When the first Android phones were out, you had lots of comparisons with the iPhones and reviews pointing at bugs and such... Now that Android phones evolved and got Better (both hardware and OS) than iPhone, iPhone fanboys keep using the "there are more apps on the iPhone" argument... it's the only argument that they have left...
When the first bathc of android tables (think about the lots of asian epad, apad and such, not the galaxy tab), there were lots of bad reviews based of the faults... Then, we have Galaxy tab and some other nice devices... the argumentation went back to "the lack of apps"...
When the first Honeycomb tablets went out, the reviews were about the bugs and unpolished aspect... And now, back to the "lack of apps" only argument...
It looks like when the Android systems get better than Apple devices, we'll get that "apps" argument again and again... Except that, with the number of Android devices out, we'll see more and more application writer getting interrested in Android... And with the easier access to the market, we'll see lots of applications which will be unseen on Apple Market... Let's give some time and the apps balance may switch in favor of android...
Why use such services as iCloud when you can buy a good synology with a few HDD and get ultra fast speed on your LAN and good support through the internet (including smartphones... My android has he official Synology audio application installed for easy and secure access to music streaming)
No big brother to watch what you're storing on your system, shared folders which work under PC, Mac and unix systems, dlna server,...
I own both an HP48, an Android phone and a Galaxy tab, both with the HP48 emulator
When I've to do lots of math, I always take the REAL HP48... because it's easier to use... keys are more responsive, device is bigger than the smartphone and smaller than the tab, the perfect size to hold it in left hand, doing calc with right hand while still holding the pen to write some number down...
Calculator simulators on a computer are awful to use when you use more than the keypad. Clicking with the mouse is awfully slow... And you really don't need the power of Octave to multiply 2x2 or 3x3 matrices.
.NET platform is evolving very fast. It started in 2002 and we are already in it's 4th major version (with many incompatibilities between the frameworks). which means that in order to be efficient with.NET, you've to spend lots of time to learn the new parts of.NET. This also means that you have less time to invest yourself in other technologies.
So, a.NET programmer is likely (not always) to be.NET only (maybe using several langages linked to the.NET platform) or to have outdated.NET knowledge. You see the same with other Microsoft platforms which keep changing in order to avoid their programmer lurking in other platforms' world.
Keep in mind that this is NOT a criticism of the.NET programmers, most people do program in order to earn money to live. But in the current computer world, there is lots of uncertainty... and flexibility (including cross-platform) is a must for any small company which want to have a future...
- On desktop, Microsoft is losing more and more ground to Apple. - On mobile platforms, Windows Phone is nowhere compared to iPhone and Android - On Web servers, Apache/PHP is keeping the top, leaving IIS/.NET far behind - We have Oracle which, with the SUN buyout, has a whole platform (without Windows) for DB storage : Hardware, OS, DB and Programming platform (Java/JSP)
Nobody can tell if Microsoft will still be relevant in 10 years (at least, in the SMB world). If you don't belong to a big company, your.NET knowledge may prove useless in the future... with no fallback given the amount of time you had to spend to keep up to date with the latest.NET framework.
I'll stress out that the CEO of Expensify said that if someone has put.NET on his curriculum, it'll raise questions... He DID NOT say that this would be a showstopper. For someone who learned.NET at school or because he needed to learn it for a former job, it is not a problem... What could be a showstopper would be someone which would be "all out" to.NET.
There is nothing worse than langage/framework monoculture... Someone who would only do C/OpenGL/Motif is as bad as a.NET programmer... But it's quite unlikely that a C/OpenGL/Motif programmer did not look in other technologies (C++/Java/PHP/Perl/...; Gtk/Qt/Swing/...)
AFAIK, Microsoft got rejected when they tried to register "Windows" as a trademark and went for "MS Windows" and "Microsoft Windows" which both are valid trademarks.
Apple had trouble with it's name as Apple was used by a record company before... They got through it by agreeing to not sell music... Untile they started iTunes and the whole issue came back...
"App Store" by itself is a généric name and should not be copyrightable (same for App Market and so on). But Apple can trademark "iTunes" and "Apple App Store" if they want...
But they'll have trouble enforcing the "App Store" trademark...
Well, I didn't say that Blender or The Gimp were complete replacements for commercial application... There are still a lot of functionnalities missing...
But a child or student who use it "for fun" instead of using a pirated copy of Photoshop/Lightwave/Maya/... would learn to use them...
Many commercial software are closing their eyes on piracy because it means that more people learn to use their tools and, when they'll have to use them for commercial purpose, they'll have to pay... It's somehow a two speed hunt for piracy...
They are no "whistleblowers", they should better be compared to these people which were pointing jude families to the NASI during WW2...
And SIAA could be compared to the NASI (or the Inquisition) for asking for such letters... Instead of rewarding such a behaviour, it should be strongly punished...
Both the SIAA and these denunciators should be dragged to court in chains for such a lame behaviour !!!
Some people would NEVER think about some commercial software if they couldn't pirate them...
Think about these many kids toying with programs like 3DStudio, Adobe Photoshop,... Their budget is near to zero but they are learning to use these tools using pirated versions... The alternative is they playing with Gimp, Blender3D,... Which would lead to more people interrested in these softwares which would greatly benefit to the FOSS.
We have Firefox, Chrome and Opera which decide that it's a good idea to avoid a format which is so patent encumbered that you've to pay licences to program a player, to program an encoder, to stream a video and to create a commercial video using that format (try to guess what it'd be like if authors had to pay Microsoft a licence to use the.doc format when they write their novel).
And on the other side, Apple (Safari) which own part of the licences and Microsoft who decided to pay... But neither are streaming anything (unlike Google via Youtube) and both have plenty of money available.
I don't see the problem with Google removing H.264 support from his browser... It's not like if he was the only one who don't support that format nor like if he had a major market choice...
What could have been wrong would be if Google suddently moved Youtube to WebM-only without Flash or H264 fallback AND was the only one to support that format... But the format is open and free...
I can still recover my files from my ZX Spextrum (and my sinclair +2). These files are from 83-93 (I switched to PC during 1993), some of the files from tape, other from disquettes
Among these files, all my programs on HP48SX (and my home made kermit transfert system for Spectrum) and some other.
Well, the fact that both my Spectrum 48K and my Sinclair +2 still work do help.
Well, one missing tab at the last line of a conditionnal lead to a programming error but NO SYNTAX ERROR...
if a : [tab]if b : [tab][tab]c [tab][tab]d [tab]e
versus if a: [tab]if b: [tab][tab]c [tab]d [tab]e
That's the kind of mistake that could be hunted down for ages with no help from the compiler/interpreter as there is no syntax error...
Try to forget one closing brace in C/Java/Php/Perl/... and the compiler will burp !
Another problem comes when you've several programmers working on the same project with different tab sizes and indent convention. with langages like C/Perl/Php/Java/..., you can have the code reindented and reformatted automatically (think of indent for C code). Pythod would ask some human to do the work or some external way to enforce it.
Treating whitespaces as anything beside "one or more" = SEPARATOR is clearly a bad idea... precisely because you can't see the difference between spaces or tabs on a listing (and don't even think to use some proportionnal font)
Well, given that they are trying crippled CPU where you've to pay to unlock all your cores and cache... I think that avoiding iNTEL is a good idea anyway.
I lost my mother from a cancer about 9 years ago... And I still miss her and I'm still crying at some times... For example, when my son was born (she would have liked so much to know him).
But I would NOT recommend you to take any step to preserve her memories... Because all that you'll do will be artificial, it won't be her.
You'll have to move on, be ready to be grieving for about one year, the time needed to hit each anniversary and special dates... And it'll be the same for your daughters. And you'll have to help your daughter going through that, by having they think about something more happy (you may talk with them about the good times before the illness then go on to good times they can have with you (their dad) now).
Creating a "sanctuary" is probably the worse thing that you can do... My only advice would be to enjoy all the moments that you can still enjoy with her, try to have some good time during these grim moments...
Except for her last weeks, my mother was on chemiotherapy... We changed your life to adapt to her cycle... 1 week ill, 2 weeks tired and 1 week when she was feeling well. We didn't celebrate birthdays and other on the official date, we learned to celebrate them during that good week. And we had quality moments in family during these weeks.
Don't talk or think about her death, it won't bring anything good (well, to be a little cynic, you could get run over by a car tomorrow and die before her), try to enjoy all what you can.
Also, keep in mind that by taking photos and videos, you're making memories of her illness, not of the good time BEFORE her illness... And even if memories fade away, the most important won't disappear...
Find the nicest picture of her BEFORE things went bad, and put it NOW in a good place in your living room, if possible among other pictures of the family. Even better, find a picture where you're all together. By doing it now, while she is still there, you won't be making a "sanctuary" but displaying family pictures... It'll help to remember without linking it to the "souvenir" (sorry, I'm french-speaking) of when she died.
You may forget her voice, you won't forget her words. You may forget her face, you won't forget that you loved her smile/hair/... You may forget the last moments, you won't forget the happy one. No need for a time capsule for that...
Information théory tell us that once some info has been lost, it can't be recovered. If the picture has been somehow "damaged" by some motion blur, the original picture can't be reconstructed.
On the image, we'll have much more than the motion blur from the camera's movement : - noise added from sensor electronic noise - blur from target movement - distortion coming from lens defect (mostly for low end cameras) - distortion/blur from bad focus (autofocus in not perfect)...
The operation that will reduce the camera's motion blur will probably increase the effect from all other defects. You reduce one kind of image destruction and increase the impact of the other one.
Well, one thing that is missing from both android and iPhone : RSAP support...
Before anything else, they are PHONES... so, the most important part is what is PHONE-related : - contact list - good reception (big minus for iPhone 4) - Bluetooth handless support : headset and car handless systems...
And RSAP is the protocols which is used in high quality handless car systems : the telephony system of the phone is shut down and the car uses RSAP to access the SIM card and has it's own (optimized for car use) phone system.
But RSAP support is quite unlikely on iPhone. Firstly it's a Nokia technology (remind, Apple didn't pay for some telephony-related nokia patents and sued Nokia over some (over-borad and software) patents. Then, Apple is trying to have it's own way of doing things... which rules out RSAP...
There has been a Google summer code project for RSAP on Android... Too bad it didn't get anything running... But this shows that there is some interrest to RSAP for android...
1) please read an article posted on slashdot (yes, here) very few ago, about how Apple and AT&T teamed up to detect and blacklist Jailbroken iPhones
2) Rooting an android Device = adding an "su" program that allows applications (after an UAC like screen) to run with Root priviledges (which in turns allows some extra features)
3) Customs roms means that you updated the boot loader to some unlocked bootloader. These are able to run the original ROM aswell as some custom one, they allow to flash custom roms and usually have some other functions enabled (like using ADB to get a root-shell on the devide at pre-OS stage)
4) Android itself is available freely, which means that you may build your custom rom using the OS source... I strongly doubt that iOS sources are available (BTW, IOS with uppercase is used for ages by Cisco... Apple mobile OS name is a poor choice)
iPhone, Android phones,... are *NOT* Phones, they are "Smartphones" which are a mix between PDA and phone... And that did exists before... Palm had several of them which already had big touch screen
Keep in mind that most progress are improvements over something that already exists... And Apple marketting make you think they "invented" the technology...
Blueberry/Palm --- iPhone Creative/Sony/... --- iPod Xerox --- Macintosh GUI Arm --- A4 processor (it's nothing more than common blocks put together, nothing new) And so on... But with a good marketting, they make people believe they invented the wheel !!!
What they did create is the market for smartphones, not the smartphones... Before, smartphones were limited to a few CEO... Now everyone wants a smartphone (even if he has no need for it) And there are no patents protection for "creating a new market", only for creating a new product.
In this case, Apple IS the freerunner... Nokia holds most of the mobile phone patents (the technologies needed to connect to mobile networks). Apple made the iPhone without paying royalties to Nokia...
One of the things that rules in favor of VHS was that Sony was forbidding the use of it's format (Betamax) for pornography... So all porn movies were VHS only... Betamax was superior but noone ever cared about it...
Could the same happen with the iPhone ? People choosing Android/Blackberry/Maemo/SymbianWindows Mobile over the iPhone because of this restriction on nudity ?
Well, it's true that the JVM may take some time to start... but once it's running, JIT and other make it run quite fast... You see game servers hosting hundred of players on a "normal" machine (not 8-CPU 4-core or similar), web sites using JSP,...
And if you don't start to use the latest API (reflexion and similar) and stick to "standard" java, it'll make you create clean code...
But I agree that starting the JVM is rather slow... Even slower if you start it in "server" mode (but then, you'll get a speed increase while running the code)
Well, Python is not a good langage for several reason.
Main reason is the indent craze. I agree that it's important to give proper indenting to your code... but relying on indenting for the syntax is lmooking for trouble..
Think about
if (a) {
b();
if (c) {
d();
e();
} }
and compare with
if (a) {
b();
if (c) {
d();
}
e(); }
Only difference between the two code is ONE tabulation. And as there are no matching pairs of markers (braces, if...fi,...) there is no way for a syntax checker to see that something went wrong. That's the kind of mistake that'll be a nightmare to find but that could easily be done (even more when you do a lot of copy/paste)
Speaking of copy-paste, you'd better have a VERY GOOD code editor if you want to be sure that indenting is still correct.
C/C++/... have code reformatters which can take care of applying the same code structure (indenting style and size, position of the opening brace,...) so there is no need to force it through the programmer's throat
But it's also a "marginal" langage... see TIOBE index... 1 : Java 18% 2 : C 17% 3 : PHP 10% 4 : C++ 10% 5 : VB 7% 6 : C# 4% 7 : Python 4% 8 : Perl 4%
If you want to teach something to your students, teach them something that'll be useful in the future... PHP is a good choice : easy to learn, lots of demand, powerful libraries, clean syntax,...
well, it's up to you (in USA) to push for SHORTER copyright terms... Vote with your wallet, write to your local politicians, organise some big MPAA hit boycott,...
At first, copyright was about a SHORT LIMITED TIME, now, it's longer and longer... with the clear intent to make it infinite...
It's up to you to push for a ban on stupid patents... Explain to other that if they have to pay more for their MP3/camera/... it's because of the so many patent fees on trivial or outdated technologies... I'd say that for everything computer-related, max patent duration should be 1 or 2 year... That's the rate at which most computer technologies become more or less obsolete...
It's up to you to say no to the removal of HQ on analog signals on TV/DVD/BluRay/... and to say no to the enforcement of HDCP and removal of analog signal later... Unless you want that your equipment becomes obsolete and you had to replace it...
It's up to you to shake your legal system, to prevent bullies (oops... corporation) from dragging court process until the other part can't pay for court and attorneys fees.
Well, I think it's only a false image... At first, "american" were greedy colonists (either going to america to flee some judicial problems in europe or going there to make some big profit).
While esclavagism had mostly disappeared in Europe, it had been brought back in US...
US has always be about freedom without limits... If you succeed in earning money, it gave you the right to "enslave" other people (well, employing them with minimal salaries), to crush the other trying to earn their living (most known example on slashdot is Microsoft... but it's true for many other),...
On the other hand, in Europe, it had been more and more about limiting personal freedom so it don't infringe on someone other's freedom (I won't say it was perfectly done)... Corporate greed also existed in europe... long ago... And it's brought back from the US (and other) thanks to the buyouts, merges,...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I find the review quite insightful...
When the first Android phones were out, you had lots of comparisons with the iPhones and reviews pointing at bugs and such...
Now that Android phones evolved and got Better (both hardware and OS) than iPhone, iPhone fanboys keep using the "there are more apps on the iPhone" argument... it's the only argument that they have left...
When the first bathc of android tables (think about the lots of asian epad, apad and such, not the galaxy tab), there were lots of bad reviews based of the faults...
Then, we have Galaxy tab and some other nice devices... the argumentation went back to "the lack of apps"...
When the first Honeycomb tablets went out, the reviews were about the bugs and unpolished aspect... And now, back to the "lack of apps" only argument...
It looks like when the Android systems get better than Apple devices, we'll get that "apps" argument again and again... Except that, with the number of Android devices out, we'll see more and more application writer getting interrested in Android... And with the easier access to the market, we'll see lots of applications which will be unseen on Apple Market... Let's give some time and the apps balance may switch in favor of android...
Why use such services as iCloud when you can buy a good synology with a few HDD and get ultra fast speed on your LAN and good support through the internet (including smartphones... My android has he official Synology audio application installed for easy and secure access to music streaming)
No big brother to watch what you're storing on your system, shared folders which work under PC, Mac and unix systems, dlna server, ...
I own both an HP48, an Android phone and a Galaxy tab, both with the HP48 emulator
When I've to do lots of math, I always take the REAL HP48... because it's easier to use... keys are more responsive, device is bigger than the smartphone and smaller than the tab, the perfect size to hold it in left hand, doing calc with right hand while still holding the pen to write some number down...
Calculator simulators on a computer are awful to use when you use more than the keypad. Clicking with the mouse is awfully slow... And you really don't need the power of Octave to multiply 2x2 or 3x3 matrices.
.NET platform is evolving very fast. It started in 2002 and we are already in it's 4th major version (with many incompatibilities between the frameworks). which means that in order to be efficient with .NET, you've to spend lots of time to learn the new parts of .NET. This also means that you have less time to invest yourself in other technologies.
So, a .NET programmer is likely (not always) to be .NET only (maybe using several langages linked to the .NET platform) or to have outdated .NET knowledge. You see the same with other Microsoft platforms which keep changing in order to avoid their programmer lurking in other platforms' world.
Keep in mind that this is NOT a criticism of the .NET programmers, most people do program in order to earn money to live. But in the current computer world, there is lots of uncertainty... and flexibility (including cross-platform) is a must for any small company which want to have a future...
- On desktop, Microsoft is losing more and more ground to Apple.
- On mobile platforms, Windows Phone is nowhere compared to iPhone and Android
- On Web servers, Apache/PHP is keeping the top, leaving IIS/.NET far behind
- We have Oracle which, with the SUN buyout, has a whole platform (without Windows) for DB storage : Hardware, OS, DB and Programming platform (Java/JSP)
Nobody can tell if Microsoft will still be relevant in 10 years (at least, in the SMB world). If you don't belong to a big company, your .NET knowledge may prove useless in the future... with no fallback given the amount of time you had to spend to keep up to date with the latest .NET framework.
I'll stress out that the CEO of Expensify said that if someone has put .NET on his curriculum, it'll raise questions... He DID NOT say that this would be a showstopper. For someone who learned .NET at school or because he needed to learn it for a former job, it is not a problem... What could be a showstopper would be someone which would be "all out" to .NET.
There is nothing worse than langage/framework monoculture... Someone who would only do C/OpenGL/Motif is as bad as a .NET programmer... But it's quite unlikely that a C/OpenGL/Motif programmer did not look in other technologies (C++/Java/PHP/Perl/...; Gtk/Qt/Swing/...)
AFAIK, Microsoft got rejected when they tried to register "Windows" as a trademark and went for "MS Windows" and "Microsoft Windows" which both are valid trademarks.
Apple had trouble with it's name as Apple was used by a record company before... They got through it by agreeing to not sell music... Untile they started iTunes and the whole issue came back...
"App Store" by itself is a généric name and should not be copyrightable (same for App Market and so on). But Apple can trademark "iTunes" and "Apple App Store" if they want...
But they'll have trouble enforcing the "App Store" trademark...
Well, I didn't say that Blender or The Gimp were complete replacements for commercial application... There are still a lot of functionnalities missing...
But a child or student who use it "for fun" instead of using a pirated copy of Photoshop/Lightwave/Maya/... would learn to use them...
Many commercial software are closing their eyes on piracy because it means that more people learn to use their tools and, when they'll have to use them for commercial purpose, they'll have to pay... It's somehow a two speed hunt for piracy...
They are no "whistleblowers", they should better be compared to these people which were pointing jude families to the NASI during WW2...
And SIAA could be compared to the NASI (or the Inquisition) for asking for such letters... Instead of rewarding such a behaviour, it should be strongly punished...
Both the SIAA and these denunciators should be dragged to court in chains for such a lame behaviour !!!
Some people would NEVER think about some commercial software if they couldn't pirate them...
Think about these many kids toying with programs like 3DStudio, Adobe Photoshop, ... Their budget is near to zero but they are learning to use these tools using pirated versions... The alternative is they playing with Gimp, Blender3D, ... Which would lead to more people interrested in these softwares which would greatly benefit to the FOSS.
The kids of today are the grownups of tomorrow...
It would be fun if a couple of judges decided to act together and ban all the infringing devices...
Immediate ban on XBox, PS3, iPhone, Android Phones, Windows Phones, and so on...
I guess that it'd not take long before all these tech companies start to lobby against flacky patents and the associated lawsuits...
We have Firefox, Chrome and Opera which decide that it's a good idea to avoid a format which is so patent encumbered that you've to pay licences to program a player, to program an encoder, to stream a video and to create a commercial video using that format (try to guess what it'd be like if authors had to pay Microsoft a licence to use the.doc format when they write their novel).
And on the other side, Apple (Safari) which own part of the licences and Microsoft who decided to pay... But neither are streaming anything (unlike Google via Youtube) and both have plenty of money available.
I don't see the problem with Google removing H.264 support from his browser... It's not like if he was the only one who don't support that format nor like if he had a major market choice...
What could have been wrong would be if Google suddently moved Youtube to WebM-only without Flash or H264 fallback AND was the only one to support that format... But the format is open and free...
I can still recover my files from my ZX Spextrum (and my sinclair +2). These files are from 83-93 (I switched to PC during 1993), some of the files from tape, other from disquettes
Among these files, all my programs on HP48SX (and my home made kermit transfert system for Spectrum) and some other.
Well, the fact that both my Spectrum 48K and my Sinclair +2 still work do help.
Well, one missing tab at the last line of a conditionnal lead to a programming error but NO SYNTAX ERROR...
if a :
[tab]if b :
[tab][tab]c
[tab][tab]d
[tab]e
versus
if a:
[tab]if b:
[tab][tab]c
[tab]d
[tab]e
That's the kind of mistake that could be hunted down for ages with no help from the compiler/interpreter as there is no syntax error...
Try to forget one closing brace in C/Java/Php/Perl/... and the compiler will burp !
Another problem comes when you've several programmers working on the same project with different tab sizes and indent convention. with langages like C/Perl/Php/Java/..., you can have the code reindented and reformatted automatically (think of indent for C code). Pythod would ask some human to do the work or some external way to enforce it.
Treating whitespaces as anything beside "one or more" = SEPARATOR is clearly a bad idea... precisely because you can't see the difference between spaces or tabs on a listing (and don't even think to use some proportionnal font)
Well, given that they are trying crippled CPU where you've to pay to unlock all your cores and cache... I think that avoiding iNTEL is a good idea anyway.
How long before we find some chinese HDMI_HDCP_Remover at our favorite Chinese internet shop ?
Or a FPGA equiped with two HDMI plugs, some USB plugs, ... and onboard JTAG to transfert whatever you want...
I lost my mother from a cancer about 9 years ago... And I still miss her and I'm still crying at some times... For example, when my son was born (she would have liked so much to know him).
But I would NOT recommend you to take any step to preserve her memories... Because all that you'll do will be artificial, it won't be her.
You'll have to move on, be ready to be grieving for about one year, the time needed to hit each anniversary and special dates... And it'll be the same for your daughters. And you'll have to help your daughter going through that, by having they think about something more happy (you may talk with them about the good times before the illness then go on to good times they can have with you (their dad) now).
Creating a "sanctuary" is probably the worse thing that you can do... My only advice would be to enjoy all the moments that you can still enjoy with her, try to have some good time during these grim moments...
Except for her last weeks, my mother was on chemiotherapy... We changed your life to adapt to her cycle... 1 week ill, 2 weeks tired and 1 week when she was feeling well. We didn't celebrate birthdays and other on the official date, we learned to celebrate them during that good week. And we had quality moments in family during these weeks.
Don't talk or think about her death, it won't bring anything good (well, to be a little cynic, you could get run over by a car tomorrow and die before her), try to enjoy all what you can.
Also, keep in mind that by taking photos and videos, you're making memories of her illness, not of the good time BEFORE her illness... And even if memories fade away, the most important won't disappear...
Find the nicest picture of her BEFORE things went bad, and put it NOW in a good place in your living room, if possible among other pictures of the family. Even better, find a picture where you're all together. By doing it now, while she is still there, you won't be making a "sanctuary" but displaying family pictures... It'll help to remember without linking it to the "souvenir" (sorry, I'm french-speaking) of when she died.
You may forget her voice, you won't forget her words. You may forget her face, you won't forget that you loved her smile/hair/... You may forget the last moments, you won't forget the happy one. No need for a time capsule for that...
Information théory tell us that once some info has been lost, it can't be recovered. If the picture has been somehow "damaged" by some motion blur, the original picture can't be reconstructed.
On the image, we'll have much more than the motion blur from the camera's movement : ...
- noise added from sensor electronic noise
- blur from target movement
- distortion coming from lens defect (mostly for low end cameras)
- distortion/blur from bad focus (autofocus in not perfect)
The operation that will reduce the camera's motion blur will probably increase the effect from all other defects. You reduce one kind of image destruction and increase the impact of the other one.
Well, one thing that is missing from both android and iPhone : RSAP support...
Before anything else, they are PHONES... so, the most important part is what is PHONE-related :
- contact list
- good reception (big minus for iPhone 4)
- Bluetooth handless support : headset and car handless systems...
And RSAP is the protocols which is used in high quality handless car systems : the telephony system of the phone is shut down and the car uses RSAP to access the SIM card and has it's own (optimized for car use) phone system.
But RSAP support is quite unlikely on iPhone. Firstly it's a Nokia technology (remind, Apple didn't pay for some telephony-related nokia patents and sued Nokia over some (over-borad and software) patents. Then, Apple is trying to have it's own way of doing things... which rules out RSAP...
There has been a Google summer code project for RSAP on Android... Too bad it didn't get anything running... But this shows that there is some interrest to RSAP for android...
1) please read an article posted on slashdot (yes, here) very few ago, about how Apple and AT&T teamed up to detect and blacklist Jailbroken iPhones
2) Rooting an android Device = adding an "su" program that allows applications (after an UAC like screen) to run with Root priviledges (which in turns allows some extra features)
3) Customs roms means that you updated the boot loader to some unlocked bootloader. These are able to run the original ROM aswell as some custom one, they allow to flash custom roms and usually have some other functions enabled (like using ADB to get a root-shell on the devide at pre-OS stage)
4) Android itself is available freely, which means that you may build your custom rom using the OS source... I strongly doubt that iOS sources are available (BTW, IOS with uppercase is used for ages by Cisco... Apple mobile OS name is a poor choice)
5) OS updates on Android are not mandatory.
Palm smartphones did exist BEFORE the iPhone...
iPhone, Android phones, ... are *NOT* Phones, they are "Smartphones" which are a mix between PDA and phone... And that did exists before... Palm had several of them which already had big touch screen
Keep in mind that most progress are improvements over something that already exists... And Apple marketting make you think they "invented" the technology...
Blueberry/Palm --- iPhone
Creative/Sony/... --- iPod
Xerox --- Macintosh GUI
Arm --- A4 processor (it's nothing more than common blocks put together, nothing new)
And so on... But with a good marketting, they make people believe they invented the wheel !!!
What they did create is the market for smartphones, not the smartphones... Before, smartphones were limited to a few CEO... Now everyone wants a smartphone (even if he has no need for it) And there are no patents protection for "creating a new market", only for creating a new product.
In this case, Apple IS the freerunner... Nokia holds most of the mobile phone patents (the technologies needed to connect to mobile networks). Apple made the iPhone without paying royalties to Nokia...
One of the things that rules in favor of VHS was that Sony was forbidding the use of it's format (Betamax) for pornography... So all porn movies were VHS only... Betamax was superior but noone ever cared about it...
Could the same happen with the iPhone ? People choosing Android/Blackberry/Maemo/SymbianWindows Mobile over the iPhone because of this restriction on nudity ?
What about feeding it with historical events, train with the outcome from these events and try to get a glimpse at which way the future will evolve ?
Well, it's true that the JVM may take some time to start... but once it's running, JIT and other make it run quite fast... You see game servers hosting hundred of players on a "normal" machine (not 8-CPU 4-core or similar), web sites using JSP, ...
And if you don't start to use the latest API (reflexion and similar) and stick to "standard" java, it'll make you create clean code...
But I agree that starting the JVM is rather slow... Even slower if you start it in "server" mode (but then, you'll get a speed increase while running the code)
Well, Python is not a good langage for several reason.
Main reason is the indent craze.
I agree that it's important to give proper indenting to your code... but relying on indenting for the syntax is lmooking for trouble..
Think about
if (a) {
b();
if (c) {
d();
e();
}
}
and compare with
if (a) {
b();
if (c) {
d();
}
e();
}
Only difference between the two code is ONE tabulation. And as there are no matching pairs of markers (braces, if...fi, ...) there is no way for a syntax checker to see that something went wrong. That's the kind of mistake that'll be a nightmare to find but that could easily be done (even more when you do a lot of copy/paste)
Speaking of copy-paste, you'd better have a VERY GOOD code editor if you want to be sure that indenting is still correct.
C/C++/... have code reformatters which can take care of applying the same code structure (indenting style and size, position of the opening brace, ...) so there is no need to force it through the programmer's throat
But it's also a "marginal" langage... see TIOBE index...
1 : Java 18%
2 : C 17%
3 : PHP 10%
4 : C++ 10%
5 : VB 7%
6 : C# 4%
7 : Python 4%
8 : Perl 4%
If you want to teach something to your students, teach them something that'll be useful in the future... PHP is a good choice : easy to learn, lots of demand, powerful libraries, clean syntax,...
well, it's up to you (in USA) to push for SHORTER copyright terms... Vote with your wallet, write to your local politicians, organise some big MPAA hit boycott, ...
At first, copyright was about a SHORT LIMITED TIME, now, it's longer and longer... with the clear intent to make it infinite...
It's up to you to push for a ban on stupid patents... Explain to other that if they have to pay more for their MP3/camera/... it's because of the so many patent fees on trivial or outdated technologies... I'd say that for everything computer-related, max patent duration should be 1 or 2 year... That's the rate at which most computer technologies become more or less obsolete...
It's up to you to say no to the removal of HQ on analog signals on TV/DVD/BluRay/... and to say no to the enforcement of HDCP and removal of analog signal later... Unless you want that your equipment becomes obsolete and you had to replace it...
It's up to you to shake your legal system, to prevent bullies (oops... corporation) from dragging court process until the other part can't pay for court and attorneys fees.
Well, I think it's only a false image... At first, "american" were greedy colonists (either going to america to flee some judicial problems in europe or going there to make some big profit).
While esclavagism had mostly disappeared in Europe, it had been brought back in US...
US has always be about freedom without limits... If you succeed in earning money, it gave you the right to "enslave" other people (well, employing them with minimal salaries), to crush the other trying to earn their living (most known example on slashdot is Microsoft... but it's true for many other),...
On the other hand, in Europe, it had been more and more about limiting personal freedom so it don't infringe on someone other's freedom (I won't say it was perfectly done)... Corporate greed also existed in europe... long ago... And it's brought back from the US (and other) thanks to the buyouts, merges, ...