The units as given by Apple are "less than 1" out of 100. We are not talking 1 in 10 million. We are talking parts of 100 and we are not comparing anything with a perfect phone. So yes, you can make up numbers to contrive an example but those are not the numbers at hand. With the numbers at hand, saying that your new phone will drop twice the calls (or 40% more calls if you believe the numbers in the AC's post) than your old phone did is a pretty good metric for most people.
As was documented with the iPhone 4 that was discovered in the bar, Apple was very careful to camouflage iPhone 4 test units in cases to make them look like an older 3G or 3GS unit.
It's very likely that all iPhone 4 field testing was done with cases which would shield the antenna from grubby testers' hands and mask the problem. In other words, Apple's secrecy protocol interfered with proper field testing.
In daily use it may not make a huge difference, I agree. I have one and I can't say that it's any worse. It's been pretty bad to begin with. However, the plain facts are that the i4 is apparently considerably worse than the i3GS. The design is considerably worse.
"The dropped call data from ATT shows that the iPhone 4 has performed less than 1 *more* dropped call per 100 calls than the 3GS - an increase, and a sign of a problem, but certainly not in the "IF YOU HAZ IPOHNE 4 U WILL DIEZ" class of problems."
Ah, the beauty of statistical slight of hand. This number is incredibly misleading and you, as many others surely have, fell for it. The important and telling ratio is [iPhone 4 dropped calls] / [iPhone 3GS dropped calls]. i.e. how many times worse is an iPhone 4 than and iPhone 3GS. We don't get that number but we do get this other number that lets us draw a graph of how much worse the iPhone 4 is than the 3GS as a function of iPhone 3GS' dropped calls.
The resulting graph is damning no matter where you look. Let's assume that the "less than 1 more" is ~1 more (if it were less than 0.5, Apple would have been happy to point that out). If the iPhone 3GS drops 1/100, then iPhone 4 drops 2/100, or twice as many calls! The relative performance of iPhone 4 gets better as the iPhone 3GS' dropped calls fraction gets higher (i.e. AT&T's networks is worse). So if i3GS drops 5/100 i4 drops 6/100 which is only 1.2x worse.
Essentially, the i4 is much worse than i3GS or AT&T's network stinks.
I assure you the Palm VII did not just appear whole from the press release. 3Com had probably been working on it for at least a year, if not longer. Finding the prior art is trivial. It may even be as trivial as sifting through the various computer magazines of the time.
There is probably even earlier prior art as the idea is trivial and was plainly obvious when 3Com released the Palm VII (microwave stations anyone?). This patent also seem to cover any computer using Wifi.
It was stupid when it was filed and is stupid now.
"And I say to you that just because technology makes doing a bad thing easier doesn't mean it's suddenly not a bad thing"
To me this quote embodies the disconnect between "pro" copyright individuals and reality. Copyright came into existence *because* of technology and is an artificial means of creating what is meant to be a temporary monopoly on an idea. Copyright infringement is not a "bad" thing, it's just a violation of current law which happens to be outdated. The law is outdated because technology has continued progressing to the point that everyone, including Mr. Brown himself I'm willing to bet, is in violation of the law. When a law makes everyone a criminal, it's not a practical law. Copyright came into existence because of technology and will continue to be shaped by technology over the long term. All the moralistic nonsense is myopic bombast.
iChat supports ICQ by virtue of it supporting AOL's OSCAR protocol. I use the same UIN with AIM SW directly and have AIM and ICQ buddies.It's a seamless integrated service.
"They are 2 different IM programs that were kept separated to appear as if there is competition, this is why you can download both an AIM chat program and a ICQ chat program and the user names are not cross-compatible."
Except, umm, I use my ICQ UID directly on AIM with iChat... oops.
Which doesn't matter for 80% of the code you ever deal with. For the code where it does matter you can switch to plain old C (or C++ if you feel the urge). In Objective-C you get the best of both worlds. The convenience of an almost script like environment (which is still very fast) for most of what you need to do and a low level C when performance is an issue.
It's a VOIP app that encrypts the audio. Except the fact that the protocol itself is documented this is not materially different from skype which is also encrypted and has governments apparently scrambling to crack. A truly revolutionary app would encrypt the phone's mobile call audio.
Newsweek is mistaking transients for a steady state. The middle class and freedom form a self re-inforcing feedback loop. The more middle class, the more freedom, the more freedom, the more middle class, etc. What's happening in Indonesia, Brazil and Russia as it is portrayed is the middle class advocating its own destruction. Freedoms will be taken away and the middle class will shrink as a result. So there may be a middle class in these countries now, often fueled by things like oil as opposed to a true free and productive society and economy, but there won't be for long if these trends continue.
It should be Tweeting From Just Behind the Front-Line. The Front-Line folks are too busy getting shot at to Tweet. It's the support folks who get to do the tweeting (and have all the other fun)...
Where N is the number of computer users and you want them in a shared space, not in each child's room. Providing each child a personal computer, especially in his room, is a guarantee that any kind of interaction between you and your kids and between themselves will end. Ensuring computer "scarcity" will force you and, more importantly, your kids to interact with each other. It may even force you and your kids, gasp, to share a computer. This also has a couple side benefits: 1. There are no "secrets" on the computers so you have no need for the tight monitoring and/or policing you seem to think you want. 2. Virus infections become a shared painful experience with obvious lessons being learned on how to avoid it the next time.
HW monitoring is kind of pointless as it won't tell you anything.
This only leaves you with a couple problems to deal with: 1. backup - there are plenty of backup solutions out there. Generally, you'll want some kind of external drive setup with automated user data backups. 2. virus recovery - If you like anti-virus software, use it. However, you should probably also keep a fresh install method handy so you can simply re-install without having to deal with the mess (this is where a good backup becomes very important). Taken a step further and to save lots of time you could have all your machines running VM hosted Windows images. Then when one of the images gets infected or otherwise "goes bad" you simply revert to the latest and greatest clean VM image (user data backup is still very important).
I hope this is just the beginning. May they flood the courts with tens of millions of lawsuits. That's the only thing that will finally get the law changed.
Slowly we lose sight of how a nationally recognized ID was not always required to do mundane things like opening a checking account. Australia (like many other Western nations) is slowly becoming a police state. That somebody's identity card was used to assassinate someone in the middle east is not the problem here.
"iPhone killer" means that everyone sees the writing on the wall - namely Apple is poised to dominate the smart phone market (and possibly the handheld gaming market as well as the general mobile electronics market, GPS for example) like it currently dominates the mp3 player market. It hasn't happened yet and may not happen but everyone is betting that it will given current competition, hence the search for the "iPhone killer".
I'm on your side in this respect. I'm not an "animal lover" by most standards. However, I've seen caged animals in a zoo circle their enclosures like they were being chased by demons. I've also seen geese being stuffed for fois gras on a farm and I know what happens on commercial farms in general. There are definite "quality of life" issues for these animals. I don't lose sleep over it (like I don't lose sleep over my yummy burger meat) but many other people do, especially pet owners who very often yank theirs pets out of their environments, stuff them in a small house and invent what is best for the animal without any basis for their inventions. Hence the question to a pet owner.
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This is a good point. However, we don't have any numbers for this...
The units as given by Apple are "less than 1" out of 100. We are not talking 1 in 10 million. We are talking parts of 100 and we are not comparing anything with a perfect phone.
So yes, you can make up numbers to contrive an example but those are not the numbers at hand.
With the numbers at hand, saying that your new phone will drop twice the calls (or 40% more calls if you believe the numbers in the AC's post) than your old phone did is a pretty good metric for most people.
As was documented with the iPhone 4 that was discovered in the bar, Apple was very careful to camouflage iPhone 4 test units in cases to make them look like an older 3G or 3GS unit.
It's very likely that all iPhone 4 field testing was done with cases which would shield the antenna from grubby testers' hands and mask the problem. In other words, Apple's secrecy protocol interfered with proper field testing.
The irony.
In daily use it may not make a huge difference, I agree. I have one and I can't say that it's any worse. It's been pretty bad to begin with. However, the plain facts are that the i4 is apparently considerably worse than the i3GS. The design is considerably worse.
"The dropped call data from ATT shows that the iPhone 4 has performed less than 1 *more* dropped call per 100 calls than the 3GS - an increase, and a sign of a problem, but certainly not in the "IF YOU HAZ IPOHNE 4 U WILL DIEZ" class of problems."
Ah, the beauty of statistical slight of hand. This number is incredibly misleading and you, as many others surely have, fell for it.
The important and telling ratio is [iPhone 4 dropped calls] / [iPhone 3GS dropped calls]. i.e. how many times worse is an iPhone 4 than and iPhone 3GS.
We don't get that number but we do get this other number that lets us draw a graph of how much worse the iPhone 4 is than the 3GS as a function of iPhone 3GS' dropped calls.
The resulting graph is damning no matter where you look. Let's assume that the "less than 1 more" is ~1 more (if it were less than 0.5, Apple would have been happy to point that out). If the iPhone 3GS drops 1/100, then iPhone 4 drops 2/100, or twice as many calls! The relative performance of iPhone 4 gets better as the iPhone 3GS' dropped calls fraction gets higher (i.e. AT&T's networks is worse). So if i3GS drops 5/100 i4 drops 6/100 which is only 1.2x worse.
Essentially, the i4 is much worse than i3GS or AT&T's network stinks.
Stuff like this, from June 1999 (six months before):
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,991216,00.html
This patent is worthless. Shame on the USPTO for ever granting it.
I assure you the Palm VII did not just appear whole from the press release. 3Com had probably been working on it for at least a year, if not longer. Finding the prior art is trivial. It may even be as trivial as sifting through the various computer magazines of the time.
You apparently know nothing about NetApp or its products...
3Com press release of the Palm VII in October of 1999, two months before this patent was filed. The press release explicitly mentions wireless e-mail. http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=338689
There is probably even earlier prior art as the idea is trivial and was plainly obvious when 3Com released the Palm VII (microwave stations anyone?). This patent also seem to cover any computer using Wifi.
It was stupid when it was filed and is stupid now.
Read and learn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law
"And I say to you that just because technology makes doing a bad thing easier doesn't mean it's suddenly not a bad thing"
To me this quote embodies the disconnect between "pro" copyright individuals and reality.
Copyright came into existence *because* of technology and is an artificial means of creating what is meant to be a temporary monopoly on an idea. Copyright infringement is not a "bad" thing, it's just a violation of current law which happens to be outdated. The law is outdated because technology has continued progressing to the point that everyone, including Mr. Brown himself I'm willing to bet, is in violation of the law. When a law makes everyone a criminal, it's not a practical law.
Copyright came into existence because of technology and will continue to be shaped by technology over the long term. All the moralistic nonsense is myopic bombast.
iChat supports ICQ by virtue of it supporting AOL's OSCAR protocol. I use the same UIN with AIM SW directly and have AIM and ICQ buddies.It's a seamless integrated service.
"They are 2 different IM programs that were kept separated to appear as if there is competition, this is why you can download both an AIM chat program and a ICQ chat program and the user names are not cross-compatible."
Except, umm, I use my ICQ UID directly on AIM with iChat... oops.
Where are my mod points when I need them. Mod parent up!
"Because ObjectiveC is a slow shit?"
Which doesn't matter for 80% of the code you ever deal with. For the code where it does matter you can switch to plain old C (or C++ if you feel the urge).
In Objective-C you get the best of both worlds. The convenience of an almost script like environment (which is still very fast) for most of what you need to do and a low level C when performance is an issue.
It's a VOIP app that encrypts the audio. Except the fact that the protocol itself is documented this is not materially different from skype which is also encrypted and has governments apparently scrambling to crack.
A truly revolutionary app would encrypt the phone's mobile call audio.
Newsweek is mistaking transients for a steady state. The middle class and freedom form a self re-inforcing feedback loop. The more middle class, the more freedom, the more freedom, the more middle class, etc.
What's happening in Indonesia, Brazil and Russia as it is portrayed is the middle class advocating its own destruction. Freedoms will be taken away and the middle class will shrink as a result. So there may be a middle class in these countries now, often fueled by things like oil as opposed to a true free and productive society and economy, but there won't be for long if these trends continue.
It should be Tweeting From Just Behind the Front-Line.
The Front-Line folks are too busy getting shot at to Tweet. It's the support folks who get to do the tweeting (and have all the other fun)...
Where N is the number of computer users and you want them in a shared space, not in each child's room. Providing each child a personal computer, especially in his room, is a guarantee that any kind of interaction between you and your kids and between themselves will end. Ensuring computer "scarcity" will force you and, more importantly, your kids to interact with each other. It may even force you and your kids, gasp, to share a computer.
This also has a couple side benefits:
1. There are no "secrets" on the computers so you have no need for the tight monitoring and/or policing you seem to think you want.
2. Virus infections become a shared painful experience with obvious lessons being learned on how to avoid it the next time.
HW monitoring is kind of pointless as it won't tell you anything.
This only leaves you with a couple problems to deal with:
1. backup - there are plenty of backup solutions out there. Generally, you'll want some kind of external drive setup with automated user data backups.
2. virus recovery - If you like anti-virus software, use it. However, you should probably also keep a fresh install method handy so you can simply re-install without having to deal with the mess (this is where a good backup becomes very important). Taken a step further and to save lots of time you could have all your machines running VM hosted Windows images. Then when one of the images gets infected or otherwise "goes bad" you simply revert to the latest and greatest clean VM image (user data backup is still very important).
I hope this is just the beginning. May they flood the courts with tens of millions of lawsuits. That's the only thing that will finally get the law changed.
Slowly we lose sight of how a nationally recognized ID was not always required to do mundane things like opening a checking account.
Australia (like many other Western nations) is slowly becoming a police state. That somebody's identity card was used to assassinate someone in the middle east is not the problem here.
What has Zed Shaw done for humanity?
"iPhone killer" means that everyone sees the writing on the wall - namely Apple is poised to dominate the smart phone market (and possibly the handheld gaming market as well as the general mobile electronics market, GPS for example) like it currently dominates the mp3 player market. It hasn't happened yet and may not happen but everyone is betting that it will given current competition, hence the search for the "iPhone killer".
It's obvious, isn't it? I teach my kid to switch lights.
I'm on your side in this respect. I'm not an "animal lover" by most standards. However, I've seen caged animals in a zoo circle their enclosures like they were being chased by demons. I've also seen geese being stuffed for fois gras on a farm and I know what happens on commercial farms in general. There are definite "quality of life" issues for these animals.
I don't lose sleep over it (like I don't lose sleep over my yummy burger meat) but many other people do, especially pet owners who very often yank theirs pets out of their environments, stuff them in a small house and invent what is best for the animal without any basis for their inventions. Hence the question to a pet owner.