There are stories on all topics that make no sense. I don't know much about how these stories get selected and edited, but couldn't/. hire editors that know the basics of the technologies so they can weed out stories that are fundamentally wrong or that make no sense?
I generally assume that any endorsement has some sort of commercial arrangement behind it. The only exception would be a recommendation from a friend and even those can sometimes be suspect.
Now, I don't mean to belittle this issue - the clear separation of paid and unpaid content is extremely important - but the stuff in this example doesn't seem that bad. Consider, for comparison, the lack of disclosure involved in political blogs and other online media...
He already had an enormous number of shares, the eyes of the tech world on him, and the biggest company in the world at his command, and you're suggesting there wasn't sufficient motivation???
If he didn't want this job, and intend to do his absolute best even without this additional bonus then he shouldn't have got this job.
As a Google fan this is exactly what I want them to do: get real and start playing the game.
Google should maintain their general position that the patent system is badly in need of reform and patents shouldn't be used in place of competition, while at the same time playing the patent game like the rest of them.
You might see that as hypocritical. I see it as working within the system as it is, while trying to change it.
It's like their position on Flash: they don't really like it and are doing a better job then anyone else of making it redundent (by driving forward open technologies) but they support it because users still want it.
Microsoft is still using revenue from Windows and Office to fund its other adventures, including Windows Phone.
Apple's virtual monopoly with iPod/iTunes funded (and led to) the iPhone/iPad/App Store.
Also, I would argue that Google has a clearly stated plan to make money from Android while continuing to give it away: advertising. So, it's not like they are giving it away to achieve dominance and will then start charging for it.
Wow! CTO of company that makes money selling security software for Android says that Android has security problems!
If you think you can get honest and objective info about this problem from the CTO of a company that is in the business of selling solutions to the problem, then you should not be allowed to use the Internet.
I'm not saying that there isn't a problem - I'm just saying that this is so obviously the wrong source that it is no better then an advertisement.
It's starting to appear that Florian Mueller is spamming/.?
He was long ago discredited, and yet his useless posts are showing up quite regularly as the source of/. articles. Presumably he is using/. to increase his pagerank.
First off, let's note that this/. article is about a Trojan that is not in the Android market. Publishing an article about that is just stupid scare-mongering. There could be millions of viruses/trojans outside the market and I wouldn't care. What matters is when they get into the market.
Now, back to your trade-off.
Google can and should make the Android market 99.99% free of trojans/viruses. Free enough that I can recommend the Android market to my proverbial mom or uncle and know they will be safe. (Some would argue that they already have - the number of downloads of malware from the market probably represent close to 0.0000% of market downloads.)
And they can do this while still keeping the market 'free'. Because, as in most countries, freedom and free speech don't mean you can do/say anything. There are limits, but the limits are (supposed to be) clearly articulated and implemented, and should have widespread support.
So, if Google eliminates all malware and anything else that breaks the laws of my country or your country (this part is not resolved yet), and if they are transparent about this, then I would argue that we still have a free market/platform and we didn't have to make any trade-off that we don't already make in living in a democracy, free, society.
I thought iPhone mobile browsers were all just wrappers around Safari but without access to the latest optimizations (there was some hubub a few months ago that the alternate browsers were all slower then Safari)?
So, this would have no relevance for developers targeting the web since they all use the same core and have the same user agent (we are still talking iPhone).
Frankly, I don't care what numbers they use for each release, I just make them to make it simple to keep up-to-date. What's good about Chrome is not the frequent releases, but the fact that I don't have to worry about upgrades in spite of the frequent releases.
One thing that is quite annoying is the calls I get from users who are being prompted to upgrade Flash, Adobe Reader, or Java. It makes it harder to train users not to install stuff and to take any system prompts seriously when they are frequently presented with these prompts. Another good thing about Chrome is that it includes Flash so that gets taken care of automatically too.
One of the worst offenders, I'm afraid to say, is VLC. I think VLC is great, but their upgrade process is very awkward.
Yes, the biggest expense is the ink, but getting a "real laser printer" is NOT the solution.
We've reached the point where the price you have to pay for re-fills, whether for laser printers or ink-jets, has nothing to do with the actual cost or with the efficiency of the print system. It is purely a question of what the seller can get away with.
Progress was slow even with Nokia giving it their full backing, but with Nokia effectively dropping it, this thing is dead as a mainstream, competitive smartphone OS.
Don't get me wrong - I was it weren't true. I wrote code for the original Nokia 770 and its successors would have preferred to see Maemo (or Meego) succeed instead of Android, but I've moved on and am now using Android and so should Intel.
And, speaking as someone who cares about the success and health of Linux, open-source, and the many other forms of openness, I guess I shouldn't be picky. Android might not be everything that Maemo was in those regards, but it is still most of those things that I care about. And when you look at alternatives like iOS and the BB OS, the differences between Maemo and Android seem absolutely tiny.
So, instead of lamenting the slow death of Maemo, we should probably be celebrating the fact that this truly is the year of Linux on the client (a.k.a. desktop), as demonstrated by the figures released yesterday for worldwide unit smartphone sales in 2011 Q1 which showed Android with a decisive lead of 36% compared to iOS and BB at 17% and 13%.
Google released the GPL portion of Honeycomb (including kernel and userland), as per their obligation. The part of honeycomb they delayed is the part that they have exclusive ownership of. They have no obligation to release it but they claim that they will. People are only accepting that claim because of Google's track record on open source: Google creates tons of open-source projects and code.
With webkit, the situation is more complicated: Apple has added a ton to webkit but their code is based on KHTML and interspersed with other people's contributions. It would appear that they are legally obligated to release the code. The fact that they are holding back is consistent with the fact that Apple only releases what they absolutely must release. Perhaps they are now figuring out what that is?
It's one thing that they don't do enough to protect their users, but what really bugs me is that they trick their users about what security means in an attempt to get more info out of their users.
In recent months I've been getting messages from FB warning me that my account is not secure. When I look at the steps they want me to take they have nothing to do with making my account more secure and everything to do with extracting more personal info from me. I think that using people's concerns about security to trick them into giving more personal info is quite slimy.
I can be in favor of the gov protecting consumers, but I don't get what is so inherently evil about these companies storing the data that I give them for a long time.
Typically, when I let them have the data I figured they would, at the very least, use it to pick which ads to show me and I really don't mind that.
In my opinion, the real privacy problems lie elsewhere, e.g. - Selling or sharing my data without proper consent. - Collecting it without my consent. - 'Forcing' or tricking me into allowing them to collect my data. For example, if I agree to iTunes terms of service for the iPhone then I'm agreeing to let Apple collect data about my precise location. To me these are too unrelated, and I don't really have any choice.
So, I think this issue is how they collect it and what they do with it, not how many years they store it.
As far as I can tell RH does give back. They give back a lot. And it must get kind'of annoying for them that other companies - some of whom give back nothing - copy RH Linux and significantly undermine RH's ability to earn revenue from their distro.
There are tons of companies out there that violate the GPL, give nothing back, or even actively undermine open source. I would suggest that your disapproval is better directed at them.
They don't want Amazon using it to build a competing tablet with very little Google on it.
The way that Amazon is approaching their app store is pretty much an assault on Android. Creating a new app store that competes on price, features, service, etc. would be great, but Amazon is approaching competition the same way the carriers do: exclusives. So now, if you want the latest Angry Birds then you must get the Amazon app store, and if you are an Android user outside the U.S. then you can't get it at all. In other words, rather then sinking more money into building their app store they paid off Rovio to deny the new app to Google.
This is a good strategy for Amazon but it is bad for Google and for Android in general.
I've always thought that Android's openness was a great thing for users, partially because there was competition on the platform that would keep Google in check. But this is different. This sort of competition could really hurt Android.
So, it's not "honeycomb on phones" that could harm the Android user experience, it's App Store's competing 'carrier' style. And while I'm sad to hear that Honeycomb is now less open-source then it was before, I don't want Google to let Amazon undermine Android.
Too bad really, cause I was looking forward to an Amazon Honeycomb tablet until I heard about the whole Angry Birds thing.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is not limited to Microsoft stories.
There are stories on all topics that make no sense. I don't know much about how these stories get selected and edited, but couldn't /. hire editors that know the basics of the technologies so they can weed out stories that are fundamentally wrong or that make no sense?
I generally assume that any endorsement has some sort of commercial arrangement behind it. The only exception would be a recommendation from a friend and even those can sometimes be suspect.
Now, I don't mean to belittle this issue - the clear separation of paid and unpaid content is extremely important - but the stuff in this example doesn't seem that bad. Consider, for comparison, the lack of disclosure involved in political blogs and other online media...
He already had an enormous number of shares, the eyes of the tech world on him, and the biggest company in the world at his command, and you're suggesting there wasn't sufficient motivation???
If he didn't want this job, and intend to do his absolute best even without this additional bonus then he shouldn't have got this job.
So an anti-virus company, always on the lookup for free publicity, claims that it has come what might have been the e-mail that took down the RSA.
And this makes the news?
In case you hadn't noticed, the anti-virus companies will claim anything to get noticed these days.
Solution: go Nexus
Get the best of both worlds: no crapware, no jail.
(But I must add, I haven't encountered any crapware on non-Nexus Android's here in Canada. The problem seems to vary by carrier and country.)
As a Google fan this is exactly what I want them to do: get real and start playing the game.
Google should maintain their general position that the patent system is badly in need of reform and patents shouldn't be used in place of competition, while at the same time playing the patent game like the rest of them.
You might see that as hypocritical. I see it as working within the system as it is, while trying to change it.
It's like their position on Flash: they don't really like it and are doing a better job then anyone else of making it redundent (by driving forward open technologies) but they support it because users still want it.
Microsoft is still using revenue from Windows and Office to fund its other adventures, including Windows Phone.
Apple's virtual monopoly with iPod/iTunes funded (and led to) the iPhone/iPad/App Store.
Also, I would argue that Google has a clearly stated plan to make money from Android while continuing to give it away: advertising. So, it's not like they are giving it away to achieve dominance and will then start charging for it.
Nothing new.
Wow! CTO of company that makes money selling security software for Android says that Android has security problems!
If you think you can get honest and objective info about this problem from the CTO of a company that is in the business of selling solutions to the problem, then you should not be allowed to use the Internet.
I'm not saying that there isn't a problem - I'm just saying that this is so obviously the wrong source that it is no better then an advertisement.
No, it's not the same thing.
"You have to root the thing to jailbreak it, usually."
Please explain what this 'jailbreaking' is that you do to your Android phone after rooting it?
Android can have its own problems - depending on what the manufacturer or carrier get up to - but there is no jail.
It's starting to appear that Florian Mueller is spamming /.?
He was long ago discredited, and yet his useless posts are showing up quite regularly as the source of /. articles. Presumably he is using /. to increase his pagerank.
Why?
First off, let's note that this /. article is about a Trojan that is not in the Android market. Publishing an article about that is just stupid scare-mongering. There could be millions of viruses/trojans outside the market and I wouldn't care. What matters is when they get into the market.
Now, back to your trade-off.
Google can and should make the Android market 99.99% free of trojans/viruses. Free enough that I can recommend the Android market to my proverbial mom or uncle and know they will be safe. (Some would argue that they already have - the number of downloads of malware from the market probably represent close to 0.0000% of market downloads.)
And they can do this while still keeping the market 'free'. Because, as in most countries, freedom and free speech don't mean you can do/say anything. There are limits, but the limits are (supposed to be) clearly articulated and implemented, and should have widespread support.
So, if Google eliminates all malware and anything else that breaks the laws of my country or your country (this part is not resolved yet), and if they are transparent about this, then I would argue that we still have a free market/platform and we didn't have to make any trade-off that we don't already make in living in a democracy, free, society.
I thought iPhone mobile browsers were all just wrappers around Safari but without access to the latest optimizations (there was some hubub a few months ago that the alternate browsers were all slower then Safari)?
So, this would have no relevance for developers targeting the web since they all use the same core and have the same user agent (we are still talking iPhone).
Android, of course, is a different story.
Frankly, I don't care what numbers they use for each release, I just make them to make it simple to keep up-to-date. What's good about Chrome is not the frequent releases, but the fact that I don't have to worry about upgrades in spite of the frequent releases.
One thing that is quite annoying is the calls I get from users who are being prompted to upgrade Flash, Adobe Reader, or Java. It makes it harder to train users not to install stuff and to take any system prompts seriously when they are frequently presented with these prompts. Another good thing about Chrome is that it includes Flash so that gets taken care of automatically too.
One of the worst offenders, I'm afraid to say, is VLC. I think VLC is great, but their upgrade process is very awkward.
Google Talk is the (rough) equivelent of Skype, not Google Voice, which is fortunate because GV is only available in the U.S..
Also, Google Talk can call North American landlines for free through the end of 2011.
Yes, the biggest expense is the ink, but getting a "real laser printer" is NOT the solution.
We've reached the point where the price you have to pay for re-fills, whether for laser printers or ink-jets, has nothing to do with the actual cost or with the efficiency of the print system. It is purely a question of what the seller can get away with.
Here is a review of a modern laser printer that is not recommended due to "horrendous running costs".
http://www.trustedreviews.com/HP-LaserJet-Pro-CP1025-Color_Printer_review
The solution is to select your printer based primarily on the running cost rather then the sticker price.
Intel would be silly to 'step up'.
Progress was slow even with Nokia giving it their full backing, but with Nokia effectively dropping it, this thing is dead as a mainstream, competitive smartphone OS.
Don't get me wrong - I was it weren't true. I wrote code for the original Nokia 770 and its successors would have preferred to see Maemo (or Meego) succeed instead of Android, but I've moved on and am now using Android and so should Intel.
And, speaking as someone who cares about the success and health of Linux, open-source, and the many other forms of openness, I guess I shouldn't be picky. Android might not be everything that Maemo was in those regards, but it is still most of those things that I care about. And when you look at alternatives like iOS and the BB OS, the differences between Maemo and Android seem absolutely tiny.
So, instead of lamenting the slow death of Maemo, we should probably be celebrating the fact that this truly is the year of Linux on the client (a.k.a. desktop), as demonstrated by the figures released yesterday for worldwide unit smartphone sales in 2011 Q1 which showed Android with a decisive lead of 36% compared to iOS and BB at 17% and 13%.
The d-evil is, as always, in the details.
Google released the GPL portion of Honeycomb (including kernel and userland), as per their obligation. The part of honeycomb they delayed is the part that they have exclusive ownership of. They have no obligation to release it but they claim that they will. People are only accepting that claim because of Google's track record on open source: Google creates tons of open-source projects and code.
With webkit, the situation is more complicated: Apple has added a ton to webkit but their code is based on KHTML and interspersed with other people's contributions. It would appear that they are legally obligated to release the code. The fact that they are holding back is consistent with the fact that Apple only releases what they absolutely must release. Perhaps they are now figuring out what that is?
It's one thing that they don't do enough to protect their users, but what really bugs me is that they trick their users about what security means in an attempt to get more info out of their users.
In recent months I've been getting messages from FB warning me that my account is not secure. When I look at the steps they want me to take they have nothing to do with making my account more secure and everything to do with extracting more personal info from me. I think that using people's concerns about security to trick them into giving more personal info is quite slimy.
True.
The consumer should be given the option to delete their account (and data). I would support that.
I just don't understand why they should have to delete the data even if we don't request it.
Huh?
iOS bashing is big here, but Mac bashing, no.
I've met many Mac lovers who won't use iOS - there is a difference.
I can be in favor of the gov protecting consumers, but I don't get what is so inherently evil about these companies storing the data that I give them for a long time.
Typically, when I let them have the data I figured they would, at the very least, use it to pick which ads to show me and I really don't mind that.
In my opinion, the real privacy problems lie elsewhere, e.g.
- Selling or sharing my data without proper consent.
- Collecting it without my consent.
- 'Forcing' or tricking me into allowing them to collect my data. For example, if I agree to iTunes terms of service for the iPhone then I'm agreeing to let Apple collect data about my precise location. To me these are too unrelated, and I don't really have any choice.
So, I think this issue is how they collect it and what they do with it, not how many years they store it.
Hey, thanks. I think I've been misusing that word for a long time. But now I have to come up with some alternate way to say that.
As far as I can tell RH does give back. They give back a lot. And it must get kind'of annoying for them that other companies - some of whom give back nothing - copy RH Linux and significantly undermine RH's ability to earn revenue from their distro.
There are tons of companies out there that violate the GPL, give nothing back, or even actively undermine open source. I would suggest that your disapproval is better directed at them.
Here's an alternate theory.
They don't want Amazon using it to build a competing tablet with very little Google on it.
The way that Amazon is approaching their app store is pretty much an assault on Android. Creating a new app store that competes on price, features, service, etc. would be great, but Amazon is approaching competition the same way the carriers do: exclusives. So now, if you want the latest Angry Birds then you must get the Amazon app store, and if you are an Android user outside the U.S. then you can't get it at all. In other words, rather then sinking more money into building their app store they paid off Rovio to deny the new app to Google.
This is a good strategy for Amazon but it is bad for Google and for Android in general.
I've always thought that Android's openness was a great thing for users, partially because there was competition on the platform that would keep Google in check. But this is different. This sort of competition could really hurt Android.
So, it's not "honeycomb on phones" that could harm the Android user experience, it's App Store's competing 'carrier' style. And while I'm sad to hear that Honeycomb is now less open-source then it was before, I don't want Google to let Amazon undermine Android.
Too bad really, cause I was looking forward to an Amazon Honeycomb tablet until I heard about the whole Angry Birds thing.