GV has had an opt-in feature to basically donate each GV transcription to Google with an indicator of whether you thought it was a good or bad transcription. Is there any evidence that Google is delving into your voice data without your consent? Were you expecting a GV transcription *without* a machine at least analyzing the voice data that came in and then discarding it?
As for software patents, some wiener patented the use of XOR to draw a cursor... if that can stand, why not anything else, like one-click order taking?
New patent idea: one-wink order taking. My webpage activates your camera, and it only takes one wink to take your order.
You may want to try Opera sometime. Absolutely pitiful for extensions, not quite as standards-friendly as the open-source alternatives, but the way it renders pages is very snappy.
Asking for "for loops" will make most functional programmers chuckle. Usually what you want is a fold (or a special fold like a filter or a map). Speaking of parallelization, the semantics of generalized for loops require that each iteration be performed sequentially. What if you want to perform each iteration in parallel?
Google's ways of open sourcing are rather strange, but anyone is free to expound on Gingerbread and release it. People for some reason expect open-source to mean "show us and give us everything that you are doing while you are doing it". You sure don't see anything close to Cyanogenmod for the iPhone or iPad, so at least Android is a lot *more* open, despite not being all the way open.
Plus, computers cost way less than employees. You can get a pretty decent computer for $600 - $800 and use it for, say, 3 years (and that's a lot shorter than most companies keep their computers). You can pay 1 intern $8/hr for about 100 hours of work at that price (~1 month of part time work). If you are hiring people like crazy, that must mean you have the cash to plop down on at least some new hardware as well.
Yep. New feature: the bottom-right corner of the screen acts as a trackpad, which moves a pointer around the screen. It's just like having a mouse, and not having a touchscreen! But wait, there's more! Experimental builds use the front-facing camera like a Kinect, so all you have to do is stand 6 feet away from your tablet and stretch your arm out and awkwardly move the pointer around. There's also a special mirror you can buy for tablets that only have rear-facing cameras.
There are those pseudo-techy people that want the iPad 2 to look cool and keep up with the Joneses, and it serves them well in that regard. But the rest of us can get by with laptops or netbooks. (really, though. This is basically the tl;dr of what TFA says, but without the slur on iProducts)
Google has also made no effort to outflank Apple, following Apple's lead in almost every area instead (voice-based search and navigation being the major exceptions)
(And multitasking. And Flash support (albeit crappy). And open-sourcing the whole project. And allowing multiple marketplaces. And allowing development in multiple languages.) Yep, Google's just gathering crumbs off of Apple's table here...
[The Sony tablets] can also smoothly access digital content including videos, games and books through Sony's premium network services and more, on-the-go at any time.
The recent PSN issues are not inspiring my confidence in these new tablets...
Am I the only one that read "or, well" as "Orwell"? Netflix's rise is great and all, but if we all jump on the Netflix boat, Big Brother will just hop on as well. Tinfoil hats, anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, puh-leeze. They're just saying that "people only like to be told what they want to hear" because that's what the sheeple want to hear.
GV has had an opt-in feature to basically donate each GV transcription to Google with an indicator of whether you thought it was a good or bad transcription. Is there any evidence that Google is delving into your voice data without your consent? Were you expecting a GV transcription *without* a machine at least analyzing the voice data that came in and then discarding it?
As for software patents, some wiener patented the use of XOR to draw a cursor... if that can stand, why not anything else, like one-click order taking?
New patent idea: one-wink order taking. My webpage activates your camera, and it only takes one wink to take your order.
...Or will they just decide to fix the inconsistency and make mathematics patentable?
Please no. I know this was tongue-in-cheek but I honestly wouldn't be surprised. Please, please no.
You may want to try Opera sometime. Absolutely pitiful for extensions, not quite as standards-friendly as the open-source alternatives, but the way it renders pages is very snappy.
Wake me up when it's released.
Asking for "for loops" will make most functional programmers chuckle. Usually what you want is a fold (or a special fold like a filter or a map). Speaking of parallelization, the semantics of generalized for loops require that each iteration be performed sequentially. What if you want to perform each iteration in parallel?
As for number-parameterized types, I haven't dealt with it myself, but I'll just leave this here: Number-parameterized types by Oleg
Asus releases honeycomb source (well, some of it)
Google's ways of open sourcing are rather strange, but anyone is free to expound on Gingerbread and release it. People for some reason expect open-source to mean "show us and give us everything that you are doing while you are doing it". You sure don't see anything close to Cyanogenmod for the iPhone or iPad, so at least Android is a lot *more* open, despite not being all the way open.
Plus, computers cost way less than employees. You can get a pretty decent computer for $600 - $800 and use it for, say, 3 years (and that's a lot shorter than most companies keep their computers). You can pay 1 intern $8/hr for about 100 hours of work at that price (~1 month of part time work). If you are hiring people like crazy, that must mean you have the cash to plop down on at least some new hardware as well.
As added fun for your gaming, when using the mirror, you need to move in the opposite direction (horizontally) of where you want the pointer to go.
Yep. New feature: the bottom-right corner of the screen acts as a trackpad, which moves a pointer around the screen. It's just like having a mouse, and not having a touchscreen! But wait, there's more! Experimental builds use the front-facing camera like a Kinect, so all you have to do is stand 6 feet away from your tablet and stretch your arm out and awkwardly move the pointer around. There's also a special mirror you can buy for tablets that only have rear-facing cameras.
There are those pseudo-techy people that want the iPad 2 to look cool and keep up with the Joneses, and it serves them well in that regard. But the rest of us can get by with laptops or netbooks. (really, though. This is basically the tl;dr of what TFA says, but without the slur on iProducts)
Google has also made no effort to outflank Apple, following Apple's lead in almost every area instead (voice-based search and navigation being the major exceptions)
(And multitasking. And Flash support (albeit crappy). And open-sourcing the whole project. And allowing multiple marketplaces. And allowing development in multiple languages.) Yep, Google's just gathering crumbs off of Apple's table here...
Note: If it doesn't have a working market place when you open the box, it's not a tablet. It's a truly half-baked rushed piece of gadgetry.
Yes, thank goodness Steve showed us the One Holy Canonical Applestolic right way to distribute programs to internet-connected devices. *eyeroll*
Canonical doesn't sell computers
Also, Canonical doesn't sell their OS. Canonical therefore has a completely different business model than Apple.
[The Sony tablets] can also smoothly access digital content including videos, games and books through Sony's premium network services and more, on-the-go at any time.
The recent PSN issues are not inspiring my confidence in these new tablets...
Am I the only one that read "or, well" as "Orwell"? Netflix's rise is great and all, but if we all jump on the Netflix boat, Big Brother will just hop on as well. Tinfoil hats, anyone?
There is no indication that the data in the lifelong database is being transmitted to Apple yet.
ftfy
pause the commercials if there's nobody watching it.
It sounds way creepy, but it'll be standard in a decade or two...
But can you trust more than 75% of people to be non-trustworthy?
But if you are passionate about being prestigious, it's a double win. Hm...
Also, what about Cyanogenmod, or other Android mods? Do they keep this file around? Why/why not?
I think this is something that only Power Users will notice. It's not something important for the common user.
I think a lot of people would notice if their laptop suddenly got a third less battery life.
Excuse me sir, I believe your pun detector is broken.
The file [on Android] is only accessible on devices that have been rooted and opened up to installation of unsigned apps.
Then what is the purpose of this file? There has to be some app or something that motivates collecting this data in the first place...
Are you a blogger? I play one of you at our festivals!