Re-read what I wrote. I'm aware that the patent mentions jailbreaking: it's in the part I excerpted as well.
Jailbreaking, however, is not presented in the patent which is automatically grounds for remotely bricking (or whatever) the phone. Instead, it's named as a potentially suspicious behavior that may indicate someone is trying to steal a phone.
"Apple yesterday applied for patent to allow remotely disabling electronic devices when 'unauthorized usage' is detected. The patent application covers using the camera to take pictures of the unauthorized user and using GPS to determine location, and it involves ascertaining whether the phone has been hacked or jailbroken, using that as criteria for detecting 'suspicious behavior.' The patent would allow the carrier or any other 'authorized' party to disable or restrict the functionality of the device. Is this Apple's latest tool to thwart jailbreaking?"
This is why we should be able to rate stories -1 Troll.
Nothing in the linked article references jailbreaking. This looks way more like remote disabling for stolen phones - the same way that OnStar customers can call to say that their car has been stolen.
The specific means of identifying whether or not the current user is the one who is supposed to be operating the device is discussed, and in that context:
The method of [identifying a particular activity indicating a suspicious behavior], wherein the particular activity comprises one or more of hacking the electronic device, jailbreaking the electronic device, unlocking the electronic device, removing a SIM card from the electronic device, and moving at least a predetermined distance away from a synced device.
So in other words, if someone steals your iPhone, they won't be able to thwart anti-theft devices by jailbreaking your phone or yanking the SIM.
"It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. By 3:44 am, it has a comfortable nest-egg and is on track to retire early, perhaps with a nice condo in Hernando, Florida."
Ideally you'd move all non-solar power generation offplanet and either beam the power down to a rectenna array or run it down a superconductor woven into a space elevator, the former being possible with today's technology if only we could get the hardware up there.
Rectenna? Damn near killed Tenna!
(This post brought to you buy the Foundation for Jokes that Depend on Pronunciation.)
Were you being facetious? The EFF are the lawyers - when you make a donation to them, you're helping to pay for litigation for people who may not otherwise be able to afford lawyers. Check out some of the legal battles they've won here, and consider making a donation.
If the two events were to be truly compared, then the First Amendment should have made anyone with a printing press unable to refuse to print and distribute whatever someone else wants based on content, and that includes the major newspapers of the time - the First Amendment did no such thing, but network neutrality will do if it were to be implemented as trumpeted on Slashdot.
Your analogy is deeply, misleadingly, and vexatiously flawed. Net neutrality legislation doesn't enjoin people attempting to produce content, as do the printers of your example. It enjoins people attempting to take part in a public infrastructure which transmits that content to would-be consumers. As it happens, the founders did have an opinion about that, and the US Postal Service was established in an attempt to give equal access to that service.
For a lot of reasons that should probably be obvious, I don't think that the USPS makes a very good point of comparison with the Internet. But your analogy is simply ludicrous, unless you think that the passage of Net Neutrality is going to force, say, HBO to produce my four part special on toe cheese.
But I find it interesting if the media are now going to criticise Microsoft because their phone lacks these features, when the Iphones got praised for it.
Okay, wait a minute. The iPhone didn't get praised for lacking copy/paste, it got panned for it. There were apps springing up on Cydia to hack the support into it. Blackberry users were calling the phone a bad joke. Apple did what it always does, which was to insist that it wasn't a big deal, right up until they released an OS for the phone that supported native copy/paste, and most people conceded that the debate was over.
The thing is, that OS update was over a year ago now, and the debate has now been over for a year.
Microsoft just doesn't have the kind of market goodwill that Apple does. If it releases a phone that is lacking that basic functionality, people will want to know what the hell MS has been doing all this time.
Heh. That's a good one. I invite you to experience the raw, thigh-scorching might of my MBP as it struggles to convert a couple hundred Canon raw files to DNG.
Natal is a motion sensing camera for the Xbox
not (as it might have been, for all I knew) a new compiler, for example.
Slashdot summaries have this annoying habbit of assuming that because the author is thoroughly familiar with the technology, everyone else is too and you can just reel of project names with no further explaination.
anything that is user facing should be able to be explained to a common 5 year old (hint if you have enough developers available then you should have access to at least one).
As the parent to your post noted: we are talking about an API here. Precisely none of it is user facing.
But in reality, it's an artificial limitation. They could quite easily make it a plugin system where it would ship with one or two codecs, and users could "install" others if they choose...
And, the pitch...
Of course, IE9 will continue to support Flash and other plug-ins. Developers who want to use the same markup today across different browsers rely on plug-ins. Plug-ins are also important for delivering innovation and functionality ahead of the standards process; mainstream video on the web today works primarily because of plug-ins... To be clear, users can install other codecs for use in Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. For web browsers, developers can continue to offer plug-ins (using NPAPI or ActiveX; they are effectively equivalent in this scenario) so that webpages can play video using these codecs on Windows.
I'm quoting from the page you referenced. Boldface emphasis is mine.
Here is a list of things to avoid:
Giving your password over the phone to ANYONE.
Sending a password in an e-mail message.
Telling your boss your password.
They weren't asking for his password. They were asking for the administrative passwords. Other commenters have already pointed out the policy on passwords to network infrastructure.
My wife has called bars, stores, restaurants, and cabbies to track down her crappy LG. You're telling me this guy never thought to call the bar the next day? Or that the bar sold it off before the guy could claim it?
The answers to all this and more, when you RTFA!:)
But the short answer: some guy at the bar apparently tried to figure out who owned it, failed (because the guy who lost it had already left), and started messing around with it trying to figure out the owner. Eventually he found the guy's Facebook page, and thought "Aha! I'll return this tomorrow". Unfortunately, when he woke up, the phone had been remotely bricked, so he couldn't get the contact info back again.
"Oh hi you techreporters. I'll just be finishing my drink and then conveniently leaving my NEW FREAKIN' IPHONE 4 *cough* here for someone totally random to find. TWICE."
There.
(Seriously, though - I have zero problem with this. Most product launches are lame and boring. This is more like a scavenger hunt.)
Malcom Reynolds is so deeply scarred that he cannot form normal attachments to humans. War gave him severe Aspergers, basically, alongside damaging the logic part of his brain, making him roughly an idiot. Occasionally he tears up about it. His strength is carried to a fault, even when his being weak would make a better story.
Okay, what?
That is easily the weirdest take on that character I've ever read.
Slashdot Mirror
Re-read what I wrote. I'm aware that the patent mentions jailbreaking: it's in the part I excerpted as well.
Jailbreaking, however, is not presented in the patent which is automatically grounds for remotely bricking (or whatever) the phone. Instead, it's named as a potentially suspicious behavior that may indicate someone is trying to steal a phone.
This makes pretty obvious sense to me.
This is why we should be able to rate stories -1 Troll.
Nothing in the linked article references jailbreaking. This looks way more like remote disabling for stolen phones - the same way that OnStar customers can call to say that their car has been stolen.
The specific means of identifying whether or not the current user is the one who is supposed to be operating the device is discussed, and in that context:
So in other words, if someone steals your iPhone, they won't be able to thwart anti-theft devices by jailbreaking your phone or yanking the SIM.
"It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. By 3:44 am, it has a comfortable nest-egg and is on track to retire early, perhaps with a nice condo in Hernando, Florida."
Rectenna? Damn near killed Tenna!
(This post brought to you buy the Foundation for Jokes that Depend on Pronunciation.)
Were you being facetious? The EFF are the lawyers - when you make a donation to them, you're helping to pay for litigation for people who may not otherwise be able to afford lawyers. Check out some of the legal battles they've won here, and consider making a donation.
Werd.
I may actually be more likely to buy an iPad now that I've seen this. Just out of spite.
Your analogy is deeply, misleadingly, and vexatiously flawed. Net neutrality legislation doesn't enjoin people attempting to produce content, as do the printers of your example. It enjoins people attempting to take part in a public infrastructure which transmits that content to would-be consumers. As it happens, the founders did have an opinion about that, and the US Postal Service was established in an attempt to give equal access to that service.
For a lot of reasons that should probably be obvious, I don't think that the USPS makes a very good point of comparison with the Internet. But your analogy is simply ludicrous, unless you think that the passage of Net Neutrality is going to force, say, HBO to produce my four part special on toe cheese.
Out of curiosity, why? One would assume that you already have the "source" of the theme, since there's no compiled code in there.
If you believe that, I have a bottle of snake oil to sell you. Only this snake oil is better, because it has stem cells.
Also electrolytes. It's got what stem cells crave.
Heh. That's a good one. I invite you to experience the raw, thigh-scorching might of my MBP as it struggles to convert a couple hundred Canon raw files to DNG.
Bonus. Party time in the tub!
Nice reference.
By extension, I posit that the only true sports are the caber toss, the stone put, and golf.
For real, yo?
And those are just stories on Slashdot mentioning Natal. Not all of them, either.
Interesting idea, but I'd really miss the bacon-double cheese software I've been enjoying recently. I'm such a bad Jew.
As the parent to your post noted: we are talking about an API here. Precisely none of it is user facing.
Wow. Bittersweet.
Friends from alt.games.quake2, Sigil (and Mrs. Sigil) say hi. Best of luck to y'all.
// sammy baby liked this.
The windup...
And, the pitch...
I'm quoting from the page you referenced. Boldface emphasis is mine.
They weren't asking for his password. They were asking for the administrative passwords. Other commenters have already pointed out the policy on passwords to network infrastructure.
The answers to all this and more, when you RTFA! :)
But the short answer: some guy at the bar apparently tried to figure out who owned it, failed (because the guy who lost it had already left), and started messing around with it trying to figure out the owner. Eventually he found the guy's Facebook page, and thought "Aha! I'll return this tomorrow". Unfortunately, when he woke up, the phone had been remotely bricked, so he couldn't get the contact info back again.
Wait, lemme fix that for you..
There.
(Seriously, though - I have zero problem with this. Most product launches are lame and boring. This is more like a scavenger hunt.)
It must be a little nerve wracking to build a business plan that depends on a third party continuing to behave terribly.
But then again, the third party is Apple, so perhaps they're safe.
Okay, what?
That is easily the weirdest take on that character I've ever read.
You really don't think that an "annoyingly-high volume email campaign" can be legitimately viewed as harassment?
What's your e-mail address again?