There should be an investigation, at the very least, started by the judicial departments to clarify this matter. There's a huge potential for corruption here.
By the way, I'm not sure why Samsung is given so much support here. If you replaced the judge above with the one who ruled in Apple's favour, and replaced Samsung with Apple, people here will be screaming "CORRUPTION", guaranteed. Worse still, the top voted comments include ones mocking Apple (clearly off-topic, isn't it?). Learn to look past your bias: this isn't right. Just think for a moment if such practices were condoned: as a judge looking to retire, he'd be more likely to rule for the big corps against the little guy, as there might just be a chance he'd get a nice job with a fat paycheck at the end of it.
When the 9.7" came out, people were mocking it as simply a "bigger iPod touch" with no market. This problem would only be amplified with a smaller, 7" form factor. The 9.7" made it clear that it was in a market of it's own - it's not simply a slightly bigger phone, nor a netbook without the keyboard. Considering the iPad's success, I think that it's pretty clear they got it right (with profits) either way.
Now, with Steve bashing the 7" screen factor - but OF COURSE! He's a salesman - naturally he'll work hard to tell you why his product is better, and why you shouldn't buy other alternatives. Then again, there's some truth to his opinion: having had an iPad for 3 years and moving on to a 7", I felt like the tablet wasn't offering me enough screen estate to justify bringing it out all the time - my 5" smartphone could do everything just as well. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that for some people, a 7" tablet is sufficient for their purposes.
With the rise of 5.5" and larger smartphones though, I personally think 7" tablets are becoming a smaller market. If I want something bigger than my smartphone, I'd be looking for a 9" and bigger device, not a 7" one. The only thing 7" has going for me is the price.
This is so extremely disappointing. The most informative post here describing exactly what's going on gets modded as Overrated. On the other hand, a whole SLEW of misinformation and "Apple hate" gets modded +5 Informative.
Really, sometimes I feel that the majority of Slashdot's posters are high school students who haven't learnt the basics of research and verifying information before shooting off a comment.
P.S. I'm neither pro nor anti Apple. I disagree with their consumer lock-ins but appreciate that they sparked off the smartphone revolution and development.
The extra money pays for better specs and future proofing. The Nexus 10 can probably last you longer (longer support for latest apps, longer support for new Android updates from Google) than the Fire HD can. Long-term, the Nexus 10 is definitely the better value proposition.
1.) You are implying I'm blowing 30% only to make a point, which is only partly true. The extra money pays for better specs and future proofing. The Nexus 10 can probably last you longer (longer support for latest apps, longer support for new Android updates from Google) than the Fire HD can. Long-term, the Nexus 10 is definitely the better value proposition.
2.) Tablets are in itself a luxury for most. 10 inch tablets are even more so the luxury than their 7 inch counterparts, where Nexus 7 is the priced the same as the ad-ridden Kindle Fire HD 7 inch. If you're spending 300+ dollars on a "want", 80 dollars more is barely a stretch, isn't it.
The Nexus 10 is larger, higher-res and better specced at $85 more (comparing ad-free).
I'll willing spend that much to vote with my wallet for an open, customizable device; not for one which is laden with commercials, locked to a single provider and essentially wants you to consume content only. I certainly don't want it to become like a portable TV, for viewing certain sanctioned content only.
One thing is for sure, a re-unification would take the wind out of the sails of Korea's economy for at least two decedes.
Perhaps, but Germany's economy today is one of the strongest in Europe, and the East Germans aren't worse off then they were under Communist rule (and my guess is in purely economic terms they are significantly better off). Among other things, they're actually allowed to leave the country if they don't like it - surely that counts for something.
I would also like to remind that the gap between East and West Germany is not even remotely close to that of the gap between North and South Korea. Neither was the East as brainwashed, poor and so disconnected from the times as the North.
The North lacks electricity, education, basic necessities, and is essentially frozen at the point of the split, aka 1960s-style living. Just think how different your town/city/country was 40 years ago, and how long it'd take (even on an accelerated path) to reach the present.
Kindle Fire HD isn't especially cheap or well-specced for its' price. For a little more, you can support the idea that Android users DO want devices not laden with locked bootloaders, operating systems, forced UI makeovers, etc. with a Nexus 7.
And dismissing it is the easiest way to avoid the problem and do nothing about it.
Fragmentation is a problem as it undeniably results in a subpar experience: apps that may or may not work, much more testing required for developers, slow update process (due to all those pesky vendor UIs), and apps contorted to fit resolutions it's not designed for. But most importantly of all, it guarantees you a platform where finding an exploit is lucrative: because most people will still be vulnerable months after it is announced.
People point out that iOS is a nice, unified platform to target malware. True, but remember also that Apple doesn't have to wait at the whim of vendors to push updates. Your precious 0-day exploit will be patched long before an Android-equivalent is fixed. From where I'm standing, competition is great, but fanboys from both sides are fiercely defending problems when their energies are better invested into pressurizing the developers to make something greater, which can they be proud of using.
Perhaps asking for carriers to take a completely hands-free approach to updates is too big a leap. Why not try pushing for a framework where critical system-level security updates can be distributed without carrier approval? Alternatively, just get everyone you know to stop buying devices with locked down bootloaders: I've recommended all of mine to get a Nexus, simply because they aren't as restricted. Every small effort counts.
Many users who run IE7 either have a.) no choice or b.) no idea what is IE7/IE8/IE9 and the differences between them. Instead of imposing a tax on them which confuses non-tech-savvy end-users, why not display the "IE7 not supported, please follow these instructions to upgrade"?
This tax probably unnecessarily increases complexity in their billing systems, which is never a good thing.
Despite all the negative press around Foxconn, I'd still like people to take these matters into perspective.
China is experiencing growing pains, where it sometimes sacrifices the benefits/rights of its citizens to ensure more people are fed and its economy can grow to support its population. Most other countries have experienced such pains, and have taken time to progress past that stage. Some point out that we can try to reduce the length of that stage by applying pressure. Well, the only non-destructive plan would be to inject huge amounts of money into China for them to develop their infrastructure and economy. Otherwise, any plans by a "rights activists" will simply stunt China's growth, jobs, economies and throw their citizens into poverty and joblessness.
Now, on the other hand, if your goal isn't to encourage rights in China but to "bring the jobs back" as an act of vengeance or desperation, then arguing for better rights in China might serve your goal. But don't argue for such under pretenses of desiring "far rights to all". As such arguments will do nothing to help them, and will certainly backfire.
You can't just penalize Apple, you literally have to penalize every company producing something that is more than a few components. It's not just assembly that's made of cheap labor: from resource extraction, to the production of individual components, to assembly, that exploits cheap labor. America as a whole will lose competitiveness if this was applied, as believe me, no other country will be foolhardy enough to follow.
If you thought the economy/job market was bad, try checking after this regulation is passed. Companies will literally FLEE overseas.
Irrelevant. "Joe may have killed someone, but Frank did too, so don't complain about Joe!" Being inconsistent in your calls for better treatment is much better than never calling for better treatment at all.
It's not irrelevant at all. Focusing all the attention on one company isn't going to do anyone any good. For one, the focus becomes on the company and not the workers. It attracts all the haters who prefer to focus their attention on "how apple is doing bad" and not "how we can make this better". Frankly, I've not seen a thoughtful solution here besides "Boycott Apple!". How about an organization that promotes/advertises/labels products which are made with fair labor?
The whole point of exerting economic pressure through a boycott is to make it reasonable for a company to change their behavior to get you to buy their products again. Nobody, including people protesting, want to put anyone out of business. Also, and you might be surprised by this, but China is an authoritarian country. There can be dire consequences for protesting, and so you think they are happy, but really, they are forced by the government to be "content" with their lot. We know that conditions at Foxconn's factories have been bad in the past. There's no sense in saying "Oh, but those Chinese, their HAPPY about it!"
You're assuming a lot of things without any evidence.
a.) Nobody, including people protesting, want to put anyone out of business. REALLY? Because any intelligent onlooker will know how this ends. Either Apple/China/Foxconn will do nothing except some basic PR, or Apple decides Foxconn's suicides are too costly and moves to another third-world factory. So yes, you may not "want it" but that's going to happen in reality.
b.) They're "forced to be content"? Have you even met a significant number of people from China? They're GRATEFUL for the opportunity to work, because they have never had so much as a stable job before. Many of these factory workers are funding their children's education. That's the China Dream, to give their children the opportunity they never had. They're not going to fulfill that dream if they're homeless on the street or working on a farm.
(This might sound like a pro-China shill, but seriously, change your perspective. You'll probably never understand how much they prefer working in a factory than sleeping in the streets/farming.)
Time is not the cause of anything. Progress takes time, but that's because there's stuff that happens in time, like protests, political pressure, inspections, etc. You think slavery just ceased to exist because we gave it enough time? That shows a tremendous lack of historical understanding.
Strawman. I never said Time was the SOLE cause of anything, which is what you are implying above. Time is needed, given their current growth trajectory, to grow wealth as a nation and allow their people to accumulate wealth, to pass on to their children, who will eventually climb the social-economic class through education. This takes time in terms of generations. Just as in the US, the minorities accumulated wealth and had more education opportunities over time, allowing them to improve their standard of living. Trying to act as a global gatekeeper and short circuiting this process is an exercise in futility.
Most people commenting about Foxconn have lost all perspective because they allow themselves to be blinded by Apple hate.
Let me explain why bashing Apple and Foxconn about this is so, so foolish.
1.) Poorer working conditions aren't exclusive to Apple's factories, or even Foxconn. If you're trying to uphold your ideal working conditions on workers who create products you use, please take a step back and stop buying any product from any store. I can confidently tell you that all the products you use: your computer, tech gadgets, electronics, shoes, clothes, etc. are all made by workers in poor conditions, often even poorer than that of Foxconn. Instead of protesting against Apple/Foxconn, vote with your wallet instead of bitching in an online forum and feeling self-righteous after doing so.
2.) Workers are -happy- about their job and working conditions. It's you who feel unhappy about them. Many workers are happy about their job and working conditions, in Foxconn and other such factories. These factories provide a lot of things (not just money) that they would never be able to dream of: a shelter over their head, varied meals, water, electricity, and more. Many of these people are uneducated and would be jobless otherwise. They need and are happy about these jobs. Your protesting will NOT IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. You will render them jobless (as you boycott these products and companies pull out of these countries) and effectively kill off their means of living.
3.) Progress takes time. Most Americans have forgotten their past when there were still slaves, often in FAR worse conditions than that of China. It's been proven that a country needs time to develop, and attempting to shortcut the process will lead to disastrous results. 10 years ago, these people whom you claim to be working in "poor conditions" were starving because a drought wiped out their crops. Their lives have improved, and will improve as long as they have jobs.
The article seems to gloss over the most critical point that breaks this deal, painting LightSquared as a victim in the process:
LightSquared's spectrum (which was bought from another company) was for SATELLITE transmissions, not TERRESTRIAL. Satellite spectrums are much cheaper, but can't be used for terrestrial transmissions. LightSquared is in fact trying to cheap out by using a cheaper spectrum.
Analogy: LightSquared tried to buy a plot of cheap residential land to start a chemical/manufacturing plant, which affects nearby residents. They should have bought a piece of commercial land that supports their requirements.
More technically: Satellite signals are weak as they are sent from huge distances from satellites with limited power. To receive these signals, the receivers must be tuned to be sensitive to these signals. If LightSquare were to transmit terrestrially from the bordering spectrum (to pass through walls and what-have-you), the transmitted strength will be thousands of times stronger than the GPS signals, invariably causing interference with GPS signals. Even if GPSes are built with a filter (which they shouldn't need to, the nearby spectrums should also be weak signals!), it would be prohibitively expensive/unfeasible to filter the strong terrestrial signals.
Either way, I don't see why pundits are suddenly predicting it'll disrupt the market. Maybe if they'd put a Mirasol display in there...
I'll hazard a guess here: don't underestimate Amazon's branding and market reach. The Kindle series is massively popular and has raised awareness in the e-reader market far better than any of its competitors. Many people might actually give an Android tablet a shot (not referring to geeks here) considering the stellar track record Kindle presents.
Time and again,/.ers always predict a product's performance based on it's technical merit (e.g. Apple products). What many fail to realize is that the vast majority of the consumers don't give a crap about technical merit; marketing, usability and design is really important. Amazon's services has gathered a strong following and a tablet guaranteed to work with all their services may appeal to quite a few people.
I don't think it's really fair to say at this stage that SSDs aren't more reliable than hard drives.
For one, SSDs are still rather new. Yes, they've been around for a few years but compared to hard drives they are still at the beginning of their development cycle, and it shows: firmware issues and recalls, as stated in the article, may be a heavy contributing factor to the SSD failure rates. We can expect this to drop as manufacturers continually revise their firmware and manufacturing techniques for the better. For another, the article also notes that the SSD failure rates, to this point, are rather constant. If this trend holds, SSDs can easily outstrip HDDs in reliability by the 3rd or 4th year. Finally, SSD has been coined reliable often in the perspective of the average consumer. The benefits are obvious: when mishandling occurs (which happens much more often than you'd think, even on desktops), HDDs will have a far higher chance of damage.
Hence, while the results of this article is indeed interesting, perhaps a study done when the technology matures further would be more useful.
From my limited understanding of Japanese, the article refers to reactor #3, not explosion #3. I know Slashdot has limited editors, but shouldn't you at least click and check the links before posting such an important piece of news?
Many local news outlets will pick up and spread this piece of disinformation.
So what you're saying in car analogy terms: Roads will exist, and roads will need maintenance whether they are used or not. So we shouldn't charge road users for it right, because 'the maintenance needed to be done anyways'.
Yes, the bandwidth is 'free' and SMS bandwidth will be used either ways. Just as someone needs to pay to build the roads in the first place (and more roads as the car usage goes up), someone needs to pay to build cell phone towers (and more towers as more phones are needed).
Now of course there are several ways to go about this: 1.) Everyone Tax: If cell phone service is deemed critical enough, the government taxes everyone to pay for the expansion of services. 2.) Per-Cellphone Tax: Just like the road tax, the government controls the expansion of the system through a monthly fee from all cell phone users. Of course, that means infrequent users will be charged the same high monthly fee to get SMSing. 3.) Free Market: Providers distribute the costs through various more 'tangible' services in order to allow greater accessibility to infrequent users whilst making the frequent users bear the brunt of the costs.
Since Americans scream "COMMUNIST!" at the first two options, naturally the third has taken root.
The -REAL- problem, however, is that alot of the money is not used for expansion but instead wasted by top management in terms of salary, lawyering, entertainment, etc. You need to break up your monopolies, America, or let the government intervene.
Printer drivers were just one of the examples. I suspect this guy doesn't know much about the specifics, and his comptroller just told him it's more financially viable to switch back to Windows.
Frankly, I believe that Linux is causing a great deal of inconvenience to both them and businesses that work with them. Just Microsoft Office alone and the poor job OpenOffice does of transparently replacing it is sufficient to piss off a whole lot of employees.
It's hard to put a hard figure on lost productivity as employees are encumbered by inexperience or poor UI. Training helps (and that costs quite a nice amount too), but I'm pretty certain employees work far faster on a UI they're familiar with.
I've recommended linux to my friends who are using netbook, i.e. mostly sharing common configurations with no obscure hardware expected. Whilst they don't have driver issues, the most common complaints are:
- Poor and inconsistent UI. They particularly hated that Ubuntu was swapping the buttons around often. - Many open source software are feature-incomplete when compared to their commercial counterparts. - Linux desktop (esp. Ubuntu) is very unstable when it comes to updates; half the time the updates would break something for them.
Typical overlooking of economic factors in your argument, i.e. economies of scale.
You're forgetting that in 5-10 years, many developing nations (most notably China) will have higher mean incomes. As demand for monochrome displays drop significantly and that of smart phones rise, it is highly possible that due to economies of scale, a monochrome display will cost MORE than a smart screen phone, simply due to the waning demand.
Case in point: DDR2 memory today is now cheaper than the DDR memory it replaced.
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There should be an investigation, at the very least, started by the judicial departments to clarify this matter. There's a huge potential for corruption here.
By the way, I'm not sure why Samsung is given so much support here. If you replaced the judge above with the one who ruled in Apple's favour, and replaced Samsung with Apple, people here will be screaming "CORRUPTION", guaranteed.
Worse still, the top voted comments include ones mocking Apple (clearly off-topic, isn't it?).
Learn to look past your bias: this isn't right. Just think for a moment if such practices were condoned: as a judge looking to retire, he'd be more likely to rule for the big corps against the little guy, as there might just be a chance he'd get a nice job with a fat paycheck at the end of it.
When the 9.7" came out, people were mocking it as simply a "bigger iPod touch" with no market. This problem would only be amplified with a smaller, 7" form factor.
The 9.7" made it clear that it was in a market of it's own - it's not simply a slightly bigger phone, nor a netbook without the keyboard.
Considering the iPad's success, I think that it's pretty clear they got it right (with profits) either way.
Now, with Steve bashing the 7" screen factor - but OF COURSE! He's a salesman - naturally he'll work hard to tell you why his product is better, and why you shouldn't buy other alternatives.
Then again, there's some truth to his opinion: having had an iPad for 3 years and moving on to a 7", I felt like the tablet wasn't offering me enough screen estate to justify bringing it out all the time - my 5" smartphone could do everything just as well. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that for some people, a 7" tablet is sufficient for their purposes.
With the rise of 5.5" and larger smartphones though, I personally think 7" tablets are becoming a smaller market. If I want something bigger than my smartphone, I'd be looking for a 9" and bigger device, not a 7" one. The only thing 7" has going for me is the price.
This is so extremely disappointing. The most informative post here describing exactly what's going on gets modded as Overrated. On the other hand, a whole SLEW of misinformation and "Apple hate" gets modded +5 Informative.
Really, sometimes I feel that the majority of Slashdot's posters are high school students who haven't learnt the basics of research and verifying information before shooting off a comment.
P.S. I'm neither pro nor anti Apple. I disagree with their consumer lock-ins but appreciate that they sparked off the smartphone revolution and development.
The extra money pays for better specs and future proofing. The Nexus 10 can probably last you longer (longer support for latest apps, longer support for new Android updates from Google) than the Fire HD can. Long-term, the Nexus 10 is definitely the better value proposition.
A few points of contention here...
1.) You are implying I'm blowing 30% only to make a point, which is only partly true. The extra money pays for better specs and future proofing. The Nexus 10 can probably last you longer (longer support for latest apps, longer support for new Android updates from Google) than the Fire HD can. Long-term, the Nexus 10 is definitely the better value proposition.
2.) Tablets are in itself a luxury for most. 10 inch tablets are even more so the luxury than their 7 inch counterparts, where Nexus 7 is the priced the same as the ad-ridden Kindle Fire HD 7 inch. If you're spending 300+ dollars on a "want", 80 dollars more is barely a stretch, isn't it.
The Nexus 10 is larger, higher-res and better specced at $85 more (comparing ad-free).
I'll willing spend that much to vote with my wallet for an open, customizable device; not for one which is laden with commercials, locked to a single provider and essentially wants you to consume content only. I certainly don't want it to become like a portable TV, for viewing certain sanctioned content only.
One thing is for sure, a re-unification would take the wind out of the sails of Korea's economy for at least two decedes.
Perhaps, but Germany's economy today is one of the strongest in Europe, and the East Germans aren't worse off then they were under Communist rule (and my guess is in purely economic terms they are significantly better off). Among other things, they're actually allowed to leave the country if they don't like it - surely that counts for something.
I would also like to remind that the gap between East and West Germany is not even remotely close to that of the gap between North and South Korea.
Neither was the East as brainwashed, poor and so disconnected from the times as the North.
The North lacks electricity, education, basic necessities, and is essentially frozen at the point of the split, aka 1960s-style living.
Just think how different your town/city/country was 40 years ago, and how long it'd take (even on an accelerated path) to reach the present.
Kindle Fire HD isn't especially cheap or well-specced for its' price. For a little more, you can support the idea that Android users DO want devices not laden with locked bootloaders, operating systems, forced UI makeovers, etc. with a Nexus 7.
And dismissing it is the easiest way to avoid the problem and do nothing about it.
Fragmentation is a problem as it undeniably results in a subpar experience: apps that may or may not work, much more testing required for developers, slow update process (due to all those pesky vendor UIs), and apps contorted to fit resolutions it's not designed for.
But most importantly of all, it guarantees you a platform where finding an exploit is lucrative: because most people will still be vulnerable months after it is announced.
People point out that iOS is a nice, unified platform to target malware. True, but remember also that Apple doesn't have to wait at the whim of vendors to push updates. Your precious 0-day exploit will be patched long before an Android-equivalent is fixed.
From where I'm standing, competition is great, but fanboys from both sides are fiercely defending problems when their energies are better invested into pressurizing the developers to make something greater, which can they be proud of using.
Perhaps asking for carriers to take a completely hands-free approach to updates is too big a leap. Why not try pushing for a framework where critical system-level security updates can be distributed without carrier approval? Alternatively, just get everyone you know to stop buying devices with locked down bootloaders: I've recommended all of mine to get a Nexus, simply because they aren't as restricted. Every small effort counts.
Many users who run IE7 either have a.) no choice or b.) no idea what is IE7/IE8/IE9 and the differences between them.
Instead of imposing a tax on them which confuses non-tech-savvy end-users, why not display the "IE7 not supported, please follow these instructions to upgrade"?
This tax probably unnecessarily increases complexity in their billing systems, which is never a good thing.
Despite all the negative press around Foxconn, I'd still like people to take these matters into perspective.
China is experiencing growing pains, where it sometimes sacrifices the benefits/rights of its citizens to ensure more people are fed and its economy can grow to support its population. Most other countries have experienced such pains, and have taken time to progress past that stage. Some point out that we can try to reduce the length of that stage by applying pressure. Well, the only non-destructive plan would be to inject huge amounts of money into China for them to develop their infrastructure and economy. Otherwise, any plans by a "rights activists" will simply stunt China's growth, jobs, economies and throw their citizens into poverty and joblessness.
Now, on the other hand, if your goal isn't to encourage rights in China but to "bring the jobs back" as an act of vengeance or desperation, then arguing for better rights in China might serve your goal. But don't argue for such under pretenses of desiring "far rights to all". As such arguments will do nothing to help them, and will certainly backfire.
Your government will never do that.
You can't just penalize Apple, you literally have to penalize every company producing something that is more than a few components.
It's not just assembly that's made of cheap labor: from resource extraction, to the production of individual components, to assembly, that exploits cheap labor.
America as a whole will lose competitiveness if this was applied, as believe me, no other country will be foolhardy enough to follow.
If you thought the economy/job market was bad, try checking after this regulation is passed.
Companies will literally FLEE overseas.
Irrelevant. "Joe may have killed someone, but Frank did too, so don't complain about Joe!" Being inconsistent in your calls for better treatment is much better than never calling for better treatment at all.
It's not irrelevant at all. Focusing all the attention on one company isn't going to do anyone any good. For one, the focus becomes on the company and not the workers. It attracts all the haters who prefer to focus their attention on "how apple is doing bad" and not "how we can make this better". Frankly, I've not seen a thoughtful solution here besides "Boycott Apple!". How about an organization that promotes/advertises/labels products which are made with fair labor?
The whole point of exerting economic pressure through a boycott is to make it reasonable for a company to change their behavior to get you to buy their products again. Nobody, including people protesting, want to put anyone out of business. Also, and you might be surprised by this, but China is an authoritarian country. There can be dire consequences for protesting, and so you think they are happy, but really, they are forced by the government to be "content" with their lot. We know that conditions at Foxconn's factories have been bad in the past. There's no sense in saying "Oh, but those Chinese, their HAPPY about it!"
You're assuming a lot of things without any evidence.
a.) Nobody, including people protesting, want to put anyone out of business.
REALLY? Because any intelligent onlooker will know how this ends. Either Apple/China/Foxconn will do nothing except some basic PR, or Apple decides Foxconn's suicides are too costly and moves to another third-world factory. So yes, you may not "want it" but that's going to happen in reality.
b.) They're "forced to be content"? Have you even met a significant number of people from China? They're GRATEFUL for the opportunity to work, because they have never had so much as a stable job before. Many of these factory workers are funding their children's education. That's the China Dream, to give their children the opportunity they never had. They're not going to fulfill that dream if they're homeless on the street or working on a farm.
(This might sound like a pro-China shill, but seriously, change your perspective. You'll probably never understand how much they prefer working in a factory than sleeping in the streets/farming.)
Time is not the cause of anything. Progress takes time, but that's because there's stuff that happens in time, like protests, political pressure, inspections, etc. You think slavery just ceased to exist because we gave it enough time? That shows a tremendous lack of historical understanding.
Strawman. I never said Time was the SOLE cause of anything, which is what you are implying above.
Time is needed, given their current growth trajectory, to grow wealth as a nation and allow their people to accumulate wealth, to pass on to their children, who will eventually climb the social-economic class through education. This takes time in terms of generations. Just as in the US, the minorities accumulated wealth and had more education opportunities over time, allowing them to improve their standard of living. Trying to act as a global gatekeeper and short circuiting this process is an exercise in futility.
Most people commenting about Foxconn have lost all perspective because they allow themselves to be blinded by Apple hate.
Let me explain why bashing Apple and Foxconn about this is so, so foolish.
1.) Poorer working conditions aren't exclusive to Apple's factories, or even Foxconn.
If you're trying to uphold your ideal working conditions on workers who create products you use, please take a step back and stop buying any product from any store. I can confidently tell you that all the products you use: your computer, tech gadgets, electronics, shoes, clothes, etc. are all made by workers in poor conditions, often even poorer than that of Foxconn. Instead of protesting against Apple/Foxconn, vote with your wallet instead of bitching in an online forum and feeling self-righteous after doing so.
2.) Workers are -happy- about their job and working conditions. It's you who feel unhappy about them.
Many workers are happy about their job and working conditions, in Foxconn and other such factories. These factories provide a lot of things (not just money) that they would never be able to dream of: a shelter over their head, varied meals, water, electricity, and more. Many of these people are uneducated and would be jobless otherwise. They need and are happy about these jobs. Your protesting will NOT IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. You will render them jobless (as you boycott these products and companies pull out of these countries) and effectively kill off their means of living.
3.) Progress takes time.
Most Americans have forgotten their past when there were still slaves, often in FAR worse conditions than that of China. It's been proven that a country needs time to develop, and attempting to shortcut the process will lead to disastrous results. 10 years ago, these people whom you claim to be working in "poor conditions" were starving because a drought wiped out their crops. Their lives have improved, and will improve as long as they have jobs.
The article seems to gloss over the most critical point that breaks this deal, painting LightSquared as a victim in the process:
LightSquared's spectrum (which was bought from another company) was for SATELLITE transmissions, not TERRESTRIAL.
Satellite spectrums are much cheaper, but can't be used for terrestrial transmissions.
LightSquared is in fact trying to cheap out by using a cheaper spectrum.
Analogy:
LightSquared tried to buy a plot of cheap residential land to start a chemical/manufacturing plant, which affects nearby residents.
They should have bought a piece of commercial land that supports their requirements.
More technically:
Satellite signals are weak as they are sent from huge distances from satellites with limited power. To receive these signals, the receivers must be tuned to be sensitive to these signals. If LightSquare were to transmit terrestrially from the bordering spectrum (to pass through walls and what-have-you), the transmitted strength will be thousands of times stronger than the GPS signals, invariably causing interference with GPS signals. Even if GPSes are built with a filter (which they shouldn't need to, the nearby spectrums should also be weak signals!), it would be prohibitively expensive/unfeasible to filter the strong terrestrial signals.
Either way, I don't see why pundits are suddenly predicting it'll disrupt the market. Maybe if they'd put a Mirasol display in there...
I'll hazard a guess here: don't underestimate Amazon's branding and market reach.
The Kindle series is massively popular and has raised awareness in the e-reader market far better than any of its competitors.
Many people might actually give an Android tablet a shot (not referring to geeks here) considering the stellar track record Kindle presents.
Time and again, /.ers always predict a product's performance based on it's technical merit (e.g. Apple products).
What many fail to realize is that the vast majority of the consumers don't give a crap about technical merit; marketing, usability and design is really important.
Amazon's services has gathered a strong following and a tablet guaranteed to work with all their services may appeal to quite a few people.
I don't think it's really fair to say at this stage that SSDs aren't more reliable than hard drives.
For one, SSDs are still rather new. Yes, they've been around for a few years but compared to hard drives they are still at the beginning of their development cycle, and it shows: firmware issues and recalls, as stated in the article, may be a heavy contributing factor to the SSD failure rates. We can expect this to drop as manufacturers continually revise their firmware and manufacturing techniques for the better.
For another, the article also notes that the SSD failure rates, to this point, are rather constant. If this trend holds, SSDs can easily outstrip HDDs in reliability by the 3rd or 4th year.
Finally, SSD has been coined reliable often in the perspective of the average consumer. The benefits are obvious: when mishandling occurs (which happens much more often than you'd think, even on desktops), HDDs will have a far higher chance of damage.
Hence, while the results of this article is indeed interesting, perhaps a study done when the technology matures further would be more useful.
Just because many companies astroturf their products doesn't make it right, it is still false advertising.
They should be called out for it and these actions should be discouraged (preferably by law).
And that's exactly what this article attempts to do.
Subway wants to provide us with food, because they want to know what we eat.
Let's stop that "evil empire" by eating.
The answer isn't to stop consuming, but rather to encourage increased competition.
This is correct.
From my limited understanding of Japanese, the article refers to reactor #3, not explosion #3.
I know Slashdot has limited editors, but shouldn't you at least click and check the links before posting such an important piece of news?
Many local news outlets will pick up and spread this piece of disinformation.
So what you're saying in car analogy terms:
Roads will exist, and roads will need maintenance whether they are used or not. So we shouldn't charge road users for it right, because 'the maintenance needed to be done anyways'.
Yes, the bandwidth is 'free' and SMS bandwidth will be used either ways.
Just as someone needs to pay to build the roads in the first place (and more roads as the car usage goes up), someone needs to pay to build cell phone towers (and more towers as more phones are needed).
Now of course there are several ways to go about this:
1.) Everyone Tax: If cell phone service is deemed critical enough, the government taxes everyone to pay for the expansion of services.
2.) Per-Cellphone Tax: Just like the road tax, the government controls the expansion of the system through a monthly fee from all cell phone users. Of course, that means infrequent users will be charged the same high monthly fee to get SMSing.
3.) Free Market: Providers distribute the costs through various more 'tangible' services in order to allow greater accessibility to infrequent users whilst making the frequent users bear the brunt of the costs.
Since Americans scream "COMMUNIST!" at the first two options, naturally the third has taken root.
The -REAL- problem, however, is that alot of the money is not used for expansion but instead wasted by top management in terms of salary, lawyering, entertainment, etc.
You need to break up your monopolies, America, or let the government intervene.
Printer drivers were just one of the examples.
I suspect this guy doesn't know much about the specifics, and his comptroller just told him it's more financially viable to switch back to Windows.
Frankly, I believe that Linux is causing a great deal of inconvenience to both them and businesses that work with them.
Just Microsoft Office alone and the poor job OpenOffice does of transparently replacing it is sufficient to piss off a whole lot of employees.
It's hard to put a hard figure on lost productivity as employees are encumbered by inexperience or poor UI.
Training helps (and that costs quite a nice amount too), but I'm pretty certain employees work far faster on a UI they're familiar with.
It's not simply chicken and egg.
I've recommended linux to my friends who are using netbook, i.e. mostly sharing common configurations with no obscure hardware expected.
Whilst they don't have driver issues, the most common complaints are:
- Poor and inconsistent UI. They particularly hated that Ubuntu was swapping the buttons around often.
- Many open source software are feature-incomplete when compared to their commercial counterparts.
- Linux desktop (esp. Ubuntu) is very unstable when it comes to updates; half the time the updates would break something for them.
Typical overlooking of economic factors in your argument, i.e. economies of scale.
You're forgetting that in 5-10 years, many developing nations (most notably China) will have higher mean incomes.
As demand for monochrome displays drop significantly and that of smart phones rise, it is highly possible that due to economies of scale, a monochrome display will cost MORE than a smart screen phone, simply due to the waning demand.
Case in point: DDR2 memory today is now cheaper than the DDR memory it replaced.