PS3 has a built in function to scan for media servers. I use a Mac (my primary HTPC) to stream content to my PS3 in the bedroom). It will also offer to convert any formats that PS3 doesn't understand on the fly. It really has turned into a very flexible piece of hardware. That said, I still use my HTPC for most needs.
For basic streaming like Netflix, a PS3 more than suffices, just as an Apple TV does. They've made it about as simple as you can get, which is what consumers want.
They are not the same. Obama cannot draft legislation for Congress since he is in the Executive Branch. He can only sign what they pass over to his desk. If he can get some of what he wanted from congress, or nothing at all, I suspect he opted for the 'glass is half full'.
The issue is still under investigation. If there is one thing our government doesn't do, it's move quickly. Just because they haven't charged him yet doesn't mean they aren't planning on it.
Of course it matters. Would Google be liable for folks doing searches for illegal content? What about file sharing sites? The courts have already spoken in that regard.
Wikileaks itself is in legal limbo within the United States. The right for the press to publish such documents is clearly stated in the constitution, however, the right for someone to steal such secrets is not. At some point, the decision has to be made whether or not Wikileaks is defined as 'the press', or if it's just some guy who has obtained a large number of classified documents.
That is what I mean by legal limbo.
As to the EU, it's not relevant. Apple is based in the US, and as such, it could come under fire for providing access to such documents. Given the simple choice of removing the app in question, or dealing with potential costly and ugly legal issues, they took the proper path as far as their stockholders are concerned. A $2 app is simply not worth it.
Everyone simply assumes this is some evil corporation looking to dominate the world, when a simple glance at the situation from a business perspective yields a much more likely scenario. It was imply a bad business risk to leave it in the app store.
Why would Apple need to risk reputation by supply questionable material via the App store? The app in question provided direct access to a site that has now entered into legal limbo. Apple is a private company, meaning they have every right to publish whatever content they like. I suppose from the parent post that Mastercard, PayPal, etc are now 'slowly turning into the government'. They probably made the same decision. It's not worth dealing with the bad public opinion of a cheap app.
As to the information being 'publicly available', so is internet porn, child pornography, instructions to make bomb's, etc. None of which are allowed in the App Store. It's a straw man argument.
Users can always browse to Wikileaks to it if they want to see that information, and Apple will do nothing to prevent that, just as they don't prevent you from browsing porn or whatnot. They simply refuse to peddle it.
Clinton actually intended to remove the ban on homosexuality. Congress panicked and rushed legislation through that banned homosexuals from serving by law. At that point, Clinton's only recourse was to aim for DADT, which gave homosexuals at least minimal protection from the new law. Although it was illegal for homosexuals to serve, they couldn't be asked if they were homosexual.
I was recently selected for jury duty. I was informed outright that I was not to speak about the case as expected, but the judge also warned that I was not to use the internet to do any sort of research on the case, and that all questions should be passed to the bailiff.
We've had similar discussions, exactly along those lines. As new hardware is released, the number of supported end users devices could easily explode. The current crop of devices we support has a very small footprint so the model still works, but we too are wondering where we'll be in 3-4 years and what the landscape will look like. There are other risks involved in any device accessing a corporate intranet involving data security, privacy, etc.
Our current stance is to allow a very limited number of user devices (limited as in specific models), but we do not trust them completely. They get access to a very small subset of the corporate intranet. I guess in a way we are sort of a hybrid model compared to yours. Corporate supplied hardware has greater access, but with that comes greater control as to supported features, minimum hardware and OS levels, etc.
I agree that if we continue to expand on user supplied devices, the current model will simply become cost prohibitive from a support perspective.
The finding were more OS specific, not hardware specific, although that too raised some minor questions about support.
The current model we use under the 'user supplied' mobile device program, requires each hardware model be approved for use by corporate security. Previously all hardware allowed to connect was company supplied but they relaxed that policy when the iPhone came out, and also for the iPad. The issue found with Android related to security updates. Although vulnerabilities were being reported for various versions of Android, some vendors were refusing to update the devices to a current version of Android which resolved the vulnerability. To compound matters, vendors were still releasing older versions of Android on new handsets. This isn't a ding on Google itself, but rather on the handset makers.
To a lesser degree, hardware was raised as a potential issue for our level 1 support, where a large variety of handsets with varying hardware configs, and potentially differences in core OS functionality might require more documentation to support.
The general decision was that they could work around the hardware differences and feature differences on varying Android OS releases, but the core vulnerabilities that a handset maker refused to address/update were a show stopper.
As to questions about 'forcing' users to buy a compliant handset, that would require a running list, and certifications on every Android handset as it was released so that our end users could look at a list and see which were company approved. No small task given the large number of handset vendors and models within those vendors, all running Android. It was simply deemed not worth the cost in man hours. Since the number of hardware models and OS versions for the iPhone are very uniform, this was not an issue. They picked a minimum hardware requirement, knowing that any new devices would meet that requirement going forward. RIM devices are still company supplied so no issue there as they only certify a small number of devices from that vendor.
This was not an issue of us saying we require version X, but rather dealing with end user confusion if we suddenly had to cut off version X simply because a vulnerability was exposed that the end user could not get an OS upgrade from the handset manufacturer that addressed it. This was not some sort of Android vs. iOS discussion, but rather simple supportability and cost effectiveness.
Actually for us it's a business concern. We were evaluating whether or not to allow Android device to connect to our corporate intranet and decided against it for that very reason. Not due to development related fragmentation issues, but rather OS fragmentation that makes security updates and vulnerabilities much more difficult to track and to resolve via updates. With vendors still pushing out 1.5, our corporate security was hesitant to endorse an OS with known vulnerabilities and no timely updates from the handset vendors.
With the iPhone, we can force users to upgrade to the latest OS version, and give them a time window to comply. With Android, it's not that easy. Blindly cutting off a specific version of the OS due to some vulnerability could potentially flood our help desk with calls regarding connection failures. Not feasible.
The arguments about population are both relevant and irrelevant to different aspects of the argument. If you have 100 square miles to cover with broadband access, the total cost of the infrastructure is relatively cheap. On the other hand, the return on revenue is much steeper as it will take longer to make money off of that infrastructure with a relatively low population density.
On the flip side, if you have a 1000 square miles of territory to lay lines for, the initial cost of the infrastructure is much higher to build out, but the return on investment is much quicker since you have a much larger user base to get a return on investment.
To make matters more difficult, the US has basically locked out competition in this market, making it impossible for a startup to lay new lines due to contracts local municipalities have with telecom companies have with providers. Hell, even the cities themselves can't lay new lines without being sued by the same providers.
I'd say there has been some progress. Although they may have taken down sites like Mastercard, which doesn't normally deal in high volumes of traffic, they apparently had no effect on Amazon that I could see. I tried it throughout the day that Anonymous stated they would target Amazon, with nary a pause or hiccup.
Unfortunately, both companies are in the business of profiting off of your personal information, so I don't think either would be desirable (Facebook or Google). Google has gotten to the point where I'm actually far more nervous using all of their free services for just about everything I do on the web. That's a lot of information about me all in one place.
Mod this man (or woman?) up. This place clearly has a religious agenda, and if all taxpayers who ultimately end up paying for this 'tax rebate' can't benefit form it in the form of employment, then it is still state sponsored religion.
`Disney theme parks are privately owned, and can do what they please with their park. This would be a taxpayer funded park, which places this squarely into the jurisdiction of the separation of church and state. This is no different than religious groups demanding abortion money be prevented in government funded projects. It doesn't matter what bill is funding the project, just that abortions might be funded.
Instead, in the last few days we developed an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience. The algorithm we incorporated into our search rankings represents an initial solution to this issue, and Google users are now getting a better experience as a result.
If a user searches for the reliability of an example company called 'widget company' and the 'widget company' happens to be a google customer, and along comes joe user searching for data on widget company, and if Google has a search result for widget company (both good and bad ratings by customers), that it's not being unbiased if they present only the good customer reviews?
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word unbiased.
This isn't' about return 'valid' search result, but about Google removing unflattering search results for it's customers who pay for advertising. In the case reference in TFA, it was about a company that found that even if it gave horrible customer support, they found it generated hits for their website. In that case, it's up to the consumer to evaluate what they search for, rather than seeing a name on the first hit result, and then never reading it.
Instead, in the last few days we developed an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience. The algorithm we incorporated into our search rankings represents an initial solution to this issue, and Google users are now getting a better experience as a result.
They are in effect censoring the returned results based on a 'blacklist' of 'bad' vendors.
How is this a bullshit charge? If the vendor had put out a phone with no DCMA, and this guy came along, bought a truck full, and sold them for a profit, there would be no crime. That isn't the case.
He bought these phones, with restrictions built into them specifically to prevent people like him from hacking them to make them transferrable, and then reselling them for a profit.
He cracked the protection with the intent to profit from someone else's work. He was caught, and he plead guilty.
This is no different than the charges brought against Psystar, who broke Apples protections to allow the OS to install on other hardware. They essentially tried to profit off of another's IP without license from the owner. This is no different.
I didn't specify 'useful', but rather 'unbiased'. if someone is searching on the reliability of a vendor, then they will want to see all results (good or bad), while getting actual results about vendors. The two are not mutually exclusive. If, however, Google gets results back that are exactly what the user is looking for, but only presents results that are favorable to the vendor, than that is biased data.
Slashdot Mirror
Then why mention SUV's at all? Why not just target any vehicle with emissions greater than (X)?
Aren't they required by law to disclose any breach of private information, at least in the US? I don't know that this is as altruistic as it sounds.
PS3 has a built in function to scan for media servers. I use a Mac (my primary HTPC) to stream content to my PS3 in the bedroom). It will also offer to convert any formats that PS3 doesn't understand on the fly. It really has turned into a very flexible piece of hardware. That said, I still use my HTPC for most needs.
For basic streaming like Netflix, a PS3 more than suffices, just as an Apple TV does. They've made it about as simple as you can get, which is what consumers want.
They are not the same. Obama cannot draft legislation for Congress since he is in the Executive Branch. He can only sign what they pass over to his desk. If he can get some of what he wanted from congress, or nothing at all, I suspect he opted for the 'glass is half full'.
The issue is still under investigation. If there is one thing our government doesn't do, it's move quickly. Just because they haven't charged him yet doesn't mean they aren't planning on it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/15/wikileaks-conspiracy-charges_n_797454.html
Of course it matters. Would Google be liable for folks doing searches for illegal content? What about file sharing sites? The courts have already spoken in that regard.
I'm not familiar with the Guardian app. Is it an RSS reader or something similar? If so, it's just an aggregator, not a direct app into Wikileaks.
Wikileaks itself is in legal limbo within the United States. The right for the press to publish such documents is clearly stated in the constitution, however, the right for someone to steal such secrets is not. At some point, the decision has to be made whether or not Wikileaks is defined as 'the press', or if it's just some guy who has obtained a large number of classified documents.
That is what I mean by legal limbo.
As to the EU, it's not relevant. Apple is based in the US, and as such, it could come under fire for providing access to such documents. Given the simple choice of removing the app in question, or dealing with potential costly and ugly legal issues, they took the proper path as far as their stockholders are concerned. A $2 app is simply not worth it.
Everyone simply assumes this is some evil corporation looking to dominate the world, when a simple glance at the situation from a business perspective yields a much more likely scenario. It was imply a bad business risk to leave it in the app store.
Why would Apple need to risk reputation by supply questionable material via the App store? The app in question provided direct access to a site that has now entered into legal limbo. Apple is a private company, meaning they have every right to publish whatever content they like. I suppose from the parent post that Mastercard, PayPal, etc are now 'slowly turning into the government'. They probably made the same decision. It's not worth dealing with the bad public opinion of a cheap app.
As to the information being 'publicly available', so is internet porn, child pornography, instructions to make bomb's, etc. None of which are allowed in the App Store. It's a straw man argument.
Users can always browse to Wikileaks to it if they want to see that information, and Apple will do nothing to prevent that, just as they don't prevent you from browsing porn or whatnot. They simply refuse to peddle it.
Clinton actually intended to remove the ban on homosexuality. Congress panicked and rushed legislation through that banned homosexuals from serving by law. At that point, Clinton's only recourse was to aim for DADT, which gave homosexuals at least minimal protection from the new law. Although it was illegal for homosexuals to serve, they couldn't be asked if they were homosexual.
Clinton was no homophobe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_ask,_don't_tell#Origin
I was recently selected for jury duty. I was informed outright that I was not to speak about the case as expected, but the judge also warned that I was not to use the internet to do any sort of research on the case, and that all questions should be passed to the bailiff.
Why isn't this a standard procedure everywhere?
We've had similar discussions, exactly along those lines. As new hardware is released, the number of supported end users devices could easily explode. The current crop of devices we support has a very small footprint so the model still works, but we too are wondering where we'll be in 3-4 years and what the landscape will look like. There are other risks involved in any device accessing a corporate intranet involving data security, privacy, etc.
Our current stance is to allow a very limited number of user devices (limited as in specific models), but we do not trust them completely. They get access to a very small subset of the corporate intranet. I guess in a way we are sort of a hybrid model compared to yours. Corporate supplied hardware has greater access, but with that comes greater control as to supported features, minimum hardware and OS levels, etc.
I agree that if we continue to expand on user supplied devices, the current model will simply become cost prohibitive from a support perspective.
The finding were more OS specific, not hardware specific, although that too raised some minor questions about support.
The current model we use under the 'user supplied' mobile device program, requires each hardware model be approved for use by corporate security. Previously all hardware allowed to connect was company supplied but they relaxed that policy when the iPhone came out, and also for the iPad. The issue found with Android related to security updates. Although vulnerabilities were being reported for various versions of Android, some vendors were refusing to update the devices to a current version of Android which resolved the vulnerability. To compound matters, vendors were still releasing older versions of Android on new handsets. This isn't a ding on Google itself, but rather on the handset makers.
To a lesser degree, hardware was raised as a potential issue for our level 1 support, where a large variety of handsets with varying hardware configs, and potentially differences in core OS functionality might require more documentation to support.
The general decision was that they could work around the hardware differences and feature differences on varying Android OS releases, but the core vulnerabilities that a handset maker refused to address/update were a show stopper.
As to questions about 'forcing' users to buy a compliant handset, that would require a running list, and certifications on every Android handset as it was released so that our end users could look at a list and see which were company approved. No small task given the large number of handset vendors and models within those vendors, all running Android. It was simply deemed not worth the cost in man hours. Since the number of hardware models and OS versions for the iPhone are very uniform, this was not an issue. They picked a minimum hardware requirement, knowing that any new devices would meet that requirement going forward. RIM devices are still company supplied so no issue there as they only certify a small number of devices from that vendor.
This was not an issue of us saying we require version X, but rather dealing with end user confusion if we suddenly had to cut off version X simply because a vulnerability was exposed that the end user could not get an OS upgrade from the handset manufacturer that addressed it. This was not some sort of Android vs. iOS discussion, but rather simple supportability and cost effectiveness.
Hopefully that clarifies.
Actually for us it's a business concern. We were evaluating whether or not to allow Android device to connect to our corporate intranet and decided against it for that very reason. Not due to development related fragmentation issues, but rather OS fragmentation that makes security updates and vulnerabilities much more difficult to track and to resolve via updates. With vendors still pushing out 1.5, our corporate security was hesitant to endorse an OS with known vulnerabilities and no timely updates from the handset vendors.
With the iPhone, we can force users to upgrade to the latest OS version, and give them a time window to comply. With Android, it's not that easy. Blindly cutting off a specific version of the OS due to some vulnerability could potentially flood our help desk with calls regarding connection failures. Not feasible.
The arguments about population are both relevant and irrelevant to different aspects of the argument. If you have 100 square miles to cover with broadband access, the total cost of the infrastructure is relatively cheap. On the other hand, the return on revenue is much steeper as it will take longer to make money off of that infrastructure with a relatively low population density.
On the flip side, if you have a 1000 square miles of territory to lay lines for, the initial cost of the infrastructure is much higher to build out, but the return on investment is much quicker since you have a much larger user base to get a return on investment.
To make matters more difficult, the US has basically locked out competition in this market, making it impossible for a startup to lay new lines due to contracts local municipalities have with telecom companies have with providers. Hell, even the cities themselves can't lay new lines without being sued by the same providers.
I'd say there has been some progress. Although they may have taken down sites like Mastercard, which doesn't normally deal in high volumes of traffic, they apparently had no effect on Amazon that I could see. I tried it throughout the day that Anonymous stated they would target Amazon, with nary a pause or hiccup.
Unfortunately, both companies are in the business of profiting off of your personal information, so I don't think either would be desirable (Facebook or Google). Google has gotten to the point where I'm actually far more nervous using all of their free services for just about everything I do on the web. That's a lot of information about me all in one place.
It should be enough to make anyone nervous.
And did you see the post below, where applicants who wish to apply for work at the park must sign an agreement stating their belief in creationism?
Mod this man (or woman?) up. This place clearly has a religious agenda, and if all taxpayers who ultimately end up paying for this 'tax rebate' can't benefit form it in the form of employment, then it is still state sponsored religion.
`Disney theme parks are privately owned, and can do what they please with their park. This would be a taxpayer funded park, which places this squarely into the jurisdiction of the separation of church and state. This is no different than religious groups demanding abortion money be prevented in government funded projects. It doesn't matter what bill is funding the project, just that abortions might be funded.
No, it was about software with IP attached to it, that was hacked so that it would run on other hardware and sold for profit.
In this case, the phone has software with IP attached to it, that was hacked to run on another cell providers network and sold for profit.
From TFA:
If a user searches for the reliability of an example company called 'widget company' and the 'widget company' happens to be a google customer, and along comes joe user searching for data on widget company, and if Google has a search result for widget company (both good and bad ratings by customers), that it's not being unbiased if they present only the good customer reviews?
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word unbiased.
This isn't' about return 'valid' search result, but about Google removing unflattering search results for it's customers who pay for advertising. In the case reference in TFA, it was about a company that found that even if it gave horrible customer support, they found it generated hits for their website. In that case, it's up to the consumer to evaluate what they search for, rather than seeing a name on the first hit result, and then never reading it.
They are in effect censoring the returned results based on a 'blacklist' of 'bad' vendors.
How is this a bullshit charge? If the vendor had put out a phone with no DCMA, and this guy came along, bought a truck full, and sold them for a profit, there would be no crime. That isn't the case.
He bought these phones, with restrictions built into them specifically to prevent people like him from hacking them to make them transferrable, and then reselling them for a profit.
He cracked the protection with the intent to profit from someone else's work. He was caught, and he plead guilty.
This is no different than the charges brought against Psystar, who broke Apples protections to allow the OS to install on other hardware. They essentially tried to profit off of another's IP without license from the owner. This is no different.
I didn't specify 'useful', but rather 'unbiased'. if someone is searching on the reliability of a vendor, then they will want to see all results (good or bad), while getting actual results about vendors. The two are not mutually exclusive. If, however, Google gets results back that are exactly what the user is looking for, but only presents results that are favorable to the vendor, than that is biased data.
Do not confuse unbiased with 'useful'.