Where this gets unusual is that of the 21% of Android users purchasing one or more apps, the average number of apps purchased is 5[1]. That is 1.4 more apps per month than the equivalent iPhone user!... I conclude therefore that a large proportion of Android users simply cannot purchase and download paid for apps to their phone. I blame Google and its appallingly poor management of the Android market.
How can he draw this conclusion? What about the possibility (as OP suggested) that Android users are simply less likely to pay for apps? I know I personally VERY rarely will buy one (I've paid for 8 in the 2 years I've been running Android)... What about the fact that Android has a 24 hour return policy whereas the iPhone doesn't let you return once you purchase (Which makes me question if out of the iPhone's more purchases how many are actually used continuously)... While I do think the app needs some tweaking (Different sorting, better category functionality, tagging, and a web front end), it's by no means appallingly poor... I think the target audience and company culture is the reason it's not as successful at sales (and that's not a bad thing for the ecosystem)...
Is it just me, or is this just another article written by someone who wants to be heard? How many articles have we seen about how Adroid's going to fail, and this is wrong with it, and that's wrong with it...? Yet as time goes on, it gets stronger and stronger. While I do think there's a lot that needs to be worked on, it's not going anywhere anytime soon regardless of what any of these blog writers think...
I know Brazil applies reciprocity to the Visas. My Brazilian Visa cost me a full $100 more than one for a EU citizen, simply because we charge more for our Visas. I'm not going to complain about it, because what's fair is fair, but it still sucks... But I was not fingerprinted at all in my visit to Brazil (June 09). I filled out the visitor card, and was questioned (minimally), but never fingerprinted.
I've traveled to the U.S. a lot, and I've never been fingerprinted when exiting the U.S., only upon entry.
Hrm, I thought I read that they were introducing fingerprinting on exit about a year ago or so... Where you'd have to turn in your entry form to a kiosk in the terminal (rather than to the airline), and take fingerprints to verify your identity... I could be wrong though, or perhaps it just hasn't rolled out yet.
True, but that's the way percentages work. If 80% is caused by a small group, then targeting the small group will have a larger impact than targeting everyone equally. Sure, it's not the "Politically Correct" thing to do, but if it gets results, then why not do it? Now, I'm not saying to stop every middle eastern person that walks through, that would be plain racism. But if you look for flags (travel history, height/weight specs, etc), then what does it matter if 80% of the people they screen are of one race? The issue with profiling comes into play only if the primary motive of their selection comes from race. That's bad. But you can't tell that just by looking at a percentage. It's just like saying that cops pull over young people more often then older people. Does that mean there's a prejudice? Or does that mean that younger people just tend to break the law more (speeding, running red lights, driving drunk, etc)? It's a complex question, and somebodies bound to not like the answer... Does that mean that it shouldn't be answered though?
Yes. All non-Citizens and non-permanent residents get fingerprinted on entry and exit. Frankly, I don't see the point, but I don't mind either... If you have nothing to hide, then what's the problem with it? The system isn't going to change any time soon, so why make a fuss over it? While people still believe in the illusion of security and safety, it's just the way it will be... If you don't want to be subject to the checks, then don't come. It's not like they make you sit in a room for hours or days waiting to see if they will even let you in (Ellis Island)... But I don't think it's treating you like a criminal. Sure, many other countries don't do it, but how long do you think it'll be until they implement those kinds of checks for foreigners?
Well, theoretically they could have a computer do the identification for them. When you give them your passport, it can scan the photo and correlate that to the database. Computers are half way decent at that sort of thing (so long as the photos are clean and from a fixed angle, such as a passport photo)... Not to mention that they already know your international travel history anyway (it's reported to them by the airline). So it's relatively easy for a computer to flag a passport in a matter of seconds...
The issue that this doesn't address, is first time offenders. What happens when someone who doesn't raise any red flags goes through the system? He gets let right in with very little chance of screening (at least with random screening, his chances would be higher of being screened)...
The point of 4th amendment rights does play big time, but as computers become more and more advanced, the numbers of "innocents" should go down. If you're flagged because of intel, well that's an educated risk. In all my time spent at airports lately (175k miles in the past 2 years), I've only been selected for screening once. In Vancouver. And all that meant, was that the security person looked in my bags, and swabbed down parts looking for residue... An inconvenience? Sure, but the illusion of security won't be going away any time soon... So what's the better (more accurate) alternative?
It's only broken if they need an outside force to prop it up. They can charge whatever people will pay. And considering people do pay the $10 for popcorn, I'd say it's not a broken business model, it's one that works quite well. Now, whether or not consumers should support the practice has nothing to do with the model being broken. It's not like the government is giving them money to offset the bad business model...
No, what I'm accusing them of, is not having systems in place (or if they do, not adequate ones) to catch this level of bug before it gets out in the public. I'm not saying that their software needs to be bug free, but it needs to have procedures in place to make sure it's free of major bugs. It's ok to fail, but if you do, make sure you fail safe. There should NEVER be an excuse for this kind of thing to happen. If someone's life is at stake, you make sure there's redundancy built into the system. Where even if an entire computer fails, it would only possibly fail in a way that became safer (idle the engine if something goes wrong, etc)... These are basic engineering principals.
Would people sit this idly if Windows 7 contained a bug that would delete your entire hard drive if you pressed the wrong key? No, we'd raise hell (Well, not me, since I don't run Windows). So why are people taking this so lightly? I'm not saying hang the people involved. What I'm saying is that we need to look into the process more than the code (After all, if it's a systematic issue, then fixing this particular bug will do nothing in the long run. Don't fight fires, prevent them)...
Almost every single piece of non-trivial software written has bugs. What are the chances that over a million lines of code used in the Prius doesn't contain a single bug? 0. The point of my OP was not that Toyota is guilty of this being a bug, but are they using dangerous development practices that aren't catching bugs like this. So even if this is not a software issue, the issue still remains about how many "sleeping" bugs exist in all the cars. My OP was referencing that if this is true, Toyota will be the first to be burned by a major bug, but that doesn't mean that more aren't out there...
Watch for it to get very, very expensive for Toyota to sell cars in the US.
And if the reason it is so cheap for them now is because of inadequate development practices (testing, code review, etc), I'll be all the more happier to pay the extra price. The question isn't did Toyota fuck-up here. The question is how may fuck-ups where there before they got caught. And how many fuck-ups are there in the rest of the automotive industry that just haven't surfaced (because of any one of a number of reasons)...
I wonder if some researcher will see this result, and do an analysis of crime rate to magnetic field strength (it does vary in place to place) to try to determine if there's a correlation... Actually, now that I said that, I would like to see the results of such a study. Not that I expect any relation whatsoever, it'd be interesting to see if there was...
Well, the frame being analyzed would need to comprise of one color from each light source. Considering that we'd notice a flicker in the light if it switched at anything less than 30hz, you'd need a camera that could record more than that frame rate (say 60hz or 120hz). So the easiest way (in my mind) would be to either flicker the each light source between one color and white at something like 120 hz (synchronized of course), or simply "rotate" the colors between the 3 lights (so every 1/120 of a second, light 1 would become the color of light 2, light 2 of light 3, light 3 of light 1). Sure, you'd need some pretty decent synchronization to make it all work flawless, but you could do that by flashing all the colors white at the completion of 1 cycle (so light 1's cycle would be RBGW, light 2's would be BGRW, light 3 GRBW), then just detect the white flash in the camera and you know which color is where by the number of frames since the white flash.
The whole point of this, would be so that the lights could appear white to the human eye (And hence can double for normal lighting in a well designed room), while still providing the segmented colors necessary for this technique to work.
Well, doubtful. The way this works, is that different colors of light are positioned at different angles. So the camera captures the resulting colors based on color mixing. The computer can deduce the angle of any one point by looking at the color reflected by it. Then, once you have all the angles, you can join the neighboring pixels into a "map", and use the angle changes to predict depth (hence how it's able to deduce depth from a 2D image). So for it to work, you'd need to know the exact position of each colored light source (not something that's available when looking at a light source such as a galaxy)...
Well, from what I understood about Natal, it was object recognition and tracking. This is about full blown modeling, the difference being the fact that this can create a full 3d representation of an object in the computer down to details, where as recognition and tracking would only enable you to figure out what you were looking at and watch as it moves (So it could tell the difference between a book and a person, but whether or not you were smiling)...
What I would find interesting, is if they could make RGB lights that flash each color for only a tiny fraction of a second. So to the average person, the light looks white, but to the camera (which would need to be fast to read that much change) it appears the color for that frame. So that way, you could have a system like this in a normal room, and record a 3D model of the room at all times (Think of a security camera, but one that could take a 3d image instead of a 2D one)... It seems cool so far, let's see if it matures...
This depends on if they can prove that negotiations have failed. If there were little to no negotiations, then this appears to be nothing more than a Troll looking to strike while the iron's hot (or to hurt when the competitor is weakest). But for all we know, they could have been in negotiations for months/years, which would give them some credibility... But seriously, the iPhone's been out for what, 3 years?
Are you really saying there is no moral use for nuclear bombs and internet filtering?
What I'm saying is that I don't believe that either the means justify the end or the end justifies the means. Neither are justification for something that's in itself immoral (again IMHO). So you are correct. I am saying that there is no moral use for nuclear bombs and internet filtering. There are "more" moral uses for them (Using a the threat of a nuclear bomb is more moral than dropping it), but that doesn't make the use moral in and of itself...
I think it depends on intent. The scientists that built the nuclear bomb are responsible (On a high level, not necessarily a legal one) for its use, because destruction was the main purpose of the bomb. Google is not responsible (Again, on a very high level), because it was designed to search all websites. The fact that a subset do illegal things is irrelevant, because Google makes no attempt at classifying them as illegal vs non-illegal. China is responsible (Yet again, on a high level) for this because their system was designed from the very beginning to restrict what people saw. So by my logic (which I don't claim is valid, just the reasoning for my OP), the creator of every tools is responsible (on some level) for the intended use of the tool...
Well, by the wording there, I read that as "One-Off" software. Where the produced software is sold to exactly one party. So then FOSS would be exempt, because while the software is made for one party, it's given to everyone (well, for customizations that are released upstream/for the general public)... I'm not saying it's bullet proof, but that's how I read it (and IANAL)...
Actually, that's the ticket. If by custom, they mean written against a customers specifications, then it's pretty shitty. If by custom, they mean for one and only one client, then it should be pretty easy to get around. Imagine this. Company A hires you to build a custom piece of software. Once you're done, you just need to make it available for purchase to other companies. Then it's strictly not "custom" anymore, since more than one company can use it. So it all boils down to their definition of custom...
This is nothing more than a prime example of lobbyists in action. How else could you explain that the first "community" to do this contains one of the largest "non-custom" computer engineering firms in the country? I wonder what the state congressmen (or whatever they are called up there) got in return for this sweet deal... Money? Drugs? Sex? Free Computers?
I never said that was the way that all of the people worked, or even "most" of them. The fact of the matter is that at least for some games sold second hand, a publisher is generating a new sale that they otherwise would not have made. So 1 sale used != 1 lost sale new... It's slightly less than 1 sale new (the "slightness" depends on how many people sell used to purchase new. If it was 100%, 1 sale used would be 0 lost new sales. But it's not 100%, so there's some number less than 1, but more than 0 lost sales per used sale)... That was my main point. Saying 1 used == 1 lost is the same logic that the RIAA uses to determine damage when something's pirated (1 illegal "download" == 1 lost sale). That's the logical fallacy...
Well, that's assuming that the ISP actually made that configuration. There are a number of other possibilities (Such as someone hacked those servers, someone silently redirect queries from the actual root server to the China one, etc). Regardless of how the issue came about, the fact that China had those systems in place makes them at least partially responsible (not from a legal perspective, but from a philosophical one) for people not reaching their destination...
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How can he draw this conclusion? What about the possibility (as OP suggested) that Android users are simply less likely to pay for apps? I know I personally VERY rarely will buy one (I've paid for 8 in the 2 years I've been running Android)... What about the fact that Android has a 24 hour return policy whereas the iPhone doesn't let you return once you purchase (Which makes me question if out of the iPhone's more purchases how many are actually used continuously)... While I do think the app needs some tweaking (Different sorting, better category functionality, tagging, and a web front end), it's by no means appallingly poor... I think the target audience and company culture is the reason it's not as successful at sales (and that's not a bad thing for the ecosystem)...
Is it just me, or is this just another article written by someone who wants to be heard? How many articles have we seen about how Adroid's going to fail, and this is wrong with it, and that's wrong with it...? Yet as time goes on, it gets stronger and stronger. While I do think there's a lot that needs to be worked on, it's not going anywhere anytime soon regardless of what any of these blog writers think...
JMHO...
I know Brazil applies reciprocity to the Visas. My Brazilian Visa cost me a full $100 more than one for a EU citizen, simply because we charge more for our Visas. I'm not going to complain about it, because what's fair is fair, but it still sucks... But I was not fingerprinted at all in my visit to Brazil (June 09). I filled out the visitor card, and was questioned (minimally), but never fingerprinted.
Hrm, I thought I read that they were introducing fingerprinting on exit about a year ago or so... Where you'd have to turn in your entry form to a kiosk in the terminal (rather than to the airline), and take fingerprints to verify your identity... I could be wrong though, or perhaps it just hasn't rolled out yet.
True, but that's the way percentages work. If 80% is caused by a small group, then targeting the small group will have a larger impact than targeting everyone equally. Sure, it's not the "Politically Correct" thing to do, but if it gets results, then why not do it? Now, I'm not saying to stop every middle eastern person that walks through, that would be plain racism. But if you look for flags (travel history, height/weight specs, etc), then what does it matter if 80% of the people they screen are of one race? The issue with profiling comes into play only if the primary motive of their selection comes from race. That's bad. But you can't tell that just by looking at a percentage. It's just like saying that cops pull over young people more often then older people. Does that mean there's a prejudice? Or does that mean that younger people just tend to break the law more (speeding, running red lights, driving drunk, etc)? It's a complex question, and somebodies bound to not like the answer... Does that mean that it shouldn't be answered though?
Yes. All non-Citizens and non-permanent residents get fingerprinted on entry and exit. Frankly, I don't see the point, but I don't mind either... If you have nothing to hide, then what's the problem with it? The system isn't going to change any time soon, so why make a fuss over it? While people still believe in the illusion of security and safety, it's just the way it will be... If you don't want to be subject to the checks, then don't come. It's not like they make you sit in a room for hours or days waiting to see if they will even let you in (Ellis Island)... But I don't think it's treating you like a criminal. Sure, many other countries don't do it, but how long do you think it'll be until they implement those kinds of checks for foreigners?
Well, theoretically they could have a computer do the identification for them. When you give them your passport, it can scan the photo and correlate that to the database. Computers are half way decent at that sort of thing (so long as the photos are clean and from a fixed angle, such as a passport photo)... Not to mention that they already know your international travel history anyway (it's reported to them by the airline). So it's relatively easy for a computer to flag a passport in a matter of seconds...
The issue that this doesn't address, is first time offenders. What happens when someone who doesn't raise any red flags goes through the system? He gets let right in with very little chance of screening (at least with random screening, his chances would be higher of being screened)...
The point of 4th amendment rights does play big time, but as computers become more and more advanced, the numbers of "innocents" should go down. If you're flagged because of intel, well that's an educated risk. In all my time spent at airports lately (175k miles in the past 2 years), I've only been selected for screening once. In Vancouver. And all that meant, was that the security person looked in my bags, and swabbed down parts looking for residue... An inconvenience? Sure, but the illusion of security won't be going away any time soon... So what's the better (more accurate) alternative?
It's only broken if they need an outside force to prop it up. They can charge whatever people will pay. And considering people do pay the $10 for popcorn, I'd say it's not a broken business model, it's one that works quite well. Now, whether or not consumers should support the practice has nothing to do with the model being broken. It's not like the government is giving them money to offset the bad business model...
Instead of CCC, make it FCC (Fake Carbon Copy). Just don't you dare curse...
Well, a swarm was done for the Joomla project... It shows commits by user over time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE_2LkXS4KE
No, what I'm accusing them of, is not having systems in place (or if they do, not adequate ones) to catch this level of bug before it gets out in the public. I'm not saying that their software needs to be bug free, but it needs to have procedures in place to make sure it's free of major bugs. It's ok to fail, but if you do, make sure you fail safe. There should NEVER be an excuse for this kind of thing to happen. If someone's life is at stake, you make sure there's redundancy built into the system. Where even if an entire computer fails, it would only possibly fail in a way that became safer (idle the engine if something goes wrong, etc)... These are basic engineering principals.
Would people sit this idly if Windows 7 contained a bug that would delete your entire hard drive if you pressed the wrong key? No, we'd raise hell (Well, not me, since I don't run Windows). So why are people taking this so lightly? I'm not saying hang the people involved. What I'm saying is that we need to look into the process more than the code (After all, if it's a systematic issue, then fixing this particular bug will do nothing in the long run. Don't fight fires, prevent them)...
Almost every single piece of non-trivial software written has bugs. What are the chances that over a million lines of code used in the Prius doesn't contain a single bug? 0. The point of my OP was not that Toyota is guilty of this being a bug, but are they using dangerous development practices that aren't catching bugs like this. So even if this is not a software issue, the issue still remains about how many "sleeping" bugs exist in all the cars. My OP was referencing that if this is true, Toyota will be the first to be burned by a major bug, but that doesn't mean that more aren't out there...
And if the reason it is so cheap for them now is because of inadequate development practices (testing, code review, etc), I'll be all the more happier to pay the extra price. The question isn't did Toyota fuck-up here. The question is how may fuck-ups where there before they got caught. And how many fuck-ups are there in the rest of the automotive industry that just haven't surfaced (because of any one of a number of reasons)...
I wonder if some researcher will see this result, and do an analysis of crime rate to magnetic field strength (it does vary in place to place) to try to determine if there's a correlation... Actually, now that I said that, I would like to see the results of such a study. Not that I expect any relation whatsoever, it'd be interesting to see if there was...
Well, the frame being analyzed would need to comprise of one color from each light source. Considering that we'd notice a flicker in the light if it switched at anything less than 30hz, you'd need a camera that could record more than that frame rate (say 60hz or 120hz). So the easiest way (in my mind) would be to either flicker the each light source between one color and white at something like 120 hz (synchronized of course), or simply "rotate" the colors between the 3 lights (so every 1/120 of a second, light 1 would become the color of light 2, light 2 of light 3, light 3 of light 1). Sure, you'd need some pretty decent synchronization to make it all work flawless, but you could do that by flashing all the colors white at the completion of 1 cycle (so light 1's cycle would be RBGW, light 2's would be BGRW, light 3 GRBW), then just detect the white flash in the camera and you know which color is where by the number of frames since the white flash.
The whole point of this, would be so that the lights could appear white to the human eye (And hence can double for normal lighting in a well designed room), while still providing the segmented colors necessary for this technique to work.
Well, doubtful. The way this works, is that different colors of light are positioned at different angles. So the camera captures the resulting colors based on color mixing. The computer can deduce the angle of any one point by looking at the color reflected by it. Then, once you have all the angles, you can join the neighboring pixels into a "map", and use the angle changes to predict depth (hence how it's able to deduce depth from a 2D image). So for it to work, you'd need to know the exact position of each colored light source (not something that's available when looking at a light source such as a galaxy)...
Well, from what I understood about Natal, it was object recognition and tracking. This is about full blown modeling, the difference being the fact that this can create a full 3d representation of an object in the computer down to details, where as recognition and tracking would only enable you to figure out what you were looking at and watch as it moves (So it could tell the difference between a book and a person, but whether or not you were smiling)...
What I would find interesting, is if they could make RGB lights that flash each color for only a tiny fraction of a second. So to the average person, the light looks white, but to the camera (which would need to be fast to read that much change) it appears the color for that frame. So that way, you could have a system like this in a normal room, and record a 3D model of the room at all times (Think of a security camera, but one that could take a 3d image instead of a 2D one)... It seems cool so far, let's see if it matures...
This depends on if they can prove that negotiations have failed. If there were little to no negotiations, then this appears to be nothing more than a Troll looking to strike while the iron's hot (or to hurt when the competitor is weakest). But for all we know, they could have been in negotiations for months/years, which would give them some credibility... But seriously, the iPhone's been out for what, 3 years?
/me is starting to get sick of all the trolls...
What I'm saying is that I don't believe that either the means justify the end or the end justifies the means. Neither are justification for something that's in itself immoral (again IMHO). So you are correct. I am saying that there is no moral use for nuclear bombs and internet filtering. There are "more" moral uses for them (Using a the threat of a nuclear bomb is more moral than dropping it), but that doesn't make the use moral in and of itself...
Just my $0.02...
News at 11: Researchers discover the deodorant was actually a mutagen. Half of Beijing is dead. The other half have turned into mutant zombies...
I think it depends on intent. The scientists that built the nuclear bomb are responsible (On a high level, not necessarily a legal one) for its use, because destruction was the main purpose of the bomb. Google is not responsible (Again, on a very high level), because it was designed to search all websites. The fact that a subset do illegal things is irrelevant, because Google makes no attempt at classifying them as illegal vs non-illegal. China is responsible (Yet again, on a high level) for this because their system was designed from the very beginning to restrict what people saw. So by my logic (which I don't claim is valid, just the reasoning for my OP), the creator of every tools is responsible (on some level) for the intended use of the tool...
Well, by the wording there, I read that as "One-Off" software. Where the produced software is sold to exactly one party. So then FOSS would be exempt, because while the software is made for one party, it's given to everyone (well, for customizations that are released upstream/for the general public)... I'm not saying it's bullet proof, but that's how I read it (and IANAL)...
Actually, that's the ticket. If by custom, they mean written against a customers specifications, then it's pretty shitty. If by custom, they mean for one and only one client, then it should be pretty easy to get around. Imagine this. Company A hires you to build a custom piece of software. Once you're done, you just need to make it available for purchase to other companies. Then it's strictly not "custom" anymore, since more than one company can use it. So it all boils down to their definition of custom...
This is nothing more than a prime example of lobbyists in action. How else could you explain that the first "community" to do this contains one of the largest "non-custom" computer engineering firms in the country? I wonder what the state congressmen (or whatever they are called up there) got in return for this sweet deal... Money? Drugs? Sex? Free Computers?
I never said that was the way that all of the people worked, or even "most" of them. The fact of the matter is that at least for some games sold second hand, a publisher is generating a new sale that they otherwise would not have made. So 1 sale used != 1 lost sale new... It's slightly less than 1 sale new (the "slightness" depends on how many people sell used to purchase new. If it was 100%, 1 sale used would be 0 lost new sales. But it's not 100%, so there's some number less than 1, but more than 0 lost sales per used sale)... That was my main point. Saying 1 used == 1 lost is the same logic that the RIAA uses to determine damage when something's pirated (1 illegal "download" == 1 lost sale). That's the logical fallacy...
Well, that's assuming that the ISP actually made that configuration. There are a number of other possibilities (Such as someone hacked those servers, someone silently redirect queries from the actual root server to the China one, etc). Regardless of how the issue came about, the fact that China had those systems in place makes them at least partially responsible (not from a legal perspective, but from a philosophical one) for people not reaching their destination...