On the 4500+ defendant case they currently have less than a week to show that the defendants are jointly liable (1/2 the requirement for naming co-defendants, the other half is that they are named under the same violation).
Since these are separate individuals committing separate acts, there is no way they can be jointly liable.
I believe that is what is known in the as a "typo".
See, a "typo" is where someone intends to write one thing, but they don't actually type all the correct letters, or they leave some letters out by mistake, or they do type the correct letters but put them in the wrong order.
In this case, it appears to be a typo caused by a "brain fart", as it is called. More on "brain farts" in another lesson - the gist is that a mental glitch caused the individual to type a similar but different word than intended, as opposed to a mental glitch causing an individual to tap an incorrect letter. This is similar to the type of glitch that causes an omission of a letter.
Unfortunately, while automatic "spell checkers", as they are called, generally catch typos and warn of the incorrect spelling, a mistaken but otherwise correctly spelled word will not be caught by the "spell checker".
In this case, the intended word was "liberate", not "liberal".
Homework:
List five other common typos.
Have you ever caught a typo before? If so, how did you deal with it?
What do you think about people who mock simple typos, particularly when the typo is a correctly spelled word on its own? Do you think this behavior is childish? Why or why not?
I agree with all of your post except this part. Algorithmic complexity theory is about orders of magnitude, not about precise numbers. That's why we have O(n) as a complexity class but not O(2n), O(3n) as separate classes; saying that an algorithm has O(n) worst-case time performance is saying that the time it takes to run it is approximated by some linear function of the problem size.
You're missing the point. With regards to memory, the reality is that disk cache is not just a single order of magnitude slower than RAM (which would allow what you describe to be true), it's several orders of magnitude slower than RAM. Assuming all cache is equal you may show a worst case scenario of O(n), however if the reality is that half of your cache runs at 1/100th the speed of the other half, the actual real worst case scenario is easily more like O(n^2) or higher.
It means the algorithm is an order of magnitude or more less efficient than its worst case scenario would suggest because of a misleading assumption.
Did you check the power consumption on 240 opteron cores? Each core consumes about 75% more power than each Atom CPU. In CPU power alone you are consuming 1.5kW. The opteron also needs a northbridge for each CPU. Add the northbridge and you're almost at 2kw (the SeaMicro's total consumption), not including the rest of the power consumed by 5 2U servers. The SeaMicro is under 2kw for the entire system.
You'd definitely have a point if you weren't talking out your ass. A simple comparison of actual figures shows you don't have a clue about what SeaMicro has done here. They specifically address the fact that ordinarily the Atom requires a northbridge for each CPU, however their design does not.
I think you should look closely at what 512 Atom CPUs can do. They hit about 3 gflops each, for a total of about 1.5 tflops. The hottest Xeon processor, the X7560, hits 64 gflops. That means you need 24 Xeons to equal 512 Atoms. At peak power, an X7560 uses 130w of power. 24 of the Xeons will hit a little over 3kw for the CPUs alone. Assuming another 20w for the northbridge (that's generous, 30 is more likely), the total rounds out to about 3.5 kw for 24 Xeons.
In other words, the SeaMicro setup consumes about 60% of the energy for the same CPU power (assuming the top Atom was used), and even cutting 24 Xeons down to 1 northbridge won't make up the difference.
How does an OS handle 8 cores, or 32 (which is not uncommon in quad socket server setups)?
There is nothing really new here in that regard, a single Xeon quad core X7560 shows up as 64 CPUs to the OS, how does it handle that? Pretty well, you would hope;).
Old software is old software, and won't do well with high CPU setups, but that was true at 8 cores. 512 is just more, not different. Modern versions of Windows handle it just fine, and I know Unix has done this sort of thing with clustering for ages.
1 Xeon processor (X7560, the highest performing Xeon) hits 64 gflops. It has 8 cores, for 8 gflops per core. The hottest Atom hits 3 gflops. Since the X7560 is 8 cores, a 2 socket 1u setup gets you 264 cores. That's 7.8 Atoms per Xeon. That's 23.2 gflops compared to 8 gflops for a Xeon core.
To put it in perspective though, if you're only talking gflops you only need about 3 NVIDIA gpu's to equal an entire rack of either the Atom or the Xeon. Number crunching is not what these will be used for - they will be used for multi-tasking (which, incidentally, gpu's suck at). Given the cost of Xeons vs Atoms, a SeaMicro is probably going to cost 1/3 or less what the same sized Xeon setup will cost, and for a number of applications it will be more flexible and more powerful.
A lot of the SeaMicro's performance will depend on how well the CPUs integrate, but the same is true with a cluster of Xeons. The only advantage there may be is there will be fewer Xeons clustered together. Any significant losses will magnify for the Atom setup.
But, it has 512 processor cores at that power usage.
It has 2,048 cores at that power usage - each 512 core, 10U server uses some unspecified number below 2kW, which means 4 of them (a full rack) is some unspecified number below 8 kW.
As far as number crunching, PC CPUs suck at it, but 512 Atoms would run at about 60% the speed of 40 quad-socket Xeons for single precision FLOPS. From Intel's own data, the hottest Xeon performs at 63 GFLOPS. It is possible to get four of those in a 1U server, so for 10U you could have 40 Xeons pumping out a maximum of 2.5 TFLOPS. Each Atom CPU can hit 3 GFLOPS, 512 of them have a max of 1.5 TFLOPS.
40 Xeons are going to use 5KW of power at full utilization, whereas the 512 Atoms will peak at less than 2KW. You actually get more than twice the number of vCPUs out of the Xeon though - 2560 vs 1024 for the Atoms.
The big difference between the two setups is cost - 40 Xeon processors will set you back $140k, completely ignoring all other hardware components in the system. SeaMicro doesn't give any prices, but considering that a standard Atom+motherboard combo costs as low as $60, there is already a $110,000 difference in price. I'd probably tack on another $10k-$20k for the specialized hardware the server requires (interconnecting web and all that).
Since a typical quad processor Xeon X7560 server runs about $20,000, for an equally performing system, you're probably looking at $120,000 for the Xeon vs $40,000-$50,000 for the SeaMicro, not including RAM for both systems. And the Xeon will still consume about 50% more power than the SeaMicro, even with a scaled down setup. You'll get more bang for the buck if you choose a lesser Xeon, but there is no such thing as a cheap Xeon processor, and the long term power savings from the SeaMicro are significant for a datacenter.
I dunno, Beowulf is my favorite mythical hero, what are we going to replace him with, Hector? Imagine a Hector Cluster of those? It just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Hercules Cluster maybe? I dunno.
An Achilles Cluster simply does not convey the impression you want to give in your computing environment, no matter how spectacular Achilles was.
Calling it a "cloud" is too ephemeral, could we call it "the horde" instead?
To be fair, they are very close to the same thing - 1 watt for 1 second = 1 joule. Watts are the flow rate of energy, while joules or watt hours or whathaveyou are the total measure of the energy.
Honestly I'd say 8 kW of energy is fine as long as you know what a watt actually is, though it is a semantic no-no, because it will confuse someone who doesn't know better.
It basically explains exactly how Jobs is able to hold contradictory views.
To him, whatever he believes now is exactly what he has always believed, even if he believed the exact opposite mere moments before. Also, you'd better not come up with a good idea and share it with him alone, because in the next staff meeting it will suddenly be his idea and you had nothing to do with it. I don't think he does it on purpose, I think he really believes he comes up with all the stuff he thinks he comes up with.
The original statement is stupid, but the point of the statement is that now non-publishers are suddenly publishers, and they don't really do things the same way traditional publishers do.
Barrier to entry is high because you need a device to deliver content and Apple is building a monopoly on that.
Except that Apple has nothing even remotely close to a monopoly here, and they are losing ground to newcomers, not gaining.
Walled gardens don't matter if there aren't many people locked in to them.
For your Intel example, Intel would not be the dominant CPU manufacturer in the world if they had restricted their processors to a single OS. Smaller players would have gotten fat on the niche market, where Intel currently dominates just as well as their main CPU market because they are not walled off. As the smaller players got fat in the niche markets, they would have been more able to produce competing products in Intel's primary market, and the first chip manufacturer to produce a high quality product open to all OS's would win. Instead, Intel publicly publishes its instruction set - which is what you need to write an OS for their processor. This keeps them from being married to a particular OS vendor.
That is actually how Microsoft got its monopoly - standard operating procedure at the time was for OS companies to sell the product to a company, as in it was that company's OS now, source code and all. Microsoft instead chose to license it to any company who ran the x86 chips the OS was originally designed for, which ended the era of each PC company having their own OS. They all chose Microsoft (eventually) because it allowed them to compete with other companies selling hardware that ran MS's OS.
It's the exact same thing here, just in a different market, and it happens all the time. Apple is doing the same thing it always does, which doesn't allow it to dominate a market like MS does, but they seem to be doing very well for themselves with their current strategies. However, the way they are going they aren't going to create a monopoly by any means.
I don't see an Apple monopoly in any of those areas being inevitable. In fact, it is probably impossible.
Add to that the fact that they have lost their market position to Android, and they peaked at #3 in the market (Nokia and RIM are still #1 and #2, and have been for years), and we are definitely not in a position where Apple is going to get a monopoly on these types of devices.
In fact, the only OS's capable of establishing such a monopoly are Android and Windows Mobile (depending on how good Phone 7 actually is - that's make or break for MS and smartphones). I would say Symbian too, but Nokia seems to be increasingly relying on their worldwide position to drive sales of their OS, instead of innovating like their competitors do.
iPhone OS would have already one the war if they would allow other handset makers to use their OS, but instead Apple is backing themselves into the same corner they did with PC's (it's sorta their "thing"). You get manufacturers who say "Man, I wish I could put that on my device, oh well, this other is similar, and available, I'll have to use it". Before too long "Similar but not the same" eclipses "Cool but locked in" in every way that matters, including features and applications.
This is different to Walmart deciding not to carry content its store owners find objectionable, how?
The article equates it to Kindle's pulling of 1984, which was more like Walmart giving away a book, then deciding that none of their customers should have it, and going in to everyone's home who bought the book and taking it from them.
However, I haven't seen any evidence that this is anything other than the typical App Store BS of rejecting an app (in this case, a comic book app).
It's also worth noting the creators of the app didn't feel they were being censored. To paraphrase one of the developers: "It's their rules, we're coming to dinner at their party."
Banning the book in the US 73 years ago was censorship - it was performed by the US government and applied to all copies of the book on US soil. That is censorship.
Saying "I'm not selling that in my store unless you change it" is not censorship. I hate Apple as much as the next anti-fanboy, but the article is out of line on this one. It's a far cry from real censorship, and it's well within Apple's rights to do what they are doing, douchebaggery or no.
Id say that depended rather heavily on what terms you agreed to when you bought the device, wouldnt you?
Not really, it has been well established in contract law that you cannot sign away rights guaranteed by law unless the law specifically provides for it.
For example, game shows always make contestants sign wavers that state the game show and its parent company will not be held liable in case of injury. However, if a contestant dies while performing a stunt on the show, the game show and parent company can be held liable. I'm actually thinking of a specific case where an individual was brain-damaged while competing in a game show, directly because of the stunts they were performing. The waiver was found to be completely unenforceable, and the game show and its parent company had to be paid significant damages for their actions.
There are a number of rights which simply cannot be waived. Companies use them as a CYA to hopefully prevent injured parties from pursuing the issue, and if it does go to court it can lessen the damages if the company's intentions were made very clear and the individual agreed to them. It does not eliminate their liability, even though it says it does.
For the book pulling issue, it depends. If the contract has provisions for pulling the book and refunding the value, then Apple is likely in the clear if they pulled the book and refunded the value. If the contract simply says they can pull books at any time, with no compensation, then it's likely unenforceable, and you can go ahead and sue the pants off them in a class-action suit.
Frankly, I didn't read the fucking article, so I couldn't tell you one way or the other which case this is. Still, my point is that the terms can only legally go so far, and most terms and conditions of this type very much over state what they can legally do.
Seriously, it's like one of those retarded forum users who doesn't even bother to check the first couple pages of topics before posting a question that has been answered a hundred times over.
So... Microsoft's "research" seems to come from reading competitor's product specifications
Clearly you have no idea what "research" means, if you believe that to be strange in any way.
MS seems to believe they've improved on Apple's product (they didn't mention Apple, but Apple holds the patent), and it sounds to me like they have as well, though not really spectacularly so. Still, better is better.
I'm not sure why everyone is pissing on Microsoft for making a technology better, other than the tired old Apple fanboyism and M$ hate.
What is important in these "Wake on Demand" solutions is not needing to know about the MAC address and instead having "proxy" doing the waking when you try accessing the PC via its IP address.
It's more than that, the MS solution maintains a network presence (I honestly don't know if the Apple solution does or not), which means you could have a machine that is only occasionally polled for data in a hibernation mode while appearing to remain online. The proxy maintains the connection until the machine is powered up, then the machine sends off the data and can power back down.
For end user machines in a corporate network, it means a machine is never in-accessible, even when powered down. Currently, with WOL you must have the MAC address and subnet handy to wake a powered down machine. Microsoft's proxy setup here would let you handle that in Active Directory - either on the DC or another dedicated server.
Sleep proxy is less useful for a home network, because there is no reason getting the MAC address is difficult when currently setting up WOL. However, routers enabled with a sleep proxy would make setting up WOL much easier (i.e. more automated), and would give you greater flexibility with regards to when the proxy sends a WOL command to the PC. I believe that is basically what Apple's sleep proxy is used for.
Slashdot Mirror
On the 4500+ defendant case they currently have less than a week to show that the defendants are jointly liable (1/2 the requirement for naming co-defendants, the other half is that they are named under the same violation).
Since these are separate individuals committing separate acts, there is no way they can be jointly liable.
They get B, but totally fail on A.
That's what everyone else does.
Allegedly. That's allegedly what everyone else does.
I believe that is what is known in the as a "typo".
See, a "typo" is where someone intends to write one thing, but they don't actually type all the correct letters, or they leave some letters out by mistake, or they do type the correct letters but put them in the wrong order.
In this case, it appears to be a typo caused by a "brain fart", as it is called. More on "brain farts" in another lesson - the gist is that a mental glitch caused the individual to type a similar but different word than intended, as opposed to a mental glitch causing an individual to tap an incorrect letter. This is similar to the type of glitch that causes an omission of a letter.
Unfortunately, while automatic "spell checkers", as they are called, generally catch typos and warn of the incorrect spelling, a mistaken but otherwise correctly spelled word will not be caught by the "spell checker".
In this case, the intended word was "liberate", not "liberal".
Homework:
List five other common typos.
Have you ever caught a typo before? If so, how did you deal with it?
What do you think about people who mock simple typos, particularly when the typo is a correctly spelled word on its own? Do you think this behavior is childish? Why or why not?
I agree with all of your post except this part. Algorithmic complexity theory is about orders of magnitude, not about precise numbers. That's why we have O(n) as a complexity class but not O(2n), O(3n) as separate classes; saying that an algorithm has O(n) worst-case time performance is saying that the time it takes to run it is approximated by some linear function of the problem size.
You're missing the point. With regards to memory, the reality is that disk cache is not just a single order of magnitude slower than RAM (which would allow what you describe to be true), it's several orders of magnitude slower than RAM. Assuming all cache is equal you may show a worst case scenario of O(n), however if the reality is that half of your cache runs at 1/100th the speed of the other half, the actual real worst case scenario is easily more like O(n^2) or higher.
It means the algorithm is an order of magnitude or more less efficient than its worst case scenario would suggest because of a misleading assumption.
Laziness?
Come on, it's Slashdot!
1010 = 12 in binary
Somebody doesn't understand binary...
Did you check the power consumption on 240 opteron cores? Each core consumes about 75% more power than each Atom CPU. In CPU power alone you are consuming 1.5kW. The opteron also needs a northbridge for each CPU. Add the northbridge and you're almost at 2kw (the SeaMicro's total consumption), not including the rest of the power consumed by 5 2U servers. The SeaMicro is under 2kw for the entire system.
You'd definitely have a point if you weren't talking out your ass. A simple comparison of actual figures shows you don't have a clue about what SeaMicro has done here. They specifically address the fact that ordinarily the Atom requires a northbridge for each CPU, however their design does not.
I think you should look closely at what 512 Atom CPUs can do. They hit about 3 gflops each, for a total of about 1.5 tflops. The hottest Xeon processor, the X7560, hits 64 gflops. That means you need 24 Xeons to equal 512 Atoms. At peak power, an X7560 uses 130w of power. 24 of the Xeons will hit a little over 3kw for the CPUs alone. Assuming another 20w for the northbridge (that's generous, 30 is more likely), the total rounds out to about 3.5 kw for 24 Xeons.
In other words, the SeaMicro setup consumes about 60% of the energy for the same CPU power (assuming the top Atom was used), and even cutting 24 Xeons down to 1 northbridge won't make up the difference.
How does an OS handle 8 cores, or 32 (which is not uncommon in quad socket server setups)?
There is nothing really new here in that regard, a single Xeon quad core X7560 shows up as 64 CPUs to the OS, how does it handle that? Pretty well, you would hope ;).
Old software is old software, and won't do well with high CPU setups, but that was true at 8 cores. 512 is just more, not different. Modern versions of Windows handle it just fine, and I know Unix has done this sort of thing with clustering for ages.
1 Xeon processor (X7560, the highest performing Xeon) hits 64 gflops. It has 8 cores, for 8 gflops per core. The hottest Atom hits 3 gflops. Since the X7560 is 8 cores, a 2 socket 1u setup gets you 264 cores. That's 7.8 Atoms per Xeon. That's 23.2 gflops compared to 8 gflops for a Xeon core.
To put it in perspective though, if you're only talking gflops you only need about 3 NVIDIA gpu's to equal an entire rack of either the Atom or the Xeon. Number crunching is not what these will be used for - they will be used for multi-tasking (which, incidentally, gpu's suck at). Given the cost of Xeons vs Atoms, a SeaMicro is probably going to cost 1/3 or less what the same sized Xeon setup will cost, and for a number of applications it will be more flexible and more powerful.
A lot of the SeaMicro's performance will depend on how well the CPUs integrate, but the same is true with a cluster of Xeons. The only advantage there may be is there will be fewer Xeons clustered together. Any significant losses will magnify for the Atom setup.
But, it has 512 processor cores at that power usage.
It has 2,048 cores at that power usage - each 512 core, 10U server uses some unspecified number below 2kW, which means 4 of them (a full rack) is some unspecified number below 8 kW.
As far as number crunching, PC CPUs suck at it, but 512 Atoms would run at about 60% the speed of 40 quad-socket Xeons for single precision FLOPS. From Intel's own data, the hottest Xeon performs at 63 GFLOPS. It is possible to get four of those in a 1U server, so for 10U you could have 40 Xeons pumping out a maximum of 2.5 TFLOPS. Each Atom CPU can hit 3 GFLOPS, 512 of them have a max of 1.5 TFLOPS.
40 Xeons are going to use 5KW of power at full utilization, whereas the 512 Atoms will peak at less than 2KW. You actually get more than twice the number of vCPUs out of the Xeon though - 2560 vs 1024 for the Atoms.
The big difference between the two setups is cost - 40 Xeon processors will set you back $140k, completely ignoring all other hardware components in the system. SeaMicro doesn't give any prices, but considering that a standard Atom+motherboard combo costs as low as $60, there is already a $110,000 difference in price. I'd probably tack on another $10k-$20k for the specialized hardware the server requires (interconnecting web and all that).
Since a typical quad processor Xeon X7560 server runs about $20,000, for an equally performing system, you're probably looking at $120,000 for the Xeon vs $40,000-$50,000 for the SeaMicro, not including RAM for both systems. And the Xeon will still consume about 50% more power than the SeaMicro, even with a scaled down setup. You'll get more bang for the buck if you choose a lesser Xeon, but there is no such thing as a cheap Xeon processor, and the long term power savings from the SeaMicro are significant for a datacenter.
I dunno, Beowulf is my favorite mythical hero, what are we going to replace him with, Hector? Imagine a Hector Cluster of those? It just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Hercules Cluster maybe? I dunno.
An Achilles Cluster simply does not convey the impression you want to give in your computing environment, no matter how spectacular Achilles was.
Calling it a "cloud" is too ephemeral, could we call it "the horde" instead?
To be fair, they are very close to the same thing - 1 watt for 1 second = 1 joule. Watts are the flow rate of energy, while joules or watt hours or whathaveyou are the total measure of the energy.
Honestly I'd say 8 kW of energy is fine as long as you know what a watt actually is, though it is a semantic no-no, because it will confuse someone who doesn't know better.
A hogshead'sfull of class-6 SD cards will be nice and zippy.
What's the conversion rate between hog'sheads and pints?
That's not overdramatic at all.
It's called metaphor and hyperbole. Grow up, or at least read a book or something.
I found this to be incredibly enlightening.
It basically explains exactly how Jobs is able to hold contradictory views.
To him, whatever he believes now is exactly what he has always believed, even if he believed the exact opposite mere moments before. Also, you'd better not come up with a good idea and share it with him alone, because in the next staff meeting it will suddenly be his idea and you had nothing to do with it. I don't think he does it on purpose, I think he really believes he comes up with all the stuff he thinks he comes up with.
The original statement is stupid, but the point of the statement is that now non-publishers are suddenly publishers, and they don't really do things the same way traditional publishers do.
This leads to some interesting gaffs.
Barrier to entry is high because you need a device to deliver content and Apple is building a monopoly on that.
Except that Apple has nothing even remotely close to a monopoly here, and they are losing ground to newcomers, not gaining.
Walled gardens don't matter if there aren't many people locked in to them.
For your Intel example, Intel would not be the dominant CPU manufacturer in the world if they had restricted their processors to a single OS. Smaller players would have gotten fat on the niche market, where Intel currently dominates just as well as their main CPU market because they are not walled off. As the smaller players got fat in the niche markets, they would have been more able to produce competing products in Intel's primary market, and the first chip manufacturer to produce a high quality product open to all OS's would win. Instead, Intel publicly publishes its instruction set - which is what you need to write an OS for their processor. This keeps them from being married to a particular OS vendor.
That is actually how Microsoft got its monopoly - standard operating procedure at the time was for OS companies to sell the product to a company, as in it was that company's OS now, source code and all. Microsoft instead chose to license it to any company who ran the x86 chips the OS was originally designed for, which ended the era of each PC company having their own OS. They all chose Microsoft (eventually) because it allowed them to compete with other companies selling hardware that ran MS's OS.
It's the exact same thing here, just in a different market, and it happens all the time. Apple is doing the same thing it always does, which doesn't allow it to dominate a market like MS does, but they seem to be doing very well for themselves with their current strategies. However, the way they are going they aren't going to create a monopoly by any means.
I don't see an Apple monopoly in any of those areas being inevitable. In fact, it is probably impossible.
Add to that the fact that they have lost their market position to Android, and they peaked at #3 in the market (Nokia and RIM are still #1 and #2, and have been for years), and we are definitely not in a position where Apple is going to get a monopoly on these types of devices.
In fact, the only OS's capable of establishing such a monopoly are Android and Windows Mobile (depending on how good Phone 7 actually is - that's make or break for MS and smartphones). I would say Symbian too, but Nokia seems to be increasingly relying on their worldwide position to drive sales of their OS, instead of innovating like their competitors do.
iPhone OS would have already one the war if they would allow other handset makers to use their OS, but instead Apple is backing themselves into the same corner they did with PC's (it's sorta their "thing"). You get manufacturers who say "Man, I wish I could put that on my device, oh well, this other is similar, and available, I'll have to use it". Before too long "Similar but not the same" eclipses "Cool but locked in" in every way that matters, including features and applications.
This is different to Walmart deciding not to carry content its store owners find objectionable, how?
The article equates it to Kindle's pulling of 1984, which was more like Walmart giving away a book, then deciding that none of their customers should have it, and going in to everyone's home who bought the book and taking it from them.
However, I haven't seen any evidence that this is anything other than the typical App Store BS of rejecting an app (in this case, a comic book app).
It's also worth noting the creators of the app didn't feel they were being censored. To paraphrase one of the developers: "It's their rules, we're coming to dinner at their party."
Banning the book in the US 73 years ago was censorship - it was performed by the US government and applied to all copies of the book on US soil. That is censorship.
Saying "I'm not selling that in my store unless you change it" is not censorship. I hate Apple as much as the next anti-fanboy, but the article is out of line on this one. It's a far cry from real censorship, and it's well within Apple's rights to do what they are doing, douchebaggery or no.
Id say that depended rather heavily on what terms you agreed to when you bought the device, wouldnt you?
Not really, it has been well established in contract law that you cannot sign away rights guaranteed by law unless the law specifically provides for it.
For example, game shows always make contestants sign wavers that state the game show and its parent company will not be held liable in case of injury. However, if a contestant dies while performing a stunt on the show, the game show and parent company can be held liable. I'm actually thinking of a specific case where an individual was brain-damaged while competing in a game show, directly because of the stunts they were performing. The waiver was found to be completely unenforceable, and the game show and its parent company had to be paid significant damages for their actions.
There are a number of rights which simply cannot be waived. Companies use them as a CYA to hopefully prevent injured parties from pursuing the issue, and if it does go to court it can lessen the damages if the company's intentions were made very clear and the individual agreed to them. It does not eliminate their liability, even though it says it does.
For the book pulling issue, it depends. If the contract has provisions for pulling the book and refunding the value, then Apple is likely in the clear if they pulled the book and refunded the value. If the contract simply says they can pull books at any time, with no compensation, then it's likely unenforceable, and you can go ahead and sue the pants off them in a class-action suit.
Frankly, I didn't read the fucking article, so I couldn't tell you one way or the other which case this is. Still, my point is that the terms can only legally go so far, and most terms and conditions of this type very much over state what they can legally do.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+7+photo+management
Seriously, it's like one of those retarded forum users who doesn't even bother to check the first couple pages of topics before posting a question that has been answered a hundred times over.
So... Microsoft's "research" seems to come from reading competitor's product specifications
Clearly you have no idea what "research" means, if you believe that to be strange in any way.
MS seems to believe they've improved on Apple's product (they didn't mention Apple, but Apple holds the patent), and it sounds to me like they have as well, though not really spectacularly so. Still, better is better.
I'm not sure why everyone is pissing on Microsoft for making a technology better, other than the tired old Apple fanboyism and M$ hate.
What is important in these "Wake on Demand" solutions is not needing to know about the MAC address and instead having "proxy" doing the waking when you try accessing the PC via its IP address.
It's more than that, the MS solution maintains a network presence (I honestly don't know if the Apple solution does or not), which means you could have a machine that is only occasionally polled for data in a hibernation mode while appearing to remain online. The proxy maintains the connection until the machine is powered up, then the machine sends off the data and can power back down.
For end user machines in a corporate network, it means a machine is never in-accessible, even when powered down. Currently, with WOL you must have the MAC address and subnet handy to wake a powered down machine. Microsoft's proxy setup here would let you handle that in Active Directory - either on the DC or another dedicated server.
Sleep proxy is less useful for a home network, because there is no reason getting the MAC address is difficult when currently setting up WOL. However, routers enabled with a sleep proxy would make setting up WOL much easier (i.e. more automated), and would give you greater flexibility with regards to when the proxy sends a WOL command to the PC. I believe that is basically what Apple's sleep proxy is used for.