You think Apple doesn't have enough margin on iPhones to continue to make a profit on a domestic iPhone? Apple has a couple hundred billion dollars in cash right now. That's enough to buy a $1000 phone for every household in the US.
Apple doesn't set their price based on costs at all. It's based on how much their customers will pay.
The computer is the first part of any home appliance that breaks, and it is completely unnecessary in most cases.
That's a quality control / hardening issue, not the fact that it's technology. And with most of my home appliances that have ever failed, it's junk buttons or touch buttons that fail long before the actual "computer". I have a microwave that works perfectly fine aside from 4 of the 10 number pad buttons failing.
I'd rather have an oven with a digital temperature display and even a built-in timer function than a dial. And especially since it has the "cooktop on" and "surface hot" indicator/reminder lights (both requiring logic controllers / CPU).
And I'm only as far south as Southern Illinois. I don't even know how to describe 90 degrees (32* C) with near 100% humidity and heat index values of 115 (46 * C) and what it makes the inside of your car feel like after it's been sitting there all day (around 55* C).
But we're having a mild winter and it's 59* today (15* C) while only being below freezing for half the week. Can't believe Slashdot can't even handle the degree symbol -
When I get home from a long stretch away, the furnace has plenty of time to warm the house up before I get to stop moving long enough to notice the temperature inside.
Which is why it's a lot more important for air conditioning. It can take a couple hours to feel cool, especially in high humidity.
Also, in the winter, you want to prevent your pipes from freezing. Easy, just set your temp way down to 50 degrees or so and it won't get cold enough for them to freeze. No need for a fancy thermostat for that. In the summer and you're gone, the humidity can creep into high levels that could eventually lead to wood damage/wear. The Nest can be set up to run the AC to bring down the humidity, even in away mode.
It's true, I don't have pets. But in a multi-zone system, you could keep one closed off area temperature-controlled for them, but not the whole house. Though Nest doesn't really enable that. There are probably other smart thermostats with better granular control or API access.
Auto-away has worked okay except when the Christmas tree is in the way and it goes to 64 F while we are home.
Their big downfall is not allowing remote sensors or a remote sensor API other than buying another nest (and what - hooking it up to a 24VAC outlet?) or getting one of their smoke detectors.
They could run the heat manually if the thermostat was on. The design allowed the battery to drain itself and put the thermostat completely offline.
Since they use a hosted server for remote control, they really need to update their apps to alert you and email you when the thermostat has not made contact in several hours.
Agree that the main use case is easy programming. But the one advantage to remote connection is pre-heating / pre-cooling your home after being gone for several hours/days. I don't think it requires a cloud service, but it's likely to be more secure than a Linksys router with remote management turned on. They can fix security holes on their infrastructure side.
The big downside is that when they say it's unsupported is that it's likely to quit working altogether.
You don't have low-voltage thermostat wiring. That's somewhat rare (in the US, at least). Most people have a 24V system that controls relays for the full voltage on the heater (and AC) itself.
Auto-detect because nobody ever gets their programming schedule right. But being able to remotely pre-heat or pre-cool after being away for a long trip is really nice.
You can set the thermostat to away mode manually or it will set auto-away based on activity detection sensors.
I think Nest thermostats are even more popular in vacation homes than regular homes due to the remote control and monitoring aspect. Especially since vacation homes are afforded by the people who won't think twice about $200 for a thermostat.
OK, so you're missing out on a lot of energy savings heating your home when you forget to set it each time you come in and out. And if you haven't calibrated your metal coil thermostat, the temperature reading is going to be way off. Still functional, but you are probably dealing with imaginary numbers for temperatures by now.
Plus if you're gone for a week, you can't have it automatically come back to temperature before you arrive. Even a simple programmable can do that, but the Nest is (mostly) easier than those because of remote manual control.
It functions during a power outage (it's screen makes a decent emergency light in a hallway when you pass by). Its circuitry doesn't run on 24V (or AC) and is actually designed to charge from a range of low-voltage systems (not just a single voltage). Much easier to have a variable input charger for a battery.
And if it loses power but your home doesn't, it can even alert you to the fact.
I have a Nest (unaffected by the bug). The temperature UI for the nest literally works the same way. The outer ring turns and it changes the set temperature. So it's not hard to use.
I don't think the Nest team tests their firmware updates as well as they should, but there's only a few hardware variations. This could have been prevented with better testing. It's true that they're making the same mistakes that force you to buy a new phone every couple years (new OS versions pack in too many features and slow down the older hardware). I want a Nest that stays the same aside from security updates for 10-15 years and a user-replaceable battery. I doubt I'll get that, but I'd rather buy something than nothing.
I don't think Internet connectivity is bad for a thermostat, especially for extended time away from home. I have a Nest for that reason. Nobody's at home during the day, so the heat stays off. If I'm gone for a whole weekend, I can turn the heat back on a couple hours before getting home.
Looks like there are HDCP certification services that will test your device for under $5000 (Simplay Labs). I assume they would be liable if the device was actually non-compliant.
Firewire was directly attached to the memory space - by design. It was trivial to get to system RAM this way. It was designed for speed, not security.
Hardware encryption does make a difference. Most PCs do not use it. I'm not sure how background tasks while locked work on an iPhone. Accessing the RAM on the iPhone would be very difficult since it's part of the SoC. Good luck getting to that without powering off the phone and wiping the RAM in the process.
You have to abide by state law when you're in that state.
The law only applies to the sale or lease of the phones. Not the usage.
But on IOS, the encryption chip doesn't even share the UID with the OS. I don't think Apple can build a backdoored version without modifying the hardware.
Let "The Invisible Hand" slap them up alongside the head when it comes time to collect sales taxes. B-)
They'll want use tax for that. Doesn't mean they'll get it or have a good way to enforce it, but it doesn't strictly exempt you from tax: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_an...
On the other hand, you get to credit any sales tax paid in the other state against your use tax owed. So they won't get much anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
All while violating NAFTA and TPP...
US Businesses? How many large businesses aren't multinational corporations headquartered in Ireland these days?
You think Apple doesn't have enough margin on iPhones to continue to make a profit on a domestic iPhone? Apple has a couple hundred billion dollars in cash right now. That's enough to buy a $1000 phone for every household in the US.
Apple doesn't set their price based on costs at all. It's based on how much their customers will pay.
The computer is the first part of any home appliance that breaks, and it is completely unnecessary in most cases.
That's a quality control / hardening issue, not the fact that it's technology. And with most of my home appliances that have ever failed, it's junk buttons or touch buttons that fail long before the actual "computer". I have a microwave that works perfectly fine aside from 4 of the 10 number pad buttons failing.
I'd rather have an oven with a digital temperature display and even a built-in timer function than a dial. And especially since it has the "cooktop on" and "surface hot" indicator/reminder lights (both requiring logic controllers / CPU).
Reading yes, sending commands, no.
The tractor was shrinkwrapped. EULA inside.
And I'm only as far south as Southern Illinois. I don't even know how to describe 90 degrees (32* C) with near 100% humidity and heat index values of 115 (46 * C) and what it makes the inside of your car feel like after it's been sitting there all day (around 55* C).
But we're having a mild winter and it's 59* today (15* C) while only being below freezing for half the week. Can't believe Slashdot can't even handle the degree symbol -
When I get home from a long stretch away, the furnace has plenty of time to warm the house up before I get to stop moving long enough to notice the temperature inside.
Which is why it's a lot more important for air conditioning. It can take a couple hours to feel cool, especially in high humidity.
Also, in the winter, you want to prevent your pipes from freezing. Easy, just set your temp way down to 50 degrees or so and it won't get cold enough for them to freeze. No need for a fancy thermostat for that. In the summer and you're gone, the humidity can creep into high levels that could eventually lead to wood damage/wear. The Nest can be set up to run the AC to bring down the humidity, even in away mode.
It's true, I don't have pets. But in a multi-zone system, you could keep one closed off area temperature-controlled for them, but not the whole house. Though Nest doesn't really enable that. There are probably other smart thermostats with better granular control or API access.
If the circuit breaker for the furnace gets tripped, this would at least tell you something's up rather than just staying dark.
Auto-away has worked okay except when the Christmas tree is in the way and it goes to 64 F while we are home.
Their big downfall is not allowing remote sensors or a remote sensor API other than buying another nest (and what - hooking it up to a 24VAC outlet?) or getting one of their smoke detectors.
They could run the heat manually if the thermostat was on. The design allowed the battery to drain itself and put the thermostat completely offline.
Since they use a hosted server for remote control, they really need to update their apps to alert you and email you when the thermostat has not made contact in several hours.
Agree that the main use case is easy programming. But the one advantage to remote connection is pre-heating / pre-cooling your home after being gone for several hours/days. I don't think it requires a cloud service, but it's likely to be more secure than a Linksys router with remote management turned on. They can fix security holes on their infrastructure side.
The big downside is that when they say it's unsupported is that it's likely to quit working altogether.
You don't have low-voltage thermostat wiring. That's somewhat rare (in the US, at least). Most people have a 24V system that controls relays for the full voltage on the heater (and AC) itself.
Auto-detect because nobody ever gets their programming schedule right. But being able to remotely pre-heat or pre-cool after being away for a long trip is really nice.
You can set the thermostat to away mode manually or it will set auto-away based on activity detection sensors.
I think Nest thermostats are even more popular in vacation homes than regular homes due to the remote control and monitoring aspect. Especially since vacation homes are afforded by the people who won't think twice about $200 for a thermostat.
OK, so you're missing out on a lot of energy savings heating your home when you forget to set it each time you come in and out. And if you haven't calibrated your metal coil thermostat, the temperature reading is going to be way off. Still functional, but you are probably dealing with imaginary numbers for temperatures by now.
Plus if you're gone for a week, you can't have it automatically come back to temperature before you arrive. Even a simple programmable can do that, but the Nest is (mostly) easier than those because of remote manual control.
It functions during a power outage (it's screen makes a decent emergency light in a hallway when you pass by). Its circuitry doesn't run on 24V (or AC) and is actually designed to charge from a range of low-voltage systems (not just a single voltage). Much easier to have a variable input charger for a battery.
And if it loses power but your home doesn't, it can even alert you to the fact.
I have a Nest (unaffected by the bug). The temperature UI for the nest literally works the same way. The outer ring turns and it changes the set temperature. So it's not hard to use.
I don't think the Nest team tests their firmware updates as well as they should, but there's only a few hardware variations. This could have been prevented with better testing. It's true that they're making the same mistakes that force you to buy a new phone every couple years (new OS versions pack in too many features and slow down the older hardware). I want a Nest that stays the same aside from security updates for 10-15 years and a user-replaceable battery. I doubt I'll get that, but I'd rather buy something than nothing.
I don't think Internet connectivity is bad for a thermostat, especially for extended time away from home. I have a Nest for that reason. Nobody's at home during the day, so the heat stays off. If I'm gone for a whole weekend, I can turn the heat back on a couple hours before getting home.
I haven't read the HDCP agreement myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it forbade modification of the video signal.
You can definitely modify the video signal - http://support.xbox.com/en-US/...
Looks like there are HDCP certification services that will test your device for under $5000 (Simplay Labs). I assume they would be liable if the device was actually non-compliant.
Firewire was directly attached to the memory space - by design. It was trivial to get to system RAM this way. It was designed for speed, not security.
Hardware encryption does make a difference. Most PCs do not use it. I'm not sure how background tasks while locked work on an iPhone. Accessing the RAM on the iPhone would be very difficult since it's part of the SoC. Good luck getting to that without powering off the phone and wiping the RAM in the process.
What on earth does that have to do with compliance and robustness? That's just unprofitable, not non-compliant.
You have to abide by state law when you're in that state.
The law only applies to the sale or lease of the phones. Not the usage.
But on IOS, the encryption chip doesn't even share the UID with the OS. I don't think Apple can build a backdoored version without modifying the hardware.
So that adds four states to the list, and the distinction only affects about half the state's population. Does that really change the point?
Let "The Invisible Hand" slap them up alongside the head when it comes time to collect sales taxes. B-)
They'll want use tax for that. Doesn't mean they'll get it or have a good way to enforce it, but it doesn't strictly exempt you from tax: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_an...
On the other hand, you get to credit any sales tax paid in the other state against your use tax owed. So they won't get much anyway.
I mean to specify the Apple iPhone. Though I assume Android uses some kind of TPM in a similar way.