Some do, but a) controls and battery life still tend to be better on portables, b) there are hugely popular titles that are still exclusive to portables (can't say much about Sony, but here's a hint for one of examples on Nintendo - it starts with "Pok" and ends with "mon")
> You just declared that 100% of American XP users are running IE6, 7, or 8, in spite of the fact that you are posting on a slashdot story about Chrome overtaking IE.
If you didn't fail reading comprehension so bad, you'd notice that article speaks about Chrome overtaking IE8, not all of the IE.
But OK, I stand corrected, it's not 40-50M, it's _just_ 8-12M. For US. Really, why should you care for them, right?
> Do you always stop thinking when your religion comes up? Dork.
Ahaha, oh wow, that's new. You're kinda incoherent, but I guess you just called me MS fanatic? I'd expect from my comments history to be called google shill, but MS?.. Well.
Same to you, pal. Go on nitpicking and go ballistic when you feel your religious senses are offended, because, really, weighted counterarguments are overrated, right?
In the US only 1 out of 4 people even still use it.
:D
IOW, "Who cares about 40-50 million XP users?" And it's only US. Or in web development context "Why should I care about 40-50 mil potential (US) customers, when I can have shiny and pretty HTML5 page?"
Sadly, no. The reality is that XP share is declining, but not as fast as we'd like to see. With Win7 released two years ago it still just barely overtook WinXP in 30-something% range. And even after the EoL XP users won't just disappear overnight.
My only hope for all the developers out there is that Win8 won't be a flop and Win7 with IE9 doesn't become new WinXP/IE8 for decade.
used some type of encryption for storage and then decrypt for comparison
No. Just no. The only situation where password exists in clear text should be while you input it. The only viable method for third party to retrieve password should be brute force, either in "blunt heavy object" variety or "trying to reverse a hash function" variety.
And even then passwords are inherently weak, as they are limited by puny human brains used for storage.
> Whatever hashing/salting/encrypting technique that can be used safely store passwords can be repeated to safely store individual characters instead.
Yeah, it's totally alright, because it only lowers complexity of brute-forcing from N^M to N*M (where N is number of characters in password's allowed alphabet and M is length of password).
And if they hash pairs of characters instead, then it's (N^2)*M/2 for non-intersecting pairs and N^2+N*(M-1) for intersecting.
Well, that's only if you yourself are rooting the device, not a piece of malware using some privilege escalating bug.
But then, if you've got user to install a rootkit, why stop with 4 last digits and transaction history, when you can just leave a logger to sit around and wait for all the account info?
IE8 is here to stay, as Windows XP will probably be upgraded to IE8 - unless they've decided to backport IE9. Well, at least IE8 is a lot less painful to support than 6-7.
Also, IE6 and 7 users still can opt out of the upgrade. It will lower the numbers and will allow to phase out IE8 support for some sites, but some webdevs will still have to deal with glorious mess of IE6.
You still need to modify your Xbox 360 to play them
Yep, because you can't reproduce physical disc structure on home equipment. On the other hand, you just need an adapter board with firmware providing correct responses to copy protection soft challenges and you're good with any thumbdrive you can stick in it.
In other words, once the copy-protection scheme is figured out, pirating would be much easier with electronic media.
I'm measuring install times. With next gen games expected sizes starting from 25Gb, it would still be faster to drive to a store and then install from a disc.
And if you've got monthly data cap "Wait for shipping from electronic store to arrive" vs "Wait till next month because I've downloaded a game this month already" is surely much faster.
Yeah, UMD's a failure. Portables with their much weaker hardware don't need as much storage for data assets and have to be quick to fire up to play on the go, Nintendo was smart to keep ROM-based media on all their portable consoles.
On the other hand, you wouldn't want to look at NDS level graphics on your big plasma.
It just isn't as cheap and fast to mass-produce multigigabit cartridges as it is to stamp optical disks.
It's basically start-up speed vs game cost and game content volume tradeoff. N64 and PS1 has shown this well.
And download could be even cheaper and game data size then could be limited only by space available on user's device, but with current state of broadband it's just not viable yet.
Well, original motivation for patents included those "providing better products at cheaper prices". As in, preventing situation when small inventor creates something new and big company screws him and starts stamping clones on the cheap using their established manufacture and supply chain.
But since those times the idea got screwed and crooked from "support small innovator with groundbreaking inventions" to "raise entry barrier by patenting every gearwheel"
Eh? "Thin" was always a technological limit for portable computer, and "completely flat front surface" was here long before iPad, look at touch-controlled devices before tablets, like mediaplayers, for example.
"Nobody come up with them before" != "I didn't hear about them before".
Anyways, you're still mistaken about design patents. What Apple and Samsung are disputing in design patent case is not "Did Apple come up with this before Samsung?", but "Does Samsung device looks too much like Apple's?" and "Does that patent cover only elements following the function and is invalid or is it ornamental design and should be protected?"
> the AND part means that Apple, if they were to licence it, should pay exactly the same amount as HTC, Nokia, etc.
Basically, what happened is this: Motorola found out Apple has not licensed this patent. As this is a FRAND patent, Apple could avoid the suit if they tried to negotiate a fair deal to license the patent.
Apple said "OK, but you can't sue us for damages from past infringement, we're gonna pay same rate for past".
Motorola said "Na-ah" and went to court.
Judge said "You've got caught infringing, so it's fair to demand extra for the time when you was breaking the law" and decided that was not a fair deal, so FRAND defense didn't work.
Defensive - "Lay down and take it like a man! Why do you even need that Xoom and whatnot anyways?", offensive - "OMG, why are you hitting back, you bully!"
Slashdot Mirror
Some do, but a) controls and battery life still tend to be better on portables, b) there are hugely popular titles that are still exclusive to portables (can't say much about Sony, but here's a hint for one of examples on Nintendo - it starts with "Pok" and ends with "mon")
> You just declared that 100% of American XP users are running IE6, 7, or 8, in spite of the fact that you are posting on a slashdot story about Chrome overtaking IE.
If you didn't fail reading comprehension so bad, you'd notice that article speaks about Chrome overtaking IE8, not all of the IE.
But OK, I stand corrected, it's not 40-50M, it's _just_ 8-12M. For US. Really, why should you care for them, right?
> Do you always stop thinking when your religion comes up? Dork.
Ahaha, oh wow, that's new. You're kinda incoherent, but I guess you just called me MS fanatic? I'd expect from my comments history to be called google shill, but MS?.. Well.
Same to you, pal. Go on nitpicking and go ballistic when you feel your religious senses are offended, because, really, weighted counterarguments are overrated, right?
In the US only 1 out of 4 people even still use it.
:D
IOW, "Who cares about 40-50 million XP users?" And it's only US. Or in web development context "Why should I care about 40-50 mil potential (US) customers, when I can have shiny and pretty HTML5 page?"
Sadly, no. The reality is that XP share is declining, but not as fast as we'd like to see. With Win7 released two years ago it still just barely overtook WinXP in 30-something% range. And even after the EoL XP users won't just disappear overnight.
My only hope for all the developers out there is that Win8 won't be a flop and Win7 with IE9 doesn't become new WinXP/IE8 for decade.
used some type of encryption for storage and then decrypt for comparison
No. Just no. The only situation where password exists in clear text should be while you input it. The only viable method for third party to retrieve password should be brute force, either in "blunt heavy object" variety or "trying to reverse a hash function" variety.
And even then passwords are inherently weak, as they are limited by puny human brains used for storage.
Other Cyrillic scripts? Belarussian, for example, or Russian without "Yo".
> Whatever hashing/salting/encrypting technique that can be used safely store passwords can be repeated to safely store individual characters instead.
Yeah, it's totally alright, because it only lowers complexity of brute-forcing from N^M to N*M (where N is number of characters in password's allowed alphabet and M is length of password).
And if they hash pairs of characters instead, then it's (N^2)*M/2 for non-intersecting pairs and N^2+N*(M-1) for intersecting.
Well, that's only if you yourself are rooting the device, not a piece of malware using some privilege escalating bug.
But then, if you've got user to install a rootkit, why stop with 4 last digits and transaction history, when you can just leave a logger to sit around and wait for all the account info?
Oops, a typo. Meant to say
will allow to phase out pre-IE8 support for some sites
IE8 is here to stay, as Windows XP will probably be upgraded to IE8 - unless they've decided to backport IE9. Well, at least IE8 is a lot less painful to support than 6-7.
Also, IE6 and 7 users still can opt out of the upgrade. It will lower the numbers and will allow to phase out IE8 support for some sites, but some webdevs will still have to deal with glorious mess of IE6.
You still need to modify your Xbox 360 to play them
Yep, because you can't reproduce physical disc structure on home equipment. On the other hand, you just need an adapter board with firmware providing correct responses to copy protection soft challenges and you're good with any thumbdrive you can stick in it.
In other words, once the copy-protection scheme is figured out, pirating would be much easier with electronic media.
I'm measuring install times. With next gen games expected sizes starting from 25Gb, it would still be faster to drive to a store and then install from a disc.
And if you've got monthly data cap "Wait for shipping from electronic store to arrive" vs "Wait till next month because I've downloaded a game this month already" is surely much faster.
Cheap adapters from any flash drive to proprietary in 3... 2... 1...
Yeah, UMD's a failure. Portables with their much weaker hardware don't need as much storage for data assets and have to be quick to fire up to play on the go, Nintendo was smart to keep ROM-based media on all their portable consoles.
On the other hand, you wouldn't want to look at NDS level graphics on your big plasma.
So, basically, it's Mass Effect's elevators again, but with 30 minute rides this time.
It just isn't as cheap and fast to mass-produce multigigabit cartridges as it is to stamp optical disks.
It's basically start-up speed vs game cost and game content volume tradeoff. N64 and PS1 has shown this well.
And download could be even cheaper and game data size then could be limited only by space available on user's device, but with current state of broadband it's just not viable yet.
Top average inet speed by country: Lithuania with ~35 Mbps
Average speed in US: ~15 Mbps
1x Blu-ray: 36 Mbps
4x Blu-ray: 144 Mbps
"Game console with no media" is still 5-6 years away from being universally acceptable, best they could do is a no-drive option.
Oh, and don't be surprised when this model comes with "Your internet is down, nyah-nyah-nyah! Can't run this game, you dirty pirate."
Sadly, it's the trend even for games on physical media, but pure DL games make it seem much more acceptable.
Computer graphics researchers would surely be excited to see some shots of Cornell box with this thing.
It's just a bad description.
a) Laser shots a pulse
b) At moment T, camera captures reflected/refracted portions of the pulse
c) Repeat for moments T+n
After combining the pictures, you can infer the path and shape of the wavefront.
Well, original motivation for patents included those "providing better products at cheaper prices". As in, preventing situation when small inventor creates something new and big company screws him and starts stamping clones on the cheap using their established manufacture and supply chain.
But since those times the idea got screwed and crooked from "support small innovator with groundbreaking inventions" to "raise entry barrier by patenting every gearwheel"
Eh? "Thin" was always a technological limit for portable computer, and "completely flat front surface" was here long before iPad, look at touch-controlled devices before tablets, like mediaplayers, for example.
"Nobody come up with them before" != "I didn't hear about them before".
Anyways, you're still mistaken about design patents. What Apple and Samsung are disputing in design patent case is not "Did Apple come up with this before Samsung?", but "Does Samsung device looks too much like Apple's?" and "Does that patent cover only elements following the function and is invalid or is it ornamental design and should be protected?"
> the AND part means that Apple, if they were to licence it, should pay exactly the same amount as HTC, Nokia, etc.
Basically, what happened is this: Motorola found out Apple has not licensed this patent. As this is a FRAND patent, Apple could avoid the suit if they tried to negotiate a fair deal to license the patent.
Apple said "OK, but you can't sue us for damages from past infringement, we're gonna pay same rate for past".
Motorola said "Na-ah" and went to court.
Judge said "You've got caught infringing, so it's fair to demand extra for the time when you was breaking the law" and decided that was not a fair deal, so FRAND defense didn't work.
Defensive - "Lay down and take it like a man! Why do you even need that Xoom and whatnot anyways?", offensive - "OMG, why are you hitting back, you bully!"
"Patent troll" usually means "non-practicing entity", not "anyone who sues on patent grounds".
Like, you know, that Digitude Innovation who recently got some patents from Apple to sue everyone with.
Unlike Motorola, who got sued for Xoom, and now sues Apple in retaliation.
> The dimensions are the same
Yeah, after Apple lawyers photoshopped them to match, not in real life.
> the look is the same
Except for all the parts that aren't.
> the chargers and cables are the same
Now after previous two these is just straw-grabbing.
> the packaging is the same
Or as it says in that original pic "You open the box, and you see... [the product front]". Shocking. No one thought about it before.
> They even stole Apple artwork and used it on the walls of their retail stores
You mean "Some electronics retail shop in Italy, which has Samsung section, decorated walls with all kind of icons, including Google's and Apple's"
I didn't think there were still Apple apologists who still hang on to that "OMG DEFINITE PROOF" pic.
> that Google's patent acquisitions were purely for defensive purposes. Well, Motorola is now seeking injunctions
How's countersuing is not defensive? What constitutes "defensive purposes" then?
When you see "expert" where you expect "lawyer", "engineer", "doctor" and so on, it's a sure sign of incoming bullshit.