....Is why they will have trouble selling their networking hardware in much of the world. If Huawei wasn't founded by a ex-Chinese military official, that might be a different story.
1. We had the freak situation of THREE major oil refineries shut down and a critical oil pipeline also shut down, which severely constrained gasoline production in the first place.
2. Oil speculators in the commodities markets drove the price of unleaded gasoline through the roof, which made the problem worse, not better.
But now that two of the refineries and the oil pipeline are coming back online this coming week, expect prices to drop 40 cents or more per gallon, since nobody wants to be left "holding the bag" on overpriced petroleum products.
You are more correct than you think. By hiding behind a user name, people can "vent" online and communicate a lot of things that would never be done in person. That's why posting on Twitter can be dangerous: you know the poster's real name fairly quickly. It's also why Citrix's GoToMeeting system introduced video conferencing, which allows people to see each other--that cuts down a lot of the rudeness online since facial expressions say a LOT about your mood.
You are correct. In fact, the Microsoft Surface is essentially the "reference design" of what a portable computer designed specifically for Windows 8 Professional will look more or less like. And I think Microsoft introduced it at the right time, now that the price of SSD's are dropping and storage densities are increasing.
Most early ultrabooks only had at best 128 GB of SSD memory, which is kind of cutting it close after you load Windows 7 and Office 2010. Why do you think Apple chose to include over 500 GB of SSD memory on some of their new MacBook Pro models?
But now, with SSD technology rapidly improving, I'd say within 18 months you will see "convertible" touchscreen Ultrabooks running Windows 8 Professional with 512 to 1024 GB SSD storage standard with the latest super-efficient Intel "Core" CPU's, and those will definitely be vastly better-selling.
The way I meant was that it appears a lot of people back in the early days of Slashdot thought a full-blown UNIX OS (or a Linux distribution) would become a replacement for Windows itself.
But what really happened was that MacOS X--which is a very user-friendly user interface sitting on top of the Mach kernel--became the standard for desktop and laptop Macs, and portable devices like cellphones and tablet computers now run operating systems that run on top of a UNIX-like kernal (iOS on top of a highly-modified Mach kernel and Android on top of the Linux kernel). In short, the descendants of the original UNIX operating system are being used to run the most sophisticated portable computing devices out there--cellphones and tablet computers.
What I find fascinating is that how much the influence of UNIX has become in today's computing landscape since Slashdot started 15 years ago. After all, Apple's MacOS X runs off a UNIX kernel variant named Mach, and both iOS and Android runs off UNIX-like kernels. In short, the dream of running UNIX on consumer devices has become reality, though in a way nobody expected.
Congratulations on 15 years of one of the most influential places on the Internet, and may you be around for its 30th anniversary. We do miss Rob Malda (CmdrTaco) and his stewardship of Slashdot, though.
I think the reason why people prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8 is simple: _we are all used to the user interface Microsoft pioneered with Windows 95_.
Indeed, if you compare Windows 95 and Windows 7 side by side, the UI commonality is surprising striking, even with all the improvements done to the Taskbar especially from Windows Vista on. Because Windows 8's interface is essentially a total redesign from the ground up, it could be quite some time because end users get used to the new interface, which is designed with touchscreen operations in mind.
Actually, the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) could actually make a huge contribution to getting rid of nuclear waste.
Why? Because spent uranium reactor fuel rods and even plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons could be reprocessed into a form that could be used in an LFTR by dissolving the reprocessed nuclear material in molten sodium fluoride salts. And after this fuel is used up, the final radioactive waste is very small in amount and only has a half-life of under 300 years, which means very cheap disposal costs (you don't need Yucca Mountain anymore--all you need is a disused salt mine or salt dome).
Small wonder why Alvin Weinberg's research is being dusted off and both China and India are seriously looking at developing LFTR's that could generate as much as 1,000 MW per reactor.
I've talked in the past on why liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) should be the immediate future of nuclear power generation.
Here's one thing I haven't mentioned: LFTR's can be scaled down to 50-80 MW powerplants which are amazingly small and require very little real estate to operate one. Because of its very small size, an 80 MW LFTR could be almost near the site of the big server farm itself, and that could mean the server farm doesn't need a land-wasting big solar power farm nearby or have to be located in an area with a lot of power generating capacity (what few people know is that Apple located in server farm in North Carolina because there are plentiful coal-fired power plants generating a lot of power in that state, which means Apple can continue to operate the server farm in case there are problems with the solar power farm).
The thing is that Apple could get scrutinized like the United Shoe Machinery Company was during the 20th Century. (For those who don't know, United Shoe was sued by the US government starting in the 1940's for abusing patent rights on shoe making machines to eliminate competitors. This litigation eventually wiped out the company.)
I'm not sure if Apple wants to be in that position, given their enormous clout in the touchscreen computing device market with the iPhone and iPad.
Because this clock app will be running on many iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices over the next few months, the compensation demand from SBB could reach as high as US$100 million, in my humble opinion!
It's especially obvious when you pull up the iOS 6.0 Clock app on an iPad--the clock face when you see it on an iPad looks nearly like a _perfect_ copy of the original SBB railway clock, especially the distinctive red second hand with the "ball" at the end of the hand.
Apple should just admit this and either change the clock face design or pay a license fee to SBB--a license fee that could exceed US$100 million because of the fact very soon many iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices will be running iOS 6.0.
The big question now is Apple willing to pay to get the latest map information for their own mapping program. In Japan, Google uses the mapping data created by Zenrin, perhaps the leading publisher of maps in that country. Will Apple use the excellent Mapion map data for that country?
Actually, to guarantee a "kill" against a US aircraft carrier you'll need a hypersonic cruise missile armed with a _nuclear_ warhead of around 45-50 kT yield, so even a close miss causes substantial damage to the carrier. I wonder has the Chinese thought about modifying their supersonic anti-shipping cruise missiles to carry a nuclear warhead.
There are a lot of claims that the Chinese DF-21 ballistic missile can be used to take out a carrier. Unless the DF-21 is armed with a 300 kT nuclear warhead in a maneuverable re-entry vehicle with quite sophisticated terminal guidance, I take this idea with a big block of salt. Indeed, the Russians used the Tu-22M armed Kh-22 (AS-4 "Kitchen") missiles fitted with a 350 kT nuclear warhead specifically to attack US Navy carrier battle groups, though they have been replaced by the the Kh-32 that can fly up to 100,000 feet to find the target then attack the target with a terminal velocity speed of Mach 4.
I'm running the 2013 version, given it was directly downloaded from Symantec's own web site.:-) The release version (which came out a week ago) is 20.1.1.2. In fact, I found out that NIS 2013 can do "pulse" updates of anti-malware definitions about 2-3 rimes per hour.
I'd almost agree, but most companies that sell Internet security software update their definitions many times a day around the clock. In fact, in Norton Internet Security 2013 on my desktop and laptop computers, the updates occur at least 7-8 times per days for the latest anti-malware definitions.
Does this exploit work if you're running a modern Internet security suite such as the new Norton Internet Security 2013 with all anti-malware definitions up to date? Mind you, my default web browser on my desktop and laptop is Google Chrome 21.0.1180.89, the current "stable" release version.
I think what will happen is that the touchscreen functionality of the iPad and the functionality of a _real_ computer in laptop form are going to merge--and Windows 8/Windows RT based machines may get there first. Despite what some people think, the iPad in many ways is still mostly a media consumption device, especially since you want a real keyboard if you're going to write anything of length.
Indeed, I would not be surprised that Apple has begun research into a true successor to MacOS X that is heavily touch-based--and with way more functionality than iOS.
I have an old Samsung Gravity cellphone with the Micro USB connector. From looking at the plug and receptacle, they look pretty fragile and one wrong move could break either--no thank you! As such, since the "Lightning" connector is not keyed and designed to be very durable, I expect a lot less connection issues than with Micro USB connectors.
I think Google will pull down this film for one reason: _what happens if these protests spread to countries in the Persian Gulf such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates_? If that happens, the diplomatic fallout will be ENORMOUS, especially with the potential of oil supply reduction or even cutoff to Western countries and any eastern Asian country allied to the West.
Yes, I understand all the free speech issues, but when it could cause an event with HUGE worldwide economic implications, that's where I draw the line.
If this spreads to the Persian Gulf countries, THEN Google will take it down so fast you wouldn't know what happened.
We are now running the potential risk of losing diplomatic relations with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates over this mess.
Slashdot Mirror
....Is why they will have trouble selling their networking hardware in much of the world. If Huawei wasn't founded by a ex-Chinese military official, that might be a different story.
1. We had the freak situation of THREE major oil refineries shut down and a critical oil pipeline also shut down, which severely constrained gasoline production in the first place.
2. Oil speculators in the commodities markets drove the price of unleaded gasoline through the roof, which made the problem worse, not better.
But now that two of the refineries and the oil pipeline are coming back online this coming week, expect prices to drop 40 cents or more per gallon, since nobody wants to be left "holding the bag" on overpriced petroleum products.
You are more correct than you think. By hiding behind a user name, people can "vent" online and communicate a lot of things that would never be done in person. That's why posting on Twitter can be dangerous: you know the poster's real name fairly quickly. It's also why Citrix's GoToMeeting system introduced video conferencing, which allows people to see each other--that cuts down a lot of the rudeness online since facial expressions say a LOT about your mood.
You are correct. In fact, the Microsoft Surface is essentially the "reference design" of what a portable computer designed specifically for Windows 8 Professional will look more or less like. And I think Microsoft introduced it at the right time, now that the price of SSD's are dropping and storage densities are increasing.
Lack of on-machine storage.
Most early ultrabooks only had at best 128 GB of SSD memory, which is kind of cutting it close after you load Windows 7 and Office 2010. Why do you think Apple chose to include over 500 GB of SSD memory on some of their new MacBook Pro models?
But now, with SSD technology rapidly improving, I'd say within 18 months you will see "convertible" touchscreen Ultrabooks running Windows 8 Professional with 512 to 1024 GB SSD storage standard with the latest super-efficient Intel "Core" CPU's, and those will definitely be vastly better-selling.
The way I meant was that it appears a lot of people back in the early days of Slashdot thought a full-blown UNIX OS (or a Linux distribution) would become a replacement for Windows itself.
But what really happened was that MacOS X--which is a very user-friendly user interface sitting on top of the Mach kernel--became the standard for desktop and laptop Macs, and portable devices like cellphones and tablet computers now run operating systems that run on top of a UNIX-like kernal (iOS on top of a highly-modified Mach kernel and Android on top of the Linux kernel). In short, the descendants of the original UNIX operating system are being used to run the most sophisticated portable computing devices out there--cellphones and tablet computers.
What I find fascinating is that how much the influence of UNIX has become in today's computing landscape since Slashdot started 15 years ago. After all, Apple's MacOS X runs off a UNIX kernel variant named Mach, and both iOS and Android runs off UNIX-like kernels. In short, the dream of running UNIX on consumer devices has become reality, though in a way nobody expected.
Congratulations on 15 years of one of the most influential places on the Internet, and may you be around for its 30th anniversary. We do miss Rob Malda (CmdrTaco) and his stewardship of Slashdot, though.
If I had an iPhone, I would be using it primarily to listen to _podcasts_. Go listen to the shows on the "This WEEK in Tech" network, for starters.
Actually, another good one is this Sunday comic from "Baby Blues" dated September 9, 2012:
http://dailyink.com/features/Baby_Blues/comics/2012-09-09
I think the reason why people prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8 is simple: _we are all used to the user interface Microsoft pioneered with Windows 95_.
Indeed, if you compare Windows 95 and Windows 7 side by side, the UI commonality is surprising striking, even with all the improvements done to the Taskbar especially from Windows Vista on. Because Windows 8's interface is essentially a total redesign from the ground up, it could be quite some time because end users get used to the new interface, which is designed with touchscreen operations in mind.
Actually, the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) could actually make a huge contribution to getting rid of nuclear waste.
Why? Because spent uranium reactor fuel rods and even plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons could be reprocessed into a form that could be used in an LFTR by dissolving the reprocessed nuclear material in molten sodium fluoride salts. And after this fuel is used up, the final radioactive waste is very small in amount and only has a half-life of under 300 years, which means very cheap disposal costs (you don't need Yucca Mountain anymore--all you need is a disused salt mine or salt dome).
Small wonder why Alvin Weinberg's research is being dusted off and both China and India are seriously looking at developing LFTR's that could generate as much as 1,000 MW per reactor.
I've talked in the past on why liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) should be the immediate future of nuclear power generation.
Here's one thing I haven't mentioned: LFTR's can be scaled down to 50-80 MW powerplants which are amazingly small and require very little real estate to operate one. Because of its very small size, an 80 MW LFTR could be almost near the site of the big server farm itself, and that could mean the server farm doesn't need a land-wasting big solar power farm nearby or have to be located in an area with a lot of power generating capacity (what few people know is that Apple located in server farm in North Carolina because there are plentiful coal-fired power plants generating a lot of power in that state, which means Apple can continue to operate the server farm in case there are problems with the solar power farm).
The thing is that Apple could get scrutinized like the United Shoe Machinery Company was during the 20th Century. (For those who don't know, United Shoe was sued by the US government starting in the 1940's for abusing patent rights on shoe making machines to eliminate competitors. This litigation eventually wiped out the company.)
I'm not sure if Apple wants to be in that position, given their enormous clout in the touchscreen computing device market with the iPhone and iPad.
Because this clock app will be running on many iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices over the next few months, the compensation demand from SBB could reach as high as US$100 million, in my humble opinion!
It's especially obvious when you pull up the iOS 6.0 Clock app on an iPad--the clock face when you see it on an iPad looks nearly like a _perfect_ copy of the original SBB railway clock, especially the distinctive red second hand with the "ball" at the end of the hand.
Apple should just admit this and either change the clock face design or pay a license fee to SBB--a license fee that could exceed US$100 million because of the fact very soon many iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices will be running iOS 6.0.
The big question now is Apple willing to pay to get the latest map information for their own mapping program. In Japan, Google uses the mapping data created by Zenrin, perhaps the leading publisher of maps in that country. Will Apple use the excellent Mapion map data for that country?
Actually, to guarantee a "kill" against a US aircraft carrier you'll need a hypersonic cruise missile armed with a _nuclear_ warhead of around 45-50 kT yield, so even a close miss causes substantial damage to the carrier. I wonder has the Chinese thought about modifying their supersonic anti-shipping cruise missiles to carry a nuclear warhead.
There are a lot of claims that the Chinese DF-21 ballistic missile can be used to take out a carrier. Unless the DF-21 is armed with a 300 kT nuclear warhead in a maneuverable re-entry vehicle with quite sophisticated terminal guidance, I take this idea with a big block of salt. Indeed, the Russians used the Tu-22M armed Kh-22 (AS-4 "Kitchen") missiles fitted with a 350 kT nuclear warhead specifically to attack US Navy carrier battle groups, though they have been replaced by the the Kh-32 that can fly up to 100,000 feet to find the target then attack the target with a terminal velocity speed of Mach 4.
I'm running the 2013 version, given it was directly downloaded from Symantec's own web site. :-) The release version (which came out a week ago) is 20.1.1.2. In fact, I found out that NIS 2013 can do "pulse" updates of anti-malware definitions about 2-3 rimes per hour.
I'd almost agree, but most companies that sell Internet security software update their definitions many times a day around the clock. In fact, in Norton Internet Security 2013 on my desktop and laptop computers, the updates occur at least 7-8 times per days for the latest anti-malware definitions.
Does this exploit work if you're running a modern Internet security suite such as the new Norton Internet Security 2013 with all anti-malware definitions up to date? Mind you, my default web browser on my desktop and laptop is Google Chrome 21.0.1180.89, the current "stable" release version.
I think what will happen is that the touchscreen functionality of the iPad and the functionality of a _real_ computer in laptop form are going to merge--and Windows 8/Windows RT based machines may get there first. Despite what some people think, the iPad in many ways is still mostly a media consumption device, especially since you want a real keyboard if you're going to write anything of length.
Indeed, I would not be surprised that Apple has begun research into a true successor to MacOS X that is heavily touch-based--and with way more functionality than iOS.
I have an old Samsung Gravity cellphone with the Micro USB connector. From looking at the plug and receptacle, they look pretty fragile and one wrong move could break either--no thank you! As such, since the "Lightning" connector is not keyed and designed to be very durable, I expect a lot less connection issues than with Micro USB connectors.
I think Google will pull down this film for one reason: _what happens if these protests spread to countries in the Persian Gulf such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates_? If that happens, the diplomatic fallout will be ENORMOUS, especially with the potential of oil supply reduction or even cutoff to Western countries and any eastern Asian country allied to the West.
Yes, I understand all the free speech issues, but when it could cause an event with HUGE worldwide economic implications, that's where I draw the line.
If this spreads to the Persian Gulf countries, THEN Google will take it down so fast you wouldn't know what happened.
We are now running the potential risk of losing diplomatic relations with Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates over this mess.