It tells me they intended to have something akin to a reservist army who should own weapons if called upon to defend the state. That most certainly does not describe the situation as it is now by a long shot.
Any app store for Windows RT/8 is likely to operate along the same lines as the Apple store - 70/30 cut or similar. Of course they could be evil / good depending on your point of view and be more like Amazon's app store where they can discount all the way down to 20% list price. I expect they will offer discounts and be "competitive" insofar as prices go, not insofar as having an unfair prominence on the desktop
p
Anyway Steam's prices are monumentally awful for the most part. Sales are the only reason I even bother with the service. The rest of time it's more expensive than any bricks and mortar store.Kind of beside the point though.
The problem is people don't want to port Java apps, they want to port Android apps. It's not much good supplying some API which is totally different to Android including the APIs that UIs are designed with. Basically it needs to be something which compiles Dalvik byte code into LLVM byte code and links with associated runtimes.
If Steam is coming to TVs it seems far more likely to me that they'd do stuff in the cloud. Why bother with all that downloading crap when you can just pipe the video over the internet. It could still have relevance since I expect there are significant cost savings for Valve if game instances could be run on Linux instead of Windows.
And doubtless this is how the vast majority of games will appear on Linux. Not native in the sense of using native APIs, but either recompiled against winelib or a derivative or running over WINE or a derivative directly. I have no problem with this.
The power of the default. If Windows ships with Microsoft's app and game store then Steam is going to die a death. Over time people won't even bother installing Steam because why should they when they can buy their games at the same price with the store which ships with the OS. I'm sure Valve are already feeling the effects of a similar strategy in OS X where Apple ships a default store.
IMO it's extremely anti-competitive and just begging for a lawsuit which could portentially catch Apple, Microsoft and Google in its crosshairs. Doubtless they'd all proclaim their OS is "open", but at the same time if they install their own store by default, that is hardly fair at all. I can see all being compelled to offer consumers something similar to a browser chooser which lets them pick the store they want.
Then there's Windows RT where there won't be a choice AT ALL. Steam isn't even an option on such a device. Even if Valve or its publishers recompiled some games to run on ARM they wouldn't be able to install them because the store wouldn't let them. If Steam appears on Windows RT at all it will likely be in some emasculated form where you can't actually buy or install anything, just look at your achievements and stuff.
I suppose therefore from their standpoint it makes sense to widen their deploy base but equally it could just be a power play to give them some leverage to negotiate themselves a prime position in Windows. It may well be that in return the Linux support gets dropped or de prioritized.
Sites don't really relish the idea of Microsoft or anyone else looking after their keys for them. Microsoft tried the idea with Passport and it didn't take off even if the concept. I recall AOL had their own SSO called Magic Carpet which did more or less the same thing. It evolved into OpenID and OAuth but now there are so many SSO services the situation is little better.
There is also the case to be made that it's a terrible idea to use a single key to open multiple random websites. Maybe it's a convenience for throwaway forum stuff but I don't think I'd want Amazon, eBay and my bank all controlled by a single sign on. It's probably a terrible idea from a privacy perspective for SSO to happen on sites belonging to the same organisation. Look how Google has consolidated and modified it's terms so they can basically merge identities together from their sites like GMail and YouTube any way they see fit. One minute you think you're using two distinct aliases, the next suddenly your real name is tagged against everything.
I've spent more than enough time going through very specific flaws with Windows 8 in the past. I couldn't care less if the start menu goes providing what replaces it provides analogous functionality and refinement. It doesn't, not by a long shot. Turning 40+ program groups into a linear list of brown tiles spanning multiple horizontal screens is just awful behaviour and I could go on citing issues but I'd only repeat what I've said previously. It is bad. I'm all in favour of metro if it accomodates mouse and keyboard users but at the moment it doesn't. It is clear to me that Microsoft are in a sprint to make the OS tablet friendly and everything else has fallen by the wayside.
I think the main lock-in for Apple is the content people buy, especially if they keep it in the cloud - apps, videos, music etc. That's the lock-in. The trick is not to play at all or at least purchase content (except for apps) which were platform neutral so if the worst came to the worst you could hop from one smart phone OS to another.
Anyway I think the EU will lose patience if Apple does not implement a proper micro USB port on their devices. Selling a ludicrously expensive dongle knowing no one will buy it is hardly keeping to the spirit or the intent of external power supply agreement. Of course that isn't the end of it since Apple will use proprietary protocols and encryption to ensure that their proprietary cable is even more restricted in future. I really don't understand why anyone would buy such a device.
The comment said that the experience of using Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard was bad. Since that covers virtually 100% of all existing deployments and likely 95% of deployments even into the next few years I think it pretty significant. Of course what the analyst said is not surprising to anyone who has used the preview releases. The experience with mouse and keyboard IS bad.
I don't blame the change in UI for that so much as the replacement simply isn't mature or refined enough to be called a replacement. E.g. if metro supported folders then it could group tiles together it could show program folders pretty much how they are now, but it doesn't so it implements a kludge where it strips out any start menu items such as Uninstall, Readme etc. and leaves just the executables in a flat linear list. It sucks balls basically. If / when groups appears this behaviour would be markedly improved. Similarly if a user could zoom in or out to maximize the amount of tiles this too would be better but they can't.
So eventually they'll get there and no doubt intend an accelerated 8,5 "desktop edition" or Windows 9 but as it stands Windows 8 blows on the desktop. I'm certain Microsoft's rationale is to make a beeline for tablet land and then worry about fixing the behaviour for everyone else but that is cold comfort for everyone else.
Apple signed a memorandum of understanding along with other manufacturers with the EU to ensure their phone devices can be charged from a USB charger through micro USB. Did they include a micro USB port in the 4S? Of course not. They produced an £8 dongle for their device which ensures practically nobody would bother with it and stuck with their existing proprietary dock. At least for the time being their devices will charge through USB with a proprietary cable.
I think even as it stands they run the risk of pissing off the EU so much they'll get sanctioned in some way. If they move even further away from their MoU such as by dumping USB entirely they'll definitely be in trouble. It's also likely that that the EU would be desirous of getting tablets and perhaps even laptops to agree to a common external power supply format so that the problem with phones doesn't happen again somewhere else. I'm sure if they do that Apple will try their best to subvert the process again.
It's kind of strange that Google aren't using LLVM to abstract away architectural differences without compromising performance. They use LLVM in Renderscript but not the NDK. It's a bit strange. It would be in Intel's interest to sponsor the work.
Android support different resolutions just fine, but as a developer I can tell you what a gigantic pain in the ass this is. Layouts may look fine in one layout or resolution and terrible in another so you spend an inordinate amount of time fine tuning them to cope, or you multiply your pain by implementing specific layouts for specific device formats. When tablets turned up, the existing ldpi, mdpi, hdpi model proved inadequate so Android lets you write layouts that only fire when resolution is horizontally greater than some amount or other criteria but this only works in 3.x+. There are things you can do to keep the pain down (e.g. decompose layouts so you can reuse stuff) but it's still pain. Testing time also increases since you must test frequently in different devices and profiles to ensure it works.
You can get a flavour of the pain by reading what Google suggests to make apps run on the Nexus 7.
Apple has the advantage of owning the hardware and the software so there are a fix number of resolutions to support. I think if they start producing half-way house designs like larger iPhones or smaller iPads that they'll run into the same problem.
It's impossible for Apple to review every program or test it to a degree to ensure it's safety. All the bad guys need to do is produce a seemingly useful application which calls home for legitimate purposes, make it work as advertised and the remotely flip switch at some point into malicious mode. The malicious code could be obfuscated. It would be trivial to do and the bad guys would clearly know that too.
Yes I think Windows 9 will follow rapidly after Windows 8 much the same as 7 followed Vista. Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have clearly decided to treat 8 much like they did Vista, as way to introduce radical changes regardless of the consequences for users not in the target audience for those features.
This time around the target audience is tablets. Anybody with a keyboard, mouse PC setup is not the target audience and quite frankly the experience is AWFUL. It's not that metro is a bad idea, simply that it doesn't integrate properly with a "classic" desktop, replace the functionality of the start menu or provide adequate mouse / keyboard support. I therefore expect that Microsoft will have to turn around a version of Windows which rectifies these faults and that will be Windows 9, or at least Windows 8.5. Until that time they can expect to enjoy a huge backlash of negative press. They'd better hope their tablets actually sell otherwise it could turn into an epic fail.
The flip side is that if could become a treatment used to resuscitate / stabilise people with lung damage, or smoke inhalation, or who've drowned, or choked etc. There is a huge potential for this research in saving many thousands of lives.
It sucks to be the rabbits of course, for which there is no plus side at all. I suppose someone could make the case that the rabbits were bred for experimentation so their very existence relies on their usefulness in the lab but it's cold comfort to a rabbit which ends up being experimented on, dissected and dumped in an incinerator.
Who's to say this was their top priority or their only ongoing operation?
You assume that because they *only* arrested 26 people that somehow this investigation wasn't worth it. Except of course these were criminals responsible for trading 400,000 stolen cards and engaged in other related criminal activity. How much effort would be required to arrest 26 people on theft and fraud charges if they were unrelated investigations? At least this way they get to pool their investigation and a lot of the work was done for them.
It seems to me that from a cost / benefit point of view that the operation was relatively cheap - set up a website, dangle it around in the right circles and see who comes calling. Then when you see actual criminal activity you can start using those IP addresses to find the perps.
Such operations also have a dampening effect on other criminal activity. If this site was a honeypot then criminals may wonder if some other site is also a honeypot. Perhaps it is too, or perhaps it isn't. Sowing discord can impact criminal activity well beyond the original site.
There is also the fact that this operation was successfull. Even if it was *only* 26 arrests this time, the FBI can apply what they learned about running such a site and go for a bigger haul the next time around. Clearly from a technical standpoint the operation appears to be successfull. For all you or I know perhaps the idea was a trial operation just to test out some ideas of how to get crims to open up when they thought they were in a safe environment. All that business about requiring introductions or paying a fee may have been FBI psychologists deciding to try a few things out.
Anyway it seems like a success to me. Not on the scale of busting a mafia ring or whatever but certainly worthwhile.
No, it's typical of the FBI to pursue criminals, gather evidence and secure convictions. You might not think these thieves were serious or maybe they were just dumbasses but they were still thieves. After all they traded 400,000 stolen credit cards.
Slashdot Mirror
Why does an episode of South Park about Walmart spring to mind?
It tells me they intended to have something akin to a reservist army who should own weapons if called upon to defend the state. That most certainly does not describe the situation as it is now by a long shot.
Someone running amok with a knife (and it does happen from time to time) may kill a few people, but certainly not as many as someone with a gun.
Yes it does, quite obviously. Most killing sprees are done with legally owned firearms.
As part of a well regulated militia which most gun owners most clearly are not.
Any app store for Windows RT/8 is likely to operate along the same lines as the Apple store - 70/30 cut or similar. Of course they could be evil / good depending on your point of view and be more like Amazon's app store where they can discount all the way down to 20% list price. I expect they will offer discounts and be "competitive" insofar as prices go, not insofar as having an unfair prominence on the desktop p Anyway Steam's prices are monumentally awful for the most part. Sales are the only reason I even bother with the service. The rest of time it's more expensive than any bricks and mortar store.Kind of beside the point though.
The problem is people don't want to port Java apps, they want to port Android apps. It's not much good supplying some API which is totally different to Android including the APIs that UIs are designed with. Basically it needs to be something which compiles Dalvik byte code into LLVM byte code and links with associated runtimes.
If Steam is coming to TVs it seems far more likely to me that they'd do stuff in the cloud. Why bother with all that downloading crap when you can just pipe the video over the internet. It could still have relevance since I expect there are significant cost savings for Valve if game instances could be run on Linux instead of Windows.
And doubtless this is how the vast majority of games will appear on Linux. Not native in the sense of using native APIs, but either recompiled against winelib or a derivative or running over WINE or a derivative directly. I have no problem with this.
IMO it's extremely anti-competitive and just begging for a lawsuit which could portentially catch Apple, Microsoft and Google in its crosshairs. Doubtless they'd all proclaim their OS is "open", but at the same time if they install their own store by default, that is hardly fair at all. I can see all being compelled to offer consumers something similar to a browser chooser which lets them pick the store they want.
Then there's Windows RT where there won't be a choice AT ALL. Steam isn't even an option on such a device. Even if Valve or its publishers recompiled some games to run on ARM they wouldn't be able to install them because the store wouldn't let them. If Steam appears on Windows RT at all it will likely be in some emasculated form where you can't actually buy or install anything, just look at your achievements and stuff.
I suppose therefore from their standpoint it makes sense to widen their deploy base but equally it could just be a power play to give them some leverage to negotiate themselves a prime position in Windows. It may well be that in return the Linux support gets dropped or de prioritized.
There is also the case to be made that it's a terrible idea to use a single key to open multiple random websites. Maybe it's a convenience for throwaway forum stuff but I don't think I'd want Amazon, eBay and my bank all controlled by a single sign on. It's probably a terrible idea from a privacy perspective for SSO to happen on sites belonging to the same organisation. Look how Google has consolidated and modified it's terms so they can basically merge identities together from their sites like GMail and YouTube any way they see fit. One minute you think you're using two distinct aliases, the next suddenly your real name is tagged against everything.
I've spent more than enough time going through very specific flaws with Windows 8 in the past. I couldn't care less if the start menu goes providing what replaces it provides analogous functionality and refinement. It doesn't, not by a long shot. Turning 40+ program groups into a linear list of brown tiles spanning multiple horizontal screens is just awful behaviour and I could go on citing issues but I'd only repeat what I've said previously. It is bad. I'm all in favour of metro if it accomodates mouse and keyboard users but at the moment it doesn't. It is clear to me that Microsoft are in a sprint to make the OS tablet friendly and everything else has fallen by the wayside.
Anyway I think the EU will lose patience if Apple does not implement a proper micro USB port on their devices. Selling a ludicrously expensive dongle knowing no one will buy it is hardly keeping to the spirit or the intent of external power supply agreement. Of course that isn't the end of it since Apple will use proprietary protocols and encryption to ensure that their proprietary cable is even more restricted in future. I really don't understand why anyone would buy such a device.
I don't blame the change in UI for that so much as the replacement simply isn't mature or refined enough to be called a replacement. E.g. if metro supported folders then it could group tiles together it could show program folders pretty much how they are now, but it doesn't so it implements a kludge where it strips out any start menu items such as Uninstall, Readme etc. and leaves just the executables in a flat linear list. It sucks balls basically. If / when groups appears this behaviour would be markedly improved. Similarly if a user could zoom in or out to maximize the amount of tiles this too would be better but they can't.
So eventually they'll get there and no doubt intend an accelerated 8,5 "desktop edition" or Windows 9 but as it stands Windows 8 blows on the desktop. I'm certain Microsoft's rationale is to make a beeline for tablet land and then worry about fixing the behaviour for everyone else but that is cold comfort for everyone else.
I think even as it stands they run the risk of pissing off the EU so much they'll get sanctioned in some way. If they move even further away from their MoU such as by dumping USB entirely they'll definitely be in trouble. It's also likely that that the EU would be desirous of getting tablets and perhaps even laptops to agree to a common external power supply format so that the problem with phones doesn't happen again somewhere else. I'm sure if they do that Apple will try their best to subvert the process again.
Sounds like he would be uniquely qualified to study this and has some spare time on his hands.
Er, anyone who has done it could tell you what a pain it is to maintain multiple versions of a layout.
It's kind of strange that Google aren't using LLVM to abstract away architectural differences without compromising performance. They use LLVM in Renderscript but not the NDK. It's a bit strange. It would be in Intel's interest to sponsor the work.
You can get a flavour of the pain by reading what Google suggests to make apps run on the Nexus 7.
Apple has the advantage of owning the hardware and the software so there are a fix number of resolutions to support. I think if they start producing half-way house designs like larger iPhones or smaller iPads that they'll run into the same problem.
It's impossible for Apple to review every program or test it to a degree to ensure it's safety. All the bad guys need to do is produce a seemingly useful application which calls home for legitimate purposes, make it work as advertised and the remotely flip switch at some point into malicious mode. The malicious code could be obfuscated. It would be trivial to do and the bad guys would clearly know that too.
This time around the target audience is tablets. Anybody with a keyboard, mouse PC setup is not the target audience and quite frankly the experience is AWFUL. It's not that metro is a bad idea, simply that it doesn't integrate properly with a "classic" desktop, replace the functionality of the start menu or provide adequate mouse / keyboard support. I therefore expect that Microsoft will have to turn around a version of Windows which rectifies these faults and that will be Windows 9, or at least Windows 8.5. Until that time they can expect to enjoy a huge backlash of negative press. They'd better hope their tablets actually sell otherwise it could turn into an epic fail.
It sucks to be the rabbits of course, for which there is no plus side at all. I suppose someone could make the case that the rabbits were bred for experimentation so their very existence relies on their usefulness in the lab but it's cold comfort to a rabbit which ends up being experimented on, dissected and dumped in an incinerator.
You assume that because they *only* arrested 26 people that somehow this investigation wasn't worth it. Except of course these were criminals responsible for trading 400,000 stolen cards and engaged in other related criminal activity. How much effort would be required to arrest 26 people on theft and fraud charges if they were unrelated investigations? At least this way they get to pool their investigation and a lot of the work was done for them.
It seems to me that from a cost / benefit point of view that the operation was relatively cheap - set up a website, dangle it around in the right circles and see who comes calling. Then when you see actual criminal activity you can start using those IP addresses to find the perps.
Such operations also have a dampening effect on other criminal activity. If this site was a honeypot then criminals may wonder if some other site is also a honeypot. Perhaps it is too, or perhaps it isn't. Sowing discord can impact criminal activity well beyond the original site.
There is also the fact that this operation was successfull. Even if it was *only* 26 arrests this time, the FBI can apply what they learned about running such a site and go for a bigger haul the next time around. Clearly from a technical standpoint the operation appears to be successfull. For all you or I know perhaps the idea was a trial operation just to test out some ideas of how to get crims to open up when they thought they were in a safe environment. All that business about requiring introductions or paying a fee may have been FBI psychologists deciding to try a few things out.
Anyway it seems like a success to me. Not on the scale of busting a mafia ring or whatever but certainly worthwhile.
No, it's typical of the FBI to pursue criminals, gather evidence and secure convictions. You might not think these thieves were serious or maybe they were just dumbasses but they were still thieves. After all they traded 400,000 stolen credit cards.
So why were people dealing in large volumes of stolen credit cards not "real criminals" then?