 0.1 C, the water will go through a liquid phase when melting; this isn't optional. It happens only in some areas and seasons, but it does happen.
Anything that might break through to the surface will immediately freeze and sublimate
Water that "breaks through the surface" probably contains significant impurities, lowering its vapor pressure and melting point, so it will stay liquid under a wider range of conditions.
Linux covers 1-3 with several kernel trace toolkits, Vserver, AppArmor, POSIX capabilities, and SELinux.
As for binary compatibility, all major distributions support backwards compatibility for different versions of major standard libraries. If it's really an issue, just ship your own shared libraries or link statically.
I don't think anybody has numbers to back up claims about stability. As a nearly 20 year SunOS/Solaris user, I have to say, I have no confidence in Sun's ability to maintain data integrity, and Sun kernel and system bugs have caused me enormous headaches and lost work
Finally, SMF-like self-healing has been around for many years. Recently, it has become popular to throw out the old frameworks and develop new ones. Linux has done that just like Apple and Sun. So, nothing new here.
Speaker identification has been researched for decades. Microsoft isn't offering a breakthrough solution to the problem, they are instead trying to patent the whole field.
This is roughly the equivalent of trying to patent "3D graphics acceleration" or "data compression".
I think this is more about you wanting your ideas legislatively enforced.... quite frightening, thank god you're not a politician to go back to the Nazi Germany/Communist Russia analogy you might end up being another Hitler or Stalin.
Typical: when you don't have any factual arguments, you just resort to calling other people "Nazis".
Thanks for the discussion, and for showing so clearly that you simply don't have a point.
If anyone else does this, nobody complains. If it's Apple, all hell breaks loose.
I don't know of anybody else who sells DRM-free music but embeds personal information; if you do, please let us all know. (The link you give just points to an article about Apple.)
The place where I buy most of my DRM-free music, eMusic, doesn't embed any plain text information about me in the mp3.
Admit it, you just love to hate Apple.
I have nothing against Apple per-se; I criticize Apple for the same things I criticize other companies: when they don't respect my privacy, and when they misrepresent who actually invented the technology they are shipping. Unfortunately, Apple does both fairly frequently.
Linus's analysis is spot on. And Schwartz just keeps bullshitting about "a variety of mechanical reasons": despite denying that Sun has been choosing nuisance licenses, the fact is that nothing is stopping Sun from releasing ZFS, dtrace, etc. under a Linux-compatible license tomorrow, even if there are weird issues surrounding the entirety of Solaris. The only reason not to release ZFS under GPLv2 is that Sun doesn't want those parts of Solaris in Linux.
I also agree with Linus that ZFS is pretty much the only part of Solaris that is at all interesting. And, frankly, the main reason I'd like to see ZFS released under GPLv2 is that then Linux users would have a choice. I predict that ZFS would be greated with the same yawn as JFS, XFS, Reiser4, etc., and that that would hopefully end the debate about ZFS's supposed superiority.
At what point do you start classifying executeable code on a computer as being an application or being part of the OS?
At the point where laws, regulations, and courts define it to be. All other areas of commerce have regulations that make such distinctions, only computer software developers think they can get away with treating products as one big, amorphous, unregulated mass. Computer software is going to get regulated sooner or later, just like cars, drugs, components, chemicals, food, and everything else; it's inevitable. And the sooner that happens the better, because it would stop the kind of abuses that Microsoft is engaging in.
News Bulliten: MOST PEOPLE HATE TINKERING WITH COMPUTERS.
Regulation and competition doesn't mean people have to tinker. People would continue to buy their complete, ready-to-run systems from Dell or HP, it would simply be the case that Dell and HP--not Microsoft--have the final say in what combination of features and software make up those systems.
Do you really think 10 years from now people are going to be interested in purchasing an OS with the same feature set as today?
Not at all, which is precisely why Microsoft must be stopped: Microsoft today is shipping an OS that has the same feature set as desktop operating systems in 1986, and unless something is done to force them to change, they'll continue to do so.
So you would argue that Apple be forced to stop bundling all their software and internet subscription services with their MACs ?
Yes.
Is this really about fair competition or just hating Microsoft?
It is about fair competition; the only thing I "hate" about Microsoft is that they are competing unfairly. And, in fact, I think being forced to compete fairly would do Microsoft itself a lot of good, because right now, the company is heading for disaster and is going to do a lot of damage in the process. And the mood at Microsoft isn't exactly good either.
I'm quite happy for Microsoft to bundle as many features into Windows as possible...
Yes, and many people in East Germany were quite content for their Government to bundle as many features as possible: insurance, health care, education, food, housing, etc. It meant they had to spend little time worrying about it. So what if it was mediocre quality, they had time to sit around and drink beer. Many people complain about the forced unbundling to this day. The fact that monopolies and communist governments are convenient for many people doesn't make them right or desirable.
So what exactly is your idea of an OS ?
Same as it is today; same as what Microsoft ships today.
I think these notions you are talking of - OS and application stem from very dated ideas about personal computing.
I fully accept the consumer notion of Microsoft Windows as an "operating system", including desktop and everything else. I simply want free market competition for its components.
Computers are not going to stay as they are now forever, they are going to change very rapidly over the next 100 years and it is more than likely the very dated notions of OS and application, client and server that you have will be completely blurred into something totally unrecognisable from today.
Quite right; but those changes are not going to happen as long as Microsoft dominates the market.
Microsoft has every right to viguourously compete in this rapidly changing space
Microsoft does not have the right to restrict competition or otherwise monopolize the market. And if they attempt this, as they do, the government has every right to vigorously enforce anti-trust and fair competition laws, impose huge fines, and break Microsoft up. Microsoft has already forfeited their right to compete without government interference through their past, egregious misconduct.
the kinds of restrictions you are talking about would eliminate any player (including Microsoft) from playing a part in the creation of next generation personal computing systems.
Bullshit. The kinds of "restrictions" I'm talking about would enable for other players to finally enter the market and compete with Microsoft on equal footing. Microsoft can still compete, they just don't have an unfair, monopolistic advantage anymore.
Which is why you report the iPod as stolen and get a signed police report.
I'm not going to waste several hours on a police report for a stolen iPod in order to make the RIAA happy; in fact, unless it was stolen at gun point, the police simply don't care.
Anyway, since it would be so easy to frame somebody that way, I doubt anyone will get sued if his files turn up on sharing networks.
Have you been living under a rock? The RIAA sues grandmas that don't even use computers.
It's probably more of a way for Apple and the record companies to track how many of the sold files make it to sharing networks, and a little incentive for users to not share their files.
I demand that your next car be bundled with no steering wheel, gear shift or accelerator pedal.
There's no need to "demand" that, since, in the sense that we're talking about here, your car doesn't come "bundled" with those things.
See, car manufacturers assemble components from hundreds of component manufacturers and they produce cars that all interoperate on public highways and using public fuels.
The problem with Microsoft is that they are like the robber barons or Standard Oil: they control everything from raw materials to the roads. And they are using that control to shield themselves from competition; say, you think their desktop UI sucks--well, you still can't switch because the cost would be too high and you'd have to give up other parts of the OS you actually might like.
Microsoft should decide whether they want to be an OS manufacturer or an OS component supplier; they should not be permitted to be both because it is clearly anti-competitive and anti-innovation.
Yeah right, because, if someone steals my laptop, my biggest concern would be my name and email address embedded in my iTunes music (Tongue-in-cheek). Please!
Which part of "if someone steals my MP3 player" did you have trouble understanding?
See, the key difference between an MP3 player and a laptop is that the laptop can protect my data via encryption, while my MP3 player can't.
Therefore, yes, my "biggest worry" if someone steals my MP3 player is, indeed, that someone takes the MP3 files on it, uploads them to a file sharing network, and I get a threat of a lawsuit from the RIAA, who won't take "my MP3 player got stolen" for an answer.
But, heck, if this is how Apple likes to operate, there's a simple solution: I'll take my business elsewhere, but not without pointing out that I think Apple has lost any credibility on protecting their users' privacy.
People here have said repeatedly in comments that 'it is obvious' that the info is in each Itunes file.
It's not "obvious" at all that the info needs to be in each music file. The natural place for personal information associated with music purchases to be stored is in a separate database. If it were really necessary to store personal information inside the music file itself, it could be stored encrypted.
Slashdot Mirror
In Europe, unlike in the US, Apple has the option of selling the iPhone through its own dealer network without a simlock.
Apple has the same option in the US. I know: I only use unlocked phones on US networks because I don't like the default phone choices.
The real problem with offering unlocked iPhones is that, unlike other smart phones, the iPhone is not fully programmable and that it is dependent on server support.
Get a Symbian or Linux phone, a phone with MIDP support, or even (holds nose) a Windows Mobile phone; they may not be as pretty as the iPhone, but unlike the iPhone, they make sense unlocked.
Regarding linux and C++ backwards incompatibility, please read these to get an idea why what you are suggesting is a bad idea:
Those people don't know what they're doing. You'll always get some of those. There are lots of statically linked C++ binaries being shipped without problems. Yes, there are a few things you need to watch out for, so what? There are a few things you need to watch out for even when shipping supposedly cross-platform Java code.
In any case, you're comparing apples and oranges anyway: Solaris is the equivalent of one Linux distribution. Is making software releases for Ubuntu any harder than for Solaris? No, it's not, it's actually easier because Ubuntu release and package management is far better.
Please point me to a kernel trace toolkit that can replace the level of functionality found in DTrace. I'm skeptical.
There are several general purpose tracing toolkits for Linux, and a number of special purpose tools. Whether they "can replace the level of functionality found in DTrace" is irrelevant; Linux also doesn't have Pacman built into the kernel, but that wouldn't mean that it were all of a sudden deficient if Solaris included a Pacman kernel module.
What's in the Linux kernel is what users actually need and use, not what some overpaid Sun engineer dreamed up because he needed to justify his existence in the next annual performance review or because he wanted to make a name for himself at the next USENIX. As far as I'm concerned, "too much useless crap" is one big problem with Solaris.
It's basic geometry and physics: in low light, there are only a small number of photons originating at each surface point and going into any particular direction. How many of those enter the camera depends on the total opening of the lens(es) you use. Detection efficiency of a good CCD itself is about 50-90%, and even normal CCDs are not that far below and already better than the human eye.
There are some tricks you can play with sensor arrangements, slightly better lens designs, and heuristic image processing, but don't expect more than 1-2 f-stops over the Fuji F11 (probably the lowest noise compact right now).
I'm curious: you talking about the RAW conversion software in Blackbeltsystem's package or something else?
In any case, whatever you write for a living, your descriptions contain several mistakes.
Here's a simple summary of the key steps for converting raw images to RGB images (http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1262917):
Note that interpolation or prediction are crucial steps; you cannot do reasonable demosaicing with only "fractional scaling" and "summing".
Your description of human color vision is also bogus:
There are several things wrong with that:
over 3000 lbs. From the article: 'Chinese researchers uncovered the fossilised remains of the flightless giant
That's a relief.
The potential loss in color resolution is a pretty steep price for two stops worth of sensitivity
First, there is likely no significant "loss in color resolution"; the resolution you're getting in the color channels right now is already only based on heuristics.
Second, even if there were a loss of resolution in the color channels, you wouldn't notice it: you can't see high frequencies in the color channels.
Cameras aren't "good enough" until I can shoot fast action at high magnification in near dark with a compact camera. Then I will be happy.
Then you will never be happy because it's intrinsically impossible to capture low noise images "in near dark" with a small area sensor because of photon noise.
The color image that results can be converted into a luma version by a simple fractional scaling factor applied to each channel, then summed
That is not how raw conversion works; if it did, your 8M pixel camera would only give 2M pixel images. Actual raw conversion essentially uses heuristics to reconstruct the actual luminance at each sensor site, even though that information cannot be reconstructed in general from the measurements.
'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
The people "politicizing" science are people like Klaus. I mean, come on, "scientific consensus is never achieved by a silent majority"? What bullshit is that?
In fact, whether the majority is silent or not doesn't make any difference for scientific consensus: when people say that "scientific consensus is...", they are talking about national academies, metastudies, and panels, where "loudness" doesn't make a difference.
I don't even really care much about climate change at this point: it's going to happen and we're going to have to live with it. What I do care about is that people like Klaus are pulling science through the mud in the process for self-serving petty political points.
The 8 Mpixel color image that comes out of your camera is already a complicated guesswork; in terms of real color information, it's more like 2-3 Mpixel, since there really are only 2 million complete RGBG cells.
Making one of the RGBG cells into a "white" cell doesn't really change much of anything in terms of resolution: color resolution is still half what grayscale resolution is. And it does actually help with color accuracy, since having four different receptors lets cameras deal a lot better with fluorescent lights.
This will also increase dynamic range slightly, since the "white" receptors are more sensitive than the RGB receptors.
This looks like a very good thing overall, really.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=silt
While the grains making up the silt can be produced by mechanical weathering, its deposition is generally understood to involve water.
we had a brief refresher on the process of sublimation before we waded into the polar ice caps.
Maybe you need a refresher on the phase diagram: the average surface pressure on Mars is just about the triple point (0.006 atm), which means that you get liquid water when frost (= pure water) warms up in the valleys. Furthermore, even at lower pressures, ice that sits on a surface and warms up will develop a layer of liquid underneath it, even if the surface sublimates.
Where's a good corroborating source for that
You mean like trying it out perhaps?
Forgive me for being skeptical, but I don't think any reputable source for such a statement exists.
Forgive me for being blunt, but any source that says that liquid water cannot exist anywhere on the surface of Mars is full of shit If you take ice, put it under 0.007 atm and raise the temperature to 0.1 C, the water will go through a liquid phase when melting; this isn't optional. It happens only in some areas and seasons, but it does happen.
Anything that might break through to the surface will immediately freeze and sublimate
Water that "breaks through the surface" probably contains significant impurities, lowering its vapor pressure and melting point, so it will stay liquid under a wider range of conditions.
Please point me to your article where you complain about the fact that The Pragmatic Programmers embed personal data when you buy e-Books from
I have never bought from them, and I don't buy E-books out of principle.
Okay, now you sould as if you were holding some kind of grudge against them.
Grudge? No. I'm just not an Apple fanboi.
Where do they claim they invented something they didn't?
Read up on your history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_and_feel You can also find plenty of examples among Apple's patent filings.
Linux covers 1-3 with several kernel trace toolkits, Vserver, AppArmor, POSIX capabilities, and SELinux.
As for binary compatibility, all major distributions support backwards compatibility for different versions of major standard libraries. If it's really an issue, just ship your own shared libraries or link statically.
I don't think anybody has numbers to back up claims about stability. As a nearly 20 year SunOS/Solaris user, I have to say, I have no confidence in Sun's ability to maintain data integrity, and Sun kernel and system bugs have caused me enormous headaches and lost work
Finally, SMF-like self-healing has been around for many years. Recently, it has become popular to throw out the old frameworks and develop new ones. Linux has done that just like Apple and Sun. So, nothing new here.
Speaker identification has been researched for decades. Microsoft isn't offering a breakthrough solution to the problem, they are instead trying to patent the whole field.
This is roughly the equivalent of trying to patent "3D graphics acceleration" or "data compression".
I think this is more about you wanting your ideas legislatively enforced.... quite frightening, thank god you're not a politician to go back to the Nazi Germany/Communist Russia analogy you might end up being another Hitler or Stalin.
Typical: when you don't have any factual arguments, you just resort to calling other people "Nazis".
Thanks for the discussion, and for showing so clearly that you simply don't have a point.
If anyone else does this, nobody complains. If it's Apple, all hell breaks loose.
I don't know of anybody else who sells DRM-free music but embeds personal information; if you do, please let us all know. (The link you give just points to an article about Apple.)
The place where I buy most of my DRM-free music, eMusic, doesn't embed any plain text information about me in the mp3.
Admit it, you just love to hate Apple.
I have nothing against Apple per-se; I criticize Apple for the same things I criticize other companies: when they don't respect my privacy, and when they misrepresent who actually invented the technology they are shipping. Unfortunately, Apple does both fairly frequently.
Linus's analysis is spot on. And Schwartz just keeps bullshitting about "a variety of mechanical reasons": despite denying that Sun has been choosing nuisance licenses, the fact is that nothing is stopping Sun from releasing ZFS, dtrace, etc. under a Linux-compatible license tomorrow, even if there are weird issues surrounding the entirety of Solaris. The only reason not to release ZFS under GPLv2 is that Sun doesn't want those parts of Solaris in Linux.
I also agree with Linus that ZFS is pretty much the only part of Solaris that is at all interesting. And, frankly, the main reason I'd like to see ZFS released under GPLv2 is that then Linux users would have a choice. I predict that ZFS would be greated with the same yawn as JFS, XFS, Reiser4, etc., and that that would hopefully end the debate about ZFS's supposed superiority.
At what point do you start classifying executeable code on a computer as being an application or being part of the OS?
At the point where laws, regulations, and courts define it to be. All other areas of commerce have regulations that make such distinctions, only computer software developers think they can get away with treating products as one big, amorphous, unregulated mass. Computer software is going to get regulated sooner or later, just like cars, drugs, components, chemicals, food, and everything else; it's inevitable. And the sooner that happens the better, because it would stop the kind of abuses that Microsoft is engaging in.
News Bulliten: MOST PEOPLE HATE TINKERING WITH COMPUTERS.
Regulation and competition doesn't mean people have to tinker. People would continue to buy their complete, ready-to-run systems from Dell or HP, it would simply be the case that Dell and HP--not Microsoft--have the final say in what combination of features and software make up those systems.
Do you really think 10 years from now people are going to be interested in purchasing an OS with the same feature set as today?
Not at all, which is precisely why Microsoft must be stopped: Microsoft today is shipping an OS that has the same feature set as desktop operating systems in 1986, and unless something is done to force them to change, they'll continue to do so.
So you would argue that Apple be forced to stop bundling all their software and internet subscription services with their MACs ?
Yes.
Is this really about fair competition or just hating Microsoft?
It is about fair competition; the only thing I "hate" about Microsoft is that they are competing unfairly. And, in fact, I think being forced to compete fairly would do Microsoft itself a lot of good, because right now, the company is heading for disaster and is going to do a lot of damage in the process. And the mood at Microsoft isn't exactly good either.
So, essentially very little happened.
Leopard isn't shipping yet and has no really big, surprising features.
iPhone's "Web 2.0" programmability has always been a given, given that it runs Safari and probably Dashboard.
Safari for Windows is kind of nice, but unlikely to make a big impact.
The biggest news is probably the new Finder; an update was overdue and it looks like they did a decent job on the user interface.
I'm quite happy for Microsoft to bundle as many features into Windows as possible...
Yes, and many people in East Germany were quite content for their Government to bundle as many features as possible: insurance, health care, education, food, housing, etc. It meant they had to spend little time worrying about it. So what if it was mediocre quality, they had time to sit around and drink beer. Many people complain about the forced unbundling to this day. The fact that monopolies and communist governments are convenient for many people doesn't make them right or desirable.
So what exactly is your idea of an OS ?
Same as it is today; same as what Microsoft ships today.
I think these notions you are talking of - OS and application stem from very dated ideas about personal computing.
I fully accept the consumer notion of Microsoft Windows as an "operating system", including desktop and everything else. I simply want free market competition for its components.
Computers are not going to stay as they are now forever, they are going to change very rapidly over the next 100 years and it is more than likely the very dated notions of OS and application, client and server that you have will be completely blurred into something totally unrecognisable from today.
Quite right; but those changes are not going to happen as long as Microsoft dominates the market.
Microsoft has every right to viguourously compete in this rapidly changing space
Microsoft does not have the right to restrict competition or otherwise monopolize the market. And if they attempt this, as they do, the government has every right to vigorously enforce anti-trust and fair competition laws, impose huge fines, and break Microsoft up. Microsoft has already forfeited their right to compete without government interference through their past, egregious misconduct.
the kinds of restrictions you are talking about would eliminate any player (including Microsoft) from playing a part in the creation of next generation personal computing systems.
Bullshit. The kinds of "restrictions" I'm talking about would enable for other players to finally enter the market and compete with Microsoft on equal footing. Microsoft can still compete, they just don't have an unfair, monopolistic advantage anymore.
Which is why you report the iPod as stolen and get a signed police report.
I'm not going to waste several hours on a police report for a stolen iPod in order to make the RIAA happy; in fact, unless it was stolen at gun point, the police simply don't care.
Anyway, since it would be so easy to frame somebody that way, I doubt anyone will get sued if his files turn up on sharing networks.
Have you been living under a rock? The RIAA sues grandmas that don't even use computers.
It's probably more of a way for Apple and the record companies to track how many of the sold files make it to sharing networks, and a little incentive for users to not share their files.
No, it's an egregious privacy violation.
I demand that your next car be bundled with no steering wheel, gear shift or accelerator pedal.
There's no need to "demand" that, since, in the sense that we're talking about here, your car doesn't come "bundled" with those things.
See, car manufacturers assemble components from hundreds of component manufacturers and they produce cars that all interoperate on public highways and using public fuels.
The problem with Microsoft is that they are like the robber barons or Standard Oil: they control everything from raw materials to the roads. And they are using that control to shield themselves from competition; say, you think their desktop UI sucks--well, you still can't switch because the cost would be too high and you'd have to give up other parts of the OS you actually might like.
Microsoft should decide whether they want to be an OS manufacturer or an OS component supplier; they should not be permitted to be both because it is clearly anti-competitive and anti-innovation.
Yeah right, because, if someone steals my laptop, my biggest concern would be my name and email address embedded in my iTunes music (Tongue-in-cheek). Please!
Which part of "if someone steals my MP3 player" did you have trouble understanding?
See, the key difference between an MP3 player and a laptop is that the laptop can protect my data via encryption, while my MP3 player can't.
Therefore, yes, my "biggest worry" if someone steals my MP3 player is, indeed, that someone takes the MP3 files on it, uploads them to a file sharing network, and I get a threat of a lawsuit from the RIAA, who won't take "my MP3 player got stolen" for an answer.
But, heck, if this is how Apple likes to operate, there's a simple solution: I'll take my business elsewhere, but not without pointing out that I think Apple has lost any credibility on protecting their users' privacy.
People here have said repeatedly in comments that 'it is obvious' that the info is in each Itunes file.
It's not "obvious" at all that the info needs to be in each music file. The natural place for personal information associated with music purchases to be stored is in a separate database. If it were really necessary to store personal information inside the music file itself, it could be stored encrypted.