You misunderstand... either by mistake, or on purpose...
The government isn't going to go around chipping babies or people... we'll sign up for it ourselves and pay for it.
Imagine Google Glass, but a much better version of it, hardwired into you. There are a lot of people who would sign up for that and pay for it.
Imagine if you can think of a math problem and the answer instantly comes up for you? You want to look something up? There it is...
That future will scare many people, but I believe it is coming... much of what we have today would have scared people of a few generations ago...
And frankly, we chip our dogs, but not our kids... I'd love to chip my kids so I know where they are... and do so in a way not easily removed so if someone snatches them, the police can find them.
We have our pair of iPhone 6 Plus on Verizon Edge.
We bought 2 of the 128GB models, so we pay about $40 a month for them. But we also get $25 credit per line for paying full price for our phones, so our net cost is $15 per phone per month. This is actually cheaper than the contract price.
My monthly cell phone bill went down $20 when we switched from Galaxy 4 phones to the iPhone 6 Plus, and we got top of the line phones in the process.
Hard to argue with that.
If we want to switch to the 6S Plus, we can, just pay off our current phones (and sell them for a decent amount), and start another 24 month deal for the new phones.
Upgrading might not actually cost much, if anything.
So why don't I upgrade? Because that doesn't take into account the time and effort to swap phones, sell the old ones, restore the settings and data, etc.
At some point, the current phones are fine and my time is worth something.
They can ask the Irish anything they want... they can't "order" the Irish to do anything...
What seems to be the problem here is that the DOJ is going after MS-US, not MS-EU or MS-Ireland.
My understanding is that MS-US has said, "that isn't our data, we don't have the rights to it, you're asking the wrong company". The DOJ has replied, "we don't care, provide it anyway".
Part of what you're paying for with Apple is having a dependable phone. They aren't perfect, but it works every time I want it to, which is actually more than I can say for my old Galaxy, which had to have its battery pulled more than once to hard reset it.
And I didn't have it modded, it was straight from the factory with only Google Play store apps installed.
Windows used to be like that, but frankly MS has cleaned it up to the point where Windows 10 just works. There might have been a time to move to the Mac, back during the XP days... but lord it works well now...
I don't mind there being 2 iPhones, a 4.7" and a 5.5"... I really love the 5.5" size. That size moved me from Galaxy to iPhone...
That being said, 2 is enough... the iPad Mini and iPad were enough, the problem with the Pro is that it is more or less a MacBook now. They have a lot of crossover now between those two lines.
Regarding the MacBook itself, also correct... You have a standard one, and a Pro model... You can have 2 screen sizes, but otherwise they should be the same...
The iMac is still that way, you have a smaller screen and a larger screen. You do have generally 2 performance choices, "good enough" and "plenty".
Of course, all of them are still too expensive, but that is a separate issue. Sell a 27" iMac for $999 and I'd be all over it. The screen is $200 these days, the hardware inside it is another $500 or so, the prices being charged are just nuts...
My GMC truck has OnStar, it tracks where I drive. My phone has GPS and knows where I go. None of this is new.
Frankly, one of these days we're all going to get chipped and while some people will fight it, they'll grow old and die and the rest of us will be fine with it. When you end up with a CPU in you that provides all the power and information of the world and you don't even need a phone, that becomes a quite useful thing.
That being said, it depends on how you use it. We have a PS4 attached to our main TV, we technically can use it for Amazon Prime streaming, but we don't, we use an Amazon Fire TV box for that.
Why? Because it is easier to use, doesn't have any boot time, uses less power, and has a nice simple voice remote.
Better, if you live in the Netflix/Hulu/iTunes ecosystem...
If you live in the Amazon Prime eco system, then no it isn't...
We have 2 Amazon Fire TVs in our house, one for the kids, one for us, they are wonderful, fast, and do everything we need. Paid $99 for one, $69 for the other (on special) and they are dependable boxes with quick voice search.
If we lived in the Netflix/Hulu/iTunes ecosystem, I'd buy the Apple TV, no doubt. But you don't need both boxes.
Why is $650 for a 4.7" hand held computer too much? Compared to the options in the past, that is darn cheap!
For that $650 you get a 4k video camera, a 12m picture camera, a multi core computer that can run everything from Office to Angry Birds. It can browser the web, talk to you, check your e-mail, and do a lot of other things.
Frankly, it strikes me as reasonable considering what does into it.
Can you get cheaper phones? Yes. Can you get cheaper phones with similar spec sheets? Yes.
There is a reason why people buy Apple, and it isn't all because they are iSheep.
However, this new system has many benefits, such as "buy a used phone for less, get cheaper service", and "keep your phone past the end of the payments, watch your service price drop", etc.
That is a fair point, and one worth talking about.
Of course, you run the risk of it being just another tax. If the money isn't used to actually recycle computers and other items, and just goes into the general fund, then what has been improved?
If that money went to directly recycling waste, I'd be more interested.
Consider the plastic bottle deposit in California. You get it back if you recycle the bottles, but where does the money go for bottles that aren't recycled?
If it goes to fund a large collection program for plastics in general that otherwise were not being recycled, then fine. But I suspect that is not the case.
That is true... perhaps a better example would be, "you won't be able to change out the video card in that computer".
Regardless, to get that smaller form factor, something has to be given up in the process, and that thing is the ability to install PCI or PCI-E add in cards.
Yeah, no one wants to fix a $250 computer. Devolving it back into constituent parts for recycling is also devilishly difficult. If your warranty doesn't replace it, then you're screwed, and must dispose of it and buy a replacement, perhaps in that order.
I recently purchased one of those ($349 directly from Amazon).
For $349, I got a nice 15.6" notebook with a nice 1080p display, a nice Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and it even comes with 1 year of accidental damage protection.
I did replace the 500GB hard drive with a SSD, but lord that was a PITA. You have to more or less take the whole bloody thing apart, split the case in half, take off the keyboard, etc. It is doable, but not by the average consumer.
By comparison, my last Dell notebook had a cover on the bottom where the HDD was and it was a 5 min swap.
Still, I got a lot of computer for the money, but if it ever breaks outside of the warranty, it likely will be tossed out rather than repaired, since I'll be able to get a better one for the same, or less money.
Yes, that is a shame, since it should at least be recycled. But the cost to recycle that computer properly likely exceeds the value of the raw materials that went into it.
But what of the parts? What did it die of? Trauma? Old age? Can it be fixed?
The new TV, or the old one?
The old one was tossed out long ago due to being obsoluete.
The new one? Lets say it dies in 3 years. It could be something as simple as a solder joint that has broken. If you knew the place that needed fixing, it could be a 5 min fix, after 30 min of opening up the TV carefully in a workspace designed to have a 50" safely opened up, then put back together.
Of course, you have to find that problem first, it could be an hour, it could be three hours of someone's time to find it, and that is after opening up the TV in said "safe place to open up a 50" TV". Then you want a warranty on the repair.
Then it might be something else, the capacitors might have gone bad, or perhaps a chip has become damaged, or perhaps the backlight is bad. All of that can be fixed...
So the repair bill comes to $300 in parts and labor. For a TV that cost $250.
Yep, that is why it'll get tossed out rather than fixed. Even if the repair bill was $150, that still isn't worth fixing. If the cost of repairs is more than about a 1/3 of the cost of a new one, just replace it.
Part of it is the lower cost of stuff vs the higher cost of labor.
Back in the early 80s, my family got a VCR, back when they cost a thousand dollars. It was one of the old ones that popped up from the top, then you pushed it down, it was huge.
If it broke, it was worth taking to the local repair shop, where they charged you 3 hours of labor, or perhaps $60, to fix it.
Last week I ordered a new Blu-Ray player for my office, it was less than $50 on Amazon. If it breaks, it goes in the trash and I buy another one. It isn't worth even 1 hour of a technicians time to look at today.
Things worth repairing, still are repaired. Vehciles for example, there are plenty of independent repair shops around for those, due to the cost of vehicles and the cost of repairs.
While that is all true, those TV sets were going to be owned for a very long time. They were very expensive in the day and would be repaired multiple times.
I remember a 25" TV that my family bought many years ago (early 80s) that cost over a thousand dollars.
Today, I recently purchased an extra 50" 1080p TV for my office, paid $250 for it. That is perhaps 10% of the price in constant dollars of the TV from the 80s. If it stops working at some point, I'll throw it out and buy another.
It would never be worth the labor dollars to repair.
Word 2013 documents will open properly on Word 2013...
You're correct that Word 2003 documents won't always look right in Word 2013, and so on...
So... if you're a professional, get on the latest version... There is no excuse for being out of date on your MS Office version by more than 1 version. Office 2010 generally is fine, but yes, go back to 2003, 2002, or 2000, and you'll have issues...
BTW, to open those documents, I still have a system with Windows XP on it and Office 2003 on it, for just that reason. Large companies, if they have any brains, do the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
You misunderstand... either by mistake, or on purpose...
The government isn't going to go around chipping babies or people... we'll sign up for it ourselves and pay for it.
Imagine Google Glass, but a much better version of it, hardwired into you. There are a lot of people who would sign up for that and pay for it.
Imagine if you can think of a math problem and the answer instantly comes up for you? You want to look something up? There it is...
That future will scare many people, but I believe it is coming... much of what we have today would have scared people of a few generations ago...
And frankly, we chip our dogs, but not our kids... I'd love to chip my kids so I know where they are... and do so in a way not easily removed so if someone snatches them, the police can find them.
My understanding is that new Roku 3 boxes comes with a voice remote.
Yes, I know you can do that on your phone, but there is something to be said for a small, lightweight remote with it built in.
Either way works, and is easier or superior to turning on the XBox1 or PS4.
We have our pair of iPhone 6 Plus on Verizon Edge.
We bought 2 of the 128GB models, so we pay about $40 a month for them. But we also get $25 credit per line for paying full price for our phones, so our net cost is $15 per phone per month. This is actually cheaper than the contract price.
My monthly cell phone bill went down $20 when we switched from Galaxy 4 phones to the iPhone 6 Plus, and we got top of the line phones in the process.
Hard to argue with that.
If we want to switch to the 6S Plus, we can, just pay off our current phones (and sell them for a decent amount), and start another 24 month deal for the new phones.
Upgrading might not actually cost much, if anything.
So why don't I upgrade? Because that doesn't take into account the time and effort to swap phones, sell the old ones, restore the settings and data, etc.
At some point, the current phones are fine and my time is worth something.
The key word there is "ask", not order...
They can ask the Irish anything they want... they can't "order" the Irish to do anything...
What seems to be the problem here is that the DOJ is going after MS-US, not MS-EU or MS-Ireland.
My understanding is that MS-US has said, "that isn't our data, we don't have the rights to it, you're asking the wrong company". The DOJ has replied, "we don't care, provide it anyway".
More or less...
Part of what you're paying for with Apple is having a dependable phone. They aren't perfect, but it works every time I want it to, which is actually more than I can say for my old Galaxy, which had to have its battery pulled more than once to hard reset it.
And I didn't have it modded, it was straight from the factory with only Google Play store apps installed.
Windows used to be like that, but frankly MS has cleaned it up to the point where Windows 10 just works. There might have been a time to move to the Mac, back during the XP days... but lord it works well now...
Amen...
I don't mind there being 2 iPhones, a 4.7" and a 5.5"... I really love the 5.5" size. That size moved me from Galaxy to iPhone...
That being said, 2 is enough... the iPad Mini and iPad were enough, the problem with the Pro is that it is more or less a MacBook now. They have a lot of crossover now between those two lines.
Regarding the MacBook itself, also correct... You have a standard one, and a Pro model... You can have 2 screen sizes, but otherwise they should be the same...
The iMac is still that way, you have a smaller screen and a larger screen. You do have generally 2 performance choices, "good enough" and "plenty".
Of course, all of them are still too expensive, but that is a separate issue. Sell a 27" iMac for $999 and I'd be all over it. The screen is $200 these days, the hardware inside it is another $500 or so, the prices being charged are just nuts...
Or, perhaps people don't really care...
My GMC truck has OnStar, it tracks where I drive. My phone has GPS and knows where I go. None of this is new.
Frankly, one of these days we're all going to get chipped and while some people will fight it, they'll grow old and die and the rest of us will be fine with it. When you end up with a CPU in you that provides all the power and information of the world and you don't even need a phone, that becomes a quite useful thing.
And yes, they'll be able to track you.
XBox One doesn't cost $149, Apple TV does.
That being said, it depends on how you use it. We have a PS4 attached to our main TV, we technically can use it for Amazon Prime streaming, but we don't, we use an Amazon Fire TV box for that.
Why? Because it is easier to use, doesn't have any boot time, uses less power, and has a nice simple voice remote.
Better, if you live in the Netflix/Hulu/iTunes ecosystem...
If you live in the Amazon Prime eco system, then no it isn't...
We have 2 Amazon Fire TVs in our house, one for the kids, one for us, they are wonderful, fast, and do everything we need. Paid $99 for one, $69 for the other (on special) and they are dependable boxes with quick voice search.
If we lived in the Netflix/Hulu/iTunes ecosystem, I'd buy the Apple TV, no doubt. But you don't need both boxes.
Why is $650 for a 4.7" hand held computer too much? Compared to the options in the past, that is darn cheap!
For that $650 you get a 4k video camera, a 12m picture camera, a multi core computer that can run everything from Office to Angry Birds. It can browser the web, talk to you, check your e-mail, and do a lot of other things.
Frankly, it strikes me as reasonable considering what does into it.
Can you get cheaper phones? Yes. Can you get cheaper phones with similar spec sheets? Yes.
There is a reason why people buy Apple, and it isn't all because they are iSheep.
Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss...
However, this new system has many benefits, such as "buy a used phone for less, get cheaper service", and "keep your phone past the end of the payments, watch your service price drop", etc.
So actually this is an improvement.
That is a fair point, and one worth talking about.
Of course, you run the risk of it being just another tax. If the money isn't used to actually recycle computers and other items, and just goes into the general fund, then what has been improved?
If that money went to directly recycling waste, I'd be more interested.
Consider the plastic bottle deposit in California. You get it back if you recycle the bottles, but where does the money go for bottles that aren't recycled?
If it goes to fund a large collection program for plastics in general that otherwise were not being recycled, then fine. But I suspect that is not the case.
Let me be more clear...
Does the US government have the right to sue an Irish company for information on Irish citizens held on servers located in Ireland?
More importantly, does the US Government have the right to sue a US company for that information?
More importantly is how does Siri answer your questions whether the phone is on or off?!?
Perhaps because the phone is never really off?
Is that really news?
That is true... perhaps a better example would be, "you won't be able to change out the video card in that computer".
Regardless, to get that smaller form factor, something has to be given up in the process, and that thing is the ability to install PCI or PCI-E add in cards.
Yeah, no one wants to fix a $250 computer. Devolving it back into constituent parts for recycling is also devilishly difficult. If your warranty doesn't replace it, then you're screwed, and must dispose of it and buy a replacement, perhaps in that order.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...
I recently purchased one of those ($349 directly from Amazon).
For $349, I got a nice 15.6" notebook with a nice 1080p display, a nice Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive, DVD burner, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and it even comes with 1 year of accidental damage protection.
I did replace the 500GB hard drive with a SSD, but lord that was a PITA. You have to more or less take the whole bloody thing apart, split the case in half, take off the keyboard, etc. It is doable, but not by the average consumer.
By comparison, my last Dell notebook had a cover on the bottom where the HDD was and it was a 5 min swap.
Still, I got a lot of computer for the money, but if it ever breaks outside of the warranty, it likely will be tossed out rather than repaired, since I'll be able to get a better one for the same, or less money.
Yes, that is a shame, since it should at least be recycled. But the cost to recycle that computer properly likely exceeds the value of the raw materials that went into it.
But what of the parts? What did it die of? Trauma? Old age? Can it be fixed?
The new TV, or the old one?
The old one was tossed out long ago due to being obsoluete.
The new one? Lets say it dies in 3 years. It could be something as simple as a solder joint that has broken. If you knew the place that needed fixing, it could be a 5 min fix, after 30 min of opening up the TV carefully in a workspace designed to have a 50" safely opened up, then put back together.
Of course, you have to find that problem first, it could be an hour, it could be three hours of someone's time to find it, and that is after opening up the TV in said "safe place to open up a 50" TV". Then you want a warranty on the repair.
Then it might be something else, the capacitors might have gone bad, or perhaps a chip has become damaged, or perhaps the backlight is bad. All of that can be fixed...
So the repair bill comes to $300 in parts and labor. For a TV that cost $250.
Yep, that is why it'll get tossed out rather than fixed. Even if the repair bill was $150, that still isn't worth fixing. If the cost of repairs is more than about a 1/3 of the cost of a new one, just replace it.
But the fact that MS-US is responding, suggests that it does in fact own the data
The US Government has filed suit against MS-US. MS-US MUST respond, it can't just ignore it.
The US Government is not filing suit against MS-Ireland, they have no standing to do so.
The servers in Ireland are owned by a separate company from MS-US, but that company is likely wholly owned by MS-US.
It is a legal mess, not really MS fault since they have to deal with laws in a hundred different countries, many of which conflict.
Sadly, one of the easiest solutions to this would be to move their headquarters to the EU.
Part of it is the lower cost of stuff vs the higher cost of labor.
Back in the early 80s, my family got a VCR, back when they cost a thousand dollars. It was one of the old ones that popped up from the top, then you pushed it down, it was huge.
If it broke, it was worth taking to the local repair shop, where they charged you 3 hours of labor, or perhaps $60, to fix it.
Last week I ordered a new Blu-Ray player for my office, it was less than $50 on Amazon. If it breaks, it goes in the trash and I buy another one. It isn't worth even 1 hour of a technicians time to look at today.
Things worth repairing, still are repaired. Vehciles for example, there are plenty of independent repair shops around for those, due to the cost of vehicles and the cost of repairs.
Speeding is much easier to make revenue from...
Yes, but to do that required a normal sized computer case that you could open and swap parts in.
Lots of new computers are coming in small form factors that won't enable you to do that.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-NU...
That one for example, you won't be able to change the Ethernet card in that.
While that is all true, those TV sets were going to be owned for a very long time. They were very expensive in the day and would be repaired multiple times.
I remember a 25" TV that my family bought many years ago (early 80s) that cost over a thousand dollars.
Today, I recently purchased an extra 50" 1080p TV for my office, paid $250 for it. That is perhaps 10% of the price in constant dollars of the TV from the 80s. If it stops working at some point, I'll throw it out and buy another.
It would never be worth the labor dollars to repair.
Your reply tells me you don't understand the current issue.
This is Irish data, physically localed in Ireland, that the U.S. Government wants.
The U.S. Government is asking MS to break EU laws to give them what they want.
This is not the problem, this is the FEATURE of encryption.
I meant the "problem" from the point of view of the government.
Word 2013 documents will open properly on Word 2013...
You're correct that Word 2003 documents won't always look right in Word 2013, and so on...
So... if you're a professional, get on the latest version... There is no excuse for being out of date on your MS Office version by more than 1 version. Office 2010 generally is fine, but yes, go back to 2003, 2002, or 2000, and you'll have issues...
BTW, to open those documents, I still have a system with Windows XP on it and Office 2003 on it, for just that reason. Large companies, if they have any brains, do the same thing.